I just finished the last of the meal and looked down at the empty plate. It'd been a large cabbage-filled pancake thing covered in a rich sauce. Not a single piece of meat in it, and I couldn't believe how filling it was and how good it'd tasted. "Thanks!"
"Eh, it was nothing. Twilight really likes this stuff since she ate it practically non-stop in Canterlot. Either I learned how to cook it, or Twilight wouldn't eat." Spike took our plates from the table and carried them over to the sink. "Oh, here she is now. Hungry?"
"I found it! The Peaks of Peril are just east of the San Palomino Desert, but we won't go that way. We'll take the train to Farthest Reaches and walk west from there!" Twilight sounded out of breath and a little excitable. When I turned around to look at her, she definitely looked exactly how she sounded. "Come on! He have to go right now!"
Addera cleared her throat with an exaggerated hiss. "Begging your pardon, Miss Twilight Sparkle, but isn't the train going to be coming to collect us tomorrow?"
Staring, frozen for a few moments, Twilight blinked her eyes a few times as if to clear some thoughts that didn't agree with her. "Of course. Right. Sorry, I got a little excited at finding the right book. Oooh, is that okonomiyaki?"
There was something extra cozy about relaxing together like this. Twilight didn't feel like an adult to me, but at the same time she was a hero. Just this one thing she'd done had saved her entire world from all the darkness King Sombra would have unleashed.
Okay, I might be biased here, but Twilight seemed like she was a whole different kind of adult to—to everyone else I knew. She knew magic and it was part of her, but was she a wizard? A wizard was… Back to the drawing board. A wizard (or witch) was someone who could work magic and had a flagrant disregard for anything but their goal? No, that was wrong. A wizard—A wizard was a silly concept.
A silly concept I could still embody. "So we'll meet the other kirin tomorrow?"
Twilight, her mouth full of the cabbage-cake-thing, nodded her head and smiled. She seemed really focused on eating, and I couldn't really blame her since we hadn't eaten—well I hadn't—since breakfast.
Something was eating at the back of my mind, and it took until Twilight finished eating to work out what it was—I was starting to feel a little twinge of anger coming. "Excuse me." I shook my head and used my hooves to grab my glasses off before bolting for the stairs. The door was in sight as I felt my anger grow a little further.
Jokes. I need a joke. Crossing a room of fireworks with a salamander? That had been a good one, but it barely took the edge off my anger. I tried to reach up to the door handle with my mouth, but Addera's hoof shot out of the corner of my vision and she opened the door for me.
I got outside onto the grass and took a deep breath. The three fillies from earlier were only a few feet away. With a smile, I burst into flames. It felt good to let the anger out.
"Don't worry! We'll get water!" Each of the fillies ran off in different directions.
I couldn't help at least a little giggle at how silly it was, but it wasn't enough to drown out my anger. What was I angry at, though? The train for taking a day? Oh! That's right. When in doubt, think of the Dursleys.
Ahh. There it was, my own pure and perfect source of never-ending, soul-crushing anger. I just began to do what I liked to call my angry stomp, when I got hit with water from three different directions. Spinning around, my flames now augmented by billowing steam.
"It didn't work!" Apple Bloom said.
Sweetie Belle wheeled about, bucket floating shakily in her magic's grip. "Get more water!"
It would have been easy to transfer my anger to the fillies, but that was hardly fair. They were trying to help me. Instead I looked around for something physical to destroy. Looking around Ponyville, I shied away from all the houses that looked like they would definitely burn, then noticed Scootaloo filling her bucket at a river.
Striking my flaming hooves against the ground, I took off at a run for the river. The grass under my hooves burned away in little patches as I ran, and as I neared the river I let out a roar of excitement.
Scootaloo turned to see me bearing down on her and dove to the side before I pounced high into the air and over where she'd been to land in the river.
What I hadn't counted on, in my determined and focused state, was that the river was deeper than one kirin. I sank into the water and struggled to get my head above the surface. When that didn't work, panic gripped me.
Flailing with all four legs, I could see the bright light of late afternoon above me but had no way to reach it. As if that wasn't the worst, something squeezed at my midsection and drove the last of my air out of me.
But it wasn't some kind of river monster that had me, but Addera. With my flames snuffed out by terror, I clung to Addera's coils even after she pulled me up and out of the river.
"Harry Potter! What did you do that for?!"
Tilting my head back, I looked up to see that her glasses had become skewed from the impromptu swim, and I caught sight of her beautiful yellow eyes. Going limp in her coils, I felt as relaxed as could be before she reached up and adjusted her eye protection.
Fear of drowning was something I just couldn't hold on to. I just wanted to see her eyes again. Reaching one hoof up, I tried to bat her glasses free.
"You will think and act normally, Harry Potter." Addera kissed my forehead and set me down on the grass. "However normal it is for a wizard who jumps in rivers."
Normal. Act normal. Think normal. I took a deep gasp of air and felt my mind rush in with it. Blinking away the vision of beautiful yellow yes, I shook my body to get dry.
"Are you alright?" Scootaloo had apparently forgotten her bucket, which was good because I didn't want more water. "You were on fire and I just ran to get as much water as I could and…" The concern in her voice hit me harder than it should have. She barely even knew me, and yet she ran to get water when she thought I was on fire.
"Y-Yeah." I felt strange still and I knew why. Addera's eyes. I shivered, but had no idea if it was from being soaked in cold water or the memory of her beautiful yellow eyes. "I kinda do that from time to time. That's why we're going to visit the other kirin, to ask them how they keep control of their nirik side."
"Nirik?" Scootaloo asked.
"The on-fire version of a kirin—me. It doesn't hurt, but it happens without much warning. I ran outside because I didn't want to set the library on fire." We both watched as Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle ran up, each carrying another bucket of water. "Where'd you get the buckets from?"
Apple Bloom managed to stop first, and managed not to toss her bucket of water at me. Yay. "Are you okay?"
Turning to her friends, Scootaloo nodded. "He said he catches on fire fairly often."
"That can't be good for your mane and tail," Sweetie Belle said. "Are you sure you're okay?"
I had the distinct impression that Sweetie Belle would, with the smallest of excuses, toss her bucket of water at me anyway. "I'm okay. Really. I was just telling Scootaloo that sometimes I can't help but get angry, and when I get angry I turn into a nirik."
"Ooh!" Sweetie Belle looked like she'd had a revelation. "So if something made you angry again, I'd have to throw this water at you?"
"Maybe if you did it again, and we managed to put you out, we'd get our cutie marks in firefighting?" Apple Bloom asked.
"Cutie marks?" It took me a few moments to catch up and remember what Tourmaline had said about cutie marks. "Right. Symbols of destiny. You don't have yours yet?" Apparently I'd asked the wrong thing because the three of them suddenly looked like I'd kicked mud at them. "Wait, you get them for doing stuff?"
Apple Bloom, like her friends, immediately perked back up. "Yuh huh! A pony gets their cutie mark when they do something really special. It's how they know what they'll be good at for their whole life!"
Addera leaned down and tapped me on the shoulder. "I'm going back to the library, Harry Potter. When you are done, please come back—and try to avoid anymore rivers."
"Thanks, Addera." Just knowing how much she cared for me, despite all that had happened to her, made me feel warm inside—not nirik warm, thankfully.
"So? Can you make more fire?" Sweetie Belle asked, her face looking like nothing would make her happier.
A true wizard would think this over, so I did. The solution was obvious. "I can make fire no problems, but I'm not going to set myself on fire again."
Sweetie's face brightened to the point I thought she was going to explode with happiness. "Can you do that now?" With a little training she just might be the greatest witch that ever lived.
"Get your buckets ready." I looked around for a spot that would be good, and settled on making the fire right beside the river.
All three did so. Apple Bloom held her bucket with her forehooves, Scootaloo did the same, and Sweetie Belle held hers up partly with magic and partly with her forelegs. All three gave me a determined nod.
Tilting my head down, I aimed my horn at the grass beside the river and cast my weakest fire spell, even going so far as to do it without making the correct gesture. The result of my badly formed Fire-Making charm was a small rush of flame that lanced to the ground where I aimed it and instantly flared into a gout of purple fire about as big as me.
Three bucket loads of water landed on it and one bucket too. The flame had been so weak, despite its nirik-fire nature, that the water completely smothered it. The excitement as they cheered was contagious, and I felt elated.
"Well? Did it work?" I asked.
All three of them turned to look at their hips at the same time, which let me see as well. There was no picture there.
"I thought for sure this would be it." Apple Bloom looked hardest hit of the three, her ears tucked back and and even her bow looked like it slumped a little.
It seemed like a singularly terrible moment for them—as a wizard, I needed to help. "Well, do you have any other ideas I can help with?"
"You'll help us more?" Scootaloo's sad state seemed to have reversed just with me offering. She might not be a witch like Sweetie Belle, but she sure could turn her emotions around quick.
"Cutie Mark Crusaders huddle!" Sweetie Belle said and spun around while her two friends jumped in from either side.
I gave them some room to talk and backed off a bit to look into the river. The water looked crystal clear still, though now I knew how deep it got and how chill it was, I didn't plan to have another swim.
Movement drew my eyes back to the three. "We have decided that you, Harry Potter, will become an honorary member of the Cutie Mark Crusaders!" Apple Bloom's demeanor was brighter now, her bow sitting high again and her grin wide.
"So I can get a cutie mark too?" The idea didn't seem so far fetched. "I mean, we don't even know if kirin get them. Maybe they do? Err, we do."
Scootaloo actually danced in place in excitement. "You're going to be in town tomorrow, right?"
"Well, we're supposed to leave some time tomorrow. A train's coming to pick us up so we can find the other kirin. But it's not like we're going to stay there, and we aren't leaving until the train gets here, so I can probably slip out early if you have any other ideas for getting cutie marks?" I asked.
"Come on and we'll show you." Sweetie Belle wheeled around, rearing up and started running as fast as she could.
When Scootaloo and Apple Bloom chased after Sweetie Belle, I figured I should probably go too. I was an honorary Cutie Mark Crusader now, after all.
"I don't hold that against you, Gemma. Your actions probably halted what could have been a rather less than hospitable meeting." Minerva McGonagall sat at a table that held herself, Albus Dumbledore, Gemma Farley, Princess Cadance, and Prince Shining Armor. "Princess Celestia was arriving anyway."
"I concur," Albus said, looking from Gemma to Minerva, and then both Cadance and Shining. "We all appear to be caught in the middle. The Ministry are blind to what a great opportunity this is. If Miss Farley and Miss Sparkle are correct, we have found the source of wizardry."
"I spoke with Princess Celestia before coming. She's as determined to make the Ministry wizards and witches go home as the Ministry are about leaving." Cadance hated that she felt she couldn't stand up to Celestia. Every time she looked at her, Cadance felt every single one of Celestia's thousand-odd years older than Cadance was.
Shining stretched one leg to the side under the table to brush down Cadance's nearest shoulder. "The information about these Obliviate spells has her spooked. Ever since the changeling invasion, we've had directives within the Guard to counteract both mind-control and impersonators, but hearing of a spell that could steal her entire life away justifiably has her scared. It scares me just thinking about it."
"What we need is our own authority." Gemma looked around everyone present. "Right now the Ministry and Princess Celestia are trying to each maintain their own versions of control. If the Ministry win, we all get dragged back to Earth while they figure out what to do with the portal. If Princess Celestia wins, she drives them back to Earth, and adds the Crystal Empire to Equestria."
"It is part of Equestria," Cadance said.
"I think I see what she's saying, Cady." Turning all his attention to Gemma, Shining had to do something he'd been trained for at last—seeing strategy. "You propose we take control of the Crystal Empire for ourselves?" He gestured around the table.
"No. That wouldn't work. Princess Celestia would never accept us as part rulers. It has to be you two who are in charge. It's the only way she'd back down," Gemma said.
"That would leave you with the right to ask her for assistance." Taking his glasses out, Albus held them carefully in his hooves and polished the lenses. It was less a necessity and more a habit. "You could also invite us to remain."
"What about the Ministry?" Cadance asked. "How would they fit into this?"
"Balance." Compelled to speak, Gemma found herself smiling as every ounce of her sharp mind's deviousness was being employed. "As ponies from Equestria may come here openly, so can humans. They'll need to be aware of the—I don't want to call them downsides, but losing your hands is a bit troublesome—different aspects of living here." She turned to look at Minerva. "Perhaps wizardry and witchcraft could be taught to more than just humans?"
Creasing her forehead a little as she followed Gemma's words, Minerva couldn't stop herself from smiling a little—the thought of a cultural exchange of magic lore pleased her ideals of expanding knowledge. "And we could likely learn a good deal from our long-lost cousins."
"This all hinges on one thing, Cady. You have to stand up to them—to both sides," Shining said.
"I won't be a tyrant. I'll want everyone behind me if I'm going to do this." In her mind, Cadance could count all the ways that what she planned was insane, and plotted out each and every horrible outcome. "That means all the crystal ponies, the teachers, and any of the graduating students who wish to stay."
"I'll find Percy. He's reliable enough to help me ask the other students. He's old enough to graduate himself, if he wanted to." Gemma looked from Albus to Minerva and then to Shining. "Who's taking the faculty and who's taking the crystal ponies?"
Clearing his throat, Albus Dumbledore smiled warmly and tucked his glasses back in his robes. "I'll talk to the crystal ponies."
"I'll talk to the faculty then," Minerva said.
"We won't have the Royal Guard anymore, and I can't invite them to stay here. I'll talk to the crystal ponies too, I think. It's not that I don't trust you, professor, but for this to work we'll need some soldiers, and I hope there'll be at least enough to put a squad of guardponies together from our new friends," Shining said.
"Shall we meet back here at midnight?" Albus asked.
Cadance had realized one shocking fact: this might happen. They might get the support of the crystal ponies, they might have the faculty of Hogwarts and their senior students behind them, which would leave her and Shining the prince and princess of the Crystal Empire.
"What are you going to do, Cady?" Shining could see his words snapped his wife from some deep thoughts. He rubbed her forehoof a little more.
"Apart from psyching myself up to tell Princess Celestia and the Ministry of Magic 'no'?" As Cadance spoke, she looked around the table. Not a single face looked at her with envy. "I think I might start making plans for the Crystal Empire."
Princess Celestia sat with two of her Royal Guard on the edge of the city—the Crystal Empire. "This is not going well. These humans think themselves within their rights to use magic on the minds of these poor ponies." She wasn't talking to anypony, just voicing her thoughts. "It's unconscionable that they would use such—such abhorrent magic on innocents. I'll not stand in the way of them retrieving their foals, but such hostility must not be allowed unchecked."
A tingling began in her horn. Celestia let out a slow breath and smiled at the new/old sensation. For a thousand years she had gone without feeling it—a thousand years she had always cried when she set her sun.
The tingling in Celestia's horn was her sister's magic and was the power that began the night. Complementing that power, Celestia let her magic rush into her horn and focused on the sun. "Time to sleep. Rest so that you may return to work tomorrow."
The sun in the evening sky slowly descended below the horizon and—for a moment—the land was dark. Then silver-white light illuminated everything in its cool glow. The moon had risen.
"Change." Celestia let her horn go dark. "Change can happen again. That is my sister's gift to Equestria, and what I robbed it of for so long. I can't let this Ministry have their way, but…" She let her voice trail off to nothing. She knew what she wanted, but didn't know if the ponies she'd put in place could bring it about themselves. "Star Flare, what was your impression of Cadance and Shining?"
A Royal Guardpony's pledge to his princess was a two-way street. Each, when being welcomed to the Royal Guard, would spend a vigil promising their life to Celestia, and Celestia would promise their life back. When addressed by name, each Royal Guard knew that it was Celestia asking, and not the Princess.
"Celestia, I believe Princess Cadance is an amazing pony, and I'm not sure if any other you could have sent would have established the links and peace that has bloomed here. But you're not asking about that. You already knew that." Lieutenant Star Flare snorted just once in a half-laugh. "You're asking if they will take control. I don't know. Captain Shining Armor has been the smartest and most capable of us, but there's something important you have to do for him in order for him to spread his wings."
"His vow. I know. You believe that's all that would hold them back?" Celestia asked.
"If you release him from his bonds, I believe he'll show the young princess that she can lead."
"Thank you, Star."
"You're welcome, Celestia."
"Herbert, you don't understand. They're fully capable of being classed as beings. All we need to do is establish this and secure a promise from this leader of theirs and everything's squared away. No need for obliviating." Richard Fellows was an old wizard. His medium-length beard was rough and patchy, and he had more than a little gray in it. His hair was likewise unkempt, but when it came to magical creatures, he was an expert—literally. A member of the Ministry of Magic's Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, Richard was more than familiar with the laws of classification between being, beast, and spirit.
"We can worry about that after everything has calmed down, Richard." Herbert Trencent shook his head at the older wizard. He kept himself clean-shaven and his hair trimmed to within an inch of its life. Order and regulation was Herbert's life and passion, and his role within the Ministry of Magic was with the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes was that of obliviator. "It won't be much. We just clip out enough to put them all into a cozy state, not remembering what has happened in the week that Hogwarts has been here. Once order is returned, smarter heads than ours can decide whom is a beast and whom a being."
"Well, that train—if you'll forgive an old man a joke—has already left the station. I have a report that no less than eight individuals departed earlier by train. Any obliviation done now would be quite a scandal once those individuals have spread the word of what has already happened. There's no stopping this, Herbert, this is going to be a public one." Taking his pipe out, Richard turned the end of it over and started tapping out the last burnt ashes of its previous charge. "Besides, we're hardly in England right now. We lack jurisdiction."
Turning his nose up at his compatriot's habit, Herbert looked out at the wonder of the city ruins around them. "Poppycock. These are Hogwarts' grounds. Hogwarts itself is under Ministry jurisdiction. We might not technically have the freedom to act outside of it, but if I cast a spell from within Hogwarts, where it lands is someone else's problem."
"It's still useless unless you can find the eight who left along with all the creatures they contacted in the meantime. Face it, Herbert, this isn't a matter that can be covered up anymore. We have to go down and play nice until we can get all the students out of here. I've already had one of my witches take care of the Malfoy boy. That brings me to another point. Have you worked out if this transfiguration is malicious?"
"I don't think it is. My examination, crude as it is, hasn't detected any particular source for it, nor can I detect the spell itself. It could simply be the magic of this world is tainted."
Taking a deep breath of the evening air, Richard Fellows shook his head. "Shame, that. Would make a lovely place for holidays. Ha! Could you imagine how much Arthur would enjoy this? It's practically exactly what that chap loves to poke at, though I believe doing so without magic would be a bit of a downer." The wizard pointed at his pipe and lit it with a tiny flicker of magic, only realizing after the fact it hadn't done anything to him. "Well, look at that, Herbert."
"What's that?"
"I just lit my pipe without thinking, and I didn't have anything happen to me. There must be a threshold that triggers the changes. Curious. Shame what with Minerva McGonagall being tangled up in the middle of this. One of the greatest transfigurationists ever to live—or so both my boys would say." Lifting his pipe to his lips, Richard took a long puff on the tobacco. "Say, it wouldn't hurt if I asked her to help with this little problem, would it?"
"She's got an even keel, that woman. I would have said yes in an instant in any other situation, but you heard her earlier." Herbert cleared his throat and stepped away from Richard to avoid the pipe smoke. "While I fully agree with her sentiments about getting the children out, I do not hold with her opinions on the natives here, let alone that lunatic notion of blood purity she spouted. Blood purity? Bah! I was muggle-born, and there's no difference between my blood and any other wizards'."
"Truth that, Herbert, but I think I must insist on bringing this particular matter to her attention. We mustn't disregard what information we can find until we have the larger problems solved." Always willing to make allowances for his habit, Richard turned a little away from Herbert. "It will be good to get back home to the comforts of magic."
Ginevra Molly Weasley didn't like what King Sombra was doing to Voldemort, but there was one fact that she kept coming back to—Voldemort was evil. He was bad on such a scale and to so many that if stopping him required a little pain on his part, Ginevra could sit to the side and let that happen.
She knew she should be feeling something more, perhaps even fear or disgust, but Ginevra just couldn't dredge up those emotions.
'I have it,' King Sombra said into Ginevra's mind. 'Not how to create them, but where he has hidden the ones he had.'
"The horcruxes?" Ginevra turned around and wished she hadn't. Her spectral form might make her look like a ghostly adult, but all that was left of Nagini almost made her sick. Fortunately for Ginevra, her body lacked the ability to be so.
'Yes. No. And more. We have some creatures to track down who know where several of them are. I promise you, Ginevra, we hunt only evil creatures.' Sombra knew his charge was still a little touchy about what was right, so he presented things in simple-to-resolve conflicts. 'Together we have removed the greatest evil in this world. Shall we extract the rest?'
"Deatheaters?" The very idea of it surprised Ginevra. "You mean k—remove the deatheaters? We can just do that?" She found herself smiling. "How do we do that? From what Dad said, they all went into hiding after You-Know—after Voldemort was defeated by Harry the first time." Ginevra made a point of not looking back at the snake on the ground.
Able to smell the excitement in his apprentice, Sombra practically purred as he spoke to her mind. 'First we find the horcruxes he knew the location of. Then we call some more of my power and cloak you properly. Once that task is done, we will find all the deatheaters and regain my power at the same time. I will pick one from among them to become my new vessel.'
Restoring her king and ridding the world of evil—Ginevra could scarcely be happier with the course of actions. "Where are they? Where are the horcruxes?"
'The first, apart from that lovely piece your servant wears, is a ring. We will find it in an abandoned shack. Voldemort was most descriptive.'
One thing nibbled at the edges of Ginevra's mind. "But now you ki—Now that Voldemort is gone, won't he return through this ring?"
'He will try. How long did it take him to recover from his last death, Ginevra?'
Ginevra smiled a little wider as she did the math. "Over ten years."
'While we have some time for idle conversation, I would ask that we not take ten years to find the remaining horcruxes.'
The humor in Sombra's voice was not lost on Ginevra. Looking around, she spotted Peter Pettigrew huddled against a tree. "Come, minion. We have more things to hunt."
Alastor Moody stared hard at the creature sitting up on the chair opposite him. The house-elf, Toil, looked back with as much innocence in its eyes as any creature he'd ever seen. He didn't trust it one bit. "You killed that wizard."
Toil clutched his hands before him and managed to get some tears to form in the corners of his eyes. "Who, sir? Me, sir? Oh, sir, no, sir! Sir! I would, sir, never—"
"I've heard you talk. Don't play games!" The sea air was starting to work its way into Alastor's joints, and not in the soothing-warmth way. "I've already worked out those two are innocent of everything but being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but I can smell guilt, 'elf, and you stink of it."
"I'm not sure I like you. Too clever. Way too clever." Toil shook his head to clear the crocodile tears he'd managed to build up. "What's to tell? I killed 'em."
"'Elf, why?"
"Oh! There 'e goes. Askin' a daft house-elf wif no house a question like why?" Rocking side to side on the chair, Toil felt like cartwheeling a few times just because it felt good to be in character again. "Why! Ha!"
But the silence of Alastor's stare was too much even for Toil's mild insanity to resist for long. "He killed them, he did. Zap-zap!" He rocked a little faster, side to side. "Said they was 'is, and 'e only needed one house-elf. Zap-zap!"
Alastor tried to keep his face straight. It was an uphill fight, but he managed it with the same willpower that had stared deatheaters down in duels. "Who?"
"Who! Look at Mr. Auror—Mr. Alastor Moody—over here! Who?! He killed my wife and daughter!" Toil's shoulders heaved with each thunderous breath that rocked his body. He stared past Alastor, past the walls of the prison, past even the ocean. "Trouble, she was, and we were meant to be together." Toil's voice was soft and real tears now flowed freely from his eyes. "And our little girl—We hadn't chosen a name for her yet. I promised the master that he'd get my lifetime of work for leaving us be."
Even the steely resolve of Alastor's heart couldn't defend him from the emotions evident in every thread of Toil's being. He didn't dare move or speak, but he felt a bit of dampness in his own eye.
"He told me to wait in the corner until he was done. Zap-zap. Then he turned to me and told me, 'House-elves don't deserve happiness, and should be grateful for their own lives.'" Movement caught Toil's attention and he focused his eyes in time to see Alastor wiping one arm of his duster across his face. "Don't cry for them, Mr. Auror. Don't ever cry for Trouble and little—little…"
Alastor adjusted his posture a little to shift his aching joints. "Some would call that either self defense, or the actions of someone mad with loss and pain." Heaving a sigh, Alastor looked the bundle of rags before him up and down. "I call it retribution and dark deeds paid back, but it'll never bring 'em back, lad."
"What say you?" Grabbing up his characterization of the mad house-elf, Toil was able to stop his tears and face the auror. "What say the auror with just one leg?"
"That the minute I'm out of here and at the ministry, you're goin' free. Free, I might say, to somewhere that'll see you get some care for that 'ead." Alastor pressed both his hands firmly to the table and pushed himself to his feet. "On the other side of the table now, and try to look as neutral as you can—we've got company."
Toil was a little confused by the instructions, but followed them all the same. By the time he ducked under the table and stood on the other side of it—facing the door—he could see Alastor escorting someone else into the room. His eyes widened a little at the sight of Bellatrix Lestrange walking into the room while Alastor Moody held the chains that still bound her wrists together.
Alastor had no respect for Bellatrix's honor or humanity, but he had to respect her dark arts. He knew well that to ignore any deatheater's magic was to give them the upper hand, and one thing he never planned to do was to give a deatheater the upper hand. "Sit there and don't move."
"Do you have any idea who I am? When Lord Voldemort returns, you'll suffer for—" Bellatrix hadn't planned on either shutting up or sitting, but being shoved down into the seat forestalled her plans completely.
"I know exactly who you are, Bellatrix Lestrange, formerly Bellatrix Black. You killed and tortured your way to his side and inner circle. What can you tell me about Peter Pettigrew?" Feeling out the handle of his wand, Alastor looked Bellatrix right in the eyes.
"So terrible. I was just about to have some fun with the poor dear when he got in a fight with—" Bellatrix's face curled into a snarl and she spat on the floor. "With my cousin. I heard Sirius put on quite the show with him, but not half the show I'll make of you when Lord Voldemort returns. You'll see, he'll break these walls down and rip us free of this hole. He'll give us wings to ride the skies again, and we'll kill you, and kill your friends, and kill every one of—"
Toil was surprised at his own action. He'd walked through the table and right up to Bellatrix and slapped her cheek hard. Staring at his hand, he turned to look at Alastor.
"While I normally prefer a prisoner to continue talking as much as they like, Toil, thank ya." Alastor let out a sigh—he'd been moments from doing the same as what Toil had done himself. "The truth, Lestrange."
Scratching distractedly at her arm, Bellatrix slipped her crazy-mask firmly into place and gave Toil a smile. "Well, if you think a little rough 'n' tumble's going to get you the truth, I know someone in the east wing of this dingy little hole that would give you the truth all day long. In fact, I—" Bellatrix winced a little and lifted her hand away from her forearm to reveal what had irritated her.
What had been a snake slithering through a skull, now resembled a black silhouette of a horse's head with a prominent, curved horn. She stared at the mark in shock, then started to tremble. "W-W-What's become of him? What happened?" The bond of every deatheater to their master was what panicked Bellatrix the most—in all the years since he'd lain his dark mark upon her, she'd never felt bereft of that link.
But now Bellatrix Lestrange felt a different bond—a different link.
Tilting his head to the side, Toil watched the woman stare at her arm and rock slowly in place. "Mr. Auror, Toil tends to think he's a little off the deep end, but I fink she just swan-dived."
Holding up his wand, Alastor began casting a detection spell to identify first that dark magic was being performed, then its power, and finally its type. Each part of the spell, as it worked through its motions, would tell him more about what was happening.
First, the spell would tingle his fingers holding his wand to let Alastor know that dark arts were being worked. It did.
Second, the spell would cause Alastor's wand tip to glow in accordance with how much dark magic was in play. It certainly glowed, enough so that only an active spell or ongoing charm would have a similar effect.
Thirdly, the direct target of the dark art would be revealed to Alastor alone as if it glowed. Certainly, to Alastor Moody's trained eye, Bellatrix Lestrange glowed, but the glow didn't come from her body, but within.
It took Alastor no more than seconds to have the true horror of the spell revealed to him—the dark magic was being worked directly upon her soul. Standing up, Alastor poured power into his wand and wound the room in a powerful ward against the dark arts. Charms known only to Aurors poured down his wand and from his mouth as Alastor worked to restrict the flow of dark magic—but he managed little else than to slow it.
Repeating his incantations, Alastor finally managed to seal the room against the influence that had been infiltrating Bellatrix. With the pulsing charms' magic throbbing in the air, Alastor walked around the table and grabbed Bellatrix's arm and held it up.
"You were never one to hide what you were, Lestrange, but this is new." Alastor turned the witch's wrist so he could better see the grinning, black unicorn's head. "What happened?"
Practically hanging by her wrist, Bellatrix felt weak as a kitten for the first time since she'd gained the mark. "He's dead. There's a new Dark Lord, and he calls to us."
"I keep telling you, you're not going to get an answer out of 'em." Charles Weasley said.
So far, none of the talking dragons had been directly hostile to him. "I'm not sure what world I've fallen into, but dragons on my world—like Norbert and Whistlewing—aren't exactly going to reply."
"What even are you?" Inferno, a young male red dragon who still walked on spindly legs, stomped closer to Charlie. "You're not a pony or a griffon, and that's all we've promised not to eat."
"Can it, Ferny. Whatever it is, it can speak and it doesn't look like it's made out of jewels, so no point in eating it. What's your name?" Rake shoved her much smaller brother to the side and towered above Charlie and Norbert both. She held her wings only slightly furled at her sides, and looked down her almost-adult body at the human.
It was certainly one thing to deal with dragons as huge beasts with minds equivalent to big felines, and quite another to have the biggest dragon Charlie had ever seen talk to him in passable English. "Hi, my name's Charles—Charles Weasley. Sorry if I dropped in on you, we don't mean any harm."
"Pfft. Now I know you're not from around here. M'names Rake. This squirt over here is my bro, Inferno. So, Charles, why're you here?" Boredom was the normal staple of draconic life, but right now Rake felt far more curiosity in the small creature that spoke to her. The dragon at his side, in her estimation, wasn't an actual dragon.
"Well, there was this hole-thing that opened up. Some kind of magic, I think. Anyway, one of my—one of these dragons jumped their fool arse through it, and it's sorta my job to take care of them. Sorry if it's a bother." The staple of British life was a good, well-rounded apology at least every hour, and Charlie had been raised right in that regard. "You, uh, haven't seen Whistlewing around here, have you?"
"What's a Whistlewing?" It took a second before Rake's awareness caught on the fact that something was diving at her. Tilting her long head up, she spotted the dragoness coming for her and narrowed her eyes at it.
Whistlewing knew she had a good deal going. The human thing gave her food and didn't annoy her too much, and the other dragon that was always near it didn't bother her either—except when she got angry at the human. But this new dragon was huge and looked like it was going to muscle in on her good time.
Stooped in a dive, Whistlewing aimed herself for the other dragon's wings. A dragon on the ground was vulnerable to just about anything, which was why Whistlewing extended her talons at the last second to rake its wings.
Rake snorted in disdain. "This,"—she reached one huge forelimb out and grabbed Whistlewing out of the air by her throat—"is Whistlewing? I see why she's called that; heard her comin' from a mile away. Angry little thing."
Charlie could only stare at the sight of Whistlewing snapping, biting, and clawing at Rake, but none of it having any effect on the strange dragon. "Please don't hurt her. She's not all that bright, and probably thought you were trying to hurt us."
"Are you sayin' dragons ain't smart?" His pride a little stung on behalf of Whistlewing, Inferno stomped up to stand roughly the same height as Charlie, and right in his face. "You take that back!"
The youth of Inferno practically sang in his words and posture as he tried to intimidate Charlie. He looked down at the little stick the human had drawn and laughed. "What's that gonna do?"
Charlie was almost ready to cast a Stupefying charm when another big yellow talon closed around Inferno and lifted him up and away. Looking up, Charlie could see that Rake looked more annoyed than angry. "Sorry, I didn't mean to imply you were stupid, but—"
"Nah. You were right." Rake glared into her brother's eyes. "'e's stupid as a rock sometimes. Listen, Ferny, when a strange thing points something pointy at you, you always assume it's somethin' that can hurt ya. See that little bit of wood? I bet 'e'd do all kinds of bad stuff to you with that."
Looking down at his wand to put it away carefully, Charlie let out a sigh and nodded. He knew better than to say exactly what his wand could do, but at the same time he could respect that Rake was a bit smarter than he'd previously given her credit for. Big and dumb, Charlie thought, might not be as synonymous here.
"See? Ponies might not mess you up, but this isn't a pony, Ferny." Done with her lecture, Rake dropped her brother and turned her attention to Whistlewing (who was still doing her best to get free). "And you. Don't attack things bigger than you unless you know they can't move faster than you. Worse than a hatchling…"
Whistlewing had been waiting for Rake to squeeze down, and was stunned for a moment when she let go. Scrambling to land without hurting herself, Whistlewing hissed at the big dragon and rushed to stand beside and behind Charlie. With one eye on the human, she hissed again at Rake for good measure.
Norbert, who was not at all sure what to make of the strange dragons, stuck to Charlie's side like glue. Even the littler of the two set his scales on edge for some reason.
"Huh. Night time," Rake said, turning her head to look at the sun a moment before it plunged below the horizon.
If Charlie didn't have each hand on a dragon's neck, he probably would have fallen over. As it was, darkness settled over the world, and neither of the local dragons seemed surprised by it happening so suddenly. "That's normal?"
"What's normal?" Rake asked. "Sunset? It sometimes happens at odd times, but the ponies normally keep it on time. One of the reason Torch decreed no dragon is to eat a pony or griffon. They're thick with each other, and if we screw up, well, we can handle lava no problems, but I don't want to try swimming in the sun—you know?"
"Right." Charlie didn't know, of course. "Well, I guess we should probably sleep. Is it safe, or okay, to sleep here?"
Rake yawned and shrugged her shoulders, then figured they'd probably not be able to see her do either. "Whatever. Only ground a dragon owns is their cave, and as long as you don't walk into mine, you're fine to do whatever."
Charlie stared as Rake and Inferno turned and, spreading their wings, flew away. "Well, I guess here's probably a safe spot. At least Rake didn't seem to want to do anything about us. You two'll need something, won't ya?"
First to reply to Charlie's words was Norbert. He'd known Charlie for most of his life, and butted his head against Charlie's coat where his pocket that held meat was.
"Loo-mos." Charlie wasn't taking any chances with his magic. He could have wordlessly lit his wand for light, but the very words of magic were a comfort in such a strange world. That magic heeded his call was an even greater comfort, though something felt a little off about it.
Both Norbert and Whistlewing swung their heads up when they saw Charlie toss two cubes of venison into the air, and both were already salivating as he incanted the spell to recreate them into full-sized shoulders of deer.
Neither dragon saw Charlie wince and grab for his head as the potent magic of Equestria heeded both his call and that of his blood.
Charlie shouted in shock as he felt a tremendous headache spread through the front of his forehead and then outward. It was like having something too big grow in his head and then shove its way out. Barely holding onto his wand, he let out a string of words not fit for children as he reached a hand up to feel his forehead.
Careful fingers prodded at what had borne Charlie so much pain, and with both earth dragons ripping into their meals, he felt the pure white horn that now exited his forehead in a slight spiral patter. "Ah heck. What's this?"
With no answer coming, Charlie put his wand away and swore to himself he wouldn't use magic again until he figured out if it was what caused his head to suddenly gain a protrusion. Without any light, he pulled a sleeping bag out of one of his pockets and, without even removing his boots, climbed inside it.
Far from cold, Charlie was nonetheless surprised when a large mass curled up at his back. Norbert's spines weren't anywhere near the sleeping bag, in fact they were aiming outward from it—the dragon curling up against Charlie as one of the only family it'd ever known.
Whistlewing looked at the two curled up together, still licking her lips of the juices the tender meat had spread over them. Draconic pride was nearly legendary and was just about as well known as their tendency to dispatch things that displeased them, but with a sinking feeling, Whistlewing realized that the other creatures of this land were far more dangerous than she was, given her recent examples.
She needed a pack—a group to protect her and to help protect. Dragons rarely had to use teamwork to defeat anything, but Whistlewing also didn't wish to spend time in the morning hunting for food when the human would give her some.
Charlie was therefore even further surprised when he felt Whistlewing curl up against his chest, one of her eyes open mere inches from his face. The smell of venison wafted to him as he tried not to think about how juicy his own body might seem to her, but one thing about draconic ways came to the forefront for him—dragons don't band together with prey, but with other dragons.
It should have been impossible for Charlie to get to sleep, but he was oddly exhausted by the day's experience, and was soon sleeping along with the two large predators.