Chapter thirteen
Dragon Kata
About a week later, the next DA meeting took place. The students were surprised to see a pink splatter staining the floor on the inside of the door and were chuckling lightly at the sight of Cynder and Hermione dripping with pink goo with irritation written on their faces,
"Not. A. Word!" Cynder hissed through gritted teeth before sending a death glare at Sparx who backed away slightly in fear.
After the goo incident, and once Hermione and Cynder were cleaned up, the lesson could start. Harry stepped forward and announced to the assembled students,
"Ok, I understand that we got this group together to learn defensive magic as no one else will. But during the last session, a new development was brought to my attention, Cynder, if you would as I believe this is your expertise?" Cynder bowed respectfully before stepping forward, a tiny bit nervous about what she was going to tell the DA,
"Last time Voldemort was around, he had armies of dark wizards and all sorts of monsters," she started, noting a few of the students cringing at his name, "but this time is different as he has the power of one of the evillest forces I know of; the mind and abilities of Malefor himself. A lot of you should remember that from our speech at the end of the last school term, but what we didn't tell you was that..." she took a deep breath before saying "he's my father" the group gasped at this, "but I want to stop him just as much as anyone, and so I felt you should be made aware that Malefor's minions, Grublins, are highly resistant to magic." this caused even more gasps and muttering to happen, so Spyro stepped forward,
"We know you all want to have a chance outside of this school so, with Hermione's help, we have been able to create a human form for a martial art from our home called Dragon Kata." This statement definitely got the students attention, "but we wish to make this clear, you are to use these techniques the same way you would use every spell you learn in these sessions" Spyro added, "only in self-defence, understand?" this was followed by a bunch of nods and yes's from the group.
As Spyro and Cynder took their places at the front of the class, they turned to face the group and were happy to see even Harry among them. The dragons faced each other, bowed to each other, then faced the class,
"ready?" Spyro asked, and with the whole group nodding in response, Cynder declared
"lets begin!"
The lesson started with simple blocks, Spyro and Cynder would have a simple stunning spell sent at them by Hermione (who had already learnt the moves in order to show them to the group) and the dragons would cross their wings in front of themselves to block the oncoming spell. Hermione then would demonstrate how a Human could do this move by having Spyro try to strike her, she was able to catch the attack by quickly raising her arms in a crossed position, which in turn threw Spyro back. Then the rest of the class started practicing and, once again, it was Elora who was able to master the block first.
The next step was dodging. Once again, Hermione send simple stunning spells at the dragons, who were quick to roll well out of the way. Hermione then demonstrated how the students could do it. Cynder lunged at the witch who ducked under the attack and rolled forward to put some distance between her and the dragon. The DA took some time to get the dodge and the roll in perfect synchronisation, but when someone was able to do it, Cynder wasn't surprised that it was Elora, that girl had a gift of learning fast.
The last thing they were able to teach during that session was basic jabs, which Spyro demonstrated on a Training Dummy, he jumped to gain height and landed one blow to the left side of it's head, used the momentum gained from the hit to do a complete circle in the air, used that same momentum to land an even more powerful blow to the right, which changed his direction as he circled back to the left and used his hind legs to strike the dummy in the chest, sending it clattering backwards. Hermione quickly repaired the dummy and took Spyro's place, she clenched her fists, slowed her breathing, and then struck the left side, span on her right foot, delivered another blow to the right side, span back, and delivered a double handed blow to the dummy's stomach which sent it slamming to the floor. The class applauded this display, which Hermione smiled kindly at and bowed before summoning enough Training Dummies for them all to practice on, and to no one's surprise at all… Elora was the first to master the technique.
After the lesson, Cynder was glad to know that at least the DA now had a better chance at defending themselves against a number of enemies,
"Thank you," Harry said to her as they were leaving, being careful to not be noticed by anyone, "this Dragon Kata will definitely improve our chances against Voldemort and his army." Little did he know that both dragons were soon going to be glad they taught this to the DA so soon.
The next day was the start of the weekend, so Elora decided to take a stroll down to Hagrid's Hut to Visit Spyro, Cynder and Sparx. She enjoyed the company of the resident dragons much more than she did with humans, she guessed she got it from her great uncle. As she neared the hut, a voice shouted out from behind her,
"Hey! Mander! Where do you think you're going?" she froze instantly, not many people called her by her last name, except…
"oh no" she muttered, as she turned around to face, "Vincent Crabbe," she announced with partial worry, "why are you following me?"
"Because you have been hogging the spotlight for too long," he declared with an air of malice in his voice, "its about time someone cut you down to size," Elora was quick to pull out her wand when Crabbe drew his, "EXPELLIARMUS!" Crabbe bellowed and the poor girl wasn't able to do anything as her wand flew out of her hand and into the bushes nearby, "STUPEFY!" Elora was then sent tumbling to the ground as the stunning spell slammed into her chest, she gasped for breath as Crabbe started punching her in the face! She then remembered yesterday's Dragon Kata lesson, slowing her breath, and pushing through the pain, she crossed her arms and caught Crabbe's fist and pushed the bully back and got into a fight position, the bully was not expecting this, he quickly sent three Sunning spells at her, which the nimble girl ducked under before rolling towards him and as she flipped herself onto her feet, Crabbe didn't have time to react as she punched him on the left side of his face, span around, delt another blow to the other side of his head which sent him off balance before she span in the opposite direction and delt a double handed blow to his stomach that finally knocked him to the ground with his wand slipping from his grasp. Elora acted fast and scooped up the wand, it wasn't hers, but it was enough for what she had planned.
"Mercy is for the weak" she said coldly as she pointed Crabbe's wand at its owner, "if someone confronts you, he is the enemy. An enemy deserves no mercy." She raised the wand, Crabbe braced himself for the jinx, and… "Rictusempra!" Elora shouted and Crabbe suddenly burst into peals of laughter, he couldn't stop! She placed the wand about two meters away from the laughing bully with a smile, "I'll just leave this here for you" she chuckled as she recovered her own wand and stumbled towards the hut, only to see the open mouths of its three residents staring at her in disbelief.
After taking both students to the Hospital Wing, the dragons were glad to hear from Madam Pomfrey, the school nurse, that most of the injuries weren't major, Elora had the worst injury overall, her nose was broken. The dragons were there when Madam Pomfrey straightened the girl up and pointed her wand at Elora's skew-if and bloody nose,
"this will hurt a bit" she warned and as the girl held her breath, Madam Pomfrey said, "Episkey" and with a notable snap and a yelp of pain from Elora, her nose was once again back to normal. Spyro then noticed that Luna was sitting on one of the other beds and was watching eagerly, she noticed the dragon looking at her and whispered,
"I had a funny stomach after lunch, so I wanted to be sure I wasn't poisoned by the ministry." On seeing Spyro's confused look, she stated "haven't you heard? I heard that Mr. fudge uses the Department of Mysteries to develop terrible poisons to feed to anyone who disagreed with him, and my dad writes the truth in the Quibler" in order to save himself from this conversation, he gave an awkward grin and nodded,
"yeah… okay…" he then redirected his attention to Elora, who was already chatting with Cynder,
"that was amazing!" Cynder announced, "we were about to butt in when you unleashed that Dragon Kata,"
"I agree with you," Spyro nodded, "that was amazing, and the fact that you were able to use the three basics in quick succession like that, how do you do it?" Elora sighed at this and lowered her voice so that only Spyro and Cynder could hear,
"I have a partial photo-reflexive memory," she confessed, "if I can see how something is done, I find it easy to replicate it myself" that made sense now, how she needed Cynder's help in class but was able to do Dragon Kata after seeing it done. But she wasn't done, Elora had been sitting on a secret she longed to tell someone, and at long last, she knew who she could tell. "Also, you know my name as Elora Mander, but that's not my proper name, I changed my last name in order to avoid being given any favours." This confused the dragons,
"then, what is your last name?" Spyro asked, not realising he wasn't ready for the answer,
"Scamander," she said, "my real name is Elora Scamander"