Blue flame of the east, Red flame of the west

Chapter 9: First Day of Classes

The trip to the Hospital wing wasn't fun. Madame Pomfrey literally striped Harry of his pants and examined his thighs with overly careful eyes. (Ron swore loudly and creatively when he saw them. Madame Pomfrey didn't reprimand him of his language.) As for his left hand … Harry and Ron left the hospital wing in shock of after hearing Madame Pomfrey's comments about it.

The trio entered the Great Hall for breakfast next day. Harry had a talk with Professor McGonagall and came back to the Gryffindor table. Harry then told his friends about the arrangements Professor McGonagall made so he could take The Study of Ancient Runes while still taking Divination.

"I didn't take it for the past two years, so I'll be taking it with the third years. Professor Drow, the ancient runes wizard, agreed to give me after class sessions. McGonagall didn't mind me dropping Divination, but Ryo said it'll help studying foreign magic studies so I decided to keep it. I'll just be making up predictions anyway."

"How true; what are the bets she'll predicted your death 10 minutes after start of class?"

"My bet is she predicts my death by ghost possession within a week."

"Ahh … that's a good idea, better write it down for future reference."

"Really," said Hermione loftily. "At least you're taking something useful, Harry."

"Useful Bah," snorted Harry. "I'm just taking it because I think it'll be fun."

Ron shook his head with disbelief while Hermione tutted loudly. Then something large and gray fell into the pitcher of orange juice.

It was Errol of course, clutching a Muggle letter (envelope, stamp and all) in his talons. Ron pulled out Errol from the pitcher and gave Harry the soggy letter. He ripped it open.

Yo Harry,

Thanks for writing to me. I was bored like shit before you sent your letter.

Anyway I never read about this before; where the hell did you find this? I got to read this book -- it's just crying out to be read. Well, the Korean words and Chinese letters of 'shim-yun-ui-noon' are these: (it was typed on a new line).

The dictionary definition of 'shim-yun' is: deep pond or water; a noun. Of course it's metaphorical. My first guess is that it refers to extremely deep and clear eyes, but that guess is grammatically wrong since 'Shim-yun' possess 'noon' (eyes).

Anyway I need to do more digging. But something tells me it'll take a lot of my fucking time. Why don't you try some digging of your own? I'll give you some advice: When you read a Korean word, chances are they were made up with Chinese letters and was pronounced in Korean. Once you get hold of the Chinese letters, you'll find a rudimentary definition of the word.

Thanks for this treat.

Nakajawa

"He lapped it up," said Harry, relieved.

"Does he talk like this?" asked Hermione, wrinkling her nose at the curse words.

"Usually," said Harry. "To him, that's not cursing. You should hear him when he's angry."

"Well, at least we know the dictionary definition of the word. Hmmm deep and clear eyes," repeated Hermione, glancing at Harry's eyes. "That explains a lot …"

"What are you talking about?" demanded Ron, eyeing Hermione rather suspiciously.

"Did somebody say Harry's eyes are deep and clear?" asked Lavender, giggling.

"THAT is an understatement," said Parvati, giggling and staring at Harry's body part of concern. She apparently forgot about Harry's 'disastrous' treatment at the Yule ball last year.

Harry felt his face turn red. Ron started sniggering at this. Traitor!

"Deep, intense, and clearly focused is more like it," continued Parvati (giggling all the way). "Make you wonder if you're going to drown into his eyes when you look at them…"

At this both Lavender and Parvati started giggling out of control. Harry couldn't take it. He sat with his forehead on the table in front of him, swearing he'll never lift it again. Angelina Johnson and Katie Bell, who was listening to the two girls with interest, had something to say about it.

"You should really shorten your bangs Harry," said Angelina. "It rather obscures those beautiful eyes from view."

"Yeah, why don't you get a haircut Harry? I'd love to see those eyes out in the open …"

Harry squirmed, not lifting his head. He could hear Ron letting out a muted roar of laughter. Hermione was no better: she started giggling like insane with the other two girls. Why, oh why is this happening to me?

After everyone was finished giggling and/or laughing, they looked at their new schedules.

"Double Potions with the Slytherins again. Oh well, we're not having it with Snape so it wouldn't be that bad … I wonder who is going to be the substitute …"

"We got Transfiguration after that … hey! We have foreign magic studies every day of the week!"

"Whoa … Every day at 5PM; all classes lasts an hour and a half."

"Wonder what Professor Wu will do," said Harry as they headed to the Dungeons for potions. "I learned the stuff about Asia from Jiho not Ryo …"

"You better call him Mr. Kuzeyamashiro Harry," said Hermione disapprovingly. "You shouldn't call him Ryo in front of people anymore."

"He said Ryo will be fine."

"Good thing too, his last name's too long for comfort."

They were as surprised as everyone else when they saw the two Korean TAs standing behind Snape's usual desk in the potion dungeons. Both of them were wearing white Han-bok, and in close inspection, looked like they were in early twenties.

The taller TA wasn't just tall. He had the most beautifully well built body Harry ever seen: just the right muscle tone, shoulder length, and minimum of waist. His fingers were thin and of positively inhuman length. His entire body seemed to radiate an aura of power and grace. His face however, was not the most appealing thing in the world: he had hollow cheeks and dark forbidding shadows under his brows, which completely obscured his eyes from view. Overall his face looked grunt and forbidding. The sharp contrast between the face and body was frightening.

The shorter TA, on the other hand, was much, much more handsome. So handsome in fact, all of the girls were gawking and blushing at the TA. The shorter TA wasn't particularly well built or anything compared to the taller TA, but also radiated an aura of power, only it had a different quality. The taller TA's aura was like the heat of molten lava, the shorter TA like the sound of a peaceful ocean. Harry had no idea why he thought that.

"Hello everyone. I'm AanJi," said the taller TA. His voice was a deep baritone that was almost musical. His English was perfect.

"And I am JinHwee," said the shorter TA. JinHwee's voice was higher then AanJi's. JinHwee also had a slight Korean accent.

"I and my friend JinHwee here will be taking care of your potions class during Professor Snape's absence. In case you are wondering, yes, both of us were trained in the western arts of sorcery, namely 'magic.' Potion making is one of our specialties; we are both black-belt Potions masters and have graduate degrees in Potions. So you need not to worry about our qualifications."

Hermione seemed to be very impressed with AanJi's and JinHwee's qualifications. Harry, who didn't know what these qualifications implied, scribbled down on a note to her that said: What are these qualifications? Hermione scribbled down: I'll tell you later.

"We saw what you learned so far, and what Professor Snape planned to teach you this year," said JinHwee this time. "And we could see Professor Snape was a rather demanding teacher."

Understatement thought Harry. All of the students, including most of the Slytherins, seemed to share his sentiment.

"Unfortunately for you, we have to keep the level of demand as is because of your approaching O.W.L.s," said JinHwee. Everyone groaned. "But we are planning to use a different approach on teaching potions to you."

Everyone looked at the duo curiously.

"To our point of view this potions lab is absolutely antique. We were surprised that Hogwarts still insists on using cauldrons to brew potions. As everyone knows, cauldrons are opaque. Have you ever wondered how different ingredients react with each other inside the depths of the potion? You can't see that with cauldrons, not when you can only see what's happening on the surface. And to our opinion, knowing what's going inside the potion is more important then knowing what's happening on the surface."

Harry listened to the two TA with mounting interest. Now that they mentioned it, he was curious why they used cauldrons to brew potions at all.

"The only reasons Wizards use cauldrons is because they are traditional and they have old regulations on them," said AanJi. "The ease of enchanting cauldrons can be one reason, but to tell you the truth, enchanting a cauldron is no more easier then enchanting a test tube like this one here," AanJi showed the class a large ordinary looking test tube, much like the ones used in Muggle chemistry labs.

"Asian Witches and Wizards thought the very idea of using a cauldron hilarious," explained AanJi "You can't mass produce potions with cauldrons and they are subject to incredible amount of inaccuracy and variation depending on the brewer. So they completely abandoned the idea of cauldrons."

The Slytherins looked at the two TA's like they just said a disgusting swear word.

"While we are here, you won't be using a cauldron for a LONG time. Never, if we can have it our way, but Professor Snape is the potions master and we are in Britain, so we have to follow their rules. Occasionally, and I mean VERY occasionally, you will brew potions the traditional way just to keep the feel."

The Slytherins looked at the two TA's like they were animals from a different planet.

"For those who might be worried whether using this equipment might hinder you from performing well in OWL exams, you need not to worry. O.W.L.s won't test you on how well you actually brew potions but how well you remember brewing several potions."

Hermione let out a sigh of relief.

"Since you have to memorize and understand how potions are brewed to pass the O.W.L.s, we thought that was more reason to use more modern equipment. We are also going to conduct the labs like they way JinHwee and I did it in graduate school. You don't have to look intimidated with that; we're just going to use their lab policies."

JinHwee started to hand out the stack of papers to the class. Harry looked at the sheet. It turned out to be a lab report form: there were pre-lab questions, potion ingredients section, brewing procedure analysis section, observations section, test results section, error analysis section, and post-lab questions.

"You have to write up everything in that sheet in detail for all the potions you brew in class. The original report is for you to keep as notes and you just hand in a copy of your report. Copies will be made with the copy device we showed you," said JinHwee. Everyone groaned: writing a lab report looked difficult.

"I assure you, brewing a potion will be the most difficult thing to do, not writing the lab report," said JinHwee with a smile "We're not looking for the perfect potion. We want you to completely know what you are doing, and why you are doing it. Even if the potion was wrong, as long as you tell us exactly why it went wrong, we won't take off that many points."

Neville and many students looked VERY happy about that.

AanJi and JinHwee start to show the class the various potions equipment they brought: test tubes of various sizes and lengths, bickers, Erlenmeyer flasks, Florence flasks, burets and so on. They also showed the fascinated class a lamp that looked like a Bunsen burner, only it lighted up with a tap of their wands. They demonstrated how to use the automatic powder maker, and test tube stirrer. The former made a potion ingredient into powder, and the fineness could be controlled by turning a gauge. The latter test tube stirrer looked like a box with holes on the top. All they had to do was put the test tubes in the holes and tap the stirrer with their wands and say how it should be stirred (clockwise, counterclockwise, etc), and the stirrer would rotate or vibrate accordingly.

"Today we will be making the enervating potion. Like the charm with the same name, the potion awakens and strengthens a person who is stunned or unconscious. Unlike most potions, they are not digested but are applied to the skin. You can feed the potion to a person, but if you do, you'll have to deal with a hyper-energized person."

There was a buzz of nervous laughter. JinHwee smiled at them.

"Another obscure fact mostly unknown to European wizards and witches about this potion is that it 'awakens' people who are possessed by spirits. Of course it will be ineffective with more powerful spirits, but for the minor ghost possessions the potion will be able to make you become self-aware enough to wake yourself up. You'll learn about ghost possessions in more detail in Defense against the Dark Arts or in Foreign Magic Studies," said AanJi.

"Remember, you have to write a lab report for this potion. You'd better start writing everything you need," warned JinHwee. Everyone started rummaging for parchment and started scribbling down the answer to a pre-lab question that asked the effects of the potion they were going to brew.

AanJi told them the list of ingredients and with JinHwee started to do some VERY interesting and insightful demonstrations.

"You should always boil powdered beerch wood, and only powdered beerch wood, before you do anything," explained JinHwee. "This is what will happen if you don't and add blanderwrig teeth."

AanJi put on a pair of dragon hide gloves and protective goggles before he put a spoon of blanderwrig teeth into the test tube with a half made potion solution inside. The potion promptly let out white smoke before it exploded.

"Can anyone tell me why this happened?" asked JinHwee. Hermione shot her hand up in the air.

"Blanderwrig teeth, if made contact with a solution with boiled lace wings, powdered root of aconite and lionfish but without beerch wood, makes the potion to expel energy too rapidly thus causing an explosion," said Hermione promptly.

"Excellent. Ten points to Gryffindor," said AanJi. "Beerch wood acts as the boundary to keep the energy needed to wake you up within the potion. The effects of Beerch wood vanish lowly as it makes contact with human skin, therefore allowing the potion to slowly expel the energy into the person."

AanJi and JinHwee did some more demonstrations and explained the reasons behind the effects. Everyone rapidly wrote down everything because they were the answers to some of the pre-lab questions.

After the demonstrations, everyone was assigned to brew the enervating potion using the new equipment. AanJi and JinHwee walked around the class answering questions, helping out those who needed it, and encouraging the student who were batching the potion.

Harry loved this new approach in learning potions. For once, he completely understood what he was doing and why he was doing it, wrote potions notes that he could actually understand thanks to the lab report template, and in the end managed to brew a reasonably good potion. All of the students, including the Slytherins although they did their best to not show it, seemed to share Harry's opinion.

"That was the best potions class we never had I'd say," said Seamus happily.

"Definitely," said Neville. He looked proud of himself for blowing up only one test tube.

"They seemed to be very good teachers," said Hermione approvingly. "That lab report template was really a good way of learning."

"Absolutely," agreed Harry. "Anyway, what are these qualifications AanJi and JinHwee have?"

"According to A Guide to Higher Levels of Potion Brewing, black-belt Potions master is the second best qualification you can get as a potion brewer. The top qualification is master black-belt. I think Snape is one," she added.

"Why am I not surprised?" said Ron, sarcastically.

Hermione frowned at him.

"Getting a master black-belt is really difficult you know. There aren't many master black-belts in the world and Snape is one of the youngest. I think the youngest person to qualify for this title was only 25 when he got it …"

"OK, Snape's a great potions brewer. What about this graduate degree?"

"There's a graduate school of Potions in Russia. The only one actually, and it's almost impossible to get accepted. The entire student population is about a three hundred and fifty because there is only that many witches and wizard in the entire world who can get in. I think Snape was accepted to that school too."

Harry could help but feel a slight twinge of respect for the Hogwarts potions master.

"Didn't know Snape was that good …" said Ron gruffly.

"Well you know now," said Hermione.

Professor McGonagall gave them the inevitable lecture on the importance of studying for the O.W.L.s and assigned them enormous pile homework on the very first day of class. (Everyone but Hermione grumbled at this.)

Harry went to his first Ancient Runes class with the third year Gryffindors that afternoon. It was very easy: Harry already knew what Professor Drow was teaching, and told him so. Professor Drow was surprised. He sat Harry next to him after class and bombarded him with questions, trying to find out how much Harry knew. After thirty minutes of questioning, both of them were exhausted.

"And you learned all this in only 5 days on your own, Mr. Potter?" said Professor Drow, shaking his head with disbelief.

"Yes sir," said Harry, his voice a bit hoarse after all the answering.

Professor Drow declared Harry knew almost everything he was planning to cover for the next two months, and he told Harry he (Drow) will instruct him separately in class.

"In the rate you are learning, Mr. Potter, you might learn enough to get an O.W.L. in Ancient Runes."

Promptly at 5PM, all of the Gryffindor fifth years taking foreign magic studies (almost everyone) were queued up outside the Professor Wu's new office. Everyone seemed to be looking forward to their first foreign magic studies lesson. The door opened with the bell.

It was an odd sight. The usual desks weren't there, only cushions and short-legged tables were sparsely placed in pairs on the floor. Three sides of the walls were covered with drawers and book shelves. Harry could see Asian vases (Whoo-hoo!) here and there. The place were the teachers desk should be, instead had a platform with another short-legged table, more elaborate in design then the ones on the floor. The cushions looked nicer too. The room smelt like herbs. Everyone just stood near the door. No one seemed to know what to do. Finally Harry went to a table, placed a cushion behind it, and sat on the cushion cross-legged. Everyone followed suit.

Professor Wu and his TAs appeared silently at the door. Wu glanced at the students and said something in Chinese.

"So you know how to sit in an Asian classroom?" translated AanJi.

Everyone looked at Harry, who shrugged. The Kuzes (except Nakajawa) always studied in a traditional Asian classroom like room, so he knew how to sit in one.

Wu sat cross-legged on the platform and the TAs took a cushion each and sat around him. Wu started to speak in rapid Chinese and AanJi told them the English translation.

"As the headmaster mentioned yesterday, I am Professor Wu. I do not know how European people teach their students and I have taught only Chinese students all my life. I am not planning to change my teaching technique at all, for it is my belief students learn better that way. I do not require excellence, though preferable, but I do require you working hard. 'Working hard' is defined by ME. No exceptions. If I do not think you are working hard, then you are not working hard. You have been warned."

Everyone looked nervously at each other at this. Hermione looked determined to show she will work very, VERY hard.

"As you have noticed in your schedules, you will have foreign magic studies every day of the week. I may ask for your time during the weekends," There was looks of shock and disbelief from the students "but that will only happen if the class is behind."

"There are two things you must do to pass this class. The basics and the specifics," the students looked curious. "The basics will be mostly learning the theory and various forms of Asian magic and what you can do as a witch or a wizard. You are also required to learn hand-to-hand and Kendo. You will have martial arts sessions with Kuze every Monday, Wednesday and Friday on the grounds. Kuze will be teaching you how to wear your kendo uniforms next lesson so bring them with you. Do not wear you robes; just your martial art training outfit."

The students looked excited at this.

"Another basic requirement is memorizing all the words in the book of 1000 words before Christmas," groans from the students. Wu's eyes narrowed. "Is that too late?" the students shook their heads quickly. "You will read the tenth teaching of the Bhagavad-Gita and the Iliad this year. You will have to write an essay on both for the final, so prepare yourselves."

"The specifics will differ from student to student. There are many areas: medicine, advanced chi-gong-hyup-gi, spirit mediums, and talisman making to name a few. We will be testing everyone time and time again to see were your talents lie," Wu looked at the nervous faces of the students. "This is not part of your grade. You might have potential for many areas or you might have just one. The specifics will be graded as extra-credit. Do not think you can pass this class by just studying the basics; my past experience tells me students get almost all of their points from the specifics."

Wu paused, and looked at the students.

"I will not be taking care of the specialties. The specialties will be taught by the TA's. All of the TA's have a specialty of their own. Everyone will be assigned to a TA, and they will stay with that TA till they graduate or foreign magic studies ceased to be taught in Hogwarts. Which ever comes first."

The students looked at each other and whispered. Wu let everyone mutter themselves to silence.

"I can't teach you specialties because I will be staying here this year, but not the next. Next year you will have master Retsudo from Japan. The year after next you will have master Hanbin from Korea. After master Hanbin, I will come to teach again if I'm still alive. Masters from other countries will come to teach for about a month. This is necessary because the other countries can't spare their masters for an entire year."

The Students nodded their heads to show they understood.

"I assign no homework. You will be graded by tests and effort. You can, however, give your TA essays and research reports for extra-credit. Since it is extra-credit, it is pass or fail. Give all extra-credit attempts to your TA after class. They will tell you the result after class as soon as he/she can. Do you have any questions?"

Hermione held up her hand. "Sir, will you be giving us possible research topics?"

"No. You will research what you think is important and useful for class. You can always ask your TA what they think is important --- any more questions?"

There was none. Professor Wu pulled out a stack of papers.

"Today you will be doing an assessment test. No, it will not be a part of your grade. You have to take it because I need to know what you already know. This test will also be used to identify your talents. Do it well and honestly. I have zero tolerance with cheating. Anyone caught cheating in my class will leave and not come back. You are dismissed once you are done, though I doubt anyone can finish it one time."

The TAs handed out the tests. Half of the test questions asked the meaning of a Chinese word and its lexical role. Harry noticed half of the words weren't in the book of 1000 words, but were in the book of 3000 words. Harry managed complete that part of the test easily. The rest of the questions were impossible. For instance, one of the questions asked to "interpret the following in a Korean's perspective: 'it is like acquiring the jade rabbit.'" Jiho's lectures on Asian mythology helped a great deal on this problem, but that was about it. After an agonizing forty minutes, the class was over. As Wu predicted, no one, not even Hermione, finished the test on time.

There was a great deal of outraged complaints and groans from the students once they were out of the classroom.

"That test was impossible! Did he expect us to memorize the entire the book of 1000 words before class?!"

"If his tests are like this, we are so dead!"

Hermione was sobbing.

"I can't believe this … half of the words on the Chinese vocabulary questions weren't even in the book of 1000 words! And I had no clue on how to answer on the other questions. I'm going to fail this course!!"

"It OK Hermione, the test isn't a part of our grade," said Ron. He confessed he handed-in a blank test.

"But I'm not prepared! I'm going to fail!!" wailed Hermione.

"You are the last person who's going to fail in Wu's class Hermione," said Harry, trying to calm her down. "I bet he'll have to stop you from working too hard."

"Yeah, he said he wanted effort, not excellence."

It took a while to calm Hermione down. They had to literally drag her to the Gryffindor tower and in her dormitory. Once she was safely up in her dormitory, Harry and Ron made doom-laden expressions themselves.

"Sirius said he heard a rumor that Asian masters makes Snape look like Father Christmas in comparison," said Harry hollowly. "I NEVER thought Wu would be that bad."

Ron looked like he was declared to walk to the gallows.

"We are so totally screwed."