The fire roars green once again, for yet another immediately apparent reason. This time, though, it’s a red-haired boy. A red haired boy, in fact, that is just in time to spot a whole years’ worth of first years vanish into thin air in a single crack of thunder, then for that one first year with the blue and white hair to walk calmly back to her table and take a drink from her butterbeer.
Attention drawn, he makes his way over, his twin brother joining him as soon as he emerges from the freshly-green flames. “Hello,” he greets.
The blue-and-white-haired girl looks up, and smiles. “Good afternoon, Gred and Forge. How do you do?”
The first blinks, looking at the other. “You know, that’s a good one, Fred.”
“Yeah George, it is,” Fred answers. “Though I’m more worried about how she knows our names.”
“How about,” George begins, turning back to the girl. “All the first years I just saw aparate away?”
Fred blinks. “True,” and turns also to the girl.
“Nice to meet you,” the girl smiles, holding out her hand. “My name’s Lyra, and they didn’t aparate. They teleported.”
The twins grasp her hand together, one with his left hand, the other with his right, and shake it. “Nice to meet you,” they parrot.
“How is a teleport different than apparition?” Fred asks.
“The specific spell,” she answers. “Teleporting is much safer.”
“Echo November to Apothecary.”
The twins both turn to the speaker. “What?” Her hair is pink and dark blue, and she’s lowering something that looks suspiciously like muggle stuff.
This girl smiles at them too. “Hello, my name’s Bonbon. Hogwarts?”
They blink, and nod. “Ron’s starting this year,” they state in tandem.
“And you might not want to let our dad see that,” Fred adds, pointing at the large, glowing, muggle-stuff-looking thing on the table.
“Let me see what?”
“Oh, hi Dad. Uh, nothing.”
Lyra waves. “Good afternoon, Mr. Weasley! Pretty sure they were talking about our gear. I wonder why?”
Both twins facepalm.
Another red-headed boy steps out of the flames after his father; this one is taller than the one that had gone between the twins and their father. “What is going on over here?” he asks, marching after them.
“Wait a second,” Mr. Weasley mutters, looking at the girl’s table. “Is that a phone? Does it run on ekel-tricity? How does it-?”
“No,” Lyra interrupts. Then looks at Bonbon. “Called it.”
Bonbon nods. “Just like Twilight.”
“Did I just hear Arthur talking about muggle stuff again?” a redheaded woman demands, the mother of the set, having come through behind her daughter.
Lyra leans out from her seat to look the woman in the eye. “No, but Ginny did,” she answers. Then she looks up at Mr. Weasley. “And it’s electricity. You know, like-!” She holds out her hand, and doesn’t quite touch Mr Weasley’s outstretched arm. A white line of plasma momentarily crosses the gap- and he jumps backwards with a very high-pitched yelp that drives all of the Weasley children, save the oldest, to laughter.
Lyra chuckles. “Like that. Butterbeer?” She promptly finishes off the last of her own tankard, and lifts one of the muggle stuff things like the one Bonbon had spoken into earlier.
And before anyone could stop them, the twins chorus “Yes Please.”
Then, before Mrs. Weasley and Percy finish filling their lungs to tell the twins off, both Ron and Ginny act.
“Sure,” Ron shrugs.
Ginny looks up at her mother. “Pleeease?”
Mr. Weasley stops in the middle of a similar lung-filling as his wife and eldest son, and seems to change his mind. “Why not?” he mutters.
At which point Percy groans, while Mrs. Weasley redirects her retort. “Arthur!”
“Sure,” Percy mutters.
Mrs. Weasley holds out for about three seconds before the peer pressure overwhelms her. “Alright, fine,” she huffs. Then she glances at Lyra. “Yes, thank you, dear,” she states.
Lyra’s grin widens even further as she raises the object to her mouth. “Hey Tom? Seven virgin Butterbeers and two regulars this time at table three, please.”
Bonbon raises an eyebrow, then drains the last of her tankard before it answers, with the barkeeper’s voice.
“Comin’ right up.”
Lyra puts it down. “Lemme guess, a wizarding family with another Hogwarts student?”
“Not that hard of a guess,” Fred mutters.
“Quiet,” George shushes him.
“Ah, yes,” Mr. Weasley states. “What about you?” His eyes stray back to the gizmos they’re using. “And what are those?”
“We’re, ah, a little different,” Lyra answers him. “I’d say unique, but there’s a few thousand of us.”
“A few thousand?” Mr. Weasley asks, blinking.
“Yeah. That happens when you connect a whole new world of magic to one with a magic school with an inadvisable structure.”
“A whole new world?” he asks.
She nods, and accepts a fresh butterbeer from Tom. “Yeah, gotta love it when stuff breaks. Butterbeer?”
Tom smiles, handing off the butterbeers from his platter with greater speed, now that he has their attention.
“Ahh, thank you,” Mr. Weasley states. “So you’re starting at Hogwarts or something? And are you sure it’s such a good idea to be having so much butterbeer?”
Lyra grins. “Yep, all Hogwarts here. We already got our stuff, though, so we’re helping coordinate everyone else to minimize problems out in the Alley. You wanna join our next party, or go independent? I know Rarity would love to meet you.”
“Um- sure. And- the butterbeer-?”
The twins cut him off, sliding in front of him and leaning over the table, blocking much of its contents from view. “What’s all this stuff doing?”
“All this stuff is doing the Ravenclaw-ing for us,” Lyra answers quickly.
“Huh?”
She chuckles. “The thinking? Though even a team of Ravenclaws would be hard-pressed to match this.” She gestures at the big, flat gizmo on the table in front of her.
They blink. “What is ‘this’?” Fred asks.
She grins. “‘This’ is a map displaying the positions of all our groups, allies, and identified threats, updated sixty times every second from a high-speed information network with almost two hundred and fifty addresses. At the moment.”
“Uhh…”
“Think of it like people,” Bonbon states. “Almost two hundred and fifty ‘people’ are out in Diagon Alley or other places, watching our people or any threats we’ve tagged. Each one of those ‘people’ are constantly shouting their location back to this one, anywhere from thirty to a hundred and fifty times a second.” she taps the big one on the table. “This one interprets that information and, sixty times a second, marks the latest location of each of those other ‘people’ on a fresh map of Diagon Alley, before putting that up for us to see.”
“Sixty times-?!”
She grins. “Yeah. The kind of thing that is flat-out impossible for humans to do, Ravenclaws included.”
Mr. Weasley clears his throat. “The butterbeers?” he asks sternly.
Lyra leans out from behind the twins. “Oh, don’t worry- we’re only ordering the virgin ones, with no alcohol. No intoxicants to cloud our judgement, so there’s no problem with downing really as much of it as we like.” Then she glances at Bonbon. “Add how cheap it is, and we’d be almost terminally stupid not to take advantage of it. I mean,” she looks up at Mr. Weasley. “It tastes really good. And I had some of the normal stuff last night, there’s no real difference between it and the virgin stuff, save the side effects.”
“Cheap?” the twins, Percy, and both parents parrot simultaneously.
“Yep!” she states cheerfully, before taking a swig of her butterbeer. “‘Nother world, remember? We got our own currency over there. And when we got here, we managed to negotiate an exchange rate so favorable this butterbeer is practically dirt cheap.”
“Oh?” Mr. Weasley asks.
She nods. “Yep. Back home, two bits- that’s our currency- will get you a single mug of apple cider. But take those same two bits here, and exchange them for wizard currency, and you’ve got forty-nine servings of this Butterbeer.” She grins up at him. “Like I said, a very favorable exchange rate.”
He blinks. “What about when people go to your world?”
“They can’t,” she states. “The gate is keyed to a kind of magic unique to the other side. And it’s only keyed to it because it’s that stabilizing facet of our magic that lets us stay us when we pass through.” She sighs. “We’ll probably renegotiate the exchange rate to something more reasonable if ever it becomes easy to send people native to this world across, but until then, it’s downright deadly for you to try crossing the gate.” She shrugs. “I have an idea that might help with that, but it’ll take a while to refine before I can feel comfortable even experimenting with it.” Sigh. “And that’s completely aside from the side effects of that facet.”
“Side effects?” he asks.
“Yeah. We’re used to it, so it’s part of life for us, and easily handled- but the people of this world might be blindsided by it. And it’s… Well, a little hard to explain.”
He tilts his head. “Oh?”
She chuckles. “You see our hair colors, right?” She starts touching numbers on a smaller gizmo.
“Yeah?” he asks.
She puts the gizmo to the side of her head. “That’s one of ‘em,” she states. “Appearance varies… a lot, over there.” She turns away. “Gamma. You’re up.” A pause, and she removes it, touching something red. “You’ll see what I mean in a second.”
“What’s this?” a voice asks, walking up behind the Weasleys.
The whole family turns to face. “Malfoy,” Mr. Weasley states.
“Are the Weasleys so poor they have to leech off a couple-!”
“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave them alone.” It’s a golden-armored boy, holding a spear respectfully at his side as he steps in front of the man, a sword sheathed on the other side.
Mr. Malfoy blinks at the sudden interruption, looking down at the boy. “Oh?” he demands. “Why is that?”
“They are our friends. If you cannot show them the respect due a fellow human being, you had best stay clear.”
“What-! The blood traitors deserve no respect!”
The boy’s eyes harden, and another- a girl this time, but wearing similar armor and otherwise exactly identical- steps up next to him, abandoning a butterbeer on her table. “Their blood is irrelevant,” she states firmly. “They are human beings, and they deserve at minimum the respect due to any human being.”
He hisses furiously. “You’re standing up for the blood traitors?” he demands. “You must be blood traitors yourselves!”
The two children don’t move, nor respond in any way. Instead, a third approaches from the side. She’s not wearing any armor, her hair billowing behind her like midnight. “Hast thou heard the saying,” she begins. “Thou must respect thy neighbor, but thou must respect thy enemy more- for the moment thou failest, thou wilt be destroyed.”
“They are blood traitors!” he almost roars. “They deserve no respect!”
The two armor-wearing children start to move, but the last girl stops them with a simple gesture. “And thou wouldst be wrong.”
He snarls, one hand drawing back in a fist.
“Thou wishest to fight?” she asks, amused. “Doest thou hast any clue what thou provokest?”
He throws his punch.
She catches it, in one hand, trapping his fist almost casually in her tiny hand, and sighs. “Thou hast just directed an attack against myself,” she states. “An attack that amounts to the mere squabbling of foals.” She grins evilly- and his expression goes from angry and surprised to pained while his fist crackles in her hand. “You would best remember my name, fool man. I am Princess Luna, the Princess of the Night. Now, Begone from my sight!” She thrust his hand back at him, toppling him on top of his son like a domino. His son wisely dodges out of the way, leaving his wife to catch him.
He rubs his freed hand with the other one as his wife helps him back to his feet, and glares at the Princess. “This is not over,” he declares.
The Princess’ eye glints dangerously. “I look forward to a more appropriate battle,” she states dangerously, her ancient accent disappearing completely.
Right on time, and with a crack like a thunderbolt, about thirty first years appear out of thin air right behind Luna, eliciting frightened yelps from the Malfoys.
A purple haired girl steps forward from the group almost instantly, to the Weasleys. “Good afternoon, my name is Rarity. What might your names be?”
“It has been a long time since I’ve faced a worthy opponent,” Luna finishes.
“Very well,” Malfoy declares, turning back to the fireplace with his family. “I will be ready next time!”
“Fred,” George mutters to his twin. “I think Rarity’s still waiting for our answer.”
Fred blinks, looking away from the Malfoys. “Yeah, and she looks a little irritated, too.”
“Alright then,” George states, turning to speak to Rarity.
“I’m Fred,” Fred begins, and points at his twin. “This is George.”
George continues. “The littlest two are Ron and Ginny, and that is Percy.” He points at Percy.
“The oldest two are our parents,” Fred finishes.
Rarity blinks. “Uh, alright,”
“The Weasley family,” Lyra smiles.
“Oh, okay,” Rarity smiles at the twins. “I imagine you’ve got much shopping to do, yes?”
“Uh, yeah,” Fred mutters. “We’ve yet to get our school stuff this year.”
“Excellent! That’s what we’re doing as well. I don’t suppose you two will be first years, though.”
“Ah, no,” George answers. “That’d be Ron this year.”
“Nice! You do have your shopping lists, right? Or do they not send upper years shopping lists?”
“Ah, they do, alright,” Fred states.
“And we got our lists,” George finishes.
“I just hope we can afford it all,” Fred mutters.
“We might be able to save enough by having Ron use Charlie’s old wand,” George muses.
Rarity gasps dramatically. “Oh, no, that just won’t do! That’d never work! And don’t worry about the money, either. I mean, they keep telling me thirty bits is all I’ll need for all of my supplies.” Then she glances at Lyra. “And a wand is, what, five?”
“Fourteen, actually,” Lyra answers, “once you account for the exchange rate.”
Rarity snorts. “Yet I brought a hundred and fifty just to be safe. So really, let’s just get all your stuff and have a good year at Hogwarts, alright?”
“Ahh,” the twins mutter in tandem. “Sure.”
“Alright everyone, this way,” one of the other first-years of the group calls.
“Oh!” Rarity positively chirps. “That’s our cue!” She then grabs Ron by the hand and pulls the surprised Weasley after her, following the group.
George glances back at the rest of his family long enough to see Lyra catch their attention to say, “You wanted to go with X-ray, right?” and gesture back towards them. Then, he quickly looks back forwards, trotting after Fred and Ron.