• Published 28th Mar 2021
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Harry Potter and the Prancing of Ponies - The Guy Who Writes



Dumbledore doesn't reverse the trap he laid on the Mirror in time. The Mirror traps Harry and Voldemort outside of Time... and inside the MLP universe. MLPxHPMoR Crossover.

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Chapter 36: Humanmagi

In transfiguration, all target forms must be non-magical. You cannot transfigure magic into existence.

You can transfigure an existing magical object into a mundane form. You can even transfigure living magical creatures into mundane objects or creatures. You can turn a unicorn into a pebble, or a wand into a false tooth. But not the other way around. Magical to mundane, or mundane to mundane only.

You can't transfigure an ordinary boulder into a troll. You can create a creature shaped like a troll, that acts like a troll, but it wouldn't have a troll's regenerative magic. And given the square cubed law, you probably wouldn't be able to transfigure an actually functioning non-magical troll into existence either.

By the same logic, you shouldn't be able to transfigure yourself into a magical creature. This is why the problem of a magical animagus is hard, and not just at the level of the potion.

Mr. Tome had said that he initially expected to become a muggle animagus when he did his own meditation, not a wizard animagus, and claims that he planned to use a separate ritual to restore that muggle body's magic. He was surprised when that hadn't been necessary, and when Silver had suggested that maybe the Mirror was responsible for the seemingly happy ending, the granted wish, Mr. Tome had agreed it was possible.

Long story short, Silver would become a human wizard when he finished his meditation. Right away, without any extra steps.

The animagus potion had taken weeks to brew. Much of that time was spent literally on the backburner, but the moments that required active brewing had taken a bit of creative scheduling to manage. He and Memory often had to find time with the Time Turner. If a step of the recipe had to be done during school hours, they could find each other in between classes, find a secluded spot, teleport to the hideout, do what they had to do, use the Time Turner, then teleport back.

Now that it was done, they simply had to wait until the weekend, where they'd have two full days to perform the meditation, if necessary. They began early Saturday morning, to give themselves as much time as possible.

They told Twilight that they'd be spending the day and possibly the night with Mr. Tome, the Court Scholar, who could help them on a "difficult project". Twilight had seemed hurt, like she wanted to be their tutor, but Silver chimed in and said that it wasn't magic class homework, and it was more that they wanted a change of studying scenery than anything else, at least for one day. This had won her permission to leave for the day.

The meditation under the animagus potion's effects can take anywhere from four hours to twenty-four, depending on the size of the target form, the complexity, the transfiguration experience of the meditator, and their familiarity with the form they want to become. When they finally did begin the meditation, it would put them both in a deeper transfiguration trance than they'd ever entered, completely taking away their awareness of the outside world. The potion served two functions during this time – to allow their awareness to continue despite their changing brain shapes, giving them a sort-of out-of-body-experience, and to permanently link their final form to their original form.

Mr. Tome said about his own meditation that complexity and familiarity seemed to cancel each other out. Humans are one of the most complex animals in existence, and yet they are also the most familiar. His experience with Transfiguration resulted in a four-hour session. He predicted Silver and Memory would take around twelve hours, and his prediction averaged out to be correct – eleven hours for Silver, thirteen hours for Memory.

Mr. Book was acting as Memory's spotter, though no longer Silver's, when Harry James Potter-Evans-Verres appeared in the cave, standing upright on two feet.

And then he immediately faceplanted. Eight months of quadrupedality made him want to lean forward.

When he got over that instinct, he noticed that he was naked. Clothes aren't a part of the meditation, though apparently they could be added to the process afterwards. This was expected, and Mr. Tome had already set aside human clothes – Hogwarts robes and undergarments. Harry had to continue overcoming a lot of recent movement instincts to properly put them on.

Also, why couldn't he see anything but blurs? Oh, wait. That's right. He no longer had pegasus magic helping his vision. Would a cloud-walking enchantment temporarily turn his magic into pegasus magic to fix that? Could you even put a cloud-walking enchantment on a human?

No, that's not important. He could look into it later. For now, a transfigured pair of glasses would do. He didn't need to know his exact eye prescription level, or the precise shape of the convex glass lens that corresponded to it. Simply knowing that it was convex and thinking 'my old glasses' to himself as he pictured them as his target form did the trick.

Once that was done and he'd stuck them to his face with a charm, he stood up. He didn't immediately fall over. And not because he had broomstick bones – he didn't, as Mr. Tome warned his "new" form wouldn't, and that meant he'd have to get the procedure done again. He didn't fall because he'd very carefully paid attention to every movement. But that wouldn't do.

It took over an hour to instinctively get used to being a human again – standing upright, walking, running, jumping, using fingers. Even after he could do all those things without thinking too hard, he still felt very rusty. But he could afford no more time to practice. He'd remastered the basics, and that would have to do. He had something important to accomplish, and it would best done as soon as possible.

First he cast his Patronus, although the finger gestures took a few attempts to get right. Then, Patronus active, he checked his hair.

Still normal.

So he wouldn't have to worry about magical traits transferring from form to form. If he self-actualised as a pony and got the glowing astral mane, his human form's hair would stay normal. And that implied...

"Equinum Revelio."

Nope. Not enough magic for that, even though the spell was easily doable as a pony. So it is their forms that're more powerful after all, not their environment.

He turned his attention back to his active spell, the shining silver humanoid. He willed it to take different shapes. A ball of light. Different geometric forms, a cube, a pyramid, a cylinder. An amorphous mist. He tried animals next, but that failed. After a bit of experimenting, he found that the only non-human life form it would adopt was that of a pony Alicorn. It was the default shape when he cast the spell as a pony, so it wasn't surprising.

He let it go back to human again, then decided to finally just get on with his plot.

"Have you memorised the gestures to the Patronus charm?" he asked aloud.

Mr. Tome, who had been watching with detached interest, answered, "No."

"Why not?"

"After multiple examples of 'happy' thoughts were described to me, I knew it would be futile. I never understood how positive interactions with others could bring about happiness within oneself. Not until you came along. Even then, those rare instances of enjoyment could hardly be called happy by my once-tutor's standards. Your defeat of the journalist and the dementor might have encouraged extreme amusement within me, but not happiness."

Harry had been expecting this as one of many potential responses. "Does that mean you've given up on trying to acquire that kind of happiness?"

Riddle's eyebrows furrowed. "I think my time spent as Alexander Chernyshov should answer that question."

"But if it were possible, you'd still prefer it? If for no other reason than to cast the Patronus charm?"

"Perhaps." His voice grew flat. "Where are you going with this, Mr. Potter? I hope you are not about to suggest something stupid."

Harry shook his head. "I'm going to teach Hermione the Patronus charm once she has fingers again."

That being the reason he hadn't tried to teach it yet. Without fingers, he couldn't teach it because she couldn't learn it. As a spell that involves finger gestures, not just wand movements, even if she'd already memorised the gestures as a human, she wouldn't be able to cast it with only a hoof because she never successfully did it as a human. In order to activate whatever mechanism allowed them to cast finger-intense spells as ponies, they had to have made at least one successful cast as humans.

There was also the fact that Memory wasn't an Occlumens yet, and he wasn't going to tell her the secret of dementors until then. Though she is almost ready. She's been progressing very quickly due to an advantage discovered in their unique circumstances.

Harry's Legilimency skills are currently very sloppy. Once he learns perfect Legilimency, his probes will be automatically undetectable to a non-Occlumens. But until then, as a learning Legilimens, he will make easily detected probes.

On Memory's side, step one to learning Occlumency on a practical level had been to detect Legilimency probes.

It was truly lucky that those two circumstances overlapped.

That's why Silver Wing/Life, not Riddle Tome, has been reading Memory Sunshine's mind during her Occlumency lessons.

All three ponies preferred it. Silver didn't want Mr. Tome reading Memory's mind, Memory herself didn't want Mr. Tome reading her mind, and Mr. Tome would rather be doing other things with his time.

Silver didn't agree to have himself Obliviated after each session, but he did agree to have his memories locked until she was ready to talk about the private things he'd seen. Or until the True Memory Ritual was invented, at which point he'd be using the spell on himself and remembering them anyway. Plus, according to Memory, he wasn't doing the best of jobs at reading her mind in the first place. She might just let him keep the memories as soon as she comes to emotional terms with what he's seen.

Memory had taken almost no time at all to notice his intrusions, which jumped her ahead of his historical learning speed by two full months, but she was having trouble with the 'pretend to be someone else' part, which set her back a few weeks. She'd read the introductory books quickly and she performed the preliminary exercises exactly as they were described, but she was having a great deal of trouble actually pretending to be another person. In her words, it felt like lying. But she was getting better, and at a much faster rate than he had. Mostly by trial and error, and by conceiving of Occlumency as 'playing pretend'. Also, she's about year and a half older than he was when he first learned, and age/mental maturity helps.

Once she does put up a barrier of pretended personality, which should be in a few weeks, if not days, and once she does have fingers again, which should happen within a few hours at most, she'll be ready to learn the secret of Dementors and the true Patronus Charm.

"Do not tell me you truly believe I could learn it alongside her," Mr. Tome said with no small amount of ridicule.

"I truly believe you can learn the gestures," Harry replied. "I believe you will be able to recognize the 'wrong' feeling you'll get whenever you try a happy thought that doesn't work. I also believe you're willing to work on problems for decades without giving up, and without making the same mistakes over and over again. Continue the process long enough, and you might be able to learn the Patronus Charm. If nothing else, it's like you said. A Patronus can send instant, unforgeable messages. Don't you want that military advantage?"

"It is not a matter of desire or effort dedicated," said Mr. Tome. "I would have learned it otherwise. It is impossible."

"The headmaster said that you were more Slytherin than Salazar, grasping at any and all advantages, adding any power you see to your own. Are you really going to ignore this one just because you think it's impossible?"

There was a very long pause in the cavern.

"Plus," Harry added, "I can think of another problem this would solve. According to what the Dragon General said after the incident in the forest, I'm guessing you're not good at faking memories about emotions you don't feel yourself. Back in April, you proved you can make a non-violent person like Hermione plausibly believe she felt angry enough to kill. But in May, you couldn't make the Dragon General plausibly believe he felt genuinely guilty in his false memory." Harry gestured his head at the meditating almost-human. "She was convinced, even though it's a memory of an emotion that's really foreign to her. Even afterwards, after several authority figures told her the memory was false, she still had a hard time accepting it. But the Dragon general wasn't convinced by his own false memory of guilt, and he didn't even need much prompting to see it. All he needed to hear was that the memory might have been false, and he saw it on his own. You can't create false memories of guilt because the emotion is foreign to you. Don't you think that's a problem?"

Mr. Tome shook his head. "The Dragon General's skepticism could just have been a result of my haste. I was pressed for time when I crafted his false memory, as you witnessed. Furthermore, your noble friend is not especially susceptible to that charm. Common idiots are arrogant about their own mental capacities. They implicitly believe they are immune to being tricked, immune to misremembering the past. They do not tend to distrust their own thoughts. The Dragon General is not arrogant in that regard. Your friend is. Her case is exceptional only in that her confidence has been earned, unlike typical idiots. She did not have experience distrusting her own memories, since they had served her so well in the past. But that worked against her."

"I won't deny any of that," said Harry. "But do you think your experience with anger and your inexperience with guilt had nothing to do with it? If a plot required somebody to remember a genuinely happy false memory, or a loving memory, do you think you could pull it off without a hitch, the suspect none the wiser?"

Mr. Tome tilted his head. "Perhaps not." He locked gazes with Harry. "You believe the remedy to this flaw in my abilities is the process of learning how to cast the Patronus Charm?" He glanced at Memory, still lost in her Animagus meditation. "Ansswer honesstly."

"Yess," Harry hissed. "I believe you will make better memory charmss if you learn the Patronuss."

Mr. Tome's gaze left Memory, satisfied that she had not heard. "Then I will think about what it might take for me to learn it. If-" he spoke without break from the previous sentence, as if to emphasise the conditional nature of the statement. And then he paused dramatically.

Harry waited helplessly.

"-you think about learning the Killing Curse," Mr. Tome finished.

A pit formed in Harry's stomach.

"If you learn the gestures and pronunciation, I will do the same. If you successfully cast the curse, I will make a genuine effort at the charm in turn. That is fair, is it not?"

Harry wanted to say no. He wanted to refuse. But...

For those two different spirits cannot exist in the same world!

...but the device carefully crafted by the Atlanteans to not destroy the world might not release them until their spirits were similar enough that they could coexist.

If he had to become more like Mr. Tome to ensure that Mr. Tome became more like him, then so long as he didn't throw away his ethics along the way, so long as he only practiced against non-sapient creatures...

"I sshall try to learn the Killing Cursse if you promisse to learn the Patronuss Charm upon my ssuccesss. And you musst alsso promisse not to quit until you ssucceed, after you sstart."

"Agreed. The bargain iss sstruck."

He would gladly pay that price.


A/N: Minor point: I think the Tom Riddle from HPMoR would have already attempted to learn the Patronus charm. At the very least, I think he would have memorized the gestures. It is said multiple times that he "can't" cast the patronus charm, implying that he tried to cast it at some point in the past and failed. In that sense, the scene is slightly OOC. But then again, it's plausible that he didn't, and it's never explicitly mentioned.


The reverse meditation took far less time than the initial one. Only a few minutes.

Learning how to do the Animagus transfiguration while wearing clothes, so that they would not be naked whenever they wished to be human, took much longer. But even that was done, at which point...

"What?" Harry and Hermione asked, both currently in their human forms.

"You recall that I already did this for Ms. Memory upon her revival," Mr. Tome reminded them, currently in his pony form. "Now I would do it for your human forms as well, to hedge against things which might kill you."

"But-" said Hermione, "but you can't do that! Unicorns are people!"

"The other side's unicorns are not," said Mr. Tome, sounding very dry indeed. "Nor are trolls."

"But those unicorns are innocent! And pure! And- and-"

"And they are not sapient," Mr. Tome finished her sentence for her. "Furthermore, I shall only be sacrificing clones. Mr. Potter, would you like to go first?"

"Um... not before Hermione's okay with it." Harry turned to face her.

"Harry, this really feels evil."

"Hermione, think about it. If we're sacrificing clones, we're not sacrificing the originals. If the sacrifices even have thoughts in the first place, they aren't the kind of thoughts that would give them enough moral weight to demand we not kill them. I know you're not a vegetarian, so you're not above using the deaths of non-sapient creatures to your own benefit. There shouldn't be a moral conflict, logically speaking. These kinds of super-powers would help you win if you fought another troll."

"All the books said that to slay something innocent to save yourself is a dread act," she quoted. "You'd only live a half-life from then on. I am not fine with that."

"Those side-effects only happen when you consume unicorn blood," Mr. Tome refuted. "Magic deems that as theft, a parasite stealing the vitality of an innocent creature. This ritual imposes a true transfer of life, adding their magic to yours as if you were born that way. There are no side effects, as you have already witnessed first-hand. As I said, recall that I have already done this ritual for your pony form. As our magical natures do not transfer from form to form, it now must be re-done. And, as I said, we shall not even use the originals."

Hermione seemed very reluctant. "I still don't like it. But if you're only sacrificing clones, okay."

The thestral took out multiple false teeth, then got to work. First came the cloning ritual.

"What are those?" Hermione gasped, taking a few shocked steps backwards.

"Ursa minors," Harry answered. The spectral bears of the same species that had once attacked Ponyville looked far more peaceful when sleeping. "Magical grizzly bears, essentially. But what do you need them for?"

"Unlike the cloning spell," Mr. Tome lectured, even as his attention seemed focused on his work, "the cloning ritual requires sacrifices. Magic can clone mundane objects and animals with little trouble. In order to clone a magical creature or device, another creature or device must be sacrificed. And, as with the Gemino charm upon which this ritual was based, the created clone turns to ash soon after, providing only minutes of use. It is rarely useful for that reason alone. Unless you use the stone of permanence, of course."

It took a full three rituals for Harry to see the possibilities.

"Wait, if this ritual can copy magical devices, is it possible to clone the stone?"

Mr. Tome finished cloning the troll a final time, then turned his sights on the unicorn. "The ritual has declined all devices I have offered as sacrifices thus far."

"Why? Is the stone the most magically powerful object in existence?"

Mr. Tome shook his head. "The cloning ritual is particular about devices. I have tried objects more magically powerful than the stone, but those were rejected as well. Compared to the original object, the sacrifice must be equal or greater. In the case of the stone, I suspect that refers to age, complexity, function, or something else other than raw power. We likely must find a device equally as ancient as the stone, or equally as complex. Or if the stone is based on truly simple principles, we must sacrifice something equally elegant in its simplicity. In short, we require a greater understanding of the stone itself. Although if you are truly impatient about the prospect of getting more stones, I suspect your cloak would serve as a sacrifice, as might the Sorting Hat. That is the level of device we shall likely have to sacrifice for another stone. Though of course I don't know for certain."

Harry took only a second to decide that he should walk over to his saddlebag, pull out his cloak, and offer it-

"Furthermore, clones of the stone might not be permanent, since the stone itself would be the target, and the ritual might object to that recursion."

-but that second's hesitation was enough for Mr. Tome to keep talking, and for the idea to be shot down.

As much as it pained him to admit it, he would not permanently sacrifice an ancient magical device for the chance at another stone, regardless of the countless lives at stake. He could see a creative way to possibly avoid the recursion problem if they had two ancient and powerful devices other than the stone, but not one.

And now that he thought about it, he didn't know the cloning ritual. Mr. Tome was doing it wordlessly. That meant it was ultimately up to Mr. Tome to accept or reject any offered sacrifices. Mr. Tome would probably refuse to sacrifice the Deathly Hallow, even if it was guaranteed to make another stone.

"Ready," said Mr. Tome, sounding slightly winded. "Ms. Granger shall go first."

After Hermione's fusions were done, and it was Harry's turn...

"Hold on," said Harry. "Hermione, do you think you could turn off that aura of innocence and purity? It's kind-of distracting."

"Um..." said Hermione. "I didn't know I had it. I'm not sure if it can be turned off." She looked at her pearly-white fingernails, glowing slightly in the dark cavern. She nibbled them, to no avail. "Did either of you consider that this might make our lives more inconvenient?"

"Unicorn herders have means of shaving alicorn," said Mr. Tome. "I doubt it will be a problem. But Mr. Potter makes a good point about the aura. I think we should refrain from adding unicorns to our own selves until you learn how to turn it off. It should be possible. Your new nails and teeth are likely permanent, however."

Hermione sighed. "Well, at least now when somepony says I'm an alicorn, I can't complain that they're mistaken by wizard standards. Wait, if you did this to my pony body, why don't I have the aura as a pony?"

"Likely due to the fact that it was consumed to make you an Equestrian alicorn," Mr. Tome answered. "Speaking of, you two never did go into much detail. Was the event inconvenient?"

"Yes," said Harry, at the same time Hermione said, "No."

"Well, parts of it are inconvenient," continued Harry. "Especially the process itself. We were taken to this place called the astral plane, and Celestia was there, and she said we had to view our past memories if we wanted to become full alicorns, so we declined to go further."

"Does that mean you shall forever be half-alicorns?"

"No, we can go back to the astral plane any time we want. I tested it a while back, and it wasn't difficult. I could even make my memories entirely concealed in big files, like on a computer. The only problem is that Celestia has to watch the memories too. That's why we refused."

"I see. Well, I believe I have recovered enough magic for your rituals, Mr. Potter. First we shall add the magical nature of troll to your human form, then to your pony form. I shall do my own rituals privately."


"Aw crap," said Harry Potter, standing well away from Tom Riddle, both in their human forms.

"Indeed," said Riddle Tome, thestral once more, ridding them both of the sense of doom.

The resonance wasn't gone after all.

"It seems we shall have to be diligent not to be humans in close proximity to each other. And I shall have to do all your rituals with myself as a pony."


Aftermath: The Royal Palace

The knock on her door woke her from sleep. She checked her clock and saw that it was about an hour until sunrise. She yawned. Rolled over in her bed. It could probably wait.

The knock came again, followed by, "Tia?"

She opened the door with her magic. "Lulu? Has something occurred in Night Court?"

Her sister shook her head. "Something strange has happened. May I come in?"

"Of course," Celestia said gently, brightening her room's lights and welcoming her sister to the sofa. "What is it?"

"I was called to the astral plane."

Celestia felt her eyes widen. Another ascendancy? "May I ask whose?"

"That is the strange part. Tia, the plane was empty."

"Empty?"

Her sister nodded. "I found no pony, and when I finally located memory lane, the windows were like blank parchments."

Celestia considered this, trying to resolve the conundrum in her mind but finding no path that led to less confusion.

"That is strange," she said eventually. "Perhaps something stopped our newest peer from ascending. Did the plane differ from yours in any way?"

Her sister's eyebrows furrowed. "Yes. The memory lane was rather large, filled with many parchments."

"Hm... perhaps it belongs to an older pony with many memories," Celestia speculated. "Anything else?"

"The stars of the plane were less luminous than mine, though they were far more numerous. Uncountably so."

Celestia got a sudden premonition. But she didn't want to give away her guess. Just in case it was wrong. "Lulu, did this happen in the middle of a petition?"

Her sister shook her head. "You know my Court has seen no pony since Sparkle."

"Were you alone in the room then?"

Her sister repeated the headshake. "Riddle Tome was there. He could confirm that I vanished for a time, and not in the fashion of a usual teleport."

"Did he say what he did while you were gone?"

"He immediately informed the guard of my vanishment. I am told there was something of a stir at my sudden disappearance. The guards detained my fool under suspicion of his being responsible. I had to retrieve him from a holding cell afterwards. They shall hesitate to make that mistake again."

Celestia sighed to herself. It wasn't him, then.

The mentor of Silver Wing, she'd thought, might have a similar-looking astral plane to that of his pupil. His nocturnal sleep schedule would also have encouraged Luna to aid his ascendancy instead of herself.

So much for that guess.

"I shall initiate a national inquiry," Celestia assured her sister. "If any Equestrian over the age of eighteen has experienced a change to their cutie mark in the past week, we shall be informed of it... perhaps by the end of the month. Hopefully sooner."

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