The skies of Scotland had once again settled into their nocturnal shade of deep, endless blue. Hogwarts School was enveloped in a deep slumber, except for the poltergeists stalking the halls, the brave few students staying up past curfew, and one exhausted professor furiously typing away in the uppermost room of one of the castle’s many spires.
The typewriter itself was rather old, a barely-working model from the 1930s, advertised as “noiseless”. Luna begged to differ, as the rapid click-click-clicking cacophony of minute metallic machinery permeated her spacious office. She’d rescued the device herself from an obscure corner of one of the academy’s many abandoned rooms. If there was one thing she simply couldn’t stand, it was writing with a quill, which seemed to be the universal standard of magical educators and pony princesses everywhere. As she lacked digits small enough to manipulate the keys, she used a pair of ancient steel gauntlets, also liberated from the deep expanses of a random storage closet. They also had the additional benefit of terrifying some of her younger students (and Neville Longbottom), especially the ones who still believed the stories circulated by the fifth- an sixth-years.
“I say, is that a Remington?”
The sound of steel clanging on wood filled the room as the gauntlets hit the floor, devoid of their magical impetus. Shocked, Luna looked around to locate the source of the mysterious voice. It was ethereal, mystic, yet familiar, as if she’d heard it before, a long, long time ago. There was nobody else in the room.
“Y...yes? Wait, who are you?” she said, breathing heavily, still scanning the room for the unseen stranger.
“Oh, I think you know who I am…” it replied.
“Show yourself!” she interjected, with all the force and inflection of the Royal Canterlot Voice.
“Good evening” he said.
Following the sound, Luna turned her head to the left, when she saw him. The shock caused her to fall over in the massive leather chair, which made him burst out in deep, jubilant laugher.
“Ow.” she said, rubbing her bruised forehead. She looked back at the visitor, and again reeled at the sight.
“I know you…” she said. “You’re…”
He was unmistakeable. His long, black hair, now grey in some places, was brushed back until it folded into small, neat curls. The same crisp, pale face greeted her, skin creased into neat wrinkles, acerbic green eyes blazing, mouth folded into a crooked smile. He had replaced his school uniform with an atrociously yellow suit, carefully pressed and accented with a burgundy-striped tie. The outfit was in the hilariously unfashionable style of a wizard in disguise, completed with a pair of tacky silver suede shoes.
“Richard Fenwick” he said, breaking the malicious smirk into a look of tired displeasure. “Charmed to make your acquaintance. Although, I do believe we have met before”.
“H-how?” she said, getting up from the floor, still in disbelief. His voice seemed familiar, but she just couldn’t exactly determine why.
“Model Seven, is it? Very nice” he said, changing the subject to admire the black machine on her desk. “Used to have one just like it”.
“You’re supposed to be dead”.
“And you’re supposed to be raising the moon in Equestria. Oh, don’t give me that look. Yes, I know all about you. We’ve got a lot in common, you and I”.
“We have nothing in common” she said, aggravated. How did he know? “How are you still alive? How did you get into my office? And where have I seen you before?”
“So many questions, so little time!” she said, turning his attention back to the equine standing in front of him. Grabbing the immense piece of leather and wood standing between them with a single, gaunt hand, he pushed the seat out of its resting place until it fell on its back a few feet behind the desk.
“One” he said with sudden punctiliousness, stepping forward and leaning to talk directly into her face, “I’m still alive because I never died”.
“But you…”
“No interrupting. Two. I used the door. Three—”
“But if you never died, then why—”
“Dumbledore is an old fool. He’ll believe anything the Daily Prophet tells him. Where was I, then?”
“Dumbledore’s no fool. You can’t hide from—”
“Who said I was hiding? In fact, I may visit him tonight, while I’m in the neighborhood”.
“If you think you can just waltz into my office—”
“Your office? I didn’t exactly see your name on the door”.
“This office is reserved for the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, I am the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, ergo—”
Richard attempted to contain his laughter. Attempted, and failed. He suddenly burst out into a fit of uncontrollable chortling, walking around the huge desk, placing his hand on it to keep himself from falling over.
“They– they– they made you a professor?” he said betwixt fits of hysterical chuckling.
“Would you shut up for a second!?” she said. Richard Fenwick immediately stopped laughing, and stood up straight, staring at her menacingly. “Who are you?”
“Perhaps,” he said, “you’d recognize me better without the disguise. In my…. true form”.
“What do you mean?” she asked, perplexed.
Instead of answering, he merely smiled again, the same malicious and devilish grin. Suddenly, his left hand began to quiver. He grasped it with his left, still smiling. There was a blinding flash of light. Where there once was a pale, bony fist, there was now an avian claw, a yellow down coating all but the long, sharp talons.
“Surprise!” Discord said, raising the new appendage. Luna said nothing, overcome by shock. The familiar voice. It all made sense, and then again it didn’t.
“But… how…. that…. isn’t… huh?” she said, unable to form a coherent sentence.
“What, Professor Luna? How did I sneak out of my stony prison and transport myself to your little magic school? It’s an interesting story, really, but I must start from the beginning”.
“But what about Fenwick? Did you kill him? I don’t understand”.
“Oh, Luna, you always were the slow one,” he said, rummaging the drawers of the old oaken desk. Smiling, he lifted a large and heavy object from within and loudly placed it on the surface. Luna recognized it instantly. It was the Pensieve given to her by Remus Lupin the year before. Discord, or Richard, or whoever he was, continued to search his suit coat for something, until he extracted a small vial of silvery liquid from within. Without haste, he poured it into the large stone bowl, until it settled into a milky haze. He smiled.
“Now, I haven’t much time to explain, so this will have to suffice”.
“But how did you–” Luna began to say, until a taloned hand grabbed the back of her head, and forced it rather unceremoniously down into the Pensieve.
Before she could realize what was happening, she was falling, and then she stopped. She looked around, confused. She was standing in the main hallway of Hogwarts Castle, that much she could infer, but something… something was different. The entire scene seemed to be faded, as if it was an old film reel. She looked for a recognizable face, but she found none among the students rushing between classes. Suddenly, the strange man from her office appeared by her side, leaning against the wall, arms crossed.
“Ah, the memories.”
“Wh… where are we?”
“Oh, Luna, don’t play me for a fool. You know perfectly well where we are. A better question is when”.
“Well, wh—”
“1945. Gellert Grindelwald has been defeated, and the wizarding world celebrates. Adolf Hitler has shot himself, and the War will be over in weeks”.
“So… why here? Why now?”
“If you would pay attention, maybe you would find out”.
He gestured towards the rushing river of robe-clad adolescents flooding the hall. Almost as if by cue, one of them stumbled and fell, sending up a tornado of parchment flying from his messenger bag.
“Is that–”
He sighed. “Yours truly, age fifteen”.
The lanky teen on his hands and knees bore an uncanny resemblance to the portrait Dumbledore had shown her.
“You were a Hufflepuff?” Luna said, surprised and quite amused.
“Unfortunately” he said, sighing again. “The one mystery I could never solve is why I wasn’t put into Slytherin. I suppose that infernal hat thought yellow was a good colour for me”.
“Apparently not,” Luna deadpanned, glancing at the horrendous suit her companion was wearing.
She turned her attention back to the scene unfolding before her eyes. The river of students racing to not be late turned into a stream, which dried into a creek. Eventually, young Richard was all alone, still retrieving papers from the floor. She heard footsteps from down the hall. A young man was briskly walking in their direction, looking quite peeved.
“Richard”.
“Tom”, replied Fenwick, looking up at the other.
“No…” said Luna, quietly.
Without haste, Tom immediately got down on his knees to help his friend collect his belongings. He was a rather striking young man, brown-black hair neatly combed, dark brown eyes shining in the morning sunlight. His robes were neatly pressed, and a green-and-silver tie hung from his neck.
“Tom Riddle. Best mate I ever had” remarked the older Richard.
“You didn’t. No…” Luna responded, flabbergasted.
“Oh, don’t act surprised. We malicious psychopaths tend to group together”.
“Professor Slughorn was wondering why you were late to class” Riddle said as he stood up.
“I… I….”. Richard was at a loss for words.
“Just don’t be late again” he said harshly. Tom Riddle began to walk away, leaving Richard Fenwick alone in the hallway.
“Fucking mudblood” the former whispered to himself.
“Some friend, huh?” Luna said.
The older Richard Fenwick said nothing, only snapping two clawed fingers.
Instantly, there was a flash of light, and the scene changed. They were walking down an urban street. The sky was a uniform shade of dull grey.
“‘Friend’ is a strong word to use when talking of Tom” he said. “Riddle didn’t associate himself with anyone he couldn’t use”.
“Did he use you?”
“Yes, but unlike the others, I saw what he was up to. I was no fool”.
“Do you…. Did you have a family?” Luna asked.
Richard Fenwick stopped walking.
“Raised in a muggle home. Three brothers”.
“What happened to them?”
“Geoffrey got his head blasted off in Normandy. John got leukaemia. Henry…”
“Riddle?”
“Riddle” he confirmed, solemnly. “When I wouldn’t join him, he tried to convince me”.
“I’m so sorry” she said.
“Everything has its time” he said, slowly moving forward again. “Besides, I had larger plans”.
“Such as…?”
“You will see” he said.
They turned a corner into another avenue, and continued to walk down the aisle of uniform brick row houses.
“So where are we, anyway?”
“Liverpool, 1957. The beginning of the end”.
He abruptly stopped in the middle of the street, and turned silently on his heels to face one of the houses. It was indistinguishable from the others, except for the number ‘17’ pained on a small tin sign above the door. Wasting no time, he quickly proceeded across the tiny postage-stamp lawn of dead grass, and stood in front of the door, which was painted black and decorated only with a brass knob and a small, ornate knocker. Luna reluctantly followed.
“How do we get in?” she asked.
Looking at her with the most condescending frown possible, Fenwick grabbed the knob in the centre of the door and gingerly twisted it and pushed it inward. The door opened rather unceremoniously. “I was rather careless, in my youth” he said.
He stepped inside, followed by Luna. The house was quite dilapidated, moldy beige wallpaper slowly peeling from the walls, everything coated in a fine layer of dust, all of the traditional accouterments of the mad genius on a shoestring budget. As soon as they entered she began to notice the cacophony of banging coming from the upper floor. They proceeded through a narrow hallway to a steep, crooked staircase. With each creak of the ancient wood, the banging from above only increased in volume, until at the top landing it had become an unavoidable, all-encompassing din. Smiling, Richard simply turned to the left, and walked to the door which seemed to be the source of the noise. As he started opening it, however, his companion objected.
“Wait” Luna said.
“Wait for what?”
“What if he… um… you see us?”
“You idiot, he can’t see us” he said. “This is just a memory. We can’t change the past”.
“..Oh”.
He groaned, opening the door quite dramatically.
“Violà” he said, “Myself, age twenty-seven”.
Luna stepped through the low door frame. The man standing on the other side of the room was definitely the same as the one that broke into her office earlier. The ever-black hair was greasy and long, just touching his shoulders. His face was fixed somewhere between the youthful figure she’d seen earlier and the older one accompanying her. His clothes were still hilariously démodé; he wore a leather trenchcoat, blood red, over a burgundy sport coat. A pair of spectacles hung on his ears that were probably unfashionable even in the late 1950s. However, what interested her more was the apparatus constructed in the middle of the spacious studio.
The most noticeable feature was the door. It wasn’t a particularly strange door in and of itself— cobalt blue, mail slot, peephole— No, rather it was the fact that this door was placed in the centre of a large circle carved into the floor, inscribed with some sort of runes that Luna couldn’t decipher.
“What– what is it?”
“My life’s work,” the older Richard said, longingly. “The culmination of ten years of research, planning, and study. Today is the day that everything changed”.
The man on the other side of the room paid no heed to his sudden visitors, his attention caught in a large, old book, its cover decorated with the same sort of runes on the floor. Nodding to himself, he set the book down on a low desk, and walked around to face the door directly, toes positioned just outside the circle.
“Get ready” Richard said, “This is the fun part”.
Suddenly, the man in the red coat thrust his hands out to his sides, holding them parallel to the ground in the air. He began to whisper, gradually crescendoing. The chant was rhythmic and harsh.
“I gor var yag knullade din mor…”
“Hold on a moment…” Luna said, softly. The man did not, actually, continuing to increase in volume.
“...ya dolzhen idti tuda kuda dazhe...”
She turned to the other man, leaning nonchalantly against the door. “I know that. That’s High Old Equestrian” she remarked, suspicion growing in her voice. “How does he know that?”
“...syon yksisarvisia nyt taalla...”
“That’s the portal spell! What is he… are you doing?”
“Simple” Richard said. “He’s opening the door”.
“The… door?” Luna said, turning around to look at the blue object in the middle of the room. She could feel the energy building in the room.
“...mchezo inaonyesha kugusa maisha yetu…”
“You see, Luna, the spell that he is chanting is actually in Maltavian, which is coincidentally exactly the same as High Old Equestrian”. He grinned. “The same spell, in the same language, in two different dimensions”.
“But… why?”
“adkrich, chort vazhmi, adkrich…”
“You see, when the spell is performed without a conduit, it requires a great deal of magic. However, when one uses a vessel…”
Luna’s next question was interrupted by a sonic boom-like noise. Quickly turning around to find the source, she saw it. The circle was now a torrent of magical energy, glowing with a soft purple-grey light. In the centre, the door had a certain aura about it, as if illuminated from behind. The younger Richard, awestruck, slowly lowered his arms. He lightly stepped with one foot into the circle, as if testing to see if the bath water was too hot. The magical field sparked when his black shoe penetrated it, but yielded. Confidently, he took another step, then another, until his whole body was contained within the field. Breathing heavily, he slowly stepped toward the luminous door, and grabbed the knob. Taking another deep breath, he opened the door and stepped into the void. The second it shut again, the energy field dissipated with a strong hiss.
“Where— where did he go?” Luna said, galloping around to the other side of the room. There was nothing on the other side, and he was gone.
“I will explain later,” Richard said, still standing in the doorway. “Anyway, that was my first disappearance. Now, we must be going, too much to explain, too little time”.
“But…” she said, cut off by another scene change. In a flash, they were back in her office, still in the dead of night. Richard was reclining in her monumental leather chair.
“And now we come to the final part of our evening” he said, fiddling with her typewriter. “As much as I adore spending time with you, I’ve bigger fish to fry, as it were”.
“Listen, Disc– Richard. I understand that you’re… well… you, but, how? Where did that door go? And how did you… uh…”
“How did I what, Luna? How did I turn into a horrible monster that gobbles ponies in one bite?” he said, standing up. “And you may call me Discord, by the way. It’s been a long time since I’ve been Richard. In fact, I’m getting pretty uncomfortable, so I might as well–”
There was another flash of light, and Discord the draconequus hovered over her desk, in all of his ersatz glory.
“Much better,” he said, stretching his mismatched limbs in an odd fashion. “That old body simply doesn’t breathe”.
“What are you here for, anyway? What do you want to show me?”
“Impatient, are we?” he said. Snapping his fingers, he materialized mere inches from Luna’s muzzle. “Listen up, Princess. What I’m about to show you is important, so shut your mouth for a second and listen”.
Luna made a displeased sort of sound, sitting down in a rather royal manner.
“Fine. Show me”.
“I thought you’d never ask” Discord said, making the sort of broken smile only a creature such as he could manage. Snapping his fingers again, another door appeared in the middle of the room; in fact it was the exact same door she had seen in the house in 1957. It carried the same lighted illusion, however the magical field around it was gone.
“How…”
“My magic has much improved since. This is nothing”.
Discord slid through the air, wrapping his serpentine body around the door. With his claw, he nudged the knob until it yielded, and the door flew open.
“After you, m’lady”
Luna was dazzled by it. Beyond the door, there should have been nothing, just a dusty bookshelf full of old spellbooks on the bare stone wall. When Discord opened it, however, there it was, a watercolour sky of blue and violet, expanding infinitely in all directions. Twinkling silver stars shimmered dimly in the background, an inconceivable distance away. The twin turquoise irises of Luna’s eyes expanded, letting in light from all corners of reality. The concrete façade had been peeled away. This was the inner workings of creation.
“Allons-y!” he said, interrupting her bewildered observation. She felt a sudden and instantaneous force in her posterior, and suddenly she accelerated out the door, flying into the void until slowing to a stop, hovering in the airless vacuum. Discord still stood in the doorway, which floated in the cosmic medium, giggling through his teeth, hoofed leg stationary in a punting position.
“What are you doing!?”
“Consider this the final part of our tour” he said, gracefully slithering out of the doorway towards her, leaving the portal open.
“Shouldn’t you close that?” she inquired.
“No” he affirmed resolutely. “This place operates on a separate timescale. Unpredictable. Close that door for two seconds, it could be a minute, or it could be fifty years.”
“And here I thought you enjoyed chaos.”
“I only revel in the disharmony that I am personally responsible for” he said, irked.
“So, pardonnez mon français, but what the hell is this place?”
“This,” said Discord, reaching his arm around Luna’s neck, a jagged smile reappearing on his face, “is everything.”
“So.. we’re in space?”
“Of course not. There isn’t any air in space.”
“So there is air here?” Luna asked, inhaling but finding nothing to breathe.
“No. Of course not.”
“Then how can— Oh, nevermind. So this is—”
“The Multiverse. The Subway Station of Creation. The Wood Between the Worlds. Whatever you may call it. See the doors?”
Luna looked around, and indeed, they were surrounded by doors, hundreds, perhaps thousands of them, floating haphazardly in the non-air, of all sizes and designs. “Yes?”
“Portals. Behind every one, an entire dimension, infinite in volume.”
“So, there’s one for—”
“Yes, Luna, there is a door to Equestria. Specifically, it’s that one, right there” he said, pointing to an ornate Victorian rectangle far above them, trimmed with pale gold. She paddled with her hooves, assisted by her wings, until she began to gain upward momentum. When she began to rise above him, Discord grabbed her long, blue tail with one claw, halting her ascent. “Not so fast.”
“Why not?”
“I haven’t finished giving you the tour.”
“Fine.”
“Now, then” he said, pulling her down to eye level. “Every one of these dimensions has two things in common. The first is the Guardians.”
“Guardians?”
“Guardians” Discord confirmed. “Demi-gods, assigned to the protection of the stability of each dimension. Often, they take the form of gods themselves, or kings, or sometimes,” he said, placing a scaly finger on her neck, “Princesses.”
“So Celestia and I… we’re…”
“Local police. Middle management. Subordinates” he said, smirking.
“Well, that sucks” she said tersely. “And every dimension has these Guardians?”
“Yes, every one. Some have only one, others have hundreds. Dedicated to maintaining stability, control—”
“Harmony” she said, understanding.
“Precisely. The Elements are merely a safeguard, to make sure someone doesn’t blow Equestria to kingdom come.”
“So, what’s the second thing?”
“In case of extreme emergency,” Discord said, “the Guardians need something more, to reach beyond their own dimension. A way out, to call for help, to communicate with other dimensions, and, in worst-case scenarios,” he said, grimly serious, “to evacuate.”
“The spell.”
“Exactly!” he said, snapping his fingers. “However, there is a cost. Think of this like a neighborhood, full of houses. The doors are the easy way in and out. Every time the spell is used, it’s like digging a tunnel underground, directly into another dimension. And if you dig enough tunnels...” he said, pointing far off into the distance. Luna turned her head to look.
It was a hole. A long, vertical cut, straight into the fabric of reality. Brilliant, blinding white light shone from it. Rough streaks, like lightning bolts, penetrated farther off to the side. Barely audible, Luna suddenly noticed a subdued roar emerging from the gash, like the sound of a vacuum cleaner.
“The neighborhood collapses” she finished for him.
“Precisely.”
“What…. What’s on the other side?” she said, unable to draw her eyes away from the laceration.
“Nothing,” Discord said, “and everything. An infinite amount of energy, ripping everything that falls in into shreds. Nothing survives beyond the end of the universe.”
“How did this happen?” she demanded to know.
Discord sighed. “I admit, that it may have just been the slightest bit my fault.”
“How!?”
“That door, that was the finished product. When I was at school, I found the spell. I made it my life’s work. I tried it, a million different ways. A million tiny slashes in the foundation of reality.”
“And then?” Luna asked.
“I finally succeeded. And I finally saw what I had done. I tried as hard as I could to repair it. That energy, that infinite chaos, it drove me mad. It transformed me. Into this” he said, exhibiting his incongruous physique. “I couldn’t very well go back, looking like the Leaky Cauldron’s mystery meat. So, I found a new world.”
“And that world just had to be Equestria.”
“Remarkable, isn’t it? In the span of a lifetime on Earth, I lived for thousands of years in Equestria. Well, living may be too generous. Surviving,” he said, “I lived for thousands of years in stone, thank you very much.”
“I apologise. It seemed necessary for the security of the entire world.”
“And so here we find ourselves, at the end of that world, and all others.”
“But why now?” she asked.
“The incident, with you and Luna Lovegood” he answered. “You both slipped through a tiny hole, the one remaining crack. The spells that transported you both back undid all of my hard work.”
“Sorry.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” he said, sighing.
“Can you fix it again?”
“I’m not sure. It’s grown larger.”
“How can I help?” Luna asked empathetically.
Discord was bemused by her question. He looked directly at her with his red-and-yellow eyes. “You must remain at Hogwarts. It is for the best.”
“Are you sure?”
Discord nodded. “Yes. Any further breach of this medium will only deepen the cut. I will do all I can.” He reached into a nonexistent pocket on his torso, and produced a small, brass figurine of himself. “I created this. You can use it to communicate with me, no matter where you are, or I am.”
“Always modest, eh?” Luna said, graciously accepting the statue.
Discord smiled. “I regret to inform you that our tour is over.”
“‘Tis a shame,” Luna muttered, slowly making her way back to the portal to her office. “I was having so much fun.”
“Luna?” Discord said, just as she was about to close the door.
“Yes?”
“Give Dumbledore my regards” he said as she shut the wooden gateway, a single tear in his eye.