“A barrier?”
“Yes. It makes non-magical people ignore that general area. Interesting idea, and it helps hiding it,” I said, looking around the train station.
I could see a lot of parents with their children around, but they all were magical. Relaxing a bit, parts of my real form shimmered into existence, keeping my basic form human, but turning my hair and eyes into their natural forms. My skin changed not, still being a very dark brown.
However, I could feel some disdainful stares upon my skin after doing so. Deciding to deal with it the fast/fun way, I whirled around, my gaze finding a blue-grey one. The man who had been staring at me barely managed not to flinch when I did so. He had shoulder-long blonde hair, wore black, high-quality robes, and was carrying a cane. Next to him, a carbon copy of himself stood, just looking about three decades younger.
I scowled, deciding to forego pretence. Flaring my magic, it seemed for a moment as if black wings exploded from my back, and a silver sword manifested itself at my side, my symbol carved into it, but it was all an impression evoked by me flaring my power. This time, his eyes widened, and he took an involuntary step back, but before anyone but Harry could take notice of what had happened, the wings were gone, and the sword had vanished due to their nature as short-lived illusions.
“What are you?” he asked in a whisper, and I shrugged.
“I could call myself many things I believe to be true, but I could be wrong about all of them. However, one thing I know – I am acknowledged,” I responded, holding out my hand. His gaze fell onto the ring I decided to display, and the symbol it bore. A triangle, in which both a circle and a line was drawn.
He raised an eyebrow.
“That’s just Grindelwald’s coat of arms. How is that supposed to mean that you’re ‘acknowledged’?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
I blinked.
“Grindelwald? He stole his coat of arms from the Peverell family, which I am the matriarch of.”
Personally, I made a note to look into that name at some point in the future.
“Peverell? I thought that family had died out centuries ago?” He questioned, then frowned, before continuing in a mocking tone.
“Are the legends real, then? Is the ‘family’ of Peverell just those recognized by death?”
I shrugged, and decided to answer as if he’d asked a serious question.
“Probably? It told me to destroy the pieces it left behind. It says they are causing too much death. Which is funny coming from them.”
“’Them’? You claim you have spoken with death? And did ‘they’ as you call them, give you that sword and wings?” he questioned, his tone making it clear he did not believe me. At all.
I shook my head.
“No. My magic I received from my predecessor, and my sword I received from my teacher,” I responded before realizing something rather important.
“I am sorry for cutting this short, but I need to get on to the train. Maybe we can talk later?” I suggested, pulling out another linked book. He gave it a curious glance, and I quickly explained it was linked with another book in my possession, copying the text written in one to the other.
Lucius stared after the train for a long while before he finally left. The other wizards and witches, both light and dark had left him alone, either not wishing to interrupt his thoughts, or just generally ignoring him.
His head was rampant with many different thoughts, and his gaze flicked down onto the book from time to time.
She was dangerous, and powerful, both undoubtedly so. His mind wandered to the Wizengamot and the new seat that had appeared ten years prior. There was a chance it was hers.
But there was also the fact that he could somehow tell just how much darkness there had been concealed behind those blue eyes. If the ministry were to ever catch wind of that, it’d just throw her into Azkaban, or would try to seal her magic, though he doubted it would succeed with either of those.
Then there was also the fact that she would probably be fairly affronted by the recent laws the Wizengamot was trying to make. With her definitively having a lot of creature blood, she would fight tooth and nail to not get treated as a second-class citizen.
He shuddered, advocating for such laws further started to seem a very bad idea.
He could definitively use this to his advantage, though.
A second later, he shuddered again, discarding that thought. She claimed to be able to talk to death, and he could not tell if she was lying. If she had spoken the truth, however, ‘it’ tasked her with destroying the deathly hallows. It was frustrating to learn about their existence and in the same breath that they were not meant for this world much longer.
He decided that he could only dare to ‘manipulate’ her by telling her the truth and hoping that she saw things the same way he did.
Shaking his head, he apparated away to Malfoy Manor, the book clutched in his hand. Unbeknownst to both him and her, the magic of the book was slowly seeping into him. And once it encountered the magic of the dark mark, it started seeping into it, slowly beginning to dissolve it since that magic was neither Lucius’ – nor was it benevolent.
Walking next to Harry, we got more than a few adoring looks.
It could help to mention that I was currently quadruped and came up to about his waist.
I had taken on a younger form, much like Nebula looked, but with slightly darker colours. My mane was… normal… and my flank was showing my ‘real’ cutie mark.
“How Equestria was created? I’ve been a bit curious about that myself, if I’m being honest. Creating space isn’t that hard – but cutting through space to make it disconnected from other space, that’s really difficult.”
“Maybe turn it so fast it rips off?”
“No, that wouldn’t work. That would twist and stretch space, but that space always stays connected. There’s got to be another answer.”
“Maybe Faust really was transcendental.”
I snorted.
“Doubtful. The universe Equestria lies in is closed.”
“Could you do it, then?”
“Technically yes. I do have spells that could create magical stars and create matter from nothing, but there are issues with those too. For example, my creations wouldn’t be stable, and requiring mana to stay intact.”
“How much would you need?”
“You should be able to guess.”
Harry was silent for a moment, and I pushed open an empty compartment, looking inside and nodding. We walked in, and Harry sat down, his brow scrunched in concentration.
Then he realized why I’d need so much energy.
“The weight of space,” he groaned, and I nodded.
“Correct.”
For context, creating space took energy. Creating matter also took energy. And I would need to provide that energy as mana if I wanted to do what he had suggested.
Not something feasible, but something that definitively was possible. Luckily it took a lot less energy to twist, enlarge and create space than it took to create matter.
And you didn’t have to deal with anti-space, that was also a plus.
Usually.
Unfortunately, anti-space was something that existed.
“Wait a second. What if the sun is the force keeping that universe together?”
I thought about it for a few moments, which were about to turn into hours, but Harry snapped me out of it.
“Do that when you sleep. Did you already read through the course books?”
I shook my head, but before we continued, Harry pointed to an empty compartment, and we entered it, taking seats.
“I’ve only taken a look at potions, though I noticed something interesting,” I then said, pulling out a silver knife from the potions kit.
“The materials used may be much less volatile, but this knife has a charm on it that enhances the main effect of ingredients, while reducing the others. It simplifies.”
Grabbing an old feather of mine from hammerspace and ramming the knife into it, I could feel how it changed under the blade, losing its ability to channel lightning and to manipulate clouds, leaving behind the ability to generate lift from magic. The shift was so prominent that it was recognizable without even having to touch the material.
Harry blinked.
“That could be useful.”
I nodded. That opened a lot more ventures… many potions of Equesetrian and Zebrician origin were quite volatile. This would help. Massively.
Having been looking out of the window onto the landscape, as the train had started moving a few minutes ago, I startled a bit upon feeling a wing settle on my back.
“Nebula?”
“Come, lay down. We haven’t done this in a while,” she said, and I nodded, giving her a nuzzle, before allowing myself to slowly drift away, pressed against her in a not unwelcome way.
In the end, we got roused by hushed whispering. There were two girls standing in front of the door, looking at us.
I blearily blinked, before gesturing to the seat opposite to us with a wing. Their eyes lit up, and they quickly shuffled inside, sitting down.
The expected reaction took about ten seconds.
“Oh my god! You’re so cute!”
We grinned at the two, and they blinked.
“Fangs?” the other girl asked, causing me to shrug. I was an omnivore in all my forms.
“Who’re your owners?” she then added, leaning close and looking for a collar, I’d presume, but she couldn’t find any. She looked oddly disappointed by that.
I shrugged.
“You… you two can understand us, right?” the other girl asked, and I nodded.
“That’s amazing! You got to be magical creatures – but what are you?”
I raised a brow, baring my teeth, flaring my wings, and staring her into her eyes.
“Hm… bat-wings, human-like teeth but with larger fangs, tufted ears, cat eyes… no, I don’t know what you are, sorry.”
“Do you two have names?” the other girl then asked, and I nodded, turning and pulling out a book from my interspatial pocket. The girls looked a bit dumbfounded by that.
“A notice-me-not charmed pouch? That’s really clever…” she said, while I used my snout to flick through the biology book, eventually stopping once it showed a blue flower.
“Nightshade? You’re Nightshade?”
I gave a nod, then put the book away, before pulling out another book – an astronomy book. Flipping through it as well, I stopped on the page with the horse-head nebula.
She went through the words on the page that seemed promising, and guessed Nebula’s name after a few moments, much to my delight. I put the book back and stretched a bit, looking her in her eyes.
“Something on my face?” she asked, and I shook my head.
“I think she wants us to introduce us… you’re female, right?”
I shrugged.
Most of the time, yes.
“Ah, right. It would be rude for us to ask your names and not give ours in return… Dacey Travis.”
“I’m Daphne Greengrass. Nice to meet you,” the more inquisitive girl then said, and I held out my hoof, much to first their apparent confusion and then amusement.
They both took it and shook it, Nebula nickering behind me, barely not laughing. She then decided to forego all pretences and jumped over to the bank with the girls, lying down. She then looked at the girls with a smouldering look, causing me to chuckle. The want for affection really didn’t translate well into pony form from a human perspective.
Trust me when I say that lust is obvious in a completely different way.
Eventually, when she also pushed her head into Dacey’s fingers, the girl froze for a second before starting to pet her. A low cooing sound came from Nebula, and I blinked. Did that really feel that good?
Curious, I jumped onto the bank next to the other girl, also holding out my head. She quickly pulled me closer, to get better access to my head, and then started curling her fingers through my mane and scalp, and I melted into her touch.
Of course, I was still aware of the happenings around us, and looked up with a content smile when the door opened again.
“Hey Daphne, can we…” a black girl started to ask, but stopped upon seeing me and Nebula.
“They’re adorable!” the carbon copy of said girl standing next to her said, grinning widely.
“Oh, Padma, Parvati. They were already here! They can understand you, too!” Tracey said and picked up Nebula much like one would a kitten.
“Want to hold her?”
Of course, the answer was a ‘yes’.
I also moved over to the other bench, allowing the other twin to have her own arm full of pony. She also liked holding and petting me, if her grin was any indication.
“Does either of you know what they could be? I mean, clearly, they’re magical, but… slitted eyes, tufted ears, bat wings, fangs?” Daphne then asked, getting headshakes from the girls.
“Vampire ponies?” the girl holding me wondered, and I snorted, looking up at her, before playfully nipping at her hand. She blinked, then chuckled for a second.
Pulling another book from my pocket, I opened Mythical Creatures and where to find them on the page with thestrals. Daphne and Tracey looked at it, before frowning.
“You don’t look like thestrals… is this the closest to the truth then?”
I nodded, before pointing to the part where it said ‘can only be seen by those who had witnessed death’. They quickly understood that this detail wasn’t appliable to me and Nebula.
“A different breed, maybe?” Daphne asked, causing me to nod.
The girls kept petting us, but eventually someone else once again decided to intrude into the serene silence that had been built around us. This time, it was a woman pushing a cart with many sweets piled onto it, and most (speak all) of us present in the compartment couldn’t help but drool at least a bit at the massive amounts of sugar stacked on it.
Subsequently, we (they) bought a lot of sweets, but the most interesting of them by far were the sugar beans that were enchanted to take on random, and often ridiculous, flavours.
I got a few normal flavours, but also had one that tasted like a blood berry to me (thestral-grown fruit in Equestria), tree bark and shrimp.
“I have no idea what I got,” the girl holding me said, tilting her head.
“Something slightly citrus-y, but its fleeting…”
“I’m pretty sure I got olive oil,” Tracey deadpanned, causing the rest of us to chuckle.
“What are the names of those two dears?”
“Oh, they’re Nebula and Nightshade.”
“That are interesting names… though, it wasn’t you who choose them, I assume?”
“No, the two were already here when we sat down.”
“Oh, does Hogwarts finally accept creature students?”
I blinked, before shaking my head.
“Wait, are you animagi?”
Are we what? I tilted my head, and she quickly explained that they were humans capable of turning into animals. My eyes lit up, and I concentrated, compressing myself further into a black cat.
They all blinked.
“Uh… you can’t be an animagus, then… they can only turn into one animal. Unless you’re a shapeshifter?”
That was a good question, but while I could manipulate my shape within some constraints (practically none), I wasn’t a true shapeshifter. This required more than instinctual magic, and the greater discrepancy between my real form and this one meant a bigger strain on my magic.
Alas, I shook my head again.
“Bummer… I’d have asked you to turn into me,” one twin said, and I blinked. That wasn’t… impossible, per se.
I flipped myself around, out of her grasp, and reared up, pressing my forehead to hers, and placing my forelegs on her shoulders. My shape twisted, became larger and larger, and after a moment, I was sitting there, looking exactly like her.
“By Merlin! You can!” twin #2 exclaimed.
I shrugged, then collapsed the illusion on myself. Since this was neither my real form for being shifted into this race, nor had any ‘image’ of her so to speak, it drained far more energy than just transforming into a human, cat or even dragon would drain. Still negligible either way, anyway.
“Is that how you look like as a human?” twin #1 then questioned.
Nodding, I then turned myself back into my foal-thestral form. I was quite comfortable like that and pressed my head against the girls’ fingers again.
And then, the serene scene was interrupted again – quite rudely this time, too.
The door got opened by a blonde boy, flanked by what I could only describe as bodyguards. He clearly felt like he was ‘better’ than everyone else in the compartment, if the way he looked around with barely hidden disdain was any indication.
“Heir Greengrass, Heir Davis.”
“Heir Malfoy,” Tracey replied in the same I’m-better-than-you tone he had used.
“Would you by chance know why Heir Potter refused to return my greeting?” he asked, pointedly ignoring the black twins, probably because he didn’t know them.
Nebula tensed for a split second but forced herself to relax. I don’t think anyone but myself did notice. I meanwhile was cursing, for now that I focussed on it could sense a second presence with the same aura as Harry on the train. Damn bootstrap paradoxes to hell and beyond.
“We have not had the luck to encounter Lord Potter, Heir Malfoy,” Daphne bit back, and I couldn’t help but grin at her.
“I see,” he responded, clearly annoyed by her response. Then, his eyes fell onto me and Nebula, and for some reason I couldn’t help but feel nervous about that.
“And who is the owner of those animals? You twins?”
“Yes,” one of the twins responded in a cut tone.
“What even are they? They don’t look like any of the respectable animals allowed at school,” he then added, looking disdainfully at us. I snarled at him.
“They’re a special breed of thestrals, and they can understand you, Heir Malfoy. I doubt not they would cause you untold problems were you to antagonize them, and I also don’t think you want me to raise my hand right now,” she said, staring him into his eyes. He huffed – but left shortly afterwards, continuing his fruitless endeavour.
Wanting Daphne’s attention caused me to neigh, and once I had it, I shook my head.
“Are you referring to Heir Malfoy?”
I shook my head again.
“Harry Potter, then?”
I nodded, gesturing to her and shaking my head.
“He isn’t… Lord Potter?”
I nodded.
“Heir?”
Another nod.
“How?”
Rummaging through my interspatial pocket again, I pulled out a Gringotts document.
Esteemed Lady Gaunt,
Lady Potter,
[------]
Lady Peverell,
Lady Moon,
Enclosed you find the requested listings of the contents of your vaults. Additionally, we request of you to return once you have made a house ring for the house of Moon, such that it can be added to the records. Per your request, the Potter trust vault has been closed and the money has been transferred to the family vault.
“What! Harry Potter is the last of the Potter line! How did this happen?!” Daphne all-but screamed, staring at the paper.
“Um, Daphne?” Tracey interjected, staring at the other titles.
“Have you ever heard of house Moon? The way Gringotts handles titles is that it lists them in the order of their status…”
The other girls froze.
“There are only a select few families older or more prestigious than Peverell. With this, they should be well-known for being so old! Why haven’t we heard of them, then?”
The full titles actually were, ‘most ancient and most noble house Peverell’… and ‘most ancient, most noble and divine house Moon’. I doubted any family on the planet could place itself above Moon in the eyes of magic.
“How old are you really?” Daphne asked with wide eyes, staring at me.
I raised an eyebrow at her, and she dropped the question.
“We’ll arrive shortly,” one of the twins eventually said some more dozen minutes later, staring outside. I nodded, and stepped aside, pulling Nebula with me. They still needed to freshen up a bit, and Daphne then looked at me.
“I really hope you’re not human. It would be weird to know I treated someone like a pet…”
Feeling cheeky, I turned into my human-child form, grinning at her.
‘Oh, I would not mind, but I can assure you, I am definitively not human,’ I ‘said’ without opening my mouth, making her shudder at the sound of my mental voice.
“So, you can speak… why did you not?” one of the twins asked, causing me to shrug.
‘I really liked the attention you were giving me. Besides, imagine the face Malfoy will make when he realizes that I’m attending the school.’
Pause.
Grumble.
‘…if he does.’
“So, they are taking non-human students now!”
Shrug.
‘I doubt they’re aware I’m not human. The way they send the letters makes me register in a way that makes them think I’m human, I believe. I would have to write to Nightmare, she can check.’
“I assume she is your mother?”
‘Not exactly. Though, I do not want to elaborate on that one right now, it’s a bit complicated.’
“Fair enough… does Nebula have a human form, too?”
I shrugged.
‘She has, though she prefers not to use it unless it is for training her magic.’
Nebula, of course, bristled when I said that, but we both knew she couldn’t refute me, not here.
‘Well, I guess I will see you all at the sorting, then,’ I added, and they nodded. We left the train, and Nebula turned back into Harry, glaring at me the whole time.
I just chuckled.
Once nobody looked at us any more, though, I grabbed Nebula and side-stepped reality, time slowing to a crawl.
“It seems like you did socialize in both forms after all,” I said, and she sighed, before nodding. I lit up my magic, space twisting around us, and I applied a masking spell so that it would not cause another paradox. I made this magic specifically so that I could jump through time without getting noticed by my earlier self, and it drained a significantly higher amount of magic than anything else I cast that year, but it still was but a fraction of my power.
A white flash in the future, an infrared flash in the past, and he was sent back hundreds of minutes and millions of miles.
Then the mana crashed back into me, and I barely managed to absorb it all. Why did it return? I sent him back to the past, it happened, so why was almost all the energy of the spell returned?
Something to muse about later, I guess.