Blindness

Chapter 3: Scarlet Fire

Harry did not stop practicing his magic, though its limits frustrated him.

He could manipulate his own light only in specific ways, all related to touch or a range of around ten feet.

Farther than that, and he felt like he was stretching out an arm, unable to reach.

His aunt spoke of wands; she also spoke of an alley for his kind, Diagonal or something, reached from a pub she could not see from a certain muggle street.

His aunt had waited in the car with her mother, afraid to enter, when she was young. Later, an older teen and puffed up with bravery, she had let her sister lead her inside and show her the magical world.

Harry saw his aunt's light pulse with emotion when speaking of it; and its agitation only increased when Harry insisted he must go there.

He had to get a wand, for experimental purposes of course. And why shouldn't he? Surely just because the school had rebuffed him did not mean he was not allowed a wand.

And with more convincing, his aunt finally agreed, to make him happy.

He rarely asked for much, after all.

-O-O-

His aunt warned him.

She told him that he was something special in the wizarding world, though they did not know of his condition. He did not understand all of it. That the man, the wizard, who killed his mother had been a criminal of the worst sort, feared by wizarding kind. That Harry had somehow been instrumental in the man's death, and that all of the wizarding world seemed to know his name.

That the scars he had heard whispered about across his face were the sign of a curse, scars that would identify him to every wizard and witch who knew the story.

The letter that had come with him when he was brought to the Dursleys said as much.

His temporary solution was easy. He had no desire to be recognized when making his first foray into the wizarding shopping alley with his aunt. He only wanted a wand, and perhaps a few books his aunt or Dudley could translate aloud for him.

He tied a soft cloth around his eyes, his aunt assuring him that the black material covered all of the pale, jagged marks, and did not look horrid.

Then, with a determined smile, he prepared to enter a place neither he nor his aunt could see.

-O-O-

She knew the street; when they arrived, Harry could see the magic, the bright light streaming forth in a wide circle.

He led them both into the light, and when they were inside, his aunt sighed in relief.

At the entrance to the alley, his aunt described a brick wall blocking the way.

Harry, instead, saw a spider web, delicate and precise, with a few key knots that held the design.

He tapped those knots with his light, and the thing transformed into open air. His aunt gasped with amazement, her trembling hand tight in his own.

He smiled.

-O-O-

That day, Harry confirmed something new, something that changed everything.

Magic was indeed part of the light he saw, bright and strong.

He had made some guesses, from seeing the way he manipulated objects with his own light, from the glimpses of Viola in London. But on his first glance around the Leaky Cauldron, and his first gaze into Diagon Alley, both sights not altered in the least by the synthetic cloth across his eyes, his guess was confirmed.