The fire roars green once again, for yet another immediately apparent reason. This time, though, it’s a red-haired boy. A red haired boy, in fact, that is just in time to spot a whole years’ worth of first years vanish into thin air in a single crack of thunder, then for that one first year with the blue and white hair to walk calmly back to her table and take a drink from her butterbeer.
Attention drawn, he makes his way over, his twin brother joining him as soon as he emerges from the freshly-green flames. “Hello,” he greets.
The blue-and-white-haired girl looks up, and smiles. “Good afternoon, Gred and Forge. How do you do?”
The first blinks, looking at the other. “You know, that’s a good one, Fred.”
“Yeah George, it is,” Fred answers. “Though I’m more worried about how she knows our names.”
“How about,” George begins, turning back to the girl. “All the first years I just saw aparate away?”
Fred blinks. “True,” and turns also to the girl.
“Nice to meet you,” the girl smiles, holding out her hand. “My name’s Lyra, and they didn’t aparate. They teleported.”
The twins grasp her hand together, one with his left hand, the other with his right, and shake it. “Nice to meet you,” they parrot.
“How is a teleport different than apparition?” Fred asks.
“The specific spell,” she answers. “Teleporting is much safer.”
“Echo November to Apothecary.”
The twins both turn to the speaker. “What?” Her hair is pink and dark blue, and she’s lowering something that looks suspiciously like muggle stuff.
This girl smiles at them too. “Hello, my name’s Bonbon. Hogwarts?”
They blink, and nod. “Ron’s starting this year,” they state in tandem.
“And you might not want to let our dad see that,” Fred adds, pointing at the large, glowing, muggle-stuff-looking thing on the table.
“Let me see what?”
“Oh, hi Dad. Uh, nothing.”
Lyra waves. “Good afternoon, Mr. Weasley! Pretty sure they were talking about our gear. I wonder why?”
Both twins facepalm.
Another red-headed boy steps out of the flames after his father; this one is taller than the one that had gone between the twins and their father. “What is going on over here?” he asks, marching after them.
“Wait a second,” Mr. Weasley mutters, looking at the girl’s table. “Is that a phone? Does it run on ekel-tricity? How does it-?”
“No,” Lyra interrupts. Then looks at Bonbon. “Called it.”
Bonbon nods. “Just like Twilight.”
“Did I just hear Arthur talking about muggle stuff again?” a redheaded woman demands, the mother of the set, having come through behind her daughter.
Lyra leans out from her seat to look the woman in the eye. “No, but Ginny did,” she answers. Then she looks up at Mr. Weasley. “And it’s electricity. You know, like-!” She holds out her hand, and doesn’t quite touch Mr Weasley’s outstretched arm. A white line of plasma momentarily crosses the gap- and he jumps backwards with a very high-pitched yelp that drives all of the Weasley children, save the oldest, to laughter.
Lyra chuckles. “Like that. Butterbeer?” She promptly finishes off the last of her own tankard, and lifts one of the muggle stuff things like the one Bonbon had spoken into earlier.
And before anyone could stop them, the twins chorus “Yes Please.”
Then, before Mrs. Weasley and Percy finish filling their lungs to tell the twins off, both Ron and Ginny act.
“Sure,” Ron shrugs.
Ginny looks up at her mother. “Pleeease?”
Mr. Weasley stops in the middle of a similar lung-filling as his wife and eldest son, and seems to change his mind. “Why not?” he mutters.
At which point Percy groans, while Mrs. Weasley redirects her retort. “Arthur!”
“Sure,” Percy mutters.
Mrs. Weasley holds out for about three seconds before the peer pressure overwhelms her. “Alright, fine,” she huffs. Then she glances at Lyra. “Yes, thank you, dear,” she states.
Lyra’s grin widens even further as she raises the object to her mouth. “Hey Tom? Seven virgin Butterbeers and two regulars this time at table three, please.”
Bonbon raises an eyebrow, then drains the last of her tankard before it answers, with the barkeeper’s voice.
“Comin’ right up.”
Lyra puts it down. “Lemme guess, a wizarding family with another Hogwarts student?”
“Not that hard of a guess,” Fred mutters.
“Quiet,” George shushes him.
“Ah, yes,” Mr. Weasley states. “What about you?” His eyes stray back to the gizmos they’re using. “And what are those?”
“We’re, ah, a little different,” Lyra answers him. “I’d say unique, but there’s a few thousand of us.”
“A few thousand?” Mr. Weasley asks, blinking.
“Yeah. That happens when you connect a whole new world of magic to one with a magic school with an inadvisable structure.”
“A whole new world?” he asks.
She nods, and accepts a fresh butterbeer from Tom. “Yeah, gotta love it when stuff breaks. Butterbeer?”
Tom smiles, handing off the butterbeers from his platter with greater speed, now that he has their attention.
“Ahh, thank you,” Mr. Weasley states. “So you’re starting at Hogwarts or something? And are you sure it’s such a good idea to be having so much butterbeer?”
Lyra grins. “Yep, all Hogwarts here. We already got our stuff, though, so we’re helping coordinate everyone else to minimize problems out in the Alley. You wanna join our next party, or go independent? I know Rarity would love to meet you.”
“Um- sure. And- the butterbeer-?”
The twins cut him off, sliding in front of him and leaning over the table, blocking much of its contents from view. “What’s all this stuff doing?”
“All this stuff is doing the Ravenclaw-ing for us,” Lyra answers quickly.
“Huh?”
She chuckles. “The thinking? Though even a team of Ravenclaws would be hard-pressed to match this.” She gestures at the big, flat gizmo on the table in front of her.
They blink. “What is ‘this’?” Fred asks.
She grins. “‘This’ is a map displaying the positions of all our groups, allies, and identified threats, updated sixty times every second from a high-speed information network with almost two hundred and fifty addresses. At the moment.”
“Uhh…”
“Think of it like people,” Bonbon states. “Almost two hundred and fifty ‘people’ are out in Diagon Alley or other places, watching our people or any threats we’ve tagged. Each one of those ‘people’ are constantly shouting their location back to this one, anywhere from thirty to a hundred and fifty times a second.” she taps the big one on the table. “This one interprets that information and, sixty times a second, marks the latest location of each of those other ‘people’ on a fresh map of Diagon Alley, before putting that up for us to see.”
“Sixty times-?!”
She grins. “Yeah. The kind of thing that is flat-out impossible for humans to do, Ravenclaws included.”
Mr. Weasley clears his throat. “The butterbeers?” he asks sternly.
Lyra leans out from behind the twins. “Oh, don’t worry- we’re only ordering the virgin ones, with no alcohol. No intoxicants to cloud our judgement, so there’s no problem with downing really as much of it as we like.” Then she glances at Bonbon. “Add how cheap it is, and we’d be almost terminally stupid not to take advantage of it. I mean,” she looks up at Mr. Weasley. “It tastes really good. And I had some of the normal stuff last night, there’s no real difference between it and the virgin stuff, save the side effects.”
“Cheap?” the twins, Percy, and both parents parrot simultaneously.
“Yep!” she states cheerfully, before taking a swig of her butterbeer. “‘Nother world, remember? We got our own currency over there. And when we got here, we managed to negotiate an exchange rate so favorable this butterbeer is practically dirt cheap.”
“Oh?” Mr. Weasley asks.
She nods. “Yep. Back home, two bits- that’s our currency- will get you a single mug of apple cider. But take those same two bits here, and exchange them for wizard currency, and you’ve got forty-nine servings of this Butterbeer.” She grins up at him. “Like I said, a very favorable exchange rate.”
He blinks. “What about when people go to your world?”
“They can’t,” she states. “The gate is keyed to a kind of magic unique to the other side. And it’s only keyed to it because it’s that stabilizing facet of our magic that lets us stay us when we pass through.” She sighs. “We’ll probably renegotiate the exchange rate to something more reasonable if ever it becomes easy to send people native to this world across, but until then, it’s downright deadly for you to try crossing the gate.” She shrugs. “I have an idea that might help with that, but it’ll take a while to refine before I can feel comfortable even experimenting with it.” Sigh. “And that’s completely aside from the side effects of that facet.”
“Side effects?” he asks.
“Yeah. We’re used to it, so it’s part of life for us, and easily handled- but the people of this world might be blindsided by it. And it’s… Well, a little hard to explain.”
He tilts his head. “Oh?”
She chuckles. “You see our hair colors, right?” She starts touching numbers on a smaller gizmo.
“Yeah?” he asks.
She puts the gizmo to the side of her head. “That’s one of ‘em,” she states. “Appearance varies… a lot, over there.” She turns away. “Gamma. You’re up.” A pause, and she removes it, touching something red. “You’ll see what I mean in a second.”
“What’s this?” a voice asks, walking up behind the Weasleys.
The whole family turns to face. “Malfoy,” Mr. Weasley states.
“Are the Weasleys so poor they have to leech off a couple-!”
“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave them alone.” It’s a golden-armored boy, holding a spear respectfully at his side as he steps in front of the man, a sword sheathed on the other side.
Mr. Malfoy blinks at the sudden interruption, looking down at the boy. “Oh?” he demands. “Why is that?”
“They are our friends. If you cannot show them the respect due a fellow human being, you had best stay clear.”
“What-! The blood traitors deserve no respect!”
The boy’s eyes harden, and another- a girl this time, but wearing similar armor and otherwise exactly identical- steps up next to him, abandoning a butterbeer on her table. “Their blood is irrelevant,” she states firmly. “They are human beings, and they deserve at minimum the respect due to any human being.”
He hisses furiously. “You’re standing up for the blood traitors?” he demands. “You must be blood traitors yourselves!”
The two children don’t move, nor respond in any way. Instead, a third approaches from the side. She’s not wearing any armor, her hair billowing behind her like midnight. “Hast thou heard the saying,” she begins. “Thou must respect thy neighbor, but thou must respect thy enemy more- for the moment thou failest, thou wilt be destroyed.”
“They are blood traitors!” he almost roars. “They deserve no respect!”
The two armor-wearing children start to move, but the last girl stops them with a simple gesture. “And thou wouldst be wrong.”
He snarls, one hand drawing back in a fist.
“Thou wishest to fight?” she asks, amused. “Doest thou hast any clue what thou provokest?”
He throws his punch.
She catches it, in one hand, trapping his fist almost casually in her tiny hand, and sighs. “Thou hast just directed an attack against myself,” she states. “An attack that amounts to the mere squabbling of foals.” She grins evilly- and his expression goes from angry and surprised to pained while his fist crackles in her hand. “You would best remember my name, fool man. I am Princess Luna, the Princess of the Night. Now, Begone from my sight!” She thrust his hand back at him, toppling him on top of his son like a domino. His son wisely dodges out of the way, leaving his wife to catch him.
He rubs his freed hand with the other one as his wife helps him back to his feet, and glares at the Princess. “This is not over,” he declares.
The Princess’ eye glints dangerously. “I look forward to a more appropriate battle,” she states dangerously, her ancient accent disappearing completely.
Right on time, and with a crack like a thunderbolt, about thirty first years appear out of thin air right behind Luna, eliciting frightened yelps from the Malfoys.
A purple haired girl steps forward from the group almost instantly, to the Weasleys. “Good afternoon, my name is Rarity. What might your names be?”
“It has been a long time since I’ve faced a worthy opponent,” Luna finishes.
“Very well,” Malfoy declares, turning back to the fireplace with his family. “I will be ready next time!”
“Fred,” George mutters to his twin. “I think Rarity’s still waiting for our answer.”
Fred blinks, looking away from the Malfoys. “Yeah, and she looks a little irritated, too.”
“Alright then,” George states, turning to speak to Rarity.
“I’m Fred,” Fred begins, and points at his twin. “This is George.”
George continues. “The littlest two are Ron and Ginny, and that is Percy.” He points at Percy.
“The oldest two are our parents,” Fred finishes.
Rarity blinks. “Uh, alright,”
“The Weasley family,” Lyra smiles.
“Oh, okay,” Rarity smiles at the twins. “I imagine you’ve got much shopping to do, yes?”
“Uh, yeah,” Fred mutters. “We’ve yet to get our school stuff this year.”
“Excellent! That’s what we’re doing as well. I don’t suppose you two will be first years, though.”
“Ah, no,” George answers. “That’d be Ron this year.”
“Nice! You do have your shopping lists, right? Or do they not send upper years shopping lists?”
“Ah, they do, alright,” Fred states.
“And we got our lists,” George finishes.
“I just hope we can afford it all,” Fred mutters.
“We might be able to save enough by having Ron use Charlie’s old wand,” George muses.
Rarity gasps dramatically. “Oh, no, that just won’t do! That’d never work! And don’t worry about the money, either. I mean, they keep telling me thirty bits is all I’ll need for all of my supplies.” Then she glances at Lyra. “And a wand is, what, five?”
“Fourteen, actually,” Lyra answers, “once you account for the exchange rate.”
Rarity snorts. “Yet I brought a hundred and fifty just to be safe. So really, let’s just get all your stuff and have a good year at Hogwarts, alright?”
“Ahh,” the twins mutter in tandem. “Sure.”
“Alright everyone, this way,” one of the other first-years of the group calls.
“Oh!” Rarity positively chirps. “That’s our cue!” She then grabs Ron by the hand and pulls the surprised Weasley after her, following the group.
George glances back at the rest of his family long enough to see Lyra catch their attention to say, “You wanted to go with X-ray, right?” and gesture back towards them. Then, he quickly looks back forwards, trotting after Fred and Ron.
umm... okay that seems like a bit of an extreme reaction to Lucius. Sure he's a bit shady but he didn't seem to do anything that would elicit such a violent response. This is like cops drawing their guns on you because you have a tattoo, being cautious is one thing but the ponies seemed to skip right to violent threats with no provocation.
9585475
That is true.
It's also true that the ponies are obviously looking at more than just light and sound- Lyra said so herself last chapter, talking of the 'aura'. And since Lucius happened to be a willing death eater... Well, seeing that in his aura probably caused them to overreact.
9585486
That would only justify them being cautious not straight up threatening his life. I mean the guy was with his family there was nothing indicating he was gonna try anything. Plus it was a public place it's not like he was approaching them alone in a dark alley.
Also, the whole being able to recognize bad guys at a glance is a pretty ridiculous power in my opinion not only is it not canon compliant it kind of ruins any possible tension when they can just look at someone like Quirrell and go "oh yeah he's totally evil we should do something about that".
9585505
In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Lucius started a fight with Arthur in Flourish and Blotts over the second-hand nature of Ginny's books, in front of Lockhart, and the two had to be pulled apart by Hagrid. And these ponies have a lot of experience with baddies walking in... and, apparently, zero tolerance.
Then... I'm also going to reveal in the future (next chapter), the aura-vision is far from ubiquitous.
9585526
Okay but considering all he did was walk up to them, not even finishing his sentence, holding a spear to his throat is way too ridiculous. This is the kind of reaction that gets you fired from a police force. It would have been enough just having the guards stand in front him and tell to not move any closer.
Still, it's a relief to hear you won't take this whole aura vision too far.
9585532
That is a good point. That was a bit quick for him to have "missed the hint" prior to the blocking him with the spear...
One point still isn't quite clear to me. Are the physical ages of the Equestrians regressed to 11 year olds in the human world? The way the wizards and witches address them makes it unclear on this concept.
9585717
They are, yes- regardless of their age on the other side of the portal, they're all 11-year-olds here. A little quirk I stuck into the portal logic- and the quirk, actually, that fooled the Book of Acceptance or whatever it's called. And no, their ages in Equestria aren't effected. And the little little foals, like Pound and Pumpkin Cake (or Flurry Heart) didn't receive letters, either; they're not eleven yet in Equestria, so they'd cross as their true age. No, I have no clue how old the Crusaders are in my story; but apparently, they're eleven or older.
... Yes, they will age while on the human side, and double-crossing the portal won't reset them back to 11-year-olds. So down the road, we won't have the spectacle of several thousand eleven-year-old seventh years. That'd just be... Well, too broken. And it'd have implications in immortality, which I'm not willing to give to anything that isn't an alicorn or draconequus.
Anyways, nice catch! That's one of the less-obvious-but-pivotal points in my world structure.
9585532
There, rewrote the Malfoy scene. It's a lot longer now- and while the end result is the same, there's a little less overreaction.
9585850
Definitely much better. Not sure how likely it would be for Lucius to start a fight with his fist rather than his wand or how likely it would be for Luna to have any knowledge of hand to hand combat (not like such a move works with hooves) but it ultimately works better than the first version.
9585908
Well... Mr. Weasley started that fight in Flourish and Blotts in the second book with his fist, and Malfoy answered with the same...
And as for Luna, she probably has zilch in terms of human fighting skill, yes. Walking around and such is something that may or may not have been instilled by the portal's transformation (like the rings in Magic School Days), and Luna being who she is, she's undoubtedly spent some time practicing her hand-eye coordination (to familiarize herself with her new form), giving her an accurate enough reaction (her reaction time is still leagues ahead of Malfoy, that remains from Equestria) to catch his hand. Then, with the earth pony facet of her Alicorn magic... Well, he really didn't stand a chance. Not unlike Magic School Days' Dumbledore-vs-Rarity battle, though in a different format.
9585980
What Rarity did with Dumbledore was the equivalent of a sucker punch. He couldn't defend himself because he never had a chance to. Not really comparable, not to mention that story focuses alot on Dumbledore bashing to begin with.
My point was Lucius is a proud pureblood and physical violence is a muggle move, defending himself in kind is one thing but I doubt he would try to start anything with a physical attack.
Not that I'm saying you need to change it or anything it doesn't matter much in the long run.
9585987
Yes, that is true. Not a very good comparison.
And yeah, Lucius would normally go wand-first... Here, he probably did fist-first because he didn't think she'd be anywhere near strong enough to resist him- and she seemed too weak and blood-traitor-loving to be worthy of his spellwork. Add that he might have left the wand someplace (Not sure if that's entirely in character either, but I don't think I've ever seen him use the thing in the first few books), and we get why he backed off instead of going magic.
9585998
Well, he definitely has his wand with him, it's cleverly concealed within his walking stick. Not to mention no wizard would be caught walking around without a wand.
9586008
That is true.
So maybe he didn't feel like brandishing his walking stick, and chose to back off because he didn't want to cause that big of a scene in front of his son?
9586012
I mean if he wasn't looking to cause a scene constantly accusing strangers of being blood traitors then trying to punch one would be a bad way of doing it. Plus don't they all look like children? That just makes him look even more pathetic.
9586017
Yeah... That would explain how Lyra describes him next chapter.
Yeaaah, this still has some problems. Merely reacting to an insult seems a bit too little when there's a superfluity of additional provocations he could provide. Best-looking to me is that he could recognize the muggle stuff as muggle stuff and get really really bent out of shape over its use in the wizarding world.
Now... this is on two days notice, right? How the HAY do they have that software set up so quickly? Like, what? I've used complex software systems a few times, and getting it configured on the first try immediately… I can see ONE explanation, and I think it's a good one: they bought it in the EQG mirror world months-years ago.
9627525
Two days' notice... of the Hogwarts letters, yes. Note that it's actually about four days since they acquired access to this tech... and being the Royal Equestrian Secret Service, have probably been working on it twenty-four seven. I'm a programmer myself; I could build the requisite software, and get all that stuff working, in an afternoon. It wouldn't be very versatile... but it would give the experienced Agents leagues more information than they had before- and still be just as utterly confusing as it makes out to be. I mean, with Bonbon's description... it's little more than basic GPS trackers, one-way connections, and drawing dots overtop a prerendered image. I could do that in under an hour...
And the radios are regular walkie-talkies, like you can find at almost any electronics store. I have a couple high-tech ones myself; they're power-and-play devices, probably with a couple spells attached so they never run out of power... or go out of range.
Wait, so all the equestrians look like kids? Does that mean that Applejack and Appliebloom will be the same age?
9627732
On Earth, yes. Little gimick with the portal; I believe I described it in more detail in another comment... here, for your reference:
9585749
Sorry, I don't tend to like repeating myself unnecessarily, a programmer thing. And no, it's perfectly fine for you to have not read the entire comment stream- I had to dig a bit further down to find that myself. It does seem this is the chapter where everyone's noticing it.
9585749
It would make a hilarious omake though.
Umbridge: "You are nothing but creatures. You cannot have a wand. Die. Avad...."
A Thousand Eleven Years Old Ponies: *steps in between the toad and Princess Luna with wands drawn* "Expellieramus (pretty sure I spelled that wrong)." "Petrificus Totallus." "Stupefy." *a thousand spells rain down upon the toad*
Bonbon: "Do you think we overdid it?"
Lyra: *stares down at the toad's twitching body* "You know how I feel about overkill."
Pinkie: "Not dead enough?"
Lyra: "Not dead enough."
9586008
"Cleverly concealed" this is the American style joke, yes? Cane concealed weapons have been a thing for over a hundred years. I wouldn't call that cleverly concealed.
Are you sure you don't mean the beer pressure?
Pretty sure that should be 'gamma'
9634462
Ah, no, I meant peer pressure. It's a real thing, and it's also what was at play.
And yes, it's 'gamma'. Just a sec... Fixed.
Huh. Malfoy is going to seriously underestimate Luna here. No one believes a normal 11-year-old is a princess! Or, even if they are, they aren't a queen. That little bit of culture shock is going to have dividends. Wonderful, wonderful dividends.
Okay, I thought Lyra was a bit out of character last chapter, but what the heck is going on with Malfoy here? In the books it was mostly slimy innuendo and aristocratic mockery, but here he's just ranting about blood traitors in public and taking swings at (as far as he know) children like a complete maniac.
And again with the computers. The books take place in the early 90's, but we have tablets, smartphones, and apparently now a broadband cellular network. To put it bluntly, this is incompatible with the setting.
9701619
I agree the Malfoy bit is a bit too much.
Also, I think the author forgot which era the book#1 took place. But I understand they were using walkie talkie and laptop, right? I don't think I saw smartphone in the story yet.
Lucius is much more subtle usually, and that's why him losing temper and getting what he deserved is so much satisfying. Here in this story right off the bat he's a raving fanatic without of an ounce of brain. Reminds me of xianxia antagonists.
as equestria has no purity of blood issue, Lucius may actually get in trouble for attempting to start something with a pureblood family older then his.
9942067
I'm Positively looking forwards to this ..