A Phoenix Beyond the Veil - The Philospher's Stone

by gerandakis


38 - Unpleasant Conversations

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Unpleasant Conversations


It took a few minutes before Madam Pomfrey was functional again. In the meantime Dumbledore and Sunset each enjoyed a cup of tea the headmaster had gotten from ... somewhere. When the nurse was once more aware of her surroundings, she looked at the illusions Sunset had been keeping up in closer detail. "How did you get those readings? We never found thaumic pathways in muggles."

"I can demonstrate," Dumbledore pointed out as he got up, "Miss Shimmer, could you tell me if I'm doing this correctly?"

When Sunset nodded, he drew his wand and cast the spell nearly perfectly. While Madam Pomfrey was busy considering the implications of this spell and the things that had been discovered with it, Sunset pointed out a few flaws in his casting and he recast the spell several times, correcting them one by one. Not long after, all three were seated around the desk again.

"Alright," Pomfrey began, "I think it's clear that we can't keep this a secret forever." When she received nods from around the table, she continued. "The question is then, how do we make this news public." After all three considered that question for a moment, she spoke up yet again. "Think the purebloods might take it better if it happens to a squib first?"

"Possible," Dumbledore conceded, "likely really."

"Think Argus might be up for it?"

After a few seconds' consideration, he nodded. "He's been jealous of wizards for as long as I can recall, giving him the option of becoming a wizard shouldn't be an offer that he would have any trouble accepting. It might actually improve his mood for once."

Sunset did her best to hide her shudders. While she hadn't had a run-in with him thus far, she had already heard the tales of Argus Filch, the caretaker of Hogwarts. An immensely strict man, it seemed to be Filch's hobby to make students' lives miserable. He and his cat, Mrs. Norris, were more or less law enforcement in the school's corridors unless a professor happened to be nearby and pulled rank.

The two shared some kind of uncanny bond and if Mrs. Norris spotted a breach of the rules, Filch would only be seconds behind, using his immense knowledge of the school and all the secret passages through it.

She hadn't been aware that he was a squib though. Suddenly his constantly miserable mood made a lot more sense. Being the caretaker of a school of wizards while being himself unable to use magic had to be psychological torture for the man. If he was up for it, Sunset would do what she could to correct that state of affairs.

"Miss Shimmer, do you think you could teach me how to use those spells?"

Startled from her thoughts, Sunset turned to Madam Pomfrey. "Of course. But it's easiest with someone to demonstrate them on. I could show you how to do it at the first session."

Pomfrey nodded. "If there is nothing else, Headmaster?"

Dumbledore shook his head. "Nothing for the moment, Poppy. Do you want to floo back?"

"Oh no, I think I'll walk."

"In that case, would you mind reminding Filius to come see me here once he finishes his afternoon classes?"

"Of course, Headmaster. Have a nice afternoon."

When she closed the door behind her, Sunset turned to face Dumbledore once again. "You wanting Professor Flitwick to come see you wouldn't have anything to do with me as well, would it?"

Dumbledore nodded. "It does indeed. Though, it will likely be a while longer before he can come join us. I hope you don't mind."

Sunset shook her head. "Not at all actually, I have something I wanted to ask you myself."


Albus looked at the girl before him with curiosity. What could she want to ask? A matter of the magic of this world perhaps? Filius or Minerva could probably give her better answers than him. Still, she had asked him, and he saw no reason not to humor her. "By all means, go ahead."

Miss Shimmer sighed. "Very well. Why was Harry with the Dursley Family?"

While remaining outwardly calm, Albus was shocked. This was not at all what he had been expecting. While he was still reeling, the girl continued.

"From what I managed to get from his aunt, it was because of something his mother did before she died. And to keep the spell going, he needed to live there, but that seems a bit vague."

He sighed as he considered how much to tell her. Usually the answer would have been simple. Nothing. But in this case things weren't so straight forward. Ms. Shimmer was playing the role of a simple student, yet they both knew she was so much more. Perhaps she even understood something about Lily's spell that he didn't. The extent of her magical knowledge was still a mystery to him.

"I suppose it isn't much of a surprise that Petunia would forget important details over the years. What Harry's mother did was an act of love. She stepped in the way of the one who had come to kill him and died in his stead. That was how he could resist a killing curse."

The girl before him nodded. "I suspected as much. There really wasn't any other place the harmonic magic around him could have come from."

Albus tilted his head. Once more, Ms. Shimmer had casually used a term he had never even heard of. It seemed he was right to suspect she knew something more than he did. "Harmonic magic?"

"Ah. Then I take it you don't know much about that either?" He shook his head. "Well, it's relatively simple as far as the basic concepts go. It's another kind of emotionally powered magic. But where dark magic is powered by anger, hate, fear and the like, and, in turn, light magic is powered by happiness and joy, harmonic magic is powered by the feelings that come from interpersonal relationships, namely, friendship and love. A mother's love has been known to carry a special kind of power."

Dumbledore listened closely. "Then Equestria knows more of this magic?"

"Well, to a degree. From your reactions I can tell that we certainly know more about it than you do, but our own understanding of it is still relatively rudimentary. Add to that the fact that this magic is among the most temperamental, something that most casters don't enjoy at all, and the fact that the only artifacts that allow wielding that power reliably have been dormant and practically inert for centuries, and it's hardly ever used intentionally."

"What exactly do you mean by 'temperamental'?"

"Mostly that it's next to impossible to tell harmonic magic what to do. You can suggest a course of action, you can show it a way to solve a given problem, but in the end it will always be the magic that decides what happens, not the caster."

"I see. Yes, most wizards wouldn't enjoy that at all. I notice that you said 'intentionally'. Are you suggesting it is used unintentionally?"

"It is. Most commonly in a phenomenon known as Heart Songs. Basically impromptu musical numbers caused by particularly strong emotions. It's not entirely uncommon to be swept up in someone else's Heart Song as a background singer. If there are ponies with instruments on the scene, they are almost certain to be swept up in the song, a bit of an occupational hazard, if you will, but if there are none, the magic usually supplies background instrumentals anyway."

"Fascinating. I can only guess at what could have caused such a form of magic to develop."

Ms. Shimmer nodded. "We have more or less the same issue. The phenomenon has puzzled our scholars for generations. But I believe we've gone off topic."

Albus nodded. "So we have. I believe you were asking why Harry was with his aunt and uncle all these years?" The girl before him nodded. "Very well, how much do you know about the wizarding war?"

"I've read The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century."

"Good. Then I'll skip the essentials. Harry's parents were part of the resistance movement and had even encountered and fought Voldemort himself on more than one occasion. He came after many families that did that in those days and Harry's was no exception. I suppose he wanted to also kill Harry, so he wouldn't become a threat later.

"Underestimating the power of love was always one of his greatest weaknesses. He didn't understand what he allowed Harry's mother to do until it was too late. Assuming, of course, he ever understood at all. But, while he was alone that night, he did not fight the war alone. He had many followers who I feared might come after Harry. As such, I came up with the idea of using the protection Lily had given him to keep him safe. But for that to work, he had to live with a direct blood relative of his mother.

"I was well aware that Petunia was never too fond of magic or of her sister. I have reason to suspect she was jealous of Lily. And I understood the risk that could transfer over to Harry. I knew that leaving him with them was not a good option by any means. However, to keep him safe, it was the only one."

Ms. Shimmer leaned back in the chair for a moment, absently scratching her chin. "I see. But I must ask, were you aware of what happened at the house of the Dursleys?"

"Unfortunately no. I only learned of how they treated Harry when Hagrid reported to me about it. I would have hoped that they would treat him better, but I have been known to be a bit naive in that regard."

Looking carefully at the girl before him, he saw a deep frown. He couldn't tell exactly why, but a sense of unease crept up his spine. That sense was vindicated when she spoke. "I'm afraid Hagrid likely didn't quite understand the gravity of the situation."

"What exactly do you mean?"

"I mean that Harry was subjected to both physical and emotional abuse for nearly a decade."

Albus was shocked. Could it be? Could Petunia really have fallen that far? He needed to know. He couldn't afford not to. "How can you tell?"

He saw a sad smile on the girl's face. "He tried to hide it, Harry I mean, but I've seen the signs before. Foal abuse, you'd call it child abuse, isn't common in Equestria, crime in general isn't. But when something so severe does happen, it goes straight to the princess. She sees all the evidence. And, as her personal student, so did I. One of the downsides of the position. Regardless, I had seen the signs before, and when we went through Diagon Alley together, I saw them again.

"Harry is unusually thin for his height, not to mention unusually small for his age. Did you know that that is one of the effects of malnourishment?" Albus did not, but he didn't say anything, letting her continue. "In the Alley, he was subtly nervous the entire time. Obviously he was in awe at seeing so much magic in one spot, but if you knew the signs, it was enough to notice. Not to mention his clothes were in a terrible state and far too large for him.

"After seeing all that, I got suspicious and quietly performed a medical scan. He has scar tissue all throughout his body, many of his bones show signs of having been cracked or, in some places, broken, some of them several times. He was terribly undernourished at the time. Many of his organs showed signs of being damaged in the past. The list goes on."

Albus was shocked to hear all this. Still, he could not see what he could have done differently. Giving the Dursleys a stipend to help take care of Harry might have helped alleviate some of the problems, but they were not a poor family. The main issue, their dislike for anything magical would have remained. Still, he had not failed to notice that Ms. Shimmer had persistently been speaking in past tense. "What did you do?"

"Hagrid and Professor McGonagall probably told you that I accompanied Harry on his way home that day, correct?" Albus nodded. "I did that for three reasons. Firstly, I wanted a way for him to keep in touch, just in case. I had some empty journals I got in Diagon Alley. I could enchant those so that anything written in one would also appear in the other, but that would take time."

"You can manage a Proteus Charm?"

"Oh is that what you call that? Huh, I'll have to look that up. Well, anyway, it's a tricky bit of magic and time-consuming to cast, but I did have the entire train ride. Still, that was only the first reason. The second was that I wanted to be able to get to where he lived and come get him if necessary. I could always ask Philomena for help, but Fire Travel isn't exactly subtle and I like to keep a more covert option available.

"The third reason was that I wanted to ask Harry why he was in the state that he was. He didn't want to tell me at first, but I managed to get through to him, mainly by implying that I knew more than I did. I could only really guess, but my guesses weren't too far from the truth. The Dursleys blamed him for everything that went wrong around the house, magical or not, they punished him for the smallest things and, not too rarely, for things he had nothing at all to do with. And that was all before I saw his living conditions."

She sighed deeply again. "He lived in a cupboard under the stairs for almost a decade. He had next to no room for belongings of his own, not that there were many of those. Not to mention the house had not one but two spare bedrooms. When I learned all of that, I made sure to set up a backup plan, just in case. I put a subtle, single use rune charm in place. A magical alarm linked to a locator beacon. That way he could call me and I could find him if necessary.

"Every time I saw him over the summer, I fed the charm a bit of magic to maintain it. I stopped doing that after I got Harry out, so it'll have faded by now. If Harry has to return there over the summer, I'll restore it, but I hope it doesn't come to that."

Albus leaned back in his chair, considering what he had just heard. After a moment he spoke up. "I'm afraid I can't see how that would be possible. Harry is a powerful symbol for the light, which makes him a target for what remains of the dark forces. I fear he needs the protection his mother's spell gives him and if it is to remain active until he is of age, him living with the Dursleys is the only option."

He was surprised to see the girl before him smirk. "That would be a problem, certainly, but I believe that that issue has sorted itself out. You see, I've taken Harry, Hermione and her parents, Luna and her Father as well as the Weasleys, including those that aren't at Hogwarts anymore on a round trip of Equestria.

"Well anyway, the ambient magic in Equestria is different, aside from being stronger, it's made up differently. Ambient magic here is about ninety-nine percent neutral and about half a percent each light and dark. In Equestria it's also about half a percent each light and dark, but only about ninety-two percent neutral, then about six percent harmonic and circa one percent other types, mostly remnant chaotic magic from the Chaos Years.

"Before we went to Equestria I could distinctly tell the spell on Harry was drawing on Mrs. Dursley to maintain itself. After we went to Equestria, it linked with the ambient harmonic field there. Even now that we've returned it's still connected to it. The connection seems to have fully supplanted the one to Mrs. Dursley and the spell is stronger and more stable than ever."

Dumbledore looked at her in complete surprise. All those years, he had been displeased with the status quo, had found the way he had to do things completely dissatisfying, but suddenly, he had options. "Where do you suggest Harry should go for the holidays?"

"Well, if it is your goal to keep him safe from the dark magicians of this world, Equestria seems like the obvious option. Until the portal opens back up in two years, phoenix travel is the only way to get there and back. And only you and I have a phoenix at hand."

Considering the idea, Albus could not deny the logic. It really was the obvious solution, and where better to hide Harry than a place the world didn't know existed? "I think that should work."

A knock on the door interrupted them. Checking the wards, Albus recognized the small figure beyond it. "Ah, I believe it is time for another change in topic." He raised his voice, "Come in, Filius."