Chapter 21
“Well, Fred. Do you think it’s him?”
Fred Weasley nodded silently, in answer to his brother’s muttered question. “How do you suppose we go about it?”
George scowled. “Hmm… He has to know he’s famous.”
“But he hasn’t been drawing attention to himself.”
George nodded. “He’s clearly not a fan of it. Then it seems he’s already got himself one friend.”
Fred grinned, glancing over to where the boy they were fairly sure was Harry Potter was sitting next to the bushy brown-haired girl they were also fairly sure was Hermione Granger. “And a pretty close one at that.” The two first-years were sitting side by side in the same chair, made possible by their small frames, while they studied something. The girl had her wand out, with a hand on either end of it, and would occasionally lay it against the boy’s arm for a few seconds.
George tilted his head. “Come to think of it…”
“Is that something normal friends do?” Fred asked.
They looked into each other’s eyes, nodded once, and headed out to meet the duo.
“You know,” Fred began, drawing their attention, “you make a cute couple.”
They both blushed, the boy more than the girl.
“So we’ve heard,” the girl intoned.
The twins knew instantly that they need not explore that avenue any more.
“Anyways,” George smiled. “It’s nice to meet you!”
“I’m Fred,”
“And I’m George.”
“We’re pretty well known around here,” Fred mused.
“Well,” George scowled, “We were, until… that happened.” He gestured at the room at large, which was filled mostly by Equestrians.
“So you… may or may not have heard of us,” Fred finished.
“Ahh,” the girl mumbled, before nodding to herself. “You’re the Weasley twins, right?” She sounded unsure.
“That’s us!” Fred announced.
“Nice to meet you,” George bowed, extending a hand in greeting.
The girl smiled. “Nice to meet you too. I’m Hermione, and this is Harry.”
Fred gasped theatrically. “You’re Hermione?” he asked.
“Like, the Hermione, ahh, whateveryourlastnamewas?” George finished.
Hermione, who had been startled by Fred’s question, blinked twice, then laughed. “Yeah, no, I don’t think so.”
Harry chuckled. “You never know. Hang around the likes of me for very long, and you’ll be famous in your own right.” He grinned, winking at her.
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right. I don’t think fame is contagious. But anyways.” She looked up at the twins. “I’m curious what life is normally like here at Hogwarts, before all the Equestrians showed up?”
Draco Malfoy was… nervous, to say the least.
It had been two weeks since he disappeared into the Hospital Wing. He’d been there for almost two full days after all the pain had gone away- and, the way he heard it, he’d turned back into a boy.
Madam Pomfrey had explained it. Apparently, when the headache amplified itself, he’d been turned into some kind of pony… then, when the chest pain came, he’d become a human again- albeit female and with a vegetarian-only diet.
Now… She’d spent much of the last two days scanning him in as many ways as she could think of.
He was still not human, per se, but he seemed to have stopped changing. According to her, he didn’t lose anything- except that his magic hadn’t fully recovered yet, and so would be completely unusable for a few more days.
He knew that the only reason she’d let him leave the Hospital Wing now, rather than in another week- or more- when it all wore off, was because she knew as well as he did that people would already be talking about it.
And the problems that could arise from that.
He had appearances to maintain, and appearances that he could maintain once again. He’d have to keep his long, silvery hair tied up under his hat in the meantime; it had proven impractical to cut, as it regrew all the way to his waist in just a couple of hours. He’d also have to return to the Hospital Wing for a ‘check up’ every day, including covering each of the seventy two hour marks, until he was fully recovered.
And besides. Just because his magic hadn’t fully recovered yet didn’t mean he couldn’t still learn the theoretical parts of his classes. Madam Pomfrey had switched the excuses she sent to his teachers from a full medical excuse to a partial one, excusing him from any and all practical portions.
He took a deep breath, and paused just outside his Charms classroom.
It was a different Charms class than he’d had in his first week. In that class, both the instructors had seemed confused with what they were teaching, like they hadn’t learned it themselves yet.
In this class… He hadn’t had an opportunity to show up for it yet. He hoped that the instructors for his new class time actually knew what they were doing.
He remembered one from the Leaky Cauldron- Bonbon- but he only knew the name of the other instructor, Hermione Granger.
He took a deep breath, glancing up at the clock over the door. He was… seven minutes early, and had just come directly from the Hospital Wing. He could hear the sound of other students on approach.
He reached up one hand, and knocked, before pushing the door open.
There were two people already there, sitting on a couple of the desks up front, where they had evidently been chatting. One was an Equestrian- which he quickly recognized as Bonbon.
The other looked to be British, and had bushy brown hair.
It was this second one, with the brown hair, that spoke first. “Well hello,” she greeted, hopping off the desk to step forward and shake his hand. He noticed her eyes flicking down to the nametag on his robes for a half-second as she approached. “Nice to have you, Mr. Malfoy.”
He wrinkled his nose at the address.
She paused briefly. “... Would you prefer I not call you that?”
He nodded tersely. “Just ‘Malfoy’ is fine.”
She bowed her head. “Alright then. I’m aware that Madam Pomfrey excused you from the practical component today- I hope you’re doing alright, with whatever necessitated that?”
He winced. “Eh.”
She shrugged. “Well, then I hope it gets better soon.” She glanced up at Bonbon. “Oh, and we’ll be your instructors for this class; I’m Hermione Granger, and this is Bonbon.”
Time for a real-world test, Hermione thought. It had been three weeks since she gained access to the Hogwarts library, and three weeks since she first encountered the Cutie Mark Crusaders. This might be Draco Malfoy’s first class, after two weeks of medical absence, but he wasn’t able to do any of the practical parts yet.
Fortunately, that had been an easy fix- and one she’d been planning with Bonbon before he arrived. He was given the study materials from the last few classes, and expected to study them… and ask questions if he had them.
Bonbon had taken over, though- releasing her to tackle the Crusaders.
She already knew that Bonbon expected her new approach not to work, because of the differences between British and Equestrian magics.
She was a little worried herself, about that same difference; she’d so far only tested this technique with willing British students, primarily Harry and, at the end, the Weasley twins. Meaning, she had no idea what results to expect from an Equestrian.
And she was going to try it with Sweetie Belle.
She knew that Bonbon half expected her to blow herself up. She had described it as temporarily connecting herself to Sweetie on a magical level.
But Bonbon had never tried this either- and her handcrafted spell had safeties in it against that very eventuality.
As she approached, Sweetie Belle dropped her wand on her desk, as she had come to do whenever she approached. For some reason, her wand was liable to explode on a moment’s notice, and produce some very strange, localized effects. Bonbon had explained that, from past experience, those effects would be harmless to Equestrians- but they didn’t know how dangerous they might be to her, so it was best if she didn’t get caught in them.
She smiled. “Hey, Sweetie. I’ve got something that might help with that.”
The girl blinked, looking up. “You do?”
She nodded, stepping around behind her. “Yep. Hold still for a second, please.”
“Got it.”
She then held both ends of her own wand, muttered a few incantations… and touched the middle of the wand, very gently, against the back of Sweetie’s neck. She’d found that to be the best point to touch with everyone she’d tried it with; the wrist of the wand arm was a close second.
She got a sudden flow of information, and had to pause for a second to sort it all out. It was all unfamiliar…
Then, after another second, she recognized the critical component.
“Ahh,” she muttered. “You’ve certainly got a lot of magic.” She muttered another incantation. “Okay… Can you feel this?” She used the new spell to, ever so gently, prod the raging inferno inside the girl.
Sweetie shivered. “Y-Yeah. What is…?”
“That’s your magic. I want you to focus on it, concentrate on it. Become one with it.”
Sweetie closed her eyes, and shuddered. “It’s… It’s…”
“Yes, it’s like a raging bonfire. See if you can smooth it out- form it into a stream. Like…” One last incantation, that would let Sweetie see her own magic, however briefly. “Like mine. See that?”
Sweetie nodded, and mumbled. “Yeah… I think. Um…”
Hermione continued coaching Sweetie through it. It took close to half an hour of constant attention, and drained Hermione quite thoroughly; ambient magic wasn’t enough to power the spell completely, so she’d had to design it to draw on her innate reserves as well.
But Sweetie managed it. The raging inferno, under intense concentration, flattened into a smooth, cohesive stream.
“Alright,” Hermione muttered, trying not to pant from the exhaustion of her magical exertion. “Hold that… and take your wand.”
Sweetie lifted her wand gingerly- but nothing happened.
“Okay. Repeat after me: Lumos.”
“Lumos,” Sweetie muttered.
“Good. Now, keeping that stream smooth, open your eyes.”
Sweetie did. “Is… Did I do that?” She was staring at the tip of her wand, glowing brightly, as if a small lightbulb had been attached to the end of it.
Hermione noticed Bonbon, halfway across the room, staring at her, but ignored it. “Yep. Now: Nox.”
Sweetie repeated the incantation after her, and the light went out.
Sweetie dropped her wand, and looked at her hands, releasing her concentration on her magic. “I… I did magic.”
Hermione cancelled all her spells and straightened up, stowing her own wand. “Yep. And, so long as you form your magic into that stream every time, you can do it again.”
“Hermione,” Bonbon began, making her way towards them. “How… How in the world did you do that?”
She tilted her head. “Do what?”
“You managed to teach a Crusader magic. How did you do that?”
Hermione shrugged. “Carefully.”
Sweetie giggled.
Hermione smiled down at Sweetie. “I don’t know how your Raeth magic works, but I’d guess it’d benefit from that as well.”
Bonbon scowled. “Sure you did.”
At the end of class, Hermione stayed behind in the classroom, with Bonbon. She’d gotten the distinct feeling the girl wanted to talk to her alone.
Once the door landed closed behind the last student, she sighed, and turned to Bonbon. “Yes?”
Bonbon answered with only a single word. “How?”
“Carefully,” she smiled. “I built safeties into that spell to protect me from any kind of backlash- then I used it to help her find and calm her magic.”
Bonbon blinked. “Wait. You made that spell?”
“Yeah?”
“And you haven’t even known about magic for two months.”
“Yeah?”
Bonbon shook her head… then looked up sharply and grinned. “You know what? I need to introduce you to Twilight.”
“Twilight? Wasn’t she one of the ones that did the instructor thingy?”
Bonbon nodded. “Right, yes. But, I need to introduce you to her again. And to Moondancer, Lyra, Luna, Sunset, and Starlight. Because by Celestia did we underestimate you.”
She blinked. “What?”
She sighed. “Oh, you’ll see. And I have to ask… what did that spell do?”
“It… Well, the main spell had six sequential incantations, then-!”
Bonbon’s hand had hit her forehead. “So not only are you inventing new spells, but you’re already building compound spells, heretofore unknown to wizardkind?”
She blinked. “What?”
“Compound spells, up until now, have only existed in Equestria, because Equestrian magic doesn’t require an incantation. If it takes multiple incantations to launch it, that sounds like a compound spell. I bet you have to say them at the right times and stuff, or it’ll all fall apart?”
She nodded. “Yeah,” she muttered slowly. “Is… Whatever. But that main spell only really let me find their magic, and see it directly. The other two spells layered on top of it, and worked inside it- one to allow me to ‘prod’ their magic, to draw their attention to it, and the other to let them see my magic for a couple seconds. I only really helped Sweetie find her magic, and encouraged her as she got it to behave on her own.”
She nodded slowly. “So that spell allowed you to do in half an hour what dozens of skilled teachers failed to do in hundreds of hours… by finding her magic?”
“Uh… I guess?”
“Huh.” Bonbon tilted her head. “Out of… curiosity, can you try it on me?”
She shook her head. “Not right now, sorry. The ambient energies aren’t enough to power it, so I had to make it draw on me as well, and…” She winced, unsure of how to finish it.
“And it took so much to do it for Sweetie that you’re already suffering from thaumic exhaustion?” Bonbon asked.
“Uh… I think? I mean… I’m probably going to sleep like a log tonight, but…”
Bonbon sighed. “Yeah… one of the side effects of thaumic exhaustion. Don’t run yourself completely empty, or you’ll knock yourself out for a few hours.” She winced. “Well, an Equestrian doing that would just knock themselves out for a few hours, but we don’t know how you might differ.”
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I must say the twins are quite good at this, no? Talking to Hermione without directly approaching Harry got them all the information they needed without ever asking. Very clever.
Very clever Hermione, visualization is an invaluable tool in the teaching of innate magic. I'm honestly surprised the Equestrians haven't thought of it already, too much reliance on intuitive methods I suppose.
If wizards don't have compound spells, and Equestrians do, does that mean that it is harder for wizards to build safeties into their spells than Equestrians? And if so, is that why wizarding apparition is so dangerous?
If this trend continues, they'll be ascending on their own talents rather than as a quirk of lyra's spell. Being handed fantastic cosmic power for nothing feels like mary sue-ish storytelling.
I kinda hope harry stays a guy, because while I feel like canon malfoy could have been a girl, I don't think canon harry could've been one.
10268126
Obliviate
I don't see how what Hermione did was conceptually different from a computer program.
Well, color me impressed by Hermione's sheer abilities. I like the idea of "doing something impossible solely because she doesn't know it is." You should have Bon Bon say that when she re-introduces 'Mione to the others-and I'm hoping that's a chapter, it sounds like it'd be interesting.
10268149
It really wasn't.
... I'm a programmer.
10268132
Agreed.
Carefully. Very, very carefully. And being an absolute magical genius.
You know, this kinda made me realize that Harry's nothing special. With ponies to throw Dumbledore's plans through the window he's just a rather regular boy. One that'll have a much happier life if he can not fight repeatedly for his life for seven years.
Not knowing something is impossible is definitely one way to make it easier to do it. And they most definitely did underestimate her, hehe.
I like how you're building Hermione's and Harry's talents more organically into the story this time.
10268126
Almost certainly on the safeties. And very likely on apparition.
10268186
I wouldn't entirely say nothing special. He's still got his "Harmonic envelope", and his knack for picking up hexes and counter-hexes, as well as teaching them. That said though, that was the entire point of the prophecy sub-plot in the books, in a sense. It was the belief in, and work towards, the prophecies that made them true.
10268190
Agreed. I don't like the idea that Dumbledore planned for everything to happen, and that he was a master manipulator at things - pulling the strings even beyond death. For one: He probably doesn't expect even Philosopher's Stone to take only a year - he probably expected Voldemort to fail and bail due to the curse on the position, and likely moved Quirrel to that cursed position as a direct message to Voldemort to GTFO. Dumblies doesn't know he's in a novel.
10268287
... If Dumbles knew Quirrel was associated with Voldemort, he'd have fired him.
10268347
Dumbledore explicitly tasked Snape with what amounted to openly spying on Quirrel. I think that's clear enough a sign he knew something fishy was up at minimum.
10268355
Which was only mentioned in later books... in the first couple books, no indication was given of the suspicion. That's one of the "retconning" moments, where Rowling is attempting to explain events that are long past.
Enough said. This achievement alone is enough to gain an audience with a Princess.
10268403
Remember when Snape confronts Quirrel in the forest in Philosopher's Stone? Snape claims in HBP that he didn't know Voldemort was in Quirrel and that he believed Quirrel only wanted the stone for himself, and that he would've assisted had he known Voldemort was posessing him...which we know is him lying through his teeth, at least for the second bit.
That's not a retcon, it's an explanation of his behaviour.
Oboy.
So you are turning annoying antisocial bookgeek year 1 Hermione into both social (getting along with Harry right away) and year-3 Twilight level of spell crafting.
Fred and George not recognizing the famous scar? What is the world coming to.
Now, what are Pomfrey and Draco going to think about turning into a pony? Will they think "Animagus"? What will Draco think about being a _pony_ animagus instead of some sort of snake? And what will they think about the "girl" third form?
And she apparently knows them, has probably seen some first-hand experience with them, and if i'm reading this correctly, this isn't even her first time teaching Sweetie, just the first time she's tried this sort of compound spell fracture.
10268186
But without the constant series of level-appropriate encounters that he can survive, how will he possibly level up enough to deal with the big bad in year 7? :-)
I find that many of the best inventions came about via discarding the concept of "impossible"... Far harder to do than it sounds of course.
10268626
For reasons of Computerneek not wanting to struggle with whitch technologies were or were not invented, this takes place 30 years in the future (so Philosopher's Stone takes place in 2021/22). There are other plot related reasons for this, though.
10268609
... Kinda, kinda not. Hermione is still antisocial bookgeek, but she has a prior connection to Harry this time- he's familiar... just as she's familiar to him. Instant connection in a strange setting, and one that can be alarmingly powerful. And yes, when properly challenged, it turns out she's quite the spellsmith.
Well of course the Twins recognized his scar. They just decided to play it up- and rather than everyone else's "You're the Harry Potter?", they chose to go with "You're the Hermione whatever-your-last-name-was?". They're pranksters, they wanted to be funny. And, apparently, succeeded.
Yes, this is not her first session with teaching Sweetie, it's just the first one she has that compound spell ready for.
10268611
Agreed.
10268675
Oy! Spoilers!
10268790
Me, I can enjoy a good romance plot... but that requires certain contextual supports that, ironically, are almost entirely absent when said romance is supposed to be the primary plot.
10268439
10268793
You really need to read Methods of Rationality. It manages to take all the strangeness of Rowling's setup, and turn it into something that makes sense.
It's an AU, and was intended to have one point of departure. But the author does interpret a few things from the series in questionable manners (what a dementor is, what a prophecy is, are the two biggies.)
10268944
And the two unicorns that die in the Forbidden Forest have strangely familiar coloration and markings on their rumps...
If Eliezer Yudkowsky isn't a brony, he's brony-adjacent. He's also said he wants to write something in the Friendship is Optimal universe.
10268790
...Oh. Kinda wish the 2021 thing was detailed in the story description; my impression was that this took place in the 1990s, a la the books.
10269044
Ugh, I missed that. Will have to reread.
Ooo, nice. Hermione being more OP than usual is something I can enjoy.
[Well, Draco's finally out of the Hospital Wing, albeit provisionally... and Hermione seems to be doing the impossible, for no better reason than that she doesn't know it's impossible]
So, either Hermione is the new protagonist or Harry is rubbing off on her. This is a stereotypical anime protagonist power, Po The Panda power, and something Harry can do in his sleep.
10272886
... Yeah.
Hooray!!!
Draco's a boy again!!!
I was thinking you might go the "Harry Potter and the Crystal Empire" route.
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/421065/harry-potter-and-the-crystal-empire
While Draco turned girl was interesting, there... I Don't know how it could expanded upon. They covered it pretty thoroughly, and it was such a unique idea