Basilisk Eyes

Chapter 157: Inside out

"What are you doing, Sthei," Nio asked.

"We're going back to Privet Drive and we're going to travel by portkey, so I'm trying to get my breathing under control so that I don't upswallow breakfast," Harry explained in Parseltongue to the little snake coiled on his neck.

"What's a portkey?" Nio asked.

"No idea," Harry answered in between deliberate breaths. "But it can't be good. It's wixen travel, after all."

"Oh," Nio murmured.

"Harry? Why are you hissing?" Professor McGonagall asked.

"Just explaining what's going on to Nio," Harry explained.

"Right. The snake. Shouldn't you put him back in the garden before we go?"

"He's from Privet Drive. He's coming with us," Harry stated as he turned to the sound of light footsteps approaching them rapidly from behind.

"Oh, Gemma!" Professor McGonagall exclaimed as she stopped.

"What is it, Gemma?" Harry asked, tucking his staff into the crook of his elbow and holding his hands out to her so that she could respond.

Instead of her hands as he expected, his fingers encountered a thin piece of cool stone. Gemma held it patiently while he tried to determine what it was, his eyebrows pulled together in a question.

"Harry, we really must get to the portkey. Just take the slate and let's go," Professor McGonagall said impatiently.

"Slate?" Harry asked as his fingers traced the smoothed and undulating lines along the edges of the stone.

"For writing," Gemma signed on the back of his hand as they used to do when he was just learning protactile signing.

Harry gasped and took the slate from Gemma's hands so that he could examine it more fully.

"How does it work?" he asked.

"Look," Gemma signed. She took the slate from his hands and then showed him that she had one, too. He held his hands over hers while she wrote with a piece of chalk, then she thrust his back into his hands while Professor McGonagall made impatient noises nearby.

Harry felt the surface of his slate and it now had braille dots on the surface. He concentrated on deciphering the message for a moment and then lifted his chin and smiled at Gemma as he worked out what the braille said.

Gemma had written: "From Petro, so we can talk. He has one, too."

"This is brilliant, Gemma! Thank you!"

"Come, we've got to hurry," Professor McGonagall said as she clutched Harry's sleeve.

Harry took a moment to tuck the slate into his staff and then found Gemma's shoulder so that he could pull her into another quick hug. When he pulled away he found that his shoulder was wet and he heard Gemma snuffling as Professor McGonagall dragged him through the door into the reception area. He pulled his arm out of her grasp and swung his staff in an arc in front of him, not caring much that the silver tip had struck her ankle even when she squeaked. He signed a hurried goodbye to Gemma, hoping that she'd seen it as the door closed behind him.

"Hurry, Harry! It's lit up. We're going to miss the portkey!" Professor McGonagall grasped Harry's hand and pulled it toward an object, pressing his hand against it.

Harry stumbled forward and almost dropped his staff. He collapsed it and flicked it into his holster without thinking about it. He was trying to figure out what Professor McGonagall was making him touch. He decided it must be a vase when he felt a hook in his navel pulling him through space. The pressure around him changed like when he was apparated and he felt as though he was being extruded through a straw. When he burst through on the other side, he collided face-first with wet grass. Somehow, someone had slipped a noose over his neck... when he rolled on his back, tugging at it and trying to loosen it, he realized that it was Nio.