//------------------------------//
// Chapter 8 
// Story: On the Implications of Parallel Worlds 
// by computerneek 
//------------------------------//

It took Hermione Granger over half an hour to straighten everything out in her head and stop gawking at everything in amazement.  She’d always known she was a little weird; nobody else had strange things happen around them all the time.  Well, almost nobody, but he was basically a nobody anyways.  And she’d noticed that those strange things always seemed to be in her favor, whatever they were.  Fortunately, she wasn’t the one that that gang had chased all around the school every day for months.  She wasn’t the one that had been caught sitting on the chimney.  She wasn’t the one that…
No, she was fairly sure she actually was the one that turned the teacher’s wig blue.  That other boy got in trouble for it, but the teacher had been yelling at her, for the failed group assignment, when his wig changed color.  It wasn’t her fault she’d failed it- the other members of her group had been so lazy they easily made up for every other kid in the school; she’d done as much as she could herself, but the assignment had been designed such that she couldn’t do it all herself.  Since then, she’d learned to control those funny occurrences, to a degree.
So of course, for as much as her Hogwarts letter had been a surprise, she really hadn’t been surprised to learn that she was a witch- it simply explained the things that she could do.  She had been surprised when Professor McGonagall had shown up, and demonstrated more refined magics with her wand- and had made up her mind.  So, Professor McGonagall had taken her, and her parents, out to London, to this tiny pub.
Well…  it was tiny, when she looked at it from the street outside.  She’d thought it a bit weird that her parents couldn’t see it unless she was holding their hands, but accepted that as the magical people wanting to stay hidden…  for some reason.
Then, she’d stepped in.  She’d been wholly unprepared for what had happened next- and, by her best guess, Professor McGonagall had been blindsided by it too.
Now, after taking half an hour to reorganize her mind, she watched the crowd- and nibbled on the cake she’d been given when she’d first entered- for around fifteen minutes.  It was a good cake, but she noticed something about the crowd during that time.
That is, a lot of the funny-haired children her age…  didn’t behave like children her age.  Most of them behaved more like she’d expect her parents to.
She finished off her cake, gave her dishes to Pinkie Pie- who just happened to be collecting them at that moment, she determinedly did not think about that- and made her way towards Lyra’s booth, where the girl was working with a few other girls to do…  something, she wasn’t quite sure.  It seemed to involve a lot of technology, though, and they all had calm, serious expressions, and lots of foaming golden liquid.  Unless she missed her guess, they were doing something to coordinate those ‘teams’ Lyra had mentioned earlier.  She reached their table, and looked down at it.
Set out in the middle of the table, they had a large…  tablet, she thought, lying flat, with a map of something displayed on it, and numerous dots marching across it or standing in place.  Each of the girls at the table also had a sleek smartphone, with what looked to her like close-ups of different parts of the map- the only exception being Lyra, who would call someone every ten minutes or so, before the next group appeared out of thin air and headed out the back door of the pub.  They also each had devices she recognized as radios, which they would periodically speak into.  “Uhh, Lyra?” she asked.
Lyra looked up.  “Yes Hermione?”
She blinked.  She couldn’t remember ever giving the girl her name.  “Uhh…”
Lyra blinked.  “Oh, sorry.  I have a…  unique advantage, that lets me do that.  And sometimes, I…”  She trailed off, rubbing the side of her head with one hand and looking at her sheepishly.
She let out a small chuckle.  “Oh, ahh…  About that, actually.”
Lyra slipped sideways in the booth.  “Why don’t you take a seat?”
“Ahh…  Thank you,” she muttered, sliding into the booth.  Then, she blinked at the table in front of her; where once it had been clear, there was now a foaming mug of golden liquid.  “Uhh…”
“That was Lightning Dust,” Lyra informed her.  “She’s having a competition with Rainbow Dash right now, to see who can serve the most.”  She grinned.  “She’s also winning.”
She blinked, looking between Lyra and the mug.  “Um…”
“Go ahead,” Lyra smiled, gesturing towards it.  “There’s no alcohol in it- and if you don’t like it, one of us can finish it off for you, no problem.”
“Oh.”  She carefully lifted the mug, and sniffed it uncertainly.
“It’s called Butterbeer,” the stoic-faced girl on the other side of the table, with curly pink and purple hair, informed her.  “Virgin butterbeer, to be exact- the normal stuff has a very mild alcoholic content, and doesn’t really taste any different.  It’s a nice butterscotch drink.”
She raised her eyebrows, gave it a sip, and then went for it again- it tasted good.  After she’d satisfied her curiosity, and reduced the mug’s contents by about a quarter in the process, she lowered it again.  “Thank you,” she began.  “Um…  Lyra?”
“Mm?”
“Why do you and…”  She gestured towards the room.  “So many others, not act like…?”  She trailed off, blushing as she realized what her question must sound like.
“Like eleven-year-olds?” Lyra finished cheerfully.  “Simple:  Because we’re not.  I’m thirty-four, and Bonbon here is thirty-five.”  She gestured towards the girl that told her about the butterbeer.  “However, a little gimmick of our gate has us taking on eleven-year-old bodies on this side.  I wasn’t able to fix that during the first few days after I opened the portal…  then the Hogwarts letters started showing, and I’m not sure that I want to fix it now, aside from making sure we age properly on this side as well.”  She glanced out at the main room.  “Thus, as near as we can tell, Hogwarts’ spellwork believes every last Equestrian is exactly eleven years old…  Except, as near as we can tell, the ones that are younger than that.  Should make for some rather amusing classes this year, I daresay, with Princess Luna in attendance.”
She blinked.  “Princess Luna?”
“Yes.  She’s the Princess of the Night, well over a thousand years old…  and, on this side, in the form of an eleven-year-old girl, just like you and me.”
“...  Oh.  Wait, what gate?”
“Our gate.  Up until a couple weeks ago, our world- Equestria- was magically and physically isolated from yours…  both the muggle one and the wizarding one, which are magically isolated from each other.  Then, I opened a gateway through that barrier, and forged a way to this world.  That gateway…  Well, it’s in my backyard at the moment, but we’ll be moving it to Twilight’s castle or something at some point.  On this side, I’m sorry to say I can’t tell you where it is…  because, if you were to try to cross through it, it’d kill you.  We can pass without issue, but only because we possess a certain magic facet unique to the other side that allows us to do so.  One of my projects, once we get everyone’s stuff for Hogwarts, will be to find a way to make it possible for someone from this side to pass through the Gate safely…  after which point we can consider revealing its location, and of course, make diplomatic first contact.”
“Who’s Twilight?”
“Oh, that’d be Princess Twilight Sparkle.  Perhaps the only Equestrian Princess that doesn’t like being called a Princess, she’s also the newest one, at only thirty-four years old…  and almost definitely going to be a Ravenclaw.”
“Ravenclaw?”
“Yeah- one of the four houses at Hogwarts.”  She glanced up at Bonbon, who had said something Hermione hadn’t caught, then down at the big map.  “ ‘Scuse me a second.”  She woke her phone up, pushed the button to call the contact she already had open onscreen, and held it to her ear.  “Yep.”  Then she hung up, locked it, and put it back down on the table, looking at Bonbon.  “Coming.”  Then she turned back towards Hermione.  “Sorry about that.
“The four houses, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin, each value different qualities.  We haven’t been able to find anything on how the sorting actually works- almost like it’s an insider secret or something- but the houses themselves are easy enough.
“Gryffindor values courage, bravery, nerve, and chivalry.  As you might expect, by their very nature, Gryffindors tend to get in trouble more than any other house- but they also tend to earn the most House Points at the same time, making their position in that ranking easily the most volatile.”  She shrugged.  “I expect to be a Gryffindor myself.  Of course, the Crusaders will definitely be Gryffindors, too, so if you get sorted to Gryffindor, keep your eyes open.  And probably if you’re not a Gryffindor as well.  They turned eleven only last month- and have been known to get into all sorts of strange situations…  that can very easily hurt those around them, if they aren’t paying attention.
“Hufflepuff values hard work, patience, justice, and loyalty.  They only very rarely break the rules, but they work themselves into the ground at times.  They’re probably the most stable in terms of House Points.  My friend Applejack is an apple farmer…  and expected to be in Hufflepuff.
“Then there’s Ravenclaw.  They’re very studious, valuing intelligence, creativity, learning, and wit.  You’d think they’d get better grades with values like that, but I’ve heard a few rumors that they’re graded harder to match- and generally given harder assignments.  Twilight- and her friend, Moondancer- are expected to be Ravenclaws…  and straight-A students regardless, knowing them.
“And finally, Slytherin.  They value ambition, cunning, leadership, and resourcefulness.  It’s kinda hard to tell what to believe about them- I’ve seen lots of breakdowns that agree on the other three houses, but conflict on Slytherin.  Personally, I think they’re just given a bad name because their founding father a few thousand years ago, Salazar Slytherin, wanted to keep magic training to the all-wizarding families.”  She shrugged.  “Ignoring the clearly biased accounts, and the ones from questionable sources, that’s about all we know about them- and we actually expect both Princess Luna and Bonbon here to be Slytherins.”  She gestured towards the girl, then frowned at the ceiling, putting one finger in her chin.  “Not unlike the bad name Hufflepuff seems to have been given, as a ‘load of duffers’...  Blatantly false, by the way.”
Hermione blinked a couple of times.  “Y… You said Gryffindor values chivalry, right?”
“Yeah?” Lyra nodded.
She looked at her drink.  “I hope I’m in Gryffindor.”
“Oh?  You have problems with…?” Lyra asked, her tone softening.
“Oh, no, no,” she said, shaking her head quickly.  “I just…  Well…”  She took a deep breath.  “I…  I’m a ‘model student’ basically wherever I go.  So much that my peers find me intimidating, and…”  Her expression darkened, and she took a long drink of her butterbeer before she went on.  It really was good stuff.  She took a deep breath.  “And nobody will talk to me.”  She looked up at Lyra.  “I learn things, I know things…  but nobody will let me help them.  Nobody will let me work with them, even if they’re supposed to, for a group project.”
Lyra put an arm over her shoulders.  “Good thing we’re here then, right?  Did you know, I graduated second in class, behind only Twilight, from Celestia’s School for Gifted…  ahh…”
“What?” Hermione asked, blinking.
“Well, um,” Lyra began.  “The last word of the title is, unfortunately, a national secret…  But, that’s the best school in our entire nation, led by Princess Celestia herself- Luna’s older sister, and the other ruler of the nation.”  She scowled.  “Unfortunately, just about nothing I learned there will be applicable at Hogwarts, thanks to the differences in magic.”  She sighed.  “And it’ll be even less applicable to you, since wizardkind in general is incapable of our Equestrian magic, even though we’ve already confirmed we’re plenty capable of wand magic.  Another thing I’m planning on fixing sometime, once I get the whole safely-travel-the-Gate thing working.  It is looking like I should be able to get both at once, though- I believe the saying is to ‘kill two birds with one stone’ on this side.”
The two girls at the table that Hermione hadn’t been introduced to wrinkled their noses.  Bonbon raised an eyebrow.
“Ahh…  What is it on the other side?”
“Plant two trees with one seed, usually.  I’ve also seen it as busting two clouds with one kick, and so on.”  She grinned.  “Rainbow likes to say it as busting ten clouds with one kick, Twilight likes to sort two books with one glance.  Pinkie likes to throw two parties with one cannon- yes, she has a magic ‘party cannon’ that helps her decorate, don’t question it- and Rarity likes to sew two dresses with one needle.”  She grins.  “I think Princess Celestia likes to bake two cakes with one pan.  Then of course, there’s all the regional differences- different parts of the nation have different ways of saying the same general expression.  I once visited a town where it was to guide two ships with one sail.”
“...  Okay.”  She took another swig of her drink.  “Can…  May I ask what your, ahh, Equestrian Magic does?”
Lyra paused for a half-second.  “Uhh… Yeah.  Though, to fully explain that, I’ll have to explain the three tribes, too.”
She smiled attentively at her.
Lyra grinned.  “Okay, alright.  Well…  Most of Equestria is divided into three tribes- the Raeth, Aethr, and Etrah tribes.  That’s R-A-E-T-H, A-E-T-H-R, and E-T-R-A-H, by the way- probably the oldest words in our language, dating back some several thousand years ago- nobody knows exactly how long, because it was hard to keep track of time through the Chaos Years- back to when civilization on our world was first founded.
“Anyways, in our world, we simply don’t have muggles.  Instead, everyone belongs to one of those three tribes, about evenly distributed…  and each tribe has its own tribal magic the other two can’t use.  Like, physically can’t.  There’s also the more generalized Equestrian magic that they can all use, but it’s fairly…  ahh, inactive.  Ubiquitous Equestrian magic is what makes our hair look so unique, for example- and what makes us quite so durable…  especially the younger girls for some reason.  I’m not sure yet if the older ladies- including myself- will have picked up that durability while so physically young on this side.  There’s a little more to it, but all that really does is reduce how tightly we have to hold onto something.
“Alright then.  The Etrah Tribe, of which Bonbon is a part, is very…  down-to-earth.  Their tribal magic is almost entirely passive in nature, but it has plenty of effects.  For example, as a rule, they’re much tougher than any other tribe.  Their tribal magic makes even the adults far tougher than any young girl of the other tribes.  Their little girls…”  She grinned at Bonbon.  “Virtually indestructible.  They’re also impressively strong, enabling them to rather easily accomplish things anyone from the other two tribes would require heavy machinery to manage.  For example, most of them can bench press something like fifteen hundred pounds.  Bonbon, however, has gone through some rather extensive training to hone not just her muscles but her magic- and can lift quite a bit more.”
Bonbon grinned at her across the table.  “Last time I checked, almost two years ago, I broke the machine.  It was rated for about eight thousand pounds.”
“Yeah- I could never do that no matter how much training I went through, because I’m not an Etrah.  The Etrah Tribal Magic also makes them good with plants- they’re natural farmers.”
“...  Okay,” Hermione mumbled, staring at Bonbon with awe.  “I…  I guess I know who not to annoy, then?”
Lyra laughed.  “Oh, I wouldn’t be too worried about that.  The other two tribes held their own pretty well against each other and against the Etrahs throughout the Three Tribes Era.”
“...  Ahh.  Soo…  what’s next?”
“Next up would be the Aethr Tribe.  Which would happen to include both Cloudchaser and Spitfire here, and both Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust.”  She gestured to the last two in order.  “Their magic is also mostly passive, but they do have some more active components.  In Equestria, they can fly- and in either world, they can interact with clouds as if they were solid objects.  I understand that lightning and rainbows require attention to produce, making them active magic.”  She grinned.  “They can also walk on walls and ceilings, though I hear it’s very disorienting, nevermind a bit weird to anyone else that happens to be in the room.”  She smiled.  “Makes them very difficult to knock down, too.  They’ve also got a durability boost in their tribal magic, but it’s much more focused on blunt force trauma than Etrah magic, and not as strong.”  She shrugged.
“Helps us survive a crash,” Spitfire grinned.
“Yep!  Though Rainbow Dash in particular has been known to crash hard enough to hurt herself.  Which is not surprising, to be honest, since she’s the only Equestrian known to be capable of exceeding the speed of sound.”  She shrugged.  “It’s in her name, after all.”
Hermione blinked, then chuckled.  “Are you…?”
She shook her head.  “No, I’m not an Aethr.  Rather, I belong to the last one, the Raeth tribe.  So does Twilight, Moondancer, and any other Equestrian spellsmith.  Well…”  She shrugged.  “Technically speaking, Twilight, Luna, Celestia, and Cadence- the four princesses- actually don’t belong to any of the three, as they’re immortal and possess the magic of all three, but they’re still classified as Raeths, even though Cadence was an Aethr before she ascended some fifty years ago.
“Our magic is entirely active.  No durability boost, no strength boost, etcetera.  In return, we get direct control over every aspect of it- and with it, the ability to design and cast spells to do an array of different things.  There are spells I can use to mimic the Etrah strength or durability, or the Aethr flight, cloudwalking, or ceiling-walking abilities.  However, they require concentration to use- and are not passive effects of the magic, like it is for them.  On the other hand, if I wasn’t a Raeth, I could never have opened the gateway between our worlds, and wouldn’t have a hope of making it safe for people from this world to pass.”  She sighed.  “Most Raeths don’t bother learning any more than a few basic spells, like levitation- which is mostly instinctive anyways.
“Those that go to Celestia’s School for Gifted…  uhh, Raeths, basically, are a little different, in that we study all kinds of magic.  However, some magics- such as teleportation- are exclusive to the elite even within Celestia’s School.  So basically, I know it, Twilight knows it, and a few others do.”
“Soo…  Which one would be the worst one to, ahh…”
“Get on the wrong side of?”
She nodded.
Lyra chuckled.  “All of the above?  I mean, if an Equestrian wants to ruin your day, they’re going to ruin your day, unless they’re stopped by another Equestrian.  The same holds true in Equestria, actually.  And even within those tribes, we vary in power by quite a bit.  Me, Bonbon, and Spitfire are all some of the most powerful of our tribes- but we’ve also learned to cope with that power, so you can be fairly confident we won’t be blowing up in your face.  So, the answer to your question might well be none of the above.”  She shrugged.  “We don’t know enough about your magic just yet to tell if we’d be at an advantage in a fight…  or if you would be.”
“Or neither,” Hermione nodded understandingly.
“Or neither,” Lyra agreed.





“Well, that happened,” Cloudchaser muttered, when Hermione finally left, at least an hour after she’d arrived.  Lyra had explained a few bits about Equestrian magic, and quite a bit more about the local human magic that she’d seen so far.  In turn, Hermione had chatted- and rather energetically, at that- about her experience with the non-magical world.  Lyra had a little bit of knowledge about it to let on, but most of that was Hermione explaining things to Lyra.  The girl had gotten very excited in the process, like it was something she loved to do…  and didn’t often have an opportunity to do.
Spitfire chuckled.  “One way to say it.  You know what I think?”
Bonbon looked up, through her eyebrows, at Lyra.  “You were scanning her, weren’t you?”
Lyra flinched.  “Well no, but-!” Spitfire began.
“Guilty as charged,” Lyra stated.  Spitfire fell silent as she continued.  “But I didn’t do anything to her, I promise!  Only looked!  And, not in any inappropriate ways!”
Bonbon sighed.  “You really should be asking permission before you make those scans,” she stated.
“On the other hand, I’m now reasonably certain the Gama Papa and the Mike Echo are going to be one and the same…  and likely fall under the Papa Tango as well.”
Bonbon shook her head with a sigh.  “Convoy.”
Lyra blinked, and went for her phone to call Twilight…  again.  “Right.”
“Uhh…  Anyways, you know what I think?”
“That Hermione has no friends?” Cloudchaser suggested.  “Should be pretty easy to fix, once school starts.”
“Well, that too, I guess,” Spitfire sighed.  “I was thinking more about that boy she mentioned at her school, that…  Harry, was it?  What’re the chances he’s a wizard?”
“Virtually certain,” Lyra answered.  “How about, what are the chances he’s the famous Harry Potter?  I mean, she said he’s in her year, and this year also happens to be the year the famous Harry Potter turns eleven and, theoretically, comes to Hogwarts.”
Bonbon looked up sharply.  “True…”
“If he is, it’ll be a pretty good shock when she finds out, won’t it?” Cloudchaser mused.