Sweetie Belle - Hogwarts Exchange Student

by Georg

9. Sweetie's First Test

Sweetie Belle was no stranger to being in trouble, particularly the kind of trouble that came with having friends. The first rule of friendship was to stick together.

“It’s not our fault!”

The second rule was to divert the blame.

Thankfully, the old human who appeared behind the shop’s counter did not look very angry, only startled, although that could just be from the way his wispy white hair frizzed out in all directions. He looked down at the three of them through the dissipating smoke, raised one pale eyebrow, and tut-tut’ed while slowly shaking his head.

“My word! What a curious group of students we have this morning. One moment, young miss.”

He plucked the stub of the wand out of Sparrow’s hands and gave it a long, penetrating look before placing it down on the counter in the middle of a small group of glowing sparks, which were all that was left of the rest of the wooden stick. Even his long, thin fingers appeared to be wrinkled to Sweetie, although that could just have been because humans did not have a furry coat.

“In all my years, I’ve never seen a wand react like this,” he mused. “Not even one of the Weasley’s trick wands. Was this the willow wand we had set out for the customer?”

“Yes, sir. There were two of them on a pillow here.” Wycliffe put the smoldering wand fragment he was clutching onto the wooden counter. There was not much left of the pillow except a few floating motes of stuffing, so the small boy swallowed and continued. “We’ll pay for it, of course.”

“Oh, think nothing of it, my boy. If I charged for every wand a wizard touched, I’d be an extremely wealthy man. Now, my name is Mister Ollivander. How may I help you?”

“This is Sweetie Belle,” said Wycliffe, very politely nodding to Sweetie. “And her friend, Sparrow Lilley from the colonies. If you will please get me an oak wand, nine and three quarters inches long with a unicorn tail hair core, I will be out of your way so you can attend to the young ladies.”

Sweetie did not think the old man could make his eyebrow go any further up, but he managed, and included a subtle smile. “Oh, pardon me, young proprietor. As a customer, I seem to be on the wrong side of the counter. And your name is…?”

The small boy seemed to shrink in on himself even further. “Wycliffe Nott.”

“Ahh.” Ollivander’s head lowered in a slow nod, and all of the humor left his expression. “I was so sad to hear about your father. Please, accept my condolences. I remember his visit as well as your brother’s, as you said. Both oak, nine and three quarters inches with a unicorn mane hair. But are you quite certain you wish to tread the same path as your father, Master Nott? After all, your mother was a birch.”

Sweetie gasped and Sparrow exclaimed, “Hey! That’s not very nice.”

“A silver birch wand,” clarified Wycliffe. “From a tree. With an owl tail feather core.”

“Oh,” said Sparrow. “You mean we get to customize our wands? That’s so cool! Can I get a red one?”

“Can I get one with feathers on the end so I can use it as a quill?” asked Sweetie.

“Patience, ladies. Why don’t the three of you come up to the counter and we’ll proceed.” He brushed a few ashes off the charred counter and waited for them to get situated, although there was a twinkle in his eye that Sweetie was having trouble determining what it meant. There was certainly more to the old man than he appeared if he had owned his store since… well, she did not know what year it was now in people terms, so the sign out front really did not mean anything unless she asked.

“Your sign says you’ve been making wands since 385 bic,” said Sweetie as Mister Ollivander got out his measuring tape. “How long ago was that?”

“Two thousand, three hundred and eighty three years,” said Sparrow.

“Two thousand, three hundred and eighty two years,” said Wycliffe just a moment later. “There is no year zero.”

“Oh, that’s right,” said Sparrow. She scowled a little while Ollivander used his cloth measuring tape on the boy, and spent her time looking around the stacks of boxes all around the store. Sweetie did not think it was very polite, but perhaps the tall girl had never been measured before. Rarity had measured Sweetie Belle all kinds of times, although not in human form. Sweetie knew enough to hold still and stick out the appropriate limb when requested while asking the rest of the questions she had stacked up.

“So I don’t know how to do magic here, but I used to have a tutor. Will my wand come with some sort of instructions, like a book?” she asked hopefully. “Miss Selkirk seems to think I could make hers work by just flicking it, but nothing happened at all, and I was just worried—’

She had to stop talking when Ollivander measured very carefully from the tip of her nose to her bottom lip, then he gave a sharp nod. “I must say, I’ve never met a witch with quite your level of potential, Miss Belle. I’m certain Hogwarts will have no trouble teaching you how to reach your proper level of magical ability. And as for you, young lady.” Ollivander held the measuring tape to Sparrow’s shoulder and measured to her ear. “I daresay your magic will be much like your uncles’ dragons, all filled with fire and speed. I think I have just the wand for you.” He winked. “And it’s red.”

“Cool.”

Sparrow bounced on her toes while Ollivander turned to the stacks of wand boxes and climbed a ladder to get at the top row, only for a squeaky voice from above to ask, “I hope you don’t want this one, Mister Ollivander. Or this one.”

A ferret peered out from the top of the stack and pushed several exploded boxes over the edge one at a time, each of which the old man caught and looked at before tossing them to one side.

“Can you find the red alder wand, with a unicorn tail hair core?” he called back up. “It should be a new one that my granddaughter just finished.”

A shattered box with a few splinters in it fell from the top row, and the old man caught it just as surely as Pinkie Pie under a dropped piece of candy. “Oh,” he said, looking at the splinters. “I suppose it can’t hurt to try.”

Sparrow took the splintered stub of the wand between thumb and forefinger and peered at it, before waving it in the direction of the back of the store. Wycliffe flinched, but Sweetie watched carefully, as did the old man. Several boxes hopped up and shuffled around, but no explosions or fire followed, and Ollivander gave out a pleased smile.

“An auspicious beginning,” he declared, even after Sweetie picked up the wand stub and got absolutely nothing from waving it other than a splinter in one finger. “Now, let us see about our young Master Nott, shall we? I believe this is the wand you were asking about.” The old man moved behind a stack of boxes and emerged with another truncated stub, which he regarded as if the wood had done something rather unpleasant to him. “Curious,” he murmured before vanishing into the stacks of wand boxes again. Several wand stubs came out behind him, tossed one at a time as Ollivander came across more exploded boxes, each of which made Wycliffe give out a low shiver, much as if he were counting bits.

“Oleander!” Ollivander called out over his shoulder toward the back of the store.

There was no response, other than some more shuffling noises.

“Oleander!” he called out louder. “Oleander Dean Ollivander! Are the two of you done with the Whomping Willow twigs yet?”

“Just about, grandfather.” There was a rattle and a sharp thumping noise from the dusty depths of the store, as if somepony had just been tackled, or whomped.

“Do you have any idea why all of the recent wands with unicorn hair cores seem to have exploded?” he called back.

There was a very long, pregnant silence. “Maybe?” she said after a few moments.

“Maybe?” he echoed. “I sent you to the Dark Forest a week ago to get more tail hairs. Did you bring back unicorn tail hairs or not?”

“It’s… complicated,” called out the unseen Oleander. “Can we talk to you about it privately later, grandfather?”

“Children,” scoffed Ollivander as he turned back to his customers. “Well, let’s find your wands.”

After an hour, and a growing pile of discarded wands, Sweetie Belle was starting to wonder. Sparrow had managed to use a long hickory wand with a dragon heartstring ‘core’ to move a few boxes and said it felt ‘funny’ whenever she waved it, which was an improvement, but not nearly good enough for the old man. Wycliffe could get just about any oak wand to make a quiet whooshing noise whenever he waved it, but nothing more. And Sweetie…

“Still nothing, Mister Ollivander,” she said with one last vigorous wave of the red alder wood wand, which did not look very red and was making just as little magic as if she had been waving a pencil. Which she had tried, just to see what happened.

“You’re not making a connection,” said the old man as he passed over another wand.

... three hours later.

“There’s just something I’m missing,” murmured Ollivander. His wrinkles had deepened, and a certain amount of hesitancy had begun to show whenever he passed a wand to Sweetie, who would try it and pass it along to her friends. A pile of wand boxes had grown until it scattered all across the floor and made heaps behind the counter, but none of the wands in them had done a single thing when Sweetie waved them.

Their wand-waving experimentation had been interrupted nearly a dozen times as other customers had come in and left with their new wands. While waiting, Wycliffe sat patiently on the row of chairs in the shop and Sparrow had flopped down on the floor to morosely poke buttons on a small plastic game of some sort.

Sweetie Belle had a different goal. She occupied her time during those breaks by getting out her book and writing back to her friends in Ponyville, which also gave her a chance to practice writing with her fingers around the quill, at the cost of much of her already questionable legibility. Wycliffe was helpful during her more difficult Equestrian words and letters, showing how she was gripping the pegasus quill incorrectly and asking about the language she was using as well as the type of magic that transmitted their messages back and forth. It helped her cope with the stuplifying boredom and frustration of wand shopping, because spending time with friends was far better than being alone.

Then Sparrow’s family had poked their noses into the shop briefly to tell her that Nel needed to get back to his base in a hurry, and that Miss Selkirk was going to take care of them as soon as they were done.

If they ever were going to get out of the wand shop.

“I’ve never been able to make a wand work,” offered Sweetie. “Maybe I don’t have any wizard magic here. I mean at home I can make a light, pick up things, and do every spell in the Penworthington’s Penultimate Prep School Primer most of the time without setting too much stuff on fire. Maybe the Wizengammet sent me a Hogwarts letter by mistake.”

“Those students who receive a letter from Hogwarts are within a most promising few,” said Ollivander, passing her a wand made out of some sort of cool white material like plastic. “Hogwarts selects the students who attend, much like your wand will choose you. Some of the students have had their name in the Book since they were born, while others seem to just appear at the last moment when letters are sent out for First Years.”

“So how did I get picked?” asked Sweetie, passing back the nonfunctional wand.

“I would not hazard a guess,” said Ollivander. “How students are selected is a secret which goes all the way back to the founders of the school, but to be within that special few is a treasured honor. Most wizarding children are taught by local schools or tutors, after all, and many of them acquire their wands from local artisans who have studied the mysteries of wand lore. Sometimes the process seems quite random, but all things seem to work out in the end.”

The old man hesitated while holding a short, stubby wand seemingly made out of prickly thorns. “I’ve always said the wand chooses the wizard, but have never really considered how the school selects the student in much the same way. That is neither here nor there. It is only up to us to find the right wand made out of the right material to properly focus your magic.”

He waved a long-fingered hand at her two friends. “Young Miss Lilley there seems to resonate with the red alder wands and hickory the best, most likely because she is from America, and those trees grow all over the world. Try this one, please. No? Anyway, your young Master Nott is a tough and unyielding fellow, unmistakably an oak like his father, although the path he chooses to walk will be his own, much like oak trees can set their roots all over the world and grow slow and steady until they are the greatest trees in the forest. I suspect they both will require wands with unicorn hair cores, but as you noticed, we recently received a bad batch of hairs. I will just have to send my granddaughter out to collect some more, and see if they can return in a few days when we have made some replacements.”

“I do not believe we will have time to wait in our schedules,” said Wycliffe. “What kind of unicorn hairs will I need to provide for our wands?”

“Oh, I remember the unicorns in your family’s woods,” said Ollivander, passing Sweetie a wand that appeared to be made out of brass, but felt warm in her hands. “Quite nice ones, in fact. It is just that your mother always used to travel with me to collect their hairs, and since she passed—” The old man let out his breath with a far-away expression and the slightest pursing of his lips. “They only see me instead of us together, and distrust the result.”

“No,” said Wycliffe with his most serious expression. “I know of a unicorn much closer.”

Sweetie Belle was caught a little off her guard, even though she should have expected it. Galloway had said that she should not show off about how she could turn from a unicorn to a human and back, she knew just how difficult it would be to keep her ability a secret back in Ponyville with her friends there. Plus everypony in the goblin bank had seen her change. Still, the windowshades of the shop were wide open, and she should at least try to follow the older witch’s advice while helping her new friend.

Sparrow caught her glance at the windows and was pulling the blinds by the time Sweetie had even gotten halfway there. Between Wycliff’s identification of a solution to their wand problem and Sparrow recognizing how Sweetie did not want to show off to any humans walking about outside, it was nice to have friends who knew her so well even with the short amount of time they had been together.

It only took a moment for Sweetie Belle to slip out of her shoes and change, with an odd shrinking sensation as the close confines of the wand shop rose up above her new lower point of view. Mister Ollivander bent over the counter to look at her new shape, his eyes as wide she had ever seen before and his mouth drawn up into a surprised ‘o’ as he froze in place.

Sparrow Lilley had no such hesitation. She buried her hands into Sweetie Belle’s mane and fluffed her up, grinning all the while. “I knew you were adorable. Isn’t she adorable? I mean you changed in the bank and I didn’t see you there but I saw you this morning in bed and you were just so cute!” Sparrow’s voice cracked a little, and she quickly regained her composure while turning to Ollivander. “So, you can make our wands now?”

“Another Equestrian unicorn,” said the old man finally, coming around the counter cautiously with his cloth measuring tape in hand. “My, my. Why didn’t you say so at first, young lady?”

“You know about Equestria?” asked Wycliffe with his head cocked slightly to one side.

“I know all sorts of things.” Ollivander held out the measuring tape as Sweetie turned her tail in his direction. “Someday when you become my age, you will look back and wonder at all the amazing things you learn over the years. Oh yes, these will do just fine.”

“You can take as many as you need, Mister Ollivander,” said Sweetie, who was trying to watch how the human was measuring each hair because she had never thought about her tail being used in that fashion. Maybe they had wands that used human hair or fingernail clippings too. It was an odd concept that she really hoped they would cover in school, because it would be really neat if she could make wands for Apple Bloom and Scootaloo back home.

“I wouldn’t want to harm your appearance,” said Ollivander, although at Sweetie’s insistence, he did get a pair of golden shears and trimmed off a few dozen hairs, and then several dozen more when she urged him.

“Rarity had me grow my tail out because she thought long tails might be in fashion here,” explained Sweetie. “It’s longer than I really like anyway.”

“On the contrary, young lady,” said Ollivander as he arranged the hairs in a box on the counter. “They’re quite perfect. By the way, I could not help but overhear you tell Master Nott about your book. I presume it connects back to your friends in Equestria?” He pointed with one thin finger at Sweetie’s diary. “If so, might I borrow that while the three of you finish your school shopping? I think I know just the thing to use for your wand.”

The loss of a few hairs did not affect her ability to turn into a human, and once she had gotten her toes put back into her shoes and her underwear properly rearranged, she helped Sparrow open the shop’s window blinds again. “What about Wycliffe and Sparrow? Will you really be able to make wands for my friends too?”

“With these?” Ollivander held up one of the hairs, which shimmered in the sunlight pouring through the store’s windows. “We shall see. Oh yes, we will most certainly see.”

Thankfully, the rest of the purchases proved to be far easier to acquire. Wycliffe already had his robes for school, so he sat quietly at the shop while a pair of elderly witches fussed over the two girls, trying on several pointed hats and debating which shades of black looked best on each of them. Sweetie Belle was starting to wonder just how she was supposed to waddle around with so many clothes layered on her. The underwear pinched, everything itched, and the dark student jacket was different than the muggle jacket she had already bought, so she had to buy two of them also, as well as a strangling tie and clumsy writing gloves that left her fingertips bare. At least the pointy hat balanced on the top of her head made sense, if she thought of it like some sort of human horn.

When they left the store with Miss Selkirk bringing up the rear with their purchases, Sweetie had to retie her trainers. “I’m starting to really sympathize with Applejack,” she said while trying to deal with the finger frustration of not getting trapped in the knots. “Everytime she comes over to our house, my sister insists on putting her in a dress. If she was here, she’d be running down the street naked except for her hat. There,” she added as she put the last loop into the knot.

“Is Applejack another unicorn?” asked Wycliffe, which was the first thing he had said in a while.

“No, she’s a farmer.” Sweetie got to her feet and started to chase after Sparrow, who had already ducked into the next shop on the list. “She raises all kinds of—”

“Apples?” asked Wycliffe.

“Of course.” She followed Sparrow into Bluebottle’s Luggage and Sundries Shop, Ask About Our Student Specials, and looked around at the various trunks and suitcases on display. Most of them had little wheels on the bottom that would pop out if you pushed a special button, although one of the most expensive ones had a vast number of wheels under it, and a sign that claimed it would follow along without any need to pull.

“Ooo, the pretty young lady likes our deluxe luggage,” purred a small man just barely taller than Sweetie Belle, mostly being able to make that claim due to the tuft of hair sticking out of the top of his head. “Yes, she does.”

Wycliffe cleared his throat. “Actually, the ladies would like something a little more practical for school. Like—” the boy turned to point at a basic black trunk at the far end of the display, but his finger wavered and turned instead to a laquered model slightly to one side “—this one. Since the vast majority of the time your trunk will simply be sitting at the foot end of your bed, you should not require one that tends to wander off if not watched closely.”

“All of our— Wait!” said the salesperson, giving the expensive trunk a poke with his wand and herding it back onto the display stand. “Naughty! Stay!”

Somehow the luggage managed to express a sullen expression on the wooden parquet scrollwork covering its front while rolling back to its proper spot on the display, although it fidgeted restlessly while the salesperson turned back to his customers with a toothy grin. “You must be students.”

“And you must be joking if you think you can charge this much for a trunk,” said Wycliffe, looking at the price tag.

It was the opening salvo of a financial dance that Sweetie Belle had seen many times in her sister’s boutique, only Rarity had always been far easier to ‘talk down’ than Mr. Bluebottle. Leaving the negotiations to Wycliffe, she and Sparrow poked about the other chests, comparing features and examining the interiors. In the end, they selected different models than each other, and more expensive than Wycliffe was trying to steer them toward. Sweetie got one with an additional shelf and clothes hanger space, more of a wardrobe than a trunk, including a rotating bookshelf that was supposed to be able to hold however many books she could put on them.

Sweetie planned on testing that feature extensively.

Sparrow fell in love with a red lacquered model with a second set of fold-down wheels which could make it the base for stacking other trunks on top of it. There were scads of tiny drawers in it which she explained would be good for all of the tiny things she tended to collect, and it was red, which Sweetie though was the real reason she wanted it.

Wycliffe took the basic black model, and they were off to the next shop on their list.

Three dimensions away anti-spinward and four quantum jumps in…

Princess Twilight Sparkle paused for a moment with her inked quill held over a long document. There had been some sort of… noise in the palace, a high-pitched squeak like an unoiled door or somepony had stepped on a mouse’s tail. She remained silent for a minute in the hopes that it would repeat and she could identify the maintenance issue or see to medical treatment for the injured mus musculus, but there was nothing but the ordinary sounds of diligent ponies at work, so she returned to her own job and cleaned up the ink blotch that had resulted.

It was strange. For a moment, the squeak had sounded like Sweetie Belle.

“Do you think she’s done?” asked Wycliffe.

“I’m not sure.” Sparrow eyed her friend, who was practically vibrating in place even with both her own hand and Wycliffe’s over her mouth. “I don’t understand her at all. It’s only a quill shop.”

Another squeak emerged from under their hands, and a rather chubby witch dove for cover behind the front counter again in a cloud of loose quills that had come loose from their wall mountings or burst out of the boxes when the shelf had come down with a crash. After a few moments where Sweetie continued not to squeal in joy, her long nose poked up from behind the cash register and Missus Scrivener asked, “Does she do that often?”

Sparrow shrugged. “Every time we’ve come into a feather shop so far.”

“That’s once so far,” said Wycliffe, looking cross-eyed at a bit of fluff that had landed on his nose. “And they are quills, of far higher quality than you will need for your school work.” Sweetie struggled a little under their grasp, but did not manage to escape so she could add her own opinion.

“I think she wants one,” said Sparrow.

“I think she wants all of them,” said Wycliffe.

Sweetie nodded as much as she could. Wycliffe looked over his shoulder at Miss Selkirk, who was still out in the street, holding her ears.

“How about we have Missus Scrivener pick out an assortment of them,” he suggested, “so you can try them out and see which ones you like the most. Then you can send in an order by owl from school.”

“Like mail-order?” asked Sparrow. “That’s cool.”

“We have another store in Hogsmeade,” said Missus Scrivener, who had begun to emerge from behind the counter as the conversation had turned to commerce.

“First Years are not—” began Wycliffe before coming to an abrupt stop. “Oh, yes. She can shop there. Please put together a small collection and we’ll release Miss Belle to pay for them once they are ready.”

“Of course.” She may have been chubby, but the grey-haired witch was certainly fast. With one quick wave of her wand, the spilled quills were re-boxed, the fallen display pieces returned to the walls, and a neat collection of colorful quills was laid out on the counter, all ready for payment. “Would you be interested in our Quill-Of-The-Month club, young miss? It is free with your purchase, and provides a quality—”

“Yes,” said Wycliffe quickly before Sweetie could break free. “Also two packages of Student Specials for myself and the American.”

“I’ve got a box of pens,” said Sparrow.

“You need quills,” said Wycliffe. “You’re going to argue, I’m going to win, and you’re going to buy a box of quills anyway, so let’s pay the proprietor and move on, shall we?”

“Eww!” declared Sweetie Belle, peering into a tub of leeches. “We won’t need any of these, right?”

“No.” Wycliffe poked his glasses, which had begun sliding down his nose the minute they had walked into the shop. “Hogwarts will have all the fresh leeches you need. Mr. Mulpepper is the rational source for materials which they do not supply and do not make it onto the Hogwarts First Year supplies list. You will each need a potion towel—” he placed a stack of three fluffy orange cloths into Sweetie’s hands “ — and a spares kit for your potions classes, an inert stirring rod in case you break one, a dozen empty crystal phials for any potions you create that you wish to keep, although I would not advise it. One bottle of Inkwells Glass Marking Stain so your writing on the outside of the phials does not wear off, one bottle of Inkwells Glass Marking Solvent so the marks can be removed, a package of Inkwells Clear Goggle Wipes so you will be able to see through the gunk that collects on your protective eyewear, an eyedropper and a bottle of Acid Hole Be-Gone for the inevitable splatters that leave holes in your clothes, and two bottles of Sleekeazy’s Hair Potion.”

“Is it mane conditioner?” asked Sweetie, peering at the instructions written in a crabbed script on the side of the bottle.

“It’s not for you.” Wycliffe jabbed a finger at Sparrow, who was trying her best to pick up a flobberworm with a set of heavy tweezers, only to be thwarted by the worm’s thick slime coat. Sparrow’s tangled curls were hanging down around her face, which combined with the humidity of the flobberworm enclosure made her head look like some sort of reddish snarl of vines with a pert little nose sticking out.

“Good point.” Sweetie slipped the bottles into their wicker shopping basket.

“It seems odd for a shop to just sell one thing,” said Sweetie Belle, looking at the front of Potage’s Cauldron Shop.

“I’m used to stores selling all kinds of things,” said Sparrow.

“We only need one thing here,” cautioned Miss Selkirk, who was starting to look a little ragged from following them around. “A size two pewter cauldron.”

“Brass scales,” chided Miss Selkirk. “Now help me pick up all the weights that you knocked off— And those weights too. You need to be more careful.”

“No,” said Miss Selkirk. One sturdy hand reached out and Sparrow by the scruff of her jacket as she darted past. “No! We’re not stopping at Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes to get things for you to get into trouble!”

“But…” Sparrow pointed into the shop. “Sweetie Belle just went in. And she’s got loads more money with her than I do.”

Wycliffe’s eyes went wide. “You told her to buy an assortment of quills before. What if she buys an assortment of— that?” he added, pointing to a whole wall full of Puking Pustules and Vomit Chews.

“I caught the telescope that Sparrow knocked over!” protested Sweetie Belle.

“And knocked over three more,” said Wycliffe. “It’s a good thing they reacted well to the repairing spell.”

“You break it, you repair it, you buy it anyway,” sighed Sweetie Belle, although she brightened up almost immediately. “I know, I can send the extra one to Twilight! She’s always needing new telescopes. Where do we need to go next?”

“The bookstore,” declared Miss Selkirk.

Things went downhill from there.