The next morning, Sunset was sitting down in the restaurant area, Tom apparently didn’t mind that students were studying there, reading her books, a wallpaper of sound behind her, made up of muttered conversations, clinkings of cutlery, and the crackling of the fire.
Suddenly, the room was absolutely silent, as everyone was focused on something by the entrance.
Sunset leaned to look around the fireplace blocking her view, but by then, there was a crowd doing that instead.
Rubeus Hagrid was there though, which was hard to miss, looking amused at something next to him, about his knee-height. He saw her and waved at her. A little distracted by her curiosity, she waved back.
It was clear that someone named Harry Potter was there, which is what caused the stirr. After about fifteen minutes of fawning, bowing, and handshaking, Hagrid eventually had to lead a thin colt… boy, towards Diagon Alley.
He caught her eyes as he looked around, and she nodded in recognition towards him.
Curiosity flared up inside her, and she dug out the history books Flitwick had mentioned, checked the index, and saw that he was a central player in about a quarter of the book.
A quick summary at the earliest mention told Sunset that some ten years ago, some frighteningly powerful wizard called “the dark lord” emphasis on the, something else that might deserve some research, had for some reason personally gone to kill Harry Potter’s family. Despite being powerful enough to wage war against magical society as a whole, he had killed Harry’s parents, but failed to kill Harry Potter himself, and had perished in the attempt.
Sunset looked up at the doorway to the alley that Harry and Hagrid had recently gone through, intrigued.
Not that going up and getting a close look would’ve done much. He didn’t look like he had time to stop and talk anyway, and if he can kill really powerful wizards as a baby, then perhaps he was best studied from a distance.
Shortly after the buzz surrounding Harry Potter had died down, a black-clad trio stepped through the fireplace, a stallion, a mare, and a colt. Of course, everyone here was clad in black, but most didn’t have silver chains and linings adorning their clothes. Their manes, “hair” around here, were immaculate, and held flat against their heads.
Sunset would know their kind no matter what universe she was in. Rich people. A certain flavor of rich people too- second-place rich people.
In the grand pyramid of society, all the tiers are instinctively unwilling to accept those from below into their tier. It was particularly amusing higher up, where people had more power to prevent others from ascending, but where those just below were relatively few and could be very useful and accumulate a lot of favors.
“Important” people could be practically bred for, and spend their entire lives doing very little other than juggling favors and parcels of, mostly imagined, privilege, power, and recognition.
It took years before Sunset realized just how cleverly Celestia had boxed in the nobility. Common ponies didn’t realize the sheer amount of favor currying and drama that went on in the high echelons of society, and the nobility didn’t realize that they were but a weight, although be it one she had lessened considerably, on Equestrian society as it slowly and with consideration marched ever onwards towards greater heights of power and harmony.
So long as the nobles had their manors, and medals, and fancy restaurants that commoners were not allowed to visit, and their special boxes in the theatres, Celestia only needed to prod and rearrange matters ever so slightly to keep noble society a self-perpetuating bubble of isolation, barely affecting the countless lives of her little ponies.
“Witness now, the folly of well-dressed dancers,” she once said, in a strangely dramatic manner, as she stamped a counter-proposal to build a new bridge somewhere in Canterlot.
From that came a flurry of activity, whisperings, favor-currying, meetings disguised as dinner parties, and even a wedding or two. It was… dizzying, and all from a well-placed smidgen of red ink on a paper.
Sunset shook the thoughts of Celestia out of her head. She didn’t need to dwell on her now.
Point was that these rich people were powerful and wanted others to know it, displaying it in that manner Sunset was very familiar with by now.
Their clothes and bearings shouted “we are the most powerful!”, but which Sunset knew to mean “We are not quite as powerful as we would like you to think and we really don’t want you to realize that.”
The stallion… man, glanced at Tom, who nodded and smiled at him, but was ignored as the trio instead walked up to a… frankly ugly mare, or woman, whom they greeted as a friend.
The colt… boy, seemed wholly uninterested. The woman addressed him briefly, but only gave her a short reply, then walked off, looking bored.
Either way, Sunset figured it wasn’t her business, and went back to reading.
Apparently, many of the enemy agents and combatants during the dark lord’s war had been cleared of charges due to being coerced and magically influenced. Sunset felt the inquiries had been wrapped up rather quickly for such a complicated state of affairs.
She became aware of a presence, and looked up at the boy standing next to her
“... Hello?” she ventured.
“Hello. What are you reading?”
“Modern Magical History,” Sunset said, angling the cover so he could see it. “Why?”
The boy shrugged. “Just curious,” he said, and sat down. “I’m Draco Malfoy.”
Sunset felt she had missed a few steps in their acquaintanceship. “Sunset Shimmer.”
“That’s a strange name,” Draco said, without any compunction. The conversation wasn’t getting easier for Sunset to follow. “That book’s on my list. Are you a first year?”
“In a few days, yes,” Sunset said, still not having turned to face Draco properly.
Draco hummed, and looked around. “Are you alone? I don’t see anyone else. You’re not a Weasley are you?”
Sunset gave up, and simply leaned back and went along with this. “I have no idea what that is.”
“Good,” Draco said, and was silent for a few moments. “Do you play quidditch?”
Sunset did know what quidditch was, vaguely. “No.”
“Oh. What house are you going to be in?”
From what Sunset knew, this wasn’t something one would know before they started in the school. “I don’t know yet.”
“Mmm. I’m going to be in Slytherin. That’s where my parents were. What house were your parents in? They weren’t muggles, were they?”
They were not. Sunset Shimmer could trace her lineage back to the ancient house of Platinum, the proud history of which dated back to before the founding of Equestria, thousands of years ago.
Of course, even to this day about half of all ponies in Equestria could do so in some way. House Platinum had been vast before it very slowly and gradually faded, but that was beside the point.
“No.”
“Good–” Sunset narrowed her eyes a little “– So you’re reading textbooks? I guess that’ll have to do for most. It’s so unfair that we can’t do magic outside of school, isn’t it?”
Sunset could agree on that. “Yes it is.”
“My father has been pulling strings and letting me practice at home. Should put me ahead of most, perhaps even some second years. You’ll see, I’ll be the top of the class.”
Sunset nodded silently at Draco, searching for words and being completely lost as to who he was and why he was talking to her. “I’m sure I will.”
“Come along, Draco,” the woman said, glancing at Sunset past her nostrils.
Sunset couldn’t have been offended even if she wanted to. She was too busy trying to figure out what the hay was with these people.
“Bye,” the boy said.
“... Goodbye?”
Sunset watched them leave, and remembered seeing Hogwarts: A History, in the bookstore yesterday.
She got up, stretched, and decided it was time for some on-hands research.
Quick glances out the windows were all that was required to see that the clothes she had arrived with would blend in much better than the school uniform in the muggle world.
She walked up to her room and emptied her bag, walked down and nodded at Tom, and stepped out onto the streets.
There was a lot of slow sauntering and leaning against lamp posts involved in understanding the non-magical world.
This was actually more alien than the magical world had been, despite being the “default” society, which she couldn’t count the magical one as being, since it stayed hidden.
The self-moving vehicles were the most eye-catching, and the automatic traffic wardens, but what Sunset found particularly intriguing was a stallion in a business suit walking by in a hurry, talking and listening to a plastic brick. Instant long-distance communication without magic.
This city, London, was loud, dirty, and smelled pretty bad, but it was still impressive, especially since no magic had been used in its construction.
Sunset would’ve been hard-pressed to not learn as much as possible about this world instead, and what it had to offer, if not for the fact the road to becoming an alicorn lay with magic.
She paused outside a small café, and read the menu. A coffee and a pastry, five-hundred and fifty units of money.
That could be a good introduction into learning about muggles. But where to get some money?
She leaned against another streetlamp, looking like she was lazily waiting for something, but keeping an eye on the counter inside the small establishment.
After witnessing a few transactions, Sunset nodded to herself, impressed. Both printed and minted money.
Walking in slowly expanding circles, with The Leaky Cauldron as the center, Sunset came across another interesting sight.
A small line in front of a window in the wall, surrounded by panels of stainless steel.
People would stand in line in front of the strange device, press buttons do something with plastic cards, and money would come out of a slot to the side.
Sunset once again lazily leaned against a lamp post, only getting strange looks from people who were moving on, to make sure she got the concept correctly.
Automated bank tellers. Between this, the traffic wardens, and the self-propelled carriages, muggles must free up so many hooves… hands, that their economy must be soaring.
Sunset had to shake her head and laugh to herself. That witches and wizards looked down on muggles must be ignorance, or perhaps even jealousy.
After the line had faded, Sunset glanced around the street, and approached the machine.
With a slight glow around her hands, she magically felt around inside the machine. A series of steel arrangements locked the hatch to the money, making it near impossible to rob, at least without magic.
Sunset looked around again, a little nervously, but no one was around or thought she looked out of place.
After a little while, Sunset pulled out a handful of bills. Ten units of money per note, so three hundred of those. She figured that should be enough to experiment with a café visit without getting into trouble.
Sunset walked away from the machine, looking at the money note.
“Bank of England... pounds... more old people?”
—
“‘Ello, luv,” the portly woman behind the counter greeted Sunset as she walked in. “Fancy a cup’a?”
Sunset’s minds started racing, trying to figure that one out. “Uh, yes, thank you, and ah… a blueberry muffin.”
“Roight you are, luv. Your parents about?”
“Uh, they’re… I’ll probably be done here before I need to worry about them.”
“Oh? Doing somethin’ borin’ then?”
“Uh yes, they’re… at the maritime museum,” Sunset ventured.
“Oh!” the woman winced in sympathy. “Well you just make yourself comfortable here. Did you bring homework?” She looked at Sunset’s shoulder bag.
“Uh, yes, in a sense. Oh, by the way,” Sunset said, and fished out the handful of notes.
The lady drew for breath, and quickly lowered Sunset’s hands back into the bag again. “Oh don’t you go ‘roun showing that in London, dear,” She said, and deftly fished one ten-pound note from between Sunset’s fingers.
“‘Ere you are, dearie,” she said, giving Sunset her change back. “New to the place are ya? Let me guess… California?”
Sunset reached for the first thing that came to mind. “Close enough,” she said.
“Always wanted to go. Not to Los Angeles mind, too much concrete for my loiking. I think San Francisco might be more for me. But oh well, London ‘ad to do.”
“Don’t worry, it’s not going anywhere,” Sunset improvised, while logging more terms to research.
“Roight ye are,” she said, and smiled at Sunset. “An’ ‘ere’s ye muffin.”
“I have a… strange question,” Sunset suddenly said.
“Mm?”
“If… you were a visitor from another world, and you were trying to blend in, right here and now, what would do next to learn about the world?”
The woman looked at Sunset with a confused expression for a moment, teapot still in her hand.
“Ye got me there, luv. Hmm, go ‘round the corna’, look at the used bookstore, see if they got any o’ them encyclopedia."
That did it. If even muggles like this one thought that fast, that was all the confirmation Sunset needed to decide that muggles were not to be trifled with.
—
The books came down with a heavy thud on the bed. The man at the store had stared in disbelief at Sunset swinging the bag over her shoulder. That was another strange thing she had noticed people doing.
She lay down on the bed, and spread the books out around her, taking one of those clever muggle pens with their internal ink-cartridges in her mouth, filling up a little notebook.
Looking up London and England had led to her learning about the United Kingdoms, and Europe, the countries in it, the continents, the countries in those, the geography of the world, and the humans that inhabited it.
Looking up humans had led to different languages, ethnicities, some quick history, and modern society.
She needed more research, but at least she felt she could pass as a muggleborn without trouble now. She knew about football, bobbies, what the different kinds of footwear was called, and that “apple” referred to both food and a brand of thinking-engines.
Between her books and her school supplies, her bag needed to be bigger on the inside than the outside, which was simple enough, and she decided to make it lighter as well.
Sunset took another foray into Diagon Alley to visit Gringotts, a bank run by diminutive little creatures called goblins, who looked a little like perpetually angry versions of Flitwick.
She walked up to a counter, where one sat, not looking up as she approached.
She knew this game, she played it with Cadence sometimes, so she simply waited.
After several minutes, the goblin put down the paper. “Can I help you?”
“You can if you can switch British pounds for Galleons,” she said, and put the money down on the counter.
The goblin looked at the bills, quickly counting them before looking up at Sunset again. “Do you have an account with us?”
“No.”
“Wizards and witches must be of age to open accounts with Gringotts.”
“Do I need an account to make the exchange?”
“... No.”
“Then I’ll take the money to go.”
“Gringotts will not be held responsible for money lost outside of our vaults,” the goblin said, forcefully.
“Naturally. I am ready to make the exchange.”
A pile of gold coins were deposited on the counter, a currency which Sunset had developed a bit of a reference for the value of, and Sunset had to put on her coldest straight face to put them in her bag slowly and calmly walk out of the bank.
It wasn’t until she was several buildings away from Gringotts when her eyes finally shot wide open and she leaned against a wall, taking deep breaths. In the end, all she could do was say, “... whoops.”
She had to be more careful. No one knew of it of course, unless she had underestimated the muggles as much as the witches and wizards had of course, but still, committing jail-worthy offences without knowing spoke poorly of her ability to lay low.
She took a few calming breaths, and walked in Flourish and Blotts, the bookstore.
She had noticed by now that she did catch a few looks from people, especially those close to her age, but she forced the feeling of unease down. It was just nerves.
She found the book on Hogwarts’ history, and set to reading.
Finally, what the boy had said made some sense. Ravenclaw for smart and quick thinking people, Slytherin for the cunning and ambitious, and also blood purity- big thing among them. Gryffindor was for brave people, not bad in itself but Sunset wasn’t sure why they made a house out of it, and Hufflepuff for those who work hard and value fair play, a house that people apparently looked down on, which spoke volumes.
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you didn’t want to go to Hogwarts!”
Sunset looked up to see a tall woman, an old one as usual, in a green dress and… a stuffed vulture, in her hat, glaring at a boy around her own physical age, walking through the store.
“No, I do! Someone here must know.”
“What would your parents say if they knew you forgot the list of books for your first year?”
Sunset thought the odds were that they probably would have asked if they could borrow someone else’s list, as she reached into her bag without looking up from her book.
As the two walked past, she held the booklist out between her fingers over her shoulder.
“I…” the woman stopped as she noticed Sunset, holding the list. “... Thank you, my dear. Neville, what do you say?”
“Thank you,” the boy, Neville, mumbled.
“Don’t mention it.”
“Augusta Longbottom,” the woman said, holding out her hand.
Sunset closed the book, and shook the hand. “Sunset Shimmer.”
“Are you starting your first year at Hogwarts as well?” she asked.
“I am.”
“Are your parents with you, Miss Shimmer?”
No, they passed away.”
“... Ah. I apologize,” Augusta said.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Well look closely, Neville. It pays to study.”
The boy stared down on the ground, blushing. Sunset felt a vicarious sense of indignation when seeing him.
“It’s the magic that requires the most work anyway, and we’re not allowed to practice that,” she said.
“Oh, you’re allowed a little spell or two around adults,” Augusta said.
Sunset raised her eyebrows, and pulled out her wand. With a small swish, Neville’s booklist came floating out of his back pocket.
“Not quite forgotten I guess,” Sunset noted.
She was a little worried that Augusta would be indignant or angry, but both she and Neville just stared at her in silence.
“What?”
“Silent magic, and not even at Hogwarts yet,” Augusta said.
“Oh,” Sunset said, and mentally kicked herself. Of course that would draw attention to her as well. Now she’d have to learn what all the spells were called, and start saying them out loud whenever people were looking.
Augusta looked at Sunset for a moment longer, before giving the book list to Neville in a much kinder tone. “Go ask the clerk to help you with the books, Neville, there’s a good lad.”
“So, Miss Shimmer,” Augusta said, making Sunset wonder just what kind of faux pas she had committed now. Then she relaxed a little, and continued in a much more conversational tone. “Any house you favor?”
“At Hogwarts you mean? Not really.”
“Which one were your parents in? I don’t recognise your name.”
“They didn’t attend Hogwarts. I’ve moved here recently.”
“I see. Well, a marvelous place, you will have many fine memories from going there, I’m sure. However… there are unsavory aspects to the place. The children bring the bad sides and prejudices of their parents with them.”
That made perfect sense in this place, Sunset thought. There were a lot of prejudices going around, along with unchecked ambition, and a government that her admittedly limited dealings with had not been positive.
She nodded in understanding, still not sure where Augusta was going with this.
“You clearly have talent, to the point where your fellow student, including older ones, will be interested in them.”
Of course. Sunset knew about that. Celestia, early on in her education, shielded her from those elements, but only while she taught her to recognise and defend herself against them.
Augusta glanced towards Neville. “My grandson… might not have that problem.”
“He might have later,” Sunset noted, with her arms folded. “But I’m not interested in causing trouble for your grandson. I’m going to Hogwarts to learn.”
Augusta nodded. “There are those who will want to cause trouble for you then.”
“I understand,” Sunset said. She wanted to scoff at that notion, she could avoid being noticed if she wished, but then again, she had made a few minor mistakes already. It might only be a matter of time before she made a larger one. She slowly nodded, and looked up at Augusta. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Miss Shimmer,” she said, and turned to join Neville in picking out his books.
Sunset turned to look out the window, seeing Harry Potter and Rubeus Hagrid walking past, who waved happily at her. Sunset found herself smiling for some reason, and waved back.
She thought it was strange that Augusta Longbottom had strongly indicated to someone much more magically powerful than her grandson that his talents were lacking.
It wasn’t until she had paid for her book and was halfway back at the leaky cauldron that she realized that she had probably revealed quite a lot about herself to someone clever enough, few though her words had been, and to someone old enough to perhaps be associates with the faculty at Hogwarts. It was a maybe, but it was an interesting maybe all the same.
“Hmm... not bad,” she said to herself, and kept walking.
—
The day had come to go to Hogwarts. The previous day had largely been spent by Sunset reading up on Hogwarts and the magical world, but she had also visited King’s Cross Station, and mapped out a route for her to teleport there. She didn’t quite have enough control over her magic with her hair to do it in one go, so she had found an appropriate rooftop halfway between The Leaky Cauldron and the station.
She packed her bag, double checked that she had everything, thanked Tom on the way out, and walked into an alley.
Less than three seconds later, she stepped out from another alley and walked across the street to the station.
She counted the platforms, and once she reached nine, she saw Harry Potter standing next to a stocky woman with red hair, a whole clan of redheads in fact, pushing a trolley with a very heavy-looking luggage, and a birdcage with a somewhat impatient-looking owl.
Sunset shook her head, finding it a bit irresponsible for people with magic to dangle a magical solution in front of youngsters who weren’t allowed to solve it that way. Oh well.
Harry vanished into the brick barrier that separated the tracks.
“Huh. That answers that,” Sunset said to herself, and sauntered up towards the barrier as the red haired people casually walked in through the magical entrance.
“Ma’am,” she said, nodding at the woman and her remaining child, the only girl in the group, and gestured for them to go first.
“Oh, no you go ahead, dearie,” the woman assured her.
“Thank you,” Sunset said, and stepped through the portal, finding herself just under a low-hanging cloud, created from a scarlet red locomotive to her side.
All around her were hundreds, possibly over a thousand, children of various ages, and parents seeing them off, and catching up with each other.
Cats and owls hooted, children laughed in excitement, some cried at the thought of leaving their parents for almost a year. Sunset couldn’t blame them.
“Are you alone as well then, dear?” The red-haired woman asked Sunset from her side, having come through the portal.
“I’m sorry?”
“You’re not the first one we’ve seen today without their parents.”
“Oh. Yes, I am,” Sunset said, and shook her head with a small smile at the expression of the woman and her child. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Now that’s impossible,” she started, before noticing one of two identical boys up to something, and stormed off towards them. “Fred, where did you get that hubcap!?”
Sunset was left with the smaller, red haired girl.
“... Hullo,” she said, nervously.
“Hello. Are you starting Hogwarts as well?”
“No… next year.”
“Hey mum, guess what?” Sunset heard one of the boys say in the distance. “That black haired boy? He’s Harry Potter!”
The girl gasped, and ran up to the identical boys to ask them more.
Sunset only found the innocent impertinence amusing. That stuff was almost refreshing after spending too much time in Canterlot Castle. Celestia herself vanished a few hours every week, sometimes more, and Sunset always strongly suspected that she was simply slumming it, tossing darts with some working class types somewhere or something.
Sunset kicked herself, wondering why she kept making herself think of Celestia again and again.
She strolled along the platform, the dim and chatter helping her take her mind off her old teacher, she noticed Augusta and Neville.
She was squeezing Neville’s shoulder comfortingly, and he answered to whatever she was saying and nodded with a slightly somber look on his face.
Then Augusta vanished with that abominable teleportation spell, making Sunset flinch.
Neville started hauling his heavy, wheeled luggage up the stairs to the train, but not making a lot of progress until Sunset walked up and lifted the bottom with one hand.
“Oh! Th-thank you, uhm… Sunset?”
“Correct. Neville, right?”
“Uhm, yes, that’s right.”
The conversation was cut off before it could even start by a brown haired girl slamming into Sunset. Or rather, running into and bouncing off of Sunset, who barely stumbled.
“Hey, watch where you’re going!” she said, from the floor.
“Uuh,” Sunset said, trying to think up some witty response, before realizing she didn’t care, and simply walked off. “Whatever.”
“Hey, I’m talking to you!”
“I can tell,” Sunset said, not looking back.
A whistle sounded, and Sunset figured she’d might as well find a seat before she’s the last person to do so.
She opened a door to a compartment where a bunch of older girls sat, chatting animatedly, with one seat free.
“Is that seat taken?” she asked.
“Uh, yes!” one of them hissed at her, like she had just asked if the woods is the bear’s bathroom.
“How nice for you.” Sunset shrugged, and moved on.
Sunset walked up to and glanced through the window to the next compartment, where more older children were talking excitedly.
In the next, there were children closer to her age, her new age that is, but the compartment was full.
Sunset sighed in frustration, then looked out the window, making sure that they were leaving the city, then glanced around to make sure no one could see her, and teleported up onto the roof of the car.
The wind caught her hair and the sunlight caressed her cheek, and the smoke from the locomotive was far too high to bother her.
Sunset had been cooped up in her room at the inn so long, or in a tightly packed city, that she felt she was going stir crazy. She missed her tower. Her big tower that she had all to herself.
She spread her arms and danced back and forth, breathing in the fresh air, before throwing up a magical shield to stop her clothes from blowing away as she started changing into her school uniform.
She paused halfway though, and eased up on the shield, relishing in the refreshing sensation of the wind on her skin rather than just her cheek. Poor humans. Sure, they made some swanky looking clothes, as expected by people who constantly wear them, but that was the thing- they always wore them. It was comfortable in many ways, but also restrictive.
She sat down for a moment and simply enjoyed the sight of the countryside whooshing past, before slipping into her uniform. She paused at the second last piece of clothing though, her cheeks glowing red, and not from the fresh air.
Leggings.
Tight, striped cotton leggings that would be visible thanks to her skirt.
Sunset had never felt as daring in her life as when she put those on, to be worn in public, but… it was included by Madam Malkin, who had said that Sunset was leaving with a pretty uniform no matter how little it would cost. They were probably not as eye catching, or at least not in the same way, as they were in Equestria.
Sunset settled down on the roof again, closed her eyes, and concentrated some more on re-focusing her magic to flow through her hair and nails, to regain the same control she had as a horn.
She held out her hands, and created a concentration of raw magic power between them. A glowing, volatile-looking orb of energy that could reshape the world, in a limited way at least, for those that knew how to wield it.
After a long while, when the whistling of the wind and the groaning of the train engine had completely faded from Sunset’s senses, she decided it was enough, and the world gently came back as she came out of her meditation, the ball of magic fading into nothing.
She was surprised to notice the tears that had flowed down her cheek, and the slight aching in her chest, as the memories of learning these exercises, and who had taught them to her, lingered in her thoughts.
She took a deep breath, and shook it from her mind. Luckily, she had something to distract her, as she noticed when she stood up, having pinned her tail under her heel.
“Wait. Tail?”
Sunset glanced back, and noticed a red and blonde tail sticking out of her skirt.
“Ah! Wha-what?”
She quickly calmed down, and analyzed the situation. Of course, channeling magic through her body like a unicorn, rather than through her wand, made her automatically take on a more appropriate and agreeable form for it. One with more of her long hair would certainly be helpful for that.
Of course, if she could change herself, she could change herself back. A quick application of magic, and the tail vanished back into her, to her relief.
The sun had moved quite a bit across the sky, and Sunset figured it was time to head back inside. Fighting down at the thought of someone having seen her, she grabbed her bag again, took a deep breath, leaned down over the edge to look into the window so see if anyone was there.
Neville was there, with a girl walking in front of him with a determined, almost militant gait. She did a double take when she saw Sunset, then gasped and held her hands in front of her mouth with her eyes wide when she saw Sunset, backing into a wall.
“Uh oh.”
Thinking for a moment, she decided to simply tap on the glass to see if they’d help her open it. She could do it herself of course, or even just teleport down, but decided to reign in her displays of magical prowess for now.
Neville and the girl had a quick back and forth before the girl nervously reached up and opened the top window.
Sunset slipped through it, still with her bag over her shoulder, angling herself and landing on her feet.
“Thank you,” she said, briskly.
“Are you MAD!?” the girl shouted. “What were you doing up there!?”
“Changing,” Sunset simply said. “Hello, Neville.”
“Uh, h-hello.”
The subject of clothes made Sunset glance at the girl’s legs, seeing that she wore cotton tights under her own skirt. Sunset instantly felt a lot better, seeing someone else in daring clothes.
“You can’t walk around on the roof of the train!” the girl said. “Go find a seat!”
“Sure I can, and you’re not in any seat,” Sunset pointed out.
“That’s because we’re looking for Neville’s toad, Trevor.”
Sunset looked at Neville’s face, the amazed expression of seeing Sunset went back to sadness and worry.
Some emotion that Sunset didn’t care for stirred inside her.
“... Where do you usually keep him?” she asked.
“Uh, my, uh, my pocket,” Neville said, showing the side of his robe.
Sunset walked up to a startled Neville and pulled the side of his robe up to her nose, taking a few deep sniffs, before letting go of the robe and sniffing around the corridor.
“... He’s back there,” she said, pointing where they had come from.
“What are you trying to pull?” the girl said. “We’ve already looked there.”
Sunset shrugged. “I’ll go get him then.”
The girl struggled for words for a moment. "Well... we'll keep looking," she said, trying to make it sound forceful.
“You do that,” Sunset said, as the girl marched in the other direction.
“You can go with her, Neville. I’ll catch up,” Sunset said, as the boy seemed torn on who to follow.
True enough, in a luggage compartment, under a piece of a robe hanging out from a luggage, was a toad, patiently looking at the wall.
Sunset glanced around, then arcanokinetically floated the toad out of the tight space and into her hand, and marched back after Neville.
The girl from before was leaning into a compartment, having a conversation, with Neville not being seen.
“And you’ve got dirt on your nose, by the way, did you know,” she said, and closed the door.
“Heya, here’s Trevor. Where’s Neville?” Sunset asked.
The girl turned around and looked at the toad in Sunset’s hand. “Where did you find him?” she demanded.
“Under some robes by some luggage,” Sunset said, shrugging.
“Well, I… uhm… thanks,” the girl reluctantly said, and held out her hand. “I’m Hermione Granger.”
Sunset placed Trevor in her hand. “Sunset Shimmer.”
Hermione looked down at Trevor with a dismayed look, when a voice sounded through the train. “We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes’ time. Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately.”
Sunset opened the door to the compartment, where Harry Potter and one of the redheads from before were changing into school uniforms, looking at her with wide eyes.
“Oi!” the redhead shouted, indignantly.
“Hello to you too,” Sunset said, and tossed her bag onto an empty seat. “Just putting this here so no one tramples it.” Then she looked at the pile of candy and empty wrappers between them. “... Want some sugar with that?” she asked, but the boys just stared at her.
She closed the door again, and walked over to one of the doors and waited, where Harry and the Redhead joined her in silence.
She wondered why they were looking so nervous, and was about to ask when the train came to a stop and the doors opened.
Hundreds of children filed out, all dressed in black school uniforms, with Rubeus Hagrid towering over everyone, calling out, “Firs’-years! Firs’-years over here! All right there, Harry?”
Hagrid kept shouting instructions for the first years to follow him, and Sunset simply calmly followed the crowd, seeing Neville overjoyed when Hermione handed him Trevor with a relieved look on her face.
They walked down a slope towards a bank with boats, and there, in the distance, was Hogwarts. Sunset had to admit it looked pretty good in the starry night, with its many windows lit up.
The boat ride, where the boats moved by themselves naturally, was uneventful, but Sunset did start to feel a little nervousness. Probably because just about everyone around her absolutely reeked of it.
They disembarked and walked up a large grass field towards the castle, up some steps to an enormous door, where Hagrid knocked three times, and the door opened to reveal Professor McGonagall, who said she’d take them from here.
Walking along the stone corridor, the other students looked around in fascination and delight. Sunset had already seen parts of the castle, but had to admit that it was impressive nonetheless.
They came to a halt in a hall that served as a hub for either going outside, to the different wings of the castle, or through a set of doors that were currently closed, but which contained the great eating hall for the entire school, judging by the hundreds of voices coming from within.
“Welcome to Hogwarts,” Professor McGonagall said, and proceeded to tell them shortly about the houses of Hogwarts, that there were dormitories for them with common rooms, that there was a competitive system where the houses gained and lost points depending on the performance of their members, and that, and this is what caught Sunset’s interest, there was a sorting ceremony, but she failed to specify what it entailed.
Sunset felt that was a bit of a jerk thing to do, since after McGonagall left and told them to stay put, everyone around Sunset squirmed in nervousness, to the point where Sunset could smell it again.
“How exactly do they sort us into houses?” Harry asked the redhead.
“Some sort of test, I think. Fred says it hurts a lot, but I think he was joking.”
“Maybe they’re finding out who is no good and sending them back?” Neville suggested, dismayed.
“Are there a lot of Hogwarts dropouts?” Sunset asked, giving him an even look.
“Uhm… no?”
“That should tell you enough.”
Sunset suddenly jumped at the shrill scream coming from somewhere behind them, turning around and giving them a venomous look, but all their attention was aimed at the ghosts coming through a wall.
Sunset reluctantly had to admit that she was relieved she knew about the ghosts of Hogwarts. She even recognised the current speaker.
“Forgive and forget, I say, we ought to give him a second chance.”
“My dear Friar, haven’t we given Peeves all the chances he deserves? He gives us all a bad name and you know, he’s not really even a ghost… I say, what are you all doing here?”
“New students! About to be sorted I suppose? Hope to see you in Hufflepuff. My old house, you know,” he said, and waved at Sunset when he recognized her.
People barely had time to register that before McGonagall had returned and sharply ordered them to follow her.
Inside the great hall, four very long tables, one for each house presumably, were laid out with plates and silverware for all the hundreds of students already sitting by them, and more for the as-of-yet unsorted first years.
Hundreds of candles floated above them, and the ceiling was transparent, or at least that’s what Sunset thought until she heard Hermione whisper about it.
Besides the four house tables were a table on the far side, where the faculty sat. Dumbledore in the middle, with an empty seat next to him, for McGonagall presumably. Sunset also recognized Flitwick and Hagrid, but there were many more that were complete strangers to her. Mostly old people, as usual.
McGonagall led them up to a stool with a very old and ragged-looking hat on it. All of the students looked at it expectantly, when it suddenly burst into song, singing from a tear over the brim.
Sunset was mildly impressed at the end. She knew all it sang about already by now, but it was entertaining nonetheless.
She didn’t care overly much about being sorted in front of everyone, but she figured at least everyone in the room had already gone through it, so it wouldn’t be a unique experience.
McGonagall started calling out their names in order of their last names, to come up and put the hat on, which shouted out the house for all to hear.
There was a pretty even distribution of students among the houses, with the different houses cheering on their new additions.
Hermione ended up in Gryffindor, and so did Neville, to Sunset’s mild surprise. Draco, the boy she had the strange conversation with at the Cauldron, if it could be called that, ended up in Slytherin very quickly, as did the girl who had bumped into her on the train.
The great hall was filled with whispers however, when it was Harry Potter’s turn, and everyone craned their neck to see.
The hat needed a moment of consideration, whereupon it shouted out Gryffindor.
After the roar of applause, and some more students, McGonagall said, “Shimmer, Sunset.”
Sunset strode up towards the stool, sat down, and had the big hat lowered over her eyes, whereupon a deep and smokey voice spoke in her head, sounding amused. “... Well well,” it said, and chuckled. “Isn’t this interesting? Let’s see here, besides being a unicorn, what are you? Clever and witty, oh yes, and brave too–”
“Am I?” Sunset mentally asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes you are and you know it. Now to just balance where you belong and what you want. Hard working like few others, very dedicated, to the point where you’re outright ambitious, and cunning besides, and I know what house that sounds like.”
“Verily,” Sunset interjected. “So… Hufflepuff, please.”
The hat was quiet for a moment, before it responded, still sounding amused. “Oh, thought you were being really clever there, weren’t you?”
“I’d say so,” Sunset calmly responded. She liked this hat. “If we get any say in this ourselves, Hufflepuff must be the house for the ambitious and cunning, and Slytherin for the dunces. I mean, what kind of cunning and ambitious person outright declares to the world that’s what they are by joining Slytherin?”
“Ah, but you forget that I have the ultimate say in this, and I balance more than you know.”
“Alright, fine, is Slytherin for me then?”
“Oh it would be, it very much would be, if I didn’t know things you didn’t. Now, allow me to savor the moment when I surprise such a clever little filly.”
“GRYFFINDOR!”
And Sunset was indeed surprised, having to shake her head when the hat was lifted from it, and went to join the gold and red adorned house that was currently applauding her- which Sunset found she didn’t mind.
Draco Malfoy sulked.
Soon after, the redhead was sorted into Gryffindor, to the extra spirited applause of his equally red-haired brothers, whom he sat down next to, and Sunset finally realized what a Weasley was. The conversation with Draco Malfoy made slightly more sense to her now.
She ended up sitting with the Weasley twins on one side, and the other girls of her year on her other.
Some other kid was sorted into Slytherin, and then Dumbledore stood up as McGonagall collected the sorting hat and stepped away.
“Welcome! Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you!”
“Aaaw, that’s cute,” Sunset said, as she joined in the applause. “He’s doing that thing where he’s pretending to be kooky in a disarming way.”
And then, suddenly, a banquet had appeared on the tables.
Sunset, along with everyone else, dug in.
In her determination to blend in as a human, she had resigned to eat meat, since it was a staple in about half of all meals in the day.
She thought she would find it outright disturbing, eating the meat of her fellow living creatures, but it wasn’t actually so bad. The interesting tastes, textures, and feeling of nourishment helped, but so did the fact that she had never heard of the animals she ate, such as beef, pork, or bacon.
A few minutes of listening in made her learn the names she hadn’t memorized yet. She didn’t strike up a conversation with anyone, nor did anyone with her, but her intense listening to her classmates while looking at her food probably made it seem like she was ravenous, which, frankly, she was.
The ghost of Sir Nicholas De Mimsy told them about the house rivalry, and how Slytherin had been winning for the past six years. It turned out that Hufflepuff had been coming in last. This intrigued Sunset, making her curious if it was because they concealed the results of their hard work from the faculty, or if they were in cahoots with them.
“Sho… hh-wh-hoo a’ uu?” one of the Weasley twins asked Sunset past a mouth full of fried potatoes.
“Sss-mm…” Sunset started, and sped up her own chewing to make place in her mouth. Human mouths couldn’t hold nearly as much as pony mouths. “Sunset Shimmer.”
The twin took his time to swallow his food before continuing. “We heard that part, but what’s your story?”
“Oh, nothing special. Moved here recently, so the whole thing with Hogwarts is a little new to me.”
“You French? You don’t sound French.”
“... Nnno?” Sunset guessed. She knew what France was, but the encyclopedia hadn’t mentioned any dialects or accents.
“Huh, well, I’m Fred Weasley, this is my brother George, and Ron, Percy,” Fred said, pointing at the collection of red haired boys, who all waved back.
“Pleased to meet you all,” Sunset said, though secretly she felt there had been far too much talking the past few days, and not enough uncovering the secret paths to unlimited power.
Oh well, at least the food was nice.
“Where were you going to get your magical education before moving here?” Percy asked.
“Oh, I would’ve learned some at home,” Sunset said, trying to sound boring.
“Oh really?” said Percy. “I can’t imagine that’s as comprehensive as having a whole faculty of experts.”
“Depends on the teacher,” Sunset said, trying not to sound too defensive, while something inside her stung.
“She can do silent magic,” Neville excitedly pointed out, drawing several looks who were then redirected at Sunset.
“Uhm… very little,” Sunset lied.
“That’s still really impressive,” Percy pointed out.
Luckily, by now it was time for dessert, which materialized in front of them all at once, matching the main course in extravagance.
The conversation quickly turned into who was familiar with the wizarding world and who wasn’t.
The Weasleys, Neville, a boy named Seamus Finnigan, and two girls named Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil, were born into the wizarding world and didn’t know much about muggle society. Hermione Granger and Harry Potter had been raised by muggles, and Dean Thomas had one foot in each world.
It was assumed by the people around her that Sunset was born into the magical world as well, which Sunset could only hope wouldn’t cause trouble later.
Sunset set to inspecting the faculty while she expanded her stomach what little more it could take with chocolate ice cream. There were more teachers than she thought at first, and figured there must be more subjects later on, as there were more teachers than subjects she had bought books for.
After a while, the desserts vanished, and Dumbledore stood up to address the hall. “Ahem! Just a few more words now we are all fed and watered. I have a few start-of-term notices to give you. First-years should note that the forest on the grounds is strictly forbidden to all pupils…”
Sunset logged that as a potential place for research in peace.
“... And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well.
“I have also been asked by Mr Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors.”
Sunset’s brows creased. “But… aren't there classes pretty much all day?”
“That’s right. Technically, there is no time between classes,” George said, and put a hand on Sunset’s shoulder, leaning against his twin and sobbing happily. “They grow up so fast!”
“Alright, alright,” Sunset said, and turned her attention back to Dumbledore and what he was talking about. Quidditch and a dangerous corridor.
Quidditch? A distraction at best. Certain death somewhere on the third floor? That might warrant a quick inspection.
Then it was time for bed. Percy led them through some corridors, there was something about a mischievous ghost beneath Sunset’s notice, and they approached a painting sensitively enough named “the fat lady”, who let them into the Gryffindor dormitories if you told her a password. Sunset rolled with it.
“Ah, now this is more like it,” Sunset said, as they entered the Gryffindor common room. “Maybe that hat wasn’t wrong. A proper tower.”
Sure, she had to share it with others, but at least it was a tower.
She climbed the stairs that Percy pointed out, entered a dormitory for the first years, and spotted her bag by the foot of a four poster bed.
She quickly checked the bag to see that everything was still in there, and then simply collapsed face-down into the bed, clothes still on.
Hermione might have been in an argument with Lavender and Parvati, but Sunset couldn’t be bothered with it even if she wanted. Within seconds, she was snoring into her pillow.