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HARRY POTTER AND THE JADE DRAGON
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(The sequel to
HP & the Mirror's Gift)
Chapter II
The Magic of the Orient
The Magic of
the Orient
Lies hidden in a quiet street.
We never knew that it was there,
A place where East and West may meet.
On the
last Thursday before school reopened, Harry found himself together
with Ron
and Hermione, weaving through the crowded streets of Diagon Alley.
Their arms were
filled with new spellbooks, and Ron was having a heated argument
with Hermione.
Harry had had no trouble in getting down to London. The Dursleys
had gone away on
vacation, and had parked Harry with old Mrs Figg before they'd
left. Mrs Figg did not
voice any objection when Harry had requested he make a day trip
down to London, and
Harry was so relieved that for once he didn't even mind enduring
the cabbage-smelling
house or the endless photographs of cats he was forced to look
at.
Ron had sent him a small packet of Floo Powder, via Pigwidgeon,
and on the appointed
day, Harry waited till Mrs Figg had left the house for her weekly
visit to the pet shop (to
replenish her supply of cat food), and then threw a handful of
powder into the fireplace,
and set off.
Ron was cross because Hermione wanted to look for a bookstore
where she could buy
some Chinese spellbooks.
"We're only going to be in China for two months, Hermione,"
Ron said impatiently. "It's
not worth it, buying any books. Besides, all the spellbooks are
probably written in Chinese.
You can't possibly learn Chinese in one month - it's a horribly
difficult language."
"There have to be some English translations," said
Hermione firmly. "I've seen references
to a few in some of the library books at Hogwarts."
"That's it - you can just borrow the books from the library,
instead of buying them," said Ron,
pouncing on this. "That'll make more sense. If you buy the
books, you'll just end up using
them for two months and then never touch them again."
"There aren't any Chinese books in the Hogwarts
library," said Hermione. "I would know
if there were."
Harry grinned at Ron.
"Don't forget, Ron, Hermione probably knows every book in the library by now," he said.
"She's nutters," grumbled Ron irritably. "The
weather's sweltering today, and we could be
sitting at Florean Fortescue's now, having ice cream. But no,
she's got to go on this wild-goose
chase. Look at all the books she's holding, she can't possibly
carry any more."
Hermione, however, ignored this, and continued marching determinedly
down the street,
looking at the shops.
They were just passing Ollivander's when the door opened, and
who should come out,
but Professor Lupin and Jeanne. Lupin was looking amused, and
Jeanne was holding a
new wand, and looking absolutely thrilled. She caught sight of
Harry, Ron and Hermione,
and waved the wand at them in greeting, sending sparks shooting
out of it.
"I've got my own wand, at last," she said gleefully.
Lupin smiled at them.
"I heard about the exchange programme," he said, his eyes twinkling, "Congratulations."
Ron was still glowering at Hermione, but Harry grinned and
said, "thanks," while Hermione
beamed at them.
"How did the wedding - " Harry began, but Hermione
suddenly cut in eagerly, "Harry says
you'll be coming with us to China, Jeanne. Is it true? But, surely
you won't be attending
classes with us?"
"It's not confirmed that I'm going, yet," said Jeanne,
smiling, and then, noticing Lupin
glancing at his watch, added, "I'll tell you about it when
school starts. We have to rush
off somewhere now."
"Just a second, Jeanne," called Hermione, as they
were leaving, "Do you know of any
place where I can have a look at some Chinese spellbooks?"
Ron, standing behind Hermione, gazed imploringly at Jeanne
and shook his head vigorously,
but Lupin was already replying, "there's a bookshop a few
streets down, at the corner on
the left. It's called 'The Magic of the Orient'."
Hermione beamed at them, and then stood there, watching as they disappeared into the crowd.
"I think it's so romantic, that they're finally
together, even after all that happened last term,"
she said sentimentally.
"Hermione, you're making my skin crawl," said Ron.
"And forget about the Chinese books.
Let's go to Florean Fortescue's, I saw he's got several new flavours
out"
"We didn't ask them how the wedding went," added
Hermione pensively, ignoring Ron, and
then she turned and started off down the street in the direction
Lupin had indicated.
Ron gave Harry a look of despair, as they turned and followed her.
"The Magic of the Orient" proved to be a small,
decrepit-looking shop, run by a diminutive,
bespectacled Indian man with bright eyes and a neat little moustache.
He was sitting behind
the cash register, wearing an untidily-wound turban, holding a
snake-charmer's pipe, and
playing to a very tired-looking cobra located in a basket in front
of him. At intervals, he
would solemnly refer to a tattered book lying open at his side,
which Harry saw was entitled
"Charming Your First Snake".
The shop did not only sell books. It also contained several
cages of snakes, and a selection
of snake-charmer's pipes of different sizes. Another large cage
contained five little brown
dragons, similar to the one that had delivered the letters to
Harry. The cage was marked -
Trained postal dragons. 30 galleons each. On one long shelf
was an array of ancient-looking
oil-lamps, gleaming dully in the light, with a sign stuck next
to it : "Experienced genies for
sale. Please do not rub; ask for assistance first." In
a corner was a pile of rather mouldy-looking
carpets, all with intricate and colourful patterns on them. Here,
the sign said, "Licensed dealer
for Genuine Flying Carpets. We only stock Persian, Indian, and
Arabian. Dry-clean only."
Next to the sign was a framed certificate, issued by the Ministry
of Magic.
Ron looked suspiciously at the certificate. "I must get Dad to check on this," he muttered to Harry.
Hermione had wandered off to look at the books. Going up to
join her, Harry glanced at some
of the titles : A Beginner's Guide to Levitation; the
Development of the Magical Arts in India;
Fake, Fact, and Fiction : A Fakir's Autobiography. On the
next shelf : Training Your First
Genie - a Step-by-Step Guidebook; How To Take Proper Care
of your Flying Carpet.
"Here's the China shelf!" said Hermione, stopping
at the very last shelf. "Oh," - her face fell a
bit - "Most of them are all in Chinese."
Ron, however, had been distracted by something.
"Look," he said, "they've got games and puzzles herethey've got Chinese Chess!"
He pushed aside a small, cubical box labelled "Chinese
Magic Box" in large letters, and in
smaller letters "Impossible to open, yet simple",
and took a larger, rectangular box out from
underneath. It was marked "Xiang-Qi, Chinese Chess"
and as he picked it up, the pieces
inside all rattled excitedly.
Hermione gave him a withering look, as if dismissing any games
as frivolous, and then turned
back to the books. Harry went over to join her.
"There are some second-hand books in English," he said, bending down.
Hermione, however, was examining a large Chinese - English
dictionary. She flipped through
it, then stopped at one page.
"Look, I've found the Chinese word for swallow, as in
the bird," she said, looking at the
small illustration of a swallow flying around the page in fascination.
She pressed the Chinese
character with her index finger, and the book suddenly said, "yàn!"
in a high-pitched lady's
voice.
Hermione was so surprised that she almost dropped the book.
She pressed the character
again, and the book said, "yàn!" again.
"It's a talking book!" she said excitedly. "That
would solve the problem of learning the
intonation of the words." She flipped to another section,
and pressed another character.
"Shàn," said the dictionary.
"That means good and kind," read Hermione, getting
more excited. Harry could see from
her face that the dictionary was as good as sold.
He stooped down, and randomly took one of the second-hand books
out. It was old
and faded; the title went "Diary of an English Wizard
in China During the Years
1900 - 1907, by Septimus Snufflegint".
Harry flipped through the book, and on one page, the word "shape-shifter" caught his eye.
"During my stay at the Imperial Court, I met several
interesting people, but none
more so than a certain warrior named Wang-Mang. He was known for
his outstanding
bravery, but what was unusual about him was that he had mastered
the Animagus
Transformation to such an extent that he could transform into
virtually any animal
that he wished. On having further speech with him, I learned to
my astonishment that
he had not achieved this state with the same effort that we seem
to require in the west.
The ability had come naturally to him, even as a child. Moreover,
although this talent
added to the respect that the other Chinese accorded him, no one
else seemed as
surprised as I that one should possess such an ability. It seems
that most of the
Chinese believe, from tradition, that such shape-shifters have
existed, through
the centuries, although very rare.
Intrigued by this, I sought permission to examine the Imperial
Library, and after a
long and intensive search, discovered that a record of such shape-shifters
does
indeed exist, although not common, whether in historical archives
or in folklore.
I also later found another piece of information in a book on Chinese
mythology
which was rather interesting :
'For centuries, the people of China have revered the dragon,
believing themselves
in fact to have been descended from that race. The dragon is a
creature of good
who has the power of transformation and brings life-giving rains.
It was a
supernatural creature able to accept any type of form, capable
of morphing
from one form into another within a few seconds' "
"Look at this," said Harry to Hermione, rather excited.
Ron, who was still reading
the instructions on the Xiang-Qi box, also came over to
look.
"It's interesting, isn't it?" said Harry, as the
two of them read the passage. "It makes
sense, then, why Jeanne is a shape-shifter."
"Well, yeah, but that stuff about the Chinese being descended
from dragons, that's
only a myth," pointed out Ron.
"It's still interesting, though," said Hermione,
her eyes shining. "Oh, I think we're so
lucky, travelling to China is going to be such an adventure!"
"We've still got to get through all our usual work at
Hogwarts, though," said Ron
gloomily. "And we've got to take Divination in China as well.
You can't possibly be
excited about that, Hermione."
"Chinese Divination is probably different from ours,"
said Hermione primly. "And
we'll have another teacher. That can make a lot of difference."
She turned back to the books, and Ron wandered back to the
chess-set. Harry, not
finding any other books of particular interest to look at, went
over to watch the Indian
shopkeeper and his cobra.
The cobra, still swaying to the music of the snake-charmer's
pipe, was looking very
disgruntled by now. As it swayed, it hissed something to a small
python which was
coiled up in a cage nearby. Harry found, to his surprise, that
he knew what it was
saying, before he remembered that he understood Parseltongue.
"My back is killing me," the cobra hissed fretfully to the python.
"Bite him, then," replied the python, looking unperturbed.
"I can't," groaned the cobra. "He removed all my venom this morning."
At this moment, Hermione came up to the counter with a pile of books in her arms.
"I'll take all these," she said, smiling brightly at the little shopkeeper.
The shopkeeper put his pipe aside, and put a hand up to reposition
his turban,
which had become slightly askew.
"Ah, you are interested in China?" he said, looking at the pile of books.
"We're going there on an exchange programme," said
Hermione importantly. Ron
had reluctantly concluded that he couldn't afford the Chinese
Chess set, and had
come over to join them.
Hermione paid up, and as she gathered up her books, the shopkeeper
said,
"Next time, you must visit India as well - "
There was suddenly a loud, cracking sound coming from the python's
cage,
succeeded by a ripping noise. The shopkeeper broke off in mid-speech,
looked
over at the cage, and gave a falsetto screech of horror.
The cobra had managed to nudge the snake-charmer's pipe over
to the python's
cage, and the python had crushed the pipe in its coils. It lay
there, humming cheerfully
to itself, ripping the pipe into small pieces, and throwing them
out one by one with
flicks of its tail. The cobra, in the meantime, was grimly shredding
'Charming Your
First Snake' into small strips of paper.
The little Indian man promptly went into a fit of hysterics,
and started screeching at the
two snakes in rage. Ron and Hermione, leaving the shop after Harry,
were wondering
why Harry was doubling over in a fit of helpless laughter.
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