Ponies in Hogwarts [Edited]

by KittyrinnAiko

Chapter 50: Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, London

Sirius Black stood outside Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, London. With him stood three individuals who were so out of place they fit right in with the dilapidated old neighborhood. One very large man with golden hair and beard who looked like he’d be right at home on the north sea aboard a steed of the waves. One white-haired bearded old man who could have walked into any wizard area of London and no one would have batted an eye. And finally a strapping young man in a camouflaged uniform, sans patches who’d the look of a combat veteran about him. Between the four there wasn’t a whole lot they had to fear from anyone. Their mission, to get to Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, locate what they hoped would turn out to be a Horcrux, and get back to base.

“Hiya,” Pinkie offered, startling the men and causing them to jump.

“Howdy.” Applejack offered.

“Pinkie, Applejack? What are you doing here? How’d you even manage to follow us?” Sirius asked once he’d his wits back. “And what’s that thing you got in that strange-looking orange case?”

“It’s a chainsaw.” Pinkie offered.

“It’s best not to try to figure out Pinkie Pie.” AJ offered as a way of explanation. “And the chainsaw is for cutting trees down.”

“And home improvement.” Pinkie offered quickly.

“Ah, I think I know just the project,” Sirius replied as a smile formed on his lips. “Come on in.”

“What, we don’t need to look at a piece of paper that says ‘The headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix may be found at number twelve, Grimmauld Place, London’?” Pinkie asked.

“Being it’s the place I grew up in and technically own, no,” Sirius replied. “I can just lead you right on in, and I’m doubting if any of us will be coming back if we find what we are hoping to find.”

“Order of the Phoenix?” Starswirl asked as they made their way to the front door. Before them a set of worn stone steps that climbed up to a black door that had seen better days with a silver knocker that was in need of polishing. Sirius climbed the steps, pulled out his wand, tapped the door with it, and was answered by the sound of locks unlocking. A moment later the group was stepping into near-total darkness.

“Eww, what’s that smell?” Pinkie asked as she wrinkled her nose as the smell of rot and the leavings of various creatures that had gained access to the building assaulted her nose. Some of the creatures had undoubtedly died as well.

“Make it your wildest guess plus rotting and you might just be right.” Sirius offered.

“Whatever it is it ain’t natural.” AJ offered. “Boggy bottom swamp don’t smell as bad.”

“Hang on, don’t close the door just yet.” Sirius cautioned as he fiddled with a gas lamp. A moment later it flickered to life.

“You can’t just cast a spell and turn the lights on?” Pinkie asked incredulously as he moved to the next.

“Miracle there’s even any gas.” Sirius offered as a second lamp is lit. “Best keep our voices down as well.” He offered as he continued lighting lamps as he made his way ever further into the gloom of a long hallway that seemed to stretch forever into darkness.

“Miracle the place didn’t just blow up from all the methane in the air,” AJ commented sarcastically.

Within the hall illuminated by the dim lights was a door that lead into a dark chamber the light revealing it to be a fancy dining room, a pair of dark curtains in the hall that made it look as though they covered another door, followed by an umbrella stand that looked to have been made from a Troll’s leg. Further down the hall, a staircase could be seen in the dim light. The paneling was all dark oak, the trim black. Areas that had any wallpaper remaining were pealing and decayed.

“Ewe, gross!” Pinkie exclaimed on seeing the leg.

“Kreacher,” Sirius called softly.

“Oi! Kreacher!” AJ bellowed out followed a moment later by a blood-curdling scream coming from behind the curtains which pulled back to reveal a large life-sized portrait of a woman who looked as much a corpse alive as dead.

Sirius was the only one in the group who hadn’t jumped to hit the ceiling. Pinkie was on AJ, and AJ was on Pinkie. What’s more, is every last one had reverted to their pony form as they clung to one another.

And then a strange thing happened. For the first time in Sirius’s life, he witnessed his mother struck dumb. Sure it was just a painting but still. It was a case of the executable file failing to run as the program attempted to make heads or tails of the situation. But it didn’t last.

Reboot – execute file… “Filth! Scum! By-products of dirt and vileness! Half-breeds, mutant ponies, freakish equines, begone from this place! How dare you be horse the house of my fathers! What do you think this is? A barn?!”

“Oh shut up!” Sirius ordered in exasperation.

“We weren’t hurt’n nothin.” Applejack pleaded as she regained her wits.

“Yoooou!” The portrait exclaimed as she turned on Sirius, her eyes popping at the sight of the man. “Blood Traitor, abomination, the shame of my flesh! How could the child of my flesh have sunk so low as to become a brony! You horse f...”

“I said shut up!” Sirius demanded more forcefully as he took hold of the curtain and attempted to close it.

“You know, I bet she could use a hug.” Pinkie offered, and before anyone could register what was happening Pinkie had climbed into the painting.

“Aaaa! Get away from me you vile beast!”

“I thought Nova’s Moonie was the only pony that could do that?” Rockhoof asked as Pinkie proceeded to chase the old hag about in the background of the painting.

“It’s Pinkie. Ours is not to reason why.” AJ stated. “Pinkie, come out of there.”

“Not till I give her a hug!” Pinkie called back as she pronked about in the painting.

“You know, I wouldn't have missed this for the world.” Sirius offered as a smile formed on his lips.

“How do we know she’s not a super sophisticated artificial intelligence spell just like Moonie?” Star swirl pondered. “It’d make sense.”

“I’m more inclined to think she fell into a vat of chaos magic.” Applejack retorted.

“Get away from me you filthy beast!” Madam Black protested as she dodged an incoming hug and scrambled away while cursing her own spell matrix that kept her trapped in that one specific painting. Meanwhile, the other paintings in the hall were all animatedly chattering among themselves concerning the goings-on.

“Come on Pinkie, she’s never going to give in,” Sirius called.

“Aww.” Pinkie protested, turned and stepped out of the painting. The moment she had the curtains slammed shut.

“Well, I never.” Applejack offered with just a hint of a smile.

“Kreacher!” Sirius called. This time he let loose no longer worried about waking Mother as she’d not likely come out again while Pinkie was about.

“So, you don’t mind if we take the painting?” Starswirl asked.

“You can’t be serious?” Asked the man in fatigues.

“Magnus, I’m curious as to what makes it tick.” Star swirl replied.

“The old Order of the Phoenix tried just about everything to get that painting off the wall.” Sirius offered, and then a thought struck him. “Never tried cutting out the wall though. - Kreacher!”

There in the shadows of the hall about halfway up the first flight on the old grand staircase stood Kreacher. Sirius had to squelch a surge of anger and resentment to heed the words of caution given to him. ‘Fault not the servants of thy father’s house who have no choice but to obey the whims of their masters.’

“Kreacher. It’s good to see you.” Sirius offered though his words were less than sincere. Words that garnered a raised eyebrow from the aged house-elf.

*“Kreacher lives to serve the noble house of Black.” Kreacher offered while bowing low. His bow every bit as false as Sirius’ warm words towards him owing to his position on the staircase.

*“And getting blacker every day by the looks of it.” Sirius retorted and capped his sentence by muttering, “You little shid.”

*“Master always liked his little jokes,” Kreacher replied while giving another bow. And then in an undertone added, *“Master was a nasty ungrateful swine who broke his mother's heart.”

*“My mother didn’t have a heart.” Sirius snapped.

“Now gentlemen, this isn’t going to get us anywhere.” Applejack offered as she stepped up to intervene between the two.

“It speaks?” Kreacher asked, and was further dismayed as the ponies transformed one by one into human form.

“We are Fae.” Starswirl offered with a polite bow while doffing his hat.

“Fae?” Applejack asked giving him an odd look.

“All equestrians are fae. How do you think the old human legends got started?” Starswirl offered with a smile and a wink. “Now, Kreacher, we have been given to understand that you may be keeping something safe. Something that might possibly be related to You know who?”

Kreacher looked at them, a growing look of horror on his face.

“Kreacher, as master of the Black Household, you have to do as I ask,” Sirius stated. “If you have such an item, you need to surrender it to us.”

“No, no, I can’t. He mustn't get the locket back.”

“Kreacher, I think you may have the wrong idea?” Applejack offered kindly.

“No one wants him to get it, silly.” Pinkie offered. “We want to make it go by-by forever.”

“Kreacher, if it’s what we suspect, it needs to be destroyed so that you know who’s followers can’t use it to bring him back.” Flash Magnus offered.

“Kreacher already tried to destroy it. And failed.” Kreacher offered while looking downcast. “Kreacher promised but failed.”

“Kreacher, show us the locket,” Sirius asked, his voice much kinder this time.

“Master Regulus gave his life to gain it.” Kreacher offered. “Swore me to destroy it, but I am unable. I can find nothing that will damage it.”

“Not even the fires of mount doom?” Pinkie asked.

“Pinkie, that isn’t even our franchise.” Applejack pointed out.

“Nor ours.” Kreacher added.

“Hey, hey, hey, I’m the only one allowed to break the fourth wall around here.” Pinkie protested.

“Well, it’s not like Tolkien isn’t required reading for anyone coming to the human world.” Rockhoof offered.

“And all based on tales that were old when I first visited the world of men. It seems wizards tried to sponge the record clean of anything that presented men as anything less than the pinnacle beings upon the earth.” Starswirl offered.

“Hang on, you’re not suggesting that the Lord of the Rings is true?” Flash Magnus asked.

“To every legend, there is always a grain of truth,” Starswirl replied with a mischievous smile leading the others to wonder if he was yanking their tails or not? “Now, let us deal with the locket. Opening it is actually quite easy if one can speak Parseltongue.”

“Oh, oh, you mean like Derpy when she’s talking about package delivery?” Pinkie asked.

“No, pinkie, it’s the language of snakes.” Starswirl offered while resisting the urge to roll his eyes.

“But can you speak it?” Applejack asked.

“Well, of course, I can. I’m the one who taught Salazar Slytherin how to speak it. - I had hoped to win him over to our way of thinking.” Starswirl replied. “And it seemed like I had.”

“Could it be that it might be he had been at least partly right?” Applejack offered. “Sure, we’ve all been told that he wanted to keep muggle-born out of the school, but maybe, just maybe what he wanted was to keep out the potential Tom Riddles.”

“And there, I think, you may have hit upon the problem.” Starswirl said punctuated with a sigh. “Princess Celestia always wanted to give every pony a chance, and the other founders of Hogwarts were of much the same mindset. I don’t think she truly understood the human condition or the possibility that applicants might need to be screened for suitability. - Now, Kreacher, if you will, lead us to the locket, please.”

Kreacher gave them a curious look and looked to Sirius.

“If you could?” Sirius asked as kindly as he could given how much he despised the house-elf. Kreacher let out a sigh and started up the stairs while indicating that the others should follow.

Up the stairs the followed, the ponies horrified at the sight of the shrunken heads of house-elves mounted on plaques.

“It’s a wonder you turned out to be such a decent wizard having to grow up in an environment that practiced such barbarism.” Magnus offered softly.

“I ran away at sixteen and moved in with the Potters.” Sirius offered turning on lights as they went. “I hated my family, and for the life of me I can’t understand why I hadn’t left sooner.”

They stopped their climb at the first floor where the entered one of three doors into a drawing-room. Within was a grand piano, two sofas, a large china cabinet the sort used to show off expensive collections, and old oriental rug, and a fireplace at each end over which hung large mirrors. There were lamps at either side of the mirrors and a large ornate chandelier hanging from the ceiling. What little light there was came in through cracks in the curtains of two large windows that presumably looked out over the street. Sirius pulled out his wand and used it to open the windows allowing light to come streaming in. Kreacher went to the glass case opened it and pointed out the locket.

“Ooo…” Pinkie said as she gravitated over to the cabinet.

“Don’t touch it!” Starswirl commanded. Pinkie stopped in her tracks cringing.

“I’m sorry Pinkie, but you really shouldn't touch anything in here.” Applejack cautioned. “No telling what kind of dark magic you might encounter.”

“Might be easier to just blast the whole place with harmony rainbow laser magic.” flash Magnus mused when Starswirl retrieved the locket with a specially coated handkerchief.

Starswirl looked at the locket, then down at the downcast house-elf, and then bend down and placed the locket on the floor. “I’d wondered why Lady Aiko insisted I bring everything I’d need,” he mused softly. He then pulled out a long box that slightly resembled a wand box save in that it was wider and deeper. He opened the box to reveal a basilisk fang set with a silver handle like it was intended to be used as a dagger. “Kreacher, something tells me you’d like the honor,” Starswirl said while offering the box to the old house-elf. Kreacher looked at it, up at Starswirl, and then over to Sirius.

“If it was your sworn task, then it’s only right,” Sirius said reassuringly. Kreacher took the box and then removed the fang. A moment later Starswirl produced an unbreakable jar from his pocket and transformed back into his pony form.

“We need to capture the remnants of the soul fragment,” Starswirl explained. “Ready?”

Kreacher indicated he was ready followed by Starswirl commanding the locket to open while using Parseltongue. The locket snapped open revealing an eye within that looked about as though frantic. Black wraith-like smoke began to issue forth, at first attempting to envelop Kreacher but was immediately drawn into the unbreakable jar due to enchantments placed upon it by the nine tail Lady Aiko. Now the eye was even more frantic and attempted to snap shut even as Kreacher slammed the tip of the fang into the eye.

From within the locket, Riddle's voice was heard, “Owe, my eye, you bitch, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!”

Once more the locket snapped open as a stream of energy traveled from it into the jar, and when it had all left the locket Starswirl slapped the stopper on the jar and sealed it. A moment later the haze within the jar condensed into a single modestly sized crystal.

“Well, that’s clever,” Kreacher offered with just a hint of a smile.

“The energy of the soul never truly goes away,” Starswirl offered as he transformed back into his human form. “If we had simply destroyed the Horcrux that malevolent energy would likely have lingered here waiting to infect any heart open to it. This way we prevent that from happening and based on the size of the crystal, and the size of those we’d already obtained we can hazard a calculated prediction of how many were made.”

“So how many do you think?” Sirius asked.

Starswirl picked up the jar and examined it. “I’d say four, five counting the bit that came out of Harry’s head. Or at least that many up to that point,” Starswirl offered. “There’ll be one more we need to find.”

“It’s a pity that compass Princess Nova made has such a short range.” Rockhoof lamented.

“What about making a locator from one of the larger pieces?” Applejack asked.

“Now that might just be worth looking into,” Starswirl mused. “Now what say we get out of here?”

“Don’t have to ask me twice. This place is no fun,” Pinkie replied.

“Let's go then,” Sirius offered. He paused for a moment. “Kreacher, you can come too if you’d like. Thing is, I’m probably not going to come back here if I don’t have to, and well, I think I get it. You aren’t to fault for orders you were forced to carry out.”

“You would take Kreacher with you?” The old house-elf asked sounding puzzled.

“I know we never really got along, and to be brutally honest, I don’t really care one way or the other,” Sirius replied. “If you come, do so because it’s what you want. I’m not giving you an order one way or the other.”

“I’ll throw you a party,” Pinkie offered. “Please…”

Kreacher seemed like he wasn’t quite sure what to think. Nor could he call these ponies muggle, mud bloods, nor blood traitors. The old bearded one had even gone so far as to say they were Fae, and he was fairly sure that hadn’t been an Animagus transformation. No, it was definitely something different, and all of them having similar forms was beyond anything wizards could do. Not to mention that one member of the ponies, the bearded one, was a unicorn of all things. And the one in the funny green outfit was a pegasus. Most decidedly not something wizards were capable of. “Yes, Kreacher would like to come.”

“Yay!” Pinkie exclaimed and then started going on and on about how wonderful the party was going to be.

“Simmer down Pinkie, you’ll scare him off.” Applejack cautioned with a big grin. Her expression changed a moment later on remembering something. "Ya know, there's some more thing we forgot ta do."

"What was that?" Pinkie asked as Rockhoof picked up the chainsaw.

"This," Rockhoof offered as he switching the saw to the on position. He pulled the starter cord and the saw came to life. The curtains sprang open and then quickly slammed shut. Poor Mrs Black, it had never occurred to her to enchant the wall.

Author's Note:

Wow, chapter 50.
When I started this I never dreamed I'd write 50 chapters and 295,595 words. Granted that that's probably not the true count, but it's still a lot. I dropped the first chapter in September 2018, it is now March 2020, and I figure at least two more chapters just to finish it off. Which I haven't even started yet. XD

* Denotes lines from the book. There might be a few I missed as well.

A couple of drawings of Kitsumi Nova by Ask Ostimuri Orphanage who is doing commissions to help Banana pie.

Comments

[dreammaster]

Another wonderful chapter. I'm sad to hear how close we are to the story reaching it's conclusion. Though on the flipside I'm also happy that the story will be properly concluded, unlike other stories that never got finished.

[harts fire]

of all thing i am happy to see Kreacher get to carry out his promise.
yes he was a ass in the movies / books but he was told to be.

[KittyrinnAiko]

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Once I had all the pieces in place I realized why he was such an ass. He'd a master he liked and was kind to him. A master who died fighting evil, and whose final command/wish was to destroy that Horcrux. Something Kreacher found he was unable to do because the protections on it were beyond his ability. He'd be all torn up about it, and then Sirius behaved abominably towards him. Under such circumstances, anyone would be resentful.

[harts fire]

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