//------------------------------//
// 66 — Discoveries 
// Story: If Wishes were Ponies . . . . 
// by tkepner 
//------------------------------//

Sir Walker stared at the photos now splayed out across his desk. It was . . . frustrating. They showed that something had happened in the Scottish highlands, but what? The seismic trace to one side showed several repeated ground disturbances, which the scientists thought were earthquakes — not that uncommon for the area. As standard operating procedure, high-altitude surveillance planes had taken a look to ascertain if there was any surface damage, and possibly narrow down the location of the fault-line that had triggered the quakes. To his surprise, they clearly showed an oblong burn-patch almost forty meters across and sixty meters long. Not far away was another burnt area, roughly ten metres in diameter.

His first thought was an explosion. But while subsequent pictures showed numerous craters, there were no other physical signs of a large explosion, such as downed and broken trees, trees with their leaves stripped from them, or of fires which should have followed such an explosions in a forest. 

And while some the scattered craters were buried under ash, others were clear of any contaminations. Which indicated that whatever had burned the area had been in the middle of the explosions.

If he didn’t know better, he would have said it looked like a limited and tight artillery barrage. 

Infra-red photos showed the area to be above average in temperature, but lacked the numerous hot-spots that a forest fire’s aftermath always left behind.

Especially puzzling was that everything inside that burnt area had been reduced to ash. No fire ever reduced everything to ash — there were always a few trees that escaped destruction. Plus, trees and bushes just centimetres from the burnt area were just as green as the trees kilometres away — the edges weren’t browned by heat. It was almost like a laser had cut the edges.

The presence of a castle two kilometres away, and a small village on the opposite side of the lake beside it, was merely icing on the cake.

It was supposed to be a nearly inaccessible uninhabited valley, but it was clearly neither. Except, there were no roads leading in or out of the valley. The train track was the only way in or out, yet a check of the train schedules for the area showed no signs that that spur had ever been used. But the tracks had been used or the trees would have overgrown them long ago. Someone was keeping them clear.

He leaned back in his chair, thinking. He swept the photos and trace into their folder and set it aside.

Harry Potter, the boy who had triggered the mess with the portal was supposed to be attending an exclusive secluded school in the Scottish highlands. A school he could not find any traces of, although there were references in various documents to an exclusive school in the Scottish Highlands. Nothing, however, that gave an address or actually said where the school was.

Was there a connection? Was this it? 

Had the Equestrians tried to open a portal up there and something had gone wrong?

He would discuss this with Castor at their next meeting.

In the meantime, he would order a continued surveillance of the area, just in case. And put three Harriers on station. And see if he could get the Yanks to let loose a few pictures from their satellites. Maybe they had recorded something when whatever had happened had happened.

He walked to his bookcase for the book on active and deactivated military bases to search for the closest base to this mysterious valley. And made a mental note to call Field Marshal Chapple about moving an additional company of soldiers, and several flights of attack choppers to it, if necessary.


۸-ꞈ-۸


The twins led the Gryffindor First Years down the side street toward a dirty, dingy, grungy looking place, a small building. Harry had no problem labelling it as a ‘dump.’ Unlike the Shrieking Shack, though, the walls on this place were solid and straight, and the bay windows to either side of the door unbroken. Not that you could see anything through it because of the dirt. Above the door was a rusty bracket holding a faded and battered sign, with the image of a severed wild-boar’s head leaking blood.

The Firstie’s halted uncertainly outside the door. Normally, none of them would ever have come close to the place, warned off by its appearance as an unsafe, unsavoury, and possibly dangerous place for anyone their age.

“Well, come on,” said the twins, grinning madly. Percy looked furious, but didn’t object. Apparently, while he disapproved of the place, it wasn’t on the forbidden list.

Harry and the fillies followed the twins inside.

The Hog’s Head was small, dingy, and very dirty and smelled strongly of goats. Not only had the bay windows been impossible to see through from the outside, they prevented much daylight from getting inside. Instead, there were candles sitting on the rough wooden tables. The floor seemed to be dirt, at first, but they realized that the floor was stone covered by what seemed to be centuries of filth.

In keeping with the inn’s general disreputable appearance, there was a man at the bar who concealed his head in dirty grey bandages, two shrouded figures in hoods talked with strong Yorkshire accents, and a witch with a thick, black veil that fell to her toes sat in a shadowy corner beside the fireplace. They could just see the tip of her nose because it caused the veil to protrude slightly.

The barman, looked vaguely familiar to Harry, was tall and thin and came out of the back room. A grumpy-looking old man with a great deal of long gray hair and beard, he scowled at them.

Harry and the fillies looked around apprehensively. The atmosphere reminded them somewhat of the gloomy look of the Everfree Forest, only without the feel of imminent death lurking just a few yards away.


۸- ̰ -۸


The wizards and witch exchanged looks. Filius spoke first. “Did you hear a voice telling you that you should take it, that only you were suited to decipher its secrets? That only you could comprehend what it could teach you? Along with the desire to put it on, to see just what you could do while wearing it?” The others reluctantly nodded. He sighed and looked up at Dumbledore. “I fear she is right. If even we have difficulty resisting it, I can see it falling into the hands of someone else, someone with a weaker will. Someone who will realize it is the famous Rowena Ravenclaw Tiara, and put it on. Like you, Albus, they’ll be blinded by its potential and won’t think to check for curses,” He shook his head sadly. “They will think it must be safe, because, after all, Rowena Ravenclaw would never curse her greatest achievement. If we lock it away, someone, someday, will find it. And put it on.”

They retreated to a nearby empty classroom, the storeroom being far too flammable to attempt any resolutions in there.

“Should I take care of it?” asked the Princess, gazing at the wizards.

“No,” said Dumbledore, reluctantly, “Allow me.”

“You’re making a mistake,” came the voice, again. “You’ll be destroying a pricelesss treasure!”

He drew his wand and pointed it at the circlet.

“Please,” came the voice of his sister, “Don’t, you’ll kill me!”

He stopped and stared at the tiara. “Albus, it’ss me, Arianaaa . . . .”

“Ariana,” he said in a whisper.

“Albus?” came the distant voice of Minerva.

Suddenly, there was a flash of light, A blasting curse flew past Dumbledore’s shoulder. It hit the tiara, and bounced! Dumbledore ducked as the curse flew straight at him. There was an explosion from behind. When he looked, he saw the door to the classroom in pieces in the corridor.

Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash quickly retreated to outside the room, this was a battle in which they could play no part. An hour later, the tiara was lying on the floor in a corner of the room, glowing red-hot, scorch marks across the floor where they had tried to blast and melt it. It was still intact.

They had not escaped unscathed, with various cuts, bruises, and mild burns afflicting all of them. Most of the damage they had suffered was from dodging the reflections of their own attacks or showers of splintered rock from the room’s walls. Only Prince Armor’s quick shielding had protected them from worse.

Rowena’s circlet had fared far better in this exchange than they had. Dumbledore shuddered at the visions it had cast at him. It was only because there were six of them hurling spells at it that had allowed them to continue. While most of its attention was on one, the others could strike at it — a round-robin of assaults. That had accomplished nothing except to tire them and wear at their determination to continue.

Dumbledore stroked his beard and reflected on what they had learned. The tiara was well-nigh impossible to destroy. It attacked viciously, with considerable power, any who were close to it, especially whomever was currently trying to destroy it.

And while those attacks were limited to mind-magics, it had been capable of reflecting part of whatever physical attacks had been thrown at it extremely effectively. And it learned from its mistakes. Trying the same thing a second time at a higher level was always a painful lesson in abandoning that approach.

While he had been reluctant to destroy it, at first, he now knew they had no choice.

“There are only two things left that I can think of that could possibly destroy this,” he said thoughtfully. “The first is fiendfyre, and I am reluctant to use that for obvious reasons.”

“Too difficult to control?” said Princess Twilight.

He nodded, agreeing, “And the other might be basilisk poison — it can destroy almost anything.” He smiled. “And I know where I can get a sample of that.”

He disappeared with mild POP. A minute later he reappeared with another POP. He was holding one of the basilisk’s broken fangs in a glass jar that was hissing as the fang slowly ate through the bottom of it. “Everyone out,” he commanded, and they quickly obeyed, crowding around the edges of the classroom doorway.

As soon as they were all outside the classroom, including himself, Dumbledore used his wand to flick the fang across the room and slam it, venom-soaked-point first, into the tiara. “NO!” came Ariana’s panicked voice from the ghost-like form floating over the circlet. “PLEASE, ALBUS, DON’T! YOU’RE KILLING ME! STOP!” He held it there, tears dripping down his face, as the venom leaked out of the fang and soaked into the circlet. She started screaming, then abruptly stopped. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the tiara started to leak a tarry and dark, bloodlike substance. The tiara vibrated violently, then broke apart with a loud CRACK. Accompanying that was a faint, distant scream of pain. As it did so, Dumbledore thought he heard the faintest, most distant scream of pain, At first, Dumbledore thought it was an echo from the grounds or the castle, but then he realized it came from the fragments on the floor.

He dropped his arm to his side, and shuddered as tears continued to drip. Princess Sparkle came over and hugged, followed quickly by the other Atlantean women. Dimly, he realized, it helped.

Later, they gathered back in his office. With the exception of Rainbow Dash, they were all back to their normal wizard and witch forms. And, if Albus was being honest with himself, if he had wings like hers, he would probably spend most of his time flying, as well.

The pieces of the tiara, now cleaned and shiny, lay on his desk. He sat in his chair and studied it carefully, then cautiously said, “Reparo.” The pieces flew together with a series of clicks and snaps. He picked it up and examined it meticulously. While mostly together, there were sections that had been irreparably destroyed.

He waved his wand and one of his silver trinkets flew over to his desk. He began a complex series of wand movements, while he spoke too quietly for them to hear. 

The princess watched intently. 

Silver began to flow from his trinket onto the damaged tiara. When he finished, the circlet was complete. One of the diamonds was missing and a moonstone was still cracked, however.

He smiled and handed it to Professor Filius, who took it reverently.

“It has no enchantments of any kind, anymore, it is simply a tiara, albeit one once owned by Rowena Ravenclaw. I’m sure we can easily replace the diamond and moonstone from supplies here in Hogwarts. None need to know the vile use to which it was put.”

“We should place it in a display case near the Great Hall for everyone to see,” said Minerva. Severus nodded in agreement, and added dryly, “With suitable enchantments that will keep it safe from certain pranksters.”

Minerva didn’t deign to reply to that except to raise an eyebrow.

Dumbledore turned to the Atlanteans and cleared his throat. “I wish to express my gratitude at your finding this lost treasure for us. It may no longer have the rumoured spells she created for it, however it still symbolizes her House and values. Having it returned will mean a great deal to a multitude of people.”

Princess Sparkle nodded, then shook her head sadly. “I wish we could have separated them, but the spells overlaid on it were simply too powerful, and it was all or nothing.”

He sighed deeply. “Regretfully so.”

The enchantments had been quite clever, he realized. The creator had hidden them from Hogwarts’ enchantments by concealing its evil behind Rowena Ravenclaw’s enchantments. And then used her status as a Hogwarts’ founder, and as creator of the tiara, to fool the castle’s enchantments into accepting the corrupted tiara’s presence and prevent the enchantments from reporting the extremely Dark magic that leaked from concealment. It was from a Founder, therefore it belonged here. Yes, quite clever indeed. 

The Princess hadn’t used the castle’s formidable enchantments for her search, instead looking for the underlying darkness. Something no one in the Headmaster’s position would ever consider doing — why should they doubt the effectiveness of the castle’s enchantments? 

He looked at her a moment longer. “You said you have run into one of these once before?”

She studied him just as carefully. “Yes. Harry Potter had such a fragment embedded in his forehead.”


۸- ̰ -۸


The Weasley twins jauntily stepped up the bar and the man behind it.

“What?” he grunted.

“We’ll have seventeen shepherd’s pies, my good man,” said ‘George’ jovially.

“With fifteen butterbeers and two firewhiskys,” concluded the other, in just as cheery a tone.

“Fred,” growled Percy warningly.

After a quick look at his older brother, the second twin sighed. “Never mind the firewhiskys, make it seventeen butterbeers total.”

The barkeep glared at him, then threw his rag down as though he had been interrupted in something very important. He pulled his wand out. A stream of very dusty, very dirty bottles floated up onto the bar.

Percy spoke up using what he thought of as his ‘official’ voice — and what the twins called his prissy voice — “I believe you’ve heard that all the lunches ordered by the students are to be billed to Hogwarts?” He raised an eyebrow trying to project the image of an adult.

Harry thought he looked right ridiculous.

The barman looked into a corner behind the bar.

Harry looked that way, stood on his tiptoes, and saw a house-elf bound tightly in ropes.

“Yeah,” said the barman, “I know.”

Seeing where Harry was staring, he said, somewhat defensively, “He were trying to clean me floors.”

Harry blinked, then started grabbing the bottles on the bar and handing them back to the others. He saw Hermione scourgifying them as she passed them on. The others took the bottles gingerly, as if afraid they might contain something unpleasant.

The barkeep looked at Harry, barely stopping on his scar, and turned away. Harry blinked, startled at the wizard’s lack of reaction. It was, he thought, a pleasant change. He and the others retreated and started to select tables to sit at. Hermione pointed her wand at their table and started to scourgify it and their chairs.

“Hey, you!” called the barman, pointing at her, “None that, now! You’ll ruin me inns’ reputation.”

Hermione gave him an incredulous look.

One of the twins gave the barman a genial smile, “Not to worry, my good man, we’ll put things to right when we leave. You’ll never know we were here!”

The barman gave him a dark, narrow-eyed look, then growled, “You’d better! Or you’ll bloody-well join the house-elf!”

The man in the dirty grey bandages didn’t move other than to rap the counter with his knuckles to get another smoking drink. He gulped the smoking, fiery substance through a slit over his mouth.

“You know what?” Ron murmured, glancing over at the bar enthusiastically. “We gotta remember this place! I think we could order anything we liked in here, I bet that bloke wouldn’t care — I’ve always wanted to try firewhisky —”

Percy, seated at the next table cleared his throat.

Ron suddenly broke off what he was saying and devoted his attention to opening his butterbeer, his ears reddening bit.

Harry looked over at the barman, who appeared to be threatening the house-elf. He watched as the house-elf scuttled into the back room. The poor thing was probably traumatized at not being able to clean.

“See,” said ‘George’ as he sat down at the table on the other side from Percy, looking at Harry, the fillies, Ron, Ginny, and Hermione, “I told you we didn’t have to worry about waiting in line for lunch.”

Hermione gave him a look that clearly said she wasn’t sure that waiting in line wouldn’t have been a better choice.

Percy, and many of the other Gryffindors, looked just as unconvinced. As they did in the Everfree, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom were carefully watching the other patrons and the room in general. Scootaloo, Harry was sure, was intently searching the room for any hidden pots or barrels of sap. Seated as they were at a round table, they could easily watch each other’s backs much better than they could in the Everfree.


۸- ̰ -۸


Minerva, Severus, and Flitwick were all staggered to hear what had hidden in Harry Potters famous scar. Dumbledore noted that the others were not surprised in the slightest. He just quietly sighed in resignation.

“His scar?” hazarded Minerva, with a hard glare at the Headmaster. She clearly remembered his dismissal of her concerns about not healing the scar ten years ago. And his making light of it by telling her he wouldn’t, even if he could —  that scars can come in handy.

Professor Snape was frowning heavily. Dumbledore shifted uncomfortably, favouring his left buttock. He didn’t have to be a Professor of Divination to foresee that he was going to be accumulating a few more hex sores from his Deputy in the near future.

The Atlantean nodded.

“How did you get rid of it?”

“We didn’t.”

Minerva gasped, “He still has it?” she asked incredulously, obviously appalled.

The princess shook her head. “No” She had a grim look. “It was the only thing Tirek did that was of benefit when he attacked us. He ate it, we think. Or he ate the magic that let it exist and it died. One of the two.”

The others absorbed that in silence.

“And who was this Tirek? You mentioned him once before,” Dumbledore asked gently. He heard a crunching sound and looked over to see that Miss Pie and the other Atlanteans were sitting on lounge chairs, sharing a big bucket of popcorn.

“Tirek was a centaur who learned magic he shouldn’t have, magic his own people deemed too dangerous to use. It was forbidden knowledge. Once the king found out, the one who taught him lived to a very old age in the dungeons. Tirek was the king’s son and escaped any real punishment.”

Dumbledore dragged his attention back to the princess.

She sighed. “He could steal others’ magic for himself, growing bigger with each. By the time I fought him, he was as big as this castle and had absorbed almost all the magic in the kingdom. After taking my magic, he intended to go back and conquer his own people — to punish his father for forcing him to flee his homeland, and his brother for what he saw as betrayal.”

Professor Snape arched one eyebrow disbelievingly and said, “You hardly look as if you would pose much of a threat to him, if that is true.”

Applejack snorted. “Twilight’s leaving out a lot of details. She was more than enough to buck his sorry rump outa . . . ,”

Rarity spoke over her, “. . . our homeland.”

Dash was once more flying up near the ceiling, staring out the windows at the wisps of ash still rising in spots from the forest. She was making little jabbing motions with her hooves, as if she were fighting.

Twilight ignored the staring contest that ensued between the other two women. She shrugged. “Princesses Celestia, Luna, and Cadence gave me all their magic. We were actually on even terms, even after he stole all of Discord’s magic as well, which was a mistake for him.”

The wizards and witch stared at her.

She sighed. “To make a long story short — there was quite a bit of damage to the country-side, we destroyed a couple of mountain ranges, blasted craters that became lakes — he finally threatened my friends with death. I surrendered my magic to him to save them. When I forgave Discord for his betrayal of us, Tirek discovered that the powerful magic of Friendship and Harmony could not be contained with Chaos. Tirek collapsed, releasing all the magic he had absorbed back to their original owners. He is currently back in Tartarus, not much bigger than Harry.” 

“That’s preposterous!” exclaimed Severus. “Magic doesn’t work that way! That sounds more like a muggle cartoon show!” He glared at her, insulted that she would try to foist such a ridiculous tale on them as if it were true

Twilight looked at him, her head tilted slightly. “It does where we come from.”

She shrugged. “And it doesn’t matter whether you believe me or not. What matters is that when Tirek took Harry Potter’s magic, it destroyed or released the soul-fragment in Harry Potter’s scar. And while his magic came back, the soul-fragment did not.” She turned back to Dumbledore.

“But before that happened, I spent most of a year studying Harry Potter, his scar, and the soul-fragment stuck to it. I discovered almost immediately that I couldn’t remove it without causing him severe pain, or perhaps even killing him. The latter seemed more likely the longer I studied it. It was too firmly entrenched.

“Fortunately, Harry Potter’s magic — well, now, having read the accounts of what you wizards think happened, I know it was his mother’s magic — easily held it at bay, it could make no progress. So I just monitored it carefully every day for any changes.” She looked over at her friends, who were sipping at their cider bottles, courtesy, no doubt, of Pinkie. “I told my friends so they could keep an eye on him when he was with his friends.” She looked back at him. “I never told him, as it would only have frightened and worried him. I intended to tell him when he was older, but Tirek took care of the problem for me. When he is mature enough, I will tell him the whole story.

“But I have always wondered how that came about. Did someone do it deliberately? Or was it a spell gone wrong?”

She was silent, toying with her lower lip in her teeth for a moment.

“After reading the stories of what happened the night Harry Potter became an orphan, my conclusion is that when this  . . . Voldemort . . . attacked Harry Potter’s family and was destroyed, somehow a fragment of his soul became attached to Harry. It is the only reasonable explanation, given the facts as we know them. And it is the simplest.”

Minerva and Filius were listening with mounting horror as they realized where she was going. Severus just had a blank expression, giving nothing away of what he was thinking.

“This,” she glanced at the restored tiara, “underneath all the protective and offensive spells, felt exactly like that fragment. Without anything to fight against, it could store magic as it waited for its victim. Which is why it was so much more powerful than the one in Harry. And why we had so much trouble dealing with it — it has had ten long years to accumulate a store of magic.” She took a deep breath.

“Harry is fortunate that his fragment lacked those additional spells, or he would no longer have been Harry Potter when he found his way to us.” She looked back at Dumbledore and shuddered.

“Why this Voldemort would have fragmented his soul already, I cannot fathom. But it seems he did. I can’t help but wonder why.”

Dumbledore sank back into his chair and thought, stroking his beard. Did he dare to share his suspicions? Or his conclusions? Harry being rid of what he now knew had been a horcrux was certainly something that significantly altered all his plans, nebulous as they were. And the existence of this second horcrux, if it truly did come from the same wizard, was damning in its implications. So much had changed since the Atlanteans had come into England. And they were powerful, extremely powerful.

Did he dare to take the chance that the two were not the same wizard? Based on his own observations of the scar and tiara, he had begun to suspect that they were both created by Voldemort. Princess Sparkle's conclusions merely confirmed his suspicions.

“Albus?” Minerva said accusingly, “Is she correct?”


۸- ̰ -۸