Defence Against the Dark Arts

by Everythingpossible

Bacon & Boggarts

The sun rose yet again over Scotland, casting bizarre shadows on the stone facets of Hogwarts Castle. Songbirds heralded the exceptionally normal event with an unintelligible melody of chirps and tweets. Silver dew hung on every blade of the magnificently green grass.

Luna opened her eyes to the same stunning view with which she was greeted every morning: the bare ceiling of the castle, boards from some ancient oak cut to fit squarely into one another. She had slept like a rock, a rock that had just gotten its first night off in three thousand years. She remembered the events of the previous day like a dream; it didn’t feel like the day the world would end, it felt like Tuesday.

Her morning routine was pragmatically brief: roll out of bed, and go to breakfast. No need to bathe; her magical coat was self-cleaning. Clothing was ignored almost completely. She much preferred her system over the one planned for her in Canterlot, in which there was always somewhere to be, something to be done, her life planned for her down to the microsecond; She could move the heavens with a wave of her hoof, but she could not possibly be three seconds late to tea with the Earl of Whatever-shire.

There were still a few students who devoutly gathered on the stairway every morning and every night, to watch the miraculous descent and ascent of the princess; they watched in silent reverence as the goddess-on-Earth gracefully glided to the ground floor to get her coffee, and again as she gracefully flew back up to the seventh floor to tumble back into bed. She paid no attention to them; the few still entranced by her presence had become no more than a comical nuisance. As she made her way to the Great Hall, the students parted before her like water around a drop of oil, she inflicted upon them a unanimous mélange of courteous respect, academic reverence, and prodigious fear.

Breakfast at Hogwarts made it nearly impossible to be capricious and sour in the mornings. The arsenal of delectable food prepared by the kitchen’s house elves was often suspected of being imbued with a secret magic all its own; the orange juice was jucier, the French toast was toastier, the sausage was sausage-ier. Even Luna, who was scarcely seen awake before noon in Canterlot, felt full of energy afterwards. Although she hated the pomp and frivolousness of her old life, she did not deny the utility and pleasure of having a dozen personal chefs. While the food at the school wasn’t exactly gourmet, it was by far superior in taste alone than anything to ever come out of the Equestrian regal kitchen. She had expanded her originally vegetarian diet to include first fish, and then poultry, and finally, seeing as the cattle in this world were in no way sapient, meat. Professor Lupin recoiled at first to this seeming defiance of the natural order, to which Luna was happy to remind him of the human flesh upon which he most likely dined under the full moon.

“I still think it’s wrong,” Remus muttered, watching her consume black pudding with much gusto.

“You gonna eat that?” she impertinently responded, pointing to the scraps of bacon left untouched on his plate, bits of congealed blood stuck to her teeth.

“No,” he said, “and neither should you.”

“Relax, Lupin,” she responded, “It’s not like it’s going to kill me. And at least the pigs here don’t talk.”

“What difference does it make?”

“I have nothing against pigs. Some of my best friends are pigs.”

“Then why are you eating them?”

“Why are you?” Luna wittily responded. Lupin had nothing to say to this, and she quickly snatched the bacon from his plate, adapting her herbivorous molars to tear the muscular tissue to shreds.

“You sicken me,” he finally said.

“The feeling is mutual, Remus” she replied nonchalantly. “Why do you care what I eat?”

“It’s just…. It doesn’t feel right, I suppose,” he admitted.

“Really?” Luna said to him, sarcastically. “You’re a werewolf at a school of magic, talking to a pony princess from another dimension, and it doesn’t feel right?”

“Well, when you put it that way…” he said, “but you’re from a place where pigs are conscious creatures. You don’t eat humans in Equestria, do you?”

“We don’t have humans in Equestria,” Luna retorted, smiling cruelly, “but I’d like to try one. Tell me, what do you taste like?”

“You’re disgusting.”

“Well, you should know.”

Lupin recoiled again, utterly shocked. Luna realised too late that she had crossed a line as he withdrew from the table and stormed out of the Hall, grey robes flying in a small tempest of fabric. The students hardly noticed him leave, as the owls that carried the mail had just begun to flock in from the high, open windows, creating a snowstorm of grey feathers and parchment.

“I’m sorry,” she finally said to no one after the gigantic wooden doors slammed shut and the maelstrom of postage had ceased.

---

Her temperament had more or less recovered to its standard degree of indifference by the time for her first class, the fourth-year Hufflepuffs and Slytherins. The Hufflepuffs had taken a certain liking to her, they usually sang (or attempted to sing) “Moon River” or something concerning a princess in a tongue-in-cheek manner while waiting outside the classroom. The Slytherins, meanwhile, were content to sulk in silent loathing of seemingly everything.

“Now, class,” she said, after unlocking the doors and herding the students into a rough semi-circle (there were no desks in the room), “who can tell me what a boggart is?”

“Didn’t we do this last year?” one Slytherin complained.

“No,” Luna said, searching her vast memory for the eternity that was a few months ago, “Last year, we did changelings.”

“Whatever those are,” remarked another Slytherin. It was more or less true that most of her curriculum from the previous year was based on defence against terrors which did not exist in this reality; final exams proved difficult when the examiners could not find a single cockatrice, parasprite, or manticore against which the students could demonstrate their skills.

“A boggart,” she continued to explain, “is your worst nightmare. Literally. It hides in the darkness, and takes the form of your deepest, darkest fear.”

“How do you fight ‘em?” a voice near the back asked.

“An excellent question,” she said, hearing exactly what she wanted to hear. “Could I have a volunteer?” she asked. There was no reply, until a short boy with chestnut-brown hair was pushed forward by his Slytherin classmates.

“Uh…” he muttered, baffled.

“Excellent” Luna said cheerfully, telekinetically drawing an old wooden cupboard from the corner of the room, rendering a horrible screeching sound. A shadow lingered behind the glass doors, like darkness itself in gaseous form. “Now, Stephen,” she explained, casually leaning against the chiffarobe, “are you ready?”

“Uh… I guess?” Stephen answered, shyly pointing his wand in the general direction of the cabinet.

Without a word, she hoisted herself onto her forelegs, and bucked the possessed dresser in a manner most unsuitable for a pony of her noble stature. Instantly, the wardrobe flew open, releasing the vindictive spirit within. Stephen’s eyes widened with an absolute terror. His cloudy opponent rearranged itself in midair, until it formed a monochrome facsimile of Princess Luna herself.

“Seriously?” the original sardonically remarked.

The student stood there, paralysed, while the dark copy slowly advanced forward, snorting hostilely. Rolling her eyes, Luna casually walked around to face the clone.

“Riddikulus!” she howled. A burst of indigo magic shot from her horn, striking the boggart, which cried out in shock. There was a brilliant flash of light, and when the dust cleared, the grey copy had been reduced to the size of a grapefruit. Her pupils began to erupt into laughter, and Luna disinterestedly flicked the apparition back into its wooden prison, where it resumed its previous form.

“Quite simple, really. Now, who’s next?”

Suddenly, the wardrobe exploded into a burst of wooden shrapnel, and the boggart expanded into a wild cyclone of dark magic. Luna turned around, and looked into the eyes of her greatest fear.

It was a large and horrid thing, much larger than the earlier manifestation. It hissed, bearing a set of fangs the length of steak knives, serpentine tongue twisting in bloodlust. The sun shone off of its blue-grey armor, only augmenting its diabolical majesty. Its long, tattered wings were spread in an offensive position, its long, spiraling horn wielded like a longsword. Its fur was the colour of pure darkness, and the night sky emanated from its forehead.

Her jaw hung unsupported, and she was pushed almost to the floor by sheer trauma. No, she thought, not here. Not now. Luna bowed meekly, submitting to the demon inside herself which had suddenly appeared in her classroom. The monster only continued to growl menacingly as she cowered in absolute terror.

“Luxatio!”

The boggart screamed, this time in unbearable pain, as it was instantly filled with a white-hot and burning light, and decomposed into an ethereal dust. Luna looked up to view her saviour. Remus Lupin smiled at her through his neatly-trimmed mustache, lowering his wand.

“I told you they were crafty,” he jested. “Are you all right?” he added sincerely, holding out a hand to assist her.

“Yes…. yes…” she hesitantly stated, rising slowly from her fetal position, trying to retain some semblance of her shattered dignity, “I’m fine.”

“Really?” Lupin said. “Because it didn’t look like that.”

“Why are you here?” Luna demanded.

“I figured you may do something stupid,” Lupin said, smiling, “And from the looks of it, you did.”

The class of confused preteens only looked on in confusion as the two bantered with one another.

“You’re not still mad about the bacon, are you?”

“No,” he admitted, “I figure that your digestive system will enact its revenge on you for that eventually.”

“I lived for a millennium on moon dust and tears,” Luna boasted, “I doubt that a little extra protein will kill me.”

Remus laughed. The students, seeing the perfect opportunity to dismiss themselves, swiftly absconded from the room. After the last filed out, Lupin seated himself on an old desk in the corner, stroking his facial hair pensively.

“What was that thing?” he asked.

“We both have monsters inside of us, Remus,” Luna said, “that was mine.”

“Jesus Christ,” he exclaimed, “I just grow a few claws once in a while, you’re hosting a demon from hell.”

Luna smiled plaintively. “There’s nothing to worry about. It was just a flashback, from a long time ago.”

“Are you sure?” he said, unconvinced. “No offence, but I don’t think it wouldn’t be safe to have that… thing around our students.”

“That thing is part of me, Remus. I can control it,” she pleaded, “It’s part of the deal: you get the crown, you get the castle, you get the psychotic id that wants to murder everyone you’ve ever loved. There’s no way to change it.”

Lupin sighed. “Alright, but if this ever happens again, I won’t be here to stop it, and it’s coming out of your paycheck,” he quipped, “I’m a bit low on cash recently.”

“I don’t even have a paycheck,” Luna said, laughing.

“Well, you’ve got something. Tell me, exactly how well-endowed is the Equestrian Royal Treasury?”

“Enough that three metric tons of gold could suddenly go missing without the authorities taking notice,” she said suggestively.

“Oh?” Lupin said, intrigued.

Coyly smiling, Luna materialized a burlap sack between the two, which fell to the floor, heavy with the tremendous weight of precious metal.

“My God!” he shouted.

“Take it,” Luna insisted, heading for the door, “It’s nothing.”

“I can’t possibly accept this,” he begged.

“Of course you can,” she said as she indifferently trotted out of the room, “Think of it as your payment for saving me.”

She shut the door, leaving him alone to gawk at the tremendous sum presented in physical form before him. It must have been at least two thousand galleons, an amount which even Dumbledore did not earn in a year. He prepared to carry his prize back to his quarters, until he discovered that it had the approximate weight of a medium-sized rhinoceros.

Comments

[Bronze Statue]

That's a lot of gold.