//------------------------------//
// Chapter 50: The Big Lie 
// Story: Harry Potter and the Prancing of Ponies 
// by The Guy Who Writes 
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A/N: To pre-empt a question many of you will probably have in the first five seconds of reading this chapter, I've decided that the Killing Curse at the end of Chapter 49 won't be explained for a while. I'm not primarily doing this for the sake of presenting a puzzle to the reader. For the most part, I just didn't want to spoil what happened during his time in Equestria, which that explanation scene will do.

I was debating if I should upload all the 'rehabilitation' chapters sequentially, but I decided it was getting a bit boring to have too many of them in a row, and that'll be true for future chapters too, effectively meaning we'll be regularly jumping from past to present. So it's time for more wizarding world shenanigans.







11:45 PM, June 13th, 1992.

By the end of the broad outline that Riddle had provided for the 'play' they would be enacting, Hermione had a million questions that there wasn't time to answer. Things like, "Exactly how are you going to gather his followers to make it convincing?" And, "Just why are you so confident you can fool everyone, including the Death Eaters?" And most importantly, "Do we really have to do this?"

But she could see how it would help them change magical politics for the better if they could pull it off. She could see how it would help muggles and muggleborns. She could see how it would even help Slytherin House and purebloods like Daphne in the long run.

She just didn't like that they were lying. She really, really didn't like it. Even if they would be telling Professor McGonagall and the Head Auror and a few other important people the truth, it didn't sit right with her. She had at least been given the choice of accepting the mission or not. She didn't have to be involved. They could always pretend that she revived some other way.

In the end, despite her distaste, she said that she would do it. It was clear Professor Riddle was set on doing it, no matter what she said, so she decided she should be there to minimize the damage in any way she can. Plus, she wanted to be by Harry's side, and she wanted to make sure their Professor told the truth afterwards like he promised. She couldn't do that if she stayed on the sidelines.

Her role in the lie was tiny and easy to remember. She'd need her phoenix, which had been returned to her from Professor Riddle's cloak, and she'd need an invisibility cloak, and she would need the perfect timing…







The final, anticlimactic Quidditch match of the year, which for the watching crowd of students had become an extremely climactic debate about what should be done to fix Quidditch, came to a grinding halt when the broomsticks of the players all stopped working at the exact same time.

Given how loud and intense the arguing had been, it took a few seconds for the news to spread. It started with shouts from the students who had actually been watching, who tried and failed to compete with the shouts about snitches and house points and tradition and fairness. The Quidditch debate didn't really stop until Lee Jordan's amplified voice said, after it's initial "And now they're all diving, amazing, great work- wait. I don't think they're diving, are their broomsticks not working, HEY, THEY'RE FALLING! DO SOMETHING, PROFESSORS!"

This was sufficient to stop the crowd cold, everyone turning to pay attention to the game that had, up until that moment, been more like background wallpaper to frame the debate than a source of entertainment in itself.

By the time all attention was on the pitch again, the Quidditch players were already moaning on the ground.

Harry Potter, returned to the center of the debate after a brief trip to 'the bathroom', was currently surrounded by all the professors who, up until that point, had barely been keeping the peace. This meant he was in the perfect place to hear Professor Flitwick's high, squeaky voice when it had cast a spell.

Harry sighed in relief as the Charms Professor's wand lowered, sweat clearly visible on his forehead from making such a large and billowing cushioning charm, spread over such a wide area, at such a great distance from the caster.

Not that a fall from that height would have killed or even maimed any of the players, who were decked out in protective equipment that made them even more resistant to falls. But still, it was quick thinking by the Head of House Ravenclaw. Or maybe it was quick reflexes by a former dueling champion. Either way, nobody seemed to be hurt.

Show time.

On the other side of the stands, Professor McGonagall's alarmed voice shouted, "He what?!" Then, still alarmed, and now magically amplified, she shouted, "Students! Evacuate the stands! Immediately!"

Meaning that a sickly Professor Quirrell, barely able to ride a broomstick, had just informed her that Lord Voldemort had placed a (already deactivated) Blood Fort Sacrifice beneath the stands.

Next, comes...

A massive, translucent red sphere descended over the entire Quidditch Pitch, colouring everything in a light shade of crimson.

Now there should be…

High-pitched, manic laughter reached everyone's ears. It was not the terrible laughter of Voldemort, but the gleeful delight of his most faithful servant.

Harry felt like he was watching a movie whose plot had been spoiled to him in advance.

From the watching aurors, whose broomsticks were also not working anymore, there came a deep, male voice that shouted, "Bellatrix Black!"

He must have recognized her by voice alone, Harry thought, because the script didn't call for her to be revealed just yet.

The watching students, who before had been trying to comply with Professor McGonagall's demands out of fear from reprisal and out of confusion about what was going on, now devolved into a full-blown panic to escape. Pandemonium erupted throughout the entire student body of Hogwarts-

A moment before a smaller barrier (a translucent, purple, rectangular prism) trapped students and professors alike in the stands, blocking all exits before a single person managed to get out. A captive audience. (One that hadn't had time to trample anyone as they fled, thank Merlin.)

"Ah, ah, ah," tutted the voice that everyone now knew belonged to the most evil person in the world. "No escaping. My Lord wants witnesses for his return!"

Or rather, from the audience's perspective, she should have just been demoted to second most evil now that the most evil was about to come back.

While Bellatrix was busy laughing madly, Harry glanced at the raised part of the stands that held the announcers. As planned, Professor Quirrell was on the outside. He was slumped across a broomstick, hovering in front of Professor McGonagall, separated from her and Lee Jordan and the rest of Hogwarts by a purple wall. (Which, for the purposes of this plot, did not block sound or sight at all.)

Some students were already looking at Harry, as if expecting the Boy-Who-Lived to be able to do something to stop the Dark Lord's return. "Wands out, everyone!" he said in a loud voice.

It was the Royal Canterlot Voice, which he had a small amount of practice using, though he didn't realize he could use it as a human until Professor Quirrell explained that it was one of the spillover powers from his full ascension as a pony. It wasn't a spell, really, just something alicorns could do with the right mindset.

"Spread apart from each other as much as possible and start firing shield breakers!" Harry Potter commanded the students and teachers of Hogwarts. "I want everyone to jump to the ground as soon as that barrier goes down! Aurors outside the barrier, get the fallen players OUT of the pitch!"

"Ah, Harry Potter," breathed a high, cold voice, interrupting the students and adults as they began to do as he said. Eyes turned to the recently-cleared center of the Quidditch pitch. "Ever the hero."

At the stroke of midnight, with a bright flash and a loud crack, Lord Voldemort appeared in the center of the arena as if summoned by lightning, surrounded by about twenty Death Eaters.

(With how many there were, Harry was worried that not all the ones who had children in Hogwarts had been left out of this raid, like Riddle promised. He knew Lucius and his minions wouldn't be here, at least. Were there really that many non-Azkaban, non-dead, non-Hogwarts-parent Death Eaters?)

"You won't be escaping my Blood Fort Sacrifice that easily," Voldemort's high voice said, still addressing Harry. "In fact, you won't be escaping at all." A cold chuckle reverberated throughout the stadium. "The Boy-Who-Lived, soon to die."

The Death Eaters scattered the moment they appeared, except Bellatrix Black who stood by her Lord's side. Perceptive watchers might have noticed that she was missing an arm. Most of the Death Eaters went to the red shield surrounding the whole pitch, touching it with their wands as if to reinforce it, while the rest did the same with the shield around the students.

The aurors were greatly outnumbered, not to mention outmatched. It was all they could do to maintain shields around the downed Quidditch players and hope that Dumbledore arrived soon. If they attacked, they would fail, they would die, and the Quidditch players, not to mention their families, might be slain as punishment for their insolence. Tom Riddle expected that to be their perspective, their role in this play, and if any deviated, a jab from Voldemort's wand would cause them to collapse into unconsciousness.

In the brief time that it took for the Dark Lord's monologue to happen, the slumped form of Professor Quirrell had directed his still-functioning broom towards the field, catching Voldemort's full attention.

"And here we have the brave Defense Professor of Hogwarts to oppose me." An amused chuckle. "Sickly, half-dead, and ready to fall over. I see that my curse is still working beautifully after all these years. Tell me, how are you evading my anti-anti-gravity jynx?"

There was a hacking cough, followed by, "Figured out your method of flight, snakeface." The broomstick fell to the ground, even as the Defense Professor, still slightly slumped, remained in the air.

"Is that you, David Monroe?" asked the Dark Lord, sounding surprised and delighted. "After all these years? What a wonderful rebirthing present. I never imagined I would watch you perish with my own eyes."

"And I never imagined," coughed out Professor Quirrell, "that I would manage to thwart you one final time."

"Thwart me?" asked the voice of Voldemort, still amused. "What an interesting conceit. How exactly to you intend to do it? You have no power. No health. No family. All you have is your life, and you barely have that."

Professor Quirrell gave a little chuckle, though it ended in a coughing fit. "Didn't need power, or health, to steal the Philosophers Stone. Only cleverness."

"What?!" said the voice of Professor McGonagall, but a jab of Voldemort's wand silenced her.

After that, he began clapping, his wand hovering before him, still trained on Professor McGonagall. "Well done, I must say," complimented the Dark Lord, red eyes fixed on the Defense Professor of Hogwarts. "I was not looking forward to foiling that old fool's trap. Out of curiosity, did you somehow convince Dumbledore to deactivate it for you, or did you evade him completely?"

"He sacrificed himself," said Quirrell. "It was too late to stop, so he reversed the Mirror's power and trapped himself outside of Time."

The Dark Lord threw his head back and laughed. Terrible and wicked, high-pitched and searing cold, the laughter reached all the students, all the professors, as the dread of helplessness and despair settled over them all. No, Albus Dumbledore would not be coming to save them. Professor Flitwick’s failed attempt to send his Patronus to the headmaster reinforced this feeling tenfold.

"Avada Kedavra!" said the voice of Professor Quirrell, aiming green death at the Dark Lord who was laughing in schadenfreude and victory.

The Dark Lord easily sidestepped the spell, which sunk through the ground behind him (and would be intercepted by Hermione's Patronus). Voldemort grabbed his floating wand and, with a gesture and a word, the Defense Professor collapsed from the air to the ground, gasping in pain.

Even from this distance, it could be seen that his hair had gone from greying to white. His skin shriveled and thinned even more, wrinkles and blotches of age and sickness appearing on his face and body, though only the Quidditch seekers could probably see all that detail from a distance.

"Nice try," said Lord Voldemort. "But no. Despite your pointless attempt to slay me just now, you have done me a great service, and so I offer a reward. If you take my mark and swear fealty to me, I will restore you to full life and health in return."

"In... your... dreams... snakeface."

"A fool to the end," sneered the Dark Lord, sounding unsurprised. "In that case, you have but one thing that I want. Mark my words, I could kill you now and take it myself. But out of respect for our rivalry-" he was really laying it on thick with the self-flattery, wasn't he? "-and your defeat of Dumbledore, I offer you the rare chance to save your students. If you submit to my wand with dignity and surrender the Stone of your own free will, I might be convinced to let most of your students go, even some of the Gryffindors-"

A coughing fit interrupted the Dark Lord. It wasn't loud, but it (magically) carried.

"Even if... I could..." another cough, "it's not worth... you getting... the Stone. But... I no longer... have it. I only… stole it... to stop... you... from stealing it. I already... hid it... and Obliviated... myself... of where... I put it... after... a Patronus Charm... informed... Master Flamel... where it was."

"I have a means of finding it wherever it lay," said Voldemort coldly. "You have just doomed-"

"Lie," said Professor Quirrell. "Bluff... so Flamel... would have Dumbledore... put Stone... in Hogwarts. And now... Flamel knows... it's a bluff... too."

"Crucio!"

The screams of Professor Quirrell were not particularly loud, but like his faint words, they carried to the entire student body.

Harry flinched. Watching his mentor torture himself wasn't a pleasant experience, but he couldn't say Tom Riddle wasn't giving this his all. Unless he'd found a way to resist the Cruciatus, like Harry suggested, or fake its casting. If he had done either, you couldn't tell from the screams.

Harry decided that now would be a good time to focus on something other than the main scene.

Professor Flitwick was grim. He looked like he wanted to kill Voldemort himself, if only he had the chance. But the professor probably knew that it was impossible, despite his dueling background, and he would stick to his duty of defending the students. The other professors wore similar looks, or frightened looks, or held back tears.

The students around Harry wore hateful expressions, or concerned expression, or they were looking away, or closing their ears. Even the students that he had been mentally referring to as 'future Death Eaters' (i.e. Robert Jugson, the Carrow twins, and a few others) looked torn between their Dark Lord and their Defense Professor. Though they probably weren't feeling all that loyal to Voldemort at the moment, given that he hadn't let them out of the barrier yet, as many of them were probably expecting.

"Give me some space," Harry said quietly to the students around him. His wand slowly rose into the air. His other hand rose as well, taking a shape that was instantly recognized by everybody in the immediate vicinity. "Professor Flitwick, make sure no one on this side of the barrier interferes."

He did not cast any spells, not yet, but the students around looked like they expected him to, especially given the gesture his non-wand hand was poised to make.

Nobody said anything, nobody questioned him. Most were too busy agonizing over their professor's agony. But they did give him space enough to move his arm without hitting anybody. Flitwick eyed the students around him as this happened, especially the Slytherins.

Eventually, the screams of Professor Quirrell cut off, replaced by much more laboured breathing that somehow (i.e. with magic) still reached the stands.

"You have just condemned yourself and your school to death," the Dark Lord said, voice as cold as an empty void. "Any last words?"

And with what might have seemed like his final breath, the Defense Professor of Hogwarts said, "Go... to hell."

That was Harry's cue.

His arm was already in the starting stance for the Patronus Charm, his fingers already executing the motions along the wand while his other fingers were already poised.

As the Dark Lord's wand pointed at Professor Quirrell, three voices shouted at once.

One said, "Avada Kedavra!"

The other two said, "Expecto Patronum!", accompanied by the (amplified) sound of Harry's fingers snapping.

Two moonlight figures blazed into existence just as the green spell blasted from the Dark Lord's wand. The two glowing human shapes materialized shoulder-to-shoulder with their hands outstretched, as if the two were saying "Stop!" as one. The green spell collided with one of the hands, and then both spells winked out.

What the script called for next was for Harry to pretend like his scar was hurting while Voldemort exploded and his Death Eaters screamed in pain and vanished in flashes of (teleportation) light, leaving only ashes behind.

And that's exactly what happened, except that Harry didn't have to act. He didn't have to pretend that his scar was hurting because it was hurting.

Only it shouldn't have been. This was one of the final things that had convinced Harry that his mentor was truly redeemed, that the difference between their two spirits was no longer so terrible that they could not coexist in the same world. Tom Riddle, in human form, did not produce a Sense of Doom to Harry Potter, also in human form. None whatsoever. They could cast magic on each other without pain or discomfort. They tested it earlier.

Only, Harry would think to himself after the fact, they had not run this test on the Voldemort body that Tom Riddle would be creating and entering.

That was, in retrospect, a mistake. But thankfully not a fatal one. It might have even made the whole thing more believable. It seemed like Voldemort was being torn apart by chaotic fluctuations in magic because he was being torn apart by chaotic fluctuations in magic. It seemed like the Boy-Who-Lived was screaming in pain because he was screaming in pain.

It was worse than it had been at Azkaban, so bad that he couldn't think except in brief flashes of memory and decision-making. He threw away his wand, making the pain slightly more bearable, making rational thought slightly more possible. He had time to think animagus? to himself, time to think pony form is magical, might not work to himself, time to think pony form not affected by resonance to himself, and time to decide to just ride it out, since it was getting better over time, not worse.

Revealing his pony form was something he wouldn't be doing unless absolutely necessary. Well, revealing that his pony form was the animagus form of Harry Potter was something he wouldn't be doing unless absolutely necessary. He might reveal the form itself before that point. But nuances like that would go through his head later. Right now, there was mostly just the mental concept of 'bad idea to change'. Other than that, there was pain.

By the time he'd come to his senses again, he found that he was on the grass, no longer in the stands, with Professor Flitwick hovering over him. "Take me," Harry bit out through the stress, which was thankfully subsiding, "to Professor Quirrell."

Professor Flitwick didn't argue or hesitate. He simply levitated Harry into the air again and gently pushed students aside until they were looking at a wasted man, skin fragile and blotched, hair white and thin, face wrinkled and weathered like an old man on his deathbed. He was laying peacefully on his back, guarded by Hermione's moonlight Patronus. He tilted his head to face Harry when he came into view.

This would be the final instance of Professor Quirrell, the final time that Tom Riddle took this form, just like the Tom Riddle of one time-turned hour ago had been the final instance of Lord Voldemort. It felt like saying goodbye, because in a way it was saying goodbye. Harry was about to lose his mentor in a way that might or might not ever allow him to get the mentor he knew back – he had already lost his mentor that way – and it had been and would be both a good and bad thing.

Mostly good, though.

"Is there time to take you to St. Mungos?" he asked, because that's what the Harry Potter of a year ago would have asked.

A very, very small shake of the head. "I would not survive... apparition... or portkeys... or floo travel," said the very weak voice of Professor Quirrell. "Nor the trip... to the castle... or beyond the wards. Better I perish... in peace. Well done... my student."

"Well done yourself," said Harry. They hadn't planned out exactly what they would say, just the general beats of the story, so Harry was improvising.

It went entirely without saying that almost every student in Hogwarts was either watching or trying to watch, along with almost every professor.

"Give them some space, please," squeaked out Professor Flitwick. The press of students backed up a little, the circumference of the watching circle widening, allowing a few more students to see.

"And... well done... my other student..." continued that weak, dying voice, now addressing the Patronus that still stood on the grass. "I take back... the grade... I gave you. That was... an outstanding... defense... against... the Dark Arts."

In the air above them, the flash of a phoenix caused many students to jump back. Hermione Granger, the girl who died, slowly floated down as if suspended by hover charms (or broomstick bones). She was now directly above and in front of Professor Quirrell, haloed by a bird of power. The defense professor did not have to move his head at all from where he lay, he could simply look forward.

"Thank you," said Hermione. Her face was blank, as Riddle Tome had said it should be. If she wasn't a good actor, she shouldn't try, and her role should be minimized to only few words. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

Professor Quirrell stared up at her, at the bird on her shoulder.

"I... was not expecting... the phoenix..." he said. "To move me now... would kill me... but perhaps... you could take me... to Flamel... without moving me. Do you think... you could lend her... to me?"

"Yes," said Hermione, but her phoenix cawed in objection.

"On second thought," said Professor Quirrell, "She... might not... like me. Can you... take me... yourself… in side-along… transport?"

"I... um..."

This wasn't part of the script, and while that wouldn't have stopped Harry from improvising, Hermione looked like a deer caught in headlights.

"Don't know... where it is…" he finished for her with a sigh. "I know. In that case... touch my hand... and lean down. I will whisper... a place you know... that will get me there. Mr. Potter... you touch... my hand... too."

This was done without delay, and a moment later the three disappeared in a crack of phoenix fire.







The dying man on the floor turned into a dying alicorn on the floor. He floated a Stone of Permanence to his horn, then encased himself in a glow that rapidly returned him to youth and health.

The sickness had been real, but it had been a physical, non-magical ailment. Thus, it could be transfigured away.

"What now?" asked Harry as soon as Riddle Tome seemed like he wasn't in pain anymore.

"I talk to Flamel," said the thestral.

"When are we telling the truth?" asked Hermione.

"Right after that."