Kata

Chapter 7: 30 September 8:00 AM -- 20 October 5:00 PM – Kata

The phrase at Durmstrang was Hackenschneiden. It was never said aloud or in public. It sent a chill down most people's spines. It certainly sent a chill down mine. To stay in certain circles, I had to go on one. I knew that if my parents ever discovered what I did, I would be taken out of Durmstrang, permanently. I went anyway.

I remember my hands were sweaty enough that I could barely ride my broom. I remember screaming and slicing a vampire into small pieces ... out of sheer terror. My fellow dueling club team mates were impressed. They said I looked like a windmill with blades. They were afraid to help. They were afraid to come close. That's me: a danger to friend and foe alike, the most feared sword in all Germany.

After graduation, I would face a year of compulsory service with the German Wizard Assault Teams. Their weapon of choice is an automatic rifle. German wizards, being a romantic lot, insist on the Kalishnikov. The vampires don't have a chance. With the combination of wood, silver, compound, and explosive bullets that they use, neither do werewolves, giants, wizards or anything else they've met. The teams practice the combined-arms of defensive spells, hurled curses, and suppressive fire. The purpose of an official vampire hunt is an exercise in field operations: intelligence, communications, and coordination of units. The teams recently learned how to stun vampires, and they can include prisoner-of-war training in the exercises. I've heard that prisoner-of-war training with a bunch of vampires is harder than one might think. Durmstrang students believe the War Department secretly releases the vampires after the exercises.

Returning to the topic at hand, I needed a room at Hogwarts in which to perform kata. I dared not go back to Durmstrang completely out of practice. In Salem, students could join a kendo club. There were tangential thoughts about other All-American delights: pizza, General Tso's chicken, and tacos. I searched until I found what appeared to be a suitable room. It was almost hidden. I didn't care to be public about this. I unpacked my bokken, my wooden samurai sword, thinking there was no reason to wave around a lot of sharp steel. I practiced a simple kata with a bokken until I was no longer completely clumsy. Then I practiced with my katana, my long, steel samurai sword that I had used on the vampire. I sought out Professor Flitwick for his advice. When I performed for Professor Flitwick, I used my katana. I might as well let Flitwick and the room know what I was about. I think the Brit expression is 'Full Monty.'

"Beautiful. Deadly," said Flitwick.

"You have chosen well. This room is an armory where the castle guard used to practice. They believed that gaining proficiency at arms improved a person's character. This room believes that, and it welcomes you."

"Who knows? You might believe it too," he added, giving me an amused look. "The room doesn't have a door. Do you want one?" he asked.

"No," I said. "At Hogwarts, doors take on lives of their own."

Flitwick nodded in agreement.

The room was in an out-of-the-way location; hence, I was not likely to be discovered. To keep people out while I practiced, I used one of Durmstrang's students' favorite souvenirs from Salem. It was bright yellow tape with black lettering that said, "CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS."

I tried to keep a balanced physical program, alternating days of kata with days of calisthenics and jogging. It was not fun. Mien Gott, I hate pushups. Various martial arts have exercises where the practitioner begins in a relaxed position, often sitting, and moves quickly into block and counter. Most attacks occur when we're unready, when we think we're safe. These exercises are exhausting. I was finishing a sequence of them when I saw the bushy haired whatsit staring at me from the door. Well, that was just ducky. I had confirmed her opinion of me that I was someone who would suddenly attack for no reason.

Two days later, I was halfway through a kata when I realized there were several people watching me from the doorway. I finished the kata, did my bow of appreciation to the room, turned and bowed to the group at the door, and noticed they were leaving. I stood there for a while, disappointed that they did not stay to return my greeting. I could hear voices as they left.

"What's he waving that stick around for?" said a male voice.

"It's a sword," said a female voice. "Did you see the way he moved? He would be across the room slicing your arm off before you could say 'Expelliarmus.'"

"All I saw was a bloody stick," said the male voice.

From the tone of the voices, it sounded, to me, like another argument between a smart girl and her dumb boyfriend. A selfish inner voice said, "Hey, I'm not stupid. I like smart girls." A more reasonable voice replied that there might be a lot of affection and passion between them.

I performed the last kata that I had planned to practice that session. Halfway through, I noticed that someone had returned and was watching. When I finished the kata, I bowed and said, "Hello, Miss Lovegood." By now I had learned the name of the abstracted girl at the sorting feast.

"Hi, Hermann," replied Miss Lovegood. "Can I do that with you?"

"It's called a kata," I said. "It's a fixed sequence of moves practiced to acquire grace and balance, although it embeds real combat techniques."

"I can see that, Hermann," Miss Lovegood told me.

Of course she could. Miss Lovegood stepped into the room, paused to absorb its ambience, and bowed. I gave her my bokken to examine. Miss Lovegood cradled my bokken and hummed to it. She went to the window and examined the trees in a small copse nearby, paying particular attention to an oak tree. She cradled my bokken again, hummed to herself some more, and then swung my bokken around. Miss Lovegood went to the window and pointed her wand at the oak tree. There was a snap, and a dead branch floated over to the window. Quick movements of her wand had the branch stripped, debarked, and trimmed at both ends. Miss Lovegood levitated the core of the branch into the room. She cradled the branch, hummed to it, and then set it on a table beside my bokken. Careful movements of her wand planed and shaped the branch. When she finished, she had a bokken that was slightly slimmer, but five centimeters longer, than mine.

I watched Miss Lovegood as she swung her bokken and copied some of the moves she had seen me make. I groaned inwardly. Here came another lesson in humility. In Potions, I had to keep up with Draco. In Charms and Transfiguration, Miss Patil was not speaking to me, but was outperforming me with great glee. In Arithmancy, I had to compete against every smart kid in school. For kata, I had someone with both natural grace and a killer instinct.

"Has anyone ever told you that you're deadly?" I asked Miss Lovegood.

"No," she said.

We started on the first kata. A few days later, padded uniforms and equipment arrived from Germany, which meant Miss Lovegood and I could whack away at each other. It was ever so much fun. Why wasn't Miss Lovegood a boy? Why did I have to have a bonding experience with a girl? Another heartbreak on the horizon. To whom do I complain about this? It would have been okay if I had considered her just another boy, but I didn't. I couldn't. Among other things, she took really good care of me after she whacked the holy crap out of me. From Samurai to Nightingale, all purpose Luna. I cringed when I saw the bruises I gave her. "Witch beater," my mind screamed at me. Despite all the fuss we made, it was only small bruises. If Miss Lovegood had been a boy, neither of us would have noticed anything.

Luckily, she was in a different year, in different classes, and I could spend a lot of time away from her. Unluckily, I ruined the opportunity to keep her distant by inviting her to study with Draco and me. What was I thinking? Draco was helping Barbara and Shelly prepare for their OWLs. The first several study sessions with Miss Lovegood were awkward, but after they adjusted, Barbara and Shelly discovered that Miss Lovegood was as gifted academically as she was athletically.

I had heard the comments about 'Loony Luna,' but she didn't make that type of impression on me. She did have some strange habits in dress and behavior, although nothing like some of the wilder students at Durmstrang. I was certain that some of them were half feral. I thought the same about some of the Durmstrang professors. It must be that Northern isolation that gets to us. Perhaps Miss Lovegood was stranger when younger and more isolated. She and Barbara and Shelly had become friends and study partners. Hence, Draco was her friend. Draco, as an aristocrat, had a tolerance of unusual behavior, and he had a calming effect since he radiated ability and confidence. Then there were the martial arts. The healing power of its discipline, the healing power of its outlet for anger and aggression, is often underrated.

Miss Lovegood's father edited a newspaper that presented an alternate point of view. She was happy to discover that I was skeptical about the official version of events. In fact, I couldn't understand the acceptance of it at Hogwarts. History at Hogwarts was taught by a ghost who believed he was teaching facts. Miss Lovegood, however, was disappointed to learn I was also skeptical about unofficial versions of events.

"Just what do you believe?" she asked, completely annoyed with me.

"Not much," I replied. "I'm lost in a sea of misinformation."

Our most ferocious squabbles, the ones that left Miss Lovegood absolutely enraged, were the discussions about the existence of certain animals. I readily admitted that new animals were being discovered all the time, but these animals were microbes, or insects, or animals in the ocean depths. I admitted it possible, but declared it unlikely, that large animals were living undiscovered in the plains and forests of Sweden. We finally agreed that I wasn't making fun of her or her father. I was just skeptical.

"Okay," said Miss Lovegood, "you don't want to lie to me about what you believe."

"Well," I said, "you don't want to lie to me about what you believe."

That didn't stop the squabbling, but the arguments weren't going to drive us apart. Later, it dawned on me how much that meant to me. She also told me she preferred 'Luna' to 'Miss Lovegood.'

One week after Luna started kata, I was sitting in the Ravenclaw common room after lunch.

"Um, Hermann?" I heard a female voice say.

It was the girl with oriental features at the sorting feast. I knew her name was Shan Li. Miss Li had learned that Miss Lovegood and I were practicing martial arts, and Miss Li wanted to join us.

"Where's Miss Lovegood?" I asked.

"Luna's in class all afternoon," said Miss Li, "but I'm free."

I went to my room to get my bokken. When I returned to the common room, she was looking at a poster on our bulletin board. The first frame of the poster showed a student standing before the Transfiguration prof, with the student waving his wand as if he were conducting the William Tell Overture in five seconds. The second frame showed an exhausted student, while the prof had turned into a voluptuous babe. The caption was, "Horatio Ravenclaw gets his 'O' in Transfiguration."

"Horatio is a legend, even amongst us Ravenclaws," I informed her.

"I can see that," said Miss Li.

Miss Lovegood had told Miss Li that a bokken was easy to make.

"It was easy for Miss Lovegood," I said.

Miss Li nodded appreciatively.

"Do you really call her 'Miss Lovegood'?" asked Miss Li.

I admitted that I called her 'Luna.'

"Then you can call me 'Shan,'" said Miss Li.

Her school uniform told me Shan was a Hufflepuff Prefect. Shan told me she was seventh year and the sister of Su Li, a sixth year Ravenclaw. I did wonder why a clannish Hufflepuff spent a lot of time with Ravenclaws, but decided Shan would tell me if and when she felt like it. I didn't automatically assume Shan spent time with the Ravenclaws because of her sister, since sisters are often glad to be in different Houses.

In the practice room, I showed Shan the basic grips, the basic moves, and the first part of a kata. It was as I feared. Shan was at least as graceful as Luna. Now I faced two tigresses. Later that evening, Luna took Shan to the copse of trees, and Shan made her bokken. It was a little shorter and a little straighter than mine. Luna later told me that making a bokken was easy for Shan. I put on a brave face and told Luna that was great. Yes, two tigresses.

It's a short step from beating seven shades of shit out of each other to studying together. Shan was going for a NEWT in Charms, and she needed a study partner. Shan wondered if I would be willing to make the sacrifice. I wondered why the Hufflepuff boys were not lined up for this opportunity. Perhaps they thought it would be difficult to study with Shan Li. Hogwarts Charms versus Shan's charms was no contest. Study? What study? I agreed to study with her because there was no graceful way to refuse. I discovered that Shan's brilliance more than made up for my immature lapses of attention.

Shan told me about her NEWT goals. I was impressed. She wanted to know why a Durmstrang student was not in Defense against the Dark Arts. I had to admit that I had tested out of those Hogwarts courses at the end of last summer. She was impressed that I was going for NEWTs in Charms and Potions even though I was only a sixth year. I tried to tell Shan about different curriculums, and I tried to tell her that I wasn't doing much else. Shan wouldn't listen. Shan got it into her head that I was like her. Well, actually I was similar, except in the beauty department. Shan talked about being totally focused on academics. We acknowledged the price for that dedication. We talked about the pressure, about the cost in friends and relationships, and about the unbalanced life. We even touched on the backlash, the times we acted like silly little kids.

This wasn't doing me any good at all. It was bad enough that I was finding Shan attractive. Now I was admiring Shan as a person.

Being Shan's partner in Charms did give us an opportunity to play an aggressive point-gathering game. Flitwick assumed our fencing competition had spilled over into the classroom. There's nothing personal about this, I reminded myself, as Shan scooped me twice in a row. I was too chagrined to appreciate how attractive she was with her winning smile and bright, predatory eyes.

Luna and Shan had learned the first kata and wanted to start on the second. I shuddered. The first kata was simple, with the katana held in what most people regarded as the normal way to hold a sword. 'Yang' was the term used at Durmstrang. 'Yin' was the term we used for the second kata. The katana was held like a dagger with the edge facing out. At first, Durmstang students thought it looked ineffective, but then we learned what a skilled 'yin' swordsman could do. The 'yin' practitioners became the most formidable opponents. Now I was about to demonstrate all this to Luna and Shan, who, quite frankly, scared me.

The fencing was crazy. The three of us went at each other like berserkers, and then we went, "Oh no, I didn't mean to hurt you. Oh, I'm so sorry."

Martial arts practice was okay. Studying and talking together was okay. The amount of time I spent fantasizing about Luna was not okay. I even had the occasional fantasy about Shan.

Why did I have to contend with classy women, whom I could not get out of my mind? I thought about my father, who had become involved with my mother. Was involvement with classy women a family curse passed down through the male Busch line? I would corner my father the next time I saw him. Not warning me about this was parental negligence.

Raving about fantasizing was fun, and raving about a family curse was fun, but I knew deep down that thinking about Luna and Shan kept me from thinking about Padma, which was painful.