//------------------------------//
// 79 — Dog Days 
// Story: If Wishes were Ponies . . . . 
// by tkepner 
//------------------------------//

Finally, Ginny shrugged. “Then tell the Headmaster the truth! We were here, all of us, and we saw that the corridor was blocked. Then we left. You don’t have to tell him that we came into the paintings.”

He stared back at her mutinously.

“If you must, tell him students were in your painting. Just don’t tell him they were the Gryffindors. I know there are paintings with students in them.” She paused, then grinned. “It would be a great prank wouldn’t it?”

“Filch is coming! Everyone hide!” came a distant cry.

She petrified the wizard again, and then hid behind the couch, as did Harry and Hermione.

They watched the empty corridor for several minutes before the man appeared following his cat.

“Are you sure they were here, my love?” he asked as he suspiciously looked around.

“Merow!” came the instant response, and the cat darted back and forth, clearly sniffing out where the Firsties had been standing. Then she stopped and just stared at the lone painting on the wall — right at where Ginny and Harry were hiding and peering under the couch.

Then Filch sneered and said, “Well, clearly, they’ve moved on. We’ll catch them next time.” He turned and walked off. The cat continued to stare at the painting until the old squib walked back and picked her up. He held her as he scrutinized the painting for a moment. The wizard inside said nothing, being petrified. Argus eyed the silent wizard, and sneered, “I don’t suppose you’d tell me if anyone’s been here, would you.” The wizard, naturally, remained silent and did not even acknowledge the man. “It would disappoint the Headmaster if you did, I bet. Telling a mere squib anything about his precious students,” the man sneered. “He lets them get away with everything!” he said bitterly, shaking his head. He turned and walked away, muttering to his faithful cat.

Hermione left the painting, darting to the next and following in his wake.

Not long after he left, Hermione came back and said, “He used a secret passage to head to another floor.” She stared at the two still hiding, and the painted wizard still frozen, sitting. She frowned a moment, then sat beside him and smiled. She cast a finite, and then asked, before the wizard could move, “What’s it like being a painting?”

Taken aback at her simple question, the wizard stared at her, nonplussed.

“I mean,” she said officiously, like she had back at the Weasleys when they first met. “What is it like? What happens when you go to sleep? Do you dream? You aren’t stuck here, are you? You can leave, just like we did, right? What was Hogwarts like when you went here? Are any of your friends here? What were you doing when you were first painted?”

Harry sighed and looked at Ginny. She shrugged and the two of them began to explore. The meadow that Apple Bloom had found was a simple landscape, but it was looked more like a stage that had an almost infinite backdrop. The grass and trees were like painted cut-outs at various depths from the ‘stage’ front. As they went deeper, they became smaller, to match the size of their surroundings — the painting’s front was only a few paces wide, but in the back it must have been miles.

It was really weird, Harry thought, to have a giant window as one wall, looking out into the castle.

They quickly caught up with the Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, and Apple Bloom, who had waited for Harry after their first excited scramble through the nearby paintings. The other students slowly re-grouped around them.

“We should tell everyone about this,” Faye said enthusiastically, “It’s a great way to get to classes — without having to wait for the stairs!”

“No!” declared Dean, “We should keep it a secret. We can spy on the other dorms! I’ve already peeked into Slytherin and Hufflepuff — their Common rooms are very different from ours!”

“Really?”

“I wanna see”

“Let’s go look!” came the rapid-fire replies, with several students already heading for the next portrait over.

“Wait,” called Harry, “Won’t everyone rushing into the Slytherin Common Room painting to see give us away? I mean, the other people in the paintings will tell on us, even if the students in the Common rooms don’t notice.”

That stopped the rush.

“The ones who saw me all assumed I was another painting gone wandering. There are a few children and students in some of the paintings, after all. There’s even a crowd watching a Quidditch match on the ground floor,” Seamus said. “There are several hundred paintings, you know.”

“Watch for me, I want to try something,” Harry said as he looked around the meadow. He then released the spell. He was back in the hall. He stared at the picture. He had walked less than a dozen steps to get to the meadow, but he was in another corridor in the castle entirely. He shook his head in wonder at seeing all the Firsties in the meadow painting looking at him. They all looked like they had been painted into the painting.

He stepped to the side against the wall where he couldn’t be seen from the painting, and recast the spell.

“What painting did you go to?” asked Scootaloo, “We saw you step to the side, and then you came through the opening there.” She pointed at the edge where the canvas was behind the frame. He looked and it did look like an opening hovering in the meadow, like an invisible door only someone in a painting could see.

He smiled, happy. “As long as you stand against the wall beside the painting, you can’t be seen because of the frame. It looks like you came from another painting when you cast Hayscartes.” He looked at others. “Okay, let’s keep this a secret for now.” He glanced at Parvati. “I’m sure you’ll want to tell Padma, and she’ll tell her friends, so it won’t be a secret for long.”

The Indian girl blushed, but nodded.

“Still, it’ll be fun in the meantime,” he finished. “We’ll tell the other paintings that we’re a new one. That should satisfy their curiosity. And, who knows, maybe we will be a painting, someday.”

With that settled, they scattered once more, giggling.

Peering into the Slytherin Common Room was the height of their afternoon. They were all careful, of course, hiding behind the furnishings as they watched the students study and talk. Really, it was quite boring and none of them would have been interested if the Slytherins hadn’t made such a big deal out of keeping others from their dorm. Fortunately, the painting they used was a landscape of the grounds by the lake.

Exploring the castle via paintings was different, and took the Gryffindors most of the afternoon, to the perplexity of their Prefects. Having the entire First Year group missing for hours made the Prefects, and the professors, extremely nervous.

Their relief when the Gryffindor Firsties finally appeared, unharmed, was almost tangible. That the First Years were giggling and claimed to never have left the castle restored that worry in full. What had the Gryffindors been up to, they wondered? How many rules had they broken? And how many new rules would be required to fix things?


۸- ̫ -۸


The First Years spent the afternoon Thursday brewing last week’s potion as a make-up assignment from Professor Snape. Fortunately, neither Sweetie Belle nor Neville had exploded their cauldrons.

Afterwards, they had relaxed with a birthday party for Hermione, which the twins had turned into a full party for the entire dorm after the presents were opened. Naturally, with homework settled, or postponed to Friday afternoon — otherwise called Sunday evening — the animagi spent their time being fussed over until curfew.

Except Hermione, She wanted to book-walk her new books. There was a bit of a tussle about that. They ended up compromising.

Harry had to wonder about the Common Room. It seemed bigger than it had been before the new witches began to show up. Did it make itself bigger based on the number of people in it? It made sense to do that. And there were now comfortable pillows for the ponies scattered about, too. Although Harry had seen more than one older witch creating a pillow to lounge on.


۸-_-۸



7) Students are not allowed to spend more than 5 minutes hugging/petting/grooming an animagus student in their animagus form if other students are waiting.
a)  Students are not allowed to force, or guilt, an animagus student to remain in their form if they do not wish to do so.
b) All animagi students must complete their homework for the day before they can partake in any ‘petting’ or ‘grooming’ session.



For once, the new rule on the board by the Common Room entrance Friday morning had nothing to do with the previous days’ activities by the Cutie Mark Crusaders or their friends! Or rather, at least, it wasn’t exactly their doing. Which, frankly, hadn’t been anything out of the ordinary. The professors had finally started to figure out how much book-walking had helped their students, and increased the workload as a result! Their assignments were twice as long, and expected to be twice as thorough.

The new rule was actually a bit of a relief. The Gryffindor Common Room had become the Gryffindor/Hufflepuff Common Room, lately. Well, at least for the witches. And the Ravenclaws were certainly starting to show up in large numbers, too. All of them insisting on petting and grooming the “cute and adorable” ponies.

The younger wizards had begun sighing at the large number of “icky” and “bossy” witches in the room, but the older wizards were intrigued by the new witches’ presence. That hadn’t stopped the Monopoly tournament, which now included some witches waiting their turn with a pony. Nor the hexing tournament. Nor the other tournament that had been started — something to do with conjuring and lifting heavy weights, Harry thought.

Unfortunately, it was Friday. That meant the Gryffindor First Years had Double Potions after breakfast, with Sweetie Belle. 

Today, though, the Potions class was different, Harry saw. The Slytherins had arrived first, rushing a bit through breakfast, and had taken all the tables closest to the door. The Gryffindors quickly followed their example, leaving almost the entire side of the room farthest from the door completely empty except for Sweetie Belle and Neville’s table at the edge of the group, right beside Harry’s and the other fillies’ tables.

To everyone’s relief, Professor Snape actually seemed to approve of the new arrangement. Well, at least he hadn’t reordered the seating arrangements, except to put a row of empty tables between the two factions.

“Because of the accidental potions we’ve experienced in the last two classes,” he had swept his glance across them all, but lingered on Sweetie Belle. “I shall teach you a rather simple charm. One that will prevent any unanticipated side-effects from inhaling an incorrectly and suspiciously brewed potion.” He stared at the blushing Sweetie Belle.

“It is called the bubble-head charm,” he sneered at the class, “for obvious reasons.”

The Slytherins seemed to master it rather quickly, even Crabbe and Goyle, to Harry’s surprise. They were always the last ones to succeed at any spell, whether it be in Charms with Professor Flitwick or Transfigurations with Professor McGonagall. For those two Slytherins to get it so soon was suspicious.

Which gave Harry the feeling that the Slytherins had been told about the charm previously. And in plenty of time to practice it. Probably days ago.

Which meant Harry and the other Gryffindors had to endure the continuous complaints and derisive remarks coming from the potions’ master. Snape felt, as he said, “deeply offended that I must waste my valuable time teaching you dunderheaded Gryffindors such a simple spell.” And he let them know this, at length, to the amusement of the Slytherins.

He had used dung-bombs as an incentive for the students to get it right as quickly as possible. And while he cleared the room afterwards of any nasty smells, from the lingering obnoxious scent Harry got the feeling he didn’t clean the Gryffindor side as diligently as the Slytherin side.

Naturally, of course, almost every Gryffindor lost points for not learning it fast enough.

Then he set them to making Essence of Dittany. It was a simple enough potion, except when Neville made it, they discovered.

Harry kept a watchful eye on Sweetie Belle’s cauldron, but this time she wasn’t the one at fault. She managed to grind the leaves and stalk quite easily, she added the water at the right temperature, she was stirring it in the right direction, and at the right speed. It was thickening properly and even appeared close to the correct colour.

Abruptly, Neville squeaked. There was a sudden swoooosh! sound.

Harry looked over at Neville’s cauldron, and caught it in the middle of melting.

Which was all he managed to see, as at the same time Sweetie Belle jumped sideways against him to escape the melting cauldron beside her. She knocked his arm against his cauldron causing it to fall to the floor with a loud clang. Her collision with Harry made her drop her wand in mid-recast of the bubble-head charm. How her wand managed to land in Neville’s semi-melted cauldron would remain a mystery, because she certainly did not mean to throw it there.

By now, half of the Slytherins had managed to make it out the door, with more than a couple of Gryffindors on their heels. The rest of the students were hurriedly, and in some cases, desperately, recasting the bubble-head charm, with mixed success.

Neville’s cauldron had its open side tilted sideways towards the door to the classroom. It suddenly shot out a mist like a cannon shot a ball, and engulfed the fleeing students. Harry could see that some of the students had successfully cast the bubble-head charm, as the mist didn’t touch their heads. Unfortunately, that didn’t save them.

The mist billowed out into the hall. It easily caught the students who had fled the initial outcry. They had slowed down, thinking they were safely out of range. A mistake, as they learned.

Neville retreated to the opposite wall as Professor Snape, watched, stunned at the rapid change in his classroom. “You dunderheaded idiots!” he cried, stalking towards the melted cauldron, already flicking his wand and vanishing all three cauldrons, their contents, and any residue on the floor or tables. 

But the damage had been done. Except for the professor and Neville, they were the only two not in the path of the explosion, everyone was a bright purple. And bald. Even those who had cast the bubble-head charm correctly and had managed to escape to the corridor outside the room.

The witches immediately started crying as they touched their hairless heads and they stared at their friends in horror. And then at their own robes. The wizards were no less surprised, even though they were not crying.

The bubble-head charm had worked like a, well, charm. It had prevented those in range of the mist from breathing it. Regrettably, for the students, it was a contact-mist. It had changed all of whatever it touched to the colour purple. The floor, walls, ceiling, tables, chairs . . . everything was purple. And it started in a v-shaped cone from Neville’s cauldron on his desk. With the exit to the room in the middle of the spread.

Fleeing as the students had, clumped around the door, had merely put them in the path of the mist as it exploded into the room and hall.

The only way you could tell the two Houses apart was that their badges and robes’ trim were two different colours — red and silver. The badges and trim, apparently, had been unaffected by the mist. Probably, Harry thought later, due to their original magical basis.

The new colours made people difficult to tell apart, at first. It was amazing to realize how much you relied on someone’s hair colour and shape to tell you who the person was, Harry discovered.

Madam Pomfrey was no more amused than Professor Snape when the twenty-four students presented themselves to her. Snape was much more vocal about it, however, as the point loses for Gryffindor mounted.

Fortunately, the hair-growing tonic the nurse had was sufficient to restore the witches lost locks — to a degree. The boys had to do without as there wasn’t nearly enough to treat the witches and the wizards. The wizards, naturally, thought it was wickedly funny to be bald.

Harry’s quick change to a pony was changed back even quicker. Suffice to say, as they had discovered previously, a bald pony was not nearly as cute and adorable as a coated pony was, even if he was purple.

Their colour, however, was not so easily remedied.

Again, it was decided to wait for a few days before calling on St. Mungos for assistance.

Friday was the first time since school had started that the weekend began pony-less in the Gryffindor Common Room, to the disappointment of the witches, and a few wizards. The tournaments continued, however, in a less crowded Common Room.

And the twins were disconsolate at, once again, being shown-up.


۸- ̰ -۸


Elly was getting desperate. It had taken her only a night to fly to London. But finding the way to the Leaky Cauldron? Sadly, knowing an address but not having a map was a bit of a problem. She had spent days wandering around trying to find a magical human.

The city dwarfed Canterlot and every other city she had ever heard of.

It was one thing to hear a human or pony say a city had a population of six million — as many as were in all of Equestria — but another to actually see and experience it! Flying at night over the streets that streamed with self-propelled carts of people was simply astounding. And that the traffic continued far into the night, long after most ponies would be in bed, was equally amazing.

Only Manehattan had come close to the density found here, but here it just went on and on for thousands and thousands of celestials. And up. Far higher than the ponies had ever built. Higher than most of the mountains she had seen. Tartarus, there must have been at least several dozen buildings that were taller than the tallest building in all of Equestria!

And the humans were so big, too! Her normal size was similar to a pony, but here a pony’s head barely reached their hips! On the other hoof, that made it easier to hide in plain sight as a dog or a sign post. Something small, and not very noticeable, that normally would have been big and very noticeable. A double-edged advantage, to be sure. She wouldn’t be taking any of them on in a fight!

Dogs were common, which made it easier for her to move through the suburbs during the day. Although the first time she had been seen by a human, he had been surprised at the colours on her coat.

That the humans actually searched for stray dogs had been a surprise. A surprise she had easily escaped. They hadn’t been prepared for a dog that could transform into a garbage can as soon as she was out of their direct sight.

However, after a few hours of observation, she had realized that the coat colours for all the animals was rather simple — primarily dirt tones. She had adapted her colours to match.

But it had curtailed her exploring during the day. Giving her plenty of time to actually observe the humans as they moved about and to listen to their conversations.

Which led to her current predicament. Where was she in London? And where was The Leaky Cauldron?

“Excuse me?” she said politely, stepping in front of the businesswoman hurrying down the street.

The woman stopped and stared at her, surprised at being accosted. She saw a woman as well-dressed as herself.

“Could you tell in which direction I might find Charing Cross Road?”

The woman had frowned. “It’s on the tube,” she said, “just look at the map.” Then she had hurried off.

That didn’t help. At all. She sighed.

The non-magical humans barely provided her with sustenance. Unlike the pony-love on other side, the love here was much more difficult to detect. More difficult than the humans had provided on the other side of the portal. Hiding as a rock in a play park for two days hadn’t been as fruitful as being a rock in Ponyville for only half a day. And that was despite the fact that there were more little ones and their parents running around, here! So, overall, she had garnered a set amount of love in quadruple the time it normally took. A hive would have to work very hard to acquire what it needed to survive.

On the other hoof, the humans were completely unsuspecting.

So there was that in her favour.

Still, she hoped that the magicals were more . . . generous with their love. If not, then she would just make do. At least here she didn’t have ponies looking for her at every turn. Or to worry about that ling-revealing spell.

She waited for sundown, and, again, accosted a human. This time it was a man — and they were by an alley. She came at him from behind, a quick two steps to catch up and grasp his opposite shoulder. She leaned close, smiling as if she knew the man, and hurriedly bit him. While he was still surprised at her actions, she dragged him into the alley for the venom to work.

A few minutes later, he hailed a cab for her and left her the paper contents of his wallet. He strolled away with a vague idea of having helped a woman in distress. And feeling very happy with himself — even if he couldn’t remember exactly why. Or what he had been doing before he had “helped” the woman. It would take a good half-hour before he remembered what he had been doing and hurried off. And she would be long gone by then.

After having paid the cabbie, she headed for the nearest alley. Once hidden from prying eyes, she turned into a yellow signpost — one of many she had seen all over the city. She slowly made her way to the street again. It being night helped considerably. She watched and waited through the night and the next day.

It was odd, but watching the people as they walked by gave the impression that they couldn’t see the dingy little pub just across the street. They would be looking at the bookstore, then they would look to the record store on the other side, not even noticing the pub sitting right in-between. That must be the magicals’ muggle-repelling spell that the instructor had mentioned. It was so odd to see it in action.

There were very few customers for that pub, she noticed. Barely one or two the entire time she watched. She knew there were more people in it than that, she could see them moving inside the pub through the windows. Late the next night, she edged back to the alley and transformed again. She crossed the street to stand outside the door for several minutes. Eventually, she steeled herself, figuratively speaking, and walked inside.

The inside was no more attractive than the outside, and she immediately felt out of place in her appearance as a “normal” human. She resisted the instinctive urge to modify herself to fit in with the small crowd.

It was very dark and fittings and furniture were very scruffy. The man behind the bar, and handing a drink to a woman, had brown hair and a rather pasty complexion, like he rarely was out in the sun. The bartender looked up and frowned at her. The clothes she wore, a business suit, were way out of place considering the clientele she could see around her.

She smiled uncertainly at the man, and barely avoided bolting back out the door. She made her way to the bar.

“Wat’ll it be, lady,” he said, leering at her, one arm on the bar.

His emotions were stronger than the others outside. She could easily pick up his irritation and desire to see her out the door. It was quite different from what she would expect a servant to project at seeing a customer.

For a moment she was perplexed, then she realized he must think she was a muggle — a squib? — and wanted her to leave as fast as possible. She smiled at him in what she hoped was a charming manner. “Hello, I’m visiting here. Could you show me the way to Diagon Alley?”

He leaned back, surprised and startled. Most magical travellers came from the ministry through the floo.

The woman just down the bar gave her a long evaluating look. Elly could easily pick up her interest. It was a simple interest. No one was suspicious that she did not have a wand.

The barman frowned, then sighed and gruffly said, “This way.”

He walked to one side and then through a door at the back of the bar. It opened onto a shabby walled courtyard. For a brief moment she prepared herself for battle. He didn’t notice her change of expression or stance, fortunately.

He took a stick, his wand, and tapped a brick three times. “It’s three up and two across,” he said. She felt the small flare of magic at each touch as he did so.

“That’s the sequence, really simple,” he said. He smiled toothlessly at her, “I’m Tom, by the way. If you need a room, we rent by the hour, day, week, and month.”

She smiled and murmured a quick “Thank you.”

He nodded and turned without another word to go back to his bar.


۸- ̬ -۸