Garrick Olivander looks up from his work, before rising fluidly from his seat. The wards just picked up the arrival of some customers; one of them, he recognizes: Lyra Heartstrings.
The other four are unfamiliar, even though three of them are adults.
He wanders out, slipping through the shadows behind them- he knows it won’t work with Lyra, she’s too observant, but the others it should work with- and applies the little bond-hunter spell Lyra taught him as he approaches.
He slips sideways through the shelves, collecting the four wands before slipping up behind them.
“Good day,” he greets.
All three adults, and the unfamiliar youth, jump and spin. Lyra simply smiles, turning to face. “Good day to you too,” Lyra bows. “We thought we’d get a few wands.”
He nods. “Yours still serving you well?”
She smiles, drawing it out of her pocket and twirling it around her fingers in a blur of motion. “Yep! It’s still nothing next to my innate magic abilities, but honestly, there’s not much that can even compare to that.” Her smile becomes a grin. “It has come in handy, though- there’s a few things, mostly brute force or directional burst techniques, that are easier to do with a wand than without.” She shrugs. “But don’t worry, I’m very much the exception- even amongst the Equestrians, almost everyone is going to find wand magic easier than innate for almost anything. I’m just strong enough my magic forms its own channelling core.”
“Ahh. So, who wants to go first?”
The oldest of the set steps forwards. “I will.”
Filch is having an excellent day. Not only had Lyra’s spell actually worked, but the girl had teamed up with a Hufflepuff friend of hers to fly him out to get his wand. The three others they picked up along the way, and later dropped off, were nervous, but largely decent people; Lyra had informed him, after dropping them off, that they are subjects two, three, and four of the spell he’d agreed to play testbed for.
All four, himself included, had acquired wands.
On the way back to the castle, after dropping the Dursleys off, Lyra had then sat in the back with him, rather than riding up front- and spent the journey teaching him a few spells he’d find useful in his caretaking duties. She had, of course, promised to help him secretly study up on all the rest of the spells any normal wizard his age knows.
Now, while Cherry flies the helicopter away for parking, he and Lyra walk in the main entrance to the castle.
He stops, looking at the mud-covered floor. It’s raining outside, and today’s the day that everyone comes back to school from the Christmas holidays. “Looks like half the school tracked mud inside,” he muses, before raising his wand. “Scourgify! Oh, that’ll never get old.” All of the muddy tracks simply vanished, instantly. No longer will he have to spend hours upon hours of backbreaking labor scrubbing up muddy footprints every time it rains!
“Candy Stripes to Gamma, please.”
Hagrid, Harry, and Ron all look at Hermione.
“What?” Hagrid asks, confused. Both Harry and Ron nod.
Hermione shakes her head. “Code words,” she answers. “I figure Lyra ought to see this. If nothing else, she’ll be able to help you stay safe. Should have involved her long ago, I’m not sure what’s gotten into me.”
A knock sounds on the door.
Harry looks up. “That’s Lyra,” he states.
“What?” Hagrid asks, now worried.
Hermione smiles. “Oh, don’t worry, she won’t be tattling on you. I think she’d enjoy helping you, actually.”
Hagrid steps over to the door, and pulls it slightly open. “Who is- Oh, Lyra. Come in.” He pulls it open.
Lyra walks in through the small gap, and Hagrid shuts the door quickly. “Thank you, Hagrid,” Lyra greets, before looking over at Hermione. “You called?”
Hermione leans to the side, exposing the dragon egg on Hagrid’s table, and gestures to it.
Lyra steps closer, looking at it. “Oh. Yeah, that’ll do it.” Her hand rises to one of her radios. “Can someone send Spike down here, papa two?”
“On it!” Fluttershy’s voice answers.
“Spike?” Hermione asks- but pauses when Bonbon’s voice comes over the radio.
“What do you need him for, Stripes?”
“Sierra,” Lyra answers. A code to indicate that the particular information requested is secret, and not to be transmitted.
“Lima.” An inquisitive follow-up to ‘Sierra’- asking if she can talk about it face-to-face, later.
“Roger.” A way of saying yes without sounding like it at all.
“So, who’s Spike?” Hermione asks.
Lyra grins, her eyes sparkling slightly. “An egg-spert,” she answers. She glances at Hagrid. “Don’t worry, I’ll make him swear to secrecy before I let him in. He’s not a Hufflepuff for nothing.”
The next three minutes pass in silence, before a knock comes on Hagrid’s cabin door.
Lyra answers it, cracking the door open. “Hi Spike! I’m going to need you to swear to secrecy with this.”
There is a pause, before a male voice answers. “Uh, sure, I can do that. Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye. So, what is this super-secret thing?”
Before Hagrid can object, she pulls the door open, letting him in, and closes it behind him.
Right on time for a scratching noise to come from the egg, and for it to split open.
“Woah-ho awesome!” Spike touts, trotting forwards. “What is it?”
“That’s a dragon,” Lyra answers.
Spike reaches forwards with his bare fingers to stroke its head. “Welcome to the world!”
Hagrid stares slack-jawed.
Very suddenly, it snaps its jaws on Spike’s fingers. He shakes it off, gently, chuckling. “Hey now, no need to bite.”
The dragon snarls at him; a few sparks fly from its mouth. Then, it shivers.
Spike draws a short breath, then blows a tongue of flame back at the startled-looking dragon.
Lyra breaks out laughing as Hagrid, Harry, Ron, and Hermione all let out shrieks of combined surprise and terror.
“What in the world!?” Hagrid demands, recovering first.
Lyra shrugs. “I did say he’s an egg-spert, didn’t I?”
Spike chuckles while Hagrid nods slowly. “Yeah?”
“I’m sure you all know that us Equestrians aren’t exactly human in our homeworld. Well, Spike here is unique among us- in that, on the other side, he’s a dragon himself.” She glances at the dragon on the table. “And that was a stroke of genius, Spike. His magical core is still developing- and you’ve managed to give it a predominantly Equestrian shape.” She looks back up at Hagrid. “Meaning, your baby dragon is going to be much smarter than the beastial dragons wizarding kind knows. As a matter of fact, give him a few weeks, and we can start teaching him to talk.”
“Ahh…”
“Don’t worry, he won’t have lost anything, just become smarter and more capable. And, because of that change, it’ll actually be remotely safe to raise him in a wooden hut, around people his venom will slaughter in droves!”
“What-!?” Hagrid asks, glancing between Spike and the dragon on the table.
Lyra glances at Spike. “Don’t worry, Spike’s completely immune. I mean, he’s even venomous himself.”
Spike straightens, thumping his chest proudly with one hand. “That I am!”
“Wait, what?”
Harry sighs. It’s taken him months of effort, but he’s finally managed to catch Lyra at a time when she’s not about to run away, and managed to ask his question. “Is it possible to make me capable of that Equestrian magic?” he repeats.
“Yeah, I heard that,” Lyra nods. “Just had to make sure. And, um, you are aware the papa tango has only about a one in three chance of making you capable of levitation like that, right?”
He sighs. So, there is a way. “Can we do it?”
She blinks. “You are aware it’s probably the most painful thing you’ll ever experience, right?”
He blinks. “I can handle pain.”
“You are aware it’s going to be deadly to perform with that soul fragment attached to your forehead, right?”
“Can you remove it?”
She shakes her head. “I know of a way to do that, it is true- just reset your magic field- but unfortunately, that’d be deadly for you.” She turns her head, looking to the side. “Though… Hmm. I might be able to…” She starts whipping through her books and papers, muttering about something incomprehensible.
Hermione’s arm lands around his shoulders. “Lyra being difficult again?”
He shakes his head, sighing. “No, actually. I managed to ask the question, and now…”
“I think… Yeah,” Lyra states, looking up at him. “It’s possible. Very risky; I’ll have to reset your magic, wait for the fragment to shatter, and then apply the accelerated, reusable papa tango matrices I spent all month setting up before you have time to die. Which would be a window of, oh, a second. Or less.” She gazes up at the ceiling. “I haven’t had time to add the age restoration routines just yet, but since you’re still eleven, that won’t be an issue.”
“Age restoration?” Hermione asks.
She nods. “Yeah. Only really in thaumic and physical appearance, though- someone that took the papa tango with those matrices added would come out looking no different- even to magic- but they’d then stay the same for however old they were minus eleven years, before they resumed aging.”
“... Wait. What if someone used one of those spells to become younger?”
She shakes her head. “They don’t work that way. Sure, age spells capable of that do exist- but they wear off in a matter of days. It’s not possible to extend one’s lifespan with an age spell- and believe me, it’s been tried. Many times.” She lifts her hand to her radio. “Hey Bonnie? Can you talk?” Pause. “Charlie Gamma.”
Hermione tilts her head. “How…? Right.”
Harry looks between her and Lyra. “So… what’s going on?”
Hermione looks at him. “With what Lyra just said, about the danger involved- is that something you really want to do?”
He nods.
“Absolutely certain?”
He nods again.
“Even knowing the extreme danger it’ll involve?”
He nods again.
“And the extreme pain?”
“The extreme pain that’ll probably be an order of magnitude higher, thanks to the magic reset and near-death thing,” Lyra inserts.
He nods again.
Then Bonbon walks up next to Hermione, her Slytherin robes drawing strange looks here in the Gryffindor common room. “Yes, Lyra?”
Lyra points at Harry. “He wants the papa tango,” she states. “I’d have to do it as a reset-invoke; risk level Charlie, likely pain level, um… a dozen lakes.”
Harry blinks. “Lakes?”
Hermione blinks as well. “We never did tell you about Lake Don’t-Mess-With-Twilight, did we?”
“Lake what?” some Gryffindor or another asks.