//------------------------------//
// Recovery 
// Story: Harry Potter and the Crystal Empire 
// by Damaged 
//------------------------------//

I blinked a few more times, looking at Snape. I wasn't just going to be in trouble, I was in mega trouble. "I'm sorry—"

Snape closed his eyes and looked like he was counting to ten. "Mr. Potter, sorry scarcely covers this—"

"You're right, Severus. Can't you feel it?" Dumbledore asked, cutting in on Snape before he could finish. "The darkness you bore is gone, old friend."

Snape's mouth moved a few times, and I could see actual surprise on his face before it returned to the neutral scowl he seemed to reserve for all the time. "Wonderful news. I will continue thanking him the moment he turns me back. Also, that was my best robe."

"Harry Potter! Severus Snape! I will see the both of you in the meeting room immediately!" McGonagall practically jumped to her feet and was already stalking to the side door that led directly to that room. 

I looked at Snape, and he looked at me. I don't think either of us wanted to follow her. We both, however, turned toward the door and started walking.

Neither of us had it particularly easy. Both of us were soaked through, but while Snape was struggling to not look a fool trying to walk on four legs for the first time, I had to jump down from the table.

It was about this time a trembling urge took me, and I couldn't stop myself. I dipped my left shoulder down, flexing my leg instinctively, then I tossed my weight to the right and bent that shoulder down. The rest of me followed suit and I whipped my body back and forth at least a dozen times.

I froze in shock when I realized I'd just shaken myself dry by spraying water onto both Dumbledore and the head of the Slytherin table—where the prefects sat. With no clue which way to look first, I whipped my head between looking at Gemma's surprised (and grinning) face and Dumbledore's wide smile. "I'm sorry!" 

I started to run for the door before I caused any more mess, and heard Dumbledore's laughter behind me mixed with Gemma's. I rushed through just behind Snape and just before McGonagall closed the door behind us.

"I thought it prudent to spend a little of my own humanity and observe what happened closer. Harry saved your life, Severus. Whatever that spell was, it would have tortured you until you did what it wanted or you stopped being able to do anything." McGonagall glared at Snape and slowly rolled up her sleeves to reveal rose gemstone refracting the light of the candles around the room into a kaleidoscope on the wall.

Snape looked away from her first.

"And you, Harry. While I understand your need to protect those around you, and I'm sure Professor Snape is most grateful for saving his life, perhaps a little more forethought would be good next time. It seemed the proximity to Severus' mark was impossible for you to resist. I'd rather not anyone else become—what was it Miss Lovegood called you—a kirin?" She waited until I too looked away (something that didn't take long given I could barely meet her gaze at all) before she turned back for the door. "I don't want to see either of you again until you have talked this out. So help me I'll take all of Gryffindor and Slytherin's points away if you don't."

In the silence that followed McGonagall opened the door, stepped out, and closed it behind her again. 

"That woman really can be odious sometimes." Snape let out a deep sigh. "You've only gone and ruined my—" He sighed again. "I suppose I could say thank you, but don't think this will mean I'll go easy on you in class."

I didn't know what to say. That was probably the closest to an apology I was going to get, and I had to acknowledge it, but how? What would a wizard do? When my mind recovered from the shock of actually thinking that question, I realized the perfect answer. "We're even then."

"What?" Snape's eyes narrowed. "How does this make us even?"

"When you stopped Professor Quirrell from jinxing me off my broom. I mean, he still almost got me, but if you hadn't done those counter-curses, I'd have fallen for sure." I looked up at Snape. His face didn't look as masculine as what Shining Armors' did, but there was something undoubtedly male about his look. Being wet, I guess, didn't help things.

Snape groaned. "Ruining that odious man's schemes was reward in and of itself. Finding out his secret was—" He looked surprised at how much he was saying. "Very well, Mr. Potter, I'll consider our debts to each other even. No more going easy on you." The tiniest corner of Snape's mouth curled upward.

It was a joke. Severus Five Points From Gryffindor Snape had just told a joke! My mind reeled at the revelation and my thoughts became jumbled, but while all that happened I found myself grinning. "At least we can still do stuff in your class. The only other classes we get to do actual class work is Herbology and Arithmancy, and we're not even meant to be doing that until next year. I kinda enjoy potions—when the teacher isn't being mean."

"Mean, Mr. Potter? Whatever do you mean?" This time Snape spoke without revealing in any way if he was joking. I was at a loss as to how to take it until he stood up and started toward the door. "How do you work magic like this?"

I had a recollection—what with my eyesight focusing so well when fired up—of seeing Snape's wand burn away along with his clothes. 

"Your horn. I can use mine like a wand, and I think Hermione could too, but she keeps using her wand since she has hands. Loo-mos!" It didn't take much magic to light the end of my horn.

"Seems simple enough. Loh-koh-mot-tor Yah-nu-a!" Snape's pronunciation of the spell was better than what Addera had used, I could tell, and barely any magic flowed from his horn at all, but nonetheless the door handle turned and the door opened for us. 

"Curious," Snape said as he walked out of the room. "Come along, Mr. Potter."

I followed him—what else was I meant to do? 

As we emerged from the room, Snape cleared his throat and pronounced the spell clearly again and pointed his horn toward the door behind us, which swung shut with a loud thump. 

He was putting on a show, I realized as the red glow of the mirrored chevron on his horn died down. Snape was making a point of showing that he had full command of his magic. Then I wondered if I had that same pattern on my horn, and if it glowed that way.

"You'll have to excuse my actions, headmistress, I wasn't aware I'd be a—" Snape paused and turned to me. He wouldn't ask me, but the most tenuous of connections linked us now.

"I think we're kirin," I said.

"Kirin?" Snape didn't show any appreciation for my answer at all, instead turning back to look at McGonagall. "I can hardly be expected to act rationally when I am immolated and turned into a kirin—on top of having dark magic cast on me. If you'll excuse me further, I would dearly like to find whatever it was foolish enough to cast said dark magic upon my person."

I took my part in the excitement as done, and made my way down from the raised dais toward Gryffindor table. While I walked, however, I had to pass the Slytherin table.

"Harry!" Gemma's voice cut through the crowd, and I heard the entirety of the Slytherin table go quiet at the sound of it. "That was really brave of you. Don't forget what we discussed in student council."

Without my glasses she was still mostly just a blob, but I nodded my head toward the blob that looked like Gemma Farley. "I'll try to get some study classes organized by the next meeting." Why I felt so compelled to make the student council work I don't know—it just felt like a good thing. Good things coming from Slytherin students should be avoided, usually, but Gemma seemed genuine.

"Harry!" It was either Fred or George that called to me, and thanks to whichever's voice I was able to find a spot at table near Addera. "Here he is. The savior of teachers!" It was Fred.

"Oh! Don't sell 'im short! Harry here didn't just save a teacher. You 'eard 'em, dark magic! Harry saved all our lives." George gestured around the table at blurry faces that I felt were as close as brothers.

A loud cheer rose from the table, ending on what sounded like my name. 

"An' he's got a special thing going with a seventh year, ain'tcha Harry?" Fred nudged my ribs. "I saw the way Gemma Farley looked at you. What'd she tell you, 'arry?"

"Oh Harry Potter!" George pantomimed a female voice terribly, though it had everyone laughing. Yay. "Meet me behind the quidditch pitch so we can—"

A swift fist collided with George's shoulder, and on the other end of it was Oliver Wood. "Back off you nutters. Leave the lad be. Didn't you hear the news?"

Fred leaned closer and tilted back in his chair. "Oh captain."

"My captain," George said, in high (if completely silly) spirits. "What's the news?"

Oliver gestured to one of the benches on the far side of the room. "We've got a game tomorrow—against Ravenclaw. You called my out-of-season practice stupid—"

Looking at each other, Fred and George nodded. "We still do."

"Well, we're going to play, but we have to work out how to get Harry ready for it. I'm not playing with anyone but our best seeker."

Addera slithered her way around Fred and coiled around me. "Is Professor Snape alright, Harry Potter?"

Her strong body was like a shield against the world, though I knew I couldn't actually hide behind her. For a moment, however, I could bask in the idea of just asking Addera to get me out of here. "He's alright. Better than alright. He had a dark magic mark on him."

"Curious. Come, Harry Potter, Hermione wants to ask you questions." Addera didn't give me any chance to refuse or try to argue with Fred or George anymore, she just plucked me up and sped down the table to where my other friends were.

Addera coiled herself back up and sat me up so I could see above the tabletop. Ron and Hermione were sitting together on the other side of the table, and beside us was Dean and Neville. "I freed him from your brothers, Ronald Weasley."

"What did you want to know, Hermione?" I asked.

"How exactly do you cast spells through your horn? I've tried, but I can't seem to get the right pattern working." Hermione went cross-eyed for a moment as she tried to look up at her horn. It was hard not to giggle. "Loo-mos!"

Rather than her horn light up, the magic rushed through her horn and lit up her wand where it sat on the table. "See? It's like it just isn't a wand for me."

"Huh. It worked for Snape the first time he tried to cast with his," I said. "Have you tried destroying your wand? That's what happened to both of ours."

"You burned Snape's wand?" Ron's eyes were wide. "That's amazin' Harry. I bet he wasn't happy."

I remembered the odd kind of joke we'd shared, and how he seemed—Okay, I need a wizard check. I almost thought Snape was friendly. Let me see. Snape's still furious at me, but just a little less than usual (what is it with Slytherins these days?).

Okay, back in the normal reality, just with a bunch of crazy Slytherins and ponies. "What else could go wrong?" I asked.

"Huh?" Dean looked at me like I'd gone crazy. "What d' ya mean? Isn't this enough?"

A loud banging noise startled the entire hall into silence. It came again, and I realized it was coming from the front doors of Hogwarts.

Everyone jumped to their feet (and quite a few to hooves, my ears told me), and took off running for the doors. 

"Aren't you going to run and see what's happening, Harry Potter?" Addera asked.

There weren't a lot of people left after most of the students had rushed out. Even McGonagall, Dumbledore, Snape, and Flitwick had rushed toward the front doors. Hooch trotted after them and gave us a wink.

"No. Time for someone else to stand up and take a disaster on the chin. I'm having lunch." With that said, I cast a locomotion charm and started filling my bowl with hot porridge.

Ron, who had made a sandwich of a pork chop and some bread and was busy decorating it with apple sauce, aimed his spoon at the fleeing students and teachers. "What I don't get is how Sombra did dark magic in here, and why he didn't do it before?" 

"Harry, what kind of person do you think he is?" Hermione asked.

I thought about it. Remembering how sure of himself he'd been, and how dismissive of me, I put together what I thought. "Pompous. Pretty full of 'imself," I said around my spoon. "He didn't care about anything much at all except his own winning."

"Right!" Hermione crossed her arms over her chest and had the most self-satisfied smile on her snout I'd ever seen (which was saying something about Hermione Granger at this point in time). "So he must have been using someone else to work magic."

"So he's using it through his knight, but that doesn't explain why he didn't use it earlier. He could have stopped us from freeing those ponies, or even put those helmets on others." Ron, who was already a fairly pale-faced redhead, looked like he'd just stepped into his own grave. "He's inside the barrier."

"What?" I asked. "How do you get that?"

"It's the only thing that's different. Trust me, 'arry, he's inside it now." Ron looked down at his pork chop sandwich and sighed. "That just put me right off lunch." He took a bite out of his food despite his words.

"We should tell McGonagall. She did say you're supposed to tell her if you get any more of these ideas, right?" I spooned up some more porridge into my mouth and remembered how I was going to test out eating meat.

"What class do we have next?" Hermione asked.

"Honestly? We have a dark wizard stalking the school, and all you can think about is classes?" Ron gestured at Hermione with his sandwich. "You're barmy, you are."

"Ronald Weasley! Just because I'm serious about my education doesn't mean you can insult me. Remember who here can do magic!" As she spoke, Hermione's horn started spitting sparks, but when she noticed she quickly quelled her rush of magic.

She was lucky—I wish I could calm down like that.

"I can't help but feel like we missed something. Like there's a fact here that's staring me in the face that we missed." Ron took another bite of his sandwich.

"That reminds me. We were trying to think of things to keep people busy, and what I suggested was that some of us teach lessons. Not like full school lessons or anything, but just—well—teach just one thing that we know. Like Ron could teach chess." I tilted my head aside to look up at Addera. "You could teach basic parseltongue."

Out of my friends, it was Hermione that looked the most excited by the idea. "You mean we could learn things other students know? This would be great for muggleborn students to get up to date on the wizarding world."

What surprised me was how Ron perked up at that. "Ha! And Dad would be so impressed if I learned all about muggle stuff. Okay, what classes have you got so far?"

"Well…" It was time to own up. "If you teach wizarding world stuff, and Hermione teaches muggle stuff, and I teach spellcasting with a horn, and Addera teaches parseltongue… That'll make four classes."

"Just us?" Ron groaned and took another bite of his sandwich.

"But how will we find places to do it? We'll need rooms, equipment, and books!" Hermione seemed on the verge of hyperventilating, though she was grinning from ear to ear (no small feat when she had a pony snout).

"Well, that's actually the easy bit. See, this is part of the student council, and Gemma's going to help us get it started." The disbelieving looks I got made me roll my eyes. "No, really. I couldn't believe it either. She's still—Look, I know she's angling to get something out of it, but that makes it more believable. It boggles the mind, I know, but she's actually helping us do good things." Despite my heartfelt appeal, my friends didn't seem to be buying what I was selling. "She helped me with my fire magic."

Addera let out a surprised hiss. "You went to her for help, Harry Potter?"

"Yeah. Well, it was more we were talking after our meeting. She showed me something I was completely missing—my fire spells were just too efficient. What I had to do was make them less. Leaving out a gesture, that kind of thing." For the briefest moment I thought about demonstrating to my friends, but that was a grade A wizard thought. It was the kind of thought wizards have just before they realize they're burning down something important. "I'd show you, but if I screw it up the place will burn down."

"You haven't used any magic, Ron?" Hermione asked.

I hadn't realized it, but she was right. Of everyone I knew in school, he was probably now the only person without any outward sign of pony parts. "It's not so bad."

"One thing. Just this one thing, even if we look back on it after everything's fixed and laugh, I'll have done better than Percy." Ron straightened in his chair. "Besides, it's exciting learning ways to do things that don't need magic."

"You're learning to be a muggle, I'm learning to be a pony, and Harry's learning to be a wizard." Hermione looked sideways at me and grinned. "I think I got the best of this."

"Yeah," Ron and I said at the same time.

"Besides, you don't even need to work out how to use hooves to hold things. You got all the good parts and none of the problems," Ron said. "I bet if I cast spells, I'll turn into something tiny without a horn."

Hermione stuck her tongue out at Ron before scrunching her snout up.





Rolanda Hooch almost couldn't believe her eyes. Two new pegasi had arrived with the group, and one of them almost literally never stopped flying. Blue wings held her spellbound until another pony came up beside her. 

"Hey, you're another fully changed one, huh?" Flagessio had found herself intrigued by the new creatures, but what surprised her more was the pegasus among them that didn't fly. With the bearers of the Elements of Harmony distracting pretty much everyone, she got a chance to talk with said pegasus.

Turning her attention from the blue pegasus to the one at her side, Rolanda was surprised at the differences she noticed. This pegasus was darker than most of the others, and her wings looked a little larger. "You might say that. We wanted a member of the faculty to have some—err—experience with things. Sorry, I should introduce myself. Rolanda Hooch, but please call me Rolanda."

"Pleased to meet you, Rolanda. My name's Sergeant Flagessio, but please don't use my rank—I get enough of that already." 

"You're in the military?" The only experience Rolanda had had with soldiers was over seventy years previous when someone had been foolhardy enough to shoot at her broom.

Flagessio nodded her head. "Scout division. Best long-distance flier in all Equestria. I couldn't help but notice you don't use your wings."

"Between my duties and briefing the headmistress on what it's like to be a pony, I've not had much chance to try using them. Minerva said she was going to herd the children into afternoon classes, though I don't like her luck now." Rolanda let out a sigh and looked over her shoulder. "The truth is, I don't know where to start."

"Perhaps I could help? I mean, I'm not a flight school trainer, but I am qualified in just about every other aspect of flying." The look that Rolanda gave her confirmed in Flagessio's mind that the other mare was definitely a pegasus—she wanted to fly. 

Rolanda was of two minds about getting a flying lesson from an actual pegasus. Firstly, she really wanted to fly, and learning from someone who could actually fly was probably her best chance. Secondly, she had a responsibility to learn what she could about being a pony. That both sides of her internal argument agreed that learning to fly would be just about the best thing ever meant that the choice was easy for her. "That would be wonderful."

"Well, I'll let my boss know, and you should probably do the same. Why don't we meet at your stadium over there?" Flagessio fluffed out her wings and looked up at the sky.

Frozen—transfixed—Rolanda watched Flagessio stretch out her wings and just jump. The first rush of air made her gasp as the pegasus shot into the sky. Her own wings twitched in excitement. Flagessio was out of sight and the blue pegasus completely forgotten as Rolanda tried to find Minerva McGonagall.

Crowds were easier to negotiate when you had hooves, Rolanda had learned, though a little of her stature was lost, accidentally stepping on a foot here or there was highly effective at making room. Finding McGonagall was easy, she was tall and had a distinctive voice that everyone was straining to hear, getting close enough to get her attention was less simple. "Make way."

Having taken up the job of making himself useful, Lucian Bole was happy to insinuate himself between Headmistress McGonagall and the crowd of students. It also meant he got to be close to the amazing ponies. When Rolanda Hooch's voice came from somewhere in the crowd, Lucian turned his narrowing eyes on the students. "Make room for a teacher! Come on! Out of the way!"

Rolanda rushed through the sudden gap of bodies and up to Lucian. "Thank you, Mr. Bole. Five points to Slytherin." She saw pride on the boy's face, but was surprised he was looking past her face. "You like to fly, don't you Lucian?"

Wings, in Lucian's mind, would be amazing. He nodded quickly, though his attention was more on the teacher's tail than her wings. It took everything in him not to reach out and pet it.

Brushing past Lucian, Rolanda cleared her throat at Minerva's side. It gave the headmistress a moment to finish her conversation and turn to her friend. "Minerva, I've talked one of the ponies into giving me flying lessons—"

"You don't need to ask my permission, Rolanda, especially not something so useful. Though, I appreciate knowing about it. Good luck, dear." It didn't take a lifetime of knowing Rolanda Hooch loved flying for Minerva to sense the excitement in her friend. That it had taken this long for the school's first pegasus on the faculty to fly with her own wings (or break something trying) had been a little surprising. She turned back to Twilight Sparkle.

Rolanda ignored the touches of students as she pushed her way free—though one touch of her tail almost made her bark at whoever had done it. When she was finally free of the crowd, Rolanda went looking for Flagessio. Her only error in searching was that she didn't think to look up.

No sooner had Flagessio seen Rolanda extract herself from the crowd than she swooped down and landed at her side. "So, ready to use those wings?"

Wings. The word seemed amazing to Rolanda in that it applied to her. Her wings. She had wings. Wings that could fly. "I've been ready to hear those words for nearly eighty years." Rolanda had to gather her focus onto the moment. "I noticed that other mare hovered a lot…?"

"Rainbow Dash? She's a totally different kind of flier. Notice her light build, small wings with larger feathers? That's a body built for precision flying. I've heard she can do a sonic rainboom." Flagessio walked beside Rolanda on their way to the quidditch pitch.

"Dare I ask, what's a sonic rainboom?" The word sounded, at least to Rolanda, as something mythical. She knew all about muggle terms for flying, and of sonic booms specifically, but sonic rainboom sounded magical.

"There's a point in flying fast where magic and air meet and stop a pegasus flying any faster. This is the absolute limit to all forms of flight that don't involve teleportation of some kind." Having been through the advanced flight school for pegasi in the E.U.P. Guard, Flagessio knew all this stuff off by heart. "A sonic rainboom is created when a pony surpasses that."

"But wouldn't that make it impossible to do?"

"Exactly why it's so amazing that she can do them. She breaks all the rules for flight, physics, and magic, and it's magical on a level that only gets more amazing when you know what she's doing. I've tried doing it—every pegasus who's serious about flying has—but these wings aren't made for that kind of special." Flagessio flicked out a wing to show Rolanda. "These were made for endurance. If you wanted me to fly clear across Equestria, I could do it faster than anypony alive."

"But Rainbow Dash—?"

"Would tire herself out trying to flap too much. That's her problem. Every single thing she does requires her to flap her wings. She can't just stretch out and catch a tail-wind for an hour. She'd make it from Canterlot to Ponyville in the blink of an eye—faster than I could even start to think about it—but from Baltimare to Las Pegasus? She'd stop in every town on the way to recover." Reaching the stadium, Flagessio stretched out her wings and gave them the lightest flap. She didn't gain any lift from the maneuver, but she felt the air currents. "Okay. Stretch out those flappers and let me see what kind of flier you are."

Flying suddenly seemed more complicated. Rolanda had expected to be able to do any kind of flying, and it would have been amazing, but the way Flagessio spoke seemed to imply different kinds of flight were set in stone the moment you got your wings. She sucked up all that worry and shoved it out of her head—Rolanda Hooch was ready to fly!

Flagessio watched Rolanda stretch her wings out and whistled. "A little bit of everything, I'd say. You don't have the pronounced primaries of a pure acrobat, but your wings aren't thermal-huggers like mine. Generally, you can do a bit of everything if you put your mind to it."

The news heartened Rolanda and gave her confidence. "Okay. So how do I fly?"

"Focus on your wings. There's a lot they'll tell you about the world around you." Flagessio closed her eyes and stretched her wings wide—wider than most pegasi could. "Every feather, no matter if it actually helps you fly or otherwise, tells you a story about the air. Everything exists in the air, but what you need to feel first is the breeze."

Seeing that Flagessio had closed her eyes, Rolanda did the same. Without visual input, her mind stretched out to feel her wings. Six limbs when she'd always had just four was definitely strange and hard to pay attention to, but without sight she could more easily accept what her feathers were telling her. 

Not wanting to intrude on what she expected was a strange moment for someone who'd never had wings before, Flagessio nonetheless spoke, "Explain what you're feeling."

Rolanda tried to work out what words to use, and after a moment more she opened her mouth. "Movement. I feel the breeze in my feathers."

"But there's no breeze."

"I know that, but I still feel it." Musing on that, Rolanda tried to feel out the source of the air movement she felt. "It's you. The breeze is coming from you, but not. I don't know how better to describe it."

"Close enough. You're feeling the disturbance in the air I make by living. Every creature has a heartbeat, every creature makes little movements with their body. You can feel that." Flagessio waited for Rolanda to nod (she felt it in her own wings), then she twitched her feathers just a little.

Gasping at the feeling of movement, Rolanda snapped her eyes open. "How does this help with learning to fly?"

"Do you think a pegasus has some kind of magic that tell us what the air around us is doing?" Flagessio said. "Well, okay, some pegasi do, but most of us know the air around us by feeling it. You'll spend more time feeling for air currents than you will flapping, that's for sure."

"Alright. So what's next?"

"Flap."

"Is that it?" Rolanda raised a highly skeptical eyebrow. 

"Of course not, but it will let you feel what your feathers do when you move your wings. There are several kinds of feathers. Your primaries are what give you lift. They push you around and don't feel the air so much as shove it around. Your secondaries don't move as much as your primaries, and are what give you more lift when moving fast. Your tertials are not needed for flight except in the way they protect your other feathers when you fold your wings. Then you have the tectrices, the feathers on your wing itself. When you feel, you feel with those.

"Your primaries are the most important. On a still day you could fly with those alone, but without them you will never fly. Try moving them."

Rolanda looked at her wing curiously. She'd seen birds before, especially owls, but she'd never paid such close attention to the wings of them—something she now considered a massive oversight on her part. "Can you show me what feathers you're talking about?"

Flagessio used her own wing to gesture to each set of feathers. "Outermost of your wings are the primaries, those attached to the next bone in are the secondaries, then tertials, and finally—covering your wing itself—are the tectrices." Carefully holding out just one primary, she turned it left on its axis for Rolanda. "Try doing this."

"Fingers." Rolanda focused on her feathers, but when she thought about moving just one—of the tendons under them—all the feathers on one wing turned at once. "Blast."

"No. That's good. You think a foal knows how to grab and hold things with their feathers right from the get-go?" Straightening her feathers out, Flagessio beat her wing down. It was pure muscle memory to twist them and stroke back up. "Think you can do that?"

It wasn't hard for Rolanda to put together that winged flight was something very physical and related tightly to intimate biological knowledge of how wings worked, but she also felt intuition sparking. Spreading her wings, Rolanda swept them up with her primaries turned, then beat down with them flattened.

Strain spread through wings, weight landed on muscles and tendons built to take it, and Rolanda Hooch lifted herself nearly two inches off the ground before her wobbly legs caught her. "I flew!" Though excitement bubbled through her body, Rolanda knew she needed to correct that statement. "I mean, I flapped."

"This is the point where I'd normally advocate for getting a unicorn to keep an eye on you while I shove you off a cliff. Flying, actually flying, is personal to everypony. There's no two ponies with the same wings. Come on, Rolanda, flap those wings and actually fly!"

Staring at Flagessio as she leapt into the air, Rolanda focused on what she'd just seen: bunched legs, a kick into the air as if jumping, and beating down hard and fast. Fear of heights had never been a problem for Rolanda Hooch, and doubly so when she learned how to cast a hover spell without words or wand. Laughing for the sheer joy of it, she bunched her muscles, jumped into the air and started beating her wings for all she was worth.

Watching Rolanda's wings cup the air, making note of how her feathers reacted to motion and lift, Flagessio winced the moment Rolanda tipped forward and flapped a second time. The effect was less lift so much as thrust, and it propelled Rolanda into a tumble that had her rolling across the grass instead of soaring above it. "This is why a cliff is advised."

Rolanda was too busy laughing to hear Flagessio's comment. She laughed and laughed, but when it was time to stand up (in her estimation of such things) she was already spreading her wings back out. "Are you going to tell me taking off is the hard part?"

"You're standing on the hard part. Ground. At the end of every flight you hit it." Flagessio landed beside Rolanda. "Ready to try again?"

"Aren't you going to teach me how to land before I can take off?" It seemed somewhat logical to Rolanda. If landing was the hard bit, why learn taking off first? she thought.

"Oh no. Trust me, landing is intuitive. If you stop flapping, you will land."

Rolanda liked the joke, but less so since it might be at her expense (later). "You mean crash, right?" 

"Yup. Without fail, every pegasus crashes into the ground for probably their first dozen flights. Admittedly that's normally when you're a foal, and landing bumps and bruises heal fast, but I don't doubt you're going to have the same problem." Flagessio spread her wings and demonstrated a take-off again.

"Alright. Let's get this right. Crouch, wings out, kick, flap—" Rolanda pumped her wings hard, but this time she felt as the air tipped her forward, and she delivered a flap on an angle to shove her back straight. Then another flap. Then another. Excitement boiled through Rolanda Hooch as, for the first time ever without magic, she flew. 

"Whoa! Okay, you got it. Keep moving forward, you don't want to try hovering yet. Come on, work your wings!" Keeping up a litany of encouragement and goading, Flagessio urged Rolanda higher and higher. "More! Up a bit higher. That's it!"

"Shouldn't I stay near the ground?!" Rolanda did as instructed—for the first time in over seventy years she was learning something new about flying.

"Of course not. The ground is the bit that hurts. Up here you have time to recover and time to make mistakes. Keep up! Come on!"

The faster she moved, the less need Rolanda felt to flap. As Flagessio had said, the feathers further down her wing were now holding a lot of her weight. This gave her more opportunity to look around. They were circling Hogwarts highest towers, though Rolanda had no idea how she was turning, seeing Flagessio doing it seemed to make her do it too. "This is amazing!"

"This is what being a pegasus is, Rolanda. Even if your friends work out a way to turn you back, you'll remember this moment." Tipping forward just a little, Flagessio led Rolanda into gaining speed. "Come on! Give yourself some flaps to catch me. Speed up! Sacrifice height to gain speed!"

Some of the phrases Flagessio used made sense to Rolanda from her broom-riding days (a lot of broom-riding days), but flapping wings was so much more real than riding a broom. She stretched her primaries out and flapped backwards while tipping slightly forward. A boost in speed was sudden, and pulled a shout of excitement from her.

"Oh! I see how it is! Come here…" Flagessio's wings weren't built for short bursts of speed, but against a pure newbie in the air she was more than up to the task of matching Rolanda. The dip to gain speed had brought them down to the upper levels of the towers—towers that sped by as if they were nothing.

Rolanda thought her heart was going to explode out of her chest—she felt like a young woman again. Silver Arrow? Her first broom had nothing on actually flying. All her life she'd cherished memories of flying on that old broom for the first time, but she had something new to remember. For an instant she twitched her primaries wrong—spreading them flat when she beat upward—and suddenly the ground was coming up very fast.

Panic had no place when it came to flight and Rolanda Hooch. She was already mouthing the spell silently, already letting the magic trickle through her. She wouldn't crash, she'd bounce.

"Pull up! Spend your speed to get altitude. Come on!" Flagessio shouted.

With her safety assured, Rolanda ignored the ground completely and angled her wings so that her secondaries caught her momentum and shot her upward again. A flap saved her forward momentum as Rolanda evened out. Opening her mouth, she screamed for joy as her instructor caught up.

"I knew you were a pegasus! Great work! Now it's time to learn how to lose altitude without gaining speed!" Flagessio angled her wing so that her secondaries tilted forward, but at the same time she cupped air with her primaries half turned.

Seeing and feeling how Flagessio moved through the air, Rolanda mimicked the positioning of wings, feathers, and even her body as the ground slowly climbed up toward them. Closer and closer she got until she saw Flagessio pull her head up completely and flap hard forward—stalling—landing safely on her hooves.

When Rolanda tried to mimic the landing, she managed to overbalance again and tip backward too much.

Flagessio watched Rolanda land on her back and was about to rush to cradle the mare and protect her wings, but rather than hit the ground, Rolanda bounced and fell into a tumble. "Magic?"

Rolanda was too busy laughing at her mistake to realize she'd stopped moving and was floating a few inches off the ground still. When Flagessio ran up beside her and stared at her hooves, Rolanda canceled the spell. "You don't need a unicorn to cast magic, you just need a talented witch!"