“Ready for a new year?” Professor Dumbledore asked cheerfully, once the last professor in the school had entered the staffroom. It was time for the annual school preparation meeting, before breakfast on the morning after the letters went out.
Professor Snape glanced at the empty seat that had held a different person each year for the last four decades. “I notice we’re still short a Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor,” he began.
“Ahh, yes,” Dumbledore chuckled. “I thought you’d notice that. Professor Quirrell will be rejoining us this year as such- but he won’t be arriving until early August.”
Professor McGonagall scowled in response. “Even though he has to know what happens?”
Dumbledore shrugged. “I’m sure he, like all forty before him, believes he will be the one to change that. And it remains to be seen whether he actually will, does it not?”
McGonagall sighed. “I don’t suppose he told us when he wants his schedule, did he?” she asked.
Dumbledore smiled. “He tells me he’ll take whatever we have to offer. Lemon drop?”
McGonagall ignored the offer and let out a sigh of relief. “Good. That last one was a headache. Anyone have any new scheduling preferences?” She glanced around the room.
Heads shook.
She finished with a short nod. “Excellent. I’ll have the class schedules distributed as soon as we’re done.”
There was a palpable feeling of relief in the air at those words. Usually, and especially the prior year, the DADA instructors tended to be very specific… and didn’t seem to like settling on one thing.
Dumbledore chuckled. “Alright. We’ve also got our materials budget from the Ministry this year- and Quirinus has already opted out. We have forty-two galleons and eighteen knuts for general classroom supplies…” He looked up at Professor Snape. “And only sixty-three galleons, four sickles, and two knuts for potions supplies.”
Right as Snape wrinkled his nose, the door opened to admit the caretaker.
“Ahh, Argus,” Dumbledore greeted. “Glad you could join us. Anything to add?”
Filch looked up at him, looking slightly perplexed. “Huh? Yeah. The usual… then, does anyone know where all the owls disappeared to?”
There was silence for almost two full seconds.
“Come again?” Dumbledore asked.
“Not that I’m complaining,” Filch added quickly. “It’s been years since I could clean the place properly. Only, as near as I can tell, there’s not a single owl left in the castle. Where’d they all go?”
McGonagall scowled. “The letters should have been sent out to the students yesterday,” she muttered doubtfully. “Would that…?”
Filch shook his head. “No, that’s only ever two hundred and fifty letters or so, and we’ve got just over six hundred owls. Plus, most of ‘em are usually back by now.”
As usual, it took a couple of days before the first attendance note and accompanying letter was delivered to the staff table at breakfast. Professor McGonagall always thought it inconvenient that muggle mail would often take a couple of days to deliver their letters. She let out a small sigh as she accepted the note and letter from the house-elf, then unfolded the note.
Dumbledore watched her curiously as she did so. He was always curious when it came to the students; she was unsure if it was healthy for him… or them, for that matter.
Finally, she spoke. “Just one,” she told Dumbledore gravely, “but she’s homeless.”
There was a collective groan at those words. Homeless students, and otherwise muggleborn students that couldn’t pay their own way into college, had to fund their education through Hogwarts- which meant cutting into the school budget really wherever they could. Additionally, homeless students simply didn’t receive mail- meaning, her appearing to them was usually their first word from Hogwarts.
“Where’s she at?” Dumbledore asked.
She looked back down at the note, and read the rest of the information on it. Then, she tilted her head. “She’s… in Diagon Alley? That… that makes no sense.”
Dumbledore scowled, rubbing his chin. “Huh. Maybe she found it on her own? Well, you should probably find her before she gets hurt.”
She nodded, and got up to head out immediately. Homeless wizards were not unheard of- and in the only three cases in which they were school-age, two of them were in Diagon Alley for only a few days before taking the wrong turn down Knockturn… and meeting an unfortunate end.
One Hour Earlier…
Tom was still yawning when his first muggle-side customers of the day arrived. When he looked over at them, he had to raise an eyebrow. One of them, he recognized- there was no way he’d forget that strange, white and light blue hair. The girl- Lyra- couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen years old, but that didn’t stop her from visiting frequently over the last couple weeks. While she usually sat in a corner booth to read or chatted with his more regular customers, she never purchased anything. She’d told him once that she didn’t have any wizard money.
This time, she had another girl with her. This girl’s hair was very dark blue, with twinned pink and purple stripes running down the middle. She also looked part curious, and part nervous- as different from Lyra, who had first come in slightly cautious but very curious, and now marched in just like everyone else.
Which reminded him. There had been that one time when she’d tried striking up a conversation with a grumpy old wizard that was passing through. Tom didn’t know who he was, but he must’ve decided to take her home. He’d seized her arm… and then, with a brilliant flash of greenish white light, she had disappeared. He had disapparated immediately afterwards, avoiding the wrath of several other wizards throughout the pub… then Lyra had walked in again no less than five minutes later, and cheerfully informed him that her failsafe had worked flawlessly.
She trotted up towards the bar, pausing only once to help her friend keep her balance. “Hey Tom!”
He nodded graciously. “Mornin’, Lyra. Got a friend today?”
“Yup!” She patted her friend on the shoulder. “Meet Twilight Sparkle, soon to be Hogwarts student!” She made it sound like an achievement.
Twilight rolled her eyes. “Among how many others?”
She tilted her head. “We’ve got… almost three thousand, so far?”
“Three thousand?” Tom asked.
“Yup. Must be a big school.”
“Ahh…” Tom muttered. “They normally have a total attendance of about two hundred and eighty students.”
The two girls looked at each other, then back at him. “I hope they know what they’re getting into, then,” Lyra informed him. “Either that… Yeah. There’s a post office in Diagon Alley, right?”
He nodded.
“Good. Then we can stop at that post office to contact the school. If they’re not going to be able to handle us all, the sooner we catch their rogue addressing spell the better.”
“Rogue addressing spell?”
Twilight nodded. “It’s a form letter generated by a spell, probably from a list of eligible students.” She looked at Lyra. “We could probably pass it off as a spell error, and tell the country that they hadn’t intended to send nearly so many invitations. Wouldn’t make po- people any happier, but it’d at least prevent a riot.”
Lyra nodded. “True. But I’d like to talk to the school before we start making any proclamations.” She turned to Tom. “Any chance you could help us through to Diagon Alley? We don’t have wands where we’re from.” She glanced at the door to the Alley. “And I’m not sure which brick to tap, either.”
He chuckled, and stepped out from behind the bar. “No problem.” He led them into the little courtyard. “Remember: Three up, two across.” He tapped the brick.
“Creative,” Twilight mused, as the archway opened.
“If you’ve got money to change, you’ll be looking for Gringotts- thataway, you can’t miss it.” He gestured in the direction of the bank. “Other than that, you should be able to find everything on your list in the shops on Diagon Alley, and not on any of the connecting streets. For that matter, you’ll want to avoid those connecting streets, for safety.”
Lyra shrugged. “If someone tries to hurt us, we’ll just find ourselves back home. But yes, I’d rather avoid that kind of interruption to our shopping trip.” She led Twilight through the portal. “Well, we’ll see you on our way back through, then. Thank you!” She waved, and as the portal started closing, the two girls headed towards Gringotts and Tom back into his pub.
One of the tellers at the Gringotts Bank looked up as a couple of humans approached his counter. They had both decorated their hair rather extensively, but he didn’t really care that much about humans. No goblin did- the Treaty may protect the goblins, and bind the wizards to providing for them, but it also bound them to providing banking and currency to the wizards. Fortunately, their pride in the indomitable nature of their bank was growing rather more rapidly than their resentment for the arrangement, preventing another war. If there was one thing Banlor disliked more than humans, it was war.
The human with the blue and white hair spoke up first, as they stopped.
“Good morning,” it greeted cheerfully. “You… don’t happen to have an exchange rate already set for Equestrian bits, do you?”
He shook his head. He prided himself in being one of the only goblins to have memorized the exchange tables. He still checked them whenever he had to do something with anything other than wizard gold or British pounds, just to be sure he had the right number, but he could recite the whole thing off the top of his head. It never changed, after all- engraved in stone and everything. “No,” he said simply.
“Alright then,” the human continued. “Where would we go to negotiate one, or would we be better off selling it as gold bullion?”
“Gold… bullion?” he asked slowly.
It nodded, and dropped a couple small gold coins on his counter. “Yeah. Pure gold, nothing all that special about it.”
He lifted one of them up to peer at it closely. It did appear to be pure, elemental gold… and the human was wrong, the coin had a simple reinforcement spell on it to allow it to tolerate heavy impacts and pressure. It didn’t look like a very hard spell to break. “Huh,” he muttered. With gold this pure, it would be very easy to make wizarding coins out of it… but even wizard gold wasn’t this pure, making any reverse conversions nearly impossible. “You will have to take it to our appraiser,” he told the humans, and returned the coin to the others. “I will call someone to take you to him.” He turned on his seat. “Griphook!”
The goblin appraiser, Nurluff, inspected the golden coins placed in front of him by the two human girls. “You want to… negotiate a currency exchange with these?” he asked. It looked like they were made of elementally pure gold worth about fifteen sickles apiece by materials.
“Yes, please,” the blue-and-white-haired one, who had introduced herself as Lyra Heartstrings, said. The other- Twilight Sparkle- watched in an uneasy but almost authoritative manner, yet had not spoken. “We should only need a one-way conversion, from Equestrian Bits to Wizard Gold, for now. I expect a conversion in the other direction won’t be required for at least… oh, ten years or so, likely longer.”
“Very well,” he agreed. “How about…” He looked at the coins. “Two bits to the galleon?”
Twilight tilted her head, but Lyra spoke. “It was seventeen sickles to the galleon and twenty-nine knuts to the sickle, right?”
Twilight raised her eyebrows.
He nodded.
“That’s…” Twilight muttered slowly, then nodded. “Yes, that’ll work. One galleon for two bits.”
“Very well,” he stated again, as he started scribbling on his forms. He really liked that phrase. Finally, he turned it around and held out the quill. “Alright, sign here and the rate will be set,” he informed them.
Twilight leaned forward, accepted the quill… then, unlike so many other annoying humans, she actually read the document before she signed it. She blinked in apparent surprise when an unfamiliar but official-looking seal appeared on the page next to her signature.
When it did, he raised an eyebrow. He had not expected the magic to recognize her as having the authority to negotiate exchange rates- but it had. As he accepted the parchment back, he glanced at the royal seal of… Equestria, it looked like- and where the magic had also printed her name underneath her signature, as Princess Twilight Sparkle. He raised his other eyebrow slightly, then let them both down again. “Alright, the rate is set. Are you going to want to perform an exchange today?”
“Ah, yes,” Lyra told him.
He pulled out another form, filled it out, signed it, and activated the dated validity spell on it. Finally, he folded it up and handed it to them. “Present this to any teller for currency conversion until midnight tonight, after which it will not be necessary.”
Professor McGonagall was very strongly thankful, as she walked down Diagon Alley, that she did not need to waste minutes of time and hours of discomfort forcing herself into muggle clothing to meet a muggleborn that was already in Diagon Alley. On the other hand, she was really hoping the girl hadn’t found Knockturn yet- and was scanning down both sides of the street as she hurried along. The description was somewhat vague, but it said she had two-tone white and light blue hair… which should be at least moderately easy to spot.
Very suddenly, she stopped, and turned to look back at Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlor.
Yes, there she was. She had nearly missed the girl, because the colors in her hair were so bright they looked unnatural- she hadn’t recognized that it even was hair, at first.
Then of course, the girl wasn’t doing anything that normal homeless kids do: She was pouring over a piece of parchment with a friend and an ice cream cone. Her friend- whose deep blue hair, decorated with twinned pink and purple stripes down the middle, also looked unnatural- had a quill and an ice cream cone as well.
She started back towards them, rechecking the description in her memory. Yes, it matched this girl. She’d have to ask about the name, but she rather expected she had the right person.
The girl looked up as she drew close. “Can I help you?” she asked. Then she tilted her head.
Her friend looked up as well, placing a hand over their parchment.
McGonagall smiled softly. “I’m looking for Lyra Heartstrings?” she asked.
The girl straightened up in her chair. “That’s me,” she informed her calmly, cautiously. “Do you need something?”
“Ah, yes,” she informed Lyra, drawing the girl’s letter from her pocket. “I have a letter for you.” She held it out to her.
Her eyebrows shot up at the mention, then she accepted the letter wordlessly. It took her mere seconds to open it and unfold it- then she let out a laugh and put it down. “I was wondering where it had got to,” she mused. “I opened the door, then everyone else started getting letters.” She looked up at her. “And you don’t happen to be Professor McGonagall, do you?”
Why isn't On the Implications of Parallel Worlds popular anymore, and where can I read it and The Gate?
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Why isn't it popular anymore? Because it was cancelled, just like The Gate before it, over two months ago... and it hasn't gotten much activity since. That said, it has gotten some.
As for where to find them... they're both on my profile somewhere. As a matter of fact, it looks like they've both been linked automatically under the "Similar" listing! No, I will not be taking them down. OtIoPW, Gate.
Third times the charm?
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Yes, I hope so at least.
I like your profile pic, by the way.
It's interesting to see the refinement to the idea, especially the beginning of it, from story to story.
Ok a rarity in that this set post season 3, meaning Twilight has full princess authority as the goblins discovered. I am curious if your going with "ponies appear younger as humans" or "ponies are adults by their preteens" to explain why they appear to be kids.
I do noice you have the common "lack of description" issue(I've see much worse with people who write nothing but dialog), with very little detail given and no real mood setting text. You'll need to work on that. Don't write like it's a script, tell what things looks like, what's going on in more detail, expand the vocabulary you use to help set the mood remember the reader can't see what you envision with out help.
Am looking forward to more.
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Sorry, I'm working in an environment I've written many times, so it's tedious to describe it yet again... And, frankly, that really only happens with places like Diagon Alley and other places with rich text in the books.
We'll probably start seeing finer descriptions when I start getting into areas where I'm able to invent my own environment, rather than re-using that which was described in the source material.
As for the age thing, I'm going with a different and slightly more complicated system that was described in On the Implications of Parallel Worlds- and will likely be described in depth later in here.
Ooh! Great start, and I can't wait to see what you have in store for us!
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It is, isn't it?
Hopefully, this'll be the last time.
I hope this doesn't mean that you've given up "On the Implications of Parallel Worlds."
Dreadnought
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Realize you have reasons to skip over descriptions of certain locations but that's a mistake, you don't need to go into every little detail but the other extreme of absolutely no description at all? You don't need a paragraph just a sentence. Like how Gringots has tall ceilings, marble floors and desks are tall so the goblins can loom over the much taller humans. how Diagon Alley is crowed with wizards shopping and street vendors trying to get thier attention. Descriptions don't need to be precise just a vague enough to convey the atmosphere for those not familiar with Harry Potter and a reminder of the feel of the place for those who are.
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I tend to be a lot more passive with my minor descriptions... But sure, I'll look into it.
10829603
Unfortunately it does.
OtIoPW still has a couple chapters to go live, but after several months of struggling to get anything down at all, even before the extra difficulties arose (the ones that are why I went on hiatus for a month or so), I realized that- because it abandoned its own outline very early on- it had quickly written itself into a corner... and I would have to go back as far as the beginning of the first year in order to correct that. This is my doing exactly that, alongside some adjustments that make the ponies slightly less overpowered- and I should be able to make a number of things more realistic... while also introducing a number of extra factors to make it less realistic, which ought to be fun.
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Thank you. The pic was done for me by a friend as a surpize gift back in 2005.
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You're quite welcome. That friend is an artist.
I have not read your previous two stories, so I cannot comment on differences between those and this one, but based on what is here, I am curious about what you have planned. The premise is an interesting one, your writing is excellent, and I look forward to seeing where it goes from here.
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I leave it up to you if you want to gain a whole bunch of spoilers by reading through the other two. Especially with their sometimes cringe-worthy (compared to my modern writing, at least) early chapters...
Unless she’s pouring ice cream over it, you want “poring” there.
Wait, that's a new story? Again?
Curses are meant to be broken, or so they said about DADA
Philonoma: "I'll have two big beef patties, and some sauce. Hold the bread please".
Well, it _is_ an order .... :-)
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Less overpowered is good, very good. Pure power solves a lot of if not outright most problems that could appear in Hogwarts. They already have the numbers, organization and competence to outright trample the wizarding society, being able to bring down the heavens is the least of their needs.
Third time's the Charms O.W.L.
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Yeah but it's not big enough. He said he's got big plans.
I'll have two #9s, a #9 large, a #6 with extra dip, a #7, two #45s, and a large soda.
Also, text commands are different on sites like this than on sites like Youtube.
Yea, I sometimes forget when to use bbcode or markdown or html or whatever.
Gee, if only there was some universal standard that would adapt to each site. You know, like if there was something that would let each person read the web in the style that they like, separating the output from how it was displayed, then maybe that could be extended to inputs as well.
But, that's a hopeless dream. The idea that everyone can read a web that looks right to them, in their own fonts, colors, and sizes, and still have all the letters come out where they should and not on top of each other because some site wanted to hardcode 10 pixel letters every 13 vertical pixels. Or assume that all letters are as wide as Ariel/Helvetica, and how dare you use a different width font than that. Or that Light grey text on dark grey background must be fully visible for everyone.
(Sorry, my own personal CSS rant. And yes, since websites can take input, and CSS controls much of those input boxes already, why is there no way to have a CSS override that says "I will always use markdown, and convert it to html or bbcode based on what this website needs"?)
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I can't say I've heard that one before, but it made me laugh.
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You could probably write something like that as a browser addon, and have it recognize your BBcode (or whatever else) and replace it for what the site needs...
However, it would only work on a set of whitelisted sites (where it already knows what the site needs) or on the ones where it's able to detect, probably from elements on the page, which one to use. The ones it hasn't a clue about... it won't know.
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Hmmm.... Bigger than that, I think.
Okay, let's try this again...
I might not have stuck around after two resets if the basic premise wasn't so strong though.
Well, third times the charm.
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Make that a light, I am on a diet.
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A large one of everything, with extra sauce and fries with all of them.
I have a bad habit of rewriting the stories I'm passionate about, to.
I only recently discovered the original, but it showed promise, if a little awkward in it's execution sometimes.
This first chapter seems to be much better, even adding a layer of mystery for new readers.
Here's hoping it goes the way you envision.
Well this is going much better than the second version ever did. Congrats.
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Here's hoping it stays that way.
I'm really trying to understand how you'd expect a fixed exchange rate -- literally carved in stone -- to survive and function. It just seems to violate everything we've ever learned about finances and monetary exchange.
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It's easy: There's no real economy between the two worlds, and people aren't told it's fixed in stone, and nobody talks about it, and...
In the end, nobody realizes just how lucrative the exchange really is, because not enough people exchange. It's really only the muggleborns that do, and even then, not very much...
Well, that and the Galleon probably fluctuates in value with the British Pound, preventing an obvious exploit involving the most common exchange (all others are exceedingly rare).
poring
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googles it Huh, you're right. Learning something new every day, I guess.
Okay the first chapter this time does not sound down-right comedic like the previous ones. Let's hope the flow is not as rush (or forced) as the other as well.
I'll take a third try for it. I hope this time Lyra won't be a narrative black hole like last two times.
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…. I can guarantee she won’t be.
equestrian bits should not be pure gold. because pure gold is too soft to use as material for something that got heavily abuse like coins.
11118722
But with a reinforcement spell on it...
It's not mentioned in-story, but my headcanon is that Celestia has a few Philosopher's Stones she uses as the Equestrian Mint. Magic can go a long way to voiding the weaknesses of any given material.
i don't know how author did it. it so wordy but so little content.
battle scenes and magic system blabbing are nearly nonexistent because it's drama-oriented. these two things are strong point of crossover like this. both world have hard magic system and lore that's constructed around solving mysteries and fighting big bad boss.
and dramas are pretty dry. i don't know how it can be this dry because there're so much interesting stuffs.
i read so far into this story because of 'glimpse' of interesting stuffs'. it's like you're watching first season of 12th doctor.
Minor math concern as I've been rereading this several times. Yuo say "It looked like they were made of elementally pure gold worth about fifteen sickles apiece by materials."
then you say there are 17 sickles to the Galleon and yet Twilight is settling for giving the Goblins 30sickles of material per Galleon or 1.76galleons worth of gold
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Yes, the goblins no doubt view it as massively profitable as well- Twilight and Lyra don't know the value of gold on Earth (they think it's cheap because of how common it is in Equestria, thanks to Celestia's Philosopher's Stones)... and Lyra is thinking about the monetary value rather than the material value, so they both think they got a really good deal (which they did)... And the goblin does too, even though he actually got an absolutely terrible deal.
Interesting start. I have concerns. 4 Harry Potter stories and 3 are canceled. Do I need to read any of them before this?
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Theoretically, no.
However... this story is a rewrite of On the Implications of Parallel Worlds, itself a rewrite of The Gate, and I'm still working on not making them dependent upon information revealed in the prior versions. So... You're probably going to be best able to understand it if you read those two, The Gate and OtIoPW, before reading this one, but you should be fine just reading this straight; ask questions if you feel the need to or, since most the questions have already been answered, reading the comments will often answer them anyways.
As for The Boy who Disappeared and its rewrite Gift of Divinity, and the so far unreleased TF and tGwDJL (even their names are unreleased, don't ask), you shouldn't need to read any of them to understand this story.
Very interesting start. I wonder if there are some time shenanigans involved, as Twilight and Lyra should be adult if Twi is a Princess, unless there are significant background changes. Or maybe different maturation rates...
Either way, depicting everything so far from the perspective of the humans and goblins works quite well thus far.
CELESTIA! Your student is retarding!