Princess Celestia nodded slowly, giving a soft, “Thank you for telling me.” Harry noticed the fur around her eyes seemed wet. He wondered why. “If we find these Dursleys, I promise you that they will be punished,” she said solemnly. She lifted a hoof and gently placed it against the side of his chest. “No pony deserves the way you were treated. You are a fine colt and I’m sure that you will be an excellent stallion when you grow up.”
Harry stared at her. Ignoring the confusing terms of pony, stallion, and colt, which he thought were the pony equivalents for person, man, and boy, no adult had ever said anything like that to him. He was unsure of what to think. Was this a trick?
They sat quietly for a time. He was worn out, and she seemed to be thinking.
“On a slightly different subject, Hahry Potter . . . .”
“H. A. R. R. Y,” he interrupted, “not H. A. H. R. Y. Call me Harry.” She now knew more about him than anyone else, having her call him Harry Potter every time just felt wrong. Plus, she was royalty, it just seemed wrong for her to be so formal to someone of his inconsequential status.
She smiled, “Very well. Harry. What did you look like before arriving here?” She cleared her throat. “You’ve mentioned both hands and hooves but not hooves, wings, or horns, so I take it you were not a pony in Little Whinging?”
Harry didn’t know what to say, at first. “Well,” he said hesitantly, “I walked upright on two legs and instead of front legs,” he glanced at his cast laden legs, “I had arms with five-finger hands. I didn’t have fur to keep me warm or to protect me from too much sun, nobody does, so we always wore clothes, especially in bad weather. Plus, people get really upset if you don’t wear clothes because then everyone can see your privates. There are strict laws against that sort of thing. The only times you are naked is when taking a bath.”
“Oh!” she said. She studied him for a moment. “So, seeing everypony without clothes, including yourself, is a bit distressing for you? Even though nothing . . . private . . . can be seen?”
He nodded, embarrassed, with his face flushing red.
She smiled reassuringly. “Things are very different here, so don’t worry about it. Sometimes ponies wear clothes, sometimes not. And our fur does an excellent job of keeping us warm when it’s cold. Just pretend our fur is clothing and I’m sure you will adjust in time.”
She took a moment to think. “Tell me about your world. I believe you mentioned something about a telly? And a Scot-land Yard?”
He thought a bit, “Well, the telly is a box that lets you watch shows, plays . . . .”
Over the next hour or so he told her about radios, cars, planes, even computers. And how just about anything important that happened anywhere in the world would be instant news everywhere.
Finally, she looked over at the door and said, “It’s nearly time for lunch and I have other business to attend to in Ponyville.” She gracefully got to her hooves. “When you have recovered, I would appreciate it if you could accompany a select group of ponies and my guard to the Everfree Forest to see if you can help them track your trail. It is obvious that there is, or was, a portal between your world and ours. We need to make sure we guard it to assist any others who might stumble through it. We should also see if we can use the portal to go to your world. Your stories of what your people have accomplished there piqued my interest.” She shook her head ruefully, “Instant world-wide communications! And you’ve even travelled to your world’s moon! Luna will be fascinated.
“I will also be asking my faithful student to come speak with you about your magic and magic in general. If you are interested, she could teach you about magic in our world.”
He nodded.
She smiled at him as she opened the door and left, closing the door behind her.
He just laid in bed and thought about the revenge he wanted on the Dursleys.
Lunch was oatmeal with diced apple chunks and cinnamon. And this time it was in a bowl almost twice as big as the previous one. Maybe, just maybe, things were going to be better now.
After that filling lunch, he once again tried his hand at meditation and clearing his mind. He didn’t make much progress because only a short time after lunch he had a new visitor.
This time it was a purple unicorn pony with a purple mane split by a pinkish stripe, and her face sported a wide smile. Her eyes were also purple. With her, astonishingly, and riding on her back, was a purple reptile, with a green headcrest, that looked to be a little smaller than Harry.
“Hi!” she said excitedly. “I’m Twilight Sparkle, and this is my number one assistant, Spike,” She said proudly. She twisted her head slightly towards the lizard who was in the process of hopping down. “He’s a dragon,” she added.
“Princess Celestia has asked me to come see you because of your unusual magic corona.” Her smile grew wider. “I’m an expert in magic and if anypony can figure you out, it’s me!” She stopped and studied him for a moment. “Oh, this is just so exciting!” she exclaimed, doing a quick running-in-place dance. “Doctor Deep Healer said she couldn’t get any kind of significant readings as your whole body seemed to glow with magic. No pony has ever had that!” Her gaze seemed to lose focus as she continued, “Who knows what this will teach us about magic! Not to mention the tests I can run to see if this is an isolated case or if any pony can do it with the right training.” She stared off out the window. “And she said you don’t believe in magic. That you can’t even do a basic levitation spell that most unicorn foals manage by their first birthday! And yet you managed to teleport from here to the Everfree!” She was lifting and dropping her hooves in slow-motion now. She actually shivered as she said, “I can’t wait to see what I learn!”
Harry was getting rather creeped out by this new pony.
The little lizard, standing by the guard and out of trampling-dance range, sighed. “Twi!” he said loudly, “You’re scaring him!”
“No I’m not!” She said reflexively, as she glared at her assistant. Then she looked over at Harry and took in how he was shrinking back under his blanket and staring at her with wide eyes.
“Oh. Maybe I am.” She looked away guiltily, then looked back and cleared her throat. She took a breath and stilled herself. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s just that this is so exciting!” She shivered again.
“Twi,” said Spike warningly.
She caught herself and looked down guiltily. “Right,” she said, giving herself a shake.
This time she smiled at him. “Well, before I can get to the magic I need to understand how you got to Ponyville. I mean, nopony in Ponyville knows of a village that is only a few hours’ walk from away. And none of the history or geography books in the library mention any town in the Everfree, just the ruins of Two Sisters’ Castle. And the Pegasi would have reported seeing a village as they flew high over the forest to gather clouds. So that’s quite a mystery!
“Princess Celestia did mention a portal might be involved,” she shivered in delight again, “So that’s another new magic to study!”
“Well, first, I think, I’d like you to tell me how you ended up on Sweet Apple Acres — that’s where Apple Bloom and her friends found you, you know. And if you could give me as much detail as you could, I would appreciate it. Maybe something you will remember will help explain what happened.”
For the second time that day Harry told the story of how he had left the playground and wandered through the forest to the Sweet Apple Acres. Twi, as Spike had called her, interrupted frequently with questions. The tale took twice as long as it had with the Princess.
The purple unicorn became very angry at his explanations of why he was staggering and what Harry Hunting was. He noticed a violet glow coming from her eyes.
“Those insufferable horrors! How could anypony treat a foal like that! If I ever get my hooves on them . . . ,” she growled.
It felt unreal to have someone actually getting angry on his behalf instead of angry at him. Especially this odd, quirky pony.
“Twi!” interrupted the dragon.
She blinked and the glow disappeared.
“Sorry,” she said contritely. “I didn’t mean to get carried away.” She smiled at him. “So, back to your story . . . .”
۸-_-۸
“All right,” Twilight Sparkle said when he had concluded his story. “I’ll take a look at Sweet Apple Acres later today.” She stopped trotting in place and stared at him.
“Now we can take a look at your magic,” she smiled broadly. “First, a slightly more complicated scan than Doctor Deep Healer used.” She frowned cutely and a violet glow appeared around her horn. After a brief moment he saw a similar glow slowly appear all over his body.
He felt nothing, at first. Then a very faint warmth. Almost immediately both disappeared.
She was staring at him with her eyes wide and a smile that seemed bigger than should be possible.
“Just as Doctor Deep Healer said, there is an envelope of magic surrounding you! Oh, this is so exciting!” She, once more, started trotting rapidly in place. The guard at the door turned slightly to move a bit farther away and give her more room.
Still trotting, she said, “Let me try this.”
Her horn glowed again, only this time he felt a slight warmth on his hooves, the ones over his head. He looked up to see the violet glow slowly slide down from his hooves to the casts. When it was about even with his elbows, he felt something warm on his forehead, yet not really on his forehead. Looking up he realized that the glow was working its way down his horn.
She frowned as it reached his forehead, her trotting petering out to standing still, but didn’t say anything and didn’t stop her magic. Eventually, the purple glow reached his rear hooves, finished with them, and disappeared.
For several minutes she simply stood there staring in his direction but obviously completely lost in thought.
“Spike, take this down.”
Harry glanced at the little dragon. The beast was sitting comfortably, on the edge of Harry’s bed, and had ink feather and paper ready. “Ready,” he said eagerly.
“Subject has a magic field superimposed on his body, extending barely beyond his surface skin, but it does not originate within him — nor does he power it. The field appears benign, stable, and does not react to magical stimuli. The field is, for the most part, inactive. No known spell can create such a field. No spell remnants are in the field, so tracing it that way is not possible. The field appears very old, possibly as old as the subject.
“Subject is unaware of the field.
“However, there is one point where the field shows enhanced thickness and does not reach the subject’s skin surface.”
She paused and looked carefully at Harry’s scar.
“There is a scar on the right side of his forehead, midway between his horn and his eyes, which looks like a stylized lightning bolt. The magic field appears to be isolating that scar from the rest of his body.
Her horn lit up again and this time a beam of purple shot from it to his forehead. A sharp pain stabbed into his head from the scar. He gasped and reflexively tried to slap his hand on the scar. The casts prevented the movement but he lurched on the bed in reaction. His scar had never hurt like that before. It had ached when accidently hit, but nothing like this!
“Oh! I’m sorry,” Twilight immediately said, her horn instantly stopping its glow. His reaction had clearly surprised her.
He gave her a wounded look. She looked away and a faint flush tinged her cheeks. She was embarrassed, Harry realized. It really had been an accident.
“That . . . shouldn’t have happened.” She spoke to her assistant, “The scar on the subject’s forehead appears to have a magical component. A cursory scan resulted in pain for the subject. The magic in the scar appears to be completely unrelated to the subject and the field encasing him.” She paused. “Which doesn’t explain why it caused him pain.”
She looked back at him sadly. “Okay, I need to use another spell. I’m sorry, but this one will hurt, a little. Please bear with me.”
Her horn glowed again, this time a darker shade of pink, almost red. And she was right. It hurt. Specifically, his scar began to hurt. First a dull ache that rapidly grew to stabbing pains that quickly blended into a solid wall. It felt as if his forehead was on fire — he had burned his hand once, it felt like that only much, much worse. He gritted his teeth and tried to withhold the pained scream, but found himself whimpering.
The pain suddenly fell. It went from a wall that drove all thought from his mind to a mere dull ache in a second. It made him gasp in relief, it was so sudden. Then he felt a drip of sweat slowly make its way down his forehead. He heard Spike gasp, “You’re bleeding!”
“Oh, I’m so sorry, that shouldn’t have happened!” Twilight Sparkle said, clearly upset at causing him not only pain but to have opened a wound! “Here, let me cast a healing spell,” she offered. Her horn glowed again. He didn’t see anything happen, but he whimpered as he felt a new burst of intense pain.
“That’s . . . that’s not possible,” he heard her say in disbelief. “Note this down, Spike,” she said urgently, “every detail! I used a standard level-one healing spell. Subject reacted with severe physical pain. Pain appeared to cease the instant the spell was cancelled. The spell appears to have failed to work.”
She turned to the guard, “Get a nurse, immediately!”
“Yes ma’am,” he said, yanking the door open and relaying her order to the guard outside.
Moments later, Nurse Redheart had cleaned the blood from his forehead, applied a healing salve, and was dressing the wound with a bandage. She was also frequently glaring at Princess Celestia’s faithful student.
Twilight, on the other hand was bouncing between excitement and dismay with whiplash inducing speed as she dictated further observations to her assistant.
As she turned from Harry, the Nurse said, severely, “I dislike visitors causing harm to my patients. Please restrain yourself or I’ll have you removed!”
Harry blinked at that. She would actually order Princess Celestia’s student, sent here by the ruler herself, out of the hospital for hurting him?
From the purple unicorn’s reaction, Harry saw that not only would she issue such an order, but that the student in question would obey!
Twilight could only mumble, “Sorry, it won’t happen again, I promise,” as she stared at the floor like a guilty child caught stealing from the cookie jar.
After the nurse left, Twilight looked back at Harry. She took a breath. “I am so sorry for hurting you, I never thought for a moment that that would happen. Healing spells of that level do not harm ponies.” She stopped.
Huh, he thought, an adult who was actually apologizing for hurting him. That was a first!
He nodded his head. “It’s alright, you didn’t know that would happen.” He tilted his head slightly, “What did happen?” Hopefully, she wouldn’t get mad at him questioning her.
Her eyes seemed to gleam with excitement. “The first targeted spell was to try to find out what was in your scar, or the tissue around it, to cause that magic field around you to behave the way it does, that is, going around your scar. It shouldn’t have caused you any pain whatsoever. And yet it did.” She shifted from hoof to hoof. “I’ll have to research if there are any other instances where that spell has generated that reaction.”
She seemed thrilled at the prospect.
“There is some type of magic in your scar, was what that spell told me. As soon as you reacted I stopped, so I didn’t get any further information.”
She sighed sorrowfully, “The second spell was a bit more specific. It should have told me what kind of magic is in the scar. It usually is harmless, but in some instances has been known to cause pain, but only with specific types of magic. That it hurt you enough to bleed was amazing!” She was again trotting in place.
“The scar on your forehead appears to be the remnants of a spell gone wrong and is leeching some of your magic away from you.” She paused to think for a minute. “Perhaps that is why you have shown so few instances of magical levitation that should be a daily occurrence in a unicorn such as yourself. Not that you don’t have enough magic, but that the spell remnant is interfering with your abilities. I’ll have to do more research on spells that interfere with a unicorn’s natural magic.” She looked giddy at the prospect.
“And for the healing spell actually to hurt the subject instead of healing — that is unheard of! It’s as if the magic in the scar is somehow resisting the healing spell. Although why a spell remnant would react at all to healing magic is a quandary — it should only react to a spell that removes the remnant! And healing magics do not remove spell remnants.”
She was now cantering in place, staring at the floor, talking more to herself than Harry. “So many questions,” she half-whispered, “so much research! I’ll have to get the subject into my laboratory for a complete scan. But first I’ll have to upgrade the equipment — this is Pinkie Pie all over again!” She sounded giddy with excitement.
“Twilight!” interjected the dragon.
She jumped, startled out of her introspections. She looked around the room wildly before settling back on the colt.
“I’ll get right on this,” she told him earnestly, grinning widely.
He was not reassured that that was a good thing for him.
She smiled at his tentative nod. Almost at the same time his stomach rumbled loudly. She gave him a startled look. “Didn’t you get lunch?”
He nodded guiltily, ‘Yes, ma’am. It was very good, too.”
She looked surprised at that, as did Spike.
“Somepony who thinks hospital food tastes good?” Spike said. “I didn’t think that was possible. You must have had terrible food before now!”
She frowned at the baby dragon, “Spike!”
“In any case,” she said, “it clearly was not enough. I’ll have them send you a snack!”
Even as he stared at her, astounded she would say such a thing, she turned, opened the door, and headed out of the room. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she called out to him, her assistant bobbing behind her in her magic like a balloon tethered to a child’s hand. The dragon ruefully waved goodbye as the door closed behind them.
Harry shook his head. That was one strange pony, he decided.
Magic in his scar. He pondered that for a moment. Maybe he should be trying to see that? Well, first he needed to learn to meditate without falling asleep! After a few minutes looking around the room, at the guard, and out the window, the small colt sighed and tried to relax. Meditation that afternoon was his plan.
But Nurse Redheart coming into the room a few minutes later, pushing a cart with another bowl of oatmeal, astonished him. The purple unicorn had actually ordered more food for him! He postponed his plans. And postponed them again when certain “necessities” required the Nurse’s further attentions.
The arrival of three fillies a few minutes after the nurse left with the empty bowl put paid to that particular planned course of action for the afternoon.
They spent most of the time telling him about their school and their opinions of the other students. Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon (Really? Those were their names?) sounded like bullies like Dudley, except they didn’t descend into violence and stuck with verbal abuse instead. And the fillies told him a rather random and fractured version of Equestria’s history. Coherency was not one of the fillies’ attributes, but they were earnest.
Dinner was another large bowl of oatmeal, which he devoured as if starving.
Then he spent the rest of the evening trying to meditate, and fell asleep instead. There was just something about having a full stomach and no pains that made that result almost unavoidable.
۸-_-۸