“Where’s Hailey?” Mrs. Weasley asked again, looking around.
Ginny looked up. “She said she’d meet us on the platform,” she told her mother. It was true; Hailey had been gone all day the day before, and just that morning, had stuffed her trunk into her hair- how she got it fit there so tracelessly, and not fall back out, Ginny had no clue- before promising to meet them and disappearing into thin air.
“I know, but if she doesn’t-!”
“I’m right here.”
Ginny jumped, and looked. Hailey was stepping out of the train behind her. “Oh,” she breathed.
“Sorry about that, I was a bit far down the train,” she smiled. “And some of these cars are pretty impressive- they’re really pushing the limits of space expansion spells with almost thirty times the capacity per car.” She laughed good-spiritedly, sounding much happier than she’d been ever since the world cup. “If they used the spacefolding that Hogwarts uses, they’d only need one car!”
“Really?” Ginny asked, tilting her head. “Doesn’t folded space require an anchor?”
Hailey blinked. “You’re right. They’d only need one car, but the train wouldn’t move, no matter what they pulled it with. Or dropped it from.”
“Ahh,” Molly muttered.
“What were you doing?” Ginny asked.
“Rebuilding everyone’s schedules,” she answered promptly. “Which reminds me- where’s Hermione at?”
Hermione poked her head around the edge of the car, stepping up off the tracks. “Someone say my name? Oh, there you are, Hailey! I’ve been looking for you!” She paused. “You look… Happier.”
She laughed. “You could say that,” she smiled. “You could also say I’ve already taken care of the nasty parts of the coming year, so I’m looking forward to a nice, relaxing year at Hogwarts. Or at least as relaxing as Hogwarts gets for any mere student that wears as many hats as I do.” She chuckled gently.
“You have…?” Hermione asked.
“Though of course, speaking of ‘as relaxing as it gets’, I just spent the last two days with the rest of the management team rebuilding everyone’s schedules from the ground up, alongside seeking out, training, and confirming almost fifty new Student Instructors.”
Hermione nodded slowly. “That’d explain why you were gone so much,” she muttered.
Hailey smiled. “Yup. And you might like to know that Twilight’s changing departments- which means we’re quite suddenly down a Charms HSI.” She drew a stack of pages from her hair, where it most likely wouldn’t have fit in the first place. “It’s yours if you want it. Oh, and wherever Rita is, we’re cleared to tell the world what their nation is called.”
Hermione looked up from the papers. “What? You mean we can finally stop calling them ‘the Foreigners’?”
Hailey chuckled. “I mean exactly that, yes. They’re Equestrians, and they hail from Equestria. They even speak Equestrian- a language that even Sadarina has never heard before.” She chuckled. “And it turns out that, when he realizes there are repercussions, Professor Crash Course from the CSGU is actually really good at administering crash courses, despite getting fired as a Student Instructor for goofing off.”
She looked down at the papers, and back up. “Weren’t they worried about me not knowing their secret?”
Hailey shrugged. “I’ve also got clearance to let you in on it,” she answered. “Just not here.” She looked past Ginny. “Oh, and Ron?”
Ginny looked. Ron was jogging up, with Silversong; he’d jogged off once they reached the station- with plenty of time to spare, for once- to apologize for missing her birthday.
Ron blinked. “Oh, Hailey! Long time no see!”
She laughed. “Yeah, it’s only been, what, two days?” She chuckled again, then offered him a much smaller packet of papers. “Whaddya say, yea or nay?”
Ron only took one glance at the front page before looking up. “Are you kidding me?” he asked. “Of course I’m in!”
“In what?” Charlie asked curiously.
Hailey giggled, and turned Ron around to face him. “Charlie, I would like you to meet Student Instructor Weasley for Defense Against the Dark Arts,” she said, and presented Ron. “And would you believe it, he’s actually not our newest student instructor.”
“I’m not?” he asked.
She chuckled. “No, that distinction belongs to the fifty-seven Student Instructors we hired after we decided to offer you the job, and realized just how much of a slam dunk it really was.”
“Slam dunk?” Bill asked.
“Uh, basketball term,” Hailey mumbled, rubbing her chin. “So… straight shot through the goal hoops with the Keeper on the other side of the field?” She scowled. “I’m not sure there really is a Quidditch equivalent for it, though. Oh, unless you count Gryffindor’s last match.” She grinned.
“Oh, you mean the one where Angelina scored six times but Gryffindor still won by only one fifty points to zero?” Ron asked.
She nodded. “Yes, the one that lasted six seconds but that nobody realized was already over for a good couple minutes afterwards.” She laughed. “Especially after that, I’m seriously debating quitting the team. It’s getting too boringly one-sided.”
“Six seconds?” Charlie asked. “And they didn’t declare cheating?”
She shrugged. “The rules say I’m not allowed to look for the Snitch during the first five seconds of play,” she told him, “and Madam Hooch saw that I was looking the other way and whistling a tune with my fingers in my ears for those first five seconds. We set a new world record that day.”
“... Ahh,” Charlie muttered. “That definitely sounds one-sided.”
“Anyways,” Hailey smiled, and turned to Silver. “Do you happen to know what a menstrual cycle is?”
Hermione gasped. “You’re asking her now?”
Silver scowled. “Never heard of it.”
Ginny scowled as well. “What is a, um, menstrual cycle?” she asked, being careful to pronounce it correctly.
Hailey looked at her, then up at Hermione, who put one hand over her circular mouth. Hailey had an unsettlingly mischievous glint in her eyes.
“What are you talking about?” Mrs. Weasley asked, scowling.
Ginny looked up, recognizing her mother’s tells for confusion. She’d obviously been listening, and hadn’t understood either.
“Menstrual cycles,” Hailey told her, very calmly.
“And that is?” Mrs. Weasley asked.
Hailey didn’t answer, instead looking at Hermione.
Ginny looked too.
Hermione’s other hand joined the first, covering her mouth as well, while her eyes sparkled with evident disbelief.
“We’ve got something to look forward to,” Hailey commented.
Hermione burst into laughter so suddenly it made Mr. Weasley jump.
It was that time of year again, Professor McGonagall knew. And with a mere thirteen thousand, three hundred and thirteen first-year students to sort… She very nearly laughed at how it had become only thirteen thousand new students. The influx had peaked at well over fifteen thousand, but that wave was comprised of third years.
She liked to cherish every student. Each one was unique, every time- and each would inevitably bring their own strengths, their own weaknesses, their own lessons. That was the reason she’d teamed up with the other gods to create Hogwarts so long ago.
Then, over the last three years, Hogwarts had exploded from a mere two hundred and seventy students to just under a whopping forty-four thousand. And this year… How exactly Hailey- who was still the Student Instructor Program Management Team Lead- had already produced not just the second, third, and fourth-year schedules, but also the first-year schedules, all with explicit gaps preplanned for the events of the Tournament, she had no idea. It was like she already knew which house each student would be sorted into, and how the year would go down!
But with so many thousands of students, she was no longer able to fully cherish each student’s name- especially since it required her power to keep the Sorting down to a ten-minute affair. Time manipulation like that wasn’t her specialty; no, that was Helga’s. But she wasn’t half-bad at it, and could handle thirteen thousand students in ten minutes. Fifteen thousand, two years before, had pushed it to eleven minutes.
So of course she got caught up in the motions of what she was doing, and didn’t really process the names passing her lips. As a matter of fact, it took the second familiar name in a row to jog her memory and get her to realize exactly who was getting sorted.
“Potter, Lily.”
The name before had been ‘Potter, James’, a Gryffindor, unless her memory was failing her.
The girl that pranced forward had an excited gleam in her eyes, rather than the curiosity or worry in all the others’ eyes. And, true to her name, she resembled the Lily Potter she knew… despite obviously being a Foreigner.
The resemblance stopped at her face, though. Her hair was as brilliantly red as the youngest Weasley’s had become, mixed with brilliant dashes of gold that made it look like her head was on fire, and her body was small and lithe. When she picked up the Hat, Professor McGonagall spotted the lines from well-defined muscles underneath her sleeves- something that the Foreigners just didn’t have, being almost alarmingly alike, and she was certain the Lily she knew hadn’t had.
But it was something she’d gotten used to seeing on Hailey’s and Hermione’s arms, and had noticed on the youngest Weasley as well.
“Gryffindor!” Godric’s Hat called. It wasn’t too long ago she’d once again had the pleasure of watching it sort him himself. Only some… oh, how long had it been? Fifty or sixty years?
In any case, even as she called out the next name on the list, she watched in the corner of her eye as the girl pranced off to join the Gryffindor table… and tossed herself down next to Hailey with a ‘Good morning, Princess’ that made her laugh.
“Morning?” Hermione scowled, where she was sitting next to Hailey as the strange girl sat on her other side. “Don’t you mean evening?”
Hailey stifled her laughter. “It was a joke, Hermione. It’s been- what, thirteen years?” She looked down at the girl, who nodded. “Thirteen years since she last had anything to eat.”
“An interesting way to say that,” the boy on the girl’s other side muttered. He’d been sorted just before she had, but Hermione hadn’t caught either of their names. “And technically, we have had stuff to eat for the last few months. But you’re right, it was about thirteen years.”
Hermione looked at them. “Thirteen years without food…? How did you survive?”
They both laughed. Even Hailey did.
“Oh, we didn’t,” the girl chuckled. “Did we, Hailey?”
Hailey chuckled. “Oh, I’d say you were plenty alive, though a little less corporeal.” She grinned at Hermione. “Hermione, meet Lily and James Potter, my parents.”
“... They’re younger than you.”
The three of them seemed to find this very funny.
“We were-!” Lily began. “We were-!” She couldn’t stop laughing long enough to get it out, whatever she was trying to say.
“They were recently resurrected into Equestria,” Hailey told her. She glanced over at them. “Speaking of, was it as adults or did you get younger?”
James chuckled. “Oh, we got younger,” he told her.
“Yup!” Lily cheered. “We’re a pair of homeless f- er, children!” She seemed far too excited about being homeless. “But of course, I’m an Aethr and James is a Raeth, so between the two of us, we were pretty self-sufficient.”
Hailey tilted her head. “I can see that. But how’d it go?”
“Well,” James told her. “About three days after Harmonia told you about the possibility, she called us back in, talked to us about it, and finally sent us through the portal to get resurrected.”
Lily giggled. “First time we’d ever crossed it. Every time you did, we got left behind- but finally, we found out what Equestria looks like!”
James chuckled. “Harmonia also gave us a little knowledge- through that ‘skill transfer’ spell Hermione invented, I’m pretty sure- so we might as well have been Equestrian adults that had been resurrected as f-children, not British ones. Add a few months and we had Hogwarts letters.” They both laughed.
“Might as well start the next eternity with a duplicate education alongside our daughter,” Lily smiled, leaning in to hug Hailey. “Oh, here comes Sadarina!”
Hermione glanced up, almost instinctively making space for Sadarina to sit next to Hailey. “The next eternity?” she asked.
“Well yeah,” Lily smiled, watching Sadarina cheerfully insert herself between Hailey and Hermione, now sporting her own Gryffindor House badge. “You probably know that you and Hailey are already immortal, and Sadarina always has been?”
Hermione blinked. “I’m-?”
Lily shrugged. “Well, Harmonia did one better than just resurrecting us. We’re also both Phoenix-born now- we’ll live forever, until and unless we’re killed.”
“And that will be basically impossible until Hailey dies,” James mused, rubbing his chin. “Until then, the magic of Equestria will just keep bringing us back even if we do manage to die.”
Hailey sighed, looking almost wistfully up at the ceiling. “Honestly, I’d like to see the… force capable of killing me,” she muttered.
“Wh-What?” Hermione asked, staring at her.
She shrugged, and spoke solemnly. “After I treated the laws of physics as mere guidelines last week, I tested it out- and even the strongest attack I could manage couldn’t penetrate the weakest shield I could make with as little power as I could put in it.” She shrugged again. “I would be completely unsurprised if you told me it’d be easier to break the planet open than penetrate my skin. My Unique Talent must just be that powerful.”
Hermione tilted her head. “Do you know if you can suffocate or drown?”
Hailey looked at her. “Well, I’m still breathing, and I still get hungry, so presumably yes, I still have needs. But I specified force, not method, because with my strength…” She sighed, and looked down. “All I have to do is warp the laws of physics again and suddenly I’m no longer being suffocated or drowned.”
“What if it’s a Dementor?” Ron asked, from Hermione’s other side.
“I’d like to see the dementor that would be willing to drain Hailey,” Sadarina said suddenly, with a hard, almost dangerous edge to her normally delicate voice.
“Or something like Morning?” Silver asked suddenly, from across the table from Hailey.
“With Morning Sun by her side?” Sadarina grinned. “They’d never stand a chance. Besides, unlike Dementors, all of their debilitating techniques would be deflected by her natural wards.”
“What about once Morning dies? Or Sadarina?” Ron asked.
“Oh, I doubt that’s going to happen anytime soon,” Hailey mused. “Morning is basically immortal already, and Sadarina told us not too long ago that the only way she can die is starvation, didn’t she?”
Ron scowled. “Yeah, I suppose,” he muttered, rubbing his chin.
“Actually,” Sadarina mumbled. “Dementors do have… one fear.”
Hailey looked down at her. “You do?”
She nodded. “Boggarts.” She looked up at Hailey. “Whenever they see us, they turn into dementors as well… but they’re not real dementors. They can drain us as well- and they do. That’s actually why we fell into the despicable state we were in for so long in the first place- there were only five of us at the time. Me, my brother, and my children. Three of them, at least- my son wanted to wait, so he hadn’t been turned yet.” She sighed. “Dementorhood was a success. My husband died before we could turn him- but when we engaged in battle… we took various curses, including the Killing Curse… and none of them really bothered us. Sure, they damaged our bodies, and we’d have to fix that, but we had plenty of energy to spare for that.” She smiled up at Hailey. “Not as much as we do now, of course.
“We were all in the same room when we found the Boggart.” She shivered, and Hailey hugged her. “I… I still remember it as if it were yesterday.”
Hailey patted her head. “You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to.”
Hermione glanced up briefly, and spotted the characteristic shimmer of the inside of her privacy spell. Hailey must’ve cast it at some point in the conversation that she hadn’t noticed. It looked like everyone was inside it- including Ginny, sitting on Silver’s right, across from Sadarina, and Ariel, across from Lily and on Silver’s left.
“Gratia,” Sadarina said. “Tertinia. Maecilia.” She closed her eyes, and sighed. “They were new. They were weak, compared to us.” She took a deep breath. “All three of my children died before we were able to subdue the Boggart. I felt their dying gasps over the Hive.
“Then… me and Primus were left with very little energy, and badly wounded bodies. Primus turned some twenty strangers against their will, over the next few days, in an attempt to recoup the lost energy… but it was a failure. Whenever we turn someone, the resultant Dementor will never have more energy than the one that turned them, and only very rarely as much.” She sighed. “Then… he became the first Husk, and our battle to survive began. We approached the Ministry of the age with our dilemma, and offered to serve as prison guards- where we wouldn’t have to feel guilty about draining people.”
“Are any of those…?”
She shook her head. “None of those twenty are alive today. Neither is any other Dementor turned during the following two hundred years or so.” She sighed. “I… I am, in a very real sense, the mother of Dementor Kind- even though all of my own blood died so long ago, and the first one I turned is over a thousand years younger than me.”
Hermione rubbed her chin. “Hmm… I think I have a new project.”
“Oh?” Ginny asked, raising an eyebrow.
She nodded. “Boggart defense for Sadarina,” she said. “Can’t have such a creature endangering her again.” She scowled. “I don’t know how I’d test it, though.”
“Oh, that’s easy,” Sadarina smiled. “You could test it against a Dementor.”
“But Dumbledore wouldn’t let one into the Castle…”
“There’s one sitting right next to you,” Sadarina snickered.
“Wha-?” Hermione began, looking around. “I- I don’t see any.”
“Me.”
She paused. “... Oh. Right. But you haven’t been…”
“Just because I haven’t been draining the happiness from my environment doesn’t mean I can’t,” Sadarina told her simply. “It just means I no longer need to in order to survive.”
“Right. Sorry.”
Sadarina smiled. “Oh, don’t worry about it.”
There was a pause.
“So, uh,” Ron muttered, into the awkward silence. “Hailey, who are you worried about?”
“You,” she answered instantly. “You and Diamond don’t currently have any means for indefinite lifespan nor resurrection.”
Silver raised an eyebrow. “Oh? What about me?”
She shrugged. “Oh, there’s some special circumstances surrounding your death.”
“Special circumstances? You mean how Draco died?”
Hailey laughed. “Nah, not quite. Though I am debating publicly killing Harry in a similar manner, just so I don’t have to be him again.”
“Wh-What?” Ginny asked, looking horrified.
“What?” Hailey asked her curiously.
Hermione also looked, unsure of why she and Ariel were so concerned.
“Y-You’re talking so calmly about killing someone,” she muttered.
Hailey blinked. “Right, we never did tell you, did we?”
Hermione blinked, realized what it must have sounded like to Ginny, and clapped a hand over her mouth to try and hide her giggles.
“Tell me what?” Ginny asked.
“Well, I kinda am Harry,” she told Ginny simply. “Just like Silver was Draco, until we killed him.” She smiled. “Don’t worry, nobody died, only the public identity.” She glanced up. “Oh, the Sorting is over.”
Hermione looked up as well. True to Hailey’s word, Professor McGonagall was picking up the Hat and Stool to escort them out of the room.