Chapter 2: Accidentally Magical
“Ready?” Madam Pomfrey asked.
Professor Dumbledore nodded, holding his wand behind his back. “Ready.” It was the beginning of March- and Madam Pomfrey had informed him, by a letter, that Sunset Shimmer had been healed as fully as she could… so she was ready to end the bewitched sleep she had been using to ensure the girl wouldn’t accidentally hurt herself.
Madam Pomfrey took a deep breath… and cast the spell.
The girl opened her surviving eye almost immediately… and stopped.
Then she raised both her arms to look at them. She had to look down at her right arm.
Finally, she allowed them to flop back down on her sheets, and sighed. “I guess that’s what happens when you do something that stupid,” she muttered. Then she glanced down at the end of the bed. “So… why am I not in chains?”
Dumbledore winced. “It has been two months since that explosion, Miss Shimmer,” he told her. “I was hoping we could come to an agreement rather than fighting. You have demonstrated a capability of the likes that I have difficulty even imagining.”
“And lost it,” Sunset stated darkly.
“Lost it…?”
She sighed. “In order to do that, I was using the magic of my home. Which relies on…” She trailed off. “I’m still not sure exactly what, but it’s in my right forearm. Which I don’t seem to have any more, so I’ve presumably lost the use of the magic of my home.”
“You seem… rather calm, considering,” Dumbledore muttered.
She sighed again, then sat up. “Yeah, I suppose so. It hurt a lot more the first time.” She sighed again. “I guess I can hope I can channel it through my wand. Er, if it hasn’t gotten…” She paused, looking at her nightstand- where her wand was lying. “Oh, good. I never really bothered to learn to use it, bu-GYAAAAH!” She had reached for her wand… and right as she had touched it, there had been a sizzling sound, and she had recoiled as if she’d been burned. She wrung her hand for a couple of seconds, before opening it to look at her palm.
Madam Pomfrey immediately set to work, magically treating the assortment of burns she’d gotten from touching the innocent instrument.
As she worked, Dumbledore recognized the look on Sunset’s face.
It was the look of a girl that had lost everything, found hope, and lost everything again.
It was the look of someone that had given up.
He sighed, stowed his wand, and walked around next to the bed to put his arm around her shoulders. “Cheer up,” he told her, gently. “Just because you can’t use it doesn’t mean you can’t make it. You’ve definitely got the mind for that, after what you did in just six months.”
She didn’t answer.
“Good evening, Miss Shimmer,” Dumbledore greeted. A week had passed since her awakening- and waiting for her to finish grieving her loss didn’t seem to be working.
“Hi,” she answered dully.
“I need you to return to your classes,” he told her. “Learn what you can, whether you can cast it or not- and when you’re done, or even before you’re done, you can help me research a few things.”
“Meh,” she muttered.
“Please?”
Around a month later, Sunset Shimmer finally started moving again- though she was much too late to save her grades. She failed her end-of-year exam, despite ‘medical’ exemption from using a wand because any wand seemed to burn her like that, and was forced to take the first year over again.
Meanwhile, over in the Dursley household, Vernon and Petunia were very happy- and their son Dudley and nephew Harry were as well.
As time passed and the two boys grew older, Harry willingly picked up tasks like pruning the rose bushes- though it had taken some time for Petunia to teach him to do it properly- and various cleaning tasks. He also liked cooking, which resulted in a lot of burned or raw food, at least before Petunia had taught him to cook.
His relationship with his cousin, aunt, and uncle also improved significantly. By the time he turned just five years old, he and his cousin were already play buddies. Dudley no longer resembled a beach ball, and Harry no longer resembled a stick figure. They both had well-fitting clothes to wear, at least some of which had been made from Harry’s hair, and neither were living in the cupboard under the stairs. Petunia and Vernon had stopped telling the neighbors he was a hard case, but were now telling anyone that would listen that he had been a hard case but- and they had no idea what had changed- he’d suddenly turned himself around and become an incredibly helpful boy.
As far as Harry was concerned, though, nothing had changed. Except, perhaps, that his scar slowly faded and finally disappeared completely by the time he was eight.
When the two boys were sent to public school, it seemed like Harry learned much faster than Dudley did- so as soon as Harry found out Dudley wasn’t getting a passing grade, the two became instant study buddies and both of their grades shot up, making them straight-A students.
Unfortunately, nobody could ever do well in that school without being bullied.
Unfortunately for the bullies, both boys completely ignored their taunts. When the bullies tried to fight them… They stopped very quickly, because Harry always jumped in between them and Dudley, and punching him was like punching a wall: It hurt. When the two boys told Vernon and Petunia, the two adults had given each other meaningful looks… but when they later discussed it, they came to the conclusion that it couldn’t be just because Harry was a wizard. Perhaps Dumbledore had placed some sort of protective charm on him?
So they told Harry not to rely on it, and to always expect it not to work, even right after it worked. That way, he could be sure that if it did stop working, he wouldn’t get hurt.
It still didn’t stop Harry from blocking anyone that tried to fight Dudley, though. He was just too fast.
Unfortunately, though, the two boys were never able to find any friends aside from each other. They stood out too much from the crowd.
Eventually, one morning in July, the mail slot clicked, as per usual.
“I’ll get it!” Harry volunteered, jumping up from the breakfast table to fetch the mail. His hair, as usual, hung down all the way to his waist- and as he liked it at home, it was hanging over his clothes, making him look very much like a girl. Whenever he left the house, he would put it in a ponytail of sorts, such that it came together below his collar, and tuck it down the back of his shirt; it would just regrow in a matter of seconds if he cut it.
He quickly retrieved the mail from the doormat and, ignoring the thick parchment envelope on the bottom of the stack, handed it all to Vernon when he got back to the table, before returning to his bacon.
Vernon made his way efficiently through the stack of mail. There was a postcard from his sister Marge; after flipping it over, he informed Petunia that Marge had eaten a ‘funny whelk’ and was ill. “No wonder,” he mused. “Bet it wasn’t a whelk at all.”
Then he ripped open a brown paper envelope that looked like a bill and, after finding it was actually an advertisement for the local church, snorted in disgust.
Then he looked at the last envelope.
It was addressed to ‘H Potter’, no ‘Mr’ attached, and had Harry’s bedroom on it.
He turned it over, slowly… and spied a wax seal. A lion, a badger, an eagle, and a snake, all wrapped around a large letter H.
“Petunia?” he asked, and turned the seal towards her.
She looked at it… and stared.
Then they made eye contact, and stared into each other’s eyes for a few seconds.
Finally, they reached a mutual understanding. Vernon laid the envelope flat on the table, and swept it towards Harry. “You’ve got mail, Harry.”
Harry stopped it easily with one hand, swallowed his eggs, and put his fork down before he went to investigate it. “I have mail?” he asked, then paused. “H potter. No Mister or anything. Looks a bit weird like that.” He popped off the seal, without stopping to inspect it at all, pulled out the pages, unfolded them, and read them.
“... Weird,” he finally decided. “Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.” He looked around the table. “Um… Why is it only me? Is there a reason Dudley can’t come too?”
The next day, the mail slot clicked, as per usual.
“I’ll get it!” Dudley cried; he and Harry took turns getting the mail. He retrieved it just as quickly as Harry had, also ignored the thick parchment envelope on the bottom, handed it all to Vernon, and returned to his bacon.
Vernon worked through the larger pile with similar efficiency as he had the day before- and indeed every day that there was mail. It had long become a part of his daily routine.
But then, he got to the bottom of the pile. He turned the parchment envelope over, and inspected the same wax seal as the day before.
He rotated the letter to show Petunia, who nodded calmly.
Then, he slowly turned it around… to show Dudley’s name- as ‘Mr. D Dursley’- and bedroom.
“I-!” Petunia began, slightly stunned. “I knew weird stuff happened around Harry, but-!” She stopped. “Well, we were going to send him to a boarding school anyways. I think that’s great news.”
Vernon nodded, laid it on the table, and slid it across. “You’ve got mail, Dudley.”
Dudley blinked, and missed the envelope, so it flew straight past him- but Harry caught it out of the air as it flew off the table between them. “I have mail?” he asked- and, accepting the envelope from Harry, he scanned the front and silently flipped it open. “Oh, and it’s not just you, Harry,” he muttered, once he’d unfolded the contents. “Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.” He paused. “Do you think it’s real?”
“The letters have our bedrooms on them,” Harry observed, examining the address again. “But I wonder what it means by ‘we await your owl’?”
As if it had been waiting for those exact words, the doorbell rang.
Petunia rose to answer the door.
They heard the visitor’s high, sharp voice, though couldn’t make out the words, before Petunia’s voice echoed down the hall. “Er- Vernon?”
Vernon rose from his seat. “Who is it?” he called, as he walked out into the hall.
There was more of the visitor’s high voice, then they distinctly heard Vernon’s voice. “Er, could you come back in half an hour or so? We’re eating right now.”
The visitor’s voice sang some more, then the door was closed and both adults returned to the room.
“It’s real alright,” Vernon told the two boys, completely without preamble. “What do you two think about it?”
Harry looked at the letter still in Dudley’s hands, then shrugged. “I don’t really want to leave you behind- but if it’s real, I don’t see why not.”
Vernon laughed. “Oh don’t worry, you won’t be leaving us behind. We’ve, er, been kinda expecting this… For you, at least. Not so much for Dudley.”
Harry blinked. “Is that why you didn’t enroll me for the same private school?”
Vernon nodded. “Yes, that is. And if you go together, perhaps you can keep studying together and show the wizards how to do it right!” He laughed.
Harry laughed. “Perhaps,” he agreed, then turned to Dudley. “What do you think?”
Dudley rubbed his chin. “But weird stuff never happened around me without you,” he observed.
Harry looked at the letter. “Well, they sent the letter,” he said. “We can probably assume they know what they’re talking about if they’re magical and everything.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t assume that if I were you,” Petunia cautioned. “These wizards are awful sticks in the mud sometimes.” She sighed. “But if nothing else, they’re really good at detecting magic, and telling who has it and who doesn’t.”
“So,” Harry muttered. “You wouldn’t, yet you would?”
She blinked. “Er… Yeah, I suppose it’s a safe assumption to make. This time.”
“Oh,” Harry nodded. “I get it.”
“I don’t,” Dudley muttered.
“When we’re doing homework,” Harry told him. “It’s like when I just know you’ll get a question right before you even start it, versus when I don’t. The point is that, with these letters, we know- but basically anything else, until we learn otherwise, we don’t- and they could be wrong.”
“Oh,” Dudley nodded. “That makes sense.” He looked at the letter, and shrugged. “Alright. If they say I’m a wizard, I guess I’m a wizard, and Smeltings isn’t likely to teach me magic, are they?”
“I’d say not,” Vernon mused, amusement dancing in his eyes.
He shrugged. “I don’t know.” He looked at Harry, then nodded. “Yes,” he decided. “Yes, I’ll go.”
Stats
Page generated in 0.02 seconds
Total duration
981 users online
1,452,317 hits today, 1,996,409 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
I bet it was Miss Figg, now that the Dursley's aren't using her for babysitting anymore, she's trying to reestablish a connection to help explain what's going on. Essentially the Hagrid
Great chapter!
High-pitched voice? Flitwick?
I wonder why they didn’t think Sunset lost her magic? The wands hurting her should have been a giveaway. I wonder what happened to her?
11266135
Why didn’t they think she lost her magic? Because wands don’t hurt muggles.
You’ll notice Dumbledore was adapting to her sudden inability to use magic, despite presumably still being magical, and was proposing a way for her to continue her magic research…. Though that ‘way’ would probably set her back a fair few years.
Sunset maybe? She could have become a direct student of Dumbledore. She could have learned to use wandless magic, after a long and painful path with a lot of effort, help and patience from the Headmaster. Like when a person loses one or both legs or comes out of a paralysis and has a long recovery path to walk again, I have heard that it is very hard. She may even be teaching at Hogwarts.
At the beginning of the chapter I thought that Harry maybe had earth pony magic , now that I finish reading the chapter I am inclined to say that he has pegasus magic, after all they are fast and are hard to resist the impact the times they collide with the ground. And of course I love the idea of Dudley going to Hogwarts, I can already imagine the surprise of Albus and Minerva in the selection of houses.
So, the magic doesn't recognize Harry as him or her, is it because of the pony magic? Is it because Harry still hasn't decided if he feels more comfortable as "him" or "her"?
I think that's all I have for now, if I think of anything else I'll comment on it during the week, have a good week.
so this story is only gone to be ten chapters long currently or will there be more chapters down the line ?
A different Dudley's character? Now this is interesting.
So Dudley has magic, not often seen this will be fun.
11266244
I have ten written so far, but expect it to continue growing.
I like the beginning of this story but...
Ok for Dudley not to be the idiot he is in the show, after all these changes happen when he is young enough, but I don't understand why Vermont and Petunia behave like normal humans. More surprising for me, they accept magic. Especially they accept easily that their only son, their eighth wonder of the world, is leaving for the wizarding world, where Petunia lost her sister. In my opinion, there is a small paragraph missing that would give the keys to understand Petunia.
I find that this happens too fast and without explanation. I suspect that explanations will come later, but in my opinion you should give more details, especially about the change of mentality of the two adults. As a reader, we suspect that this change of attitude is not normal.
With these character developments I see Harry and Dudley more as twins brother than cousins. The Dursleys acted more like "real" parents and two boys grew up together with little age difference.
Someone with a sense of humor
11267775
Scarcrux is faded
11267775
There are a few hints about what happened already present, if you look for the things that are different other than the Dursleys' behaviors; there are at least two that I can think of mentioned so far, before the reason for those changes is revealed in Chap. 3.
11266502
And that is a slow writing speed for you!
11268309
... Actually quite fast, considering those 10 were written in a matter of 5 days...
Given the topic of the conversation just before the doorbell rang, a mailing owl was at the door.