//------------------------------// // Chapter 1: A Trap of Very Low Probability // Story: Harry Potter and the Prancing of Ponies // by The Guy Who Writes //------------------------------// HPMoR, end of Chapter 110: ..."Why look at that," sang out Lord Voldemort's voice from the empty air, "I don't seem to have a reflection any more." "No," said Albus Dumbledore. "No, no, NO!" Into the hand of Albus Dumbledore flew from his sleeve his long, dark-grey wand, and in his other hand, as though from nowhere, appeared a short rod of dark stone. Albus Dumbledore threw these both violently aside, just as the building sense of power rose to an unbearable peak, and then disappeared. The Mirror returned to showing the ordinary reflection of a gold-lit room of white stone, without any trace of where Albus Dumbledore had been. Or where Harry Potter had been. Or Lord Voldemort. Chapter 1: A Trap of Very Low Probability In a green meadow, under a bright sun and blue sky, grass swayed gently in a morning breeze. Birds chirped, leaves rustled, and small critters scurried about. To the untrained eye, the eye that ignores insectivores and viruses and parasites, it was a peaceful scene... Until two ponies appeared, a white pegasus and a grey thestral. Both fell to the ground with a thud, scattering the critters of the clearing. For a time, there was silence, and there was stillness. As the ponies remained soundless and motionless, some of the braver critters returned to their scavenging, and the world seemed to be at peace once more. Then the sleep of one pony ceased. Harry stirred slowly and sluggishly from slumber, as if he'd run a marathon the previous day and hadn't slept enough to recover. He didn't exactly feel like moving, but he wasn't in a comfortable position either, so he tried to bring himself to his feet- that was the intention, at least. What actually happened was the exact opposite: he tried to push himself up using what he thought were his hands, felt the strange sensation of two not hands pressing on the ground, gave an instinctive start, toppled forward, and found himself right back where he started. The What?! that flashed through his mind and the adrenaline that flooded through his system did a good job of bringing him fully awake. He deduced two things instantly: he was in a new place entirely, and he was in a new body entirely. For most people, this would be the moment where panic set in. And some amount of panic did creep into Harry's thoughts. But that had little to do with the new setting. Coming fully awake had the unfortunate side-effect of allowing Harry to recall recent past events. Memories passed by like blinks, one after another, demanding his attention even more than his strange new surroundings. The final night of the school year. The 'forbidden' room on the left-hand side of the third-floor corridor. A terrible truth. A gauntlet of 'security'. Fiendfyre. Riddles and answers. Lots of answers. A final room. A mirror. A problem. A solution. A theft. A trap. And then... A conversation between trapped and trapper, between Voldemort and Dumbledore. Voldemort's clever use of Harry as a hostage in order to escape the trap... Or so Harry had thought, at the time. Because in order to save Harry, Dumbledore had to turn the Mirror's powers on himself. Most powers of the mirror are double-sided, Voldemort had said. You could send yourself, not me, into that frozen instant. If you chose to. Or something like that. From Dumbledore's frantic scrambling, Harry assumed the ancient wizard had been trying to reverse the trap, trying to sacrifice himself to save Harry... but maybe it had already been too late. Maybe Dumbledore hadn't made it in time. If that's what happened, if Harry had been caught outside of Time, caught inside the trap meant for Voldemort, that meant the Mirror was responsible for the change in scenery and circumstance. In particular, it seemed to have teleported him somewhere new – probably one of the 'alternate realms of existence' that the Mirror was able to create, according to some legends. But even if the Mirror wasn't responsible, something had taken Harry from Hogwarts, knocked him out for who knows how long, and turned him into a snow white, winged pony in healthy condition, except that his mane needs trimming. And the Mirror was the only thing Harry could think of with magics strong and strange enough to do something like that. The Mirror was the most likely culprit. That, or mind magics. Harry could currently be Confunded, in which case you'd think the Confunder would have included a clause to prevent Harry from realizing he might be confunded. Actually, shouldn't the Confundus charm do that anyway? He'd read up on the Confundus charm. One of its base effects is that it prevents the victim from realizing they're under outside influence. So probably not the Confundus charm... unless that's exactly what the Confundus charm wants him to think... No. Even taking Moody's paranoia into account, Harry couldn't think of anybody, except maybe Dumbledore and the Weasley twins, who would want to Confund the Boy-Who-Lived into believing he was a horse. So maybe it was the Mirror. Maybe. This was probably real. Probably. In which case... Did Lord Voldemort get trapped as well? The Dark Lord had been standing right there next to him, but he'd been wearing the Invisibility Cloak at the time. Professor Quirrell had said the Mirror held power over everything it reflected, and that power was said to be unchallengeable. He had said that even the greatest magical artifacts can be defeated by artifacts that are lesser, but specialized. The Defense Professor theorized that the True Cloak of Invisibility provided a perfect absence of image, so it should evade the Mirror's power of reflection, not challenge it. Lord Voldemort had stolen and donned his Cloak just as the trap was about to take effect, meaning he should have been safe from the Mirror. He certainly believed he would be. If the Mirror was responsible for all this, then Lord Voldemort shouldn't have been affected, even if Harry's side of the Mirror had been trapped. And yet, there was a grey equine on the ground right over there, and the pegasus could only think of two people it might be. If it was a person, that is. Possibility 1: The grey pony was Dumbledore. If it was Dumbledore, it was over. Simple as that. Voldemort won, they lost, and there was nothing that could be done. Possibility 2: The grey pony was Voldemort. Because maybe... maybe once the Process of the Timeless starts, the Mirror keeps track of everyone it reflects, not caring if someone puts on the Cloak halfway through. Or maybe the Cloak simply didn't evade the Mirror's power in the first place. Harry had felt the Time pressure in the air, even as he wore the Cloak of Invisibility himself. So it was possible the grey pony wasn't Dumbledore. And there was only one way to find out. Harry struggled to stand. Walking on hooves felt not quite like walking on fingers and toes. It felt like walking on the fingernails and toenails of just his middle fingers and middle toes. It was unnerving, but Harry didn't have time to be unnerved. He had to confirm his guess right away. This might be his only chance. Keeping recent memories of equine movements – observed from white-haired centaurs, carriage-pulling thestrals, and Forbidden Forest unicorns – firmly in mind, Harry angled himself up to his ankles (i.e. hocks), then fumbled onto his fingernails (hooves), and then began an awkward shamble in the general direction of the grey pony- no, the grey thestral. Harry had seen thestrals before. He had seen death and comprehended it, and so he could see thestrals. This particular grey thestral didn't look exactly like those fleshy creatures, but the fanged teeth and leathery wings spoke for themselves. Harry didn't exactly look like any real equine either, but he knew that feathered wings meant pegasus, so bat wings probably meant thestral. "Kid friendly versions" is the term that came to mind. No sense of apprehension overcame Harry as he neared the thestral, bringing a slight frown to his face. He came yet closer, and still no Sense of Doom. Was this not the enemy? Was it Dumbledore after all? No, wait. There was a mark on the thestral's fur – a book, open to its centerfold, resting on a backdrop of stars. The mark was vivid, detailed, and quite obviously designated the thestral as Tom Riddle... except, that didn't make any sense. It was like Harry's mind knew it was looking at a picture that meant Tom Riddle, but when he asked his brain why it thought that, it came up blank. At this point, Harry knew enough about the ways magic can mess with a person's mind to suspect that he should doubt this "knowledge", just like with the words of false comprehension. What do I think I know and how do I think I know it? Harry thought he knew this pony was Voldemort because of the picture. Did the picture actually have anything to do with Voldemort? Yes, actually. The starry background was VERY Voldemort. Well, not quite. It was very Tom Riddle. Voldemort was just another mask. In the end, it was Tom Riddle, not Lord Voldemort, who had spent over nine years in outer space, looking out at the stars as the sun slowly receded behind him and thinking of all his past mistakes. And... when Harry looked carefully... he did see something that truly identified Voldemort: a horcrux. It was THE Voldemort Horcrux, the one that stood out from the other 107+ horcruxes he'd made: the golden plaque attached to the Pioneer 11 space probe. That part of the picture was so small that any OTHER onlooker would mistake it for a star, Harry was sure. But he recognized the shape of the probe, and the tiny golden tint of the plaque. (You can play I Spy if you want. It IS in the image.) Harry looked to the same part of his own body, and sure enough he had a mark of his own. In the background, there were six small orbs orbiting a larger one. The orbiting spheres were set in two orbits, the outer orbit containing four orbs and the inner orbit containing two. The central sphere was black and featureless, except for white longitude and latitude lines inscribed on the surface. The outer-space backdrop behind everything suggested that it was a planet. In the foreground, above the planet's surface blazed an image reminiscent of a famous renaissance sketch, the Vitruvian Man... except the picture on his rear would probably be called 'Anatomy of Pony' rather than 'Anatomy of Man'. The pony within the picture glowed a bright silver, or it would have glowed if the picture had been moving. It gave the artistic impression of glowing, at least. The entire thing was grayscale. (Imagine the pony on the right overlays the planet on the left, with the white circle around the pony aligned to the planet's circumference. The "Vitruvian Pony" image is from a DeviantArt post titled "Biology of Equus Sapiens", made by AgentTasmania. The rest was cobbled together from stock imagery.) At a guess, the six orbiting spheres represented electrons and the planet itself represented a nucleus. An atom of carbon, sometimes called the element of life. For the blazing silver pony, he didn't even need to guess. Despite the species, it clearly represented his Patronus charm. Taken as a whole, the image did a nice job of summarizing Harry Potter's core motives: science and life. Tom Riddle's mark wasn't nearly as obvious unless you knew what to look for. The pioneer probe, the star-filled void, and the blank book in the middle. At his core, Tom Riddle wasn't anybody in particular. He was afraid of death, and that was about it. He pretended to be whatever suited that goal. He followed whatever script he felt he had to follow. A blank book wasn't the best way to describe Tom Riddle's personality, but it did work. And just like with his own mark, the blank book might mean something that Harry couldn't guess without being Tom Riddle. A blank book might be as blatantly obvious to Tom Riddle as a carbon atom had been to Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres. Either way, that was all the confirmation Harry needed. The gaze of the white pegasus returned to the form of the dark grey thestral. The unconscious, defenseless thestral. Either must destroy all but a remnant of the other, for those two different spirits cannot exist in the same world. Now was the perfect opportunity to fulfill the prophecy. A simple Obliviate and the war would be over. A memoryless Voldemort was a neutralized Voldemort, more or less. Then just transfigure his body into a sustainable form, like a pebble, and the threat was ended. But in order to capitalise, Harry would need his wand. Hopefully the Mirror had brought it, and hopefully it was nearby. It was certain that the Mirror could trap things as well as people. With any luck, it had trapped his personal effects. Harry hobbled across the hill, his limbs occasionally stumbling over themselves in his haste. Searching. Searching. Searching... There! Well, not quite. There was his Invisibility Cloak. It was a good start, but not what he needed. Still, best to put it on in case the enemy woke up. Without the Sense of Doom, it should be much harder for Voldemort to locate him if he wears it. Harry instinctively tried to bend down to pick up the item on the ground, only to realise he didn't actually need to do that with his new anatomy. No need to bring his hands closer to the ground, his front hooves were already on the ground- And then Harry suddenly realised a different problem. Namely, no opposable thumbs. No time for problems. He had a head, he had limbs, and he had a surprising amount of flexibility. Harry maneuvered his way beneath the cloak (now shaped for a pony, no time to think about that either). After a bit of a struggle to get the right parts covering the right places, he donned it and disappeared. Now with that marginal safety in place, he turned his attention back to the search for his wand... And what do you know? His wand was right there inside the cloak's sleeve. Perfect. But when he thought to use it, he encountered the same problem as before: no fingers or opposable thumbs. If he couldn't wield the wand, he couldn't seal Voldemort. No time for problems. He had a mouth. After a bit of careful manipulation, he held the handle between his teeth, with the tip of the wand facing away from himself. He was tempted to go back to the thestral right away, but he needed practice first, to confirm that this was possible. He sat down in what felt like a natural sitting position, ignored the fact that equines shouldn't be able to sit this way, and ran a few tests. "Lumosh." ... "Quietush." ... "Hrigideiro." ... "Mahashu." ... Nope. It seemed that pronouncing the spells correctly while holding a stick in his mouth wouldn't be possible, to say nothing about the wand movements. No time for problems. If his new pony body could sit in a way that ponies shouldn't be able to sit, maybe he could do other things that ponies shouldn't be able to do. Like holding a wand in a hoof, for instance. Sure enough, after he twisted his right forelimb upward – again in a way that no real equine should be able to do – and dropped his wand, his hoof curled around the wood as instinctively as if he were using fingers to grasp a falling apple. Harry leveled the wand and tried again, this time with wand movements. "Quietus." The surrounding sounds of nature disappeared. "Frigideiro." The air grew noticeably colder. "Mahasu." A few pebbles were kicked up from the ground where he'd aimed his wand. Success. Despite the lack of fingers to complete certain parts of the gestures... Think about it later. The pegasus stood, hobbled as quietly as he could, and sat in front of the thestral. It was time to neutralize the threat. Regardless of the steps Voldemort had taken to prevent his own demise. Regardless of the fact that he was probably immortal. Regardless of the hostages... and regardless of the emotions involved. Harry leveled his wand, the shape of the spell he wanted to cast already in mind... But he froze just before the word "Obliviate" could leave his lips. Harry couldn't... Quite... Bring himself... To cast the spell. Harry tried to shake the hesitation away. He thought "forget everything except your truly happy memories" to himself once more. He aimed his wand at the thestral's head. He made the circular wand movement... And said nothing. Harry frowned. He looked at his wand as if it was the problem, though he was really just giving his eyes something to look at as he thought, very carefully, about what had to be done. He knew that he should do it. Laying on the ground, right there in front of him, was perhaps the single most evil person that had ever existed. Ever. Like, no question. Even Hitler probably wasn't as bad... on a qualitative level, at least. Hitler inflicted more quantitative evil upon the world than Voldemort, but that was only because he had an entire country at his beck and call, rather than a mere fifty Death Eaters. Voldemort probably had Hitler beat on an evil-per-capita basis. ... And yet... Harry couldn't stop his mind from focusing on a recent memory. An important memory. It stood out above and beyond everything else involving Voldemort, and not just because it had, from his perspective, just happened. Harry hadn't been a participant, only a witness, as Voldemort and Dumbledore spoke. In that conversation, he now realized, Voldemort answered a question Harry had been asking himself over and over again. It was also a question Dumbledore had been asking himself over and over, except for years on end instead of hours. Dumbledore had once asked Harry, in a pleading voice, 'Why? Why would anyone deliberately become a monster? Why do evil for the sake of evil? Why Voldemort?' Dumbledore thought Harry would know the answer because Dumbledore himself could answer the question "Why Grindelwald?". Surely, Harry would be able to do the same for his own destined foe. But Harry couldn't figure it out. Only Voldemort knew the answer, and even though Voldemort didn't know he was responding to a question, this was his answer to Dumbledore's and Harry's desperate plea: "I don't know if you recall this, but do you recall that day in your office? The one where I begged you, where I went down on my knees and begged you, to introduce me to Nicolas Flamel so that I could ask to become his apprentice, to someday make for myself the Philosopher's Stone? That was my last attempt to be a good person, if you are curious. You said no, and gave me a lecture on how unvirtuous it was to be afraid of death. I went from your office in bitterness, and in fury. I reasoned that if I was to be called evil in any case, just for not wanting to die, then I might as well be evil." And what did Dumbledore say? What did he do when he learned how his words, which probably seemed inconsequential at the time, had affected his former student? "I decline. I do not accept even the tiniest shred of responsibility for what you have become. That was all, entirely, you and your own decisions." Yeah. That. Tom Riddle had revealed his greatest fear to the one person he thought could help him, the one person he trusted more than anyone else, the one person who might have, until that point, made him feel as though he wasn't alone in the world. And what did he get in return? Nothing. Worse than nothing, actually. He'd been spat upon, essentially. He'd been told his fear of death was irrational and immoral. He had been told that it made him an evil person. All as a result of Dumbledore's inability to understand why death is bad. Harry couldn't stop himself from envisioning that scene. Harry couldn't help but see himself in that moment. Harry couldn't stop his mind from imagining itself coming to those exact same conclusions, going down that exact same path, making those exact same choices for the exact same reasons. If he didn't have his parents' impulse to kindness inside him, or Hermione's friendship, which Tom Riddle did not have, as Dumbledore of all people should have known. Harry had been worried about other things when Voldemort and Dumbledore were speaking, but now that he had a small chance to slow down and reflect... It seemed that his mind had decided that he wouldn't be casting the Obliviate spell thanks to this wonderful comment from Dumbledore. Harry wouldn't be wiping Tom Riddle's memories and transfiguring his body. He wouldn't be erasing and sealing Voldemort. He gave an internal, sarcastic groan. Great. On the other hand, he wasn't entirely displeased that he couldn't do it. The pegasus hadn't exactly forgotten about all the pressing issues that required the thestral's continued cognizance to combat. There were hostages that needed rescuing, a friend that needed reviving, a stone that needed retrieving... he did have logical reasons to spare the enemy. He simply hadn't let those reasons influence him into rationalizing a potential mistake. A potential mistake he was about to make for an entirely different reason. Even knowing that it likely was a mistake not to vanquish Voldemort here and now, Harry still couldn't bring himself to cast the spell. Funny, how it was empathy and emotion which decided his enemy's fate in the end, not tempting logic. The pegasus sighed. Wonderful. And come to think of it, there was the off-chance that this thestral was actually Professor Quirrell – not Lord Voldemort, but the wandering adventurer who had found a horcrux and had his body stolen by Lord Voldemort. Obliviating an innocent bystander who had already been victimized by Voldemort wasn't exactly on Harry's to-do list. So. What should he do? His mind suggested a different spell. Harry sighed even more. ... The snow white pegasus looked at the dark grey thestral. ... The pegasus leveled his wand on the thestral once again. ... This was, undoubtedly, a bad idea. ... Still, it wasn't the worst idea. It was like that old quote about democracy. It's a bad idea, but it's the best one he's got. Harry had helped Voldemort get the Philosopher's Stone, so Voldemort was bound by magical promise to help him in a certain, important way. ... And there were hostages, and unknown events had already been set in motion to kill those hostages. Harry was on a timetable, and there was only one person who would know how to save them. If Harry was going to cast the spell, better to cast it now. ... The pegasus said, "Innervate."