You're Being Hugged, Harry

by David Silver

19 - Light in Darkness

It was a dark room, but Harry was not alone. This was confusing at first, but the whys made sense enough. His dad wanted in on the whole flying 'thing'. So there they were, in the dark, glowing. They had a mirror to themselves to inspect their work as they worked to spread the glow evenly across their forms. This may sound simple and easy, but it wasn't either of those things!

It was like imagining your entire body. No, not a picture of your front, or your back, but imagining the entire thing, at once. Every bit of it at the same time.

"It's dark!" Arnavon landed beside Harry with a soft thump, startling him into a burst of light. "Sorry." He inclined his head at his friend, visible by Shining's continued light. "What are you doing?"

Harry refocused, starting to glow all over again. "I'm trying to learn a new magic trick. The first step is glowing all over, which you interrupted!"

"You glowed all over when I said hello." Technically, he never said that. "Can you do that again?"

"That was me bein' surprised, Arnie," laughed out Harry, sitting in the dark. "Not me trying to do something specific."

Shining was doing his best to not pay attention to the distractions in the room, but that was proving a step too far, his glow popping out entirely. "Arnavon... good to see you, but we're really busy right now."

Arnavon was not easily dissuaded. "You felt it, didn't you? When you glowed like that. Do it again."

But how did one capture that instant of surprise? Not that Harry didn't try, reaching for that moment of Arnavon's first appearance. It was... "Like my magic was trying to escape." Like he was a balloon, and the magic inside made a rush for the exit, which was everywhere.

"Hm." That was a new way of thinking about it. He was trying to spread it out like butter on toast. But maybe... "You're a clever thing, Arnie."

Arnie grinned at the praise. "Good good. I'll leave you two alone." That they were quite busy seemed obvious enough. "See you later." Light spilled into the room briefly as he escaped out into the rest of the palace.

Shining blinked softly. "It didn't light up when he came in. How did he get in here?!"

Harry laughed at the confusion. "I bet he used a window or something. Tsuki love jumping. We'll have to double check that he closed it when we turn the lights back on."

"Right right... What was that idea you had?"

Harry gladly shared the idea of being a light balloon, instead of a light toast. "So if we... explode the magic out from the center, we should get what we're after... in theory."

"Huh... Let's try that." Neither of them glowed much at first, gathering their glowing magic within their centers instead of trying to paint their outsides. But when they released the magic to explode outwards, they shone with a new radiance. It wasn't perfect, but it was so much closer. "Good thinking." Shining turned to inspect himself. "Let's practice this and maybe we can call Starlight."

---

Starlight hiked a brow at her two new students. "Already? It took me weeks to get that... Alright, show me. Glow!"

Harry gathered his magic tight with a grunt of effort, to release it in a burst of glow that encompassed his entire form instead of his horn. "You can blame Arnavon."

Starlight considered Harry, circling him to inspect the work. "Not perfect, but good enough... It takes you time, which makes me feel better. I thought you had it nailed down, but you don't. You'll have to keep practicing it until you can just flick it on and off on demand, but you're close. Shining, your turn."

Like Harry, he was batting around a B to B+ on coverage and it wasn't instant. Despite that, Starlight clapped. "That's still a lot of progress. Are you proud? You should be. Now, I changed my mind."

Harry's ears sagged. "You're not going to teach us?!"

Starlight waved that away. "Not that. I changed my mind on waiting for you to be perfect in the glow. I think we can start with what you have, and practicing with this may help the other part. So here's the deal. Normally, you gather your magic in your horn, right?" She pointed up at her glowing horn. "And you grab things with that. Basic stuff, right?" Her students nodded. That was unicorn 101. "Except your entire everything is glowing, and you're going to grab with that." With a puff of smoke, two small weights thunked to the ground on either side of her. "One for each of you. Lift with all of you, not your horn."

Harry pointed up at his horn. "We're still using our horn, aren't we?" He was fairly sure his horn was making the glow, even if the glow wasn't confined to it.

"Technically true," sang out Starlight. "But only technically. Your focus is now all over. You need to reach from there, that focus, and do things. Grabbing from everywhere is not the same as when that focus is all up here." She pointed to her pointy horn."

Harry squinted at his new equine teacher. "Can you do it?"

Starlight casually lifted into the air several inches, her hooves bobbing slowly, nothing supporting them but her full body glow. "Evidence points to yes."

Shining pointed at one of the weights. "We're more curious to see you grab something besides yourself."

Starlight dropped to the ground with a clop. "Oh fine. I haven't done this in a while..." She glowed everywhere, nice and easily. She had practice with that. "Grab!" Oh, she grabbed. She grabbed too much. She sent the weight hurtling off into the air, flung with way too much force. "Oh!" She vanished, appearing next to the hurtling weight and grabbing it, even flying. She swooped in to rejoin them. "Sorry, underestimated my strength here."

With a thump, she released the weight back to the ground. "But I did it," she proudly proclaimed. "I'll be honest with you both, there's not a lot of advantages in grabbing things with a spread focus, other than practicing having a spread focus, which is what you're doing." She wobbled a hoof between Harry and Shining. "You wanna fly? This is working towards that. But for these weights..."

She narrowed her light to her horn easily, snatching the weight up and tossing it back and forth as if she had two hands up there, easily lobbing it to and fro. "For things you can watch, the horn focus is ideal. That's the trick, you can't watch yourself, especially while flying and trying to get things done."

Shining grabbed the other weight, easy enough with his horn. "Not too heavy." He easily lifted it over his head and twirled it around. "Now I just have to do it while being a holiday light."

Harry nodded at Starlight. "Sounds like we have even more homework. Should we call you when we manage it?"

"Or if you want a new duel?" She rubbed her forehooves together. "I'm entirely up for that too... So, you know, whichever happens to come up first."

Class was dismissed, though they had learned at least something new, and got new work to do.

---

"It's not fair." Flurry was chewing on some gum, hanging out with her friends. "Bro got to bring a friend along to school, but I didn't."

Her draconic friend raised a hand quickly. "Pass."

The yak rubbed at his shaggy chin. "Not sure I want to go there either. Not sound fun."

Flurry snorted at her disloyal friends. "At least there's a friendly creature there. He's our roomate. Did I tell you about him?"

The dragon fluttered her lashes. "You're living with a boy that isn't Harry or Arnie? I want to hear about this..."

The teen male Yak laughed. "Ew."

Flurry glared at him. "We've had sleepovers before. You didn't 'ew' at them."

The yak gestured at the she-dragon. "She was always there. You with all guys."

Flurry blushed. This was true! "We don't do anything! Ugh! You are the worst!" She chased him around, both laughing, at least until she ran into the arm of her dragon friend. "Hm?"

"Story time." She casually pushed Flurry to her haunches. "Spill all the details. Is he cute, for a... whatever he is?"

Flurry crossed her arms. "Cute enough, and he's a human, Simmer. I've told you that before!"

Simmer rolled her eyes. "I didn't care that much about them when they were just being bored. Now you're sleeping with one, a guy human at that. Details!"

"Ugh, fine... His name is Ronnie. And he's gonna visit, come to think." She had fogotten all about that. "Any day now!"

Simmer grinned at Flurry's increasingly flustered state. "Check this out, Moziq." She waved at Flurry, waggling her scaled brows at their yak friend. "She's looking kinda upset."

"Am not!" She swatted at Simmer desperately, even as Moziq laughed in an uproar at the whole thing. "Sheesh!" Flurry scowled at Simmer. "He's just a friend, and you'll get to meet him." Her expression brightened. "Then you'll see. He's just a cool creature, like you two, when you're not being jerks." She rolled her eyes with that last part. "Which isn't often."

Simmer stuck out her tongue. "Ooh, the burn. Good thing we dragons are fireproof, or that mighta hurt."

Moziq had a sudden thought. "Wait. They're from that magic school, right? They do magic?"

"Yes." Flurry danced in place. "He's a schoolmate of my brother. They learn the same stuff." She swooshed a pretend wand around in her hoof. "He uses a stick like my bro loves to do, and says the funny words. But then magic, real magic, so he isn't faking it."

Moziq blew up at the fur that had come down to block his sight. "Nah. Yak not need magic. We got enough magic in here." He thumped himself on the chest. "All magic we need."

Simmer shrugged. "On principal, I'd agree. We dragons are pretty magic already. We don't need fancy magic."

Flurry heard a, "But...?"

Simmer smirked viciously. "But I wouldn't say no exactly. It looks fun, and powerful. Those are two words I happen to love, especially together. And it doesn't need a unicorn horn, which I don't have."

Flurry stuck her tongue out at Simmer. "Too bad! I got an excuse to be there, and you don't, so no magic school for you."

"Now you're challenging me." Simmer poked Flurry with her sharp talon. "You have a magic friend visiting, and your bro's right there, and you are right here. Looks, to me, like I got choices for human magic learning. I don't even need to go to that fancy school, which is boring. You said so."

Flurry colored, her own words, turned on her. "It has some good parts," she mumbled feebly. "And I'm still learning! I'm way better at pony magic." She lit her horn brightly, wings flapping. "I can give some tips on that, but no unicorn horn."

Simmer grabbed Flurry by the horn, getting a squeak out of her. "Got one. Alright, next step?"

"Stop that!" Flurry wriggled away from Simmer's grip. "You know that's not how that works, thankfully. Sheesh... Alright, alright... If you are 100% serious... The first thing you need is a wand, and I don't have one to lend to you. I've been cheating." She pointed at her proud horn. "This counts. You'll need one of your own. And I'm not volunteering to give up mine. Most of the wand makers are in the human lands, so.... That'll be tough. Oh right!" She clopped her hooves together smartly. "Almost forgot. Unicorn practice wands are 'good enough'. Not what you want to use forever, but more than enough to get started."

Moziq shook his head almost sadly. "Really? Dragon magic already good. Why trade?"

"Trade nothing. I'm collecting!" She was a dragon. Simmer knew how to collect things.

Author's Note:

Ah ha! I love Flurry's friends. Just imagine the trouble they've gotten into before now already.

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Comments

[badninja]

Hogwarts would fear if they found out dragons are intelligent. Also Hagrid would definitely think he could raise a baby dragon from Equestria.

[Booster Spice]

Oh dear, this is going to go Cannon the Simmerarian?

I mean, Dragon can have horns, claws, firebreath, tail, for pointy things? Not a good idea to try and make a wand with a Dragon Heartstring core unless its of extremely restricted class of dragons?

[Amethyst Dragonfly]

Harry laughed at the confusion. "I bet her used a window or something. Tsuki love jumping. We'll have to double check that he closed it when we turn the lights back on."

Should be

bet he used a

[David Silver]

11326712
Fixed!

[tsaukpaetra]

Heh, teenagers. One dare away from upheaving the nation!