//------------------------------//
// In The Shadow 
// Story: Harry Potter and the Crystal Empire 
// by Damaged 
//------------------------------//

I stared at Percy—he looked terrible. His eyes were big, like all ponies', but they had a haunted expression in them. "Percy?"

"I have come to help you, master." Percy didn't sound like himself, and given he was just about the only non-crystal pony around, he didn't look himself either. "Harry, you shouldn't fight him. He'll help us—he promised." As Sombra turned to look at me too, I noticed the slightest movement from Percy Weasley—he winked.

Sighing, I let my shoulders hang. "We really can't beat you, can we?" I didn't dare look at Sombra, he was probably better at picking out porky pies than I was at telling them. "You wanted the Crystal Heart?"

"No!" Twilight Sparkle said, and her cry almost broke my ability to carry out the deception.

"Yes! Give it to me!" Sombra sounded so sure of himself that he would believe anything I told him now. "Where was it hidden?"

"It was in the Chamber of Secrets. Now it's in the castle—" so far I'd only told the truth, but now I had to be convincing enough that Sombra would go along with me, "—I hid it in the owlery." Mentally I crossed fingers I no longer had.

"Show me! Take me there!" Sombra strode back toward the stairs leaving me to follow.

He'd seemed to have forgotten about Twilight. The anticipation of victory had made Sombra into prime wizard material, for sure. I trotted after him and left Twilight behind in Dumbledore's office alone.

Alright, Harry, now to do everything you can to buy Twilight the time she needs to find the Heart and do whatever she needs with it. I could stand up against Sombra again, that wasn't the problem, but having Percy with me meant Sombra had someone I wouldn't sacrifice. 

"Have you ever seen an owl, King Sombra?" I asked.

Sombra let me step into the lead. "Once or twice. I've seen several circling around your castle." 

I could have walked slowly, but that was such an obvious stalling trick he would be tipped off right away—this needed to be played smart, which meant no wizard until the right moment. Leading the way to owlery meant taking a long walk at the best of times, which given the abandoned nature of the castle this was. 

"We think I might have made an owl my familiar. She's really clever, is Hedwig, and she knows what I'm thinking and I always know what she's thinking too." I waited until we were well away from the Headmaster's office before asking, "You don't care about Twilight?"

"Once I have the Crystal Heart, she won't matter anymore. None of them will matter. With the power I can generate from the Heart, I won't need to recover my old magic." He sounded so proud and sure of himself I could almost have mistaken him for Voldemort. 

I distracted myself from Sombra's continued ranting by imagining him and Voldemort having a monologue-off. Voldemort would always win, of course, since Sombra would be a little hoarse by the end of it.

A grin creased my snout and I thought back to Dumbledore's first lesson on Defense Against the Dark Arts. Maybe Snape could get involved and start telling them both they're terrible at potion making?

Imagining the growing situation where everyone I disliked was stuck together putting up with each other served to keep me smiling all the way to the bottom of the owlery tower. Looking at the stairs, I tried to match the mood a little better with a softer smile. "I hid it up there. Hardly anyone one goes to the owlery except me."

Sombra advanced on the stairs, walking alongside me for a moment before he turned and looked down at me. "Why did you hide it?"

"Because that's what being a wizard is all about. Secrecy, gaining power, and at the right time shoving the odd enemy off a battlement without a wand." Wizardry was also knowing when it was time to just wing it and hope things would fall together. Wait, I thought I'd decided wizarding this wouldn't help? Too late now, I guess. "Being a wizard means knowing the right time to act."

"You know, I believe I could have done well at this school when I was younger." Sombra walked beside me up the long, spiraling staircase. "Though I was apparently a few thousand years too late, perhaps you and I could start a new school to teach prodigies the ways of true power?"

Good work, Harry Potter! You managed to make best buddies with the bad guy. This was a new low, but while he was talking with me, Sombra wasn't returning to stop Twilight getting the Heart. "Percy could help. He's practically the smartest kid at school already. Ain't ya Percy?"

Percy might be smart, and might be well-behaved normally, but right now he looked about as comfortable with walking on four legs as a chicken would be. That brought up an interesting thought. Do ponies have chickens? Do they eat eggs? For that matter, is there a replacement? What kind of chicken-like monsters are there that a wizard would mention instead?

"Y-Yeah, Harry." Now Percy sounded as confident as he walked. This was not ideal. "I don't know if I'm teacher material, though."

"Sure you are, Percy, you taught me all about Gryffindor, and your brothers taught me just about everything else." We were nearly halfway up the stairs and almost run out of meaningless stuff to talk about. "Speaking of your brothers, you should have seen them playing earlier. We won the quidditch game, you know? They kept the bludgers off me just long enough for me to grab the snitch."

Seeming to perk up at a return of normal conversation, Percy actually smiled. "I wish I could have seen the game, Harry. How many points does that put us at for the tournament?"

"That's the thing, you see, the tournament doesn't carry points over."

"What? But then the snitch would be—"

"The most important move in any game. That's why the others were trying to do more blocking than actually trying to score. It worked." We were almost to the top. I focused all my attention upward and thought, 'Hedwig, I don't know if you can understand this, but get all the owls away before we reach the top.'

Owls, of course, could move silently, so when we got to the top of the owlery tower and found it empty but for Hedwig, it was quite a surprise—to everyone but me. "Hello girl! How are you?" I walked over to Hedwig and nuzzled my snout into her soft feathers. "Good work," I said in a whisper.

Hedwig let out an approving whistle and a curious little bark that made me nod. 

"Yeah, things are a bit messed up. We've got it under control now, though." I turned to look back at Sombra. "You see, Hedwig, we came up here—the furthest part of Hogwarts from the headmaster's office—to distract King Sombra from Twilight finding the Crystal Heart."

I didn't have long to react to Sombra's magic. If I wanted to avoid being mind-controlled by him, I'd need to be angry. It was easy to get angry at him—I'd practically had to work to not be angry at him. It sucked that I'd be destroying the owlery, but defeating Sombra was more important. His attempts at manipulations failed to take any hold on me at all. 

When Sombra turned for the stairs, Percy gestured with one hoof and shouted the incantation for a fire spell. A regular Fire-making charm. With a flick of his hoof, Percy threw the burst of fire at the wooden stairs in front of Sombra.

The retaliation for the fire spell would come fast, so I threw myself at Percy and knocked him to the floor.

Sombra's magic hit me with full force. It burned me with a cold chill that bypassed the protection my scales would have given me to actual fire. Before I could be overwhelmed by it, I opened my mouth and stepped forward to stand over Percy, and swallowed the magic.

"You are becoming quite the annoyance. What's your plan then, Harry? What masterful stroke have you built up to deal with me once and for all that will leave you and your friend beyond my reach?" Sombra sounded both curious and angry.

The crystal clear sight of Sombra looking curious and furious gave me my best idea yet—talking to him would buy even more time. Through clenched teeth, I fought past my anger to get some words out. "Plan?! What plan?!"

Percy began laughing, which threatened to distract me from being the angry little not-pony I was. "You expect Harry Potter to have a plan? This is the boy who stumbled—if what Professor Snape said is right—through the deadliest traps the teachers have ever put together and then defeated He-who-shall-not-be-named by touching him." 

"You expect me to believe you both stumbled up here with no plan other than to keep me busy while somepony maybe worked out how to save Equestria from me?" 

"It's working," Percy said. "And who knows—if the fire burns through the floor, all three of us could fall to our deaths. Wouldn't even need the Heart thing then."

"A fall wouldn't kill me. I'd just need to find a new body. Enough of this nonsense." Turning, Sombra jumped through the flames Percy had created, and for just a moment Ginny's pony body was visible through the illusion.

Wincing at the crystal clear sight of Ginny's body getting its fur singed, I tried to let go of my anger. "Percy? Can you tell me a joke?" It was still much easier to get angry than to calm down. 

"A joke? Now?!"

"I could burn down the rest of the castle if you like? I haven't tried burning stone yet, but if I figure out a big enough spell I might—"

"Alright! Alright!" Percy danced around some of my fire, which he needn't have of course. "Right, what happens to a wizard who falls in a well?" He paused a moment. "He gets down-maged!"

"That was terrible." Despite being terrible, the joke had a slight effect on me. Maybe it was funnier because it was terrible. "More!"

Beside me, Hedwig (who didn't seem afraid of the fire licking from my body and the floor around us), let out the most despairing bark I'd ever heard.

That was enough. The silliness of the situation and Percy's bad pun got me giggling, and then laughing, and my anger was sated with joy. 

"Harry? I don't think we can get down the stairs." Percy had apparently realized my fire didn't burn him, but he was still edging back from the wooden staircase that was growing hotter with yellow-orange flame. 

"Well, I can, but you can't." As soon as I said it, the burning stairs collapsed and fell down to the stone ones far below. The floor under us didn't seem much better. "Percy, we might have messed this up."

The worst of it was that the droppings everywhere seemed to feed the flames. They burned hotter and hotter. "Can you put the flames out?" Percy asked. When I shook my head, he backed up to the ledge with me. "Then I think you might be right. Ron told me about your fire, Harry. It's why I tried to stop him with normal flames."

"I figured that. Do you think we delayed him enou—" My back left leg found nothing but air, and of course that was my good one. The stability of four good legs—three at the moment—had failed me. My broken leg erupted with pain and collapsed under me.

There was a horrible feeling that I'd messed up bad. My sense of balance screamed at me to adjust my stance by shoving my good back leg down, but it had nothing but air below it.

I fell backward, only to have Percy grab both my forelegs in his. "Harry!" He barely got the word out when he (having been so unstable on four legs already) tipped forward after me.

My life flashed before my eyes as we fell. I tried to remember all the spells we'd learned to save us from falling, but they flicked through my mental grip as the terror of the situation became too much. I panicked and screamed as we fell from what was one of the taller towers in Hogwarts.





Twilight Sparkle stared at the foal who'd managed to lead King Sombra away. At the last moment, when she thought for sure Sombra'd come rushing back up, she almost jumped at the soft whistle of a bird behind her.

Remembering the troubles her friend Fluttershy had with a similar bird—and extrapolating based off the ashes under the perch—Twilight could make a rough guess at Fawkes' species. "You're a phoenix, aren't you? Do you know where the Crystal Heart—err, wardstone—is?"

Fawkes wasn't a stupid bird, something that on its own didn't set a very high bar, but he also was quite clever by human standards. He'd heard the ponies talking earlier and knew what they were after. Spreading his wings, he stepped off his perch and glided across the room to where the foot-cubed hunk of rock that was Hogwarts' wardstone sat on a steel stand all on its own. Perching on the stone itself, he leaned down and pecked at the crack in it.

The old rock stood out from the stones that made up the wall of the castle both by color and texture. It looked old in the way only a rock ever could, and the rock was a darker color than the ancient stones of Hogwarts. Down the middle of the wardstone was a crack that looked much more recent than whatever effort had gone into its quarrying. Something about the stone, however, made it seem heavier than it looked.

Now that Twilight's attention was on it, the stone upon which Fawkes had perched seemed to draw all her focus. "That doesn't look like the Crystal Heart, but is it—" Twilight used her magic to attempt to pick up the wardstone (phoenix and all), but the moment her purplish magic touched it more cracks appeared and the existing one got wider and longer.

An icy-blue glow began to emanate from one of the bigger cracks. Twilight braced herself, lowered her horn, and gave the wardstone a good blast of her magic. 

Power seemed to scream through Twilight as the stone responded to her efforts. More cracks appeared, and then from one instant to the next, the stone cracked and fell into shards to reveal a shimmering blue heart-shaped crystal, which fell over.

Grabbing what she really hoped was the Crystal Heart in her magic, Twilight shivered at how it responded to her—it was buzzing with potential, but her magic wasn't enough to stir it. "Okay, now to take this and use it to—" An edge of worry hit Twilight as words failed her, then relief flooded in. "Cadance will know!"

Trotting to the stairs, Twilight negotiated them down to the hallway below, then broke into a canter to reach the main atrium that would lead down to the front doors. Twilight leaned over the railing and looked down, energized her horn, and didn't teleport.

"Well that's not fair. Okay, let's focus on this logically. Any stairwell that goes down—since I'm on the second floor—should be the right one." Picking one of the two stairwells, Twilight began heading down. Soon, she discovered that wizards and witches rarely did logical things. 

"Twilight Sparkle!" Sombra's voice echoed throughout the castle, amplified by his fury if nothing else. "Bring me the Crystal Heart!"

"Look, castle, we might not know each other, but if you don't want him taking over, you should make this a bit eas—" Twilight froze. She spotted the front doors to the castle, and spotted the stairs needed to reach them. 

Laying on the speed, Twilight rushed out the front doors of Hogwarts to find a lot of ponies. There was some humans among them—and some half-and-halfs—but it was mostly a sea of ponies clinging to their old things while walking toward the doors of the castle. "Cadance! I found it!"

Every student and every teacher of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, along with the few crystal ponies that'd been freed of their helmets prior to the battle, would remember that moment.

Eyes that glittered like gemstones raised to the Crystal Heart, and all of them felt a pull. Magic began to swirl and build—crackling in the air. Behind Twilight, a rumbling sound began as Hogwarts itself began to rise from its foundations on shimmering crystal.

Equine bodies stirred around the students and teachers. One by one the formerly helmeted crystal ponies woke and stood up. The power of the Crystal Heart kindled hope and warmth in each of them, and as one they fixated on watching the Heart.

"Twilight?" Cadance stepped up toward her sister-in-law. "Look behind you, Twilight." 

The rumbling that Twilight had so far done her best to ignore in the face of so many ponies watching her, finally resolved itself as she turned. The dull stone and old structure of Hogwarts castle was now two whole stories higher than it should have been.

Having pushed the school upward, shining crystal refracted light in all directions, and a pair of huge double-doors stood open before Twilight Sparkle. She stared at the change as the old human-designed fortress gave way to a much more Equestrian-looking crystal structure supporting it.

"I think this is your cue, Cadance," Twilight Sparkle said.

The magic of the Crystal Heart, when Twilight passed it to her, sang to Cadance. A growing choir—the heart-voices of all the crystal ponies present—propelled Cadance forward as the music rose. Somehow, Cadance knew the two crystalline spikes in the entry hall of the expanded castle was the Heart's home, and so she carried it as she walked forward. 

Twilight, unsure what to do, followed along with Cadance, and smiled as she realized her brother was on Cadance's other side. "Do you know what needs to be done?"

Cadance nodded, the slight motion causing the light refracting around the huge chamber to almost dazzle her. "I think we just have to put the Heart there, and then—"

"No." King Sombra's voice was a cold and rough burr among the tune the Heart was making. His magic hung in ribbons around him, unable to stand up to the burning power of the Crystal Heart and all the light the crystals refracted around the new entrance to Hogwarts—leaving him with the body of a filly. "I have spent too long, and come too far, to let you stop me!"

"Sombra!" Cadance took another step forward. "Your time is over. We won't let you hurt anypony ever again!" She didn't have to look to know her husband and sister-in-law were at her sides—she felt them.

Darkness seemed to envelope Sombra as he pulled shadows around himself. Restoring his imposing form by pouring dark magic around himself, he took a step forward and readied his more offensive magic. "I'll admit, sending foals to their doom as a mere distraction was a master stroke even I wouldn't have thought you capable of." He didn't hold back. An ancient version of a very modern spell lanced out toward Cadance with green-burning fury.

Shining reacted first, erecting a pink-glowing shield of magic that deflected Sombra's first offensive spell, though it took a lot of energy in doing so. As he recovered, as second bolt shot toward the shield, and it only held because another unicorn channeled magic into it: Twilight.

When the third strike came, Cadance watched the shield falter and shatter such that the fourth bolt of deadly magic was coming right for her. The Heart responded. 

A shiver of magic poured out of the Crystal Heart and wrapped around Princess Cadence, Prince Shining Armor, and Twilight Sparkle. In an instant they changed from alicorn and unicorns into shimmering crystal versions of themselves. 

Time seemed to slow for Cadance, and as Sombra's beam of green magic rushed toward her. Cadance's own magic responded joyously and without any but the slightest expenditure of will, and blasted back with a beam of light from her horn. Though she'd been taking lessons in magic ever since getting her horn, she was normally less than effective at its use. Now, however, her magic worked exactly how she wanted it to.

The three Equestrians began advancing on Sombra as brilliant blue light roared from Cadance's horn and into the green blaze of dark magic. The two beams met in a continuous flare of light and dark that caused a huge flickering ball of bright light.

While Cadance advanced with her own magic, Shining and Twilight recovered and started sending their own blasts after Sombra, who managed to deflect them almost as an afterthought to his battle of will with Cadance.

Finally, a hint that things might not be going his way became clear to Sombra. Not only wasn't his death-dealing magic affecting Cadance, but she was advancing with the Crystal Heart toward the mounting spires. Despite his realization that he was about to have his worse day in over a thousand years, Sombra focused on ensuring the moment would still go his way. "You'll never defeat me!"

Sending her will after a renewed attack by Sombra, Cadance braced her resolve and stepped onto the dais where one of the spike reached up from the floor toward its twin that stretched down from above. With her magic focused on Sombra's she used her wings to reach forward with the Crystal Heart and place it between the two points.

"Sombra, you have my permission to never darken the doors of the Crystal Empire ever again."

The last step—what felt right to Cadance—was to set the Heart in motion. She gave it the gentlest touch with her magic and it started to turn.

Minerva McGonagall had been watching, stunned, from outside. Nothing seemed to happen for several seconds as the Heart turned, but with a few carefully chosen spells to divine the nature of the magic, she pointed one crystalline forehoof toward the glow of light pulling itself from the Crystal Heart. "That's a Patronus!" Her own magic began to tease and spool from her to join the boiling storm of power around Princess Cadance, fueling the spell the Heart embodied and sharing Minerva's happiest memories to feed the ancient charm.

Every crystal pony, every student, and every teacher present felt their hearts soar and feed the Crystal Heart in constructing the biggest spell any of them had ever witnessed before. For a moment all the magic seemed to freeze in the air around the Crystal Heart, and then it began to speed up.

Sombra had barely a moment of surprised panic before the light hit him, passed through him, and ripped his form to pieces. It started with the illusion of dark magic he'd woven over himself. Shadows meant to defend and protect him were ripped free in great slices. Even as his magic was being torn apart, Sombra clung to the life of the body he'd stolen and bound his shadow essence to it even tighter. "You haven't heard the last—"

The Crystal Heart pulsed.

A spray of light, now in a rainbow hue, spread outward from the Heart like an explosion. The Equestrian ponies and even Severus Snape had their bodies charged with magic to resemble the crystal ponies that were among them. Those wizards and witches that hadn't cast enough magic to finalize their pony transformations were immediately reshaped into crystal beings, though they were a mix of pure ponies, ponies able to walk upright at will, and half-human ponies. The crystal ponies themselves became even more so—refracting a million rainbows of light from their bodies.

Of King Sombra or Ginevra Wesley's body there was no sign. In the end the dark unicorn had bound so much of himself into the small body that when he was destroyed, so too was the body of Ginevra Molly Weasley.







Moments Earlier



Rolanda Hooch—flapping her wings as she circled the people below—had her gaze torn from the Crystal Heart by flare of fire in the owlery tower. Turning her head, her eyes narrowed of their own volition to spot two shapes falling from the spire. She regretted her wings weren't the speed-machines Rainbow Dash had as she pumped them as hard as she could. Rolanda flew toward the tower while already preparing herself for two spells. Two spells she wasn't sure she'd get off in time.

Harry James Potter had thought his luck had finally run short. Everyone was distracted fighting a battle, or finding the Crystal Heart, and his "destiny" was fast approaching. All he could think to do was to get angry, and burning a hole in the ground wouldn't work.

It was a surprise, then, when a pair of strong claws latched onto Harry, and he felt more than heard Hedwig's wings as they pulled upward with all their might. 

The hardest decision of Rolanda's life was made for her. Hedwig had swooped in and was slowing Harry's fall enough that (she hoped) he wouldn't be hurt too badly when he reaches the ground. As she got within range of her spell, she barked out the activation word and gestured at Percy Weasley with an outstretched hoof.

Percy had watched as Harry jerked upward in Hedwig's grip and all he could feel was happiness that it was Harry that would survive. Tumbling now, he caught a glimpse of the rocks below him rushing upward until there was a bare finger's width between him and the ground—then he bounced upward.

Everything had happened so fast that Harry barely had time to contemplate what had happened before he did hit the ground. When he crashed into the hard sod of the Highlands that Hogwarts had brought with it to Equestria, however, it wasn't with the force he'd expected when he'd first fallen.

Kirin and owl wrapped around and hugged to each other, sacrificing limbs to protect each other's body. More bones were broken, and it wasn't until they stopped rolling that either could feel the full impact of their "landing."

By the time Rolanda landed beside Harry, Percy had stopped bouncing and was making his way over to the pair as well. "Harry? Harry Potter?"

Surprised at finding himself still alive, Harry made a groan to prove to the world that it hadn't won yet. "What happened?" He tried to move as little as possible, particularly since he could see one of Hedwig's wings was bent in a way an owl's wing should not bend.

"I'm fairly certain two young wizards who don't have wings tried to jump out of a burning tower." As soon as Rolanda finished speaking, she looked up—having forgotten the tower was on fire in her haste to save her students. "We should probably move somewhere el—"

The rushing wave of magic hit the four as the Crystal Heart was fully powered for the first time in a thousand years. All of Equestria Felt the joy and lightness of spirit as its magic scoured the most evil of creatures from their midst, but none felt it so much as Harry Potter and Hedwig. 

Gasping in surprise, Harry felt bones align themselves and knit together and damaged muscles strengthen, but nothing was as delightful as what he watched happen to Hedwig. Her wings shivered and twisted back into the right shapes, and shimmering like a crystalline statue, Hedwig stood up and whistled to Harry. "I don't know either, but I'm pretty sure it had something to do with the Crystal Heart."

Hedwig barked and used her restored wings to bounce up onto Harry's back before digging her claws into his scales. She hadn't precisely noticed herself getting smarter, but rather she recognized Harry's intelligence more now she could understand him properly. She wasn't sure why the pain had stopped, but was content with the fact it had and that Harry was alright too. Walking up his back as he walked, she whistled and nibbled at his mane approvingly.

"What I don't get," Harry Potter said as they walked around the new crystalline base of Hogwarts, "Is how he didn't use his mind whammy on you, Percy?"

"He did." The pain of what he'd done stung Percy Weasley sharply, but his whole life he'd dedicated himself to being the best he could be, and now he knew that meant telling his story. As they walked around the castle, he explained what had happened, what he'd stolen (though he didn't know exactly what it was), and even how his little sister had saved him from it all. 

Rolanda took a moment to think of her words before deciding on the best path. A dressing down wouldn't do, not for a student who'd been attacked right from the start, and especially not for one who had made it through such an ordeal. "I believe, Mr. Weasley, that you've had a lucky break there. Not all witches and wizards can boast surviving such a brush with a master of dark arts with their sanity." That said, she strode ahead a little to leave the boys walking side by side.

"D' ya think we won?" Harry asked.

"I figure so. I'm pretty sure that if Sombra got the Heart, we wouldn't be feeling happy and be pretty crystal ponies. I'm actually fairly sure we'd both feel rubbish, and have helmets jammed on our heads." Percy looked back and up to see the owlery smoldering a little, but apparently having gone out. "Do you think we'll have to clean that up?"

"Nah. We're the heroes. You never have to clean up stuff if you're the hero. Trust me." Harry felt like pronking and running and bounding and jumping, but had to keep himself restrained with Hedwig on his back. "Besides, they wouldn't send me back in again, what with my likelihood of setting it on fire again."

Percy managed a short laugh, but it died in his throat as they were turning around the last bend toward the courtyard. He stopped. "I helped him, Harry. I wanted to." 

"He wanted you to want to. Percy, he had George under his control in a snap, barely even noticed it. Then he had Katie and Eliza too."

"What'd you do to get them out?" A new hope filled Percy. If someone had broken that hold, he could get the same assistance to uproot the last of Sombra's tricks from his own head.

"Well, it wasn't me, but Addera just whammied them even harder. I don't know the specifics, but she basically put the three of them under her own control, and then told them to do what they want." Just the memory of Addera's eyes made Harry wobble a little still, though only when he wasn't angry. "I'm sure she'd do the same for you."