Ch. 1 — Where AM I?

The Triwizard Pony

Ch. 1 — Where AM I?

It was Nightmare Night and Harry and his herdmates were doing their best to entertain Ponyville’s colts and fillies. The four of them were dressed, appropriately, in costumes of Nightmare Moon, with her cutie mark proudly displayed.

Only these costumes were special. At Luna’s insistence, they wore proper hoof shoes and leg guards, saffron — some called it a helmet — peytral, crinnet, and crupper. And not simply coloured cloth in the cornflower/royal blue of the originals. They weren’t wearing real armour, of course. What they were wearing lacked the many enchantments that Guards’ armour carried. Their “armour” was simple and cheap painted cardboard. But, all told, a much better replica of what Nightmare Moon wore.

They had only had to make minor adjustments to them, from when they wore them last year, to get them to fit comfortably.

In addition, Twilight had cast the “wings” spell on the three fillies and colt, so the wings they sported were real. Unlike the first time she had used it, years ago, these were the bat-style wings the night-guards had, not butterfly wings, and blended well with their costumes. Either Sweetie Belle or Harry could have cast the spell, but it would have exhausted them to do it more than once or only lasted a short time and not all night — and left them exhausted after several repetitions. For Twilight? It was a minor effort.

A simple illusion gave the non-unicorns a horn, and coloured the four of them appropriately — black as night.

Their shorter, teenaged-sizes, and lack of floaty night-star manes and tails, gave a clue that none of them were really Nightmare Moon, herself. Of course, Harry’s glasses were another sign that he wasn’t her. Plus, their stern expressions quickly broke down into giggles as they chased the happily screaming foals to and fro. That Sweetie Belle and Harry used teleportation to appear suddenly in front of the colts and fillies simply added to the foals’ fun.

«Remember this day, little ponies, for it is your last,» Scootaloo cried as she swooped over the heads of six screaming foals. «From this moment forth, the night will last forever!» She cackled evilly and leered at the scampering ponies as she landed before them.

The small group stampeded down the street and hid ineffectually behind and under a cart, laughing and giggling. The night was young, barely started, and their candy and treats scarcely covered the bottoms of their saddlebags.

Harry suddenly appeared on the other side of the cart. «The night will last forever!» he yelled, then looked around. «Where are those pesky ponies!» he said looking past the giggling foals. «You shall not escape my night!» he called, looking over their heads and pretending not to see them. He stomped heavily and dramatically away and into an alley, giggles sounding behind him. Other groups of foals crowded the doors of the houses on the street, collecting their treats and tittering excitedly at the four’s antics.

He heard another batch of screams come from farther down the street — either Sweetie Belle or Apple Bloom doing their part. He laughed happily. This was fun!

And so it went.

The four met back at the carnival an hour later. They were on a break, and were enjoying ice-cream treats before resuming their play. «Ya know,» said Apple Bloom, «Ah never thought it’d be as much fun as it is, ya know? Doin’ this? Ah think Ah like this more’n getting the candy!»

The others nodded their agreement, their mouths’ too full to say anything.

Harry looked back over his right wing and cleared his throat. «Yep, Flyin’ is so much fun. I almost wish I were a pegasus.» He shot a look at Scootaloo to see how she took her teasing.

She proudly glanced at her steadily flapping wings, hovering beside the table. «Yeah, pegasi are the best!» Then gave her ice cream another lick.

The others giggled. She’d been in the air practically non-stop since her visit to the Cloud-city clinic three years before. They finally had been able to diagnose and fix the problem with her wings.

Harry swore she would fly in her sleep instead of using a bed, if she could figure out how to do it without getting wing-cramps. Or ending up lost somewhere in Equestria.

There was a musical chime, and a flash of light overhead. A moment later his mum glided into sight and lightly touched down beside them.

«Having fun?» she asked.

«Even more than last year!» declared Harry. «That teleportation spell we finally mastered last month is really neat!»

«Just don’t go and overdo it, Harry,» she said, draping a wing over him and hugging.

Abruptly, Harry curled over, his forelegs grabbing at his stomach. He felt as though an invisible hook just behind his navel had suddenly jerked irresistibly forward. «URP!» he said. His hooves left the ground, and he skidded forward and up, out of his mum’s hold. He began to hurtle forward in a howl of wind and swirling colour. The carnival disappeared in flash and only darkness surrounded him.

He screamed in shock and terror, but heard nothing. He saw nothing but blackness. He felt his wings flare wide. The wild wind buffeted him around, but his wings failed to catch any air.

How long it lasted he couldn’t say — a second? Ten seconds? Longer? Shorter?

Suddenly there was light ahead. Wind whistled around him, whipping against his wings, but without direction.

It looked like a room of some kind was flying at him.

He tried to brake, but the wind pushed and pulled at his wings, sometimes on both sides of his wings at the same time. He had as little effect on his speed or direction as spreading his wings in the carriage of a train slowed the engine or changed the direction the tracks led.

At the last moment, his wings filled with air. He hung a moment, suspended, almost touching a table lined with minotaurs. He scrambled to get a decent stance and not fall. He kicked at the plates, utensils, and cup. There was a large flaming goblet centred on the table not more than a yard away. He knocked many of the things over or off. He gave a hard flap, then another, and shot to the ceiling so fast he almost hit a rafter.

Seeing the rafter just below him and to one side, he barrel-rolled sideways and landed atop it. He crouched down low, and reflexively cast a don’t-notice-me-field.

The fillies’ spur-of-the-moment wanderings in the Everfree had instilled in him a rather valuable set of survival reactions.

He tried to calm his panicked breathing as his eyes sought a way out of the brightly-lit hall and back home.

He realized he was unharmed, nothing hurt. He was just a little shaken up, and bewildered.

Teleporting was right out. He didn’t know where he was, nor anywhere that he could reasonably reach. Especially, because his range was not bigger than the hall below him, he realized. He looked down at an angle, at the table below and to one side of him.

And watched, amazed, as one of the minotaurs behind the table stood and waved a stick, putting out the inadvertent fire Harry had started on the table.

That was a shock. Minotaurs were incapable of direct magic. Yet, here one had used magic to put out the fire, straightened the still smoking cup, and restored the utensils, plates, and cups to their proper places. Another wave cleaned up the spills, leaving the table as pristine as it had been before he appeared. Except the plates and cups now were empty of their contents. An excellent demonstration of the fail safe spell if he ever saw one, even if it did take more than one casting.

Incredibly, the empty vessels disappeared and new platters and bowls of food appeared on the table, as did filled cups and pitchers.

The room below was in an uproar. It was bigger than the Map Room his mum’s castle! Maybe even bigger that the Twin Sisiters’ Throne Room in Canterlot Castle! Four tables ran the length of the hall, candles in great numbers floated above them. He noticed that the walls were lined with torches instead of the crystals he was used to seeing.

What held his attention, though, were the hundreds of minotaurs down there, he now noticed. The younger minotaurs were closest, and increased in size and age toward the large doors he could see on the far side of the hall.

A fifth table was below him, and a half-dozen pony-lengths to one side. It was raised and crossways to the other four. Only adults were seated at that table. To better keep watch over the young ones?

There were clearly three groups in the hall, as they seemed to all be in uniforms. Glancing around, he noted the myriad banners on display behind the head table and on the other walls.

Right, so this was a military camp he had arrived at, with three separate groups. The group that wore all black was the most populous and seemed mostly young ones. The other two were matched in that they had much smaller numbers, were older, and sat at only two of the four tables, grouped together, for the most part. One group wore light-blue robes and the other looked to wear heavy fur cloaks — the fillies would have freaked out at the sight of fur as clothing. That they wore fur in such abundance told him he was far from Equestria. He couldn’t discern any rank markings on their clothing, although the black-robed ones had patches on their chests. Four different kinds he could tell. And they were organized by table.

Wherever he was, it was outside the borders of Equestria. What kind of magic was this? He had to get back and warn his mum that some minotaurs could do magic!

And were quite good at it.

He didn’t understand what was being yelled below him, but his sensitive pony ears twitched madly. But then he recognized a word — wings. Then he picked out another — flying. And a third — black.

He knew this language!

He bit his lower lip lightly, to keep himself silent. He hadn’t heard this language in years — five and a half years, to be exact. He started to hyperventilate. How could he be here? He stared down at the minotaurs . . . no, they had to be people. He had heard the minotaur language, and English wasn’t it. They were people like he used to be. People like the Dursleys. They were looking all around the room below him, as they tried to find him.

Something about people who waved sticks was oddly familiar.

No. Maybe not like the Dursleys, because these people could clearly do magic! Just like he could. Except he didn’t need a stick.

He could pick out what some of them were saying, the louder ones, now that he realized what language they spoke. And his swivelling pony ears made it much easier to pick out voices.

“Did you see that?”

“It was a tiny horse, I tell you!”

“No, I saw a horn, it was a unicorn, and it —!”

“It flew up there!”

“It was all black!”

“No, it was blue!”

“It was wearing armour! I saw the —!

“That was blue, it was black!”

With each exclamation he shrank closer to the rafter until his chin rested on the wood. It was difficult to move quietly in the fake armour. The cardboard crinkled and creaked rather loudly, he now noticed. But at least it wasn’t heavy like the real stuff. Although, he kinda wished it was real right now.

He looked at the adults at the front of the hall. The one with a beard so long that it could be tucked into his belt seemed to be a leader, as the others looked to him and asked questions Harry couldn’t hear. The man was tall and thin, with silver hair. He had a very long and crooked nose that looked as if it has been broken at least twice. He stared directly at Harry, and the other adults began to copy him! Harry cast another, stronger don’t-notice-me-field. Several of the adults examined where he was carefully, and began to look elsewhere, but the bearded man didn’t take his eyes off Harry.

Harry began to slowly inch his way forward, sweating. While no one else seemed to notice, the bearded man watched him closely. Tartarus! The man had enough magical prowess to pierce his spells without effort, just like his mum. Harry almost wet himself in dread.

Harry decided to project a personal shield. It wasn’t that great, not nearly as good as a solid sphere or wall, but then it didn’t glow light-blue like those did. And it was mostly hidden under his “armour.” But both of those wouldn’t stop this man, anyway, should he attack. He clearly had more power than Harry in order to see through his spell, but the personal shield would soften the blow and give Harry a chance to escape. And it might stop any magic shot at him from the others below.

The man lifted his right hand, a stick in it, and pointed straight up. Suddenly there was an explosion from the man. Harry almost hurled himself off the rafter in panic.

The bearded man below had caused the explosion.

But he hadn’t been attacking Harry.

Harry glanced at the open doors at the front of the hall, calculating if he could teleport close enough to charge out the doors before anypony could react. He wished he could double-teleport like his mum, but he had to rest between them, at this stage. He gathered his hooves and tensed, his rear end shifting back and forth like a cat preparing to jump.

The doors suddenly slammed closed!

He turned his head to stare at the man with the stick, who smiled at him and nodded.

“Your attention, please,” he said sternly, dropping his gaze to those in the hall.

The room quickly quieted down.

“The Goblet of Fire,” he said genially, and looked at the cup on the table. The flames had gone out — there wasn’t even any smoke evident. “Has done something truly quite extraordinary. It has, apparently, summoned someone into our presence.” He didn’t seem that surprised at that, though. He looked back across the hall.

The room broke out into whispers.

The man spoke a bit louder, driving the whispers into silence. “I can only presume that the one summoned is Harry Potter, as it says on this slip of paper that the Goblet ejected and I announced.” He held up a paper with its edges burnt black.

Harry huddled closer to the rafter. He stared at the man, and wondered how he would escape this mess. From the man’s words, Harry’s appearance in the hall was unexpected to the occupants. If so, then why was he here? And how had that cup known his name?

The bearded man looked up into the rafters at the pony. “You are Harry Potter, are you not?”

Harry blankly stared at him, much in the way that he had seen Opal stare at Rarity when she wanted to pretend she didn’t understand an order. The room below him again broke into whispers, many craning their necks, pointing their fingers, trying to see what the bearded man saw. All the adults at the head table saw Harry, he had no doubt. Except for the very big man sitting at one end of the table. He appeared at a loss as to what the others saw.

“Ah,” the man said. “Yes.” He nodded. “Where are my manners? I am Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, Headmaster of this fine school, the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.” He nodded again. “Perhaps you have heard of it?” he said hopefully.

This was a school? Harry glanced at the people below him. Yes, that did make more sense than a military base. There were far too many children. And no military pony would show such a lack of discipline as the older people below did. Of course, it could still be a military school.

“Oh, for Merlin’s sake, Albus,” one of the others grumbled loudly.

Harry looked at the speaker. Thankfully, his wings-spell-enhanced vision made it easy to see details. The man looked pieced together. Not like Discord, but more like some of the really old Guard veterans, especially those who had served on the borders, but much, much worse. His face appeared carved out of old barn-wood, by someone with only a distant idea of what a face looked like — and who wasn’t very talented with a chisel. Scars seemed to cover every inch of his skin. A large chunk of his nose was missing, and the mouth was more of a diagonal slash.

It was one of the man’s eyes that made him frightening, however.

The left eye, a vivid, electric blue, was much larger than the other. It moved ceaselessly, up, down, side-to-side, without blinking. It moved separately from the other eye — and then he saw it roll around completely, pointing into the back of his head! What could it possibly be looking at? Then it focused on Harry.

He had a mane of dark grey hair.

He pointed a stick at Harry, his hand as badly scarred as his face. He said something while pointing the stick at Harry.

Harry didn’t hesitate. He jumped up to his hooves.

A light burst from the stick.

Harry ran across the length of the rafter to the other side of the hall. He saw the light strike where he had been perched.

“Alastor!” called the bearded man in alarm.

Something about people waving sticks at him and shooting out coloured lights was oddly familiar. And it made him very, very angry. It even overcame his fear.

Harry leaped sideways to a new one rafter, farther away from the head table. He didn’t stop, but leapt again, and kept moving, searching for a safer position. He kept his eyes on the people at the head table, though. He wanted all the warning he could get if any of them tried that again.

At the third rafter he magically-silenced his hooves and fake armour, and moved to the opposite side of the hall. The ones tracking him by the thuds of his landings continued to stare at where he had apparently stopped.

He wondered if he should hide his scent magically, then did so, anyway.

He wished the fake armour he wore had been enchanted with more than just Nightmare Moon’s colours. He knew the runes to use, his mum had shown him the Guards’ armour, and the spells on them, as examples while he was studying runes at Celestia’s school. He resolved to add them to this armour just as soon as he had a spare second.

When he finally stopped, he had substantially increased his distance from the head table and was almost to the doors. He was seriously considering a blind teleport to outside the doors.

The bearded man, Albus Dumbledore, walked down the hall, between two of the tables. He obviously could still clearly see Harry. Most of the other adults had stayed at the table. Harry could see one tall man with greasy black hair, a hooked nose, and pale-white skin berating the scarred man, Alastor, Harry presumed, as they followed the Headmaster.

“Please excuse my friend. I assure you the spell he cast was quite innocuous, nothing dangerous. He merely wanted to calm you down,” Dumbledore said.

Well, Harry thought, he hasn’t succeeded had he? Just the opposite, in fact.

But Harry was in a quandary. He didn’t know where he was, nor how to get home. Nor did he know anywhere safe. He was stuck here, in this hall, until he could get out. He suspected that their patience would not last much longer. If this Albus Dumbledore started flinging spells, Harry had no doubts he would end up roped and tied quicker than an angry Applejack could catch a fleeing Apple Bloom.

“If you will come down here, I would be most happy to explain what is going on.”

Harry studied the man carefully, while the people in the hall whispered and watched raptly. He seemed earnest. And Harry couldn’t detect a dark aura around him. Not that he was really good at that sort of thing, anyway. Not like his mum. But still, unlike some of the villains he had met in Equestria, the friendliness this man projected seemed real.

And yet, something told him that these . . . people . . . were not to be trusted. They were only concerned with themselves and how they could use others to their advantage. They could be summed up like the griffons, with a single phrase, what’s in it for me?

“I promise you, you will be safe and unharmed.”

The question was, how much could he trust the man was telling the truth?

Harry desperately wanted to teleport away. He eyed the wooden roof overhead. If he were his mum, he would chance teleporting straight up to the clouds and then glide to safety — if there was any place he could call safe, here. As long as he wasn’t an equal distance underground, he could escape. But he wasn’t his mum. He could barely teleport the length of the Map Room back home. Far too dangerous to attempt such a blind teleport — they might be underground or a bridge overhead. Or this could be the ground floor of a really tall building, like those he had seen on the telly. And who knew what was on the other side of the walls and how much space he had? They could be empty, or packed with supplies with little room to stand.

And if he did that, and the teleport failed because of the safeties, it might give away a secret that he might need later. And while he knew his mum and the Princesses would be working to find him, he knew he was much farther away than any of them suspected. It might take hours, days, or even weeks for them to track him down. And he had to stay somewhere while they did that.

Besides, if these people knew how he got here, they might be able to help him get back. If they could be trusted. If they thought they could get something in return.

He took a shaky breath. “Promise?” he called down.

The hall erupted into chatter.

“Quiet!” came the loud order from a woman with square glasses at the hall’s head table.

Just as quickly, silence fell in the room.

Dumbledore smiled and stroked his beard. “Yes. I promise that if you come down, I won’t let anyone harm you.”

Harry stared at him. “And you won’t either?” Blueblood had taught him always to be cautious about promises to unknown individuals, either pony or not. What they said and what they meant could easily be two different things. Especially when words in one language didn’t always have the exact same meanings in another.

The room burst into objections at his questioning the man. Harry ignored them. Just because he promised others wouldn’t hurt him didn’t mean he wouldn’t. King Sombra, Queen Chrysalis, and a few others his mum had told him about had illustrated that lesson.

The man nodded, unfazed by the reactions of the people around him. “I promise you won’t be harmed if you come down,” he said loudly over the noise of the students.

Harry looked around the room. No one seemed to be pointing a stick at him, but that didn’t really mean anything. They could have their sticks hidden in their sleeves. He sighed, and took another shaky breath.

Well, at least this time, when trouble struck, his herdmates would be safe and not involved.

He strengthened his shield to the best he could manage. He extended his wings and stepped off the rafter. The entire room gasped as he suddenly released the don’t-notice-me-field. Not that they didn’t suspect where he was. All they had to do was look where the bearded man looked.

No one raised a stick, for which Harry was thankful.

He glided in a tight spiral, and landed in the open space in front of the hall doors.

Now that he was on the ground, perspective suddenly became apparent. His back was barely as high as the bench seats in front of the tables, and he could barely see over the table-tops! What the tartarus was this? That certainly hadn’t been the case at the Dursleys! He was even tinier than the smallest person he could see!

“He’s so cute!” came a breathless female voice from one of the tables. A dozen more chimed in with their agreement.

Harry stepped back, alarmed. His wings flared out in an attempt to make himself look bigger. All that happened was he heard more exclamations on how pretty and cute he was.

Dumbledore came from between the centre two tables and slowly walked up to Harry.

Students, at least Harry thought they might be students, if this was really a school, were crowding close behind the man. They were also standing on the benches and tables to see him.

Dumbledore leaned forward slightly and adjusted his glasses as he examined Harry. “Is that your animagus form?” he said softly.

The closer students gasped and hurriedly informed their friends what they had heard. This was Harry Potter’s animagus form! “It’s unheard of for anyone not an adult to do that!” he heard one loud voice say.

Harry stared at him silently. He hadn’t any idea what the man meant. He heard the word, but it had no translation available, His gaze darted around the room, watching the many, many people watching him.

After a moment, Dumbledore frowned slightly and said, “Are you fixed in that form?”

Harry tilted his head questioningly, then shook his head, no. His wings would vanish in another couple of hours, as would the colours of Nightmare Moon

“Ah,” said the man, nodding his head wisely. “You feel more comfortable in that form, at the moment?”

It certainly gave Harry more options than just being a unicorn. He narrowed his eyes slightly, then said, “Yes.” He flapped his wings and rose up to hover vertically at eye-level with the bearded man. It gave him a bit more confidence to be eye-to-eye to the people around him. It also gave him better possibilities to dodge.

The room gasped and then sighed at the sight. “That’s impossible!” a girl’s voice loudly said.

“If you would come with me to that room up there,” the bearded man pointed at a closed door at the other end of the hall, by the head table. “I would be happy to explain what is going on here, today.”

“Okay,” Harry said nervously, glancing around the room.

Dumbledore nodded and started towards the back of the hall. Harry tried to pace him, but there wasn’t sufficient room. Then he tried just to follow him. When he saw more than one person start to reach for him, he rose higher until he was above the people standing on the benches. Dumbledore stopped and looked around.

“It wouldn’t do to annoy our guest, now would it?” he said reprovingly. “Besides, I believe there are desserts waiting for you to finish.”

The closer students looked shamefaced. Several older students with two badges on their robes began ordering people off the benches and tables. The others quickly sat back down. Those standing on the tables just as quickly relinquished their positions and returned to their seats. They still craned their necks to watch Harry, though, ignoring the food on the tables.

Harry hated the attention and wanted out of their sight as fast as possible. He gave a few hard flaps, and shot across the hall to the gasps and exclamations of his audience. He came to a stop beside the door Dumbledore had indicated. He hovered, waiting. He saw the hook-nosed man and the scarred one both fingering their sticks. He watched them closely, and prepared to project a shield, if needed, as he waited.

It wasn’t long before Dumbledore reached him and opened the door. He congenially waved the hovering black pegacorn into the room.

۸- ̰ -۸

Ch. 2 — Confrontation

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Ch. 2 — Confrontation

Harry darted through the door and looked around the room. It was much smaller than the hall outside, although still much bigger than needed for the three people already in the room. Portraits and paintings lined the stone walls. Harry startled when he saw the faces in the paintings turn to look at him as he hovered. To his astonishment, he saw a wizened woman in a robe actually walk out of the frame of her portrait! She clearly looked at him while she walked into the painting beside hers! She started whispering to a women in a red dress just as another woman joined them from a third painting.

He dragged his gaze from the paintings to the teenagers who were grouped around a lit fireplace on the opposite wall. One, a boy in furs, was leaning against the mantelpiece, staring into the flames moodily. The second, in a black robe, was standing with his hands behind his back, rocking slightly on his feet, also staring into the fire. A girl in blue robes, with silvery hair, stood between the two. They turned and looked when Harry flew in.

The three stared at the black pegacorn hovering in the air before them. The boy by the mantelpiece grabbed for his pocket. Harry threw up a half-sphere shield and slid smoothly sideways into a corner, facing them. The light-blue glow was almost invisible in the light of the torches to either side of him.

He had several blasting spells at mind, should any stick start to point towards him. The Everfree had taught him to always be prepared for things to go to tartarus at the worst possible moment. And he planned to teleport to the previous room that was a handy and short distance away when it did. Then it would be back into the rafters for him. And then change to a breezie. At that size, they’d never find him. He couldn’t hold it for long, but maybe he could sneak out the front doors before then.

Or he could try phasing instead of teleporting through the roof. Maybe he would get it to work, this time. He had accomplished things in desperation in the Everfree Forest when he had been completely unable to do them at home, after all.

A man wearing long robes with thick horizontal stripes of bright yellow and black hurried in behind Harry. Dumbledore was talking to someone just outside the door, Harry saw. The newcomer had an enormous picture of a wasp splashed across his chest. His nose was squashed, but his round blue eyes, short blond hair, and rosy complexion made him look like an overgrown schoolboy. His slightly too-tight robes hinted at a powerful body gone to seed.

He stopped and stared at Harry. “Extraordinary,” he cried, and clapped his hands together. “Amazing, absolutely amazing! Gentlemen . . . lady,” he said as he moved toward the other three. “I’d like to introduce you to — unbelievable as it might appear — to the fourth Triwizard champion?” He waved an arm at Harry.

The three teens looked at him as if he were quite mad. They looked at Harry, and then back at the man, in disbelief. The silvery-haired girl shook her head, ruefully. She smiled. “Oh, Meester Bagman, that was a vairy funny joke,” she said somewhat disparagingly.

Huh. That was interesting. She spoke with an accent.

“ You think it is a Joke?” Bagman said surprised. “No, no, no, not at all! Harry Potter’s name did come out of the Goblet of Fire! And then,” he stopped and pointed dramatically at Harry, “he appeared in the hall.”

All three again looked at him as if he were mad, then at each other.

“Harry Potter? But this is a horse, a, a baby pegasus” declared the teen in the black robe. “This competition is for wizards and witches!”

“Hay!” said Harry, “I’m a pony, not a horse!” He frowned as he muttered, “And a pegacorn at the moment, not a pegasus.”

They looked at him, surprise evident in their expressions.

“Eet talks!” the girl said, astonished.

“I’m a he, not an eet!” Harry said testily, crossing his forelegs across his chest as he transitioned to a seated position in the air, and stared at them. He pulled his rear legs up as he hovered, using their greaves to add a bit more protection to his belly armour — and other things. He noticed that if he landed and stood on his hind legs, he would be only a head, maybe a head-and-a-half shorter than the three of them were.

The four just stared at him speechlessly.

Dumbledore stepped through the door Harry had used, followed by a large group of adults. First was a stiff, upright, elderly man, dressed in an impeccably crisp suit and tie. The one behind him was tall and thin like Dumbledore, but his white hair was short, and his goatee did not entirely hide his rather weak chin. Then there was an extremely big woman, easily half-again as tall as any of the men, with an olive-skinned face, large, black, liquid-looking eyes, and a rather beaky nose. Her hair was drawn back in a shining knob at the base of her neck. Last were the hook-nosed man and a rather severe-looking woman who was wearing square glasses. Harry could hear the noise of the hundreds of students before the second woman closed the door.

“Madame Maxime!” cried the girl, when she saw the tall woman. She strode over to her, outrage evident in every step. “Zey are saying zat zis . . . animal . . . is to compete also!”

The only woman among the newcomers straightened in indignation. She stood at her full, and rather surprising to Harry, height. She towered over the others by yard or more. Her head almost brushed the candle-filled chandelier in the middle of the ceiling, and her black-satin covered chest expanded impressively as she drew a breath in outrage.

“What is ze meaning of zis, Dumbly-dorr?” she said demanded icily, and glared at the man angrily.

“I think I’d like to know that myself, Dumbledore,” interjected the man with the goatee. He stared, with a calculating look, at the other man.

Harry rolled his eyes. He stared at the girl. “Technically,” he said, snarkily, “we’re all animals.” He turned his gaze to Dumbledore. “Yes. Explain,” he ordered in a haughty tone. His lessons with Blueblood in court etiquette and how to deal with nobles were evident in his refined, authoritative tone. Plus, as Blueblood had stressed, if ponies thought you were important, they listened and treated you better. And if you didn’t have the servants or livery to get the point across, your attitude and what you said, and how you said it, had to do the job.

The boy in the black robe stared at Harry’s wings with a puzzled frown.

Dumbledore stroked his beard, and looked back at Harry. “This year, Hogwarts,” he waved an arm expansively, “this school, is hosting the Triwizard Tournament. The other two competitors are the Beauxbatons Academy of Magic, headed by Headmistress Madame Olympe Maxime, and the Durmstrang Institute, headed by High Master Professor Igor Karkaroff.” The indicated individuals nodded their heads irritably.

Harry turned an expectant look at the others in the room.

“Ah, yes,” Dumbledore said. “This is Mr. Crouch, the Ministry’s Wizard in charge of the Triwizard Tournament.” He pointed to the nicely dressed elderly man.

“This is Professor McGonagall Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts.” He nodded at the stern-looking woman. “This is Professor Snape, our Potions Master.” He nodded to the hook-nosed man.

“And these three are our competitors in the Triwizard Tournament,” he said swinging his arm to point at each. “Miss Delacour, of Beauxbatons; Mister Krum, from Durmstrang, and Hogwarts’ own, Mister Diggory.”

Harry nodded an acknowledgement of each person. “Pleased to make your acquaintances,” he said in as formal and polite a tone as he could manage. “My name is Prince Harry Potter Sparkle, of Equestria.” He hated to say his title because of the attention it invariably brought him. It was all so silly. But in this situation, he felt he needed every advantage he could seize.

After a moment’s silence, as they mulled this statement over with varied looks of surprise, suspicion, and scepticism, Dumbledore continued. “The Goblet of Fire is a very old and very powerful magical instrument,” he stated.

Harry’s stomach sank.

“We used it to select competitors from our respective schools.” The Headmaster continued, as he indicated the three teens with a gentle wave, “The candidates, of which there were at least a dozen from each school, dropped their names into the Goblet, yesterday and this morning. This evening, it selected the best candidate from each school to participate in the competition. The selection is based on a balance of magical prowess, knowledge, and skill.”

He paused to make sure Harry was following his explanation. He sighed.

“Being selected by the Goblet is an irreversible magical contract. Selected entrants must compete or lose their magic. That was why, this year, we limited participants to those of age, over seventeen.”

Harry facehoofed and sighed heavily. Of course. A magical artefact.

“How it managed to select you and draw you here? Someone must have dropped your name into the Goblet. That alone wouldn’t have been enough, though. They had to then cast a powerful confundus charm on this formidable magical object and convince it that there were four schools, not three. And with your name being the only entrant for that fourth school?” He spread his hands helplessly. “There could only be one outcome.”

“I must confess, however, I have never heard of the Goblet actually summoning a missing selected entrant.” He stroked his beard. “On the other hand, in the past, the entrants have always been present. I will have to investigate it thoroughly.” He nodded, muttering to himself, “Yes, a thorough investigation is needed.”

Harry hovered and thought. It made sense. Magical artefacts were always messing around with things in Equestria. A.K. Yearling’s stories as Daring Do Dazzle, showed that. Why should here be any different? And, naturally, any such object would be designed to cause the maximum amount of inconvenience. He shook his head resignedly.

He was here. He would have to compete. The only question was why was he here, in particular?

The fillies would be so upset at missing this.

“How do we know that this is really Harry Potter?” Professor Karkaroff said distrustfully. While he smiled, he had a slightly angry expression and his eyes were narrowed in suspicion.

Harry sighed. Loudly. “I am Harry Potter Sparkle. I was born Harry Potter, and adopted by Princess Twilight Sparkle,” he said in a bored snobbish tone. “I was brought here by your magical artefact that is convinced I am Harry Potter.” He paused and stared at the man, and raised an eyebrow. “What do you want me to do to prove that? Dig up my mother and father from their graves and ask them?”

There was a moment of gobsmacked silence.

“Well,” hesitantly hazarded the boy in the black robes still standing in front of the fire, “You certainly don’t look like Harry Potter.”

And there it was.

“How do you know what Harry Potter looks like? Because the Dursleys certainly didn’t take any pictures of me for you to see.”

“Er, well,” the boy looked at the others in the room, “According to the books, he looks like his father, but has his mother’s green eyes. He definitely doesn’t look like a small flying black pony with a horn and slit-eyes. Even if they are green.”

“Right,” Harry said softly and sarcastically. “Because every child always looks exactly like his parents, and brothers and sisters are all identical, aren’t they?” He snorted derisively. “And it’s impossible for someone to change their appearance with an illusion, or magic?”

He landed and looked up at everyone. He shook his head sadly. Stupid Wizards. Then he stood on his hind legs, and cast an illusion of himself, over his mum’s illusion, of what he remembered he looked like, five years ago.

“Merlin,” he heard someone whisper.

Whether it was in response to his illusion itself, or to his ability to cast such a good illusion, he wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter, anyway.

“Of course,” he said, somewhat smugly, “this doesn’t prove anything, does it? I could have gotten this from a picture, couldn’t I? Of course, that begs the question of where the picture came from, doesn’t it?”

He dismissed the illusion and resumed hovering. “For that matter, how do I know you’re really Albus Dumbledore?” He stared at the white-bearded man, then turned and looked at the big woman, “Or that you are Olympe Maxime? I have no proof you are, do I?”

“Or even that he,” he pointed at the scarred man who had just slipped in the door, “is Alastor? He could be an imposter. How would I know any different?”

Everyone turned and looked at the man.

Alastor stiffened, and fixed both eyes on Harry.

“I could be Nightmare Moon, or Mad King Sombra, for all you know.” He cast another illusion around himself, an illusion that stood on the floor and looked them all in the eyes. It was the mad king, with thick black mane, glowing red and green eyes, curved red horn, and long, sharp fangs. He had armour, a royal cape, crown, and a vile purple mist drifting from the corners of his eyes.

Harry let it dissipate to reveal a tall mare wearing a different crown, who had holes in her legs, horn, mane, and tail, with butterfly-like, but ragged wings. “Or I could be the Changeling Queen, Chrysalis,” he hissed at them in her two-tone voice. The image changed into a tall centaur with a grey-furred body, black torso, red arms, and twin curving horns. He stared down at them all imperiously, hands on hips. “Or, perhaps, even the magic stealing monster, Tirek,” his voice boomed disparagingly.

Everyone was staring at him in shock, and not a little horror.

He dismissed his illusion and revealed his mum’s Nightmare Moon illusion once more. Harry looked back and narrowed his eyes. “I really don’t care if you believe I am Harry Potter Sparkle,” he said in as refined and dismissive tone as he could manage. “The fact that remains, and all that matters, is that the goblet brought me here, right? I have to compete in this Triwizard Tournament foalishness, don’t I?” He looked over at the Headmaster. “And my school is Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns.”

The adults looked at each other. “I have a way to prove if he is or is not Harry Potter,” the Headmaster finally said, eyes twinkling. “Scriffy?” he said.

Harry almost tried to teleport out of the room when an odd little creature suddenly appeared beside Dumbledore.

“Scriffy be here,” said the creature. After a moment, Harry realized it looked a lot like a gremlin. It almost as tall as he was when he stood as a pony, with spindly arms and legs and oversized head and eyes. It had pointed, bat-like ears and a high, squeaky voice. Rather than conventional clothing, it was wearing what was clearly a pillowcase with the Hogwarts logo stitched into it.

“Would you bring me a Gringotts heredity parchment from my desk?”

“Scriffy will do!” declared the diminutive creature.

The Headmaster looked over at Harry who was watching the hook-nosed man and the scarred man very closely. “Sometimes we have students pretending to be others for their OWL and NEWT tests,” he explained. “When Scriffy returns, Harry, all you need to do is put a drop of blood on the parchment and it will immediately display the names of your parents.”

Harry gritted his teeth at the man’s assumed familiarity.

“Scriffy is back,” proclaimed the proud house-elf as he handed a small sheet of parchment to Dumbledore.

“Here, boy,” called the scarred man, who was leaning against the door to the hall. He dropped a knife on the floor and kicked it over to Harry.

Dumbledore nodded. “Thank you, Alastor,” he said as he stepped closer to Harry and held the paper out to him.

Harry took the parchment in his magic. He floated the knife up and carefully poked himself in the frog of his right hoof. He pressed the parchment against his hoof hard enough to smear blood on it. He just as carefully replaced the knife on the floor and slid it back to the scarred man. A quick healing spell took care of the cut, and took almost no magic.

He held the parchment up enough to see what it wrote, but didn’t take his eyes off the others in the room — ah, the advantages of a pony’s 270-degree vision! Slowly the smear of blood rearranged to read “Prince Harry James Potter Sparkle, son of Head of House James Potter (father) and wife Lily J. Potter (née Evans) (mother). Adopted son of Princess Twilight Sparkle.” He floated the parchment over to the Headmaster.

Dumbledore took it, smiled, and showed it first to Professor Karkaroff and then to Madame Maxime. “I believe this puts to rest any doubts as to this pony’s identity as Harry Potter?” Both grudgingly nodded. He handed the parchment to the severe looking woman. She glanced at it then showed it to the others.

After they had all had a look, Harry summoned it back.

“You needn’t worry about that,” Dumbledore said. “The parchment renders the blood magically inert. It can’t be used to harm you.”

Harry incinerated the parchment, anyway. These people hadn’t done anything, so far, for him to trust them. And he had a feeling he shouldn’t trust them.

“Well . . . it is extraordinary,” said Bagman. He smiled at Harry and rubbed his chin. “And the goblet did select and give us his name,” He nodded, as if doing so confirmed the fact. “I mean, there’s no ducking out at this stage, I don’t believe. He frowned and shook his head. He pursed his lips momentarily. “It’s in the rules, you know, once you’re selected, you have to participate.” He sighed. “Harry will just have to do the best he can. Regardless of how he looks.” He shrugged apologetically. The fact that he seemed excited and happy about the issue, almost bouncing on his feet, showed the hollowness of his apology.

For several moments there was silence.

He rubbed his hands together and smiled. “Well,” he said, “Time to give our champions their instructions, right?” He looked over at the elderly man. “Barty?”

Mr. Crouch looked back at him for a moment. “Yes,” he said, “Yes . . . the first task . . .” He moved over to stand by the three teenagers. Harry moved out of the corner to the mantelpiece’s edge.

Up close, Harry thought the man looked ill. Dark shadows hung beneath his eyes and his wrinkled skin had a thin, papery look to it.

Mr. Crouch cleared his throat. “The first task is designed to test your daring and courage in the face of the unknown,” he told Harry, Diggory, Delacour, and Krum. “It will take place on November the twenty-fourth. It will be in front of the other students and the panel of judges.” He paused and frowned. “There might be a bit of a problem there.” He glanced at Harry. “He has no judge present for his school,” the man said to the others. He furrowed his brow, thinking. “We’ll have a solution before then.”

The rest of the rules were simple. None of the schools’ professors could help their competitors with any of the tasks in the tournament. They would be allowed to begin the first task only with their wands. Information or clues about the other tasks would be made available after the previous had been completed. Because of the demanding and time-consuming nature of the tournament, the “champions” were exempt from end-of-year tests.

And, Harry was dismayed to hear, the tournament would last for the next eight months. His mum was not going to like that! It would be a severe blow to his schooling at Celestia’s school. Not to mention how mad she would be at them snatching him, and then keeping him here, incommunicado.

“That’s all, isn’t it, Albus?” Mr. Crouch finished.

Dumbledore nodded sagely, but was looking at Mr. Crouch with mild concern. “Perhaps you should stay at Hogwarts tonight, Barty?” he suggested.

“No, No,” Mr. Crouch demurred. “It is a very busy, very difficult time at the moment. I’ve left young Weatherby in charge . . . . a bit over enthusiastic, he is.” The man looked at Harry. “Hm. Perhaps that would work,” he muttered

“Possibly a drink before you go?” Dumbledore prompted gently.

“Oh, come on, Barty,” Bagman said encouragingly. “I’m going to stay!” he continued brightly. “There are guest apartments, you know, and everything is happening at Hogwarts, now! It’s so much more exciting here than at the Ministry office!” He made a motion as if to nudge the other man, “It’ll be just like old times,” he said nostalgically.

“No, I don’t think so, Ludo,” said Crouch. “There’s so much to do at the office.” He looked at Harry speculatively.

Crouch started for the door. Professor Karkaroff and Madame Maxime quickly ushered their champions out of the room. Alastor — Harry still didn’t know his last name — left with a gruff, “Lesson plans.”

Dumbledore looked at Harry. “Well,” he said quietly, “Let’s go to my office and we’ll arrange where you’ll stay.”

Flying with the Headmaster, Professors Snape and McGonagall, and Bagman as they walked through the castle was an eye-opener. Unlike his mum’s castle, or the Canterlot castle, this one was dark and gloomy, despite the numerous torches lining the corridors, and made from grey stone instead of white marble or crystal. The paintings and portraits really did move, as Dumbledore had confirmed. “They are mere shadows of the people in them — memories of what the owners placed in them when they were created. They aren’t really alive, in any sense, they have no souls.” He had said. “But they offer excellent insights into how people thought and lived back when they were created. The ones of previous Headmasters and Headmistresses have been quite insightful when I need counsel.”

The appearance of the ghosts had almost sent him fleeing down the corridor. He had read about them, of course, but nothing like ghosts existed in Equestria — though stories persisted.

Harry shuddered.

The Headmaster kept up a running commentary as they walked. The castle was a thousand years old.

Isn’t everything? Harry thought. If it was a long time ago, it is always a thousand years ago, isn’t it?

Anyway, there were four founders — two wizards and two witches.

“Hm?” said Dumbledore. “Ah yes, we call ourselves wizards and witches because we can use wands to manipulate magic. Then there are squibs, they have a bit of magic, but not enough to use a wand. Of course, there are those who can’t use magic at all. We call them muggles.”

Harry mulled that over for a moment. “Like the Dursleys?”

“Yes! Quite like the Dursleys.” He glanced at Bagman. “Only Harry Potter would know that Lily Potter’s married sister was Petunia Dursley.” He paused a second. “There are quite a bit more muggles than wizards and witches, though,” he continued to Harry, “and they are highly suspicious of magic users, so we have to remain hidden. That’s why you never heard of or met any wizards or witches while you stayed with your relatives.”

That set off all kinds of alarms in Harry’s mind. This wizard knew him, knew him well enough to recognize even his relatives! And the other wizards and witches had recognized his name. Plus, when he had lived with the Dursleys, there had been those oddly dressed people who seemed to recognize him, he remembered. They had waved, smiled, and one had even come up and shaken his hand. Total strangers. Which his aunt had never believed him when he said so. It invariably led to a severe punishment.

Why? Why was he soo well known? He eyed the Headmaster suspiciously, and tried to stiffen his magic shield.

The Headmaster seemed to ignore his reaction, or he didn’t recognize it. Instead he continued his ramblings about the castle, the four houses, and the subjects taught. Harry also learned that while there were some children who were home-schooled, almost every English wizard and witch attended Hogwarts from age eleven until seventeen. Usually, that meant there were about a thousand students at any given time. Unfortunately, attendance had been falling for the last four years because of a terrible war ten years before, led by a Lord Voldemort, who was presumed dead by most, but not by Dumbledore.

They stopped in front of a gargoyle in a cross-corridor.

Harry only twitched a tiny bit as the gargoyle slid to one side in response to the Headmaster saying Ginger Snaps. He followed the wizard up the stairs. Having the other three behind him made his back itch, but they waved for him go first.

At the top of the stairs was a large and beautiful circular room, the lower walls covered in bookcases. Above the bookcases were portraits of old wizards and witches — all of whom appeared to be sleeping! Scattered around were spindle-legged tables with silver instruments whirring and emitting little puffs of smoke. Opposite the door was a massive, claw-footed desk with two armchairs in front of it. Behind it, sitting on a shelf in a place of honour, and surrounded by paintings, was a shabby, tainted, conical hat. It was patched, frayed, and extremely dirty. Rarity would have been horrified to see that hat, much less have it in her home. If she had to keep it, it would have been cleaned and festooned with ribbons and bows!

To one side, near windows that looked outside into the night, were a couch, table, and chairs.

Harry studied the windows for a moment. He had an escape, at last, if he needed a way out. An easy teleport to the outside world. Or he could do a reverse DashCrash^TM.

Dumbledore made his way behind the desk and removed the hat from its shelf.

He gestured at the armchairs. “Please, Harry, be seated.” He nodded at the wizards and witch behind Harry, and waved his stick, which he had explained was a wand. An additional chair appeared in front of his desk, the first two chairs didn’t even have to move to make room. Professor McGonagall seated herself in one chair, Bagman took the middle chair, while the hook-nosed Professor Snape merely stood to one side and watched Harry closely.

“My name is Harry Potter Sparkle,” the pony said aloofly, with a mild glare. “Only my friends may call me Harry.” He cautiously approached the other chair, fortunately the one closest to the windows, and turned it to face the other three. He landed on the seat. He sat, butt-down, with his forelegs holding him upright. He stared at the Headmaster. It was a bit uncomfortable sitting that way on the cardboard armour, but it put him at head-height for the wizards and witch.

The witch was staring at him in disapproval. Professor Snape’s expression was blank, and the other wizard coughed and tried to hide a smile behind his hand.

Harry noticed several of the portraits were now awake and taking interest in the room.

“Before we do anything,” he said in what he hoped was a regal manner, “tell me why you all know who I am. And why someone would want to place my name in that goblet.”

The story he was told left him shocked to his core.

He had always thought his parents had died in a car crash.

That an evil wizard had killed them while trying to take over the wizarding world left him speechless. That the wizard had then been destroyed trying to kill Harry was preposterous. That the people of the wizarding world somehow thought he was their saviour was unbelievable — he was barely fifteen months old at the time!

And he had thought ponies jumped to irrational conclusions!

If it weren’t for the grim expressions, and nodding agreement, on the other three adults, he would have thought this merely a very tasteless joke. He could only shake his head in disbelief.

“No doubt,” Dumbledore continued, “Voldemort’s followers, many of whom are still free, hold you responsible for the disappearance of their master. Placing your name in the Goblet of Fire might have been an attempt to kill you from a distance. They must have thought that when you failed to show up for the first task, the Goblet would consider you in violation of the magical contract and remove your magic. The abrupt removal of your magic would probably kill you, giving them their revenge.” He sadly shook his head, then smiled gently. “Fortunately, the Goblet summoned you immediately, instead. No one suspected that possibility.”

Wonderful, Harry thought bitterly. He was in an unfamiliar world, he had no way to contact his mum, he had to take part in this ridiculous tournament, and he was a hero to the stupid wizards. Oh, yeah, and a small group wanted him dead.

How could this possibly get any worse?

۸- ̰ -۸

Ch. 3 — Cultural Clash

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Ch. 3 — Cultural Clash

Twilight sighed. The fillies looked at her curiously. That colt was such a hooful. Ever since he and Sweetie Belle had learned to teleport he was disappearing or appearing unexpectedly. Fortunately, his range was short, barely covering the extent of her castle’s Map Room. She looked around the plaza in front of the Town Hall. Where was he hiding?

He wasn’t in obvious sight, so she closed her eyes, cast a detection spell, and waited for the return echo. But none arrived.

That was odd, he wasn’t in the plaza. Had he run off as soon as he teleported? He never did that. He always stayed around to see his friends’ reactions. She stood, then hovered in place.

«Harry’s playing hide-and-seek, again.» She shook her head. «I don’t have time for it right now, so see if you all can find him? Okay?» She looked down at the fillies, who nodded in understanding. She flew a quick circle around the plaza on the off-chance she might see him, but he wasn’t in sight. That colt! She shook her head, and smiled. He was such a delight, sometimes. And always a challenge.

She went into the Town Hall to present the performers for the next scheduled concert.

Scootaloo looked around hesitantly. «Girls?» she said. «Something isn’t right. He didn’t finish his ice-cream.» The three looked at the bowl on the table. It was over half-full. The brisk temperature outside prevented it from melting, but it still wouldn’t last long.

Apple Bloom grabbed the bowl and hoofed it to a passing filly. «Here,» she said, «Arr coltfriend ran off and left this. Why don’t you finish it so it don’t go to waste?»

«Thanks, Apple Bloom,» said Petunia Paleo, dressed as Daring Do. She immediately sat and started in on the delicious treat.

«Yer welcome,» said Apple Bloom.

Sweetie Belle looked at Apple Bloom as they started across the plaza. «That was mean. He might come back, soon.»

She shrugged, «Then he shouldn’t have taken off without warnin’ us. ‘Sides, he can always get another, if’n he wants.» She looked around the plaza. «We should split up and meet back here in half-an hour. Ah’ll check the tree-house.» She turned and took off at a gallop. Galloping was faster than flying, as she didn’t have nearly the experience that Harry and Scootaloo had racked up on their wings. Besides, she was an earth pony and preferred to keep her hooves on the ground, thank you very much — as she constantly reminded them.

«I’ll ask the Guards at the castle,» said Scootaloo, taking off in a swirl of wings and arrowing out of the plaza.

«And I’ll just trot in circles, I guess,» Sweetie Belle muttered. She cast a detection spell down the alley beside her. Nope. No ponies down there.

۸- ̰ -۸

During the Headmaster’s explanation about Harry’s history, according to the wizards, Scriffy served drinks and snacks. Harry was offered tea or pumpkin juice, and he chose tea. The first time each of the others sipped at their alcoholic drinks, fire-whiskey they called it, and then exhaled flames caught him off guard. While he knew his mum would disapprove, he still wondered if he could get a taste — and shooting flames from his mouth like Spike did looked like fun.

Not having had much of a dinner, Harry demolished his biscuits rather quickly. Seeing that, Scriffy brought him a sandwich. Harry carefully peeled it apart to check, and was happy to see it was merely peanut-butter and strawberry jam.

“I think,” Dumbledore said, “we can wait on hearing where you’ve been the last few years until tomorrow, when we’re more alert. In the meantime, we need to decide where you will sleep.”

“We have four Houses in Hogwarts — Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Each is grouped according to their traits.” He leaned back in his chair and steepled his hands across his stomach. “Gryffindor values courage, bravery, and chivalry.” Harry frowned, he didn’t know that last word. “Hufflepuff values hard work, patience, justice, and loyalty. Ravenclaw values intelligence, creativity, learning, and wit. Slytherin values ambition, cunning, leadership, and resourcefulness.”

Professor McGonagall stood and retrieved the hat from the Headmaster’s desk as he was saying this.

“The Sorting Hat,” he continued, eyes twinkling, “will determine which of the four would best accommodate and support you during the Tournament.”

The Professor stepped over to Harry and started to put the hat on his head.

Harry leaned away. “Oh, no, you won’t!” he declared firmly, with a bit of panic, and put a forehoof over his head. Tensing his legs and wings, he glanced out the window to make sure nothing was in the way.

The woman stepped back. “I assure you,” the woman . . . witch . . . said sternly, “it is perfectly harmless.”

“So is the Alicorn Amulet until you put it on!” stated Harry, eyeing the hat and the others suspiciously. “My mum warned me about things like that. They look completely innocent, maybe even helpful, but then they change you. So, nope, not going to happen.” He shook his head no for emphasis. And placed his other forehoof over it.

Professor McGonagall looked back at Dumbledore.

Bagman cleared his throat. “Actually,” he said apologetically, “If you officially sort the boy into a House in Hogwarts, well, that would give Hogwarts two champions, wouldn’t it? And he has already said he goes to . . . ,” he turned and looked at Harry directly, “Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns?”

Harry nodded, and kept his eyes warily on the hat, and where it went.

“The magic in the Goblet might even interfere, again, if you tried,” he concluded. “Not to mention that Maxime or Karkaroff would object. And quite firmly, I suspect.” He didn’t look unhappy at the prospect. He was also on his third small glass of firewhiskey.

The other three looked at him.

“Hm, yes, I expect you might be right,” the Headmaster said softly, and looked contemplative. He absentmindedly motioned to the witch. After a frowning look at Harry, she placed the hat back on the wizard’s desk, and returned to her chair.

“So. Minerva, Severus, where do you think we should place Harry,” he glanced, with an amused expression, at Ludo Bagman, “unofficially?”

Harry grimaced. “Harry Potter Sparkle!” he said, and emphasized the last two words.

The wizard nodded amiably at him.

“Neither Beauxbatons nor Durmstrang have room in their conveyances,” said Professor Snape blandly. “In view of their own champions, and in such close quarters, they would probably resent his presence even more.” His eyes lingered on Harry in a fashion that the pegacorn found disturbing.

Harry listened attentively, with his eyes narrowed.

“Considering the rivalry between Houses, Hogwarts’ students wouldn’t have that issue as long as he wasn’t placed in Hufflepuff,” he continued. “But Slytherin would be challenging, considering his appearance.”

Harry’s eyes narrowed to slits as he stared at the wizard. What was wrong with his appearance?

The Headmaster stroked his beard, nodding slowly. “Tell me, my boy, do you enjoy reading and learning, or consider yourself a witty person?”

Harry sighed. If all wizards were like this, and he had a vague feeling they were, this was going to be a long eight months. “I am not a boy, I am a colt! And I am a pony! Specifically, from the unicorn tribe,” he said exasperatedly.

He took a steadying breath. “And, no, not really. I do like to learn, but I’m not what anypony would call a quick wit. And I’d rather use magic I know rather than read about magic, just for the sake of knowing it as my mum does.”

Although, her reading had led to the discovery of quite a few interesting tricks he had been happy to learn. Such as the wings spell, or Hayscartes’ Method that was currently all the rage at Celestia’s school — and driving the teachers mad with how fast it improved comprehension. They were still tweaking their new lesson plans from last year’s rout.

The witch looked at him. “Do you think you are brave? Do you think yourself courageous?”

Harry looked at her and shrugged. “Again, not really. I do what I have to do when it needs to be done.”

The adults exchanged evaluating looks. Bagman rubbed his chin and said, “If definitely not Hufflepuff or Slytherin, then my old House, Gryffindor.”

Dumbledore and McGonagall nodded agreement. “And if Har . . . ,” Dumbledore corrected himself. “If Mr. Potter desires to switch at a later date, then we can try Ravenclaw.”

Harry growled, then said. “Sparkle!” and glared at the Headmaster. From their startled looks, they appeared as if they had never heard a pony growl, before.

Bagman chuckled. “Yep. Definitely Gryffindor.”

Professor Snape subtly rolled his eyes, Harry saw.

The Headmaster lightly slapped his hands on his desk as he stood. “Excellent. Professor McGonagall, will you see to getting Mr. . . . Sparkle settled for the night.” He glanced, smiling at Harry, “And then tomorrow morning take him to Diagon Alley for a wand, clothes, and school supplies? I’ll have Scriffy get his books.” He looked at the other two adults. “Ludo and I have a few things to discuss.”

Professor McGonagall stood, and waited for Harry to join her.

They had barely returned to the hallway when she stopped and looked at him curiously. “I’ve heard you call yourself both a unicorn and a pegacorn. Can you explain?”

He shrugged. “The wings are temporary magic, from a spell my mum cast. It makes me a pegacorn, a unicorn with wings. So, for a time, I have the abilities of two tribes of ponies, unicorns and pegasi. Add a colouring illusion, a slit-eye illusion, and fake armour, and I have appearance of Nightmare Moon. She is an alicorn — a pony with magic from all three tribes.” He paused thinking, then landed.

“They won’t last long, mum said, probably only until midnight,” he explained. “She could have made them last much longer, weeks, but she said that was indulging. And would confuse the ponies who didn’t know me.” He carefully stood on his hind legs. He sighed dejectedly. “I cannot cast the wing spell to last an hour, much less all day, myself, and repeated casting would leave me exhausted before lunch time.” He stood still for a moment.

“Which leaves me with walking. That normally isn’t a problem. But, if I’m really stuck here for the next eight months, I should probably practice this.” He glanced down. “I don’t want to see only black robes at your thigh-height for the entire time.”

She studied him a moment, her brow furrowed. “Isn’t that difficult?”

“Yes. But I’ll get used to it in time.”

She resumed walking again. “Aren’t you worried about falling?”

“Little nudges with magic help a lot. And takes far less magic than the wing spell. And it will decrease as I get used to two hooves.” He sighed.

She nodded her understanding.

“What are you dietary needs? I need to know so I can warn the house-elves.”

“House-elves?”

“Scriffy is a house-elf.”

“Ah. I eat anything you do, except of meat.” He gave a shudder. “Almost all the animals in Equestria can speak. I refuse to eat something that can ask me not to eat it. And the food I remember eating here? Well, imagine your reaction if you travelled to a world where they served you a roast person. No matter how much they assured you that it was from a dumb animal, what would be your reaction?”

The professor gave him a long look with a sick expression. “I see.”

“Fish are okay. The pegasi where I come from love fish and hay-fries . . . chips.” He paused, thinking. “Uh, kippers and eggs would be good, too,” he said, remembering that English favourite as well. “Baked goods, vegetables, fruits, sugars, hay, and straw. Basically anything you could serve to a pony or horse, here.” He smiled. “I like daisy and strawberry jam sandwiches.”

The stairs between the third floor and the seventh were a bit of a challenge, but nothing he couldn’t manage with the help of magical nudges and the hoofrail.

She looked at his “armour” and down at his hooves. “You are much quieter than I would expect.”

He looked down, “Oh, I forgot. A silencing spell so nopony could follow me as I moved around in that big hall.” He laughed nervously. A moment later, the familiar clip-clop of his hooves was heard beside the tip-tap of the professor’s shoes. And the mild scraping and creaking of his “armour.”

She smiled a bit. “We’ll get you into something more comfortable than that tomorrow.”

He looked at her puzzled. “Why? I’m a pony. We usually don’t wear anything. We normally only dress up for special occasions . . . like balls or fancy plays. Or,” he frowned, “Halloween. Of course, the Guards always wear armour similar to this, but that has cushioning and comfort spells.” He glanced down. “I could easily add them to these, anyway.

She stopped again and looked him up and down. “You were a boy before you went to this Equestria. Surely you remember?”

He snorted and then frowned. “To hide your privates, and for warmth in winter.” He stared back at her. “Ponies aren’t particularly concerned about the first, our being on four legs and having tails takes care of that. Our fur, of the second. For unicorns, if really necessary, we can use warming spells. Pegasi are extremely resistant to cold. Comes from flying up with the clouds where it’s freezing more frequently than not.”

She stared at him. “Unless you intend to wear the armour at all times, your tail will provide precious little modesty with your current stance.”

He looked down at his belly armour. “Ah. Of course. Yes,” he said, contritely. He had intended to wear the cardboard, with suitable reinforcing spells, but there was no need to advertise that fact.

“And it will help you blend in, too,” she added.

They resumed walking.

“Can you change back to being a human?”

He sighed. “I’ve never tried. No reason to.” He shrugged. “Don’t know how, anyway.”

She stopped and turned to him. “Turning back to human from your animagus form takes a bit of practice. Some people accidently get stuck in their form and need help. We have a spell to reverse the animagus. It sounds like that might have happened to you. Would you like me to cast it? It would make your stay here easier if you were once more human.”

He stared at her a long time. Could he trust her? “Show me the spell.”

He watched carefully, puzzled, as she went through the movements with her wand. He was startled when she said there was an incantation.

“It does nothing if the target is not an animagus,” she reassured him. She cast the spell at a nearby suit of armour to demonstrate. “And once you return to human, you can call forth your animagus form easily by remembering what it was like and pulling on it. After the first few times it becomes almost instinctive. Watch.”

It happened too fast for Harry actually to see the magic, like his mum could do, but she suddenly began to shrink until he was looking at small cat. He could certainly feel the different elements used in the magic, however. With a lot of practice, he would get close to his mum’s skill at that. He stepped back a few paces, frowning.

She returned to human.

“There, you see?” She ruffled her robes. “Normally, it’s a long and arduous task to master the change. We only teach students interested in it after they complete their OWLS, their Fifth year, and they usually master it just before they graduate in Seventh year.”

He stood, silent, thinking. He thought about his magic in his horn, and slowly traced the lines back to their beginning. He thought about his hated childhood. What he had felt like, what he had looked like. He . . . pulled on that image.

Nothing happened.

He tried again.

Again, nothing happened. Not even a twitch of magic.

Then he had a thought. What if he couldn’t change back? He didn’t know how he had changed in the first place.

He looked up the professor. “Let me see the spell matrix, first.”

“Spell matrix?”

He frowned at her. “How do you describe the spell in books, if not with a spell matrix?”

She blinked, “Oh, you mean arithmancy.” She paused. “I will get you an arithmetic description tomorrow, but I don’t think you’ll understand it. You haven’t the training nor experience.”

“Possibly,” he said dryly. “But we won’t know until I see it. And if you can explain it, maybe that will tell me what I want to know.” Unless she had a spell to make him a unicorn again, he wasn’t going to let her cast a spell to change him.

At the end of the corridor on the seventh floor, they stopped in front of a large portrait of a very fat woman in a pink dress.

“Good evening, Professor McGonagall,” the portrait said, smiling and nodding her head. She outright stared at Harry.

“This is Prince Harry James Potter Sparkle,” Professor McGonagall said to the portrait. “He’ll be staying in Gryffindor for the foreseeable future.”

The fat lady nodded.

“The entrance to the Gryffindor Tower and Common Room is protected by a password, Mr. Sparkle,” the professor said sternly, turning back to him. “See that you remember it. If you forget, you will have to wait out here until someone who does know the password goes in. At the moment, it is Caput Draconis.”

The fat lady was still smiling as the portrait opened towards them to reveal a circular hole. Harry stared. Really? Really? They had a portrait that reached to the floor, and the entrance behind it had a step-up double the height of a normal stair? And it was round? He shook his head as he flew up and inside at the Professor’s urging.

It was a round room, about seventeen yards in diameter, with copious windows, squashy armchairs, a large fireplace, and done up completely in hues of red with touches of gold. Despite its size — almost as big as his mum’s original Tree Library home — it still managed to convey a feeling of welcoming cosiness. On opposite ends of the room were two wide doors.

Unfortunately, the Common Room was not empty. Almost immediately, he had nearly everyone’s attention, dozens of Gryffindors. He saw one person open the door on the far left and yell up the staircase it revealed. A girl by the door on the far right copied him. Harry reflexively tossed up a shield in front of himself at all the attention. He wouldn’t have done this at home, but the wizards left him on edge. He just had this . . . feeling that someone was going to attack him.

Professor McGonagall followed him and cleared her throat. Everyone looked to her, even as more students scrambled down the stairs. “I would like to introduce to you, Mr. Harry Potter Sparkle.” She gave him a glance.

He looked around at the many curious expressions he saw. There were many puzzled ones, as well. And a small number who looked upset, for some reason.

“Because of unknown circumstances,” she went on, “the Goblet of Fire has chosen Mr. Sparkle to participate in the Triwizard Tournament, representing Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns.” That got a lot more curious looks before they turned back to their professor. “Unlike the other participants, however, he has no accommodations. In the spirit of cooperation, we are extending the courtesy of allowing Mr. Sparkle to stay here, in the castle, until further notice.

“He has not been Sorted, as that would make him a Hogwarts student. We are unsure how the Goblet of Fire would react to that. We are placing him in Gryffindor Tower, for the moment. Depending upon how he fits in here, we may move Mr. Sparkle to Ravenclaw.”

Harry got the impression that she did not want that to happen as she once more scanned the room, and frowned. “That would be regrettable,” she said sternly. He noticed she stopped and stared at several students in particular.

“We don’t know Mr. Sparkle’s skill level with magic, yet, so we will be placing him, temporarily, with his age group, the Fourth Years.” She glared at the students around the room. “I trust you will treat him with the same courtesy and respect you have for every other student in Gryffindor.”

For a moment, Harry was sure she simply was going to leave at that point, abandoning him to the timberwolves, figuratively speaking.

“Mr. Weasley,” she said sternly. “Please escort Mr. Sparkle to the Fourth Year Dormitory.”

A red-headed boy, the youngest of the four he could see, pushed his way to the front. He looked at Harry. He held out his hand and said, “Hi, I’m Ron Weasley.”

Harry reached out his right hoof and pressed it against the boy’s hand. “Hello,” he said, formally, shaking their combined hand/hoof like he used to do when meeting other people when he was a human here. “As you heard, I am Harry Potter Sparkle.” He let go.

“ ‘Cor!” the boy said, looking at his hand wonderingly. “How did you do that?” He looked up, a gobsmacked expression on his face. “You grabbed my hand!”

Several other close enough to hear what he said gave the two of them startled looks.

Harry just looked at him and shrugged slightly. “It’s how ponies pick things up,” he explained.

Professor McGonagall cleared her throat.

Ron looked at her guiltily. “Right. Follow me,” he said to Harry as he turned and started for the left staircase. A gap formed in front of them, and everyone watched as the two made their way across the room. Harry noticed five other boys join in behind them. Three were about the same age. One wore a scruffy and untidy uniform and had a white complexion with sandy-coloured hair. The second had dark hair and dark skin. Because he had a long neck, he was a bit taller than Ron Weasley. The third was short, chubby, and had blond hair. The other two were obviously related to Ron, as they were both tall with red hair and freckles.

Being followed by wizards he didn’t know or trust made him nervous, and he couldn’t stop glancing around. Fortunately, his bigger eyes were more to the side than a human’s, and so he didn’t have to turn his head nearly as far in order to see behind himself. Ah, the advantages of having the over two hundred seventy-five degree vision of a prey species!

Someone scrambled to open the door for them, and a few minutes later they were at the top of a long spiral staircase — they were obviously in a tower. Seven floors worth of stairs, Harry was sorry to see. Only the attic was higher.

There were five four-poster beds, hung with deep red, velvet curtains. The neatly-made bed closest to the door and without a trunk at its base or cluttered with clothes and junk, had to be for Harry. He crouched, jumped onto it, then turned around and sat. He watched as the other six gathered at the foot of his bed.

Ron stood at the bottom of the bed. He looked around for a moment, then said, “Well, uh, these two are my brothers, Fred and George Weasley.” He pointed to the two tall red-heads, one after the other. “They’re twins.”

Immediately, the one he had named Fred, said, “Oy! I’m George!”

And the other said, “I’m Fred!”

They both grinned widely and stuck out their hands.

Harry blinked and withheld the sigh he wanted to let out. He leaned towards them and held out his hoof and shook the hand of first one, then the other one. He murmured, “Nice to meet you,” to each in formal tones.

Both looked at their hands and frowned comically.

Ron continued, unfazed by their antics. “This is Neville Longbottom,” he said, indicating the blond-haired boy. “This is Dean Thomas,” and pointed to the dark-skinned boy. “And this is Seamus Finnigan,” who was the sandy-haired boy.

Harry shook their hands and said, “Hello,” to each.

Then they stared at each other. It was clear they had questions. It was also clear they were unsure how he would take to them asking the question. Then there were the conflicting feelings that they felt, as he later discovered.

First, the solid-black, winged, horned pony wearing armour almost from head to hoof looked more than a little intimidating and dangerous. Second, what they could see of the pony itself looked cute and cuddly.

He sighed. What he wanted to do was go to sleep. It was late and he was getting tired.

But his armour took priority.

He looked at the boys gathered in front of him. “Do any of you have a quill and ink I could borrow?”

They exchanged puzzled looks. “Yeah,” Seamus said, and walked over to his desk and after a moment’s rummaging returned with the two items.

Harry took them in his magic and took off his helmet. He shook his head, and ruffled his mane with his magic. He flipped the helmet around and then studied the quill a moment. It would have to do. He carefully drew the spell-runes to change the cardboard-with-metallic-paint into something tough enough to take a straight blow from a sword swung by Big Mac or Bulk Biceps and turn it into the equivalent of a friendly, on-the-shoulder style, tap.

He started adding the spells he wanted. He hoped he remembered the strengthening and comfort spells accurately. They were rather tricky to get to work together. If one didn’t work right, he hoped it was the comfort runes. He’d rather the armour not be cloth-like flexible rather than only as strong as paper.

While he was doing that, the others watched and asked questions.

“Hm?” he said distractedly, “Oh, this isn’t real armour. It’s just a costume. What I’m doing now is making up for that.”

The twins were especially interested in the runes and one ran out and returned with quill and ink and started taking notes.

“I was at the Nightmare Night festival in Ponyville,” he continued.

The boys laughed.

“Ponyville? That’s stupid! You’re pranking us, right?” Ron said. “How dumb is it to name a town after yourselves?” He looked at the others, grinning.

Harry didn’t look up. “Well, then, how much dumber is it to name an entire island after yourselves — the Isle of Man? I imagine, if you looked, that there is even an island or town named Wizard or Witch, somewhere.”*

He was met with an awkward silence.

“So, er,” Seamus said, “Are all the . . . uh, ponies . . . where you come from black and have both wings and a horn?”

Harry, concentrating on his runes, absentmindedly explained the three tribes and what each could do. He also explained about alicorns and how Princess Celestia ruled the sun while her sister, Princess Luna, ruled the moon. He noticed, but didn’t comment on their disbelieving expressions about the alicorns. And further explained that he wasn’t an alicorn, just a unicorn using a wings spell — which temporarily made him a pegacorn.

“Show us,” said Fred, who claimed he was George.

Harry glanced at the red-head. “No.” At their expressions, he added, “Not now. It’s exhausting, and I want to finish the armour tonight. Besides, you would find them extraordinarily uncomfortable under your clothes. And you wouldn’t be able to fly.”

“What if we help?” George said.

“You’ll get done in a third of the time!” said Fred.

Harry regarded them unsurely. Could he trust them to do it right? He shook off his shoes and greaves, and showed them the rune-sequence he wanted them follow. He would check after each individual rune-set until he was satisfied they could do it. Even if they messed up a couple, he would still be ahead of doing everything himself.

It was time consuming. There were the weight reduction, warming, cooling, sweat wicking, camouflage, self-repair, re-sizing, and weather resistance spells. Not to mention the magic-shield spell that covered them. Then the armour extension spells that extended those spells to cover the areas between armour pieces had to be painted in a continuous stream along the edges. Even with using magic to dry the ink immediately, it was still time-consuming. If he did the runes right, the armour would last centuries. It wouldn’t be as sturdy as professionally designed and cast armour, but would be a darn sight better than mere thin cardboard!

He hesitated to use the don’t-notice-me-field runes. Runes, not being spells, did not have a built-in exclusion for the caster. He was unsure of the owner-exclusion runes that would prevent him from losing the helmet, or other armour, immediately after he let go of it.

The camouflage would have to suffice. He would have liked to use the illusion set, but he wanted Nightmare Moon, not the standard Guard Stallion White. And without knowing the exact runes for that, it was pretty impossible to achieve. He set the helmet aside. He would write the impervious rune, to protect the cardboard and other runes, later, after he had had time to wear the armour and check that the runes were correct and that he didn’t want to add any.

At the promise of wings for a short while, even the others decided to pitch in. The four Fourth Years worked with the two Sixth years checking their accuracy. Harry only had to correct one or two small errors.

With six of them working at it, they were finished far sooner than he expected. He soon had both twins standing by the heating stove, wearing only their underwear.

“These wings won’t last long, maybe fifteen minutes, or half an hour at the very most,” Harry warned them as he slipped on his armour. The differences between before and now were easily felt. Definitely not as stiff. “I’m tired, already.”

The armour’s runes would charge completely overnight. The end result wouldn’t be as sturdy as real, magic-reinforced steel armour, but would be far better than mere cloth or cardboard.

“You can do them again, later . . . ,”

“. . . until we learn the spell ourselves.”

Harry shrugged and closed his eyes to concentrate. Once he had the spell firmly in mind, he looked at Fred and cast the spell. He could immediately feel the drain.

The others gasped in shock at seeing wings manifest on the wizard. He had decided to use the other variation of the wings spell.

“ ‘Cor”, said Fred, looking over his shoulder at the wide-spread, red-feathered wings. He gave them a tentative flap and rose an inch or two. The others crowded around him, stroking the wings and admiring the interplay of hues.

“My turn,” said George, abruptly turning to Harry.

Harry took a deep breath, and cast the spell a second time. He wavered in place, still sitting on the bed, and yawned widely. He watched groggily as the two twins flew around the room. He looked at the other four, who were also watching them with big grins and wide eyes.

“I’m sorry, I’m too tired to do more tonight. Tomorrow, okay?” He could feel himself slurring his words.

He didn’t even wait for their acknowledgements, he just curled up on the bed and fell asleep, barely remembering to take off his glasses.

Later, they told him about flying down to the Common Room and back into their rooms, to the surprise and envy of all who saw them.

۸- ̫ -۸

Ch. 4 — Alley, Alley, In Come Free!

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Ch. 4 — Alley, Alley, In Come Free!

They had been searching all night, it seemed, without success. Most of the foals had gone home, and only the adults remained partying. Harry was simply not to be found. If this was a prank, it was a very poor one, the three fillies agreed. They had even dismissed their illusionary colours as Nightmare Moon, and removed the costumes. They had kept the wings to make searching easier.

«We’ve searched everywhere!» emphasized Scootaloo to Twilight. «The clubhouse, the castle, the plaza, the park, . . . everywhere!» She looked up, pleadingly, at the alicorn.

«This ain’t right,» said Apple Bloom, stomping a hoof.

«Nobody’s seen a colt pretending to be Nightmare Moon, or Harry, since he disappeared,» Scootaloo said anxiously.

«This ain’t funny, anymore,» added Apple Bloom, looking from the side of the stage at her brother, Big Mac, who was singing with the Pony Tones.

«I’m worried,» said Sweetie Belle softly, looking down at the ground.

Twilight huffed. This wasn’t like Harry. She glanced at the Pony Tones and chewed her lower lip. Could something really be wrong?

«Okay. I’ll summon him. And then he’ll explain why he’s pulled this tasteless prank.» Twilight wasn’t angry at Harry, truly she wasn’t. She was just . . . annoyed.

She braced herself. A purple glow suffused her horn then abruptly expanded outward, disappearing almost immediately. She stood there a moment, panting slightly, waiting. She held her head up, as if listening. After a moment, she frowned — there hadn’t been a return signal. «That can’t be right!» she exclaimed.

She braced herself, again. A brighter purple glow suffused her horn, and then exploded outwards. She stood there a moment, again panting slightly, waiting. She took a step back and looked around. «No, that can’t be right! I must have done it wrong!» She disappeared in a burst of light and gentle chimes.

She almost immediately returned with Spike, who had spoon of gem-dust-covered ice-cream half-way to his mouth. «Huh?» he said, blinking.

«Emergency, Spike! You introduce Octavia,» she ordered. Then she paused and pleaded, «Please?» with watery eyes. «Harry’s missing!»

«Uh, sure, yeah,» the dragon said, hastily shoving the spoon in his mouth and looking around him behind the stage.

«Oh, thank you, thank you!» she said, hugging him. «You’re the best assistant, ever!» She popped away.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders looked at each other and sighed. They could tell it was going to be a long, long night. And Harry was going to get such a talking to for spoiling the night!

Sweetie Belle looked at the still bemused Spike and sighed. «Come on, girls. I’ll get Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy, and then wait until Rarity gets off stage.” She glanced at the Pony Tones, still signing. “Apple Bloom, see if you can find your sister. Scoots, try to find Dash. We’ll meet at the castle, okay?»

The other two nodded and the three tore off in different directions — two flying, one galloping.

Spike looked around. «What happened?» he said curiously looking at the three crusader fillies as they vanished from sight. Then he shrugged fatalistically. «I’m sure she’ll tell me soon.» He sighed. «Well, Octavia must be around somewhere.» He started wandering through the backstage area.

۸- ̰ -۸

Harry woke with a startled gasp and jerked his head around frantically. He was lying in a large four-poster bed in a stone room with four others. The room was heavily decorated in red and gold, with a few posters on the walls. The sun was just barely streaming in the window. He sighed disappointedly. It hadn’t been a nightmare.

On the other hoof, he noted with pride, he had remembered the comfort and flexibility rune-spells correctly, and they had started to work last night just as he had hoped. No pinches, no hard edges, no unforgiving surfaces. He might have slept in night-clothes instead of armour, for all he could tell. Excellent!

Now, he only had to check the armour to see if it provided any more protection than paper.

He grabbed his glasses and looked around the room. It was much easier to see details now that it was daytime. The other four-post-beds had their red curtains closed for privacy, with the steady drone of snores coming from each.

A wooden board was on the wall on one side of each of their beds. From the things tacked to the board, Harry gathered their purpose was so each student could personalize the area around their bed. It didn’t stop the sports posters being on the walls, though. Watching the people in the posters move still bothered him. They made him think he was always being spied upon.

Below the board was a dresser and lamp, with a trunk at the bed’s base. On the opposite side was a wooden chair and study desk, also with a lamp. Above the study desk was a wide window with red curtains.

A yellow banner that said Gryffindor, with their lion house mascot, hung on top of their beds. The dorm itself had stone walls and stained wooden floors, naturally. There was perch and a box on each dresser. For pets, perhaps? Harry wondered.

The Nightmare Moon illusion had fallen sometime in the night. He considered renewing it, but decided that that wouldn’t be worth the effort. Besides, the spell might be unexpectedly negated at some point and his true colours and form revealed. Might as well get it over with. He would just go with his normal light-blue coat with black mane and tail.

The crash of Harry bouncing off the stone wall woke the others.

“What in Merlin’s Sack was that?” Dean demanded, sweeping his curtains open and looking around.

“Just testing my armour,” Harry said smugly. The strengthening and cushioning runes seemed to be working just fine, he had barely felt charging head first into the wall. The cardboard armour wouldn’t stand more than one or two blows in rapid succession, but it was far better than nothing.

“Don’t be cheeky,” the dark-skinned boy growled. The others had slowly pushed their curtains aside and were yawning and stretching.

Harry stood on his hind legs and launched himself at the wall, slamming into it with his muzzle up. Yep, the peytral, and belly plates were perfect, too. He had previously tested the greaves against each other. They wouldn’t stand up to a power attack, but just about everything less than that would be turned aside.

He’d have to wait out the other rune-spells — he couldn’t exactly make himself sweat without a lot of time and effort. The same for the warming and cooling spells. And he didn’t trust anypony enough to ask them to cast a spell at the armour. Especially with him in it.

Rubbing his eyes and blinking owlishly, Seamus said, “Why are you up so early on a Sunday?”

Harry looked at them. Right. He had never asked what day it was. He shrugged. “Professor McGonagall is supposed to take me to . . . ,” he stopped and frowned, “Diagonally? For school stuff.” He thought a moment longer. “When’s breakfast?” He frowned a bit deeper, and crossed his forelegs. “And where?”

Seamus and Dean exchanged looks, and gave each other sneaky grins. “Hang on and we’ll show you,” Dean declared.

Seamus, dug into his dresser, glanced back at him and said, “Why are you so . . . blue? Last night you were black and had really ace eyes.”

“That was my Nightmare Moon illusion. That’s what she looks like.”

“Merlin!” Dean said, looking at Harry. “Even in armour you look cute enough to rot my teeth and give me diabetes!” He shook his head. “You’ll have to beat the girls off with a beater bat.”

Seamus and Neville mumbled their agreement.

Harry looked at him uncertainly, not sure how to answer that.

He watched as the three hurriedly dressed. Ron was still asleep. “He could sleep through an explosion,” Neville said, after a big yawn. He stretched his arms backwards.

“According to his brothers,” Dean explained, “they once blew up his bedroom at home and he never woke up.”

Harry looked at them. “So, how do you wake him for classes and stuff?”

Seamus snickered. “Watch this.” He walked over to the bed in question and leaned close. Barely above a whisper, he said, “Ron! George is stealing your bacon!”

Almost immediately the curtains flew open and Ron was standing on his bed in his underwear, looking around frantically. “Where is he? Where’s my breakfast!?”

The other three started laughing.

Ron rolled his eyes and glared at them.

“Just showing Harry how to knock you up for classes,” Seamus said, still grinning madly.

“Not funny,” he stated grumpily, and crossed his arms. He glared down at them.

“Yes, yes it is,” said Dean. Neville nodded beside him.

“We’re going to show Harry where the Great Hall is and get breakfast. Want to come?” said Seamus as he backed up and headed for the door.

“Bollocks to that. It’s Sunday, I’m sleeping in.” He slammed the curtains closed. Well as close to slam as you can get with soft cloth curtains. “And bring me back some bacon!” came a last call. They heard him punch his pillow a couple of times.

The three boys laughed and headed for the door. Harry carefully followed them, still a bit unsteady on two hooves.

“Why are you walking like that?” said Dean, holding the door open.

Harry gave him a long look, then shrugged. “Don’t like the view from lower down.”

Seamus, in front of them, almost fell down the stairs.

“Ah,” Dean finally said. “And why not fly? Like you were earlier?”

Harry considered what would be safe to admit. “Not exactly a lot of room in here.” He stretched his wings out. They touched the walls before they reached full extension. He’d let them think the wings were real and not illusions. And wouldn’t mention that those illusionary wings were bigger than they needed to be for full flight.

“And why the armour?”

“I don’t know anyone here. I don’t know anything about here. I don’t know who I can trust. And who I can’t. How do I know I won’t be attacked? Humans are predators and ponies are prey.” He looked at them. “In my position, would you not wear armour if you could? Besides, I have nothing else to wear.”

They had to agree with his conclusions. Especially knowing the Slytherins as they did.

The trip to the Great Hall was very informative. The Castle would have delighted Princess Luna. A hundred and forty-two staircases — some with a vanishing step halfway up that you had to remember to jump over — were far more than the castle in Canterlot. That they moved and changed their destinations would have had her redesigning the entire palace just to add a Grand Staircase with a multitude of moving and telescoping staircases.

The doors that wouldn’t open unless you asked them politely, or tickled them in exactly the right place, would greatly amuse her. He could imagine her setting the bathroom doors to do that just for the nobles. That some walls pretended to be doors would have made it all that much more fun. Watching a noble do the pee-pee dance waiting for a stone wall pretending to be a door to a restroom to open would amuse her to no end. Not to mention the secret passages, of which there were easily two dozen or more.

That the rooms themselves moved around the castle would have been an instant hit with her. Harry could see her using it to hide her throne room from pesky nobles while making it easy for commoners. He had to snicker. The thought of building a maze for the nobles to trot while the commoners sauntered in through a normal door was simply delightful.

He would have to remember to take copious notes on the building’s peculiarities for her. He foresaw a Castle remodelling in the future, for Canterlot.

If not for the Tournament, he could almost forgive them snatching him — just for their unique perspective on castles.

The people in the portraits, though, creeped him out. Although, using portraits as helpful guides scattered through the castle was certainly worth exploring! He would need to see how they created them. And they would make an excellent spy network — even if they did sometimes wander far afield from their normal frame. Blueblood would especially like them for keeping track of what all the other nobles were planning.

He was a bit taken aback by the squeals from the girls in the Great Hall as the four walked in. Only after his mum had ascended had he had that sort of attention, and he hadn’t expected that reaction here. Still, he was pleased to see Professor McGonagall walk in not too much later and sit at the Head Table.

He quickly learned that unless he wanted to spend his entire time answering questions instead of eating, he should let the three wizards sitting with him answer for him. They could at least answer the ones which they, themselves, had already asked.

He was also beset with an almost a constant murmur in the background of girlish squeals of delight and comments of, “He’s so cute!” as students walked into the hall and noticed him at the Gryffindor table.

He hoped he wasn’t going to be tied up in such nonsense every time he left his dorm room.

The parliament of owls that came sweeping in partway through breakfast caught him by surprise. He was unsure of their purpose until he saw many of them carrying letters and packages, which they were delivering to students. He could feel his eyebrows go up as he realized that the wizards used owls to deliver their mail. He wasn’t pleased to see an owl drop what appeared to be a newspaper of some kind to Professor McGonagall.

If the reporters here were anything like the ones in Equestria, they would be out in force almost as soon as word got out that something unexpected had happened. He would have to see if he could remember his mum’s news-reporter shield. It wasn’t something he had had to use a lot. Usually she was the one to cast it.

He was just finishing his third helping of pastries and fruits, with his “assistants” trotting interference, when Professor McGonagall walked up. She stared sternly at the questioning students gathered around him, who quickly moved out of the way and returned to their own breakfasts.

She studied him a moment as he looked back at her. “Your normal colours?”

“Yes ma’am.”

She gave a firm nod. “Are you ready, Mr. Sparkle?”

He nodded and swallowed. “Yes, Professor McGonagall.”

He carefully clambered off the bench and stood upright.

Harry did not need to be a seer to see that his three wizard friends wanted very much to accompany him. From the way they kept elbowing each other, each wanted the other to take the plunge and ask.

He didn’t know why they wanted to go with him. Surely they could visit the marketplace whenever they wanted, right? However, seeing how everyone had acted last night, and this morning, having company would make it easier to hide his presence. Especially because he was shorter than they were. And there was safety in numbers, and all that.

He looked up at the witch. “Professor McGonagall, would it be possible for my three friends to accompany us?”

She gave him an inquiring look. “You are the only one who needs supplies, Mr. Sparkle.” She glanced up at the Head Table where Headmaster Dumbledore was sitting. He looked back and nodded as he smiled.

Harry wondered, had he cast a listening spell towards them? He narrowed his eyes as he briefly stared at the wizard.

Harry turned back to the Professor and smiled. “That is true. However, you and I traveling alone will attract more attention than if I am in a small group of students. Especially as they are all taller than me.”

She looked at him, then cast a critical eye on the other three.

Dean hazarded a hesitant, “We all three have permission slips for Hogsmeade.” He glanced, briefly, at his two friends. “And that’s unsupervised.” They tried to look hopeful and innocent.

She looked back at Harry and pursed her lips. “Very well, Mr. Sparkle.” She turned back to the other three, who scrambled from their seats, to the envy of those close enough to hear what had just transpired.

“You will behave, or there will be consequences.”

They all three nodded and murmured, “Yes ma’am!”

They exited the Great Hall just as a small mob of blue-dressed students sauntered in the castle’s front doors. Most were shivering slightly. From what he overheard, they were all Beauxbatons’ students. Behind them was a group wearing furred and heavier clothes, obviously more suited for a colder climate. They had to be from Durmstrang.

And they never noticed Harry as his three friends blocked their direct view of him. He quickly silenced his hooves, and got a glance with an uplifted eyebrow from the Professor. No one would hear the distinctive clip-clop of his hooves over the shuffling of the leather shoes his dorm-mates were wearing.

It was a quick march to the Headmaster’s office. “There are several places we need to visit, Mr. Sparkle,” she said as they walked. “First, we shall go to Gringotts and withdraw the funds you will need — I have your key. Next, we will visit Madam Malkin’s Robes for All Occasions, Potag’s Cauldron Shop, Slug and Jiggers Apothecary, and Twilfitt and Tatting’s – a wizarding clothing shop. You will also need a trunk. We shall save Ollivanders for last.” She stopped in front of the Gargoyle. “Dum Dums.”

The other three were wide-eyed as they entered the office. Probably their first time seeing the inside of it, Harry decided, noting their expressions. They stared at all the odd silver things making noises, the many books, and the walls covered with stern-faced and disapproving portraits of former Headmasters.

The professor guided them to the fire-place. “I presume you three know how the floo-connection works, correct?” She stared down at them gravely.

Still staring around, they all nodded.

“There’s the floo-powder,” she pointed to a bowl. “The destination is ‘The Leaky Cauldron.’ Wait for us. I’ll come last to make sure there are no problems.” She turned to Harry. “Watch what they do. You take a pinch of the floo-powder and toss it into the fireplace.” Seamus demonstrated. “Take a breath, and then, when the flames turn green, step into the floo and say your destination in a clear voice. Do not inhale in the fireplace, or you’ll get a mouth or nose full of ash.”

Seamus disappeared from the fire-place with a whoosh!

Harry carefully observed his friends as they entered the fireplace, one by one, and disappeared. When it was his turn, he reached into the pot and took out a tiny amount of powder with his magic.

He took a deep breath, tossed the powder into the floo, and said, “The Leaky Cauldron,” as he stepped inside the fireplace. The room disappeared behind him in a burst of green flames.

He immediately began to spin to face a long series of fireplaces, each flashing by him just slow enough for him to catch glimpses of rooms and stores. They flew by faster and faster, and he spun faster and faster. Then he felt himself start to slow down. He was suddenly thrown toward the last room he could see, head first. He bounced off something soft, and hit something hard, creating two crashing sounds as someone fell and something else fell over.

For a moment, he lay on the floor and stared around at the place he had arrived.

It was a rather dark and shabby place, a tavern of some kind, if he had to guess. To one side was a bar, with a staircase to the next floor at one end. At the other end was a wide door to the back. The kitchen, he would have to guess. On one wall was a huge fireplace, out of which he had just been ejected. The other wall had a door near the staircase.

There were several people inside, including a grumpy-looking, bald barman, who was shaking his head at Harry’s entry to his place of business.

Neville slowly got to his feet, with Dean to help pull him up.

It was only when Harry pushed himself to his hind hooves that anyone began to react.

“Blimey! A horse?”

“Is that armour?”

“Is it a pet?”

“It’s blue?”

By this time, Professor McGonagall had exited the fireplace and was looking around. “Are you alright, Mr. Sparkle?” she said solicitously. She waved her wand and the chair righted itself up and slid back to its table.

Still a bit disoriented, he crisply said, “I’m fine.” He leaned one hoof on the chair-back.

Seamus had stepped up beside him. “Are you sure, Harry, that was quite a fall you took there.”

Dean gave a rueful laugh and shook his head. “I’d say someone had pranked the floo if we hadn’t just come through it.”

“Not even a bump,” Harry said. “That’s what the armour is for, don’t you know.” He looked over at the barman and tried for his best Blueblood impression. “I’m terribly sorry for the bother, sir. I hope you’ll excuse me?” He bowed his head, not daring to bend further for fear of falling.

The man just stared at him, then nodded slowly.

“Blow me!” said someone in the room, “Tha horse speaks better’n I do!”

Harry turned towards the voice and saw a man in a top hat at the far end of the bar. “I am a unicorn, sir, not a horse,” he gently corrected. “The latter is somewhat considered an insult to my kind.”

The man nodded carefully. “ ‘Course you are. I didn’t mean nothing by it.”

“No insult taken, sir, you could not have known.”

Professor McGonagall interrupted, taking control of the conversation. “Excuse us, Tom. Mr. Sparkle here is a visiting student at Hogwarts, and I’m taking him to the Alley for his supplies.”

The barman, Tom, it seemed, waved them to the door at the back of the room. “ ‘Tis alright,” he said. And watched as the five of them exited the pub into a small, enclosed courtyard with a dustbin.

Harry could hear the bar patrons starting to gossip as soon as they entered the courtyard.

“Now, Mr. Sparkle, you go to the dustbin and count three up,” she pointed her wand at the three bricks, “Then count two across,” she moved her wand over two bricks. “Then tap it with your wand.” She did so.

The brick wriggled. Harry watched as it made a small hole by moving back. Then the surrounding bricks began to wriggle and twist. For the first few bricks he could track the magic, but he was quickly overwhelmed. In seconds there was a wide archway.

The professor glanced down at Harry. “Welcome,” she said, “to Diagon Alley.”

They stepped through.

Harry was amazed. This was as unlike Ponyville or Canterlot as you could get. Canterlot featured wide, bright roads of white brick and marble. Ponyville was a country town, again with wide and welcoming streets. Diagon Alley, by comparison, was a grey and brown cobble-stone street that twisted and turned out of sight, with stores pressed close to prevent any sort of cart traffic. Being a Sunday, there really wasn’t that much traffic, yet, and many of the stores were still closed.

He turned and watched the wall closely as it restored itself. He nodded in satisfaction. He didn’t know the rune-spell, but it would be simple for his mum to reverse-engineer it with his description. For certain covert rooms, it would be the perfect solution. Impossible to pass through without obvious destruction, easy to open with the proper key to trigger the reaction, impervious to unlocking spells, and nothing visible to suggest it was anything more than just a wall. And the trigger could be customized to a certain pony or ponies.

Blueblood would be delighted. As would Princess Luna.

“Most of the stores will be open by the time we get to them, Mr. Sparkle,” Professor McGonagall said briskly as she led them down the street towards. “Gringotts, however, never closes.”

It was a difficult walk for Harry. Cobblestones are not friendly to pony hooves, making the hoofing — footing, people would say — more than a little precarious. Fortunately, his magic helped him keep his balance.

The only annoying part was that he was shorter than his companions. He had to keep shifting back and forth to look between them. On the other hoof, it meant what few people there were in the marketplace had just as much difficulty seeing him. Except they weren’t looking for him in the first place, so he easily escaped their notice.

The Goblins outside the bank were more attentive. They gave him long stares, just as he gave them the same. They looked somewhat like the Gremlins at home, he decided, but not quite. Still, they gave him the impression they were going to watch him closely. Probably because he was wearing bespelt armour.

They bowed and opened the doors. Using magic to assist, he, too, bowed. Just by the way they stared at him with narrowed eyes, he knew they were surprised.

The trip to the vault was fun, Harry decided. He would definitely be recommending one of these to the Princess Sisters. When the vault door opened, all he could do was stare. As did the Dean and Seamus. Neville merely looked interested.

“Blimey!” said Dean, “You’re rich!”

Professor McGonagall sniffed. “The Potters were a wealthy family,” she said quietly.

Harry took the bag she offered and started filling it with coins. He had no idea what they were worth, except, as his friends explained, the gold-coloured ones were galleons. Seventeen of the silver ones, sickles, made a galleon. The bronze ones were knuts, at twenty-nine to a sickle, four hundred and ninety-three to a galleon. He selected only the galleons.

When the bag was full, he started scooping coins up and filling his friends’ pockets. “It’s not like I have any pockets, you know,” he explained.

“That’s more than enough for today, Mr. Sparkle,” the professor said firmly.

Harry stopped and looked at her. “How much do we need?”

She stood a moment, calculating. “A hundred should be more than enough.”

He looked at his friends. They had been to the Alley many times, already, and knew the cost of goods. They nodded. He glanced at the bag she had given him. It probably had a couple of hundred, at least. He had off loaded maybe another hundred to each of his friends’ pockets. He looked around the vault. He had barely made a dent in the piles. He nodded. “Okay.” He needn’t worry about exhausting his funds any time soon.

What he had should suffice until he could return.

The trip back to the lobby was just as quick as the one to the vaults. He and his friends enjoyed it quite a lot, actually. Under their repeated urgings of, “go faster,” the Goblin had scowled and said, “One speed only.” But the trip back did seem to be quicker than the trip down.

As Professor McGonagall had said, their first stop was the robes store. He held back as the others went in front of him. He didn’t want standard robes, but robes that would let him cast his wings spell without complication — be prepared, and all that.

So, while she looked over to the proprietor, he cast the wings spell as quickly as he could manage as he held the door open. The magic swirl and bright flash that usually accompanied the spell’s completion was partially hidden by the sunlight coming in the door. Being mostly outside helped hide it, as well. And the people outside would think the flash they had seen came from inside the store.

Still, he noticed the professor giving him a hard look. He gave her back the innocent “Who? Me?” look that the Cutie Mark Crusaders had perfected as he walked in. His friends had barely glanced at him.

Like Applejack, she gave him a look that said she wasn’t as convinced of his innocence as he claimed, but she didn’t say anything.

“A pony, you say?” the woman said to Professor McGonagall — no, he had to remember the woman was a witch.

“No,” Harry said, walking closer to the shopkeeper. He again trotted out the cultured voice Blueblood had drilled into him. “I’m a pegacorn. A pony with a wings and a horn.” He stepped over to her and held out his hoof. “My name is Prince Harry Potter Sparkle.” She appeared startled at his name, and hesitantly held out her hand. He gently lifted it with his hoof and kissed the back of her hand. “It is a pleasure to meet you, madam.”

She blushed a bit, unsure of how to take his mannerisms. “And I am Pricilla Malkin,” she said softly, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, too.”

She waved him to follow her. “Please step back here where we can begin fitting you,” she said, firmly, and led him to a small area in the back with mirrors.

She had probably never made anything for anyone other than a human, before he thought. And definitely never for anyone with wings. Although his showing the wings spell-matrix to the twins last night was probably going to change that, as word began to spread. Perhaps he should warn her? Give her time to prepare? Maybe create a little goodwill for himself?

۸-_-۸

Author's Notes:

Note that in chapter four of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, it says: “. . . counting down the days to September the first, . . . .” In chapter ten it says: “It’s been an absolute uproar,” Percy told them importantly the Sunday evening before they were due to return to Hogwarts. Chapter eleven starts: “There was a definite end-of-the-holidays gloom in the air when Harry awoke next morning.” Thus, the Hogwarts Express leaves London on September 1st, Monday, an all-day trip, the next day after Percy’s comment on Sunday. Chapters eleven and twelve deal with the train ride and the Arrival Feast, both taking place on Monday. In chapter thirteen, which is the day after their arrival, Ron lists out their classes: “Today’s not bad . . . outside all morning,” said Ron, who was running his finger down the Monday column of his schedule. Note that he’s using the Monday schedule. Unless there are two Mondays every week, that’s a big mistake.

To add insult to injury, the REAL calendar for September 1994 has September First on THURSDAY! And during the time Harry attends Hogwarts, the only year that has September First on Monday is 1997.

Then, if we are using normal calendars, (September has thirty days and started on Monday, October has thirty-one) sixty-one days later, October 31st, Halloween, falls on FRIDAY, not SATURDAY, as she mistakenly states.

Whomever was the editor/copyeditor for the series should have been fired for failing to detect such basic calendar errors across multiple chapters. To correct all this, all you would have to do is have Percy make his comment on Monday, meaning the Hogswarts Express left on Tuesday. And Ron to peruse the Wednesday schedule.

Sloppy writing. Just . . . sloppy. No fanfiction author would be allowed to get away with such careless plotting without everyone throwing a wobbly.

In this universe, those changes happened, and Halloween is on Saturday.

Ch. 5 — Alley Set

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Ch. 5 — Alley Set

«Spike,» Twilight said tiredly. There was no response. She looked over and saw he had fallen asleep at some point in the very late night. She blinked a couple of times and blearily realized the Sun was up and had been for some time. She looked around the library room in her castle. Her friends were all in various states of collapse. At some point, a maid had brought in pillows and blankets for the exhausted mares.

It had been a long day, yesterday, preparing for the celebration. And then they had started seriously searching for the missing teen at midnight, when the scheduled events had been concluded. She had tried every spell that she, Starlight, and Trixie could find trying to locate the colt. Her friends had turned the town upside down, sometimes literally in the case of Pinkie, with no success.

Now it was time to ask for help. Unfortunately, the first train to Canterlot wouldn’t be until noon.

She nudged Spike a few times until he sleepily looked up at her.

«Send this to Princess Celestia, please,» she said holding out the rolled up paper in her magic. He stared at her a moment, then nodded. He took a breath, and then a flame shot out, disintegrating the scroll. «Go back to sleep. Spike, I’ll wake you later,» she said softly.

She looked at her friends. Only Trixie and Starlight appeared still conscious. «Let’s catch some shut-eye. I’ll set an alarm so we can catch the train and get breakfast . . . or lunch . . . brunch?»

The two nodded. They settled down for naps. They would get the rest of their sleep on the train to Canterlot.

۸-ꞈ-۸

Madam Malkin walked around him, examining him carefully. “Spread your wings,” she ordered.

He did so, slowly and carefully, opening and closing them several times as she watched. Finally, she slipped a robe over his head.

Before she started pinning it up, though, he said, “I need the best quality material you have, as befits my station as a Prince of Equestria. The Royal family will accept no less.” Blueblood would be most displeased if he didn’t portray Equestria in the best light possible. His mum didn’t care, he knew, but the sister princesses would be disappointed at his not thinking of the politics, otherwise. He sighed dramatically, trying to give the impression that it was not by his choice that he made the request.

She looked at the Professor, who, after a moment, nodded her head. Pricilla nodded, returned what she had to the shelves, and went into the back room. Harry could see the difference in the cloth when she came back. She again slipped it over his head, and started to pin things in place. He sighed, softly. This would be as bad as Rarity when she started a new project.

It took the better part of an hour as she cut slits and altered the lay of the fabric until it flowed naturally from his shoulders to the floor. Finally, she said, “There you go dear. You can wear this one now, if you want, or I can have the complete set sent to Hogwarts for you.”

He admired the robes in a mirror, for a moment. Yes, he thought, yes. These will do nicely. Wearing them hid his armour quite well. He would no longer stick out quite so much in a crowd. They even had unobtrusive flaps in the back that allowed his wings easily to slip in and out. And she had altered the interior stitching so that when he went to all-fours the robe didn’t drag on the ground awkwardly, but held tight to his belly. “Yes, I will take this one with me.”

And with the addition of a mild don’t-see-me on his head, they could visit the rest of the shops in the Alley in peace.

“Wonderful,” she exclaimed. “Now, dear, all of Madam Malkins robes come with built-in enchantments to grow as you grow, repel dirt and water, and resist tearing. They still need the occasional cleaning, though. But with a bit of care, they should easily last you through your teen years at Hogwarts, unless you have a dramatic growth spurt.”

He looked at her and tilted his head questioningly. “How much extra is it to include warming, cooling, sweat vanishing, and minor tear-repair rune-spells?”

She looked at him blankly.

He frowned, then said, “If you sew this rune string . . . ,” he projected an illusion of a series of runes in the air. He left them glowing. “. . . into the lining, then it would immediately wick away and vanish your sweat, and help prevent you from overheating and your clothes sticking to you.” He projected a longer rune-set. “These will keep you warm when the air is cold, and cool when it’s hot.” He pointed at two runes. “These two set the temperature to room, about what it is now.” He projected a third set below the first two. “This set corrects minor tears and keeps the garment in pristine condition.” He gave her a smile and ducked his head slightly. “It won’t repair a major tear or sword-slash, but threads won’t catch and runs are prevented.”

Madam Malkin had grabbed a paper and made notes as fast as she could. “You don’t mind if I use these?” she asked breathlessly.

The others had gathered around Harry. “Aren’t those the runes you showed us last night?” Dean said.

Harry looked at him and nodded. To Malkin, he also nodded. “Not at all. These are common and well-known where I come from. To claim them as mine would be disingenuous and disrespectful.” Heh, his mum’s vocabulary was showing through, again. Blueblood would be pleased. One mark of a cultured pony was the expanded vocabulary, he had told Harry.

She nodded. “I’ll be sure to add these to all your robes,” she said. She gave him a brilliant smile. “The only robe charges will be for the actual Acromantula Silk material.”

Professor McGonagall had watched the interchange with great interested, and nodded approvingly.

“By the way,” he said, “I taught several people a spell to have wings like these,” he ruffled his wings, “So you might see some customers asking about alterations.” He gave her a grin.

Professor McGonagall was staring. No one had told her about the wings he had given the twins, it seemed.

Dean immediately stepped over, and started to take off his robe. “Here,” he said, “show her.” His shirt underneath took only a moment for him to remove.

Harry shrugged and concentrated. Seconds later, Dean sported a pair of feathered wings.

“Those will only last a few minutes,” he explained as the seamstress jumped into action measuring and sketching as Dean stretched and folded his new appendages. This early in the morning he hadn’t cast as many spells, so it wasn’t a strain. Making them last longer, or doing it a dozen times? That would be a drain.

Dean sighed disappointedly when the wings disappeared.

As they left the shop, Professor McGonagall said to Harry, “I shall have to introduce you to Professor Bathsheda Babbling, she will be quite interested in your runes.”

Harry felt his wings fade when they walked into the cauldron shop, which was a quick and simple stop.

“I’ll take that,” said Neville, afterwards. He hefted the pewter cauldron, which held stirrers, cups, brass scales, weights, and the other hardware he would need in brewing potions. Harry would get his vials at the Apothecary, Professor McGonagall had explained.

Slug and Jiggers Apothecary was terrifying. Just walking inside made Harry feel sick at the smells. What he saw on display didn’t help. Barrels of slimy stuff sat on the floor, strings of fangs and snarled claws hung from the ceiling, and parts taken from living creatures were everywhere. The animal parts were bad enough, but the silver unicorn horns and clearly labelled dragon-livers and dragon-gloves were especially distressing.

He was acutely aware of his horn, and the thought of Spike’s skin being used for gloves was positively nauseating. The look in the owner’s eyes at realizing that Harry was unicorn, and not just a wizard or witch, made Harry want to leave, immediately.

He recast his personal shield spell. And was pleased to note, a moment later, that the runes in the armour took over most of the magical drain at maintaining it. He hadn’t realized they would help so much. He could easily keep up the personal shield at maximum strength all day without any strain at all. And there wasn’t the obvious glow that full shields had.

He was very relieved to put the shop behind them, and definitely crowded Professor McGonagall as she led the way out with their purchases.

The telescope shop, afterwards, was another quick stop

The visit to Twilfitt and Tatting’s was not. But he did emerge with a complete wardrobe of casual wear and underwear, all altered for his . . . unique . . . requirements. And the promise that they would keep his requirements a secret, but not forget them if he needed any additional purchases. They, too, had appreciated the wicking, temperature, and minor tear-repair spells he mentioned.

The group stopped in at the Leaky Cauldron for leisurely lunch. Harry went with the fish and chips. And treated his friends for coming along and being such good sports while he shopped. He noticed that they had made a few incidental purchases of their own.

That was followed by a stop at a trunk shop. The professor was steering him towards the pile of standard trunks when Harry saw a sign about an expanded trunk. “What’s that?” He pointed.

“Hm? Oh those are our multiple-compartment trunks, with expansion charms.” The salesman said, looking towards where Harry pointed. “They’re a bit more than the normal Hogwarts trunks but are ever so much more practical. A two-compartment trunk, for example,” the salesman walked over to a display and pointed at a trunk with a rather fancy lock, “Would let you keep your clothes conveniently separated from your school supplies.” He opened the trunk to display that the entire top of the lid was eight drawers — two large ones, one above the other, that took up almost half the space, and six smaller ones in two rows beside the larger two. “There are separate drawers to prevent leaky ink bottles or colognes messing up your papers and books.” The lower section was subdivided into vertical, clear-lidded compartments. He closed it, fiddled with the lock, and reopened it to a normal looking trunk space.

Harry was sold on the trunk, immediately. He wanted plenty of time to study those expansion spells, charms, as the wizard had called them.

His mum was going to Pinkie-out at the discovery that she could take everything she needed in a single set of saddlebags. So would Rarity. Not to mention Spike. He, especially, would love only having to tote one small travel-case instead of the three or four huge trunks that Rarity insisted she had to take every time they travelled outside Ponyville.

He knew Trixie would turn green with envy at the thought of a simple lightweight travel-wagon that could hide an entire mansion.

“The two settings on the lock allow you to travel among muggles without arousing any suspicions,” the saleswizard added. “The second compartment has a featherweight spell to hide any suspicious weight.” He lifted the trunk off the table. “The main compartment has a special featherweight spell that engages when it is carried by a wizard or witch to make your travel easier, but a muggle gets the full weight.”

The purchase proved its value when they easily were able to store their all purchases, so far, in the second compartment. Both large drawers were specially spelled with additional enlargement charms. Watching the obviously too-large-for-the-drawer cauldron easily slip inside was simply astonishing to Harry.

He would need a rucksack, Seamus insisted. Which made sense as Harry didn’t have any saddlebags with him to use. Just a small pouch still tucked under his fake-but-now-somewhat-real armour. It contained his monthly allowance, in advance, and a few gems for Spike if he had wanted a nosh while they were at the Nightmare Night carnival.

The discovery that he could get a small shoulder rucksack with both expansion and featherweight charms became another must-have item.

“Just remember,” Professor McGonagall warned, “Don’t put a large-expansion-equipped item inside a small-expansion-equipped item. Bad things tend to happen. Small into large is okay, large into small is not!”

“That’s why robe pockets are all normal-sized,” the saleswizard put in helpfully, “people might forget and put a shrunken, expanded-trunk or bag in their pocket, and then — problems!” He smiled. “That’s why all my expanded trunks and rucksacks have a charm to detect expanded-space items and lock them out. And why my rucksacks have an exterior non-expanded pocket with a flap for shrunken trunks.”

Harry put most of his wizard coins into the trunk, and reserved a good portion for his rucksack. He had to marvel as he poured the coins from his friends’ pockets into the rucksack without it feeling the least bit heaver. That it cost almost as much as the trunk was just the oddity that you encountered when you designed something smaller than it normally was. Despite the size difference, the work to create the spells and ensure they worked was probably only a little bit different between the two items. Doing the smaller item, in fact, probably took more work!

Then came the quill, ink, and paper store. That took longer than it should simply because of the variety of choices in both quills and inks. Harry chose a set of quills that never ran out of ink, never dripped, and never splotched. And an ink collection for colour drawing.

Their last stop of the day was Ollivanders. Harry looked at the sign over the door and shook his head. He knew London didn’t exist that far back, so the Ollivander family must have started making wands in Rome. And he still wasn’t sure what the deal was with them insisting he needed a wand to cast magic. He had a horn.

Stupid wizards.

The shop was quite tiny, by comparison to the other shops. Outside of a single chair by the door, there was only the counter and thousands of narrow boxes stacked neatly from floor to ceiling. There was the distinct air that he had just entered a library, one where the librarian took exception to the tiniest noise. Much like the Royal Library in Canterlot Castle. Only not with the comforting smell of books.

What transpired next was more than a bit surreal. The proprietor, a Garrick Ollivander, wasn’t disturbed at all that Harry was a pony and not a person. No, he didn’t even seem to notice the difference at all.

How he immediately recognized Harry as Harry Potter left the colt more than a little bit disturbed, himself. Hearing that his mother’s wand had been suitable for charms work at ten and a quarter inches long, was “swishy”, and made of willow was a surprise. And then he said Harry’s father’s wand had been excellent for transfiguration as a pliable mahogany wand of eleven inches which was just as impressive, given that both of them had died over thirteen years ago.

The man had an absolutely phenomenal memory.

Then he revealed that he had sold the wand — a powerful yew wand of thirteen-and-a-half inches — that had killed Harry’s parents and left him with the scar on his forehead, now faded. That had been the topper. That wand had to have been sold years, or decades, before his parents had been to the shop. Yeah, a really phenomenal memory.

Then they had embarked on getting Harry a wand.

The first offered was a nine-inch beech-wood and dragon heartstring wand. “Nice and flexible,” Ollivander called it.

Harry backed away, horror-struck. There was no way he was going to touch a wand with a dragon heart-string. Spike would never speak to him again! And, probably, neither would his mum.

Mr. Ollivander noted Harry’s reaction and instead offered a new one. “Perhaps this one, maple and phoenix feather,” he said. “Seven inches. Quite whippy.”

Harry reached out and picked up the wand, surprising his friends as they had only seen him pick things up with magic. Even Professor McGonagall had a surprised expression as he went to raise the wand, which felt . . . off, somehow. Mr. Ollivander snatched it from his hoof almost immediately.

This sequence repeated itself for the next fifteen minutes. Mr. Ollivander would offer a wand to Harry describing its virtues, only to snatch if back almost immediately.

With a curious expression, the wandmaker pulled up a dusty box and placed it on the counter —“Holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches, nice and supple,” he explained

As Harry took the wand in his hoof, he felt a warmth suffuse his leg. He swished it up into the air. Red and gold sparks streamed from the tip like fireworks. He looked at it quizzically. It felt almost like his horn did, only on his leg. What a strange sensation.

Discovering that his new wand was the brother to the wand that had killed his parents almost made Harry return the wand to the box on the counter. But he didn’t. For some reason he felt reluctant to give up the wand. It felt . . . familiar . . . when he held it. He placed it gently back into the box, and paid the requested price.

It was a quiet group that left the wand shop.

“Ice cream,” Harry said. After that experience, he needed a bit of a sit down. He looked down the Alley towards where he had seen . . . ah, there it was, Florean Fortescue’s Ice-Cream Parlour.

Dean and Seamus chimed in immediately with their approval, a moment later so did Neville.

Professor McGonagall looked down at Harry for a moment. It wouldn’t take a genius, Harry knew, to see that the wizard with wide, pale eyes shining like moons had upset him. The way Harry had looked at the final wand, as if he half-wanted to throw it away instead of purchasing it, must have convinced her that they needed to take a break.

She looked briskly around the Alley. She had already shrunken the wand box and placed it in her pocket. “Yes,” she said, “a little treat to celebrate your wand wouldn’t be out of sorts.” She set of out down the Ally, back the way they had come.

They trailed her in a clump, with Harry in the middle.

It was, Harry decided, the best-tasting ice cream he had ever encountered.

While eating, the Professor showed him the small pockets, one on either side of his robe, that could hold his wand so he didn’t have to carry it — a feature of the more expensive robes. The flaps covering the openings were almost impossible to discern on the Acromantula silk pattern. It was easier to find them by feel then by sight. He placed his new wand in the easiest to access pocket.

The creamy texture of the ice cream must have mellowed her out, because it took remarkably little begging by the boys to get her to take them to Gambol and Japes Wizarding Joke Shop. They each left with a bagful of stuff, happily funded by Harry. Harry took a catalogue, as well. Pinkie and Dash were going to love some of the things listed in it! Just the names alone would spark their creativity. Ponyville was doomed.

Then Harry insisted they should visit the bookstore. He didn’t know anything about this culture, nor the magic they used. A little time spent browsing the books available would tell him much that he needed to know.

This was when having the three Fourth-year wizards with him turned out to be a benefit. With their help he selected two books on history, A History of Magic, and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century. He also selected a third book, recommended by Neville, on just the events of the war fourteen years ago, What You-Know-Who And His Followers Did. Basic books on transfigurations, charms, arithmancy, and runes were added to the stack. Another useful book, Harry thought, was 1,001 Household Charms. It was soon followed by Powers You Never Knew You Had and What to Do with Them Now You’ve Wised Up, and The Dark Arts Outsmarted.

“The Hogwarts library has all the books you could conceivably desire to read, Mr. Sparkle,” Professor McGonagall told him.

“But I can’t keep those books when I leave, can I?” was his considered reply.

One item that derailed his train of thought was finding an entire shelf of books that purported to be about him! Sure, the professors had mentioned that there were books about him. But after their explanations of the events thirteen years ago, he had thought they had meant history books, not fiction books. His mum would be appalled. There were titles about Harry ranging from when he was five years old up to more recent editions such as Harry Potter and the Pirates’ Treasure, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Harry Potter and the Basilisk, and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. They all left him shaking his head in disbelief. The fillies would be laughing in hysterics at the cheesy stories.

They made him out to be a genius of unparalleled ability, as strong as a man twice his father’s size, and friendlier than even his mum. And twice as gifted with a wand or potion as the greatest wizard or witch.

He had to wonder if the person who had written these books had been drunk at the time, because none of them bore the slightest resemblance to his life. In fact, about the only things the books got right were his parents’ names, their deaths, and the colour of his eyes.

He bought one of each, almost the entire shelf.

Seeing the saleswitch’s surprised expression, Harry explained. “I want to see what you all think I’ve been doing, because I can guarantee that everything in these books is lies.” At the very least, the fillies would get a good laugh out of them. He could just see them, lying on the floor, kicking their legs lightly, laughing as tears ran down their faces.

The saleswitch just stared at him, puzzled. Of course, Harry realized, she only saw a pony and didn’t know who he was.

He could only marvel as all the books fit easily inside his rucksack.

They returned to Hogwarts through The Leaky Cauldron-to-Three Broomsticks floo connection. McGonagall wanted Harry to at least see Hogsmeade and have an idea of where it was and what it had. Plus, she said, “The walk will do us good. And give Mr. Sparkle a bit of perspective on Hogwarts.”

Which it did. The building was imposing, but not nearly as big as the palace that governed all of Equestria. On the other hoof, it had Canterlot beat on secret passages, talking portraits, and bizarre staircases.

“The Forbidden Forest,” she gestured at the woods that dominated the side of the lake opposite Hogsmeade and almost surrounded the castle, “hosts many dangerous creatures. Students are not allowed to enter it without a professor accompanying them.” She gave the four students a steady and warning stare.

Harry studied the forest. It didn’t have the aura of wrongness that Everfree Forest seemed to exude at home. He examined the edges closely, squinting. “What’s in it?”

“Werewolves!” declared Seamus.

“Giant spiders!” Dean said eagerly.

“Trolls,” added Dean, with a shudder.

“Unicorns,” said Seamus, and got a sharp look from Harry. That he would have to check out.

“Thestrals,” whispered Neville.

Harry raised his eyebrows. Now he definitely needed to check this forest out.

Harry looked at the forest speculatively. “No . . . hydras?”

“No.”

“No . . . cockatrices?”

“No.”

“No timberwolves? Cragadiles? Manticores? Pukwudgies? Ursa Bears?”

He received a “no” for each creature he mentioned and a couple of “What’s that?” He was actually looking quite hopeful. Professor McGonagall was frowning. The forest didn’t sound all that terrible for pony that was careful.

“There are Centaurs, however,” said the professor, calmly, “who would be displeased at your trespassing.”

Harry skipped a step and almost fell. “Centaurs?” he squeaked out. He stared at her, appalled and horrified. “Half-person, half horse, right?”

They all looked at him curiously.

“Yes. The Forest is officially their hunting grounds and they have full control of it. One of the reasons students are forbidden in it is because they are somewhat hostile towards wizards and witches.”

Maybe he wouldn’t be looking for the unicorns and thestrals.

“Do they have horns?” he asked fearfully.

His expression and question prompted her to ask, “No. Why, is something wrong?”

Harry gulped and strove to regain his mental balance. “Yes,” he said softly, and stared into the forest. “Equestria has had a very bad experience with a centaur named Tirek. He . . . caused much damage, he was responsible for the deaths of untold numbers of ponies.” His mouth was suddenly dry. “He stole everypony’s magic,” Harry whispered.

She sighed softly. “I assure you, Mr. Sparkle, the centaurs of the Forbidden Forest do not steal magic. In fact, they abhor magic. Their weapon of choice is the arrow, not stealing magic.” She smiled slightly, “They are far more interested in divining the mysteries of the future through the stars than stealing anyone’s magic.

Harry looked at her. The centaurs here might not steal the humans’ magic, but what about ponies’ magic? Tirek had been especially interested in pony magic, claiming it was much more powerful than that of centaurs or other races.

And that was true. None of the other races of Equus had nearly as much magic as ponies.

He looked down at the ground and pressed the tip of a hoof into it. Would they be interested in his magic?

He looked back up. “I will avoid the Forbidden Forest,” he said solemnly and sincerely — if he never saw a centaur again, it would still be too soon. His heartfelt commitment was clearly evident.

She sighed and glanced at the castle. “If only other students were as sincere as you.”

They continued their way to the castle.

The robes were an excellent idea, Harry decided. He wasn’t getting nearly the amount of attention he had when he was wearing only his armour. People watching them come up from Hogsmeade merely saw four students being escorted by Professor McGonagall. And were glad they were not in the group that was clearly in trouble, because, why else would they be escorted by her?

Once they were inside castle, Professor McGonagall said to Harry, “The Headmaster will want to meet with you after dinner, tonight. Why don’t you get acquainted with your dorm-mates until then?” She handed him his shrunken trunk and bags. “Just tap these with your wand to restore them.”

The four eagerly headed off to their Common Room.

Ron was going to be so surprised at the bag of things they had purchased for him from Gambol and Japes.

Harry’s robes were a bigger hit than he expected, based on how everyone ooh-ed and ahh-ed as they realized he had returned. Or maybe it was just that they got a better look at him and the robes just drove home he really was a student. The Common Room appeared much bigger now that it wasn’t crowded with people — most were probably outside or elsewhere in the castle. It gave him a chance to catch many details he had missed before, such as the portraits scattered around the walls, the decorative little lions carved into the woodwork, and the large rug bearing the House Shield — a rampant lion on a shield divided into quarters of red and gold, two above two, with a helmet atop and surrounded by red and gold feathers on a black background.

Still, the four managed to make it across the room and up the stairs without a too much of a fuss. Ron quickly concluded the chess game he was playing and followed them. Most students just stared at him. He heard several asking why he was upright, and a few explaining what they had been told at breakfast.

It didn’t take long for the four to pour out their new purchases on their beds, and toss a bag to Ron. Harry was surprised to see a pile of books as tall as he was beside his bed.

“Oy! What’s this?” Ron said, as he awkwardly caught the bag.

“We stopped by Gambol and Japes. Thought you might like a few additions to your stash,” Dean said.

Ron frowned. “You know I don’t take charity!” he stated.

Harry dropped his trunk on his bed. He turned and stared at Ron. “If I see something I think a friend would like, buy it, and then she refuses to take it, and calls it charity, then she can’t be much of a friend, can she?” Rarity was always gifting people.

The others looked at him. “As Rarity says, if someone gives you something because they want to, to refuse is rude and churlish. And ponies will think you aren’t much of a friend. Or that you actively dislike them.”

Ron looked back at him, startled. The others watched the interplay interestedly.

“So. Do you want to be friends, or not?” Harry stared at him levelly.

Ron blushed red, making his freckles stand out, then looked down and mumbled, “Thanks.” He headed over to his bed to examine what was in the bag.

Harry smiled. He hadn’t even had to threaten Ron . . . . Harry paused. Why would he need to threaten Ron? He shook his head. It didn’t matter.

۸-_-۸

Ch. 6 — Reminiscences

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Ch. 6 — Reminiscences

There was a letter atop the pile of books by his bed, Harry saw, as he placed his new trunk at the base of his bed.

۸-_-۸

Mr. Sparkle,

Here are all the standard textbooks used in Hogwarts. The other champions in the tournament have an unfair age advantage over you as they are all seventeen while you are just fourteen. If you have any non-tournament-related questions, please feel free to ask any professor for assistance. Prefects are also available to help you. I wish you the best, and good luck.

After dinner this evening, please come by my office.

Professor Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore.

۸-_-۸

How odd was it that the Headmaster had five names while most other people only had three? Did he have any brothers or sisters? And did they also have five names? Harry shook his head in resignation.

He started rearranging his things and packing away his books. The first compartment would make a decent depository. Unfortunately, it could barely hold all the books piled beside him, plus the books he had bought. He had room for only a dozen or so more. The other compartment was more than enough for his clothes, however.

Maybe he should have bought a three-compartment trunk? For now, at least, the small booklet of instructions would let him rearrange things to his satisfaction. He would see about trading it in, later.

And then began the parade of people coming in to meet him. First were the prefects, six of them, then the other students began to trickle in. The Weasley twins brought their friends and something called a Quidditch team with them — Oliver Wood, Angelina Johnson, Alicia Spinnet, Katie Bell, and Ginny Weasley.

Huh. Apparently there were almost enough Weasleys to make a sports team. Did Ron not like the sport and that was why he wasn’t on the team?

“Do you really know a spell that gives wings to people?” Katie asked, the rest of the team listening closely.

“We told you he did!” said Fred.

“Lee saw us!” said George.

“Or, it could be another prank,” Angelina said dryly.

Harry looked at her a moment. “I can cast the spell, but you’ll have to take off your robes to use the wings.” He raised an eyebrow.

Katie grinned, then grabbed the edges of her robes and started pulling them over her head. The boys in the room stared, speechless.

One of the prefects said, “Miss Bell!” in an outraged tone of voice. Another took a step forward and reached out a hand.

Then they saw that she was wearing trousers and an open-backed blouse. They still looked dreadfully scandalized.

Harry shrugged as she handed her robe to Angelina and stood in front of him, hands on her hips and feet slightly spread for good balance.

He recalled the spell matrix, and started pouring magic into it. Only a little though, he had feeling he’d be doing this a lot until the others had learned the spell themselves. Then there was a swirl of magic and a flash of light.

“Merlin!” someone breathed reverently.

“Yeah,” agreed a few others, in just as awed a tone.

Katie stood, astonished as she watched a wing stretch out, first on one side then the other. She said an amazed, “Oh, wow!” and touched them, slack-jawed in amazement.

“It’ll only last a few minutes,” he said, “So don’t go any higher than a few feet.” He leaned on the bed. “I imagine there are several of you who would like to try it.” He looked over at his four friends, who were all nodding frantically.

Fifteen minutes later, he was very tired and yawned wide enough to hear his jaw crack. There were now nine people bearing wings, only two of whom were still in the room. The others had quickly glided down to the more spacious Common Room.

Fred handed him a bottle of something blue. “Invigoration Draught,” he explained. “Restores your energy.”

Ron glared daggers at Fred. “Don’t drink that, Harry,” he ordered.

“No! Honestly!” protested Fred.

“It’s the real thing, Ron,” said George.

“Nothing added or changed!” declared Fred.

“Just an Invigoration Draught.”

They both held out their hands with fingers wide-spread to show they weren’t crossing any of them.

Harry looked at Ron, who reluctantly nodded his capitulation. Harry shrugged, then took the small bottle and drank it. It tasted like soap. He felt a brief pang of pain as he thought of his mum, and his herdmates.

Almost immediately, though, he felt his exhaustion recede and he felt as good as when he had first woken up in the morning. The only thing was, his magic still felt tired.

But at least he wouldn’t fall asleep on his plate of food at dinner.

“Now then,” Fred said as he took back the bottle and stoppered it.

“Would you please teach us the spell that you used?” finished George.

They both looked at him with pleading eyes.

Harry smiled. They had nothing on the fillies.

“Come closer,” he motioned to Fred. “Lean down.”

Fred eagerly came closer and leaned down until his head was level with Harry’s.

Harry leaned forward and pressed his horn against the wizard’s forehead.

He closed his eyes and concentrated. Here’s the spell matrix, he thought, and pushed it into his horn and up to Fred. Watch how it lights up, he continued, using his magic to touch the different sections, pulling and guiding Fred’s magic, until the entire matrix was glowing. Point it at the target, was his next instruction. He opened his eyes and looked, almost cross-eyed, at Fred’s face, and superimposed the matrix on it.

His magic was merely guiding Fred’s. He let Fred’s magic do all the heavy work.

Now pump your magic into it, was the next instruction. How much you put in determines how long it lasts. PUSH! He watched the magic flow as Fred started to glow and magic started to wrap itself around him, becoming thicker and thicker, tighter and tighter. Then he said STOP!

There was a bright flash of light.

Fred staggered for a moment. Harry braced him with his forehooves.

“What happened?” he asked, “Did you just put a spell in my mind?” He looked at everyone. “Something happened, right? Do I have wings?”

Harry giggled as the boy’s robes twitched and bulged. “Yep, except they’re under your robes.”

Fred looked at Harry, wonderingly. “You showed me the spell. You actually went into my head and showed me!” He glanced around the room. “That is so much easier than reading from a book or having someone just show you the movements and incantation!” He turned and staggered a step as he realized just how tired he was. “Wow, that takes a lot out of you, doesn’t it?”

Harry nodded. “It’s easier when you cast it on yourself, too.”

“How long will it last?”

Harry raised an eyebrow. “Don’t know. How strong is your magic compared to mine?”

Fred just looked at him.

“Guessing, I’d say for an hour? Maybe two?” Harry shrugged, “We’ll have to wait and see.”

“My turn,” said George, pulling his robes off first. He had on a pair of trousers, but no shirt.

Harry repeated the process. By the time he had finished, Fred had managed to get his robes off without messing up his wings too much and was slowly flapping around the room, just barely off the floor. He, too, had trousers but no shirt.

Harry leaned back against his bed. “That’s it for me. I’ll barely be able to lift my dinner.” He looked at the others crowded into the room, ducking the twins’ swinging wings. “If you’re still interested, I’ll show you tomorrow.”

The others were disappointed at missing out, but they all understood that when your magic ran out, it was done for the day. Tomorrow would have to suffice. They were tremendously excited at the possibility of actually flying. And doing so without requiring a broomstick!

He spent the rest of the afternoon reading about what had happened that fateful Halloween in 1981.

Dinner, a bit later, was pandemonium as the twins flew overhead and buzzed their friends. Seeing people fly with wings was apparently a real novelty. And the others who had had wings were bragging about what it was like.

The students from the two visiting schools seemed especially impressed.

It was weird to look up at the ceiling that reflected the waning light of the day and see the twins darting up above the magic illusion in one place and reappearing in another a minute later. He was impressed that the old wizard the previous night had been able to see him through that and his don’t-notice-me-field.

Mid-way through dinner, when the most students were present, Dumbledore stood and tapped his goblet to get everyone’s attention.

“I hope you are enjoying your repast,” he said genially, his voice magically carrying throughout the hall. “I’d like to make a brief announcement. Yesterday, the Goblet of Fire chose a Fourth Champion for the Triwizard Tournament. It was confounded into thinking there were four schools, not three.” He paused and looked sternly around the room. “Someone placed a parchment with Harry Potter’s name on it into the Goblet, under a fake school’s name. Thus, he was chosen as a champion. The intent of this person, we are sure, was to either kill Mr. Potter, or force him out of hiding, where he could be killed.”

There was a collective gasp of astonishment and horror at that proclamation.

“The Goblet’s magical contract, of course, means he must stay here until the tournament is finished. He will compete as a representative of Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns.

“As he is not a student here, we cannot use the Sorting Hat to place him in a Hogwarts House. However, he has nowhere to stay. So, for the time, he is staying with the Fourth Year Gryffindors while he learns about magic and prepares for the Tournament’s tasks. Please make him feel welcome.” The Headmaster looked around the hall, again, smiling, then sat back down.

The hall broke into frenzied whispering, and many, many people staring at Harry. He just kept his head down and concentrated on eating.

It was his third helping of a dessert he had never heard of, Sussex Pond Pudding, when a Prefect came up to him. “Professor Dumbledore would like to see you after dinner,” he said. “I’ll show you the way.”

Harry nodded, and quickly shoved the last of the pastry into his mouth with his hoof. He quite enjoyed it. It had butter, sugar, and lemon slices in it — a bizarre combination of sweet and bitter that seemed to work quite well, he thought. He would keep an eye out for it. And get the recipe for the castle kitchens at home.

۸-_-۸

Twilight burst into the Throne room at a full gallop, ignoring the petitioners and nobles. The guards, however, were prepared and had unobtrusively cleared the way. They knew, from very long experience, what the panic-prone purple pony was like.

She slid to a stop in front of the thrones, gasping.

«Ah, my faithful friend!» Princess Celestia said. She looked up, amused, as Twilight’s friends started to trickle into the room behind the little alicorn. They were all in different stages of distress at the long gallop, except the hardier Applejack and Rainbow Dash. It appeared that the young mare had galloped the entire way from the train. Teleporting would have been faster, but her former student tended to forget she could teleport, or even that she had wings, when she was in a great hurry.

Princess Celestia looked to her white-coated, brown-maned seneschal, Raven Inkwell. «Court is adjourned until tomorrow.»

She turned back to Twilight as Raven echoed her words, loudly, to the room at large and the Guards began ushering ponies out.

The Princess turned her attention to Twilight. «I’ve studied the papers you sent. Have you anything to add?»

Still getting her breath under control, dancing in place in frustration and flexing her wings, Twilight shook her head. «No. No. Nothing more. I’ve gone over the site very carefully, and studied my memories thoroughly. I was holding him against me when he started to slide forward, and then he disappeared. I thought he had just teleported. He’s nowhere to be found. My strongest searching spell returns nothing. And we physically searched all of Ponyville, including your old castle in the Everfree.»

The Princess looked to Raven. «We’ll be back in a moment.»

۸-_-۸

Princesses Celestia and Twilight teleported into Ponyville Plaza. There were a few startled screams at the sudden flash of light, then all the ponies in sight began bowing.

«Show me exactly where you were standing, Twilight,» Celestia prompted.

Surprised by the sudden teleport, Twilight took a moment to orient herself. The workers were still cleaning up after the all-night celebration, so it wasn’t difficult to trot over to where she had been standing when Harry disappeared.

She turned in place a moment, then struck a pose. «I was standing exactly like this,» she said, looking at Celestia hopefully.

Ignoring the fawning ponies around her, the Princess’s eyes began to glow and she circled Twilight several times. The only thing she said was, «Don’t move, stay still. Position your wing to where it was when you were holding him.» She glanced all around the area, her horn glowing, looking at things only she could see.

Mayor Mare came galloping out of the Town Offices with several Guards. They rushed up to their ruler, but stopped and stood silent as they saw her concentrating. The Guards quickly understood what she was doing and began to clear the plaza and usher ponies out of the princess’s way.

The Mayor kept silent, not wanting to interrupt what was obviously a very important activity — normally, the Princess of the Sun would greet everyone and exchange pleasantries before getting down to business. Plus, she would have sent notice, first, and then arrived by Royal Chariot. That the princess didn’t even acknowledge her, the Mayor, further indicated how important their ruler thought what she was doing really was. And she never would have teleported in just before diner time.

Everypony watched as Celestia walked to the edge of the plaza, and again circled Twilight. Guards quickly determined her route and continued to get ponies out of her way as they realized she wasn’t going to go around them. She seemed not to notice anything except whatever it was she was concentrating on seeing. Looking around the plaza and studying Twilight at many different angles. She even took to the air several times,

Her horn glowed different colours at different times, as well.

Finally, she stopped her slow pace circling the plaza, blinked a few times, and walked briskly back to Twilight. «Done,» she said simply. She looked around at the gathering crowd of ponies, many of whom bowed in reflex as her gaze passed over them. «I apologize for interrupting your evening, my little ponies. Thank you for your patience.»

She looked at Mayor Mare, who took a step forward and started to say something.

Princess Celestia smiled warmly. «What I am doing is nothing anypony here needs to concern themselves with, nothing dangerous is about. Please carry on and know that I am pleased with how things are going here in Ponyville.»

The Mayor looked inordinately delighted at the praise as everypony else looked relieved.

۸-_-۸

Twilight blinked at the sudden change in light. Both princesses were in the Canterlot Throne Room, again.

Celestia stood quietly, her expression one of contemplation.

By now, all of Twilight’s friends had arrived. Raven had brought out a table, and they were sitting there, enjoying a bit of tea. And regaining their breath. A maid came in with a tray of cake slices.

Finally, Celestia walked over to the table and sat. She lifted her cup of tea and sipped. After setting it back down, she looked over at Twilight, who had been worriedly pacing in a small circle. She now just stared at the Princess, hope evident in her expression.

«Prince Harry Potter Sparkle is no longer here, in Equestria,» she stated simply.

Pinkie Pie gasped dramatically, «He’s been kidnapped by Fizzlepop Berrytwist as part of a nefarious plot by the Storm King?»

Everypony turned and stared at her. Princess Celestia raised an eyebrow in query.

Pinkie blinked and looked at her friends, puzzled at their blank looks.

«No,» Celestia replied calmly. «I mean he is no longer in our world.» She sipped some tea and took a delicate bite of the cake. It was easily half the slice on her plate.

Twilight gasped loudly. The others exchanged worried looks. Pinkie dramatically gasped, again, as well, «His spell went wrong and he’s trapped on Mars with Mark Watney?»

Again, everypony stared at Pinkie, who stared back innocently.

Celestia shook her head and addressed Twilight. «I found fresh traces of his home world’s magic in Ponyville Plaza.» She frowned delicately. «Not quite a teleport. Nor a summoning teleport. Something else entirely.» Her frown deepened. «There wasn’t a dark feel to it, so I don’t believe Harry is in immediate danger.» She looked out the windows and into the distant mountains. «It was almost . . . mechanical in nature. A powerful spell issued by a powerful artefact, perhaps. I could detect neither malice nor kindness in intent, just . . . duty. So, certainly not anyone seeking to harm him.»

She looked back at Twilight. «I have a vague direction, but the extra-dimensional magic is unfamiliar to me. I think Starswirl the Bearded did extensive research into dimensional portals, besides the one that Sunset Shimmer used. Perhaps her portal might provide some clues?»

Twilight stared at her wide-eyed, then face-hoofed. «The journal is in my castle in Ponyville.»

Celestia sipped again from her cup. «I will send a Guard to fetch it. And I will consult with Lulu when she wakes, In the meantime, the archives are at your disposal.»

Rarity sighed as she watched her friend gallop out of the room, with Starlight and Trixie right behind her. Spike clung determinedly and precariously to Twilight’s back. The unicorn glanced at the rest of her friends at the table. She looked over to Princess Celestia. «Is there anything we can do to help?»

«Not directly,» the Princess said sadly. «Just provide support.»

«I’ve been meaning to check on the Canterlot store for some time,» Rarity said pensively, looking at her friends from under her eyelashes.

«It wouldn’t hurt to check in our main distributor,» said Applejack, adjusting her hat and then finishing her tea with a single swallow.

«My party supplies do need refreshing,» Pinkie brightly said, «And the Cakes have been insisting I take some time off.»

Fluttershy looked up through her fringe and murmured, «I would like to check in on my little friends in the Royal Garden . . . .»

There was silence for a moment. The four friends turned to look at the fifth, who hovered by and stared out windows at the clouds. Once more, she was clearly lost in a day-dream.

Rarity loudly cleared her throat.

«Hm? What?» Dash said glancing back and around the room.

«Don’t you have something you’d like to do while we’re in Canterlot?»

The blue pegasus looked surprised for a moment. «Oh, yeah,» she said enthusiastically, «I’ve been meaning to take a look at the new training facilities for the Wonderbolts. They’re almost finished, now.»

Applejack face-hoofed.

Princess Celestia laughed softly. «I believe there is a cake with my name on it waiting for me in the kitchens, would you like to join me?» She finished off the slice on her plate, and delicately downed her tea. She rose to her hooves and quickly trotted from the room, followed by her Guards and the remaining Mane Six.

۸-ꞈ-۸

The trip to the Headmaster’s Office was quick. As soon as he arrived, Dumbledore introduced him to a very short Professor Flitwick and a stout Professor Sprout. To his immense surprise, Harry found that when he was on two hooves he was almost a full head taller than Professor Flitwick.* In fact, even if he were on all fours, Harry thought the wizard would barely be taller than him. Professor Sprout, on the other hoof, was only a bit taller than he was. He jumped up and sat down on one of the chairs, as he had the previous night, only this time by the windows.

The Headmaster and Professors Snape, McGonagall, Flitwick, Sprout, and Moody quickly took seats in chairs across from him that were arranged in a semicircle. They were seated around a low circular table.

“Well, Harry,” the Headmaster started, “Would you mind telling us how you ended up in Equestria?” They looked at him expectantly.

Harry stared at the group. He took a deep breath, and started channelling Blueblood. “First, Headmaster Dumbledore,” he said in the most cultured tone he could manage, “my name is Prince Harry Sparkle. I must insist you address me properly. I don’t know you, and I haven’t given you leave to use my first name. Now, if I were a student here, it might be proper to address me as Mr. Sparkle, and the professors and Prefects have been doing that.” He nodded at the professors in the room.

“On the other hoof, I am not in your school, and loose formality is not appropriate.” He regretted having used so much magic earlier. At least he didn’t have a hornache.

Professor Snape shifted in his seat and stared at Harry disdainfully. Then he said in soft, silky voice, “How particularly like your father you are, Potter . . . . He, too, was so very conceited. The apple did not fall far from the tree, I see.”

Harry stared at the wizard and raised an eyebrow. “Since he died when I was fifteen months old, I remember neither how he looked nor how he acted,” Harry said politely. “I will have to take your word for that.”

He narrowed his eyes as he continued to stare at Professor Snape. “I can assure you, however, that before I found myself in Equestria my relatives would have beaten me quite thoroughly if I had in any way acted arrogant — or even merely competent — so your criticism is quite unfounded.” He didn’t miss the way Professor McGonagall had stiffened at the word beaten.

“It is a fact that I am the adopted son of Princess Twilight Sparkle, and thus a part of the royal family of Equestria. Everything I say and do reflects on the Royal Family at large. I have been instructed on how to conduct myself to bring honour to my position, and that I should not tolerate others demeaning or belittling my station through either their words or conduct. After all, it is to the rank that one bows, not the pony, thus any insults are to the Royal family as a whole and not myself.

“That you might interpret such conduct as arrogance shows your ignorance of proper protocol when dealing with a Royal.” Stupid wizard. He smiled. “As your training was obviously substandard in that regard, I cannot hold that against you.”

Professor Snape straightened and leaned slightly forward. His face coloured red, and set into an expression of outrage. Professor Moody snorted, and looked highly amused, as did Professor Flitwick. Professors McGonagall and Sprout merely looked shocked.

“Severus,” the Headmaster said quietly.

Harry could see the man gritting his teeth as he sat back in his chair and continued to glare at the unicorn.

“However, as you only have my word for that,” Harry continued in the same polite and calm manner, “I accept you are reluctant to address me thusly. In view of the fact that I was drawn here against my will, I expect you to treat me as you would any other visiting student to your school.”

There was a moment’s silence as they digested what he had said.

The Headmaster nodded agreeably. “Of course, Mr. Potter.”

Harry gritted his teeth. “Mr. Sparkle, if you please,” he said firmly. “As your heredity test showed last night, my family name is now Sparkle.”

The Headmaster nodded again. “My apologies, Mr. Sparkle,” he said. He studied the young pony for a moment. “Now, then, as I said before, would you be so kind as to tell us how you ended up in Equestria?”

Harry looked down at the table for a minute and composed himself. It had taken years of therapy and counselling for Harry to talk about his relatives calmly, and that day in particular. “There’s really not much I can tell you about that, except I was nine when it happened, in the early autumn of 1989,” he started placidly, and kept a tight rein on his emotions.

۸-ꞈ-۸

Dudley landed one last kick on Harry’s arse. “There,” he said with deep satisfaction, “Mom warned yeh ‘bout getting better grades on a test than me!”

Harry had known he would be in trouble the moment the teacher had handed him his test. He had seen his score of C-minus, and had known that Dudley had gotten a D.

Normally, he would have immediately set out for Number Four when school let out, and known that Dudley and his gang could never catch up in time. He’d still get a whipping from his uncle, but at least that wouldn’t be on top of what Dudley would try to do if he caught Harry.

But the teacher had decided to have “words” with Harry about his “inattentiveness” in class.

As a result, Dudley and his gang had ambushed Harry just as he was crossing the Little Whinging playpark. He had almost escaped them, except Malcom had already gone around to the other side of the playpark, and ambushed him. And thus, his current position on the ground just outside the official playpark and behind some trees.

Harry gritted his teeth and tried to breathe as shallowly as possible. For some reason they were being a bit more vicious, this time. Usually, they just punched him a few times, knocked him down, maybe kicked him once or twice.

In the end, Harry decided, it didn’t matter if it was problems at their homes or school, they were just taking their frustrations out on him. Or, more likely, they just liked doing those things to others, and they knew they could get away without penalty if they did them to him. He would have to bear with it as best he could.

“Let’s dump ’im in tha pond!” said Piers.

At first, they were excited at the prospect. Piers and Dennis began dragging him through the forest, by his feet. They deliberately went over as many rocks and tree-roots as they could, laughing each time his head bounced on the ground. The trip was punctuated by Gordon, Malcom, or Dudley giving him the occasional kick. When he tried to protect his head, it was his sides they kicked. And vice versa. Great fun — for them.

Watching him writhe in pain made them laugh uproariously. It wasn’t long, however, before he could hear some grumbling. Finally, the two dragging him dropped his legs to the ground.

“That’s good enough,” Dudley said, with a last kick at Harry’s head.

Dudley laughed. “And I’ll just tell the ’rents that you had a falling out with your ‘gang’ and they beat ya up. And dad’ll whip ya again, fer being in a gang!”

Harry heard them walking away, discussing how much fun it had been to beat up Harry and who they were going to harass next. He just stayed quiet and tried to catch his breath.

When he finally started seriously to think about getting up, it was late in the afternoon, and starting to get dark. He hurt everywhere. At least nothing was broken. He knew that feeling well enough.

His glasses, by some miracle, had managed to stay with him. And the tape across their bridge had held. He wouldn’t have put it past Dudley to throw them away out of pure spite. But even wearing them left everything a bit out of focus, like there were two of everything, just slightly offset from one another. Blinking hard didn’t fix it.

Getting to his feet was a major accomplishment, he felt, and took much longer than it should. His sides and stomach really hurt. He wasn’t sure where he was, but it had to be close to Number Four Privet Drive. He couldn’t stay here, though. He had to go “home.”

He couldn’t stay out all night, even if he might prefer it. His . . . relatives . . . got upset if he stayed out too late. Neighbours might talk if anyone saw him out alone late at night. It might ruin the Dursely façade of a perfectly normal family — although how they managed reconcile that with their telling everyone he was a dangerous delinquent always left him puzzled. Surely the neighbours could see the contradiction?

He just wished that there was somewhere else besides the Dursleys’ he could go. Miss Figg, his sometimes babysitter was right out. She’d just bang him straight to the Dursleys. He wanted somewhere where he didn’t sleep in a cupboard under the stairs, somewhere where he wasn’t punished for things he didn’t understand, or for getting a better grade than his lazy and fat cousin. Somewhere where he was safe — or at least as safe as everyone else. Somewhere where he could belong. Somewhere where he was considered normal.

He wasn’t making fast progress as he staggered from tree to tree. The world swam around him alarmingly, and made it difficult to keep to the same direction. Fallen tree limbs and trunks that blocked his path complicated things. He stumbled frequently and fell almost as often, and each time it was harder to get up. He was feeling sick to his stomach, too. One too many kicks, he fuzzily decided. Surely he should have come across a street by now, right?

He lurched from the current tree supporting him towards the next but somehow missed it. That was particularly painful for some reason, and he rolled across the forest floor. He could no longer stand upright and had to push forward on his hands and knees. Funny that, he couldn’t feel his fingers anymore. Actually, it felt more like he was crawling on only his middle fingers.

Vaguely, he knew something was very wrong, but it was becoming harder and harder to concentrate. And now there were three of everything. He definitely should have crossed a street by now. Even if he had gone in the wrong direction, he still should have stumbled onto a street or path of some kind. But the light was getting brighter ahead. Eventually he found himself on the edge of a field. He must have gone the wrong direction, passed through the Green Zone, and stumbled into one of the farms in the area. And hadn’t it been almost dark a few minutes ago? Or had the darkness in the forest fooled him into thinking it was later than it really was?

He collapsed as he reached the edge of the forest. Standing again was right out. In fact, he couldn’t even push himself up enough to crawl on his hands and knees. He started dragging himself forward, pushing, kicking, with his legs. If he got into the field, out from under the trees, maybe someone would see him — the grass didn’t seem to be all that high, he could almost see over it.

He liked the spring smell around him — moist soil and crushed grass. A good, earthy smell. The sun warm on his side. It was just the right place for a nap.

۸-_-۸

Author's Notes:

* Professor Flitwick, according to canon is about three feet tall, a meter. Harry is almost, but not quite, a full grown stallion (maybe a growth spurt is coming). Which puts his head at under three feet off the ground when he’s on all-fours. Standing on his hind legs would make him between four-and-a-half and four-and-three-quarters feet tall, maybe a meter and a half, considering his neck is longer (Gotta be able to graze without crouching). Maybe five if you want to be generous. (Get down on your hands and knees, measure how high your shoulders are from the floor. Stand up on your knees, and measure how high the top of your head reaches, for comparison.)

For a more complete discussion, see my blog An Informed Guide to the Reality of Ponies (https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/813811/an-informed-guide-to-the-reality-of-ponies).

Ch. 7 —Bully For You

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Ch. 7 —Bully For You

“The next thing I remembered was waking up in a hospital run by ponies,” Harry concluded, just as calm as when he had started. He might have been talking about the weather, from his attitude. He had recited the story enough times.

“And I was a pony.” He spread his forehooves, “like this.”

The looks the Headmaster was receiving from Professors McGonagall, Sprout, and Flitwick were just a bit short of blistering. From Professors McGonagall’s expression, a near duplicate of what he had seen on his uncle just before a beating, Harry knew that there would be a very loud conversation after he left. And Flitwick would be backing her up, based on his expression. Why they should be upset, he didn’t understand. His treatment at the Dursleys had nothing to do with them, not even indirectly.

The Headmaster had explained last night that the Dursleys, being his only relatives, had been the only choice for where he should go.

It was interesting to note the differences, however, between how ponies reacted when he told the story and how these wizards and witches reacted. The ponies always hugged him, many with tears in their eyes, and tried to console him. These people just sat there, like lumps on a log. Stupid wizards.

Professor Snape merely looked a bit disturbed. Professor Moody looked thoughtful, and nodded at Harry when he saw him looking at him. The Headmaster was stone-face, although he stroked his beard as he stared at Harry.

Harry chuckled. “Apparently, I was a bit of a celebrity in Ponyville. I was the mysterious colt found at the edge of the dangerous Everfree Forest.” He looked at them and smiled genially. “It has much the same reputation that your Forbidden Forest has, except much deadlier.”

Professor Snape gave him a look of clear disbelief and derision.

Harry stared at him. “I know for a fact it houses hydras, cockatrices, timber-wolves, cragadiles, and manticores. And at least one Ursa Minor. Dragons and sea serpents are also known to visit it from time to time. Twice, that I know of, Ponyville has been invaded by plants or monsters from the forest.” He looked at the Headmaster, curious. “Can you say the same for your Forbidden Forest?” He carefully did not mention that the Centaurs in the Forbidden Forest would trump all the creatures in the Everfree, in most ponies’ minds. And prompt a permanent, and large, Guard post just outside it.

Dumbledore slowly shook his head.

“I was asleep for most of my time in the hospital. They tell me that the first time I woke up, I panicked and it was all they could do to keep me in the room to heal. So they used a sleeping spell on me until I was well enough.” He sighed.

“By that time, my mum . . . ,” He paused and frowned. “Well, okay, she wasn’t my mum at the time. I mean by that time Princess Sparkle, except she wasn’t a princess at the time, either, had visited me and cast a translation spell, so that when I woke the next time, I could understand what everypony was saying.”

He shrugged. “There really isn’t much more to tell. At first, I stayed with my mum until they understood that I really was from another world and not making up stories. By then she had decided that it would be better if I stayed with her to learn how to be a unicorn and to learn magic. An orphanage would have been overwhelmed with my ‘special’ needs, she said.” He looked out the window to the Forest. “I mean, I was still having trouble walking. Stairs,” he said with a shudder, “were my bane for years.” And why he had struggled so hard to learn to teleport, but he didn’t tell them that. It might be his ace-in-the-hole. “And I would forget things, too.” He looked away for a moment. “Still can’t remember everything from before Equestria.” He looked back at them.

“My mum thinks I fell through an ancient portal, but she was unable to locate it. She thinks it was either a transient portal or intermittent.” He shrugged and looked at the Headmaster. “We have another portal in our castle that leads to a different human world.”

His audience all sat up at that revelation.

“But it only opens every thirty moons, about two hundred and seventy days, for three days, and was stored in the capital, in a vault. She thinks that maybe the one I fell through was the same, that it was Harmony magic that led me to it during the brief time it was open. But we don’t know its period. It might be moons, years, decades, or even centuries.” He sighed. “With no other information, despite diligent searching by the Guard and scholars, the portal remains impossible to find.”

“I went to school, learned about Equestria, and learned magic. A bit later, she adopted me. Then I moved to Canterlot to go to Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. And now,” he concluded, spreading his forelegs widely, “here I am.”

“How interesting,” Dumbledore said. He leaned back in his chair. “Very interesting, indeed,” repeated the Headmaster. “You shall have to tell us more about Equestria later.” His eyes twinkled as he smiled at Harry. “Well, I think I speak for all of us when I say we are happy to see that you are finally back home.”

Professor Snape did not look happy at all. He sat with a stoic blank expression while the rest nodded or murmured assent.

Harry tilted his head questioningly, “Home? This isn’t my home, Headmaster.”

۸- ̰ -۸

Spike pushed the meal cart into the library. Normally, food and drink were forbidden, but he knew, as did the librarians, that the odds of getting Twilight to take a break and go to the cafeteria to do something as unimportant as eating were virtually zero. As it was, the three mares were surrounded by towers of books.

Twilight had been diving into a new book almost every half hour, searching thoroughly for any tidbit that might help her. Trixie and Starlight Glimmer were almost as dedicated. At least all the ponies had taken a morning nap after the all-nighter.

«Any luck?» he asked hopefully as he steered the cart towards the enormous pile of discarded books.

«The Great and Powerful Trixie must admit it has been fruitless, so far,» came the despondent reply from the blue mare with her muzzle in a book half as big as she was. The other mare simply sighed as she looked up.

The two mares cleared a spot beside themselves for the plates he hefted over to them. They both started munching on an apple as they continued to skim the books and refer to the set of seven blackboards — covered with diagrams and equations — arranged beside the table. He poured tea and apple juices for them.

Starlight looked over at the empty spot. «She should be resurfacing in a moment,» she said. «And thank you for the food.» She got up and stretched.

«Anything I can do to help!» he said. «The portal to Sunset Shimmer’s world is going into a lab down in the Crystal Caverns as soon as it gets here from Ponyville. Princess Celestia told me she’ll write to her in the communications book. It’ll arrive with the mirror. She’ll ask Sunset and her friends if they can come through and maybe help. They might have a perspective from their technological world that might make a difference.» He ducked his head slightly. «You know, Harry’s home being technological, non-magical, and all that.»

Starlight sighed, nodded, and returned to her desk and book.

He sighed and flopped face-down on a pile of pillows. «Both Princesses,» his voice was muffled by the pillows, «are going through their private libraries searching for anything that pertains to portals.» He was silent a moment. «Several scholars are searching through the treasure vaults for anything that might have been overlooked in previous centuries. They’re even checking the old Castle of Two Sisters in case something was missed in the last ten times we searched it for something important.»

He rolled over on his back. «I hope Harry is alright,» he said softly. «Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, and Apple Bloom are going spare. Sweetie Belle has blown up Rarity’s kitchen twice already — and she was still in her room. And Applejack told me Big Mac saw Apple Bloom mistakenly bucking a fence post instead of an apple tree. She even had baskets set out around it.» He sighed. «It’s the not-being-able-to-do-anything that gets to you, ya know?»

He chuckled sadly. «Even Prince Blueblood is looking out of sorts, although with him it’s hard to tell. He always looks out of sorts about something! Just, right now, it’s more than usual. He accused Harry of going missing on purpose to avoid his diplomacy lesson today.»

He walked over to the boards. One was a summary of the magical conditions in the Ponyville Plaza that Princess Celestia had outlined — it was all diagrams and equations and numbers. Another had a depressingly short set of descriptions on how the magic that had apparently snatched Harry was different from the magic they knew. New details were added as they discovered something relevant in the books. He hadn’t a hope of understanding anything written on those two boards. In fact, he wasn’t sure all three mares understood what was written.

A third board listed everything they knew Harry had had when he had arrived, and where it had gone to since then. Most ended with, «Discarded, disposition unknown.» A team of ponies was hunting them down now.

The remaining three were equations and diagrams on Portals, both finding them and creating them. What those didn’t have was a way to steer a portal opening to a specific location, either a world or a place in that world. Only one rune specified location, and why it meant ground level was pretty obvious.

«Oh, Princess Luna told me to tell you that they are bringing in a few ponies who are geniuses in magical mathematics. Maybe they can get a handle on this,» he said turning from the boards.

He sighed. «I’ll get more tea.» He looked over at the table’s empty spot and frowned. «And a few more pillows and blankets.»

۸-ꞈ-۸

“My home, dear Sir, is Equestria,” Harry said politely to Dumbledore. “That is where my family is, that is where I belong. I have no doubt that my mum is turning over every stone, looking behind every tree . . . ,” he smirked, “reading every book, in an effort to find me.” Then he smiled. “And when she does get here, she will bend every effort to breaking your Goblet’s spell. It shouldn’t take her more than a few days.”

Professor Dumbledore raised his eyebrows in surprise, the others leaned forward, frowning at his declaration.

“Not your home?” cried Professor McGonagall in dismay. “How could this not be your home?” she continued, clearly upset. “You’re a wizard,” she stated firmly. “This is where you were born! Your parents were born here! You’re a hero, here! You belong here!”

Harry rolled his eyes and shook his head —as if he cared about such things. “Belong here?” Harry said incredulously. “How ever did you come that conclusion?” He sighed.

“According to my aunt and uncle, my parents were drunken wastrels, hoodlums of the worst sort, who never worked a day in their lives, living off the charity of friends, and fighting constantly against a rival gang. They died in a car crash, which is why I have this scar,” He waved a hoof at his forehead. “And my aunt and uncle had to take care of me, stretching their tiny budget almost to the breaking point.”

He huffed angrily.

“My aunt and uncle resented my very presence, and made no effort to hide their feelings. They treated me as if I, a child, were somehow at fault for all of my parents’ failings and my living with them.”

He shook his head angrily. “It took years of counselling before I understood that I wasn’t to blame. That to blame a child for the failings of the parents is the mark of a weak mind, a failing of intellect, a fault in the character of the perpetrator. Only the most despicable and petty excuse of a pony would take out their dislike for a parent on the child,” he said heatedly. “Especially if the parent is dead.”

For some reason, Professor Snape looked as if he had been insulted while Professor Moody was amused, as was Professor Flitwick. Professor McGonagall had an expression of astonishment. The Headmaster was looking at Snape, with his eyes twinkling and a faint smile.

“All of which are failings my childish aunt and uncle fell into. They made me live as if I were in tartarus. I lived in a cupboard under the stairs, my meals were the scraps of food leftover from their meals, I was treated like a slave — forced to do all the cleaning, laundry, cooking, and gardening — and I was beaten for things I never understood. If I did anything better than my cousin, in school or out, except chores, I got beaten.” He stared at them, then took a deep breath to regain his control, which was beginning to fray. “If that is the way you treat someone important who belongs here, I’d hate to see how you treat an insignificant stranger!” He sighed.

“My memories of here are nothing but of misery and despair.”

“My mum, on the other hoof, treats me with respect and kindness. She cares about what I do and who I am. She was the first pony, or person, to hug me!” he stated firmly. “I have friends in Equestria. And I have three fiancées who are probably going barmy worried about me. I have a place in Equestria where I am not only welcome, but wanted.” He looked at the Headmaster incredulously. “Why on Earth would I want to stay here and not return home to Equestria?”

He noticed Professors McGonagall, Sprout, and Flitwick were looking a little sick at his litany of complaints. The Headmaster’s eyes were no longer twinkling. Both Professors Snape and Moody were impassive.

“As for being a hero? I think not. Only a simpleton would believe that a toddler of fifteen months could somehow beat a Dark Wizard with decades’ experience in wielding magic. It is far more likely that my parents used the months they were in hiding to devise a trap for the wizard that was started the moment he came in the door. I think my mother’s last act was finishing that spell in the hopes it would protect us.” He looked at all five of them. “Which do you find more likely? That two talented and skilled adults, in desperation and with time to prepare, created a magic trap that caught the dark wizard by surprise? Or that a toddler with no understanding of either magic or the events around him, somehow managed to overcome that same wizard after his had parents failed?”

Silence greeted his question. Even Professor Moody was looking a bit uncertain and taken aback.

The Headmaster stared at him, unblinking, clearly thinking over everything he had said. Finally, the wizard sighed. “Nothing can be done about the past,” he said sadly. “We will attempt to make you feel at home, here.” He paused and stroked his beard.

Harry had to raise his eyebrows in disbelief. “I doubt you’ll succeed. All three schools look on me as an interloper in the Tournament. Do you really think any students in Hogwarts will choose befriending me, the competitor to the Hogwarts contender, and alienate themselves from their friends?” He snorted derisively, “I think not.”

Ponies would easily do it. They seemed to have a deep well of friendship that they drew from. Perhaps it was because they were a prey species at heart and sought cooperation and close companionship. Their very survival in ancient times had depended on accepting each other and working together. The humans, however, were predators, and constantly strove against each other.

Dumbledore sadly stared at him. “I believe you will find you are wrong. You will find the students of Hogwarts to be fair and selfless,” the Headmaster said as he leaned back in his chair and steepled his hands once more.

Harry, and the professors, looked at the Headmaster as if he were daft.

After a few moments of thinking, he continued, “Now, then, do you really think your . . . mother . . . will find you?”

Harry could see the man was genuinely curious as to why Harry was so sure of her success.

Harry smiled, then chuckled. “She is a genius at magic. If anyone can do it, she can. After all, a few years back when Star . . . when someone tried to change the present by changing the past ten years before that, she and Spike went through a dozen horrifying timelines before finally restoring the correct future. She bested Mad King Sombra, fought Tirek to a standstill, prevented Queen Chrysalis from taking over Canterlot, and defeated many other villains.”

Professor Snape stared at him. “Impossible,” he snapped. The others uncertainly looked back and forth between them.

Harry shrugged. “Believe what you will,” he replied calmly.

“Plus, she has some experience with portals to alternate universes. It is merely a matter of her tracking me down through all the possibilities. I’m sure my descriptions of United Kingdom, and Number Four Privet Drive in particular, will help narrow things down considerably.”

How odd that Headmaster Dumbledore looked faintly worried. “It would take a great deal of magical power to do that,” he said. “The Goblet of Fire has had centuries to accumulate the magic it expended in bringing you here.”

Harry smiled. “Oh, she has power aplenty. When she fought Tirek, she created a new pass through the Smokey Mountains and made a lake half-a-mile in diameter. The fight was visible from most of the country.” He shook his head and smirked, “The Guard named the lake, Twilight’s Temper, and the new passage through the mountain, Twilight’s Strike.” He glanced at the Headmaster. “Tirek is in prison in Tartarus.”

Professor Snape scowled. “An exaggeration, no doubt. No one could have that much magical power,” he said dismissively.

Harry again shrugged. “I know what I saw, and I have seen the lake. And every pegasus in Equestria has seen the pass,” he said, just as dismissively. “Finding me may take her time, but she will never give up. If nothing else works, she will ask Discord, the God of Chaos for help.”

“God of Chaos?” Snape said incredulously. Professor Flitwick looked especially interested.

Harry sighed. “He’s . . . a bit hit or miss,” he said reluctantly. Harry chewed his lower lip. “He’s nice enough, but erratic. He exists for chaos. Calling for his help, he’s just as likely to laugh and eat popcorn, while watching ponies trot in circles and confusion, as he is to do anything constructive. His idea of helping might be an obscure riddle.” Harry looked at the Headmaster darkly. “He would enjoy the chaos that my entry to this ridiculous tournament has created.”

Professor Snape rolled his eyes. “A childish figment of your imagination,” he declared dryly. “Created to salve your hurt feeling when you mother fails to show up. When nothing happens, you can just claim he didn’t want to help.”

Harry was tempted to try, right now. But, as he had said, it was just as likely that Discord would simply watch things play out. Or, worse, he would want to add to the chaos — his promise to Fluttershy didn’t extend to these humans. And as long as Harry was safe? He would have no incentive to help — quite the opposite, in fact. He’d feel free to meddle as much as he liked.

Harry shrugged. “What you believe or not is irrelevant. You will see the truth when my mum shows up.” He smiled slightly. “And she won’t be amused.”

He looked at the table and noticed that it now had a full tea set in place. He lifted the cup and took a sip. No sugar, but at least it was warm and soothing. He had been talking a lot. He contemplated reflections in the tea cup. Just how long would it take her?

Not that that mattered given his being stuck in the Tournament for the next eight months. Unless she could somehow unravel its magic. But artefacts like that rarely were so easy to circumvent. She might understand it in a matter of days, but negating its magical contracts might not be possible. Those things were decidedly difficult — Celestia send all lawyers to tartarus.

Professor Moody, after staring at him for some time, gruffly said, “Professor McGonagall says you can hold a wand in your hoof. Can you show me?”

Harry shrugged and used his hoof to pull out the wand. He held it up and slowly waved it.

Professor Flitwick got off his chair and came over to Harry, inspecting his hoof-held wand closely. “Marvellous!” he said, “Can you cast with it?”

The others were watching intently. Professor Moody’s artificial eye had stopped moving randomly and had locked onto the wand, instead. Harry wondered if he could see the magic fields like Harry could when he concentrated.

“I don’t know, professor, I haven’t tried.”

“Try casting lumos with it,” the diminutive professor urged. “Push your magic into the wand, and say lumos while wanting the end of the wand to light up.”

Harry shrugged. It wasn’t as easy as it sounded, he discovered. His first “lumos” made the tip of his horn light up, instead. “Huh,” he muttered, after looking at his horn cross-eyed for a moment. “It’s not the same lighting spell I normally use.”

Except for Flitwick urging him on, the others watched in silence.

The second time, he had to consciously direct his magic to his hoof. Not a spell to his hoof, but actual, raw magic. Both the tips of the wand and his horn lit up. The third time, only the wand lit up.

“Excellent,” said the Professor, excitedly. He grinned at both the Headmaster and Professor McGonagall. “Can you cast different spells through your horn and the wand?” he said excitedly.

Harry lifted his tea cup for a sip while lighting his wand. He only spilled a bit of the tea, just a few drops as the cup shook unsteadily in his magic. It was kind of odd, with two flows of magic, and both were a bit unsteady. But not any more complicated than Rarity using her magic to manipulate fabric, needles, and thread all at the same time. He couldn’t help but wonder if he could do the same thing with two wands and his horn.

The Headmaster nodded amiably, eyes twinkling. “We shall have to assign you some tutors, to help you adapt to wanded magic,” he said to Harry. “Several from your own age group, I would say. Then a few from upper years as you begin to catch up.”

Professor Snape merely scowled while the others nodded their agreement.

Harry looked at them curiously. Were they really that naïve? He remembered his time in Primary. People would follow Dudley’s lead in picking on Harry, either to impress the large boy, or to escape such treatment themselves. People would pretend to be his friend so they could get on Dudley’s good side by betraying Harry to him later.

If the Hogwarts’ champion was anything close to popular and well-liked, or, like Dudley, universally feared, why should these wizards and witches act any differently?

They weren’t ponies, after all. Ponies never did that. Well, at least most ponies he had met.

“And why should they help someone who competes against their Hogwarts champion?” Harry said mildly. “If they help me and I beat your contestant, won’t their friends be angry at them? Might they not seek to aid their contestant by misleading me? Setting me up to fail?”

Professor Moody smiled at him approvingly. “The boy’s got a point, Albus. Being friends is one thing, but actively helping him against their own? Anyone who helps him is going to get grief from his housemates. There’s no reason to help the boy, for them.”

The Headmaster shook his head. “If we ask some students to help in the interests of fair play, I’m sure they will give him their full support.”

“Perhaps we could offer extra-credit points to those who help?” suggested Professor McGonagall. “Or give them the position of Interns?”

Dumbledore nodded. “If we don’t receive any volunteers, I believe we may try that approach. But I hardly think it will be necessary.”

Harry noticed that Professor Moody was just as sceptical as he was.

The Headmaster looked over to Harry. “It is getting late. Thank you for your time, Mr. Sparkle.”

He nodded, hopped off the chair, and left the room. At the bottom of the stairs, he looked around and sighed. Sure — they would teach him. Just as the professors sent him back to his dorm knowing he was unfamiliar with the castle and likely to get lost.

He walked to a nearby portrait. The stern-looking wizard, holding a cane, didn’t move until Harry spoke. “Can you tell me the way to Gryffindor Tower? I’m new here, you see,” he said apologetically, feeling like an idiot for talking to a painting.

The wizard looked at him and startled, almost falling down. “Merlin’s tears! A talking horse!”

Harry scowled. “No, sir, I’m a pony, a unicorn to be exact.”

The wizard in red scowled right back at him. He sniffed disdainfully. “Animals in Hogwarts, what has the castle come to!” he said contemptuously. He shook his head sadly. “Down the hall,” he said stiffly. “Turn right. When you reach the Grand Staircase, it’s on the seventh floor.” He suddenly reverted to only looking like a portrait.

Harry sighed and shook his head as he started for the staircases. Obviously, the portrait was of a bigot — but what else should he expect from a wand-waving pure-blood wizard? Well, at least he didn’t scream and faint like one of the Flower sister’s would have done. Nor had he run away and hidden in fear like most of Ponyville had when Zecora first arrived in town.

Harry wasn’t sure which of those reactions was worse. Probably the bigotry. Ponies, at least, had learned to accept strange things in Ponyville. Even the Flower sisters had stopped fainting whenever Zecora accidently surprised them from behind.

He found the staircases easily enough. He didn’t even have to wait for them to align with him like he usually did. Right in front of him was a staircase that went from this floor to the seventh!

Unfortunately, when he was almost there, the staircase shifted, almost knocking him down. It finally stopped moving — on the sixth floor. He sighed and looked around. None of the staircases went to the seventh floor, unless he went to the second floor. And, naturally, the staircase he was now on only went down to the third floor. And there wasn’t a staircase that went from the third to the second, he’d have to go to the fourth, first. And continuing to the seventh from the sixth was just as convoluted.

He was tempted to try to teleport, he really was. But he was pretty sure he was too tired to pull it off. And one of the portraits adorning the walls around the Central Stairwell probably would tattle on him and reveal his secret, he was sure.

He exited the stairs on the sixth floor and approached another portrait. This one was of distinguished man with a short, trimmed moustache and beard. He was seated on a chair, slightly turned and with his hands folded on a small table at his side. A brass plate on the frame said: Professor Vindictus Viridian.

“Excuse me, sir,” Harry said politely, “But what is the easiest way to get to the seventh floor? The Central Stairs do not appear to be cooperating.”

The wizard looked down at him and sighed. “I’ve heard about you,” he said disapprovingly. “You used to be a boy,” he stated reproachfully.

Harry just stared at him.

Vindictus pursed his lips, then pointed. “At the end of that corridor is a stairs that goes up one floor.”

“Thank you, sir,” Harry said flatly. As he walked away, he hoped, probably vainly, he realized, that the rest of the wizarding world wouldn’t be so judgmental as the last two portraits. He started around the stairwell towards the indicated corridor.

He had finally reached the stairs at the end of the corridor and was about to start up when he heard a sniffle.

He stopped and stood silent. The faint sound of cloth rustling reached him. It came from under the stairs. A person would never have noticed.

He walked into the open space beside the stairs and found that the space under the stairs wasn’t enclosed as one might expect. Tucked into the corner near the bottom of the stairs, where she couldn’t easily be seen, was a girl with dirty-blonde hair and protuberant silvery eyes that stared at him disturbingly in the dimly-lit area. “Are you alright?” he asked as he lit his horn. Her posture, knees to her chest, arms wrapped around her legs, was reminiscent of when he was hiding from Dudley’s gang. He noticed her bare toes sticking out from under her robes.

“You are remarkably free of nargles,” she said dreamily, looking slightly over his head.

He resisted the urge to look up. “Am I?”

“The wrackspurts seem to like you, though,” she added twisting and turning her head a bit to look at the area around his head.

“They do?”

“Yes.”

“Do you need help?”

“No,” she said quietly. “I was looking for my shoes and decided to take a rest.”

He blinked. Yes. She was being bullied. “My name is Harry Sparkle. What is your name?” he asked softly.

She looked up at him quizzically, as if surprised he would bother to ask. “Luna Lovegood,” she finally said.

۸-_-۸

Ch. 8 — Pitiable Portents

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Ch. 8 — Pitiable Portents

Harry nodded to the witch and stepped back into the corridor proper. He closed his eyes for a moment. He knew the spell, he had used it too many times to count. But he usually had a good idea of what he wanted. It would be taxing — very taxing — to use it like this. But he couldn’t not help the girl, having been in her position, himself, a long time ago. Well, at least he had recovered somewhat from his magic use earlier.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, clearing his mind. He carefully built the matrix. It would be important to get every part of it correct, especially with such a vague description. He poured magic into it, as much as he dared to spare — he didn’t want to fall asleep on the floor in the middle of the corridor!

He loosed it. He almost fell down as a wave of fatigue shot through him. He dropped to all fours instead in reaction.

He heard her stirring behind him, and coming closer. She had heard him clop to the floor. “Are you alright?”

“Yes,” he said tiredly.

Nothing happened for a moment. Then there was a flash of bright light in front of him. A pile of six shoes appeared.

He turned and looked up at her. “Are these yours?” He had overdone it a bit, he could hear himself slurring his words a bit.

She gasped. “Thank you,” she said dropped down to her knees and hugged him.

The first hug since he had arrived. It felt . . . nice. He hadn’t realized he’d been missing such shows of affection and gratitude. He leaned into her.

She let go and slipped on one set of shoes, and shoved the other two pairs into her pockets.

She looked down on him a moment. “I tried summoning them myself, but they never came.”

He looked up at her and smiled tiredly. “My magic is different from yours.” He blinked tiredly. “Would you like company back to your dorm?”

She shrugged. “The eagle doesn’t like my answers to its riddles, so I can’t get in.”

Harry sighed tiredly. “Then let’s see if it likes mine.”

She nodded and started off down the corridor. He noticed that her hair was waist-length, quite impressive considering most of the girls he had seen, so far, had hair shorter than his.

He slowly walked beside her. He really appreciated Madam Malkin’s tailoring. The robes felt natural as they draped over his quadruped form, and didn’t trip his rear hooves at all. Rarity would have been impressed. If they ever met, they’d probably lock themselves into a room and not come out for days.

They walked in silence, which Harry found unusual. So far, every student had taken the opportunity to question him ceaselessly when they could. Harry, himself, was too tired to carry on a conversation. Just making sure he didn’t trip on the stairs was taxing.

They ended up going down several stairs before going up a tight, dizzying spiral staircase. Are all the dorms in a tower? he wondered. She stopped in front of a plain wooden door without a doorknob or keyhole. It did have a bronze door-knocker in the shape of an eagle.

She reached out and knocked. The beak of the eagle opened and a voice said, “What kind of corn starts with the letter A?”

“Acorn,” said Luna.

Nothing happened. She shrugged. “See?”

Harry looked at her, muzzily.

“The door to the Ravenclaw Common Room only opens if you answer its riddle correctly,” she explained. “If you get it wrong, you must wait for someone else to answer it, correctly. That way you learn.”

“Oh.” Harry frowned, and knocked. The question was repeated. Thinking maybe her answer had been disqualified, he carefully enunciated, “Alicorn.”

Again, nothing happened.

He sighed and sat, took off his helmet, and rubbed his head with a hoof. Luna reached down and started scratching behind his ear. He leaned into her hand. It always felt good when somepony did that. Pegasi were so lucky they could use their feathers like fingers while the rest had to make do with the less delicate hooves. And magic? Well, it just wasn’t the same in his opinion. Fingers though? They were his new favourite.

He stared up at the doorknocker, then squinted. There seemed to be a faint something around the knocker. He cast a detection spell. Then sighed. “There is a silencing spell on the knocker,” he said, and sighed. “I don’t think I can undo it.” He looked up at her and smiled sadly. “I’m too tired.”

The witch nodded, then pulled her wand from behind her ear. She pointed it at the knocker and firmly said, “Finite incantatem!”

Harry could still detect the spell. Maybe two had cast it together and made it hard to dispel? Or, if they were older, they had more power available.

Luna resumed scratching his ear.

Harry reluctantly opened his eyes. “Scriffy?” he said.

Luna looked at him quizzically.

“Scriffy,” he repeated, more firmly.

There was a soft POP. “Scriffy be here.” He looked at the pony and witch. “Scriffy can no take orders from students.”

Harry nodded. “We don’t have an order for you, but we need your assistance.”

The elf looked at him silently.

“Someone has cast a spell on the door-knocker and locked Luna Lovegood, here,” he nodded at the witch, “out of her dormitory. Would you please notify the appropriate Professor that one of his students is being bullied?”

The house-elf looked at the door, then gasped. He disappeared immediately.

Harry started leaning against Luna, eyes closed. He was so very tired, now.

Someone coming quickly up the stairs woke Harry. They were sitting on the floor. Well, Luna was sitting, he was lying half in her lap as she stroked his head and played with his ears. She was humming quite happily. In truth, he could get used to this.

“What’s this about the eagle being silenced?” said the diminutive Professor Flitwick as he puffed up beside them. He pulled out his wand and cast a spell. He scowled, and cast another.

The eagle knocker blinked, but said nothing.

“That should fix it,” he said grimly.

Harry reluctantly pushed himself to his hooves. “You have a problem with bullying in your House, Sir,” Harry said slowly. “Someone took all of Miss Luna Lovegood’s shoes, hid them around the castle, and then they silenced the eagle to not respond to anyone’s answers when she left to go searching for them.”

The professor turned to the witch. “Is that true?”

Harry gestured at the back of a shoe protruding from one of her robe’s pockets.

She shrugged. “It was the nargles, Professor Flitwick. They like to lie and steal. They usually return my things before we leave at the end of the year, though.”

Harry sighed and rubbed his closed eyes with a hoof, tiredly. “I think she sees magic, Professor. Some of the twists in a pony’s magic look as if they are alive to the untrained, my mum told me.”

The professor gave the two of them a long look. Then sadly shook his head.

“Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Mr Sparkle. I shall make sure those responsible are suitably punished.” He looked at Luna. “Come, Miss Lovegood, I think we’re going to be having a late-night House meeting.”

He glanced at the door, which quickly opened. He gestured that Luna should precede him into the room.

Harry sighed as the door closed. He briefly considered finding a corner to curl up in, but decided that would be a very bad idea in a castle full of strangers, many of whom he would suspect to be hostile.

This time, the stairs in the Central Stairway remained stationary, but it still took him another half hour of slow meandering to make it back to his room in Gryffindor Tower.

۸-_-۸

Harry was up before the others, as he had been yesterday. He had no idea what to expect today. He had skipped a shower yesterday, and, fortunately, no one had noticed. The toilets, unfortunately, had been just as he remembered from when he was at the Dursleys, and totally awkward for him to use as a pony, requiring great care to avoid a mess. Having tediously to remove the appropriate armour didn’t help.

Thus it was he was completely surprised when he trotted into the communal bathroom for the Fourth Years. Unlike yesterday, there was a larger stall at the end of the room. When he looked at it closer, he saw a toilet that could accommodate his new form. As he stared at it, there was a soft POP beside him. A house-elf, not Scriffy, but dressed in a Hogwarts pillowcase, stood there.

“Is this being better, sir?” the creature asked hesitantly.

From the sound of its voice, Harry guessed it was a male.

“Oh, much better. This is completely unexpected. Did you do this?” He waved a hoof to indicate the changed toilet stall.

The house-elf nodded. “Scriffy says I should makes Princey feel at home, sir.”

Harry gave him a perplexed look, but nodded. “I hope it didn’t take too much work,” he said

The creature beamed happily and giggled. “It was a snap,” he said. “Is there’s something I’s can do to make it even better for Princey, sir?”

“Actually, there are a few changes I’d like.” By the time Harry had finished with the suggestions, the toilet was indistinguishable from the ones he used at home. And far more comfortable to use than the other ones here.

“Perfect,” Harry said, just as happy as the house-elf. “Thank you so much!” Harry said. “What is your name?”

“Bit, sir” the little creature said cheerily.

Harry gave him a long look. “Bit,” he finally said, “Could you alter a shower stall to be a bit longer and the spray a bit wider to accommodate my quadruped form?”

“Bits can do, sir!” he cried out happily. Bit stared at him critically and walked around him once. Then he turned to the closest shower stall. He snapped his fingers once, twice, then a third time. The stall slowly became deeper, the shower head separated into two, and the controls dropped to a much more comfortable height for someone of his stature, either standing or on all-fours.

The controls being higher wouldn’t have bothered him, he had magic, after all. But the rest?

“Thank you, this is wonderful,” Harry said ecstatically. Now he wouldn’t have to stand with his head or tail outside the curtain. Or do everything on two hooves. He could foresee, already, that being on two hooves so much would cause him aches and pains. Ponies weren’t meant always to stand on two hooves.

The house-elf seemed almost giddy with joy, jumping from foot to foot.

He quickly stripped off his armour and piled it to one side as he stepped inside and turned on the water. With a slight magical assist, he was soon lathered up, rinsed off, and directing his armour under the sprays to rinse it clean, as well. The water-proof runes were doing their part!

Part way through, a shelf grew out of the wall as the stall grew wider to adjust for it. He now had a convenient shelf for his armour.

By the time he had finished, his armour was as gleaming clean as he was. He shut off the water and cast a drying spell on both himself and the armour. Bit was nowhere in sight as he left the stall, so he gave a heart-felt, “Thank you, again, Bit,” to the air.

When he trotted back into the room, he felt completely refreshed. The others were beginning to stir, and Neville passed him on the way to the showers, Seamus wasn’t far behind him.

Harry wasn’t sure what to expect, today, so he loaded his rucksack with all his fourth-year schoolbooks and supplies. Then sat and patiently waited for the others. He still wasn’t positive of the way to the Great Hall. He didn’t want to get lost and miss breakfast entirely. And waiting here prevented him from being mobbed in the Common Room.

Stupid wizards. Why didn’t they put up signs at the intersections pointing to the different parts of the castle? They had magic to make sure the signs always were correct!

Ron was the last to rise. Harry was beginning to suspect this was a normal thing for him.

Unlike the previous morning, their entry into the Great Hall was not noticed by the student body at large. The new robes did well to hide his shape and not instantly give away that he was present. And his short stature — he was barely as tall as most First Year students — made it easy for others to overlook him. Unless someone looked closely, they wouldn’t notice it was him.

Those closest to the doors heard the clopping of his shoes. When they looked, they could see his head and realized he was the pony Champion. They started to stare and nudged their friends to get their attention. Maybe he should ink silencing runes into his armour’s hoofwraps?

However, what had more people buzzing today was the fact that the Ravenclaw points counter was far less than it had been the day before. And their table was currently occupied only by the students in blue from Beauxbatons.

Neville saw Harry’s puzzled expression at everyone else’s focus on the four tall hour glasses above the Great Hall doors. He explained, “Each House is represented by an hourglass of gems. Professors award and remove points from students in each House depending on things they do. Get the best score in a test? You get points and House gems drop from the top to the bottom of the hourglass. Know the answer to a question? Get points. Get caught doing something wrong? Lose points, and House gems go back to the top. Whichever House at the end of the year has the most points wins the House Cup. It’s rubies for Gryffindor, blue sapphires for Ravenclaw, green emeralds for Slytherin, and yellow diamonds for Hufflepuff.”

And the sapphires were almost completely gone from the bottom of their hourglass.

Harry nodded. The school used peer-pressure, not competition and the sheer desire to learn, to keep the students in line. Considering it was a standard school where everypony went, it was to be expected that some students were there because they had to be there, not because they wanted to be there, unlike Princess Celestia’s school. Unmotivated students, as his mum had explained, were always a disciplinary problem. Peer-pressure could accomplish a lot in keeping things under control.

“Yeah,” said Ron, glancing at the tubes, “something dreadful must have happened last night.”

Harry had a good idea of what the reason was, and hoped it wouldn’t draw more attention to him when it came out. He sighed. Not with his luck.

When he looked at the front of the hall, he noticed that Professors Flitwick, McGonagall, Sprout, and Snape and the Headmaster were all absent. He nodded to himself. That made sense in view of what had happened to Luna. The other three House Heads would be need to be warned of the problem and told to look into their own Houses for similar issues.

He was in the middle of enjoying his sugar and pastry filled breakfast, and trying to ignore the ham slices and bangers on nearby platters, when the Ravenclaw House members all came in. They were in two columns, and separated one to each side of their table as they reached it. They were in Year-groups, and had clearly waited until they were all ready before embarking to the Great Hall. They were just as clearly all upset and unhappy, even sullen. Professor Flitwick followed them with a stern expression, and went to the Head Table.

While the students were watching the unusual parade, the missing professors and Headmaster had taken their seats. Professor Flitwick, however, did not. Instead he conjured a platform in front of the table and ascended the small spiral staircase. Everyone in the room could easily see him.

The Ravenclaws kept their gazes strictly on the table in front of them.

Without preamble, Flitwick started speaking, his voice magically amplified so all could clearly hear him. “It was brought to my attention last evening by Mr. Sparkle,” he said — the whispering quickly died away and almost everyone turned to look at him — “that one of the members of my House has been bullied ever since she came to Hogwarts, by almost every member of the House, with the exception of this year’s First Years and a few other students. This abuse was a fundamental betrayal of the most basic of House expectations and standards, not to mention a betrayal of Hogwarts’ and the students’ parents expectations of their children’s conduct.” He glared at his table. “This gentle witch’s only fault was to be different. She never complained, blaming her misfortunes on what everyone else called ‘imaginary creatures.’ Out of the entire House, not one person called her a friend.”

The students in the Great Hall stared at the Ravenclaws, and Professor Flitwick. Most were stunned at the very thought that you could be at Hogwarts and not have a single friend. The Slytherins were stone-faced, except the First Years who all looked worried.

Harry heard one of the girls a bit further down the table from him snort, one with bushy brown-hair. A red-headed girl — a Weasley? — leaned close to her and whispered something.

“After careful examination by Madam Pomfrey, it seems the young witch has natural mage-sight. For those of you who haven’t run into that term, it means she can see magic the rest of us cannot.” He took a moment to regard the room at large as it broke into excited chatter. He waited for the noise to die down.

“My prefects not only did not report this abuse to me, some of them participated in it. As a result, all Ravenclaw prefects have been stripped of their ranks. All Ravenclaws are restricted to the House or school library when not in class, except the First Years and a few others, until further notice.” He sighed.

“To my everlasting shame, Miss Luna Lovegood, given the choice, has decided to be re-sorted.” He again glared at his House table. “Not that I can blame her.”

The Hall broke into astonished chatter. Most had never heard of a student being resorted, Harry gathered from those around him.

Professor McGonagall stood and opened the Professors’ door behind the Head Table. She retrieved a small stool with a hat on it, and started around to the front of the table. The girl Harry had helped last night came through the same door and followed the professor.

Luna seemed both sad and excited as she sat on the stool and slipped the sorting hat Harry had seen Saturday night onto her head.

The hat squirmed and wriggled in place a couple of times. The crowd waited breathlessly, with many whispering to their neighbours.

Abruptly, the hat split open along a horizontal seam and shouted, “Gryffindor!” While Harry was startled at the hat’s ability to speak, no one else seemed perturbed. He had wondered the other night how it informed the Headmaster of its decisions, however.

The students at the Gryffindor table started clapping, politely.

He’d had a feeling that would be the result when he heard the professor say she was to be resorted. He watched as Professor McGonagall took the hat and stool and returned them to the room behind the Head Table.

Professor Flitwick looked at the girl sadly, “I apologize for the way my House treated you. And I apologize for not noticing the issue long ago. I promise you I will be taking a more hands-on approach to my House than I had before.” He turned slightly and gave his House’s table a stern look. Then turned back to her. “I wish you the best in your new one. And I, for one, am sorry to see you leave,” he said sincerely.

She smiled back at him and nodded. Whatever she said was too soft for Harry to hear.

Ron, beside Harry, sighed and threw his head back to stare at the ceiling. “Oh, great,” he said disparagingly, “We got Looney Luna.”

Seamus elbowed him, hard, in the side, getting an “Oof!” It was followed by an upset, “Hey!” as Ron rubbed his side, and an angry expression as he looked at the other wizard.

Dean, on the other side of Seamus, said sharply, “Pay attention! We don’t want to lose any points just because you don’t like her!”

“Hey,” Ron protested louder, and looked at Dean. “I don’t dislike her! She’s Ginny’s friend!” He looked across the table at this sister. “It’s just that she’s soo weird!” he murmured.

The red-headed girl seated a few positions down and opposite them stared daggers at her brother. The bushy-haired girl beside her glared even harder. Harry had the feeling that if the second girl could have she would have actually sent daggers at the boy. Just from her vicious look, he decided not to get on her bad side, if he could help it. And wondered what the boy had done to be the recipient.

“And now we know why, don’t we?” Seamus said harshly, glaring at Ron. “So be nice!”

Meanwhile, Luna Lovegood was skipping — he had to stop and think, Yes, that was what it was called — skipping to the Gryffindor House. She made a beeline for Harry and stopped behind him, waved happily at the Ginny, and said, “Hi Ron, Hi Harry!”

Ron gave her small sick smile while Ginny waved back happily. The bushy-haired girl nodded and welcomed her, as did several others close by.

After a moment’s surprise, Harry shoved his side against Ron, making room between himself and Neville. Neville got the hint and moved in the other direction, opening up more space. Their neighbours all readjusted as well.

“Thank you, Harry,” she said, stepping gracefully over the bench and into position. An empty plate appeared in front of her and she began heaping it with a pudding with a crispy top. She took a big spoonful and moaned. “So good,” she said. “Try this,” she said dropping a large dollop on his plate. “Apple Crumble.”

He dug in.

That was when the owls came flying in and delivered the mail.

“Ah, Harry, look,” Neville said a few minutes later, showing Harry the newspaper dropped to him by an owl, something called the Daily Prophet.

Harry sighed. The headline blared, “FOUR TRI-WIZARD CHAMPIONS!” in large type in two lines across the top. Harry leaned closer, read the lead two paragraphs, and sat back. That was all he needed to do to confirm his opinion of the newspaper. It was a gossip rag, not a newspaper, proper. Instead of simply reporting the facts, the author of the article insisted on inserting herself into the news, sensationalizing the events, and substituting suppositions as if they were facts.

If the paper were like its cousins back in Equestria, most of the article would be filled with innuendo and lies, with just enough true facts to fool the average pony into not realizing just how much was made up.

Well, at least, they got the name of the Princess’ school correct.

Harry finished eating, looked around, and wondered what he should do next.

Others were also finished, or about to, and spent more time talking to their neighbours than they did eating. The bushy-haired girl was engrossed in a book, which was what he should probably do.

Professor McGonagall was working her way down the table. She stopped periodically to say something, then continued on. Finally she reached them.

“There will be a House meeting tonight,” she said, eyeing them all equally, to make sure they were listening. “It’s to welcome and introduce Miss Lovegood,” she glanced at the girl and smiled. “Mr Sparkle, you are invited, as you are currently residing with us.” She paused a moment, then added. “Mr. Sparkle, until we arrange tutors, why don’t you accompany the Gryffindors today, to see what our school is like?”

He nodded. That was why he had packed those books, after all. He had intended to trail the other Gryffindor boys just to look around the castle and get a feel for what the classes were like. It would give him some idea of the things they studied, and where he might place in their ranking. And what he needed to study for that stupid tournament. Having her make the suggestion meant it was far more likely that the other students wouldn’t object too strenuously.

“Miss Lovegood,” she said, pulling a paper out of her pocket and handing it to the witch. “Your things have already been moved to Gryffindor Tower. I’m sure Miss Weasley, or one of the other Third-year witches, will be happy to show you where it is. For today, you can share her books.”

“Thank you, Professor McGonagall,” the girl said dreamily.

Ginny nodded, smiling agreeably. The bushy-haired girl watched Luna closely.

Professor McGonagall moved on.

The bushy-haired girl looked at her watch and sighed. “We should head for class,” she said curtly. She looked over at Harry. “Our first class is Herbology, with the Hufflepuffs. It’s about an hour and a half long. Then we have Care of Magical Creatures. And then lunch.” She packed away her book, said goodbye to Ginny, and set out for the doors, rucksack over her shoulder.

Harry looked at the others, shrugged, and followed suit, albeit a bit slower as he waited for his new friends.

Herbology was just as boring as he had expected. Professor Sprout greeted him as they entered the greenhouse. “Mr. Sparkle, would you please observe and assist Mr. Longbottom for this lesson? That’s only until I can assess your proper placement in the class.” She nodded, smiling at him.

They spent the time repotting something called Bouncing Bulbs. It would have been easy and simple for him, using magic. And was deucedly difficult using only his hooves as the professor insisted. Using magic would upset the plants, somehow. Apple Bloom would have been more at home doing this. But, thank Celestia, she wasn’t a part of this madness.

The next class was called Care of Magical Creatures. And they shared it with the Slytherins. It was taught by Professor Rubeus Hagrid, apparently a half-giant.

“Ah, look, boys, it’s the horse,” one Slytherin boy said to his companions, the moment he got within earshot of Harry. He glanced over at the nearby hut. “Do you think he’s going to be today’s lesson?” The other Slytherins snickered.

The boy shook his head in mock sadness. “To think, there’s a school with such low standards that they would allow a horse to attend.” There was more snickering.

Harry stared at the four students. Already the idiot wizards were making themselves known. He shook his head resignedly.

“Shut it, Draco!” warned Ron, taking a step forward, and stood beside Harry.

Harry bumped him with his hip to get him to stop. “Clearly, you haven’t paid attention to your professors or you would know I am a unicorn,” he said to Draco. “My name is Prince Harry James Potter Sparkle. Before you continue speaking, you might want to stop and consider that.” He paused a beat, “If you’re as sly and cunning as Slytherins are supposed to be.”

What might have happened next was halted because a huge man, easily double or more the height of Harry’s classmates, came around the corner of the hut. He was carrying a precariously high series of crates, each containing a very unhappy creature. He was Hagrid, apparently, as that’s what Ron called out on seeing him.

And they were dealing with something straight out of the Everfree. Or tartarus, perhaps. They looked like a cross between giant scorpions and elongated crabs — but without recognizable heads or eyes. They were over a yard long, and extremely powerful with a kind of thick, greyish, shiny armour.

They were skrewts, he quickly learned. Everyone was more than a little horrified at the giant’s instructions that they were to take those things for a walk. Hagrid thought that their cannibalistic tendencies were due to being pent up in a small space.

“Harry,” he said, “you come help me with this big ’un . . . .”

While the rest of the class quickly scattered across the lawn, each trying valiantly to control his, or her, charge, the big man led him a bit farther away from the others. Periodically, one of the skrewts’ ends would explode, with an alarming bang. It would shoot forward several yards. The person on the other end of its leash was usually dragged along on their stomach or would try desperately, without much success, to keep on their feet.

From the furtive way he watched the others, Harry got the feeling that Hagrid wanted to talk to him. He moved so that he was still in sight of the others and checked his shield.

“So,” the giant said, “Yer a pony, now.” He stared at Harry. “Heard ya were in another world.”

Harry simply nodded.

“Knew yer folks, I did.” He stared out across the lawn. “Good people, they were.” He looked down at Harry. “I found yeh, ya know. In the wreckage that night. Brought yeh to yer relatives.”

Harry felt his ears prick up. “What was it like?”

The man frowned and stared at the ground for a moment. “Well, tha house was almost destroyed.” He looked at Harry. “I got yer out o’ the wreckage, myself. It were in Godric’s Hollow. Terrible it was, terrible. Then Sirius showed up on his motorbike. Gave it to me, he did. And I took ya to yer relatives on it. I got ya out all right before the Muggles started swarmin’ around.”

“Motorbike?” Harry said. He vaguely remembered a motorbike dream.

“Yep, it were a flying motorbike.”

Harry smiled. “I had a dream about being on a flying motorbike, once,” he said reminiscing.

“Did ya now,” said Hagrid. “I didna think you’d remember that!” He smiled warmly, then said, “It’s good to have ya here.”

Harry’s smile drifted away.

“So — yer competin’, Harry. In the tournament, I mean.” Hagrid’s beetle-black eyes looked very anxious under his wild eyebrows. “Bad business, that.” He shook his head. Harry suspected he was chewing his lower lip, based on the way the man’s beard moved. Finally he said, “If’n there’s anythin’ I can do to help, just ask.”

Harry nodded.

Hagrid took a deep breath and slapped his hands together as he looked out across the lawn. “I think they’re havin’ fun, don’ you?” Hagrid said happily.

Harry wasn’t sure if Hagrid meant the skrewts or the class.

Harry stared at him disbelievingly, then back at the class, now widely scattered, and all in great difficulty. If they had been ponies, they would have cleared out long ago. Regardless of the point loss to their houses. Ponies weren’t stupid, they knew to avoid predators when they could.

۸-_-۸

Ch. 9 — Love Potioned?

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Ch. 9 — Love Potioned?

The Slytherin boy who had started to give Harry a hard time at the beginning of Hagrid’s class was too out of breath to do more than glare at him as they headed back into the castle for lunch. Seeing where Harry was looking, Ron just shook his head and muttered, disgustedly, “Malfoy! What. A. Git.” He looked at Harry. “He’s been a right arse ever since First Year. His father was a Death Eater. Got off in the war by claiming he’d been imperiused the entire time. Thinks that because his father’s rich and important that he must be too!” He shook his head again.

Harry’d met similar in Canterlot. He just shrugged and decided he’d avoid the boy.

To Harry’s delight, a plate of ox eye daisy sandwiches appeared, which he was more than happy depopulate. Again, Luna Lovegood chose to sit beside him. And piled puddings on his plate. He didn’t mind. They were quite good. At least he didn’t have to worry about starving while he was here.

After lunch was Divination. He wondered if it would in any way be like the same subject in Equestria — difficult to understand until afterwards, and driven by Harmony.

When the bell rang to signal the end of lunch, Granger set off for Arithmancy, she said, while Harry and the others headed for the North Tower.

Ron told him that the room their classroom was in Professor Sybill Trelawney’s sitting room, which Harry found troubling. Who would want that many students in her sitting-room every day? It wasn’t as if there weren’t any classrooms available.

And it wasn’t like the Ponyville Tree-library, whose primary purpose had been as a library with living quarters added on. This was a castle, where rooms were specifically designated as classrooms and other rooms as living quarters! There was no need to combine their functions.

At the top of a tightly spiralling staircase, Harry was amazed to see a silver stepladder that led to a circular trapdoor in the ceiling. He shook his head. If the girls were so worried that boys might see them when they weren’t properly dressed, why have a ladder that let a boy look up their robes as they climbed into the classroom above?

An overpowering, cloying, sickly-sweet smell spread from the merrily burning fireplace as he followed the others into the room, making him sneeze several times. The windows were covered by curtains. Many lamps, all draped with scarves and shawls, were scattered among a cluttered mass of chintz chairs and poufs. The lamps, and fireplace, illuminated the circular room in a dim reddish light.

Most were already taken, Harry noticed, as he and Ron made their way. They sat down at a small circular table.

“Good day,” a misty voice behind Harry said, and made him jump in surprise. When he looked, he saw a very thin woman with enormous glasses that made her eyes look almost as big as his. She appeared to be wearing scarves instead of a traditional robe. She was peering down at him with a tragic expression. He saw that she wore a large amount of beads, chains, and bangles that glittered in the firelight.

“Oh, my dear,” she said mournfully to Harry. “My inner eye sees through to the troubled soul hidden behind your brave facade.” Her head shook sadly. “And, I’m sorry to say, your worries are not without foundation.” Her voice almost became a whisper. “Difficult and discordant times are ahead for you, I foresee, . . . most difficult.” She blinked owlishly. “The thing you fear will indeed come to pass . . . sooner than you think . . . maybe before the year closes . . . . perhaps even sooner.”

Harry stared at the woman, perplexed. When Harry looked at him, Ron rolled his eyes. Even a foal could see he was in for a difficult time in the future — what stranger in a strange land wouldn’t? And the only thing he dreaded at this point was that his mum might not find him for a long time, and that he really was stuck here for the duration. Neither were short term worries. So, if it came to pass soon, well then, all the better! But the discordant times? That made him shiver. He fervently hoped not.

Professor Trelawney smiled down at Ron and told him that he had received top marks for his homework. To his amusement — Harry could see him trying to conceal a smile while hiding a chuckle under a cough — she read out a few of his predictions. “I commend you for your unflinching acceptance of the horrors in store for you,” she concluded.

Harry stared at Ron in disbelief. Divination did not work that way! It was almost never so straight-forward. It might give hints, but usually in a way that was bound to be misunderstood. Twilight had told him how her attempt to warn herself by time-travelling to the past had backfired spectacularly. A pony in-the-future could not pass information of any importance to a pony in-the-past without one of them leaving either the past or the future. With no guarantee that they would have the same future when they returned to their origin.

Almost every true divination, made in the present and then studied, ended up with conclusions such as, “Well, it could mean this, or it could mean that. On the other hand it most certainly doesn’t mean this other thing, unless this part here means this and not that.” And usually ended up involving somepony nopony had ever expected or suspected would be involved, not even themselves.

True divinations made sense only in retrospect — and many times trying to avoid what they appeared to mean merely brought those things about. Unless it was a gentle hint of direction — such as “today will be busy” — usually you were better off ignoring them. A “bad” omen might mean anything from your friend is going to cancel for your joint appointment at the spa, to a manticore is going to rampage through your bedroom. Depending on the pony, both could be life-changingly dramatic events.

Then she swept past them in a flutter of scarves and started handing out the others’ homework, with occasional remarks. She finished and seated herself in a large winged armchair before the fire, facing the class.

“Mr. Sparkle, we are currently studying the stars and planets and the mysterious portents they reveal only to those who understand the steps of the celestial dance.” She said dramatically. “Ron will be able to help you catch up on that subject . . . .”

The Professor was obsessed with death. It seemed every conjunction of stars and planets that she mentioned involved a great misfortune for one or another of the people in the class — usually their demises. Which was silly. There couldn’t possibly be that many indications of death and disaster unless the whole class was about to take part in a great battle with thousands of others, in terrain that ranged from mountainous to swamp to desert to sea.

That didn’t mean the entire class couldn’t be wiped out in a single disaster! Just that soo many individual disasters were highly unlikely.

Just on those details, alone, he concluded, she was a fraud and this class a waste of time.

Never-mind that in Equestria Princess Luna controlled the planets and stars, and depending on them for metaphysical guidance was an exercise in futility. That horrible calamity that the stars seemed to predict might just be a bout of royal indigestion at work!

And, whatever she had burning in the fireplace made him sneeze several times during class. Which she seemed to find offensive, for some reason.

He would go with Hermione, next time. Whatever this class was really about, he could just as easily learn it from the textbook. Unless it was just more of this tripe. In which case, he wouldn’t bother.

۸-_-۸

Harry slowly munched his way through dinner, thinking. Clearly, the classes Herbology, Care of Magical Creatures, and Divination were complete wastes of time for him. He could do much better reading the textbooks, supplemented by a few others for different perspectives.

Magical History class did not seem any better. It had a ghost — an honest to Celestia ghost! — as an instructor, according to his friends. Unfortunately, he seemed focused entirely on wizard/goblin wars and didn’t even touch the events of the last hundred years. Not to mention that everyone agreed that he merely recited what was in their textbook — word for word. Scuttlebutt was that an enterprising Slytherin had simply compiled his lectures and printed the resulting book. Then used bribery to replace the old, required, textbook with the new.

And if Harry wanted to see ghosts, he only had to look around. There was always one of Sir Nicholas De Mimsy-Porpington, The Bloody Baron, The Grey Lady, or The Fat Friar drifting around. And there were probably others he didn’t know about scattered elsewhere in the castle.

That left only Astronomy, Charms, Transfigurations, Defense Against the Dark Arts, and Potions as regular classes. He also needed to check out Arithmancy, Runes, and Muggle Studies. That last he had a few doubts about based on what Hermione, Seamus, and Dean had said.

So, for tonight, he would see how far he could get through the first of the Herbology/Potions texts, starting with One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi. Tomorrow, Tuesday, before and after breakfast, he would do the same for the companion text, Magical Drafts and Potions, to try to prepare for the potions class that afternoon. And in the afternoon and evening he would peruse the Charms text, The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1) for the Wednesday, late-morning class. When he had covered those, he would start on Numerology and Grammatica for the Arithmancy class after Charms on Wednesday.

If he was lucky, he would have time to peruse Spellman’s Syllabary, for the mid-afternoon Runes class. If not, well, he would just have to go in blind.

Wednesday evening, after dinner, he would focus on Transfigurations with A Beginner’s Guide to Transfiguration. And the late evening? Defence Against the Dark Arts with Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection. Which he could also read instead of attending the History of Magic class on Friday morning.

Unfortunately, Thursday was a full day of classes and that meant he would have to use the time in the evening to go over the Astronomy texts for the class at midnight instead of napping. Still, it should all be doable. It wouldn’t be the first time he skipped sleeping for studying.

That would give him the weekend to examine in better detail Spellman’s Syllabary, Runes, and Muggle Expectations and Notable Accomplishments, Muggle Studies. And, perhaps, a quick trot back through the other books to see what he had forgotten and where he needed to concentrate.

By Monday, he would have weeded out the useless classes and know where he needed to devote his time. And he suspected that D.A.D.A., Charms, and Transfigurations would end up taking his all his time. Those classes combined a lot of theory with practical exercises. Memorizing a wand movement was not the same as actually doing the wand movement. The same was true for incantations.

Although, for some reason he had a recurring sense of déjà vu every time he dug into the texts or tried to cast a spell. And the spells seemed rather easy for him to acquire proficiency. Perhaps it was because he had been immersed in a magical environment and using his horn to cast all kinds of spells for the last five years?

All the other classes were simply rote memorization. Except maybe Potions. But Zecora had taught him a bit about that. Unless you were an expert, it was mostly following a recipe as exactly as you could. No different from cooking, in that respect. Simple and easy. But with a lot more steps. Those were what tripped you up. Very unlike cooking where you had a rather large degree of latitude in substitutions and changes you could make, on the fly, so to say. Potions were much more finicky in that regard.

Plus, simply knowing something well enough to recite it exactly as it had been written was not the same thing as understanding what the theory meant that you were reciting! Truly understanding it meant taking the time to take it apart and put it back again in a way that was meaningful to you. Unless you were memorizing flat facts, i.e., such as this pony discovered this, while that pony discovered that. Those were strictly memorizing details.

Unless you were Sweetie Belle. For her, simply following cooking and potions instructions, either memorized or written down, didn’t work. She could start to boil water in Ponyville and end up blowing up a closet in Canterville. She had been banned from every kitchen in Equestria unless accompanied by certified professional. His mum had even placed a spell on the Ponyville Castle kitchen to prevent her entering it. And rearranged it so that prepared snacks and drinks were available outside the kitchen in a special cold-storage cabinet that was always kept full by the kitchen staff.

Even Pinkie Pie chased her away if she thought Sweetie Belle was about to enter a kitchen. The incident with the tentacled-cake-creature climbing out of the oven when it was time to remove the cake they had prepared had been the turning point for her.

Harry slowly got to his hooves and followed the others back to the Common Room. Luna stuck right beside him, nattering on about the remarkably low number of nargles she could see in Gryffindor. Not that there weren’t a few people who were seemed to attract them, but there weren’t nearly as many as in Ravenclaw. And she was more than happy to explain how her butterbeer-cork necklace kept the beasts at bay.

He thought he understood what she was seeing, but his magic sight wasn’t anywhere as developed as his mother’s, so it left him uncertain. Still, he found it entertaining. And if she wanted to give him a necklace to prevent the nargles from interfering with his thoughts, well he wouldn’t say no. And it certainly wouldn’t hurt anypony’s feeling to say yes.

Almost as soon as they had entered the Common Room, he was mobbed.

“Can I have wings?” was the oft repeated plea.

There was no way he had the magic to do everyone. He hardly had the magic to do just his dorm-mates for any decent length of time. Then he spotted the twins in one corner. He trotted straight for them, with a muttered, “In a minute,” to the countless requests he was getting.

“George, Fred,” he said as he approached their chair. “Can you do the wings spell? Have you tried doing it since yesterday?”

“We came close,” said George with a sour expression.

“A bit of a swirl.”

“But it didn’t work.”

Harry smiled. “Let’s try again.”

Both immediately stood and stripped off the robes, to some appreciative whistles from the girls. They were wearing trousers, but no shirts.

Harry shook his head. “Not yourselves, someone else.”

Katie Bell, nearby, jumped up and said, “Oh, ME!” and slipped out of her robes to show she was wearing another backless blouse with knee-high trousers. She got a few appreciative whistles from the boys. She grinned and bowed, and said, “Thank you, thank you.”

Harry motioned Fred closer. “Get out your wand.”

Fred pulled his wand from his robes.

“Point it at Miss Bell.”

He did so, looking at Harry inquisitively.

Harry frowned. “Lean down to me, but keep your wand pointed at her.” Harry stood up on his rear legs and pressed his horn against the wizard’s forehead. Once more he formed the matrix in Fred’s mind, then guided the boy’s magic into powering it, but not as much as last night. Now, he said, push it out your wand at Miss Bell!

There was a swirl of magic that temporarily hid the girl from sight, but when it dissipated, she had wings!

“Oy!” said Fred, looking at his wand. “That was a lot easier!”

“You’ve already done it once, it should get easier each time.”

Katie was already at the ceiling and giggling like mad. The rest in the Common Room were watching in awe.

“Don’t go too high, Miss Bell,” Harry called out. “We don’t know how long it will last.”

“I’ll catch her,” said a nearby Prefect, following her with his wand.

“Now,” Harry said to George, “It’s your turn.”

A moment later, Lee Jordan joined Katie.

Harry grinned at the two wizards. “Keep practicing!” he said as he waved closer a nearby Angelina Johnson and Alicia Spinnet, already stripped down to trousers and backless blouses. “The more frequently you do it, the better you can judge the power-to-wing-time ratio.”

There was a stampede of students headed to the dorms upstairs. Harry had no doubt that they were going to be pulling suitable clothes for flying out of their trunks. Or tearing the backs off shirts.

It took the twins more than one try to master the spell, but they did. He stepped over to Oliver. “Your turn,” he said, and motioned the boy to bend closer. After him coaching him through several successful attempts, Harry started working his way through the Prefects, next.

In less than twenty minutes, the Common Room more closely resembled an aviary with fifty students flitting about while an equal number were tasked as spotters. That still left the majority wingless, but it was a steadily decreasing number. The spotters would get a turn either later tonight or tomorrow, depending on if the casters could do the spell more than a few times before exhausting themselves.

His last students were Luna, Ginny, and Hermione. Luna simply lifted her blouse back and held the hem in her hands by her shoulders. Ginny copied her. “Teach me!” Hermione demanded. Harry shrugged, if he could teach her, it would be much easier than casting the spell himself. He ran her through the sequence for each of other two, and then for herself.

After that, Harry quickly headed up the stairs to his dorm room. He went on all fours and stayed close to the wall to evade the students flying up and down.

He made himself comfortable on his bed, pulled out his First Year Herbology text, opened it, and cast Hayscartes’ Method. He had had a lot of practice with that over the last year, and he could make it last almost half-an-hour at a time by now. Its limit was set by how dense the information was and how difficult a time his mind had in understanding and organizing it. Then he had to take a short break for his mind to sift through the new information. But, wow, did it ever leave him with a complete understanding of the subject! And a headache if he did it for too long. This was a case were a headache was the lesser of two evils.

He had just popped back for his first break when George and Fred burst in. They stared at him, wide-eyed, for a moment.

“Where were you?” Fred said.

“We’ve searched everywhere,” added George.

Harry smirked. “Right here, of course.”

“But we looked in here!” Fred protested.

“And you weren’t in here!”

“We even looked under the beds!”

Harry snorted and smirked. “I was using Hayscartes’ Method!” he said, knowing that wouldn’t explain anything to them.

“Did you find him?” Ron said, as he and Neville peeked around his brothers.

“You made yourself invisible?” Fred and George had crossed their arms and stared at him, as they frowned, puzzled.

Harry grinned and shook his head. “It’s a spell that lets you explore a book in detail.”

They continued to stare at him quizzically.

“Come closer,” he said, and smirked.

They crowded the edge of his bed.

“Watch!” And then he cast the spell to propel himself into the book. He looked out at their astonished expressions. “See,” he said, in what he knew from experience was a tinny voice. “You can actually explore the book without distractions. And you would be amazed at what you can learn inside a book. And everything is so much more organized, as a result. Makes it much easier to remember stuff, too.”

He popped out. “At first, you’ll only be able to do it for a minute or two. The limit is how much your mind can pick up at one time. With practice, your mind becomes better and better organized and you can make it much longer. My mum can do an entire book at a time, no matter how thick or that it takes hours.” He looked sadly at the book on his bed. “My limit is about half-an-hour, then I have to take a rest.” He sighed. “I’ll finish this book tonight.” He pointed the one open on his bed. “And start the next one.” He waved a hoof at the book to one side. “If I don’t fall asleep, first.”

Needless to say, he spent the next few minutes teaching the other four how to do the spell. Then he stared at nothing as he worked his way through what he had learned, reviewing and categorizing what he had read. After another fifteen minutes, he dove back into the book to cover the next section.

He finished the First Year Hebology book, and started on Magical Drafts and Potions. He didn’t get that far, unfortunately, as the second time he went to cast the spell he yawned so widely he heard his jaw crack. Casting those few wing-spells had taken more out of him than he had thought. Instead, he just set a wake-me-up spell to give himself an early start in the morning.

When he woke, well before breakfast, he quickly did his bathroom clean-up, then returned to the book from last night.

He went with his dorm-mates to History class just to verify his suspicions. He sat as far in the back as he could, between Dean and Ron. With the exception of Hermione, it seemed that everyone else treated the class as either a chance to get more sleep, like Ron and Seamus, a gossiping session, like Parvati and Lavender, or rarely, a chance to study their other classes. Hermione actually took notes. The ghost, Professor Binns, didn’t seem to notice.

After he felt himself starting to drift off, he pulled out his Potions book and dove in.

He was about to jump in for a third time when Dean leaned over and grabbed his foreleg. “Class is almost over,” he said conversationally. Harry looked over and saw that Dean had been practicing drawing.

He finished the book, later, sitting on his bed. He pulled out his The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1) and then hesitated a moment. His room-mates said that Professor Snape was difficult. And he did seem to have an issue with Harry. He put the first book back and returned to Magical Drafts and Potions. It might be better to review the book in the time left before lunch. He spent lunch just leafing through the book.

Harry watched as the potion-wizard swept into the room from his office, robes swirling dramatically. He had to raise his eyebrows in surprise. He hadn’t expected the man to be such a drama-queen. After attending both Celestia’s and Luna’s open courts with his mum, he had quickly learned, with Blueblood’s guidance, that ponies frequently used their methods of dress to convey certain nuances of their character.

Some dressed simply, but in expensive clothes to show their station — usually the ones that came from noble families of long standing. Others dressed extravagantly, gaudily flaunting their bits and station — usually those who had only recently reached either of those positions and wanted to tell every onlooker, “Hey! Look at ME! I’m IMPORTANT!”

Professors wore robes and mortarboard hats, to show others they were knowledgeable far beyond the commoners. Nobles wore fancy clothes that the “commoners” couldn’t afford. Bureaucrats wore distinctive clothes of office to warn the common ponies that the ponies had better listen to them, or else. Business ponies dressed to show that they were successful and serious.

Blueblood had taught him that the cut and style of a pony’s clothes revealed far more than simply, “this pony has money and that one does not.”

The same went for stance and attitude. The important ponies knew they were important, and so did everypony else! They were treated as important because of their power — either influence or bits — or knowledge.

Other ponies thought themselves important. They tried to force others to agree with their personal assessments of their self-imposed value — usually by being bullies. They treated all the other ponies as beneath them in money and position.

A few, however, could command an intense audience merely by entering a room, no matter how drably they were dressed, or even not dressed as a commoner. Everypony knew that what they said, and did, impacted everypony in the room.

They might belittle his mum behind her back as an uppity commoner, but when she expressed an opinion or said something was true or not — everypony paid close attention! She was almost always correct and accurate. And she was a direct line to the Princesses and what they thought. Ponies ignored her opinions and statements at their own peril. And the nobles all knew that.

Professor Snape, Harry thought, belonged to the second group. He was a bully. He thought he was important. He tried to intimidate others with his attitude and stance. He would, Harry expected, abuse his position, as all bullies did. Of course, Harry had had a bit of warning from the Gryffindors. They all decried the professor as an unfair arbitrator of disputes, clearly biased towards his house and against all the others.

And he revealed that he was a bully as his gaze swept the classroom. “Ah,” he said, “Our newest celebrity has deigned to grace us with his presence.” He stared at Harry as the Slytherins in the room chuckled or snickered. The professor suddenly turned to face Harry. “Potter!” he demanded. “If I put powdered root of asphodel in an infusion of wormwood, what would I get?”

Silence descended on the room. Everyone waited to see what would happen. The Slytherins were grinning with anticipation, expecting the new student to be humiliated. The Gryffindors watched curiously, some angrily, and his dorm-mates were frowning.

Harry stared at the wizard silently for a moment. He had read through the book only once, completely, and details were still hazy. It would take several more reading before he would not only remember all the information by rote, but actually understand what he had read. After thinking on it a moment, all he could say was, “I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t remember reading any potion that uses those ingredients in Magical Drafts and Potions.” He tilted his head questioningly, “Did I miss it?” He paused a bare second, then added, “And my name is Harry Sparkle, sir, not Potter.”

There was a moment of stunned silence. Harry not knowing the answer was not a surprise to them, he could tell. The Slytherins were staring, aghast that he had had the audacity to correct their Head of House. The Gryffindors didn’t know whether to laugh at the Slytherins or be impressed at that Harry had corrected their professor. One look at the Professor’s nasty expression, however, had most of them keeping their thoughts to themselves. And adopting blank expressions to avoid attracting his attention.

The Professor pursed his lips angrily, but didn’t answer him. “If I required you to find a bezoar, Potter, where would you look?” the wizard demanded, eyes narrowed to near slits.

That one was easy, it was in the Potions book in the section on Antidotes, which his dorm-mates had told him was supposed to be the focus for the year. He had paid special attention to that section. “There are three possibilities, sir. First, in nature, from the stomach of a goat. Second, it is a standard item in my Potions kit, and third, I would expect you to have many of them in your storeroom.”

The professor was not any happier at Harry’s polite, and correct, answer. In fact he seemed angrier. The whole class was so quiet Harry could hear Neville, seated at another table, breathing. Granger was giving him an intense, puzzled stare.

“Can you explain, Potter, the difference between aconite and monkshood?” the Professor growled out.

Another easy one, from the Herbs and Fungi book. “Monkshood and aconite are the same plant, sir, which also goes by the name of wolfsbane.” He hesitated, then said, “Is there a reason why you can’t seem to remember my name is now Sparkle and not Potter? I know you saw the results of the heredity test on Saturday.”

The Slytherins reacted en masse to the revelation that he had undergone a heredity test, and that it had declared Sparkle as his patronym. Most straightened their posture or otherwise shifted position as they exchanged looks. A few Gryffindors had also reacted, as well.

Oddly enough, none started whispered conversations as was common among the Gryffindors.

The professor looked furious for a moment, then his expression blanked and his stance relaxed. “Perhaps you aren’t as much of a useless dunderhead as I had thought,” he said in a silky voice. “Five points off for being cheeky, Sparkle, And another three, Longbottom, for breathing too loud.”

Harry shrugged. He didn’t belong to a House, so the points were meaningless. That the professor couldn’t seem to remember that detail, in addition to Harry’s correct name, illustrated that the man was just another foolish wizard. And one who was more interested in bullying his students than actually teaching them, as subtracting points for someone for merely breathing proved.

If Harry didn’t know that Zecora would love to hear about what the potions in this world entailed, he would simply ignore the class as he planned to do for Herbology, Divination, and Care of Magical Creatures.

His mum would be disappointed he didn’t put every effort into learning about this world while he was stuck here, but with this tournament looming over his head, and the first task only weeks away, he didn’t have time to waste on those clearly useless subjects.

With an obvious effort, Professor Snape turned his attention to the rest of the class. “Today’s potion is on the board. Get to it.” The board was suddenly filled with writing, the spell that had hidden it vanishing. It was a General Love Potion Antidote. He turned to his desk and sat, and stared at Harry, as the students started working.

Harry raised his hoof and waited, reading the instructions on the board several times to make sure he understood them.

Professor Snape ignored him at first. Once it was obvious Harry wasn’t going to give up, he rolled his eyes. “Yes, Mr. Sparkle,” he almost sneered at the pony, finally acknowledging him.

“How long after someone has been poisoned with a love potion will this antidote be effective?” he asked.

“Until the love potion has naturally lapsed in effectiveness, obviously” the wizard said dismissively, rolled his eyes at the stupidity of the question, and started to turn his attention to papers on his desk. “Two points for wasting my time.”

Harry tilted his head slightly. “But some love potions never really cease, do they? Their effects can linger for days, weeks, or months, can’t they?”

Professor Snape stopped and stood. He looked at the potion on the board before turning back to Harry. He studied the pony, looking for what, Harry couldn’t see. “Yes. There are love potions of that type, but only the most talented of potioneers can make those. And the ingredients are expensive and rare. An astute question, Mr. Sparkle, you surprise me.”

۸-_-۸

Ch. 10 — Ruminations

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Ch. 10 — Ruminations

Harry shrugged at the Professor Snape’s positive assessment of his question. “The ones who made the potion were amateurs, but the ingredients were readily available.”

The entire Potions class had stopped to listen.

“Most so-called love potions do not have any lasting effects,” the Potions Professor continued, “and are temporary in duration. In fact, most so-called love potions are not love potions at all, they are passion potions. They are designed and brewed to be operative for only a short time. Their actual time-spans depend upon dosage, naturally, and, of course, the effectiveness of the exact potion used. And the skill of the potion-maker.”

He stared at Harry. “For someone you think may have been dosed with one of the more persistent love potions — a potion designed to ensure two people actually remain a couple, without regard for their true feelings that may or may not have developed in the absence of the potion — a cleansing potion is needed, not an antidote. But even those have a time-limit on their effectiveness. In general, anytime such a potion is not corrected in a month or two the character alteration induced by the potion becomes a permanent fixture of their character.” He frowned and looked around the class.

The students that had completely stopped, suddenly started moving again, trying to avoid his eye and losing points.

“Passion potions, being designed as a temporary measure, do not have that problem. Either wait it out, or apply the antidote. Although,” he added, “such potions, if applied for a long time, will linger in their effects for days or weeks. But they will lapse.”

“Ah. Thank you, sir.” Harry pursed his lips and looked down. It was far too late, then, to make sure that Big Mac and Cheerilee had really been cured all those years ago.

“Why, Mr. Sparkle?” Professor Snape said, a bit more harshly. “Do you suspect someone has been dosed with such?”

Harry looked back at the Professor. “It was some years ago, sir. I think it was fixed at the time, but no antidote was ever administered.”

The wizard stared at Harry intently.

Harry shook his head. “According to the book consulted,” Harry explained, “this was a permanent love potion. And it seemed to operate exactly as described after being administered. It said the potion could be broken only if the two who drank it were kept out of each other’s sight for an hour, during the first few hours. This was done, and the two appeared to be fine the next day.” He frowned. “But one is always . . . concerned.”

Professor Snape stared at him. “Are they still seeing one another in a romantic manner?”

Harry shook his head. “Not that we can tell. But neither has a partner as of yet, nor are either dating another. Both are at the ages where dating and marriage are well past the beginning of when such things should be in consideration.”

The wizard frowned. “Based on your rather inadequate description, I would say that they are just fine. Although at this point there is no test that could confirm or deny the potion’s continued effects.” He again glanced around the still room and frowned. “Well? Why are you stopping? Is your potion complete, already?” Once more the class broke into busy activity.

He turned his attention back to Harry. “And that will be another two points for disturbing the class, Mr. Sparkle.”

Harry nodded. He had expected as much. The man was a bully, after all. But at least he had acknowledged the question. And then answered. He wasn’t completely useless.

Granger kept glancing at him.

Harry put Apple Bloom’s potion stories about Zecora to good use, and quickly rearranged his equipment to separate the tasks needed and perform them in the correct sequence. Then he opened his textbook to the correct page.

He frowned. The potion instructions in the book did not match those on the board. Nothing major, just tiny details like specifying how many times a minute he should stir instead of simply saying “mild stir” or “quickly stir.” He glanced at his classmates and immediately noticed that the Slytherins all had additional writing in their textbooks in the margins while the Gryffindors did not. Had they been told the correct instructions before-hoof?

He frowned, sighed, and shook his head. He didn’t doubt for a moment that the bully would coach his House’s students to ensure they got good grades while doing what he could to get the others to fail. He wouldn’t actively give wrong instructions, but he would ensure that his House always had an advantage with better instructions than the rest.

He carefully added the changes into his book.

He noticed Granger doing the same.

Apple Bloom would be extremely disappointed to miss out on this class. And Zecora would pitch a fit at the wizard’s unprofessional attitude towards his students and his profession.

While Harry prepared his potion, he watched the Professor closely.

Component preparation took time. The wiggentree twigs had to be trimmed to the same lengths and separated into groups of similar diameters. He grouped the smaller sections together to be added first and reduce waste. The castor oil was carefully measured into a vial for the approximate amount needed. He had to carefully grind the gurdyroot with a mortar and pestle, and reserve what was ground into a second measuring vial, again trying to approximate the amount to what the instructions on the board said was needed.

Professor Snape was a brilliant potioneer, like Zecora back in Equestria. But, unlike her, he was a complete failure as a good, or even competent, teacher of the subject. The only good thing Harry could say about the man was that he didn’t mess up the potion instructions.

He couldn’t help but wonder what a good dose of Poison Joke would do to the wizard. Whatever it would do had to be an improvement.

The potion started with a base solution of boiling water to which he slowly added four wiggentree twigs, one at a time. He stirred widdershins, quickly, until the potion turned green. He switched directions and stirred clockwise until the potion turned orange. He added five drops, drop-by-drop, of castor oil while he stirred slowly clockwise until the potion abruptly turned blue,

Everything the man had to offer was decidedly disappointing. He had no interest in fostering budding talents, as his constant disparaging remarks and non-existent praise quickly buried anypony’s interest in the subject — unless he or she was a Slytherin. The idea of fair treatment was a foreign concept to him. Any question not from a student of his House was either ignored or treated as too trivial to answer. Or he would act as if he couldn’t believe anypony would ask such a stupid question when the answer was clearly as obvious as the nose on his face — at least, to a Master Potioneer.

Unless it was a question that caught his interest — an extremely rare event, Harry gathered from the hushed comments he heard from both the Slytherins and Gryffindors.

Then it was time for Harry to stir widdershins until the potion turned a dull purple. Next came powdered gurdyroot, dribbled into the potion as it swirled, unstirred, until the potion turned red. Two more wiggentree twigs went into the cauldron, one at a time, stirred gently clockwise. Then came more gurdyroot, and purple was the target colour. He then left the cauldron to simmer, and waited patiently, for it to turn red. More gurdyroot was added until it turned green.

The wizard swept around the room, dropping snide remarks and criticisms as sarcastically as it was possible to be. He waited and watched for a student to make a mistake, then swooped in like a falcon stooping on a rabbit. The worst part was, if he saw a student about to make a mistake — unless they were a Slytherin — the Professor would approach and watch carefully, a tiny smile on his face. Instead of preventing the mistake he would wait until the potion caught fire, exploded, or otherwise failed in a spectacular manner. Then he would belittle the student for making a mistake and take off points. He never used the incident as a teaching moment to prevent future mistakes.

Harry stirred, widdershins, once, then clockwise once, and alternated the two directions until it turned orange. It was time to add seven wiggentree twigs, slowly and one at a time, no stirring, just the continued swirl of the solution from his last stroke with the glass stirrer removed. He reduced the heat and let it simmer, waiting for it to change to a bright pink.

The Potions Professor seemed to revel in watching the Gryffindor students flounder, and went out of his way to ensure the Slytherins were protected from their mistakes. Several Gryffindors were so intimidated by him that simply knowing he was watching them was enough for them to make an inadvertent mistake.

And, as Harry had noticed at first, he was a drama queen. He did everything possible to make sure that you were always paying attention to him, even if what he was doing had nothing to do with you or the potion you were preparing. Calling attention to how well somepony prepared their ingredients was ridiculous if no one else could see what they had done — “Excellent timing, Mr. Malfoy, that was perfect ingredient placement.” Similarly, standing over somepony and humiliating them by casting aspersions on their intelligence — “Another ruined cauldron, Mr. Longbottom? Tsk, tsk. You must be quite the disappointment to your Grandmother.” — did nothing to ensure the other students were properly preparing their potions. It merely made the professor, and the Slytherin’s, feel better, and superior.

When the potion finally turned pink, Harry carefully decanted the mixture into several vials. One he reserved for hoofing to the Professor, the others he labelled and carefully packed into his kit box. He studied the vial carefully. It appeared to be nearly a perfect match to the book’s picture of the finished product.

In Equestria, Professor Snape would have been immediately replaced with somepony who knew how to teach.

He could only shake his head disappointedly as he left the room. Taking the class would be difficult. He would have to approach Hermione Granger about checking her notes on the previous years. Based on the corrections Professor Snape had made to the instructions on the board, if today’s potion was a typical example, he had no doubt that many of the textbook’s potions could be improved.

And Hermione was just the type to have captured all those changes, correctly.

“Excuse me? Hermione?” he said speeding up slightly to catch the witch. Ron and the others tailed after him.

She stopped and stared at him, not quite hostilely, but with narrowed eyes. He took a quick glance behind at his friends and noticed they were not as pleased to see the girl as he was. He mentally shrugged. He knew nothing of the girl and would keep an open mind.

“I noticed you copied down the instructions on the board,” he said as he drew closer.

She nodded, splitting her attention between him and his friends.

“I noticed that they were different from those in the book.”

She nodded again.

Quiet sort, isn’t she? He thought. “Are they always like that? Because, if they are, I’d like to borrow your notes so I can make the corrections in my potions’ books for this and previous years.”

She studied him carefully, then said, “Why you don’t you ask your . . . friends.”

The accent she placed on friends seemed to indicate she didn’t get along very well with them.

“Because I noticed your notes are more complete. At least, that is, what I could see of them, they are much more detailed than the ones these guys take,” he said, waving his hoof in the general direction of his dorm-mates, who were headed back to the Common Room, or some other after-classes activity.

She rolled her eyes. “That I can easily believe,” she said. She looked back at him. “What do I get out of this?” she asked suspiciously.

Harry hummed for a moment. He’d already taught her the wings spell when Luna had dragged her and Ginny over last night. “How about I teach you Hayscartes’ Method? It lets you actually go inside a book to better understand what the author intended. And it has far fewer distractions than simply reading, and with better comprehension.”

She looked at him disbelievingly.

“Here,” he said, “I’ll show you,” and looked around. Everyone else had already scampered off. Dinner wouldn’t start for another hour.

There was a nearby door, and when he opened it, it was to an empty classroom. Or, at least, empty at the moment. He walked in and looked back at her.

At first, he wasn’t sure she was going to come in. “It’s alright,” he said, “I promise.”

She came in slowly, looking around the room carefully for things she couldn’t see from outside.

He blinked at her hesitation. Wow, she sure has trust issues, he thought.

Five minutes later, they were both in the Potions textbook. She was blinking and staring around at the landscape. It was like they were standing in a lab, with barely seen page-edges. She could see the page they were on, but it was like a film over one whole side of the room.

Beyond the film was a window back into the room that they had just left.

She turned to look at him. “It’s a deal. Give me a day or two to collate and duplicate the notes.”

“That sounds like a plan.”

Once they were out again, he said, “Remember, you can only stay in the book for a certain amount of time, depending on how much power you have, how much information you can absorb at one casting, and how healthy you are.” He paused. “And how tired.”

She nodded as they headed out of the room and towards the Great Hall. She seemed a bit friendlier to him.

۸-_-۸

Tuesday night, Harry discovered there was a limit to the Hayscartes’ Method. He had just cast the spell after opening Spellman’s Syllabary for the first time. And, after a brief swirl of magic, found himself still sitting on his bed staring at the open book. He tried again, with the same result.

He tried the spell on another book, Muggle Expectations and Notable Accomplishments, with the same outcome. Apparently, he concluded, he could only absorb a certain amount of information in a given amount of time. And the spell prevented him from wasting his time.

His previous all-nighters had been revising material he already had read, days or weeks previously.

His brain was full.

They had always joked about that. Well, now it really seemed a thing.

So, there was a maximum rate to how fast new material could be assimilated. Whether that was determined by his age, mental abilities, or just how dense the material was, he didn’t know. What he did know was that he was through for the night. He sighed.

Well, it wouldn’t hurt to revise what he already knew.

And found himself, exasperated, still on the bed after he cast the spell on The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1). Apparently, even revising was considered too much at this point. He was done studying for the night, it seemed. He would just have to wait it out. And hope that it had worn off enough for him at least to get a glimmer of Runes before the class.

His dorm-mates were all downstairs in the Common Room, either playing chess — Ron was quite the aficionado — or doing their own studies. Or flying as they tried out their wings. That had turned into quite the popular spell. Everyone had at some time wanted to fly, and not all of them were comfortable on brooms. And that spell was definitely power-related in how long it could last. None of the First or Second years could get the spell to work and required someone else to cast it on them. The Third years could do it for a few minutes at a time. The Fourth years increased that time, the Fifth years could hit half-an-hour, the Sixth years could do an hour, and the Seventh years could make it last an evening. Which meant the First through Fourth years bothered the Sixth and Seventh years quite a bit and there was a fierce trade in chocolate and other items. The Weasley twins seemed more interested in getting some students as testers for some candies they had made.

He had to shake his head at the thought that wizards and witches normally flew on brooms, when he found out. How clichéd could you get!? Although, considering families with young children, why didn’t they use flying carpets?

He rolled over onto his side, packed his books back into his rucksack with magic, and stared at the open door.

Wizarding magic was quite different from pony magic. Unicorns used specific spells to do things, but they were generalized spells, for the most part. The lifting spell, for example. Unicorns just lifted and moved. There were no spells for each individual movement. The pony lifted it, then moved it. Period. How big the item was and how far they could move it were limited only by the pony’s power.

The wizards, on the other hoof, had a dozen spells to lift and manipulate objects. They had Wingardium Leviosa, which merely lifted something; Mobiliarbus, which lifted and moved trees; Mobilicorpus for moving bodies; Locomotor, for just moving something; Levicorpus, which levitated and dangled a victim by the ankles; Liberacorpus, the counter-charm to the Levicorpus; and many similar spells. The difference was that each individual spell used less power for its casting than a unicorn would have used to accomplish the same result.

Similarly, unicorns could manipulate multiple objects with ease — although it took practice. Rarity, for example, with her sewing: controlled needles, cloth, and thread all at the same time with a precision that would awe a human seamstress. Wizards? One spell at a time, one item at a time.

On the other hoof, there were many wizard-spells that were a set-and-forget type — such as the dish-washing spell that you could cast several times in succession. From what he could tell from Ron’s description, it was actually a function of the spell, to allow more of the same spell to be cast at one time. All you needed to do was maintain a flow of magic and the spells would continue to work. The mass of dishes would float to the sink, wash themselves with the sponges, and set themselves in the dryer rack.

He wanted to see that spell in action.

And that meant the average wizard knew far more spells than a unicorn ever bothered learning. Unciorns learned or taught themselves the magic they needed, and then stopped there. The ponies at home would be astounded at the sheer variety of spells that the average wizard learned, and then never, ever used again. Why go to all that trouble when you never planned to use what you had learned?

Unless you were his mum, Starlight Glimmer, or Sunburst. They learned just because they could. Especially Sunburst.

Unfortunately, the wizards had a huge numbers of spells designed for the specific purpose of hurting others. Wizards, as a rule, seemed to be cruel and mean for no purpose but to be cruel and mean. The Bogies Curse, Slug-Vomiting Curse, Conjunctivitus Curse,Furnunculus Curse, and literally hundreds of others had no real-world use except to inconvenience others. A very few, for instance, the Leg-locking Curse, Impedimenta Jinx, and Tripping Jinx, might be useful to Guard Ponies chasing criminals, but the average pony had no need for anything that included the word Curse or Jinx in its name. And they would be appalled at the suggestion such things be taught in a school as if every child was expected to be attacked and needed those curses and jinxes for defence!

Harry could not think of a single unicorn — except Sombra — who would use the Flagrante Curse, for example, on a pony, no matter how much they disliked the other pony. That a school would even consider teaching such a spell as a part of their curriculum was beyond belief.

But Harry had had experience with humans. He knew just how casually cruel they could be. That someone would cast the tripping jinx on a whim on someone they didn’t know, or even someone they did, did not surprise him in the slightest. Nor was it a shock to him that the wizards considered it appropriate to teach such a spell to impulsive, easy-to-anger, eleven-year-olds.

All things considered, he was amazed he hadn’t been subjected to such an attack already. And that made him doubly glad he had worn his armour under his robe. His helmet had gotten a few strange looks on Sunday, but a don’t-notice-me-field on his armour had taken care of that — it simply looked like his own fur.

In any event, wearing the armour under his robes was now a requirement — tedious though it might be. Actually, now that he thought about it, maybe he could sew a few runes into the robes to reflect or block spells. They wouldn’t be very powerful — the threads would quickly be burnt up — but they would add one more layer of protection, no matter how brief it might be.

He pulled off his robe, and retrieved his others from his trunk, and got to work. He wasn’t the greatest at sewing, that was Sweetie Belle’s realm, but he could do what was necessary. And then he could use magic to add the finishing touch-ups. The runes wouldn’t stop, or even slow down, a serious and powerful curse, but the smaller hexes and jinxes would slide right off or be completely blocked.

He couldn’t help but wonder why, in such a contentious society, they didn’t make protective rune-spells as standard items on everything a pony might wear?

۸-_-۸

«Well,» Twilight said despondently, «there is no doubt that Harry was returned to his native world, by magic.» She slumped and dropped her head to the table. The purple alicorn appeared as exhausted as she felt. Her mane and tail looked as if someone had tried, and failed, to give them a Mohawk-styling. Her coat revealed, quite frankly, that she hadn’t bothered to comb or brush it since Saturday, six days ago.

Spike, at least, had managed to collect the dirty dishes and cups, and so the table and floor around her weren’t littered with that debris. And he had managed to stack, neatly, most of the discarded books on a shelf to her right. The pillows and folded blankets were neatly stacked behind her.

She looked around the table — well, more properly, she looked around the book stacks piled on the table — at her friends. They all, Starlight Glimmer, Sunset Shimmer, and Sunburst, looked back at the purple alicorn, just as tired. Spike alertly watched, deeply concerned for both his mum and his brother Harry.

Spike was the only one who had been getting any regular meals or sleep.

Twilight’s other friends, the Elements of Harmony, had returned to their various jobs after it became apparent that this wasn’t going to be solved any time soon. And that each of their particular areas of expertise were not really useful, at the moment. Rarity and Rainbow Dash still dropped by when they could, to offer emotional support. Those two, at least, could use the excuse that they had business in Canterlot. Applejack, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie couldn’t as readily do that. They had to make express arrangements to be away from their businesses in Ponyville. And none could afford to be away for any length of time or they would be sorely missed.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders had been in and out the entire time. They would have been only “in,” but Twilight had insisted Sweetie Belle needed to go to her classes and that Apple Bloom help her sister. Applejack was distracted by the emergency and not totally on focus, but with Apple Bloom helping the farm was staying on track. And Scootaloo had a job that she didn’t want to lose, which she would, Twilight had repeatedly reminded her, if she didn’t show up on time and awake every day.

«Once we find him, we can use a portal,» Twilight said. She hadn’t otherwise moved.

«The problem is finding him,» stated Sunburst.

She sighed and pushed herself back to an upright position. She glanced at the dozen blackboards they had filled with equations. A new one popped in beside the others. She started transferring diagrams and equations.

The others quietly watched.

As soon as she finished, she climbed to her hooves. She swayed a moment, then stretched, having sat in one position for far too long. She almost fell over several times, but managed to recover. She didn’t notice just how unsteady on her hooves she really was. She started to stagger towards the distant door. «Now we need to go the Portal laboratory and actually FIND Harry.»

The others groaned as one, whether because they were getting up or headed for the lab couldn’t be determined, but they determinedly pushed themselves erect anyway, and imitated her stretches.

Spike ran in front of Twilight. «Wait!» he said hurriedly. He held two pillows behind his back, with his wrists on his waist. «You need to rest and eat more than just a snack. You’re almost dead on your hooves.»

She waved a hoof. «Pffff! I’m fine!» She swayed and would have fallen over if she hadn’t quickly returned her hoof to the floor. She yawned wide and long enough that Spike could easily count all her teeth.

He smirked. It was time to play The Game. «If you’re so fine, then close your eyes and count backwards from fifty.»

She rolled her eyes. «I don’t have time for this, Spike,» she said distractedly.

He raised his eyebrows. «Right. If you’re so fine, then you won’t take more than a second or two. And you can do it while walking, if you want. No lost time at all. And you know the rules.»

She sighed heavily and sat down. «Okay, Spike. Fifty, forty-nine, forty-eight, forty-seven, forty-six, . . . ,» she started quickly.

«Uh uh, Twi! Close your eyes! Those are the rules!»

She sighed again, and yawned. «Okay, okay.» She glared at him a second, then closed her eyes and started counting, «forty-five, forty-four, forty-three, forty-two, . . . .»

«Uh uh, Twi! Ya gotta start over,» he reprimanded. She was swaying dramatically now.

She huffed, eyes still closed. «Alright.» She yawned. « Fifty, forty-nine, forty-eight, forty-seven, forty-six, . . .»

Her voice was getting lower and lower, and her swaying was more extreme. And her counting was slowing down.

He grinned at the watching ponies, who were none too steady on their hooves, either.

«forty-five, forty-four, forty-three, forty-two, . . .» She toppled over sideways.

Spike had been waiting for that. Moving quickly as he saw her reach the tipping point, he held out the pillows to her side, cushioning and guiding her as she fell.

She started to pull her hooves under her to get up, but he softly said, «Bedtime Twilight. Here’s your favourite pillow.» It was a line he frequently used when he saw her starting to fall asleep when she had overworked herself.

He watched, smiling contentedly, as she relaxed and started snoring.

He looked up at the other three. «Works almost every time.» He smirked. «When her head hits the pillow, she goes right out.» He ran over to the pile of blankets and brought one back for her.

He looked at the others, still staring at Twilight, and retrieved some pillows and blankets for them. «Here, guys, I’ll have breakfast ready when you wake.»

They needed no further encouragement and quickly arranged their makeshift beds.

Once they were all snoring, Spike headed over towards the door. He smirked at the librarian behind the counter. «They finally fell asleep. I’ll get the Guards and we’ll move them to their rooms for a more comfortable night. Then, we can clean things up a bit in here.» He glanced at the book-fort they had unintentionally made. «And move the boards to her lab, so they’ll be out of your way.»

The mare gave him a very relieved smile. And helped him re-shelve the books, later. He really was the best assistant a researcher could ever have.

۸-_-۸

Ch. 11 — Confrontations

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Ch. 11 — Confrontations

All the other Professors he had met — Sprout, Flitwick, Babbling, Vector, Sinistra, Moody, and McGonagall — were excellent teachers, Harry decided at dinner on Friday.

Transfigurations had made him re-evaluate his impressions on the differences in the approach to magic between wizards and unicorns. Wizard-transfigurations, instead of depending on a single spell for each, as he had expected, merely explored and taught the students how to use their intent to control the spell and reach the desired end. In Equestria, the spells for transfiguring things were distinct castings, hence the spell for adding wings or becoming Breezies. Intent was only involved in the creation and design of a spell, and not nearly as much at its casting at later times by others.

For example, the first spell in the book was about transfiguring a match into a needle. In Equestria, that would be simply a spell matrix you learned to cast. Want to make a match a needle, cast the spell, and it was done. Here, you decided that you wanted the match to be a needle and used your magic to form the needle. How the finished product looked depended entirely on how you had visualized it to be at the very beginning.

It was — quite the revelation.

His classes in Canterlot had taught him about focus, and it had been simple to transform the match. Then he had started changing the match by merely visualizing how he wanted it to look. The last one had had the four princesses, rampant, engraved into it.

The hardest part had been using the wand and not his horn.

When he returned to Canterlot, he would throw them all for a loop with this new outlook on magic. Not to mention the hundreds of spells the books listed that he would have learned and could teach.

So, it seemed, wizards did indeed cast generalized spells that they focused to a single objective. They just preferred to use specific spells to conserve their energy. Which was odd, considering that most unicorns never had to worry about such things unless they were in a big battle. One the other hoof — he was saying that a lot, wasn’t he? he thought — most unicorns never considered using transfigurations to make one thing into another. They simply didn’t think like that.

A thing was a thing. Why change it?

That sorta made sense when two-thirds of the population couldn’t do that sort of magic, anyway.

He wondered, was it possible to transfigure a timberwolf into a pumpkin? It would certainly make their trips into the Everfree a lot more peaceful!

However, the humans were a contentious and contrary group, if he had ever seen one. So, perhaps, conserving one’s power made sense in that respect. They never knew if they were going to be attacked and needed as much power as they could scrape together.

Unicorns had been in a similar position way back when the three tribes had first joined forces, his mum had told him. It was their job to look for danger from above while the others were working. They sat at the edges of the field or walked through the towns as they continually scanned the skies for raiding dragons, bug-bears, griffons, manticores, rocs, and similar threats. Once danger was spotted, they held it off long enough for the other ponies to seek shelter or prepare for battle. If they could, they were supposed to drive off the menace. In exchange, the other ponies made sure the unicorns were comfortable and didn’t walk into things like holes, trees, fences, walls, other ponies, and so forth. The others took care of many of the other facets of the unicorns’ lives (such as building, foraging, and other tasks) that would have prevented them from protecting their non-horned brethren, or leave them vulnerable to surprises. It was a worthwhile combining of efforts!

Unfortunately, when most of Equestria had settled into peace — after chasing far away most of the dangers — the unicorns’ attitude of watching the skies had slowly devolved into merely holding their muzzles up in disdain of the other ponies, and expecting the others to provide for them without having to labour. Many of the nobles felt that way, at least. The other ponies owed them, they reasoned.

Both McGonagall, on Wednesday, and Flitwick, on Thursday, had used some of the time in the class to assess his abilities regarding magic. Professor McGonagall had been very interested in the wings spell he had shown the Gryffindors, and how he had taught it to the others. And then he taught it to her.

And while that teaching technique was fine for one-on-one, it was impossible to manage in a classroom setting. Unless the class was only three or four students. More students than that would take much more time than simply studying the matrix and explanation in the book. The classroom also cut down the repetition as each student was given the same verbal instructions and, in turn, asked the same questions. It was more beneficial for the entire group to hear the question and answer all at once.

So, sadly, . . . boring classroom teaching at the pace of the slowest students was the most efficient method of teaching groups.

Professor Flitwick had asked about the wings spell, too, after trying to gauge his skills. That most unicorns’ spells were either matrices or just general intent spells he had found quite interesting. He had been very fascinated by how Harry’s wings spell operated — a transfiguration casting that was actually a simple spell. A spell that took a lot of concentration and magical power, but, still, a spell!

The Arithmancy and Runes professors had been cordial, but did say that most of their classes were simply memorization at this time. “Rather than show up for every class,” Professor Vector had said, “it would be better to just go over last year’s lessons and come to me with questions. Then, if you catch up, you can join the regular classes.” And gave him what he thought was a rather condescending smile. But, then again, she didn’t know Hayscartes’ Method, did she?

Professor Babbling had almost echoed Vector’s words exactly. Both had suggested asking Hermione for her notes from the previous year. Which he had accomplished on Friday. He hadn’t been sure if she would cooperate, considering her demand for a trade for her other notes. In the end, he had offered to show her the protective runes in his armour and robes if she allowed him copies of her notes. She almost couldn’t say, “Yes!” fast enough.

Actually, in view of what he had just been thinking, and how the Weasleys and his dorm-mates had all acted on learning the runes, he should have known she wouldn’t turn down the trade.

Professor Moody’s Thursday class, Defence Against the Dark Arts, had been . . . interesting. That the wizard was very good at what he did was undisputable. That he needed to be that good illustrated just how dangerous the world of these wizards really was. That he had soo many scars, and a missing eye and leg, proved that, even though he was good, he still needed to improve. Or were those merely the reasons behind what had made him so good?

His was a practical class, focused almost entirely on learning the curses and hexes so-called Dark Wizards liked to use. And Harry had been glad of his additions to his robes. The wizard liked to shoot spells at students he thought were not paying attention. Anything from changing their hair colour to stinging hexes was fair game.

He had been quite interested to test Harry’s blocking abilities. More than once Harry had considered teleporting, but decided to keep that one a secret until he had no choice.

That class, like no other, emphasized that humans were predators. And brought to the forefront of his mind that he was now a prey species. He needed to be hyper-alert at all times.

And, now that it was the weekend, it was time to see how long he could manage to cast Hayscartes’ Method before it tossed him out on his ears. Again.

۸-_-۸

Flitwick’s class, on the following Friday, was on the Summoning spell. It had taken only a few minutes for Harry to adapt to the new wand-spell — he had, after all, learned how to do it with his horn five years ago, and had used it on a daily basis ever since. It was almost an ingrained reflex when he wanted something. Again, the hardest part was learning to use his wand instead of his horn.

After Harry demonstrated his mastery, he fought a few mock summoning battles with the professor. Then he spent the rest of the time regurgitating the First and Second years’ theories about magic, and how that magic powered the different spells, as a “term paper.”

And that pretty much described his other classes in the previous days, as well. Learn the stuff for the day, then spend the rest of the time proving he understood what the other students had mastered in prior years. Well, at least, that was true for Charms, Transfigurations, and Defence Against the Dark Arts. Except for potions, he skipped the others and studied alone instead.

What slowed him down, considerably, was the sheer volume of material that had been covered in those years. Especially as he needed to learn entirely new vocabularies for each subject! And he kept running into his Hayscartes’ limits. He was spending more time out of the books, it felt like, than he was in them. He was also sleeping more.

History was the easiest, as it was simply memorization — lots and lots of memorization. He figured that three or four read-throughs would do the job admirably. He expected to have all seven years covered by the end of the next month. Like Astronomy, though, it wasn’t exactly a high priority item. If he were actually taking the classes in this world, he would expect to reread the text for the year one more time to refresh before exams. But he wasn’t. He was reading the history texts just to get his situation here sorted. The modern, extra, history books suggested by his friends, and in the library, were certainly a help in understanding the social background he found himself mired in.

Blueblood would be horrified, intrigued, and disgusted by it all. And would have studied it all carefully. With a bottle of stomach soothers at hoof the entire time.

The Astronomy class, on the other hoof, was useless . . . just useless, considering Luna moved the Moon and stars at home at whim. But she would love the information about this world’s sky. Reading about it would suffice.

Care of Magical Creatures was similar. While both subjects were interesting, they really were not important to anything in the Tournament. He really didn’t think pixies and bow-truckles would be a serious hazard in any of the tasks.
And Muggle Studies was a joke. Even with only what he remembered as a nine-year-old in primary, he knew far more about the subject than the Muggle Studies Professor did. And, based on the modern history books, it was guaranteed that nothing Muggle related would be in the Tournament.

Divination, too, he didn’t expect to be of use.

Arithmancy and Runes were also memorization, and he could take his time with those. He had far less reading to do to catch up with his peers, merely a single year instead of three, but was still far behind the Seventh Years chosen for the tournament. Even so, he didn’t expect to find anything in those fields that would help him in the Tournament.

Potions, he wanted to take to learn the skills and techniques so he could share them with Zecora and the few ponies interested in potions in general. In doing so, he would easily quadruple Equestrian knowledge of what you could achieve with potions. Skele-Gro, for example, if it could be duplicated, would revolutionize pony medicine — no longer would ponies have to worry about losing limbs, or horns — he shuddered — in an accident. Not to mention the Blood-Replenishing, Essence of Dittany, Fire Protection, and Invigoration Draught potions and the effects they would have on the medical community. And for that he needed to study the Herbology texts. Which, again, was memorization.

He had an obligation to return to Equestria with as much of this tremendous medical knowledge as he could manage to learn. Later, once he had mastered the knowledge in the school for the tournament, he would see about getting the advanced medical books used to train doctors and nurses.

He owed them that as repayment for what they had done for him when he first arrived in Equestria.

Unfortunately, the first challenge in the Tournament was coming up in just eleven days. He needed to concentrate on things that would be of immediate use: Charms, Transfigurations, and Defence Against the Dark Arts. The others he thought he could safely ignore.

He had carefully examined what he could of the conditions imposed on the “champions” in the tournament. As long as he made an effort at completing each task, he would not run afoul of violating the contract and losing his magic. Merely showing up and going through the motions of starting the task should suffice.

But, if he could, he’d rather make a decent showing.

And it was Hermione who had come through for him, surprisingly, last Saturday.

Hermione, after he had traded the protective runes for her notes, had actually warmed up to him! Apparently she had expected him just to demand she share her notes with him — which had happened before with others, it seemed. The other Gryffindors considered her a walking library, available for their convenience and without any sort of obligations on their parts. Everypony was just coldly cordial to her. It sorta reminded him of what Luna had described, without the stealing and cruel pranks.

While she was still frosty to Seamus and Dean, and ignored the existence of Ron, she always greeted him with a smile. The three of them, Hermione, Ginny, and Luna had taken to sitting across from Harry at meals. Occasionally, if Ron and the others were too slow, the three girls would bracket him, with Ginny always between Hermione and Ron. Or on the other side of Luna.

It had started last weekend. She had been waiting for him when he exited a book to rest. She had been seated, cross-legged, on the end of his bed. She had looked up, frowning, from a book — Hogwarts: A History. He had blinked, unsure of why there was a girl in his dorm-room, on his bed.

She had put down her book, grabbed another from beside her, and held it out to him. “It’s about the Triwizard Tournament,” she had said solemnly. “It’s quite dangerous, you know. There’s almost always a death among the champions. The last one held, in 1792, resulted in all the champions, the judges, and most of the spectators being injured or killed by a raging cockatrice. It’s why it fell out of favour.” She had frowned. “I don’t know why they resurrected this farce of gladiatorial bloody combat. The headmaster said that they had added many safety features, including an age line to prevent anyone under the age of seventeen from participating.” She had shaken her head, “Fat lot of good that did, right?” She stared at him with warm, sparkling brown eyes. “It’s supposed to promote fellowship with the other schools, but, according to the book, it’s really a cut-throat competition, with the various Headmasters and Headmistresses trying to steal promising students from each-others’ schools. Cheating is rampant, and expected. And as the judges are the heads of the schools, any claim to impartiality in scoring is a joke.”

He had taken the book and floated it over on top of the Potions text he had been reading.

“The first task, according to the book, traditionally, is almost always one that tests the champions’ bravery,” she had continued. “It’s usually facing a dangerous creature of some kind, a four- or five-X rating, and battling it in some manner.” She had paused and worried her lower lip with her upper teeth while lines had furrowed her forehead. “I’d suggest studying only the creatures that are four-X or above. Anything else is too tame by wizarding standards, according to the book. If you can find the task’s grounds in advance, then hiding caches of tools, weapons, and potions on them is not unheard of. Just don’t get caught hiding or retrieving your supplies.”

“Thank you,” he had sincerely said. Any help was appreciated. “I won’t tell anyone you helped me so you needn’t worry about anyone being upset at you, or me jeopardizing your friendships.”

She had stared at him, her head slightly tilted and brow still furrowed, clearly puzzled. Then she had snorted and slowly nodded. “Thank you,” she had said in a slightly surprised tone. She clearly had not expected him to realize the conflict most of the Gryffindors faced being his friend — how friendly could they be before it backfired on them?

“You missed lunch,” she had finally said, after a few minutes of fidgeting. She had turned sideways and started digging in her rucksack. A moment later, she had handed him a plate of sandwiches, wrapped in napkins, and a potion-bottle filled with an orange liquid. “It’s pumpkin juice,” she had added with a shrug at his puzzled look at the bottle.

“Thank you, again!” he had said as he eagerly dug into the plate. He hadn’t intended to miss lunch, but revising a book he had already read allowed him to stay in longer, and the time had gotten away from him. And he had been ravenous, once she had pointed out his lapse.

After several minutes watching him, she had said, “What’s it like? Being a quadruped instead of biped, I mean. And not having hands.” She had glanced down at her own hands, and wiggled and flexed her fingers contemplatively.

He had continued to chew as he had considered her question. “At first,” he had said, “it was hard. But now? With magic? Anything you can do with hands, I can do with magic.” He had obviously glanced up at the tip of his horn, which had a slight glow from holding the sandwich.

“As for being on four legs instead of two?” He had smiled, remembering racing through Ponyville or the orchards at Sweet Apple Acres, climbing trees, building a catapult, collapsing in a pony-pile and cuddling, the unhesitating support of his friends, and the hugs. Most definitely the hugs. “Some things are much easier, some things are much harder.” Going down stairs on all fours still gave him shivers. Once he had learned the wings spell he had taken to gliding down the stairs whenever it was possible. “I can’t think of anything I’d rather be than a pony in Equestria,” he had concluded. He had smiled at the girl. “And I wouldn’t change four for two, even here.” He had reached up to tap his horn. “I have instant access to my magic and I never have to worry about my wand being misplaced.” He kept his wand in his sleeve, now, with a sticking charm on his foreleg. It was always instantly available without having to reach across his chest for the normal pocket.

He had smirked. “But what if someone blocks my magic, you might ask. Well, what if someone manacles your hands? And no one can summon my horn like they can your wand.”

She had stared at him a long time. “But, doesn’t it bother you to not be a human anymore?”

He had smiled. “Not at all. What I remember of being a human is pain, neglect, and loneliness.” Then he had shrugged. “And those were the good points,” he had added wryly. “There really isn’t anything about being a human that I find I miss.”

She had had a serious, thoughtful expression, and had sat quietly as he finished eating.

He had levitated the empty plate and bottle to his dresser.

“What’s it like?” she had asked softly. “Equestria,” she had clarified before he could ask.

He had leaned back. “A lot like the muggle areas here, I guess, but a lot less crowding and pollution. There are only about twelve million ponies in Equestria, which is about the size of Europe, if I remember correctly,” had been his answer. He had given her a quick smile. “The size difference between ponies and humans makes it difficult to estimate equivalent distances.”

She had smiled back. When you can’t reach the counter, the cookie jar is incredibly far away on the refrigerator for a child, yet easy access for an adult.

“The culture is a strange blend of early 1900’s and mid-1980’s. We live simply, most don’t bother with electricity. There are no cars or lorries, yet railroads have been around for several centuries. They have films, but not colour yet. They control the weather . . . .” He had to stop at her expression of disbelief and laugh. “Yeah, that was a strange concept, I’ll tell you. But it’s true. I’ll show you some day when I don’t have as much to catch up on. Anyway, everyone knows when and for how long it will rain, the schedule is posted weekly. Farmers never have to worry about drought or famine. And everyplace gets snow on a schedule — they try to make it as close as possible to the same week. The medicine is almost up-to-date, with x-ray machines and the like. They even have video arcades in most towns. But no radios or tellys. Everything is slower-paced, there isn’t the fierce business competition there that the muggles have here.”

He stopped and stared at her. “Equestria has been at peace for almost a thousand years. The concept of large-scale wars is foreign to their history.” He had stopped and chuckled. “That’s not to say it hasn’t been interesting the last few years. I think we’ve had more excitement since Princess Luna returned than in the entire previous thousand years combined.”

After several more minutes, just thinking about what he had said, she had climbed off the bed. “Well,” she had said, “I think I should let you get back to your studying. You have a lot to catch up on.”

He had grinned back at her. “I’ll see you at dinner, then. Stop by anytime you want to talk.”

She had left the room in a deeply reflective mood.

He had returned to his studies. And practiced the wand movements while he rested between sorties into the book. He could never predict how long they would last, now.

After dinner, Headmaster Dumbledore sent a Prefect to asked Harry to his office. On entering, Harry had seen that, in addition to the Headmaster, all four House Heads and two students were there. As before, they had arranged themselves in chairs over by the big windows looking out onto the forest. A tea set had been in place on the low table in the middle of the ring of chairs.

After Harry had seated himself in the offered chair, by the windows, the Headmaster had started, “After much deliberation, I have decided on the tutors for you. Allow me to introduce Mr. Jonathan Spratt and Miss Liza Cherks.” He had nodded to each as he mentioned them.

Jonathan was a tall boy with glasses, dark hair, brown eyes, and a light complexion. Liza was a brown-haired blue-eyed beauty with a heart-shaped face and full figure. He had met them both, briefly, when he was busy teaching the wings spell the previous Monday.

“They are both Sixth Year Prefects in Gryffindor. I felt that being in the same House would make it easier for you to meet with them, and fit the meetings into all of your schedules.”

They had nodded to him congenially.

“Now then, Mr. Potter Sparkle,” Dumbledore had smiled gently, like an elderly grandfather or Princess Celestia when she wanted to reassure a twitchy visitor. “I was hoping you could tell us a bit about this Equestria, where you’ve been for the last few years.” He leaned back in his chair and stroked his beard casually.

He had fooled no one. Everypony knew he planned on listening closely.

Harry had smiled, thought a moment about what Blueblood would say, and then started, “Equestria is ruled as a diarchy by two sisters, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. . . .” He had explained a bit about the government, the three tribes, and some of the places he had seen, such Baltimare, Manehattan, and Appleoosa. He had talked a bit about the dragons and Griffons across the sea.

He hadn’t mentioned that the two sisters controlled the sun and moon, he had seen how surprised they were when he had told them that the sisters were effectively immortal. His illusions of the two, at full scale, left them rather quiet. It hadn’t hurt that he had portrayed them in their full regalia, and with wings spread wide. And that he had chosen to show Luna as Nightmare Moon with batwings. She was more imposing that way, he felt, under the circumstances.

They were surprised at the differences between the two sisters.

“Is this one a thestral?” the Headmaster had asked when he had shown Luna.

Harry had looked at him uncertainly. “No, but she is called the mother of the night-ponies, who all have leathery wings like these.” He hadn’t considered that Nightmare Moon did look somewhat like the thestrals in his Fantastic Beasts textbook. “Like I told you, they are sisters.”

And he had repeated that he expected his mum to show up at some point. That she wasn’t here, yet, merely meant that it was a complicated problem. Perhaps there was a time differential, he had suggested. That what he was experiencing in days were only hours to his mum. Still. She would come. After all, she was an alicorn, it was just a matter of when she would arrive.

He had finished by thanking the Headmaster for allowing him to stay in the castle, and Professor McGonagall for taking time from her schedule and ushering him around Diagon Alley. And all of them for taking the time to help him learn their magic.

۸-_-۸

On Sunday, Johnathan and Liza had quizzed him on the theories and spells he had been reading about the previous week, concentrating on covering the First Year. They had said it was important that he thoroughly understand the underpinning of magic, as taught at Hogwarts. Going forward, comprehension of what was taught would depend on those basics.

Considering Hermione’s advice on the tournament, he had spent a good portion of the following week reading and rereading the Fantastic Beasts textbook in preparation for the first task. And making sure he understood everything the First Year students had to learn. Repetition never hurt.

۸-_-۸

After Charms on Friday, and lunch, was Potions.

Harry watched curiously as they passed Cedric Diggory, the Hogwarts champion. He was surrounded by a large group of simpering witches. Those who noticed Harry gave him a hostile look, sniffed disdainfully, and returned to their idol with renewed enthusiasm. Harry was not surprised to see a few of the girls asking for his autograph, mostly the same ones he had seen doing the same to Victor Krum, the Durmstrang champion.

“Typical commoner and uncouth behaviour,” Blueblood would say. “A month ago they ignored him. They are only interested in him for his fame. And he is a fool if he does not see that.” And would then aloofly walk away, saving his out-right contempt for them all for a more private setting.

When they arrived at Professor Snape’s classroom, the Slytherins were waiting outside.

They seemed to defer to the one called Draco Malfoy — a slender boy with rather sharp, pointed features framed in sleek white-blond hair. He had cold grey eyes and a pale complexion. And he clearly thought himself superior to everyone around him. Harry had seen him only in Professor Snape’s dungeon room and at meal times, across the Great Hall. And that one time in Hagrid’s Creatures class.

He acted, in every way, exactly like all rumours said Blueblood acted, when he was in public and “on stage.” Harry knew the act. It kept the simpering, fawning, favour-seeking hordes at a distance. Sure, he wasn’t liked by the public-at-large, but, then again, what the public thought of him had nothing to do with what he did, nor how he was in private.

Malfoy, on the other hand, simply seemed to be a bad parody of what a gentlepony should be.

“Oh, look,” Malfoy said derisively, “it’s the beast and his handlers, mud-blood, and blood-traitors, all.” He smirked, as if he had said something clever.

His friends chuckled.

Harry just looked at him, puzzled, at first. Then he realized it was time to become Blueblood, again. “Is that supposed to be an insult?” He looked at his hoof and smiled as if at a joke. “After all, I am a pony. And that isn’t a bipedal monkey, such as yourself,” he said in an insulting snobbish tone, as if stating an obvious fact that no pony could dispute. He looked over at the Gryffindors still arriving behind him. “And, no offense, my friends,” he said, nodding apologetically to his dorm-mates, “but I’d much rather be a pony.” He turned back to the Draco, who was starting to turn a bit red. “It’s far superior to your . . . ,” he couldn’t help but smirk slightly, “handicapped form.” The Slytherins were starting to look at Harry angrily.

He smiled at Hermione, who was distinctly looking red herself, whether in anger or embarrassment, he wasn’t sure.

“You’ll have to explain the terms mud-blood and blood-traitor, as where I come from those concepts do not exist.” His tone suggested contempt that such terms even existed. Something tickled angrily at the back of his mind, though.

Draco stepped forward, sneering. “Mud-bloods,” and he gave a scathing up-and-down look at Hermione, “are wizards and witches whose parents are muggles. They are inferior to pure-bloods and shouldn’t even be allowed here in Hogwarts. And blood-traitors are wizards or witches who marry muggles or muggle-borns, or think they should be treated as our equals,” he concluded contemptuously.

Oh, Hermione was definitely angry now.

Harry slowly raised his eyebrows. “You believe that pure-bloods are somehow superior to others?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Draco said haughtily.

What was obvious was that the wizard was an idiot. And was begging to be cursed into screaming agony.

He avoided changing his expression as he wondered just where that thought had come from.

۸-_-۸

Author's Notes:

Based on what the books say, the students spend about 120-180 hours in each class a year (depending on their year). About half that time is spent in lectures about the magic required for the day’s lesson. Then, there is the time lost as students goof off, i.e.:

It was the end of the lesson; they had finished their work; the guinea fowl they had been changing into guinea pigs had been shut away in a large cage on Professor McGonagall’s desk (Neville’s still had feathers); they had copied down their homework from the blackboard (“Describe, with examples, the ways in which Transforming Spells must be adapted when performing Cross-Species Switches”). The bell was due to ring at any moment, and Harry and Ron, who had been having a sword fight with a couple of Fred and George’s fake wands at the back of the class, looked up, Ron holding a tin parrot and Harry, a rubber haddock.

There is also the time spent waiting their turn, as Moody made them do with the imperious and Moony, the boggart. Doubtlessly there are many other times this sort of thing happened. And test days. And the revising in class at the end of the year.

So, it should be possible to learn an entire year’s practicals in about fifty to eighty hours. And that would be at the learning rate of the slowest student in class. Remember the time difference between Hermione and the rest of the class in learning wingardium leviosa in first year. She was clearly ready to move one while the rest were still struggling.

My daughter spent two days (about an hour each) being taught in primary how to add and subtract. I spent under ten minutes that first night teaching her how to subtract as a way to double-check her addition! The second day at that section of class, she read a book instead.

So tutors can dramatically decrease the time spent learning something by at least another half or two-thirds as they work one-on-one. This would drop the time to twenty-five to forty hours. At eight hours a day, this is three to five days per class-course, or less depending on exactly how good the tutor is and how motivated and talented the student.

And that assumes they are unfamiliar with the magic being taught. Such as Harry, in canon, spending twenty-four hours learning accio, when this Harry has been doing a variation on that spell and banishing for years.

Therefore, it is not impossible for someone to learn a year’s worth of three classes in a seven day week. They may not know the theory, but they know the practicals.

After all, you don’t have to have an electrical engineering degree to change the battery on your car’s engine. Or how the drive-train of your car works to change a tire.

Ch. 12 — Weighty Matters

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Ch. 12 — Weighty Matters

“If that is so,” Harry said slowly to Draco, as if speaking to a rather slow foal, “then why is it modern history books all agree that the three most powerful wizards in the last hundred years are half-bloods, and not pure-bloods? Those would be Gellert Grindelwald, Albus Dumbledore, and an unknown wizard who called himself Voldemort, if you didn’t know.” The entire group reeled and gasped at the last wizard’s name.

Harry rolled his eyes.

“How dare you! The Dark Lord was a pure-blood,” Draco declared angrily. Several others looked just as angry.

Harry made sure his shield spell was ready for instant casting. He tilted his head questioningly.

“Excuse me? Name to me the family he belongs to,” he said reasonably in as snobbish a tone as he could. “If he was a pure-blood, surely he must have been proud of his heritage, as you are, and told everyone just who his parents were, right? So, who was his father? Who was his mother?” Harry snorted delicately in disdain, and lifted his muzzle slightly. “If he is a pure-blood, name his heredity!” he said haughtily. “Slytherin students always say that any wizard who can’t name both parents as wizards, must, by default, be a half-blood! Isn’t that right?” He watched the Slytherins closely. “To claim to be a pure-blood, I’ve been told, you must be able to say that your grandparents and great-grandparents were all wizards and witches,” Harry disparagingly added. “Who were his grandparents and great-grandparents, then?” Several were obviously thinking of using more than just words to refute him. “Was I told wrong?”

From their red faces and glares, he knew he had it right. Stupid wizards, can’t find their way out of a barn.

“The history books, after much research, all say that they can find no trace . . . no trace,” Harry emphasized, “of a single pure-blood family in his background!” He narrowed his eyes at the Slytherins. “And if no pure-blood family is willing to claim him as a descendant, and he’s either too old or young to be the child of a dead family, then he can’t be a pure-blood, can he? The best bet is that he’s a half-blood,” Harry concluded. “Although,” he said, after a pause, musing, “he could be a muggle-born, I suppose.”

Draco’s face was almost as red as Hermione’s had been. “He was the Heir of Slytherin!” he shouted.

“Says who!?” retorted Harry firmly. “Show me the heredity papers or family! Prove it!” he said challengingly.

“He was a parselmouth!” declared Draco.

“Ah, yes, a parselmouth, said to be the trait only possessed by the Gaunt family,” Harry said softly. “However,” he continued smugly, “The last of the Gaunts, Morfin Gaunt, died in prison in the 1960’s without ever being married or having children, he said. His sister, Merope, disappeared in the early 1920’s and was never heard from again. If she had a child, then it had to be a half-blood, as any wizarding father would proudly proclaim having married Gaunt’s daughter, wouldn’t he? Which means, if she had a child, it had to be with a muggle-born husband and any child of hers could only be considered a half-blood! And she would have been considered a blood-traitor, and disowned by her pure-blood family.”

He grinned sardonically at the wizard boy. “Are you suggesting that Merope was Voldemort’s mother? Because that makes him a half-blood. Unless his father was her brother! And the books say he said he never had any children!”

“NO!” shouted Draco.

“I can prove, with a Gringotts heredity parchment, that I am the son of the House of Potter. What does a Gringotts’ heredity parchment say is Voldemort’s House?”

The Slytherins were scandalized at the thought that the Dark Lord might not be a pure-blood. And several hands were inching closer to wands. The Gryffindors had spread out and looked just as astounded as the Slytherins.

“So, enlighten me,” Harry again challenged the boy, “if the three greatest wizards in the last hundred years are all not pure-bloods, what does that say about pure-bloods being superior?”

Draco and several others had drawn their wands, by now.

Several of Harry’s friends had done the same thing.

Harry had his wand in hoof, hidden by the folds of his robe.

Draco glared at him, shaking, then swung his arm up. “Densaugeo!” he screamed angrily.

Jets of light shot across the corridor. “Impedimenta!” “Stupefy!” “Tarantallegra!” and “Flipendo!” were some of the other things Harry heard.

His shield worked exactly as it was supposed to: everything bounced from the slightly convex, to Harry, light-blue wall that separated the Gryffindors from the Slytherins.

Crabbe was out cold on the floor. Goyle was dancing frantically. Millicent looked like she was moving through water as she slowly turned to her friend who had been knocked backwards into a wall. Draco looked shaken at barely dodging the flipendo.

“What is all this noise about?” said a soft, deadly voice from the now open door to the dungeon classroom behind the Slytherins. It was Professor Snape. The Slytherins began talking all at once.

Harry kept up his barrier. He stood, languidly, with his right foreleg partially extended, relaxed, wand in hoof. His wand clearly dangled loosely from his hoof and pointed vaguely in the direction of the Slytherins, but also at the floor. The tip glowed the same light-blue as the shield. His expression and stance were of aloof boredom. Blueblood said that that particular pose infuriated opponents. It made it appear as if the current discussion was simply not important to him — that he was merely a bystander who wasn’t sure if he should get involved or not.

It invariably led to others into making mistakes.

“They attacked us,” cried Ron at the same time as Draco, pointing at each other.

Snape took a long look at the barrier and Harry’s glowing wand. He also noted the wands held by the other Gryffindors and Slytherins in various degrees of readiness. He quickly restored order and cancelled the spells. He looked closer at girl who had been tossed into the corridor wall. Her front two teeth were slowly growing bigger. “Hospital Wing, Miss Parkinson. Tell Madam Pomfrey to check for a concussion, too. Mister Zabini, make sure she gets there,” he said softly.

They nodded and walked off. Parkinson held one hand against the side of her head as if she had a headache while Zabini guided her with one hand on her shoulder.

“No casting magic in the corridors,” he said silkily, “Twenty points from Gryffindor. Now get inside.”

Harry allowed his shield to fade out, and followed the others into the room, shaking his head sadly as he stored his wand. As he would expect from a bully, the wizard had made no effort to ascertain the truth, he simply sided with the students from his House.

And the fact of the matter was that the only spells cast had been the Slytherins’ and his shield. As a simple priori incantato would have shown. Celestia, the man could even have just asked one of the portraits in the corridor!

The Gryffindors were seething at the unfair treatment as they set up their equipment.

“Antidotes!” snapped Snape. He turned from his desk, robe swirling dramatically. His cold black eyes glittered unpleasantly as he glared at the Gryffindors. “You should all have selected your recipes now. I want you to brew them carefully, no notes, no references, no books . . . ,” his glare singled out Hermione, “no hints to your friends . . . . I will be selecting someone on whom to test one . . . .”

Hermione glanced at Harry. She managed to convey in that look that she expected the chosen one to be a Gryffindor. And that she expected the victim, because that was the definition of who it would be, to be given the worst potion in the room. The wizard’s constant hovering and criticizing would assure that the potion came from a Gryffindor.

And there the bully went, abusing his authority as a Professor to punish a not-so-random student, based on how he was looking at Neville. Harry could only shake his head sadly. If it weren’t for the potential bonanza this subject could yield for Equestria, Harry would drop it faster than Pinkie Pie could eat a cake.

Harry had barely had time to set up his cauldron and tools, and retrieve his supplies from the storage cabinet, when there came a tentative knock on the classroom door.

The door edged open at Professor Snape’s curt, “Enter!”

It was Colin Creevey, a boy who reminded Harry of Featherweight in Ponyville from the way he never stopped taking pictures. Colin cautiously edged into the room and walked over to Snape’s desk.

The Professor stared at the boy imperiously.

Colin took a deep breath, “Harry Sparkle is needed upstairs, sir. I’m supposed to show him the way. It’s for the Tournament.”

After an overly dramatic scene where the Professor tried to ignore the request, as any petty bully would do to inconvenience as many people as possible, he ordered Harry out of the room. “And that will be a zero for today’s potion, Mr. Sparkle,” he added, delight dancing at the edges of his voice.

As if Harry cared about such things. He rolled his eyes as he left the room.

۸- ̰ -۸

Like almost every other student not in Harry’s immediate class, Colin was loaded with questions. He barely stopped asking them long enough for Harry to answer. And he didn’t stop asking them almost the entire time they were walking to the room where the ceremony was to be held.

That the Daily Prophet would be there was predictable, of course. The Ministry, as the organizers of the tournament, would have to be stupid not to invite the most popular newspaper in England. The “good” publicity a successful tournament would generate for the Ministry could not be understated. He expected them to publicize every facet of the event, with copious amounts of photography to document everything. It’s what happened in Equestria for big events.

Thus, Harry was amazed when he stood up on his rear legs — he wanted to make an impression — and walked into a normal-sized classroom to see only six people total. And three of them were the champions! Which meant the woman in the magenta robes beside Ludo Bagman had to be from the newspaper, as was the photographer with a large smoking black camera. Harry shook his head in disbelief. The level of mismanagement this showed was remarkable.

This should have been held in the Great Hall. There should have been numerous dignitaries and as many press ponies as they could manage to cram in. The actual start of the tournament, two weeks ago, had been almost neglected by the press, with only a few mentions and no pictures! A travesty of poor planning and management, for which Harry had been most grateful at the time. The less time he was featured in newspapers, the better he liked it. Not to mention, he was sure the sensationalists would have played up his being a non-human. They probably would have called him a monster.

And while he loved the aspect that there was so little press present right now, the possible consequences were too hazardous to contemplate.

Blueblood had told him never to hold a press conference with only one reporter. Always invite several, you’re more likely to get honest coverage that way. Especially if you don’t know if that one reporter is going to write a complementary article or not! It was far better to have as many reporters as you could in a press conference, that way no one reporter could control what the public read and saw.

Unless the one reporter was solidly in your pocket, of course. Then it didn’t matter if the honest truth wasn’t portrayed. The story that was printed was the story you wanted printed, that was all that mattered.

And with him being the odd pony out, and disliked by so many students, the likelihood that he would be pilloried as a monster, or an unwanted intruder, was more than just a passing fancy in these circumstances.

He stopped and ducked back into the Hall. Colin had slowly started to drift back to whatever he had been doing, but was still within sight. Harry called out, “Hey! Colin! Got your camera?”

The boy spun around, but nodded eagerly. He started back to Harry.

“Excellent,” Harry said.

In the short time Harry had been in Gryffindor, he had never seen the boy without his camera. He was always either taking a picture, preparing to take a picture, or putting the camera in its case after taking a picture. Harry could see it by the strap over his shoulder.

Bagman and the others were staring as Harry ushered in the boy. Harry smiled brightly as Colin dug out his camera. “There seems to have been a slight mistake. There don’t seem to be representatives from the Bulgarian or French press here!” he explained.

“And while I’m sure the Daily Prophet is willing to share their photos,” he glanced at the paunchy man holding the black camera. Yeah, in a pig’s eye they would! “They’d rather have exclusive shots for themselves of the champions, wouldn’t they?” The man nodded hesitantly. “Colin can provide photographs without interrupting your work in the slightest,” he said towards the camerawizard.

Bagman paused, then slowly nodded.

The paunchy man glanced over at the woman and shrugged his shoulders. She just rolled her eyes.

Harry stepped close to Colin, who was giving him a look of horror and disbelief. “Look, just copy the photo shots that that wizard sets up,” he said in an undertone. “When he steps back to his camera to focus, take your shot.” Colin nodded timidly. “Start now with a few shots of the different champions. And be polite! If you treat them like furniture you’re arranging, you’ll get less cooperation.” He smiled. “At the very least you’ll get some wonderful photos to show at home. At best you might sell a few to the newspapers and make a few knuts to get better equipment.” Colin looked very happy at that prospect. “Plus, offer to give the champions free copies for themselves.”

Bagman had recovered by then and bounded over to Harry. “And here he is! Champion number four! Nothing to worry about, Harry, it’s just the wand weighing ceremony, the rest of the judges will be here in a moment.” He looked down at Colin, uncertainly.

“Wand weighing ceremony?” Harry repeated, frowning.

“Yes, yes,” Ludo said, waving his hand expansively at the front of the room. There were three tables placed end-to-end in front of the blackboard, and covered with a long length of cloth. Six chairs had been set behind the velvet-covered desks. The other chairs and desks in the room had been pushed to the back, except for four over by the door and against the wall. Someone had written “The Triwizard Tournament” in fancy lettering on the blackboard.

“We want to make sure your wands are in tip-top shape, don’t we? Can’t have a fair competition when someone might have shoddy equipment, can we?” he explained.

The witch in the magenta robes was at Bagman’s side, not quite nudging his elbow.

“The expert will be here shortly, with Dumbledore, we’ll do the ceremony, then there’s a little photoshoot to wrap things up.” He glanced over at Colin uncertainly.

Colin had made the most of his opportunity and snapped nearly a dozen pictures already. Victor, Cedric, and Fleur seemed to be humouring him and cooperating. And even mugging for the camera a little. And why not? They saw him as a harmless, and sometimes annoying, Third Year student with a penchant for taking lots of pictures.

“And this is Rita Skeeter, the reporter for the Daily Prophet,” Ludo said, and gave her a sidelong glance. He leaned a little closer to Harry. “She’s doing a small piece for the newspaper,” he said in a confidential manner, as if she couldn’t hear every word he said.

“Maybe not that small, Ludo,” she said, eyeing Harry hungrily.

He wasn’t interested in any kind of personal interview, even if Bagman had more or less volunteered him. And so he cast a sticking charms on his hooves to lock himself in place when she grabbed his foreleg to pull him along with her. The charms really weren’t that strong. But they did help him keep to his hooves in most situations. With the addition of his little pushes of magic for balance, Rita might as well as have tried to ponyhandle a stone statue, even if he was only a yard and a half tall and barely came up to her neck.

She gave him an incredulous look when she jerked to a stop. She cleared her throat. “Come along, dear, we don’t want to be in here with all this noise,” she cajoled. And tugged on his foreleg again. Harry couldn’t help but notice she had thick fingers with impressive two-inch nails, painted crimson.

Blueblood said that going off for a private interview with a reporter you didn’t know could only end in disaster. There were no witnesses to testify as to what either of you really said. And emphasized that in an argument over who said what, if you didn’t like the story that appeared, the pony who buys ink by the barrel would always win. And finally, in an unprepared situation, it was better to be silent and thought a fool than to open one’s muzzle and prove it beyond the shadow of a doubt.

Harry looked at Skeeter with a fake puzzled expression. Copying Blueblood’s cultured tones, he said. “I was brought here directly from my class by specific request, and at the great distress of my Professor, as Mr. Creevey can attest. The other attendees expect me to be here when they arrive, which should be any moment now. Hence, it would behove me to remain here until then in order to not unduly delay the ceremony.” He shifted to look at Bagman. “Isn’t that right, sir?”

He turned back to the witch before the wizard could reply. “In the meantime, I would be happy to answer your questions.”

She stared into his blank smiling face for a moment, then sighed. She opened a crocodile-skin handbag and drew out a roll of parchment and a long acid-green quill. She let go of his foreleg and walked over to one of the tables at the back of the room. Oddly, he saw her suck on the tip of the quill. She placed it on the parchment where it stood upright on its tip, quivering slightly.

She murmured something over it, watched it scrawl something on the parchment, then she tore off that piece and stuffed it in her handbag. “You wouldn’t mind stepping over here would you?” she said hopefully.

He looked around the room. There were enough witnesses around should anything start to get out of hand. He nodded and moved to the back of the room.

She looked down at him as he came closer and said, eyes gleaming, “So, are you really Harry Potter?”

The quill was dashing across the parchment.

He blinked at her question. “According to a Gringotts heredity parchment, my parents were Head of House James Potter and his wife Lily Potter, with my adoptive mother being Princess Twilight Sparkle. It revealed that my full name is Prince Harry James Potter Sparkle.”

That seemed to surprise her momentarily, but she shook it off. “Was it difficult to enter the Triwizard Tournament from where you were hiding?”

Harry blinked at the assumptions in the question. “I don’t know how it happened. I was at a town-wide party in Ponyville when I was suddenly grabbed and dropped into the Great Hall here at Hogwarts. I had never heard of the tournament, or Hogwarts, until then. Professor Dumbledore believes it was orchestrated by someone who wants me to die in one of the tasks. I know nothing more.”

“You are the second Hogwarts champion, correct?” Rita raised one heavily pencilled eyebrow.

“No. Someone confunded the Goblet of Fire such that its decision was for four schools in the Tournament instead of three. If Dumbledore, or any official, were to declare I am a Hogwarts champion, then there might be an adverse reaction by Goblet against those doing so. I would consider that carefully before putting anything in print, if I were you,” he cautioned politely.

“In any event, I am a student of Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns.” He waved his hoof at his horn. “Of which I am one, as you can see.”

He could already see that the interview was not going to be unbiased, Harry was relieved when he saw the door open almost behind them. He turned and watched the missing people for the ceremony begin to file in. First was Professor Karkaroff, then Madame Maxime, Mr. Crouch, Mr. Ollivander, a red-headed young man who looked enough like Ron, Fred, and George to be related, and finally Headmaster Dumbledore.

The school heads, the red-headed man, and Mr. Crouch moved to sit on the chairs behind the table, joining Mr. Bagman. Cedric and the other champions moved to the chairs by the door. Harry quickly joined them, ignoring the reporter who had pulled a chair over at the back of the room and watched the proceeding eagerly, her quill still scribbling away on a parchment.

Harry was pleased to note that Colin had already moved to take a picture of the judges for the tournament as Dumbledore took his seat.

“Before we begin, Mr. Crouch has a short announcement,” Dumbledore said, turning slightly to look at the wizard.

Mr. Crouch, while dressed as neatly as before, did not look any better than he had that first night. In fact, he looked worse. He sighed. “In the interests of fairness, I have appointed Percy Weatherby, here,” he nodded to the young man seated beside him, who had a very strained smile, “to act as a judge for Mr. Sparkle.” He looked at the other judges and the champions. “If there are four schools in the tournament, it is only fair that each school have its own judge present.”

Huh, Harry thought and shook his head a bit. He could have sworn that the young wizard beside Mr. Crouch was related to the Weasleys.

Headmaster Dumbledore seemed quite happy to have heard this as he nodded and smiled. The other two heads of schools scowled, but they had apparently already argued this out and voiced no opposition at this time. Perhaps that was why they had been late to the ceremony?

Mr. Crouch looked at the four students. “Mr. Weatherby has already given an oath that he will judge the performance of each champion on the merits of his or her actions in each task. He will not allow his personal feelings, if he has any in the matter, either for or against, to interfere with his decisions.” He slumped back in his chair, looking very tired, as if just talking was a struggle.

Dumbledore gave the wizard a worried look, but then turned back the champions. “Next, I’d like to introduce Mr. Ollivander, our wand judge. He will be checking your wands to ensure they are in good condition for the tournament.”

One by one, the four champions presented their wands.

Fleur’s wand was a combination of rosewood and a hair from the head of a Veela, one of her grandmothers, it seemed.

Harry had read about Veela. They were part-human, part-bird — and able to throw fireballs when transformed into birds. They were also capable of using an allure to attract men. That would explain some of the strange incidents he had noticed at meal times with male students acting quite embarrassingly when close to her.

That they were heavily discriminated against in England, according to his modern history book, came as no surprise, based on the way the Slytherins and a few others had acted around Harry. The English wizards were an amazingly bigoted bunch, he had slowly come to understand. Even the so-called Light wizards.

Cedric’s wand was ash and a male unicorn’s tail hair. Harry had to smother a snicker at Ollivander’s small-talk. Oh, yeah, he would have tried to gore Ollivander if he had yanked out one of Harry’s tail hairs without explaining in detail why he wanted to do that! Which led to Harry wonder if his mane and tail hair counted as a magical substance, in addition to his horn. Maybe he should start collecting his hairs after showering every morning, if only to prevent others from doing so. He would ask Bit if he could do anything to prevent their collection. Harry couldn’t be the first pony, or person, to raise that issue.

Victor’s hornbeam and dragon heartstring wand was interesting, if a bit morbid for the unicorn.

Harry watched carefully as the wizard handled his wand. Unlike the other three, however, Ollivander didn’t say a word about the wood or core. Harry wasn’t sure if that was good or bad at being singled out by the absence of those details. The press just loved mysteries, after all. They invariably used them to entice their public to keep reading as they slowly revealed what was hidden. And made up their own stories — which they carefully labelled as “conjectures” by third-parties — as to what that secret was in the meantime.

Then came the photo shoot. Harry had had to attend several of those in Equestria. Being a member of the Royal family made them a necessity at least once a year, if not two or three. Or more. His mum being at the forefront in saving Equestria from its various enemies always attracted the press. Several papers actually kept reporters and photographers in Ponyville on permanent assignments. Most were pretty nice when you met them, until a story came up. Then they were like timberwolves after wounded prey.

Colin, Harry was glad to see, had quickly caught on to how to work beside the Daily Prophet photographer without actually getting in his way. While waiting for the older wizard to set up his first shot, Harry walked over to Professor Karkaroff and Madame Maxime. “Colin, there,” he pointed to the boy, “is an excellent photographer and I’m sure he’d be more than happy to share the photographs he takes with your countries’ newspapers in exchange for a by-line and paying for his film. And you can provide all the relevant information to match those photographs, can’t you?” Both looked intrigued at the possibility. “And your home newspapers won’t have to depend on the dubious generosity and accuracy of an English newspaper.” They both nodded, and gave him evaluating looks.

Even Fleur and Victor looked interested. Perhaps they wanted photographs for friends or relatives in addition to ones for themselves?

Wait! That was a great idea, wasn’t it? Everyone at home would want to see pictures of his time here. Perhaps he should talk with the boy about the pictures he had already taken?

Finally, Skeeter had exhausted every possible combination of people in photographs and they were allowed to leave. And Harry was impressed that Colin had managed to match the Daily Prophet photographer shot for shot. He hadn’t imagined that the boy carried that much film with him!

Harry was surprised, again, when Weatherby followed the four students into the Great Hall for dinner. Which was where he learned that Percy Weatherby was actually Percy Weasley. Harry had a hard time keeping a straight face as Percy explained to his laughing brothers, “Mr. Crouch has a lot on his mind. He’s very busy and I’m only a new hire. Also, I’ve only been assigned to his department as a temporary.”

From his tone and how stiffly he stood, and the way his brothers rolled their eyes and made faces behind his back, Harry gathered that Percy had a rather inflated opinion of himself. And from side comments made under his breath by Ron, Harry understood that Percy was a bit of a stickler for the rules and authority.

If Harry had been interested in the tournament as an actual competition, he might have been gratified that Percy really would judge him on his performance. But he didn’t care, so it was a nonissue.

He spent the rest of the evening working his way through the charms text for the third time. The next week-and-a-half would be spent on practicing the spells. While he might know them from the reading, there was no way to gauge how much magic a spell took until you did it. And then it took many repetitions to fine-tune one’s control. Learning how to not summon a salt-shaker at supersonic speeds was as important as learning the summoning spell in the first place. He already knew the spells and their required movements, but it required practice to cast a spell. Just as it took practice to cast a spell with a horn.

۸-_-۸

Twilight paced around the blackboards and mirrors that cluttered the room. Sunburst, Starlight Glimmer, and Trixie watched wearily.

«While we’ve got the mirror-portal working,» she glanced up at one, «trying to locate just one universe out of them all is . . . time-consuming.» She glanced at her desk. Two old, worn trainers sat inside a chalked star. «Having his tennis-shoes helps narrow it down to only a million or so where such humans exist, but it takes both to provide enough of a signature. And his shirt will provide the confirming lock when we find the one he is in.» She looked at the t-shirt draped on one side a mirror.

She looked tiredly at the three others. The mirror suddenly shimmered, flashed red, then returned to being just a mirror. She sighed. «The mirror-magic has to settle for fifty-nine seconds between universes. We can link only one mirror to the trainers, doing two synchronizes them to the same destination. It will take three years, thirty-five days, twenty hours, and twenty minutes to exhaust all the possible universes . . . give or take a month.»

She looked at her three friends. «Have I left anything out?»

They shook their heads. Starlight frowned, «I just feel like we’re missing something . . . .» She shook her head and sighed tiredly. «Maybe it’ll come to me later.»

The alicorn sighed. «Then we’re done here. There’s nothing more to do but wait.» she said forlornly, sadly shaking her head. «I guess we should go to dinner.»

«No one is to enter,» she said to the guards as they exited. «If you hear an alarm and the mirror turns green, one of you tell Princess Celestia, immediately, if I’m not here.»

They solemnly nodded, and saluted, «Yes, ma’am, Princess Sparkle!»

There was a red flash visible through the open door as the four friends walked off.

۸-ꞈ-۸

Ch. 13 — News

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Ch. 13 — News

Rita Skeeter’s article appeared the next day. While it purported to be about the Triwizard Tournament, it turned out to be a highly-coloured fabrication about Harry’s life, starting with the headline, “What Happened to Harry Potter?” The almost-full-page moving image of Harry’s face made him cringe. The article, continued on pages two, six, and seven, and was accompanied by more pictures of Harry, some closely focused on his hooves, ears, and horn. And constantly repeated that he was now a unicorn horse.

The only saving grace, as far as he was concerned, was that he always appeared calm and collected, sometimes smiling and turning his head slightly. Occasionally, ears flicking and turning, he frowned slightly and looked at someone off-picture. And that whatever magical potions or spells the paper used in their photography duplication seemed to recognize and make allowances for his don’t-notice-me spell on his helmet. Oddly enough, unlike the real-life spell, the one in the paper refused even to let him see his helmet unless he concentrated real hard on not being distracted to other things in the newspaper.

The names of the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang champions, misspelled of course, had been squashed into the last line of the article, and Cedric hadn’t been mentioned at all.

Whatever publicity the Ministry had been hoping the Tournament coverage to generate for them was completely lost in the speculation of how and when Harry had been changed into a unicorn. And what had been happening to him since Halloween, 1981.

That a Gringotts heredity parchment had named him, despite his appearance, as the real Harry Potter could not be questioned. That it also declared him the adopted son, Prince Harry James Potter Sparkle, of an unknown Princess Twilight Sparkle was scandalous in the extreme! Loud were the in-article questions and denunciations as to how the Ministry could have allowed this travesty to happen to their hero and saviour — turned from a wizard into an animal!

Well, at least they weren’t calling him a monster and demanding he be incarcerated somewhere.

In addition, Rita seemed outraged that Harry was not representing Hogwarts in the tournament, that he was, instead, the Champion for the, again, unknown, Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns.

After breakfast, Harry spent an hour composing a rebuttal, not that he really thought the paper would print it. But, it was worth a try. After all, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Harry studied the finished letter carefully. It had taken several drafts, but he was pleased with the final edition. It was clean, the lettering was precise and legible, and there were no blemishes.

After using a duplication spell, he placed the original in his new trunk. He had managed to trade the other one in and purchased this one for only a few galleons more. That his original had been so recently purchased had also helped keep the new one reasonable in price. It featured an entire compartment for books and other storage, in addition to the two compartments his previous trunk had had.

He started off towards the owlery.

He hadn’t gone any farther than the Common Room when Luna jumped up from a chair and waved him over.

“Hello, Harry,” she said cordially. “I don’t know if you have heard, but my father publishes The Quibbler. I would like to interview you for a story in it about the Quadwizard Tournament. Would you be interested?”

He studied her for a moment, then duplicated his letter one more time. He hoofed the letter to her and said, “This should get you started. And Colin took a large number of pictures at the Wand Weighing yesterday. You might want to ask him for publishing copies in exchange for a by-line and paying him for the film he used. I’m sure that Headmaster Dumbledore, Professor Karkaroff, and Madame Maxime would be happy to give you details about the Tournament, as well.”

Her eyes lit up as she reverently took the parchment.

“As long as you don’t reveal anything I ask you to keep secret, I don’t see why we couldn’t have other interviews, later, too,” he said. He smiled at her. “Better get started on this one, first, though,” he said over his shoulder as he started to leave for the owlery, again.

She nodded, but was already engrossed in reading his statement.

۸-_-۸

Below his carefully drawn stylized-graphic of Equestria’s Ying/Yang Two-Sisters flag, it said:

To Editors of the Daily Prophet,

The scope of the errors in your article on Saturday about myself, Prince Harry James Potter Sparkle, are breath-taking to behold. So, let me provide you with a few facts.

First: I am a unicorn PONY, now, not a horse. There is a difference.

Second: according to a Gringotts heredity parchment, I am the legitimate son of Head of House James Potter and his wife Lily Potter (née Evans). It also confirmed that I am the legally adopted son of Princess Twilight Sparkle.

Third: I have lived the last five years in a place called Equestria. Equestria is in a different world/universe. How I got there when I was nine, no one knows. My adoptive mum went to great lengths, and expended considerable resources, in researching that and has never uncovered either how or why it happened. It just did.

Fourth: An unknown person, or persons, entered my name into the Goblet of Fire as an entrant into the Triwizard Tournament. They confunded the Goblet into choosing candidates from four schools instead of three. Their apparent reasoning was that by making me the only entrant from a fake school, I would have to be chosen as the champion for that fake school.

They obviously thought that when I did not show up for the First Task, that the Goblet’s magical contract would penalize me by removing my magic, and, thus, kill me. (I know from experience that it wouldn’t have, but that’s another story.) Or, they thought that the publicity generated by my being selected would force me to come out of hiding, and become vulnerable to their schemes.

Why would someone do this? Headmaster Dumbledore has concluded, and the other judges concur, that this unknown person, or persons, are probably followers of the dark wizard called Voldemort. He suggested that they did this in an attempt to get revenge for the “death” of their leader because they had no other way in which to reach me.

Instead of merely selecting me, the Goblet brought me here to Hogwarts to compete. Not exactly coming out of hiding, but still making me visible and vulnerable to them.

As a result, the Headmaster, and the other judges in the tournament concur, has concluded that there is a significant risk that I am still in danger of direct, or indirect, actions on the part of Voldemort’s followers to finish what they started.

Fifth: Some have suggested that I should be considered a Hogwarts Champion. Considering that the Goblet of Fire chose me to represent a fourth school, for any official, either in the Ministry or Hogwarts, to ignore that decision and place me under the Hogwarts banner is to be at risk of retaliation by the Goblet for ignoring its decision. Considering that the Goblet of Fire had the magical power to reach across to another universe to bring me to Hogwarts, the extent to which the Goblet of Fire might retaliate against someone who dared ignore it is not something most wizards would wish to contemplate, much less actually experience.

Sixth: Regardless of the name of the unknown fake school used in the Goblet to select me, I am a proud student of Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, and will compete as such. However, I have no intention of trying to win. I am at a severe disadvantage in magical knowledge and training compared to the other Champions, being three years behind them in age and schooling. I also know almost nothing about the magic practiced here as compared to Equestria. In view of that, I will participate only enough to satisfy the minimum requirements of the Goblet’s magical contract.

Seventh: Speculation as to my life after my parents’ died on October 31st, 1981, Halloween, and last Halloween when I was brought here by the Goblet, is just that, speculation. Only I and my relatives know what happened during the intervening years. Anyone who claims specific knowledge about any events in that period, except, perhaps, Headmaster Dumbledore, is probably lying.

And finally: There are many who regard me as a hero and saviour for “killing” Voldemort. The possibility of this being true is vanishingly small. It is far more likely that my parents, a full-grown wizard and witch, in desperation and with time to prepare, created a magic trap that caught the dark wizard. Only a simpleton would believe that a toddler of fifteen months, with no understanding of either magic or the events around him, could somehow beat a dark wizard with over fifty years’ experience in wielding powerful magic. Especially if his parents had already failed to overcome that same wizard.

In closing, I sincerely thank you for this opportunity to set the record straight.

Prince Harry James Potter Sparkle

۸- ̬ -۸

The weekend seemed to fly by. Jonathan and Liza, his Gryffindor tutors, didn’t seem to mind in the least devoting many hours on both days, each, to helping him practice. He had thought them generous during the week, helping him in the evenings, but this was over the top. As Jonathan grinningly said, “That Hayscartes’ spell you showed us has made revising really easy, and that has freed up more than enough time for us to help you.” He had looked at Harry slyly. “Besides, who knows what other spells you might be able to show us . . . .” And while both tutors knew the spells taught in Hogwarts quite well, their differences in approach made it interesting.

Surprisingly, Ginny, Luna, and Hermione had all volunteered to help, as well. That had helped him advance during the day, somewhat sporadically, as they could correct and help him when they had free periods. And in the evenings, Jonathan and Liza took turns as breaks in their own studies.

“Aren’t you worried that you’ll be ostracized for working against Cedric Diggory?” Harry asked the three lower year Gryffindors. “Jonathan and Liza can say they are helping because the Headmaster asked them. You three can’t.”

“It’s only fair,” Hermione explained with a huff. “How anyone could claim we’re against Cedric just because we’re helping you learn the basics of our magic is ludicrous! It would be like taking away Cedric’s wand and sending him into the tournament without it. He’d be completely helpless with the magic he knew being almost useless! And, unlike Cedric, you didn’t ask to do this.” Her eyes had narrowed and she stared off at one of the walls in their practice room. “It’s not as if they’ve been all that friendly to me anyway,” she muttered darkly.

It was only because of his exceptional pony hearing that he had heard her murmur “She’s a nightmare. Bossy know-it-all. Indeed.” She had a flinty look in her eyes.

Ah, yeah, a little bitter anger there, he could tell.

Ginny looked at her friend worriedly. Luna walked over to where Hermione had been blindly staring and had studied the wall carefully. Harry had wondered, abstractly, if she could see anything different, there.

Then she had turned back to him. “And it’s a wonderful opportunity to revise and make sure we remember all the material!” She had grinned. “And I’m sure Jonathan and Liza will have insights based on what they’ve learned since they were in those classes.” Plus, being able to switch off working with Harry meant they had plenty of time to do their own assignments and practicing.

In view of the upcoming tournament task, they had agreed that that they should concentrate only on how to cast the spells, and vary their potency. Theory and understanding could come later.

He wouldn’t be able to keep them all sorted, but he would at least have the basics under control and not unintentionally over- or under-power a spell.

Thus, with their constant tutoring, and taking breaks only for meals, he had managed to make it through the second year texts for charms, transfigurations, and Defence Against the Dark Arts. Naturally, sometimes a Charms spell would lead to a DADA spell or transfigurations. Sometimes the opposite occurred. There was a reason, after all, that the classes taught things in the order that they did.

He was so tired at the end of each day he could hardly put one hoof in front of the other as he went upstairs after practicing in the evenings. He was usually out cold by the time the others made their way out of the Common Room.

Before he knew it, it was after breakfast on Monday and everyone else was leaving for classes, while he had free time until lunch and Arithmancy.

Now that he wasn’t nearly comatose from exhaustion or concentrating on the spells, he had time to reflect about the weekend. He really had made a lot of progress. While he didn’t remember everything perfectly, he had a good handle on what he thought were the most important spells. He could save revising the lesser spells for later.

To celebrate his progress over the weekend, he decided, he would thank his tutors for all their time with a spell they didn’t know. And after seeing how often they had had to use the reparo and finite charms after each tutoring session, he knew the perfect one to teach them. The Fail-Safe spell for returning things back to normal, a combination of the finite and the reparo — an especially useful spell, he had learned, for whenever Discord happened to be around.

He spent the hours before lunch working on the third-year spells in DADA. Unlike the previous teachers of the class, Professor Lupin actually seemed to have been competent. Or, at least, so it appeared, based on Hermione’s rather detailed notes. He had been quite relieved that the Third Year DADA text had been focused almost exclusively on the different dangerous creatures in this world, and what would or wouldn’t work in dealing with them! As a result, there were only maybe a dozen spells for all that year. Meaning, that he could practice the spells he had learned in the morning that evening with the others since they had been in classes. And that meant he could start on Fourth Year spells. Given how close to the start of the school year it was, there weren’t that many spells to cover. He would be caught up with Hermione in class later in the week!

Thus, he spent the morning practicing the third year spells, finishing just before lunch and giving himself time for a quick scan through the fourth year DADA.

Hermione’s notes, when he read them early last week, had been quite startling. He never would have expected Professor Moody to introduce the three so-called Unforgiveable Curses on the very first day of class. Especially as they weren’t mentioned except as side-notes in the textbook.

Hidden in her notes was the implication that they were all three extremely sensitive to how much magical power you put into them. The professor’s comment, that Avada Kedavra was a curse that needed powerful magic behind it had been enlightening. That the entire class could cast it at him and he thought he wouldn’t get even a nosebleed had been more so. If your power was below a certain level, it would fail, but when you crossed that line, whatever it was, it was instantly fatal to the target.

Did that mean even an average wizard could kill a vastly more powerful wizard, regardless of their power differences? And that it could go through a shield no matter how powerful the one casting it?

No wonder it was considered an unforgiveable — the powerful wizards were terrified that even an average wizard could best them in a duel if they didn’t dodge fast enough! It made a colt or filly as dangerous as a fully trained and powerful Guard unicorn.

Neither her notes nor the textbooks said it, but based on their descriptions and what little was discussed on the mathematics of casting, each of the three’s casting power was almost on an exponential scale. Small amounts of results, despite massively increasing the power, until suddenly results shot almost straight up.

The imperius was by far the least harmful in intent, but most dreadful in its insidious implications. Like the Mad King Sombra and his helmets, you could not countermand your orders — only weep later at what you had done. On the other hoof, it had a plateau. You could train yourself to overcome, or even totally resist, that spell. All it took was determination and practice. And his mum would tell you, he had determination in spades.

He would learn that defence!

Fortunately, as he had read from her notes, he could ask Professor Moody for help achieving that.

Next was the cruciatus, the pain curse. Thank Celestia, no one in Equestria had created a spell like it! It could not be overcome, was the general consensus, if cast by someone of the required skill. It operated by causing every nerve in the body to signal injury, overwhelming the victim’s brain with paralyzing levels of phantom pain. Long enough exposure could cause permanent neurological damage, and even kill the victim.

Except, Harry knew, you can turn off the pain receptors in the brain with a simple spell.* The doctors in Equestria used it when they had to operate on a pony. The Guards were taught it as well, for it was better to fight on when grievously wounded then let the pain of your injuries impair your abilities and cause your or your companions’ deaths.

Did the wizards not know this? Didn’t they have an equivalent spell? If he could remember it, and translate it to the proper runes, he could permanently ink it somewhere on his body with a trigger rune-set for that spell. If someone were to cast the cruciatus, the runes would activate when it hit him, and it would look as if they had miscast spell when he didn’t react at all. And because you actively had to power the spell, the moment their attention broke, the spell stopped. Then the runes could slowly subside, and no one would be the wiser.

That was a remote possibility, though. He had only seen the spell once, in one of the books his mum had left out while researching something. He doubted he’d be able to remember it in full. But he’d still try, though. He might get lucky.

The last curse, avada kedavra, was like the other two, harmless, and then, POW! Unlike the pain curse, however, once you got to the right level, you could take out opponents who were much more powerful than yourself.

The imperius and cruciatus were power-level dependent. That is, if the person you were casting against was substantially stronger than you, neither would work!

But not the Killing Curse. Once you reached that power level, it was just as deadly to a person as it was to a mouse.

Fortunately, both the pain and killing curse required that you actively hate the target. Dislike wouldn’t do it. He sorta doubted there were many ponies in Equestria who could muster the sort of feeling those two required.

The other common feature of the three was that they merely had to touch you. Anywhere. A finger, an ear, anything that was a part of your body. Your clothing or armour would do nothing to protect you from them.

Of the three, only the imperius and cruciatus could be blocked by an adequate shield. The avada kedavra simply powered its way through magical shields, no matter how powerful. The same was true for physical shields, too, unless the item doing the shielding was extraordinarily strong.

The best strategy was simply to not be there when that spell arrived after being cast. The next best solution was to put something solid, like a steel plate, thick brick, marble, of even one of your enemies’ bodies between you and it. Oddly enough, for all three, if they missed their target there was an explosion! But if they hit a soft-body, the curse operated without creating any damage. Which was really weird.

Harry had the odd thought, after reading Hermione’s notes, that if the killing curse killed the spider, would summoning spiders from the area around you also work as protection and without property damage? Spiders, he knew, were almost everywhere.

Well, no matter. There was no way for him to practice those curses, not that he intended to.

After lunch and Arithmancy, Hermione helped him practice the spells he had tried that morning. Ginny and Luna showed up as well. Their DADA class had just let out, and they were more than happy to help out with the spells with him and Hermione. Nothing like getting a head start on the competition!

That took until dinner. Then Jonathan and Liza took over. It only took an hour to cover the third year spells, and then they started on the fourth year spells.

On Tuesday, he started third year charms, and Wednesday was Transfigurations. He planned to alternate those two until he was caught up on them, as well. Which he could easily do on this weekend without working himself into exhaustion, again.

Wednesday, at breakfast, the owl parliament arrived and an owl dropped a box to Luna. She squealed happily, dropped it on the floor behind Harry, and tapped it with her wand. It immediately grew to a much larger size. Harry saw, when she opened it, that it was packed with issues of TheQuibbler with a giant headline across two lines, “Triwizard Tournament becomes Quadwizard!” Underneath it were two smaller headlines, “Harry Potter Returns” and “Goblet of Fire Champions!” She gleefully handed one to him.

Unlike the Daily Prophet, The Quibbler’s approach was much more like a newspaper from Equestria, Harry was relieved to see. Under the Champions’ article headline was a line of photographs featuring the champions, with nice write-ups of each photograph. While Harry did get much more print than the others because of the article about how he had abruptly appeared in the Great Hall and what had happened after that, it was far more focused on the Tournament than the Daily Prophet. Actually, that wasn’t been that high a bar to overcome.

There were also at least a score of casual photographs of the four champions in various settings as the two articles continued on other pages, and articles on each school appeared. There was even one article about Krum’s Quidditch career. The conveyances used by the other two schools were also covered. And numerous quotes from students in all three schools, as well as the schools’ heads, were scattered throughout.

Easily, half of the entire newspaper was about the events at Hogwarts. And while the newspaper wasn’t as thick as the Daily Prophet, it still had far more facts and only a tiny bit of speculation. And the speculation articles were easy to spot.

Colin’s byline was on every photograph, and he beamed like a new proud and giddy parent as he perused his copy and showed it to his friends. Colin, it seemed, had a few business smarts of his own, as except for the pictures from the wand weighing ceremony, all the other champions’ photographs included several other students as well, with none repeated.

Interestingly, Luna Lovegood had the byline as the reporter on several of the articles.

Students quickly lined up to buy their own copies, especially as word spread about those students who appeared in any of the photos with the champions! It didn’t take Luna long to sell out, and she excitedly told the disappointed latecomers that she would have more that evening. All she had to do was make a floo call!

Oddly enough, while the taciturn Krum was usually seated at the Slytherin table, Colin had captured very few Slytherin students in the photographs with him. And none included Draco Malfoy or any of his friends. From the photographs, one might think that there were only three Houses at Hogwarts, and not four.

The Slytherin habit of maligning and avoiding association with muggle-borns had definitely not worked in their favour this time.

Harry had to laugh. Blueblood had him told it never hurts to be courteous to your enemies. Open hostility rarely played well in the press. And there were far more opportunities to turn things to your advantage with courtesy than rudeness. And here was a clear example. Just from looking casually through The Quibbler, the lack of Slytherin photos and quotes made it seem as if the Slytherins were churlishly shunning the world-famous Quidditch star. And anything else to do with the Tournament.

All because they continuously picked on Colin, the muggle-born photographer, and the unusual “loony” Luna.

Even as Luna sold out her father’s newspaper — she had suddenly become extremely business-like and no-nonsense — Harry noticed that two owls delivered a newspaper, each, to Headmistress Maxime and High Master Karkaroff. And that whatever the source, probably important newspapers from their own countries, both appeared quite pleased at the articles they were reading over their breakfasts.

He had to wonder, though, just when the third-year had managed to do all that writing? Or had her father done the writing from her notes? Still, that was an awful lot of writing to do in such a short time, especially as she had spent most of the weekend with him, practicing spells.

Friday, Hermione told him that Saturday was a Hogsmeade day, when third year and above students could visit the village. “Come on, Harry,” she said as they entered the Common Room after finishing the practices for the night. “It will do you good to get away from the castle for a bit.”

Both Ginny and Luna, who were behind them, readily agreed.

Considering that the first task was only four days away, he knew that he should probably take a break. Spike had told him all about Twilight’s frantic all-night studying before a test, and then taking the test bleary-eyed and exhausted. “If you’ve been studying all along, all you’ll need are refreshers the day before and you should be just fine,” he had told Harry. Which had worked for him very well at Celestia’s School in Canterlot. He had seen other ponies embark on binge-studying without a break, and not get as much of a boost out of it as they had hoped.

He would use Sunday to complete the studying for third year Charms and Transfigurations. And relax and look around Hogsmeade on Saturday and the castle on Monday.

It was a nice leisurely walk down the road to Hogsmeade, although at one point Harry had heard noises in the forest to the side of the castle.

Seeing where he was looking, Herione said, “Oh, the Ministry is building something for the first task over there.”

He nodded and turned back to the road.

“It’s the only all-wizarding village in Britain. Hogwarts: A History says that it was founded by the wizard Hengist of Woodcroft as he was fleeing persecution by Muggles. Students have been allowed to go there almost since it was established, but in 1714 they decided only third-years and above would be allowed. It’s got all sorts of shops in it, you know. My favourite is Tomes and Scrolls, the local bookshop, of course. Scrivenshaft’s Quill Shop has all types of quills and parchment should you run out. There’s Dogweed and Deathcap, an herbology shop if your kit’s running low. There’s Ceridwen’s Cauldrons, which sells cauldrons if you ever melt yours like Neville sometimes does, he gives them quite a bit of business, I hear. The Three Broomsticks Inn is wonderful for a meal or if you’re thirsty. And a lot of the witches like Gladrags Wizardwear, a clothing shop. They sell socks that scream when they get too smelly.”

Harry listened as she prattled on about what he would find once they arrived. Ginny, behind them, was hiding giggles behind her hands. Luna was just walking dreamily along beside her.

“Oh,” she pointed at a building set some distance from the village, and almost as far from the road they were following as the village, at the moment. “That’s the Shrieking Shack! It’s supposed to be the most haunted place in England.”

He looked at her, puzzled.

“Yeah,” she said, “I know, there are more ghosts at Hogwarts. But it’s said that there used to be the most horrible and terrifying noises coming from that shack. Sounds that could be easily heard in town. Someone told me it was haunted by a werewolf ghost who’s is looking for another victim to claim. Or else hunting for the one who bit him.”

Harry slowly nodded and made a mental note never to go there. And never tell the fillies about it either. They’d start making plans for a visit almost immediately. “Cutie Mark Crusaders Ghost Busters! YAY!” Never mind that they all had cutie marks already.

Soon enough he was gorging himself on large cream-filled chocolates as they exited Honeydukes. He had a big bag of other candies shrunken in his pocket.

He looked down the street to see Rita Skeeter and her photographer friend leave the Three Broomsticks pub. For a moment, he considered avoiding them by dodging back into the shop behind them, but then decided not to do that.

They almost didn’t notice him.

۸-_-۸

Author's Notes:

* Hospital doctors frequently employ chemical “nerve blocks” by injecting a sedative directly into a junction of nerves — including in the brain. Why can’t there be spells to do the same?

* There are almost 44 weeks between Sept. First and July Third. There are two weeks off for Xmas, a week for Spring Break, four weeks in June (preparation for exams, exams, waiting for the Hogwarts Express after the Leaving Feast), and other times that there were tests or other interruptions. Allowing that the first week of school is preparation, this means that there are no more than thirty-six spells taught each year for each of Charms, Transfigurations, and DADA. That’s a total of 108 spells. If you spend just fifteen minutes learning the movements for a spell, and proper casting techniques (he’s already memorized the words with the Hayscartes’ Method), it would take twenty-seven hours of non-stop work to process a year. That works out to thirteen and half hours each day for two days. With meal breaks, that means working from seven in the morning until ten at night.

However, Harry has been studying the books for two weeks, so he already knows the First Year’s simple spells, and some of the Second Year. So, it is possible for him to finish Second Year in a single weekend.

During the week that follows, he gets to practice on his own during the days, and can show his tutors what he can do in the evenings, drastically reducing that fifteen minute limit on mastering a spell. Still, having to practice on his own will eat up more time, total, so the times per spell while the others are in classes will easily exceed the fifteen minutes.

The pressure is off after the first task, and he can revise the spells he undoubtedly forgot, and advance at a much more relaxed pace in the thirteen weeks until the Second Task.

Ch. 14 — Here be Dragons!

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Ch. 14 — Here be Dragons!

The two had almost reached the students when Rita noticed just who those students leaving Honeydukes were. Her eyes widened and a predatory smile appeared.

Harry stepped forward to meet her. It was always better to start the conversation with a reporter, it helped establish who was in charge. And he had been preparing, as Blueblood had taught him, ever since he saw her leave the pub.

“Miss Skeeter,” he said happily, “What a pleasure!” He held out his hoof. “I hope things have been going well for you?” he said solicitously.

“Why, yes,” she replied. She held out her hand as if the shake his hoof, but he quickly turned his hoof under her hand and lifted it as he bent over slightly to “kiss” the back of her hand, as a proper gentlepony should do.

“You are here to cover the Tournament’s first task, are you not?” he said, straightening. “Oh, how remiss of me,” he continued quickly, as if suddenly remembering something, “Allow me to introduce my friends.” He waved the three girls closer, who complied with varying expressions of suspicion.

“This is Miss Ginny Weasley, this is Miss Luna Lovegood, and this is Miss Hermione Granger,” he said as he pointed to each of them. “They, along with Mr. Jonathan Spratt and Miss Liza Cherks, both prefects in Gryffindor House, have been helping me prepare and catch up with my peers in your wizarding magic,” he said gratefully, and smiled at the girls, who were now looking a bit embarrassed. “After working hard at cramming as much as they could into my poor head for the last two weeks, they decided I needed a rest from the studying. All work and no play, makes Jack a dull boy, right?”

He smiled wryly and leaned just a bit closer to Rita, as if confiding a secret, “And I must say, my brain feels quite woolly right now; it might start leaking out my ears at any moment if I don’t give it time to settle.” He straightened. “There are just so many spells to learn in so little time!” He shook his head sadly. “Just remembering their names is a chore, never mind what each does.” He pursed his lips. “And I have no way of knowing which will be useful and which will not.”

He glanced at the photographer, who was angling for another shot of the four, and then back at the reporter. The trick was, Blueblood had explained, “In an unscripted, surprise meeting, never give the reporter a chance to get a word in sideways. If they decide to be rude and interrupt, then that provides a perfect excuse to leave. If not, then you get to lead the interview on your terms, not theirs.”

“Well, I just thought I’d mention that I did enjoy your article about the tournament, although Mr. Krum and Ms. Delacour were quite put out that you misspelled both their and their schools’ names. Better luck next time, eh?” He gave her a wink and raised an eyebrow. “In any case, I shouldn’t keep you from your business any longer. I’m sure it’s much more important than I am. So, thank you very much for taking the time out of your valuable schedule to talk with me.” He chuckled and gave her a brilliant smile before turning to his companions.

“Well, ladies,” he said looking at them. “I think our next stop is Scrivenshaft’s Quill Shop, isn’t it? Lead the way!” He started off down the street at a brisk walk, the girls belatedly hurrying after him. He quickly cast his don’t-notice-me-field on them as they approached Zonko’s Joke Shop. “Get in Zonko’s,” he hissed.

He was lucky. They managed to reach the door and duck inside the joke shop just as Rita and her photographer started to catch up. “Harry,” she said loudly, in the street, “If I could speak to you for a moment?” She twisted and turned her head quickly, trying to see where they had disappeared to.

“Don’t move,” he ordered between barely moving lips as Rita looked in the open door and glanced around. Not seeing them immediately, she hurriedly left, heading farther down the street, towards Scrivenshaft’s, he imagined.

He was relieved to see that he had managed to elude her, and escape a “private” interview. Who knew how she would twist whatever he said? Luna was a lot better, by comparison. She got her facts right and didn’t try to quote things out of context just in the name of sensationalism and higher circulation numbers. If she wanted an interview, he wouldn’t say no.

He dismissed the spell and they got on with perusing the shop’s many offerings. He made sure to reapply the spell as they left the shop. He removed the spell as they entered the next shop on their list, after ascertaining that Rita was not in attendance. And repeated the process as they explored the village. He wasn’t sure the girl’s even realized what he was doing.

He couldn’t help but notice the big black dog that seemed to follow them stealthily. She, or maybe he, had shown up outside Zonko’s, and appeared outside every shop they visited. She looked well fed and cared for, with a happy enough expression, almost smiling as she watched them. Perhaps it was a stray and one of them reminded it of its owner? But it looked too . . . well-groomed . . . to be a stray.

It was some time later, almost noon, when they wandered into The Three Broomsticks.

It was packed with Hogwarts students enjoying the day away from the castle. Scattered through the room, though, were a variety of different magical people. Hogsmeade, being the only all-wizard village in Britain, must be a bit of a haven for creatures like hags, korrigans, clurichauns and the like, who were not as adept as wizards at disguising themselves.

Moving cautiously through the crowd, Harry headed for a table in one corner that seemed free. Hermione detoured to the bar for butterbeers — she insisted he would like the mildly alcoholic beverage. He hoped it wasn’t salty. Too much salt with alcohol would be . . . problematic.

Harry spotted Ron, who was sitting with George, Fred, and Lee Jordan. They exchanged nods as he continued to work his way inside. While there was a positive horde of Hogwarts students in attendance, there were not many he knew.

It wasn’t difficult to settle the three of them at the table he had spotted, with more than enough room for a fourth. Shortly after making it to the table, Hermione arrived, floating their butterbeer bottles in front of herself. Luna quickly appropriated the corks for her necklace. Or maybe she intended to make more, who knew for certain? She still ended up with the four corks.

Harry sighed as he sipped the sweet beverage. Good, no salt. He had quite enough in his diet without overdosing. He did not want to get like some of the ponies he had seen stumbling out of saloons in Appleloosa. Not on purpose, and definitely not by accident!

What he wouldn’t give to be home, right now, among friends and family, Instead he was stuck here. At least he had no problems with the Gryffindors, at the moment. Everyone was nice enough, a few were cold to him, but he expected that. Given how contentious humans were, he was rather surprised he hadn’t had more problems such as he had with that Draco Malfoy boy in Slytherin.

Of course, his dispute with them the previous week hadn’t won him any favours with their House. That they hadn’t started trying to hex him he attributed simply to not seeing them outside of Potions and meals, and him staying squirreled away in the Gryffindor Tower. Although, his standing in Gryffindor had gone up after that. The Hufflepuffs, Cedric Diggory’s House, were very aloof and tried to pretend he didn’t exist. Not a hard duty, considering they only saw him at meal times, since he had dropped Herbology. The Ravenclaws seemed to have adopted a similar attitude. Him discovering and revealing Luna’s bullying, and the House’s subsequent falling in points, hadn’t earned him any fans, either. The numerous detentions in their House also restricted their abilities to do mischief — Hagrid and Mr. Filch would have plenty of assistance until Christmas break, at the earliest.

The four of them sat and quietly nursed their drinks for a short while, then Harry treated them all to lunch. They were idly talking about where to go next when a deeply tanned, blonde-haired wizard with brilliant blue eyes came to their table. His robes looked both rugged and well-travelled. He looked down at the four of them, smiling, as they looked up curiously. Something about this man struck Harry as unusual, and he quickly brought up a shield matrix, but held back the casting.

“G’day, mates!” the man said cheerily. “Enjoying the day, are yous? A bit a’ tucker, eh?” He glanced at their nearly empty plates.

They nodded suspiciously.

“Well,” he rubbed his hands together enthusiastically, “I jest wanted to see if I’m a flaming galah for believing’ the furphy tha’ ya might be the famous Harry Potter.” He looked at Harry through narrowed eyes. “Ya dun look like him at all. Being furry and all, I mean. Never mind the horn and ears.”

Harry blinked. He didn’t detect any violence in the wizard, but who knew? “Prince Harry James Potter Sparkle, actually,” he said quietly. “That’s what a Gringotts heredity parchment said.”

“Gringotts, Eh?” He nodded his head decisively. “Can’t argue with them, can I?” He paused a moment staring intently at Harry. “Good on ya! Well, cheers,” he said, smiling. “Hooroo!” He started to turn to leave, then stopped and leaned close to Harry, instead. “A word to the wise,” he said in a low whisper out of the corner of his mouth. “Thar be dragons in the bush.”

Just as quickly, he stood and walked away.

Harry glanced at the girls, who stared at him and looked just as mystified as he felt. When he looked back into the main area of the pub, there was no sign of the man. He concentrated hard, but nothing out of the ordinary appeared in the room. The mysterious man hadn’t just cast a don’t-notice-me-field, or the wizarding notice-me-not version. He simply wasn’t in sight.

He looked at the girls. “I think we should be very careful, the rest of the day.”

They nodded their agreement.

The four spent the rest of the afternoon in Tomes and Scrolls and Spintwitches Sporting Needs before heading back to the castle. The black dog Harry had noticed no longer hung around the shops, but Harry did see it watching them from a distance, and always from a position of almost hiding. It even followed them back to the Hogwarts gates. And then watched them until they were out of sight.

Shortly after losing sight of the dog, Harry picked up a familiar scent. He stopped dead and just stood for a moment, sniffing the air, He knew that burnt smell. And it wasn’t just that of burnt wood. Considering the statement the man in Three Broomsticks had made, Harry was almost certain he knew what the next task would involve.

Based on his readings, the dragons here were not very smart, compared to the wizards. Or were they? The books also called werewolves monsters and beasts that couldn’t be trusted — and every werewolf was a wizard before he became a werewolf! And werewolves were only wolves once a month, the rest of the time they were just like every other wizard or witch. So, figure that one out!

Had anyone really tried to talk to the dragons, before? Or did they just assume the dragons were unreasoning monsters because they couldn’t speak English? That they were so solitary and reacted violently when they were disturbed probably didn’t help.

He would have to find out tonight.

“Is something wrong, Harry?” Hermione asked, breaking off her conversation with the other two.

“Harry has discovered something important, the wrackspurts are very happy,” Luna said dreamily.

The others glanced at her. “Well, yes, I think I know what the task will involve,” Harry finally said. “I’ll check it tonight.”

Later, around midnight, and once everyone was definitely asleep, Harry snuck out of bed and crept carefully up to the top of the Gryffindor Tower. He pushed open the hatch on the roof and climbed up the ladder to look out across the valley around Hogwarts. Standing on one of the highest towers, looking out past the crenulations, he could easily see the stadium they must have built for the first task. It was hidden from direct view of the castle by the woods, but only just barely.

That was not all he could see. Just where he had suspected, there was an encampment in the forest — much, much farther away and better hidden, but now visible — where he could see dragons. Not just from campfires of the dragons’ minders, but from the flames they, the dragons, occasionally let loose. Most, if not all, of the flames were directed at the ground. Very faintly he could shouting and roars, a human would never have heard them. They must have some sort of sound deadening magic at work to hide so much noise so close to the castle.

Moments later, he was winging his way down for a closer look. As he got closer, it was easier to make out the details. He landed in a nearby tree, perching precariously on a thick branch. And just watched for several minutes

Inside a fenced enclosure — thick planks of wood — were four fully-grown, enormous, vicious-looking dragons. They were not a happy bunch, not that Harry could blame them. They roared and reared, and snorted torrents of fire into the dark sky, fifty feet above the ground on their outstretched necks.

There was a silvery-blue dragon, with long, pointed horns, that snapped and snarled at the wizards trying to control it. The second was a green-scaled one, who writhed and stomped menacingly. The third was almost entirely red, with fine gold spikes in a fringe around its face. It shot mushroom-shaped fire clouds high into the air — those were what he had seen from the castle. The last was a gigantic black one, much more lizard-like than the others. It was closest to him.

Seven or eight wizards were trying control each dragon, at least thirty in all, probably more. The wizards pulled chains connected to heavy leather straps around the dragons’ necks and legs.

One wizard near the fence strained to control the chain he held on the black dragon. “Keep back, Hagrid!” he yelled. “I’ve seen this Horntail shoot fire forty feet or more!”

Apparently the two knew each other.

Harry watched, horrified, as the wizards, working together, brought down the four dragons and secured their chains to iron pegs driven deeply into the ground. He shuddered. Princess Ember would be absolutely furious! And Princesses Celestia and Luna wouldn’t be much calmer.

These wizards weren’t just stupid, they were criminally insane! Even the little voice in his head that scoffed at the stupid wizards whenever he saw an adult with a wand in hand was silent.

He listened as Hagrid and the wizard below discussed the dragons, and what the task might be. He thought the wizards must be quite mad. And seeing them bring eggs over to one of the dragons didn’t make things better. Nesting mother dragons. Even dragons walked carefully when in the presence of a female with eggs. Celestia! The best way to deal with a nesting mother was the same as dealing with an erupting volcano — be somewhere else!

And they had four, here, together? Crazy! They had to be all crazy. The moment one got upset, the others would react and follow suit.

Not long after Hagrid and Madame Maxime left, Harry wasn’t surprised to see Professor Karkaroff make a stealthy appearance. The only reason the heads of the schools could have for not knowing the task involved dragons ahead of time would be to keep them from warning their champions. And if they were here, snooping around, it wasn’t for idle curiosity. As Hermione had said, the tournament was renowned for its cheating. He continued to watch far into the night.

He waited until the wizards were mostly asleep, then glided over the fence to hover near the Chinese Fireball. From what he remembered from the Care of Magical Creatures text, that one was the smartest of the bunch and her kind would even cooperate with each other on occasion.

§Hey,§ he whispered, loud enough to attract her attention, he hoped.

Her eyes slowly crept open and she glared at him balefully.

§Can you understand me?§ he said.

She blinked in surprise, but still regarded him suspiciously. §How do you know the noble language of Dragons, two-legs?§ Her eyes narrowed even further. §You don’t smell like a two-legs!§

He leaned back slightly, more upright, while still hovering. §Er,§ he said hesitantly, §I’m not. I’m a unicorn.§ He frowned, §Language of dragons? I was speaking Ponyish.§ Or was he? Had he been hissing?

The dragon snorted and a puff of smoke shot out of her nose. This time there was a hint of amusement in her voice, §Ponyish? No, you were speaking Dragon.§ She studied him carefully, noting his wings, horn, furred face, and hooves poking out of his robe. §No unicorn has ever spoken Dragon. Or flown.§

He shook his head wonderingly, then landed on all fours and looked around nervously. §Look, I’m going to turn myself invisible so the two-legs don’t see me, okay?§ Not waiting for a response, he did so. Even though his robe was black, which made him difficult to see, he felt much better now that no one could see him blocking out the background if they happened to look this way. And standing still on the ground meant he wasn’t moving to give away the illusion.

§Do you know what’s going on? Why you’re here?§

§No,§ she said angrily, §I was in my cave-nest in the mountains. Then I felt sleepy and when I woke, I was here, in a forest.§ She snorted in frustration. §My eggs were missing.§ She looked to her side and wrapped her tail closer to over her eggs. §And I had these chains on me. When I started to struggle, to find my eggs, they knocked me out. I want to go home to my mountain,§ she said plaintively. She glanced at her chains. §But I can’t.§ She looked around the enclosure. §And out here in the open, my eggs are in danger.§ she said darkly. §I’ll have to stay awake all night!§ She turned her head back to him. §There are many despicable creatures that would try to sneak into my nest and eat my eggs if I fell asleep!§

She glared at where she heard his breathing and voice. §Do you know why I’m here?§ she said suspiciously, with a narrow-eyed accusatory expression.

§Uh, yeah,§ he said, nervously. §The two-legs have decided to have a contest. They want me and three two-legs to sneak by you. I don’t know if that’s all of you, or one at a time, or just one of you assigned to each of us.§ He glanced in the direction of her eggs. §And it has something to do with your eggs.§

She growled and smoke poured out. §My eggs!§ Her tail swept even closer to her body and eggs.

He nodded. §Yes. Or else they wouldn’t have selected a nesting dragon, would they?§

She nodded slowly, the chain on her neck clinking, a deep, angry rumble coming from inside her. She glanced at the dragons to one side of her.

He shifted uncertainly on his hooves.

§Look,§ he said cautiously. §I don’t know what they really intend, but everything I’ve read says that the two-legs consider your eggs very valuable. I don’t think they really want to hurt either you or them. So, maybe every time you wake, you should carefully check your eggs to make sure they haven’t been tampered with?§

§Why are you telling me this?§ she asked suspiciously.

§Like you,§ he explained, §I was brought here against my will.§ He scowled even though she couldn’t see him. §Unlike the other three contestants, I am being forced to take part. If I don’t, they will probably kill me. And while they are all considered adults, I am still a juvenile, they are all three years older than me.§ He looked up at the dragon. «Why wouldn’t I help a fellow prisoner?§

He paused. §And if you’re like the dragons at home, then it’s dragon-against-dragon in the mountains; and dragon-and-dragon against the ponies, if the ponies come into the mountains. And dragon-and-dragon-and-ponies against the world if anyone else interferes. And this is clearly dragon-and-dragon-and-pony against the two-legs!§

She humphed. §And what do you intend to do?§

§After warning you? As little as I can to satisfy their magical contract! I just want to get out of this alive.§

She stared at him, or at least, where she heard his voice, then chuckled bitterly. §Don’t we all.§

§Will you tell the others?§ he asked.

§Dragon-and-dragon against the two-legs, as you said,§ she replied softly.

§This coming daylight is Sunday. The following is Monday. The task is set for the day after that, Tuesday. I wish you luck. Please try not to kill me. Good-bye.§

He flapped his wings and headed back to the castle. Today wouldn’t be as bad, study-wise as he had feared. He only needed to concentrate on spells that were effective against dragons — a hair-thickening charm wouldn’t exactly do anything useful, now would it? And non-fatal spells, it wasn’t their fault that that had been dragged into this.

And study their weak spots.

۸-_-۸

Sunday morning was difficult, as he had only managed four hours sleep before being awoken for breakfast. Then he and his tutors had met.

“Dragons,” Harry explained. “We each have to get past a dragon. To do what, I don’t know.

Hermione had stared at him, slack-jawed in shock. In fact, they all did. Except Luna. She said, “Oh, dear, even the nargles avoid dragons.”

“The dragons I saw are a Chinese Fireball, Common Welsh Green, Hungarian Horntail, and a Swedish Short-Snout.”

“Blast, are you sure?” Jonathan said softly, incredulous.

“I heard a wizard named Charlie point them out and name them. Oh, and they’re nesting mother dragons with eggs.”

Hermione’s mouth snapped shut. “The Weasleys have an older brother named Charlie. He works at a dragon sanctuary in Romania.”

This was greeted with wide-eyed silence.

Hermione suddenly grabbed Ginny’s hand. “We’ll be right back,” and ran out of their practice room.

“Where’re you going,” called Liza as they disappeared out the door.

“Library,” came the faint answer as their steps grew fainter.

They looked at each other blankly. “I don’t know any spells that’ll do anything to a dragon, except annoy it,” Jonathan said, gobsmacked, as he looked at Liza. She just shook her head, numbly.

“The Chinese Fireball was really mad, too. She told me they had no idea what was going on, and just wanted to go home.”

The other three stared at him again, stunned.

“Get stuffed,” Jonathan said under his breath, disbelievingly.

“She told you?” Liza said, incredulously.

Luna watched with wide-eyed interest.

Harry shrugged. “I explained that they were supposed to be one of the challenges in the tournament, and it involves their eggs, for obvious reasons. There’s not much they can do, but at least they have warning, now.”

Jonathan and Liza just stared at him, speechless for several minutes, blinking and glancing at each other. Jonathan summoned a couple of chairs and they both collapsed in them.

“You can talk to dragons?” he finally said.

Harry looked at the other two curiously. “Well, yes. Can’t you? My big brother, Spike, back in Equestria, is a dragon.”

“Don’t you think Fantastic Creatures would have mentioned them speaking, if they could?”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right, just like the book mentions that werewolves are just normal wizards and witches who turn into dangerous creatures once a month, and are not horrible monsters that should be banished from society or immediately executed,” he said sarcastically.

Hermione’s notes had been very good, as were her conclusions on that subject.

There was an uncomfortable silence at that.

Abruptly Hermione and Ginny returned, their arms loaded with books. “Here’s everything we could find on dragons,” the bushy-haired girl said breathlessly, floating an enormous load of books on one desk while Ginny did the same to another. She looked around the room, blinking at the dead silence that greeted their return.

Harry sighed, walked over and grabbed a book at random. He set it on a desk, and cast the Hayscartes’ spell.

When he came back out, he was greeted by five desks with open books. He sighed, the book he had been inspecting — Men Who Love Dragons Too Much — hadn’t been useful at all. He had been able to scan the entire book in that one excursion — he had been reading for usefulness, not content or memorization. Still, he would need to relax for a few minutes to give his brain a rest.

He grabbed the next book, Dragon Breeding for Pleasure and Profit, and plunged in

By the time lunch rolled around, he also had read Dragon Species of Great Britain and Ireland, From Egg to Inferno: a Dragon-Keeper’s Guide, and four others, with no success. He now knew far more about dragon physiology, temperament, hygiene, and food preparation than he had ever wanted to learn. Unfortunately, the spells offered could be placed in only two piles: one pile were the small spells useful only for incidental things, like talon-clipping or treating skin surface issues, or spells that took tremendous amounts of power and several wizards and witches acting in conjunction, like the stunning spell he had seen demonstrated in the forest. There was nothing that a single pony, acting on their own, could manage to cast that simply wouldn’t annoy or infuriate the dragon.

On the bright side, even if he forgot ninety percent of what he had read, he would still be one of the foremost pony experts on dragons when he returned to Equestria.

“What do you mean, you can talk to dragons!?” Hermione hissed at him at lunch.

Harry shrugged. “I just can.”

She slammed her knife into the table and let go of it. She leaned close, staring intently into his eyes. “Every book we’ve read agrees, Dragons are not that smart! They only respond to simple commands. Like dogs,” she snarled.

She leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, dogs the size of a small house and can fly and breathe fire. But, still, no smarter than dogs.”

Harry shrugged again, but stared at the knife with its point buried deeply into the wood and its handle quivering slightly. “Sorry,” he said, not sorry at all. “But she did say we were speaking the noble language of dragons.” He shook his head bewilderedly. “I thought we were speaking Ponyish, but she said we weren’t, so I don’t know what to tell you. We did have a nice conversation, though. Well, by dragon standards, at least.”

Ginny was just as gobsmacked as the others had been. “Dragons have their own language,” she half-whispered, wonderingly. “Charlie is going to go spare when he hears that!” She turned and stared at Harry. “Do they understand English?”

Harry frowned, with his third sandwich suspended in front of him. “Ya know, I don’t know. Unless they magically learn it somehow, someone has to go out of their way to teach them, probably. Maybe a few words, though. Just like you know ‘bonjour’ means hello and ‘oui’ means yes; both French words but you know what they mean because you’ve heard them so often. Especially this year.” He glanced at Hermione. “So maybe that’s why the dragons only respond to a few words. Nopony’s tried to teach them more.”

Hermione, nodded, grimacing, while the others stared over at the blue-dressed Beauxbaton students. The blue-robed students looked back at them curiously.

They spent the rest of the afternoon and evening immersed in the remaining books.

۸-_-۸

Ch. 15 — The First Task

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Ch. 15 — The First Task

It was at breakfast, when he saw Cedric walk in, that the thought occurred to him, Has anyone told Cedric about the dragons? He had no doubt that the other school heads had warned their champions. Hermione had told him that the other two champions had been upset that she had checked out so many books on dragons. They had given her piercing and angry looks with every armload she had returned on Sunday. And almost broken into fights over the books when she left.

She had made no mention of seeing Cedric.

He sighed, and put down his omelette. “Be back in a moment,” he muttered as he got up and crossed over to the next table. The Hufflepuffs glared at him as he approached Diggory. He rolled his eyes at their antics. Like he cared what they thought.

Cedric turned to face him. “Hello, Harry,” he said neutrally.

“Could I speak to you in private, a moment?” Harry said. He nodded to the near corner of the hall, behind the Head Table. “It’s important,” he stressed.

The Hufflpuffs seated nearby all frowned and looked at him distastefully. Diggory studied him carefully, shrugged, and said, “Sure.” He got up and followed as Harry led the way.

The professors and students watched curiously as the two went to the closest corner of the hall.

Harry cast his mum’s silencing bubble around them. “The task involves dragons,” he said simply. “There are four dragons in the forest from the Romanian Dragon Sanctuary, I saw them early Sunday morning. So did Karkaroff and Maxine. I have no doubt that they’ve told Krum and Delacour. Has anyone told you?”

From the pale and shocked expression he saw, Harry thought not.

The soft, shaken, and barely breathed, “No . . . .” merely confirmed it.

“From what I overheard, we have to get past the dragons. For what reason, I don’t know.”

“You’re positive?” came the desperate plea.

Harry nodded.

Cedric just stood there, blinking. Finally, he focused back on Harry. “Why? Why are you telling me?”

Harry tilted his head, puzzled. “Because it wouldn’t be a fair contest, otherwise. Mr. Bagman said the first task is about daring and courage in the face of the unknown. Except, the other two champions know what the unknown is. When the task starts, the other two will have had plenty of time to prepare and you wouldn’t. That gives them a clear advantage.”

He shrugged. “Anyway, now you know.” He cancelled the bubble and headed back to his lunch.

The stunned wizard slowly returned to his place at the table and sat down, breakfast forgotten as he thought about his options.

As he headed back to his practice room, Professor Moody walked up beside him.

“Good morning, Professor,” Harry said politely.

Mad-Eye, as everyone called him, simply grunted.

Having the odd professor beside made the pony nervous and he quickly prepared both a shield matrix and a teleport, and held them at the ready. The shield matrix was in his wand, inside his sleeve, and the teleport at the base of his horn.

That was quite useful, actually. Maybe he should get a second wand?

The professor followed him into the room.

And immediately whispered, stupefy!

Harry spun to the left, his shield reflected the spell and made Moody hastily jump to the side.

Moody laughed delightedly at the barrage of stunning, banishing, and disarming spells that shot from Harry’s wand. “Constant Vigilance!” he shouted behind his shield.

“Okay, Sparkle, calm down,” he said as Harry jockeyed for a better angle at the door and escape.

Harry stopped casting, but kept his wand steady on the wizard.

“You can put that down now, Sparkle, no harm meant.”

Harry kept his wand pointed at the wizard. His mum had been fooled by that tactic, once.

Moody’s smile broadened, “Excellent, Sparkle, excellent.” He made a show of placing his wand in his holster and holding his arms and hands out from his sides, fingers spread wide.

Harry slowly lowered his wand.

“Good instincts, there. Never trust anyone while they’ve got a wand on you.” He nodded approvingly.

Harry put his wand away in his sleeve and waited, still on edge.

Moody looked around the pristine room, with tables and chairs neatly shrunken and stacked on a window sill. He nodded favourably.

Harry and his tutors always made sure any damage done was reversed. The only way you could tell the room had been used was that it was so clean and neat.

He studyied the colt carefully. “You found out about the dragons, haven’t you?” he said slowly.

Harry nodded cautiously. “I saw them Sunday morning, before daylight.”

“Good, good,” said Moody. He wandered around the room.

Harry moved closer to the door.

“Cheating’s a tradition in the Tri-wizard Tournament. Always has been,” Moody continued.

“I didn’t cheat,” said Harry sharply. “No professor or student told me about dragons being involved.” He watched the professor closely, especially his wand hand.

“Not accusing you, laddie.” He gave Harry a quick grin. “I told Dumbledore right from the start, it didn’t matter how honourable he likes to be,” he shook his head, “but Karkaroff and Maxime won’t be nearly so. They’ll tell their champions everything they can, as soon as they can. They want to win. They want to beat Dumbledore. It’d be quite a feather in their caps to brag at home how they beat the best Hogwarts has to offer, regardless of that old wizard. Oh, yes, they’d love to prove he’s only human.”

Moody laughed harshly. His magical eye spun so fast it made Harry feel uneasy to watch it. Harry refreshed his teleport matrix.

“Told Diggory, did you?”

“Him being the only one not to know seemed unfair.”

“Very decent thing to do,” Moody said.

They stood eyeing each other.

The conversation meandered a bit after that. The wizard wanted to know if Harry had developed a strategy for dealing with the dragons, yet. Harry had danced around the answer, not willing to reveal any details to someone he didn’t fully trust. It ended with Moody giving him vague advice that he should play to his strengths.

Well, duh!

Staying in the room after Mad Eye had left made him feel uncomfortable. He retreated to the Library and wandered through the stacks, reading the books’ names and seeing if anything struck him as maybe being useful.

Then it was time for lunch and Arithmancy.

Harry and his tutors spent the evening practicing the few spells that they thought might make it easier for Harry to manoeuvre around the Dragons, and distract them without actually hurting them or the eggs.

۸-_-۸

One of the things they discovered was that his mum’s don’t-notice-me-field and the wizarding disillusionment charm were almost, but not exactly, alike. They both acted on the subject, only. Whatever his mum’s version was cast on appeared to turn to glass — you could see through it. However, its drawback was that the edges of the field, your edges, could be noticed if someone was looking closely in that direction when you moved. And the closer someone was, the more noticeable it was. So, if someone were to casually look at you and you were standing still, they’d not notice anything. If you were walking, a casual look would still miss you. If they were staring as you moved, they might notice the edges where you were and were not. If you were running and they were looking for you? You became a lot easier to spot.

However, the wizarding notice-me-not charm, also called the bedazzling hex, fooled the mind of the observer. The fewer there were around it, the better it worked. Enough people watching, and they could clearly see you as the magic controlling their minds became too thinly spread to work effectively.

Harry spent the late evening inking both rune-sets into his armour. Then he linked them to another set of runes that optionally triggered them when he was wearing the armour. That had been Liza’s contribution. Now he didn’t have to cast the don’t-notice-me-field every morning on his helmet!

And because the armour would only really move against his fur when he ran or flew, most people would never notice it even when they were up close. Gluing several of the gems he had brought in his coin purse, for Spike on Nightmare Night, to the cardboard on his sides had provided a bit of additional power storage, especially when he added a charging rune-set to them. And it saved him from casting magic to power any of the spells on the armour.

The wizarding spell on the helmet had the additional effect that nobody noticed how it flattened his mane on the top of his head.

Now, no one would have forewarning that he was protected by armour. And if they didn’t know that, then no one would take it into account if they did target him. And the gems might provide just a tiny bit more staying power.

Which tied into what he had realized weeks ago, when he had first seriously sat down and thought about the Tournament. He had a serious problem with the Tournament’s magical contract, beyond the obvious, of course. Which mattered more, the wording or the intent?

The tasks, themselves, were merely part of the problem. It didn’t really matter what they were, playing chess or wrestling monsters. It all came down to how much of the task he had to do for it to count as a good effort by the Goblet’s magical contract. If he just appeared at the task with no intent to do anything, would the Goblet consider that just as if he had never shown up at all?

Did the Goblet contract work on the Champion’s actions or intent?

If actions were all important, then he could just show up, walk onto the field where the task was staged, cast a few innocuous spells, and just sit down. He had, by the letter of the contract, “shown up and attempted” the task.

That would be the absolute best outcome for Harry.

If it were the second, intent, though, doing the first would invoke a penalty. The second would require that he actually try to get past the dragon. He couldn’t simply go through the motions and pretend he was trying. He had to try, to the best of his abilities.

And if it was the first, then doing the second was a waste of time and effort. But the second had no penalties for him to worry about. Except for whatever the dragons did to him. Doing only the first had significant risks if it was the intent that mattered.

So, they all approached the problem from the point of view that whatever the tournament officials wanted him to do once he got past the dragons was something he needed to do.

۸-_-۸

Harry spent a listless night, and breakfast was a blur. The time before lunch seemed to crawl as he had to remind himself repeatedly not to practice casting the spells he planned to use. It wouldn’t do to go into the task already exhausted.

At lunch, Jonathan passed him a small bottle as he walked past. It turned out to be a dose of the Invigorating Potion. Which helped clear his mind. The Slytherins laughed and joked, loudly, and said they expected Harry to fail, miserably. The Hufflepuffs continued to ignore him, although Diggory gave him a nod and told those around him to shut up about Harry. The Ravenclaws sneered at him.

Victor Krum looked as morose as ever, and Fleur Delacour seemed not to notice anyone around her.

Harry concentrated on calming down his jumpy stomach. Too soon, Professor McGonagall came over and escorted him out of the hall. He hadn’t noticed, but it seemed the other Champions had already left without him noticing. He ignored her nervous nattering and concentrated on the plan.

Fleur drew the Welsh Green, Victor got the Chinese Fireball, Cedric, the Swedish Short-Snout, and Harry? Naturally he got the Hungarian Horntail. The most vicious of the four dragons. He wished he’d drawn the one he had talked to, the Chinese Fireball.

And all they had to do was retrieve a golden egg from the nest of dragon eggs.

Oh, lovely, thought Harry. Just the way to anger a mother, invade her nest of eggs!

Based on the colour of the other’s expressions, Harry thought all four of them were a little green contemplating what they had to do.

Cedric went first. From the screaming from the crowd, Harry knew he had arrived and was facing his dragon.

What happened next brought a big relieved smile to Harry’s face.

“What’s . . . what’s this? The dragon just rolled the golden egg out of her nest!” . . . “She’s sitting in front of her eggs” . . . “Mr. Diggory is taking his time” . . . “clever move!”

Interspaced, there was roaring from both the crowd and the dragon.

Then came a deafening roar from the crowd, Harry could only imagine that meant Cedric had gotten the egg.

Fleur’s experience was remarkably similar, only without the screaming, yelling, and roaring. The dragon tossed the egg out of her nest and, apparently, just curled around it and stared at her. Fifteen minutes later, the crowd roared with applause.

Victor entered the arena. Again, the dragon tossed out the golden egg as soon as she saw him. She rolled the golden egg as far as the limit of her chain, according to Bagman, and mashed it into the ground with a claw! She then retreated to her eggs.

Unlike the previous two trials, Victor’s was much more active, and started with the dragon crying out in agony. Harry had to hold himself steady, and resist the urge to race out of the tent to help the dragon. The shriek fell down to a roar and remained almost constant, with barely time for the dragon to draw a new breath.

While that was nerve-wracking, not knowing what was happening, and knowing the dragon was hurt, Harry had to focus on his own task. He quickly stripped off his robe and armour, piling both by the entrance.

Then he paced anxiously.

Finally, it all stopped. Either Krum had succeeded, given up, or there was a time limit.

Then came the whistle that signified it was Harry’s turn.

He took a deep breath. He checked his armour one last time, and then trotted out into the arena.

There were thousands of people watching. Not just the students, but hundreds and hundreds of others. They must have made a killing with the tickets, Harry thought in the back of his mind.

At the other end of the arena he saw the Hungarian Horntail. She crouched low over her eggs and glared at him.

While most of the audience had seen pictures of Harry, they were completely unprepared for how small the light-blue unicorn with black mane and tail was that cantered into view. The students, too, were surprised, they had expected him to be wearing his robe, like he had been since arriving at Hogwarts. A low murmur began to rise as the students informed the others just what they were seeing.

“Ah! Um. Ladies and Gentlemen, Harry Potter Sparkle,” Bagman said awkwardly.

Harry rolled his eyes, then summoned his armour with his wand. He stuck it back on his foreleg as his armour floated in from the Champions’ tent. He began putting on his armour as quickly as possible, making sure everything fit properly. He deliberately did not activate the camouflage spells. He wanted people to see the armour, then when they didn’t see him wearing it they wouldn’t realize he really was.

As soon as he had appeared, the dragon had huffed smoke out, then stepped off her nest and inspected her eggs. As he put on his armour, she lifted one egg between two claws, gold-coloured instead of the normal grey, and looked at it closely. She looked at Harry, who was almost done, and then carefully placed the egg back into her nest. She settled herself protectively over the gouge in the field that held the nest and watched Harry intently.

Waves of noise poured from the stands. Harry couldn’t hear what Bagman was saying over the thunderous beat of his heart.

Once he was suited, he again pulled out his wand. With one tap of the wand on his back, for show, he cast the wings spell, earning a gasp from the audience when he spread them wide and swept them down twice, lifting him slightly from the ground. The dragon shot a flame with billowing smoke to her left and swept it to her right, causing the crowd to break into screams and yells. Then she looked directly at Harry — and winked! The crowd, mostly distracted by the enormous flame and smoke, didn’t notice.

Harry stared at the dragon, then tapped himself several more times. They couldn’t tell, but he was casting silencing and scent hiding charms. He flapped his wings a few times, just enough to keep to a hover. Then he cast the wizard disillusionment charm on himself.

The entire process had taken less than a minute.

He lowered himself gently to the ground, and used a featherweight charm so he wouldn’t leave tracks. He started walking slowly and carefully towards the dragon. She stared at where he had been, then swung her head sideways and began shooting flames with clouds of smoke. She twisted and moved as if she were following an especially annoying bird flying in the air around her! She even twisted and shot flames behind herself, at times.

He didn’t know what the story was, here, but if he was lucky, the Horntail was merely playing a game. If not, then he hoped his armour’s spells and his shield spell would be enough. He kept his teleport matrix and shield matrix both solidly in place.

Every time her gaze passed over him, he froze in position, no matter how awkward. The third time it happened he began to suspect she was doing it on purpose. But she still shot flames in random directions, and acted as if she were tracking an airborne nuisance.

By the fifth time she looked directly at him, he knew that she knew exactly where he was. When he was only twenty feet away, she suddenly shot a giant blast of flame well over his head, to the screams of the audience. A moment later, a second blast in another direction, with more screams. It was clear she knew where he was, no one else did.

Just as he was about to take the egg, which she had placed at the very edge of the nest, she abruptly swung her muzzle down to her nest and nuzzled them, while scanning the air around her with her eyes. §Dragons and dragons and ponies against the world,§ she whispered.

He bowed. §Thank you,§ he said, §Dragons and dragons and ponies against the world!§ he rasped. He paused, then said, §How did you see me?§

She snorted a cloud of smoke behind him from her nostrils while apparently tracking something flying over by the stands. §Your body heat, silly. You forgot to hide your body’s heat.§ She growled and roared suddenly.

§Now, fly!§ she ordered. §And let them see you!§

She lifted her head and flamed to her far left, and swept it in an arc across the arena to her right, smoke billowing threateningly above the stands.

When a dragon gives you an order, you don’t hang around and ask questions.

Harry grabbed the egg and launched himself back across the field with his rear legs, wings pumping. He didn’t see it, but Hermione later told him that the dragon spun in a circle, flames and smoke blasting the entire way. She took a breath, looked down at her nest, then flamed almost from it to directly straight ahead, the smoke rapidly shotting across the field.

Harry was barely a yard above the ground, halfway across the arena, working more on speed than altitude. He felt a sudden blast of heat hit his hind-quarters. He cut the disillusionment charm and flapped harder. There was a golden section of wall and seating dead ahead, and he soared over it. The crowd in the seating ducked as he passed over them, close enough that he was sure he knocked a few hats off on the way. He circled around and landed at where he had put on his armour, panting and covered in sweat from the heat and frantic exertion. He could see a faint trail of smoke that had been pulled along behind him as he flew over the stands.

“Unbelievable!” Bagman yelled. “Did you see that!? Harry Potter, the youngest champion, gets to his egg in record time! Ten minutes — only ten minutes! I don’t think any champion, ever, has beaten the first task so handily! Well, this will shorten Mr. Potter’s odds!”

Hermione later told him his dramatic sudden appearance out of the billowing smoke with the dragon’s flames literally right on his tail was the most thrilling, and scariest, thing she had ever seen. As far as everyone was concerned they had watched an electrifying aerial chase that culminated in a last moment escape from a sudden flaming death.

Now that he was again back on the ground, he flashily used his wand to dismiss his wings, scent-hiding, and silencing spells. He stood back up on his back hooves, and summoned his robe. He floated the egg as he slipped his robe over his head.

Several people hurried towards him. Professor McGonagall reached him, first. “Wonderful, Mr. Sparkle! Wonderful!” Hard on her heels was Professor Moody, whose magic eye was practically dancing in its socket. He said nothing, but his smile and nod said it all. Professor Flitwick was grinning widely, and nodded approvingly.

Professor McGonagall looked him up and down, then said, “Right then, Sparkle, you look fine, but if I don’t take you to see Madam Pomfrey there will be words.”

Madam Pomfrey stood at the mouth of a tent beside the Champions’ tent, looking worried.

“Dragons!” she exclaimed, pulling Harry inside. The medical tent was divided into four cubicles. She guided him into one and started waving her wand casting diagnostic spells, talking furiously all the while. “Dementors last year, dragons this year, what’s next? Acromantulas? Nundus?”

He heard a moan from the cubicle across from his. Madam Pomfrey worriedly looked over that way.

“You seem completely fine, you can go get your score,” she said briskly. She hurried to the cubicle across from his, “How does it feel now, Mr. Krum?” Harry heard her say,

Before he could move, though, the tent flap burst open and two people hurried in, Hermione and Luna. “That was brill!” the bushy-haired girl exclaimed, hopping up and down.

Harry found himself blushing. Hermione stopped and stared at him a moment, then she continued, ticking the champions off on her fingers.

“Fleur danced her dragon to sleep, Cedric used transfiguration to distract his dragon, Victor used a blinding curse . . . ,”

Harry stiffened and glared across the narrow corridor separating his cubicle from the Bulgarian’s.

“But it’s temporary,” she hastily added. Then grinned nastily. “The dragon got her revenge, though, nearly roasted him until he gave up.” She snickered. “With the egg well out of her nest, she just sat there and blew flames over the golden egg, never gave him a chance to get close to it. And with her directly over her own eggs, he couldn’t use those for leverage. With her eyes swelled closed, there was nothing he could do to her.”

“But you, you clever little unicorn, dazzled everyone, flew right under your dragon’s nose, and picked up the egg.” She laughed. “And the disillusionment spell on top of the wings spell wowed everyone!”

Luna just smiled and nodded. “You certainly showed the weetimorousbeasties what a unicorn can do,” she said quietly.

“Hmm, yes,” said Hermione. She was even more proud of his success than he was! “You were definitely the best, Harry! Fleur got points taken off because the dragon snored a bit of flame just as she was picking up her egg and set her robes on fire. She put it out, of course, with what I imagine was the aguamenti charm. Cedric transformed a rock into a dog, but when he got to his egg the dragon decided he would make a better meal and set fire to his robes and chased him a short distance. He almost didn’t make it. And I told you what Krum did.”

She bounced and twirled in place a couple of times. Then lunged forward and hugged him. Luna quickly followed.

It felt good to be in the centre of a hug, again.

Hermione suddenly stepped back. “Well, we should see how things are scored!” She grabbed Harry’s left forehoof and started dragging him out of the tent. Luna held his right foreleg, above the golden egg he still held in the crook of his leg, and followed quickly.

The judges’ seats, there were six, were at this end of the arena, he now saw. The seats they were sitting in were draped in gold cloth with a gold background. He had flown right over them as the dragon’s flames and smoke chased him. It must have been shocking to see him suddenly appear out of the flames directly in front of them!

Then Bagman announced the scoring. Madame Maxine went first, with an nine; Mr. Crouch scored a nine; Headmaster Dumbledore, Mr. Bagman, and Mr. Weasley, Percy, that is, all gave him a ten, and last, Karkaroff, after a long pause, gave him a four, to much derision from the crowd. Harry had earned fifty-two points.

Hermione stared at the Bulgarian, outraged, with hands on her hips. “Krum was hurt, he didn’t get his egg, and Karkaroff gave him a six!” She huffed angrily and crossed her arms. “Blatant favouritism!”

“The Umgubular Slashkilters truly love the man,” Luna said. She looked at Harry happily. “Still, Harry has first place,” she added smugly.

Harry shrugged and bumped her shoulder with his. “Doesn’t matter. All I wanted was to survive. And I did.” He glanced back at where the Horntail had been. He wondered how he could possibly thank the four dragons. He didn’t have any gems that would be worthwhile. Nor treasure. Maybe a delicacy? But what? He would ask Ginny to ask her brother Charlie. He might have some ideas.

On the other hoof, he did know Rarity’s gem-finding spell, and its gold variant. Maybe if he combined those with a summoning teleport?

The crowd was starting to leave. The students streamed towards the school and the others towards Hogsmeade. Harry and the two girls started back, Luna skipping merrily.

A wizard ran up just as Harry and the two witches were partway to the Hogwarts’ lawns. Harry recognized him as the wizard who had talked with Hagrid, Charlie Weasley. “Harry! Just a minute! Bagman wants a word, back in the champions’ tent.” They reversed their direction. “Good show, Harry!” the red-headed wizard said. “You’re in the lead!” He slapped Harry gently on the back. “Well, I’d like to stay and talk, but I’ve got to run. We need to get ready to transport the dragons back home later tonight!” He headed off towards the dragon enclosure.

The other three champions were already in the tent when Harry and the girls arrived. One look inside showed that it was only the champions, so the girls decided to wait outside.

Krum looked awful. He had no hair and his entire head and neck were covered in an orange paste. Looking closer, Harry could see even his hands and arms were orange with the burn cream. Cedric looked better, with only part of his face covered in paste and half his hair gone. Fleur was the easily the least wounded, with only part of her robe singed. Just from their appearances, Harry could guess that the ranking were Fleur, Cedric, and then Victor.

“Well done!” said Ludo Bagman as he bounded into the tent, “All of you!” He looked as pleased as if he had just gotten past a dragon instead of merely watching. “The good news is that you’ve got a nice long break to prepare — the second task is at half past nine on the morning of February the twenty-fourth!” He sighed dramatically. “The bad news is . . . we’re not going to tell you what it is!” He grinned and looked for their reactions. They just stared back at him. “Yes, right then.” He coughed nervously. “Those golden eggs you’re holding, well three of you are holding — sorry, Mr. Krum — see the hinges? The eggs open! There’s a clue inside the egg, solve it to find out what the second task is and what you need to do to prepare for it!” He looked at their blank expressions. “Right, then. That’s it! Off you go!” He grinned widely at them, then he bounded out of the tent.

They were halfway back to the castle when Ginny hurried up to them. “Hey! Harry! That. Was. ACE!” She jumped up in the air with one arm raised.

Harry looked down, blushing.

Hermione glanced at him and stopped. “Okay,” she said in a no-nonsense tone. “Honestly. How can you possibly blush through all that fur?”

Ginny was staring, too. Luna didn’t seem perturbed at all.

Harry blushed deeper and shrugged. “Magic?” he offered weakly.

The girls just stared at him, then slowly started back to the castle.

“I told my brother Charlie that you could talk with dragons. He wants to meet you at dinner. Do you mind?” Ginny turned to walk backwards, searching his face.

Harry shrugged, again. “Sure, why not?” He looked around. There weren’t any students close. He was still a bit of a pariah to everyone not in Gryffindor. And most of the Gryffindors were still unsure what to make of him. The wings and Hayscartes’ Method spells had made a few inroads at making people friendlier.

Luna just smiled and skipped a circle around them. “Come on,” she said, let’s see if the house-elves will let us have some pudding to celebrate!”

The house-elves were more than willing to let them have pudding. And anything else they wanted to eat or drink.

۸- ̬ -۸

Ch. 16 — The Owl Parliament

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Ch. 16 — The Owl Parliament

“There are house-elves here?” Hermione said, staring, horror-struck at the bustling crowd preparing dinner. “Here at Hogwarts?” She was appalled to discover that unpaid house-elves were kept in the castle.

Luna turned from watching the house-elves and looked at her curiously. “The largest number in Britain, my dad told me. Over a hundred.” She looked back into the kitchen. “Only the rich families can afford one, he said. Ours sold ours ages ago.” She turned back and took a bite of her pudding.

“I’ve never seen one!” said Hermione.

“Well, they’re too busy cooking by day,” said Luna. “And like the crumple-horned-snorkrack, you’re not supposed to see them. They’re good at hiding.” She narrowed her eyes, thinking. “I bet they’re really good at hide-and-go-seek.” She had forgotten both her pudding and her pumpkin juice.

Ginny nodded. “I bet they only come out late at night when no one is awake. Do a bit of cleaning . . . see to the fires . . . get the laundry. That’s the mark of a good house-elf, isn’t it, that you don’t know it’s there?”

Luna innocently twirled a bit of her hair between her fingers, staring at the house-elves. I bet she’s planning on talking them into a hide-and-go-seek game, Harry thought. He poked her cheek with a spoonful of pudding. When she turned and opened her mouth to say something, he stuffed the spoon in it. She closed her mouth and grinned at him. He released his magic.

“But they get paid, don’t they?” she said. “They get holidays off, right? And sick leave, they get sick leave, don’t they? And pensions? And everything else?”

Ginny looked at her. “Have you lost the plot? House-elves live for work, they don’t want sick leave or pay. And holidays? Days they couldn’t work? They’d call that punishment!”

Hermione flung her spoon down. Ginny shook her head. “An’ you won’t get them any of those by starving.”

She glared down at the food on their table in one corner of the kitchen. “It’s slavery,” Hermione said, and breathed heavily through her nose. “That’s what this is . . . slavery. Pure, unadulterated, slavery.” She crossed her arms and stared angrily into the kitchen at the house-elves happily scurrying around everywhere.

Actually, she had a very good point. Harry had thought of Bit as a servant. What if he wasn’t? He couldn’t imagine that wizarding Britain used slavery, but then again they did a lot of things he knew would horrify the non-magicals if they ever found out about them — obliviation was just the first of many crimes, they would say. Only one way to find out.

Harry sighed. “Bit!” he said. Almost immediately, a familiar house-elf appeared.

“Bit’s here, sir” the elf proudly proclaimed.

“Bit, are house-elves slaves?”

Bit looked insulted, and drew himself up straight. The house-elves nearby also looked affronted. “Elvesies are family, sir!” he stated emphatically and proudly. “Hogwarts takes care of elvesies and elvesies take care of Hogwarts!”

Well. That was a non-answer. And Hermione seemed to agree. Okay, this required a different tack, then. He thought a moment.

“Are there any restrictions on when and where Hogwarts elves sleep?”

Bit shrugged. “Elvesies sleep where students can’t see us sir,” he said, curious at the question.

Well, while that was true for any servant, it implied they didn’t have a set place they had to use, like assigned bedrooms.

“Are there any restrictions on where you can go? What you eat? What you drink? How much you eat and drink? When you can take breaks?”

Bit shook his head, no, at each rapid-fire question, ending with, “No, Princey, sir.”

The others glanced over at him. Ginny mouthed, Princey? with an incredulous look at Luna, who was hiding a laugh behind her hand.

Harry ignored that. “If you wanted, could you take a nap, right now?”

Bit looked scandalized. “But, I has work!” He waved at the rest of the room.

“But, if you wanted to, no one could stop you, right?” Harry persisted.

Reluctantly, Bit said, “Yeeessss.” He looked miserable at the confession.

“In fact, you could take the entire day off and not work if you wanted, right?”

The house-elf shuddered and looked revolted at the concept. “Bit is a good elf, sir! Bit works when there’s work, sir! Bit not lazy, useless elvesie, sir.”

“But you could, if you wanted, without punishment, right?”

Harry watched him closely.

The house-elf shuddered and adopted a distasteful expression, “Only bad’s elvesies does that when there’s work, sir!”

Harry nodded and turned to Hermione. “So. Hermione. House-elves are not charged for rooms, they pick where they want to sleep, they aren’t charged for food, they can eat and drink as much as they like, they can work when they want, and not work when they want.” He paused. “Slaves would love to have that much freedom.” He studied her stubborn expression for a bit.

“According to the finance books I’ve read, a business is allowed to exchange room and board for wages. And servants are limited on the food they can eat, when they can take breaks, and their accommodations are assigned. They can’t chose what work they want to do.”

“Sick leave?” she challenged him.

That was a fair point. He looked at Bit and raised an eyebrow.

Bit pulled on his ear, but said to Hermione, “Any sicks elvesies goes to Pommy, miss. And she won’ts let them work until theys well, she says, miss.” He pulled harder on his ear.

“Free medical, with time off until they are certified well,” Harry said to Hermione.

“Pensions?” She was starting to whine.

Another look at Bit.

Bit looked back, puzzled. “What’s a penshun, sir?”

“When you are too old to work, you’re given room and board and no one can tell you to work.”

Bit staggered back, “Not work?” he said in a horrified voice. “Would have too? Not work, sir?” he asked plaintively. “We die without work — penshuns are for bad elvesies, sir?

Harry looked at Hermione. “I would say pensions are not an issue.”

He turned back to Bit. “What do you mean you would die without work?”

“Oh, elvesies must have a family and work, sir, or theys loses their magic. And dies.” Bit was pulling hard on both ears. All the elves that had been close had retreated away with frightened looks.

Harry studied him closely. “So, in short,” he said slowly. “You trade your services in household work for wizards in order to get the magic you need to survive?”

Bit started nodding quickly.

“And if a wizard family fires a house-elf, they gradually lose their magic. If they don’t start working for another family, they die?”

Wow. That was . . . extreme. And it did add in an opening for coercion. If someone can’t survive when they leave, they’ll take an inordinate amount of abuse just to stay alive.

Bit kept nodding.

Harry looked back at Hermione. “They trade labour for room, board, and their very lives.” He raised an eyebrow. “Sounds pretty equitable to me.”

She looked back at him, then down at the food on the table. “They should be paid, so they can get things for themselves,” she said sullenly. She looked back up at him. “And they are treated horribly by wizards!”

Harry nodded. “That may be true. But maybe you should talk with the house-elves before you make any unilateral decisions about what they want and don’t want. Sounds like the elves are being treated the way people lived in the Middle Ages. Servants in a castle traded their services for room and board.” He blinked. “Were they slaves?”

“Pay?” She definitely was whining, now.

Harry turned back to the house-elf. “Bit, if I gave you a sickle for you to spend on anything you wanted, what would you spend it on?”

Bit stared at him blankly. “A sickle, sir? For me, sir?” He blinked several times, then shrugged. “Why would you give me a sickle, sir? What would I do with a sickle, sir?” He clearly didn’t understand.

“Buy things for yourself? Things you want?” Hermione pleaded.

Bit looked around, bemused, “But, everything Bit wants is here.”

Harry looked at Hermione.

“Fine,” she said grudgingly, and started picking at her pudding with her spoon.

“Hermione,” he said lightly. “Now that the task is over, I can relax and work slower. Take some time, yourself, and talk with the elves, find out what they want. They might surprise you. Then you can figure out what you need to do for them. Forcing them to accept your ideas of what’s best for them brings you down to the level of the ones you say are abusing them.”

She huffed, but didn’t say anything more. Bit went back to whatever he had been doing. The kitchen quickly started bustling just as before.

But it was a puzzle. The house-elves could be dreadfully abused, tied as they were to a specific family. It was worse than slavery, in fact, for even slaves could run away if the abuse became more than they could bear. The house-elves could not. He could tell that this was a problem that would vex even Celestia.

The four really weren’t that hungry when dinner came around, but they went upstairs anyway. Harry had, after all, agreed to meet with Ginny’s brother, Charlie.

Oddly enough, most of the Gryffindor students ate very quickly and left, after a few congratulatory remarks to Harry.

“Probably having a party now that the first task is over,” Hermione explained on seeing his puzzled expression at how quickly he and his friends were left alone. Even his dorm-room mates left rather quickly.

Charlie arrived soon after dinner started. He was astounded, after proper introductions, when Harry told him that, “Yes, I can talk to dragons. The Chinese Fireball was quite upset that you moved her eggs and her to a forest. No protection at all for her eggs, she said. Said she’d have to stay up all night guarding the eggs from small animals that would try to sneak into the nest and eat the eggs.”

“Ah,” said Charlie. “Well, that explains why they all were so restless all the time, even at night. We didn’t think anything would try to sneak past the dragons, so we didn’t put any spells on the nest to keep pests away. Bigger predators, yes, but not small ones.” He nodded with a wry expression. “Not a bad idea, actually, casting a spell to repel pests from the dragons’ nests.” He nodded again.

“Well, we’ve already fed the dragons a Sleeping Draft, and we’ll be leaving as soon as it gets dark enough to hide us from the muggles, so we can’t test your language skills right now.” He sighed and stared at his plate for a moment.

“Look,” Charlie said, “I’ll see if I can get a port-key authorized at Christmas. If I can, would you please come? And we’ll see just how much they really understand. Maybe you can even teach us a few words?”

Harry shrugged. “Sure. I won’t have anything else to do.”

“So, why do you think the dragon could see through your disillusionment charm?”

He shrugged, “Her magic is just so much more powerful than mine that the spell just didn’t work very well,” he explained, reasonably. He couldn’t very well say that the dragon had told him she was tracking him by his body heat without giving away the fact that the dragon had actually been helping him.

They talked a bit more about the dragons before Harry and his friends headed back to Gryffindor Tower while Charlie re-joined the Sanctuary workers.

When they finally returned to the Common Room after dinner in the kitchen, they discovered a party in full swing. Apparently, after Harry’s performance in the task, the Gryffindors, led by the Weasley twins, had decided to “adopt” Harry as their entry into the tournament. Dean had shown off his talents at drawing by creating banners, one of which stretched wide across the far wall. It proclaimed, “Welcome to Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns” and included an all-fours pony Harry at one end and a two-legged, robed, pony Harry at the other. The other banners depicted him out-flying the flames behind him, Fleur running with her robes on fire, Cedric with his head on fire, and Victor entirely on fire!

And when he entered the common room, it burst into applause and yelling. Every level surface, and a few that weren’t, was covered with food and drink. Punch, pumpkin juice, butterbeer, and even an occasional shot of fire-whiskey had made an appearance. And the wings spell was in full use, with dozens of students flitting about overhead. It was almost like being at one of Pinkie’s parties.

Having just eaten, the four weren’t hungry, but enjoyed the party nonetheless. The canary creams were a surprise, and Harry wondered what other animal forms they could embed in the candies.

The golden egg was a bit of a disappointment, the noise hurt his ears terribly. Harry considered giving it to Victor, but was unsure if the wizard would be appreciative or insulted.

۸-_-۸

Wednesday’s Daily Prophet had extensive coverage of the first task, with several pictures of the champions: One each of Fleur, Cedric, and Victor on fire. Cedric came out of the article as being brave and talented, the other two received only criticism for their “lacklustre” performances. Harry was singled out for special coverage, with a front page picture, above the fold, of him appearing in mid-air with the dragon’s flame closing in on him and then him barely escaping its reach. Inside was a picture of him putting on his armour, with speculation on if the armour was magical. There were several articles inside, all speculation, again on where Harry had been, why he was still a unicorn, if being a unicorn gave him special powers, and so forth.

He examined the newspaper over breakfast — he had a subscription, as Blueblood had taught him always to keep an eye on the press. On average, he decided, it was about the best he could hope for from that particular source. He expected Luna’s coverage of the event to be a bit more interesting.

The Quibbler promised a special Friday edition on the Tournament with a full account of what had happened, and then gave a decent summary with several nice pictures. Colin was doing well for himself, it seemed.

Flitwick asked Harry in the Wednesday morning Charms class to demonstrate and explain the spells he had used, and why. That the dragon had been able to track him regardless of the disillusionment, silencing, and de-scenting spells was a surprise to everyone. Then Flitwick asked if he would be willing to talk to the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh year classes in a special combined class Wednesday evening. He couldn’t see a reason not to, so he agreed. Harry suggested to the professor that maybe he should ask Fleur, Cedric, and Victor to do the same, and ask them what they would have done differently, now that it was over.

When Professor Moody heard about the class, he quickly added the other three years. “It’ll be a good experience to see the thought that goes into an action plan, as well as see the real-live consequences when things don’t go according to plan. And they never do.”

The “class” began almost immediately after dinner — why wait? Everyone was already there! Those who had been absent for one reason or another were sent after. Even Trelawney and Pince made an appearance. Harry saw the school janitor, Mr. Filch, in the very back of the room.

It was very odd, being at the front of the room, sitting behind that enormously wide table. Fortunately, Harry had been with his mum several times when she had to attend speeches and such, so really large crowds weren’t too much of an issue. Only, this time they were listening to him! That was nerve wracking.

Flitwick and Moody acted as moderators and alternated asking questions.

Being the one with the most points, Harry went first. This time, he explained up front that he wore the armour because what idiot wouldn’t wear armour if they could when facing a dragon?

Moody had obviously been very pleased with his reasoning.

Further, he explained, in his research he had found that most of the previous tournaments had had the champions sneaking by or evading a dangerous monster. A few had even had them subduing a monster. So, he, his two tutors, and a few others, others had developed different strategies based on what he might have to do. And that everything they had planned played to what they considered his best talents and skills.

And flying had been a big part in all of them. After all he could move and dodge much quicker in the air than on the ground. And any creature he would have to face had to be ground-bound, for the most part, or it would simply flee from so many wizards and witches.

Anything that wouldn’t flee so many magic users gathered together would be so stupid it would be easy to outwit, or too dangerous to be brought anywhere near such a large crowd.

When the task was explained in the tent that morning, all he needed to do was adapt one of the strategies they had come up with.

He also explained his rationale for actually going after the golden egg instead of simply making a few feints and then giving up. “So,” he concluded, “I really don’t think I had that much of a choice. But my main goal was simply surviving.”

Fleur’s summation was about the same, with the addition that she should have either moved quicker or cast a flame-proofing spell on her robe. And used a disillusionment spell after the dragon fell asleep.

Which was pretty much the same thing that Cedric said — move faster, make his clothes flame-proof, and use a disillusionment spell.

Victor’s statement was simple and short. “Not use conjunctivitus.” And that was all he had to say. Considering that he and Cedric were both still slathered in orange skin-burn crème, that was really all he needed to say.

Then came the audience’s turn. Someone had asked about his having help in violation of the rules. To which he answered, “The rules say that none of the schools’ professors can help their champion with any of the tasks in the tournament. That the champions would begin the first task only with their wands. Students are not professors, so they can help all they want. And while Prefects can maintain order, they, also, are not professors paid by the school.” He blinked. “So, not a problem.” He shifted in his chair. “And I went one further than the other champions. When I entered the arena I had nothing else other than my wand — not even clothes.” He smirked. “And summoning things from out of the arena after a champion enters it was a tactic often employed in previous tournaments.”

The questions continued for another hour before the class was dismissed.

۸-_-۸

Thursday morning brought a flood of mail in the parliament of owls. Oddly enough, while the three other champions, and the heads of the three schools, were almost completely hidden by the owls flocking to them, Harry received none!

He exchanged looks with those seated around him, shrugged, and went back to finishing his breakfast. Something was rotten in Griffonstone, as Blueblood was wont to say when a sneaky noble tried to slip something past Celestia or Luna. He should have received mail. Where was it?

His eyes lingered on the Headmaster. He had a feeling that the wizard was involved in that right up to his bushy eyebrows.

But today was Thursday, he wouldn’t have time between classes to get any answers. After dinner, tonight then. He’d lose a little sleep before Astronomy class, but not much.

۸-_-۸

“Good evening to you, Mr. Sparkle,” the Headmaster said, “Professor McGonagall —” he nodded to the stern witch, “— tells me you have a question?”

Harry studied the wizard for a moment. He seemed completely relaxed, eyes twinkling, as the three of them walked towards his office. No reason to dance around the bush. “Where’s my mail?” he asked mildly. “The other champions all received mail in response to the article in the Daily Prophet. It seems odd that I, somehow, received nothing.”

Professor McGonagall gave him a sharp look, then stared at her boss.

“Ah, well, yes, there is that,” Dumbledore said, stroking his beard. He hummed softly for a few steps.

“Back when you were first placed with your relatives . . . ,”

Harry raised his eyebrows, not liking where this was going.

“. . . in order to prevent your enemies from finding you using the simple expedient of sending you an owl-mail and tracing the owl, I put a mail-owl re-direction intent-spell on you. Anyone who intended mail to be sent to you or your relatives would be delivered here, instead.” He looked down at Harry. “It kept you quite safe while you were at Privet Drive. And, it appears, it is still working.” He smiled. “Being anchored here, it never reacted to your disappearance.”

Harry stared up at him. “Where is it, then? I think, my being here at Hogwarts, it should be safe enough for me to receive mail.”

The wizard chuckled softly. “I think you underestimate your popularity. You would soon be inundated by mail and have no time to study or prepare for your tasks.”

Harry frowned. “If that’s so, then why haven’t you done the same for the other champions?”

He smiled gently. “They are of age, and make their own decisions,” he explained.

Harry stopped. “Do you read the mail for important documents?”

The Headmaster waved a hand negligently, “Oh there were exceptions for official letters from Hogwarts and the Ministry.”

Harry stared at the man, gobsmacked. “So, all one of my enemies had to do was bribe someone at the Ministry to send me an official letter and follow that to my uncle’s house? Or, better yet, send a letter-bomb?”

Dumbledore stared back at him a moment, a slight crease forming on his forehead. “Oh dear.”

Harry closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and slowly let it out. “And what about Gringotts? If my parents were as wealthy as all the books say, then I’m sure they must have sent something about finances in all these years. My uncle got a monthly statement from his bank, after all.”

The Headmaster pursed his lips and stroked his beard. “Ah, yes, I suppose they would at that.”

Harry sighed gloomily. Clearly, those missives had never been examined. “There could be all sorts of important documents buried in there,” Harry said, reproachfully. “If you are my guardian, then it is your responsibility to handle those documents. Because you obviously have not upheld your responsibilities, I’m sure the Ministry would be happy to appoint someone else, if I ask them. So, I ask again, where is my mail? At this point, you have no right to keep them from me.”

Harry was angry, but he had to keep his temper. That was another Blueblood lesson. No matter how angry you are, don’t show it in public. Except in your words.

McGonagall didn’t look too happy with the situation, either. She looked just short of apoplectic from the way her mouth had reduced itself to a simple line.

They started walking in a new direction.

“I intended to sift through the mail,” Dumbledore said, “but the events after that Halloween were so hectic, I didn’t have time. Between the school, trials, funerals, and endless bickering in the Wizengamot, it was over a year before I had a moment to relax. And . . . I just forgot.” He shrugged. “I am not perfect. I am only one man, and the demands on my attention were great.” He looked down at Harry sorrowfully. “I will remove the spell tonight.”

They had stopped in front of a door in the dungeons. “I have had the house-elves placing the mail in here,” the Headmaster said. He again looked down at Harry sorrowfully, as the door opened.

Harry’s jaw dropped. He had expected a bit of mail. His mum was always getting congratulatory mail on the things she did. And business solicitations. But this was far, far beyond anything he had expected. Just what were the wizards sending him letters about?

He supposed the other two had that reaction, as well. This wasn’t a room, it was a warehouse. Floor to ceiling shelves lined the walls and through the room, leaving narrow aisles only a house-elf could traverse. In one corner was an elf-sized table, above it a wide window. Owl perches lined one side of the table, three rows deep.

As he looked around, he noticed that the shelves appeared to be colour-coded.

“Oh, dear,” Dumbledore said.

The room’s size was impossible to determine, they simply couldn’t see far enough to tell. It had to be at least as big the Gryffindor Common Room, based on how wide it appeared. Maybe even as big as the Great Hall, although Harry found it incredible to believe that many wizards and witches would send him mail!

“Scriffy!” the Headmaster said.

“Scriffy be here!” came the almost instant reply. The house-elf looked at them, then at the room. He looked at Dumbledore expectantly.

“Could you please bring me all the mail in here from Gringotts?”

The house-elf grinned and snapped his fingers. A box of envelopes and scrolls half as tall as Harry appeared.

They stared at the box.

Harry looked up at Dumbledore. “This is going to take forever. As it’s your fault that this has piled up, I think you should be the one to help clear it.”

Dumbledore looked back at him. “I am a very busy wizard, I haven’t much time to spare on such an endeavour. I doubt I would even be able to keep up with the mail influx,” he said apologetically.

Harry just stared at him. “Have you ever heard of delegating? I’m sure if you assigned a few house-elves to the task, this room would be empty in record time.”

Dumbledore nodded, although McGonagall looked a bit scandalized at his tone.

“Scriffy, can you tell me about what all this is?” Dumbledore waved his arm across the room.

“Scriffy know! That wall be birthday cards!” He pointed at the far wall. “The next three rows be birthday presents. Theses five rows be other things, letters and boxes. And that section,” he pointed to opposite wall, “Be legally things.”

“Birthday presents?” Harry said incredulously. “People have sent me things?”

Scriffy nodded energetically. “Oh, yes, Princeys birthday be busiest day of year, then is Halloween, and then Christmas.”

Harry angrily turned to face Dumbledore directly. “How could you do this? They must think me the most ungrateful wretch to ever live!” he said harshly. “I want five house-elves assigned to this task tomorrow. Hermione and I will draw up reply letters, and they can start sending them, starting with the oldest letters first!”

He shook his head violently. “I’ll need to take out a full-page ad in the Daily Prophet and The Quibbler apologizing for this, and explaining how I only discovered this today. Oh, Rita Skeeter is going to love this story!”

He grabbed the box of Gringotts correspondence in his magic and stormed out of the room. There went his evening nap before Astronomy class!

۸-_-۸

He, Hermione, Ginny, and Luna came up with twenty different letters just for the people who had sent things to Harry, on special occasions, over the years.

Ginny and Luna had admitted that they, themselves, had sent him cards on his birthday, and even a present or two when they got older! Ginny had blushingly admitted, “I even sent you a sickle out of my allowance, a couple of times.”

Dear _______,

I only recently discovered that people have been sending me mail ever since that terrible Halloween when my parents died. Words cannot express how deeply sorry I am that you didn’t receive any kind of reply or acknowledgement of the [letter/present/letter and present/card/card and present] you sent me _________ [for Halloween/for Christmas/for my birthday/[end]]. I sincerely thank you for thinking of me at that time, and then taking the time to send me something. It truly makes a difference to me, today, that someone I didn’t know would take the time and effort to do something so nice and generous. I wish the very best for you, and your family.

[for those that sent something he couldn’t use] Please understand that I am now fourteen, and although I appreciate that you sent me something so nice, it is not something I can enjoy at this moment. Therefore, I have forwarded your present to Saint Mungos Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, Children’s ward, in your name. Again, thank you for thinking of me.

Sincerely, Prince Harry James Potter Sparkle [signed]

P.S. I also apologize for the form-letter nature of this response. The sheer volume of mail I now have to process makes it impossible for me to read and respond individually to each communication, even though I desperately would like to do so. If you have attempted to communicate with me more than once, you will probably receive more than one letter in response, as I am tackling the backlog starting with the oldest mail and working my way to the present. Thank you for your understanding and patience.

۸-_-۸

Ch. 17 — Hidden Treasure

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Ch. 17 — Hidden Treasure

Friday started early for Harry as he took the letters he had written last night to “his” mail room. And discovered that owls had already started to deliver the day’s mail. Apparently the spell that allowed owls entry to the Great Hall had a specific start time. And the spell prevented them from flying willy-nilly through the halls and dorms, looking for the recipients of their burdens, during the rest of the day. Only at meal times were they allowed entry.

Not so for Harry, apparently. Because they weren’t delivering to him, personally, but an elf-run sorting service, they could come by any time and drop off their delivery. And partake of the treats and water provided, as they rested, if they didn’t immediately start their return home.

He was amazed to see that there was only one elf at work. As soon as an owl arrived and dropped its mail, the elf looked at it, decided which shelf it belonged in, and stored it with the snap of a finger. The owl then made room for the next owl, either leaving or landing on a perch.

Now that owls were arriving, Harry could see that there was room on the perches for easily thirty or forty owls! Naturally, because they didn’t have to wait to arrive at a specific time, it was much less crowded than it would have been had they all arrived at once, which they did in the Great Hall. As it was, the elf spent most of its time waiting.

The elf rushed over as soon as Harry entered the room. It was Bit!

“Has the Headmaster told you what I want, yet?”

Bit nodded frantically. “Yous has lots work for Bit, sir!” he said happily.

One elf, just one elf. Harry sighed. “Start answering the absolute oldest mail first and use these letters as the template, replacing the blanks as appropriate.” He handed the stack to the elf. “For the moment, set aside anything that these letters don’t address. Tonight show me what’s accumulated. Repackage any gifts, set them aside in a box for St. Mungos, and put this message on each,” he handed him three parchments.

۸-_-۸

This package contains ___________. It is donated to the deserving patients at St Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries by [Mr/Miss/Mrs] __________ [age at time it was sent to Harry, if known].

۸-_-۸

“And then put this letter with the entire group of packages being sent to St. Mungos.” He handed him another parchment.

۸-_-۸

St Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries

Director of Operations

Dear ____________,

My name is Prince Harry James Potter Sparkle. On October 31st, 1981, Voldemort killed my parents and was, in turn, destroyed by the magical trap they had set for him. Unfortunately, I only recently discovered that many wizards and witches have been sending me presents as a way of saying thank you for my parents’ sacrifice. As I am now fourteen, many of these presents are not “age-appropriate.” Rather than heartlessly dispose of them, I am sending them on to you to distribute to your patients who might be able to appreciate them better than I can at this time.

Sincerely, Prince Harry James Potter Sparkle [signed]

۸-_-۸

Bit was nodding energetically. “Bit will do, sir!”

Harry looked at the full room.

“Shouldn’t there be other elves to help you?”

Bit looked offended and horrified. “Bit can do, sir! Bit no needs help, sir!”

Harry stared at the earnest elf. “Make sure you eat and get rest, Bit,” Harry said. He had a feeling that if he didn’t, the elf would literally work until he passed out.

Looking a tad disappointed, Bit nodded.

“Okay, that’s all then,” the unicorn said and turned to leave. Before he even left the room, Bit had rearranged his work table. A stack of parchment that reached the ceiling appeared beside the table, cubby holes appeared in the wall behind it, and in each one of the letters Harry had written and signed was placed.

A stack of unopened letters appeared on the table. Bit opened one, looked at it, and tapped it against one of the cubbies. A letter appeared on the table. Before Bit could grab the next letter to open, an owl flew in the window, snatched the letter off the desk, and flew out. This began to repeat at a fast pace.

Harry stared a moment. The problem might not be how fast the elf could do the work, it might be the limited number of owls in the castle! At the rate he was going, Harry imagined he’d exhaust Hogwarts’ owl supply in well under an hour. More than one house-elf would be a waste!

Then he shrugged. That wasn’t his problem. It was the Headmaster’s fault for neglecting his duty. Let him come up with a solution.

Later, in the Great Hall with his friends, he saw that Friday’s mail delivery was even bigger than Thursday’s. Some people, it seemed wanted a day to think about what they put in writing.

Friday morning’s The Quibbler was astonishingly thorough, with copious quantities of pictures to liven up the descriptions. Yes, Colin was doing quite well! That the paper even included a complete transcript of the Wednesday night’s “class” surprised Harry even more. He hadn’t even noticed Luna using a quill! He was very impressed, indeed.

Harry stared at Dumbledore curiously when he realized that his subscriptions to the Daily Prophet and The Quibbler were being delivered to him, in here, but the rest of the mail that he knew he should have been getting was going to the mail room. That owl re-direction spell wasn’t as simple as he had thought.

Hermione mistook his staring at the Headmaster. “You don’t really want a tremendous pile of mail here, do you?” She looked over to where Cedric couldn’t even see his breakfast plate for the scrolls and packages dropped on the table in front of him. “You know exactly where to find the mail, all neatly sorted for you!”

“Yeah, I know,” he said. Then smirked. “We didn’t think of it last night, but,” He glanced slyly at her, “How many owls does Hogwarts have to spare in replying to my mail?”

She looked surprised, then thoughtful. Ginny frowned as she listened in.

Luna said, “Well, we’ll just have to put the fairies and diricawls into use.”

The others looked at her a moment.

“Bit seems to be able to do nearly a thousand an hour,” Harry continued, conversationally.

They stared at him. “That’s . . . impressive,” Hermione said.

He smirked.

The day took a downturn, however, when he noticed that the Slytherins had all looked his way and were snickering and laughing. As well as using their trademarked sneer. A few gasps from nearby brought his attention to them, and he saw they were all reading the Daily Prophet. He picked up his copy of the newspaper and started looking for what had drawn that reaction.

Neville looked up from his copy and hissed at him, “Check the Letters to the Editor section.”

Ah. It seemed that there were a few people who objected to him using a wand because he was clearly a non-human and in violation of Clause Three of the 1631 Code of Wand Use decree. Harry shook his head sadly. Stupid wizards. It was a wonder, sometimes, that they could figure out how to breed.

Because he didn’t, at the moment, look like a human, he was therefore a non-human? That sort of idiocy could not be left unanswered. Well, he had the next class off, which gave him time to compose a response.

۸-_-۸

Dear Editor,

It appears a few of your esteemed Daily Prophet readers are unclear as to the definition of a human. They seem to labour under the misapprehension that a person’s appearance is all that needs to be considered to decide if they are a human or not. A rather chancy definition, at best, don’t you agree?

Following that logic, any wizard or witch who appears as an animal, via the animagus ability, is no longer a human: i.e., they no longer look human while in animagus form, therefore they cannot be human. Further, if someone were to be transfigured or cursed, either completely or partially, into an animal by a Dark Wizard, would they then be considered non-human because they no longer appear human? Where do you draw the line? What if it’s just the ears or shape of the eyes? How much has to change before they are considered non-human?

What of children with both a human and a non-human parent? Should they be considered non-human?

And how far back are you going to look in the family tree for non-human parents? At what point does having a non-human ancestor stop disqualifying a person from being human? Two generations? Three? Four? Five? The question becomes, at that point, when can a “legally” non-human parent have a child that is “legally” human?

What a great scheme for the Dark Wizard, though. All he and his followers have to do is curse everyone to have snake-like scales, the Ministry will declare them non-human, take their wands, and in a month he can take over the country as the only “humans” left would be his followers!

For the record, as this fine newspaper has reported in the past, a Gringotts heredity parchment has verified that my parents were James Potter and Lily Potter (née Evans), both of whom were human, both of whom were magicals. There are, I’m sure, many photographs of me as a child that would show I am as human as anyone.

Sincerely, Prince Harry James Potter Sparkle.

P.S. Please find enclosed two photographs taken of myself by Colin Creevey, here at school, today.

۸-_-۸

It wasn’t difficult to find Colin at lunch and convince him to take a few photographs of Harry standing in front of the Main Entrance to the Castle. One of him as a unicorn pony standing on all fours, and the other as a person in school robes — clearly holding his wand in fingers, not hooves. The second picture, of course, was only self-transfiguration, but it would do to muddy the waters.

His first thought had been to use an illusion, but then he wasn’t sure if that could be detected from a wizarding photograph. He had to think long and hard about whether it was worth the chance.

The transfiguration really wasn’t that difficult. Although it was certainly harder than the wings spell he had been showing off, or the gills and fins spell* that he and the fillies had used to explore Ponyville Lake last summer, it wasn’t that much harder. It was even easier than the breezy spell, as he didn’t have to change his size, mass, or weight, merely his shape. All he had had to do was to leave out the rune-characters for Breezies in the matrix and substitute the runes for “his will.” It was magically very exhausting for him, but doable — barely. And lasted for only a quarter of an hour.

Fortunately, he didn’t need magic for Potions, and an invigoration potion from the twins took care of his physical tiredness.

And he had a bit of a cheat for his appearance in the photograph as a person — his father had been a Gryffindor Quidditch team member, the Weasley twins had told him a week or so ago. That meant there had been a team photo from each year. It had been interesting finally to see what his father had looked like, especially after everyone said he was supposed to look like him. As a result, for now, finding a picture to copy had been easy, Just dig out the Quidditch book, and there was his father as a fourth year! All he needed to do was add the scar and use his natural eye-colour.

While he waited for Colin to give him the photographs, he focused on the Gringotts mail he had put off examining.

The mail from Gringotts was mostly pedestrian for the first few years — statement balances for their vaults, once a year, and income statements monthly from their businesses. The business income came mainly from building rentals, which began to fall off as the various buildings fell into disrepair from neglect. Dumbledore, as Harry’s guardian, had failed to manage and maintain the properties, or delegate that authority to someone else.

It was complicated in the later years by people who, having no relatives, decided to give their estates to him for saving their lives, “Because,” as one person’s will said, “I have no doubts that my life would have ended rather suddenly when He-Who-Must-Remain-Nameless sent his Death Eaters. That I have been able to enjoy my life these last few years is due solely to your killing that evil wizard. I can think of no one who deserves what I have more than you do.”

Honestly, how could he ignore such sentiments? To ignore the Potter estate would be an insult to those people, and throw their good intentions away. Now, he had no real thought that he might need that income for himself, but it seemed a shame to neglect the things that had supported his family in the past. Plus, there was no reason not to do what he could to preserve the family’s legacy by passing it on to someone else when he left. It even might be a distant relative, because both Ron and Neville told him, “All the old wizarding families are related to one another if you go back far enough.” Unless he gave it to a muggle-born.

Then, after dinner, Colin gave him two sets of the photographs. One set he sent to the Daily Prophet, and the second to The Quibbler, with a suitable letter for each, of course.

That should nip that problem in the bud.

And, now that he had perfected it, he planned to occasionally transfigure himself into a human before leaving his room or on the way to his practice classroom to get everyone used to his seeing him in both forms.

Harry spent his evening with Hermione composing a letter to Gringotts explaining the situation. He asked if there was any way, he, underaged as he was, could issue instructions to examine the neglected properties, see if they could be recovered, and if he could then authorize the expenditures necessary to bring the buildings back on the market.

The owlery was deserted, as he half-expected. So, it was time for a trip to his mail room. The letter would just have to go out in the morning.

And he had planned to see what Bit had for him that the already-prepared letters didn’t handle, so that was no hardship. Hermione, Luna, and Ginny had decided to accompany him.

They were not prepared for the pile of toxic letters and packages piled in a box.

“People sent me curses and poisoned letters?” he said incredulously.

“Well, it does make sense,” Hermione slowly said. “He had some fanatical followers.” She glanced at him worriedly. “As you know. And if they could have hurt you back then, they wouldn’t have hesitated a second. After all, they continued to attack people even after He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named died.”

She looked around the room, still stunned at the quantity of items she could see.

He looked at Bit carefully. “Are you hurt?”

Bit drew himself up sternly. “No, sir! Bit smarter than that, sir!” Bit said indignantly, but he did look pleased that Harry was worried for his safety. “Bit checks each before he opens it! If it hurts Princey, I puts it here, sir.” He pointed at the box.

Harry sighed and looked at Hermione. “Is it illegal to do such things?”

“Yes. You should probably notify the Ministry. They have Aurors, constables, for this sort of thing.”

“How do I contact them?”

She shrugged, “Send them an owl?”

He looked at the box. “Why not just send them the box with a letter?”

Five minutes later, they had a letter ready.

۸-_-۸

Ministry of Magic

Department of Magical Law Enforcement

Head of Department Amelia Bones

Dear Madam,

My name is Prince Harry James Potter Sparkle. On October 31st, 1981, Voldemort killed my parents and was, in turn, destroyed by the magical trap they had set for him. Unfortunately, I only recently discovered that many wizards and witches have been sending me letters, cards, and presents as a way of saying thank you for my parents’ sacrifice. I have started going through that accumulated mail to remedy this oversight, beginning with the oldest mail first.

Regrettably, apparently some of Voldemort’s followers decided to use the same method of communication as a way of harming me, or my family.

Accompanying this letter is the first box of such dangerous items. I have neither the knowledge nor skill to dispose safely of these items. Plus, you might be able to track down the senders of these items and bring them to justice for trying to injure me and mine.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Sincerely,

Prince Harry James Potter Sparkle [signed]

۸-_-۸

Saturday, at breakfast, when Hermione asked what he had planned for the day, he said, “I want to see if I can remember Rarity’s gem-finding spell, properly.”

She stared at him. “What?”

He looked back disbelievingly. “Oh, come on, don’t tell me the wizards don’t have gem and metal finding spells!”

Ron looked up. “We do, but it’s all deeply buried. I’d have better robes if it were easy,” he said flatly. Ginny, opposite him, just nodded, as did Hermione and Luna.

Harry thought about it a moment and had to conclude they were probably right. Based on things he had heard, and the way Ron’s brothers were always trying to sell the things they made, if they had an easily usable spell to find gold and gems, they would use it! And because they weren’t, the spell only had limited use.

He shrugged. “It’s worth a try,” he said lightly.

Hermione frowned and studied his expression. “Why are you suddenly interested in getting gold or gems?”

Ron, Neville, Dean, Seamus, Hermione, Ginny, and Luna all leaned closer, to hear what he said. Harry looked around nervously. “Later,” he said, firmly.

They all looked disappointed, but at the same time, very intrigued.

After breakfast, Harry decided that the gem-finding matrix would be the best to start with. It was dead certain that at least one of the females in the castle had lost a gemstone necklace, earrings, or both in the last thousand years. And there had to be rings with gems owned by both sexes. If it worked, the spell would draw him towards them, thus showing that he could use it as he planned.

What he hadn’t expected, nor had the seven who accompanied him curiously, was to find themselves standing on the seventh floor in a corridor with a blank wall on one side and a tapestry of a wizard teaching trolls ballet on the other.

They looked around, puzzled. “Well, Harry said, “the spell says that beyond this stone wall are gems.” He pointed at the empty wall. They slowly walked the entire length of the wall, from the window just beyond the blank stretch of wall to the man-sized vase on its other side, and saw nothing to indicate anything existed there. But peeking out the window, they saw that a long blank section of the castle continued for some distance.

Finally, Harry said, “Bit!”

“Bit be here, sir!” came the cheerful replay a moment later.

“Bit,” Harry said, “I cast a gem-finding spell and it led me here.” He waved a hoof at the blank wall. “There doesn’t appear to be anything here, but it is a rather large space to have nothing in it. What can you tell me about it?”

Bit didn’t even glance at the wall. “That be the Come and Go Room, sir, or else as the Room of Requirement,” he said simply.

At their looks of incomprehension, he said, “It be a room that a person can only enter when they have real need of it. Sometimes it is there, and sometimes it is not,” said Bit seriously, “but when it appears, it is always equipped for the seeker’s needs. Bit knows Mr. Filch has found extra cleaning materials there when he has run short, sir. And it be where elvesies put broken things, things students leave behind, and broken furniture.” He frowned. “And sometimes students hides things there, too, sir,” he said disapprovingly. “And professors,” he said in an undertone.

They looked at each other blankly.

“How do we get inside?” Harry asked.

Bit grinned, “Just thinks about what you want, sir.” He adopted a comically serious expression. “Walk back and forth three time.” He walked about ten paces away from them, returned, and then walked away again. “And the door appears, sir.”

As he said this, a tall and wide archway formed, filled with a thick wooden door.

They hesitantly opened the door. And stood there, gobsmacked at the sight. It was a room the size of a large cathedral, easily as large as the Great Hall. High windows sent shafts of light into the room to reveal almost a city with towering walls. The windows had to be in the roof because they had seen no sign of windows in the wall outside when they had looked at the room from the window at the end of the corridor.

The teetering piles of broken and damaged furniture created roads and alleyways through the room. They must have been created by generations of Hogwarts inhabitants seeking to hide the evidence of mishandled magic, forbidden items, unwanted articles, or things hidden by castle-proud house-elves. There were thousands and thousands of books — no doubt banned, defaced, or stolen. There were winged catapults and Fanged Frisbees, prank toys similar to ones he had seen the twins ambush students with in the Common Room. Some still had enough spell-strength in them to hover half-heartedly over the mountains of other forbidden items. There were chipped bottles of congealed potions, hats, jewels, cloaks; there were what looked like dragon eggshells, corked bottles whose contents still shimmered evilly, several rusting swords, and a heavy, bloodstained axe.

“ ’Cor . . . ,” Ron said

“Merlin . . . ,” whispered Neville.

“Crikey!” cried Seamus, shocked.

They were all staring around bug-eyed at the sheer quantity of stuff they could see.

“Well,” Harry said, finally. “This is unexpected!”

Hermione picked up a nearby book, and frowned at the obvious damage. Then looked around speculatively. “I bet you could merge duplicate books and keep only the good pages and end up with all the books you need for all the years you’re at school.” She looked at Ginny and Ron as she said that.

Ginny didn’t need any further hints, she pulled out her wand and said, “Accio all fourth-year Hogwarts books!” There were rumbling and crashing sounds throughout the room, and Harry could see several towers of discarded items suddenly collapse.

Books began to fly from everywhere, and Ginny barely had time to jump aside as they began to land in front of her.

Remembering what he had learned last night, Harry said, “Wait! Don’t touch anything! It might have a curse on it!”

Startled, the others turned from their inspection of the room, before all nodding.

Ginny looked uncertainly at her pile of about a hundred books.

Hermione stepped closer and said, pointing her wand, “Accio all non-cursed books.” All but three books moved to the new location.

They exchanged nervous glances.

“And we might want to cast spells only on specific piles, or stuff we want will get buried soo deep we can’t get to it.”

“I think we need a spot where we can put the stuff we find,” Harry mused.

“We’ll need several places,” Hermione said. “One for the cursed items, one for the non-repairables, and one for the repairables.”

Harry turned from the others. He had expected to find only one or two unclaimed jewels and gems in Hogwarts, in out-of-the-way locations, but nothing like this! On the other hoof, he wasn’t about to say no to a gift from Rarity!

He closed his and concentrated on the matrix. He built it as solid as he could, then said, “accio gems.” Almost immediately items began flying towards him, landing at his hooves. And they kept coming — bracelets; bracers; broches, pins, necklaces and pendants by the dozens; rings, ear-rings, and cufflinks by the hundreds; there were even a few belts, boxes and daggers. The one thing they all had in common was that they bore gems of one kind or another. When it stopped, he had a pile that was nearly waist-deep to his friends.

He stumbled to all fours.

His friends had stopped their planning and once more stared, gobsmacked.

“You’re rich!” said Ron.

“That’s a bloody fortune!” said Dean.

Harry looked at the pile of gem-affixed gold, silver, copper, and leather a moment and sighed. “Not enough, though,” he said quietly.

“Not enough!?” Ron half-shouted. “How can that be not enough?” He stared at the pile, and blinked.

Harry ducked his head. “Well, it’s not for me, is it?”

Hermione stared at him, and raised an eyebrow. “And who is it for?”

He scuffed a hoof against the floor. “It’s for the dragons,” he said. He looked up at the others.

“I want to send a thank you to the dragons. And the only things that interest dragons are gems, gold, and silver for their hordes.”

“Dragons?” Dean said and looked at the others, baffled.

Harry leaned back and stood to face them. “I think the dragons threw the competition,” he explained.

“No!” said Hermione, “Really?” The others looked just as surprised.

“Think about it. The first three all threw the golden eggs out of their nests so their eggs were not in danger! Fleur’s dragon ‘accidently’ snores a flame and sets her robes on fire? Cedric’s dragon changes its mind at the last minute and chases him? I think Victor’s dragon had a similar plan as the other two, but then he hurt her, so she hurt him back.

“And mine? Mine appeared dramatically harder! The egg stayed in the nest. At the edge, true, but still in the nest. I could see she knew exactly where I was, and missed on purpose. Especially as she shot flames all about as if I were flying, but I actually just walked up to her nest! She looked right at me several times. And even flamed over my head! And when I went to pick the golden egg from her nest? That was when she ‘randomly’ checked her eggs. She leaned down and whispered to me that she could see my body-heat!

“She knew where I was the entire time! Then she told me to fly fast, waited until I was almost at her maximum range, and then flamed to make it look dramatic when I landed. I think no matter what I did, she would have made it look like I barely succeeded, and did better than the other three champions.”

“But, why?” asked Ron plaintively. The others nodded their agreement a moment later.

“Because I spoke to them? Warned them Sunday what was happening Tuesday? That’s my guess.”

They looked at each other, then back at him, slack-jawed. Ginny covered her mouth with a hand as she laughed. “And no one will ever believe it, even if someone told them! That’s brilliant!” She laughed some more, and slowly the others joined in.

Hermione looked as if she didn’t know whether to be upset the dragons had helped Harry, or laugh that the dragons had helped Harry.

Harry had to grin. It was rather funny. Because the wizards believed dragons couldn’t talk, much less reason, no one would believe the truth.

Then he looked back at the pile, and separated the cursed items out into a much smaller grouping. Then he cast reparo on the remainder and ended with a sparkling pile of gems.

That was when they noticed a small room to one side that had a legend over the door, “Cursed Items” it said. Beside it was another room that was labelled “Repairables” and a third on the other side of it that said “Non-Repairables.”

Moments later, the books were safely stored. He had just lifted the pile of cursed jewellery when Luna gasped, and lunged at something in it. Fortunately, Ginny had seen her start to dive forward and grabbed her.

“It’s Rowena Ravenclaw’s Lost Diadem!” Luna cried, and tried to reach for it. “It’s been missing for a thousand years!”

۸-_-۸

Ch. 18 — Left Behind

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Ch. 18 — Left Behind

The others quickly gathered around the pile still floating in Harry’s magic and tried to see what Luna saw.

“But the diadem is in the cursed pile, Luna,” Hermione said reasonably, and held her friend back.

“But . . . .”

“What is it? And why is it important?” said Harry.

Luna stopped struggling, straightened, sighed, and said, “The Lost Diadem of Ravenclaw is the only known relic of Rowena Ravenclaw, one of the four founders, of Hogwarts and of Ravenclaw House. Etched upon its surface is her quote: ‘Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure.’ You can see it on her statue in the Ravenclaw Common Room.” She stepped closer, bent down, and stared intently. Hermione made a half-hearted pull at her arm, but stopped when she saw that the girl only looked.

“It’s said to enhance the wisdom of its wearer. It has a blue sapphire shaped like an oval.” She pointed delicately into the mass of silver and gold items, where they could, indeed see a small, tarnished silver circlet. “The diadem disappeared around the time of her death. Generations of Ravenclaws have searched for it.” She gazed at it longingly. “Although I did think she wasn’t quite that Dark.

“So, when we finish tonight, we’ll take it to the Headmaster and have him fix it,” Harry said consolingly.

Luna slowly nodded and stepped back.

Now that they had that sorted, he finished placing the cursed jewellery in the room, with the diadem on the top so they wouldn’t forget it.

They would have to ask Professor Flitwick for information about curse-breaking, for the other items, later.

Harry had to use, “accio non-cursed trunk,” ten times on the trunks they could see, and got three to come to him, before he found one with both an expanded drawer space and a space expanded into a one-room apartment efficiency-style. He thought it would be more than big enough to serve as a repository for what he had collected. And it would be pretty handy if he could manage to take it home, too.

Ron was quite happy to do the same and ended up with a much better trunk than the one he already had — and it was almost brand new. The puzzling part was that there were clothes in it that were almost as new as the trunk. Unfortunately, they all looked to be of a size for a firstie. Why someone would abandon such a thing left them all perplexed.

The others set out into the massive room seeking treasures of their own. Expanded trunks seemed the most sought-after item.

“Look! Look! Look!” Hermione said, later, when they got back together. She showed them the early editions of Hogwart’s: A History, she had found. “This is wonderful! These are hundreds of years old! They’re worth a fortune by themselves!”

The Repairable’s room seemed to be almost filled with books, except for a huge pile of old brooms in one corner. Most of those were only good for firewood.

Harry had continued to collect gold and silver items as he wandered through the huge room. There seemed to be inordinate number of gold- or silver-handled knives that ended up in the Cursed room.

They didn’t leave until almost dinner time, having missed lunch. But they all were more than happy with what they had found, and put their shrunken trunks in their pockets.

Dumbledore’s office was their first stop, with the portraits’ help in finding where it was. Harry was coming from a different direction, this time.

“We have something very important for Headmaster Dumbledore,” Harry said as Luna lifted a cloth-wrapped bundle to show it.

The gargoyle said nothing for a moment before sliding open.

They trooped up the stairs into the office proper.

Dumbledore was seated behind his desk, eyes twinkling. “To what do I owe this unusual visit?” He said kindly as he leaned forward and looked at them over his glasses.

Harry nodded to Luna.

Luna smiled brightly. “We were exploring the castle today and came across a most curious room. Hidden in it, we found this,” she said brightly. She held out the cloth-wrapped bundle and carefully set it on his desk. “I didn’t recognize it at first,” she said, half-scoldingly to herself, as she delicately unwrapped the object, “because it was so tarnished, but then I realized what we had found.”

The Headmaster leaned even closer, and glanced from the item to Luna.

Then she flipped the last fold of cloth off the diadem. “Rowena Ravenclaw’s Lost Diadem,” she said dramatically.

The Headmasters eyes shot wide open as he glanced from the item to Luna to the rest of them.

“It looks,” Luna continued dreamily, “exactly like the diadem in both her portrait and statue in the Ravenclaw Common Room. It even has ‘Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure’ engraved in it.”

The Headmaster stood and leaned over his desk, hands reaching for the diadem.

“Don’t touch it!” Harry said urgently and loudly, alarmed that the wizard might do that unaware of the danger. “It’s been cursed!” His horn glowed and so did the cloth which held the diadem.

Dumbledore’s hand’s stopped just short of picking up the tarnished metal circlet. He looked at Harry and the others and took in their frightened expressions. He slowly straightened and pulled out his wand. A moment later the diadem was covered in a black fog.

“Oh, dear,” he said slowly, and stared at it, frowning. He cast another spell, then another. With each spell, his expression grew sadder and more haggard.

“There’s some sort of compulsion on it,” Harry said.

Dumbledore looked up at him.

“If we get too close for too long, we found we were tempted to put the diadem on . . . to test it, you see, to see if the legends are true,” Harry concluded apologetically.

The old wizard nodded.

“That’s why we wrapped it in a cloth. We found that simply wrapping it prevented that from happening.”

“We thought you must know a spell to remove curses, so we brought it here, first” Hermione said, hopefully.

Dumbledore sighed heavily, there were distinctly fewer twinkles in his eye. “Thank you very much for bringing this to my attention.” He smiled wryly, “And finding this treasure. Forty points to each of you.”

Hermione broke out in a grin so big it almost reached her ears. The others were not far behind. None of them had every received so many points.

Dumbledore stroked his beard, thinking, as he sat back in his chair. “I must ask you to tell no one of this. The spells on the diadem are quite dark and I do not want people to get excited about this historic discovery, only to disappoint them later should it be necessary to destroy it to get rid of the spells.”

They gasped and exchanged horrified expressions.

Harry sighed. “If mum were here, she could fix it, but I’m not powerful enough or well versed enough to do it myself.”

The Headmaster gave him a long look. He leaned forward and once more concealed the diadem in the cloth. He pulled it closer, then dropped it in a drawer in his desk. “It is our misfortune that she isn’t, then.” He sighed as he settled back in his chair.

“Now, then, perhaps you could tell me more about this curious room?” He smiled inquisitively.

“Well, it’s kind of odd.” Harry said speculatively. “The house-elves told us about it. They’ve known about it since they first started here. They’ve been using it to store things that students abandon and broken things that they can’t fix properly. It’s also been used by people trying to hide things.” He shook his head. “How no one found the diadem before now, I don’t know. It’s even possible that they knew it was there, but nobody ever asked them.”

“But it’s chock full of books and things!” Hermione said excitedly. “You could fix the books and sell them to a used-bookstore and get new brooms for the firsties to practice on! Or better, sell them directly to students here, in a Hogwarts store for students! Or the First Year books to new students at a discount. And there’re potion bottles, glass and crystal phials, telescopes, and other things, there, too.”

“It stonking!” put in Ron, “Bigger than the Great Hall, I’d bet!”

“’Course ya got to watch out for the cursed things,” put in Dean.

“I bet you could flog some of the stuff as Hogwarts souvenirs, broken or not!” said Seamus.

“And where might this treasure trove be?” Dumbledore asked, the humour apparent in his tone.

“Well, you know on the seventh floor where there’s that tapestry with trolls in ballerina shoes and tutus?” Hermione said.

“Ah, yes, Barnabas the Barmy’s tapestry,” he nodded sagely.

“Well, you walk back and forth in front of the opposite wall three times thinking of what you want, and then a door appears and then Bob’s your uncle!” she concluded triumphantly.

“Such as if you were in urgent need of a room with chamberpots . . . ,” the Headmaster said softly. He smiled. “Well, I shall have to investigate that.” He stood behind his desk. “But first, I believe it is time for a bit of a nosh, is it not?”

On the way to the Great Hall, Hermione expounded upon the idea of there being a store, either student-run or leased, where students could get supplies like quills, ink, parchment, replacement or extra texts, candy (but not too much), and other things that students ran out of on a regular basis. Not to mention what they might want to buy for presents for birthdays and significant friends.

For a boarding school, Harry was surprised that they had made no provisions for such a store.

That evening, he spent time making sure that placing his closet-equipped trunk inside his new apartment-equipped trunk wouldn’t cause any problems. And reading the new book he had found on the undetectable expansion charm. It was a bit worn, but was legible and didn’t have any missing pages. And a couple of subsequent reparos made it look almost new.

Sunday morning, a lone Eagle Owl flew into the Great Hall. It wore a harness with the Gringotts emblem on its breast. It curved over and headed straight for Harry. It landed and imperiously held out one leg. With a wing-span wider than he was tall, it did a decent job of intimidating everyone at the table.

Harry delicately removed the letter and wordlessly offered the owl a plate of sausages. After taking two, the owl just stared at him as it swallowed them.

“Uh, Harry?” said Ron. “I think it’s waiting for a reply.”

The bird gave him a quick look, then bobbed its head to Harry.

Harry quickly opened the letter. It was short. It explained that until he reached his majority that he would not be allowed to handle his financial arrangements by himself. Everything would have to go through his legal guardian. It then asked for the name of his guardian, and said that Gringotts would make arrangements with him for Harry’s properties to be brought back into service. And also informed him that they would be performing a complete audit of his accounts to make sure there weren’t any other items that needed to be addressed.

There was also a brief mention that his legal guardian would have to answer some questions on why he had failed to fulfil his legal duties, and that there would be penalties imposed on the person. As well as questions on his or her suitability to be a guardian.

He filled in Dumbledore’s name in the place indicated and gave it back to the bird.

The owl left as majestically as it had arrived, with everyone watching. The Headmaster seemed a bit sad to see it go.

After that bit of excitement, Hermione and the rest of the group, especially the Weasley twins and their friends, decided to spend the day in the Room of Requirement, exploring it more with the Headmaster and Professor Flitwick.

“Are you sure you don’t want to join us?” Hermione said.

Harry smiled. “No, thanks, I’m going to be in the dorm working on some runes I want to use.”

They separated on the seventh floor. Luna said she wanted to see if there were any mome-mouses hiding in the room, as she skipped down the corridor. Hermione rolled her eyes and followed with the Headmaster and Professor Flitwick.

Harry spent most of the morning working on the rune-spell equivalents for what he wanted to do. It was an odd mishmash of Equestrian runes and Wizard runes, but from what he could see it ought to work.

Which is how he found himself on the side of one of the mountains that surrounded Hogwarts that afternoon. The short fifteen minute flight wasn’t nearly as fast as Dash could do, but it more than satisfied his needs. He then spent another half hour carefully drawing Rarity’s gem-finding spell matrix on the top of a granite ledge in the mountainside, modified for gold, of course. He placed the wizarding switching rune-spell matrix beside it, as well, and placed a large rock on it as the source. Once he was happy with the lines of the result, he drew a wizarding power-rune on the boulder beside the ledge, and another that made the boulder the storage unit. Then he waited an hour for the boulder to charge. Once he judged enough time had passed, he carefully drew the final line that connected the power runes to the other spells — while he stood behind another boulder at a reasonable distance in case he’d cocked up the runes.

There was a flash of light — and the rock he had placed on the switching rune was solid gold.* He carefully lifted the rock, and replaced it with another. Almost as soon as the rock touched the runes, it changed to gold. He kept changing the rocks until he had filled his expanded closet trunk. Then kept going until he had several tonnes, and had picked up almost every loose rock and piece of gravel within sight.

He carefully erased one of the charging-rune’s lines to disable it, and used a few more large rocks to deplete the storage boulder. He carefully scattered tiny debris over the runes to hide them, then emptied his trunk and examined just what he had accumulated. He used the reducio charm to make the pile of gold rocks smaller until he could get them to fit in his closet, which was a bit of a challenge. Then he cast the notice-me-not charm so his carrying his trunk wouldn’t draw any undue attention.

He blessed whomever it was that came up with the featherweight charm, as carrying that much weight all by himself would have been impossible.

It still took him longer to return than to get to the mountains.

He found a disused classroom on the seventh floor and unloaded everything he had gathered that day.

The tiered classroom made it difficult to tell, but he had enough gold chunks to make a substantial addition to any dragon’s horde! Breaking up the bigger pieces and packing it all as tightly as he could with a sticking charm, he had a cube nearly a yard on each side. And his weight-weighing charm said it was over three tonnes! He again cast the notice-me-not charm on the trunk and headed for the Gryffindor dorms. Almost everyone had already headed for dinner, so he was able to sneak into his room and transfer the gold into his new apartment trunk. Even with the things from the Room of Requirement, the gold pile took a surprisingly small amount of room.

He sat back and stared at his trunk. He wondered if he needed heavy-duty weight-reduction charms added to the trunk. He would have to take another look at the Undetectable Expansion Charm book. For the moment, though, the apartment trunk would do nicely. And, now he had a workable plan for thanking the dragons.

The only problem left would be getting the gold to the dragons, but with the apartment trunk, that problem would be solved, too. All he needed was permission to visit the dragon sanctuary. And Charlie had said that wouldn’t be a problem before he had left.

After dinner that evening, he taught his tutors his mum’s favourite Bubble of Silence spell.

Things quickly settled into a routine. The rest of the week was back to re-reading his texts and practicing the rest of the fourth-year materials. And catching up on the subjects he had neglected in the mad rush before the first task.

Most of the school left him alone during this time, although he thought the Gryffindors might be warming up to him. At least, that is, they didn’t scowl at him as much as the rest of the school.

And both the Daily Prophet and The Quibbler seemed to like his letter to the Editor, which they both published the same day as his full-page ad explaining he hadn’t received any mail in the last thirteen years. The separate letter was carefully analysed. Somehow, though, The Quibbler concluded that if you could hold a wand and cast a spell, you must be a human, because only humans, by law, could own wands and cast spells. Arguments in the Letters to the Editor sections for both newspapers in the following days were fast and furious.

And there was a bit of a kerfuffle in the school over both the advertisment and the letter. Fortunately, most people kept their distance, except in the Gryffindor common room where more than a few students thanked him for explaining why he had never responded to their owl-mails.

And at every subsequent owl parliament several students would get a letter, read it, and then look over his way and smile.

۸-_-۸

«Girls,» Apple Bloom said, «It’s been a month since Harry disappeared.»

Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle nodded morosely. They had gathered in Sweetie Belle’s dorm room before dinner that Saturday at Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns in Canterlot. Apple Bloom had a small apartment she shared with another earth pony in town, and during the day she took care of the small store her sister had established. Scootaloo had wrangled a position in the Canterlot Weather Management branch of the Equestrian Weather Service.

The other two had been waiting for Sweetie Belle to get out of her last class. She had the latest information.

«We know.» Sweetie Belle kicked the floor sulkily. «Princess Sparkle told me, at lunch today, that they had set up a spell weeks ago using his old shoes and a mirror portal to search for him.»

The other two perked up.

«Unfortunately, she told me that there was no predicting when the spell would find him.»

Their ears drooped and they sighed dispiritedly.

«There are over a million worlds where they might find him, and worst case, it’ll take three years to search them all if he’s in the last one.»

«Three years?» the other two cried out despairingly.

«Yep. And there’s nothing we can do to speed it up.»

They glumly stared at the floor.

«Unless . . . ,» Scootaloo said softly.

The other two looked up hopefully.

«. . . Discord,» she finished.

Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom exchanged narrow-eyed looks.

«If anyone could do it, he could,» said Sweetie Belle, hopefully.

«If he wanted to,» said Apple Bloom, pessimistically.

Scootaloo just shrugged, «Won’t know if we don’t ask.» She sat down, tilted her head back, and shouted, «DISCORD!»

She waited a half-second, then took a second, deep breath, and repeated, «DISCORRRRRD!»

Sweetie Belle stared at her, shrugged, and copied the orange pegasus, shouting, «DISCORRRD!»

Apple Bloom shook her head, sighed miserably, and sat.

Scootaloo shouted a third time, with Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom following her a moment later, calling, «DISCORRRRD!»

«DISCORRRD!»

«DISCORRD!»

In three-part harmony.

They stopped and took a new breath, and shouted/sang, «DISCORD!»

There was a pop by the window. «You called?» said the draconequus, stretching out the last word. He was holding a cigar in one claw and had an obviously fake moustache drawn on his upper lip. He was twitching the cigar up and down, and arching his eyebrows comically.

«Thank you for coming,» Scootaloo immediately said.

«And what do my favourite purveyors of mayhem want?»

Sweetie Belle took a steadying breath. «We want you to bring Harry back.»

Discord was brushing dirt off his dinner jacket. The dirt was squealing and running back into place. He didn’t look up as he said, «No can do. He’s in the middle of doing me proud.»

A small Harry appeared, holding something golden in his hooves. It looked like an egg with a hinge that let it open, as it appeared to be at the moment. His mane was being blasted back and he was making a face like he was facing a really strong wind.

«He’s still alive?» Apple Bloom squeaked happily.

Discord gave her a hurt look. «Of course he is, he can’t very well cause chaos if he were dead . . . ,» he frowned. «Well, I suppose he could, but it wouldn’t be nearly as entertaining. And it wouldn’t last very long, either.» He gazed off into the distance. «Just by being where he is, he’s upsetting thousands of plans!» He giggled at something only he could see.

«Besides, Miss Purple Alicorn has things well in hoof. Why should I interfere?»

«Because we asked you,» was Scootaloo’s quick response. «It would be unexpected of you to lend us assistance! At simply being asked, too.» The three looked at him with wide eyes, lower-lips trembling ever so slightly, ears back and right hoof slightly lifted as if paused in the act of reaching out for help.

«Gah!» Discord cried, jumping back. «Don’t dooo that!» he commanded.

He narrowed his eyes at them and sat down on a rock that hadn’t been there a second ago. He put his elbow on his knee and rested his chin on the back of his bent paw. «You do have a point,» he said slowly. «But bringing the boy back at this point would leave you with a corpse in a few short months.»

The three gasped and took a step back.

He sighed, «A beautiful corpse, but still, a corpse. Unless,» he started to get excited, «you want to raise him as an undead lover! And send him across the land to carry out your nefarious schemes, exacting revenge on your enemies!»

He quickly noticed the horrified looks the three were now giving him.

He sighed dejectedly. «But I promised my Shy I wouldn’t cause any ponies to die. Or mutilate them. Not even temporarily.» He looked dejected for a moment. «And even if he’s not a pony, Shy wouldn’t forgive me for doing anything that might hurt Harry.» He stopped and gave them a stern look. «And, no, I had nothing to do with him either getting here or returning to his home.» His snarly tone reinforced the point. He really had had nothing to do with either incident.

«But he is okay, right?» Apple Bloom said cautiously.

Discord looked at her and smiled, standing once more. «I give you my word that he is just fine, at the moment. He handled the first task of the tournament just fine, he handled his fight with the dragon like a champ and wowed the entire crowd!» Tiny Harry appeared over the draconequus’s head, facing a dragon that was easily big enough to swallow him in one bite. A dragon that made all the ones they had seen look small and plain. «To interfere now would not be . . . chaotic!»

«Fight?» said Sweetie Bell, alarmed at the thought.

«Dragon?» yelped Scootaloo, for similar reasons.

«Crowd?» said Apple Bloom suspiciously, a moment after the other two.

«Oh,» said the draconequus, «you don’t have to worry about him. He’s got three girls helping him to cope. Why, one is smart, like you Sweetie Belle . . .»

Sweetie Belle did not look encouraged by that statement.

«. . . one is impulsive and flighty, not quite like you Scootaloo, but she does keep everyone on their toes . . .»

Scootaloo stared at Discord, scowling, with her forelegs crossed as she hovered over the floor.

«. . . and the third is a lot like you and your family, Apple Bloom. They even have an orchard of apples!» Discord looked pleased to deliver such good news that their herdmate wasn’t abandoned and alone.

Scootaloo had narrowed her eyes and had the kind of look at that promised much pain in the future for someone. Most likely the one that stood in front of her.

«You’re not manipulating anything, are you, Discord?» Apple Bloom said suspiciously, with a dangerous tone in her voice.

«Moi? Moi?» Discord said, with dozens of smaller Discords all around him as they pointed their claws at themselves, little halos over their heads. «I don’t have to do nearly anything in that world for things to head for the most chaos possible in the shortest amount of time conceivable.» A halo appeared over his head. «I barely have to even give a tiny nudge and things spiral out of control deliciously.» He chortled. «I can just sit at the sidelines and eat popcorn to my hearts’ content.»

The three fillies glared at him.

«What did you do to our Harry?» asked Sweetie Belle in a dangerous tone.

«Do to Harry?» Discord said in an affronted manner. «I promise you, I have done nothing to Harry. In fact, I helped him by making sure those who could help him would be there when he needed them. Just two little nudges at the right times.» He grinned at them, a rather nasty grin. «After all, I promised my Shy I wouldn’t hurt any ponies, or her friends, now didn’t I? And she doesn’t know any of them, does she?» He buffed his claws on his chest. «And everything turned out well. Neither died when they most likely would have. And each is causing chaos of a different kind just by being where they are.» He gave them a sly look. «What more would you ask?»

Apple Bloom took a deep breath and slowly let it out.

«So, Harry’s safe, right?»

«For the time being. After all, who knows what the future holds?» he said coyly.

«And those girls?» Scootaloo said, «They’re helping him?»

Discord looked both ways, as if checking to see if anyone was listening who shouldn’t be. A tiny Discord appeared seated in front of a desk with some kind of panel in front of him. A vertically-mounted wire dish on a pole coming from the desk rotated in a circle over his head. After the dish had rotated several times, he suddenly held out a paw with a thumb up. Several other tiny Discords were peering around the door and window, lifting the rug to look under it, and crawling under the bed.

«Truthfully, Harry is helping them more than they are helping him. He’s already saved two girls from several years of misery. They will be quite appreciative when they both realize just how much he has helped them. Actually, one already has.» He chuckled. «Ah, Harry, what a lady-killer.»

«Killer?» Sweetie Belle said, alarmed. The other two looked just as startled.

«Figure of speech, fillies, figure of speech. It means someone who can easily get the members of the female persuasion to fall for him.» A tiny Discord flipped pages in a book, stopped, put a claw on the page, pretended to read it, then looked at them and nodded vigorously.

Their expressions had changed. Now they looked uncertain, not sure if they should be relieved at that definition or even more worried. It was just now occurring to them that Harry might not want to come back. They exchanged worried looks.

«Is Harry going to be okay, there?» Sweetie Belle asked slowly. «I mean, he’s going to come back, right?» There was more than a little bit of a whine in her voice.

Discord frowned at them. «If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were from Missouri.» Tiny version of the three fillies began orbiting his head with little speech bubbles over their heads that said, «Prove it!» «Show me!» and «Are you sure?»

Discord looked at them, as if only now noticing their insecurity. He fell backwards a step, as if in shock. «Don’t tell me you are jealous!» He leaned closer. «Are you?» he said with a hint of a smile.

They looked at each other again. They were all shifting on their hooves, and rubbing one leg against another. «Well,» said Sweetie Belle slowly.

«Yes.»

«No.»

«Maybe.»

Discord looked at them with a barely controlled smile. «Oh,» he said, «We can’t have that.»

He stood still a moment, tapping one claw against his chin, «I know,» he said, as if struck by inspiration, «How about, because I can’t bring him here, I send you there!»

«What?» said Sweetie Belle, starting to get alarmed and taking a step backwards.

«This is the perfect solution! You can be with Harry, Harry can be with you, everyone is happy!» He reached over and with one paw opened a hole in space like one of the ponies would pull a curtain aside. «See? Harry’s right there.» He pointed with the clawed hand at a pony seated among a bunch of what looked like hairless minotaurs.

The three started to slide into the opening, as if they were being sucked into it.

۸- ̫ -۸

Author's Notes:

* Check out the Cononish gold mine in Scottish highland, north of the Highland Boundary Fault. They hope to process 3,000 tons of ore for 12,000 troy ounces — approximately one tonne — of gold a month (about 4 times as much as the average mine, typically in the range of one ounce (28 grams) of gold per ton of raw ore). The natural occurrence of gold in granite is about 0.001–0.01 ounce (0.028–0.28grams) per ton. A mountain of granite — about a thousand feet (~300 meters) taller than the surrounding plains and with a slope of about sixty-degrees from the horizontal — is about fifty-seven billion pounds (twenty-five billion kilograms). So, in an average mountain of granite, you should find 1.7k–17k tons of gold. It will be awhile before Harry needs to find a new mountain. And the mountains in the Scottish highlands are 4,400 feet (1,300 meters) above sea level, so if you re-do the calculations of a cone for that height, the volume goes up by about eighty-three times.

Also found in the Scottish Highlands: Diamonds, sapphires, rubies, beryls, and topazes.

Ch. 19 — Unforeseen Consequences

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Ch. 19 — Unforeseen Consequences

Harry had just started moving the gold from his second trip to the mountain when Dean walked into the dorm before dinner. The wizard boy stopped and stared, wide-eyed. Both trunks were open and there was an arc of gold rocks flying from one to the other.

Dean slowly walked into the room. “Harry,” he said calmly. “What are you doing?”

“Moving stuff?” Harry rubbed the back of his neck with the hoof with his wand and looked sheepishly at the floor as the last rock of the arc vanished into his new trunk.

Dean walked over to the two trunks and craned his head to see inside. The first trunk was open to the closet section. It was about half-full of tiny gold rocks.

Harry had hefted rocks as big as himself onto the switching rune, this time. Then broke them into smaller, fist-sized pieces, and reduced them to less than half that size with the reducio charm to fit better in the space he had. He spent most of his time, easily ninety-nine percent, doing stuff other than waiting for the nearly instant switching of the rock for gold on the rune.

Today, he estimated, he had collected five tonnes. That gave him eight, total. He thought he’d need twelve for all four dragons — three tonnes each should make them happy. So, one more trip should be more sufficient.

He could even use an engorgio to make the gold look bigger than it really was. Just a little, though. Maybe ten percent. Any more and that would raise the dragons’ suspicions. Only a weight charm would reveal the truth. But maybe he shouldn’t do that, because when they did notice — and he had an uncomfortable feeling they would notice — they would think he had been trying to fool them.

No, better not do that.

Dean had interrupted him partway through transferring the contents of the closet-trunk to his apartment trunk. They all had a new-to-them, old, second trunk, so they hadn’t noticed that he had been using both.

Dean had seen the apartment trunk when Harry had first found it, so he knew it that in addition to the drawers and closet features, it had a small room that was perhaps four yards on a side. It had a kitchenette in one corner with a full bathroom behind a door beside it. There was now a huge pile of gold in the opposite corner, as well as the gold Harry had salvaged from the Room of Requirement. It spilled out over half the floor space.

Dean turned wide eyes to Harry.

Harry shrugged. “It takes a lot of gold to make a dragon happy.”

Dean swallowed. “That’s real gold?” he squeaked.

Harry nodded, and kicked the floor with a hoof.

Dean cleared his throat. “Where did you get it all?” he asked incredulously.

Harry nodded his head in the direction of the window. “From the mountains.”

The wizard looked from the two trunks to the mountains visible through the window, and back.

“How?” he whispered wonderingly.

“Oh, it wasn’t that hard. Time consuming, yes,” Harry said. “Gold is usually scattered in tiny amounts throughout entire mountain ranges, here. So, you might find a thimble-full in an area the size of this room.” He waved a hoof. “Not worth the effort of digging, unless you happen to find an especially rich spot.” He smirked. “But a switching spell combined with Rarity’s gold-finding spell, then that doesn’t matter, does it? Her spell finds the exact location of a bit of gold, then the other spell switches the two out. Add in directional, charge, and power runes for the magic you need?” He nodded his head happily. “Then Bob’s your uncle!” He grinned. “The hardest part was carving the runes into the stone, and then carting around the stones.” The pony sighed. “I spent most of my time doing that. I had to take a lot of rest breaks. Moving tonnes of stones is hard work!”

Dean sat heavily on his bed, shaking his head. “You’re a genius,” he said.

Harry stared at him, nonplussed. “No, it’s obvious, isn’t it?” he said. “Isn’t that how wizards get their gold?”

Dean shook his head and gave a soft, curt, “No.” After a moment, he firmly said, “Right!” slapped his hands on his knees, and stood. “Could you show me the runes you used?” He went to his desk and pulled out a scroll.

Harry shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

He drew the rune-matrices carefully — parts of each rune on one sheet, then the other part on a second. Periodically, he held them together in front of a very bright light from Dean’s wand, to see the whole runes. That way he didn’t accidentally invoke any magic or make any mistakes.

“There you go,” he said, handing the finished instructions to the boy. “Put a blank sheet between them, just to be careful.”

Dean reverently placed the sheets in his trunk.

“Wanna come with tomorrow?” Harry said. “You could help me gather rocks.”

“Oh, yes!” he said excitedly.

“Okay.” Harry turned back to his two trunks and started the transfer again.

It must be his typical luck kicking in, was his thought, as he was almost finished when Seamus, Ron, and Neville came in. He sighed as they stared awestruck down into his apartment trunk a moment later.

Soon enough, they all had copies of his “portable gold mine,” as Seamus called it.

“You know, we should keep this a secret,” said Dean.

The others looked at him curiously.

“If everyone finds out, there will be a huge rush for gold,” he explained.

Seamus’s eyes went wide, “’Cor! And if everyone has tonnes of gold, no one will want to work. And then prices would go way up, because why would you work for a few galleons an hour when you’ve got a million in your vault?

“Blimey!” Ron said, “They’d have to pay me a stonking lot before I’d consider working as a saleswizard. And even more to do something like an obliviator or metal charmer. Or,” he shuddered, “work in the ministry!”

“And that would drive the price for everything right through the roof,” concluded Dean.

“But what about my family?” Ron said, “I can’t keep this a secret from the twins. They’d discover I had a secret and would never stop pranking me until I told them!” he complained.

“Make the runes and explanation a family secret, it can never be disclosed in any manner to anyone not in your family,” Neville suggested with a shrug.

It took a lot of arguing, but they finally worked out a solution that protected the secret. They ended up with a parchment that read:

۸-_-۸

Before you may disclose the gold mining rune-spells and their explanations, you must cast silencing, hiding, and invisibility charms over both of you, as strong as you can manage, and make sure the two of you are alone and there are no recording or listening charms of any kind in your vicinity. The one you are about to disclose this to must be a member of your family by your last name. They are to say:

“I swear on my magic that I can only disclose this secret to a member of my family with my last name. That my magic shall seal this knowledge in my mind where none may find it by any mind magics, including, but not limited to, the imperius, legilimency, confundus, possession, or anything similar, or by the use of potions. If absolutely necessary to maintain the secret, my magic will erase it from my memory before it is found or disclosed. Should I surrender my last name for a different last name, I shall forget this secret and never remember having it, unless the family of the last name I am taking already know this secret. I may not, in any manner whatsoever, hint what this secret may be; nor what makes up the secret, itself, to any others. Should I be questioned about anything to do with this secret, I may say I came by it with skill, luck, inheritance, and/or by a similar vague excuse that reveals no details. Should I decide to share this secret with a family member, I will cast silencing, hiding, and invisibility charms over both of us, as strong as I can manage, and make sure the two of us are alone and there are no recording or listening charms of any kind in our vicinity. I will have them recite this swearing exactly as I have heard it before I reveal the secret, and any other details. So mote it be.”

Once they have sworn, you may explain the gold collecting rune-spell matrices, as well as any other information about the secret that you deem necessary, such as where or when you have used the spell, and whom else knows about it.

This parchment is to be kept with the gold collecting rune-spell parchments, separated by filler sheets that you may use to serve as a distraction.

The only families that know this secret are: Longbottom, Weasley, Thomas, Finnigan, Potter, Sparkle, Granger, and Lovegood.

۸-_-۸

The parchments were charmed so that anyone who didn’t have those last names and weren’t privy to the secret would see only blanks. Or whatever had been written on them as camouflage. While the wizards all swore the oath, Harry insisted he had to wait to include his three witch friends, Hermione, Ginny, and Luna. The three of them would do it together, later.

The pony and boys would eventually discover that they had, inadvertently, created a variant to the little remembered fidelius charm. It did everything except steal the knowledge from those who already knew it.

They arrived, afterwards, in the Great Hall barely in time for dinner.

Ron had a grin that threatened to split his face in half. The other boys were nearly as clearly pleased.

And the other Gryffindors at their table were curious.

۸-_-۸

Naturally, because things hadn’t gone that badly in the first task, and things in general weren’t going to tartarus in a handbasket, the roof fell in at dinner.

Despite their late arrival, the Gryffindor boys had managed a decent meal. They were just finishing their desserts when, with a giant ripping sound, a hole in space appeared over their table.

Half the people in the Great Hall stared in disbelief at the jagged tear that floated over the Gryffindor table. From one side it couldn’t be seen and those students were left wondering what was going on. From the other side, everyone could clearly see into what looked like a typical dorm room with a bed, window into a city, and posters on the wall. The keen-eyed, and those close enough and not too distracted by what was happening, noticed that the posters all featured ponies. And that of the four creatures visible, three were clearly ponies, as well. The fourth, brief glimpse though it was, provoked many arguments as they tried to describe, later, just what they had seen. And everyone had focused on something different, at the time.

Harry dimly realized that the professors at the Head table were all on their feet and had drawn their wands. He was too gobsmacked at what he saw. He stared in disbelief as he looked up and into Sweetie Belle’s dormitory room in Canterlot. It was easy to recognize by the posters on the wall of various famous bands and performers. The towers of the Canterlot Palace/Castle were distinctive presences in the window behind those in the opening. And he could see all three of his fiancées looked terrified as they slid towards the opening. What worried him the most was the voice he heard in the background of the room as it said, «See? Harry’s right there.»

A clawed arm pointed out of the opening and at Harry. Which definitively confirmed whose voice he heard.

«Whhaatt!» shouted Scootaloo as she started to pass through the hole in space. «Wait!»

«Oh, you’re right! You need to know the language.» He snapped his claws.

The impromptu gate was barely above the table. Scootaloo’s hooves hit the edge of the hole and she tripped as she went over the edge. She ended up face-first in a bowl of pudding with her rear in the air and wings spread wide.

Next came Apple Bloom, as she clearly tried to dig her hooves into the floor, and failed. “Wait! Wait! Wait!” she shouted. She, too, tripped over the edge.

She collided with Scootaloo, who had barely lifted her face out of the bowl. Scootaloo was dunked for a second time into the pudding as Apple Bloom flailed behind her and ended up sitting on a cake before her hooves slipped on the desserts and she fell sideways.

«Ah! Good thought, Apple Bloom, you all need to blend in!» There was a second loud snap from the other side of the opening

“No! No! No!” yelled Sweetie Belle as she shot through the opening, last. “Wait!”

Sweetie Belle landed on top of the other two, and knocked them down again.

«No need to thank me, fillies!» the Draconequus said, and laughed happily. «And, of course, you’ll need funds!» He poked his head and one arm through the hole and dropped a large sack beside the three girls on the table. «And don’t worry, I’ll tell your relatives for you!»

The four looked up at him a panic and chorused, “DISCORD!”

He poked his head out of the tear and waved to a very alarmed Harry, «Hi, Harry! You’re doing a great job! Keep up the good work!»

He glanced across the hall and waved magnanimously. “Ta ta, for now!” he said cheerily and closed the hole in the universe.

Harry stood on his bench, still staring in disbelief. His three herdmates were in a pile in front of him. He hadn’t expected to see them until his mum had shown up, and even then only briefly as he couldn’t return home until after the tournament was over. And yet, here they were. And his mum was nowhere in sight. Which meant, they, too, were stuck here.

They were not ponies anymore.

They were covered in food.

They didn’t have clothes.

This, was a disaster.

Or, maybe not.

۸-ꞈ-۸

The Attendance Office at Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns was closed for the weekend, so there was no one to notice as a paper floated down into the “IN” basket on one pony’s desk. It said, in far too many legalese words, that Sweetie Belle was to be excused from classes for the foreseeable future while she dealt with a family issue in Trotland.

Simultaneously, a letter appeared in Derpy Hooves mailbag at the Ponyville Post office, for delivery Monday morning. From Sweetie Belle, it said that she had been unexpectedly transferred to a school in Trotland to assist at a school for a few months as part of her magical training. And not to be too worried if she didn’t send too many letters, mail delivery from there was rather erratic. And it sounded to be very busy, too, but the school had every confidence that she would do her best!

In Cloudsdale, a paper found its way into the Assignments Office while the pony assigned for that weekend was “resting his eyes,” with his head was down on the desktop, drooling. It declared, in dense bureaucratese, that Trainee First Class Scootaloo had been transferred to Trotland for special training in cloud management. Mail, and her wages, were to be held until her return. Trotland would be responsible for her wages until she returned, except for the advance she had been given for the trip. She would have to pay that back when she returned.

A letter appeared on Scootaloo’s supervisor’s desk in Canterlot stating that she had been transferred to Cloudsdale until further notice.

A letter flew in the window at Sweet Apple Acres, from “Apple Bloom,” to land on the kitchen table. It said she had received an urgent letter from a Pear cousin in Trotland asking for a bit of extra help and would she mind pitching in for a few months? So, she had headed out. She’d try to remember to write, but things sounded hectic and so she might be pretty busy, so they shouldn’t worry. And that she had hired a replacement for the store in Canterlot. The letter had barely settled onto the table when an errant breeze from the open window blew it to the floor, and then under the cold box, not to be discovered for another week by Granny Smith Apple, read, placed in a drawer, and forgotten until Applejack began to fuss about where that filly had gotten off to.

And in Canterlot, a young pegasus mare, Fast Add, found herself hired at the first place she walked into looking for a job. She had just arrived on the train that evening and had decided to start job-hunting before she had even found a place to stay. Not that there were that many places still open, except restaurants and bars. And a few playhouses. And those were all too busy for a manger to speak to her. However, this simple grocery store with apples and pears, had caught her eye as the odd store out.

The pony behind the counter was wearing a fake moustache, and a bright red bow in her hair. She immediately hired Fast Add, almost before the newcomer could ask. The yellow pony behind the counter said she could stay in a shared apartment that had just lost the previous employee due to a transfer to somewhere in Trotland, with the month’s rent already paid.

It was, the new-hire thought, incredible good luck. The pegasus was given a short instruction in what was expected, and given a book on how to run the business. In the distance, a train whistle could be heard. The yellow pony then rushed out, declaring, “Ah! Ah’m going to be late!” Fast Add was left in charge for the remainder of the evening.

And everyone at home had thought she’d find it hard to survive in the big city full of cantankerous unicorns! Ha! Although it was odd, now that she looked, that the posted store hours showed that store should be closed at this hour. So, after straightening the store up a bit, she headed out to see what her apartment looked like, or if it was just a boarding room.

۸-_-۸

Three fillies turned their gazes from the space formerly occupied by the spatial opening and realized that Harry was right beside them. They cried, “Harry!” and scrambled across the table to hug him fiercely. Which, naturally, knocked him off the bench and they ended up in a pile against the Great Hall wall which ran beside the Gryffindor table. At first, Harry was too happy to see them to care for the circumstances, but then he heard the Headmaster.

“I take it you know these young ladies, Mr. Sparkle?”

“Move. move, move,” he said quickly, and struggled from the bottom of the pile. They quickly stood and looked back at the Headmaster and Professors McGonagall, Snape, and Moody, in the aisle with them. “Yes, sir, Headmaster Dumbledore,” Harry said. “I’d like to introduce to you my herdmates.” He turned towards the girl with the long red hair, “This is Apple Bloom.”

She politely nodded at the Headmaster, murmuring, “Hello.”

He turned to his other side and waved his hoof at the girl with the long two-tone purple hair, “This is Sweetie Belle.”

She, too, nodded, and murmured, “Pleased to meet you.”

He pointed his hoof at the third girl, with long dark-pink hair, “And this is Scootaloo.”

Scootaloo mimicked the other two.

“Mares, this is Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry’s Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore,” who nodded and stroked his beard, as Harry went on to introduce the three professors.

During this, Professor McGonagall was staring at them, gobsmacked. At first Harry didn’t understand, but glancing at his herdmates he realized, again, that the herdmates weren’t ponies anymore. And as such, their lack of clothing in public was an issue. And while Apple Bloom had a magnificent bow in her hair, it didn’t exactly hide anything considered important.

The people who staring were staring because of the girls’ nudity, and not just because of their bizarre method of entry.

He looked at the Headmaster and professors. “Excuse us a moment, sirs,” he said politely. Then put up a shield around himself and the girls that was fogged with black. Fortunately, there was a torch behind them that provided them with additional light.

“Fillies,” he said, “we’ve got several issues here. First, you must wear clothes at all times, Going without is considered taboo.” They glanced at each other, then their jaws dropped as they got a good look at how they had been changed. “Second, you’re not ponies anymore. You’re in my original form. Sweetie Belle, you can still do magic, even without a horn, so don’t panic.”

She grabbed at her forehead with a shocked expression. “It’s gone!” she whispered.

“But you can still do magic with a wand! Here!” He handed her his wand. “Make it light up!”

A moment later it did, to her relieved sigh.

“Don’t worry, I’ll teach you the magic here.”

He turned to Scootaloo, who had turned her neck to look over her back, and had started to panic. “My wings?” she said frantically, “Where are my wings?” She groped ineffectually with her hands.

“You don’t have wings,” he said bluntly, “But I can use the wings spell to get them back.” He suited action to words, and cast the wings spell. The look of relief on her face more than made up for the additional weakness he felt.

He looked at them. “First, we need to get cleaned up. I’m going to cast a spell, but it’s going to sting a bit, and feels like ants crawling on you. But it’ll do for now, okay?”

They yelped as he cast the scougify spell on all four of them.

“Is everything all right?” he heard Professor McGonagall say. The shield was only visual, he hadn’t wanted the professors to misunderstand anything.

“Yes, Professor, just getting cleaned up and explaining a few things.”

“I have three transfigured robes for the girls,” she said, “They’ll last until we get some proper robes.”

“Thank you Professor, just hand them through the shield, it’s only sight that’s blocked.”

A second later, three robes floated through the fogged shield.

As soon as the three were robed, he dropped the shield.

He bowed to Professor McGonagall. “Thank you for your assistance.”

The three girls awkwardly followed suit, almost falling in the endeavour.

“Well,” Dumbledore gently, “I think we should adjourn to my office to discuss what just happened, and determine our next course of action.”

Harry nodded. “Yes, I think we should.”

The Headmaster waved his arm in the direction of the doors for them to lead, which made sense because the four professors were behind the four students in that respect.

“I would like Hermione, Ginny, and Luna to accompany us.”

The three mentioned gasped and looked at each other, surprised. The other students watched and listened.

The Headmaster gave him an inquisitive look. Professor Snape rolled his eyes, but said nothing. The other two just watched.

Harry shrugged. “They’re girls. My herdmates will need guidance when Professor McGonagall is not available. Such as when it is time to use the toilets and shower. And I’ll tell them everything anyway.”

The three girls in question, acutely aware of their new forms, blushed. The three students looked puzzled, but excited at being included.

“Hum, yes,” said the Headmaster, “Perhaps it would be for the best.”

The group exiting had everyone’s attention, and Harry could hear the students in the hall break into excited chatter the moment they left it.

“So,” the Headmaster said as they walked down the corridor — well they walked, Scootaloo hovered — “You are from Equestria, I believe?”

“Yes,” said Harry. “They were in Canterlot, the capital. I recognized Sweetie Belle’s room.”

He nodded. “And you, Miss Scootaloo, you are a pegasus, there?” he said, stroking his beard.

“Yes, sir,” she said, “I’m a trainee in weather management in Canterlot.”

The professors gave her a sharp look. “Weather management?” said Professor Snape.

She looked at them — she was flying backwards, facing them, now — “Yes, sir. You know, clearing clouds, gathering clouds, making sure it rains on time and stops when it should.”

They gave her disbelieving stares. “Indeed,” the Headmaster said at last.

Harry smirked. “Why don’t you see if you can do it here?” he said.

Scootaloo looked at him, then her hands. She shrugged, frowned, and started moving her arms as if she were gathering something. Slowly, as a small cloud started to form, she began to smile. At first it was light and fluffy, then as she continued to move her arms and packed it tighter and tighter, it began to turn dark. After another few moments it was about a yard across, as dark as a thunderstorm, and little flashes could be seen inside it. She looked at Harry and grinned, who grinned right back. The other two had relieved smiles of their own.

They had stopped to watch her work. The four adults and three witches were staring, gobsmacked and slack-jawed.

She hovered up over the miniature cloud. “Heeeyahh,” she said suddenly, startling the wizards and witches, and kicked the cloud with her feet. The resulting thunderclap made the others all jump as a bright bolt of lightning flashed to the floor and the cloud began to rain. Several seconds later the cloud was gone and the only evidence it had ever existed was the scorch mark from the lightning, and the large wet spot, on the floor.

“Like that,” she said smugly. Harry and Scootaloo grinned proudly at her success while the other two fillies rolled their eyes. Thanks to Rainbow Dash, they had seen that particular party trick more times than they could count.

“Hm, yes,” said the Headmaster, as they resumed walking. After a few steps, he said, “And you, Miss Belle, you are a unicorn, correct?”

“Yes, sir. But I don’t know what I can do without a horn,” she said forlornly. “I was studying to be an artificer at school.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Harry said happily, “We can get you a wand, like we did me, right Headmaster Dumbledore? And don’t let her fool you, she’s got a wonderful singing voice.”

She blushed.

“Yes, yes, of course,” Dumbledore said quietly, eyes twinkling. He looked to the last member of the three. “And you Miss Bloom? What is your . . . ,” he glanced at Harry, “tribe?”

“Ahm an Earth pony! Ah can do almost anything with plants!” she said proudly.

“She can clear an entire apple tree with just one kick!” Harry said proudly. “And she can build most anything when she wants.”

Apple Bloom blushed while the wizards and witches looked unsure of how to take that.

“It sounds as if all three of you can do magic,” Professor McGonagall said slowly.

“Oh, yes,” Harry said, “Of course. My mum showed me the studies that prove that the pegasi and earth ponies can all do magic even though they don’t have horns. The pegasi channel magic through their wings and hooves, allowing them to manipulate the weather, fly, and cloud-walk. The earth ponies channel their magic though their hooves, making them super strong and able to manipulate plants. They just can’t cast magic, like unicorns, because they don’t have horns.

They had reached the entrance to Dumbledore’s office, and continued up the stairs.

“Very interesting,” said the Headmaster as he gestured them to sit in the chairs he had conjured. “Can you tell us how you managed to get here?” He gave them a kindly smile. “It appeared that you weren’t exactly planning on it.”

After they had finished explaining, Harry wryly said, “And that’s why I said calling on the God of Chaos was not something you do lightly. He won’t necessarily hurt you, but what he does do is totally unpredictable. And someponies say the cure is worse than the complaint.”

The wizards and witches looked very disturbed at the story.

“And this . . . God of Chaos . . . just . . . opened . . . a portal between our worlds?” the Headmaster asked, just to verify what they had said.

“Oh, yes,” said Sweetie Belle. “we’ve seen him do stuff like that before.”

“And he didn’t take Harry back because that would . . . not be chaotic enough?”

The three fillies nodded. “And that Harry would die in six months if he did. He didn’t say why,” said Scootaloo.

“But he did say he had nothing to do with Harry either coming to or leaving Equestria,” said Sweetie Belle.

۸- ̫ -۸

Ch. 20 — Official Notice

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Ch. 20 — Official Notice

The fillies spent the night in the Gryffindor Fourth Year dormitory. Harry spent the night in a warm glow — not literally, of course — relishing what they had told him. Just knowing that his mum really was looking for him made him want to dance for joy every time he thought about it. Which was about every ten seconds. He settled for just wriggling in delight.

While he had told everyone, with complete confidence, that his mum would look for him, there was always that little niggling doubt at the very back of his mind that maybe she wasn’t. That maybe she was glad to be rid of his weirdness, strangeness, and annoyance. To find out that she was looking for him brought him great joy. And a grin that threatened to stretch from ear to ear.

That, and knowing his herdmates were not that far away, kept him excited and happy long after curfew. That it might take two years was mildly disappointing, but it could be as quick as tomorrow. But with Discord so quick to shuffle the fillies to him, he doubted it would be any time before the end of this tournament.

And when they got back, they would turn Equestria on its ear with impossible magic!

Sunday morning, at breakfast, the Equestrians took turns answering questions about what had happened the previous night — they hadn’t arrived at the Common Room that night until almost curfew. Which meant they had a long and rather leisurely breakfast this morning.

Getting used to having fingers was . . . a challenge, at first.

Scootaloo was rather put out that her wings were gone in the morning, she couldn’t use them to pick things up as she normally did. And Harry refused to keep giving her wings all day long. He had other demands on his magic that were more important — such as making it up to and through the seventh year classes. And she would be sitting in classes and not flying most of the day during the week, anyway.

Afterwards, the fillies, Harry, Hermione, Ginny, Luna, and Professor McGonagall struck out for Diagon Alley. It wasn’t going to take nearly as much time, as the professors had found nearly everything they needed, except wands, a few incidentals, and clothing, from items recovered from the Room of Requirement. And they wouldn’t need to visit Gringotts, either, as Discord had indeed given them a rather large sack of galleons.

That the coinage was proper galleons and not just gold coins left the professors more than a bit disturbed. From where had the creature gotten the coins? Harry and the fillies’ insistence that the God of Chaos, in all likelihood, had simply created them did not put the professors at ease. If anything, it worried them more. Transforming gold from something else was possible, the Philosopher’s Stone proved that, but creating it from nothing? That was impossible even for magic. Or, at least, if should be.

A message the night before had warned both Ollivander and Madam Malkin that three more students would drop by today.

Their first visit was to Twilfitt and Tatting’s. With the three witches helping, one to an Equestrian, it didn’t take long to get them outfitted with a complete wardrobe of casual wear and underwear. With wicking, temperature, and minor tear-repair spells included, of course. The blouses all had alterations for wings — Scootaloo wasn’t going to be the only one flying, after all.

“SOCKS!?” exclaimed Apple Bloom, embarrassed. The three fillies blushed, to the wizards and witches surprise, as they stared at the display on the wall.

“Yes!” Harry firmly said. “Unlike ponies’ hard hooves, humans’ feet are thin skin. Humans wear shoes to protect their feet from sharp stones and sticks. But shoes are stiff and can give you blisters as they rub against your feet, so they wear socks. And socks keep their feet warm in winter.”

“You wear socks all the time?” Sweetie Belle said incredulously to Hermione, as her blush deepened.

Hermione gave them a wondering look, lifted her robe slightly, and stuck out a foot, with trainer and sock clearly visible.

Harry blinked, he had never seen anyone blush all the way down their neck as the three fillies were doing. For a moment, he thought Sweetie Belle was going to pull a Rarity, and faint.

They turned as one to him. Scootaloo glared at him with narrowed eyes. “Don’t you ever tell anyone about us buying socks!” she growled.

“And so many . . . .” Sweetie Belle said faintly, swaying slightly.

“Wait for us at the counter,” ordered Apple Bloom in a low tone, and pointed to the front of the store.

Harry waited patiently, back to the counter and saleswitch, until all the purchases were bagged and shrunken, before he turned and started hoofing over the galleons. The girls placed their purchases in his expanded rucksack.

The three witches picked up a few items, and two-pairs of blouses with the wing alterations, each. This time on Harry’s sickle. Which he felt was fair, they were helping him, after all.

The three former ponies wore a complete set of clothes out of the store. It was easy to see that the “winged” blouses were going to be the coming fashion rage as Scootaloo ruffled her wings and attracted more than a little attention as she then hovered beside them. And the three fillies were still blushing at wearing socks, even if they were also wearing shoes.

Then it was on to Madam Malkins, who was more than happy to supply the three with a complete set of robes, each. She was thrilled to see that her preplanning for optional wings worked as well as she had hoped. And that the three witches with them requested her to alter their present robes.

Then came the dreaded apothecary for their potions kits.

It was a white-faced trio, immediately afterwards, that slowly made their way into Ollivanders, not too much before lunch time.

This time, Harry was ready and looking for the creepy old wizard with silvery eyes. So, he and Professor McGonagall were the only ones not to jump when the man suddenly appeared. “Fir and dragon heartstring, nine and a half inches,” said he wizard as he appeared at their side, looking at Professor McGonagall, “Is it still serving you well?”

She smiled at the old wizard, “Still working well, Mr. Ollivander. I have three new students for you today. One, Miss Belle,” she put her hand on the girl’s shoulder, “used to be a unicorn, like Mr. Sparkle, here.” she nodded at Harry. “Miss Scootaloo used to be a pegasus.” She nodded towards her. “And Miss Bloom used to be what they call an earth pony.”

Ollivander looked at the three girls for a few moments, before turning to Harry. “Holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches, nice and supple. Have you had any issues since the wand weighing?”

Harry mutely shook his head.

Ollivander quickly questioned the three witches, getting the answers he expected. Then he turned to Scootaloo. “Pegasus?” he said.

Scootaloo nodded, “Miss my wings,” she groused. They had faded shortly after leaving Madam Malkins.

It took them almost three-quarters of an hour to finish.

An eight and three-quarters-inch walnut and unicorn hair wand was the best fit for Sweetie Belle. “A good, consistent wand for charms, for the witch with clarity and focus,” Ollivander said.

Scootaloo ended up with ten-inch maple-wood with pegasus feather wand. “This is a traveller’s wand, most excellent for transfiguration, picky about its owner, but best for the person full of imagination and originality,” explained the strange wizard. He smiled at the wand. “An experiment from my youth. I had a feeling it would find a use, someday.”

Apple Bloom’s wand was, naturally, Applewood with a dittany stalk, at nine and a half inches. “An outstanding wand for healing and working with plants,” Ollivander said delightedly.

The three were waving their new wands, with brilliant multi-coloured sparks flying from them, while the other girls watched with smiles and giggles. Professor McGonagall almost had a smile.

Harry said, “Alright, listen up.”

The three turned to him questioningly.

“Hold your wands like this,” he demonstrated what he meant, “Scoots, remember what it felt like in your hands when you gathered that cloud last night? Bloom, remember what your legs feel like just before you kick an apple tree? Sweetie Belle, you know how it feels to send magic to your horn.” He faced each girl as he said that.

They all three nodded eagerly.

“Okay, think about that feeling going down your arm into your hand and into the wand. Think about the magic in the wand. Feel the magic in your wand. Then say, lumos!” His wand tip began to glow.

“Lumos!” the three chorused.

All three wands gave a quick flicker of light that went out as soon as the girls realized it had worked.

“I did magic!” whispered Apple Bloom. She looked at the other fillies.

Professor McGonagall and the three witches had wide grins at their reactions.

“I can do magic!” breathed Scootaloo, amazement and wonder clear in her expression.

“We can do magic!” corrected Apple Bloom, with a huge grin afterwards.

Sweetie Belle giggled. “We can do magic with wands!”

Their grins were easily as big as Harry’s.

“We can do magic, magic, magic,” the three began to singsong, “We can do magic, magic, magic.”

They held their wands up tips almost touching, “Lumos!” they sang.

Harry had never thought that he had been missing something, besides the obvious, since coming to this world until he heard the muted sounds of invisible instruments begin to play. The three fillies launched into a Harmony song

“I can make things bigger,” sang Scootaloo as she pointed her wand at a box on the counter and made it grow.

“I can make things smaller,” sang Apple Bloom as she pointed her wand at another box on the counter and made it shrink.

“I can make small things bigger on the inside,” sang Sweetie Belle as she pointed her wand at an open box on the counter, and then stuck her whole arm in it.

Then they sang, “We can do magic, magic, magic.”

Professor McGonagall had a surprisingly developed soprano, and Ollivander startled Harry with a unexpectedly deep baritone for such a slim build. That the three young witches could harmonize so well on the chorus wasn’t that startling, but their expressions were hilarious.

By the time the song ended and they stopped dancing, the three fillies were on the counter-top and five other wizards and witches had come into the small store.

There was dead silence for a moment as the last note faded away. The six cats that had been dancing and prancing with them — in black coattails, top-hats, and with canes — either jumped back onto the counter or walked to join their fellows before they slowly turned back into the tops and bottoms of the fillies’ wand boxes. The various magics cast in the store by the three fillies during the singing changing the colours, shapes, and sizes of things slowly faded and reverted back to normal. Then the three former ponies hopped off the counter as the wizards and witches just looked at each other. The exhilaration quickly turned to embarrassment. The wizards and witches either tried to sneak out, or pretended they had come in to get wand holsters or cleaning kits.

The professor and students just . . . stared as the grinning and happy fillies admired their wands, bouncing on their heels. Even Ollivander looked taken aback at what had just happened.

When they were the only ones left in the store, Hermione blurted out, “What was that?”

Harry and the fillies snickered. “Never thought I would miss that,” Harry said nostalgically. He sighed. “That was Harmony magic at work.” He looked at the others. “When ponies have very strong emotions, they can’t help but sing. And their magic sings with them. Everyone who is close joins in to share the joy.”

Hermione looked at him, bug-eyed. “But . . . music?”

Harry shrugged and nodded genially. “That’s Harmony magic at work.” He grinned. “And didn’t you have fun?”

With guilty expression the girls, and professor, nodded.

Then he bought wand holsters for everyone. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of that last time,” he said shaking his head as they headed for the cauldron shop.

They ate at the Leaky Cauldron before heading back to Hogwarts, as it was too late for lunch at the school.

۸- ̬ -۸

The first thing Harry did when they got back to their Common Room was to teach Apple Bloom and Scootaloo how to use Hayscartes’ Method, and then the wings spell. It was going to be much more difficult for the two to make their way through the first year books because they didn’t have years’ worth of experience casting magic. Many of the concepts and things that unicorns almost intuitively knew, they had to learn from scratch. On the other hoof, with Harry and Sweetie Belle coaching and cheering them on, they were highly motivated.

And while the Hayscartes’ Method would help, their limited experience with it wouldn’t really make that much difference for several months. It would take time and many attempts for their magic, and memories, to adapt to the spell.

Fortunately, Harry and Sweetie Belle being able to directly share the spells would advance them quickly.

Then while they were working with Hermione, Luna, and Ginny on learning first year magic, Harry spent his time carefully sewing the protection runes into their clothing. There was no way he was going to let them wander around with obvious vulnerabilities!

After dinner, he transfigured some of the cast-off metal from the Room of Requirement into duplicates of the suits of armour scattered throughout the castle, sized and shaped for the fillies, of course. Enlisting his room-mates’ help, they got all three suits completed that night.

Of course, he had to promise to take them all to his “gold mine” both days next weekend. But, still, it was well worth it.

The room was sort of crowded, but the girls insisted on keeping Harry in sight.

The witches were fascinated at what the boys were doing and continually came over to watch.

“It’s like leggings!” Hermione exclaimed as she tried on the lower half of the armour. At everyone else’s curious looks, she cast a few alterations on the armour to make it a simple matter of sliding on the armour like tight-fitting jeans and sweaters instead of the labour-intensive hooking, latching, and tying that the armour-suits in the castle used. Or how the ponies’ armour had to be worn.

A few other alterations, and they had only two pieces to put on. They were like tight-fitting two-piece footy pyjamas that left only their hands and heads uncovered. Which also made toilet trips much easier — a factor Harry had not considered.

And, along the way, Harry and the fillies explained just what herdmates meant: they were all betrothed and meant to get married next year when they were of-age in Equestria.

“You get married at fifteen?” Hermione said, aghast, as the rest listened, gobsmacked.

Harry shrugged. “Ponies are born walking and start talking in a few days, so they are about two-years ahead of humans in physical development. They start school when they’re three instead of five.” He looked back at the piece of armour he was working on. “So, fifteen for them is like seventeen for you.”

Scootaloo sighed. “Yeah, we’ll all be fifteen in seven months.” She looked at Harry with a smile and licked her lips. “Harry will be in eight. Really sucks to have to wait.”

Harry blushed.

The three fillies walked over and started to nuzzle and hug him. He felt his face getting hot and blessed the fact that the robe all students were required to wear did such a good job of hiding his reactions.

“Celestia,” Harry whispered. “I missed you three!”

“Yeah,” said Sweetie Belle, softly.

“We missed you, too,” said Apple Bloom, gently.

Scootaloo just tightly held him.

Sweetie Belle moved back to her book, with a sigh. “Not everypony gets married that young.” She paused and frowned. “Well, very few do, actually. But we’ve known Harry for years and we know he’s the one for us.”

The other two gave Harry another squeeze, then returned to their books, nodding.

Harry’s blush intensified as he looked down at the armour piece in his lap that he was painting runes on. He studiously refused to look directly at anyone, but with a pony’s wide vision he could easily see everyone’s reactions.

The three witches sighed. “How romantic,” Luna said softly. The other two witches agreed.

Harry’s room-mates looked at him with evaluating expressions. And a bit of envy at having three girl-friends. The thought of being married at fifteen, however, they clearly considered daunting.

By the time a Prefect came to chase the girls back to their side of the tower, they had managed to finish the armour and only had to wait until morning for all the runes to fully charge.

Harry was thrilled that his herdmates were now as well protected as himself — well, actually, better considering he had used re-formed authentic armour.

۸- ̬ -۸

Late that night, he woke as someone approached his bed. “Who’s there?” he said quietly.

It was only as they answered, and he recognized the voices, that he realized there were three of them.

“We couldn’t sleep,” Scootaloo whispered.

“It’s just too . . . strange,” said Apple Bloom, just as quietly.

“Can we sleep with you?” Sweetie Belle said softly.

Still not fully awake, he mumbled, “Sure.” He slid out of the middle and lifted the sheet.

The closest hopped into bed with him and snuggled against him. One went around the bed and climbed in from that side. The third draped herself across one of the others and laid her head on his chest, just as they did at home during sleep-overs. He had missed them, and it was wonderful that they were here with him like this. He felt a tension he hadn’t noticed slide away. He wasn’t alone, anymore.

It did not take long to fall back asleep.

۸- ̬ -۸

He woke suddenly the next morning as he heard Seamus exclaim, “What the bloody hell?”

“Huh?” Harry said groggily, lifting his head to look around. At first, he was confused at seeing the girls, but then he remembered them waking him in the night.

He looked over at Seamus, who was sitting in his bed staring at Harry. Or, rather, he was staring at the individuals who were in Harry’s bed. The girls must not have closed the curtains after getting in the bed with him. And they had kicked off the sheet.

Seamus looked back. “Why, Harry,” he said, “are there girls in your bed.” He paused a moment. “And why are they starkers?”

“What!” came the exclamations from two other beds as Dean and Neville swept their bed curtains aside. Ron’s curtains remained closed. If not for the selective silencing charm on his bed, Harry knew they no doubt would be hearing only snores from him. Ron was not a morning person.

“Is it morning, already?” Sweetie Belle said and sat up.

“Yeah. Must be. Celestia’s got the Sun up,” said Scootloo. She sat up, yawned, and stretched.

“Just another five minutes,” mumbled Apple Bloom, and tried to burrow closer to Harry’s back.

Harry was almost fully awake now. Right. The girls had come in last night. And, normally sleeping nude, they had thought nothing of doing that in their room. And then came in here to join him, sleeping together as they had done for years at sleepovers.

He sighed. It would take a while to get them in the habit of always wearing clothes. He shook Apple Bloom gently. “Time to get up girls. And you need to get back to your room and get dressed. Remember, everyone wears clothes!”

“Aw, do we have to?” mumbled, Apple bloom, finally sitting up.

Scootaloo bounced out of the bed and immediately exclaimed, “Celestia! That’s cold!” And hopped back onto the bed and grabbed her feet to start rubbing them.

Harry cast a warming charm on them, and got a grateful smile in return.

“Nonetheless,” Harry said to Scootaloo, and the others, “You have to go back to your room and get your clothes. If you have any problems, the other girls can help you.”

It took a bit more chivvying, and two additional warming charms, but he finally got them out the door. “And don’t forget the armour,” he called out as they exited the room.

Dean, Neville, and Seamus watched, blushing bright red, speechless.

Harry could track their progress by the progressively fainter startled exclamations from students as they made their way to the Common Room and then up to their room.

“Are they always like that?” said Dean.

At Harry’s puzzled look, Dean elaborated, “about not wearing clothes.”

Harry flopped back on the bed. “We’re ponies. We have fur. Clothes are reserved for status and to show off. And to stay warm in the Frozen North.”

“They didn’t look like ponies to me,” muttered Dean.

Harry shrugged. “The God of Chaos changed them, to make things more chaotic, I imagine. Making them humans instead of leaving them as ponies will confuse people.”

“And they really don’t care that they’re . . . showing off their bits?” said Seamus incredulously.

Harry shrugged as he sat up on the bed and yawned. “Breasts are not much of an exciting point to ponies, and their tails are more than thick enough to hide their privates.” He frowned. “The fillies literally do not understand why anypony should care about whether they are clothed or not.” He pulled his underwear on and robe over his head. “And unless you were to be really obvious about trying to look up between their legs while they were on stairs as people, they wouldn’t notice anything they thought unusual.” He grinned. “In fact, they’d just think you were admiring their cutie marks.”

“Cutie marks?” The wizards exchanged confused looks.

Harry sighed. “Did you see the marks on their hips?”

All three shook their heads, no. Their attention had been on other attributes. And, quite possibly, it was the first time any of them had seen a girl naked. It certainly had been Harry’s first time.

He sighed. “The girls have marks on their hips, here and here, placed by magic itself.” He pointed to his own hips. “Foals, babies, don’t have those. As they get older, their magic matures. Then, when they find the one thing that they enjoy doing the most, that they are especially good at, their magic gifts them with a mark that shows that.”

From their still confused expressions it was clear they didn’t understand.

“Okay. For example, my mum’s big brother, Shining Armor, is a unicorn. One day, when he was about the age of a third-year, a building collapsed. He jumped in as it came down and cast a shield spell that saved lives. And held it long enough for them to be rescued. Just as soon as they were safe and he let down the shield, his cutie mark appeared! He was just so proud at saving lives, and wanted to keep doing that. His mark is a shield with a purple star on it, and three stars above it. He joined the Guard. He can cast the strongest shields in all of Equestria, and he once cast a shield over the entire capital and held it for weeks.”

Now they looked doubtful.

“Sweetie Belle’s sister is Rarity. Her passion and talent are fashion, she discovered it when she was making costumes for a school play. Her cutie mark is three diamonds.”

“And the girls’ cutie marks?” Dean said.

Harry smiled happily. “Their cutie marks are all shields, with three vertical stripes in colours that match their manes . . . hair. Scootaloo’s has a lightning bolt over a wing in it, Apple Bloom’s has a heart inside an apple, and Sweetie Belle’s has a musical note on a star in the shield. They really like helping others get their cutie marks. Plus, Sweetie Belle has a great singing voice, Scootaloo is a really fast flyer and excellent at thunderclouds, and Apple Bloom has a great heart and is wonderful at construction.”

The three took a few moments to mull over the information.

“What’s yours?” Dean said.

Harry shrugged. “I don’t know, yet. I haven’t found any one thing I like to do the most.”

By then they were ready to go downstairs, and the others clearly wondered if Harry was taking the piss with them.

From the furious looks that Hermione levelled at the fillies as they came down to join the boys in the common room before heading to breakfast, it was clear she knew about them spending the night in Harry’s bed. As well as their state of dress at the time. And their room-mates were just as obviously stunned at their casual attitude towards wearing clothes. Not to mention their matter-of-fact attitude towards actually sleeping with him — and as a group, no less!

They were just finishing up breakfast when a woman and two men came through the Great Hall doors. The woman, a square-jawed witch with close-cropped grey hair and a monocle, looked very serious. She was clearly the one in charge as she led the two men towards the Head Table. The men with her were dressed casually, and wouldn’t have looked out of place in Diagon Alley. One of them was a tall black man with a gold earring.

Professor McGonagall, at the Head Table, stood and came around it to meet her. The newcomer showed the professor a parchment, they consulted for a few moments, then turned and headed for the Gryffindor table. It rapidly became apparent to Harry that they were headed towards him. Especially as the Professor was pointedly looking at him.

When she stopped only a few steps away, he quickly stood on his rear legs and faced them.

The professor gave him a terse smile. “Director Bones, this is Prince Harry James Potter Sparkle. Prince Sparkle, this is Director Amelia Bones, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.”

“Nice to meet you, Director Bones,” Harry said cordially.

The witch studied him carefully as she said, “Nice to meet you, too. These are my associates, Auror Shacklebolt and Auror Williamson.” Auror Shacklebolt was a bald, tall, broad-shouldered, black wizard, who was wearing a single gold hoop earring. Auror Williamson was a scarlet-robed man with a ponytail.

She glanced at the table. “I hope I’m not interrupting your breakfast, but I wanted to talk with you before classes began.”

He smiled. “I just finished, actually.” He tilted his head slightly, “I’m not in trouble, am I?”

“Nothing of the sort,” she said curtly. “I would just like to talk with about a rather unusual box a Hogwarts elf delivered to my department this morning.”

He nodded approvingly. “Good. I was wondering what would happen when Bit finally delivered the first box.”

The witch’s eyebrows went up at the word, “first.”

“Mr. Sparkle,” McGonagall said, “I was thinking that it would be best for the girls to attend the first-year classes until we get a feel for where they are in their learning.”

Harry looked at his herdmates, who gave varying shrugs of ‘Sure, why not?’ He turned back to the professor. “Sounds good to me.”

He looked to the Aurors. “Where would you like to talk?”

“There is a small antechamber beside the entrance,” Professor McGonagall said. “You may use that.”

The four nodded and started for the doors as she told Hermione that she would be in charge of the three newcomers for the day. He then heard Hermione start instructing the three that they would have to hurry back to the dorms to get their supplies for Transfigurations and Herbology.

There were several chairs and a meeting table in the room, Harry saw as he entered. He also noticed the portrait of a wizard in a Quidditch uniform on one wall.

“Before we start,” Harry said, “is this supposed to be a private conversation?” He pointed at the portrait. “Because I’ve been told that all the portraits report to Headmaster Dumbledore anything important they hear.”

“Not especially,” the Director said. “But as a matter of policy, I don’t like people who are not a party to my conversations to be listening in.” The two aurors had already cast a couple of spells on entering the room. “I already knew that about the portraits, but thank you for the warning.” This time she actually smiled.

They settled around the table. She placed a wooden orb about the size of her fist in the middle. “This is a recording crystal, so we don’t have to worry about handwritten notes,” she explained before sitting back. “Now then, Mr. Sparkle. Could you explain a bit more about why you sent the crate to me?”

He smirked. “Actually, it would be easier to just show you.” He stood up and motioned to the door.

After staring at him a moment, she sighed and stood to follow him. She grabbed the recording device. When she stood, the aurors cancelled their spells. A few minutes later they were standing in Harry’s mail room.

“Oh, my,” Bones said as she surveyed the room. She noted the desk where Bit worked and walked over there, Harry and the aurors trailing her.

Harry explained what he had instructed the house-elf to do. “Of course, all this should have been done years ago, shouldn’t it? But Headmaster Dumbledore told me he was too busy,” Harry said scornfully.

The woman looked at him steadily. “Yes. I saw your full-page declaration in the Daily Prophet.” She sighed. “Unfortunately, as your guardian, what he did, while deplorable, was completely legal.” She turned and looked back across the room. “Also unfortunately, while we will happily dispose of the dangerous items sent to us, far too much time has passed to catch those responsible for sending them to you.”

“I expected as much,” he said. “However as Bit works closer to the present that will no longer be true. And you can use the older items to establish a track record, if some of the more . . . persistent . . . offenders repeated themselves.” He raised his eyebrows and smiled. “Can you not?”

The Director nodded her head. “I wonder if you would be willing to tell me a bit more about how you came to be in this tournament, and where you’ve been for the last thirteen years?”

Harry was more than happy to express his displeasure at being in the tournament. And how unpleasant it had been at the Dursleys. And he went into far more detail than he had with the Hogwarts staff. He had the ear of the head of the local Guards, and he was going to make the most of it! And he had a better understanding of the wizarding world, now, than when he had first arrived.

He made liberal use of his projection spell to show them things he had seen and heard.

۸- ̬ -۸

Ch. 21 — Unexpected Activities

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Ch. 21 — Unexpected Activities

The girls and fillies were surprised when they entered the Great Hall for lunch to find Harry sitting at the Gryffindor table with the two aurors and the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Hesitantly, the Gryffindor fourth years seated themselves around them.

“And these three young witches are your . . . herdmates?” Bones said as Apple Bloom sat beside Harry while the other two jockeyed to sit across the table from him.

Harry introduced them.

She nodded to each, murmuring her own greetings.

“And the reason they don’t retain their appearance as you do is that this . . . God of Chaos changed them? Whereas, you were brought here by the Goblet?”

They all nodded.

She looked at the three witches. “Have you tried to change back?”

They exchanged glances. “We don’t know how,” Sweetie Belle admitted. “Or even if he made it possible.” She sighed and looked up towards her own forehead. “I miss my horn,” she said dejectedly.

“And I miss my wings,” said Scootaloo, crossing her arms grumpily.

Apple Bloom was just looking at her hands and flexing her fingers.

The director nodded. “I don’t doubt it.” She smiled tersely. “And you have no problems with magic?”

The three promptly pulled out their wands and cast lumos.

Bones nodded again. “Well, it was nice meeting you,” she said, climbing over the bench. “You should probably consider yourselves as unofficial ambassadors from your world. If you have any difficulties that I can assist you with, please contact me, Amelia Bones, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement at the Ministry.” She turned to Harry. “Thank you for your help, today, Prince Sparkle. I will keep you updated on our progress.” She looked at the table beside theirs. “And, I think I’ll join my niece, Susan, over in Hufflepuff, for lunch.”

She turned to the two aurors. “Shacklebolt, Williamson, when you finish lunch, head back to the Ministry and start the paperwork.” She headed off around the table.

The grimace the two Aurors shared indicated that they expected that to be a lot of paperwork, all of which they expected to be tedious in the extreme. Harry empathized with them. He had seen the mountain of paperwork involved in running Equestria. It amazed him that there were still trees left in the countryside considering the quantity of paper consumed on a daily basis just for the bureaucracy, never-mind the paper used, and discarded, in commerce.

The two aurors had a “working” lunch as a steady stream of students came over to talk with them about their jobs.

۸-_-۸

That evening, as they walked back to the common room after dinner, Sweetie Belle gave Harry a hard look with narrowed eyes. “When was the last time you had a good brushing?” He had spent the afternoon and last two hours with his tutors, practicing on the fifth year DADA spells as the six girls watched. Hermione, Ginny, and Luna, naturally, copied what they were watching as well as they could.

Hermione was there because she wanted to get ahead of everyone. Ginny, because Hermione was her best friend. Luna, because that’s where Harry was.

He shrugged. “Not since arriving here.”

The three fillies gave him incredulous looks, the others were merely curious.

He gave then a wry smile, “Didn’t trust anyone when I first got here, and then I was too busy to take the time.”

They slowly nodded.

“When we get to the common room, lose the armour and robe and we’ll give you a thorough brushing. There are probably snarls and shed everywhere!” Sweetie Belle said firmly. Jonathan and Liza were kind enough on conjure pony brushes for them, based on Harry’s projected illusions. Harry was a bit tired from the nearly non-stop magic practice and wasn’t sure if his conjuration skills were up to the task. It would be annoying if he conjured the brushes and they disappeared after a mere three minutes.

Ten minutes later, the six girls were taking turns with the brushes, and Harry was in heaven. Five minutes after that, he was asleep.

It was the first night since arriving that he slept without the armour. And the fillies never did return to their beds in the witches’ side of the dorm.

۸-_-۸

Harry counselled against letting Sweetie Belle take the Potions class with Apple Bloom and Scootaloo the next day. Unfortunately, Sweetie Belle was anxious to prove them wrong, and the professors didn’t take the warnings issued by Harry and the other the Equestrians seriously.

Harry thought they had dodged that arrow when he met the girls at lunch without hearing an explosion, screams, or the forced evacuation of the castle. Her “potion” still was a failure, though. At the end of the class it seemed to have vanished and turned the bottom of her cauldron into a fire-proof rubber-like substance. It wasn’t until that night, at curfew, that they discovered the First Year students for both Slytherin and Gryffindor, as well as the two Equestrians, couldn’t get to sleep — they were wide awake. The entire group, in fact, were very hyper, to the dismay of the rest of each House, especially the House Heads. They all finally fell asleep at dinner on Thursday, and the fifth years got to practice their mobilicorpus to get the out-cold sleeping Firsties back to their dorms.

Before then, however, they went through almost all the practicals for the entire first year. The third, fourth, and sixth year students worked in rotation as tutors in sheer self-defence — no one wanted to see what hyper first-years would do if left to their own devices in the wee hours of the morning, or even broad daylight.

Parents rightly looked at hyper-active and curious eleven-year-olds with horror.

They finished all their pending homework, worked their way through the textbooks for the entire year — and several had mastered the Hayscartes’ Method by then, too. Not for very long, only a minute or so at a time, but, still, they could quickly build a lead on their peers in the other two Houses, if they wanted.

The rest of the exhausted Gryffindor and Slytherin Houses, except the fifth and seventh years, followed them to bed almost immediately.

Sweetie Belle was banned from the potions classroom by popular acclaim.

Meanwhile, Apple Bloom was disgusted at Professor Snape’s lacklustre teaching methods, and considered him far inferior to Zecora. Scootaloo participated just to keep Apple Bloom company — who . . . blossomed under the regular lesson environment.

۸-_-۸

Complicating that last day of hyper firsties for the upper years, however, was Professor McGonagall making an important announcement at the end of Transfigurations. “Christmas Day is approaching, as is a Tri-wizard Tournament tradition — The Yule Ball,” she said. Then described how it was limited to fourth year and above students, with exceptions for the younger years if they were asked to attend by an upper year.

It was set in the Great Hall to start at eight o’clock on Christmas Day, and end at midnight. Naturally, it required dress robes, which explained her insistence in Diagon Alley that he acquire a set, and that the fillies do so, too. He should have suspected something was up with that.

She stopped and took a long, slow look around the class.

Then she issued the warning that they had better behave themselves at the Ball, regardless of the fact that it otherwise allowed them to relax and enjoy the company of others at a festive occasion.

The class had broken out into excited chatter almost immediately. The boys looked appalled while the girls were excited and giggly. Then the bell rang and there was the usual scuffle of activity as everyone grabbed their rucksacks and headed for the next class. For most it was Charms. Harry and Hermione, however, would head to Runes.

“Sparkle,” the professor said, “A moment please.”

Harry headed for the front of the classroom.

“I wanted to warn you that the tournament champions and their partners traditionally open the ball,” she said sternly.

Harry sighed, dejectedly. He had attended quite a few balls with his mum in Canterlot. Most had been boring beyond belief. And he had no idea how to dance on two legs. And neither did the fillies. Which, now that he thought about it, was a reason to begin to panic.

At lunch, he told them what Professor McGonagall had said. And confirmed that, of course, he would be taking all three, or not going at all.

That evening, they cuddled with him on a couch, Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom on either side while Scootaloo settled on the floor between his lower legs. They noticed that the rest of the Gryffindor students, or at least those above third year, divided into two camps, the wizards and witches. Both groups watched each other closely.

It was actually quite an interesting dynamic. And completely unlike Equestria where the fillies asked the colts for dates! Although, as the days progressed, Harry did confirm that the mannerisms he was used to seeing between the two sexes in Equestria were reversed.

Here, it was the girls who travelled in packs so they wouldn’t be cornered by an unsuitable admirer. And the boys who were uncertain and hesitant to approach the one they fancied.

Harry and the fillies were soo glad they were beyond that.

Unfortunately, the Ball scuppered his plans to visit the dragons over the holidays.

۸-_-۸

For the first years, the classes turned into lecture nightmares. They could wand the practicals quite well, but now the professors wanted them to show that they understood why the spells worked. In an usual turn of events, many were actually looking forward to Potions simply due to its lack of lectures!

The Gryffindors and Slytherin first years were going to be extraordinarily well-versed in the fundamentals of magic.

As thanks for teaching them how to dance on two legs, Harry taught his tutors and his friends how to record audio and video with their wands, and then play them back like a projector.

There was a minor problem with the officials when he stated he would only attend with all three fillies at Ball or not at all. The Headmaster and Percy managed to convince the other judges that denying his request could be seen as insulting the nation of Equestria. After considering the rather frightening implications of a creature capable of tearing a hole in the fabric of space being the three girls’ friend, and that he might be offended if the judges said no, the judges decided the better part of valour would be to agree.

“Breezies!” Scootaloo exclaimed on first seeing the holiday decorations going up in the Great Hall. She hurried over to a fairy-bedecked garland, followed closely by the other two.

“Sorry, Scoots, but those are fairies,” Harry explained as he trailed the others. They had been covered in one of the Care of Magical Creature texts he had read. “And they are not like parasprites,” he reassured them.

“They’re so pretty!” Sweetie Belle said admiringly.

There was much giggling from the garland and the glow became a bit brighter. By the end of the day, the fillies and Luna had fairies riding around and peeking from within their hair.

۸-_-۸

According to Harry’s wizard and witch friends, Hogwarts was usually almost deserted once the term ended. Not so this year. Most students, except the first, second, and third years, remained at the school to participate in the Ball. Which meant that the common rooms, Great Hall, and corridors were always crowded. And while many students went outside to play in the snow, that didn’t last long considering how cold it was.

Unlike the others, however, the Equestrians spent most of their time learning magic instead of playing. When they weren’t “reading” the books and trying to extend their Hayscartes time, they were practicing the spells. Apple Bloom and Scootaloo, especially, were intrigued at using wands to cast magic, and wondered if they could do the same back home. And it was too good of an opportunity to pass if they could.

The novelty of actually casting magic like a unicorn just never seemed to wear off for the two. They threw themselves into task of catching up with Sweetie Belle, and then Harry with a dedication that they heretofore had only been shown in their Cutie Mark Crusades. Harry and Sweetie sharing the spells directly, at times, certainly helped.

Their practice rooms took on a great deal of damage that made them all very proficient in the reparo and fail safe spells. And kept the fillies too occupied to get into the sort of scrapes they did in Ponyville. Although they did manage to coat the room in tree sap one day. But, Harry reflected as they worked the sap out of his fur, at least it hadn’t been in the Common Room or Great Hall.

Still, why the flipendo, locomotor mortis, petrificus totalus, reparo, scourgify, hot air charm, and hair-loss charms would combine like that when shot simultaneously at a chair left them all scratching their heads. Especially Professor Flitwick when they told him about it.

By the time Christmas Day arrived, Apple Bloom and Scootaloo had conquered the First Year wanded courses and had started on all the Second Year textbooks. Sweetie Belle was already well into Second Year course-work.

That day, however, they decided to relax for the morning. The atmosphere was quite like Hearth’s Warming back in Equestria, and they had been rather nostalgic. They didn’t have presents for each other, but having each other together was all they really wanted.

They had intended to do the same for the afternoon, but Parvati and Lavender, and the other witches, had had different ideas. They dragged the three Equestrians upstairs at noon to “bring out their inner beauty.”

Harry decided that for the sake of public relations he should attend the Ball as a person. All it took was modifying the Breezie spell. And being intimately familiar with the human form made that rather easy, as he had discovered earlier in the year.

Adjusting his robes for the new-old form was easy, but leaving off the armour that was “frozen” in its shape by spells made him feel more than a little vulnerable. However, at the Ball he expected everyone to be on their best behaviour, so he should be safe. On the other hoof, his appearance as a person would draw attention from the girls, so there was that, as well, to consider.

Harry had never before seen how makeup, applied with a light hand, could turn an average appearance into a picture of perfection. The three fillies, when they came down the stairs, left him breathless.

The fillies had been almost as impressed, themselves. Which had led to a Harmony Song — with the theme of “I feel pretty!” — to take over the entire Gryffindor House. And led to them dancing to the Great Hall, pulling many couples from other Houses into the mix.

Seeing several Gryffindor and Slytherin girls complimenting each other and promenading down the corridors arm-in-arm, with their dates on the outside of the two-by-two witches, left many students wondering if they had dreamed it all, later.

۸- ̬ -۸

He was gratified to see that Percy was wearing a robe with the same Equestrian flag symbol on it as on his and the fillies robes, with the name of the school circling around it. The young wizard really was taking being the judge for Harry’s school quite seriously. Harry made sure to thank him for that.

After being at Princesses Celestia’s and Luna’s dinner parties and balls with important nobles in Equestria, the fillies were not awed by their dinner associates. They were more than happy to talk with the various dignitaries. Which mostly centred on how different the magic was between the worlds, and the political makeup of Equestria. That Canterlot, alone, had as many unicorns as all of England had wizards and witches left the magical humans breathless. That the population of the country, itself, was nearly twice that of the entire wizarding population of the world, and growing, left the wizards speechless.

And, the Equestrians discovered that, unlike the Canterlot Balls they had attended, this Ball was actually fun! Well, at least it was fun once they got to the dance floor. It was refreshing not to have nobles coming up and trying to engage them, or, at least, “Prince Harry,” in conversation while trying to assert their own importance to their friends.

The four decided to take a walk through the gardens just outside the entrance hall to cool off after dancing for a long time. There were winding, ornamental paths, with large stone statues to either side of the front steps. They could hear the splashing water of a fountain and see, here and there, people seated on curved benches. There were fairies scattered throughout the gardens who fluttered, winked, and twinkled among the rosebushes and gave them a truly enchanted feeling.

Harry couldn’t help but smile as they walked a bit farther into the gardens. They hadn’t gone far when Harry heard a silky and unpleasant voice.

“. . . don’t see what there is to fuss about, Igor,” Snape said evenly.

“. . . cannot pretend this isn’t happening!” came the low and urgent response from Karkaroff. “It’s been getting darker and darker for months. I am very concerned, I can’t deny it —”

“Then flee, run away and hide, if you think you can escape so easily,” Snape’s voice was brusque and dismissive. “Flee — Never fear, though, I will make your excuses for you. However, I intend to remain here at Hogwarts.”

Harry had no idea what they were taking about, but if it was enough to make the head of Durmstrang worried, then it made him worried. He pulled the fillies back, and they ducked into another path. Taking the cues from Harry, the girls pressed to the bushes and held still as he cast don’t-notice-me spells on them all. Frequent visits to the Everfree Forest had taught them all about the value of holding completely still and not being noticed.

The students taking advantage of the darkness of the bushes to snog were not so lucky, as Snape rapidly chased them out of their hiding places, with much glee at the points he removed. Once he and Karkaroff were past, the four resumed their meandering.

As they approached the fountain they had heard, the four had the misfortune to overhear Hagrid and Maxime. The inept half-giant managed to offend the headmistress of Beauxbatons, both of whom stalked off in different directions.

The number of student pairs they kept meeting quickly set the mood, and Harry found himself in the middle of the trio, a situation he had frequently encountered in Equestria. A girl to each side and one in front as they nuzzled and kissed him. It was something they hesitated to do in the castle, as there was almost always someone watching and making them uncomfortable.

They didn’t dare keep it up for too long, as someone was sure to find them. But it was enough to keep them happy.

They finally headed back into the Great Hall and returned to the dance floor.

It was disappointing when the band, the Weird Sisters, finished their last set and started packing up. The Equestrians had been having fun. And seeing who had ended up with whom as a date had been rather instructive. Harry expected most of the couples to break up fairly quickly in the next few weeks. He knew that many had been “forced” together by the circumstances of not wanting to be seen as “lame” for not having a date.

Harry and the girls were part way up the marble staircase when he heard, “Harry! Harry!”

It was Cedric Diggory at the bottom of the stairs with Cho. He quickly climbed up to meet Harry, leaving her behind.

“Yes?” Harry said, curious.

Cedric looked nervously at the girls, then took a breath.

“Listen,” he lowered his voice after a second anxious glance at the girls. “Have you opened the egg, yet?”

“It just screeches when I open it,” Harry said frowning.

He looked around. “I owe you for the dragons . . . take a bath with it, okay?”

“What?”

“I find that a nice hot bath helps me think. . . . Just, bring the egg for inspiration. . . . It’s water-proof. . . . Trust me,” he said reassuringly, and patted Harry on the shoulder.

Harry stared at him. There weren’t any bathtubs in the dorms. Surely the Prefect knew that?

“The prefects’ bathroom is on fifth floor,” Cedric whispered, “It’s behind the fourth door on the left of Boris the Bewildered’s statue. Password’s ‘pine fresh.’” He gave Harry a grin. “Well. See ya,” He turned and headed down the stairs to where Cho waited impatiently. He stopped partway, turned enough to wave genially, and then continued on down.

Harry was perplexed at the wizard’s actions, but just shook his head and re-joined his herdmates. It could wait until tomorrow, he decided.

Wanting to have the most time to prepare, Harry and the girls, plus Hermione and Ginny, snuck into the Prefect’s bathroom early the next day. Given that all the prefects were at home and only a few students remained in the castle, it wasn’t that difficult a task.

The bathroom, when they entered it, clearly demonstrated that being a Professor’s favourite was well worth the effort. A marble interior with candle-lit chandelier, white linen curtains hung over the wide windows, doors to changing rooms and toilets at the side, and an enormous swimming-pool sized tub as the centre-piece. The tub was empty at the moment, but had a hundred or more golden taps around the perimeter, with a diving board at one end and steps at the other.

Decorating one wall was a blonde mermaid sleeping on a rock, her long hair covered her face and other salient features.

They quickly began experimenting with the taps, getting bubble bath foam from many in a variety of pleasing scents. The bath filled extraordinarily fast, considering the size of the tub. The girls were in it before it was even half full, thoroughly enjoying themselves. Hermione had quickly transfigured their robes into “appropriate” swimsuits. They spent some time, far more than they should have, just enjoying the warm water, splashing each other and swimming. Ginny and Hermione had a good laugh watching them “dog-paddle” as they called it. They spent the next hour showing the three Equestrians and Harry how humans were supposed to swim, and them putting their instructions into practice.

Harry noticed that the mermaid was awake and watching them, smiling. Eventually, Harry retrieved egg and the six of them gathered around. It still made the shrieking noises when he opened it, with even the portrait mermaid wincing at the sound.

“You should try putting it in the water,” said a nearby voice.

Startled, Harry dropped the egg, which sank to the bottom rather rapidly. Afraid it might be damaged, even though Cedric had said it was water-proof, he immediately dove under water to retrieve it.

And stopped.

He heard a chorus of eerie voices singing.

He popped back up to the surface, “Listen to this! Listen to this!” he exclaimed and ducked back under the water.

After several minutes’ intense discussion, they decided that whatever it was that would be taken, as the song said, it would be in the lake by the castle, and it had something to do with merpeople. It would be in the lake by the castle because all events had to be here. And the ghost who had spoken, Myrtle Elizabeth Warren, was more than pleased to tell them of the merpeople in the lake. And the mermaid in the portrait was nodding and giggling, watching them.

It took Harry and Sweetie Belle only a few moments to remember the fins and gills spell that his mum had taught them last year to explore Ponyville lake. They had had a lot of practice for it, too, considering that every other student at the Ponyville School wanted to explore with them. It was now considered almost a rite of passage for any unicorns in Ponyville to be able to cast that particular spell not only on themselves, but their friends. Even if it was only for a minute, at first. But, like any spell, the more you used it, the easier it became and the longer you could make it last.

The six were soon zooming around the pool underwater.

They made plans to explore the lake come tomorrow. Getting familiar with the bottom of the lake would be crucial to navigating through it. And improving Harry’s stamina so that his spell would last longer than the short thirty minutes it currently held.

Later, they half-leaned, half-floated against the side of the pool. “So,” Harry said, “You’re Myrtle? A ghost?” Myrtle was a squat ghost, still in her school uniform. Her complexion was marred by pimples and thick glasses.

The Equestrians looked nervous. They had met Nearly Headless Nick and Professor Bines, but this was a bit different. She had sought them out.

“Oh, yes,” Myrtle said. She seemed quite happy for the attention.

“And,” Harry said to Myrtle and then glanced at a sombre Hermione and Ginny, “You used to be a student here?”

“Uh, huh!” she agreed. “I first attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in 1940. I was a muggle-born.” She looked down for a moment. “I died on June thirteenth, 1943.” She sighed. Well, she looked like she had sighed, ghosts don’t actually breathe. Her chest and shoulders had risen and dropped. “In the last stall of the girls’ toilets on the second floor.”

Hermione and Ginny exchanged dark looks.

“You died in a toilet?”

“Oh, yes,” Myrtle said proudly.

Harry and the girls exchanged incredulous looks. Apparently, not even Hermione and Ginny had known this fact.

“How?” Scootaloo blurted out, staring at the ghost incredulously.

“Well, it was in my third year,” Myrtle said with relish, building up to her story. “Olive Hornby had once again made fun of my glasses and pimples — she was always picking on me and telling me I would never amount to much.” Myrtle rolled her eyes. “She was just jealous because I always got better grades than she did, and she was a pure-blood.” The ghost wrinkled her nose and stuck out her tongue. She sighed, “It didn’t help that it was that time of the month.”

Ginny and Hermione nodded their heads in commiseration.

Harry and the fillies were confused.

“What time of the month?” Harry asked.

The ghost and two girls looked at the other four.

“You know,” Myrtle said, “that time of the month,” she repeated, her ghostly face turning a bit darker.

The four shook their heads. “Uh uh,” Apple Bloom said. “No idea what you’re talking about.”

Hermione sighed. “She means she was having her period,” she said and blushed a bit.

That was when Harry realized that Myrtle’s darker face meant she was blushing.

“Period?” The three fillies and Harry looked at each other, mystified.

“You know,” Hermione repeated, and blushed a deeper red. “Your Aunt Flo, monthly visitor, on the rag, moon days, red tide, . . . .” Her blush deepened with each phrase.

The four looked at each other, then back to her. They shook their heads.

Finally, with a deep red blush, she said, “Menstruation . . . .”

Sweetie Belle frowned a moment and she slowly shook her head. The others echoed her movements. “Still not getting it.”

Hermione huffed, looked at Harry, then moved a few steps away, motioning the three Equestrians to follow her. After a short whispered conversation, Harry heard Apple Bloom exclaim, “Oh! You mean you were in season!” Then she frowned again. “But what does that have to do with anything?” The other two fillies appeared similarly enlightened and puzzled.

It was Harry’s turn to blush as the four looked over in his direction. He moved to the shallow end of the giant bathtub and began to study the wall decorations.

The incredulous cry of, “Every month!?” had him look at the five girls, briefly.

Five minutes later, shaking her head in surprise, but also slightly annoyed at the interruption, Myrtle waved Harry to come back, and continued her story. “Anyway,” she said in a long drawn out manner, “I had gone there to hide and have a good cry over my unfortunate situation at the moment. So I hid in the last stall and locked the door. Then,” she paused dramatically, “I heard someone come into the toilets.” Myrtle’s expression had changed, now she was frowning. “At first I thought it was Olive, but I could tell it was a boy!” She paused, waiting.

“How did you know it was a boy?” Hermione prompted.

“Well, he spoke, didn’t he?”

“What’d he say?”

“I don’t know, do I? He didn’t speak English, he just hissed in some foreign language,” Myrtle said, and shuddered. “It sounded scary.”

“What’d you do?”

The six of them were listening closely, perhaps the first audience Myrtle had had in a long time.

“What really got me was that it was a boy speaking! A boy in the girl’s toilet!” She rolled her eyes and looked outraged. “I unlocked and threw the stall door open and directly across from me were a pair of giant yellow eyes! It was a basilisk!”

They listened, eyes wide.

“And then . . . I died,” she said dramatically. She gave them a triumphant look, but it rapidly faded. “Nobody missed me even when I was alive. Took them hours to find my body — I know, I was sitting there, waiting for them.”

“But I didn’t let that stop me, oh, no, I didn’t,” Myrtle continued nastily. “I decided I’d haunt Olive in revenge. It was her fault I was there in the first place!” She grinned proudly. “I stalked her wherever she went, I never let her forget that it was her fault I was dead and how horrible she was.” She snickered gleefully “I even interrupted her brother's wedding.” She sighed disconsolately. “Olive, the coward, complained to the Ministry of Magic. They demanded that I stay here at Hogwarts, or else.” She looked away for a moment, but then gave a sly grin. “I didn't let Olive forget me.” She looked around the bathroom. “I had a house-elves send her anonymous owls reminding her she was the cause of my death, at least once a year. And because I wasn’t haunting her, no one could complain. I kept it up until her dying day,” she said proudly.

She giggled. “And I might even have accidentally visited her every few months and passed through her in the middle of the night while she was in a deep sleep.”

After glancing at Hermione’s and Ginny’s shaken expressions, Harry decided to stay on her good side. Waking in the middle of the night in bone-chilling cold that would take a long time to fade was not something he wanted to experience — it was bad enough when a ghost flew though you by accident during the day!

And a sneaky trick, too. Olive never saw the Myrtle, and by the time anyone was awake enough to look for her, Myrtle was long gone. The witch knew the ghost was responsible, but had absolutely no proof.

“Why are you still here?” Scootaloo asked, and tilted her head curiously.

The others all nodded and looked at the ghost.

Myrtle crossed her arms and looked at them grouchily. “Well, he’s still alive, isn’t he? The one who killed me. Olive has had her punishment. He hasn’t. I can feel that he’s still here, he hasn’t passed on yet.”

Harry nodded slowly. Wizards had very long lives.

Sweetie Belle had a puzzled look. “But,” she said hesitantly, “A basilisk only turns you to stone, doesn’t it?”

Hermione shook her head. “No, a basilisk kills you instantly. It was only after the opening of the Chamber of Secrets that anyone discovered that if you saw a reflection of the basilisk’s eyes that you’re only petrified.”

“Then” said Sweetie Belle, “how do you know it was a basilisk?” She looked at Myrtle.

Myrtle took a deep breath — well, a pretend breath, seeing as how ghosts don’t breathe — and then slowly let it out. She looked over at Ginny. “That’s her story,” she said pointing.

۸-ꞈ-۸

Ch. 22 — Souls, Trolls, and Demons, Oh My!

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Ch. 22 — Souls, Trolls, and Demons, Oh My!

Ginny sighed and looked around the room. She drifted over to the steps leading out of the pool-sized bathtub and sat. The others moved to join her. Hermione sat right beside her and just stared down into the water.

“It started the summer before my first year, here at Hogwarts,” she said slowly, clenching her hands together. “We, my family and I, went to Diagon Alley to get my things for school.” She scowled. “There was a book-signing by a famous author that day.” Her face turned a bit red. “We’re not rich, my family. Truth be told, we have trouble affording everything we need.”

She looked at Harry. “I’m sure you’ve picked that up from my brother, Ron.”

He nodded, then had to hide a smirk as he thought that that state wouldn’t last long.

She glanced over them. “Anyway, there was a wizard there by the name of Lucius Malfoy. You’ve met his son, Draco.” She scowled at his name. “Neither of them are very nice. Malfoy, the father, deliberately baited my father, calling him a not-very-good-wizard because he doesn’t believe in that pure-blood nonsense, and because everything we have is second- or third-hand. Then he started a fight, an actual fist-fight!” She smiled. “Dad won.” Then she scowled again.

“He did that to prevent anyone from noticing he had slipped a very evil book in with the others I had.” For a very short moment she looked wistful. “It was a diary. Second-hand, of course, because it had the name ‘T. M. Riddle’ written on the first page in smudged ink” She sighed. “But I didn’t care, it was an extra! Something I didn’t have to beg for. I thought my parents had put it with my other books so my brother, Ron, wouldn’t get jealous that I had gotten an extra while he hadn’t.

“Imagine my surprise when I wrote in it that night and it wrote back!” She gave them an awkward lopsided smile. “Yeah, I know, my dad always said ‘Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can’t see where it keeps its brain.’ But then again, I’ve seen mirrors that talked to you, and where was their brain? And the Sorting Hat — where is its brain? Nobody had a problem with those! I just thought the book was like an advanced form of the talking mirrors.”

“And it felt good to have someone I could write to who I knew would never tell anyone else what I had told them. Plus, he had really good advice.”

Hermione put a hand over the other girl’s clasped hands.

“Then, I started to lose time. I would be talking to someone, and then I’d be in bed. Or I would be writing to Tom in the diary in the evening, and then I’d be in the Great Hall having breakfast.” She swallowed. “I wanted to tell the professors, but Tom said they’d take me from Hogwarts to St Mungo’s Hospital and I’d be hopelessly behind when I came back. But I never had it happen during classes — and he helped me so much with my assignments and practicals! I was actually ahead of everyone else, and at the top of my classes.” She looked across the room, not meeting their eyes.

“Then I woke up in a bathroom with blood on my hands. A few days later, Mr. Filch’s cat was petrified.” She looked at her knees.

“Blood?” repeated Harry, puzzled.

“Specifically, a rooster’s blood,” Hermione explained, shrugging. “The call of the rooster kills basilisks.”

“When Filch’s cat was found,” Hermione said. “Written on the walls was a message, in paint. ‘The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir . . . beware.’” She said softly.

“Then, just a few weeks later, a student was petrified,” Ginny said quietly. “Tom said he had made fun of me earlier that day.” She looked up. “That was when I began to suspect something was wrong with the diary and Tom, because I didn’t remember Colin Creevey saying anything.”

“But nothing happened,” Hermione said, “until the middle of December when Justin Finch-Fletchley was petrified, as well as Nearly Headless Nick, the ghost. No one even knew that was possible!”

“Then I knew something was wrong, because just the night before I found myself in the first floor girls’ toilets with blood on my hands, again, and no idea what had happened,” Ginny said bleakly. “I heard Hagrid tell Professor McGonagall that something kept killng his roosters as soon as he got one.” She took a shuddering breath. “I promised myself I’d stop writing . . . and, for the rest of the month, I did. I even managed to leave the book at Hogwarts when I went home. But when the term started, I couldn’t resist. I tried to burn it, but it wouldn‘t burn. Every time I tried to tell someone, I couldn’t. I didn’t have any friends, no one seemed to like me. No one noticed anything wrong. My assignments and practicals were always top-notch. It was horrible.” She rested her head on her knees for a moment.

“I tried to throw it away,” she said sadly.

“Threw it right through me, she did,” Myrtle said, frowning. “It went right into my favourite toilet.”

“But it was too big to flush down, so I just left it there.”

“I flooded it right out before the door had closed!” Myrtle said proudly.

“But, then, the next day, I opened my trunk and there it was, on top.” She looked up at them, horrified. “I couldn’t remember getting it, but I obviously had.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Then Tom began taunting me. He had been the one making me black out. He had been possessing me and doing things. He was why I had no friends.” She sighed wearily. “In the first few weeks of September — only for a minute or two at a time — but long enough to chase away anyone who came close enough to try to befriend me. He’d insult them or say something offensive. But I never saw that, he hid it from me.” A tear leaked out of one eye.

Hermione hugged her, which led to all three Equestrians hugging her and promising they would be her friend. Myrtle looked on and seemed a bit jealous, if the way she crossed her arms and stared at them was any indication. Finally, they moved apart.

“I kept trying to resist, but I always ended up writing in the diary at least once a week.” She looked away. “But nothing more happened, except my blackouts kept becoming longer and longer. Then Tom’s true nature started to come out. He was a vicious, cruel person who enjoyed deceiving others and taunting them over his superiority. He especially liked to tell me how unimportant I was, how weak I was that I couldn’t resist him, how I would never amount to anything, how I had no friends, and never would.”

She was quiet, again, staring off into the distance.

Hermione sighed. “The first week of May, I was petrified, along with Penelope Clearwater. I had been in the library looking up dangerous creatures and had just decided it had to be a basilisk.” She shook her head sadly. “The Board of Governors of the school voted Headmaster Dumbledore out, and the Ministry decided to send Hagrid to Azkaban to show they were doing something, even if it was wrong and Hagrid had nothing to do with it.”

“Three weeks later, Tom made me write another message on the wall outside Myrtle’s toilets.” She swallowed. “Right underneath the first one. ‘Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever.’ And then he made me walk into the toilets. He wanted me to see this, he relished my terror and struggling.” She looked at them and gave them a wry smile. “The entrance is apparently in Myrtle’s toilets on the second floor.” She looked back down. “The next thing I remember is waking up in a dark, torch lit cavern with an ugly statue at one end. On the floor was an enormous snake.” She shuddered. “Huge. Dead.” She shut her eyes for a moment.

“Headmaster Dumbledore was there, and the diary was on the floor with a black pool of ink all around it.” She took a deep breath. “He told me that Tom would never bother me again. I asked him how he had found me, and he said his friend Fawkes had brought him, his phoenix. That the only reason he had found the Chamber was because I was in it, which was why he had never taken care of the basilisk before now. And not to be ashamed of what had happened, as Tom had fooled many a smarter wizard than me in the past. Later, after I had told him the story, he said I was very brave and strong to have resisted the possession for so long. Many others would have given up at Christmas.”

She rested her forehead on her knees. Hermione rubbed her back consolingly.

“I think the reason he took her down into the Chamber that day,” Hermione said briskly, “was because it had been announced at breakfast that everyone who had been petrified would be revived the following day.” She tilted her head slightly and shrugged. “We all had seen Ginny with the snake, so Tom knew that he would be found.”

“But the damage had been done,” Ginny said forlornly, “No one wanted to be my friend. Most people just avoided me.” She looked over at Hermione. “Except you.”

Hermione smiled back at her. “I am well acquainted with being avoided, and it was clear it wasn’t your fault. Headmaster Dumbledore even said so in no uncertain tones.”

Ginny sighed. “Too bad no one seemed to believe him.” She snorted derisively. “Gryffindor, House of the brave,” she said sarcastically. “And they were all too scared to speak to me.” She shook her head.

They sat quietly, contemplating what had happened.

Hermione took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I guess it’s my turn, isn’t it?” She gave Ginny another hug and straightened. She squared her shoulders. “I’ve always been a loner, I found books to be interesting at a very early age. I knew how to read before I ever started primary. The other kids were intimidated and amazed, at first. I was quite proud of my achievements. And, I admit it, I looked down on the others for not being able to read or knowing as much as I did — but, hey, I was only six,” she said defensively.

“I read anything and everything. By my third year, however, the other kids were calling me a bookworm, a know-it-all, and teacher’s pet because I read so much and always knew the answers to the teachers’ questions.”

She shrugged. “They started to make fun of me, so I started showing off that I was smarter than they were. I quickly discovered that anyone who wanted to be my friend wanted something from me — they wanted to be my friend so I could help them on a test, or for homework. As long as I did their homework, they’d pretend to be my friend. Once they didn’t need me, they left, and laughed with their friends at how they had fooled me.”

That explained her standoffishness when Harry had first asked to copy her notes, he realized — and why she had been so suspicious of his motives for several weeks.

The three fillies quickly moved close and gave her a group hug.

“Then Professor McGonagall visited my family and explained that some of the unusual things about me were due to magic.” She sighed. “I was so excited. I was sure that everything would be different, that everyone would be as studious as I was, that magic would fix everything.” She gave a cynical laugh.

Her expression fell. “But it wasn’t. On the train to Hogwarts I saw, first-hand, that the wizards and witches were just as bad as the children I had just left in primary. Several were walking around declaiming how they were superior because their parents were also magical. Others, instead of being amazed I knew as much as I did, were appalled that I studied like I did, that I tried so hard to learn everything. I didn’t want to believe it, so I ignored it.”

She shook her head. “It was just like primary, but with magic.” She stared at the far wall a moment, blinking. “Halloween was a terrible day, for me,” she said distantly. “I had just tried to help someone with a spell — and they derided me. They called me a bookworm, a know-it-all, a show-off.” She sighed. “I could take that. However, then he said, ‘It’s no wonder no one can stand her, she’s a nightmare, honestly.’”

Ginny suddenly turned and hugged her. “Next time I see that git, I’ll hex him!”

“You shouldn’t, Ginny,” Hermione said reproachfully, “he is your brother, after all.”

She snorted. “Not that he ever acknowledges that,” she growled.

Hermione smirked, then turned serious. “I ran and hid in the girls’ toilets on the first floor and refused to come out. I had a good long think. I decided that there really wasn’t any difference between the magical and non-magical worlds, except behaviour that was forbidden there, that would get you in trouble with the teachers, suspended from school, was perfectly acceptable in the magical world. Not to mention that it was obvious that some students were clearly favoured over others.

“And the Professors? If a non-magical teacher ever acted the way Professor Snape did in class, he would be out of job by the end of the day. And yet, here, his attitude is considered perfectly fine. None of the other teachers try to rein him in.” She shook her head sadly and sighed.

“If there isn’t any difference between the kids except that the magical ones were meaner and more vicious, and the magical world condoned that awful treatment, then I didn’t want any part of it! I resolved to go to Professor McGonagall in the morning and ask to go home.” She blinked. “Which would mean they would bind my magic and remove all my memories of Hogwarts and the magical world.” She sighed despondently. “Magic may be wonderful, but the people certainly weren’t.”

Harry and the fillies were staring at her, sickened, and wondering just what kind of world they had been thrown into. Ginny just kept hugging Hermione.

“Unfortunately,” she continued, “I missed the Halloween Feast and the alert that a troll had somehow managed to get into the castle. Even worse, I discovered this fact when the troll came into the very room I was hiding in, the girls’ toilets.” It was her turn to shudder in horror at the memory. “Suffice to say, it is not an experience I would ever want to repeat.”

She shuddered again. “When the troll came in, I screamed.” She took a deep calming breath. “The troll was about twelve feet tall, very stupid, very strong, very mean. He also had a huge club. My scream attracted his attention. He trashed the entire room trying to get at me. He finally cornered me and swung his club.” Tears started down her face. “If it hit me, I knew I would die. At the last second I tried to escape by diving between his legs. He smashed my legs and I passed out.” She sniffed and wiped at her face with her wet hand. It didn’t help that much.

“I woke in the Hospital Wing here at Hogwarts. Apparently, when I passed out I was almost under him and he was too busy looking at where I had been to notice where I was. That was where the Headmaster found me. He told me later a portrait had seen the troll go into the corridor with the toilets and alerted him.”

Her face was red and blotchy from crying.

The fillies were crying, too, and they again went into a group hug with the witch.

“I spent a week in hospital having my legs regrown,” she finally continued. “I told Professor McGonagall about my decision to leave. She called the Headmaster. We had a long talk. Ron got detention every night for a month. Professor McGonagall said she had had a word with Gryffindor House, and they were on thin ice, as far as she was concerned. She told me that I should wait until the end of the school year, summer hols, before making a decision. She promised I would find the magical world worth staying a part of. She even promised me special lessons.”

Hermione rolled her shoulders and sighed. “So, I decided to give it all a second chance. Things did improve,” she said reluctantly. “So,” she looked around the room, “I decided to stay.”

They drifted apart, again.

“Second year, was scary, Ginny’s first year, but it was everyone at risk, not just me. And while a few people, especially Slytherin, were derogatory towards those who weren’t pure-bloods, it wasn’t really that bad. A few confrontations where the professors were noticeably absent, and they quickly learned to leave me alone.”

She looked at Harry. “Third year was really bizarre. A convict escaped from the wizarding prison and came to Hogwarts looking for you.” She shook her head. “Apparently, he was involved with your parents dying, and had come to Hogwarts looking for you. He didn’t know you hadn’t started at Hogwarts when you were supposed to.” She snorted. “How could he know? The prison doesn’t have a reading room or get newspapers.”

She gritted her teeth and Harry could see her jaws muscles tense. “The Ministry, in its infinite incompetence, decided to post dementors around the school.”

Seeing their uncomprehending expressions, she explained. “Dementors are the demons the Ministry uses to patrol their prison, Azkaban. The dementors suck all the happiness out of a person, leaving them only with paralyzing thoughts of despair. They can’t be killed and the only spell that chases them away is the patronus spell, a spell few wizards or witches can cast.”

“The dementors, the best possible guards for a school full of defenceless children,” she said disparagingly. “Even when the creatures attacked the school during a Quidditch game — it was a miracle no one died — the Ministry refused to admit the mistake.” She paused. “Again, everyone was at risk, not just me.”

She looked over at Ginny, who was still hugging her, and patted her arm. “On the other hand, Ginny began to sit with me when I was studying and at meals.”

“She was the only one who didn’t awkwardly leave or move farther away the moment I sat down. And she even talked to me,” Ginny said quietly.

“We discovered we had a bit of common ground, what with both of us almost dying in toilets, her a pure-blood and me a muggle-born,” Hermione continued. “Just imagine, almost dying in the ‘safest place in England’ as the professors all say,” she said sarcastically. “So we began to hang out together when not in class.”

“She helped me with my assignments and wanding.”

“Showing someone else how to do something improves your own understanding.”

They looked at each other and smiled.

“My mom let me visit her this last summer,” Ginny said. “It was very interesting.”

“And vice versa,” Hermione said. “And yes, it was. And my parents got to visit for a day and actually see magic as Mrs. Weasley was more than happy to show off some of the household spells she uses.”

They all had another wet hug.

“Luna has been picked on by everyone in her House since she arrived at Hogwarts,” Hermione narrowed her eyes and frowned. “And worse than I was, too.” They had all heard the stories of how her mother had died in a spell accident, and the girl had not only seen it, but had comforted her mother as they awaited help. “Only, being a witch, she couldn’t drop back into the muggle world for safety.”

Luna understood them, the two witches now knew, thinking about it. One more reason why she fit in with them so well.

Hogwarts was turning out to be a lot more dangerous than Harry had every expected. It made him doubly-glad, or, rather, quadruply-glad that he had insisted his herdmates have the protection of spell-resistant, invisible armour!

Unfortunately, in his opinion, the way the humans’ hair covered their heads made wearing a helmet very obvious. Any helmet they wore wouldn’t have the slit up the back that allowed his mane to freely cascade around his head. It hadn’t worried him much, until now. Perhaps a headband with the proper rune-spells would suffice instead of a full helmet?

But he still had the gnawing feeling inside that he was missing something important in the message in the egg. Just what could they possibly take that he would miss? He didn’t have all that much!

۸-_-۸

They spent the week following Christmas exploring the Castle — Cutie Mark Crusader Castle Explorers! There wasn’t too much collateral damage — reparo was a remarkably useful little spell. There seemed to be an awful lot of “hidden” passages that would make getting to classes on time extremely easy, no matter how far apart they might be. It was no wonder that Filch could catch students who were out of bounds so quickly. He could get around the castle using those passages in a fraction of the time a student could get back to his Common Room from wherever he was not supposed to be if the student only used the normal stairs and corridors.

The Room of Requirement was perfect for showing their friends what things in Equestria were like. Those expeditions tended to take most of a day. But, weren’t the things created by the Room supposed to disappear when you left it? Then why was the tree-sap still there? Had the Room merely acquired some from the forest? Still, getting tree-sap off skin was remarkably easier than trying to do the same with fur.

۸-_-۸

On the first day of term, during breakfast on Monday, a feature article in the Daily Prophet disclosed that Hagrid was a half-giant, which was not really a surprise when Harry thought about it. Harry, the fillies, and the muggle-borns like Hermione, however, were surprised at the reactions of the other students. The Slytherins were almost gleeful, the remainder almost afraid. At the best, the students were worried about the half-giant’s status, to Harry’s and the others’ consternation. How could they be worried about how safe the man was when he had been working at Hogwarts for almost fifty years? Not only that, he was well-known to both the students and their parents. Not to mention, in many cases, their grandparents and great-grandparents.

The article also mentioned Harry’s three fiancés had somehow been brought to Hogwarts from Equestria. That he was a pony and they were not caused quite a bit of bewilderment. The explanation that they had been ponies but were changed to people by the God of Chaos was considered outrageous and ridiculous, and the reporter demanded that the truth be told by the Headmaster and the Ministry!

Harry discovered from the other Gryffindors at lunch that Hagrid had apparently been replaced by a Professor Grubbly-Plank at the Care of Magical Creatures class. He could only shake his head in disbelief at such outrageous racism. Then Hermione mentioned that the animal for today’s lesson had been a unicorn.

“A unicorn?” he demanded.

She gave him a long look, eyes flickering to his horn. “Uh, yes, why?”

He left the Great Hall at a near dead run on all fours, with the fillies only a moment behind him. It wasn’t difficult to see the trail the students had made past the paddock with the huge shivering Beauxbatons horses. Scootaloo swerved towards the paddock and was over the fence before Harry could say a word. She began using her wand to cast warming charms as quickly as she could, after she cast a wings spell on herself. It wouldn’t last long, but it made the horses more comfortable to see them. The six had spent some time after the fillies had arrived introducing themselves to the pegasi — who, unfortunately, were not really all that smart, with the vocabulary of a very young foal.

With the help of a translation spell Hermione had managed to find in the library, they discovered the flying horses could communicate only in short two or three-word sentences, concentrating on food and territory.

The unicorn was tethered to a tree and Harry made a beeline straight for it. He discarded his robe as he got close. He trotted up to the surprised unicorn. «Are you alright? Do you need any help?» he said as he trotted around the horse, looking for any signs of distress.

The horse just stared at him. «Can you understand me?» he said anxiously, and hopped from hoof to hoof in front of her.

She stared at him a moment, then nickered softly and bent down to rub her muzzle against the side of his face.

Harry sighed and cast the translation spell. “Can you understand me, now?”

“Hi, little colt,” she said.

Well, compared to her, he was barely the size of a foal. “Hi,” he said eagerly. “I’m Harry Sparkle, what’s your name.”

“Little colt’s mom?” the mare said, ignoring his question, and looking around.

“My mum’s not here,” he said, hope beginning to fade.

“Little colt cold?” she said, stepping sideways to stand over him, with her forelegs to either side. She bent her head down to nuzzle him again. “I protect!” the mare said soothingly.

“Can you do magic?” he said dourly, raising any eyebrow as he looked upwards, his head turned sideways.

She merely said, “You safe.”

He shot some sparks out of his horn.

“You sick?” she said and bent down to rest her horn against the side of his neck.

He felt a brief surge of magic from the touch, and the incipient headache that was forming disappeared.

It was a dejected group that slowly made their way back to the castle. “Just like the pegasi,” Harry said. “Barely brighter than a foal.” He sighed, “She does have magic, but it’s very primitive.”

The other three nodded.

They barely had time to grab a bite to eat before it was time for the next class.

Harry was sure the poor unicorn would be surrounded by a crowd of first and second years as soon as classes let out this afternoon. He intended to be there to help the mare. He could at least reassure her that the students were there to admire, not harm, her.

He’d make sure to visit her as much as possible. He knew Scootaloo had been doing the same for the pegasi.

The fillies were not pleased to discover, the following weekend, that the hypothetical “periods” mentioned by Myrtle and Hermione in the Prefects’ bath were a real thing. Being “in season” was nothing like having a period. Harry spent the next few days walking on egg-shells, metaphorically speaking, around the three irritable and irritated girls. He did not look forward to the regular recurrences Hermione told him were inevitable.

Twilight could not come too soon, as far as he was concerned.

In the meantime, they studied frantically to catch up with their peers — Harry to the other champions; the fillies, to Harry’s fourth year friends. Their attention to the studies usually meant they were too tired to get into the sort of mischief they managed in Ponyville.

۸-_-۸

«Somethin’s wrong,» declared Applejack as she paced back and forth in the Map Room. «Ah kin just feel it!» She stopped and stared at Twilight. «Thar’s no way Apple Bloom would let Hearth’s Warming pass without either coming home or sending a letter!»

Rarity, fidgeting on her throne, nodded earnestly, «Sweetie Belle would never be so crass as to ignore family on such an important day!»

Applejack stopped and stared at Twilight. «The letter said she’d gone ta help the Pears, but they don’t know nothin’ about it.»

«And while I expect the mail to and from Trotland not to be the quickest, I’d expect to see at least one letter from Sweetie,» the unicorn added.

Twilight frowned. Things had been hectic in the run-up to winter, what with the Zap Apple harvest, Maud getting her degree, Chrysalis having another go at them, and Harry disappearing — still no measureable progress on that front. December had actually been rather relaxing in nothing much happening. Only maybe it hadn’t been so uneventful and they simply hadn’t noticed. «What about your store in Canterlot?» she asked. «Wasn’t Apple Bloom supposed to be taking care of that?»

«That’s another thang!» Applejack started pacing again. «The mare taking care of it is really nice and does a great job, but all she remembered was that when she first arrived on December Fifth, Apple Bloom hired her because she had an emergency ta take care of and run off immediately ta catch a train after she gave her the keys.» She shook her head. «And while Bloom is a mite bit quick ta act when she gets a notion, Ah think she’s a bit more together than that!»

«And none of the Pears know anything about this?» Twilight tapped the letter on the table.

Applejack stopped again, and rubbed the back of neck sheepishly. «Well, most of the Pears have answered. Thar’s still a few Ah’m waitin’ fer. But they all insist that none o’ the family would ask fer help without first askin’ Pear family. But none o’ them have heard family askin’ fer help.» She frowned scowled. «An’ thay say there ain’t any Pears in Trotland.»

Twilight frowned and sighed. She looked at Rarity. «Trotland is pretty far away.»

Rarity looked back. «Five weeks, though?»

«What’s Scootaloo say?» She looked back and forth between the two mares.

«She’s gone, too,” said Rarity. «I checked when I was in Canterlot this weekend. The Weather Office said she’d been recalled to Cloudsdale.» She sighed. «I sent a letter, but I haven’t heard back yet.»

Twilight felt her eyebrows arch up. «All three of the Cutie Mark Crusaders are missing? »

The other two mares shrugged.

Twilight sighed. «I’ll ask Princess Celestia to send a diplomatic pouch to Trotland and ask them to make a welfare check on Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom.» She smiled wryly. «You know it’ll probably embarrass the poor fillies half to death to have an Ambassador personally check on them.»

«Then they should have written, shouldn’t they?» Rarity said calmly. She relaxed a bit at knowing at least something was being done.

«Why don’t you, » the purple alicorn said to Applejack, «send another round of letters just to confirm they don’t know anything? Send it express.» She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. «And I’ll ask Dash to find out what’s going on with Scootaloo.»

She looked back at her friends. «In two weeks we should have some definitive answers about the fillies.»

The other two exchanged relieved looks.

After several minutes’ silence, Rarity said, «Well, I don’t know about you two, but I’m feeling more than a little frazzled. How about we visit the Ponyville Spa? My treat?»

۸-_-۸

Ch. 23 — Second Task

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Ch. 23 — Second Task

Two weeks after term started, Harry was more than happy to squire the girls around the village on Hogsmeade weekend. With Ginny’s, Hermione’s, and Luna’s help, of course. The fillies hadn’t had a chance to go before now. They almost lost Sweetie Belle in Gladrags Wizardwear. “Rarity would never forgive me if I didn’t bring her back a detailed report on the fashions here,” she said, hands on hips. So they spent the better part of two hours searching every corner of the store for anything interesting. They all got a good workout using their wands to record what they saw. And if they couldn’t take their wands back? His mum had to know at least a dozen spells that would let them project what they remembered seeing.

They managed to see, and avoid, Rita Skeeter. After her last couple of articles, they wanted nothing to do with her, even if she had been relatively nice to Harry. The letters to the editor of the Daily Prophet hadn’t been nearly as nice. Most of the writers refused to believe the girls were ponies and implied that all sorts of things had to be wrong with three witches and pony being engaged. The marital bed seemed to cause them the most distress. In any case, the writers seemed to consider almost everything about the situation to be lies by someone or another.

The Equestrians, and Harry, did not want to find out what questions Rita would ask, as a result.

One they couldn’t avoid, it seemed, was the big black dog that stealthily followed them almost as soon as they left the Hogwarts gates. Like last time, she, or he, watched them from a distance while partially hidden. If not for Harry’s ears and sense of smell, he never would have detected it. The girls never even noticed it. It appeared content only to watch them.

But Harry kept an eye out for it whenever they left a shop, anyway, just in case. With how things went in the wizarding world, he wouldn’t take even the most harmless appearing event as harmless. Besides, why would a dog spy on them?

His first thought was that the dog was the animagus form of a wizard. The problem with that was why would he bother being a dog when he could just as easily shadow them as a wizard? They had no idea who he was, so even if people saw him as a person, it wouldn’t matter, right?

Ludo Bagman was wandering around with a pack of goblins following him. To Harry, it looked like the goblins were distrustful of Bagman, and that he was tired of their presence. Why Ludo was even in town when there wasn’t a tournament event planned left them puzzled. Did the goblins expect Ludo to run away? They were certainly watching him carefully enough.

Unfortunately, Bagman did see them when they entered the Three Broomsticks for a late lunch. As soon as he noticed them, he hurried right over. The goblins watched him suspiciously.

“Good to see you, Harry!” he said. “How are you? I was hoping to see you! How is everything?”

“Fine, thank you for asking,” said Harry, smiling graciously as Prince Blueblood had taught him.

“Could I have a private word, Harry?” said Bagman eagerly. “Just a moment or two?”

Harry pursed his lips. “I suppose I could spare a minute,” he said, and motioned the girls to find a table for them.

After a rather odd look at the six girls accompanying Harry, and a headshake, Bagman led Harry to the end of the bar. He looked back at the goblins who were watching him intently with their dark eyes and not letting him out of sight. He cleared his throat. “First, congratulations, again, on your splendid performance against that Horntail, Harry. Really superb.”

Harry nodded courteously. “Thank you, Mr. Bagman. I was rather surprised myself at how it all came out.”

Bagman again looked at the goblins, one of whom grinned gruesomely back at him. He turned back to Harry and lowered his voice, “I really wanted to ask you, your golden egg, how are you doing?”

Harry smiled back, “I have that all sorted, thank you,” he said easily. Then he frowned. “Except I don’t know what they would take. I haven’t anything I would really miss.”

“Ah,” Ludo said, gravely. “Maybe it’s not limited to things?” he hinted, and glanced significantly over to the table where Harry’s friends had seated themselves.

Harry blinked. Then stiffened as the implications sunk in. He closed his eyes and took hold of his temper. They wouldn’t really take one of his herdmates, would they?

“Hello, Mr. Bagman,” he heard a familiar voice say. He opened his eyes. It was the Weasley twins.

“Can we buy you a drink?” one of them said. He looked closer. It was Fred.

“Er, no thank you, boys, I was just leaving,” he said with the hint of a smirk. He glanced at Harry and winked. “Well, I must dash,” he said. “Good to see you all. Good luck, Harry,” then he headed back to the table with the goblins.

As far as Harry was concerned, that spoiled the mood for the rest of the day. He decided to save the information until after they returned to the castle, not wanting to ruin the afternoon for the girls.

“Is something wrong, Harry?” Apple Bloom asked as they quickly walked out of the lane that led to Madam Puddifoot’s, pretending not to notice the confusion behind them. She had noticed he was keeping the three close together — herding them, almost. He stayed close to the three fillies, wandering in circles around them, and payed more attention to their surroundings than normal — almost as if they were in the Everfree instead of Ponyville.

“No,” he said. “Not really. It was just what Mr. Bagman said about the next task. I’ll explain later in the training room,” he explained reassuringly.

She nodded, but frowned and narrowed her eyes. Something was up. It had to be serious, she knew, for it to affect his attitude. She began looking around a bit more intently, trying to look beyond the surface appearance of what she saw. The other two fillies, after questioning glances at her, followed suit. That didn’t stop their explorations, though. They just became more . . . cautious.

All-in-all, they decided, it was a good day. They even managed to return to the castle without setting fire to, exploding part of, or otherwise permanently changing the appearance of the rustic village. There were a few walls that sported new windows. No one was quite sure how that had happened — they had only taken a quick look at the Quidditch bludgers in the sporting goods store. Another surprise had been when the magical pink and red vines that decorated Madam Puddifoots had taken over most of that street when Apple Bloom had tried to “freshen” their appearance. She had thought that they had looked a bit “dull” because of the cold weather. She hadn’t expected quite that much of an aggressive reaction to her tender care.

Although the barkeep at The Hog’s Head was very unhappy, for no reason they could discern, that Scootaloo’s well-intentioned scourgify had left the pub’s exterior as pristine and clean as the day it had been built. That someone more powerful than he at cleaning charms made the pub inside clearly visible through the formerly grime-coated windows and door-glass should have made him quite happy. As Harry had learned at the Dursleys, though, some people you just couldn’t make happy no matter how hard you tried.

The group was too proud of Scootaloo’s scourgify to really care what the grumpy shopkeeper thought. Perhaps he was jealous of her ability. For someone so new to casting magic to cast so well after so little time was remarkable, as Hermione was happy to tell them. “It must be your familiarity with your own style of magic in Equestria,” she explained enthusiastically.

There seemed to be an almost collective sigh of relief from the villagers as they headed back.

Harry could almost swear, though, that the black dog was chuckling as they went through the Hogwarts’ gates.

۸-_-۸

The next day, Sunday, Harry sought out Professor McGonagall.

“Professor,” he said politely, “I have deciphered the clue in the golden egg, and the riddle it contains.” He frowned at her. “The riddle says . . . .” and then he quoted it to her.

She nodded. “I was not aware of the exact wording, but that does sound correct, Mr. Sparkle.”

“What concerns me,” he continued, “are the lines, ‘But past an hour — the prospect’s black, Too late, it’s gone, it won’t come back.’” He gazed at her steadily. “I have nothing here that I would really miss — except, perhaps, my trunk. That would be an annoyance to lose, and I’m sure that the tournament would reimburse me for its loss. Correct?”

She looked uncertain at that statement. “I’m sure the tournament officials will be responsible,” she hesitantly said. Her voice firmed up. “Anything that might be damaged, I’m sure the Headmaster will see that it is fixed or repaired.”

“On the other hoof, it was pointed out to me that the phrase, ‘We’ve taken what you’ll sorely miss,’ does not preclude the possibility that a pony might be the object taken.” He said carefully as he stared into her eyes. “Given that the riddle states they will be killed if I don’t rescue them in time, my herdmates refuse to participate, and will defend themselves if approached. Lethally, if necessary.” He knew they most likely couldn’t force themselves actually to kill someone on purpose — he wasn’t sure he could — but she didn’t know that.

“I’m sure the Ministry has no intention to harm whatever they use in the task, Mr. Sparkle,” said Professor McGonagall firmly.

“Really? The only reason I can think of for any of my herdmates not to come back to me is their death. . . . Unless, the riddle is a lie? An exaggeration, perhaps?” Harry arched an eyebrow at her and kept a tight leash on his anger. Wizards messing with his things was a situation simply not to endured.

She sighed. “I cannot respond to that as it might be considered aiding you in your task,” she said. “But I am sure that the Headmaster and tournament officials will ensure the safety of all to the best of their ability.”

He felt himself grow angrier, “You mean as safe as the first task when any or all of the champions could have died?”

She sniffed dismissively. “The ministry has thoroughly examined all the tasks. While some parts are extremely dangerous, they are, for the most part, completely safe. You have nothing to worry about on that point.”

“I am not willing to take that chance,” he said, barely holding down his temper. “The Ministry and Headmaster said they had made the tasks as safe as possible, yet Victor’s dragon could easily have killed him nearly instantly by flaming directly at him instead of merely close, and the dragon’s handlers wouldn’t have had time to prevent it! Or attacked the crowds if she felt inclined to do so. If that is safe, what do wizards consider unsafe?

“There are many dangerous creatures in the lake that the Ministry has no control over, whatsoever,” he said heatedly, slashing his foreleg to one side. “Are there aurors underwater to prevent harm to whomever is taken? Can you guarantee me with a magical oath that the ponies taken will come to no harm?”

“I am sure the Ministry has everything under control,” she said testily. “I cannot imagine they would let anything untoward happen in the task.” She paused and huffed. “The Headmaster oversaw the negotiations, himself. I’m sure everything will be just fine,” she said frowning at him.

“And that doesn’t even take into account that Veela are the traditional enemies of merpeople,” Harry continued, ignoring her assertion that everything was under control. “Will they attack her when she goes to retrieve what they have taken? What if the person taken is one of her relatives? Will they still protect one of their sworn enemies from harm?”

He took a deep breath to calm down.

“So, unless you can verify for me that my herdmates are not considered for the “sorely missed” line, I will consider any attempt to force them to participate as an act of violence and respond in kind.” He bowed to the stunned professor. “Thank you for your time.” He turned and stalked off.

“I will bring your concerns to the Headmaster’s attention, Mr. Sparkle,” he heard her say frostily behind him.

Stupid, stupid wizards. They thought they could get him to dance to their tune. Harry decided that the wizarding adults in this castle were not his friends, nor would they ever be. Well, at least none of them, bar Professor Snape, were actively hostile. He would have to keep a sharp eye out, and a keen ear, to make sure they didn’t interfere any more than they had already,

۸-ꞈ-۸

Twilight looked at her friends grimly, and settled on Rarity. «I checked at Princess Celestia’s School. They did not send Sweetie Belle to Trotland to help at a school. In fact, they have on file a letter from you saying that she should be excused from school until further notice while she deals with a family issue in Trotland.»

The others all gasped and Rarity stared back at her, eyes wide in shock, hoof held to her chest. «But we don’t even have family in Trotland!» she exclaimed in dismay.

Twilight turned to Applejack. «The ambassador tells me that, to the best of her knowledge, there are no members of the Pear family with a farm in Trotland. Although,» she glanced at a paper on the table, «she does say the climate is perfect for such an endeavour and that a local source of both pears and apples would be well received.»

It was Applejack’s turn to scowl. «Tha’ fits with what the Pears say. And Ah visited the mare in tha Canterlot store, Fast Add, to see if she could maybe remember anythin’. When Ah showed her a picture of Apple Bloom, she said, ‘nope,’ that that wasn’t the one she dealt with. She did say that the mare she met was wearing an obviously fake moustache, though.» She looked at the others, still scowling.

The purple alicorn next turned to the blue mare. «Dash, the weather service in Trotland says they never asked for help, and their training is the same as it is in Equestria, although they are open to an exchange program in the interests of friendship.»

Dash scowled at the table and flew in a tight circle.

«The ambassador assures me that Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, and Apple Bloom are not in Trotland, or, at least, they never passed through any of the border stations. She will keep an eye out for them, but, as far as the Trotland government is concerned, they have never heard of the fillies, much less seen them in their country.»

Twilight took a deep breath. «I think we need to go take a look ourselves!»

They were on the train leaving Ponyville the next morning. They wouldn’t arrive at the coast until tomorrow morning, at the earliest.

۸-ꞈ-۸

The Monday before the second task, Hagrid, who had now returned as Professor of the class, had somehow managed to acquire two unicorn foals. As soon as they heard this from Hermione, Harry and the fillies spent the entire day with the foals, and planned to do so for the entire rest of the week’s classes. They made sure the foals weren’t frightened and were well cared-for. Frequent warming charms helped make the two unicorns comfortable. They would be released with a positive feeling about their treatment, Harry hoped.

The foals were entranced as they watched Harry hang up his robe on a nearby tree with a sticking charm, and then drop down to his hooves and walk over to them. He was actually smaller than they were when he was on four hooves! That he was clearly an adult fascinated them. It made sense considering how much bigger their parents were than ponies in Equestria, but they didn’t know that.

From what Hagrid told them, the two foals were easily one year old, and maybe approaching their second year. At that age, in Equestria, they should have been talking freely and casting magic everywhere. That they didn’t left the four depressed at the end of each day on Monday and Tuesday, and determined to teach them what they could.

The foals seemed to be listening closely whenever he said anything, especially after he cast the translation charm on them and they could understand what everyone around them was saying. By the end of the day on Tuesday, Harry and the fillies were happy to hear that the foals’ vocabulary seemed to have increased to more than simple one-word responses. Plus, their horns were at least sparking as they attempted to imitate him making things float around him.

Harry regretted losing the time to practice for task, but he felt the unicorn foals were more important. On the other hoof, he had finally managed to extend his time with the fins and gills spell to over an hour, without leaving himself too exhausted to move for the first half-hour! He now knew the bottom of the lake as well as anypony could hope. He knew where the merpeople village was, where the dangerous parts of the lake were, and that Oswy, the lake squid and a gentle giant, ruled the lake — when he wasn’t sleeping.

Immediately after dinner that evening, Harry and the girls hurried back to Gryffindor tower. The girls darted up to their room and came back with their arms full of blankets and pillows. Minutes later, the three were safely hidden in his apartment trunk and arranging their makeshift beds.

Once they were in place, he shrunk the trunk and placed it in his pocket. No one was getting to his herdmates without a fight!

Then he sighed. It looked to be a long night of waiting. His last-minute nervousness made it difficult to relax and pretend he didn’t know where his herdmates were hiding. He went downstairs to the common room, settled into a comfortable chair, and began a reading a library book on curse-breaking. Not being able to use Hayscartes’ Method because of the shrunken trunk — he didn’t want to take a chance it might get left out — meant normal reading might just be boring enough after a few hours to let him to sleep.

“Where are the girls?” Hermione said sitting in the armchair beside him for a moment.

He gave her a long look. Were the wizards using her?

“Somewhere safe,” he said cautiously.

“Good!” she said firmly, then sighed and crossed her arms. “It’s kinda quiet without them, isn’t it?”

He smiled softly. “Yeah.”

They talked for a few more minutes, then she left to work on her Runes assignment at one of the tables.

As he had expected, the evening passed slowly. He kept a sharp eye on the prefects all evening, but none seemed even interested in coming close to him, except to wish him well in the task.

As curfew time approached, he had a steady stream of students wishing him luck in tomorrow’s task. He nodded and sincerely thanked each one for their confidence in him.

When there was no one else in the Common Room, he made his way to his dorm. He cast a silencing charm on himself before entering the room. No reason to disturb his roommates. At his bed, he positioned his pillows to make it look like he was sleeping, then prominently placed his closet-trunk at the foot of the bed for easy access, and made sure the feather-weight charm had been cancelled and the trunk had clothes and books stuffed into it. He didn’t want the wizards becoming suspicious by leaving it empty of his things.

Once he was pleased with the arrangement, he pulled out his trunk, set it on the floor, and cancelled the shrinking charm. He opened the apartment trunk and slid it under the bed. After he cast disillusionment and sticking charms on the trunk, he climbed down into the apartment. He had to use the levitation charm to lift the bed enough for him to fit under it and into the trunk.

Once inside, he looked around and blinked in surprise. The gold had been collected and evenly spread out in one corner. The girl’s blankets and pillows had been arranged on top to form an impromptu platform bed. His herdmates were lounging there, playing a card game.

“Harry!” they said together.

“We’ve been waiting for you,” Sweetie Belle said.

“What took so long?” said Scootaloo, frowning.

“I didn’t want to attract attention by disappearing from sight too early. I waited until everyone else was asleep.”

They nodded in understanding.

Sweetie Belle smirked at his puzzled gaze at the bed arrangement. “A few softening charms and it’s easily as good as any mattress we’ve ever had,” she said impishly.

“Except clouds,” said Scootaloo.

“Hmm, yes,” said Apple Bloom, “but not all of us can get up to them.” Then she got a puzzled look and looked at her wand holster. “Well, up ’til now, at least.”

Scootaloo just grinned back at her.

Sweetie Belle continued, a moment later, “When else will we ever get the chance to sleep on a bed of gold?” She raised her eyebrows and grinned. The others giggled with her. “Not even Diamond Tiara can claim she’s done that!”

Harry rolled his eyes, but climbed into the bed with them. It was surprisingly comfortable. Then again, even the ground would be comfortable for him with his herdmates with him. Sleeping with them was a rare luxury — they had been caught trying to sneak away from their dorm room one too many times. Only occasionally, now, could they successfully sneak away.

۸- ̫ -۸

The next morning, Harry ate a quick, sparse, and early breakfast. When he finished, he stacked three plates, loaded the top one with shrunken food, then snuck into a broom-closet. Once the door was secured, he retrieved his trunk from his pocket and delivered the plates to his herdmates — he didn’t trust the wizards not to make a last-minute grab at one of the girls.

He had been a bit surprised to note that his other trunk had been unmolested all night.

“Shall we go?” he said in a formal, snooty tone, trying to hide his nervousness.

“Do you think it’s safe?” said Apple Bloom cautiously, exchanging worried looks with her herdmates.

“I doubt they will try anything this late in the game.” He smirked. “And with the armour you’re wearing, and the spells I’ve learned since arriving, I don’t think they’d succeed.

As they walked down the lawn with a horde of other students, and a light shield spell around the four of them, they saw that the wizards had used the seating stands from the first task in November. The stands were along the bank, packed to the bursting point with wizards and witches hoping for another thrilling blood-sport, and their images reflected off the lake below. The excited babble of the crowd was a constant drone as Harry headed toward the judges’ gold-draped table, which was at the water’s edge to one side of the stands. The girls headed over to sit with Luna and the other Gryffindors. Hermione and Ginny were not in sight. Harry figured they might be more than a bit nervous and were simply late, but it still worried him. The other champions, Cedric, Fleur, and Krum, were waiting beside the judges’ table.

Percy Weasley, sitting at the judges’ table, smiled at Harry. “Excellent!” he said in a pompous voice, “Good to see that you’re right on time. Punctuality is always important.”

Harry gave him a generous smile. It was nice to know that at least one official pretended to be on his side! Although he suspected Percy wasn’t just pretending, which made it even better. There was one adult wizard a pony could trust!

Harry noticed that Mr. Crouch had failed to turn up, and a different wizard was sitting in his place at the table.

Ludo Bagman looked relieved to see Harry. Had he thought Harry wouldn’t show up? Bagman began to separate and spread out the champions. He spaced them along the lake bank at intervals of three yards. Harry was the farthest from the judges table. The other three wore swimming trunks and held their wands in hand. They must have cast warming charms on themselves as they weren’t shivering in the icy cold February weather. Harry’s wand was in its holster, held firmly against his hoof with a sticking charm.

Bagman pointed his wand at his throat and said, “Sonorus!”

“Welcome to the Second Task!” his voice boomed out over the lake. “Our champions are ready.” He gave them a quick glance, as if confirming they were, indeed, ready. “We’ll start on my whistle, and they have precisely an hour to complete the task. They have to recover what has been taken from them. So, on the count of three, one . . . two . . . three!” He practically yelled the “three.”

Two of the three champions jumped into the water immediately. Krum, though, took a moment longer. He transformed his head into a shark’s head and then jumped in.

Harry pulled his robe off over his head. For the second time since arriving at Hogwarts, he was in public without his armour — the fins and gills spell changed only his body, not anything he was wearing, so he had had to leave it in his trunk as it wouldn’t fit right, and the neck portion would cover his gills. The lack of armour made him truly feel naked. He dropped to all four hooves, then took a deep breath and held his wand against his head as he concentrated. The magic rippled over him, changing his body and giving him fins along his legs and gills on his neck. As soon as it was complete, he leaped into the water.

He immediately headed out into the lake, taking advantage of the lower resistance with his head and back out of the water. His fins propelled him at a pace that would be normal for land, but no that human or pony could ever have managed in water. As he got close to the centre of the lake, he submerged. He listened carefully as he swam, trusting his improved hearing underwater. Faintly, he heard singing.

As he had hoped, it seemed to be coming from the village in the deepest part of the lake. A few minutes later, he swam into the village square. He looked up and saw that the surface of the water, easily a hundred yards above him, was not visible, only the general brightening of the water indicated where it was. He was very grateful that the gills and fins spell also gave him improved underwater eyesight, as otherwise the dim light at this depth would have made seeing anything more than a few yards away extremely difficult, at best.

The square was rather crowded with merpeople hoping for a glimpse of the champions. They were not as amazed to see him as the wizards might have expected, but then again, he had been poking around in the lake for over a month now. They gave him their versions of smiles and waved at him. He waved back as he moved towards the statue of a gigantic merperson. Around it, in a circle, was a singing choir of merpeople, to provide the champions with a clue as to where they should head.

Harry frowned as what he saw bound by lakeweed ropes to the statue’s tail proved his interpretation of the riddle had been correct. He was startled, however, to see Ginny and Hermione as two of the four people who were there. Cho Chang was easily recognizable, and Cedric’s hostage, as Harry and the group had surmised. The fourth was a young girl who couldn’t have been more than eight, with silvery hair, that had to be a relative of Fleur. They seemed to be sleeping deeply, with their heads drifting limply side-to-side in the current. Bubbles drifted lazily from their mouths, so they were clearly alive.

He swam around the statue, looking for any guards besides the trident and spear equipped merpeople. There weren’t any. Stupid, stupid wizards. On the other hoof, it did look quite peaceful, although a few of the merpeople appeared very interested in the silver-haired girl.

He paused in front of the captives and stared. Who was he supposed to rescue? Ginny? Hermione? Fleur would grab the little girl, he was sure, and Cedric would take Cho. But who was Victor supposed to rescue? Hermione had been his date at the Ball, and they had said a few words to each other after that, but was she someone Victor would truly miss? Harry knew both girls far better than the Durmstrang student did.

He would just have to wait.

Several merchildren came closer to inspect Harry. They had never seen a pony with fins on his legs before, and they ended up playing tag around the statue.

He eventually heard the mermaid choir sing their warning that only half an hour remained, and that the champions had better get a leg on before it was too late to save their hostage. He continued to swim circles around the statue playing with the merchildren while he kept an eye on the four hostages.

After a few more minutes, the crowd began to point and excitedly chatter. The merchildren scattered back out of the square.

Harry turned and looked in the indicated direction.

Someone was coming.

It was Cedric. As Harry had expected, his hostage was Cho. After a few moments spent hacking with a knife, he cut her free and started back to shore. He looked at Harry, floating nearby, shook his head, and mouthed, “Fleur and Krum are coming.”

Harry pointed at Ginny and Hermione and held up his front hooves beside his shoulders in a sign that he didn’t know which to rescue. Cedric looked at the two, and then back at Harry, shaking his head. He shrugged, and started back to the shore with his prize.

No sooner had he gone out of sight than Victor appeared, to much animated excitement among the merpeople.

Harry had to shake his head in disappointment when the wizard began trying to bite the seaweed rope in an effort to rescue Hermione. Harry sighed, swam over, and hit the wizard on the shoulder. Startled, Krum looked at him. Harry pointed at the wand the wizard had in his hand and then at the rope. Victor looked at the wand, then rolled his eyes. He ran the tip of his wand down the rope bindings, severing them with a cutting spell. He seized Hermione around the waist, nodded to Harry, and took off after Cedric.

Well, that took care of the problem of whom Harry was supposed to rescue!

Harry saw a merman swim up to an important looking individual with many necklaces of stones and shells. After a hurried conversation, they both turned toward the hostages and smiled.

Harry noticed that their attention was focused on the young girl.

The two began to drift closer, and more of the mermen were beginning to smile. Some even appeared to be getting happy at the news.

One of them spoke loudly and sharply, “Children! Leave! Now!”

The merchildren peering in at the edges of the square were gone in a flash of fins.

In fact, there were now no merchildren in sight, at all. Not even peeking from windows.

The choir had stopped singing and started to swim away.

There was now a solid ring of mermen around the statue.

They ignored him and Ginny, and focused on the girl

Harry had a very bad feeling about this.

۸- ̰ -۸

Ch. 24 — A Thank You

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Ch. 24 — A Thank You

Harry quickly swam to Ginny and freed her with a cutting spell. He gathered her to his chest with one foreleg. Then, before the mermen could react, he did the same to the silver-haired girl.

He held them between his forelegs, and launched himself upwards.

One of the mermen shouted, “Hey! No! Your hostage only!”

Harry ignored them. He swam as hard as he could. He needed distance as fast as possible.

When girls started to slip between his legs, he cast a quick sticking charm with his horn.

He heard the sounds of spears flying through water behind him. He pumped his rear legs harder and angled towards the shore.

He wasn’t faster than the mermen. Not while he was carrying two dead-weight passengers! His pursuers had powerful tails to drive them through the water. But his sudden escape had caught them by surprise. The heavy resistance of the water made throwing a spear ineffectual if the target was more than a few yards away. All he had to do was stay ahead of them.

Fortunately, his desire to escape and live was stronger than their desire to capture the veela girl and they began to fall behind.

He was halfway back when he finally breached the surface. Apparently, reaching air was all that was needed, as both of his passengers immediately woke. Both girls were scared and confused at waking in the lake, but he didn’t give them time to panic.

“Grab my neck!” he ordered. “Hurry!”

Unsure of what was happening, but trusting him, Ginny wrapped her arms around his neck as he rolled her onto his back.

He ducked his head under water, and pushed the girl at Ginny. “Hold her!” he ordered as he surfaced. Several green-haired heads poked out of the water behind him, screeching angrily and brandishing their spears.

With the girls out of the water, Harry could go much faster now without their bodies’ bulk in the water, and using all four of his finned legs. He started off as quickly as possible. He cast a shield behind them, just in case, and fled towards shore.

He heard screaming and yelling from the stands, but he didn’t take time to figure out why, he just concentrated on going as rapidly as possible. Which was far faster than any human or pony could swim. He headed for the area in front of the stands. They were easier to see — his transformed eyes, while excellent for underwater, were not so good when he was out of it. When you were underwater, anything farther than a few dozen yards was simply too far away to see, except as a vague shape, so long-distance viewing was not a necessary attribute. Plus, the ability to see in the darkness underwater made the world above positively blinding if you didn’t squint. Underwater, hearing was a much more effective and precise manner of locating something at a distance than sight. It didn’t hurt that it was also a big assist above the surface.

The spectators’ verbal reactions also helped him arrow in on the right direction with his ears.

He didn’t stop when he hit the shallows. He flung himself out of the water and cancelled the fins and gills spell, running onto the shore. It was only the adrenalin that allowed him to cover a couple of yards farther before collapsing under the combined weight of his two passengers.

A spear thudded into the ground beside them a moment later.

Harry strengthened his shield spell as much as he could — which really wasn’t that much. He was very tired from spell-casting, and charging almost half the length of the lake underwater while towing two dead-weights.

The first person to reach them was Percy, who was almost white with shock. He had his wand in hand, and cast another shield spell as soon as he was close enough. In between his worried looks at his sister, he glared angrily at the green-haired heads dotting the lake surface.

Fleur was not far behind Percy and the looks she was giving the green-haired heads made a number of them duck underneath the surface. Harry could swear he saw fire lick the ends of her fingers and feathers dot her arms.

A couple of minutes later, he watched, dully, as first Cedric and then Krum surfaced way over by the judges table.

To say the scene was chaotic would be an understatement. His three herdmates, and Luna, were grouped around him. Percy was alternately hugging and holding his sister at arms-length examining her while the twins and Ron crowded close, Fleur was doing the same to her sister. Madam Pomfrey looked like she was about to have kittens as she tried to get blankets and potions to everyone, darting back and forth between the champions in front of the judges table and Harry’s group.

Karkaroff was watching from the judges table, not having moved once, and looking quite displeased at the proceedings around him. Madame Maxime was with Fleur, both of whom were rapidly exchanging words in French and shooting looks at Harry. Maxime’s glances were as unhappy as Fleur’s were grateful.

Dumbledore was having a conference at the water’s edge with a mermaid, who gestured quite angrily and shot accusatory looks at Harry.

Harry resolved to avoid the lake in the future. He wasn’t about to take a chance that the merpeople might hold a grudge against him for ruining their plans.

Now that it was all over, Harry was lethargic and just wanted to catch his wind. It had been an extremely stressful hour. Having his herdmates safe and nearby certainly helped him relax. He began shaking as the adrenaline began to wear off.

He looked up at the wizards beside him. They were taking turns hugging their sister. Except Ron, he looked relieved, but uncomfortable.

Harry idly wondered how long it would be before Ron shared the gold-runes with his family. Or even just shared his wealth — he had over five tons of the stuff in his apartment trunk. Which, if Harry was correct in the conversion rate of bullion to coins, was about 150,000 galleons. He was mumbling something about needing enough to buy the Chudley Cannons.

Fleur said something to Madam Maxime and darted over to Harry. “’hank you, Sparkle, for saving ’er,” she said breathlessly, and glared at the green-haired heads still visible floating further out in the lake. “Even though she was not your ’ostage.” She then proceeded to kiss him twice on each cheek. He blushed in reaction. Then she hurried back to her sister.

Dumbledore and the other judges were now gathered together, discussing things heatedly. Finally, they separated their huddle and returned to their seats at the judges table. Ludo Bagman stood, casting the sonorous charm on himself again. “What an absolutely thrilling finish to this task! Mr. Sparkle has once again surprised us with his inventive solutions to the task set before him.” The crowd in the stands roared their agreement.

“There are sixty points possible for each champion in this task. Starting with Fleur Delacour, who cast an excellent bubble-head charm but did not retrieve her hostage due to an attack by grindylows, we award thirty points.”

The Beauxbaton students erupted into applause and cheers, while Fleur shook her head.

“Victor Krum, the last to arrive, used a difficult partial transfiguration to secure his hostage. We award him forty-six points.” The Durmstrang students were as proud of their champion as their headmaster, Karkaroff, and were not shy to let the other supporters know it.

“Cedric Diggory was the second to return with his hostage. He also used the bubble-head charm but, alas, was one minute outside the time limit. We award him fifty-one points.” The Huflepuff section began to cheer and applaud.

“Harry Sparkle, however, gave himself an excellent transfiguration with both gills and fins, and returned with his hostage well under the time limit. Consulting with the Merchieftainess, we discovered that Mr. Sparkle was the first to reach the hostages and refused to leave until the each of the other champions had arrived and left with theirs. When the merpeople discovered that Miss Delacour had been driven back, they began to move forward to return her hostage. Mr. Sparkle mistook their intent, and decided to take Miss Delacour’s hostage with him. The merpeople had been told each champion would take his own hostage, and took exception to Mr. Sparkle taking two hostages, resulting in the thrilling race across the lake that we saw.” The audience began clapping. “Unfortunately, one of us feels that Mr. Sparkle should be penalized for interfering with another’s champion’s hostage, even if she could not finish the task.” The positively nasty look he gave Karkaroff revealed who the judge was that had dissented. “Thus, we award Mr. Sparkle fifty-five points.”

The Gryffindors burst into loud cheers and applause that was markedly louder than the ones given to Cedric by the rest of Hogwarts. But, then again, the Gryffindors were usually considered the most boisterous of the four Houses.

The Beauxbaton students were not nearly as enthusiastic as Fleur was in clapping for Harry. Cedric and Cho were applauding politely, but the glowing look she gave to Cedric clearly showed who Cho thought had won the task. Krum, on the other hand, was clearly unhappy. He obviously wanted to talk with Hermione, but she was too busy cheering Harry to listen.

Bagman then told everyone that the final task would take place at dusk on June twenty-fourth and that the champions would be told one month beforehand what the task entailed.

It was over. The spectators were starting to head back to either the school or Hogsmeade. Those whose families had attended were spreading out over the lawns. Harry’s collection of friends headed back to the castle. Percy had to beg off — “Well,” he said, almost reluctantly as he glanced at his sister, “I have to return to the Ministry to write this up.” He headed towards Hogsmeade.

Harry noticed the big black dog he had seen in Hogsmeade under the audience stands. It appeared to be dancing with joy. When it saw him looking, it grinned widely with its tail wagging so fast it was almost a blur.

۸- ̬ -۸

The twins had the Gryffindor party in full swing by the time the Harry and his friends arrived. They were met by loud cheers as soon as the Fat Lady’s portrait swung open. After that, the portrait was open more than it was closed as it seemed as if the entire school wanted to squeeze into the Common Room. Which kept growing to accommodate the crowd. That a number of the older Gryffindors were showing off by using the wings spell to hover above helped — some Gryffindors were teaching other Houses’ students how to join them.

The non-Gryffindors might not all like Harry, or the fact he was putting their champion to shame, but nobody threw a party like the twins did! There were even a few Slytherins, Harry noticed. It reminded him of Pinkie Pie, except her games seemed aimed at a lower-age participants.

Sweetie Belle snickered at Harry’s expression at all the people congratulating him on finishing first. “No one can beat our Harry,” she singsonged to the tune the Victrola in one corner was playing.

“Harry’s the best that there is,” sang Scootaloo.

“He’s brave and dependable!” sang Apple Bloom.

“It really wasn’t that great,” Harry sang in counterpoint bass — well, as bass as a fourteen-year-old colt could get.

Which launched the biggest Harmony song Hogwarts had ever heard, or seen. Hundreds of students joined in a spontaneously choreographed dance number that left everyone stunned when it ended. But like all such Harmony numbers, soon enough everyone had returned to what they had been doing before as if nothing remarkable had happened — except for the occasional puzzled frown directed at either the Victrola or the Equestrians.

Nobody noticed as Harry and fiancés, and Hermione, Ginny, and Luna, snuck out before lunch and spent the rest of the day teaching what they could to the two foals out by Hagrid’s hut. The foals would be returned to their herd after Friday, and the group wanted to teach the two as much as possible before then. Their vocabulary had already increased some, and if unicorn horns could be used in wands and rituals, surely the horses themselves could use the horns to cast warming and defensive spells!

They went back inside for dinner. The Gryffindor party lasted until curfew.

Nobody seemed to notice, or care, that the three fillies followed Harry to his dorm room.

۸- ̬ -۸

The next five weeks passed relatively quietly for Harry, if not for the rest of the castle. Now that he had covered all the practical spells up to and including the N.E.W.T. level in Transfiguration, Charms, and Defence Against the Dark Arts, he could slow down. He went back through the books to learn the theory behind the magic. Without having to wait for the slowest member of the class to get the lesson, he could move through the assignments rather quickly. The professors were thrilled that he was handing in two or three weeks’ worth of assignments almost on a daily basis. Of course, each day was a different class, transfigurations, charms, DADA, arithmancy, runes, and even astronomy. History of Magic and Care of Magical Creatures he didn’t really care about, he planned to revise the seven and five textbooks for those two, respectively, at end of the year.

The end-of-year tests the professors were giving him for each year he completed seemed to show that he was doing very well. He planned to take the OWLS at the end of the year, just to see how he would do. Hopefully, his mum would be here long before he could schedule the NEWT-level tests in the summer.

The Potions class was pretty much a wash, as far as he was concerned. There was no practical way for him to complete the old assignments and potions in a timely manner without severely impacting his work for other classes. What was really being taught in those previous years in the class were the techniques and skills needed to brew the potions used in the wizarding world. Eleven year old kids had to be taught the patience and precision needed for brewing, and so they started with simple things. Just as a pegasus didn’t make her first flight an attempt to cross the entire country!

The potions, themselves, were memorization, easily handled with Hayscartes’ Method.

Not being a mere eleven year old, he did have more patience, and using magic for years to manipulate everything in his environment had taught him precision. Plus, he really didn’t need to brew the previous years’ potions to learn the techniques he had already picked up in the fourth year class from his friends. So, he just continued the fourth-year class and let things be while reading ahead with the upper-year texts.

As for his herdmates, they were keeping the rest of the castle inhabitants on their toes. The more interesting incidents included setting fire to the forest (“Who knew there was a variant of the bluebell flame that was like incendio?”), trying to catch acromantulas (who moved their nest deeper into the forest), accidentally transforming the muggle blue flower, Tufted Vetch, into a new version of Poison Joke (“It was an accident! It was supposed to be a growth potion!” “Where did you even find those!? Their season isn’t until June, at the earliest!” — the Weasley twins were thrilled), and somehow enticing a herd of miniature Aethon flying horses into moving into the attic of the castle corridor beside Gryffindor tower (which Scootaloo claimed happened only because they were complaining about the cold when she met them while flying one day — they had never seen a human with wings, before — so they followed her home).

Harry heard Professor McGonagall say, “This is worse than when the Marauders were here!” as she sat on a broom and surveyed the new entrance to the attic over the corridor to Gryffindor tower that hadn’t been there the previous week. The attic window had been transformed into a wide landing pad with swinging doors. She could only stare and shake her head at the flock of winged-ponies making themselves at home inside. The castle’s apparent acceptance of her new inhabitants had the Headmaster’s eyes twinkling like mad as he sat on a broom beside her. Harry and the fillies were perched on the crown of the roof, also watching.

Hagrid was thrilled with the situation, especially the first time Scootaloo managed to teach one of the aethons how to make a cloud out of air. Plus, the unicorn herd kept showing up at his hut, especially the two foals from earlier. Most of the herd had learned how to levitate small objects with their horns, and they seemed to want to learn more. Several of the First-year witches were more than happy to show off what they knew.

The fillies could do no wrong as far as Hagrid was concerned. He absolutely loved the translation spell Hermione had found, and he wasn’t reluctant to praise her and her magical skills. Which left her blushing each time they visited the half-giant’s hut.

The Tufted Vetch had gotten them a write up in Potioneers, a magazine for those interested in such things, long interviews with both Professors Sprout and Snape on what had they done, and a scroll an inch thick of backlogged orders from all over the world for the new plants. The Headmaster said that selling the seed packets would allow Hogwarts to buy new brooms for the First Years to practice with. The first crop should be ready by Summer.

It was truly amazing what the three Cutie Mark Crusaders could accomplish in only a few minutes of idle curiosity. Harry tried to keep them focused on their studies as much as he could, and made sure his tutors were not inconvenienced by also helping them. He wasn’t sure what Liza’s and Jonathan’s time was worth, but he planned to give them double their combined weight in gold at the end of term. From what his roommates said, that seemed more than fair for the imposition on their time and energy. Not to mention keeping the CMC occupied in “harmless” pursuits.

Scootaloo and Apple Bloom, as well as the other Gryffindor and Slytherin firsties had managed to complete the first year courses, and pass the end-of-year tests for Transfiguration, Charms, and Defence Against the Dark Arts. The professors shuddered at the thought of bored firsties, each with an extra nine hours a week to waste, not to mention the hours freed by no assignments. So, Professors Flitwick, McGonagall, and Moody started them on the second year curriculum. To the intense jealousy and envy of the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs.

Several of whom tried to bribe Sweetie Belle into recreating her “frenzy” potion. Fortunately, Harry and the other two fillies managed to thwart each such attempt in the planning stage. That Professor Snape seemed just as disinclined to allow any students to try to recreate the potion was also a help.

With Harry’s help, and the rest of his group, the Apple Bloom and Scootaloo had worked their way mostly through the second year. They would soon start third year courses, and hopefully complete them and get a start on fourth year by the end of the school year. The two were highly motivated, as this was their only chance to learn magic from somepony who really knew how to use a wand. When they returned home, they would be cut off from the school, and learning more would be difficult at best.

That could happen at any moment — or not. But Apple Bloom and Scootaloo didn’t want to take any chances. It was better to plan for the worst and hope for the best. It was more than a bit peculiar to consider being rescued as soon as possible to be a worse outcome than being rescued later. Being able to do magic, and teach other pegasi and earth ponies those skills when they got home, would be revolutionary. Plus, the fillies were having fun teaching what they already knew to the miniature flying horses and unicorns, when they could find the time.

Sweetie Belle’s nearly decade and a half familiarity with using magic to cast spells saw her almost ready to complete the third year classes. She would definitely be at the same level as the fifth years by the end of the year, and ready for the O.W.L.s.

Thus it was that when winter term finished the first week of April, they took advantage of the two week hols to ignore schoolwork completely. Charlie had come through with portkeys and travel documents, and they planned to spend the entire time at the Romanian Dragon Sanctuary.

۸-_-۸

«Well, » said Twilight as the six trudged back to the castle from the Ponyville train station. Spike struggled under the load of trunks that Rarity insisted she couldn’t travel without. «That was a bust.»

«Yeah, » Rainbow said despondently as she flew beside them. «Not a trace.»

The purple princess stopped and frowned, «Maybe if I used Duskstar’s Variant I could boost my range on the search spell . . . .»

«You’ve got to stop beating yourself up over this, » Rarity said dismally. «We searched the entirety of Trotland very thoroughly. They were not there. They are not there. They have never been there.»

«Ah’m surprised thay didn’t toss us out after the first week fer being nuisances, the way we were carryin’ on,» Applejack said.

«This smells like Discord!» Rainbow said firmly, looping around the group.

Fluttershy sighed, «Discord said, before we left, that he had nothing to do with Harry’s disappearance, that it surprised him when Harry vanished from the party just as much as it did us. » She looked accusingly at the pegasus through her fringe, «Why do you think he had anything to do with the girls disappearing?»

Rainbow shot over to the other pegasus. «It’s either a big conspiracy — just look at how all the letters were covering each other — or one particular scrawny draconequus sneaking around in the background!»

The others perked up. Rainbow had finally said what they were thinking.

Fluttershy shook her head sadly. «I’ll ask him at our next tea.» She sighed morosely and headed off towards her house. «I need to check on my animal friends,» they faintly heard.

The others watched her slowly walk off.

Twilight sighed and looked up at her castle on the other side of town. «I bet I have a mountain of paperwork waiting for me.» She started to perk up at the thought.

Spike rolled his eyes. «And I’m sure the library needs reorganizing,» he said somewhat sarcastically.

Twilight’s ears perked up, and her pace went from a slow walk to a more normal quick walk. «Oh, no! It’s been neglected for thirteen weeks, three days, and seventeen hours!»

Spike looked at the others and shrugged. «We’ll see you tomorrow, I’m sure.» He quickly set off at a trot after his mentor.

Pinkamenia’s long tresses suddenly poofed up into the familiar curls that marked Pinkie Pie as she simultaneously gasped, «The parties! I’ve missed thirty-one birthdays, eleven anniversaries, and five cute-ceañeras!» She vanished, and a pink cloud of shed slowly dissipated from where she had been.

Rarity chewed her lower lip in thought. «Oh, dear! I must have a pile of overdue orders!» She began to trot off towards her home.

Applejack and Rainbow just looked at each other. «Ah think there’s a jug of zap-apple juice with ar names on it, Dash,» the farmer said firmly.

Rainbow Dash nodded. «Sounds like a plan to me.» She zipped around the orange mare. «I can check in tomorrow morning with the Wonderbolts.»

۸-ꞈ-۸

The portkey deposited them in a heap inside a large room.

“Ten o’clock, right on time, I see,” Charlie said jovially, looking at his watch.

Harry staggered to his hooves as the fillies separated themselves and climbed to their feet.

“First time is always a bit rough,” the dragon-handler continued. “I would have thought someone would have warned you that when you see the destination approaching, start walking. If you’re standing still when you land, the leftover movement will knock you to the ground.”

Harry shook his head. The History of Magic textbooks needed to focus more on the advancements the wizards had made and less on their squabbles with their neighbours. He couldn’t help but wonder what other tidbits of magic were not mentioned because everypony assumed every other pony already knew the details.

However, it made a nice and easy way for non-unicorns to teleport great distances — with cargo, too. He patted his pocket with his expanded apartment trunk carrying the gold for the dragons. He made a note to get a book on creating portkeys and what their limitations were. As long as they didn’t take too much skill and magic, they would make a wonderful system to use for destinations that didn’t have an active floo connection. Another revolutionary idea from the wizarding world! His mum would be so happy.

“Well,” Charlie said, rubbing his hands together, “Let me show you your rooms so you can put down your luggage, and then I’ll introduce you to the Sanctuary’s Director and we can visit the dragons! What say?”

They nodded numbly and followed the energetic wizard outside the reception building to a series of cabins. “You caused quite the stir when I told them you said you could talk with the dragons, Harry,” the dragon-handler said jovially. “That tidbit about protecting the nest’s eggs from smaller predators struck the right note, too. We started adding small animal repelling spells to the nests and we’ve already noticed that the nesting dragons are more relaxed. Apparently, they aren’t seeing as many burrowing rodents and such around.”

He made for a large building and opened the door to wave them through. “This cabin has five bedrooms, so you should be quite comfortable.” He grinned. “It’s for our V.I.P. visitors. My cabin is a good deal more rustic than this palace.”

The foyer was large, panelled in a dark wood with a lighter wood for a floor. It was easily big enough for storing winter coats, boots, and other sundries, and led to a larger room nearly as big as the Gryffindor Common Room that was clearly the main room. It was just as richly appointed with decorations, armchairs, couches, and end tables, too. Through an open archway, he could see a luxurious dining room. The remainder of the wall to the left of the dining room was a breakfast or luncheon bar with a kitchen beyond that. A staircase on the right led to a balcony overlooking the main room. There were five doors spaced along it, which Harry presumed led to the bedrooms that were over the dining room and kitchen. When he looked behind himself, he saw that the foyer was bracketed by a modest library on one side and a room with a pool-table and dart board on the other.

While the fillies placed their trunks in separate rooms, Harry no doubts that they would be spending the nights with him.

Then they were off to meet the Director, Grigore Dalca.

The Director was well-tanned, with several visible scars, and had the kind of look that said he should be taken seriously. He was also very welcoming, putting aside his work as they came into the office and standing. He was nearly a head shorter than Charlie, but then again, most people were shorter than any of the older Weasleys. Dalca glanced curiously at the three girls, but reserved most of his interest to Harry. The wizard had a heavy accent, but gradually became more understandable the more he talked as they exchanged pleasantries. Then he said, “Let’s get right to it. You can talk with dragons, yes?”

Harry nodded. “I thought I was talking to the Chinese Fireball in English when I first saw her, but she said I was speaking the noble language of the dragons.”

The wizard studied him with narrowed eyes. He clearly didn’t believe a word the colt was saying, but then again, Harry was standing there as a colt and not a boy. He sighed softly through pursed lips. He started out from behind the desk. “Then let’s see what she has to say, now.”

He led them out of the office. “You can ride brooms, yes?” he said as he grabbed one from the rack on the porch.

Harry glanced at the girls and said, “No, but we can follow you easily enough.” A moment later, all four had wings and were hovering. He had cast the wings spell on himself and Scootaloo while Sweetie Belle did herself and Apple Bloom. Not using the brooms made it easier for the Dragons to see the difference between the Equestrians and the wizards.

Dalca gave them a long look, then shrugged, mounted the broom, and took off. They quickly followed him. Soon enough, they were nearing a cave with a large ledge in front of it, just one of many dozens scattered through the rough mountains that circled a small grazing pasture several times the size of the grounds at Hogwarts.

Their arrival was not unheralded, as dozens of dragons bugled at their approach, and dozens more silently peered at them from within their caves. The entire face of the mountain they were approaching appeared to be inhabited by Chinese Fireball dragons, all watching them suspiciously. It took a moment, but then Harry recognized the dragon sunning herself on the ledge they were approaching. They halted just outside of its flaming range.

Harry hovered as he shrugged out of his coat. He folded his wings for the brief moment it took to work them out of the cloak, but he quickly regained the lost altitude. He hoofed the robe to Scootaloo and then drifted closer to the Chinese Fireball.

§Hello, again, Dragon Mother,§ he said respectfully.

۸- ̬ -۸

Ch. 25 — Belated Inspiration

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Ch. 25 — Belated Inspiration

«Discord swears he would never do anything to harm the Cutie Mark Crusaders.» Fluttershy proudly informed her friends. «He said they’re the next best thing to him in creating chaos out of nothing. He’d sooner give up chaos than do anything that would cause them pain. Plus, he reminded me he had promised never to deliberately hurt any ponies with anything he might or might not do. Especially if they were friends of mine.» She hung her head down low. «He was rather offended that we thought he would harm them.»

Twilight sighed and looked at her other friends. That pretty much closed that avenue of investigation. They could only hope it was something innocuous that the three fillies had gotten themselves into. Missing-pony bulletins had been sent to every corner of Equestria and beyond, asking for information about them. Although, she had to smirk, all they really had to do was watch the news reports for unexplained explosions and incidents involving three fillies.

«I did ask about Harry, again,» she added. «He still insists he had nothing to do with Harry disappearing. When I asked if he could find Harry, or knew where he was, Discord said that there are some things in which for him to express an interest might change those things — the observer effect, he called it, something about Schrödinger’s cat —,» she looked very puzzled for a moment, «and not for the better. Too much chaos simply becomes destruction.» She looked slightly frightened at the prospect.

Applejack stared at her. «That’s not ominous at all, is it girls?» She looked over at Twilight and the others, wide-eyed.

۸-ꞈ-۸

The Chinese Fireball dragon studied Harry coldly for a moment, then let a small bit of smoke curl from her nostrils. §I did not expect to see you again, pony,§ she said aloofly. §Nor with two-legs.§ She glared at the two wizards on brooms. §Nor two-legs with wings?§ She studied the three girls carefully.

§The two-legs with wings are my betrothed. They wear the semblance of the two legs to better fit in with them than I do — the wings are temporary.§ He paused. §I had to see you again,§ he said, §to thank you and the other three for your performances during the task. It was truly a surprise, and tricked the two-legs completely.§

He wasn’t sure, but he thought she might have blushed. She turned her head to the side for a moment and inspected the tiny valley far below. §Yes, it was rather well-planned, wasn’t it?§

§Have your eyes recovered completely? I do so apologize for him hurting you like that. I never dreamed he would start with such a hurtful curse.§ He smirked. §Although, you did give him a rather nice and thorough roasting. I admire your restraint in not simply eliminating him in retaliation.§

She scowled and let out a blast of fire to one side.

He could hear the others behind him crying out in surprise.

§I should have roasted him, but the two-legs get extremely upset when any of us kill the annoying excrements. And who knows what they might have done to my eggs if I had?§ A dense cloud of smoke drifted from her nostrils. §He survived, then did he?§ she said with more than a hint of regret.

§Yes. He’s completely recovered, now. But it took far longer than your eyes did, I’d wager.§

She nodded.

§Anyway,§ he said, §I have a thank you gift for you to add to your hoard.§

She growled and glared at the wizards behind him. §They don’t allow us to have a hoard. We cannot forage as we used to.§

Harry backwinged in shock. §That cannot be!§ he exclaimed.

She nodded sadly and rested her chin on the ledge a moment. §We each have only a tiny bit. What we have managed to scavenge or were gifted from our mothers or partners.§

He shook his head in dismay. That meant his present would radically shake things up here. But, be that as it may, he owed the four dragons. §May I land and add my gift to your hoard?§

Moments later, he was using his wand, at the far back of the cave, to guide the arc of gold rocks from his trunk to the floor, and unshrinking it in the process. He carefully avoided the nest of eggs at one side.

The dragon watched, gobsmacked.

§It is only five tons,§ he explained. §A ton more than what I will give the other three because you suffered so at the wand of Victor Krum. I hope it pleases you.§

The dragon had spread the gold out and was almost wallowing in it. §It is real gold!§ she exclaimed, after eating one of the rocks.

It was so small in comparison to her mouth, he had to shake his head in amazement that she could make such a definitive statement.

§And pure!§

Her taste buds have to be amazing.

If a dragon could purr, he was sure she would have.

She wriggled happily. §And it feels so good!§ She sighed and another dense cloud of smoke came out.

Harry unobtrusively cast the bubble-head spell. Then he shrank his trunk and stowed it back under his armour in the pocket for incidentals.

§I shall take my leave, now, dragon mother,§ he said as he bowed deeply, chin almost on the ground.

She gently pushed a small portion of the gold over to her eggs, and tenderly started to pack it around them, breathing small flames to warm the eggs and melt the gold to flow around them and better retain the heat.

He turned and headed back to the front of the cave.

Behind him, he heard her say, §Dragon and pony against the world, pony. Dragon and pony against the world. If you ever need my help, again, just ask.§

He turned back to her and bowed deeply. §I thank you for that offer, dragon mother, . . .§ he tilted his head inquiringly.

§Slow Charm, pony,§ she interrupted him, §my name is Slow Charm.§

Harry paused a second. §Thank you for your friendship, Slow Charm. My name is Hairy Hard-slick-ground Sparkle.§ He suppressed a grimace, his first names didn’t translate well. Fortunately, no pony or wizard would ever hear it. The dragons, naturally, wouldn’t care.

§Oh, I almost forgot. The stupid two-legs never knew of the noble language of dragons. Now that I have told them of it, they wish to learn it to converse with you. Or arrange a method of communication.§ He smiled slyly. §Maybe you could trade lessons for gold?§

She looked back at him and smirked.

§The tall, red-headed two-legs is a friend of mine,§ Harry continued, §He might be able to arrange something . . . advantageous?§

They shared grins. Then he turned and went back to the cave entrance. He heard her chuckling happily behind him, interspaced with what she considered “gentle” blast-furnace-like flames.

The other three dragons were equally pleased with their gifts, and he left each as she began rearranging her nest.

Director Dalca was convinced that he really could talk with the dragons.

There seemed to be an awful lot of bugling coming from the mountains behind them as they returned to the wizards’ headquarters late that afternoon.

Relations between dragons and wizards were about to take a dramatic shift.

That evening, at dinner, he told the dragon wranglers the names of the four dragons he had met, and that he had told them the wizards wanted to communicate. “Why don’t you set up a translation board?” he suggested. “You can record words I say, then link them to words on the board. That way, anyone can ‘speak’ the language without actually having to learn it. Then, as you get more experience, you can have the dragons record words for you until you have a complete spoken dictionary.”

By the end of the next day, he was sorry he had said anything because he was so hoarse from recording all the commands and questions the wizards wanted to be able to say.

The next day, they had twice as many.

Still, he found time to pull Charlie aside. “Look, Charlie, these dragons don’t have hoards worth mentioning. And a dragon without a hoard is a pitiful sight. They eat some of the gold for nutritional reasons, and measure their position in their society by how big it is.” He smirked. “They spend a good deal of their time and energy gifting and stealing some from each other, so I imagine you’ll find they spend less time annoying you and the other wizards.”

Charlie shook his head and ran a hand through his hair. “Our budget would never hold up to giving the dragons gold, Harry. We just can’t do that.” He continued to shake his head sadly. “I’d like to do that, but . . . .” He spread his arms, hands up, in a ‘what can I do?’ position with a questioning expression on his face.

Harry grinned. “I can’t explain right now, but you really need to talk with Ron, in person, and explain your problem. He might be able to help.”

Charlie gave him a sceptical look.

“Honest, Charlie. Make the time. You won’t regret it! And it will partially solve your problem.” He paused a moment and smirked. “And in a year or so, you’ll be running this place.”

Charlie folded his arms over his chest and gave him a very sceptical look.

Harry just laughed. “Remember, everyone disbelieved that dragons had a language.”

After a further moment’s stare, the wizard pursed his lips and sighed. “Okay. I’ll see if I can get the last weekend of Easter Hols off for a visit home.” He stared at Harry. “You better not be pranking me just to get me to visit the family,” he threatened.

Harry grinned. “No problem. Just tell Ron I said it was important to share.”

Shaking his head in resignation, the red-head slowly walked off, muttering to himself.

Meanwhile, the Crusaders had decided that because they were now in human form, and humans didn’t seem to have cutie-marks but they were transformed ponies, that maybe they could get a second cutie mark as “dragon wranglers.”

Logic was not one of their strong suits.

It was more than passingly strange to see big and burly grownups with tattoos and scars getting nervous at the sight of the three young teenagers approaching their work areas. Many simply adopted the attitude that whatever they had been doing was finished and they quickly vacated the premises.

The dragons seemed to think the fillies’ investigations and attempts were hilarious, and the fillies made several friends among the younger preadolescent dragons. The lack of direct communication did not seem to be an issue.

Several forest fires, two destroyed sheds, a collapsed cliff, a flooded pasture, several traumatized sheep, goat, and cow herds, and a bunny-rabbit stampede later, Director Dalca declared the three to be honorary Dragon handlers, and gave them patches to sew onto their robes. He also gave them a set of official Dragon Handler books from the Sanctuary, and stated that while the three had interned at the Romanian Dragon Sanctuary, unfortunately, the Reserve wouldn’t have any opening for the next few decades, until after his retirement. “However, I will,” he said as rubbed his hands together gleefully, “be happy provide you with letters of introduction to any Dragon Reserve at which you might apply for a job.”

The fillies were thrilled and honoured. As a result, the Romanian Dragon Sanctuary experienced their very first Harmony song, with Dragons bugling in the background as backup.

The translation boards had become books with the help of a clever artificer, and had several thousand words. Harry lost his voice for a day.

Unfortunately, they returned to Hogwarts without any new cutie marks.

۸- ̫ -۸

The next six weeks at school passed quickly. The Crusaders determined they had discovered all the hidden passages and rooms in the castle — a feat no one else had accomplished in the last thousand years. Harry had the feeling that maybe a few of those hidden passages hadn’t been there six months ago, as one led directly from the Gryffindor Common Room to the attic where the herd of miniature Aethon flying horses had settled. It was only one short flight of stairs — down — which wouldn’t even have made it to the floor below. It was, Scootaloo declared, quite convenient.

She was really getting into teaching them the tricks that she had learned as a cadet in the Equestrian Weather Service — and a few tricks Rainbow had taught her about flying. She had never seen a group of ponies look so disbelieving as when she sat-up with her legs crossed while flying around the attic. They kept glancing from their own wings to hers and back, while tentatively flapping them.

It was also Scootaloo who had made those discoveries possible. They had been in the Room of Lost Things, which was now almost completely empty and barely the size of one of the dorm rooms — taking a break between studying. They had been discussing the passages and rooms they had found. She had looked around, and petulantly said, “Well, I want to see the other rooms we haven’t found. I know there have to be at least one or two.”

Sweetie Belle had said, “I don’t think there are any we haven’t found. I mean, we’ve even scoured the attics!”

Scootaloo had hovered around the room. “Yeah, but we would’ve never found Salazar’s Chamber if it hadn’t already been opened. There must be some rooms we haven’t found! What about the other founders? I want to find the other rooms!” She stomped her foot on the floor.

Only a few moments later, thirteen doors had appeared along one wall.

One led to the previously unknown ‘Rowena’s Library’ — really just her office, apparently, but that’s what everyone else was calling it; the next, to ‘Godrick’s Armoury’ — mostly medieval weaponry for defence of the castle, but now in dire need of cleaning and polishing, except for the goblin weapons, of course; and a third to ‘Helga’s Hothouse’ — a greenhouse on the roof where she had kept copious records of the seeds and plants she had brought to Hogwarts. All three locations had the founders’ personal diaries and notes, as well as small libraries. Four doors led to rooms that held nothing more than dust. The other six led to various areas in the castle, including one room that had a really odd mirror in it. The door from the Room of Requirement disappeared as they entered the middle of each hidden passage from it, meaning they had to keep returning to the Room of Requirement and starting over.

The Daily Prophet had been furious that three “foreigners” had discovered what everyone had been searching for for generations. Instead, they played up that Harry Potter, and to a minor degree Hermione Granger, Ginny Weasley, and Luna Lovegood, had been the discoverers. The three fillies’ efforts had been relegated to a small paragraph at the very end of a long article, all by itself, at the bottom of a back page as the last “continued” part of the article. In print half the size of regular. In German.

A steady parade of ministry officials and historians had been to the school to inspect the finds. Harry had received a medal, Order of Merlin, Third Class, which he had promptly tossed into his trunk and forgotten. Hermione had been scandalized, both at the treatment of the fillies by the ministry and by his treatment of the medal.

Ron told him that Charlie had been promoted at the Dragon Sanctuary, he was now Assistant Director. And that the dragons’ diet had been significantly upgraded — they looked healthier, too! They certainly weren’t as ornery with the wizards as they used to be. Things were a lot calmer, except for the normal squabbles between the dragons. Which, oddly enough, seemed to have intensified. The Dragons, strangely, were happier in general as a result.

There was even a rumour, according to Charlie, that the Romanian wizarding government was going to give him a medal for revealing the dragons’ language and the subsequent improvements at the Sanctuary and in relations between the two species.

And a few wizards had been roasted trying to steal some of the dragons’ gold, but nobody wanted to talk about that.

۸- ̫ -۸

In response to Professor McGonagall’s directions after classes in the last week of May, Harry made his way at nine o’clock that night to the Quidditch field. He was transfigured into a person. He studied the stands that he had been told was where they played that strange game as he approached. He arrived in time to hear Cedric’s outraged exclamation, “What have they done!?”

The field between the stands was crisscrossed in every direction with what looked like tightly-packed low walls. As he got closer, he saw that they were actually hedges. He didn’t understand why Cedric was so upset. It wasn’t as if they played quidditch on the ground. It could be a field of rocks, weeds, or water, and it would have no effect on the game, or players, at all.

As he bent down to examine the hedge, he heard a cheery voice call, “Hello there!” He looked up. It was Ludo Bagman. He was standing with the other two champions, Krum and Fleur, in the middle of the field.

Harry and Cedric made their way to the three.

After explaining the maze, and objective, the Triwizard Cup, Bagman said, “You have to enter the maze through the proper entrance. Once inside,” he glanced at Harry, “you won’t be able to fly out of the maze, so no taking shortcuts.” Then came the order of the champions. Harry was first, of course.

Harry nodded. It was no secret he liked to use the wings spell. He had no doubts that all three of the other champions had readily mastered that spell, too.

As they started back, Victor pulled Harry aside and asked to speak to him. Surprised, but not having a reason to say “no,” Harry agreed. The Bulgarian started to lead Harry away from the others

Bagman looked slightly upset for some reason. His offer to wait for Harry explained it. He wanted a word with Harry, even though, as a judge, he shouldn’t be talking alone with any of the four champions.

“No thanks, it’s not a problem, Mr. Bagman,” replied Harry politely, “I’m pretty sure I can find the castle on my own.” It was becoming harder and harder to put up with the stupidity of the adult wizards. The children, he could understand. They were still learning and finding their way in life. The adults? They had no excuse for the dumb things they said and did. He shook his head. It seemed as if every interaction he had with an adult wizard, or witch, that wasn’t in a classroom, merely proved the voice in his head — which persisted in calling them stupid — was right.

He was torn between learning all he could of wand magic, here, or just getting shot of the stupidity continuously on display and going home. Well, when he could go home.

A pony saying something like that would be doing so out of prey instincts — never get separated, always stick with the crowd, two ponies could watch in all directions, three was even better, and so forth.

But people? Predators followed the philosophy of the loner. Company meant competition, not reassurance that nothing could sneak up behind you. Predators were even more nervous with company composed primarily of strangers — one of whom might betray them at any moment.

Still, Harry knew that Victor had nothing untoward in mind. Directly attacking a fellow champion outside of the tasks would lead to retaliation by the Goblet of Fire. However, being led closer to the forest made him a bit nervous. He slowed and transformed back to a pony and dropped back to all-fours. Krum frowned, but said nothing at the change.

He kept a close watch on his surroundings as Krum queried him about Hermione.

Harry didn’t know whether to be flattered or insulted that the Quidditch star thought he might be involved with the witch. Hadn’t he heard that Harry was affiancéd to the three fillies? He shook his head. How could the wizard believe the garbage that the Daily Prophet liked to print? The writers of that rag had Harry paired up with half the school’s witches. He sighed. It looked like Victor was well on his way to being a stupid wizard.

After reassuring the Bulgarian that there was no romantic interest between the colt and Hermione, they were about to head back when Harry heard a movement in the forest.

Reacting instantly, Harry went up on his rear hooves, pulled his wand and readied a shield spell for his horn. Simultaneously, he pushed back on the other wizard, herding him from the trees.

“Vot is it?” said Krum, looking back and forth between Harry and the forest as he copied Harry and pulled out his wand.

Before Harry could say anything, a man staggered out from behind a thick oak.

It was Mr. Crouch, and he looked terrible. He looked as though he had been traveling for days. He was unshaven, grey with exhaustion, and his face scratched and bleeding in places. His normally neat hair and moustache were neither. His robes were ripped and bloody. His behaviour was equally unusual. He acted as if he were talking to someone that no one else could see — he muttered and gestured wildly. He reminded Harry of a tramp he had once seen, a very long time ago. He’d been scared and curious, at the time.

“Isn’t he von of the judges?”

“Mr. Crouch, do you need help?”

The man staggered and fell to his knees.

Harry and Victor moved forward, closer to the man. Harry kept a close watch on the trees, eyes flicking from shadow to shadow, ears swivelling to and fro to find and track the slightest sound, and his nose, raised sniffing and twitching, for any betraying smells in the air.

Mr. Crouch gasped. He reached out and weakly grabbed Harry’s robes. “Dumbledore!” He dragged Harry closer, his eyes stared into the forest. “See . . . Dumbledore. . . .”

Harry gave the wizard a quick glance. “Okay,” he said. He took a deep breath. He would have to carry the man, he was in no shape to go anywhere on his own.

Mr. Crouch wheezed painfully. “Stupid . . . stupid . . . thing . . . I . . . .” He looked absolutely mad. A trickle of spittle slid down his chin. Every word he spoke seemed to cost him a terrible effort. “Tell . . . Dumbledore . . . .” His eyes bulged out and rolled.

It was but a quick moment to cast mobilicorpus and grip his wand in his teeth as he ran on all fours for the infirmary, towing the mumbling madman behind him.

“Dead . . . Bertha . . . my fault . . . dead . . . ,” Mr. Crouch said faintly.

Harry stampeded into the infirmary, yelling, “Madam Pomfrey! Madam Pomfrey!” around the wand.

“What?” said the matron as she came out of her office. She gasped at seeing the man floating behind Harry. “Put him on that bed!” she ordered, pointing, before rushing back into her office. She almost immediately returned with an armload of potions. She dumped them on the table beside the bed and started casting diagnostic charms. “Start casting episkey on every cut you can see,” she directed, as she poured a potion down the wizard’s throat.

The aimless mumbling tapered off with a final, “Stronger . . . so very . . . Harry Potter . . . the Dark Lord . . . .”

Krum came staggering into the ward a bit later, breathing hard, followed soon after by the Headmaster and Professors Snape and Moody.

While Madam Pomfrey tended her patient, Harry and Victor told them all they had heard and seen.

By the time they had finished, so had she.

“Well, he’s asleep for now. Poor man’s exhausted. I’ve healed all his injuries and given him a Dreamless Sleep potion. Hopefully, when he wakes in the morning, he’ll be more coherent and can tell us what happened to him.”

“I’ll keep an eye on him, tonight,” Moody growled.

“I think we should alert the Aurors,” Harry said. “He is a ministry official and he’s obviously been attacked.” He glanced at the growling Mad-Eye. “It is unfair to Professor Moody to expect him to have handled classes today and then do more tomorrow after staying awake all night to watch over Mr. Crouch.”

The Headmaster looked at Harry, eyes twinkling. “Surely you don’t expect the man to be attacked here in Hogwarts, in the Hospital Ward?”

Harry stared back levelly. “If an agent of Voldemort . . . ,”

Madam Pomfrey, and a few others who had snuck in, gasped.

“. . . can sneak in — and stay here for an entire year — as happened twice, two and three years ago, and then last year, one actually attacked a student in his bed, without you noticing he was here, what makes you think it can’t, or hasn’t, happened again?”

Moody chuckled. “The boy has you there, Albus.”

It was clear that the Headmaster did not like that reminder.

“Hm. Yes, Perhaps I should alert the Aurors,” he said quietly, stroking his beard.

Harry just stared at him. As the leader of what he had been told was the “good” side of magic, the wizard had a rather lax view of the law and his own responsibilities to maintain peace in a castle full of children. He seemed to think the law didn’t matter, here, only his opinion.

After they had stood quietly for several moments, waiting for a decision of some kind, Madam Pomfrey announced, from her office door, “The Aurors will be here shortly. I called them through the emergency floo.”

Harry raised an eyebrow in surprise. Someone had actually done something?

The next hour was an exercise in tedium as Harry was repeatedly questioned by two different aurors. Victor was not spared, either.

They decided that moving the sleeping Mr. Crouch to St. Mungo’s was unnecessary. It likely would make it easier for an agent of the Dark Lord to get to the wizard, they concluded. Instead, they left a two-person team to take turns throughout the night watching over the sleeping man.

It was a very tired colt who wandered into his dorm well after the normal curfew to find his three filly friends waiting for him, and not just a little worried that he had been out for so long.

۸-_-۸

Harry was not surprised to hear that Mr. Crouch was apparently insane, now. Whatever the wizard or witch had done to him had destroyed his mind. He seemed worse than he had the night before, lost in world that hadn’t existed for at least five years. Apparently, he had been obliviated as part of his torture.

Only occasionally was he coherent enough to string together a sentence that had a noun that agreed with a verb. Or respond to a question with more than one or two word answers that might even have been related to the question — if you struggled hard enough to link them.

Unfortunately, he had a reputation for "fighting fire with fire" while he had been the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement during the first wizarding war in England. His rigid application of the law had made him many enemies, many of whom were not in Azkaban. No one knew where to start looking for a more specific motive.

He was transferred to St. Mungo’s Janus Thickey Ward, which was responsible for long-term treatment of spell damaged wizards and witches.

The remaining weeks running up to the third task were filled with revising and practicing magic. Harry had finally completed the Seventh Year textbooks, and started on the more esoteric books that he knew would be useful when he returned home — magical healing spells and potions headed the list, followed by the intricacies of making wands, floo operation, portkeys, disapparition and apparition, the Undetectable Expansion Charm, and runes.

Harry, Sweetie Belle, Hermione, Ginny, and Luna surprised everyone by deciding to take the O.W.L.s for D.A.D.A., Charms, and Transfigurations when the schedule was posted, especially the three Hogwarts witches. The three witches had been working with Harry and his tutors whenever they weren’t in their regular classes, which gave them an advantage that none of their peers could match. It was also risk-free for them because they were taking them ahead of their year-groups. If they didn’t get good grades this year, they could retake the tests next year.

The O.W.L. exams were as brutal as everyone had told them, they discovered, starting the Monday before the third task. Even with the help of Hayscartes’ Method, the detail requested in the exams was daunting. The practicals were much easier than Harry had anticipated, but then again he had been practicing with the sixth and seventh year spells, which built on those of the earlier years.

Strictly speaking, Harry didn’t have to take the exams as he was exempted from them. Just being a Triwizard Tournament Champion was a free pass on the N.E.W.T.s for all the subjects he had “officially” taken. Taking the N.E.W.T.s also meant an automatic pass in the O.W.L.s. Still, he wanted to know how well he measured in comparison to the other students.

He was sure, from their practice sessions, that the fillies would all perform admirably. Honestly, if Sweetie Belle got just an Average in the three wanded courses, he would be deliriously happy. For himself, he was hoping for Exceeds Expectations. Only taking the tests would tell.

He expected the three witches to hit Exceeds Expectations on each of D.A.D.A., Charms, and Transfigurations simply because the three had the benefit of three and four years of magic by this time.

Their performances were all due to their tutors, he knew. He had sufficient stocks of gold easily to reward the two students with a ton each — he had had to do something to amuse himself after showing his friends his runes in the mountains. Amusingly, they had discovered, as he knew would happen, that they spent more time fetching rocks as sources than waiting for the transfer.

Unfortunately, they would have to wait until next week to discover how they had done in the tests. In the meantime, Hermione was obsessing over the tests they had taken. She asked everyone she could pigeon-hole what they had answered for certain questions she wasn’t positive she had gotten correct. That, and wring her hands while she fearfully stated she was sure she had failed everything and that she shouldn’t have taken the tests early.

Ginny reassured the rest of the group that this was normal behaviour for the witch. Harry starting in again on the sixth-year textbooks managed to distract her some, as he suggested she could get an early start on next year.

۸-_-۸

Ch. 26 — Third Task

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Ch. 26 — Third Task

Everyone except Ron had finished their desserts when Dumbledore stood and looked across the hall, eyes twinkling. “I do believe that it is almost time to begin the Third Task of the Triwizard Tournament. First,” he looked at the judges seated beside him. “If the champions would be so good as to accompany Mr. Bagman down to the stadium, the rest of us will follow you to the Quidditch field in five minutes time.”

Harry sighed, and stood. The fillies looked at him worriedly. “Don’t worry too much,” he half-whispered, “Remember, I’m wearing my armour, and I’ll be very careful.” They did not look relieved. As he headed down the table to the Great Hall doors, it was to the congratulations of everyone he passed.

Bagman was his annoying self as he led the four champions to the stadium.

Harry rolled his eyes at the wizard’s inane concern that he only showed to the colt. “I’m fine,” he said. Although, he should really expect it. Harry was under-aged, and under-trained compared to the other champions. Still, it was annoying. Besides, he and his tutors had been working hard to make sure he had a solid plan for the maze, with several backups and alternatives to choose from if things went pear-shaped.

The Quidditch pitch was unrecognizable, according to Cedric, who loudly complained. All they could see was the three-yard-high hedge that appeared to run completely around it. The entrance to the vast maze was in front of them, and looked no more inviting than the entrance to the Everfree Forest. Cedric’s complaints were probably to take his mind off the upcoming Task.

Behind them were the empty stands and judging platform.

Harry spent the next five minutes trying to judge where the centre of the maze might be. The Quidditch pitch, after all, was not a square. And they might have used expansion runes to make it bigger on the inside than the outside, or even to distort the shape so that what looked like the centre from here was far from the actual centre where the Triwizard Cup resided.

Meanwhile, the stands behind them had begun to fill. He glanced back to see hundreds of students, and other spectators, file into their seats. The sky was darkening and the first stars had begun to appear. Harry noticed Hagrid, Professor Moody, Professor McGonagall, and Professor Flitwick enter the stadium. They all had large, red, luminous stars on their hats, except Hagrid. He had his on the back of his moleskin vest.

They stopped in front of the champions, where Professor McGonagall told them that the four adults would be patrolling outside the maze. They were to send red sparks into the air if they ran into difficulty. That would, of course, mean losing.

Now it was simply a matter of waiting for the audience and judges.

Once the stands were full, the judges took their seats and the champions had the opportunity to get even more nervous about the event. Mr. Bagman stood and cast a sonorous charm on himself. “Welcome to the third and final task of the Triwizard Tournament!” he proclaimed happily. “Let me remind you how the points currently stand! In first place is Mr. Harry Potter Sparkle, of Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, with one hundred and seven points.” There was a scattered applause from the audience, mostly from his friends and the Gryffindors. His herdmates were not shy in their whistles and stomping of their feet in addition to applause. The rest of the school scowled or even booed, drawing a displeased frown from the normally cheerful announcer.

“Then we have Cedric Diggory,” he continued, “with one hundred points, from Hogwarts School!” He had to pause and wait a moment for the cheers, whistles, and applause to subside, which were loud enough to scare birds into the air from the Forbidden Forest. “In third place, with seventy-six points — Mr. Viktor Krum, of Durmstrang Institute!” There was applause and cheers from that section of the stands. “And in fourth place — Miss Fleur Delacour, of Beauxbatons Academy!” The reaction from those students and spectators was a bit more muted, but enthusiastic, nonetheless.

At Bagman’s whistle starting the task, Harry dropped to all fours and charged into the maze.

The wall of noise from the surrounding crowd vanished the moment he entered the maze. With the approaching sunset, the towering hedges cast black shadows across the path. It was so quiet, Harry felt almost as though he were back in the second task and under water again.

The path before him was straight as an arrow. By the time he reached the end where it branched in two directions, about fifty yards, he had come to a dismaying conclusion. He was already halfway across the pitch. Because the entry point was in the middle of the hedge, facing the stadium stands and not the quidditch goal posts, that meant he should have reached the trophy by now. If it were in the middle of the maze, as Bagman had said. Which meant he had lied and the Cup could be anywhere.

Or, the entire maze had been subjected to an expansion charm, making it that much more difficult to solve, and allowing for the inclusion of far more traps and obstacles. And the height of the hedges prevented him from getting any clues as to the subjective size of the maze, or his position in relation to anything in or out of it.

He sighed. It couldn’t be simple, could it?

It was time to put into practice the strategy his friends and tutors had come up with and refined last week. First, to prevent anyone from noticing him, he cast both his mum’s and the wizard’s versions of a don’t-notice-me spell, followed by a disillusionment spell. Next he cast the featherweight charm, and reduced his weight to mere ounces. Barely enough to make a branch in the hedge sway. He had to be careful not to sneeze, doing so would send him flying across the path.

Then he started climbing the hedge. It took only a few moments reach the top. Then he pushed his way into the hedge. Which was much more difficult than he had imagined. Here, his featherweight charm worked against him! A brief moment of concentration, and he was a Breezie. His armour and robe fell to the pathway below him.

The no-flying rule had been imposed by the officials, not the goblet, they had reasoned. Just as the age-rule limit was created by the officials, and not the goblet. If it can ignore one rule made by the officials, why wouldn’t it ignore another? Besides, if the officials complained about his “cheating” he would bring up the issue of cheating by the other champions in the first task.

Once he was inside the hedge, he resumed climbing until he was standing on the hedge. He had to grin. They had said he couldn’t fly out of the maze, but no one had said anything about climbing. The hedges’ branches had probably been made to collapse with any weight a few ounces beyond themselves. That would have made climbing impossible for a normal person, but not a Breezie the size of a small bird!

The next manoeuvre required exquisite timing and speed. He flew up several yards over the maze, then cancelled the Breezie transformation. Then he cancelled the featherweight spell — he didn’t want an errant breeze to blow him over the lake! While he fell as he lost the breezie form and turned back into a pony, he cast the wings spell and frantically began flapping them to stay above the maze.

Once he was safely hovering over the hedge, he took a moment to look around.

He had been right, the maze was under an expansion spell. A brief moment of concentration and he floated his armour and robe up beside him. It was another set of tricky gymnastics getting his armour on while flying, but he did it — although it did feel like he had turned himself inside-out at one point. He hadn’t, of course, but the twisting and turning sure felt like it. He wondered if anyone had noticed the strange gyrations of his armour and fluttering robe over the hedges before he could recast the don’t-notice-me and disillusionment spells on them.

The robe and his back-armour he just held onto. He could put that back on when he landed.

He flew higher, searching for the clearing that was sure to mark the location of the Triwizard Cup.

And there it had to be. In the geographical centre. He angled down and glided to his destination. He made a quick circle to look for traps, then landed. He cancelled the wings spell, threw on his armour and robe, and settled both comfortably into place. He didn’t want to advertise he had been flying, after all. After taking one last look, and seeing the giant spider near one of the exits from the rest of the maze, he quickly grabbed the cup.

Instantly, Harry felt a jerk somewhere behind his navel. His hooves left the ground. He couldn’t let go of the Triwizard Cup. It pulled him onward in a howl of wind and swirling colour, just as he had been pulled for his trips to and from the Romanian Dragon Sanctuary. Only this time the trip was much, much shorter. It had barely started before it was over.

۸-_-۸

Rarity came sprinting into the library, where Twilight was doing her weekly Thursday afternoon reorganization of the library. She skidded to a stop beside the surprised alicorn, panting. Rarity never galloped anywhere, if she could help it — it ruined her perfect grooming with — shudder — sweat.

Twilight looked at her and blinked. «Did I forget a luncheon appointment, again? I’m sure I remembered to add it to my weekly list for tomorrow.»

«No! No! No!» the unicorn said quickly. «I was dusting Sweetie Belle’s room when I checked the closet for spiders.» She stopped and gulped another deep breath. «And I saw her Nightmare costume!» She stopped and stared at Twilight, trembling, eyes wide with excitement.

«There weren’t any? Spiders, I mean?»

«No! No! No!» she repeated. «The Nightmare costume!” she shouted. In a calmer tone, she continued. «Harry was wearing his when he disappeared, right?»

Twilight nodded, starting to get excited. «Yes?»

«We’ve got it backwards! We don’t need to search for a world-match using Harry’s things left here . . . .»

Twilight’s eyes shot wide-open, «We just have to search for a trace of Equestria in the multiverse!» she whispered. «It’s simply following the trail to the right world!» She grabbed the smaller unicorn in a tight hug. «Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!»

She let go of her and galloped out of the library. A few minutes later, she galloped back in, this time with Starlight in tow behind her. She unceremoniously dumped the startled unicorn, sandwich in hoof, on the couch. «You tell her,» she said urgently to Rarity, «I have to pack!» She teleported out of the library.

Rarity sighed as Starlight stared at her. Starlight finished chewing her current mouthful. «Tell me what?» she said drily.

Faintly, from elsewhere in the castle, they heard, «Spike! I need to send a letter to Princess Celestia! Immediately!»

Rarity cleared her throat. «Instead of looking for a world that has humans and a match to Harry’s magical signature, we can follow the trail of Harry’s Equestrian Nightmare costume that he was wearing when he disappeared.»

Starlight’s eyes widened. «Oh.» She gave an exasperated sigh. «I knew we were missing something obvious.» She heaved herself off the couch. «I’d better warn Trixie and the others.» She trotted to the door. «If we hurry, we can still catch the afternoon train to Canterlot.»

Rarity sighed again. Well, it really was about the right time to check on her Canterlot store. And she should probably fetch the Nightmare costume to provide a more accurate match than just “anything” Equestrian.

۸-_-۸

Harry felt his hooves slam into the ground. He fell forward onto his chest. The Cup went tumbling across the ground. He raised his head and looked around, flustered and confused

He had left the Hogwarts grounds completely. He had obviously travelled miles — hundreds of miles. He was in a flatland. No mountains were even faintly visible against the sky, in any direction. There was a small hill that rose above him to his left. A fine old house sat on the hillside, barely visible in the darkening night. Beyond a large yew tree to his right was the dusky outline of a small church.

And from the dozen or so stone slabs stuck into the ground and the angel statues mounted above the bigger ones, he realized he was in an overgrown graveyard.

Yes, he was well and truly away from Hogwarts. He reinforced his protective spells, looked around for the Cup, and spotted it not too far away.

The graveyard was completely silent and slightly eerie. “Is this supposed to be part of the task?” he quietly mused. He decided not. Ludo simply had said the goal was to reach the Triwizard Cup, not that there would be additional traps and obstacles to get out of the maze once one of them had it.

He had the feeling he was being watched. He heard footsteps. He crouched beside the closest gravestone. He cast a darkness-piercing spell on his eyes. The graveyard was now as clear to him as if it were a bright day. He could now see someone as they walked steadily toward him between the graves. It wasn’t anyone he had ever met, and from the way it was walking and holding its arms, he could tell that it was carrying something. Whoever it was, was short, and wearing a cloak. What was it carrying? A bundle of robes?

It, no, he, the thing walking towards him was a wizard, stopped beside a towering marble headstone, only two yards from him. For a second, Harry and the short figure simply looked at one another.

And then, without warning or even moving his hands, he launched a spell from the wand hidden in the bundle he carried. The runes in Harry’s robe blocked most of it — Harry could smell the thread that made the runes burning up as they resisted the spell. His armour stopped whatever had managed to leak through. The robe would provide no more magical protection.

Harry burst into motion. He dodged sideways, towards a gravestone.

The wizard was phenomenally fast, and a second spell hit him just as he reached safety. He stumbled and fell. But regained his hooves. He felt the runes in his armour starting to burn. He angled his wand and started sending his own spells back at the wizard.

The wizard barely seemed to move as he shielded himself, while almost simultaneously casting spells of his own.

Harry was fast, but he was still a colt. He had neither the skill, experience, nor power to go up against a fully-trained wizard with years, or decades, of experience in duels. Even when he began casting spells through both his wand and horn, he was nowhere near as fast as the strange wizard, who seemed to switch between casting and shielding faster than thought.

If there was any time, now was the time to teleport . . . but where? He couldn’t see far enough to reach anywhere that was out of the wizard’s sight. And trying for anywhere around Hogwarts was an exercise in futility, he knew he couldn’t teleport that far.

Harry tried to run to another gravestone, one farther away, but again a spell hit his armour. He yelped as he felt runes burn their way through the cardboard.

The shield runes absorbed the spell, but heated up dramatically — cardboard was a terrible conductor of heat. The impervious runes heated up, in turn, protecting the cardboard.

Harry knew that with just one more direct hit, the runes either would burn each other out or a cascade failure would set in as the weakest of the group catastrophically failed.

It was just his luck that as he skidded behind the gravestone, two spells hit him. There was an explosion and Harry felt himself flying through the air, stopping only when he hit another gravestone. Pieces of his armour fluttered through the air behind him, burning to ashes. He had no idea where his robe had disappeared to, and found it difficult to concentrate for several moments.

Harry dazedly felt the wizard pull his wand from his hoof’s bindings. Then the man dragged him back to the gravestone where the fight had begun. Harry kept his eyes closed and let his legs and head loll limply. His breathing was as steady as he could manage in an attempt to fool the cloaked man into thinking him totally unconscious instead of merely halfway there.

The wizard conjured tight cords around Harry, tied him from neck to hooves to the headstone, and then stuffed a wad of cloth in his mouth. He still cradled the bundle of what looked like robes in one arm.

Harry could hear shallow, fast breathing from the depths of the hood.

How pathetic. He had been beaten by a one-armed wizard who had been toting a package the entire time. That just showed the difference between knowing how to fight, and having years of experience in fighting.

As a last measure, the man dropped a ring over Harry’s horn. Harry almost cried out as he felt the magic in his horn snuff out as if it had never been. His horn, for the first time in his life, felt like a lump of dead tissue. He could feel its presence only by its weight. Even when he had been transfigured into a human, a spot on his forehead had given him the impression of a “squashed” horn. He could feel his heart racing at the implications.

The wizard gently placed his bundle on the ground and hurried away, out of sight. Harry couldn’t make a sound, and the ropes were so tight he couldn’t even move. He could see only what was right in front of him.

Harry tried to keep his breathing steady, and panic at leg’s length. He couldn’t cast magic, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t do magic. After all, pegasi and earth ponies healed themselves at the same rate as unicorns when they were hurt — and they didn’t have horns. Plus, his mum had told him that the magic in ponies naturally speeded up their healing when compared to non-magical animals like bunnies and deer.

And using a wand had taught him how to channel magic spells directly to his hooves.

Well, if he couldn’t go horn-to-wand with the wizard, he would just have to outwit him. Which shouldn’t be that hard. Stupid wizards. Although, he had to wonder: why had the wizard brought him here?

Fortunately, he had a spare wand he had “rescued” from the Room of Requirement. It didn’t work that well, but it was better than nothing. It was currently disillusioned, tied and stuck to his left-rear leg.

He vanished the cloth in his mouth. He did the same to the cords, leaving only an illusion of them in place. He didn’t know if he was being watched, so simply running again would be foolhardy.

He heard a noise at his rear hooves. Almost at his hooves was a gigantic snake slithering through the grass. It circled the headstone where he was tied. Normally, that would have worried him. But there was no way a snake, no matter how big, could really harm him when he was trussed up against a very big marble gravestone. And it didn’t look to be a venomous snake; at least it wasn’t threatening him as one of them would have. On the other hoof, if it did threaten him, he could still cast a shield.

Harry could hear fast, wheezy breathing as the wizard returned. When he came into view, Harry could see him pushing a stone cauldron, which he manoeuvred to the foot of the grave. Harry could hear water slopping around inside the cauldron. It was the largest cauldron Harry had ever seen, easily large enough for a full-grown man to sit in. Harry could barely see over the lip to the surface of the liquid inside as it swirled in the moonlight.

Harry would have shaken his head, if he dared. Any movement on his part might give-away that he wasn’t bound, anymore.

If the wizard had planned for the Cup to bring the Triwizard winner here, why hadn’t he prepared anything beforehand? Doing everything at the last minute seemed stupid.

The wrapped bundle on the ground began to stir. Harry watched, eyes wide, there was something alive in the bundle! And it was trying to free itself?

The sudden crackle of flames beneath the cauldron startled Harry. He barely noticed as the large snake slithered away into the darkness.

Harry was shaking in fright so hard it was difficult to focus on the spell matrix he wanted to use, and force magic to the wand tied to his rear hoof. Only all the practice from the previous eight months made it possible. And, like everything else, what he had been unable to do before, he managed to do when under the pressure of being in acute danger.

The cauldron quickly became hot, far quicker than it should have with a normal fire. The liquid inside began to bubble and send out fiery sparks, as though it were on fire. The steam from the cauldron blurred the outline of the wizard behind it. The bundle on the ground became more agitated.

Harry heard a high, cold voice, order, “Hurry!” His breath caught in his throat and he couldn’t suppress a shiver.

Not only was the thing in the bundle alive, it was intelligent!

The cauldron’s water surface was entirely covered with sparks, now.

“It is ready, Master,” the wizard wheezed, still recovering from moving the heavy stone cauldron.

“Now . . . ,” ordered the voice from the mysterious bundle.

The wizard unwrapped the coverings gently. Harry almost yelped in surprise at what was revealed. He had seen many terrible things in the Everfree forest, but nothing could have prepared him for the thing inside the bundle. It was hairless and scaly-looking, a dark, raw, reddish-black. It had a flat, snakelike face and gleaming red eyes, with thin and feeble arms and legs. It was like a horrifying parody of a human child. Not even the timberwolves looked as terrifying.

It was almost helpless, but Harry could see a wand lying beside it. He had been fighting two wizards, not one? That made him feel a little better about his performance in the duel.

It raised its thin arms and put them around the wizard’s neck. The man’s hood fell back as he lifted the thing, and Harry could see a look of revulsion on his pale face. He carried it to the cauldron. For one moment, Harry saw its smiling evil, flat face illuminated in the sparks dancing on the surface of the potion. Then the man lowered the creature into the cauldron with a slight hiss. It vanished silently into the liquid. There was a soft thud as its body hit the bottom.

Harry vainly hoped it would drown, but with his mum’s stories about the villains she had fought, and the tales from Equestria’s distant past, he knew that wasn’t bloody likely. Despite his terror, he watched with wide-open eyes, unable to fake his unconsciousness any more. Celestia, he thought, Let. It. Drown!

“Bone of the father,” the wizard intoned shakily, “unknowingly given, you will renew your son!” He held his wand in hand with his eyes closed. He seemed frightened, no, terrified. If anything, he was more scared than Harry, which seemed almost impossible given how hard Harry was shivering.

Harry jerked his attention from the wizard to the grave in front of him as it rumbled and cracked. He watched, horrified, at the fine trickle of dust that emerged from the ground, drifted lazily through the air, and fell into the cauldron. The spark-covered water broke and hissed; sparks fountained in all directions. The liquid turned a vivid, poisonous-looking blue.

The whimpering wizard removed a long, thin, shining silver dagger from inside his cloak. “Flesh . . . of the servant,” his terrified sobs broke up his words “. . . w-willingly given . . . you will . . . revive . . . your master.”

He placed his right hand on the edge of the cauldron, gasping at the hiss of burning flesh. His hand was missing a finger. He gripped the dagger very tightly in his left hand, grimaced, and turned his head away. He swung the dagger down.

Horrified at everything he was seeing, only at the last second did Harry realize what was about to happen. He closed his eyes as tightly as he could, but it did nothing to block the soul-rending scream that pierced the night. It cut through Harry as though it were his hoof that had been cut off. He heard a sickening splash and the wizard’s anguished panting. When Harry finally steeled himself to look, the potion had turned a burning red.

How anypony could do something like that was simply beyond his understanding.

The wizard was gasping and moaning with agony as he stumbled towards Harry. He must have cast some kind of spell to slow or stop his bleeding, as it wasn’t bleeding as severely as it should, Harry realized through his horror.

This was it, Harry quickly recognized, now or never. His heart thudded in his chest and his eyes were wide in terror. He had only one shot at this. He shivered and shook as the wizard dropped to his knees beside the colt. Still gasping and panting between words, he said, “B-blood of the enemy . . . forcibly taken . . . you will . . . resurrect your foe.” He raised the dagger over Harry’s left foreleg.

Harry slammed all four hooves into the man’s chest, shouting, “Stupefy!” as a bright red light burst from the wand on his leg.

The man staggered back, stunned at Harry’s reaction. Whether it was the weak spell from his emergency wand, getting hit with Harry’s hooves, or the colt’s sudden lack of restraints, Harry didn’t know. And he didn’t wait to find out. He charged forward, spun around, and gave the wizard a buck that would have made Applejack proud to see it. He spun around to check, dodging to the side, in time to hear a loud CRACK as the wizard’s head rebounded off the cauldron. The man stood up, swayed a moment, his eyes rolled up, and he slumped sideways to the ground.

Harry stood there, trembling and panting in shock, barely able to keep to his hooves.

He pulled the wand from his rear leg, and walked over to the wizard. He placed the wand against the man’s head and repeated the stupefy spell. The wand felt weak and sluggish. “Accio wands,” Harry commanded sternly. There were five that flew into his hooves. He stuck the extra four to his legs, and then repeated the stupefy with his own wand, which seemed eager to respond.

The wizard would not wake up for a while.

He cast episkey on the man’s stump. The blood flow slowed to a stop. He didn’t want the man to bleed out before turning him over to the Aurors.

Harry stared, shaking, at the cauldron. He couldn’t leave it alone, who knew what the ritual was supposed to accomplish in the end? However, from his potion classes and books, he knew any foreign substances added to a potion during preparation inevitably altered the potion, almost always to the detriment of the potion’s designed purpose. He used his wand to summon a clump of grass, with dirt and bugs embedded in it, into the cauldron. The nasty shade of burning-red liquid turned towards purple.

Sighing, and starting to shake as he came down from his adrenalin high, Harry considered what he should do next. He tried to remove the ring from his horn, but it ignored the spell from the wand. And shaking his head failed to dislodge it. Pushing as hard as he could with his hooves had no results, either. Apparently it had a very strong sticking charm of some kind. Finite did not seem to work.

He abruptly jumped over the cauldron. The massive snake from before struck at where he had been standing.

His shouted, “Stupefy!” hit the snake with no effect. It hissed like a steam whistle.

He dodged around another gravestone to avoid another strike.

He cast the wings spell and took to the air.

The strike by the snake narrowly missed him. He hovered at what he hoped was out of the snake’s reach. He tried to think of what he could do next. He couldn’t just hover up here and wait for the snake to lose interest, it might not. And then there was the wizard to worry about. He could wake up at any time. Plus, there was that bug-thing.

The two eyed each other. Harry didn’t dare look away.

Magic was out.

Or was it?

He prepared his stupefy spell, again, and slowly lowered himself.

He was sweating heavily.

At any moment the snake would strike.

He didn’t even see it move.

He felt the top of her snout hit his horn as he fired the stunner from his wand.

The snake’s magic resistant scales were not inside its soft mouth.

The snake collapsed below him as he shot straight up, startled half to death, gasping for breath with his heart racing. He almost dropped his wand.

Fortunately, the stupefy had prevented the snake from closing its mouth and slamming its undoubtedly venomous fangs into his sides.

He hovered for several minutes, heart thumping, and panted as he tried to regain his composure. He could feel his sweat trickling down his face, drenching his legs, and sides.

He arced around and landed beside the cauldron, considering what to do. What would his mum do? He couldn’t kill the snake with any spells he knew.

The water surface had dulled to a muddy yellow colour. He studied it for a moment, then pointed his wand into it and said, “Finite incantatem!” The sparking water stilled and turned a vile greenish-yellow in colour. He cast stupefy inside it, and tipped it over. The bizarre creature inside it rolled stiffly across the ground, the now-harmless potion seeping uselessly into the ground.

He righted the cauldron and dragged it over to the snake after casting a feather-weight spell on it. He cancelled the spell and refilled the cauldron with the aguamenti charm. He stared at it and the snake for a moment, before casting a lead-weight spell on the cauldron. He didn’t want it moving or tipping over.

The snake was remarkably resistant to his levitation charms. He ended up stripping the comatose wizard. He wrapped the wizard’s robe, with the bundle from before, around the snake’s head. He levitated the robes, and the snake’s head, into the cauldron until all were submerged.

Even magical snakes have to breathe. He shoved a couple of gravestone slabs under the snake’s body — neck? — so the head wouldn’t slip out of the cauldron.

Then it was a simple matter of waiting. And getting his breath back. Casting so much magic so quickly, and at such levels, left him at the point where he wanted to do nothing more than sleep. He shivered in the suddenly cold air, and started shaking as his adrenalin began to drop, again.

He walked over and studied the creature that had fallen from the cauldron. It was still hairless and scaly-looking, but it was now a brownish-white colour. Its former snakelike face and gleaming red eyes had been transformed into a vaguely bug-like assembly, with pincers to either side of its mouth. Three additional, asymmetrically-placed eyes dotted its head. The thin and feeble arms and legs from before were now long, thin, and insectile in shape, with three on one side and four on the other.

Harry used a simple cutting curse to lop off the legs close to the body. Whatever it was would not be sneaking away when it awoke, or sneaking up on him if he was distracted. He looked around the graveyard. He quickly located the tournament cup, but his armour was completely gone, only little piles of ash here and there indicated where the various pieces had landed. His robe was nowhere in sight, and he could only conclude it, too, had been destroyed.

His sides were starting to itch. Had the snake scratched him with its fangs? He started to look more closely when a scream of agony come from the cauldron! Terrified at the unexpected sound, he frantically jumped for the safety of a gravestone. When he peeked from behind the stone, he saw a smoke-like face over the cauldron. He watched, wide-eyed and breathing hard as it continued to scream until it dissipated into nothing. His adrenaline was through the clouds, once more.

Shivering, again, he cast a detection spell at the snake. It was dead — well and truly dead. His racing heart began to slow. What should he do now?

He looked around the graveyard, again. He was the only living thing bigger than a spider in the area. Anything larger had had the sense to flee the giant snake — not to mention escaping the explosions and screaming. He needed to get back. Maybe the Tournament Cup would take him back?

He levitated the spider-bug . . . thing . . . to the wizard and bound the two together with conjured ropes. He propped the wizard up and summoned the Triwizard Cup. He let it fall to the ground beside him. Then he carefully levitated it until it was in the right position. He pressed it firmly to all three of them.

The graveyard disappeared in a swirl of motion and colour.

۸- ̬ -۸

Ch. 27 — The Triwizard Champion!

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Ch. 27 — The Triwizard Champion!

Harry slammed into the ground even harder than he had before, his two passengers tumbling over and away from him, the Cup bouncing and rolling across the grass. The fresh smell of crushed grass filled his nostrils. For a moment he revelled in the fact that he wasn’t in that graveyard. Then, he wondered, just where was he?

A sudden flood of sound left him dazed and deafened. People were yelling, footsteps pounded around him, and someone, many someones, were screaming incoherently. He twisted to the side, his wand held up and at the ready.

Albus Dumbledore was staring in horror at Harry’s passengers. “Peter Pettigrew?” he said incredulously. His own wand was now pointing at Harry’s passengers. Half-panicked, Harry looked around as he tried to understand what he was seeing around him.

Before Harry could say anything, three missiles slammed into him, screaming, “HARRY!” He went tumbling sideways, buried under a pile of frantic fillies. “Are you okay?” “Where were you?” “What happened?”

“I’m fine! I’m fine! Tired, but fine!” he tried to reassure them. His sides were itching, again. He would worry about that later. In the meantime, he struggled to his hooves and looked around, wand still held tightly in his hoof. The three girls clung to him just as tightly.

“Mr. Sparkle,” came the Headmaster’s voice. “Perhaps you could tell us what happened?”

People were standing around him and the passengers he had brought. They were pointing at the wizard and bug-thing bound in ropes and screaming at each other. “It’s Peter Pettigrew!” “I thought he was dead!” “What’s THAT!?”

He saw the Headmaster, Professor McGonagall, Professor Flitwick, several aurors, and a man wearing a lime-green bowler hat.

“He’ll need to go to the hospital wing!” someone said loudly. “He’s ill, he’s injured!”

“I’ll take Harry, Headmaster, I’ll take him —” Professor Moody said gruffly.

Girls were screaming and sobbing hysterically.

“No, I would prefer —” Dumbledore started to say.

It was complete pandemonium. No one knew what to do.

Harry pointed at his captives, still tightly bound together. “They ponynapped me!” he shouted, as loud as he could. “The Triwizard Cup took me to a graveyard where that wizard bound me to a stone and then started making a potion after putting that thing there into it. He called it master!”

Somebody close gasped. “He has the Dark Mark on his arm!” And pointed at the wizard in the ropes.

“It’s Peter Pettigrew!”

“Peter Pettigrew was a Death Eater?”

“Peter Pettigrew is a Death Eater!”

“Peter Pettigrew is a Death Eater!?”

It was impossible to tell who was speaking in the torch light.

“Where’s his hand, what happened to his hand?” Harry heard someone ask. He heard some else getting sick.

“He chopped off his own hand,” Harry explained loudly, “and said something about ‘Flesh of the servant you will revive your master.’”

The Headmaster lifted his wand and let off a cannon blast that brought an immediate, shocked silence. “Quiet!” he commanded. “Mr. Sparkle has returned with the Triwizard Cup, thus he is the winner.” He glanced at the two bound captives. “Plus, it appears that Peter Pettigrew did not die fighting Sirius Black thirteen years ago, as everyone had thought. And Mr. Sparkle has brought us something rather interesting.” He significantly looked over at the man with bowler hat. “The rest of this discussion shall be conducted in my office, Cornelius.”

“I’ll take Mr. Sparkle to hospital, Albus,” Mad-Eye Moody said.

“No, I think he needs to explain what happened and what he saw. Come.” The old wizard turned and started for the castle, floating Harry’s bound captives ahead of himself, confident that everyone would follow him.

Professor McGonagall stepped over to Harry and motioned that he should start moving. Professors Snape and Moody had already started to follow the Headmaster. After a moment’s hesitation, the wizard with the lime-green hat trailed after them, the aurors forming a loose escort.

Harry looked up at his herdmates and shook his head while looking up at his horn.

“Could one of you take that thing off,” he said in a disgusted tone.

After an exclamation of horror from Sweetie Belle, who realized exactly what it had to be, it took her and Scootaloo pulling together, while he and Apple Bloom pulled against them, to remove it.

The relief he felt as his horn returned to life was indescribable, even if it did tingle with the needles-and-pins sensations like his legs did when he sat wrong and one of them fell asleep. It certainly took his attention from his itchy sides! He was still shaking and shivering, though. He rubbed at the base of his horn with his front hooves. “Make sure you keep that safe,” he muttered to Sweetie Belle. She nodded and dropped the horn-ring into one of her pockets. That was one item he was going to make sure was well hidden in his trunk when he returned to his room.

Professor McGonagall watched, frowning, impatient, with her hands on her hips.

۸-_-۸

The Headmaster’s office should have been crowded with so many people, but it didn’t appear like it. Madam Pomfrey had grumbled and complained about the situation, but had cleaned and magically sealed Peter’s stump, so he was no longer bleeding, before she left to attend to the other champions who, apparently, had suffered some injuries in the remarkably short time they had had before he reached the Cup.

The . . . creature . . . bound to Peter had been ignored by all parties. Except for someone to add another stunning spell.

Dumbledore settled himself behind his desk. Professor McGonagall chose to sit to one side of the Headmaster’s desk, while both Snape and Moody flanked her. The wizard with the lime-green bowler, Cornelius, sat in front of the desk, shifting and twisting uncomfortably. Harry and the fillies sat on the other side of Dumbledore’s desk in an armchair — Harry and Sweetie Belle squeezed together while the other two sat on the chair’s arms with their hands stroking his back and neck comfortingly. Four aurors stationed themselves around the room, against the walls, and watched everyone. Peter and his companion were lying on the floor with a fifth auror standing over them.

They had barely settled themselves when the fireplace flamed up and a voice came through, one Harry recognized. “Headmaster, are you there? May I come through?” It was the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Amelia Bones. “Auror Stone’s patronus said something about Peter Pettigrew?”

She brought with her three more aurors. Her next words, after she came through, were, “It really is Peter Pettigrew.” She stared at the unconscious wizard for several moments, stared at his bare arm with the black tattoo on it, and then shook her head and turned her attention to the Headmaster.

“Amelia,” he said, apparently happy she had arrived. “You are just in time for Harry to tell us of his adventure!”

The colt was too frazzled to reprimand the old wizard for being familiar, again. Not to mention he was so tired it was hard to think straight.

She conjured a chair beside Cornelius, nodding her head at the man, “Minister Fudge,” she said.

“Amelia,” he responded, nodding jerkily and staring, horrified, at Peter and his cargo.

Harry carefully and methodically recounted what he had done in the maze, and all that he had seen, heard, and done in the graveyard. He knew from what his mum had told him of her adventures that it was always important to be as precise as possible when describing what had happened. The smallest detail could matter.

He had to stop and go back several times as he remembered additional details.

There were various interruptions from different people. Professor Snape, for some reason, seemed the most sceptical, and seemed to want to dismiss most of what he said as exaggerations. Director Bones was the most neutral. His account of dumping a clod of dirt with bugs and sundry in it into the cauldron before finiting the entire mess left them startled, and they stared at the bug-thing bound to Peter.

“Scrimgeour,” Amelia ordered. “See if you can backtrack the portkey to the graveyard. If not, see if the Department of Magical Catastrophes has anything on their instruments. We need to preserve the crime scene and keep the muggles from finding it.”

One of the aurors, who looked rather like a lion with his tawny, shoulder-length hair, nodded and hurried out the door.

“It seems,” Headmaster Dumbledore said, “in view of Peter Pettigrew’s presence, that the stories of Sirius Black’s crimes and guilt thereof are . . .” he paused, eyes twinkling, “. . . in serious question.”

“Nonsense,” blustered the wizard Madam Bones had called Minister Fudge. “There must be some mistake! Poly-juice or a transfiguration! Peter Pettigrew is dead!”

Bones raised an eyebrow in disbelief. “Poly-juice requires a live subject for it to work, so anyone poly-juiced as someone else means that that someone else has to be alive. Therefore, if this wizard is poly-juiced as Peter Pettigrew, then Peter Pettigrew must be alive!”

The man with the bowler hat screwed up his expression as if he were about to throw a childish wobbly.

“As for transfiguration,” Director Bones continued, “we can easily check that with veritaserum, can’t we? Shacklebolt?” She turned and looked at the big black-skinned wizard.

The auror nodded and looked to the Headmaster. “May I,” he asked, gesturing at the floo.

“We will have a vial in just a few moments,” she explained.

“Excuse me,” Professor Snape said quietly, “But I have a small vial in my private cabinet that we can use. It will take only a few moments for an elf to retrieve it.”

Director Bones stared at him. Shacklebolt waited to see if he still needed to go.

Snape shrugged. “I brew it to keep in practice with the more difficult potions. I am a Master Potioneer, after all,” he half-sneered.

She stared a moment longer, then nodded. “Yes, please.”

Shacklebolt returned to his former place by the prisoner. He pulled out his wand. In a few quick motions he had vanished the ropes and separated the two prisoners. A metal chair was conjured and Peter placed in it, securely tied in place with chains.

Meanwhile, Professor Snape had summoned a Hogwarts house-elf, given him directions, and then waited as the elf disappeared.

Professor Moody, apparently, still did not trust the helpless thing on the floor. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off it. His expression was impossible to read.

The house-elf quickly returned and handed the vial to Snape. He took off the stopper and delicately sniffed. He nodded in satisfaction and handed the open vial to Shacklebolt, who looked at his boss. “Three drops?” At her nod, he waved his wand at the prisoner, whose mouth opened wide is response. The auror carefully decanted three drops of a clear liquid from the vial onto the bound man’s tongue. Then he handed the vial back to Professor Snape and cast an enervate on the wizard chained to the chair.

Peter jerked awake, but his eyes were dull and he gave no further reaction to the people in the room.

“What is your name?”

“Peter Pettigrew,” he said in a dull monotone that made Harry shudder. He felt his herdmates echo his reaction.

Dumbledore leaned forward intently and interrupted Shacklebolt, who frowned but made no effort to stop him. “Are you the Peter Pettigrew who attended Hogwarts and claimed James Potter, Sirius Black, and Remus Lupin as friends?”

“Yes.”

He stared at the prisoner closely. “Are you a Death Eater?”

“Yes.”

Dumbledore sighed softly and straightened. “When did you become a Death Eater?”

“My seventh year at Hogwarts.”

Dumbledore and McGonagall both winced.

“Who was the secret keeper for the Potters?” the old wizard continued.

“I was.” The aurors exchanged looks of surprise.

“Not Sirius Black?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“He was the obvious choice, Sirius said. He and James decided that I would be a better choice because the Death Eaters would never believe I had been chosen. He would play the part of a decoy, and they would lose Death Eaters trying to capture him.”

“Who caused the explosion when you and Sirius met after that Halloween?”

“I did.”

“What did you do?”

“I had two days to plan. When I saw Siri, I accused him of betraying the Potters, fired a blasting curse into the gas-main cover to cause an explosion, cut off one of my fingers, and escaped into the sewer as a rat in the confusion.”

“A rat?” Dumbledore looked at the others in the room, eyes twinkling. “Explain.”

“I am an unregistered animagus rat.”

“So, Sirius did not cause the explosion that killed thirteen muggles that day?” He raised his eyebrows.

“No.”

“And Sirius Black did not betray the Potters’ secret to Voldemort”

Minister Fudge squeaked while everyone else winced.

“No.”

“You betrayed the Potters to Voldemort, and killed the thirteen muggles?” Dumbledore said accusingly.

“Yes.”

Dumbledore sighed heavily. “I think we’ve heard enough, for the moment.” He looked over at the minister for a moment, who was gaping at Peter. The Headmaster sighed again and stroked his beard. “Well, Cornelius, this will be quite the feather in your cap when the public hears how you’ve corrected a terrible travesty of justice against an old, rich, and powerful family!” he said seriously.

Fudge’s head snapped around to look at the Headmaster so fast Harry was amazed he didn’t hurt himself.

“It isn’t your fault, Cornelius, that the previous administration, and Barty Crouch, failed to follow the law,” the Headmaster continued as he spoke to the Minister of Magic. “They threw an innocent man into Azkaban, not you. They are the ones at fault. They are the ones who did not check his wand to see if the last spell was a blasting curse or a shield charm.” He raised his eyebrows at the Minister.

“The public will have nothing but praise for the minister who discovered that a wizard had been sent to prison without a trial. And then acted swiftly when he finally found the evidence that would prove the wizard innocent and set him free!”

He chuckled. “It takes great mental fortitude and moral fiber, nowadays, to stand for the truth,” he said contemplatively. “For a Ministry official to admit that a grievous mistake had been made takes only the strongest of character, and is almost unheard of. To do so against war heroes, even more so. People will appreciate a minister courageous enough to stand up for what is right instead of vanishing the evidence and pretending nothing happened.” He smiled congenially at the wizard. ‘I imagine the wizards and witches of fair England would be very vocal in their appreciation. They probably would insist that such a strong minister remain in office for the foreseeable future.”

After a moment’s stunned silence, Fudge slowly straightened. He didn’t notice how several of the other people in the room rolled their eyes at what the Headmaster had said.

“Why, yes,” the minister said, “They will, won’t they?” Harry could almost see the scheming that was the focus of the man’s attention — how he could turn this . . . this disaster to his advantage.

“And the gratitude of the Head of a powerful family, such as the Blacks, is nothing to be dismissed lightly, either,” Dumbledore added musingly. “I’m told the only family with deeper pockets than the Malfoys are the Blacks.”

Harry’s sides had finally stopped itching. In fact, he couldn’t really feel where Sweetie Belle was pressed up against him nor the side of the chair. He dismissed it off as due to his tiredness. It was becoming harder and harder to stay awake and keep his focus.

“You should immediately revoke the Kiss-on-sight order before there is a tragedy,” Amelia said, shrewdly. “Just imagine what people would say about you if he was Kissed after it had been proven he was innocent, and then they discovered you had dillydallied along and failed to issue a timely dismissal of the order.” She raised her eyebrows suggestively.

The minister nodded slowly, lost in thought. Abruptly, the minister’s eyes grew wide, and he glanced around the room as what had just been said, registered. “Y-yes, of course, Amelia. P-pass the word immediately to your aurors and the others. I’ll have the order on your desk first thing in the morning!”

Director Bones stood. “We’d better get Mr. Pettigrew back to the ministry for a complete interview,” she said looking at Shacklebolt. The auror nodded, re-stunned the wizard, dismissed the chains and chair, and started floating him to the door. “I’ll side-along the prisoner to headquarters and get things prepared,” the wizard said.

She nodded, and motioned two of the aurors to go with him. This was one prisoner that she didn’t want rescued or killed before she could drain him dry.

It would be a long night for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

“And what is this?” She looked at the Headmaster as she waved her hand at the insect-like thing on the floor.

Dumbledore stared at it for a long moment, then said, “Alas, it is a failed attempt by Peter to forge a fake Voldemort, a convincing golem,” he glanced at the Minister, “in a pitiful attempt to make himself a puppet-master behind the façade of a feared Voldemort. An ingenious ploy that would easily have fooled the public, and most of Voldemort’s followers, if it had not been foiled by a contaminated potion.” He looked back up at her. “I’ll take care of it for you,” he said, “You have enough problems without frightening the public with rumours that Voldemort has tried to come back.”

She nodded slowly, then waved the remaining aurors to accompany her as she headed out the door.

Minister Fudge suddenly pushed himself to his feet. “I need to get back to my office,” he declared. “I need to take control of the situation before it gets out of hand! I need to prepare a press release, too. I must get the word out that Peter Pettigrew planned to pretend to bring back . . . Lord You-Know-Who.” He turned to Dumbledore. “May I use your floo?”

“Certainly, Cornelius.” Dumbledore nodded his head graciously.

Moments later, he was gone, followed by three of the aurors.

Only the professors, the Headmaster, Harry, and the fillies were left.

“It has been a long and tiring evening for you, Harry,” Dumbledore looked at Harry and the fillies. I think it is time for you to head back to your rooms. And it is rather late.” His eyes twinkled and he had a faint smile.

Harry had to agree, he could barely keep his eyes open. He nodded and shifted his forelegs, preparing to jump down.

Professor Moody still seemed distrustful of the bug-thing on the floor. He stepped closer and pulled his wand. “I’ll dispose of this for you, Albus.”

“No need,” the Headmaster said, using his own wand to move the creature to his desktop. “I’d like to study it for short while, first.”

For a brief moment, Harry thought he saw a bit of anger cross the other wizard’s face.

Mad-Eye grumbled, looked around the room suspiciously, but finally put his wand away. He suddenly twitched. His single normal eye suddenly widened in shock and he grabbed for his hip-flask. He started to unscrew it, but Harry could see a faint tremble in his hands.

He was just tilting the flask up to take a drink when it a red spell hit him and he collapsed bonelessly to the floor, the flask falling beside him. A green liquid spattered out.

Harry, and everyone else, stared at Professor Snape, who was staring impassively at the man on the floor.

“Severus!” Dumbledore reprimanded as Professor McGonagall said, “Professor Snape!” in a shocked tone. Then something began to happen to the wizard on the floor.

Except for startled and horrified gasps, they watched in silence as the wizard’s face began to change. One by one, the scars melted away, leaving his skin smooth and unmarked. The disfigured nose straightened and became whole, then it started to shorten. His long mane of grizzled grey hair shrank into his scalp and turned the light colour of straw. Abruptly, the wooden leg fell away with a loud clump as a normal leg regrew in its place. The magical eyeball popped out of the man’s face in the next moment as a real eye replaced it. The magical eye rolled across the floor and continued to swivel in every direction.

“He drinks from his flask every hour, without fail, even during dinner,” Snape said quietly while this was happeneing. “And someone has been stealing Boomslang skin and Lacewing flies from my stores.” He looked up at the Headmaster. “And the ghosts, verified by the elves, tell me there are traces of Poly-juice potion in the pipes.” With a negligent wave of his wand, the flask on the floor flew to his hand. He waved his hand gently over the open flask and towards his nose. He took a delicate sniff. He nodded and placed the flask on the desk as he said, “Poly-juice.”

Lying before them was a pale-skined, slightly freckled wizard with a mop of fair hair.

“Crouch!” Snape said firmly, “Barty Crouch, Junior!”

“Good heavens,” said Professor McGonagall, appalled.

“Oh, dear,” said Dumbledore, blinking and stroking his beard.

Without a further word, Professor Snape took the small glass bottle of completely clear liquid out of his pocket and held it to Dumbledore.

Dumbledore looked at it a moment, frowning. Then he looked up at Professor McGonagall. “Minerva, would you floo call Amelia? Tell her we have a very important prisoner for her. One she will want to see, herself.”

He turned to Professor Snape, “Perhaps an investigation of Ala . . . Barty’s room is in order.” He looked back the man on the floor. “He has to be somewhere close for Barty to have easy access to for . . . supplies.”

Professor Snape nodded, and swept out of the room wordlessly.

“Amelia will be here as quickly as they can notify her,” McGonagall said, straightening from the floo.

Harry stared at the wizard and shook his head to try to clear his thoughts. Only a wizard could be too stupid to notice a close friend had been replaced by an imposter — for ten months! Unless the imposter had been preternaturally skilled at his deception. Only Changelings were that skilled. Or, perhaps, Dumbledore had exaggerated how close they had been?

But in any event, what could cause such dedication to duty in a human?

Harry’s eyes narrowed. Had he been the one to put Harry’s name in the Goblet of Fire?

The Headmaster looked over at the Equestrians and smiled gently. “As I said, I think it is time for you to return to your rooms.”

Harry cleared his throat and concentrated on what he wanted to say. “I think not, Headmaster,” he said, after a brief pause, in the officious tone Blueblood had taught him. “This wizard, if not the one who did it, may lead us to the wizard who put my name in the Goblet of Fire last October. As a Prince of Equestria, I believe I have a vested interest in hearing with my own ears what he has to say.”

The old wizard stared at him for a long moment before slowly nodding in agreement.

Harry murmured, “Thank you,” nodded his head, and leaned back into the chair. He just hoped he could stay awake long enough.

The wait seemed interminable to Harry — he felt himself almost nod off several times. Finally, though, the floo whooshed, and Department Head Bones stepped into the room. She swept the ash from her clothes as she looked around, only to make a double-take when she saw their new captive bound to a chair.

“Barty Crouch, Junior?” she said incredulously. “But he’s dead!” She frowned heavily, and her eyes narrowed. “Or so we were told.”

Dumbledore chuckled. “Yes, it seems we have a bad case of the dead coming back to life, tonight, don’t we?”

The door opened and Professor Snape returned. “Mr. Moody was in the imposter’s rooms, in his trunk. He had been stunned. He no doubt has been kept under control of the imperius curse. He is very weak. Madam Pomfrey is tending to him.”

Amelia took in the hip-flask, wooden leg, wand, and magical eye on Dumbledore’s desk beside the stunned creature. She sighed. ‘Mad-Eye?”

The Headmaster nodded.

She glanced at the Equestrians and raised an eyebrow.

“Harry believes, as I do, that Barty holds the secret to why and how his name was in the Goblet of Fire.”

She nodded in understanding.

“Veritaserum?” she said, looking at the vial beside Mad-Eye’s things.

“We were waiting for your presence,” he said pleasantly.

After verifying Barty’s identity, they heard how he had escaped Azkaban poly-juiced as his dying mother, who had visited him. They heard the tale of how his father had kept him prisoner under the imperius, Bertha Jorkins’ accidental discovery of him, and her subsequent memory damage by Crouch, Senior. Then came his temporary escape at the Quidditch match the previous summer, his recapture by his father, and the arrival of his Master to save him.

He insisted that it was truly Voldemort who had freed him, and not Wormtail, as he called the wizard Pettigrew. And then he explained the whole plot of the Triwizard Tournament.

“My Master wanted to know, definitively, that Harry Potter was dead. If the boy was alive, he had to be found. Otherwise the story that a mere babe had defeated him would forever be a millstone around his neck. The Goblet of Fire is a powerful magical device. If the boy was alive, the Goblet would find him, my Master reasoned. If he was still alive, the Goblet would destroy his magic and perhaps kill him when he didn’t make an appearance at the first Task. If it didn’t kill him, it would allow my master to find and kill him at his leisure.

“Wormtail snuck into Hogwarts over the summer, and accessed the old medical records for both the mudblood whore, Lily, and her blood-traitor husband, James Potter. The rat told us the school keeps such records for all students who are injured in Hogwarts. Only a child of the two could match both samples on the parchment.

“But when the boy appeared, my Master decided on a much better plan. He would use the boy to aide in his resurrection. That would forever discredit the boy, and make people forget what had happened in Godric’s Hollow thirteen years ago — a far better outcome.”

Harry was horrified to hear all that had happened. It was a plot that would have made Sombra proud. And it had gone on for at least ten months, if not a year, without a problem, except Crouch, Senior’s, escape. But a late night sleeping charm, a selective obliviate with an overpowered confundus, and that problem was quickly resolved with none the wiser, Barty told them.

Barty Crouch, Junior, had been a masterful actor, even doing things that were contrary to his master’s ideals as long as they were things that Mad-Eye, plausibly, would have done. Harry found himself admiring the man’s loyalty, if not his morals.

Amelia slowly stood, went to the floo, and demanded three aurors to come through. Turning back to Dumbledore, she said, “I’ll side-along Barty to the Ministry,” she said as they came through behind her. She sighed tiredly. “I don’t think I’ll get much sleep the next two days.”

She floated the newly-stunned Death Eater out the door, preceded and followed by aurors.

Harry took a deep breath and slowly cleared his throat, again. “I think we are done here,” he said to his herdmates, and swayed slightly. Scootaloo and Apple Bloom nodded and slipped off the arms of the chair to stand beside it. Harry swayed again as Scootaloo moved off the chair. He slowly slid off the chair and unsteadily stood on his rear legs, almost falling. For some reason, the room’s lights were getting dimmer. He dropped down to all fours. It was going to be a long walk to the dorm. “By your leave, Headmaster,” he tiredly said, slurring his words. The old wizard was still staring at the bug-like thing on his desk.

“Um?” said the old wizard, and he looked up at them. “Oh, yes, of course.” He nodded and waved at the door.

Harry stared at him. “What will you do with this . . . Dark Lord?” He waved his hoof vaguely at the thing on the desk.

The Headmaster looked back, eyes twinkling. “I do believe that a trip through something called the Veil of Death might be a fitting end. Voldemort had always said he had taken steps to ensure he was immortal, that Death could not take him. So, we will take him to Death, instead. And I will have plenty of time to undo whatever he has done, so that he cannot seduce others into summoning him back.

“It is even possible that his passing through the Veil will destroy what he has done, as the thing they are supposed to anchor disappears.” He nodded and resumed studying the creature.

Harry nodded. Not that he understood exactly what the old wizard was talking about, but it sounded like he had a firm plan.

He turned and took a step for the door, before his left rear leg suddenly buckled. He teetered for a moment on three legs, then they, too, collapsed underneath him, and sent him to the floor. He lay there for a moment, puzzled. For some reason, his legs didn’t want to work, anymore. He couldn’t feel his hooves . . . he couldn’t feel his legs! Several ponies were shouting in the distance, but the words were all muzzy and impossible to understand. Then everything went black.

۸- ̫ -۸

Ch. 28 — Reflections

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Ch. 28 — Reflections

Twilight paced around the blackboards, tables, chairs, and mirror that cluttered the room in the Princesses’ Castle in Canterlot. Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Starlight Glimmer and Trixie watched wearily. They had arrived shortly before dinner and had been at work ever since. It was late at night now, well after midnight. They had been going over their calculations and spell-work without pause almost the entire time. Spike, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy had sacked out earlier and now slept in a corner on a princess-sized cloud-bed.

“Okay,” the purple princess said, “The numbers all check out just fine.” She glanced at the mirror in the corner that flashed red once a minute, like some kind of bizarre Nightmare Night decoration. “All we have to do is substitute Sweetie Belle’s Nightmare costume for Harry’s trainers in the chalked search-star. After that, it should take only a few seconds for the spell to winnow down the possibilities to the one world that has both Equestrian and Harry’s magical signatures. Because we’re only searching for a trace of Equestrian magic, all the parallel Equestrian-like worlds are automatically skipped, right?” She turned and looked at Trixie and Starlight questioningly.

Trixie and Starlight nodded. The others, those awake, that is, all nodded, too. Primarily because whatever Twilight said sounded good to them — she was the magical expert, after all. And if Trixie and Starlight were satisfied everything was right, then who were they to object?

She gave them a tired grin. “Setting it up will only take a minute. I just have to disable the current search, first.” She turned to face the mirror and her horn started to glow. She was about to cast the spell cancelling the search when the mirror’s surface suddenly started to flash green and a klaxon spell began going “Ah-ooh-ga — ah-ooh-ga — ah-ooh-ga!” loud enough to cause the mirror and chalkboards to shake.

“AHHH!” came the combined screams of the dragon and mares in the room. The door flew open and two guards rushed in. For several moments it was complete pandemonium as Twilight calmed the Guards and shut off the alarm spell. Then it took several minutes more to apologize to Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy, who had bounced off the ceiling when they jumped to their wings at the alarm, help Spike off the floor where the suddenly dissipated cloud had dumped him, and reassure Applejack and Rarity that everything was under control.

It was only after taking several calming breaths, herself — as Princess Cadance had taught her, years ago — that she noticed the confetti slowly settling to the floor, the banner across one wall that said “Congratulations — You Found Harry!”, and the magnificent cake that Pinkie Pie was now passing slices of to the Guards.

She closed her eyes and shook her head, but everything was still the same when she looked around, again. Except now everyone had a slice of the cake and Pinkie Pie, with a slightly manic smile, was holding one out to her.

Her smile was a bit brittle as she said “Thank you, Pinkie.” She took the plate and fork. She knew better than to ask how or why.

Munching on the cake and staring at the green flashing mirror, she could only sigh. Of course, it would find Harry at the very second she was about to use a new search that would find him in seconds. That was one of the penalties for having Discord as a friend. Coincidences that simply beggared the mind were common when he was involved. And Fluttershy had talked with him. She rubbed her forehead with a hoof. She was quite familiar with the Observer Effect. Many magical experiments had to be especially engineered to avoid it — and many others couldn’t. The researchers had to make allowances for it, no matter how impossible that seemed.

On the other hoof, perhaps she should talk with Discord about that cat that belonged to Schrödinger. She frowned. That was a very unusual name for a pony.

She shook her head again. Now was not the time to get distracted. She had her son to rescue! And then they would do the same for the Cutie Mark Crusaders. It was well past the time for the things those three got involved in to reveal where they were!

She took a look around to make sure everypony was calmed down and mentally prepared. Fluttershy was shivering at the back of the group and practically sandwiched between Rainbow Dash and Applejack. With a sigh, she resolutely turned to face the mirror. Twilight took a careful step forward with her shield spell at the ready. She was prepared to jump back immediately.

She stumbled to the floor. Ah! Yes! Harry had said he was a biped. Fortunately, the mirror spell had made the proper adjustments. She slowly looked around as she stood up. She was in a stone corridor of some kind, lit by torches at periodic intervals. Behind her was a large, wall-mounted mirror. From the darkness outside a nearby window she knew it had to be night here, just as it was in Canterlot.

She was wearing some kind of robe, she could see in the mirror. She appeared as she had when she had visited the bipedal world after Sunset Shimmer had stolen her crown. The clothes provided by the mirror, however, were markedly different than what she was used to in that world. It was a black robe of some kind, and certainly didn’t match the clothes worn by Harry when he first arrived. Especially the pointed hat she wore.

Not seeing anything immediately dangerous in the corridor, she stepped back through the mirror to tell her friends what to expect. She wanted to do this by herself, as she had in Sunset’s world, but the others refused to let her go by herself.

“Harry told us a bit about his world,” Rarity explained patiently. “It’s too dangerous for just one pony, especially if you have no magic to call on!”

“Ah ain’t gonna let you go by yerself!” Applejack stated, unequivocally. The others nodded agreement with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

“Trixie’s Great and Powerful magic may be necessary for the successful completion of this mission! She will not stand by idly,” declared the prideful mare.

Twilight looked down for a moment, worried and yet happy that her friends wanted to help. No, needed to help, she realized. She took a steadying breath. “Remember,” she said, “You’re on two legs, so your balance is going to be off a bit from what you’re used to. It’s much easier, though, than simply rearing up as we sometimes do. Plus, we’ll be wearing clothes and they sometimes get in the way, so be careful walking — especially on stairs!” She took another big breath.

“And, for Celestia’s sake, be quiet! We don’t know what we’re walking into. Wherever this place is that the mirror takes us, it’s close to Harry, so we should be able to find him fairly quickly and get back. On the other hoof, Harry never mentioned torch-lit stone buildings!” She shook her head and worried a moment over the discrepancies.

As soon as they were through, Twilight cast a protective-shield spell over the mirror — they didn’t want anypony to accidentally fall through the portal, after all! After several minutes examining their clothes, each other, and their surroundings, they started slowly walking down the corridor in what they hoped was the correct direction to find the missing colt.

After not too much walking, they arrived at an intersecting corridor. Spike pulled on her arm and sidled up close to her. “Uh, Twilight? I think the paintings are watching us,” he said unsteadily.

Twilight looked to where Spike was looking. A painting of a distinguished looking man was frowning at them. She was about to tell him that it was merely a trick of light and the way the painting had been painted when the man looked away from her and Spike and towards Rarity who was bringing up the rear of the group. Her breath caught in her throat as he leaned forward and turned his head back and forth, examining the group. Noticing the two staring at him, he said, “Your robes use the Hogwarts cut but you are acting lost and unsure of yourselves. You are too old to be First Years. And you seem to have a pet . . . dragon?”

Spike straightened and glared at the painting. “I am not a pet,” He said defiantly, “I am Princess Twilight’s Best Assistant Ever!” He nodded firmly. “And she’s my mom!”

The man in the painting leaned back in surprise and stared at Spike with his eyebrows raised almost to his hairline. “My word!” he said incredulously. “A talking dragon!”

Spike rolled his eyes, his claws on his hips. “Of course I can talk! Do I look stupid?”

The man gave him a hard look, the shrugged. “I suppose not. However,” he paused as the group gaped at him. Before he continued, he again looked over the entire group carefully. “You are clearly not students, despite your robes. Your hair colours, if nothing else, would have brought you to my attention long ago. Are you trying to sneak into the castle? Visitors, especially muggle-born, are not allowed to wander Hogwarts unaccompanied,” he said disapprovingly. “Stay here while I call for assistance.” He looked over their heads at a portrait on the opposite wall. “Victoria? Victoria?” The woman in the other painting looked to be sleeping. “Victoria!” the man yelled.

The woman jerked her head up, “What!? What!?”

“We have unaccompanied visitors,” he glanced down at the dragon and eight women crowded together in the middle of the corridor. “Would you please notify Professor McGonagall?”

She looked down at the group, peered closely, then looked back at the painting. “Certainly, Edward,” she said politely, curtseyed, and then walked out of the painting’s frame. Twilight caught a brief glimpse of her in another frame farther down the corridor.

The Equestrians stared, astonished. “No magic?” murmured Rarity, “I don’t think so.”

Trixie nodded uncertainly and studied the paintings carefully.

Twilight took a step closer to the painting, staring at it intently, squinting slightly as she examined the magic woven into the canvas.

“Now then, young ladies,” Edward said to them, “and dragon,” he nodded at Spike as he settled comfortably back into his chair. “My name is Edward Rabnott, perhaps you could tell me yours while we’re waiting,” he inquired politely, tilted his head slightly, and raised his eyebrows, again.

Twilight looked at her friends, who were just as wide-eyed as she was. She quickly decided that cooperating would be best in this situation. “Er, um,” she said, turning back to the painting. “I’m Twilight Sparkle, and these are my friends,” and she proceeded to introduce them.

The man sat up straight. “Ah, did you say . . . Sparkle?” He tapped his short chin and looked thoughtful. “Are you any relation to Prince Harry James Potter Sparkle?” he asked cautiously.

While Twilight was talking to the painting, the others were staring at the formerly empty frame on the opposite wall. It was now crowded with half a dozen men and women, pushing each other to get a better look. They muttered and mumbled to each other to get out of the way, interposed with exclamations of “My word!” “Merlin, a dragon!” and “What have they done to their hair!” “Uncouth muggle-born!”

Trixie and Starlight were practically noses to canvass, studying the magic. “Astonishing,” Trixie murmured.

“But they’re not really alive,” muttered Starlight. “Still, a remarkably complex magic!”

“You know Harry?” the girl with two-toned, purple-hair exclaimed excitedly. Finding her lost son had just gotten much easier. “He’s my son! Where is he? Is he alright? I’ve been so worried.” She wrung her hands and moved up to the wall the painting was on.

Edward raised his eyebrows as he looked down at her. “Are you really a princess?”

Several of the others snickered as Twilight looked down and blushed. She sighed and said. “Yes, I am a Princess of Equestria,” she said reluctantly. There were gasps from the frame behind them.

Rarity spoke up. “She’s one of the rulers of Equestria, right behind Princess Celestia and Princess Luna,” she said proudly.

“Indeed.” The man stared at her a moment. “I don’t believe we’ve ever had actual royalty in Hogwarts, before.”

Rapidly approaching footsteps alerted them that someone was coming. The tall boy came to a stop in front of them. “Hello, ladies. I’m Jeremiah Smith, one of the prefects on duty tonight. Madam Smythe passed me on her way to Professor McGonagall and told me you were lost. Are you alright?” he asked solicitously, looking over the eight.

“Yes, yes,” interrupted the painting. “They are merely new here.” He then introduced the Equestrians. “And, yes,” he concluded officiously, “This is Prince Harry Sparkles’ adoptive mother, Princess Sparkle.”

Jeremiah stared at Spike, stunned. Spike frowned back him with his arms crossed, and tapped his foot irritably.

Twilight stared back and forth between the portrait and the boy. She was torn between the fascinating portrait that was behaving as if it were an intelligent being, and finding her son. Finding Harry took priority, she decided. She turned to the Prefect. “Can you tell me where Harry is?”

“Oh! Of course, you don’t know.” he said. He had quite forgotten her on seeing the dragon accompanying them. He eyed their hair colours and nodded. “Harry Sparkle won the Triwizard Tournament this evening, and captured a dangerous criminal. It was quite shocking, I assure you.”

The Equestrians exchanged horrified looks. Harry had captured a criminal?

“He’s currently in the Hospital Wing with his three girlfriends,” Jeremiah said calmly.

While Rarity, Applejack, and Rainbow all mouthed the word, “Girlfriends?” and looked at each other incredulously, Twilight frowned and narrowed her eyes. Hospital?

The three Equestrians also narrowed their eyes. It was plain to see that as far as Harry was concerned, he had better have a very good reason for having three girlfriends when he had to know Sweetie Belle, Apple Bloom, and Scootaloo pined for him in Equestria. Spike and the other four Equestrians tried to hide smiles at the three’s reactions.

“Madam Pomfrey said she expects him to make a full recovery.”

They all startled at that revelation.

“He’s asleep right now, Madam Pomfrey managed to stop the poison in time,” he happily went on.

Poison? Twilight’s eyes widened, as did the others.

“She said she expects that the nerve damage will take a few more days and a special potion regimen to repair.”

Nerve damage? The purple Princess began to hyperventilate. The Equestrians exchanged worried looks.

“And she said the dittany should take care of the scars nicely in a few days,” he continued, consolingly, oblivious to her distress at the news, and the others’ alarmed expressions.

“His fur should grow back without a problem, she said. Although she thinks the fur over the scars might be a lighter shade. She’s not sure if that’s just temporary.” He smiled broadly and looked at them, happy to deliver good news. “She’s never had to deal with venom from snakes big enough to swallow a person whole, before.”

Twilight’s jaw dropped open, as did everyone else’s.

“So, she expects a full recovery.”

Twilight lunged forward and grabbed the prefect by his lapels, “Where is he?” she hissed in his face.

Shocked at her reaction, he didn’t notice the painting of Edward face-palming. Nor the men and women in the other painting shaking their heads sadly. He leaned his head back. “I told you, in the Hospital Wing,” he said defensively.

She didn’t loosen her grip in the slightest. In fact, she pulled him closer as she growled out menacingly through gritted teeth — a trick she had learned from some of the villains she had faced — “And. Where. Is. That?”

“Oh,” he said, the light dawning on him. He leaned his head back a bit farther. “Of course. It’s this way. It’s on this floor, this year.” He waved his arm down the corridor.

She let go of his lapels, and patted them smooth. “Good. And you’ll show us the way right now, won’t you?” she said sweetly and glared at him with her arms crossed, clearly daring him to say ‘no.’

“Er, yes, of course,” he said tentatively, and took a small step back. He suddenly realized that he was very out-numbered, and the magic rolling off the girl in front of him made it clear she didn’t need a wand to hurt him. He cleared his throat. “Tinky!” he ordered nervously.

The Equestrians jumped as a strange creature popped into view beside the boy. “Tinky here!” it said proudly.

“Find Professor McGonagall and tell her that I’m taking the nine visitors to the Hospital Wing,” he ordered. “One of them is Princess Sparkle and she wishes to see her son.”

“Tinky do!” the creature said, before popping out again.

They immediately set out to find the Hospital Wing.

There were two men and a woman waiting for them underneath the sign “Hospital Wing” and beside a set of closed double-doors. The woman was tall, black-haired, and had a stern, no nonsense expression, and wore black robes as the Equestrians were. One man was tall, thin, and very old. He had light, bright, blue eyes behind half-moon spectacles, framed by silver hair and a beard, both of which were long enough to tuck into his belt. He wore long purple robes and a short round hat the same colour. She wore emerald-green robes and with a very wide-brimmed, black, pointed hat. The other was also tall, but his hair was long and shiny, greasy appearing, even. He, too, had a severe expression. He did not look happy to see, just the opposite, in fact.

The older man smiled kindly as they approached, then said, “Hello. I’m Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, this fine establishment in which you find yourselves. This is,” he turned to the woman beside him, “Professor Minerva McGonagall, also my Deputy.” He nodded at the other man. “And this is Professor Snape, Hogwarts’ Potions Master.

They nodded and said, “Hello.”

“Unless I’ve been misinformed,” He gazed at Twilight, “you are Princess Twilight Sparkle, and Prince Harry Sparkle’s adoptive mother?” His eyes were twinkling, something she had never seen anypony do. It immediately made her suspicious. Harry would have told her if peoples’ eyes normally twinkled like that.

She smiled. “Yes, I am, and these are . . . ,” and she introduced everyone. Both the Headmaster and Professors seemed especially interested in Spike, as their gazes lingered on him.

The Prefect, seeing that the Headmaster and Professor didn’t need his services, anymore, left to return to his castle patrol. Not to mention that the farther he was from an angry and magically powerful princess, the happier he would be. And he needed to warn the other prefects.

“Before we go in and disturb the sleepers,” Dumbledore began, “I wish to assure you that Harry will recover completely from his ordeal.”

Twilight stiffened.

“He is currently in a magical sleep and will not awaken until morning,” the old man continued softly. “His three girlfriends are with him and refuse to leave. Madam Pomfrey, our Healer, here, decided it would be better for them to spend the night with Harry rather than return to their rooms, so she allowed them to use the beds beside his.”

Unsaid was the Command/Parental Rule they all knew, “Never give an order you know will be disobeyed; it undermines your authority and fosters rebellion.”

Three of the Equestrians were exchanging dark looks. His new girlfriends were that serious? Words would be spoken!

“I wish to see him, right now,” Twilight announced in a no-nonsense tone.

“Of course,” Dumbledore said, “I just wanted to warn you why he will not respond to your presence. And there are other patients in the Hospital Wing, so Madam Pomfrey would appreciate it if you didn’t disturb them.”

He turned and the double-doors opened. He led them inside, the doors closing softly behind them. The room had a row of beds along each wall, and several were cordoned off with curtains for privacy. It reminded the Equestrians quite strongly of their own hospital wards in Equestria.

A woman in red and black robes, with an apron over her front and wearing a white hat, stood beside one set of curtains. Her hands were clasped across her waist, and she waited for them with a steady gaze, which sharpened on seeing Spike with the group. She didn’t say anything, but opened the curtains as they got close.

They stopped dead on entering the small area set aside for four beds. Three beds had been pushed together to form a larger bed and Harry’s pony-colour and shape were barely visible underneath the blanket and three girls snuggled and sprawled across him.

They all stared, flabbergasted. Rarity broke out of her paralysis first, “Sweetie Belle?” she said incredulously. A moment later, Applejack blurted out, “Apple Bloom?” After glancing at the three girls, shaking her head, and staring again, Rainbow Dash finally, said “Scootaloo?”

The girls on the bed sleepily shifted. Apple Bloom’s mumbled voice came from the pile, “Jest five more minutes, AJ.”

Sweetie Belle’s voice was only a moment behind hers, with a half-groaned and slurred, “Is it mornin’ already?”

Nobody moved for a moment, and then Apple Bloom twisted sideways and sat up, eyes wide. “AJ!?” Followed almost instantly by a loud thud as Sweetie Belle rolled over and off the bed. The adults all winced in sympathy. A moment later, two hands grabbed the edge of the bed and a pink and light-purple haired head popped up beside them. “Rarity?” came the whispered exclamation.

Although in different shapes, the eyes and hair colours were dead giveaways, not to mention the large pink bow askew in one girl’s hair. Seconds later, the two astounded adults each had a deliriously happy sister wrapped around her. Rainbow Dash rubbed her hand on her neck, and she sheepishly admitted, “Scootaloo always was a sound sleeper.” This was punctuated by a soft snore from the aforementioned individual.

Twilight walked to the side of the bed, pulled up the sheet and blanket, and carefully examined her son. The only visible marks were two long cuts going vertically from his back to his belly, easily seen because the Healer had removed the fur to expose them. As she had been told, the cuts already looked to be days old, and not just recently received that very day. The skin around them was a nasty light-purple, like bruises that were also several days old. A quick scan with her magic showed her the true extent of his injuries.

If not for some very fast action by the doctor, Twilight had no doubts she would be looking at a corpse instead of a softly-breathing, sleeping, loved son. Fortunately, too, the venom hadn’t had the opportunity to do any real damage to his thaumic pathways, so his ability to do magic would be unaffected.

She leaned over and kissed his cheek before she turned, walked over, and hugged the hospital Matron. The other Equestrians quickly joined in. Madam Pomfrey was clearly overwhelmed and didn’t know what to do. Finally, Twilight let her go and they all stepped back. “Thank you for saving my son. The Sparkle family owes you a great debt of gratitude,” she said formerly as she bowed. “If there is anything I, or Equestria, can do for you in the future, you have only to ask. If it is within Our capabilities, it shall be granted.”

The woman in question blushed. “I was just doing my job,” she demurred, glancing at her patient. “It was Professor Snape who brewed the special potions that saved the boy . . . colt.”

Twilight and the others immediately and repeated their hug with the obviously uncomfortable man, who glared, for some reason, at the hospital doctor. Twilight repeated her thanks and promise to the man.

Twilight straightened. “Would you consider coming to Equestria,” she said looking between the man and woman, “and consulting with our doctors on healing methods during the summer vacation? I am sure that there are many things about which you could teach us. This . . . dittany . . . seems like a very worthwhile medical treatment. And the potions you have used are . . . unique.” She glanced back at her son. “You don’t have to answer immediately, of course. Take your time. The portal is quite stable.”

A scroll drifted in the air beside her, a quill making notes.

The Healer nodded uncertainly, “Thank you for the invitation,” she said softly. The man murmured assurances he would give the matter great thought.

Twilight nodded and turned back to the Headmaster. “Harry has been missing for ten moons, can you tell me what’s happened since he arrived here? Do you know why? Or how?” Her voice turned frosty. “And how he ended up in this hospital bed?”

The Headmaster looked at her, his eyes twinkling. “I think, perhaps, we should adjourn to my office. Rather than merely tell you what happened, The professors and I can show you our memories of the pertinent incidents.”

Twilight hesitated. The fillies wouldn’t leave Harry, and, right now. Applejack, Rarity, and Dash wouldn’t leave the fillies. Nor was she inclined to leave Harry. Spike had already climbed on the bed and was sitting beside his brother. “No, I think it better if we stay here.” She looked back at him, calmly.

He stroked his beard in thought for a moment. “Very well. Dinky!”

The little creature appeared almost instantly, and said, “Dinky is here!” almost as fast.

“Dinky, please retrieve my pensieve from my office, and its stand.”

“Dinky do!” was the instant response, followed by the creature disappearing.

Dumbledore pulled his wand and began to cast a spell around them. “We don’t want to disturb the others in hospital, so I’m putting a silencing spell around us,” he explained.

The creature reappeared with a shallow stone basin on a tall table that was indented to hold it. The basin had odd carvings around the edge, symbols that Twilight, naturally, did not recognize. Inside it was a bright, whitish silver substance that was impossible to tell if it was liquid or gas. The surface moved ceaselessly, ruffled like water beneath wind, and then, like clouds, separated and swirled smoothly.

Dumbledore dismissed his creature and conjured a vial with his wand, which made both Trixie, Starlight, Rarity, and Twilight raise their eyebrows and exchange looks. They watched, and furrowed their brows in concentration and consternation as he lifted the silvery substance from the bowl with his wand and placed it inside the vial. Then, equally surprising, he held his wand to his forehead and drew out more of the silvery substance.

He smiled at their expressions as he placed the substance in the stone basin. “These are my memories of Harry arriving. It starts the day before with the lighting of the Goblet of Fire.” He drew and placed several memories in the basin before nodding to Professor McGonagall. Once she had contributed to the basin, he tapped it with his wand. “Rather than immersing ourselves in the memories, I believe it would be better to project them.” An image of a large hall, packed with people at tables, appeared above the basin.

They watched in silence as the terms of the Tournament were described, skipped to the next day when the Goblet was once more placed on the Head Table. They saw the names drawn, Harry’s arrival, and what had happened from then until Harry headed up the stairs to his new sleeping arrangements.

Twilight looked at him with more than a little hostility and narrowed eyes. “Couldn’t you have simply made the three tasks tic-tac-toe, pin the tail on the donkey, and hide and go seek?”

He stroked his beard. “Alas,” he said sorrowfully, “one of the preliminary steps is to put into the Goblet a brief description of the intent of each of the three tasks. Once wizards and witches begin to drop in their names for selection, the tasks cannot be changed.”

At Twilight’s dubious expression, he explained. “There is a specific set of predefined magical symbols for the Goblet of Fire placed on three pieces of parchments that describe the tasks. For example, the third task had the maze, monsters, and Championship cup symbols on its parchment. This is how the Goblet knows that a task has started and finished. And how it knows whether or not a champion has participated, as required.” He shook his head with a wry expression.

Starlight and Twilight slowly nodded, but neither looked happy. “And your investigation into how Harry became involved?” The princess asked.

“It was inconclusive until this final task.” Dumbledore shook his head sadly. “I discovered that the individual to whom I had entrusted the investigation was an imposter. He, himself, was the one responsible for placing Harry’s name in the Goblet, and confunding it into believing there were four schools participating, not three. He is currently at the Ministry in an interrogation cell.” And then he explained what Barty Crouch, Junior, had confessed to doing.

“These tasks, what were they?” was her next question.

The memory displayed of the first task had Spike hiding behind Twilight, and Twilight livid. Fluttershy was beside her, practically vibrating with outrage.

“You chained and forced the dragons to participate?” Fluttershy yelled at the Headmaster in what others would have called a normal tone of voice. The Equestrians all took a step back. The Wizard and witches merely thought she was asking a question.

Dumbledore shrugged. “We did not know they were intelligent. They had never indicated that they had a language, so we assumed they didn’t,” he said gloomily.

The Equestrians once more exchanged incredulous looks, with the three fillies nodding affirmation.

“No one could get close enough to use a translation spell a thousand years ago when wizards first tried to control their depredations. When we could get close enough, the dragons did not seem interested in discussing things, only in killing or driving off the wizards.” He glanced at the sleeping pony. “However, Harry told us he could speak to the dragons, and proved to us that they were intelligent just a few months ago.” He chuckled. “Our relationship with the dragons is somewhat rocky, at present, but evolving.”

Twilight snorted. “Relationships with dragons are always rocky,” she stated, then looked over her shoulder at Spike, who was still hiding behind her. “Except for my Number One Assistant, here,” she said, the warmth in her voice clearly apparent to all. She twisted and wrapped an arm around his shoulders comfortingly.

The wizard and witches watched with looks of wonder. Only Hagrid had ever considered the dragons with anything approaching kind regard. That the Equestrians could get along so well with a dragon was a real eye-opener.

“The next important event you will be interested in, I’m sure,” the Headmaster said, “Is how these three witches arrived not long after the first task. You clearly did not know they were here.” He stroked his beard meditatively. “Which is rather a surprise, given that they were delivered to us directly from your world.”

Applejack, Rarity, and Rainbow immediately took a step forward. “Ohhhh?” said Twilight her eyebrows hiking up a significant distance to her hairline. The quill was making more notes at Twilight’s side.

Rarity interrupted at that point. “Yes, just how did my sister get involved?” she said testily. Twilight looked at her friends and noticed that Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle exchanged guilty looks.

“Yes,” Twilight echoed, “just how did the Cutie Mark Crusaders get involved.” She knew something was up when both girls attempted their wide-eyed innocent look at her.

The Headmaster chuckled at the byplay. “Again, it is better that I show you.”

Five minutes later, a furious Twilight leaned her head back, her arms rigid at her sides and hands in fists, and screamed, “DISCORD!” only seconds before the adults in the three sets of sisters did the same.

The three teenagers winced at the volume, and sighed.

۸-ꞈ-۸

Ch. 29 — Hands

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Ch. 29 — Hands

There was a loud gong-sound, deep enough to rattle their teeth and it felt as if the floor itself shook. It would have awoken everyone in the castle were it not for the barrier of silence the Headmaster had erected around them. A very tall and pasty-faced man in a funeral suit appeared out of nowhere. “You. Rang,” he said in a deep voice.

They all stared at him, stunned.

Twilight recovered first — she might not recognize the being, but she did recognize the entrance and aura. She stomped over to him. “Discord,” she growled, which was much easier to do as a person than a pony, as she was surprised to realize.

If the wizard and witches had had any doubts as to the abilities of the strange creature the Equestrians called Discord, seeing him effortlessly blow through Hogwart’s protections, again, without them noticing proved it. No wizard or witch could do that, and never mind the creature’s ability to create trans-dimensional portals. Watching him switch from his butler form to a bizarre snake-like creature instantly without any intermediate steps was just as intimidating — one form one second, the other the next. It clearly was not an animagus transformation, nor a transfiguration of any kind. It was something different and unknown to wizards.

He, it, stood in front of them with a pony-like head — with an antler, a blue goat-horn, one long fang, different-sized pupils, a snake tongue, a goat beard, and white bushy eyebrows — a lion’s leg and paw for a right arm, an eagle’s leg and claw for a left arm, one feathered and one leathery wing, dragon’s right leg and a hoofed left leg. He had a horse’s mane, and a dragonic tail with a white tail tuft. If not for the oddities, he might be mistaken for a serpentine Chinese dragon.

They now had a fair idea of why the descriptions of the being that tore the hole in reality when the three girls had arrived back at Halloween were so contradictory.

“Moi? Moi?” He glanced around the room gormlessly, a trio of tiny images of him popping into existence with halos over their heads and looking just as surprised. “What could I have done to incur your wrath?” He innocently looked over at Fluttershy, puzzled.

“You knew where Harry was!” Twilight accused the draconequus with narrowed eyes and fury in her tone.

He blinked at her while a trio of tiny versions of him, floating in the air to one side, nodded and mock glared at him with their paws/claws on their hips. “I never said I didn’t,” he said wonderingly. “You never asked me to tell you where he was. All Fluttershy asked me was if I knew what had happened to Prince Harry or where he was.” The trio of tiny Discord’s turned back to Twilight and blew raspberries at her. “I simply told her I had nothing to do with either his appearance or disappearance, and that sometimes merely observing something changes it, didn’t I, Fluttershy?”

The pink-haired young woman blushed and nodded as everyone looked at her. She moved to hide behind Rainbow Dash. But she stared at Discord reproachfully.

“It’s not my fault you assumed,” a donkey appeared between them with a large plus sign and the word “me” beside it, “that I didn’t know where he was. You really should know better,” he said reprovingly to Twilight. Then he frowned at her as the trio orbiting him wagged a claw and shook their heads, “You have this terrible tendency to go off unprepared because you don’t know all the details. Or, worse, you think you know all the details.”

“You knew how worried I was, we were, you could have brought him back at any time!” she declared angrily.

The draconequus rotated until he was upside down, and stared at the three fillies.

Sweetie Belle hesitantly spoke up, “Um, actually, no he couldn’t.”

The other Equestrians, except her two friends, turned to her in surprise. “He was in the Triwizard Tournament,” she explained, “and bringing him back to Equestria before it was over would have killed him.” Scootaloo and Apple Bloom nodded.

They took a moment to remember what they had just seen in the pensieve.

Twilight turned back to Discord, pointing a hand at the three girls. “You knew where they were and didn’t tell us!” she yelled.

Again, he shook his head, “Oh, Twi,” he said pityingly, “you had Fluttershy ask only a few days ago, and I told her at the time that there are some things I dare not do without repercussions I cannot control. Whether or not they applied, here, is up in the air.” He laughed. “Besides, if I had told you a year ago that you really needed to brush up on trans-dimensional portals, would you have listened? And if I had told you I knew where he was, you would have demanded I bring him back immediately, wouldn’t you?”

Twilight took a surprised step back, shocked.

Then he sighed and smiled, “It was such wonderful chaos in both worlds! You and your friends running around in circles, and wizards and witches running around in circles. Upsetting plans and interfering with ongoing projects.” He smiled fondly at Harry. “It was quite astonishing what Harry managed to do simply by disappearing and reappearing. He hadn’t even tried to be difficult.” He gave a big sigh and a large, heart-shaped portrait appeared behind him with Harry and the fillies framed in it. “He and the Cutie Mark Crusaders are my favourite ponies. With them around I barely have to do a single thing!” He smiled at the girls and pony. The trio of avatars were offering a bag of popcorn to Pinkie Pie.

“The fillies were never in any real danger.” His eyes twinkled and he suddenly had a long white beard and was wearing a robe and half-rim glasses. “And look at what they learned! It was very educational, wasn’t it girls?”

The three girls nodded eagerly, snatching their wands for their holsters. “Lumos,” they intoned, and presented three wands with their tips glowing. The adult Equestrians goggled at Scootaloo and Apple Bloom casting magic. The three girls giggled excitedly, then the cast the levitation spell on the bottles on the table beside the bed, making them zoom around and twirl in the air. Each girl controlled a different bottle. Jaws dropped open among the Equestrian adults.

Twilight’s quill was scribbling furiously.

“Applejack, if I had told you there were opportunities for your family in Trotland, would you have done anything?”

Applejack could barely drag her eyes from watching her little sister cast magic like a unicorn, but she frowned and shook her head. She had to admit, she would have ignored the Draconequus. But her cousins already had written her about several mares and stallions now headed to Trotland to start their own orchards after seeing her letters about that country. She hung her head down.

“Rarity, new fashions in Trotland? Et tu, Brutus?”

Rarity turned and stared at Discord. He was wearing a toga and crown with a comically large knife in his back. It was true, they all knew, that she never would have gone to Trotland if not for their search for the three missing sisters. She never would have discovered the fashions that she had brought back and that were currently all the rage in Canterlot and Manehattan. Or that she was considering the requests for a store in Edinboerperd.

“And it goes both ways, Twilight. Trotland nobility is proud that a Princess of Equestria visited their humble little country, and stayed for more than just a day. They are thrilled she and her best friends, all extremely important figures in Equestria, thoroughly explored every corner of their minor country, demonstrating they weren’t just a tiny and ignored backwater. You created closer ties to each country and never even noticed! Imports and exports are jumping! Fortunes being made and lost! No one knows what to expect!” He shivered and wrapped his arms around himself happily. “Equestrian businessponies have started examining the country for opportunities, wondering what it was that prompted their Princess to explore it so meticulously — they don’t believe the cover story that you were simply looking for three lost fillies — not even for a second! And the tourists! The railroads have already scheduled a second daily run as everyone rushes to see what so fascinated their princess. Was it Fingal’s Cave, the Three Sisters, An Lochan Uaine, the moors, or the sands?”

He sighed happily. “Chaos, chaos everywhere. Ponies have completely abandoned plans in place for generations, started off in directions they had never imagined. It couldn’t have turned out better if I had planned it!” He chortled. “And it’s all thanks to Harry!” He gazed fondly at the pony, who had a row of draconequuses wearing cheerleading outfits across the headframe of his bed performing an over-exuberant cheerleading routine, pom-poms and all.

The trio of tiny draconequuses were hanging up a banner, upside down, that said, “Hurray for Harry,” while snow in a rainbow of colours drifted down across the room.

Again dressed as the Headmaster, with a long beard and glasses, Discord looked over at Dumbledore. “What will you do if a hundred ponies apply next year?”

Dumbledore looked startled. “Alas,” he said slowly, stroking his beard and contemplating the Draconequus, who was imitating his every move. “Hogwarts is an English school,” he concluded regretfully.

“Perhaps you’re right,” Discord said gravely in Dumbledore’s voice. “Maybe it would be better for Harry and the ponies to move the portal to Beauxbatons. After all, now that he has solved your riddle, there’s no reason for him to be here at all, is there? Especially considering how hostile the populace seems to be to him, both in school and out.”

The Headmaster, Professor McGonagall, and Madam Pomfrey all glanced at Harry, startled at the thought of him not being in Hogwarts. When they looked back, Discord was gone.

Twilight walked in a tight circle, frowning and mumbling to herself. “Headmaster,” she finally said, and faced the wizard. “Show us the other two tasks, if you please.”

As the second task started, she just stared at the Headmaster. He shook his head wryly, “I promise you, the hostages were never in any danger. I assured them that they would be safe, that they would awaken when they were back above the water, and put them into a bewitched sleep. The mermen understood that their only purpose was to ensure that the champions took the correct hostages.” He smiled at her, eyes twinkling.

After the task was completed, she could only shake her head. It was clear to her that the mermen were not deliberately missing Harry when they threw their spears! They were not playing a game. Whatever the Headmaster thought the mermen had agreed to, it wasn’t what the mermen had agreed to do. Or his definition of safe was radically different from a pony’s definition! Not to mention the wizards had planned a major event in the tournament, and it was all underwater where no one could see anything.

The third task was similarly boring for the audience. With the hedges so high no one could see where the champions were, or what they were doing. Its only saving grace was the rapidity with which Harry concluded the task, barely giving the other champions more than a few minutes to get into the maze. That all three manged to get hurt in such a short time made her doubly proud that Harry had managed to finish it so fast before anypony was seriously injured.

By the time they finished with the memories of the aftermath, it was time for breakfast.

The girls didn’t want to leave, but Madam Pomfrey stated she was not going to host a breakfast crowd in the Hospital Wing. Reluctantly, they all headed for the Great Hall. The closer they got to the Hall, however, the more excited the girls became at being able to show off their sisters to their friends. And the two non-unicorns were showing off magic the whole way while the professors watched indulgently.

Twilight wrote and had Spike send a brief message back to Celestia that they had found Harry and the fillies, and would be here for a bit longer as Harry recovered. As long as the portal was open, she knew a message would make the trip.

The wizards and witches could only stare, amazed, as he appeared to destroy the scroll. The Equestrians couldn’t help but smirk at the wizards’ and witches’ expressions.

Twilight was so angry she barely noticed what she was eating, at first. If Harry had been awake they would have been out of this horrible place! The fillies’ reactions to hearing Dumbledore claim the school was the safest place in England clued her in that his concept of safe and a pony’s concept might have only a passing acquaintance — the intent might be the same, but the execution was not! It was clear from what little she had seen of the tasks that what the wizards’ called safe departed radically from what she thought of the same. Calling the school safe might be as effective as the Ponyville’s Mayor Mare claiming that the Everfree forest was a safe playground for foals, colts, and fillies!

Still, eating with her friends and not having to deal with the adult wizards and witches did help to calm her down.

She was not surprised to see that while the Equestrians all come under some scrutiny by the students in the Great Hall, Spike was by far the biggest hit. The murmurs of astonishment as the wizards and witches saw the dragon only increased as he obviously interacted with everypony, and answered their questions. Humans were quite similar to ponies, in some ways, Twilight reflected, ignoring that which superficially resembled normal and watching closely that which was different on the surface.

Still, she was gratified to see that so many seated at the table they were at were interested in her son’s condition. From what she had learned, Jonathan, Liza, Hermione, Ginny, and Luna (!) had been especially helpful in assisting her son, and that his room-mates had done their best to make him feel welcome. She made it a point to thank each of them, formally, for their efforts, and invited all nine to visit Equestria in the coming holidays.

She had several lists, now, none less than yards in length.

Afterwards, they headed back to the Hospital Wing. She was surprised when the nine witches and wizards followed them. That Harry had made loyal friends allowed her to relax a bit. For predators to allow a prey to become a good friend was unusual, especially considering the circumstances.

The girls, and Harry’s friends, brought the adults up to speed on what they knew. Fluttershy was absolutely delighted to hear how Harry had managed to improve the lives of the dragons here so dramatically. Twilight added a note that she should visit Dragonlord Ember. Or send her a letter. She might be interested in the plight of the dragons here.

The wizard and witches were surprised to hear that the colt had been so generous to the dragons with his gold. Twilight could see the adults frowning and whispering as they tried to figure out how he had acquired that gold. She was curious, too, but knew he would tell her when he woke.

Listening to the girls describe what they had seen and heard in the last eight months was enlightening, exciting, and rage-inducing by turn. This world had unicorns and pegasi, too, but they weren’t like the ones in Equestria. Then again, the bipedal wizards and witches had probably over-shadowed them. What would happen if they were taught about magic the way Equestrians were? Would they be equal? For the adults, it was probably too late, but the foals? There would be quite a few specialists in learning who would be interested in the answers to those questions and the implications for education and magical development, overall.

That Harry had adapted the wings spell to the new forms made her proud as she watched Scootaloo and Dash flit about the room. The armour they had shown her was also quite well done, for a colt of his age. An armourer would have done much better, of course, but to do so well relying solely on his memory was impressive. She was proud he had worked so hard to protect his herdmates. It was clear that their experiences had drawn them closer together.

In fact, he had coped rather well with the entire situation. He hadn’t gone into shock, as many ponies would have, and simply retreated to a safe location and holed up. Neither had he suffered a melt-down, as many colts and fillies his age might have done, and been uncontrollable as he lashed out in fear and panic. His attitude towards the adults could definitely have been improved, but was eminently understandable given the circumstances.

She was very glad she had asked Blueblood to teach him what to expect, and how to act in pony high-society, when the adoption had been formalized. Her library-secluded foal and fillyhood meant she was sorrowfully inept at such things. Plus, his ignorance in general about pony expectations and attitudes had made that training a must! She hadn’t wanted ponies disparaging her son simply because he did something that a born pony would know never to do. Not to mention learning how to see the signs that someone was merely using him as a stepping-stone to the princesses. She was still far more comfortable in her library or laboratory than out in official functions and hobnobbing with the nobility.

That that training had been so useful in maintaining his equilibrium during his time here was a tremendous bonus that would have Blueblood preening almost as bad as a pegasus being complimented on her flying ability!

She knew Blueblood would have a few of those disparaging remarks to say about Harry’s conduct here when they got home. Overall, though, she was sure, he would think Harry had done an excellent job of managing his relations with wizards without starting a war or becoming someone’s dinner.

Predators were always touchy about their perceived rank in society, especially when someone of a lower rank insulted them. Or they thought they might have been insulted. From her experience with the dragons and griffons, predators were quick to violence when displeased.

There were definite areas in which he could have worded things a bit more discretely, or simply not said anything at all. But he was still a colt, still learning. You couldn’t expect someone still in school to have the knowledge and skill of an adult with a decade and more experience in diplomacy.

Dumbledore’s treatment of Harry, both past and present, did not win him any of her confidence, or gratitude. She found herself extremely disappointed in how secretive he was. And he could have provided Harry with more support than just two students as tutors! Outside, adult tutors, could have been called in, if what she had been told about the magical contract was correct. She vowed that if she were ever in charge of a school, she had the perfect example of how not to do things! Especially considering the stories she heard about how he favoured students in one House over others, and allowed his teachers to show such unprofessional conduct as well.

She sat through lunch thinking about what to do with the portal. Its placement in the school was currently convenient, but not very conducive to the rest of this world, especially as it appeared to be hidden from ninety-nine point nine, nine, nine, nine percent of this world’s population! And the relations between this country and others in the world were not exactly very conducive to the free trade of ideas and materials. If there were things the Equestrians might be interested in purchasing, such as flying carpets that she had been told were forbidden to import to England, should the Equestrians move the portal to a more neutral country, or open up a second portal?

And the muggles, as they were called by the wizards. They had actually visited their Moon! Luna would be here the next day when she realized what Harry had told them years ago was actually true and not the fantasy of a colt. What else had they done that the Equestrians would like to learn about? How could she initiate contact with them without falling afoul of the wizards’ Statute of Secrecy? Should they find an unclaimed island and put the portal there?

She started a list of pros and cons for contacting the muggles, and if that should be as people or ponies. That they would be maintaining contact with the wizarding world appeared definite — the use of wands by pegasi and earth ponies was just too important to ignore! But it wasn’t something simple, either. They would need experts to analyse the spells available, and what would be appropriate. Not to mention finding suitable materials in Equestria. Would a pegasus feather work better or worse than a hair from a unicorn? Could any pony donate something to make a wand for a non-unicorn? Would a hair from Celestia be more powerful or better suited than a hair from, say, Joe?

She watched as Sweetie Belle, Scootaloo, and Apple Bloom shared the recordings they had made with their wands. Sweetie Belle, naturally, had focused on the fashions they had seen in Hogsmeade, and assured Rarity that Harry had made recordings of Diagon Alley when they had visited there to get clothes.

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo focused more on the castle and creatures they had seen. Several of their recordings were from the Forbidden Forest beside the castle, as well what they had seen in the lake. The giant spiders were an unpleasant surprise. She would have to make certain none of the offspring managed to sneak through the portal. Maybe a repelling spell just for insectoid creatures?

Twilight had watched carefully as Dumbledore had withdrawn and replaced memories all morning, and knew she could easily duplicate it. The pensieve, itself, would be much more difficult to replicate. She had scanned it several times while they were using it, and she thought she understood how it worked. It would probably take all day to successfully make one.

It would revolutionize justice in Equestria as everyone could actually see what had happened in any given circumstance.

By the time lunch came around, they had decided that the fillies would accompany their sisters home after dinner, to much objection from the girls. They insisted they had to be with Harry when he woke up. Only the promise they could return tomorrow had settled them down.

Meanwhile, Pinkie Pie had already disappeared, and Twilight was almost afraid to ask if she had returned to Equestria to discover she hadn’t. Fluttershy was at the edge of the forest, apparently talking things over with the unicorns. Dash and Scootaloo disappeared to visit the pegasi in the attic.

In the meantime, Twilight was having an interesting discussion with Harry’s friends on the worlds they belonged to.

۸-ꞈ-۸

Harry watched the early-morning light and shadows slowly move across the ceiling. He was comfortable, nothing intruded into his consciousness complaining of pain or discomfort. The bed was soft, the blanket warm, and the pillow nicely framed his head. It was quiet enough that he could hear himself and the person in the bed beside his gently breathing. He couldn’t see them, they were just a lump under the sheets. Their dark hair on the pillow was barely visible in the slowly brightening dawn. He was content to observe the ceiling overhead, without a thought or sound to distract him. It was very restful.

He noticed that his Hogwarts’ robe was hanging on a hook on one of the curtain supports.

He had no idea how much time passed, nor even when he had first opened his eyes. His companion in the next bed murmured something indistinct and rolled over, moving their pillow. In the brighter daylight of the sun rising in the east, he saw that the person had dark-blue hair with a streak of . . . pink? He frowned slightly. He turned the words over in his head. Dark-purple and pink hair. Dark-purple and pink hair. Who did he know with dark-purple and pink hair? Sweetie Belle had purple and pink hair, but those were very light in shade, not dark. And none of his friends in the castle had vibrant hair colours, except Ginny, and hers was red.

Castle? Friends? Why wasn’t he in his bed in the dorm? Slowly his experiences from yesterday filtered into his mind. The task, the graveyard, Pettigrew, Mad-Eye/Crouch . . . and passing out. Why had he passed out?

That was when he heard movement outside his curtained area. Someone was coming. He looked towards the curtains at the foot of his bed, and a moment later they were swept aside and Madam Pomfrey came in.

“Ah!” she said, pleased, “You’re awake!” She bustled over to his bed and waved her wand over him.

The person in the bed beside him suddenly sat up and stared at him wide-eyed.

He had just enough time to realize who had been sleeping beside him and say, “Mum?” when she leapt out of her bed and hurled herself onto his, hugging him fiercely.

Madam Pomfrey snorted, but had a wide smile as she tucked her wand away. “Everything appears healed!” she declared. “No scars, the nerves have all knitted back together properly, the fur has regrown, you should be just fine! I’ll notify the Headmaster you’re awake.” She headed back to her office.

Still hugging his mum, Harry was just happy she had found him and not taken two more years to do so.

His mum took only a few minutes to explain about the venom that he hadn’t noticed, and how she had finally managed to track down his location. And that he had been unconscious for three nights. His herdmates arrived a few minutes after that and gleefully joined the two on the bed, burying Harry in a people-pile. They were deliriously happy that he was finally awake — apparently they had been commuting every day to the castle.

His arrival at breakfast prompted much applause, later, with most of Gryffindor table standing. He tried to be as gracious as possible, but knew he was blushing almost non-stop all through the meal. There was a continuous parade of people congratulating him and wishing him well.

Afterwards, he headed up to his dorm to retrieve his trunk and thank his tutors. To say they were astounded at getting a tonne of gold each was an understatement. Everyone else wished they hadn’t been quite as standoffish as they had been. And wondered just where and how he had acquired the gold!

The Weasleys, his room-mates, and Hermione were hiding their smirks and grins.

He was astounded when his mother told him that the Headmaster had already accepted several students for the coming year. The fillies had already determined that, yes, the wands would work in Equestria, and that, yes, they could still wield those wands while holding them in their hooves or mouths. A monumental revolution was about to march across Equestria, and the rest of the world.

That Twilight wanted him to return to Hogwarts next term, with the fillies, to have a complete education left him gobsmacked.

“Celestia and Luna want to set up our own school for non-unicorns, and having all four of you well-grounded in this new wanded magic will be a tremendous help, so please consider it carefully!” she said. “We are in the process of hiring experts in wand-making to conduct experiments in creating our own, and we’re setting up greenhouses for all the unusual plants and animals that the potions used here require.”

Hermione, Ginny, and Luna, and his tutors had already secured permission to visit Equestria, so they accompanied them when they went through the portal mirror just before lunch. That he stumbled to the floor after passing through left everypony slack-jawed, He realized why when he stood up and towered over everypony. He stared at his hands, perplexed.

۸- ̬ -۸

Fin