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HARRY POTTER AND THE JADE DRAGON
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Chapter X
The Lady in the Scroll
Dust and smoke surged from the nine-fold city walls,
A thousand chariots, ten thousand horsemen
The Lady knit her brows and was killed in front of the horses.
Flowery hairpins fell to the ground, no one picked them up,
And a jade hair-tassel.
And later when he turned to look, the place of blood and tears
Was hidden in a yellow dust blown by a cold wind.
~ Song of Unending Sorrow
Bai Ju-Yi, Tang Dynasty
Harry waited until the others were asleep, then quietly wrapped himself in the Invisibility
Cloak and made for the door. He would have asked Ron to come along, except that he still
looked as though he was suffering from the after-effects of the rice wine.
As Harry went past Robert's bed, he saw that Robert was still awake, lying on his back and
staring into space. He turned his head and looked at Harry, as he passed.
Harry stopped and looked back at him in astonishment. He tugged at the Cloak, to make
sure it was really covering him. Robert, however, merely gave him a small smile, then turned
around and faced the other way, and closed his eyes.
Feeling rather nonplussed, Harry quietly opened the door and went out. He made his way down
the spiral staircase, and almost stepped on something slender and green, which was slithering
down the steps.
"LeafSong?" he whispered, pulling the Cloak off his head.
LeafSong turned her head and looked up at him, her forked tongue tasting the air. She looked
about as astonished as a snake could look.
Harry picked her up, and put her in his pocket.
"Where iss your body?" she hissed.
"I'm wearing an Invisibility Cloak," he explained to her, in Parseltongue. "Where are you going?"
"Shan hass gone to visit the dragonss, and left me behind," she hissed.
"At this hour?" Harry was surprised.
"LeafSsong planned to follow her, but she doessn't mind following Harry Potter, insstead," added
LeafSong. "Where iss Harry Potter going?"
Harry figured there wouldn't be any harm in bringing her along; she was probably more familiar
with the palace than he was, and could lead him back if he got lost.
"Just looking around the school," he said.
He made his way down the corridor that led to the Hall of Dragons. Passing the scroll painting
of the thickly-forested mountain, he saw that the three tiny figures and the mule must have made
it to the top, because they were now descending the mountain instead.
The three young maidens had stopped washing their clothes in the river, and were fast asleep.
Harry tiptoed past them, then turned and went down the corridor that Fei Lian the Wind Ghost
had come out of, that first evening.
He passed through corridors furnished with carved rosewood side-tables, on which delicate
blue-and-white porcelain vases reclined. He came to a large courtyard, open to the sky, enclosing
a garden filled with brilliant peonies and chrysanthemums, all whispering to themselves in the pale
moonlight. There was a small pond there as well, covered with lotus blooms.
Harry wandered around the garden for a while, then went back into the palace. He went down
another corridor, and came upon two ghosts armed with long wooden staffs, sparring with each
other.
One ghost looked like a large monkey, standing upright, and tall as a man. It was extremely agile,
leaping around and twirling its staff expertly. The other ghost, which was much shorter and had the
head of a pig, was whimpering and looking rather tired and sulky. He dropped his staff, and the
monkey promptly stopped and waited for him to pick it up, before continuing.
Harry went past the two, and turned down another corridor. He came to another Hall, as large
as the Hall of Dragons, but it was dark inside and he couldn't see anything.
He went down another corridor.
"Do you know where we are?" he whispered to LeafSong.
He felt her move inside his pocket, and guessed that she was still peeking out.
"The teacherss have their officess here," she hissed.
The corridor was very dim, and Harry saw someone moving in front of him. The person went to
a door and opened it, and moonlight fell onto him before he went in and closed the door. Harry
recognised the slightly stooped figure and the grey robes; it was Master Liu Pei.
He went quietly forward, and was approaching Liu Pei's office when he saw another figure standing
against the wall, opposite the office, waiting.
He stopped, wondering whether to proceed. The person looked like a lady. He couldn't be sure,
but it looked as if she was standing several inches off the ground.
Harry waited a while, but the lady didn't move. There was something rather odd and two-dimensional
about her. Finally, he went closer, and saw that it was not a person at all, but a life-size painting on a
scroll, hanging right opposite Liu Pei's office.
Harry went right up to the painting. In the dim light, she really looked real. Perhaps he was imagining it,
but she seemed to be watching Liu Pei's office.
At this moment, Harry heard a slight noise behind him. Turning around, he saw the Wind Ghost, Fei
Lian, opening his sack of wind.
A blast of air hit him, catching the Cloak and almost blowing it away. He grabbed at it, overbalanced,
and fell against Liu Pei's door. It burst open, and Harry found himself falling into the office.
Fei Lian swooped past, with Shen Yi the Archer in hot pursuit, holding his ball of fire. They dashed
around a corner, and disappeared.
Harry looked around, expecting Liu Pei to come up, scolding him; but to his surprise, the office was
empty. The office walls were lined with jars of Potions ingredients, and pale moonlight was spilling in
through a window.
A soft sound from the corridor caught his attention. The lady had stepped out of her painting. She
came over to Harry, who was still lying on the floor, and looked at him, and then around at the office.
Harry saw that her skin was very fair, and that she was wearing robes of rose-coloured silk. Going
back to the scroll which was now empty, she took it down off the wall, and rolled it up. She then
beckoned to Harry, holding out a hand, and said something in Chinese.
Harry stood up, and took the Translator out and put it on. She looked gravely at him and said,
"Come with me."
She closed the office door, then went over to the window. Gazing at the floor, she muttered
something under her breath.
The outline of a stone trapdoor suddenly appeared in the floor at her feet. There was a scraping
noise, and the trapdoor slowly slid open, revealing a flight of stone steps leading downward.
She smiled at him, then started to descend the steps. Harry hesitated, but LeafSong seemed
enthusiastic.
"Let'ss go!" she hissed excitedly. Harry felt the rose-coloured witch didn't seem to mean him
any harm, and his curiosity got the better of him, so he followed her down. He heard the stone
trapdoor slide shut again, behind him.
He wanted to ask the witch who she was, but there was something confident and self-assured
about her that made him feel she would have told him, if she wanted him to know. They reached
the bottom of the steps, and she began leading him through a maze of broad corridors. At one
point, Harry heard footsteps approaching. The lady said swiftly to him, "Put your Cloak on, and
do not move." She quickly unrolled her scroll and hung it on the wall, and stepped up into it,
becoming part of the painting again.
Harry put the Cloak on and waited. What looked like a patrol of six sentries went past, armoured
and rather frightening to look at, with the heads of rats. When they had gone, the lady stepped out
of her scroll again, and took it down. Harry took the Cloak off, so that she could see him, and
they proceeded on their way.
Finally, she stopped in front of the entrance of a large tunnel, and turned to Harry.
"I can go no further," she said. "I am forbidden to enter here. Listen to me; you must put your Cloak
on, and go down the tunnel, to the end. Eighteen doorways line the sides of the tunnel; do not go into
any of them. The end of the tunnel opens out to a large cavern, where there is an underground lake.
A bridge leads out to an island in the lake. There you will find a large bronze bell. Turn the lion's
head on the bell, and the task will be done."
Harry hesitated. Was she trying to trick him?
"But - what task is this?" he said. "Why should I do it?"
She looked at him, then smiled and shook her head.
"She doess not undersstand English," hissed LeafSong. "You musst sspeak to her in Chinese."
"I can't," pointed out Harry. "Can't you speak to her?"
"She will not undersstand Parsseltongue," hissed LeafSong. "I can read and undersstand Chinese,
but I cannot sspeak it."
The lady looked at him and said quietly, "I cannot tell you more. But this task must be done."
"We have to do as she ssayss," said LeafSong, "or she will not lead uss out of here. We will be trapped."
Harry didn't feel happy about the whole thing at all, but there was no choice. Turning, he put the Cloak
on and went into the tunnel. It was dimly lit, and there was something very oppressive about the air in
there. The horrible sounds of weeping and wailing, like tortured souls, could be heard emanating from
the doorways lining the tunnel, and Harry would not have entered any of them for anything. At one
point, a large ghost came drifting past them, dressed in sweeping robes, with a dark face, long beard
and staring eyes.
After about ten minutes, they reached the cavern and the lake. The water had a curious reddish
colour. At first Harry thought it was a trick of the dim light, but then he realised, to his horror,
that it was blood.
LeafSong seemed unnerved too.
"Let uss do it quick, and get out of here," she hissed.
Harry made his way over the bridge. He could see the island in the distance, and a large silhouette
on it which must be the bell. It was much taller than a man. Another figure could be seen next to it.
"There's someone there," he whispered.
He could feel LeafSong peeking out of his pocket.
"It iss Masster Liu Pei," she hissed.
As they came nearer, Harry could hear a muffled voice shouting. It sounded familiar, and it was
coming from underneath the bronze bell.
LeafSong was listening too.
"It iss Masster Yang-Kang," she hissed. "Masster Liu Pei hass trapped him insside the bell."
They had reached the island. Harry pulled the Cloak more tightly around himself. Liu Pei had
finished gloating over Yang-Kang, and came past them, making his way back across the bridge,
looking extremely pleased with himself. Harry could hear Yang-Kang shouting and cursing from
under the bell.
The bell was covered with strange bronze studs, and stylized gargoyles. They were all so hideous
that Harry couldn't tell which was supposed to be a lion. Chinese characters ran underneath the
row of gargoyles.
"LeafSong, you'll have to read the words," he whispered, taking her out of his pocket.
LeafSong gazed attentively as Harry slowly walked around the bell, holding her in his hand.
At last, under the ugliest gargoyle, she hissed, "Thiss one."
Harry peered at the Chinese characters. The gargoyle didn't look the faintest bit like a lion.
"Are you sure?" he asked.
"Yess," she hissed. "Quick, turn it, and let uss get out of here!"
Harry took hold of the ugly thing, and turned. It was very stiff, and he had to try three times
before it finally moved.
There was a rumbling noise, and the island started to tremble. LeafSong, who had coiled herself
around his wrist, hissed excitedly, "Quick! Run!"
Harry threw her back into his pocket, and began sprinting back across the bridge. He heard a
loud, scraping noise, like metal shifting against metal, and turning back, saw the bronze bell slowly
rising from the surface of the island.
The entire cavern seemed to be shaking now, and rocks were falling from the ceiling, falling into
the dark blood with loud splashes.
Harry could hear Yang-Kang roaring in wrath as he emerged from under the bell. Turning as he
reached the tunnel, Harry saw Yang-Kang bounding across the bridge. He had created a glowing
Shield around himself, and rocks and stones from the ceiling of the cavern were bouncing off it.
Harry ran down the tunnel back to the entrance. There was no one there; the rose-coloured witch
had vanished.
Yang-Kang came thundering down the tunnel and past them, his eyes blazing.
"LIU PEI!!" he roared, "I AM COMING TO GET YOU!!"
"Follow him," LeafSong hissed urgently, "or we will never get out of here!"
Harry turned and sprinted after Yang-Kang. He could hear the tunnel collapsing behind him.
He followed Yang-Kang back down the maze of corridors. By the time he reached the flight of
stone steps, Yang-Kang had disappeared. Gasping for breath, Harry dashed up the steps, praying
that the stone trapdoor had not sealed them in.
He reached the top, and found that Yang-Kang had burst the trapdoor into fragments. There was
now a gaping hole in the floor.
Harry could hear sounds of fighting in the corridor outside, and he could see flashes of light through
the door. He hesitated, wondering if it was safe to go to the door and look out; but then, something
lying on Liu Pei's desk caught his eye.
He went over to have a look. It was a scroll, so old that it almost seemed to be falling to pieces.
It was very dirty too, but Harry could roughly make out that half the scroll was covered with
Chinese characters, while the other half had what looked like a star-map on it, except that he
couldn't recognise any of the constellations there at all.
A piece of dark yellow silk also lay on the table, which must have been used to wrap the scroll.
The seal on the silk had been broken. Harry turned it over to have a better look; there was an
image of an animal on it, which looked like a five-clawed dragon, golden in colour.
He looked around the rest of the office. Liu Pei certainly seemed to possess a lot of things.
Besides numerous bottles and jars of potions, there were also many bronze vessels scattered
around the room, with complicated designs carved on them. A pile of dragon bones lay on a
straw mat on the floor, and several boxes of rhinoceros' horns sat on a small table in a corner.
At this moment, he heard something hard falling to the floor of the corridor outside, followed by
the sounds of someone fleeing. He went over to the door and cautiously peered out. Yang-Kang
was standing at a window at the far end of the corridor, looking out. He then smashed his large fist
onto the window sill, cursing. Liu Pei must have got away again.
He came stalking back down the corridor, and Harry, who had come out of the office, flattened
himself against the wall. Yang-Kang stopped halfway, and picked something up off the floor.
He held it up, a triumphant gleam in his eyes. It was the onyx tiger.
He placed it round his neck, then strode back to Liu Pei's office, Harry following curiously.
He stood at the door of the office, and peeked in.
Yang-Kang pointed a finger at the hole in the floor, and it closed up immediately. He then strode
out of the office, slammed the door shut, and disappeared down the corridor.
Harry stood where he was for a moment, wondering what to do next. He supposed he should
go back to the dormitory; he'd had quite enough excitement for one night. LeafSong, however,
thought otherwise; she wriggled out of his pocket and fell to the floor, and slithered over to the
nearest window.
"Farewell, Harry Potter," she hissed, coiling herself up the leg of a table, and disappearing out
the window, "LeafSsong iss going to look for Shan!"
Harry went over to the window and looked out, but the little snake had vanished. He stood
there for a moment, wondering why Shan would want to visit the dragons in the middle of the
night.
A slight noise in the corridor behind him made him turn around, and his blood froze. There in
the distance, moving toward a door at end of the corridor, was a tall, hooded figure in black.
It looked like a Dementor.
Harry stood still, his heart beating fast, watching as the figure disappeared through the door.
What was a Dementor doing in Tian-Long? Was it a Dementor?
He waited for a minute or two, but nothing further happened. He started making his way
down the corridor. As he passed Liu Pei's office, he paused. The scroll on the desk intrigued
him. He felt sure Liu Pei had been looking at it when Yang-Kang had come bursting in. He
decided to have one more look at it
He opened the door, and saw immediately that there was now nothing lying on the desk;
the scroll was gone.
Harry went over and looked around, in case the scroll had fallen to the floor. He got down on all
fours and looked under the table. Nothing. The scroll had vanished, together with its silk wrapping.
Puzzled, he stood up, and after one last look around, turned and left the office. This was turning
out to be an extremely queer night. Could Yang-Kang have taken the scroll without Harry noticing?
Or had the hooded figure taken it?
He was halfway back to the Pagoda when he remembered Shan. Had she really gone to see the
dragons? He stopped in mid-stride, wondering about it, and then his curiosity got the better of
him again. Pulling the Cloak tightly around him, he made his way out of the palace and into the
grounds, and headed toward the Caverns.
All seemed quiet when he reached the caves; the dragons were all asleep. Harry wandered
around a bit, looking out for Shan. He had just decided that she must have returned to the
Pagoda and was about to turn back himself, when he saw her at the far end of the cliff.
He took the Cloak off and made his way over. The ground in front of him was level, but to
his right it fell away into a steep gorge. As he came nearer and saw her up close, he had that
odd, familiar feeling again, and impatiently tried to push thoughts of Cho Chang away. After
all, he now knew Shan better than he knew Cho.
"Harry!" she said, looking surprised. "What are you doing here?"
"I met LeafSong in the Pagoda, and she said you were here."
They were standing below the entrance of a cave, some distance from the main caves where
the dragons were housed. Shan, seeing that Harry was looking curiously at her, began to explain.
"The caves at this end of the cliff are empty, most of the time," she said. "But sometimes wild
dragons will come to roost here. They're attracted by the herds of cattle that we rear to feed
the tame ones, you see. They normally stay for a few days, then leave."
Harry was still puzzled.
"But - why d'you have to come looking for them in the middle of the night?"
Shan looked rather guilty.
"Because I want to fly them," she said, "and it's against school rules, to fly a wild dragon."
"Are you joking?" Harry stared at her. "That's crazy - it's downright dangerous!"
She looked serious.
"It's not, for me, Harry," she said. "I always do it. Don't go telling on me."
She started climbing up the slope toward the entrance of the cave. Harry hesitated for a moment,
then followed.
"I'm always hoping that a Silverwing will come to roost," she said. "The school doesn't have any,
and I've only managed to fly one once, long ago."
"What's so special about them?" asked Harry.
Her eyes took on a faraway look.
"They're the most intelligent of the dragons," she said. "They can blend perfectly with their
surroundings - if you look up at them from below, they just look like part of the sky. And
they're the only dragons who can Apparate."
They had reached the mouth of the cave. Harry stopped short.
"It may be safe for you to go in, but it won't be for me."
Shan laughed, and said, "Put your Invisibility Cloak on, and they won't know you're there."
Harry stared at her in surprise. He hadn't shown any of the Tian-Long students the Cloak;
he'd always waited for them to go off first, before removing it.
"How d'you know about the Cloak?"
Shan went pink, and hesitated before replying.
"I hope you don't mind," she said. "I saw you taking it off, from a distance, once. I didn't tell
anyone," she added quickly.
She continued climbing into the cave.
"Tell you what, I'll go in and have a look first. There should be a wild Bronzeback inside - I
saw it fly in earlier."
She disappeared inside the cave, leaving Harry waiting at the entrance. After a few minutes,
she came back, looking puzzled.
"The Bronzeback's in there," she said. "It's an old male. It seems to be unwell."
At this moment, the Bronzeback suddenly appeared, some distance behind her. It certainly
looked unwell; it was lurching unsteadily from side to side, and flames were spewing randomly
from its nostrils.
Harry took a step back, startled. Shan turned around and stared at it for a few seconds, then
grabbed Harry by the arm and said, "I think we'd better leave."
They started scrambling down the slope.
"I can usually tell what a dragon is thinking," Shan said tensely, as they hurried down. "This
maleit seems to think that we're going to attack it."
The Bronzeback was coming after them, its movements jerky and erratic. As they turned
back to look, it suddenly lifted its head, and opened its jaws.
Harry found himself looking through a faint haze of light. Shan had raised a Shield in front of
them. Fire issued from the Bronzeback's jaws; it was still some distance away, but Shan's
Shield wasn't very strong, and Harry could feel the intense heat of the flames.
The haze of light dissolved and vanished.
"I can't hold it," she said, "Run!"
Harry took his wand out, and pointed it at the Bronzeback.
"Impedimenta!" he shouted. Then, he turned and ran down the slope after Shan. He knew
the Jinx would not last long.
They had just reached the narrow stretch of level ground, next to the gorge, when they heard
the Bronzeback coming after them again. Shan raised another Shield, just as another jet of
flame came bursting out at them.
Shan swiftly unsheathed her sword, and held it in front of them so that it caught the flames and
deflected them away. Harry flung another Impediment Jinx at the Bronzeback, sticking his hand
through the Shield. Shan took a step back, and then lost her balance. The Shield dissolved,
and Harry, turning, saw her fall and slide over the edge of the cliff. She grabbed at some bushes,
and hung there, her body dangling over the gorge.
Harry got down on all fours, and leaning forward, tried to pull her back up. She looked up at him,
her face pale.
"Get yourself out of here, Harry," she whispered. "I can feel the Bronzeback recovering. It's coming."
Harry heard the dragon roar from behind him. Instinctively, he rolled aside, and a jet of flames shot
past him, shrivelling the grass where he had just been lying.
He snatched his wand out. He hadn't really practised stunning spells before, but he had to try.
"Stupefy!" he shouted, pointing his wand at the Bronzeback. Then he turned to look for Shan, and
saw that the branches she had been holding on to had snapped. She was sliding over the edge of
the cliff, and out of sight.
Harry ran toward her in a panic. What spells were there to stop someone falling in midair? He had
almost reached the edge when he heard the Bronzeback scream. It had recovered.
Harry flung another stunning spell at it, but not before another jet of flame narrowly missed him.
He lost his balance, and almost fell over the edge of the cliff as well.
He found himself lying on the ground. His stunning spell had missed the Bronzeback, and it was
coming toward him at an alarming speed.
An ear-splitting scream suddenly rent the air. Another Bronzeback was hurtling through the air,
making straight for the old male on the ground.
The old male retreated a few steps; flames shot out of its jaws, but seemed to have no effect on
the tough hide of the second Bronzeback. It smashed into the old male, then began striking at it
with its jaws.
Harry lay on the ground, watching as the two dragons fought. Finally, the old Bronzeback spread
its wings, and took flight. The second Bronzeback screamed again, then launched itself into the
air as well, in pursuit of the old male.
Harry lay there for a few seconds, then got up slowly. He found himself shaking slightly. He
looked up at the sky, expecting to see more Bronzebacks appearing out of nowhere, but
everything was still.
He suddenly heard a scrabbling sound coming from behind him. Turning, he saw Shan hoisting
herself over the side of the cliff, her glasses slipping off her nose, and her robes all torn and muddy.
Harry hurried over to her. "Are you all right?"
She nodded and sat up, pushing her glasses up her nose.
"The ground levels out slightly, further down," she said. "I managed to climb up again."
She got to her feet, looking rather shaken. "What happened to the Bronzeback?"
"Another Bronzeback came," said Harry. "It chased the old male away."
Shan looked surprised. She saw her sword, which was lying on the ground a short distance away,
and went over and picked it up. They then started making their way back to the palace. They
walked in silence for a while, still trying to recover from what had just happened. Then, Shan
turned to Harry.
"What were you doing, that you managed to meet LeafSong?" she asked curiously.
Harry told her about Yang-Kang and Liu Pei. He decided not to mention the scroll or the
Dementor, though, for the time being, until he'd had more time to wonder about it.
Shan looked amazed, then grinned.
"Wish I'd been there," she said, looking rather enviously at him. "SoYang-Kang is back.
And he managed to get the onyx tiger back as well! Liu Pei will probably show up again."
"Do you have any idea who the lady in the scroll could have been?" asked Harry.
She thought a while.
"She could be one of Yang-Kang's ancestors," she said. "People say that's how the feud
started. There was a war, and someone from Liu Pei's family killed her in one of the battles."
They had reached Green Dragon Pagoda. Shan gave Harry a grin and went into her dormitory,
still brushing mud off her robes. Harry, feeling tired, went into his, wondering what Ron and
Hermione would say when he told them of the night's happenings.
He told them the following morning, but didn't mention the dragons because Shan had asked
him not to. Ron was indignant, of course, that Harry hadn't asked him along.
"You were still feeling sick because of the rice wine," Harry pointed out.
Hermione looked both anxious and disapproving.
"You might have been killed," she said, "And if anyone had caught you wandering around,
you would have got into trouble, and would probably have been sent back to Hogwarts."
However, both she and Ron were interested in seeing the lady in the scroll, so later that day
they went back to Liu Pei's office to see if the painting was hanging outside; but it wasn't.
They searched through the palace, but found no trace of the lady. It seemed that she had
fulfilled her task, and had gone for good. Harry never saw the witch in the rose-coloured
robes again.
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Note from Kim :-
My fanfic.net account has been giving problems lately, where I can't log in. I hope to upload one or
two chapters every few days. If for some reason you do not see any chapters appearing after a long
while, and you wish to read the rest of the story, please email me at gryffindor1970@yahoo.com