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// 4 — Patients Are Not Playparks 
// Story: If Wishes were Ponies . . . . 
// by tkepner 
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The three fillies stared at Harry with wide eyes. They had never heard of anypony whose relatives treated her so bad. Scootaloo’s parents, while not the most engaged of parents, still managed to give her her own bedroom in her aunts’ home, made sure she had the things she needed for school, and that she ate properly. What do you say to somepony when you discover they’ve been heavily abused?

Harry just stared at the ceiling. He would see if anything different came of this new situation. He didn’t have much hope for that. Now that they knew more about him, that he was a freak, he knew the three fillies would soon abandon him as all the other kids his age had done. They, or at least their parents, wouldn’t want them to associate with someone like himself. After all, only freaks required beatings to make them normal.

His bones didn’t ache nearly as much as they should. He wondered how long he had been asleep. Normally, the day after Uncle Vernon or Dudley broke one of his bones, it hurt like the dickens, and every move was agony. The second day was a vast improvement, but still any movement brought a bit of pain. By the end of five days things were back to normal.

On the other hand — or was it hoof, now? — he had never had a cast before to hold his broken bones together. That had to make a difference.

In the meantime, he started to itch. Not all over, of course, just in those places where it would be impossible to scratch due to his restraints. And now that he had started to think about it, there were several places that just itched terribly!

Scootaloo jumped up onto the bed and began examining the various ropes and pulleys dangling over his bed. She pushed on one rope. Harry’s right arm shifted up, twisting his cast slightly.

There was a minor twinge of pain, making Harry blink in surprise. Based on that it had to be the third day, meaning he had been asleep for nearly two days. That was bad. He needed to eat. If he went too long without eating it became very difficult for him to stay awake and move around.

“Scootaloo! Don’t do that!” Apple Bloom ordered.

“Aww. I’m just trying to figure out how these things work.” She moved her hoof off that rope to another.

Harry’s right arm settled back, but now his left shoulder lifted. That didn’t hurt, but it gave him an idea on how to deal with the itch right there beside the cast. The girls hadn’t run off in disgust yet, but after telling their parents about him he was sure they wouldn’t return. He should probably take advantage of their presence while they were here.

“Um,” Harry said, trying to wriggle his shoulder against the bed, “Could one of you scratch my shoulder, here?” He tried to point with his nose. Sweetie Belle moved around the bed and propped herself up against it, extending a hoof to his neck, “Here?”

“No, more to the back, right at the edge of the cast.”

She moved her hoof towards his back.

“Just a bit farther. . . .”

“Can’t,” she said, “you’re not high enough.”

“Scootaloo,” he said, “Lift me a bit higher.”

Eventually, through trial and error, Harry was twisted mostly to his right and Sweetie Belle managed to find the spot.

“Oh, yes, that’s it,” the colt crooned. After a moment, he added, “That’s enough, now right between my shoulder blades about ten centimetres down, do you think you can reach it?”

After a explaining he meant a hoof-length or two, it took a coordinated effort by all three fillies to get him almost sitting up. The three fillies pushed or pulled various ropes to accomplish that feat. It hurt a little bit, but no more than a mild toothache. The kind where you can’t seem to leave the little bugger alone, you just have to keep poking at it to see if it still hurts. And it feels so good when you stop. But getting that itch scratched was more than worth it.

Just as he was about to tell Sweetie Belle that she had taken care of that itchy spot perfectly his room’s door opened. He glanced over at it as a new doctor walked in. She, he assumed it was a she from the length of her hair, was a unicorn and had a dark brown coat with a yellow mane and tail. Her higher voice confirmed his guess.

“What are you doing?” she cried out as soon as she realized what she was seeing, taking a half-step backwards.

Already precariously balanced and startled by the sudden yell, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle slipped and fell into the ropes. Apple Bloom simply fell off the bed with a thud and an “Ow!” Harry, on the other hand, was yanked up into a standing position — that is, standing like a biped and not a quadruped — then dropped and flung onto his face as first Sweetie Belle and then Scootaloo managed to extricate themselves from the ropes by following Apple Bloom’s example and falling off the bed.

“AHHHH!” cried Harry at the sudden and unexpected change of position. “OWW!” all four foals said from their new positions a moment later.

With his face buried in the bed, Harry reflected that maybe asking the fillies for help in scratching his itches by playing with the ropes wasn’t that great of an idea. At least now the pain from his casts did a marvellous job of masking the itches. And pain he could handle. But still, probably worth it.

The nurse, when she arrived in answer to the yelling, was not pleased. Harry knew she was a nurse because she wore a nurse’s hat with a red cross on it and was all white. And she had a name tag that said, quite clearly, “Nurse Redheart.” She had neither wings nor a horn.

She soon had Harry on his back, his arms suspended properly over the bed, and his pain rapidly fading back to normal levels. The three fillies were each sitting in a separate corner of the room, with their noses firmly placed at the intersection of the walls in each respective corner. Their ears were all swivelled towards Harry so they could hear what was going on when they couldn’t see.

Nurse Redheart finally left with much grumbling about meddling fillies. Just before she closed the door, she said, “One little peep out of any of you,” and she stared at each filly in turn, even though they couldn’t see it, “and out the door you go! And I don’t care if the Princess wants you here!”

After a moment’s silence, the new pony, who had observed everything from a position beside the Guardpony and staying well out of the way of the irate nurse, stepped closer. She said, “Good afternoon, Hahry Potter. I am Doctor Deep Healer.” She, too, had a clipboard floating alongside her head. “I’m a unicorn specialist.” She sat beside his bed. “Now, I’ve been told that you managed to teleport. Is that correct?”

Harry blinked at her, then said, “I guess, if you say so, ma’am. I don’t know what teleporting is.”

She gave him a long look, then explained, “Teleporting is disappearing from one place and reappearing at another, which can be some distance from the original place. Most adult unicorns never manage that skill as it takes a great deal of concentration and power. And even then they can only manage ten or twenty thousand celestials, fifty thousand at most, without a lot of practice. For someone as young as you to successfully do it for the distance you covered, almost three thousand celestials, is unheard of.” She gave a brief smile. “That’s why I was called in. To determine the extent of your magic abilities.”

“There’s no such thing as magic,” was Harry’s reflexive response, as his Uncle had beat into him.

The doctor leaned back and blinked in surprise. The three fillies exchanged surprised looks from their respective corners. “’Course there is!” exclaimed Sweetie Belle. “Yeah,” added Apple Bloom, “we all have magic! Scoots to fly, and me to the earth!”

As soon as Harry had said that, though, his eyes turned to the clipboard and feathery pen floating beside the doctor’s head. His Uncle and Aunt had always insisted there was no such thing as magic, even going so far as to turn off the telly anytime there was a show that had magic in it or just mentioned the word. And Harry could still hear his Uncle’s voice as he declaimed, “All magicians are frauds who fool people with smoke and mirrors.”

Now, watching that clipboard hang in the air as if it were resting on a table, he had to wonder. Where were the smoke and mirrors? And then there was his sudden change in form from human to pony. If that wasn’t magical, what was?

On the other hand, he had read magazine articles in the library that explained how scientists were trying to determine if things such as telepathy and other so-called “mind arts” existed. The evidence was contradictory and almost never could be done a second time by someone else in a scientifically controlled experiment. But that it happened in the first place meant things were not as black and white as some people believed.

And then there was the famous quote from the science-fiction author Arthur C. Clarke, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Perhaps that was what magic was, a highly advanced technology that the ignorant lumped together under the misleading label of “magic.”

“At least that’s what my uncle and aunt always said,” he added softly.

The doctor was obviously rethinking her approach as she pursed her lips and hummed.

“Has it ever happened that when you wanted something really badly, like candy or a cookie, it just seemed to fly to your hooves?”

He slowly shook his head. His Uncle and Aunt would have severely punished him if they had ever seen something like that happen. Just thinking about it made some of his scars twinge, and those were from things his relatives had accused him of without anything indicating he was responsible! If they had actually seen him doing something so freakish . . . . Well, he shuddered to think what his Uncle would have done to him.

He thought about some of the odd things that had happened in his life that had gotten him punished. “My teacher once had his hair turn blue. And another time I was running from my cousin and I suddenly was on top of the school. I thought a wind had blown me up there.”

She frowned. “So, you’ve teleported twice now.” She lapsed into thought, worrying her lower lip. Finally she said, “I’m going to cast a small spell to see if I can determine your magical potential, okay?”

He nodded.

Her horn started to glow a deeper pink. Her eyes lost focus, as if she were looking at something closer to her than his head. She took a quick breath and a step back, as if startled, then frowned again.

“I need to do a stronger spell. You might feel a little warm.”

The glow on her horn intensified and, indeed, he felt a warm heat suffuse his body. It was sort of relaxing, actually.

The doctor squinted, then sighed. She shook her head. “I’ll need to consult with some of my associates in Canterlot before I can say more. In the meantime, please take it easy and relax and recover from your injuries.” She smiled at him and stood. “Your meal should be here in a moment.”

True to her word, no sooner had she walked out the door than Nurse Redheart brought in a push cart with a bowl and three plates on it.

“Hello, again, Hahry Potter,” she said in a kindly voice. She gave a stern look at the three fillies each of whom quickly returned to examining their respective corner intently.

He nodded in acknowledgment, offering an accompanying and meek, “Hello, ma’am.”

“Okay you three troublemakers, these plates for you three. You can stay as long as you behave,” she said. Shamefacedly, the three fillies turned around, “Yes, Nurse Redheart,” they said.

“It was an accident,” said Scootaloo.

“We were just trying to help Hahry scratch his itches,” said Sweetie Belle apologetically.

“Ah’m sorry,” said Apple Bloom sorrowfully.

After staring at the three sternly, the nurse’s expression slowly changed to a smile and she pointed with her nose at three plates to one side of the cart. They appeared to be salads of some sort.

One at a time a soft pale-green glow surrounded each plate and brought them over to the girls. Harry noticed the same pale-green glow around Sweetie Belle’s horn. The little filly had her face scrunched up in concentration and her tongue stuck out the side of her mouth.

Scootaloo somehow grabbed her plate between her hooves as it hovered in front of her and started munching away at the greens piled on the plate. Apple Bloom soon followed her example. And then Sweetie Belle served herself. There were no utensils, they just stuffed their muzzles into the greens and started eating.

Meanwhile, the nurse was positioning herself beside Harry. She smiled at him. “We’re going to start you with vegetable soup.” Then she took a spoon with a long handle on it in her mouth and scooped up some soup from the bowl on the cart. She swung it over to him and waited a moment. It was clear that because he couldn’t feed himself, she was going to do it for him. Sighing, he opened his mouth and let her do her job.

It was a light vegetable soup that was more broth that substance, but it was just what he needed. And it was surprisingly flavourful. In fact, he couldn’t remember ever having a soup with as many flavours as this one seemed to have. He was surprised at how quickly things went as he finished off the bowl in what felt like record time. He would have licked the bowl if she had held it up for him. “Thank you,” he said gratefully, “that was very good.”

“Good,” she said. “That should have filled you up nicely!”

He looked at the empty bowl, then back at her. Somewhat hesitantly, and in a small voice, he said, “Could I have a little more?”

She stared at him, surprised. “Really?”

He nodded hesitantly. He was a bit surprised she hadn’t yelled at him for criticizing how much she had fed him by daring to ask for more.

She frowned, then said, “Well, we’ll wait half an hour and if you’re still hungry, I’ll bring you a bit more.”

He nodded. That was how she planned to handle it. Keep him happy by promising more knowing she wouldn’t be back. She probably thought he would only realize she wasn’t going to be bringing him more when bedtime arrived. Well, at least they had actually given him one decent meal.

Sweetie Belle had already put the fillies’ plates back on the cart, so soon it was just him, the three girls, and the guard.

With a full stomach, and his bad days before, Harry realized he was still quite tired. However, there were a few questions he had. Harry looked at Sweetie Belle. “How did you do that? Make the plates float, I mean.”

“What?” She frowned. “Well, I just . . . .” And that turned into an odd discussion which boiled down to, “I don’t know, I just do it!” About the only useful information he got was when she said, “. . . I tell the magic what I want to do and then push it out from my horn.”

Ah. That was disappointing. He didn’t have a horn. He also didn’t have wings — he certainly would have noticed them when the doctor was doing his examination!

That was when Sweetie Belle said, “But you won’t be able to do anything anyway . . .”

Harry rolled his eyes. He wanted to say something sarcastic about Captain Obvious, but held back. Sarcasm frequently led to beatings. Or tattling to teachers, which led to problems of a different kind. Those problems usually entailed a beating at the Dursleys’ for being a rude “freak.”

“. . . because the doctors put a ring on your horn to prevent you from using your magic.”

He stared at her incredulously. “Horn?” he said disbelievingly. “I have a horn?”

The fillies exchanged puzzled looks. How could a unicorn not know they had a horn?

“Well, yeah!” said Scootaloo, pointing at his forehead.

Harry turned his eyes up and could just barely see a short piece of spiral cut bone that moved left and right as he moved his head. If he could have moved his arms he would have reached up and felt for it.

“I have a horn?” he said softly. Did that mean he could do magic, too? But, wait, Sweetie Belle said something about a ring. He looked back at her and said, “A ring?”

She looked down at the floor and traced a circle with a front hoof. “Yeah, a magic suppressing ring. It prevents you from using your horn to cast magic. They were afraid you might teleport away again and hurt yourself because you’re so weak.”

He glared at her.

She took a step back, “Hey, it’s not my fault!”

He looked up at the ceiling and huffed. They were right. If he could teleport, he probably would try to escape again.

He just stared at the ceiling for several minutes thinking about how he was now a unicorn and could apparently cast magic. He smiled to himself. Boy, he thought, wait until I get to the Dursleys. They will be soo sorry they weren’t nice to me! He would have rubbed his hands together if his arms weren’t in casts. He began to daydream about what he was going to do to them.

The three fillies quickly got bored after realizing he was lost in thought and fell to arguing about what they needed to do next on their current Cutie Mark Crusade.

Nurse Redheart returning to the room startled them all. “It’s about time for you three to be headed home,” she said, looking at the fillies. “We’ll see you tomorrow after school.” She turned to Harry. “Are you still hungry for a bit more? It’s been about an hour since you ate.”

Harry was startled that she actually remembered to ask that question. Did she truly plan to bring him more? Before he could reply, though, his stomach growled. Sheepishly, he just nodded.

The girls and nurse stared at him, astonished. He had eaten a full meal and his stomach was already empty? What kind of appetite did this colt have? Or did he have four hollow legs?

With a shake of their heads, the three fillies began to file out of the room. “Bye!” “See ya tomorrow!” “Don’t run through any walls!” They called out as they left. “Scootaloo!” scolded Sweetie Belle. Scootaloo just shrugged and waved goodbye to Harry.

Harry blinked at them for moment — he couldn’t exactly wave, now could he? — said, “bye,” and then stuck his tongue out at Scootaloo, who just laughed.

After polishing off a second bowl of soup, Harry thanked Nurse Redheart again. Then he returned to staring at the ceiling, contemplating what had happened the last few days. For which he had been conscious for only a few hours.

How he had gotten to this strange world he hadn’t the slightest idea. Why he was a pony, he likewise had no idea. That the ponies who populated this world treated him better than the people back in Little Whinging was a fact.

Well, he assumed that ponies populated this world. Perhaps there were other intelligent animals, who knew for sure? Anyway, he was getting far better treatment here than he had ever gotten in Little Whinging, so he wasn’t about to start complaining about little things like becoming a pony or magic being real. And, it seemed, that the ponies were convinced he, himself, could do magic!

In fact, thinking about what Doctor Deep Healer had said, she seemed convinced he had used magic back in Little Whinging! But how could he have done magic when apparently you needed a unicorn horn to do it?

But Uncle Vernon had always said magic was fake. Here, clearly, it wasn’t fake. And there, well, apparently, it wasn’t a big wind that blew him up to the school’s roof. He had “teleported” when trying to escape Dudley at school. And if he had teleported, which is called magic here, then magic was real there, too.

He remembered Aunt Petunia, tired of seeing him come back from the barbers looking as though he hadn’t been at all, had taken the kitchen scissors and cut his hair so short he was almost bald except for his bangs, which she left “to hide that horrible scar” he was so proud of.

And he had hated it. He knew the kids at school would laugh and make no end of fun at him. He would, again, be utterly humiliated. But the next morning, he had gotten up to find his hair exactly as it had been before Aunt Petunia had sheared it off! Magic was the only reasonable explanation, now that he thought about it.

And then Aunt Petunia had been trying to force him into Dudley’s old revolting brown sweater with orange puff balls. The harder she tried to pull it over his head, the smaller it seemed to become, until finally it might have fitted a hand puppet, but certainly wouldn’t fit Harry. Again, the only reasonable explanation was magic!

And he couldn’t forget how he never got sick, although Dudley seemed to catch every bug that came by. While that might just be luck, everyone he knew in Primary school came down sick at least once a year, so probably not luck.

And then there were the beatings. Bruises disappeared in a few hours. Cuts healed overnight. It had always puzzled him that whenever he saw someone with a broken arm or leg, that they had to wear a cast for weeks. He knew his so-called uncle had broken bones with some of his beatings, but Harry always recovered enough to be back at his chores in a couple of days. Days, not weeks.

Was . . . was . . . that what they meant when they said they would beat the freakishness out of him? Magic was what made him a freak? Magic that he had that they did not? They were punishing him because he could do things they could not?

And that meant that all those things they blamed on him might truly have been his fault! If they had explained things, maybe he could have controlled it and prevented so much of it from happening!

He could do magic and they could not, so he was a FREAK. He had a talent that they did not and therefore he was a FREAK! All these years, all that pain, both emotional and physical, was because they were afraid and jealous of him!

He laid there, too stunned to know how to react. He wanted to scream, yell, throw things, kick the wall, and throw a tantrum that would put one of Dudley’s to shame. But he couldn’t move, the ropes and weights prevented him from doing anything physical. And if he screamed and kicked his legs in the air — and oh, how he wanted to scream and kick — that would only bring the nurses and then the doctors running. Not to mention startling the guard at the door. And they would want to know what was wrong and he would end up embarrassed and frustrated. And punished for disturbing everyone.

He closed his eyes and ruthlessly pushed down his primal reactions. The only outward sign of his inner turmoil was the way his breath hissed in and out through his gritted teeth.

It took a long time before he began to calm down. And that was only because he distracted himself with planning the retribution he would rain down upon the Dursleys and the other bullies in Little Whinging. Perhaps even burning the school down.

He finally faded off to sleep debating the order of his victims in exacting his revenge.

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