It was a ridiculous bet, one that plenty of bored teenage girls had made over the years while they were away from parental supervision.

Not that she had any idea what that was like. Her parents were long dead and the only one that might qualify had too many of his own issues to deal with. Case in point, he was still wanted for a crime he didn't commit.

The fact remained, she was doing something so ridiculous while in a foreign country that would have her mortified later from what she was being dared to do.

She'd rather do something stupid than give away something that would give her looks of pity from the older girl.

Cho Chang was a devious witch, and had been surprised when Regina had taken her up on her offer of letting her stay over the holidays so she could possibly meet someone who could teach them something useful to share with the DA.

One of her many, many cousins in the clan (distant enough that she only heard of him by word of mouth, but still family) was a martial arts master. If anyone could give her advice on how to get a bunch of partially motivated teenagers with very little experience in physical education into something close to a good physical shape, it would be him.

And if she happened to find his advice useful, then she could hire him to teach her how to fight. His rates were high, but he had mastered over a hundred different fighting styles... quite a few of them were very obscure.

She was going to get Cho for this. Why had she agreed to a simple game of truth or dare like that?

She had to find a random stranger and kiss them on the lips without telling them why, and return back. Otherwise she had to do a shot of some particularly strong wine and streak naked through an entire hallway of the clan compound she was a guest of. An occupied hallway.

Oh yes, she was going to get Cho for this. She was going to stick to truth for the rest of the night.

Spotting a rather attractive man with a long braid and red outfit, she immediately honed in on him. Something about him seemed to call to her, and he wasn't that bad looking.

Besides, he was enjoying tea and looked quite bored.

Regina didn't think twice. She kissed the odd stranger before he had a chance to react, and managed to vanish before he had his wits about him.

Cho gave her a thumb's up once she returned, having caught the entire thing through binoculars. She didn't see who Regina kissed, only that she did it and managed to make a clean escape.

"I am so sticking to truth from now on," said Regina, her face completely red.

"It's not like it was your first kiss, right?" joked Meilin.

Regina said nothing, but seemed to wilt into place.

Meilin winced.

"Was he a total hottie?" she asked.

"Unbelievably so," said Regina.

"Then cheer up! At least it wasn't with someone drab or ugly!"

Regina perked up at that.

"So who's next?"

In the end, Cho had to go streaking through one of the hallways while drunk off her ass. Regina had blackmail photos.

The next morning

Oh god. She was going to kill Cho for this!

The 'cousin' that happened to be a martial arts master also happened to be the same stranger she had kissed without much warning last night while sober! And from the looks of it, he recognized her equally fast, if the way he was hiding his amused expression behind his sleeve was any indication.

Thankfully "Master Fon" was a professional. Enough that he kept his silence about the mess she had found herself in.

"So just to be clear, you wish to pay me for advice on how to get the lazy English magicals into decent physical condition, and if that works out you might contract me after the end of the year as a martial arts teacher."

"I have more than enough gold to pay your fees, and I would rather have someone competent teach me rather than someone who will only see me for the blasted 'fame' I have," she explained patiently.

"Why not hire a magical tutor?" asked Fon.

She barely refrained from rolling her eyes.

"Would some hurried magical lessons really help someone who's trying to overcome several decades of magical experience with a larger spell library? I can't beat them using magic, but if there's one thing I know wizards hate more than 'dirty blood', it's physical exercise. They'll expect me to fight on their terms, not use hand to hand combat to beat them," Regina explained. "All the spells and dirty tricks in the world won't mean anything if they can't hit."

Fon blinked, before a broad smile appeared on his face.

"I couldn't agree more," he said pleasantly, pleased by her reasoning if nothing else.

Trying to match older, more experienced magicals who had years of experience fighting their own kind on their own terms was the reasoning of someone raised in a purely magical environment. It was also highly unlikely she could study and master enough spells to make up for her lack in experience.

"Besides, it couldn't hurt to learn how to defend myself without magic for once."

"I should warn you, I will not hold back any punches and I expect a proper commitment if I do agree to teach you."

Her eyes hardened.

"I'm used to being beaten up," she said darkly.

He had a feeling there was a story behind that, but didn't pry.

Fon was a very good teacher. Better than any she had before, in fact. If she didn't understand something, he would go out of his way to explain them until she understood what he was telling her. And he had a large store of patience for mistakes.

Thankfully he never brought up the "kiss and dash" incident, especially once he got the full story from Meilin. Though he had alluded to seeing the incident, rather than being the recipient of the entire bet. He found it all rather amusing, actually.

It was almost a shame when she had to return to school. But she was definitely going to pay for a second port key so she could learn directly from Fon over the summers. It made more sense than being stuck in that house again.

Plus now she had an idea of what to teach her 'students'.

Five months later...

She had lost Sirius. It was all her fault...she shouldn't have been so stupid as to believe that vision.

And now she had no one. The Weasleys might act as though she was one of them, but she had never felt like she was a member of their family. Or if she had, it was a long time ago.

She was always worried that the Weasley matriarch would expect her to marry one of her sons and tie them together as one big happy family.

Quite frankly that bordered just a little too close to incest for her liking. Ron had blown his chances last year, the twins were too much like her older brothers, and she barely tolerated Percy.

She didn't even know Charlie or Bill...besides the eldest Weasley was dating Fleur.

She needed to train until she dropped. Losing Sirius had been a blow that hurt like hell, and she'd be damned if she lost anyone else to her stupidity.

Good thing she didn't tell her friends that the 'souvenir' she picked up while visiting Cho's family was actually a port key that was set to take her straight to an arranged meeting point where Fon would find her once she called the number he gave her.

It would only take a few minutes to pay him for several months of intensive training in how to fight without a wand, but it would be worth it if she could fight and neither side saw her coming.

She made it to the meeting point, and sat down to get a nice cup of fresh tea.

Fon arrived less than two hours after she sent the text.

"Hello, little tiger," he said pleasantly. "I must admit, I wasn't expecting you for at least a week."

Something in her eyes made him pause. There was a haunted look in her expression that said something had happened. Something that had devastated the impish girl he had first meet all those months ago.

He sat down and ordered his own tea. They could start training once he found out what happened. The last thing he wanted to deal with was someone hell bent on revenge.

While they were very dedicated to training to ridiculous levels, there was always the risk of them snapping and their anger getting the best of them.

Better to bleed out the rage and avenger attitude first than deal with any potential fall out.

Fon put a full bottle of some very high proof liquor and poured an entire shot glass, before sliding it to her. They were in an area booked by Fon once the contract between them had been filled out and she had paid for three months in advance. They were the only humans allowed in the area, so she could let down her guard.

She eyed the glass dubiously, before knocking it back. It took a few moments for her coughing fit to stop and the liquor to take effect.

"What is this?"

"It's rather hard to pronounce in English," said Fon serenely. "What happened?"

"I... I walked into an ambush. I was a fool and didn't realize the inconsistencies and lead my closest friends into a trap. My godfather died trying to protect me from his psychotic cousin..." she said, hiccuping a bit. Fon poured her another glass, only this time she went a bit slower. "I watched him die right in front of me, because a man I thought I could trust kept me from getting too close. As if that wasn't bad enough, I was basically told I have a death sentence hanging over my head."

Fon blinked.

"What."

She took a larger gulp of the liquor, draining the glass.

"I was basically told by the same foolish old man who leads our school that because of the day I was born, I was the only one who could kill the so-called 'dark lord' since he tried to murder me as an infant and failed. He left me in the dark the entire year and wouldn't tell me anything important until after Sirius died. And then he plays the disappointed grandfather role when I nearly destroyed his office and clearly expects me to go back to my abusive relatives after what happened last summer. If I had known what they were supposed to be guarding, I never would have gone near the Ministry."

Fon frowned.

From the limited information she just shared, it sounded far too much like this "old man" was setting her up to become a martyr. As she had pointed out when they first meet, there was simply no way she could compete with decades of experience. And yet it seemed to him that this old man clearly expected her to do just that with very little to no training save for what she learned in that school.

It practically screamed "set up".

Seeing his new student slump as the liquor did it's job (she had a much higher alcohol tolerance than he guessed since it took three shots rather than the one he expected), he gently moved her into one of the bedrooms to let her sleep it off.

She had lost someone close to her, after walking into an ambush. She needed time to grieve whoever was lost before he could seriously consider training her. Otherwise she would just use training as a way to escape her problems, which considering what little he knew of the English enclaves would lead to more trouble than it was worth.

Regina groaned when she woke up around noon the next day. She managed to stumble into the bathroom in time to throw up what little she had eaten and felt like a jackhammer was banging away in her skull.

Fon was already waiting with a hangover remedy...not a magical one though.

"What happened last night?" she asked, waiting for the pain to die down.

"I may have loosened you up enough to explain why you arrived so early...though I wasn't expecting you to drink three shots of that particular bottle."

"Is that why my head is murdering me right now?"

"That would be the hangover. Most people who drink that sort of thing generally stay in bed," said Fon dryly.

"It's only a little pain," Regina shot back, wincing at the sunlight.

Fon raised an eyebrow. From the way she was wincing, he would bet this was her first major hangover. And yet she was up and about like it was nothing.

"I would recommend sleeping off the rest of that hangover. Most people can barely function with one," he advised.

"I've felt worse."

Like being held under the Cruciatus for a solid minute. That was a far more intense pain than a hangover.

Fon made sure she saw what he was doing. He put a cool hand on her forehead.

"You feel feverish. Exactly what did you deal with during that fight?" he asked seriously.

He could already tell she would be a very difficult patient to deal with.

Regina flushed. Her head felt like it was swimming and she was clutching the table so hard she wouldn't be surprised if it left indents.

Fon went to the freezer and pulled out an ice bag. There were several small ones already prepared inside.

The bag provided blessed relief, but she still felt like crap.

She only provided a token protest when he lead her into the same room she woke up in.

"Lay down while I find where I put the medicine to bring down your fever. And don't argue," said Fon firmly.

She was his student now, and that meant he cared about her health. It wouldn't do to train someone who was too sick to handle basic katas.

Regina swallowed the two Tylenol he handed her, and didn't really fight back when he had her lie back down. She was out cold almost as soon as the medicine kicked in.

Fon sighed. What a stubborn student he had taken on.

The fever lasted all of thirty-six hours, and during that time Fon managed to get out the full story of what she had been thrown into in bits and pieces.

Regina had the bad luck of fitting the general criteria of a prophecy she had only just learned about, and the general of the terrorists decided she had to be the one it spoke about, leaving her orphaned. And while she wouldn't admit to it, he could tell that she had been abused by her "family"...or at least neglected and suffered from being malnourished for several years.

Her godfather, which happened to be the closest thing she had to a father figure, was the one she had gone to rescue... except he was murdered right in front of her by his own cousin who had laughed about the deed.

The fact Fon hadn't batted an eye to the fact she had been so enraged that she put the woman under a torture curse had helped a lot. Apparently it was "banned" to the point even using it once got you a life sentence in their prison.

The reason she had come to him so early was because she had been told she had the equivalent of a death sentence hanging over her head. Even if she didn't believe it was real, it was clear that the leaders of both factions and likely the government would and that they would drag her in even if she refused to have anything to do with it.

What pissed her off the most was that the "Order" could be taking out the known Death Eaters now for information...except they were content to do a wait and see approach rather than be proactive. They also balked at putting a permanent end to the threat.

Only a few of them had the balls to actually deliver lethal force.

It was appalling, the fact she clearly believed that her own people would throw her in the deep end to make her solve the problem rather than do it themselves.

No wonder she had jumped at the chance to do something about it, even if it meant training in martial arts with a complete stranger.