“If that is so,” Harry said slowly to Draco, as if speaking to a rather slow foal, “then why is it modern history books all agree that the three most powerful wizards in the last hundred years are half-bloods, and not pure-bloods? Those would be Gellert Grindelwald, Albus Dumbledore, and an unknown wizard who called himself Voldemort, if you didn’t know.” The entire group reeled and gasped at the last wizard’s name.
Harry rolled his eyes.
“How dare you! The Dark Lord was a pure-blood,” Draco declared angrily. Several others looked just as angry.
Harry made sure his shield spell was ready for instant casting. He tilted his head questioningly.
“Excuse me? Name to me the family he belongs to,” he said reasonably in as snobbish a tone as he could. “If he was a pure-blood, surely he must have been proud of his heritage, as you are, and told everyone just who his parents were, right? So, who was his father? Who was his mother?” Harry snorted delicately in disdain, and lifted his muzzle slightly. “If he is a pure-blood, name his heredity!” he said haughtily. “Slytherin students always say that any wizard who can’t name both parents as wizards, must, by default, be a half-blood! Isn’t that right?” He watched the Slytherins closely. “To claim to be a pure-blood, I’ve been told, you must be able to say that your grandparents and great-grandparents were all wizards and witches,” Harry disparagingly added. “Who were his grandparents and great-grandparents, then?” Several were obviously thinking of using more than just words to refute him. “Was I told wrong?”
From their red faces and glares, he knew he had it right. Stupid wizards, can’t find their way out of a barn.
“The history books, after much research, all say that they can find no trace . . . no trace,” Harry emphasized, “of a single pure-blood family in his background!” He narrowed his eyes at the Slytherins. “And if no pure-blood family is willing to claim him as a descendant, and he’s either too old or young to be the child of a dead family, then he can’t be a pure-blood, can he? The best bet is that he’s a half-blood,” Harry concluded. “Although,” he said, after a pause, musing, “he could be a muggle-born, I suppose.”
Draco’s face was almost as red as Hermione’s had been. “He was the Heir of Slytherin!” he shouted.
“Says who!?” retorted Harry firmly. “Show me the heredity papers or family! Prove it!” he said challengingly.
“He was a parselmouth!” declared Draco.
“Ah, yes, a parselmouth, said to be the trait only possessed by the Gaunt family,” Harry said softly. “However,” he continued smugly, “The last of the Gaunts, Morfin Gaunt, died in prison in the 1960’s without ever being married or having children, he said. His sister, Merope, disappeared in the early 1920’s and was never heard from again. If she had a child, then it had to be a half-blood, as any wizarding father would proudly proclaim having married Gaunt’s daughter, wouldn’t he? Which means, if she had a child, it had to be with a muggle-born husband and any child of hers could only be considered a half-blood! And she would have been considered a blood-traitor, and disowned by her pure-blood family.”
He grinned sardonically at the wizard boy. “Are you suggesting that Merope was Voldemort’s mother? Because that makes him a half-blood. Unless his father was her brother! And the books say he said he never had any children!”
“NO!” shouted Draco.
“I can prove, with a Gringotts heredity parchment, that I am the son of the House of Potter. What does a Gringotts’ heredity parchment say is Voldemort’s House?”
The Slytherins were scandalized at the thought that the Dark Lord might not be a pure-blood. And several hands were inching closer to wands. The Gryffindors had spread out and looked just as astounded as the Slytherins.
“So, enlighten me,” Harry again challenged the boy, “if the three greatest wizards in the last hundred years are all not pure-bloods, what does that say about pure-bloods being superior?”
Draco and several others had drawn their wands, by now.
Several of Harry’s friends had done the same thing.
Harry had his wand in hoof, hidden by the folds of his robe.
Draco glared at him, shaking, then swung his arm up. “Densaugeo!” he screamed angrily.
Jets of light shot across the corridor. “Impedimenta!” “Stupefy!” “Tarantallegra!” and “Flipendo!” were some of the other things Harry heard.
His shield worked exactly as it was supposed to: everything bounced from the slightly convex, to Harry, light-blue wall that separated the Gryffindors from the Slytherins.
Crabbe was out cold on the floor. Goyle was dancing frantically. Millicent looked like she was moving through water as she slowly turned to her friend who had been knocked backwards into a wall. Draco looked shaken at barely dodging the flipendo.
“What is all this noise about?” said a soft, deadly voice from the now open door to the dungeon classroom behind the Slytherins. It was Professor Snape. The Slytherins began talking all at once.
Harry kept up his barrier. He stood, languidly, with his right foreleg partially extended, relaxed, wand in hoof. His wand clearly dangled loosely from his hoof and pointed vaguely in the direction of the Slytherins, but also at the floor. The tip glowed the same light-blue as the shield. His expression and stance were of aloof boredom. Blueblood said that that particular pose infuriated opponents. It made it appear as if the current discussion was simply not important to him — that he was merely a bystander who wasn’t sure if he should get involved or not.
It invariably led to others into making mistakes.
“They attacked us,” cried Ron at the same time as Draco, pointing at each other.
Snape took a long look at the barrier and Harry’s glowing wand. He also noted the wands held by the other Gryffindors and Slytherins in various degrees of readiness. He quickly restored order and cancelled the spells. He looked closer at girl who had been tossed into the corridor wall. Her front two teeth were slowly growing bigger. “Hospital Wing, Miss Parkinson. Tell Madam Pomfrey to check for a concussion, too. Mister Zabini, make sure she gets there,” he said softly.
They nodded and walked off. Parkinson held one hand against the side of her head as if she had a headache while Zabini guided her with one hand on her shoulder.
“No casting magic in the corridors,” he said silkily, “Twenty points from Gryffindor. Now get inside.”
Harry allowed his shield to fade out, and followed the others into the room, shaking his head sadly as he stored his wand. As he would expect from a bully, the wizard had made no effort to ascertain the truth, he simply sided with the students from his House.
And the fact of the matter was that the only spells cast had been the Slytherins’ and his shield. As a simple priori incantato would have shown. Celestia, the man could even have just asked one of the portraits in the corridor!
The Gryffindors were seething at the unfair treatment as they set up their equipment.
“Antidotes!” snapped Snape. He turned from his desk, robe swirling dramatically. His cold black eyes glittered unpleasantly as he glared at the Gryffindors. “You should all have selected your recipes now. I want you to brew them carefully, no notes, no references, no books . . . ,” his glare singled out Hermione, “no hints to your friends . . . . I will be selecting someone on whom to test one . . . .”
Hermione glanced at Harry. She managed to convey in that look that she expected the chosen one to be a Gryffindor. And that she expected the victim, because that was the definition of who it would be, to be given the worst potion in the room. The wizard’s constant hovering and criticizing would assure that the potion came from a Gryffindor.
And there the bully went, abusing his authority as a Professor to punish a not-so-random student, based on how he was looking at Neville. Harry could only shake his head sadly. If it weren’t for the potential bonanza this subject could yield for Equestria, Harry would drop it faster than Pinkie Pie could eat a cake.
Harry had barely had time to set up his cauldron and tools, and retrieve his supplies from the storage cabinet, when there came a tentative knock on the classroom door.
The door edged open at Professor Snape’s curt, “Enter!”
It was Colin Creevey, a boy who reminded Harry of Featherweight in Ponyville from the way he never stopped taking pictures. Colin cautiously edged into the room and walked over to Snape’s desk.
The Professor stared at the boy imperiously.
Colin took a deep breath, “Harry Sparkle is needed upstairs, sir. I’m supposed to show him the way. It’s for the Tournament.”
After an overly dramatic scene where the Professor tried to ignore the request, as any petty bully would do to inconvenience as many people as possible, he ordered Harry out of the room. “And that will be a zero for today’s potion, Mr. Sparkle,” he added, delight dancing at the edges of his voice.
As if Harry cared about such things. He rolled his eyes as he left the room.
۸- ̰ -۸
Like almost every other student not in Harry’s immediate class, Colin was loaded with questions. He barely stopped asking them long enough for Harry to answer. And he didn’t stop asking them almost the entire time they were walking to the room where the ceremony was to be held.
That the Daily Prophet would be there was predictable, of course. The Ministry, as the organizers of the tournament, would have to be stupid not to invite the most popular newspaper in England. The “good” publicity a successful tournament would generate for the Ministry could not be understated. He expected them to publicize every facet of the event, with copious amounts of photography to document everything. It’s what happened in Equestria for big events.
Thus, Harry was amazed when he stood up on his rear legs — he wanted to make an impression — and walked into a normal-sized classroom to see only six people total. And three of them were the champions! Which meant the woman in the magenta robes beside Ludo Bagman had to be from the newspaper, as was the photographer with a large smoking black camera. Harry shook his head in disbelief. The level of mismanagement this showed was remarkable.
This should have been held in the Great Hall. There should have been numerous dignitaries and as many press ponies as they could manage to cram in. The actual start of the tournament, two weeks ago, had been almost neglected by the press, with only a few mentions and no pictures! A travesty of poor planning and management, for which Harry had been most grateful at the time. The less time he was featured in newspapers, the better he liked it. Not to mention, he was sure the sensationalists would have played up his being a non-human. They probably would have called him a monster.
And while he loved the aspect that there was so little press present right now, the possible consequences were too hazardous to contemplate.
Blueblood had told him never to hold a press conference with only one reporter. Always invite several, you’re more likely to get honest coverage that way. Especially if you don’t know if that one reporter is going to write a complementary article or not! It was far better to have as many reporters as you could in a press conference, that way no one reporter could control what the public read and saw.
Unless the one reporter was solidly in your pocket, of course. Then it didn’t matter if the honest truth wasn’t portrayed. The story that was printed was the story you wanted printed, that was all that mattered.
And with him being the odd pony out, and disliked by so many students, the likelihood that he would be pilloried as a monster, or an unwanted intruder, was more than just a passing fancy in these circumstances.
He stopped and ducked back into the Hall. Colin had slowly started to drift back to whatever he had been doing, but was still within sight. Harry called out, “Hey! Colin! Got your camera?”
The boy spun around, but nodded eagerly. He started back to Harry.
“Excellent,” Harry said.
In the short time Harry had been in Gryffindor, he had never seen the boy without his camera. He was always either taking a picture, preparing to take a picture, or putting the camera in its case after taking a picture. Harry could see it by the strap over his shoulder.
Bagman and the others were staring as Harry ushered in the boy. Harry smiled brightly as Colin dug out his camera. “There seems to have been a slight mistake. There don’t seem to be representatives from the Bulgarian or French press here!” he explained.
“And while I’m sure the Daily Prophet is willing to share their photos,” he glanced at the paunchy man holding the black camera. Yeah, in a pig’s eye they would! “They’d rather have exclusive shots for themselves of the champions, wouldn’t they?” The man nodded hesitantly. “Colin can provide photographs without interrupting your work in the slightest,” he said towards the camerawizard.
Bagman paused, then slowly nodded.
The paunchy man glanced over at the woman and shrugged his shoulders. She just rolled her eyes.
Harry stepped close to Colin, who was giving him a look of horror and disbelief. “Look, just copy the photo shots that that wizard sets up,” he said in an undertone. “When he steps back to his camera to focus, take your shot.” Colin nodded timidly. “Start now with a few shots of the different champions. And be polite! If you treat them like furniture you’re arranging, you’ll get less cooperation.” He smiled. “At the very least you’ll get some wonderful photos to show at home. At best you might sell a few to the newspapers and make a few knuts to get better equipment.” Colin looked very happy at that prospect. “Plus, offer to give the champions free copies for themselves.”
Bagman had recovered by then and bounded over to Harry. “And here he is! Champion number four! Nothing to worry about, Harry, it’s just the wand weighing ceremony, the rest of the judges will be here in a moment.” He looked down at Colin, uncertainly.
“Wand weighing ceremony?” Harry repeated, frowning.
“Yes, yes,” Ludo said, waving his hand expansively at the front of the room. There were three tables placed end-to-end in front of the blackboard, and covered with a long length of cloth. Six chairs had been set behind the velvet-covered desks. The other chairs and desks in the room had been pushed to the back, except for four over by the door and against the wall. Someone had written “The Triwizard Tournament” in fancy lettering on the blackboard.
“We want to make sure your wands are in tip-top shape, don’t we? Can’t have a fair competition when someone might have shoddy equipment, can we?” he explained.
The witch in the magenta robes was at Bagman’s side, not quite nudging his elbow.
“The expert will be here shortly, with Dumbledore, we’ll do the ceremony, then there’s a little photoshoot to wrap things up.” He glanced over at Colin uncertainly.
Colin had made the most of his opportunity and snapped nearly a dozen pictures already. Victor, Cedric, and Fleur seemed to be humouring him and cooperating. And even mugging for the camera a little. And why not? They saw him as a harmless, and sometimes annoying, Third Year student with a penchant for taking lots of pictures.
“And this is Rita Skeeter, the reporter for the Daily Prophet,” Ludo said, and gave her a sidelong glance. He leaned a little closer to Harry. “She’s doing a small piece for the newspaper,” he said in a confidential manner, as if she couldn’t hear every word he said.
“Maybe not that small, Ludo,” she said, eyeing Harry hungrily.
He wasn’t interested in any kind of personal interview, even if Bagman had more or less volunteered him. And so he cast a sticking charms on his hooves to lock himself in place when she grabbed his foreleg to pull him along with her. The charms really weren’t that strong. But they did help him keep to his hooves in most situations. With the addition of his little pushes of magic for balance, Rita might as well as have tried to ponyhandle a stone statue, even if he was only a yard and a half tall and barely came up to her neck.
She gave him an incredulous look when she jerked to a stop. She cleared her throat. “Come along, dear, we don’t want to be in here with all this noise,” she cajoled. And tugged on his foreleg again. Harry couldn’t help but notice she had thick fingers with impressive two-inch nails, painted crimson.
Blueblood said that going off for a private interview with a reporter you didn’t know could only end in disaster. There were no witnesses to testify as to what either of you really said. And emphasized that in an argument over who said what, if you didn’t like the story that appeared, the pony who buys ink by the barrel would always win. And finally, in an unprepared situation, it was better to be silent and thought a fool than to open one’s muzzle and prove it beyond the shadow of a doubt.
Harry looked at Skeeter with a fake puzzled expression. Copying Blueblood’s cultured tones, he said. “I was brought here directly from my class by specific request, and at the great distress of my Professor, as Mr. Creevey can attest. The other attendees expect me to be here when they arrive, which should be any moment now. Hence, it would behove me to remain here until then in order to not unduly delay the ceremony.” He shifted to look at Bagman. “Isn’t that right, sir?”
He turned back to the witch before the wizard could reply. “In the meantime, I would be happy to answer your questions.”
She stared into his blank smiling face for a moment, then sighed. She opened a crocodile-skin handbag and drew out a roll of parchment and a long acid-green quill. She let go of his foreleg and walked over to one of the tables at the back of the room. Oddly, he saw her suck on the tip of the quill. She placed it on the parchment where it stood upright on its tip, quivering slightly.
She murmured something over it, watched it scrawl something on the parchment, then she tore off that piece and stuffed it in her handbag. “You wouldn’t mind stepping over here would you?” she said hopefully.
He looked around the room. There were enough witnesses around should anything start to get out of hand. He nodded and moved to the back of the room.
She looked down at him as he came closer and said, eyes gleaming, “So, are you really Harry Potter?”
The quill was dashing across the parchment.
He blinked at her question. “According to a Gringotts heredity parchment, my parents were Head of House James Potter and his wife Lily Potter, with my adoptive mother being Princess Twilight Sparkle. It revealed that my full name is Prince Harry James Potter Sparkle.”
That seemed to surprise her momentarily, but she shook it off. “Was it difficult to enter the Triwizard Tournament from where you were hiding?”
Harry blinked at the assumptions in the question. “I don’t know how it happened. I was at a town-wide party in Ponyville when I was suddenly grabbed and dropped into the Great Hall here at Hogwarts. I had never heard of the tournament, or Hogwarts, until then. Professor Dumbledore believes it was orchestrated by someone who wants me to die in one of the tasks. I know nothing more.”
“You are the second Hogwarts champion, correct?” Rita raised one heavily pencilled eyebrow.
“No. Someone confunded the Goblet of Fire such that its decision was for four schools in the Tournament instead of three. If Dumbledore, or any official, were to declare I am a Hogwarts champion, then there might be an adverse reaction by Goblet against those doing so. I would consider that carefully before putting anything in print, if I were you,” he cautioned politely.
“In any event, I am a student of Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns.” He waved his hoof at his horn. “Of which I am one, as you can see.”
He could already see that the interview was not going to be unbiased, Harry was relieved when he saw the door open almost behind them. He turned and watched the missing people for the ceremony begin to file in. First was Professor Karkaroff, then Madame Maxime, Mr. Crouch, Mr. Ollivander, a red-headed young man who looked enough like Ron, Fred, and George to be related, and finally Headmaster Dumbledore.
The school heads, the red-headed man, and Mr. Crouch moved to sit on the chairs behind the table, joining Mr. Bagman. Cedric and the other champions moved to the chairs by the door. Harry quickly joined them, ignoring the reporter who had pulled a chair over at the back of the room and watched the proceeding eagerly, her quill still scribbling away on a parchment.
Harry was pleased to note that Colin had already moved to take a picture of the judges for the tournament as Dumbledore took his seat.
“Before we begin, Mr. Crouch has a short announcement,” Dumbledore said, turning slightly to look at the wizard.
Mr. Crouch, while dressed as neatly as before, did not look any better than he had that first night. In fact, he looked worse. He sighed. “In the interests of fairness, I have appointed Percy Weatherby, here,” he nodded to the young man seated beside him, who had a very strained smile, “to act as a judge for Mr. Sparkle.” He looked at the other judges and the champions. “If there are four schools in the tournament, it is only fair that each school have its own judge present.”
Huh, Harry thought and shook his head a bit. He could have sworn that the young wizard beside Mr. Crouch was related to the Weasleys.
Headmaster Dumbledore seemed quite happy to have heard this as he nodded and smiled. The other two heads of schools scowled, but they had apparently already argued this out and voiced no opposition at this time. Perhaps that was why they had been late to the ceremony?
Mr. Crouch looked at the four students. “Mr. Weatherby has already given an oath that he will judge the performance of each champion on the merits of his or her actions in each task. He will not allow his personal feelings, if he has any in the matter, either for or against, to interfere with his decisions.” He slumped back in his chair, looking very tired, as if just talking was a struggle.
Dumbledore gave the wizard a worried look, but then turned back the champions. “Next, I’d like to introduce Mr. Ollivander, our wand judge. He will be checking your wands to ensure they are in good condition for the tournament.”
One by one, the four champions presented their wands.
Fleur’s wand was a combination of rosewood and a hair from the head of a Veela, one of her grandmothers, it seemed.
Harry had read about Veela. They were part-human, part-bird — and able to throw fireballs when transformed into birds. They were also capable of using an allure to attract men. That would explain some of the strange incidents he had noticed at meal times with male students acting quite embarrassingly when close to her.
That they were heavily discriminated against in England, according to his modern history book, came as no surprise, based on the way the Slytherins and a few others had acted around Harry. The English wizards were an amazingly bigoted bunch, he had slowly come to understand. Even the so-called Light wizards.
Cedric’s wand was ash and a male unicorn’s tail hair. Harry had to smother a snicker at Ollivander’s small-talk. Oh, yeah, he would have tried to gore Ollivander if he had yanked out one of Harry’s tail hairs without explaining in detail why he wanted to do that! Which led to Harry wonder if his mane and tail hair counted as a magical substance, in addition to his horn. Maybe he should start collecting his hairs after showering every morning, if only to prevent others from doing so. He would ask Bit if he could do anything to prevent their collection. Harry couldn’t be the first pony, or person, to raise that issue.
Victor’s hornbeam and dragon heartstring wand was interesting, if a bit morbid for the unicorn.
Harry watched carefully as the wizard handled his wand. Unlike the other three, however, Ollivander didn’t say a word about the wood or core. Harry wasn’t sure if that was good or bad at being singled out by the absence of those details. The press just loved mysteries, after all. They invariably used them to entice their public to keep reading as they slowly revealed what was hidden. And made up their own stories — which they carefully labelled as “conjectures” by third-parties — as to what that secret was in the meantime.
Then came the photo shoot. Harry had had to attend several of those in Equestria. Being a member of the Royal family made them a necessity at least once a year, if not two or three. Or more. His mum being at the forefront in saving Equestria from its various enemies always attracted the press. Several papers actually kept reporters and photographers in Ponyville on permanent assignments. Most were pretty nice when you met them, until a story came up. Then they were like timberwolves after wounded prey.
Colin, Harry was glad to see, had quickly caught on to how to work beside the Daily Prophet photographer without actually getting in his way. While waiting for the older wizard to set up his first shot, Harry walked over to Professor Karkaroff and Madame Maxime. “Colin, there,” he pointed to the boy, “is an excellent photographer and I’m sure he’d be more than happy to share the photographs he takes with your countries’ newspapers in exchange for a by-line and paying for his film. And you can provide all the relevant information to match those photographs, can’t you?” Both looked intrigued at the possibility. “And your home newspapers won’t have to depend on the dubious generosity and accuracy of an English newspaper.” They both nodded, and gave him evaluating looks.
Even Fleur and Victor looked interested. Perhaps they wanted photographs for friends or relatives in addition to ones for themselves?
Wait! That was a great idea, wasn’t it? Everyone at home would want to see pictures of his time here. Perhaps he should talk with the boy about the pictures he had already taken?
Finally, Skeeter had exhausted every possible combination of people in photographs and they were allowed to leave. And Harry was impressed that Colin had managed to match the Daily Prophet photographer shot for shot. He hadn’t imagined that the boy carried that much film with him!
Harry was surprised, again, when Weatherby followed the four students into the Great Hall for dinner. Which was where he learned that Percy Weatherby was actually Percy Weasley. Harry had a hard time keeping a straight face as Percy explained to his laughing brothers, “Mr. Crouch has a lot on his mind. He’s very busy and I’m only a new hire. Also, I’ve only been assigned to his department as a temporary.”
From his tone and how stiffly he stood, and the way his brothers rolled their eyes and made faces behind his back, Harry gathered that Percy had a rather inflated opinion of himself. And from side comments made under his breath by Ron, Harry understood that Percy was a bit of a stickler for the rules and authority.
If Harry had been interested in the tournament as an actual competition, he might have been gratified that Percy really would judge him on his performance. But he didn’t care, so it was a nonissue.
He spent the rest of the evening working his way through the charms text for the third time. The next week-and-a-half would be spent on practicing the spells. While he might know them from the reading, there was no way to gauge how much magic a spell took until you did it. And then it took many repetitions to fine-tune one’s control. Learning how to not summon a salt-shaker at supersonic speeds was as important as learning the summoning spell in the first place. He already knew the spells and their required movements, but it required practice to cast a spell. Just as it took practice to cast a spell with a horn.
۸-_-۸
Twilight paced around the blackboards and mirrors that cluttered the room. Sunburst, Starlight Glimmer, and Trixie watched wearily.
«While we’ve got the mirror-portal working,» she glanced up at one, «trying to locate just one universe out of them all is . . . time-consuming.» She glanced at her desk. Two old, worn trainers sat inside a chalked star. «Having his tennis-shoes helps narrow it down to only a million or so where such humans exist, but it takes both to provide enough of a signature. And his shirt will provide the confirming lock when we find the one he is in.» She looked at the t-shirt draped on one side a mirror.
She looked tiredly at the three others. The mirror suddenly shimmered, flashed red, then returned to being just a mirror. She sighed. «The mirror-magic has to settle for fifty-nine seconds between universes. We can link only one mirror to the trainers, doing two synchronizes them to the same destination. It will take three years, thirty-five days, twenty hours, and twenty minutes to exhaust all the possible universes . . . give or take a month.»
She looked at her three friends. «Have I left anything out?»
They shook their heads. Starlight frowned, «I just feel like we’re missing something . . . .» She shook her head and sighed tiredly. «Maybe it’ll come to me later.»
The alicorn sighed. «Then we’re done here. There’s nothing more to do but wait.» she said forlornly, sadly shaking her head. «I guess we should go to dinner.»
«No one is to enter,» she said to the guards as they exited. «If you hear an alarm and the mirror turns green, one of you tell Princess Celestia, immediately, if I’m not here.»
They solemnly nodded, and saluted, «Yes, ma’am, Princess Sparkle!»
There was a red flash visible through the open door as the four friends walked off.
۸-ꞈ-۸