Basilisk Eyes

Chapter 84: Catching waves

When they arrived at the panel outside of the O&M room, Harry asked Gemma, "Do you know how to change the room so that it is the beach?"

She tapped "no," on his arm and then shook with giggles.

"What is it?" Harry asked.

She took his palm and wrote, "T-W-I-N-S" space "C-H-A-R-M-E-D" space "H-A-I-R" space "S-T-A-N-D" space "O-N" space "E-N-D" space "A-N-D" space "D-A-N-C-E" space "L-I-K-E" space "V-E-E-L-A-S-!"

Harry laughed, "What are Veelas?"

She made a motion in his hand that reminded him of hula dancers he'd seen on the telly. He wondered what Percy had done to deserve that kind of abuse. Probably just being Percy was enough. Poor guy.

"What are you two doing?" Ron asked.

"Gemma was just filling me in," Harry said.

"Filling you in on what?" Ron asked. "What do you mean?"

"Why your mom was so upset with Fred, George, and Lee," Harry said.

"Oh! You didn't know," Ron said. "So, what was she doing with your hand?"

"She was writing on my hand... that's how we talk," Harry explained as patiently as he could.

"Really? There's no charm that gives her a voice?" Ron asked.

"There's a complicated one with runes that Healer Jordan does, but we don't know how to cast it and it only works while she's around," Harry said.

"That's weird," Ron said and didn't notice the heavy silence that followed his statement. Harry wondered what Gemma was doing. She was very still. He remembered that Ron's comments were now visible to Gemma since he'd cast the Scribunt loqui charm. He rubbed his fist on the back of her hand, "I'm sorry," and she tapped his hand three times, "I understand."

"What did you just say, then?" Ron asked.

"I was just apologizing," Harry said, feeling his neck grow warm.

"What were you apologizing for?" Ron asked.

"Nothing," Harry said.

"Huh?... So, what's this panel for?" Ron asked.

"Well, it changes depending on how the room is set up," Harry explained trying to push his annoyance with Ron aside. He reached his hand out to see what the layout was; it looked like it was still set up as a gymnasium. He wondered if it mattered if someone was in it or not.

His aftí was reading the layout to him as he ran his fingers over the braille labels and tactile map of the room.

"You can read those bumps?" Ron asked.

"Not yet, I'm still learning braille, but fortunately it is charmed so that I can hear it with my aftí," Harry explained.

"Your what?" Ron asked.

"It's this piece of charmed metal on my ear," Harry touched his aftí, "that speaks to me when I'm using my staff and with other charmed objects in the Center."

Harry took it off to show to Ron and then put it back on.

"Oh," Ron said. "If it reads the braille to you, why do you need to learn how to read it?"

"So, I can read if I'm somewhere where I can't use magic," Harry said.

"Where would that be?" Ron said, then paused. "Oh, yeah, with the Dursleys, doh!"