Harry Potter and the Magical Tours

Harry awoke because someone was shaking his shoulder. Opening his eyes, he knew the shaking had pulled him out of a weird dream, only he couldn't remember any details. This wasn't unusual for him; in addition, the sight of Tamiko, kneeling at his side, certainly didn't help him remember.

He glanced at his watch. Six o'clock in the morning!

Tamiko rose graciously, walked to the cabinet containing his Japanese clothes, and took out what would be his dress throughout all training lessons: wide-legged pants and a loose-fitting jacket, held by a belt of the same material - white cotton. Nothing for the feet.

This done, Tamiko left the room, and Harry's horror faded. For a moment he'd thought ...

The breakfast table offered tea and rice cakes. Watched by a smiling Shihiko, Harry reached for the sugar pot to flavour his tea as sweet as it was strong. When he had eaten, Tamiko guided him to the training room.

Glancing around, Harry saw that calling it a hall would be a more accurate description. The room, with large windows at one side and a floor of polished parquet, would have been perfectly suited for dance lessons.

Shigura was already waiting for him. The sensei's first lesson seemed not too far away from dancing: Harry had to learn how to walk.

As if he didn't know.

A few minutes later, he realized that he really didn't know.

It had to do with balance. Like all westerners, Harry tended to place his centre of weight at the shoulders, whereas people from the Far East - and certainly aikido sennin - walked with their centre of weight at the pelvis.

So far, the sensei's explanation had been easy to follow. Unfortunately, locating the problem didn't mean Harry could solve it. Shigura was walking, and Harry had to push him, trying to put him off balance. All he managed was to break Shigura's rhythm, a short swing of the bulky figure.

Then they changed roles. At the sensei's first pushs, which were not even hard, Harry lost his step and took a few one-legged jumps to regain his balance, only to fall down headlong when Shigura let another push follow at exactly that moment.

After a while, Harry caught on to the principle, a success which was not to be confused with the mastery of said principle.

Shigura said, "You'll refine your balance with every step you take, Ha-ri ... I'll push you whenever I see you out of balance - and every now and then when I see you walking properly, just for positive feedback."

Balance done - well, not really, though it was settled as a permanent task. What was next?

How wrong he was. It had only just begun.

Later, in retrospect, Harry would recognize the full four weeks as a lesson in balance: physical balance, mental balance, analytical balance, strategic balance, emotional balance, the balance of desires and goals, of thoughts and ideas, of talk and silence.

Balance the second was about standing. Simple, wasn't it?

No.

The principle appeared the same. The test - pushing a motionless body - also was the same, only it turned out considerably more difficult because a motionless body had no momentum to balance it out.

Or so Harry thought - until the sensei showed him that thinking of momentum and motion as equivalent was a bad misjudgment of the corrupted western mind.

And sure enough, as soon as Harry demonstrated the slightest trace of understanding, Shigura declared this exercise to be another permanent one.

Feeling slightly exhausted from things as simple as standing and walking, Harry wondered if it might be time for the first mental training?

However, as he had the opportunity to observe now as well as during the following days, Shigura preferred to place a majority of physical exercises in the morning, with an equal share of mental training in the afternoon. And often enough, the Zen master hinted that Harry might balance out any lack of brain stimulation in his spare time - after all, a Go match was mental training, wasn't it?

---

Even so, the next lesson balanced out quite nicely, because Harry was ordered to do exactly the opposite of the previous exercises. He should learn how to fall.

He had to collapse. He had to fall forward, backward, sideways. He had to do jump falls.

Shigura pushed him.

Next moment, Shigura's leg swung hard from behind, flat over the ground, kicking Harry's legs into the air. A moment later, the sensei did the same from front.

Harry rubbed his ankle, which was hurting like hell.

"Does it hurt, Ha-ri?"

Stupid question. "Yes, sensei."

"Small wonder. Why are you standing like a rock, seeing my leg coming?"

Maybe because Harry had thought he'd been ordered to stand. Maybe because the sensei's leg had come so incredibly fast. Maybe because he was a bit slow - damn, today was his first day!

The goal was to fall without being hurt, and to get up again in the same motion - the force that made him fall had to be used as the force that made him rise.

Harry remembered the man at London Linkport, suddenly realizing this had been a sennin - an adept of aikido with a remarkable skill in falling like a cat.

The first exercises were done on a large mat, until Harry's initial clumsiness had faded a bit. Then Shigura said, "Pain is a wonderful teacher," and ordered Harry to continue on the unpadded parquet.

When every single bone in Harry's body was aching, the sensei stopped the lesson. "We'll continue outside," he said, "under the trees."

Next moment, Harry was flying - Shigura had caught him off-balance, looking pleased nonetheless as Harry managed to finish the single fluid motion in upright position.

The light cedar forest offered a wonderful atmosphere. Harry loved it at first sight - not only because the ground was soft, dampening every fall, even more for the quietness, the scent, the delicious air.

Shigura sat down, motioned him to sit opposite - lotus position, of course. In Harry's current state, the additional pain was hardly noticeable.

"For your first meditation, Ha-ri," said the Zen master, "I have selected something you might know, to make it simple." Shigura extracted a piece of paper - rice paper, as Harry learned later, and passed it to him.

Harry read with growing bafflement:

Having finished reading, though not having caught any idea what it meant, Harry looked up. "No, sensei - I don't know this text."

"It's a quotation from Through the Looking-Glass, a novel written by Lewis Carroll, and the sequel to Alice in Wonderland." Shigura seemed astonished, seemed to expect every English wizard would nod and say, 'Yes, of course.'

"Sor - " Harry stopped, then began again. "No, sensei, my relatives didn't feed me with Muggle literature - which means they fed me none at all."

If the Zen master recognized the irony, it bounced off without leaving a trace. He just said, "Then this exercise is a bit more complex than expected, which is fine as well. Think about it, Ha-ri."

Harry did.

---

First, his hurting ankles were a bit dominant in his thoughts. Telling them to shut up seemed useless, so he decided to ignore their complaints - with some success, as it turned out, because suddenly he remembered how the Giants were with names. Complete names.

With all its many names, this song should really be complete, except you never knew. And the text was only about the name, or the name for the name ... A name's name's name from a friend's friend's friend of Lupin, whose name was a joke by itself, while Voldemort's name was a play of letters ... What did Tamiko mean in English? Come to think of it, what did Cho mean in English, or Chang? The power of names - had they power of their own? Yesterday morning, the syllables Ta-mi-ko had meant nothing to -

"What have you found, Ha-ri?"

He started. "I was thinking about the power of names, sensei."

"Do names have power?"

"That's what I was trying to figure out. Giants use names to address people and, at the same time, to express an opinion. For a while, Lleyrin only used my first name, because I was incomplete."

"And why did he stop doing so?"

About to answer, Harry saw Sigura's grin and decided to keep silent.

The Zen master wasted no time on wiping off his grin before he asked, "How do you arrange the names mentioned in this text?"

When Harry started to explain, Shigura extracted another piece of paper and a pen - a Muggle artefact. "Draw a picture, Ha-ri."

Harry made a first attempt, then used the back, then had to ask for another sheet. Finally, he felt satisfied with his picture and passed it to the sensei.

Shigura examined his diagram. "Very accurate, Ha-ri. Do you know what it is?"

"No, sensei."

"A mathematician would call it an isomorphism, something like a figuration shaped after another figuration ... Actually, Carroll was a mathematician, and this little conversation is one of the many jokes in his novel - a very useful one."

The Zen master passed the diagram back. "Now - translate it into strategies, Ha-ri."

For a moment, Harry felt as bewildered as Alice.

Fleur's words came up in his mind. If she says no, perhaps she means no, or perhaps she means yes. Suddenly, he saw it, felt familiar ground under his mental feet, which, by the way, hurt considerably less than his physical ones.

His eyes fixed on the paper, he said, "If A-sitting On A Gate is the enemy's real strategy, it can be countered by The Aged Aged Man. But the enemy might hide his strategy, might appear as if Ways and Means is what he has in mind - which would be countered by Haddock's Eyes. So the obvious action is probably not more than a cover for the real intention ..." He looked up. "And one must figure out the hidden thing from the visible one."

"Yes, Ha-ri ... Your strategic skills are clearly better developed than your balance, or your jaho."

Harry tried the zarei - the sitting bow - with moderate success, and not-so-moderate pain in his back.

"We call the covering fake a shadow," explained Shigura, "and the strategy for uncovering the real intention is called moving the shadow. You attack the apparent front, fully aware this is just a shadow, to get a glimpse of the real plan."

"And what if the shadow turns out to be the real plan?"

"Then you must be still balanced, Ha-ri. Moving the shadow has to be done without compromising yourself."

Next moment, the sensei's body swung around, his leg coming like a blade toward Harry's head. Harry barely managed to duck low, creating a perfect zarei.

It didn't help. An instant later, something hard was pressing his neck.

The sensei's voice had a mocking tone. "Keeping your position in defense is hardly a good manoeuver, Ha-ri - you should have rolled away. In defending against my shadow, you compromised yourself ... This is a nice example, and a good exercise we might practice in your first aikido lesson."

* * *

After a light meal, barely satisfying Harry's need for food, Shigura invited him into the garden. Over the next several days, Harry would learn this was a habit, and these times were devoted to some light conversation - light in the sense of the Zen master.

A moment of silence passed, then Shigura said, "This is a good place to ask questions, Ha-ri."

Harry bowed.

Taking his time, he said eventually, "I would like to hear about Zen, sensei."

"Then I'll tell you a koan," replied Shigura, who seemed to have expected this request. "A koan is a tale about a Zen master and a student, or many students - it might be a story, a tale, a fable, a myth - a farce. It is in the nature of a koan to hide its true nature."

Harry was reminded of Giants' tales and waited expectantly for Shigura's koan.

"A student asked his master, 'What is Zen?' The master said, 'Zen is a man hanging above an abyss, holding to a tree with his teeth. His hands are free, not holding a branch, and his feet are in the air. Someone below asks him, "Why did Bodhidharma, the first Zen master, come from India to China?" If the man in the tree doesn't answer, he has failed the test - if he answers, he'll fall into the abyss'... What should he do?"

Had this been a question, or just the end of the koan? ... Unable to decide, Harry kept silent.

If Shigura had asked a question, if he had expected an answer - two totally independent conditions, Harry realized - at least the sensei showed no reaction to the silence.

After a while, the Zen master told him a bit about Zen Buddhism, supposedly the pure form. In contrast, references to Zen in the context of combat techniques were considered a contradiction, because the goal of Zen was satori, a state of non-thinking. But then, Zen was the solution of the impossible, a contradiction in itself, and nobody else but the monks in the Zen cloisters had developed techniques like aikido.

Then it was time for Harry's first exercise with the bokken. Harry followed Shigura into the training hall.

A bokken was a polished piece of wood, almost two inches thick, more than three feet long. With those proportions, they were the human equivalents of Giant quarterstaffs.

"In kendo," explained Shigura, "there is the top, the bottom, and the middle. Then there is left and right, although they appear only in transit." He illustrated his words with slow movements of his bokken - striking from an overhead position downward, thrusting straight at half height, swinging the bokken low like a club.

Then he demonstrated a sequence of movements, with a forward step in which his entire body stretched, returned, and tilted backward in a parade, then the bokken wheeled from the right to the left side of the body, and the same sequence again.

Performed by Shigura, the sequence appeared a fluid motion, graceful and dance-like.

For Harry, it was hard work. Furthermore, after some time, it was unbelievable how heavy the bokken felt. Close to his first cramp, Harry was saved by the sensei's command to stop, to flex his hardening muscles in another sequence of falls, and to sit down for another meditation.

Shigura sat down opposite him. In his hands was a bamboo stick.

"First I'll tell you another koan, Ha-ri. The Zen master Shuzan presented a short stick to his students and said, 'If you call this a short stick, then you are contradicting its reality. If you don't call it a short stick, then you are ignoring the fact ... Then so, how would you call it?"

Glancing at the stick, Harry was afraid he had to answer that question. Only when Shigura spoke again, he became aware - this had been a koan.

"Ha-ri," said the Zen master, "for the next minutes, think about the difference between right and true, or correct and true."

That felt easy. Truth was ... Glancing at the stick again, Harry's mind took a step back and started again. True - which truth did he know? He felt true determination to fight Voldemort, so it was right to come here ... True love had won a battle - could love be right? Or wrong? Was it right to think of Tamiko? On the other hand, it was true. His agreement with the linkport manager had felt right, even though it couldn't be farther away from the truth. But what was the truth? He had been attacked - had he? Yes of course, because - no, he hadn't, he'd ducked and disarmed them, which had been the right action at the right time.

Startled, Harry looked up. The Zen master had said something.

Shigura spoke again, but gave no hint as to whether or not this was a repetition or another remark. "I'll leave you alone now, Ha-ri ... When you think the time is right, you may follow."

Harry bowed, wondering where he should follow - maybe into that big room. Coming up from his bow, he wondered even more.

Because the sensei was sitting motionlessly in front of him, his eyes closed.

A trick ... no, a Zen command. Shigura was still sitting there, so he wasn't ... no, only his body was there, while his mind - then why did Harry feel certain the sensei would see his every movement?

Suddenly, Harry felt trapped. Maybe he should rise, step over, and sit down at the Zen master's side. Could this be considered as following? It seemed ridiculous - they had each other in full view. Or at least they would have, if Shigura's eyes were open ... If Harry left the room, it would be disobeying an order, or so it felt. If not, he was sure of it, they would sit here for eternity ... A picture of two skeletons appeared in his mind, sitting in this hall. With difficulty, he suppressed a chuckle.

And what if he simply turned? Then his teacher would be out of sight - but that was like a child's play, not meditation.

A giggle escaped him.

Shigura's eyes opened. He smiled. "Right, Ha-ri."

* * *

Next came another kenjutsu training, continued until Harry felt unable to raise the bokken once more.

Shigura deposited the two bokken by the wall and came back. "This is the best time for aikido training, Ha-ri. You have no strength left, all you can use is the attacker's own force, which is exactly what we need."

It worked so well that for a few minutes, Harry suspected the sensei was faking. But this was impossible. Then he realized - Shigura was only performing the attack figure to the end, not trying anything else while Harry defended and defeated as instructed. True, the sensei acted like a stupid one-trick pony, which would never happen in a real attack; however, it was very encouraging to see a man who weighed almost twice as much as Harry fly through the air - provided the grip was properly set.

Then the day's lessons were over. It really had come true.

Harry bowed and walked out to fetch Nagini, who had enjoyed the fresh air and the smooth ground of the forest and would continue to do so during the following weeks.

By the time he arrived at his room, he was barely able to walk, with cramps twisting his muscles every few seconds.

Tamiko wasn't surprised. She sent him into the shower and waited for him at the tub with the hot water.

Harry felt embarrassed again - this time because he needed help sitting down in the steaming pool.

Slowly relaxing, he studied a nice collection of spots and bruises on his body, representing all colours of the rainbow - plus some others a rainbow wouldn't offer, due to lack of appeal.

"Come out, Ha-ri. Time for the steam room."

It was hell on earth.

Sitting on a wooden bench, mist curling around him so densely he couldn't make out anything more than two yards away, a steam pipe close to him, sending new clouds of unbearable heat into the air while sputtering and howling like the ghoul at The Burrow ... Harry had to fight a wave of claustrophobia.

An eternity later, he heard the ringing of the bell which signaled the end - exactly five minutes after he had entered the room.

The cramps were gone. Now he felt almost like quicksilver - not as quick but as fluid and heavy. Wouldn't it be nice to sink down right here and sleep?

Instead, he had to lay down on the table, exposed to Tamiko's kneading hands, the minty liniment - and her wand, which erased the last remnants of his bruises.

Hearing her murmured spells had a calming effect. For a while, Harry had wondered if all people in the sensei's household had magic - in the common sense of the wizarding world.

Then he had to expose a bit more, because Tamiko ordered him to turn, so she could deal with the remaining bruises. It didn't matter, not today.

Halfway recovered, he joined the evening meal.

Afterwards, when Shigura asked him about his interest in a game, Harry bowed. "My playing would be unworthy, sensei ... even of these magnificent stones."

With his last reserves, he changed into the night kimono. A moment later, he laid outstretched on the wonderfully soft futon.

* * *

The next morning, he woke without Tamiko's help - from simple hunger, less pleasant though equally insistent. As limited as his appetite had been the evening before, by now his body ferociously claimed its supply to stand these long days.

The exercises started to feel manageable, even familiar. New grips, new moves, new techniques, yes - however, all of them were based on the same principles, balance being the most elementary one.

"To be successful," explained Shigura, "you must keep to ai uchi - which means to fight your opponent the way he's fighting you. More exactly, defeat him with his own attack ... which also implies the absence of wrath."

Absence of wrath ... sometimes this was easier said than done, in particular when the sensei took care to fulfill his promise and treated him every possible way, all the time. One teacher for one sennin was hard enough, but in addition Shigura never bothered with something like five minutes' break. However, normally Harry's rage was directed toward himself.

On occasions, though, Harry's rage had another target, and such an emotion could even be profitable, as the remarkable scene on Harry's third day showed. But then, wasn't Zen the contrary of itself, meaning his sensei's words were always right while sometimes not true? Or maybe the other way around.

On the morning of Harry's third day, Shigura was waiting for him in the training hall as usual. Skipping any welcome, the Zen master said, "You will not speak, Ha-ri, unless told otherwise."

Harry bowed.

They trained. They meditated - silently. They trained more. Still more. They sat down.

"Tell me who you are, Ha-ri."

A moment of thinking. "I'm a - "

The bamboo stick hit him hard at the left shoulder, exactly where it hurt most. With a sharp voice, the sensei barked, "You were not allowed to speak!"

"But you just - "

This time it was the right shoulder. The stick came incredibly fast.

And similarly fast, white-hot fury shot through Harry - about Shigura and his tricks, about himself, his stupid self, who had failed to notice the difference between telling and speaking ...

The bamboo stick again hissed through the air, as fast as before, but this time upward; pulled out of the sensei's hand by an irresistible force, it bounced against the ceiling and fell down with a clang to lie motionlessly a few yards away.

Harry stared at the stick. Had he ... he glanced at the Zen master.

Shigura's eyes were sparkling. "So I have my answer, Ha-ri. You're a wizard, as you just told me."

But dusk had fallen before Harry was allowed to speak again.

* * *

He lost the few ounces of fat that could have been found on his ribs before. The weight returned, and more - in the form of muscles. By the end of the first week, Harry had callouses on his fingers, on the edges of his hands, and on the soles of his feet.

Carrying Nagini outside, he asked, "Hey, what's up with you? - Did you lose weight?"

"I don't think so, master, as I eat more than usual. It has to do with the raw fish."

Well, in this case, the only possible explanation was that Harry had gained considerable strength in the past week.

He got used to the habits, the food, the bitter tea, the Japanese terms, even quite a bit of the language. He learned to sit in the lotus position, which seemed less painful every day. He settled to the heat in the steam room, and could relish it. He settled to the presence of Tamiko, actually he felt very aware of her, more than he was ready to admit to himself.

Here on the island of Iki, close to Ishida, China was far away.

* * *

Harry and his sensei were in the training hall. They had practiced aikido - the art of combat without weapons - for quite some time. Now Shigura walked out and came back moments later with a vase.

He placed it in front of Harry, then sat down opposite, the ever-ready bamboo stick across his knees. Calmly, he said, "Study the beauty of this, Ha-ri."

The vase was about seven inches high, a wonderful piece of craftmanship, with very delicate sides. Harry had seen Shihiko arranging a single flower in it. The shape ... well, it was shaped like a vase, widest slightly above the middle. It was beautiful, yes, although - after Harry had seen it with the flower, the vase alone felt incomplete. In which case, according to Lleyrin, it shouldn't be called by its full name ... Was it a va, then?

He looked up.

The bamboo stick hissed through the air like a whip, cutting the vase in two pieces, sending splinters to the end of the parquet.

Shigura rose in a single fluid movement. "Let's go outside."

Harry followed, knowing - the picture of this vase would be burnt into his memory forever.

* * *

Sunday in the Zen master's house was leisure time. After lunch in the garden, as always, Shigura encouraged Harry to ask questions, or to think aloud.

"I'd like to hear another koan, sensei."

The Japanese smiled. "Fairytales ... A student asked his master, 'Which is the way?'

"The master replied, 'It's just before your eyes.'

"'Then why can't I see it, master?'

"'Because you're thinking only about yourself.'

"'And you,' asked the student, 'can you see it?'

"'As long as you're seeing twice and saying, "I don't see", and, "You see," your eyes will be clouded,' answered the master.

"'If there's neither I nor You, can it be seen then?'

"'If there's neither I nor You, who wants to see?'"

Harry had stopped any attempt of examining each new experience for its usability, of mapping it at once into a strategy, whether against Voldemort or anything else. So he didn't ask himself whether he could see the way.

Aside from that, he wasn't much thinking about himself, more about someone else ... thanks to his eyes, which didn't feel clouded at all.

Leisure was not to be confused with spare time, at least not entirely. The Zen master ordered Harry to write a haiku.

Harry went into the house to fetch rice paper and a quill, then came out again to join Nagini, although a few steps apart - his snake preferred the sunniest spot while Harry's choice was the shadow of a tree.

After a few minutes, Shihiko appeared and chose a place from where she could watch Harry as well as Nagini. After kneeling down, she said, "I'm here to help you with your haiku, Ha-ri. But maybe this is just an excuse."

He smiled. Probably, this remark contained more words than they had exchanged until this moment.

He said, "I'm thankful for any help, Shihiko. Right now, I'm trying to find a topic."

"The great Japanese poets, like Matsuo Basho, wrote a lot about very morbid topics - loneliness, death, the fleeting nature of life, decay ... I hope yours will express more joy, Ha-ri."

To be honest, a topic had already crossed his mind. Only - he would present his haiku afterwards, and in that case ... More joy, or happiness - for him, happiness and death were sometimes very close together, maybe that made him a perfect candidate for a haiku poet.

He said, "I have something I'd like to put into a haiku - but not my first one, it's too challenging."

Shihiko looked at him, warmth in her eyes. Of course, she would never ask.

"It's the memory I use for my Patronus ..." Almost by themselves, Harry's words came out, explaining the scene. Shihiko's presence created an aura in which it felt simple and natural to talk about such things.

Having listened to him without any recognizable change of expression, Shihiko said, "You're right, Ha-ri, this is something for later, although I wouldn't know any form of poetry other than a haiku to find words for this experience. Maybe your last fight with the master of darkness is good for a start - there's everything in that encounter, isn't it?"

Harry stared at her in surprise - not only was she fully informed about him, she had found the topic that seemed perfectly suited for a beginning. Registering his impolite stare, he quickly said, "Yes - you're right, Shihiko," before dropping his eyes to the paper in his hand.

A haiku consisted of seventeen syllables in three lines - five plus seven plus five. Harry started to think, forming words, counting syllables, writing lines.

Just one rule - five plus seven plus five syllables, freedom otherwise. This freedom seemed to be a close relative of the freedom in Go with its just three rules: the freedom of missing the point.

Finally - almost an hour later, as he became aware then - his first haiku looked as though he could improve no more. Looking up, he met Shihiko's eyes. Had she been watching him all the time?

"Here it is."

"Will you read it to me, Ha-ri?"

He blushed. "Later." He walked over and gave her the paper.

She read it to herself, then read aloud.

"Very good, Ha-ri."

From Nagini's sunny spot came a sharp hiss.

Harry turned to Nagini. "Shut up - I know by myself it's not true."

A ripple of laughter erupted from Shihiko. "She caught me with a lie - isn't that so, Ha-ri?"

He bowed. "Yes, Shihiko."

"Although she's a harsh mistress of the truth. It was only a small lie."

"Please tell me what's wrong, Shihiko."

The woman studied the paper again. "It is formally correct, of course. The rhythm - it has rhythm, not a masterpiece, agreed, but it has something; it speeds up and slows down ... Reading it, I have a picture, only it's probably wrong - this is the only flaw, Ha-ri."

He told her how the patrol of five had attacked the ship of the Death Eaters in the Battle of Hogwarts, how Cho had driven her Steel Wing through Lucius Malfoy's throat, creating a fountain of blood - for him lasting less than a second as his vision had locked with Voldemort an instant later.

"I see." Shihiko read the lines again, then said, "My judgment stands for a public view, Ha-ri - while for an insider haiku, you might present it any time ..."

He bowed.

"... to her."

For a split second, Harry's mind had confused two pictures, or maybe not exactly confused ...

Shihiko smiled faintly. "Or to someone else."

* * *

In the evening, after Shihiko had poured two cups of tea, she didn't continue by serving them to Shigura and Harry. Instead, she rose and left the room.

"One of these two cups," said the Zen master, "contains a mild potion - harmless, just enough to feel sick, and probably to vomit."

Harry stared at his sensei.

"Would you please serve us tea, Ha-ri? This tea."

He wasn't joking, was he? ... A Zen riddle? Then it was a joke of its own, because Zen riddles were jokes in themselves, offered no solution other than laughing them away.

Shigura sat waiting.

Then it was a test. Of course it was.

Harry studied the cups. They looked identical. Did Shigura know? It didn't matter - he would drink his tea in any case.

The thought of Harry vomiting in this room was horrible. Still worse felt the thought of the sensei vomiting in front of Harry. Only he had no choice - within the next minute or so, he had to serve the cups, before the tea was too cold ... This tea - so he couldn't put it away, had to ... No, this tea was ...

Harry stood up and picked up the two cups.

Next moment, he dumped the tea from the cups back into the earthenware pot, and quickly stirred once.

He poured two cups from the can, took one of them, and offered it to Shigura. "It was already too cold, sensei."

He took the other and sipped, watching the Zen master, watched by him. The taste seemed no different from any other tea.

Harry waited for a twinge in his stomach, for a remark from his teacher.

His stomach kept quiet. Had there been a potion? He was pretty sure ... then it had been measured perfectly: diluted in the full pot, it didn't cause any effect.

Between sips, Shigura said, "There's a quotation that comes to my mind, Ha-ri ... It's not a koan, it's something one of your great shogun said - Sir Winston Churchill, who wasn't suspected of Zen."

Harry waited.

"He said, 'We must be aware of needless innovations, especially when guided by logic."

This tea, poised with a potion ... And now this approval, poised with a teasing strong enough to stand a return to the pot. Harry felt pride having found a way that avoided vomiting - still, he couldn't shake off his suspicion that, somewhere, a more elegant solution had been waiting.

* * *

Harry stepped into the steam room and sat down. He had learned to benefit from this treatment, this ritual, to the full extent. Actually, it had been the same technique his sensei taught him day after day - not resisting, instead using the oncoming force to his own advantage.

The steam pipe hissed and shrieked. A new wave of heat blasted out, enclosed him, and took his vision.

His body was melting. So was his mind.

Before his sightless eyes, a scene appeared ... somewhere in open air, a perfect sky, grass on the ground, a few flowers. In the distance, trees ... It looked a bit like a place in the Forbidden Forest, only he had never seen such a place, and the trees - they looked different, certainly not like those at home, nor like the cedars here either.

He was alone.

He could look around - it wasn't the same as during his visits with Nagini - although, there seemed no need to look around. The scene felt perfect as it was, just being there.

Was he there? Did he have a body? He couldn't see himself, which didn't matter either ... His perspective felt slightly unusual, somehow a bit too high above the ground. But he wasn't flying, more as if his body was higher ... a Centaur! This might be the perspective of a Centaur, or was it that of a Giant?

Somewhere, far away, a bell sounded.

Unusual. The sound didn't belong here. Also, it meant there was something else, or someone else, somewhere out of sight in this perfect harmony. Anyway, the sound had faded, and didn't return.

A figure appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. Harry hadn't seen her come closer. A woman - black hair, light teint, two soft-sloping mounds with dark spots, a still darker triangle, exquisitely shaped thighs, her skin shimmering, as if from sweat, or steam ... Tamiko.

"... hear the bell? You must come out, Ha-ri!"

She stood very close. He could admire every detail in this incredibly sensual picture.

"You are so beautiful, Tamiko."

She disappeared out of sight. The next moment, he felt her grabbing him from behind, pushing him up.

He could feel her body against his own, the soft twin pressure at his shoulder, her belly muscles tensing at his weight, a lighter touch, feathery, still deeper ... It brought him awake.

He steadied. "Okay, I'm back," he said and stepped out, hurried to the table, and laid down, his mind racing, trying to store the pictures he'd seen moments before.

Moments later, Tamiko arrived at the table. Glancing carefully, Harry saw she was wearing her kimono again.

"What happened, Ha-ri? Why didn't you come when the bell rang?"

"I'm sorry. I was - somewhere. It was so ... wonderful. Everything felt right ..."

"Can you describe it, Ha-ri?"

He could remember every detail, and explained to her what he had seen. "... then I saw you - you appeared just before me - "

"Yes, and you were giving compliments, not moving a muscle to help me."

He felt his face darkening. "Yes ... Sorry."

Tamiko laughed. "I'm teasing you, and probably just because I'm envious ... I think I know where you have been, Ha-ri."

"Where? I never saw this before."

"How is your experience with trances, Ha-ri?"

"Trances?? I've had some very special experience with trances, and quite different ones. But none of them felt like that."

"I think you should discuss this with the sensei. He'll be very interested to hear about your trances, and about this one - and he'll explain what it means."

Harry knew - if Tamiko wasn't present in the room, she would sit behind a shoji, listening. And the others would hear about him being rescued by her - an embarrassing thought.

Just in time, he remembered his manners. He bowed, the first time doing it naked. "You rescued me. Thank you."

Tamiko smiled. "I was rewarded - something I might not have heard otherwise."

---

Shigura was indeed very interested. Harry had to describe his vision in the steam room, then his journeys through the void when visiting Nagini, his dreams with real scenes involving Voldemort, and the only calming state he had known so far - under the influence of Fawkes.

After having listened to the end, the Zen master said, "What happened to you, Ha-ri, would in your own country be called mystic inspiration, or entrancement. Here in Japan, we call it kokoro - the heart of all things. But it's the same, and maybe it's as close to satori as we can reach."

In Zen terminology, satori was the desired state of non-thinking. Considering the large amount of thoughts that had crossed his mind in the steam room, Harry had to rate himself pretty far away from Zen - except that he saw no reason to complain.

Shigura smiled. "Whichever name, it looks different for everyone who is lucky enough - or enlightened enough - to reach this state of mind." Now the sensei grinned. "Although a steam room isn't the best place for that, since you shouldn't stay longer than five minutes. Will you be able to react to the bell if it happens again, Ha-ri?"

And if not, then Tamiko would come to rescue him again ...

Blushing, he nodded. "Yes, sensei - I'm sure. This state isn't too different from the other visits."

Shigura wasn't done having fun. "With all your gifts, Ha-ri, you shouldn't wonder seeing other people envious. That's why I recommend thinking about a Japanese proverb every now and then."

Harry waited. However, his grinning teacher suddenly preferred the western style of conversation.

"Will you tell me this proverb, sensei?"

"Yes, Ha-ri. A certain amount of fleas is good for a dog - otherwise, the dog might forget he's a dog."

* * *

Harry shifted on his futon, trying to get to sleep, unable to calm down sufficiently. There hadn't been physical exercises today, so he wasn't as tired as usual, but he knew that even after hours of kenjutsu training, two pictures would fill his mind.

Or maybe one.

Was it his rudimentary level of haragei - or just a change in the room's aura? ... A soundless movement made him open his eyes.

A silhouette was coming closer.

The starlight from outside was hardly enough for him to recognize details. Still, he didn't need haragei to know who had entered his room, inaudibly stepping closer.

A soft rush of silk. She knelt down, within arm's reach.

"Ha-ri ... Do you want to visit the clouds and the rain with me?"

Never before had he heard this expression, though the knew perfectly well what she was talking about.

"I ..." He cleared his throat. "It's impossible, Tamiko ... I love Cho."

"Of course you love Cho, and you won't stop loving her. Is this a - barrier?"

A pained sound. "Yes."

There was silence for a moment.

"My knowledge of western culture is limited, Ha-ri. I know that your people mix emotions and longings in a complicated way - a way I don't understand completely. I do not challenge your love - quite the opposite."

How could this be?

"All I know, Ha-ri ... Your desire is strong - it is blocking your progress in your exercises. And it's me you desire."

He felt it, pulsing, hammering.

"Have you visited the clouds and the rain with Cho?"

A croaked reply. "No."

"Why not?"

"Because ..." Almost a sob. "I felt too young ... wasn't sure, I didn't know how - "

"I can teach you, Ha-ri. I can show you how to walk with her toward the ultimate harmony - how to guide her on this journey ... and yourself."

She was kneeling motionlessly. Even so, he felt her presence all over his body, all through his mind.

"Do you want me to be your teacher, Ha-ri?"

He heard his own ragged breathing. "Yes, Tamiko."

Another rush of silk as her kimono fell down. A bare shoulder showed in the dim light, over the line of her back.

He felt her hands on his chest, lightly, reaching the belt of his yukata, opening it, exposing him.

Cool air was touching him, inflaming his skin, melting his power, gathering all force in a still increasing centre of sensation.

With a fluid movement, she came to him and knelt over his body, her silhoutte illuminated from the side, creating soft shapes and deep shadows.

He felt her thighs at his sides, her weight on himself, softness pressing hardness, stroking, unbearably light.

A wave of hair fell on his chest, silky, heavy.

Her mouth touched his skin. A faint whisper, "Follow me, Ha-ri."

His senses were drowning, expanding, focusing on the borderline, on the burning confrontation with her flesh. And moments later, he felt guided, welcomed, encircled, his self pushed through a soft opening into new territory.