Hermione knocks twice, before pushing the door open and making her way into the Room of Requirement. Right in the middle of her Papa Tango Club meeting, throughout which Ginny seemed to have glowed red at least as much as everyone else combined, Lyra had radioed her up to ask her to meet in the ‘Bravo Oscar’, or the local Base of Operations… which is the Room of Requirement. She had also specified when she was done with the Papa Tango Charlie Mike, so she hadn’t had to cut it short.
Though, she will have to look into how she received that transmission- and responded to it- while in pony form… despite the radio being clipped to her clothes, and thence nonexistent at the time. There’s no books to give her the answer, though there’s a few- about animagi- that are loosely related.
“Oh, Hermione!” Lyra practically leaps up from her seat at the enormous conference table, before moving towards one of the smaller privacy spelled meeting rooms running up and down both sides of the room. “Can we talk in here?”
Hermione’s muscles tense instantly, and she follows quickly. Lyra had seemed distinctly worried- and if something has her worried, when the attack on Mrs. Norris hadn’t even fazed her…
She makes it into the meeting room right behind Lyra. “What is it?” she asks, as she closes the door behind her.
Lyra puts her hands on Hermione’s shoulders. “Hermione, I have a problem.”
Hermione nods. “I’m listening.”
“Do you have any flying tips you could give me?”
She blinks. True, the first Quidditch match of the year is only tomorrow, and Lyra is on the team as a chaser- but she’s been participating in team practices, and she’s so good Hermione had been tempted to ask her- several times- if she’s sure she’s not a pegasus. “Um- you seemed to be doing pretty well to me?”
Lyra sighs restlessly. “Yeah, but- but stuff changed. I’m- I’m-!” She pauses for a second, and blinks, before slowing down. “... I never told you about it, did I? Um…” She heaves a sigh, sits down, and takes a deep breath. “Sorry, I’m… not used to the unknown.” She takes another deep breath. “As for what happened, I was testing the limits of Ginny’s Cutie Mark talent- it truly is amazing, she can compress months of thinking and analysis into a mere moment- when…
“Well, I actually leveraged that ability a little bit during the tests. Thanks to her, I was able to perfect the Papa Echo. The problem is, though, it’s a little too perfect. When I tested it on myself, it worked, and I almost instantly ascended.” She takes a deep breath. “After that, I’m… I’m an…” She takes another breath. “I’m an Alicorn. Both horn and wings, and the magic of all three tribes.”
Hermione nods once. Lyra’s sure making a big fuss out of it. “Okay?”
“I-!” Lyra takes another deep breath. “How different is it?”
Hermione shrugs. “I really only noticed it become exponentially easier, almost as if the broom was part of me,” she states. Then she scowls. “Rainbow couldn’t figure out what I was talking about, though.”
Lyra lets out a small snort of laughter. “Not surprised. You’re more likely to catch Rainbow napping on a cloud a hundred times than studying even once. And yeah, that’s what I’m worried about- because I’m kinda like you, in that my wings stick around in human form.”
Hermione nods slowly, putting a hand to her chin. “If you know some way to isolate your magic from the broom’s, that’d probably be best for tomorrow,” she mutters. “I’ve figured out how to keep the broom from outperforming itself, but, um…” She shrugs. “I have no idea how to describe it.”
“Alright, people,” Oliver Wood greets the team, in the changing room. Harry is available to play, so while Hermione is here for the team briefing, she’ll be watching the game from the stands- and only come into play if something happens to Harry.
She rather expects nothing will, and smiles softly to herself while Wood asks Harry to “catch the Snitch or die trying”. During the final game last year, he’d been unfamiliar with his pegasus magic, and had been too busy trying not to mess up his flight to notice when the opposing seeker had spotted and caught the snitch.
Which won’t be hard, as he’s practiced enough with his broom to not lose control of it.
… She still has no idea why he has so much difficulty keeping his pegasus magic in line. Maybe it’s related to how she can’t seem to do anything with her horn, save only basic levitation, when Silver had tried teaching her and Harry during the summer?
Watching Lyra should be fun, though. During practices, she’s the most daring Chaser on the entire team- and with the fastest reaction time, by far. Not to mention, Hermione rather suspects she’s been holding out on everyone- and rather hopes to see some of what that might be during the match.
It’s a very one-sided game.
The Slytherin chasers are flying as a team. They’re well-coordinated, though not on the level of a professional team. Most of them have been playing for Slytherin for a few years; the youngest one is a fifth year.
The Gryffindor chasers are flying as a unit. Maybe spread out, maybe together, maybe in formation, but always in perfect sync. One’s new this year- and she’s an Agent, so it wasn’t long before she had them so well-coordinated one might think they had magically fused their minds together.
Lyra’s riding a Cleansweep Six, because that’s what had been handy when she got on the team and she hasn’t bothered upgrading.
Slytherin had taken the quaffle at the beginning of the game. Their chasers had taken it up to the goal posts- then one had passed it to another.
Lyra had just happened to be streaking up from below, neatly intercepting the quaffle before taking off for the other end of the field, flying in a constantly shifting formation with the other two Gryffindor chasers and randomly passing the quaffle between them. Several times, the Slytherins attempted to intercept it- but for as fast as their brooms might be, the Gryffindor players were faster.
Then the Slytherin seeker, who had been drifting alongside and chatting amiably with the Gryffindor seeker thus far, suddenly shot across the field at the upper limit of what his broom could do… and caught the snitch.
Lyra Heartstrings is tired. Staying up all night, under the influence of a time compression spell with over ninety percent efficiency, will do that to you.
It had taken her that long- almost a full week, subjective- to craft a spell suitable to properly segregate her magic and that of her broom. To keep it from interfering with her broom, keep it to what she’s familiar with.
Judging by Hermione’s intel, and completely disregarding her recommendation- she’s pretty sure the pegasus doesn’t even know time compression is possible, let alone a viable option- that had been exponentially easier than learning to properly control her new pegasus magic overnight might be.
Which happened to line up with Hermione’s recommendation, but still.
But she’d done it. Then she’d made sure to look good and awake in the changing room.
And now, she’s on her broom, fifty feet in the air, flinging the red quaffle around- and hoping, praying, really, that the Weasleys are enough to keep the bludgers off her. Between her mental exhaustion, the near-torture of her magic segregation spell, her normal difficulty riding a broom, juggling the Quaffle, and coordinating with the other two Chasers, she doesn’t have any mental capacity to spare for the things.
She’s on approach to the goal posts once again. She hasn’t been following the score; she knows she’ll remember the commentary later, remember just how badly she’s doing. She just hopes it’s not so bad that Harry can’t at least make it a draw by catching the Snitch.
She feints left, towards the Gryffindor chaser that’s swinging around behind the hoops to receive the Quaffle. She’s not sure why they keep giving it back to her.
She then feints up, to the other Gryffindor chaser. Then right, to the nearest Slytherin- a Beater- before actually passing it to the chaser above her head.
Exactly as she’d expected, the said chaser promptly passes it right back, after making a feint of her own; she’s a might bit too high to make a successful shot. As she receives the ball, the one passing the hoops makes as if receiving the ball and crouches down over her broom, rocketing around as if to make an attempt.
It works. The keeper turns to wrap around the hoops, before stopping midway and turning back, at the yell of one of the Slytherin chasers. She feints again, towards that Slytherin chaser below her, before priming for an actual shot. She really didn’t need to feint that last time; their keeper is well and truly out of the way, and way susceptible to her feints. As such, he’s not only in the wrong position to stop her but headed in the wrong direction.
She shoots. It’s a clear shot, straight through the hoops. Gryffindor scores; she hears that in the commentary. The receiving chaser, who had gotten into position just barely in time, dodges a bludger and zips to the side, looking back at the hoops. She’s going to shoot again, from the other side.
She feints left. Funny, the keeper is looking at her, even though she doesn’t have the ball. She feints right, towards empty air. He follows the motion, looks that way, and turns back to her. She feints a shot to the leftmost goal hoop; the other chaser is lining up to shoot through the rightmost. Again, the keeper looks, and turns back to her.
The other chaser shoots.
Lyra dips two feet down, and catches the Quaffle. The Slytherin keeper blinks, and starts looking wildly around, as if trying to figure out where it came from. She grins, raising it for another shot.
Something green blurs past in her peripheral vision. She looks.
Oh, it’s Silversong- Draco, the Slytherin seeker. He must have spotted the Snitch. She turns back forwards.
Just in time for something large and heavy to slam into her side, throwing her bodily off her broom and snapping her arm like a twig. Even as she falls off her broom- there was too much force in the blow, and her grip wasn’t tight enough to make it possible, so she completely abandons the broom- she snaps her other arm up to snag the Quaffle, draws it back, and lobs it through the hoop.
Then she closes her eyes, quickly formulating a suitable proximity cushion spell to stop her before she breaks her neck on the ground.
It stutters, though, and fragments apart.
Right. That bludger hit her right arm, which is where she casts from as a human, as she lacks a horn. Which means, she won’t be able to use her Equestrian magic without shifting forms… and she doesn’t want to do that out in the open.
She opens her eyes, twisting to see the ground rushing up. She’ll shift at the last second, stop herself, and shift again.
She manages it. And, thanks to having the matrix prepared and everything, she’s pretty sure she spent less than a tenth of a second in her Equestrian form.
Though, her damaged arm hurt when she did that- shapeshifting with an injury is never very comfortable, or safe.
She hits the ground, perhaps a little harder than she intended, and loses consciousness instantly.
It doesn’t last long, fortunately. She wakes up shortly… and the first thing she sees, is sparkling white teeth.
“Oh no,” she groans. “Not you.” The last person she wants trying to help her when she’s hurt is this guy and his overblown ego.
“Doesn’t know what she’s saying,” Lockhart declares loudly. “Don’t worry, Lyra, I’ll have that fixed up in a moment.”
“Don’t-!” Hermione gasps out at him, running at full tilt towards where Lyra had fallen. Hardly a second after Silver won the game by a margin of ten points, and Lyra had to fall off her broom!
… Well, technically, she’d fallen off her broom before Silver won the game, but she hit the ground after. Nobody’s celebrating yet, though, because she hadn’t actually fallen off- nor had she been hit by a bludger. No, one of the Slytherin beaters had attacked her with his bat- and Madam Hooch seems not to be sure how she wants to handle the penalty that should have awarded the Gryffindors.
“No!” Lyra gasps, her good arm flying up to manually align her damaged arm. Hermione wonders to herself why she isn’t doing that by magic.
Harry, who had landed much closer, starts slowing down right as Lockhart casts his spell.
She sees Silver’s spell- he’d landed shortly behind Harry- racing to stop Lockhart’s spell, but it’s too late. Lockhart’s spell hits Lyra.
There’s a flash of light, and Lyra’s broken arm goes limp… almost like Lockhart had removed the bones.
Lyra, meanwhile, lets out a bone-chilling shriek of pain.
Then Silver lets out a gasp and dodges sideways, behind Harry, as light seems to build around Lyra. Harry screeches to a halt and crouches next to Lyra. “Lyra!”
She feels it before she sees it. The sudden shockwave of energy- of what has to be magical energy- and the expanding ball of light, starting on Lyra. Almost like someone had detonated a large bomb.
With no time to think, Hermione’s wings flash open and down, propelling her straight up in the air. She dodges a bludger on her way up; a tiny flick of a few feathers was enough to adjust her Rainboom trajectory.
Then she looks back down. She’s already a half a mile in the sky, high above the game; it’s also been about a half a second since Lyra’s whatever-blast.
… Funny. Exactly as she’d expected, her pegasus vision is letting her peer through the glare to see what’s inside. She can’t see much more than an outline of Lyra- though everyone else she can see clearly. Lockhart, for example, appears to have been thrown into the air by the blast, his once-lilac robes burnt the same black as his face.
Several other players, teachers, or people, caught nearby but not as close, got blown over or perhaps thrown, only the closest burned- and then, only a little bit.
Then Harry, right at the epicenter, seems to be completely okay, still crouching over Lyra and casting the blast shadow Silver has taken cover in.
Oh, and there’s the blast ring from her Rainboom. It’s actually serving to blunt the edges of Lyra’s blast, whatever it is, though it’s fairly easily being overpowered by it.
Lyra’s blast only lasts a couple seconds, after which she rockets back to the ground, this time next to Harry, and folds her wings. Interestingly, Harry is completely unharmed- even his robes are undamaged- despite being right on top of the epicenter. But at the moment, Lyra is more important. She spots Ginny running towards them in the corner of her eye- and some part of her imagines Ariel galloping alongside her.
“Are you okay?” she asks Lyra.
“What happened?” Madam Pomfrey asks, moments after her startled jump. It isn’t often that five students randomly appear out of thin air in her infirmary.
“Lockhart happened,” the boy she’s seen before- Harry Potter- states. “I think he was trying to mend her bones- against her will- and… fobbed it.”
“Magically speaking, it almost looks like something the Crusaders could have done,” the other boy, Draco Malfoy, mutters. “Though what happened next, I’m pretty sure has them pretty handily beat.” He looks up at Madam Pomfrey. “As near as I can tell, he seems to have done significant damage to her magic… which retaliated by, um, exploding, for lack of a better word.” As he speaks, the girl in the middle, lying unconscious on her back and floating in a navy blue aura she’s come to associate with Equestrian magic, floats up a little.
“Um, she’s going to need, like, top secret handling,” Hermione mutters.
Madam Pomfrey nods once, pointing her wand at the floating girl- whom she recognizes as Lyra Heartstrings- for a diagnostic spell. She’s… stable-ish, though only because of what appears to be active but inexperienced medical magic included in the navy aura. The important part is that her situation isn’t critical, though it isn’t far from it either. “This way,” she states, gesturing to them and leading them to the medical annex Dumbledore had the Equestrians install this year. It sure is handy- she now has the space she needs to serve this many students, and the supplies for the many Equestrian volunteers!
Inside this annex, she picks the nearest high-sensitivity ward- they’re all empty right now- and leads the group to it, before gesturing to the first bed.
Lyra floats over to it, landing softly.
“I’ve been doing my best with general Equestrian medical spells,” Draco states, “but I’m no doctor. Is…?”
“Don’t drop them just yet,” Madam Pomfrey states, before pointing her wand again for much better, more focused diagnostic spells.
Then she scowls, and her hand comes up to the ‘radio’ the Equestrians had supplied her with, to keep her in touch with the various student assistants. She calls for Equin Horse, the one that she could swear seems more like a doctor than an assistant. She’s not sure just yet, but this damage might call for what she and her assistants have dubbed the ‘Equestrian Treatment’- that is, taken into a very specific room of this annex to be forced into Equestrian form- Lyra helped build the standing matrices for that, she understands- for treatment in her natural form. Much more effective than trying to treat her in human form… especially when her spells can’t seem to decide whether she’s human or not.