//------------------------------// // Ch. 18 — Left Behind // Story: The Triwizard Pony // by tkepner //------------------------------// Ch. 18 — Left Behind The others quickly gathered around the pile still floating in Harry’s magic and tried to see what Luna saw. “But the diadem is in the cursed pile, Luna,” Hermione said reasonably, and held her friend back. “But . . . .” “What is it? And why is it important?” said Harry. Luna stopped struggling, straightened, sighed, and said, “The Lost Diadem of Ravenclaw is the only known relic of Rowena Ravenclaw, one of the four founders, of Hogwarts and of Ravenclaw House. Etched upon its surface is her quote: ‘Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure.’ You can see it on her statue in the Ravenclaw Common Room.” She stepped closer, bent down, and stared intently. Hermione made a half-hearted pull at her arm, but stopped when she saw that the girl only looked. “It’s said to enhance the wisdom of its wearer. It has a blue sapphire shaped like an oval.” She pointed delicately into the mass of silver and gold items, where they could, indeed see a small, tarnished silver circlet. “The diadem disappeared around the time of her death. Generations of Ravenclaws have searched for it.” She gazed at it longingly. “Although I did think she wasn’t quite that Dark. “So, when we finish tonight, we’ll take it to the Headmaster and have him fix it,” Harry said consolingly. Luna slowly nodded and stepped back. Now that they had that sorted, he finished placing the cursed jewellery in the room, with the diadem on the top so they wouldn’t forget it. They would have to ask Professor Flitwick for information about curse-breaking, for the other items, later. Harry had to use, “accio non-cursed trunk,” ten times on the trunks they could see, and got three to come to him, before he found one with both an expanded drawer space and a space expanded into a one-room apartment efficiency-style. He thought it would be more than big enough to serve as a repository for what he had collected. And it would be pretty handy if he could manage to take it home, too. Ron was quite happy to do the same and ended up with a much better trunk than the one he already had — and it was almost brand new. The puzzling part was that there were clothes in it that were almost as new as the trunk. Unfortunately, they all looked to be of a size for a firstie. Why someone would abandon such a thing left them all perplexed. The others set out into the massive room seeking treasures of their own. Expanded trunks seemed the most sought-after item. “Look! Look! Look!” Hermione said, later, when they got back together. She showed them the early editions of Hogwart’s: A History, she had found. “This is wonderful! These are hundreds of years old! They’re worth a fortune by themselves!” The Repairable’s room seemed to be almost filled with books, except for a huge pile of old brooms in one corner. Most of those were only good for firewood. Harry had continued to collect gold and silver items as he wandered through the huge room. There seemed to be inordinate number of gold- or silver-handled knives that ended up in the Cursed room. They didn’t leave until almost dinner time, having missed lunch. But they all were more than happy with what they had found, and put their shrunken trunks in their pockets. Dumbledore’s office was their first stop, with the portraits’ help in finding where it was. Harry was coming from a different direction, this time. “We have something very important for Headmaster Dumbledore,” Harry said as Luna lifted a cloth-wrapped bundle to show it. The gargoyle said nothing for a moment before sliding open. They trooped up the stairs into the office proper. Dumbledore was seated behind his desk, eyes twinkling. “To what do I owe this unusual visit?” He said kindly as he leaned forward and looked at them over his glasses. Harry nodded to Luna. Luna smiled brightly. “We were exploring the castle today and came across a most curious room. Hidden in it, we found this,” she said brightly. She held out the cloth-wrapped bundle and carefully set it on his desk. “I didn’t recognize it at first,” she said, half-scoldingly to herself, as she delicately unwrapped the object, “because it was so tarnished, but then I realized what we had found.” The Headmaster leaned even closer, and glanced from the item to Luna. Then she flipped the last fold of cloth off the diadem. “Rowena Ravenclaw’s Lost Diadem,” she said dramatically. The Headmasters eyes shot wide open as he glanced from the item to Luna to the rest of them. “It looks,” Luna continued dreamily, “exactly like the diadem in both her portrait and statue in the Ravenclaw Common Room. It even has ‘Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure’ engraved in it.” The Headmaster stood and leaned over his desk, hands reaching for the diadem. “Don’t touch it!” Harry said urgently and loudly, alarmed that the wizard might do that unaware of the danger. “It’s been cursed!” His horn glowed and so did the cloth which held the diadem. Dumbledore’s hand’s stopped just short of picking up the tarnished metal circlet. He looked at Harry and the others and took in their frightened expressions. He slowly straightened and pulled out his wand. A moment later the diadem was covered in a black fog. “Oh, dear,” he said slowly, and stared at it, frowning. He cast another spell, then another. With each spell, his expression grew sadder and more haggard. “There’s some sort of compulsion on it,” Harry said. Dumbledore looked up at him. “If we get too close for too long, we found we were tempted to put the diadem on . . . to test it, you see, to see if the legends are true,” Harry concluded apologetically. The old wizard nodded. “That’s why we wrapped it in a cloth. We found that simply wrapping it prevented that from happening.” “We thought you must know a spell to remove curses, so we brought it here, first” Hermione said, hopefully. Dumbledore sighed heavily, there were distinctly fewer twinkles in his eye. “Thank you very much for bringing this to my attention.” He smiled wryly, “And finding this treasure. Forty points to each of you.” Hermione broke out in a grin so big it almost reached her ears. The others were not far behind. None of them had every received so many points. Dumbledore stroked his beard, thinking, as he sat back in his chair. “I must ask you to tell no one of this. The spells on the diadem are quite dark and I do not want people to get excited about this historic discovery, only to disappoint them later should it be necessary to destroy it to get rid of the spells.” They gasped and exchanged horrified expressions. Harry sighed. “If mum were here, she could fix it, but I’m not powerful enough or well versed enough to do it myself.” The Headmaster gave him a long look. He leaned forward and once more concealed the diadem in the cloth. He pulled it closer, then dropped it in a drawer in his desk. “It is our misfortune that she isn’t, then.” He sighed as he settled back in his chair. “Now, then, perhaps you could tell me more about this curious room?” He smiled inquisitively. “Well, it’s kind of odd.” Harry said speculatively. “The house-elves told us about it. They’ve known about it since they first started here. They’ve been using it to store things that students abandon and broken things that they can’t fix properly. It’s also been used by people trying to hide things.” He shook his head. “How no one found the diadem before now, I don’t know. It’s even possible that they knew it was there, but nobody ever asked them.” “But it’s chock full of books and things!” Hermione said excitedly. “You could fix the books and sell them to a used-bookstore and get new brooms for the firsties to practice on! Or better, sell them directly to students here, in a Hogwarts store for students! Or the First Year books to new students at a discount. And there’re potion bottles, glass and crystal phials, telescopes, and other things, there, too.” “It stonking!” put in Ron, “Bigger than the Great Hall, I’d bet!” “’Course ya got to watch out for the cursed things,” put in Dean. “I bet you could flog some of the stuff as Hogwarts souvenirs, broken or not!” said Seamus. “And where might this treasure trove be?” Dumbledore asked, the humour apparent in his tone. “Well, you know on the seventh floor where there’s that tapestry with trolls in ballerina shoes and tutus?” Hermione said. “Ah, yes, Barnabas the Barmy’s tapestry,” he nodded sagely. “Well, you walk back and forth in front of the opposite wall three times thinking of what you want, and then a door appears and then Bob’s your uncle!” she concluded triumphantly. “Such as if you were in urgent need of a room with chamberpots . . . ,” the Headmaster said softly. He smiled. “Well, I shall have to investigate that.” He stood behind his desk. “But first, I believe it is time for a bit of a nosh, is it not?” On the way to the Great Hall, Hermione expounded upon the idea of there being a store, either student-run or leased, where students could get supplies like quills, ink, parchment, replacement or extra texts, candy (but not too much), and other things that students ran out of on a regular basis. Not to mention what they might want to buy for presents for birthdays and significant friends. For a boarding school, Harry was surprised that they had made no provisions for such a store. That evening, he spent time making sure that placing his closet-equipped trunk inside his new apartment-equipped trunk wouldn’t cause any problems. And reading the new book he had found on the undetectable expansion charm. It was a bit worn, but was legible and didn’t have any missing pages. And a couple of subsequent reparos made it look almost new. Sunday morning, a lone Eagle Owl flew into the Great Hall. It wore a harness with the Gringotts emblem on its breast. It curved over and headed straight for Harry. It landed and imperiously held out one leg. With a wing-span wider than he was tall, it did a decent job of intimidating everyone at the table. Harry delicately removed the letter and wordlessly offered the owl a plate of sausages. After taking two, the owl just stared at him as it swallowed them. “Uh, Harry?” said Ron. “I think it’s waiting for a reply.” The bird gave him a quick look, then bobbed its head to Harry. Harry quickly opened the letter. It was short. It explained that until he reached his majority that he would not be allowed to handle his financial arrangements by himself. Everything would have to go through his legal guardian. It then asked for the name of his guardian, and said that Gringotts would make arrangements with him for Harry’s properties to be brought back into service. And also informed him that they would be performing a complete audit of his accounts to make sure there weren’t any other items that needed to be addressed. There was also a brief mention that his legal guardian would have to answer some questions on why he had failed to fulfil his legal duties, and that there would be penalties imposed on the person. As well as questions on his or her suitability to be a guardian. He filled in Dumbledore’s name in the place indicated and gave it back to the bird. The owl left as majestically as it had arrived, with everyone watching. The Headmaster seemed a bit sad to see it go. After that bit of excitement, Hermione and the rest of the group, especially the Weasley twins and their friends, decided to spend the day in the Room of Requirement, exploring it more with the Headmaster and Professor Flitwick. “Are you sure you don’t want to join us?” Hermione said. Harry smiled. “No, thanks, I’m going to be in the dorm working on some runes I want to use.” They separated on the seventh floor. Luna said she wanted to see if there were any mome-mouses hiding in the room, as she skipped down the corridor. Hermione rolled her eyes and followed with the Headmaster and Professor Flitwick. Harry spent most of the morning working on the rune-spell equivalents for what he wanted to do. It was an odd mishmash of Equestrian runes and Wizard runes, but from what he could see it ought to work. Which is how he found himself on the side of one of the mountains that surrounded Hogwarts that afternoon. The short fifteen minute flight wasn’t nearly as fast as Dash could do, but it more than satisfied his needs. He then spent another half hour carefully drawing Rarity’s gem-finding spell matrix on the top of a granite ledge in the mountainside, modified for gold, of course. He placed the wizarding switching rune-spell matrix beside it, as well, and placed a large rock on it as the source. Once he was happy with the lines of the result, he drew a wizarding power-rune on the boulder beside the ledge, and another that made the boulder the storage unit. Then he waited an hour for the boulder to charge. Once he judged enough time had passed, he carefully drew the final line that connected the power runes to the other spells — while he stood behind another boulder at a reasonable distance in case he’d cocked up the runes. There was a flash of light — and the rock he had placed on the switching rune was solid gold.* He carefully lifted the rock, and replaced it with another. Almost as soon as the rock touched the runes, it changed to gold. He kept changing the rocks until he had filled his expanded closet trunk. Then kept going until he had several tonnes, and had picked up almost every loose rock and piece of gravel within sight. He carefully erased one of the charging-rune’s lines to disable it, and used a few more large rocks to deplete the storage boulder. He carefully scattered tiny debris over the runes to hide them, then emptied his trunk and examined just what he had accumulated. He used the reducio charm to make the pile of gold rocks smaller until he could get them to fit in his closet, which was a bit of a challenge. Then he cast the notice-me-not charm so his carrying his trunk wouldn’t draw any undue attention. He blessed whomever it was that came up with the featherweight charm, as carrying that much weight all by himself would have been impossible. It still took him longer to return than to get to the mountains. He found a disused classroom on the seventh floor and unloaded everything he had gathered that day. The tiered classroom made it difficult to tell, but he had enough gold chunks to make a substantial addition to any dragon’s horde! Breaking up the bigger pieces and packing it all as tightly as he could with a sticking charm, he had a cube nearly a yard on each side. And his weight-weighing charm said it was over three tonnes! He again cast the notice-me-not charm on the trunk and headed for the Gryffindor dorms. Almost everyone had already headed for dinner, so he was able to sneak into his room and transfer the gold into his new apartment trunk. Even with the things from the Room of Requirement, the gold pile took a surprisingly small amount of room. He sat back and stared at his trunk. He wondered if he needed heavy-duty weight-reduction charms added to the trunk. He would have to take another look at the Undetectable Expansion Charm book. For the moment, though, the apartment trunk would do nicely. And, now he had a workable plan for thanking the dragons. The only problem left would be getting the gold to the dragons, but with the apartment trunk, that problem would be solved, too. All he needed was permission to visit the dragon sanctuary. And Charlie had said that wouldn’t be a problem before he had left. After dinner that evening, he taught his tutors his mum’s favourite Bubble of Silence spell. Things quickly settled into a routine. The rest of the week was back to re-reading his texts and practicing the rest of the fourth-year materials. And catching up on the subjects he had neglected in the mad rush before the first task. Most of the school left him alone during this time, although he thought the Gryffindors might be warming up to him. At least, that is, they didn’t scowl at him as much as the rest of the school. And both the Daily Prophet and The Quibbler seemed to like his letter to the Editor, which they both published the same day as his full-page ad explaining he hadn’t received any mail in the last thirteen years. The separate letter was carefully analysed. Somehow, though, The Quibbler concluded that if you could hold a wand and cast a spell, you must be a human, because only humans, by law, could own wands and cast spells. Arguments in the Letters to the Editor sections for both newspapers in the following days were fast and furious. And there was a bit of a kerfuffle in the school over both the advertisment and the letter. Fortunately, most people kept their distance, except in the Gryffindor common room where more than a few students thanked him for explaining why he had never responded to their owl-mails. And at every subsequent owl parliament several students would get a letter, read it, and then look over his way and smile. ۸-_-۸ «Girls,» Apple Bloom said, «It’s been a month since Harry disappeared.» Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle nodded morosely. They had gathered in Sweetie Belle’s dorm room before dinner that Saturday at Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns in Canterlot. Apple Bloom had a small apartment she shared with another earth pony in town, and during the day she took care of the small store her sister had established. Scootaloo had wrangled a position in the Canterlot Weather Management branch of the Equestrian Weather Service. The other two had been waiting for Sweetie Belle to get out of her last class. She had the latest information. «We know.» Sweetie Belle kicked the floor sulkily. «Princess Sparkle told me, at lunch today, that they had set up a spell weeks ago using his old shoes and a mirror portal to search for him.» The other two perked up. «Unfortunately, she told me that there was no predicting when the spell would find him.» Their ears drooped and they sighed dispiritedly. «There are over a million worlds where they might find him, and worst case, it’ll take three years to search them all if he’s in the last one.» «Three years?» the other two cried out despairingly. «Yep. And there’s nothing we can do to speed it up.» They glumly stared at the floor. «Unless . . . ,» Scootaloo said softly. The other two looked up hopefully. «. . . Discord,» she finished. Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom exchanged narrow-eyed looks. «If anyone could do it, he could,» said Sweetie Belle, hopefully. «If he wanted to,» said Apple Bloom, pessimistically. Scootaloo just shrugged, «Won’t know if we don’t ask.» She sat down, tilted her head back, and shouted, «DISCORD!» She waited a half-second, then took a second, deep breath, and repeated, «DISCORRRRRD!» Sweetie Belle stared at her, shrugged, and copied the orange pegasus, shouting, «DISCORRRD!» Apple Bloom shook her head, sighed miserably, and sat. Scootaloo shouted a third time, with Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom following her a moment later, calling, «DISCORRRRD!» «DISCORRRD!» «DISCORRD!» In three-part harmony. They stopped and took a new breath, and shouted/sang, «DISCORD!» There was a pop by the window. «You called?» said the draconequus, stretching out the last word. He was holding a cigar in one claw and had an obviously fake moustache drawn on his upper lip. He was twitching the cigar up and down, and arching his eyebrows comically. «Thank you for coming,» Scootaloo immediately said. «And what do my favourite purveyors of mayhem want?» Sweetie Belle took a steadying breath. «We want you to bring Harry back.» Discord was brushing dirt off his dinner jacket. The dirt was squealing and running back into place. He didn’t look up as he said, «No can do. He’s in the middle of doing me proud.» A small Harry appeared, holding something golden in his hooves. It looked like an egg with a hinge that let it open, as it appeared to be at the moment. His mane was being blasted back and he was making a face like he was facing a really strong wind. «He’s still alive?» Apple Bloom squeaked happily. Discord gave her a hurt look. «Of course he is, he can’t very well cause chaos if he were dead . . . ,» he frowned. «Well, I suppose he could, but it wouldn’t be nearly as entertaining. And it wouldn’t last very long, either.» He gazed off into the distance. «Just by being where he is, he’s upsetting thousands of plans!» He giggled at something only he could see. «Besides, Miss Purple Alicorn has things well in hoof. Why should I interfere?» «Because we asked you,» was Scootaloo’s quick response. «It would be unexpected of you to lend us assistance! At simply being asked, too.» The three looked at him with wide eyes, lower-lips trembling ever so slightly, ears back and right hoof slightly lifted as if paused in the act of reaching out for help. «Gah!» Discord cried, jumping back. «Don’t dooo that!» he commanded. He narrowed his eyes at them and sat down on a rock that hadn’t been there a second ago. He put his elbow on his knee and rested his chin on the back of his bent paw. «You do have a point,» he said slowly. «But bringing the boy back at this point would leave you with a corpse in a few short months.» The three gasped and took a step back. He sighed, «A beautiful corpse, but still, a corpse. Unless,» he started to get excited, «you want to raise him as an undead lover! And send him across the land to carry out your nefarious schemes, exacting revenge on your enemies!» He quickly noticed the horrified looks the three were now giving him. He sighed dejectedly. «But I promised my Shy I wouldn’t cause any ponies to die. Or mutilate them. Not even temporarily.» He looked dejected for a moment. «And even if he’s not a pony, Shy wouldn’t forgive me for doing anything that might hurt Harry.» He stopped and gave them a stern look. «And, no, I had nothing to do with him either getting here or returning to his home.» His snarly tone reinforced the point. He really had had nothing to do with either incident. «But he is okay, right?» Apple Bloom said cautiously. Discord looked at her and smiled, standing once more. «I give you my word that he is just fine, at the moment. He handled the first task of the tournament just fine, he handled his fight with the dragon like a champ and wowed the entire crowd!» Tiny Harry appeared over the draconequus’s head, facing a dragon that was easily big enough to swallow him in one bite. A dragon that made all the ones they had seen look small and plain. «To interfere now would not be . . . chaotic!» «Fight?» said Sweetie Bell, alarmed at the thought. «Dragon?» yelped Scootaloo, for similar reasons. «Crowd?» said Apple Bloom suspiciously, a moment after the other two. «Oh,» said the draconequus, «you don’t have to worry about him. He’s got three girls helping him to cope. Why, one is smart, like you Sweetie Belle . . .» Sweetie Belle did not look encouraged by that statement. «. . . one is impulsive and flighty, not quite like you Scootaloo, but she does keep everyone on their toes . . .» Scootaloo stared at Discord, scowling, with her forelegs crossed as she hovered over the floor. «. . . and the third is a lot like you and your family, Apple Bloom. They even have an orchard of apples!» Discord looked pleased to deliver such good news that their herdmate wasn’t abandoned and alone. Scootaloo had narrowed her eyes and had the kind of look at that promised much pain in the future for someone. Most likely the one that stood in front of her. «You’re not manipulating anything, are you, Discord?» Apple Bloom said suspiciously, with a dangerous tone in her voice. «Moi? Moi?» Discord said, with dozens of smaller Discords all around him as they pointed their claws at themselves, little halos over their heads. «I don’t have to do nearly anything in that world for things to head for the most chaos possible in the shortest amount of time conceivable.» A halo appeared over his head. «I barely have to even give a tiny nudge and things spiral out of control deliciously.» He chortled. «I can just sit at the sidelines and eat popcorn to my hearts’ content.» The three fillies glared at him. «What did you do to our Harry?» asked Sweetie Belle in a dangerous tone. «Do to Harry?» Discord said in an affronted manner. «I promise you, I have done nothing to Harry. In fact, I helped him by making sure those who could help him would be there when he needed them. Just two little nudges at the right times.» He grinned at them, a rather nasty grin. «After all, I promised my Shy I wouldn’t hurt any ponies, or her friends, now didn’t I? And she doesn’t know any of them, does she?» He buffed his claws on his chest. «And everything turned out well. Neither died when they most likely would have. And each is causing chaos of a different kind just by being where they are.» He gave them a sly look. «What more would you ask?» Apple Bloom took a deep breath and slowly let it out. «So, Harry’s safe, right?» «For the time being. After all, who knows what the future holds?» he said coyly. «And those girls?» Scootaloo said, «They’re helping him?» Discord looked both ways, as if checking to see if anyone was listening who shouldn’t be. A tiny Discord appeared seated in front of a desk with some kind of panel in front of him. A vertically-mounted wire dish on a pole coming from the desk rotated in a circle over his head. After the dish had rotated several times, he suddenly held out a paw with a thumb up. Several other tiny Discords were peering around the door and window, lifting the rug to look under it, and crawling under the bed. «Truthfully, Harry is helping them more than they are helping him. He’s already saved two girls from several years of misery. They will be quite appreciative when they both realize just how much he has helped them. Actually, one already has.» He chuckled. «Ah, Harry, what a lady-killer.» «Killer?» Sweetie Belle said, alarmed. The other two looked just as startled. «Figure of speech, fillies, figure of speech. It means someone who can easily get the members of the female persuasion to fall for him.» A tiny Discord flipped pages in a book, stopped, put a claw on the page, pretended to read it, then looked at them and nodded vigorously. Their expressions had changed. Now they looked uncertain, not sure if they should be relieved at that definition or even more worried. It was just now occurring to them that Harry might not want to come back. They exchanged worried looks. «Is Harry going to be okay, there?» Sweetie Belle asked slowly. «I mean, he’s going to come back, right?» There was more than a little bit of a whine in her voice. Discord frowned at them. «If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were from Missouri.» Tiny version of the three fillies began orbiting his head with little speech bubbles over their heads that said, «Prove it!» «Show me!» and «Are you sure?» Discord looked at them, as if only now noticing their insecurity. He fell backwards a step, as if in shock. «Don’t tell me you are jealous!» He leaned closer. «Are you?» he said with a hint of a smile. They looked at each other again. They were all shifting on their hooves, and rubbing one leg against another. «Well,» said Sweetie Belle slowly. «Yes.» «No.» «Maybe.» Discord looked at them with a barely controlled smile. «Oh,» he said, «We can’t have that.» He stood still a moment, tapping one claw against his chin, «I know,» he said, as if struck by inspiration, «How about, because I can’t bring him here, I send you there!» «What?» said Sweetie Belle, starting to get alarmed and taking a step backwards. «This is the perfect solution! You can be with Harry, Harry can be with you, everyone is happy!» He reached over and with one paw opened a hole in space like one of the ponies would pull a curtain aside. «See? Harry’s right there.» He pointed with the clawed hand at a pony seated among a bunch of what looked like hairless minotaurs. The three started to slide into the opening, as if they were being sucked into it. ۸- ̫ -۸