//------------------------------//
// A Different Path 
// Story: Harry Potter and the Crystal Empire — Intermission 
// by Damaged 
//------------------------------//

Draco looked around the strange city. It wasn't anywhere near as big as London, but as she gazed from the top step of the railway station, it looked to be about 70% unicorns. There was magic everywhere. She'd literally never seen so many creatures all using magic casually—as if nothing watching needed to be guarded against. 

The letter she still kept in her bags looked like it hadn't been opened, though she had read it. Princess Cadance, Draco had discovered, was an orphan too, and had spent time in Twilight Sparkle's mother's home—and she had a silly name Draco was sure wasn't real. The other important thing Draco had was the map showing her how to get to the right house.

It wasn't hard to follow, and soon enough Draco was standing out front of an unassuming house. It had none of the grand design of the manor she was more accustomed to living in. A thought ran through her head: she could skip the meeting and go somewhere else. Maybe try to make a name for herself doing… Draco's mind drew a blank. What could she do that the majority of the city couldn't already?

"Well, hello there. Can I help you with anything?" Twilight Velvet had opened her front door to go out and do some gardening, but found a filly on her doorstep instead. "Are you lost?"

Jerking her head in surprise, Draco looked at the mare who'd spoken to him. She'd sounded genuinely nice and not at all like the mother of a pony who could themselves have offspring. "I—uh—" She stopped and started over. "Princess Cadance wanted me to give you a letter."

Twilight took the letter from Draco—holding it in her magic to read it.



Twilight Velvet, Mom

This is one of the young witches that your daughter helped save. Her parents both passed while fighting a great evil. Please, just for three months, can you make a place for her in your home… like you did for another young orphan?

Her name is Draco and, in case you haven't been keeping track of things, she used to be a human. It's a large toll for one so young, but I remember how patient you can be.

—Princess Mi Amore Stinky Pants



The name, something her own son had called Cadance on several occasions, made Twilight chuckle. "Well, come inside, dear. Can I get you something to eat or drink?" Stepping back from the door, Twilight made a clear path for Draco.

Heading inside, Draco's luggage followed her in. "A drink—" She cut off short, eyeing the large living room. There was two large couches that seemed far deeper than the normal human-style ones. An open fireplace sat midway down one wall and had those couches flanking it to make a conversation area that would be well-warmed by the fireplace.

The usual homely things—curtains, coffee table, and cushions—went ignored as Draco realized this wasn't just a living room, it was a library. Apart from the window that let sunlight in from the street and the fireplace, every section of wall had a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf, and every speck of room on those shelves was taken up by books. Small books, big books, multi-volume series, and even some periodicals lined the shelves.

The thing that really hit Draco hardest was that he could see a good third of them had titles implying they were about magic. When she noticed Twilight returning, Draco was surprised to see her carrying a glass with just a soft glow around it and her horn. 

"Here you go. I hope you don't mind some pear cider." Holding the glass out, Twilight's attention flicked over the two big bags Draco had with her. "Would you like to put your things in your bedroom?"

Grabbing the glass out of the air with a wing, Draco was still a little awed by the amount of books on magic in the room. "Wait, I have a bedroom already?"

Twilight turned and walked for the stairs. "Of course you do." Without any apparent effort, she picked up Draco's bags and led the way. "None of my little ones find time to visit often anymore, let alone stay overnight, so there are two bedrooms free for you to pick from, plus the guest bedroom."

"Uh…" Draco was a little lost as to what to do or say. Everything had happened so fast, and here she was in someone's house and unable to catch up with the flood of things going on. What did sink in, however, was that Twilight Velvet was completely unlike everything she'd expected. "Shining Armor and Twilight Sparkle are your children?" She already knew, but this house seemed so disconnected from the world Draco had left that right could be left and she would have struggled to find a way to challenge it.

"And Cadance, though she moved out before we had Twily." Opening the door to Shining's room first, Twilight gestured. "This was my son's room. That one there was Twily's, and the next on the right is our spare room." Twilight paused and waited.

"I-I'll take this one. I—" That's when Cadance's words flared out of Draco's memory. "I wasn't always like this."

"Cadance's letter explained you were a human before. I'm not familiar with them, unfortunately." Twilight set Draco's bags on the floor of Shining's bedroom.

"No, more than that. I was a boy—uh, male." The words were almost jerkily tumbling out of her, like boulders of truth dislodging one by one and falling down a mountainside, each one connecting with another bolder and sending it tumbling too.

Twilight froze at this. "Well, do you still feel like a—like a colt?"

"Yes, but not really." Draco stared at her two cases and sighed.

"Would you like to come back downstairs and talk about it?" Twilight didn't normally let her children eat or drink upstairs, but seeing Draco holding the glass of juice without even realizing she was didn't exactly count in her mind.

Only realizing she'd been carrying the glass herself, Draco took a sip and let out a surprised whinny at how good it tasted. "I haven't really talked to anyone about it. Cadance said I could be treated however I wanted, but can I?"

"Of course you can." Twilight led the way back downstairs and, when she reached the bottom, using her magic to reach out and light the fire.

That revelation was a surprise to Draco. The prospect of being stuck as a female pony, and with transfiguration magics not working effectively on them, had left Draco feeling hemmed-in. When she got to the living room and found a cozy fire going in the fireplace and Twilight sitting down on one couch, Draco walked over to the other one while holding her drink with one wing.

"I'm not a girl."

Twilight sipped her own drink as she got comfortable. With a light touch from her telekinesis, she put a heavier piece of wood on the fire. "Then you're not."

"It wouldn't be so bad if transfiguration magic still worked. I could just use that to make myself into a c-colt." As they spoke, Draco felt part of him click back into shape. It was like all the problems he'd been encountering over the last weeks came together and were revealed as just that—problems.

"'Transfiguration'? Have you tried using it on another pony?" Twilight only spoke after waiting to see if Draco had more to say.

"I—" The question made Draco stop and think, during which time he took another sip. "I don't think anyone has tested it."

"Well, so long as you can undo it, I know I can be transformed. Would you like to try?" The memory that the topic brought up was an odd one—Twilight had certainly never expected her time as a potted plant to be a useful life experience, but here she was.

It was hard for Draco to admit, but the reality of seeing what his parents had done had grounded him more than all the dressings down that Minerva McGonagall could have ever done. "I'm not good enough to do that. It's—It's really hard to do human transfiguration."

"Well, that could just take time to correct. Something to work on. Could I have a look at your wand? I must admit I'm a touch curious about all this." Distraction. What couldn't be corrected immediately can be left and worried about another day, or so Twilight thought.

Draco didn't even feel odd about drawing his wand and holding it out for Twilight. "You've studied magic?" 

"If you think my children became powerhouses of unicorn magic without being descended from two lines of well-trained and talented unicorns, you'd have another thing coming. These books do not belong to my children—they are the property of my husband and myself." With the fire crackling away, Twilight basked in its warmth and the look of surprise on Draco's face.

"You're like my parents." The moment he said it, Draco regretted bringing his parents up. Tears threatened to overcome him, but he choked them back. "Th-They were good at magic too. They turned themselves into—into fire demons to protect everyone going through the portal."

Draco had shut down, and only realized Twilight had moved when he felt her at his side. All those problems were revealed, but at the same time there so much to them it was hard to keep back. Pressing his face against her shoulder, he started to cry.

Holding Draco, Twilight didn't try to tell him it would be okay or that she could make it all better. She was a mother twice over herself, and knew she would make the same sacrifice for her foals that Draco's parents had for him.

The tears just kept coming. Draco wasn't sure when he dropped the drink he'd been holding, but Twilight didn't seem to remark upon it. On and on they flowed, and when he eventually ran out of tears, all he could do was sob against her.

Finally, between sobs, he managed to speak. "I loved them so much."

"You still do." Twilight felt his nod against her. "Never stop loving them and remembering them."

When his drink floated up into view—held by pink-glowing magic—he reached out a wing and took it, then drank half of the glass. He didn't want to talk and didn't want to listen, but the fire and having someone to lean against were both nice things.

When he finally finished the glass, Draco shook his head. "This feels so unlike me."

"You've been through a lot, but what would you like to do to make you feel normal again?" Twilight asked.

"I don't—" Draco closed his mouth. Thinking on it he could come up with a few things. "Getting my mane cut shorter. Getting some guy-clothe—" It occurred to him that ponies seemed mostly to go without clothing. "Do pony guys wear clothes?"

"On occasion. You want something that conceals, I assume? Most stallions and colts, if they wear anything, only cover their forequarters."

Looking back, Draco realized that while his robes kept things covered, he couldn't wear robes everywhere. There was the impracticality of pants on a pony, too. That's when it hit him. "What about a kilt?"

The word didn't ring true as anything she knew of, so Twilight shook her head. "Perhaps if you explained it."

For Draco, the problem with describing a kilt was that he inevitably circled around to it's like a skirt, but. "It's like a skirt, but males wear them. They're heavier, and not colorful."

Twilight bit her tongue on any witticisms that struck her about the comment—this wasn't something for jokes. "We can see about getting you something tomorrow, if you're comfortable enough in what you're wearing for today?"

Looking back over himself, Draco took careful note of the robes and uniform the room of requirement had given him. "They're fine, but they're school clothes. It doesn't feel right to wear them all the time."

"The other option is not to wear anything." Twilight could see immediately that this wasn't going to be a path for Draco. He didn't react by cowering, though, but straightening and lifting his head up. "No?" When he shook his head, Twilight nodded. "That's fine. As I said, this is your choice."

Draco drew his wand, slowly, and passed it over to Twilight. "You wanted to look at this?" Changing the topic had felt like a good idea. Draco was adrift without any hint of his former life to guide him, and despite how generous and helpful Twilight was, that was scary.

Taking the wand in her hoof, Twilight could feel it buzzing the moment the wood touched her. "I didn't want to take it with my magic in case there was a reaction—and I think I was right not to. It feels alive, like it wants to channel magic. It feels a little like a horn."

Wanting to appear knowledgeable, Draco explained, "They're made by special wand-makers. I don't know if any came through the portal with us or not. This one's made of hawthorn and has a core made of unicorn hair." As soon as he said it, Draco couldn't help but giggle—which utterly ruined the effect he was going for. "Unicorns were rarer back home and, uh, they didn't talk."

Holding the wand with one hoof, Twilight ran the other along its length from the handle to the tip of the wooden shaft. "Would you be okay if I tried casting a spell through it?"

His first reaction was to say no. It was Draco's first wand, and it was special to him, but Twilight was probably the only person he could think of that he could trust with it. After all, she had her horn for casting—she didn't need to keep it. "Alright, I guess."

"Okay, something simple. A light spell." Memorizing spell patterns wasn't easy. The harder the spell, the more a unicorn had to memorize, and the smallest bit wrong meant a malfunctioning spell and a terrible headache. 

To start with, Twilight just lightly pressed her magic at the wand—just a whisper to carry the pattern down it. What she got from that fraction of magic was a beacon of light that she quickly extinguished. "That's quite a potent tool," she said, blinking away at the purple blotch remaining in her sight.

When she passed the wand back, Draco quickly sheathed it. "I've never seen it do that before. There's more magic in this world, or so the teachers said, but is it that much?"

"We can test it, if you'd like, but first we need to both learn the exact same spell." Using her magic, Twilight selected her own notebook of spells. She knew where every single spell was in the book, though she certainly didn't plan to teach Draco some of the ones from the back. "First page is a light spell. The pattern is simple and only requires four angles and a half-loop."

Staring at the page and its carefully drawn diagram, Draco froze up. "We, uh, don't learn spells like that. How does it work?" 

The question delighted Twilight, mostly because it would give Draco and herself something to do—a distraction. "Magic, you see, is just patterns. Some creatures combine multiple patterns in the ways they speak or move or even gesture. Those multiple patterns come together to form a single pattern that triggers magic and gives it a path to follow.

"Unicorns have long since distilled that down. Long ago, somepony figured out that rather than using dozens of different patterns to create a magical effect, we could use just one very precise one.

"Here, this pattern will make more sense if I construct it."

Watching as Twilight's horn started to glow the softest he'd seen it yet, Draco stared as a pinkish pattern appeared in the air before him—only it wasn't a simple 2D one like on the page. Tilting left and right, Draco saw now how it went together. "That's a knot made out of—of magic!"

"Right now, it only has enough to exist as a pattern. Use your wand to touch it and feed it more magic." 

Drawing his wand again, Draco held it firmly in his wing and reached forward. Just as the tip of his wand touched the pattern, he felt a tug on his magic. Relaxing his grip, he let his power flow into the pattern.

It took a lot of magic to activate the spell, or so Draco felt, but even still he kept pushing until the end of his wand lit up with a glow. "That took a lot to cast." As he said the words, Draco realized something different from how he normally felt when casting magic. "But I don't feel weak like I should."

"I'm starting to think that magic on your world was scarce. Your wands are essentially a powerful magic-amplifying device, you strain to feed a weak spell an appropriate amount of magic, and when you do, you are quickly replenished by ambient magic." Twilight produced another pattern and fed the slightest touch of magic to it. "What are your thoughts?"

Normally, at Hogwarts, Draco would have let one of the Gryffindor students answer such questions—unless Severus was feeding him answers, of course. But, with no one else around, Draco focused on the problem. "W-Well, I'm not an adult yet, so I don't have an adult capacity of magic." A nod from Twilight encouraged him more. "And, I'm not used to using large amounts of magic."

"Or holding large amounts of magic." Twilight put her notebook back on the shelf and selected a different book. "These are not normally taught to foals, since a unicorn foal would normally need control—which you already have. This book teaches methods for expanding your magic capacity through meditation and stretching your magic."

"Stretching it?"

"Meditation of particular kinds will stretch your magic. Think of your magic like a muscle. Muscles don't grow unless you work them regularly." Opening the book, she set it before Draco. "This book has meditation and training techniques to stretch those magic muscles so that not just your capacity for magic increases, but your ability to absorb magic will increase too."

"This is like nothing I've ever seen at Hogwarts—nothing I've even heard of." Draco read as fast as he could, as deeply as he could manage. The first exercise was a mild magic-drain spell that would literally cause all his magic to leak out his—horn. "I don't have a horn, though."

"You have a wand. A wand that seems to be able to work similar magic to a unicorn's, even if at a lower output." Slipping off the couch, Twilight used her magic to set another big log on the fire and collect their empty glasses. "Why don't you spend some time working on that, and I'll see about making dinner?"

The moment Draco started reading, it seemed like the world slipped away. This was magic on a scale wizardry had never conceived, and taught in a way different from any school.

First was breathing, which Draco thought he'd managed pretty well with all his life—but this was different. As Twilight had told him, he substituted his wand for his non-existent horn, and followed the instructions. Breathe out and let magic just pour down his horn wand, then breathe in and draw it back in again.

At first the second part didn't work. Every time Draco emptied himself of magic as he exhaled, the magic would rush in right away to top him back up. 

It took him almost an hour of practice before he realized the problem wasn't to try filling himself back up, but to hold back and only fill up on his terms. He tried it several times and just couldn't hold back the weight of all the magic. 

On his sixth try, and straining as hard as he could, he held back the weight to a trickle.

His seventh try was more successful, and by his tenth he was down to almost no leak at all.

He was getting ready to try again when a voice broke his focus. Shaking his head, he looked at Twilight. "S-Sorry." The thing that was strangest to Draco was how much his voice differed from his old one.

"Dinner's ready. Normally we'd wait for Night, but he's going to be at work late for the whole week. They have finals, and he's stuck marking papers." Twilight turned and started back into the kitchen.

Unsure if he should follow or not, Draco had to make up his mind. At home, only servants ate in the kitchen. Even Hogwarts had the great hall for everyone to gather and eat. It felt like slumming it, but he walked after Twilight after making sure the book was safely closed and his wand was in its holster.

The kitchen was just as warm as the living room. Even with his coat, his feathers, and his school clothes, Draco had felt a slight chill on his way to the house—but not so now. Twilight was carrying things to a six-seating table from the bench of the kitchen area.

"Have a seat. I made us something simple." Setting down a bowl of asparagus shoots, some roast carrots, and a roasted sweet potato, Twilight settled at the table and then reached out to grab the gravy boat.

Simple, at least by Draco's standards, this meal wasn't. Even the vast feasts at Hogwarts usually resulted in a very expansive but child-orientated meal. He could see the food here was an adult meal—like what his parents ate back home. "It looks delicious."

Twilight heard a measure of surprise in Draco's voice that made her motherly instincts dance for joy. She started serving up Draco's plate. "Trust me, a little butter on the asparagus is amazing. You don't mind me using my magic at the table?"

"Uh." Draco was caught off-guard. "Why wouldn't you?"

"It can be seen as rude for a unicorn to eat using their magic." 

Draco racked his brain to remember the spell he'd seen Harry use so many times recently. Focusing on the pronunciation and his intent, he cast a Locomotor spell on his cutlery. It didn't take much effort to lift them up with his mind. "Only if you don't mind too."

With a laugh, Twilight started serving herself. "Well said. Take whatever you'd like. I don't think we'll stand on formality."

So Draco followed Twilight's example and put some of everything on his plate, then started eating. What struck him was how flavorful everything was. He'd eaten some of the best food his parents' standing could attain, but most of it paled compared to Twilight's something simple.

Finishing, Draco could only stare at his plate.

"Good?" Twilight asked.

"Yeah I—Do you have any meat?" What prompted his question was a wiggling mass inside his robes. Carefully, he lifted Bess out of his robe and set the snake on the table beside him. "She, uh, lives on mice and small birds."

Blinking in surprise, Twilight fought not to have one of the freakouts her family were well known for. "She's your p-pet?"

"Yes. She's seven, gentle, and I grew up with her." Using his wing, Draco carefully stroked Bess' head, feeling as she bumped up against each touch. "She gets really cold, though, so I let her sleep against me."

"Will she need feeding tonight?"

"N-Not really. She fed two days ago, but she should be eating twice a week." Picking up on Bess' emotions, Draco tickled under her chin.

"Is Bess venomous?"

"Would it be a problem?"

"No, it just means I'll leave her care entirely to you." 

Draco didn't expect Twilight's laughter, but it relaxed him a bit to know she wasn't going to try to make him give up Bess—something he wouldn't do. "Probably for the best. She is—well, back home on earth—the most deadly land snake."

"Then there's another thing we can do—take her to see somepony about having an antivenom made." Standing up, Twilight used her magic to pick up the dishes and serving plates. "How was the meditation?"

"It was strange. I didn't know what it was trying to teach me, but I think I figured some of it out. The hard part is holding magic back from filling me before I inhale, right?" The display of magic was less shocking than seeing people doing it in public, but it was still amazing to see someone not needing a spell or even a wand to levitate things around.

Twilight nodded. "The first step, matching your magic control to your breathing, is far more about learning to control your magic flow than about breathing or meditation, the breathing just helps you relax and focus on it."

It wasn't all that much of a revelation. Draco had been put forward a year only because Albus Dumbledore had thought he could manage it—his parents pushing for it had just made the opportunity to actually do it. "It still helps. Can I go and try some more?"

"Of course you can. You don't mind if I read, do you?" Twilight set a cleaning spell to start work on cleaning the dishes and turned for the living room.

All Draco's life he'd been treated as a child. Now he realized the freedom Twilight was offering was genuine. Holding out his wing to Bess, he shook his head. "I'll probably be making more noise than you."





Waking up was one of the more normal things of Draco's recent life. The soft twitching of Bess' twin-tined tongue made him smile. "Morning."

Bess just flicked her tongue out again and licked her favorite heat source on the nose. As a human, Draco had been barely useful. He'd put out a lot of heat, but his body wasn't nearly as good as his new one. When Bess had learned about the best place in the universe—tucked between Draco's wing and his torso—she had found where she wanted to live for the rest of her life.

"Yeah, yeah. I know I should get up. I wonder what strange stuff is going to happen today, Bess? It seems like the whole world has been falling apart, then I wind up in another one, and that's not much better." Draco had heard rumors of familiars of old being able to talk to their wizard masters. 

A knock on his door shouldn't have been a surprise, yet it still managed to be. "Hello?" he asked.

"Just checking if you're awake. The shower is free if you want to wash now." With a towel wrapped around her mane and tail, Twilight tried to avoid sounding too excited—she was a morning-pony, and knew that not everypony was like her. Like her husband, still fast asleep in bed.

"Uh, where's the bathroom?" Draco asked as he slid out of bed. From under his wing, Bess let out a soft hiss but retreated into her safe place.

"Down the hall—Can I open the door?" Twilight asked.

Draco was, for want of a better word, naked. It seemed panic-worthy to have the door opened on him when he was naked, but then he remembered one thing—all his rude bits were in the back. Straightening up to face the door, he said, "Okay, sure."

Opening the door, Twilight spotted Draco standing there without his robes on. "Night is still asleep. If you move fast, nopony will see you rush to the bathroom. On your left and two doors down. There're fresh towels in there you can wear back."

"R-Right. Uh. Thanks, Mrs. Twilight."

"Just call me Twilight." Turning and leaving the door open to tempt Draco, Twilight made her way downstairs to get breakfast started.

"Maybe I could cast a spell to make me invisible—if I knew one. You safe in there, Bess?" Draco turned his head to look under his wing, only to get another lick on his snout. "I'll take that as a yes. You really want to shower?"

When he got no further response from Bess, and realized he was only procrastinating, Draco marched out into the hallway and down to the right room then ducked inside. The first thing that happened when he found out how to turn the water on, was Bess slithering off him and fleeing to the towel rack.

Cleaning himself, Draco was forcibly reminded that his body was female. It was annoying, but he could deal with it if he could just hide his back end with something. Getting all soaped up, he rinsed off and turned off the taps—only to have a hot, dry wind start blowing around him.

It only took moments for his coat to be dry, then a little longer and his tail and mane were too. Climbing out of the shower, he walked to the mirror and examined his face in it. It didn't look female—he didn't look female—to him. "Bess, do I look like a girl?"

Slithering her way onto the cool porcelain, Bess made her way quickly to Draco's neck, circled around that twice, then made her way down to his wing. All the way, she flicked out her tongue rapidly to taste the strange new air of this world.

Getting no answer from her, Draco let out a sigh. "And I have no idea how to deal with all this hair. I guess I should ask Twilight." Using his wing to secure a towel, Draco pulled it up and over his back-end. It hung down enough that it was a little like a skirt, and he used his wings to tie the free corners loosely under his belly.

Turning to face the doorway when Draco walked into the kitchen, Twilight gave him her best smile. "Morning. Sit down and have some porridge." She used her magic to ladle out the last of the porridge in the pot into the third bowl at the table. "Oh, you didn't meet Night yesterday. This is Night Light—my husband."

"Hey there. Twilight"—Night leaned to the side and kissed Twilight's cheek—"said you'll be staying with us for a few months, Draco?"

It felt awkward to Draco. This was Night's home, and here he was just casually moving-in at Twilight's word. "Yeah. Shin—"

"Shiny and Twily both sent word that Draco was a hero in the war of the Crystal Empire. Cadance sent a letter to accompany him here, asking if we could give him a place to get away from his school until the next semester." Twilight scooped up another spoonful of porridge and contentedly started chewing on it.

"Well, with so many recommendations, how could I possibly turn you away?" Night, for the first time, realized Draco was a pegasus. "I remember the last time we had a pegasi living here. Mi Amore Cadenza she'd gone by back then."

"The princess? So she wasn't making a joke?" Draco climbed up onto a chair and looked at the condiments on the table. There was a bowl of sugar, a jar of honey, and yet another of some kind of dark black fruit jam—he reached for the honey with a wing.

"Cadance? It was probably a joke on top of being true. Sorry, I thought you were a unicorn with the way Twilight was talking about your magic." Looking aside at his wife, Night raised an eyebrow at her in question.

Twilight poked her tongue out at her husband. "I wanted to see how you'd accept a pegasus doing unicorn-like magic. Do you think I could borrow some equipment from the school?" 

"That's less a case of could you and more who would try to stop you."

"Mmm"—Twilight took a sip of juice—"I think you're exaggerating, but I'll be stopping by some time today to pick up a few things."

Draco ate his way through the bowl of porridge, eventually getting to the bottom without being asked any further questions. "So, uh, what am I meant to do today?"

Reminded that Draco was present, Twilight shot him a smile. "Well, I have a few things I need your help with, and I'd like to see you spend at least two hours working on your magic, and I'll be talking to a friend about flying lessons—though you don't need to be with me for that one, it would be nice for you to meet them."

"Clothes?" Draco asked.

"That's something you'll need to accompany me for. We'll be visiting a friend for advice on where to go, and then we'll likely spend an hour or so actually shopping." At Draco's dismayed look, Twilight tried to remember back to how her own son would have acted. "Draco, striking the right look takes work. When I lay eyes upon you, I see a handsome young colt, but not everypony will see the bold way you stand or the way you puff out your breast. The right clothing will make them notice those things."

Grabbing up his glass of juice with his wing, Draco gulped it all down noisily. With his whole world turning upside down, it was hard for him to remember who and what he was. "I'm going to go meditate."

Night Light smiled as Draco walked from the room. He knew from experience how well his voice would carry into the living room (quite well). "He's doing okay?"

Flashing her husband a curious look, Twilight nodded. "His magic is not all that different to unicorn magic—enough that I believe I can teach him how to perform anything up to adept level spells. It's uncanny, though, but the little bits he's shown of his school is they don't have a very structured learning system."

Draco, who was perfectly happy to eavesdrop, sat on the couch and focused on listening to what Twilight and Night were talking about.

"What about regular school classes? You might have to teach him geography and history, at the very least. Maybe they might be picking up those topics now?" Night asked.

"I guess I'll go back to the school with him and ask them." Twilight closed her eyes for a moment and reminded herself of the promise she'd made to Cadance. This wasn't going to be a small undertaking—Draco was a real foal and needed all the attention and guidance that a foal would need. "I'll have to duck out and get a few balls rolling."

"Oh?" Night asked.

"I need to find out where Draco is citizenship wise, fix things if it doesn't align, and arrange for him to be officially recognized as Equestrian. You might as well come back in if you're listening." Twilight held her husband's smile with her eyes until she heard hoofsteps approaching. "You're old enough to make some of these decisions yourself, but I believe the more important ones can wait until you're ready to return."

"To Hogwarts?" Draco asked from the doorway.

"Yes. You need to be at least sixteen to reach majority in Equestria, and I don't believe you're that old yet." By the look Twilight saw on Draco's face, she was correct. "So, I propose you can live under our roof until then. You will have the same freedom as our foals did."

"That's—" Draco had to stop and think. Despite it being sudden, Twilight was probably the nicest person he'd ever met. She definitely seemed to understand more about him than he did right now.

Night nodded. "Too soon. I think she means that you get to spend the few months here with us and get to decide if this is what you want."

"A-And if not?" Draco asked.

"Then you get the entire school year to find somewhere else to live."

Draco still wasn't sure where exactly he stood with Night, though the deal felt fair—mostly. "Why are you doing this for me?" It was the question he'd wanted to ask since he'd arrived and the desire to ask it had only grown after every single thing Twilight had done for him.

Taking a deep breath, Twilight Velvet didn't try to force a smile—it just happened on its own. "Because you need somewhere to live. You deserve somewhere to live, Draco. And, frankly, I wouldn't be able to look my children in the eye if I didn't try to help you in every way I could."

It almost hurt to feel so much emotion. Draco could remember that last moment with his parents, and for a fraction of a percentage of a moment he felt like being here was a betrayal of them. But then his mother's words came back to him. Do what you're told.

With that he could think past the loss and the betrayal and see two ponies trying to help him. "Thank you." The words were still huge. Draco Malfoy would never have said thank you to anyone, but here he was, and he felt like he wanted to cry again. 

Turning, Draco marched back into the living room and climbed back onto the couch. Trying to ignore the mess of emotions that boiled inside him, he focused on his breathing again, and started to match his magic flow with that.

Twilight looked at Night and nodded, giving him a shy smile. She got a kiss on her cheek from him.





Draco wasn't sure how long he'd been at it, but he felt magically exhausted. He'd never in his life felt like this before, and it was compounded by the fact he knew he was topped up on magic. Opening his eyes, he spotted a note on the couch opposite him.

Climbing off the couch, he walked over and used a wing to pick it up.



I left you to your meditation. I should be back within an hour or two—am trying to get as much done that doesn't need your presence as I can. If you feel hungry after your work, and I bet you will, there is fruit in the fridge. Help yourself.

—T



At school, Draco was sure that everyone who ever talked to him only did so because they had to or felt like it would give them some benefit. It was odd, but Lucian had become an exception in that. The last he'd seen of Lucian was on the Earth side of the portal and then one glance after they were back in Equestria.

So far, though, Draco hadn't found a reason for why Twilight and Night took him in. Except for the ones they'd given. Walking through to the kitchen, he opened the fridge and found a selection of fruit—so he grabbed an apple and a banana.

Just opening the door, though, made him tingle a little. It took him a minute to realize what it was. The feeling was the same as when he'd been dried in the shower. The fridge, he realized, used magic.

Walking back to the living room with his stash, Draco started on the apple and looked around at all the bookshelves again. Walking over to one shelf, he started to read the covers of the books. They looked like the newest on the shelf, and immediately he recognized the names on them.

"The Art of Teleportation, by Twilight Sparkle. Advanced Magical Barriers, by Shining Armor. Optical Maginetic Imaging, by Night Light." More and more he read and the entire shelf was Twilight's family. "Unified Theory of Magic: Volume 1, by Twilight Velvet."

Reaching up, Draco lifted that down and carried it to the couch. Twilight had seemed to have some level of arcane knowledge, but Draco had scarcely believed her likely to have written such an extremely important-sounding book.

Opening the tome, Draco expected to find tiny handwriting scrawled over each page flanked by arcane patterns—as could be found in most Hogwarts' textbook. Instead, the book looked perfectly and neatly typed, the diagrams seemed to be professionally drawn, and even had a table of contents at the front that showed him there were five neat sections; four chapters and a glossary.

Flipping to the first chapter, Draco expected it to dive right into things, but again he was surprised to find the book so professional. "Structural Grammar of Magic." The chapter, when he started reading it, was literally an entirely new way to describe magic. 

At first it was so dry he was already reaching for his banana, but just a few pages in he started noticing little jokes that Twilight had worked into it. The jokes soon became a focus, though that meant he had to read carefully just so he could understand what was and wasn't a joke.

In the strange way of thinking about magic Draco found not just explanations for how wand magic could be defined, but the one spell he'd seen of pony magic fit easily within it too. He was reading it so intently that he only barely registered hearing the door open and close.

"That's a little dry, surely? Structural Grammar of Magic was something I wrote thinking it would be a grand uniting structure of magic and the analysis of magic. It turned out to be a club for professors to batter their first-year students into submission." Tossing two bags onto the couch beside Draco, Twilight nodded toward them. "Try those on. The most useful one is a cloak you can wear that will conceal most of your body."

Draco had a problem, he couldn't hold the book and go looking through the bags at the same time. Thinking quickly, he tore a strip off the top edge of the paper bag and slid it into the book before closing it. "It's not that bad, not when you start getting all the jokes. Also, from what I've read so far, it seems to completely fit wizard magic too."

"Really? I've been told by some that the grammar system is just a little too rigid to account for all possible forms of magic, but I'm yet to get an actual example it cannot adequately define." Twilight helped Draco open the first bag. 

Lifting out the deep green cloak, Draco jumped to his hooves and sling it over himself, having to work his wings a few times to get it to lay evenly. The first thing he noticed was, "There's no holes for my wings."

"Canterlot doesn't cater to a lot of pegasi, and fewer still want to cover themselves this much. It's all I could get on such short notice, but we can visit a store later on that can make things to order." Tugging at the outfit here and there, Twilight circled around Draco and nodded at how well it hung on him. "This will let you keep your dignity until then."

If there was one thing Draco was trying to get used to, it was having his emotions pivot around like crazy. "Th-Thanks. Again. I'm not going to get in trouble for reading your book?"

"Absolutely not. I wrote those books to be read. Finding somepony so young who is willing to read the grammar section and not skip it to read the actual theories tickles me pink." Opening the next bag, Twilight lifted free a bathrobe. "This lacks wing holes too, but I think it'll be good having something to wear around the house."

"Books back home—magic books—tend to be dangerous. I saw the Care of Magical Creatures textbook we'd be getting for third year, and it's actually alive and has big teeth." Lifting a forehoof, Draco gestured to the bookshelves. "This is—This is sane."

"Come on, and let me show you some more sane things. I would have taken you to a wonderful seamstress in Ponyville, but making a day-trip there just for that would be a waste. Besides, she specializes mostly in female formalwear." Walking back to the door, Twilight opened it with her magic. "The books will still be here when we get back."

Draco, who'd been trying to work out what to do with the book on magic, set it down on the couch and walked after Twilight. "How far away is Ponyville?" All he actually knew of the place was that Harry was there. 

Closing the door behind Draco, Twilight pointed back toward the railway he'd arrived from. "Only an hour by train, but it's an hour there and an hour back. Twily lives there too, and somehow she managed to outdo me for most books in her home—though she cheated."

Trotting a little faster to catch up and walk beside Twilight, Draco tried to wonder how you could cheat at having books. "What, did she move into a library?"

The sarcasm made Twilight laugh. "Actually, yes. That's exactly what she did. She was assigned there by Princess Celestia herself." It pained Twilight a little to remember what Celestia had done, but even as Twilight Sparkle's mother, Twilight Velvet had to agree that it had been the right choice.

Draco picked up on the slight barb in Twilight's voice. "What happened?" 

"You'll be able to read about it in any recent history book, so why not. My daughter got trapped in the one place she simply couldn't walk away from—school. She started young, finished everything they could throw at her, and—" Twilight paused as they had to flatten to the side of the road to let a squad of Guardponies thunder by. 

When Draco reached her side again, Twilight went on, "… and she discovered new things to study all on her own. Things like Nightmare Moon, the prophecy of her return, and when it would happen. Princess Celestia sent Twily to Ponyville to find the friends she needed to not just stop Nightmare Moon, but save her too. It worked, but I was very upset with Princess Celestia for quite some time."

"Isn't she in charge of—of everything?" Draco asked.

"She is, and the worst part was she understood exactly why I was cross with her. She expected it and seemed to welcome it. When I realized that, I did say a lot of things I regret now, but she's never spoken a word about it." Closing her eyes for a moment, Twilight took a long, slow breath to center herself.

"But she could, couldn't she? She's basically like our Queen is to muggles. If she ordered it, she could have you thrown in jail, right?"

"She could do a lot worse, but she has never lifted a hoof over it."

"So she's got something over you." Draco wasn't all that surprised at Twilight's startled look. "Well, she does."

"I hadn't thought of it like that, but then, she has that same something over everypony in Equestria. She's been ruler so long that nopony would think of saying a bad thing about her."

"Except you?"

"Except me." The way Draco thought was curious to Twilight. The way she followed his mind, he was always looking at reasons for ponies to do good things. "Why do you think I am taking care of you, Draco?"

Draco's mind hit full panic. He chased around the question, coming up with reasons like Twilight owing or trying to curry favor with her daughter-in-law, with Celestia, or even with her son. But the more he came up with, the more he struck down.

"Well?" Twilight asked.

Shrugging his shoulders, Draco said, "I don't really know. You said it was a promise, but I don't think that's it at all."

"You're right. That promise doesn't really matter. Saying you'll do what's in your nature is an easy promise to make. Harder promises—probably the hardest you'll ever make—involve changing your nature."

"But what—" Draco stopped talking because he couldn't think of an alternative. "My dad wasn't all that nice. He made life hard for a lot of people just because he could.

"But, when some of those same people he was hard on were going to die, he—he gave his own life to protect them. I can't figure out why."

"Sounds like he was a brave stallion."

"But he wasn't—wasn't nice. To people, I mean." Walking in silence for a little bit, Draco slowly realized that wasn't what Twilight had said. "Brave."

"There are two words that ponies often mix up—bravery and fearlessness. The latter is to literally have no fear, and while such people can go down in history as heroes, they are left out entirely as often as not." Spotting their destination, Twilight led Draco across the street and closer to the front door. She stopped before going inside. "Brave people, though, do amazing things despite being terrified. Such situations have a habit of drawing out the truth of people."

Draco felt the simple logic hit him right in the heart. He knew his parents weren't fearless, which only left one option. While he searched through the possible meanings, Twilight stepped into the doorway of the building beside them and opened the door. With nothing else to do, he followed.

"Twilight! I didn't expect you back until the afternoon." Upper Crust beamed at the new arrivals in her store. "Oh, you simply must see this new piece I made for—Oh." Her eyes locked on Draco. "Is this the young stallion?"

It might have been layering on the emphasis a little thick, but Twilight wasn't going to fault Upper's enthusiasm. "It is indeed. This is Draco, and he's spending a few months in our wonderful city before returning north for school."

"I see, and I take it you'll be needing an entire wardrobe?" Practically bubbling with excitement, Upper was more interested in the challenge of making so many outfits to show off a filly's body as masculine than just the making of clothes. She wasn't just a seamstress—she loved the challenge.

"He will. I'm not sure how warm it gets up there, but I've heard that area sees snow most of the year. Draco, what are your thoughts?" Twilight asked.

His mind still racing with earlier thoughts, Draco had barely noticed the emphasis Upper had placed on his maleness. "I don't really—I mean I don't feel the cold that much. It is nice to have warm things, though." 

"Well, that means I can spend a little more effort on style over function." Upper directed her magic to the door, locking it. "Now, before we talk styles or designs, I'm going to need to measure you up. I've already canceled the rest of my appointments for the day—fashion emergencies always take first priority."

It took Draco a moment to catch up with the next assumption of him. "Oh, right. You want to measure me. I—" He gulped and used his wings to remove the cloak.

Twilight took the cloak with her magic while Upper fetched a tape measure, pad, and pencil. "Upper won't take any longer than she needs to, Draco. The reason I came here is she's a professional, but dress making is her passion." 

What was a surprise for Draco was hearing Upper note the name of each part she measured. What he thought of as his chest (just under his neck) she called breast. She went on to measure around his body and call the front his chest and the back his belly. She measured his legs in several places, his neck, and even where his tail was. 

"It's perfectly understandable to be nervous. Here." No sooner did Upper pass Draco back the green cloak than he quickly put it on and practically hid under it. "Now we need to talk styles."





Draco felt exhausted. It had felt like months spent looking at clothing and trying to picture the styles Upper had been talking about. He'd wound up with an order for a dozen cloaks, two sets of formalwear, three sets of casual things he could wear around the house, and two bathrobes.

"Where to now?" Draco asked.

Twilight, who was carrying a stack of boxes that contained three cloaks, gestured back toward home. "First we drop these off, then we go and see a friend about some lessons for you."

Wearing the fourth cloak that Upper had made in the time available, Draco flexed his wings a little and ruffled them. "Lessons? Magic?"

"Not magic. I can teach you anything you want to know about that. I was thinking you might like lessons in flying." Pleased to see Draco's head snap around, Twilight smiled as her plan apparently met with excitement.

Unable to stop them, Draco's wings jumped open in shock at the idea of flying with them. "You really mean I could fly like this?"

"In case you failed to notice, Draco, I'm a unicorn. Magic is my specialty, not flying." Extending her magic around herself, Twilight lifted her body off the ground just a hoof's width before setting back down. "Though I have worked out a trick in that direction. No, you'll be getting lessons from a flight instructor."

Struggling to calm down, Draco drew on that steely demeanor he'd cultivated under his father's watchful eye. Closing his wings back down, he cleared his throat. "Thank you."

"Relax, Draco. You're young and excited—it's okay to show it. Come on, let's race back to the house." Twilight was past rushes of youthful exuberance, but she wanted to see Draco smile and bounce around, so in aid of this she took off at a run for her home.

Draco managed to hold back for almost a hundredth of a second before excitement got the better of him and he ran. He ran and ran, and despite his shorter legs he caught up to Twilight just as they reached their home. "Who's going to teach me?"

"You don't know them, but they're a pegasus who I trust to give you a good grounding in flight." Setting the boxes down on the couch with the other mess, Twilight winced at the cleanup that would be needed later and closed the door again.

Twilight deflected all of Draco's not-so-subtle attempts at finding out who the trainer was. Even when the only thing in sight was the E.U.P. Guard training fields, she shrugged her shoulders. She approached the two ponies at the front gate. "Twilight Velvet and Draco here to see Sergeant Bluebelle."

"A soldier? What kind of flying are you going to let me learn?" Draco asked as one of the soldiers at the entrance trotted off into the compound.

"Anything you want to learn, Draco. That's the point. I'll let you move at your own pace and in your own direction with everything." Twilight ruffled Draco's mane a little. "Would you rather I have sent you to a little foal's school for first fliers?"

Draco shook his head quickly for fear Twilight might decide to do that anyway. "Thanks."

Spotting the familiar form of Twilight Velvet at the gate, Bluebelle felt more relaxed as she approached. "Twilight. Is this the young colt you have for me to train?"

Starting to suspect Twilight had really spoken to all these ponies and mentioned he was a colt, Draco felt he owed Twilight just a little more with every pony they met.

"He sure is. You said you might have some time free to do some training this afternoon?" It didn't matter to Twilight that she was burning through favors and promises at a startling rate, this was something that was worth surrendering a little comfort for.

Looking over Draco, Bluebelle nodded. "Yeah, I think we can at least get a measure of each other today. By the look of those wings, though, we might have to spend the first day teaching you preening."

Draco turned his head a little to look at his right wing. "What do you mean? Like a bird?"

"No. Like a pegasus. It's a lot easier to fly if your wings are in good shape." Half-turning, Bluebelle gestured toward the barracks with her wing. "Come on. We'll get onto that right now."

"You remember the way back?" Twilight asked. When Draco nodded, she gave him a supportive smile and nod. "I'll see you when Sergeant Bluebelle is done with you, then."





On the walk back, Draco had a lot of things kicking around in his head. The first was that wings were a lot of work. Pegasi lacked a gland to produce oil (like birds have) to preen, so had to buy oil to preen feathers with. Oils came in dozens of types and hundreds of scents (and he didn't like any of them). 

Then there were combs and picks and brushes and—Draco was sure there would be an end to the tools needed to keep feathers in optimum shape, but after just one session with Bluebelle he wasn't going to put money on it.

It would have been easier for him to disregard them as being stuff girls do if Bluebelle wasn't wearing armor, wasn't obviously respected (literally everyone saluted her), or acted girly. Draco had to face facts—being a pegasus meant time spent to maintain wings with enough products that would leave the average makeup kit in its dust.

He was just following his steps back to the house he was tentatively thinking of as home when a ball hit his flank. Turning to look, there was a pair of unicorn foals looking at him, then both looked down at the ball.

There was an odd excitement that tried to beat its way free of Draco Malfoy, and if it weren't for nearly two days of living in an entirely different world—physically and metaphorically—it wouldn't have gotten free. Tilting his foreleg back, he kicked the ball with a hoof back toward them two.

"You want to play?" Of the two unicorns—both colts—one kept looking at Draco. "I'm Bright Glow and he's Cotton."

"You look funny. What's your name?" Soft Cotton asked.

"I'm Draco Malfoy." Walking over to them, Draco looked at how Bright held the ball in his magic. "How do you play?"

"You gotta get the ball to the other end of the alley. If someone gets the ball off you, they have to bring it up this end and go down the other end again to score. Magic and shoving is fine. No flying." Soft said. "Still wanna play?"

"Sure." Draco reached under his wing for his wand and held it as best he could. "Who starts with the ball?"

"You can, since your a filly." Bright used his magic to flick the ball at Draco.

"'M not. I'm a colt." Draco couldn't do more than light with his wand with pony magic, but he could—and did—grab it with a wing.





"Bright! Soft! Get your fuzzy butts in here!"

"Who's that?" Draco asked.

Bright rolled his eyes and said, "Mom. We'd better go. You wanna play again tomorrow?"

Feeling excited and completely distinct from the persona he'd put forward at Hogwarts, Draco nodded. "Yeah. Same time?"

"Bright! Who are you talking to?" A mare poked her head into the alley and spotted her errant sons.

"I better go. Same time tomorrow." Turning, Bright trotted back to his mother—who had been silent.

The last thing Draco saw of the family, Bright and Soft's mom was speaking to them much softer. Shrugging his shoulders, he trotted out of the alley and back in the direction of Twilight's house.

Draco expected to get told off for being tardy. His own mother had always been upset with him when he was sneaking off to do things. About to knock, he realized that wasn't really right and just used his wing to grasp the handle and open the door.

"Welcome home!" Twilight had been in the process of preparing lunch. "Do you want something to eat?"

Hearing her voice coming from the kitchen, Draco closed the door behind him and walked through to find Twilight making some toast and baked beans. "I, uh, I was playing—"

Turning back and looking at him, Twilight smiled. "One of the few spell schools my daughter wasn't able to grasp was far-seeing. Apparently she got that from my husband's side. I only peeked long enough to see you were safe."

Staring, Draco couldn't stop thinking of the ramifications of that level of scrying. Of course, that reminded him how much raw power a unicorn could produce at any point in time. "You can scry that easily?"

"I can, though I wouldn't call it easy. The targeting matrix for a location and remote viewing spell-set is complex. You know"—Twilight finished pouring the beans over both plates and levitated them to the table—"you could probably do quite well learning some complex targeting spells that are simple. But first, we're going to study geography and spell-casting."

Using his wings to hold a knife and fork, Draco cut some of his toast off and piled it high with beans and sauce. He couldn't wait. This was something his mother had made for him on days when he was feeling down. The flavor of the fresh beans and the sauce shocked him into closing his eyes so he could focus more on the delicious meal.

"You like it? It's something I made Twily and Shiny when they needed a little cheering up. Come to think of it, my mother did the same for me." Not bothering to hide her own enjoyment of the simple food, Twilight did cheat and used her magic to pick up a piece of bean-laden toast.

Draco focused all his attention on eating. The food didn't exactly take long to finish, but he did spend some time scraping the bottom of the plate with his fork to get the last of the sauce. "How do you teach geography and spell-casting?"

Standing up and starting the parade of dishes to the sink, Twilight set her favorite cleaning spell going. "Sounds like you're done with lunch. If you need a drink of water, you can get one from the jug in the fridge. When you're ready, join me in the living room."

Getting up now he was out of porcelain to scrape, Draco walked to the fridge and opened it with a wing. Inside he found the jug of water and used it to fill a glass sitting conveniently on the bench. He had to rear up to reach, but it wasn't too hard. Walking to the living room, he took a sip from the glass and before he knew it, it was half empty.

"We were starting with a light spell last time, right?" Twilight asked. She reached out to float a magic textbook and a geography textbook to the second couch. "And where do you suppose light spells were perfected?"

Looking at the geography book, Draco climbed up on the couch and got comfortable. "Somewhere dark?"

Twilight wanted to shout in excitement at that level of logic, so she did. "Exactly! It was just north of Neighagra Falls, in the caves of those mountains where unicorns lived for a time, that the current series of light spells were perfected. Would you like to try casting it again for me?"

Drawing his wand out with a wing, Draco focused on the memory of the spell and started to form it.

Twilight interrupted Draco. "Wait. You've misshaped this corner. Try to focus again, and if you can't get this wiggle out, look it up and memorize it once more." 

When Draco just stared in surprise, Twilight produced the pattern for him. "Try making it with the weakest flow of magic you can, that will make it fill out with your magic but not actually cast."

Studying Twilight's spell, Draco did as she explained and formed the pattern in the air and fed it the smallest thread of magic he could. "Like that?"

"Perfect. Now give it all you've got."

The spell, when Draco fed it enough magic, almost drained him completely. The day before it had drained him completely—but now he had a little more in the tank. "Hey, I still have magic left over."

"That will be a combination of you using your magic up and your meditation. After we're done with spells, I'd like you to work on your meditation some more." Twilight moved to her next bookmark. "Okay, the next one is a spell to produce water. It looks like this."

Studying the next pattern, Draco said, "Oh, Bluebelle said I need to get some preening supplies. Something about I can't go using hers all the time."

"Indeed not. Perhaps we'll go after we're done with the spells. You have all evening to work on that meditation." Twilight held the water spell up easily, though the spell she was readying was a drying spell should Draco actually manage to cast it.





The trip to buy preening equipment was even odder than buying clothing. Draco had taken just the basic kit of brushes, combs, and tweezers, but Twilight had insisted he get a sample of each of the oils unscented so he could work out what he liked.

Now, sitting on the couch again, he tried to forget that he had what looked like a makeup kit sitting beside him. He especially focused on forgetting that it was his. 

It took time and focus to clear out the thoughts that continually tried to steal his focus, but one by one he purged them until he was down to just the breathing again. Once he was breathing slow and steady, then Draco started to cycle his magic out and in.

With each breath it became easier to just shut out the world and focus only on his magic—it also gave him time to reflect on his feelings and the day he'd just had.

Breakfast had been pretty good. Clothes shopping was just odd—though Draco could appreciate that he didn't look quite so much like a filly anymore. Not that he really understood what looking like a filly meant, apart from having a few more curves here and there and having eyelashes. He tucked away the idea of asking about eyelashes for later.

That's when he came to the preening. It was strange, but he could take Bluebelle's word that it was required because she seemed to know what she was talking about and had the respect of everyone. He couldn't help but compare her to Rubeus Hagrid—which seemed to be the exact opposite.

So he was up to thinking about Soft and Bright. They had been really good at playing ball and their magic was pretty good too. Draco couldn't help but think they'd both make great quidditch players.

They'd both just accepted him at his word when he said he wasn't a filly, and that was something that surprised Draco. Humans wouldn't. Humans always needed proof, but ponies trusted. It was a little crazy, seeming both good and bad. Draco was sure he could take advantage of that, but at the same time it would all backfire if he got caught.

Plus, given how much trust they'd shown him, Draco felt reluctant to do it.

And that led to the complication of lunch. Lunch had been amazing. With just one dish he'd been reminded of some of the best moments of his life with his mother. That finally broke him out of his focus. Crying, what Draco didn't expect was for Twilight to pull him into a hug.

There was nothing she could say to Draco, Twilight knew. Nothing she should say. All she could do is be ready for when he needed somepony to hold and be that pony. 

Every time Draco tried to move on—every time he tried to steer his thoughts away from his mother, another moment where they connected came to mind. He kept crying and crying until he ran out of tears and still stayed clinging to Twilight just sobbing.

After some time, Draco eventually managed to ask, "Will it get easier?" He sucked in air through his nose, resulting in a loud snorting noise. "Whenever I think about it getting easier, I realize it will mean I remember them less."

"There's room for another book in my collection." Twilight sometimes wished she had wings. She'd seen how effectively her daughter-in-law had used them to comfort ponies after the failed changeling invasion, and right now she thought it would be better if she could keep Draco at her side and gesture with her leg. Instead, she used her magic to sweep a pink glow around at the bookshelf. "If you'd care to write one?"

Draco froze at that. His mind hit the topic and started to pick it apart while he sat there. He'd never written a book before. In fact, he'd never so much as owned a diary before. He tilted his head down and looked at his hooves, then remembered they weren't the only limbs he had. "I—I could. How would I do it?"

A topic that Draco could work on and remember his parents with was—at least so far as Twilight thought—brilliant. "You will need to decide what kind of story it will tell. Will you tell it from your own point of view?"

"I think I should. It wouldn't feel right doing it another way. Should I start it from the first time I—I knew them?"

"That would be a good start. Every memory you have can be recorded and kept safe." Twilight levitated over a notepad and a pencil. "Why don't you try to come up with every instance you can of the earliest times you know them? Nothing is too early."

So Draco worked. He spent two whole hours just trying to come up with his earliest memories of his mother. He cried more, but he focused on writing everything down regardless. There was two whole pages filled with memories of his mother and father, and he felt good about that.

Running the feathers of his right wing over the first page, he let out a slow breath. "Pages won't forget them."

Lifting his head, Draco looked at Twilight. "Can you teach me more about magic?"





After another quiet evening and good breakfast, Draco spent most of the morning working on flight theory with Bluebelle. He had lunch with Twilight and went out to play some more ball with Soft and Bright.

When he found the alley again, Draco could see the two colts were talking about something. "Hey," he called.

Bright, the younger of the two colts, turned to face Draco. "Mom said you're a filly."

"I told her she was wrong," Soft said, walking over with the ball floating beside him in his magic. "She got annoyed I think."

"But you are a colt, right?" Bright asked.

There was a bunch of lies Draco could have used, but he didn't think he needed to. "Yeah. It's kinda complicated. There was an—an accident. I got turned into a filly and they can't turn me back, but I'm still a colt!" 

"So that's why Mom sent me to my room! I was right!" Soft stuck out his tongue at his brother. "See! I told you he was a colt!"

"Yeah, yeah. Let's play!" Bright used his magic to grab the ball from Soft and ran past Draco and Soft toward one end.

For Draco, it seemed such an easy way to describe his situation. An accident was what it was, and he'd been turned into a filly, but now he's a colt. It wasn't lying. Despite everything he'd been through at Hogwarts, he didn't feel like lying to Soft and Bright any more than he wanted to to Twilight and Night.

While playing, Draco continually came back to him not using his magic to play. He might not get the ball as often as the other two because of it, but every time he did, he scored with it. It wasn't so much that he was slightly smaller than them (he was, though), but he just felt light on his hooves whenever they tried to catch up to him.

But he knew what he should be doing. "I gotta go."

"What? Aww." Soft Cotton slumped his shoulders. "Is it about the thing earlier?"

"I didn't meant to! Mom was just—" Bright said.

"No. No really. I'm actually home from school on a three-month holiday, but there's all kinds of stuff I'm behind on, so I gotta learn it before I go back." He felt bad, leaving them without some kind of external force to break them up, but Draco wanted to get better at magic for many reasons, but one of the biggest was to be better at it than anyone back at Hogwarts.

"Ugh, school! Well, see you again tomorrow?" Bright asked, bouncing the ball he held a few times.

"Yeah! Same time again." Draco felt good about himself as he trotted back out into the street and made his way home. It was just as he reached the house that he realized he'd started to think of it as home—not because his parents were there, but because it was safe.

Opening the door, he was surprised to hear talking inside. "I'm home!"

"We're in the kitchen, dear. You can join us if you want, or spend some time working on your wings." Twilight shot her visitor a smile. When Draco poked his head around the doorway, Twilight turned her smile on him instead. "Take a seat, dear. I believe you know Celestia?"

"Hello, Draco." Celestia, having finally gotten Twilight to drop her titles, hoped she could manage the same with Draco.

Draco moved like in a dream, taking a seat at the table. "P-P-P—"

"Just call me Celestia, please?"

Nodding slowly, Draco took a deep breath, pulling in magic, then let it out again on his exhale. "Celestia"—Draco wasn't sure about using a royal's name on its own, but she didn't seem to be smiting him—"I, uh, I'm not sure what—Hi?"

"We were just having some tea and talking about a few things." Twilight used her magic to fetch the pitcher of apple juice from the fridge and a glass for Draco. "And I think you might be able to have some insight on that. Do you think Hogwarts would accept ponies as students?"

The question was a little confusing at first. Draco had just started really thinking of ponies as wizards and witches that his first thought was why wouldn't they? However, he could see problems. "Unicorn foals would need to learn a very chaotic way of making magic happen. I've only been reading about unicorn magic for a few days, and I can already tell it's far more precise than Earth magic.

"Then, if the student isn't a unicorn, they're going to need a wand. Honestly, I think you'd be better off sticking to pegasi at first. Earth magic uses a lot of gestures and waving motions, and I don't know if a hoof could manage them."

Pouring Draco a glass of juice, Twilight gave Celestia a knowing look. She'd spend the better part of an hour explaining that Draco was far smarter than what even he knew—now she was sure Celestia saw the proof of that.

"That's a very good assessment. I would rather put far less strain on their wand-stores. How many do they keep for such students?" Using her own magic, Celestia lifted her cup of tea and took a sip. She also floated one of Twilight's little cakes over to Draco on a plate.

"I don't know how many wands they have, but they had one for the Ronald Weasley." The name came from Draco with a little more snark than he'd intended. "Sorry, I just don't know much about that kind of thing."

"Perfectly alright, Draco. Twilight has been telling me you've been working on unicorn magic. How is that working for you?" Celestia was caught between a rock and a hard place. On one side she has her principles in not wanting to make use of a foal for political ends, and on the other she had a nation to run and political connections she felt a need to make.

"It's hard. Unicorn magic uses a lot more—well—magic. Twilight taught me some meditation to help build up my magic store and help me control how much I use. She also taught me a few spells." Feeling the slight tension in the room, Draco was sure it was all his fault somehow. After all, he was the only (ex) human present. "I can do a light spell, but I'd really like to learn telekinesis."

"You have your wings, though. Why would you want telekinesis as well?" Celestia asked.

"There's, uh, two friends I play ball with. They're both unicorns, and magic is allowed in the game, but they said I can't fly—not that I can fly yet anyway. If I could use telekinesis, I could play the game properly."

"That's my fault." Twilight sipped her tea. "The fact is, there is no pattern for telekinesis. It's the simplest spell of all. Can you make a light pattern for me?"

Reaching into the wand sheath in his cloak, Draco drew out his wand and put together the light pattern. He'd spent most of the night and morning focusing on the pattern, and was happy to see Twilight's nod of approval.

"Now, remove all but one point. Like this." Forming up a light pattern, Twilight took it apart until only a single point existed. It was an actual struggle for Twilight not to immediately activate her telekinesis because the power level for the spell was so low.

Draco followed the direction and made his pattern into a point. "Like this?"

"Exactly. Unlike light, telekinesis will constantly draw magic, though most find that their magic replenishes faster than telekinesis will use it. However, lifting heavy things or trying to lift yourself will drain you much faster." Twilight pushed just a little more magic and her horn started to glow.

When Draco pushed a little magic to his horn, the spell sucked hard. He panicked at first, but realized he was replenishing faster than he was using it. His wand was also glowing a white-silver chatter of magic. "Is this right?"

"Perfect! Now, try to pick up that cake off the plate there. Just think about holding the cake gently on each side, then apply less force to the top and more to the bottom." Cakes, Twilight realized, were a great first target for telekinesis. Not only was he going to be unable to break the cake in any way that would cause damage, but he would naturally be very careful of it.

Slowly focusing on the cake, the first thing Draco did was squeeze too hard and start to squish it. He rallied, though, and pictured a safe box around the cake. Then he realized it didn't need a top since it wouldn't fall out of the top.

Celestia spotted the problem just as Draco made it. Her quick reaction meant that she protected the ceiling, walls, herself, and Twilight from getting painted with squished cake. Draco himself, however, was another question.

"What happened?" Draco asked, using the expedient of being layered in a thin film of cake to justify licking his lips. The cake, of course, was delicious.

"It's a common mistake among new unicorns. You pictured a box, yes?" Celestia waited for Draco to nod. "And you thought, I don't need the lid! right?" Another nod. "The box you made was actually the limit of how far you were going to push. When you removed the limit on the top, it pressed down and against the inner limits with all the force it could—liquefying the cake."

Draco was about to complain that she should have told him that before he tried, but then he remembered how it had been in Hogwarts and was thankful that it was only cake and not some life-or-death situation. "You, uh, know a lot about teaching foals magic?"

Twilight giggled—it was impossible not to. "Draco, the most prestigious school in Equestria is named after Celestia not just because she's princess, but because she teaches there. She was my teacher."

It was a fair bit to take in. The ruler of Equestria was also a teacher. "Oh. We, uh, don't do things that way. Can I try again?"

Given some of the cake had made it into mouths, Celestia opted not to try to reconstruct it from all the pieces. Instead, she picked up another piece and set it on a plate for Draco. "You seem in good hooves here."

This time Draco picked up the cake by making a full cube around it. Now that he could picture the edges of the cube as limiting his grip, it became far easier to understand how his way of doing magic worked. "How do I make a side I'm not pushing on at all?"





Learning magic, learning how to manipulate the magic he stored, and how to manipulate the flow of magic into him. It was a heady mix, and made the magic of wizards and witches seem almost barbaric by comparison.

Draco sat at the desk in his bedroom and wrote more of what he remembered about his parents (struggling at times to keep his tears at bay), but when he had two pages written he felt there was more he wanted to write.

Pulling out a slip of paper, he started to write of his time in Canterlot. As he wrote, he kept questioning motives and double-thinking everything that had happened. Without a pony there with him, he felt his mind drifting back to the old way of thinking. 

Using his wand, Draco picked the piece of paper up with some telekinesis and then removed all six barriers around his grip. The paper became smashed together into a tiny cube, and with a little more effort he shrank that cube smaller still. "Mum, Dad, I don't like being that person anymore. I like—I like being a pony."

Crushing the cube a little more, Draco released his grip and let the tiny pea of paper drop into his feathers before he dumped that in the wastepaper basket. He turned from the desk, stripped off his cloak and climbed into bed without another word.





Morning came, as it inexorably did. Draco woke with warm memories of dreams that were slowly fading from his mind. A small part of him wondered why he had no nightmares of his parents deaths, but like the dreams themselves, that part of him retreated from the warm sunshine that poured into his room through the window.

Pulling a cloak on, Draco raced downstairs for breakfast, kept food in his mouth while Twilight and Night spoke of the day to come, and when it came time for him to go to his flying training, he raced out the door and into a gallop.

Running through the streets of Canterlot, Draco felt that solitary sensation that reminded him of Hogwarts as far away as he thought it could ever get. Even though he wasn't actually talking to anypony, just having them there helped him be what he felt was his better self.

"There he is! Cadet Draco!" Bottle Rocket snapped a salute at Draco, and was happy to watch him slide to a halt before her to salute back. "Sergeant Bluebelle is waiting over on training field three, cadet."

On Earth, Draco hadn't ever thought much about the military. They were below his family's standing, after all. One of the things he had been sure of, though, was that the army was full of male muggles with muggle weapons.

Equestria's military was far different. Earth ponies, unicorns, and pegasi of both sexes meant that the E.U.P. Guard was not just packed with mares and stallions, but every one of them seemed to understand not just what magic was, but also how to use it.

A whole nation of magic users was such an amazing thing to Draco. His father had been against the separation of muggles and wizards, or so Draco had heard, but here none of that mattered because there weren't any muggles at all. Everypony could learn their own magic if they wanted.

He trotted right up to Bluebelle on the training field and gave her another salute that he hoped was close to being right. "Today's the day, right?"

Returning Draco's salute, Bluebelle walked slowly toward the edge of the practice field. Being one designed for pegasi, this field was about a quarter of the size of most of the rest, and she made her way over and looked down. "You've tried gliding."

Draco nodded. The previous day she'd had him try gliding, and even though he'd wanted to flap, he wanted to learn how to fly properly so he'd just glided around.

"Perfect. Well, there's about thirty seconds of drop before you hit anything here, so let's go."

Unprepared to have a wing scoop him forward, Draco had barely a second of shock to realize how out of balance he was before there was no ground under him anymore—well, none immediately under him. 

Bluebelle kept moving after pushing Draco off Canterlot. She fell forward and stopped into a dive, but had to snap her wings out quickly because Draco had spread his barely two seconds into his fall. Matching her speed to his, she glided beside him. "Okay, so you have gliding and a good head on your shoulders. Try giving them a flap and see how it feels."

Draco's senses were all buzzing. He looked down, but the distance below him didn't seem that worrying. He'd flown higher on a broom and hadn't been afraid. "Okay, let me try to—" As he started to pull his wings up, it was like a lightning bolt of inspiration hit him. Draco pumped his wings once, twice, and on the third time he was back above the edge of Canterlot again.

"Ha! Knew you were a natural. Okay, keep away from the edge and let's fly around the city. This way." Running through Bluebelle's head was the surprise that a creature born without wings took to them so quickly. 

It didn't take Draco long to understand how the angle of his feathers and his wing positions gave him various amounts of lift, drag, or glide. He started experimenting with doing what amounted to aileron rolls and even a loop. By the time they circled to the opposite side of the city, though, his wings were starting to feel a little tired.

"Land over here." Bluebelle gestured to a grassy area where the mountain met the huge enchanted plate the city sat on. She landed first, bringing her back hooves down and back-winging to stop her motion and drop easily to the ground.

Watching Bluebelle, Draco tried to the same landing and almost nailed it perfectly. A breeze came in under his wings at the last moment and, with his wings fanned forward to slow him, he got blown backwards as his feathers caught the wind under them.

Draco didn't panic. He knew what was behind him was just empty air, and when one back hoof found no solid ground under it, he brought his wings out wide, set his feathers, and pumped down hard.

"Smart thinking," Bluebelle said, and waited to see what Draco would do next.

What he did was get about two ponylengths in the air and then slowly glide down to land beside her. "Did I mess that up?"

"Yes and no. Mostly no, but a little yes. When you back-wing like that, you need to angle your feathers to stop cupping air as fast as you can. The moment you have your speed arrested, you want to let go of the air." Bluebelle noticed the expression Draco held when he was absorbing information and smiled. "What you did after that, though, was one-hundred-percent pegasus. You didn't panic—even when your hoof came down on empty air—and just spread your wings to get to safety."

"Safety?" Draco thought about what had happened and then laughed. "The air!"

"That's it. While a pegasus is in the air, they're safe. The higher the better. There's not much that can harm you up there, not with a little training." Bluebelle started to walk through the grass toward the nearest street. "Your wings are tired though, right?"

Draco nodded. "Yeah, they don't feel sore, just—just tired."

"That's normal for a colt your age. You'll feel ready for more in about half hour. Twilight already knows you can ask for flying breaks. I want you flying at least three times a day outside of the time you spend with me. Work your wings until you feel like you do now." Nodding in the direction of Draco's home, Bluebelle spread her wings. "I'll see you tomorrow morning."

Draco watched as Bluebelle soared into the sky with less apparent effort than it would for him to take a step. His heart pounded as, several seconds later, he realized he could fly. Not just glide. Not just ride a broomstick. "I can fly."





Days flowed by like water. Draco learned more about flying in just over two months than he'd learned in all the time he'd ridden a broom, and he also had a far deeper understanding not just of magic theory, but how magic could be used.

"Why should I even go back to Hogwarts?" Draco asked, folding up his clothes and stuffing them in a chest.

"Because despite how much you've learned here, it's smart to learn other ways to do things. You have history and heritage among the others from Earth, you need to absorb that." Wishing she wasn't on the verge of telling him to just stay, Twilight looked at the silver feather she held in her magic. 

There was an odd feeling in the feather that made Twilight's magic tingle. It was a pegasus feather—one of Draco's—but there was something more about it that she couldn't quite put her hoof on. She tried to review what she'd done that had given her that same tingle.

"Well, at least I have something better to wear than all those annoying and overcomplicated robes." Not that Draco wasn't packing them, too, but he'd found that between his coat and the light jackets he wore, even the high-altitude chill of Canterlot wasn't a bother.

That's when Twilight's eye landed on Draco's wand. He was holding it in one wing and using it with a telekinesis spell to pack his bag, but it was the wand itself she was interested in. "Draco, put down your things for a moment and set your wand down on the bed."

"But I—" Draco reminded himself quickly that Twilight knew a lot more than he did about magic. Putting the shirt of his uniform into his trunk, he set his wand down on the bed. "Okay, now what?"

"Close your eyes and I'll pass you another wand. One I've been working on." Experiments, Twilight knew, sometimes needed blind trials—a term she found appropriate right now. When Draco closed his eyes, she slipped the stem of his feather into his outstretched wing's grip. "Now, try casting a simple light sp—" She didn't get any further because Draco's feather, in his own grip, started glowing.

"This isn't as good as my wand for focusing magic, but I can feel it working. What is it?" Opening his eyes, Draco stared at his feather. "Wait—"

"Feathers work like wands," they both said together.

When Draco recovered from the revelation, he focused his magic down one of the feathers he'd been thinking of as fingers and made another telekinesis spell—then picked up his feather from his own grip and carried it over to Twilight. "Well, this is going to make doing simple magic easier. I'll need to work on my magic capacity more."

"We make a startling discovery that could change magic as we know it in Equestria, and you want to focus on more meditation. Your name will be a co-author on this research paper, Draco Malfoy, I promise you that." Twilight took the feather from him, now an item she thought quite precious, and started heading downstairs. "When you're finished with that, we have one last thing to discuss."

Speeding up his packing, Draco heard a knock on the front door downstairs. Leaving his wand on the bed, Draco tried casting a second telekinesis with another feather. He managed it, moving and folding things even faster, but he also started to feel like his reserves were going down.

Pausing a moment, Draco had a new idea to try. With his two-feather-wands trick working, he started to practice one of the more advanced meditations where he opened himself as much as possible to magic. 

It kept up, barely. He was able to hold two light objects at the same time and couldn't feel any depletion of his magic. But, it took all his focus to manage the magic inrush, and he also made sure to only hold two similar items.

"This is really weird, Bess, but I think I'm getting the hang of it." The elephant in the room of Draco's mind, however, was his impending return to Hogwarts. "Maybe I can lie and tell them I figured out how to turn into a colt?"

For her part, Bess just flicked her tongue out to satisfy herself that Draco was still Draco, before coiling her way up his leg and to his shoulder.

Stretching his wing out, Draco let Bess coil around and under it as he folded it back down—giving her a warm home to rest and letting him fly if he really needed to. "Or I just bluster. Dare them to say otherwise and challenge them to duels. I'd need to practice my stunners more—" The worst bit was Draco knew exactly which student to ask to practice stunning spells with. 

"Draco, would you like to come downstairs? We have a visitor," Twilight said from the doorway.

"I'm all packed. Should I bring my luggage down?" Shifting his wing a little to get Bess settled, Draco climbed off the bed and picked up his wand to levitate the steamer trunk from the floor enough to carry it.

"Probably for the best. We'll be leaving in an hour." Twilight stepped back from the doorway to make room for Draco. She fought the urge to pick up his luggage herself and just let him lead the way back downstairs.

At the bottom of the stairs Draco saw Night talking with Celestia. He froze a moment before pushing on and walking into the room with his trunk. "Uh, hi."

Celestia gave her most reassuring—she hoped—smile and gestured with a wing toward the front door. "Hello again, Draco. Would you like to come outside with me to have a little talk?"

Letting go of the luggage, Draco looked back at Twilight before shrugging his shoulders and following Celestia out into the street. The noise of the city poured in around them, but when Draco expected ponies to notice that their ruler was among them, none seemed to. "Y-You wanted to talk?"

"I did. When you first came here to stay, nearly three months ago, Twilight Velvet contacted me to ensure you would have somewhere to stay even if you disliked her home." Celestia had a mild enchantment to make her look like a pegasus instead of her alicorn self—she mostly used it when she wanted to not get mobbed on the street.

It surprised Draco to hear that. "She didn't want me to live at her home? Or do you mean something different?" 

"The exact opposite, actually. She was worried you wouldn't like living in her home. She arranged for you to have Equestrian citizenship and, should you want it, a home of your own within Canterlot." Walking to the nearest intersection, Celestia headed for a little park off the main road. "Do you like living with Twilight and Night?"

"I haven't spent much time talking to Night, but he seems okay. Twilight is amazing, though. What she doesn't know about magic, she has a book about. When I was feeling bad about being turned into a—into a filly, she told me I could just be a colt. She even got me flying lessons." The words tumbled out. Draco just let them flow because if there was one thing Twilight had managed to instill in him in just three months, it was that he could be honest and not get punished for it. "I guess—Yeah, I do like living here."

"And you'd like to continue living here when you're done with your next semester of Hogwarts?"

It didn't surprise Draco how much the idea of not spending his next school break here hurt. Twilight had so much more to teach him and he wanted to practice flying more and learn everything he could about living in a city of magic users. "Y-Yes!"

"That's settled then. You will come back at Hearth's Warming, the train is running regularly now, and that means you can spend time here whenever you're not at Hogwarts." Celestia raised her only visible eyebrow. "Does that suit you?"

Draco stopped and thought about it. It meant stepping away from the wizards and witches living in the Crystal Empire and living more like a pony. After three months of doing that, he felt better about himself than he had in all his time at Hogwarts. "Yeah."

"Then I will ensure that is what is done." Celestia turned around and started leading the way back to the house. "Would you like to tell them yourself?"

The idea just telling someone he wants to move into their house caused more than a little British panic. Shaking his head, Draco was relieved to see Celestia nod.

"I'll tell them." Walking back to the house, Celestia knocked on the door politely when they reached it.

When the door opened, Draco saw Twilight standing there, looking at him, with concern in her eyes. It was the first time she'd been anything but the confident and knowledgeable mare he'd spent so much time with. He couldn't help himself, rushing forward and rearing up at the last moment to hug her. "I want to stay."

Twilight let out a sigh and put a foreleg around Draco. "You're always welcome here, Draco."





As the train approached the Crystal Empire stop, Draco tilted his wing up and poked his snout gently at Bess—who flicked his nose with her tongue to show she was still perfectly alright. "She doesn't like the cold. I might have to make her a little sock to wear."

"She's a very curious little snake." Twilight looked at the small reptile. "She often had opinions on how I should clean up your room. We came to an agreement when she learned I could make the whole bed warm with a spell."

"I'll have to learn that one when I'm home next." It might have surprised Draco a little, calling Twilight's house home, but it felt right enough. The train jerked and shuddered as it stopped at the station.

Her plans already in motion, Twilight just smiled at the comment. "Are you alright with the trunk?" She stood up and turned for the door just behind them.

"I can handle it. It's probably easier to just use a Levitation spell." Draco used his left wing and longest feather to sketch the spell in the air, then he channeled magic through it and spoke the spell aloud. The huge old chest rose slowly from the floor and required only the lightest touch of his telekinesis to move.

Observing Draco mixing pony and wizard magic, Twilight made her way to the door and stepped off the train. Plenty of other ponies were disembarking from other cars, and some from the other end of her own, but she made sure to step to the side to let Draco off. "Quite warm. I thought it was supposed to be cold up here?"

"It was a few months ago, when I left." Stepping off the train and pushing his luggage ahead, Draco spotted the edge of the huge, shimmering barrier not far from the station. "And it was warmer inside the barrier."

The walk through the city to the huge castle in the center was relaxing, and Twilight admired the city's layout and construction and discussed it with Draco. She knew he didn't really care, but appreciated him making remarks. 

Facing the castle itself, Twilight paused and turned to Draco. "Are you ready?"

Draco nodded, then shook his head. "They're going to call me a girl."

"Just tell them you're not. Anypony who keeps saying it isn't worth being your friend."

The advice, Draco knew, was right for ponies. If he stopped talking to a pony because of something they'd said, they would ask him about it and try to be friends again. Wizards and witches, he knew, would take more work. "Yeah, but that's not how humans work."

"Then beat them at their own game. Make your friendship something they value." When Draco shot her a surprised look, Twilight asked, "Did you think I wouldn't pick up on that?"

"Wizards and witches are basically—If something doesn't benefit them, they see no value in it. And Slytherin house is the worst for it. Can you guess what house I'm in?"

"You'll find something that they will want. Make them respect you enough to call you a colt and you've beaten them." Twilight moved when Draco did, walking beside him as they neared the guarded entrance of the castle.

"Are you here for the school or the castle?"

Twilight gave the guard her best smile. "The school first, then the castle. How do we—" She stopped when she saw Draco approaching some stairs to the side. "I believe he knows the way. Thank you."

Trotting to catch up to Draco, Twilight cleared her throat. "Could you show me where to find Headmistress McGonagall?" Hogwarts interior was shocking to Twilight's senses. The stairs seemed constantly moving, and there was a constant sense of magic-going-wrong that she couldn't shake.

"Yeah. It's this way." Draco knew the stairs well enough to lead the way up to the office he knew as Minerva McGonagall's. 

"This castle is very strange. I have to wonder if it isn't training for the strange way wizard magic works?" Stepping off the stairs and into a hallways, Twilight saw an upright-standing pony at the end of the hall wearing a dress as if she were bipedal. "Excuse me?"

Minerva turned at the voice and spotted Draco Malfoy walking beside a mare. She turned to face the pair. "You'll have to excuse the mess, I'm in the process of moving."

"That's her," Draco said, keeping pace with Twilight and nudging the luggage along.

"Headmistress McGonagall?" Twilight asked. At a nod, she continued. "My name is Twilight Velvet, I came to return Draco to your care."

Caught a little off-guard by the pronouncement, Minerva reached up with one hoof to adjust her glasses a touch higher so she could see things in her near-field. "I see. Is she doing well? You have all your things from the booklist?"

Twilight looked to Draco to see how he would react.

"E-Excuse me. I'm a colt, not a filly." As he spoke, Draco felt new certainty fill him. "I made a mistake before, right after I turned into a pony."

Minerva wasn't blind—not with her glasses on at least. She could see the soft lines of a filly in Draco, now that she knew what a filly looked like. "Am I to understand you found a method of transfiguring yourself?" Excitement buzzed through Minerva. She reasoned that if a student could manage even a slight change, she would surely be able to at least give herself hands.

Twilight wanted to wade into the conversation, but before she could come up with a calm way to tell the witch no, Draco started to speak.

"No. It's not that. It just doesn't feel right that I be a filly, so I decided I'm a colt." There was a spark of uncertainty in Draco, not for how he felt on the subject, but that he could explain it to Minerva.

The concept was novel to Minerva, if nothing else. In her time, whenever a wizard or witch felt as Draco did, they just used magic to go ahead and fix the problem. "I see. I'll continue my efforts toward finding a way to perform transfiguration magic on crystal ponies."

A thrill of victory ran through Draco. "I have all my booklist items."

"Excellent. Well, you best go to Slytherin common room and get comfortable. There are several other students already here." Minerva felt the conversation was at its end and turned back to her office and the pile of things she needed to haul up the secret stairwell to the headmaster's office.

"Would you like some help moving these things?" Twilight asked.

"Err. You can—?"

Before she got more than that, and wanting to show off for Draco's benefit, Twilight stepped over and poked her head in the room. "Where do you want them?"

Minerva didn't like being caught so off-guard. She fought for composure while also keeping the same stony exterior she always maintained. "In my new office at the top of the stairs at the end of the hall." No sooner had she said it than her furniture started to pop out of existence one by one. "Thank you."

Seeing such a display of magic carried out with precision and apparently lack of effort almost made Draco giggle. He knew there had been a lot of math and energy involved—and he was determined to learn all of it. "I'll put my things away now."