42 - Following the Lines
Chapter Forty-Two
Following the Lines
The first rays of the morning sun poking in through the window woke Emma Granger from her slumber. Yes, she had been right to think that Sunset would change her life in a number of ways. Bringing magic to the table had been expected. Turning her into a morning person defied her understanding to this day. Still, she got up and got herself ready for the day.
Coming into the kitchen, she saw another sight that would have utterly confused her half a year earlier. Now an owl pecking against the window, wanting to be let in was only another reminder of the secretive magical community she had become a part of. Still, joy lit up her heart as a cerise glow formed first on her hand, then on the handle of the window across the room, twisting it and pulling the aperture open for her avian guest.
The bird flapped its wings once to take off from the window sill and landed on her offered arm after a silent glide across the room. She silently marveled at the level of control she could exert with her magic as she untied the message from the owl's leg. She recognized the seal in deep purple wax as the one on the girls' letters of acceptance.
With slight worry she opened the letter, pulling out a single sheet of parchment. Unfolding it in her magic and levitating it beside her as she began to make coffee. She looked over the letter. Before even reading it, some of her concerns were starting to fall away. The girls, it seemed, hadn't gotten into trouble, the letter simply didn't look formal enough for that.
Once she had poured the boiling water into the filter, she began to read the venomous green letters, idly shaking her head at the wizards' preference for outlandish colors.
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Granger,
it has, purely by chance, come to my attention
earlier this evening that the both of you may
have attained, or are on the verge of attaining,
an ability known in the wizarding community
as the animagus. I thus feel that it is my duty
to inform you that all animagi are legally
required to be registered by the Ministry of
Magic. There is a one-year period to file the
necessary paperwork for adults newly attaining
the ability. I have been given to understand that
this was not the case for either of you, or those
who attained the ability alongside you, but
gaining an animagus is, generally speaking, a
dangerous and extremely difficult feat of magic.
As such, the ability is also exceedingly rare as,
while most wizards could attain the ability, very
few bother to put in the necessary effort. As such,
until I filed the paperwork for Ms. Shimmer and
later your own daughter, there were only seven
animagi registered in this century.
I have attached the necessary paperwork (in
shrunken form) to this letter. Please fill it in at
your earliest convenience. As I realize that you
may have trouble reaching the ministry to file
the documents, I will be visiting on Sunday to
take you there.
Yours sincerely,
Minerva McGonagall
Emma looked over the letter again and found a bundle of smaller papers deeper in the envelope. Grateful that she had been taught several of the basic utilities from both worlds, she tapped the papers with her wand. "Finite." The stack of papers on the table grew into a sizable block of documents the moment she spoke the word. "Oh dear. This will take a while, won't it?"
Deciding that it could wait until after breakfast, she took a sip of the freshly brewed coffee and proceeded with preparing the meal.
Sunset hummed in contemplation as she thought back to dinner the previous evening. Malfoy had come by their table, obviously and wrongfully assuming that Harry had been kicked out of the school. What exactly had driven him to that assumption after getting away without such punishment for the very same offense was beyond her, but she decided she had better things to do than question his judgment.
His challenge to a duel at midnight had been soundly dismantled by Hermione. "Really? Neither of you know enough magic to even disarm, far less do anything worse. A duel at this point would be guaranteed to tie. Not much point to having a duel with a foregone conclusion, is there?" It had been clear that Malfoy had tried to find something to say in response, but come up empty.
Sunset would have to find an opportunity to apologize to him soon. Considering that, she had realized that she would need to be able to actually find him and, as such, placed weak tracking charms on him and his two 'bodyguards'.
When they arrived for their potions lesson, he had still been fuming. That Professor Snape had kept shooting him warning gazes only added to her housemates' silent amusement. Again, Dean and Seamus narrowly avoided a potion-based disaster courtesy of Neville.
When they left the classroom an hour later, Neville was close to tears. "I just keep forgetting things and making mistakes. And Snape isn't helping. He makes me nervous."
Trying to think of a solution, Sunset recalled a mental technique she had learned years before. "Try taking the recipe and visualizing it as a checklist, your memory isn't photographic yet, but it's good practice until then. Then just work through it step by step."
It was a mental technique she had been taught by the princess after she had used the memory spell on herself. To this day she remembered the lecture she had gotten for that. The spell, it seemed, was not designed to be used on the caster. Still, Sunset got a small amount of vindication from knowing that the princess was also the first to cast the spell on herself. Admittedly, at the time she hadn't known just how painful the spell would be, but she had still cast an untested spell on herself.
Still, after the lecture, the princess had been genuinely comforting and taught her this mental trick to go along with the photographic memory so she could use its full potential. It only felt right to teach it to her friends in turn.
With Saturday came her first cross dimensional spellwork session with Professor Flitwick. After asking about the Proteus Charm the headmaster had mentioned and how it compared to the journals she had enchanted to stay in contact with Harry, their conversation quickly turned to that.
Sunset very much enjoyed the work. This was the most complicated charm of Earthen origin she had seen thus far. Seeing the wizards' take on more advanced magical concepts was every bit as interesting as she had expected. Once they had gone over the Proteus Charm, Sunset went over the Equestrian Mimic Charm with the professor, then they went to compare the two.
Both spells had some very clever bits of spellcraft in them, though the Equestrian version arguably had a few more. Amazingly, there was rather little overlap. Finally, with their minds and expertise combined they managed to create a new spell that combined the solutions from both, achieving the same effect as them while being easier to cast than either. A first estimate from Flitwick placed it as a fourth, maybe fifth-year charm, both the Proteus and Mimic Charms had been sixth-year charms at least.
It was now time. She had just left Professor Flitwick's office and it would be another hour and a half or so before dinner started. Her tracking charms showed her that Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle were out on the grounds east of the castle.
Looking out of a window on that side, she managed to spot them after a moment. In the interest of time, she forewent using one of the exterior doors in favor of simply teleporting into the shadow of the castle.
She made sure that there was no flash of light to give away her teleport. Having seen the usual reaction of 'You can apparate?' several times now, she figured that it would be wiser to keep that ability hidden among the students that didn't already know.
When she reappeared on the grounds, she took a moment to refocus and walked off in Malfoy's direction. It didn't take her long to reach him.
He and his two associates were walking parallel to the castle walls, headed in the direction of the main entrance. As such, it was easy to head them off.
"Draco Malfoy?"
The three boys turned around upon hearing her call. Clearly the most perceptive of the trio, Malfoy was the first to spot her. "What do you want?"
"To apologize."
Clearly that wasn't what any of them had been expecting. "Pardon?"
"For what I did and said on the train. I cut you off when you introduced yourself, that was impolite. And while most of the rest of what I said was meant as honest advice, the Sorting Hat let me know that you didn't take it that way. I was being serious, but I could have worded it better. For that, I apologize. I meant no offense."
"And you expect me to just forgive you?"
"I don't really expect anything. I simply felt this was the right thing to do." She focused her gaze on Crabbe and Goyle next. "And I also meant what I said to you. You need to learn to use your strength properly. If you want any pointers, let me know." Quietly, she added, "Celestia knows I'm getting out of practice."
Once more, she looked at all three of them. "That is all I meant to tell you. Have a nice evening."
As she turned around and walked off, she didn't see the three boys following her with her eyes. Malfoy's expression was one of well masked surprise, Goyle's was one of entirely unmasked surprise. Crabbe, however, had a thoughtful expression he hurried to hide when Malfoy motioned for him and Goyle to follow and walked off towards the main gate.
Sunday, finally, gave the group another chance to explore the castle and all it's nooks and crannies. Between the aura sight charms Sunset and Hermione kept up more or less all the time and Harry's impeccable vision, they found no less than thirty-seven secret passages crisscrossing through the castle. If nothing else came from it, their exploration would at least allow them a much easier time moving around the castle.
Several times they came across enchanted statues that Sunset would swear had more enchantments than the basic ones that animated them, but she was never quite able to find out exactly what they did. When they returned to the common room after dinner, Sunset saw something out of the corner of her eye that attracted her attention. After taking a closer look, she considered the situation for a while. If her suspicions were correct, she couldn't risk acting on them now. I'll have to ask Ron a few questions tomorrow.
Emma and Dan had taken the better part of Saturday to fill out the paperwork. Still, they had managed and were now ready for McGonagall to come by and take them to the Ministry.
The ringing of the doorbell interrupted them in their casual conversation about the practice.
Speak of the devil, there she was.
Emma made her way to the door and let the professor in, inviting her to the kitchen.
"I take it you have completed the paperwork?" When they nodded, McGonagall made her way to the table to look at the two stacks of documents. "Good. Then we should go. Are you both ready?"
When they nodded their affirmative and picked up a stack each, she drew her wand and they vanished in a flash of pale blue, reappearing in the wooden tiled halls of the Ministry of Magic.
Emma turned to McGonagall. "Was that this 'apparition' you wizards use?"
McGonagall shook her head. "No, that was an Equestrian spell. Miss Shimmer translated a book on the topic for the headmaster last week. It's been making the rounds among the faculty ever since. I've only managed the long-range variant yesterday, so I thought the practice would do me good."
Dan chuckled. "That would explain why it didn't feel any different."
"Yes. I assure you that apparition is quite a lot less pleasant. Now come, we are here for a reason."
She led them to a security kiosk set into the wall where all three of their wands were weighed, then guided them to one of the lifts. Emma and Dan both noticed that muggles and Equestrians alike were much better than wizards at building lifts. The clattering vehicle wasn't exactly subtle. After leaving the lift on the second floor, they followed the teacher down a long corridor and around a corner into a large hall. At a counter near the door they spotted a familiar pair of wizards.
"Arthur. Xenophilius. I take it you're here to get registered as well?"
"Minerva! Yes. We are. I have actually only managed it myself yesterday, but Ginny did it weeks ago and out of the boys, last I heard, only Bill, Percy, Fred and George haven't yet. Molly is also still working on it, but the house keeps her rather busy. Thank you for reminding us, I'd forgotten all about it."
"My pleasure, Arthur."
After a few minutes' wait the small group stepped up to the counter. "Minerva," the clerk chuckled, "registering more animagi?"
Pulling her own stack of papers from a pocket, McGonagall nodded. "I only have one this time, but my companions have a few more."
One by one, the Grangers, Mr. Lovegood and Mr. Weasley placed their own stacks of paperwork down. The first two only had one each, like McGonagall, but Xenofilius had two and Arthur had three.
Looking at the stacks before her the clerk sighed quietly. "Alright. I'll get these filed. I'll get you your receipts in a few minutes. As she made her way deeper into the archives the group spent the time talking in the quiet lobby.
"Well Minerva, how have the children been doing?"
"They've been doing quite well so far. Miss Shimmer is doing fantastically, of course, but the rest are keeping up impressively well. They also seem to have integrated the rest of the Gryffindor first-years into their group pretty quickly."
"That's probably Sunset's influence," Arthur pointed out. "These ponies have a pretty strong herd mentality from what I could tell. I don't think they'll let any of them fall behind."
"If so I'd be glad. That would just be one less worry for me. I've also recruited Mister Potter into the Gryffindor Quidditch team as a seeker."
"From what Sunset and the Princess said," Xenofilius fell in, "that sounds like the perfect fit for a raptor like him."
"A what?"
"A raptor. Apparently a subtype of pegasus with magically enhanced eyesight and wings optimized for long glides and rapid dives. Like a bird of prey, basically."
Emma chuckled. "Supposedly their eyes can zoom."
"Say Minerva, how did you get around the rule against first years owning brooms."
McGonagall smirked. "Quite simple, really. We added an exception into the rule, stating that a first year may own a broom should they be chosen to play for one of the house teams."
"Clever."
"Isn't it just? Anyways." She turned to the Grangers. "How is wizarding life treating you?"
"Really?" Emma groaned quietly. "Does everyone know that now?"
"No actually, Professor Dumbledore only told the senior faculty after Mr. Ollivander informed him. We think it best to keep this quiet for the time being. We want to first establish that the technique works on squibs before going on to muggles. We're hoping that might prevent the pureblood faction from throwing a fit."
"An admirable goal," Xenofilius pointed out drily. "Though I find its chances of success to be dubious at best. The treatment basically shoots the very idea of blood status to the moon."
"Be that as it may, I believe we've gotten off topic."
"Oh right." Dan shook his head to get back on track. "It's been going quite well so far, though, to be fair, we haven't exactly had much exposure since the kids went off to Hogwarts."
"You have a point. I guess you don't even have an owl, do you?"
The two shared a look, then turned to Mr. Weasley, shaking their heads.
"Well, I happen to have a few hours to spare," Mr. Lovegood spoke up from beside them. "I can take you to the Alley to get one, if you want."
"Thank you. That would be very nice of you."
"Oh, it's no big deal. Like I said, I have the time."
Not long after, the clerk returned and gave them their receipts. Back in the atrium, the group split up. Professor McGonagall and Mr. Weasley returned to Hogwarts and the Burrow respectively via the floo network while Mr. Lovegood led the way to the leaky cauldron.
Later that day, Emma and Dan would learn that McGonagall's description of apparition as 'less pleasant' had been very charitable indeed.
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nice work.
9633234
While they were in Equestria
The nice thing for the Grangers is that Equestria is their bolt-hole as long as there is a phoenix available. Also, de-muggling muggle born families would send the PBs into a tail spin. 8>)
inb4 the Pureblood Shitstorm begins, and Sunset lays the smackdown on the lot of them for being idiotic.
Another wonderful chapter, keep up the great work!
Also now that Hermione's parents are both magical, does that technically make her a "pure blood"? lol
9633508
There is no such thing as 'technically pure blood' Pureblood is an empty term. It doesn't mean anything. It's assigned by completely arbitrary standards. This situation proves that status at birth means nothing at all. It has no bearing beyond that. Hermione is technically 'muggle born' despite the fact that noone involved in her birth is a muggle anymore (well, save nurses at the hospital, maybe)
9633508
Technically Hermione's parents would be considered muggle-born and in order to be considered pure-blood, your parents and grandparents can not be muggle or muggle-born. The term pure-blood isn't as literal as some people like to think.
9633603
I know all that hence why i used quotations lol. Personally I love it when "pure blood" society falls on its ass and cannot get back up. (*looks at magic school days*) I am hoping all the "pure blood" tripe suffers a slow death in your story XD
9633777
Oh I think there is a good chance of that happening. I've already established that the strenght of the ambient field has an effect on the number of natural born magic users. One thing the characters don't know yet is that the number of magic users also affects the strength of the ambient field.
So if the purebloods go ahead and use the treatment on squibs in their families, they'll inadvertantly be increasing the number of muggleborns ... They'll never know what hit 'em.
9633794
HAhaha! I look forward to it!
How had I not seen this story before? I'm a big fan of If Wishes Were Ponies, and I quite like Magic School Days as well, plus there are several other HP crossover fics in my bookshelves. Can't believe I've missed this one for as long as I have, especially with the update frequency.
Quite an interesting conundrum. My main focus right now is the distinction between Animagi and their transformation between human and pony and how the difference will come to light as well as if and how it will affect things.
I'm a little bit annoyed that the story is going so slow, admittedly. Reading through it far too fast, but that's just how it goes with good stories. I'm really happy we're in to Hogwarts - pretty sure I've said that before - even though I'm annoyed my knowledge is flawed due to having not read the books.
I'm wondering if Malfoy will be "redeemed". Admittedly it's far-fetched because his flaws come from his upbringing and the fact he was taught - and somewhat forced - into the belief that he was better than everyone else. But characters can learn, and Sunset would be a great teacher.
I don't know what the timeline is for this story in relation to the movie, let alone the relation between the books and movie. The concise nature of the movies makes it feel like the troll should've already come and gone from the not-so-fungeon, and that the alarms Sunset set up should've already gone off. Yet, they haven't even talked to Hagrid about Fluffy yet - even though it was mentioned they would a bit ago.
A lot of this is still the same stuff from before Hogwarts, admittedly. The same-old "Sunset's better at magic and everyone's gawking" kind of thing. I feel like there needs to be a bit more variety in what's happening in the chapters still, but that's just my opinion.
I'm hoping that, in the future, this won't get too repetitive in the daily routines. I mean yes, minor things will change such as Quirrel not being teacher after the kerfuffle and things like that, but what I meant was that I hope the chapters don't become repetitive in terms of "we went to class, we learned, next class". I'm worried about this because it seems like it's already happening at least a little bit.
This is a big comment, and I'm trying to get all my points across, uh.
What's going to happen with Emma and Dan? They don't know much magic and they know next to nothing about the wizarding community as a whole. I would've thought they'd get tutoring, or even on the extreme spectrum go to Hogwarts as well. But they've been left behind and it looks like things have continued in their lives as if nothing was out of the ordinary, save for the few spells they know.
9634589
Most of what you mentioned here will be addressed in time. As for the timeline matter, We're about two weeks into September. The troll-kerfuffle happens at Halloween. As for Sunset's alarms, they include a weak scrying spell, so if they go off, she can just check and see if it's a student just peeking in or something more serious. Thus far, nothing serious has happened. If it was just students peeking ... well such a thing may or may not have happened ...
Why do I have the feeling that other than the inherent difficulty, this is the second reason why most people don't bother attaining, or if they do, don't bother registering, their animagus forms... No-one likes doing Paperwork, unless your name is Twilight Sparkle of course.
For claiming that they're trying to keep it from getting out, they're doing a pretty poor job of it… By talking about it in front of a ministry employee, while also mentioning it's something they want to keep secret, they have increased the odds that it catches the guy's attention. And then they don't even ask him to keep it quite.
You could sword fight with your school brooms!
Rbj;
9957865
Pardon?
9957969
it's Polish
And all of a sudden, two former muggles register as Animagi?