In Little Whinging there was now a dirt pathway from the street to the portal. Except once you were several steps inside the forest, and hidden behind some strategically planted bushes, it became a raised wooden path with rails on the sides. Just inside the forest, again behind strategically grown bushes, was a guard on each side of the path keeping watch for intruders.
The portal tent had been rearranged. To the left of the portal was a curtained-off dressing area for the girls and women, with a matching arrangement for the boys and men on the right. It was easier to put on and remove human clothing while not a pony. A curtain in front of the portal was switched back and forth to provide the privacy a naked human wanted when passing through it, not that the ponies cared. They were just preparing for future visitors.
Harry went first, as the lone male, while the girls were getting undressed. After him came the adults and then the girls. As a result, he was the first to notice the change.
“Scootaloo,” he said happily when she came through the portal, “your wings!”
Startled, she turned to look and gasped, echoed by the rest. Her small wings were gone. Whatever Discord had done to her wings to make them bigger that day at the Weasleys home hadn’t gone away. Her wings now extended almost past her tail! “Oh. My. Celestia!” she cawed in delight. Seconds later she was soaring around the portal tree.
“Scootaloo,” called loudly Twilight, “you have to land!” She glanced at the guards around the portal who were tracking the filly carefully. Two pegasi with crossbows had already moved to pace her while unicorns on the ground tracked her. Others were just as closely watching the new arrivals, in case the flying filly was a diversion.
“Sorry, she’s just excited,” Twilight apologized.
A moment later, a purple glow surrounded the flying filly and dragged her down. Twilight held Scootaloo steady as she took a long slow walk around her, studying the filly’s new wings. Most pegasi primary wing tips, when the wings were properly folded, barely reached above their pony’s cutie mark. Scootaloo’s reached her tail, and the feathers completely covered where her cutie mark would be.
After casting a couple of spells, Twilight finally rendered her verdict. “The wings are permanent, as far as I can tell.”
Scootaloo would have been hopping in place if she could have moved in the purple alicorn’s hold.
“A bit larger than most pegasi your age, but I imagine you’ll grow into them.” She smirked and muttered, “And the pegasi stallions will love ’em.” She gave the filly a stern look. “No flying until we leave the Portal Exclusion Area.”
Scootaloo had her wings fully extended and was examining them minutely. “Dash is going to be soo surprised when I fly in!” she muttered to herself, clearly not listening to a word Twilight was saying beyond “permanent wings.” It was clear Discord was no longer someone she would fear.
Harry wondered what Discord would do when Scootaloo gave him a hug and profuse thanks the next time she saw him.
The area around the portal had changed considerably, Harry saw. The grounds around the portal tree looked like a long-established park. There were no signs of the military emplacements he knew existed. He couldn’t even spot them and he knew where they were. He expected illusions would have done that, except that a bush or rock surrounded by magic would be a dead giveaway to astute unicorns — they must be using only natural camouflage.
The poles he had wondered about previously were now holding up netting. When he looked for the magic, as Twilight had taught him, he could see that the netting was heavily reinforced. Nothing would be getting in or out via flying. At least, not without expending a great deal of effort and magic. Unless a dragon decided to dive through it. And even then . . . .
The Everfree walls were much bigger now, easily overtopping the trees both inside and outside the compound. The partition wall separating the portal tree from the path to Sweet Apple Acres was only half as high, but was also still under construction.
Scootaloo was so excited to try out her wings that she would have run all the way to the orchard if Twilight had let her. As it was, the little pegasus reminded him of the small dogs he had seen some people walking in Little Whinging, where the dog was straining to run, pulling against its leash and panting with the effort, while the owner was leaning back and holding the leash tightly. Only, in this case, the leash was magic. And the panting was excitement and impatience.
Once they were past the partition wall, he noticed that the secondary buildings on the plans were now under construction, with only one of the soldiers’ barracks nearing completion. The tunnels he had seen marked were completely hidden, with no sign of their presence.
The completed building across the path at the orchard was the “official” entrance to the portal area. They had to go through the tunnel in its middle and sign-out as portal travellers. As soon as they stepped outside, Scootaloo took off in a streak of orange and purple with her, “See-you-tomorrow-bye!” fading out in the distance. From the direction she took, Harry figured it would be an hour or so before she actually went home.
Harry and the other two fillies were looking forward to spending a night in their own beds. Harry wondered if there would be room for him in the castle, considering the large number of books Twilight had been buying over the last week, both normal and magical. He imagined Spike would have insisted on a path through the stacks to the kitchen, bathroom, and upstairs.
He was surprised to see that the castle looked almost exactly the same as it had the last time he was there. Seeing his surprise, Twilight smirked and said, “The library room is more than sufficient. The runes for that undetectable expansion charm are truly fantastic! I can’t believe no pony ever thought of doing that here.”
۸- ̬ -۸
Headmaster Dumbledore sat back in his office chair, steepled his fingers, and contemplated what he had learned so far about Harry Potter and his mysterious benefactors.
He had recalibrated the monitor on the boy’s happiness. Harry was obviously enjoying himself at the Weasleys’ home, as Arthur had told him from Molly’s observations. And yet the monitor hadn’t moved an iota from its neutral position.
Clearly, he had miscalibrated it all those years ago when Harry had been here being checked out by Madam Pomfrey. The sleeping spell they had cast on him must have interfered with his initial calculations. He had assumed the boy to be in a deep, dreamless sleep. If, instead, the spell had placed the boy in a lighter state, he might have been dreaming of something happy at the time. Which would have made Dumbledore’s baseline scan misread happiness as neutral.
On the other hand, that meant that all those years where he and Minerva had thought the boy to be merely accepting of his lot in life, Harry had really been having fun and enjoying his time with his relatives. He knew Minerva would be overjoyed at that discovery. It would go a long way towards allaying her guilt over leaving baby Harry with “those horrible muggles,” as she often termed them.
He didn’t want to admit that he, too, could rest a bit easier, now.
And while he would have preferred Harry to stay with the Dursleys; that they were on a vacation was something out of his control. In previous years, they had left him with Arabella — which had suited Dumbledore just fine. That this time they had relinquished Harry to these foreigners was unfortunate, but nothing that he could correct at this point. If he tried to remove Harry from them, his own spells might regard his actions as interfering with the Dursleys’ custody of the boy, and react in ways that were unpredictable.
Besides, it was only for a month and then the boy would be safe at Hogwarts. In the meantime, he had managed to secure a place for the boy with the Weasleys during the day. Harry would be safer there during the days if he couldn’t be with the Dursleys at number Four Privet Drive. The extra charms he had placed on the entire homestead would ensure that!
That Harry returned every night to Little Whining, but not to the Dursleys, was a bit aggravating. However, he had managed to place a charm, just this evening, around the house on Magnolia Road to directly warn him should any wizard or witch with harmful intent come within a hundred feet of it. That the foreigners, and the other people living on the street, hadn’t been home had made it that much easier for him to act without fear of being seen. An unusual bit of good luck, he thought.
Yes, Harry was as well-protected as the circumstances today would allow. Better, even, as no one knew where he was or where he had been. No one would suspect the boy of being in a muggle neighbourhood after seeing him in Diagnon Alley with the foreigners. Nor would anyone suspect he was at the Weasley household during the day.
The rumours he had planted regarding the boy’s circumstances had worked splendidly. The foreigners were certainly helping muddy the waters even more. He wouldn’t even need to place additional misdirection charms on the boy. Yes, James and Lily’s boy was as safe as the Headmaster could arrange. And much happier than he had expected, given the stormy relationship Lily had had with her sister. He was pleased to see that Petunia had managed to rise above her petty feelings and provide the proper care a child deserved.
And then there was his magical prowess! Wandless, silent spell-casting and apparition, indeed! He had never expected the boy to be that powerful — and with skills that most adults struggled to master. While his mother and father had been slightly above average in power, and their spell-casting skills definitely better than most wizards and witches, what he had seen the boy demonstrate was nothing less than astounding for a child his age. He would grow up to be a powerful wizard indeed. Not as powerful as Dumbledore, but still, a wizard to be reckoned with.
Not to mention that his girl friends nearly matched him!
And then there were adults.
Ollivander had called two of them gods.
Miss Sparkle and Miss Pie had almost blinded him when he had first looked at them through his glasses at the pub! Such power! He had never seen anyone, wizard or witch, that radiated as much magic as those two did. He had had to dim his glasses down to the point where ordinary wizards and witches no longer registered before he could see anything but blinding white in their direction. On that point, alone, many wizards and witches would have been awed. He certainly understood Ollivander’s reaction.
And their control of their magic was just as amazing. Watching as Miss Sparkle had manipulated her quill while making delicate calculations as she modified an apparition spell on the fly had been . . . well . . . spell binding! It was such a casual display of magical expertise and skill that he didn’t think for a moment that she was trying to show off. It was simply the way she did things. And the spell itself was an eye-opener.
Her claim that “even a child could do it” might be hyperbole, despite Miss Granger’s rapid learning of it — the girl was clearly a prodigy, soaking up knowledge like a sponge did water. Teleportation’s complex safety runes countered apparition’s difficult casting requirements. Six of one, half a dozen of the other, as his mother used to say. On the other hand, those wizards and witches that had difficulty with apparating might find this teleportation easier to master. If they had the power.
If the Princess wasn’t some kind of prodigy in her own right, if that talent and skill, never mind the sheer power, were considered normal, or even only slightly above average, then the wizarding world was in for a shock! He would have to keep an extremely close watch on the girls to see if they all showed such promise.
Miss Pie had been the real enigma. He hadn’t seen her cast a single spell, yet she had managed to bake a cake in an impossibly short amount of time without anyone noticing. And he hadn’t seen any tell-tale signs of a time-turner in use.
That even Miss Rarity had said that Miss Pie did things that mystified her had been intriguing. Plus, watching her move around in the garden had been as enlightening as it had been frustrating. She hadn’t apparated, or teleported, even once, yet she had seemed to move from one side of the garden to the other without him seeing her traverse the distance between them.
And neither Miss Sparkle, nor Miss Pie had once picked up a wand to do magic.
Could they be gods? Or were they simply extremely powerful witches? He tended to think it was more of the latter. If they truly were gods, then Merlin save the wizarding world, because no one else could hope to come close.
Or were they Veela? He hadn’t sensed a Veela Aura around them, which wasn’t unexpected for an adult. The girls were too young to manifest, just yet, so they couldn’t be a clue. If the foreigners were Veela, then they were extremely powerful ones, much more powerful than any he had read about or encountered. Unless the rumour was true that Circe of Homeric legend was the head of the Veela tribe. She might have had the power. But that failed to explain this Discord wizard. And the Veela of today did not divide themselves into Unicorn and Pegasi tribes. So, probably not Veela. He would keep a close eye on the girls to see if a Veela Aura manifested around them in the next few years.
He had watched Miss Jack in the orchard for a brief time. And, again without the help of a wand, she had been doing things to the trees that he had only ever read about a Druid being able to do. Yet she didn’t appear to be of an age to have achieved such mastery as he had witnessed. Were they truly much older than their outward appearances? Their apparent clumsiness when walking and using their hands seemed to support that assumption.
Miss Shy and Miss Dash he hadn’t had much opportunity to study as they hadn’t remained near the garden for very long.
From what he had seen in the wand-maker’s shop, they used illusions to conceal certain facts about themselves. Such as their hair. While Miss Dash and Miss Pie had gone around unabashedly with their brilliant hair colours, the others all had plain black hair. He hadn’t suspected that they were using illusions on their hair until Miss Rarity had handed two of her hairs to the Weasley boy and girl. Seeing the illusion drop had been startling. As had been seeing the old wand-maker’s reaction. Dumbledore had never seen Ollivander awed before.
In the pub, he had dulled down his glasses’ perception to screen out the blinding light from Miss Pie and Miss Sparkle. He hadn’t realized that that had rendered him relatively blind to other magics being in use.
With that discovery, he had carefully moved around until he had been able to examine the other foreigners without being overwhelmed by Miss Sparkle or Miss Pie. The adults all exuded magic that easily outclassed most wizards. The girls and Harry also glowed with magic above that of their peers — although for them it was more diffuse and wild, not yet under their control. Something he would expect of children, but that still promised they would be witches to watch when they were older.
And there hadn’t been a single sign of Dark magic around any of them — not even Harry. Or maybe Dumbledore’s dialled-down magical detection charm on his glasses hadn’t picked up the innate Dark magic in Harry’s scar.
The foreigners’ naivety had been rather endearing, actually. Not that they weren’t smart. The grilling Miss Rarity had given them had been quite thorough. And her responses were as telling, to him.
From their reactions, he thought their magical repertoire was rather limited. But having no conflicts for a thousand years did remove the impetus for inventing new spells, he had to admit. And the lack of muggles actively hunting them because of their magic removed the incentive for deception, misdirection, and, he grudgingly had to admit, the petty prank spells, as well.
He had no doubt that once they assimilated the huge variety of spells the wizards and witches had that these foreigners would be a force to be reckoned with, if push came to shove. Especially if the average one of them was anywhere near as powerful as even the children in this group.
Letting those girls into Hogwarts might not be such a good idea. But if they weren’t there, then neither would be Harry. Of the two, he would take Harry being at Hogwarts, and worry about the repercussions of these foreigners later.
And then there was Harry’s wand!
There was only one wand he knew that possessed as much power — the Elder Wand, made from an Elder tree with a Thestral hair as its core. Watching this . . . dual-alicorn wand . . . react to the boy as he picked it up had been quite informative. And disturbing. The blast of both Light and Dark magic from the wand at Harry’s touch had been unsettling. He would have to keep a close eye on the boy’s development. He shuddered to think of that wand in the hands of someone with Dark leanings. He would need to guide the boy as subtly as possible to the side of Light.
His girl friends and their guardians were unknowns. They seemed to be steeply banked in the Light, but he had no references for their backgrounds and their leanings. The Dark sparks coming from the wand in addition to the Light, though, indicated that maybe these foreigners were not as Light as he might hope, given that the core materials came from two powerful alicorns.
He would have to plant the seeds to get Arthur’s little girl and youngest son close to them, maybe even push a bit. Coming from as Light a family as they did, they might be able to influence the girls away from the Dark.
Could he somehow convince her parents to let her attend Hogwarts this year instead of waiting for next? Her getting her wand early was certainly a fortuitous circumstance, he could say that if Ollivander and this prodigy of magic foreigner, Miss Sparkle, said her magic was ready, then why hold the poor dear back?
And once she was at Hogwarts, her presence in the same dorm-room and classes as the foreign girls would give him a way to monitor and guide them to the Light.
That the girl adored the image of the “Boy Who Lived” was no secret to him. Arthur had more than once shared the girl’s obsession with the Headmaster, sometimes with trepidation, sometimes with pride. It depended on how Molly was reacting at the time. Molly had the idea that her daughter was the perfect future wife for the boy.
Dumbledore shook his head, ruefully. He wasn’t as sure of that potential relationship as the witch was. Sometimes Molly could be quite overbearing. Hence Arthur’s trepidation regarding her plans. He would have to keep a close eye on the situation, lest the girl, Ginny, inadvertently push Harry and the girls away with her attempts to gain Harry as “her” boyfriend.
Which left the whole problem of exactly where these foreigners came from.
And it was the princesses and this Discord in that homeland that he needed to understand the most.
All he knew of the princesses was that they were co-rulers. And that Ollivander considered one of them to be the Goddess of the Sun and the other to be the Goddess of the Moon. If they were that much more powerful than the ones here, he might consider the appellation appropriate — in the ancient Greek and Roman sense, at least.
The timescales Rarity and this Discord had mentioned were worrisome. Both the Princesses and this Discord appeared to be extremely long-lived, if not immortal. And magic forbade immortality without enacting heavy penalties on the wizard or witch attempting it — as Voldemort could attest.
On the other hand, that these princesses were able to get alicorns, winged unicorns of great magic, to willingly give them hairs from their manes implied that the Princesses had to be of the Light, as no unicorn would willingly give of itself to a Dark Wizard or Witch.
However, the ancient Assyrians ascribed winged unicorns and winged bulls as great evils, although they sometimes referred to the winged unicorns as Light and sought their blessings. The Eastern societies had simply lumped both unicorns and winged unicorns into the same category, they could be either Light or Dark.
Of course, having a core from a creature of the Light did not limit a wand to the world of the Light. Voldemort’s wand contained a feather from Fawkes, his Phoenix, an extremely Light creature. That did not prevent the wizard from doing great evil. Therefore, having hairs, feathers, or heartstrings from extremely Dark creatures would not predispose the wand user from being Light.
But it was worrying, nonetheless, that the wand had produced both Light and Dark sparks, showing that it was apparently neutral with respect to the wizard wielding it. He would have to consider carefully the implications of that. And watch Harry closely.
That the foreigners referred to Discord as the God of Chaos was worrisome.
The stories the Weasley children had relayed to their parents from Harry and the girls about the creature’s escapades were frightening in their implications — cotton-candy (which he thought must be candy floss) clouds, raining chocolate milk, and reversing gravity over huge areas, all indicated great, great power. Many of the things that wizard had done in the Weasley garden could be illusions, but the transformations were not. Even if Albus discounted the magnitude of the stories, he still had to contend with the fact that Discord had managed to transform thirteen wizards and witches into brand new forms for almost six hours, without any evidence of strain. And he had set such specific conditions on the spells’ dismissal! Dumbledore had to admit to himself that he couldn’t have managed such precision, nor power it without collapsing in exhaustion afterwards.
Yes, he could transform dozens or even hundreds of things during a duel, but those were transient charms, rarely lasting more than a dozen seconds, very few survived a whole minute. He hadn't needed to put a great deal of power in them to make them last hours.
That Harry and the girls considered Discord to be a prankster and not a monster was of little solace. That Rarity had expressed reservations on his character merely increased the Headmaster’s misgiving. He would have to tread very carefully if he ever met that wizard. And warn the Weasleys as well.
Which left the question of where these foreigners called home. He had a few clues. Ponyville was the home for the foreigners he had met. The Princesses lived somewhere called Canterlot. Another place was called Appleloosa. And still another, the Crystal Empire. All were locations where the witches had relatives, and there had been the mention of a wizard, a brother to Miss Sparkle. And a married couple, her parents. And the distances were large enough that travel via a floo-network was considered a time-saver, instead of relying on their teleportation. That implied that not all of their people could use the teleportation spell, just as many wizards and witches were not proficient with the apparition spell.
So far, they had mentioned both a pegasus and unicorn tribe, specifically, implying that there might be divisions in their population along those lines. Twilight had mentioned a medical condition afflicting only those in the unicorn tribe, so maybe the power-magic users belonged mostly in that tribe, with the others being more limited in their scope — which still looked to be greater than the average wizard! He would have to watch the girls closely in Hogwarts to see if he could discern any differences in their abilities. Maybe he could get Arthur to talk a bit more with his sons about any mentions of other tribes in their homeland?
There also appeared to be creatures there that were not here, such as a hydra. There hadn’t been a hydra seen since the Roman Empire fell. And a large forest, the Everfree, they had called it, which apparently had many dangerous creatures in it, almost like the Forbidden Forest beside Hogwarts, but much larger.
And if he was right in that the witches out-numbered the wizards by a significant margin, then it was entirely possible that wizarding England might see a sudden influx of powerful witches looking for husbands. The pure-bloods might complain at losing status as small Houses suddenly accumulated much wealth, but the gains in magical prowess as the new witches were courted and married into the families would silence the dissenters quickly enough.
That they also had a large and vibrant economy was self-evident, as the way they were spending galleons was breath-taking. Not to mention that the goblins had revealed that both the adults and the children had on deposit a considerable amount galleons, enough to raise them into the top-ten of depositors at the bank. All that, without straining their economy in the slightest, from what he could gather. It took a large number of people to drive an economy big enough to supply that many galleons to children, and think nothing of it.
If he had to guess, which he had to, he’d say their population was at least as large as England’s, probably much bigger considering the financial resources thrown into supporting just four children in a foreign-to-them land. Opening up trading with them would be a big boost to the wizarding economy, especially if they could leverage their knowledge and products into the new markets before the foreigners could figure it out for themselves.
And that economy, in turn, meant the foreigners’ homeland had to be at least as large as England — without muggles in residence, they could use all the land instead of hiding in out-of-the-way places like the English wizards did. Which led him to inspect his globe of the world. Where could you hide an entire island where no one was likely to trip across it? But it had to be close enough for a child such as Harry to access it.
Perhaps a portkey? But the Ministry had portkey spells in place to prevent criminals and smugglers from either escaping or infiltrating the country. As did most of the wizarding countries.
He stared at his spinning globe.
Maybe he was looking at this from the wrong angle. Maybe he should consider the Potters and their place in the puzzle.
Perhaps Petunia had kept some of Lily’s things?
Everything in 1981 had been in turmoil due to the war. It wouldn’t have been out of character for Lily to plan for a worst-case situation and hide a trunk at her sister’s home. Her use of the ancient magics to protect Harry certainly showed how inventive and prepared she could be. A trunk with certain items in it if the Potters had had to flee a Voldemort Ministry was not out of the question.
And if Harry had been exploring the attic one day and come across the trunk, opened it, and discovered a communications crystal? The ancient Greeks had used such crystals, on occasion. And he knew that Sirius, Remus, Peter, and James had made a set of mirrors based on those crystals. Most wizards and witches had never heard of them. Which begged the question of how the quartet had so easily created a set. Perhaps the Potters had had a similar device squirreled away? One that James could use as a model, even if he didn’t know the location of its intended twin?
That implied that the Potters had known of these foreigners. And trafficked with them occasionally. What if it was a secret that Lily and James discovered only after they had gone through his father’s things while preparing for the worst — but they hadn’t had the time to use it. Or maybe the other end had been neglected, as well, and it was chance that had led Harry to finding the crystal while its opposite was being watched or examined?
And then Twilight and her friends — perhaps one or more of them was related to the Potters? — had checked up on Harry and decided to befriend him? It wasn’t out of the question for a distant relative to want to reconnect to another branch of the family. And then decided to teach him the magic that they knew. Perhaps even want to introduce a few friends’ daughters to him in the hopes of getting him as a husband for one of them?
Then there was the history he had learned of them. The kingdom was two thousand years old, or two thousand five hundred if you included when Discord was in charge. Which placed them at about the ancient Greek times. And they seemed quite acclimated to the culture they found themselves in here in England. Unlike someone from the Orient, for example. And that implied they had had regular contact with this part of the world.
Could they be from the fabled island of Atlantis? That would fit with the evidence he had seen so far, and fit just as well in the history he had been given.
After considering it for a while longer, he decided that, for the moment, he would assume they were from Atlantis. And wait to see what happened next.
Which, considering that the foreigners had only been in the wizarding world for a week, was probably quite a lot.
۸- ̰ -۸