Harry Potter and the Blind Seer of Durmstrang

Chapter 1

Harry Potter sat on the edge of his bed at St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries with his head bent, listening to the noises of coming and going in the fourth-floor hallway. Excitement coursed through him, because today he was going home. For the first time.

Harry never considered himself to have a home before. Of course, Hogwarts had been home for a good part of the year for the past three years but somewhere in the back of his mind lurked the knowledge that it was still a school and much as he liked it most people had a real home.

The house on Privet Drive, occupied by his Dursley relatives had been even farther from a true home. Living there had been more like surviving. Between the dislike and neglect by the adult members of the family and the torment and abuse by Dudley, Harry had been more than pleased to leave it behind forever and dust the memory from his feet as soon as possible.

But today was different. Today was special. Today he would accompany his godfather, Sirius Black, to his home in London which would become Harry's home as well. Until last year he hadn't known he even had a godfather, his father's best friend. Black had been incarcerated in Azkaban, unjustly, and his escape and subsequent location of the true villain had taken most of last year.

Harry rolled the name of the house around in his mind. Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. Somehow it didn't sound very nice, but Sirius had explained to him the tradition of the ancient House of Black, which also hadn't been very nice.

Where was Sirius? Harry tensed, waiting. Sirius was supposed to come and retrieve him after checking out of his own room on the first floor where he was recuperating from werewolf bites. Harry had been down to visit him every day. He'd sat in an uncomfortable old chair whose four feet did not match one another in length so the chair rocked slightly when Harry shifted his weight. He'd sat, tipping the chair back and then forward, and then back again with a steady, monotonous click as he had talked to Sirius who lay pale and tired on the white bed.

Really, Harry hadn't needed to stay this long in hospital at all. At Madame Pomfrey's recommendation, he had undergone the procedure that was an attempt to save his already ruined retinas and so far it seemed to be totally successful, as the fourth-floor medi-wizard had informed him with a sprightly chipperness in his tone that annoyed both Harry and Sirius. "Totally successful" meant Harry could see as well as he did before the procedure, which wasn't saying much. But it also meant that the encroaching darkness that had been creeping up on Harry for the past months was held at bay a while longer.

Harry saw mostly light, he'd decided. Lights everywhere became his enemy, each one much too bright in painful, glaring brilliance that washed out detail and form. Color was a thing of the past; he saw now in monochrome as he had all year. Sharp edges, too, were gone and in their place a sort of misty, light haze hung over everything as if he walked in perpetual fog. At school last year he'd learned to use a white cane after he almost fell off a moving staircase that wasn't there and he'd also begun learning Braille after he discovered he couldn't read his textbooks even with the largest magnifier offered in the Shop of Requirement. To this end, Professor Lupin had been unexpectedly helpful and the plan was for him to board at 12 Grimmauld Place for the summer to continue Harry's "blind lessons" as he thought of them.

After the procedure on his eyes was done, Harry didn't have much to do in the way of recovery, but since his guardian resided in exhaustion on the First Floor, there really wasn't anywhere for Harry to go until Sirius was well enough to go home and take Harry with him.

And so, thought Harry, we get to today. The day I get to go home.

His eyes closed against the blinding sunlight from the window across the hall, Harry listened while each second stretched into oblivion, giving way halfheartedly to the one following it, unwilling to hasten its tortoise-like pace. Brisk footsteps echoed down the hallway but Harry knew those footsteps. They belonged to the gum-chewing nurse who had the morning shift on his floor. Another set of feet followed hers but again Harry frowned. The soft shoes belonged to one of the long-term patients who had apparently been let out for air again. Harry knew Professor Lockhart resided somewhere on this floor in that wing but he hadn't seen him, nor had he taken the initiative to seek him out; on the contrary, he preferred to avoid him entirely and he scooted over on his bed to be out of sight of the doorway in case the slippered feet belonged to him.