HC: Ominis, his eyes and his experience as a blind wizard
Picture Credits: @deathlysallows [link]
Hello,
I was talking to someone recently about Ominis' eyes, and it gave me the idea of publishing these HCs. 🙂
Please note that the ideas and interpretations presented in this post are my 'headcanon', some of which are mentioned/explored in my fanfictions, but not all. I respect and appreciate the different opinions and interpretations that others may have.
My intention is to share my thoughts, not impose them... I'd love to see yours btw. 😊
Approximately 1,560 words at present. This could increase with possible future updates.💚
☆ Ominis’ eyes do not have pupils to let light enter his eye and reach the photoreceptors. As a result, he has no light perception and is totally blind. This lack of pupils, a phenomenon unique even among wizards, is the result of the marriage between his family's consanguinity and Dark Arts, which they practise shamelessly.
☆ Besides this absence of pupils, his eyes are distinguished by their density of pale blue radial streaks, which start from the centre of the iris and radiate outwards, against a dark blue background. This pattern gives his eyes a fascinating, dynamic look. Ominis’ eyes are not opaque, milky or cloudy. These descriptors are so often associated with cataracts or glaucoma (i.e. Eye diseases Ominis does not have in my HC) that I avoid using them.
☆ Even when taking on the appearance of a sighted person thanks to the Polyjuice Potion or using Legilimency, Ominis remains unable to see, as his brain does not know how to interpret visual stimuli.
☆ If the Polyjuice Potion had worked when they tried this solution, Ominis' parents wouldn't have hesitated to kidnap a child of the same age, sequestering him so that Ominis could take on his appearance, proceeding in the same way as Barty Crouch Jr did with Alastor Moody.
☆ Using a Pensieve does not negate his blindness either. He therefore perceives the memories consulted by this means in the same way as he perceives his everyday environment.
☆ Ominis has a well-developed sense of touch and smell, and his hearing is very acute. However, the acuity of these senses is not superhuman. He has only learnt to maximumly use his sensory compensatory means to make up for the visual deficit.
☆ During his childhood, his parents and siblings, who struggled for a long time to cure his blindness did not value his existence. As a result, Ominis tends to see himself as less valuable than a sighted person, despite what his Aunt Noctua says.
☆ Ominis has never let his blindness stop him from doing what he really wanted to do. On the other hand, as a good sneaky snake, he doesn’t mind using his blindness as an excuse not to do what he refuses to do or... to justify getting physically close to his heart’s desire. "I can’t work with my wand today, can you guide me to the Great Hall?" How can you say no to him when you know his wand [HC link] is so fickle?)
☆ When not using his echolocation spell, Ominis relies on his other senses to understand the world around him. As a result, surprise contacts can be disturbing for him as they abruptly disrupt his sensory perception. This generates anxiety, as he cannot anticipate the contact. But when this is done by people with whom he has no emotional bond, Ominis experiences it as an additional violation of his personal space, which can make him angry.
☆ Before she disappeared, his Aunt Noctua used to embroider hangings for him, which she would then hang in his bedroom. Ominis loved to run his fingertips over the raised patterns and different textures. Even without seeing them, Ominis could appreciate their creativity and aesthetics through touch. He still has a strong taste for embroidered fabrics from this period.
☆ Without concrete sensory experience of colours, his perception of colours remains a mental concept for him. At Hogwarts, he used to ask Sebastian if his clothes matched properly until he was familiar enough with fabrics to recognise them by touch.
☆ Before Ominis got his wand, his aunt taught him to know and organise his living space so that he could be as self-sufficient as possible. As a result, Ominis is very tidy and always puts his things away carefully, even in those most intimate moments, he often folds and puts away his clothes before attending to his partner... at first out of habit, and later because he finds it very exciting to play with their patience.
☆ For the Gaunt, the family’s image and reputation were of crucial importance. Having a blind child was a source of shame, as it could be interpreted as a weakness in their lineage or a sign of failure. When they gave up hope of curing him, they convinced themselves that a Gaunt could not be born deprived of sight without obtaining a compensatory magical ability, such as the gift of clairvoyance... Reality soon caught up with them.
☆ This umpteenth disappointment, combined with Ominis’s repeated refusal to adhere to supremacist ideals, or to practise dark arts, reinforced the hostility of Ominis’s parents towards him. As a result, the abuse escalated until the terrible episode recounted in the game (negative emotions + intolerance + misunderstanding + social pressure formed a detonating co*cktail)
☆ His echolocation spell allows him to navigate independently, but it will never replace sight.
☆Capable of taking initiative, his wand has a will of its own that sometimes comes into conflict with Ominis. When this happens, it is very difficult for him to work with his wand and he may sometimes ask someone to guide him to where he wants to go. If he turns to you in this case, it’s a sign that he has a great deal of trust in you, something he doesn’t grant easily.
☆ The fact that people avoid certain words (see, or look for example) in his presence, or are embarrassed when he uses them himself, metaphorically or simply as a linguistic convention, amuses him and he doesn’t hesitate to play them up.
☆ To organise his belongings, he has developed a tactile memory system with the help of his aunt Noctua. As a result, he remembers objects and their location based on their shape, position, or texture.
☆ If he’s not serving himself, he discreetly feels his plate to find out where the food is.
☆ Ominis is very concerned about his appearance because he wants to blend in with society to avoid attracting unwanted attention. Also, he feels more confident with having an impeccable appearance. His obsession: getting a stain on his clothes that he can’t detect. He used to ask Anne to check his outfit several times during the day.
☆ Although many classmates have asked him to touch their faces so that Ominis can “see” them, he has always flatly refused, as he finds it too intrusive. Sebastian and Anne are the only ones with whom he has allowed himself this familiarity... until his fiancée.
☆ Aloof and reserved by nature, Sebastian, Anne and his lover are the only people he accepts hugs from. These have enabled him to obtain information about their appearance, height, weight, hairstyle, morphology and much more...
☆ Wizards of their background were often evaluated on their elegance and their ability to fit into the society at the time. In addition to the classic upbringing of a member of the illustrious Gaunt family, Ominis’ parents insisted he acquire good social skills and impeccable manners, which was not always easy for Ominis.
☆ For he had “automatic, stereotyped and repetitive” gestures (blindism). Swaying his body or turning his head, or repeatedly rubbing his eyes were very severely punished, as were the various postural disturbances inherent in his blindness (head in profile because that’s the ideal listening position, shuffling gait to keep his 2 feet anchored to the ground as much as possible etc...). As a result, Ominis has become very aware of himself and his body language.
☆ Always with the aim of meeting their standards, his parents imposed a strict education on him, ensuring that he was fully educated in the history of Magic, that of his ancestors, that of the great pureblood families, the evolution of the bonds governing them and the dark arts for which the Gaunt are so renowned.
☆ In Victorian times, professional prospects were rather limited for blind people, even in the wizarding world, and even with the best education. What’s more, the family safe at Gringotts was just a leaky basket, so Ominis’s parents forced him to play the piano hoping he would become skilled and renowned enough to bail them out. As a result, he plays the piano very well, but he is not a prodigy. This skill is the result of long efforts and painful constraints. All washed down with tears.
☆ At Hogwarts, potions classes are the hardest for Ominis to grasp. Too much simultaneous olfactory stimulation, a method of learning ill-suited to the blind as the recipe steps rely on the precise colouring of the brew.
☆ When he's not using his echolocation spell, Ominis hates it when people leave him after a conversation without telling him they're leaving.
☆ When he has to use a knife for cooking or in potions class, Ominis demands a perfectly sharp blade that offers a more precise cut with less effort, reducing the risk of slippage and injury, unlike a dull knife, which is potentially more dangerous as it requires more force to cut, making control more difficult.
☆ He doesn’t cut his fingernails, he files them to make sure he doesn’t cut himself.
(These last 2 HC are from anecdotes heard about my paternal grandmother, whom I never knew and who became blind because of cataracts that were inoperable at the time because of certain medical history)
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