Chapter 43 -- Act 3: The Chamber of Secrets
“Happy birthday, to me, happy birthday, to me,” Harry mutters to herself, sitting up in bed to look out the window at the sunrise.
“Hoo.”
She smiles at Hedwig, shaking her head briefly to get her mane to abandon its haystack shape. “Yeah, I know, I’ll probably get a decent party this time around.” She shrugs her wings. “I just wonder why Ron hasn’t sent me any letters.”
“Hoo.”
She shrugs her wings again. “Yeah, I know, Hermione hasn’t either- but she’s got a telephone that works just fine. Ron doesn’t.”
“Hoo.”
She scowls at the window. “Yeah… But that probably doesn’t mean much; I mean, his family does have an owl. Errol, I think it was.”
“Hoo?”
She looks back at Hedwig. “How would that be anything different?”
“Hoo.”
She blinks. “Yeah, that could… Hmm. If he’s too small to carry letters, though, wouldn’t they have gotten another owl?” She glances towards the ceiling. “Or ask to borrow Percy’s owl, Hermes.”
She shrugs her wings. “Hoo.”
She shrugs her wings a third time. “Yeah, if you really want to.”
“Hoo.” She spreads her wings, priming for takeoff.
Her horn glows, sliding the window open for Hedwig. “Thank you.”
“Hoo.” She flies out the window, disappearing into the sunrise.
She sighs, smiles at the sun, and morphs back into her human form to get started with her day. He pauses briefly in the middle of getting dressed; he hasn’t yet come up with a good name for his filly form.
Then he shrugs, and resumes work. No biggie- maybe Lyra can help, whenever the trip to Equestria comes about.
Lyra paces steadily back and forth behind the table. Princess Celestia is seated calmly at the other side of the table, working her three Philosopher’s Stones to produce the next batch of bits to hit the Equestrian economy.
Lyra huffs again, glaring at Celestia, even though the latter has no clue she’s anywhere nearby. She’d come here explicitly so she could distract herself, calm herself down… and of course, Celestia decided to show up and make noise with her Stones.
The problem is, she’d noticed a problem. Specifically, when she returned to Equestria, her personality changed. Over about a week.
To what it normally is.
It had changed more gradually throughout the school year, so slowly she didn’t notice it. For a short time, she’d become careless, and childish.
She’s been working to figure out exactly what happened to cause that, and how to circumvent or prevent it. Bonbon resisted it far better than she did, but even she wasn’t immune. Nopony resisted the change as much as Bonbon.
It’s almost like being in the form of an eleven-year-old… also pushes the mind of an eleven-year-old on everypony.
Which is dangerous. Mind-altering magics, especially combined with transformation magics, is exactly how ponies like King Sombra were born.
She’s done a head count; every pony, save her Papa Tango targets that are all already of the appropriate age for their forms, is in Equestria.
And she’s sealed the Gate. It won’t be hard to unseal it again- but until it is unsealed, nothing can pass.
She won’t unseal it until she’s able to solve the mind-altering magic problem.
… even if it means she’s broken her promise to Harry, Hermione, and Draco- that invite to visit her in Equestria “whenever”. She hasn’t even been able to tell them why not; she didn’t think of the promise until after she’d sealed the gate. Owls can’t pass through the sealed gate- and neither can phone signals.
At least she’d had the sense to, before sealing the gate, make a quick trip to Hogwarts to lock down her upgraded Papa Tango spellwork to be unuseable.
She pauses, gazing at some of the forbidden tomes Celestia has stacked on the shelves in here. Age spells.
In particular, these tomes are about a very dangerous set of age spells that also rewind- or fast-forward- the subject’s knowledge and experience, rather than simply biological youth.
She tilts her head. She could make a stop by the Star Swirl wing; he worked on quite a few age spells, but was never fully satisfied and never truly published any of them. A copy of his notes can be found up there, including his notes on the effects it had.
Perhaps that could help?
She glances back at Celestia, and smiles. Extra challenge, why not? She slips her way out, careful not to let Celestia find out she was ever there.
“Happy birthday, Harry.”
Harry smiles as he approaches the table. “Thanks, Dudley.”
Dudley shakes his head, flipping the bacon the way Harry had shown him a month ago. “It’s too bad that dinner party is today, too. Dad must’ve forgotten it was your birthday.”
Harry shrugs, glancing sideways at Uncle Vernon, who is pausing in the door. “Not surprised,” he answers. “It’s been eleven years since the last time anyone was allowed to care about it.”
“Oh, shoot,” Vernon greets. “Sorry about that. Um…”
Harry waves it off. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing. It’s not every day that a rich builder agrees to a dinner party.”
Hedwig flutters to a landing on the windowsill, and rattles her beak against the glass for attention. She wishes hooting worked more often- but unfortunately, only Harry, Silver, and Lyra actually respond to her hooting, that she’s worked with so far. Mind, she hasn’t really gone anywhere else since starting working for Harry- but during training, she worked with many, including even some experienced owls. A claw or a beak, and sometimes even that isn’t enough, they’d told her. One of them had even recited a time he’d napped on the recipient’s windowsill until he was finally noticed; the glass had been too thick for the amount of noise he could make to get through.
She doesn’t have to wait for long. A little girl, just about Hogwarts age – Ginny Weasley – opens the window to coo at her.
She ignores the cooing, even if the stroking on her plumage feels nice, and scans the room. “Errhool,” she calls.
“Hoom?” Errol hoots inquisitively, drawing her attention to his perch.
Right, Errol is one of those owls, the ones she doesn’t particularly like dealing with. She decides to cut straight to the chase. “Has Ronald sent any lhootters for Harry?”
“Yes, and he’s about ready hoo send another one now,” Errol answers her. “They keep disaphooring whenever I get close.”
“Disaphooring?” she asks.
Errol nods. “Ronald’s been getting increasingly whooried, but he doesn’t understand when I explain.”
She blinks slowly. “Hooh. I’ll take this hoone, then- and I’ll tell Harry. He can hoonderstand us; he’ll figure something hoot.”
“Hoo can? Strhoonge. Well, I’ll lhook forward to a calmer Ronald, then.”
“What in the world is going on in here?” Fred Weasley asks, entering the kitchen just in front of his brother.
“Kept hearing owls from the hallway,” George states.
Ginny looks up at them. “I think they’re having a hooversation.”
Both owls blink slowly at her. The twins also pause to stare at her, eyebrows raised.
“What?”
“That pun,” Fred shudders.
“Happy birthday, Harry.”
He looks over. “Thanks, Draco. Hermione.” He shifts sideways on the garden bench.
The two take their seats as well, with Hermione sandwiched in the middle. “Been having a good birthday?” Hermione asks.
Harry shrugs. “It’s just another day,” he answers.
Both of them gasp dramatically, drawing away from him.
He shrugs again. “What? It’s a lot better than what I had before. Something about a fragment of Voldemort’s soul, forcing muggles – including them, at the time – to hate me.” He gestures back towards the house.
“Wait, what?” Draco asks, blinking at him.
Hermione looks at Draco. “We never told you about that, did we?”
“I don’t think so, no.”
“Ahh,” Harry mutters. “That’s about all we know about that.” He looks forwards again. “About ten minutes ago, that hedge winked at me. And they’re having a dinner party with non-magical guests soon, too.” He points a thumb back at the house again.
“I don’t suppose that means we’ll have to go upstairs, does it?” Hermione asks.
Draco scowls. “Well, there’s nothing in that hedge now. I’m picking up traces of something, but not enough to identify.”
Harry sighs. “Yeah… Yeah, I’m going to have to go upstairs soon; it’ll be better for everyone, all around, if the Masons never realize I exist.” He glances at them. “You’ll have to either go home… or follow. Oh- and Hedwig tells me Ron has been sending lots of letters, but they all seem to be disappearing whenever they get close. Any idea what could be doing that?”
Draco scowls. “Well, I’d bet my broomstick – er, whatever – the winking hedge is related to it.” He glances sideways at Harry. “Dad hasn’t ordered my broom yet. Says he’ll buy it just before we go to school.”
“What’s… this?” Professor Dumbledore asks the empty room. He’d been randomly walking through the castle, as he likes doing whenever he can, and he’d encountered this previously locked room with… something in it. There’s nothing visibly in the room; no, he feels it on his magic sense. He can tell it’s rather cleverly hidden from the castle wards. Which means, of course…
He sends a message to his Heads of House, through the wards. Perhaps they can help him figure out what it is, before the next year starts? He really doesn’t want to have to ask Lyra what it is; she’d no doubt be able to figure it out, but never answer him in a manner by which he could understand.
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...yes, that's a basic fact of transformation magic. The mind is fluid, it conforms to the shape of the vessel that contains it. That's why shapeshifters don't spend extended lengths of time in an alien form, because they'll start to lose themselves. Why do you think Sunset, a personal student of Celestia, came up with such a harebrained scheme?
The problem with hiding something using magic is that you then make it visible to those who can perceive magic. 'tis like using a basic detect magic spell to find someone hidden by an invisibility spell.
9753815
Probably doesn't help she hadn't designed the spellwork to hide from magic... but simply from the wards. The door was supposed to keep everyone out, no doubt with an alert trigger tied to it (or placed near it)... that failed because the Gate's sealed.
9753844
Twelfth rule of The Evil Overlord List: One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation.
Establishing security spells that require your physical presence seems like a pretty major flaw if you then immediately leave the plane.
9753847
Well, they don't technically require her presence... Problem is, it was one of the things she didn't think about before she sealed the Gate: Magical signals also can't traverse the sealed Gate. Back when it was open, no biggie... I mean, she was in a hurry when she locked the thing.
But when she made those alert sequences, she was no doubt thinking a bit harder (and longer), and (probably) allowed for the possibility that she might be unavailable- or even deceased, in a worst-case scenario- when it went off.
9753851
Many spells would consider leaving the plane and blocking off the Way to be synonymous with death.
.
.
.
Lyra didn't put any dead-man's contingencies in her spellwork, did she?
9753854
She very well could have.
It just might take some time for the spellwork to come to the 'death' conclusion without being able to find her body...
9753859
She no longer exists in this plane of existence, what's more to know?
9753864
That it can't find her. She might also have allowed for the possibility she'd be behind some significant spellwork, thence preventing it from finding her on the first pass... So she might have made it make multiple passes, including slower, more thorough passes, before giving up and declaring her dead.
9753869
And then it explodes?
9753872
... Not likely. She wouldn't want it to damage Hogwarts.
9753880
Implode then?
9753885
Possible, but again, not likely, except as an extreme last-ditch. It is a simple alert spell on a door...
9753890
True that. Perhaps it's rigged to alert Dumbledore to what Lyra has hidden in that room, to ensure it's protection? That would be amusing.
9753895
Perhaps... It also could be rigged to hunt for the nearest Agent before it taps into the wards to reach Dumbledore, though.
Hoo-rible
9754008
Positively HOO-rendous.
9754131
A veritable HOOt.
Wait...
The pun was a hoot.
Oh, sure. If nothing will trigger it, good.
Besides, didn't it take many hours of preparation and safeties? There's no way that any reasonable, intelligent adult would leave it active, right? That would be the sort of thing an 11 year old would do.
9832671
... I sense psychic powers.
9832696
Nah, I read up to 44 on my kindle, then came here to comment.
But seriously, is Lyra that incompetent, or is it the "11 year old" effect?
And wasn't it previously stated that it had to be prepared on a case-by-case basis, with lots of safeties, because of the risk?
9832712
Yeah, that was the "11 year old effect".
And yes, it was previously stated... but that was because that single use burned out the matrices- it wouldn't be safe for them to be re-used. So she spent months to create this reusable set... and it saw its first use on Harry.
It was owlful