Chapter 66
Madam Malkin frowns at the four students in her shop. Three of them are wearing Hogwarts robes, but the last one is wearing what can only be muggle clothing- there’s no way that shiny silver skirt is anything but. “Did something happen?”
The girl in the skirt, introduced as Silversong, nods. “Yeah… Little magical accident at the school, and all my robes kinda, er, went pop.” She doesn’t miss how the girl won’t meet her eyes, rubbing the side of her head as she speaks. “So I had to dig up some of my muggle clothing, and now I’m here to get fresh robes.”
Madam Malkin sighs. Something feels off about the explanation, but as long as the girl has the money to pay for it, it’s not her job to stop her- the wards on her shop have already confirmed that she’s a legitimate Hogwarts student. “And your new robes won’t… ‘go pop’, as well?”
The girl shakes her head, silver hair flying behind her. “No, no. We’ve already… er, fixed that.”
She raises an eyebrow.
The other first-year of the bunch, nametag reading ‘Ginny Weasley’, giggles. “It was a one-time event. I’d say botched spell, but, ah…” She scowls, going silent.
She rolls her eyes. “Whatever. You’ve got the gold you’ll need, right?”
The third girl present, Hermione Granger, nods cheerfully, pulling a large bag full of rattling coins out of her pocket- her pocket it most certainly shouldn’t have fit in. The girl must have put an expansion charm on the pocket- or, possibly, a shrinking spell on the bag. “Yep, we got all the gold we’ll ever need.”
She sighs. “Alright then, come on back.” She takes Silver back to the stool, and slips some fresh robes over her head to start pinning them to length. “You know, you’re a terrible liar.”
Silver promptly gasps, head whirling about- but the rest of her body stays put, rather conveniently. “What-!”
Malkin raises her eyebrows back up at her. “It’s rather obvious there was no such accident, Miss Silversong,” she states, and heaves a sigh. “However, accident or not, it’s not unheardof for Hogwarts students to stop by during the year for new robes. Usually for accidents, but sometimes someone was malicious.” She looks up again. “Nobody was attacking you, were they?”
Silver blushes, and looks away from her. “No, no. It wasn’t… It wasn’t an attack, no.” Then she turns back to her. “But… if you didn’t believe the story…?”
“Why did I let you get robes? Easy- thanks to my wards, which very few people know about, I know you’re a legitimate Hogwarts student- and so fully entitled to buy as many Hogwarts robes as you like, so long as you have the gold.”
“... Oh.”
“I must say, though, I don’t think I’ve heard your name before.” Madam Malkin grins. “And it’s usually the Crusaders coming in here these days, anyways. They get you too this time?”
“Ahh… No. Wait, those three keep needing new robes…?”
She nods. “At least one each, every week, sometimes more. And the story’s always different, too- my personal favorite was when they tried hang-gliding, and only managed to destroy their robes on the way down the castle wall.” She chuckles lightly. “They’re even easier to read than you are, dear, but they weren’t lying about that, so I’ll have to admit I’m rather curious how they survived.”
Silver chuckles, grinning. “Oh, yeah. Um, they’re young, ah, female Equestrians.”
“You know, they keep calling themselves ‘fillies’.”
“Ahh…” Silver looks at Hermione for some reason.
Hermione looks at Ginny, then back at Silver, fingering the black thing on the front of her robes uncertainly, before speaking. “Um… That’s, er, an Equestrian national secret…”
Madam Malkin looks at her, eyebrow raised. “Really?”
She only nods.
“Alright, it’s safe with me, then.”
“Ahh… Well, then. The thing is, Equestrian… fillies, I guess, are practically indestructible. I mean, we can still get hurt, but blunt force trauma is pretty meaningless.” She chuckles. “I could probably jump off the tallest tower and, so long as I rolled when I landed, not get so much as a bruise.” She snorts. “And that was before I, ah… well, that’s a bit more secret, but…”
She nods slowly. “Ahh, that makes sense. I was wondering how they survived several of the… ah, escapades, they described.” She rises, done with the lower hem, to work on one of the sleeves. “I have to say, though, you’re the first one I’ve had come in with wings. That what you’re talking about?”
“What-! Ahh…” Silver seems distinctly worried.
“Kinda,” Hermione suddenly supplies. “It’s… a little more complicated than that. You’ve probably heard of the ‘Papa Tango’?”
She raises her eyebrow, and nods. “It’s been mentioned, once or twice.”
Hermione nods. “Yeah. It expands a British wizard’s magic to match an Equestrian’s… but doesn’t remove the parts that Equestrians don’t have. Those that possess both… are known to retain certain features of their new Equestrian form, even in human form… such as wings.” She smiles. “She’s referring to something additional that happened later, that, ah, we’re not ready to tell even the rest of the Equestrians about just yet, so…”
“I understand,” Madam Malkin smiles, switching to the other sleeve. “You going to want anything special for your wings?”
“Ah, no,” Silver shakes her head quickly.
“You sure? You won’t be able to use them without a special allowance.”
Harry- the boy that had come in with the three girls- and Hermione both snicker. Silver snorts. “Hasn’t stopped us yet,” she states.
“They’re magic,” Hermione supplies. “Same magic that makes them appear on her human form, we think, lets them pass right through such things as clothes, no damage whatsoever.”
Madam Malkin raises an eyebrow at her. “Sounds rather convenient for keeping them hidden.”
Silver nods. “Oh, you wouldn’t believe how convenient it is. I’m still dreading the day my dad realizes I have wings. Have had them, actually, since last spring.”
“You know,” she states, slipping the pinned robes back off over Silver’s head. “You talk like you’re a British student, but you have an Equestrian name. Which is it?”
Silver blinks. “Ahh… Yeah. About that, um…” She looks at the other three, then back at Madam Malkin. “Uh, can you promise to keep this secret for, um, forever?”
She shrugs, and nods. “Sure.”
“Well, um…” Silver looks towards the glass front of the shop, rubbing her hair with one hand. “Thing is… I am British. And I’ve always been… well, confined, in my… uh, old form. I mean, Draco Malfoy can’t exactly run across the street to meet some friends, can he? No, he has to make them run across to meet him, and then he still has to act all high and mighty. Can’t play with them, can’t anything, really.”
“Draco Malfoy?” Madam Malkin asks, astonished.
She nods. “Yeah… that’s who I used to be. Hogwarts wasn’t much better than that; I was still expected to be the perfect little successor to the Malfoy throne.” She sticks her head mockingly in the air, lightning crackling briefly through her hair. Then she lets out a sigh, dropping carelessly onto a bench inside the shop. “Then Lyra came along, and used me as a testbed for her Papa Tango. Never woulda consented to it, but any more, I don’t know how I could live without it.
“Fun fact: When the Papa Tango gives you an Equestrian form, it makes it based on your personality, not your human form. So my Equestrian form was rather widely divorced from my human form. I was afraid of it at first- but grew into it. Named it Silversong, visited Equestria. It was sometime shortly after that that I realized Silver is something that Draco never will be: Free. So I… well, became Silversong. Draco is now the fiction. And…” She smiles. “Less than half an hour ago, Ginny helped me acquire a second human form, this time based on my Equestrian form. So Silversong can be human, without squishing herself through the square hole that is Draco.” She looks up at Madam Malkin. “Which is the real reason I need robes.”
She nods slowly. “I take it you’ll want a full Hogwarts wardrobe, then?”
Silver blinks. “Ahh… Yes, please. Though, if it’ll take more than, um, ten minutes or so, we can come back for the rest. I’d rather not miss that dueling club meeting tonight.”
Madam Malkin chuckles. “Nah, this’ll only take two minutes.”
“Dueling club?” Hermione asks curiously. “What dueling club?”
Silver looks at her. “You didn’t see the notice? Or listen to them talking?”
Hermione blinks. “Was I supposed to?”
Silver scowls, and looks towards Madam Malkin. “I suppose there are some benefits to growing up as a holier-than-thou noble prick,” she mutters, and turns back towards Hermione. “The answer is technically no, but if you were listening after the muggles left last weekend, you would have heard Lockhart ask Dumbledore if he could start one.”
“Lockhart?” Harry asks. “You sure he can handle that?”
Silver giggles. “That’s why I want to attend- see just how big a disaster it is. Pretty sure Dumbledore approved it- and winked at Rita- explicitly so he could screw himself over even worse.”
“He doesn’t need to make any more mistakes, if you ask me,” Madam Malkin states. “He’s lucky those muggles were fans of ‘due process’- what was the list of crimes they’ve got for him, again?”
“Reckless endangerment and assault,” Hermione supplies. Then she looks at Silver. “I was listening for that part.”
“You’re missing one,” Draco chuckles. “Obstruction of justice.”
“Wait, what?”
“Yeah. He tacked that on a few minutes later. Apparently, when he tried to burn the paper out of Coal Sun’s hands, that wasn’t just an assault against Coal Sun, but an attempt to conceal his wrongdoings.” She chuckles. “And while none of those charges carried ‘capital punishment’, had Harry not blocked his fire spell, the lot of them would probably have shot him anyways, just to be safe.” She glances at Harry. “I mean, I wasn’t there when they did that, but I saw their guns- even took a magical peek at them. Those things were no toys.”
Hermione raises an eyebrow.
Silver chuckles. “As a matter of fact, they’re about as much ‘toy’- no, even more so- than that monster Lyra gave you.”
“Ahh… You’re not talking about the big one, right?”
Silver shakes her head. “Nah, the small one. Sure, theirs weren’t as big and powerful, but they were loaded with poisoned bullets. Pretty sure he woulda been dead in seconds, even if they shot his foot.”
Madam Malkin lets out a low whistle. “They worried about something?”
“I think,” Silver mutters. “They were pretty good at hiding their tells. I want to say they didn’t know what to expect when they drove to Hogwarts, so were playing it by ear… with the guns as a backup safety measure, to give them the ability to fight their way out of anything they could think of without looking like it.” She smiles. “They did have them pretty well concealed under their suits.”
“You know,” Harry mutters, “that makes me wonder what would have happened if they saw Fluttershy.” He shudders slightly.
Silver snorts. “So long as she didn’t threaten them, they’d probably raise their eyebrows at it, maybe ask why she’s carrying it around, and otherwise ignore it.”
“You sure about that?”
“Well, they saw Lockhart and Lyra both use their wands when he tried to attack them, right? That alone would have been enough for them to decide that our wands are as dangerous as a weapon, long before Fudge and cronies took their leave and Dumbledore explained both magic and the Statute of Secrecy to them. And they didn’t even blink when we pulled our wands out to do whatever.” She shrugs. “So long as nobody behaved threateningly, they had no reason to respond with force, so they didn’t.”
“After that, I’m wondering if the Statute of Secrecy even has a point any more,” Madam Malkin mutters, using a spell to finish off Silver’s new robes.
Silver chuckles. “I’d like to think that too, but, ah… Well, I think Dumbledore’s got the right idea. The muggles that stopped at Hogwarts are a secret organization of some sort, and he’s letting them decide if the muggles at large are ready for the revelation.” She shrugs. “I figure that, if they choose to announce it, the Ministry will have to rescind the Statute of Secrecy. Lyra tells me the world population is in the billions, and that they have technology that could deliver the message to a significant percentage of that in seconds.”
Madam Malkin lets out another low whistle. “Ahh… Well, your new robes are ready, miss Silversong.” She smiles gently while Hermione steps forwards with the bag of gold.
Mere seconds later, transaction complete, she watches Silver and Hermione trot back to the other two, where Ginny speaks up. “You know, I wonder what Lyra’s going to think?”
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'tis a well-known fact that tailors are good at keeping secrets. It's amazing the things that people let slip whilst standing for a fitting.
That is a good question Ginny, especially considering you tinkered with the permanent emplacement of the Papa Tango without authorization, adding a completely untested and uncleared matrix to it. Also, I wonder how far they're going to go here. Are they going to try to get the administration to essentially let her re-enroll as Silver, or is she going to have to split her time as it were.
Will be intresting if the recently announced Fifth Force of Nature, X17? has the equivalent weirdness in effects to let SHIELD and alien tech have different capabilities that gives them the better chance of interacting with magic fields, given they can currently keep going through illusions and SEP fields. Nice shout out to Douglas Adams there. Then again, Time Turner is in the area, so that Adams that way also?
Im wondering, given the full sized BAE Railgun, how long before someone brings out a Sniper version, Because even a relatively small electrical battery contains an awful lot of energy if its imported into a bullet. Then have magical charging through modified lightning charms, spells?
After two lots coming through, the shops in Diagon Alley are getting used to the extreme rush, or theyre working on how to get extra help in temporarily, but House Elves cant at this time?
I wonder more if they will send any magic expert first... Not like there are many magical experts contacts in S.H.I.E.L.D... Maybe Dr Strange?
These chapters are so good but are over to quickly.
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No. SHIELD was only picked as a name because...well, what other top secret peace-keeping organizations with a cool acronym do you know of?
Lyra: Celestia damn it! I wish my magic isn't bonker right now or I can do a lots more crazy experiments with these new revelations.
Bon bon: Stand down, Lyra. We had enough mad scientist incidents for this year already.
Nice to see a Draco version without a corn cob up the butt.
There's always "Secret Hideout for Emergency Defense" (or S.H.E.D. for short)
Or ...
Completely Ordinary National Training Repository Operational Legion (Control).
---
So, once Silver registers as a new student, will she go through the sorting hat? What happens when Draco is no longer seen around school? Will she have to lead a Clark Kent style "Secret Identity"? Which other Slytherin will make it their mission to uncover the truth like an obnoxious Lois Lane?
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... Not entirely.
They were picked less for the cool name but because they're the only thing I could think of, not associated with any given nation, that stands a decent chance of existing in the Harry Potter universe.
Though yeah, I suppose the cool name was part of it.
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Well, the next one- it's waiting for editing tonight, expect to see it tomorrow sometime- is a little bit longer...
Yeah, I'm sorry about the length thing. I nominally like targeting about 2k words, as it keeps it from becoming dauntingly long for those who don't want to read large amounts at a time. It lets those who like stopping frequently to imagine (eg. me) do so at predefined points (which I like placing on cliffhangers, you might have noticed), so they don't have to search for where they were nearly so often... and those who want to read more at a time (well, the new readers that do) can just click to the next chapter and continue reading uninterrupted.
(Please correct me if any of this is wrong.)
As of chapter 65, we know how Ginny's computational powers work. So now we can figure out just how powerful she is!
Ginny's talent is futuresight, and we know that these talents have high, but finite, limits. So let's say she has some number of units of "futuresight power", where each unit allows her to look into the future once.
Suppose she has n units of futuresight power. She uses one unit to look into the future.
In that future, she uses her remaining n-1 units to do a lot of calculation. Then in the real timeline, she sees the result of that, and she still has n-1 units of futuresight power to do more calculation.
So every unit of futuresight power doubles her computational power. Just twenty-one units is enough to give her the two months' thought it took to modify the Papa Tango!
But the limits on unique talents are extremely high, and her computational power grows exponentially in that. So forget two months, she could probably think for 22222 months!
Any calculation that takes that long will likely take more memory than her brain can hold, so she effectively has unlimited time to think.
Ginny is a superintellegence.
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SWORD?
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Is part of S.H.I.E.L.D.
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That’s... not quite what I was thinking...
But yeah, I guess. And that’s even before she finishes transforming, and gets the rest of that ability...
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I meant that the reading is so good that the chapter seems to fly past to quickly.
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SWORD? SHIELD? Sounds like some convoluted Pokémon game.
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I don't remember it fully but I was thinking that SWORD and SHIELD are separate but at the same time under the orders of the bosses of Nick Fury
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There is a Pokemon Sword and Shield but Marvel got the idea first
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Well, hopefully slightly more length helps...
My rule of thumb has been 3-4 pages on GDocs- which means, of course, that conversation chapters tend to have lower word counts.
But I’m glad to hear you like it