Stone Pinions

By Lochar

Disclaimer: Look, we've been through this, what, 30 or so times now? If I didn't own it then, I don't own it now. Unless you give me to deed to it.

Chapter 8: Sight, or lack thereof:


"Hmm," Professor Maison was thoughtful. "I've never actually heard of anyone taking the saying literally before." He looked at Harry. "You say you found out how your eyes work, by looking through a window to your soul?"

"Not exactly." Harry disagreed. "It's more like I'm on the soul side of the window, looking out."

"Very interesting." Maison paced a moment, before turning back to Harry. "Unfortunately, I've never had to teach someone who's found how they see quite like you have, Harry. I'm going to have to write to Uzuki to find out what he knows. Until I find out what he suggests, I'm not going to be able to teach you to see Chi."

Harry sat down on the mats, his shoulders slumping. "Bugger all, and I really wanted to learn it, too."

"Don't worry mate, a quick owl there and back and Professor Maison should be able to teach you next week." Ron spoke up from where he was sitting against one of the walls.

"Unfortunately, Mr. Weasley, it's not as simple as that. Harry's Sensei is a Muggle, so I must send him a message through the Muggle post. Getting a message to him isn't hard, but receiving the reply takes a very long time usually."

Ron opened his mouth, probably to say something about Sensei Uzuki not being a Muggle, but Hermione elbowed him in the side. Ron turned his head and glared at Hermione who glared right back.

Ron subsided after a few moments, apparently catching her unsaid words, then looked back to Harry and Maison. Hermione turned to face the mats as well.

"I…see." Maison said.

Harry ignored the byplay between his two friends, instead attempting to sidetrack his professor. "So, if I can't learn Chi Sight, what are we going to do today, Professor Maison?"

Maison turned his attention back to Harry. "Actually, I was planning on teaching you this after you learned the Sight, but since we can't do that, we might as well move forward."

Maison walked back to his desk, taking his wand from on top of it. He then tapped the back wall, causing it to shimmer before fading away, leaving an opening.

"Weapons training." Maison turned and said. "Come here, Harry, and pick a single weapon. Every weapon in here I can at least teach you the basic and intermediate skills for, and with a few I can take you all the way to a Master's level."

Harry grinned and quickly went to Maison, with Ron and Hermione standing up and following to see what all there was.

Ron let out a low whistle, looking at the cache. "That's a lot of weapons, Professor."

"Indeed. And they are not children's toys to play with." Maison told Ron, before pinning Harry with a look. "And you will not be using any of these except when I am here, until I deem you at least at an intermediate level with your chosen weapon."

Harry nodded, eyes serious. "Yes sir." He turned back to the weapon cache, looking it over. There were almost a dozen different types of swords, a dagger that was almost as long as his forearm, a pair of smaller daggers, and a small axe. All were wickedly sharp; Harry could tell just from the gleam of their edges.

He grabbed one of the swords, one with a simple hilt and a medium length straight blade.

"A Tai Chi blade? Interesting choice." Maison noted.

Harry held the blade a moment longer, before putting it back into the weapons cache. "It doesn't seem… right, somehow."

"Oh?" Maison raised an eyebrow. "And does anything in there seem right?"

He looked the weapons over again. "Not really, sir, no. You can't not hurt someone permanently with these. Is there something I can learn that won't hurt like that unless I make it hurt?"

"Something defensive?" Maison queried.

Harry thought about that. "Sort of. Is there anything that can be used both ways? Attack and defense?"

"Ah, I think I know what you want." Maison tapped the axe with his wand, causing the blade to fall off the haft. Grabbing the haft, he handed it to Harry. "Hold this." Harry did so, unsure of what he was supposed to do with it. "Let me see…" Maison tapped the tip of the haft in Harry's hand, then drug his wand up in the air. "Needs to be longer, on both sides." The small stick grew quickly, reaching down to touch the ground.

"A staff should be just slightly taller than its wielder. And with magic, the right size is easy to get." Maison noted, as the staff stopped growing when it touched his wand, slightly above Harry's head. "How is the grip? Your hand should go around it just enough for your fingers to touch your palm."

Harry set his hands around the staff. "Not thick enough, I think Professor."

Another go around by Maison's wand with the staff was enough to thicken it to the point that Harry was comfortable with it.

Maison looked at Ron, who was staring at all the weapons still in the cache. "Mr. Weasley." Ron turned around. "While you may look all you want, touching anything sharp will see you permanently removed from here while your friend is training."

Ron nodded, looking a little forlorn. "Yes sir."

"That doesn't mean I might not teach you one day, but you will have to get to a level with marital arts that I don't fear you hurting yourself or others. And I don't mean a level of using Chi, but your skill level period."

Ron went back to the far wall, where he sat down to resume watching. Hermione was already sitting again, and she'd pulled out a book from her bag and was reading it.

"Staves are something I can bring you close to mastery with, I just didn't expect you to want one. So, let's start with the very basics. How to hold your staff without getting it knocked out of your hands." Maison said to Harry. "From the center of the staff, place your hands about a third of the way towards the end. One hand over, the other holding under the staff."

Harry set his hands as he was told, finding the grip he took on the staff easy to hold.

"After just about any move you make, you should be able to return to this grip once you're done." Maison continued. "Now, the basic movement with a staff."

Harry frowned. "Basic movement? I know how to move, Professor."

"You may know how to move, Harry, but do you really think you would be able to go through your forms holding that staff? How are you going to change a punch into a strike with your staff then?" Maison stood there, waiting on Harry's response. "Try if you like, it will show me how well you are able to improvise at least."

Harry thought for a moment, and then took up a stance. Holding his hands roughly in the same place as when he sparred barehanded, he pushed out his trailing hand, letting the staff whip out in front of him.

CRACK!

And then dropped the staff, holding his head from where the extra length of the other end had hit him.

"As you can see, your normal moves are not as useful with a staff; there are a whole different set of movements you must use with one." Maison grabbed the staff from the ground, and then held it out to Harry. "Care to try again?"

Grinning ruefully, Harry took the offered staff and waited.

Maison quickly transfigured another staff for himself from his weapon cache. "Let's begin. When you make a high strike with your staff, you need to turn your body more like this, allowing the swing to complete, and it also adds more strength to the hit." Maison demonstrated, his own staff whistling through the air as he turned slightly with the staff. "The end of the staff closest to you should never reach above your ribcage when you are making an attack, otherwise you run the risk of your opponent doing to you what you did to yourself, which is getting around the attack and making you try to crack your own skull."

Harry rubbed his head again, feeling the small lump he'd managed to create on himself.

"Your side or leg can absorb much more damage than your head can, and the staff end that you hit yourself with doesn't have the power behind it your original strike does either."

After twenty more minutes of slowly working through each new change to his attack, Ron stood up, stretching.

"Watching isn't as exciting as it usually is, Harry. I'm going to go see what Neville's up to."

Harry stopped for a moment, turning to his friend. "Have fun." He looked between him and Hermione. "We're still going to practice after dinner tonight, right?"

"Yeah." Ron said, while Hermione looked up from her book, adding her confirmation before looking back down and continuing to read. Ron then walked out of the classroom.

Harry continued to follow his professor's instruction for the next few hours, as he gradually moved through each different strike and block he could do with a staff.

Finally Professor Maison called a halt, and Harry gratefully sunk to the ground, sweating profusely.

"I think that's enough for today, I know I've worked you hard."

Harry nodded, gulping air. "Heh, it was a lot harder controlling any of my movement with the staff."

"Yes, because you were not used to the weight of a weapon, and the balance required to hold it. You will eventually get used to its weight, and in a normal spar or even a fight, you would not have to go for a few hours at a time so fatigue would not be as much a problem as it is today." Maison explained.

Standing up, Harry handed the staff back to his professor. Maison took it with a nod, and placed it inside the weapon cache and then placed his own staff next to Harry's.

"Professor?" Harry started.

"Yes?"

"Could we borrow your classroom for the evening after supper?" Harry asked. "It's a lot easier to work in here when you've got the mats made than it is trying in the Gryffindor common room."

Maison nodded thoughtfully. "I see. I will be busy tonight, but I will leave the room available for you. Don't overexert yourself and fall behind on your studies though."

"Don't worry, Professor Maison, we won't." Hermione added from where she was packing her book back into her bag. "I'll make sure of it."

"Then enjoy yourselves." Maison said.

"I think I'll have to take a shower when we get back to the tower." Harry commented as they walked out of the classroom.

Walking next to him, Hermione scrunched her nose. "Definitely."

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Everyone was finishing up supper, when Harry looked to his friends. "You guys ready to go?"

Hermione nodded. Ron took another bite of food before nodding as well.

Harry looked around the table for a moment. "Elly?" He asked, looking at the back of the red-haired girl's head.

She started, and then turned to face Harry. "Um, sure. But I'm Ginny, remember?"

"Oh, sorry Ginny. I don't know why I keep calling you that. I'll beat it into my head eventually." Harry grinned then hit himself in the head. "Ginny, Ginny, Ginny. Get it right brain."

Ginny giggled for a moment, and then stood up with Harry and the others. "Where are we going?" She asked as they walked out of the hall and towards a different part of the school.

"Professor Maison's classroom." Harry told her. "He's the Muggle Studies teacher, and he's been the one teaching me martial arts while I'm here."

"Oh."

They walked in silence for the next few minutes, until they finally reached the classroom. Harry opened the door, leading his friends in. Professor Maison had either left the classroom the way it had been, or transfigured the classroom back to the mats. Either way, the classroom was still set up perfectly.

Harry sat down on the mats, facing his friends. "Alright, have any of you ever meditated before?" He asked, not expecting a positive reply. He was therefore not surprised when he received three "No's" in quick response, as they sat down as well.

"OK, it took me a while to learn, so I don't expect you guys to get this today. We've only got a few hours until curfew, so we have to be back at the tower before then. I didn't bring my cloak, and I don't think Professor Maison would want us in here past curfew anyways." Harry said. "Now, close your eyes."

Harry watched as they did so before speaking again. "Imagine a blank space in your mind. It doesn't matter what size it is, but don't let anything into it. No pictures, no sounds, no thoughts; nothing. And hold it that way for a few minutes." He grinned as he watched them struggle with it, all of their faces screwed up in concentration. It was easy enough, in theory, but telling yourself not to do or think something in itself usually made it happen.

Harry sat there for the next hour and a half, watching them fight their own minds for a bit of space with nothing in it. Ginny had been the first to open her eyes and grin at him, opening her mouth to speak before Harry cut her off. He got up and moved to her, whispering quietly. "Don't talk too loud, you'll break their concentration. Did you get it?"

She nodded, whispering back. "It was really hard." She rolled her neck, and Harry could hear it pop. "How long were we trying anyway?"

"About an hour and a half, I think." Harry replied quietly, looking at his watch. "Next step is to see how quickly you can get back that blank space. It should be easier, but unless you can bring it back almost immediately, it's not good enough for what we're trying to do."

Ginny sighed. "Great, more staring at the back of my eyelids." She closed her eyes again and Harry moved away from her. He grabbed a piece of blank parchment from the top of Professor Maison's desk, and wrote down the time on it.

He repeated the same conversation when Hermione and then Ron managed to create and hold their own blank space. Finally, he noticed it was getting very close to curfew, so he spoke up very loudly. "Wake up, you three."

Their reactions were varied. Ron was startled enough to jerk like he actually had been sleeping, and he slipped backwards onto his back. Hermione's eyes flew open, looking around. Ginny managed to hold herself together enough that she calmly opened her eyes, but Harry could tell she was still shaken a little.

Harry looked at each of them, before speaking. "Question time. How many times were you able to bring it back after the first time and hold it?"

Hermione's shoulders slumped. "Only twice. I managed it once, doing it again should be easy." She seemed to be berating herself.

Harry didn't say anything as he marked it down next to her time.

Ron looked at her. "I got it three, and the third time was right before Harry shouted at us. That's what made me jump, by the way." Ron gave a friendly glare at Harry, who laughed and wrote his down.

"Um, five times?" Ginny said quietly.

Harry wrote hers down, and then did the quick math in his head before speaking up. "Well, after you guys managed it the first time, I wrote down the time so I could figure out about how quickly you could do it again. Ginny, you managed it once every nine minutes. Ron, you were every eleven and Hermione managed to do it in fifteen." Harry spoke again before they could say anything. "That includes however much time you spent holding it, so if you held it for five minutes each time, that cuts down the time it actually took."

Hermione sat there thoughtful, before asking a question. "How do we know how long we were holding it anyways? My sense of time was messed up while I was doing it."

Ron and Ginny voiced their agreement.

"That's solved in a later lesson." Harry answered. "We've gotta get back to the tower, we're really close to curfew." He stretched, popping several of his own joints in the process. "You all actually did better than I did when I first learned this; it took me several days to make that blank spot." He laughed. "Of course, I went for broke and made my blank spot take up just about all of my mind. How big did you all make yours?"

They all thought for a moment, before Ron answered. "Mine was about the size of a Galleon, I guess." Ginny said hers was only the size of a quill point, but Hermione's answer surprised him. "I don't know. About a quarter of what I imagined to be the space in my mind?"

Harry started at that. "Wow. That's really good Hermione." She grinned at the praise. "That's actually the next step. Once you guys can call up that spot immediately, you have to make it somewhere between a third and half of the space in your mind."

"Anyways, let's get out of here before we're breaking curfew. With my luck, Filch will find us and we'll all get detention." Harry laughed as he left the classroom, his friends quickly leaving as well.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

It was a few days later during breakfast when the owl post flew in. Harry ignored it like usual and was surprised to find his own snowy white owl swooping in to land on his shoulder. She dropped an envelope into his lap before nipping his ear.

Harry grabbed a piece of bacon from his plate and fed it to her before looking at his letter. Scrawled in Dudley's handwriting was his name. Surprised, he cleared a space on the table before moving Hedwig from his shoulder.

Harry regarded his owl with a questioning look. "You know girl, I don't think I sent you back there last night to check to see if Dudley had written his reply. You been getting some extra flight time?"

Hedwig just preened herself and ignored the question.

"Guess so. Thanks Hedwig." Harry petted his owl for a moment, before looking to his letter again. Hedwig stole another piece of bacon before flying off.

Opening the letter, Harry looked it over.

Hey Harry,

The next couple of paragraphs had been crossed out, but he could still read some of it. Dudley hadn't managed to get it completely, but according to Sensei Uzuki, he was getting close. Then he got to the part that hadn't been crossed out.

Don't bother will that junk above this, I finally got it! Since it's been a couple of weeks since you sent me that letter, I guess you've probably got it too. How'd you manage to see Chi? Me, I had to channel my Chi through and then in front of my eyes, so that it lit up Sensei Uzuki's Chi aura when I looked at him. Did you know he's got an absolutely huge aura? He also knows how to hide part of it, so it doesn't blind us when we're practicing. It's really neat, actually, but hard to keep doing for a long time. If I can hold it though, it makes it easier to see what the other students are doing with their Chi when we spar.

Also, Rico said he was going to start me on weapon training after Sensei left. He let me pick out the weapon I wanted to start with already too. I don't know what it's called, but the hilt on it is almost exactly like the hilt that was made from your blown up wand. It's got a long, thin, straight blade and it's really light. It's gonna be fun to use, I think.

Speaking of that hilt, do you think you could try to get another one? A few days ago, it stopped absorbing my Chi, and I can't make it absorb anymore. Did I fill it up, you think? What am I supposed to do to drain my Chi easily now? I'll end up destroying the punching bag or spending hours hitting it. Guess I'll just have to make sparring at The Dojo or with Rico really count.

Anyways, write back. I'll leave this letter out in the tree for your owl to pick up. I'll keep an eye out for it to bring back your reply.

Dudley

He started grinning as he read through the letter, and then frowned when he got to the part about the hilt. Harry shrugged, thinking there wasn't much he could do, since Mr. Ollivander was the one who'd created it.

Harry paused, rereading the first paragraph again. "Oh cool, a description of Dudley's Chi sight. Wonder if I can use it?" Harry whispered to himself.

"Who's the letter from, Harry?" Ron asked from across the table where he was still eating.

"My cousin, Dudley." Harry replied. "It looks like he managed to get ahead of me in part of our class. I'm not surprised, actually, since he's got more lessons than I do right now."

Ron shrugged. "Either way." He shoved a last bite of eggs into his mouth and swallowed before speaking again. "Come on, we've got Transfiguration next, and I'm going to be ahead of both of you for once. Then you can be behind here, too." Ron grinned as he suddenly got up from the table and ran off, laughing as Harry chased after him.

Hermione laughed at the both of them as she stood up. "Boys." She ruefully shook her head as Harry and Ron raced out of the Great Hall. She looked to Ginny, who was also watching the two of them run off. "Bye Ginny, enjoy your classes."

Ginny looked at Hermione quickly, before looking back to the now empty exit where Harry and Ron had run through. "I will. Your and Harry's notes from last year are making classes easy so far. Thanks for them again, by the way."

"No problem. If you have any trouble, ask one of us, alright?" Hermione added. Ginny just nodded before looking down at her food again. Hermione walked off after Ron and Harry.

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

That evening Harry managed to claim one of the overstuffed chairs and had backed it up into the corner, away from the portrait entrance and the stairs into the dorms, putting it against the wall where Hermione was making Ron study from one of their schoolbooks. He closed his eyes and drifted through the Void, calling up the image of his eyes again. Carefully, he sunk into the pupil once more and found himself in front of the window that was his sight.

"Let's see." Harry said, looking at the window. "If the window is how I see, Dudley said he channeled his Chi through and then in front of it. So, I should channel my Chi through the glass, and I guess in front of it is right on the other side of the window?"

Harry channeled a small amount of his Chi to where he was currently. He felt his Chi surge, but instead of going into his arms or legs, he actually felt it move up in his body to being almost physically right behind his eyes. "I guess that's right."

Slowly, he pushed it through the glass window, allowing it to fill the whole area, before pushing it through the window. Mentally, his shoulders slumped when he felt the Chi just fade away once it was outside the window.

"Maybe I'm not using enough Chi." Harry guessed. Dipping deeper into his personal well of Chi, he brought a much larger amount to bear. His head actually felt like it was buzzing for a moment, before he channeled it into the window, allowing all of it to infuse the window before he pushed it again out of the window and layering it on the other side.

Not feeling it immediately drain away, he opened the window hoping to see something through the Chi. The common room was fuzzy, but was quickly coming back into focus. Harry groaned to himself as he realized it was coming back into focus because the Chi was draining away. It was just taking a longer time since there was so much more of his Chi, and it had been draining from the other side, where he couldn't feel it going away.

Closing the window, the sight of the common room faded away as he quietly thought about it.

Mentally weighing his remaining Chi, Harry was surprised to find he'd already used almost a quarter of it up. He looked back to the window again, studying it carefully, trying to seeing what else he could find out about it.

The slightly marred and warped sides of the window frame were perfectly matched for the window itself. There didn't seem to be anything special about it, so he decided to look around the rest of the 'room' he was in.

The room was actually completely bare, with the window the only visible change to the whole thing. If it had been a normal room, he would have had to actually climb out the window to leave it.

"Maybe I can use the room to store Chi to keep it all from draining away?" He asked himself. "No worse than any other idea I've had."

Channeling about half of his total Chi reserves, he allowed it to pool into the room instead of forcing it all through the window. Again, he infused the window with a portion of it, and then pushed that part through the window outside of it. This time though, he pushed more of the pooled Chi into the window as well. After waiting a few moments and not feeling any drain away, Harry grinned and opened the window again.

"Yes!" He cheered to himself. His vision was extremely fuzzy and indistinct, but he thought he might see something. And then it started draining away again. "No..." his voice was dejected, but he pushed more of his Chi into it, shoring up the draining energy, but it kept falling away.

Dejected and tired, he closed the window again after all of the pooled Chi was gone.

"Great, now I've got only a little bit of Chi left, and I really don't feel wasting anymore. I was so close."

He left the Void and rose up, opening his eyes for real this time and focusing for a moment on what Hermione was saying to Ron.

"I heard that Professor Hawaa used the Conjunctivis Curse on the sixth year Defense class." She was saying.

Ron looked puzzled and asked the question Harry was about to ask as well. "What's that one do?"

"It magically blinds you to where you can't see. It's a really high-level curse, especially to use against a student." Hermione answered Ron's question.

Ron shrugged. "She told us it's all a live fire test. As long as she can reverse it, I don't see what the problem with it is."

"That's not what I mean. I'm trying to tell you we need to study more of the counter curses and such. I looked at the parts of the book that the sixth years are using. It was mentioned once, not by name, and then only in passing. So that means any spell that might even be mentioned in the part of the book she's using for second year could be used on us." Hermione patiently told Ron, which explained to Harry why she was pushing a lot of the more unusual spells and their counters on them.

Hmm, magically blinding? I wonder if I could do magical sight to counter it?

Curious if it was possible, Harry again went into the Void, quickly finding himself back in the window room.

"Alright you, if I can't get Chi to work, let's see what magic can do." Harry grinned at the window, before channeling a decent amount of his magic into the room, allowing it to pool around him. "Huh?" Harry touched his magic, sensing there was a thread leading out of it, and then laughed. "My wand!" Quickly, he removed the connection to his wand, allowing the sense of it to vanish.

"Now, let's see if I can do a magical sight better than Chi."

Slowly, he infused the window in front of him with his magic, allowing all of it to stay there. As soon as he was finished and quit channeling magic into the window, the magic itself seemed to come alive!

Part of his magic pushed out of the window itself, into the frame, and wrapped itself up in the frame, correcting all of the marring and warping that was in it. The magic that was still in the glass itself corrected the window, making it match the new frame before it seemed to invert itself, as though it wasn't actually attached to the window any longer but was still in the same place.

Harry cautiously felt for his magic, only to find it was no longer 'his' magic; instead it seemed to be a part of the window and frame. Slowly, he opened the window just slightly, only for a bright light to spill in. He quickly shut the window again.

"Bloody hell, I screwed up." Harry sighed. "Time to go find out how badly, maybe Madam Pomfrey can fix it quickly."

Leaving the room and rising up through the Void, Harry left there as well, but didn't open his eyes. Even with them closed, it seemed like there was a very high amount of light in the room. Gingerly, Harry opened his eyes, only to be blinded by the glaring light coming from everywhere, even the walls and floor. He slammed his eyes shut, but opening his eyes once seemed to have started a tidal wave, and the light grew in intensity, even through his closed eyes.

Harry threw an arm over his eyes, screaming out, "Too bright!"

His voice seemed to attract even more of the light, and two of the brightly lit shapes came a bit closer to him. "Get away!" Harry grabbed at the energy inside him, not caring if it was magic or Chi and pushed everything away from him.

Ron and Hermione, for that was who the two shapes had been, were flung half-way across the room and were barely caught by some of the older students. Ron immediately got up and ran to Harry.

Harry, only seeing the bright light getting closer to him, lashed out again, this time throwing Ron all the way to the staircase leading to the girls' dorm, which promptly sounded an alarm and turned into a slide, which slid Ron to the floor, dazed.

Harry fell to the ground, covering his eyes with both arms, groaning. "Too bright." He whimpered.


And now we learn why you really need to do things like this under supervision. Think Harry's going to learn his lesson?

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