Ch. 17 — Hidden Treasure
Ch. 17 — Hidden Treasure
Friday started early for Harry as he took the letters he had written last night to “his” mail room. And discovered that owls had already started to deliver the day’s mail. Apparently the spell that allowed owls entry to the Great Hall had a specific start time. And the spell prevented them from flying willy-nilly through the halls and dorms, looking for the recipients of their burdens, during the rest of the day. Only at meal times were they allowed entry.
Not so for Harry, apparently. Because they weren’t delivering to him, personally, but an elf-run sorting service, they could come by any time and drop off their delivery. And partake of the treats and water provided, as they rested, if they didn’t immediately start their return home.
He was amazed to see that there was only one elf at work. As soon as an owl arrived and dropped its mail, the elf looked at it, decided which shelf it belonged in, and stored it with the snap of a finger. The owl then made room for the next owl, either leaving or landing on a perch.
Now that owls were arriving, Harry could see that there was room on the perches for easily thirty or forty owls! Naturally, because they didn’t have to wait to arrive at a specific time, it was much less crowded than it would have been had they all arrived at once, which they did in the Great Hall. As it was, the elf spent most of its time waiting.
The elf rushed over as soon as Harry entered the room. It was Bit!
“Has the Headmaster told you what I want, yet?”
Bit nodded frantically. “Yous has lots work for Bit, sir!” he said happily.
One elf, just one elf. Harry sighed. “Start answering the absolute oldest mail first and use these letters as the template, replacing the blanks as appropriate.” He handed the stack to the elf. “For the moment, set aside anything that these letters don’t address. Tonight show me what’s accumulated. Repackage any gifts, set them aside in a box for St. Mungos, and put this message on each,” he handed him three parchments.
۸-_-۸
This package contains ___________. It is donated to the deserving patients at St Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries by [Mr/Miss/Mrs] __________ [age at time it was sent to Harry, if known].
۸-_-۸
“And then put this letter with the entire group of packages being sent to St. Mungos.” He handed him another parchment.
۸-_-۸
St Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries
Director of Operations
Dear ____________,
My name is Prince Harry James Potter Sparkle. On October 31st, 1981, Voldemort killed my parents and was, in turn, destroyed by the magical trap they had set for him. Unfortunately, I only recently discovered that many wizards and witches have been sending me presents as a way of saying thank you for my parents’ sacrifice. As I am now fourteen, many of these presents are not “age-appropriate.” Rather than heartlessly dispose of them, I am sending them on to you to distribute to your patients who might be able to appreciate them better than I can at this time.
Sincerely, Prince Harry James Potter Sparkle [signed]
۸-_-۸
Bit was nodding energetically. “Bit will do, sir!”
Harry looked at the full room.
“Shouldn’t there be other elves to help you?”
Bit looked offended and horrified. “Bit can do, sir! Bit no needs help, sir!”
Harry stared at the earnest elf. “Make sure you eat and get rest, Bit,” Harry said. He had a feeling that if he didn’t, the elf would literally work until he passed out.
Looking a tad disappointed, Bit nodded.
“Okay, that’s all then,” the unicorn said and turned to leave. Before he even left the room, Bit had rearranged his work table. A stack of parchment that reached the ceiling appeared beside the table, cubby holes appeared in the wall behind it, and in each one of the letters Harry had written and signed was placed.
A stack of unopened letters appeared on the table. Bit opened one, looked at it, and tapped it against one of the cubbies. A letter appeared on the table. Before Bit could grab the next letter to open, an owl flew in the window, snatched the letter off the desk, and flew out. This began to repeat at a fast pace.
Harry stared a moment. The problem might not be how fast the elf could do the work, it might be the limited number of owls in the castle! At the rate he was going, Harry imagined he’d exhaust Hogwarts’ owl supply in well under an hour. More than one house-elf would be a waste!
Then he shrugged. That wasn’t his problem. It was the Headmaster’s fault for neglecting his duty. Let him come up with a solution.
Later, in the Great Hall with his friends, he saw that Friday’s mail delivery was even bigger than Thursday’s. Some people, it seemed wanted a day to think about what they put in writing.
Friday morning’s The Quibbler was astonishingly thorough, with copious quantities of pictures to liven up the descriptions. Yes, Colin was doing quite well! That the paper even included a complete transcript of the Wednesday night’s “class” surprised Harry even more. He hadn’t even noticed Luna using a quill! He was very impressed, indeed.
Harry stared at Dumbledore curiously when he realized that his subscriptions to the Daily Prophet and The Quibbler were being delivered to him, in here, but the rest of the mail that he knew he should have been getting was going to the mail room. That owl re-direction spell wasn’t as simple as he had thought.
Hermione mistook his staring at the Headmaster. “You don’t really want a tremendous pile of mail here, do you?” She looked over to where Cedric couldn’t even see his breakfast plate for the scrolls and packages dropped on the table in front of him. “You know exactly where to find the mail, all neatly sorted for you!”
“Yeah, I know,” he said. Then smirked. “We didn’t think of it last night, but,” He glanced slyly at her, “How many owls does Hogwarts have to spare in replying to my mail?”
She looked surprised, then thoughtful. Ginny frowned as she listened in.
Luna said, “Well, we’ll just have to put the fairies and diricawls into use.”
The others looked at her a moment.
“Bit seems to be able to do nearly a thousand an hour,” Harry continued, conversationally.
They stared at him. “That’s . . . impressive,” Hermione said.
He smirked.
The day took a downturn, however, when he noticed that the Slytherins had all looked his way and were snickering and laughing. As well as using their trademarked sneer. A few gasps from nearby brought his attention to them, and he saw they were all reading the Daily Prophet. He picked up his copy of the newspaper and started looking for what had drawn that reaction.
Neville looked up from his copy and hissed at him, “Check the Letters to the Editor section.”
Ah. It seemed that there were a few people who objected to him using a wand because he was clearly a non-human and in violation of Clause Three of the 1631 Code of Wand Use decree. Harry shook his head sadly. Stupid wizards. It was a wonder, sometimes, that they could figure out how to breed.
Because he didn’t, at the moment, look like a human, he was therefore a non-human? That sort of idiocy could not be left unanswered. Well, he had the next class off, which gave him time to compose a response.
۸-_-۸
Dear Editor,
It appears a few of your esteemed Daily Prophet readers are unclear as to the definition of a human. They seem to labour under the misapprehension that a person’s appearance is all that needs to be considered to decide if they are a human or not. A rather chancy definition, at best, don’t you agree?
Following that logic, any wizard or witch who appears as an animal, via the animagus ability, is no longer a human: i.e., they no longer look human while in animagus form, therefore they cannot be human. Further, if someone were to be transfigured or cursed, either completely or partially, into an animal by a Dark Wizard, would they then be considered non-human because they no longer appear human? Where do you draw the line? What if it’s just the ears or shape of the eyes? How much has to change before they are considered non-human?
What of children with both a human and a non-human parent? Should they be considered non-human?
And how far back are you going to look in the family tree for non-human parents? At what point does having a non-human ancestor stop disqualifying a person from being human? Two generations? Three? Four? Five? The question becomes, at that point, when can a “legally” non-human parent have a child that is “legally” human?
What a great scheme for the Dark Wizard, though. All he and his followers have to do is curse everyone to have snake-like scales, the Ministry will declare them non-human, take their wands, and in a month he can take over the country as the only “humans” left would be his followers!
For the record, as this fine newspaper has reported in the past, a Gringotts heredity parchment has verified that my parents were James Potter and Lily Potter (née Evans), both of whom were human, both of whom were magicals. There are, I’m sure, many photographs of me as a child that would show I am as human as anyone.
Sincerely, Prince Harry James Potter Sparkle.
P.S. Please find enclosed two photographs taken of myself by Colin Creevey, here at school, today.
۸-_-۸
It wasn’t difficult to find Colin at lunch and convince him to take a few photographs of Harry standing in front of the Main Entrance to the Castle. One of him as a unicorn pony standing on all fours, and the other as a person in school robes — clearly holding his wand in fingers, not hooves. The second picture, of course, was only self-transfiguration, but it would do to muddy the waters.
His first thought had been to use an illusion, but then he wasn’t sure if that could be detected from a wizarding photograph. He had to think long and hard about whether it was worth the chance.
The transfiguration really wasn’t that difficult. Although it was certainly harder than the wings spell he had been showing off, or the gills and fins spell* that he and the fillies had used to explore Ponyville Lake last summer, it wasn’t that much harder. It was even easier than the breezy spell, as he didn’t have to change his size, mass, or weight, merely his shape. All he had had to do was to leave out the rune-characters for Breezies in the matrix and substitute the runes for “his will.” It was magically very exhausting for him, but doable — barely. And lasted for only a quarter of an hour.
Fortunately, he didn’t need magic for Potions, and an invigoration potion from the twins took care of his physical tiredness.
And he had a bit of a cheat for his appearance in the photograph as a person — his father had been a Gryffindor Quidditch team member, the Weasley twins had told him a week or so ago. That meant there had been a team photo from each year. It had been interesting finally to see what his father had looked like, especially after everyone said he was supposed to look like him. As a result, for now, finding a picture to copy had been easy, Just dig out the Quidditch book, and there was his father as a fourth year! All he needed to do was add the scar and use his natural eye-colour.
While he waited for Colin to give him the photographs, he focused on the Gringotts mail he had put off examining.
The mail from Gringotts was mostly pedestrian for the first few years — statement balances for their vaults, once a year, and income statements monthly from their businesses. The business income came mainly from building rentals, which began to fall off as the various buildings fell into disrepair from neglect. Dumbledore, as Harry’s guardian, had failed to manage and maintain the properties, or delegate that authority to someone else.
It was complicated in the later years by people who, having no relatives, decided to give their estates to him for saving their lives, “Because,” as one person’s will said, “I have no doubts that my life would have ended rather suddenly when He-Who-Must-Remain-Nameless sent his Death Eaters. That I have been able to enjoy my life these last few years is due solely to your killing that evil wizard. I can think of no one who deserves what I have more than you do.”
Honestly, how could he ignore such sentiments? To ignore the Potter estate would be an insult to those people, and throw their good intentions away. Now, he had no real thought that he might need that income for himself, but it seemed a shame to neglect the things that had supported his family in the past. Plus, there was no reason not to do what he could to preserve the family’s legacy by passing it on to someone else when he left. It even might be a distant relative, because both Ron and Neville told him, “All the old wizarding families are related to one another if you go back far enough.” Unless he gave it to a muggle-born.
Then, after dinner, Colin gave him two sets of the photographs. One set he sent to the Daily Prophet, and the second to The Quibbler, with a suitable letter for each, of course.
That should nip that problem in the bud.
And, now that he had perfected it, he planned to occasionally transfigure himself into a human before leaving his room or on the way to his practice classroom to get everyone used to his seeing him in both forms.
Harry spent his evening with Hermione composing a letter to Gringotts explaining the situation. He asked if there was any way, he, underaged as he was, could issue instructions to examine the neglected properties, see if they could be recovered, and if he could then authorize the expenditures necessary to bring the buildings back on the market.
The owlery was deserted, as he half-expected. So, it was time for a trip to his mail room. The letter would just have to go out in the morning.
And he had planned to see what Bit had for him that the already-prepared letters didn’t handle, so that was no hardship. Hermione, Luna, and Ginny had decided to accompany him.
They were not prepared for the pile of toxic letters and packages piled in a box.
“People sent me curses and poisoned letters?” he said incredulously.
“Well, it does make sense,” Hermione slowly said. “He had some fanatical followers.” She glanced at him worriedly. “As you know. And if they could have hurt you back then, they wouldn’t have hesitated a second. After all, they continued to attack people even after He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named died.”
She looked around the room, still stunned at the quantity of items she could see.
He looked at Bit carefully. “Are you hurt?”
Bit drew himself up sternly. “No, sir! Bit smarter than that, sir!” Bit said indignantly, but he did look pleased that Harry was worried for his safety. “Bit checks each before he opens it! If it hurts Princey, I puts it here, sir.” He pointed at the box.
Harry sighed and looked at Hermione. “Is it illegal to do such things?”
“Yes. You should probably notify the Ministry. They have Aurors, constables, for this sort of thing.”
“How do I contact them?”
She shrugged, “Send them an owl?”
He looked at the box. “Why not just send them the box with a letter?”
Five minutes later, they had a letter ready.
۸-_-۸
Ministry of Magic
Department of Magical Law Enforcement
Head of Department Amelia Bones
Dear Madam,
My name is Prince Harry James Potter Sparkle. On October 31st, 1981, Voldemort killed my parents and was, in turn, destroyed by the magical trap they had set for him. Unfortunately, I only recently discovered that many wizards and witches have been sending me letters, cards, and presents as a way of saying thank you for my parents’ sacrifice. I have started going through that accumulated mail to remedy this oversight, beginning with the oldest mail first.
Regrettably, apparently some of Voldemort’s followers decided to use the same method of communication as a way of harming me, or my family.
Accompanying this letter is the first box of such dangerous items. I have neither the knowledge nor skill to dispose safely of these items. Plus, you might be able to track down the senders of these items and bring them to justice for trying to injure me and mine.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Sincerely,
Prince Harry James Potter Sparkle [signed]
۸-_-۸
Saturday, at breakfast, when Hermione asked what he had planned for the day, he said, “I want to see if I can remember Rarity’s gem-finding spell, properly.”
She stared at him. “What?”
He looked back disbelievingly. “Oh, come on, don’t tell me the wizards don’t have gem and metal finding spells!”
Ron looked up. “We do, but it’s all deeply buried. I’d have better robes if it were easy,” he said flatly. Ginny, opposite him, just nodded, as did Hermione and Luna.
Harry thought about it a moment and had to conclude they were probably right. Based on things he had heard, and the way Ron’s brothers were always trying to sell the things they made, if they had an easily usable spell to find gold and gems, they would use it! And because they weren’t, the spell only had limited use.
He shrugged. “It’s worth a try,” he said lightly.
Hermione frowned and studied his expression. “Why are you suddenly interested in getting gold or gems?”
Ron, Neville, Dean, Seamus, Hermione, Ginny, and Luna all leaned closer, to hear what he said. Harry looked around nervously. “Later,” he said, firmly.
They all looked disappointed, but at the same time, very intrigued.
After breakfast, Harry decided that the gem-finding matrix would be the best to start with. It was dead certain that at least one of the females in the castle had lost a gemstone necklace, earrings, or both in the last thousand years. And there had to be rings with gems owned by both sexes. If it worked, the spell would draw him towards them, thus showing that he could use it as he planned.
What he hadn’t expected, nor had the seven who accompanied him curiously, was to find themselves standing on the seventh floor in a corridor with a blank wall on one side and a tapestry of a wizard teaching trolls ballet on the other.
They looked around, puzzled. “Well, Harry said, “the spell says that beyond this stone wall are gems.” He pointed at the empty wall. They slowly walked the entire length of the wall, from the window just beyond the blank stretch of wall to the man-sized vase on its other side, and saw nothing to indicate anything existed there. But peeking out the window, they saw that a long blank section of the castle continued for some distance.
Finally, Harry said, “Bit!”
“Bit be here, sir!” came the cheerful replay a moment later.
“Bit,” Harry said, “I cast a gem-finding spell and it led me here.” He waved a hoof at the blank wall. “There doesn’t appear to be anything here, but it is a rather large space to have nothing in it. What can you tell me about it?”
Bit didn’t even glance at the wall. “That be the Come and Go Room, sir, or else as the Room of Requirement,” he said simply.
At their looks of incomprehension, he said, “It be a room that a person can only enter when they have real need of it. Sometimes it is there, and sometimes it is not,” said Bit seriously, “but when it appears, it is always equipped for the seeker’s needs. Bit knows Mr. Filch has found extra cleaning materials there when he has run short, sir. And it be where elvesies put broken things, things students leave behind, and broken furniture.” He frowned. “And sometimes students hides things there, too, sir,” he said disapprovingly. “And professors,” he said in an undertone.
They looked at each other blankly.
“How do we get inside?” Harry asked.
Bit grinned, “Just thinks about what you want, sir.” He adopted a comically serious expression. “Walk back and forth three time.” He walked about ten paces away from them, returned, and then walked away again. “And the door appears, sir.”
As he said this, a tall and wide archway formed, filled with a thick wooden door.
They hesitantly opened the door. And stood there, gobsmacked at the sight. It was a room the size of a large cathedral, easily as large as the Great Hall. High windows sent shafts of light into the room to reveal almost a city with towering walls. The windows had to be in the roof because they had seen no sign of windows in the wall outside when they had looked at the room from the window at the end of the corridor.
The teetering piles of broken and damaged furniture created roads and alleyways through the room. They must have been created by generations of Hogwarts inhabitants seeking to hide the evidence of mishandled magic, forbidden items, unwanted articles, or things hidden by castle-proud house-elves. There were thousands and thousands of books — no doubt banned, defaced, or stolen. There were winged catapults and Fanged Frisbees, prank toys similar to ones he had seen the twins ambush students with in the Common Room. Some still had enough spell-strength in them to hover half-heartedly over the mountains of other forbidden items. There were chipped bottles of congealed potions, hats, jewels, cloaks; there were what looked like dragon eggshells, corked bottles whose contents still shimmered evilly, several rusting swords, and a heavy, bloodstained axe.
“ ’Cor . . . ,” Ron said
“Merlin . . . ,” whispered Neville.
“Crikey!” cried Seamus, shocked.
They were all staring around bug-eyed at the sheer quantity of stuff they could see.
“Well,” Harry said, finally. “This is unexpected!”
Hermione picked up a nearby book, and frowned at the obvious damage. Then looked around speculatively. “I bet you could merge duplicate books and keep only the good pages and end up with all the books you need for all the years you’re at school.” She looked at Ginny and Ron as she said that.
Ginny didn’t need any further hints, she pulled out her wand and said, “Accio all fourth-year Hogwarts books!” There were rumbling and crashing sounds throughout the room, and Harry could see several towers of discarded items suddenly collapse.
Books began to fly from everywhere, and Ginny barely had time to jump aside as they began to land in front of her.
Remembering what he had learned last night, Harry said, “Wait! Don’t touch anything! It might have a curse on it!”
Startled, the others turned from their inspection of the room, before all nodding.
Ginny looked uncertainly at her pile of about a hundred books.
Hermione stepped closer and said, pointing her wand, “Accio all non-cursed books.” All but three books moved to the new location.
They exchanged nervous glances.
“And we might want to cast spells only on specific piles, or stuff we want will get buried soo deep we can’t get to it.”
“I think we need a spot where we can put the stuff we find,” Harry mused.
“We’ll need several places,” Hermione said. “One for the cursed items, one for the non-repairables, and one for the repairables.”
Harry turned from the others. He had expected to find only one or two unclaimed jewels and gems in Hogwarts, in out-of-the-way locations, but nothing like this! On the other hoof, he wasn’t about to say no to a gift from Rarity!
He closed his and concentrated on the matrix. He built it as solid as he could, then said, “accio gems.” Almost immediately items began flying towards him, landing at his hooves. And they kept coming — bracelets; bracers; broches, pins, necklaces and pendants by the dozens; rings, ear-rings, and cufflinks by the hundreds; there were even a few belts, boxes and daggers. The one thing they all had in common was that they bore gems of one kind or another. When it stopped, he had a pile that was nearly waist-deep to his friends.
He stumbled to all fours.
His friends had stopped their planning and once more stared, gobsmacked.
“You’re rich!” said Ron.
“That’s a bloody fortune!” said Dean.
Harry looked at the pile of gem-affixed gold, silver, copper, and leather a moment and sighed. “Not enough, though,” he said quietly.
“Not enough!?” Ron half-shouted. “How can that be not enough?” He stared at the pile, and blinked.
Harry ducked his head. “Well, it’s not for me, is it?”
Hermione stared at him, and raised an eyebrow. “And who is it for?”
He scuffed a hoof against the floor. “It’s for the dragons,” he said. He looked up at the others.
“I want to send a thank you to the dragons. And the only things that interest dragons are gems, gold, and silver for their hordes.”
“Dragons?” Dean said and looked at the others, baffled.
Harry leaned back and stood to face them. “I think the dragons threw the competition,” he explained.
“No!” said Hermione, “Really?” The others looked just as surprised.
“Think about it. The first three all threw the golden eggs out of their nests so their eggs were not in danger! Fleur’s dragon ‘accidently’ snores a flame and sets her robes on fire? Cedric’s dragon changes its mind at the last minute and chases him? I think Victor’s dragon had a similar plan as the other two, but then he hurt her, so she hurt him back.
“And mine? Mine appeared dramatically harder! The egg stayed in the nest. At the edge, true, but still in the nest. I could see she knew exactly where I was, and missed on purpose. Especially as she shot flames all about as if I were flying, but I actually just walked up to her nest! She looked right at me several times. And even flamed over my head! And when I went to pick the golden egg from her nest? That was when she ‘randomly’ checked her eggs. She leaned down and whispered to me that she could see my body-heat!
“She knew where I was the entire time! Then she told me to fly fast, waited until I was almost at her maximum range, and then flamed to make it look dramatic when I landed. I think no matter what I did, she would have made it look like I barely succeeded, and did better than the other three champions.”
“But, why?” asked Ron plaintively. The others nodded their agreement a moment later.
“Because I spoke to them? Warned them Sunday what was happening Tuesday? That’s my guess.”
They looked at each other, then back at him, slack-jawed. Ginny covered her mouth with a hand as she laughed. “And no one will ever believe it, even if someone told them! That’s brilliant!” She laughed some more, and slowly the others joined in.
Hermione looked as if she didn’t know whether to be upset the dragons had helped Harry, or laugh that the dragons had helped Harry.
Harry had to grin. It was rather funny. Because the wizards believed dragons couldn’t talk, much less reason, no one would believe the truth.
Then he looked back at the pile, and separated the cursed items out into a much smaller grouping. Then he cast reparo on the remainder and ended with a sparkling pile of gems.
That was when they noticed a small room to one side that had a legend over the door, “Cursed Items” it said. Beside it was another room that was labelled “Repairables” and a third on the other side of it that said “Non-Repairables.”
Moments later, the books were safely stored. He had just lifted the pile of cursed jewellery when Luna gasped, and lunged at something in it. Fortunately, Ginny had seen her start to dive forward and grabbed her.
“It’s Rowena Ravenclaw’s Lost Diadem!” Luna cried, and tried to reach for it. “It’s been missing for a thousand years!”
۸-_-۸
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What is this story even about anymore? It's starting to feel like just a different version of wishes rather than an entirely different story.
Neat. I wonder if the cup counted Harry's diplomacy as part of his participation in the trial.
Stupid Non pony, Non Kamen Rider Wizards!
Oh @#$%.
That ain't gonna end well...
I hope Luna doesn’t do anything rash next chapter. Also I wonder which pure-blood families are about to have a very unpleasant visit.
Oh God, not only the mail or the bank was neglected
HIS ESTATE AND HOLDINGS
How many homes, apartments and mansions. All of the deceased's wealth were handed off and quietly forgotten under Dumbledore's watch? *REEs and seizures*
How many house elves and pets were forgotten
Hocrux get!
9883770
It's a very different Harry here though than in Wishes. That Harry still sees himself as human first, and pony second. This one sees himself as pony first, and human second. This one was raised for MUCH longer in Equestria, and has a much greater amount of experience before he encounters the wizards. He's also in a very different situation, cut off from his friends and family. There's obvious similarities (they both follow a similar concept and are by the same author, so that WILL happen), but the details will make them different. When Wishes gets to 4th year, you can bet it WON'T be like this.
Uh, Harry? You might wanna re-read your lore on Earth's dragons. AFAIK, they don't sleep on hoards of gold and jewels.
Also, had a feeling this would involve the Diadem once they came to the Room of Requirement.
9883770
Agreed.
so he is now using a wand almost exclusively. I think it to be an advantage to use his horn as well as his wand.
9883839
Yeah but the only change this new Harry brings to the table is that he can do all the things that normally required a bunch of other characters like Twilight to do in wishes. Which while an improvement over the original wishes, I really do appreciate that we aren't constantly jumping between 5 different PoVs, it still makes this story basically wishes.
9883891
That's only because the story is still starting. Give it time XD
I think it might be a bad idea for Harry to run around in Horwards as a human if it will give Slivering munition in trying to insult him for trying to pass as human again, not that he would care, but it's still something they will try to use.
Well at we least know that Ginny know's to keep Luna from grabbing the Diadem, after all she must know the feel of one of those Horcrux since she had most likely been exposed to the Diary back in her first year.
Uh oh. It looks like it’s going to be the diary situation all over again. Then again...Luna’s not a Ravenclaw anymore, so she might just leave it.
That's because she wasn't. Photographic memory is her curse.
NO LUNA don't do it
I'm not saying this usage of Accio is particularly offensive, but it brings up a lot of problems. Instead of a complicated spell, you could just summon a "non-cursed" item to check for curses.
How I always viewed Accio is that you had to have at least a general idea of where the item(s) were, as well as, you know, what items you were actually looking to summon.
Just think of it. Accio Sorceror's Stone. Accio everyone's wands. I get that things can be enchanted to perhaps ignore Accio, but it makes more sense that you have to be more specific with it, or at least have a specific thing in mind.
9884011
I agree with you there. You need to have some idea of what you're summoning otherwise saying accio paper would bring you every piece of paper in the room.
You know it is funny that the dragons technically cheated the champions and tournament officials by throwing the first round and no one will believe them even if they look back on memories of this from the champions. Second I wonder how Voldemort would feel about one of his Horocruxes being found by random chance? I mean Harry was just separating cursed items having pulled it via it having gems in it when calling any gem/gem encrusted items to him and then when separating it by these four categories it just happened to shift in the pile of cursed enough for once that knows what it looks like to see it. I bet he'd be a bit miffed that it wasn't even being looked for when it was found. I mean if Harry was specifically hunting for it then no I think he would be content that his enemy was being so active in his searching that he actually found out about the horocruxes and was hunting them thus knew a way to potentially trap him or where to go to kill him and just plant a spy in the area and in his believe he would think he could just make a few more to get the 7 he wanted. Finding it by purely random chance however and not even knowing what it was? Yeah he would be miffed and a bit disappointed about his 'enemy' not knowing what he had found.
it looks like Harry will need to go hunting food / gems at a different place to get the amount he is going to need.
Harry found Rowena Ravenclaw’s Lost Diadem this may be interesting in the future.
Ok I have to question Harry knowing gills and fins because they were exploring lake Ponyville. Sure the spell exists and Twilight used it to allow a pirate to be with his love but when we see the Crusaders in the lake their suba diving not using magic.
She said the magic words. "A thousand years". That clearly shows it to be evil.
I didn't know you can add wildcard variables to a wizard's spell like computer commands.
Do Earth's dragons have a hordes? I know there are stories about it. But if they do, don't you think any dragon-specialist wizards, i.e. Charlie, would have sneak in and get them already?
Harry Potter and the Wizard's Incompetent Filing Systems
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All of them.
#cast_accio -t '*book' -e 'CURSE*' -l 'X=5, Y=5' | sort -d
1027 items moved.
#
9884067
"It's actually 962 years but a thousand sounds more ominous" - Master Fung
9883891
It's not really that bad, it's focussing on different stuff that wishes never covered at least. Wishes nearly ignored the Daily Prophet, leaving the ministry out of it till later on. And Dumbledore's stewardship over Harry's estate was never even thought of in the books or Wishes beyond Gringots itself.
Kinda would have preferred Wishes part 2 or something but it's not really being repetitive beyond the Dumbledore bashing.
9884338
It is covering different things true but it's still very much just wishes. As you said this is stuff that could have been covered in a wishes sequel. The only positive thing about doing it like this is that it let's the author ignore all the PoV characters in wishes. Its also a bit more focused than wishes but the book 4 stuff still ends more of an excuse for why everything is happening rather than being the real focus.
So in that regard I do understand why he did it. But now we got Harry finding Horcruxes and since this story has no real stakes or conflict I fully expect Harry to stop anything bad from happening with that and then segway into him yelling at Dumbledore for being incompetent... again.
Maybe Harry could show Equestria using the room, I wonder the face of the others when they see Twilight or Canterlot castle... And I wonder if the room could connect with Twilight mirror
Hm. Finding a gold or rare stone mine out in the wilderness is one thing, but he's basically making off with what amounts to the 'Lost and Found' box of a school. Like, that he plans to give it to the dragons as thanks is nice, but that crap isn't his to just hand out as he sees fit. Then again, no one aside from the elves probably knows about any of it, so I guess this could be interpreted as a case of picking up a $100 bill you find on the floor of a school. Anyway, nice chapter.
In some sense, this is like Wishes -- this is a Harry-focused Hogwarts fanfic reusing story ideas from Rowling.
But, that's about the extent of it.
Harry is different.
Ron, and the interactions with him, are different.
Luna is different.
What has happened off-camera in the last 3 years is different.
Etc.
Now, I want to call a different foul. Are you going to tell me that in 1,000 years of students and pranksters, * No One Thought To Use An Accio To Test For The Diadem??? *
I don't buy it.
When is Twilight finally going to show up?
Harry, hate to break it to ya, but...YER A WIZARD. Heck the next line,
even alludes to this hypocrisy. Blame the MoM and their state controlled newspaper, not the people, of which you are one.
9884194
I can see it now.
The next day Harry watched as a large parliament of owls descended on the Slythrin table. Suddenly several of the students cried out in shock and soon across the entire table was in an uproar. Professor Snape swept down from the staff table and began to bring his house under control. It was soon apparent that multiple members of his house had had family members arrested for attempted murder. Several of the students who had family members arrested where glaring at him as if this was somehow his fault. Harry could only shake his head in disgust, apparently they felt that this was normal to try and kill a baby.
9883919
If Ginny had the Diary in her first year, she'd most likely be dead. Honestly we need to get some clues what happened in the Harryless years. We now know that Sirius still escaped, and that he's likely found someone for an ally since we've seen him in dog form looking in decent shape, but we don't know much details about years 1 and 2. Though logically, without Harry, year 1 probably ended with Quirrell being caught by Dumbledore trying to get the stone, since really all Harry's presence did was get stone out of the mirror and give Voldy an actual chance to get it.
9884568
You forget that Ginny only WROTE a lot into that Diary because Harry wasn't paying attention to her, without Harry there at that time she might had gotten worried about a Diary that can write back to you and she could have taken it to the Headmaster then, that way she would have been freed from it's influence.
9884661
Maybe, but she wrote about other things too, not just Harry. This is why I hope we get more info on the previous years, because we only really have speculation at the moment.
Nope; you're mistaken. The Diadem was destroyed a few decades ago, replaced by a physically-identical cursed diadem with a compulsion spell.
I'd use a compulsion spell too, for some activities of questionable consent and legality.
@tkepner Guh, I want more. I wouldn’t mind editing if it meant I could get more of the story faster. Want an editor? (I might be a bit annoying about prose FYI)
Loved the update!
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I agree. At times I think this story is kind of a collection of ideas that didn't make it into If Wishes Were Ponies, for better or worse. There's a lot I think could have either been trimmed from If Wishes Were Ponies entirely or compiled into a side-story. The misadventures in Potions class could have been largely pulled and just brief summaries given, since there were so many large segments dedicated to that class that it kind of bogged down the actual story. Then everything with Castor Searle could probably be expanded on a little and made into its own side-story (which I'd definitely be interested in reading). As it is, I think If Wishes Were Ponies suffers from having just way too much crammed into it.
This one seems to be more of a ponies in Hogwarts story (which is what I was wanting from If Wishes Were Ponies but ultimately wound up finding in A Phoenix Beyond the Veil - by gerandakis), whereas If Wishes Were Ponies is more heavily focused on the first contact side of things between Equestria and Wizarding Britain and world building stuff. I like them both for what they are, but they're definitely different things.
Naturally, these are all just my opinions on the stories and people are, of course, free to disagree.
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Good point some of these things while lost are probably family heirlooms or like the Diadem historical artifacts that don't belong to him. I wonder how Twilight and Celestia would view his appropriating these to his own purposes. Especially when he know's he has vaults of gold and other things as we're going the Potter estate route in this fic. Even in canon he probably had enough to live on for his entire life without working if you go with the movie vault.
I keep thinking that Harry seems a bit crabby, but I honestly can't blame him.
Also, I keep expecting him to have a knack for pottery.
9884490
Perhaps the diadem could not be summoned directly. It would make sense that an object, like a crown, to be protected by an enchantment that keep someone from easily stealing it. Thus since Harry didn't directly target it, a loophole was exploited. This easy loophole is probably why such an enchantment has fallen out of favor, or was a closly guarded secret of royalty, and is no longer commonly seen and thus never mentioned. But that is just my theory.
9885646
That would be fitting with the author's approach to magic loopholes.
I'm definitely giving this story a follow. Somehow I'm the 666th like on this story.
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Oh, hi again, Avendrial!
9884275
Ooh, and Georg is reading this one, too!
It would seem that great minds like-a-think!
...Wait...
1000 years... perhaps discord?
"Hear me out. Instead of ONE owl delivering ONE thing, why don't we get a wizard to deliver a whole lot of mail all at once, call them a mail...wizard."
"Hmm No, No, I fail to see how this would improve our system, Owls were the product of many many failed attempts to have other creatures deliver mail. Pheonixes were all the rage what with being perpetually renewing but they kept incinerating the letters instead. We got very close with swallows though but then someone tried to mail a coconut and believe you me, the carrying capacity of a swallow is much greatly reduced when it has to grab parcels by the husk."
at this point Dumbledore might as well be Graham Chapman