//------------------------------//
// Ch. 30. Subversions and Preparations 
// Story: If Wishes Were Ponies, Book II 
// by tkepner 
//------------------------------//

Debby would report in to her handler, Elly knew, long before she, herself, returned to Hogwarts. She would say that Elly was the loner from the first incursion. “The lone ling that went through was a Worker Infiltrator, definitely not a queen or proto-queen. She fled a hostile Equestria in the hope that it might be easier for her to survive in a new world,” Debby would say, and she could claim her oath prevented her from lying, which meant what she said had to be true. “She won’t give up her freedom by making an oath, but promised to abide by the oath and do no harm. Your enemies are her enemies, she said. Your friends . . . she will watch closely. With proper incentives, she might be willing to assist us in the witching world, not that she knows all that much. She is using her innate magic for simple tasks to pretend to be a witch,” she would conclude. “No one who knows her suspects anything.” She would smile, “Otherwise she would pick up their suspicious feelings.”

To help her bonafides, Elly told Debby how she had managed to infiltrate the Exclusion Zone and escape through the portal twenty-some months ago and clandestine entry into Diagon Alley. Nothing, up to that point, was held back. Debby would tell her superiors exactly what Elly had told her, with no omissions.

Elly thought the non-ling government agents and their superiors would be astonished at what she had done. The lings had not told the humans they could imitate rocks, trees, and other “inanimate” objects. Nor just how far they could change their sizes! The government agents had never thought to ask, either.

Debby would further explain that Elly, or Loner, as she would call her, was more than a bit skittish about meeting any government officials or agents. She had seen and heard how corrupt the witchery government was. The few newspapers in the muggle world she had read didn’t reassure her that the muggle government wasn’t the same. Her only safety was her anonymity, which she intended to fiercely protect.

The only way she would “meet” them would be if they were on opposite sides of a crowd — much like it was at George’s Street Arcade. Gringotts would still remain their primary contact method. As far as the goblins knew, she was a renegade pony.

She would suggest that they post several lings at the Equestrian Embassy to catch any other lings that might slip through. While they might be able to avoid detection by the ponies, a ling would instantly know if another came through the portal. Plus, their ability to sense emotions would alert them to other intruders, too. They could use some of the older farmer, harvester, or tunneller lings, so they wouldn’t feel useless in this new world.

Debby waited for fifteen minutes after Emmie left the Arcade before she did so herself, from the opposite exit. Debby would be catching a commercial flight from Dublin to London.

Elly remained in the Arcade until it was meal-time at Hogwarts. Then she reversed her transformation and illusions, and slipped out of the building with a completely different persona-illusion. She found a different alley, in a random direction from the Marketplace, to trigger her return portkey — just in case someone was watching the designated alley.

She could hardly wait until tomorrow. Knowing that she had a Hive waiting, that she had a Hive, made her want to dance in joy. 

But she restrained herself. She could let no outward sign show that anything had changed, it would raise too many questions at Hogwarts. 

On the other hoof, the knowledge that it was her Hive, that she wasn’t merely a ling in the hive, was sobering. Running a hive was a huge responsibility, one for which she had never been trained. Hopefully, the memories of all the lings would give her clues on how to do things. Not that she would be making changes, definitely not, not yet. It would be better to have the muggles think that they controlled the incipient hive — that the lings were still merely individuals defensively banding together.

Tonight, though, she intended to take a good, hard look at her stone. And perhaps eat a sliver. It just might help, tomorrow.


^-_-^


Castor took a deep breath as Patrick Walker, Director General of MI5, and Colin McColl, Director General of MI6, took their seats in the meeting room. Debby, as always, appeared completely relaxed.

“Thank you for coming so quickly,” he said standing. “I’m sorry if it sounded abrupt, but this is a no-written-records situation.” The others sat a bit straighter and exchanged glances.

“As you know,” he continued, “yesterday, Agent Debby met with the changeling who snuck through the Portal from Equestria a year-and-a-half ago.” He nodded at the folders on the table in front of the two directors. “The complete report is there.” He sighed. “In summary, the changeling refuses to come in. She has lived in the wizarding world since arrival and seen the rampant corruption, and doesn’t trust us to be any different.” The two men were not happy to hear that. “However, she has agreed to abide by the oath the other changelings have taken. Following the oath is only logical, she says, as it is essentially what the changelings have been doing for thousands of years, except for taking government missions.” That mollified them a bit.

“Debby has assured me that if this changeling doesn’t want to be found, we won’t find her. While they met in Dublin, she could have come from anywhere in England, so we can’t be sure of where she is. She could easily be in France or Iceland, for example. Borders don’t exist for Changelings. They can just fly across the borders as a bird!

“I don’t like leaving her out there, but we haven’t a way to enforce compliance.” He shook his head.

“But that’s beside the point. As a measure of her intentions, and good will, she has given Agent Debby a complete account of all her actions in Equestrian from the time of the invasion until she passed through the portal. Then she told her how she survived until she made it to Diagon Alley, and set up an account with the goblins. She is not poor.” 

He gave the other two men an exasperated and embarrassed look. “We didn’t ask the changelings the right questions, and they never thought to tell us.”

He waved his hand to Debby. She stood, then climbed up onto the table and walked over in front of the two men. They leaned back in their chairs. Both gave Castor questioning looks.

“They don’t just imitate living things,” he said flatly.

Green flames enveloped Debby, and when they subsided, there was a rough, granite rock sitting on the table. The rock wasn’t large, not much bigger than one or two volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Both men gave him wide-eyed stares.

“Yes,” he said, “She can still see and hear you. Touch it, pick it up, tap on it . . . to all points of observation, she is now a rock — except she’s a changeling.” He nodded and imitated lifting something with his hand. “Go on, pick her up.”

Hesitantly, Colin leaned forward and tried to pick up the rock. He frowned, then stood and leaned over to pick it. When he succeeded, he gave Castor an incredulous look. “She feels like a rock, and is as heavy as I would expect a rock this size, but I know she weighs nearly as much as you! I shouldn’t be able to pick her up so easily.” He set the rock down, and Pat took a turn.

“When she changed to a rock, she took on all the physical attributes of a rock, decreasing her weight to fit the size and density of the rock she has chosen. She could make herself heavier or lighter than what she is now, however, should she need to do that.”

“I can feel the weight changing,” Pat exclaimed staring at the stone in his hands with an alarmed expression. “It’s much lighter, now!” He quickly set the rock down. After a moment, it was engulfed in green flames a second time. When they stopped, a normally waist-high, red, Royal Mail pillar post box appeared on the table, complete with gold trim. They stared at it for a couple of seconds, their eyes still wide with shock, when green flames enveloped the mail box, and a triangular “Give Way” road sign, on a post, replaced it.

Castor smirked. “Anne?”

Green flames engulfed one of the other chairs at the table, and a man in a bobbie’s uniform appeared. The man was actually Worker Infiltrator 370,432AN, Anne, for short.

The MI directors stared with mouths agape.

“There are limits in sizes, of course. No ling could realistically imitate a blue whale beyond mere appearance, and a small one at that, for example. Or a tank. Or a mosquito. Small birds or rodents? Yes.” 

He paused to give them a moment to think.

“The lings use of inanimate objects as disguises, and what she used, have been edited out of those reports,” he pointed. “A full copy has been given to the Equestrians.” He paused. “This is why the changelings were never found until they revealed themselves.”

He said solemnly, “Infiltrating an enemy encampment prior to an attack would be child’s play for the changelings. A soldier could carry a changeling into his encampment thinking it was a gas can or ammo box, and never be the wiser.” He sighed and shook his head. “Espionage and infiltration will never be the same.”


^·_·^


Friday couldn’t pass fast enough for Elly. Fortunately, her last class was out at two. She quickly made her way outside, and down to the lake. As soon as she was out of direct sight of the castle, she transformed into an eagle owl, and headed straight east, away from the castle and towards Denmark. When she judged she was far enough away, she swung around to head south. After crossing a mountain, and placing Hogwarts and Hogsmeade completely out of sight, she swung to a new south-western heading, towards Dublin. Once she reached the Isle of Mann, she would head south for a while, then curve around and head back to England. Her approach to the east-coast airbase the government lings occupied would be from the south-west, as if she were coming from Dublin.

It would be a long flight, five hours at least, but she was well fortified with love. Plus, it would give her a chance to exercise her wings. She hadn’t had a chance since arriving in this world — except for brief jaunts around her estate-hive.

The invisibility charm worked just as it should. No one looking up would see her. Any hint of her presence would be dismissed. Plus, as she approached the airbase, she would be coming from the sunset, further making her difficult to see. 

A ling couldn’t be too careful.

Locating the airbase was easy, given the memories Debby had supplied from when she had flown over it, scouting. 

She had barely started flitting among the trees as a Canadian goose when she felt the presence of a ling loudly broadcasting her presence. She quickly zeroed in on the contact and landed on one of the lowest branches of the tree hiding the ling, and, of course, the tunnel entrance.

She and the ling, a large, purple-blue-brown bird with red around its eyes — a capercaillie — studied each other. After only a second, the ling flew down, transformed into her Equus form, and prostrated herself, “My Queen,” she said reverently. “I am Worker Tunneller 370,435LC — Elsie. I apologize for the roughness of the tunnel, but it was only finished at noon.”

Elly blinked. Just like that, another ling had joined her fledgling hive. Then she nodded. “Get up. Pass the word that no gestures or actions that draw attention to me from the humans are to be made, in private or public.” The ling scrambled to her hooves and nodded “Certainly,” she said, with a minor head dip. She stood aside and indicated the tunnel entrance, which looked like the rough entrance to the burrow of a large animal. 

Elly flew down and transformed back into human form. She pulled out her wand and quickly cast a muggle and wizard aversion charm on the entrance, and then general animal and insect aversion charms on both the tree and entrance. She didn’t want any creatures except lings to be able to see and use this tunnel entrance — plus, it would help keep the tree healthy and long-lived. Then she cast a weather shield over the entrance, followed by an impervius. That would protect the entrance from degrading and revealing its presence by the changes around it.

The ling watched with wide eyes. “You can do human magic, too?” she breathed out, astonished.

Elly paused a moment. “Any ling who wishes to learn human magic, I will ensure gets a wand and access to the proper sections of the hive memory. But that will have to wait until this summer.” She was positive the goblins would know of a source of wands that wasn’t Ollivanders. Probably one on the continent would be happy for the extra sales.

She transformed again, this time to a weasel form, and darted inside the tunnel. She ran for a short distance until the tunnel widened enough for her to assume her Equestrian form. “Leave the entrance and first section unchanged,” ordered Elly as Elsie followed her. 

The other ling nodded. “Of course,” she said.

Elly turned and cast a variation of the obliteration charm, this time through her horn, at the tunnel section behind them. Constant traffic would degrade the entrance, but this charm would ensure everything returned to what it was before, after someone passed through it. It was almost like a reset spell, and quite useful for covering one’s tracks.

That one book in the Hogwarts Library on how to make repetitive trap-charms out of regular charms had been a wonderful discovery, too. The modified charm would trigger, every time, when a ling passed through.

She was truly amazed that magic on the other side of the portal, despite being so pervasive, had been so . . . underutilised. Fewer than one percent of all unicorns used teleportation, yet over ninety percent of the wizards and witches used their version of it! And the aguamenti charm? That was revolutionary in concept. No settlement, anywhere, had to worry about insufficient, pure water! Rig a fire charm, such as incendio, to generate constant heat, rig another with the water spell, and the ponies would have had a train that could run forever without using any resources or wasting time loading fuel and water.

They could easily have made the deserts on the continent into productive farmland! And while you couldn’t create food via conjuration or transfiguration, you can duplicate what food you did have. It might not taste as good, but when you’re starving, taste is the least of your concerns! She now knew that with the right mix of spices, any deficiency in taste in the duplicated food could easily be hidden. Even if the spices were duplicated, too!

After such a long flight, and casting that many spells so quickly, especially considering how much power she put into them to make them last, she was quite tired. However, as a Queen, she didn’t want to show her fatigue to her lings. Or potential lings, that is. 

She would have to remember to delegate one of the lings to renew the spells periodically, until she learned how to make them permanent. Emmie and Essie would enjoy the opportunity to visit with so many other lings.

The tunnel was very long, longer than the tunnels under Hogwarts that led deep into the Forbidden Forest or to Hogsmeade. It had to be several miles at least, significantly distant from the perimeter of the airfield. Which made the possibility of discovery extremely low. It also made an excellent evacuation tunnel, or a way to outflank an attacking enemy.

On the way, Elsie spent most the time talking, explaining about the base and how the different lings were adapting. She also described the different humans they regularly interacted with on-base.

“There’s no hurry, but at the three-quarter’s point from the base, add a meeting room big enough for all the lings,” Elly said, interrupting Elsie. “And an emergency storage area with supplies for several weeks.”

Elsie hastily agreed, then continued her summary.

It was daunting, when she finally met the lings currently residing or training there. She had never had over a hundred lings looking to her for anything, much less guidance. It would have been double that, but the other half of the lings were either on assignments or at work gathering the love the hive needed. More were involved in the latter than the former. 

The four of them back at Hogwarts had been a matter of helping fellow lings . . . they were safer together than separate. They had to cooperate. That the others had deferred to her, especially lately in regards to the odd activities of the Slytherin trio, had not really occurred to her, or them. Everything they had done, besides that, had been by consensus, she had thought.

Only, now, she wasn’t so sure.

Still, one by one, the lings came to her and introduced themselves. Each told her of their jobs in the old hive, and their new jobs, here. After hearing her expectations of how she planned to run her hive, each requested integration into it. They would call it Brunton Hive, to allay suspicions from the humans. After an exchange of promises, especially the one which she made of fair treatment for all lings, unlike their former Queen-Mother’s attitude, she accepted the new lings.

Her orders to her new workers were simple: not to divulge to any non-hive member that she was a queen, and in contact with them. Otherwise, they were to carry on as if she had never made contact with them. They were to always abide by the terms of their oath to the government, to work as diligently as possible for it, and to protect its citizens as much as they could. Until she said otherwise, they were to consider any orders from the government agents as if they had come from her. They were not, however, to undertake missions that had small chances of success, nor to take suicidal missions. The exceptions would be missions that they considered had to done for the safety of the Hive. If at all possible, they were to consult with her, before accepting such a mission.

She promised never to give an order that would contravene or trigger the penalties of their oath to the government in any way.

This summer, she would have several of the tunnellers make their way to the current de Rippe estate and do what they knew that she didn’t. They would conceal Elly’s tunnel so that no one would suspect a ling had been there.

Once the goblins had a location for the new de Rippe estate, the tunnellers would head there to carve out a new hive. It wouldn’t be more than what she had dug out herself, an escape tunnel, miscellaneous rooms, and a tunnel to the village at the foot of the estate. Later, when they had time, they would set up the hive-nursery and nymph training centre. Those would for the future, once she reached maturity. 

The year before she left Hogwarts, in four years, the “older”, non-critical, lings would begin to fake their deaths. They would move Nova Hive to take care of the next generation. In the meantime, they were to accelerate their apparent aging.

It helped that the humans had no real idea of either the ages of the lings, nor how long their lifespans were. For the lings, the passage of the years was almost a foreign concept. Underground, every day was the same as the one before, and only comments from the infiltrators told them a winter had gone by, or was coming. 

If a superior should ask a pointed question, they were to tell the truth, giving as little information as the situation allowed them. Such as, “Have you found any hints of a Queen?” would be answered, “None of the changelings we have encountered from Equus were Queens. Nor have any proto-queens or queen-nymphs come from Equus, to our knowledge.” Similarly, the possible follow-up question, “Are there any queens here, now?” would get a puzzled look and the answer, “Workers cannot become Queens by any means we are aware of.”

It would take decades, but eventually the Brunton Hive would “die” off — and no human or magical would ever suspect that the Lings had successfully established a covert hive. One dedicated to protecting the citizens of the U.K., and its integrity. 

Unfortunately, she couldn’t disappear from Hogwarts for the weekend. She had no time to explore the new hive, and the settle in with her new lings. But it was enough time to meet them all, and reassure them that they would be taken care of properly.

One of the infiltrator lings, Worker Infiltrator 370,430AD, Addy, accompanied her back. She would spend the weekend updating Elly on what they had learned about the non-magical world. Unfortunately, that was a subject about which Elly knew very little.

When Addy wasn’t doing that, she would be exploring Hogsmeade. It was unfortunate that she would have to stay outside to maintain her secrecy, but it wouldn’t be the first time that Addy had had to do that. In the next month, Elly would purchase a small house there, through the goblins, based on Addy’s recommendation. It would be for the lings to maintain a point of contact with her. With a bit of work, it would become a useful emergency assembly point. 

Debby would suggest that the government might want to keep one or more of the low-level and “older” lings in Hogsmeade to keep an eye on the happenings at Hogwarts. It would also reduce the odds of them being blind-sided should something come up. They could carry a stick, Debby would suggest, and pretend it was a wand. They would be actually using their innate magic for small tasks, enough to fool any wizards or witches that might happen to be around to think they had used a wand. 

Only the lings would know that the stick was a real wand, acquired on the sly. Or that they had access to a hive-mind with all the details about magic that they might need.

If the government agreed, Elly and Debby planned to make sure the government ended up renting the house from her, making the situation even more convenient for the covert lings.

Debby would also suggest that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to do the same in Diagon Alley. If the government showed any interest, Elly would have the goblins procure the building in which the government was going to rent an apartment.

Elly thought it amusing that the government lings would be renting from her and working at her restaurant when it opened.

The flight back was exhausting, and her wing muscles ached abominably. However, she arrived early enough — or was it late enough? — that sneaking into the dorm was easy. Carrying in a plate of muffins from the kitchens helped the image that she had left just as soon as curfew ended and picked a spot of breakfast. An invigoration draught, purchased earlier in the year, took care of the issue of her not getting any rest the night before. Besides, it was a weekend. No one would complain if she decided to take a nap in the middle of the day.

She would head back to the airbase early Sunday morning. Addy could easily cover for her with illusions. As long as she kept her nose buried in a book, no one would bother her. Especially if she stayed outside all day. Having the other three lings running interference with their friends would help considerably. With luck, no one would notice her name on the Castle Map during the late evening before Elly returned.


^-_-^


Thursday’s kerfuffle with Elly and her cousins, the Pauncefoots, took the rumour mill’s attention off of Harry for a short while. The Hufflepuffs were usually so quiet no one noticed them. So, them having a very public argument — not once, but twice in the same day! — was noteworthy.

Unfortunately, by Friday, they seemed to have settled their differences. Subsequently, Lockhart’s “infatuation” with Harry returned to front-and-centre for the rumour mill. It didn’t help Harry that the Slytherins seemed to delight in adding with more and more outlandish details. Such as Harry’s detentions were secretly assignations — regardless of the fact that Harry hadn’t been getting any detentions from any professor.

Plus, the professor had seemed to be waiting for Harry at every meal time all week. Oh, he was in his place at the Head Table, but Lockhart definitely noticed when Harry arrived, giving him a big smile every time. Plus, in Friday’s class, he had insisted that Harry help him enact the part of his Voyages with Vampires book he was focused on that day — to the Slytherins delight.

Harry had been, at various times, the ignorant villager, the hapless maiden, and the frightened innkeeper. Each time had segued into how the class would handle the situation. It was actually quite interesting in learning questioning techniques that wouldn’t warn the person that they were really being interrogated. But only, in Harry’s opinion, if he hadn’t been at the front of the class getting smirks and badly disguised laughter from the Slytherins.

His shield-practice that afternoon had been especially effective at turning aside the spells sent by the others. The petting and combing as a pony in the evening after dinner did a lot to calm his ire. Plus, being a pony seemed to blunt some of his anger that evening, anyway. Maybe it was because he could cuddle with the fillies while that was going on and nopony could criticize him for it, as they tended to do when he tried to cuddle with them as a person.

By Saturday, the herd had tried everything they could think of to discourage the rumour that Professor Lockhart had a thing for Harry. Regrettably, to little success outside of Gryffindor.

“Alright,” said Hermione, “I think we have the shield spells down. We can cast them every time, and quickly. The only problem is how to test how strong they are.” She reached into her rucksack and pulled out a thick book. “I found this in the library.” She held up the book. There cover was blank except for the title — Even the Simplest Spells Can Stop an Enemy. 

“However, I think we should start with the spells we know, first, they’re fairly harmless should the break through our shields. Spells like, the jelly-fingers curse, jelly-legs jinx, Ginny’s bat-bogey hex, the leg-locker curse, the pimple jinx, the tickling charm, the stinging hex, and the trip jinx. That’s a big enough variety that you can’t predict which spell is coming and just use the same shield over and over.” She paused.

“We should start with the stinging hex,” Harry said. “We have plenty of practice with the paintball spell from dodge-spell, but I doubt the Slytherins will be slinging paint at us.”

Hermione and the others agreed. They spent the rest of the day testing each other’s shields against the various spells they knew. When they stopped for dinner, they could all stop every spell on their list. 

Others had noticed their dedication, and been told in answer to their questions, that the group was simply improving the dodge-spell abilities.

Sunday was a bit different, as Harry had Quidditch practice in the morning while the others continued on from the day before. After lunch, when Harry joined them again, they started working in teams of two. One person shielded while the other attacked one of the other three teams. Sometimes the teams would gang-up on one other team, or it would become two teams against the other two.

By the time dinner came, they were all exhausted. Not from the spell-casting, but the running and dodging. Working on the assignments due the next day was exhausting in a different manner as they kept yawning. Foregoing the petting was a trial, but the pony animagi knew they’d conk out only a few minutes after it started.

Fortunately, the firsties being available eliminated what would have been incessant demands they . . . pony-up.

Monday was classes, including more humiliation in Lockhart’s class, with evening Quidditch practice. Wood was getting rather anxious, what with the Hufflepuff match coming up in less than two weeks. But that wasn’t unusual. Wood did that every time a Quidditch match came close. Fortunately, he couldn’t schedule practice for every evening as the other team also wanted time for their practice.

The others quickly finished their assignments and started in on the spells. Having them share their research allowed Harry to save a great deal of time in his assignments, when it became too dark for Quidditch practice to continue. As a result, he could join them in practicing much sooner.

On Tuesday, they moved to the more difficult to block spells of incarcerous, petrificus totalus, and stupefy.


^·_·^