The next day, it was a group of twelve that set out to visit Zecora. Apple Bloom wanted to share what she had learned, and see what the Zebrican had created since their last visit. Harry, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo went to keep her company. The rest and the Grangers went along, because, why not?
And Sirius went with them because that was where Harry was going. Besides, he wanted to see the Everfree for himself. It couldn’t really be all that dangerous, right?
This time, their escort was six Guards. They all wore the rifle saddles, Harry was curious to see. The saddle-systems worn by the two earth ponies, however, seemed more like pipes with hoses that led to two big, sealed, tanks of some kind mounted above their backs, instead of the rods with the quarter-circle clips he had seen them with the last time. Plus, those two wore goggles. Hermione gave them a wide-eyed look and stayed as far from them as she could manage — and behind them.
Sirius tried to chat them up and learn what the saddles were all about. The Guards spent their time watching the forest and ignoring him, so he gave up. Which didn’t take long. Harry had long since concluded that Sirius had a real problem with keeping his focus — anything that could distract him, did. He hoped that that was something from Azkaban and would fix itself with time.
The fillies were a bit upset at the enlarged escort. The Guards kept them on the trail. They couldn’t drift away to explore the things they noticed to one side or the other as they walked through the forest. They found the constraints rather annoying. How could they get their Cutie Marks if they weren’t allowed to do things?
Harry was relieved to see that the trail to Zecora’s tree had been widened. There was now a nice clearing where they had fought off the timber-wolves. And it conspicuously curved away from the patches of poison joke flowers — with warning signs, no less!
Sirius, however, was more than willing to examine the flowers closer. Especially after reading the warning signs. Fortunately, the others were able to dissuade him before he bounded into the field of still melting snow — Winter Wrap-up did not include the Everfree Forest! — looking for blue flowers.
Except for keeping Sirius on track — which, honestly, was harder to do than the fillies had ever been, Harry decided — they had an uneventful trip to the odd tree that was the Zebrican’s home. Which still had bottles, masks, and other things dangling from its branches.
Zecora was pleased to see them. “Oh, what a pleasure! To see my friends is such a treasure. What new things do you bring? I’m sure they will make me want to sing.” She swung open her door in invitation.
Sirius stared at the Zebrican in shock. He kept looking at her Mohawk-style mane and gold bangles, and shaking his head.
Four Guards took watchful positions around the tree while everypony else crowded inside. It was a tight fit with so many, even if the pegasi were overhead.
“Sorry we didn’t bring any more ingredients,” Apple Bloom said. “But we do have some of the ingredient lists for potions Sweetie Belle has accidentally made.” She took some papers out of her saddlebags and hoofed them to Zecora.
“That is nothing to apologize for, it is always a delight when you come to my door,” she said, accepting that papers and giving them a quick read. After a moment, she said, “Oh my, what a selection! How did you get such a collection?” She looked curiously at Sweetie Belle.
“Heh, I’m not sure,” she said hesitantly, shifting on her hooves nervously.
“If’n you want to see her in action,” said Scootaloo mirthfully, “we’ve got a pensieve at the castle so you can actually watch her.”
At the Zebrican’s puzzled expression, Harry explained. “A pensieve lets you view someone’s memory of an event. It’s really neat, you can look around and wander all around them, but you can’t change anything.”
She stepped back in surprize, “In somepony else’s head? Isn’t that something a pony should dread?”
Sirius and the others smirked.
“Oh, no,” Percy said. “You select the memory you want people to view, and place it in the pensieve. Then others can go into it to see and hear what you saw,” he continued officiously. “They can’t do anything more. What you think or felt, they can’t determine, unless you say something.”
“Yeah,” said Apple Bloom, “Imagine teaching with one of those, you could show a pony what a potion was all about without wasting any ingredients.”
Zecora looked impressed, “That sounds quite dandy. Is it your school’s modus-operandi?”
The younger ones looked puzzled, but Percy knew what she meant. “No, unfortunately.” He shook his head. “They are exceedingly rare. Only the Ministry, Hogwarts, and a few very rich families own one. Far too few to use in teaching.”
“I have one,” Sirius said proudly. “Twilight’s trying to figure out how it works.”
“But mum expects to make one, soon,” Harry said excitedly. “If you ask her, she could make one for you, too.”
“In the meantime,” Sirius said, “You can use mine, if you want, while we’re here.”
Zecora nodded. “Perhaps that is what I shall do. I’ll go back with you before there’s a queue.”
“Yeah,” said Scootaloo, nodding, “We’ll put a few other memories in the pensieve so you can see the castle and Diagon Alley. They’re really neat.”
The shaman nodded, too, “A magical village in a world without, I think it is something to learn about.”
She told them she had quite enjoyed the potion books and experimenting with the supplies they had dropped off last time. She had managed to find what she thought would be good substitutes for some of the ingredients not found in Equestria — such as flobberworms.
She also told them that she had managed to duplicate the effects of the Ginger Gender Gels. They didn’t taste like ginger, unfortunately. It was more like slightly-burnt honey with liquorice. But it also meant the candies could be locally made, if the twins were interested. She gave them the recipe to give to the twins.
The conversations went on for the rest of the morning. Hermione was especially interested in the Zebrican’s homeland, no surprise. Zecora was more than willing to tell them a bit about growing up on the savannah.
They returned to the castle in time for lunch. The trip out of the forest was just as boring as the one into it, the fillies decided. Maybe the Everfree wasn’t that awful, anymore. Harry tried to convince them that it was that the path was well-travelled, now. As a result, the smaller forest creatures didn’t like that activity. And when the small creatures left, the bigger ones followed them. Apple Bloom allowed that that might be so.
They spent the rest of the afternoon with Sirius’ pensieve. They shared memories of Hogwarts, Diagon Alley, Hogsmeade, and the Weasley home. Zecora, after a bit of coaxing by Harry’s mum, shared some memories of her homeland. And secured a promise that she would get the third pensieve mum made — his mum would keep the first and the second was going to Princess Celestia.
Zecora seemed especially interested in the Forbidden forest, and the unicorns they had seen.
۸-_-۸
As Harry had suspected, the Gala started out just as boring as he and Ron had thought it would be. The fillies thought this was a wonderful event and had been looking forward to it. They seemed enamoured of the glitz and glamour that it embodied. Even Ginny, Hermione, and Myrtle had been seduced into their enthusiasm. And all were awed at what they saw. His mum had done an outstanding job of planning, he was proud to see.
They were all attending, because it just wouldn’t be polite to leave mum’s guests alone back in Ponyville, and out of the event.
Percy had been interested in attending because, he said, “It is an excellent opportunity to see how their High Society functions. The other Ball we attended was an official Ambassadorial and Knighthood function. It was limited to government officials and nobles of note, only. This one will be much more widespread in its attendees.” He had smiled thinly. “More representative.”
The only saving grace, Harry thought, was that this time there would not be a receiving line, just a Major Domo to announce the guests as they arrived. He shuddered, remembering. This time there would be no standing still for an hour or more as inferiors with fake smiles walked by offering insincere “Hellos” while judging him to be less important, or powerful, than themselves.
At least they were not quite as much a bunch of suck-ups as the wizards and witches at the Ministry Charity Balls. Some of the attendees at those he had barely restrained himself from hexing. And the Private Balls there had been only a bit better.
He almost checked for his wand when he remembered he didn’t need one, and so had not brought it.
Harry shook his head, confused. He let the five fillies drag him onto the dance floor. There was something wrong, there, with that thought. He had never been to a ministry ball. So why would he feel that way?
And he had friends who wanted to be with him because they liked him, not because of what he could, had, or would do. He had friends, not acquaintances he treated as servants or slaves. The very idea to do that was outrageous!
Sirius was gobsmacked at the size of Canterlot and the castle. “The only thing that the wizards have that even comes close to being the size of this castle is the Ministry,” he said. “And that’s underground!”
Still, it took only a few minutes before word spread that he was unattached. A steady stream of mares began to approach him, and Percy, for dances. At first, they were pairs, as-in, a mother and daughter. Percy danced with the daughter while Sirius got the mother. That soon broke down and the two stallions found themselves in great demand and dancing with multiple partners.
Ron became the centre of a smaller group of ponies, more his age, that wanted to know where he came from. When they discovered he was new to Equestria and had not seen much in the way of appetizers, they were more than happy to escort him to the table for samples. They were surprised at how much the colt could pack away, and a competition developed among the fillies as to who could find the oddest appetizer.
At first, the servers were a bit nonplussed at the speed with which their offerings were disappearing. When one of them heard that the colt had never eaten Equestrian foods and wanted to sample some, they told the cooks. A challenge! The cooks then entered into the spirit of the affair. New dishes appeared from the kitchens as fast as the group of fillies and colt could sample them.
Myrtle wandered off into the ballroom scrum, looking for a suitable dance partner.
Harry missed when Discord first appeared, but seeing the strange green blob-like creature with the God of Chaos had him eyeing the balcony-level tables above. And looking for the nearest staircase to them.
Unfortunately, not much later, the Smooze, as they had heard it called, suddenly appeared in front of them, trapping them with a wall at their backs. Harry jumped back a bit, startled. Then he moved between the Smooze and his fillies.
“Hi!” he said brightly. The Smooze couldn’t be that awful or Discord wouldn’t have brought him. Right? “I’m Harry Sparkle!” He paused and nothing happened for a moment except the line that he thought was a mouth curved up at the edges.
After a few moments of nothing happening, he said, “Um, are you Mr. Smooze, The Smooze, or just Smooze?”
The smile grew a tiny bit, but that was the only response.
Hermione, beside him now, staring at the creature, said, “If you understand me, could you make a hoof and hold it up like this.” She raised her hoof up over her head.
Slowly, a small column of green grew out below the “mouth” and then swung up.
Hermione wriggled happily. “Do you have a preference for being called any of Mr. Smooze, The Smooze, or just Smooze? Point your hoof up for ‘yes’ and down for ‘no’.” A quill, ink pot, and paper floated out of her dress saddlebags.
The extended pod stayed up.
“Mr. Smooze? Again, point your hoof up for ‘yes’ and down for ‘no’.” The writing implements moved in front of her and she stared at the paper, the quill making notes.
The extended pod swung down.
“The Smooze?” she canted her head to side, slightly, keeping one eye on the Smooze and the other on her quill and paper, the quill moving quickly.
The pod stayed down.
“Smooze?” she said, her tone rising at the end
The pod moved up.
“Wonderful,” she cried out happily. She frowned, thinking. “Do you know Morse Code? No! Can you read?”
The pod stayed up.
“Can you write?” she said eagerly.
The column of green ooze swung around to point down.
“Do you know what a typewriter is?”
Harry and the others exchanged glances. Smooze and Hermione seemed oblivious to them, caught up in establishing communications.
Sweetie Belle shrugged and looked at the students. “I’m thirsty. How about I get drinks?”
That was an excellent idea, they decided. Scootaloo went with her. Apple Bloom looked around, nodded at Ginny and Harry, and then at a nearby table.
Hermione absentmindedly followed them, walking sideways as Smooze followed her. Soon, the five of them were relaxing and occasionally helping Hermione teach Smooze how to form letters on the table-top with his ooze.
Smooze managed, without trying, to keep the skittish ponies away.
It didn’t take too long, however, for the fillies and Ginny to drag Harry to the dance floor once more. That was why they were here, anyway, and not to teach a strange creature how to write.
Not soon enough for Harry, they were again at the table, later. Then, weirdly, Harry thought, the four fillies decided to head to the bathroom. For some reason he couldn’t fathom, they dragged Hermione with them. He and Smooze remained at the table and watched the five fillies leave.
Harry sighed. “I’m going to get a drink and some snacks,” he said, and headed for the table with several punch bowls on it. When he returned with a small cloud of drinks and plates of snacks, there was no sign of Smooze. Then he heard a shriek from the other side of the ballroom, where Discord appeared to be displeased with a green pony in a light purple dress and with a two-tone orange mane.
“Where’d he go?” asked Hermione when the fillies returned, disappointed to not see him. She looked around for him.
“Uh,” said Harry, “There he is.” He pointed a hoof in the direction of the commotion.
From the sounds of the shrieks, things were a bit more chaotic. And Smooze seemed to have grown a bit larger. A lot larger.
Plus, Discord was definitely displeased with the green pony. He held her in front of a portal that led to a desert. Whether it was on Equus or not was an open question.
Fluttershy flew — flew! — up to him and started reprimanding him.
Meanwhile, Smooze seemed to be running — oozing — everywhere. The animagi quickly relocated themselves to one of the upper level tables. As did every pegasus in the ballroom, many carrying their wives, husbands, boyfriends, girlfriends, or foals who were wingless. Which still left over half the ball’s attendees down at floor-level — Canterlot had far more unicorns who called it home than the other two tribes.
Harry was relieved to see, after some hard searching, that Ron, Percy, Myrtle, and the Grangers were not trapped downstairs. Nor were their respective entourages in evidence down there.
And, in true herd mentality, the ponies simply ran far enough to be out of immediate danger, then turned to watch the green glob and the other ponies running around. A good number had no idea why they were running, they were simply following their neighbours.
The balconies had almost every space at their railings filled with ponies watching the entertainment below. Harry couldn’t help but giggle with the fillies at all the unicorn nobles getting their comeuppance. It would have been delightful to see such chaos at a ministry ball.
The animagi swiftly noticed that while Smooze seemed to be running wild, no ponies were actually hurt. Several of the unicorn guards tried to restrain him, but found themselves covered in green goo and unable to capture or slow the creature. The other guards worked at removing ponies from his vicinity.
There was a lot of shrieking and screaming, and ponies trying to hide in ridiculous places, such as behind drapes — you could easily see their hooves — under tables — again, their hooves were easily visible — and even using other ponies as cover! The loudest shrieks seemed to come from Rarity when she saw how her wonderful creations were being ruined by green goo.
It didn’t take long to see that there was a pattern to Smooze’s movements — he had a thing for shiny objects. The more jewellery a pony wore, the more likely the Smooze was to go after that pony. And since most nobles took events such as this to display their wealth with fancy, shiny, bejewelled necklaces, bracelets, and head-gear, well Harry could see they had brought his attention upon themselves.
The common guests, with no shiny baubles to attract his attention — the nobles’ poorer relations or friends, or the really old families that didn’t feel the need to such ostentatious peacock displays — escaped Smooze’s notice.
Harry couldn’t help but see that several guests seemed to be exchanging bits as particular ponies on the floor escaped or were caught by Smooze. And with every item Smooze acquired, he got a bit bigger.
His mum tried to defeat the Smooze in battle, to no avail, he disappointedly saw. Then Princess Celestia took a horn at it. She pretended to fail.
She couldn’t fool Harry. She could control the sun. If she had wanted, she could have simply vaporized Smooze. There might have been a few singed ponies and melted furnishings, but she could have done it.
She was having too much fun watching the chaos! He could tell that by the faint smirk he saw when his mum was looking away from her.
As long as none of her little ponies were seriously hurt, the Princess didn’t care what happened. And he was confident that either she or Discord had warned Smooze of the consequences if he actually hurt anypony.
And Luna! This was an evening Ball! Where was Luna? There was no way she didn’t know what was going on. And Celestia help you if she thought you were going to hurt one of her ponies on her watch! The only conclusion he could reach was that she was somewhere in the castle watching all this and laughing herself silly.
Discord finally resolved his conflict with the green pony in the light-purple dress. Then he noticed what Smooze had been up to while Discord was ignoring him. He retrieved the items Smooze had appropriated. With a few snaps of his fingers, and ridiculous displays of chaos — such as a vacuum-cleaner with no power-cord — things slowly returned to normal.
Harry and his friends hurried over to the Princesses once it became clear that the situation was resolved. Harry overheard his mum apologize to Princess Celestia. He knew she must feel devastated. She had made at least fifteen different lists and checked them obsessively — as usual. The ball was as perfect at the beginning of the evening as it had been equinely possible for her to make it.
And then Discord had happened.
Harry wasn’t nearly as surprised as his mum, though, when the Princess said, “You have nothing to apologize for. This has been the most fun Gala in centuries!”
“I know, it was a —” his mum had started, then she did a double-take and stared at her mentor, amazed. “What?! But there was ooze all over the place! And one of the guests threatened to send somepony to another dimension!” she said.
Proving that he had been right, Princess Celestia said, “I know! Can you imagine how dull it would have been if I hadn't invited Discord? Come on! Whoo! The night is still young!” And she wriggled slightly and shifted from hoof-to-hoof in delight while grinning widely, like a little filly gazing at a long-sought-after present.
For the rest of the evening Smooze and Discord went around to the various guests and apologized for disrupting the ball. However, Harry got the distinct impression from watching that many of the guests the pair approached could have done without the apology. They would have been quite happy to hear it from a distance — like the other side of the ballroom. Or in another city.
Especially because little bits of chaos drifted around the two. Harry didn’t even have to look for the two miscreants to know where they were. The bubble of distressed noises and sounds around them gave away their location. And Princess Celestia had a permanent grin the entire time.
The animagi and their friends returned to the dance floor. After an hour, it was as if nothing had gone wrong in the first place. This merely confirmed to Harry that ponies had shorter danger memories than even wizards and witches!
Like the last ball, it was a very late night for the students.
And tomorrow they had to prepare to catch the train back to Hogwarts on Sunday.
۸-_-۸
Elly had mixed feelings about staying at the castle over the break. On the one hoo . . . hand, the castle was fairly deserted as most students went home. This made it difficult, if not impossible to collect food. The students who remained simply were not very romantically inclined. Most were fifth and sixth years studying for their exams, and when they weren’t studying, they collapsed into sleep. So, no joy there.
On the other hand, however, she got to explore the castle without anyone being the wiser. So, explore she did. As she knew, there were doors pretending to be walls, walls pretending to be doors, doors that only opened if you asked politely or tickled them in the right place, and doors that opened to one room one day and another the next. And now she could examine each of them as long as she wanted without anyone asking questions. They would be wonderful additions to her hive, if anyone ever discovered it or she allowed visitors inside. And the nymphs would have such fun! She only had to figure out the magic!
Although, how did you know it was a wall pretending to be a door and not simply locked with a powerful spell? She didn’t know any spells to go through walls, so she couldn’t very well check.
She started at the top of the castle, the Astronomy tower, and started working her way down. She discovered a number of secret passages hidden behind tapestries, portraits, and statues or armours. One was a slide that took her straight to the dungeons, beside the Slytherin dormitory. Quite handy for the Slytherins after Astronomy classes late at night. No long walks when you were half-asleep on your feet. From the dust, only recently had anyone discovered it. Oddly, though, it didn’t show regular use. Hadn’t the discoverer shared the secret?
Then, to her delight, she found a short secret corridor and staircase halfway down the tower that led directly to the hall outside the Hufflepuff Common Room! It should have been much longer, considering the distance, but she wasn’t going to object. The dust coating everything had been recently disturbed by someone, but other than that it indicated no one else had used this passage in a very long time.
She would have great fun being the last to leave the observation platform at the top of the Astronomy Tower, and yet be inside her common room to meet her friends as they came in. The feelings she would get when she finally revealed how she had done that would be well worth concealing the secret tunnel at first.
At the base of the tower, in a small niche behind a suit of armour was a small passage barely big enough for her. An adult human would have had to crouch to fit, and an overweight adult simply wouldn’t! And, as she explored it, it got smaller still until she was crawling. The dust levels, again, indicated no one else had used this passage in a very long time.
She finally emerged in large room, behind a short column that at one time might have held a statue. When she stood and looked behind her, she saw a blank wall. Trying to reopen the passage was a waste of her time. For all she could tell, the wall was solid. She huffed. A one-way passage. How inconvenient.
She looked around the non-descript square room with seven stone stands for statues, four in the corners and three in the middle of three walls. The closed door to the room took the middle of the fourth wall. Nothing stood out at first — except the familiar mirror in the centre! Yes, indeed, she saw, hurrying over to it, it was the Mirror of Erised!
The Headmaster wasn’t in the castle today, which meant she didn’t have to worry about him finding her. He had left after breakfast, telling Professor McGonagall that he had Ministry business to take care of, and not to expect him back until late.
With so many students on holiday, it had been easy to listen in to their conversation with a hearing charm.
She parked herself in front of the mirror and spent the rest of the morning taking notes on what she could see and decipher. Even though she knew it was showing her images from her own subconscious, it still felt like the lings in the mirror were real. That, somehow, they could see her and react to her questions as she mumbled during her note-taking. That what she was seeing was something in the future, if she could only find the clues.
She would have to return before school was out to see if anything had changed.
The door to the room was locked, she found, when she tried to leave. It took her another hour of careful searching before she found the hidden exit near the opposite wall to the one she had entered from. Naturally, it was behind one of the stone columns, but this time it wasn’t in the wall. Five hard taps on the back of the column released the trapdoor, and down she went with a loud squeak. A few moments later she slid to a halt in front of a wooden panel. When she carefully opened it, she discovered she was in the Lower Chambers Portrait Corridor in the Dungeons, in a darkened niche squeezed between two portraits. Looking behind her, she saw only a solid wall. Pressing, pulling, tapping, and kicking did nothing to reveal the small room she had been in a moment ago. As far as anyone could tell, the wall was solid rock.
This place was definitely weird. But, oddly, rather fun.
She began carefully examining the corridor to see what other secrets it might have.
She still hadn’t found a safe place to stash some of her food jars. But, she knew, in this castle it was just a matter of searching thoroughly.
۸-_-۸