Basilisk Eyes

Chapter 57: Tropical storm

Sitting in the sand on the beach of Fernando Po Island off the coast of Western Africa, Harry listened to the nineteenth-century muggle world traveler, Lieutenant James Holman, as he spoke about traveling through desolate Siberia on a horse-drawn cart.

Healer Jordan and Mr. Burbage had quietly provided chairs that didn't sink into the sand. Harry wasn't sure how they did it, though he was grateful for the chance to sit down and he could tell that his peers were, too. They were in a generous semicircle that opened at the sea to include Mei.

He thought she must be sitting on the beach not far from the group. She was uncharacteristically quiet, at least for what he knew of her. The hordes of children who had been running back and forth to laden her with shell necklaces had been encouraged (magically?) to leave and now it was just their group on the beach. They were close enough to the ship that Harry could hear the waves moving against it and the noises of a crew on board.

Waves occasionally lapped at their feet. Harry had taken off his shoes and socks (before they got wet) and stored them in his staff and rolled up his trouser legs. A shade had been erected over them as well so that the sun was no longer beating on them. Gemma's hand rested lightly on his arm, Tony sat on his other side and next to him, Aminah. Harry was glad he made it down here.

Lieutenant Holman was seated, too, as he shared his observations. He seemed to have an insatiable curiosity coupled with an openness. He was recounting an especially amusing episode of when he was traveling with his dear friend, Mr. Colebrook, who happened to be deaf and they were visiting a museum.

Like me and Gemma. How do they communicate?

They had special permission to touch the sculptures and his friend was guiding him to each sculpture so that Lieutenant Holman could feel them. Apparently, his friend played a joke on him and placed him at the foot of one of the guards at the museum and then stood back to watch in amusement as Lieutenant Holman figured out that he was examining the form of a live person and not a sculpture. Harry was amazed that Lieutenant Holman could tell this story with so much mirth. The way he told it, Lieutenant Holman thought the joke his friend had played on him was hilarious. Harry wasn't sure he'd feel the same way.

Gemma would never do that to me.

He remembered how just yesterday morning the thought of feeling the map of the Center while everyone else was watching was so mortifying.

Maybe you get used to it... whatever it is.

What he was finding really remarkable about Lieutenant Holman's story was how when he was confined to one place he would get really sick and that getting out and about was what he needed to get well again. And he had to sneak away to get what he needed because everyone around him thought that it was too dangerous for him to travel.

What was dangerous to his health was being confined, but it was the opposite of what doctors and family were telling him to do. Just hearing about it made a bile of anger rise in Harry's throat. Fresh in his memory was being sent to the Dursleys to rest and recuperate when really what it meant was that he was put to work.

If someone had just asked me what I needed...

Waves lapped over his feet swirling the sand between his toes and distracting him momentarily from his thoughts and anger. The wave had come in higher than previous waves and the rolled cuffs of his trousers had gotten soaked. Mei seemed to be moving through the sand closer to the gap that opened up in their semicircle on the other side of Gemma. He could hear her tail slapping the shallow water and the shell necklaces around her neck tinkling together as she moved with each wave. If he hadn't known she was on the beach, he would have had a really hard time figuring out what was making the noise.