Basilisk Eyes

Chapter 49: Tea

Harry stood by the tank he'd just stepped out of, a little less dripping wet because of the towel that Gemma had grabbed for him. He tried to still his trembling legs, but they continued to knock together. He held his staff over the water, trying to summon his glasses from the depths of the tank—from the ocean floor. The South China Sea ocean floor. Maybe that was too great a distance for the summoning charm to work. It didn't seem like his glasses were going to come racing toward him, though he held out his hand expectantly.

"Accio glasses," he said again. His arm was shaking from the tremors that were racking his whole body. "I don't think they are coming."

"Geez, what a pain," Mei complained.

Anger flared up in Harry's gut, "Hey, you didn't have to haul me out into the middle of the ocean. I can't even swim!" The fear he'd felt as he'd been dragged underwater hit him full in the chest—the complete disorientation, and then when he realized that he was in the middle of the ocean with nothing to hold on to and no idea if there was even a shore to swim toward, if he could manage to make his way through the water. His throat burned from the seawater and from trying hard not to cry.

"You didn't have to stick your hand in my tank... " she dug in.

"I thought something was wrong," he yelled. "I thought you were drowning... "

She was quiet for a little bit, while his chest heaved and he tried to get his trembling under control.

"Sorry," Mei muttered, "I'll go get your glasses."

He was deluged with a wave of water as she dove down into the tank.

Gemma's hand on his arm was almost fluttering with concern.

"Sorry, Gemma," he didn't know why he was apologizing to her—maybe for scaring her.

He moved his staff to his dominant hand and swept it in front of him, trying to figure out where he was. He needed to get out of his wet clothes.

Gemma tugged at his arm as if she was saying "this way."

He curled his fingers around her upper arm and let her guide him. She put his hand on the doorknob to the loo.

"Thanks, Gemma. I want to show you how we can talk more easily once I'm dry, okay?"

She tapped twice on his arm, "okay."

Once in the toilet, he squeezed twice on the staff holding it off the floor to get a sense of the room. It was spacious, everything was at least three yards away from where he was. There was a toilet and a bidet (what's that?) to his left, a sink adjacent to them. Just to his right there was a shower and next to it, a bathtub. He learned that there was a wooden bench outside of the shower that had a rack of clean towels hanging over it. Harry made his way to the bench and sat down. He'd had enough of bathtubs, but a shower would get the saltwater off of him and maybe he could warm up. He was still really shivering.

He summoned a change of clothes out of his staff, but he didn't have another pair of shoes to wear. He wondered if a bidet would dry his shoes and went over to it to see if he could figure out what it was. The staff told him that he'd found the bidet—it sounded porcelain—like a toilet when his staff struck it.

He leaned down to feel it. It was shaped similarly to a toilet, too, but instead of a bowl filled with water, there was a showerhead pointing straight up. When he ran his hand over it, water started spraying out of it, right into his face. He stood up quickly. It finally occurred to him what it was intended for and he was mortified.

Why is this here? Then it occurred to him: Tony needs this.

Okay, that definitely won't help me dry my shoes.