• Published 14th Mar 2019
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A Phoenix Beyond the Veil - The Philospher's Stone - gerandakis



Displeased with her mentor, Sunset Shimmer looks for a new option, she finds it in a Mirror Portal, deep in the vaults of Canterlot. Together with Philomena, she sets out on a journey. Two worlds of magic will be changed forever, by a small error ...

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24 - Surprises

Author's Note:

Alright ...
Revisions done. We're back on track.
I can't promis that I'll always manage daily chapters, so I might skip a day every few days or not publish for a few days every so often, but in the grand scheme of things, we're contuning now.

Enjoy

Chapter Twenty-Four

Surprises


This was the conversation she had been dreading the entire week, the last piece of the puzzle that was their plans. Sunset stood in front of number four Privet Drive. Harry was back at the Burrow. They had yet to tell him of their plans. In fact, the Weasley children and Luna didn't know either. It was Saturday and the Dursleys should be at home right now. A quick spell was enough to confirm that.

Taking a deep breath, Sunset pressed the button for the doorbell. It only took a moment before a narrow figure that could only be Mrs. Dursley approached the door. "Oh, hello dear, what can I do for you?"

Sunset suppressed the need to roll her eyes at the artificial sweetness in Petunia's voice. "Good afternoon Mrs. Dursley. I have a matter that I need to discuss with you." She took a quiet breath and said the words that were sure to get rid of Petunia's artificially pleasant demeanor. "It concerns your nephew."

Petunia looked down at her for a moment, the smile vanishing from her face, then she slammed the door in Sunset's face.

Sunset simply rolled her eyes. "Welp. I've tried being polite." With a snap of her fingers she stood behind Petunia who still had the door handle in hands. "As I was saying."

Petunia turned around, staring at Sunset. "What do you want?"

Sunset smiled pleasantly. "Simple. I want to take Harry off your hands a bit sooner than September first. Tomorrow to be exact."

"Why?"

"Because he is a friend and I intend to take him along on a camping trip."

"A camping trip?" Sunset nodded. "And why should we allow this?"

Sunset lifted a brow slightly. She reached into a pocket of her jacket and covertly sent a piece of paper to the kitchen of the Burrow, she had prepared it as a contingency plan beforehand. "Allow? I think you misunderstand." She suppressed a smirk as she saw a flash of golden light from upstairs. "I didn't come here to ask permission. I came here to inform you, because that is the polite thing to do."

"Vernon!"

"Yes, 'Tunia?" came the voice from the living room.

"Could you come over quickly?"

"Of course." It only took a few moments before a remarkably fat man entered the corridor. "Who's that?"

"Sunset Shimmer. A pleasure. As I just told your wife, I've come by to inform you that we'll be taking care of your nephew for the rest of the Summer. You needn't worry about him any longer."

The man snorted. "And what about next summer?"

Sunset rolled her eyes. "If I have anything to say about it, he won't be returning here at all, but that, to be perfectly honest, has yet to be decided. I need to know the reasons why he is here in the first place before I can decide upon that."

Petunia hesitated for a moment. Ultimately she saw a chance here. She chose to explain. "He is here because of something Lily did. Something about dying to save his life. And because of that, the spell requires this to be his home to work."

Sunset stroked her chin, thinking for a moment. A mother's love. She was certain she had heard of that somewhere before. She'd have to look it up to be sure. "I see. In that case I should be able to get back to you on that in a few weeks. I suspect that I should be able to find a way around that. In fact, if my suspicions are correct, this may well a problem that will resolve itself before long. Who explained this to you?"

"Professor Dumbledore."

"I see. I'll see what can be done." She smirked as she saw another flash of light from upstairs. "Ah, it would seem that Harry is done gathering his belongings. Then I'll be taking my leave." She smirked. "Philomena!"

Vernon and Petunia recoiled when the phoenix flamed into existence on Sunset's arm. "Have a pleasant afternoon." With that, Philomena flamed her back to the Burrow, leaving the Dursleys completely confounded.


Harry was confused. A few minutes ago, Mrs. Weasley had come up to him with a small piece of paper in her hands and told him that Philomena would take him to his room in number four Privet Drive where he should quietly pack everything he needed and then signal Philomena when he was ready.

Trusting her, he had done so. He really only needed to pack a few spare clothes into his bags, the rest of his possessions already resided there, and grab Hedwig's cage. He still enjoyed the name he had found in one of his books. Philomena then took the three of them and all of Harry's things back to the Burrow only to flame away seconds later.

He was slightly startled to see her return almost immediately, sat on Sunset's arm. Both the girl and the phoenix broke down in giggles a moment later. When Harry asked what had happened, Sunset gestured for him to stop and levitated a pencil and a piece of parchment out of her own bags. It only took a few moments before he saw the pencil sketch out an image.

It was a remarkably life-like sketch of Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, both wearing hilarious expressions of utter befuddlement. Now he understood her amusement. "That was you talking to them?"

"Yup. To be honest, I thought I'd have to stall them for longer. You were quick."

"I only needed to pack the rest of my clothes. I had the rest packed last week."

"That explains that. Now come. We have a bit of a surprise waiting for you." She pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket, handing it to Philomena, who took it and flamed them away. Before she did, Harry saw that it only bore four words, written in Sunset's flowing script. 'The time has come.'

"You have a surprise for me?"

"Well not for you alone. For you, for Ron, the Twins, Percy, Ginny, Luna."

In moments they arrived in the Burrow's kitchen. Gathered there were all the Weasleys, except Bill and Charlie, as well as the Grangers. A gust of flame behind the two new arrivals announced the arrival of two more. Turning they saw Luna and her father, Philomena sitting on the former's shoulder. Focusing for a moment, Sunset used a quick spell to check the time, before nodding to the bird and handing her another, identical piece of paper. With another flash of flame, Philomena vanished again.

"Hi Luna," Ginny called from inside. "Do you know what this is about?"

Luna brushed past Sunset and made her way in to meet her friend. "No. Daddy only said that there was a surprise."

"That's all Mum and Dad are-"

"-telling us as well, but-"

"-Sunset and Hermione obviously-"

"-know something."

Sunset smiled innocently. "Whatever gave you that idea?"

"You're not exactly convincing us that you're not up to something," Ron pointed out.

Sunset turned to Hermione. "Was I supposed to?"

Hermione shared her smirk. "Well, so long as they don't know what it is ..."

"I don't usually agree with my brothers," Percy admitted, "but things are off. Dad usually isn't home at this hour. And Mum is behaving oddly as well."

"Guess they're in on the conspiracy then." Everyone in the room turned back to the door, seeing Bill and Charlie standing there.

Mrs. Weasley turned to the unicorn in the room. "Sunset dear, would you check if everything is in place on her end?"

Nodding Sunset took a book out and flipped it open, taking a pen she wrote a few words before closing it again. Not long after the book began glowing and vibrating. Cracking it back open, she looked in and read a few words. She closed the book again and smiled. "She's ready."

"Good, then let's go." With that, Mrs. Weasley walked out of the kitchen, into the yard. "Come along, all of you." The adults shepherded the gaggle of children out of the house, Sunset helpfully took Hedwig with her cage into her levitation so Harry wouldn't have to carry her. Mr. Weasley was the last to leave, carrying Errol and Hermes. A swish of his wand extinguished all the lights in the Burrow, closed the windows and locked the doors.

When he finally joined the group standing in the courtyard, Sunset looked from the bird in her levitation to the one on her shoulder. "Philomena, if you would."

With a proud trill, Philomena flew up above the group. A flash of fire erupted all around them and suddenly the courtyard was devoid of life once again.


Princess Celestia sat calmly in her throne. Normally she would have preferred to receive Sunset's friends in her chambers, but she doubted that the room had enough, well, room to fit them all. A familiar, majestic trill announced her guests and moments later a bright flash of flame revealed a whole gaggle of ponies. At the center of the group was a familiar pair of unicorns with an equally familiar Phoenix.

Sunset teleported them and the owl she was holding in her levitation to the edge of the group where she set down the cage and began galloping up to the throne to cuddle into Celestia's waiting wing.

"Welcome back, my Little Sun," the princess quietly greeted her former student as she carefully studied the other new arrivals. Only three of them seemed to have any familiarity with their current bodies. She recognized Hermione Granger, the little sea green unicorn filly that stood at the edge of the gathering and respectfully bowed. The Forest green unicorn mare and marine blue unicorn stallion could only be her parents.

A pearly white pegasus filly, a little younger than Sunset flew above the middle of a group of pegasi and unicorns with red manes and tails, experimentally staying flapping her wings to stay aloft. Her own were long and flowing and displayed a set of three colors, a medium shade of red that the entire group seemed to share, a pale pink and a deep blood red. The only thing that tipped Celestia off that she had been in this form before was the fact that she was actively trying to use her wings, not surprised to have them at all as the other pegasi seemed to be. Beneath her were an older pegasus mare and unicorn stallion Celestia surmised to be the parents of the family. Both only had the single, shared shade of red in their manes and tails, while beyond that the mare was a pale gray with piercing yellow eyes and the stallion was a similarly pale blue, with deep green eyes.

They were surrounded by an assortment of colts of various ages and two young stallions. The older one of the stallions could almost be a male Daring Do, only his mane was seven shades of red, not gray and his cutie mark was a treasure map with an ominous aura around it, not a compass. Even his eyes matched.

The younger stallion was stockier and sported exceptionally large wings. He was a dark blue with a tinge of purple, his mane and tail had the shared color of red, interrupted by two streaks of metallic red that actually gleamed in the light. His eyes were a steely blue.

The eldest of the colts was a beige unicorn, his red mane was split in two by a single strand of white, and his eyes were a deep crimson. The youngest was yet another pegasus, this one with deep blue eyes and a gray coat that reminded her of storm clouds. His mane was the same red that they all shared, but cut in three by two streaks of bright yellow that cut through his unkempt hair like lightning bolts.

The final two colts were about half way between the oldest and the youngest, and looked nearly identical. They both had pale magenta coats that terribly clashed with their red manes and bright purple eyes. They too were pegasi.

With the massive family out of the way, only three new ponies were left. The first immediately attracted her attention. He had a deep purple coat, and a pitch black, scraggly mane with two electric blue stripes and a scar in the shape of a lightning bolt on his forehead. What had caught her eye, however, was the pair of slitted, brilliant green eyes behind his glasses. Looking to his side, she confirmed that she had, indeed, seen feathery wings folded there.

This colt was a raptor, a rare subtribe of the pegasi, only one in a thousand pegasi had eyes like those. The glasses were confusing, however. Celestia, in all her centuries of life experience, had never heard of a raptor with glasses. It was part of their innate magic that their eyesight was unparallelled. Their vision was perfect, their magic made sure of that. If he was careful, he could probably go out to the balcony right now and, even in the dim light of the late evening, read the sign at the entrance to Sweet Apple Acres all the way in Ponyville. Especially once he mastered his internal magic and accessed his eyes' natural ability to zoom.

Raptors were extreme fliers. Not when it came to stunts, of course, but in other categories. They could fly far higher than any other pegasi, the magical fields of their wings providing lift in much thinner air than the wings of any other species could. They were suited to fly with extreme endurance, able to stay at such altitudes for hours on end. And they could deal with pressure differentials so well that the could ascend to and descend from those altitudes within minutes.

The only thing stopping this colt from seeing details about the room no other pony could even spot, were those silly glasses. He certainly wouldn't be needing those any more.

The remaining two ponies were two thestrals, a young filly and an older stallion. The filly didn't take long to adjust to the to the light of the throne room, flitting about happily and gliding inexpertly above the group, her pale silvery eyes were a sight to behold and her white mane fell in graceful locks only interrupted by two orange streaks running through it, her charcoal gray coat provided a nice counterpoint to the light colors.

The stallion was clearly not adjusted to the light at all, squinting so much Celestia couldn't discern his eye color. She thought she saw hints of green, blue and pink, but every time she got a glimpse, his eyes seemed to change. His coat was a deep, pearlescent blue, the light above revealing hints of dark purple and his mane was the same white as his daughter's, only without the orange streaks.

Celestia released her student from the hug and once more swept her gaze across the gathered ponies. "Well, Sunset, won't you introduce me to my guests?"

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