Minutes later, Luna (the alicorn) was seated at the table in the sun room, the last vestiges of the sun’s pink aura fading under the horizon. Luna (the human) was on the opposite side, looking a bit weakened by the powerful magic she had just performed, but otherwise okay. A much needed ration of hot tea had been brought at Celestia’s request. The Princess of the Day was still recovering a bit; her sister’s momentum was enough to give her a concussion, albeit a mild one. The initial shock had worn out; now came the awkward aftermath.
“So” Twilight said, trying to defrost the room’s icy atmosphere.
“It is good to see you again, my sister. I have missed you” Princess Luna finally said. A blanket had been laid over her shoulders; she was visibly shivering.
“Oh, come on now. You didn’t miss me one bit”.
It might have been the mild brain damage, or it might have just been the relationship between the two, but Celestia’s tone seemed unusually casual. Luna laughed softly, staring into the liquid abyss of the steaming mug held between her hooves.
“If I’ve learned anything, Tia,” she said, carefully sipping her tea, “It’s that I can always rely on you not to screw things up while I’m gone”.
“You do seem to disappear quite often” Celestia replied. The gang from Ponyville seemed a bit bewildered at the apparent lack of gentility between the royal sisters.
“Although I don’t always want to” Luna deadpanned. It was as if the inter-dimensional void had taken something from her, almost as if she was just coming back to life.
“Well, anyway,” her sister said, sighing and looking out the magnificent glass windows to see a final streak of light fall behind the curtain of night. “It’s good to have you back. I’m getting tired of doing your job, Luna”.
Luna laughed again, this time looking up and smiling at her sister. Suddenly, she noticed the lone human on the other side of the table, and the smile nearly vanished. She looked worse for wear, her blonde hair frizzled and matted, her scholarly robes tattered and disheveled. Sensing her attention, Luna Lovegood looked the princess straight in the eyes, and there was a certain understanding between the two, an uncommon sympathy.
“So” the Princess said affably, still looking at her companion. “You’re Miss Lovegood. I think you may have some studies to catch up on”.
Luna Lovegood laughed once, a chuckle that faded into melancholy. She didn’t seem to care that she was speaking to royalty, didn’t care that she was imponderably distant from Hogwarts, didn’t care about anything.
“Can… can I go home now?”
The inter-dimensional spell proved no match for the two ancient princesses. Again the poetic chant was spoken, this time by two tongues in perfect synchronization, speaking their native language. The crevasse opened gladly, white light shining into the darkened room. Saying nothing but nodding gratefully, Luna Lovegood stepped through and was consumed by the light.
The mood in the Great Hall was jovial. It was the End of Year feast, and all of the students (minus one) were gathered at the tables, merrily exchanging banter, contact information, and generally having a good time. The Hall was decked from floor to ceiling in amber and black, Hufflepuff having won the House Cup for the first time in one hundred and thirty-six years due to a minor error in the points system. Even the Slytherins didn’t seem to mind the upstaging. It was a good time for wizards; Voldemort had disappeared months ago. Professor Dumbledore’s face shined with a youthful grin, his cheeks as red as Fuji apples. Occasionally, though, he looked to the vacant seat to his left. The Defence Against the Dark Arts professor had disappeared along with the Dark Lord, and hadn’t been seen since. Since exams had already passed, however, there was no great rush to find a replacement.
Suddenly, a great wind from seemingly nowhere began to whip through the atrium. Goblets of pumpkin juice were overturned, hundreds of wizard caps escaped their owners and took to the sky, windows slammed open to let the wind through. In the middle of the center aisle, a line was drawn in the air from a few meters up down to the ground, like a sword cutting a sail. Individual rays of light shone through. Suddenly, the line expanded, becoming a sort of convex oval, almost touching the students seated at the nearby tables. A shadow emerged from the other side, and slowly increased in size until it became that of a human. Luna Lovegood stepped out of the portal and onto the granite floor. As soon as she disembarked, the passageway shut like a zipper, sounding like a vacuum cleaner. Professor Dumbledore stood up.
“Welcome back, Miss Lovegood,” he said, “We have been waiting for you”.
A singular light flooded into the caverns, reflecting off of every crystalline surface until the subterranean world was as bright as the morning sun. The source of the sudden illumination floated inches above Princess Luna’s horn as she panned through the ancient cave system, her determined expression imitated in hundreds of quartz mirrors. It was just past midnight and she was at least a mile below Canterlot; she had escaped the castle unseen. Finally, she reached the corridor she was searching for, and gleefully cantered in, the floor narrowing and the ceiling lowering until she was almost crawling. After what seemed like ages, she emerged from a small hole into a large rotunda, a circular atrium with walls of shining crystal, reminiscent of a Baroque cathedral. She focused her attention on the massive object in the centre of the room.
Magic, as many academic wizards and witches have noticed through the ages, is not definite. It can be warped, stretched, contracted, and manipulated in almost any way if one knows how. This underground chamber was constructed for this purpose. Its walls were carved to reflect and refract magical energy, concentrating and focusing it, its mystical acoustics perfectly tuned. Most had forgotten about this place, or written it off as a mere novelty. It served no practical purpose to most, as the extreme amplification of energy was concealed within, unable to be used without. Luna, however, had not forgotten.
Still remembering the incantation, she once again recited the portal spell, her lone voice echoing in the empty room. A burst of white light shot out from her horn. It impacted high on the wall directly opposite her, and split into two beams, which then snaked their way around the rotunda until finally meeting in the centre, their individual magnitudes now greater than the original. With a polyphonic moan, the fabric of existence was once again ripped open, and the warm light shone on her face. Closing her eyes, she stepped through the portal and into Dumbledore’s office.