Thank You, Sir

By Pigwidgeon37

It is all a matter of becoming used to it. Becoming used to the fact that there are those subtle differences you didn’t bother with as long as you didn’t need to. But to touch some of those substances in order to recognize them would simply be too dangerous.

Take Bubotuber Pus, for example. Well, it is not such a good example, for it smells strongly of petroleum, so you would recognize it anyway. Another example, then. Chameleon blood. It is so acidic that it would leave nasty burns on your skin unless you rinse it off immediately. Yes, of course you could shake the vial, in order to hear whether the sound the liquid inside produces is the slurry bubbling of a viscous substance or the quick, silvery splash of a more fluid one. So you know that the contents of the vial are rather thick. And how does that help you? It doesn’t unless you can see their colour or, if you are temporarily blinded, sense their smell.

That is the problem with potions ingredients. Two of your senses are not really an option, for both tasting them and touching them is way too dangerous, the eyesight is gone, at least for some time, so you have to rely on your auditory and olfactory abilities. Not that it is a pleasure—in nine out of ten cases, the stuff smells horribly bad, but the method is trustworthy. After a week of feeling and smelling your way through the darkness, you have a rather exact idea of how chameleon blood smells.

It has the coppery note of blood, but there is something more to it. A detail you notice only after a more thorough olfactory examination. A note of vinegar, apple vinegar to be exact. And, yes, definitely the aroma of stone. Harry and Ron burst out laughing when they heard it for the first time. The aroma of stone, indeed! But it is there. Doubtlessly and irrefutably there. The scent of stone warmed in the sun, for hours and hours on end, until the first timid shadow dares to lie down on it gingerly, then gradually relaxing and stretching. Only then is it possible to capture that almost imperceptible odour. Or rather, fragrance. A transparent fragrance the nose has difficulties getting hold of. But it is there, you remember you could feel it when standing close to the façade of a Romanic church in the south of France, on the main square of a small village that had been turned into a furnace between twelve and four o’clock, but you can also smell it in the chameleon blood. A feeble echo of those long hours the animal had spent sitting on an almost incandescent rock, somewhere under the tropical sun. Waiting for careless flies, dizzied by the white-hot blaze, to venture within the reach of a long, obscenely long and slimy tongue.

It was not easy to force yourself into the discipline of renouncing, consciously renouncing your eyesight. Even if it is only a temporary state. Even if it is obvious to the rational part of your brain that, for a certain time—three or four weeks, according to Madam Pomfrey—there will be nothing but blackness pervaded by sounds and smells. You have always done everything, discharged every responsibility, mastered every task, faced every challenge in the best possible way. With gritted teeth, maybe. Crying under your duvet when the other girls were sleeping, maybe. But you succeeded every single time. And if that has been feasible for nearly eighteen years it is going to be possible now as well. A matter of iron will. And you know exactly that you are going to force the other part of your brain, that sluggish, unreliable, untrustworthy agglomerate of instincts and fears, to respect what the one part, the good part, the rational part had no difficulties in accepting: The fact that, short of a miracle which is extremely unlikely to happen, you have to live in pitch darkness and make the best of it.

A new experience, an unusual challenge. It does not really matter when the others tell you that outside there is bright sunshine and then stop in mid-sentence, realising they committed a faux pas. Neither is it of any real importance when, during Transfiguration or Charms, the classroom window is open and you catch a whiff of that deliciously humid air, impregnated with the scent of wet earth, crushed grass and the first blossoming wild roses. The essential thing is that you are alive, nearly eighteen years old and one of the most brilliant students Hogwarts has ever hosted.

Compared to that, does it really count that you feel that strange, burning knot in your throat whenever you try to imagine the landscape those enticing aromas are coming from and notice with a pang that you remember it only very vaguely? You have taken it for granted for almost seven years, you stupid, stupid girl, you cursed the steep slope leading up to the castle from Hagrid’s hut hundreds of times, instead of being grateful for green grass, yellow dandelions and a ridiculously blue sky. You dismissed such ideas as romantic—who needed blue, yellow and green as long as there were the far more interesting shades of black and grey, running over soft, brownish yellow in intricate patterns and curves. Serves you right, because now you have neither the one nor the other. You despised the wonders of nature for the sake of books, and now you cannot remember nature and are unable to read your beloved books. Difficult to say which is the worst part of it: the maddening urge to drink in the sight of a dandelion on a patch of freshly dewed grass, or the crazy longing to hold a book in your hands, being able to do more than just let your hands glide over the pages, again and again, desperately trying to feel a structure, the structure of the letters on parchment.

It was an accident, of course it was an accident. You ran into the line of fire, sizzling with curses that were flying back and forth between that Slytherin ferret and your friend Harry. You did not even cross that dangerous line to stop them from hexing each other, in an act of pure and admirable Gryffindor courage. No, you went along the damned corridor, your nose buried in a book, oblivious of everything else, not seeing anything else—how ironical, it could almost make you think of divine justice—and were unfortunate enough to cross their path when both were casting a Conjunctivitis Curse on each other. That was all. As simple as that. And, unfortunately, your head was exactly at the point of intersection of two flashes of red light. It’s so easy to explain. Such bad luck! Poor Miss Granger, don’t cry, it will fade after some time. Time heals every wound. So easily said, so impossible to endure. You cannot even eat properly, let alone use your wand. The castle that has been home to you for so many years has suddenly become hostile. The staircases—a trap. The statues and suits of armour—devilish fiends. The soft glow of the candles—a source of painful burns.

There is one thing, though, that keeps you away from the brink of insanity. It has put a leash of silk round your throat, a leash that never hurts, never strangles, never makes you feel caught. It is as soft as the fingers that sometimes guide yours during the lessons, when you are in danger of getting too near the fire or of pouring the dried lacewings into the bowl containing water from the Dead Sea instead of into the scale pan. Not that you could read the scale, but many times the silky voice approaches your ear and mutters A little more, Miss Granger, and a little more—stop!

And you, stupid girl, instead of taking advantage of your temporary blindness to touch him, pretending to be searching for something you have misplaced, what do you do? Quietly and obediently as always, you mutter Thank you, Sir. Your senses are so heightened that you can almost feel the rough fabric of his robes in sharp contrast with the warm, dry softness of his hands, but you say Thank you, Sir. You hear Harry and Ron’s snorts and you have to listen to their mocking words about the man you would devour if only you could, if only you dared, and you do not object. You just wait desperately for the next time the swish of fabric on tiled floor will betray that he is approaching you again, you wait for the touch of his hand, A little more, Miss Granger, No, this is the wrong spoon, Miss Granger, take this one instead and you mutter Thank you, Sir.

And when the other girls are asleep, you pull the duvet over your head and cry, trying to recall his scent, his touch, his voice that has formed a silken leash round your throat, even the barely audible noise of his hair gliding over his shoulders…

Thank you, Sir.