//------------------------------//
// Chapter 5 
// Story: Sunset Shimmer: Crumple-Horned Snorkack 
// by Cast-Iron Caryatid 
//------------------------------//

The appearance of the Leaky Cauldron did not particularly surprise Sunset.  The name sounded like a classic pub or inn of the sort you'd find in a fantasy novel, or at least the rough part of a frontier town, and from what she could see of it through the general grime and dim lighting, that impression seemed to have been panned out.

The fact that it was apparently a high-profile meeting place just off of the magic-users premiere shopping district, on the other hoof, was decidedly odd, though Sunset supposed that with their limited population, then comparing it to a frontier town wasn't entirely unreasonable.

Either way, Sunset had little time to really appreciate the socioeconomic forces involved while in the middle of the noisy, crowded room as she struggled to follow Luna and Professor McGonagall to a table, dodging between and around the legs of patrons who didn't even notice her in spite of her bright coloring.

It was something of a relief when they picked out a table in the quietest corner of the room and Sunset was able to jump up onto one of the chairs with assistance from a flap of her wings.  Shooting a displeased look at the crowd behind her, she commented, "I know that ponies aren't the biggest kinds of people even back home, but that was like a particularly antagonistic version of getting lost in one of Princess Celestia's wardrobes—err—not that I ever did such a thing, even if I was, like, five at the time."

...

Yeah, okay, that was bad.  Thankfully, Professor McGonagall was nice enough not to call her on it, though she definitely had the look of someone who was unimpressed with her bullshit.

Actually, maybe that was just how the professor normally looked.

Lunch was lunch and it went by mostly without comment.  Sunset attracted a few looks, but that was all it was and nobody seemed all too surprised.  The 'menu,' such as it was, matched the decor, only consisted of a few items and was communicated verbally over the bar to Professor McGonagall.  Sunset had the pea soup, which seemed to concern the professor for some reason, but aside from being more rustic than she was used to and looking more like peat soup, it was as filling as any fancy meal she'd been served growing up at the castle.

"So, how is this going to work?" Sunset asked, setting aside the earthenware bowl that her soup had come in and curling up on the precarious stack of cushions that the transfiguration professor had conjured for her.  "If we're going to a muggle neighborhood, does that mean we're taking one of those mechanized carriages?  I doubt they have a floo."

Professor McGonagall took a moment to dab at the corner of her mouth with a handkerchief before answering, "Indeed not—but no, we will save the Knight Bus for later.  I assure you, I am quite capable of apparating the three of us."

"Apparating?" Sunset asked, curiously considering what the word might mean.  "Is that like teleportation, or some kind of spirit-travel?"

"Teleportation is not inaccurate, as far as I understand the muggle term for something the muggles cannot actually do," Professor McGonagall informed her, then cast a quick tempus to check the time, which was nearing one in the afternoon.  "We should step out back, as it isn't polite to disapparate indoors.  If you're ready, Miss Lovegood?"

Luna blinked, having been looking at something across the room while they'd been talking.  She still had half a piece of breaded fish on her plate—until she didn't.  Her response to Professor McGonagall was, out of necessity, a silent nod of the head, her cheeks stuffed with fish.

Rolling her eyes, the transfiguration professor silently waved her wand, casting something that cleaned the child's hands as she stood, leading the two of them out back.

'Out back' turned out to be a small, grimy dead-end alleyway with a single trashcan and brick walls on all sides.  At first it seemed like a strange curiosity of urban construction, but then, on second thought, maybe she was overthinking it and it existed for exactly the purpose they were putting it to.  Then again, one of the brick walls was more enchanted than the others, so it was possible that she was missing something, but if so, it was subtle enough that she would have to get closer to get a proper feel for it, and now wasn't the time for that.

A casual wave of Professor McGonagall's wand turned her green robes into something of a business suit with a full-length skirt, while her pointed hat lost the point and gained a crisper, cleaner look, but that was about it.  The subtleties were rather lost on Sunset, to be honest, but presumably muggles dressed in Prench fashion or something.  She guessed that it made sense that people without magic wouldn't dress like wizards.

Professor McGonagall followed her transfiguration with a second spell on herself and Luna that she failed to catch the function of, then crossed her arms and considered Sunset carefully, tapping her wand in thought.  "I'm afraid that the disillusionment charm isn't something I've mastered quite to the level that Filius and Albus have, but I suppose it will have to do."

Sunset couldn't help but flinch as Professor McGonagall tapped her on the tip of her horn with her wand and incanted, "Invisiblus," sending a cold thrill of illusion magic crawling down her spine and over her coat.  When it was over, she looked down at herself and saw that she was, as per the incantation, invisible.

Sort of.

Her refractive index was off, so while you could, in fact, see through her, what precisely you could see through her was very slightly off, and when she turned her hoof over to look at the other side it was as if the illusion was slow to fix itself to the new orientation.

"Try not to move too much," Professor McGonagall advised.  "It should be enough to avoid drawing attention on the street, but I'd prefer it if you weren't noticed at least until I've made my introduction."

"Uh, sure," Sunset absently agreed, still looking at her hoof.  It was probably the strangest way to do an invisibility spell you could think of, but it was an invisibility spell, which was something she'd been sharply feeling the lack of ever since she'd come to this place.

She was about to ask Professor McGonagall to explain it to her when she felt Luna's hand on her withers, and then the world twisted.


***


Surprisingly, Sunset found apparition to be the most pleasant form of magical travel that the human magic users had come up with so far.  Surprising, because it felt like Professor McGonagall had punched a pinhole-sized hole in space and threaded them through the underside of reality to reappear on a small, well-tended lawn in front of a fairly large, picturesque, two-story house, which seemed more like something you endured rather than the invigorating breath of fresh air it actually turned out to be.  Luna, too, seemed pleasantly refreshed by the experience, and Sunset wondered if it was in part thanks to their slightly Fae-acclimated physicalities.

Either way, that, along with the apparent distance covered, meant that this 'apparition' was another spell she wanted to learn as soon as possible.

That, however, was not why she had pushed to come along on this little trip, and Sunset took a moment to take in as many details about this spot of the muggle world as she could.

It was, at once, the polar opposite of what she'd seen so far of the wizarding world, and yet much more similar to what she was used to back home in Canterlot.  Sure, the styles were different and there weren't large expanses of marble and gold, but all the same, it was clearly a gated community with clean roads of some uniform substance, and those roads were lined with neat and tidy houses that had been properly designed by actual architects.

Compared to the Leaky Cauldron, where things were so haphazard and worn that she could feel the grain of the tables with her hooves and lose a spoon between the boards, the difference between the two was night and day.

It was a pity that the muggles would freak out about seeing a small amber-colored unicorn; aside from their lack of magic, they were clearly the more civilized of the two worlds.

And speaking of the muggles freaking out, while she had been checking out the neighborhood, it seemed that Professor McGonagall had introduced herself to the residents of the house, and Sunset had to hurry to slip in behind her, doing her best not to catch the eye of the man who had answered the door.

The inside of the house only strengthened Sunset's impression of the muggles; there were several bookshelves that were visible even from the foyer, each of them stocked with stacks of printed books, many of them glossy with illustrations on the covers, and the number of fixtures, fittings and other bric-a-brac around the house spoke of a level of industrialization that was impressive.  The wall-to-wall carpet that the living room had was particularly nice, being more soft and plush than any of the dense and often scratchy rugs that even the Canterlot palace used, though that may have come down to the humans' lack of hooves.

The muggles introduced themselves as Doctors Thomas and Heather Granger and their daughter Hermione Granger.  Thomas was a kind-looking sandy-haired man of what she assumed was average height while Heather was a tall woman of a height with her husband with curly dark-brown hair, both of them with the sort of fair skin that seemed to be most common in the country she had found herself in.  Hermione seemed to take after her mother for the most part, her hair in particular which, while being significantly lighter than her mother's, was an impressive mess of frizzy curls.

It was Hermione, of course, that drew most of Sunset's attention, being the one of these muggles that had magic and would be going to Hogwarts alongside Luna.

Also, after looking up at Professor McGonagall all morning, her neck was getting sore and Hermione was that much easier to actually look at.

Hermione, for her part, seemed torn between paying attention to Professor McGonagall and looking curiously at Luna, but that all changed when Sunset felt the tap of the transfiguration professor's wand on her head and the disillusionment that was disguising her rippled and fell in a wave of warmth.

Suddenly, everyone's attention was on her, which, you know, was fine, except she hadn't really been paying attention to the conversation, so all she could do was blink, lift her hoof and say, "Hey."

Hermione, who's eyes had already gone wide as circles, gaped at Sunset when she spoke and let out an ear-piercing squeal of delight, "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee," which lasted exactly two seconds before she caught herself and shifted to words.  "You're—you're a baby unicorn!  But you're so colorful!  And you can talk!  Are you really a unicorn?"

Sunset wasn't going to get upset at a little girl, but she still felt the need to immediately insist, in the strongest of terms, "I am not a baby," definitely not pouting as she did so.

"That's right," Luna agreed, nodding along.  "Sunset's just metamorphosed to her imago stage—that makes her a sexually active adult."

"I—wha—?"  Sunset flushed and sputtered at Luna's insinuation.  She wasn’t going to object to being referred to as an adult, even if it wasn’t quite accurate, but, "The word you're looking for is sexually mature adult—and for Celestia's sake, I am not a bug!"

The adult Grangers seemed to be having a bit more trouble with the concept of a brightly colored pony suddenly appearing in their living room.  "Now, hold on just a second; where did that—she—come from?" Thomas asked, pointing at Sunset.

Sunset, of course, saw no reason not to inform him, "I was invisible.  Sort of.  Assuming you didn't look very hard—which you clearly didn't."

Thomas seemed like he was going to object to that when Heather put a hand on his shoulder, prompting him to think better of it.  "Hermione, love, why don't you and Luna go play while we talk with the professor?  We're going to need a bit more information about what exactly we're getting into here."

Hermione was clearly perturbed at being excluded from the conversation, but then looked at Luna and clearly decided she could interrogate a girl her age just as easily, so she grabbed the blonde girl's hand and dragged her off.  Luna stumbled and struggled to keep up, as she had been busy staring intently at Hermione's father for some reason.

Sunset shrugged and followed along after the girls, not particularly interested in the muggles, even if Professor McGonagall's explanation of the wizarding world might have filled in some of the gaps in her knowledge.  Her goal right now was to learn more about the muggle world, and seeing more of the house would help with that, as would Luna's inevitable questions.

Hermione dragged Luna out of the living room, stopped to consider where she was going, then made for the staircase at the back of the house.

Having grown up in a palace, Sunset couldn't say that she was impressed, exactly, at the size of the house, but from what she knew of single-family dwellings, it was quite respectable, with a living room, dining room, kitchen and study on the first floor, while the second floor—which she had to remind herself was the first floor according to the humans—was no doubt set aside for individual bedrooms and what have you.

Sunset followed the girls to the stairs, then waited at the bottom for them to clear them.  The stairs came almost up to her barrel, which was manageable, but awkward.  Her go-to for situations like this had always been teleportation, and for this short of a distance she could even do it without burning anything, but, of course, she had a new go-to now.

At the top of the stairs, having realized that she was no longer being followed, Hermione looked back just in time to see Sunset spread her wings and launch herself up the stairway, which was just a bit too narrow to properly fly in, but doable if she was careful.

The look of starry-eyed wonder she received from Hermione on landing next to her was vindicating.  Finally, someone who was properly in awe of her alicornification.

"You have a horn and wings?" she asked in disbelief.  "But—but—all the proper classical sources have unicorns and winged horses—"

"Pegasi," Sunset provided.

Hermione shook her head.  "No, no; you see, Pegasus was the name of a specific winged horse—and it's Greek, anyway, not Latin, so that's not how you'd pluralize—"

"Girl, I come from a magical land of talking ponies, and we call them 'pegasi.'"

Hermione did not like this information.  "But... but..."

Luna patted Hermione on the head.  "It's okay," she reassured her.  "You're right that we don't call winged horses pegasi here."

"Really?" Hermione asked, hopeful that her preconceptions would remain unchallenged.

"Yes."  Luna nodded, then placed a finger on her mouth in thought.  "Although, come to think of it, abraxans are named for Abraxas, aeothonans for Aeothon and granians for Grani, so actually, it's stranger that we don't have a breed of winged horses named after Pegasus."

"That's... but..."


***


Hermione's room was not especially different from the rest of the house to Sunset's eyes, being neat and tidy, with no less than two bookshelves—one next to a small writing desk, which seemed to contain books on math, history and presumably other non-fiction subjects in a surprising quantity for an eleven-year-old, and another that was built into the wall over the bed, which well-worn paperbacks shared with a small number of stuffed toys.

As soon as she'd dragged Luna into her room, Hermione turned around and demanded to know, "If magic and unicorns and winged horses are real, then does that mean dragons are real?  Are Borrowers real?  And faeries?"

Both Sunset and Luna flinched at the mention of faeries.

"Dragons, yes," Luna answered.  "I don't know what Borrowers are, and..."

Sunset stepped in and informed Hermione, "Faeries are very real and you do not ever want to meet one.  That's all we're going to say about that."

Hermione deflated a bit at that, though Sunset wasn't sure if it was at the news that faeries weren't nice and cute, or just at being denied information.  "Oh... so they're like the old stories, then?"

"I barely know what the magical versions are like, but yeah, probably," Sunset said, then glanced at Luna.  "But like I said, that's not something we're going to talk about right now."

Luna, though, fisted her hands in front of her and shook her head.  "No—no.  There's nothing better than a first-hand account," she said, then looked down at Sunset curiously. "Or a first-hoof account?"

Sunset would kind of rather they talked about the magical and muggle worlds, but, well, "If you're sure."

Luna nodded, and so, Sunset told the story—or at least, she tried to.  Logically, she thought that if they were telling Hermione about Faery, that she should start with Sunset finding the ring of mushrooms in the forest near Luna's house, but of course that begged the question as to why Sunset would choose to jump worlds at a whim, so she had to go back and explain her situation, which wasn't a terrible idea.  There were things that Luna probably needed to know, like the whole situation where she had escaped from the ministry's Department of Mysteries.

She, of course, told the story in the only way she knew how; from her own perspective, with herself as the poor, aggrieved orphan.  She explained about Equestria and how she'd grown up as the student of its alicorn ruler, Princess Celestia, learning everything at her side.  She studied magic and aced all her tests, always supported pridefully by the princess, who was both confidant and mentor to her.  Everything was going fine until, just out of the blue, another alicorn arrived.

Sunset hadn't disliked Cadance initially—really, she hadn't—but suddenly Sunset's personal lessons with the princess were being shared with this ex-pegasus from the country that knew nothing about anything, their progress slowed to a crawl, and yet the princess couldn't have been more delighted.

"I hate that," Hermione grumbled in solidarity, sitting cross-legged on the soft carpet floor of her room with her hands on her legs.  Luna and Sunset made the rest of a triangle in front of her, though Sunset was standing, her feathers ruffled.

"Fortunately, that didn't last long," she said, calming herself down.  "But it wasn't really that much better getting half the time as usual because she had to split her time between us.  I was mature about it, of course, and things went almost back to normal so long as I avoided Cadance and pretended she wasn't there, which wasn't too hard since she was basically back in magic kindergarten—and etiquette kindergarten and every other kind of kindergarten.  That all changed when Princess Celestia showed me this mirror..."

So Sunset explained the mirror; how the princess had taken her to it and asked what she saw in it.  She explained how she'd seen herself as an alicorn, and then, just like that, Princess Celestia had changed in an instant.  She refused to tell Sunset anything about the mirror.  Where once she'd had a kind, open and understanding mentor who would always talk through problems with Sunset, there was suddenly only the taciturn princess who refused to say a single word on the matter one way or the other.

"Did she not want another heir, since she already had Cadance?" Hermione wondered.

Sunset considered that, but shook her head.  "She's immortal anyway, so there isn't really an heir.  And anyway, even if it was like that, she'd have let one of us down gently, not... whatever that was.  I can't explain how weird it was that she just shut me out entirely and all but ignored me if I brought it up.  If it was something bad, she'd have just said that!  Believe me, she was not shy about telling me when she didn't approve of something, and she always knew."

"Wait, so..."  Hermione sat and thought about that for a bit.  "Was it some kind of reverse-psychology thing, then, where if she told you about it, you'd do one thing, but what she actually wanted you to do is what you'd do if she didn't tell you anything?" she wondered, but seemed unconvinced.  "I don't think people actually do things like that."

Sunset threw her hooves up in the air in frustration.  "Well, she's a thousand-plus-year-old politician, so maybe!" she said, having given up on ever getting a proper answer.  "I looked into it and found out that the mirror was a portal that only opens every thirty moons and figured maybe I was supposed to go through it since the time was coming up, but that's something I'd have done if she'd asked anyway, so I don't know."

"And that's how you came to Earth?" Hermione asked.

"I still can't believe you named your world after dirt," Sunset said.  "—But no.  I mean, yes, but not quite.  I went to Princess Celestia one last time to tell her about what I found, but she was all, 'If you continue on this path, I will have no choice but to remove you from your position as my student,' so I told her that if she wouldn't talk to me about it, then I wasn't really her student anymore anyway, and ran off."  Sunset paused, then shook her head.  "So yeah, it was a whole thing and it sucked and then I went through the mirror and got hit by one of your mechanized carriages."

Luna cocked her head to the side in question.  "Is that why you were hurt?" she asked.

"Mechanized carriage?" Hermione asked.  "You mean a car?  How did that happen?  Did the portal come out next to a road or something?"

"Well, from what I saw out of the corner of my eye, the other end of the portal came out of some kind of statue—only the statue was on the back of a... car?" she looked to Hermione to see if she'd gotten it right.

"If it has cargo space in the back, we call that a truck—or a lorry, if it's a big one," Hermione explained.  "So you just..."

"Yeah, it was strapped down to a large flat bed on the back of a... truck, I guess, going some insane speed down this huge black road and just spat me off the back of it.  Obviously, I didn't have the wings at the time, so I hit the ground and then got hit by one of the smaller ones."

Hermione reminded her that it was, "A car."

"Yeah," Sunset agreed, thought back for a moment, and said, "Everything after that is fuzzy for obvious reasons.  Some ministry people showed up, made all the muggles think I was a goat or something, and dragged me off to the Department of Mysteries."

"Muggles?" Hermione asked, not sure what the term referred to.

Sunset wasn't quite sure what the problem was.  "Isn't that what your people are called?" she asked.  "Well, not you," she quickly corrected.  "But the non-magical ones like your parents, I mean."

Hermione's nose scrunched up like she'd smelled something foul.  "A mug is what we call someone who's too gullible."

"Huh," Sunset remarked.  "I did think that it didn't sound very nice," she admitted.  "But like I said, you named your world after dirt and we did the same thing with a tribe of ponies and no one seems to mind that, so I figured it was just one of those things."

"Well," Luna said.  "I've heard that in the Americas, they call them no-maj."

"No-maj?" Sunset said, incredulous.

Luna nodded.  "Yes, because they have no magi—"

"Yeah, I got that, thanks," Sunset dryly informed her.  "Are the people who live there..."

"Touched in the head?" Hermione suggested.  "Some would say so, but no, you're right, that sounds dumb—like what an orc or a troll would call it.  Wait—are orcs and trolls real, too?  That's not racist, is it?"

"Trolls are definitely real," Luna informed her.  "And yes, that's racist.  I don't think it's wrong, though, as they're not known for their linguistic abilities.  Maybe the American magicals are all secretly trolls?  Or maybe a British person made it up to make them sound uneducated and they started using it ironically until it became normal?"

"I want to say that wouldn't happen, but I can't," Hermione admitted, frowning.  "Anyway, where were we?"

"Sunset had been hit by a car, then the obliviators came and made everyone forget about her before dragging her off to the Department of Mysteries," Luna reminded her.

Hermione's eyes widened and she turned to Sunset.  "Wait, when you said they made everyone think that you were a goat, you meant with magic?"

Sunset scrunched her face up in disgust.  "Yeah, and my horn was scraped raw on the road too, so I could really feel the spells they were casting.  It wasn't the best first impression entirely aside from being foalnapped and put in a cage."

Hermione gawped.  "But that's... that's horrible!"

Sunset nodded in agreement, while Luna shrugged and said, "Well, they are the government.  I think that means that they're horrible by default."

"That doesn't give them the right!" Hermione insisted.

"Well, no," Luna agreed.  "But you can't tell me you don't think that the muggle government wouldn't do it too, if they could."

"Of course they wouldn't!" Hermione said, aghast.  "I mean—the Americans, maybe—or perhaps the French..."

"Anyway," Sunset interjected, not wanting to let an argument start. "I woke up in a cage in the Department of Mysteries, let myself out and took the floo to a random house, which turned out to be the Lovegood's place, and now we can finally actually talk about Faery."

The actual talk about the Fae, ironically, went much faster.  Sunset explained that she'd never even heard of them before and how that lack of knowledge was abused, tying her twofold to Faerie and Titania until Luna arrived, fended Titania off with a necklace of paperclips and stole back Sunset's name.

"You did that?" Hermione asked, seeing the blonde in a new light.

"Well, it would have been a pity if, just after having found a crumple-horned snorkack, we lost her to the fae," Luna reasoned.

Hermione blinked and looked Sunset over.  "A... crumple-horned snorkack?  Is that what you are?"

Sunset let out a huff of frustrated resignation and said, "Legally, yes," refusing to be drawn further on the matter, though that put her between a bit of a rock and a hard place since she didn't particularly want to talk about the next bit any more than she wanted to talk about her legal species name.

Not seeing any way around it, though, she went ahead and mentioned the mote of light representing the concept of ascension that Titania had tempted her with, and, couching it in the best terms possible, how she had taken just a few extra seconds to grab it before following after Luna... and how Luna had lost her eye.

Hermione covered her mouth in silent fear and horror, but it was Luna that Sunset was watching for a reaction.  Of course, for Luna it had been over a year since the events Sunset was describing, and all she did was touch her eye absently.

"That was quite painful," Luna recalled, thinking back, a finger on her cheek.  "I remember a lot of running and fire and teleportation.  At some point I needed an eye and I used what I had on-hand, which was Sunset's name—only it didn't quite work how I needed it to since it still sees out of her head and I got captured."

"Wait-wait-wait-wait," Hermione said, holding her hands up.  "Is that where your heterochromia comes from?" she asked, referring to Luna's left eye, which was the same teal as Sunset's.  "How does that—but—it's a name!"

"I'd say it's a fae thing," Sunset said, "but Titania was just as baffled.  I guess it's a Luna thing."

Luna didn't seem to mind the distinction and went over the rest of the story, from being locked in a cage, to Sunset coming for her and having to go back for her father; a trip which, for Luna, took somewhere on the order of an entire year.  Glossing over the time she spent in Mab's care, comprising as it did long hours of boredom in a cage watching Sunset's progress through her name, she described how, near the end, she would see through the effect that her physicality had on Faery.

"...And then daddy came with his iron bell and shotgun, but ever since then I've been able to perceive... I suppose they must be fae of some sort, but nobody else seems to see them, even when they do things that people really ought to notice."

Sunset blinked, being that this was new information to her, though she supposed that Luna hadn't exactly hidden her staring off into space.  She'd just thought that the girl was easily distracted or lost in thought about her imprisonment.

Hermione, though, was just curious.  "Things that people ought to notice?  Like what?"

"Well," Luna said.  "Downstairs, after Professor McGonagall removed Sunset's disillusionment, there was something—I've decided to call them wrackspurts—and it seems like they go in through your ears and make your thoughts fuzzy, because he seemed quite out of it until your mother scared them away."

Hermione blanched at the mention of something going inside of her dad's ears, though it quickly turned into a frown.  "Wait, how do you know it was the wrackspurts?  He could have just been confused.  It's quite a shock, all this magic stuff."

Luna cocked her head to the side, not understanding.  "But I saw it."

Sunset decided not to mention that after what had happened to Luna, the fact that she had seen something wasn't entirely one-hundred-percent evidence that something had actually happened, but fortunately, Hermione seemed to have the situation handled.

"Correlation doesn't imply causation," she insisted with a huff, hands on her hips and a stern look on her face.

It took longer than it should have to explain the concept of scientific rigor to the young magical.


***


Rather frustratingly, they had barely gotten to telling Hermione about the generalities of magic and Hogwarts when there was a knock at the door from Hermione's mother, who informed them that they were ready to discuss this magic school with her.  Yes, Sunset was able to glean a number of things about the muggle world from the questions that Hermione asked, but it was far from satisfying.

Still, she made an effort not to be bothered as she waited at the top of the stairs then glided down after them.  There was, at minimum, two and a half years before the statue would be of any use to her, so she didn't need to worry about a matter of hours.  She'd already ascended to an alicorn and had a number of spells that she wanted to learn.  She was, if anything, ahead of the curve.

"Now, Hermione," Thomas Granger was saying, squatting in front of his daughter to put himself on her level when Sunset caught up to the rest of the group in the living room.  "This is a boarding school, you understand?  You'll be off in Scotland, only coming home for the holidays.  Is that something you want?  There are other options; day schools and tutors."

To her credit, she did consider the matter quite seriously, but at length, with a glance back at Luna, she nodded and told him she was sure.  Sunset tuned out of the conversation about there, keeping an ear out for anything interesting about the muggle world, but not needing to listen to the family dynamics.

Instead, she busied herself by wandering about, investigating the various muggle takes on familiar conveniences.  The kitchen was especially interesting, though not because it was unique.  Rather the opposite as there were appliances like coffee makers and blenders which looked essentially identical to their Equestrian counterparts—all electric, from the look of it.

For the most part, it was a shockingly normal house at maybe twice the scale as ponies built to in order to fit the significantly taller bipeds.

Eventually, the discussion in the living room reached the subject of Hermione's wand and school supplies.  The muggles weren't too appreciative of not being warned about the trip ahead of time, which was fair, but in the interest of providing the shortest possible delay between Hermione and books, they didn't put up too much of a fuss.

"Now, since you live on the outskirts of London, Diagon Alley isn't too far from here and you could likely make your way there by muggle means on a normal day, but since there are six of us and to familiarize you with it, the method of transportation we will be taking is known as the Knight Bus, a public transportation service for those unable to floo or apparate, either due to age, inability or impairment."

Professor McGonagall led the group out to the street in front of the house, raised her wand and—and there was no 'and'.  She didn't cast a spell or anything; she just raised her wand like she was hailing a passenger chariot, and with an incredible bang that somehow didn't seem to attract the attention of any of the neighbors, the Knight Bus appeared, which was an interesting trick.  Sunset made not to not approach roads incautiously in the future since her horn was always in Knight Bus summoning position, though it was more likely that it wouldn't be recognized at all and an actual wand was needed to do the summoning.

The Knight Bus turned out to be an especially large, purple example of a muggle vehicle known as a 'bus' which had been enchanted in so many ways it made Sunset's horn ache.  It looked quite ridiculous and at first, looking like three vehicles on top of one another, she had assumed that it was essentially that, and the muggle version was much saner, but no, Hermione said that even the muggles had double-decker buses, which might have been even stranger since they were done entirely without magic.

The inside of the Knight Bus, however, she could attribute entirely to the magicals, and not in a positive way.  Actually, the style was a bit more Equestrian, looking very similar to the kind of drawing room that a member of the nobility would have back in Canterlot, with wood paneling, crystal chandeliers and buttoned leather chairs.

It was all very posh, the only issues being how out of place it all was and the minor, nearly irrelevant fact that none of it was at all bolted down or in any way secured.  That didn't seem so alarming at first, of course.  Seeing as ponies had managed to mount an entire city on the side of a mountain like a bauble on a shelf, Sunset was sure that there were a dozen ways that the human magic users could have prevented the movement of the bus from affecting the things inside of it.

The problem was, they didn't appear to have used any of them.

The moment the Knight Bus took off—and it did so just as suddenly as it had appeared—every single piece of furniture took a leap towards the back of the bus, the chandeliers swinging and jangling along.  The people, of course, didn't fare much better.  Professor McGonagall had taken a seat near the front of the bus and instructed the others to do likewise, but she wasn't quite quick enough at getting the message across and the Grangers barely managed to remain standing—the adults especially.

Luna had split the difference and found an ottoman that slid across the polished wooden floor like a curling stone, sweeping Hermione up along with her with a, "Whee!" from the former and a "Whaa!" from the latter.

You would think that they would at least have a rug or a carpet to go along with the rest of the decor and provide better traction.

Sunset, for her part, being possessed of four legs and two wings, didn't have much trouble stabilizing herself, and her attention quickly shifted from the chaos inside of the bus to the chaos outside of it.

"What.  The.  Buck."

If someone had told Sunset that Discord had come back and set himself up as a bus driver, she would have believed them.  Aside from the relatively mundane quality of occasionally jumping ahead with the bang of its version of teleportation, the Knight Bus was also going several times faster than anything on the road, facilitated by absolutely everything jumping out of its path—lamp posts, cars and even trees—all without anyone on the outside ever seeming to notice that they had done so.

Twice, the Knight Bus made an especially loud bang and stopped to pick up more passengers, but before long the next bang that came was the one of their arrival and the six of them disembarked on the street outside of the Leaky Cauldron, some of them more traumatized than others, with Professor McGonagall remembering to re-apply Sunset's disillusionment just as she was stepping onto the street.

Having been inside the Leaky Cauldron, the outside of it was essentially exactly as one would have expected, looking like a rough, dimly-lit and heavily weathered pub, which only made it stand out all the more compared to the large book shop on one side of it and the busy record shop on the other, both of which would have fit in on any Manehattan street corner—as would the rest of the street for that matter.

In accommodation for her disillusionment, Sunset remained as still as possible as she waited for everyone to gather on the street, folding her ears for the loud bang of the Knight Bus leaving.  Once that was over, she resumed listening in on the Grangers' introduction to the magical world.

Apparently there was some kind of enchantment or spell on the Leaky Cauldron such that only those with magic could see it, which was an interesting trick similar to the thestrals that Xenophilius had mentioned, which also possessed the quality of being selectively invisible.

On one hoof, that did sound rather useful if she was going to be searching the muggle world for the statue where the portal home was anchored, but on the other, spells for static locations were often different than spells for people, and there was already the disillusionment spell, which she'd been informed could make one completely transparent if it was mastered, which seemed like a much more productive use of her time.

The solution to the magic hiding the pub from the adult Grangers turned out to be for them to take Hermione's hand, at which point they stepped back in shock, suddenly able to see the Leaky Cauldron.  That made Sunset even more curious about the magic behind it, even if it wasn't particularly relevant to her.

As soon as Professor McGonagall opened the door to the Leaky Cauldron, Sunset went from standing still to dashing between legs to get inside, receiving a tap on the head from the professor's wand to dispel the disillusionment as she passed as if it had been planned.  The professor certainly wasn't an easy one to catch off guard.

Sunset felt a grumble of discontent at the warmth of losing her short-lived disguise, feeling that it wouldn't have hurt for her to stay invisible at least for the trip through the pub, but then again, the magicals would probably know what to look for to spot an imperfect disillusionment and pay even more attention to something trying to be invisible.

It may have been petty, but Sunset felt rather vindicated that the Grangers weren't terribly impressed by the inside of the Leaky Cauldron, however, this attitude flipped on its head when, after a confusing trip back to the dead-end alley they had previously disapparated from, Professor McGonagall tapped a specific brick and, like a school of fish splitting around a shark, the bricks opened up to reveal the real Diagon Alley.

Sunset cringed.

Okay, okay, it wasn't that bad—not really.  It was a bustling, colorful marketplace with a cobblestone road, the buildings whimsically designed, not a parallel line to be seen.  It was just that, like with the Knight Bus, it reminded Sunset tangentially of Discord, which was one of the few events in Equestria's history that Princess Celestia had never made light of.

The fact that the buildings weren't all swaying from side to side and singing was a plus, though, and helped her put her first impression behind her.

The Grangers, of course, were all wondrously impressed, Hermione's head swiveling this way and that as hawkers announced all sorts of fantastical ingredients.  Fantastical to them, anyway.  Sunset found mentions of things like dragon liver and manticore venom a little less than enticing, though she had already been warned about that sort of thing when Xenophilius had explained potions to her.

"Our first stop will be Gringotts bank, so that you may change pounds for galleons," she told the Grangers, leading the group to a building that could have been right out of Canterlot with its white marble columns and polished appearance.  "Now, before we enter, I should warn you: Gringotts is run by goblins, who are not particularly fond of wizardkind—or witchkind, or muggles, or anyone that is not a goblin."

Thomas Granger put his hand on Hermione's head and brushed it down affectionately.  "You hear that, honey?  Be on your best behavior.  It's always best to be polite to those who manage your money."

"Being polite, in the case of goblins, mostly means treating them with the wariness due a predator and not wasting their time with frivolities," Professor McGonagall noted.  "You may see behavior from other patrons that seems condescending to what they consider a lesser race, and while that is unfortunately true in some cases, the posturing does serve a purpose.  Simply being compliant is a quick way to lose a goblin's respect and will get you taken advantage of."

"I... see," the elder Granger said, clearly having to readjust his worldview to process that.  "The way you've put it, you make it sound like there's no way to have an amiable relationship with a goblin."

Professor McGonagall shook her head.  "On the contrary, it's simply that they have a different idea of what the hallmarks of an amiable relationship are and the affordances such a relationship provides."

"The way daddy put it," Luna chimed in, happy to have something to contribute.  "Is that if you're friends with a goblin, they'll try to cheat you out of your gold, but if you aren't, they'll try to cheat you out of your life.  Gringotts is goblin territory, you know—like a muggle embassy—so they have their own set of laws that you have to be careful of."

Thomas Granger blanched at the mention of losing the lives of himself and his family over a banking dispute, which Sunset admitted was fair.  It was unlikely that a griffon-run bank would do well back in Equestria, and griffons were entirely capable of being domesticated.  "Is there, perhaps, another bank that we can use that isn't so... rife with potentially thorny issues?" he asked.

Professor McGonagall shook her head, which didn't entirely surprise Sunset.  Aside from the population issue that limited them to only having two bookstores, she expected that if there was another option, that the wizards would take it.  She was curious what the reason for that would be, though.

"No," the professor said.  "Goblins and wizards have fought over the matter a number of times throughout the ages, and the end result of the various treaties as they stand today is that goblins have exclusive rights to operate banks in the wizarding world."

Heather Granger hmmed, giving that a thought.  "You've mentioned the 'British Ministry of Magic' before, so when you say 'the wizarding world,' is that just here in the United Kingdom, or does that extend to Ireland or the continent?  And what about the Americas and further abroad?"

"Just here," Professor McGonagall admitted.  "Though Magical Britain includes all of the British Isles, including Ireland.  Other countries often have similar arrangements with the goblins, but the current state of those agreements isn't something I could properly inform you of.  Even in countries where there are alternatives, however, the goblins tend to be the most successful of banks.  Whatever else one says about them, they are exceptional at their job, which isn't something you can say for some of the banks in the Americas."

Feeling that the group was finally duly prepared to experience the goblins, the professor said, "Now, if there are no more questions, we should proceed.  We do have a rather full afternoon to get to."

The rest of the group agreed, though they paused for a moment at the door where a poem was engraved into a plaque.


Enter, stranger, but take heed
Of what awaits the sin of greed
For those who take, but do not earn,
Must pay most dearly in their turn.
So if you seek beneath our floors
A treasure that was never yours, 
Thief, you have been warned, beware
Of finding more than treasure there.


Hermione read the poem and bent forward to read it, coming away slightly confused.  "Are the goblins terribly religious?" she asked somewhat out of the blue.  "Because I didn't get that impression from your description."

"No, I don't believe so," Professor McGonagall answered, not sure what the young witch's point was.

"Well, isn't it odd, then, that they call it 'the sin of greed?'" Hermione asked.  "I'm not implying that they're Christian in particular, but the concept of 'sin' is a theological one."

"It might not have been a goblin that came up with it," Luna pointed out.

"Are goblins even the artistic type?" Sunset asked, doubtful.  "I'm having trouble picturing one of them writing poems."

"Yes, actually," Professor McGonagall answered, to everyone but Luna's surprise.  "Goblins are actually quite deep into the arts.  They are excellent smiths, among other things, and Filius Flitwick, the charms professor at Hogwarts, is half-goblin and in charge of the orchestra and frog choir."

Sunset kind of wanted to know if the frog choir used actual frogs or transfigured students,  but not enough to hold the group up as they continued on into the bank.  Back in Equestria, it would definitely have been an earth pony with trained frogs or something, so she just assumed that here it was transfigured students—maybe as a punishment thing?

The inside of Gringotts bank was, miraculously, not the crooked, whimsical shape that the bank had from the outside, which was a bit of a relief.  Finally, a wizarding place that looked decent and sensible.  Of course, she might have been influenced by the similarity she'd already noted to the white marble buildings of Canterlot, but she doubted anyone would have disagreed that it did look classy.

When her eyes dropped to the tall desks staffed by short, gnarled figures with pointed ears, noses and chins, though, she gave pause then quickly asked McGonagall, quietly, "They aren't fae, are they?"  Because they did, in a sort of roundabout way, remind her of the tall, graceful faeries as they had appeared under the influence of Luna and Xenophilius.

Professor McGonagall pursed her lips.  "Perhaps long ago," she supposed.  "But not in any way that matters.  They may be fond of the same sort of wordplay, but only in a legal sense.  The dangers the goblins pose are entirely the mundane sort."

Sunset wasn't entirely sure that she liked the sound of that, but then, it wasn't as if she was likely to have any actual business with them any time soon, so it didn't actually matter that much.

Rather anticlimactically, the Grangers' transaction went by quickly and professionally, for a certain definition of those words.  The goblins offered an exchange rate of fifty pounds to the galleon in one direction and one galleon to five pounds in the other.  Sunset didn't have to know what a 'pound' or a 'galleon' was to know that that was probably highway robbery regardless of which you wanted to go and Mr. Granger certainly recognized the fact, so, keeping in mind what Professor McGonagall had said, he screwed up his courage and began haggling, eventually getting a price that was somewhere between the two, though from the expressions of those involved when it was over, probably not quite enough to be considered a good rate.

Sunset figured that if she ever needed to change money, she'd find a muggleborn who needed one currency or the other or just go the barter route.  She was perfectly willing to haggle, but in this situation the bank held all the cards, which was something to be avoided.

To everyone's surprise, when the Grangers stepped away from the goblin teller, Luna stepped forward and said, "I need to access the Lovegood vault."

"Key," the goblin urged.

Luna reached up to her ear and pulled a small golden key out of it like a stage magician and held it up so it was barely visible above the edge of the too-tall desk.

Sighing, Sunset dismissed the matter of the key, which she was positive hadn't been behind Luna's ear, and lit her horn, enveloping the small girl in her magic and levitating her up so she could see over the desk.

The entire bank, quiet as it already was, seemed to grow even quieter with the tinkling sound of Sunset's levitation echoing through the large lobby, and Sunset realized that maybe it hadn't been the best idea if she was at all intending not to attract attention.

Well, whatever.  She was going to Hogwarts, which seemed to make up at least fifty percent of the magic users self identity, so it wasn't as if she was going to be able to stay secret for long.

The goblin teller leaned forward, having to nearly crawl over his desk while retaining as much dignity as possible in order to see what was levitating Luna up in front of him.  Apparently, whatever he saw of Sunset seemed to satisfy him, as he dropped back into his seat and called out, "Grimblegut!"

Grimblegut turned out to be a small, reedy-looking goblin, who the teller instructed to take Luna to her vault before waving them off and calling "Next!"

Sunset looked back at Professor McGonagall and the Grangers, then at Luna who was already walking away, following Grimblegut.  "I, uhh, guess we're going down to the vaults or something?" she said, all of them hesitating, not sure if it was worse to invite themselves along or let Luna go along alone.

Well, the answer was obvious for Sunset, at least, as she was the girl's familiar-slash-guardian.  With a paff of fire, she disappeared, teleporting over to Luna's side, who was already halfway across the lobby.

As for the rest of them, she thought about it, then figured she could just ask.  "So—uh—should the rest of them be coming, or...?"

Luna hmmed and said, "Why not?  The carts are quite fun; I'm sure Hermione will love it!"

Hermione did not love it.

'The carts,' turned out to be heavy metal trapezoidal boxes on wheels that everyone, regardless of their world of origin, recognized as mine carts, and with the number of people present, they needed two of them.  To the adult Grangers slight consternation, this involved the children and child-sized nonhumans in the front cart, while all the adults were in the back, separating them from their daughter.

"Oh, lighten up," Heather Granger said to her husband as they climbed awkwardly into the rough, metal cart which came up to their waists.  "They're in the front, so you'll be able to see her the entire time—and besides, it can't be any more dangerous than that bus if there aren't even any seats, can it?"

The first sign that Heather Granger had that she might have misread the situation was the dual-toned screaming from the cart ahead of them, one in joy and the other in terror.

Sunset, for her part, thought that the cart ride was quite brisk and refreshing.  She hadn't had a chance to really put her wings to the test in proper flight yet, but this, she thought, was a nice, nostalgic reminder of all the trips she'd taken by pegasus chariot back in Canterlot.

"Relax, Hermione," Sunset said, leaning into the wind and letting her wings out just enough to let them feel the breeze without actually catching the wind.  "There are spells on the cart to prevent anyone falling off; they feel just like the ones back home."

Hermione did not relax, though she did stop screaming.  Whether that was due to Sunset's reassurance or simply having screamed herself out, though, was anyone's guess.

The Lovegood vault was deep.  Numbered 326, the door was a big, heavy iron slab, which seemed appropriate, though it did seem like a lot of trouble to go to for a simple withdrawal.  Did the goblins not offer monetary accounts, or did the Lovegoods simply not use them?  Now that she thought about it, she thought she remembered seeing some of the other people in the lobby with something like checks or bank drafts, so they must have offered at least some of the services she would have expected a bank to provide.

Luna stepped up on the edge of the cart and jumped before it had even come to a stop, and holding her arms out to the side, she rushed up to the door of the vault.  Grimblegut, the goblin, wasn't nearly so exuberant, but he also hopped off with ease, only one hand on the cart.

Hermione lifted one leg, then had to put it back down because she was shaking too much, holding onto the side of the cart with a white knuckled grip, and on closer inspection she had her bottom lip tightly between her lips, with tear tracks running down her face.

Oh.  Well, damn.  Now Sunset felt kind of bad.  Gingerly, she patted Hermione on the side and said, "Hey now, look; we're here and everything's fine?" still not used to actually trying to comfort someone.  "In fact—here, I'll get us out of this thing," she decided, and lit her horn, the teal glow bright in the dim torchlight of the large, airy mineshaft.

Hermione looked over to see what Sunset was doing, and before she could ask, Sunset let go of her teleport, reappearing in a puff of flame next to Luna with a wide open area of solid ground around them.

It took a moment, but the young girl did seem reassured having solid ground underneath her feet, sniffling and wiping her eyes with her sleeve, though the real change came with a wince when her father came rushing over, tripping over himself to wrap Hermione in a hug.  "Oh, honey, are you okay?!"

"I—I'm fine, dad!" Hermione insisted, pushing him away.  "I'm fine.  It just would have been nice to have some warning, that's all."

Thomas Granger looked doubtful, but eventually relented, releasing his daughter.  "Alright, honey, but we'll have to see if they can take it a bit easier on the way back.  It ought to be, since it's uphill, but it seems that might not matter quite as much as it should any more."

While everyone's attention had been on Hermione, Luna had handed her tiny golden key over to Grimblegut, who was approaching the towering iron door.  Sunset was reassured to see that the goblin seemed not at all shy of the impressively large iron surface, implying that Professor McGonagall was right, and they weren't fae enough to matter.  It wasn't long until the goblin reached up and inserted the key into a tiny, miniscule hole in the otherwise blank surface, and turned it with an uncharacteristically deep thud, followed by the iron surface splitting down the center into what was evidently two large doors that swung outward.

The Lovegood vault, sure enough, did contain some amount of gold, silver and bronze coins.  Precisely how many of each such coin it contained, however, was difficult to estimate, as piles were tucked in here and there among all the other things in the vault, of which there was... a lot—not much of it in any particular order or organized in any way.

In hindsight, the mess probably should have been expected for anyone who had seen the barely controlled chaos of the Lovegood home, but that had not prepared Sunset for the amount of it that wasn't bronze, silver or gold, but iron and steel in every form imaginable.

The various swords and armors seemed apposite.

The racks of muggle weapons did make sense in hindsight, but...

"Why is there a Celestia-damned tank in your bank vault?!" Sunset demanded to know.

"How is there a Celestia-damned tank in your bank vault?!?"

Sitting there, right in the center of the vault, not five meters from the door, was a giant, squat, tracked vehicle with a long barrel as thick around as her hoof sticking out the top.  It was a tank.  It couldn't be anything else.

Luna didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with this.  "Daddy bought it for when I turn sixteen," she explained.  "He said that as soon as I could reach the pedals, we'd go get mom."

Sunset had no words for that, worst of all because she could actually see the logic behind it.

Hermione, though, eyes still red from crying, was looking incredulously at Sunset.

"You know what a tank is, but not a car or a truck?"