Hello! Could I offer you a prompt? I often see fics about Ominis experiencing sight for the first time, but how about Slytherin!MC being the one afflicted with a temporary blindness, and now having to rely on Ominis for guidance, 'seeing' the world from his perspective? Maybe as a result of some unruly student's potion experiment? Thank you for your time and work!
Hello, nonny!
Thank you so much for an Ominis prompt! I love to write about this sweetest boy. And sorry this took so long, my dear 💚
Oh my though, I guess I don't read fics with him often enough, because I haven't noticed that many where he experiences sight. Not sure how I'd feel about those, because it... takes away from his character, sort of. I don't know.
Anyway! I have a fluffy little fic for you 😘 Hope you enjoy it!
I wrote it that it was all Garreth's fault, because of course.
— PAIRING: Ominis Gaunt x F!MC
— WARNINGS: none
— WORDCOUNT: 3.8k
She cursed Garreth all the way to the Hospital Wing. The classroom was left in deathly silence after the Gryffindoor’s latest experiment had literally exploded in her face. Professor Sharp seemed… worried, but not very shocked. Clearly, things like that had happened before — especially since Garreth had started studying at Hogwarts. For his part, the boy seemed horribly contrite, or so he sounded as he fretted over her. She suspected at least half of his regret was due to the inevitably harsh detention he had to look forward to — perhaps something even worse, if the damage to her eyes proved permanent.
As she made her way through the castle, leaning on Sebastian and Natty — who both insisted to go with her, the sweethearts — she could think of nothing else. She couldn’t see anything. The last thing she had seen was Garreth’s smouldering cauldron where he was pointing out the way a particular piece of snail shell was melting, and then a great big flash of green, then blackness. She had thought for a moment that she’d fainted, but then she realised her eyes were open. By the time they reached the Nurse, her heart was still pounding at such a frantic rate she thought she was going to be sick.
“Well, she’s blind alright,” said Nurse Blainey after performing a few charms.
“What did you think? That I was lying?!”
“I will wring Garreth’s scrawny little nec—”
“Watch your tongue, Mr Sallow.”
“Can you fix it?” asked Natty in the most politely-frustrated voice she’d ever heard.
There followed a long discussion about what had caused it, which required them to bring Professor Sharp there — who, to his shame, hadn’t exactly been aware of what his students were doing — then Garreth — who also wasn’t sure what had happened with his potion, but he could at least list the ingredients he’d used.
All the while, she waited there in silence, hearing voices all around, footsteps echoing close and far, and tense, worried conversations. The Nurse had placed her in one of the beds in the corner while they decided what to do with her. Natty and Sebastian stayed by her side, quarrelling over what potions they could brew to cure her until she had to tell them to shut up.
By the time classes were done for the day, the Nurse had reached the conclusion that Garreth’s failed experiment, while exceedingly dangerous, would not affect her sight for long. Only a few weeks.
“A few weeks?!”
“Yes, two or three. Four if you’re unlucky.” She could hear the woman shrug.
“What am I supposed to do for three weeks? How can I study? How—”
“If I’m not mistaken, you’re not our only blind student. I’m sure Mr Gaunt can be of some help to you during this time.”
She recoiled at hearing it. “I don’t want to be a burden to—”
“Nonsense,” said Sebastian from somewhere behind her. “Ominis would do it happily!”
“I would,” said the boy. A pause followed as everyone else realised he’d entered the room. From the sound of it, he was standing a few feet in front of her.
The Nurse was happy with this arrangement, which meant fewer responsibilities for her. Professor Sharp breathed a sigh of relief, after which he promised to write to her parents and inform them. Sebastian and Natty, meanwhile, were disgustingly supportive, trying all the while to cheer her up. She shunned all of them, and would only go back to the Common Room with Ominis.
“Do you wish to have dinner first?” he asked quietly as they walked out of the Hospital Wing arm in arm.
“I’m not hungry,” she mumbled. “…Wait, are you?”
Ominis chuckled. “Could send Sebastian out to the kitchens to bring us something… He would do it. Careful, stairs.”
They went down step-by-step, and all through the castle, and after what felt like too long they finally made it to the Slytherin Common Room. She knew she was slowing them down, and Ominis didn’t deny it, but he was supportive the whole way — and not in that fretful, exaggerated, compensatory way Sebastian and Natty were, and not in the anxious manner of Garreth…
If Ominis was worried about her condition, he didn’t show it. As cool and calm as the lake, as sturdy as the rock Hogwarts was built on, he was by her side from the first moment.
The first order of business, while Sebastian fetched them a late dinner, was for her to learn the echolocation spell Ominis used to walk around.
“No, don’t hold it pointing down,” he said as he guided her hand. “Straight forward is better.”
“But what if I stumble onto something?”
“The spell will detect it in time.”
“Well I’m not feeling anything yet…”
“Just… try to cast it harder.”
“Cast it harder? You’re terrible at teaching spells. I want Sebastian back.”
“Yes, well, Sebastian can’t cast it,” mumbled Ominis.
“What can’t I cast?” asked the boy as he dashed into the Common Room.
She could already smell ham and cheese and the salty-sweet aroma of cold sausages. Two plates clinked as Sebastian placed them on the table by the fireplace, where she and Ominis were standing.
“My echolocation spell.”
“Ah yes, can’t cast that,” he said, followed by the soft floof of him plopping on the sofa.
They didn’t make much progress on that first night. His wand was far more accustomed to performing it than hers — but the promise of being able to learn it helped her sleep that night, after an hour or so of crying in fear and anger.
Waking up the next day was disorienting. She felt herself wake, she felt her eyes open, but not seeing anything seemed so… unreal. She nearly panicked all over again. Being in the dungeons, there was no sunlight to feel on her skin to let her know whether it was even morning, but then she heard the other girls shuffling around the room.
Imelda led her to the washroom, and later helped her dress — and for once, she didn’t have a snarky thing to say.
“Must be quite a nightmare,” the girl commented in what she perhaps imagined to be a sympathetic tone. “Can’t imagine flying in this state…”
“Yes, well, thanks Imelda, neither can I…”
She was relieved to hear Ominis’ voice again when she came downstairs.
“Over here!”
“How did you know it was me?” she asked, arms stretched in front of her in what she was sure must’ve been comical.
“You have a distinctive magical echo.”
“Do I…?”
“And Sebastian told me.”
“Morning,” the boy grinned from behind his friend.
Still, Ominis must certainly have been good at detecting where she was, because she felt his hand cup hers within seconds.
“How do you do that?” she asked.
“Just followed the sound of your voice,” he smiled.
“It all sounds the same to me…”
“You might think it does now, but eventually you’ll find it’s easy to tell distance by sound… The whole castle has very good acoustics for this sort of thing, in fact.”
“You make it seem so easy,” she smiled, her eyes tearing up at the sheer scope of all she had to learn to just survive the next few weeks.
“I promise you’ll find it easy too,” said Ominis, placing his warm hand on top of hers as she held his arm. “Open fields, now that can be an issue. But inside, here? You’ll get used to it in no time.”
Sebastian followed them for breakfast, but walked at a bit of a distance, letting Ominis explain things. Going to the Great Hall was a bit faster today than going to the dungeons had been the day before. She walked a bit more confidently already…
Breakfast was spent learning more about judging distance by sound.
“Here, now you try,” said Ominis, handing her a jug of pumpkin juice and an empty glass.
He’d just demonstrated how easily she could guess when a cup was close to filling by the sound the liquid made as it was poured — from a deep sound to a high one. She filled it just the right amount.
“That’s very good!”
“Really?” she grinned.
Feeling around the plate with the cutlery was done easily enough, but finding out what each pile of food held relied more on her sense of smell…
“Ah, I… wouldn’t recommend that.”
“What did I just pick up in my spoon?”
“What does it smell like to you?” asked Ominis with a little smile.
“Mashed potatoes…?”
“Well, I just hope you like parsnip porridge.”
And getting food onto her plate presented another difficulty… A few sausages rolled away before she gave up and picked them up with her hands rather than the fork, her knife kept slipping and clanging loudly on the plate whenever she cut into something, and her fingers landed in mustard sauce more than once.
After a little trial and error and a bit more cursing, she finally managed to get something she really liked. She moaned with pleasure, but it was cut short by Sebastian’s giggling.
“Whot?” she asked with her mouth full.
“Nothing,” he said with an obvious smile.
“What did you take?” asked Ominis curiously.
“It’s a seed cake,” she said defensively. “Just a little syrupy, that’s all.”
Sebastian laughed into his fist.
“What?”
“Nothing!” he said again. “Just… always thought you hated spotted dick.”
“Ewww!”
By the time breakfast was over, she was more angry than upset. Ominis considered it an improvement — at least she wasn’t on the verge of crying anymore. He supported her elbow with his hand as they walked out together. When the sounds of students passing by got louder, he felt her clinging to him more.
“Don’t be nervous…”
“Oh,” she said, her hand relaxing, “sorry.”
“It’s not just that,” he chuckled. “I could hear your breathing pick up, and your footsteps too, as if you were stomping on the ground.”
“It’s that obvious?!”
“It is,” he nodded. “For instance, how do you think I feel now?”
She sighed, feeling completely at sea as they walked together to class, in a direction she couldn’t tell, surrounded by noisy students — and Ominis was testing her.
“I don’t know… Calm, I suppose.”
“Why is that?”
“Your voice is low, and your arm is steady, and… and I can hear you smiling when you speak.”
“That’s quite good,” he chuckled.
What Ominis didn’t say was that he also felt worried about her, and worried about how useful he could be in these following weeks, how good of a guide or a teacher… He thought that it was obvious from his clipped tone and his lingering silences, but was glad to be proven wrong.
The first class of the day was, predictably, horrible. They had Charms, and the girl could scarcely follow the instructions on wand movements, had no idea whether the egg she was given had been shrunken and enlarged according to instructions, and was left feeling around for it awkwardly in order to tell where it was.
“How do you even know where to point your wand?” she sighed frustratedly.
“That’s where the echolocation spell will come in useful,” said Ominis from beside her. “It’s not just the direction, but the depth as well, how far something is from you.”
“We have to practice that more,” she grumbled, waving her wand uselessly. “Undercroft, after class.”
They ended up spending every break in their schedule that day in their secret room, with Ominis placing random obstacles in front of her while she tried and tried and… finally succeeded in making her wand cast the spell. It was just before they had to go to dinner.
“I did it!”
“Not bad,” said the boy — and she could hear his voice approaching, could hear his steps resounding in tighter and tighter echoes. “The cast is still pretty weak though…” She could tell he had his hand in front of her wand, judging the strength of the pulse for himself.
“It’s such a strange sensation… I can feel the shape of your hand in mine, through the wand, but it’s…”
“It’s a bit blurred, isn’t it?” he smiled.
“Yes, as if… as if through a fog.”
“Well, I’ve never seen fog,” Ominis chuckled, “but I’ll take your word for it.”
They went to dinner together and this time she walked on her own, holding her own wand in front. She grinned at being able to sense Ominis’ own echolocation spell, like rings on the face of a lake meeting each other.
“Can you feel people’s features with this spell?” she asked quietly as they entered the Great Hall.
“Not particularly… The size of someone, perhaps, but it is not so fine as to tell you what somebody looks like.”
“Can you tell the difference between, for instance, Sebastian and Garreth?”
“Naturally,” he laughed. “Garreth smells of toxic fumes. Sebastian smells of Confringo.”
Although that dinner was still speckled with splashes of sauce and spilt pumpkin juice, each meal got easier as the week progressed. Her echolocation spell, as well, got stronger. She wasn’t exactly confident enough to run through Hogwarts’ halls, but she found it easier to avoid running into people — and not get bumped into either, as her hearing became better at picking up all motions around her.
Attending class was easier too. She soon learned how to take notes on her own, although she wasn’t sure when she’d get the chance to read them. Ominis taught her a neat trick of holding onto the inkwell and use her fingers to precisely dip her quill in it. To tell whether she’d taken enough ink, she could test it on her finger first and see if the tip felt wet.
“You’re sure you don’t want a self-writing quill?” he asked.
“I want it,” she said, but first I want to do this on my own.
Ominis smiled. “And keep track of the parchment too. Find something as a placeholder for where you left off. Don’t want to write on top of what you’ve already written.”
With his guidance, she mastered a fairly simple system of holding onto the parchment with one hand, finger poised on her last line, and then cupping the inkwell with the other before dipping her quill.
What she still had trouble with well into the second week was spellcasting.
“How… just… how?” she hissed, smacking her wand up and down during a particularly troublesome Transfigurations class.
She heard a subtle laugh, and knew that it was Ominis. “Having trouble?”
“How am I expected to transform this damned ferret into a feather duster when the damned thing keeps moving?!”
Ominis had mastered the spell quickly, she thought, as she could hear no more animal squeaks from his side. About half the class had finished, judging by the mix of sounds from satisfied students and ferret trills.
She felt a warmth approach her from the side. Ominis took gentle hold of her wrist.
“Here,” he said, “maintain the location spell, and do the motions of the transfiguration spell from your wrist.”
She tried it a few times, his hand constantly around her wrist.
“Listen to where the animal is too, don’t lose track of him in case he runs away.”
She grit her teeth and frowned, ready to give up, but with Ominis’s help, she finally managed to do it just before the class was done.
“Bloody annoying,” she sighed, dropping her wand to the desk and wiping her sweaty palm on her robes. “Thank you, Ominis,” she mumbled. “Doubt I could’ve done it without you…”
“You could have,” she heard him smile. “Just would’ve taken you longer.”
To help calm her nerves, the boy suggested they go for a walk around the lake.
They walked and walked until the sun set. They could feel it as the air cooled all around them, as the evening grew loud with nightbirds, as the grounds became silent with all the other students gone inside the castle…
It felt strange to walk beside Ominis like that, without a word, without a touch, only the quiet sound of his footsteps in the grass. The water of the lake lapped on the shore beside them in lazy little waves, stirred perhaps by the creatures underneath or the light breeze. It set her senses on fire to feel how different it was to have that large, cold body of water on one side, and the warm shape of Ominis on the other — because she could feel it, could feel every detail. Even the wet earth underfoot and the grass, the dead leaves and dry branches, they all had a scent of their own that filled her mind more than the mere image of them ever could. Although she missed her sight very much, she could not deny that she felt more connected to everything around her in this way…
Her hand reached out and took Ominis’s arm — his right one, where he held his wand. Not even needing to ask, he switched it to the other hand and held her palm in his.
“Is something wrong?” he asked, but from his tone, she could tell he wasn’t worried.
“No,” she said. “Just wanted to feel your hand.”
“Well, there it is,” he chuckled. “Bit clammy… Sorry about that. Always gets that way when I hold my wand too long.”
“Mine too,” she smiled.
Their fingers interlinked as they kept their slow walk around the edge of the Black Lake. A thought kept swirling in her head, and she was torn between giving voice to it or keeping it to herself. She didn’t know if Ominis could tell, but —
“What’s on your mind?”
— of course he could.
“How did you know?”
“I swear I can hear you thinking sometimes. It’s the same with Sebastian.”
She laughed, but said nothing.
“So?” he asked again. “What is it?”
Her hand tightened slightly around his. “I was wondering if you might seem to the touch the same way you look. The face, I mean, and all that…”
“Ah,” he said, his tone teetering somewhere between amused and nervous, “you want to try to… ‘see me’ with your hands?”
“Could I?” she asked, her face turning slightly toward him as if she could better detect how he was reacting to all of this.
“Only if I could do the same,” said Ominis with a tight smile.
They reached as far around the lake as the grounds permitted and sat together on one large, smooth rock. Beneath them, they could hear the lapping of the water, quiet and gentle, and owls hooting far off in the woods. It felt almost as if she were floating on air, cross-legged, far from the ground, with nothing surrounding her but the cool night.
They tucked their wands in their pockets and fiddled their thumbs, both too timid to start.
“Well, you asked,” said Ominis after a prolonged nibbling of his lips, “so you go first.”
“Alright,” she sighed, her mouth pulled up into a nervous smile.
She stretched her hands before her gently and was almost startled when they reached his chest. His school uniform was much like hers, a little rough, but well tended to. Moving upwards, she reached his neck, and quickly skipped it until she felt the smooth line of his jaw with both her hands. For no reason at all, her eyes closed. Perhaps it felt more peaceful that way…
His chin was delicate and pointed, leading up in soft angles to his ears. Moving inward, her thumbs traced his high cheekbones, his temples, his arched brows, then dipped delicately over his eyes — his were closed as well. She smiled as she tickled the surface of her fingers with his long lashes.
“Well?” asked Ominis. “Is there a resemblance?”
“I think so,” she smiled. “You look the way you feel.”
“Oddly poetic of you,” he chuckled.
Her hands slid slowly down his face, framing his slightly long nose, falling then to his lips, soft and full. She gasped at feeling them, noting things she never realised before: how delicate they were, how defined, and slightly dry… She traced down to his chin again when she felt them part.
“Yes, I suppose that’s you,” she joked. Her giggles filled the tense air around them. She could feel him smile against her fingertips.
“My turn now,” said Ominis.
She squeezed her hands in her lap as she waited, and then the boy surprised her by cupping her face and slowly bringing them together, covering her like a mask.
He felt her from chin to forehead, taking in the full plains of her features, before he began to touch them each in part. He brushed her eyebrows upward, traced the shape of her eyes, ran his finger delicately down her nose to the tip, and brushed his thumb against her lips while his other hand caressed a broad path from her forehead to her jaw. She felt very thoroughly known after this…
They walked back to the castle in silence, hand-in-hand. As they did, she noticed in herself a feeling of… peace, of not caring anymore that she couldn’t see. She missed the colours of everything around, of course, the beams of light, the peaceful glow of the Slytherin dorms, the star-filled sky at night, but she didn’t feel like she lacked anything anymore.
That made it all the more shocking when, three and a half weeks into her blindness, she began to see vague shapes of light. Ominis’ thin face bloomed into a smile when she told him. She could see it in spite of the cloudiness of her vision.
She still used the echolocation spell to get around, and breakfast became easier, but the blending of shapes and colours so overwhelmed her senses that often she would close her eyes when she wished to concentrate.
It was probably for the best, as she fell behind on her coursework and had never gotten to practice reading Braille with Ominis. Her notes, she now could tell, were atrocious, and her fingers were horribly stained even now.
As the days passed, her vision gradually improved, and by the end of the fourth week, she was almost back to normal. Her eyes teared, unused to all the details.
“Come now, no need to cry over it,” said Ominis with an awkward laugh. They were returning from another visit to the Hospital Wing, where the Nurse had checked her progress.
“I’m not crying,” she sniffled. “How could you tell, anyway?”
“You mean aside from your voice being all choked up and your breathing irregular? Just a lucky guess.”
“I’m just feeling… too much, I think.”
Ominis took her hand in his. “I know,” he said with a small smile. “I’ll miss it too.”
And she didn’t need to ask what he meant.
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