Whattdyamean I've been lazy? Well, whatever, nobody seemed to miss me, so blame yourselves if you were yearning from some more.

(And thanks for Noora again for all the beta work. She did it on time and all. I just didn't get around to posting it.)


4. Introduction to Oriental Magical Studies

Where the Dragon and the One begin their journey

The next day Draco awoke in his bed and wondered for a short time, what the hell he was doing. A sharp knock on the door raised him quickly and he sauntered to open it. He found the woman Potter had sent for clothes standing behind it, holding a big package in her hands.

"Your clothes," she said, thrusting them into his arms with an amused smile and marching off again. Draco raised an eyebrow, shut the door and began to investigate. What he found was not pleasing.

The whole package was filled with simple Muggle clothing.

What were they thinking?

Plain white T-shirts. A pair of jeans. A pair of loose slacks made of college. A grey sweater with a zipper in front of it. And he was supposed to wear these?

Cassiopeia had awoken drowsily, and inquired with zeal about his new clothes, which she could not see from behind the bed. Sullenly Draco lifted a shirt and Cassiopeia raised her eyebrows.

"And you are supposed to wear those?"

"He can either wear them or come with me to see the Sensei naked." Potter had entered with his bloody silent trick.

"Could you please learn some manners and not barge into my room? Now that I am able to open the door, I would be happy to do it!"

"My house."

"Well, if you would have the courtesy to give me at least peace to change into these filthy pieces of cloth you name clothes, I would be grateful!"

"Sure. I just came to inform you that the Sensei wants to meet us as soon as possible. So when you're ready, come to the kitchen for breakfast." Draco glared at him every step of the way to the door, and until he was sure that the door was closed.

"So you are going to have to put those on?" Cassiopeia blurted out unhelpfully.


After Draco had pulled on the socks coming with the package, he drew a deep breath, opened the door and walked down the stairs to the kitchen. It was governed by Mrs. Weasley, who was parading around the fire throwing hurt glances at the Sensei, who was being pestered by Granger. Potter was next to them, chatting away with Ron Weasley and the Loony girl from Ravenclaw, who was dressed even more awfully than Draco himself. They all lifted their heads as Draco opened the door.

"Oh, close the door quietly, would--!" came too late from the Weasley woman, and as soon as the door slammed, a screech awoke outside it.

"Oh dear," Mrs. Weasley sighed. " Could someone go shut Mrs. Black up?"

"I'll go, Mum." Ron Weasley rose. "I don't want to be in the same room with him."

He was sure to knock into Draco's shoulder as he went past, with the Loony girl, who wished a good morning to Draco in a dreamy voice, going along in his tow. Draco huffed at her and walked up to Potter and the others.

"So the sleeping beauty has at last deigned to enchant us with his presence," Potter smiled at him as Mrs. Weasley brought him a plate of porridge with a golden eye of butter winking at him.

"No chance of croissants and espresso, I suppose," Draco muttered darkly and dug into it, "You could've come to wake me up."

"Did I say sleeping beauty? More like the sleeping beast. I wasn't going to get my head bitten off," Harry replied airily and Draco frowned as he vaguely remembered someone knocking at his door and his answer to it.

The Sensei had waited patiently while the boys had their midday quipping at each other. She said something to Granger, who readily whisked away into some hole of study of hers. Draco and Potter closed their mouths and turned to face the Sensei.

"We will begin our lessons at plecisely seven o'clock every day. If you are late, you get extla work-out." Draco groaned while he ate his breakfast. "Today we will go thlough the culliculum and study the diffelences of Westeln and Oliental Magic. Potter-san, would you be kind and supply us a loom for plactice?"

"Yes, I've already reserved one of the third floor rooms for us."

"Good. I will meet you there in half an hour." And with this she left.

Draco and Potter looked at each other awkwardly, and Draco solved the situation by finishing his breakfast.

"I wonder if we need something to make notes with," Potter opened the conversation nervously. Going back to learning seemed to erase his cool attitude.

"I wouldn't think so. Oriental studies traditionally require you to learn things by heart."

Potter gulped, "That sounds difficult."

"I bet it will be to you."

"Oh, and why will you do better than me?"

"I have eidetic memory. I can remember anything I hear."

"That must be useful." Potter was clearly envious and Draco smirked. There was no way he would tell Potter that Draco's father had actually trained him in the skill.

"Now that I'm able to walk around the house, could you give me tour?"

"Sure. We'll start from the bottom, which is here, the kitchen. Mrs. Weasley has kindly promised to cook the Order food, and take care of all matters concerning the household, as I sent Kreacher to Hogwarts."

"Wasn't much use anyway," Mrs. Weasley commented as she cleared Draco's dishes away with a wave of her wand.

"That door goes to the pantry," Potter pointed, "and this to the hallway."

"I'm not stupid," Draco growled at him and Potter gave him an innocent 'aren't you?' look.

Potter thanked Mrs. Weasley and they left the kitchen, taking care to close the door quietly. Arriving into the hallway, Potter lowered his voice into a whisper.

"You have to be quiet here. The portrait of Mrs. Black tends to go into bellowing hysterics every time she has an excuse to wake up."

"Why don't you remove the portrait?" Draco whispered back, looking at the mouldy curtains hiding the painting spoken of.

"We haven't figured out any way to get it off the wall yet. Sirius," Potters eyes dimmed at this point, "said she had charmed it Irremovable or something, when she lived." Draco eyed the portrait with even more interest, trying to peer under the curtains as they walked past it, and decided to look at it when he had a chance.

"And here's the first floor, you know the drawing room already, and that's Hermione's bedroom. There's the meeting room," Potter said, and a door opened, showing a gloomy room with a long dark table with matching chairs. The light of a sparkling chandelier showed a few scrolls lying around on the table.

"Otherwise, this floor mainly has some empty rooms we use for storage, and that room," Potter pointed, "seems to have some kind of a Befuddling Charm on it, that we haven't managed to crack yet, so you might want to stay clear of it."

They tramped up to the second floor. "Ron and I sleep there, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley there, Bill and Fleur here, now that they're back from their honeymoon and looking for an apartment…"

"You mean Fleur as in Fleur Delacour?"

"Yes, why?"

"She married a Weasley?"

"Bill Weasley. You know, the one who has long hair and who has the scars by Fenrir Greyback, when Hogwarts was attacked?" Draco shut his mouth at this and let Potter continue.

"And here's Lupin's and nowadays also Tonks' bedroom, though they haven't announced anything official yet."

"Seemed rather official to me," Draco remarked.

"The broom cupboard, as we can't use the downstairs one anymore; it started eating the brooms up, and the room we use when we have to leave quickly by brooms, it has the biggest windows. And this is the bedroom I gave to the Sensei." The door was painted red and had black characters on it and a Fireball carved above it, which was eyeing the two boys with suspicion. Potter returned it a baffled look. "She somehow converted the whole place over night, it used to be just the same as all the rooms in the house. Hermione talked something about dimensional-transfer and morphing, but all I understood was that I can't control the room anymore."

They continued to the third floor. "Here's George and Fred's room, when they're not staying in their flat above their shops, and this is Charlie's, though he's currently in Romania… "

"Is the whole Weasley clan living in Grimmauld Place?" Draco scorned.

"The Burrow got attacked a week after Bill and Fleur's wedding."

"Oh… I didn't know, I was probably on the run then…" Potter looked at him and continued.

"Luckily, no-one got hurt, though Mrs. Weasley had her arm almost ripped off when she insisted to save the grandfather clock, so I made them stay here. And here is the room I named for our training," The dark door was emblazoned with a Chinese character, and Potter frowned at it, "and I have no idea what is happening inside, it seems she's in a process of wrecking the whole place." Glancing at a clock, which was ticking more loudly than you would expect a clock to and showing them that they had still twenty minutes time, he continued, "The room next to it is the old dining room, but we eat in the kitchen, as it is more comfortable, and that is the smaller ballroom, and this the master bathroom."

Yet another staircase up to the fourth floor, which held the larger ballroom, and a toilet with a ghoul Draco was told he would not want to meet, so they went up without further ado.

"On the fifth floor we have the library, where Hermione dwells most of the time, when she isn't in Hogwarts getting more books. She's probably got half of it in here now. And that's the games room, with any game you can imagine. And that is the old room of Buckbeak…"

"Is that monster in here?" Draco started.

"I said old room. And he is not a monster; the whole scene back then was your own bloody fault."

"Was not."

"Whatever, Malfoy. The room however is still not cleaned after him, full of rat skeletons and such, but it's Mrs. Black's old bedroom so no one could care less. Those stairs lead to the attic, which is full of cobwebs and odd bits and bobs. We haven't yet managed to clean it, so there might be something dangerous there. That's the house."

"It's in shabby shape," Draco frowned at the greying walls.

"We haven't got spare time to fancy it up. We've tried to make it as safe as possible," Potter shrugged apologetically.

"Mind if I do something to it?"

"Like what?"

"As long as I don't have my wand…"

"And you are not having it for a long time."

"…I can only arrange the furniture and see if I can persuade everything to lighten up a bit. Just something for me to do and keep myself sane."

"Sure."

"Unlike you, I like to do something instead of being bored."

"I'm not that keen on decorating as you are."

"Taking care of a house's appearance is nothing to be ashamed about," Draco answered haughtily, "And what is that door? It wasn't here before."

"Oh, that is the Travelling Room. It moves around the house, sometimes disappears. We use it for safekeeping. I'd recommend you to stay away from it, as you might find yourself stuck in it. As the Owner I'm the only one able to control it. And I'm not sure how soon we'll notice you're gone." Potter patted the door and it wagged its handle like a dog wags its tail to its master. Draco ignored his threat and asked how much time they had.

" A little over five minutes. Might as well go down." So they descended to the stairs and found Sensei waiting for them on the third floor.

"Come in, please," she ordered and led them to the room. It was light with whitewashed walls and it had a soft tatami floor made of straw. Before letting them in the Sensei told them that no shoes were allowed on the tatami. Neither of them did have shoes on, but she still gave them beautiful embroidered silk slippers to wear.

The Sensei then proceeded to kneel on the floor in one fluid motion, and proffered the two boys to sit opposite her. Potter was lost, as usual, but when Draco knelt down into the Japanese seiza posture, Potter copied him. The Sensei smiled dryly to their efforts and waited in silence for a while. Draco felt his feet becoming numb and tried not to concentrate on the uncomfortable feeling. Potter was having more troubles controlling himself and started fidgeting soon.

"It is vely polite to do the seiza with me. I am, however, aware of the unpleasantness of it to unused. You may sit closs-legged on the tatami."

Draco thanked the sensei and moved his legs relieved; Potter sighed beside him and Draco eyed his slouched posture with contempt and made sure his back was straight.

"You have agleed to enter applenticeship under me. I will therefore teach you as well as I can the Art of Oliental Defensive and Agglesive Magic. It is difficult, because we have so little time and so much to learn. I will therefore concentlate on the main points and leave out much that I would teach to students in the Academy, who have yeals for studying. Our culliculum will be in its basics be the following.

"You will learn today the diffelences of Oliental and Westeln Magic. I will also intloduce you to youl workout ploglamme that you will begin to follow starting flom tomollow. It will be compiled flom yoga, tai chi, and other Oliental plactices for tlaining your body. Meditation will also become a basic part of your day. Tomollow we will study bleathing techniques. Then we will cover theolies of the mind and body, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Shintoism, Confucianism and other…"

"Excuse me, but aren't we going to learn magic?" Potter interrupted rudely, though Draco had been wondering the same.

"Magic will come alongside. That is the diffelence of Westeln and Oliental Magic. We think of the world as a balanced complete, all is one and one is all. Therefore magic is not separate, it is part of the world. Evelything affects it. When your mind and body are in balance, your magic is in balance.

"In the Westeln Magic, you channel your magic by a wand. In the Oliental Magic we do not even begin the attempt to channel magic. You contlol magic, we…how do you say…let magic be. Here you tlain only magic, we tlain the whole. In Oliental Agglessive and Defensive Magic, the body is as impoltant as magic. When you master it, there is no line between your body and your mind, magic and movement.

"And as you have no knowledge on Oliental philosophies, and you have had no physical training, we must concentlate on those first. So, as I was saying, after studying Oliental philosophies and an intloduction to yoga and tai chi, we continue into Martial Arts…"


They broke off for dinner after a few hours. Draco's mind was whirling with the possibilities and new views on magic. The Sensei had told them that transferring your mind from the Western way of thinking into the Oriental would be difficult, due to the age, but possible. They had done practises with images and concepts, and now Draco felt his mind had been jinxed with a Bat-Bogey Hex.

He sat down next to Potter without even thinking about it. Ron Weasley and Granger sat before them. They looked worryingly at Potter, who was staring into space.

"Harry, are you alright?" Granger asked.

"What? Yeah, I just…Wow… What a mind trip."

"You hit the nail for once, Potter," Draco said, without bothering to insert a nasty tone.

"I just wonder… If magic can be…done it the way that she showed us… Why don't we do that here?" When Weasley asked what he meant, he began describing excitedly the feats the Sensei performed to them. Draco rolled his eyes and concentrated on the delicious smell that was emerging from a giant pot in the fireplace. He had to admit that the Weasley woman could cook.

Halfway through Potter's description of the Sensei illustrating the co-operating of the mind and body by the example of levitation, Mrs. Weasley floated a bowl of warm stew to each.

"So Kikuta-san will not eat with us, will she?" she inquired from Potter in hurt tones.

"Err... No, she actually asked me to send her apologies and a message that her stomach is not a friend of British food," Potter replied.

"Can't see what's wrong with this," Ron Weasley said through a mouthful of mutton. Draco noticed Granger giving him an as disgusted a look as he himself did.

"She's probably not used to this much fat in her diet. Japanese mainly eat rice and vegetables, with an occasional addition of fish," Draco informed them.

"And who asked you?" Ron Weasley glared at him.

"No one has ever before complained that my food was fatty," Mrs Weasley said and walked off to sulk with some laundry.

"Harry, what did Kikuta-san say about the differences of Western and Oriental magic?" Granger was trembling with eagerness.

"Well, she said something about Oriental magic not using wands and that they control their magic more by the body…"

"She said nothing of the sort, you git," Draco interrupted him and turned to Granger in haughty pride. "Oriental Magic does not channel power through wands or command words like we do. She described it as 'letting magic be', so I suspect there is a certain word for it in Kijutsu, which is difficult to translate into English.

"Basically, what I gathered from her lecture is, that when an Oriental witch or wizard wishes to perform magic, she only needs to express this wish, and it happens. There are numerous different descriptions of the process; some philosophies use metaphors such as 'loaning from the gods' and others as 'extending your soul'…"

"So they do not separate religion from magic?" Granger butted in.

"No, to them religion is integrated to every part of life, including magic." This led into an intense discussion on magic, which Draco surprised found that he enjoyed. Potter and Weasley watched them for a few minutes, but soon found they could not follow and began to talk of the Sensei's coolness.