Dumbledore let out a sigh as he walked up to the classroom that the Equestrians had turned into their base of operations. Assigned Personnel Only, the sign said. Only, he knew it was basically just a symbol, even if the wording was a bit strange. The door wouldn’t open for anyone that wasn’t allowed.
He raised his hand, knocked three times, and entered.
As expected, the strange thaumic machine at the back of the room was oscillating. He couldn’t remember what they had called it, right off- but it wasn’t important.
The moment he closed the door, the machine glowed briefly brighter- and then faded into nonexistence, to be replaced by a large wooden box that had been decorated with paint-by-number-quality unicorn drawings. At the same time, the twenty anchored desks in the room vanished, to be replaced by a large conference table, at which there were many people already seated.
Princess Celestia looked up at him. “Professor Dumbledore,” she greeted. “I’m glad you could join us.”
Dumbledore bowed his head respectfully, as he moved forward, to his assigned seat. “Thank you,” he returned, and scanned the gathered students visually. Just like Princess Celestia, he was merely a member in this room, not a leader- and just like in the Wizengamot, or the International Confederation of Wizards, a quick visual search would often reveal who had information or ideas and who didn’t yet know what was going on.
As usual, there were none of the latter category in here- but he did notice one girl that he hadn’t expected, and his eyes locked onto her questioningly for a second.
Bonbon, seated next to the girl, smiled and spoke. “Yes, she’s joined up, as Law Breaker.”
“Ahh,” he muttered, finishing his glance around.
Bonbon waited for him to finish before she continued. “That said, Law Breaker is fairly new to our science division, and so won’t normally be present for tactical meetings. She’s here today because while you took Mrs. Norris upstairs for examination, she remained behind to examine the scene- and found additional casualties.”
Dumbledore blinked. “... Miss Weasley and Myrtle?”
“Just Ginny,” Bonbon smiled. “Myrtle was resurrected as an accidental side effect of her effort to save Ginny.” She looked at Hermione Granger.
“Ginny was face-down on the bathroom floor,” Hermione spoke. “Madam Pomfrey said a ‘horcrux’ had invaded her soul, been messed with by the Papa Tango, and drained her to the part where she had dropped dead. I apparently arrived just in time to prevent that. She also suggested Ginny could have been in the bathroom because the horcrux seized control of her body.”
Dumbledore heaved a sigh. “It’s exactly like the old plan,” he muttered. “I do not know what form that horcrux takes- I knew only that it was going to make its way into Ginny’s hands in some manner, and start controlling her to open the Chamber of Secrets.”
“You knew about it?” Bonbon asked.
He nodded. “I knew it existed, and would make its way into her possession. However, I do not know what it is- and since my scan last month failed to detect it, I expect that searching her possessions would also fail to detect it.” He took a deep breath. “It will likely only be able to take control of her while she is handling it, whatever it is.”
“Whose horcrux is it?” one of the other Agents asked.
“Voldemort,” he answered promptly. He hadn’t been told much about them, but he had been told that they were the true masters that Twilight had turned to for the student instructor program, among other things. By his understanding, they were the unsung heroes of Equestria- not too much unlike the Order of the Phoenix in Britain.
“And we have no idea what it is?”
Dumbledore shook his head. “When I informed you it wouldn’t happen last month, that was after a school-wide scan failed to find any trace of it. I have rechecked several times since- including before I came tonight- and still found no trace.”
“Though you said Madam Pomfrey said the Horcrux was messed with by my Papa Tango, right?” It was Lyra, looking at Hermione.
Hermione nodded.
“So it’s possible,” Lyra went on, “that the Horcrux’ signature was modified- possibly well beyond recognition. And considering where the Papa Tango was concentrated, it’s also possible it was irrevocably fused with Ginny herself in at least one way.” She looked up at Dumbledore. “Were those scans looking for a particular signature, Horcrux patterns…?”
Dumbledore shook his head. “Horcruxes are undetectable to our magic, except by the presence of the soul fragment,” he informed her. “If used carelessly, such a spell will detect people and other creatures as well, forcing them to be properly filtered out.” He took a deep breath. “If the Horcrux was transferred to her… it may be entirely undetectable. And the only way to destroy a Horcrux…”
He caught Hermione’s raised eyebrow.
“Ahem. The only known way to destroy a Horcrux is to cause irreparable damage to its vessel. For a living vessel, this would mean… death.”
“Hmm,” Lyra muttered. “A Horcrux is a soul fragment bound to an object by a mass of dark magic, right?”
He nodded.
“Then it shouldn’t have fully transferred to her. If it had linked itself to her strong enough to mess up my Papa Tango- which would tend to explain why she didn’t seem to experience it- the soul fragment, and the soul fragment alone, would have been pulled out, upgraded with Equestrian matrices, and fused with Ginny.” She looked at Hermione. “Then you dumped so much power Ginny’s magical core duplicated itself, patching that soul fragment up into a full soul of its own… but still tethered to Ginny. And because it was Ginny’s core that duplicated itself into it, then tethered permanently to her, such that neither can die while the other survives.
“On the other hand, that dark magic spellwork would not have been drawn in- and would only be loosely tethered to her, and still based on that Horcrux object. Which probably still has a mind of its own, but that mind is now just an echo, a memory, instead of an actual soul fragment… enabling it to do some truly terrible things, since echoes don’t have consciences.”
“So Ginny is not the Horcrux, and we don’t need to kill anyone, then?” Hermione asked, looking distinctly worried.
Lyra nodded. “Correct.”
“It sounds to me like our best line of defense is going to be Ginny herself,” Starlight Glimmer spoke. “It… could take a long time to do it that way, though, since she’s unlikely to remember what she was doing before she was… possessed.”
“She has perfect recall,” Hermione announced.
“Convenient,” Shining Armor mused, rubbing his chin. “After a few more attacks, she should be able to notice a pattern, and tell us what the Horcrux is. Until that happens, our best chance of keeping any attacks from turning fatal would probably be a counteroffensive- to destroy the monster in the Chamber of Secrets… or the Chamber itself.” He looked at Dumbledore.
Dumbledore shook his head sadly. “Many a Headmaster has searched Hogwarts for the Chamber of Secrets, including myself,” he informed them. “We were unable to find any evidence of its existence, let alone location. Especially when it was opened fifty years ago.”
“It was opened before?” Bonbon asked.
He nodded. “There were a series of attacks… which ended with the death of Myrtle Warren.”
Hermione and Lyra looked at each other.
“Considering she stuck around as a ghost and has now been resurrected,” Bonbon mused, “she might remember what it looked like- and, possibly, a clue for its location.”
Dumbledore bowed his head gravely. He knew that this entire group, to a person, would lay down their lives to keep the students of Hogwarts safe.
“The thing I worry about with Myrtle,” Lyra mused, “is that she’s probably on a revivification rush.”
Bonbon scowled. “Meaning, she could fall back to her normal sorrow at any moment?”
Lyra nodded. “That’s what I expect- probably sometime tonight, possibly tomorrow, the wonder and novelty of being revived will wear off.”
Morning Sun could sense Myrtle’s fading cheer, and the deep-seated sorrow and worry underneath it. Thus, even when Harry and Hermione left the Hospital Wing, she stayed behind- told even Ginny that she would catch up.
Ginny had long since recovered from her sorrow, and had cheerfully accepted her words and left the room.
“So, you’re… Morning Sun?” Myrtle asked, still unsure of what to do. Professor McGonagall was checking on her sorting status; after so long, they weren’t sure if she was still a Ravenclaw or not.
“Yes, that’s me,” Morning answered her. “Are you doing okay?”
“Am I… doing okay?” she repeated, nonplussed.
Morning nodded. “You… weren’t exactly happy as a ghost, and…” She sighed, then looked at Myrtle in a silent question.
Myrtle blinked at her. “... Oh. Um…” She took a deep breath. “My… My life, before, was nothing but misery- people laughed at me for my glasses, and…” She pushed her oversized glasses up the bridge of her nose again. “Then when I… died, everyone hated me, then made fun of me, and…” She sighed. “I… I don’t see how I can avoid that now.”
Morning smiled gently. “I can help,” she informed her.
Myrtle looked up. “How?”
“The same way I’ve helped Ginny change her hairstyle so many times,” she answered shortly. “Here, take my hands- then concentrate on a wave of green fire… oh, fixing your eyes.”
“Fixing my…? Okay.” Myrtle was full of disbelief, but she accepted Morning’s hands, and closed her eyes. “So…”
Morning could sense when it was successful. She could feel, as she had with Ginny so many times, the foreign power flowing through her facilities, temporarily granting Myrtle her free shapeshifting capability.
The bright flash of green fire also wasn’t exactly subtle.
Myrtle twitched, but otherwise didn’t move. The fire had also taken care of her skin blemishes, and done a few other tweaks to her body. She was still recognizable as Myrtle- but she was, very suddenly, a pretty girl.
Morning released Myrtle’s hands, drawing hers back. “Nice,” she informed her.
Myrtle, disappointed, opened her eyes. “But that…” She trailed off, then pushed her glasses up her nose. Then she took them off, and started rubbing them on her robes- halfway through which she froze… and, very slowly, looked up. “... I can see.”
Morning smiled. “Who said the past had to be repeated, anyways?”
Good narrative choice to avoid Ariel for now. Its worth it to set things up for later, even if it takes a while to get there.
It's alive, can you feel it?
It's not difficult to find the Chamber, just perform a scrying spell for air, and manifest the results as a wireframe image. You'll end up with a depiction of every volume of air within a given area, very good for detecting invisible or otherwise unnoticeable things, not to mention secret rooms.
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Apparently, that’s hard to do... Or wizards, lacking what muggles call common sense, just haven’t thought of it.
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Eh, it's not really common sense at all. Who would ever invent a spell to search for air?
Myrtle died in a restroom. The same restroom where Ginny was found in. In a murder mystery, that means that spot was undoubtedly related to the events.
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Yes, certainly. Even though the causes of death (or near death) were very different. Not to mention Mrs. Norris was found just outside...
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Clearly these wizards have never read good mysteries such as Agatha Christie's or Conan Doyle's works. Considering they were easily duped by the like of Gilderoy Lockhart told me much about their perspectives.
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The ponies, however, are a different story. But just because they can find the snake carving on the tap doesn’t mean they can open it... Or find the basilisk... Or that they’re immune to it.
Ooh, great chapter! Can't wait to see the next one!
If I were part of the agency, I would have investigated the scene of the crime, AKA the place where Myrtle died as a possible lead on the Chamber's location. Though I suppose I would have gained Myrtle's testimony first before investigating.
Good to see the Equestrians getting Dumbledore working more fully with them.
As a quick note though, Ginny's full name is Ginevra, not Ginnerva, though I suppose that could be passed off as an intentional mistake, Ariel getting it wrong at first. I think you've used it that way in the past though (I found Ginnerva in the Goddess flashback, and She definitely wouldn't get her name wrong).
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Aaand... that’s right about exactly what they’re looking to do, too.
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My bad, I’ll have to fix that... sometime.
Nice chapter
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I would think that Dumbledore already knows about the snake-headed spigot in the girl's toilet, but chose to keep it to himself. All the evidence points to that bathroom, but the ministry never bothered to continue to investigate because it was so much easier to blame Hagrid's pet spider despite the fact that there were no spider bites on Myrtle Warren. All they cared about was sweeping the whole incident under the table. After all, the only victim was a muggle-born.
I don't remember who wrote it or where (about turning squibs into wizards because ponies I guess) but nobody supposed to know that Filch is a squib. That was basically a deepest darkest secret someone would find if they only read someone's diary.
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That sounds like me, in The Gate... which this is a rewrite of...
I kinda wonder, in a parrallel worlds meeting scenario, how the inhabitants of this story would react to meeting their counterparts from “the gate” story you wrote.....am a big fan of what if scenarios and just mentally picturing the interactions brings me great amounts of amusement
Nice update!
Now I wait for more.
Good job.
OK so I just read this today the entire thing and then after I finished it I wanted more of your Harry Potter Mlp crossover work so I read through the entire ready of the gate as well and dear Lord I love them both and can’t wait for more of this so I would just like to say I love the gate I am sad that it had to end but I’m glad that it’s getting a rewrite and I like to rewrite to so favorites and tracking I’m going to be along for the ride
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Also I just realized that you were the one who did the boy who disappeared and as it happens I read that two days ago and I’m also tracking it so I like all of your Harry Potter MLP stuff and I’m along for the ride about this and the boy who disappeared and eagerly await more
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Well, I certainly appreciate the enthusiasm. As you may know, this was the rewrite for The Gate... and this is getting a rewrite of its own as well, name as yet to be determined.
That said, sometime in the coming weeks, I expect to be able to "hit my stride" and start publishing regularly once again. Hopefully.
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That is great to hear
One thing you might want to work on is you tend to over explain things. Especially the same thing, you give dozens of explanations, that all say the same thing, or recap what already happened... while also using so much "Techno Babble" it's hard to follow. And I enjoy ALOT of science fiction. Techno Babble is usually my bread in butter.
This doesn't take away from the story, but it is distracting.
It's better then my own flaws, in my writing style, at least.
I tend to go into huge detail about the worlds I create... to the point I barely talk about the characters.
Been working on that, but my favorite Part of writing is building the world, and I want to share it all in info dumps.
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Yeah, one of my editors is like that, making an extremely detailed world and then using characters that lack quite so much depth... He's just good at worldbuilding. I take the opposite approach- I'm good at worldbuilding... but only when the things I'm designing have a purpose. For example, if you've read the first chapter of the rewrite, you'll notice there's some pretty significant changes to the magic system. I've even got a document to detail several new facets to it, which will be important later... but haven't been mentioned in-story yet, even as far as I have written un-published.
I think the challenge is to design the world... and design the plot inside that world such that those details will indirectly affect the story events (ex. specific constraints on the duration of a spell that isn't used very much because of them, etc.) and/or directly mentioned or severely impacting story events (perhaps a character actually talks about those constraints or runs into them and suffers the consequences) throughout the duration of the story. And every once in a while, something will slip by without ever becoming important... and that's where extended cannon becomes useful- or even Omakes and the like.
As much as I tend to describe a lot, I try not to describe what isn't important- so as a result, most infodumps are actually given by characters to other characters, maybe in a lesson or explanation for why X happened or will happen... and most environments/settings are not described outright, but gradually throughout the scene- if at all. Which that last part is another issue I have, in that my descriptions of various locations tend to assume a high degree of familiarity with the source material... Or leave a large amount of information to reader imagination, but I might be leaving too much there.