"Expelliarmus!"
The wand flew out of the target dummy's hand and clattered to the floor behind it.
"Better!" Harry flicked his wand and reset the practice dummy that Ranma was facing.
Harry called out, "Again!"
Ranma flicked her wand and said the incantation again, sending the wand flying out of the dummy's hand.
"Excellent, Ranma! Do that one hundred times. You must reset the dummy yourself."
She nodded and turned back to the dummy to practice. With a quick flick and shout, the wand clattered to the floor once again.
"Just for fun, see if you can cast only using sub-vocalization."
"What do you mean?"
"Mouth the words but don't actually speak them."
Again, Ranma nodded and set to work.
Harry took a seat in the middle of the dojo Indian style, watching her and occasionally commenting on her form. Harry soon lost himself in the rhythmic sound of the wand clattering to the floor; he enjoyed watching her practice. The best thing about teaching Ranma was she never made the same mistake twice. Her martial arts background actually made learning the wand work pathetically easy. That meant they could spend a vast majority of the time working on actually making the magic work as desired.
In many ways, Ranma's tenacity and concentration in learning new techniques reminded him of Hermione doing research or homework. Ranma was inexhaustible, insatiable, and downright annoying because she didn't stop until she perfected it. Harry himself didn't have nearly the same level of patience and would quit long before she would.
Personally, he was glad that Ranma put the same amount of effort into teaching as she did into learning. Six months had passed since he started training with her. She had the patience of a saint to attempt to teach him the same basic ten steps of the kata every day. Harry was surprised that he wasn't bored by repeating the same set of maneuvers at every practice, and that was mostly to her credit as a teacher. He wasn't nearly good a student, but what he lacked in aptitude or reflexes he made up for in enthusiasm. She corrected, she reinforced, and she kept a simple repetitive task challenging and demanding. If he didn't pay attention, he got his ass handed to him every single time.
Once he adjusted to the new routine, he quickly got used to the rhythm of training. He'd get pounded on in the morning, limp and moan his way through the work day, and then abuse Ranma as much as he could in the evenings during his own magic teaching sessions. Tonks had long since stopped offering to perform healing charms on him at work. The first time he had done that to get over the soreness Ranma had 'punished' him in the next work out, making it twice as bad as previously.
Ranma was firm but clear: you couldn't take short cuts. You learned by experience. Like with magic, just because you knew the incantation didn't mean you could do the spell if your body wasn't trained to handle the rigors of casting. She explained that circumventing the natural healing process impeded the proper flow of Ki in the body, effectively negating the whole purpose of the training.
Worse, she illustrated by example. She jabbed a finger into his back that had somehow paralyzed his him temporarily. She called it "shiatsu" or pressure point manipulation; he called it terrifying. To be suddenly deprived of what he had taken for granted was even scarier than losing his sight or hearing. He had always taken for granted that magic made it pretty hard to incapacitate him. Ranma had rudely abused him of that notion.
It was also incredibly educational. Because she exposed his vulnerability so easily by destroying his ability to control something that felt second nature, the relearning process showed him where he had been inefficient or wasted motion. As a result, he had asked Ranma to repeat the pressure point on numerous occasions so that he could pay more attention to how magic flowed through his body. He felt more confident, and more in control than ever before, because the process of teaching and relearning the basics had given him a better sense of his own capabilities.
He'd never been in better shape in his life, even considering the level of punishment Ranma inflicted over the course of the training. She pushed just hard enough to make sure he always had to strain to keep up, but not so hard that he broke under the load. He smirked as he thought about the changes the training had wrought. He'd always been scrawny and underweight, but he'd put on some muscle and was recently upgraded by Tonks as "twiggy" to "wiry."
Tonks mentioned in passing that he would be eligible for another upgrade in few months if the current training regimen continued. As a joke, she'd even transfigured his office calendar to reflect the changing status of Harry's physique. The months had been renamed; January showed a picture of Harry as a teenager labeled, "Hopeless." She had cut and pasted Harry's blinking face onto a picture of a muggle body-builder for December, appropriately renamed "Beefcake." It was only "Striking" (October), so he still had two months before he had to meet Tonk's unrealistic expectations.
Harry had long since abandoned the idea of following the Hogwart's curriculum. So much of what Harry learned there had been interesting but unnecessary. Harry's real world experience and Ranma's own aptitude meant that Harry could adapted his lessons to match the type of style that suited them both – fast paced, practical, and primarily focused on immediately useful offensive and defensive capabilities.
To that end, Harry was pushing her just as hard as she pushed him by trying to train her in the use of voiceless and wandless magic. Harry had been quite clear that even magical geniuses took decades to master the art of pure magic. Even if she continued at her current rate of speed, basic control of even elementary wandless magic would take years. Ranma didn't get discouraged by the information; she simply nodded and asked when they could start.
Harry a few theories about why Ranma could physically and mentally accomplish extremely difficult magical tasks. For one, she was wickedly smart in the same way that Ron was unbeatable at Wizard's chess. Secondly, she was incredibly focused. The level of power necessary to complete this particular challenge was not beyond what any first year student at Hogwarts was capable of. However, the level of concentration and attunement to your body and surroundings was the real area of mastery required to accomplish voiceless magic. Her repertoire of spells was pretty abysmal because she refused to learn spells just to know them. She learned one spell at a time and worked for days to perfect every aspect of the spell. She'd found uses for old, simple, spells that Harry had never thought of – such as her repeated use of levitating traps and other charming uses of a first year spell that he hadn't thought to use for years.
Harry also believed that her own incredible physical ability and ability to channel Ki had groomed her body to channel magic. Her mastery of Ki was pretty spectacular (as far as Harry was concerned, anyway. He couldn't do anything with it and certainly had never met anyone else who could.) They had spoken about it at length. He still didn't understand how she could run the distance between the dojo and his apartment in about twelve minutes, but he did understand that the level of ki manipulation required was phenomenal.
Because she was such a high level practitioner in one art (martial), a lot of the skills transferred over readily to the other (magic). At this point, it was simply training the body to do both. The pathways through which magic and ki flowed through the body were different yet related. In biological terms, they were related much in the same way that cardiac and pulmonary systems were related. Ki flowed through the body like blood – a completely internal mechanism that both energized the system and flushed waste. It was self regulating and always constant, flowing and circulating through the body. You could improve how efficiently it ran or how much volume it pumped, but only with a great deal of effort.
Magic was external, much like air. Its supply was unlimited, but you could only draw as much into your body as your lungs had capacity. You capacity was genetic but could be influenced by training, much like the cardiovascular system. You could never channel more than your lungs could hold, but you could train your body to take in more with each use and be more efficient with it. The interaction between the two systems was the real puzzle. Neither Harry nor Ranma knew, but they both suspected that an efficiency in one system lead to benefits for the other.
Did having a hyper-developed Ki transport system (like Ranma) mean that the body was more readily able to absorb and use magic and vice versa? They had established early on that there were completely independent of each other; also they yet to be able to combine the two and create ki-laced magic or magic laced with ki. They had tried to make the two interact, but it was like oil and water. Ranma, at least, was able to summon a sphere of ki in one hand while using magic with the other. She compared the feeling to having one hand in cold water and the other in hot – her senses were confused and 'tingly.'
Harry found her single minded determination to learn puzzling. She practiced even after the lessons. He would call it a compulsion except for the fact he knew she really enjoyed the challenge. Given the amount of time they spent together, Harry had a pretty good picture of what type of person she was, but absolutely no idea of what made her the person she became. After the visit to Harry's pensieve a few months ago, Harry hadn't pressed her for any information about her own background, hoping she would open up to him voluntarily.
He learned some minor details; he knew she hated cats, ate any kind of food regardless of quality and needed massive quantities of the stuff, couldn't write very legibly because she once shattered most of the bones in her right hand punching through six inches of steel (she succeeded.) He knew she liked music, meditation, and cooking.
She was quick and intelligent, but not widely read. At the same time, she had a vast store of esoteric knowledge and was hopelessly clueless about pop culture or even society in general. She was sensitive and at the same time pretty obtuse about other's feelings. He had learned more than he ever wanted or needed to know about all the various training related injuries she'd suffered over the years, but still didn't know all that much about what kind of training she had been doing to receive the thousands of scars he'd been shown.
She was a puzzle; she frustrated him and fascinated him, and he wanted to know more. She was completely willing to talk with him at great length about anything and everything he wanted, except about herself. Conversations that seem like had lasted only 5 minutes in reality stretched hours. He had originally started training with her because she had amazed him with her abilities. The more he saw the more impressed he became, but at the same time she did nothing to satisfy his curiosity or answer his questions.
By the time she finished all one hundred casts she had a faint sheen of perspiration on her forehead from the concentration. Harry smiled when he saw it, because he knew from experience that it took anincredible amount of effort to make Ranma break a sweat at all.
Harry stood. "Wonderful! Okay, next, we do the same drill blindfolded. Extend your senses as much as possible and try and find the magic in the room around you. Concentrate on trying to feel your
opponent's wand - the source of the magic."
Ranma groaned and reached into her pocket, pulling out a thick silk ribbon. She quickly tied the ribbon around her head and readied herself again.
"Ready."
"Oh, and Ranma?"
"Yes?"
"The dummy will move after each cast. You can only turn to face it, but you may not get any closer, okay? You can not use your ki to find the dummy. You may only locate it through sensing the ambient magic on the wand."
She nodded and clenched her jaw. "Got it."
"Commence on my word." Harry cast a simple luminos with the practice dummy's wand before replacing it. He cast a quick spell to give the dummy mobility and a second charm that would make it move about the room at random. Satisfied that the target would move appropriately, he moved to the side of the dojo room and sat.
"Go!"
Any normal magical student with only six months training probably could have only done one or two voiceless casts before becoming exhausted. That, of course, assumed they were capable of doing it at all. Harry knew only a few adult magicians who would be capable of tracking a wand emitting low level magic across an empty room blind-folded. He had tried it himself when Ranma wasn't watching to see if it was feasible. He'd failed miserably until he concentrated hard, and he was considered good at detecting ambient magic. It wasn't a matter of how strong you were with magic, but rather a much more complex relationship between how in tune with your body you were and what you wanted to accomplish.
Harry watched her as she tried to track the dummy as it moved across the room.
"Narrow your concentration. Focus only on what you can feel."
In terms of sheer magical power, Ranma would probably never be more than an average witch. But in terms of ability, Harry had no doubt that she would be a formidable force once properly trained. She would be deadly, particularly because she concentrated so much on the "difficult" aspects of magic that many people thought too challenging to bother with. Such as tracking a training dummy by its magical signature while blind folded and doing silent magic. Any one of those tasks could be challenging. Together, it was sheer lunacy.
And yet, she was succeeding. She had more misses than hits, but even her misses were always in the right general direction. It took her about two hours to finish, and by the time she did the blindfold was dripping in sweat.
She ripped the blind fold off and dropped to the floor, laying spread eagle as she stared at the ceiling and concentrated on slowing her breath.
"Harry?"
"Yah?"
"That really sucks."
Harry chuckled and stood, walking over to offer her a hand up. She looked up at him balefully for a second before sighing in mock defeat. He grabbed her extended hand and pulled her to her feet.
"Okay, next I want you do the do same thing and stand on one foot…" Harry trailed off.
"You're kidding, right?"
He smirked. "Of course. You're done for the night, anyway. Why don't you go shower and I'll get some dinner ready."
She wrinkled her nose. "By getting dinner ready, you mean take out again, don't you?"
"No, I'm actually going to cook this time. Nothing fancy, but…" he shrugged.
She eyed him carefully. "Well, in that case I'm going to take a bath. See you in bit?"
Harry nodded and walked with her to the front door. She always ran home after practice, while Harry would port back. Ranma carefully tucked her wand away somewhere before stepping outside. Harry never really understood where she stored her wand but she never put it in a pocket and always had it in her hand when she needed it. He'd even attempted to summon it a few times just to see where she stashed it and was unable to do so. It had earned him a few dark looks, however. He had asked about it and she just smirked and refused to answer.
When she left, Harry closed the front door behind her and touched the old brass knocker that used to hang on the front door. It now served as the Portkey between the dojo and his apartment. He felt the familiar hooking sensation in his navel as he was transported back to the front door of his flat. When he got in, he looked up at the clock above the door and noted the time.
He went to the kitchen and began preparing vegetables. He and Ranma had been sharing the cooking responsibilities, alternating nights. She was by far better - he wasn't a great cook, but he had been forced to learn over the years. Magic helped, of course. He was mostly done with the chopping (the knife chopped while he just stayed out of the way, really) when Ranma came in through the front door, slightly out of breath and faintly perspiring.
"Time?"
Harry looked at the clock above the front door.
"About eleven and a half minutes."
"Oh well. I'll get it under ten minutes in a couple of months. I'll just need to do some more training on my own." She shrugged and headed towards the bedroom that was now hers. Harry heard the bathroom door open and close, and the sound of running water filling the tub.
One of the big changes was actually living with someone again, and a female at that. As a roommate, Ranma was pretty great. She was clean, quiet, didn't clutter up the bathroom shelves with an assortment of girly products. She had a good sense of humor and often played pranks on him, but never broke anything or disrupted the way he used the shared space. If anything it was almost as if she made no attempt to make her presence even subtly felt. He had yet to come across even modest acknowledgements to her femininity like pads, tampons, or balls of hair in the shower drain. She had no pictures in her room, no clothes hanging in the closet, and added no personal touches to the common space they shared. Everything she used went back into the same spot it came from to such a degree it was uncanny.
The only weird habit she had was an obsession with taking baths in really hot water. Harry had once gone into the bathroom after she had finished taking a bath and nearly passed out from the heat. The water itself was only a few degrees below the boiling point – he knew because he had shown her how to boil water with her wand. He had watched in disbelief as she had boiled the tub of water and then shooed him out the door. As he was walking away he had heard her step into the water with an audible sigh of relief.
The other difficult fact about sharing a flat with an attractive woman was that Ranma had practically no sense of modesty. Her lounging clothes were not sexy or revealing, but at the same time did nothing to hide the fact that she was incredibly well proportioned. Harry had a number of sleepless nights already caused by accidental glimpses of cleavage and legs due to the tank top and boxer combo she seemed to favor as sleep wear.
Harry was positive Ranma was unaware of the effect she was having. She was not trying to torment him and the few incidents that had happened were completely accidental, but the effect was cumulative. He'd always admired her beauty, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. He had hoped that it would die as familiarity bred, well, not contempt, but at least acceptance. If anything, it had made it even more difficult.
Dinner was ready right around the same time Harry heard Ranma step out of the bath. She came to the table wearing a pair of shorts and a tee-shirt, still drying her hair with a towel. She stopped short when she noticed the bottle of wine and candles set in addition to the plates and silverware.
"What's with this?"
Harry shrugged. "Do you mind?"
She sighed. "No. It's just…" She trailed off.
"It's just what?"
"Never mind." She shrugged and sat down, placing her napkin in her lap and waiting while Harry lit the candles.
Once dinner started, she picked at her food and answered questions in monosyllables, not really looking up from her plate. Harry gave up after a while recognizing that she did not want to talk. She had only eaten about half her food when she pushed her plate away and leaned back in her chair, arms clutched across her stomach.
"Harry?"
He placed his silverware on his plate and looked over. "Yes?"
"You've got a crush on me, I take it?"
He blushed and buried his face into his wine glass.
She sighed. "Thought as much."
Harry looked up. "Do you…?"
She looked him in the eyes. "Nope. Sorry."
Silence reigned for a bit as Harry topped off his glass of wine. He offered to fill her glass, she waved it off.
"Well," Harry took a sip before continuing, "This is awkward."
"Yeah."
The silence stretched for a bit. Harry just methodically sipped his wine, staring at the candles.
She reached over and gave his forearm a squeeze. "You're a good friend, Harry. I haven't had too many of those in my life."
"Glad you consider me one."
"I do. I will continue to do so. I can't tell you how much I appreciate everything you've taught me, but if it will be too difficult for you I understand. I can move out and on. I won't bother you anymore."
Harry grunted and felt his stomach drop. He cleared his throat. "Because I can't help that I find you attractive and interesting?"
She was silent for a good while, chewing on her lip. Finally she broke the silence. "I can't give you what you want." She gestured at the candles. "I… just can't."
He raised an eyebrow. "What is it I want?"
She rolled her eyes at him. "I'm not stupid, you know. Beautiful woman, lots of close contact, candle lit dinners, blah blah blah." She shrugged. "As much as I wish it could be different, I can tell you know with absolute certainty that between you and me, we will never be able to be more than friends."
Harry tipped his glass to her. "To friends, then."
"To friends." She matched his gesture and the two of them knocked back the contents of their wine glasses in one swift gulp.
She gently placed her glass down on the table and watched Harry as he examined the few remaining drops of wine in his glass. Ranma sighed. "My life would have been much easier if I were ugly."
"I still would have found you interesting."
She shrugged. "Maybe, but not attractive, and I wouldn't have to hurt your feelings."
He rolled his eyes. "I'm a grown man, Ranma. I merely mentioned that I was interested in you. You let me know that it isn't possible. I'm willing to accept that, but you have yet to bother explaining why."
She closed her eyes. "Remember when you showed me your memories in the pensieve?"
"Yes."
"I haven't been able to share my memories with you yet because… I don't really know how. I'm not good at stuff like this, so I kept putting it off. I was hoping I didn't have too."
"The mysterious woman bit just made you more intriguing, you know."
She gave him a wan smile.
"Harry, you're the closest friend I've had in sixteen years. I knew I was probably attractive to you, but in my naiveté I was hoping this would never be an issue."
Harry put his elbows on the table and rested his chin on the backs of his knuckles. "I do believe that is more personal information about yourself than you've ever given me."
Ranma laughed. "Alright, Mr. Potter. You want to know about my life?"
Harry nodded.
"One sec." Ranma got up from the table and went to her room. She came back changed, wearing her favorite Chinese kung fu outfit and a scroll of parchment clasped in her hands. She unrolled it to reveal a map of China and placed it down next to her plate, between the two of them.
"Can you take us to this area?" She pointed just south of Mt. Kinsei in the Qinghai Province in west central China.
"Bayankala Mountains?" Harry asked. "What's there?"
"Answers. I'll show you all about myself and why this would never work, if you're willing to come with me."
"It will take me a bit to figure out how to get there. It's a little far to travel my normal way, and a portkey would take me a while to make."
"How long?"
Harry scratched his head and muttered a few calculations. "Probably about three or four hours."
Ranma raised an eyebrow. "Well?"
Harry hung his head in defeat. "Alright. Let me clear dinner first."
"I'll do that. You work on the magic bit. Can I pack for you? You won't need much."
"You know where everything is?"
"Sure."
It took Harry just over three hours to get it right. He grumbled to himself as he touched his wand to the apple they would use as a portkey (biodegradable and delicious to boot). He closed his eyes and took a deep breath as he murmured the proper incantation and fixed the spot he wanted to be transported clearly in his mind.
"Alright, it's ready. Grab hold, it is set to go in ten seconds." He touched one finger to the surface.
"Good." Ranma handed him a backpack and shouldered her own. She put her finger next to his. "Thanks, Harry."
He shrugged.
Harry felt the familiar pulling of a portkey in action. He'd never traveled this far by one before, so it was a unique experience to watch as the earth sped by underneath. Ranma as being dragged along side, occasionally bumping into him as the apple pulled them to their destination.
When the pulling stopped Harry's feet hit the ground hard. He stumbled forward but stopped as Ranma's hand grabbed his shoulder and kept him from falling. He shrugged out of his pack and set it on the ground, pulling out his wand and shrinking it till it fit in his pocket.
"That's cheating!"
"No, it's practical. You can carry yours if you want, but I'm not nearly in as good shape as you are." Harry looked around. They were standing in a steep valley with sparse vegetation and jagged, snow capped mountains towering above, blocking out most of the light. The air was brisk and cold; come nightfall it would be bitter. In the distance one end of the valley opened up into a green lush plain covered in tree growth. A single line of smoke marred the horizon.
Ranma pointed towards the smoke. "That way."
They didn't speak as they walked. After about an hour they managed to leave the valley. Harry looked around and realized the plain was actually just a large valley. Steep mountains surrounded the entire area, snow capped and forbidding. A couple of tall peaks stood out from the plain some distance away. In the middle of the peaks it looked as if one mountain had been destroyed – only the base and a pile of debris remained where the mountain used to stand. Framed by the tall mountains on either side, the absence highlighted the destruction even more.
"Mt. Horai." Ranma's voice startled him.
She pointed to the pile of rubble. "That used to be called Mt. Horai."
"What happened to it?"
"Remember when I told you my fiancée died in a fight while I was trying to save her?"
"Yeah."
"Well, that was the scene of the fight. We destroyed the mountain trying to kill each other."
Harry just stared, unable to comprehend. "How? I mean..."
Ranma shrugged out of her backpack and dropped it to the ground. She held out the palm of her hand. "Emotions affect the power of your ki. This is pure ki." A small sphere of Ki formed instantly, about the size of a golf ball, pure white and stable. "It has no emotions attached to it. As such, it is infinitely malleable and incredibly useful." The sphere grew to about the size of a bowling ball. "The larger the amount of Ki, the more power it packs. This could probably destroy your apartment building in London."
Ranma knitted her eyebrows and drew in a deep breath. She struck her hand out straight in front of her. The sphere in her hand suddenly enlarged until it was about three feet in diameter. Sweat popped out on her brow. "This could make a crater as big around as a soccer pitch."
The sphere slowly reabsorbed into her hand. Ranma leaned over, slightly out of breath. "As you can see, it takes a lot of work to channel that much ki. But, emotions can sometimes be substituted as a source of energy. Each emotion has a particular color associated with it, and can either add or detract from the destructiveness of the attack."
She stood up straight and looked at the remains of the mountain. "During our fight, we were throwing balls of ki at each other the size of houses. Something that size packs the force of a small tactical nuclear weapon." Her eyes narrowed. "He killed my fiancée. I was in a grief filled rage. Plus, he was just a sadistic bastard, intent on killing everyone I loved."
Harry swallowed. "A small nuke?"
Ranma nodded. "It only took one blast to level the mountain."
"What happened to him?"
"What do you think?" She picked up her backpack and slung it around her shoulder, leaving him behind as she continued on towards the smoke.
"I used to have a fairly normal life, Harry." For the first time since they had met, Ranma was telling Harry about herself. He listened, afraid to interrupt lest she clam up again. They were chatting as they walked, heading towards the smoke in the distance. More accurately, she was talking while he listened. "I take that back. I never had a normal life, but it seemed normal enough to me at the time. My father was a martial artist. He wanted nothing more than to make me the best of my generation."
"You mean there are people better than you?"
"Who knows?" She smirked. "He was so blinded by his own ambitions for me that he didn't consider the consequences. He took me away from my mother when I was only five years old. After that, all we did was travel and train, scouring Japan, Korea, and China for the best martial arts techniques and training methods."
"How long did you travel together?"
"For eleven years. We never stayed in one place longer than a couple weeks, at most."
Harry shook his head. "What about school?"
"I went occasionally, but I missed most of it. My father," she spat the word, "never believed that anything besides martial arts were important."
"Not to disparage your father, but he sounds like an idiot."
"He is. I thought he was the paragon of virtue, because he never let me have friends or any outside influences that would show me how miserable a man he actually is." Ranma sighed. "I didn't realize that my father was an honor-less, spineless, idiot, completely incapable of making rational decisions or looking out for my welfare for a long time." She stopped and picked up a small stone, bouncing it on the palm of her hand. "Where ever we went, my father robbed, cheated, and stole, all in the name of 'training.' He used me as a scapegoat, would sell me off as force labor or engage me to some random family, and then steal me away and run to the next country." She frowned and rolled the stone across her hand.
"By the time I was done traveling with him, I had about six known fiancées, dozens of rivals, and untold numbers of enemies out to cause me pain."
"Jesus, Ranma. I thought I had it bad at the Dursley's."
She chuckled. "I'm sure being locked in a cupboard for the first ten years of your life was not easy, though."
"Yeah, but they mostly ignored me."
"And my old man actively endangered my life. You know I don't like cats, right?"
Harry nodded.
"Do you want to know why?"
"Of course."
She pulled up her sleeves to show fine scratches that lined the sides of her arms. "Remember these?"
"Yeah, you showed them to me once."
"I'm covered in them. My father, in his infinite wisdom, stole a training manual for a sealed martial arts style." She rolled her sleeves back down, calmly rolling the stone around in the palm of her hand.
"A 'sealed' style? What's that?"
"Banned. Like you explained to me – there is some magic that you are never allowed to practice. It has been deemed too inhuman or to evil to be allowed to continue."
Harry nodded. "Unforgivables."
"Yeap. My father got a hold of the equivalent for martial arts. He was chased out of town when they found out he had stolen it, so he never really learned why they shouldn't be practiced. He also wasn't a patient man, so he never bothered to read the manual more than necessary."
Ranma tossed the stone and imbedded it in a nearby tree. "He tried to teach me the Cat Fist."
"Cat Fist?"
"The idea is to allow the practitioner to assume the qualities of a cat. If you master it, you get all sorts of great abilities, like inhuman flexibility, litheness, quickness, reflexes, and the other attributes that make cats such effective killers. You become unbeatable in a fight. The problem is, almost everyone who attempted to learn this style are either killed or goes insane in the process."
"Why is that?"
Ranma took a deep breath. "The training involves throwing a bunch of starving cats in a deep pit, keeping them in there until they become crazed, covering the trainee in fish products, and throwing them into the pit over and over and over."
Harry looked at her aghast. "Your father subjected you to this?"
She nodded grimly. "Repeatedly."
"How old were you?"
"I was ten at the time. Eventually, I become so injured and so terrified of cats that the next time I got thrown in the pit, my mind snapped. I can never remember when it happens, but in essence you become like a cat, mentally. Most people get stuck that way – they believe they are a cat and never revert to human consciousness."
"How did you avoid that, then?" Harry asked.
"I was one of the few lucky ones you hear about. I got a bunch of scars, a phobia that incapacitates me, and an unbeatable fighting style that is worse than useless."
Harry was puzzled. "How is an unbeatable fighting style useless?"
"You can switch between the two states, but you can't control the process. It gets induced because you become so terrified of cats that when ever you see one, you revert to a cat like state."
"What happens if you see a cat now?"
"I've gotten better about it." She laughed. "As a kid I used to run away screaming. It was so bad I couldn't even say the word 'cat.'" She tapped her temple with her forefinger. "I've had lots of therapy since that happened. I no longer sniveling mess, But I'll never like the fuckers."
"I'm sorry, Ranma."
"It isn't your fault. On the bright side, it opened my eyes to what kind of wretched human my father was. He wasn't evil, but just stupid enough to try anything. Being stupid is almost worse than being evil, in some ways. You can respect an evil genius, but a moron will always be a moron. The Cat Fist was just one of his many mistakes, and not even his worst."
She fell silent again, and Harry just followed along behind. They didn't talk for quite a while. Harry concentrated on the scenery, taking in the vistas while mulling over what Ranma had just told him.
When Ranma spoke again it caught him by surprise. "We're almost there."
"Where is it we're going?"
Ranma pointed to a structure just visible in the distance. "The village of the Chinese Amazons." She looked over her shoulder at him. "Just to warn you – this village is comprised of crazy warrior women that treat men no better than slaves. While we are there, you will probably get picked on some."
"What do you mean?"
"They hate men. On general principle, they go out of their way to demean males. The best defense is to do absolutely nothing – don't talk to anyone, don't rise to the bait. Stick with me and you'll be fine."
The village looked more like a fortress. A log palisade ringed the entire compound, with only one gate in or out that was flanked by guard towers on either side. Women with chest armor and bows frowned from on top of the entrance but did nothing to stop the two as they entered the village. The inside of the village was incongruous with the formidable entrance. It wasn't a large place; it had a large central clearing ringed by rows of low, orderly log cabins, each with a small yard and a holding pen for livestock. Everything was very rustic, with the houses having slate shingles and barrels at each corner to catch rain water. Chickens and small children roamed the dirt streets, and live stock bellowed. Curious faces watched from windows as they passed.
Harry guessed it was less than a half a mile in circumference, just enough to hold just over a hundred houses.
Ranma just walked confidently into the village center, towing Harry along behind her. Harry grew increasingly nervous as he noted that the people watching were all armed, fingering their weapons thoughtfully as the pair passed. By the time she stopped walking, pair were loosely surrounded by a circle of women that watched suspiciously. It suddenly occurred to Harry that he hadn't seen a single male since he entered the village.
Harry was startled out of his observation when Ranma began speaking in a language he didn't understand. A few of the women shifted and bounced with nervous excitement, but no one spoke to them. Ranma said something else, her tone harsh and commanding. A young girl with green hair grimaced and nodded before turning on her heels and running towards the other end of the village.
"Ranma?" Harry started to ask a question before she cut him off.
"Shh. Don't speak." She surveyed the crowd, relaxed but alert. "It's okay. They're just shocked to see me."
Presently, the green haired youngster returned, followed by a voluptuous purple headed woman and small troll on a stick. At least, that's what it looked like to Harry. It was about the size of a house elf, with a horribly wrinkled face and long white hair that reached the ground. It bounded forward into the circle and remained balanced on the end of a walking staff, perched on top of the handle.
Ranma murmured a few more things. The troll responded in kind before turning and addressing the rest of the assembled women in a raised voice. What ever she said was disappointing news, because groans went up from the assembled crowd. A few women shot Harry a disgusted look before the circle began to disperse.
Ranma turned to Harry and whispered, "Follow me closely."
It was good to see Ku Lon. For as much pain as she had caused Ranma early on in their relationship, she was one of the few people from her past Ranma kept in contact with and respected.
Ranma watched as Mu Tsu escorted Harry to one of the cushions on the floor. For a one time rival, they got along surprisingly well. He liked the guy. Now that he was married and no longer trying to kill Ranma with every opportunity, he got to appreciate his intelligence and sense of humor.
Ku Lon watched Harry sit as well before speaking to Ranma in Chinese. "Hmm… He's attractive enough. I supposed you could have done worse, Ranma."
Mu Tsu chuckled quietly under his breath while serving tea.
An indignant squawk arose. "Hey, ya old bat, it ain't like that!"
"Oh no?"
"No!"
"Shame." She reached around and smacked Ranma on the ass. "You're depriving some lucky male of a phenomenal physique."
Ranma sputtered, "You old hag!"
Ku Lon whipped her staff out of no where and waved it threateningly at Ranma. "Do I have to give you another lesson in manners?"
Ranma just sniffed. "You could try. I remember very clearly last time you tried to 'put me in my place,' I had to carry you home." Ranma grinned.
Ku Lon just smiled and nodded. "Yeah, that was a good fight." She looked at Harry, clutching her staff. "Not much of a fighter, is he?"
"He's coming along. He'll be decent enough with time. He has other talents."
Ku Lon's eyebrows rose. "Oh, does that mean you've finally accepted fate and moved on?"
Ranma snorted. "Not on your life."
"Are you still holding out hope?"
Ranma didn't answer, but she did nod in Harry's direction. "He's a magic user."
Ku Lon looked over at Harry. "Really?"
"Yeah. A really, really good one, too."
"Interesting."
"Ranma?"
"Yes, Ku Lon?"
"Are you sure you don't want to have some babies? We've got a bevy of young males who'd be willing to help out Ranma the Phoenix Slayer."
Ranma's eye started to twitch, which just sent Ku Lon into a fit of laughter. "Come then, Ranma. Introduce me to your guest."
Ranma gently wrapped one arm around the diminutive martial arts master and gave her a brief hug. "If I didn't respect you so much, I just might have to whoop your ass again."
"Same here, sonny boy."
Harry's eyes adjusted to the dim light in the interior. The man in the white robe showed him to a cushion on the ground and motioned for him to sit. When he did, the man promptly served his a bitter, aromatic tea with a chuckle before withdrawing, moving to the back of the house.
Ranma and were engaging in an animated conversation. The troll looked at Harry and smiled; not a pleasant experience. Harry tried to hide a smirk as he watched Ranma's indignant reaction to being felt up. They continued to chat for some time, glancing over at Harry occasionally. He got the feeling he was the topic of conversation.
He used their chatter as an opportunity to look around the house. It wasn't grand by any sense. It was a simple timber frame construction with Adirondack style siding visible from the inside. The lamps were oil burning – the faint burnt animal fat hung in the air.
Conversation died as Harry saw Ranma wrap an arm around the diminutive figure in a brief hug.
"Harry, I want to introduce you to one of my favorite teachers." Ranma gestured to the woman. "She's older than dirt at this point, but she's still one of the deadliest martial arts masters I've ever met."
The woman used her staff to rap Ranma on the forehead. "That's for being an imprudent whelp." She turned back to Harry. "Forgive me. Ranma tells me a lot about you. It is a pleasure to meet you, Mage." She bowed. "My name is Ku Lon, eldest of the Chinese Amazons and matriarch of the tribe."
Harry was shocked to hear perfect English. He tried to cover his shock by introducing himself. "I'm Harry Potter. The pleasure's all mine." He extended his hand to shake. "How do you pronounce your name again?"
"Ku Lon."
"Colonge?"
Ku Lon shrugged. "Close enough." She looked at him for a bit, her eyes squinting. She walked slowly over to him, peering intensely into his eyes. "What brings you to this remote region of the world, young Mage?"
Harry pointed at Ranma. "She did. She said she had some business to take care of here and also that she wanted to show me some things about her past."
Ku Lon looked over her shoulder at Ranma, carefully evaluating him. "So, have you finally decided to claim a… ?"
Ranma cut her off. "I didn't come here to talk about that now."
"Then what did you come to talk about, Ranma?"
"Curses."
"Ah…" Ku Lon nodded. "I thought as much." She sighed. "Would you like Mu Tsu and Xian Pu's help as well?"
Ranma nodded. "I would appreciate it."
"I will fetch them and the necessary equipment."
"Thank you, Ku Lon."
The old woman waved him off, shuffling towards the back of the house.
"What curses?" Harry asked.
"I'll tell you in a bit." Ranma sat down across from Harry. Ranma asked, "What makes a curse a curse?"
"Well, a curse is considered a curse because of the quality of the adversity it brings. Anything beneficial is usually considered a charm or blessing."
Ranma nodded. "Okay, what kind of curses are you familiar with, Harry?"
Harry rolled his eyes. "You're asking me this?"
"Yeah." She held up her hand. "Not specific spells, but actual types of curses."
"Oh… Hmm." He put scratched his chin for a bit, thinking. "Well, there's magical, spiritual, and supernatural or divine curses."
"What about duration?"
"Most curses are the fast acting types, that do any number of things from causing bad luck to pain, and they take effect instantaneously and usually are short lived in duration. They make up a vast bulk of the curses out there."
"Can you cure them?"
Harry shrugged. "Sure, most curses are easily reversed, if the effects don't dispel on their own."
"What about incurable curses?"
Harry shook his head. "Not too many of those. If it is strong enough to last a lifetime, chances are it would probably be strong enough to considerably shorten that life."
Ku Lon entered into the room again with the long-haired man in the white robe and the tall purple-headed woman from earlier. They both sat down next to Ranma and simply waited. Ranma nodded and said something in Chinese to the new arrivals.
"Harry, have you ever heard of a place called Jusenkyou?"
"You mentioned it before, but outside of that, no."
Ranma stood walked behind the two sitting Amazons. "This," he pointed at the long-haired man in the white robe, "is Mu Tsu. She's his wife, Xian Pu. Two strong Amazons." The two bowed to Harry. Ranma accepted a pitcher of water from Ku Lon. She hefted it. "Cold water." Seeing Harry's look of confusion, she said, "Watch."
With that she poured it over the head of the two sitting Amazons. Harry's brain did a quick double take as they disappeared, leaving a pile of wet clothes crumpled where they had been sitting. The clothing shifted, and out of Mu Tsu's pile a duck climbed out, while a small purple and white cat climbed out of the clothing that occupied the space where Xian Pu had been sitting.
The two animals shook their bodies to rid them of the water. Ranma closed her eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. "Uh. Cats." She blushed. "Sorry Xian Pu."
The cat just shrugged and meowed piteously.
"Ready for the hot water?" Both animals nodded and climbed back into their piles of clothing. Ranma picked up a steaming kettle and poured it into the piles, which rapidly expanded, leaving two slightly wet Amazons in place.
Ku Lon said something to the two; they stood and left.
Harry's brain was calculating furiously. "Corporal transfiguration curses triggered by temperature differences?"
"What?"
"Shape-shifting curses triggered by hot or cold, right?"
Ranma nodded. "Yeah."
"Is it just general temperature or water specific?"
Ranma put the water down and sat. "Fluid specific – anything liquid that's hot or cold can trigger it."
Harry chewed it over. "No cure?"
Ranma shook her head. "No known cure, at least. And…" she sighed, "it's permanent."
Harry blinked. "Ah."
Ku Lon chimed in. "Ah, indeed, young Potter. These curses originate not far from here, in a very powerful place. It is called Jusenkyou, or the Cursed Pools of Sorrow. It is a small valley, dotted with hundreds of pools, each with their own tragic story. First, the pool is born, pure in form but tainted with magic. When something falls into that pool, the pool swallows them and imprints the form into the water's memory. From that point after, any person or animal unfortunate enough to fall in the pool takes to form of whatever drowned in the pool previously. They have been there for thousands of years, claiming victim after victim."
He blanched. "Thousands of years?"
Ranma looked puzzled. "Why would the time matter?"
"It's just that magic that feeds on victims tends to get stronger the longer it sits. Something that has been around that long… It would be inescapable." Harry pinched the bridge of his nose. "Given enough time, it could probably start capturing… other stuff."
Ku Lon nodded. "Some of the pools hold trapped forms that are quite… powerful."
"Like what?" Harry asked.
Ranma answered. "Ghosts, dragons."
Ku Lon joined in, "Mythological creatures, demons."
"Gods," came as a hushed whisper from Ranma.
Harry suddenly found his mouth dry. "Gods?"
Ku Lon and Ranma both nodded.
"Those two?"
Ku Lon replied, "My granddaughter, Shampoo, fell into the Māonìchuan, or Spring of the Drowned Cat. Her husband fell into the Yānìchuan, the Spring of the Drowned Duck."
"Wait…" Harry blinked again. Harry stared at Ranma for a bit before whipping out his wand and shooting a stream of hot water at her. Drenched and still female, she began to wring out her pigtail.
"Does that mean you aren't cursed?"
Ranma re-braided her hair and shook the water from her hands. "Oh, no, I most assuredly have a curse."
"What do you turn into?"
"I fell into the Nyannìchuan, or the Spring of the Drowned Girl."
"Then… shouldn't the hot water turn you back?"
She sighed. "You see, that's the problem. It doesn't anymore."
Harry listened as Ranma told her tale. Born a man, born to be a man among men, Ranma Saotome was raised by her father to be a martial arts prodigy and nothing else. Harry heard about the training, the traveling, and finally, the multiple engagements.
"Wait – Shampoo used to be one of your fiancées?"
Ranma grinned. "Yeah. Man, that brings back memories." She chuckled. "Could you imagine being engaged to someone who one of the most voluptuous women you'd ever met and just happened to transform into the thing you feared most?"
Harry blanched as he thought of being engaged to a dementor. "What happened?"
She shrugged. "As far as I can tell, something happened to me during that fight with Saffron. After Akane died…" she grew quiet for a second before resuming. "Hot water just stopped working."
"Do you know why?"
Ku Lon chimed in at this point. "We have a few theories as to why it happened."
"What are those?" Harry asked.
Ku Lon nodded. "Ranma, if you please?"
Ranma picked up the still steaming kettle and lifted it above her head. She began to pour the water out. Harry watched in fascination as the water left the pot steaming and froze into an icicle before hitting the ground.
"I pushed myself during the fight with Saffron. He was a being of pure fire. My teacher over here," she nodded to Ku Lon, "had taught me a technique that changes your ki into cold."
"The Soul of Ice."
"Right," said Ranma, "That one. Anyway, I used it in a way it had probably never been used to survive that battle. After that battle, my ki was always cold, no matter what. I have to consciously think diverting a small part of my ki to keep a layer of warmth at my skin, or I start to freeze to things."
She pointed to Ku Lon and herself. "One theory we have is that hot water can't reach my skin to change me back because of my unique… condition." She paused. "The other theory is that it is just the magic of Jusenkyo."
"There is a reason the place is called the Pools of Sorrow." Ku Lon let out a sigh. "It is an ancient training ground, and nobody knows the true history of its creation. But, we do know that it was made to test you and that through that testing you would grow stronger."
Ranma nodded. "That's what I believe anyway. I believe that I won't be able to change back until I grow enough in this body to overcome whatever it is that magic is doing to me."
"Ranma?"
"Yeah?"
"How long have you been trapped like that now?"
"Sixteen years, three months, two weeks, one day, fourteen hours and fifty four minutes. Not that I'm counting, or anything."
Ranma sat down next to Harry as he sat on the challenge log in the middle of the village clearing.
"How are you taking it?"
"Better than I thought I would be. I mean, I just learned I've been pining for a woman who's really a man."
"Yeah, well… I can't say I didn't try and stop you."
"You could have just said you were a lesbian. I would have been cool with that."
"Technically, it really isn't far from the truth."
Harry nodded, continuing to stare off into space. "Have you ever…?"
"With a guy?" Ranma asked.
Harry nodded.
"No. Not yet. Hopefully, not ever."
Harry stuck out his hand. "Alright, then. Friends."
"Friends."
Harry grinned impishly. "If you ever change your mind…"
"Go to hell, Harry."
They both started laughing, and neither stopped for a long time.