In a Strange Land

By: The Fanfic Stealer

A Harry Potter X My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic crossover

Disclaimer: Harry Potter is owned by Rowling and WB. MLP:FiM is owned by Hasbro. I claim nothing from either of them.

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Chapter 6: Rise and Shine, Part I-- Heart to Heart

"Twilight..."

...Who was that?

"Wake up, Twilight..."

That voice... it sounded... familiar. And male. Spike? No, too deep. Donut Joe? Different accent. Shining? Did he finally get some time off from his Head Guard duties? No, wait... the voice wasn't calling her "Twily"... and completely different accent. Again. A Royal Guard? Why would they be waking her up? Spike would never let them do his job. Er... what other males did she know?

...Wow. She knew the female-male gender ratio in Equestria was a tad bit skewed towards mares, but really? This was all the males she was in regular contact with? No wonder she didn’t have a coltfriend…

"Rise and shine! Time for brekkers!"

Brekkers? What the hay was brekkers? Was that even a-- sniff sniff. Was that coffee she smelled? Oooo... coffee! Twily need coffee...

And so, fueled by the promise of that greatest of caffeinated ambrosias the Queen Mother Gaia blessed Equestria with, Twilight finally forced herself into the waking world.

"~Munya..." she groaned, wiping away at the sleep-stuff gluing her eyes shut. When she was coherent enough to take in her surroundings, she quickly noticed several things:

Observation #1: There was no coffee waiting. It was a trap.

Corollary to observation #1: Whoever was evil enough to do something so cruel, so vile, so... so EVIL (all letters capitalized, bolded, italicized, and whatever else needed for emphasis, because such an evil act needed such emphasis) as to get her hopes up in such a way, was going to pay. Dearly. Via a Magic Missile up the plothole.

Observation #2: She was on a surprisingly comfortable cot. Strange, because she didn’t remember getting into a cot last night. In fact, she didn’t even remember leaving the Princesses’ room…

…Oh. That was probably because-- observation #3-- she was still in the Princesses’ room, apparently. But she was certain it didn’t have a cot the night prior, and she didn’t remember seeing one brought in before she fell asleep. She also didn’t remember waking up at anytime to get into the cot, either under her own power or with help. Did she sleep through being moved? Possible, given the events of the last twenty-four hours, but she was a relatively light sleeper, so a jostle of that magnitude should have woken her up, life-changing events or not. Perhaps she had, indeed, woken up, but simply forgot? Also possible, and it had happened before… so did that mean someone had brought in the cot while she was asleep, then put her in it? If so, who? And, now that she thought about it, what happened to that chair she’d been sitting on? There was still plenty of space in the room, so removing it shouldn’t have been necessary…

Actually, the more important question was: why was she in the Princesses’ room in the first place? She remembered being led to the room by that nice woman-- Susan, if she remembered correctly-- checking on the Princesses, then… oh right. She had fallen asleep while talking to Har--

"How are you this fine morn, Twilight?"

Her head whipped towards the source of the voice so fast she actually developed a crick in her neck. She found there observation #4: Harry, casually leaning against the wall, sporting a white polo shirt and a pair of pants made of some kind of blue fabric she'd never seen before.

A small part of her mind noted that he had his ma--hair tied low, and that it was a good look for him.

Another small part, where she’d regulated the caffeine addicted part of her, noted the steaming cup in his hands, and made a correction to observation #1: it HADN’T been a trap… probably-- Harry didn’t seem the type to evilly taunt her with glorious, glorious coffee, but one never knew…

The majority of her mind, though, was preoccupied with something a little more pressing.

"Oh gosh! Harry! I’m sorry for falling asleep last night! Usually I’m not that rude! I don’t know what happened--” She was interrupted by Harry’s amused chuckles, as well as a feminine giggle that was decidedly familiar.

“My, my, is she always so… high strung?” Harry asked someone behind her.

“Unfortunately, yes,” the giggler answered, her tone tinged with good humor, “I’ve tried to get her to relax and enjoy life more, but she seems bent on giving herself premature gray hairs. Oh, woe is me, to be saddled with such a student.”

Twilight felt her heart skip a beat-- she recognized that voice. It was one that was quite dear to her, the voice of her beloved mentor and ruler. But if she was speaking, then that meant…

Hoping that this wasn’t some sort of hallucination, that she would find the Princess awake and smiling, not unconscious and so… so frighteningly helpless, she turned around… and gasped softly, her breath stolen at the sight that greeted her: on the bed was Princess Celestia, still bandaged but sitting upright and giving her a gentle smile. A sunbeam streamed in from a nearby window, bathing the Princess in a gentle, golden glow.

It was… beautiful.

And that was when she knew: her Princess was going to be alright. Everything was going to be alright. Everything… her vision began to blur, and Twilight only had time to realize she was crying before her body was moving on its own; she was barely aware of throwing herself onto her beloved mentor, instinctively avoiding the bandages wounds. Tears ran unbidden down her cheeks as she held onto the Princess like one drowning would a life preserver, the last few days finally taking their toll on her. Dimly, she could feel Princess Celestia returning her desperate hug, a hand rubbing her back soothingly while words of comfort were gently whispered in her ear. The response just made her weep harder, serving to magnify the main emotions currently dominating her tumultuous psyche: guilt that her Princess would still care for a wretched failure such as her, sorrow for all those they had left behind in the demented grasp of Discord, and relieved joy that, despite everything, her Princess was still alive, and healing, and… and…

…And everything was going to be alright.

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Harry looked on as two of his guests had their tearful reunion. He couldn’t help but smile at the touching scene-- one could almost see the weight lift off of Twilight’s shoulders as she cried her heart out, and Celestia looked just as relieved to be able to hold her student and… err, what else were they to each other, exactly? Celestia already said Twilight was a priestess only by a technicality, but their interactions with each other pointed at a relationship far closer than just the student-mentor relationship Celestia claimed. They weren’t so close as to be lovers, that much he could tell-- although he wouldn’t be surprised if Twilight might be harboring some repressed attraction-- so… a confidant, then? Was Twilight a confidant of some sort as well as Celestia’s student? Or perhaps a hand-- hoof?-- maiden? Hmm… note to self: ask later, if for no other reason than to preemptively avoid awkward moments.

Something in his peripheral vision caught his attention, and he turned to see Luna-- Princess Luna, not his Luna-- watching her sister (elder sister? Probably, judging by their respective appearances and their interactions last night. Better ask later, just to be sure) and Twilight while sporting a rather strange expression. It was as if she couldn’t decide whether she should be happy, or… Harry couldn’t tell what else. It was a darker emotion, though, that he was sure of. Jealousy, perhaps?

“Um… you could always ask her…?” Neliel meekly suggested, pleasantly surprising Harry with her initiative-- twice in one week? Perhaps Scylla had the right notion about watching for the Strange Eons...

“Oooo! How enterprising of you, Nel!” Daphne said with a slightly teasing tone, “Digging for information while enduring her to us with a show of concern! We might just make a Slytherin out of you yet!”

“No-- what-- I-- wait-- I mean-- that wasn’t--!” Neliel squeaked in embarrassment, her thoughts a jumbled mess as she instinctively tried to backtrack. Harry almost chuckled out loud as the bond rang with mental giggles, including Neliel after she had realized Daphne was just messing with her.

“Don’t you ever change, Nel,” Luna-- again, his Luna, not Princess Luna… that’s going to get confusing really quickly-- fondly said. There was an impression of a small, sheepish smile from Neliel in return, followed by a cute squeal in the real world as everyone (with the exception of Scylla-- she was still unconscious from the “punishment” Hermione had visited upon her the night before) gave her a mental snuggle. After a moment of shocked silence, Harry and the girls promptly took a mental note of the unexpected results-- who would have thought the simultaneous mental snuggles from five minds would turn a normally comfortingly intimate sensation into a small but sudden orgasm?

Harry came back to the real world grinning slightly at what they’d done to his shyest wife. As always, only a moment-- a second-- had passed, meaning Celestia was still comforting a crying Twilight and Luna was still looking at the scene with what Harry was now fairly certain was jealousy. Taking Neliel’s suggestion to heart-- not because of the points Daphne made, legitimate as they were, but simply because Luna looked like she needed to get whatever was bothering her off her chest-- he sidled up to the petite goddess.

“Is something the matter, Luna?” he asked. Luna jumped ever so slightly, but collected herself before her surprise became too obvious. Harry and Daphne-- watching through Harry’s eyes from within the bond-- were impressed by her control, though not surprised; she was royalty, so of course she would have exemplary control over her emotions, if for no other reason than to make sure the nobles under her had nothing that could possibly be used for blackmail.

“There is nothing wrong,” she replied, turning to him, “Why dost thou ask?” Harry felt that familiar, indescribable feeling he got when someone lied to him, and noted that his lie-dar (which wasn’t an instinct, but an actual power inherent in him as an Aspect of Death) apparently worked on divinity, too. Good to know, that.

“Milady, you know what I am, what aspect of Creation I represent,” he lightly admonished, “I am, for all intents and purposes, Death, and in death all things are made clear. Unless I allow it, few things can hide from me… and mere lies, even if uttered by a goddess of the night, are not one of those things.”

Luna turned away from him, chastened, and returned to watching Celestia and Twilight. There was an awkward moment as both watched the touching scene play out before them. Harry was about to back down and try again some other time when she broke the silence:

“We… we know we should be happy for our sister and her student, and in truth we are. We do not begrudge Twilight Sparkle the comfort of our sister, as we can only imagine the toll the recent events have taken on her, and it is only right that our dearest sister should hold the closest she has to a daughter during her time of need.”

“I’m sensing a ‘but’ here… are you jealous, Luna?” Harry hedged. Luna looked down in shame.

“We know ‘tis wrong to feel as such, but we cannot help it; logically, we know Twilight Sparkle hath no reason to come to us for comfort, we know that she will always be infinitely closer to our sister than to ourselves, and we know that our sister did not make it such to spite me. But, despite this, somewhere in the darkest reaches of our heart, in the places where Nightmare Moon was born, something whispers that ‘tis should have been us who Twilight Sparkle-- nay, not just the bearer of the Element of Magic, but all ponies-- approached for comfort in her time of turmoil, ‘tis should have been us who had such a devoted and loving student… and it whispers that this is not so due to machinations of our sister, that our sister lets dark rumors spread amongst the ponies, so that they will always distrust us, and turn to her for guidance…

“’Tis times like these, that, no matter how much we know we shouldn’t, no matter how much we tell ourselves that we love our sister with all our heart… ‘tis times like these, when we think… we think we may loath our sister.”

Luna turned back to Harry, and he felt his heart go out to her as emerald met shimmering, tearful turquoise. A tear slid down her cheek as she asked with a desperation that tore at him, “W-what is wrong with us, Harold? We are in dire straits, stranded in a land not our own, in bodies not our own, and yet jealousy and resentment still plagues us… how can w-we-- are we truly so despicable? Are our subjects correct to fear us so?”

All was silent in the bond as they all tried to come to grips with what they’d just heard. When Harry had approached Luna, it had merely been with the intention of letting her vent a little. What had just happened… Luna had more or less bared her soul to him and-- through the bond he knew she was aware of-- the rest of his family.

He could feel the stirrings of panic within him-- he couldn’t deal with this! Abusive childhood? Whatever. Psychotic villains of all shapes and sizes? Been there, done that, didn’t even get a t-shirt. Raving hordes of sheeple? Watch him not care. Smarmy politicians? Oh look! Seems he’s run out of fucks to give. Hell, he was even good with children of most temperaments, if the few times he’d had to interact with some were any indication. But a distraught young woman inexplicably seeking comfort from him? Cue panic.

“Ladies? A little help, please?” Harry begged within the bond. Much to his consternation, all he got were giggles in response. Grr… sadists, the lot of them!

“Well, how would you react if that was one of us?” asked Susan. Harry thought about how exactly he went about getting one of his girls out of a slump during the rare times any of them fell into a depression... and promptly blushed-- it usually involved lots of kissing, and stroking, and caressing, and licking, and... well, let's just say it wouldn't have been appropriate for the given situation.

“I… don’t think that would be appropriate,” he said, which resulted in a fresh wave of giggling.

“Aw… why not?” Luna pouted, “I mean, it works, doesn’t it? And she’s so adorable! I just want to hug her and snuggle her and taste her-- ow!”

“Down girl,” Susan chastened, lightly bopping the blond on the head in the real world. The blonde’s return pout was not very effective, and Susan turned her attention back to Harry.

“Before you bonded us, Harry,” Susan said, “What did you do before you could just love the depression out of us?”

“Well… nothing spectacular, really. I would just be there for you girls when you needed it.”

Susan nodded and smiled. “And that’s all you need to do: show that she’s not talking to a wall.”

With a chorus of agreements from the rest of his (awake) wives, Harry came back to the real world. He immediately went through with Susan’s suggestion, giving Luna as warm and comforting a smile as he could manage and laying a reassuring hand on the petite princess’s shoulder. The slowly creeping blush Luna developed upon seeing his smile went completely unnoticed by Harry, though not by those watching from within the bond-- the sight of Harry unknowingly beginning the process of seducing another girl just by being himself brought about titters and bets on just when she would fall to his charm. Luna, as an Order-aligned Seer, was naturally forbidden from joining in the betting, much to her chagrin.

“By the sounds of things, you have gone through a lot,” Harry began, “and I… I cannot say I know how you must feel, but I can tell you one thing with certainty:

“It WILL get better.

“Your… ponies may shun you now, but they won’t forever; I don’t know what this ‘Nightmare Moon’ business is-- and we will be having a little chat about that soon, milady, if for no other reasons than because we need to know how to deal with it if it followed you to this universe-- but your subjects will eventually forget its existence. Instead, they will know tales of your benevolence, of your wisdom… they will know YOU, not this ‘Nightmare Moon,’ and they will love you as much as they love your sister. Sure, it may take years, decades, even centuries, but it will happen, eventually, of that you can be assured.

“And as for feeling jealous of your sister? Well, it just means that you’re not so far removed from mortals that you can’t relate to them. Personally, I think that’s a good thing, as long as you treat the emotion as any good-hearted, level-headed mortal would and act on it in a benevolent way-- too often do we deities distance ourselves from the mortals we are supposed to care for, to the point where we can no longer consider their wellbeing in our actions.”

“He’s right, Luna,” Celestia said suddenly, sitting next to the shocked Luna and enveloping her in a gentle one-armed hug. Harry blinked in confusion, looking alternately between Celestia and her now-vacated bed-- how had she snuck up on him like that? Judging by how the arm not hugging Luna was just now retreating from its place around Twilight’s shoulder, she’d been semi-carried over from her bed, which should have made some kind of noise, so how…?

“Woah… ninja,” his Luna whispered in the bond. Her (awake) sister-wives simultaneously and silently nodded, all of them impressed-- that was some skill right there, especially for a sun deity, who were, as a rule, never all that… subtle.

“Our little ponies will eventually see you as you truly are:” Celestia continued, completely unaware of the impression she’d just made on (most) of her hosts, “You are Princess Luna, Goddess of the Moon and the Night, she who brings sleep to the restless and dreams to the hopeless… and most importantly, you are Luna, my kind, compassionate, beautiful baby sister, who is my equal in all things.” She ended her heartfelt speech by nuzzling Luna’s hair.

Luna, in turn, seemed to have been frozen by her sister’s words, staring blankly into space as Celestia continued to hold her. She then blinked, and then blinked again in a visible attempt to wrap her mind around what she’d just heard. It took her a moment, but when she did, the tears appearing at the corner of her eyes was the only warning she gave before she wrapped her arms around Celestia in an almost desperate hug, burying her face in her sister’s bosom. Soon muffled sobs could be heard, and Harry moved next to a teary-eyed Twilight to give them their privacy.

“So… what’s this ‘Nightmare Moon’ thing Luna was talking about?” he asked in a whisper, figuring that, since it looked like Celestia and Luna’s warm and fuzzy sisterly moment might take a while, he might as well use the time to gather some more information.

Twilight turned her attention to him, and her still-teary eyes shifted uneasily. “Um… I’m not sure I should be telling anypo-err, anyone about it,” she whispered back, “I mean, the tale of her rebellion against, and subsequent defeat and exile at the hooves of Princess Celestia is common knowledge in Equestria, seeing as how parents often use Nightmare Moon’s story to scare their colts and fillies into behaving, but-- erk!” Twilight’s hands flew to her mouth in an attempt to silence herself, but it was too late as Harry-- and the mental gestalt that was the Bond-- was able to put together most of the pieces just from her little ramble.

“So… Nightmare Moon was either an entity who was created by Luna, or Luna herself corrupted by something?” Harry inquired, an eyebrow quirked partly in question, and partly as if saying “you’ve already told me this much, you might was well continue.” Twilight groaned and turned her self-silencing gesture into a face-palm.

“Any chance you could just let it go?” she begged. Harry just gave her a look that clearly stated his answer, and she groaned again.

“Me and my big mouth,” she muttered to herself, before turning to Harry. “Alright, fine. According to the history books, and confirmed by Princess Celestia, approximately a thousand years ago…”

As Harry was being regaled with the Tale of Nightmare Moon, he noticed through the bond that, one by one, his wives were turning their attention to the outside world. “Is something the matter, girls?” he asked.

“Oh, nothing you have to worry about,” Susan soothed, “The monitoring charms on our other guests are registering increased brain activity and elevated heart rates, so we’re on our way to their rooms now to greet them.”

“Ah, I see. In that case, remember to bring them to the dining room after you’ve got them dressed and such,” he reminded them, “And, though I’m certain our guests won’t warrant such a warning… you girls stay safe, alright?”

“Will do, Harry!” came their reply.

Harry smiled as he turned his attention back to Twilight, feeling the anticipation coming from his girls resonating with his own.
It looked like the rest of his guests were finally waking up.

Author's Note

A/N: Three. Months. It took me three BUCKING months to finish this chapter. All I can do is get on bended knee and apologize, so… I’m sorry, people. I’m so truly, deeply sorry that it took me this long to finish. I am truly, deeply sorry that I let the likes of SCP, Rage of Bahamut, and Eternity Warriors 2 distract me. For being so weak, I am scum.

…Yes, I know I am laying it on a bit thick. So sue me. I really have no excuse for taking so long other than being distracted by the newest shiny, which, in order, were Rage of Bahamut, SCP, Eureka, and Eternity Warriors 2.

…Though, to be fair: SCP and Eureka are addicting, damn it, and EW2? SO much better than the first one, even as a first release. :-)

Also, two notes:

1) I was actually planning on getting to the rest of the Mane 6 this chapter, but, as you can see, the chapter got away from me, especially poor Luna’s little breakdown… which brings me to…

2) Yes, I am quite aware that Luna poured her heart out to Harry a little too soon, and yes, I am aware that it’s strange Celestia and Luna are only having their heart-to-heart now, nearly a year after Nightmare Moon. Both points were intended, and will be covered soon. So, please, don’t do ranting on and on about it, or what not.

...Oh, and yes, Twilight goes "~Munya" when waking up, because she's adorkable like that. Deal with it.