• Published 8th Mar 2022
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Harry Potter and the Evil Within - Damaged



It's time for another school year, but how has Hogwarts fared after being ripped up and transplanted into the realm of Equestria? Is the castle and its faculty ready for all the year entails?

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Chapter 10

I could stand to be in the same room as him, but every time we tried to talk one of us would start insulting the other. Draco was sitting on the other side of Hermione from me, and that was as near as we could get.

Hermione was learning about the history of animagi, and I guess Draco and me were too. I don't know how my uncle knew all this stuff, when he'd admitted that he didn't know much about animagi before becoming one, but there was so much stuff about them. Like, before the Ministry was formed and animagi were restricted, rural witches often introduced their children to the arts by making them animagi.

Strong beast animagi like George could work fields when other draft animals are sick and animagi like Fred and Alicia could find out dangerous gossip and deal with it before it spread into deadly rumors.

It still weirded me out a bit. A snake! Hermione's animagus form was a snake. Why not a hippogriff? We finished the class and packed our things up. I climbed down from my chair and took a step to the door.

"Harry, could you wait behind please?" Sirius asked.

Stopping in my tracks, I watched Draco, Ron, and Hermione leave before turning back to Sirius. "Yeah?"

"Harry, none of the students who have successfully become animagi so far have had a problem with their forms that a little counseling hasn't helped with. Ron is enjoying the use of what are almost hands, Fred and George are having a blast playing jokes on everyone, and even Katie has taken a liking to her more furious side." Walking to the windows, Sirius looked out and seemed to be smiling. "Even Hermione has found real delight in her new form."

The weight of silence started to grow. It pushed down on me and threatened to shove me into the floor after just a minute. After five—or what was probably five minutes that felt like five hours—I finally couldn't keep it in any longer. "It's not right!"

"It isn't?"

"No!" I stomped around in a circle, scowling at everything my eyes set on. "She's not a Slytherin, she's a Gryffindor. She likes Draco, yeah, but he's not even Slytherin anymore either. Why would she become a snake when there are—there are hundreds of other animals she could have been?!"

"And she's told you she doesn't like it?"

"What? No! That's the worst bit! She likes it!" I turned to Sirius and watched as my glasses melted on my nose. I blinked a few times, mostly because Sirius was still in perfect focus for me. Then I smelled smoldering wood and looked down to see black and charred hoofprints on the floor. "Bollocks."

As I ran to the fireplace, Sirius cast a water spell behind me to stop whatever smoldering the wood was doing. By the time I actually got into the fireplace, my anger was gone.

"Harry, that's 5 points from Gryffindor. Not for almost setting fire to my classroom, but for almost ruining your friendship." When I looked at him, he had a very serious expression. "You get to pick your friends, Harry, but they get to pick you too. I would suggest against driving them away for reasons you are in control of."

I looked at him, no more fire or anger driving me, and realized how fuzzy my vision was all over again. "I guess not being able to see until I can make a spare pair will remind me not to be an utter git."

"Harry, where did you learn all this language?" he asked.

I just shrugged. "Can I go now?" When he nodded, I grabbed my bag, thankful that Addera had woven it from strands of my hair she'd plucked, and headed for the door.

Even Draco had accepted Hermione being a snake. No, more, even Ron had been cool with it. What was my problem?


Closing the door, Sirius Black unclenched his teeth and sighed. "I wish I didn't have to be the one to do this, James. You were the better man of all of us." Frowning, he was just about to pack up his paperwork when the balcony door flew open and a blue streak shot across the room toward him.

Crashing to the floor in a rush of rainbow colors, Rainbow Dash folded her wings. "Hey!"

Sirius was surprised by the visitor, but not unhappy. "Hey yourself. I was just finishing teaching for the day."

"Reaaaaly?" Not that she'd spent too much time finding out, but a few questions here and there had ensured Rainbow found out. "Well, did you want to go out again?"

It felt like a complete setup to Sirius, but it wasn't one he was upset with. Rainbow had made it absolutely clear to him that she wasn't looking for anything long term, though she still wanted a few dates to feel him out. "Sure. Got anywhere in mind?"

"Yeah, there's a little place in Cloudsdale. You have a way to fly, right? You said something about a motorbike?" What had drawn Rainbow to Sirius was his flagrant disregard for sanity when there was something cool to do. Using lightning to make magic potions? Seriously awesome.

"Yes. Or if I need to, I can always take the bus."


"I need someone who can get me into the castle. Do we have any operatives that could walk past the guards?" Sombra spoke through Herbert Trencent as if he were just a puppet—and for all intents and purposes, that is exactly what he was now.

Of the ten men in the room with him, only one nodded and stood up. Sidney cleared his throat. "I have two assets that come and go from the castle whenever they please. Students of the school. Neither has given us bad information, but neither has been put in a situation where they need to act."

Not caring about the details, Sombra just shunted the rest of the conversation off to what little remained of Herbert's free will. Suitably constrained to Sombra's parameters, of course. He pulled back his control from Herbert and looked down at his creations.

Two amulets lay before him, each bound to himself in the same way a leash and collar had an owner holding onto it. These collars wanted to be worn, but that was just part of his own desires feeding through them. Once they were in place, the subject would never again know freedom.

The last step, of course, was getting close enough to Cadance to collar her. That would require, he knew, dealing with her husband. The barrier that stallion had imposed worried Sombra. It worried him because he couldn't blast through it and that meant he respected Shining Armor enough to consider him a major threat. An alicorn-level threat, given that was what he protected.

He waited, and when Herbert finally walked into the office where Sombra had been working, the muggle-born wizard shivered and bowed his head. "The children will be arriving tonight, sire. Just after midnight is their normal time."

"Good. You have served well." It was praise for work done, and it was free to give. Sombra liked the way the man seemed to bow deeper still at the words of support.


Richard Fellows looked at the men in the room with him. Unlike his friend who was under sway of a power he wasn't familiar with, Richard had been as open as he could with the former senior members of the Ministry of Magic. There was one wizard, too, that hadn't been part of the Ministry. "Gentlemen, Dumbledore, it's good to see you all, though I wish we didn't have to drag you all here."

"Richard, you never drag anyone anywhere. We came because you asked us. Now, what's with the urgency?" Arthur Weasley had become somewhat of a magnet for complaints. After the stance he'd taken in getting people to Equestria through the portal, everyone had taken cues from him.

"Boris?" Richard asked. "What are your orders from the Ministry?"

Clearing his throat, Boris held his hat in his hand. He respected Richard Fellows, but some of these men were so far above him that he wouldn't have seen if one used the loo. "Two assets for the Ministry, kids from the school who think they're doing the right thing, are due to check-in tonight. Sid and me are meant to bring them to see Mr. Trencent. I don't like it one bit."

Albus Dumbledore winced. He wasn't the only one in the room that knew the identity of the two children, or that they were double-agents, but that didn't make his life easier. "I can get word to the school to restrict their movement for a night or two. Would that be a problem, Boris?"

"For them? Eventually. For me—almost immediately. Trencent ain't got patience no more, Mr. Dumbledore. No patience at all." Almost scrunching up his hat, Boris was trying to work out where he could go to get far enough away from the Ministry. He wasn't sure that even another world would be far enough.

Tapping his chin, Albus smiled. "Well, we can't have that. I think our best bet, then, would be to have the children meet with Herbert as soon as possible." He looked significantly at Alastor Moody.

"A batch of polyjuice, Albus?" Alastor asked. When he got a nod, he couldn't help but grin. "The young-uns will need to be kept busy. They might be the only assets the Ministry has in Hogwarts, but there could always be a stray visitor."

"My thought exactly, Alastor. Now, how do we intend to do this? We can't just chop the head off this snake and expect it to shrivel up. Arthur, any thoughts?" Albus asked.

Arthur Wesley had to chew on his thoughts. When the Order of the Phoenix had originally formed, he had worked outside it. He'd been a force within the Ministry that had pulled things back toward sanity—now it looked like he'd have to reprise his role. "It would have helped get aurors on side if you'd come with me, Alastor, but if Boris comes with me, that will help. The rest of the Ministry will listen to me." He couldn't help a smile at Alastor. "Aurors were always a head-strong bunch."

Alastor coughed, mostly because he was out of practice with laughing. "Yer right, though. And I'm glad of it"—he nodded toward Boris—"because if we toed the line for whatever idiot got himself mad with power at the top of the Ministry, there'd be problems."

It was a surprise to Boris, who considered what he was doing to just be the right thing to receive a nod from Mad Eye Moody himself. "I'll arrange to bring the children in solo. That way there'll be no one else with me that knows them. Are you going to need a way out?"

"I don't believe so, but another wand on our side would be appreciated." Albus gave Boris a nod, and was glad to see that the man looked to stiffen up like a fighter. "Tell us a time and we'll be ready."

"Five PM," Boris said, and got a round of nods from those present.


"If you think, for barely a moment, that you can find some fun without Toil, you have another thing coming." Twirling a blackjack in one hand and a wand in the other, Toil tossed both into the air and started juggling them. As he leaned backward and into a reverse cartwheel, he saw Rubeus Hagrid glaring down at him.

"I just don't think it's proper. This isn't your—" He froze as Toil moved lightning fast. The wand and blackjack were sheathed, but Rubeus had a dagger point at his throat. "That's not very nice, Mr. Toil."

"I am not a nice elf, Mr. Hagrid. Not nice at all, but when I hear that my friends are in trouble—and I don't have many so this doesn't come up often—well, I become far less nice. I become downright irritable. Some would even say I am surly." Drawing the weapon back as fast as he'd produced it, Toil mimed shaving himself with it—not that he could grow a beard.

"Well, it's not like I can stop you, Mr. Toil." It was an easy solution since it was completely correct. Rubeus drew out his umbrella and looked around his cabin for something else that would be suitable to use in a bit of a mess. "Ah, 'ere it is."

Toil was well aware that Rubeus wasn't the best wizard—he didn't come close—but there was enough strength in the half-giant's body that anything with mass was a weapon to him. Like the broken old flagstone he picked up.

Rubeus slid the stone easily into one pocket, then balanced it out on the other side with a spare book he had laying around. The book, he realized, had mostly petrified and weighed more than the flagstone. "Well, Mr. Toil, let's go and see what can be done."

The chill air of the continent was welcome to Rubeus, but he wouldn't have its comforting icy grip much longer. As they approached the edge of the city, he stepped through the ward that the Crystal Heart generated and almost started to sweat. There was a reason he'd chosen a life in the Scottish Highlands.

Toil, skipping unreservedly beside Rubeus, returned to juggling. Now he had balls, though, which panicked people a lot less than knives and wands and blackjacks—at least when held by an elf. He reflected on his recent time in the new world—it was like a fresh and new place.

The best bit about the Crystal Empire, so far as Toil was concerned, was that it had ponies in it. Ponies were a delight! They never talked down to him. They laughed when he told a joke. They were pretty and colorful and everything the wizarding world of Earth hadn't been. There were a few things in his life that Toil would fight for. Himself (of course), the very few friends he'd made (in Azkaban), and being treated as free as he felt. "Are these men bad, Mr. Hagrid?"

"Might be. Think it might be too early to tell. Always give some blighter the rope to 'ang 'imself." Rubeus really wished Toil wouldn't be so quick to resort to violence. "No stabbin' until they does something nasty."

Toil added the blackjack to his juggling.

The pair got closer and closer to the block that the Ministry had claimed for its offices. There were sounds of shuffling feet in alleys, and Toil couldn't help an urge to just go and knock each one out. So he didn't resist the urge. By the time they reached the front door of the Ministry there was a lot less eyes watching for trouble.

It wasn't easy to figure out which of the buildings was meant to be the main office, so Rubeus walked up to the first house and knocked on the door. "'ello. We're looking for the registration office."

"What?" The male voice within asked.

"Well, we was told we needed to register any non-humans using wands." The phrase was something Albus Dumbledore had told Rubeus to use, and he thought it was a good one. "See, I've seen this here elf—"

"A house-elf is using a wand?!" The man inside opened the door with one hand and reached for his own wand with the other.

"Just elf," Toil said from behind the man, "On account of not having a house."

The man spun around to face Toil, his wand out and a spell on his lips, at which point Rubeus tapped him on the head in much the same way he'd knocked on the door. The man crumbled to the ground. "Oh drat. Did I 'it 'im too hard?"

"Of course not. Look, if you'd 'it 'im too 'ard, he wouldn't still be breathing. Oh, this is a nice wand. Can I keep it?" Toil held up the downed wizard's wand and compared it to the one they already had.

"Now-now, Dumbledore told me to collect the wands. Pass it 'ere." Rubeus took the wand when Toil shrugged and held it out to him. "And the ones from all the others."

Toil grinned. He realized, at last, that Rubeus was learning his tricks. In a way it was a loss of power, but losing power to a friend felt right. Opening the little jacket he wore, he drew out almost twenty wands from various pockets. "Here."

Rubeus laughed as he took the wands and slipped them into one of his much larger pockets. "Thank you, Mr. Toil."


Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger looked at each other and tried not to laugh.

"Just don't try turning into a snake," Draco said, looking at Albus Dumbledore who now looked exactly like Hermione. "Try and do her voice."

Clearing his throat, Albus attempted to talk in Hermione's voice. "How does this sound?" The pitch was right, but there was something missing.

Hermione was aware of the way she often put a whining edge in her voice—mostly because Draco hadn't held back in telling her about it. Now she got to show what she'd learned about herself. "How does this sound?"

Snorting at the deliberate use of a whine, Draco looked to their former headmaster. "That's the best—"

"… way to do it. Been a while since I sounded anything like this. Do I have the smug sense of superiority?" Alastor Moody asked.

Months ago, when he was still human, still on Earth, and still (in his own estimation) a prick, Draco would have gotten upset at that. "Probably a little more wouldn't hurt. I've been laying it on thick over there on account of them thinking I was still a full-blood brat. I didn't want to ruin their image of me."

"You have no worry of me tarnishing that image." The only issue Alastor had, in fact, was getting used to having wings. Being so much younger wasn't as big a hurdle, nor was being a pony. In the end he just kept them folded at his sides.

"We'll be off now." Albus looked out the secret door in the side of the castle at the huge drop and decided his best bet was apparition. He reached out to Alastor and pulled him along with him.

"It was probably for the best they did that. Did you see Mr. Moody trying to work out how to use your wings?" Hermione looked out at the city from the doorway and sighed. "I feel like we should be doing more."

"No!" Draco stomped a hoof, which made an impressive clop on the stone under him. "Don't even think about it. We've done our job. We got them a way into the Ministry. Come on and let's try to sleep." As he turned, though, Draco realized that Hermione wasn't following him. "Please?"

The problem for Draco was Hermione had become his friend, and he couldn't turn her down when she'd suggested they do something in the first place—now he had even less hope. "What?"

"I know what you're going to say, but we have helped fix things before. We need Harry, though." Hermione knew mentioning Harry's name wouldn't be the best way to get Draco onboard with helping, but it was true. Harry just had a way of getting to the right situation to make a difference in all the wrong ways.

"Don't say please again. Come on, we'll find him and see what he thinks. But, if he says we shouldn't do anything, we don't do anything. Okay?" Draco hated how much Hermione seemed to brighten up from being told that. He let her lead the way to the landing with the "totally secret" entrance to the Gryffindor tower, then he waited outside while she went in.

"At least," Draco said while she was in the tower, "they'll probably bring Ron."

"Nope." Hermione ducked her head out of the tunnel and past the painting. She'd heard Draco's last words clear as day. "Ron's dad sent him a message that he needed to go home for the next few nights for some reason."

"So it's just us," Harry Potter said as he left the tower tunnel too. "So, what's the plan?"

When Draco realized that Harry was looking directly at him, he took a step backwards. "Wait, what? I don't have a plan. Hermione?"

"We'll figure something out on the way." Being the tallest, sometimes, had advantages. Now Hermione deployed that advantage and strode confidently down the stairs, leaving Draco and Harry behind.

Looking at each other, and both feeling uncomfortable about it, Draco and Harry shrugged and started off after Hermione.


Not willing to leave the airship to its own devices, Luna had opted to travel back with it rather than take advantage of the new floo system she'd helped deliver. She also had a great fondness for relaxing on the deck of a skyship with the stars out.

Unfortunately, the stars weren't out due to a huge cloud of ash that had swelled from the nearby volcano in the Dragonlands. Not that she couldn't feel the moon and stars—they were her domain and would always be part of her.

The first warning she had of the attack was seeing the prow of another airship a moment before it broadsided theirs.

Shock, more than anything, made Luna stare as the huge Storm King yetis jumped from their own deck, spears and shields in hand. But Luna wasn't going to remain passive for long. It was obvious this was no mere mistake.

The first two shock troops to land on the deck roared at the group of ponies coming at them. Raising their shields, they deflected the magic blasts from a unicorn and used their spears to clear room on the deck for more of their shipmates to board.

One pony in particular seemed a problem for the boarders. It took two of them to hunker down behind their shields to deflect the magic thrown at them, while the others forced back the remaining ponies to the other side of the deck.

With the small cutter's deck now under their control, the yetis started to grab the ponies one by one—shrugging off their attempts at fighting and fitting them with restraints.

Luna was terrified. Her magic was being shrugged off by the attackers and half her guards were now in chains. She was at the point where she contemplated jumping off the ship and flying back to beg Rake for help when what sounded like concussive thunder rocked the sky.

The Storm King ship sported several holes clear through it now, and Luna had just barely caught sight of something slamming through one of the yetis on the deck of the thing—leaving a huge hole where part of its torso had been. Then the blasts came again and the Storm King's ship started to list to the side.

"Come on, scalawags! Last one to shove one of these bastards over the side has to scrub the deck!" Celaeno was the first on deck after Stiff Wind had blasted the Storm King's ship with a broadside. The wood was unsteady, and she could easily tell the vessel's future was not in the sky. "Cutter! Get below and grab what you can. If the ship goes down, fly back to Pandemonium!"

Without waiting to watch Breeze Cutter and the other Longma heading belowdecks, Celaeno began cutting her way through the yetis on deck, shoving what she could overboard, encouraging some to jump all on their own, and cutting down the few who faced their end with grim determination.

Eventually she was able to jump down to the deck of the pony ship. "C'mon! Move your asses! Clean this scum off the deck and let's see what we—have…" It wasn't often that Celaeno was ever stunned to silence. Seeing the four big yetis held at bay by the winged unicorn—alicorn, her brain supplied—made the rest of the world seem to halt.

Blastback had told Celaeno about odd dreams of a dark alicorn that seemed so full of warmth and comfort that she had grown a little jealous of the night-phantom—but seeing her fight for her freedom lit a bonfire in Celaeno. She didn't hesitate, drawing her pistol and sighting down it, she dispatched one of the attackers and leapt forward to engage the other three with her sword.

When one of her assailants fell flat on his face, Luna didn't think too much into it—she couldn't. The yetis only ever gave her one opening, and that was when they were about to strike. She took her shots where she could until another fell down. The last two turned to whatever was behind them, and Luna threw her all into a blast that shoved both off she ship.

Staring in surprise, Luna looked the pirate (because she knew of none other who would dress like the parrot was) up and down. A light breastplate was her only armor, though a sword covered in crimson and not a scratch on her told Luna all she needed to know about her savior's fighting prowess. "Thank you."

Sticking her cutlass into the deck point first, Celaeno pulled out her powder horn and started reloading her pistol. "Thanks are for later. If those ponies are your crew, we need to help them." She was just packing down the wadding and ball when she finished speaking and returned the pistol to her holster.

A stream of parrots were arriving on the Equestrian airship's deck now, but there was two others that caught Luna's attention. One was a tall feline with a pair of rapiers that danced among the yetis while the other was obviously a muggle-born witch with some kind of ranged weapon. When she raised it to her shoulder, and activated it, thunder struck and one of the yetis fell down—every time.

Not wanting to be left out, Luna charged her horn with a good, moderate power blast and connected it with the back of two yetis, sending them hurling through the sky and over the railing. Not waiting for further invitations, she charged bodily at another near the side of the ship and, dodging their lance and slamming her shoulder against them, sent her foe to his end below.

Outnumbered five to one, the remaining yetis nonetheless fought until they too were dispatched. Luna started trying to help her guards with their chains, but to her disgust they were made of the same magic-absorbing metal as the yetis' shields had been.

"Allow me."

Luna turned to the woman who kneeled beside her. She had the weapon she'd used slung to her back on a strap and had a huge scissor-like tool in her hands with which she cut through the chains with ease. "Thank you, uh…"

"Firelight. Firelight McOwens. You looked like you could use some help and we'd been trailing that ship for a week." Slicing through the chains as quick as she could with her bolt-cutters, Firelight helped tug the cold-iron (what Rentari had nicknamed it) bridles off each of the ponies. "When they entered this ash cloud, we thought the chase was up. Didn't expect the silly bastards to stop and attack."

"Captain!" Sticking his head out of the forward hold of the Storm King ship, Gale Stomp looked around even as he shouted for Celaeno. "There's too much damage down here and the ship is listing! We're hauling what we can, but you'll want this junk away from all the other ships before it goes down!"

Leaving Firelight to take care of the ponies, Celaeno turned to where the Equestrian ship had the front end of a Storm King barge lodged in it. "Get the axes. If we can't rip this piece of crap off their nice boat, we'll cut the front off! Get to work, lads!"

Helping scatter the chains off her guards, Luna fought her desire to kick them off the side of the ship and instead organized the shackles, cut chains, and bridles into a barrel. "Thank you, Miss Firelight. That was a timely arrival."

"Captain Celaeno called the charge, uh…" Realizing there was probably some special form of address when there was a pony wearing an actual crown, Firelight fumbled. "Is there some special way I should, uh, call you?"

"Just Luna is fine." Seizing the initiative, Luna headed off any of the usual groveling titles by just not providing them.

"Well, Luna, when we saw that they'd rammed your ship, our captain, Blastback, brought the Stiff Wind around and unloaded half our broadside into them, then the rest. Nothing in the Storm King's navy has survived that yet. They'll have some work to get the thing out of your ship, though. Their prow is made for ramming." As she looked over the ponies, Firelight noticed one who looked a little wobbly on their hooves. "Defthands! I think we have a concussion!"

Seeing that her guards were being cared for, and more than a little surprised at that, Luna walked over to where the pirates were trying to dislodge the other ship's prow. "Do you require assistance?"

Swearing for a good thirty seconds, Celaeno nodded. "We can't get this prow free. Can you cut through the ship behind it and separate them that way?"

A little taken aback by the language, but greatly approving of its use in the circumstances, Luna spread her wings and flew off the side of the ship to assess her objective. It was wood, but the prow of that horrid ship was more of that metal. Judging that she'd have to allow a little distance between the two, she nodded. "Now?"

As Luna had asked her, Celaeno felt the deck shift under her and saw that the Storm King's ship was starting to go down. "Cut it now!" The response shocked her. She'd seen magic used, but she'd never seen a ship-length beam of almost-black blue magic slice a ship in half like a loaf of bread.

Nodding as the Storm King's ship fell free, Luna spotted a trio of dragon-winged creatures leave it. Watching them soar, she realized they were very similar to ponies, but they just weren't. They looked, she realized, more like Harry Potter.

All the Longma that left the falling ship carried sacks with them, each laughing about their looting and carrying it back to the smaller of the two pirate ships. Luna was intrigued, and wondered how such a small ship could do so much damage to the Storm King's ship—then she saw the behemoth sail closer out of the smoke.

"Bring her in slow. We don't want to ram them ourselves! Easy does it… There! Throws some ropes over to Celaeno's scalawags!" Blastback Davies' rolling gait, affected due to his peg-leg, brought him to the side of the ship so that as soon as ropes were cast and pulled taut, he hopped over to the Equestrian ship. "Ho! How fare the dainty maiden now that we have dispatched her assailant?"

Luna landed back on the ship and, with the captain of her ship taking her side, approached the second muggle-born former human she'd seen for the day. "I gather this was the ship that dispatched… that pile of junk that just hit the sea?" Luna quite liked the ship. It bristled with cannons and looked like the most dangerous thing in the air—and also buzzed with a sense of magic.

"Sure is, ma'am. Wait—" As his memory resolved where he'd seen a blue alicorn before, Blastback had to fight not to bow. "You sent those dreams?"

Luna felt excitement. "The wizards and witches I couldn't reach! We were just contacting more of your kin and heading home when we ran into this mess. I can lead you to them, if you'd like?"

His mind racing, Blastback had a hundred questions to ask, but the most important was, "Do they have a way home?" The dispirited look on Luna's face told him the answer. "I guess we'd better get that escort then. Uh…"

Seeing Blastback glancing over at Celaeno, Luna asked, "Is there a problem?"

Raising a finger, Blastback pointed up to the huge balloon of his ship that was black with a skull and crossbones on it. "We'll probably need permission from someone with authority."

"You have it. Safe passage to the Crystal Empire. You'll have to negotiate with Empress Cadance there, though I doubt she'll have any complaints when I ask her nicely." The thought of it made Luna smile.

Blastback rocked a bit, feeling a little surprised that the pony would be so self-assured about her word swaying the mind of an empress. "So, uh, that brings my next question. If you don't mind me asking, who are you?"

"Drat, I'm going to have to give you the full thing, aren't I?" Luna asked.

"If you don't mind, Your Highness, I could?" Swirlywhirl puffed out her breast and fluffed her wings a little. She hated how easily they'd been overpowered by the shock troops and wanted to make amends. When her princess gave her an exasperated sigh and nod, she began, "You are in the presence of Her Royal Highness, Princess Luna. Raiser of the moon. Bringer of night. The Terror that cannot be defended against. Sister of Princess Celestia and co-ruler of Equestria."

Luna was face-hoofing before Swirlywhirl even got halfway through. It was almost embarrassing. "Please, just call me Luna?"

Managing to hold back his laugh as Luna's face transitioned from exasperation to defeat, Blastback held out his hand to Luna. "It's good to meet you at last, Luna. My name's Blastback Davies, though most people out here just call me captain. One of my shipmates, Daku, has been keeping track of the dreams you were sending us. We would have tried to find you sooner, but we had a little situation out and about."

Celaeno strode up to where Blastback and Luna were talking. She knew the stories of ponies and their leaders. Wings and a horn, that meant important. "Begging your pardon, and all that, but what's a pony ship doing this far out?"

"We were contacting another group of portal refugees. They're establishing their own little community on the other side of the dragon lands." Luna felt safe in sharing the knowledge of Charlie, Simon, May, and the others. Even if this warship they possessed was the most startlingly fearsome ship she'd ever seen, Luna would put her bits on an annoyed dragon any day. "We deployed a Floo connection, I believe it's called."

"That's what the Brits use." Suspicion growing, Blastback had to ask, "Did everyone who came over speak with a funny accent?"

Deadpanning, Luna looked at Blastback. "Funnier than yours?"

It was a relief to find someone in a position of power who had a sense of humor. Blastback laughed and nodded. "Yeah, yeah. I know us Aussies have our own drawl. Guess we should still see what the limey buggers need." Stepping back a bit, he turned so he wouldn't be yelling directly into Luna's face. "Make ready! We need all the speed we can get, so step lively!"

"How fast can this ship fly?" Celaeno asked.

"That depends," Luna said, gathering magic to her.

Cocking one eyebrow, Celaeno asked, "On what?"

"On how fast you can get back to your ships so I can rearrange the weather patterns for half the world." It was pegasus magic, and Luna had that in spades. She began shifting pressures and temperatures so that the path of wind started as a minor breeze while the pirates regained their own ships and her own crew started to make ready. "Because here—we—go."

Author's Note:

Bess: What do you think about Hermione's animagus form?


"I guess I'll have to translate for her. Can't believe I'm doing this..." Harry rolled his eyes expressively, then listened to Bess. "She says she likes having another snake around, that Hermione a very strong and proud-looking reptile, and that—I can't say that!"

Bess hissed, sounding somewhat scornful.

"She says that Hermione doesn't like eating, though. She's trying to help her with it. And, that's it. This is so silly."


Fred: Locust
George: Kouprey
Hermione: Pit Viper (Rattlesnake)
Katie: Wolverine
Ron: Capybara
Alicia: Dragonfly


So I do this "Ask X" thing. X can be any character within the story. You can ask them anything and they will definitely, hopefully reply. Keep the questions appropriate to the age-rating of the stories, and they will answer the best question in the author notes of the next chapter. The more votes a comment has the more likely I will get it to the right character to answer. Try to keep it to one question per post!

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