waiting for the gift of sound and vision
Pairing: Gen (Ominis Gaunt & MC & Sebastian Sallow)
Rating: G
Word Count: 2.7K
Summary: request: Could I request Ominis showing a blind muggleborn reader (MC or not your choice) how to navigate with their wand and they show him how to use their cane in return?"
“Truthfully, there aren’t very many of us,” Ominis tells him ruefully. “But I suppose you must have felt very lonely not knowing that there others like you and me at Hogwarts. Are you a first-year, Bennet?”
Bennet answers, “Yes. My parents are Muggles, and – and when they found out I have magic, they thought maybe…”
He trails off, and Ominis feels the bed shift slightly as the boy kicks his feet anxiously.
It’s barely one week into his sixth year when Ominis finds himself resignedly making his way to the hospital wing.
Of course, he’d just found a peaceful corner of the common room where he could start to work on his first Potions essay of the year without the dictation quill getting confused by a roomful of voices when a soft-spoken second-year student shyly approaches him.
“Yes?” he asks somewhat tersely.
The student, evidently not expecting the blind heir of Slytherin to have noticed her approaching, flinches.
“M-my apologies, Mister Gaunt, sir,” she stammers. “It’s just that, er…”
He sighs softly and puts his quill to the side. He recognizes the girl’s voice from when Nerida had proudly introduced her as her younger sister after the Sorting Ceremony.
“Please, Emmeline,” he sighs softly. “You don’t need to call me ‘sir’ or ‘mister,’ I’m not a professor.”
Nor am I any of my brothers, he thinks bitterly, knowing that they absolutely would have expected a naive young student such as her to show a certain level of deference.
“A-alright, Ominis,” she says softly. “Um, Sebastian Sallow asked me to come find you and tell you that he’s being looked after by Nurse Blainey, and to please bring him the library books by his bed.”
Ominis frowns. “Was he asking you to bring them, or me?”
Emmeline quietly giggles and admits, “Actually, I’m not sure. But I can take them, it’s no problem.”
Smirking, Ominis reaches for his dictation quill and tucks it back into his school bag, along with his untouched parchment. He will not allow his best friend to take advantage of all the schoolgirls with crushes who’ve taken to following him around since the start of term.
“Thank you, Emmeline,” Ominis tells her. “I can take Sebastian his books. In any case, I’d like to learn for myself what nonsense he’s gotten into this time.”
“Are you sure?” she asks, sounding a touch disappointed.
“Yes,” he answers, finally offering her a kind smile. “Go on then, I’m sure you’ve got plenty of Charms homework to attend to.”
Emmeline quickly scurries off while Ominis returns to his dormitory and gathers the books Sebastian had left in a haphazard pile on his bedside table. Given that they haven’t been charmed into Braille, he isn’t exactly sure which books he’s picked up. However, since Sebastian hadn’t been specific, he suspects they aren’t textbooks but rather library books he’s taken out for his own research.
(Though none of them have that unsettling, electric feeling that Salazar Slytherin’s spellbook had when Ominis had first touched it, so he has no reservations about delivering them.)
Ominis gathers the books in the crook of one arm and navigates to the south wing with his wand pointed in front of him. Even if he hadn’t thoroughly memorized the layout of Hogwarts castle by now, his wand still proves to be exceptionally useful in avoiding collisions with distracted students, meddling poltergeists, and even the occasional wall that simply wasn’t there the day before.
When Ominis eventually arrives at the infirmary, he’s pleased to discover that he won’t have to deliver a lecture to Sebastian, seeing as you’ve already got quite the head start.
“Honestly, Seb, you’ve got to be more careful!” he hears you sigh.
“Me?!” he exclaims indignantly. “I’m not the one who decided to bring Fire Crabs to class on the very first week of school!”
“Fire Crabs are O.W.L. standard, Sebastian,” you argue. “Maybe if you hadn’t skipped Beasts so many times last year, you would have remembered how to pick one up without… that happening.”
Ominis can’t see Sebastian’s injuries, but having grown up in the Gaunt household means that he’s unfortunately familiar with the smell of burnt flesh.
“I hear you’ve already started without me,” Ominis says cheekily as he drops Sebastian’s books at the foot of his bed. “Tell me, how serious is it this time? Are we going to lose him?”
“Piss off,” Sebastian drawls tiredly.
“He’s going to be fine in a few hours,” you quickly tell Ominis. “He’s got burns all over his arms from Howin’s Fire Crabs, but Blainey practically dunked him in Dittany salve so he’s just got to stitch up again, essentially.”
Ominis winces. “How colorful.”
“I see you brought my books,” Sebastian observes, pleased. “Cheers.”
“I couldn’t very well let Emmeline do it, could I?” Ominis asks derisively. “Really, Sebastian? Taking advantage of the little ones with crushes, are we?”
“Sebastian Sallow!” you exclaim. “Did you ask Nerida’s sister to fetch your books for you while I stepped away for five minutes?”
“N-no, I definitely meant for Ominis to do it!” Sebastian protests.
Ominis sighs tiredly. Knowing Sebastian, the truth is that he probably didn’t much care how his books wound up in his hands, as long as he had something to occupy his mind.
“Love, I swear,” Sebastian says softly. “Please don’t be mad.”
Ominis listens while you take a slow, even breath, and then you murmur, “Well, I suppose you’ve already been sufficiently punished for being a prat today.”
“That’s fair enough,” he agrees quickly.
Ominis tunes out slightly while Sebastian attempts to coax you into staying and reading to him since he can’t very well hold his books in his bandaged hands. That’s when he first realizes that the three of you aren’t alone in the infirmary.
At the opposite end of the room, someone is crying – the childlike kind of cries that usually come from a twisted ankle or a skinned knee.
“Who’s that over there at the end?” Ominis asks softly, distracting you from Sebastian’s placating.
“Oh, that’s Emmeline’s new friend, Bennet,” you murmur. “She was in here with him when we arrived, but he doesn’t look that hurt.”
You trail off apologetically, and Ominis understands that you were probably too distracted by Sebastian’s burns to have paid much attention to why the small boy was currently sitting on one of the infirmary beds.
With a cursory wave of his wand, Ominis deduces that the figure in Nurse Blainey’s office must be the matron herself. He also realizes that the boy is entirely alone.
“I’ll go have a word with him,” Ominis tells you quietly. “He shouldn’t have to sit all by himself.”
You wordlessly pull Ominis into a quick one-armed hug while Sebastian proudly murmurs, “Go on, mate. That’s very kind of you.”
Wand outstretched, Ominis carefully makes his way over to the small boy so as not to scare him.
“Hello,” he calls out softly. “Are you alright?”
The boy flinches, startled. However, he doesn’t look up.
“S-sorry?” he asks in a young, high voice. “Who’s there?”
Lowering his wand, he introduces himself. “Are you Bennet? I’m Ominis Gaunt. I’m a sixth-year, and those are my friends over there. Do you see?”
From a few beds away, you gently wave over at Bennet and Sebastian nods with a pained-looking grimace.
“...N-no,” the boy whispers. “I can’t see.”
For a moment, Ominis is horrified. What sort of Potions mishap or Charms practice gone wrong could have resulted in this poor boy losing his sight?!
…But then he realizes.
Unbeknownst to him, leaning next to Bennet’s bed is one of the long, white canes that he’s heard of blind Muggles using to navigate the world around them. You hadn’t noticed it earlier in your distraction, and even if Sebastian had, he wouldn’t have understood what it was for.
“You can’t see, hmm?” Ominis asks softly, gently taking a seat on the bed next to the boy. “...Would you like to know something?”
“W-what?” Bennet whimpers, slightly bracing himself.
“I can’t see, either,” Ominis tells him. “I’m blind. Are you blind too?”
Bennet swallows nervously and admits, “Yes. I… I didn’t know there were other people like me here.”
Merlin’s beard, Ominis feels gutted for this boy.
“Truthfully, there aren’t very many of us,” Ominis tells him ruefully. “But I suppose you must have felt very lonely not knowing that there others like you and me at Hogwarts. Are you a first-year, Bennet?”
Bennet answers, “Yes. My parents are Muggles, and – and when they found out I have magic, they thought maybe…”
He trails off, and Ominis feels the bed shift slightly as the boy kicks his feet anxiously.
“Well, I’m sure that Nurse Blainey has told you by now that magic can’t be used to restore sight for those like us who’ve never had it,” Ominis says carefully.
Bennet doesn’t answer, but Ominis hears him sniffle sadly.
Softly, he rests his hand on the middle of the boy’s back. He gently rubs in small circles, like how his aunt had done for him when he was a young boy.
All at once, he remembers how utterly adrift he’d felt at Bennet’s age. Before coming to Hogwarts, he’d felt hopelessly lost in his world. All around him were people that possessed sight, possessed magic… He recalls hoping he’d be gifted with both someday, and then eventually hoping he’d at least achieve the latter.
But so many of them had also all possessed a sort of cruelty that he hoped would never take root inside him the way he’d observed with his parents, and later his brothers.
“But,” Ominis continues. “Magic is very special nonetheless. It can offer ways of… of perceiving that isn’t exactly sight, but can come quite close.”
“Nurse Blainey told me that,” Bennet mumbles grumpily. “It’s like my cane.”
“Your cane?” Ominis repeats. “Is that something you used in the Muggle world?”
“I still have it,” Bennet tells him, feeling around for where he’d left the cane propped against the bedpost.
Bennet leans it toward Ominis for him to feel. Ominis reaches out a hand and traces his fingertips along the smooth, cool surface of the thin cane. It feels… lifeless, honestly. He wonders how in Merlin’s name a young man like Bennet is supposed to use something like this to find his way in the wizarding world.
Then he taps it gently on the ground and feels how it vibrates against the stone floor.
Bennet explains, “It’s supposed to help me not trip or get lost, but…”
The boy sighs, sounding as world-weary as a wizard ten times his age.
“Ah,” Ominis says, chuckling softly. “I think I understand, though I do question how useful something like this would be in a place like Hogwarts.”
“Why do the stairs have to change so often?” Bennet whines. “And some of the doors are portraits. They don’t even have a doorknob! How am I supposed to know when I’m at a door or when I’m just talking to an empty frame?”
“Oh, Bennet,” Ominis says, fighting back an actual laugh. “Believe me, I understand completely.”
After a few moments of silence, Bennet asks him, “Do you have a cane?”
“No,” Ominis answers him. “I’ve never had anything like that, actually.”
In fact, Ominis rather wishes he could have had a cane like Bennet’s when he was a child. Before that fateful day at Ollivander’s with his aunt Noctua, he’d developed a regrettable habit of walking virtually anywhere with his hands gently outstretched, hoping that he’d brush his fingertips against any obstructions before running face-first into them.
(His parents hadn’t wanted him to have any sort of navigational aid that would make him “look like a Muggle,” and he’d been too young for a wand of his own. He hadn’t even been taught Braille until Professor Weasley had taken him aside and shown him how to transfigure his textbooks into textured, raised text that she quickly learned he was unable to read.)
“Then how do you…?” Bennet asks him warily.
Ominis twirls his wand in his long fingers. “Would you like me to show you?”
Bennet holds a hand out expectantly, bumping up against Ominis’ own. In that moment he feels a sort of warmth spread through his body. It’s as if he’s met someone for the first time who speaks the same language as him – one he’d never wanted to learn, one he’d fought so hard against for so long no less.
“This is my wand,” Ominis explains to him in a soft voice. “I’ve had this wand since the summer before my first year of school.”
“I’ve got a wand,” Bennet tells him.
“Did you get it from Ollivander’s shop in London?” Ominis asks, and Bennet hums affirmatively. “Well, you may remember that Mister Ollivander said that each wand ‘chooses’ its witch or wizard, and when you treat your wand correctly, it becomes your best friend.”
(Ominis distinctly remembers those exact words; he’d never had a best friend before.)
“I only know how to do a few things with mine,” Bennet admits. “I can make a feather float and I can turn my books into Braille, but only a few pages at a time.”
“That’s quite impressive for only having been at Hogwarts for a week,” Ominis tells him as he gently bumps his shoulder against the smaller boy’s. “But maybe I can show you something that helps me most of all.”
“Is it like seeing?” Bennet asks eagerly.
“It’s… well, I’m not really sure,” Ominis tells him slowly. “I tell my friends that it’s probably a lot like seeing, but the truth is that I simply wouldn’t know. However, it does help me avoid walking into walls anymore.”
Bennet perks up. “Please. Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s better than the cane.”
Ominis wraps Bennet’s hand tighter around the handle of his wand and murmurs, “Apparere Adumbratio.”
The tip of Ominis’ wand starts to emanate a pulsating red light, and both Bennet and Ominis are overcome with the sensation of figures springing to life around them. The rows of empty beds appear first, including Sebastian’s prone form lazily lounging on a pile of pillows. Then the boys can make out where you’re seated next to him as you softly read aloud from one of his library books. Outlines of side tables, privacy curtains, and even the Hufflepuff prefect keeping watch just outside the doorway add further definition to the room.
Ominis has tried to describe what he “sees” to Sebastian and Anne countless times as a child, and most of the time it’s futile. Though he’s learned what color means to sighted witches or wizards, having no frame of reference himself he can’t say whether what he senses is in color or not. He suspects not, as magic can be ruthlessly efficient at times, and he has no need for it.
He can’t read words like this, either. While he can make out the shape of a book, its markings remain undecipherable and unrendered in his perception.
And as for people, they tend to largely look the same. The spell calls forth a mere outline – precisely what he needs to understand where in space a person is. The things that make them unique – perfume scents, apparel textures, their voices, their manners – are all things he can take in with his other senses.
Whenever he’s discussed it in the past, Ominis had often felt like he wasn’t able to adequately describe how valuable this spell has been when it comes off as being quite limited.
But as soon as Bennet gasps, he knows that this boy beside him understands.
“Wh-what… oh, wow,” he whispers. “It’s… it’s like – everything is here, I can tell where everything is!”
“It helps, doesn’t it?” Ominis murmurs. “Like I said, it’s not perfect, but –”
“It’s amazing,” Bennet breathes. “I… I can tell that’s Nurse Blainey over there. I can hear the potion bottles she’s got in her hands, and – and your friend, she’s reading from a book! She’s holding it!”
Ominis listens happily while Bennet excitedly narrates the rest of the room.
“...Can I do this with my own wand?” the younger boy eventually asks him.
“I should think so,” Ominis tells him. “You’ll need to practice, though. It’s not an easy charm.”
“I will,” Bennet murmurs to himself. “I’ll practice, I’ll become so good at it.”
“I’d be happy to help you,” Ominis says. “I didn’t have anyone to help me, so… it might be easier if you have a friend.”
“You’d be my friend?” Bennet asks hopefully.
“Of course,” Ominis tells him, pretending not to notice how his voice has become a little thick. “It would be my pleasure, Bennet.”
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