Harry Potter, after a beating by Dudley and friends wishes he had somewhere safe to go, and starts crawling home. He ends up in Equestria. The young Cutie Mark Crusaders find him. A year later, a Hogwarts owl unleashes the CMC, Harry, and Equestria upon wizarding Britain! And adorable cute magic-wielding ponies upon the rest of the world.

Copyedited by gerandakis. Excellent cover art by Mix-up.
Made Featured Stories starting Ch. 18, Jun 25, 2018!
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Inspired by Dogger807’s hilarious story, “Magic School Days,” here on FiMfiction. While there is humour (and tree-sap) in this story, that is not its only focus.

Wow, Sir Chaos Omega made a TV-Tropes page for the story! Thanks!

Published on the FiMfiction website with the kind forbearance of the copyright owners of My Little Pony (Hasbro) and the Harry Potter series (Scholastic Press).

The timeline for “My Little Pony” is messed up. That is, if you look closely, the order of the shows as aired is out of order of their logical sequence. Evidence: in Swarm of the Century (#10) we see the dresses that Rarity makes in Suited for Success (#14) — so unless Rarity time-travelled, #14 should take place before #10! Also, in The Ticket Master (#3), the other five seem to know Twilight and Spike quite well, yet in Boast Busters (#6) they don’t seem to know Twilight at all.

With careful attention to details such as those, you can put the three years of episodes prior to Princess Twilight Sparkle (#65, Season Four) into a two-year stretch of time. If you work hard enough, you can even squeeze them down to one five-season stretch of Summer to Summer.

I used the two-year seven-part timeline mapped out by deviantart’s tobyandmavisforever (do a Google search for “tobyandmavisforever mlp timeline” as the fastest way to find them). Thus, Harry arrives in Equestria shortly after the Crystal Empire two-part episode, and Twilight and Spike have been in Ponyville just under a year even though the Crystal Empire episodes start the third year of My Little Pony.

Twilight Sparkle was only a filly when Equestria detected the enigmatic Signal. A series of increasingly complex mathematical proofs, the Signal transformed from an intriguing curiosity to reliable evidence of extraequestrian life.

And as it happened, Equestria's exploration of their own solar system was nearly complete. With colonies orbiting every planet and large body, and an asteroid belt filled with miners and prospectors, Twilight's civilization was just about ready to turn its focus outward. The signal was less than ten light-years away, within reach of a daring, experimental voyage. A voyage Twilight Sparkle would lead.

Along with a small crew of the most skilled scientists and engineers Equestria could offer, Twilight is determined to uncover the mystery of the Signal, and brave the final frontier for future generations of Equestrian explorers.

A comment-driven, CYoA story. Please use the links provided in the author's notes of each chapter to vote, rather than the comments.

This story is a creative experiment of mine, one meant to explore the general idea that creativity is often most fostered by restrictions. As a result, I've imposed a number of restrictions on the writing of this story, which I'm stating explicitly here so I can be called out if I break any of them.

1. Brevity is the soul of wit
No chapter may be more than 1000 words long. This wordcount only includes prose, and not the questions/rolls.

2. Every choice matters
When a choice is offered in a chapter, at least one sub-optimal choice must be present, with no indication about which is which other than the prose itself. Every chapter should end with a CYoA-style decision tree when possible.

3. Fate is cruel and the universe is heartless
The decision of the vote must be respected. This means any character could be killed, or the entire story could end in failure, if that's what the votes decide. Where numbers, stats, and randomization appear in the text, these elements are not verisimilitude, but are decided by public diecrolls in my discord server.

Note: Because of the unusual production of this story, its chapters won't be edited in the same way as my usual fare. Feel free to point out any mistakes you encounter.

Awesome cover by Zutcha as you can probably tell. Editing stuff by Two Bit and Sparktail, where applicable.

This story is a sequel to Changeling Space Program

Twilight Sparkle's experimental interplanetary drive has malfunctioned, stranding Starlight Glimmer, Spitfire, Cherry Berry, a changeling and a dragon on a hostile planet in another universe. With limited food supplies, very little magic, no communications with home, and no way to leave the planet, they must survive until somepony rescues them.

Fortunately they crashed right next door to another creature with the exact same problem- a creature named Mark Watney.

They're going to science the buck out of everything- and do whatever it takes to survive Mars and get everybody home.

TVTropes page here! Thanks to GymQuirk for making it!

Commissioned art and fan works from the readers! Thanks, everybody!

This experiment in an updates-daily story was made possible by a generous grant from Canary in the Coal Mine and viewers like you.

(Sex tag for crude talk about sex, but no actual sex in the story.)