The days rolled on for Sunset Shimmer as she spent hours every day on the muggle couch, resting, eating, studying, researching on their coffee table, and entertaining herself.
The arrangement had whole arrays of pros and cons to weigh, which made it all feel fairly unusual. Among the negative aspects was that she always had to keep a low profile. She did so at Hogwarts as well of course, but at least there she could stroll around mostly freely and not sneak out of the backdoor, and only when she was certain no one was watching. Interestingly she was able to use her unicorn magic much more freely than at Hogwarts, as magic without wands were rare phenomena for witches and wizards that she did not want to reveal to them that she could do.
She wasn’t completely isolated, with people on the street casually greeting her, that Arabella woman asking her how she was doing every time they walked by each other, and of course she could write to Celestia. Not to mention that Sunset was used to long periods of time spent isolated in a study and researching away. Even so, she had to admit that at times she was perhaps, hard as it was to imagine, feeling a little lonely.
Sunset was also never able to get truly comfortable and really let her guard down. She kept all her possessions she wasn’t actively using in her shoulder bag, always ready to grab it and disappear.
But there were good parts too. The muggles had entertainment aplenty, and some magical scrying also revealed that the water outlet for the muggle family’s garden hose had a defect far inside the wall which could easily get a lot worse, an expensive and complicated affair to address for those without magic, which Sunset fixed for them and felt a lot better about the whole thing. She also refreshed the high wooden fence where rot had started setting in, hardening it without needing oil or other treatment to make it last for several more years.
Her potions research was also coming along nicely, especially when the people on the television, which was a term she had learned, talked sport, as she found chatter that she didn’t need to listen to strangely comfortable at times, like around the Gryffindor table in the great hall. She had studied several potions that were of the level of several years ahead of where she was expected to be, and like she usually did, she tried alternative, more effective ways to make them, and jotted down her results in the margins of her potions books. However, it was quite costly when it came to supplies, so eventually, her potion studies ground to a halt.
Sunset also refrained from invading the muggles’ private space too much. She didn’t look more in the family’s private rooms, and mostly kept to the couch and the kitchen, but they had left some magazines out. One of them was a strange example, and after some confusion, Sunset figured out it was a collection of advertisements.
Some of them taught Sunset new terms, and after some research with her set of encyclopedias, learned some more information about human clothes and their functions. Especially undergarments, which was something that Sunset was missing several years of experience with.
And so Sunset found herself walking through a drizzle down the streets of Little Whinging, when Arabella called out to her from her garden.
“Hello! Sunset!” she said, waving to her from behind a currant bush, clad in a plastic robe and a sou'wester.
“Oh, hello, Mrs. Figg,” Sunset called back, trying not to seem sufficiently stand-offish, having learned her name from her mailbox.
“What are you doing out in the rain?” she asked, walking up to the waist-high wooden fence separating them.
Sunset shrugged. “I was just gonna do some shopping.”
“But you’re going to get soaked,” Arabella protested.
“I actually find it refreshing,” Sunset noted.
Arabella shook her head to herself. “May I ask what you’re going to be shopping for?” she asked.
“Uh, clothes.”
Arabella nodded. “I see. Well, why don’t you come in and have a cup until it stops raining? So your new clothes don’t get wet. I’ve put the kettle on, it’s enough for two.”
Sunset raised her eyebrows slightly, but just shrugged. “Well, alright,” she said. She had declined several times already, and it was starting to seem rude.
“Oh, good. Come on inside, dear,” Arabella said, and opened the gate to her house and encouraged Sunset to follow her.
She led Sunset into her house, which was practically the same in terms of layout as the place she was occupying, but the decor was quite different.
Whereas the other house was bright and relatively free of decorations, Arabella’s walls were a dark green that ate much of the light spilling in from the windows, with the abundance of decorations, trinkets, and various paraphernalia eating the rest. A jungle of little vases, small tables with odd decorations, and paintings, greeted Sunset when she entered, as well as the overwhelming smell of cats. Not so much the cats themselves as their kibble and their litter boxes.
“Do come in,” Arabella encouraged Sunset, and let her into the kitchen and lounge. “Feel free to sit down.”
A large armchair was the most free space available, and Arabella put down a teacup and saucer in front of Sunset, pouring from a cast iron pot into it.
“Milk? Sugar?”
“Please,” Sunset said.
Arabella joined her in turning her tea into liquid candy, and sat down opposite her.
“So, how has summer been treating you so far?”
“Pretty good,” Sunset said, as a cat started rubbing himself against her leg. “And you?”
“Oh, I’m doing as well as I always am. Seen anything interesting this summer?”
Sunset idly rubbed the cheek of the tomcat after it had jumped up into her lap, while another took his place down by her legs. “Well, yes, but I’m fascinated by the strangest things.” Sunset had learned from the television that muggles were so comfortable with their inventions that they took them for granted.
Arabella took a sip of her tea, which made Sunset feel a lot more easy about doing the same. Not that she really believed that there was something unwholesome in it.
“Mmm. So do you learn a lot from school?”
Sunset managed to grasp a decent deflection on the first try. “Yeah, you know, the skills you need in life, but I suspect it’s also about teaching you teamwork and social skills, which are only partially learned in the classroom.”
‘And which Hogwarts probably actively works against,’ Sunset thought to herself.
A third cat jumped up into Sunset’s lap, and a fourth one was suddenly standing with her front paws on Sunset’s head and her hind paws on the backrest. She had to put the teacup down in order to pet them all, as they rubbed their cheeks against every inch of Sunset between looking out the window.
“So do you get what you want out of your education?”
That made Sunset pause, and wonder why she had never been asked this by her teachers.
“That’s… always hard to say,” she ventured. “But I hope it will in the end. Hands crossed.”
“... You mean fingers crossed?”
“Uh, yes, of course,” Sunset said, surrounded by cat purrs.
Arabella looked at Sunset for a moment, as the younger girl stared out the window while idly scratching the chins of her beloved cats.
“How long have you been in Little Whinging?”
“I met you the day I arrived,” Sunset said. “So that long.”
“Oh. Well, have you made any friends yet?”
For a fleeting moment, Sunset wondered if this woman wasn’t a projection that Celestia had managed to send through the planes of existence.
“No, I’ve uh… mostly kept to myself,” Sunset said, feeling something sting somewhere inside her, but she couldn’t figure out why. And it wasn’t even a cat sharpening a claw on her.
Arabella nodded, with what Sunset felt was a very guarded expression on her face. “Understandable. There’s no need to involve yourself with people if you don’t want to.”
Sunset felt confident in dismissing the possibility that Arabella was a creation of Celestia.
“I guess I ran into some boys a while back?”
“Boys?”
“Yeah. Five of them. They were messing around at a school. Not the brightest bunch.”
“Ah. I see. They didn’t give you any trouble then, I hope?”
Sunset shook her head, making the cat on her shoulder glare at her. “Not really.”
“Good. There’s no need to involve yourself with those boys,” Arabella said. Her voice was neutral on the surface, but there was a tiny hint of venom below it.
Sunset had idly wondered what grade of troublemakers they had been, which this was something of an indication of.
She hadn’t been worried though. With her superior physical capabilities, not to mention her magic, they couldn’t actually have hurt or even inconvenienced her in any real way.
“Don’t worry, I’m not interested,” Sunset assured her, again staring out the window along with the cats.
“Ah, the weather is clearing up,” Arabella noted, seeing the sun peeking out from behind the passing rain cloud.
“Yes. I should probably get going,” Sunset said, and started lifting cats from herself, not wanting to miss the effect of the rays shimmering in the freshly fallen rain on the leaves and grass.
“Well thank you for your company, Sunset. Do feel free to stop by any time,” Arabella said, brightly.
Sunset paused, not knowing how to react to that (which gave the cats another chance to jump up in her lap).
“Thank you,” she said, standing up with two cats in each arm, and setting them down gently on the floor. “That’s very kind of you.”
“Not to worry, and good luck in school,” Arabella said, accepting a cat that had jumped up and climbed up Sunset’s skirt as she had walked outside.
“Thank you,” Sunset said again, and walked on towards the settlement’s center.
—
After some longer-than-anticipated experiments and research, Sunset had figured out the mysteries of women’s undergarments, and also felt confident she could magically adjust their size and prevent wear and tear, so she didn’t have to go through that again.
Back at the muggle house, she checked the calendar and the clock again. It was nearing two months since she had moved in, and while a part of her was worried about when she had to bail, another part wished to get it over with so she could spend some time in some other place than the living room couch without intruding more than she already had.
A quick repair spell cast on the family’s refrigerator to stop it from making a strange sound was the last favor she did them before planning on moving on. She only wanted to look into one intriguing video cartridge first.
Even with their accurate and high-fidelity video capture technology, the muggles appreciated drawn animation. The movie was about one who might be the last of her kind, and her quest to find others like her.
The protagonist was perhaps a little delicate, Sunset felt, but the subject matter intrigued her.
One timeless creature had just freed another, the first fair and ethereal, the other a foul monster.
“Don’t look back, and don’t run,” the protagonist said. “You must never run from anything immortal, it attracts their attention.”
“Huh?” Sunset said, and was about to start asking the television questions, like she did months ago, before she thought more about that statement.
It was true. She had run away from Celestia, whereupon she had gotten much more attention from her.
And the more she tried avoiding Cadence, the more Cadence tried to spend time with her.
The events on the screen in front of her were fiction, true, but what spawned the tale? Where did the characters and what they claim come from? Intuition? Imagination? Experience?
Was it in Celestia’s nature to pay attention to Sunset after she ran away? Could she not help it? Did she realize it? Was it all because of some cosmic mandate?
Sunset shook her head. It was all a coincidence. Probably.
“No, I cannot turn you into something you are not,” the protagonist said, in response to something her new friend said.
“... But he can do it himself, I hope is what you mean,” Sunset said.
The story continued, with twists and turns and mysteries abound.
Then, the villain appeared. If that was what he truly was, gloomy and dour as he was. Still, he had the bearing of a true dark lord. Regal, intimidating, and able to capture Sunset’s ear and attention with his voice alone.
When accused of being cold-hearted for wanting to do what he felt was right, and only caring about his magic, the wizard among them had angrily shouted that he wished he only cared about his magic, but that wasn’t true.
In the end, their task was done, and the world was set right, but as with any long journey, all involved felt both elation and hardships, their hearts both wounded and soothed.
Perhaps it was just because it had given her several new ideas to think about, but Sunset wanted a long walk. She cleaned out all traces, except for the small repairs, of her ever having been in the house, and slipped out of the backdoor.
She wandered through the orange light of the low, setting sun, her mind on a journey of its own, when she finally found herself standing near a bus station (another useful term she had picked up from the “telly”), and got an idea in her head. An idea attractive in its plainness.
A much more friendly and concerned driver than last time accepted her payment for a trip back to London, and Sunset stared blankly at him when he expressed concern for her mental and physical well-being, before she realized that, if you only craned your neck and squinted just a little bit, she would seem kind of waif-ish.
She chuckled, and assured him with a smile and a thanks, and took a seat.
Halfway out of Surrey, she noticed a flying car zooming off to the west, high in the sky.
“Wow, I’ve been observant, haven’t I?” she said to herself with a small smile, and leaned back into the seat.
—
The door to the Leaky Cauldron wasn’t locked, and Sunset stepped in to see the light even more dim than usual, with Tom the innkeep being the only other soul in the dining and bar area, looking up at Sunset with a look of concerned surprise on his face, cleaning out a mug with a rag.
“Good evening, Mister Tom,” Sunset said.
“Aye, evenin’, Miss Shimma’.”
“This is a bit of a short notice, but do you have a room vacant?” Sunset said, as she moved towards the bar.
She frowned slightly to herself when she realized this should’ve been a stormy night, and she should’ve been removing a rain-heavy traveling cloak with a confident flourish.
Oh well. Some other time perhaps.
“Aye, Miss Shimma’,” Tom said, smiling as he held his arms out invitingly to the stairs. “Same one as las’ toime. Will the school be coverin’ it?”
Sunset shook her head. “I’m afraid not. Don’t worry though,” she said, and held up a pair of gold galleons between her fingers. “I’m good for it.”
Tom nodded. “Aye. Will ye be wantin’ some suppa’?”
Sunset considered this, and nodded. “Yes, thank you. Something simple. Tea and some bread.”
“Hrm… bread’s stale, miss. Don’ feel roight charging ye fer for warm water wi’ some leaves.”
Sunset shrugged. “Don’t then, because I was wondering if I could help out in the kitchen, to help cover my bills.”
Tom raised an eyebrow at her.
“I’m not a good enough cook to serve guests, and I’m not experienced in housekeeping, but I’m pretty sure I can make cutlery sparkle.”
Tom considered Sunset for a moment, then nodded. “Aye.”
—
Tom’s toothless grin, and his way of speaking, might’ve been off-putting to a highborn young mare like Sunset, but she found him to be a big sweetheart.
Highborn in a sense at least. In some places in Canterlot you couldn’t throw a horseshoe without hitting one of the “common nobility”- a pony distantly related, or not, to a faded noble line, or several, who made no claims and had no interest in the aristocracy, especially when everypony around them could say the same.
Tom had Sunset “help out” in the kitchen, a greasy, smokey, and in places charred, place, with cast-iron stoves, cupboards, and basins of soap-y water, with doors and trap doors leading to larders, and of course barrel-filled cellars.
Tom managed to cook food, serve drinks, clean dishes, and care for his rooms, all by himself, and keep a cheerful disposition.
Still, he seemed to like Sunset helping out, especially with her working quite fast and efficiently with magic when no one was looking.
He reminded Sunset of a unicorn with an earth pony’s disposition. Many saw unicorns as being the primary scholars of Equestria, studying magics and stars in towers, and if not that, then clerks, or tradesponies in relatively “clean” trades, such as hairdressers.
Some, though, led a lifestyle more like a typical earth pony, farming, or doing hooves-on work, with or without magic, like running an inn.
Tom was much like that to Sunset, using magic to do his labor.
“Don’ know how ye do it, lass,” he said, as Sunset pulled out the last plate from the, unknown to Tom, scalding hot water of the washbasin, polished to a mirror sheen.
“You just have to beware of the elbow grease,” Sunset said, nodding at the water pouring down the old pipe with a slurping sound, leaving only soap suds behind. “The grease goes there, not on elbows.”
Tom laughed at Sunset’s intentionally bad joke. “Well yeo’ve done enough f’ t’day, lassie. Ye be on ya way now. Dinna’s at foive.”
“Looking forward to it,” she said, and exited the kitchen.
Her daily chores were so short she had to use magic to get anything done. Tom didn’t seem comfortable keeping her at work for more than a few hours per day.
Sunset made sure that she still had muggle money in her bag when she entered the same cafe she entered almost a year ago, where the same muggle woman stood behind the same counter.
“Oh, don’t I recognize you, dearie?” she said. “Oh that’s right! California.”
Sunset just felt pleased with her ability to now blend in with muggles that she just smiled as she took a seat.
“The very same. Tea and blueberry muffins, please,” Sunset said, and noticed that there was a television set aimed at the customers, currently turned off. She glanced at the clock, and aimed a finger at the telly. “Oh, and speaking of California, can we turn that on?”
The muggle glanced at the clock herself, and gave Sunset a confirming smile. “Oh he is ever so good, isn’t he?”
“He is,” Sunset said, as the screen came alive before the woman retrieved the drink and pastry.
In front of her, her new hero appeared on screen.
The most relentless bloodhound the forces of order and justice had ever seen calmly sauntered along the luxurious surroundings.
Evil has been done, and not with strength, but with cunning the likes of which lesser people cannot even comprehend, the champion of the wronged stepped up to the challenge.
Sunset figured that it was all pretend, but she didn’t know if she was disappointed or relieved from thinking that.
But it wasn’t his indomitable and highly successful pursuit of justice that made Sunset admire him. It was that no one saw these traits when looking at him. No one knew what they were seeing when they looked at him.
The short man on the screen fumbled for his wallet, and spoke around the bundle of dried leaves in his mouth.
“Uh… Lieutenant... mm… Columbo… Homicide.”
Sunset’s eyes were glued to the screen, as her tea was put in front of her.
—
One morning shortly after arriving at the Cauldron, Tom had a letter to Sunset, from Hogwarts, containing her list of necessary school supplies and such.
She could’ve used her partially accidentally ill-gotten funds to buy it all ahead of time, but buying all before she supposedly had money to afford might raise suspicions.
“Tha’s lookin’ awfully hot there, lass,” Tom said, looking down at the scalding hot water with Sunset’s hands submerged in it, as she cleaned the plates. “Wonderin’ ‘bou’ maybe givin ye a raise if ye ‘ave t’ work like tha’.”
Sunset, of course, could rest her hands in bonfires. Warm dishwater was of little concern to her.
She raised an eyebrow in Tom’s direction. “Have you gotten a letter from Professor Dumbledore, or McGonagall?” she asked.
The old innkeeper squirmed a little where he stood, looking awkward.
Sunset shrugged. “You can if you want, but I’ll be working harder if you do.”
“Is jus’… Oi hear books ’re gonna be expensive this year.”
Ah yes, that Gilderoy Lockhart figure. Sunset tried not to judge books by their covers, which the title was arguably a part of, and the titles were awful.
“I’ve done the math,” Sunset assured him, having repurposed the back of an old transfiguration essay to balance her income with the cost of the books and other sundries.
Inspiration suddenly struck Sunset.
“Arh, well, tha’s good t’ hear. Ye look all done now, lassie, so ye just take tha’ plate on the counter there and hand it to the boy by the table, then ye’re done for t’day.”
“Thank you,” Sunset said, and wiped her scrunched up fingers on a towel before doing as instructed.
She walked up to the older boy sitting by the table, looking out the grimy window at the muggles passing by, and set the plate of steaming hot food in front of him.
“Here we are. Enjoy,” Sunset said, making the boy look up at her, slightly startled.
“Oh, thank you,” he said, and looked at her. “Uhm… don’t you go to Hogwarts?”
Sunset took in the boy’s appearance, and the first thing that came to mind was whether his hair was naturally layered with a wild lock sticking out above his forehead, or if he was just really good at making it seem natural.
“That’s right,” she said. “Do you?”
“I do,” he said, smiled, and held out a hand. “Cedric Diggory.”
Sunset politely shook his hand, and nodded. “Sunset Shimmer.”
“Oh that’s right. I’ve heard about you. You’re that Gryffindor girl who keeps making Professor Snape so angry. I hear you’re really good.”
“At making Professor Snape angry?” Sunset said, raising an eyebrow.
“No, I mean… Well, that too, but I meant magic. Uh, please, have a seat,” Cedric offered.
Sunset accepted the invitation, trying not to frown at this development. “Thanks. Who… is saying that I’m good at magic?”
“Well uh… everyone, I guess.” Cedric shrugged.
“Everyone?”
“Uh… The collective ‘they’, I guess.”
Sunset wondered how that rumor came to be, considering that Sunset suspected that Hermione’s right arm was longer than her left one, considering how much she stretched it waving it around every time a teacher asked a question.
“Uhuh. Well don’t believe everything you heard,” Sunset said, and gestured at the plate she brought out. “Don’t let me keep you from eating.”
“Oh, right,” Cedric said, and started cutting into the fried fish. “So… why are you serving food in The Leaky Cauldron?”
Sunset wondered why she didn’t feel more defensive at this personal inquiry, and figured that maybe she was just feeling soft today.
“Just trying to make ends meet,” she said, and shrugged.
“Hah!” a girl suddenly shrieked loudly from right next to Sunset and Cedric, making both of them jump in their seats.
They looked up to see a bitter-looking girl pointing a finger at Sunset with a look of triumph on her face. “You’re just a waitress! Wait ‘til I tell him!”
The loud girl turned on her heel and walked out towards Diagon Alley, in a fast and spirited march.
Sunset and Cedric spent a long moment looking at the exit to the back of the inn.
“Who was that?” Cedric asked, mirroring Sunset’s thoughts exactly.
“No idea.”
“Okay? Strange. Uh, anyway, so uh… what’s your favorite subject?”
Sunset blinked, grateful that he brought them back to sensible subjects so readily.
“Hmm, Good question. Charms and transfigurations are… comfortable, for me, but I like learning about potions. You?”
“Surprised you like potions,” Cedric noted, with a wry smile. “We had potions after you last year, and we could tell. Anyway, I think charms too, and flying of course, even though we only had that the first year.”
“Ah, well, bummer I guess, only having it for one year.”
Cedric smiled easily. “Yeah, but you know, I get to fly anyway.”
Sunset cocked her head at him. “Why?”
“I’m… on the quidditch team. The Hufflepuff quidditch team,” Cedric pointed out.
“What? Oh, oh yeah,” Sunset said, as some memories came back to her. “I remember now.”
Sunset started looking for a way to extricate herself from this conversation. She didn’t feel very guarded right now, and she was talking with one of the cunning Hufflepuffers. Maybe that’s why she didn’t feel very guarded? Was Cedric just that good at drawing information out of people? It would make sense.
They were suddenly interrupted once more, this time by a brown-haired man with an unkempt beard sitting down with a loud thump next to Cedric.
“What’s this then?” he said, and put his arms around Cedric’s shoulder, and chuckled at him. “We leave our Ced alone for one minute and already the girls are flocking around him.”
Cedric tensed up like a rookie guard ordered to stand outside Celestia’s private chambers, and looked down at the floor.
“That’s not it,” he said.
“Isn’t it?” the man said, incredulously. “It certainly looks that way.”
Cedric cleared his throat. “Uh, Sunset, this is my… dad, Amos.”
Sunset held out a hand, with an utterly neutral expression. “Charmed.”
“Yes, there’s a lot of charm around here,” Amos said, and shook Sunset’s hand. “And I know where it comes from.”
“Da’,” Cedric hissed, warningly.
“Well, there’s no use denying it. I mean, it’s not the first girl you’ve had come up to you–”
Cedric suddenly stood up. “It was really nice meeting you, Sunset,” he said, loudly, but with genuine politeness. “Perhaps we can talk more in school?”
Sunset, also quite willing to end the conversation, stood up and nodded. “Yes, that might be best,” she said, and walked up the stairs to her room.
Sunset distracted herself by going over her finances one more time, which reminded her of her plan she had come up with earlier, but which had almost been lost thanks to the conversation with Cedric.
She penned a letter, tucked it in her sleeve, and made a quick detour to the wizarding postal office before bed.
The next day, Sunset woke up to the sound of a desperate-looking owl, panting softly as it tapped on her window.
She quickly got up and eased the heavy load from the grateful bird.
“Sorry about that,” she said, and filled the wash basin with water, then opened the heavy package as the owl descended on the refreshment.
Inside was a set of every book required for her second year, the Gilderoy Lockhart ones new and shiny, the other ones less so to a varying degree.
Honorable Madam.
We find your terms agreeable and are pleased to conduct this transaction. As a favor of goodwill, you will find your requested articles included in this parcel, whereas we will accept your end of the bargain when we meet in person, or at least one part of it.
Half the price, and one favor.
Yours
Fred and George Weasley.ps: Do not tell anyone about this. Mum has ears everywhere.
Sunset smirked. Fred and George did everything as one. They even read at exactly the same pace. Why have more than one set of books?
Sunset, relieved, sat down with her new books to try and distract herself from the conversation with the elder Diggory.
And they certainly did that.
She was also starting to suspect that not paying full price for them was a good idea.
—
A set of Hogwarts school uniforms floated above Sunset in bed, while a bolt of black cloth was being magically cannibalized to provide more fabric for the getup, making it larger and undoing the wear and tear.
The magic fed the uniform until it was better than when she had received it, leaving only half a bolt.
Sunset glanced at the old clock on the far side of the room, and stood up, magically floating her uniforms down into her bag, and slinging it over her shoulder.
It was still early, but Sunset had decided that this was a good time to leave anyway. Her stay at The Leaky Cauldron had further hammered home what a small community the British magical world was. From experience, Sunset could travel to King’s Cross in moments, but she didn’t want Tom, and any people he might talk to, to know that.
She walked down into the dining area, where her employer, sort of, was already standing behind the bar.
“Leavin’ fer school, lassie?”
“Yep. Thanks for everything, Mister Tom,” she said, smiling at him.
He chuckled to himself. “I shou’ be thankin’ you, lassie. Fine work, says I.”
Sunset gave Tom an abashed smile. “Don’t mention it then. Can I have a sandwich to go?”
“Aye.”
She waved goodbye to Tom, and exited the door towards the streets of London, walking down the sidewalk towards the train station, chewing on her simple breakfast.
Then, of course, she ducked into an alley, and a short while later, walked out of another alley, much closer to the station.
Stepping through the barrier towards the magical train station leading to Hogwarts, Sunset found herself alone, except for the operators on the train.
As before, steam spewed out of the red locomotive, blanketing the station, or the magical section of it, in fog.
It was quite cozy, actually, sitting alone in fog thick enough to make her difficult to spot, and even more to identify, to whoever would arrive next.
Still committed to her mission, Sunset nevertheless felt that she had developed a bit more patience during this past year. Her correspondence with Celestia had been a great balm, dispelling a lot of the bitterness regarding her goal, and so her pursuit lost a lot of the angry energy she had felt before.
Even so, there was a lot of pent up potency inside Sunset Shimmer. She was still determined to keep her true nature hidden from the wizarding world. After a year of laying low at school, Sunset had, perhaps foolishly, expected to be able to temporarily cast aside the restrictive cloak of incognito she shrouded herself in.
Her tower in Canterlot Castle was a marvelous, dizzying flux of magical projects and research. Tables and workstations were covered in enchanted crystals and alchemical instruments bubbling away. Pegasi were advised to stay floor-bound when Sunset was there, for the air was thick with floating tomes and grimoires as Sunset reclined in the air, hovering between bookshelves and endless piles of paper rolls spread out across wall, floor, and ceiling, covered in arcane scripts and notes.
Now, Sunset had a book.
It was freeing, in a sense, not having her old research available and being forced to stay modest, and therefore more focused, in her research, but it was also frustrating to keep herself… “normal”, her capabilities hidden.
Now it was back to school again.
At least she’d have a whole year of magical training as an excuse, if anyone were to notice her skills.
She figured that she must have dozed off, as to her, it seemed that only moments later dozens of shapes were moving close to the train.
People were arriving through the magical barrier, forming clumps of children and parents, talking, fuzzing, hugging, and crying.
Sunset sauntered onto the train, idly wondering if she would’ve hugged Celestia or cried into her dress if she was here right now, moment of reunion notwithstanding.
She opened the door to the first compartment she walked past, which was empty, and she plopped down onto the much more comfortable couch and put her boot-clad feet up on the opposite seat, making her boots shimmeringly clean with a wave of her hand.
She rested her hands behind her head, and closed her eyes.
The chatter continued outside, with some of it moving onto the train.
The door to the compartment opened, and Sunset picked up the scent of two young girls standing nervously in the doorway.
“Uhm… excuse me, is this seat taken?” a meek voice said.
“Nope,” Sunset said, not opening her eyes.
“C’mon, let’s go,” the other whispered. They carefully closed the door again, and moved on.
Sunset Shimmer, Grandmaster Arcanist of the Golden Towers, knew she looked cool, really cool, with her outfit and confidence where she sat.
Her posture sagged a little however, when she decided that yes, she would’ve given up her coolness for the chance to hug Celestia and perhaps cry a little into her dress.
The quiet and authoritative dignity that came from not having anyone to do so with was her consolation prize.
And to be honest, it was a consolation.
… Just not right now.
The door opened again, revealing the scent of another young girl.
Sunset opened her eyes to see a blonde girl with her wand behind her ear looking at her.
“... Hey,” Sunset said. She still felt a little emotionally raw, but managed to refrain from extending barbs with her bearing, and instead went for something armored.
“Hello. Why are you alone?” the girl said, in a dreamy voice.
Sunset was caught slightly off-guard by this.
An inner part of Sunset raised her eyebrows at this, and warned Sunset to walk softly around this little figure, though she couldn’t understand why.
“... I’m not. You’re here,” Sunset noted.
The girl looked down at herself, as if remembering that she had a physical shape. “You’re right,” she said, and looked up at Sunset again. “You want to be alone, don’t you? I’ll leave.”
Before Sunset could say anything, the blonde girl turned and walked away.
“... When was the last time I had a normal conversation?” Sunset asked herself.
As if in response, Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil appeared in the doorway, clearly looking for either an unoccupied compartment, or one with someone they were familiar with, which they had just found.
“Sunset!” they both shouted at the same time as they entered the compartment.
“How have you been?” Parvati asked, as they plopped down onto the seats.
Sunset shrugged. “Pretty good. Didn’t get as much done as I thought I was going to when summer started. Don’t know where the time went actually.”
“Tell me about it,” Lavender said, and brought up a pocket mirror from inside her robe and started checking her make-up, talking as she did. “I got home, we went on vacation, then I got home again, and then I visited Parvati, met Padma, and then, it was practically time for school to start. Really fast. Oh well, could’ve lasted longer, but it’s gonna be fun to get back, don’t you think?”
Sunset had to agree with that, and noted that, while inane, this probably qualified as a normal conversation, and she nodded. “Yeah, I… agree.”
“Anyway, Parvati’s parents both work as herbalists, growing herbs in their garden, and it was so beautiful,” Lavender gushed.
Sunset nodded along, interjecting some uhuhs and mhms for a while, until Lavender and Parvati gradually shifted towards just talking with each other.
The door opened, and Hermione Granger entered, with Fred and George Weasley, and also someone who was clearly their younger sister, whom Sunset vaguely remembered meeting a year prior.
“Hi, Hermione!” Parvati and Lavender said, enthusiastically. “And you guys.”
“Greetings and salutations, fair ladies,” George said, putting a handkerchief on his head, only to pull it off and bow low.
The younger redhead scowled at him, and pushed him hard enough to almost fall over.
He didn’t seem to mind, and just smirked at her.
“Hello,” Hermione said, looking frustrated. “Have any of you seen Harry and Ron?”
The three girls shook their heads.
“Not at all?” Hermione insisted.
“No. Weren’t they with you guys at the station?”
Fred shrugged. “We got through the barrier to the platform, and then we couldn’t find them. We thought maybe they rushed past us to get on the train.”
“Maybe they got lost on the way,” George suggested. “Wouldn’t put it past them. It’s, what, twelve feet to the train from the barrier?”
The youngest redhead looked up at her brother with concern. “Do you think they’ll get to school? What if they never get there.”
“They’ll be fine,” George said, waving her concerns away. “Anyway, we’re gonna leave you ladies now.”
“What, me too?” his sister asked.
“Can’t be helped,” Fred said, shrugging. “Lee Jordan says he has something to show us. Can’t let the uninitiated partake in the cloak and dagger stuff.”
Hermione shot them a glare. “I hope it’s not against the school rules.”
“I’m sure you do,” Fred said, and turned to the compartment in general. “Anyway, this is Ginny, our little sister. Don’t make her mad- she bites,” he said, making Ginny scowl at him.
They started walking out, before George paused. “Oh, and Sunset, we’ll conclude our business later.”
Sunset clicked her tongue and winked while pointing at him.
“What business?” Hermione asked, suspiciously, after the twins left.
“The cloak and dagger kind,” Sunset shrugged. “Anyway, nice to meet you, Ginny. How were your summers?”
They had apparently had nice summers. Hermione’s parents had been a little disappointed that Hermione wasn’t allowed to show any of her magic powers to them.
Ginny told them about how Harry had come to live with them for a few weeks during summer. Apparently he had been prevented from sending letters to his friends, perhaps by his muggle family, who disliked him.
Sunset half-listened between jotting down information in her book, and going through old research notes. That Harry was disliked by his family was something she had heard before, and found somewhat intriguing, considering how he was a celebrity, something of a hero, in the magical world.
The conversation thankfully progressed almost entirely without Sunset’s input for some time, and she pretty much stopped working, instead just basking in the unremarkable chatter around her.
A small part of her nagged her, saying that was budgerigar-behavior, but she ignored it.
This continued until she heard one of the girls say, “don’t you think, Sunset?”
Sunset jolted to attention, and quickly ran through the last few phrases of the conversation in her head. With a rising feeling of dread, she suspected it was about boys in school.
“Uhm…” she said, when her savior opened the door.
“Oh, uh, hello,” Neville Longbottom said, looking apologetic. “Everywhere else is taken.”
“Hey, Neville,” Sunset said, relieved, and gestured at the empty seat on the far side from her. “Sit down.”
“Thanks,” he said, equally relieved.
Lavender and Parvati started looking back and forth between the others in the car, talking in low voices to each other and shaking their heads in disbelief.
“What are you two whispering about?” Hermione asked.
They immediately stopped, and looked innocent. “Nothing,” they insisted.
“Where’s the food cart?” Parvati asked. “I’m hungry.”
“There’s a food cart?” Sunset asked.
“Uh, yes. Don’t you know?” Lavender asked.
“No, I missed it last time.”
“How?” Parvati asked.
“She was up on the roof,” Hermione said, disapprovingly.
“What? No way,” the two other girls said.
“It’s true,” Neville said, and turned to Sunset. “Why were you up there?”
“Didn’t get any friendly vibes from people,” Sunset said, shrugging.
“You don’t like unfriendly vibes?” Parvati asked, and chuckled.
“‘Course I don’t.”
“Strange thing for you to say,” Lavender noted.
“I am super friendly,” Sunset confidently declared, putting her hands behind her head and leaning back.
“What…? To people you think deserve it or something like that?” Parvati asked.
“No, in general,” Sunset said.
“Oh yeah? So what did you do during summer?” Parvati asked, smirking.
Sunset’s eyes narrowed and shifted back and forth. “Hmm, a riposte- A well-landed blow, madam,” she replied, in a highborn voice, and openly started tapping her chin as she thought. “I guess you got me. I have no comment.”
The four others were not swept up by her attempted humor, and just stared at her in silence for several moments.
“Why don’t you ever talk about yourself?” Neville asked.
Sunset shot him an apologetic smile, and just shrugged. “I just don’t. Don’t take it personally.”
“You know you’re not making anyone curious, right?” Hermione noted.
“Too bad, because my personal life is absolutely riveting,” Sunset said, smiling easily at her.
That finally got a chuckle from Parvati and Lavender, and they turned to Neville, making the conversation about their summers.
The food cart came by, and Sunset ordered a few cauldron cakes and some juice.
From this, Sunset also started suspecting that Lavender, or rather her family, was well off, since she got a large pile of sweets for her and Parvati, and had enough left to share to the others.
Sunset was offered an animated chocolate frog. “Thank you… oh, that’s kinda cute,” Sunset said, before she stopped, a slightly disturbed look on her face. “Hmm… doesn’t feel right eating something that’s trying to get away,” she said, and fell into deep thought as she considered the chocolate construct, and her other eating habits as a human.
“You don’t like it?” Lavender asked, a little concerned.
“What? Oh, uh, no it’s not that. I’ll just…” she tried thinking of the best approach to this, before simply biting off the head of the frog, rendering it immediately inanimate.
To her surprise, there was a certain sense of satisfaction to that, which weirded her out a little.
<<Huh… thrill of the hunt, maybe?>> she muttered to herself.
“What?” Parvati asked. “What does that mean?”
“What? Oh, nothing. Sorry.”
“She speaks other languages,” Neville noted to the others.
“See? You do know things about me,” Sunset pointed out.
“I don’t know what that language you speak is,” Neville pointed out, a little apologetic.
Sunset finally yielded. “Okay, fine, what do you wanna know?” she said.
Parvati and Lavender jumped at the chance, and Sunset couldn’t tell for sure, but she felt that maybe they were being intentionally kind by showing interest.
“Where are you from?” Parvati asked.
“Far away,” Sunset simply said, making the two of them roll their eyes.
Neville also paid attention, and though she pretended not to, Hermione had stopped reading.
“How come you’re so good at magic?” Lavender asked.
“I’m not that much better than anyo–”
“Oh stop, you are. We all know it.”
Sunset grunted, somewhat dissatisfied. “I have some prior training,” she admitted.
“Yeah, but plenty of purebloods have that.”
Sunset shrugged. “Sure, but… well, who can say? Is it raw talent? Maybe, but then what is raw talent? Is it having the disposition to study the field in question?”
“Why are you spending so much time with Draco Malfoy?” Hermione asked, in a neutral voice, not looking up from her book.
Parvati and Lavender glanced at Hermione, before sitting down and pretending to not be paying such rapt attention.
“To put it simply, he seeks me out. I don’t really know why,” Sunset said, shrugging.
Hermione sniffed, while Lavender and Parvati looked amused.
“See, you all know loads about me,” Sunset noted.
“Uhm… Sunset?” Neville asked, looking nervous.
“... Yes?”
“Can you help me find Trevor?” Neville asked, looking through the pockets of his robe.
—
Like the last time, Sunset left her shoulder bag on a seat on the train. Previously she hadn’t been very concerned with her book linked to Celestia. Now she was more skeptical, but relented when she remembered that it had been properly handled a year ago.
She stepped off the platform into the quickly darkening early night, along with her classmates.
In the distance, Hagrid was rounding up first-year students to take them across the lake, while prefects were rounding up the rest of the students.
The chattering crowd moved sluggishly up a wide set of stone stairs to a road lined with carriages, with no beast of burden seeming to pull it.
As they approached a carriage, a very sudden nervous scent emanated from Neville, and Sunset looked back at him in confusion.
“What?” she asked.
“Wh… what are those?” he asked, pointing at the carriages.
Sunset was about to point out the obvious, when she caught another scent, this one not so much with her nose as with her magic.
She looked around in the dark blue sky for shapes swooping past, or slightly glowing eyes watching from the trees and shrubs, but couldn’t spot anything, the crowd and their talking around her didn’t help.
“... The mountain dwellers,” she said to herself.
“What? What mountain dwellers?” Neville asked.
Sunset shook her head, not having realized she had said that in English. “Nevermind. Where are they?” she said, still looking around with narrowed eyes.
Neville pointed to the front of a carriage, where Sunset finally spotted her.
Dark coat, leathery wings, slitted eyes, and wicked-looking tufts of hair on the top of her ears.
“There you are. Good eye, Neville.”
She noted that it looked to the thestrals from Equestria much like the passed away unicorn looked to herself in her true form. She was larger, had a more feral-looking appearance, and also had the more unthinking patience of a dumb beast.
Intrigued, Sunset walked up to the magical horse, with a nervous Neville following slightly behind.
She let the thestral sniff her hand, feeling the scent of slight relief that animals, and others frankly, exuded when strangers turned out to be friends.
“Hello,” Sunset said, and started scratching the dark mare behind the ear, making her lean into Sunset’s hand.
Sunset put her other hand against the side of the mare’s mouth. “It’s okay, I allow it.”
Neville backed away a step, and made a nervous sound when the thestral opened her mouth, revealing a set of sharp fangs.
However, Sunset just readily pricked her thumb on a fang, and held her now slightly bleeding hand in front of the mare, who started gratefully licking the blood off with a long tongue, closing her eyes and focusing on the sensation.
“Thank you,” she said, giving the dark creature an affectionate pat on her neck.
“Come on, Neville,” Sunset said, as some people, notably her classmates, were giving her strange looks as they moved into the carriages.
Neville carefully stepped up, and Sunset gently took his hand and started guiding it towards the thestral’s mouth.
“It’s okay,” she said, as Neville made a weak protesting sound. “It doesn’t hurt. Just gently put your finger against the fang.”
Neville, barely believing himself able to, pricked his thumb against the fang, just as Sunset had, and to his amazement, felt no pain whatsoever.
Like with Sunset, the shadowy mare started licking Neville’s small amount of blood from his digit, closing her eyes again.
He looked on in fascination as the dark horse-like creature, which had looked outright nightmarish just moments before, now seemed so gentle and affectionate.
“She likes you,” Sunset noted.
“Oh,” Neville said, and laughed nervously.
“Say thank you.”
“Uh, thank you,” Neville said, and looked questioningly at Sunset.
“Letting you know that your blood tastes good is a compliment. She’ll share it with her colony, marking you as a friend.”
“Is that… good?”
“Is it good being friendly with a colony of very, very sneaky, magic, vampiric equines?” Sunset said, smirking at Neville. “It’s certainly better than being their enemy.”
They let the thestral have a few more licks before taking their place in the carriage, Neville alternating between looking at Sunset in fascination, and glancing out the window towards the other thestrals pulling the carriages.
They passed through the gates of Hogwarts, and came all the way up to the entrance hall before the carriages stopped.
The students all disembarked, and formed a crowd which moved much more rapidly towards the castle, a much more familiar environment.
Sunset didn’t have as much time to spend with the member of the mountain tribe who had pulled her carriage, and simply pulled off the scab from her finger, and offered her that.
“I know you don’t need normal food like the rest of us, but I’d get some anyway. Put some meat on your bones,” she said, patting the mare who was gratefully chewing down the dry piece of blood on the side, before joining her classmates, a Slytherin student she had forgotten the name of giving her a worried look.
The throng of students flowed into the great hall, and towards the tables of their houses, where the canvas of chatter reached a crescendo as hundreds of young wizards-and-witches-in-training were reunited after a summer apart.
“Where are Harry and Ron?” Hermione asked, impatiently, as she looked around. “And where’s Professor Snape?”
Sunset glanced around, and true enough, the potions master was absent from the table at the far end of the hall.
Suddenly, Hermione gasped, and said, “There he is!” in an excited whisper.
Sunset looked around for Harry, Ron, or Snape, but couldn’t see them.
“Where?”
“There!” Hermione squealed, pointing at the teachers’ table.
Sunset finally understood who Hermione meant. “Uuuh… oh.”
Sitting at the spot where Quirrell had been last year, was someone whose face Sunset had grown quite familiar with in the previous few weeks.
The perpetually smiling Gilderoy Lockhart gave cheerful little waves towards the large number of students he spotted waving at him first.
Albus Dumbledore suddenly appeared, and calmly took his chair.
Through no magic, but presence alone, the student body followed his example, and it was just in time, as the new first years nervously marched in through the door.
“Hermione’s right, where are those two?” Parvati asked. “They’re going to interrupt the ceremony.”
As if summoned by her words, the combined sound of a loud roar and screech, as if caused by a crashing comet, announced the arrival of a muggle automobile, soaring across the sky above the enchanted ceiling of the dining hall, with the two panicked voices of Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley mingling with the strained cacophony caused by the flying vehicle.
A short moment after they had passed by, a loud crashing sound came from the darkened castle grounds, as the vehicle smashed right into a tree.
The entire student body, and most of the teachers, stood up to look through the great portal leading out to the grounds, where the flying car was struggling to disentangle itself from a very angry tree.
There was a great mixture of reaction from the student, ranging from gasps of horror, to laughter and applause, to some scowling disapproval.
“I say! Good show!” Fred and George shouted, as they stood up and loudly clapped their hands. Their friend Lee Jordan had doubled over from laughter, Percy was scowling deeply, while Ginny’s eyes were wide as she held her hands over her mouth.
Sunset glanced around the room, and only just managed to spot an amused smirk on Dumbledore’s face before he willed it dour. Hagrid was looking on with shocked concern, and Gilderoy Lockhart’s smile had stopped reaching his eyes, and had turned confused and troubled.
Minerva McGonagall swished her wand, closing the doors to the hall, marking an end of the spectacle with a loud, booming noise, making everyone sit down again.
“That’s enough of that,” she said to herself, before placing the sorting hat on the stool that Sunset had sat on a year prior.
From there, the sorting proceeded as before, with the seam of the hat bursting into song. The difference of course being that people were quite curious about the flying car, and the two occupants of it, with a lot of excited whispering.
When the sorting was over, Gryffindor had enough students to make up for the ones who had graduated last year, notable among them were, as expected, Ginny Weasley, who was sitting next to her brothers. There was also a very short boy who kept asking if Harry Potter was in the flying car, and what he was doing there.
Sunset, who had ended up sitting around the same people she had been sitting with on the train, continued as she had for the past few hours, idly joining in the conversation when prompted, and otherwise enjoying the food.
It was, of course, a less special evening for her than the one a year before, when she had first been introduced to the school as a student.
Overall, Sunset was glad to be back, especially on a night such as this, where the scent of excitement and high spirits washed over her, soothing her on a deep level.
After a five course meal and a walk up to Gryffindor tower later, Sunset collapsed onto her four poster bed. She’d never criticize the way Tom ran his inn, but he didn’t have beds as luxurious as this. A couch couldn’t compete with this, and certainly not the bare planks of a playground.
“Well, at least they’re not expelled,” Hermione said, disapprovingly, as she stepped in through the door.
Lavender and Parvati eagerly wanted details, and Sunset would’ve been curious too, if she hadn’t fallen asleep at that very moment, face down into her pillow, still fully dressed.