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// Chapter 2:  Dumbledore Got A Letter 
// Story: A Hogwarts Harmony 
// by computerneek 
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The very next summer…  he got a letter.  He always did; politicians liked trying to sound him out on issues or to bribe him to their views, and a couple had tried to blackmail him.  As if that would work- Rita Skeeter did that more effectively than any politician, and he found her articles about him amusing rather than worrying!  Speaking of journalists, he had those always trying to sound him out or get opinions from him.  He had parents asking him about the details of the Hogwarts education; he had Mugwumps from the International Confederation of Wizards asking him how to reach the records department.  They should seriously already know that without asking him!  He had missives from other national governments, trying to gain sway with him and earn the help of Britain or Hogwarts in something or another.
And every once in a while, he’d have a letter from a government that had a problem they thought he should know about, in case it crossed Britain’s borders.  He’d sent messages like that to basically everywhere in Europe once Voldemort got started as a Dark Lord.
This letter fell into that category, it seemed.  It was handwritten on a heavy but definitely plant-based paper that was watermarked in a very regal manner.  It looked like a special kind of stationary, probably a standard used by royalty or something…  and the self-unsealing envelope flap was something he had to admit he’d never seen before.  Usually, when the flap was fused to the body of the envelope, he had to use a special charm to unfuse it- but this one, as soon as he removed the wax seal (on which he’d noticed a pretty powerful something that even the Elder Wand couldn’t scan) unfused itself.
His first guess had been that someone was trying to impress him.  The stationary had a cartoonish sun emblazoned across it in the watermark, and was also heavily impregnated with magic that he couldn’t read.  On top of that, when he first looked at the text, it had been all incomprehensible squiggles- but less than a second later, before his very eyes, it had transformed into perfectly legible English text.
And it did that every time he looked at it, like it was a translation spell hidden inside the paper itself.  If that wasn’t showing off, he wasn’t sure what was.
But then he’d begun to read the message…  and been surprised by how it greeted him.
Despite the…  ostentatious medium, it was addressed to Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, without even mentioning any of his other titles or names- things that the ones trying to curry favor always presented in triplicate.
Next, it launched straight into the situation, no preamble at all- something that never happened on official, government-to-government communications; those were always bloated with so much fluff it was hard to discern the true meaning.  Not this letter.
It was signed by Princess Celestia Solaris of the Kingdom of Equestria, so perhaps that was who wrote it too?  In either case, this Princess Celestia quickly and clearly explained that she, and the entirety of the Kingdom of Equestria (which was ruled by Princess Celestia and her sister, with no king or queen involved)…  were in another universe.
Specifically, another universe that was going to collapse in a couple hundred years.
So, nearly three hundred years ago, they had started opening portals to as many different universes as they could find and sending scouts to them.  Determining if they could move there, or not, making contact with the inhabitants because they didn’t want to perform a forceful invasion…
They had found homes for most of the sentient races on their world- a planet called ‘Equus’- but had yet to find one that they liked.
Part of the problem was that, in the few worlds they’d found that were suitable, they’d contacted the local government…  which had decided to fight them before they understood anything, causing them to lose agents.
And Earth…  Earth was the most suitable world they’d found yet- despite having ambient magic densities too low for their native magic to function.  She specified the date that the portal had been opened, nearly five years before- he checked his records, three days after the fateful prophecy, which wouldn’t have survived a blow from another universe like that!  But, four of her scouts had just successfully completed the first year of their Hogwarts educations and demonstrated wand magic for her back in Equestria.
Those scouts were aged anywhere from thirty to a hundred and thirty years old.  Apparently, these ‘Equestrians’ had a lifespan of about three hundred years…  but upon crossing the portal, were transformed into eleven-year-old children, regardless of prior age.  As such, they would all get invited to Hogwarts…  and Princess Celestia’s expectation was that a majority of the population would accept such an offer.  While every last one of her people were magical, only about a third could produce ‘active magic’ like that producible with a wand- yet wands ignored the difference and worked for everyone.
Thus, as Hogwarts would likely be the first to feel the impact of any mass exodus onto Earth, she figured he would be the best point of contact, and that perhaps he could explain it to the ‘politicos’ in such a manner that they didn’t go off half-cocked.
He took a deep breath, let it out, and read the letter again.
Then he set it on his desk, and headed for the Ministry.





Dumbledore stopped in front of one of the shelves in the Hall of Prophecy, buried deep in the Department of Mysteries under the Ministry of Magic.  “Rainbow powder,” he observed.
Saul Croaker, the generic name used by the Unspeakable that had guided him in, looked at it.  “That one too, huh?” he muttered.
Dumbledore looked questioningly at him.
“Some five years ago now, a vast majority of active prophecies suddenly broke, like that.  We haven’t been able to discern what caused it.”  He drew his wand and tapped it…  then named the exact date that Princess Celestia’s letter said the portal was opened.  “That would’ve been one of them.  We must’ve missed it.”
He facepalmed.  “Three Days,” he grumbled.  “That prophecy was valid for just three days before they broke it!”
“They ?” Croaker asked, turning to look at him.
He nodded.  “A country from another world,” he muttered.  “That was the date they opened their interdimensional portal.  Apparently, their world will collapse in a couple hundred years, so they’re looking for a new one to move into.”  He sighed.  “And if I’d known…  If I’d known, I wouldn’t have guided Voldemort into Marking the hero of my choice.”
“Harry Potter,” Croaker observed.  “It seems a good thing he was Marked, though.”
He sighed.  “Without the prophecy, there was no guarantee that it would be a marking rather than simple murder, even with the steps I took to prevent Harry’s death.  And on top of that…  Harry has become a horcrux of Voldemort’s.”
There was a pause.
“Oh,” Croaker sighed darkly.  “You…  have a plan?”
He nodded.  “I’m going to have to raise him up to martyr himself against Voldemort.  In the meantime, I have yet to locate his final Horcrux; I intend to destroy them all at once and pounce on him before he has a chance to make another.”
Croaker rubbed his chin.  “How many has he made?”
“Seven total.  Harry, the Locket of Helga Hufflepuff, held in the Lestrange vault at Gringotts-!”
“That’s a violation of the Treaty.”
He nodded.  “It is- I’m not sure how I’m going to reach it yet.  Then there’s Slytherin’s locket, protected by inferi and a particularly troublesome potion in a cave off the coast; the Gaunt ring, containing the Resurrection Stone from the Deathly Hallows, protected by a truly ridiculous set of curses that I’m considering hiring a cursebreaker for.  The Diadem of Ravenclaw, within the walls of Hogwarts somewhere; I’ve yet to determine exactly which room it’s hidden in, but it’s got basically no protections.
“The last two are Voldemort’s pet snake, a Maledictus named Nagini, who I am using to track Voldemort’s phantom…  and a diary from his days at Hogwarts, though its location is still a mystery.”
“Hmm.  Unless he’s done some pretty serious soul reinforcement magics, destroying just…  three of them in short order, or two if it’s simultaneous, ought to trigger a soul collapse.”
He scowled.  “I wouldn’t put that past him.  There were signs of a sacrifice-based reinforcement ritual having been executed at Harry’s attempted murder.”
“Damn,” Croaker cussed.  “If he’s been using sacrifice-powered reinforcement magics, we could probably nuke all of his horcruxes all at once and it wouldn’t really bother him.”
“Exactly.”  He paused.  “Nuke?”
“Muggle expression,” Croaker answered.  “A ‘nuke’, or nuclear weapon, is among the most powerful of muggle weapons, capable of leveling entire cities with a single bomb.”
He shuddered.  “They really have left wizardkind in the dust, haven’t they?”
He nodded.  “The way I hear it, it’s only thanks to active cooperation by Muggle governments around the world- and the unverifiable nature of various magic sightings- that the Statute of Secrecy hasn’t collapsed already.”
“And it is by that mercy that we still live,” he muttered softly.





It took Dumbledore a good three hours to decide exactly how he was going to write his response to Princess Celestia’s letter, then another two to write it.  He hadn’t been able to confirm her claims about her universe- but he had been able to confirm the portal date and time.
So he started with the Dark Lord Voldemort.  He informed her that he wasn’t truly dead, merely delayed, and of what steps were being taken- in a general sense- to see him defeated, once and for all.  He made passing mention of his ‘politico’ titles, mentioned the laws around magic in general and underage magic in particular that might be important, and asked after the total population that would need to transit.  He made sure he never once even implied that he was giving permission for what he dubbed their ‘apologetic invasion’- but he also never implied that he was refusing or dismissing it.  He simply wanted to know more about it before making a decision.
He then went on to discuss the various options for magical education, including other schools, and the near-certainty that any of their people that crossed would receive a magically-generated Hogwarts letter if they remained in Britain.  He also discussed the likelihood of citizens still in Equestria to receive such a letter, provided the portal was synchronized with the scan magic and was located in Britain.  He implied that the portal synchronization could be keyed to limit the number of invitations that would cross the gateway, and that such invitations could be used to control the rate of population flow in the event that the Apologetic Invasion was executed.
He mentioned currencies, and how they might convert, as a side note- then discussed the issues with high magical densities.  The people of Equestria- or ‘Equestrians’, he dubbed them- seemed to be well-adapted to high ambient magic levels, but humans would actually be killed by too high of the same.  Magic Poisoning, it was called; Hogwarts had one of the highest ambient levels on the planet, for populated areas, and also had extensive warding to protect its occupants from any negative effects from the same.  He also indicated that wizards could use ‘wandless’ magic as well; it was believed to come directly from their soul rather than from their wand, as wand magic did.  He asked if that might be similar to how the Equestrian magic worked, and if so, if it was perhaps a technique difference or the like.
He did not, after all, want to strip the people of the magics they were used to unless he absolutely had to.
He made sure to ask about the age situation; considering they had a lifespan of three hundred years, if a two-hundred-ninety-year-old crossed the portal, would they have a full human lifespan ahead of them, or something different?  And if one crossed at a younger age than eleven, would they cross as an eleven-year-old, or as their true age- and what lifespan would they be able to expect?
Speaking of lifespan, was it possible that their three-hundred-year lifespan relied on their ambient magic densities?
Finally, he closed it, sealed it, addressed it…  and sent it back the way Princess Celestia’s letter had come:  By owl, to what was presumably one of her scouts.