Dre Jaden / Sherry Parker
Chapter two;
Saturday mornings sucked. It wasn't that he wasn't used to being awake at 5am on a Saturday, but with spending so many years at Hogwarts, Saturday mornings had become sacred to him – a lazy lay in, well at least until 9am, followed by Quidditch practice or playing games with his friends. Only during the summers did he have to be awake at such an ungodly time of morning, because of his bastard of an ex-uncle. Dre wrinkled his nose as he scrubbed at the kitchen sink, making sure it was spotless in the kitchen before peeling off his plastic gloves; Sherry had changed somewhat, but he would never get out of doing chores completely – well, what kid could get out of it? He admitted, it wasn't a bad thing that his chores were there, it kept a bit of normality in his life. Kitchen cleaned, and an hour wasted, Dre walked over to where his jacket was on the coat stand, rolling his eyes, no doubt Sherry had picked it up whenever she had come home from work the previous evening.
"Good morning, Aunt Sherry." Dre bit out in a reluctantly polite told – he still wasn't ready to forgive her for dragging him, not only out of England, but also away from the world of magic that was barely beginning to adjust to and learn about. Dre turned out just in time to see Sherry flinch, he felt a little bad but after so many years of neglect from her and now tearing his life apart, he wasn't sure he was ready to accept her excuses just yet.
In public he was forced to call her mum, but within private she would always be Aunt and nothing more. It tore him up inside to call another woman mother, whilst he had no memories beside the murder of his own mum.
"What are you doing today?" Aunt Sherry asked,
"Mr Hans is training me in Kung Fu," Dre called over his shoulder as he walked out of the apartment, barely pausing on his way out of the door to grab his skateboard; the one thing that he did enjoy and appreciated from his aunt, even if it was his cousins old board that he'd never used.
Surprising he had taken to the lay out of the city rather well, despite not being in China that long, although it could just be that he had spent a lot of his time exploring – he had no friends here beside Mei and then he wasn't able to hang around with her much, not with her music practice, school and her family's disapproval of him. From the moment Dre was out of school for the day, he was off on his skateboard, exploring and avoiding the local group of bullies; he was better at that than most assumed, since he had had years of practice avoiding Dudley and his so-called friends.
Mr Hans had shown him where his house was on the way home yesterday, so he knew where he was going, using trucks and cars as boosters as he made his ways to the man's home, which was a good half-hour from where he lived if he had been walking.
"Nǐ hǎo, Mr Hans." Dre called,
Hearing a grunted reply coming from within the house, Dre proceeded cautiously into what should have been the living room – or family room – to find Mr Hans, hands full of car grease, bent over a car's engine…which was inside of a car…which was in the living room. Dre bit his tongue, deciding if Mr Hans wanted to discuss why there was a car in his house, then he would do so in his own time. After so many incidents with him being too curious, he had learnt to take the saying 'Curiosity killed the cat' very seriously.
It didn't take long for Mr Hans (what was the correct way to address Mr Hans in Chinese anyway?) to complete whatever he was doing, it seemed that he appreciated Dre not asking questions, likely that he wouldn't have received an answer anyway. The man took up a piece of wood, like a peg, along with a hammer and lead the way out into the back yard – it was small, at least compared to those he had experienced within England, but it was also a very nice yard. As he examined his surroundings, he barely took notice of Mr Hans hammering the peg/wood into the post in the right central part of the yard, level with Dre's own head if he guessed correctly.
"Hang up jacket." Mr Hans ordered in a no-nonsense told,
Dre slipped the jacket from his shoulders and threw the jacket with both hands onto the peg, he was just turning for his next instruction when Mr Hans barked out his next order.
"Take it down."
Again Dre did as his told, already frustrated.
"Put it on,"
"Take it off,"
"Hang it up,"
"Take it down,"
"Drop it,"
Dre twisted around his time and glared at Mr Hans, not seeing the point in the expercise. Even when learning magic they had been told why they were doing something, apparently not with Mr Hans.
"I get it! Hang my jacket up! Can we learn kung fu now?" Dre asked, knowing that he was whinging like a spoilt brat.
"Drop it." Mr Hans barked,
The jacket was knocked out of his hands.
"Pick it up."
Glaring at the old man, Dre did so.
"Put it on."
Dre decided that Mr Hans must have had something in mind to keep him doing this, he remembered the movie Karate kid and now the master kept the student waxing the cars, and wondered if it was something similar to that technique. It was barely 10 minutes into the repeated instructions that his arms began to hurt, but he kept going, even when Mr Hans went back to working on his car and only keeping half an eye on what he was doing.
After a while the repeated actions meant that he didn't need to think on them all that much, and his mind wondered back to Hogwarts. Merlin, he missed the castle, his friends and heck, even his classes. School here was dull, nothing special, and despite being in an advanced year because he could do what they were teaching already, it wasn't something he was truly interested in. maths, english, geography? Boring! Especially after two and a half year of only having formal classes on magic, potions and even divination was more involving than the classes he was studying right now! Having to sit and write notes wasn't his idea learning style, he preferred to interact or even do the reading alone in his personal time, because it gave him longer to focus on what the text meant and the theories involved within it all! Teachers (even magical teachers actually) had a tendency to ramble on and on, not really taking time to explain why something was that way, not just the fact that surrounded it.
On. Off. Drop. Pick up. Hang up. Take down. Put on…
He must have been at it for about three hours when Mr Hans dismissed him, merely telling him if he wished to continue, he should arrive by 8am tomorrow morning. A bit more lenient than todays 6am start.
Arms, and shoulder, aching Dre decided to head straight back to the apartment (he refused to call it home!), bypassing Cheng and his friends who sneered at him; clearly they didn't like their teachers decision that they had to leave him completely along until the day they faced each other at the international contest. At this point, Dre could just hope that he didn't get far enough in the contest to have to face Cheng.
It seemed to take longer to get back to the apartment then when he had set off, barely glancing at his aunt, who all but gaped at his jacket which was actually hung on the coat stand and not on the floor like usual. Once in his room, Dre grabbed a book at random out of his school trunk – well ex-school he supposed, with a scowl, glancing at the title he noticed he had grabbed 1001 Magical Herbs and fungi, he frowned to himself as he noticed that it had barely actually been open or used in the two and a half years that he had been studying at Hogwarts. Herbology didn't really give homework outside of practical assignments and Potions used, well, the potions text.
Opening it at the first page, he began reading on the properties, uses, and known appearance of the Wiggentree. Unlike most non-magical texts, it wasn't in alphabetical order.
TheWiggentreeis a magicalrowan. Itsbarkis used inpotion-making (Wiggenweld Potion), and the tree is guarded byBowtruckles. Anyone who touches the trunk of one of these trees will be protected from Darkcreaturesas long as they are doing so...*
Absorbed into his reading, Dre never noticed his aunt watching him from the doorway of his room, or regarded the fact he could have been doing his non-magical homework that had been set for the weekend.
*From Harry Potter wiki
Noon-stories-limited - I AM SO SORRY! I didnt realize just how long I hadn't updated a lot of my stories for!
Between University (dissertation, assignments, work and a social life!) I never really had time to do much writing :( but I've graduated now, and whilst i'm looking for a job, I have much more time!