It's time for another school year, but how has Hogwarts fared after being ripped up and transplanted into the realm of Equestria? Is the castle and its faculty ready for all the year entails?
It was reminiscent of his first years at Hogwarts on Earth. Harry took the train to the Crystal Empire and found himself in his old digs at Hogwarts in short order. But, things are not as they were. Minerva McGonagall has taken control of the school and is shepherding her students into a new life not just as ponies, but after the war against King Sombra's forces, protectors.
The only thing that remains same is there's a great evil threatening the peace of Hogwarts, the Crystal Empire, and the ponies, wizards, and witches that live within.
Boring. I was so glad I didn't have to spend all holiday at Hogwarts. It was nice to give Ron's mum some good news, but back in the castle I felt lonely and everything seemed cold (which for a kirin was weird). I wandered the halls remembering the previous two years, and slipped into one of my usual hangouts to get some relief.
"Harry Potter." The voice sounded that perfect mix of teenage girl annoyance, pure hatred, and mirth that was Moaning Myrtle. "You came back." It sounded less accusation and more, well, I didn't want to think too much about how relieved she sounded.
"Yeah, Myrtle. I said I'd come back." Walking into a stall, I closed the door and sat down, only for Myrtle to poke her head through the door to look at me. "Myrtle, I need a little space in here."
She looked at me in confusion. "You don't wear clothes anymore, Harry. Why would you need—?"
"I do, Myrtle. Please?"
She giggled, rolled her eyes, and pulled her head back through the door. I was just dealing with things when she asked, "Did you miss me?"
Just ignore her, Harry. Just deal with things and don't—get—angry. It was stupid to try to hold back anger. Kirin got angry. Every little slight and annoyance was another piece of kindling. I got done with things and opened the door to the stall. Walking over to the row of sinks, I used my horn to grip one and gently turn the cold water on.
Using my horn for magic like that helped relieve the pressure of my anger just a little. The tap might have started to get a little glow to it, but that wasn't enough to melt it.
It was safe to do with metal taps because, as the steam that rushed out of the tap first showed, water was great at cooling things. I washed my hooves and turned the tap off with a hoof.
She was hiding somewhere. I sighed. "I missed you."
She floated out of the floor, with a smile on her transparent face, right in front of me.
"I hope it wasn't too lonely?" I asked.
"It was horribly boring. You wouldn't believe how big and empty this castle is without all the other ghosts." Myrtle stopped in front of me and frowned. "Why would you care?"
Stopping too, because walking through ghosts felt terrible, I looked up into Myrtle's angry eyes. "Because you helped us, because you're the only ghost left here, and because I thought we were friends."
She stared back still, then she let out a sigh that was far more Myrtle-like. "You make it hard to be annoyed at you." Floating backwards and turning, Myrtle let me walk past without having to go through her. "How long until everyone comes back?"
"Everyone got their letters a few days ago. They should all be arriving over this week. I guess I'm the first?" The clip-clop of my hooves on the stones echoed from the bathroom and into the huge hallway. I turned for the main stairs and started walking.
"There's a few others already here—they never left. Horrid people who never have time for poor, poor Myrtle." She stopped when I did and looked at me in surprise. "What?"
"I just—" I shook my head. "Sometimes I forget what happened to you, Myrtle. You're allowed to feel hurt and betrayed"—I took a slow, deep breath—"but you're prettier when you aren't." Starting off again, I felt a little surprised at how the words had come out. It felt good to say them, even if I knew I was blushing under my fur.
I got all the way down the hall, around the corner, and down the next one to the foot of a staircase before Myrtle caught up with me. "You said I was pretty."
Scales and fur. Well, fur that was scales. My own body was this weird kinda pony, I'd found out, but the best thing in all Equestria was that I could blush and no one could really tell. "Did I?" I didn't walk up the stairs—like some kind of normal pony or human—I bounced and leapt off the banister to another nearby set of stairs. I completely lost track of where I was going in my bounce-dance among the mad staircases.
"Harry!" Myrtle had to fly around, over, and sometimes through the staircases to catch up to me. "Harry!"
On the ledge of the entrance to the Gryffindor tower, I paused and looked back to Myrtle. She wasn't frowning and she didn't look angry—she was smiling. "You might as well come in. There's no painting or ghost to stop you."
She finally caught up with me in the Gryffindor common room. "Harry! What did you mean by calling me pretty?"
I turned to look at Myrtle, her smile fading a little into a tight line. "I promised a pony that I would be honest and always talk from my heart. You are pretty, Myrtle, when you smile." The hard line turned to a wide-eyed look of shock and then a smile. "Like that."
If I'd seen a ghost blush before, I probably would have remembered it. Myrtle's attention seemed to shift and she looked around. "I must be the first Ravenclaw ever to see the inside of Gryffindor tower."
"Honestly? I think the houses are a bit silly." As I said it, Myrtle gasped. "Well, really! In the big war everyone was fighting to defend Hogwarts and each other. Some of the best fighters were the Slytherin. You should have seen the Hufflepuffs—they fight dirty. And the Ravenclaws were all sure of themselves too."
"But Gryffindor led the way?" Myrtle asked, her tone sounding like she was done with hearing about houses too.
"Not really. We were all just trying to hold together." I shrugged and started gesturing around. "So, this is the common room. Upstairs is the dorm rooms. Starts off with oldest on the first level, then going down to first years at the top. There's a bathroom in the middle of them all."
"A bathroom?"
She sounded so excited—I hated to bring her down. "A boy's bathroom. Some showers and a few stalls. The stairs on the other side is for the girl's tower. It's all one tower, but the magic keeps it all apart and together."
It took me a moment to realize she was up to something. When I turned to look her way, it was to see Myrtle about to kiss my cheek. My eyes widened, though, because in turning it made her lips connect with mine. We both stared at each other for a moment. Then a longer moment. Then both of us jumped backward at the same time—well, she kinda floated backward.
"Why'd you turn?!"
"Why'd you kiss me?!"
The sounds of hooves in the stone hallway that led to the common room broke us both free from the moment. I spun around to face the doorway and could now hear Ron, Fred, and George all talking loudly to each other.
Ron was first to step into the common room, looking confident and wearing some kind of big cloak that covered him from his neck back. He looked around and saw me. "Harry!" He rushed over as if I didn't have a ghost right beside me.
A quick glance revealed I didn't have a ghost beside me—Myrtle had left. "Ron! Can you believe we're third-years now?"
"Didn't think we were gonna make it?" Ron asked.
"I didn't think Hogwarts was gonna make it. Fred, George! You back for real or just dropping off Ron's stuff?" I looked around Ron at them, both had large chests they were dragging in.
"Hold ya horses, Harry. Someone else wants to talk to ya." George (at least it looked like George) used his teeth to pull a book out of a pocket of his cloak and put it on the table in the middle of the room. "Alright, come out and say hi."
Swirling pink light spun out of the book and launched itself, like a flare arcing through the sky after a football game, landing on the floor beside the table and forming a rough outline of a person. Not just any person, though— "Ginny?"
She looked like a hand-drawn sketch of Ginny, only she was really there. The lines that made her up weren't black, though, but pink. "H-Harry. It's the best I could figure out. Well, it wasn't really me, it was Twilight Sparkle who came up with it, and then Cadance taught it to me and—"
"Twilight came up with—Oh! This was the big project she was working on?" I could remember how she'd spent several days on this. Several days without actually sleeping, leaving the basement, or eating (in the kitchen, at least, Spike had taken her food down to her). When Ginny just stared at me as if I'd said something crazy, I realized she might not have known I was spending the holidays with Twilight. "Uh, I was living in Ponyville with Twilight and Spike."
"Spike?" Ginny asked.
I grinned. "Yeah. He's a cool dragon that stands about… He's a little taller than I am, but he's also the best cook you've ever met—except your mum, of course." I walked around Ginny. "The spell makes you look a little odd, but how do you feel? Can you use magic like this?"
"Hey, Ginny," Fred said, "you should give Harry a demonstration!"
Ginny looked like she was fed-up with something. "I'm not going to do that in here."
"You're probably right," George said, "Harry has already burned down one tower, and all my stuff is in this one."
"But you should see her, Harry. No one could beat Ginny at dueling. She faced off against, like, a dozen wizards who were all tryin' to hurt her friend." Ron reared up onto his back hooves and pulled his wand out—waving it around like he was doing battle.
"I just don't want anyone important to get hurt," Ginny said.
Ron dropped down to one foreleg and slipped his wand away again. "Well, no one did!"
That's when it hit me that, like Myrtle, Ginny still looked human. I didn't want to say anything about it, or about her sort of weird shape. Everything seemed like it was a hundred times more complicated than second-year. "When are the others getting here?" I asked.
George shrugged his shoulder and lifted his luggage up on the table beside Ginny's book. "No clue, but McGonagall said—"
"… she said our new house head would be comin' down." Fred rolled his eyes when he saw what George was getting out of his bag. "I can't believe you still have that thing."
Holding the salamander's log up with one hoof, George carried his pet over to the fireplace. "You leave Ember alone. He has a very sensitive tummy."
"That's because he has a taste for fireworks now. You saw what he did when he found my stash of cherry bombs?"
"You literally put them in candy wrappers. How was he to know they weren't candy?"
"That's quite the pet you've got there." The new voice came from the entrance to the common room, prompting us all to turn and see—a gaunt, red-headed man that I remembered coming through the portal just before everything went crazy. "I'm Professor Remus Lupin, and I'll be head of house Gryffindor for this school year as well as teaching defense against the dark arts."
"You know Sirius, don't you?" I asked.
"I am very good friends with your godfather, Harry, and I also knew both your parents. They called us The Marauders."
From the corner of my eye I saw George and Fred exchange a significant glance. They knew something or had something to do with Professor Lupin. I could have asked them right away, but I didn't want my bed getting filled with spiders every night for the rest of my time at Hogwarts. "So, uh, how are the houses going to work this year? Aren't we going to be short of students?"
"The headmistress said that it's more important to make a show of strength—to prove to everyone that Hogwarts is still the institution that will not be halted. As for what that means for Gryffindor, we'll have regular bedding assignments for every year, even if that means some of you have a lot more space than required. Now—" He froze mid-sentence, and I could see why.
Addera slithered in, her tail swishing along the old carpets as she approached the fireplace first and spread out her coils. "It is good to hear tradition will be upheld."
"You're, uh…" Lupin seemed a bit lost.
"Addera, sir," George said, walking over and standing beside Addera, then leaning against her.
Fred took up the other side. "She tried Slytherin for a few hundred years, but you know how it is with them…"
For a moment I was worried what Addera would do with the twins. Putting both her leg-arms around them and letting out a hiss that sounded like a giggle wasn't what I'd have expected. "It is good to be back, Fred and George Weasley." I had to remind myself that they'd helped her get her glasses.
"I'm starting to realize why the headmistress wasn't surprised by my little—" Lupin cut himself off, like he hadn't meant to say that out loud. Great, more mysteries in Hogwarts. I'm sure nothing strange will happen and land me in the middle of it. Again. "Alright then, we'll be having more students arriving over the coming week. There are some first years among the families that made it through the portal before it closed, so we'll have students in all year levels. I expect you all to welcome them to Hogwarts and—when the hat is done—Gryffindor."
"When's the sorting ceremony?" Ginny asked.
Lupin must have been told about her, at least. He turned to face her odd shape and gave his best smile. "It will be Saturday, once we have confirmed all the new first year students have arrived."
"So what now? Should we have a party to celebrate Gryffindor surviving another year?" Ron asked.
"I believe that will be an excellent idea, however I can't stay for it." Lupin's announcement silenced everyone—even Addera, Fred, and George, who had been talking by the fire. "I'll have the house elves bring your dinner up here."
He turned and left, but the moment he was out of the tower I heard Addera and the twins start to laugh. "What?"
"'Arry! Didn't you see? Mr. Lupin has been sneakin' in some spellcasting," George said, before he poked Addera in the ribs and made her break out into more laughter.
"Yeah," Fred said, "he seemed awful proper for someone with such a pretty tail."
"Well, of course he's turning. It's been months since he got here. I'm surprised he's shown this much restraint." Sounding a little annoyed with her brothers, Ginny let out a sigh. "I suppose I might as well stay out here. No point going to the girls' wing when there wouldn't be anyone else there. Harry, can you put my book into the shelf over there?"
"You can't move it?" I asked.
She shook her head. "No. It's hard to explain, but if I try to pick it up, it puts a massive strain on my magic and—and I can't do it because I'll pass out."
"Uh, okay. Well, I'll stick to using locomotion charm. I tried using unicorn-like telekinesis, but all it did was set things on fire." Casting the spell, I picked the diary up and carried it to the bookshelf and slid it between two similar books. "I put you between two similar books. I don't think anyone would even notice."
The world was in turmoil according to Princess Luna's senses. She was asleep, but in the elemental waking-sleep that served as her window into everypony's dreams. Equestria itself was calm—there was a troubled sleeper here and there, but she had promised her sister not to pop-in on anypony just because they had a test the next day or they were concerned about a friend who has the sniffles.
There were no nightmares apparent in all of Equestria, which meant it was Luna's turn to reach beyond its borders. Ponies hadn't spread nearly so far before her incident, but now she could feel happy ponies sleeping in a wide band across a huge swathe of the planet.
Not all were sleeping, however. There were some that slept only fitfully and careful to avoid full rest. The one time she'd touched their dreams, they'd been full of fire and violence. It was like the old days when monsters roamed Equestria—only these weren't nightmares. These strange ponies were the perpetrators of violence and used it against—Luna wasn't sure what exactly they were using it against, but she had a vague sense of righteousness to it.
Rodney Johnstone's dreams were hard to focus on, difficult to get more than the slightest rapport with, but she didn't need to when she had Azalea Bloom. It was a perfectly pony name, of this Luna was sure, but the bearer of it was originally human.
Stepping into the woman's dream, Luna was prepared for a lot of things, but her seducing Rodney Johnstone was about fourth down her list. "Azalea?" Luna asked. "Azalea Bloom?"
For Azalea, being pulled out of her fantasy—only removed from the actual act with Rodney by a handful of minutes—was a bit of a surprise, but not once she realized whom was doing so. "Princess Luna!"
"Please, don't be formal. How are your ponies and—and changelings faring?" It was hard to reconcile that some changelings had turned traitor to their queen's cause. Luna held to the hope that maybe she could be part of helping one of Equestria's enemies change their ways—like Twilight had done for her.
"We are holding up. The moss down here is far tastier than it has any right to be, and Mandible has organized the changelings with us into an early-warning group that alerts us witches and wizards to incoming threats." It sounded dry and tiring, and that made Azalea want to reinforce something. "The changelings have been helping a lot. It's tiring to feed them, but there're a lot of us and they can spread their feeding out."
"It sounds like you are doing well. We are still working on a way to get you out. My sister's top researcher is attempting some incomprehensible teleportation-guiding spells that make my head hurt. We haven't forgotten you." Luna hated that she couldn't just use her magic and free them, but fighting the changelings on their home ground would not be a fight Equestria would be able to undertake and expect no casualties.
"We know. I'll let the others know you are working on it still. We're trying to stir things up ourselves. Nib has been sneaking back into the hive to see about recruiting another nest-group of changelings. We estimate we could support about two-times more than are currently down here, and that many fighters might allow us the luxury of expanding upward." Pausing a moment, Azalea felt a twitch in her dream-world. "I think I'm waking u—"
Popped out of the dream, Luna sighed. "Well, that's one group that is fine for now. Let me see if I can find anypony else."
Reaching out again, Luna found a small group of ponies quickly this time, but there were other dreamers nearby. Normally she wouldn't have felt the dreams of non-ponies, but the fiery dreams she felt were like a black hole to her—and Luna was dragged into them.
The moment she entered the dream, Luna realized she had little control here—she might even be trapped. Clawing at the dream itself with her magic, Luna tried to escape, only to have a hurricane of heat focus on her.
"What are you? You're not one of my ponies!" Rake, full of fury and power, glared at the tiny creature that had invaded her dream. She stomped over to it, letting fire pour from her mouth. "I should eat you and grow stronger off your magic!"
"Wait! You have ponies with you?" Luna tried to put a shield up against the smoke and heat, though it was barely working. When she mentioned ponies, it was like a wave of fresh air. "Did they just appear through a portal? I'm trying to find—"
Rake shrank herself down a little and tried to avoid spilling so much fire. Curiosity was her weakness, or so most dragons considered it. "Do you know of Charlie? Of Simon, May, Beatrice, Belladonna, or Stefan?"
"I don't know of them directly, but I am a princess of Equestria—I want only to help and protect ponies." Putting every ounce of her heart into the missive, Luna bowed her head to Rake. "Please, I don't wish to steal from you. I only wish to ensure they are alright and pass their names on to others who came through the portals."
"It—It's hard to remember details in here. You can access their dreams?" Rake asked.
Luna tried to remember everything she knew about dragons, and most of that pointed to flattery working wonders. "Not with you dreaming nearby. You are—Your dreams are too powerful."
Snorting a burst of smoke from her nostrils, Rake lay down and put her head on the same level as Luna. "Flattery will get you everywhere with most dragons. If I wake, you can talk to them?"
Blinking in surprise at the quick use of logic, Luna nodded.
"Then—"
Again the dream popped around her and Luna was left stunned at how friendly the dragon had become. Now, however, she had to work to find those other dreamers. The dragon seemed protective, for which she was thankful, but Luna needed more information before she was prepared to sing the dragon's praises. Spotting an adult dream, she dove into it.
Charles Weasley was surprised to find a tall pony sitting in his mum's kitchen with him. She had a horn and wings and, if he was any judge of character, she had a regal bearing that was helped by her crown. "Uh, I am fairly sure I didn't dream you up."
"I am dream-walking. I came to check on you and those with you. Do you require assistance?" Luna didn't recognize the room she was in but could see it was built for humans. "The dragon guarding your dreams was—"
Intrigued at the information, Charlie locked-in on it and wanted to know everything. "Rake? How was she guarding our dreams?"
"Please, I may not have much time. I know roughly where you are, but I need to know if I need to send an army to rescue you." Luna tried to focus on the problem at hand, but she could sense the world around her bending unnaturally as Charlie questioned too much with his logical mind.
"Rake and her brother are protecting us. She's a friend." Charlie walked over to Luna and looked at her wings. "Can you fly with these?"
"The names of the others? They might—" And again Luna was shoved from the dream. Once more in the dream-between-dreams, she let out a sigh. "At least I know they're safe and with substantial friends."
Turning her attention to the weaker dreamers far away, Luna tried to reach for them only to lose her focus before she could so much as touch their dreams. Resigned to her current contacts, she scanned through Equestria again and found a pony in the midst of a nightmare.
When Luna reached for the troubled stallion, however, there was something blocking her from making contact. A sickly black cloud hung around his dreams and nothing she could do would penetrate it. "Something foul is ahoof in Equestria."
Slipping out of her own half-dream, Luna picked up her notepad from beside her bed and began recording all the details of her evening in it. The names of those she'd contacted, incomplete as they were, she'd share with Minerva McGonagall, but the most troubling was the stallion with a dream-sickness.
Draco Malfoy was the first to arrive into the Slytherin common room. Looking around, he blew out a snort at how dingy and dark the place was. Focusing on his feathers, he created a ball of yellow-white light just above his head and kept tugging his case toward the hallway that led to his suite of rooms—and stopped.
There was somewhere else he could stay. Hogwarts castle itself had offered him a room to stay in that would separate him from Slytherin and the games its students usually played. Just four months earlier he wouldn't have even considered trying to distance himself from Slytherin, but the system of the houses just seemed so small now. It felt like something imposed rather than something that grew naturally.
"What do you think, Bess?" he asked, lifting his wing and looking at the little reptilian head that poked out. "Should I stay here or make my own path?"
Bess looked at her friend and tried to wrap her head around the problem. The way she saw things, snakes should be solitary—she flicked her tongue to convey that.
"Right. Well, since I'm not a parselmouth, I guess I will just pretend you gave me support to do what I feel is right." Turning his head, he kissed Bess on her little blunt snout and made his choice.
It wasn't, in the end, a hard decision. Slytherin was all about using people and holding things over them. Before he'd always had his family, but he'd lost all that and now he had what they would all consider to be a fault—he was a boy, a colt, in a filly's body.
He hadn't survived two years of high school not to know he'd get not just ridiculed for it, but it would be seen as a sign of weakness.
Turning for the door, Draco started hauling his possessions out again. He left the Slytherin common room and headed for the main stairs. He got up two flights before he spotted movement that wasn't the stairs swinging around. Before, he'd have never even acknowledge them but, after his time with Twilight Velvet, it seemed wrong to just ignore ponies. "Potter, Weasley."
"Where're you goin', Malfoy? Don't you Slytherins prefer the dank dungeon?" Ronald Weasley asked. He couldn't help but noticed that Draco was definitely not on his way down to his house's common room. "Come on, Harry."
"Go on, Ron. I'll catch up." Harry Potter looked at the boy he'd always thought of as an enemy, and sighed. When his friend gave him a curious look before shrugging and walking off, Harry looked at Draco. "I heard what your parents did. It's—It'll be hard, D-Draco," he said, Draco's first name feeling unfamiliar in his mouth, "but if you want to talk, I—"
"I don't want pity, Potter." Draco looked upwards from where he stood, waiting for his current stairs to swing into position to advance. "I get it, but we're not friends." With that, he stepped onto the next set of stairs smoothly and made his way up and studiously ignoring the shocked look of Harry behind him.
It wasn't until Draco was in the hallway leading to his own private room that he breathed out a sigh. "I don't get it, Bess. Did he think just because we'd both lost our parents everything would be alright between us? He's a bigger fool than ever."
Bess agreed, but wasn't so committed to answering as to get Draco's attention. Their rapport was such that she could quietly agree and know that he would understand.
Approaching the spot, Draco walked past where he knew the door to be, then stepped backwards toward it. When he turned his head to look, there was a doorway there that reminded him of Twilight Velvet's front door.
Using a hint of telekinesis, Draco opened the door and stepped into the room. How Hogwarts knew what the inside of Twilight Velvet's home was like, he had no idea, but it reproduced it so perfectly he could even see several of the books he'd read sitting on the shelf of the living room.
"I don't need all this. Could you just have a ground floor and move my room to where the main bedroom is?" Draco asked. Looking around, he saw the stairs seem to retract in on themselves and fade away against a blank wall. He hauled his case over to where Twilight and Night's room would have been and opened it. "Thank you."
Draco froze. It was probably the first time he'd spoken those words in Hogwarts, or so he could remember. Being a pony was rubbing off on him in all sorts of odd ways, and only by reflecting on his interaction with Harry and Ron did he realize how much. The old Draco would have been dismissive and completely ignored them. Instead, he'd almost been neutral and, if it wasn't for the familiar setting—he might have even said hello to them.
I reached the dining hall just a little after Ron. The words I'd shared with Draco were still swirling in my thoughts as I stepped through the doorway and saw the light lunch being put on by the house elves of Hogwarts. Cheese and egg butty was the target of my eyes—and my stomach if the sounds it made at the sights and smells were anything to go by.
"Harry Potter," Addera said as she slithered up beside me. Somehow, she always just appeared without making any sound. "You ran into Draco Malfoy."
"Yeah, she seemed kinda—" How did she seem? The normal Draco would have ignored me or accused me of something—or both. Maybe even tried to make a joke at my expense. Draco had just brushed me off, but she'd also said something. "… different. Like, she didn't try to be friends or anything crazy like that, but she also wasn't actually hostile."
She sped around and past me, curling herself up at a seat and offering a spot beside her conveniently on her coils. "It sounds like time with other ponies has softened her, Harry Potter."
I bounced up and onto her scales, my hooves doing nothing to harm her. "Maybe. She was staying with Twilight's mum. I guess she's a nice pony since she raised Twilight." I shrugged and cast a Locomotion charm to pull the plate of butties closer. "I missed these so much."
"Why didn't you make them while we were at Twilight's, Harry Potter?" Reaching out her hoof, Addera pulled a tray of boiled eggs closer. I could have sworn they weren't even there a moment earlier, but that was how house elves worked.
"Cheese is annoying to make and I don't have any of the spells that let you split food." Picking up the first toasted cheese sandwich with my hooves, I bit into it and let out a happy sigh. The bread was nicely toasted and the cheese was soaked into it, gluing the egg in place.
Addera placed an egg in her mouth and bit down on it. I couldn't see her eyes because of her glasses, but her features relaxed and a big smile spread across her snout. I guess, before my time in Ponyville, I didn't recognize expressions quite so well, but ponies (and Addera's face was all pony, on the outside) were like open books now.
When she finally gulped it down, Addera reached for a second egg. "It is hot, Harry Potter, and the yolk is runny. It's wonderful!" In the second egg went.
"What'd Malfoy say, Harry?" Ron asked me. He was having one of the butties too, though from the look of the crumbs on his plate he'd already eaten a few.
"Nothin'," I said when I could gulp down some of my lunch. "She was acting weird, though. Not the usual Malfoy style of being a git. Maybe it was being around ponies."
"What do ya mean, Harry?"
"Ponies are—" No, it wasn't about what they are. "Ponies are just different. They look at things differently. Uh, different—"
"You said that already."
"Right, but it's true. Like, a pony would look at someone who's being a right Malfoy"—my joke got a snort of laughter from Ron—"and instead of walking away or telling them they're being a git, they'd find out what's wrong. They'd try to help them feel better."
"That's barmy." Ron was staring at me like I'd just told him that up was down. "How does anyone get anything done?"
"Easy," I said, reaching for another butty. "Everypony is happy."
So far, there hadn't been any adults in the room—not counting Addera. I was starting to wonder what was going on when they all poured out of a side room together. McGonagall was in the lead and took her seat quickly. Dumbledore wasn't here, but I saw Flitwick, Snape, Pomfrey, Hooch, and Hagrid come out after her. Seeing Hagrid alive and well still amazed me, but then the next lot blew my mind.
A woman with wild-looking hair strode out like she owned the place, she was followed by Sprout, then Lupin, and Sirius walked out last. What had happened that we had so many new teachers? That question lasted about three seconds in my head before I realized how stupid it was—Hogwarts had been ripped into another universe and was at half staff.
I watched them all get settled before another woman left the side door, closing it behind her. I didn't recognize who she was, but she walked upright, still had her hands, and had a long horn protruding from her forehead. Muggle-born, then, and really lucky.
"What do you make of all them, Harry?" Ron asked.
"Lot of new teachers. I wonder if we'll still get the same classes or if they'll come up with new ones, Harry Potter?" Addera asked.
I couldn't really help with Addera's question, but Ron's was straightforward. I opened my mouth to reply when I watched the mostly-human woman, who'd walked out with Lupin and Sirius, turn her head and caught her hair changing color from violet to a deep blue. It was definitely magic, but the only pony features I'd seen on her had been a tail and crystal fingers.
It didn't make sense. How could she have gone, what, three months without using magic? She was using it right now by changing her hair!
"I don't know, Ron. There's a lot of new faces. How do you think that woman's changing her hair and stuff without turning into a pony?" I asked, trying not to point at her in case I'd get in trouble.
"Dunno, Harry, but it's a neat trick. Here, isn't that your uncle or something?"
"Sirius? He's my godfather. He's been really busy, though, and he sent a letter explaining that it was safer for me to be away from the Crystal Empire while school isn't on. His friend there is Lupin, I think. They were both Dad and Mum's friends." The rush of emotion I felt at the reminder of my real parents' fate still stung, but I didn't really know what to do about it. All that stuff was back on Earth, and from what everyone says (even Twilight) we can't get back there. "I don't know who the last one is either."
"She is lucky, Harry Potter. A unicorn horn seems to be key to using magic without a wand." Addera found a plate of scotch eggs and pulled three of them onto her plate. They smelled so good that I reached out and grabbed one too.
"Don't look now, Harry, but Malfoy just walked in," Ron said.
I turned to look and saw her. She wasn't wearing her Slytherin colors at all, instead wearing what looked like a kilt with a jacket covering her from her back knees all the way forward to her neck. Her eyes caught mine and we both looked away.
"I bet the other Slytherins turn up soon and they get all chummy again. What do you think she wanted upstairs?" Ron asked.
"No clue. We could finish lunch early and go try to find out." I used my Locomotion charm to pluck a scotch egg from the tray.
That's when I saw Draco, without casting a single spell, make her knife and fork animate and start filling her plate with fish and chips. Where was the glow coming from? How was she doing it without a wand? I had so many questions and I couldn't ask her because she was just about the most annoying pony in the school.
"Is she using magic without a wand or horn?" Ron asked.
I nodded. "Yeah, seems to be. Do you think she'd tell us how she does it?"
"Doubt it. When do you think anyone else is going to—?" Ron cut off sharply, looking at the door.
When I turned my head, I saw the others from Gryffindor walking in. George had his salamander ridding on his bare back, Fred walked at his side, trying to poke the salamander into doing something while carrying Ginny's book on his back.
That's when it hit me that even as ponies they had the same coloration. That was going to drive people even crazier than their normal antics.
"Please take your seats." McGonagall's voice echoed through the chamber. Having been focused on the twins, I hadn't even seen her stand up and approach the lectern. "You are here early, which means I will be employing all of you to assist any new students in their integration into Hogwarts' society. You Weasley boys, I want you on your best behavior. You can take any new Gryffindor students under your metaphorical wings."
"Miss, we're not exactly—"
"Do not fear, I expect your best behavior, George Weasley, not the best behavior of other students." It was a shock to hear McGonagall give the twins free rein to have fun with their task, but I guess she knows them better than I do. "I can practically feel you wanting to say something, Mr. Malfoy. Out with it."
"I don't want to be in Slytherin."
Seven words I'd never expected Draco to say. What was going on? This was crazy.
"Headmaster, I have a room I'd rather stay in, if that's okay? I just—" Draco stood up and looked around the hall. "I'm a pony now. I want to be a pony. Ponies don't live in dank dungeons."
McGonagall wouldn't go in for it, surely. I mean, I kinda got what Draco meant, but this is Hogwarts. You can't just tell them to shove a thousand years of tradition.
"Very well. You realize this will mean you cannot compete in quidditch?" McGonagall asked.
"That's okay. I only played because—because my father told me I had to." I expected Draco to collapse a little after saying that—she'd seen her parents die. But if anything she sat up straighter and seemed focused on McGonagall.
"Then that's settled. You have probably all noticed we have some old faces up here as well as new ones. Now that our situation seems more or less stable, I've sought a change in curriculum. Defense Against the Dark Arts will be widened to simply Defense—and for that you have Professor Lupin." Half turning, McGonagall gestured to Remus Lupin, who stood up and smiled before taking his seat again.
"Charms will continue under the very capable administration of Professor Flitwick." After McGonagall said his name, Flitwick stood up and likewise smiled and nodded before returning to his seat.
"Professor Snape will continue his tenure teaching potions, but his class will cover a wider field of Alchemy and Chemistry." It was Snape's turn to bow, and I was reminded that he was a kirin like me. Unlike me he'd managed to tame his hair down to a similar look to when he was human.
"Professor Sprout will expand Herbology into Horticulture." When McGonagall gestured, Sprout stood up and gave a little nod—though she didn't smile.
"Madam Hooch will, of course, continue to teach broom flight to anyone who wishes it, but now she can teach pegasi how to use their wings, too." McGonagall gestured to Hooch, who stood up and ruffled her wings. She was wearing some kind of shirt with holes in the back for her wings.
"Professor Hagrid will be teaching Care of Magical Creatures, however he will share stewardship of the class with Madam Pomfrey. Care will include medical care." Both the named teachers stood, Hagrid giving a little wave to us while Pomfrey nodded very slightly.
"Professor Tonks will be teaching Transfiguration. You can rest assured that if there was anyone in this or any other world whom is my equal on this topic, it is her." The woman with the wild hair stood up and her whole body changed. In a moment there was no more Tonks but a second McGonagall who giggled and waved at us. It was terrifying. "Thank you, Professor, please don't try giving the Weasley boys any ideas." Rolling her eyes up, Tonks dropped the McGonagall shape and slipped down into a crystal pony that looked just like Fred and George.
Elbowing Fred (at least I think it was Fred), George said, "I think I'll like Transfiguration this year."
"There remains two more classes that will officially be run by Hogwarts staff. These are entirely new to our curriculum. The first will be a class in Offensive Magic. This will build upon the dueling some of you learned last year and I hope will make the students of Hogwarts far less targets than they have shown to be in the past. Professor Sparks will be teaching this." The woman with the wild hair stood, and seemed to be able to both straight-backed and slouching at the same time. She looked to have been half-blood, so while she seemed comfortable standing up, she had no hands—but had scored a horn.
"The second class will be optional. Professor Black"—McGonagall paused a moment—"will be teaching how to become and how to control being an animagus." When she gestured to him, Sirius (a pure-blood crystal pony without horn or wings) jumped up onto the table and his body flowed down and out into the shape of a black wolfhound. He looked around us all, bowed, then took his seat again—becoming pony again.
"Why we are introducing you to these classes should be obvious, you are going to assist us in settling new and old students." McGonagall gestured to us.
"I bet she wanted to test out her speech, too," Ron said, then froze as everyone turned to look at him—including the teachers.
"While I wouldn't have put it quite so bluntly, Mr. Weasley, you are correct. These are not insignificant changes. We have had to cut several classes completely, but felt it more important to maintain some level of normalcy rather than abort the school year while we seek new teachers." McGonagall sounded a little tired. Had she been practicing this? Was she panicking about having to run the school herself?
"What about the heads of each house?" Fred asked. "We got Professor Lupin…"
Sprout spoke up, "As last year, I will be head of house Hufflepuff."
"And I Slytherin." Snape seemed to glare at Draco as if he could make her catch fire with just the force of his eyes—for all I knew that might be a power kirin got as adults. It would certainly explain why they kept burning their village down.
Everyone looked at Draco. Not having a house seemed like the craziest thing in the world, but—but I think if the alternative was being surrounded by Slytherins, I might take that option too. Maybe she was onto something.
"When you're all done eating, feel free to take your leave. Just be aware that we're expecting students to begin arriving over the next several days." McGonagall left the lectern and returned to her seat.
This was going to be weird.
When the last of the students had marched out of the hall, Jenny Sparks deflated a little. She couldn't believe it had all come down to this. She was meant to be a keeper of the peace. She took all the little bumps that witches and wizards made and smoothed them out so that muggles and wizardkind could all live cozy and happy lives.
Now she was a teacher at Hogwarts. Hogwarts! She looked at the others, thankful that Albus Dumbledore wasn't still here. "So, my teaching plan was okay?"
"You mean the one where you teach all the students how to throw fire, fire, and more fire?" Sirius Black asked. "It sounds great! I heard Rolanda is a master at water magic now." Manic sarcasm wasn't just his defense in Azkaban, it was a way of life.
It was the kind of camaraderie that Jenny could remember in her training days. She raised a hoof and sent a little jolt of magic up her horn in a wordless spell akin to her namesake. "Might want to stay close to her, then. I hear fur burns real well."
Severus Snape had the luxury of seeing someone else not just antagonize Sirius, but actually get under his skin. But he was here for a reason. Gingerly, using a knife and fork, he dissected the scotch egg on his plate and peeled the crumbing away first, then the meat, and finally had the three components separate on his plate. That's when he finally started eating.
Relaxed to be once more inside Hogwarts, Rubeus Hagrid tossed egg after egg in his mouth, chewing each once or twice before gulping them down, much like a full human might eat popcorn. Holding up his fork, he gestured forward at an imaginary foe. "An' then he was all panicking about somethin' or the other, so I 'it 'im with the cell door. Strange place, that Azkaban, no animals about."
A little overwhelmed by Rubeus, Nymphadora just managed to nod at the wild story he was telling. Azkaban was meant to be some terror used to threaten young witches, but he made it sound like some kind of crazy adventure. "What about the dementors?"
"Oh, them. Well, we weren't lettin' them in on account of closing all the doors and such. That's when the dragon attacked and someone ripped a wall off the place. Right inconvenient that, though they only seemed interested in them death eaters." Rubeus leaned back in his oversize chair, ignored its creaking, and gazed up at the ceiling. "I'm still reminded, sometimes, of the sound that dragon made as it clawed at the enchanted stones. Right 'orrible it was. Not a normal dragon at all if'n you ask me."
The story, if just half of it was real, was amazing. "How'd you get away?" Nymphadora asked.
"Well, me trusty old bike—I guess it was technically Sirius' bike—was always good at turning up when needed, and by gosh weren't it needed. We piled on, rode the bike back to the coast and caught the Knight Bus to the portal and through it." When Rubeus saw that Nymphadora looked incredulous, he shrugged his big shoulders. "'M not embelish'n or nothin'. That's the honest truth, that is."
It would have been completely unbelievable if Nymphadora didn't know that Alastor Moody had come back with them. She let out a sigh—Hogwarts had always been filled with characters, now she was one of them. "I guess we could have a drink of something and discuss it further. I'm curious about what the place was like."
"I'll need a stiff drink or two to spend any time thinkin' hard about that place. I mostly just try to forget it. Maybe we could ask—Sirius." Rubeus looked over at the man he'd wrongly thought guilty. "Thinkin' I owe him a few drinks at that. Hey, Sirius, Tonks 'ere wants to know about Azkaban. Join us in a drink or two later?"
Glad to have a diversion from the crazy (to him) fire witch, Sirius Black turned his attention to Rubeus and smiled. "Sure thing, old friend. We'll drink long into the night and remember things fond and not." The sound of Minerva McGonagall clearing her throat pulled him back to reality. "No more than one or two, of course."
"How much you drink is your own business, Professor Black, except when it's done in Hogwarts castle." Minerva turned her full glare on Sirius. "Keep it until after the last class and see that it's no more than two."
Sirius, who was in a bit of panic, relaxed and smiled at Minerva's demand. "Of course, Headmistress."
Hermione Granger hadn't changed too much from arriving in Equestria and using magic. She had hands, she had mostly human features, and she had her supportive parents—but she also had a tail that was every bit as unruly as her hair was, she had hooves, and she had supportive parents. "Mum, it's never going to brush out neatly."
Mrs. Angelique Granger didn't often frown, but her daughter's hair had always caused her perpetual smile to wane just a little. Having discovered that her daughter's tail was just as unruly had brought her dangerously close to a thin-lipped glare. "I'm sure with another hour of—"
"Mum!"
"Well"—Angelique clicked her tongue with the same sharpness she'd use in her dentistry practice when seeing the result of a lack of brushing—"we can't just leave it like this. What if we gave it some body, like with your hair, so that it spreads out a little better?"
"It was just fine, Mum." Hermione looked at the clock on the table beside her. She'd been perched there for nearly twenty minutes while her mother was trying to divine a way to tame her tail, but now things were getting too close. "I'll be late if I don't go now."
Her daughter was an ongoing conundrum to Angelique. Even with the latest changes, she'd been as supportive as she could, but things had become problematic when they'd had to just abandon their practice in England and skip not just to another country—but another world entirely.
"Have a good day, dear, and remember to have a little fun." Angelique waited for Hermione to get down from the table to kiss her on the forehead.
"I will, Mum."
As she watched her daughter run out of the crystalline home she now resided in, Angelique felt her husband approach and put his arm around her. "I can't for the life of me work out what to do with her hair."
"She'll figure it out. I was talking to the headmaster of the school, and she said it's a common trait for witches to have wild, untameable hair." Mr. David Granger, gave his wife a kiss on the cheek. "I talked to Cadance—the empress, it's still hard getting used to having such royalty just there and willing to talk. She's right happy to have a dentist opening up. She didn't sound the least bit put off by having us not be wizards."
"You can't say we didn't do well off the weird folk back home. Those galleons had so much gold in them we had a small fortune just from the odd case we took." Turning in her husband's arms, Angelique kissed him firmly enough that he wasn't able to reply for well after the kiss. "What is the currency like here? Comparable?"
"I worked that out, too. The local coin for here and Equestria are bits. They come in gold, copper, silver, and aluminium—value wise, in ascending order." David waited for his wife's eyebrows to raise. "Sadly, all those gold coins we got are almost worthless here, but darling, remember the cookware you made me promise to haul?"
A case of the giggles overtook Angelique. "The aluminium cookware?"
"I'll never doubt you again, Angie." It was easy stand there, his wife in his arms, and just let the world flow by, but David had more to do—they both did. Eventually he said, "So, we need to open our practice back up."
"There's no Diagon Alley here, though. Where will we find magical medical supplies? Or any medical supplies, for that matter?" Angelique used another kiss to distract her husband and slip from his grip. "For that matter, do we need any qualifications?"
"We'll need an assistant or three. Plus, if there're any differences in equipment here, we'll need some training with it. Cadance said we should visit Canterlot and investigate these things." Following Angelique to the bench, David helped her prepare two bowls of oat porridge.
"No matter where we end up, Dave, we'll always find people—or ponies—who need to have their teeth cleaned, straightened, and replaced," Angelique said.
I fell onto the bench in the great hall, not quite panting, but also lacking enough energy to get angry and just burn the whole castle down. That would have been how a wizard would have dealt with this.
The whole day, showing returning and new students around, had been tiring—but also exciting. After two years at Hogwarts, I was finally well-known for who I was and not something my parents had done.
The professors had all been waiting in their various rooms, and as I led around a third group of ten students, one had asked Professor Sparks what her class on offensive magic was going to be about.
"Fire," I said, tasting the word and feeling excitement start to push back at the lethargy of the day. It also served as a wake-up call to another of my hungers. First I set my glasses down, then jumped to my hooves, looked around to get my bearings, and slipped under the table then over a row of benches to get into the fireplace.
I let my anger boil. I glared at the small fire consuming the logs already and spat a curse at them—burning them up in seconds—then spent the next ten minutes stomping around in a circle and letting my own fire replace the wood as heating for the room.
That's when I glanced up and saw her standing there, looking at me in confusion. Draco Malfoy.
Anger, though, was the last thing I wanted to let target anyone when I was like this. Shaking my head and banishing what little fury was left by sending a plume of flame up the chimney and out into the Crystal Empire sky, I let normalcy reassert itself. "Malfoy."
The worst bit was I admired what she was doing. Like me, she'd embraced being a pony. She'd even defied being a Slytherin.
Looking back at me, Malfoy's eyes narrowed. "What do you want, Potter?" A moment after it left her lips, she looked a little surprised by it.
"Nothing. I just—I just thought it odd you left Slytherin when they're having so much trouble."
"Yeah? Well, it turns out that when your family is rich and comfortable, they don't tend to want to go to a new world where they won't be either. That's what my father said. I guess there is an advantage to being a poor mud-blood." She turned away from me a moment after my fire flared again.
I wanted to scream at her and tell her she was being a git. That we should all work together and protect each other—My flames sputtered out, though, when I realized how I felt about her. Just being around her got me angry.
"Harry? Are you okay?" Another feminine voice this time, and one I knew better. Turning, I saw Hermione looking at me.
"Yeah. Just hadn't gotten enough anger out today." Shaking to get most of the ash off my hooves, I bounced out of the fireplace just as a house-elf started setting a fresh fire in it. "Sorry," I said to them.
The house-elf shrugged at me, lit the fire, and vanished again.
"Do you think they'll ever turn into ponies?" I asked Hermione.
"Harry…"
"Huh?" I looked up at Hermione, trying to figure out what she was upset about. Witches, I had learned, were about as predictable as a quidditch snitch.
Huffing out a breath, Hermione narrowed her eyes at me, not saying a word. This meant I was probably not going to be able to get to talk to her for a few days unless I answered just right. Okay, let's try not lying. "Sorry, I just get really worked up every now and again and—We haven't really figured out how to stop, so I just need to spend some time really angry each day."
"Oh." She looked and sounded surprised. Did it work? "Sorry, Harry, in all this—this—I kinda lost track of everything going on in everyone else's lives. How is—err—how are you taking this kirin thing?"
I did it? I did it! Wow, either I got better at this, or I was just really lucky. "It's a bit surreal. All the unicorns can do magic with their horns to pick things up and stuff, but when I try it, things just catch on fire. It's like every spell I do now wants to be fire unless I tell it not to."
She seemed to reassert her normal self. "Well, if that's how magic is now, that's how it is. Are you excited to try the new classes? I know I want to try some of that new Transfiguration teacher's spells. She said a lot of her abilities are just part of her, but I think she has to be lying about that. It wouldn't work unless she wasn't fully human, and I know you're going to say that no witch or wizard is pure human, but that's not what I mean and you know it."
Forget everything I just thought, witches are still crazy and I was probably just lucky. I nodded to her, then shook my head, as seemed right to do. Rescue finally came by way of Addera slithering up to us and then around us so that she had us both kinda trapped.
"Hello, Harry Potter. Are you prepared for dinner?" Addera asked.
I shuffled sideways and leaned my head against her pony body. It was always such a relief to have Addera around. Even back in Ponyville, some days just went so poorly that I couldn't wait until I could curl up in her coils and let her be between me and the world. Learning that everything I touched with magic from my horn caught fire was one such. "Yeah. Didn't you eat yesterday?"
"I did, but I have been trying to keep myself to smaller meals. Using magic more often helps with that, Harry Potter, since I can burn up a lot of energy that way." She turned in a circle quickly, gathering her tail around just the two of us and then picked me up with the very end of it balanced under my hooves. "It means I can spend more time with you and your friends."
Hermione interrupted, saying, "We should probably take our seats. There aren't as many Gryffindor students now, but the newer students came in first and we need to get seats behind them."
"Behind?" Addera asked.
"They'll have the sorting ceremony. It's important to leave room at the front for first-years." In full instructor mode, Hermione seemed happier. "Then Prof—Headmistress McGonagall will call them up one by one, put the hat on them, and see what it says."
Addera set me into a comfortable coil of her body and then followed Hermione to the bench—well back from the front. "That seems inefficient. Why not use many hats, Hermione Granger?"
"There's only one sorting hat. It's a rite of passage for new students to be sorted, and the hat is good at creating the right amount of pomp and pageantry for such an event. It will be odd not to have Dumbledore here for it." Taking her seat, Hermione seemed so much bigger now—though she had shrunk a little, it was more a case of me having shrunk a lot.
"When does the food come out?" Addera asked.
"We wait until after the sorting," I said, finding a nice cozy coil to sit on.
And that's when the flood came. A rush of students that seemed to fill the great hall poured in, only to filter out as the new ones, few though they were, crowded to the front and the older students shifted back to the benches.
It shouldn't have been surprising that most of the new students didn't have any signs of becoming a pony, they shouldn't even have wands yet, let alone be casting spells. That was true, at least, for the human ones. Looking proud as could be, four pony foals were standing at the front with the new students—all of them unicorns.
"So, what do you think, Harry?" Fred asked as he inched closer to me. "Which house do you think gets the most?"
"Are you taking bets?" I asked.
"What? Me? Of course not, harry." Fred gestured to George.
George, who was balancing a bunch of little coins on his hoof, looked over at me. "Taking bets is my job this time. How many will I put you down for?"
"Including the ponies?" I asked, and got a nod. "Make it seven." Reaching into my pack, I pulled out one of the smallest coins I had, a gold bit, and flicked it to George.
The bits were a gift from Twilight, and while I didn't want to just give them away, a gold bit wasn't worth much.
"A gold one!" George turned it over on his hoof. "How much is this worth, 'Arry?"
I snorted. "Their currency is all messed up here, George. Gold coins are almost worthless. It's the big disks of aluminium that are the biggest value." When he stared at me like I'd gone crazy, I nodded. "It's true."
"Here they go," Fred said.
Ron, for all his brothers being really excited about the sorting, was staring at his wand. He still didn't have a new one, his brother's old one (that Charlie had actually made himself) sat on the bench before him.
"Hey, Ron, you're still using Charlie's wand?" I asked him.
"Yeah. It likes me, I like it, and Mum helped me learn a few things it's really good at. Willow, they say, is really good at doing healing magic." He lifted out a little bottle of oil and a cloth, then set to work polishing the gnarled and irregular wand.
"Willow is also good for protective magics." Hermione looked far more in her element, what with getting to correct Ron on something.
"Of course it is. That's why I'm going to focus on brawling and magic spells to help me get close. That way I can just thump a wizard with a brick or something." Reaching into his coat, I saw Ron pull out half a brick and set it on the table. Then he pulled out a weighted beater bat with his hoof. "I've been practicing with Fred and George. They know all the—"
"… right and—" George said.
"… wrong places—" Fred said.
Ron smirked and nodded to his older brothers. "… to hit someone. It mostly translates to ponies, too, but I've had to talk to the guards at the palace."
Hermione looked horrified. She turned away from our conversation—the sorting being more interesting to her.
"Well, I guess I'd rather be hit on the head and wake up later than have someone use a memory charm on me. But still, Ron, how is that going to help you against other wizards and witches? Or anything magical for that matter?" I asked.
Ron tilted his chin up in the display he always got when he had done something he was actually proud of. "Ask Ginny. I've been getting her help to get used to resisting and countering spells."
"Where is—?" was as far as I got before Fred pulled out Ginny's diary. A moment later Ginny manifested herself and sat down beside me. "Hi, Ginny."
"Hello, Harry." She looked both odd and familiar at the same time. It was definitely Ginny's voice and her outline, but there was little but drawing lines making up where her body should be. "Thanks for reminding Fred."
"I'm—That is—" I stopped to take a breath. There was something good about having this group back together. Ginny hadn't been part of us as a group long, but she was a Weasley through and through. "It's good to have us all back together."
"You wouldn't believe how often Ginny had been asking about you," Ron said.
"Ron!" Ginny's shout echoed around the great hall in a moment of silence.
A throat-clearing followed it, then the gravely voice of the sorting hat said, "Ron. Ronald Weasley. Perhaps I should have put you in Slytherin?"
Laughter echoed through the great hall. Even the Slytherins themselves laughed. Ron seemed like he wanted to bury his face under the table.
Ginny smirked at him, but turned her attention back to me. It was odd, though, I noticed the linework of her form seemed a little pinker. Then it dropped back to almost-black. "It's odd, though. In the book, when I go to class, it's all Tom's memories of Hogwarts, so I have to keep going to all the stupid Slytherin meetings and common room."
"I bet that's weird, Ginevra Weasley." Addera kept facing the front, watching the sorting progress. "Have you learned any insights as to why Draco Malfoy would have left Slytherin?"
"I didn't really—I mean, if he has a brain-cell between his ears, he'd get out of there just to not have to deal with them." Ginny seemed so certain of that I couldn't help from grinning.
"I take it you don't fancy spending time there either?" I asked.
Ginny's snort seemed so like her old self I could forget that it had come from a magic construct. "All I can say is it is a lot of fun when I practice dueling against them."
"You enjoy beating them up, Ginevra Weasley?" Addera asked.
"It—A little. Whenever I'm not dueling against them, they're plotting things against me, or rather they're plotting against Tom. Also, they're not real. I can beat them up and it's the same as punching a sack of grain." Shrugging her shoulders, Ginny actually managed to look confused about the line of questions—her head was tilted a little to the side and she'd crossed her arms.
Fred Weasley looked through his notepad and smirked. "'Ave a gander at this." He showed the page to George, whose face lit up just as wide as his own. "Not a single one bet five."
"You heard what 'Arry said, right? Aluminium's worth more'n gold here." George pulled out the gold coins he'd thought had made him rich and grumbled as they rolled back down his hoof and back into his little pouch. "Lucky we didn't bring any galleons, eh?"
"Is silver worth anything? I got a lot of sickles. Easier to move than galleons an' all that." Reaching back to his own coinbag, Fred felt the weight of it. "We should have somethin' quick and head back. Don't want to miss a chance to teach the newbies about doing some fleecin'. Never know when Gryffindor might get some new talent."
"You think we'll get to play quidditch this year?" George picked up his knife and fork and dove into the vegetarian lasagna that had appeared on the table.
Shoveling food as fast as his twin, Fred shrugged his pony shoulders. "Beats me, but we'll need more gaffer tape if we do."
"We all will. At least we can duplicate it." George paused a moment after he said it, then turned to see Fred was staring at him with the same, knowing grin. "There's out big grift for the year. We need to find all the gaffer tape, replace it with Geminied tape, and then sell our own Gemini tape—made to last a day at most—of course."
"Of course." Fred felt a rush of excitement—the same he always felt when they'd put together a plan to make a pile of coin. Of course, most of the time their plans fizzled partway through, but it wasn't about the destination, it was the mischief they made along the way.
"No one would be stupid enough to stay taped to their broom more than a day, right?" As he asked it, George's face got a bigger and bigger grin, and he watched the same blossom on his brother's face.
"Unless someone messed with the sticky part, you mean?" Fred asked.
"More or less." George pushed his plate away and stood up. "More… or less?" His grin didn't fade as Fred stood up along with him and they both left the great hall.
As they dodged around stairs and made their way through Hogwarts, George asked, "We're going to have trouble if someone else gets the same idea."
They both paused at the top of a staircase that was slowly swinging to align with the balcony that contained the entrance to the Gryffindor tower, and said, "Filch."
Stepping off the stairs, the pair made their way just inside the tower entrance before pulling out their map—the Marauder's Map. George drew his wand and tapped the map in Fred's hooves. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."
"There 'e is. Filch is in his office. Probably eating."
"Missus No—"
"None of that." Meara Norris glared at Argus Filch. "I have a first name, Argus, you spoke it at our ceremony."
"I—I couldn't—" Slumping down to his knees, Argus leaned against Meara's legs. When her soft hand met his hair, he started to weep.
Crouching down, wearing not a stitch of clothing, Meara tilted his jaw up to look into Argus' eyes. "Tell me what happened."
"F-From the start?"
"No, Argus, from when things returned to normal."
Just the sound of his name on her lips was pure joy. "The spell broke along with all the other charms and wards. That was months ago. When I found you, you were in your favorite spot, in the morning sun, but—
"You were human again, Meara." It was the first time he'd spoken her name in so long and it teased more tears from him. "I carried you to my quarters and put you in my bed. The house-elves helped feed you and—and—"
"It's alright, Argus. Now, did the spell at least work? Were you able to do magic?" Meara asked.
"No. That's the worst of it. All this time and I still have no more magic than any other squib." Jumping to his feet, anger filled Argus. "It's not fair, Meara! Why don't I have magic but they do?!"
"Argus Archibald Filch!" Done with the whining tone before it had even fully started, Meara invoked Argus' full name. "This is inappropriate behavior. What year is it?"
"N-Nineteen Ninety-Three."
It was a fight not to reveal her pain at losing so many years, but Meara managed it. "You will be a wizard, Argus, thirty years or so is nothing to a wizard." She looked around the sleeping quarters. "Do you have my wand still?"
Walking over to the nightstand, Argus reached for the bottom drawer—its handle covered in dust. "I also have your clothes, your hat, and everything you had with you that night."
When he carefully laid her shirt, dress, robe, and hat before her, Meara felt her heart soar at the site of her things. After those, and while she started getting dressed, Argus set down her wand, several rings, a key, and a necklace.
When she had her dress and shirt on, she reached out her hand and touched her wand. Years of catching up focused down to a minute moment and Meara let out a laugh of pure joy. She reached out for her robes next and pulled them on, then her rings, necklace, and finally her hat. "Are you ready for the next attempt, Argus?"
Shrinking back a little as she picked up her wand for the second time, Argus forced himself to remember who and what Meara meant to him. "M-Meara! Be careful with your magic. Using it will—"
"I haven't forgotten events before I passed out, Argus. I know that becoming partly equine isn't just unavoidable, it's required. We came from different worlds, you and I, which is why this will be easier for me than for you. We will persevere."
Biting his lower lip to keep from warning her further, Argus watched as Meara's fingers changed from human flesh and bone to the strange crystalline form of a crystal pony's flesh. The spell she was working on was one he'd seen worked before, but last time she'd reversed it at the last minute and directed it at herself.
This time, as she worked the spell, Meara kept it aimed true at Argus. The magic wasn't weak, by any stretch of the imagination, so she felt more and more of her body changing from the casting. "What will we make of you?"
"I still need my job, here!" Argus watched in awe as a small glowing dot on Meara's forehead started extending outward, growing into a long, crystalline horn. He gasped just in time to feel the spell take effect.
Meara's magic followed her will but it also drew on the nature of the world itself. When she thought of a small reptilian creature capable of manual labor, she expected a kobold or lizardman, what she witnessed unfolding was Argus growing feathers.
A feeling akin to pins and needles dialed up to eleven rushed across Argus. In the wake of the sensation a swarm of feathers sprouted from his skin and puffed out their vanes. A raucous pattern of coloring from green to yellow and orange to bright red spread out. Large talons formed out of his feet—ripping his shoes apart—while his hands formed into hand-like versions of the same.
The strangest change for him, though, was watching his beak grow-in and push forward from his face. He reached his hand-claws up and felt as the big, curved beak formed and it shifted his face around to suit it.
"Well, that's not quite what I planned. How do you feel, Argus?" Meara already approved of her new familiar's appearance. The colors, strength, and youthful appearance of him lacked just one thing to be perfection.
"Amazing, Meara. I haven't felt this young in twenty years!" Flexing his arms and claws, Argus Filch ran one hand down his feathers and laughed. "How soon before we know if it worked?"
"The bond is just starting, Argus. Here, reach for my magic and make your hand light up." The bond of witch and familiar was still tenuous, but Meara let her magic flow down it to Argus.
Argus knew many ways to make light. He'd studied spells—wand gestures, pronunciation, hand gestures, and even intent—but none of it had ever worked because he had lacked magic. Now, bereft of a wand, not having a human larynx, and hands shaped more for their claws than ability to gesture, he only had the magic. And the magic, combined with his intent, was enough.
A glowing sphere of light appeared in Argus' hand. Both he and Meara stared at it for several seconds before either of them could blink.
"We did it," Argus said, before he felt Meara's arm around him, pulling him against her side.
Meara had been unable to resist working the boon of youth into her familiar bond with Argus. "You did it."
"It was definitely a pony. A princess." Rake spat into the dirt around the small group of huts they'd built in the grasslands—then had to stomp on the flames she'd accidentally made. "All kinds of powerful dream magic, but she couldn't get past me."
Charles Weasley rolled his eyes and laughed. "Yeah, she wasn't happy about that, but thanks for letting her talk. She seemed worried about where we are and if we're safe. Can you believe she wanted to send an army to rescue us?"
"Why would you need an army? You have dragons." Rake gestured away the question with one talon. "We could still go looking for your family."
"I know they're safe, they know I'm fine. We can communicate any time we want—but it would be nice to go back around New Year or so." Charlie flicked an ear when he felt something touch it, then shook his whole head when he felt it again. "These damn flies are annoying." The extra weight on his forehead was starting feel natural.
"They don't bother me," Rake said, blowing a little smoke.
Barking a laugh, Charlie stood up. "How're things going with the cats?"
"None within half a day's flight in any direction. Those cow-beasts are moving closer, but they'll probably leave if they realize there are predators here." Rake rolled her shoulders and stretched out her wings. Since growing her adult scales, she'd grown and grown and grown—to the point where she'd been worried it might be greed growth.
Standing up and walking around to Rake's side, Charlie reared up and started working his hooves into the softer scales—and muscles—of Rake's wing and shoulder. "Joints still sore?"
Drawing a deep breath to spit literal fire at the hint of being called weak, Rake flopped onto her belly and instead moaned out bubbles of liquid-like smoke. "Don't ever stop that, please?"
"Only to swap sides. You're growing a lot, Rake. I have no idea how you get enough energy to do what you do and grow, but even I can tell you have growing pains. Limbs getting bigger, stronger, and heavier—while your muscles and tendons are still catching up. Take a few days off flying—walking too. Just laze around a bit and spend some time with your hoard." Feeling the tense muscles, Charlie worked his hooves into them and slowly rolled the knots out.
"How do you know so much about dragons?"
Charlie didn't stop massaging, but he did turn his head to look into the one closed draconic eye he could see. "Are you actually asking me that?"
Rake couldn't summon the energy to want to move. "I mean Equestrian dragons. Your dragons are—"
"Big, dumb critters that like to fly around when they're growing from juvenile to adult—too." No other dragon would take the barbs he gave Rake, mostly because none of them would recognize the hint of humor he added to them.
Laughing, Raking sighed. "It's like its not even my body anymore. I'm getting so much bigger I thought I was greed-growthing."
"I'll concede there are some things I don't know about. What's up with greed-growth?"
"We've talked a bit about it before. It's when a dragon gets too greedy for their own good or when they think they own too much. A dragon is as big as their ego." Rake was about to complain as Charlie stopped, only to feel him climb up and over her back to start on the other side. "And here I am, surrounded by six giant, walking diamonds who all swore allegiance to me. No wonder I got huge."
"Huge is good." Finding similar knots in the muscles on Rakes other side, Charlie started into them. "Huge is powerful. Are there any downsides to greed-growth?"
"Eventually the dragon will wake up to the fact they aren't rich, then they shrink again."
"Wait, so let me get something straight, this only affects young dragons, since adult dragons are already too insular and self-serving to get off their butts even if a mountain was going to fall on them?"
"Mmmm…" Rake let the groan taper off without a reply at first, but finally she nodded just a little. "Pretty much."
"Then what's the difference between greed-growth and actually growing up, if dragons just become greedy and self-important anyway?"
Rake opened her mouth to reply, then closed it again and let rings of smoke pop out her nostrils one at a time. When Charlie didn't say anything else in five minutes, she sighed. "There needs to be some kind of talk to explain all this."
"Rake"—Charlie climbed up onto her back and found the muscles that crossed her spine—"it might surprise you to learn this, but I don't think Torch was a good teacher." The muscles here took a lot more work to get to—a hard plate of interlocked and fused large scales protecting her spine.
Laughing, flexing her claws and stretching out even more, Rake barely managed to say, "I think you're right, but who else would have the job?" before a groan of bliss stole her ability to talk.
"Fire is life. There is no simpler way to put it. Fire is how we fight against the chill weather. Fire is how we prepare food and make it safe and more edible. Fire is how we work longer days as it allows us to see into the night. Fire is how we protect ourselves from the things that hunt the dark corners of the world." If I had to guess, listening to Professor Sparks, I would think she liked fire. "Fire is also one of the more grand spells a wizard or witch can use to protect themselves—and I emphasize that. Fire makes for terrible offensive magic. Can anybody tell me why?"
For the first time in my life I didn't see Hermione raise her arm at a question. It was unsettling and her own face registered a similar shock that I felt inside.
"Anyone? No? It's because it is too flashy. Fire, also, has many counters for it from shields to scatter it, water to douse it—in fact, there are three perfect ways to deal with fire magic." Drawing on the board with chalk in her red crystalline hand, the professor drew a triangle and wrote at each corner. "Heat. Magic. Air. If you can remove any one of these, a fire spell will fail."
"Not Fiendfyre," Draco said from one side. No one was in the chair beside or behind her, and being in the front corner of the rows meant she was practically alone in the sea of students.
"Correct. Fiendfyre is a far greater curse and dark magic besides. It requires great destructive willpower and an even greater certainty that nothing nearby should be left with its carbon intact. All regular fire spells require these three things, however. If you can remove one, the fire stops." She started writing spells beside each of the corners, settling on four for each. "This is why fire is a terrible offensive weapon."
Now Hermione's arm was up. Up high enough to right the wrong of her earlier failure to answer a question.
"Yes, Granger, wasn't it?" the professor asked.
Hermione practically glowed with insufferable delight—she would be talking about this for the rest of the day. "Miss, why are you having us memorize so many fire spells, then?"
"A great question, Miss Granger." If only the teacher knew what she was inflicting upon Gryffindor house with those words. "Fire is an amazing distraction. If someone sees you winding up a Fire Rope, they are likely to miss you casting a Reverse Bubble-Head curse, since the light it makes on your wand is red."
There were a lot of gasps of surprise around the room as things started to make sense. It was obvious, really, there was just one problem with that. I raise my hoof. When she pointed my way and nodded, I asked, "What if every spell you cast in a fight turns into a fire spell?"
"Can anyone tell Mr. Potter the answer to that problem?" Professor Sparks asked, raising her voice for the whole class. While Hermione still looked to be trying to figure out what to answer with, the professor pointed to the corner. "Mr. Malfoy?"
"Use the fire spell to cover for another fire spell," Draco said.
"Perfect. Exactly the kind of inventiveness offensive magic requires. When all you have is fire spells, throw more fire spells." It finally sank in—Professor Sparks was a whole order of witch above any other witch I had ever met. She made the best wizards I'd ever met look like first year students at wizarding. "Any other suggestions?" She pointed at Ron's raised foreleg. "Mr. Weasley?"
"Prepare a counter to whatever spell they're working on to stop your fire spell?" Ron asked.
"Another good answer, though if fire is all you have, use more fire. Always shift your tactics to take advantage of any situation. When you're fighting for your life, don't be afraid to cheat."
"Hermione?" I leaned over a little and poked her with a hoof. "Hermione?"
"Ch-Ch-Cheat?" Huh, well, it seemed like Hermione was having her own little panic attack. The problem was she'd spoken far louder than I had.
"Yes, Miss Granger?" Professor Sparks pointed toward Hermione. "You have a question?"
"But, ma'am, cheating is wrong."
"That wasn't a question, but I'll take it as one." The professor gestured to her desk where two figures appeared. Each looked like a wizard, complete with robes and a wand held firmly in their right hand. "This is how most of you likely expect a magic fight to take place. Two witches or wizards standing across from each other, both preparing their spells and focusing on their dueling skill.
"This is how they typically happen." When the professor gestured again, two more robed figures appeared on one side. "No fight is ever fair. One side will always have the upper hand. Unless you bring more friends than you think you'll need, it'll almost certainly be the other side that has it.
"The key to dealing with a group of magic users on your own is to survive what they hit you with—and they will be hitting you hard and as fast as they can—and cease their abilities to cast one by one. A lot of witches and wizards can still cast if they can't walk or speak, but very few can cast without a wand." She pointed at Ron. "Mr. Weasley, how would you deal with this situation?"
"First thing?" Ron looked to me and Hermione as if begging us for help. "Get behind something solid."
"Very good. Who can tell me why you would do this?" After a moment the professor pointed at me. "Mr. Potter?"
"Because it buys you time to draw your wand and cast some protective spells?" I asked.
"Exactly. Miss. Dunbar," Professor Sparks gestured to Fay, "can you tell me why this is not always the best option?"
Fay straightened in her chair. She was a pure-blood witch, so she was now completely a crystal pony, though it was sometimes hard to tell if someone was a pony all the way or half-blood, I remember her mentioning her being a pure-blood. "Anything big enough to protect you from spells hides your opponent from your view."
"Correct. You lose situational awareness. Now, since I dove into things a little fast, do any of you recognize me from before all this?" The professor gestured up to the horn atop her head.
"I remember. You're an Auror," Draco said.
"Close, but not quite. I was in the Ministry, working as part of the Magical Law Enforcement Squad." She looked around with what seemed like pure witchy confidence. "I was also training, albeit at my own pace, to be qualified as a Hit Witch."
There were a lot of gasps around the room. I knew a bit of what she was talking about, but I hadn't exactly spent the last two years studying what the Ministry was and all its departments—so I raised my hoof.
"Mr. Potter?" the professor asked.
"I—I wasn't really introduced to all this. What's that mean?" I asked back. I could swear she looked thankful for my question.
"The Magical Law Enforcement Squad take care of general policing of witches and wizards, as well as smoothing over minor infractions between the wizarding world and muggles. The Hit Witches and Wizards are more combat focused, like the muggle SWAT teams. They still do regular policing, but when the call goes out that there's something serious happening, they come flying in with the intent to stop it." Professor Sparks looked around, and I was sure she studied everyone's face. "I won't be able to teach you everything in just one year, but by the time you graduate I hope to have built a solid groundwork upon which you can protect yourselves and others from direct danger."
It was a lot to take in, but I guess that's what the gasps earlier meant. So if they were the police, what were Aurors? Should I even ask that or wait until after class? I raised my hoof again and, when she pointed at me and called my name, I asked, "So what do Aurors do, then?"
"It would probably be best if you asked Professor Tonks about that. After all, she's trained to be one." The professor raised an eyebrow at me, no doubt daring me to ask something else. When I didn't, she continued with the first lesson.
When all was said and done, teaching ten new fire spells to a kirin was always going to be a hit with me.
Having left his student and her toys to their own devices, King Sombra headed north again. The travel took weeks, but he was reminded how good it was to have a strong, corporeal body again. When he reached the snowy border of Equestria and the Crystal Empire, he was met not just with the cold but a conundrum too.
He knew he was too conspicuous, it was hard not to be with a magic and physical presence like his own. Now he'd recovered all the Dementors from Earth, he felt like he could probably tackle a weakened alicorn.
To that end he wanted to see for himself what was happening in his city, and that meant not walking into it as a king.
Working his magic, building a new shape around his body, Sombra aimed for something both smaller and far more average pony than his normal self. A slim stallion with a gray coat and two-tone cerulean mane. The only ponies that would recognize the shape were in Canterlot.
As he advanced through the snow, he played a little with the shape to give it an even more pathetic look than the original pony he'd modeled it off and by the time he reached the edge of the city, he was confident that his unicorn disguise would be looked down on by everypony.
"Another pony just walked into town. You see that one? Looks a mess. Think the boss will want to know about it?"
"Yeah, 'e wants to know about everyfin."
"Book and quill but stamp. Well, not exactly interestin', but get this note to our runner."
The speakers, Sombra could tell, were more of the human creatures—these ones had barely any equine features at all. It took a moment of loitering before he spotted a far more equine shape, wearing human clothes, running along the edge of the crowd.
Curious as to what edge it could give him, Sombra used regular magic to complete a teleport to the far end of the plaza where he could spot the runner moving again. It reminded him so much of the weak crystal ponies that had opposed him for so long; a struggling mouse in a trap.
Three more teleports, each taken just as the messenger was about to leave his line of sight, ensured that Sombra could watch as the former human slipped into a large building that, from his own memory, was previously a governmental administration building.
Walking casually past the building, he tried to feel for where the creature had gone within it—but the place was lousy with them. Cursing under his breath, Sombra decided to just assume the most important person in the building would be in the most important office and—knowing the layout of the building—teleported there directly.
Herbert Trencent was startled at the sound and sensation of magic being used nearby. Standing up, he opened his mouth to shout for assistance when the weak-looking pony before him became far too interesting. Black magic with green whorls through it sprang from the pony's horn and Herbert shivered.
"Weak-willed. You creatures are far too easy to control." As he spoke, Sombra had to fight back the urge to smile. The former human's eyes were now glittering green around the edges, and the longer the magic lasted in his head—the more green they'd become. "Sit back down and listen to your new master."
The freedom of Herbert's mind shrank in around him. The green magic that provided the pressure seemed to flood around him and chase him away from all the ways he might have controlled his body. He felt himself sit down and look at the weak-looking pony.
"Better. Now, what is it you do? What are your reasons for watching ponies new to the city? Why are you commanding a group of creatures—humans?"
Herbert Trencent felt all that green press in tighter and opened his mouth to tell the pony before him everything.
"So that's the downside, eh? We need to strap some bloody rockets on this thing." The sight of a fleet of ships escaping toward the horizon—harried by the Pandemonium—annoyed Blastback Davies a bit, though they had brought almost a third of the Storm King's ships down before the other side realized they were going to be routed by his ship. "Signal Celaeno, there's no point risking her arse chasing them now."
Glancing over the taffrail, Aileek looked down at the city below. There were a dozen crashed ships, though only half had landed on the capital itself. She watched as the people—her people—hurried around to put out fires and save the city from a conflagration that might yet see it needing to be rebuilt. "We did it."
"You helped. Where would be the best place to come down?" Firelight McOwens, the second-in-command of Stiff Wind, concentrated on raising her voice. "Top vent! Five seconds! Fore and aft! Ten seconds. Let's bring her down!"
The Aileek of old would have tucked her ears back at having someone shouting right beside her, but her ears were used to the rapport of heavy cannon—Firelight's shouts were easily tolerable. "Try to avoid crashing into the palace there, my dad would leave a message in his litter tray if we hammered down into that."
In the distance, hanging off the prow of her ship with her saber clutched in a claw, Celaeno was howling her fury at the retreating fleet. Stiff Wind had performed every bit as expected. The losses of the Storm King's vessels had been measured in ships per minute—she had never before seen such an aggressive strike from one vessel. "Mullet! Give me enough speed to catch one more of them!"
"Cap'n!" Mullet was at the other end of the ship, his claw holding the wheel while the Pandemonium soared after the routed vessels with full feathers flying. "Blastback just signaled to pull clear and return!"
Celaeno could see the wisdom of that, but she needed one more prize. "Prepare to heave about! Squabble, prepared for a long shot! Two guns! We're gonna pitch on the balloon and give you as much angle as we can!"
The orders made sense to Mullet, and he loved how bloodthirsty his captain got—even when retreating. "Prepare to haul the port feathers! Load the starboard guns and be ready, Mr. Squabble!" After far too many heartbeats, he heard a squawk from below. "Stow those feathers and hold on!"
Two cannon singing drew Blastback's attention as Pandemonium fired on the rearguard of the Storm King's ships—and split its deck from stern to bow, into two parts. Powder, cannons, crew, and fuel rained down before the unbalanced mass listed to the side and its balloon popped. "Damn that bird, she's amazing."
Turning from the sight of the final casualty of the battle, Blastback looked over to Aileek. "You have to be first off the ship. We're just another bunch of invaders without you."
Reminded of her status, Aileek remembered the proud warriors from another world as they'd first appeared. Blastback had lost a leg and they'd probably all lost any hope of returning home—but they still fought for her. "Will do, captain. What about the rest of the crew? You have a lot of gunners belowdecks."
"Yeah. We'll organize them into work crews to go over the downed ships. Talk to your father—if we don't keep these pirates fed on loot and rum, we're going to have another invasion force for him to deal with." Blastback made his way up to the edge of the ship. "Are they cheering?"
"You did kinda drive off the Storm King. You're going to be popular." When the ship got low enough to reach the sky ship dock, Aileek jumped over the railing with a rope to tie it off just a moment before Firelight did the same further down. With the ship secured, she walked to the edge of the short dock to where her father stood. "Da—"
Ignoring protocol, even if his kneeling daughter seemed ready to follow it, King Pawssanova drew Aileek into a hug and squeezed her. "You brought them?"
Trying not to purr, Aileek squirmed in her father's grip. "Y-Yeah. Blastback and his people are soldiers from another world, the rest of his crew are—well, they're pirates."
Letting go of Aileek, Pawssanova raised one black eyebrow on his black face. "Pirates? But they're here to help us?"
"Well, Blastback and his people are here to help me, but the pirates are here to take down the Storm King and loot his ships. It would probably be best to let them do that." Aileek knew what her father's reply would be before he even started it.
"The only treasure they carry is what they pillaged from Panthera." It pained him, but Pawssanova knew what his answer had to be. "They can have as much as they can load on their two ships. Anything else stays in Panthera. I'm not happy about the deal, Aileek, but we're still free and"—looking aside to ensure no one was listening closely, Pawssanova continued—"the more important artifacts are still hidden."
Grateful her father was thinking clearly, Aileek nodded. "I haven't told anyone about that, father. They'll take trinkets and some coin and leave. If you wanted to go further, you could pay them funds from the treasury to hunt the Storm King anywhere in Abyssinia. Either way, you'd do well to offer them free porting here for as long as they hunt his forces."
"A good way to keep them indebted to us and fighting a common enemy—and bringing back riches for us to sell. Clever, daughter." Pawssanova couldn't overlook what his daughter had done. At least for now, Panthera and possibly all Abyssinia was safe from the Storm King. "These soldiers, would their leader be interested in a contract protecting us, do you think?"
Hearing her father say "us" caused Aileek to stiffen a little. It was a reminder that she was expected to leave her time aboard ships behind and return to royal life. "I—"
"You'll have to excuse me." Blastback rocked his way over to the king and his daughter. "But I believe we haven't met. I'm Commander—Captain—Blastback Davies, and I'd like to negotiate for safe harbor for my ship and my compatriot's." He nodded upward as Pandemonium circled lower and lower like a shark.
"My daughter tells me you are wishing to pursue the Storm King further. Would you perhaps be interested in a letter of marque?" It was a big offer, but Pawssanova felt the price worth it. "You could even scavenge as much cargo as you can carry for the various ships you have brought down today."
Looking to Aileek, Blastback tried to think how was best to get an explanation without admitting to not having a clue exactly what he was doing. "Uh, being from a different world, I'll have to ask you to explain what a letter of marque is."
Having taken orders from Blastback for months, Aileek was quick to explain. "A letter of marque is permission to hunt common enemies. You will be allowed to dock at any port in Abyssinia and do business here so long as you don't break the agreement—generally, that you don't break the laws of Abyssinia."
King Pawssanova saw the dilemma on his daughter's face. Three months had felt like a long time to be under the Storm King's heel, but his daughter had been with these pirates that whole time—and was already looking to their captain more than to himself. "Perhaps," he said, "it would be best to assign someone familiar with Abyssinian law to your ship?"
"Someone who has already proven themselves to be of us to both of us?" Blastback looked at Aileek at the same time he noticed her father do the same. "What about it?"
Relief flooded Pawssanova when he saw the relief in his daughter's face. "Aileek, it's your choice. Of course, as a hero, you would be living a much more public life here." He knew well how much his daughter had disliked the public life of the palace. His little hellcat would have run away, he was sure, if he hadn't given her a position that let her leave the palace.
Just as Aileek was saying, "Then I'll fill the position," Pandemonium slipped into the other side of the pier and two parrots jumped out to secure it to the moorings. The moment Captain Celaeno jumped off her ship, Aileek felt the tension grow. "This is Captain Cel—"
"I know who that blasted pirate is." Looking at Blastback, Pawssanova saw the equine man looking at Celaeno with the same admiration he himself often felt when one of his many concubines made his purr start. When she looked back at Blastback with a similar expression, Pawssanova swallowed his pride—he wondered if this soldier had tamed the wild pirate.
"Your Majesty, you'll have to forgive my latest visit to your nation, but think we can both agree that the Storm King is a bigger threat to your concerns than my scallywags ever were." Celaeno didn't bow—not to the king of Abyssinia and not to nobody—but she did doff her hat. "Is there somewhere we can discuss this that isn't the middle of a warzone or celebration?"
Blastback could sense some tension between the two and remembered she'd said there was a little bad blood between them. "We were just discussing what the king here would be willing to pay for our continued presence. He offered a letter of marque and salvage rights to the ships we downed here today—at least to as much as we can carry."
"A letter? Now that is an interesting proposal." Celaeno felt excitement build. A letter meant a second safe port—over a dozen, actually—for her ship. It meant readily accessible fencing of goods. It did limit her hunting prospects to non-Abyssinian ships, though she doubted they'd have anything good to trade for a while. "I'll have our crews start that cleanup for you so that, by the time we're done talking, we'll be ready to set sail and leave you be."
When the king agreed, Celaeno wondered how many cannonballs Stiff Wind could leave behind to maximize its hauling. She turned to her ship while Blastback turned to his own. "Alright, lads and lasses, I'm going to have some words with the king. You lot have some work ahead"—she paused as a few of her crew voiced some bellyaching—"you'll be salvaging what you can from the ships we took down—and only those ships, you hear?"
Giving similar orders to his own ship, Blastback had a moment to speak to Aileek while the king left the dock. "This is all well and good, but what happens if we end up in conflict with Abyssinia?"
"That's part of why I want to keep sailing with you, captain. I want to ensure that doesn't happen."
"And what if it happens anyway?"
"Then I failed you and I failed my father. At that point I'll be lucky if you'll let me on your ship." Shifting her position to flank Blastback with Celaeno, Aileek shrugged her shoulders. "Besides, we're pirates. What do I know about tomorrow?"
"… and we don't even know if it will work. So, failure to attain the end result will not be grounds for failure. If you can learn the subject matter, make the potion required, and work the spell—you will pass." It was hard to think of him as anything but my uncle Sirius. I know he was technically my godfather, but uncle felt better given how much family I had left at this point.
He had a strange way of gathering everyone together and making everything he said seem like a secret that only he could share. He also had a book on becoming an animagus, which apparently he'd written.
"Now, if you'd all open your book to the forward, I'd like you to read that and think if this is really the class for you. You are welcome to leave at any time—you'll just have a free period on Monday afternoons."
Following the directions, I opened the book and flicked to the forward.
A practical guide to becoming an animagus. A lofty title, but in truth you will be branded a monster by several wizards and witches just for being one. Mark my words, this is not something you should undertake lightly. As you gain the knowledge and understanding of the world having a completely different form can give, it will leak other things through—hopefully not fleas, though.
Becoming an animagus is an arduous process and there is no certainty as to what you will become. Some become cats, others dogs, I have met several insect animagi, as well as a deer and rat. And, as any animagus will tell you, along with the higher gifts of the creature you will become, so will you gain some of its banal qualities.
But don't despair. You will gain far more from being an animagus than you will lose.
When I lifted my head from reading it, it was just in time to see several other students stand up, turn, and leave the room. It wasn't many, but the fact that some had at all, even after becoming pony to varying degrees, seemed odd. They'd already changed once already, why wouldn't they roll the dice for something else?
"Now that we're a little more focused, and you're all more committed to the goal of becoming an animagus, I have this for each of you." Walking around the room, Sirius passed out leaves. "Mandragora, commonly known as mandrake. For one month you must keep the leaf of a mandrake under your tongue. If you mistakenly swallow it or it falls out—you will have to start again.
"The full moon might rise here every night, but I am assured it's the duration that's far more important than the actual moon-phase timing. So, for the next thirty days, you will learn to eat, drink, sleep, and speak with that."
Ron raised his foreleg and waited. When Sirius pointed at him, he asked, "Did you manage it first time?"
"No. I became an animagus with two others—none of us got it first time. After the first week, though, it gets easier." When he'd walked around and set a leaf on every desk, Sirius walked back up to the front. "There're three hours until dinner. If you're going to get used to keeping that under your tongue, now would be a good time to start. Please, everyone read the first chapter of the book and I'll see you Wednesday."
When I stood up to leave, Sirius fixed me with a look and shook his head slightly. So I waited until everyone else had left.
"You may not be able to do this, Harry." He gestured at the leaf still on my desk. "You can test right now, thankfully. Put it in your mouth—under your tongue—and come over to the fireplace."
As soon as he told me what to do, I knew. Becoming a nirik, getting angry, setting myself ablaze. "It's when I wizard out, right?" I slipped off my glasses and set them on the desk beside me, put the leaf into my mouth, and made my way to the fireplace.
"'Wizard out'?" He raised an eyebrow that told me I'd probably said what I was thinking out loud.
"You know, when you get so caught up in using the wizard way of dealing with problems that you forget that you can just tip a bucket of water on a fire. That's wizarding. At least, that's how I think of being a wizard." I shrugged my shoulders as best I could while walking on all fours and got into the fireplace.
And got a little upset.
I wasn't really angry, though I could always get that if I needed to, just upset enough to become a nirik and stomp around a little. The problem was that the mandrake leaf burned to a crisp before I even finished catching on fire properly. At least that made me angry enough to get a good bit of heat into the stones of the fireplace.
Finally, though, I felt drained of anger. It wasn't going to work and that's all there was to it. Sometimes life didn't give you the choices you want.
My flames sputtered out.
"Is it still there, Harry?" Sirius was sitting a little back from the fireplace.
I shook myself and stepped out. "Gone. Burned up in less than a second."
"How long can you manage without"—Sirius gestured to the fireplace—"that?"
Grabbing and putting my glasses back on, I started packing my books up. "A day if I'm lucky, but then my annoyances build up and I'll randomly catch fire. That's no good for anyone involved."
He sighed. It was the kind of sigh that told me he'd done his best but things wouldn't work out. I already knew that. "You'll want to leave, then."
"No." With the books in my saddlebags balanced, I put them on and made my way for the door. "No, I want to stay and learn all this. I have friends in this class and it will help me understand what they are going through."
Leaving the room, Ron and Hermione closed in beside me. I looked from one to the other. "What's up?"
"We heard, Harry." Hermione sounded a little upset.
Ron nudged me with a shoulder. "You shouldn't feel like you need to keep doing it just because of us."
"It's not just because of you, that's just what I told Sirius. I like knowing how this stuff works, too, and if my two best friends are going to be animagi, I really want to know how it works." I nudged Ron back, shoving him a little to the side—but given Hermione's size compared to me, figured I'd best leave her alone. "You've both stuck by me through—through all of this craziness. That means a lot."
"The only reason I'm going to try is in case I get an animagus form with something better than hooves." Ron looked down at his hooves (which looked different to my split ones). "A monkey would be neat. Or even something like a bird."
That made me look up at Hermione. When she didn't give her reason, I asked her, "Why are you doing it, Hermione?"
Ron made a choking sound. "You know her, Harry. If it's magical, Hermione will study it. What do you have next?"
"I was thinking of grabbing an early lunch, maybe even practice riding my broom." It was starting to worry me that I'd need to find a steady supply of gaffer tape if I wanted to compete in any quidditch games.
"Oh, right, before I forget. Ginny wanted to chat. Fred said he left her in the Gryffindor common room." Ron slowed a little. "I need to go and see McGonagall about something."
Hermione Granger waited back with Ronald Weasley as their friend walked off for their house dorm rooms. When she was confident Harry was out of earshot, she sighed and said, "Thanks, Ron."
"He doesn't get it sometimes, does he?" Ron changed his direction from heading to the headmistress' office to the main hall.
Looking at her hands, Hermione shook her head. "He's a good friend, still."
"One of the best. Any thought about what you'd like to be as an animagus?" Getting to know Harry had proved something to Ron that no amount of hearing about him third hand would have—Harry Potter didn't read others' emotions well when he had his own problems to deal with.
"Do you promise not to laugh?"
Ron looked up at Hermione and shook his head. "You know I can't promise that. What I can do is promise to tell you what I hope to get."
"Good enough. I want to become a cat. A big calico. It might seem crazy, but ever since I messed up that polyjuice potion, I—I've liked the idea of trying it again." Even now, just remembering the situation, Hermione found herself smiling.
"You'd be the smaller one of the group then. Me, I wanna be a lemur." Trotting along to match Hermione's long stride, Ron was more than happy to let his imagination run wild. "They have hands and big tails and can climb really well."
It was a surprise to Hermione that he'd thought about it that much. "A lemur? Really? And what if you don't get that?"
"Then I'll adapt and use whatever I get." Ron shrugged and stepped into the great hall. It wasn't set up for a main meal, but when they walked in a house-Elf spotted them and vanished. "Could we get some—lunch…"
"They'll be back, don't worry." Hermione walked up to the bench and sat on a chair. "Even if I don't get a cat, I'd be happy with most of the animagus forms I've seen. I just feel so out of place like this."
"Just so long as I have more to work with than hoo—Oh, thanks!" The house-Elf that set a plate of salad before Ron looked surprised and blushed a little before disappearing.
Watching the brief interaction, Hermione was ready when her own lunch appeared. "Thank you," she said to the Elf. She got the same blushing reply before they vanished again. "They seem much happier than Dobby was."
"Did you see that one that came in with Professor Black? He's living out with Hagrid now." Despite how much he would have railed against such a diet before, Ron could now appreciate a good salad. The texture and flavor agreed with his new palate.
"Do you think Hagrid is forcing him to live out there?"
"From what I heard, he's a free house-Elf. He was in Azkaban for killing someone." It seemed open and shut to Ron, though given the reputation Azkaban had gotten recently—what with locking up Hagrid and Sirius, whom both he knew now—he didn't consider getting locked up there to be as big a red flag as before. "Maybe we should go down and talk to Hagrid? About becoming animagi, I mean."
"Do you suppose he knows any?" Hermione asked.
"Well, he knew Professor Black. What about Professor Lupin? Isn't he an animagus too?"
Looking around to be sure they were alone, Hermione said, "I heard he's a werewolf. That's why we never see him at dinner."
It was, as Ron well knew, a horrible fate for anyone. "Dark curse that. If he is"—Ron paused a moment, thinking about what he was about to say—"then I guess that makes him better suited to be our Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher."
"It's not just that anymore, remember? It's just Defense now. There's too much going on to be able to hope it'll just be dark wizards out to get anyone. I heard even the Ministry is acting odd."
Ron tilted his head. "Haven't you heard all the stuff about them?"
"Huh?"
"They attacked Ginny and a pony helping her learn magic. They're doing a lot of rotten stuff." The topic soured Ron on his food only slightly—more of a slowdown than actually putting him off eating. "I wouldn't go getting chummy with them if I was you."
Slumping back a little, Hermione let out a little huff. "It would be good if someone told my family these things."
"Well, I mean, your parents are—were—muggles. Kinda weird how easy they took the whole magic thing. Dad says that most muggles get really strange when they find out about magic." Ron was at the bottom of his plate. He would have complained but a smiling house-Elf set a nice egg salad down in a bowl beside him. "Thanks. They seem much happier."
"Probably on account of there not being so many Slytherin around," Hermione said. "And, I'll have you know, my parents realized there was a whole new market of patients for them in the Wizarding World. Sure, some witches and wizards fixed their teeth with spells, but do you have any idea how many Goblins there were who wanted a little work done?"
"N-Not really." Well adept at using his hooves to pick things up, Ron was having little trouble devouring everything put before him. He tuned out a little as Hermione started rattling off dentistry terms describing everything Goblins had done to their teeth in the time her parents had been working in the Wizarding World. When he finished the last of his food—and another house-Elf appeared—he held up his hoof. "No more for me, thanks."
It struck Hermione how nice Ron was treating the house-Elves. Most other witches and wizards she'd met tended to just ignore them. "So, uh, what class do you have after lunch?"
"Hermione, we have the same classes. It's Care of Magical Creatures with Hagrid." Sitting more upright, Ron looked around the hall now he realized there were more students around. Most, though, had left the two of them alone—Ron figured it was because Hermione wouldn't stop talking about cavities and fillings for five whole minutes.
"School seems a little less…" Hermione looked around the room cautiously, trying to come up with the right word to use. "A little less intense. Have you seen anyone give or take points yet?"
"Snape, remember? He gave points to Slytherin, but he didn't take any from anyone. Do you think he's going soft?"
"Snape," Draco said as he took a seat opposite Ron and Hermione, "isn't going soft. He glared at me for that whole class."
The shock of having Draco Malfoy sit down and voluntarily talk to them shook Ron to the core of his existence. Then he tried to remember what Draco had said. "Wait, so Snape's angry with you?"
"Because she left Slytherin," Hermione said.
"He," Draco snapped. "I'm not a filly, so get that through your heads."
"You're not?" Ron asked, confusion running rampant. While he had to admit that Draco was going around dressed more than anyone else, he definitely had a female pony's looks to his face.
It was the first time he'd confronted someone at the school about it, and Draco was mildly annoyed that it was Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger. "No, I—It's complicated. Can you just treat me like I'm a guy?"
"Okay," Hermione said. "So is it because you left Slytherin or not?"
"Yeah. He can't even dock points off me to annoy everypony else into bullying me back in line, since I don't have a house. So all he can do is glare." When a house-Elf set a plate in front of him, Draco muttered, "Thanks."
"'Everypony'?" Ron asked.
"Huh?"
"You said 'everypony' just now."
Draco stretched a wing out of the shirt he wore to pick up a fork and start spearing his salad. "Yeah. I want to be a pony, so I'll talk like a pony. Ponies say everypony and somepony. You should get used to it since you're a pony too now."
"Why'd you sit down here?" Hermione asked, changing the subject.
"Because you—" Taking a slow breath, Draco choked back the normal slur he'd have used with a muggle-born. "Because you two seem nicer than most of the others. There's a few Slytherins and a couple of Ravenclaws."
"Nicer?" Ron asked.
"Yeah. Nicer. Like you just said you'd treat me like I'm a guy. That kind of thing."
"I still don't get what you mean"—Ron held up a hoof to stop himself from being interrupted—"and I'm not inclined to be nice to you given all the crap you've done to us, but I know what it's like to not be taken seriously and trusted. Also, sticking it to a few Slytherin is always a good laugh, innit?"
"I'm sorry for all that stuff I did. I was—" Draco just let out a sigh and put his fork down. "I was a git."
"What happened to Crabbe and Goyle?" Ron asked, trying to get his head around this new version of Draco Malfoy.
"Their families didn't take it all seriously, or if they did they didn't move fast enough." Closing his eyes, Draco tried not to dredge up images of his parents fighting their final battle. "I guess if you had too much to stay for, the idea of leaving was hard to swallow."
"Do you have Care of Magical Creatures next?" Ron asked. He wasn't exactly sure why he wanted to change the topic, but Draco didn't seem to want to continue it.
"Yeah I—Oh. Hagrid." Draco tried to hide his groan behind a mouthful of food, but neither Ron nor Hermione were ignoring him. "Someone else I need to apologize to."
"You're doing a lot of that." Hermione surprised even herself by how approving her voice was. "Have you thought of apologizing to Harry?"
Groaning, Draco stood up and left the rest of his meal. "I'd rather not talk about him," he said, walking down the bench toward the entrance of the great hall.
Ron gave Hermione his best this is all your fault look, then jumped to his own hooves and trotted off after Draco.
Glaring after the pair, Hermione stood up. "How is any of this my fault?" she asked of no one in particular, and certainly not the house-Elf that appeared to clean away the plates. "Sorry. I didn't mean—Thank you."
Rubeus Hagrid wanted to get to the bottom of the forest and how far it reached. He's spent a month walking through the wilderness, and though it mostly felt like an entirely new world—which was fair, since it was one—there was still a sense of the Forbidden Forest about it. After a whole month spent wandering around getting good and lost, he realized that not only had some of the trees of the Earth forest been transplanted to the Crystal Empire, but so too had some of the animals.
On long walks he had found the trails of hippogriffs, unicorns, and even some Acromantula had apparently made it through. He wasn't sure if any centaurs had made it, but given how much the Forbidden Forest denizens had spread out, he was confident he had missed at least a few strange species.
So, after he spent that month getting lost, he decided he had to get found—which took another month. The situation had given him plenty of time to think and decide how he wanted to continue with his classes at Hogwarts. It also helped him clear out some of the emotional backwash of his time in Azkaban.
That all explained how he was ready for his first class of the school year feeling much more himself and less like an inmate of Azkaban, with a hippogriff standing at his side. What had surprised him was the little pegasus that glared up at him. "You wot?"
"I just wanted to say I'm sorry. I—" Draco took a deep breath and let it out. Out in the open, with his wings able to feel the breeze, he felt more centered and himself—his new self, that is. "I was wrong to get you in trouble with that dragon hatchling. Probably a million other things I can't even remember doing."
If Draco didn't sound so honest to him, Rubeus might have been able to bring back the anger of losing Norbert, but he also remembered the sight of Draco's parents sacrificing themselves to buy people time. He shrugged his shoulders. ""S alright. Have you met a hippogriff before?"
Draco had to look up and up and up. The hippogriff would have stood a bit above his head height before he wound up as a pony. Spreading his wings, he took off and hovered upward—letting his pegasus magic make the effort to stay aloft practically nonexistent.
For a moment he wondered how he would have acted if he were still his old self and not trying to be a pony in spirit as well as form.
"This is Buckbeak. Proud creatures, hippogriffs. You need to let 'em acknowledge you before you get close. Here, he can see you, just give 'im a bow and wait to see if he bows back." Though it was colder than the usual home for hippogriffs, Rubeus was confident that they could handle a bit of snow. "Go on, the worst 'e'll do is—Well, you probably don't want to know the worst 'e'll do."
Biting his lower lip, Draco flew a little closer to the hippogriff.
"Alright. Bow to 'im."
Wanting to take a look at Rubeus to see if he was laughing at him, Draco nonetheless took his warning to heart—mostly because Buckbeak's beak was almost large enough to fit around his head. Carefully, he bowed his head, taking his eyes off the hippogriff.
When Draco lifted his head back up, it was to see that Buckbeak was likewise dipping his head.
"Go on and pet him. He's given you permission. Don't try anything too fast."
Keeping his wingbeats slow, Draco got a little closer and gently ran a hoof down Buckbeak's face. "Do you want to fly?" He didn't know why he asked it, the creature couldn't understand him—but at the same time the flare of excitement (or what he thought was excitement) shone in Buckbeak's eyes.
Stepping back as Buckbeak spread his wings, Rubeus stared Draco and the hippogriff shot into the sky. "Drat, that's the only hippogriff I've found, too."
"Was that Draco Malfoy?" Harry asked as he walked up to Rubeus.
"Sure was. 'Ere, did you know we have some actual unicorns in the woods?"
Harry looked around at the sound of hooves approaching, seeing more of his class arriving—including Ron and Hermione. "You mean not the pony kind, right?"
"Uh, right." Rubeus had to think for a moment to work out what he'd meant, but now he was running into the other problem—having a practical class about hippogriffs without actually having a hippogriff. Luckily for him, Draco and Buckbeak picked that moment to both crash into the ground with sextet of hooves. "Right!"
Draco was still a bit of a conundrum for Rubeus, but he could recognize when someone wanted a sea change well enough. "This here's Buckbeak…"
All through Care of Magical Creatures I'd felt a little tense. Almost like I had an itch I couldn't scratch. I figured out exactly what it was when, while riding around on Buckbeak after introducing myself to him, I saw Hermione and Ron talking to Draco.
That was it—Draco was the itch. He didn't want to be friends, so what else could I do? How do I deal with someone who I can't be friends with and can't get angry at anymore? Buckbeak must have sensed my distraction and, slowing to land, dumped me off sideways before his hooves or claws hit the ground.
Tumbling a bit, I relied on the fact that I was durable so that when I rolled a few times on the ground, all it left me with was a bunch of snow caked here and there. Snow that melted off really easy. Wait, melting? Ugh, I was getting miffed again.
"Harry are you—?" Ron stopped before getting too close. I couldn't really blame him. "Buckbeak's got a bit of an opinion of people."
"Ugh!" The snow around me melted and I was left in a little grove of drying mulch as I caught alight. "It's not Buckbeak and it's not stupid Draco. I just get angry now and then. It's just—"
Ron watched while I let out my anger in a shout, then cooled back down to being a kirin again. "I didn't even mention Draco. He's kinda not so bad, Harry."
"'He'?" I asked, confusion banishing the last of my anger like Ron's socks used to banish sapient life.
"Well, I kinda don't get it but kinda do. He hasn't changed who he is, he's just stuck in the wrong body."
The way Ron put it made it kinda obvious. Like it was a human transfiguration that went wrong. "Huh. I guess I didn't think of it like that."
"So, if you say anything to him, call him him, okay? And if you see anyone calling him her, set them straight." He seemed a little angry, and for a moment I had to wonder what had gotten into Ron. Then I remembered he'd been hanging around with Draco earlier.
"Sure, I mean, I don't think we'll run into each other often. He's probably not even playing quidditch, and it's not like he's in Slytherin anymore to get up our noses." I was surprised at how easy it was to just keep going with calling Draco him.
Class had ended while I was wizarding out. Ron and Hermione both hung around with me. "Wait," I asked as we started walking back to Hogwarts. "Aren't you both meant to have the mandrake leaves under your tongues now?" Ron nodded, and when I looked up at Hermione, she was too.
Some things weren't fair, but then I guess I already could turn into another shape—and it was the most wizard of shapes, too. Nothing compared to being able to set yourself on fire. "I'll keep hanging out in there, I guess, unless I have to do other stuff during those classes. Besides, I like keeping up with you guys."
"Thanks, Harry." Ron sounded happy about it, and that was enough for me.
The walk back to the castle was boring, and when we got there everyone was sent to do the homework that'd been assigned. I spent most of my time talking to Ginny. She sounded really excited—and also scary good about combat magic.
"The trick to dealing with multiple enemies at once is to make it harder for them to affect you while keeping as many stunned or off-balance as you can. A good shield helps, but it can also get in your way if you're not careful," Ginny said.
"When I was fighting a bunch of people at once, I just got them to all aim their spells at me. My scales are really tough against magic."
"Yes, but you don't have a lot of scales."
"I kinda do."
Ginny paused and her outline seemed to be biting its lip. "What do you mean?"
I held out my back leg toward her and used a forehoof to tease the hair apart. "All my coat and hair is really just extensions of scales. I'm completely covered in scales."
Her touch was a little strange, like I could feel her whole hands stroking my fur and teasing it apart, but they still looked like line drawings with no actual volume or mass to them. "Do you want to come into my book and take a look around? It's a little different to Hogwarts, but I think that has more to do with how Tom saw the world than how it actually was."
"Sure I—" I didn't get more words out. Ginny didn't really have to strain or struggle, the whole thing felt really magic-efficient actually. We were sitting in the great hall of Hogwarts with students all around us. "Wow!"
"Yeah! Sorry about the robe colors, I have two options here and they are bright pink or Slytherin. I didn't think the pink would suit you." Ginny was still human. Completely human, in fact, and wearing pink robes.
I realized I was still a kirin and wearing Slytherin robes, just like she'd said. "Uh, I could just not wear any."
She looked at me in surprise, then shook her head with a laugh. "Sorry, harry, it's easy to forget all that in here. All these memories are human."
The robes disappeared and I let out a sigh of relief. Looking around, I noticed something about the general feel of Hogwarts in Ginny's diary. "This is a lot pinker than I would have expected."
"Don't blame me for that. It's Cadance's magic. I know her horn color is blue, but her magic is literally so full of love that it tends to stain everything. Not that I can complain or anything. She is giving it all for free." Ginny sat at one of the benches, turning to face the table just as food appeared.
"They changed the syllabus." I climbed up onto the bench opposite Ginny just as a plate of sausages and eggs appeared. "There's a witch who was in the Ministry who's teaching us combat magic. She really likes fire. Then there's my godfather, Sirius, who's teaching anyone who wants to learn how to be an animagus. Err, I can't be one, though, on account of my fire burning the leaves away."
"Harry?" Her tone implied she was almost laughing. When I looked up from the food I had started to stuff in my mouth, she was grinning. "Did you forget? I was there. Well, not there there, but Ron took my book to the classes."
"Oh. Right. It's hard to believe they put you forward into our year level sometimes. You must have really impressed McGonagall."
She blushed but nodded. "I showed her what I'd been learning in here, and then I also showed what I'd been working on myself. Cadance told me to follow my dream, and my dream is to protect everyone."
"Uh, do you want to practice, then?" I asked. I couldn't help it. She sounded like she was becoming an awesome witch and I just—I needed to see her in action.
Holding up her hand, Ginny grinned and snapped her fingers. There was a flash of pink and we were in another room. A huge long hall was around us—Ginny stood at one end and I was at the other. "Will this do?" she asked.
Now my only problem was I was more excited than angry. "Yeah, I just—" She didn't give me more than the time it took my third word to echo in the hall. A stunner hit me and I felt it buzzing my nerves—but it didn't take me down. "Hey!" What it did, though, was let me get angry.
I put up a shield as quick as I could, but another stunner got past before it went up. This one hit me in the shoulder and made my right side feel all tingly. My shield blocked her next three spells—not that I could do more than feel them. The shield spell had been a pony one, and that meant it used my horn's magic directly—it was a sheet of fire.
Right. Sparks had told me to use fire to hide what I'm doing, so while the shield took another two hits, I focused on my anger. It was easy to get angry. My fury at having spells hit me was perfect to ignite my flames and concentrate my attention down to a little dot—and see my glasses melt away.
My fire shield gave out and a splash of water from Ginny's wand almost hit me—it flash-boiled just before reaching me and became steam. I didn't feel the next three spells she hit me with, the first was another stunner, but the second two were something far stronger. It didn't matter, getting hit with magic only made me angrier now.
It was time to stop just letting her cast. I made a flame whip with my horn and started lashing it at her.
She formed a shield, but where I expected it to cover her completely it just wrapped over her left arm in a partial dome like an actual shield. Each time I struck with my whip, she slapped it away with the shield and launched spells back—finally settling on a water spray.
I had to focus when the water hit me. It was charged with magic and was really eating away at my anger. I threw everything I had into the whip for one last strike, only for her to cast a second water spell and completely soak me before I could get it to land.
Feeling like I'd been hit by a truck of water, I felt my anger break and my flames go out. Feeling stunned, I started to lift my head only for Ginny to tap my nose with her wand. Okay, she was good. Really good. "Wow," was all I could manage to say.
"That whip was a good idea, but I've been working on ways to specifically deal with that spell." She reached down and picked me up. All the aches and soreness of the duel were gone. "Come on, let's get out of this musty book. I think my brothers are outside."
It was a surprise when she flashed pink again and I was sitting outside her diary again. And my glasses were still intact! I blinked a few times as I looked around, spotting Ron and Percy. Percy was still a surprise. He'd been controlled by Sombra, and he'd been turned into an actual pony. "Percy?"
He was focused on the diary still, but looked up at me. "H-Hello, Harry."
Ginny manifested herself in a flicker of pink magic. Still drawn with lines, she crouched down and hugged Percy. "I'm so glad you're back!"
I could feel her magic strain as she hugged him. It wasn't anything I could pin down, just a sense that she was using a lot of magic and it was doing work. "Hey, Ron. You were right—she is crazy good at dueling now."
"You almost beat me!" Ginny said, letting go of Percy. "If I hadn't spent time training against that spell, you might have had me."
Ron looked at me with surprise in his eyes. "You must be good, Harry. She even beat George, Fred, and me all together."
"It's his defense. I hit him with six stunners. The first ones seemed to slow him down a bit, but when he turned into a ball of fire, nothing I did even made him blink." Ginny waved a hand in my direction. "In the end I had to work two spells at once. That isn't easy!"
She really had cast two at once. That's just so amazing—so… witchy! "How did you do that?"
Ginny's face looked like she was biting her lip. "Well, you can only do it with two copies of the same spell, and it can't be a big spell, but if you can use two wands, you'll be able to pull it off."
"Casting two spells at once needs two wands?" I asked. Where I was going to get a wand to complement my horn, I don't know, but I did know I had to try.
"Yup! In the journal and out here, I can just make two wands appear." With a gesture, Ginny didn't just make a second wand appear, she made a whole new arm holding the second wand. "Like this!"
"That is so cool!"
Ronald Weasley echoed his friend's words in his head. Two spells at once at different targets seemed amazing. He hadn't heard of anyone doing that kind of magic. "G-Ginny? Can you teach me how to do that?"
Looking from one of her brothers to the other, Ginny Weasley smiled and shrugged her shoulders. "I can try. You are going to need two wands to do it, though."
"That's going to be hard, but I'll figure somethin' out." It was a little awkward asking his little sister for magic tips, but the reward was just too much for Ron to ignore. He had other things he wanted to test with magic, and his sister's book was a great way of doing that.
"Well, it's getting kinda late," Harry said. "Thanks, Ginny, I'll try to find a spare wand too."
Percy let Ron and Harry leave the room without a word. He waited for them to go, in fact. "Wands are going to be hard to get, Ginny. You shouldn't stir them up like that."
"But the school has plenty, Ron said. They had a whole pile of them in the—"
"Those are only for the school, and only as a last resort. The reason I'm here is to talk to Mum. Princess Cadance wants more wands so earth ponies and pegasi can learn and use magic, and that's when I told her about Ron's wand—Charlie made it.
"So then Princess Luna arrived and told us she'd spoken to him in his dream. Pinpointed his location on a map for us. Now they want me to go with her to try to find him and learn how to make wands from him or, if he can't teach me, to come here."
"Charlie is coming home?" Ginny couldn't help herself, she started bouncing up and down in place. "I'll have to tell Mum!"
"Mum knows. I already talked to her. I wanted to tell everyone here but—" Letting out a sigh, Percy shook his head. "I know Princess Luna is powerful, but apparently dragons are immune to magic. Well, most magic. Where we have to go is right through the middle of dragon territory."
Ginny could remember the stories her big brother had told about hiding from dragons. "Can't you just use a spell to hide from the dragons?"
"From what the princess said, we can't expect them to act anything like dragons back home. They're bigger, meaner, and smarter. She also said they were less prone to actually bothering with anyone. We have that going for us." Percy shrugged his shoulders. "At least it's an adventure. I feel really bad for everything that happened with—with King Sombra. I just want to make it right."
Seeing her smart big brother looking hurt tugged at the new destiny she'd been forging for herself. He was being hurt and she wanted to protect him. "You don't have to make it right, though. Everyone understands that he used magic to control you. We—"
"No. I know no one holds it against me. That doesn't matter, though. I need to do this, Ginny, for me."
Once again Luna sought out those tiny specs of humans that were beyond the dragon lands. She encountered the dragon guarding them again, but this time the huge creature simply gave way for her. It was almost enough for her to revise her opinion of dragons.
Charles Weasley felt his dream shift most notably when the dragon he was trying to befriend turned into the deep blue pony with wings and a horn. For the briefest moment he almost woke, but the dream steadied around him and he smiled at her. "Your Highness."
"We need to talk fast." Luna focused all her magic on reinforcing the dream and making it as tangible and unlikely to pop as she could. "Equestria and the Crystal Empire would like it if you could make us wands."
Confusion reigned for a few moments as Charlie tried to catch up with the topic. "Wands? I haven't—Oh, there was one I made."
"Exactly. That puts you one ahead of everyone who came from Earth. I will be traveling here with your brother. If you can teach him or myself how to make wands, all well and good, but we would appreciate it if you would come back with us if we can't learn it." Luna felt relief that she'd gotten everything out in time.
"No. I can't leave. People here need me." Charlie's mind brought up the Bent-Twigs, Norbert, and Whistlewing. "They all depend on me to keep things working here. If you can get someone to set up a new floo network, we have a fireplace they could add to it."
"'Floo network'?" There was a lot of reality leaking into the dream now. Luna created a few impossible geometric shapes and scattered them around to anchor things again. "I will have to confer some more with my assistants. This thing would allow us to send items back and forth?"
"It would move people around in the blink of an eye." Even Charlie could tell the dream was getting more wobbly now. He saw the odd shapes Luna had made and, in turning his attention to them, the dream stabilized again. "Clever trick."
"Thank you. I like to believe I've mastered a few tricks of this by now. I'll contact you again tomorrow night. Stay strong." Luna felt the dream weaken a little more despite her best efforts and allowed it to slowly collapse.
The dark bedroom around Luna slowly grew brighter as she used her magic to adjust the lighting. She slipped off her sleeping mask and climbed from the bed to complete her morning routines. It felt odd to not be focused on her moon, but she had left it in the capable care of her sister while this mission was in progress.
Content that she looked the part of a princess, Luna left her suite and made her way to the throne room of the Crystal Empire. Guards were on duty in the halls and the throne room itself, but there was no sign of Shining Armor or Cadance.
Reminded of all the times, as a young mare, she'd been up and about in their castle while Celestia slept, Luna made her way to the kitchen to find it bustling.
Two mares and a stallion rushed around transferring long bread tins from their spot on top of a big oven to the depths of it. Even Luna knew the old methods of bread making when she saw them. "Do you require any assistance?"
All three heads snapped around to see the princess standing just within the door of the kitchen, but it was Floured Hooves that was first to react. "Oh no, Your Highness, we have everything under control. Just preparing the day's bread. Can we help you with anything? Breakfast?"
"I can manage. Have you all had breakfast yet?" Luna made her way to a stove that wasn't in use and gave a little nod to it. She could find the pantry easily enough by the smell of spices.
"Not until this bread is baked. Are you sure we can't help you, princess?" Now Floured was starting to feel a little anxious. Princesses weren't meant to spend time in the kitchen except to yell at cooks who'd messed something up.
Floating sixteen eggs out to the bench, Luna found some spices and seasoning. "I believe I have everything well in hoof."
Over the following ten minutes Floured Hooves watched Luna with surreptitious glances as she made omelets for each of them. When Luna finished up and set the four servings on plates, Floured nudged her fellow bakers.
"When you have a moment, I made you something." Luna carried all four plates to the small table and chairs nearby and sat down to enjoy her breakfast.
It didn't take but a moment to finish off their current task and slip aside to eat. All three bakers were prepared to praise Luna's meal—no matter its quality—but found themselves too busy eating the delicious food to even think about lying.
"You know about a mission I'm going on?" Luna asked.
The castle kitchen always knew of such things. Extra resources would need to be provided and that meant that they needed to be cooked. "Yeah, we know you're going on one, not what it's for," Short Crust, another of the bakers, said. "This omelet is delicious."
"Thank you. My sister and I spent a little time learning to cook when we were young. I shouldn't doubt she's had more time to practice than I have, but I can still make the best breakfast." Luna enjoyed seeing the three enjoy her cooking. "We need provisions for no less than two weeks."
"Three would be better then. We can use magic to pack them small and light, and it's better to have more than you need than less," Floured said between mouthfuls.
Luna nodded to that. "What time does the castle wake up?"
"The upstairs? Usually another half-hour. It's why we're getting all the bread baked first."
Finishing her omelet, and letting the bakers do likewise, Luna pondered how long it might be until Percy Weasley might wake. When all the breakfast was gone, Luna used her own magic to gather the plates. "I won't keep you from your work any longer. Thank you for joining me."
Short, a unicorn, opened his mouth to offer to clean the plates, but was halted by Floured. He looked at her, watched her shake her head, then he shrugged. "We have two ovens left to fill. Let's get to it."
Cadance yawned and piled the scrambled egg on her plate atop a piece of fresh toast. She paid no attention to anyone else at the table as she ate it in one, two, and then three bites. "So, what do you have to report, Luna?"
"I made contact with Charles Weasley. He agreed to help us make wands, but refuses to travel here. Apparently he has ponies to protect where he is now. He mentioned something called a 'Flow Network.'" Luna turned to look at Percy Weasley and Gemma Farley.
"Sorry, Your Highness," Gemma had spent a lot of time testing herself to use the correct royal terms in Equestria, "it's called a floo network, and from what I understand it has not been implemented here yet."
"Implemented?" Luna asked.
"Right. I am not sure of the mechanics of building it, but a floo network requires a central hub and needs a witch or wizard to link a fireplace to that hub. Once connected, people can step up the fireplace, throw floo powder in, state your destination, then step into the fireplace. The flames, by then, will be bright green and will carry you to your destination." It was all common knowledge. "There are two problems for this: the recipe for floo powder is a secret and the process of linking fireplaces was information held by the Ministry."
"Several FNA—Floo Network Authority—workers came across." For Percy Weasley, being useful both to the ponies and wizarding folk of the Crystal Empire was his main goal in life. "I can have my father send the ones he trusts to the castle?"
Cadance nodded to Percy. "Do that, please. I would prefer it if this was something we don't let the Ministry here get a jump on. Plus, we will need to know how to link your brother's location to the new network."
Nodding his head in the pony equivalent of a bow, Percy stood up and made his way for the doors of the throne room. The meeting was now behind him, on a little table beside the dais that held the two thrones. When he reached the door, one of the stallions fell-in beside him and escorted him not just outside but continued alongside him. "Thank you, Blaze."
"It's my job to see you safe whenever you leave the castle, sir." Though Percy was a full-grown stallion himself, Blaze was a brawler of an earth pony mare. She'd traveled to the Crystal Empire when she'd heard a call go out for experienced soldiers and had fitted into the new Royal Guard there with ease. "Come on, Percy, relax. No wizard or witch is stupid enough to attack a wizard and a trained earth pony."
"I'm not sure if you realize, Blaze, but wizards and witches don't generally think much about those who have no direct magic."
Blaze let out a laugh. "Yeah, but that just means they haven't dealt with a trained earth pony guard before. You remember what I told you?"
"In a fight, don't cast any magic on you. Yeah?"
"Bingo. You just—" The red streak coming toward her gave Blaze enough time to lean into the rock under her hooves so when the stunning spell hit her, it drained away to nothingness. "Cease your casting at once!"
His first reaction was to fire off a distress flare. It was a simple spell that Percy had learned from the unicorn Royal Guard. Once his spell was off, Percy looked around nervously. He knew a wizard spell when he saw it, but he couldn't see where it had come from. "I'm putting up a shield around myself."
Blaze nodded without looking at Percy. "Move with me. I saw what direction it came from." It was a moderately complicated trick to be able to move while grounding her body out, but Blaze could almost trot while doing it.
Pulling his shield along, Percy kept a short distance from Blaze to keep his shield from bumping her. He scanned all the buildings around them, but couldn't see where the spell had come from. "If they don't do something soon, even run, they'll get caught by our backup."
"Right. So either we find somepony who's running away from here or they're going to try to—" The next spell to hit Blaze held far more malice and magic behind it. She strained to ground it out as the magic fought her racial talent, trying to burrow through her body and into her nerves.
Percy's eyes widened at the feel of the magic that had narrowly missed him and hit Blaze. "That's a forbidden curse! Cruciatus! If someone's using that, we need to hide!"
"It's—" It suddenly occurred to Blaze that the reason the curse was hard to rid herself of was because the one casting it was pouring more magic into her constantly. "Now we play a game of find the screaming wizard."
Doubling down on her grounding, Blaze flexed her earth pony talents in a way that not only sank magic through her body, but caused feedback to the caster too. From one moment to the next the attack halted and she heard shouting coming from a window above and to their left. "There!"
Percy didn't wait for more. He aimed his horn at the window and let loose with one of the other unicorn spells he'd been taught. It was a simple pattern to make and one that he'd memorized easily. The beam sliced through the air and hit the window with enough force to smash it inward.
Seeing her chance, Blaze used Percy's covering fire to rush into the building. The door was like paper to her and momentum. Looking around the entrance of the home, she saw a family of mixed humans/ponies huddled in the living room—and all of them pointed toward the stairs.
Rushing up, Blaze could hear the sound of repeated blasts and charged down a hallway until she found the right room. The witch was coughing and spitting out blood, but turned to see Blaze coming at her. "Damn you! Die! Ava—"
Blaze didn't want to give the witch another chance to cast a spell and delivered a kick to her jaw that spun her around twice. The thud as she hit the floor was relief to Blaze. "I've got her, Percy!"
Panting, Percy was still burning adrenaline. He'd heard the first syllables of the Killing Curse and it had chilled him. The sound of thundering hooves drew his ears and then the rest of his head to the dozen guardponies approaching. They reached him just as Blaze dragged the witch out the front door of the house.
"Sergeant?"
Blaze saluted, keeping one hoof pinning the muggle-born witch pinned. "Lieutenant, reporting a target neutralized. They were using—"
"They used Cruciatus and the Killing Curse!" The words burst from Percy. He'd only seen examples of the three Unforgivable Curses in the build-up to his N.E.W.T. examinations—not that they'd ever happened. But all the ponies were looking at him blankly. "There are three spells that wizards and witches are never allowed to use. Cruciatus Curse is used for torture—it makes someone beg for death. The other one isn't called the Killing Curse for nothing—if she'd finished that spell…" He looked at Blaze and saw her face go pale. "Yeah, that bad."
"An' then he wouldn't say anything else. But I could see in his eyes he was angry. I've never seen Percy so angry before." Ron was shaking his head. "If it hadn't been for the guard they sent with him, he wouldn't have made it."
Ginny was the first to reply. "It was kinda the same with me. They attacked and tried to take me off Searing Spear—she was the guardpony that was escorting me to the castle each day. That's when I had to fight off the Ministry thugs."
"I thought you were mostly joking," Ron said. "Then you showed us how good you got dueling. I can believe it now."
"That doesn't sound like the sort of thing the Ministry would do." Hermione didn't sound sure of her words. We all looked at her waiting for more. "What if it's just a few of them doing bad things?"
"Why don't we find out?" I asked.
Ron and Ginny both stared at me as if I'd gone crazy.
"Have you gone crazy?" Ron asked.
"No," I said, "what I mean is what if me and Hermione go and try to sus things out?"
Ginny shook her head and looked, even with her lineart style face, worried. "Harry, I don't think you should. They're not playing around."
"Well, someone needs to, and if not us then who?" I looked over at Hermione and raised an eyelid at her. "So, are you up for it?"
"Up for what, Harry Potter?" Addera's voiced shocked me and I jerked around to look at her. She slithered in quickly.
"Err." I felt like I'd been caught doing something wrong. Was it something wrong? I wanted to protect my friends if this really was something getting worse. "I was asking if she wanted to go with me to find out what the Ministry is doing. They seem to be attacking students, but it's always isolated stuff. It's not like they're throwing themselves around."
"There was, uh, one time they did." Ginny's words drew all our attention to her. "I was with Cadance at a party she was holding. There were a few Ministry people there and one was—uh—I think his name was Trencent? Anyway, he's the leader of the Ministry here. He tried to obliviate Cadance."
We were all silent a moment. If the leader of the Ministry was doing that, it meant—"Wait, that still doesn't tell us all of the Ministry are bad. There might be others working there who need help getting out," I said.
"Professor Sparks mentioned she was in the Ministry." Hermione said. "Maybe we should ask her if she knows anyone else who might want to get out?"
"If we ask a professor, they'll tell us not to go," Ron said.
Addera spent all her time looking at me. I know she didn't have to have her head turned my way to see me, what with the scrying glasses she wore, but she was looking right at me and I knew what she was going to say even if she never said it.
The problem was she was right. Maybe. Probably. "We shouldn't go," I said.
Ron nodded. "Right. They'll say we shouldn't go. That's why—"
"No. I mean I think we shouldn't. There's probably someone already working on this and what could we do when the boss of the Ministry is in on it?"
"But they won't be expecting us. We could tell them we're unhappy with how things are going and that we want to be on the 'right' side when everything is said and done." Gesturing at the window, Ron shook his head. "We should be careful and have a way to get out if something bad happens."
"Hold on, Ron," Hermione said. "They attacked your brother and sister. You can't go."
"Why not?" he asked.
"Because they'd grab you and use you to get to Ginny and Percy. We need someone else who they wouldn't think twice about," Hermione said.
"Draco."
We must have all been staring at Ron with some kind of shock because he puffed his chest out a little and said, "What?"
"Really?" I asked. "Draco Malfoy?"
Ron nodded to me. "He'd be perfect. No one would think he'd be out of place going to the Ministry to betray Hogwarts."
"No he wouldn't, Ron," Hermione said, letting out a sigh. "Didn't you listen to a thing he said? He doesn't want to do all this kind of stuff. He just wants to be a pony."
"W-What makes you think there aren't spy ponies?" Ginny asked. "I m-met one. She was nice."
"How would that even work?" Ron asked. "Ponies are all—Well, they're all super nice and stuff."
"Searing Spear was nice, but she also knew a lot of powerful magic. Shining is really strong with his magic, too, and Cadance is crazy powerful," Ginny said.
I let out a sigh. "This doesn't change that we really, probably, possibly, kinda, definitely shouldn't do this." I looked around everyone's faces, settling on Addera's with the definitely option. "Back on Earth I was always under pressure to do things because I was the one meant to stop Voldemort, but he's not here. Let an adult take care of all this stuff."
It was the least wizard thing I'd ever said, mostly because it made sense.
With a sigh, Ron slumped back. "I still think we should, but no one should go in there alone."
Ron and Hermione wandered off together, talking about something still, which left Ginny and Addera still with me. I jumped up on Addera's coiled tail and walked up to her torso just in time for a hug. "Thanks, Addera. That was probably a really bad idea, even for a wizard."
"You're still going on about being a wizard, Harry Potter? You already are."
"No, this isn't being a wizard." It was so easy to relax in her hugs. Addera was probably the best-equipped hugger in the world. "Being a wizard is…"
I let out a happy sigh as she squeezed me with her coils and then relaxed her grip again. "It's making the wrong choices for the right reason. It's spending way too much magic filling a teacup with boiling water. It's doing crazy magic just because that crazy magic can do what you want."
"I—I think I get it," Ginny said. "So if I used a fire whip to light a fire?"
"Yeah. That's it exactly. But witches tend to be more, too. Like, when McGonagall takes control of insane situations just by using a stern voice? That's being a grade-A witch." I tried to think of other things that were overly witchy, but I was drawing a blank.
"Am I a witch?" Putting just the right amount of emphasis on it, Ginny raised one drawn-on eyebrow at me.
"Ginny, you burn magic by the second just existing like that. You can duel how many wizards to a standstill? And—AND—you have a whole world where you can hone your skills in bright pink halls. You're just about the witchiestswitch I ever met." That's when something reminded me of our times together before school break. "Hey, do you think you could help me work on my drawing again?"
Laughing, Ginny nodded to me. "Sure, but it makes me giggle since I am a drawing now." She held out her arm as if to demonstrate.
"Thank you, Harry Potter, for not being too much of a wizard." Addera gave me another little hug before uncoiling herself and slithering to a chair. "Now I need to work on my homework."
Turning my attention back from where Addera was pulling out a book, I reached into my own pack to pull out my notepad. "So, what do you think I should draw?"
Hermione Granger looked at Draco Malfoy. "Well?"
"Isn't this normally the kind of thing you do with Harry?" Draco, in the great hall, was dipping his fish fingers in some tomato sauce before eating them. It might be the most peasant of peasant food, but he could remember time spent at home when the kitchen staff would make him something actually tasty rather than the depressing meals his parents frequently ate.
"Well, yes, but he's being all sensible." The way Hermione said it made even her consider how sane she was.
"For once in my life I might actually agree with him. Don't get caught up in something so big you can't get out of." Picking up his chip sandwich, Draco took a big bite and made a happy sound as the carb-on-carb meal flooded his mouth with memories and flavor.
"That's just it." Hermione felt a driving force behind her in the certainty that there were people in the Ministry who couldn't work out how to get out. "There are definitely people already caught up in it. I want to help them."
Letting loose a sigh, Draco felt the achingly pony sensation of wanting to help a friend. "What do you have planned?"
"First we need to find where the Ministry are. We need to head over there and talk to them about—about an internship." She hadn't actually planned that far yet, but Hermione was bulldozing ahead and making up a strategy as she went.
"What if they tell us to sod off?" Draco asked. "We're not exactly the most useful types, and despite wanting to help, I'm not going to do something dangerous that might hurt people."
"We can just tell them that. We want to help, but we don't want to hurt anyone." Hermione was in the process of mentally congratulating herself when she spotted movement under one of Draco's wings. "What's that?"
Turning to look where Hermione had pointed, Draco found himself smiling. "That's Bes. Come on out, sleepy head. She likes to snooze where it's warm."
Slithering out and onto Draco's back, Bes did a little yawn and slithered up until her head was poking out of Draco's mane between his ears. Flicking her tongue out a few times, she turned lazily as a plate with several crispy rodents on it appeared.
"Uh, thank you," Draco said to whomever had made the plate appear. Lifting one of the mice up with the tips of his wing-feathers, he tossed it up to where he felt Bes to be.
Hermione felt the pit of her stomach drop out from under her as she watched the little snake bare a big pair of fangs and catch the mouse mid-air. "Y-Y-You have a pet snake?"
"Don't you have a pet?" Draco asked.
"No. I always wanted one, but it's a little hard looking after a cat that talks or an oversize toad when we live in the muggle world. I guess it doesn't matter so much now." As she watched Bes gulp down the mouse, Hermione wondered what kind of pet she could get. "She doesn't bite, does she?"
Draco actually giggled at that, then quickly covered his snout as if he hadn't. "You'd know if she bit someone here."
About to open her mouth and ask what that meant, the solution became clear to Hermione after a little thought. "How venomous is she?"
"If she bit you, and you tried to walk to the hospital wing"—Draco grinned for effect—"you wouldn't make it."
"Either she's some kind of magical snake, then, or she's from Australia." It was meant to be a joke, but when Hermione said the last word, Draco giggled and nodded. "You keep her well-fed, correct?"
"I would never let her go hungry. She's a fierce little warrior, but she likes to keep warm and nibble mice." Tossing another mouse to Bes, Draco reached a feather up and rubbed her under the chin. "Do you want to pet her?"
Leaning forward, Hermione held her hand out, palm up, with just two fingers extended. "Like this?"
Bes eyed the approaching fingers, but with a belly full of mouse she had no designs on eating a huge creature. Added to this was the strange way the fingers sparkled. When they made contact with her nose, however, she leaned against them because they were warm.
"I thought she'd be—Uh, I guess I haven't really petted a snake before. Addera doesn't feel like that, either. She has soft bristles on her scales." As she spoke, Hermione kept up petting Bes, a little surprised at how fine the snake was with the attention. "She likes this, huh?"
"Bes loves attention. I wish I could spend more time just talking to her and petting her, but school is important." Draco couldn't hold back a smile as Bes closed her nictitating lenses and stretched forward to wrap a coil around Hermione's wrist. Have you thought of getting a pet snake? They don't cause as many problems as cats and toads."
The thought had never entered her head, but now that it had Hermione couldn't help but consider it. "Where would I find a pet snake here, though?"
"If we could find another snake like Bes, but male, we could have several. But the odds of that are not good. What about if we ask around about local snakes?" Draco watched as Bes slithered off him and onto Hermione's arm. Having never shared Bes' friendship with anyone before, he got a little thrill from seeing her get along with Hermione.
"Harry said there was a pony in Ponyville that took care of a lot of animals. Maybe I could go there and ask them?" Hermione knew she should be worried about having a venomous snake coiled around her arm, particularly when Bes was intent to get her body inside the sleeve of Hermione's robe, but there was a sense of relaxation about the animal that put her at ease.
Draco tapped his chin with his hoof in thought. "We could go there during winter break. I mean, you'd need your parents' permission, and I'd have to write to Twilight to ask if it's alright, but we could take the train to Ponyville and try to find them."
Hermione's face fell. "My parents are in Canterlot trying to find what they need to start up their work again. It might be hard to find them."
"Your friend is one of the only people in the castle with an owl. You could ask him," Draco said.
It took Hermione a moment to realize who Draco meant. "Oh, I guess I could." Turning her attention to the snake now doing its best impression of an oversize and decorative glove, Hermione lifted her up to eye level. "Are you okay with staying there while I eat?"
Bes understood Hermione well enough to know she didn't have to abandon her warm spot if she was happy to put up with some jiggling. Such motion she was used to, and so she flicked her tongue out to taste the air in assurance to her heat-host.
"She's fine. Warm and with a full belly, she won't mind if you jostle her a bit," Draco said. "Now, about the first thing. We shouldn't have anything to do with it. There are people who are already working on that stuff and, ultimately, if there is too much to handle and it gets out of control, somepony will let the princesses know."
"You mean Celestia and Luna?" Hermione asked.
"Yeah. I was reading some of Twilight's history books and Princess Celestia has been ruling Equestria for over a thousand years. She almost single-handedly took care of any major problems that came along. Then, before that, she and her sister did that together." Draco left out the big history of Nightmare Moon. It was a strange topic for him, but the return and rebirth of Luna was something he wanted for himself—to be free of his past transgressions.
"Oh. Uh." Hermione wasn't sure how to get around that for a moment, then her mind latched onto one aspect. "But there would be a lot of people who get hurt before then."
Draco sighed. "You're not going to let it rest, are you?" When Hermione shook her head, Draco let out the kind of sigh he used to use to fend off Slytherin first years asking stupid questions. "Alright, but if things look bad, we're leaving."
"Of course. We'll come back and tell—I guess we'd tell the guards at the castle?" Hermione found a spot under Bes' jaw that made her tongue flick out every time it was stroked. When the snake seemed to be perfectly happy to keep being petted there, she continued. "That seems like the smartest bit."
"Yes. We also need to leave a note in case we can't get out. Make sure it's somewhere someone will find in a week or so." Finishing up his sandwich, Draco used the last bit of it to scoop up all the left over sauce on the plate.
"Right." Hermione felt excitement rush through her. It reminded her of her time helping Harry with the whole heir of Slytherin thing, as well as all their other adventures. "Right!"
Sneaking out of the castle when it had only been patrolled by one man and his cat had been oddly difficult—trying to do it when there were armed guards keeping a patrol outside was nearly impossible. It was why Hermione Granger was thankful Draco Malfoy had some kind of secret exit.
When Draco closed the door to his rooms, he took a slow breath. "Now, it'd be really neat if I had a way to get out of the castle."
"Wait, what?" Hermione asked. "I thought you said you had one?"
"I do, I just need to ask the castle to make it." Draco opened the door again and walked inside. There was now a very conspicuous candlestick standing to one side near the wall. "See?"
"No I don't get what—" Words dying in her throat, Hermione watched Draco open the hidden door in the wall with the candlestick. Walking in behind him, she was about to draw her wand when Draco cast a light spell and all the big feathers on his wings lit up. "Wait."
With his wings just out and to the sides, Draco looked back at Hermione.
"How did you make all your feathers light up like wands?" Hermione just got a raised eyebrow as her reply. She thought about it and shook her head. "No. Your feathers couldn't be wands because that would be…"
When Hermione didn't finish the sentence, Draco laughed. "They are."
Hermione just stared. "What? But how? Surely ponies would have worked it out long ago if—"
"It's only crystal pegasi. Twilight has written a preliminary paper up after some experiments with other feathers, and it was only mine that worked. She's trying to get more crystal pegasi to donate a feather to her tests." Leading the way down a staircase, Draco heard Hermione following. "You might want to use your wand, still. It's safer if we both have lights."
"Right. Hey, when did you get so good at this kind of thing?" Hermione asked.
"Since I—" Draco took a deep breath and sought refuge in his desire to be a pony and not have to deal with human matters again. The irony that he was walking right into the middle of a huge human matter wasn't lost on him. "I read a lot, okay? Twilight had a lot of books and got me a card at the library in Canterlot."
Knowing that Draco did a lot of reading surprised Hermione probably more than she would have thought. "How do you know how the castle works so well? Did you really just ask it for this tunnel? Can you ask it for other things? Have you asked it for other things?"
"I figured it out myself, yes, yes, and yes." Sparing a glance back at Hermione, Draco flicked a wing up to better illuminate her face. She looked annoyed. "I figured out how to use the room of requirement when I ran into it at the end of last semester. It will grow new parts when I say I need them. How do you think Slytherin had so many pony-shaped uniforms?"
"Huh. I thought you used magic?"
"You can't use magic to just make things out of thin air. Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration restricts it, though there are tricks around that."
Trying to work out what those tricks would be, Hermione thought on what the exceptions were. "Wait, if you made the cloth out of something edible, you could duplicate them several times."
"But we didn't. I got all the measurements of everypony and we I asked the room for all the clothes. Either it's exempt from Gamp's Law or there are a lot of clothes missing from somewhere."
Hermione laughed. "Hopefully not while people were wearing them."
Managing two steps before he lost his fight to keep his giggles contained, Draco shook his head. "Maybe I should try this out and see which it is?"
Snorting, Hermione managed to say, "Give me a little warning first, or wait until after I have this animagus thing worked out first."
"You're really going through with that?" Draco asked.
"Yeah. I—" More stairs. Hermione took most of them down a whole floor before trying again. The leaf under her tongue felt huge. "It's all well and good getting to keep my fingers, but I don't fit in with my friends."
Draco stopped. "I guess I didn't think of that kind of thing. I mean, at first we were all worried about not turning into ponies because we wouldn't fit in back on Earth. But now—now I see where you're coming from."
"Hopefully my animagus form will be something small." Hermione disliked how much of a deal Draco seemed to make of it. He was standing in her way and looking back at her with obvious concern. "Can we keep going please?"
"Yeah." Turning again, Draco headed off to another set of stairs. "Maybe you'll become something cool, like a snake."
Rolling her eyes, Hermione shook her head. "Don't even joke that. I'd get laughed out of Gryffindor if I turned into a snake."
"And welcomed into Slytherin." Draco let loose a laugh and started down what looked like the last stairs before a door.
"I'd join your house, whatever it is, before that." When Draco stopped and looked back at her, Hermione held out her hand. "I mean, if you made a house."
"I'll think about it. House Malfoy?" Reaching the door, Draco reached out with a hoof and poked at an obvious lever. The door opened into the night air of the Crystal Empire and he stepped outside—and instantly had to start flapping his wings. "Watch the step."
Hermione looked down and saw the street about thirty feet straight down. Casting one of the safe falling spells she'd learned when trying broom flight, Hermione stepped out and fell to the ground at a slow pace. Once her hooves touched the ground the spell ended.
"Lucky I was going first," Draco said as he landed beside Hermione. He banished his lights and tucked his wings back under his coat. "Come on, let's find the Ministry."
As soon as they'd left the vicinity of the castle, someone stepped out of a shadowed alleyway. "Well, well, well. Out a little late, aren't we?"
"Well duh." Draco walked toward the alley. "We should get off the street."
Narrowing his eyes, the man whistled. "Draco Malfoy. And, if I'm not mistaken, someone in a Gryffindor coat. What's two brats from Hogwarts doing out here?" He backed into the alley, more than happy to have them out of public view.
Hermione saw that one of the man's sleeves was empty as if he'd lost an arm. "We want to help the Ministry. What's going on isn't right."
The man let out a laugh. "Hear that, Sid? This BS is so thick even kids can see it."
"And right they are, Boris." Walking closer to the group, Sidney nodded deeper into the alleyway. "Might be a good idea to come with us. Smart kids like you have been getting into all sorts of trouble on the streets."
Looking at Hermione, Draco nodded. "Yeah, we don't want to get mixed up in whatever's going on in the city. My father wouldn't approve of any of that."
Boris froze where he stood and looked back and down at Draco. "Right, Malfoy. Your old folks are heroes—saved my life." He gave him a nod and turned back to lead them into one of the buildings. "Who's that with you?"
"Hermione. She's a good friend." Draco didn't elaborate further, but he gave as much weight to his words as he could. "Helped me out of—and into—a lot of jams."
"That's how you know the right people to be friends with." Sidney was less worried about the kids and more worried about who might have seen them. When the door closed after they all piled into the back entrance of their safehouse, he let out a sigh of relief. "Good to see not all you lads—and lasses—have lost your heads."
"We don't—we can't—be gone from Hogwarts too long," Hermione said.
"Right." Thankful for the spurring him along, Draco nodded. "It's not like we can do much anyway but get you information from within the castle."
"See, Sid, that's why the Malfoys were at the top. Alright, lad, bring us anything you hear about the Ministry or about these people," Boris said, jotting down some names on a piece of paper as he spoke, "and you'll be doing good work to see that wizards and witches are in charge of looking after wizards and witches."
Managing not to shudder at how the words made sense and set off alarms in her head, Hermione noticed Draco nodding along to it and started to worry. What if he went along with them? she thought.
Taking the paper and slipping it under his wing, Draco turned for the door. "Should we come back here when we know more?"
"Yeah. You do that. If you don't have anything by the start of the month, come and see us anyway."
Draco and Hermione kept quiet all the way back to the castle. Looking up at where they both knew the secret door was, it was Hermione who asked, "I know you can fly, but how do I get up there?"
"You haven't worked out flying or teleporting yet, right?" Draco asked. When Hermione looked back at him blankly, he shrugged. "That's normally how unicorns get somewhere a pegasus would normally be able to get."
"Flying? Like growing wings?"
"No. It's just—Okay, I don't know how she does it, but Twilight has the trick worked out. From what she said her daughter is one of Equestria's best teleporters. Anyway, let me fly up and open the door, then I'll lift you up here." Spreading his wings, Draco passed Bes and the letter to Hermione and took off.
Holding Bes, giving the sleepy reptile a slow rub under her jaw to apologize for waking her, Hermione watched as Draco flew up to the door and, after poking at the crystal there a bit, opened it. She had no warning at all when she started to float upward. Struggling to hold steady at first, she realized after a moment that Draco was using a strong version of a levitation charm.
Flapping his wings slowly, Draco focused his magic down one of his feathers to lift Hermione up to the doorway. When she reached it and slipped inside, he jumped in too and closed the door behind him. "Pass me Bes and the note. We need to warn whoever is on it."
Reaching out with Bes, Hermione gave her one more rub on the jaw before letting her slither back into Draco's clothing. Unencumbered, she cast light a moment before Draco did. She saw shock register on Draco's face as he read it. "Who's on it?"
Draco just passed Hermione the note.
Cadance Shining Armor Minerva McGonagall Alastor Moody Albus Dumbledore Sirius Black Jenny Sparks Tonks Arthur Weasley Harry Potter Ginny Weasley Percy Weasley
Holding the note and feeling a chill rush of panic run through her, Hermione shook her head. "We need to go to McGonagall first. She'll be easiest to talk to and can get word to the others. Wait, I need to tell Harry and Ginny."
"They're safe within Hogwarts. We need to tell McGonagall first because if Harry or Ginny give us away, we'll be in more trouble than they are." Draco stepped around Hermione and started climbing the stairs back up to Hogwarts. "Now we just have to work out how to wake her up."
I never used to sleep in. Back in England, living with my aunt and uncle, I had to be up first to start breakfast and get the kitchen cleaned up. Even in Hogwarts, when it was in Scotland, I would wake up early. I guess it was because the bed felt wrong—soft.
Being coiled up in a lamia's tail coils, however, was just about the best way to sleep. If Addera didn't wake me up, I'd have slept in until noon every day.
"Wake up, Harry Potter, or I will dump you on the floor."
"That's mean, Addera." I had to move quickly as she uncoiled, gathering my legs under me and shaking my coat out. "I'll go have a shower."
Leaving her, I went to take care of my morning things. It was always fun to just unload and get clean and dry in the most wizard way possible—I would wash myself clean and then think angry thoughts.
Dry, I walked back to our room and grabbed my saddlebags and books, then headed down to the Gryffindor common room.
"There you are, Harry!" Ron rushed over to me. "Professor Lupin came in earlier and took Ginny to see McGonagall. He said that when you wake up you had to go th—"
"Ah, Harry." Lupin was taller than all of us owing to being half-blood and standing upright. "Please come with me if you're done with your morning rituals."
It was all happening so quick that I barely had time to even think of asking before Ron did, "Professor, what's going on? Harry an' my sister didn't do nothin'."
"No, they're not in trouble," the professor said, his tone was always so calm and even. I had to wonder if he could teach me anything about reducing my need to let off steam. "There's just a few things that need discussing."
He led the way outside, and even thought I looked back at Ron to see if he had any idea what was happening, he shrugged at me. "Sir, what is—?"
"I have been asked not to discuss anything, sorry Harry. I don't know anything, anyway, except who the headmistress has asked me to collect." That's when I realized he was a pony now.
"You changed?" I asked him.
"It seemed silly and I was starting to miss magic. What's a wizard who can't cast a spell?" He was still wearing the clothes he'd worn when I'd last seen him. Was being a pony something so familiar now that it barely even registered?
"Uh, I guess he'd be a muggle—wait, more like a squib." I thought about it more, but squib seemed the closest. We were almost all the way to the office when I realized that he hadn't said anything else. He knocked, McGonagall's voice answered from within, and I was shoved through and the door closed behind me.
In the room Ginny and McGonagall were waiting for me. Walking forward, I jumped up onto a free chair and looked over to where Ginny's book sat, then to her.
"Now you're both here, I can begin. We have come into a list of names that the Ministry wish to know more information about. The pair of you are on it." She looked at me, raising an eyebrow. "You don't look impressed, Harry?"
"Yeah. It's bad that they want to know about me, but Voldemort did a lot more than get to know me. Besides," I said, "I guess that puts me and Ginny in the same basket, so we might as well spend more time together since we will be an easier target to protect."
"That's a good idea!" Ginny said, looking about as excited as a living caricature could. "We can shore up each others' weak points. Maybe even lead the Ministry on a wild goose chase."
It was a good point. "That would let the others on the list do the things the Ministry don't want them to do."
"You will cease this line of questioning; both of you. You are not to attempt anything that would put either of you in danger, and that includes acting as bait for the Ministry. The others on the list are all adults and all of them are far better equipped for dealing with anything the Ministry could pit against them." McGonagall didn't sound happy at the idea. In fact, she sounded even less happy than usual. "The only reason I'm telling you is so you could be aware in case you notice anyone spending more than the usual amount of time watching you.
"Now, please make your way to the great hall and try not to speak a word of anything I've said to anyone else." When I jumped to my feet, McGonagall cleared her throat. "Harry, please escort Miss Weasley."
"Oh, right. Sorry, Ginny." I used a locomotion charm to pick up her book and put it in my saddlebag.
Ginny followed me, walking beside me, on my way out the door. "Thanks, Harry. I guess this has to do with them attacking me and Searing Spear. Oh, or me breaking Mr. Trencent's wand when he tried to obliviate Cadance."
"We probably shouldn't talk about this outside the Gryffindor tower. You never know when someone is watching or listening out here." I sped up, wanting to get back to the great hall as quick as I could. There was something odd now, the feeling of being watching might just be my imagination, but now I was imagining it I couldn't stop.
The relief I felt as I stepped into the hall was palpable. With everyone around me, it was easier to blend in and be invisible. What surprised me the most was seeing Hermione and Draco sitting close and talking. Maybe they were on the list too? Why else would Hermione be talking to him?
I made my way to the Gryffindor group where Addera and three of Ginny's brothers sat. I bounced once onto the bench and a second time to reach Addera's coils. Rather than talk, I instead used a locomotion charm to reach out and pull a plate over that was a complete English breakfast.
"Well?" Ron asked.
Ginny looked at me. I started eating. "New dueling practice for me. The headmistress suggested Harry to help me practice more since he can absorb attacks easily." She said it so smoothly that it didn't even sound like a lie. Wait, was it a lie? They could have talked about anything before I arrived.
"Maybe that's what Draco and Hermione have been talking about. They've sat together all through breakfast." Ron pointed at the pair. "It's not natural. I mean, I know Draco is different now, but how can she be so interested in him?"
"Ron, are you jealous?" I asked.
His head snapped around and he glared at me instead of Draco and Hermione. "What? Jealous of him? With her? Harry, that's horrible. Hermione is—She's my friend is all."
Beside me (and technically under me too), Addera was working her way slowly through a plate of sausages and eggs. She looked at Ron while she chewed. I wanted to ask her what she was thinking about, but just as I was going to she took another bite of sausage.
"What's this?" George asked. "Why's our brother blushing like that?"
Ginny giggled. "Harry just asked him if he's jealous of Hermione spending time with Draco."
Fred reached past his twin to pat Ron on the shoulder with one hoof. "Better luck next time, Ron."
"There are plenty more fish in the sea." George elbowed Fred aside and took up the role of faux comforter. "Speaking of, how's your Alicia doing, Fred?"
"She's feeling right sick these days, George. No matter what we do, she's always feeling a little horse."
Grunting out a groan, Ron turned to the side and tried to punch George in the shoulder, but his brother just moved with the hoof. "You two are the worst."
Fred looked like he'd just been given a birthday and Christmas present at the same time. "No, Ron, what Addera's having for breakfast is the wurst."
I groaned. If no one stopped Fred, we'd have this all day. "I wonder what they're talking about?"
"Who?" Fred asked.
George poked Ron in the ribs with his hoof. "Ron's girlfriend and Draco."
"Hermione is not my girlfriend!" Ron's shout had, predictably, come just as the room became quiet, ensuring that everyone—including Hermione—would hear it. His eyes widened and he buried his face in his forelegs.
Before the twins could even start up on Ron again, Hermione sat down beside Addera and me. "What was all that about?" she asked.
"'All that'?" Ron asked. "What were you doing with Draco? And why didn't anyone remember seeing you get up and leave the tower today?"
"Their first lovers' dust-up?" Fred asked, to which George nodded solemnly. Both of them laughed and backed away when Ron turning on them again.
Turning my own attention back to Hermione, I asked, "Where were you if you weren't in the tower?"
"I can't say." Hermione huffed her breath and rolled her eyes in Ron's direction.
Sure enough, Ron came back with, "You were with Draco all night, weren't you? What do you see in him?"
Turning to glare down at Ron, Hermione looked like she was about to have a grade-A witch moment. "At least Draco doesn't lie about what he feels anymore. Unlike someone I could name."
"What do you mean?" Ron asked, only to me it sounded more like a demand.
"I mean, Ronald Weasley," Hermione said, "Draco is being a far better friend to me now than you are." Standing up, she plucked the two salad sandwiches off the table (that had just appeared, already wrapped in foil) and stalked back down the hall and out the door.
"Ron?" I asked.
"What is it, Harry?"
"You're being a git." Standing up, I bounced off Addera's coils, leaving her and Ron behind. When I got to the door of the great hall, I saw Hermione heading for the stairs. "Wait, Hermione!"
She waited for me to catch up before continuing along the hall to the stairs. "Can you believe him?"
Should I say something or just let her get it out? Witches were the hardest to understand, but I decided to sigh. "He's worried about you, but he's also being stupid about it."
I guess it was the right thing to say because Hermione just stopped walking beside me and let out a sigh. "You're right, Harry, but he's being overprotective. Draco has turned over a new leaf, and he's helping me with a project for school."
"Figured it was something like that. You both seem kinda into classes this year—well, you're always into classes, but Draco seems to be too." I kept pace with her when she started walking again. "Where are we going?"
"Gryffindor. I need to get changed for classes." She led the way upstairs, picking the right ones to get us to the entrance to the tower. "Does he really think we were t-together?"
I had to rush to think if I'd ever heard her stammer like that. She sounded worried about something. "He might. I don't know, but has he ever said anything like that?" When she shook her head, I let out a snort. "I figure, then, that it's his problem."
She turned and looked down at me, smiling. "Thanks, Harry. I needed to hear that. You can eat one of my sandwiches if you're still hungry." Hermione gestured to her foil-wrapped breakfast as she put it down, then made her way to the girls side of the Gryffindor tower.
I glanced at her sandwich, but I'd eaten enough to get by without having to steal her breakfast. Besides, she was bigger than me. Sitting there, guarding her food, I watched George's salamander dancing in the fireplace.
Fire was pretty awesome, but I was going to have to work around the fact I couldn't do much else but fire. Like, when I tried to use my horn to hold things. How could I stop it incinerating everything I touch?
Maybe it would just take practice? I guess the easy way to test that is to find a safe way of practicing and, seeing a log sitting beside the fireplace, I had my answer.
Focusing through my horn, I tried to pick up the log. Successful, I hefted it deeper into the fireplace just as my magic ignited it. To my surprise the salamander jumped from the core of the fire onto the log even before I put it down.
Remembering what Snape's experiment had found, I used my magic to pet the salamander—who showed every sign that he enjoyed it. I moved closer and lay down right in front of the fire, continuing to pet… I think they called the salamander Ember.
The soft clopping of hooves on wood let me know when Hermione was back. Lifting my head from the fireplace, I looked up to where I knew she was standing. "Sorry. Ember looked lonely and I figured my telekinesis wouldn't hurt him."
"I need to learn how to do that. Can you teach me?" Hermione asked.
Turning back to look at her, I raised my eyebrow. "You want to learn how to set things on fire with your horn?"
She froze and looked at me for a second. I could practically hear the gears turning in her head. "You're probably right. Maybe I'll ask Draco to teach me."
Ah, there we go. Now the awkwardness is back. Hooray… "I don't think we'll ever be friends—err, Draco and me, that is. We just…" A new silence built after I trailed off. Turning my attention to Ember, I did my best to avoid thinking about the pink elephant in the room.
"Too much history, right? Draco talks the same way about you."
"Should life be this confusing at just thirteen?" I asked.
Hermione, towering above me, shrugged. "I don't know, Harry, but it sure seems to be that way."
"Pathetic." Sombra examined the documents that he'd had Herbert Trencent write for him. To him, the method by which the Ministry used mental control through memory removal was primitive, but at the same time utterly ruthless and almost impossible to remove. It was the last part he enjoyed the most.
All too often, of the centuries he'd reigned, had Sombra seen his minions stolen away and his delicate work to control them undone. No more. "Put it on."
The small circlet of metal looked innocuous enough, but Herbert had watched it be forged and witnessed the depth and delicacy of magic that had gone into it. Part of him screamed to stop, to run, to go and beg the ponies for protection from the monster beside him—but that part was not just weak, it was shouted down by the rest of his mind. Picking it up, Herbert touched the clasp at the back and reached up to his neck with it.
Sombra felt the link form when Herbert fitted the collar, felt it settle as the little clasp clicked and magically obliterated itself—leaving the circle unbroken. "Good. Very, very good. Now, feed me your magic so I can more easily make a second one." He didn't want to admit it, not even to a completely controlled creature, but just making one of the collars had cost him the majority of his power.
He wanted another two of the collars for two very special ponies. In one, a stallion, he'd sensed such devotion and dedication as to make the most ruthless ruler in Equestria's history drool. In the second one, an alicorn, there was a limitless power that would let him make as many collars as he wished.
Then, more than ever before, he could own the Crystal Empire and all its citizens. With the power of an alicorn under his control—nothing would stop him.
The train ride to Baltimare had brought Luna, Percy, and a small contingent of guards closer to their target far faster than any form of transport—even flight—would have. But now they had a problem. "An airship will run the risk of having a dragon take it as a challenge. A seagoing ship would be far slower and still run the risk of attracting dragon attention."
Percy Weasley looked over the notes. "You specifically asked for pegasi for the flying, right? You said there is no point in trying to fight a dragon."
"Just because they lack spellcasting, the Royal Dragoon pegasi are quite useful if a fight is required. But, yes, I believe we'll take an airship. There is a royal skiff kept in each city in Equestria—maintained for just such situations." The matter had, of course, been decided in advance. She'd sent word to have their airship ready to fly.
It only took a scant twenty minutes to board and stow their equipment on the airship. Percy, more used to a society that avoids showing off the fantastic and magical, seeing flying airships and casual magic done by unicorns in the street—going about their daily lives—was starting to get jumpy. Part of him was always suspicious and expecting a Ministry of Magic wizard to jump out and point a finder (or hoof, these days) at him and accuse him of not doing something about them.
"You look on edge. Is something amiss?" Luna asked Percy when their things were settled on the ship.
"In my world—the one I came from—magic is kept hidden from the humans who can't use it. All this"—he gestured expansively to encompass the ship, the city, and as much of Equestria as he could conceive of—"makes me think our police are about to stomp in and obliviate everyone."
Feeling the gentle tug as the ship was cast-off, Luna gave Percy's question much thought. "This Ministry was those police, correct?" When he nodded, she continued her musing. "Seems like they were trying to hoard magic for magic's sake. We prefer to share our secrets."
Nodding, Percy opened his mouth to comment on that system when the door to the small map room opened and a pegasus guardpony in armor saluted.
Swirlywhirl waited for Luna to salute her back before relaxing. The order of address was something drummed into every Dragoon, but being the highest ranking of the nine sent with Luna meant she was always going to be the one doing most of the talking. "Your Highness, we have cast-off and are underway. We picked up the two scouts who have been keeping an eye on dragon activity. They reported that the dragon youths are restless again, but are staying clustered on the island itself."
Musing on the information, Luna smiled. "Good work, sergeant. Send in the scouts at their convenience—and I mean theirs. You may also relax the address to informal."
Relaxing somewhat, Swirlywhirl nodded. "Thank you, ma'am. Our journey should be no more than a week with the course we have laid in. I'll have those scouts come and see you." Getting a nod from Luna, Swirlywhirl gave a more relaxed salute and backed out of the doorway—closing it behind her.
Dialing back to where their conversation had left off, Percy said, "I do think your system is superior, but eighteen years of doing something one way is a hard habit to break."
"Well, no time like the present to work on that. Cadance mentioned you haven't had any practical training in Equestrian magic yet. Is this correct?" Luna used her magic to pull the supply of books she brought with her closer.
Feeling a little panic, Percy shook his head, then nodded it vigorously. "Yes. I mean, that's correct. I figured out how to use my horn like a wand to cast wizard magic."
"Your magic, wizard and witch magic, is extremely efficient and seems tailor made to work with your particular scope of memorization. Unicorn magic is a little more wasteful, but with practice it is easier to use and more flexible than I've seen wizard magic to be." Luna had to smile at the idea of unicorn magic being wasteful. Twilight Sparkle would call it so—after seeing wizard magic—but it would pain her with every spoken syllable.
The prospect was exciting for Percy and, despite having just finished his studies at Hogwarts and plunged into adulthood, he found himself diving into learning magic anew for nearly ten hours a day.
Over the course of two weeks, he'd gotten the base understanding of how Equestrian magic works and was actively studying magic books to memorize patterns that could be cast silently, completely still, and with barely a thought.
The scenery became mundane enough, though curious. Volcanic activity was on their left side and open ocean was on their right. Keeping a good distance from the coast, Percy started to notice something in the skies above the volcanoes. "What are those?"
"Dragons," Luna said. "They will hopefully keep their distance. Young dragons are the most worrying—they haven't yet developed the core of draconic apathy that suppresses curiosity and a need for dominance."
Knowing his brother's favorite topic to a fare-thee-well, Percy was feeling a little confused. "Dragons? Big brutes that would rip you apart as soon as look at you?"
"I believe we are calling two different creatures dragons." Gesturing to the figures flying in the distance. "They are only young dragons. They grow many, many times larger than this ship at adulthood, become immune to just about anything anypony could use on them—including common sense and magic—but become more apathetic as they age."
"You're speaking like they're intelligent."
Reminded firmly that Percy was from a different world, Luna nodded. "They are. Yours aren't?"
"My brother likes to think they are. They're not, though, he just has a soft heart and a tough hide." Percy closed his eyes and thought about meeting his brother again. It was exciting, given he'd been steeling himself against the idea he might not have made it.
Luna chuckled at the last comment. "Your brother sounds like a young alicorn I used to know. She made friends with a manticore."
"Manticore? They might be another thing that's different on our world. They are considered a dangerous pest and are to be killed if found."
Recoiling a little, but forcing herself to concede that Equestrian manticores were dangerous too, she sighed. "Body of a lion, leathery wings, and a scorpion tail?"
"Right." Percy had to just accept that creatures with the same name, that looked the same, were very different here than on Earth. "Can you test my patterns again, please?"
Her face relaxing, Luna nodded. She could remember a young filly going to her mentor and asking for the same help. "Start with light, and let's work our way up."
Rake felt embarrassed—it had been Inferno who'd seen the airship first. The moment she was aware of it, though, she felt all the hoarding desires rush back. Narrowing her eyes on what she could only think of as a target, she stretched her wings and used her powerful rear legs to launch into the sky.
"Rake!" Charles Weasley galloped out of the cave he'd taken to living in and charged along underneath the dragoness. "Rake! Land, dammit!"
Opening her mouth as she soared upward, Rake had her jaws wide and was just about to unleash her flames when her brother cut in front of her and forced her to break off her attack. "What are you doing?!"
"Idiot dragon. They aren't here to take your hoard!" Inferno glared down his sister, fire leaving his lips in drips and sprays. "Land and wait for them to come and say hello. They will be impressed by the size of your hoard." Sometimes he wondered why he bothered, but Inferno would never let his sister down. "Get down now!"
The intensity of her brother's fire snapped Rake out of her focus on the airship. She shook her head, looked at him, and felt sheepish. Spiraling down to the settlement, she pointedly avoided saying anything until they landed, which is when she lifted her talon up, claws folded, and gave her brother a fist-bump. "Thanks."
Inferno shrugged his shoulders and gave his sister a smile. "That's why we make a good team." Smiling was something new and strange for him. In only a few short months he'd been steadily trained how to smile by Beatrice Bent-Twig.
Grunting, Rake lowered herself back to the grass and let out a huff of scorching air—not quite enough to ignite the grass, but close. When Charlie walked up to her, she closed her eyes. "Shh. Leave sleeping dragons lie."
"That doesn't work, Rake, if you're the one saying it." Charlie walked right up to her, stood in front of her face, and reached a hoof out to poke her between the eyes. The moment his hoof made contact, her eyes flew open to reveal they were crossed. "There, see? Now, when they arrive, if they ask what you were doing—you were checking to ensure they weren't a threat, okay?"
"Huh?"
"You're the guardian of our town here, so you were doing your job."
"That's a load of clay. I would have destroyed that ship and everyone on it if Inferno didn't stop me. I can't control myself, Charlie." She had never spoken softer words before in her life, but she trusted Charlie not to repeat them. A dragon like her had a reputation to uphold.
Sitting down beside her, leaning against Rake's shoulder, Charlie asked, "What do other dragons do when something threatens their hoard?"
"They kill whatever it is and destroy it so it can never come back."
Ignoring the vehemence in Rake's words, Charlie moved on. "And, is there some way that you could trust another dragon to not steal your hoard?"
"If they gave me something, I might trust them just to look. It'd need to be something good." Rake tried to muddle through her feelings for Charlie and hoards in general. It was hard, mostly because her brain kept wanting to bend all her thoughts back up to the airship that was slowly approaching the ground.
"So them giving us a magic fireplace that lets wizards and witches travel here and back would be a good trade to look and talk to me?"
Rake lifted her head and turned her neck to look at Charlie from one eye. "Maybe. They better not ask you to leave."
"Doesn't matter if they do, Rake. If Mum wants to see me, she can just step through the fireplace and come here to say hello. Everyone else, too." Standing up and stretching, Charlie leaned sideways and put his whole weight against Rake. "Everyone called me crazy for liking dragons so much. There was one girl in Hogwarts that told me, 'If you like dragons so much, why don't you just marry one?'"
"W-What do you mean by that?" Rake asked, trying to control the odd feeling inside.
"Mostly, that I prefer the company of dragons more than that of other people." Seeing the airship starting to graze the ground, Charlie straightened and started to walk toward it. "Come on, old dragon, come and defend what's yours and tell them to sod off if they try anything silly."
"'Sod off'?" Rake asked, standing on all fours and walking slowly at Charlie's side.
"It's fighting with words, Rake. Swearing at them, telling them where they can go and what they can do there." Shrugging, Charlie nodded at the huge blue pony at the front of the ship. "Her especially. You don't need to take no flak from them. If she tries something, put yourself between her and me."
"But try using words first. Got it." Rake smiled, and a smiling dragon—to anyone not used to seeing a dragon smile—was a truly terrifying sight. She knew this and was happy to consider it the first part of her fighting without fighting.
Alighting on the ground, without any guards, Luna dipped her head. "I apologize if we arrived unannounced. I hope we aren't interrupting?" She straightened again in time for Percy Weasley to rush past her and freeze before Charlie.
"That's my brother's cloak," Percy said, gesturing at it. "Are you—?"
Charlie laughed and jumped at his brother, tackling Percy in a big hug. "Hey, is that any way to greet your big brother? Looking good, Percy. How is everyone back home?"
"Mom cried until Harry got us your letter. It was hard to watch, but George helped keep us all going. Hogwarts was part of some huge city from here, and when it came back—well, now there's a lot more to Hogwarts.
"But we're all doing okay. The big thing—no wandmakers made it through, that we know of. That's why finding you was so important. You made a wand and it works!" Letting go of his brother finally, Percy froze when he heard a huge throat being cleared just beside him. Looking up, he realized there was a huge dragon right there. "Uh, hello?"
Charlie hoped that she wouldn't pick now to try fighting for him. "Rake, this is Percy—my little brother. Percy, this is Rake. She and her brother are protecting us here."
"Oh." Still looking up, Percy tried his best to work with the idea that she was an intelligent creature and not just his brother's latest pet. "Thank you for looking after my idiot brother."
Of all the dragons to bring up family with, Rake was probably the only one who would actually understand what it meant. "Idiot brothers are important. I figured this one would have someone who'd be upset if he became cat food or something."
"You should have seen him the first time he found a dragon. He just blindly walked toward it and reached out a hand to pet the thing." Percy bumped his brother with a hoof. "Took you how long to get that hand regrown?"
"Ugh, this was a bad idea," Charlie said.
"I think this was an excellent idea." Rake smirked at the sibling dynamic the pair had as it tipped in Percy's favor. "How long did it take?"
"Six months. Mum wouldn't let the doctor speed it up—she said it would be a good lesson in not sticking parts of myself into holes." As soon as he said it, Charlie realized that he had a princess still listening to their chatter. "Sorry, uh…" He was at a loss. "How am I meant to address you?"
"Just Luna will be fine. We are not in Equestria—in fact, we are in your lands, lady dragon." Again Luna dipped her head. "First and foremost, we are trying to locate and make contact with all the wizards and witches who came to Equestria. There are some who are not as easy to reach as yourselves, if you can believe it."
Considering the way Luna acted, Rake was somewhat content with how things were going. She liked Percy—liked how happy Charlie was to have some family near—and so far she felt no twinge of protectiveness toward Charlie. "There are others here. They are all under my direct protection. If they don't wish to leave, you will not make them."
The threat in Rake's words came through loud and clear to Luna. She wasn't sure if the dragon before her had a fully adult layer of scales, but if her resistance to dream magic was anything to go by, it was not a fight Luna wanted anything to do with. "We are in complete agreement there. This land is not mine to rule—it is yours—and since Charles looks to be perfectly comfortable with your leadership, the crown of Equestria wishes only to extend a hoof of friendship."
Rake mulled the words over and found them acceptable. Her need to protect assuaged, she relaxed and nodded to Luna's declaration. "Good. Friendship doesn't come easy to dragons, but we're trying." Turning her head, Rake looked back in time to see Simon and May Bent-Twig approaching.
May was typical for a half-blood witch in Equestria, no longer having hands, she walked upright beside her husband and not shy about showing her arm/forelegs as being a soft and pale blue crystal. Simon, atypically for a squib, bore a horn upon his head and a body of orange crystal.
"Friends of yours?" Simon asked his wife.
May was careful not to shake her head lest it be noticed. "I wouldn't know if they are, but I think the big one is the pony Charlie was talking about. Not sure who the short one is. She looks kind of important."
"I'm sure she is. Doesn't mean I'll treat her any different than anyone else." Simon stopped talking as they got closer. "We have visitors?"
Charlie cleared his throat. "Yeah, we do. This is Luna and the runt beside her is Percy, my brother. Percy, Luna, this is Simon and May Bent-Twig. They're living here with their three children."
Luna was well aware that Charlie had left her title off. There were royalty in Equestria's history that would have seen that as a slight, but given her efforts to not hold herself above anyone else, she just let it go. "I'm to assume you and your children are from Earth too?"
May nodded. "Bea, Bella, and Stefan are all doing well with their powers, and Charlie's little ones are doing great." She couldn't help it, and the look of shock on Percy's face confirmed that he'd fallen for her joke.
"My two…?" It took Charlie way too long to realize to whom May was referring. "Oh, right. Yeah, they're doing fine. They sure do help to keep the place safe."
"Charlie! Mum's going to be—" Percy was cut off as two Earth dragons swooped in, one landing beside Charlie and licking his cheek. "You brought them here? They're your 'little ones'?"
Luna puzzled out that the two creatures were not from her world. She observed them and quickly realized they had no intelligence and were nothing more than pets. "If you don't mind, we can set this Floo device up and leave you to your community here."
"Where will be the other locations on the Floo network?" May asked.
When Luna looked at him, and so did everyone else, Percy realized this was his cue. "There are already Floos installed in the castle in Canterlot and in the Crystal Empire's castle. At this time we're being a little cautious with them, since we still have elements from the Ministry, uh…" Trailing off, Percy realized he was going further than he needed to. "Charlie, the Ministry has gone mad. They're attacking people and everything. We put the Floos in guarded rooms. Yours will be the only one not in one."
"I don't think that will be a problem. There are not many places for someone to hide, here, and many big creatures that would delight in picking their bones clean." Rake flashed her teeth. "And I'm not even one of them."
Appreciating the joke in the spirit of friendship, Luna nodded and reached a hoof to her chin. "The question is, how do I trick them into traveling here?"
Tilting her head back, Rake laughed a gout of flame into the sky. All the stories she'd heard of ponies seemed counter to Luna. The alicorn knew how to joke, show respect, and so far hadn't tried to actually take her hoard. "Let them through, Inferno would love some target practice."
Walking up beside his sister, Inferno gave his own version of a smile. Instead of fangs on display, though, liquid fire leaked from his mouth without any effort at all on his part. Unlike his sister, who was more comfortable on all fours now, he still walked upright. "Sure. What do they look like?"
"I think the easiest way would be to ensure that anyone who comes here is someone Charlie knows and can verify. Or, if there was a group, at least one person he knows." Luna looked at Charlie and got a nod from him. "Perfect. Now, I understand we require a fireplace to install this transportation method?"
"Uh, yeah. I mean, yes, we do." Percy had the complex ritual safely written down and stored along with the few precious reagents needed.
"I'd rather not have it in one of our homes, if you don't mind. Perhaps we can build an outside fireplace?" Simon was more than a little worried about the way they'd described the Ministry. He'd spent his whole life under the specter of don't tell anyone about magic without having the ready ways a wizard should be able to protect against it.
"That should be a simple matter." Luna lit her horn and started pulling on magic. More and more she dragged into herself before finally opening a conduit into the ground itself. The chimney was the first part to breach the surface. It grew from the rock far beneath the plane, shaped by Luna's magic and brought to the surface by her will.
The former humans all stared in awe as Luna ripped a huge and ornate stone fireplace from the ground itself. Round, about two ponylengths from the center to its outer edge, it had plenty of room to make a full bonfire within it.
It'd been so quiet for weeks. All there was to do was practice quidditch, do school work, and plan pranks with Fred and George. I slumped on the couch in Gryffindor common room, not able to even work up enough interest in setting fire to myself.
"Ron, do you think the adults are handling it?" I asked.
Ron, who was laying on his back on the floor, paused his efforts to do sleight of hoof. It wasn't really hard to see that what he was attempting was impossible, but that just made it an even more wizard thing to do. "Handling what?"
"The Ministry. They've gotten real quiet in the last week or two. No attacks and hardly any of them skulking around the streets." Not that I got to see outside much, what with all the school work. It was almost like everything had calmed down after we came to another world where Voldemort wasn't.
"Yeah." He flicked his hoof and a small stick he was using as a prop for his wand flew up into the air and, when it came back down, almost hit him in the face. "A little less flick. What were—Oh, right. I heard that the guardponies were cracking down on them. It was that witch using unforgivable curses that really stirred things up."
"Was that the one who tried to get your brother?"
Ron nodded, then said, "Yeah. It was lucky he had Blaze with him. Mum told her she could have dinner with us whenever she wanted. Of course, now I don't get to visit Mum and Dad as often, but I guess you get that when you find out your whole family is being watched."
"What, you are?" I sat up and looked at him. Maybe we should have gone and investigated what was going on in the Ministry ourselves?
"Yeah. McGonagall called me to her office to tell me. There must be a mole at the Ministry feeding them information or something. Dad hasn't gone there for ages."
"So what's he doing, then?"
"Well, his experience with magical artifacts was really helpful to getting the Floo network back up. He said not to tell anyone"—Ron turned his head to the side to look at me with an upside-down grin—"this, but they have a link between here and Canterlot and that Percy and one of the princesses was going to where Charlie's been living to set up another there."
"Didn't you say he was living with dragons?"
"Don't get me started on that. Even back on Earth he spent all his time around dragons. Now we hear that he's made friends with dragons on this world, too. Friends, Harry! Apparently dragons here can talk and everything."
"Ron?"
"Yeah, Harry?"
"I've met one. Twilight's… I think he's an adopted brother, but she never said. Anyway, Spike's actually really nice. He cooks great food, too." Even now I could remember the great food I'd help him with. It was fun to learn entirely new ways to cook and prepare food.
"Really? Don't his—I mean, dragons don't have arms, so how does he—?"
"He has arms. He walks around upright, too. No wings though, but his breath does all kinds of wild stuff."
"Harry, you think all kinds of fire are good."
"Yeah, but my fire can't send messages to the leader of Equestria." I pointed a hoof at the fireplace and picked up one of the logs that hadn't caught fire yet—it immediately flashed into life. "Like I said, he's pretty cool."
Ron was staring at the fireplace and the log I'd lit on fire like it was the first time he'd seen magic. "Hermione's with Draco again."
Oh, goody, this one again. "Ron—"
"No. No, I get it. I shouldn't care, but I can't help it, Harry." He flicked his prop wand out again and actually stopped it from flying into the air this time. "How was I to know she'd start—start after Draco?"
Do I even tell him the obvious? He was a good friend, but it was like he was some kind of record that was stuck on this one thing. "Did you—?"
"I didn't. Why didn't I even ask her? Fred and George always made jokes about how I should ask her out. Well, I never did. I didn't even tell her I like her." Ron dropped his fake wand and let out a sigh. "I'm an idiot."
Finally, something we can both agree on. "Ron, listen to everything I'm about to tell you and don't interrupt, okay?"
"Huh?"
"Every time I've tried to tell you something you can do, you have cut me off."
"Oh. Sorry, Harry."
I waited a moment just to see if he would say something that would have interrupted me. When he didn't, I tried to give him the one bit of advice I had. "Ron, tell her how you feel."
"What?!" The shout was remarkable in that it didn't immediately summon about twenty Gryffindors complaining about the noise.
"Just tell her. You like her, right?"
He went quiet for a bit and didn't look at me. Figuring he was actually thinking about it, I relaxed and tried to focus my attention on other things. The whole class of students in Animagus Studies were almost done with their leaves—except Fred, who kept losing his leaf somehow—and would soon be performing the rituals to find their inner animals.
It sucked that I couldn't join them, but not bursting into fire for a month is just a task beyond me now. Maybe I'm just too much of a wizard to—
"Alright. Yeah, I'll do that." Ron rolled over and onto his hooves, then jumped into a standing position.
I watched him march down the hall toward the exit and out of sight. "I didn't expect him to just go right now. I wonder what he's going to tell her?"
Ginny appeared beside the couch out of thin air. That's when I realized her diary was still sitting on the bookshelf. "Whatever it is, it can't be worse than his moping has been."
"Ginny!" I hadn't jumped far, but enough that she'd know she surprised me. "You heard all that?"
"I don't sleep anymore, Harry. I hear whenever anyone says something near my book." She slumped down on the couch beside me. "I didn't realize how much he liked Hermione."
Laughing, I shook my head. "I don't think Ron knew how much he liked Hermione."
"Do you like anyone like that, Harry?" she asked.
Did I? I tried to think about all the girls I knew. Hermione was a great friend, but I don't think I like-liked her. Ginny was harder to say that I didn't; I hadn't gotten to know her as well as I did Hermione, so I guess I need to fix that and find out. Sweetie Belle was nice, but I don't think I like-like her either. Same with Diamond Tiara. "I don't know. There's only a few girls I've gotten to know well-enough to even get a feel for, and of them all you're probably the closest to like-liking."
My attention drifted back to the fireplace and I watched the salamander dance in the magic fire I seemed to create whenever I touched things. After a bit, when Ginny didn't reply, I turned to look at her to find her not actually there. "Ginny?"
She popped into existence again smiling in a way that had me thinking something was wrong. "Hi!"
"Is something the matter?" The problem, I realized, was I had to deal with a grade A witch. She was, from what I'd seen of her dueling, a step above any other single witch or wizard.
"No!" Ginny's drawing seemed to be a little wobbly around the edges. "There's nothing the matter!" She was smiling a lot, though. "Nothing at all!"
Something was the matter, but I had no hope of getting it out of her. "Do you mind if I try drawing again?"
"Yes! I mean, no! I'd love it if you would"—Ginny stopped and looked like someone trying to take a breath, not that she breathed anymore—"I'd like to see what you'd draw now."
Well, at least she'd stopped shouting. I walked over to the bookshelf and spotted her book immediately. Picking it up with my hoof, I put it on my back and walked over to the couch again. "I can hold a pen between the toes of my hoof, so I think that'd be the best way to draw—until I can find a non-flammable pen."
"Well, at least I'm non-flammable. Oh, hold on, I want to try something." Her shape flickered and shifted beside me, shrinking and changing in incomprehensible ways until she was a pony. No, wait, she had a forked horn tip like mine—she just turned herself into a kirin! "There. Better?"
She shook her head a little, the fuzzy outline of her mane ruffling in the air. Harry Potter, she's a witch, be careful. "Yeah. It's kinda weird having even the first year students be taller than me. I guess kirin grow bigger later."
I sat a moment, trying to figure out both what Ginny had just said and what I wanted to draw. In the end I used the Locomotion charm to pull a pen closer and fit it to my hoof, then started drawing the fireplace. After the stonework came the logs, the happy little salamander dancing on the wood, and finally the flame.
"Nice layering. Building up from the most solid to most ephemeral is good. Want another sheet?" she asked.
"Yeah, thanks." She turned her own page over to reveal a blank one for me to write on. This time I drew a kirin. Not a little kirin like me or like Ginny was at the moment—I drew Autumn Blaze. She was half kirin half nirik and was setting her stump on fire with her emotions.
"Is that a particular kirin? You met some, didn't you?"
I nodded. "This is Autumn Blaze. Of all the kirin, she was the only one who had some useful advice for me. The rest of them seemed to be living in denial of their emotions. At least, that's what Hooch called it. I don't think she realizes how much these emotions are part of being a kirin."
"I don't feel any strange emotions, but then I'm not actually a kirin." Ginny gestured with a hoof to me. "I'm just a picture of one."
"You're a very good picture of one," I said. "Being a kirin is probably one of the more wizard things that has happened to me."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, when you think of someone being a wizard, what do you imagine that someone to be?"
She didn't reply immediately, seeming to be focused on what to say. "Wearing robes, being mysterious… using magic for everything. Oh, and using big, flashy spells."
"Exactly!" Excitement built. I couldn't help it. I had found someone else who understood wizarding! "And what's more flashy and uses-magic-for-everything than setting yourself on fire just because you're upset with something?"
Ginny giggled and nodded. "Yes! Wait, is there a version for witch too? Witches are meant to be calculating and mysterious. Manipulative. Am I a witchy witch?"
"I don't know as being manipulative is required. You definitely have your magic going for you. You always seem to know what everyone around you is doing. I'd say you're a good witch, Ginny."
"Thanks. I think." She giggled. "Okay, want another page?"
"Sure."
"What they're bringing is on the up-and-up. See, this here matches what we learned about the daily routine within the school." Boris tossed his notes down on his supervisor's desk. "From what I can tell, they're both keeping their heads down in the school and keeping their eyes open."
"Useful?"
"Low. Neither is in a position to have any bearing on the school, and none of the information is actionable." Boris didn't take the seat his boss had offered, sitting was for men who didn't need to be ready to run at a moment's notice. "It's just a couple of kids doing what they think they should."
"Keep them active. It's impossible to tell if an informant may become useful later. How is that other matter?"
"It's magical. Some kind of Imperius curse in it. Rich, what does that mean? Who'd put that on the boss?" The very idea that someone had coopted the leader of the Equestrian branch of the Ministry had Boris panicked, but with Richard Fellows as his boss, he felt a measure of stability.
"That I don't know, but I will be attempting to find out. Trencent, for all his foibles that I don't agree with, doesn't deserve that. I will be working to cut him out of the Ministry office here while finding out who has him in their grip. You're one of the old guard, Boris, do you think you could find out who he's meeting with?" Richard despised the need to divert his attention inward, but his old friend had left him with little choice.
An order was something Boris liked, even if his boss made it sound like a simple request. "Sure can try. You want me to talk to the others about this?"
"No. I think things are getting out of control here. Trencent had a good plan, but things are moving away from him—even before this latest problem. I'll call in reinforcements. You're a good man, Boris."
"I just try to do my best for all of us. Sir, if this goes south, what do you want to do?"
Breathing out a sigh that betrayed his eighty-plus years of life, Richard shook his head. "You might as well find Arthur Weasley and tell him everything, because he's the only one who could sort this mess out if it gets that bad."
Taking the leaf out of her mouth after a whole month of keeping it there felt odd. Hermione had gotten so used to carefully eating and drinking without disturbing it that not having the leaf under her tongue made her panic every time she noticed it.
She set the leaf into the tiny phial and stoppered it, then carried it to the window along with the other students.
"It took me three tries to get this part right. On Earth it wasn't so easy to ensure a clear and full moon to quicken the mandrake leaf. Here, it only took a missive to a princess and a favor owed to some pegasi to make the perfect night for the process." As he strode along behind the students, Sirius Black able to appreciate how progressive Hogwarts had turned under Minerva McGonagall's leadership. "Notice the moonlight glittering as it falls into the leaf? If it isn't, you'll have to start again."
Harry watched as his friends and others of his year gasped as their leaves quickened in the moon's light. Hermione stood with Draco on one side of her and Ron on the other. He still had no idea what had happened when Ron had stormed off to tell her how he felt, but things didn't seem so ready to break into violence.
"Now, for everyone whose leaf is quickened, bring your phials over to your workbench for the next steps." Sirius enjoyed taking advantage of his abilities now, swapping from pony to dog so he could bound to the front of the room and behind the desk before turning back to a pony. He waited for his students to return to their workbenches. "You all have several strands of your hair prepared and beside your mixing stands. You also each have a vial of morning dew, provided by Professor Snape, and a chrysalis of a death's-head hawk moth from a small but very precious supply Professor Sprout donated. Now, add a strand of your hair from the prepared sample to the phial."
Ron was nervous. This would require another month of careful eating, drinking, and sleeping to get another leaf. He suppressed the shudder that he would have to repeat the process, lest it become a self-fulfilling event. Using tweezers held carefully in his right forehoof, he lowered a strand of hair into the phial.
The moment each student's hair touched the leaf a buzz started in the back of their heads. Sympathetic magic, tightly bound to each witch and wizard, raised the level of energy in the room. The only ones who were immune to the raising excitement were Draco and Harry, both sitting at the back of the class and pretending not to notice each other.
The pretending worked great until Harry let out a groan and reached up to rub his horn. "There's a lot of magic in the air."
"My feathers are itching." Draco kept his eyes fixed on those he now considered his friends. Ron and Hermione were chief among them.
Neither looked at each other—each convincing themselves that they would have said the words out loud anyway and were not actually talking to the other.
The next step was adding liquid to the phials. Everyone poised a pipette containing a teaspoon of pristine morning dew over their potion and carefully added it. "This step is a litmus test. A friend had used a dirty piece of hair and the moment his dew touched it—" Sirius cut off when a purple cloud poured into the air above Dean Thomas' head. "Did anyone see what happened?"
Dean slumped to his counter, burying his face in his hands. "I only took it out once! I promise! I just needed to…"
"It looked really annoying to keep a leaf in your mouth the whole time." Draco had seriously thought about trying the process, just to see what he'd get, but it wouldn't stop him from feeling like he was in the wrong body—and besides, he liked being a pony.
Harry almost nodded his head, though managed to suppress the urge since that would mean he'd be as much as admitting he was talking to Draco. "I lasted less than a minute. Got angry, burned it up."
"I'm just content being a pony." Draco had to clamp his mouth shut before he went too far. He was just talking to himself, obviously, and not Harry.
Hermione, of course, finished first. She had the moth carapace in and the potion was acting correctly. Then she double-checked her results. Then she triple-checked her results. Finally, after just two more checks, she raised her hand—still the only one with a completed potion. "Professor Black, I'm done."
Approaching, Sirius reared up to set his hooves on the bench and examine the potion. Memories flooded back of his own efforts to become an animagus. His friends had been too, which had made things a lot easier to both hide and accomplish. A quickly muttered spell was all he needed to know the potion was correct. "In two hours some local pegasi will be providing us with a lightning storm. I don't pretend to know how their abilities allow that, but it is most fortuitous."
Over the course of half an hour, all the rest of the students had made viable potions. One by one Sirius examined them and felt his own excitement building. They still had an hour to go and everyone was on edge. "While we wait for the pegasi to whip us up a thunderstorm, perhaps you'd like to hear a story about how a young wizard and his friends became animagi?"
It was like shooting fish in a barrel. A story about animagi for students about to become animagi? Sirius could feel the focus and curiosity of every pair of eyes on him—even the two students who weren't here to become animagi.
"We were four friends, and one of us had a secret he couldn't tell anyone." It was a relief to be able to tell the story now. Of the four of them, one was dead, one had turned so evil he didn't care what happened to him, and his final brother was living openly as a werewolf. "You see, he turned into a beast every month at the full moon. We called him Moony, when we found out, on account of the moon.
"It wasn't fair to him to be the only one not having fun for three days every month, so we decided to all become a little like him so we could keep him company. A very nice witch gave us all the information we needed to reach the point you are all at now, and it was only a matter of time for the three of us to join our friend."
"Professor," George said, pointedly didn't touch the spot in his coat where the Marauders' Map was hidden in an inner pocket, "who are Padfoot, Wormtail, and Prongs?"
Sirius' gaze flicked toward Harry for just a moment. There was ever a tightness in his heart when remembering what happened to James Potter. "Astute. I am getting to that bit. It took us half a year to all get our potions made successfully." He rolled his eyes, getting laughs from the room as he intended. "We couldn't just ask for a full moon from a princess who could grant it, nor could we request a lightning storm immediately after—I am sure you will thank Princess Luna and the local weather pegasi once the changes are done.
"So we all drank our potions in the midst of a wild thunderstorm in the Scottish Highlands. The first time was scary. We were alone, just the three of us, and we had no idea how it was going to work." Closing his eyes, Sirius pulled the comfortable change around him and though his perspective didn't change, he was far more focused on the here and now.
Fred caught on first. "Padfoot…"
Jumping over his desk and bounding up to Fred's, Sirius flowed back to his pony self. "Clever. Ten points to Gryffindor." Turning and trotting back to the front, he continued. "On that night I became an animagus capable of turning into a large hound. It cemented my bond of friendship with Moony even further. Wormtail was the next to change. He guzzled down his potion greedily and became a fat rat. Fitting.
"The last was my brother, James Potter. When he drank his potion there was no panic in him, no moment of terror as his body reshaped. He became a king of the forest—a ten-point buck that towered over even a werewolf. Prongs."
"Prongs." Harry whispered the nickname. He'd never heard his father called that, but knowing he had this secret life with his friends was completely new and, he had to admit, somewhat exciting. But, at the same time, he felt his heart turn to lead and fought to keep his eyes dry.
Everyone—even Sirius—nearly jumped out of their skins when a deafening crack of thunder pealed across the sky outside. A tapping on the window of a pony was silhouetted by a flash of lightning. Gathering his wits, Sirius walked over and opened the window onto the small landing outside.
"One small thunderstorm, as ordered!" Rainbow Dash flashed a big smile. When the call had gone out that Princess Luna had requested a small and experienced team of weatherponies to handle a small group of thunderheads in the Crystal Empire, Rainbow had volunteered the Ponyville weatherponies for the job. "You should have a good hour of high-grade lightning."
Sirius was a little in awe of the mare. Not only was she doing something seemingly impossible by wizard magic and Earth science, but she talked about it as if this was just something normally done. "More than enough. Look." He gestured with a hoof at the room behind him and the students' potions all bubbling and turning red.
Everyone in the room had been so distracted by the lightning and the pegasus that they gasped when they looked at the potions before them. The noise level of the room rose several marks as they all started talking at once.
"Whoah. So you guys are doing some weird magic then?" Rainbow asked.
Sirius felt excitement in the air. The students were buzzing with new energy that seemed every bit as potent as the storm outside. "Something like that. Those potions will allow them to turn into an animal. As an assistant and guest of the school, you can watch if you'd like?"
"Ugh. I can't." Rainbow hung her head in defeat. "I have to keep an eye on this thunderstorm. Can't just buck it away now or it'll dump all its energy at once. Last time somepony did that—well, they're still trying to grow their mane back to normal."
A chuckle escaped Sirius at the thought. "Well, perhaps you should come back another time so I can thank you?"
Blinking at the invitation and brashness, Rainbow felt herself smiling. "Uh, I'll be busy tomorrow cleaning up the local weather from this. What about the day after?"
"That'd be great. Just ask for Sirius Black." When Rainbow nodded, turned, and ran off the balcony, Sirius realized what he'd just done. For several heartbeats he watched the lightning flaring in the sky and let the thunder rumble around him as he marveled at the fact he'd just asked a pony out on a date—and she'd said yes.
Relegating his possible romantic plans to later thought, Sirius turned and announced to the class, "We have plenty of time. We will do this one by one so everyone knows who their fellow animagi are."
It came as no surprise to anyone that Hermione Granger was first in line. She'd rushed to the front of the class the moment Sirius had mentioned the process and held her phial carefully. When she got a nod from Sirius, she held it up to her lips—and shivered at the smell. Animalistic and pure of concept, the fumes of the animagus potion were already pouring into her and encouraging her to drink—and drink deep she did.
"The first transformation will, as we discussed, be painful. You will experience every twist and fold your inner magic needs to do to warp your flesh into your animal side." Sirius kept his voice even and steady as Hermione started to shudder and shake. When her body started to shrink away, and some students laughed at her struggle to remain at least modestly clothed during the process, he was about to remind them that they would all go through this—but a voice spoke out.
"What are you laughing for, Seamus? You're going to be going through the same thing." Draco was probably the only one in the room not surprised by his defense. What did surprise him, though, was Hermione's change. From the moment her head poked out of the collapsed clothes on the floor, he was amazed. "A snake…"
Hermione should have been completely lost in her new, alien body. She had lost her arms and legs, grown a stubby tail at the end of her long body, and was inundated by a flood of new senses. She also had far more muscles to worry about than ever before—but she managed a credible slither to the side, to where Draco and Harry were standing.
"A snake. Surprising for a Gryffindor, but there are far worse things to become than a highly refined predator. Well done Miss Granger." Looking at the next in line, Sirius nodded. "Go ahead, Miss Bell."
When Katie Bell lifted her potion up, the smell of it made her sway in place. It was musky and potent. She shivered at the way it made her whole body twitch. Two gulps was all it took to down the blood-red potion, and the moment she did she felt a heavy drumming in her ears. Looking around, feeling like there were enemies everywhere, she backed up to a corner and put her rump to it as her body started to ache in pain.
Katie's change was far more burdensome, or so Sirius could gather. Where Hermione had practically relaxed into the body of a snake, Katie seemed to fight every second of it. She still shrank, though being a pure-blood, she wasn't wearing anything already and so watching dark fur, huge claws, and a face that spoke of almost berserker-like fury painted a different picture. "If I don't mistake things, I'd say Miss Bell is one of the fiercest animagi I have ever heard of—a wolverine."
Her senses focused on Sirius and it took Katie a second to remember who she was and where she was. The thudding in her head seemed to gain a regular tempo and migrate to her chest. Shaking her head, she walked over to where Harry, Draco, and Hermione were. Of the three, Harry surprised her by reaching out.
When Katie's instincts overtook her and she lashed out at him with her claws, Harry just chuckled. "Don't worry. Claw at me all you want, Katie. I'm armor plated, remember?"
"Ah, three Weasleys all in a row. Why don't you all change at once?" Sirius could see that Fred and George were both on-board with this idea, though Ron looked a little less-so.
Turning to face each other, George and Fred held up their potions in their hooves and downed them without so much as a hint that the smell bothered them. Their smiles wavered a little as Fred's body shrank rapidly by a similar amount to how much George grew.
Shivering and rolling his shoulders, Fred felt his whole body itch and, before he knew what was happening, he crawled out of a husk that had been his body and crawled around on all… six legs. It was a new sensation, but what delighted him was the two new limbs on his back.
George, by contrast, felt muscle upon muscle wrap around his strong legs. From the corners of his eyes he noticed a wide pair of horns growing out of his head to each side. He looked back at Sirius and saw that he was many times larger than him now. Snorting out, he became the first Kouprey in the world to giggle.
Ron had delayed his drinking just long enough to watch his brothers grow huge and tiny.
Now, though, with the potion burning down his throat, Ron felt his body start to twitch and shift, his form jittery as the potion spread its magic throughout him. He didn't shrink and he didn't grow taller, but he did get significantly rounder.
Dull brown fur covered him and his hooves changed to what looked at first like hands. Ron got excited until a stiffness seemed to rush up his spine and all four of his legs shortened so that his body was almost brushing the floor.
He looked around to spot Sirius looking at him confused. Ron wanted to ask what he was, but all that came out was a squeaking sound.
"I'm at a loss. He looks like a huge guinea pig." Looking around the students, Sirius spotted a glint of recognition on Draco's face. "Mr. Malfoy?"
Draco looked at his friend and felt a little sad that Ron hadn't gotten what he'd wanted. "He's a capybara, sir. A, uh, South American rodent."
Looking down as best he could, Ron couldn't manage to see his feet to judge how useful they'd be. Still, as he strode over to the group of animals that were also his family and friends, he didn't feel too bad about the result. He liked rats, after all, and Draco had said he was just a really big rodent.
Smirking at the tiny bug that Fred had become, Alicia Spinnet stepped up, holding her potion carefully with one hoof while standing balanced upright—thanks to her half-blood status. She gulped down her potion and tried to focus on feeling what it was doing.
Small. Or rather, everything else became huge. Alicia felt her body twist and her arms seemed to double—then her vision went haywire. She could see a billion tiny images all focused on different things in front, above, below, to the sides, and even behind her. Confused, she felt four more limbs sprout, these on her back.
She tried to ask what was going on, but there was way too much going on with her mouth now to figure that out. There were multiple sets of jaws, teeth, and even little arm-like bits that all moved independently.
With an instinct that surprised her, she set all four of her wings moving and took to the air. Flying without a broom was something new, though being able to see so well made working out where the other animagi were easy. She swooped in and spotted Fred.
Fred, meanwhile, felt panic well up inside. He let out a shocked chirping sound with his wings and made a jump for it—landing on Ron and quickly ducking into his fur.
When Fred had taken to the air, Alicia's entire mental faculties locked in on him and she rocketed toward where he was going to be just a moment later. He touched down before she got there, but she landed on Ron right beside Fred.
Ready to flee again, Fred watched in rising panic as Alicia leaned closer and—kissed him. There was so much going on with her mouth, but the way she just pressed the outside parts of her mouth to his side and then pulled back was obvious.
When Fred turned to her, Alicia wasn't sure what to think. He looked small, delicious, and she could still taste him—but there was recognition now and he chirped in the cutest way she'd ever heard. It was also the only way she'd ever heard a person chirp.
I could stand to be in the same room as him, but every time we tried to talk one of us would start insulting the other. Draco was sitting on the other side of Hermione from me, and that was as near as we could get.
Hermione was learning about the history of animagi, and I guess Draco and me were too. I don't know how my uncle knew all this stuff, when he'd admitted that he didn't know much about animagi before becoming one, but there was so much stuff about them. Like, before the Ministry was formed and animagi were restricted, rural witches often introduced their children to the arts by making them animagi.
Strong beast animagi like George could work fields when other draft animals are sick and animagi like Fred and Alicia could find out dangerous gossip and deal with it before it spread into deadly rumors.
It still weirded me out a bit. A snake! Hermione's animagus form was a snake. Why not a hippogriff? We finished the class and packed our things up. I climbed down from my chair and took a step to the door.
"Harry, could you wait behind please?" Sirius asked.
Stopping in my tracks, I watched Draco, Ron, and Hermione leave before turning back to Sirius. "Yeah?"
"Harry, none of the students who have successfully become animagi so far have had a problem with their forms that a little counseling hasn't helped with. Ron is enjoying the use of what are almost hands, Fred and George are having a blast playing jokes on everyone, and even Katie has taken a liking to her more furious side." Walking to the windows, Sirius looked out and seemed to be smiling. "Even Hermione has found real delight in her new form."
The weight of silence started to grow. It pushed down on me and threatened to shove me into the floor after just a minute. After five—or what was probably five minutes that felt like five hours—I finally couldn't keep it in any longer. "It's not right!"
"It isn't?"
"No!" I stomped around in a circle, scowling at everything my eyes set on. "She's not a Slytherin, she's a Gryffindor. She likes Draco, yeah, but he's not even Slytherin anymore either. Why would she become a snake when there are—there are hundreds of other animals she could have been?!"
"And she's told you she doesn't like it?"
"What? No! That's the worst bit! She likes it!" I turned to Sirius and watched as my glasses melted on my nose. I blinked a few times, mostly because Sirius was still in perfect focus for me. Then I smelled smoldering wood and looked down to see black and charred hoofprints on the floor. "Bollocks."
As I ran to the fireplace, Sirius cast a water spell behind me to stop whatever smoldering the wood was doing. By the time I actually got into the fireplace, my anger was gone.
"Harry, that's 5 points from Gryffindor. Not for almost setting fire to my classroom, but for almost ruining your friendship." When I looked at him, he had a very serious expression. "You get to pick your friends, Harry, but they get to pick you too. I would suggest against driving them away for reasons you are in control of."
I looked at him, no more fire or anger driving me, and realized how fuzzy my vision was all over again. "I guess not being able to see until I can make a spare pair will remind me not to be an utter git."
"Harry, where did you learn all this language?" he asked.
I just shrugged. "Can I go now?" When he nodded, I grabbed my bag, thankful that Addera had woven it from strands of my hair she'd plucked, and headed for the door.
Even Draco had accepted Hermione being a snake. No, more, even Ron had been cool with it. What was my problem?
Closing the door, Sirius Black unclenched his teeth and sighed. "I wish I didn't have to be the one to do this, James. You were the better man of all of us." Frowning, he was just about to pack up his paperwork when the balcony door flew open and a blue streak shot across the room toward him.
Crashing to the floor in a rush of rainbow colors, Rainbow Dash folded her wings. "Hey!"
Sirius was surprised by the visitor, but not unhappy. "Hey yourself. I was just finishing teaching for the day."
"Reaaaaly?" Not that she'd spent too much time finding out, but a few questions here and there had ensured Rainbow found out. "Well, did you want to go out again?"
It felt like a complete setup to Sirius, but it wasn't one he was upset with. Rainbow had made it absolutely clear to him that she wasn't looking for anything long term, though she still wanted a few dates to feel him out. "Sure. Got anywhere in mind?"
"Yeah, there's a little place in Cloudsdale. You have a way to fly, right? You said something about a motorbike?" What had drawn Rainbow to Sirius was his flagrant disregard for sanity when there was something cool to do. Using lightning to make magic potions? Seriously awesome.
"Yes. Or if I need to, I can always take the bus."
"I need someone who can get me into the castle. Do we have any operatives that could walk past the guards?" Sombra spoke through Herbert Trencent as if he were just a puppet—and for all intents and purposes, that is exactly what he was now.
Of the ten men in the room with him, only one nodded and stood up. Sidney cleared his throat. "I have two assets that come and go from the castle whenever they please. Students of the school. Neither has given us bad information, but neither has been put in a situation where they need to act."
Not caring about the details, Sombra just shunted the rest of the conversation off to what little remained of Herbert's free will. Suitably constrained to Sombra's parameters, of course. He pulled back his control from Herbert and looked down at his creations.
Two amulets lay before him, each bound to himself in the same way a leash and collar had an owner holding onto it. These collars wanted to be worn, but that was just part of his own desires feeding through them. Once they were in place, the subject would never again know freedom.
The last step, of course, was getting close enough to Cadance to collar her. That would require, he knew, dealing with her husband. The barrier that stallion had imposed worried Sombra. It worried him because he couldn't blast through it and that meant he respected Shining Armor enough to consider him a major threat. An alicorn-level threat, given that was what he protected.
He waited, and when Herbert finally walked into the office where Sombra had been working, the muggle-born wizard shivered and bowed his head. "The children will be arriving tonight, sire. Just after midnight is their normal time."
"Good. You have served well." It was praise for work done, and it was free to give. Sombra liked the way the man seemed to bow deeper still at the words of support.
Richard Fellows looked at the men in the room with him. Unlike his friend who was under sway of a power he wasn't familiar with, Richard had been as open as he could with the former senior members of the Ministry of Magic. There was one wizard, too, that hadn't been part of the Ministry. "Gentlemen, Dumbledore, it's good to see you all, though I wish we didn't have to drag you all here."
"Richard, you never drag anyone anywhere. We came because you asked us. Now, what's with the urgency?" Arthur Weasley had become somewhat of a magnet for complaints. After the stance he'd taken in getting people to Equestria through the portal, everyone had taken cues from him.
"Boris?" Richard asked. "What are your orders from the Ministry?"
Clearing his throat, Boris held his hat in his hand. He respected Richard Fellows, but some of these men were so far above him that he wouldn't have seen if one used the loo. "Two assets for the Ministry, kids from the school who think they're doing the right thing, are due to check-in tonight. Sid and me are meant to bring them to see Mr. Trencent. I don't like it one bit."
Albus Dumbledore winced. He wasn't the only one in the room that knew the identity of the two children, or that they were double-agents, but that didn't make his life easier. "I can get word to the school to restrict their movement for a night or two. Would that be a problem, Boris?"
"For them? Eventually. For me—almost immediately. Trencent ain't got patience no more, Mr. Dumbledore. No patience at all." Almost scrunching up his hat, Boris was trying to work out where he could go to get far enough away from the Ministry. He wasn't sure that even another world would be far enough.
Tapping his chin, Albus smiled. "Well, we can't have that. I think our best bet, then, would be to have the children meet with Herbert as soon as possible." He looked significantly at Alastor Moody.
"A batch of polyjuice, Albus?" Alastor asked. When he got a nod, he couldn't help but grin. "The young-uns will need to be kept busy. They might be the only assets the Ministry has in Hogwarts, but there could always be a stray visitor."
"My thought exactly, Alastor. Now, how do we intend to do this? We can't just chop the head off this snake and expect it to shrivel up. Arthur, any thoughts?" Albus asked.
Arthur Wesley had to chew on his thoughts. When the Order of the Phoenix had originally formed, he had worked outside it. He'd been a force within the Ministry that had pulled things back toward sanity—now it looked like he'd have to reprise his role. "It would have helped get aurors on side if you'd come with me, Alastor, but if Boris comes with me, that will help. The rest of the Ministry will listen to me." He couldn't help a smile at Alastor. "Aurors were always a head-strong bunch."
Alastor coughed, mostly because he was out of practice with laughing. "Yer right, though. And I'm glad of it"—he nodded toward Boris—"because if we toed the line for whatever idiot got himself mad with power at the top of the Ministry, there'd be problems."
It was a surprise to Boris, who considered what he was doing to just be the right thing to receive a nod from Mad Eye Moody himself. "I'll arrange to bring the children in solo. That way there'll be no one else with me that knows them. Are you going to need a way out?"
"I don't believe so, but another wand on our side would be appreciated." Albus gave Boris a nod, and was glad to see that the man looked to stiffen up like a fighter. "Tell us a time and we'll be ready."
"Five PM," Boris said, and got a round of nods from those present.
"If you think, for barely a moment, that you can find some fun without Toil, you have another thing coming." Twirling a blackjack in one hand and a wand in the other, Toil tossed both into the air and started juggling them. As he leaned backward and into a reverse cartwheel, he saw Rubeus Hagrid glaring down at him.
"I just don't think it's proper. This isn't your—" He froze as Toil moved lightning fast. The wand and blackjack were sheathed, but Rubeus had a dagger point at his throat. "That's not very nice, Mr. Toil."
"I am not a nice elf, Mr. Hagrid. Not nice at all, but when I hear that my friends are in trouble—and I don't have many so this doesn't come up often—well, I become far less nice. I become downright irritable. Some would even say I am surly." Drawing the weapon back as fast as he'd produced it, Toil mimed shaving himself with it—not that he could grow a beard.
"Well, it's not like I can stop you, Mr. Toil." It was an easy solution since it was completely correct. Rubeus drew out his umbrella and looked around his cabin for something else that would be suitable to use in a bit of a mess. "Ah, 'ere it is."
Toil was well aware that Rubeus wasn't the best wizard—he didn't come close—but there was enough strength in the half-giant's body that anything with mass was a weapon to him. Like the broken old flagstone he picked up.
Rubeus slid the stone easily into one pocket, then balanced it out on the other side with a spare book he had laying around. The book, he realized, had mostly petrified and weighed more than the flagstone. "Well, Mr. Toil, let's go and see what can be done."
The chill air of the continent was welcome to Rubeus, but he wouldn't have its comforting icy grip much longer. As they approached the edge of the city, he stepped through the ward that the Crystal Heart generated and almost started to sweat. There was a reason he'd chosen a life in the Scottish Highlands.
Toil, skipping unreservedly beside Rubeus, returned to juggling. Now he had balls, though, which panicked people a lot less than knives and wands and blackjacks—at least when held by an elf. He reflected on his recent time in the new world—it was like a fresh and new place.
The best bit about the Crystal Empire, so far as Toil was concerned, was that it had ponies in it. Ponies were a delight! They never talked down to him. They laughed when he told a joke. They were pretty and colorful and everything the wizarding world of Earth hadn't been. There were a few things in his life that Toil would fight for. Himself (of course), the very few friends he'd made (in Azkaban), and being treated as free as he felt. "Are these men bad, Mr. Hagrid?"
"Might be. Think it might be too early to tell. Always give some blighter the rope to 'ang 'imself." Rubeus really wished Toil wouldn't be so quick to resort to violence. "No stabbin' until they does something nasty."
Toil added the blackjack to his juggling.
The pair got closer and closer to the block that the Ministry had claimed for its offices. There were sounds of shuffling feet in alleys, and Toil couldn't help an urge to just go and knock each one out. So he didn't resist the urge. By the time they reached the front door of the Ministry there was a lot less eyes watching for trouble.
It wasn't easy to figure out which of the buildings was meant to be the main office, so Rubeus walked up to the first house and knocked on the door. "'ello. We're looking for the registration office."
"What?" The male voice within asked.
"Well, we was told we needed to register any non-humans using wands." The phrase was something Albus Dumbledore had told Rubeus to use, and he thought it was a good one. "See, I've seen this here elf—"
"A house-elf is using a wand?!" The man inside opened the door with one hand and reached for his own wand with the other.
"Just elf," Toil said from behind the man, "On account of not having a house."
The man spun around to face Toil, his wand out and a spell on his lips, at which point Rubeus tapped him on the head in much the same way he'd knocked on the door. The man crumbled to the ground. "Oh drat. Did I 'it 'im too hard?"
"Of course not. Look, if you'd 'it 'im too 'ard, he wouldn't still be breathing. Oh, this is a nice wand. Can I keep it?" Toil held up the downed wizard's wand and compared it to the one they already had.
"Now-now, Dumbledore told me to collect the wands. Pass it 'ere." Rubeus took the wand when Toil shrugged and held it out to him. "And the ones from all the others."
Toil grinned. He realized, at last, that Rubeus was learning his tricks. In a way it was a loss of power, but losing power to a friend felt right. Opening the little jacket he wore, he drew out almost twenty wands from various pockets. "Here."
Rubeus laughed as he took the wands and slipped them into one of his much larger pockets. "Thank you, Mr. Toil."
Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger looked at each other and tried not to laugh.
"Just don't try turning into a snake," Draco said, looking at Albus Dumbledore who now looked exactly like Hermione. "Try and do her voice."
Clearing his throat, Albus attempted to talk in Hermione's voice. "How does this sound?" The pitch was right, but there was something missing.
Hermione was aware of the way she often put a whining edge in her voice—mostly because Draco hadn't held back in telling her about it. Now she got to show what she'd learned about herself. "How does this sound?"
Snorting at the deliberate use of a whine, Draco looked to their former headmaster. "That's the best—"
"… way to do it. Been a while since I sounded anything like this. Do I have the smug sense of superiority?" Alastor Moody asked.
Months ago, when he was still human, still on Earth, and still (in his own estimation) a prick, Draco would have gotten upset at that. "Probably a little more wouldn't hurt. I've been laying it on thick over there on account of them thinking I was still a full-blood brat. I didn't want to ruin their image of me."
"You have no worry of me tarnishing that image." The only issue Alastor had, in fact, was getting used to having wings. Being so much younger wasn't as big a hurdle, nor was being a pony. In the end he just kept them folded at his sides.
"We'll be off now." Albus looked out the secret door in the side of the castle at the huge drop and decided his best bet was apparition. He reached out to Alastor and pulled him along with him.
"It was probably for the best they did that. Did you see Mr. Moody trying to work out how to use your wings?" Hermione looked out at the city from the doorway and sighed. "I feel like we should be doing more."
"No!" Draco stomped a hoof, which made an impressive clop on the stone under him. "Don't even think about it. We've done our job. We got them a way into the Ministry. Come on and let's try to sleep." As he turned, though, Draco realized that Hermione wasn't following him. "Please?"
The problem for Draco was Hermione had become his friend, and he couldn't turn her down when she'd suggested they do something in the first place—now he had even less hope. "What?"
"I know what you're going to say, but we have helped fix things before. We need Harry, though." Hermione knew mentioning Harry's name wouldn't be the best way to get Draco onboard with helping, but it was true. Harry just had a way of getting to the right situation to make a difference in all the wrong ways.
"Don't say please again. Come on, we'll find him and see what he thinks. But, if he says we shouldn't do anything, we don't do anything. Okay?" Draco hated how much Hermione seemed to brighten up from being told that. He let her lead the way to the landing with the "totally secret" entrance to the Gryffindor tower, then he waited outside while she went in.
"At least," Draco said while she was in the tower, "they'll probably bring Ron."
"Nope." Hermione ducked her head out of the tunnel and past the painting. She'd heard Draco's last words clear as day. "Ron's dad sent him a message that he needed to go home for the next few nights for some reason."
"So it's just us," Harry Potter said as he left the tower tunnel too. "So, what's the plan?"
When Draco realized that Harry was looking directly at him, he took a step backwards. "Wait, what? I don't have a plan. Hermione?"
"We'll figure something out on the way." Being the tallest, sometimes, had advantages. Now Hermione deployed that advantage and strode confidently down the stairs, leaving Draco and Harry behind.
Looking at each other, and both feeling uncomfortable about it, Draco and Harry shrugged and started off after Hermione.
Not willing to leave the airship to its own devices, Luna had opted to travel back with it rather than take advantage of the new floo system she'd helped deliver. She also had a great fondness for relaxing on the deck of a skyship with the stars out.
Unfortunately, the stars weren't out due to a huge cloud of ash that had swelled from the nearby volcano in the Dragonlands. Not that she couldn't feel the moon and stars—they were her domain and would always be part of her.
The first warning she had of the attack was seeing the prow of another airship a moment before it broadsided theirs.
Shock, more than anything, made Luna stare as the huge Storm King yetis jumped from their own deck, spears and shields in hand. But Luna wasn't going to remain passive for long. It was obvious this was no mere mistake.
The first two shock troops to land on the deck roared at the group of ponies coming at them. Raising their shields, they deflected the magic blasts from a unicorn and used their spears to clear room on the deck for more of their shipmates to board.
One pony in particular seemed a problem for the boarders. It took two of them to hunker down behind their shields to deflect the magic thrown at them, while the others forced back the remaining ponies to the other side of the deck.
With the small cutter's deck now under their control, the yetis started to grab the ponies one by one—shrugging off their attempts at fighting and fitting them with restraints.
Luna was terrified. Her magic was being shrugged off by the attackers and half her guards were now in chains. She was at the point where she contemplated jumping off the ship and flying back to beg Rake for help when what sounded like concussive thunder rocked the sky.
The Storm King ship sported several holes clear through it now, and Luna had just barely caught sight of something slamming through one of the yetis on the deck of the thing—leaving a huge hole where part of its torso had been. Then the blasts came again and the Storm King's ship started to list to the side.
"Come on, scalawags! Last one to shove one of these bastards over the side has to scrub the deck!" Celaeno was the first on deck after Stiff Wind had blasted the Storm King's ship with a broadside. The wood was unsteady, and she could easily tell the vessel's future was not in the sky. "Cutter! Get below and grab what you can. If the ship goes down, fly back to Pandemonium!"
Without waiting to watch Breeze Cutter and the other Longma heading belowdecks, Celaeno began cutting her way through the yetis on deck, shoving what she could overboard, encouraging some to jump all on their own, and cutting down the few who faced their end with grim determination.
Eventually she was able to jump down to the deck of the pony ship. "C'mon! Move your asses! Clean this scum off the deck and let's see what we—have…" It wasn't often that Celaeno was ever stunned to silence. Seeing the four big yetis held at bay by the winged unicorn—alicorn, her brain supplied—made the rest of the world seem to halt.
Blastback had told Celaeno about odd dreams of a dark alicorn that seemed so full of warmth and comfort that she had grown a little jealous of the night-phantom—but seeing her fight for her freedom lit a bonfire in Celaeno. She didn't hesitate, drawing her pistol and sighting down it, she dispatched one of the attackers and leapt forward to engage the other three with her sword.
When one of her assailants fell flat on his face, Luna didn't think too much into it—she couldn't. The yetis only ever gave her one opening, and that was when they were about to strike. She took her shots where she could until another fell down. The last two turned to whatever was behind them, and Luna threw her all into a blast that shoved both off she ship.
Staring in surprise, Luna looked the pirate (because she knew of none other who would dress like the parrot was) up and down. A light breastplate was her only armor, though a sword covered in crimson and not a scratch on her told Luna all she needed to know about her savior's fighting prowess. "Thank you."
Sticking her cutlass into the deck point first, Celaeno pulled out her powder horn and started reloading her pistol. "Thanks are for later. If those ponies are your crew, we need to help them." She was just packing down the wadding and ball when she finished speaking and returned the pistol to her holster.
A stream of parrots were arriving on the Equestrian airship's deck now, but there was two others that caught Luna's attention. One was a tall feline with a pair of rapiers that danced among the yetis while the other was obviously a muggle-born witch with some kind of ranged weapon. When she raised it to her shoulder, and activated it, thunder struck and one of the yetis fell down—every time.
Not wanting to be left out, Luna charged her horn with a good, moderate power blast and connected it with the back of two yetis, sending them hurling through the sky and over the railing. Not waiting for further invitations, she charged bodily at another near the side of the ship and, dodging their lance and slamming her shoulder against them, sent her foe to his end below.
Outnumbered five to one, the remaining yetis nonetheless fought until they too were dispatched. Luna started trying to help her guards with their chains, but to her disgust they were made of the same magic-absorbing metal as the yetis' shields had been.
"Allow me."
Luna turned to the woman who kneeled beside her. She had the weapon she'd used slung to her back on a strap and had a huge scissor-like tool in her hands with which she cut through the chains with ease. "Thank you, uh…"
"Firelight. Firelight McOwens. You looked like you could use some help and we'd been trailing that ship for a week." Slicing through the chains as quick as she could with her bolt-cutters, Firelight helped tug the cold-iron (what Rentari had nicknamed it) bridles off each of the ponies. "When they entered this ash cloud, we thought the chase was up. Didn't expect the silly bastards to stop and attack."
"Captain!" Sticking his head out of the forward hold of the Storm King ship, Gale Stomp looked around even as he shouted for Celaeno. "There's too much damage down here and the ship is listing! We're hauling what we can, but you'll want this junk away from all the other ships before it goes down!"
Leaving Firelight to take care of the ponies, Celaeno turned to where the Equestrian ship had the front end of a Storm King barge lodged in it. "Get the axes. If we can't rip this piece of crap off their nice boat, we'll cut the front off! Get to work, lads!"
Helping scatter the chains off her guards, Luna fought her desire to kick them off the side of the ship and instead organized the shackles, cut chains, and bridles into a barrel. "Thank you, Miss Firelight. That was a timely arrival."
"Captain Celaeno called the charge, uh…" Realizing there was probably some special form of address when there was a pony wearing an actual crown, Firelight fumbled. "Is there some special way I should, uh, call you?"
"Just Luna is fine." Seizing the initiative, Luna headed off any of the usual groveling titles by just not providing them.
"Well, Luna, when we saw that they'd rammed your ship, our captain, Blastback, brought the Stiff Wind around and unloaded half our broadside into them, then the rest. Nothing in the Storm King's navy has survived that yet. They'll have some work to get the thing out of your ship, though. Their prow is made for ramming." As she looked over the ponies, Firelight noticed one who looked a little wobbly on their hooves. "Defthands! I think we have a concussion!"
Seeing that her guards were being cared for, and more than a little surprised at that, Luna walked over to where the pirates were trying to dislodge the other ship's prow. "Do you require assistance?"
Swearing for a good thirty seconds, Celaeno nodded. "We can't get this prow free. Can you cut through the ship behind it and separate them that way?"
A little taken aback by the language, but greatly approving of its use in the circumstances, Luna spread her wings and flew off the side of the ship to assess her objective. It was wood, but the prow of that horrid ship was more of that metal. Judging that she'd have to allow a little distance between the two, she nodded. "Now?"
As Luna had asked her, Celaeno felt the deck shift under her and saw that the Storm King's ship was starting to go down. "Cut it now!" The response shocked her. She'd seen magic used, but she'd never seen a ship-length beam of almost-black blue magic slice a ship in half like a loaf of bread.
Nodding as the Storm King's ship fell free, Luna spotted a trio of dragon-winged creatures leave it. Watching them soar, she realized they were very similar to ponies, but they just weren't. They looked, she realized, more like Harry Potter.
All the Longma that left the falling ship carried sacks with them, each laughing about their looting and carrying it back to the smaller of the two pirate ships. Luna was intrigued, and wondered how such a small ship could do so much damage to the Storm King's ship—then she saw the behemoth sail closer out of the smoke.
"Bring her in slow. We don't want to ram them ourselves! Easy does it… There! Throws some ropes over to Celaeno's scalawags!" Blastback Davies' rolling gait, affected due to his peg-leg, brought him to the side of the ship so that as soon as ropes were cast and pulled taut, he hopped over to the Equestrian ship. "Ho! How fare the dainty maiden now that we have dispatched her assailant?"
Luna landed back on the ship and, with the captain of her ship taking her side, approached the second muggle-born former human she'd seen for the day. "I gather this was the ship that dispatched… that pile of junk that just hit the sea?" Luna quite liked the ship. It bristled with cannons and looked like the most dangerous thing in the air—and also buzzed with a sense of magic.
"Sure is, ma'am. Wait—" As his memory resolved where he'd seen a blue alicorn before, Blastback had to fight not to bow. "You sent those dreams?"
Luna felt excitement. "The wizards and witches I couldn't reach! We were just contacting more of your kin and heading home when we ran into this mess. I can lead you to them, if you'd like?"
His mind racing, Blastback had a hundred questions to ask, but the most important was, "Do they have a way home?" The dispirited look on Luna's face told him the answer. "I guess we'd better get that escort then. Uh…"
Seeing Blastback glancing over at Celaeno, Luna asked, "Is there a problem?"
Raising a finger, Blastback pointed up to the huge balloon of his ship that was black with a skull and crossbones on it. "We'll probably need permission from someone with authority."
"You have it. Safe passage to the Crystal Empire. You'll have to negotiate with Empress Cadance there, though I doubt she'll have any complaints when I ask her nicely." The thought of it made Luna smile.
Blastback rocked a bit, feeling a little surprised that the pony would be so self-assured about her word swaying the mind of an empress. "So, uh, that brings my next question. If you don't mind me asking, who are you?"
"Drat, I'm going to have to give you the full thing, aren't I?" Luna asked.
"If you don't mind, Your Highness, I could?" Swirlywhirl puffed out her breast and fluffed her wings a little. She hated how easily they'd been overpowered by the shock troops and wanted to make amends. When her princess gave her an exasperated sigh and nod, she began, "You are in the presence of Her Royal Highness, Princess Luna. Raiser of the moon. Bringer of night. The Terror that cannot be defended against. Sister of Princess Celestia and co-ruler of Equestria."
Luna was face-hoofing before Swirlywhirl even got halfway through. It was almost embarrassing. "Please, just call me Luna?"
Managing to hold back his laugh as Luna's face transitioned from exasperation to defeat, Blastback held out his hand to Luna. "It's good to meet you at last, Luna. My name's Blastback Davies, though most people out here just call me captain. One of my shipmates, Daku, has been keeping track of the dreams you were sending us. We would have tried to find you sooner, but we had a little situation out and about."
Celaeno strode up to where Blastback and Luna were talking. She knew the stories of ponies and their leaders. Wings and a horn, that meant important. "Begging your pardon, and all that, but what's a pony ship doing this far out?"
"We were contacting another group of portal refugees. They're establishing their own little community on the other side of the dragon lands." Luna felt safe in sharing the knowledge of Charlie, Simon, May, and the others. Even if this warship they possessed was the most startlingly fearsome ship she'd ever seen, Luna would put her bits on an annoyed dragon any day. "We deployed a Floo connection, I believe it's called."
"That's what the Brits use." Suspicion growing, Blastback had to ask, "Did everyone who came over speak with a funny accent?"
Deadpanning, Luna looked at Blastback. "Funnier than yours?"
It was a relief to find someone in a position of power who had a sense of humor. Blastback laughed and nodded. "Yeah, yeah. I know us Aussies have our own drawl. Guess we should still see what the limey buggers need." Stepping back a bit, he turned so he wouldn't be yelling directly into Luna's face. "Make ready! We need all the speed we can get, so step lively!"
"How fast can this ship fly?" Celaeno asked.
"That depends," Luna said, gathering magic to her.
Cocking one eyebrow, Celaeno asked, "On what?"
"On how fast you can get back to your ships so I can rearrange the weather patterns for half the world." It was pegasus magic, and Luna had that in spades. She began shifting pressures and temperatures so that the path of wind started as a minor breeze while the pirates regained their own ships and her own crew started to make ready. "Because here—we—go."
"But what about—" I stopped at the look on Hermione's face. She looked determined, and it was clear my 4th what about wasn't going to sway her. Just like Draco's 3rd hadn't. I shared a quick look at Draco and he shrugged his shoulders. Well, it was his turn next. They walked up to the hole in the side of the castle and Harry looked down.
"It's not that far," Hermione said. "If you want to chicken-out now…"
"It's not that. Look, I know you lot always work in groups of three, but I don't get why we can't have Ron along too?" It was a good shot from Draco. I knew he and Ron had some kind of agreement, so all three of us could tolerate him.
"Ron has gotten—He'd bring his sister. Then his brothers. Then next thing you know we have two-dozen students and it's no longer possible to be in any way sneaky." Hermione reached up and started to pull her school jumper and shirt off in one swift motion.
I had just a moment of panic, then looked at Draco to see him in the same situation. Both of us spun around to face the other way. "What are you doing?!"
"It's easier to change if I take things off first. Professor Black said I should only need another six months to master being able to change my clothes with me."
We, me and Draco, stared at the wall for a while, wondering what was going on while trying to keep from looking like we were wondering. Wondering this kind of wonder—ing—was not British. Then we heard a thump and both spun around.
"Draco already has Bes. Can you pick me up, Harry?" Hermione the snake asked. Only, she didn't ask in English.
"What did she say?" Draco asked.
Right. Parseltongue. "You can speak Parseltongue?" I asked her, holding out a leg for her to slither up. Was it weird to feel my friend climb up on me and coil around my neck to hold on? You bet. Was it the most wizard and witch thing to do I had ever seen? Absolutely.
"I'm a snake, Harry. Comes with the scales. Wait, is this Ginny's book?"
Oh, right, I hadn't told her about that. "Yeah. She threatened to tell Ron if I didn't bring her. I am pretty sure she learned Parseltongue, so, uh, she's probably listening right now."
"Sorry, Ginny, but your brother is just a bit—He's dealing with other things right now. You might as well appear, I don't think Draco will be upset with you being along," Hermione said.
When Ginny did appear, Draco jumped back—out the door. I jumped to the edge and looked down, only to see him flapping his wings and circling. "You know the interesting thing about all this?" I asked.
"What?" Ginny and Hermione asked together.
"Well, whenever I do much more than basic magic, something always catches on fire." I stepped off the edge of the castle and started to fall. Well, more like plummet.
The spell to stop falling people from taking damage was really quick to cast, obviously, but it wasn't simple. I'd been practicing it ever since Madam Hooch had saved me from an unfortunate fall. I might have left it until almost the last moment to maximize the wizardness of it. Also, because it was cool to light myself on fire as I hit the ground.
My hooves sank into the ground just a little and my belly bumped it too before I bounced back up and came down with a little thud. Banishing the flames with a little focus on how wizard that had been, I adjusted the shoulder bag Addera had made me. Was it weird to have a bag made from shed basilisk skin and scales? A little. Was it both resistant to fire and wizard as heck, yes.
"Harry!" Hermione's hiss, somehow, had a whine to it.
"You're both immune to my fire. Well, mostly immune. I don't know if I could burn Ginny's book if I tried, and you're alive, Hermione. I can only burn living things if I really focus." Now I had to work out where Draco was. Looking around, I eventually spotted him landing just down the alley a little.
"We're lucky they probably don't have anyone flying. When you hit the ground, everypony would have seen you catch fire." Draco landed and fell-in beside me. This was such a weird thing, now. I mean, we weren't friends still, but I kinda got where Draco was coming from, and I think he did too. If only he could be a little bit less of a jerk about everything.
"Okay, so we'll go there and see what's going on?" I asked.
Draco shrugged. "I guess. Hermione really didn't have any ideas?"
"For someone so smart, she tends to focus on all the wrong—ack!" She might not be a constrictor type snake, but where Hermione was coiled around my neck she was squeezing enough that I knew she heard and understood me. "Sorry."
"It's easier with Bes. We get along and I make sure not to ever insult her." Raising his wing a little, Draco let me see that he had a much smaller snake than Hermione wrapped around him.
The snake lifted its head and looked me in the eyes, then said, "Be nice to my brother." The weird thing was the snake had this strange accent, and while I tried to figure out what she'd meant, Draco tucked his wing back down.
"Do you have another snake?" I asked.
"What? No. Father only got me—" Draco snapped his mouth closed and marched away.
"She's talking about Draco, Harry," Hermione said, still in Parseltongue. "She's known him all her life and she's very protective of Draco. Also, she's probably the most venomous snake in this world, so don't get on her bad side."
"Not going to ask how you know all this, but message received. Draco's pet snake is not to be messed with."
"Her name is Bes."
"Right!" I groaned. "Bes is not to be trifled with. What accent was that?"
"Australian."
Now, my next question should have been why does he have an Australian snake or even do you think its fangs could get through my scales, but I'd heard enough jokes about them that I knew I should just accept that I didn't want to try the latter and I honestly didn't care about the former. "Right. An Australian snake that thinks they're siblings. Have either of you come up with anything yet?"
"We still don't even know what we're going to have to do or what we might be up against," Hermione said.
Clearing her throat as she appeared, Ginny changed her shape down to that of a small pony like me and Draco. "Whatever there's going to be, you have me to help."
As we got closer, I started hearing a lot of noise. "What's going on?"
"I don't know. Normally this side of the city is quiet. Give me a second." Draco spread his wings out, somehow not showing where Bes was, and took off.
Ugh, that was one thing that so wasn't fair. He could fly anywhere he wanted. He could just spread his wings and be light as a feather in the sky. I swear, the only reason he even started playing quidditch was to annoy me.
After a few minutes, he landed again. "It's crazy. There are wizards in the street stunning and tying up other wizards. There are ponies helping them. I think—I think everyone finally go sick of everything the Ministry were doing."
"So, what should we do?" I asked.
"Beats me. Most of the fighting is kinda pitched, but the good guys kinda have the Royal Guard ponies at their back, and boy do those guys pack a punch. I saw one just blow past a shield one of the Ministry goons put up, like it wasn't even there."
"So they don't need backup," Ginny said, "but what if the higher ups try to make a break for it?"
"Perfect! Then we'll try to work out what's the best way for them to escape and head them off." I translated for Hermione, telling Draco the madness we were apparently going to be part of.
"Draco can scout for them in the air, direct us to run into them, and I'll keep them from casting while Harry and Hermione can disarm them." Grinning, Ginny bounced around on her hooves a few times in what looked like very ponish excitement.
"And what do I do if they're flying on a broom?" Draco asked, already spreading his wings.
"Uh, come and get me? I don't think I actually weigh anything, so I should be able to just hover with you, and I can shut down their brooms with a jinx." Ginny beamed, and I got a sense that she was excited just to be here and doing her part.
An instant later and Draco was gone again, launched into the sky on his completely and utterly unfair wings.
A loud explosion sounded on the other side of the city block from where we were. It was where the wizards and witches still loyal to the Ministry's madness were fighting with—well, whoever.
The sounds of spell-casting, and all the explosions and whooshes that accompanied it, echoed around us as the fighting went on. Then, slowly, things started to quiet. I was just about to say the magic words (not actually magic, though), I guess we aren't needed, when Draco swooped down and hovered before me.
"S-Sombra! He's escaping out the back of the Ministry. He blew by two wizards and is moving way too fast for a normal pony to catch on foot!" Draco pointed with a wing, somehow holding it still longer than he should have and not crash.
There was a spell I'd seen at school in Ponyville, or was it in Twilight's library? I knew I'd seen it somewhere—teleport. It was nothing like the apparition spells, but was really heavy on maths. But the simplest one I'd seen let you teleport in the direction you were facing and you just had to change the distance.
The only problem for me was I didn't know how those numbers were input, though I did remember the pattern for 100 meters. Shoving it out through my horn, I felt heat all around me and my magic set me alight—and shoved me through 100 meters of nothingness to pop out just beside Sombra! Aiming my horn at him, I poured anger into the mix and blasted directly at him with it.
"Harry! Why are you—That's him!" Hermione sounded a little panicked. "What should I do?"
My blast hit a glowing purple shield around him (well, it wasn't there when I'd cast, or was it just invisible?) and I might have said some nasty words. "Hermione, bite him."
Ginny appeared beside me, drawing two barely seen wands and holding each in one hand, she started hammering Sombra with spells. When she grew a third arm just to have another wand, I knew she was getting serious—the problem was Sombra was deflecting everything she threw and sending some back for her to counter.
In the sky above, I noticed Draco circling around behind Sombra, and I realized he was our best chance of getting a spell past Sombra's defenses. "Do you think you could circle around behind him and try to flank while we keep his attention?" I asked Hermione.
She answered that by dropping off my side and slithering off out of sight. I turned all my attention back to Sombra and focused on what he'd done and to how many. It got me angry just thinking about it all. Leveling my head, and aiming around Ginny, I let off another blast of burning fury at him.
King Sombra was starting to get angry. The two children pressing him were both uniquely a problem in their own rights, but he could have easily dispatched either on their own in a normal one on one fight. Together, they were going to cause him to have to kill them.
And it was then that Sombra recognized each of them. "Ginevra?" It almost cost him his life. She'd just sent a particularly nasty stunning blast his way, and in his confusion he only managed to counter it late. The other of the pair he recognized as the small colt that had assisted him in the chamber of secrets, and later been part of his undoing in the battle at Hogwarts castle.
Spotting his chance, Draco Malfoy paused mid-air and twisted his wings up, pointing all his primary flight feathers at Sombra. Focusing for all he was worth, he aimed and let loose with ten stun spells at the same time.
Spinning at the last second, Sombra's eyes widened as he saw ten fully charged stunbolts about to hit him. He threw counters at three, tossed extra shields up to absorb several others, and barely managed to get out of the way of two more.
Seeing Draco's spells become a major problem for Sombra, Ginny went on the offensive. She cast two concussive spells to blow down Sombra's shields and followed it up with a laughter spell that actually hit home.
Smirking at first, Sombra started to chuckle. It felt wrong, but to fight against the bubbling giggles that overtook him would have cost him his defenses as he was now engaged by three wizards. What was startling for him was how two of them seemed to be casting multiple spells at once.
Hermione Granger, at first, had been a little disappointed to have become a snake animagus. Not only did it radically differ from her Gryffindor roots, but she'd been hoping for an animal roughly pony size so that she could fit in better with her friends.
The discovery of being fluent in Parseltongue while as a snake—and being able to talk to Bes—had been a pleasant surprise. She'd gotten used to her reptilian form, learning all the best places to warm herself up from Bes, and even tolerated eating mice—not being able to taste them was a huge plus in her book.
Slithering was its own kind of meditative joy. Listening to her body, feeling for the ground and turning muscles, flexing them, this way and that—it was relaxing and harmonious. And oddly hard to notice, or so she'd found. Like right at that moment she was not a meter away from Sombra and getting closer with every undulation of her body. She'd never actually tried to bite someone, but she was willing to listen to her body and let it do most of the biting.
Sombra spotted Hermione a moment before she was within lunging distance. Despite his thousand-plus years of life, despite all his mental faculties, and despite him being embroiled in a fight—the sight of a snake broke through to his equine brain like nothing else could. Screaming in shock, he jumped backward to get away from the perceived threat.
Bes was a smaller snake than Hermione, and though that should make her slower than her friend, she was still far better at slithering than Hermione would probably be for many years yet. She was sitting, hiding against the side of a building where there was a slight shadow, and waiting. When Sombra jumped back from her friend and landed right beside her, Bes reached up with barely any need to exert herself and closed her mouth around the dark leg.
The feel of her fangs sinking into something far too big to be a meal was distasteful, and Bes knew that sinking a full load of venom into Sombra was probably not advised, but she had a good friend now who would protect her until her venom was restored. She squeezed down on the muscles around her venom sacks and emptied them into Sombra.
Hermione hadn't planned to herd Sombra toward Bes, but seeing her reptilian peer strike at Sombra's leg was a welcome surprise. "Harry, back off. Get Ginny and Draco to leave him."
Harry Potter was riding the edge of his anger. Trying to keep furious enough to be a nirik and work his fire, but aware enough of his environment that he could respond to others. He was, however, failing at the second facet. Blasting away at Sombra, he noticed his opponent was faltering now, slowing—that meant he could strike!
At first Sombra sent his magic coursing through his body, shoving the venom out of organs almost as quickly as it spread, but even just the slightest contact between it and nerves caused them to wither and die. To his shock, he realized he was fighting a losing battle.
Sending off a blast he'd been building, Harry aimed right at Sombra's head. He was so focused and sure of his target, he was shocked when Sombra stumbled and fell sideways. It was enough of a shock to see him drop that it snapped Harry out of his laser focus. "What happened?"
"Bes bit him. Harry, you weren't listening to me just now." Hermione wasn't too angry with Harry. She was more shocked at how quickly Sombra had died to the venom. Slithering closer, she approached Bes. "Are you alright?"
Slithering up to her friend, Bes leaned against Hermione—cheek to cheek. "I've never bitten anyone before."
Draco rushed over to Hermione and Bes, leaning down to press the tip of his snout against the top of Bes' head. "Are you alright? Did he step on you?"
Hermione wanted to tell Draco to pick Bes up, but even despite not knowing Parseltongue he managed to get the idea. She was surprised to be scooped up too, but didn't complain. "It's alright. You're probably going to be called a hero, though."
Harry walked up to Draco, watching as both Hermione and Bes seemed to disappear into the area under his wing. "Nice work with that flankin—"
Sombra struggled with death just as his student had, ripping and tearing free of his body as his lungs refused to inflate. He certainly hadn't planned to use a horcrux so soon, but was thankful he'd acquired what he had. The only travesty was how much power he'd used to no avail.
Galloping through the streets, Shining Armor spotted the little group huddled around something on the ground and diverted from where he'd thought Sombra was running to protect them. "You need to go back to Hogwarts! There are renegade Ministry agents fleeing their offices and King Sombra is—" As he neared them, he finally recognized what was on the ground. "… dead."
"It was a whirlwind of activity after that," Hermione Granger said to the assembled Gryffindor students in the common room. "Draco carried Bess and myself back to Hogwarts while Harry carried Ginny. Draco and Harry are still talking to Headmistress McGonagall."
"How'd you get away?" George Weasley asked, laying beside Ember, his pet salamander—with only a fire blanket between them.
"Harry distracted everyone and then Draco found a good spot for me to slither clear." Reaching up to her neck, she gently brushed at Bes' cheek. "Of course, when one snake can get away, two can just as easily."
Katie Bell reacted first, putting the story together and coming up with two snakes. "So that's the snake that bit him? How venomous is it?"
"She. Bes is a girl snake, and she isn't venomous at all right now. She used up everything she had. I promised her I'd take care of her and Draco until she recovers. Harry's sticking to Draco like glue." She rubbed Bes' cheek just once more before letting her rest.
"No, what I mean is, how poisonous is she usually?" Katie asked.
"Venomous," Hermione said quickly. "And she is very venomous. I managed to talk to Hagrid and he said she's more deadly than anything short of a basilisk." Turning to look at Addera, Hermione gave her a sheepish smile. "I guess that means you're still number one."
"As is only proper, Hermione Granger. I'm still upset you didn't invite me to come along. I could have dealt with that horrid pony much faster." Crossing her forelegs before her, Addera felt somewhat appeased by knowing she was, probably, still number one. "I wouldn't have even needed to bite him. Just one look is all it takes."
"So that's it, right?" Ron asked. "Sombra is dead and can't mess with us?" When everyone in the room stared at him as if he'd just said the stupidest thing in the world, Ron looked at Hermione. "Well?"
Hermione shrugged her shoulders, then murmured an apology to Bes. "We thought Voldemort was dead after a war, but he came back. I don't trust that he's gone for good, but I'm not going to let that get in the way of learning better ways to defeat him."
"There's gotta be more to it than—" Ron was cut short when everyone turned to look at Harry.
Harry looked around everyone, trying to ignore the feeling of dozens of eyes attempting to suck information from him. "Hey, uh, Draco's not here to stay, he's just passing through. Hermione, do you want to bring Bes up to—"
"You can explain everything to everyone here, first." Hermione wasn't inclined to move, nor was she particularly upset that Draco, a former resident of Slytherin house, was in the Gryffindor common room.
Draco just wanted to leave again, with Bes of course. He looked at Hermione for help, but only got an amused glance back from her. Huffing out a breath, he walked over to the couch and jumped up beside her. "Is Bes okay?" He knew perfectly well she was, given he only had to look up to see her contentedly sleeping draped around Hermione's shoulders.
"Of course she is." Lifting Bes up from where she was napping, Hermione carefully set her beside Draco's wing, and watched as she slithered up and into the warmest place a pegasus could offer.
"Come on, Harry," Fred said. "Spill it. What did McGonagall say?"
"I can't believe she wasn't angry with you." Draco's ire was high. "Every time I did the slightest thing wrong, I'd get in trouble for it."
"What?" Harry's attention was on Draco and his own outrage now. "You never got in trouble for anything!"
"That you noticed. The professors kept making me clean boards and classrooms every time I did anything. But this time, because you were involved too, I was let off without a word."
"Harry," George said, unusually serious, "he's right."
"It wasn't just because of that we 'ung around with you, it let us see that there was more to you than the whole chosen one thing." George shrugged his shoulders. "But if we got into something with you involved, we got it less trouble. Both 'ere and at home."
It hit Harry hard. A revelation that people treated him like they did because of something he wasn't. "Ron? Hermione?"
Shaking his head, Ron just laughed at his friend. "No, Harry. I hung around with you because you're a good friend and you listen to me even when I'm saying stupid stuff."
"Harry, if you think I stuck with my very first friend I ever had because of some kind of special treatment, you're absolutely wrong." Hermione's speech, to everyone but Harry and Bes, just sounded like hissing. "Draco, too, often got in trouble for the wrong reasons. This might be the first time he did so for the right ones."
Hermione's words were enough that Harry wasn't going to lose his cool and nirik out. Squaring back up to Draco, Harry smirked. "You were great out there, Draco. Without you, we couldn't have stopped Sombra from getting away."
It was an angle Draco hadn't anticipated, and for a moment her actually felt good about the outcome—then he managed to remind himself who was saying it. "Go kiss a mandrake, Potter." It wasn't very pony of him, but he didn't care. Stalking out of the Gryffindor common room, he made his way back to his room.
"Anyway," Harry said, moving past Draco's comments, Harry explained what had happened. "She was upset we went without telling anyone. They are pretty sure he won't stay dead, even after what Draco's snake did to him, but everyone is satisfied that for now, for a while, he won't be back."
Standing on the prow of her ship, Luna felt as proud as could be. Not only had she made contact with some more humans-turned-ponies, but she was bringing them home to meet actual ponies. Following the coast of Equestria, their ship flying Equestria's colors—with her own pennant visible—ensured that no Guard airships rushed out to do battle.
Swinging inland from Manehatten, they made excellent time with a constant wind at their back. Less than a week since meeting the privateers, they were coming out of the mountains and over the snow plains of the Crystal Empire.
"I'll head down and ensure we have no unexpected welcomes," Luna told the crew before, with a blast of magic, teleporting herself well clear of the airships and over the huge city. Spiraling on midnight wings, Luna enjoyed the simple act of flying as she surrendered altitude for speed—and finally landing at the entrance to the castle. "I need to speak to Shining Armor and Cadance immediately!" She wasn't holding back, it was time for the Royal Canterlot Voice if ever there was one.
One of the guards rushed off into the castle while the other remained steadfast, though Luna could tell his hooves were itching. Her voice had that effect. When Shining Armor was the first to arrive, Luna breathed a sigh of relief. "Your Imperial Majesty," she said, making sure to stress his title, "I have taken the liberty of inviting some more of the former humans here, though you may want to warn your Guard to stand down from any rash action they may take if—"
"Commander! Commander!"
Shining's attention strayed from Luna, who was rolling her eyes now, to the guardpony who was galloping toward him, seemingly with no plan on how to stop in time. "Report." Shining extended his magic to help halt the excited stallion.
"Commander, there are two warships flying in low across the plains from the mountains!"
Looking back at Luna, Shining saw her slight smile. "Friends of yours?" At her nod, he turned back to the guardpony. "Have the garrison stand down. Ready a minimum royal guard contingent. No more than four total."
Relieved that sanity was prevailing—and she was getting her way—Luna turned in the direction of the airships. Over the following half hour the two ships approached the center of the city. The parrots' ship was bright and colorful, though deadly in its own way, while the one the wizards were flying looked huge and far more of a threat. The amount of cannons running down the side was impressive, and at least to Luna's senses it hummed with magic.
The city was amazing, even to the world-weary Celaeno. She tossed ropes over the sides of Pandemonium and, using it as only a guide, dropped nearly all the way to the ground before using her peg leg to wrap it and slow her to almost a stop. Walking over to the most official-looking group, consisting of Luna, a white unicorn stallion, a handful of trained soldiers if ever she'd seen one, and the most pink pony she'd ever seen in her life. "Ho, there. Forgive me for speaking too forward, but I don't have anyone fancy to introduce me. I'm Captain Celaeno of the Pandemonium, and this scalawag coming up behind me is Captain Blastback of the Stiff Wind."
Shining glared between Luna and the sergeant who both would have jumped at the opportunity to introduce Cadance and himself with all the titles they despised. Though, he had been forced to admit to using one—"Emperor Shining Armor, Empress Cadance, Princess Luna, and accompanying guards."
Celaeno's eyes widened. "Since when did ponies start talking about empires?"
"Since we had a huge pile of refugees of a thousand-year-old war arrive, with descendants of other refugees of said war, and"—Shining shuddered—"politics. It's a little far out for the Lorikalia pirates to be sailing the skies, isn't it?"
Her mind skipping a beat, Celaeno stared at Shining with new appreciation. "Not many non-residents know of Lorikalia, and fewer leaders would let a resident of the isles live if they discovered them."
Groaning, Cadance decided to shatter the rising tension. "My husband was the captain of the Royal Guard of Canterlot, he had close ties to the Royal Dragoons, and is well aware of the histories of various parts of the world outside Equestria's border—as am I. The pirates of Lorikalia have never, in the history of Equestria, attacked ponykind." She smiled, hoping to take the edge off the situation completely. "You are welcome to the Crystal Empire, as visiting citizens, but please don't extend your trade to our people."
Blastback felt overwhelmed. Princesses, emperors, soldiers—and no one had even bothered talking to him yet. He tried to focus on Celaeno and Cadance's verbal jousting, but it was just that. They were literally showing off to each other and seemed to be having fun doing it. Turning to (and he had to give himself a mental thump in the back of the head for it) Emperor Shining Armor, he gave him a look that begged a way out.
"Excuse me, ladies, but I believe I'll escort Captain Blastback to meet the locals from his world." Shining could recognize a fellow stallion—well, male of any species—that wanted an excuse to be away from the present topics. "If you'll follow me?"
Moving as fast as he could, Blastback gave a sigh that was mirrored by Shining. "I don't want to assume, but I take it you're not a fan of…"
"My wife, though I love her to bits, can get carried away sometimes, and your Captain Celaeno seemed to be equally made." Shining looked up at Blastback and saw a grin on the man's face. "You looked like you could use rescuing from them, and I can do exactly what I said."
Looking back to his ship, Blastback made eye contact with Firelight and nodded. "That's much appreciated. We might have been almost as far from their country as you could get on our world, but the Poms are still decent people."
Shining nodded to that, but figured he should bring the man up to speed on current events. "They had some difficulty adjusting. Some did, anyway. We aren't sure how long he was involved, but an ancient, evil unicorn used their own fears against them and took control of a faction that was an offshoot of the Ministry of Magic. And when I say control, I mean he attached some kind of device to the poor guy that took over him. We still haven't managed to remove it—and might not be able to.
"The same unicorn had made two other such devices that our own agents confirmed were destined for myself and Cadance."
Wincing in sympathy, Blastback nodded. "Where is this unicorn now? Did he get away?"
"You might not believe this, but one of our wizard school's students had a pet snake that was particularly venomous. I still don't have the full picture, but apparently its venom works particularly fast on ponies. He didn't make it two minutes before he died."
"Almost sounds like they got a snake from my part of the world—well, when we were back on my world." Looking up, Blastback noticed the odd mishmash of castle styles. "I don't know how long we can stay, but if there's anything you need a hand with, let me know."
"We've got most of it cleaned up now. There were a few henchmen working for Sombra's plant that were fully okay with what was going on—we're helping the new College of Lords deal with them in a way that doesn't make us bigger monsters than Sombra. Just here on your left is the place you'll be looking for." Shining walked up to the building and knocked with a hoof.
"Come in!" a feminine voice called from within.
"After you," Shining said.
Opening the door, Blastback was relieved to see the interior seemed built to handle tall people. The female voice belonged to a woman sitting behind a desk inside. She was completely a pony, just like one of his crew, Daku, had become.
"Gemma, I have another one you might want to talk to. This is Captain Blastback, he's been—" Shining cut himself short and shook his head. "I'll leave him in your capable hooves."
"You're not the first someone found after the big migration, and I am not sure you'll be the last. I'm Gemma Farley." Warmth radiated from Gemma. She had found her spot in life. She was working with the most powerful ponies and wizards in either world, and they all listened to her because she paid attention. Like, right now, she could see a lot about the man before her that most would miss. "Can I have your name, first?"
Feeling more official than he had in a long time, Blastback decided he should use his former rank and details—at least at first. "Commander Blastback Davies of the Australian Federal Magic Police, now captain of the Stiff Wind out of Lorikalia."
"'Australian'?" That got Gemma's attention. "Please, tell me everything you're able to about your travels since arriving."
It wasn't quite what Blastback had been expecting, but then he hardly had any idea what to expect. "Well, it all started with my team being sent to investigate an emerging event. Just about everything that could go wrong from then did, though we met a nice girl who needed a little help. It's not much of a story, I'm afraid, quite boring really. Oh, except for the war."
Gemma had been ready to write off the whole thing given the steady, boring manner Blastback had described it in—then he got to that last line. "The war. I believe I'll need another notepad."
"Come on, Harry. You know you want to see their ships."
I looked up at George and groaned. "Would it stop you two from bugging me about it?" They hadn't really been bugging me about it, and besides, I wanted to see the ships too. Flying ships were just about the most counter thing to wizarding society I'd ever seen, and given they were just about the most wizard thing I'd seen, that made them ten times as interesting.
Still, I wasn't going to just agree. George and Fred had taught me that everything was worth a favor.
"You'd 'ave our undying thanks," Fred said.
"Fred," I said, "thanks don't buy sweets." It was the exact thing they'd said to me once. "I can help you get over there, probably even get us onboard, but I might need something—"
George punched Fred in the arm. "This is what you get for teaching 'im too much."
"Me? You told him about our map." Fred punched his brother back.
I wasn't convinced. I knew the pair of them could turn from a furious brawl to a new grift in seconds. "It won't be anything big. Come on." I turned and started down the stairs, moving with them as they sought new and confusing patterns.
Footsteps chased me, and I knew I had them. Truth was, I wanted to see the ships too, and they were experts at getting into places they weren't meant to. I had to admit, though, that my own history of doing that was probably why they asked me.
When we got to the bottom, we were just three ponies heading outside the castle and into the (now safer) streets of the Crystal Empire. "So," I asked them, "what's the plan that you needed a third for?"
"Well, you're smaller, right?" Fred asked.
George nodded. "And that makes you look more like a foal, right?"
Fred finished with, "And you aren't stupid enough to say the wrong thing so that we don't all get to have a look around."
Walking across the courtyard to the gantry that'd been built, I tilted my head back and looked up at the two ships. Of them, the bigger one was making my horn itch it had so much magic about it.
"Ever seen an airship before?" It was exactly what I wanted to hear, and the muggle born woman who asked it was quite a sight. She stood tall, had a military rifle slung on her back, and wore a long duster over a shirt and trousers.
"No! They're amazing!" I looked back from her to the bigger ship, and from the corner of my eyes I saw her muzzle pull into a grin. "How does something so big fly?"
She looked behind me, no doubt seeing Fred and George, and turned halfway around. "Why don't you all come up and see?"
I perked up at that, playing my role as the little one of the bunch. "That'd be great! Thanks, uh…"
"Firelight. Just call me Firelight. What's your names?" she asked as she led the way to the ramp leading upward.
"I'm Harry and they're George and Fred." Wizard names sometimes meant stuff, which made me wonder about her. Reaching my hoof up to straighten my glasses, I asked, "Do you do much fire magic?"
Firelight barked a laugh and nodded. "Fire magic is literally in me blood. McOwenses have been cooking up firestorms for as far back as any of us can remember. Why's that?"
"Harry is a kirin. They are"—George snorted—"well, whenever they get angry, they catch fire and lose their cool."
"Don't worry, though, he got it all out of 'is system earlier. Right, Harry?" Fred asked.
"Yeah. I promise I won't set your ship on fire." I managed to clamp my mouth closed before I let slip that if I did, no amount of magic would stop it unless it was magic water.
"Thanks for that, I guess. This ship is actually built partially from the frames and guns of ten other ships. The Storm King makes all his ships like wallowing barges, but at least they have some working cannons in them. Not a single one—or even twenty—is a match for Stiff Wind here." She marched to the top of the ramps and stepped across the small gap bridged by a plank to the deck of the ship. "C'mon over."
The ship, when I crossed over the plank, had a slight sway to it that wasn't noticeable from the ground. It wasn't huge, but I made a promise to myself that I'd try to keep three hooves down at all times. There were a few ponies who turned to look at us, but seeing them I realized they weren't ponies. Like me, they had scales down their faces but instead of horns, they had wings.
One of them walked over and asked, "You're a kirin?"
"Yeah, kinda, I—"
He seemed so excited and bounced on his hooves a little. "So our lost kin are still alive? This is great news! We—the longma tribes—thought all the kirin had vanished years ago. Where are your parents?"
George spoke before I could, "Harry wasn't born a kirin. Like the rest o' us, he came here from Earth only—"
"…his change went a bit sideways you could say." Fred shoved against me. "Not 'is fault though."
"Oh." The strange not-kirin seemed to slump a little.
"But I have met other kirin—native kirin that is," I said, and the light was back in his eyes. "I could show you on a map where their village is."
He did a little prance in place again that reminded me how much ponies could just enjoy life. "That'd be great! I'd love to meet them. Are they, uh, still having trouble with the nirik?"
"Yeah. They have a leader who is trying to teach some meditation that I know doesn't work, when there's one mare that has the right idea. She even explained to me that with just a little time spent every day getting angry somewhere safe, you are perfectly fine the rest of the time." Tilting my head down, I reached up and tapped my horn. "I only went through a few pairs of glasses before I figured that out."
"Our own foals have, uh, similar problems. Such is the way of draconic ancestors. Oh! My name's Breeze Cutter."
"Harry Potter," I said.
"Wait." Firelight, who had been showing the twins around, walked back over to us. "You're the Harry Potter? Huh, I thought you were just a myth. Guess you got tangled up in all these portals and stuff too, eh?"
I wondered, briefly, if I should tell her that George and Fred had just slipped away and through a doorway. Probably, but that would definitely mean I wouldn't get my favor from the twins. "Just in the wrong spot at the wrong time. See, I was in the Chamber of Secrets, which is down in the sub basement, and that's where I found all these crystals and—It was a really intense day."
"Well, you want to come belowdecks and see our—" Firelight turned and saw that Fred and George were both missing. She just laughed. "Come on, I bet they're halfway to blowing themselves up by now."
Walking after her, I waved to Breeze before heading through the door and down the stairs. The first stop was a long room that seemed to run the whole length of the deck of the ship, lined on each side by the cannons. George was looking down the barrel of one while Fred was trying to pick up a cannonball.
"Here we have the fire-breathing throats of Stiff Wind. These guns are all enchanted not to explode and, if they do take damage, they will slowly put themselves back together—like all the ship." Walking over to a cannon, Firelight put her hand on it and drew her wand out. A quick gesture at the spot where her hand was and a hole melted clean through the cannon.
She lifted her hand up and the molten metal started flowing up, back into the hole it had just left. "It's surprisingly effective. Our cannons never crack or split."
"What's the spell you used?" I asked. Though, if the repair spell could fix items melted by magical fire, I'd have rathered that.
"That one? I'll show you when we're not surrounded by wood. I can keep it contained to just what I touch with my hand but if it gets out of control, everything you are in contact with can burn." Gesturing down to where George pulled his head out of the barrel to reveal that his snout was completely covered in black soot, Firelight said, "And that's why most of our gunners are covered in soot, powder, and worse most of the time. The birds love it, claim it's like good grit for cleaning their feathers."
"What's that gun you have?" Fred asked.
"This?" Lifting the weapon off her shoulder, Firelight's hands moved automatically, even though it wasn't loaded, clearing the breach and ensuring it was empty. "Just what we get back home—Sorry, still hard to come to terms with the fact we can't go back."
There was a pain in her eyes that hurt. Thinking quick, I figured a way to change topics. "George and Fred got lucky. Their brothers and parents all made it over, though their sister had a bit of a problem what with Sombra stealing her body. She wound up stuck in a book, though she's gotten all kinds of good with projections."
She didn't look all that thankful for my efforts at first, but when I got to Ginny's problems she looked at least curious. "Stuck in a book?"
"A horcrux, it's called. It's really bad magic to make them, but now that Ginny is controlling it, it's not even evil anymore. Though, Myrtle still doesn't like it." I was rambling now, trying to steer away from talking about family. "Myrtle's a ghost, you see. She's the girl Voldemort killed to make the book a horcrux."
"That's a lot of—Yeah. Okay, now I'm starting to see what all the shouting was about when people talked about you." Firelight crouched down and reached a hand out to ruffle my mane. "You Brits live a wild life. I think I prefer fighting a war for the Abyssinians."
"Abysswho?" I asked.
She opened her mouth to reply, then closed it. Then she looked thoughtful for about ten seconds. "You saw all the other crew from our ships?" When I nodded, she continued, "Well, did you see one that looked like a cat woman with black covering her arms almost to her shoulders?"
I had, though the black covering her arms I'd thought was just her fur color. Remembering what Firelight said about those who worked with the cannons, I had to wonder if she was a… what did she call them? Gunners? "Yeah."
"Well, imagine a whole country full of them. They love nothing more than bartering and trade—which means they were quite happy when we volunteered our services, for a price, to fight their war for them. The trip here was a side bit. We tailed one of the Storm King's generals all the way to the dragonlands, when it attacked Luna's ship. Well, we didn't know who she was then, but Captain Celaeno figured that anyone Storm King's troops were attacking would at least be thankful we'd jumped in."
"Can we fire a cannon?" George asked.
"Sure. Let me show you how you get it ready." Firelight walked over to the cannon George had been messing with. "First thing is you want to measure a charge. Now, our guns can take a higher load than most others around, but you still don't want to put too much in." As she spoke, she reached to one of the little paper balls sitting in a bucket. "Normally you'd pack wadding in after it, and then ram a ball in. Since we don't want to demolish a few houses in the process, we'll just load it with powder."
George and Fred, I have to admit, looked really excited. Can't say I blame them. She set the cannon up and aimed it into the sky somewhere. "Okay now, which of you wants to fire first?" She took a long stick and, snapping her fingers, made the end of it catch alight.
Realization set in that we were all going to get to fire the cannon. "Harry!" George said.
Fred nodded. "Yeah, Harry can fire it first."
Taking the stick from her, I held it up to the hole she'd gestured to on top of the cannon. For a moment after I touched the end of the stick to the hole, nothing happened. Then, seemingly as the gun made up its mind, it roared and a huge gout of flame shot out the other end.
"Okay, who next?" Firelight asked.
"Me!" George and Fred both said at the same time.
Ginevra Molly Weasley screamed. She'd had her soul removed before, but this time it was far more painful. Sombra had bound part of his own soul to her—investing her with his energy and continuing her existence. Now she lacked that thread of power and she was completely reliant on the pony she'd bound to her.
Trembling with the pain of losing her primary source of stability, she clung to the holder of her coin. In a flash of insight, she realized what'd happened. "He died."
Stretching himself, Igor Karkaroff rumbled and looked at his mistress. "King Sombra?" He didn't have to wait for Ginevra's nod to know she agreed. "You need to secure your power. Forge more coins. Find more to hold them."
Fighting to keep herself centered, Ginevra nodded to Igor. "You're right." She used her one link to steady herself. "I will need your help to forge more."
Stirring and climbing to his feet, Igor nodded. "Of course. And you realize with him confirmed dead, we will be more free to act."
The idea derailed Ginevra for a moment. She didn't feel fear or sorrow—without a soul she didn't feel any emotion unless she focused on it. "Yes. We will make coins and scatter them all over Equestria. When the time is right, we'll call them together into the greatest army this world has ever seen and free them from the alicorns' grip."
Draco Malfoy was glad to avoid the limelight. Harry, Hermione, and Ginny had easily played their parts as the heroes of the story while he could get back to his study and, at the end of the year, go home.
The long train ride to Canterlot was reminiscent of the Hogwarts' Express in most ways except for the noise. Where the 'Express would have been filled with students excited to go home and find out what their families had been up to, the train to Canterlot only held three of them. Himself, Hermione, and Harry.
Harry Potter did his best to ignore Draco as much as Draco ignored him. The countryside flying by was more than enough to hold his interest, to say nothing of the excitement of finding out what Twilight had been doing.
All through the year she'd sent him books to read. The last had been an intermediate magic book she'd written about wands and their similarity to horns. He was only about two-thirds of the way through reading it, so pulled it out of his bag and got comfortable.
Which left Hermione Granger looking between her two friends. She wanted to talk to them both about what they would be doing over school break, but knew what would happen the moment she tried to approach one—the other would get shirty.
When Harry pulled out a book to read, though, she was finally free to make a move. Standing, she walked over and sat next to Draco. "You live in Canterlot too, right?"
"Yeah. Twilight and Night are—they let me stay with them." Draco held up his wing to coax Bes out. "Your parents are living there too?"
Hermione nodded and reached out to rub Bes under the chin. "Yes. They only came here originally to get some equipment, but they said they prefer the climate here, and there are plenty of ponies needing their expertise."
Draco smiled a little at that. Bes always seemed happy to see Hermione, and even if he couldn't understand her, Hermione could. "We should keep in contact."
"I am sure we can. Do you know anyone else in Canterlot?" Not complaining and not making a fuss as Bes started to curl her way up her arm, Hermione made soft hissing noises of encouragement to her. The time where she might have been afraid of Bes' bite was long gone. "You're warm today, Bes."
Bes, appreciating attention and warmth both, let out a soft hiss of appreciation and flicked Hermione's cheek with her tongue before she worked her way into the scarf Hermione was wearing. It was warm, though not as hot as Draco's wings were—she loved cuddling into the fluffy feathers with all the big blood vessels just below the surface.
"She's trying to tickle me now. It won't work, Bes." Despite her claim, Hermione was giggling. "Do you think that'll be the last time we have to fight evil at school?"
Draco almost asked where that question had come from, but remembering how much Harry, Hermione, and Ron had been through, Draco could believe it was a going concern. "Hopefully. There are a lot more adults around without any political motive to protect any evil things." He didn't want to go too far. After all, his father had been one such protector of evil.
Reaching her hand toward him, Hermione hesitated for a moment before she rested her hand on Draco's back, trying to approximate a casual hug. "I don't think anyone really goes into that kind of thing wanting to help evil spread. It starts off with little things that slowly grow. One day you're laughing along at someone being called mudblood, then it's tormenting them, and eventually someone tells you, hey, why don't we beat them up?"
"Yeah." That might be in Draco's past, but it wasn't too far in his past. The hand on his back was comforting, though, and he leaned against it a little. "I was pretty terrible."
Hermione laughed and squeezed Draco's shoulders a little. "You didn't get to know me back in first year. I was pretty terrible too, only I did it to people I wanted to be friends with."
"We both grew up in a hurry."
"Yeah." Hermione felt the train shift, its driving power halting and now the carriages started to press forward as the whole thing began to slow. "I've never been on this train before. Is there a reason we're slowing down?"
Draco laughed and got up to walk closer to the window. "Because of that," he said, pointing out the window and up with a hoof.
When Hermione leaned across and looked out, she gasped. "What—Why are we going up a mountain?!"
"That's Canterlot way up there. Can you see it hanging over the edge of the mountain?" Hearing Hermione's surprise cheered Draco up. "It's a shame you didn't become an animagus that gets wings. Flying up there is amazing."
"But—" Hermione shook her head in disbelief. "If you fell from all the way up there, you'd—"
"…have plenty of time to stop panicking, stick your wings out, and catch yourself." Draco stretched out his right wing and made a happy sigh. "We'll figure something out. Maybe you could just hang onto me as a snake while I fly?"
"I'm sure I'd be rattling the whole time. Heights are one thing, Draco, but that's a huge mountain with a cliff. How does it even stay up there? It's just hanging over the side…"
Draco laughed and let out a sigh. "Magic. They don't care about showing off magic here, Hermione. You'll see. Canterlot is a city full of unicorns. Well, mostly unicorns. You'll fit in easily, for the most part."
"Because of my horn?"
"Yeah. You'll be able to do everything a unicorn can. Though, with what Twilight sent me about the use of crystal pegasus feathers as wands, I might be able to fit-in a little easier too now."
As the train wound its way up the switchback, Harry kept his nose in the book. It was interesting stuff, but it didn't seem likely to help him with using his horn to hold things. What he needed to do, he realized, was visit the kirin again so he could work out how they could pick things up with their horns and not set them on fire.
When the train stopped at Canterlot station, he lifted his head from his book to see Draco and Hermione collecting their things. "I guess I'll see you both again in three months?"
Hermione nodded. "Absolutely, Harry. Don't learn too much and get ahead of us." She was only partly joking. Mostly. Hermione actually worried about such things, particularly after Ginny had not only caught up to them from a year behind but passed them when it came to magic fighting.
Feeling like he should acknowledge Harry too, Draco nodded to him. "And if you need help, just send a letter. We—I hate to say it—worked well together."
With the prospect of plenty of time apart, Harry could well agree to that. "Yeah. Same. If you need a crazy pyromaniac wizard, just follow the panicked shouting and you'll find me."
Draco managed to keep back his laughter for a full second before nodding. "I'll probably be the fool diving off high things trying to see how fast I can possibly hit the bottom."
Feeling oddly good about a conversation with Harry Potter for once, Draco Malfoy stepped off the train ahead of Hermione Granger. On the platform was a few ponies he didn't recognize, two he definitely did, and a pair of humans that he thought looked a little like older, less intense versions of Hermione when she wasn't quite so part equine.
"Uh, Draco, you should probably have Bes—" Hermione had been surprised when Draco took off at a gallop toward two ponies. When he crashed into a hug with them, it stunned her further. "Who are they, Bes?"
Bes' hissing, however, wasn't easily recognizable to Hermione when she wasn't a snake herself, and seeing her parents looking all goofy broke her focus. She hauled her case over to them. "Wait! Before you hug me, I need to give Draco his pet snake back."
Blinking in surprise at her daughter, Angelique Granger watched as Hermione unwound a snake from her neck and walked over to the small pony that'd gotten off the train with her. "She's definitely your daughter," she said to her husband.
"Mine? Why is she mine when she's doing wizarding things and yours when she gets high marks?" David Granger asked.
"I have no idea what you're talking about." Watching as Hermione passed the snake to Draco, Angelique waited patiently for her welcome-home-hug to finally come to pass. "I've missed you, sugarplum."
"Muum…" Despite hating the silly nicknames her mother made up for her, despite getting embarrassed just knowing she would deploy them whenever possible, Hermione squeezed her mother back for all she was worth. "Oh, right, I need to tell you. You don't still have your phobia of snakes, dad?"
"So long as your friend keeps his pet away from me, things will be just fin—"
"That's a yes," Angelique told her daughter. "What's the matter?"
"Well…" Hermione eventually cleared her throat and grabbed the edge of the metaphorical band-aid and pulled. "I may have learned a trick that lets me turn into a snake. It's okay, though, I'm in full control of myself."
Her father just stared at her, while her mother seemed to slowly calm. "Hermione, dear, what kind of snake?"
Biting her lip, something she was careful not to do as a snake, Hermione admitted, "A rattlesnake." As soon as she said it, she saw her father go a little more pale than his red-headed self was normally. "I don't bite, though! I've never even bitten anything!"
Angelique pulled her daughter back into another hug. "We'll figure things out. Don't worry." She nodded to the two ponies who'd collected Draco and started for the exit of the station. "Come on, dear," she said to her husband, "you look like you've seen a ghost."
Albus Dumbledore was so very thankful for Arthur Weasley. He watched the man cutting through paperwork and quickly reducing the pile of dangerous persons profiles down to just five. "Just five?"
"Five that I know I can't talk around, Albus." Signing the bottom of each sheet, Arthur knew exactly what he was demanding to have done. "What about Herbert?"
"There's nothing left of him. That collar—" Albus found himself bereft of words to complete the sentence. "I have seen horrors come and go, Arthur, but that is one from which no good can sprout."
Remembering seeing the two other control collars, Arthur distracted himself with the latest reports from Gemma—his new assistant. "And the other two collars?"
"Were not easy to destroy, but after consulting with Celestia, a way was found. There is always a way to remove such evil."
Mulling that over took Arthur's concentration for quite some time. By the time he looked up at Albus again, he had come to a decision. "The Ministry can no longer support enforcement. Any of our officers who wish to continue, can apply to Shining Armor for a transfer. However, I believe we can still be of use. There are still a lot of things wizards and witches have to worry about that ponies don't."
Arthur was about to continue when the door to his office opened and a very complicated man walked in without so much as introducing himself—not that he needed much of an introduction.
"What's this about disbanding the Department of Magical Law Enforcement?" Alastor Moody was frowning. He'd started frowning some time in his teens and he hadn't stopped since. Even asleep Alastor would frown. Not even becoming a pony had removed that frown. Now, however, he was frowning more than usual.
"That's one of the departments being removed, yes." Smiling at his friend, Arthur nodded and pulled out the transition document he'd published. "The Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes will be stripped to just the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad, The Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures is likewise being abolished—I tried to ask the one member of the Office of Misinformation to define his department's reason for being, but he was one of their lower-rung workers. He didn't know what he was meant to do."
Alastor was trying to categorize all the departments and offices listed. "So you're cutting out all the pro-active police work, then?"
"Yes." Albus looked at Alastor and tried a smile on his old friend. He gestured to Arthur. "We were never good at it. Look at the mess the Ministry kept making with Voldemort."
"I am good at it, I was just hamstrung by the higher-ups." Recognizing that Arthur was now his higher-up, Alastor just didn't care enough to hold back the truth. "So what do I do now?"
"We're getting to that. Would you come with me?" Standing behind his desk, Arthur gestured to the door.
The walk was only a few blocks, but each step was making Alastor's brows furrow just a little more. When he'd been invited to follow, he'd at least expected it to be within the same building. He realized how wrong he'd been when their target was obvious. "The school?"
"No. We're referring all former DM-LE employees to Shining Armor. At least, we were going to ask him before we did, but now is as good a time as any," Albus said.
"Here to see the Emperor," Arthur told the guardponies at the entrance. "We can wait for him to be—"
"Arthur Weasley, Albus Dumbledore, and Alastor Moody." Shining hadn't planned to be at the right place at the right moment, but he had planned and carried out the memorization of the higher-ups of the new arrivals. "What can I do for you gentlemen?"
"They want to get rid of me and mine," Alastor said without a hint of apology for Albus and Arthur.
Shining cleared his throat as the two more politically minded wizards tried to talk at the same time. "Well, that's a relief in a way. I won't say I was comfortable having an outside agency claiming to enforce their own laws in my empire. Mr. Moody, you and the others that fought alongside my guard and I are great assets, though, and I would be remiss to not at least offer you a training position."
"Shall I send others along to interview with you then, Your Imperial Majesty?" Arthur saw the slight wince on Shining's face as he used the title and it warmed him even with such power as Shining had, he didn't like the airs it gave him.
"Actually," Shining said, tilting his head to look at Alastor, "I think my new sergeant and master of wizarding affairs, Alastor Moody, should be able to take care of the job of hiring."
Alastor, who had been ready to have a good word with Shining, was caught off-guard. "What?"
Smiling, Meara Norris nodded to Minerva McGonagall. "I would be perfectly fine with a teaching position if one is available, but an office job would be fine as well."
The problem Minerva had with hiring the woman was she didn't recognize the name from any of those who'd come from England, nor did her obviously muggle-born appearance let her pass for being a pony seeking work. "I will admit to a certain need for a clerical staff member, but I'd like an explanation first. You didn't come through the rift, nor have you traveled here through the Floo network we've constructed, and you don't have the accent of Captain Blastback and his crew."
"I came with Hogwarts itself. You wouldn't have recognized me at the time, I was still rather petrified." It was a fun little game for Meara. She watched Minerva's face flicker through a dozen emotions as she attempted to guess. "Here's something—we share a lot in common."
"Don't play games."
"Cat. I was stuck as Argus' familiar when a spell we tried backfired. When I revived fully from the basilisk encounter, and then the magic of this world seeped into me, I was able to undo the spell." Shrugging, Meara held up her hand. "Did I mention I can type?"
"Missus Norris?" When she got a nod, Minerva smiled. "You're practically already on the staff list, though I wager you'll want something beyond a sardine a day and a bowl of milk?"
"I got milk?" The break in tension was a surprising relief for Meara. "I'll bet Argus was taking it."
"You shouldn't have had it anyway. Milk gives cats an upset stomach." It was with experience that Minerva knew this. She quickly scrawled down in her notes that she'd have to arrange an office and pay for Meara. "What level of remuneration were you seeking?"
"For now? Room and board are a good start, but I have no idea about the local currency or what is an appropriate amount."
"Two gold bits a day, then. Is that all?" Minerva finished off the note. Seeing a slight shake of Meara's head, she finished up. "Perfect. I'll have an office cleared near mine by tomorrow."
Getting off the train in Ponyville, Harry Potter felt relief that things were going to return to some sense of normalcy. Using a spell to levitate and pull his big case after him, he let Hedwig perch on his back. "Do you want me to apologize again?"
"No, Harry Potter. What I would like is you to not put yourself in such danger needlessly again." Addera was still cross with Harry, but an apology wouldn't help. "There was no reason for you to go."
"I couldn't let my friends go off on their own. Okay, I mean I couldn't let Hermione and Ginny go off on their own—together. Draco…"
"Draco Malfoy has been working hard to improve himself." Slithering her long self along the path, Addera was already looking forward to a nice spot in the warm sun to curl up and just soak up the heat. "You should make an effort to be friends with him."
"I did! Still do. Kinda. We just don't—" Harry grunted and kicked some dirt with his hoof. "We work well together, though."
Addera sighed. She'd been practicing sighs. "Harry Potter, how will Twilight Sparkle feel if I tell her there's a pony you could be friends with, but are unwilling to do the work?"
It was Harry's turn to sigh. "Alright, alright. I'll try. If he calls me stupid names, though, I am not going to be responsible for what I set on fire."
"That will have to do, Harry Potter. I cannot ask any more of you than that." Reaching out to him, Addera gave Harry's mane a little roughing up with her hoof. "And here we are. It is good to have some things remain "
A moment before they both reached the door, Twilight Sparkle opened it and blinked at them in surprise.
Harry and Addera were just as surprised when Twilight's wings shot out.
