//------------------------------// // 10 - Precipice // Story: A Phoenix Beyond the Veil - Amalgam // by gerandakis //------------------------------// Chapter Ten Precipice The group spent several more days in Canterlot before Harry and Sirius headed to the train station to return to Ponyville and Philomena took the rest of the group back to Earth. Over the week, Sunset had felt her connection to Garnet slowly deepen to the point where she occasionally thought she heard fragments of thoughts over the constant background of emotion. Sunset had calculated their vacation to both start and end when the day-night-cycle of both worlds was aligned, so they’d spent twelve days in Equestria while eleven had passed on Earth. She’d also made plans with Celestia to set the first contact with the Ministry in motion when the next alignment was two days out. That way, Earth would be only four hours ahead of Equestria and they’d have five days with a differential small enough not to be much of a hindrance. That left her eight days to prepare things on her end. Mostly a matter of keeping Mr. Weasley and Professor Dumbledore in the loop. That, in turn, allowed her to keep up to date on matters at Hogwarts and in the Ministry. Professor Dumbledore, it seemed, had just taken a day with his heads of house to dismantle the security measures around the Philosophers’ Stone. With Voldemort trapped, there was no reason to keep it so tightly locked up. Besides, with Sunset distracting him, Quirrell never did figure out how to get the stone out of the Mirror of Erised. Whether he had realized it was stored within the mirror in the first place they weren’t sure. Apparently the five of them had had quite a bit of fun dismantling Sunset’s laser defense system and Professor Sinistra’s star chamber. The headmaster had then moved the mirror, and the stone within, to a hidden chamber he had created with the help of Sunset and Professor Flitwick. They did most of the heavy lifting, of course, but they wanted to also include some of the spells she’d placed on her hidden practice dojo she’d been using with Crabbe and had asked for her input. In the Ministry, it seemed to be more or less business as usual, though there were hushed words and quiet preparations that were clearly visible if one knew to look. There was always someone watching the atrium, unspeakables were out and about far more often than usual, quietly making arrangements with high ranking members of other departments and the minister himself was seen around the Department of International Magical Cooperation remarkably often. As was his first undersecretary. A woman named Umbridge whom Mr. Weasley had warned the Princess about. What Mr. Weasley had also reported, apparently with great amusement, was that reporters from more or less any wizarding publication with even a cursory interest in political matters, from The Daily Prophet to Witch Weekly, had picked up on these signs and were trying to figure out what was going on. Most of them had, apparently, put things together and figured out that the Ministry was preparing for something to happen. But they could only guess at what would be happening and when. The only publication notably absent from the round of speculations was, of course, The Quibbler. Luna and her father had returned from their own holiday a few days after they had returned from Equestria. He already had a special edition lined up to be published on the morning of the first contact. Apparently, he was quite giddy about it. Meanwhile, she’d gotten word from Crabbe. After some consideration, it seemed, Goyle had chosen to accept her proposal and, tentatively, so had Malfoy. Their three families would meet for dinner in about another two weeks, so they could have a proper conversation then. Assuming the first contact didn’t interfere with that. All these things were nice to know, but they didn’t take up most of Sunset’s and Hermione’s time. After returning from their holiday, the two of them had jumped back into their project with renewed vigor. Hermione was starting to grasp more advanced concepts in programming, and Sunset had begun experimenting with simple glass-based chips. “Aha!” Hermione tore her attention away from the book she’d been reading and opened her eyes, focusing on her sister who was working at the table beside her. Sitting in front of Sunset was a small plate of glass, held on four pieces of wood that she’d had handy. Several places in the glass were glimmering in the light of the lamp above the table, signifying that there had been something done to them, though it was impossible, at first glance, to tell what. These spots were connected by a series of lines that were faintly glowing with the teal of Sunset’s magic, supplied by the small storage crystal attached to the chip on one side. A series of spots, running across the glass in a straight line, was blinking in various colors in a complex but obviously repeating pattern. With a smile, Hermione watched the pattern repeat again and again. Sunset was watching just as intently, her eyes glowing with magic. Following her example, Hermione quickly cast her own visualization charm. Technically they weren’t supposed to be using magic outside of school, but with the wards set up around the house, it wasn’t like anyone would be able to tell. Sunset had been experimenting with this chip for a while now. She’d been trying to work out how to make simple electronic components in such a way that they worked with magic instead. Modifying the crystal structure of the glass so that a part of it worked as a capacitor had been easy enough. So had making parts of the glass inhibit the flow of magic and act as resistors. Lights had been a simple matter of a small lighting charm set up to activate whenever it was fed magic without any further triggers. But she’d been struggling getting transistors to work. The tiny switches meant to be switched not physically, but with a signal, normally an electrical one, but of course magical in nature in this case, had been giving Sunset quite a bit of trouble. The enchantments kept falling apart from the constant switching on and off. But now it looked like she’d found a way to stabilize it. The enchantments in what Hermione knew to be the magical transistors from the many failed attempts over the past few days looked to be stable this time around and showed no signs of degrading. The lights kept happily blinking away. The two of them shared a glance. Hermione may have been focusing on the software aspect of their project, but she knew what had to come next just as well as Sunset did. Seeing how it was already fairly late, the two of them went to bed. The next part Sunset had to accomplish was to see if her current design would keep working over longer spans of time. The little circuit had plenty of power to work with in its small storage crystal. They’d be back to check if it was still going in the morning. The circuit, as it turned out, failed overnight after all. But the remaining charge in the power crystal, after a bit of arithmancy, revealed that it had lasted well past midnight and only failed somewhere around four in the morning, so it still lasted orders of magnitude longer than Sunset’s previous best which had still fallen short of a minute. Fortunately, when the circuit finally failed, power was cut to some of the transistors before their enchantments could wear to the point of failure. That way, Sunset could study them and analyze just where the enchantment had failed. With that knowledge, she managed to further improve on the enchantment pattern and create a version of the circuit that, after running non-stop for four days, was still going the morning of the first contact. Eric Munch was not a stupid wizard. His job might not be the most exciting, but it paid well enough and it gave him plenty of opportunity to partake in a hobby of his, what the muggles called ‘people watching’. From his post at the security desk in the atrium of the Ministry, he had been able to see the unusual activity over the last few days. Something was going on. Or would be soon. He didn’t know what, but he could make an educated guess just by seeing who all was involved. The most obvious part, clearly, was the number of unspeakables outside the Department of Mysteries. When so many of them were around, a matter of unknown or experimental magic was usually at hand. Then there was the Department for International Magical Cooperation. The diplomats. Their department was widely regarded as a bit of a joke and certainly nothing that was their responsibility would usually involve the unspeakables. Still, just by their involvement, he could tell that some foreign magical community was probably involved. Beyond them, a number of aurors had started quietly taking positions throughout the atrium and watching everything carefully. Whatever was going on, Director Bones was clearly worried something might go wrong to the point where defense was necessary. And then there was Minister Fudge himself as well as Undersecretary Umbridge. They were checking up on proceedings in the atrium at least once a day and, from what he’d heard, were also running around the rest of the Ministry half the day checking on one thing or another. They would be doing a lot of that anyway, of course, but normally they wouldn’t be visiting the atrium other than when they came to work or left for home unless there was someone of importance to greet. They were clearly involved as well, which meant that whatever was happening was important and high-profile. And now, this morning, activity seemed to have gotten even more noticeable. The aurors whom he’d been careful to keep an eye on seemed tense, unspeakables and diplomats alike more frantic than the past few days, whatever they were preparing for would clearly be happening soon. He was pulled from his musings as a wizard walked up to his desk. The man traded in magical creatures, so he commonly had dealings at the Ministry. “Morning Eric,” he greeted cheerfully. “Morning Mike.” Eric greeted back as he took the man’s wand to fulfill his duty. As the machine between them did its work, he continued on. “Did you see the special edition of the Quibbler yet? They’re getting crazier everyday there, I tell you.” “Can’t say I have. Here you go,” Eric added as he handed the wand back. “Well they,” Mike stopped. “You know what? No. You have to see this for yourself. I’m done with it anyway.” Eric took the rolled up newspaper with a nod and a quiet ‘thanks’ and watched the man walk off. Then he tried to return his attention to the atrium at large, but without much success. After a few moments, curiosity got the better of him. When he unfolded the paper, the words ‘First Contact Today’ jumped in his face. He raised an eyebrow at the headline, but continued on. The picture for the article showed a portrait of a woman that looked to be wearing a dress, though it cut off to high up to really be able to tell. As he read, he grew ever more nervous. Sure, Mike had considered it to be a hoax, but Mike didn’t know what he did. A magical community from a different dimension planning to establish first contact would certainly be a good reason for the Department of International Magical Cooperation to be on high alert. The ‘different dimension’-part also explained the presence of the unspeakables as, as far as he was aware, dimensional travel wasn’t known to be possible. One had to consider that such a foreign magical community might be hostile, or that the locals might be hostile towards them, so the presence of aurors made perfect sense, especially given the claim that they were apparently involved in fighting the Dark Arts in some capacity, though the article didn’t go into detail on that. That would also explain the minister and his undersecretary taking interest. On their own, the pieces of evidence could be dismissed. On its own, the article sure seemed like a hoax. But it all just fit together too well. Just as Eric finished reading, the hands of the clocks mounted to the walls in several places moved to the full hour. Ten AM. Eric’s eyes, like those of everyone else in the atrium, were immediately drawn to the flash of golden fire by the Fountain of Magical Brethren. There, appearing out of a wash of phoenix fire, stood six people. Easiest to recognize was, of course, Albus Dumbledore. The chief warlock wasn’t an uncommon sight at the Ministry. His phoenix Fawkes was perched on his shoulder. The sparkle of amusement in his eyes was not entirely reassuring. Beside him stood a woman of incredible beauty wearing a long, flowing white dress. Her colorful hair seemed to not entirely obey gravity, floating off her shoulders and sparkling slightly. There was no mistaking her. He had only seen her in black and white before, but the gentle smile and flowing hair made her very recognizable. This was the woman the article in the Quibbler had talked about. This was Princess Celestia. Her eyes were, if that was even possible, sparkling with more amusement than Dumbledore’s. On the princess’ other side was a girl he recognized from that time she had appeared in a very similar location alongside Madam Bones, Professor Dumbledore, Professor McGonagall, and another Hogwarts first year. He didn’t know her name, but there was no mistaking her either. Her fiery hair made sure of that. And, to his great surprise, perched on her shoulder, wings spread proudly and clearly basking in the attention they were getting, sat a second phoenix. On Dumbledore’s other side was a man in a smart business suit with a purple bowtie and monocle. His pale blue hair wasn’t as notable as that of the witches in the group, but would stand out in almost any other group of people. Finally, rounding out and flanking the group stood a pair of men wearing, of all things, pure golden platemail with a purple star inset on the chest of each. They were clearly guards of some kind, but their stern expressions couldn’t quite hide the curiosity in their eyes as they looked about the room. Princess Celestia shot a glance to the girl beside her, then smiled slyly and opened her mouth. “Take me to your leader.”