//------------------------------//
// Chapter 43 
// Story: On the Implications of Parallel Worlds 
// by computerneek 
//------------------------------//

Ginny was nervous when Fred and George sent her to Diagon Alley ahead of the rest of her family.  She stepped out of the flu in the Leaky Cauldron- then stepped to the side and looked around.
It was…  oddly unfamiliar, and yet also familiar.  She recognized the building- but it was very, very different without the party it’d had the year prior.
She wasn’t sure she liked the difference.
Very suddenly, a girl with blue and white hair stepped up to greet her.  The girl was about her age, and offering her a hand to shake.  “Well hello there,” she greeted.  “You must be Ginny Weasley?”
“Uh,” she muttered uncertainly.  Who was this girl?  Next to her, the fireplace roared green once again- that would be Fred, who had promised he’d be right behind her.  She racked her memory- and quickly realized she’d seen this girl before.  Only once, and only a glimpse.  She’d been in one of the side booths the year before.
It didn’t give her any more clue as to who the girl was, though.  The hair rather strongly suggested she was an Equestrian- not that that meant much to her.
Then Fred stepped clear of the fireplace.  “Oh, hi Lyra.  This is our sister Ginny.  And Ginny, this is Lyra Heartstrings.”
Ginny blinked, her jaw articulating up and down for a couple seconds, questions chasing each other through her mind like a bunch of seekers that each thought the one in front of them was the snitch.  “Oh.  Um…”  She looked down, fumbling with her fingers, and selected a question.  There was something Harry had mentioned, in his letter, that sounded mighty helpful.  And, she’d known- for the last couple months- who controlled it.  She took a deep breath, blushed like the setting sun, and spoke very rapidly.
“Can I go through the Papa Tango?”
“What?” George, who was stepping out of the fireplace, asked.
Fred didn’t speak at all.
Neither did Lyra.  She was silent for a good four or five seconds.  “...  Well,” she eventually muttered.  “I…  I didn’t expect that, that’s for sure.  Um…”  She paused.  “I mean, I did just finish the latest upgrades last night, making it ready for the next test subject, but…  Er, you do know what it entails, right?”
Her blush intensified, and she shook her head.
“Test subject?” Fred asked.
Lyra nodded.  “Yeah.  It hasn’t been finalized yet, so everyone that goes through it is a test subject, voluntary or not.  No danger or anything- and if I’m right, it’s pretty close to its final form.”  She scowled.  “Hmm…  How about this, Ginny:  I’ll stop by your house once I’m done here, and drag Hermione- the most recent person to go through it- with me.  We can discuss the details then, including what to expect- and we will even still have time to get you through it in time for the school year, if you so decide.  That work?”
She nodded.  “Yeah,” she muttered, very softly, and took a deep breath.
Lyra looked up at the twins; none of the others would be following for a minute or two.  “Is that going to be okay with…?”
Fred nodded.  “Yeah,” he shrugged.
“Mom loves visitors,” George agreed.
“Do you know where we live?” Fred asked.
Lyra grinned.  “Yep.  We actually chanced across The Burrow during one of our tourist trips a month or so ago.  Soo…  Hogwarts shopping?”
George nodded.  “Yep!  Just got our letters.  A shame we can’t shop with Harry, really.”
Lyra shrugged.  “I guess you can’t have everything, can you?  They shopped about two weeks ago.”  Then she scowled.  “And why would it have taken that long for your letters…?”
Fred shrugged.  “We think it’s The Plan.”
Lyra facepalmed.  “Right.  He hasn’t cancelled or rebuilt that obsolescent monstrosity yet, has he?”
George shook his head.  “Not that we’re aware of.”
Ginny quickly decided that it was rapidly becoming the weirdest day of her life…  so far, including the day the goddess had spoken to her.  That had been a very weird day, but she saw weirder coming.





Morning Sun took a deep breath, looking in the mirror.  She was in the restroom at Flourish and Blotts; she’d asked for the public restroom, and been pointed to it.  Fortunately, it was also a single-occupancy restroom, so nopony- and nobody- would have noticed the peculiarity of what she was doing.
The need to do it had surprised even her; she normally had no use for a restroom, like the rest of her kind.  But…  Well, she was an emotivore.  And while Equestrian emotional energy was generally closely guarded and stored until it withered away, British emotional energy was stored in far smaller quantities in their forms- and broadcast into the environment around them.  As such, thanks to a much higher decay rate in the atmosphere, far less emotional energy was present in Britain, overall- but what there was of it was free for the taking.  British people even produced, by her best guess, something like a hundred times as much, on average, as a comparable Equestrian.
The British world was a veritable treasure trove for an emotivore like her.  However, she found herself absorbing too much- and unfortunately, she couldn’t stop herself from absorbing more.  So, she had to vent it in the only way she knew how:  Converting it into the so-called ‘love jelly’- that wasn’t what it was at all, but love was the strongest emotion available to them, so that’s what it got called- and expelling it from her mouth.
And doing that into a toilet in Equestria would have been an egregious waste.  Unfortunately, the stuff was very easy to recognize- so any Equestrian seeing it at all would instantly know what she was…  and that would be the end of her.
She was fairly sure the British people wouldn’t recognize it, but they would mention it to an Equestrian at some point, so she had to keep it hidden from them too.
She grinned at herself in the mirror.  The mirror didn’t grin back- instead, her reflection did.  She’d disabled that enchantment immediately after closing the door, and would be re-enabling it on her way back out.
It was hard to believe just how she’d gotten here.  She’d spent nearly two years trying to get by in Manehattan, then moved to Ponyville, since she was seen as a weirdo and weirdos were the norm in Ponyville, everypony knew that.
Then, no less than one month after she’d moved, she’d gotten a letter from Hogwarts.
It had confused her.  The owl that delivered the letter had cheerfully explained it for her.
She’d decided she’d like to go, and answered to that effect…  then avoided the massive throngs of ponies going through the magic gateway in the basement of the Crystal Castle.
Finally, early that morning, Lyra Heartstrings had stopped by, asked about her Hogwarts letter, and explained what they were doing to make it possible.
So, she’d gone through the gateway as one of the ‘stragglers’.  She’d told the mare that she didn’t like big crowds, as her reason for not having gone through during the rush.
Once on this side, she- and about two dozen pony stragglers- had been taken to the Leaky Cauldron, from which Bonbon- Lyra’s marefriend- had guided them first to Gringotts Bank, then to Ollivander’s, and helped them through both.  The latter had involved Starlight Glimmer and some creative time travel.
Finally, Bonbon had turned them loose.  Everything else, she said, they could get in whatever order they wanted, and whatever time they wanted, since they didn’t have to deal with large crowds of Equestrians any more.
Flourish and Blotts had then been both on her list and conveniently close, so she’d gone inside to ask for the bathroom.  She had been pretty full before coming here, as Ponyville was a lot more emotivore-friendly than Manehattan, and needed to empty out.
The bookstore had been rather noticeably more crowded than she’d been led to expect, though.
She sighed, nodded at her reflection, and turned to leave.
Then she stopped herself, hand inches from the door, to re-enable the mirror enchantment, before leaving.
She had some shopping to do- and she was curious why the shop was so crowded.  On her way to the restroom, it had seemed like there was someone popular here, so she headed in the direction of the excitement.





Ginny heaved a small sigh as her family came to a stop at the back of the crowd.  Dumbledore’s Plan had been oddly specific about this event, and simultaneously vague at the same time.
Like there was a part he didn’t want them to know about.
She scowled, holding her cauldron- with all her books and other supplies she’d gotten so far in it- in her arms.  It was heavy, but it was nothing she couldn’t handle.  What was going to happen?  She scanned the crowd around them.
Then, she saw her.
There was a girl.  Her yellow and red hair flowed down her back almost exactly like a fire, making it look like her head was on fire as she moved.
And her heart leaped for that girl.
But she couldn’t marry a girl!
The girl jumped and spun, very suddenly, as if she’d yelled.  Her hair flew around, sparkling almost exactly like a bonfire.
The girl looked straight at her, surprise and confusion showing on her face.
She blushed, looked down at her cauldron, and turned back towards the rest of her family.
How had the girl realized she was looking?





Morning Sun stared at the red-headed girl.
She’d been minding her own business, walking past on her way towards the registers with a stack of Lockhart books.  She did find it strange that there were quite so many of them on the book list- and how none of their titles seemed to have anything to do with education, unlike just about everything else on the list.
Then, she’d felt a massive surge of love, pointed directly at her, from that girl.
It startled her, of course.  And surprised her, and confused her.  As near as she could tell, the girl genuinely loved her.
And, judging by her reaction when she looked at her, felt it too.
She hadn’t realized it was even possible for anypony- no, anyone, that was a British girl- to love an emotivore…  Though, when she stopped to think about it, it kinda made sense.  A British girl wouldn’t have the prejudice against her that all of ponykind did.
But how could that happen?
…  At least she knew she had been accepted in this world, as she never truly had been in Equestria.  Meaning, there had to be something she could do for this girl, as a thank-you for letting her feel accepted as she was, if nothing else.  After all, love didn’t care what form somepony- or, in her case, someling- was in, it only cared who they were.
And the direct love-bond she could feel, that had already formed, was a two-way street.  She could absorb love through it…  but she could also release excess emotional energy through it, allowing it to be vented through the girl, with no effect on the girl’s own emotional state.  Meaning, so long as she was somewhere near the girl, she needn’t worry about either starvation…  or overfilling.  It was too bad that bonds like that didn’t work over large distances, even if they were completely unbreakable, no matter the distance, except only by death.  And even then, sometimes.
Unfortunately, as she cast about for some way to properly thank the girl, she came up dry.  She didn’t know enough about her to have even the remotest clue what might-
No, she did.  The girl’s cauldron was full of second-hand books.  Her parents were there with her four older brothers, which Morning recognized by the emotional bonds, nevermind the similar hair.  They all had a certain nervousness about their emotional auras, and the way the mother kept looking nervously at the small pouch she carried in one hand sounded alarm bells.
They were poor.  The Lockhart books were expensive.
She smiled to herself, and headed for the registers.
She knew exactly how to thank the girl.
The shopkeeper was somewhat bored, at the only register, and rang her up quickly.
It was almost two and a half galleons.
As she fished out the three required coins- she only had galleons on her at the time, so she could do it by feel alone without issue- she looked over towards the red-headed girl and her family.  Would they have enough for the rest of the family?
The shopkeeper looked where she was looking- and she could tell, by his emotional spectrum, that he was looking at the same people.  “If you’re looking at the Weasleys, don’t bother.  They don’t take charity.”
She blinked, and looked at him.  “Well this isn’t charity,” she stated.  “It’s a token of gratitude.”
“You know they expect people to give them charity, and so can tend to refuse things that aren’t as well, because they think it’s a charity, right?”





Ginny twitched when she noticed the girl walking up to her, and looked up nervously.  What was she going to say?  How could she introduce herself?
The girl didn’t give her an opportunity to say anything, and instead just placed an armload of Lockhart books into her cauldron, complete with a receipt stuck between two of the books and said two words.
“Thank you.”
And, before she could say anything in response, the girl just walked away, right back into the depths of the store.
She stared, aware but not caring that her face was as hot as a furnace, until the girl disappeared into the throng gathered around the Lockhart section.
She couldn’t even imagine what the girl might have been thanking her for- but apparently, it was something important enough to the girl that she’d spend galleons on a simple thank-you gift.
And yet, the girl was a total stranger.