Chapter 17
Draco was… grumpy, to say the least. Crabbe and Goyle lost almost thirty points each during their first week for missing classes, because they couldn’t follow him to their classes.
But that wasn’t the only thing.
No; he’d quickly found out that the instructors had set up an extended teaching program with the Equestrians. That alone he wasn’t all that worried about, after making friends with Diamond.
The part he was bothered by, and hadn’t told anyone he was bothered by, was that he’d heard that a couple of British students had been invited to that program as student teachers as well… and he had not.
He knew his father would’ve loved for him to be in such an authoritative role; apparently, those student instructors had the power to give and take points, giving it a very real level of authority.
But mostly, he just wanted to be something other than the slave he had been his entire life- obeying instructions, studying, and whatever else. He wanted to be able to make the instructions, the way those instructors do. Sure, there’s two to a class, so he wouldn’t be alone- but he would have just as much deciding power as them, rather than just blindly following them.
But he didn’t. He’d considered asking who he should ask, but decided against it. He’d ask Diamond, when he next got to talk to her somewhere private… maybe.
It was Monday afternoon, of the second week. He’d read that flying lessons would be starting on Thursday- and that he himself was scheduled to start on Day One. He’d been unable to get rid of the blundering idiots over the weekend; they followed him everywhere, as they were “supposed to”.
And today, he’d managed to get rid of them… by taking them to their first classes of the day, and leaving them there while he headed for his own. Thank Merlin that he didn’t share any classes with them; if he’d had to listen to their stupidity for just five more minutes, he was sure he’d have gone mad.
He sighed, picking a wall to lean against in this empty corridor; he’d allowed himself to get separated from the rest of the class after it let out, as none of them had the same next class as he did.
And, he knew, Crabbe and Goyle both also had another class of their own- that was not the same as his, meaning he had just over an hour left before they could even start looking for him.
He wondered how he was going to survive the year without breaking his father’s ironclad rules. If he could shed Crabbe and Goyle indefinitely, he wouldn’t have any problem with that.
A door to his left opened suddenly, and he straightened up quickly. He couldn’t let just anyone see him express any kind of weakness.
Then Lyra Heartstrings stepped out of that door, and he stiffened. Despite what she’d done for him on the train, and Diamond’s introducing her, the girl still gave him the creeps.
She looked at him, evidently utterly unsurprised to see him. “Oh hey, Draco,” she began. “Long time no see, eh?”
He winced. Wish it was longer. “So?”
She winced as well. “Oh come on, do you have to be like that?”
He ignored the question, folded his arms, and surprised himself by wishing the two blundering idiots were with him… if only because they could probably soak up her attention long enough for him to escape. He raised an inquisitive eyebrow.
She rolled her eyes. “What if you didn’t?”
He kept himself from twitching. What she was saying was impossible.
She seemed unsatisfied. “What if you could go somewhere nobody else could? Where nobody cares about appearances?”
He determinedly kept his expression disinterested. What in the world was she talking about?
She scowled. “Whatever, be like that, then.” She suddenly pranced forward, grabbed his arm, and pulled him after her. “C’mon.” He tried to stop her, and to free himself, but she blocked his every move with no apparent effort of her own. She dragged him back into the room she’d just come out of.
The room was filled with… floating golden squiggles? Had she not been here, he might have explored them, but she was here. They were all faint and indistinct, flowing slowly around the room in loops, circles, and other strange, loopy patterns.
She dragged him right to the middle, then released him and dashed to the side.
He stumbled, stabilized himself, and refolded his arms. “What was that for?” he demanded.
She didn’t answer him. Instead, all the gold squiggles suddenly burned bright- and he found himself lifted into the air in the middle of the room.
He let out a small gasp of surprise, but quickly controlled himself- even in the unknown, he had appearances to maintain.
Then, it burned. He bit back the scream of pain that tried to make its way out- he would not show weakness!
Then, just as suddenly as it had started, it all stopped… and he found himself falling back to the floor. He landed, stumbling slightly.
“What the-?” Lyra asked, surprised about… something?
“What was that for?” he demanded.
She ignored him, and the squiggles suddenly started glowing again. He braced himself to be lifted and tortured again- but it didn’t happen. Instead, something in one corner of the room suddenly glowed a brilliant red, a color that spread across the entire room in but an instant before all the squiggles faded back down… and turned gold again.
“What-!?” she asked, before bounding over to him and staring intently at him.
He backed away, towards the door. “What are you doing?” he demanded.
She scowled, and turned away. “But if… Then why did it just… stop?” She sighed. “Whatever.” Then she glanced at him. “Go ahead and carry on with… whatever you were doing. It didn’t work.”
“What is it?” he demanded, folding his arms.
She blinked. “Oh… I forgot that step again, didn’t I? Then I… Yeah, I also forgot to ask permission. Sorry about that. Um…” She glanced at the symbols floating around the room. “At the moment, British wizards can’t use Equestrian magic- and will die if they try to traverse the gate to Equestria. I’m trying to fix both of those issues, but it’s proving very difficult. And given what just happened… it’s looking like it’s impossible to do without an unacceptable risk of death or debilitation.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Unacceptable?”
She nodded. “As in, any risk. The way I designed this thing, it doesn’t dig deep enough to cause permanent damage, and has so many safeties in place to make sure that anything it does change is done in a balanced manner, such that debilitation is impossible.
“Then, it just… stopped. Didn’t change anything, but it got through the outer layers to make its repeat prevention stamp, so…” She blinked. “Because it works by modifying the magical core- and penetrating that too many times, even without doing anything else, can cause critical damage of a completely different sort- so any given test subject is only good for one run, no repeats.
“Then of course, I actually designed it to penetrate, place spellwork inside, and retreat- far faster than trying to make the changes directly, minimizing the penetration time… and it also allows the injected spellwork to reinforce the core’s ‘skin’, so to speak, back beyond its original strength, hence allowing it to tolerate an increased number of penetrations. Not that I want to put that to a test. Ever.” She took a deep breath. “Said spellwork is riddled with safeties of its own… and markers that should be visible to certain kinds of completely harmless scans- even through the magical core.” She looked at him. “I checked for those markers, there aren’t any. It didn’t work at all.
“Which must mean…” She gazed across the room, and a flicker of gold traveled through the squiggles. “... Huh. It didn’t run out of power. So what did happen?” She glanced towards him again. “None of the safeties activated, so it can’t have been anything dangerous, but…” She scowled. “Maybe it failed to penetrate far enough? That would bring it to a silent shutdown- penetrating too far would have triggered…” She pointed, and a group of squiggles off to the side glowed briefly red, “that safety, and shut the whole thing down.” She scowled. “But if it did fail to penetrate far enough, but did get far enough to place the anti-duplication stamp, then…” She sighed. “I… British magical cores must be too different from Equestrian magical cores for me to base it off my own… and it’d be way too dangerous to try scanning someone else’s- including yours.” A low couch appeared behind her in a flash of golden light, and she flung herself down on it. “Meaning, this whole thing is a fruitless endeavor.”
He blinked. “So…”
She let out another sigh. “Kinda disappointing, too. It took an entire week to build this, just to find out that it’s junk. I guess I’ll have to rip it apart now.” She glanced down at her wristwatch, and wrinkled her nose. “Eh, later. I’ve got to go teach.” She sat up straighter. “Which means I need to lock up this room again- these matrices would be deadly dangerous in the wrong hands, functional or not.” She gestured vaguely to the side of the room.
“Teach?” he asked.
“Hmm? Yeah. I’m sure you’re already aware of the extended teaching program?”
He nodded stiffly.
“Yeah… We ended up using almost exclusively Equestrian instructors because we didn’t know any of the British candidates. Hermione and Harry got in as instructors because we met them and learned about them- and their abilities- early enough. You… Nobody knew what to think about you, since we only saw the facade you put forward, and knew it was a facade. Thanks to the sensitivity of the position, that meant you got left out. Though, from what Diamond tells me, you would’ve been a decent candidate.” She shrugged. “Maybe next year, I guess.”
He huffed lightly, before turning to head out the door, and down the corridor. She followed him as far as the door, waved goodbye, and closed it from inside.
He paused again halfway down the next corridor, leaning against the wall. For some reason, he found himself exhausted. He glanced back the way he’d come. Did Lyra have something to do with that?
He turned resolutely back forwards, and pushed himself off of the wall. No, she couldn’t have. He was just imagining things.
He hadn’t gone six steps, though, before one of the school professors rounded the corner ahead of him. It was the hook-nosed teacher that had handed him his schedule- Professor Snape, head of Slytherin house, according to the upper-year students. The man looked harried, like he had too much to do and not enough time to do it in. He’d probably just pass him by- which, if he was honest with himself, suited him.
Contrary to his expectation, Professor Snape paused, upon catching sight of him, then came closer. “Mr…?” he began.
“Malfoy, Sir,” Draco bowed his head slightly.
Snape nodded. “Are you… alright?” He seemed distinctly uncertain.
He shivered involuntarily. It wasn’t even cold outside- so why did he feel so cold? “I… I don’t know.”
Snape scowled, stepped closer, and crouched down to feel his forehead… and recoil almost as if he’d been burned. “Very hot,” he muttered. “You’d better see Madam Pomfrey. This way.” He rose back to his feet, and started guiding him down the corridors, away from his next class.
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So the point of this chapter was... what, exactly? From it, I learned yet another way the Equestrians are superior, as they now, for certain, have no constraints on travel, while the humans do.
Too much magical theories in this lone chapter. I had to turn Lyra's magic lecture off, otherwise my brain might catch fire.
So we have the start of the return of Silversong...I think? From what I could tell Lyra was trying to transform him...as a way to cheer him up? Well, anyway, the chapter's written very well, and the explanation for why Draco wasn't included is good. Only...I liked the way he was in The Gate, personality-wise. Very eager to be friends once Harry and Hermione got to know him and once Papa Tangoed, ready to even go into the Forbidden Forest. I hope we get to see some of that again and not just him being a grump.
10260392
That's nothing new. It was established early on that going through the portal would kill un-altered humans. I don't remember what details were given, but I like to think of it as a magical version of oxygen toxicity.
(ie. Magic is good, but Equestria is so saturated with it that it becomes toxic despite normally being a good thing.)
Similar principle to why we can't drink salt water and only a few species of ocean-going fish can survive in fresh water... the body's mechanisms for maintaining a saline balance are usually not flexible enough. (Drinking salt water will dehydrate you because your body assumes that fresh water will be common enough that it can waste it flushing out the excess salt. Ocean fish die in fresh water because it dilutes the salt in their bodies to fatally low levels.)
Lyra, Lyra, Lyra, for all that you're supposed to be "safety first" consent is a very important part of that. Someone who hasn't consented to an experiment can cause all sorts of inadventent reactions, especially when it comes to Harmony.
10260444
Does this mean you expect the Equestrian's magic to start fading away, since they are in an environment with so much less of it?
10260453
No, for two reasons:
10260444
The way I look at it, it's even simpler than that. Humans could survive just fine in Equestria...
It's the Gate that is the issue. It was created/calibrated/tuned/etc specifically for an Equestrian to pass, and so will prove deadly for anything that has too different of a magical signature. Owls are, apparently, just close enough to make it through safely. Wizards, not so much.
10260464
That's not inherently at odds with my view. Drowning or decompression sickness will kill you just as effectively if you spend 5 minutes in deep ocean water as if you never leave the water.
Maybe the ponies are just more adapted to survive periods of abnormally high magic concentration due to some event in Equestria's past.
Oh, so that's why he was a twat in cannon. Too much exposure to the bubbling duo.
10260466
... or maybe it's that the portal uses their unique Cutie Mark magic facets as a "handle" to guide their "soul" between the worlds, and something that doesn't have that will instead lose its soul into the Void when its body is transferred... causing it to come out as an empty shell that will very quickly die.
Yes, it would be possible to build a portal that British could travel through without issue. It won't happen for a good long while, though- if only because, without such a delay, so many fun plot points- like Silversong- simply wouldn't happen.
Complications, hmmmmm... an interesting development.
Ok... What did we do to Draco?
10260469
Too much trying to live up to his father's unreasonable expectations as well.
10260471
That's an option too, but I'm not a fan of making the existence of the soul, distinct from neural processes, anything more significant to the mechanics of the setting than what survives after death.
10260464
One thing to keep in mind is that owls don't transform. They have Equestrian counterparts. Right now the gate is set to transform equestrians into humans and back to Equestrians when they return.
10260540
Well, the soul is canon to the HP universe, thanks to the Dementor's Kiss...
10260541
I'm aware. I just had to make something up that would allow them to pass, else the entire premise of the story becomes indistinguishable from Magic School Days... which was not my intent.
10260529
... We?
10260567
In a roundabout way, it kind of makes sense for me to think in terms of humans not being able to go through because they weren't Equestrians to begin with and the magic just doesn't function properly, and/or they would need to take time to adjust just like how deep-sea diving requires time to acclimate to the changes in pressure with a limit as to how deep they could go, and length of time they could stay without some form of adaptation.
And that's a royal we. ;)
10260583
She just didn't think of it. Perfect recall isn't insurance against forgetting to do something you were told to do, it's insurance against being unable to remember what you were told to do.
I feel like I missed something. Or I’m confused by something, but can’t pinpoint what exactly. I probably should’ve read the original.
10260670
maybe you missed the parts that clearly only existed in the author's head?
10260701
No, that can’t be right. Í̷̡̛̠͍͇̼̹̀͌͐͜’̷̡̜̥̠̲̈̚͝m̵̼̯̟͉̤͕͐̓͠ ̵̧̛̫̹̪̻͓́̿̉̆̈́̚i̴̡̼̫̥̭̩̐̿̈́̅n̷͉̄̚ ̴̧͈͍͇̤̯͎̀̎̅e̵̗̽̅̽̆̔̍͜͠v̷̠̜̫̱̲̌̚͝e̸̮̣͎̦̠̓͑͆̍̀͝ŗ̷̜̦̲̈̈̑̆̓̎͘y̸̧̪̞̕o̴̢̅̅̇n̵̜͗́͐̊̑͘͝ȩ̶̗̞̭̬̝͇̾̐̊̆’̸̞̙̃͒s̶̡͖̮̬̯̘͕̓́̊̐́̚ ̸̹̃̐̓͒͝h̶̥͍̖̰̣̮̉̓͒͛̾͝ͅe̸̛̯̱͇̻̫̮̺͆̓̕͝͝ą̶̅̆̉̑d̵͇͈̲̼͈̎̓͌͐͐̑͘
1. Great chapter
2. What CPU and Gpu are you using with your motherboard? I have a Ryzen 5 1600 and GTX 1060
10260821
I'm using an "old" GTX 1060 for my GPU, the one with only 3GB of graphics memory. The CPU is a Ryzen 5 3600... which is also on the AM4 socket, so if you've been CPU-throttling a lot, you can upgrade if you want. Cost about $200.
The shutdown speed comes mostly from the M.2 main drive, and "fast startup" being disabled because the solid state is fast enough to make it pointless (aside from the extra wear "fast startup" will put on a solid state, that spindle drives are immune to)
That said, it's nice to have near-flawless performance on previously-laggy games like Space Engineers... And did you know, Portal 2 will run smoothly on just about anything, including that toaster over there?
10260893
Nice. The 1060 is a solid card(I use it) And that Ryzen is superior to mine. But I definitely get the drive speed. I've been saving for an NVME but I'm gonna have to invest that money into a new CPU, GPU, and Motherboard in the next 2 years instead.
10261339
Yeah... The 1TB M.2 NVMe drive I got was about $150. They're much cheaper than they used to be, certainly.
And of course, yes, the 1060 is a solid card. Best graphics system I've ever messed with, I have no reason to upgrade... and if I did, there's plenty of more modern, many-times-more-powerful cards available at the same price point (~$200) nowadays. Motherboard and CPU... Well, my Ryzen 5 3600 (equivalent to a 7th gen Intel i7, or a modern Intel i5) cost about $200... and I could have gone with a $100 or $150 motherboard, but I had to get the best gaming board that would fit in my case, so I got a $300 one with built-in WiFi that knocks the socks off any other WiFi solution in the room. Bonus, it even shipped with Google Chrome, so I never had to launch Microsoft Edge at all!
10261482
Chrome?! Egad! Microsoft Edge is the way!
No seriously, the new version of Edge is literally chrome with more features, same interface, smooth af, fast, less resource-intensive then Chrome, and it has the ability to use Chrome extensions.
Also, props to you for getting a high-end motherboard. I got a $120 Tomahawk board that was pretty barebones and a wifi card. I wish I got a fancy one cause it would have allowed me a much greater amount of possibilities. Oh Well.
10261507
... because Edge is literally Chrome with Microsoft's spyglassing touch to it. No really, it runs on Chromium, the open-source core of Chrome.
Yes, Chrome is more resource intensive. Makes sense- it has more features built-in. But so? I don't care about system resources, I've got a Ryzen 5 3600 and 32GB of RAM. Chrome can take all it likes.
As for why I don't use Edge? Because Microsoft. Windows 10 is both spyware and adware, fresh out of the box. Seriously. I'm not going to help them by using the browser they no doubt engineered to call home no matter what, just like Windows Update that can't be disabled. I'm a computer nerd, that's important to me.
10261541
I get where you're coming from, and I did know Edge is a Chromium-based browser. I'm tech-savvy like that xP. Also, I agree that Windows 10 is... annoying to use. I've stuck with it for near 4 years now and (besides a few bugs) I have no complaints. You just need to get into a routine of ignoring the quirks. Although I do prefer MacOS.
Also, Microsoft Edge has been confirmed to have more privacy protection services (even against Microsoft) then Chrome by multiple reputable sources. It is likely one of the most privacy enabled public browsers out right now, far above Google's own. Sure, Google has a few things that Edge doesn't, but keep in mind Chrome has not had any major additions for years, while Edge is being updated rapidly.
So in short, Microsoft has finally done something right FOR ONCE. But I definitely do understand keeping to Chrome, lmao, if you told me a month ago I would be defending Edge, I would have checked you into a insane asylum. But tbh, its really just that good now.
Yes, shutdown time is the most important performance metric in my book as well!
Wow. On my Macintosh system, trying to shut down Firefox and chrome, and then restarting to reboot in a different version of the operating system (dual boot) has a 15 minute delay before I’m back in my browsers or launching programs in the new operating system.
Of course: I’m shutting down fire fox ESR 52.9, and it has approximately 2 GB worth of state being stored by session manager. And it’s an old version of Chrome, and for some reason (seriously I don’t understand why) it normally will not actually shut down from command Q, nor from the menu, yet I have to try to give it the opportunity to shut down. (Somewhere around 25 to 75% of the time it will work; this is one of those things that is too annoying to actually write down and record to get an accurate number).
And that’s ignoring the problem of “did the disk run out of space at any time during the chrome session“ which is guaranteed to cause it to mess up at shut down, As well as lose all local storage, cookies, etc.
For all the evil that Microsoft does, at least they can maintain compatibility with past programs. A lot better than apple does. Going from 10.9.5 (my normal OS) to 10.12 breaks an audio driver, which causes all sorts of problems; introduces a much tighter security sandbox, which breaks other programs; and becomes a serious step along the way towards “One single user interface consistent across all devices, without any regard to the different features or abilities of the different devices, so that every machine behaves like the least capable machine because everyone is going to use an iPhone therefore every machine should behave like an improved iPhone.”
I so hate this iPhone interface.
Oh, and I didn’t even mention that apple basically assumes that you’re not going to be dual booting. Or at least, if you have a dual system, you’re apparently expected to have it on a USB stick or smart card. Not another partition on the main drive. Certainly not that you’re going to have the same user data shared among two different versions of the operating system. After all, your library, documents, preferences, everything that you do is underneath your home directory, which in turn is on the boot partition, which in turn is where all the swap files for the operating system are stored, as well as all of the per user temporary files and cash files, so even if you could dual boot you have a massive amount of overhead, I have to jump through horrible hoops to try to share your data across versions of the OS, and those hoops that fall outside of the sandbox.
And please don’t get me started on font size. The iPhone forces a tiny font size on everything. The newer versions of the OS also for strict HTML CSS Font size adherence on too many things. It is far too hard to adjust fonts and sizes a newer versions of the OS. Even the newer version of Chrome seems to have more exceptions to the font size handling that you ask for/more adherence to whatever the website asks for and wants. And the zoom on Chrome is just horribly bugged (there are at least three different ways to interpret zooming in, and Chrome assumes that one of them is always correct. Firefox at least lets you choose from two.)
I’m sorry, I did not mean for this to become an operating system rant. I’m just frustrated at my computer right now.
So let me see if I’m understanding this correctly. This version of either Papa tango, or “equestrian core supplement“, first attempted to penetrate Draco‘s core, then put a marker down, then it was supposed to put down some spell work but it wasn’t deep enough for that spell work to take.
And yet it still managed to affect Draco despite all the safeties, because now Draco is ill enough that Snape sent him to the infirmary.
10263160
That is what Lyra thinks, yes.
Well, that's a pretty critical failure for her spellwork. I'm guessing that Draco accidentally converts later on, though? That would still hardly make it safe, though.
10261701
That's actually pretty cool. Now, I am not sure if it's entirely open-sourced, but I wouldn't mind if a reputable third-party repackaged it, making sure to remove the bits that I'm sure do still call home, and made it available for my OS of choice (Ubuntu, so... good luck with that >:D).
10265979
Microsoft did announce last year that there would be a Linux version of the new Edge coming out this year. But don't hold your breath for Microsoft doing open source for their own stuff.
Microsoft is actually one of the largest contributors to open source projects, but they rarely open source their own things. They released Power Shell and the JS engine for the old version of Edge to open source, and VSCode is open source, but... let's just say it's an uncommon path for a piece of Microsoft-owned code.
If you want a Chromium-based browser that doesn't have proprietary third-party additions calling home... just run Chromium directly. It's a browser all on its own.
Re-reading as of chapter 38 to track all the stages and what the PT is doing.
Hey, that's Rarity's signature unique move. No copying.