If called upon by a ritual - most demonic beings follow the call. And on the other side of the magic stands - a human being, in a trance. Their wish will be heard and fulfilled for a price - in exchange for a soul, demons play nice.
If called upon by a ritual - most demonic beings follow the call. And on the other side of the magic stands - a human being, in a trance. Their wish will be heard and fulfilled for a price - in exchange for a soul, demons play nice.
When a desperate person calls out into the void - what happens when the void stares back? Lily Potter is a strong woman, but in the face of almost certain death, even someone like her can come to the conclusion to fight fire with fire, and call upon a demon to fight the inhuman Dark Lord tearing down her home. Once called, Nightmare takes on Harry as her child... this doesn't bode well for the sanity of everyone else involved, especially once she finds a very special letter addressed at herself years later.
Disclaimer: The Nightmare in this story is a (far) future version of the Nightmare found in my other story. The 'Sex' tag is for roughly two sentences implying it in a chapter near the middle (hence this story's rating). The 'Death' tag is for, well, the death of Harry's parents.
If viewed correctly, one could see a wave of magic burst out, turning the surrounding area, no, the world grey, as time stopped, freezing the dark wizard who was just moments from bursting through the door, the falling body of a man who tried to stop him, the crying child upstairs, and the woman having just finished pouring her mana and most of her life force into a spell on the ground in front of her.
In this stopped world, a single speck of colour was left – the dark blue glowing runes, while by all accounts they should have been red. A ring of blue formed in the empty middle of the spell matrix, turning the ground it covered into what seemed like a hole.
Out of the hole, ink-like smoke poured, almost black, yet with a touch of blue. It manifested itself, but that just meant it became more solid, and was now a dark cloud, only roughly humanoid with a face and arms, yet everything below its waist became a slowly thinning out cloud with no real structure to it.
Then, the cloud reached out with a pseudo-arm, touching the woman in front of it. She regained her colour, and fell over, looking up at the being she had managed to summon.
“No safeties, no safeguards. And a limited timer on the summon. You are aware that I could just take your soul and be done with it?” it asked with something that had no right to be called a voice.
The woman shuddered, and it was impossible to tell if it was because she felt cold, because she feared the being in front of her, or because she realized her foolishness.
“But your soul is very powerful... would I take it with force, it would probably weaken me instead of strengthening me. You have my interest, tell me what you called me for.”
Realizing that she had forgotten about the dark lord, the woman’s eyes grew wide.
“He is here! And will break through the door at any moment!”
“He will not. Summoning rituals are something private. The universe goes out of its way to make sure they are not interrupted. Right now, we are the only ones in this existence that can even think, let alone move.”
“Thank god,” the woman sighed, getting a snort from the being she had summoned.
“I am as far removed from God as one can be. Your little ritual called on demons, not angels. But, you have my interest – what would you risk dying multiple times for, just to summon me?”
She sighed, shakily standing up.
“The dark wizard I mentioned… he killed so many. His name is Voldemort, and thanks to a prophecy has been targeting my family. I… I don’t doubt that James is dead already,” she stated, looking down before returning her gaze to the dark being in front of her, her gaze hardening.
“I would not ask this if it were just me. I know the dangers of dealing with beings like you. He, however, would not stop, and I don’t doubt that he would create a reign of terror in Great Britain. And I want to protect my son, I wanted to protect my friends, but they are all dead now, and Sirius is hunting down Pettigrew.”
She placed a hand on her chest, looking up at the being.
“Please! Help me defeat the dark lord, and I will offer you my soul!” she begged, clearly desperate, but to her horror, the dark being shook it’s head.
“I cannot do that.”
“Why?” the woman responded, her voice barely a whisper.
“You are already dead as well,” the cloud responded, floating down.
“When you summoned me, you gave up almost all of your life force. This is due to something having to produce the energy to actually summon me here. You gave, although unwillingly, all but twelve minutes of your life force to summon me.”
The woman blinked, then started to cry softly.
“I… I won’t even get to say goodbye to anyone…”
“That is true. But you do not know one thing, and you forgot another. The first is, that if I want, I have photographic memory. The second…”
The being moved over to a clock, which was not moving, yet was not defective.
“The second is that right now, time itself is superficial. What you are seeing is only in our heads, this are our souls conversing with each other directly. And as such,
“If you’re seeing this, it means that he has been defeated. I am glad, but I… I cannot stay with you. Like Lord Voldemort traded his humanity for immortality, I have traded my life for his death. Albus, Hagrid, Moony, Padfoot, I am sorry. I did something the Marauders would have been proud of.”
The projection of Lily coming from the blue crystal which was the only thing left besides ashes where the house once stood gave a sad smile.
“But… I know that I can trust you with rebuilding the country. Harry… I do not know if he is safe, but I dearly hope that he is.”
Dumbledore grit his teeth upon hearing that. He could not find any traces of the boy, he did not even know if he was dead. Hagrid and Lupin had similar reactions, each having an expression that would have been better suited for someone else in their little round. Remus just had a look in his eyes as if he was as old as Albus felt, and Hagrid had a look of fury on his face.
“To think tha’ bastard would go afta’ child!”
“Hagrid. We can’t change the past,” Lupin said, causing the half-giant to take a half-hearted swing at him.
“Take care, you all. Maybe, just maybe, this nightmare is over. You have been wonderful friends,” Lily said in the projection, tears falling from her eyes.
A second later, the crystal cut off.
“That’s it?”
“Y-yes. But… will you manage to defeat him?”
“Have a bit of faith, will you? You literally got me through a demon summoning ritual. Now that I think about it, where did you even learn that?”
“Faith in a demon. Heh… I guess there’s a first for everything,” she said, standing up and wiping the tears from her eyes.
“So… how does this work? Do you eat me? Or pull my soul out of my chest, or something like that?”
“Nothing of the like… you still have twelve minutes left, you know?”
“What do you mean?” Lily asked, blinking.
“That for twelve minutes, you will have the powers of a demon. I’ll remove your soul in turn, that way you can’t be killed easily, your magic will keep you alive and moving. More or less the only thing that could stop you is if you either get petrified completely or disintegrated.”
The cloud of smoke condensed into something that reminded Lily of herself, many years ago when she was attending Hogwarts. The girl standing in front of her had pearl white skin, black hair with a shot of blue that made it look like it was flowing ink, and a bunch of clothes that looked like they would be in ‘style’ in about three decades. She seemed about sixteen, but Lily was sure the being in front of her was actually many, many times older.
Her eyes, however, were pools of cyan, royal blue, and black; no white was to be found in them. They were completely different from Lily’s eyes, or from those of any human, for that matter.
“I’ll go up and take care of Harry. I will leave an illusion looking like him behind so that if he manages to kill you or fend you off for the little time you still have left, he will think he will attack a boy barely a year old when in reality he’ll set off the equivalent of a magic nuke. I want someone see withstand that.”
“Wouldn’t the fight be over quickly if you were to fight?”
“No, and for two reasons. One, I do not know how it feels to use magic in this world yet, so I should stick to subtler magics like illusion magic, and easy magic like just pooling so much in an area that it’ll flat out explode if poked. Two, I do not wish to reveal myself, in case he or another dark lord were to rise again. If I stay hidden, it makes it so much easier for me to find and evade dangers.”
“I see… still, this is far more than I could have hoped for.”
Then, Lily blinked.
“Wait! James could still be alive! If he’s still alive, can you save… him…” she said, trailing off as the girl(?) made a spirit materialize next to her which was undoubtedly James’ spirit. She couldn’t see any features on the spirit, but somehow, she just knew it was him.
She fell down, crying again.
“What are you saying?!”
“I want his soul as well. As long as you two are close, you are much more powerful than alone.”
“NEVER! He has nothing to do with this!”
“That may be true, but I shall warn you. It seems like you two are fated soulmates. What do you think will happen if only one of you gets born? I’m actually glad I discovered this before the summoning ritual got completed because this could have cost me (part of) my magic for violating a law of the same. But of course, if I get his soul, there needs to be something I have to offer in return.”
“Instead of being eternally bound to me, the moment I get reincarnated or well and truly die, your and your soulmate’s soul shall be returned to the circle of reincarnation. For souls, time is superficial, but for the beings they become, it is not. That way, you essentially have nothing to pay for my help.”
“How can I trust you?”
“I swear on my life, soul, and magic that I fully intend to do what I just said and will do everything in my power to make it happen.”
Lily knew why the girl(?) did not just said she would do it. After all, if something went wrong which she could not anticipate, she would be found guilty of falsely swearing upon her soul and magic.
But she guessed that this was infinitely better than the alternative – being bound eternally to this demon, not only damning herself but also her soulmate in turn.
Time resumed, and Lily found herself on the ground, blinking. She had forgotten that she had fallen over when summoning the demon. But there was something else.
She could feel a burning sensation in both her chest, where her heart was, and on her wrist, where she noticed her wristwatch had changed, now only having one intricate hand, which was very slowly turning around.
“Covering in fear. Just like you should.”
“Actually, I tripped,” Lily responded, standing up and turning around. She couldn’t see the demon anywhere nearby.
“I must admit, I am curious. I sensed a great amount of magic. Tell me, what did you do?”
“Are you afraid?” Lily asked, a smirk on her face.
“I am Lord Voldemort! I do not get afraid!”
“Then why do you not attack?” Lily asked in response, to which the dark wizard responded with his death curse.
It crashed straight into Lily’s chest, but nothing seemed to happen. The arm on the clock she wore, though, jumped a small bit ahead.
“Impossible! How are you not dead?”
“That’s a question I should be asking you in about a minute,” she responded confidently, raising her wand at him. It took naught but a thought before a jet of flames burst forth from her wand, nearly hitting the dark wizard in the head.
It seemed like experience would beat power, though, as the dark wizard countered or evaded Lily’s attacks while hitting her time and time again with his own spells.
Eventually, after about eight minutes of battle, he managed to knock her down, cast a petrification charm on her, and then buried her below conjured stones. She found that she could not move at all, but she still allowed herself a grin in the moment between her noticing the massive build-up of magic and being blown up by it.
“Gotcha,” she whispered, and that was the last thing she did before the magic destroyed her body.
I smiled at the boy, not having the strength to tell him that he should call someone else that. Over the last few years, I realized I essentially had adopted the small boy, and after doing some mind tricks with the responsible authorities, I now had an ID saying I was of English nationality.
Did I fail to mention that the world I had been summoned to was an almost perfect copy of Earth in 1981?
“Look what I found!” he said, holding up a blue rose. Small things like this seemed to happen around him and me, and it was a small pastime I allowed myself.
Unluckily without the internet like in two twenty, there was not much demand for hyper-realistic ‘art’ of anthros, and as such, I had started painting.
It was the 31st July 1986; Harry’s sixth birthday.
“That’s wonderful. But do you remember what day it is?”
“I don’t know… maybe it’s summer solstice?” he asked, and I was grinning at the fact that he was playing coy with me and stumped upon hearing that words come from a seven-year-old boy.
“You’ve been reading all day in the library again, haven’t you,” I deadpanned, getting a grin from him.
“Yep! But it’s noon!” he said, gesturing up.
“That means presents!”
Chuckling, I gestured for him to come closer.
“As you see, I don’t have any on hand, but maybe I can find some,” I stated, looking at him before putting my hand behind his ear.
“Oho?” I asked, pulling it back, revealing an intricate coin from Equestria. It showed a detailed alicorn I knew to be Faust on one side and had the number ‘1000’ on the other. This coin was the coin with the highest value that was still being produced en masse in Equestria.
“Woow! Can you pull out books from behind my ears as well?”
I shook my head.
“No, not like that. But I can do it in a different way,” I said, putting both my hands on the empty table in front of me. When I lifted them, there was a cooking book.
“Please, can you teach me?”
“Once again, yes for one, no for the other, at least for now. Do you know the difference between pulling the coin and the book out of thin air?”
Harry shook his head.
“The coin is a trick. I am just moving it into my hand when you aren’t noticing. But this book appeared from nowhere. That, I moved with magic.”
“Magic doesn’t exist,” Harry responded, and I chuckled.
“It does,” I responded, ruffling his hair.
“How about I prove it to you?”
“Presents first!”
“Sure, precious.”
“It’s a magnet,” Harry stated, staring at the hovering orange next to the stack of toys and books.
I wasn’t too phased. I grabbed the orange, cut it open, and showed Harry that it was, in fact, normal.
I then started eating it.
‘Potter.exe stopped working. Please contact an administrator,’ I commented in my head.
“How?” he then asked, and I grinned.
“Magic.”
“Magic doesn’t exist?”
“It is just hidden,” I said, pulling him close.
I then did something I haven’t done for a few months, pulling out my wings. Stretching them, I chuckled at the awed and shocked face of Harry.
They were big enough to touch the ceiling when stretched, and easily four meters across like that. And, when I moved one of them over Harry’s hand, allowing him to feel the individual feathers, he too had to admit that they weren’t fake.
Slowly tugging at my feathers, I found a loose one, handing it to Harry.
“It’s… real. You… you’re magic!”
I smiled.
“Do you wish to fly, too?”
Another few years had passed. Harry was now eight, and both a quite quiet, and a very inquisitive individual.
Right now, he was sitting in front of me, cross-legged, and forming a small spell between his fingers. It was an illusion/light spell, which was as powerful as he could handle right now.
It then vanished and reappeared to Harry’s right. There it blinked, before flashing out of existence.
“I did it!”
“Very good. I knew you could do it,” I said, giving him a smile.
“Do you think I’m going to be a great wizard someday?”
“With me training you, you’ll be peerless!” I responded, a confident and goofy grin on my face.
“Hey,” I then said, getting his attention with the tone I used.
“Wanna go flying?”
Another one and a half years later. Harry was staring at the snow falling, looking up.
“Mom? Who makes the snow?”
I chuckled.
“Harry, just because we can use magic to make snow does not mean that it is created by magic. Nature itself is more than enough to make it snow.”
We sat there in silence for a while, but then Harry asked something I knew he would ask.
“…where’s dad?”
I was silent for a while.
“I… I believe I have told you that your… real parents are… no longer here.”
He nodded.
“Yeah, I know. But… where are they?”
Pulling him closer, I let him lay on top of me, guiding his head to rest on my chest so that he could hear my heartbeat.
“Do you hear that?”
He nodded.
“Your parents… they did not leave and did everything they could to protect you. I took with me what was left of them.”
“They’re here?” he asked, glancing at the spot my heart was.
“In a way,” I responded, and Harry smiled, before turning around again.
“I’m glad.”
“…come again?”
“They’re part of you, right? That way, you all watch over me,” he said, and I just smiled, knowing that Lily and James Potter no longer were aware of their surroundings.
I had taken their name, but that was the only thing I took. The few valuables that were in their house, which I took after bringing Harry to a safe place were safely stored in my dimensional storage, and I would eventually give them back to him.
“…do you want to see them?”
“I can?”
“In a way,” I said, taking out the photo album I had managed to save. It was a bit ripped, but it otherwise was in good condition, and the moving images fascinated Harry for the rest of the evening.
(The other items I took with me were a cloak made from old, but quite beautiful blue fabric, a ring Lily insisted me on wearing and I could tell had some interesting magic in it, and a golden key. Oh, and their entire stock of wine.)
It was shortly before his tenth birthday when Harry suddenly started asking questions, seemingly frustrated about something.
“Mom! Why can you fly like that?”
I gave him a small smile.
“Because of what I am. I’m not human, Harry.”
He slumped.
“I want to fly as well!”
I chuckled.
“So, you want to have wings?”
“Yes! Raven black wings like yours, swallowing the light!”
Oh god. He is in that phase.
Dredging up a part of my magic, I condensed it into a purple-blue orb of magic that looked like it was just about to explode. I condensed it into a tangible form, holding it out to Harry. He, subsequently, took a few steps back, shooting the magic a skeptic look.
“You’re planning to poison me!”
“That’s the one way to give you wings that won’t involve surgery of either the magic or the mundane quality,” I deadpanned, condensing the blue part of it into a small sliver in the middle of the purple ball of energy.
“What in the nine blazes of hell is that.”
“It’s rings, not blazes,” I absent-mindedly responded, pulling out a grimoire from my pocket. It was co-authored by me and Nightmare, for while I could remember any magic, that ability was no longer as useful as it was before, as I would need to meditate on a spell to remember it fully. A consequence of learning too much about magic.
“Ah, here. This is a spell known as ‘night mother’s blessing’, or it was called that by the thelestrals it had created. Neither of us ever bothered to actually name it. Anyways, it will turn you, hopefully temporarily, into a thelestral.”
“Hopefully? And what’s a thelestral?”
“Something like me just with bat wings and no horn.”
Harry’s face scrunched up.
“I’ve seen those before! When you showed me that castle!”
I grinned.
“Correct! They’re guards, over there.”
“So, they’re strong and they can fly!”
He took a step closer to the volatile magic, kept in check only by my iron-like grasp on it. Harry extended his magic over it, trying to see the magic behind the energy, and his eyes started growing wider.
Then, he reached out, grasped the ball of energy, and pressed it into his chest, a ward of silence barely springing up in time to mask his scream of agony.
“You… you did this intentionally!”
I looked at him, unimpressed.
“If you reduce the pain caused by magic with magic, it just increased the time over which you will feel it.”
He screamed again, a ripping sound coming from his back, the magic taking mass from his body and reforming it into wings, spanning up sturdy skin between them, and growing wider, making him smaller and smaller in the process. His arms shortened, his face completely changed, and as the magic was coming closer to being finished, the pain being bearable now before the magic was finished, the pain only a dull echo of what it was before.
I knew that from experience.
“Seems like I got myself a little pony,” I couldn’t help but joke, wrapping a wing around the small, now asleep foal and pulling it against my body.
Wait a moment.
“Huh, that’s interesting. Why would it…” I said, before slapping myself.
“Right. Seven to three gender ratio.”
I grinned. ‘He’ would get the shock of his life when he woke up… especially if I were to tweak the magic around ‘him’ a bit…
Grinning evilly, I started casting a spell that would emulate the mirror portal, turning ‘him’ into the human version of his pony form.
When Harry woke up and looked around, the first thing they did was bring a hand to their back, feeling around and not finding any wings.
“The magic worked,” I added, grinning as they turned, looking at me.
“Then why am I not…” they started to ask, before slapping their hands over their mouth, eyes widening in shock.
“You tricked me!”
“I’m messing around, but I haven’t tricked you,” I said, thrusting my hand into their chest (of course after turning it ethereal) and pulling, bringing forth a visual representation of his magic. There were a lot of passive spell matrices stacked on his magic core, but apart from one, they were all quite old.
“A transformation spell? Wait… it changes my form!”
“Yup. Your thelestral body is female. I was quite surprised to learn that it was the magic of the ponies holding up the unbalanced gender ratio, I thought it to be something biological.”
I twisted the spell, shattering the magic into nothing. For a moment, Harry’s form stayed stable, and their eyes grew wide in the expectancy of pain, but the shift back to a quadruped form was painless.
“I thought… it would hurt,” he said, and I shook my head.
“That was because you were turned into something you were not. Now, that form is part of you, you can turn into it without experiencing pain,” I said, and he nodded.
“The same actually applies for your previous form, I think. I’m unsure why, but your magic has absorbed the magic I gave you, instead of being changed by it. Try focusing on your old form,” I said, and I then watched him turn back into a boy, his clothes reappearing on his body.
“But… can’t you change between your own forms so easy? Why would you be so surprised about me doing the same?”
“I don’t have two forms. I am shapeshifting, and the ‘other form’ I have is when I turn myself into my essence.”
Pulling out a (magical) magnifying glass, I started staring at his magic, comparing it to mine when I still was a mortal. I eventually realized what was different.
“Your magic has ‘notches’ for different magics to latch onto, but it seems like some block others if they’re used. The spell you absorbed should have vanished, but instead, it became attached to your magic. That’s why you are able to transform yourself.”
He stared at me.
“You wanted to transform me with that spell every time I wanted to go flying?!”
I nodded.
“Yup. Though, those kinds of spells stop hurting after the second cast, since your soul and magic have adapted to the two forms it targets by then.”
We were flying over Europe, some three months later. It had taken a while for Harry to find their magical balance again, the power I had given them not changing them but instead increasing the power their magic core had.
“It seems like you have mastered flight quite well,” I said, and they nodded, looking at the black world below us, lit up by hundreds of thousands of lights. Deciding on a whim, I folded my arms around them, cast a spell I never allowed myself to forget, and threw my wings down.
“Mom? Where are we going?”
“The place where you can really appreciate the beauty of both light and dark,” I responded, my wings now beating the air down assisted with the spell I just cast.
The spell kept a bubble of air around us, allowing me to fly more easily and Harry to breathe. He, though, still lost his breath once he looked down.
“Whoa…”
The entirety of Europe was laid out in front of us, basked in the darkness of the night, the light of the sun starting to creep over the horizon.
Creating a platform below us to sit upon, I stared down, realizing we were up high enough that gravity was notably weaker.
If I would have been a different person, maybe I would have commented on it, but I just looked down on the earth.
“Beautiful…”
“That it is.”
In the Ministry of Magic, a seer looked straight up, looking at something only they could see.
“The skies are the domain of the gods. But the gods already claimed the skies as their domain.”
It made about as much sense as what they usually spoke.
Feeling the energy next to me, I blinked.
“Ten years nothing and now the world takes notice of me?”
The cloaked figure which had appeared next to me sighed.
<That, I can, answer. You, used magic. Powerful, and, divine. Hid, yourself.>
A violent shudder, before continuing.
<I, hate immortals. But, I cannot, beat you, will not, attempt. You, true immortal. You, stolen not, life you, hold, is given.>
“You are death,” I realized, receiving a nod.
<I, gave parts. Made, more death. Too much, life, then. Death, too much, now.>
“Is there a point to all this?” I asked in a curious tone, also not wishing this entity to make my enemy.
<I, ask help. Destroy, death makers.>
My brain screeched to a halt, and I responded rather mechanically.
“Are you aware that I have to ask for compensation?”
<Any, one gone, I give you power it had. Once, two gone, I give you magic. Once, all gone, I give you sinners of magic.>
“Souls of sinners?”
<Souls, attempting, to destroy, other souls.>
I nodded.
“I’ll see what I can do. Can I find those pieces somehow?”
<Energy, they have. Aura, I give you,> the response was, and a piece of crystallized magic was held out for me to take.
It felt like an odd absence of nothing. There wasn’t magic in the place the aura was, but something else.
“I can feel that,” I said, making sure to remember it. The entity nodded, but I had one more question.
“How can I make them gone?”
<Wand, break. Cloak, wear. Stone, absorb, magic.>
The entity stood silent for a moment, before looking at Harry, who was just looking back in interest.
After making sure that, no, there were no other gods in this world (aside from the goddess of magic, brought to 'life' by the belief of humans and as such both weaker than ‘Death’, a force of nature(?), and myself, representing a concept) I allowed myself to relax more.
Right now, we were floating down onto the world lazily, towards France. Harry had expressed an interest in seeing Paris, and while I would trust him enough to make the trip, he a) was not willing to leave my side and b) was also not willing to fly the whole way. With me carrying him, it was just simpler.
I gave a snort of amusement.
We landed in the middle of the bustling city, still fully invisible, and after finding an unobserved corner, two spells made us visible again and allowed us to understand and speak French. They weren't too complicated, but Harry didn't learn them yet.
We started to explore the city, eventually ending up in a district where for some reason there were only magical humans. I just laughed at the absurdity of a medieval-looking shopping street in the center of Paris.
I also had made sure the anti-tracking spells on my person were still working. I wasn’t willing to allow magic to find me, and I was unsure if ‘Death’ had found me because they weakened, because I wasn’t in my home, or because they were broken; luckily it seemed a combination of the first two options.
Sighing, I looked around again.
“I need a coffee,” I decided, going to a small café I spotted to the side, ordering one.
Watching the busy street, I chuckled, deciding that I was interested in this world's magic. They might be much weaker than those I knew individually were, but they were far more efficient.
Efficiency was the one problem I had with my spells. (Not really, but for anyone else but me it proved problematic, especially for those that do not have a horn as a natural focus.)
“Mom! What are they?” Harry asked, and I turned around, spotting a family of four (two adults, two girls, one older and one younger than Harry by about two to three years each), standing in front of a bookstore.
Fueling more than a bit of magic into my eye, I looked at them, finding that they had some sort of non-human magic… no, not just magic.
Blood.
Excluding the man, they were descendants of some sort of magic creature. The magic inside of them looked warm, almost hot, and ‘airy’, like it would flow around obstructions instead of pressing against them.
“Miss?” I called out to them, making sure to project my voice so that they could hear me. The woman turned around, meeting my gaze.
“Oh! Can I help you?”
I looked at Harry.
“Actually, yes,” I deadpanned, ruffling Harry’s hair.
“This brat here can sense you’re different and wanted to know what he felt,” I added in a cheerful voice, and she blinked, chuckling.
Five minutes later, we all had some sort of drink (coffee for the adults, some tea for the children), before they introduced themselves.
“We are family Delacour.”
“Family Moon,” I responded in kind, and she blinked.
“It seems we both do not know of the other… my family is a bit well-known for holding creature blood. My mother is a Veela,” she explained, before gesturing to me.
“Well, we, too, carry creature blood, but ours is probably a bit rarer. I inherited a lot of abilities from my predecessor, who in turn had been created by magic alone. She was a manifestation made by magic.”
“Oh, that’s very interesting. I am curious which titles apply to you?”
I shrugged.
“Probably not too many. Two, I would expect, but I haven’t verified that yet,” I said, guessing that magic said I took on Harry’s family name and the one of that knockoff dark lord by right of conquest.
“While my predecessor did hold titles, they were all self-given. I don’t think those count,” I chuckled, getting a nod from the man.
“I see. On the topic of family, whom might your child be?”
“Depends,” I responded, chuckling.
“On the person asking?”
“Nah. On your timing,” I said, pointing to Harry.
“That’s Harry,” I said, before flaring up my magic and flinging it at Harry.
“And that’s Nebula,” I deadpanned, the now-girl looking down at her fantasy-like clothes before whirling around to me.
“MOM!”
“What?”
The magic wore off, and he was Harry again.
“Was that wandless magic? Did you force him… to transform, wandless no less?”
“No, I forced him to take on an alternate form he already had. Transformations are much more difficult, and I would not dare cast them with a wave of my hand. What I did was throw the tiniest speck of magic at him, and he reacted much like you would when touching something scalding hot – reflexively, without thinking.”
Cur wry smile.
“To be fair, I told him to train this ability of his and he should be able to block me doing this, would he have done so properly.”
“Says the goddess with anger issues,” Harry stage-whispered in return.
I glared at him, and he glared back before we both burst into laughter.
“We’re doing this song and dance for years now,” I explained, grinning at him fondly.
“It is nice to see that you’re so close. Many powerful wizards and witches are only concerned about how they appear in public,” the woman said, and I shrugged.
“Let them come at me, I say! This is my life, and I will stay polite, but besides that, I’ll not let anyone tell me what to do!”
I took another sip of my coffee.
“Now that I think about it, how about we stay in contact? I’m a very powerful caster, as you might have noticed. People like you who are friendly because they can be, not wishing to further their goals, are rare too.”
“Sure. Can you give me your address?”
I shrugged.
“I could, but your mail wouldn’t reach me. Instead, use this,” I responded, pulling out a small book.
“It’s linked to another copy I have. They became really widespread in another country some years ago, and I bought a few,” I explained, and she nodded. I paid and went to leave, but the smallest of the Delacour’s stopped me, holding onto my leg.
“Something the matter, little one?”
“Your wings are beautiful!”
“Why thank you,” I responded, looking into her eyes, searching for something but only finding curiosity. Could she see my real form?
Eh, whatever. I don’t really care.
“Then, you are still young… do you wish for me to show you how to fly?” I asked, and she eagerly nodded. With a shrug, I put my hands to my temple, carefully forming and materializing a dream.
It contained the ‘experience’ of flying masterfully, and once it touched the little girl’s hands, the orb dissolved, much to her dismay.
“It’ll make sure you know how to fly once your wings come in,” I said, getting a pout in response.
“Can we go flying?!” she asked, but I had to shake my head.
“I cannot do that, especially not if you are so young. I could transmute you wings, but they could not lift you, instead, they would hinder your growth. I’ll think about it if you’re nine or older,” I explained, knowing the dangers of those spells on young beings – luckily, NOT from experience.
Eventually, the topic turned to magic schooling, and I shrugged.
“Haven’t decided if and where I’ll send Harry. I’m teaching him my magic, but I’ll admit that it would be useful for him to have magic that does not rely on having an ungodly amount of mana in your body.”
“Hmm… Beauxbatons is one of the top magic schools in Europe. Why would you consider not letting your child attend?”
“A few reasons, but I’d rather not talk about them.”
“Oh. Sorry, we shouldn’t have asked.”
“Nah, it’s fine, really. Curiosity isn’t a bad thing, but one needs to know when to stop.”
“I guess that’s true,” was the response, and after we realized there wasn’t much more to say, I stood up, having paid already.
We wished each other well, then left, continuing through the bright city.
Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore (Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., Chf. Warlock)
Dear Mx. Potter, We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment. Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31.
“There’s also one for you,” Harry said, and I gave a snort.
“Well, they’re not even wrong. I know nothing of this world's magic.”
I looked over the letter again, blinking.
“Wait. Oh, this is funny!” I exclaimed, laughing.
Harry tilted his head, reread the letter, then blanched.
“Mx?”
“It seems like your magic now identifies you as neither male nor female. Considering this letter is probably addressed magically, that’s not too big of a surprise, the amount of energy fused to you is fairly sizeable. Don’t worry, you’re still male. Most of the time.”
“You always say I’m supposed to spend time in both forms, and I noticed that my magic got a lot stronger while training alternatively in them. Do you know why?”
I nodded.
“Why would I tell you to do that, if I wouldn’t? The two energies inside of you are completely different and were originally only bound thinly. But the more you train, the more your two auras become adapted to each other. It makes both halves stronger, and eventually, you probably can use abilities exclusive to one of your auras while in the form of the other.”
He blinked.
“Like walking on clouds without a spell?”
“For example. Hmm, how long do you guess they’ll need to realize we don’t have an owl to write back with?”
“More than a week.”
“You’re on,” I shot back, grinning.
In the end, it took about three days before another letter arrived, this time with a mailing address.
“Well, that’s one solution,” I deadpanned, and Harry chuckled.
Scribbling a short answer on the paper, I then decide to spend the rest of the day teaching him how to make wards and barriers, much to his amusement. Privately, I was not amused about the fact that some magic was able to break through the wards on our house, otherwise, the owl wouldn't have found us.
I then made him repeat the exercises in his other form. I did not understand why he was so averse to doing it (I knew it wasn’t the transformation – I asked), but he at least knew he needed to do it if he wanted any chance at getting as powerful as I.
Power is almost always a – pardon the pun – powerful motivator.
A few days, a third letter arrived. It detailed how to find the ‘leaky cauldron’ and that I, as guardian of the child, were supposed to bring him there, and from there to Gringotts. There was a ‘Hogwarts scholarship’ Harry would receive if he had no vaults to his name, but many had some connection to the families that had money.
Considering his parents were wizards and had a quite not-humble abode when I was called upon, I knew there was little to no chance that we would need that money.
Harry James Nebula Moon-Potter Heir to Houses Peverell, Potter and Black
Son to Lily Potter (nee Evans) and James Potter Daughter to Nightmare Moon
“Not a word,” Harry hissed, both at me and the goblin, much to my amusement.
I shrugged, taking both the papers and putting them away. The goblin meanwhile grumbled that ‘Gringotts is discrete’ in a tone of indignation.
“Now that we’re done with that, can we deal with one other thing? I’d like to re-issue all keys for my vaults, in case older keys are found by others than myself.”
The letter described that if Harry (in the general letter called ‘[my] charge’) had rights to any vaults yet obviously hasn’t had anyone to do it themselves, I or he should ask for all keys to be re-issued.
“That’ll be ten galleons per vault, taken from the respective one,” the Goblin said, and I shrugged.
About half an hour later, I had been given around a dozen keys, and a good number of golden coins, and I had left another connected book with the goblins; thankfully just taking money from our vaults did not require us to retrieve it from the vaults themselves.
I left the book, because no matter the reason, I was not going to allow anyone to trace me with magic, and while the goblin asked us if we wanted to retrieve the money ourselves, neither I nor Harry saw reason to do so.
For some reason, the goblin was quire stumped when he heard us respond as such.
“So, what’s first on the list?” I asked, ignoring the stare Harry was giving me.
Mainly because I was now a bit shorter than he was, having shrunk myself down to the height of an eleven-year-old.
“Uh… three sets of work robes.”
“I see,” I said, and we entered the robe shop (once we actually found it).
“Oh, hello!” the lone witch in the room greeted us, looking at us with a curious gaze.
“Hogwarts?”
We nodded, and I pulled out a slip with three sets of measurements.
“We need three sets each with those measurements. They are accurate,” I responded, and she took the paper, looked at us, seemingly decided that the measurements looked right, and nodded.
“Well, this will make my work easier. Can you come back in about an hour? I doubt the robes will fit perfectly, but they should sit pretty good even if I’ll not make sure they’re in the right sizes.”
“We can do that. The hats and cloaks are included, I presume?”
She nodded, and we shrugged, leaving.
“There’s a lot of stuff we can get in the apothecary, too,” Harry said, and I shrugged. The shop was smaller than the robe shop, probably because most people only entered it for a few minutes.
I looked around, then frowned.
“Something isn’t right,” I said, before realizing that there was a feeling of inert magic coming from a corner of the shop. Walking over there, I realized the shop sold unicorn horns, but I did not allow myself to get angry, yet.
Picking one up, I ran my magic through it, realizing it still conducted perfectly, and when I looked at the bottom, both the horn and the ley-lines had a smooth ending. The former could be archived with a file, but the latter? Virtually impossible.
“Looks voluntarily shed. Why would they do that?” I wondered, making a note to come back later and buy the entire stock. They would be really useful; I never could get unicorn horns in Equestria. The only option would have been to attack a unicorn or to desecrate a grave, and I would never do either.
(For the horns, that is.)
“Mo- Nightshade, I got everything we need for Hogwarts. Do you want to buy some materials?”
I shrugged.
“I’ve always wanted to seriously try my hand in potions but most of the ingredients I usually work with are really volatile. Those, having much less energy in them, could be perfect for a magic-attracting solution.”
“So, grab everything, got it.”
“Not yet. We’ll return here once we got the rest of our stuff; I don’t want to overspend,” I said, and Harry shrugged.
“Fair enough.”
Entering the wand shop further down the street, I realized the wands were filigree, intricate foci for magic. I frowned.
“Those aren’t suited for me. I have to make foci for both myself and Nebula, but your magic is suited for them,” I said to Harry, causing him to look at me in confusion.
“Why?”
“Pressure. Humans have, compared to other magical creatures, weak magic. And do you remember where my magic comes from? Or Nebulas?”
Harry shuddered.
“Fair point… it would just shatter, wouldn’t it?”
I nodded.
“The only reasonable foci I saw today would be those unicorn horns. They can withstand a lot of magic pressure,” I mused, and Harry nodded, before turning to the old man who had watched our conversation in interest.
“Why are you saying that my wands would not work? Is your magic truly that powerful?”
“Being a deities’ descendant does that to you,” I deadpanned, and the man’s eyes widened.
“Yes, that would do it. Though…”
Running to the back of the shop, he then came back with a wand that felt… different. I realized a moment later why – it was shrunken down.
A staff, not a wand.
“This has been given to me by my father. He said that it was a reminder not to overestimate yourself, that not every ‘wand’ will find a suitable wielder. I am happy that you could prove him wrong,” he said, and I picked the ‘wand’ up, seeing how resilient it actually was.
“This thing can channel divine energy,” I realized, more than a bit impressed. Usually only living foci had a chance to withstand that. I used my normal magic, to draw a few runes with it, and to my surprise, found that it was simpler to do so than before. Just a bit, but it was faster.
It also did not clash with my aura, something that the old man also realized.
“Yes… a perfect fit! Oh, wondrous day…”
Then, he turned to Harry.
“You are… the young Potter, right? I remember your parents when they bought their wands here… so cheerful people, it is sad to know they died. Wand arm?”
Harry held out his right arm on reflex, and Ollivander measured the ley-lines flowing through it.
After testing a few wands, we eventually arrived at a Holly-Phoenix wand.
“I wonder… will this one be the right?”
Harry waved the wand, and it seemed to connect to his core – just not fully.
“There’s something blocking your full potential… do you have a creature inheritance? Don’t worry, I won’t tell,” he said, and Harry blinked.
“Not exactly… but my magic has a second half.”
“Ah, I see!” the man replied in a happy tone, starting to look at Harry’s magic again.
“Hm… maybe?”
Vanishing into the back of the shop, he came back with a grey hair of some kind, instructing Harry to wrap it around the wand and swing it again. This time, the wand shot out golden and grey sparks in a much larger volume.
“Ah yes, that will be perfect. Please, give me a minute,” he said, doing something to the wand, and the hair vanished inside of it.
“I’m sorry to say this, but I think you should know. This wand is the brother wand to the one that took your parents’ lives, and it is fairly powerful. I expect great things from you, mister Potter. Just remember – the dark lord did terrible things, yes, but great too. Power isn’t about strength; it’s how you use it. If you ever fight him – attempt not to channel through the phoenix feather. It will cause… problems,” he explained in a fairly somber tone, before snapping back to ‘normal’.
“That’ll be fourteen galleons.”
We nodded, paid up, and then picked up our robes before returning to the apothecary.
Counting the coins in our pockets, we then started to pile up potion materials on the counter, getting more than just a few odd stares from the clerk and the man browsing the shop.
“What in the world are you planning on brewing?” the man asked, causing me to shrug.
“I want to make a magic conductor. Those materials are really tranquil compared to the volatile crap from the Everfree, or heaven forbid that mare’s mane,” I responded, picking up the unicorn horns and placing them on the counter.
“Aren’t you a bit too young for that?”
“Depends on whom you ask… anyways, you’re a potion enthusiast, too?” I asked, but he shook his head. I shrugged, and went back into the shop, grabbing the rest of the necessary supplies.
While piling them up on the counter, I then remembered we still would need to grab a telescope.
...before realizing that they did not specify what kind. Which meant I could use the one I already had.
“Yes. It makes non-magical people ignore that general area. Interesting idea, and it helps hiding it,” I said, looking around the train station.
I could see a lot of parents with their children around, but they all were magical. Relaxing a bit, parts of my real form shimmered into existence, keeping my basic form human, but turning my hair and eyes into their natural forms. My skin changed not, still being a very dark brown.
However, I could feel some disdainful stares upon my skin after doing so. Deciding to deal with it the fast/fun way, I whirled around, my gaze finding a blue-grey one. The man who had been staring at me barely managed not to flinch when I did so. He had shoulder-long blonde hair, wore black, high-quality robes, and was carrying a cane. Next to him, a carbon copy of himself stood, just looking about three decades younger.
I scowled, deciding to forego pretence. Flaring my magic, it seemed for a moment as if black wings exploded from my back, and a silver sword manifested itself at my side, my symbol carved into it, but it was all an impression evoked by me flaring my power. This time, his eyes widened, and he took an involuntary step back, but before anyone but Harry could take notice of what had happened, the wings were gone, and the sword had vanished due to their nature as short-lived illusions.
“What are you?” he asked in a whisper, and I shrugged.
“I could call myself many things I believe to be true, but I could be wrong about all of them. However, one thing I know – I am acknowledged,” I responded, holding out my hand. His gaze fell onto the ring I decided to display, and the symbol it bore. A triangle, in which both a circle and a line was drawn.
He raised an eyebrow.
“That’s just Grindelwald’s coat of arms. How is that supposed to mean that you’re ‘acknowledged’?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
I blinked.
“Grindelwald? He stole his coat of arms from the Peverell family, which I am the matriarch of.”
Personally, I made a note to look into that name at some point in the future.
“Peverell? I thought that family had died out centuries ago?” He questioned, then frowned, before continuing in a mocking tone.
“Are the legends real, then? Is the ‘family’ of Peverell just those recognized by death?”
I shrugged, and decided to answer as if he’d asked a serious question.
“Probably? It told me to destroy the pieces it left behind. It says they are causing too much death. Which is funny coming from them.”
“’Them’? You claim you have spoken with death? And did ‘they’ as you call them, give you that sword and wings?” he questioned, his tone making it clear he did not believe me. At all.
I shook my head.
“No. My magic I received from my predecessor, and my sword I received from my teacher,” I responded before realizing something rather important.
“I am sorry for cutting this short, but I need to get on to the train. Maybe we can talk later?” I suggested, pulling out another linked book. He gave it a curious glance, and I quickly explained it was linked with another book in my possession, copying the text written in one to the other.
Lucius stared after the train for a long while before he finally left. The other wizards and witches, both light and dark had left him alone, either not wishing to interrupt his thoughts, or just generally ignoring him.
His head was rampant with many different thoughts, and his gaze flicked down onto the book from time to time.
She was dangerous, and powerful, both undoubtedly so. His mind wandered to the Wizengamot and the new seat that had appeared ten years prior. There was a chance it was hers.
But there was also the fact that he could somehow tell just how much darkness there had been concealed behind those blue eyes. If the ministry were to ever catch wind of that, it’d just throw her into Azkaban, or would try to seal her magic, though he doubted it would succeed with either of those.
Then there was also the fact that she would probably be fairly affronted by the recent laws the Wizengamot was trying to make. With her definitively having a lot of creature blood, she would fight tooth and nail to not get treated as a second-class citizen.
He shuddered, advocating for such laws further started to seem a very bad idea.
He could definitively use this to his advantage, though.
A second later, he shuddered again, discarding that thought. She claimed to be able to talk to death, and he could not tell if she was lying. If she had spoken the truth, however, ‘it’ tasked her with destroying the deathly hallows. It was frustrating to learn about their existence and in the same breath that they were not meant for this world much longer.
He decided that he could only dare to ‘manipulate’ her by telling her the truth and hoping that she saw things the same way he did.
Shaking his head, he apparated away to Malfoy Manor, the book clutched in his hand. Unbeknownst to both him and her, the magic of the book was slowly seeping into him. And once it encountered the magic of the dark mark, it started seeping into it, slowly beginning to dissolve it since that magic was neither Lucius’ – nor was it benevolent.
Walking next to Harry, we got more than a few adoring looks.
It could help to mention that I was currently quadruped and came up to about his waist.
I had taken on a younger form, much like Nebula looked, but with slightly darker colours. My mane was… normal… and my flank was showing my ‘real’ cutie mark.
“How Equestria was created? I’ve been a bit curious about that myself, if I’m being honest. Creating space isn’t that hard – but cutting through space to make it disconnected from other space, that’s really difficult.”
“Maybe turn it so fast it rips off?”
“No, that wouldn’t work. That would twist and stretch space, but that space always stays connected. There’s got to be another answer.”
“Maybe Faust really was transcendental.”
I snorted.
“Doubtful. The universe Equestria lies in is closed.”
“Could you do it, then?”
“Technically yes. I do have spells that could create magical stars and create matter from nothing, but there are issues with those too. For example, my creations wouldn’t be stable, and requiring mana to stay intact.”
“How much would you need?”
“You should be able to guess.”
Harry was silent for a moment, and I pushed open an empty compartment, looking inside and nodding. We walked in, and Harry sat down, his brow scrunched in concentration.
Then he realized why I’d need so much energy.
“The weight of space,” he groaned, and I nodded.
“Correct.”
For context, creating space took energy. Creating matter also took energy. And I would need to provide that energy as mana if I wanted to do what he had suggested.
Not something feasible, but something that definitively was possible. Luckily it took a lot less energy to twist, enlarge and create space than it took to create matter.
And you didn’t have to deal with anti-space, that was also a plus.
Usually.
Unfortunately, anti-space was something that existed.
“Wait a second. What if the sun is the force keeping that universe together?”
I thought about it for a few moments, which were about to turn into hours, but Harry snapped me out of it.
“Do that when you sleep. Did you already read through the course books?”
I shook my head, but before we continued, Harry pointed to an empty compartment, and we entered it, taking seats.
“I’ve only taken a look at potions, though I noticed something interesting,” I then said, pulling out a silver knife from the potions kit.
“The materials used may be much less volatile, but this knife has a charm on it that enhances the main effect of ingredients, while reducing the others. It simplifies.”
Grabbing an old feather of mine from hammerspace and ramming the knife into it, I could feel how it changed under the blade, losing its ability to channel lightning and to manipulate clouds, leaving behind the ability to generate lift from magic. The shift was so prominent that it was recognizable without even having to touch the material.
Harry blinked.
“That could be useful.”
I nodded. That opened a lot more ventures… many potions of Equesetrian and Zebrician origin were quite volatile. This would help. Massively.
Having been looking out of the window onto the landscape, as the train had started moving a few minutes ago, I startled a bit upon feeling a wing settle on my back.
“Nebula?”
“Come, lay down. We haven’t done this in a while,” she said, and I nodded, giving her a nuzzle, before allowing myself to slowly drift away, pressed against her in a not unwelcome way.
In the end, we got roused by hushed whispering. There were two girls standing in front of the door, looking at us.
I blearily blinked, before gesturing to the seat opposite to us with a wing. Their eyes lit up, and they quickly shuffled inside, sitting down.
The expected reaction took about ten seconds.
“Oh my god! You’re so cute!”
We grinned at the two, and they blinked.
“Fangs?” the other girl asked, causing me to shrug. I was an omnivore in all my forms.
“Who’re your owners?” she then added, leaning close and looking for a collar, I’d presume, but she couldn’t find any. She looked oddly disappointed by that.
I shrugged.
“You… you two can understand us, right?” the other girl asked, and I nodded.
“That’s amazing! You got to be magical creatures – but what are you?”
I raised a brow, baring my teeth, flaring my wings, and staring her into her eyes.
“Hm… bat-wings, human-like teeth but with larger fangs, tufted ears, cat eyes… no, I don’t know what you are, sorry.”
“Do you two have names?” the other girl then asked, and I nodded, turning and pulling out a book from my interspatial pocket. The girls looked a bit dumbfounded by that.
“A notice-me-not charmed pouch? That’s really clever…” she said, while I used my snout to flick through the biology book, eventually stopping once it showed a blue flower.
“Nightshade? You’re Nightshade?”
I gave a nod, then put the book away, before pulling out another book – an astronomy book. Flipping through it as well, I stopped on the page with the horse-head nebula.
She went through the words on the page that seemed promising, and guessed Nebula’s name after a few moments, much to my delight. I put the book back and stretched a bit, looking her in her eyes.
“Something on my face?” she asked, and I shook my head.
“I think she wants us to introduce us… you’re female, right?”
I shrugged.
Most of the time, yes.
“Ah, right. It would be rude for us to ask your names and not give ours in return… Dacey Travis.”
“I’m Daphne Greengrass. Nice to meet you,” the more inquisitive girl then said, and I held out my hoof, much to first their apparent confusion and then amusement.
They both took it and shook it, Nebula nickering behind me, barely not laughing. She then decided to forego all pretences and jumped over to the bank with the girls, lying down. She then looked at the girls with a smouldering look, causing me to chuckle. The want for affection really didn’t translate well into pony form from a human perspective.
Trust me when I say that lust is obvious in a completely different way.
Eventually, when she also pushed her head into Dacey’s fingers, the girl froze for a second before starting to pet her. A low cooing sound came from Nebula, and I blinked. Did that really feel that good?
Curious, I jumped onto the bank next to the other girl, also holding out my head. She quickly pulled me closer, to get better access to my head, and then started curling her fingers through my mane and scalp, and I melted into her touch.
Of course, I was still aware of the happenings around us, and looked up with a content smile when the door opened again.
“Hey Daphne, can we…” a black girl started to ask, but stopped upon seeing me and Nebula.
“They’re adorable!” the carbon copy of said girl standing next to her said, grinning widely.
“Oh, Padma, Parvati. They were already here! They can understand you, too!” Tracey said and picked up Nebula much like one would a kitten.
“Want to hold her?”
Of course, the answer was a ‘yes’.
I also moved over to the other bench, allowing the other twin to have her own arm full of pony. She also liked holding and petting me, if her grin was any indication.
“Does either of you know what they could be? I mean, clearly, they’re magical, but… slitted eyes, tufted ears, bat wings, fangs?” Daphne then asked, getting headshakes from the girls.
“Vampire ponies?” the girl holding me wondered, and I snorted, looking up at her, before playfully nipping at her hand. She blinked, then chuckled for a second.
Pulling another book from my pocket, I opened Mythical Creatures and where to find them on the page with thestrals. Daphne and Tracey looked at it, before frowning.
“You don’t look like thestrals… is this the closest to the truth then?”
I nodded, before pointing to the part where it said ‘can only be seen by those who had witnessed death’. They quickly understood that this detail wasn’t appliable to me and Nebula.
“A different breed, maybe?” Daphne asked, causing me to nod.
The girls kept petting us, but eventually someone else once again decided to intrude into the serene silence that had been built around us. This time, it was a woman pushing a cart with many sweets piled onto it, and most (speak all) of us present in the compartment couldn’t help but drool at least a bit at the massive amounts of sugar stacked on it.
Subsequently, we (they) bought a lot of sweets, but the most interesting of them by far were the sugar beans that were enchanted to take on random, and often ridiculous, flavours.
I got a few normal flavours, but also had one that tasted like a blood berry to me (thestral-grown fruit in Equestria), tree bark and shrimp.
“I have no idea what I got,” the girl holding me said, tilting her head.
“Something slightly citrus-y, but its fleeting…”
“I’m pretty sure I got olive oil,” Tracey deadpanned, causing the rest of us to chuckle.
“What are the names of those two dears?”
“Oh, they’re Nebula and Nightshade.”
“That are interesting names… though, it wasn’t you who choose them, I assume?”
“No, the two were already here when we sat down.”
“Oh, does Hogwarts finally accept creature students?”
I blinked, before shaking my head.
“Wait, are you animagi?”
Are we what? I tilted my head, and she quickly explained that they were humans capable of turning into animals. My eyes lit up, and I concentrated, compressing myself further into a black cat.
They all blinked.
“Uh… you can’t be an animagus, then… they can only turn into one animal. Unless you’re a shapeshifter?”
That was a good question, but while I could manipulate my shape within some constraints (practically none), I wasn’t a true shapeshifter. This required more than instinctual magic, and the greater discrepancy between my real form and this one meant a bigger strain on my magic.
Alas, I shook my head again.
“Bummer… I’d have asked you to turn into me,” one twin said, and I blinked. That wasn’t… impossible, per se.
I flipped myself around, out of her grasp, and reared up, pressing my forehead to hers, and placing my forelegs on her shoulders. My shape twisted, became larger and larger, and after a moment, I was sitting there, looking exactly like her.
“By Merlin! You can!” twin #2 exclaimed.
I shrugged, then collapsed the illusion on myself. Since this was neither my real form for being shifted into this race, nor had any ‘image’ of her so to speak, it drained far more energy than just transforming into a human, cat or even dragon would drain. Still negligible either way, anyway.
“Is that how you look like as a human?” twin #1 then questioned.
Nodding, I then turned myself back into my foal-thestral form. I was quite comfortable like that and pressed my head against the girls’ fingers again.
And then, the serene scene was interrupted again – quite rudely this time, too.
The door got opened by a blonde boy, flanked by what I could only describe as bodyguards. He clearly felt like he was ‘better’ than everyone else in the compartment, if the way he looked around with barely hidden disdain was any indication.
“Heir Greengrass, Heir Davis.”
“Heir Malfoy,” Tracey replied in the same I’m-better-than-you tone he had used.
“Would you by chance know why Heir Potter refused to return my greeting?” he asked, pointedly ignoring the black twins, probably because he didn’t know them.
Nebula tensed for a split second but forced herself to relax. I don’t think anyone but myself did notice. I meanwhile was cursing, for now that I focussed on it could sense a second presence with the same aura as Harry on the train. Damn bootstrap paradoxes to hell and beyond.
“We have not had the luck to encounter Lord Potter, Heir Malfoy,” Daphne bit back, and I couldn’t help but grin at her.
“I see,” he responded, clearly annoyed by her response. Then, his eyes fell onto me and Nebula, and for some reason I couldn’t help but feel nervous about that.
“And who is the owner of those animals? You twins?”
“Yes,” one of the twins responded in a cut tone.
“What even are they? They don’t look like any of the respectable animals allowed at school,” he then added, looking disdainfully at us. I snarled at him.
“They’re a special breed of thestrals, and they can understand you, Heir Malfoy. I doubt not they would cause you untold problems were you to antagonize them, and I also don’t think you want me to raise my hand right now,” she said, staring him into his eyes. He huffed – but left shortly afterwards, continuing his fruitless endeavour.
Wanting Daphne’s attention caused me to neigh, and once I had it, I shook my head.
“Are you referring to Heir Malfoy?”
I shook my head again.
“Harry Potter, then?”
I nodded, gesturing to her and shaking my head.
“He isn’t… Lord Potter?”
I nodded.
“Heir?”
Another nod.
“How?”
Rummaging through my interspatial pocket again, I pulled out a Gringotts document.
Esteemed Lady Gaunt, Lady Potter, [------] Lady Peverell, Lady Moon, Enclosed you find the requested listings of the contents of your vaults. Additionally, we request of you to return once you have made a house ring for the house of Moon, such that it can be added to the records. Per your request, the Potter trust vault has been closed and the money has been transferred to the family vault.
“What! Harry Potter is the last of the Potter line! How did this happen?!” Daphne all-but screamed, staring at the paper.
“Um, Daphne?” Tracey interjected, staring at the other titles.
“Have you ever heard of house Moon? The way Gringotts handles titles is that it lists them in the order of their status…”
The other girls froze.
“There are only a select few families older or more prestigious than Peverell. With this, they should be well-known for being so old! Why haven’t we heard of them, then?”
The full titles actually were, ‘most ancient and most noble house Peverell’… and ‘most ancient, most noble and divine house Moon’. I doubted any family on the planet could place itself above Moon in the eyes of magic.
“How old are you really?” Daphne asked with wide eyes, staring at me.
I raised an eyebrow at her, and she dropped the question.
“We’ll arrive shortly,” one of the twins eventually said some more dozen minutes later, staring outside. I nodded, and stepped aside, pulling Nebula with me. They still needed to freshen up a bit, and Daphne then looked at me.
“I really hope you’re not human. It would be weird to know I treated someone like a pet…”
Feeling cheeky, I turned into my human-child form, grinning at her.
‘Oh, I would not mind, but I can assure you, I am definitively not human,’ I ‘said’ without opening my mouth, making her shudder at the sound of my mental voice.
“So, you can speak… why did you not?” one of the twins asked, causing me to shrug.
‘I really liked the attention you were giving me. Besides, imagine the face Malfoy will make when he realizes that I’m attending the school.’
Pause.
Grumble.
‘…if he does.’
“So, they are taking non-human students now!”
Shrug.
‘I doubt they’re aware I’m not human. The way they send the letters makes me register in a way that makes them think I’m human, I believe. I would have to write to Nightmare, she can check.’
“I assume she is your mother?”
‘Not exactly. Though, I do not want to elaborate on that one right now, it’s a bit complicated.’
“Fair enough… does Nebula have a human form, too?”
I shrugged.
‘She has, though she prefers not to use it unless it is for training her magic.’
Nebula, of course, bristled when I said that, but we both knew she couldn’t refute me, not here.
‘Well, I guess I will see you all at the sorting, then,’ I added, and they nodded. We left the train, and Nebula turned back into Harry, glaring at me the whole time.
I just chuckled.
Once nobody looked at us any more, though, I grabbed Nebula and side-stepped reality, time slowing to a crawl.
“It seems like you did socialize in both forms after all,” I said, and she sighed, before nodding. I lit up my magic, space twisting around us, and I applied a masking spell so that it would not cause another paradox. I made this magic specifically so that I could jump through time without getting noticed by my earlier self, and it drained a significantly higher amount of magic than anything else I cast that year, but it still was but a fraction of my power.
A white flash in the future, an infrared flash in the past, and he was sent back hundreds of minutes and millions of miles.
Then the mana crashed back into me, and I barely managed to absorb it all. Why did it return? I sent him back to the past, it happened, so why was almost all the energy of the spell returned?
Brakes screeching, the train stopped, the surrounding darkness a balm on my soul. I strongly suspected that magic was involved, as I couldn’t see more than light from some lanterns illuminating the station.
Leaving the train, the students quickly pooled themselves into their age groups, and a bear of a man was walking towards the group of first-years, questioning if we were the first-years before telling us to follow him.
As we did, he led us through a small path down a steep hill on which a forest was growing, and once we were past the trees, we were in front of a massive lake, beyond which there was a massive castle propped up on a cliff.
It was white, stood against the black sky, and seemed impossibly bright. There was a glow about the castle that just looked magical, a beacon in the darkness, and I could not only see but also feel the magic of the castle on top of the cliff.
“Beautiful… it has so much space!”
“Hey, you can speak normally.”
I shrugged.
“Am I required to?”
“I guess not? Though, I am curious, why are you so surprised about the castle?”
“It’s… layered. There are a lot of spatial manipulation spells on it, and I can see them,” I responded whilst climbing into a boat where Tracey Davis and a boy I didn’t recognized were sitting. He had dark skin, but did not greet me when I did so. The boats started moving after a short command of the giant, and the boy turned to us when Daphne addressed him.
“Heir Zabini, we meet again.”
“Heir Greengrass. A pleasant surprise meeting you here,” he responded, causing me to sigh.
“And whom might you be?” he asked, a bit pointedly, probably because of the sigh.
“Nightshade Moon. Pardon me asking but – why does everyone here already knows everyone else, excluding myself, Malfoy and Potter?”
I could guess the answer why nobody knew Harry, but it was annoying that everyone else already knew each other.
“Oh, it’s just that we purebloods don’t have much opportunity to go out, and our parents mainly mingle with other purebloods,” Tracey explained, shrugging.
I see.
“Are you muggleborn?” she then asked, and I shrugged, guessing she meant ‘born to non-magicals’.
“By pure technicality, depending on how you specify that question, I would either be muggleborn, a magicborn, or a being just with a human form. I have been born from someone who was born without magic, and had transformed in a magical being.”
“I thought it was just a myth that you can give or take magic?”
“Well, it is purely voluntarily and basically killed m-others benefactor, so I wouldn’t recommend it unless you’re about to die,” I responded, which made them freeze. And I froze as well – five minutes in, and I almost blew my disguise already. Things are going great!
“That’s… a steep price for just a bit of magic.”
I shrugged.
“It was the price to pay. Both knew what would happen.”
Getting a thoughtful look, I stared at the ceiling.
“I’m sure he’s still out there, somewhere. Maybe he even regained what she had lost… though I haven’t heard from him in a long time now.”
The sombre mood stayed like this, but eventually, the boats entered a tunnel, and an underground harbour below the castle from there, running onto the rough earth, and we jumped down, following the massive man to a big door.
He rapped three times on it, and it opened, giving way to an older witch clad in green robes.
“The firs’ years, professor,” the giant said, getting a small smile in response.
“Thank you, Hagrid. I’ll take them from here,” she said, and continued to lead us into the castle proper.
We were led through what I presumed an entrance hall, at whose end double doors led to the other students – we could hear them chatting. The professor led us into a room nearby, telling us to wait for the sorting, and telling us to freshen up a bit.
Someone was reciting spells, someone was mentioning trolls, and then someone shrieked.
I blinked, turned around, and stared at a ghost.
I tilted my head right, and it followed.
I tilted my head left, and it followed.
“Aren’t you supposed to be six feet under?”
A snort barely muffled the laughter Daphne was trying her hardest not to release.
“Why I never! Do you even know who I am?”
“Should I?”
“…you haven’t met a ghost before, have you?”
I shook my head.
“No, I have. My family holds a few fairly powerful exorcists. Spectres should be allowed to pass on, and most I know of choose to do so.”
“That is an interesting view on us, at least. Maybe we should introduce ourselves? My name is Richard Anthea. Who are you?”
“Nightshade Moon. It is nice to meet you,” I responded, shaking his hand. He blinked.
“You can touch me?”
“I told you my family’s got talent with exorcism,” I responded chuckling, and he shrugged, accepting that explanation.
“But in all seriousness, its just my magic. It twists a lot of things slightly, so for example ghosts become corporeal to me.”
“Move along now!” the voice of the professor resounded behind us, and I blinked, then turned around.
“The Sorting Ceremony’s about to start. Form a line, then follow me,” she said, and we quickly did as such. We were led back through the entrance hall, and then into the great hall with all the students sitting along four massive tables, and the teachers sitting at a head table.
Looking around, my gaze eventually moved up, and I couldn’t help but stare. The ceiling looked as if it wasn’t there, showing the nights sky instead. There were hundreds of stars, and I could even tell that this wasn’t just an image, but the actual sky as of that exact moment.
“It’s bewitched to look like the sky outside. I read it in Hogwarts: A History,” a girl with brown bushy hair behind me whispered, probably having noticed the stare I had shot upwards.
Looking forwards again, I then watched the professor to place down a chair, and an old, pointed hat atop the same. For a moment, the entire hall fell silent, and then the hat began to move, a rim slowly opening atop the hat.
“Oh, you may not think I’m pretty, But don’t judge on what you see, I’ll eat myself if you can find A smarter hat than me.”
The bloody thing started to sing about the virtues of the four houses of the school – the brave Gryffindors, the loyal Hufflepuffs, the wise Ravenclaw, and the ambitious Slytherins.
“So, we’ve just got to try on the hat! I’m going to kill Fred, he’s been going on about fighting a troll,” a boy with red hair complained, causing me to shrug. Either would’ve been fine for me at any rate.
“When I call your name, you will put on the Hat and sit on the stool to get sorted. Abbott, Hannah!”
A young girl stepped forwards and sat down. The hat was placed on her head, and a moment later…
“HUFFLEPUFF!”
“Bones, Susan!” became a Hufflepuff, “Boot, Terry!” the first Ravenclaw, and the nervousness bled out of the first-years, only leaving behind excitement.
Eventually, when the hat came to a nervous boy going by “Longbottom, Neville!”, it took a few minutes to decide, and once the hat shouted Gryffindor as his house, he nearly took the hat with him, but stopped after walking a few steps, remembering it wasn’t his hat on his head there.
The next unusual thing was when the in my opinion quite unpleasant “Malfoy, Draco” tried on the hat. It took but a moment to sort him Slytherin.
Then, however…
“Moon, Lily!”
“What?” came from Harry, and I shot him a look.
She became a Ravenclaw.
Then, it was time for me.
Sitting on the stool, the hat was put onto my head, and… nothing happened.
Trying to feel out the magic of the hat, I could find it trying to trace my magic back to my personality with an observation spell, interlaced with a secrecy spell. It could not recall or speak about what it found, so I decided to humour it.
Closing my eyes I focussed, finding the small amount of energy prodding on the utterly massive wall that my mental defences were. They had to hold up against an entire world of nightmares come worst for worst after all, and I guided the energy coming from the hat, reinforcing it so it wouldn’t break on it’s path through the walls.
A fraction of a second after I allowed the tickle of energy in, the hat screamed “SLYTHERIN!” in such volume, it caused everyone to jump, myself included. I shrugged, standing up and walking towards the green-silver table, noting my clothes shifting in colour whilst doing so.
Now it would get interesting. The Gringotts goblins said Harry’s surname was Moon-Potter. Would Hogwarts recognize that?
“Nott, Theodore!”
My jaw clenched. No, they would not. That wasn’t what I wanted to see.
(The twins from earlier got sorted into different houses, one Gryffindor and one Ravenclaw.)
Though the professor came soon enough to Harry.
“Potter, Har- wait a moment,” she said, looking down at the parchment.
“Potter-Moon, Harry!”
I could see the shock on the faces of the teachers and most of the students. Myself I found it curious how the order of the names could be different – Gringotts listed Moon before Potter for him. Maybe because he wasn’t of age?
“Potter-Moon? Where did he get a second surname?” someone a few years above me asked, wide-eyed.
“Some nine years and charge ago,” I absent-mindedly said, causing him to look at me, remembering my name.
“Oh, right, your surname was Moon, too, right? How are you three related?”
“Lily Moon isn’t part of our family, thought the name might suggest otherwise. As for Harry, Nightmare basically adopted him. I would presume his surname to come from that, though it might be for other reasons, too. It’s entirely possible that changing his name in the non-magical world caused his name recognized by the magical world to change,” I reasoned whilst shrugging, focusing on Harry.
…nothing.
Ah.
‘Harry, you need to let the hat through your shields, it takes a look at your mind and sorts you. Don’t worry, it cannot talk about what it sees,’ I sent, and he twitched slightly, having heard me.
I could see Harry’s face twist, different emotions showing up, and eventually the hat shouted out Gryffindor, much to my surprise.
“I – he – whaat? That hat charmed to put him there?” I questioned, looking at the hat. I could tell that it was enchanted in a few interesting ways, but there wasn’t any magic to influence the hats’ decisions.
That was also verified by the older student, saying that nobody would dare to mess with the hat. The last attempt ended with a goblin sword ramming itself through the malefactor and disappearing afterwards to who knows where.
I decided not to ask but made a note to investigate the smiths of the goblins. If wizards used goblin swords, maybe they were of extremely high quality? No matter where, humans tend to develop superiority complexes.
The sorting continued without any other surprises, though eventually, I was asked about why the hat took so long to sort me, and revealed about the protection on my mind.
“It’s because I and Harry both carry magic from Nightmare. Mind you, not much, but it is magic dealing with the mind. It’s a protection against mental attacks, something the – scratch that, our family Moon is especially prone to. I believe it started some one thousand eight hundred years ago.“
“Nobody can trace their lineage back that far, though?”
“It’s an assumption we made on the strength of the family magic,” I lied, shrugging.
“Mainly, how it is still slowly growing stronger at a steady rate – and how nothing, even an attack by the strongest mind-mage we know could not get past our defences. Mother said that strong magic attracts things you really don’t want in your head, so we both got a shield cast on us by mother, until we can learn ourselves.”
That part was true. Chrysalis could be a very scary individual, but her mind magic held no power over me. Unless I allowed her to. Fun week…
I was snapped out of my thoughts when the headmaster tapped his goblet with a spoon, the hall quieting. He stood up, smiling at both new and old students.
“Welcome! Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words, and here they are! Horizon! Defenestration! Periapsis! Candela! Thank you!”
…all-right then. I decided to ignore the doubts about the old man (and his sanity), deciding to instead focus on the copious amounts of food that had now appeared in front of us.
While we were eating, the ghosts also started mingling with the students, but much to my surprise, the house ghost of Slytherin came over to me, giving me a bow. He then vanished.
Both I and the children around me stared at the ghost for a few moments, before returning to the food.
“Why’d he do that?”
“No idea.”
There was silence for a while longer, but then someone else finally spoke up.
“I think I should ask the question we all want answered – where’s your family from? We know almost everyone else in Slytherin.”
“Nobody believes us if we tell the truth, so we don’t,” I deadpanned in response, getting him to blink.
Before he could respond, I felt something touch my magic, with the intent to break through it. I threw back my spirit against the intrusion, causing a rippling sensation to flow through my mind. Whoever cast the spell touching me had to feel much worse right now, though.
Nobody was looking at me directly, so I just shrugged. They tried their best – but that wasn’t enough.
“What is the truth then?”
“Would you believe me when I told you we were taught by ponies?”
“Excuse me?”
“Thought so,” I deadpanned, before realizing two of the girls from the train were sitting near me, nodding.
“Yea, we do,” Daphne said, glancing at Tracey. I smirked at them, the rest of the Slytherins aware they were missing something but unaware what.
Eventually, the feast came to a close. The food vanished, and Dumbledore stood up again, addressing the students.
“Ahem – just a few more words, now that we have finished our dinner. I need to give you a few start-of-term notices. First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that fact,” he said, his gaze hardening a bit and staring at two third- or fourth-year Gryffindors. They were red-headed twins and grinned back.
“I’ve also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors. Quidditch trials will be held in the second week, those wishing to play for their house teams should contact Madam Hooch.”
His next words were when his eyes gained an almost steel-like quality. I could feel a suggestion mixed into his words, which I couldn’t condone too much, considering what he was saying.
“Finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side of the castle is out of bounds for all students not wishing to sustain life-threatening injuries. In other words, it’s a restricted area, stay out of it.”
I’ll check that out later.
“And now, before we go to bed, let us sing the school song!”
I’ll spare you all the following events. Whatever it was had no right to call itself music.
