Sunset’s book of research notes looked like an ordinary book, but it wasn’t.
After a trip to a stationery store in London for purchasing of cheap yet perfectly adequate quality material, it now looked like it only had a hundred pages to write in when closed, but when you opened it and started flipping through the pages, suddenly you found thousands of them, blank, lined, graphed, and anyone looking through it had a strangely easy time to find what they were looking for, thanks to some additional spells.
Sunset stood in a currently unused classroom, with the chairs and tables stacked against the wall, and a until recently dusty blackboard against the far wall.
She flipped through her book and tugged at one scribbled paper, which made it come away easily, and started unfolding it more times than seemed possible, until it was large enough to cover the entire board, whereupon she fastened the paper against it, and started studying it.
A chaotic collection of scribbles and notes in Modern Equestrian, rough illustrations, and lines criss-crossing between them was her attempt to map out what she knew of alicorns, why she was certain that magic was the key to becoming one, as well as, and this was of course the part with the least amount of information, how one goes about making it happen.
In fact, there was no information about it.
“It can’t just be knowing enough magic,” Sunset said to herself as she paced slowly back and forth, shooting glances at the map. “Celestia said that Starswirl was her teacher, and he wasn’t an alicorn.”
She played with the idea that Celestia had lied to her, but dismissed it. Celestia was not entirely opposed to misdirection, but she did not lie like that.
With a thumping sound, the book she had borrowed from the library came down on a table, and she flipped it to the section she was after.
“The unicorn is a magical creature which roams the wilds of large parts of Eurasia. It resembles a horse with a horn on its head, but possesses an otherworldly grace that humans have difficulty describing, and are found to be hauntingly beautiful- why, thank you,” Sunset said, raising an eyebrow, as she read to herself. “Uhm… does it say why? Eeh… strange.” She flipped a few pages to skim ahead, but shrugged, and continued from where she had left off.
“The unicorn is a being of purity, goodness, and healing. Uh, sure, why not? Although it is recommended to avoid their ire, as they are quite dangerous when provoked or when woods and creatures under their protection are threatened. Yeah, watch out. One of their most distinguishing abilities is that they are very difficult to capture. Interesting. Adult unicorns are averse to the close presence and especially touch of men and… boys? And… prefer the touch of… young maidens… oooo-kay?”
Sunset blinked a few times before flipping the page back to make sure she hadn’t accidentally started reading about something else, before clearing her throat.
“... Although unicorn foals accept the touch of men and boys, as well.” Sunset looked down at her young body. “Uh… I guess we’ll see how that turns out. The… unicorn has several magical properties, most notable among them for wizardkind is that their hair, either from their tail or their mane, can be used as a core of wands. The horn of a unicorn is believed to be the channel for their magic- you don’t say? Poaching of unicorns is highly illegal- yeah I should hope so, although it is still known to occur, as powdered unicorn horns can be diluted into immense volumes and still remain a powerful ingredient in potion-making… yeah- touch me and you’re gonna buckin’ lose something,” Sunset muttered, slightly disturbed, and took a few breaths before she continued.
“Even more peculiar is the blood of a unicorn, which looks like liquid silver, and functions as an extremely potent restorative for humans.” Sunset blinked at the text. “However, drinking a unicorn’s blood will affect the drinker with a curse. Very few accounts exist of drinkers of unicorn blood sharing the experience of the curse, although it is generally agreed that the effect is quite horrific.”
Sunset stared at the book for a long while.
“... Huh.”
“Oh, hello, Sunset.”
Sunset’s hands half-shot out towards her own book in a jerky motion, before she realized that the speaker, Draco Malfoy, couldn’t read any of it, as it was written in Equestrian, and while he might get curious about the language, the damage was already done.
“Hello, Draco,” Sunset said, trying to get her mood to return to normal through force of will.
Draco was strutting into the room, uninvited, although Sunset couldn’t really say he couldn’t, seeing as how she was just occupying a random classroom.
She did notice that he looked rather pleased.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Studying. Researching,” Sunset said, waving it away as uninteresting. “Just a little… project.”
“Mm, I see,” Draco said, and his smile grew. “I’ve just been made Slytherin’s seeker.”
“For the quidditch team you mean?” Sunset said, feeling pleased with herself for following along so closely.
“Yep. My father bought a set of Nimbus Two-Thousand Ones, for the whole team.”
Sunset made a quick search of her memories for price tags she had seen in Diagon Alley, and gave a low whistle.
“That’s quite a sum,” she said, and continued to herself in a low voice, “I could live on that for years.”
“It really is, but my father has that kind of money,” Draco continued, not having heard Sunset’s last few words.
“So I’ve heard,” Sunset said, nodding.
“Oh, yes, how was your summer? Your ehm… you couldn’t live with your family anymore, right?”
Sunset nodded. “That’s a kind way of saying it.”
“So where do you live when you’re not at school?”
“I rented a room at The Leaky Cauldron,” Sunset said, speaking the truth, though not all of it.
“Really? We went through there and I didn’t see you,” Draco noted.
Sunset shrugged. “I must’ve been out.”
“Mmm. But… you know… I could always ask father if you can stay with us, if you’d like.”
Sunset froze, and weighed her options.
On the one hand, judging by Draco’s family’s wealth she’d be living in the lap of luxury, with the finest food, servants taking care of her, and probably more than one library full of magical lore.
On the other hand, yeah, definitely no on that.
“Sounds better than a dusty old inn, doesn’t it?” Draco continued.
“I’m not unaccustomed to luxury,” Sunset said, and waved around at the stones of the walls. “This isn’t the first castle I’ve lived in.”
“Really?” Draco asked, looking curious. “What kind of castle? And where?”
Sunset took a breath as she pondered how to respond to this. “Eh… just… a castle, far away.”
“Who else lived there?”
The high princess of Equestria and its militaries’ supreme commander, the immortal guardian of all her people, the alicorn of the sun and thus the lifebringer to her lands, and the highest executive of the united homeland of all pony tribes, which brings stability to surrounding lands with its sheer presence, and prosperity with its friendliness. Other than that, countless ambassadors and foreign dignitaries, Equestria’s High Command, pretty much the entire royal guard, as well as members of other branches of the military which uses the castle as their headquarters, not to mention innumerable functionaries; everything from the chief royal landscape architect to Celestia’s personal spymasters. Add to that how the CSGU is technically within the castle grounds, so that you can also count professors, researchers, and the students attending the finest education in the land. All that and more.
… Oh… and Cadence.
“Uh… quite a few others.”
Draco raised one eyebrow. “Wizards and witches?”
Sunset nodded. “Students and practitioners of the arcane arts, certainly, and many other magical beings.”
“And where was it? What country is it in?”
This was becoming tricky for Sunset. The muggles had explored the surface of their world quite thoroughly, and while wizardkind seemed to be rather slow on the uptake when it came to their non-magical counterpart’s discoveries and advancements, she assumed that they at least knew that all the lands above sea level were mapped out.
“A, uh… land that rarely makes contact with the rest of this world,” Sunset ventured.
“But where?”
Sunset chewed her lip. “It’s uh… not a matter of distance, per se.”
Draco was about to ask more questions, when a large, black shape swept into the room.
“Ah, Draco, and Miss Shimmer,” Professor Snape said, managing to sound very cold towards Sunset.
“Professor,” Sunset said, neutrally. On the inside, she was beating herself for her sloppiness, wondering how she could’ve missed his scent, and how much he overheard.
“Hello, Professor. Thank you for kicking the Gryffindor team off the quidditch patch for us,” Draco said, before catching himself and glancing back at Sunset, who was trying to look as casual as possible while reaching up and trying to detach her messy research-map from the board.
Snape smiled. “I thought it would be best if there were fewer… unknowns during the next game. Speaking of which,” he said, and walked up to Sunset’s map, and grabbed one end. “What is Miss Shimmer up to?”
“Researching,” Draco proudly supplied.
“Yes. Researching,” Sunset echoed. She already didn’t like Snape, and the recent discoveries made her all the more wary of the wizarding world in general, and especially him.
Snape glanced at the open book. “About unicorns, I see. Denizens of the deep woods?” he said, and turned to the large paper still partially attached to the blackboard. “And of subjects I don’t recognize as school work. How curious. I wonder… if perhaps the work of Miss Shimmer finds itself completely within the boundaries of school rules. I know her house has a particular penchant for stepping outside that.”
As he spoke, he grabbed the edge of the paper as if to help Sunset with removing it, but didn’t let go of it, instead holding it firmly.
“None of any rules I know of. Thank you, professor,” Sunset said, as she tugged the paper out of his hand, making him glance down at the paper he hadn’t expected to be enchanted to make it ripping-resistant.
As Sunset quickly folded the paper up the size of her book, now falling under the definitions of grimoire, Snape kept going. “Then again, in my experience, Gryffindors can be counted on to not even know the rules in… the… first… place,” he said, as Sunset rapidly thumbed through a few thousand pages of her book, which she had emblazoned with her cutie mark on the cover, to find the proper place to insert the rolled up paper.
Snape’s eyes narrowed, while Draco’s went wide. “We haven’t learned any spell like that so far,” Draco said. “Did you learn it on your own?”
“Yeah. Just a little studying in my spare time. Good day, Professor,” she said, as she moved out of the classroom.
Draco hurried after her.
“Oh, and you should have seen what happened earlier on the quidditch pitch. That clown Ron Weasley was going to cast a hex on me to throw up slugs,” Draco gushed, and Sunset further committed to always being ready to cast a shield spell on herself. “But his spell backfired and it hit himself instead!”
“Ew,” Sunset winced.
“I know! It was hilarious!” Draco said, laughing.
“Why would he try to cast that hex on you in the first place?”
Draco waved that away with a slightly sneering expression. “Probably something to do with that Hermione Granger not enjoying being called what she is.”
“... Overly enthusiastic in class?”
“Uh, yes. Precisely.”
“Well… sounds like quite a bit of drama,” Sunset carefully ventured. “I’m not sure if I'm glad or sad that I missed it.”
“Yeah, you really should’ve that Weasley with the slugs coming out of his mouth,” Draco giggled.
Sunset shook her head. “Not before breakfast and, uh… frankly, not after either,” she said as they came to the great hall. “Well, I’m going back to the tower. I’ll see you around?”
“Yeah. See you.”
Sunset sauntered along the corridors towards Gryffindor’s tower, taking her time as she figured out what to do next. She still had research to do, but she shelved that plan, not liking the idea of Snape walking in on her doing the exact same thing again after she just packed up in front of him.
Coming out of a bathroom with an impatient expression was Ginny Weasley, who shot an annoyed look at the door.
She turned and saw Sunset walking by right next to her, and jumped in surprise. “Oh! Hey, Sunset.”
“Hello, Ginny,” Sunset said. “What’s up?”
Ginny lowered her voice. “Hrmm… that ghost in there.”
“Oh,” Sunset said, and they kept walking before she continued. “Yeah. That’s Moaning Myrtle.”
The smaller girl looked back at the bathroom door before they rounded a corner. “She was acting like I was out to get her.”
Sunset shrugged. “That’s nice of you. I mean, being miserable is what makes her happy,” she said, at Ginny’s questioning look.
“So… Do you just hurl insults at her whenever you see her?” Ginny asked, skeptically.
“No, but I’m not really in the business of making people happy either.”
Ginny gave Sunset a sideways glance, then smirked.
“So you’re in the same class as Harry? Uh, Harry and Ron? And Hermione?”
“That’s right.”
“Oh… What’s it like?”
Sunset glanced at Ginny. “What’s it like being in the same class as Harry, Ron, and Hermione?”
“Uh, No, I mean, uh… What's class like?”
“Hmm… They’re, uh, they’re fine. About half of them are anyway. Hey, don’t you know all about this? How many older brothers do you have? Five?”
“Six. But like you said, they’re all brothers.”
“What? Are you wondering if it’s different for girls?”
“Well… no, but… I’m just wondering what someone who isn’t my brother says.”
Sunset quickly had to think up what would make more sense for someone who wasn’t already well-trained in the arcane arts studying their first year at Hogwarts.
“Hmm… If you take a few hours every week to try and stay ahead of schedule, everything will go much easier.”
“That sounds like Percy.”
Sunset recoiled. “What a horrible thought. I mean, don’t worry about grades at all. I don’t. You just won’t have to worry about teachers hovering over you if you stay ahead. But don’t get too far ahead.”
Ginny giggled, but before she could say anything, Sir Nicholas floated through a wall, holding a roll of paper and looking agitated.
He paused when he saw them, and floated up to them.
“Ladies, I’m sorry to interrupt, but I must ask, do you consider me to be decapitated?”
“Yes,” Sunset curtly and truthfully answered, having heard of Nick’s denial to join the Headless Hunt, and not missing a beat.
Ginny glanced at Sunset, much less certain, and answered nervously. “Uh… yes? Yes.”
Nick took a breath, and tried to look dignified. “I thought so. Thank you,” he said, and gave a stiff flourish with his hand, before continuing on through a wall.
“... Wow. A lot of the ghosts have issues,” Ginny noted, as they moved on.
“I think it comes with the territory.”
“And the moving stairs, and the changing corridors, and the hidden passages, and the passwords, and Peeves!” Ginny continued. “Why is it like this? No one told me.”
“It’s a strange castle, and I think people like it that way,” Sunset said, as she waved a curtain away to reveal a secret passage that Ginny hadn’t learned of yet. “Probably a sort of hazing mentality, where you try and keep initiates on their toes. I’ve never understood it myself, but you’ll get used to it.”
“Was it hard getting used to it?” Ginny asked, sounding a little nervous.
Sunset glanced back at Ginny as they emerged in a corridor leading to Gryffindor tower. “Whatever the answer is, I should say no.”
“Can you believe how Ron and Harry arrived though?”
Sunset chuckled to herself. “Those clowns. Yes I can believe that.”
Ginny smiled at herself and played with a lock of hair. “Is Harry getting into trouble a lot?”
“Uh…” Sunset thought on this for a moment. “There were some rule-breaking, some detentions, and some rumors that they fought dark wizards, so yeah, I guess so. You know all about that, don’t you? Ron was with him and Hermione.”
“Yeah, yeah he uh… sorta told us about it?”
“Sorta?”
“Well, Fred and George just heckled him whenever he tried telling the story.”
“Oh. Yeah they would.”
Sunset found the conversation mostly comforting, but there was a tenacious sound in the back of her head she was only vaguely aware of, until an inkwell bounced off her head, and spilled its content over her hair and robes.
Ginny put her hands in front of her mouth, and gave Sunset, who was staring ahead and looking coldly unamused, a horrified look.
A loud cackling sounded above them, and they looked up to see Peeves the poltergeist floating above them.
“Students- poo-dents! Who dents them? Why it’s Peeves, with ease, and tricks up his sleeves! Aaahahahaaaa…”
Peeves shrieked with laughter as he floated through the ceiling.
“Oh… are you okay?” Ginny asked Sunset.
Sunset took a deep breath, and nodded, spilling more ink onto her clothes. “I’m fine,” she said, and stood in silence for a moment. “I’m going to wash this off,” she said, and turned around and marched off towards the showers.
Not that she actually needed a shower, but she felt this was an appropriate time as ever to have one. It also allowed her to make sure she didn’t miss any spots when the magicked the ink out of her hair and clothes, which was easier when disrobed and with access to a mirror.
Once cleaned off and dressed, she stepped out into the corridor again, and considered what had just happened.
Perhaps she was biased when she felt that this world was more dangerous than Equestria, but perhaps she wasn’t. And if she was not, she had just been ambushed in a dangerous place. It was by a prankster, sure… this time.
And the reason she was ambushed was because she had been socializing- being friends with people.
Sunset took a deep breath as she contemplated this, walking through the corridors of the castle, unseen by students and teachers, down into the dungeons, and into the empty potions classroom. There she retrieved a small, used potions bottle from the trash bin by Snape’s desk, and walked out again, up towards the third floor of the southwest wing, a part of the castle with low activity, but which Sunset knew was the favorite haunt of House Slytherin’s ghost.
“My Lord Baron,” she called out towards a somber-looking ghost floating through a wall, catching him before he vanished through another one.
The Bloody Baron looked at Sunset in surprise, before turning and elegantly floating up towards her, taking off his wide, ostrich feather-adorned hat with a flourish and holding it to his ruffled, silver blood-stained shirt while bowing.
“My lady,” he wheezed, as he righted himself, and held out his hand invitingly, which Sunset accepted, then gently brushed his ethereal lips just above her knuckles, sending an icy chill up Sunset’s forearm. “What can the Baron of House Slytherin do for a friend?”
Sunset raised her eyebrows. “A friend?”
“A member of House Gryffindor,” the Baron explained.
“Oh? I’ve detected a sense of unfriendly rivalry between the houses,” Sunset noted.
“Oh, verily,” the Baron sighed. “The low spirits of the ghosts of Hogwarts are not just because we are dead. We remember a time when the disciples of its founders did great things together, the wisdom of the houses combined.”
“Even Gryffindor and Slytherin?”
“Especially Gryffindor and Slytherin. But enough of such matters. The bitterness will fade and come again. We have seen it many times. Now, how can I be of service?”
“I’d just like to find Peeves.”
The Baron’s expression darkened, and Sunset noticed that his hand slowly started moving towards the hilt of his sword. “Has he overstepped himself once more?”
“Perhaps. I’m not sure where the line is, but I’d like just one word with him.”
“Mmm, I sense that honor is at stake. I shall… speak… with him,” the Baron said, and moved as if to float away.
“Actually, I was hoping to take care of this myself,” Sunset interjected.
The Baron stopped, and gave Sunset a scrutinizing look, and not altogether wholesome look.
“The stones of this castle whisper of one of great ability who walks its halls once more. I would urge you to consider the nature of mastery, and to not forget to look inward.
“Peeves is lounging around outside the astronomy tower. I can hear his self-congratulatory cackle even now.”
Sunset, for her part, was also giving the Baron a not-entirely-friendly look, before taking some effort into breathing out the tension, and nodding at the ghost.
“Thank you, Lord Baron.”
The Baron’s expression also softened, and he gave another bow. “I unlive to serve.”
—
Sunset indeed only had one word for Peeves. That word was “Stay.”
She sauntered up the stairs towards Gryffindor tower, contemplating the nature of factional animosity. Was quidditch, the house cup rivalry, and the actual physical divide between the houses during spare time a product of tribalism, or the other way around?
Many times during her life, Sunset had been exposed to the sentiment of her needing to have friends, and not just from Celestia. If she humored those wishes, what was actually being asked of her?
What kind of friends did she need? How many? How encompassing were her friendships to be?
The people wishing her to have friends would scoff at the idea of rejecting friendship altogether. Sunset would consider the opposite, to be friends with everyone in all realities to be even more ridiculous, so the correct number would be somewhere in between that.
… And could, would, or should she reject people who were enemies with each other? If yes, wouldn’t that mean picking sides in conflicts she had no interest in? If not, who would it fall to to solve hostilities between her hypothetical friends? Herself, probably, and it was not something she looked forward to.
Sunset took a deep breath, still not convinced of the worth of the whole idea.
“Password?” the fat lady asked.
Sunset paused.
“Do you feel that your relation with the students is a little too transactionary?” Sunset asked her.
The fat lady hummed to herself in her seat, and called to someone outside the frame of the painting. “Violet! When was the last time a student expressed concern for me?”
“Nineteen-eighty-six!” a voice came from the side.
The fat lady turned to Sunset. “Not too transactionary, but see it as a credit to yourself that you ask if you wish. Why do you ask?”
Sunset shrugged. “Not sure. Maybe I’m exploring new sides of myself?”
The lady chuckled. “You’ve got quite an old girl inside you, don’t you?”
“Some people have a strange relation with time. No requests then?”
The fat lady hummed, and selected a bottle from the collection on the table in front of her. “Perhaps find a painting of a lime. I hear it works well with this,” she said, and lifted a wicker-wrapped bottle. “Gift from the governor in the west before he passed away from dropsy.”
“I’ll keep an eye out,” Sunset said, as the Fat Lady opened up her portrait, and walked into the common room, passing by Ginny, sitting next to her brothers.
“Hey, Sunset,” Ginny asked, looking up from her Standard Book of Spells. “Did you get it all out?”
“Yep,” Sunset simply said.
“Get all of what out?” Fred asked.
“Uhm… Peeves was…”
“What?” George pressed.
“He… dropped a bottle of ink on Sunset.”
The twins grinned at each other. “Oooh, and we missed it.”
“More exciting things have already happened since,” Sunset noted, and turned around to walk up the stairs to the dorm, fishing out the old potions bottle from her robes, and smirked a little at the contents. “Hasn’t it?”
Peeves, for his part, was still trying to figure out what was going on, which was difficult when squeezed into a container a fraction of one’s volume.
“I think I’ll keep you in here for a few days,” Sunset noted, mostly to herself, as Peeves wouldn’t hear anything in his little habitat. “See if you learn anything from it. If you don’t, then you’ll wish you were dealing with the Baron instead of me.”