Ginny giggles, lying on the floor of this empty classroom.
Well, not empty; she’s in it. So are the four fillies, one made of energy, that she’s playing with. It’s Friday again, after a long week of classes- and this is the regularly-scheduled ‘Papa Tango Club’ meeting. It’s the only time Ariel can talk to any of the others- and, as a result, Ariel’s happiest time of the week.
Not that it’s much different for her herself. Sure, she still gets a searing headache whenever she tries to transform like them, but it’s so fun to play with her fillies. She’s still a little conflicted about it; she’s always had a crush on Harry… and now, she seems to be equally attracted to all of them. Including Silversong- for whom Papa Tango Club Meetings seem to be the only time worth smiling.
She pauses, her giggle breaking off, smile fading as she thinks about it. Yes, these meetings are the only time Silver ever seems to smile.
They’re also the only time she can be herself. The only time she’s… well, free to act, without having to worry about being judged for it. Or attacked, for that matter.
Harry notices her sudden contemplation, and flaps up to land oh so gently on her chest, peering into her face with those enormous green eyes. “Something wrong?” she asks.
Ginny fields Silver, who happened to be gliding by, with one hand, pulling her into a sudden group hug with Harry. The fillies aren’t very light- but, thanks to something Silver did last week, she can actually ‘borrow’ their passive magical abilities when she’s touching them… which lets her utilize their super-strength. “What if,” she begins. “What if Silver didn’t have to pretend all the time?”
Harry tilts her head. “What do you mean?”
Silver shakes her head. “That’s not possible. You know we can’t reveal our pony forms- and if I try being anyone other than Draco when in human form…” She lets out a sigh.
“But what if-!” Ginny begins, before cutting herself off to let Hermione and Ariel into her arms as well. “But what if you didn’t have to turn into Draco?” she asks.
Ariel looks at her blankly, and Hermione scowls contemplatively.
Silver smiles weakly. “What would I turn into?”
Ginny shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe the human girl named Silversong?”
Silver lets out a snort of laughter. “Oh, I won’t argue that would be amazing, but is it even possible?”
Hermione scowls. “I don’t know… I’d have to read up some more on animagus transformation.”
Ginny looks at Hermione. “Professor McGonagall.”
All four fillies look at her. “What?”
“Professor McGonagall was Papa Tangoed, and can still turn into a cat. She has three forms.” She looks at Silver again. “Is there any particular reason your third form can’t be Silversong as well?”
“Ah,” Silver scowls. “Maybe because I already have one form, and I’d have to find my inner animal to get another? Yet I’m already a pony, so…”
Ginny scowls. “Maybe the Papa Tango could help?”
“How would that help?” Ariel asks.
She smiles. “I don’t know. Lyra didn’t give me the matrices- but she did give me what I need to see through the masking. Combined with my talent, I ought to be able to figure something out pretty quick, right?”
Silver rubs her chin with one hoof. “Yeah, I suppose. Um, do you mind if I use a magesight spell on you when you do that? I suspect there might be more to your ability than we realize.”
“You know a magesight spell?” Hermione asks.
Silver nods. “Yep. Read it in one of Twilight’s books last night, actually. Never tried it before- but with my talent, that shouldn’t be a problem.” She grins. “As a matter of fact, Ginny, if you hold me when I do that, I can probably convince our magics to cooperate on a low enough level to let you take advantage of my talent as well- at least to a limited degree.”
“Do you think the Papa Tango room is empty right now?” she asks.
“Ought to be,” Hermione mutters. “I’d hate to ask, though. Lyra would probably want to be there.”
Ginny makes a face. “Yeah… and then ponies would find out you three are also royalty. Um, worst case scenario, I’ll just remember everything and tell her all about it later.” She grins mischievously.
Silver giggles, wriggling out of her arms and rolling off of her to shift into human form next to her. “Probably want to be in human form when we arrive, just in case,” he states.
Hermione and Harry nod their agreement, and shift right where they are. Ariel simply vanishes into Ginny, whose arms are suddenly full of second-year humans.
Harry chuckles, looking sideways at Draco. “You can stand us up when we arrive, right?”
Draco chuckles as well. “Sure I can.”
Ginny pulls both of them off of her, onto their backs on either side of her, her arms wrapped around them. “Ready!”
Her surroundings change very suddenly, and it’s only thanks to Hermione that either she or Harry were able to stay upright with the sudden shift in gravity. She looks quickly around the room, while Draco activates the lights.
They’re alone.
“Alrighty!” She draws her wand, then holds out her arms towards Draco.
He grins, having also looked and jumps up into her arms, shifting as he goes. “Let’s get started then, shall we?” Silver asks. Her horn glows, eyes closed, for a few seconds. “Alright, ready.”
Ginny points her wand at her best guess of the location of what she’s looking for, and concentrates as well. Last night, her ability had somehow found a way for her to use her wand in a similar way to how Silver uses her horn; now, she uses it. It takes her a few seconds, and she feels something flowing into her mind from Silver, then she manages it. It’s slow at first, but… She calls up the matrices she remembers, and focuses on them as well.
It works.
… She got the wrong part, though. This is one of the cutouts to the recording function. She shifts to another part.
It’s close to half an hour later when she finds another part… and instantly knows exactly how to do it. At the same moment, Silver gasps. She looks down. “What?”
“Did-!” Silver begins. “Did you just do it?”
“Uh… Yeah, I think.” She smiles. “I know what to do.” She sighs. “You’ll have to stand, in pony form, in the middle of the room.”
Silver hops out of her arms, gliding down to the middle of the room, then scowls at the floor. “Hmm…”
“So… Ready?” Ginny asks.
“Yeah…” Silver mutters. “I’m just… thinking…”
Ginny tilts her head.
Silver blinks. “Oh. Wow. Um… Yeah, I’ve got news for you. But let’s get this done, I’ll give it to you in human form if it works.”
She shrugs. “Got it.” She lights up her wand again, applies the matrices she needs. She’s very careful to design them properly, and install the necessary safety- only one on her addendum, since Lyra’s Papa Tango provides the rest- before she activates it.
Only about half the matrices in the room glow; she’s only activating a small part of Lyra’s Papa Tango, and in a very specific way. Her little addendum doesn’t only activate it in that way, but it also does a little extra- it temporarily isolates Silver from her human form, forcing her to acquire a new one when the phase system Lyra built pushes her into human form.
There’s a bright flash of light… then, a fraction of a second later, she sees Silver, lying on the floor in the middle of the room.
“Ow-!” Silver complains, pushing herself up from where her face had struck the stone.
Then she pauses, rises to a kneeling position, and looks down at herself for a few seconds.
Then she springs to her feet and practically pounces on Ginny with her hug. “Oh, thank you, Ginny! It worked!”
Ginny smiles and returns the hug. “You’re welcome.” Silver’s new human form is a first-year girl, wearing a gleaming silver skirt and a royal blue shirt. Where the clothes came from, Ginny isn’t entirely sure; she didn’t dig too deeply into the form management routines Lyra laid.
Then Silver steps back, holding her at arms length. “Oh, and have I got news for you, too.”
Her surroundings suddenly change again- and, she notices, Harry and Hermione come with too, despite not touching. They’re back in the ‘empty’ classroom.
“Your unique talent isn’t problem analysis,” Silver informs her. “As a matter of fact, it has nothing to do with analysis.”
She blinks. “Then… Then how…? What is it?”
“That was futuresight. As near as I can tell, you saw a future in which you had done the analysis.” She chuckles. “Bit of a funny future it was, too. You know how?”
Harry and Hermione have joined her now, watching Silver attentively.
“How?” Ginny asks.
“That future was hardly three seconds forwards. Except of course, it was multilayered. Because in that future, you had, three seconds prior, seen a future in which you had almost finished solving it… and finished. And in that future…” She trails off, grinning. “I applied a little counting charm to the images I got- and counted about two million layers.”
“Just over two months worth of nonstop thinking,” Ginny blinks. “Wow.”
Silver steps forwards again, grabbing her shoulders and giving her a shake. “No, Ginny-!” She lets out a sigh. “We already know your talent hasn’t hit its full potential just yet, because you haven’t finished transforming yet. But it’s futuresight. When you do eventually finish transforming, I bet you’ll be the best seer around.”
She blinks. “... Oh.”
Ariel suddenly pops out of Ginny’s shoulder, landing lightly on it. “Now we just need to get you some Hogwarts robes, right Silver? You’ll probably draw some stares wearing that.” She points a hoof at Silver’s clothes.
Silver blinks, looking down at herself again. “Right. Um…” She glances to the side.
“Wow, that worked like a charm,” Ariel mutters nonverbally to Ginny. It was only last night when she figured out she could do so while out in her own ‘body’; it had only taken Ginny a few minutes to answer her in kind.
Ginny looks at Ariel. “Well of course it did,” she smiles. “You had a point.” She can tell Ariel had come out and said that mostly to relieve the pressure that Silver was putting on her. She’s more than a little thankful for the intervention; she needs time to process exactly what she just learned… specifically, time that isn’t borrowed from the future that never was.
Ariel shrugs her wings. “Yeah, but I didn’t think the topic would flip just like that.”