taking control

Chapter 23: Foreseen and Unforeseen

Chapter 23: Foreseen and Unforeseen

Ginny called the training dummies to a halt, turning to watch as Harry blindly stalked forward, his head turning this way and that as he clearly had no idea where his own opponents were. Just then, one of the dummies threw a curse at Harry. He reacted in a fraction of a second, rolling to the side and throwing several of his own curses in the general direction of the offending dummy. None of the curses hit their mark, and she could faintly hear a muttered curse.

She had warned him that it would take some time to grow accustomed to the lack of sight, but he had just waved her concerns aside, asserting that he would meet the challenge. Granted, he had improved a lot over the past couple weeks. She could recall the first session she had witnessed where Harry literally stumbled about getting hexed left and right. She could vividly recall his skin reddened by countless stinging hexes and the look of both fatigue and frustration on his face as he ambled limply into the shower room.

After two weeks of constant hard work, he was now able to avoid hexes fairly well, though the dummies were not very aggressive. He would work up to more rigorous assaults. He was unable, however, to do anything to counter their attacks. By the time he managed to dodge the hexes - which he insisted on doing since with a Death Eater you never knew what they were going to throw at you - he regularly failed to find his target with his return fire.

As she watched him return to his feet and resume his slow stalking, she decided to have a little fun. She pulled out her wand and crept towards him, being careful not to make a sound. As she drew within about twenty paces of him, Harry turned towards her, his brow furrowing in confusion. Ginny stopped dead in her tracks wondering if he had somehow heard her, even though she thought she had been silent. Harry's blind gaze never left hers, and his confusion suddenly bloomed into understanding as he whipped off his blindfold and said, "Thought you could sneak up on me, huh?"

Just then, one of the dummies behind him threw a hex. Harry spun away at the last second but was too late to avoid the spell. The Stinger hit him in the shoulder, and he winced in pain. Without a word uttered, the dummies froze and then promptly disappeared.

Ginny took that moment to ask, "How did you know?"

Harry seemed to gather his thoughts for a moment before stating, "I could feel you."

"What?" she asked reflexively.

"The way I can feel magic," Harry explained with a slight shrug. "I don't know how to explain it, but I could feel you coming closer. I didn't know what it was at first, but then I realised it could only be you."

"Oh," she said. After a moment of silence she added, "Well it's about time to call it quits. That's why I came over."

Harry shot her a wry smirk as he responded, "I think you were looking to do a little more than just tell me it was time to call it quits."

Ginny chose to ignore that comment as she remarked, "You're getting a lot better. You nearly hit it that last time."

He shook his head. "You were right," he admitted. "It's been much more difficult to adjust than I had anticipated."

"You'll get there, Harry," she stated. "You just need to give it some time."

"Besides," she added, "it's not as if you really are blind. You only need to be able to avoid hexes coming from your back."

"True," Harry conceded. "But I want to get to a point where I don't even need to think about it. If I'm too focused on feeling for any spells coming from behind, I'm liable to just get hurt from the front."