Chapter Nine
Horizontals and Diagonals
Ten in the morning on the last day of July. After an exhausting day of paperwork – personally she suspected it was a measure to keep the number of animagi limited – Minerva made her way back to the front door of 150 Ryde Park Road. Before she could even ring the bell, the door opened, revealing Sunset Shimmer.
"Good morning professor, come in."
Minerva stepped in despite her slight surprise. "How did you know I was coming?"
"Monitoring spell. I detected your apparition."
"You did?"
"It's not that hard, Apparition leaves a wake turbulence for several seconds. It's not hard to spot if you know what you're looking for."
"Wake turbulence?"
"Have you ever seen a ship drive along a canal?" When Minerva gave her a nod, she continued. "It's kinda like that. You know how there's that bit of unusually calm water just behind the ship, where you can tell that a ship came through several minutes later? This is the same effect, only faster. Any teleport will leave that turbulence, regardless how well you mask it. The only thing you can change is, to go with the metaphor, the size of your boat." She shook her head. "Anyways, you're not here to discuss arcane phase theory, are you?"
"No, but it seems magical knowledge between our worlds varies. We should compare later."
"Absolutely. I was planning on doing that anyway. I'll go fetch the others."
Minerva watched the girl race up the stairs. 'Curiosity, thirst for knowledge, cunning and loyalty. She practically encompasses the essence of every house. I do not envy the Sorting Hat on this one.' She chuckled slightly at the thought.
At that point Miss Shimmer was coming back down, now carrying a dark gray, almost black, messenger bag with a stylized red and gold sun stitched into its flap. It was remarkably similar to the one Minerva had seen her wear to school, only the base color was different.
On a whim, Minerva cast a spell to scan the bag and recognized the familiar distortion of an undetectable expansion charm. The spell was different and, she suspected, not as effective as the one that was known to wizards, but she still estimated the bag to be at least three times as big on the inside as it was on the outside.
Layered beside it there was also an illusion charm woven into the fabric itself. McGonagall was not a seamstress and illusion charms were much more Filius' area of expertise, but she suspected it was the reason the bag was a different color. Perhaps Miss Shimmer had seen the uniform requirement and simply adjusted the bag to match Hogwarts' fashion.
Miss Granger followed her down the stairs, wearing a similar bag, but one without the symbol. A quick check revealed it to have the same charms on it.
Emma and Dan Granger weren't far behind, looking a little lost. It was the latter who spoke up. "So how exactly do we get to London?"
Minerva smiled. "Normally I'd apparate us there, but I think it would be easier to simply ask Philomena to flame us there."
All eyes turner to her, then the three Grangers looked to Sunset. It was her who spoke up. "Ask Philomena to do what?"
"Fire travel. Phoenixes travel through their fire. They can go more or less anywhere that isn't specifically warded against them."
"They can?" Sunset turned to the phoenix perched on her shoulder. "You can?"
Philomena trilled in confusion, tilting her head. Then she spread her wings and both of them vanished in a flash of golden flames. A second later, they heard Sunset's voice from above. "Apparently you can." With a flash of teal, the two returned to where they stood before. "That's convenient." She looked around, an amused smirk on her lips. "Shall we then?"
Minerva simply rolled her eyes. "Quite." She then turned to the phoenix. "There is a warded alley near the Leaky Cauldron in London. If you could bring us there."
Philomena trilled and spread her wings once more. A flash of flames later, the five of them found themselves in a small alleyway off a larger thoroughfare. Dan looked around in a panic. "We didn't lock the house."
"Key!"
Dan fished the key out of his pocket, throwing it into the air. It was captured in a teal glow, flying into Sunset's hand. Two flashes of flame later, the key flew back to Dan. "Thanks Sunset."
"No problem, shall we?"
"Wait a moment." All eyes turned to Minerva. "I'm afraid a phoenix would attract more attention than you would want at this juncture."
Sunset simply smirked and stroked a finger over Philomena's plumage. A moment later the gorgeous phoenix was replaced by a majestic eagle. "Better?"
Minerva simply rolled her eyes. Again. "Eagles aren't exactly common. But wizards are known to have exotic pets. I can think of five wizards who have eagles off the top of my head. So I suppose it will do." She drew out her wand and waved it through the air, muttering under her breath. "That's an impressive illusion Miss Shimmer. Especially considering how difficult it is to overcome a phoenix' natural resistance to outside magic."
Sunset giggled slightly. "Well, Philomena and I have been known as pranksters. Let's just say there have been a number of situations when it came in handy to have a phoenix appear as something that isn't a phoenix."
"I see." Minerva sighed. "Well, regardless. We should get to the Leaky Cauldron. Another student is being chaperoned through the alley today and Professor Dumbledore asked me to meet up with them there."
Having never been to a big human city before, Sunset watched the area around her carefully. Commuters and shoppers were rushing to get to where they needed to go. It reminded her of the few times she had visited Manehattan. It was certainly nothing like Canterlot, where the commoners were too relaxed to rush and the nobles were too busy disdainfully looking at the commoners to do anything productive they could be rushing to.
After about a minute they arrived before a book store. A record store stood nearly adjacent and a dingy little pub was sandwiched in between them. Interestingly only they seemed to be able to see it. The eyes of those around them seemed to go from the stores on one side to those on the other without taking note of the pub at all.
"Here we are. Come in then."
The pub was a rather dark affair. In fact, Sunset was sorely tempted to conjure a light so she could see better. After a moment's consideration she cast a night-vision spell on her eyes instead. The low din of chatter had stopped when they entered and several patrons greeted the professor. They then set out to wait for whomever they were to meet here.
They didn't have to wait long. After only a few minutes, a truly gigantic man with an immense black beard arrived, shepherding a small boy with messy black hair. Once more, the chatter stopped, the patrons greeted the man like they had McGonagall, as he reached the bar, the man behind it spoke up.
"The usual, Hagrid?"
"Can't, Tom. I'm on Hogwarts business." The man, apparently named Hagrid, then clapped one of his huge hands on the shoulder of the boy beside him, causing the boy's knees to buckle slightly.
The barman's eyes went wide. "Good lord. Is this – can this be-?"
Sunset noted that the pub had gone completely silent, everyone's eyes focused on the boy, expressions caught somewhere between awe and curiosity.
"Bless my soul," the old barman whispered, "Harry Potter ... what an honour." He rushed out behind the bar with surprising speed, grabbing the boy's hand in his own. "Welcome back, Mister Potter, welcome back."
"I guess we'll be waiting a bit longer then ..." Sunset heard McGonagall mutter under her breath, turning to her with a questioning look, she prompted the professor to explain. "Mister Potter and Mister Hagrid are the ones we are to meet here. Mister Potter is, as you can see, something of a celebrity in wizarding circles. This may take a moment."
True to her words, Harry was surrounded by witches and wizards wanting to greet him and shake his hands. Sunset snickered when Hermione pointed out the witch who was puffing on a pipe that was no longer lit.
At one point a wizard cried out in a high pitched voice. "He remembers! Did you hear that? He remembers me!"
Some time later they heard Hagrid call out, "Professor Quirrell! Harry, Professor Quirrell will be one of your teachers at Hogwarts."
Unable to hear the pale, young man's stuttering over the crowd, Hermione turned to McGonagall for an explanation. "Quite right," the professor confirmed, prompting Sunset to listen in as well. "Professor Quirrell is this year's teacher for Defense Against the Dark Arts."
Sunset took note of the phrase 'this year's', but decided to file that tidbit away for later. "That reminds me, Professor. Which subject do you teach?"
"Transfiguration, Miss Shimmer."
After another minute or so, Hagrid finally put a stop to all the greetings. "Must get on now – lots ter buy. Come on, Harry." After a final witch shook Harry's hand, Sunset was reasonably sure she had seen that witch shake Harry's hand five times before, the two made their way over to a door near where the group was waiting, prompting Professor McGonagall to approach them.
"Good morning, Hagrid."
"Mornin' Professor McGonagall, what're you doin' here? I thought you were chaperonin' yesterday?"
"That was the plan, something came up. We rescheduled for today. Albus got your message and asked me to meet you here." She waved the group over. "These are Miss Shimmer and Miss Granger as well as Miss Granger's parents." She turned to the group. "This is Mister Hagrid, he is the Keeper of Keys at Hogwarts. And Harry Potter, it will be his first time in the alley today as well." Once introductions had been exchanged, she turned to the door Hagrid had been heading for. "Come then."
Following her, the group gathered into a small, walled courtyard, empty save for a few weeds and an empty trashcan. Hagrid brought up the rear. Walking up to the wall, McGonagall pulled out her wand. "Watch closely." She pointed her wand to the edge of the trashcan. "Three up, two across. Here." She moved her wand accordingly, then tapped it to the brick she arrived at.
Having dismissed her night vision and cast her usual scanning charm once the wand came out, Sunset saw a small charge of magic resonate through the brick, triggering an embedded spell, that in turn sent a bit of magic into the surrounding bricks, triggering embedded spells there. Each spell then began to reposition its brick. After a few seconds half the wall was in motion, rearranging itself into an archway large enough for even Hagrid to pass through it without crouching.
As they stepped through, they saw a narrow alleyway, zig-zagging off into the distance. After the orderly, suburban roads of Rednal and the busy thoroughfares of downtown London, this was quite a shock. No two houses were the same size, there were bits of buildings jutting out in all directions.As if that wasn't enough, wares from the many shops that lined the street cluttered the limited space even further.
As they heard the wall close back up behind them, McGonagall spoke up. "Welcome to Diagon Alley. Now to Gringotts."
With McGonagall leading the way at a far more relaxed pace than before, the new arrivals had plenty of time to look around, already spotting several of the things on their lists. Harry and the Grangers seemed surprised at such things as collapsible cauldrons and flying brooms. The latter was a novel concept for Sunset as well. When a third of the population had wings, other means of personal flight weren't exactly common.
It wasn't long before they reached a large marble building. The alley split in two before it and ran back together afterward. Beside its burnished bronze doors stood a being that Sunset immediately recognized as one of the two unknown species from the Fountain of Magical Brethren. Only now did she put two and two together. The booklet had mentioned that Gringotts was run by goblins.
"Yeah, that's a goblin." Hagrid's comment to Harry a second later confirmed her conclusion. The goblin was dressed in a crisp uniform of red and gold, was a little more than a head shorter than her and had a clever face, watchful eyes, a short, pointy beard that reminded Sunset of a goat and remarkably long feet and fingers. He bowed as they passed him.
Inside, they found a second set of doors, used to the splendor of Canterlot, Sunset recognized them to be plated with real silver and engraved with a poem split across both of them.
Enter, stranger, but take heed
Of what awaits the sin of greed,
For those who take, but do not earn,
Must pay most dearly in their turn,
So if you seek beneath our floors
A treasure that was never yours,
Thief, you have been warned, beware
Of finding more than treasure here.
From behind, they heard Hagrid mutter to Harry. "Like I said, yeh'd have to be mad ter try an' rob it."
With bows, another pair of goblins opened the doors for them and let them into a large marble hall. More than a hundred goblins sat behind a large counter that ran along the three other walls of the hall, while yet more goblins showed humans through some of the many, many doors behind it. Occasionally they could see a goblin gesture, only for part of the counter beside him to vanish, admitting the humans through, and reappear afterward.
McGonagall turned to Hagrid. "Am I right to assume you have other business here, Hagrid?"
"That's right. Got a special mission fer Professor Dumbledore."
"Then might I suggest that you let me handle Mister Potter and take care of just that. We can meet up before Madam Malkin's afterward."
"Sure. That's a good idea." Hagrid turned to make off towards one of the tellers.
"Hagrid!" Once she had his attention once more, she held out a hand. "The key."
"Oh right." Hagrid grinned sheepishly. Reaching into the pockets of his mantle, he started pulling things out, then putting them back in and trying the next pocket. His mantle had a lot of pockets. Clearly seeing a trend, McGonagall pulled out her wand. Lighting up her eyes with a bit of magic she pointed a finger at one of the pockets.
"That one."
"Oh. Thank ye kindly." Hagrid pulled the key out of the indicated pocked and handed it to McGonagall who had put her wand away again. Turning once more, he left for one of the unoccupied goblin tellers while McGonagall guided the rest to another.
I wonder when Sunset'll get curious about why Harry's famous?
This chapter felt especially short. Looking forward to the next one.
This basically means she lacks a distinct personality, it's not a good thing.
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With how little McGonagall interacted with her, that's to be expected. Still kinda hoping for not-griffindor, just to shake the status quo of HP crossovers, but she does match with it too.
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I'm not saying it's a bad for her to have no personality at the moment, just that it's bad to draw attention to it. Its basically like having a character say "look how special the main character is" we know they're special we don't need to be hit over the head with that fact.
Meet.
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Maybe at the same time that Harry does?
I wonder if sunset or Hermione, meeting him without having read about him first, might realize something about his home life.
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Thank you kindly.
"Diagon Alley" Ooooh, i get it. "Diagonally" In all my years I've never gotten that.
Another nice chapter, and I’m really looking forward to... all of the Diagon Alley scenes, really.
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Three of those traits boil down to aspects of intelligence. She’s smart, knows how to use what she knows and wants to learn more. Those are Ravenclaw with a bit of bleedover into Slytherin. Curiosity and Loyalty always struck me as Hufflepuff traits. So all that’s being said herE is that Sunset is a smart girl who cares about her family. My understanding is that the dominant trait of a Gryffindor is bravery, not any of the ones Minerva lists. (As an aside, that ties to my headcanon that the hat will put a student into one of the other three but, as their first act of bravery in Hogwarts, the student must choose to go to Gryffindor)
I honestly wouldn’t mind a house shakeup myself. And even if the canon characters don’t change, Sunset can still hang with her sister. Just look at the Patil twins. I’d be very interested in how a Slytherin-based Sunset balances the attitude of her housemates with her desire to be with Hermione. Might make Draco less of a prat. Or maybe they both end up in Ravenclaw and Harry is sort of sidelined to focus on the sisters.
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I admit I'm kind of nitpicking because Sunset is such a well-defined character that it kind of bothers me to see her portrayed so blandly. It doesn't make the story bad but it does bother me how this story keeps defining Sunset as perfect. If you look at stories like SAPR (currently my favourite story on the site) and Sunset Shimmer and the Boy Who Lived these stories nail Sunset's character right from the start. We understand right away what it is she's after and how she's willing to do anything it takes to get it. I am really digging this story so far but I'll admit I'm gonna get a bit annoyed whenever Sunset comes across as perfect.
Saying "she's perfect for any house" makes her feel like some author's OC where they pretty much have no defining traits until the story suddenly requires them to have some kind of tragic backstory or damning character flaw. Again doesn't make it a bad story for me but I guess it is a bit of a pet peeve.
Plus we are still at the beginning so there is time for it to change so hopefully eventually I can just look back at this as just a poor start character-wise and that we'll eventually end up with a Sunset who is more than just "Perfect".
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There are a fair number of stories who have Sunset “playing nice” early in the human world so she can learn what’s what. While I don’t like the idea of Sunset turning on Hermione in this story, I will admit the pre-mirror and post-mirror sunset act radically different from one another.
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True but if Sunset were putting on an act we'd know about it by now. The story is, for the most part, from her perspective after all.
Honestly, I think it would have helped if the author took a page out of the first Harry Potter book and spent a couple of chapters focusing on Sunset's life in Equestria. Let us see what the day to day is like for her, the people she deals with and generally showing us the kind of person she is. Then by the time we get to her stepping through the mirror, we'd have a good understanding of why she would decide to do this.
nice work on all chapters.
Just realised - if the sorting hat takes more than five minutes, the student is considered a hatstall, right? I've now got an image of Sunset just falling asleep as the hat takes over an hour to decide.
After reading through this chapter a second time, I just noticed that Minnerva pulled her wand, and cast magic within Gringotts. Which is against the treaty between goblins and wizards.
SHE STARTED A WAR!
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That is true. She didn't even ask first, as she does in If Wishes Were Ponies.
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I feel it needs to be pointed out but this is not canon-sunset...one major diff is that she took the plunge well before the blow up that happened in EG. She's much less bitter and jaded than in EG.
AND HERE. WE. GO!!!
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Nope, that one's actually correct as is.
Even more impressive she did that with her fingers, most adult wizards would struggle to do that with their wands.
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Not necessarily, as far as this setting is concerned, once you can use just your hands to cast, it only really affects the power you can wield like that. And when it comes to overcoming a phoenix's natural resistance to magic in that way, it's a matter of skill, not power.
this will always put a smile on my face.
You might want to stock up on aspirin before she meets Fred and George
Jesus Christ this story is amazing! I don’t care if Sunset is OP or some elements are non-canon, I love it!
There are already significant changes from the book here and I'm loving it all. This seems to be one of the better MLP/HP crossovers on the site.