A/N: Welcome back :)
Chapter 3: Meeting People
Harry woke early the next morning and carefully flexed his wand arm, feeling for the current condition of his magic. The phantom soreness still haunted his muscles and Harry frowned. There was barely any improvement from how he woke up yesterday. He'd have to lighten up on the magic use for the next few days and carefully observe his condition.
As it wasn't quite light out, and likely no one was awake yet except the night lookout, Harry slipped his medallion off from around his neck to observe it. Unless dimension traveling resulted in hallucinations, he had trapped a strange green power in the trinket two days ago and he was curious as to what it was.
The power had burned like fire, though to be honest, Harry didn't think it was really going to attack him. In his life it was simply safer to ward off or contain potential threats and ask questions later. Now was later, but Harry felt pretty clueless how to ask questions of a – as far as he knew – non-sentient green fire currently hijacking a metal talisman for a body.
It felt somewhat familiar though. Perhaps, when his magic returned fully, he'd risk trying to channel a bit of the power outwards for a closer examination. For now, he'd leave it alone.
Getting up, Harry wandered out of the sleeping quarters, confident that none of the pirates would wake at the sound of his light footsteps over the noise of their snores. The night lookout was up in the crow's nest, squinting in the light of dawn. Walking farther, Harry noticed that George, the cook, was already up and again peeling potatoes. Harry stifled a snort. It seemed that George was always sitting on a stool in the corner of the kitchen, peeling potatoes, except for when he was serving a meal.
Knocking lightly on the open door, Harry walked in, smiling when the pirate glanced up and greeted him with a grunt.
"Can I help with anything?"
George looked up fully at this with a skeptical look on his face. "Why?"
"Well, I haven't been assigned any chores yet. I'm up and have nothing much to do until Beckman's free later on. I know nothing about sailing but I can peel, chop, slice, dice, skin, and gut."
After a few seconds pause as George considered the offer, he pointed to a drawer next to his head. "Grab a knife."
Harry shuffled through the drawer before picking out another small paring knife like George was using before pulling up a rickety stool. Sitting down before the large barrel and taking off his gloves, he picked up a potato and started peeling, letting the silence settle between them as they worked until it was time to prepare breakfast.
George stood up first, setting down his paring knife at some unknown signal as he moved to the counter to uncover several large bowls of rising bread dough.
"Should I keep peeling?" Harry asked.
"Don't bother," the cook answered gruffly, lifting a mound of dough and dropping it into a bread tin before shoving it into the oven.
"Do you need help with breakfast, then?" Harry continued, choosing not to be bothered by the sharp reply.
"No."
"Alright then," Harry responded, finishing up one last potato before setting his own paring knife next to George's and putting his gloves back on his hands. "See you later then."
Harry heard a grunt in return as he left the kitchen and he smiled. It was a good start if he wanted to be friendly with everyone aboard the ship.
"Where would you like to start?"
After leaving George to cooking breakfast, Harry explored the ship a bit more. Unfortunately, very few pirates were awake at the early hour and he didn't want to distract the lookout. The lookout had an underappreciated but incredibly important job to do and it would be remiss of Harry to make light of that fact by trying to chat with him.
Instead, the wizard stretched his legs with a walk around the deck, enjoying the sea air and the soothing, rocking motion of the ship before answering to the breakfast bell along with the rest of the crew who groggily rolled out from their hammocks in the pursuit of food.
Harry ended up eating with Beckman and asked if he would like to start the English lessons, receiving an enthusiastic agreement in reply.
"Let's go to the navigation room. I use it mostly as a study room anyway and the crew knows to find me there during the days I'm not on deck."
Harry followed the first mate to the room he had discovered earlier with the bookshelves of strange compasses.
"Are these all the places you've been to?" Harry asked, gesturing to aforementioned objects, labeled with locations, their arrows still spinning wildly.
"Hmm?" Beckman asked, turning his head in the direction Harry was pointing. "Oh, yes, our Eternal Poses. The collection is far from complete, but we have a few Log Poses too, so it's only a matter of time," he explained, a satisfied look on his face.
"Why aren't they flat circles like compasses? Wouldn't that make them easier to store and carry around?"
"But then we wouldn't know when to go or down, would we?"
Harry stared. Up or down? What did he mean by that? Surely there weren't islands underwater or in the sky? How would one travel to such places even with spherical compasses?
Beckman chuckled at Harry's dumbfounded expression. "Perhaps you'll get to see for yourself someday – maybe even aboard this very ship. For now, would you please?" He handed over the book Harry gave him back to the wizard.
Harry accepted the book with a nod, and opened the book. Between the pages were sheets of paper where the first chapter of the book was copied, neatly, word for word. Harry smiled at the sight. Beckman was a scholar, despite his lack of formal education and his status as a pirate, and it reminded Harry of Hermione for a moment.
"You might as well hold onto your copies. That way I can read the first fairy tale and you can follow along without us needing to crowd over the book," Harry offered, handing the papers back.
"The Wizard and the Hopping Pot," Harry read aloud in English before saying it again in Beckman's native tongue. The pirate slowly attempted to repeat the phrase, not entirely successful, and made notes on his copied pages as Harry corrected his pronunciation and translated each word individually.
The first page proceeded painstakingly slow. Eventually, as the story grew more interesting, less time was spent taking notes, or repeating the phrase, or correcting Beckman's pronunciation, or translating the individual words. Though Beckman didn't seem to tire of the work, there were no complaints when Harry eventually finished the rest of the story by reading a paragraph aloud in English and repeating it translated.
Harry never felt more grateful for translation spells. Watching Beckman really emphasized just how tedious it could be to learn another language.
Setting the book down, Harry stretched out his arms over his head, arching his spine until it cracked before collapsing back into the chair with a satisfied sigh.
Beckman chuckled and lit a new cigarette after setting down his pen and papers.
"To lunch then?"
Harry agreed, and the two went to lunch, after which they parted ways, agreeing to continue the next day. Beckman had a few first mate duties to attend to for the afternoon, so Harry wandered around a bit, weaving through the pirates napping on the deck.
Eventually, he came upon a middle aged man with white hair and a scarred face going through martial arts forms on the back deck, his bared upper body lightly coated with a thin layer of sweat.
Harry watched for a moment, intrigued by the unfamiliar style. Eventually, the pirate completed the form, released a deep breath, and locked eyes with Harry.
After a pause, the man spoke up. "You might want to warm up as well."
Harry cocked his head to the side. Was that a challenge, or a warning of danger approaching? Either way, this was a rather nice opportunity for a physical spar. He scrunched up his robe sleeves, activating the enchantments that melted the fabric, leaving his arms bared. Folding and scrunching his battle robes here and there, the wizard triggered similar enchantments until he was left in a sleeveless top over his under-armor and long trousers tucked into his boots.
"Any particular reason for this?" Harry asked, stretching out his limbs and removing his glasses to place them in a pant pocket. They were mostly useful now for the charms on the lenses rather than correcting his eyesight. He had fixed that three years earlier with muggle lasers. He noted with amusement that the pirate was completely unimpressed by the magical display of his morphing outfit and was merely standing there, waiting, expression blank.
"We've got about an hour, likely less," came the reply, explaining nothing but probably everything there was to know. Harry knew people like this before, those who could anticipate the need to prepare for battle before any true indication of the need, though he had always assumed it was a passive form of magic. Perhaps this man had a unique form of the Color of Observation?
"Well then," Harry replied, "do you mind? It's been a long while since I've sparred with an opponent of an unfamiliar school."
Wordlessly, the two settled into their starting stances, examining their opponent and breathing calmly.
Harry started the attack with a forward lunge and punch. He wanted to see the general response the pirate had to provocation and was pleased to see a hard defense of an arm raised to block followed quickly by a counter-attack. While he personally favored the softer defensive choice of dodging punches, it was easier to get his blood flowing hot by throwing and blocking offensive body blows.
Harry grabbed the returning punch and pulled sharply to the side in an attempt to throw the pirate off balance, turning his body with the movement and raising a knee to kick from behind. The pirate, however, lunged into the pull, maintaining control over his body and loosened Harry's grip on his wrist with a harsh palm blow to the wizard's shoulder. He turned out of the range of the incoming kick and jumped backwards.
The two once more stood separately, breathing slightly heavier, Harry rubbing his bruised shoulder and rolling it back a few times to make sure it hadn't dislocated.
This time, Harry stood his ground, waiting for his opponent to make the first move. After a tense minute, the pirate stepped forward and swiftly fell to the floor, kicking his leg out in a large arc with the intention of sweeping Harry's feet from beneath him. Harry jumped boldly forwards over the leg before crouching down like a large cat and lunging deeply with his entire body to pin the pirate's body to the floor. He managed to grab an arm but was forced to release it when the pirate used the momentum of his sweeping kick to spin his body around and pull away.
Not giving up the chase, Harry spun his own legs around, hooking one of the pirate's arms and pulling it out from underneath him. The pirate regained balance quickly by shifting his weight onto the other arm and finally back onto his legs, but Harry used the pause to draw nearer and grabbed the outstretched arm, yanked it behind the pirate's back, and threw his entire body weight into pinning the heavier man onto the floor.
The pirate, anticipating Harry's intentions, managed to draw a knee up before being pushed into the wooden planks and used the limb as leverage in combination with his greater body mass to push back at the wizard and throw him off.
Feeling the muscles ripple and coil defiantly in the pirate's back and arm, Harry let go, choosing to retreat back a few more steps and gain a few seconds of preparation for the next attack rather than risk injury by being thrown by the physically more powerful man.
This time around, Harry slipped into the style of fighting he preferred of swift movements and silent dodging. It wasn't the best style for sparring since his attacks consisted mostly of neck chops and kicks to the back of the knees – before he killed the receiver during their moment of weakness, but he was infinitely better at using his reflexes to avoid attacks than using his muscles to block them.
The fight's progression instantly slowed to a standstill with Harry's decision to change his style of attack. The previous three minutes seemed like something completely detached from the following fifteen where Harry continuously dodged the pirate's flow of attacks, the wizard unable to attack and his opponent unable to land a hit, the two dancing in erratic circles around the deck.
They were finally forced to a draw when the lookout gave a cry.
"Marine ship off the starboard quarter!"
The two fighters mutually and silently stopped their spar to gaze across the ocean in search of the enemy ship, Harry following the other man's lead as he hadn't a clue what "starboard quarter" meant. From their position on the back deck, they could barely see over the right side of the ship two vaguely ship-like silhouettes in the distance, about a half-hour away.
"Impressive," Harry murmured, referring to the pirate's previously stated prediction.
"The Captain likes surprises," the pirate spoke up, answering the unspoken question of why he didn't warn everyone else of the approaching attack, "and the men like their sleep."
Harry laughed. "I hope you don't mind keeping me up to date at least."
The pirate ruffled his hair, showering the deck with speckles of sweat. "The name's Roller. We'll do this again next week." And then he left, presumably to get his weapons for the fight with the marines or maybe even a shirt.
Harry canceled the enchantments on his robes with a few sharp tugs. He didn't like the idea of going to battle without his battle robes and its assortment of protective charms. He slipped his glasses back onto his nose and summoned a belt of throwing knives from his pockets that he tied around his waist.
Satisfied he could defend himself without too much active magic use, the wizard walked off in search of Shanks. It would probably be a good idea to see what the pirate captain's policy was when dealing with marine attacks. He'd like to know how lethal his approach should be.
A/N: Did you like? Marine battle next chapter! Thanks again to my beta, Indifferent Nobody, and thank you to all my reviewers and alerted :)
I wonder, how many of you found this story on its own and how many found this story through Pirate Potter? Please let me know!
34 reviews by July 16, 2011