It was shortly before his tenth birthday when Harry suddenly started asking questions, seemingly frustrated about something.
“Mom! Why can you fly like that?”
I gave him a small smile.
“Because of what I am. I’m not human, Harry.”
He slumped.
“I want to fly as well!”
I chuckled.
“So, you want to have wings?”
“Yes! Raven black wings like yours, swallowing the light!”
Oh god. He is in that phase.
Dredging up a part of my magic, I condensed it into a purple-blue orb of magic that looked like it was just about to explode. I condensed it into a tangible form, holding it out to Harry. He, subsequently, took a few steps back, shooting the magic a skeptic look.
“You’re planning to poison me!”
“That’s the one way to give you wings that won’t involve surgery of either the magic or the mundane quality,” I deadpanned, condensing the blue part of it into a small sliver in the middle of the purple ball of energy.
“What in the nine blazes of hell is that.”
“It’s rings, not blazes,” I absent-mindedly responded, pulling out a grimoire from my pocket. It was co-authored by me and Nightmare, for while I could remember any magic, that ability was no longer as useful as it was before, as I would need to meditate on a spell to remember it fully. A consequence of learning too much about magic.
“Ah, here. This is a spell known as ‘night mother’s blessing’, or it was called that by the thelestrals it had created. Neither of us ever bothered to actually name it. Anyways, it will turn you, hopefully temporarily, into a thelestral.”
“Hopefully? And what’s a thelestral?”
“Something like me just with bat wings and no horn.”
Harry’s face scrunched up.
“I’ve seen those before! When you showed me that castle!”
I grinned.
“Correct! They’re guards, over there.”
“So, they’re strong and they can fly!”
He took a step closer to the volatile magic, kept in check only by my iron-like grasp on it. Harry extended his magic over it, trying to see the magic behind the energy, and his eyes started growing wider.
Then, he reached out, grasped the ball of energy, and pressed it into his chest, a ward of silence barely springing up in time to mask his scream of agony.
“You… you did this intentionally!”
I looked at him, unimpressed.
“If you reduce the pain caused by magic with magic, it just increased the time over which you will feel it.”
He screamed again, a ripping sound coming from his back, the magic taking mass from his body and reforming it into wings, spanning up sturdy skin between them, and growing wider, making him smaller and smaller in the process. His arms shortened, his face completely changed, and as the magic was coming closer to being finished, the pain being bearable now before the magic was finished, the pain only a dull echo of what it was before.
I knew that from experience.
“Seems like I got myself a little pony,” I couldn’t help but joke, wrapping a wing around the small, now asleep foal and pulling it against my body.
Wait a moment.
“Huh, that’s interesting. Why would it…” I said, before slapping myself.
“Right. Seven to three gender ratio.”
I grinned. ‘He’ would get the shock of his life when he woke up… especially if I were to tweak the magic around ‘him’ a bit…
Grinning evilly, I started casting a spell that would emulate the mirror portal, turning ‘him’ into the human version of his pony form.
When Harry woke up and looked around, the first thing they did was bring a hand to their back, feeling around and not finding any wings.
“The magic worked,” I added, grinning as they turned, looking at me.
“Then why am I not…” they started to ask, before slapping their hands over their mouth, eyes widening in shock.
“You tricked me!”
“I’m messing around, but I haven’t tricked you,” I said, thrusting my hand into their chest (of course after turning it ethereal) and pulling, bringing forth a visual representation of his magic. There were a lot of passive spell matrices stacked on his magic core, but apart from one, they were all quite old.
“A transformation spell? Wait… it changes my form!”
“Yup. Your thelestral body is female. I was quite surprised to learn that it was the magic of the ponies holding up the unbalanced gender ratio, I thought it to be something biological.”
I twisted the spell, shattering the magic into nothing. For a moment, Harry’s form stayed stable, and their eyes grew wide in the expectancy of pain, but the shift back to a quadruped form was painless.
“I thought… it would hurt,” he said, and I shook my head.
“That was because you were turned into something you were not. Now, that form is part of you, you can turn into it without experiencing pain,” I said, and he nodded.
“The same actually applies for your previous form, I think. I’m unsure why, but your magic has absorbed the magic I gave you, instead of being changed by it. Try focusing on your old form,” I said, and I then watched him turn back into a boy, his clothes reappearing on his body.
“But… can’t you change between your own forms so easy? Why would you be so surprised about me doing the same?”
“I don’t have two forms. I am shapeshifting, and the ‘other form’ I have is when I turn myself into my essence.”
Pulling out a (magical) magnifying glass, I started staring at his magic, comparing it to mine when I still was a mortal. I eventually realized what was different.
“Your magic has ‘notches’ for different magics to latch onto, but it seems like some block others if they’re used. The spell you absorbed should have vanished, but instead, it became attached to your magic. That’s why you are able to transform yourself.”
He stared at me.
“You wanted to transform me with that spell every time I wanted to go flying?!”
I nodded.
“Yup. Though, those kinds of spells stop hurting after the second cast, since your soul and magic have adapted to the two forms it targets by then.”
He just groaned.
“You are one cruel mistress.”
Deadpan at the (now again) male.
“Says the saint to the sinner.”