Chapter 31
Draco’s first thought, upon waking up, was that it wasn’t his bed.
Then he remembered.
He wasn’t Draco.
He was Silversong.
And she was sleeping in one of the four spare beds in Diamond’s room.
She took a deep breath, and let it out. She could do this. It wasn’t like Diamond walked around naked in here; the girl had pajamas.
… Unlike herself. She’d ended up sleeping in her daytime shirt and skirt, which she would need to change in the morning anyways. At least she’d discovered sometime yesterday- she actually didn’t remember when, but that suited her- how girls used the bathroom.
Truth be told, it wasn’t all that different from how boys used the bathroom. She wasn’t sure what she’d been so afraid of.
She stuck her hands down under the covers, to make sure her skirt was covering the stuff it should be covering, before she sat up to look around. She was… as she remembered, she’d drawn the curtains around her bed. She pushed them aside, on the side facing away from Diamond’s bed, and looked at the clothes waiting for her, neatly stacked on the nightstand.
She took a deep breath, and got dressed.
Strangely enough, even though it was only the second time she’d ever done it, and the first time she’d done it without help, it went as easily as if she’d been doing it all her life. She was fully dressed and robed, in all fresh clothes, in no time.
Then she blinked, glancing in the direction of Diamond’s bed, through the curtains of her own. Diamond suspected that her talent might simply make her good at anything she tries, hadn’t she? And if she was randomly really good at getting dressed in girl’s clothes, despite only barely having a clue how to do it, that was a pretty big hint to the positive, wasn’t it?
She let out a gasp as a deep blue… aura seemed to materialize around her, and she found herself lifted into the air.
Then it disappeared, and she dropped back to the floor.
She looked around, breathing heavily, and sat down on her bed to calm herself down.
She was sure it was nothing, just some Raeth somewhere trying to get dressed and levitating the wrong thing. She was sure that was what had happened… probably.
Once she finished calming herself down, she went to use the bathroom, then headed for the common room to wait.
Conversation, Silversong knew, was wild in the Great Hall that morning, just like it had been the night before. Students were torn between complaining about their temporary transformation into satyrs, and wondering about the Late Sorting that Dumbledore had promised at dinner.
And of course, she wasn’t there.
She was waiting in a room off the Entrance Hall, where Snape had shown her. The same one she’d been shown to, along with the rest of the first years, when they arrived at the school.
Professor McGonagall pushed the door open suddenly. “Miss Silversong?”
“Huh?” She looked up nervously.
“We’re ready.”
She could only be nervous as she accepted the Sorting Hat.
She was at the head of the Great Hall… and the entire school was staring at her.
The Hat fell right down over her eyes when she put it on, just like it had the first time.
She shuddered. Why did she have to do this?
The hat spoke, in her ear. “Ahh, I thought I would be seeing you soo- Wait a minute. I’ve seen you before!”
As I would expect, she thought in reply. Can we get this over with?
The hat chuckled. “In a hurry, are we? Well… When I first saw the Papa Tango in Lyra’s mind, I had no clue it would change you this thoroughly.”
She shivered. How… What did it do?
“Well… let me see. You’ve got… four forms right now, rather than the two I would have expected. All connected by your Animagus magic… Which, by the way, you’re not an Animagus, so you still have the option to discover your inner animal and all that, get a fifth form.
“In any case, it looks like both of your male forms- the one you can’t hold for long, and the one with the silver hair- show as one identity, Draco Malfoy, sorted into Slytherin.
“The other two forms- this one, and your pony form- are unsorted, but show as the same identity. Meaning, if I sort you into Gryffindor now, you can go back to Slytherin at will, just by shifting into form as Draco.”
But- but how do I have grades, if I’ve never gone to class as-?
“Oh, that is easy. That’s because Draco and Silversong might be separate identities, but you’re still the same entity- and so, assigned the same schedule and grades. But we can work with that. Hmm… Shall I tell you a little story?”
Aren’t people staring at me?
“Yeah, but they’ll stare at you either way. Point is, you’ve got a huge- and unanticipated- opportunity here, but if I just send you to Slytherin- or any other house- and be done with it, it’ll be squandered.”
… Alright, I’ll listen.
“Well. Way back in the day, when the Goddess enchanted the castle, she also enchanted me, to serve as the brain of the Castle. I sat on her head for a number of years, before I became known as the Sorting Hat- but I’m still connected to the magic of the Castle.”
She scowled. Weren’t you Godric Gryffindor’s hat?
“Why yes, yes I was first tailored for Godric Gryffindor. But what many don’t know is that the old man was actually an ancient goddess in disguise.
“In any case, because of that linkage, I actually have powers beyond the sorting.
“For example, I can have the castle magic bridge the gap between Draco and Silversong- so, whichever one you show up to class as, the teacher won’t notice the absence of the other, nor that you’re actually the same person. Well… except Miss Granger, because of her methods, but I see you’ve already revealed to her. I should even be able to help cover being caught transforming, though you’ll still want to seek privacy. Well, except with Crabbe and Goyle. Those two are so thick you can already transform in front of their noses, and they’ll start looking around, wondering where Draco went.”
She let out a snort of laughter. I knew they were thick, but… are you sure?
“Yep. I read their minds too, remember. They were more reliant on Draco than you knew. Only reason I actually sorted them, instead of throwing them out for being too stupid to teach, was because they were actually able to ask for Slytherin House. Had they not, I couldn’t have sorted them.”
… Okay then.
“So, whaddya say to this: I’ll sort you into Gryffindor. I’ll have some house-elves move your spare clothes to your trunk, and use the Castle magic to make a duplicate of said trunk appear at the foot of a bed in an empty girl’s dorm, to share an interior. I’ll keep your fellow Slytherins from realizing you’re gone, when you’re in form as Silversong- and, when in form as Draco, keep your fellow Gryffindors from realizing you’re gone. Classes will be pretty normal, show up in whichever form you want, and nobody will notice- even the ones with no Gryffindors in them. Nobody will notice that Draco and Silver are never in the same room together, because they have no reason to expect that they would be.” She paused for a second. “... And let’s face it, Diamond was right last night. You three would make a good herd.”
She became instantly thankful that her face was hidden from view as she felt the heat rushing to it.
“What? I’ve predicted every pairing that came out of this place and didn’t break apart after they left. And seriously, you’ll be happier with them.”
She shuddered. Does…?
The hat picked the question out of her mind before she’d even formulated it. “No, your schedule won’t change. You’ll just gain the freedom to show up to class, meals, and bed, in whichever form you want.” A pause. “Hmm… Shall I also forward mail headed for one form to the other, when you’re in the other form?”
She blinked. What?
“Because right now, mail headed for Silversong will only reach you while you’re in form as Silversong, and vice versa for Draco. All I’d be doing is making sure mail headed for either one could reach you, whichever form you were in.”
… Oh. Sure, why not? It’ll keep my dad from worrying.
“Well, Draco’s dad. Silversong doesn’t have parents to worry about her. Speaking of which, you’ll probably want to tell Lucius about your transformation ability at some point, if you plan to use Silversong very much at all- from what I remember of him, I don’t doubt his helicopter-parenting is because he’s trying to protect you in the vicious, noble world he’s grown up in. Since Silversong is outside of that world- despite still being heir to House Malfoy, I’m sure that’ll be interesting- he will probably be relieved that you’ve found a way to release your feelings. He’ll still want to teach you how to navigate that world, don’t get me wrong, but if I’m right, he won’t feel the need to pound it into you so hard it becomes part of you.”
But-!
“Come on, Silversong. When he sat under me a lot of years ago, he hated his lot in life as well. Not quite as badly as you, but he still did. He no doubt sympathizes with you on at least some level.”
She sighed. Whatever.
“Alright then. Whenever you go to bed as Silversong, it’ll be four one, seven two, until and unless you decide to move. It’s an otherwise empty dormitory, right now- and yes, provided they get your consent, any Gryffindor girl- Equestrian or not- can move in with you. GRYFFINDOR!”
She winced as the hat shouted the final word to the whole room. Thank you. She lifted the hat off her head, and handed her to McGonagall before walking over to the Gryffindor table, scanning her eyes down it.
The Gryffindors were cheering in a kind of strangled manner, since a quarter of them had goat legs, but she quickly spotted Hermione waving at her through the crowd, and made her way over.
She sat in the empty space next to Hermione, and let out a sigh. “Well, that was…”
“Nerve-racking?” Hermione suggested.
She nodded. “Yeah. She had all kinds of things to say… and apparently, she also has control over the magic of the Castle.”
“She?”
She nodded. “Sounded like a ‘she’ to me.” She leaned in to whisper in her ear. “And did you know, Godric Gryffindor was actually an ancient goddess in disguise?”
“What-!?” Hermione squeaked.
She grinned. “From the mouth of her hat.”
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WAT
Wait, so was this "goddess" the same entity who gave Ginny her mission?
Now for the $20 question, which goddess was playing silly buggers? There really are so many to choose from.
That was an interesting story, I like how Silversong and the hat got to talk for a while. Can't wait to see the next chapter
Is that ever popular Rainbow clip appropriate here? It feels like it would be appropriate, lol.
10332443
Heck, which universe does said Goddess hail from? That makes things ever so much more convoluted.
Is there some overarching reason that Godric was apparently a crossdressing deity? That sounds like a very peculiar story...
On another note, they are still 11. They have a few more years before anyone needs to worry about that. Probably.
I wonder what sort of interesting things can be done with the fact that some magics are name/identity based and some are person based? For that matter, what even causes there to be differences?
Are there are some limitations to Silver's talent because that can potentially be really OP? One could surpass the princesses in capability if it weren't limited.
10332546
Currently, pure experience. Later, who knows.
I worry this might be a shark-jump moment. The Sorting Hat's capabilities are far too convenient and Godric Gryffindor being an ancient goddess in disguise is the kind of thing that at least gets an entire subplot and probably an arc-driving plot to which it's more relevant, not an "Oh, and by the way, here's something to justify this convenience" aside.
(And, by "far too convenient", I mean both "feels contrived in a way that harms willing suspension of disbelief and makes the author seem unapologetically lazy" and "does this author understand that a story arc is defined by its character(s) overcoming difficulty? Handing things to them is disappointing and boring.")
In fact, by the time I got to mention of Lucius, the shallow-feeling dump of convenient things left me with a feeling of "is this the same author? If so, did they lose an editor/beta reader who was doing half the work of making it good, like George Lucas's editors on the original Star Wars trilogy?"
Also...
Huh. The Grammarly blog isn't kidding when they say that "nerve-wracking" is well-established. I thought "nerve-racking" was a typo until I went to double-check... and I'm quite well-read
...I still prefer "wracking". A word that descends from "wreck" as in shipwreck is more intuitive to me than using the medieval torture implement as a verb, and "rack" already has too many meanings as-is.
10332575
Both Harry Potter and MLP are soft magic environments. They both are filled to the brim with stupid bs that has no logical consistency. Since this is a crossover, it's basically stupid bs * stupid bs, giving us stupid bs^2. If you think this chapter jumped the shark, you ain't seen nothing yet.
10332546
I'd think she would be limited by her power levels. Ability though talent and ability via power are diferent things.
10332747
They're still stories. There's a difference between "the setting is sloppy" and "the storyteller is sloppy" and this feels like the latter.
I said I worry that it might be a shark-jump moment because, in my experience (over 20 years spent reading literal gigabytes of fanfiction), this sort of thing is a shark-jump moment. (Remember that jumping the shark doesn't mean the point at which a story gets bad. It refers to the turning point beyond which it starts inexorably sliding into decline. Moments when authors allow themselves to get sloppy like this tend to be pretty good indicators of that.)
There's a reason that, even in the world of crackfics, the best ones are the ones that "are serious about being silly". It's all about how dedicated the author is to shaping and manipulating the reader's mental state.
A well-written soft magic setting (or any other "sloppy" setting) is just a setting where "the good of the narrative experience" trumps the precision and integrity of the setting's internal mechanics... more or less the polar opposite of what happened here, where the chapter threw too much effort into justifying things that could be hand-waved, averting things which could have been challenges for the character to overcome, and rushing through stuff that could have used some "show, don't tell".
EDIT: Here's an example. All that stuff about why the Hat can do what it can do is unnecessary. The hat is tied into Hogwarts and, like with Mr. Weasley's car, the amount of magic in Hogwarts has given it the ability to do some fancy and unintended stuff. If anyone questions it, the staircases, lack of handing out maps to new students, and some of the other canon oddities are all "mutations" in that vein. Nothing more was needed. Tons of Harry Potter fics do just fine with that route, leaving room for the prose to focus more on what makes the story good.
10332575
I will have to admit that Lucious Malfoy, a dyed in the wool conservative and lieutenant of the Dark Lord himself accepting Draco as a girl does stretch the limits of believability. Never mind the schedule... If we want convenience I'm surprised young Malfoy wasn't given a pair of Ender Chests. Imagine leaving an assignment in one dorm and then going to the other dorm to call it a night. Oh no, the assignment is in the other dorm, now Malfoy has to go out of the dorm after curfew to get the assignment. !!
10332526
"worry about that"... worry about what?
10332546
There are limitations... in that she can't be automatically good at something she doesn't know how to do. But that's about it...
And yes, she's overpowered. She also spent the first ten years of her life learning that magic only came from wands, so she's going to have a lot of difficulty thinking of her Equestrian magic as anything other than levitation, even if she knows how to do X, Y, Z, and A through W with it as well.
10332575
This has actually been planned for a lot of chapters. This chapter was less about a difficulty and more about a transition... in a manner that would allow Draco/Silversong to survive, and be herself at the same time.
10332752
There was a point a few chapters back when it was stated that her power levels are in excess of literally everyone else's... which would include Princesses Luna and Twilight.
10332756
All the building on why the hat can do that was meant to be one of several clues to indicate some of the backstory to this world...
I mean, that goddess is still around.
10332774
Actually, that's essentially what she was given- just her entire trunk is the "ender chest", so she doesn't have to worry about missing schoolbooks, cauldrons, quills, ink bottles, clothes, or any of the like. The castle magic probably hid the clothes of one gender from the view of others when accessing it from the dormitory of the opposite gender...
10332877
I must have missed that. Could we be heading for dare I say it, Alicornification?
10332441
Good call. I doubt Albus has any inkling the hat has more in-the-background authority over the Castle than his.
10333037
... Nope, I can freely deny that. I'm not offering the PTs free ascension this time- they've got to earn it.
... Though, I am introducing a mechanic that will render an entire herd ageless if any one of them ascends, if only to make it so I don't have to ascend them all if I do one.
10332876
That may be, but execution is all that matters in writing. Some authors fly by the seat of their pants but manage to thrive that way.
I still say the writing felt amateurish in the same way a bad exposition dump does... like you were rushing through things "to get to the good part" despite that doing so to that degree trashes immersion and engagement. (And that revealing a goddess is one thing, but reinterpreting Godric Gryffindor to be that goddess is much more difficult to pull off in such an off-hand manner.)
10332747
What matters is not how nuts "the rules" are, rather that they are properly consistent. That's trickier for crossovers, as you need to not only adhere to the canon rules but come up with something that at least appears to make sense for the cases where they interact.
I'll admit, having Godric secretly a goddess is bizarre, but the author already decided on the gender of the hat before learning it was supposed to be based on his mind. As that fact allowed the whole "girl Draco" thing to occur smoothly (and we know he was set on that being a thing from Gate), it narrowly avoids coming across as "random change" for this issue where such would be sloppy.
10333248
This is true. And I will admit, Silversong's transition has felt a lot more klunky/rushed this time around... that's what I get for trying to rewrite her formative sequences, I guess. The reason I don't often do rewrites, any more.
Fortunately, since this rushed-ness is very specifically related to Silversong's development into Silversong, and this chapter ends with her in right about the same position as she reached at the end of The Gate... this should also end the rushed development. In my personal opinion, the next chapter holds her first true formative sequence in this story- all the earlier ones were basically trying to reformat the ones that already happened in The Gate.
10333318
Still not ideal, but definitely reassuring.
Since nobody mentioned it, Silver got her Cutie Mark. I wonder what it'll look like?
Well, the Sorting Hat certainly saw through everything, as I expected it to, but at least it was able to potentially head off quite a few issues that having split identities would cause. Either way, now the show is on the road, so to speak.
This chapter launched me out of immersion like a rocket.
It has degenerated into just another uninteresting all the characters from one side of the crossover are demigods story.
Lyre was skirting the border between Gandalf the Grey, to Gandalf the White territory way too early in this story. Which made me uninterested in Lyra within three chapters.
Then.....
The Draco/Silversong storyline was interesting until this point. Draco has launched into Mary Sue territory, and I'm not interested anymore.
Lyra, and Draco/Silversong could have been handled much better, and I've seen such interesting powerful characters done better.
Even when the character, or the OC is the favorite of a story Patron.
The argument that Draco and Silversong does not share the same parent is kind of absurd. I just don't buy it.
10335239
Technically/legally speaking, they do share the same parents, yes. Biologically speaking, Silversong has no parents... her form- and genetics- were cooked up, by magic, from nothing.
Well, you lost me right there :(
10332860
Relationships and herds. 11 is at least a year too young to be thinking about that. I think modern people also mature a bit faster (I blame the Internet), but I forget if this is set in the present or not.
10336948
This is actually set in the near future, so yeah... And yeah, they don't need to worry about that. But just like canon Ginny had a huge crush on canon Harry from first sight, just because they don't need to doesn't mean they won't...
10335612
They lost me when they said thete has been "natural development" anywhere in this story....
11323641
Yeah... There theoretically was, but it's like you noticed on the last chapter: The "rot" went so deep a simple retcon-and-resume (taking down a chapter or two, basically) wasn't going to work to save it, so I rewrote the entire thing.