5. If You Give a Pony a Party
Harry Potter and the Little Pony Problem
If You Give a Pony a Party
- - ⚡ - -
Harry Potter looked at the herd of tiny ponies still standing on the throw rug in his uncle’s guest room.
Some of the ponies looked back. Some were staring at Twilight Sparkle. Several were exchanging small coins, as if paying off a bet. A few of the smaller ponies were running loose while equine parents tried to catch them.
“Your uncle just pulled into the driveway,” said Lyra from where she had climbed up the curtains to look out the window. “I think he ran over the fat kid’s bicycle.”
“Twilight!” declared Rarity from her position right next to her friend. The fashion unicorn’s face was set in a fixed and completely false smile, and she was whispering out of the corner of her clenched jaws. “I’ve got orders to complete in Ponyville today. Cast the spell to send us home. Now, please.”
“I’m trying!” Twilight’s horn flashed like some deranged camera and the little winged unicorn began turning around in circles on top of her shoebox. “This integral of the spell should send us home, unless this is not a simple transposition, which it isn’t of course. How stupid could I be! We’re all fractional representations of our original bodies, so the magical potential—”
“Your aunt has gone outside to calm down the fat kid,” said Lyra, still glued to the window. “So neat.”
“Now, don’t put pressure on her, Rarity.” Applejack moved up next to the shoebox and tried to act reassuring. “We all’s got confidence in you.”
“The math is all wrong!” wailed Twilight Sparkle, who plunked her tiny rump down on the shoebox and began working on an epic breakdown. “Math betrayed me! It isn’t supposed to do this! All the formulas don’t balance! We could never get home at this rate, and it’s my fault!”
“Look, it’s not the time to assign blame!” said Harry, who stole a quick look out of the window. “My aunt and uncle are coming back inside, and they’ll blow a fuse if they find you all in here!”
“Not helping,” said Rainbow Dash, who flew up to Harry’s face with a scowl. “Twilight’s doing the best she can to get us home, and— Urk!”
Harry grabbed the speedy pegasus out of mid-air like a snitch and darted over to the door, being careful where he was putting his feet. “Everybody, over here. Into my room and hide under the bed. Hurry!”
The stampede was well underway when Harry scurried down the stairs, hoping to catch Uncle Vernon and divert him away from the pile of ponies. If Harry had been in a good mood, or at least less of a furious one, it might have worked. At least it distracted him from the rattling sound of dozens of shod hooves in full flight across the hallway carpet runner when Vernon opened the front door and spotted Harry at the bottom of the stairs.
“Boy!” he blustered. “Is this what I come home to? The back door is wide open and there’s mud all over the floor! Well, go close it and get out to the car!”
With a sudden sinking sensation, Harry realized that he still had Rainbow Dash clutched in his hands, and that only convenient placement of the bannister rail blocked Vernon from seeing the brightly colored pony. Praying under his breath, Harry let go of the pony and darted to the back door with the trail of little muddy hoofprints showing the path of the ponies who had done his yard work and brought some of the yard back with them. He closed the door and tried not to react to Vernon’s ongoing complaint about Harry somehow having left Dudley’s bicycle out in the driveway, then tolerated the inevitable clout on the back of his head without grumbling. It was not until Harry was attaching the car’s seat belt that he realized something that almost made him dive out of the car.
All of his panicking about the ponies had been for nothing.
Twilight Sparkle was going to figure out what she had done wrong and send all of them home while Vernon and Petunia dragged him to various bicycle shops on the futile task of finding one that Dudley would like, or at least not complain much about. It would certainly take hours, and with all of the humans out of the house, the ponies might even clean up their dirty hoofprints before they left.
The idea gave him the willpower to survive an evening out on the town with his relatives, through the stores filled with bright, shiny bicycles that Uncle Vernon would never buy for him. Even that was made tolerable by Harry’s fond memories of riding on a broom during quidditch practice, a sensation that his obese cousin would never be able to experience, ever.
That warm feeling about flying cooled somewhat when the Dursley’s took their son into a restaurant after shopping. Harry was left outside by the car to watch the bicycle’s cardboard box that had been strapped to the car’s roof, just in case someone were to steal it while they were enjoying a meal. It was the first time he had been left alone in the last few days, even if it was in a parking lot with the scent of petrol all around and passers-by giving him an odd look as if he were a homeless child. He would have much rather been crouched over his desk, trying to keep up with Twilight Sparkle’s rapid recitation of magical theory or nodding along as Lyra quizzed him on wizarding history.
For such small fragments of magic from a truly weird dimension, each one of them was a fascinating window into a new world. It would have been a great experience to take Twilight Sparkle to Hogwarts, aside from having Hermione yell at him. And the Ministry going sparse. And most probably each of the teachers having different plans for his new colorful companion, including Snape, who would likely dock Gryffindor a few hundred points for having a pet that was not on the Hogwarts permitted list. Then again, if the correct permissions were requested from the correct wizards, he probably could bring a harmless magical creature into Hogwarts.
Yeah, harmless. Like Aragog.
Still, there had to be something in their presence here which was against the rules. The Ministry of Magic seemed to believe that everything magical was forbidden except for those few things that were permitted, with the correct number of permits purchased, of course. And of course there was no way the Ministry had a permit for keeping a Unicorn, Size Tiny, Type Extradimensional. Alternately, there was no way he could sneak Twilight into Hogwarts as perhaps a rare Pointy-Headed Rat, or Hooved Cat.
No, there was no need to think about it. Besides, the tiny unicorn had already gone home, with all of the other magical fragments of ponies from her town in Ponyland.
The trip back to Privet Drive was windy because Harry had to leave his car window open and hold onto the box containing the unassembled bicycle strapped onto the roof, just in case. It would make for a troublesome weekend with Uncle Vernon fussing over the instructions and complaining that there were parts missing, with Dudley hanging around and whining about how long it was taking. Still, there was half a drumstick in the doggie bag that Aunt Petunia had brought back from the restaurant, so he could always sneak down to the kitchen in the middle of the night and have at least something for dinner. Well, other than the cupcake he had eaten at the party.
“Hold up your end of the box, boy!” scolded Uncle Vernon while they were unloading. He did not shout at Dudley, of course, because the big lump had already darted into the house in search of the telly to catch the end of his favorite programme. Harry was at least grateful that he did not have that whining voice in his ear, which was made more difficult when Vernon’s grip slipped and the bicycle box landed on his foot.
The one shining light in the day’s events was that Uncle Vernon would never ask for Harry’s help in putting together Dudley’s bicycle. He would spend most of the remaining evening out in the living room, cursing and swearing at the missing parts and claiming the instruction sheet was written in some foreign language. Then tomorrow morning he would drive to the drill factory where he worked and bring back one of the men, who would put the bicycle together in less than an hour. That would leave just enough time before the end of the day for Dudley to take it outside and damage it somehow, most likely by leaving it in a ditch somewhere.
It was late enough that Harry slipped upstairs to use the bathroom quickly before the rest of the family headed off to bed, then managed to make it into his empty bedroom with only a moment to spare.
Only to find his empty bedroom less empty than he had hoped.
- - Ω - -
“I needed help,” admitted Twilight Sparkle from her perch on Harry’s desk before he could get a word out. “I know I haven’t always been good about asking for it when I’m in over my head—”
On the floor, Spike doubled over and held both clawed hands over his face, while the half-dozen or so small unicorns around Twilight universally rolled their eyes.
“—but I’m getting better about it,” she finished with only a small glare at her dragon assistant. “This is Lyra, Twinkleshine, Lemon Hearts, Minuette, and Moondancer. And… um… Trixie?”
The six colorful small unicorns all nodded at Harry Potter and gave a few words of encouragement, except for the light green one, who seemed to be entranced by his hands, and could not take her eyes off them.
“Other than Trixie, these are my study group from when I was a foal in Canterlot,” explained Twilight. “They’ve all gone on to other things since then, but I was hoping they could assist with my research in how to return us all home. Well, send our fractional distilled essences home, before our bodies there miss the magic that we’re made of.”
“I got a paper cut looking at your notes,” said Moondancer. “I bled. That’s a little more than just some essence borrowing.”
“I know!” Twilight giggled a little, which made Harry glad she did not have any sharp cutting implements, or at least none that he could see. “It’s a whole new world of transdimensional physics! I’m theorizing our passage created a one-way tunnel through spacetime with direct parallelism with our original bodies.”
“Hey, Twilight!” pipped a small voice from the floor. “I managed to get Apple Bloom and Scootaloo summoned here again! Rarity showed me how to do it,” she added quickly when she got their attention. “Or at least this Rarity, since I think there’s about three of them now.”
“Doesn’t parallelism only mean two?” asked Twinkleshine.
“Everypony, please!” called out Twilight in a voice far too loud for Harry’s nerves, particularly since he could hear Aunt Petunia in the bathroom across the hallway. “I told you to stop summoning other ponies!”
“But you summoned your school friends!” protested Sweetie Belle from the floor.
“And the Great and Powerful Trixie,” announced Trixie.
“That’s different,” said Twilight, although she slowed down as she continued. “I summoned one of each of my school friends to help me research the solution to our dilemma so we can all go home.”
“I thought you already summoned Lyra at least twice,” asked Harry, looking out across the ponies scattered across his bedroom floor. “That one over there, and the one hiding behind the bed leg.”
“I… um… Well, that’s beside the point,” continued Twilight, gaining speed. “You can help with our research, too. How much experience do you have with cross-thaumic force tensor quadratics?”
“That’s advanced Arithmancy, isn’t it?” asked Harry. “I think we start the basics this year.”
“Advanced Runic interactions?”
“I have the option of taking Ancient Runes next year,” said Harry. “Is that the same thing?”
“Simple ley-line flow and analysis?” asked Twilight hopefully.
“What’s a ley line?” The look of despair on Twilight Sparkle’s face most resembled Professor Hooch about the third time Neville had flown his broomstick through the same stained glass window in school. “How about… I just sit here and work quietly on my homework by myself. I know you like helping me study, but I think your research is more important right now.”
“I’ll help him, Twilight!” volunteered Lyra almost immediately, or at least the Lyra who was standing on the desk. She settled down next to his stack of uncompleted homework and used her horn to float over a book while the other unicorns scurried away like hooved rats.
There was a rather large stack of assignments left to complete. Harry still was confident that Twilight Sparkle would be able to send all of the unwanted visitors to his summer life back home. The two facts taken together made it obvious that he needed to get to work.
Returning to Hogwarts with a stack of undone homework would be bad. Not the kind of bad that would get him expelled, or forced to stand outside the gate until he had completed each sheet, but when the new school year’s assignments were piled on top, he might not catch up until the first snow. Hermione might have liked being smothered beneath paper, but Harry had quidditch and other such enjoyable activities planned.
“So two sheets of parchment on the first assignment,” said Lyra, leafing through his list. “Twelve basic symbolic translations, seven different potion interaction reports, a dozen different lists on the uses of the seven primary household charms.” She gave a low whistle while continuing through the homework list. “Who did you… um… get angry?”
“Voldemort,” said Harry. “He tried to kill me when I was just a baby. He killed my parents, but I survived. He tried to kill me at Hogwarts twice now.”
Lyra looked up with her golden eyes as big as saucers. Well, small saucers. Harry hurried to calm her down, because the ponies seemed too innocent and trusting to be faced with his unfiltered life. “He’s gone now. He put a… part of himself into a diary—”
Trying to explain Tom Riddle’s diary, the basilisk, and the Sword of Gryffindor took a while, made only worse by having to backtrack and explain what had happened to his first Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher. Lyra sat through it all, attentive and sympathetic even if she looked quite disturbed by his experiences. The conversation made his homework on Scrubbing Charms and the like seem very inconsequential in comparison, and she agreed that they were not very applicable to his larger problems. After all, Harry had not used any spells to fight Voldemort the first time, since his own touch had proven so deadly to the disembodied dark wizard. And he had never held a sword until that terrifying night in the basilisk’s lair.
After some discussion, they came to the conclusion that his studies were probably still useful in case he was attacked by dark wizards and found it necessary to give them a serious case of hiccups, or perhaps a good cleaning. With that in mind, and since his new magical tutor had calmed down, they went back to working on his assignments. The other advanced unicorn study group continued on without regard to the wizardly homework, with only the occasional popping noise or whiff of lavender smoke from their direction to mark their progress, although no marked reduction in the pony population of the room.
As they worked through the evening, it felt nice for Harry to have a study buddy who was not as ‘focused’ as Twilight Sparkle. Despite her inexperience with the specifics of wizarding magic, Lyra soaked up his lessons almost as fast as Harry could write. They worked through the report on potion interactions, fairly breezed through the household charms parchment, and made a good start on symbolic translations before stopping for the night. He wanted to go on, but Harry could not see straight, and he was starting to write in something that resembled ancient runes, sideways.
Giving a yawn, Harry pushed his completed homework to the back of the desk and tried not to twitch at the sound of an owl landing on the window sill. The ponies scattered all around the room froze for a moment, most likely because Hedwig was large enough to snack on them if it wanted, but after a few mutual distrusting looks, the owl turned to Harry and hooted, holding up one leg.
“More homework?” It only took a minute to untie the thick letter from Hedwig’s leg and send her off into the darkness with an Eeylops Premium Owl Treat clutched in her beak, after which Harry unfolded the letters and groaned. “This is twice as much as we managed to get done tonight!”
“Maybe we can work on it tomorrow during the day,” Lyra put forward hesitantly.
“Not a chance. Aunt Petunia will be in a foul mood because parts of Dudley’s new bicycle will be scattered around the living room tomorrow, and she’ll take it out on me. I’m going to be fertilizing and pruning rosebushes until dark.” He rubbed one hand against his pajama leg. “The thorns always stick under my skin, and I can’t use my dragonhide gloves because she’ll recognize them.”
He flopped down on the bed, then got back up when a lump under his covers protested. After chasing out the three or four ponies who had made themselves comfortable, he settled back down and rolled over on his back with one arm over his face.
“But on the other hoof?” prompted Lyra. “Bon Bon always says there’s a sweet chewy center in the middle of the most bitter chocolate, you just have to bite down on it.”
“No chocolate before bedtime,” came a unicorn’s thready voice from under the bed. “You already brushed your teeth.”
“It’s only metaphorical chocolate, Minnie,” responded Lyra while rolling her eyes. “Anyway, things happen in our lives, like giant space bears stomping through town, or—”
“Trixie said she was sorry about the bear many times!” sounded another voice from under the bed.
“—or,” continued Lyra with more force, “having a bunch of unexpected ponies dropped into your bedroom at the worst possible time. We make the best of our situations, because we can’t go back in time and change anything.”
“Technically, you can, but it doesn’t—” sounded Twilight from under the bed, only to have her fellow unicorn research assistants suppress her interjection from what Harry could hear of their objections.
“Tell you what,” said Lyra with a yawn. She flopped down on Harry’s pillow and scooted over a little to leave space for his head. “Sometimes when things go badly, you just have to trust other ponies and hope they get better. See what it’s like in the morning.”
It sounded like a good idea to Harry, even if she was taking up space on the pillow. He rolled over and nudged her a bit to repossess a little more pillow space, then closed his eyes, allowing the rustle of paper under his bed and the warmth of the unicorn snuggled up to the side of his face to lull him—
He reached up and confirmed by touch that there were now two ponies curled up on his pillow, one of whom was the hornless one with the elaborate manestyle who had seemed unusually attracted to Lyra. He was getting used to finding more ponies than he expected, so setting back down into his pillow again, he moved Lyra’s horn so it wasn’t poking him in the cheek, closed his eyes and listened to the rustle of paper below the bed until he fell asleep.
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Tribbles with legs I swear.
will Harry ever be free of tiny ponies or at the least keep his family from finding them. AT least Twilight and Company haven't summoned Celestia, Luna or worst of all Discord. Depending on how this is affecting Fluttershy in Equestria he might be looking into it
Part of me kind of want Dudley at least to see them or for them to maybe teach him some manners if such a thing is possible.
Never thought the summon spell is easy enough for Rarity or Sweetie to be able to do it.
9555778
Except these ponies are as annoying. They are providing far better help.
9555824 Relax. Twilight would never summon Celestia or Luna. You have my word.
9555826 That deserves music.
I do hope that Harry takes them with him to Hogwarts, I would LOVE to see how the ponies react to that castle turned school, also I bet the CMC would find the Room of Requirement easily with how they get into things they shouldn't on their adventures.
This reminds me of a story I tripped over a while ago on FFNet: "Little Angel Thesis" I think it was called. Basically Shinji hangs out with mini versions of the angels after he defeats each one.
Also unfinished.
Anyway, good read. Please finish. Too many stories in my favorites that aren't.
random ministry worker: "Form 27-b."
Harry: "Really? That's all I need to get permission?"
rmw: "No, that's the form to request the form to be put on the waiting list to be put on the list of people in line to get the form to get permission to have extra-dimensional pets. The Lovegoods keep trying and we have to keep reminding them they can't get the form till they actually get one."
Harry: "But I'm Harry Potter."
rmw: *looks up from his magazine* "Form 67-Z."
Harry: "What's that do?"
rmw: "That's the form for permission to get the form to wait in line to get the packet you gotta fill out to be put on the waiting list to ask the minister if you can get a celebrity exemption."
Harry: "And that would let me have the exotic pets."
rmw: "No. That would allow you to skip 2 of the forms in the other scenario."
when in doubt, summon more ponies. Human Lyra approves of this message.
On the read later list but I'll give it low priority because I am reading so many Harry Potter fanfics right now.
An excellently frustrating stopping point. Definitely looking forward to seeing how they resolve this. I can't help but wonder if it would be simpler to just summon an entire pony and let them work their way back from there.
9555899
9555933
"Remind me again why you're the good guys?"
"We're better than the alternative."
"So you're saying there's room for a third option."
"Form 173-Q."
9555899
So she would summon Discord then? Or will he just show up because he wants to be here?
So now there's multiple Raritys and Lyras running around. This does not bode well.
9555899 That leaves many other options considering Sweetie Bell was able to summon Scootaloo and Apple Bloom
9556000
Haha. This reminds me of that loop Ivory Scroll Awoke early enough to set up the paperwork to make Eternal Night legal.
Wait... wasn’t there already an entire set of Crusaders...? are there two now?
They’re doomed.
9556108
doomed you say. that's my favorite type of situation. it is when they are all doomed that Twilight and Harry are at their best. the more doomed they are the harder they work and the better their chances.
9556108
How is the house still standing?
So no Starlight yet... just as well I suppose. She’s still Darth Starlight at this point and won’t really be ready for polite company for years.
...wait. Timing. Uh oh.
Meanwhile, the original Twilight is investigating the essence drain from Ponyville. And, yes, Discord gets involved. Because he can! Donny will have nothing on him.
Bwa! Lost it.
Darn.
The Dursleys are even more despicable then usuai.
Most excellent.
The big question in my mind is how long before Celestia shows up.
Harry thinks it’s bad now, and he’s rolling with this because he’s survived both Hogwarts and the Weasleys.
He doesn’t get it. The chaos is only going to increase. Shenanigans are inevitable.
I can’t wait for Ponyville+ to go Borrowers on the Dursleys in outrage.
In retrospect it makes sense Sweetie can cast the summon spell. It was accidental magic in the first place.
9556593
Hogwarts is even more despicable than the Dursleys here(and i already have a low opinion of the Hogwarts staff)...i call Shenanigans on all the "extra" work...
I wonder if the Dursleys can even perceive the ponies, given that this all started with muggle-proof ink. I also wonder when these mini-ponies are going to start having existential crises.
9556108
Just wait till multiple Discords start showing up.
9560169
Nah, multiple Discords is pretty normal.
He's got to keep at least a few and take them to Hogwarts, otherwise no one will believe him!
Hey Hermione I accidentally summoned a representation of a unicorn and now she's brought all her friends several times and is trying to figure out to go home can she talk to you about magic as I don't understand her questions much less know how to answer them?
I look forward to seeing where you go with this.
9598143
Oh, you have NO idea... *laughs evilly*
Seriously, though, a lot of Aussies think H&A and Neighbours are drivel of the highest calibre, and have never watched a single episode...
EVER!
And never will.
Twilight: "Got it!" She said enthusiastically, as she presented Harry with the actual permission form.
Harry: "How'd you get that so quickly?" He asked.
Twilight grinned. "Never underestimate an alicorn that survived the Royal Canterlot Bureaucracy for most of her young life." She said smugly.
9598119
reminds me of a story where someone was killed by being hit in the back of the head with a Sledgehammer, repeatedly, and some idiot tried to pass it off as suicide!
In fairness a spell that gives a bad case of hiccups would be good in a duel because most wizards don’t bother with silent casting, but spell incantations need to be spoken correctly to work.
9654639
First of all, please reply to my comments directly in the future so I can see the hilarity.
Second of all:
Harry: "There. Completed. Can I take them with me now?"
Random Ministry Worker: "Sorry. This form expired five minutes ago. Please fill out forms 84747-t, 5757469-i, and 6374595486-p in triplicate to renew it."
Harry: "Forms 5757469-i and 6374595486-p?"
Random Ministry Worker: "Interdimensional Pony. We had a really odd looking winged Unicorn about 300 years ago."