Chapter 1
“Ready for a new year?” Professor Dumbledore asked cheerfully, once the last professor in the school had entered the staffroom, even the ones that didn’t normally come here. It was time for the annual school preparation meeting, before breakfast on the morning after the letters went out.
Professor Snape immediately looked at the empty seat that had held a different person each year for the last four decades. “I notice we’re still short a Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor.”
“Ahh, yes,” Dumbledore chuckled. “I thought you’d notice that. Professor Quirrell will be rejoining us this year as such- but he won’t be arriving at the school until early August.”
Professor McGonagall scowled in response. “Even though he has to know nobody ever holds that position long?”
Dumbledore shrugged. “I’m sure he, like all forty before him, believes he will be the one to change that. And it remains to be seen whether he actually will, does it not?”
A round of shrugs was the only response.
“I don’t suppose he told us when he wants his schedule, did he?” McGonagall asked.
Dumbledore smiled. “He tells me he’ll take whatever we have to offer. Lemon drop?”
McGonagall ignored the offer, though, and instead let out a sigh. “Good. That last one was a headache. Anyone have any new scheduling preferences?”
Heads shook.
She nodded in response. “Excellent. I’ll have the class schedules distributed two minutes after I get back to my office.”
The entire room seemed to heave a sigh of relief at those words. The prior year, the DADA instructor had been ridiculously particular with his class schedule- and had kept changing it on them, which had caused this meeting to stretch all the way through lunch.
Dumbledore chuckled. “Alright. We’ve also got our materials budget from the Ministry this year- and dear Quirinus has already opted out. We have forty-two galleons and eighteen knuts for general classroom supplies…” He looked up at Professor Snape. “And only sixty-three galleons, four sickles, and two knuts for potions supplies.”
Right as Snape wrinkled his nose, the door opened to admit the caretaker.
“Ahh, Argus,” Dumbledore greeted. “Glad you could join us. Anything to add?”
Filch glanced up at him, bearing a rather unusual expression. “Aside from the usual? Yeah… Anyone know where all the owls got to?”
Several people blinked.
“Come again?” Dumbledore asked.
Filch shrugged. “Not that I’m complaining- it’s been years since I could clean the place properly- but as near as I can tell, there’s not a single owl left in the castle. Where’d they all go?”
McGonagall scowled. “The letters should have been sent out to the students yesterday,” she supplied. “Wouldn’t that…?”
Filch shook his head. “No, that’s only ever two hundred and fifty letters or so, and we’ve got just over six hundred owls.”
“Shoo, bird. Trixie does not believe these stones need- Wait. Is that-? Is that a letter, addressed to Trixie?”
The massive bird nodded its head, gesturing with its wing for her to take the letters.
She accepted them in her magic. “T-Trixie could have sworn mail was delivered by pony, rather than by owl,” she commented, flicking through the envelopes to read the names and addresses.
After raising her eyebrow at the near-identical envelopes addressed to each and every pony presently on the rock farm, she ripped open the one with her name on it and scanned the missive. The bird, on the other hoof, waited patiently for something.
“Hog-warts?” she asked slowly. “What kind of a name is that…? Whatever- this is excellent news! Though… Trixie has no idea where this Eng-land is. And what do they mean, they await Trixie’s owl…?” She tilted her head slowly, and looked up at the owl. “Does it mean, they expect you to carry Trixie’s response?”
It bobbed its head in a nod.
“Trixie thanks you! Trixie will be right back!”
His uncle’s face went from red to green faster than a set of traffic lights, and didn’t stop there, letter held high above his head. “P-Petunia?”
“Oh hi, what would you- Oh, is that mail?”
The bird on the sales counter dropped the letters from its beak, giving a hoot.
“Okie dokie lokie! Let’s see…” Pinkie had caught the letters the moment they were released, and had hers opened and in front of her less than a second later. “Huh. I’ve got a funny feeling Twilight’s gonna say yes, so that. But what will the Cakes say?” She vanished into the backroom for a minute before reappearing, a single, new letter held in her hoof. “Alright, here’s our answer- and would you like a treat before you go?” She offered an owl-sized cupcake in her other hoof.
“Hoo.”
“There’s another one!”
“Huh-? I didn’t know you carried mail, Owlow- Wait. You’re not Owlowiscious.” She blinked at the owl. “Somepony have you carrying their mail?”
“Hoo.”
Blink. “You know, I have no clue how, but I understood that. Um…” She turned her attention to the already opened letter. “Um…” She looked back up at the owl. “Are you serious?”
“Hoo.”
Facehoof. “I should’ve seen that coming. Are they serious, I guess. Inviting me to magic school.”
“Hoo.”
“... Huh. You know what, that sounds like something Discord would love. And… Hang on. These ponies aren’t unicorns, are they?”
“What the hay-?”
The owl dropped the two letters on the counter in front of it. “Hoo.”
Blink, blink. “Uh, okay.” A golden magic aura then opened one of the letters, and she started reading it, before looking up sharply. “Wait. You’re from the other side of the Gate, aren’t you?”
The owl nodded.
“Oh, that makes so much more sense. Um…” Her horn glowed briefly. “... Yeah, I’m in trouble alright. Do you want to ride, or fly? I need to see Twilight about this, before I reply.” She glanced at the other letter. “Er, before we reply.”
“Hoo.”
A cream-colored mare walked into the room, and spoke irately. “What do you need to see Twilight about?” Immediately, a sealed letter was stuffed in her face.
Both unicorn and owl waited patiently for her to read it.
“... Okay. Where did this come from…?”
“Remember my Gate project? I opened the gate about a week ago. And now, these came through it. About eighteen hundred such letters have already made it into Equestria, and there’s more on the way. Pretty sure this ‘Hogwarts’ has no clue just who they’re inviting- these letters feel spell-generated, not handwritten.”
“Ahh, then yes, we definitely need to go see Twilight.”
“You see, if they can’t deliver them, they’ll just give up,” his uncle spoke, while trying to hammer in a nail with a piece of fruitcake.
“...aren’t unicorns, are they?”
The doors exploded open right as soon as Twilight finished speaking. “No, they’re not,” Lyra said, galloping in with Bonbon right behind her and an owl on her back. “A week ago, I opened an interdimensional portal in my backyard. Now, all of the sudden, these have started coming through- about eighteen hundred have already made it to Equestria. Until now, I didn’t know magic even existed on the other side- it’s even emptier than Pedestria, magically speaking! So, whatever magic this ‘Hogwarts’ wants to teach, it’s likely very different from ours- and, possibly, even conflicting.
“It’s also a whole ‘nother nation, that isn’t nearly so happy-go-lucky as we are here in Equestria- and I’m the only one that’s crossed the Gate so far. I think I’ve worked out the spells to give us similar ‘human’ forms when we cross, rather than Pedestrian forms, but you’ll probably want to check that over before we emplace them.
“And of course, there’s the other option: We announce that these letters were sent without permission, send all the owls back through, and seal the Gate.”
Twilight blinked. “So, this is first contact for them, right?”
“Uhh… Yes, it would be.”
“Then let’s not cut them off, that wouldn’t be very friendly. How hard would it be to educate everypony on the proper etiquette of that world before we send them through?”
“Not… too hard, at least. It’s kinda similar to Pedestria, just a little less flexible, absolutely no magic, and skin color is much more limited: Peach-ish, with an optional brownish darkening to almost black. I have been able to acquire a few books on the topic- and they aren’t that lengthy, so you should be able to finish them in under an hour if you want to. They also don’t summarize very well, so we could probably cover everything important in a… oh, five-minute crash course, and serve some twenty or thirty ponies at once.”
“Alright. Do you want to go through with that, or…?”
“Definitely. I opened that gate because I wanted to learn about other universes- and, assuming all goes well, this sounds like a great way to do that. If all doesn’t go well, the Gate is only tethered on this end- we’ll have only to get our ponies back home and seal the Gate, and they’ll never see us again. I imagine we can add an emergency teleport to the Gate transformation spell, to force everypony back to this side the instant I start closing it, no matter where they are?”
“Sounds good, let’s do it.” Twilight looked up at her owl, then down at the second letter it had delivered, before calling out to the hallway. “Spike? You’ve got mail!”
The named dragon’s response echoed down the passage, confused. “What? When did that happen?”
Petunia shredded two dozen letters in her food processor.
“Well now, this is interesting. Hey, Lulu?”
“Mm?”
“Before you go, you might want to check your mail.”
“Mail? I have mail?”
“Yep.”
“Oh.” She then opened her letter, read it, and facehooved. “Well, this is insulting. Somepony thinks I’m so far behind the times I need to go to magic school.”
Chuckle. “You know, they’ve invited me too.”
All traces of sleepiness disappeared in an instant. “What?”
Nod. “It’s making me curious what cave they crawled out of.”
Right at that moment, a scroll appeared in a blaze of green fire.
“Alright, that’s it,” his uncle declared, pulling tufts out of his mustache.
“Huh?” She left her sister’s letter on her desk, and opened her own.
“Hoo?”
“She’s in the bathroom. Um… What the hay is Hogwarts? Um…” She galloped to the door, and opened it as soon as she reached it. “Gah! Oh, I was about to look for you!”
“Huh? Wait, did you two get letters from Hogwarts too?”
“Yep!”
“Yep! So, we saying yes, or no?”
Heads nodded.
“Cutie Mark Crusaders Witches!”
“I got about an ‘undred of these at the front desk.”
“Wha-? I have mail? Delivered by owl? I’ll have to admit, that’s new.”
“Hoo.” The letter floated slowly away from the owl’s beak.
“Right. Thank you.” He took the letter, and dropped it into the blender on the side of his vanilla-pudding-filled hot tub. “Would you like a treat while you’re here?”
“Hoo.”
“Ahh, no biggie. Anyways.” The letter then finished shredding itself despite the lack of a blade in the blender, which he then poured into a nice tall cup, which he swirled the purple drink with for a second before downing it in one gulp. Then he took the fragments of the letter, mixed them with the drink, squoze them into a cloth, and tied it around his head like a headband, which he then discarded into the chocolate-pudding-filled swimming pool next door. “Oh, I see. Yes, that’ll be quite interesting.” He then drew a normal, but completely clean, letter out of the mud puddle next to his hot tub to hand it to the owl. “Here’s my answer, thank you. Have a nice trip!”
“I mighta sat on it at some point, but it’ll taste alright.”
A series of professors sat in stunned silence, staring at the veritable mountain of letters of varying shapes and sizes that the owls had just delivered to their table.
“It’s… a good thing we already ate,” Professor Sprout stated.
Professor McGonagall drew her wand, separated the letters into two floating stacks with a quick spell, and sighed. “This is going to be a busy year,” she stated.
Professor Snape raised an eyebrow at her. “Lots of students?”
She nodded, and pointed at the first stack. “That is two hundred ninety-seven letters from new students accepting their place here,” she stated, before pointing to the second stack. “And that is six hundred thirty seven letters turning down the same.” She heaved a sigh, allowing her arm to fall back to the table. “And the letters only went out yesterday.”
“Well,” Professor Dumbledore nodded cheerfully, “we found the owls!” He paused dramatically, but only Professor Sprout smiled, so he continued. “I’ll go write a few letters to the proprietors of a few shops in Diagon Alley- they might need to stock extra, and fast. Then we’ll have to see just how quickly we can find the owls again, eh?”
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Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!
May the child of the gate live a long and exciting Life- Zena, Zebra Warrior
637 Rejections huh? Getting that many is likely new for them, I doubt more than a half a dozen wizards a year ever said no. It makes sense, Equestria has plenty of its own Magic Schools so plenty of ponies have a school in mind already or are finished with school and have no interest in starting another from scratch.
My complaint is the common "Lack of detail" a lot of fics have. You should described locations, objects, expressions and appearances when apporiate. I realize for most fan fic you assume the reader knows the characters and locations, has a picture of them in their head. You need to write as if they don't, write as if the audience doesn't know those things implicitly before reading, it will up your word count with out resorting to padding and help establish a atmosphere in scenes. It would help establish when in MLP everything is going on too, what season is this during?
10103042
They based this scene on the precursor of this story.
The first Blade pierces the void to open the gate...
The spear of Luck forms the first part of the GATE
Spike not knowing he got mail is a funny way to look at that. And I really snerked at the "Pedestria" bit. That was awesome...
Yay! It'sbackit'sbackit'sbackit'sbackit'sback!
10103042
That's the thing- this world, like its predecessor, is somewhat fluid, and has no solid timeline position for MLP... and the whole point of the story is to show it from the British POV. The point of this entire first chapter was to set the stage for shenanigans to happen at Hogwarts, not Equestria- so admittedly, a lot more of my, ahh, "level design" has focused on Hogwarts instead. A descriptive tone, especially here, would set the wrong stage... and could bore readers way fast.
Alright, so far so good, but I have one minor thing that bugged me: Lyra's portal/gate project did not get the reaction it deserved. Like, I feel like Twilight should have at least asked her some questions, maybe have Bon-bon make a comment about Lyra's "human obsession", you know, things like that. As it is, it feels like all of that just got brushed over and Twilight had no reaction to "I made a portal to another world in my backyard."
Just to be sure pedestria is the EG univers, right?
10103224
Yep. I saw it called that once, forget where, and liked the name.
Just out of curiosity, two things, how many characters are we going to try to follow, and haven't I seen this before? Pretty sure I saw something like it and the idea of a flood of Equestrians streaming into Hogwards just struck me as too much to try to keep track of.
This seems highky intriguing
I was on board for the last one, and I’m on board for this one. So far I feel a little more grounded in this one (enough extra description in just the right places).
10103345
Two things...
2. Yes, you've seen something like this before- in The Gate, which this story is a rewrite of.
1. This story will be focusing on the British side of things... though yes, there may be a lot of characters to follow. I'm not clear on exactly how many just yet, but I will be trying to keep the numbers down- and one thing you can be sure of, is that there will be fairly few main characters that the story focuses on (Like Silversong), likely no more than ten, and a fairly small 'supporting cast' of some ten or twenty other infrequently recurring but largely unimportant characters. All the rest, including most of the thousands of Equestrians, will be "background characters"... or tertiary, once-off characters that play a part and disappear back into the woodwork.
In short, I plan to keep this story fairly focused and coherent, even at the cost of breaking chronological order (There will be clues when I do that). The Gate was a mess, plain and simple.
Hmm, I have to agree that this re-write seems to have a better pace than the original. Keep it up.
It also nice to mention the Gate in the first chapter. Having it a private project of Lyra instead of an official one even make it better. Actually, it even make more sense explaining why Celestia did not suspect the letters came from the other side - because she didn't know the existence of the Gate yet.
Ah more curious as why they invite an earth pony like meh to magic school. Why did ya upset?
You think it is from when you disagreed with the professors at Fillydelphia University that one time?
I don't think that was the case, Spike. Because they sent me one too.
Where did these ponies come from? Under the rock?
So will this story actually focus on how the ponies react to the wizarding (and greater Britain) world? I always felt the biggest shortcoming of the last story was that it ignored all the ponies experiencing this world of magic (not to mention ponies actually getting to experience spell casting) in favour of a bunch of op characters doing stuff then watching the wizards react to it. Which while funny completely wastes such an interesting premise. I mean why bring over hundreds of ponies if their only purpose is to serve as a plot device?
And so we begin again. Lovely job of weaving in the snippets from the book, that was quite well done.
10103191
Yup.
Twilight: "What do you mean, you made an interdimensional portal in your backyard? Do you have any idea how difficult it was for Starswirl to make the Pedestrian mirror? Did Starswirl help you on this? Why didn't you get me to help, or even talk to me? You realize that this is a major, significant piece of magic, and now international diplomacy -- you really should have come to us princesses as soon as you realized what was over there. ... (continues on for another half page before drawing a breath)
297 + 637 = 934
...
Does not compute.
Equestria has waaaaay more inhabitants than that. And then the whole planet of Equis... That number should be somewhere in the millions now.
Also, only such a small number wanted to learn magic then. No... It just breaks my suspension of disbelief that only so few would be interested now.
10103861
I don't think ALL the letters were returned at the SAME time. It is pretty normal for someone to take their time answering their mail.
10103814
This is just my speculation. Since they know each other, I suspect Twilight made note not to look into Lyra's mad project a long time ago.
10103861
They only had so many owls... that’s only the first wave. Plus, there were those pony families that received two or more letters, and sent all of their replies on only one letter... such as the Crusaders, Lyra/Bonbon, and Spike/Twilight, for example.
Consider me intrested
But then they make contact with ALL THE PARALLEL PONY UNIVERSES!! INCLUDING THAT ONE WITH THE GUY IN THE DARTH VADER MASK WHO KILLED EVERYPONY... LIKELY BECAUSE HE CAN'T GET LAID!!! Quadrillions of ponies poured in through every crack and doorway and physiological orifice! It was like that WTF episode of "Berserk", but even worse!
10103191
10103814
I'm not sure that's right. I think it got exactly the reaction it deserved. Between the casual way Lyra talked about "Pedestria" which the author says is the name of the EQG universe (which no one outside the princesses really knows much about in canon), and the practiced segue into describing the differences between it and this new universe, along with the off the cuff bit about first contact, it sounds like this AU is far more knowledgable about dimensional travel than canon. And thus it got exactly the "oh, another new universe? Okay let's set up to investigate" that it warranted.
Also, glad to see this get realized. Though I did enjoy the original version, it'll be interesting to see where some extra experience and an outline can take this story.
10104511
"THE GUY IN THE DARTH VADER MASK WHO KILLED EVERYPONY"
Hey! Ted did not kill everypony. The only one he tried to kill was Leo. And that's because Leo almost killed him. He didn't even kill Pinkie when she mostly blasted his face off with her party canon.
10104511
I'm sorry to say, I don't get the reference?
10105340 A couple of really awful Displaced fics had a jackass in a Darth Vader mask show up with all manner of OC Villain Stu plot armor and crap like that. You know, the typical self-insert wankery, scaled up to 11.
I still hate Displaced fics. But I love my 'Displeased Minific' mocking the heck out of them: https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/600294/a-displeased-minific-d
10105930
Personally, it depends, there can be really good displaced fics... However, I agree, most of 'em are trash. It's a genre with a lot of very heavily-abused tropes, and when avoiding those, most writers seem to simply reef on another set until next week...
And personally, a good self-insert is not a simple "How would I behave" (like most self-inserts, the "typical wankery"), but a character of their own, who may learn and grow independent of the author, who was simply originally created based on the author. Kinda like, if you've read my Just Like Magic of Old, I've noted on the story that the character Shooting Star is an OC provided/authorized/etc by another user... I saw potential in the skit he had for Star, wrote a different skit (that he loved, despite a different focus) about the character I saw... and ended up absorbing him into the story when I needed a character with integrity for Flight to call in, which he happened to fit the bill for. Did you know, Shooting Star actually started life- before I got to him- as a self-insert OC, with a (very strong) romantic interest in Twilight?
10103861
Remember, that's the first day responses. Hogwarts only has so many owls.
Rubbing my hands with glee over this.
You know, Hogwards is Not the only school out there, we have like 12 official ones, Beauxbatons, Durmstang, Castlebruxo, ilvermorny, mahoukotoro, Uagadou, koldovstorex, the rest Rowling hasn't given us the names or info, so with so many students, Dumbledore could just say they can't accept too many students, they could just send applications to other schools for help as options, is actually a waste not to use the other schools in this concept.
10108303
You forgot to add Hogwarts and the all girls Salem School for Withcraft to that list.
Speaking of Salem... I once read a Harry Potter fic where Harry, to get out of some bad trouble, took a gender changing potion and went to Salem. Got US citizenship, and renounced his ties to Britain. ... Lost the URL. Pity... It was a good fic.
And don't forget the little schools that aren't big fancy magic schools like Hogwarts is.
1010831This fic is about Hogward, so i thouhg it wasn't neccesary, i only mentioned the OFFICIAL wizarding school that the International Confederation of Wizard have accepted, it is well known in cannon that there are hundredrs of other school, but they are mostly rural o minor, so the confederation does not approve of them, only 11 are recognised, and the Salem School of Witchcraft is not among them, additionally, i am not sure if the ponies would like to go to a school for only girls, but who knows, the thing is that i only suggested the international approved shcools.
10108443
Good suggestion... but as you say, the story is about Hogwarts. I couldn’t exactly have a good story if I scattered it across 30 locations, each with their own set of 5-10 important characters, could I?
... Yeah, I know, the proper way to handle scattering like that is to make an extended universe out of it, like the Optimalverse. But, this is a story about an overwhelmed Hogwarts, not an HP-style PoE...
10108316
Try a Google search... You’d be surprised what it can find.
10108590
You don't need to present each school an create an entire universe of tons of characters, I suggested that perhaps the Ponies get scattered across the world, but only present hogwards main pony story, the others can come to England later, or you could present additional data through mail, or make chapters where mmm..., I don't know, make the princesses make ocasional visits to the other schools, or the main six, etc. etc. I suggested the schools because the amount of students that there will be is so desorvirand it isn't funny, completely illogical, and that is what made the previous fic too complicated and uninteresting, so unless you reduce the new student count to 100, the other schools should get involved, anyway, it's your story, so do as you will XD
10108676
... It was lack of plot and bad world design, not character court, that killed The Gate.
Is this a sequel to something? You've said it's a rewrite of another story, but the existence of the Gate feels like it really needs its own chapter for exposition, at the very least.
10109002
Nope, not a sequel, no. Unfortunately, there will always be those parts that feel like they might like just a little more exposition... and if I give them that additional exposition, there will be more such parts. Thus, to make everything "properly" exposited, I'd have to write a story of exposition... before getting started on the exposition of this story.
... Sorry about that.
10109121
Fair enough? I can understand not wanting to spent ages on exposition. I'm kind of worried about exactly how much the settings have diverged now though, if you think this is going to be a persistent problem - so far the only thing that really needs justification is the Gate.
On the one hand, I'm upset that a story I liked caught a case of re-write.
On the other hand, this re-write seems to have fixed quite a lot of the pacing issues (*) the original's first chapter had, so you've got my support.
* The original was a blitzkreig, getting to the "point" so fast it was hard to visualize even with the aid of having both read the first Harry Potter and seen the movies.
10109535
Agreed, definitely. The Gate had problems all throughout.
I laughed way too hard at this.
10105340
this, I think.
The Rise of Darth Vulcan
Unless there are other fanfics with Darth Vader Wannabes in Equestria, which is certainly possible.
No introduction to either world, no descriptions, no timeline. Dropping a lot of names without any background or supporting structure. And rapid scene changes between 9 separate locations (Hogwarts, The Dursley's, Trixie's, Pinkie's, some pudding-obsessed thing which has no meaningful description at all (I'm assuming Discord, but with no details, who can be sure), the CMCs, AJ's, Celly and Loony, and Twilight's) without any internal suggestion of where they are relative to one another.
There's a mention of a 'Gate' and no idea what that even is.
Anyone not deeply familiar with either of these franchises would be lost immediately.
This is a prototypical fanfic. It doesn't require much to get the ball rolling, but there must be something to welcome the reader into the world and give at least a general set-up.
10124492
What you have just described, with lots of jumping and no real setting, is exactly what this chapter is supposed to be. It's supposed to set up the expectation of having the story going haywire... and it's on FIMfiction.net, I assume at least limited familiarity with the show characters. (Yes, that's Discord.)
Worry not, the next chapter is where the story starts in ernest- this one is mostly just to give people an idea of just how many ponies are being invited.
Why such a massive cast?
I just kept getting a sense of dread the more and more letters that got accepted.
I'm gonna read the rest of what you got, but even the synopsis was massive.
I may not have read your other story that this is supposedly fixing, but I assume most new people wouldn't want to read a story that had the author apologising from the get go.
10155547
This is true.
I mean, you're welcome to read it... but The Gate had no planning behind it, so it kinda sucked, as a story- the plot was flimsy at best. I learned a lot, though...
10155547
I'd actually say the other story was good up until the Whiskey Tango and even then parts of it were still good despite the OP'ness of adding more and more alicorns that made Celestia and Luna look like weaklings.
10155578
Learning is great and it's fanfiction, not every story needs to be perfect. At least your only mistakes were from an unplanned story. Your writting is itself is solid and understandable. Writing is like trying to speak a foreign language, you got all the words and syntax down you just need to decide what you want to say even if what you want to say is experimental like testing out a new joke in that language you're not on stage in Vegas selling a comedy act. You're free to experiment and explore.
Another person on this site decided to explore the possibilities of an unplanned story using a discord app with comment voting and random event generation. Here's their explanation:
They've altered the rule on voting every chapter a bit later on and made it so some chapters might not have a vote to make things a little more natural flowing. It's a real interesting way of writting. Personally not really a fan of the voting so much cause it's caused a couple of poorly thought out choices occasionally but the random event thing is pretty interesting and panic inducing to read cause they've only rarely been good events.