//------------------------------// // Chapter Seventeen // Story: Sweetie Belle and the School of Witchcraft and Wizardry // by AnnonyMouse //------------------------------// Disclaimer: My Little Pony Friendship is Magic belongs to Hasbro. Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling. This is a free fiction, not to be sold or traded for any money, services or goods. Please refrain from commenting on any spelling and / or grammatical errors. Rather, PM me and I will see to fixing them in due time, thank you. For more information, see my profile. Sweetie Belle and the School of Witchcraft and Wizardry 17 In a small tavern, located in a small village not too far from a not so small school sat a short and chunky man. He smelled of old cheese and ale, and no small amount of body odor. Currently, the man, who we know as Crunk Burger, had his head resting in his arms, and was lightly thumping said head on the table. “Why'd she have to get dragged off to Azkaban? We're not wizards, so why the wizard's prison? I'm too stupid to be able to pull off anything on my own.” He reached over and felt around for his mug, which he found exactly where he'd left it. He pulled it over, lifted his head to take a drink, and found the mug distressingly short on booze, and containing far too much paper. Paper? Crunk plucked it from the mug and unfolded it before reading. “Upcoming chance to capture the Unicorn from Hogwarts. She will be out of the protective barrier this afternoon, over towards the edge of the Dark Forest where it meets the school grounds. Do not screw this up.” Of course, it was not signed. These notes never were, but he still knew exactly who it was. Crunk heard the distinct sound of a cash register and was sporting a pair of Galleons in his eyes. Okay, not really, but he most certainly was imagining all the gold he would be swimming in when he pulled this off. Heck, he might even be nice and pay off Venellope's bail, after getting drunker than she ever let him for at least a few days in a row. … Saturday had been an interesting occurrence, especially that night. First off, for the day, she spent the rest of flying class using her own wings. After that, she spent the rest of the say repairing and restoring the Cloud Skimmer. Finally, after the sun had set, three Pony Princesses had come to see her. Celestia, Luna and, of course, Twilight. I took only a few spells to diagnose what had happened to the filly. Somehow, she had tapped into the wand's special power to enter and manipulate dreams, as well as its proximity to Princess Luna herself, and had pulled FAR more magic than it could contain. That magic was channeled into the only available source at that time, that being Sweetie Belle. All she had to do was expend that additional magic and she'd return to normal. The only spell she knew that used up a tremendous amount of magic was that pony transformation spell, which was the exact magic the mirror used to change humans into ponies and then back into humans. Oddly, that spell had no effect on true ponies whatsoever. So Sweetie Belle had needed some volunteers. Berty and Janna made cute Earth Pony versions of themselves. Mary, quite surprisingly became a Unicorn. Then again, she was quite talented with witchcraft and magic in general. It took changing all three into ponies and back into humans to finally burn off all her excess levels of magic. Princess Luna then took precautions and added a little extra magic to the wand to ensure this didn't accidentally happen again. Sweetie Belle took careful note that Princess Luna had said 'accidentally'. Could she somehow willingly activate that kind of magic and transform at will? She kept that theory to herself. It would be a heck of a surprise to everyone and everypony when she demonstrated the power to transform to and from Alicorn form at will. Assuming she could figure that trick out in the first place. Oh, and she conveniently forgot to mention what she'd done to a certain mean boy... She just hoped that the spell itself would run its course over the usual three days that many such transformation spells lasted. Sunday had been spent in self study. Mainly concerning the wand. Sweetie Belle had carefully examined and researched the magic Princess Luna had used to bind the wand, and much to her dismay, by dinner time, she'd not made much headway. She spent the rest of the day mingling with her friends and house mates, as well as finishing off her homework. Then came Monday. Prof. Blackwood led her class outside to the grounds overlooking the dark forest. She glanced over at Sweetie Belle, who was currently in Zwei's arms, and the currently ponified Phineas Malphoy, who was currently being hugged by Fray, a fellow Slytherin. He tried to make it look like he wasn't pleased about his situation, but rumors stated that on Sunday he'd been freaking out, then yesterday he'd been seen flying all over the place outside the school, but still within the barrier, and looking like he was actually enjoying himself. Now today he had a sourpuss look on his lips, but a twinkle in his eye as he was cradled to Frey's chest. Valery sighed. “Now, normally we would have today's lesson in the classroom, but somehow the Jarvey that was to be used in the lesson had gotten loose, and the only nearby place to catch the small ferret-like creature was in the Dark Forest itself. The woman smiled as she saw a friendly giant waiting down by the edge of the forest. “We will be having Prof. Hagrid coming along with us today. Normally I wouldn't dream of bringing you here into the forest, but we don't really need to go that far in, and sadly we'll be needing numbers to corner the Jarvey, as we lack any gnomes to lure them out. We need at least one for the next few lessons.” “Each of you will be in teams of three, and please, stay within earshot of the rest of us, in case you encounter something that tries to eat you, or worse.” “What's worse than being eaten?” A girl just HAD to ask. “Thars things in there tha' got nasty claws an teeth. Ya dun wanna be runnin into them. Keep together and stay safe." Sweetie Belle, currently in Zwei's arms, and Deuce stayed together as the class entered the forest. “This isn't anywhere as scary as the Everfree Forest.” Sweetie Belle looked around. “It sorta reminds me of the Whitetail Woods. We've gone camping and hiking there a few times.” Hagrid chuckled. “Well, these here woods ain't a place to go wanderin' about on yer own. There's scary things in here, like werewolves and acromantula in there. If ya start seein lots ah spiders, head back the way ya came.” All the students nodded and started the search for a small ferret creature that could actually speak English, with all the charm of a rude, drunken Irishman. Yup, Jarvey were always rude, even when trying to be polite. … Crunk watched from the safety of his cloak of invisibility. It was old and only hid his upper half when standing, so he had to kneel down to remain unseen. Spotting a girl carrying a lightly colored pony, teamed up with a boy, he grinned and carefully followed them. All he had to do was throw the glitterdust into all their faces and the pony would be his to sell for his weight in gold. For nearly half an hour, he followed, making use of the trees and bushes to keep his lower half hidden. The dim light made it hard to make out a lot of details, but that pony was easy to see. He'd seen her before, with her light colored coat and hair. Finally they came close to where he was hiding. He readied a handful of dust and as the trio came around the tree, he struck, throwing the glitterdust into their faces and pushing them down to the ground. Before any of them could recover from the attack, he sacked the pony and made a break for it under partial invisibility. … The screams were heard by all the students and both teachers. Everyone rushed to the location and found a pair of quite sparkly students. “Fray Brooks? Ricky Larker?” Prof. Blackwood came over. “What happened? Where is Phineas?” “I don't know.” Ricky had been lucky, having avoided breathing in any of that confounded stuff. Frey on the other hand, she'd be needing another glitterdust related trip to see Madam Pomfrey. “Something came out of nowhere. It looked like nothing more than a pair of legs, like someone'd been cut in half at the waist and lost the upper half.” Sweetie Belle narrowed her eyes. “Glitterdust, just like when those two bad people tried to ponynap me. Wait, maybe it was them again and they took Phineas this time.” Deuce rolled his eyes. “No real loss.” The filly shook her head. “No. He may be a Slytherin and a mean boy, but he's still one of us students.” Sweetie Belle pointed a hoof at a trail of glitter on the ground and some bushes. “And they left us a trail.” Hagrid stepped in the way. “Ain't no way I'm lettin ya go after them, not in this place. Ah'll track this guttersnipe down and bring the Malfoy boy back, even if he is a pony right now.” Valery nodded. “Everyone back to the school grounds, back inside the barrier. We need to get Larker and Brooks to the infirmary and I need to get some teachers together to form a search and rescue party.” She looked over her students. “And none of you are to attempt to rescue Phineas yourselves. You stay at Hogwarts.” … Crunk had left a false glitter trail to throw anyone off track. He wasn't the smartest around, but he'd somehow managed to be able to stay out of jail. He entered a small shack and set down the sack. He had to see the pony, just to make certain. Last time there had been that orange/purple and that yellow/red ones. Carefully, he opened the sack enough to let him look in. A hoof came out and connected with his jaw, staggering him. He growled and reached for the sack, but the contents jumped out. Crunk looked around in confusion. Where had that Unicorn gone? It should have landed somewhere on the floor. The sound of flapping came to his ears all of a sudden. That Unicorn didn't have wings, did it? Looking up, he saw a pony with wings and no horn hovering up near the ceiling. Somehow stuck to its hoof was a wand. “Bugger...” He muttered before the pony cast a spell at him. “Stupify!” Phineas cast his spell and instantly the chunky man went down. “Kidnap me will you? I don't think so.” He looked around and spotted the open window. He flew out and looked around. He could see the school in the distance, and the dark forest off too the side. In the other direction he could see Hogsmead. “And back to school. Hmm, I get that moron was after Sweetie Belle but grabbed me by mistake. He certainly looked surprised to see me.” With that, he flew back to the school. … “Hey, is that Phineas?” Deuce pointed up into the sky. The whole class, minus the pair who had to go to the infirmary, had decided to wait near Hagrid's hut. They all turned to see a smug looking colt land a few yards away. “Phineas? You're safe!” Sweetie Belle rushed to him and nuzzled the suddenly embarrassed colt. “How did you get away?” Still blushing from the soft, fluffy and warm filly, Phineas looked away. “The idiot opened the sack. My wings got in the way of that glitterdust, so I didn't breathe any in or get any in my eyes. The moment I was free, I hit him with a quick stupify spell and came back here. It was too easy.” “You should tell the teachers where he is.” A Hufflepuff boy suggested, pointing at the now approaching teachers. Phineas nodded. “He tried to ponynap... er, kidnap me.” He scowled. “I can't believe I just said that.” He then flew to the teachers and started telling them about where he'd left the man. They had him escort them. “Wow...” Deuce blinked. “This sorta makes Malfoy sorta a hero for catching a kidnapper. I don't like it.” “He was so cute when he used pony terminology.” Zewi giggled, and was joined by the rest of the class. They'd never let him live that down. … Crunk Burger was hauled off to join his partner in Azkaban. Kidnapping was bad enough as it were, but kidnapping a student of Hogwarts? A young witch or wizard in training? No way would the Ministry of Magic allow such a thing go. The man would be spending many, many years in prison along with his partner. Oddly, the whole thing somehow avoided appearing in the newspapers. In fact, the Ministry and Hogwarts kept the whole incident under wraps. Phineas had been hoping to get a chance to bask in the limelight, bringing a positive light back to his family, considering what had happened those many years ago. But as he thought about why they were not letting this go to the news, he looked at his hoof. Yea, Phineas Malfoy definitely didn't want anyone outside the school knowing what had happened to him. Then again, the spell should be wearing off sometime today anyways, or so he had been told by the strange purple pony who sported a horn, wings and a crown. He wasn't about to try to argue with royalty, even if it was pony royalty. Sweetie Belle was a filly with wings and horn at the time she'd blasted him. Those other three were most certainly a lot older, and by his reckoning, most likely a LOT more powerful. The colt sat and sighed. He thought about how happy Sweetie Belle had looked when he'd come back. She'd even did that pony nuzzle thing. Was that the equivalent of a human hug or something? He wasn't too sure, and once this spell ran out, he wouldn't have to care. So he waited. And waited. And started to get really worries as he waited even more. Still he remained as a pony. Okay, he actually enjoyed being able to fly without a broom. It was really fun and he felt so free. But enough was enough. He didn't want his family knowing what had happened to him. He'd NEVER live it down. But oh, the Fates were fickle bitches... “Phineas my son?” A most familiar voice sounded out. The colt stiffened, then slowly turned his head to see his mother. “Uh... nopony here but us ponies...” “I know that voice and that hair anywhere.” Astoria Malfoy knelt down and scooped him into her arms. “This must have been horrible for you. Trapped in such a small, adorable form.” She snuggled the poor colt. From his position in his mother's arms, he saw two men who he had NEVER wanted to see him like this. His father, Draco, and a hundred times as worse, Phineas' older brother Scorpius. “Ponyfeathers...” Draco had, oddly, a highly amused look on his face. Scorpius on the other hand... He was rolling on the ground laughing and not caring if he made an ass of himself. Yea... Today was not going to be remembered as one of Phineas' favorite days ever... To Be Continued...