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// Chapter 47 
// Story: On the Implications of Parallel Worlds 
// by computerneek 
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By the time it was time for her to head for bed, Ginny was feeling content for the first time in at least a month.  Whatever happened, she had at least one friend that wouldn’t let her go- and, since she had gone through the Papa Tango, she could just go to Equestria to get married and come back.  She wasn’t sure what the Ministry would think of something like that, but she could cross that hurdle when she reached it- and it wasn’t like they could stop her.
Though, as Hermione had pointed out, she hadn’t noticed any of the symptoms of the Papa Tango that she’d been told about, including the transformation ones.  It was making her wonder if she’d really gone through it.  Had it failed?  Would Lyra be able to try it again?
She did notice, once she and Morning reached the top of the stairs, that Morning looked at the first-year British dorm for a second, before guiding her through the Equestrian door.  Which, for some reason, felt right.  Then, as Morning guided her further in, she felt the route as well- and knew, even before she saw them, which doors Morning was navigating to.  Perhaps it was the magic of Hogwarts?
She paused when she felt the path deviate- and Morning paused as well.  “Something wrong?” she asked.
Ginny looked up, in the direction she was feeling…  at a bed, with a trunk sitting at the foot of it.
Morning looked at it too, then blinked.  “...  Oh.  That’s your trunk, isn’t it?”
She nodded silently.
Morning chuckled.  “So I guess you’ve already accepted the offer I was going to make, to come sleep with me.”
She let out a giggle.  “Yeah, I guess I have.”  She didn’t release her side-on hug.
Morning smiled.  “Then you’re probably going to want to get your night clothes on,” she supplied.  “Those robes won’t be too comfortable for sleeping.”
“...  Right,” she muttered, and released the hug to step over to her trunk.  She glanced up at Morning, who followed close- and had already changed into her nightgown?  She ignored it, and opened the latches on her trunk, knowing exactly where-
She stopped, and compared the contents of her trunk with what she’d packed.  It was a perfect match.
She reached in, and counted the robes.  One, two, three.
Then she looked down at the robes she was wearing, and back up at Morning.  “How?” she asked.
“Magic,” Morning answered simply.  “Not unlike Transfiguration.  It’s set to wear off in a couple hours.”  She took a deep breath.  “Shall I cancel it early?”
Ginny shrugged.  “Might as well.”
“Alright then, here goes.”  Morning touched her robes lightly- and she felt the magic fall off of them, leaving them to snap back to being her ‘muggle clothes’.
She let out a squeak of protest as she adjusted the jeans, before going about getting changed.  Unfortunately, the only ‘muggle clothing’ her mother had been able to find for her with a low enough price tag didn’t fit very well.  The shirt was a little baggy…  but she was pretty sure the “skinny jeans” were a size too small, so they pinched in just the wrong spot if she wasn’t careful.
“So,” she muttered, as she slipped her nightgown on, and looked up at Morning again.  “How did you do that transfiguration thing on the train without me noticing?”
Morning winced.  “You were…  distracted.”
She winced as well, closed her trunk, and stood up to meet Morning again.  “Then…  how did you change into your nightgown so quickly?”  She rather suspected she already knew the answer.
Morning smiled.  “The same.”
“So…  how’re you so good at transfiguration already?  Is there a secret to it?”
Morning definitely winced, and Ginny noticed the vulnerable expression that crossed her face before she was able to hide it.  “Ahh,” Morning muttered.
So Ginny grabbed Morning by the shoulders, sat her down on her bed, then sat sideways in her lap, before wrapping an arm around Morning’s back.  “I’m listening,” she stated.
Morning, who had been evidently startled by her sudden motion, smiled.  “Of course you are.”  She wrapped her arm around Ginny in turn, and hugged her.  “You’re beautiful, you know that?”
She blushed.  “Not when I’ve been crying.”
Morning rolled her eyes.  “I’m…  actually not talking about that, though you have that kind of beauty as well.”  She took a deep breath.  “I…  I can tell you about…  well, me, I guess…  but you’ll have to promise not to tell anyone- even Famous Harry Potter, or that girl that came to talk to us in the common room.”
“Hermione?” Ginny asked.  “Why?”
Morning winced.  “Well…  yet, at least.  It’s because…  If…  If ever any of the other Equestrians find out…  what I am, they’ll kill me.”
Ginny hugged her.  “I won’t let them.”
She chuckled.  “Might be a challenge.  Some of them are trained for that kind of thing.”  Then she leaned over, taking Ginny with her, and rolled over as well, so they ended up laying side by side on Ginny’s bed, facing each other.  “You…  You’ve gone through that Papa Tango spellwork, so…”  She took a deep breath.  “Has anyone explained to you what most of the Equestrians really are?”
She blinked.  “I…  You mean they’re not human or something?”
Morning laughed.  “Like you wouldn’t believe.”
She scowled.  “Oh, I bet I would.”
“Yeah, you probably would, wouldn’t you?”
She grinned lightly.
Morning shrugged.  “Anyways.  I…  I’m not sure if I’m supposed to tell you, or to let someone else do it…  but if you’ve gone through the Papa Tango, the secret’s already yours as well- and let’s face it, this is the Equestrian dormitories.  Knowing them, nopony will be able to keep their mouth shut in here.”
“...  Pony?”
“Yeah.  Not all of them, of course- but most of them.  There’s also some dragons, kirin, hippogriffs, yaks, griffins…”  She trailed off.  “And me.”
“And you,” Ginny repeated.
“Y-Yeah.  I’m…  As I said, if they knew, they’d kill me.  That’s…  That’s because, while I might look like a pony, I’m not one.  I am…  I am what you would call a changeling.”
“Okay.  And…  why are they so…?”
“They…  The ponies hunt changelings, because Equestria is a pretty utopian nation…  and a few years ago, a changeling invasion force attacked and nearly took the pony capital.”  She took a deep breath, and closed her eyes.  “I…  was on that invasion force.  Every changeling was.”
“So…  how did you get here…?”
Morning didn’t answer.  Instead, she was briefly- and very suddenly- enveloped in green flame.  Ginny let out a small shriek of surprise.
When the flame disappeared, Morning’s fiery hair was gone.  So was the soft skin of her face.
Her hair was replaced by a hard black carapace- and her face was replaced with dozens of pieces of the same, interlocking and overlapping as she moved.
Ginny could feel that the carapace wasn’t just on her head- it covered the rest of her body too.
She hugged Morning close.  “I don’t care what you look like,” she stated.  “You’re still Morning Sun to me.”
Morning smiled, hugging her back, gently.  “I…  I actually am not Morning.  Morning is somepony that I…  well, made up.  A persona, so I could hide in pony society.  My real name- my changeling name- is Nymph.”  Her voice was different, but she didn’t feel any different to Ginny’s heart.
“So,” she began.  “You’re an animagus.”
Morning chuckled- and startled Ginny again with her green fire.
Moments later, Ginny found herself staring into her own face.
“No.  I’m a shapeshifter.  I…  I can become anything I want to.  Anyone I want to.”  She even spoke with Ginny’s own voice.
Ginny hugged her close again.  “And I don’t care who or what you are, I still love you.”
“I know,” Morning nodded.
“No you don’t.”
She just laughed.





Dumbledore did his utmost to look completely unbothered as his visitors filed in.  They had, alongside the request to use the Great Hall for scheduling purposes again this year, requested a private meeting with him.
He quietly matched them to memorized student records as they entered- all, he noticed, with scowls on their faces, some better disguised than others.
First in line was Princess Twilight Sparkle.  This was the girl that seemed to be incapable of walking past the library without going inside.  He had been alarmed when he’d been told it was really no surprise that she was acing every class- and that every paper she submitted, no matter the class, was at least twenty feet long, with her tiny handwriting.  He’d heard that a couple of her student instructors were giving her a perfect score, then reading it- and that one had even used Twilight’s twenty-kilogram essay as a reference for her next class!
Next was Princess Celestia herself, the true ruler of their entire nation.  She was in the form of an eleven-year-old, and would be attending Hogwarts as a first-year this year- but, just like his instructors did, he now understood that to be a gimmick of their portal.  He did have to wonder how she would continue ruling Equestria from Hogwarts.  Besides, he felt intimidated by her presence, no matter how cute she was.  She walked in with a certain practiced grace that spoke of long experience with a governing body.
Third was Princess Luna, Celestia’s younger sister and the commander in chief of Equestria’s armed forces.  She obviously deferred to her sister, but her scowl was also perhaps the most pronounced- and, unlike all the others, she wore one singular piece of armor:  A jeweled breastplate, mostly hidden by her Hogwarts robes.  She was also the only one to have brought a sword.
Fourth was Princess Cadence.  She was also a new student- and, he heard, a mother as well, despite her apparent youth.  He had to admit, he was curious what would happen should she end up as a student in a class her daughter was teaching; her daughter was starting Hogwarts this year as well.
Fifth was Prince Shining Armor, the husband of Princess Cadence.  He was also a first-year- and Dumbledore didn’t know much else about him, except that he was the only boy entering his office.  All the others were girls- and he didn’t look uncomfortable about it as all.  As a matter of fact, his expression reminded Dumbledore quite strongly of a disappointed Auror.
Sixth came Princess Flurry Heart, the daughter of Princess Cadence and Prince Shining Armor.  She was one of the hundred and fifty or so new Equestrian students that were legitimately eleven years old.
The seventh person, Bonbon, was the first one to have not been a member of royalty, but she might as well have been one as well.  He hadn’t even heard the girl’s name more than once or twice the entire prior year…  until he got back to the Castle after the fiasco with the Sequence that was supposed to be hiding the Stone, and she’d mentioned in passing that she’d removed it to Celestia’s Vault in Equestria less than two hours after she’d been sorted.
Then came Lyra Heartstrings, the constantly cheerful girl that had been all over the place throughout the first year, though she now had an uncharacteristic scowl on her face.  As a matter of fact, she was looking at him like he was a naughty toddler she was about to send to time-out.  It was…  disconcerting, Dumbledore decided.
Ninth came Moondancer, who looked like she wanted to breathe fire as her eyes locked onto the stack of parchment sitting on the side of his desk; he’d forgotten to remove his old Plan from it.  As he recalled, she was similar to Princess Twilight, though at least a little more sedate- her essays often weren’t quite twenty feet long.
Tenth was Sunset Shimmer, who was fiddling with a small ball of fire in her hands- and looked like she wanted to throw it at someone, but was restraining herself.
Eleventh came Starlight Glimmer, who had a perplexing expression on her face.  Dumbledore got the impression she was looking at something he couldn’t see- and, as he understood, she was the one that had made it possible for so many things to happen.  Without her, the Equestrians would never have gotten all their wands from Ollivander’s in time without overloading the man, the sorting would have taken much longer than ten minutes, and the entire Student Instructor plan would be completely unworkable, among other things.
Finally, the twelfth and final Equestrian to enter his office was another first-year, this one by the name of Tempest Shadow.  She wore a poker face, but held her head proudly in the air.  Out of all of them, she felt the most…  dangerous.
He spent a few seconds looking up and down the long row, and silently calming his nerves.  Whatever they were here for, it was obviously something important.
“Alright,” he began, and took a deep breath, working to conceal his nervousness.  It was quite unlike him to be quite so nervous.  “You asked to see me?”
“Yes, we did,” Lyra spoke.  “We heard, from a reliable source, that you had a plan…  that indicated that there would be iron bars in Harry Potter’s bedroom window a month ago?”
“Ahh,” he muttered, his eyes flicking to the old Plan, sitting on the corner of his desk.  “I…  did, until recently.  Might I ask… why?”
Princess Celestia spoke, and Dumbledore instantly knew that he had been right to be intimidated by her.  “Why did this plan indicate such?”  Her…  disappointment, he thought it was, tugged at his heartstrings just right.  He couldn’t withhold anything from her- not and live with himself later.  Even though he’d never met her before.  Perhaps it was how her disappointment contrasted with the restrained anger that all eleven of the others responded with?
“It was a factor I could not control,” he answered immediately.  “There were…  many of those in the Plan.  I controlled what I could, to minimize the harm…”  He sighed.  “The way I saw it, the installation of those bars- which apparently never happened- would’ve marked the point that the Weasley Twins could justify rescuing him from the Dursleys.  I…  couldn’t think of any way to justify the rescue at an earlier date, nor to justify a rescue by anyone else.”  He took a deep breath.  “I…  I have recently become certain that…  That the Plan is no longer…  applicable.”  He gestured the stack of pages.  “I…  I was going to discard it tonight, and build a fresh one.”
“What was this Plan for?” Shining Armor asked authoritatively.  He even sounded like an auror!
“To ensure the defeat of Voldemort,” he stated instantly.

Princess Luna smiled, though it was more of a predatory smile.  “Perhaps we should work together to make the new Plan?”