Chapter 66: Ponyback Rides
"Must the Weasley Twins be the saleswizard?" asked a voice that was clearly suffering.
"Chin up," said that voice's counterpart – younger, brighter, and enjoying itself immensely. "They helped you annoy the Wizengamot by being your tomato saleswizard, so now they're going to help the Wizengamot annoy you by being your pony ride saleswizard. Completely of their own free will on both occasions, for the sake of their own amusement, at the comedic expense of the high and haughty. Would you really have it any other way?"
"Yes."
A wide smile. "Great! Just like the Wizengamot would have said to the tomatoes. I think that means it's working already."
"Now this is a fitting punishment," Augusta Longbottom said in approval as a young girl shrieked in delight.
The clock on the enchanted parchment reached 0:00 seconds, an alarm sounded, and the girl's shrieks turned to whines.
"Next up, next up," said one of the Weasley twins after Prince Excelsior teleported back from Hogwarts grounds to Diagon Alley. "You there, young lad," said the other. "Yes, you! You wouldn't happen to be going to Hogwarts next year?"
"Mister Weasley!" Minerva McGonagall rebuked from behind the boy. "We are on a schedule. Come along, Mr. Creevey. What? No, you may not… oh, very well. It is free, I suppose. If we have time at the end of the day, you may. So if you wish to ride the magical pony, we mustn't dally."
"We'll be open all afternoon!" the twins shouted after the fresh Hogwarts muggleborn admittees. "And into the evening!"
"Excluding my break for dinner," the pony reminded them.
"Right," said Fred or George.
"We'll ask Hagrid if he has some hay," said George or Fred.
The pony frowned for a moment. "Haybreath has a certain reputation amongst non-ponies," he said thoughtfully. A grin soon followed. "So while you're at it, ask Hagrid to fetch stinkbugs. Us thestrals are insectivores, you see."
"Great idea!" said Frorge.
"We'll get right on that!" said Ged.
"Sorry Ginny!"
"Looks like your turn will be after dinner."
"George!" said Molly Weasley.
"Sorry, Mum," said the twin who was apparently George.
"You'll have to wait 'til after dinner too."
"Fred!" said Molly even more sternly, and with a touch of indignation after falling hook line and sinker for the false apology.
"Ah, no worries, Mum."
"She'll get a go if she asks."
Like a few other young witches and wizards (though mostly witches), Ginevra Weasley watched enviously on the sidelines as braver children mustered up the courage to ride the magical, talking pony.
"Can I have a turn?" asked one such girl.
"Why certainly!"
"Step right up!"
Like the others, she was secured firmly in place by sticking charms, acceleration-protection charms, a wind shielding charm, a wind muffling charm, and a number of other safety and comfort spells.
"Would you like a ground ride?" asked Gred.
"Or a flight?" asked Forge.
The girl grinned. "The princess would like an air-gallop, please. Like Santa's reindeer. Prance to it now. Trot-trot."
"Er…"
"What?"
"As her majesty commands," said Prince Excelsior with exaggerated deference, and he teleported back near Hogwarts grounds.
Watching eyes moved to the repeater screens tracking the movements and sounds of pony and rider. Children gazed with longing and fascination as the pony seemed to prance across the air, no wing movements at all.
"Boring!" yawned the girl thirty seconds into her five-minute ride. Her voice had the tone of extreme aristocracy – posh, arrogant, and utterly condescending. It was convincing enough that the watchers who hadn't met her at the movie theatre, and even some of those who had, thought her self-important attitude was real. "Come, come. Certainly you can go faster?"
"I certainly can," replied Prince Excelsior in an equally posh tone. He spread his wings to catch the air, bucked a few times, and the pace picked up.
"I said faster, not slower."
"My apologies. You mean like this?" The pace picked up again, to the point where the girl's hair was whipping wildly despite the windshield charm.
She crossed her arms, not even gripping the saddle anymore. "Do you know what the word 'fast' even means? I want to actually feel something, if you would be so kind."
"If you insist." The pony bucked the air behind it, and took off at a speed that could only be measured against the passing trees as 'WAY faster than any broomstick'.
The watching crowd was now even more fascinated. And worried. An apparent daredevil had just gotten onto the back of a dangerously daring creature. Most of them, indeed none of them, have ever heard the saying, 'When you are no longer scared of speed, you can go faster.'
"Yawn," said the girl, though it was clear to some of the onlookers that she wasn't really as bored as she was pretending to be. "You haven't even broken the sound barrier," she said to the pony, patting its back for emphasis. "Even muggles can do that you know. Can you break the sound barrier?"
The pony seemed to strain, its face screwing up in concentration, wings flapping madly, legs bucking constantly. Then there was a loud sound, and a streak of gray and black trailed the air behind the pony as an explosion of rainbows spread across the sky.
"T-that's all w-well and good," said the girl, failing to maintain her overly posh tone, her words only carrying because of the (heavily strained) charms, "b-but can you r-reach outer space? Muggles c-can reach outer s-space."
As quickly as the pony had accelerated, the pony slowed with an odd warbling sound, like the air was rubbing against itself.
"One, moment," he said after coming to a complete stop, panting slightly. His horn glowed.
"Um… I take it back?"
Onlookers gaped as the sky and forest vanished. It looked as if witch and pony stood against a black void. Well, only the pony was actually standing. (The screens weren't sensitive enough, in the light of day, to capture the dim starlight.)
The girl rubbed her eyes a few times, looking around herself as if in wonder.
Then the five minute timer ended.
"It's time for her majesty to be returned to earth," said the pony.
They both reappeared in front of a wide-eyed crowd.
The girl squinted against the sunlight as she was lifted off the pony's back by a glow of magic. Her legs trembled greatly, but Fred and George supported her.
"Well done I say," said Fred, sounding completely genuine for once. "Well done."
"That was courage worthy of Godric Gryffindor," George agreed.
"No, that was thrill-seeking, not courage," she said automatically, seeming to find some amount of comfort in her ability to speak, even as her footwork failed her. "But thank you anyway."
When she exited the attraction to the area of the onlookers, she was met with awed looks from children and a barrage of questions. She selectively answered exactly one of them, and then answered the further questions about her first answer.
The sound barrier, she explained to the fascinated children and curious adults, is the speed of sound. Sound isn't instant, you see. When there's a bolt of lightning in the sky and you hear loud thunder a few seconds later, the thunder is actually the sound of the lightning. It just takes time for the sound to reach your ears. The further you are from the lightning strike, the longer it takes for you to hear the thunder, and of course the quieter it is by the time it reaches you. If you knew the right maths, you could actually calculate a lightning strike's distance based on how many seconds… never mind, she said when she seemed to be losing them. Sound moves really fast, she went on. Most living things can't go that fast. It's dangerous without magic.
Yes, she answered a skeptical questioner, muggles have reached that speed.
Well, she answered another question from the same wizard, they're protected by a muggle artifact, of course. The muggle way isn't as easy as a spell, but it gets the job done.
"Like the muggle artifact used to break Bellatrix Black out of prison," the pony behind her contributed, choosing an international incident that even foreign magical countries have heard about. "Although standard supersonic traveling devices are more powerful than that one," he added. "And not attached to broomsticks, at least when the muggles do it."
This caused a wave of even more fascinated whispers.
Outer space, the girl went on to explain, is where the stars live. It's where you would find yourself if you flew up towards the night sky and didn't stop until you couldn't see the planet anymore. It's incredibly vast and actually rather empty, so she wouldn't recommend an extended stay. Plus, the part of you facing the sun would start burning, the part of you facing away from the sun would start freezing, and you'd become a gooey mess in less than a second.
When asked how she was alive then, she said she didn't know, but if she had to guess, Prince Excelsior didn't actually take her to outer space. It was an excellent illusion, though.
Prince Excelsior refused to comment on this one.
Yes, the girl sighed in exasperation, muggles have gone there too. There are actually muggle artifacts in outer space right now, circling the planet like the moon.
"I think that's enough fairy tales for one day," said Molly Weasley, a statement which summed up the feeling of most watching witches and wizards who were not muggleborn. "Would you like your turn, Ginny? We can't stay here all day. We still need to get your school books."
"I… don't know…" said Ginny Weasley.
"You should try it," said one onlooker eagerly.
All the other nearby girls – who were a bit less brave to try themselves now that they'd seen what the pony could really do – quickly echoed the girl's words, ramping up the peer-pressure.
"It's her decision," said the girl who'd just gone, but her voice was drowned out by the rest.
Eventually Ginny relented.
"That's the spirit, dear sister!" said Fred. "Score two for Gryffindor bravery!" said George.
Despite their joking, the two twins played no games as they made sure all safety procedures were followed, and were extra careful to ask the pony that all the charms were in place.
"You've been dealing with them every day of the summer?" prompted the pony after she's been put on his back.
Any other question might have been awkward. Most conversations with the talking pony – as heard from the repeater screen from earlier riders – started awkwardly, and many stayed throughout. But at this particular prompt, Ginny merely gave an exasperated sigh. "Yes."
"Then let's get some peace and quiet, shall we?"
Ginny nodded.
Halfway through her turn – which was kept on the ground, thank you very much – a Patronus owl appeared before the Prince. It seemed to say something, but Ginny couldn't hear it, and the watching crowd couldn't hear it either.
The pony's words to the Patronus were heard, though. "Were you able to follow standard procedure?"
The Patronus disappeared, then reappeared not much later. "Yes," said the moonlight owl, its voice now being conveyed and heard. "Stasis charms are in place."
"Good," said the Prince. "Maintain them and wait for my arrival."
The Patronus disappeared.
"It would seem I am needed at the hospital," said he to Ginny. "I am afraid your turn must be cut short. It can resume when I return."
"Um… why do you need to go to the hospital?"
"If you want to know," said the Prince. "You may come with me, though you shall have to promise not to touch anything. It should not take much longer than your original turn."
Ginny's curiosity seemed to overcome her hesitation, and she agreed.
"Score three for Gryffindor bravery, I suppose." His horn glowed, and a pony-shaped Patronus appeared in front of him. "Ask Molly Weasley if I have her permission to bring her daughter on a brief field trip to the new hospital. Tell me her response, then inform Ms. Bones that the exceptional circumstance has occurred. I shall resume my standard service as soon as it concludes. When you have delivered that message, wait until Prince Horizon is alone, then tell him he is needed in all his majesty at the hospital. Garbed smartly and helmeted, if possible."
The Patronus disappeared, then reappeared with Molly's answer – an affirmative, surprisingly enough, which was likely due to the urging voices of Fred and George in the background. Once it disappeared again, he asked Ginny if she would prefer teleportation, flight, or air-trotting. (The screens failed to repeat this audio, as well as Ginny's answer.)
With her voice trembling, she said flight.
The Prince went at a reasonable pace, crossing over the Hogwarts lake to the island in the middle. The moment hooves touched land, a building unlike anything Ginny had ever seen came into view. (The screens had not followed his movements, showing blankness and the phrase 'technical difficulties' until the building was in sight.)
A muggle would have called it 'modern' architecture, though not brutalist. Pleasant curves and large glass windows where there would normally be walls were the defining features. Educated muggles might further call it 'Escher-esque'. Solid white surfaces and impossible physics were also common, with doors in strange places and stairs leading to nowhere.
Ginny looked behind herself, since the island seemed much larger than it had been on approach. She no longer saw the castle Hogwarts. Instead it seemed as though the island sat in the middle of an ocean, not a lake.
A new pony appeared in a flash of light on a circle of smooth black stone some distance away. The pony was small and white with an incredible mane of silver light. It was also dressed in a cute little suit and had a slightly scary-looking helmet.
"Hold," Prince Excelsior ordered just as the new pony was about to speak. His horn glowed briefly. "Proceed."
"Another one?" asked the pony in a boy's voice that, unbeknownst to everyone else, was not the pony's true voice. The pony blinked in surprised, hummed a bit, then said, "Ah."
"Another one," Prince Excelsior nodded.
"What was it this time?" asked the white pony.
"Unprotected exposure to adult Mandrake, less than one pace away."
"That's deadly," Ginny gasped. Her mother had warned her about Mandrake.
"It is indeed fatal," said Prince Excelsior. "The magic attacks the brain through the ears, causing instant death."
"Is it recoverable?" asked the boy pony, sounding much more worried now.
"We can only hope."
They trotted through the doors, passed auror and other magical security (again the screens showed 'technical difficulties') until they came across a hospital bed with a young witch in her twenties or thirties. There was dried blood around her ears and two healers nearby.
"Confirmation, please," he said to one of the healers.
"Vitalis Revelio." A black aura surrounded the woman.
Ginny gasped.
That meant she really was…
Then the horn of the pony she was riding began to glow, drawing her attention away.
"Hm…" said the prince. "Parts of the auditory cortex have been liquified. No other physical damage detected. Transfer her to the ritual bed, please."
The healers levitated the witch out of the room, the ponies following after. They passed door after door until they came across a raised, smooth surface covered in a white cloth and surrounded by six obelisks.
"R-ritual bed?" asked Ginny, her mind only now processing the words.
"Don't worry," said the little white pony wearing the scary mask. "The next part may look dark, but it's all good."
"Silence, please," said the grey pony. The sounds of the room dimmed to nothing, and the lights dimmed as well. "Stone, please."
A red stone floated from healer to horn. There was a brief pause. Then…
Then the obelisks gave the creepiest echo Ginny had ever heard. Other than that, nothing seemed to happen.
"The flesh of the body has been restored," said Prince Excelsior. The red stone floated back to the healers. "Defibrillator, please."
One of the healers opened a nearby cabinet and withdrew a strange-looking device. The other healer grabbed the device by hand. After rubbing two pad-things together and placing them on the witch's chest, he said, "Clear."
There was a strange sound, then the witch's body jerked, causing Ginny to gasp in alarm.
"Success," announced the wizard. He put the device back into its container. After a spellcast, he announced, "Blood is circulating. Patient has reached a persistent vegetative state."
"Looks like I'm up," said the boy pony.
"Wordless, if you can," said Prince Excelsior.
The white pony nodded. He seemed to take a stance. He moved his horn in a wide brandish, his mane glowed especially bright, and then a white glow appeared around the witch.
"It worked," said the boy pony.
"Apply the elixir of life," he said to the healers. (This part is entirely for the sake of spectacle. The 'elixir' is nothing more than a vial of water, and the effect it will have on the patient is illusion. But the watching crowd didn't need to know that. They also didn't need to know that the screen they were watching had been modified to hide certain things, like the Stone.) "Confirmation, please."
"Vitalis Revelio," said one of the healers, and a warm red glow appeared around the sleeping woman.
"Write mandrake as recoverable," said Prince Excelsior to one of the healers, who nodded. "Bring her to the intermediary bedroom," he said to the other.
Another journey through impossible geometry, going in a circle around the same pillar three times, brought them to another room, this one with multiple beds containing sleeping patients.
"Perform waking procedure," said Prince Excelsior.
The healer looked surprised, but didn't object. "Innervate."
The witch open her eyes.
The healer asked how she was feeling.
She blinked a few times and looked at him. "Pardon me?" she asked. But her eyes widened, and with a look of concentration she said, "Pardon me… pardon… paaar… doooon…"
"Try a language necklace," Prince Excelsior suggested.
The healer glanced at him, nodded, then placed a necklace around the witch.
"Can you hear me now?" asked the healer.
"Ah!" said the witch, looking relieved. "Much better. Thank you." She gave the ponies an odd look. "Are they… supposed to be here?"
"Yes," said the boy pony. "We're resurrection specialists."
"Resurrection?" repeated the witch, her forehead creasing sightly.
"What was the last thing you remember?" asked the adult pony.
The witch blinked, then her forehead creased a bit more. "Um… I was in my garden… changing my mandrake pots… an owl slammed into the glass of my greenhouse… I dropped my wand!" she gasped. "I… I…"
"You were relying only on sound charms?" asked the adult pony in a neutral tone.
"I…" the witch flushed red. "Um… yes."
"Please be more careful in the future," said Prince Excelsior. "Earmuffs are standard procedure for a reason." He tilted his head at her. "That necklace is only a temporary measure. You shall have to re-learn how to interpret the sounds you hear, I think. Or a certain lengthy procedure might work, though that would cost extra. Ignoring that, your immediate treatment is not quite done. Do you consent to a sleeping spell?"
The witch considered that for a moment, then nodded. "Yes- oh, but could someone take care of my Mandrakes? I wouldn't want my neighbors to be hurt…"
"We repotted them," said one of the healers. "But we alerted the ministry while waiting for our consultants to arrive, just in case."
"Oh, good!" said the witch, sounding relieved. "Go ahead then."
"Somnium."
Many in the audience had gaped at the wondrous architecture unlike anything they'd seen in the wizarding world, but the young girl who had spurred Prince Excelsior to supersonic speeds was the first in the audience to gasp at the sight of the new pony when he appeared on the screen. A bit earlier than that, she had audibly asked "Prince Horizon?" when Prince Excelsior had instructed his Patronus to deliver the three messages.
Her gasp drew the attention of others – it did not draw their attention to her, exactly, but to the fact that, yes, there are more ponies out there besides 'Prince Excelsior'.
Furthermore, although the screen went blank at times, it was readily apparent what had just happened. A witch who had died in a Mandrake accident had just been brought back to life.
Prince Excelsior returned to Diagon Alley with Ginny Weasley on his back, along with a pure white piece of not-parchment he picked up from the hospital on his way out. The paper's stark appearance looked almost like the hospital itself: perfectly cut and refined, as though it came from a different world. (Which, in fact, it did, as a few muggleborn and half-blood onlookers could attest to, if anybody thought to ask them.)
The pony levitated the girl to her brothers, then spoke to the crowd.
"What you witnessed," he orated in tones of a speech, "was a lucky break. Ms. Tablarosa, whom you saw on the screens, is one-hundred and thirty years old, and thus received priority on our services." He touched his horn to the white sheet, causing the screen above him to show its contents.
Philosopher's Hospital Patient Services
Reversed Age: 1% of the holdings in your Vault / Bank Account.
Maintained Life-Tracking Charm: 0.25% of holdings annually.
Revival Procedure: 2.5% of holdings.
Terms of Service…
"Up until recently," said Prince Excelsior, drawing attention back to him, "the Philosopher's Hospital has been working as a charity, curing emergency cases of imminent death. Though not yet open to the public, contracts of continued service were provided to every patient who received treatment, and Ms. Tablarosa prudently acquiesced to the terms therein. What you just witnessed, to be clear, was not charity, but part of her standard contract. Now that all urgent matters of age and sickness have been handled, we are transitioning fully to business, though we may still offer charity at our discretion.
"Starting today, the Philosopher's Hospital shall open its doors to all who know of magic. Gringotts has agreed to provide annual statements on vault holdings for all patients, though only if the vault holders provide authorization and consent. If you wish to keep your finances fully private... well, I shall let the hospital staff explain options other than the standard contract. In general, matters of life and death are charged not at fixed costs, but at fixed percentages of vault holdings, with the goal of being affordable at all levels of income.
"Cosmetic and other services are offered only at fixed costs and are not affordable at all income levels. If you want to be less fat, for instance, it will cost you 10 galleons, and it will be accompanied by a fifteen-minute informational session on the problems commonly experienced by those who take the procedure. Greater privileges are also offered, but you must be able to afford them in order to see them, much like any other business."
(It's not quite that simple – neither the reasoning behind the pricing system nor the actual implementation. Certain allowances are made for the absurdly wealthy, special treatments and surgeries that will assuage and massage their egos. It will not always be needed, but in the short term it will head off most regulatory and political stinks, especially when combined with the credible threat of a full revocation of services. Though in speeches like this, even if the matter isn't truly simple underneath the surface, you keep it simple regardless. In a world where banks store your money in a dragon-guarded vault for an annual fee – no interest, no investment, no loans, no stock markets – 'simple' is what most wizards and witches are used to, and so 'simple' is what they shall get, at least for a while.)
"More details can be learned at the hospital," he said in tones of conclusion. "The official Floo is now open on the public network under the destination name 'Stone Services'." (Again, you do not want a complicated name with lots of syllables for your Floo destination. Anything with 'Philosopher' in it would inevitably lead to a lot of mispronunciations, frustration, and wasted Floo powder.)
This caused something of a rush for the Leaky Cauldron, the closest publicly available Floo. Many complaining children were dragged along behind eager parents, leaving the Alley much emptier than it had been.
No longer were young girls clamouring for other young girls to ride the magical pony. There remained only one.
"Do you do repeat rides?" she asked.
Fred and George Weasley looked at the lack of a crowd, the lack of nervous and eager children, then looked at each other and shrugged.
"Why not, eh?"
"Be good advertisement if someone saw that again."
"That it would, George."
"You can go until someone else wants a turn."
Soon enough, the daredevil was riding Prince Excelsior once more.
"Privacy?" she asked.
"For our conversation, sure." The screens failed to repeat that, and what came next.
"So," she said. "Prince Horizon?"
"Was that a question?" asked Prince Excelsior as he bucked through the air at merely subsonic speeds.
"You seemed familiar with him," she pointed out.
"Of course I'm familiar with him," said the thestral. He grinned. "Is the princess jealous? Very unladylike."
"You mean extremely ladylike."
They both laughed.
"Can I meet him?"
"I suggest focusing on your quarry. You will meet Prince Horizon in time."
For a while, there was no more conversation between them.
Then, "Is youthism common here, or is it just that witch with the orange mane?"
"It is so incredibly common," said the pony, "that you would be hard-pressed to find any adult who does not treat children as dogs to be trained. Even if you do something incredible."
And more silence.
Then an alert, and a teleport.
Soon enough, he was ready for the next child who requested a pony ride. Her blonde hair and air of inattentiveness should have been a dead giveaway to her identity, and her father would have been a dead giveaway if he'd been present, but the pony didn't actually recognize her until she began speaking as they flew through the sky.
To pretty much everybody else in Magical Britain, if they had been watching, her words would have seemed like any other child's ramblings – vacuous, amusing, nonsensical. They'd only be exceptional in that some of the ramblings might reach the headline of tomorrow's Quibbler, if her father somehow hears of them.
To the being beneath her, those passing remarks were something else entirely.
"Tommy was the first to fly, you know," for example. And as he passed a flock of wizarding-world thestrals, "I've never had death for dinner. What's it taste like?" And most disturbing of all, after a light rap on the top of his head with her fingertips, "Same name."
Riddle has dealt with a number of eldritch horrors in his day. And this situation, despite its apparent harmlessness, reminded him of some of those occasions, in atmosphere if not amplitude. Entirely against his will, her words activated his adrenaline and spiked his stress levels and sense of danger.
This is despite already knowing her for a seer.
The day of ponyback rides certainly met and exceeded its goal of petty punishment.
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Autumn Querry strikes again. At this point, it's fairly obvious who she is, but she's still a wonderfully fun character. That said, the highlight of the chapter was most certainly Luna! I love Monroe's genuine fear at her comments. Seers and Time are such cool elements of HPMoR (Though that's not saying much: there are a lot of cool elements in HPMoR). To see one as an active member of the plot is truly fascinating. I can't wait to see more!
Reading into Luna's comments: . I can't really decipher the 'Tommy' comment, myself. While it could be something innoculous, I can't think of any characters named Tommy in HPMoR or PoP. Maybe Tommy as in Tom Riddle, as in Harry was the first to revolutionize pegasus magic? Or Monroe somehow? Not sure. The other two comments seem a bit clearer. The death one has an obvious answer: The True Patronus Charm does 'eat' death, in a way. And 'Same name' seems to be a reference to the two Riddles, since that's the only thing I can think of Riddle would consider it to be "disturbing" for Luna to know. I might be way off base here, but that's what I picked up on.
Enjoyable, thank you
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Yeah, not much I could have done to conceal it at this point. Obvious reveal will be obvious when it happens.
Anyway, I'll answer your guesses about Luna's statements if they are about previous plot points, instead of future ones. 'Tommy was the first to fly' is straightforward: one of Voldemort's most feared feats was the ability to fly unaided (i.e. broomstick bones). This is from HPMoR canon, but I've mentioned the plot point here and there in this story too, in particular by giving Harry the same enchantments. Funny how little it comes up when he's already a pegasus. *Shrugs*. As for eating death, there're multiple interpretations, and yours is one of them. Another interpretation is that Voldemort is a Death Eater. This joke was used back in the original HPMoR too. After Harry first discovers the true Patronus and destroyes the Dementor lent to Hogwarts by the Ministry for Patronus training, Dumbledore asks, "But what am I to tell the Ministry? You can't just lose a Dementor!" and the Defense Professor says, "Tell them I ate it," and Harry chokes on his Comed-Tea. The Dementor is death. The Defense Professor ate it. The Defense Professor is a Death Eater. As for the last, THAT one is the foreshadowing one that hasn't been explained yet. I'm not even sure if it can be called a puzzle; I don't think I've provided enough hints that anybody would be able to deduce the answer, and in any case the answer will be shown two chapters from now. To be honest, the line used to be slightly different, such that it couldn't have produced your guess at all. How about I just give you the original line and you can keep thinking: She raps her fingers on the top of his head and says "We have the same name."
"We have the same name" would mean her and Princess Luna.
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That it would. And therefore?
In a way, it's just like how "Boy-Who-Lived gets Draco Malfoy Pregnant!" means Harry Potter planted a seed of redeeming light in Draco. Obviously. It's easy to see it when the author points it out explicitly and you have all the context to understand, not so easy when you're some rando on the street of Diagon Alley wondering what crazy and hilarious thing the Quibbler has printed this time. Though in this case her words aren't a headline yet, just the ramblings of a poor crazy girl.
And to make matters worse, I haven't given all the context for this one yet.
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Well, if she's luna lovegood, presumably she's reminding Tom that his promises and responsibilities he's learned from her pony counterpart didn't just go away now he's been freed.
I wonder if there's any reality breaking eldritch horrors like the stuff from that game "Song of Horror" or similar. I liked that one, and it's the sort of thing that comes to mind for me when something is called an 'eldritch horror'.
"Ms. Tablarosa"
Blank slate? Nice =D
Thankfully she didn't get out of it with much more than some mild aphasia. I also liked the wealth tax on revivification. Should help keep the wealthy's holdings from ballooning too much compared to their younger relatives.
Nice pricing and anti dragon measures, using it against itself.
If Luna Lovegood is an Eldtritch Horror, can we see her having a Ball with Madame Pinkie?
The first riddle being broomstick bones was indeed easy, and the second one has multiple interpretations, but the HPMOR "death eater" joke makes the most sense.
The third one... hm. Well, let's see. First step, Luna = Luna, is obvious. Princess Luna's original name was Selena Lullay, which may or may not be relevant. She's reminding Tom of his wife, but why? She could be reminding him of his promises (are patronus promises binding like parsletongue ones?) and obligations to Equestria, or of those to his wife. I don't recall Luna ever rapping Tom on his head, and she's against that sort of thing as a teaching tool, so not that. Nor would Princess Luna wanting to ride Tom sometime produce that kind of terrified reaction, since he's already mellowing out in terms of fear of physical contact in the rehab timeline and still has plenty of years to go there. One of Luna's lessons, perhaps? The one from Rehab 9.2 about "restitution" comes to mind as one that might vaguely fit. A reminder that Tom still has a long way to go to make up for all of the harm he's done in the past.
That might also fit with the first 2 riddles sequentially - those reminding him of his time as Voldemort, before the third one reminds him of still needing to do plenty more to try to offset it.
Hm this is SOOO abusable... Take out everything from Gringott and keep it in a personal vault at home...
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At which point our resident Dark Lord repossesses the money that is due the hospital, with clauses in the contract to the effect that attempts at cleverly circumventing the clear intention of the payment system will result in penalties including that one. And/or it's a magically binding contract to ensure they don't do that in the first place. And/or if they already contain a significant chunk of wealth in the form of assets outside their vault, they sign a contract specialized to that circumstance.
Though of course, the terms of service contain the real kickers. Fun question: A muggle torturer, a love potioneer, or even a mere physically and verbally abusive parent wants to sign up for immortality. Suppose none of these are outlawed by wizards beyond a slap on the wrist. What would pony society do at this junction? Just say "Sure! We'll reverse your age, evil being on your deathbed. Now go back out there into the world and keep doing your thing," and leave it at that? Let their behavior continue indefinitely, longer than it otherwise would have?
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let their behavior continue?
How about a simple contract for, "you agree to respect other people's property as their property."?
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:)
A rare occasion, when.the firmer dark lord found something to fear. Even immortality has its limitations to assure someone