//------------------------------//
// 32 — Appearances can be Deceiving 
// Story: If Wishes were Ponies . . . . 
// by tkepner 
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Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. “I thought you were staying at Eleven Magnolia Road? And won’t Mr. Potter miss his friends if he’s in Little Whinging and they are in your homeland?” He looked between the fillies and Harry.

Twilight stared at him a moment, then said, “Oh, no, Harry will be returning with us. His . . . relatives,” she made a face as if she had tasted something bitter, “are quite busy at the moment and won’t be returning to Little Whinging for a while. I’m sure they won’t care whether he’s at our place in Little Whinging or not. It’s all the same to them. As long as they don’t have to worry about Harry, they’re perfectly happy.”

The Equestrians’ solicitor had been rather surprised at just how much the Dursleys hadn’t cared where Harry was when he had talked with them at the police holding facility. As Harry had expected, the scumbags had been disappointed when Dudley had told them he was still alive, but delighted when Yueshi had said Harry wished to keep as far from them as they wanted to be from him. That, and relieved that they wouldn’t be charged with murder. Not that they considered that a crime in regards to Harry’s freakish heredity.

Lin had meant to ask about the possibility of making Twilight his legal guardian, but for some reason had forgotten to mention the subject. He was still puzzled about that, but Twilight had suggested that magic might be involved, and that they should wait on that subject. There was no real hurry, after all — he was going to be at a boarding school for the next ten months.

“That is true,” Rarity agreed with Twilight. “But leaving them here, unsupervised, would be asking for trouble.”

That the Headmaster had told her children it was okay to use their wands at home when she had been refusing them for years had certainly put Mrs. Weasley in a bad mood. Hence her frosty reaction of, “Oh, I assure you, I can watch over them quite easily.” Having her parenting skills questioned wasn’t improving her mood in the slightest.

“Oh, I’m sure you have plenty of practice, my dear, what with having so many children,” Rarity said soothingly. “But the Crusaders are more than a handful for anyone.” The other mares nodded. Rarity turned to where she had last seen Sweetie Belle, but the filly and the Weasley twins were nowhere in sight. She frowned and turned to Apple Bloom and Scootaloo instead. “How you thought the four of you could catch a hydra the size of this house,” she waved a hand at the Weasley homestead, “I’ll never figure out!” She crossed her arms over her chest. “And then there was the time you set the Everfree Forest on fire. It took three days to put it out.”

They blushed, and Scootaloo said defensively, “It was an accident, we only wanted to get some honey!”

“And the bee swarm that infested the Town Hall the next week.”

“I didn’t know the queen bee followed me when I went to warn the Mayor about the fire!” Harry said apologetically.

“And then you decided to make fireworks because of all the charcoal created by the fire,” Applejack added, “and burned down mah barn! And then you decided that nitro-glycerine might be safer to make — and Twilight told me she is still finding pieces of the west orchard storehouse — and she’s in Ponyville.” Twilight was nodding her head. “Two thousand celestials away!”

“Celestials?” several of the incredulous, listening wizards said.

“A thousand Celestials is about one of your miles,” Twilight explained.

Rarity turned back to the wizards. “And that was only one month at the beginning of last summer!”

Harry and girls looked embarrassed. Harry was just happy the mares hadn’t learned about some of their other exploits that summer.

The wizards looked amazed.

Despite the revelations about the Cutie Mark Crusaders’ rather unfortunate ventures, the Headmaster persisted. “Are you sure we can’t change your minds?”

Twilight and Rarity were both shaking their heads ‘no’ when Mr. Weasley spoke up. “Perhaps, Headmaster, you could arrange to put their house on the floo-network. That way they could come over here during the day while still returning home in the evenings?”

“An excellent suggestion, Arthur!” The Headmaster looked very pleased at that thought. “It would give your children,” he said to Twilight and Rarity, “a chance to acclimate to our world during the day while their parents are working, and let them enjoy family time in the evenings at home!”

Noticing Hermione’s dejected expression, Harry said, “Can you do the same for Hermione? It’s not fair, after all, if we get that and she doesn’t.”

Dumbledore studied the girl and her family, eyes twinkling. Then he glanced over to the Equestrians and saw their expressions. Ignoring the children, the adults were all nodding that that would be the fair thing to do.

He smiled and said, “Why, I think I might be able to convince the Minister to grant two exceptions for us.” Hermione squealed and started hopping in place. “I’ll send an owl as soon as I have appointments arranged.”

His eyes twinkled madly as he stood. “Well, I think I need to get on with my day. I have some appointments I cannot put off!”

He turned to Twilight. “Might I see your Teleportation Spell, Miss Sparkle? I think it might be of interest to the Ministry’s Department of Magical Transportation.”

“Certainly!” Twilight responded excitedly, standing as she grabbed her notes and hurried around the table. Mr. Weasley quickly stood beside the Headmaster and listened closely as she began her standard teleport lecture. It was shorter than the one Harry had endured, but was a quite bit longer than what she had told Hermione just a little while ago.

The children spent the rest of day flying. Scootaloo was a natural, of course. Harry was as well, although to a lesser degree — not surprising given the advantages Scootaloo’s pegasus heritage gave to her. Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom were much more reserved and unsure on the brooms even as they were thrilled at being able to fly like the pegasi. All the adult Equestrians took turns flying, as well.

Hermione kept letting others take her turn until she finally admitted, “I’m afraid of heights,” blushing. But with Ginny and the fillies insisting she agreed to keep practising.

To help reassure her, her mother said, “Honey, let me ride with you. I’m sure that will help.” Her father nodded his assent.

Hermione stared at her parents, then said, “You just want to fly on a broom, don’t you?” From their guilty looks Harry figured her guess was right on the money.

Still, she did seem to be a bit more relaxed with one of her parents riding as a passenger with her.

The twins, with Ron’s exuberant help, told the Equestrians about Quidditch, which boiled down to:

“It’s rather simple game with a ridiculous number of rules.”

“There are seven people on each team.”

“A goal Keeper to protect the three rings,” Ron pointed at the makeshift Quidditch pitch the Weasleys had built.

“Three Chasers who try to throw this ball, the Quaffle, through one of the hoops for ten points.”

“Two Beaters who hit these balls, Bludgers, and try to knock the other team’s players off their brooms while protecting their own teammates.”

“And the Seeker, whose job is to catch the Snitch, which ends the game and gives his team one hundred and fifty points.”

“The Snitch is devilishly difficult to catch. It sometimes hides where it can’t be seen and you have to wait for it to come out.”

“That means both teams’ Chasers try to get a one hundred and fifty point lead over the other team, thus preventing the other team from winning even if they do catch the Snitch!”

The Weasley’s then put on a sample match, after dragging Percy out of his room and arguing whether their sister could fly a broom and play.


۸- ̬ -۸


Deciding which broom to get was easy — “The Nimbus 2000 is the best broomstick on the market,” said Mr. Kneen, the salesman and proprietor of the Broom Shop. He was a moustached, blonde-haired wizard with blue eyes and wearing matching blue robes. “It’s loaded with the latest in safety features and can out-fly anything on the market today.” He smiled proudly. “I just got them in last week!”

Even though it was late in the afternoon, it was crowded in the shop. Of course, their group did make up most of the customers — all ten of the Equestrians, the three Grangers, and four of the Weasley children with Arthur as escort. Still, there were several other children and adults admiring the various brooms on display. Not to mention those spectators outside drooling over the newest professional-grade broomstick on the market.

Ginny was wandering around the shop with Ron, both obviously dreaming of owning a new broom but seeming to know it was never going to happen. The twins were studying the Nimbus carefully, probably, Harry thought, trying to determine if they could add any of its speciality spells to their brooms at home. 

The fillies and Harry were looking around attentively, but keeping close watch on Rarity and Twilight. Dash was excitedly jumping from one display to another, reading with wide eyes the various features each model sported. Fluttershy hid behind Applejack, while Pinkie Pie occasionally peeked at them from behind a display or the back-room of the shop.

Rarity nodded and looked at the fillies and Harry speculatively. She slowly turned in place, briefly looking at the other brooms on display, as well as how the other customers were all casting envious eyes on the Nimbus in the window and the one currently on the counter.

“Each straw in every Nimbus 2000 is individually inspected and spelled to perfection before being bound to the other straws destined for that broom. Each straw is magically balanced against its neighbours to provide the best performance possible,” the shop’s owner continued. “Protection, safety, and comfort runes are carved in the broomstick handle in triple redundancy, so that should one set be damaged or worn down through heavy use, the broomstick will retain all its capabilities without any degradation in performance.”

Rarity looked at Sweetie Belle who was nodding eagerly. “Excellent,” Rarity said, “we’ll take eleven.”

Rainbow Dash, the fillies, and Harry, all high-fived each other. Practically everyone else in the store, including the owner, had their jaws dropped down. Harry snickered. If they had been on Equestria, he knew, their jaws would literally have been on the ground. Here, it wasn’t as dramatic, but it was equally funny.

“E-eleven?” stuttered Mr. Kneen

“Yes. You do have sufficient stock on hand, don’t you?”

That snapped the wizard out of his stunned state. “Oh, yes, I do have those in stock. Let me get them for you. I’ll be right back.” He hurried off into the back of the shop. Pinkie Pie stepped out to hand him the eleven boxes she was somehow managing to carry.

The decision finally made, Twilight immediately moved over to the magazine and book display beside the counter.

“ ’Cor,” said Ron. “Eleven Nimbus 2000s?”

“Stunning . . .”

“. . . absolutely stunning,” said the twins.

“You’re getting one for each of you?” asked Arthur, still taken aback at the thought of anyone buying that many terribly expensive brooms.

“Oh, no,” said Rarity. “One is for Dash and four are for the fillies and Harry. The rest are for your children and Hermione.”

“Oh, no,” objected Mr. Weasley, “We can’t accept that! Those brooms are far too expensive. The Weasleys do not accept charity.” He was shaking his head emphatically no. The Weasley children looked torn between desperately wanting the brooms, and rejecting what they saw as a handout.

“That’s right,” put in Mr. Granger. “You’ve already spent far too much on Hermione when you gave her the wand and that trunk.”

Looking at Grangers — Hermione was still staring wide-eyed at the broom in the window — Rarity said, “Now, you know that’s not true! If Twilight hadn’t given Hermione those wand materials, she would simply have thrown them away,” she mimed tossing something over her shoulder, “when we got back home. Twilight is much happier knowing they are of use to someone, instead. And, as I told you, the five children’s trunks were free after the discount for buying seventeen of the deluxe trunks.”

Mr. Weasley and the twins staggered at the thought of anyone buying seventeen deluxe trunks. Just buying Ron’s student trunk, used, had considerably set back their finances! Just how rich were these foreigners?

“And how can free be considered spending money buying something expensive?” Rarity asked, arching an eyebrow inquiringly. “And as for the broomstick, it wouldn’t be fair for Hermione to play that quidditch game with the others on a clearly inferior broom, now would it?” She smirked, “Besides, I’m sure the bulk discount we’ll get for these broomsticks will easily offset the price for Hermione’s. If it makes you feel better, if the discount doesn’t cover the full cost of her broomstick, then you can pay us back the difference later.”

She turned back to the wizard. “And, as for you, Mr. Weasley,” she said in that frosty dictatorial tone matrons used when reprimanding children, “you clearly do not know the difference between charity and a gift from a friend! Charity is when you receive something you need but lack the wherewithal to acquire on your own. For example, if I were to purchase and give to your daughter the books she needs for attending Hogwarts, and you were unable to afford them yourselves, then that would be a charity.

“These brooms, however, are a gift, from one friend to another. They are a thank you for your selfless offer to let the fillies and Harry impose upon your generosity to use your farm and your hospitality to practice magic and fly on their brooms every day for the next month until school starts! Especially considering that they wouldn’t be able to do either of those things in Little Whinging.

“Besides, it wouldn’t be fair for the fillies and Harry to play against your children in quidditch with brooms that clearly outclass the brooms you already have. To do that would engender jealousy, envy, and resentment on your children’s part over their old brooms, and embarrassment, shame, and anxiety on the part of the fillies and Harry for upstaging their new friends. And there is no way we will allow such disharmony to come into play between your family and us.

“Also,” she smiled at the twins, “I overheard the twins saying that they would be happy to take the new brooms to school for the fillies and Harry so that they can fly their new brooms at school all year. How can we not return such generosity?”

She smirked. “On the other hoof, we could say that these are all belated birthday gifts to your children.

“And, finally, these are not my gifts, they are the fillies and Harry’s gifts.”

The Weasleys and Grangers, and most of the rest of the customers in the store who had drifted over to listen, all stared at Rarity as if she were barking mad. Then they looked at the three girls surrounding Harry, all of whom were blushing.

Harry could see that Mr. Kneen had remained back by the back-room door to his shop. There was no way he was going to step into an argument between friends when it could mean losing the largest single sale of broomsticks he probably would ever have. And especially not when it concerned a high-end product like the Nimbus!

“It’s their bits to do with as they desire. They’re the ones who spent their Friday afternoon digging in the dirt,” she shuddered delicately, “to find a few gems to trade to the Goblins for spending bits.”

“And they have enough to afford all those broomsticks?” Mr. Weasley asked incredulously.

“They most certainly do,” Rarity said proudly. “The Goblin, Knifethrower, I think his name was, said they are now Gringotts’ tenth largest depositor!” She glanced at Twilight, a playful smile touching her lips, “Although the Princesses’ briefcase of gems might beat them. We’re still waiting for the Goblins’ assessment.”

Everyone in the shop was staring at the Equestrians.

“And they weren’t nearly as impressed with the gems we gave them,” Twilight grumbled good-naturedly, looking up from adding yet another book to the pile she was carrying.

Mr. Kneen finally started back to his front counter with a dozen small boxes in hand. “I took the liberty of shrinking the packages to make them more convenient for you carry,” he said placing them on his counter.

“Oh, thank you,” said Rarity, “That’s very thoughtful of you. What sort of discount do we get for buying in bulk?”

The wizard blinked, taken aback at the request. He looked at the boxes on his counter and pursed his lips. He was clearly mulling over if he wanted to chance angering this very rich customer.

“Oh, we’ll also need a eleven of those Deluxe Broom Maintenance Kits I see over there,” she said, pointing. “And, Twilight,” she continued, looking at the transformed mare who already had an armful of books, “perhaps we should take one each of those books and magazines. I don’t recall seeing any of those books in the bookstore.”

The owner took a look at the books the other woman was rapidly piling on the counter, glanced at his stock of broom maintenance kits, smiled, and said, “I believe a nine percent discount would be fair, don’t you?” He looked at Rarity brightly.

After paying for everything, Sweetie Belle started loading her rucksack with the shrunken brooms while Twilight started loading the books into her purse as Mr. Kneen shrank them. The magazines were relegated to Scootaloo’s rucksack as they figured the children would want to look through those first.

After that, picking up the finished trunks was easy and took only a few minutes.

Truckle had made four stacks of their trunks. One stack of three dwarfed the others in width and length and were black instead of the neutral brown that the rest were coloured. “These three are the triple-sized trunks you wanted,” he explained. Princesses Celestia and Luna would have no difficulty fitting onto the elevators of those trunks, nor using the interior facilities.

That a blood sample was required for the security system to lock a trunk to a particular person was a surprise. There were squares of cloth over the centre plate on the front, Rainbow Dash discovered, were to prevent someone from accidentally giving a blood sample. Just touching the bronze plate was enough to secure the needed sample, as Dash’s surprised and indignant, “It bit me!” demonstrated when she unwisely flicked the cloth aside to see what was hidden there. The others quickly claimed a trunk for their own to forestall errors.

“Now, then,” said Mr. Truckle, “Just press and twist this emblem here,” he pointed to an owl beside the left latch, then pressed it firmly while twisting clockwise, “to shrink the trunk to pocket size.” He bent over and picked it up. “It automatically engages a featherweight charm.” He tossed it up and down in one hand. The emblem now took up the front of the card-deck-sized trunk. “To restore it, do the same thing.” He bent down and placed it on the floor, “But put it down first.” He demonstrated enlarging the trunk. “Otherwise you’ll drop it when its normal weight returns and hurt someone or break something when it falls to floor — nothing inside, just things outside might not like having a trunk dropped on them.” He laughed nervously.

“You can engage the featherweight charm while leaving the trunk at full size by pressing and sliding the owl, like this.” He again demonstrated, and then lifted the trunk with two fingers through the carrying strap.

“There are special security features, and other charms you can use to personalize the trunk to your needs, including its outside colour scheme, and allowing others access. There’s a manual on the kitchen counter.” He smiled happily at them. “The Deluxe trunks are all linked via an internal-only Floo-network. You can hook it up to the Ministry’s Floo-network, but then your network is subject to their inspection and oversight, including shutting it off completely. The manual has more details.” He smiled at them happily. “I included inside each trunk a small quantity of Floo-powder in the carved basin on the right-side of the fireplace to get you started.

“And is there anything else I can help you with?”

They shook their heads and started putting the shrunken trunks into Harry’s rucksack.

“Oh, and before I forget,” Mr. Truckle pulled a box up from behind his counter. “Here are five complimentary book-bags for you. They’re rune-charmed with a featherweight charm, an undetectable expansion charm, and an impervious charm to keep them in pristine condition as long as you use them. You can use a simple colour-changing charm to make them match your House colours.”

He pulled the five out of the box and handed them to Harry. “And there’s a special pocket on the inside of the flap, here,” he pointed to a buttoned opening about the size of his hand. “Where you can store your shrunken trunk while traveling without having to worry about the undetectable expansion charm in the bag interfering with the charms in the trunks — remember, it’s a very bad idea to put something that has a larger undetectable expansion charm in it inside an item with a smaller undetectable expansion charm.” He shook his head. “Very bad,” he emphasized.

That the Weasleys were watching enviously was an understatement. Harry decided that if they were still friends come Christmas, he would purchase books-bags like these for them. In the meantime, he could see Hermione was already calculating how many books she could stuff inside her book-bag.


۸- ̫ -۸


Back at The Burrow, Harry had an idea. “Hay,” he said to the girls. “Why don’t we leave one of the deluxe trunks here and have Hermione take one to her house. Then we don’t have to wait for the old geezer to set up that floo-network. We can just use the network built into the trunks!”

That met with unanimous approval among the fillies. And took only a few moments for them to set up. They left Scootaloo’s trunk in the Weasley sitting-room because of all the traffic it would see, and Hermione promised she would set up Apple Bloom’s in her room. And this way, when Harry flew out of the floo in the trunks, there wouldn’t be anypony else around to see his humiliation at not mastering that particular method of transport. And they could put cushions out so he didn’t get hurt.

On the other hand, Mrs. Weasley was clearly less than pleased at the broomsticks Rarity had talked Mr. Weasley into accepting. However, she couldn’t refuse what he had already accepted, so she gave them all a thin smile and told them it was fine with her. Her words didn’t quite match her expression, though. Harry was sure there would be words spoken on that issue in the privacy of their bedroom that night.

To say that the Weasley children were thrilled with their new brooms was an understatement. Harry was pretty sure the twins weren’t exaggerating when they told him, the next day, that Ron was sleeping with his broom. He wasn’t so sure that they weren’t doing the same with their brooms, too.

The Equestrians had a late dinner at Magnolia Road, and Twilight told them of her plans to see that the trunks were delivered to her parents and the Princesses the next day. Pinkie Pie and Applejack would be making arrangements to send their relatives their extra trunks. Applejack planned a long letter while Pinkie said, “I’ll just wait until it arrives at home, then pop out and tell them all about it!”

After Twilight and the others left after breakfast the next day, Harry, the fillies, and Rainbow Dash hopped into Harry’s trunk and used its floo access to get to the Weasleys. Hermione had apparently arrived only a few minutes before them and was already telling the Weasley clan, “I read our Magical Theory textbook last night and it is soo interesting!” 

She was wearing her wizarding book-bag and Harry was positive it had everything her parents had purchased yesterday in it, except, maybe, the clothes.

There were several new wizards and witches at the Weasley house, as well. The twins, it seemed, had notified their quidditch teammates about their new brooms.

The twins introduced Harry and the four girls to the other members of the Gryffindor Quidditch team: Oliver Wood, Angelina Johnson, and Alicia Spinnet. All of whom were shocked to hear that the Weasleys were now the proud owners Nimbus 2000’s.

Once outside, Hermione made herself at home at the table while the others hauled out their brooms and took to the sky.

And while Scootaloo was reluctant to relinquish her broom, Harry, Hermione, and the other two fillies were happy to let the team practice with their Nimbus 2000 brooms. For Harry and the two fillies, the older brooms the Weasleys had were more than sufficient for them to learn to fly. They would save the high-powered brooms for when they were more comfortable with broom-flying.

Watching Scootaloo fly on her broom reduced the entire team to awe-struck shock, with Oliver doing his best to convince the transformed pegasus to become the team’s Seeker at school. Especially when he discovered she could spot the Snitch faster than anyone he had ever seen — even at the professional matches. Harry figured it must be that her hawk-like pegasus eye-sight carried over to her human form.

Lunch was an informal outside affair with Mrs. Weasley — “Just call me Molly,” she insisted to her guests. It was simple, just cheese and biscuits, Harry was pleased to see. The Equestrians had brought their own jam sandwiches and were more than happy to cut them in half and trade.

“So,” Angelina Johnson said, “Fred tells me that you’re actually from another country.” She looked at the three girls. “Where might that be?”

“We’re from a place called Ponyville,” Harry cut in. “We were very surprised that an owl was able to find me there.”

“Really?” Angelina said, lifting her eyebrows inquiringly.

“Yep,” said Scootaloo.

“And George mentioned something about there not being any muggles there?” Angelina said curiously. “I’m a half-blood, my father is a muggle.”

“Nope. Never even heard the word before we came here,” said Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom nodding her head beside her.

“Soo, that would make you all purebloods, right?” said Angelina.

“I guess,” said Sweetie Belle, shrugging. “Never really thought about it.”

Frowning in thought, Angelina said, “Have there never been any muggles in your homeland?”

Sweetie Belle frowned back, “Not that I know of. At least not since our . . . um . . . homeland was founded two and a half thousand years ago.”

“HMM!” said Apple Bloom with a mouthful of sandwich. She swallowed. “Granny Smith told me the Apples can trace the family all the way back to Paradise Valley, and that’s at least three thousand years ago, maybe four. And both the pegasus and unicorn tribes were there, too.

Scootaloo scowled thoughtfully. “The only one who would know for a fact is Discord.”

All three Equestrians shuddered. “Ain’t asking Discord for nothin’!” declared Apple Bloom. “AJ says puttin’ Discord together with the word truthful is an oxymoron.”

Harry shivered. “I met Discord when Twilight took me to visit Fluttershy and he scares me. He was nice enough, but I just got the feeling he was about to do something and I wasn’t going to like it.” The others nodded, agreeing.

“Discord is just too unpredictable,” said Sweetie Belle. “The less said about him, the better,” she said firmly to the witches and wizards.

From behind the three Equestrians and Harry came a deep voice, “Did I hear someone call my name?”


۸- ̬ -۸