Harry passed through the Egress into the second-floor corridor at Hogwarts on his way to his lesson with Professor Lupin. He paused just over the threshold to listen and check his staff to see if anyone was nearby. He released his breath when his staff indicated that no one was in the corridor. As he neared Professor Lupin's office, he could hear Aminah and the professor talking which meant that the door was open. He closed it when he went through, hoping to prevent Professor Snape from sneaking up on him again.
I wonder if there's a charm that will tell me who is approaching me? Gah—that would be annoying at Hogwarts—it's going to be a madhouse. How am I going to manage? Maybe there's a spell that would alert me if certain people are near?
"Oh, good," Professor Lupin greeted. "You're back! Come on over here. We're working on defensible stances. So, usually in a duel, you want to be out in the open because it gives you a free range of motion and an ability to see your target. But it also puts you two at a disadvantage—your target can see you, but you can't see them. So you need to play to your strengths—figure out how to make what others would see as a weakness, an advantage. One way, of course, is to create darkness like we practiced at the last lesson—there you have the upper hand because you're already skilled at navigating without sight. What are some other ways to level the playing field?"
Harry made his way over to the center of the office and stood near Aminah, facing Professor Lupin.
"Well, we have both our wand and our staff—so we can maybe catch them unawares by sending hexes with both instruments?" Aminah suggested.
"Yes—excellent," Professor Lupin said.
"And isn't the power of our spells heightened by using both?" Harry added.
"Yes—there's the amplification factor. That's good."
"We don't have to be facing our opponent to know where they are—we can track them using sound or vibrations—so they might think we're not paying attention when we are," Harry said.
"Right you are. Let's try some of these ideas and see how they work out. Aminah's already had a go, so let's give Harry a chance, and then we can switch it up. Aminah, why don't you sit in the chairs by my desk. I'll shield the area around us so that my books and specimens aren't hit by a stray hex," Professor Lupin instructed as he walked around the room warding off a space for them to work.
"Harry, go ahead and try to hit me with a curse... I'll hold off trying to strike you for a bit. Just work on locating ... ow!... Hey, that was good. You used my voice to locate me, didn't you?" Professor Lupin said.
"Accio wand!" Harry commanded and held his hand out. The wand didn't come.
"Nice one—though, the disarming charm is more effective because it changes the allegiance of the wand—overpowers it," Professor Lupin explained. "I was able to hang onto my wand and not let it go."
Harry heard Lupin start to utter a spell and sent up his shield before he even thought about it. He heard the hex bounce off his shield. He almost sent a stinging hex toward Professor Lupin again, but then realized that it would rebound against his shield and stopped just in time.
He pulled down his shield so that he could get another shot at the professor as he listened for his footsteps moving against the stone floor. They were barely audible and he wished he knew how to shoot sand out of his wand to make it easier for him to hear where Professor Lupin was.
"Aguamenti!" Harry cried instead and sent a fire-hose worth of water in the direction of Professor Lupin. He could feel when the force of the water hit the professor in the chest and then he could hear his footsteps splashing in the water.
When he put his shield up again, Harry thought of a knight's shield—one that he could hold and crouch behind instead of just a bubble of protection all around him. He was surprised when his shield actually took that form—anchored on his staff so that as he moved, it moved with him and he could feel and hear it hit the floor. He was able to kneel behind it and listen for Professor Lupin splashing through the water that surrounded him.
He didn't hear the hex that hit him in his wand arm, though—it came completely out of the blue and pierced his skin like a hundred hot needles. He wasn't able to hold onto his wand, but he still had his staff and he pulled it around in front of himself, panting and cradling his right arm across his knees. He willed his shield to close around him in a bubble and thought about it as a concrete wall—impenetrable.
Professor Lupin's voice was muffled from the other side, "Wow. That was a great way to retreat and give yourself time to recover, Harry. Well done!"
As he crouched under his concrete shield, Harry noticed that his heart was fluttering in his throat and that his palms were sweating. Even though he was well aware that he was here in Professor Lupin's office, a part of his mind was deep below in the Chamber of Secrets... standing before Riddle feeling starkers without his wand, his skin tingling as he anticipated the curses that Tom was going to start throwing at him and then stumbling away from the Basilisk with his eyes squeezed closed, certain that he was going to die.
"You okay, Harry?" Professor Lupin asked, his footsteps approaching Harry's concrete bubble.
"Yeah, sorry," Harry said, shaking his head to rid himself of the memory and letting down the shield. He stood up slowly, squeezing his hand and wincing at the lingering effects of the stinging hex.
"You did well," Professor Lupin said, slapping him on the shoulder and lightly tapping the back of his hand with Harry's wand. "How did you manage to modify your shield? Is that something you learned at the Center?"
"What? Oh. No. I just thought about it—I wanted something that I could shoot around," Harry said.
"Well, it was impressive. I've never seen anything like it," Professor Lupin said. "It also blocked you from view—so that was another way to keep your opponent on their toes. I didn't know which side of the shield you were going to hex me from. All right. Let's give Aminah a go while you rest."
Harry could hear the water dripping off the professor and then heard his low voice mutter the drying charm.
Harry gratefully sank into the overstuffed armchair as he listened to Aminah work on evading the hexes that Professor Lupin was throwing at her.
oO0OooO0OooO0OooO0Oo
Harry was dreading the Council meeting—not because he didn't support Mei and what they needed to share with the group, but because he was just so exhausted. It had already been a full day and he was anticipating that this wasn't going to be an easy conversation. He and Aminah had walked together from their lesson with Professor Lupin to Healer Jordan's office and barely had exchanged a few words.
Harry guessed that Aminah was equally exhausted, but for other reasons. She had shared with him earlier that her father had sent her a letter that was hard for her to process... she was having a difficult time sorting out what she thought about what he'd shared with her.
Not knowing the content of the letter, Harry felt that his offer of understanding and support somehow fell short, but Aminah seemed buoyed by it even so.
Before they reached the door, Tony was ushering them in as if they had been waiting.
Gemma and Peter greeted Harry and Aminah with protactile waves across their backs. Peter's interpreter also greeted them, but verbally.
"Is Mei here?" Harry asked.
"No, they are getting things set up in the Egress with Healer Jordan," Gauis explained and Harry could feel that he was also signing with Peter at the same time—as his own hand was resting on top of Peter's wrist.
"Oh, I was wondering how it was going to work in here."
Before long, they were being asked to pass through the Egress—it was through to the same island in the South Pacific that Tony, Arig, and Harry had visited earlier in the day. They had been there in the early evening—just as the sun had set, but now it was about 4 am and cool because it was raining. The instructors were there to help students transfigure their clothing into raincoats before they passed through the Egress.
As they waited to go through, Gemma was telling Harry about how she'd managed her first nonverbal spell that day.
"Oi! That's fantastic! What spell did you cast?"
She tapped his hand with her wand and signed "watch" and then there was a little stream of water falling over his hand like a water fountain.
"Oh, Aguamenti!" Harry said, delighted. She tapped "yes" and the water stopped flowing.
"That's really handy!" Harry said as he flicked out his wand and performed the drying spell on his trousers. His shirt was protected by his raincoat.
She scratched the happy sign across his back as he knelt down to dry the water on the floor.
"Why is it fantastic that Gemma's spraying water everywhere?" Tony asked.
"She just learned how to cast her first nonverbal spell. You know what this means, right? That Gemma can do magic..." Harry spelled it out for Tony.
"Oh, blimey!" Tony said as he pounded her on her back, maybe a little too forcefully.
"Gemma, wow—congratulations!" Aminah said.
"That's really brilliant!" Arig said. "Way to go, Gemma!"
The roommates crowded around Gemma as Harry held her arm for sighted guide. They jostled him as they patted her on the back and their enthusiasm came at him from all sides as they made their way through the Egress where their feet sank into the sand and the pre-dawn air cooled their skin.
"Wow—it's dark out here!" Tony exclaimed.
"Let your eyes adjust—please don't cast the light charm," Besel advised.
Harry felt a drop of water fall on his hand and wondered if he'd missed drying some of Gemma's water spell—then another drop fell and he reached for Gemma's face and found her hand brushing away more tears. He put his arm around her and squeezed knowing that they were tears of joy and relief. Gemma swung her arm around his middle and scratched lightly on his ribs—her happy sign—making him wriggle. He pulled her tighter against him and their feet fell into a rhythm as they sunk into the sand—he realized that Gemma couldn't see much in the dark as she occasionally stumbled over large clumps of beach grasses or they walked right through mushy deposits of seaweed washed up on the beach, sliding around.
Maybe I should be guiding her?
The group's voices quieted and a hushed silence descended on them as they walked out on the beach. Harry listened to their footsteps in the sand, the whir of Besel's chair as it spit sand from underneath it, the waves breaking on the beach, the wind whooshing through palm fronds high off the ground, and the distant songs crickets and tree frogs.
As Harry let go of Gemma's shoulders and took her hand, guiding her around the obstacles he found with his staff, he could feel something else in the air. It was as if lightning had struck nearby and the charge was still zinging through everything. He ran his fingers lightly over his forearm, wondering if his hair was standing on end.
Harry heard a large insect fly by his ear and swatted at it—his fingertips making contact with its buzzing wings. He heard it fly off in a stuttering descent and shuddered.
Ick. The insects here are gigantic.
They were on more solid sand now—nearing the water and Harry was relieved that he didn't sink so far into the sand or slide around so much. He tugged on Gemma's arm.
"I want to take my shoes and socks off," he said as bent down to take them off, then stuffed them into his staff. He stood for a second and felt the sand between his toes—it was cool and wet. Others were doing the same around him and Gemma tapped his hand holding his staff with her shoes, the socks stuffed into the openings. He put them in his staff, turning his head slightly to avoid the sweaty feet smell that wafted by him. She punched him in the arm lightly.
"Great—now all my clothes are going to reek of stinky shoes!" he teased.
She tapped his arm four times and he turned his face toward her, drawing his eyebrows together and mouthed softly, "What does four taps mean?" knowing that the paper would write out his words for her, but then wondering if she could read it in the dark. When she didn't respond, he guessed that she was telling him to be quiet.
She rubbed her fingers soothingly across his wrist and made the "wait" sign. He strained to hear what was going on. The group around him was quiet, too.
Then he heard it and it made him wonder what Gemma had seen—could she see anything—as far as he could tell it was pitch black. If there was a moon it was hidden behind clouds.
There was a plaintive wail—like that morning when Mei had started the chanting that had begun the ritual. This one wasn't so mournful, but it was still haunting and he felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise. His heart rate began to tick up.
Footsteps approached them and Gemma started to move toward the water. Harry gathered that they weren't supposed to speak now and he trusted that even though it was unnerving to not really know what was going on, that it might be similar to what they had experienced earlier in the day and it would be okay. He drew in deep breaths.
He stepped into small puddles of frothing foam that tickled his toes and blew against his ankles when the breeze picked them up. Once he felt some creature writhing under his foot—when he quickly lifted his foot, he felt it scurry away over the toes of his other foot. He hopped around a bit then kept walking toward the water.
A crab?
Soon the briny water was swirling around his ankles and then his calves, and then they were waist-deep in water. He had held out his hand to the person on his other side and decided that it must be Arig who had grabbed it. Gemma was bobbing up and down next to him—her small frame making it harder for her to keep her footing in the chest-high water.
The sorrowful voice was joined by others and Harry realized that their group which had to be holding hands in a circle, had been surrounded by singing Jiāorén.
A cold, sinuous body made its way between Harry and Arig and then other between Harry and Gemma. They wove strong arms over and under shoulders as they joined in the song so that they were lifted into a now swirling circle of Jiāorén and Center residents. Their feet had left the ocean floor and now they were moving out farther into the ocean—the sounds of the shore diminishing behind them.
The circle moved around and around in a counter-clockwise motion and Harry was just holding onto a sense of direction by the distant sound of the waves breaking on the beach. As it slowed to a stop, the chanting also became fainter until it was just Mei's voice and they held a lingering note until it, too, faded and all that could be heard was lapping of water against their bodies.
Mei's gravelly voice broke the silence.
"Thank you... I'm grateful that you were all willing to join me here, where I am most at peace. I know that this may not be the place where you are most comfortable, but for me, it is a soothing, calm space where I can think," Mei laughed gruffly here—and Harry thought that it was because they had a hard time imagining themself as calm. He lifted his face and tried to smile encouragingly in their direction.
"I have something I need to share with you. Something that I've been struggling with, fighting against, and trying to deny. But among you, I found friends who accept me as I am. We're at the Center to accept change... and believe me, this is not what I wanted. And I've had a hard time coming to terms with this change that has been forced on me. I know that I'm not the only one who has had a hard time accepting the changes... but I'm beginning to understand that sometimes we have to learn how to adapt to those changes otherwise... well, you know... it's pretty bleak," Mei laughed again and Harry heard others join her nervously.
The Jiāorén on either side of him were making small wet, grunting noises and he could hear and feel air escaping from what he could only imagine were gills on the sides of their necks. It made him wonder if they could understand Mei's English. Their strong arms were interlaced under his shoulders and behind his neck and his hand was resting on the backs of their necks. He could feel their scales under his fingertips and he was careful not to rub them the wrong way.
He was tempted to move his fingers around to the sides of their necks to feel the gills—but managed to resist the urge, guessing it would be like someone sticking their fingers in his nose or mouth. Occasionally their tails would rub against his legs—they were powerful and slick with the occasional frill of fins that seemed razor-sharp and, at times, prehensile.
"So, you know that once I thought I was fully human, though I knew I had Jiāorén blood in my ancestry. But it seemed just like a family legend—not something to worry about. Then I got really sick—so sick that I thought I was going to die. It was bad. My mother took me to healers, but no one knew what was wrong with me. But then I woke up one morning and I felt fine. So, I got in the shower. It felt good. I really wanted to be in the water. I had an urge to be in water. And then, with the water running over my body, I felt an intense pain in my legs, the only thing that made them feel better was to hold them tight together, but when I did that—they started melding together. I could see the scales bursting out of my skin and it hurt so bad. I wanted to die again," Mei said, their voice mesmerizing. "I remember seeing my feet start to change into fins—my toes elongating and turning purple and blue. It was the last time I saw my feet."
"So, it turned out that my Jiāorén blood was strong and I was part Jiāorén—more than anyone else in my family, but not completely Jiāorén. I couldn't go live in the ocean with my Jiāorén people, the people who are here with us today. These are the people who have accepted me as I am—and I'm not Jiāorén and I'm not wixen. I'm not one or the other, but both. I physically cannot live with them. I think one of the hardest things is that I have to live on the land among people who don't accept me as I am, well... except for some of you... and that means a lot. Let me tell you. So, yeah, I have to figure this out," Mei paused, drawing in a deep breath. The Jiāorén on either side of Harry were making more noises—and Harry could feel their muscles in their necks tensing and relaxing as Mei's words tumbled out.
"But then there's one more thing. And I don't even know if this is the last of it... I'm still learning and since I don't know if there are other people out there in the world like me or if I'm the only one, I'm just guessing..." they breathed out a long sigh and then drew in a breath—as if gathering strength from the droplets of water in the air.
"Jiāorén are both male and female and so am I. I am not one or the other, I am both—physically and emotionally. I would really appreciate it if you would make an effort to not identify me as a she because I'm also a he. Call me they. I know it is hard. I get it. It is hard for me, too, but I would feel more respected and understood if you could make this effort to see me as I am. I would also really appreciate it if you wouldn't ask me about sex. I am only 14-years-old. Not really there yet. And ick. And also, I don't know yet. Okay? I'm still figuring it out. I literally don't know. So don't ask me. It's really weird that I even have to say that."
There was a nervous laugh that erupted around the circle that was quickly hushed.
Harry heard more of the Mei he was used to in this last statement. Fierce Mei, no-nonsense Mei. He was glad to hear them emerging through the fog of uncertainty and doubt, tinged with sadness and alienation.
"Mei, thank you for sharing this with us. It means a lot to me that you trust each of us here. How hard it must have been to go through all these changes. I think you are really brave," Aminah said in her quiet, even tones.
"Thanks. It was hard, but it was also kind of a relief to understand and to accept the change. It was better than fighting it."
Harry could hear and feel a bit of a struggle in the water on his right and realized that Gemma was trying to sign, but the Jiāorén on either side were resisting letting go of her arms.
Mei said something—but it was completely unintelligible, but the Jiāorén holding him up let go and their tail slapped against Harry's legs as they moved toward Gemma.
"Thank you, Gemma," Mei said. "I'm glad you're my friend, too."
Around the circle, members of the council spoke up offering words of encouragement and support for Mei.
"I just don't get how you can be both, though," Tony said. "How is that even possible?"
"Well, it is. And I think you know what it is like to be considered an oddity, right?" Mei answered in even tones.
"Yeah. I guess I just need time to think about it. Sorry, Mei. I didn't mean to be disrespectful. I'm just a dolt," Tony said. "Thanks for telling us what's going on with you. I guess that's why you exploded today, huh?"
"Yeah, well, and Harry landed ... well, let's just say ... it was an awkward place to have someone land on me."
Even though he was kind of cold in the water, Harry felt his face heating up.
What did they mean that I had landed on them in a bad place? I had no idea!
He had been about to say something, but the words had evaporated.
Other people were talking... but Harry had no idea what they were saying... he was back in the dining hall standing in line for the buffet again and the whole thing was playing out in his head over and over again.
The eerie singing started again and the circle of floating people and Jiāorén started swirling around and moving back toward the shore, but the whole time Harry was just living through the explosion again and being bounced unwittingly against Mei.
His feet touched the sand and he walked mechanically back with the group through the Egress, but he was still in a daze of confusion and embarrassment. After a bit, he was able to convince himself that since he couldn't see anyone else, they couldn't see him and he started to feel a little better.