Hogwarts Hospital Wing
June 22, 1992: The Longest Day
This is happening too fast.
The Professor let out a wheezy, rheumatic cough, but said nothing. He had been getting better… or so it had seemed. But now, he could barely lift himself out of his bed.
This alone is the true Enemy, Harry thought. After this will come Professor McGonagall, Mum and Dad, even Neville in his time, unless the wound in the world can be healed before then.
There was nothing Harry could do. Madam Pomfrey was already doing for Professor Quirrell what magic could do, and magic seemed strictly superior to Muggle techniques when it came to healing.
There was nothing Harry could do.
Nothing he could do.
Nothing. Nothing at all.
"Look who's being Mister Sad Pants again!" Pinkie exploded into both the room and the foremost compartment of Harry's train of thought.
"Hi," Harry said flatly, as the remaining five came through the hospital wing entrance. Madam Pomfrey visibly chuffed until she saw Fluttershy, at which point she studiously put her head down and looked at the papers in her hands as though they were the most interesting thing that Hogwarts had to offer.
He figured they were here more to see him, moreso than the Professor, but that notion was dispelled as they marched directly past him and to the bed in the corner that was conspicuously occupied.
"Rarity! You're finally awake! I guess you, uh, got enough beauty sleep, huh?" Applejack spoke softly as she placed her hand on the unknown witch's shoulder.
"Of… Of course, darling." She managed, hoarsely, and lifted herself up a bit. Harry felt an intense wave of guilt as he saw her wavy, purple locks fall against her starkly pale face. Similar to the way that Minerva McGonagall's animagus form looked like someone had squashed a stern Scotswoman into a cat's body, this witch looked as though someone had taken a unicorn and abstracted it up into human form.
He could see that she was supposed to be very pretty, but his body wasn't wired to think that way, at least not yet. Even still, he couldn't help but feel stricken by her appearance, if not partially because he had come within a dog's bark of poisoning her with a combination of flunitrazepam and a particularly potent brew of the Draught of Living Death (the former of which had been provided to him by a particularly slimy Muggle-born Gryffindor sixth-year who winked at him far too many times for him to feel comfortable).
Pinkie Pie gestured to Harry to come to join them, and for lack of anything else to do, he complied. He waved awkwardly as he approached her bed, "Hi. I'm Harry. We've, uh… we've met."
"I'm Rarity. Charmed, my darling." she managed with a smile and extended her hand.
"Nice to meet you, Rarity Charm," and without really understanding why, he took her extended hand and kissed it. He barely had a moment or two to mentally kick himself for such an absurd gesture of telegraphed chivalry before he was interrupted by noticing the bandages wrapped tightly around her wrist, stained through with an iridescent, silvery liquid.
Creeping out from underneath with the bandage was something that looked distinctly like a wound.
A slash wound.
Although he was too young to really be thinking about that sort of thing, for the most part, he was definitely aware of what that sort of wound meant, and was thoroughly unequipped to handle it. His default mode of response, 'tell an adult', seemed wholly inappropriate for this sort of situation.
"It's just 'Rarity', dummy." Rainbow Dash cackled, breaking him out of his momentary unpleasant reverie.
Harry quickly pulled her aside for a brief sidebar, "What do you mean? So you know about her… uh… tendencies?"
"What do you mean, 'tendencies'? Her tendency to put on a full face of makeup even when she's in a hospital bed? Sure, I know about that."
Harry narrowed his eyes a bit and whispered. "No, I mean… her, um…" and for lack of any other way to efficiently communicate his concern, he made a crude slicing gesture across his own wrist, and once again began to immediately kick himself mentally.
Now it was Rainbow Dash's turn to narrow her eyes, which quickly darted over to Rarity's wrists, which she grabbed and held up to look at. "Rarity, what did you do?" she demanded.
Rarity smiled and waved her off. "Just a trifling, darling. That school teacher over there needed it far more than I did."
Fluttershy was smoothing Rarity's hair while Pinkie was poking the dressing of the wound curiously. Applejack, on the other hand, was standing with her fists on her waist. "Why exactly would he of all people need your blood?"
"Yeah- wait. Why- what? Blood?!" Harry stammered.
Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. "So much for secrecy, huh?"
Applejack ignored her. "Rarity."
Harry, for his part, ignored Applejack's questioning and was attempting an interrogation of his own. "What do you mean, her blood?"
Applejack turned towards him and heaved a sigh. "Harry, I know that not saying something is often just as bad as a lie. So for that, I'm sorry. I'd say it's not our fault, but it's not in the Apple family nature to shirk responsibility. We were dishonest, I was dishonest, and now it's time to tell you the truth. Where we come from, she's a unicorn. A real unicorn."
Harry blinked, shook his head briefly, and muttered, "Like an Animagus… right?"
Applejack shook her head. "I've heard that word a few times here. It means a person who can turn themselves into an animal, right?" Harry nodded weakly in response, and she continued. "Well, she's the opposite of that. We all are, for that matter. She's a unicorn who can turn into a person. And we… well, I'm a pony. Me and Pinkie Pie. And Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy her are Pegasi."
Harry said nothing. What was there to say?
Rarity gestured her hand outward, and her forehead glowed a slight pink, and a vision was cast out into the room, like a portal had been torn between this world and another world that existed as a two-dimensional, cel-shaded animation. Arranged in various poses were five ponies that undoubtedly corresponded to the five witches in front of him.
Applejack, with her cowboy hat and a loose ponytail, looking casually off in the distance. Rarity, a brilliantly white unicorn, her eyes closed as if in pain, looking down. Rainbow Dash soaring through the air as if preparing for a confrontation, and Fluttershy, hoof to her mouth, staring aghast. And finally, Pinkie Pie, exploding out to greet them with a manic grin.
Below them were jagged slashes of black, and a muted purple light bathed another pair of unicorns, who looked both lost and like they were trying to find something, or someone. One was a unicorn with a soft purple coat and sharp bangs with a shock of magenta. The other was more of a tan, beige-ish color coat with long, flowing chestnut curls and… was that a book branded into her coat?
"Who are those two?"
"One of them is Twilight Sparkle. She's the one we're here trying to find. We think… well, we're worried that the worst has happened. She's the key to unraveling this whole mess."
"And the other?"
"Well, that's the tricky wicket here." Applejack screwed up her eyes and looked at the seventh pony in the vision. "We have no idea. And we know everypony in Equestria."
"So… what exactly does this have to do with-"
"Unicorn's blood, provided from a live unicorn, has rather amazing curative properties, even when the host does not expire in the process." The Professor was now standing, albeit unsteadily, near his hospital bed.
"Professor Quirrell!" Harry shouted.
"Hello!" Fluttershy pleasantly tittered.
"You." Applejack glowered.
"Darling!" Rarity gushed.
"Him?" Rainbow Dash asked, not really understanding what was happening.
"The world turned upside down!" Pinkie Pie sang.
The Professor looked wistfully out the window and wheezed again, this time coughing up a viscous, silver fluid, which trickled inelegantly down the corner of his mouth.
Harry rushed to his side, "Professor, are you okay?"
Rarity stood, and held her wrist up to him, and began unwinding the bandage. Harry felt indecent, watching the bandage fall away to reveal her bare skin, the open wound. It reminded him very much of the visceral, gut-wrenching experience of gazing upon vivisected frogs during his biology lessons which seemed to have happened ages ago.
"As I said, he needs it more than I do. I've heard whispers of how important this teacher is to our new friend." She inclined her head toward the other four who were watching her. Fluttershy and Applejack turned away, but Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie couldn't help themselves but watch.
"Well… speaking of lost. Will someone care to explain what-" Comprehension suddenly dawned upon Harry as the Professor clamped his mouth down on Rarity's wrist and began drinking her blood. Harry watched the rapturous shudders which proceeded for an uncomfortably long time. He wondered how long Rarity would be able to take it before passing out, and found himself doing a brief Fermi calculation…
Five liters of blood in a small, female body. One liter before hemorrhagic shock. A wound six centimeters in length, one centimeter wide, maybe two, tops. Six by two is twelve square centimeters, and one liter is 1000 cubic centimeters which, wait, how do fluid dynamics work again?
Pinkie Pie, who had evidently grown bored with watching the gruesome display, bounced over to Harry. "I might as well fill you in since you're going to ask sooner or later. We come from Equestria. It's another world, contained within this one. Or, you could say your world is contained within ours. It's two sides of the same mirror, really. No one really knows for sure, except maybe Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, or maybe Starswirl the Bearded. Actually, there are probably a lot of people who know for sure, we're just not one of them."
She had to stop for a moment, as she had a bad habit of talking for quite some time without drawing a breath. After she collected herself, she continued, "We're ponies where we come from, but that's really just a metaphor. Or is it a simile? Or maybe it's a euphemism."
Harry rolled his eyes, "I see you and Rainbow Dash have been talking."
"We conform to expectations. Kind of like your Dementoids. Here, people expect us to be, well, people. So we're people. But there, people expect us to be ponies. So we're ponies. Except for Rarity, because apparently, you all have unicorns here. So when she came here, she was a unicorn. Until you tried to kill her."
Harry grimaced and stammered a weak apology.
"Don't fret, love. It's a confusing time for all of us." Rarity turned to him, as the Professor had apparently had his fill and was wiping the corners of his mouth. "I can't say that I blame you; he's your friend, and you didn't know. But I've been trying to keep him healthy since I arrived."
Professor Quirrell made a short sound, under his breath, that might have been laughter. "You know, boy," Professor Quirrell whispered, "I had thought... to teach you everything... the seeds of all the secrets I knew... from one living mind to another... so that later, when you found the right books, you would be able to understand... I would have passed on my knowledge to you, my heir... we would have begun as soon as you asked me... but you never asked."
Even the grief surrounding by Harry like thick water gave way to that, to the sheer magnitude of the missed opportunity. "I was supposed to - ? I didn't know I was supposed to - !"
Another coughing chuckle. "Ah yes... the unknowing Muggleborn... in heritage if not in blood... that is you. But I thought... better of it... that you should not walk my path... it was not a good path, in the end."
"It's not too late, Professor!" Harry said. A part of Harry yelled that he was being selfish, and then another part shouted that down; there would be other people to help.
"It may very well be too late... although I cannot pretend to disallow myself from being persuaded otherwise… That said, I have... thought better of it... I am too full... of secrets better left unknown... look at me."
Harry looked, almost despite himself.
He saw a still-unwrinkled face, looking old and pained, beneath a head rapidly losing its hair, even the sides looking wispy now; Harry saw a face he'd always thought was sharp, now revealed as thin, muscle and fat fading away from the face, as from the arms beneath it, like the skeletal form of Bellatrix Black he'd seen in Azkaban -
Harry's head wrenched aside, unthinkingly. Professor Quirrell breathed in, breathed out. There was quiet for a time in the infirmary, the two of them watched intently by the five witches, or ponies, or unicorns, or whatever the hell they were supposed to be.
As if motivated by the Professor's display of strength and candor, Rarity also stood up from her hospital bed and walked over to the two of them. "Darling, I think you'll find that we are quite adept at rescuing… how shall we say… 'lost causes'."
Professor Quirrell looked up at her and smiled, cruelly, "And are you certain you too will not be lost along the way?"
Rarity's laugh was a tinkling, pleasant sound. "After what we've been through?"
The Professor inclined his head towards her. "Sadly, although it helps temporarily, it is not permanent. You see," whispered the Professor. "I dislike to sound cliched... Mr. Potter... but the truth is... the Arts called Dark... really are not good for a person... in the end."
He looked out the window and continued to speak to no one in particular. "I imagine death so much, it feels more like a memory." He directed the next words at Harry, without looking at him. "This is where it gets me. On my feet, the enemy in front of me. If I see it coming, do I run? Or do I let it be?"
Harry looked up at his mentor defiantly. "Neither. You fight it. You do what you can, you do everything you can."
The Professor did not turn to look at him. "And you, why do you always fight like you're running out of time?"
Without missing a beat, Rarity, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie struck a pose and spoke in unison. "Because that's what friends do."
"One thing," whispered Professor Quirrell. "There is one thing... that might do it... or it might not... but to obtain it... is beyond your power, or mine..."
Professor Quirrell took in a deep breath. Exhaled. "I'm sorry... that came out... too dramatic. Do not... get your hopes up... Mr. Potter. You asked... for anything... no matter how unlikely. There is... a certain object... called..."
"The Philosopher's Stone?" Harry interrupted.
The Professor's eyes narrowed. "Have you heard it spoken of?"
"I read of it in a book. At first, I concluded it was an obvious myth, that it if it were a real object, that every sane person would be researching ways to make more Stones, or kidnapping the maker to produce them. I thought of you specifically."
"You say, 'At first'."
"Yes… But I have learned that there are many things whose absurdity hide their true secrets. Like our five friends, over there. I suspect that the Stone's true power is to render Transfigurations permanent. Including human Transfigurations."
The Professor did not move. "Dumbledore has said nothing of the Stone's holder, nothing of the stone? No hints?"
"Not that I can easily recall," Harry replied, telling a half-truth.
"Ah. You are correct in your assumption. But incorrect, in a way. I am impressed that you have seen beyond the surface-level deception. There is yet another level to the deception. Tell me, boy, why do you suppose the Stone would possess such eldritch power?"
Harry was deep in thought, not pondering the answer to the question, which Dumbledore had already provided, but considering whether to reveal the extent of his knowledge. He wasn't sure of the direction this conversation was taking, so he thought it best to be conservative.
"It's clearly more than a simple enchantment, or even a complex one. Its power seems more… fundamental. Primordial."
The Professor had now turned to him and nodded, impressed. "You are on the right track. Credible rumor suggests that the Stone does more than simply manipulate and control Transfiguration; it, in a way, is Transfiguration. It is suggested, contained within its limitless bounds are all active Transfigurations being maintained across the whole of Wizardkind."
At this, Applejack gasped. "The Element of Honesty."
The Professor's eyes widened momentarily but quickly covered for it by coughing loudly. "The Element…"
Applejack continued, "One of the six Elements of Harmony. I didn't realize they existed here as well. Although, I suppose they would exist on this world, on every world."
The Professor's pulse was racing. It was time. The pieces were falling into place, and although he was playing up the severity of his condition considerably, he had limited time, and it was time to act. He put his hand into his robes and removed from it a polished stone, and released his control of the magic. It expanded slowly to become a finely inlaid golden diadem, set with nine blue gems and crowned with a massive, star-shaped jewel.
The five witch-ponies gasped audibly, and the Professor seized the moment. "Your friend, Twilight Sparkle, is dead. I found her in the Forbidden Forest not long before you arrived. I… Harry and I share the same mind when it comes to the value of my life. Only, I did not rely on poisoned sugar cubes in order to obtain what I was looking for."
Rainbow Dash's fists were balled and she took a step towards him. "You… you killed her?"
The Professor nodded firmly. "I did. I learned a valuable yesterday following my final exam, and I confess that I underestimated the five of you when you arrived. But it seems that I do have a certain blind spot. Not just for strategies involving 'being nice', as you put it, Harry, but for many things. Generosity. Honesty. Laughter. Kindness. Loyalty."
He nodded at Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash, in turn. Rainbow Dash stopped her advance but still looked furious.
"Oftentimes, the bravest thing someone can do is tell the truth, especially when it is painful, embarrassing, or damaging. I set in motion the chain of events that led to her death, yes. For that, I am truly sorry. But she gave this to me before she passed. She told me… that Starswirl had sent her here in order to avert the prophecy, and that I needed to help her."
Rainbow Dash faltered. There was no way he could have known that unless she told him. "Why… why did she tell you that?"
"She looked into me, she knew that I was remorseful. She saw that my intentions, although selfish, were not cruel or evil. She told me… That there was no way I could have known what she was. And if it was right to eat a beast to feed yourself for a day, then it had to be right to drink a unicorn's blood in order to stave off death for weeks. She did not begrudge me what I had done, for once I had seen the truth, I used the fullness of my magic to try to save her."
Applejack was openly weeping, "And… you weren't able to, were you?"
Pinkie Pie was staring at the diadem that the Professor was still holding, cocking her head as she examined it. Before the Professor could reply, she chimed in. "Hmmmm…. Are you sure you didn't attack her to try to drink her blood but then stop because she did something unexpected like spoke your language or uttered some ancient prophecy that you and only you would know and on a side note you probably created Harry as some sort of clone of yourself which explains a lot now that I think about it but anyway then you pretended like it wasn't you that attacked her in the first place and then gazed into her mind to pick out one or two pieces of vague yet specific pieces of information in order to gain her trust and pump her for information before consuming her lifeforce in a gruesome display of borderline inappropriate rapture and then took her crown for yourself and you've only been pretending this entire time to be good but actually you're really, extremely, bad, terrible, evil and awful?"
Everyone stared open-mouthed at her except the Professor. "I can see why you like her the most," he quipped dryly.
Harry was busy processing Pinkie's 'hunch'. "No, that doesn't make sense. Why… why would he bother showing us that crown, which obviously means something very significant to you all, or even admit it in the first place? I can't… I can't think of any possible way that could advance his plan if he were somehow evil. Which, wait- what is your plan anyway, Professor?"
Pinkie Pie shrugged, "If Harry believes you, I believe you! Besides, his plan is to steal the Element of Honesty!"
The Professor nodded. "Or, as we call it, The Philosopher's Stone. It's the one thing... that can save my life... and I find, now... I don't want to die."
"Is that why you came to Hogwarts in the first place?"
"After a fashion, yes. I had come to learn that the owner of the Stone felt it was in danger and sent it to Hogwarts to be placed under the protection of Albus Dumbledore. It took a handful of weeks to discern its location, and I have spent the better part of the year devising how I might obtain it. I confess that it had not occurred to me until your bit of advice and her admonition," he leaned towards Fluttershy as he spoke, "that simply asking for help would have been a prudent course of action.
"Not because I have overlooked options that involve doing 'nice' things for others, as you assumed. After all, one cannot avoid the implicit quid pro quo that comes along with an unsolicited favor. But rather, I had not considered that other people would be interested in being nice."
Fluttershy looked at him inquisitively. "That doesn't make sense. People are nice all the time."
"Ah, perhaps I was not specific enough. I had not considered that other people would be interested in being nice to me."
"That's… kind of sad." Rainbow Dash said flatly, which was followed murmurs of agreement from the four other witches and Harry.
"As it happens, there is something nice that I am able to do for you Harry, and the four of you. Harry, you stole Miss Granger's remains and Transfigured them into some innocuous-appearing target, did you not?" asked Professor Quirrell. "A Transfigured target that you must keep somewhere about your own person, in order to sustain the Transfiguration."
Harry's mind reeled from the sucker punch of the sudden change of conversational course. "Y-yes," he stammered weakly.
Quirrell held his hand out, and Harry took off his left shoe, and his left sock, and took off the toe-ring that was Hermione Granger, the Transfigured shape identical to the toe-ring that had been given Harry as an emergency portkey.
While Harry was doing this, Professor Quirrell removed from his robes a small, violet stone, and placed it into his outstretched palm next to the ring.
"Whoever holds the Philosopher's Stone is able to perform human Transfiguration. Come with me, help me to obtain the Stone, and I will resurrect Hermione Granger on your behalf. Her death has had unfortunate effects on you, and I would not mind undoing them. That, as I understand you, is your greatest desire. I have done you many kindnesses, and I would not mind doing you this one more."
He then turned to the five witches who were staring, open-mouthed at him. "And I shall resurrect your friend, this 'Twilight Sparkle' as well. I have seen the kindnesses that you perform for each other. I have performed many wrongs during my life, and it is a rare opportunity that one gets the opportunity to right such a wrong. It is an even rarer occasion that I would even care to right such a wrong in the first place. I do not think I would like to pass up this confluence."
Rainbow Dash was bouncing nervously on her heels, a coiled spring, ready to burst into action, "So what are we waiting for? Where are we going?"
"To the third-floor corridor, I expect," Harry said.
Five Minutes Later
Spike was roused slowly from his sleep by the scritching of the fur behind his ears. It was such a pleasant dream, filled with squirrels to chase and admiration showered upon him. But he certainly didn't mind being woken up like this. He had been lying by Rarity's side since she arrived in the hospital wing, and had little opportunity for social interaction besides growling at the suspicious, spindly stranger that Rarity kept visiting with. Fortunately, it seemed like he was gone, as Spike's half-closed eyes focused on the empty bed.
"Good morning, Rarity. Or, good evening, I guess," he murmured sleepily at her.
"Salutations, daaaaaaaahling. How exquisite! How radiant! How convivially splendiferous!" a voice that was very distinctly not-Rarity oozed in an over-the-top accent.
Spike's eyes snapped open, and he realized that the hand scratching him behind his ears wasn't so much a hand as it was a-
-a claw.
"DISCORD!"
"Oh, hello, little one!" Discord cackled as he shoveled popcorn into his mouth with one of his feet. "Can you believe it? They bought the Professor's story, hook, line, and sinker!"
"Huh, what are you talking about. Where's Rarity?"
"Oh, she left not five minutes ago! Went off on a misadventure down in the third floor corridor, along with that 'suspicious, spindly stranger' and the Boy-who-Lived." Discord grinned.
"They… they left without me?" Spike looked down at the ground and pawed the floor.
"But aren't you used to being an afterthought by now?"
"Yeah, but- wait, no! I'm not an afterthought!" Spike protested. "I knew he was bad news! Which way did they go? I'm going after them!"
"Not so fast, there, Lassie. If you really want to help, I've got something far more important you can do."
Spike ignored him as he fully crawled out from underneath the bed and started loping towards the door.
"It's something that might save Rarity's li-i-ife." Discord cooed in a sing-song voice.
That had the intended effect and stopped Spike in his tracks. "Ra… Rarity's life is in danger?"
"Of course it is, you silly goose. She's in way over her head."
"How do I know I can trust you?" Spike began walking back towards Discord.
"You can't, but then again, why would I lie?" Discord scratched his chin with a large foam question mark that materialized out of nowhere. "Well, it would be spectacularly hilarious to see you work yourself into a fit over the thought of your unrequited crush shuffling off this mortal coil."
"You're not helping."
"No, I suppose I'm not. But the truth rarely helps, haven't you found? The truth of the matter is, I have just as much invested in this as you do. You don't want to see Rarity die, I don't want our story to end on such a downer note. Besides, just think of it as another game of Ogres and Oubliettes. Except instead of fighting the Squizzard, you're going on a little scavenger hunt."
"A scavenger hunt? Are you serious?"
"No, I'm Peter Pettigrew!"
When Spike didn't say anything in response, a neon laugh track sign appeared above Discord's head, flashing on and off.
"No one? That's the second time I've used that joke. Well, phooey. Yes, I'm serious."
Discord produced a thick metal glove and plunked it down on the ground. It was less of a glove and more of a gauntlet, covered with thick, polished bronze plates, and had six irregular-shaped slots: one over each knuckle, and another on the opposite side of the palm.
"What am I supposed to do with this?" Spike asked as he inspected the device. He tried to poke it, but his snout passed right through it. Discord sighed loudly as the gauntlet wavered, then flickered out of existence.
"Ah yes, I keep forgetting that pesky limitation. All for the best, I suppose. We'd probably get the pants sued off of us if we went down that road. Here, you can use that," Discord gestured a mismatched claw at the greyish, fraying pillowcase on the hospital bed.
Spike hopped up and snatched the pillowcase with his teeth. "This?" he asked through a mouthful of cloth.
"Yes. We shall call it… The Limit of One Over X as X Approaches Zero Sack. Now, let's walk through what you need to do."