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HARRY POTTER AND THE JADE DRAGON
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Chapter XX
The Timeless Land
Here, beside
a clear deep lake,
You live accompanied by clouds;
Softly through the pine the moon arrives
To be your own pure-hearted friend.
Let me leave the world. Let me alight, like you,
On your western mountain with phoenixes and cranes.
~ Chang Jian, Tang Dynasty
Used as
he was to unusual things happening in the wizarding world by now,
Harry found
he hadn't been quite prepared to find something like this. The
most he had expected was a
Portkey, or some new secret passageway leading out of the school
grounds.
Shan was the first to break the silence.
"It's incredible, isn't it?" she said softly. "Where do you think we are?"
Chee Chong and Robert were looking at the sky.
"Western China," said Robert, in a decided tone of voice.
Harry and Shan gaped at him in amazement.
"What?" said Shan. "Where did you get that from?"
"Look up there," said Robert, pointing at the sky,
where a few faint stars were still shining.
"Chee Chong and I were just looking at the night sky before
we left the Tower, and the stars
were in a different position. We're about six hours further east
from Hogwarts now, and we're
still in the northern hemisphere, but at a lower latitude. In
fact I'd say we're somewhere in
Sinkiang or Tibet, except that it should be winter there now.
"
They stared at him for a moment, then looked around again.
Harry looked at the mountains;
they were wreathed in cloud, tall and rugged-looking, and covered
with snow. But the air
around the mountain they were standing on was mild, as if it was
spring, and the ground
around them was carpeted with bright green grass.
"You mean, we're not in Britain any more?" he said.
But actually, that makes sense, he thought.
The Marauder's Map only shows what's happening inside Hogwarts.
If Dumbledore came here
that day, he wouldn't have been in Hogwarts any more.
Chester hopped off Chee Chong's shoulder and into the grass, and began to chirp happily.
"He knew, didn't he?" said Shan, watching him, "He was hopping all over that chest!"
Looking up, they saw that they were near the summit of the
mountain, so they climbed up
and eventually came to level ground. The top of the mountain seemed
quite flat, as if
someone had horizontally sliced its peak off. A meadow lay in
front of them, and beyond
that, a forest of dark green conifers was visible.
They wandered out onto the meadow. There was not a person in
sight, but just to be on the
safe side, they kept their wands out. Harry found himself scanning
the surroundings warily, in
case Dumbledore suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
Flowers were blooming all around them. There were long spikes
of lemon-yellow flowers,
with dark blue-green foliage; there were plenty of gentians, and
another blue-violet, star-shaped
flower; there were fields of scarlet and yellow cockscombs. As
they came near the forest, they
found rhododendrons blooming in plenty, of all colours : red,
maroon, white, cream and pale pink.
The forest consisted of mostly fir and pine, the trees having
a rather unusual appearance : their
trunks glittered faintly in the morning sun, and looked as if
gold dust had been somehow mixed
in with the bark. The pine and fir needles, too, had a translucent
look to them, as if they were
made of fine jade.
"Look, there is a peach orchard," said Chee Chong,
as they walked around the perimeter of
the forest. He was pointing at a stretch of trees in full bloom
in the distance. He had placed
Chester, who was looking very smug, back on his shoulder.
They could still hear voices singing, from afar, but there
was nothing to indicate where the
music was coming from. As they approached the orchard, Harry thought
he could hear
other voices as well.
"Tortoises!" he exclaimed, as a small, wrinkled face
emerged from a shell several feet in
front of them.
"It's almost as if the orchard in Tian-Long has been transplanted
here, except that the trees
in Tian-Long have stopped blooming," said Shan.
The tortoises did indeed look like the Tian-Long tortoises;
they were just as vocal, at any rate,
and a few were speaking Chinese. These appeared to have been influenced
by the ceaseless
music around them, however, for the majority were singing more
than they were talking.
"I'm glad I came, after all," said Hermione, looking
at the tortoises in delight. "I was really
keen to meet some of these."
"This isn't the Tian-Long orchard," said Robert,
breaking his customary silence. "These trees
feel different."
It was true. Harry couldn't quite place it, but as they walked
under the trees, there was a timeless
feel emanating from them, as if they were eternal. However, unlike
the conifers, these looked just
like normal peach trees, and he shrugged the feeling off as fanciful.
"Actually, it's not just the peach trees," said Hermione
slowly, looking around. "It's the entire
place. It just feels as if Time has no meaning here."
"Yes, I feel that, too," agreed Shan.
They left the orchard, and made their way to the edge of the
summit, and looked down the
steep cliffs.
"So, do you think this is where Professor Dumbledore came,
the other day?" said Shan,
stopping to look at a clump of gentians. "It must be his
private mountain, where he comes
to relax. I guess we shouldn't be here."
Chee Chong looked back, rather nervously.
"If it is, I wouldn't have thought he'd have one located in China," remarked Hermione.
"Maybe Lady Wen-Li gave it to him as a plesent,"
said Chee Chong. "She has done it before. Once,
she gave the Emperor a frower garden, for his birthday."
They continued on a bit further, the distant singing still in their ears, and then Hermione stopped.
"I think we should go back," she said, glancing at
her watch. "This is a strange place; it feels as if time
has stopped here. We don't know whether it passes at the same
pace as back in Hogwarts - we might
get back and find that a month has already passed there."
This thought alarmed them, and they rapidly started making
their way back. Hermione, who seemed
quite taken with the tortoises, stopped for another look at them.
"I wonder if they can be taught to sing English songs,"
she said, as they left the orchard. Before
descending the side of the mountain to the tunnel again, Harry
turned back for one more look.
It's almost too good to leave, he thought. Strange as the place
was, it did not feel evil. The haunting
voices rose to a crescendo, as if bidding them farewell, and then
became softer, finally falling to a
muted murmur.
Fortunately, it appeared as if time did pass at the same rate
on the mountain as in Hogwarts, for it
was about half-past one in the morning when they climbed back
into the storeroom, and they had
been gone for about an hour. After they had closed the lid of
the wooden chest, Harry tried the
Alohomora Charm on it, and to his relief it worked. He
didn't want to have to drag Robert there
every time he wanted to visit the mountain. For he intended to
visit it again. There was something
very serene about the place; all of them felt it, and even Hermione
was already talking about borrowing
Jeanne's cassette player so that she could teach the tortoises
how to sing in English.
As the days went by, they found themselves spending a lot of
their spare time on the Plateau, as
they had christened the mountain. The springlike weather persisted,
and it became their favourite
retreat whenever they wanted to escape from the tedium of winter.
Chester, especially, seemed
happy whenever Chee Chong brought him there, which was seldom
because he and Robert were
now spending all their free time analysing the Imperial scrolls.
In the end, Chester looked so cold
and miserable that Chee Chong finally left him on the mountain,
coming back every evening and
morning to check that he was all right.
The next few weeks went quickly by; Harry found himself sometimes
losing track of time because he
had so much to do. He had Quidditch practices to catch up on (Shan
tried out his Firebolt, and assured
him that it was 'almost as good as flying a dragon'), and these,
together with the exchange classes in
addition to his normal ones, made the days seem to fly. He had
almost forgotten his suspicions about
Snufflegint, when he noticed one day during Potions that not only
was Jeanne still looking tired, but
that she also occasionally seemed to be distracted, as if she
were thinking of something, and a bitter,
almost angry expression, would come into her eyes.
He asked her if everything was all right, and she said she
had been practising her Internal Magic and
that it was tiring her out.
Harry always brought the Map along whenever he went to the
Plateau, so that the corridor outside
the storeroom could be monitored in case Dumbledore decided to
drop in for a visit. At the same time,
he would also sometimes idly check the part of the Forbidden Forest
where Jeanne and Snufflegint were
still appearing, almost every afternoon.
Harry had decided, after last year, that he wouldn't poke his
nose into Jeanne's affairs again. Even so, he
couldn't help feeling curious. What were they doing there every
afternoon, in the middle of winter? He
noticed that they hardly ever approached that spot together, and
that Snufflegint would sometimes stand
some distance away from Jeanne. Harry began to wonder whether
Jeanne knew that Snufflegint was there.
Snufflegint might be hiding in some spot, spying on what she was
doing.
The only person who might want to harm Jeanne was Deorg. Harry
decided, to set his mind at rest, to
try checking out Deorg's background again, and see if there was
any connection between him and Snufflegint.
He suspected Deorg might have another name, just as Voldemort
did. There was no use asking Dumbledore
or Lupin for Deorg's real name, because they were sure to ask
him why he wanted to know, so in the end he
sent Hedwig off with a letter to Professor Bubcek, pretending
he had to write an essay on the Dark Arts in
Russia and that he wasn't supposed to receive help from any of
the Hogwarts teachers. He felt sure that
Bubcek, being his usual jovial and amiable self, would be unlikely
to suspect anything.
Hermione, in the meantime, had been applying herself diligently
to teaching the Talking Tortoises how to
sing in English. She had borrowed Jeanne's cassette player, and
had a parcel of music tapes sent to her
from home.
"It won't work, Hermione," said Harry, watching her
one day as she rewound the tapes for the umpteenth
time, "Those tortoises don't even know what they're saying
in Chinese, you'll just confuse them if you try
teaching them English."
"No, they won't," said Hermione firmly, "they
just need to be exposed to the right music. They're sounding
more and more like those distant voices every day."
Harry looked at the tapes.
"Christmas carols?" he said. "You're going to teach them A Partridge in a Pear Tree?"
"Yes," Hermione said, smiling and looking pleased,
"I've counted thirteen of them it's just nice, for
parts.
I thought we could bring them to the common room for Christmasthe
Chinese students will be here, you
knowwe can have some live music."
"Oh, that's a good idea!" said Shan, looking enthusiastic,
but then added, "We'll have to explain where we
got them, though."
"Oh, we'll just say we borrowed them from Hagrid,"
said Hermione. Harry, however, was looking doubtfully
at the tortoises. One was busily nibbling at some clover, while
another was trundling off to another part of
the orchard. Neither was showing any interest in the music whatsoever.
"Why don't we just play the tapes for Christmas?" he said. "Jeanne's player works all right in Hogwarts."
"It's not the same," said Hermione stubbornly, "A live choir will be much nicer."
Ron had been told about the Plateau, but he had not told Pixie,
for she would probably have told Parvati
and Lavendar about it. He had been looking depressed, and was
spending less time with her now, for she
was constantly receiving flowers and gifts from her various admirers,
and was in a fair way of getting her
head turned. Fatty had not been told about the Plateau either;
Harry figured he probably wouldn't have
shown any interest in it anyway, for lately he seemed obsessed
with earning enough money to help his
father start over again. He was spending all his free time discussing
his projects with Mui Sing, especially
now that Christmas was coming.
"Christmas is the peak period for business, except for Chinese New Year," he gravely informed Harry.
Because the others kept badgering him about the contents of
the remaining scrolls, Robert finally restored
each to the extent that he could roughly tell what they contained.
"Some are old star-maps which look out of date,"
he said. "The rest look like the Khai-Yuan Chan Ching,
another astronomical manual; but we have a good copy of that in
the Tian-Long library too."
Shan and Harry, naturally, were disappointed. If Liu Pei's
scroll was among the Imperial scrolls, it obviously
didn't contain anything important.
"We haven't fully restored all of them yet," said
Robert, trying to cheer them up. "Something interesting might
still turn up."
Hedwig finally returned with Professor Bubcek's reply a week
later. Since Harry had politely asked him how
his research was progressing, Bubcek had written a long and enthusiastic
letter describing his current projects,
and Harry, scanning through the letter anxiously, hoped that the
kindly old wizard hadn't forgotten to answer
his question.
"Here it is!" he said in relief. Ron, who was eating breakfast next to him, also turned to look.
"Got it, now," muttered Harry. "Once Magical Creatures is over, I'm heading to the library."
They set off for the lake. Ron looked as if he wasn't looking
forward to the lesson; he, together with many
of the other students, still hadn't managed to completely master
Hover Charms.
The students, however, had a surprise when they arrived at
the lake : the tank was completely devoid of
fish. Instead, Sang Nila was lying smugly in its centre, a satisfied
and well-fed look on his face.
Robert gave a small exclamation in Chinese, and hurried over
to the tank. Shan, looking panicky, hissed,
"Get him back into the lake!"
But it was too late; Hagrid had already arrived.
He came toward them, humming cheerfully to himself, carrying
his usual boxes of worms. Shan and Robert
looked at each other, then turned to watch Hagrid with a resigned
air. Hagrid put the boxes of worms down,
and then looked at the tank. He started, shook his head, and took
another look. Then he stood there with
a rather lost expression on his face, staring uncomprehendingly
into the water, as if unable to grasp the fact
that the fish had really disappeared. Sang Nila, in the meantime,
was staring coolly back at him, his tawny
eyes narrowing slightly.
Robert, seeing there was no help for it, went over to Hagrid.
"I'm really, really sorry, Hagrid," he said, looking up at Hagrid, who was almost five times his height.
Hagrid was still staring at the empty tank in disbelief. Then,
as the truth sank in, he looked down at Robert,
who was still looking apologetically up at him.
"Ay, well," he said, a bemused expression on his
face, "Guess yeh can' blame the poor feller - he wouldn'
understan' what he was doin', would'eguess he was hungry."
The rest of the students, however, were looking jubilant. The
Slytherins were all smirking, while Neville,
Seamus and Dean were grinning. Only Hermione looked crestfallen.
"We learned all those Hover Charms for nothing," she said.
"I'll get you another batch of fish, if you tell me where
they're from," offered Robert. Both the Gryffindors
and Slytherins, standing behind Hagrid, glared at Robert and shook
their heads vigorously at him.
Hagrid, however, was now looking at Sang Nila in an interested
fashion. Sang Nila, looking totally unrepentant,
stared back at him, and growled menacingly.
"'E's a lovely an'mal, actually," said Hagrid, going
to the side of the tank to have a better look. "Yeh don'
see
his kind very often. Oughter take advantage of his bein' here,
before the exchange programme ends."
He paused, still looking at Sang Nila, and then said, "Tell
yeh what, we can have a go with him till end Jan'ry,
an' then I'll get a new batch o' fish."
"What?" whispered Pixie, looking horrified. "Look after that Merlion? No! No, no, no, no!"
Malfoy, too, was looking displeased.
"I object," he snapped, looking at Hagrid. "The
creature's a menace. If it draws even a drop of blood from
any of us, I'll see that it's executed."
Robert abruptly turned, and looked at him. Malfoy, suddenly
remembering who the Merlion belonged to,
turned pale and became silent.
Hagrid, however, was looking more and more pleased with this solution.
"Lovely an'mal," he repeated, ignoring Malfoy and
looking rather covetously at Sang Nila. "Shoulda thought
o' this before. Except, yeh'll have ter tell us what ter do,"
- looking at Robert - "Haven' had much experience
with Merlions, meself."
Robert looked hesitantly at Hagrid, and then at Sang Nila.
"Wellonce he's fed, he doesn't need much looking
after, actually," he said, and then added, with a perfectly
straight face, "And I think he's pretty full right now."
The Slytherins and Gryffindors were now looking at Sang Nila,
as if trying to size him up. Sang Nila stared
coldly back at them, and growled.
Hagrid looked rather lost. Robert, seeing this, said, "I suppose we could read to him."
The others all turned and looked at him.
"He likes being read to," explained Robert. "Thrillers and fantasy. Not romance, though."
"What?" said Pixie shrilly. "Read to that mad
Merlion? After he's tried to chomp my hands off twice? You've
got to be joking!"
The rest of the class, however, was enthusiastic. Reading aloud,
though it seemed rather silly, was a pleasant
task compared with a lot of things they'd been required to do
in the past for Hagrid's classes.
"Topping idea," said Dean. "I've got some Stephen King in my bag. Guarantee he'll like it."
So they spent the rest of the lesson taking turns to read aloud
to Sang Nila, who persisted in fixing the various
readers with a baleful and unwinking stare.
Once Magical Creatures was over, Harry grabbed his things and
sped off to the library. Taking Who's Who
in the Wizarding World, A - K from the shelf, he searched
for Deorg's name.
"Here it is," he muttered. "Khorkin, Boris Mikhailovitch."
He sat down, and started reading.
Ron, who had followed him, sat by and waited for him to finish.
"Well?" he prompted, after a few minutes.
Harry read a few more lines, then looked at Ron.
"I was right," he said, "The Tomb Sect takes
in members from any country, so long as they're proficient in
the Black Arts. And Deorg was leader of the Tomb Sect, the same
time Snufflegint became a Sect member."
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