Disclaimer: I claim nothing of the Harry Potter franchise nor the My Little Pony franchise, as everything is the rightful properties of their owners and affiliates. No infringement was intended, and no money is being made.
Warning for Fic: Spoilers, OC's (though unimportant and minor), and possible overused equine replacements of common word usages.
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Canterlot is well known for heavy pony traffic. After all, it is the capital of Equestria, and the seat of power for Princess Celestia, the great ruler of all ponydom.
Like all cities, hundreds of faces can come and go and remain virtually unnoticed or uncared for in the scheme of things.
As such, while there is a few, very few mind, beings that could notice if something…unusual happened in the bustling manetropolis, the city was so vast and full that it would be quite hard indeed to find the source of these disturbances.
It was such a disturbance that went undiscovered in an alley between a hat shop and a bakery as the sun was setting on a scheduled overcast day, the Pegusi preparing for the rain of tomorrow.
In the shadows of this nondescript place, a foal was born into this world out of nothingness.
He wasn't so much an infant, by pony standards he was roughly pre-teen years, old enough to run around on his own, but not old enough to leave home yet.
The foal, unlike many of the healthy fed members of Canterlot, was a skinny little thing, with pale silver pelt, wild black mane that fell all over the youngster, and prim little black hooves that clacked softly on the cobble stone, as large emerald green eyes took in his alien surroundings with dumb founded amazement.
He wobbled like a toddler just learning to trot, and it was no mean feat to say that he was rather awkward on his hooves.
When the youth stumbled out of the alley, and beheld the majesty of a late evening Canterlot, with ponies in all manner of fashion strolling sedately, with unicorns levitating shopping behind them, muzzles in the air on a fair few, or the movement out of the corner of his eye that turned out to be shadows of flying ponies, it was safe to say that the foal was quite flummoxed and shocked by his new location, and returned to his alley and sat on his rump to think.
"Well, this is certainly not Surrey anymore," the foal muttered to himself, as he squinted down at his reflection in a calm puddle.
A silvery, finely narrow-muzzled face stared back up at him. He noted that he had a horn on the center of his forehead, with a familiar lightning bolt shaped scar, a darker grey around the edges, coming from the base of his horn and stopping between his eyes.
He tried to remember the events that led him here.
The Dursleys had locked him in his room after the incident with Dobby and the pudding, and then his relatives discovering he wasn't allowed to do magic outside of Hogwarts, thanks to that blasted Ministry warning.
The imprisonment that followed had been inhumane; allowed only once a day to use the bathroom for a few minutes and fed cold cans of old soup once every evening, or to be more accurate, when they remembered to feed him. After close to a month, he had eventually snapped and began clawing at the walls and doors, yelling, pleading to be let out, to no avail. At some point, huddled against the door, his nails broken and bleeding, he had closed his eyes tight and wished desperately with all his might that he was anywhere but there, somewhere far away where he could be free forever. Just him, his magic, and wherever he wanted to go.
Then things had gotten fuzzy around the edges, and Harry figured he might have passed out after that, and that was when he woke up in the alley in a city that was apparently populated by a variety of equines…Harry looked up when he spotted a group of rowdy creatures that were part lion and part eagle laughing and swaying into each other drunkenly as they walked past his spot…and griffins to, how delightful.
Harry groaned into his skinny chest, idly blowing hanks of mane out of his face as he came to the obvious conclusion. So somehow he had been transported here.
The question was: how?
Harry had read about accidental magic while in Hogwarts, how it seemed to respond when a child, and sometimes even an adult, was in emotional and/or physical distress. Perhaps that was what happened? He'd somehow been transported by his magic here, and changed into…he eyed his horn and shifted the appendages on his back -whatever he was at the moment.
The next question was: what did he do now?
Shelter and food were the obvious immediate necessity, but after he settled that, what else was he going to do? Should he try to find a way back? Perhaps ask for some help from someone?
After only a moment of thinking about what he would be leaving behind should he fail to return, or as the case may be, a lack of what he was leaving behind he came to a speedy conclusion. He had no family that he cared to admit to, he had asked Dumbledore to remain in the Wizarding World, and he had been told he had to return to his relatives. The adults of the Wizarding World had not impressed him, much as the muggle world, so he wasn't inclined to trust as easily or be as needy as he might have when he had first found out about being a wizard. He thought that it was different from the muggle one, but the lack of adult intervention or care, even the sheer viciousness of some, Snape being an example of that, trying to save his life or no, and even nearly dying and being forced to kill someone to defend himself! And let's not get him started on all the other near death experiences since. The Dursleys may hate him, but at least they had not outright tried to murder him.
He had friends, true, and he would miss Hermione and Ron, but frankly he had only known them for less than a year, and while they had been through some things together, it wasn't enough to sway him into wanting to return. He would miss them dearly though, they were his first friends, and he would have done nearly anything for them, but he wasn't willing to risk being returned to that muggle hellhole or the near death experience and pedestal-like grandeur that he Wizarding world gave him.
As for his magic, from what he had observed, there appeared to be magic here (at least he assumed it was magic that was levitating those packages following a group of chattering unicorns in fine hats), so perhaps he could continue learning magic, he did have one of those horns after all, and from what he had seen, he could might even fly, if these wings actually worked, so there was no need to miss that sensation either.
Further, here, there were no Dark Lords that had a hankering for his life, at least he assumed so, since he was a new arrival and had yet to make any enemies, and he assumed wherever he was it was very far indeed from where he had been, like possibly alternative reality far. He had read a few fantasy and sci-fi books in the library back in the day while hiding from Dudley that spoke of such fanciful possibilities. He figured that with magic and monsters being real, getting tossed in another dimension was not to much of a stretch for his incredulity meter.
Granted he knew absolutely nothing about this place or how dire his situation may become, but at least there was no fawning Wizarding World that worshiped him and wrote about him in newspapers and books without knowing him, NO trolls, or cursed brooms, or parasitic murderers out for his blood. No closed and locked doors keeping him captive. Here, he was obviously going to be an unknown. None of these people…horses? Had seen him arrive, so his identity within this new world was a virtual blank slate, a canvas that he could paint himself.
It was perfect.
Harry smiled at his new image in the puddle, wings fluffing happily, and made a vow to assimilate into this new world, and leave the boy known as Harry Potter back in the human world forever.