//------------------------------//
// 8 — Library of Terror 
// Story: If Wishes were Ponies . . . . 
// by tkepner 
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There was only silence. He peeked out from behind a hoof to see the pink thing was a pony with the most upset, horrified look he had ever seen, her mane hanging limp around her face. Twilight, the purple one, looked absolutely furious.

Oh, God! He had embarrassed her in front of her closest friends. He whimpered, and with a few frantic kicks at the floor managed to hurl himself under a couch he hadn’t even realized he had seen. There was more silence.

He listened closely, shivering uncontrollably. His life most likely depended on knowing what was about to happen next. He should have known better than to expect things here to be different. At the Dursleys he knew the rules, here he didn’t. He had no right to expect the rules to be different.

“PINKIE,” hissed Twilight in a partial whisper. “I told you to be gentle and not to scare him!”

“Yeah,” Scootaloo quietly said, “He’s already tried to run through two walls the last time someone scared him. And that was Princess Celestia just being polite!”

“What was THAT about!” demanded an unknown pony at the same time.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” said another as she realized exactly what his reaction must mean.

There were hoof steps coming towards the couch, so Harry wriggled a bit farther back from the couch front. A moment later, a yellow pony laid down in front of him, and then lowered her head to look under the couch. She had a light pink mane. “It’s alright, Harry Potter” she said softly. “No one is going to hurt you, I promise.” She had gentle air about her, and she seemed nice.

There was something soothing about her mere presence that slowed Harry’s racing heart and eased his panicked breathing. He could hear some hurried whispering going on above and behind the yellow pony.

She smiled at him ruefully. “Pinkie is overwhelming when you first meet her. I know, because when I first met her I didn’t come out of my house for a week. I don’t think she could hurt anypony, not even by accident. She just wants to be friends with everyone and loves to give parties for any reason you can imagine! And many you can’t!” Her voice was calm and soothing.

She paused, then said, “Come on out, I promise you’ll be safe.” She continued coaxing in that vein for several minutes as Harry considered what to do next. The longer the yellow pony remained in front of him, the calmer he became, and he started to think again.

He couldn’t leave, he had nowhere to go, and knew nothing about this bizarre world he now found himself in. The Princess had ordered Twilight to take care of him, so she wouldn’t just let him escape, anyway. If he tried to run away, she would find him again, using her incredible magic, no doubt. Or just cast that scanning magic spell and follow the screams to where he was hiding.

Purple hooves walked over to the couch. He started shivering again. Twilight suddenly laid down beside her friend and looked under the couch at him. “I’m not mad at you, Harry,” she said softly. “I’m angry at your relatives for treating you so bad. I’ve never seen anypony react like you did just now, for any reason.” She sighed. “I’m really sorry you were startled like that by Pinkie. She really means no harm . . . she’s just . . . awfully enthusiastic about meeting new ponies and throwing them parties. She just wants to be friends with everypony, and to make everypony happy.”

Slowly, the two coaxed him into crawling out from under the couch. Only after he put his front hooves on the couch seat and pushed himself up to his hooves did he realize that he had once again automatically reverted to standing on two legs. He looked at the ponies with more than a bit of fear. He had forgotten that Twilight didn’t want him walking on two legs.

The three fillies were staring at him with awe, the adults were simply surprised. Twilight was looking at him with a calculating look that was directed more at his legs.

The yellow pony wrapped one of her wings around his hips in a move that felt oddly comforting to him.

“Oh! Oh!” cried the pink pony, making Harry flinch. “I can do that!” Her long straight hair puffed up slightly. She promptly jumped up onto her rear legs and sauntered over to Harry as if she had grown up doing that. Just as he now towered over the fillies, she towered over her friends, and him. Much more calmly, smiling widely, she said, “Hi, I’m Pinkie Pie.” She slowly extended her right foreleg down to him. “I’m so sorry I startled you,” she said in a sincere apologetic tone, her expression changing to very sad.

Hesitantly, he reached up and wrapped his “finger” around her hoof. It felt really weird to be doing a handshake with what amounted to his middle finger. But a full human handshake would have had him reaching halfway up her leg — all the way to the bend that on a human would be the wrist, but on a pony he would call an elbow — while her actual elbow seemed to be somewhere near her chest! On the other hand, or hoof, if he turned his hoof around and lifted it sharply, he was giving someone the middle finger — he could feel that his other two fingers were somehow pressed against the knuckle joint of his middle finger. Heh, he could give every pony he met the middle finger and they would never suspect it! That brought a brief smile to his face.

Encouraged, Pinkie suddenly was offering him a cupcake in her other hoof. He stared at it in confusion. How was she holding it with only the concave base of her hoof? Tentatively he tried to take it in his hoof, wrapping his finger around it. It was very awkward, but he managed.

He looked up at her and then over at Twilight, wondering if he could eat it. The purple unicorn nodded her head reassuringly. The yellow Pegasus nudged him, nodding as well.

He took a small nibble. It had to be the best, sweetest, cupcake he had ever had. It was also the first cupcake he had ever had — Dudley had made sure of that. He couldn’t help it as he looked over to the centre table to see if there were more of those wonderful things, and hoped he might be allowed to eat one more.

“Uh,” said one of the fillies, Apple Bloom, he thought, “You’re not supposed to eat the paper cup, too.”

He looked at his empty hoof, then over at her. “Oh?” he said, “You’re not?” He shrugged. “Tasted good, though.”

Pinkie’s eyes got big, or at least bigger than they were. “Make the paper cups food, too?” She started to hyperventilate. Harry wanted to take a step back, but his legs were already pressed against the couch behind him.

“Brilliant!” she yelled, jumping into the air and hovering there for a second. She ran out of the tree house so fast she left a pink outline drifting in front of Harry for a moment and a streak of pink out the door. The door opened and closed so fast it was like a flashbulb going off as they briefly saw the bright sunshine outside.

He blinked and looked at the other ponies. Twilight was face-hoofing while both the blue pony and the one standing beside Apple Bloom were just shaking their heads. The white one beside Sweetie Belle was rolling her eyes. The yellow one was standing beside him, still with her wing wrapped reassuringly around his hips so that he knew she was there and supported him. It helped keep him calm. He dropped back down to four hooves before Twilight got any madder at him for being on two. She shifted her wing to drape across his back and rear legs, and hugged him slightly.

“Well, anyway,” Twilight finally said, “These are my friends. This is Rarity,” she pointed to the white pony with a deep blue, almost purple, mane and tail, “she owns and runs the Carousel Boutique, as I told you. And that’s her sister, Sweetie Belle, beside her, whom you already know.”

“Hello, my dear,” the unicorn pony said with a cultured voice and delicate nod of her head.

Harry managed a meek, “Nice to meet you, ma’am,” back to her. He was not good at meeting adults. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia had made sure any adults he met were well aware of his “reputation.” At all such meetings he was usually met with suspicious hostility. Anything short of meek was considered rebellious and disrespectful. If not by the other adults, then by his Aunt and Uncle.

“This is Applejack,” Twilight continued pointing to an orange pony with a yellow mane and tail and wearing a Stetson hat that was standing beside Apple Bloom. Like Apple Bloom she had neither wings nor horn. “It was her orchard, Sweet Apple Acres, where you were found by Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo. Apple Bloom is her sister.”

“Howdy,” that pony said, with the distinct American Western accent just like her sister Apple Bloom, but thicker. Harry wondered how that had happened — why would these ponies have southwestern yankee accents?

He nodded back to her and managed another meek, “Nice to meet you, ma’am.”

“And I’m Rainbow Dash, fastest Pegasus in Equestria!” the blue flying pony said excitedly, zooming closer. She quickly pulled back when she saw Harry flinch, crouch at the sudden movement, and edge back under the yellow pegasus’ wing. Rainbow Dash had a multi-coloured mane and tail, and buzzed around the library like a huge hummingbird. Her wings, however, beat far slower than those a normal bird would need to do to stay aloft. Harry could only stare in amazement.

Harry managed to squeak out, “Hello, ma’am,” blinking rapidly at the strange antics of the flying pony.

“The pony beside you is Fluttershy.”

Harry took another look at the yellow pony. She had a pink mane and tail. He smiled bashfully at her, and whispered, “Thank you.”

“And you’ve already met Pinkie Pie.” Twilight gave him a guilty look, “Sorry about her scaring you. She can be quite . . . enthusiastic at times and doesn’t realize how pushy she can be, sometimes.”

Harry simply nodded. It was best not to speak around adults unless they said something to him that he was supposed to respond to verbally. Nodding or shaking his head was always wiser.

Fluttershy led the tetchy colt to the food laden table and offered him another cupcake. The trip was not without pain, though, as his inexperience at walking on all fours dropped him on his face twice. He was sure he could have made the distance just fine on two legs, but he was afraid Twilight would get upset at him for his “freakish” ways. Fluttershy remained beside him, her wing across his back, nice and reassuring.

“Hey, Twilight,” he heard Rainbow Dash ask, “When did you get that couch? I don’t remember seeing it there yesterday.” Everyone turned and looked. To Harry’s amazed recognition, the couch looked like a twin of the one in the Dursley sitting room, but much bigger. It towered over him, his head barely reaching the seating cushions. Looking at it, he had to wonder, how had he managed to fit underneath it in the first place? The sofa bed certainly didn’t have a lot of room underneath the cushions!

He sighed. Magic. Naturally.

He was mystified as everyone else about the couch’s presence, as well as where it could have come from. After all, he had a magic-killing ring on his horn, so he couldn’t have done anything, right? He took the cupcake offered by Fluttershy and stuffed it into his mouth.

It was odd, it was actually harder to stand on three legs while using the fourth to hold the cupcake than it was to just stand on two legs. He really wanted to stand up, but dared not anger Twilight.

He quickly discovered that Scootaloo was Rainbow Dash’s fangirl. After egging Dash on to tell Harry about her exploits, she listened avidly as the blue Pegasus bragged incessantly about her prowess as a flyer. Rainbow Dash, it seemed, was quite the braggart and awfully full of herself. She seemed to enjoy being the centre of attention. The others listened and rolled their eyes, occasionally, but never said that what she said wasn’t true. Based on how the other ponies nodded and seemed to back up her claims, she must have had the ability to live up to her bragging. An unusual combination to Harry’s way of thinking. Most braggarts he had met actually had very little to brag about, making mountains out of bumps.

More than once, though, Harry was puzzled to hear references to something called the Element of Loyalty. How loyalty fit a braggart left him shaking his head.

He spent the next few minutes stuffing himself with cupcakes and muffins supplied by the yellow Pegasus. He only took what was offered and made no move to appropriate any on his own — doing that would lead to certain punishment. The Apple juice she gave him was sweeter than any he had ever had, and he quickly polished off the first glassful.

He watched as the others, even the adults, ate even more of the sugar-loaded foodstuffs than he did while he listened to Rainbow Dash pontificate on her greatness. He wondered if the ponies didn’t have to worry about diabetes with all the sugar they were downing.

Eventually, Twilight came over to them and asked if he’d like a brief tour of the library. He did, but worried if he would anger her with his clumsiness. He shuffled awkwardly on his hooves, not sure of how to answer without getting in trouble.

Fortunately, Fluttershy once more came to his rescue and guided him along the tour, her wing draped over his back. She let him lean against her to provide a stabilizing influence.

Almost directly opposite the front door and entryway was a winding staircase going up to one of the alcoves, “That’s where my bedroom is,” Twilight said. “It’s also where Spike has his basket.”

At the mention of the dragon’s name, Harry looked around and saw Spike standing beside the white unicorn, Rarity, looking up at her. From the look on his face, Harry suspected he was infatuated with the much older pony. He was also, to Harry’s amazement, apparently eating a jewel!

He looked back at the staircase, this time with a critical eye. Harry leaned sideways and examined the side of the staircase. The wall underneath the stairs seemed to be solid wood, as in the stairs were carved directly into the tree. There were no signs of a door, just more book-loaded shelves.

Hesitantly, he asked, “Where’s the cupboard door?” At the pony’s puzzled look, Harry pointed to the side of the stairs.

“Cupboard?” Twilight asked, puzzled.

Harry swallowed, “Uh, yes. You know. The cupboard where you’ll lock me in at night? You know, for sleeping?” Assuming she wasn’t just going to tell him to sleep on the floor. Or was he assuming too much? Did she have a shed out back she expected him to sleep in? Like the Dursleys sometimes did when they were especially angry with him or going somewhere for the weekend and didn’t want to bother Mrs. Figg?

She stared at him, appalled. “Sleep in a cupboard?” Her voice rose, incredulous at the idea.

His mouth was suddenly dry as he shrank back under Fluttershy’s wing and leaned against her. “Uh, yeah. That’s where I slept at the Dursleys,” he said in a very low voice. Ah, he thought and gave a slow nod, realizing that he was supposed to sleep outside.

Surprisingly, Fluttershy hugged him tightly against her side with her wing, and whispered, “Oh, you poor thing,” and turned her head to nuzzle his neck in a way that was oddly soothing.

“There isn’t a cupboard under these stairs in this library,” Twilight Sparkle said coldly. “And even if there was, you wouldn’t be sleeping there. Your bed is right beside mine, up there.” She pointed a hoof.

He sat down and stared up at her, and then up at the side of the alcove above. “I’m sleeping in the same bedroom as you?” he asked incredulously. “In a real bed? Like a normal . . . .” He stopped dead.

Her face rapidly went through several expressions but ended up smiling. “Yes, you have a real bed right beside mine,” she said emphatically.

All he could say was “Wow” in a very quiet voice. He had never slept in a room with someone else before. Not even at Mrs. Figg’s.

Fluttershy was hugging him tightly, now. He had never been hugged like this before, that he could remember. Certainly neither his Aunt nor his Uncle had ever hugged him. It felt awkward and almost uncomfortable, but at the same time it felt very nice. He didn’t know what to do, so he did nothing and let her do what she wanted. He had to wonder why she was doing it though.

While he was still thinking that through, Twilight Sparkle pointed to the door to the left of them. “That leads to the basement underneath us, which is my laboratory.” She gave him a severe look, “Don’t go down there without me, there are some very dangerous things down there, especially for a small colt like you. So, no exploring the basement! Got it?”

He nodded quickly, although he saw the three fillies exchanging looks. Scootaloo, especially, seemed interested in what was behind the door, and started slinking towards it.

The kitchen came next, as did the downstairs toilet and sink in a room tucked beside it. “There’s another toilet upstairs with a full bath and shower,” the purple unicorn said.

“Excuse me,” Fluttershy said very quietly as she took a step into the toilet room and closed the door.

Harry immediately sat down. He wasn’t about to fall on his face again, tonight, not if he could help it. He would wait right where he was for her to come out.

Scootaloo was the first to notice. She was in the middle of inhaling another muffin at the centre table when she stopped and stared at him. First her eyes opened wide, then they narrowed. She almost said something, but then she didn’t.

Alarmed, Harry looked around before realizing her eyes were riveted to his hip. She trotted over, staring.

He glanced down at his hip. He had already seen what she had just noticed. Right where all the other ponies had those strange tattoos, cutie marks, he thought they called them, he had a long scar in the shape of a lightning bolt.

Back at the hospital he had taken the time to carefully examine Nurse Redheart’s “cutie mark,” as she had called it. She had been quite proud of it, truth be told.

It wasn’t a simple tattoo where coloured ink was used to stain the skin permanently, that wouldn’t work with ponies where fur would simply cover up the artwork. Instead, the ponies’ actual fur was different colours. How they did that he wasn’t sure, but he was positive that the answer was magic.

However, in his case it wasn’t a tattoo that made his fur a different colour there, there was instead an actual scar carving its way through the fur, leaving a rift in the fur in the shape of a lightning bolt. If it weren’t for the torn skin revealed one might think that someone had merely cut the fur there close to the skin to make that lightning shape.

“What a shame,” the nurse had said, “When you get your cutie mark it will be defaced by that awful scar. Who would do such a thing to a foal?”

Knowing nothing about cutie marks nor what they meant in this pony society, he hadn’t really understood what she meant. To him, it was just a scar, like the one on his forehead.

“Oh. My. Sweet. Celestia!” Scootaloo said, “That’s not a cutie mark!”

The other fillies quickly crowded over and studied it intently. The adults drifted over to look as well.

“Does it hurt?” asked Apple Bloom, gently touching the scar.

Harry shrugged. “No,” he said softly.

Sweetie Belle looked a bit sick. She glanced at her own flank, then said in a half-whisper to her friends, “I think there are worse things than having a Blank Flank.” She moved around to his other side and gasped. “There’s one on this side, too!” The others pushed around Harry and stared.

Sweetie Belle leaned against him, nuzzling his neck. Apple Bloom moved to his other side and did the same. Scootaloo moved in front of him and leaned sideways across his front. She rubbed the back of her neck against his chin.

Harry found that to be as confusing as it was comforting. Not that he was upset about the scar or anything, but having the three fillies just leaning against him somehow made him feel better. But why were they doing that? Were they doing it for him? Or for themselves?

Fluttershy came out of the toilet-room and smiled to see the three fillies grouped around him, comforting him. Until, that is, Rainbow Dash told her about his scars. Then she briefly sported a horrified look before transitioning to one of pity. She once more wrapped her wing around him and cuddled him close. He wasn’t sure why.

That was pretty much the official end of the “party.”

Applejack was first to abandon them. “Come along, Apple Bloom, it’s getting tyme fer evening chores and then dinner. Ya know Granny will pitch a fit if we ain't thar.”

Harry had to wonder just how much of a dinner they would eat after spending the afternoon stuffing their faces with sweets. On the other hand, Applejack hadn’t seemed the least bit worried about Apple Bloom ruining her appetite by gorging on sweets before dinner time.

Back in Little Whinging he had heard kids complaining about their parents denying them sweets when dinner time was close. Never having had that problem, himself, he had found himself envious of having someone care if he ruined his appetite. With the Dursleys, he was lucky that they remembered to let him eat dinner at all.

“I have to check tomorrow’s cloud schedule,” Rainbow Dash said. She flew up to one of the alcoves that had an open balcony and left.

“I’m so sorry, but my animal friends are expecting me home to fix their dinners,” Fluttershy said, looking at Harry sadly.

Rarity was next, and said apologetically, “I have an important order to finish for tomorrow. And Sweetie Belle,” she gave her sister a glare to get her to move from Harry’s side, “has homework she needs to finish.”

Reluctantly, Scootaloo said, “Auntie Loft’ll be upset if I miss dinner again,” and after one last nuzzle against Harry’s neck headed out the door as well.

The library felt oddly empty after they all left.


۸-_-۸