Harry Potter and the Blind Seer of Durmstrang

Chapter 15

November held Durmstrang and all the northern country in its icy grip as Harry made his way to O'Carolan's office for a lesson one dreary Thursday afternoon. Professor O'Carolan had been pushing Harry to improve his Braille reading speed. Harry tried hard—and it helped that he had been forced to study from his own notes that he took in class—but he still couldn't break past the barrier of 60 words per minute where he had been stuck for months. He simply couldn't get his fingers to register information as quickly as his eyes had, and it frustrated him. Thinking with trepidation of Professor O'Carolan sitting with his stopwatch, Harry pushed open the heavy, wooden door.

The office felt like a tomb. Cold, clammy air assaulted Harry's face. No firelight warmed the room, and the air felt stale, as though the door had been closed for days. Harry frowned.

"Professor?" he called, his voice echoing off the stone walls to slap him again in the face with its eerie sound-shadow. He waited, listening. The room looked dim and unlit, but this, at least, was somewhat normal. O'Carolan generally remembered to light the torches in his office without being reminded, but there had been a time or two when he forgot, so busy was he with his work. Harry's misty vision filled with the bumps and piles of O'Carolan's stacks of oddments, from crystal balls to thinking caps, all sitting in helter-skelter heaps on shelves and countertops. Then, Harry noticed a light in one corner, blinking slowly on and off, on and off.

Harry moved toward the blinking light, past decks of fortune-telling cards and strange, silver instruments that reminded Harry of the items in Dumbledore's office. The blinking drew him onward, deeper into the office.

At last, he stood in front of it, a small object emitting a slow blink, like the halfhearted light given off by old Christmas lights. He reached out a hesitant hand toward the object. His fingers closed on hard edges and angles and corners, like the diamond he'd once seen in an advert for a jewelry shop. He picked it up, palm-sized, and suddenly he knew what he held. A sneakoscope.

Harry put down the blinking crystal as if it was a hot potato and turned hastily to leave the office.

"Looking for the old man?" The unexpected voice in the doorway made Harry's heart jump into his throat. He wasn't sure, but he thought the dim form he saw standing there belonged to Alexei Carrow.

"Yeah, I-I-I..." Harry stopped, forcing his voice into a nonchalant tone. "Have you seen him?"

"Vielleicht habe ich, vielleicht auch nicht," replied the unmistakeable voice of Alexei.

Harry blinked at the German. He wasn't wearing the earpiece, and he had only a vague idea that the other boy had said something like, "maybe." Harry took a step or two nearer the door. The larger boy in the doorway did not move. He stood like a wall, blocking Harry's exit. The hair on Harry's arms began to prickle. His fingers tightened around his cane until his knuckles turned white with the tension.

"Where's your dimwitted bodyguard when you need him?" taunted Alexei.

Harry did not answer. His mind raced. Had the Carrow boy been watching for him, waiting for him to come to O'Carolan's office for his weekly lesson? Had he known that O'Carolan would be missing?

Alexei took a threatening step nearer Harry.

For a split second, Harry could not decide if the other boy planned to attack. Having been pinned by the bigger boy before, Harry knew that to wait might doom him to failure, but he could not read Alexei's face to know if the other boy would come at him.

The fist connecting with the side of Harry's cheek answered his question. For a moment, blackness swam before Harry's eyes, and then a red mist of anger filled his vision. He was not going to wait to be beaten by Alexei Carrow a second time.