//------------------------------//
// Chapter 16 
// Story: The Gate 
// by computerneek 
//------------------------------//

“Come in.”  Professor Dumbledore lowers his hands to his desk.  Professor Snape looks up; she’d specifically requested his presence as well.

Professor McGonagall opens the door and steps in, speaking without preamble.  “She has a helicopter.”
Dumbledore puts is head in his hands.  “Is she going to have everything we hope she doesn’t have?” he asks.
“I hope not,” she answers him, drawing a snort of laughter.  “In any case, I’m here to discuss another matter.  Are you aware that Mr. Potter is an excellent flier?”
Dumbledore glances down at his desk; thanks to the most recent piece of paperwork he’d filled out, one ‘Clay Potter’ is a legal student at Hogwarts.  The pages before it were for ‘Red Potter’, though, and the next set ‘Sky Potter’.  However, all three of the above are girls.  “I am,”
Snape raises his eyebrow.  “I hardly believe James’ son is a matter requiring my attention,” Snape declares.  “I do believe he landed in your house, Minerva.”
McGonagall takes her seat.  “Yes.  As I’m sure you know, Madam Hooch’s first Gryffindor-Slytherin class was scheduled for today.”
Both men nod slowly.
“What happened this time?” Dumbledore asks.
“Longbottom- Gryffindor- took off early, fell off his broom, and crashed.  Madam Hooch took him to the infirmary.”
Snape leans back, crossing his legs.  Dumbledore nods, raising an eyebrow at Snape.
The corner of McGonagall’s mouth twitches in a smile.  “Malfoy- Slytherin- seized Longbottom’s remembrall and took to the air while she was gone.”  She looks up at Dumbledore.  “That’s when Lyra decided to show him what a helicopter looks like.  She had a model do some aerobatics with him, before Cherry Berry showed up with a big one.  Right over his head.  Then Bonbon opened the door and greeted him from inside it.”
“I daresay he knows what a helicopter looks like now,” Snape comments.
McGonagall nods once.  “He fell off his broom, dropping the Remembrall.  Potter launched and raced to catch him- but he didn’t seem to fall properly, so Potter got the Remembrall on the first pass, before turning back to catch Malfoy and making a soft landing.”
At this, Snape raises his eyebrow.  “Potter caught Malfoy?  On a school broom?”
She nods.  “Malfoy was…  transformed.  It wasn’t transfiguration magic, and it wasn’t animagus transformation- but how else he became a small talking silver unicorn while he fell, I would like to know as well.”
“Interesting,” Snape mutters.  “No injuries?”
She sighs.  “Lyra said he teleported to his dormitory and will be alright.  She also informed me Moondancer teleported Bonbon down after him.”  She closes her eyes.  “And as soon as I took Potter away, the Weasley twins stepped in to ‘make things exciting’.”  She opens her eyes, looking directly at Dumbledore.  “They had between them a broomstick, a bottle of butterbeer, a spoon, and a tea cozy.”
“Now this I have to see,” Dumbledore states, rising from his desk.
Snape rises as well.  “I suppose I must see to Malfoy.  What of Potter?”
“I wish to put him on the team,” McGonagall answers calmly.  “Seeker.”
“Sure,” Dumbledore answers distractedly.  “We can get him a broom.  Now, I’ve had precious little entertainment these last two weeks.”  He disappears out the door.
McGonagall and Snape look at each other.
“Uh-oh.”
An echoing boom resounds from outside somewhere, shaking the castle.
McGonagall sighs.  “That was probably the twins, I got it.  You make sure Malfoy is okay- last I saw, he was panicked and dodging girls.”


Less than a minute has passed and the two professors’ paths haven’t diverged yet when Snape suddenly stops.  “Wait,” he states.  “How’d they get the helicopter to work on Hogwarts grounds?”





“Can…  Will I be able to do that?” Malfoy asks, sitting on his bed and leaning forwards on his forelegs because it feels right.  He’d elected to trust the girl, and come out from under the bed; then, while he’d jumped onto the bed, she’d flung herself onto her feet in one, fluid motion.
Bonbon glances at the floor, where she’d been lying.  “Eh,” she mumbles.  “If you train for it, really hard, I suppose.  But that won’t be any different from before.”  She looks back up at him.  “Thing is, I’m an earth pony.  We can’t do magic, in the normal sense, over in Equestria- instead, our magic manifests as massive physical strength and endurance.  That does extend to here…  and most the other earth ponies can’t do that, either, even if earth pony magic does make it easier.  I’ve trained, a lot.  Um…  Would you like a mirror?”
“Um.  Like, the bathroom mirror?”
“I was thinking a bit closer than that one, but yes,” she nods.
He shrugs.  “Might as well,” he mutters.
“Alright then,” she states, pulling something small out of her pocket.  She then unfolds it lengthwise a couple of times, stretching it to about a foot long- then she holds it in one hand and shakes it out, causing it to unfold in a cascade for the other direction, rapidly becoming an oval of some kind of shiny paper.  A rectangle attached to the bottom swings down from the side- then, with a faint pop, it becomes a handheld mirror- which she hands to him.
He reaches out to accept it- then stops, drawing back and looking at his hoof.  “Um…”
“Just think of it like it’s still a hand,” Bonbon encourages him.  “Tactile Telekinesis, the unicorns call it.  Everypony else just calls it the hoofgrip.”
He blinks for a second, then reaches out to accept the mirror.  And successfully lifts it with one hoof touching the side of the handle, absolutely nothing keeping it from falling away.  “What…  What keeps it from falling?”
“Magic,” Bonbon states.  “Every pony has a hoofgrip.  As a matter of fact, we can still use it in human form- makes fingers redundant, if we really don’t want to use them.”  She smiles at him.  “Though of course, the hoofgrip is far more flexible than fingers; I actually used it to shake the mirror out.  I’d never have grabbed just the top layer that easily with fingers.”
He turns the mirror sideways; it’s a good half inch thick.  “How…  how did you unfold…?”
“Magic,” she states.  “Folding mirrors are moderately expensive, but not that hard to find, over in Equestria.”
“...  Oh.”  He turns it face-on, and looks at his reflection.
He stares.  His eyes are way too big, even though a small part of his mind observes they’re a little bigger than they normally would be; he’s staring wide-eyed at his reflection.  His mouth, nose, irises… even ears.  He turns his head slightly.
“I…  I guess I am a little cute.”
Bonbon lets out a snort of laughter.  “ ‘A little cute’, he says,” she states.  “Nah.  You’re positively adorable.  Especially with that reaction.”
He looks away from her, feeling the heat rushing to his cheeks- then looks straight back at the mirror, staring as the redness shows straight through his silver fur.  It’s even more visible than it was when he was human!  His very visibly feminine features don’t really help with that.
Bonbon chuckles lightly.  “You know, if I could, I’d ‘pony up’ too right now.  Speaking of which, I have to ask- the, ah, transformation.  Did it…  hurt, at all?”
He shudders, placing the mirror face-down between him and Bonbon.  “It was…  terrible,” he mutters.  “I thought I’d already hit the ground.”
Bonbon winces.  “Yeah…  That fall would’ve killed you, had you not transformed.  With the transform, a pony can survive that kind of a fall without issue.  A filly, specifically, could fall from twice that height and not get hurt.  Don’t ask me how that doesn’t extend to colts, or mares.”  She glances towards the door.  “Lyra might have a clue, but I doubt she knows much either.”  She looks back down at him.  “So…  it hurt that bad, huh?”
He shudders, and nods.  “Felt like…”  He closes his eyes, thinking back to it.  “Like…”  He can’t seem to think of an appropriate analogy.
“Like you’d been hit by the Night Bus then run over by the Hogwarts Express a few times?”
He blinks.  “Uh…  Yeah, something like that.”
“Then how did you run away like that as soon as you hit the ground?”
He tilts his head, confused.  “I just…  ran?”
Bonbon blinks, then chuckles.  “Well, it was a pretty good gallop, yes.  But what I meant, I suppose, is how did you run through that pain?”
“I didn’t,” he states.  “It was all gone by the time Potter…  caught me.”
“Really?” Bonbon raises her eyebrows.  “I know ponies recover from pains faster than humans, both physically and mentally, but that’s some pretty impressive mental fortitude- of the kind even earth ponies often don’t have.”  Snort.  “Yes, that’s a compliment.”  She looks up towards the ceiling.  “To effectively forget about that level of pain within a couple seconds of them going away…  Oh, I doubt even Princess Celestia could do that.”  She chuckles, before turning back to him.  “Well, would you look at that.”
While she’d been looking up at the ceiling, Malfoy had suddenly found himself human again.  It wasn’t quite instant; it seemed more like it took about two seconds.  But it was completely painless.  What’s more, his clothes had reappeared- thus, he doesn’t need to worry about that right now.
He’d dropped down on his back during the transformation.  “Well,” he begins, and stops.  “Oh!”  One hand quickly navigates to his groin, before returning away while he lets out a sigh of relief.
“Male again?” Bonbon asks.
He nods.
“Well, that’s a good thing,” she states.  “Lyra tells me the gender change spell is very taxing- good thing you don’t need it.  Though…”  She hands him the mirror.  “Looks like your mane colors are here to stay, though.”
He takes the mirror, holding it up to look in it, and finally nods.  “Yeah,” he grumbles.  “Everyone’s going to know, I guess.”
The dungeons shake around them, some kind of boom resounding throughout the castle.  There had been a softer boom earlier; he’d only barely heard it, but anyone above the dungeons might have noticed a shake.  This one, no one could have missed.
Bonbon looks up.  “Unless I miss my guess…  Yeah, that was the Weasley twins with stage two, out on the grounds.  Chances are, nobody’s going to remember any of the details about you.”
He snorts, putting a hand on his hair.  “Yeah, but how else do I explain how my hair turned silver?  With blue streaks?”
“And grew down to your waist, all in less than an hour?  I don’t know.”
“What-!?”  He sits up, returning the mirror; she folds and pockets it very quickly.
But before he has a chance to reach back, to see how long his hair has become, a knock sounds from the door.
Bonbon studies the door.  “Yes?” she calls.
Professor Snape answers.  “Is Mr. Malfoy in there?”
“Yes, come in,” Bonbon answers immediately.
Malfoy twitches, sliding just a little bit more behind her, as the door opens.
Snape stops in the doorway, looking at the two students sitting on Malfoy’s bed, and raises his eyebrows.  “Everything going okay in here?” he asks.
“Yep!” Bonbon declares cheerfully.  “The transformation just wore off, so we were just about ready to go find out what’s banging around out there.”
Snape directs his gaze momentarily to the radio attached to Bonbon’s robes.  “And your radio?”
She shakes her head.  “Command’s too busy reaming Lyra out for the helicopter,” she states.  “All that got through before they started is that it’s the Weasley twins on stage two.”
“Stage two?”
She nods.  “That’s what they said.  I don’t know what their plan is; they were as secretive as Lyra on that operation…  which, as I recall, she’s part of.  You know what materials they have?”
“A broomstick, a bottle of butterbeer, a spoon, and a tea cozy?”
She blinks.  “She taught them the Spoonata?  Shoot!  We’d better go stop ‘em before they knock the castle down!”  She jumps off the bed, and takes off running, zipping right past Snape.  “Meet me on the grounds!”
Snape looks back in, towards Malfoy, but the room’s empty.