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HARRY POTTER AND THE JADE DRAGON
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(The sequel to
HP & the Mirror's Gift)
Chapter V
The Hall of A Thousand Dragons
...The dragon,
floating in watery vapours, like a dense mist,
with thunder-roll and lightning-flash, high aloft he races;
Mounting the void, treading the dark sky,
Racing the wind, driving the rain, he wanders without end.
~ Ch'u Tzu,
The Songs of the South
Harry
lay where he was for a few seconds, then sat up. A mischievous-looking
ghost was swooping out of the side corridor. He had a sack in
his hand, which he
suddenly pulled open. Another blast of air came out of it, pushing
the students in
front of him back down the corridor.
Harry, feeling himself being blown away again, held on to the
thick carpet under him,
which fortunately seemed firmly attached to the floor. The broken
pieces of a blue
and white vase that had been on the table lay all about him. The
pieces were being
blown away in the wind, and he desperately stuck a leg out to
block them from doing so.
The ghost swooped around, laughing nastily. He seemed about
to pull his sack of wind
open again, when another ghost came flying down the corridor.
He was carrying a bow
and wore a quiver of arrows, and he had a fiery object like a
small burning sun in his
hand. Aiming quickly, he threw the fiery ball at the mischievous
ghost.
The Wind Ghost swore in Chinese, and dodged the ball. Clutching
his sack of wind,
he tore away down the corridor in the direction of the Pagoda.
The fiery ball swung
around and came back to rest in the hand of the Archer, who then
hurtled down the
corridor after the other ghost.
Shan and the others, who had been in front and beyond the reach
of the wind, now
came back to help Chee Chong, Ron, Pixie and Hermione up.
"The naughty ghost was Fei Lian," said Shan, brushing
dust off Hermione's robes,
"and the archer is Shen Yi. He is the only one who can keep
Fei Lian in check."
"We have a ghost like that at Hogwarts," said Ron. "You'll get to meet him."
Harry had returned the overturned table to its original position,
and was looking
at the broken vase in dismay. Robert, however, had come over to
him. Taking his
wand out, he pointed it at the pieces, and muttered something
in Chinese. The
pieces flew back up onto the table and together into one vase
again, looking as
good as new.
Harry looked at Robert with dawning respect.
"Thanks," he said.
Robert just gave a small smile, and then went back to Shan's side.
They started off toward the Hall again. The door they were
approaching appeared
to be a side door, for on going in they saw groups of students,
in their robes of
green, yellow, white, black and red, entering through the larger
main entrance to
the left.
Hermione grabbed Harry's arm.
"Look at the walls and ceiling!" she exclaimed.
Harry looked up. The ceiling and upper walls were alive with
movement. They
were covered with frescoes of hundreds of glittering golden dragons
and phoenix,
all flying and swooping around in an endless dance. He watched
them for a while,
then felt dizzy, and looked down again.
Pixie giggled. "Pretty, aren't they?"
The Hall of Dragons was almost as large as the Great Hall at
Hogwarts. It was
filled with round tables, in five groups, each group having tablecloths
in the colour
of its respective House. Shan was leading them to their table
which was with Green
Dragon House, and had a forest green tablecloth. To Harry's dismay,
Yu-Lin,
Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle were already seated there, not looking
too pleased.
Yu-Lin obviously hadn't been able to get a separate table for
the four of them.
The boy students sitting at the other tables all turned to
look at Pixie as she passed
them. She gave them a beaming, coquettish smile, leaving them
all looking rather
weak in the knees, and joined the others at the green table.
"Your friend Chien-Mei is coming," she said to Ron, as they sat down.
Ron looked puzzled.
"Chien-Mei?" he said. "Who's that?"
Pixie giggled.
"Don't you know her Chinese name?" she asked. "I mean, Jeanne."
Harry turned around. He couldn't see Jeanne at first, until
she had almost come
right up to them. In Hogwarts, she had always stood out because
she looked
Chinese, but here she blended in with the crowd.
"How are you all getting along?" she asked, smiling.
"Wonderfully," purred Pixie, giving Ron a sidelong
glance. Hermione looked
disgusted.
"I didn't know your name was Chien-Mei," said Harry,
looking at Jeanne in
surprise.
"The Chinese gave me that name, in Russia," explained
Jeanne. "It's easier for
them to use that, here."
Shan looked up at her and smiled.
"Are you sitting with us?" she asked hopefully.
Jeanne shook her head.
"Lady Wen-Li told me to join her table," she said.
She noticed little Robert,
next to Shan, and put a hand on his shoulder.
"How are you, Robert?" she asked, looking at him fondly.
Robert looked up at her, his glasses reflecting the surroundings.
"OK," he replied mildly.
Jeanne noticed Lady Wen-Li going over to the teacher's table.
"I'd better go," she said. "I'll see you later."
"Join us for Jousting again!" called Shan, as Jeanne turned to go.
Malfoy smiled slyly as he watched Jeanne walking off.
"She obviously has a thing for wizards in shabby robes,"
he drawled, looking
insolently at Robert.
Robert looked as deadpan as ever, but Shan flushed, and looked
angry.
However, she obviously considered Malfoy to be a guest in her
school,
and said nothing.
Harry wasn't so restrained. Malfoy was giving Hogwarts a bad name.
"Shut up, Malfoy," he said angrily.
Hermione hurriedly tried to smooth things over.
"What is all this about Jousting?" she quickly asked Shan.
Fatty chuckled.
"It's one of our sports," he said. "Shan and
Robert are Jousting Queen and
King of Tian-Long. They are why Green Dragon have won the Golden
Dragon
the last four years in a row."
Shan went rather pink, but Robert looked as expressionless as ever.
Malfoy looked disbelievingly at tiny Robert. He obviously didn't
think Robert
capable of performing a useful role in any sport.
"Right, but what is Jousting?" asked Ron, looking rather bewildered.
Pixie gave her customary giggle.
"It's duelling in the air," she said. "On dragons.
One student controls the dragon,
and the other student tries to unseat their opponent."
Malfoy looked disbelieving.
"On dragons?" he said. "How can anyone sit on a dragon?"
"We use the Common Bronzebacks for that," said Shan,
ignoring Malfoy, and
looking at Hermione. "The wild ones are dangerous, of course,
but those reared
by the school are tame. If you feed them a certain herb, they
won't be able to
produce fire for a while, so they're quite safe."
Lady Wen-Li had stood up at her table. She raised a hand for
silence, then
began speaking to the students in Chinese.
"She is announcing your arrival here," whispered
Fatty to the Hogwarts students.
"You must stand up and bow."
The students in the Hall were all looking at them now. Lady
Wen-Li smiled and
nodded at them.
Feeling rather embarrassed, Harry and the others got to their
feet and bowed.
The students all clapped enthusiastically.
Lady Wen-Li now pointed her wand at a huge gong nearby, and
a bolt of light
flew toward it, hitting it and producing a deep, resonant sound.
Dishes of food appeared on the circular tray in the middle of
the table, and
bowls of rice appeared in front of each person with a small pop!
To Harry's
relief, Pixie was behaving herself, and was filling Ron's plate
with food. A
Chinese soup spoon came along with the chopsticks, and Ron was
managing
to survive by shovelling his rice onto the spoon and then eating
from that.
"You will not win the Jousting this year," said Yu-Lin
in a superior tone, looking
at Robert, who was sitting next to her. "Yellow Dragon has
two excellent new
Jousters whom you will find hard to beat."
Fatty chuckled, his small eyes disappearing into two slits.
"I've seen them, Yu-Lin," he said in his sing-song
voice. "They are good, but
they still cannot beat Lin Li-Shan and Robert Mo. That's why we
call Robert
Mighty Mo. Right, Robert?"
Robert looked as impassive as ever, and didn't reply. He didn't
seem to be very
hungry, and was just picking at his food.
Yu-Lin gave a disdainful smirk.
"Midget Mo, I would rather say," she said,
in a sneering tone. Then she looked
at Robert and said something in Chinese, so that Harry and the
other Hogwarts
students couldn't understand, but which sounded insulting enough,
in tone.
Harry expected Shan to rush to Robert's defence, as usual,
but to his surprise, the
Chinese students all seemed to be looking at Robert and holding
their breath.
Shan's lips twitched, as if she was trying not to laugh.
Robert looked impassively at Yu-Lin. Then, he lowered his gaze,
and looked
at Yu-Lin's plate, which was covered with vegetables.
Yu-Lin also looked down at her plate, and then she suddenly
leapt up in fright,
screaming for all she was worth. The phoenix on her shoulder gave
a startled
squawk, and tried flying away, but was unable to, because of the
golden cord
binding its leg.
There was a sudden silence in the Hall. Everyone had turned to look at Yu-Lin.
One of the teachers came over from the teacher's table. She
was not very tall,
but she had a very firm mouth and a direct gaze. She was dressed
in dark blue
robes, and a small, sparkling crystal ball hung on a chain round
her neck.
She snapped something at Yu-Lin in Chinese. Yu-Lin, still trembling,
started
talking shrilly and pointed at Robert, and then at her plate of
vegetables.
The dark blue witch fingered her crystal ball, and looked at
it. Little lights
appeared in the ball, shimmering for a while, then disappeared.
The witch then
said something coolly to Yu-Lin, who went rather red, and was
silent.
The witch stared coldly at Yu-Lin for a moment, then went back
to the teacher's
table. Yu-Lin returned to her seat. She seemed frightened of Robert
now,
refusing to look at him, and sitting as far away from him as she
could, at the
edge of her seat. She would not touch her vegetables, either.
The Hogwarts students all looked mystified. Malfoy looked at
Robert with
narrowed eyes, but refrained from making any more insulting comments.
Robert looked as calm as ever, and continued picking at his
food. Shan winked
at Harry and whispered, "Tell you about it later." Pixie's
eyes were dancing; Fatty
whispered something to Chee Chong, and the two of them dissolved
into laughter.
Yu-Lin looked at them angrily, but said nothing. Harry noticed
a rather revengeful
gleam in her eyes, however.
Pixie's eyes suddenly twinkled naughtily. She looked at Crabbe
and Goyle, who
were wolfing their food down, like two starving trolls.
"Do you know what you are eating?" she asked brightly.
"Let me tell you." She
started pointing at the different dishes. "This is snake
meat; this is monkey's brains.
And this is steamed crocodile."
Crabbe and Goyle spat out their mouthfuls of food, and started
gulping down
Chinese tea. Malfoy choked and started coughing. Harry, Ron and
Hermione
stopped chewing, and were looking at Pixie in dismay. Pixie, looking
at their
faces, promptly dissolved into helpless laughter.
"Xiao-Yan!" said Shan, looking at her crossly. She turned to the three Slytherins.
"Don't believe her," she said quickly. "I apologise
on her behalf. The food is just
common stuff - the dishes were chicken, minced pork, and fish."
Malfoy looked livid, but said nothing. After what Robert had
done, he obviously
didn't dare make himself unpopular at the table. He, Crabbe and
Goyle tried to
continue eating, but they seemed to have lost their appetites
now, and merely
picked at the food, as Robert was doing.
The meal progressed in silence for a while. Pixie was eating
demurely, while
the other Chinese students, obviously feeling she had embarrassed
all of them,
were directing cross looks at her. Finally, Hermione tried to
start the
conversation going again.
"How were all of you selected for the exchange programme?" she asked.
Pixie giggled maddeningly.
"All those interested in applying had to take an English
test," she said. "The top
six students got in."
"We will be attending classes with you," said Fatty,
looking relieved that the
conversation was going again, "but we still have to attend
our regular classes."
"Our classes with you will be basic ones," Shan added,
"things we already
learned in first or second year."
Harry was pleased to hear this. He hoped this meant their workload
would
not be too bad, especially as a lot of his Hogwarts assignments
still remained
unfinished. Hermione, however, looked disappointed.
"I suppose there's no time for us to learn anything very
advanced in two
months," she said.
"Lady Wen-Li actually meant the exchange to be more cultural
than anything,"
explained Shan, pushing her glasses up her nose again. "She's
anxious for the
Chinese students to interact with people from outside China. Too
bad, though,"
- she grinned - "of the top six who passed the English test,
only two are from
mainland China."
Ron looked interested.
"Which ones?" he asked.
"Me and Yu-Lin," said Chee Chong gloomily. "Pixie
is flom Taiwan. Fatty is
flom Hong Kong. Shan and Robert are flom Singapore."
Dinner had ended. The gong boomed again, and students began
filing out of
the Hall. Pixie sat where she was, smiling and fluttering her
eyelashes at the
various boys who were trying to catch her attention as they went
past. Ron
scowled.
Yu-Lin got up and marched out, head held high, Malfoy, Crabbe
and Goyle
quickly following. Harry was just going to ask Shan for an explanation
for
what had happened earlier, when a crowd of young Chinese students
suddenly
descended upon their table, surrounding him.
They were crowding around Harry, chattering away in Chinese
like a flock of
excited birds, and holding out pieces of parchment and what looked
like long,
slim paintbrushes to him. He could see Hermione and the others
outside the
circle of students, looking at him in a bewildered fashion.
Harry tried to get out of his seat and push his way out of
the crowd, but the
students wouldn't let him out. They were pushing the pieces of
parchment
into his face, and he felt several brushes being stuffed into
his hand.
Shan spoke to one of the students, and then managed to wriggle
her way in,
and looked at him with a twinkle in her eye.
"Harry," she said, looking as if she was trying not
to laugh, "I think they want
your autograph!"
Harry was stunned. "What?"
The students seemed very young, no more than first-year. The
majority seemed
to be little girls, rosy-cheeked and with their hair braided into
long pigtails.
They were all chattering and laughing and peering at his scar,
and prodding
him curiously with their fingers.
"Just sign, Harry," he heard Hermione calling impatiently
from outside the wall
of students. "Then we can get out of here."
Harry looked at the brushes in his hand.
"I don't know how to use these," he said to the students,
irritably pushing away
the ones who were still curiously prodding him.
"Hang on," he heard Fatty's voice saying. Through
a gap in the crowd, he saw
Fatty pull a quill out of his lacquer box, and push it through
the wall of students
at him.
Harry signed until his hand ached. He noticed that some of
the students he'd
already signed autographs for were now pushing second and third
pieces of
parchment at him, and pushed them crossly away.
"That's enough!" he said, getting to his feet. They
crowded round him again,
laughing and chattering, and he shouted over their heads.
"Shan! Can't you tell them to back off?"
Shan and the others seemed to be trying to talk to the students,
who just giggled
and shook their heads. Finally, Harry saw Shan appealing to Robert.
Robert took his wand out, and pointed it at the students. The
signed autographs
all flew into the air, and started floating out of the Hall. The
students all squealed
in dismay, and started chasing after them, eventually disappearing
through the
main entrance.
Fatty looked rather worried.
"Was that wise?" he asked Robert. "If they lose
the autographs, they will just
come back and pester Harry for more."
Robert looked unperturbed.
"Don't worry," he said. "They'll stop floating
once they reach the end of the
corridor." And then he lapsed into silence again.
Harry, feeling rather ruffled and red in the face and still
surprised at what had
just happened, started hurrying out of the Hall before any of
the first-years
could come back. He could hear Ron behind him, telling a giggling
Pixie
about Ginny and Colin Creevey, and he turned around and glared
at him.
Hermione, taking pity on him, tried changing the subject.
"What did Robert do to Yu-Lin?" she asked Fatty.
Fatty started laughing again.
"Yu-Lin said Robert turned her vegetables into a big,
hairy spider," he said.
"It seems that that is what she fears most."
Ron, who was also afraid of spiders, turned rather pale.
"But, I only saw vegetables on her plate," he said.
"We do not know how Mighty Mo does it," said Fatty,
looking at Robert who
was walking at Shan's side as usual, like a little green shadow.
"We only know
no one in the school dares to bully him, even though he is so
small."
"Tell us what you did, Yuan-Ming," said Pixie coaxingly.
Harry wondered who Yuan-Ming was, but he guessed it must be
Robert's
Chinese name.
Robert just continued walking.
"No," he said mildly.
"Shan should know," said Chee Chong, looking at Shan.
"I don't," she said, glancing at Robert. "He
won't tell me. I think it's because
he's so good at Internal Magic. He seems to know how to draw out
an image
of the thing that frightens a person the most."
"But - who was that teacher who came over?" asked
Hermione, "And what
was that crystal thing around her neck?"
Pixie giggled.
"That was Lady Han-Yin, the Discipline Mistress,"
she said. "You'll get to
meet her againshe'll be teaching us Potions."
"Oh," said Ron, not very enthusiastically.
"Lady Han-Yin is all right, Ron," Shan assured him. "She's strict, but fair."
"But what was that crystal thing?" Harry wanted to know.
"The Discipline Master or Mistress normally uses it,"
said Shan. "We are not
allowed to do magic outside class, unless it is practice for homework.
However
we can perform spells in self-defence if someone wrongly provokes
or bullies us.
The crystal can judge who is in the right and who is wrong."
Pixie looked pleased.
"She gave Yu-Lin five demerits, just now," she said smugly.
-------* * *-------
Later, before going to bed, Harry found himself at one of the
large dormitory
windows, looking out at the school grounds and the surrounding
mountains,
and thinking about the day's events. They had hardly arrived,
and a lot
seemed to have happened already.
Ron, seeing him, also came over.
"Well, how d'you find it?" he asked, resting his
arms on the window sill, and
looking out.
"OK," said Harry. He looked at the swirling clouds
in the distance, dimly visible
in the pale moonlight.
"Everything here looks so different from Hogwarts,"
he said. "The scenery, the
palace, the grounds, the students' robes. Even the food's different.
But the
peopleI guess you find all types, wherever you go. Yu-Lin's
nasty, like Malfoy.
Chee Chong's accident prone, like Neville. Pixie's not as wicked
as Fred and
George, but she looks as if she could be, if she wanted to. Except
for Yu-Lin,
they're OK. I like them, actually."
"So do I," said Ron absently, resting his face in
his hands, and looking out of the
window. Harry suspected he was thinking of Pixie.
They stood there, talking quietly for a while, and wondering
what was happening
back at Hogwarts. Then, Fatty cheerfully called, "Lights
out!" They hurried over
to their beds, and got in. Robert pointed his wand at the Chinese
lanterns, and the
room plunged into darkness.
Harry lay in bed for a while, unused to the feeling of silk
on his skin. His eyes soon
adjusted to the dim light, and looking out of the nearest window,
he could see stars
shining brightly, up in the sky. They were the same constellations
that he was used
to seeing, back home, and this was oddly comforting, as if he
were looking at an
old friend. He lay there, watching the stars twinkling and sparkling
up in the sky,
and then before he knew it, he was asleep.
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Some Chinese Notes:
Since most people aren't familiar with the Chinese language,
and in order not to overload the
reader with too many Chinese names, I have given a number of the
characters English names, and I
chose Chinese names which are relatively easy to pronounce. Only
a few have been taken from
well-known Chinese classics or folklore.
About pronunciation - I can't explain every single Chinese
name mentioned
here, but I think I should at least mention that Shan is pronounced
as
"Sharn", while Xiao-Yan is pronounced as "Hsiao-Yen".
"Fatty" and "Pixie" are just nicknames.
It might be confusing, but I thought it more natural to have
the Chinese students call one another by their Chinese names.
Robert is the only one with an
English name, because he is from Singapore where the main medium
of communication is in
English. "Wing-Fatt" is a typical Hong Kong name. "Fatt"
is Cantonese for "prosperous" (same
as Chow Yun-Fatt, the Hong Kong actor in Anna and the King together
with Jodie Foster).
Tian-Long means "Celestial Dragon".
The names of the school houses were taken from the 5 elements
of nature,
which is the Chinese theory of creation :
wood -- spring -- east -- green -- green dragon
fire -- summer -- south -- red -- red bird
earth -- [none] -- center -- yellow -- yellow
dragon
metal -- autumn -- west -- white -- white tiger
water -- winter -- north -- black -- black tortoise
Fei Lian is the Chinese god of the wind, which he carries in a
bag. He is a trouble-stirrer,
but is kept in check by the Heavenly Archer Shen Yi, the sun god.
The idea of Internal Magic was adapted from the concept of
Internal Energy used
in Chinese martial arts, which is often depicted in TV and movies
as giving pugilists
almost magical powers.
Feel free to email me at gryffindor1970@yahoo.com if you have any questions. :o) ~Kim/Starlight
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