Magic dragon the dragonstone

Chapters

Chapter I: the dragon who lived
Chapter II: The zoo
Chapter III: THE LETTERS FROM NO PONY
Chapter IV: key keeper
Chapter V: Griffin Alley
Chapter VI: THE JOURNEY FROM PLATFORM SEVEN AND THREE-BITS
Chapter VII: The Sorting Sword
Chapter VIII: THE POTIONS DRAGON

Chapter I: the dragon who lived

Mr. Wind rider and Mrs. Wind rider, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last ponies you’d expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn’t hold with such nonsense.

Mr. Wind rider was the director of the Wonder bolts called Grunnings, which made flying equipment. He was a big, muscly Stallion with hardly muscles around his neck, although he did have a very large mustache. Mrs. Wind rider was thin and blonde and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck, which came in very useful as she spent so much of her time craning over garden fences, spying on the neighbors. The Wind riders had a tall athletic daughter called Lightning Dust and in their opinion there was no finer mare anywhere.

The Wind riders had everything they wanted, but they also had a secret, and their greatest fear was that somepony would discover it. They didn’t think they could bear it if anypony found out about the Dragos. Mrs. Drago was Mrs. Wind rider’s stepsister, but they hadn’t met for several years; in fact, Mrs. Wind rider pretended she didn’t have a sister, because her sister and her good-for-nothing husband were as unDursleyish as it was possible to be. The Wind riders shuddered to think what the neighbors would say if the Dragos arrived in the street. The Wind riders knew that the Dragos had a small son, too, but they had never even seen him. This dragon was another good reason for keeping the Dragos away; they didn’t want the Lightning Dust mixing with a child like that.

When Mr. and Mrs. Wind rider woke up on the dull, gray Tuesday our story starts, there was nothing about the cloudy sky outside to suggest that strange and mysterious things would soon be happening all over the country. Mr. Wind rider hummed as he picked out his most boring tie for work, and Mrs. Wind rider gossiped away happily as she wrestled a screaming Lightning Dust into his high chair.

None of them noticed a large, tawny owl flutter past the window.

At half past eight, Mr. Wind rider picked up his briefcase, pecked Mrs. Wind rider on the cheek, and tried to kiss Lightning Dust good-bye but missed, because Lightning Dust was now having a tantrum and throwing his cereal at the walls. “Little tyke,” chortled Mr. Wind rider as he left the house. He got out of his front yard and flew off.

It was on the corner of the street that he noticed the first sign of something peculiar — a cat reading a map. For a second, Mr. Wind rider didn’t realize what he had seen — then he jerked his head around to look again. There was a tabby cat standing on the corner of Privet Drive, but there wasn’t a map in sight. What could he have been thinking of? It must have been a trick of the light. Mr. Wind rider blinked and stared at the cat. It stared back. As Mr. Wind riderder flew around the corner and up the road, he watched the cat in his mirror. It was now reading the sign that said Privet Drive — no, looking at the sign; cats couldn’t read maps or signs. Mr. Wind rider gave himself a little shake and put the cat out of his mind. As he and flew toward town he thought of nothing except a large order of flying equipment he was hoping to get that day.

But on the edge of town, flying equipment were driven out of his mind by something else. As he sat in the usual morning traffic jam, he couldn’t help noticing that there seemed to be a lot of strangely dressed creatures about. Creatures in cloaks. Mr. Wind rider couldn’t bear creatures who dressed in funny clothes — the getups you saw on young creatures! He supposed this was some stupid new fashion. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and his eyes fell on a huddle of these weirdos standing quite close by. They were whispering excitedly together. Mr. Wind rider was enraged to see that a couple of them weren’t young at all; why, that creatures had to be older than he was, and wearing an emerald-green cloak! The nerve of him! But then it struck Mr. Wind rider that this was probably some silly stunt — these creatures were obviously collecting for something . . . yes, that would be it. The traffic moved on and a few minutes later, Mr. Wind rider arrived in the Grunnings parking lot, his mind back on flying equipment.

Mr. Wind rider always sat with his back to the window in his office on the ninth floor. If he hadn’t, he might have found it harder to concentrate on flying equipment that morning. He didn’t see the owls swooping past in broad daylight, though ponies down in the street did; they pointed and gazed open-mouthed as owl after owl sped overhead. Most of them had never seen an owl even at nighttime. Mr. Wind rider, however, had a perfectly normal, owl-free morning. He yelled at five different ponies. He made several important telephone calls and shouted a bit more. He was in a very good mood until lunchtime, when he thought he’d stretch his legs and fly across the sky to buy himself a bun from the bakery.

He’d forgotten all about the creatures in cloaks until he passed a group of them next to the baker’s. He eyed them angrily as he passed. He didn’t know why, but they made him uneasy. This bunch were whispering excitedly, too, and he couldn’t see a single collecting tin. It was on his way back past them, clutching a large doughnut in a bag, that he caught a few words of what they were saying.

“The Dragos, that’s right, that’s what I heard —” “— yes, their son, Spike—”

Mr. Wind rider stopped dead. Fear flooded him. He looked back at the whisperers as if he wanted to say something to them, but thought better of it. He dashed back across the road, hurried up to his office, snapped at his secretary not to disturb him, seized his telephone, and had almost finished dialing his home number when he changed his mind. He put the receiver back down and stroked his mustache, thinking . . . no, he was being stupid. Dragos wasn’t such an unusual name. He was sure there were lots of creatures called Dragos who had a son called Spike. Come to think of it, he wasn’t even sure his nephew was called Spike. He’d never even seen the boy. It might have been Harvey. Or Harold. There was no point in worrying Mrs. Wind rider; she always got so upset at any mention of her sister. He didn’t blame her — if he’d had a sister like that . . . but all the same, those creatures in cloaks ...

He found it a lot harder to concentrate on the flying equipment that afternoon and when he left the building at five o’clock, he was still so worried that he walked straight into someone just outside the door. “Sorry,” he grunted, as the tiny old stallion stumbled and almost fell. It was a few seconds before Mr. Wind rider realized that the stallion was wearing a violet cloak. He didn’t seem at all upset at being almost knocked to the ground. On the contrary, his face split into a wide smile and he said in a squeaky voice that made passersby stare, “Don’t be sorry, my dear sir, for nothing could upset me today! Rejoice, for You-Know-Who has gone at last! Even Muggles like yourself should be celebrating, this happy, happy day!”

And the old stallion hugged Mr. Wind rider around the middle and walked off.

Mr. Wind rider stood rooted to the spot. He had been hugged by a complete stranger. He also thought he had been called a Muggle, whatever that was. He was rattled. He hurried to fly off for home, hoping he was imagining things, which he had never hoped before, because he didn’t approve of imagination.

As he flew into the driveway of number four, the first thing he saw — and it didn’t improve his mood — was the tabby cat he’d spotted that morning. It was now sitting on his garden wall. He was sure it was the same one; it had the same markings around its eyes.

“Shoo!” said Mr. Wind rider loudly.

The cat didn’t move. It just gave him a stern look. Was this normal cat behavior? Mr. Wind rider wondered. Trying to pull himself together, he let himself into the house. He was still determined not to mention anything to his wife.

Mrs. Wind rider had had a nice, normal day. She told him over dinner all about Mrs. Next Door’s problems with her daughter and how Lightning Dust had learned a new word (“Won’t!”). Mr. Wind rider tried to act normally. When Lightning Dust had been put to bed, he went into the living room in time to catch the last report on the evening news:

“And finally, bird-watchers everywhere have reported that the nation’s owls have been behaving very unusually today. Although owls normally hunt at night and are hardly ever seen in daylight, there have been hundreds of sightings of these birds flying in every direction since sunrise. Experts are unable to explain why the owls have suddenly changed their sleeping pattern.” The newscaster allowed himself a grin. “Most mysterious. And now, over to Dixie McGuffin with the weather. Going to be any more showers of owls tonight, Dixie?”

“Well, Time Turner,” said the weather stallion, “I don’t know about that, but it’s not only the owls that have been acting oddly today. Viewers as far apart as Kent, Yorkshire, and Dundee have been phoning in to tell me that instead of the rain I promised yesterday, they’ve had a downpour of shooting stars! Perhaps ponies have been celebrating Bonfire Night early — it’s not until next week, folks! But I can promise a wet night tonight.”

Mr. Wind rider sat frozen in his armchair. Shooting stars all over Britain? Owls flying by daylight? Mysterious creatures in cloaks all over the place? And a whisper, a whisper about the Dragos . . . Mrs. Wind rider came into the living room carrying two cups of tea. It was no good. He’d have to say something to her. He cleared his throat nervously. “Er — Petunia, dear — you haven’t heard from your sister lately, have you?”

As he had expected, Mrs. Wind rider looked shocked and angry. After all, they normally pretended she didn’t have a sister.

“No,” she said sharply. “Why?”

“Funny stuff on the news,” Mr. Wind rider mumbled. “Owls . . . shooting stars . . . and there were a lot of funny-looking people in town today . . .” “So?” snapped Mrs. Wind rider.

“Well, I just thought . . . maybe . . . it was something to do with . . . you know . . . her crowd.” Mrs. Wind rider sipped her tea through pursed lips. Mr. Wind rider wondered whether he dared tell her he’d heard the name “Drago.” He decided he didn’t dare. Instead he said, as casually as he could, “Their son — he’d be about Lightning Dust’s age now, wouldn’t he?”

“I suppose so,” said Mrs. Wind stiffly. “What’s his name again? Howard, isn’t it?” “Spike. Nasty, common name, if you ask me.” “Oh, yes,” said Mr. Wind rider, his heart sinking horribly. “Yes, I quite agree.”

He didn’t say another word on the subject as they went upstairs to bed. While Mrs. Wind rider was in the bathroom, Mr. Wind rider crept to the bedroom window and peered down into the front garden. The cat was still there. It was staring down Privet Drive as though it were waiting for something.

Was he imagining things? Could all this have anything to do with the Dragos? If it did . . . if it got out that they were related to a pair of — well, he didn’t think he could bear it.

The Wind riders got into bed. Mrs. Wind rider fell asleep quickly but Mr. Wind rider lay awake, turning it all over in his mind. His last, comforting thought before he fell asleep was that even if the Dragos were involved, there was no reason for them to come near him and Mrs. Wind rider. The Dragos knew very well what he and Petunia thought about them and their kind. . . . He couldn’t see how he and Petunia could get mixed up in anything that might be going on — he yawned and turned over — it couldn’t affect them. . . .

How very wrong he was.

Mr. Wind rider might have been drifting into an uneasy sleep, but the cat on the wall outside was showing no sign of sleepiness. It was sitting as still as a statue, its eyes fixed unblinkingly on the far corner of Privet Drive. On the next street, nor when two owls swooped overhead. In fact, it was nearly midnight before the cat moved at all. A Stallion appeared on the corner the cat had been watching, appeared so suddenly and silently you’d have thought he’d just popped out of the ground. The cat’s tail twitched and its eyes narrowed.

Nothing like this Stallion had ever been seen on Privet Drive. He was tall, thin, and very old, judging by the silver of his hair and beard, which were both long enough to tuck into his belt. He was wearing long robes, a blue cloak that swept the ground, and high-heeled, buckled boots. His blue eyes were light, bright, and sparkling behind half-moon spectacles and his nose was very long and crooked, as though it had been broken at least twice. This Stallion’s name was Star swirl the bearded.

Star swirl the bearded didn’t seem to realize that he had just arrived in a street where everything from his name to his boots was unwelcome. He was busy rummaging in his cloak, looking for something. But he did seem to realize he was being watched, because he looked up suddenly at the cat, which was still staring at him from the other end of the street. For some reason, the sight of the cat seemed to amuse him. He chuckled and muttered, “I should have known.”

He found what he was looking for in his inside pocket. It seemed to be a silver cigarette lighter. He flicked it open, held it up in the air, and clicked it. The nearest street lamp went out with a little pop. He clicked it again — the next lamp flickered into darkness. Twelve times he clicked the Put-Outer, until the only lights left on the whole street were two tiny pinpricks in the distance, which were the eyes of the cat watching him. If anyone looked out of their window now, even beady-eyed Mrs. Wind rider, they wouldn’t be able to see anything that was happening down on the pavement. Star swirl slipped the Put-Outer back inside his cloak and set off down the street toward number four, where he sat down on the wall next to the cat. He didn’t look at it, but after a moment he spoke to it.

“Fancy seeing you here, Professor Granny Smith.” He turned to smile at the tabby, but it had gone. Instead he was smiling at a rather severe-looking mare who was wearing square glasses exactly the shape of the markings the cat had had around its eyes. She, too, was wearing a cloak, an emerald one. Her white hair was drawn into a tight bun. She looked distinctly ruffled.

“How did you know it was me?” she asked.

“My dear Professor, I’ve never seen a cat sit so stiffly.”

“You’d be stiff if you’d been sitting on a brick wall all day,” said Professor Granny Smith.

“All day? When you could have been celebrating? I must have passed a dozen feasts and parties on my way here.”

Professor Granny Smith sniffed angrily.

“Oh yes, everyone’s celebrating, all right,” she said impatiently. “You’d think they’d be a bit more careful, but no — even the Muggles have noticed something’s going on. It was on their news.” She jerked her head back at the Wind riders’ dark living-room window. “I heard it. Flocks of owls . . . shooting stars. . . . Well, they’re not completely stupid. They were bound to notice something. Shooting stars down in Kent — I’ll bet that was Lightning Dust. He never had much sense.”

“You can’t blame them,” said Star swirl gently. “We’ve had precious little to celebrate for eleven years.” “I know that,” said Professor Granny Smith irritably. “But that’s no reason to lose our heads. Creatures are being downright careless, out on the streets in broad daylight, not even dressed in Muggle clothes, swapping rumors.”

She threw a sharp, sideways glance at Star swirl , as though hoping he was going to tell her something, but he didn’t, so she went on. “A fine thing it would be if, on the very day You-Know-Who seems to have disappeared at last, the muggles found out about us all. I suppose he really has gone, Star swirl?”

“It certainly seems so,” said Star swirl. “We have much to be thankful for. Would you care for a fire spitter?”

“A what?”

“A fire spitter. They’re a kind of Muggle sweet I’m rather fond of.”

“No, thank you,” said Professor Granny Smith coldly, as though she didn’t think this was the moment for fire spitters. “As I say, even if You-Know-Who has gone —” “My dear Professor, surely a sensible person like yourself can call him by his name? All this ‘You-Know-Who’ nonsense — for eleven years I have been trying to persuade creatures to call him by his proper name: Lord tirek . ” Professor Granny Smith flinched, but Star swirl, who was unsticking two fire spitters, seemed not to notice. “It all gets so confusing if we keep saying ‘You-Know-Who.’ I have never seen any reason to be frightened of saying Tirek’s name.”

“I know you haven’t,” said Professor Granny Smith, sounding half exasperated, half admiring. “But you’re different. Everyone knows you’re the only one You-Know- oh, all right, Tirek, was frightened of.” “You flatter me,” said Star swirl calmly. “Tirek had powers I will never have.”

“Only because you’re too — well — noble to use them.” “It’s lucky it’s dark. I haven’t blushed so much since cookie crumbles told me she liked my new earmuffs.” Professor Granny Smith shot a sharp look at Star swirl and said, “The owls are nothing next to the rumors that are flying around. You know what everyone’s saying? About why he’s disappeared? About what finally stopped him?”

It seemed that Professor Granny Smith had reached the point she was most anxious to discuss, the real reason she had been waiting on a cold, hard wall all day, for neither as a cat nor as a mare had she fixed Star swirl with such a piercing stare as she did now. It was plain that whatever “everyone” was saying, she was not going to believe it until Star swirl told her it was true. Star swirl, however, was choosing another fire spitter and did not answer.

“What they’re saying,” she pressed on, “is that last night “What they’re saying,” she pressed on, “is that last night Tirek turned up in dragon’s Hollow. He went to find the Dragos. The rumor is that Firestone and Lava Drago are — are — that they’re — dead.”

Star swirl bowed his head. Professor Granny Smith gasped.

“Firestone and Lava . . . I can’t believe it . . . I didn’t want to believe it . . . Oh, Star . . .”

Star swirl reached out and patted her on the shoulder. “I know . . . I know . . .” he said heavily.

Professor Granny Smith’s voice trembled as she went on. “That’s not all. They’re saying he tried to kill the Dragos’ son, Spike. But — he couldn’t. He couldn’t kill that little boy. No one knows why, or how, but they’re saying that when he couldn’t kill Spike Drago, Tirek’s power somehow broke — and that’s why he’s gone.”

Star swirl nodded glumly.

“It’s — it’s true?” faltered Professor Granny Smith. “After all he’s done . . . all the creatures he’s killed . . . he couldn’t kill a little boy? It’s just astounding . . . of all the things to stop him . . . but how in the name of heaven did Spike survive?”

“We can only guess,” said Star swirl. “We may never know.”

Professor Granny Smith pulled out a lace hoovfkerchief and dabbed at her eyes beneath her spectacles. Star swirl gave a great sniff as he took a golden watch from his pocket and examined it. It was a very odd watch. It had twelve hooves but no numbers; instead, little planets were moving around the edge. It must have made sense to Star swirl, though, because he put it back in his pocket and said, “prince rutherford’s late. I suppose it was he who told you I’d be here, by the way?”

“Yes,” said Professor Granny Smith. “And I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me why you’re here, of all places?” “I’ve come to bring Spike to his aunt and uncle. They’re the only family he has left now.”

“You don’t mean — you can’t mean the ponies who live here?” cried Professor Granny Smith, jumping to her feet and pointing at number four. “Star swirl — you can’t. I’ve been watching them all day. You couldn’t find two ponies who are less like us. And they’ve got this son I saw him kicking his mother all the way up the street, screaming for sweets. Spike Drago come and live here!” “It’s the best place for him,” said Star swirl firmly. “His aunt and uncle will be able to explain everything to him when he’s older. I’ve written them a letter.” “A letter?” repeated Professor Granny faintly, sitting back down on the wall. “Really, Star swirl, you think you can explain all this in a letter? These people will never understand him! He’ll be famous — a legend — I wouldn’t be surprised if today was known as Spike Drago Day in the future — there will be books written about Spike — every creature child in our world will know his name!”

“Exactly,” said Star swirl, looking very seriously over the top of his half-moon glasses. “It would be enough to turn any boy’s head. Famous before he can walk and talk! Famous for something he won’t even remember! Can’t you see how much better off he’ll be, growing up away from all that until he’s ready to take it?” Professor Granny Smith opened her mouth, changed her mind, swallowed, and then said, “Yes — yes, you’re right, of course. But how is the boy getting here, Star swirl?” She eyed his cloak suddenly as though she thought he might be hiding Spike underneath it.

“prince rutherford's bringing him.”

“You think it — wise — to trust prince rutherford with something as important as this?”

“I would trust prince rutherford with my life,” said Star swirl. “I’m not saying his heart isn’t in the right place,” said Professor Granny Smith grudgingly, “but you can’t pretend he’s not careless. He does tend to — what was that?” A low rumbling sound had broken the silence around them. It grew steadily louder as they looked up and down the clouds for some sign of a headlight; it swelled to a roar as they both looked up at the sky — and a huge chariot fell out of the air and landed on the road in front of them.

If the chariot was huge, it was nothing to the yack sitting astride it. He was almost twice as tall as a normal Stallion and at least five times as wide. He looked simply too big to be allowed, and so wild — long tangles of bushy Brown and orange furr and beard hid most of his face, he had hooves the size of trash can lids, and his feet. In his vast, muscular arms he was holding a bundle of blankets.

“Prince rutherford,” said Star swirl, sounding relieved. “At last. And where did you get that chariot?”

“Borrowed it, Professor Star swirl, sir,” said the giant, climbing carefully off the chariot as he spoke. “Young dragon lord torch lent it to me. I’ve got him, sir.” “No problems, were there?”

“No, sir — house was almost destroyed, but I got him out all right before the Muggles started swarmin’ around. He fell asleep as we was flyin’ over Griffin Stone.”

Star swirl and Professor Granny Smith bent forward over the bundle of blankets. Inside, just visible, was a baby boy, fast asleep. On some purple scales right on his cheek they could see a curiously shaped cut, like a x.

“Is that where — ?” whispered Professor Granny Smith.

“Yes,” said Star swirl. “He’ll have that scar forever.”

“Couldn’t you do something about it, Star swirl?”

“Even if I could, I wouldn’t. Scars can come in hoovfy. I have one myself above my left knee that is a perfect map of the equestrian Underground. Well — give him here, Prince rutherford — we’d better get this over with.”

Star swirl took Spike in his arms and turned toward the Wind riders’ house.

“Could I — could I say good-bye to him, sir?” asked Prince rutherford. He bent his great, shaggy head over Spike and gave him what must have been a very scratchy, whiskery kiss. Then, suddenly, Prince rutherford let out a howl like a wounded diamond dog.

“Shhh!” hissed Professor Granny Smith, “you’ll wake the Muggles!”

“S-s-sorry,” sobbed Prince rutherford, taking out a large, spotted hoofkerchief and burying his face in it. “But I c-c-can’t stand it — Firestone an’ Lava dead — an’ poor little Spike off ter live with Muggles —” “Yes, yes, it’s all very sad, but get a grip on yourself, Prince rutherford, or we’ll be found,” Professor Granny Smith whispered, patting Prince rutherford gingerly on the arm as Star swirl stepped over the low garden wall and walked to the front door. He laid Spike gently on the doorstep, took a letter out of his cloak, tucked it inside Spike’s blankets, and then came back to the other two. For a full minute the three of them stood and looked at the little bundle; Prince rutherford’s shoulders shook, Professor Granny Smith blinked furiously, and the twinkling light that usually shone from star swirl’s eyes seemed to have gone out.

“Well,” said Star swirl finally, “that’s that. We’ve no business staying here. We may as well go and join the celebrations.”

“Yeah,” said Prince rutherford in a very muffled voice, “I’d best get this chariot away. G’night, Professor Granny— Professor Star swirl, sir.”

Wiping his streaming eyes on his jacket sleeve, Prince rutherford swung himself onto the chariot and kicked the engine into life; with a roar it rose into the air and off into the night.

“I shall see you soon, I expect, Professor Granny Smith,” said Star swirl, nodding to her. Professor Granny Smith blew her nose in reply.

Star swirl turned and walked back down the street. On the corner he stopped and took his horn. He thought of it once, and twelve balls of light sped back to their street lamps so that Privet Drive glowed suddenly orange and he could make out a tabby cat slinking around the corner at the other end of the street. He could just see the bundle of blankets on the step of number four.

“Good luck, Spike,” he murmured. He turned on his heel and with a swish of his cloak, he was gone. A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen. Spike Drago rolled over inside his blankets without waking up. One small hoovf closed on the letter beside him and he slept on, not knowing he was special, not knowing he was famous, not knowing he would be woken in a few hours’ time by Mrs. Wind Rider scream as she opened the front door to put out the milk bottles, nor that he would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by his cousin Lightning Dust. . . . He couldn’t know that at this very moment, creatures meeting in secret all over the country were holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices: “To Spike Drago — the boy who lived!”

Chapter II: The zoo

Nearly ten years had passed since the Wind riders had woken up to find their nephew on the front step, but Privet Drive had hardly changed at all. The sun rose on the same tidy front gardens and lit up the brass number four on the Wind riders’ front door; it crept into their living room, which was almost exactly the same as it had been on the night when Mr. Wind rider had seen that fateful news report about the owls. Only the photographs on the mantelpiece really showed how much time had passed. Ten years ago, there had been lots of pictures of what looked like a large pink beach ball wearing different-colored bonnets — but Lightning Dust was no longer a baby, and now the photographs showed a large blond mare riding his first bicycle, on a carousel at the fair, playing a computer game with his father, being hugged and kissed by her mother. The room held no sign at all that another boy lived in the house, too.

Yet Spike Drago was still there, asleep at the moment, but not for long. His Aunt Petunia was awake and it was her shrill voice that made the first noise of the day.

“Up! Get up! Now!”

Spike woke with a start. His aunt rapped on the door again.

“Up!” she screeched. Spike heard her walking toward the kitchen and then the sound of the frying pan being put on the stove. He rolled onto his back and tried to remember the dream he had been having. It had been a good one. There had been a flying chariot in it. He had a funny feeling he’d had the same dream before.

His aunt was back outside the door.

“Are you up yet?” she demanded.

“Nearly,” said Spike.

“Well, get a move on, I want you to look after the hay bacon. And don’t you dare let it burn, I want everything perfect on Lightning Dust’s birthday.”

Spike groaned.

“What did you say?” his aunt snapped through the door.

“Nothing, nothing . . .”

Lightning Dust’s birthday — how could he have forgotten? Spike. . got slowly out of bed and started looking for socks. He found a pair under his bed and, after pulling a spider off one of them, put them on. Spike was used to spiders, because the cupboard under the stairs was full of them, and that was where he slept.

When he was dressed he went down the hall into the kitchen. The table was almost hidden beneath all Lightning Dust’s birthday presents. It looked as though Lightning Dust had gotten the new computer he wanted, not to mention the second television and the racing book. Exactly why Lightning Dust wanted a racing book was a mystery to Spike, as Lightning Dust was very muscular and hated exploring his mind — unless of course it involved punching somebody. Lightning Dust's favorite punching bag was Spike, but she couldn’t often catch him. Spike didn’t look it, but he was very fast.

Perhaps it had something to do with living in a dark cupboard, but Spike had always been small and skinny for his age. He looked even smaller and skinnier than he really was because all he had to wear were old clothes of Lightning Dust’s, and Lightning Dust was about four times bigger than he was. Spike had a thin face, knobbly knees, purple spines, and bright green eyes. He wore round glasses held together with a lot of Scotch tape because of all the times Lighting Dust had punched him on the nose. The only thing Spike liked about his own appearance was a very thin scar on his cheek that was shaped like a x. He had had it as long as he could remember, and the first question he could ever remember asking his Aunt Petunia was how he had gotten it.

“In the curious crash when your parents died,” she had said. “And don’t ask questions.”

Don’t ask questions — that was the first rule for a quiet life with the Wind riders.

Uncle Wind rider entered the kitchen as Spike was turning over the hay bacon.

“ polish your scale!” he barked, by way of a morning greeting.

About once a week, Uncle Wind rider looked over the top of his newspaper and shouted that Spike needed a scale cut. Spike must have had more scale cuts than the rest of the boys in his class put together, but it made no difference, his scale simply grew that way — all over the top of his head.

Spike was frying fish by the time Lightning Dust arrived in the kitchen with his mother. Lightning Dust looked a lot like her mom. He had a large the blue face, a much neck, tall, watery yellow eyes, and thick blond hair that lay smoothly on her thick, fat head. Aunt Petunia often said that Lightning Dust looked like a baby angel — Spike often said that Lightning Dust looked like a pig in a wig.

Spike put the plates of fish and hay bacon on the table, which was difficult as there wasn’t much room.

Lightning Dust, meanwhile, was counting his presents. Her face fell.

“Thirty-six,” she said, looking up at her mother and father. “That’s two less than last year.”

“Darling, you haven’t counted Auntie harshwhinny's present, see, it’s here under this big one from Mummy and Daddy.”

“All right, thirty-seven then,” said Lightning Dust, going red in the face. Spike, who could see a huge Lightning Dust tantrum coming on, began wolfing down his hay bacon as fast as possible in case Lightning turned the table over.

Aunt Petunia obviously scented danger, too, because she said quickly, “And we’ll buy you another two presents while we’re out today. How’s that, popkin? Two more presents. Is that all right?”

Lightning Dust thought for a moment. It looked like hard work. Finally she said slowly, “So I’ll have thirty . . . thirty . . .”

“Thirty-nine, sweetums,” said Aunt Petunia. “Oh.” Lightning Dust sat down heavily and grabbed the nearest parcel. “All right then.”

Uncle Wind rider chuckled.

“Little tyke wants his money’s worth, just like his father. ’Atta boy, Dudley!” He ruffled Dudley’s hair. At that moment the telephone rang and Aunt Petunia went to answer it while Harry and Uncle Vernon watched Dudley unwrap the racing bike, a video camera, a remote control airplane, sixteen new computer games, and a VCR. He was ripping the paper off a gold wristwatch when Aunt Petunia came back from the telephone looking both angry and worried.

“Bad news, Wind rider,” she said. “Mrs. Spitfire broken her leg. She can’t take him.” She jerked her head in Spike’s direction.

Lightning Dust's mouth fell open in horror, but Spike’s heart gave a leap. Every year on Lightning Dust’s birthday, his parents took him and a friend out for the day, to adventure parks, hayburger restaurants, or the movies. Every year, Spike was left behind with Mrs. Spitfire, a mad young lady who lived two streets away. Spike love it there. The whole house smelled of sapphires and Mrs. Spitfire made him look at photographs of all the teammates she’d met.

“Now what?” said Aunt Petunia, looking furiously at Spike as though he’d planned this. Spike knew he ought to feel sorry that Mrs. Spitfire had broken her leg, but it wasn’t easy when he reminded himself it would be a whole year before he had to look at so, soarin, cloud chaser, and the cloud chaser again.

“We could phone harshWinnie,” Uncle Wind rider suggested.

“Don’t be silly, Wind rider, she hates the boy.”

The Wind riders often spoke about Spike like this, as though he wasn’t there — or rather, as though he was something very nasty that couldn’t understand them, like a slug.

“What about what’s-her-name, your friend — fleet foot?”

“On vacation in Appaloosa,” snapped Aunt Petunia. “You could just leave me here,” Spike put in hopefully (he’d be able to watch what he wanted on television for a change and maybe even have a go on Lightning Dust’s computer).

Aunt Petunia looked as though she’d just swallowed a lemon.

“And come back and find the house in ruins?” she snarled.

“I won’t blow up the house,” said Spike, but they weren’t listening.

“I suppose we could take him to the zoo,” said Aunt Petunia slowly, “. . . and leave him in the flight Hall. . . .”

“That flight Hall is new, he’s not sitting in it alone. . . .”

Lightning Dust began to cry loudly. In fact, he wasn’t really crying — it had been years since she’d really cried — but she knew that if he screwed up his face and wailed, his mother would give him anything she wanted.

“Lighting Dust, don’t cry, Mummy won’t let him spoil your special day!” she cried, flinging her arms around her.

“I . . . don’t . . . want . . . him . . . t-t-to come!” Lightning Dust yelled between huge, pretend sobs. “He always sp-spoils everything!” She shot Spike a nasty grin through the gap in her mother’s arms.

Just then, the doorbell rang —“Oh, by Celestia, they’re here!” said Aunt Petunia frantically — and a moment later, Lightning Dust’s best friend, ironwell, walked in with his mother. I am well was a buff Minotaur with a face like a rat. He was usually the one who held ponie’s arms behind their backs while Lightning Dust hit them. Lightning Dust stopped pretending to cry at once. Half an hour later, Spike, who couldn’t believe his luck, was sitting in the back of the Wind riders’ chariot with ironwell and Lightning Dust, on the way to the zoo for the first time in his life. His aunt and uncle hadn’t been able to think of anything else to do with him, but before they’d left, Uncle Wind rider had taken Spike aside.

“I’m warning you,” he had said, putting his large baby blue face right up close to Spike’s, “I’m warning you now, boy — any funny business, anything at all — and you’ll be in that cupboard from now until Hearts and Hooves Day.”

“I’m not going to do anything,” said Spike, “honestly . . .”

But Uncle Wind rider didn’t believe him. No one ever did.

The problem was, strange things often happened around Spike and it was just no good telling the Wind riders he didn’t make them happen.

Once, Aunt Petunia, tired of Spike coming back from the scale cutter looking as though he hadn’t been at all, had taken a pair of kitchen scissors and cut his scales so short he was almost bald except for his face scales, which she left “to hide that horrible scar.” Lightning Dust had laughed herself silly at Spike, who spent a sleepless night imagining school the next day, where he was already laughed at for his baggy clothes and taped glasses. Next morning, however, he had gotten up to find his scales exactly as it had been before Aunt Petunia had sheared it off. He had been given a week in his cupboard for this, even though he had tried to explain that he couldn’t explain how it had grown back so quickly.

Another time, Aunt Petunia had been trying to force him into a revolting old sweater of Lightning Dust’s (brown with orange puff balls). The harder she tried to pull it over his head, the smaller it seemed to become, until finally it might have fitted a hoof puppet, but certainly wouldn’t fit Spike. Aunt Petunia had decided it must have shrunk in the wash and, to his great relief, Spike wasn’t punished.

On the other hoof, he’d gotten into terrible trouble for being found on the roof of the school kitchens. Lightning Dust’s gang had been chasing him as usual when, as much to Spike’s surprise as anyone else’s, there he was sitting on the chimney. The Wind riders had received a very angry letter from Spike’s headmistress telling them Spike had been climbing school buildings. But all he’d tried to do (as he shouted at Uncle Wind rider through the locked door of his cupboard) was jump behind the big trash cans outside the kitchen doors. Spike supposed that the wind must have caught him in mid-jump.

But today, nothing was going to go wrong. It was even worth being with Lighting and ironwell to be spending the day somewhere that wasn’t school, his cupboard, or Mrs. Spitfire’s cabbage-smelling living room.

While he threw, Uncle Wind rider complained to Aunt Petunia. He liked to complain about things: ponies at work, Spike, the council, Spike, the bank, and Spike were just a few of his favorite subjects. This morning, it was chariots.

“. . . roaring along like Stallioniacs, the young hoodlums,” he said, as a chariots overtook them. “I had a dream about a chariot,” said Spike, remembering suddenly. “It was flying by itself.”

Uncle Wind rider nearly crashed into the chariot in front. He turned right around in his seat and yelled at Spike, his face like a gigantic beet with a mustache: “CHARIOTS DON’T FLY ON THEIR OWN!”

Lighting Dust and ironwell sniggered.

“I know they don’t,” said Spike. “It was only a dream.”

But he wished he hadn’t said anything. If there was one thing the Wind riders hated even more than his asking questions, it was his talking about anything acting in a way it shouldn’t, no matter if it was in a dream or even a cartoon — they seemed to think he might get dangerous ideas.

It was a very sunny Saturday and the zoo was crowded with families. The Wind riders bought Lighting Dust and ironwell large chocolate ice creams at the entrance and then, because the smiling lady in the van had asked Spike what he wanted before they could hurry him away, they bought him a cheap lemon ice pop. It wasn’t bad, either, Spike thought, licking it as they watched a gorilla scratching its head who looked remarkably like Lighting Dust, except that it wasn’t blond.

Spike had the best morning he’d had in a long time. He was careful to walk a little way apart from the Wind riders so that Lighting Dust and ironwell, who were starting to get bored with the animals by lunchtime, wouldn’t fall back on their favorite hobby of hitting him. They ate in the zoo restaurant, and when Lighting Dust had a tantrum because his knickerbocker glory didn’t have enough ice cream on top, Uncle Wind rider bought him another one and Spike was allowed to finish the first.

Spike felt, afterward, that he should have known it was all too good to last.

After lunch they went to the reptile house. It was cool and dark in there, with lit windows all along the walls. Behind the glass, all sorts of lizards and snakes were crawling and slithering over bits of wood and stone. Lighting Dust and ironwell wanted to see huge, poisonous cobras and thick, man-crushing pythons. Lighting Dust quickly found the largest snake in the place. It could have wrapped its body twice around Uncle Wind rider and crushed him into a trash can — but at the moment it didn’t look in the mood. In fact, it was fast asleep.

Lighting Dust stood with her nose pressed against the glass, staring at the glistening brown coils.

“Make it move,” she whined at her father. Uncle Wind rider tapped on the glass, but the snake didn’t budge.

“Do it again,” Lighting Dust ordered. Uncle Wind rapped the glass smartly with his hoof, but the snake just snoozed on.

“This is boring,” Lighting Dust moaned. She shuffled away.

Spike moved in front of the tank and looked intently at the snake. He wouldn’t have been surprised if it had died of boredom itself — no company except stupid ponies drumming their hooves on the glass trying to disturb it all day long. It was worse than having a cupboard as a bedroom, where the only visitor was Aunt Petunia hammering on the door to wake you up; at least he got to visit the rest of the house.

The snake suddenly opened its beady eyes. Slowly, very slowly, it raised its head until its eyes were on a level with Spike's.

It's winked.

Spike stared. Then he looked quickly around to see if anypony was watching. They weren’t. He looked back at the snake and winked, too.

The snake jerked its head toward Uncle Wind rider and Lighting Dust, then raised its eyes to the ceiling. It gave Spike a look that said quite plainly:

“I get that all the time.”

“I know,” Spike murmured through the glass, though he wasn’t sure the snake could hear him. “It must be really annoying.”

The snake nodded vigorously.

“Where do you come from, anyway?” Spike asked. The snake jabbed its tail at a little sign next to the glass. Spike peered at it.

Boa Constrictor, The Fortress of Talacon.

“Was it nice there?”

The boa constrictor jabbed its tail at the sign again and Spike read on: This specimen was bred in the zoo. “Oh, I see — so you’ve never been to The Fortress of Talacon?”

As the snake shook its head, a deafening shout behind Spike made both of them jump. “LIGHTING DUST! MR. WIND RIDER! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT IT’S DOING!”

Lighting Dust came waddling toward them as fast as she could.

“Out of the way, you,” she said, punching Spike in the ribs. Caught by surprise, Spike fell hard on the concrete floor. What came next happened so fast no one saw how it happened — one second, ironwell and Lighting Dust were leaning right up close to the glass, the next, they had leapt back with howls of horror.

Spike sat up and gasped; the glass front of the boa constrictor’s tank had vanished. The great snake was uncoiling itself rapidly, slithering out onto the floor. Ponies throughout the reptile house screamed and started running for the exits.

As the snake slid swiftly past him, Spike could have sworn a low, hissing voice said, Fortress of Talacon, here I come. . . . Thanksss, amigo.”

The keeper of the reptile house was in shock.

“But the glass,” he kept saying, “where did the glass go?”

The zoo director himself made Aunt Petunia a cup of strong, sweet tea while he apologized over and over again. Ironwell and Lighting Dust could only gibber. As far as Spike had seen, the snake hadn’t done anything except snap playfully at their heels as it passed, but by the time they were all back in Uncle Wind rider's chariot, Lighting Dust was telling them how it had nearly bitten off his leg, while Ironwell was swearing it had tried to squeeze him to death. But worst of all, for Spike at least, was Ironwell calming down enough to say, “Spike was talking to it, weren’t you, Spike?”

Uncle Wind rider waited until Ironwell was safely out of the house before starting on Spike. He was so angry he could hardly speak. He managed to say, “Go — cupboard — stay — no meals,” before he collapsed into a chair, and Aunt Petunia had to run and get him a large brandy.

Spike lay in his dark cupboard much later, wishing he had a watch. He didn’t know what time it was and he couldn’t be sure the Wind riders were asleep yet. Until they were, he couldn’t risk sneaking to the kitchen for some food.

He’d lived with the Wind riders almost ten years, ten miserable years, as long as he could remember, ever since he’d been a baby and his parents had died in that chariot crash. He couldn’t remember being in the chariot when his parents had died. Sometimes, when he strained his memory during long hours in his cupboard, he came up with a strange vision: a blinding flash of green fire and a burning pain on his forehead. This, he supposed, was the crash, though he couldn’t imagine where all the green fire came from. He couldn’t remember his parents at all. His aunt and uncle never spoke about them, and of course he was forbidden to ask questions. There were no photographs of them in the house.

When he had been younger, spike had dreamed and dreamed of some unknown relation coming to take him away, but it had never happened; the Wind riders were his only family. Yet sometimes he thought (or maybe hoped) that strangers in the street seemed to know him. Very strange strangers they were, too. A tall Griffin in a violet top hat had bowed to him once while out shopping with Aunt Petunia and Lighting Dust. After asking Spike furiously if he knew the Griffin, Aunt Petunia had rushed them out of the shop without buying anything. A wild-looking old mare dressed all in green had waved merrily at him once on a chariot. A bald typograph in a very long purple coat had actually shaken his hand in the street the other day and then walked away without a word. The weirdest thing about all these creatures was the way they seemed to vanish the second Spike tried to get a closer look.

At school, Spike had no one. Everybody knew that Lighting Dust’s gang hated that odd Spike Drago in his baggy old clothes and broken glasses, and nobody liked to disagree with Lighting Dust’s gang.

Chapter III: THE LETTERS FROM NO PONY

The escape of the Talacon boa constrictor earned Spike his longest-ever punishment. By the time he was allowed out of his cupboard again, the summer holidays had started and , Lighting Dust had already broken his new video camera, crashed his remote control airplane, and, first time out on his racing book, knocked down Mrs. Spitfire as she crossed Privet Drive on her crutches.

Spike was glad school was over, but there was no escaping Lighting Dust’s gang, who visited the house every single day. ironwell, sour sweet, silver spoon, and diamond tiara were all big and stupid, but as Lighting Dust was the biggest and stupidest of the lot, she was the leader. The rest of them were all quite happy to join in Lighting Dust’s favorite sport: Spike Hunting. This was why Spike spent as much time as possible out of the house, wandering around and thinking about the end of the holidays, where he could see a tiny ray of hope. When September came he would be going off to secondary school and, for the first time in his life, he wouldn’t be with Lighting Dust. Lighting had been accepted at Uncle Wind rider’s old private school, wonderbolts flight School. Ironwell was going there too. Spike, on the other hoof, was going to shadowbolt high, the local public school. Lighting Dust thought this was very funny.

“They stuff pony’s heads down the toilet the first day at Shadowbolt,” he told Spike. “Want to come upstairs and practice?”

“No, thanks,” said Spike. “The poor toilet’s never had anything as horrible as your head down it — it might be sick.” Then he ran, before Lighting Dust could work out what she’d said.

One day in July, Aunt Petunia took Lighting Dust to Canterlot to buy his wonderboats flight School uniform, leaving Spike at Mrs. Spitfire’s. Mrs. Spitfire wasn’t as bad as usual. It turned out she’d broken her leg tripping over one of her photos, and she didn’t seem quite as fond of them as before. She let Spike watch television and gave him a bit of chocolate cake that tasted as though she’d had it for several years. That evening, Lighting paraded around the living room for the family in his brand-new uniform. Carousel boutiques mares wore maroon tailcoats, orange knickerbockers, and flat straw hats called boaters. They also carried knobbly sticks, used for hitting each other while the teachers weren’t looking. This was supposed to be good training for later life.

As he looked at Lighting in his new knickerbockers, Uncle Wind rider said gruffly that it was the proudest moment of his life. Aunt Petunia burst into tears and said she couldn’t believe it was her Ickle Lighting Dust, she looked so beautiful and grown-up. Spike didn’t trust himself to speak. He thought two of his ribs might already have cracked from trying not to laugh. There was a horrible smell in the kitchen the next morning when Spike went in for breakfast. It seemed to be coming from a large metal tub in the sink. He went to have a look. The tub was full of what looked like dirty rags swimming in gray water. “What’s this?” he asked Aunt Petunia. Her lips tightened as they always did if he dared to ask a question. “Your new school uniform,” she said. Spike looked in the bowl again. “Oh,” he said, “I didn’t realize it had to be so wet.” “Don’t be stupid,” snapped Aunt Petunia. “I’m dyeing some of Lighting Dust’s old things gray for you. It’ll look just like everyone else’s when I’ve finished.” Spike seriously doubted this, but thought it best not to argue. He sat down at the table and tried not to think about how he was going to look on his first day at Shadowbolt High — like he was wearing bits of old elephant skin, probably. Lighting Dust and Uncle Wind rider came in, both with wrinkled noses because of the smell from Spike’s new uniform. Uncle Wind rider opened his newspaper as usual and Lighting Dust
banged his Smelting stick, which he carried everywhere, on the table.

They heard the click of the mail slot and flop of letters on the doormat.

“Get the mail, Lighting Dust,” said Uncle Wind rider from behind his paper.

“Make Spike get it.”
“Get the mail, Spike.”
“Make Lighting Dust get it.”
“Poke him with your Smelting stick, Lighting Dust.”

Spike dodged the Smelting stick and went to get the mail. Three things lay on the doormat: a postcard from Uncle Wind rider’s sister harshwhinny , who was vacationing on the weather factory of cloudsdale, a brown envelope that looked like a bill, and — a letter for Spike.

Spike picked it up and stared at it, his heart twanging like a giant elastic band. No one, ever, in his whole life, had written to him. Who would? He had no friends, no other relatives — he didn’t belong to the library, so he’d never even got rude notes asking for books back. Yet here it was, a letter, addressed so plainly there could be no mistake:

Mr. S. Drago
The Cupboard under the Stairs
4 Privet Drive
Little Whinging
Surrey

The envelope was thick and heavy, made of yellowish parchment, and the address was written in emerald-green ink. There was no stamp.

Turning the envelope over, his hand trembling, Spike saw a purple wax seal bearing a coat of arms; a Griffin, an Roc, a bear, and a cockatrice surrounding a large letter S. “Hurry up, boy!” shouted Uncle Wind rider from the kitchen. “What are you doing, checking for letter bombs?” He chuckled at his own joke.

Spike went back to the kitchen, still staring at his letter. He handed Uncle Wind rider the bill and the postcard, sat down, and slowly began to open the yellow envelope. Uncle Wind rider ripped open the bill, snorted in disgust, and flipped over the postcard. “harshwhinny's ill,” he informed Aunt Petunia. “Ate a funny whelk . . .”

“Dad!” said Lighting Dust suddenly. “Dad, Spike’s got something!”

Spike was on the point of unfolding his letter, which was written on the same heavy parchment as the envelope, when it was jerked sharply out of his hand by Uncle Wind rider.

“That’s mine!” said Spike, trying to snatch it back. “Who’d be writing to you?” sneered Uncle Wind rider, shaking the letter open with one hoovf and glancing at it. His face went from red to green faster than a set of traffic lights. And it didn’t stop there. Within seconds it was the grayish white of old porridge.

“P-P-Petunia!” he gasped.

Lighting Dust tried to grab the letter to read it, but Uncle Wind rider held it high out of his reach. Aunt Petunia took it curiously and read the first line. For a moment it looked as though she might faint. She clutched her throat and made a choking noise.

“Wind rider! Oh my goodness — Wind rider!”

They stared at each other, seeming to have forgotten that Spike and Lighting Dust were still in the room. Lighting Dust wasn’t used to being ignored. She gave her father a sharp tap on the head with his Smelting stick.

“I want to read that letter,” she said loudly.
“I want to read it,” said Spike furiously, “as it’s mine.”

“Get out, both of you,” croaked Uncle Wind rider, stuffing the letter back inside its envelope.

Harry didn’t move.

“I WANT MY LETTER!” he shouted.

“Let me see it!” demanded Lighting Dust.

“OUT!” roared Uncle Wind rider, and he took both Spike and Lighting Dust by the scruffs of their necks and threw them into the hall, slamming the kitchen door behind them. Spike and Lighting Dust promptly had a furious but silent fight over who would listen at the keyhole; Lighting Dust won, so Spike, his glasses dangling from one ear, lay flat on his stomach to listen at the crack between door and floor. “Wind rider,” Aunt Petunia was saying in a quivering voice, “look at the address — how could they possibly know where he sleeps? You don’t think they’re watching the house?”

“Watching — spying — might be following us,” muttered Uncle Wind rider wildly.

“But what should we do, Wind rider? Should we write back? Tell them we don’t want —” Spike could see Uncle Wind rider’s shiny blue backhooves pacing up and down the kitchen.
“No,” he said finally. “No, we’ll ignore it. If they don’t get an answer. . . . Yes, that’s best . . . we won’t do anything. . . .”

“But —”

“I’m not having one in the house, Petunia! Didn’t we swear when we took him in we’d stamp out that dangerous nonsense?”

That evening when he got back from work, Uncle Wind rider did something he’d never done before; he visited Spike in his cupboard.

“Where’s my letter?” said Spike, the moment Uncle Wind rider had squeezed through the door. “Who’s writing to me?”

“No one. It was addressed to you by mistake,” said Uncle Wind rider shortly. “I have burned it.”

“It was not a mistake,” said Spike angrily, “it had my cupboard on it.”

“SILENCE!” yelled Uncle Wind rider, and a couple of spiders fell from the ceiling. He took a few deep breaths and then forced his face into a smile, which looked quite painful.

“Er — yes, Spike — about this cupboard. Your aunt and I have been thinking . . . you’re really getting a bit big for it . . . we think it might be nice if you moved into Lighting Dust’s second bedroom.”

“Why?” said Spike.

“Don’t ask questions!” snapped his uncle. “Take this stuff upstairs, now.”

The Wind riders’ house had four bedrooms: one for Uncle Wind rider and Aunt Petunia, one for visitors (usually Uncle Wind rider’s sister, harshwhinny), one where Lighting Dust slept, and one where Lighting Dust kept all the toys and things that wouldn’t fit into his first bedroom. It only took Spike one trip upstairs to move everything he owned from the cupboard to this room. He sat down on the bed and stared around him. Nearly everything in here was broken. The month-old video camera was lying on top of a small, working tank a Lighting Dust had once driven over the next door neighbor’s dog; in the corner was Lighting Dust’s first-ever television set, which he’d put his foot through when his favorite program had been canceled; there was a large birdcage, which had once held a parrot that Lighting Dust had swapped at school for a real air rifle, which was up on a shelf with the end all bent because Lighting Dust had sat on it. Other shelves were full of books. They were the only things in the room that looked as though they’d never been touched.

From downstairs came the sound of Lighting Dust bawling at his mother, “I don’t want him in there . . . I need that room . . . make him get out. . . .”

Spike sighed and stretched out on the bed. Yesterday he’d have given anything to be up here. Today he’d rather be back in his cupboard with that letter than up here without it.

Next morning at breakfast, everyone was rather quiet. Lighting Dust was in shock. She’d screamed, whacked his father with his Smelting stick, been sick on purpose, kicked her mother, and thrown her tortoise through the greenhouse roof, and she still didn’t have her room back. Spike was thinking about this time yesterday and bitterly wishing he’d opened the letter in the hall. Uncle Wind rider and Aunt Petunia kept looking at each other darkly.

When the mail arrived, Uncle Wind rider, who seemed to be trying to be nice to Spike, made Lighting Dust go and get it. They heard her banging things with his Smelting stick all the way down the hall. Then she shouted, “There’s another one! ‘Mr. S. Drago, The Smallest Bedroom, 4 Privet Drive —’”

With a strangled cry, Uncle Wind rider leapt from his seat and ran down the hall, Spike right behind him. Uncle Wind rider had to wrestle Lighting Dust to the ground to get the letter from her, which was made difficult by the fact that Spike had grabbed Uncle Wind rider around the neck from behind. After a minute of confused fighting, in which everyone got hit a lot by the Smelting stick, Uncle Wind rider straightened up, gasping for breath, with Spike's letter clutched in his hoof.

“Go to your cupboard — I mean, your bedroom,” he wheezed at Spike. “Lighting Dust — go — just go.”

Spike walked round and round his new room. Someone knew he had moved out of his cupboard and they seemed to know he hadn’t received his first letter. Surely that meant they’d try again? And this time he’d make sure they didn’t fail. He had a plan.

The repaired alarm clock rang at six o’clock the next morning. Spike turned it off quickly and dressed silently. He mustn’t wake the Wind riders. He stole downstairs without turning on any of the lights.

He was going to wait for the poststallion on the corner of Privet Drive and get the letters for number four first. His heart hammered as he crept across the dark hall toward the front door

— “AAAAARRRGH!”

Spike leapt into the air; he’d trodden on something big and squashy on the doormat — something alive!

Lights clicked on upstairs and to his horror Spike realized that the big, squashy something had been his uncle’s face. Uncle Wind rider had been lying at the foot of the front door in a sleeping bag, clearly making sure that Spike didn’t do exactly what he’d been trying to do. He shouted at Spike for about half an hour and then told him to go and make a cup of tea. Spike shuffled miserably off into the kitchen and by the time he got back, the mail had arrived, right into Uncle Wind Rider’s lap. Spike could see three letters addressed in green ink.

“I want —” he began, but Uncle Vernon was tearing the letters into pieces before his eyes.

Uncle Wind rider didn’t go to work that day. He stayed at home and nailed up the mail slot.

“See,” he explained to Aunt Petunia through a mouthful of nails, “if they can’t deliver them they’ll just give up.”

“I’m not sure that’ll work, Wind rider.”

“Oh, these creature’s minds work in strange ways, Petunia, they’re not like you and me,” said Uncle Wind rider, trying to knock in a nail with the piece of fruitcake Aunt Petunia had just brought him.

On Friday, no less than twelve letters arrived for Spike. As they couldn’t go through the mail slot they had been pushed under the door, slotted through the sides, and a few even forced through the small window in the downstairs bathroom.

Uncle Wind rider stayed at home again. After burning all the letters, he got out a hammer and nails and boarded up the cracks around the front and back doors so no one could go out. He hummed “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” as he worked, and jumped at small noises.

On Saturday, things began to get out of hoof. Twenty-four letters to Spike found their way into the house, rolled up and hidden inside each of the two dozen eggs that their very confused milkmare had hoofed Aunt Petunia through the living room window. While Uncle Wind rider made furious telephone calls to the post office and the dairy trying to find someone to complain to, Aunt Petunia shredded the letters in her food processor. “Who on earth wants to talk to you this badly?” Lighting Dust asked Harry in amazement.

On Sunday morning, Uncle Wind rider sat down at the breakfast table looking tired and rather ill, but happy. “No post on Sundays,” he reminded them cheerfully as he spread marmalade on his newspapers, “no buching letters today —”

Something came whizzing down the kitchen chimney as he spoke and caught him sharply on the back of the head. Next moment, thirty or forty letters came pelting out of the fireplace like bullets. The Wind riders ducked, but Spike leapt into the air trying to catch one —

“Out! OUT!”

Uncle Wind rider seized Spike around the waist and threw him into the hall. When Aunt Petunia and Lighting Dust had run out with their arms over their faces, Uncle Wind rider slammed the door shut. They could hear the letters still streaming into the room, bouncing off the walls and floor.

“That does it,” said Uncle Wind rider, trying to speak calmly but pulling great tufts out of his mustache at the same time. “I want you all back here in five minutes ready to leave. We’re going away. Just pack some clothes. No arguments!”

He looked so dangerous with half his mustache missing that no one dared argue. Ten minutes later they had wrenched their way through the boarded-up doors and were in the chariot, speeding toward the sky. Lighting was sniffling in the back seat; her father had hit her round the head for holding them up while she tried to pack his television, VCR, and computer in his sports bag. They drove. And they drove. Even Aunt Petunia didn’t dare ask where they were going. Every now and then Uncle Wind rider would take a sharp turn and threw in the opposite direction for a while.

“Shake ’em off . . . shake ’em off,” he would mutter whenever he did this.

They didn’t stop to eat or drink all day. By nightfall Lighting Dust was howling. She’d never had such a bad day in his life. She was hungry, she’d missed five television programs she’d wanted to see, and she’d never gone so long without blowing up an alien on his computer.

Uncle Wind rider stopped at last outside a gloomy-looking hotel on the outskirts of a big city. Lighting Dust and Spike shared a room with twin beds and damp, musty sheets. Lighting Dust snored but Spike stayed awake, sitting on the windowsill, staring down at the lights of passing chariots and wondering. . . .

They ate stale cornflakes and cold tinned tomatoes on toast for breakfast the next day. They had just finished when the owner of the hotel came over to their table. “’Scuse me, but is one of you Mr. S. Drago? Only I got about an ’undred of these at the front desk.”

She held up a letter so they could read the green ink address:

Mr. S. Drago
Room 17
Railview Hotel
Cokeworth

Spike made a grab for the letter but Uncle Wind rider knocked his hand out of the way. The mare stared. “I’ll take them,” said Uncle Wind rider, standing up quickly and following her from the dining room.

“Wouldn’t it be better just to go home, dear?” Aunt Petunia suggested timidly, hours later, but Uncle Wind rider didn’t seem to hear her. Exactly what he was looking for, none of them knew. He drove them into the middle of a forest, got out, looked around, shook his head, got back in the chariot, and off they went again. The same thing happened in the middle of a plowed field, halfway across a suspension bridge, and at the top of a multilevel parking garage.

“Daddy’s gone mad, hasn’t he?” Lighting Dust asked Aunt Petunia dully late that afternoon. Uncle Wind rider had parked at the coast, locked them all inside the chariot, and disappeared.

It started to rain. Great drops beat on the chariot. Lighting Dust sniveled.

“It’s Monday,” she told her mother. “The Great Humberto’s on tonight. I want to stay somewhere with a television.”

Monday. This reminded Spike of something. If it was Monday — and you could usually count on Lighting Dust to know the days of the week, because of television — then tomorrow, Tuesday, was Spike's eleventh birthday. Of course, his birthdays were never exactly fun — last year, the Wind riders had given him a coat hanger and a pair of Uncle Wind rider’s old socks. Still, you weren’t eleven every day.

Uncle Wind rider was back and he was smiling. He was also carrying a long, thin package and didn’t answer Aunt Petunia when she asked what he’d bought.

“Found the perfect place!” he said. “Come on! Everypony out!”

It was very cold outside the chariot. Uncle Wind rider was pointing at what looked like a large rock way out at sea. Perched on top of the rock was the most miserable little shack you could imagine. One thing was certain, there was no television in there.

“Storm forecast for tonight!” said Uncle Wind rider gleefully, clapping his hooves together. “And this gentlestallion’s kindly agreed to lend us his boat!”

A toothless old Stallion came ambling up to them, pointing, with a rather wicked grin, at an old rowboat bobbing in the iron-gray water below them.

“I’ve already got us some rations,” said Uncle Wind rider, “so all aboard!”

It was freezing in the boat. Icy sea spray and rain crept down their necks and a chilly wind whipped their faces. After what seemed like hours they reached the rock, where Uncle Wind rider, slipping and sliding, led the way to the broken-down house.

The inside was horrible; it smelled strongly of seaweed, the wind whistled through the gaps in the wooden walls, and the fireplace was damp and empty. There were only two rooms.

Uncle Wind rider’s rations turned out to be a bag of chips each and four bananas. He tried to start a fire but the empty chip bags just smoked and shriveled up.

“Could do with some of those letters now, eh?” he said cheerfully.

He was in a very good mood. Obviously he thought nobody stood a chance of reaching them here in a storm to deliver mail. Spike privately agreed, though the thought didn’t cheer him up at all.

As night fell, the promised storm blew up around them. Spray from the high waves splattered the walls of the hut and a fierce wind rattled the filthy windows. Aunt Petunia found a few moldy blankets in the second room and made up a bed for Lighting Dust on the moth-eaten sofa. She and Uncle Wind rider went off to the lumpy bed next door, and Spike was left to find the softest bit of floor he could and to curl up under the thinnest, most ragged blanket.

The storm raged more and more ferociously as the night went on. Spike couldn’t sleep. He shivered and turned over, trying to get comfortable, his stomach rumbling with hunger. Lighting Dust’s snores were drowned by the low rolls of thunder that started near midnight. The lighted dial of Lighting Dust’s watch, which was dangling over the edge of the sofa on his fat wrist, told Spike he’d be eleven in ten minutes’ time. He lay and watched this birthday tick nearer, wondering if the Wind riders would remember at all, wondering where the letter writer was now.

Five minutes to go. Spike heard something creak outside. He hoped the roof wasn’t going to fall in, although he might be warmer if it did. Four minutes to go. Maybe the house in Privet Drive would be so full of letters when they got back that he’d be able to steal one somehow. Three minutes to go. Was that the sea, slapping hard on the rock like that? And (two minutes to go) what was that funny crunching noise? Was the rock crumbling into the sea?

One minute to go and he’d be eleven. Thirty seconds . . . twenty . . . ten . . . nine — maybe he’d wake Lighting Dust up, just to annoy him — three . . . two . . . one . . . BOOM.

The whole shack shivered and Harry sat bolt upright, staring at the door. Someone was outside, knocking to come in.

Chapter IV: key keeper

BOOM. They knocked again. Lighting Dust jerked awake.

“Where’s the cannon?” she said stupidly.

There was a crash behind them and Uncle Wind rider came skidding into the room. He was holding a rifle in his hooves — now they knew what had been in the long, thin package he had brought with them.

“Who’s there?” he shouted. “I warn you — I’m armed!” There was a pause. Then —

SMASH!

The door was hit with such force that it swung clean off its hinges and with a deafening crash landed flat on the floor.

A giant of a yack was standing in the doorway. His face was almost completely hidden by a long, shaggy mane of hair and a wild, tangled beard, but you could make out his eyes, glinting like black beetles under all the hair. The giant squeezed his way into the hut, stooping so that his head just brushed the ceiling. He bent down, picked up the door, and fitted it easily back into its frame. The noise of the storm outside dropped a little. He turned to look at them all.

“Couldn’t make us a cup o’ tea, could yeh? It’s not been an easy journey. . . .”

He strode over to the sofa where Lighting Dust sat frozen with fear.

“Budge up, yeh great lump,” said the stranger.

Lighting Dust squeaked and ran to hide behind her mother, who was crouching, terrified, behind Uncle Wind rider.

“An’ here’s Spike!” said the giant.

Spike looked up into the fierce, wild, shadowy face and saw that the beetle eyes were crinkled in a smile. “Las’ time I saw you, you was only a baby,” said the giant. “Yeh look a lot like yer dad, but yeh’ve got yer mum’s eyes.”

Uncle Wind rider made a funny rasping noise.

“I demand that you leave at once, sir!” he said. “You are breaking and entering!”

“Ah, shut up, Riders, yeh great prune,” said the giant; he reached over the back of the sofa, jerked the gun out of Uncle Wind rider’s hooves, bent it into a knot as easily as if it had been made of rubber, and threw it into a corner of the room.

Uncle Wind rider made another funny noise, like a mouse being trodden on.

“Anyway — Spike,” said the giant, turning his back on the Wind riders, “a very happy birthday to yeh. Got summat fer yeh here — I mighta sat on it at some point, but it’ll taste all right.”

From an inside pocket of his black overcoat he pulled a slightly squashed box. Spike opened it with trembling fingers. Inside was a large, sticky chocolate cake with Happy Birthday Spike written on it in green icing. Spike looked up at the giant. He meant to say thank you, but the words got lost on the way to his mouth, and what he said instead was, “Who are you?”

The giant chuckled.

“True, I haven’t introduced meself. Prince Rutherford, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Celestia School of gifted creatures.”

He held out an enormous hoof and shook Spike’s whole arm.

“What about that tea then, eh?” he said, rubbing his hands together. “I’d not say no ter summat stronger if yeh’ve got it, mind.”

His eyes fell on the empty grate with the shriveled chip bags in it and he snorted. He bent down over the fireplace; they couldn’t see what he was doing but when he drew back a second later, there was a roaring fire there. It filled the whole damp hut with flickering light and Spike felt the warmth wash over him as though he’d sunk into a hot bath.

The giant sat back down on the sofa, which sagged under his weight, and began taking all sorts of things out of the pockets of his coat: a copper kettle, a squashy package of sausages, a poker, a teapot, several chipped mugs, and a bottle of some amber liquid that he took a swig from before starting to make tea. Soon the hut was full of the sound and smell of sizzling sausage. Nobody said a thing while the giant was working, but as he slid the first six fat, juicy, slightly burnt sausages from the poker, Lighting Dust fidgeted a little. Uncle Wind rider said sharply, “Don’t touch anything he gives you, Lighting Dust.”

The giant chuckled darkly.
“Yer great puddin’ of a missy don’ need fattenin’ anymore, Lighting Dust, don’ worry.”

He passed the sausages to Spike, who was so hungry he had never tasted anything so wonderful, but he still couldn’t take his eyes off the giant. Finally, as nobody seemed about to explain anything, he said, “I’m sorry, but I still don’t really know who you are.”

The giant took a gulp of tea and wiped his mouth with the back of his hoof.

“Call me Rutherford,” he said, “everyone does. An’ like I told yeh, I’m Keeper of Keys at Celestia's School — yeh’ll know all about Celestia's School, o’ course.”

“Er — no,” said Spike.
Rutherford looked shocked.
“Sorry,” Spike said quickly.

“Sorry?” barked Rutherford, turning to stare at the Wind riders, who shrank back into the shadows. “It’s them as should be sorry! I knew yeh weren’t gettin’ yer letters but I never thought yeh wouldn’t even know abou’ Celestia's School, fer cryin’ out loud! Did yeh never wonder where yer parents learned it all?”

“All what?” asked Spike.
“ALL WHAT?” Rutherford thundered. “Now wait jus’ one second!”

He had leapt to his back hooves. In his anger he seemed to fill the whole hut. The Wind riders were cowering against the wall.

“Do you mean ter tell me,” he growled at the Wind riders, “that this boy — this boy! — knows nothin’ abou’— about ANYTHING?”

Spike thought this was going a bit far. He had been to school, after all, and his marks weren’t bad.

“I know some things,” he said. “I can, you know, do math and stuff.”

But Rutherford simply waved his hoof and said, “About our world, I mean. Your world. My world. Yer parents’ world.”

“What world?”

Rutherford looked as if he was about to explode.

“RIDERS!” he boomed.

Uncle Wind rider, who had gone very pale, whispered something that sounded like “Mimblewimble.” Rutherford stared wildly at Spike.

“But yeh must know about yer mum and dad,” he said. “I mean, they’re famous. You’re famous.”

“What? My — my mum and dad weren’t famous, were they?”

“Yeh don’ know . . . yeh don’ know . . .” Rutherford ran his hoovf through his hair, fixing Spike with a bewildered stare.

“Yeh don’ know what yeh are?” he said finally. Uncle Wind rider suddenly found his voice.

“Stop!” he commanded. “Stop right there, sir! I forbid you to tell the boy anything!”

A braver Stallion than Wind rider would have quailed under the furious look Rutherford now gave him; when Rutherford spoke, his every syllable trembled with rage.

“You never told him? Never told him what was in the letter Star swirl left fer him? I was there! I saw Star swirl leave it, Rider! An’ you’ve kept it from him all these years?”

“Kept what from me?” said Spike eagerly.

“STOP! I FORBID YOU!” yelled Uncle Wind rider in panic.

Aunt Petunia gave a gasp of horror.

“Ah, go boil yer heads, both of yeh,” said Rutherford.

“Spike — yer a magic dragon.”

There was silence inside the hut. Only the sea and the whistling wind could be heard.

“I’m a what?” gasped Spike.

“A magic dragon, o’ course,” said Rutherford, sitting back down on the sofa, which groaned and sank even lower, “an’ a thumpin’ good’un, I’d say, once yeh’ve been trained up a bit. With a mum an’ dad like yours, what else would yeh be? An’ I reckon it’s abou’ time yeh read yer letter.”

Spike stretched out his hand at last to take the yellowish envelope, addressed in emerald green to Mr. S. Drago, The Floor, Hut-on-the-Rock, The Sea. He pulled out the letter and read:

CEIESTIAS SCHOOL for GIFTED CREATURES

Headmaster: Star Swirl

(Order of Celestia, First Class, Grand
Alicorn., Chf. Alicorn, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of creatures)

Dear Mr. Drago, We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Celestias School of gifted creatures. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment.

Term begins on September 1. We await your bird by no later than July 31.

Yours sincerely,

Granny Smith, Deputy Headmistress

Questions exploded inside Spike’s head like fireworks and he couldn’t decide which to ask first. After a few minutes he stammered, “What does it mean, they await my bird?”

“Gallopin’ Gorgons, that reminds me,” said Rutherford, clapping a hoovf to his forehead with enough force to knock over a cart horse, and from yet another pocket inside his overcoat he pulled an eagle— a real, live, rather ruffled-looking eagle — a long quill, and a roll of parchment. With his tongue between his teeth he scribbled a note that Spike could read upside down:

Dear Professor Star swirl,
Given Spike his letter.
Taking him to buy his things tomorrow.
Weather’s horrible. Hope you’re well.
Rutherford

Rutherford rolled up the note, gave it to the eagle, which clamped it in its beak, went to the door, and threw the eagle out into the storm. Then he came back and sat down as though this was normal as talking on the telephone.

Spike realized his mouth was open and closed it quickly.

“Where was I?” said Rutherford, but at that moment, Uncle Wind rider, still ashen-faced but looking very angry, moved into the firelight.

“He’s not going,” he said.

Hagrid grunted.

“I’d like ter see a great Muggle like you stop him,” he said.

“A what?” said Spike, interested.

“A Muggle,” said Rutherford, “it’s what we call nonmagic folk like them. An’ it’s your bad luck you grew up in a family o’ the biggest Muggles I ever laid eyes on.”

“We swore when we took him in we’d put a stop to that rubbish,” said Uncle Wind rider, “swore we’d stamp it out of him! Magic dragon indeed!”

“You knew?” said Spike. “You knew I’m a — a magic dragon?”

“Knew!” shrieked Aunt Petunia suddenly. “Knew! Of course we knew! How could you not be, my dratted sister being what she was? Oh, she got a letter just like that and disappeared off to that — that school — and came home every vacation with her pockets full of frog spawn, turning teacups into rats. I was the only one who saw her for what she was — a freak! But for my mother and father, oh no, it was Lily this and Lily that, they were proud of having a witch in the family!”

She stopped to draw a deep breath and then went ranting on. It seemed she had been wanting to say all this for years.

“Then she met that Drago at school and they left and got married and had you, and of course I knew you’d be just the same, just as strange, just as — as — abnormal — and then, if you please, she went and got herself blown up and we got landed with you!” Spike had gone very white. As soon as he found his voice he said, “Blown up? You told me they died in a chariot crash!”

“CHARIOT CRASH!” roared Rutherford, jumping up so angrily that the Wind riders scuttled back to their corner. “How could a chariot crash kill Firestone an’ Lava Drago? It’s an outrage! A scandal! Spike Drago not knowin’ his own story when every creature in our world knows his name!”

“But why? What happened?” Spike asked urgently.

The anger faded from Rutherford’s face. He looked suddenly anxious.

“I never expected this,” he said, in a low, worried voice. “I had no idea, when Star swirl told me there might be trouble gettin’ hold of yeh, how much yeh didn’t know. Ah, Spike, I don’ know if I’m the right person ter tell yeh — but someone’s gotta — yeh can’t go off ter Celestia School not knowin’.”

He threw a dirty look at the Wind riders.

“Well, it’s best yeh know as much as I can tell yeh — mind, I can’t tell yeh everythin’, it’s a great myst’ry, parts of it. . . .”

He sat down, stared into the fire for a few seconds, and then said, “It begins, I suppose, with — with a person called — but it’s incredible yeh don’t know his name, everyone in our world knows —”

“Who?”

“Well — I don’ like sayin’ the name if I can help it. No one does.”

“Why not?”

“Gulpin’ gargoyles, Spike, creatures are still scared. Blimey, this is difficult. See, there was this wizard who went . . . bad. As bad as you could go. Worse. Worse than worse. His name was . . .”

Rutherford gulped, but no words came out.

“Could you write it down?” Spike suggested. “Nah — can’t spell it. All right — Tirek.” Rutherford shuddered. “Don’ make me say it again. Anyway, this — this creature, about twenty years ago now, started lookin’ fer followers. Got ’em, too — some were afraid, some just wanted a bit o’ his power, ’cause he was gettin’ himself power, all right. Dark days, Spike. Didn’t know who ter trust, didn’t dare get friendly with strange unicorns or creatures . . . terrible things happened. He was takin’ over. ’Course, some stood up to him — an’ he killed ’em. Horribly. One o’ the only safe places left was Hogwarts. Reckon Star swirl’s the only one You-Know-Who was afraid of. Didn’t dare try takin’ the school, not jus’ then, anyway.

“Now, yer mum an’ dad were as good a creatures an’ creatures as I ever knew. Head boy an’ girl at Celestia School in their day! Suppose the myst’ry is why You-Know-Who never tried to get ’em on his side before . . . probably knew they were too close ter Star swirl ter want anythin’ ter do with the Dark Side.

“Maybe he thought he could persuade ’em . . . maybe he just wanted ’em outta the way. All anyone knows is, he turned up in the village where you was all living, on Halloween ten years ago. You was just a year old. He came ter yer house an’— an’— ”

Rutherford suddenly pulled out a very dirty, spotted handkerchief and blew his nose with a sound like a foghorn.

“Sorry,” he said. “But it’s that sad — knew yer mum an’ dad, an’ nicer creatures yeh couldn’t find — anyway . . .

“You-Know-Who killed ’em. An’ then — an’ this is the real myst’ry of the thing — he tried to kill you, too. Wanted ter make a clean job of it, I suppose, or maybe he just liked killin’ by then. But he couldn’t do it. Never wondered how you got that mark on yer Cheek? That was no ordinary cut. That’s what yeh get when a powerful, evil curse touches yeh — took care of yer mum an’ dad an’ yer house, even — but it didn’t work on you, an’ that’s why yer famous, Spike. No one ever lived after he decided ter kill ’em, no one except you, an’ he’d killed some o’ the best creatures of the age — the Skulls, the Hoofers, the kites — an’ you was only a baby, an’ you lived.”

Something very painful was going on in Spike’s mind. As Rutherford’s story came to a close, he saw again the blinding flash of green fire, more clearly than he had ever remembered it before — and he remembered something else, for the first time in his life: a high, cold, cruel laugh.

Rutherford was watching him sadly.

“Took yeh from the ruined house myself, on Star swirl’s orders. Brought yeh ter this lot . . .”

“Load of old tosh,” said Uncle Wind rider. Spike jumped; he had almost forgotten that the Wind riders were there. Uncle Wind rider certainly seemed to have got back his courage. He was glaring at Rutherford and his fists were clenched.

“Now, you listen here, boy,” he snarled, “I accept there’s something strange about you, probably nothing a good beating wouldn’t have cured — and as for all this about your parents, well, they were weirdos, no denying it, and the world’s better off without them in my opinion — asked for all they got, getting mixed up with these creatures types — just what I expected, always knew they’d come to a sticky end —”

But at that moment, Rutherford leapt from the sofa and drew a battered battle ax from inside his coat. Pointing this at Uncle Wind rider like a sword, he said, “I’m warning you, Rider — I’m warning you — one more word . . .”

In danger of being speared on the end of an battle ax by a bearded giant, Uncle Wind rider’s courage failed again; he flattened himself against the wall and fell silent.

“That’s better,” said Rutherford, breathing heavily and sitting back down on the sofa, which this time sagged right down to the floor.

Spike, meanwhile, still had questions to ask, hundreds of them.

“But what happened to tir-, sorry — I mean, You-Know-Who?”

“Good question, Spike. Disappeared. Vanished. Same night he tried ter kill you. Makes yeh even more famous. That’s the biggest myst’ry, see . . . he was gettin’ more an’ more powerful — why’d he go? “Some say he died. Codswallop, in my opinion. Dunno if he had enough strength left in him to die. Some say he’s still out there, bidin’ his time, like, but I don’ believe it. Creatures who was on his side came back ter ours. Some of ’em came outta kinda trances. Don’ reckon they could’ve done if he was comin’ back.

“Most of us reckon he’s still out there somewhere but lost his powers. Too weak to carry on. ’Cause somethin’ about you finished him, Spike. There was somethin’ goin’ on that night he hadn’t counted on — I dunno what it was, no one does — but somethin’ about you stumped him, all right.”

Rutherford looked at Spike with warmth and respect blazing in his eyes, but Spike, instead of feeling pleased and proud, felt quite sure there had been a horrible mistake. A magic dragon? Him? How could he possibly be? He’d spent his life being clouted by Lighting Dust, and bullied by Aunt Petunia and Uncle Wind rider; if he was really a wizard dragon, why hadn’t they been turned into warty toads every time they’d tried to lock him in his cupboard? If he’d once defeated the greatest sorcerer in the world, how come Lighting Dust had always been able to kick him around like a hoovfball?

“Rutherford ,” he said quietly, “I think you must have made a mistake. I don’t think I can be a magic dragon.”

To his surprise, Rutherford chuckled.

“Not a magic dragon, eh? Never made things happen when you was scared or angry?”

Spike looked into the fire. Now he came to think about it . . . every odd thing that had ever made his aunt and uncle furious with him had happened when he, Spike, had been upset or angry . . . chased by Lighting Dust's gang, he had somehow found himself out of their reach . . . dreading going to school with that ridiculous scale cut, he’d managed to make it grow back . . . and the very last time Lighting Dust had hit him, hadn’t he got his revenge, without even realizing he was doing it? Hadn’t he set a boa constrictor on him?

Spike looked back at Rutherford, smiling, and saw that Rutherford was positively beaming at him.

“See?” said Rutherford. “Spike Drago, not a magic dragon — you wait, you’ll be right famous at Celestia School.” But Uncle Wind rider wasn’t going to give in without a fight.

“Haven’t I told you he’s not going?” he hissed. “He’s going to shadowbolt High and he’ll be grateful for it. I’ve read those letters and he needs all sorts of rubbish — spell books and wands and —”

“If he wants ter go, a great Muggle like you won’t stop him,” growled Rutherford. “Stop firestones an’ Lava Drago’s son goin’ ter celestia's School! Yer mad. His name’s been down ever since he was born. He’s off ter the finest school for gifted creatures in the world. Seven years there and he won’t know himself. He’ll be with youngsters of his own sort, fer a change, an’ he’ll be under the greatest headmaster Celestia's School ever had, A Star swirl the beard—”

“I AM NOT PAYING FOR SOME CRACKPOT OLD STALLION FOOL TO TEACH HIM MAGIC TRICKS!” yelled Uncle Wind rider.

But he had finally gone too far. Rutherford seized his battle ax and whirled it over his head, “NEVER —” he thundered, “— INSULT — Star swirl — the bearded— IN — FRONT — OF — ME!”

He brought the battle ax swishing down through the air to point at Lighting Dust — there was a flash of violet light, a sound like a firecracker, a sharp squeal, and the next second, Lighting Dust was dancing on the spot with his hoovfs clasped over his thin bottom, howling in pain. When he turned his back on them, Spike saw a curly ball’s tail poking through a hole in his trousers.

Uncle Wind rider roared. Pulling Aunt Petunia and Lighting Dust into the other room, he cast one last terrified look at Rutherford and slammed the door behind them. Rutherford looked down at his battle ax and stroked his beard.

“Shouldn’ta lost me temper,” he said ruefully, “but it didn’t work anyway. Meant ter turn her into a bull, but I suppose he was so much like a bull anyway there wasn’t much left ter do.”

He cast a sideways look at Spike under his bushy eyebrows.

“Be grateful if yeh didn’t mention that ter anyone at Celestia School,” he said. “I’m — er — not supposed ter do magic, strictly speakin’. I was allowed ter do a bit ter follow yeh an’ get yer letters to yeh an’ stuff — one o’ the reasons I was so keen ter take on the job —”

“Why aren’t you supposed to do magic?” asked Spike.

“Oh, well — I was at Celestia School meself but I — er — got expelled, ter tell yeh the truth. In me third year. They snapped me wand in half an’ everything. But Star swirl let me stay on as gamekeeper. Great stallion, Star swirl.”

“Why were you expelled?”

“It’s gettin’ late and we’ve got lots ter do tomorrow,” said Rutherford loudly. “Gotta get up ter town, get all yer books an’ that.”

He took off his thick black coat and threw it to Spike.

“You can kip under that,” he said. “Don’ mind if it wriggles a bit, I think I still got a couple o’ dormice in one o’ the pockets.”

Chapter V: Griffin Alley

Spike woke early the next morning. Although he could tell it was daylight, he kept his eyes shut tight.

“It was a dream,” he told himself firmly. “I dreamed a giant called rutherford came to tell me I was going to a school for creatures. When I open my eyes I’ll be at home in my cupboard.”

There was suddenly a loud tapping noise.

And there’s Aunt Petunia knocking on the door, Spike thought, his heart sinking. But he still didn’t open his eyes. It had been such a good dream.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

“All right,” Spike mumbled, “I’m getting up.”

He sat up and Rutherford’s heavy coat fell off him. The hut was full of sunlight, the storm was over, Rutherford himself was asleep on the collapsed sofa, and there was an hawk rapping its claw on the window, a newspaper held in its beak.

Spike scrambled to his feet, so happy he felt as though a large balloon was swelling inside him. He went straight to the window and jerked it open. The hawk swooped in and dropped the newspaper on top of Rutherford, who didn’t wake up. The hawk then fluttered onto the floor and began to attack Rutherford’s coat.

“Don’t do that.”

Spike tried to wave the hawk out of the way, but it snapped its beak fiercely at him and carried on savaging the coat.

“Rutherford!” said Spike loudly. “There’s an hawk —”

“Pay him,” Rutherford grunted into the sofa.

“What?”

“He wants payin’ fer deliverin’ the paper. Look in the pockets.”

Rutherford’s coat seemed to be made of nothing but pockets — bunches of keys, slug pellets, balls of string, peppermint humbugs, teabags . . . finally, Spike pulled out a handful of strange-looking coins.

“Give him five Knuts,” said Rutherford sleepily.

“Knuts?”

“The little bronze ones.”

Spike counted out five little bronze coins, and the owl held out his leg so Spike could put the money into a small leather pouch tied to it. Then he flew off through the open window.

Rutherford yawned loudly, sat up, and stretched.

“Best be off, Spike, lots ter do today, gotta get up ter Canterlot an’ buy all yer stuff fer school.”

Spike was turning over the creature coins and looking at them. He had just thought of something that made him feel as though the happy balloon inside him had got a puncture.

“Um — Rutherford?”

“Mm?” said Rutherford, who was pulling on his huge boots. “I haven’t got any money — and you heard Uncle Wind rider last night . . . he won’t pay for me to go and learn magic.”

“Don’t worry about that,” said Rutherford, standing up and scratching his head. “D’yeh think yer parents didn’t leave yeh anything?”

“But if their house was destroyed —”

“They didn’ keep their gold in the house, boy! Nah, first stop fer us is Nightmare zone. Creatures’ bank. Have a sausage, they’re not bad cold — an’ I wouldn’ say no teh a bit o’ yer birthday cake, neither.”

“creatures have banks?”
“Just the one. Nightmare zone. Run by bat ponies.”

Harry dropped the bit of sausage he was holding. “Bat ponies?”

“Yeah — so yeh’d be mad ter try an’ rob it, I’ll tell yeh that. Never mess with bat ponies, Spike. Nightmare zone is the safest place in the world fer anything yeh want ter keep safe —’cept maybe Celestia School. As a matter o’ fact, I gotta visit nightmare zone anyway. Fer Star swirl. Celestia's School business.” Rutherford drew himself up proudly. “He usually gets me ter do important stuff fer him. Fetchin’ you — gettin’ things from nightmare zone — knows he can trust me, see.

“Got everythin’? Come on, then.”

Spike followed Rutherford out onto the rock. The sky was quite clear now and the sea gleamed in the sunlight. The boat Uncle Wind rider had hired was still there, with a lot of water in the bottom after the storm.

“How did you get here?” Spike asked, looking around for another boat.

“Flew,” said Rutherford.

“Flew?”

“Yeah — but we’ll go back in this. Not s’pposed ter use magic now I’ve got yeh.”

They settled down in the boat, Spike still staring at Rutherford, trying to imagine him flying.

“Seems a shame ter row, though,” said Rutherford, giving Spike another of his sideways looks. “If I was ter — er — speed things up a bit, would yeh mind not mentionin’ it at Celestia School?”

“Of course not,” said Spike, eager to see more magic. Rutherford pulled out the battle Acts again, tapped it twice on the side of the boat, and they sped off toward land.

“Why would you be mad to try and rob Nightmare zone?” Spike asked.

“Spells — enchantments,” said Rutherford, unfolding his newspaper as he spoke. “They say there’s dragons guardin’ the high-security vaults. And then yeh gotta find yer way — nightmare zone is hundreds of miles under Canterlot, see. Deep under the Underground. Yeh’d die of hunger tryin’ ter get out, even if yeh did manage ter get yer hands on summat.”

Spike sat and thought about this while Rutherford read his newspaper, the Daily Prophet. Harry had learned from Uncle Wind rider that ponies liked to be left alone while they did this, but it was very difficult, he’d never had so many questions in his life.

Console' o’ Magic messin’ things up as usual,” Rutherford muttered, turning the page.

“There’s a council of Magic?” Spike asked, before he could stop himself.

“’Course,” said Rutherford. “They wanted Star swirl fer council, o’ course, but he’d never leave Celestia's School, so old Chancellor neighsay got the job. Bungler if ever there was one. So he pelts Star swirl with bird every morning, askin’ fer advice.”

“But what does council of Magic do?”

“Well, their main job is to keep it from the Muggles that there’s still creatures up an’ down the country.”

“Why?”

“Why? Blimey, Spike, everypony’d be wantin’ magic solutions to their problems. Nah, we’re best left alone.” At this moment the boat bumped gently into the harbor wall. Rutherford folded up his newspaper, and they clambered up the stone steps onto the street.

Passersby stared a lot at Rutherford as they walked through the little town to the station. Spike couldn’t blame them. Not only was Rutherford twice as tall as anyone else, he kept pointing at perfectly ordinary things like parking meters and saying loudly, “See that, Spike? Things these Muggles dream up, eh?”

“Rutherford,” said Spike, panting a bit as he ran to keep up, “did you say there are dragons at Nightmare zone?”

“Well, so they say,” said Rutherford. “Crikey, I’d like a dragon.”

“You’d like one?”

“Wanted one ever since I was a kid — here we go.” They had reached the station. There was a train to Canterlot in five minutes’ time. Rutherford, who didn’t understand “Muggle money,” as he called it, gave the bills to Spike so he could buy their tickets.

Ponies stared more than ever on the train. Rutherford took up two seats and sat knitting what looked like a canary-yellow circus tent.

“Still got yer letter, Spike?” he asked as he counted stitches.

Spike took the parchment envelope out of his pocket. “Good,” said Rutherford. “There’s a list there of everything yeh need.”

Spike unfolded a second piece of paper he hadn’t noticed the night before, and read:

CEIESTIAS SCHOOL of GIFTED CREATURES UNIFORM First-year students will require:

Three sets of plain work robes (black)
One plain pointed hat (black) for day wear
One pair of protective gloves (dragon hide or similar)
One winter cloak (black, silver fastenings) Please note that all pupils’ clothes should carry name tags

COURSE BOOKS

All students should have a copy of each of the following:

The Standard Book of Spells (Grade 1) by daring do

A History of Magic by princess Luna

Magical Theory by princess cadence

A Beginners’ Guide to Transfiguration by Twilight velvet and nightlight Switch

One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi by dragon lord torch

Magical Draughts and Potions by Moon dancer

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Queen novo

The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection by King Sombra

OTHER EQUIPMENT
1 wand
1 cauldron (pewter, standard size 2)
1 set glass or crystal phials
1 telescope
1 set brass scales
Students may also bring an bird OR a cat OR a toad

PARENTS ARE REMINDED THAT FIRST YEARS ARE NOT ALLOWED THEIR OWN BROOMSTICKS

“Can we buy all this in Canterlot?” Spike wondered aloud. “If yeh know where to go,” said Rutherford.

Spike had never been to Canterlot before. Although Rutherford seemed to know where he was going, he was obviously not used to getting there in an ordinary way. He got stuck in the ticket barrier on the Underground, and complained loudly that the seats were too small and the trains too slow.

“I don’t know how the Muggles manage without magic,” he said as they climbed a broken-down escalator that led up to a bustling road lined with shops.

Rutherford was so huge that he parted the crowd easily; all Spike had to do was keep close behind him. They passed book shops and music stores, hayburger restaurants and cinemas, but nowhere that looked as if it could sell you a magic wand. This was just an ordinary street full of ordinary ponies. Could there really be piles of creatures gold buried miles beneath them? Were there really shops that sold spell books and broomsticks? Might this not all be some huge joke that the Riders had cooked up? If Spike hadn’t known that the Riders had no sense of humor, he might have thought so; yet somehow, even though everything Rutherford had told him so far was unbelievable, Spike couldn’t help trusting him.

“This is it,” said Rutherford, coming to a halt, “the Double Hydra. It’s a famous place.”

It was a tiny, grubby-looking pub. If Rutherford hadn’t pointed it out, Spike wouldn’t have noticed it was there. The ponies hurrying by didn’t glance at it. Their eyes slid from the big book shop on one side to the record shop on the other as if they couldn’t see the Double Hydra at all. In fact, Spike had the most peculiar feeling that only he and Rutherford could see it. Before he could mention this, Rutherford had steered him inside.

For a famous place, it was very dark and shabby. A few old female creatures were sitting in a corner, drinking tiny glasses of sherry. One of them was smoking a long pipe. A little Minotaur in a top hat was talking to the bartender, who was quite bald and looked like a toothless walnut. The low buzz of chatter stopped when they walked in. Everyone seemed to know Rutherford; they waved and smiled at him, and the bartender reached for a glass, saying, “The usual, Rutherford?”

“Can’t, Big Mac, I’m on Celestia's School business,” said Rutherford, clapping his great hoof on Spike’s shoulder and making Spike’s knees buckle.

“Good luna,” said the bartender, peering at Spike, “is this — can this be — ?”

The Double Hydra had suddenly gone completely still and silent.

“Bless my soul,” whispered the bartender, “Spike Drago . . . what an honor.”

He hurried out from behind the bar, rushed toward Spike and seized his hand, tears in his eyes.

“Welcome back, Mr. Drago, welcome back.”

Spike didn’t know what to say. Everyone was looking at him. The old female creature with the pipe was puffing on it without realizing it had gone out. Rutherford was beaming. Then there was a great scraping of chairs and the next moment, Spike found himself shaking hooves talent with every creature in the Double Hydra.

“Cloudy Quartz, Mr. Drago, can’t believe I’m meeting you at last.”

“So proud, Mr. Drago, I’m just so proud.”

“Always wanted to shake your hand — I’m all of a flutter.”

“Delighted, Mr. Drago, just can’t tell you, Hondo the name, Hondo Flanks.”

“I’ve seen you before!” said Spike, as Hondo Flanks top hat fell off in his excitement. “You bowed to me once in a shop.”

“He remembers!” cried Hondo Flanks, looking around at everyone. “Did you hear that? He remembers me!” Spike shook hooves again and again — Cloudy Quartz kept coming back for more.

A pale young diamond dog made his way forward, very nervously. One of his eyes was twitching.

“Professor Rover!” said Rutherford. “Spike, Professor Rover will be one of your teachers at so Celestias school.”

“D-D-Drago,” stammered Professor Rover, grasping Spike’s hand, “c-can’t t-tell you how p-pleased I am to meet you.”

“What sort of magic do you teach, Professor Rover?” “D-Defense Against the D-D-Dark Magic,” muttered Professor Rover, as though he’d rather not think about it. “N-not that you n-need it, eh, D-D-Drago?” He laughed nervously. “You’ll be g-getting all your equipment, I suppose? I’ve g-got to p-pick up a new b-book on vampires, m-myself.” He looked terrified at the very thought.

But the others wouldn’t let Professor Rover keep Spike to himself. It took almost ten minutes to get away from them all. At last, Rutherford managed to make himself heard over the babble.

“Must get on — lots ter buy. Come on, Spike.” Cloudy Quartz shook Spike’s hand one last time, and Rutherford led them through the bar and out into a small, walled courtyard, where there was nothing but a trash can and a few weeds.

Rutherford grinned at Spike.

“Told yeh, didn’t I? Told yeh you was famous. Even Professor Rover was tremblin’ ter meet yeh — mind you, he’s usually tremblin’.”

“Is he always that nervous?”

“Oh, yeah. Poor bloke. Brilliant mind. He was fine while he was studyin’ outta books but then he took a year off ter get some first-hand experience. . . . They say he met vampires ponies in the Everfree Forest, and there was a nasty bit o’ trouble with a hag — never been the same since. Scared of the students, scared of his own subject — now, where’s me battle ax?”

Vampires ponies? Hags? Spike’s head was swimming. Rutherford, meanwhile, was counting bricks in the wall above the trash can.

“Three up . . . two across . . .” he muttered. “Right, stand back, Spike.”

He tapped the wall three times with the point of his battle ax.

The brick he had touched quivered — it wriggled — in the middle, a small hole appeared — it grew wider and wider — a second later they were facing an archway large enough even for Hagrid, an archway onto a cobbled street that twisted and turned out of sight.

“Welcome,” said Rutherford, “to Griffin Alley.”

He grinned at Spike’s amazement. They stepped through the archway. Spike looked quickly over his shoulder and saw the archway shrink instantly back into solid wall.

The sun shone brightly on a stack of cauldrons outside the nearest shop. Cauldrons — All Sizes — Copper, Brass, Pewter, Silver — Self-Stirring — Collapsible, said a sign hanging over them.

“Yeah, you’ll be needin’ one,” said Rutherford, “but we gotta get yer money first.”

Spike wished he had about eight more eyes. He turned his head in every direction as they walked up the street, trying to look at everything at once: the shops, the things outside them, the creatures doing their shopping. A plump female centaur outside an Apothecary was shaking her head as they passed, saying, “cockatrice liver, sixteen Sickles an ounce, they’re mad. . . .”

A low, soft hooting came from a dark shop with a sign saying Eeylops bird Emporium — Tawny, Screech, Barn, Brown, and Snowy. Several boys of about Spike’s age had their noses pressed against a window with broomsticks in it. “Look,” Spike heard one of them say, “the new Lighting Dragon Two Thousand — fastest ever —” There were shops selling robes, shops selling telescopes and strange silver instruments Spike had never seen before, windows stacked with barrels of bat spleens and eels’ eyes, tottering piles of spell books, quills, and rolls of parchment, potion bottles, globes of the moon. . . .

“nightmare zone,” said Rutherford.

They had reached a snowy white building that towered over the other little shops. Standing beside its burnished bronze doors, wearing a uniform of scarlet and gold, was —

“Yeah, that’s a batpony,” said Rutherford quietly as they walked up the white stone steps toward him. The batpony was about two head taller than Spike. He had a swarthy, clever face, a pointed beard and, Spike noticed, very long legs and hooves. He bowed as they walked inside. Now they were facing a second pair of doors, silver this time, with words engraved upon them:

Enter, stranger, but take heed
Of what awaits the sin of greed,
For those who take, but do not earn,
Must pay most dearly in their turn.
So if you seek beneath our floors
A treasure that was never yours,
Thief, you have been warned, beware
Of finding more than treasure there.

“Like I said, yeh’d be mad ter try an’ rob it,” said Rutherford. A pair of batponies bowed them through the silver doors and they were in a vast marble hall. About a hundred more batponies were sitting on high stools behind a long counter, scribbling in large ledgers, weighing coins in brass scales, examining precious stones through eyeglasses. There were too many doors to count leading off the hall, and yet more batponies were showing creatures in and out of these. Rutherford and Spike made for the counter. “Morning,” said Rutherford to a free batpony. “We’ve come ter take some money outta Mr. Spike Drago’s safe.”

“You have his key, sir?”

“Got it here somewhere,” said Rutherford, and he started emptying his pockets onto the counter, scattering a hoofful of moldy dog biscuits over the batpony’s book of numbers. The batpony wrinkled his nose. Spike watched the batpony on their right weighing a pile of rubies as big as glowing coals.

“Got it,” said Rutherford at last, holding up a tiny golden key.

The batpony looked at it closely.
“That seems to be in order.”

“An’ I’ve also got a letter here from Professor Star swirl,” said Rutherford importantly, throwing out his chest. “It’s about the You-Know-What in vault seven hundred and thirteen.”

The batpony read the letter carefully.

“Very well,” he said, handing it back to Rutherford, “I will have someone take you down to both vaults. Gripthang!” Gripthang was yet another batpony. Once Rutherford had crammed all the dog biscuits back inside his pockets, he and Spike followed Gripthang toward one of the doors leading off the hall.

“What’s the You-Know-What in vault seven hundred and thirteen?” Spike asked.

“Can’t tell yeh that,” said Rutherford mysteriously. “Very secret. Celestia School business. Star swirl’s trusted me. More’n my job’s worth ter tell yeh that.”

Gripthang held the door open for them. Spike, who had expected more marble, was surprised. They were in a narrow stone passageway lit with flaming torches. It sloped steeply downward and there were little railway tracks on the floor. Gripthang whistled and a small cart came hurtling up the tracks toward them. They climbed in — Rutherford with some difficulty — and were off.

At first they just hurtled through a maze of twisting passages. Spike tried to remember, left, right, right, left, middle fork, right, left, but it was impossible. The rattling cart seemed to know its own way, because Gripthang wasn’t steering.

Spike’s eyes stung as the cold air rushed past them, but he kept them wide open. Once, he thought he saw a burst of fire at the end of a passage and twisted around to see if it was a dragon, but too late — they plunged even deeper, passing an underground lake where huge stalactites and stalagmites grew from the ceiling and floor.

“I never know,” Spike called to Rutherford over the noise of the cart, “what’s the difference between a stalagmite and a stalactite?”

“Stalagmite’s got an ‘m’ in it,” said Rutherford. “An’ don’ ask me questions just now, I think I’m gonna be sick.”

He did look very green, and when the cart stopped at last beside a small door in the passage wall, Rutherford got out and had to lean against the wall to stop his knees from trembling.

Gripthang unlocked the door. A lot of green smoke came billowing out, and as it cleared, Harry gasped. Inside were mounds of gold coins. Columns of silver. Heaps of little bronze Knuts.

“All yours,” smiled Rutherford.

All Spike’s — it was incredible. The Wind riders couldn’t have known about this or they’d have had it from him faster than blinking. How often had they complained how much Spike cost them to keep? And all the time there had been a small fortune belonging to him, buried deep under Canterlot.

Rutherford helped Spike pile some of it into a bag.

“The gold ones are Galleons,” he explained. “Seventeen silver Sickles to a Galleon and twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle, it’s easy enough. Right, that should be enough fer a couple o’ terms, we’ll keep the rest safe for yeh.” He turned to Gripthang. “Vault seven hundred and thirteen now, please, and can we go more slowly?”

“One speed only,” said Gripthang.

They were going even deeper now and gathering speed. The air became colder and colder as they hurtled round tight corners. They went rattling over an underground ravine, and Spike leaned over the side to try to see what was down at the dark bottom, but Hagrid groaned and pulled him back by the scruff of his neck.

Vault seven hundred and thirteen had no keyhole.

“Stand back,” said Gripthang importantly. He stroked the door gently with one of his hoovf and it simply melted away.

“If anyone but a nightmare zones batpony tried that, they’d be sucked through the door and trapped in there,” said Gripthang.

“How often do you check to see if anyone’s inside?” Spike asked.

“About once every ten years,” said Gripthang with a rather nasty grin.

Something really extraordinary had to be inside this top security vault, Spike was sure, and he leaned forward eagerly, expecting to see fabulous jewels at the very least — but at first he thought it was empty. Then he noticed a grubby little package wrapped up in brown paper lying on the floor. Rutherford picked it up and tucked it deep inside his coat. Spike longed to know what it was, but knew better than to ask.

“Come on, back in this infernal cart, and don’t talk to me on the way back, it’s best if I keep me mouth shut,” said Rutherford.

One wild cart ride later they stood blinking in the sunlight outside nightmare zone. Spike didn’t know where to run first now that he had a bag full of money. He didn’t have to know how many Galleons there were to a pound to know that he was holding more money than he’d had in his whole life — more money than even Lighting Dust had ever had.

“Might as well get yer uniform,” said Rutherford, nodding toward Madam Rarity’s Robes for All Occasions. “Listen, Spike, would yeh mind if I slipped off fer a pick-me-up in the Double Hydra? I hate them nightmare zone carts.” He did still look a bit sick, so Spike entered Madam Rarity’s shop alone, feeling nervous.

Madam Rarity was a tall, smiling unicorn dressed all in mauve.

“Celestia School, dear?” she said, when Spike started to speak. “Got the lot here — another young Griffin being fitted up just now, in fact.”

In the back of the shop, a Dragon with a pale, pointed face was standing on a footstool while a second unicorn pinned up his long black robes. Madam rarity stood Spike on a stool next to him, slipped a long robe over his head, and began to pin it to the right length.

“Hello,” said the dragon, “Celestia's School, too?”

“Yes,” said Spike.

“My father’s next door buying my books and Mother’s up the street looking at wands,” said the boy. He had a bored, drawling voice. “Then I’m going to drag them off to look at racing brooms. I don’t see why first years can’t have their own. I think I’ll bully Father into getting me one and I’ll smuggle it in somehow.”

Spike was strongly reminded of Lighting Dust. “Have you got your own broom?” the dragon went on.

“No,” said Spike.

“Play fireball at all?”

“No,” Spike said again, wondering what on earth fireball could be.

“I do — Father says it’s a crime if I’m not picked to play for my House, and I must say, I agree. Know what House you’ll be in yet?”

“No,” said Spike, feeling more stupid by the minute.

“Well, no one really knows until they get there, do they, but I know I’ll be in cockatricea, all our family have been — imagine being in bearal, I think I’d leave, wouldn’t you?”

“Mmm,” said Spike, wishing he could say something a bit more interesting.

“I say, look at that yack!” said the dragon suddenly, nodding toward the front window. Rutherford was standing there, grinning at Spike and pointing at two large ice creams to show he couldn’t come in.

“That’s Rutherford,” said Spike, pleased to know something the dragon didn’t. “He works at Celestia's School.”

“Oh,” said the dragon, “I’ve heard of him. He’s a sort of servant, isn’t he?”

“He’s the gamekeeper,” said Spike. He was liking the dragon less and less every second.

“Yes, exactly. I heard he’s a sort of savage — lives in a hut on the school grounds and every now and then he gets drunk, tries to do magic, and ends up setting fire to his bed.”

“I think he’s brilliant,” said Spike coldly.

“Do you?” said the dragon, with a slight sneer. “Why is he with you? Where are your parents?”

“They’re dead,” said Spike shortly. He didn’t feel much like going into the matter with this boy.

“Oh, sorry,” said the other, not sounding sorry at all. “But they were our kind, weren’t they?”

“They were a magic creatures, if that’s what you mean.”

“I really don’t think they should let the other sort in, do you? They’re just not the same, they’ve never been brought up to know our ways. Some of them have never even heard of Celestia School until they get the letter, imagine. I think they should keep it in the old creatures families. What’s your surname, anyway?”

But before Spike could answer, Madam Rarity said, “That’s you done, my dear,” and Spike, not sorry for an excuse to stop talking to the dragon, hopped down from the hoofstool.

“Well, I’ll see you at Celestia School, I suppose,” said the drawling dragon.

Spike was rather quiet as he ate the ice cream Rutherford had bought him (chocolate and raspberry with chopped nuts).

“What’s up?” said Rutherford.

“Nothing,” Spike lied. They stopped to buy parchment and quills. Spike cheered up a bit when he found a bottle of ink that changed color as you wrote. When they had left the shop, he said, “Rutherford, what’s fireball?”

“Blimey, Spike, I keep forgettin’ how little yeh know — not knowin’ about fireball!”

“Don’t make me feel worse,” said Spike. He told Rutherford about the pale dragon in Madam Rarity’s.

“— and he said creatures from Muggle families shouldn’t even be allowed in —”

“Yer not from a Muggle family. If he’d known who yeh were — he’s grown up knowin’ yer name if his parents are magic creaturein’ folk. You saw what everyone in the Double Hydra was like when they saw yeh. Anyway, what does he know about it, some o’ the best I ever saw were the only ones with magic in ’em in a long line o’ Muggles — look at yer mum! Look what she had fer a sister!”

“So what is fireball?”

“It’s our sport. Magic creaturesport. It’s like — like hoofball in the Muggle world — everyone follows fireball — played up in the air on broomsticks and there’s four balls — sorta hard ter explain the rules.”

“And what are cockatricea and bearal?”

“School Houses. There’s four. Everyone says bearal are a lot o’ duffers, but —”

“I bet I’m in bearal,” said Harry gloomily.

“Better bearal than cockatricea,” said Rutherford darkly. “There’s not a single magic creature who went bad who wasn’t in cockatricea. You-Know-Who was one.”

“Tie-, sorry — You-Know-Who was at Celestia School?”

“Years an’ years ago,” said Rutherford.

They bought Spike’s school books in a shop called Flim and Flam where the shelves were stacked to the ceiling with books as large as paving stones bound in leather; books the size of postage stamps in covers of silk; books full of peculiar symbols and a few books with nothing in them at all. Even Lighting Dust, who never readanything, would have been wild to get her hooves on some of these. Rutherford almost had to drag Spike away from Curses and Counter-curses (Bewitch Your Friends and Befuddle Your Enemies with the Latest Revenges: Hair Loss, Jelly-Legs, Tongue-Tying and Much, Much More) by Professor cheese sandwich.

“I was trying to find out how to curse Lighting Dust.”

“I’m not sayin’ that’s not a good idea, but yer not ter use magic in the Muggle world except in very special circumstances,” said Rutherford. “An’ anyway, yeh couldn’ work any of them curses yet, yeh’ll need a lot more study before yeh get ter that level.”

Rutherford wouldn’t let Spike buy a solid gold cauldron, either (“It says pewter on yer list”), but they got a nice set of scales for weighing potion ingredients and a collapsible brass telescope. Then they visited the Apothecary, which was fascinating enough to make up for its horrible smell, a mixture of bad eggs and rotted cabbages. Barrels of slimy stuff stood on the floor; jars of herbs, dried roots, and bright powders lined the walls; bundles of feathers, strings of fangs, and snarled claws hung from the ceiling. While Rutherford asked the zebra behind the counter for a supply of some basic potion ingredients for Spike, Spike himself examined silver chimera horns at twenty-one Galleons each and minuscule, glittery-black beetle eyes (five Knuts a scoop).

Outside the Apothecary, Rutherford checked Spike’s list again.

“Just yer wand left — oh yeah, an’ I still haven’t got yeh a birthday present.”

Spike felt himself go red.

“You don’t have to —”

“I know I don’t have to. Tell yeh what, I’ll get yer animal. Not a toad, toads went outta fashion years ago, yeh’d be laughed at — an’ I don’ like cats, they make me sneeze. I’ll get yer an bird. All the kids want birds, they’re dead useful, carry yer mail an’ everythin’.”

Twenty minutes later, they left fluttershy's animal Emporium, which had been dark and full of rustling and flickering, jewel-bright eyes. Spike now carried a large cage that held a beautiful young Phoenix, fast asleep with his head under hid wing. He couldn’t stop stammering his thanks, sounding just like Professor Rover.

“Don’ mention it,” said Rutherford gruffly. “Don’ expect you’ve had a lotta presents from them riders. Just Trixes left now — only place fer wands, Trixes, and yeh gotta have the best wand.”

A magic wand . . . this was what Spike had been really looking forward to.

The last shop was narrow and shabby. Peeling gold letters over the door read Trixies: Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C. A single wand lay on a faded purple cushion in the dusty window.

A tinkling bell rang somewhere in the depths of the shop as they stepped inside. It was a tiny place, empty except for a single, spindly chair that Rutherford sat on to wait. Spike felt strangely as though he had entered a very strict library; he swallowed a lot of new questions that had just occurred to him and looked instead at the thousands of narrow boxes piled neatly right up to the ceiling. For some reason, the back of his neck prickled. The very dust and silence in here seemed to tingle with some secret magic.

“Good afternoon,” said a soft voice. Spike jumped. Rutherford must have jumped, too, because there was a loud crunching noise and he got quickly off the spindly chair. An unicorn mare was standing before them, his wide, pale eyes shining like moons through the gloom of the shop.

“Hello,” said Spike awkwardly.

“Ah yes,” said the acorn mare. “Yes, yes. I thought I’d be seeing you soon. Spike drago.” It wasn’t a question. “You have your mother’s eyes. It seems only yesterday she was in here herself, buying her first wand. Ten and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow. Nice wand for charm work.”

Ms. Trixie moved closer to Spike. Spike wished he would blink. Those silvery eyes were a bit creepy.

“Your father, on the other hoof, favored a mahogany wand. Eleven inches. Pliable. A little more power and excellent for transfiguration. Well, I say your father favored it — it’s really the wand that chooses the creature, of course.”

Ms. Trixie had come so close that she and Spike were almost nose to nose. Spike could see himself reflected in those misty eyes.

“And that’s where . . .”

Ms. Trixie touched the x scar on Spike’s cheek with a long, hoovf.

“I’m sorry to say I sold the wand that did it,” she said softly. “Thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew. Powerful wand, very powerful, and in the wrong hands . . . well, if I’d known what that wand was going out into the world to do. . . .”

He shook his head and then, to Spike’s relief, spotted Rutherford.

“Rubeus! Rubeus ! How nice to see you again. . . . Oak, sixteen inches, rather bendy, wasn’t it?”

“It was, ms, yes,” said Rutherford. “Good wand, that one. But I suppose they snapped it in half when you got expelled?” said Ms. Trixe, suddenly stern.

“Er — yes, they did, yes,” said Rutherford, shuffling his back hooves. “I’ve still got the pieces, though,” he added brightly.

“But you don’t use them?” said Ms. Trixe sharply. “Oh, no, ms,” said Rutherford quickly. Spike noticed he gripped his battle ax very tightly as he spoke.

“Hmmm,” said Ms. Trixe, giving Rutherford a piercing look. “Well, now — Mr. Drago, Let me see.” She pulled a long tape measure with silver markings out of her pocket. “Which is your wand arm?” “Er — well, I’m right-handed,” said Spike. “Hold out your arm.

That’s it.” She measured Spike from shoulder to finger, then wrist to elbow, shoulder to floor, knee to armpit and round his head. As she measured, she said, “Every Trixie wand has a core of a powerful magical substance, Mr. Drago. We use unicorn hairs, phoenix tail feathers, and the heartstrings of dragons. No two Trixe wands are the same, just as no two unicorns, dragons, or phoenixes are quite the same. And of course, you will never get such good results with another creature’s wand.” Spike suddenly realized that the tape measure, which was measuring between her nostrils, was doing this on its own. Ms. Trixe was flitting around the shelves, taking down boxes. “That will do,” she said, and the tape measure crumpled into a heap on the floor. “Right then, Mr. Drago. Try this one. Beechwood and dragon heartstring. Nine inches. Nice and flexible. Just take it and give it a wave.”

Spike took the wand and (feeling foolish) waved it around a bit, but Ms. Trixe snatched it out of his hand almost at once.

“Maple and phoenix feather. Seven inches. Quite whippy. Try —”

Spike tried — but he had hardly raised the wand when it, too, was snatched back by Ms. Trixe.

“No, no — here, ebony and unicorn hair, eight and a half inches, springy. Go on, go on, try it out.”

Spike tried. And tried. He had no idea what Ms. Trixe was waiting for. The pile of tried wands was mounting higher and higher on the spindly chair, but the more wands Ms. Trixe pulled from the shelves, the happier he seemed to become.

“Tricky customer, eh? Not to worry, we’ll find the perfect match here somewhere — I wonder, now — yes, why not — unusual combination — holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches, nice and supple.”

Spike took the wand. He felt a sudden warmth in his fingers. He raised the wand above his head, brought it swishing down through the dusty air and a stream of red and gold sparks shot from the end like a firework, throwing dancing spots of light on to the walls. Rutherford whooped and clapped and Ms. Trixe cried, “Oh, bravo! Yes, indeed, oh, very good. Well, well, well . . . how curious . . . how very curious . . .”

She put Spike’s wand back into its box and wrapped it in brown paper, still muttering, “Curious . . . curious . . .” “Sorry,” said Spike, “but what’s curious?”

Ms. Trixe fixed Spike with his pale stare.

“I remember every wand I’ve ever sold, Mr. Drago. Every single wand. It so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand, gave another feather — just one other. It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother — why, its brother gave you that scar.”

Spike swallowed.

“Yes, thirteen-and-a-half inches. Yew. Curious indeed how these things happen. The wand chooses the wizard, remember. . . . I think we must expect great things from you, Mr. Potter. . . . After all, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named did great things — terrible, yes, but great.”

Spike shivered. He wasn’t sure he liked Ms. Trixe too much. He paid seven gold Galleons for his wand, and Ms. Trixe bowed them from her shop.

The late afternoon sun hung low in the sky as Spike and Rutherford made their way back down Griffin Alley, back through the wall, back through the Double Hydra, now empty. Spike didn’t speak at all as they walked down the road; he didn’t even notice how much ponies were gawking at them on the Underground, laden as they were with all their funny-shaped packages, with the Phoenix asleep in its cage on Spike’s lap. Up another escalator, out into Canterlot station; Spike only realized where they were when Rutherford tapped him on the shoulder.

“Got time fer a bite to eat before yer train leaves,” he said.

He bought Spike a hayburger and they sat down on plastic seats to eat them. Spike kept looking around. Everything looked so strange, somehow.

“You all right, Spike? Yer very quiet,” said Rutherford. Spike wasn’t sure he could explain. He’d just had the best birthday of his life — and yet — he chewed his hayburger, trying to find the words.

“Every creature thinks I’m special,” he said at last. “All those creatures in the double Hydra, Professor Rover, Ms. Trixe . . . but I don’t know anything about magic at all. How can they expect great things? I’m famous and I can’t even remember what I’m famous for. I don’t know what happened when tie-, sorry — I mean, the night my parents died.”

Rutherford leaned across the table. Behind the wild beard and eyebrows he wore a very kind smile.

“Don’ you worry, Spike. You’ll learn fast enough. Everyone starts at the beginning at Celestia School, you’ll be just fine. Just be yerself. I know it’s hard. Yeh’ve been singled out, an’ that’s always hard. But yeh’ll have a great time at Celestia School — I did — still do, ’smatter of fact.”

Rutherford helped Spike on to the train that would take him back to the Riders, then hoofed him an envelope. “Yer ticket fer Celestia's School,” he said. “First o’ September — Alicorn’s Cross — it’s all on yer ticket. Any problems with the Riders, send me a letter with yer Phoenix, he’ll know where to find me. . . . See yeh soon, Spike.”

The train pulled out of the station. Spike wanted to watch Rutherford until he was out of sight; he rose in his seat and pressed his nose against the window, but he blinked and Rutherford had gone.

Chapter VI: THE JOURNEY FROM PLATFORM SEVEN AND THREE-BITS

Spike’s last month with the Riders wasn’t fun. True, Lighting Dust was now so scared of Spike he wouldn’t stay in the same room, while Aunt Petunia and Uncle Wind rider didn’t shut Spike in his cupboard, force him to do anything, or shout at him — in fact, they didn’t speak to him at all. Half terrified, half furious, they acted as though any chair with Spike in it were empty. Although this was an improvement in many ways, it did become a bit depressing after a while. Spike kept to his room, with his new Phoenix for company. He had decided to call him Pee-wee, a name he had found in A History of Magic. His school books were very interesting. He lay on his bed reading late into the night, pee wee swooping in and out of the open window as he pleased. It was lucky that Aunt Petunia didn’t come in to vacuum anymore, because pee wee kept bringing back dead mice. Every night before he went to sleep, Spike ticked off another day on the piece of paper he had pinned to the wall, counting down to September the first. On the last day of August he thought he’d better speak to his aunt and uncle about getting to Alicorn’s Cross station the next day, so he went down to the living room where they were watching a quiz show on television. He cleared his throat to let them know he was there, and Lighting Dust screamed and ran from the room.

“Er — Uncle Wind rider?”

Uncle Wind rider grunted to show he was listening.

“Er — I need to be at Alicorn's Cross tomorrow to — to go to Celestia's School.”

Uncle Wind rider grunted again.

“Would it be all right if you gave me a lift?”

Grunt. Spike supposed that meant yes.

“Thank you.”

He was about to go back upstairs when Uncle Wind rider actually spoke.

“Funny way to get to a magic creaser school, the train. Magic carpets all got punctures, have they?”

Spike didn’t say anything.

“Where is this school, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” said Spike, realizing this for the first time. He pulled the ticket Rutherford had given him out of his pocket.

“I just take the train from platform seven and three-bits at eleven o’clock,” he read.

His aunt and uncle stared.

“Platform what?”

“seven and three-bits.”

“Don’t talk rubbish,” said Uncle Wind rider. “There is no platform seven and three-bits.”

“It’s on my ticket.”

“Barking,” said Uncle Wind rider, “howling mad, the lot of them. You’ll see. You just wait. All right, we’ll take you to Alicorn’s Cross. We’re going up to Canterlot tomorrow anyway, or I wouldn’t bother.”

“Why are you going to Canterlot?” Spike asked, trying to keep things friendly.

“Taking Lighting Dust to the hospital,” growled Uncle Wind rider. “Got to have that ruddy tail removed before she goes to Smeltings.”

Spike woke at five o’clock the next morning and was too excited and nervous to go back to sleep. He got up and pulled on his jeans because he didn’t want to walk into the station in his magic creature’s robes — he’d change on the train. He checked his Celestia School list yet again to make sure he had everything he needed, saw that pee wee was shut safely in his cage, and then paced the room, waiting for the Riders to get up. Two hours later, Spike’s huge, heavy trunk had been loaded into the Riders’ chariot, Aunt Petunia had talked Lighting Dust into sitting next to Spike, and they had set off.

They reached Alicorn’s Cross at half past ten. Uncle Wind rider dumped Spike’s trunk onto a cart and wheeled it into the station for him. Spike thought this was strangely kind until Uncle Wind rider stopped dead, facing the platforms with a nasty grin on his face.

“Well, there you are, boy. Platform seven — platform three. Your platform should be somewhere in the middle, but they don’t seem to have built it yet, do they?”

He was quite right, of course. There was a big plastic number nine over one platform and a big plastic number ten over the one next to it, and in the middle, nothing at all.

“Have a good term,” said Uncle Wind rider with an even nastier smile. He left without another word. Spike turned and saw the Riders threw away. All three of them were laughing. Spike’s mouth went rather dry. What on earth was he going to do? He was starting to attract a lot of funny looks, because of Celestia School. He’d have to ask somepony.

He stopped a passing guard, but didn’t dare mention platform seven and three-quarters. The guard had never heard of Celestia school and when Spike couldn’t even tell him what part of the country it was in, he started to get annoyed, as though Spike was being stupid on purpose. Getting desperate, Spike asked for the train that left at eleven o’clock, but the guard said there wasn’t one. In the end the guard strode away, muttering about time wasters. Spike was now trying hard not to panic. According to the large clock over the arrivals board, he had ten minutes left to get on the train to Celestia School and he had no idea how to do it; he was stranded in the middle of a station with a trunk he could hardly lift, a pocket full of magic creature money, and a large Phoenix.

Rutherford must have forgotten to tell him something you had to do, like tapping the third brick on the left to get into Griffin Alley. He wondered if he should get out his wand and start tapping the ticket inspector’s stand between platforms seven and three.

At that moment a group of Griffins passed just behind him and he caught a few words of what they were saying.

“— packed with Muggles, of course —”

Spike swung round. The speaker was a plump female Griffin who was talking to four Griffin girls, all with puffy feathers. Each of them was pushing a trunk like Spike’s in front of him — and they had an birds.

Heart hammering, Spike pushed his cart after them. They stopped and so did he, just near enough to hear what they were saying.

“Now, what’s the platform number?” said the Griffin boys’ mother.

“seven and three-bits!” piped a small griffin girl, also buffer furr, who was holding her talent. “Mum, can’t I go . . .” “You’re not old enough, gabby, now be quiet. All right, Griffa, you go first.”

What looked like the oldest Griffin girl marched toward platforms seven and three. Spike watched, careful not to blink in case he missed it — but just as the griffin girl reached the dividing barrier between the two platforms, a large crowd of tourists came swarming in front of her and by the time the last backpack had cleared away, the griffin girl had vanished.

“Gilda, you next,” the plump female griffin said.

“I’m not Gilda, I’m Feather,” said the griffin girl. “Honestly, Griffin, you call yourself our mother? Can’t you tell I’m Feather?”

“Sorry, Feather, dear.”

“Only joking, I am Gilda,” said the griffin girl, and off she went. Her twin called after her to hurry up, and she must have done so, because a second later, she had gone — but how had she done it?

Now the four griffin girl was walking briskly toward the barrier — she was almost there — and then, quite suddenly, she wasn’t anywhere.

There was nothing else for it.

“Excuse me,” Spike said to the plump female griffin.

“Hello, dear,” she said. “First time at Celestia School? Gallas’s new, too.”

She pointed at her only son. He was tall, thin, and gangling, with blue feather, big challenge and lion paws, and a long beak.

“Yes,” said Spike. “The thing is — the thing is, I don’t know how to —”

“How to get onto the platform?” she said kindly, and Spike nodded.

“Not to worry,” she said. “All you have to do is walk straight at the barrier between platforms seven and three. Don’t stop and don’t be scared you’ll crash into it, that’s very important. Best do it at a bit of a run if you’re nervous. Go on, go now before Gallas.”

“Er — okay,” said Spike.

He pushed his trolley around and stared at the barrier. It looked very solid.

He started to walk toward it. Ponies jostled him on their way to platforms seven and three. Spike walked more quickly. He was going to smash right into that barrier and then he’d be in trouble — leaning forward on his cart, he broke into a heavy run — the barrier was coming nearer and nearer — he wouldn’t be able to stop — the cart was out of control — he was a foot away — he closed his eyes ready for the crash —

It didn’t come . . . he kept on running . . . he opened his eyes.

A scarlet steam engine was waiting next to a platform packed with creatures. A sign overhead said Celestia School Express, eleven o’clock. Spike looked behind him and saw a wrought-iron archway where the barrier had been, with the words Platform seven and Three-bits on it. He had done it.

Smoke from the engine drifted over the heads of the chattering crowd, while cats of every color wound here and there between their legs. Birds cheap and squawk to one another in a disgruntled sort of way over the babble and the scraping of heavy trunks.

The first few carriages were already packed with students, some hanging out of the window to talk to their families, some fighting over seats. Spike pushed his cart off down the platform in search of an empty seat. He passed a round-faced pony colt who was saying, “Gran, I’ve lost my toad again.”

“Oh, Pipsqueak,” he heard the old mare sigh.

A zebra colt with dreadlocks was surrounded by a small crowd.

“Give us a look, Lee, go on.”

The Zebra colt lifted the lid of a box in his arms, and the creatures around him shrieked and yelled as something inside poked out a long, hairy leg.

Spike pressed on through the crowd until he found an empty compartment near the end of the train. He put Pee-wee inside first and then started to shove and heave his trunk toward the train door. He tried to lift it up the steps but could hardly raise one end and twice he dropped it painfully on his foot.

“Want a talent?” It was one of the Griffin twin girl she’d followed through the barrier.

“Yes, please,” Spike panted.

“Oy, Gilda! C’mere and help!”

With the twins’ help, Spike’s trunk was at last tucked away in a corner of the compartment.

“Thanks,” said Spike, pushing his sweaty scales out of his eyes.

“What’s that?” said one of the twins suddenly, pointing at Spike’s x scar.

“By Celestia,” said the other twin. “Are you — ?”

“He is,” said the first twin. “Aren’t you?” he added to Spike.

“What?” said Spike.
“Spike Drago,” chorused the twins.
“Oh, him,” said Spike. “I mean, yes, I am.”

The two griffin girl gawked at him, and Spike felt himself turning red. Then, to his relief, a voice came floating in through the train’s open door.

“Gilda? Feather? Are you there?”

“Coming, Mum.”

With a last look at Spike, the twins hopped off the train.

Spike sat down next to the window where, half hidden, he could watch the red-haired family on the platform and hear what they were saying. Their mother had just taken out her hoovfkerchief.

“Gallus, you’ve got something on your beak.”

The only griffin boy tried to jerk out of the way, but she grabbed him and began rubbing the end of his beak.

“Mum — geroff.” He wriggled free.

“Aaah, has ickle Gallie got somefink on his beak?” said one of the twins.

“Shut up,” said Gallus.
“Where’s Griffa?” said their mother.
“She’s coming now.”

The oldest griffin girl came striding into sight. She had already changed into his billowing black Celestia's School robes, and Spike noticed a shiny red-and-gold badge on his chest with the letter P on it.

“Can’t stay long, Mother,” she said. “I’m up front, the prefects have got two compartments to themselves —” “Oh, are you a prefect, Griffa?” said one of the twins, with an air of great surprise. “You should have said something, we had no idea.”

“Hang on, I think I remember him saying something about it,” said the other twin. “Once —”

“Or twice —”

“A minute —”
“All summer —”

“Oh, shut up,” said Griffa the Prefect.

“How come Griffa gets new robes, anyway?” said one of the twins.

“Because she’s a prefect,” said their mother fondly. “All right, dear, well, have a good term — send me an raven when you get there.”

She kissed Griffa on the cheek and she left. Then she turned to the twins.

“Now, you two — this year, you behave yourselves. If I get one more bird telling me you’ve — you’ve blown up a toilet or —”

“Blown up a toilet? We’ve never blown up a toilet.” “Great idea though, thanks, Mum.”
“It’s not funny. And look after Gallus.”
“Don’t worry, ickle Gallusiekins is safe with us.”

“Shut up,” said Gallus again. He was almost as tall as the twins already and his beak was still pink where his mother had rubbed it.

“Hey, Mum, guess what? Guess who we just met on the train?”

Spike leaned back quickly so they couldn’t see him looking.

“You know that purple-scale dragon boy who was near us in the station? Know who he is?”

“Who?”
“Spike drago!”

Spike heard the little girl’s voice.

“Oh, Mum, can I go on the train and see him, Mum, oh please. . . .”

“You’ve already seen him, Gabby, and the poor boy isn’t something you goggle at in a zoo. Is he really, Gilda? How do you know?”

“Asked him. Saw his scar. It’s really there — like a x.”

“Poor dear — no wonder he was alone, I wondered. He was ever so polite when he asked how to get onto the platform.”

“Never mind that, do you think he remembers what You-Know-Who looks like?”

Their mother suddenly became very stern.

“I forbid you to ask him, Gilda. No, don’t you dare. As though he needs reminding of that on his first day at school.”

“All right, keep your feathers on.”

A whistle sounded.

“spike up!” their mother said, and the three boys clambered onto the train. They leaned out of the window for her to kiss them good-bye, and their younger griffin girl began to cry.

“Don’t, Ginny, we’ll send you loads of ravens.”
“We’ll send you a Celestia School toilet seat.

“Feather!”
“Only joking, Mum.”

The train began to move. Spike saw the Griffin girls and griffin boy’ mother waving and their sister, half laughing, half crying, running to keep up with the train until it gathered too much speed, then she fell back and waved.

Spike watched the youngest griffin girl and her mother disappear as the train rounded the corner. Houses flashed past the window. Spike felt a great leap of excitement. He didn’t know what he was going to — but it had to be better than what he was leaving behind.

The door of the compartment slid open and the only griffin boy came in.

“Anyone sitting there?” he asked, pointing at the seat opposite Spike. “Everywhere else is full.”

Spike shook his head and the griffin boy sat down. He glanced at Spike and then looked quickly out of the window, pretending he hadn’t looked. Spike saw he still had a black mark on his beak.

“Hey, Gallus.”
The twins were back.

“Listen, we’re going down the middle of the train — Lee troubleshoot’s got a giant tarantula down there.”

“Right,” mumbled Gallus.

“Spike,” said the other twin, “did we introduce ourselves? Gilda and Feather gruff. And this is Gallus, our brother. See you later, then.”

“Bye,” said Spike and Gallus. The twins slid the compartment door shut behind them.

“Are you really Spike Drago?” Gallus blurted out.

Spike nodded.

“Oh — well, I thought it might be one of Gilda and Feather’s jokes,” said Gallus. “And have you really got — you know . . .”

He pointed at Spike’s cheek.

Spike turned his head to show the x scar. Gallus stared.

“So that’s where You-Know-Who — ?”
“Yes,” said Spike, “but I can’t remember it.” “Nothing?” said Gallus eagerly.

“Well — I remember a lot of green fire, but nothing else.”

“Wow,” said Gallus. He sat and stared at Spike for a few moments, then, as though he had suddenly realized what he was doing, he looked quickly out of the window again.

“Are all your family griffins?” asked Spike, who found Gallus just as interesting as Gallus found him.

“Er — yes, I think so,” said Gallus. “I think Mum’s got a second cousin who’s an accountant, but we never talk about him.”

“So you must know loads of magic already.”

The Gruffs were clearly one of those old magic creature families the pale dragon boy in Grffin Alley had talked about.

“I heard you went to live with Muggles,” said Gallus. “What are they like?”

“Horrible — well, not all of them. My aunt and uncle and cousin are, though. Wish I’d had three griffin sisters.”

“Five,” said Gallus. For some reason, he was looking gloomy. “I’m the sixth in our family to go to Celestia School. You could say I’ve got a lot to live up to. Cinderella and Coreline have already left — Cinderella was head girl and Coraline was captain of fireball. Now Griffa’s a prefect. Gilda and Feather mess around a lot, but they still get really good marks and everyone thinks they’re really funny. Everyone expects me to do as well as the others, but if I do, it’s no big deal, because they did it first. You never get anything new, either, with five sister. I’ve got Cinderella’s old robes, Coraline’s old wand, and Griffa’s old rat.”

Gallus reached inside his jacket and pulled out a fat gray rat, which was asleep.

“Her name’s Class and she’s useless, she hardly ever wakes up. Griffa got an raven from my dad for being made a prefect, but they couldn’t aff — I mean, I got Class instead.”

Gallus’s ears went pink. He seemed to think he’d said too much, because he went back to staring out of the window.

Spike didn’t think there was anything wrong with not being able to afford an bird. After all, he’d never had any money in his life until a month ago, and he told Gallus so, all about having to wear Lighting Dust’s old clothes and never getting proper birthday presents. This seemed to cheer Gallus up.

“. . . and until Rutherford told me, I didn’t know anything about being a magic dragon or about my parents or tirek —”

Gallus gasped.

“What?” said Harry.

“You said You-Know-Who’s name!” said Gallus, sounding both shocked and impressed. “I’d have thought you, of all creatures —”

“I’m not trying to be brave or anything, saying the name,” said Spike, “I just never knew you shouldn’t. See what I mean? I’ve got loads to learn. . . . I bet,” he added, voicing for the first time something that had been worrying him a lot lately, “I bet I’m the worst in the class.”

“You won’t be. There’s loads of people who come from Muggle families and they learn quick enough.”

While they had been talking, the train had carried them out of Canterlot. Now they were speeding past fields full of cows and sheep. They were quiet for a time, watching the fields and lanes flick past.

Around half past twelve there was a great clattering outside in the corridor and a smiling, baby blue coat and pink main mare slid back their door and said, “Anything off the cart, dears?”

Spike, who hadn’t had any breakfast, leapt to his feet, but Gallus’s ears went pink again and he muttered that he’d brought sandwiches. Spike went out into the corridor. He had never had any money for candy with the Riders, and now that he had pockets rattling with gold and silver he was ready to buy as many wonderbolts Bars as he could carry — but the mare didn’t have wonderbolts Bars. What she did have were Queen Chrysalis's Every Flavor Beans, pinkamena’s Best Blowing Gum, Chocolate Frogs, apple Pasties, dragon Cakes, Licorice horns, and a number of other strange things Spike had never seen in his life. Not wanting to miss anything, he got some of everything and paid the mare eleven silver Sickles and seven bronze Knuts.

Gallus stared as Spike brought it all back in to the compartment and tipped it onto an empty seat.

“Hungry, are you?”

“Starving,” said Spike, taking a large bite out of a apple pasty.

Gallus had taken out a lumpy package and unwrapped it. There were four sandwiches inside. He pulled one of them apart and said, “She always forgets I don’t like corned beef.”

“Swap you for one of these,” said Spike, holding up a pasty. “Go on —”

“You don’t want this, it’s all dry,” said Ron. “She hasn’t got much time,” he added quickly, “you know, with five of us.”

“Go on, have a pasty,” said Spike, who had never had anything to share before or, indeed, anyone to share it with. It was a nice feeling, sitting there with Gallus, eating their way through all Spike’s pasties, cakes, and candies (the sandwiches lay forgotten).

“What are these?” Spike asked Gallus, holding up a pack of Chocolate Frogs. “They’re not really frogs, are they?” He was starting to feel that nothing would surprise him.

“No,” said Gallus. “But see what the card is. I’m missing King Sombra.”

“What?”

“Oh, of course, you wouldn’t know — Chocolate Frogs have cards inside them, you know, to collect — famous magic creature. I’ve got about five hundred, but I haven’t got King Sombra or princess cadence.”

Spike unwrapped his Chocolate Frog and picked up the card. It showed a stallion unicorn’s face. He wore half-moon glasses, had a long, crooked muzzle, and flowing silver hair, beard, and mustache. Underneath the picture was the name Star swirl the bearded.

“So this is Star swirl!” said Spike.

“Don’t tell me you’d never heard of Star swirl!” said Gallus. “Can I have a frog? I might get King Sombra — thanks —” Spike turned over his card and read:

STAR SWIRL THE BEARDED CURRENTLY HEADMASTER OF CELESTIA SCHOOL Considered by many the greatest unicorns of modern times, Star swirl is particularly famous for his and his friends defeat of the Dark magic creature called the pony of shadows in 1945, for the discovery of the seven uses of the elements of harmony , and his work on alchemy with his partner, discord. Professor Star swirl enjoys chamber music and tenpin bowling.

Spike turned the card back over and saw, to his astonishment, that Star swirl’s face had disappeared.

“He’s gone!”

“Well, you can’t expect him to hang around all day,” said Gallus. “He’ll be back. No, I’ve got princess Luna again and I’ve got about six of her . . . do you want it? You can start collecting.”

Gallus’s eyes strayed to the pile of Chocolate Frogs waiting to be unwrapped.

“Help yourself,” said Spike. “But in, you know, the Muggle world, ponies just stay put in photos.”

“Do they? What, they don’t move at all?” Gallus sounded amazed. “Weird!”

Spike stared as Star swirl sidled back into the picture on his card and gave him a small smile. Gallus was more interested in eating the frogs than looking at the Famous magic creature cards, but Spike couldn’t keep his eyes off them. Soon he had not only Star swirl and Somnambula, but Mistmane of sorcery, Mage Meadowbrook, Rockhoof, Flash Magnus, and princess Luna. He finally tore his eyes away from the awesome Rainbow Dash, who was getting ready for a awesome trick, to open a bag of Queen Chrysalis's Every Flavor Beans.

“You want to be careful with those,” Gallus warned Spike. “When they say every flavor, they mean every flavor — you know, you get all the ordinary ones like chocolate and peppermint and marmalade, but then you can get sea rock and cockatrice liver and tripe. Feather reckons he had a booger-flavored one once.”

Gallus picked up a green bean, looked at it carefully, and bit into a corner.

“Bleaaargh — see? Yack hair.”

They had a good time eating the Every Flavor Beans. spike got Cherry Ruby, pineapple, baked potatoes banana, garnet watermelon, cucumber, coffee, sardine, and was even brave enough to nibble the end off a funny gray one Gallus wouldn’t touch, which turned out to be dragon pepper.

The countryside now flying past the window was becoming wilder. The neat fields had gone. Now there were woods, twisting rivers, and dark green hills.

There was a knock on the door of their compartment and the round-faced colt Spike had passed on platform seven and three-bits came in. He looked tearful. “Sorry,” he said, “but have you seen a toad at all?”

When they shook their heads, he wailed, “I’ve lost him!

He keeps getting away from me!”

“He’ll turn up,” said Spike.

“Yes,” said the colt miserably. “Well, if you see him . . .” He left. .

“Don’t know why he’s so bothered,” said Gallus. “If I’d brought a toad I’d lose it as quick as I could. Mind you, I brought Class, so I can’t talk.”

The rat was still snoozing on Gallus’s lap.

“She might have died and you wouldn’t know the difference,” said Gallus in disgust. “I tried to turn him yellow yesterday to make him more interesting, but the spell didn’t work. I’ll show you, look . . .”

He rummaged around in his trunk and pulled out a very battered-looking wand. It was chipped in places and something white was glinting at the end.

“Unicorn hair’s nearly poking out. Anyway —”

He had just raised his wand when the compartment door slid open again. The toadless colt was back, but this time he had a yak girl with him. She was already wearing her new Celestia School robes.

“Has anyone seen a toad? Pipsqueak’s lost one,” she said. She had a bossy sort of voice, lots of bushy brown hair, and rather large front horns.

“We’ve already told him we haven’t seen it,” said Gallus, but the girl wasn’t listening, she was looking at the wand in his talent.

“Oh, are you doing magic? Let’s see it, then.”

She sat down. Gallus looked taken aback.

“Er — all right.” He cleared his throat.

“Celestia's son, dragon daisies, hwybutter mellow, Turn this stupid, fat rat yellow.”

He waved his wand, but nothing happened. Class stayed gray and fast asleep.

“Are you sure that’s a real spell?” said the yak girl. “Well, it’s not very good, is it? I’ve tried a few simple spells just for practice and it’s all worked for me. Nobody in my family’s magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course, I mean, it’s the very best school of magic there is, I’ve heard — I’ve learned all our course books by heart, of course, I just hope it will be enough — I’m fion Yona Yaker, by the way, who are you?”

She said all this very fast.

Spike looked at Gallus, and was relieved to see by his stunned face that he hadn’t learned all the course books by heart either.

“I’m Gallus gruff,” Gallus muttered.

“Spike Drago,” said Spike.

“Are you really?” said Yona. “I know all about you, of course — I got a few extra books for background reading, and you’re in Modern Magical History and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and Great Magic creatures Events of the Twentieth Century.”

“Am I?” said Spike, feeling dazed.

“Goodness, didn’t you know, I’d have found out everything I could if it was me,” said Yona. “Do either of you know what House you’ll be in? I’ve been asking around, and I hope I’m in Manticorear, it sounds by far the best; I hear Star swirl himself was in it, but I suppose Bearal wouldn’t be too bad. . . . Anyway, we’d better go and look for Pipsqueak’s toad. You two had better change, you know, I expect we’ll be there soon.”

And she left, taking the toadless colt with her.

“Whatever House I’m in, I hope she’s not in it,” said Gallus. He threw his wand back into his trunk. “Stupid spell — Feather gave it to me, bet she knew it was a dud.”

“What House are your brothers in?” asked Harry.

“Manticorear,” said Gallus. Gloom seemed to be settling on him again. “Mum and Dad were in it, too. I don’t know what they’ll say if I’m not. I don’t suppose Bearal would be too bad, but imagine if they put me in cockatricea .”

“That’s the House Ti-, I mean, You-Know-Who was in?”

“Yeah,” said Gallus. He flopped back into his seat, looking depressed.

“You know, I think the ends of Classs’ whiskers are a bit lighter,” said Spike, trying to take Gallus’s mind off Houses. “So what do your oldest sisters do now that they’ve left, anyway?”

Spike was wondering what a griffin did once she’d finished school.

“Coraline’s in Ponmania studying dragons, and Cinderella’s in zebraland doing something for Nightmare zone,” said Gallus. “Did you hear about Nightmare zone? It’s been all over the Daily Prophet, but I don’t suppose you get that with the Muggles — someone tried to rob a high security vault.”

Spike stared.
“Really? What happened to them?”

“Nothing, that’s why it’s such big news. They haven’t been caught. My dad says it must’ve been a powerful Dark magic creature to get round Nightmare zone, but they don’t think they took anything, that’s what’s odd. ’Course, everyone gets scared when something like this happens in case You-Know-Who’s behind it.”

Spike turned this news over in his mind. He was starting to get a prickle of fear every time You-Know-Who was mentioned. He supposed this was all part of entering the magical world, but it had been a lot more comfortable saying “Tirek ” without worrying.

“What’s your fireball team?” Gallus asked.

“Er — I don’t know any,” Spike confessed. “What!” Gallus looked dumbfounded. “Oh, you wait, it’s the best game in the world —” And he was off, explaining all about the four balls and the positions of the seven players, describing famous games he’d been to with his sisters and the broomstick he’d like to get if he had the money. He was just taking Spike through the finer points of the game when the compartment door slid open yet again, but it wasn’t Pipsqueak the toadless colt, or Yona yaker this time.

Three dragon boys entered, and Spike recognized the middle one at once: It was the pale dragon boy from Madam Rarity’s robe shop. He was looking at Spike with a lot more interest than he’d shown back in griffin Alley.

“Is it true?” he said. “They’re saying all down the train that Spike Drago’s in this compartment. So it’s you, is it?”

“Yes,” said Spike. He was looking at the other dragon boys. Both of them were thickset and looked extremely mean. Standing on either side of the pale dragon boy, they looked like bodyguards.

“Oh, this is Crackle and this is Steam,” said the pale dragon boy carelessly, noticing where Spike was looking. “And my name’s Garble, Slayer Garble.”

Gallus gave a slight cough, which might have been hiding a snigger. Garble Slayer looked at him.

“Think my name’s funny, do you? No need to ask who you are. My father told me all the Gruffs have scraggly feathers, freckles, and more children than they can afford.”

He turned back to Spike. “You’ll soon find out some magic creaturesing families are much better than others, Drago. You don’t want to go making friends with the wrong sort. I can help you there.”

He held out his hand to shake Spike’s, but Spike didn’t take it.

“I think I can tell who the wrong sort are for myself, thanks,” he said coolly.

Grable Slayer didn’t go red, but a pink tinge appeared in his pale cheeks.

“I’d be careful if I were you, Drago,” he said slowly. “Unless you’re a bit politer you’ll go the same way as your parents. They didn’t know what was good for them, either. You hang around with riffraff like the Gruffs and that Rutherford, and it’ll rub off on you.”

Both Spike and Gallus stood up.

“Say that again,” Gallus said, his face as red as a tomato.

“Oh, you’re going to fight us, are you?” Garble sneered.

“Unless you get out now,” said Spike, more bravely than he felt, because Crackle and Steam were a lot bigger than him or Gallus.

“But we don’t feel like leaving, do we, boys? We’ve eaten all our food and you still seem to have some.”

Crackle reached toward the Chocolate Frogs next to Gallus — Gallus leapt forward, but before he’d so much as touched Crackle, Crackle let out a horrible yell.

Class the rat was hanging off his finger, sharp little teeth sunk deep into Crackle’s knuckle — Steam and Garble backed away as Crackle swung Class round and round, howling, and when Class finally flew off and hit the window, all three of them disappeared at once. Perhaps they thought there were more rats lurking among the sweets, or perhaps they’d heard footsteps, because a second later, Yona yaker had come in.

“What has been going on?” she said, looking at the sweets all over the floor and Gallus picking up Class by her tail.

“I think she’s been knocked out,” Gallus said to Spike. He looked closer at Class. “No — I don’t believe it — he’s gone back to sleep.”

And so he had.

“You’ve met Garble before?”

Spike explained about their meeting in griffin Alley. “I’ve heard of his family,” said Gallus darkly. “They were some of the first to come back to our side after You-Know-Who disappeared. Said they’d been bewitched. My dad doesn’t believe it. He says Garble’s father didn’t need an excuse to go over to the Dark Side.” He turned to Yona. “Can we help you with something?”

“You’d better hurry up and put your robes on, I’ve just been up to the front to ask the conductor, and he says we’re nearly there. You haven’t been fighting, have you? You’ll be in trouble before we even get there!”

“Class has been fighting, not us,” said Gallus, scowling at her. “Would you mind leaving while we change?” “All right — I only came in here because creatures outside are behaving very childishly, racing up and down the corridors,” said Yona in a sniffy voice. “And you’ve got dirt on your beak, by the way, did you know?”

Spike glared at her as she left. spike peered out of the window. It was getting dark. He could see mountains and forests under a deep purple sky. The train did seem to be slowing down.

He and Gallus took off their jackets and pulled on their long black robes. Gallus’s were a bit short for him, you could see his sneakers underneath them.

A voice echoed through the train: “We will be reaching Celestia School in five minutes’ time. Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately.”

Spike’s stomach lurched with nerves and Gallus, he saw, looked pale under his feathers. They crammed their pockets with the last of the sweets and joined the crowd thronging the corridor.

The train slowed right down and finally stopped. Creatures pushed their way toward the door and out on to a tiny, dark platform. Spike shivered in the cold night air. Then a lamp came bobbing over the heads of the students, and Spike heard a familiar voice: “Firs’ years! Firs’ years over here! All right there, Spike?”

Rutherford’s big hairy face beamed over the sea of heads. “C’mon, follow me — any more firs’ years? Mind yer step, now! Firs’ years follow me!”

Slipping and stumbling, they followed Rutherford down what seemed to be a steep, narrow path. It was so dark on either side of them that Spike thought there must be thick trees there. Nobody spoke much. Pipsqueak, the colt who kept losing his toad, sniffed once or twice.

“Yeh’ll get yer firs’ sight o’ Hogwarts in a sec,” Celestia School called over his shoulder, “jus’ round this bend here.”

There was a loud “Oooooh!”

The narrow path had opened suddenly onto the edge of a great black lake. Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling in the starry sky, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers.

“No more’n four to a boat!” Rutherford called, pointing to a fleet of little boats sitting in the water by the shore. Spike and Gallus were followed into their boat by Pipsqueak and Yona.

“Every creature in?” shouted Rutherford, who had a boat to himself. “Right then — FORWARD!” .

And the fleet of little boats moved off all at once, gliding across the lake, which was as smooth as glass. Everyone was silent, staring up at the great castle overhead. It towered over them as they sailed nearer and nearer to the cliff on which it stood.

“Heads down!” yelled Rutherford as the first boats reached the cliff; they all bent their heads and the little boats carried them through a curtain of ivy that hid a wide opening in the cliff face. They were carried along a dark tunnel, which seemed to be taking them right underneath the castle, until they reached a kind of underground harbor, where they clambered out onto rocks and pebbles.

“Oy, you there! Is this your toad?” said Rutherford, who was checking the boats as creatures climbed out of them.

“Peppermint!” cried Pipsqueak blissfully, holding out his hooves. Then they clambered up a passageway in the rock after Rutherford’s lamp, coming out at last onto smooth, damp grass right in the shadow of the castle.

They walked up a flight of stone steps and crowded around the huge, oak front door.

“Every creature here? You there, still got yer toad?”

Rutherford raised a gigantic hoof and knocked three times on the castle door.

To be continued.

Magic creature cards

Star swirl the bearded

Sonnambula

Mistmane

Mage Meadowbrook

Rockhoof

Flash Magnus

Princess Luna

Rainbow Dash

Chapter VII: The Sorting Sword

The door swung open at once. A tall, white-haired old mare in emerald-green robes stood there. She had a very stern face and Spike’s first thought was that this was not someone to cross.

“The firs’ years, Professor Granny Smith,” said Rutherford. “Thank you, . I will take them from here.”

She pulled the door wide. The entrance hall was so big you could have fit the whole of the Dursleys’ house in it. The stone walls were lit with flaming torches like the ones at Gringotts, the ceiling was too high to make out, and a magnificent marble staircase facing them led to the upper floors.

They followed Professor Granny Smith across the flagged stone floor. Spike could hear the drone of hundreds of voices from a doorway to the right the rest of the school must already be here but Professor Granny Smith showed the first years into a small, empty chamber off the hall. They crowded in, standing rather closer together than they would usually have done, peering about nervously.

“Welcome to Celestia School,” said Professor Granny Smith. “The start-of-term banquet will begin shortly, but before you take your seats in the Great Hall, you will be sorted into your Houses. The Sorting is a very important ceremony because, while you are here, your House will be something like your family within Celestia School. You will have classes with the rest of your House, sleep in your House dormitory, and spend free time in your House common room.

“The four Houses are called Manticorear, Bearal, Dragonfire, and Cockatricea. Each House has its own noble history and each has produced outstanding magic creature. While you are at Celestia School, your triumphs will earn your House points, while any rule-breaking will lose House points. At the end of the year, the House with the most points is awarded the Alicorn Cup, a great honor. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever House becomes yours.

“The Sorting Ceremony will take place in a few minutes in front of the rest of the school. I suggest you all smarten yourselves up as much as you can while you are waiting.”

Her eyes lingered for a moment on pipsqueak’s cloak, which was fastened under his left ear, and on Gallus’s smudged beak. Spike nervously tried to flatten his scales. “I shall return when we are ready for you,” said Professor Granny Smith. “Please wait quietly.”

She left the chamber. Spike swallowed.

“How exactly do they sort us into Houses?” he asked Gallus.

“Some sort of test, I think. Gilda said it hurts a lot, but I think she was joking.”

Spike’s heart gave a horrible jolt. A test? In front of the whole school? But he didn’t know any magic yet what on earth would he have to do? He hadn’t expected something like this the moment they arrived. He looked around anxiously and saw that everyone else looked terrified, too. No one was talking much except Yona yaker, who was whispering very fast about all the spells she’d learned and wondering which one she’d need. Spike tried hard not to listen to her. He’d never been more nervous, never, not even when he’d had to take a school report home to the Riders saying that he’d somehow turned his teacher’s wig blue. He kept his eyes fixed on the door. Any second now, Professor Granny Smith would come back and lead him to his doom.

Then something happened that made him jump about a foot in the air several creatures behind him screamed.

“What the ?”

He gasped. So did the creatures around him. About twenty ghosts had just streamed through the back wall. Pearly-white and slightly transparent, they glided across the room talking to one another and hardly glancing at the first years. They seemed to be arguing. What looked like a fat little monk was saying: “Forgive and forget, I say, we ought to give him a second chance ” “My dear Friar, haven’t we given Peeves all the chances he deserves? He gives us all a bad name and you know, he’s not really even a ghost I say, what are you all doing here?”

A ghost wearing a ruff and tights had suddenly noticed the first years.

Nobody answered.

“New students!” said the Fat Friar, smiling around at them. “About to be Sorted, I suppose?”

A few creatures nodded mutely.

“Hope to see you in Bearal!” said the Friar. “My old House, you know.”

“Move along now,” said a sharp voice. “The Sorting Ceremony’s about to start.”

Professor Granny Smith had returned. One by one, the ghosts floated away through the opposite wall.

“Now, form a line,” Professor Granny Smith told the first years, “and follow me.”

Feeling oddly as though his legs had turned to lead, Spike got into line behind a colt with sandy hair, with Gallus behind him, and they walked out of the chamber, back across the hall, and through a pair of double doors into the Great Hall.

Spike had never even imagined such a strange and splendid place. It was lit by thousands and thousands of candles that were floating in midair over four long tables, where the rest of the students were sitting. These tables were laid with glittering golden plates and goblets. At the top of the hall was another long table where the teachers were sitting. Professor Granny Smith led the first years up here, so that they came to a halt in a line facing the other students, with the teachers behind them. The hundreds of faces staring at them looked like pale lanterns in the flickering candlelight. Dotted here and there among the students, the ghosts shone misty silver. Mainly to avoid all the staring eyes, Spike looked upward and saw a velvety black ceiling dotted with stars. He heard Yona yaker, “It’s bewitched to look like the sky outside. I read about it in Celestia School: A History.”

It was hard to believe there was a ceiling there at all, and that the Great Hall didn’t simply open on to the heavens.

Spike quickly looked down again as Professor Granny Smith silently placed a four-legged stool in front of the first years. On top of the stool she put a pointed magic creature sword. This sword was scratch and rusted and extremely dirty. Aunt Petunia wouldn’t have let it in the house.

Maybe they had to try to lift it, Spike thought wildly, that seemed the sort of thing noticing that everyone in the hall was now staring at the sword, he stared at it, too. For a few seconds, there was complete silence. Then the sword twitched. A rip near the brim opened wide like a mouth and the sword began to sing:

“Oh, you may not think I’m pretty,
But don’t judge on what you see,
I’ll eat myself if you can find
A smarter sword than me.
You can keep your bowlers black,
Your top swords sleek and tall,
For I’m the Celestia School Sorting sword
And I can cap them all.
There’s nothing hidden in your head
The Sorting sword can’t see,
So try me on and I will tell you
Where you ought to be.
You might belong in Manticorear,
Where dwell the brave at heart,
Their daring, nerve, and chivalry
Set Manticorears apart;
You might belong in Bearal,
Where they are just and loyal,
Those patient Bearals are true
And unafraid of toil;
Or yet in wise old Dragonfire,
If you’ve a ready mind,
Where those of wit and learning,
Will always find their kind;
Or perhaps in Cockatricea
You’ll make your real friends,
Those cunning folk use any means
To achieve their ends.
So put me on! Don’t be afraid!
And don’t get in a flap!
You’re in safe hands (though I have none)
For I’m a Thinking blade!”

The whole hall burst into applause as the hat finished its song. It bowed to each of the four tables and then became quite still again.

“So we’ve just got to try on the sword!” Gallus whispered to Spike. “I’ll kill Gilda, she was going on about wrestling a troll.”

Spike smiled weakly. Yes, trying on the sword was a lot better than having to do a spell, but he did wish they could have tried it on without everyone watching. The sword seemed to be asking rather a lot; Spike didn’t feel brave or quick-witted or any of it at the moment. If only the sword had mentioned a House for creates who felt a bit queasy, that would have been the one for him.

Professor Granny Smith now stepped forward holding a long roll of parchment.

“When I call your name, you will put on the sword and sit on the stool to be sorted,” she said. “Moondancer,!”

A light yellow-faced mare with red and purple pigtails stumbled out of line, put on the sword, which fell right down over her eyes, and sat down. A moment’s pause “BEARAL!” shouted the sword.

The table on the right cheered and clapped as Moondancer went to sit down at the Bearal table. Spikesaw the ghost of the Fat Friar waving merrily at her.

“fleur-de-lis!”

“BEARAL!” shouted the sword again, and Fleur de lis scuttled off to sit next to Moon dancer.

“Feather, Bangs!”

“DRAGONFIRE!”

The table second from the left clapped this time; several Dragonfires stood up to shake hoovfs with Feather Bangs as he joined them.

“Rumb” went to Dragonfire too, but “ Trouble, Shoes” became the first new Manticorear, and the table on the far left exploded with cheers; Spike could see Gallus’s twin sisters catcalling.

“Indigo, Zap” then became a Cockatricea. Perhaps it was Spike’s imagination, after all he’d heard about Cockatricea, but he thought they looked like an unpleasant lot.

He was starting to feel definitely sick now. He remembered being picked for teams during gym at his old school. He had always been last to be chosen, not because he was no good, but because no one wanted Lighting Dust to think they liked him.

“Night, Glider!”

“BEARAL!”

Sometimes, Spike noticed, the sword shouted out the House at once, but at others it took a little while to decide. “Sassy,Saddles,” the sunny-haired mare next to Spike in the line, sat on the stool for almost a whole minute before the sword declared him a Manticorear.

“Yaker, Yona”!

Yona almost ran to the stool and jammed the sword eagerly on her head.

“MANTICOREAR!” shouted the hat. Ron groaned.

A horrible thought struck Spike, as horrible thoughts always do when you’re very nervous. What if he wasn’t chosen at all? What if he just sat there with the hat over his eyes for ages, until Professor Granny Smith jerked it off his head and said there had obviously been a mistake and he’d better get back on the train?

When Pipsqueak, the colt who kept losing his toad, was called, he fell over on his way to the stool. The sword took a long time to decide with Pipsqueak. When it finally shouted, “MANTICOREAR,” Pipsqueak ran off still wearing it, and had to jog back amid gales of laughter to give it to “ Garble, garb.”

Garble swaggered forward when his name was called and got his wish at once: the sword had barely touched his head when it screamed, “COCKATRICEA!”

Garble went to join his friends Crackle and Steam, looking pleased with himself.

There weren’t many people left now.

“sunburst” . . . , Tree hug” . . . , “Tender taps” . . . , then a pair of twin mares, “ Wind Sprint” and “wallflower blush” . . . , then “diamond Rose, little strong heart” . . . , and then, at last “Drago, Spike!”

As Spike stepped forward, whispers suddenly broke out like little hissing fires all over the hall.

“Drago, did she say?”
“The Spike drago?”

The last thing Spike saw before the sword dropped over his eyes was the hall full of creatures craning to get a good look at him. Next second he was looking at the black inside of the sword. He waited.

“Hmm,” said a small voice in his ear. “Difficult. Very difficult. Plenty of courage, I see. Not a bad mind either. There’s talent, oh my goodness, yes and a nice thirst to prove yourself, now that’s interesting. . . . So where shall I put you?”

Spike gripped the edges of the stool and thought, Not Cockatricea, not Cockatricea.

“Not Cockatricea, eh?” said the small voice. “Are you sure? You could be great, you know, it’s all here in your head, and Cockatricea will help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that no? Well, if you’re sure better be Manticorear!”

Spike heard the sword shout the last word to the whole hall. He took off the sword and walked shakily toward the Manticorear table. He was so relieved to have been chosen and not put in Cockatricea, he hardly noticed that he was getting the loudest cheer yet. Griffa the Prefect got up and shook his hand vigorously, while the Gruff twins yelled, “We got Drago! We got Drago!” Spike sat down opposite the ghost in the ruff he’d seen earlier. The ghost patted his arm, giving Spike the sudden, horrible feeling he’d just plunged it into a bucket of ice-cold water.

He could see the High Table properly now. At the end nearest him sat Rutherford, who caught his eye and gave him the hoovfs up. Spike grinned back. And there, in the center of the High Table, in a large gold chair, sat Star swirl the beard. Spike recognized him at once from the card he’d gotten out of the Chocolate Frog on the train. Star swirl’s silver hair was the only thing in the whole hall that shone as brightly as the ghosts. Spike spotted Professor Rover, too, the nervous young diamond dog from the double Hydra. He was looking very peculiar in a large purple turban.

And now there were only four creatures left to be sorted. “Snips,” a Orange haired colt even shorter than Snips, joined Manticorear at the Manticorer table. “Babs, Seed,” became a Dragonfires and then it was Gallus’s turn. He was pale green by now. Spike crossed his fingers under the table and a second later the hat had shouted, “MANTICOREAR!"

Spike clapped loudly with the rest as Gallus collapsed into the chair next to him.

“Well done, Gallus, excellent,” said Griffa Gruff pompously across Spike as “Diamond, Tiara,” was made a Cockatricea. Professor Granny Smith rolled up her scroll and took the Sorting sword away.

Spike looked down at his empty gold plate. He had only just realized how hungry he was. The apple pasties seemed ages ago.

Star swirl the bearded had gotten to his hoofs. He was beaming at the students, his arms opened wide, as if nothing could have pleased him more than to see them all there.

“Welcome!” he said. “Welcome to a new year at Celestia School! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!

“Thank you!”

He sat back down. Everybody clapped and cheered. Spike didn’t know whether to laugh or not.

“Is he a bit mad?” he asked Griffa uncertainly.

“Mad?” said Griffa airily. “He’s a genius! Best magic creature in the world! But he is a bit mad, yes. Potatoes, Spike?”

Spike's mouth fell open. The dishes in front of him were now piled with food. He had never seen so many things he liked to eat on one table: roast beef, roast chicken, pork chops and lamb chops, sausages, bacon and steak, boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, fries, Yorkshire pudding, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup, and, for some strange reason, peppermint humbugs.

The Wind riders had never exactly starved Spike, but he’d never been allowed to eat as much as he liked. Lighting Dust had always taken anything that Spike really wanted, even if it made him sick. Spike piled his plate with a bit of everything except the peppermints and began to eat. It was all delicious.

“That does look good,” said the ghost in the ruff sadly, watching Spike cut up his steak.

“Can’t you ?”

“I haven’t eaten for nearly five hundred years,” said the ghost. “I don’t need to, of course, but one does miss it. I don’t think I’ve introduced myself? Prince Blue Blood at your service. Resident ghost of Manticorear Tower.”

“I know who you are!” said Gallus suddenly. “My sisters told me about you you’re Nearly Headless blue blood!”

“I would prefer you to call me Prince Blue Blood ” the ghost began stiffly, but Snips interrupted.

“Nearly Headless? How can you be nearly headless?”

Prince Blue Blood looked extremely miffed, as if their little chat wasn’t going at all the way he wanted.

“Like this,” he said irritably. He seized his left ear and pulled. His whole head swung off his neck and fell onto his shoulder as if it was on a hinge. Someone had obviously tried to behead him, but not done it properly. Looking pleased at the stunned looks on their faces, Nearly Headless Blue Blood flipped his head back onto his neck, coughed, and said, “So new Manticorears! I hope you’re going to help us win the House Championship this year? Manticorear have never gone so long without winning. Cockatriceas have got the Cup six years in a row! The Chancellor naysay’s becoming almost unbearable he’s the Cockatricea ghost.”

Spike looked over at the Cockatricea table and saw a horrible ghost sitting there, with blank staring eyes, a gaunt face, and robes stained with silver blood. He was right next to Garble who, Spike was pleased to see, didn’t look too pleased with the seating arrangements.

“How did he get covered in blood?” asked Snails with great interest.

“I’ve never asked,” said Nearly Headless blue blood delicately.

When everyone had eaten as much as they could, the remains of the food faded from the plates, leaving them sparkling clean as before. A moment later the desserts appeared. Blocks of ice cream in every flavor you could think of, apple pies, treacle tarts, chocolate éclairs and jam doughnuts, trifle, strawberries, Jell-O, rice pudding . . .

As Spike helped himself to a treacle tart, the talk turned to their families.

“I’m half-and-half,” said Snails. “Me dad’s a Muggle. Mum didn’t tell him she was a magic creature ’til after they were married. Bit of a nasty shock for him.”

The others laughed.

“What about you, pipsqueak?” said Gallus.

“Well, my gran brought me up and she’s a magic creature,” said Neville, “but the family thought I was all-Muggle for ages. My Great Uncle Algie kept trying to catch me off my guard and force some magic out of me he pushed me off the end of Blackpool pier once, I nearly drowned but nothing happened until I was eight. Great Uncle Algie came round for dinner, and he was hanging me out of an upstairs window by the ankles when my Great Auntie Enid offered him a meringue and he accidentally let go. But I bounced all the way down the garden and into the road. They were all really pleased, Gran was crying, she was so happy. And you should have seen their faces when I got in here they thought I might not be magic enough to come, you see. Great Uncle Algie was so pleased he bought me my toad.”

On Spike’s other side, Griffa Gruff and Yona were talking about lessons (“I do hope they start right away, there’s so much to learn, I’m particularly interested in Transfiguration, you know, turning something into something else, of course, it’s supposed to be very difficult ”; “You’ll be starting small, just matches into needles and that sort of thing ”).

Spike, who was starting to feel warm and sleepy, looked up at the High Table again. Rutherford was drinking deeply from his goblet. Professor Granny Smith was talking to Professor Star swirl. Professor Rover, in his absurd turban, was talking to a teacher with greasy dark red Gale, a hooked nose, and dark blue today under scales.

It happened very suddenly. The hook-nosed teacher looked past Rover’s turban straight into Spike’s eyes and a sharp, hot pain shot across the scar on Spike’s cheek.

“Ouch!” Spike clapped a hand to his ceek.
“What is it?” asked Griffa.
“N-nothing.”

The pain had gone as quickly as it had come. Harder to shake off was the feeling Spike had gotten from the teacher’s look a feeling that he didn’t like Spike at all. “Who’s that teacher talking to Professor Rover?” he asked Griffa.

“Oh, you know Rover already, do you? No wonder he’s looking so nervous, that’s Professor Torch. He teaches Potions, but he doesn’t want to everyone knows he’s after Rover’s job. Knows an awful lot about the Dark Arts, Torch.”

Spike watched Torch for a while, but Torch didn’t look at him again.

At last, the desserts too disappeared, and Professor Star swirl got to his hooves again. The hall fell silent.

“Ahem just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered. I have a few start-of-term notices to give you.

“First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well.”

Star swirl’s twinkling eyes flashed in the direction of the Gruff twins.

“I have also been asked by Mr. Cranky Doodle Donkey, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors.

“fireball trials will be held in the second week of the term. Anyone interested in playing for their House teams should contact Madam Rainbow Dash.

“And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to everyone who does not wish to die a very painful death.”

Spike laughed, but he was one of the few who did.

“He’s not serious?” he muttered to Griffa.

“Must be,” said Griffa, frowning at Star swirl. “It’s odd, because he usually gives us a reason why we’re not allowed to go somewhere the forest’s full of dangerous beasts, everyone knows that. I do think he might have told us prefects, at least.”

“And now, before we go to bed, let us sing the school song!” cried Star swirl. Spike noticed that the other teachers’ smiles had become rather fixed.

Star swirl gave his wand a little flick, as if he was trying to get a fly off the end, and a long golden ribbon flew out of it, which rose high above the tables and twisted itself, snakelike, into words.

“Everyone pick their favorite tune,” said Star swirl, “and off we go!”

And the school bellowed:

“Celestia School, Chelsea School, Hoggy Warty Celestia School,

Teach us something please,
Whether we be old and bald
Or young with scabby knees,
Our heads could do with filling
With some interesting stuff,
For now they’re bare and full of air,
Dead flies and bits of fluff,
So teach us things worth knowing,
Bring back what we’ve forgot,
Just do your best, we’ll do the rest,
And learn until our brains all rot.”

Everybody finished the song at different times. At last, only the Gruff twins were left singing along to a very slow funeral march. Star swirl conducted their last few lines with his wand and when they had finished, he was one of those who clapped loudest.

“Ah, music,” he said, wiping his eyes. “A magic beyond all we do here! And now, bedtime. Off you trot!”

The Manticorear first years followed Griffa through the chattering crowds, out of the Great Hall, and up the marble staircase. Spike’s legs were like lead again, but only because he was so tired and full of food. He was too sleepy even to be surprised that the creatures in the portraits along the corridors whispered and pointed as they passed, or that twice Griffa led them through doorways hidden behind sliding panels and hanging tapestries. They climbed more staircases, yawning and dragging their feet, and Spike was just wondering how much farther they had to go when they came to a sudden halt.

A bundle of walking sticks was floating in midair ahead of them, and as Griffa took a step toward them they started throwing themselves at her.

“Discord,” Griffa whispered to the first years. “A poltergeist.” He raised his voice, “Discord show yourself.”

A loud, rude sound, like the air being let out of a balloon, answered. “Do you want me to go to the Chancellor naysay?”

There was a pop, and a draconequus with wicked, yellow and red eyes and a wide mouth appeared, floating cross-legged in the air, clutching the walking sticks.

“Oooooooh!” he said, with an evil cackle. “Ickle Firsties! What fun!”

He swooped suddenly at them. They all ducked.

“Go away, Discord, or Chancellor naysay"ll hear about this, I mean it!” barked Griffa.

Discord stuck out his tongue and vanished, dropping the walking sticks on pipsqueak’s head. They heard him zooming away, rattling coats of armor as he passed.

“You want to watch out for Discord,” said Griffa, as they set off again. “The Chancellor naysay and Fluttershy’s the only one who can control him, he won’t even listen to us prefects. Here we are.”

At the very end of the corridor hung a portrait of a very muscular pony with a shovel.

“Password?” he said.

“Crystal empire,” said Griffa, and the portrait swung forward to reveal a round hole in the wall. They all scrambled through it pipsqueak needed a leg up and found themselves in the Manticorear common room, a cozy, round room full of squashy armchairs.

Griffa directed the girls through one door to their dormitory and the boys through another. At the top of a spiral staircase they were obviously in one of the towers they found their beds at last: five four-posters hung with deep red, velvet curtains. Their trunks had already been brought up. Too tired to talk much, they pulled on their pajamas and fell into bed.

“Great food, isn’t it?” Gallus muttered to Spike through the hangings. “Get off, Class! She’s chewing my sheets.”

Spike was going to ask Gallus if he’d had any of the treacle tart, but he fell asleep almost at once.

Perhaps Harry had eaten a bit too much, because he had a very strange dream. He was wearing Professor Rover's turban, which kept talking to him, telling him he must transfer to Cockatricea at once, because it was his destiny. Spike told the turban he didn’t want to be in Cockatricea; it got heavier and heavier; he tried to pull it off but it tightened painfully and there was Garble, laughing at him as he struggled with it then Garble turned into the hook-nosed teacher, Torch, whose laugh became high and cold there was a burst of green fire and Spike woke, sweating and shaking.

He rolled over and fell asleep again, and when he woke next day, he didn’t remember the dream at all.

Chapter VIII: THE POTIONS DRAGON

There, look.”
“Where?”
“Next to the tall Griffin with the blue and yellow fur.”

“Wearing the glasses?”
“Did you see his face?” “
Did you see his scar?”

Whispers followed Spike from the moment he left his dormitory the next day. Creatures lining up outside classrooms stood on tiptoe and hoovfs to get a look at him, or doubled back to pass him in the corridors again, staring. Spike wished they wouldn’t, because he was trying to concentrate on finding his way to classes.

There were a hundred and forty-two staircases at Celestia School: wide, sweeping ones; narrow, rickety ones; some that led somewhere different on a Friday; some with a vanishing step halfway up that you had to remember to jump. Then there were doors that wouldn’t open unless you asked politely, or tickled them in exactly the right place, and doors that weren’t really doors at all, but solid walls just pretending. It was also very hard to remember where anything was, because it all seemed to move around a lot. The creatures in the portraits kept going to visit each other, and Spike was sure the coats of armor could walk.

The ghosts didn’t help, either. It was always a nasty shock when one of them glided suddenly through a door you were trying to open. Nearly Headless Blue Blood was always happy to point new Manticorears in the right direction, but Discord the Spirit of chaos was worth two locked doors and a trick staircase if you met him when you were late for class. He would drop wastepaper baskets on your head, pull rugs from under your feet, pelt you with bits of chalk, or sneak up behind you, invisible, grab your nose, and screech, “GOT YOUR CONK!”

Even worse than Discord, if that was possible, was the caretaker, Cranky Doodle Donkey. Spike and Gallus managed to get on the wrong side of him on their very first morning. Cranky Doodle Donkey found them trying to force their way through a door that unluckily turned out to be the entrance to the out-of-bounds corridor on the third floor. He wouldn’t believe they were lost, was sure they were trying to break into it on purpose, and was threatening to lock them in the dungeons when they were rescued by Professor Rover, who was passing.

Cranky Doodle Donkey owned a cat called Steven Magnet, a scrawny, purple and orange-colored creature with bulging, lamplike eyes just like Cranky Doodle Donkey’s. He patrolled the corridors alone. Break a rule in front of him, put just one toe out of line, and he’d whisk off for Cranky Doodle Donkey, who’d appear, wheezing, two seconds later. Cranky Doodle Donkey knew the secret passageways of the school better than anyone (except perhaps the Gruff twins) and could pop up as suddenly as any of the ghosts. The students all hated him, and it was the dearest ambition of many to give Steve Magnet a good kick.

And then, once you hadmanaged to find them, there were the classes themselves. There was a lot more to magic, as Spike quickly found out, than waving your wand and saying a few funny words.

They had to study the night skies through their telescopes every Wednesday at midnight and learn the names of different stars and the movements of the planets. Three times a week they went out to the greenhouses behind the castle to study Herbology, with a tall athletic country mare called Professor Applejack, where they learned how to take care of all the strange plants and fungi, and found out what they were used for.

Easily the most boring class was History of Magic, which was the only one taught by a ghost. Professor princess Platinum had been very old indeed when she had fallen asleep in front of the staffroom fire and got up next morning to teach, leaving her body behind her. Princess Platinum droned on and on while they scribbled down names and dates, and got wendigos the Evil and King Sombra the Nightmare Moon mixed up.

Professor Twilight Sparkle, the Charms teacher, was a purple alicorn who had to stand on a pile of books to see over her desk. At the start of their first class she took the roll call, and when she reached Spike’s name she gave an excited squeak and toppled out of sight.

Professor Granny was again different. Spike had been quite right to think she wasn’t a teacher to cross. Strict and clever, she gave them a talking-to the moment they sat down in her first class.

“Transfiguration is some of the most complex and dangerous magic you will learn at Celestia School,” she said. “Anyone messing around in my class will leave and not come back. You have been warned.”

Then she changed her desk into a pig and back again. They were all very impressed and couldn’t wait to get started, but soon realized they weren’t going to be changing the furniture into animals for a long time. After taking a lot of complicated notes, they were each given a match and started trying to turn it into a needle. By the end of the lesson, only Yona yaker had made any difference to her match; Professor Granny Smith showed the class how it had gone all silver and pointy and gave Yona a rare smile.

The class everyone had really been looking forward to was Defense Against the Dark Arts, but Rover’s lessons turned out to be a bit of a joke. His classroom smelled strongly of garlic, which everyone said was to ward off a vampire he’d met in Romaniapony and was afraid would be coming back to get him one of these days. His turban, he told them, had been given to him by an African prince as a thank-you for getting rid of a troublesome zombie, but they weren’t sure they believed this story. For one thing, when Feather Bangs Fmasked eagerly to hear how Rover had fought off the zombie, Rover went pink and started talking about the weather; for another, they had noticed that a funny smell hung around the turban, and the Gruff twins insisted that it was stuffed full of garlic as well, so that Rover was protected wherever he went.

Spike was very relieved to find out that he wasn’t miles behind everyone else. Lots of creatures had come from Muggle families and, like him, hadn’t had any idea that they were magic creatures. There was so much to learn that even creatures like Gallus didn’t have much of a head start.

Friday was an important day for Spike and Gallus. They finally managed to find their way down to the Great Hall for breakfast without getting lost once.

“What have we got today?” Spike asked Gallus as he poured sugar on his porridge.

“Double Potions with the Cockatriceas,” said Gallus. “Torch’s Head of Cockatricea House. They say he always favors them we’ll be able to see if it’s true.”

“Wish Granny Smith favored us,” said Spike. Professor Granny Smith was head of Manticorear House, but it hadn’t stopped her from giving them a huge pile of homework the day before.

Just then, the mail arrived. Spike had gotten used to this by now, but it had given him a bit of a shock on the first morning, when about a hundred owls had suddenly streamed into the Great Hall during breakfast, circling the tables until they saw their owners, and dropping letters and packages onto their laps.

Pee-wee hadn’t brought Spike anything so far. he sometimes flew in to nibble his ear and have a bit of toast before going off to sleep in the owlery with the other school birds. This morning, however, he fluttered down between the marmalade and the sugar bowl and dropped a note onto Spike’s plate. Spike tore it open at once. It said, in a very untidy scrawl:

Dear Spike,

I know you get Friday afternoons off, so would you like to come and have a cup of tea with me around three? I want to hear all about your first week. Send us an answer back with pee wee. Rutherford

Spike borrowed Gallus’s quill, scribbled Yes, please, see you later on the back of the note, and sent pee wee off again. It was lucky that Spike had tea with Rutherford to look forward to, because the Potions lesson turned out to be the worst thing that had happened to him so far.

At the start-of-term banquet, Spike had gotten the idea that Professor Torch disliked him. By the end of the first Potions lesson, he knew he’d been wrong. Torch didn’t dislike Spike he hated him.

Potions lessons took place down in one of the dungeons. It was colder here than up in the main castle, and would have been quite creepy enough without the pickled animals floating in glass jars all around the walls.

Torch like Twlight Sparkle, started the class by taking the roll call, and like Twlight Sparkle, he paused at Spike’s name.

“Ah, yes,” he said softly, “Spike Drago. Our new celebrity.”

Garble and his friends Crackle and Steam sniggered behind their hands. Torch finished calling the names and looked up at the class. His eyes were black like Rutherford’s, but they had none of Rutherford’s warmth. They were cold and empty and made you think of dark tunnels.

“You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making,” he began. He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but they caught every word like Professor Granny Smith, Torch had the gift of keeping a class silent without effort. “As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don’t expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through magic creatures veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses. . . . I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death if you aren’t as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach.”

More silence followed this little speech. Spike and Gallus exchanged looks with raised eyebrows. Yona Yaker was on the edge of her seat and looked desperate to start proving that she wasn’t a dunderhead.

“Potter!” said Snape suddenly. “What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of lionwood?”

Powdered root of what to an infusion of what? Spike glanced at Gallus, who looked as stumped as he was; Yona’s hoof had shot into the air.

“I don’t know, sir,” said Spike.
Torch’s lips curled into a sneer.
“Tut, tut — fame clearly isn’t everything.”
He ignored Yona’s hoof.

“Let’s try again. Drago, where would you look if I told you to find me a beebear?”

Yona stretched her hoof as high into the air as it would go without her leaving her seat, but Spike didn’t have the faintest idea what a beebear was. He tried not to look at Garble, Crackle, and Steam, who were shaking with laughter.

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Thought you wouldn’t open a book before coming, eh, Drago?”

Spike forced himself to keep looking straight into those cold eyes. He had looked through his books at the Riders’, but did Torch expect him to remember everything in One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi?

Torch was still ignoring Yona’s quivering hoof.

“What is the difference, Drago, between monkshood and wolfsbane?”

At this, Yona stood up, her hoof stretching toward the dungeon ceiling. “I don’t know,” said Spike quietly. “I think Yona does, though, why don’t you try her?” A few creatures laughed; Spike caught Feather Bangs’s eye, and Feather Bangs winked. Torch, however, was not pleased. “Sit down,” he snapped at Yona. “For your information, Drago, asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death. A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons. As for monkshood and wolfsbane, they are the same plant, which also goes by the name of aconite. Well? Why aren’t you all copying that down?”

There was a sudden rummaging for quills and parchment. Over the noise, Torch said, “And a point will be taken from Manticorea's House for your cheek, Drago.”

Things didn’t improve for the Manticorears as the Potions lesson continued. Torch put them all into pairs and set them to mixing up a simple potion to cure boils. He swept around in his long black cloak, watching them weigh dried nettles and crush snake fangs, criticizing almost everyone except Garble, whom he seemed to like. He was just telling everyone to look at the perfect way Garble had stewed his horned slugs when clouds of acid green smoke and a loud hissing filled the dungeon. If squeak had somehow managed to melt Feather Bangs’s cauldron into a twisted blob, and their potion was seeping across the stone floor, burning holes in creatures’s shoes. Within seconds, the whole class was standing on their stools while pipsqueak, who had been drenched in the potion when the cauldron collapsed, moaned in pain as angry red boils sprang up all over his arms and legs.

“Idiot colt!” snarled Torch, clearing the spilled potion away with one wave of his wand. “I suppose you added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire?”

Pipsqueak whimpered as boils started to pop up all over his nose.

“Take him up to the hospital wing,” Torch spat at Feather Bangs. Then he rounded on Spike and Gallus, who had been working next to Pipsqueak.

“You Drago why didn’t you tell him not to add the quills? Thought he’d make you look good if he got it wrong, did you? That’s another point you’ve lost for Manticorear.”

This was so unfair that Spike opened his mouth to argue, but Gallus kicked him behind their cauldron.

“Don’t push it,” he muttered, “I’ve heard Torch can turn very nasty.”

As they climbed the steps out of the dungeon an hour later, Spike’s mind was racing and his spirits were low. He’d lost two points for Manticorear in his very first week why did Torch hate him so much?

“Cheer up,” said Gallus, “Torch’s always taking points off Gilda and Feather. Can I come and meet Rutherford with you?” At five to three they left the castle and made their way across the grounds. Rutherford lived in a small wooden house on the edge of the everfree forest. A crossbow and a pair of galoshes were outside the front door.

When Spike knocked they heard a frantic scrabbling from inside and several booming barks. Then Rutherford’s voice rang out, saying, “Back, orthros back.”

Rutherford’s big, hairy face appeared in the crack as he pulled the door open.

“Hang on,” he said. “Back, orthros.”

He let them in, struggling to keep a hold on the collar of an enormous Brown two-headed dog.

There was only one room inside. Hams and pheasants were hanging from the ceiling, a copper kettle was boiling on the open fire, and in the corner stood a massive bed with a patchwork quilt over it.

“Make yerselves at home,” said Rutherford, letting go of orthros , who bounded straight at Gallus and started licking his ears. Like Rutherford, orthros was clearly not as fierce as he looked.

“This is Gallus,” Spike told Rutherford, who was pouring boiling water into a large teapot and putting rock cakes onto a plate.

“Another Gruff, eh?” said Rutherford, glancing at Gallus’s blue feathers. “I spent half me life chasin’ yer twin sisters away from the forest.”

The rock cakes were shapeless lumps with raisins that almost broke their teeth, but Spike and Gallus pretended to be enjoying them as they told Rutherford all about their first lessons.
orthros rested his heads on Spike’s knee and drooled all over his robes.

Spike and Gallus were delighted to hear Rutherford call Cranky Doodle Donkey “that old git.”

“An’ as fer that cat, Steven Magnet, I’d like ter introduce her to orthros sometime. D’yeh know, every time I go up ter the school, he follows me everywhere? Can’t get rid of him — Cranky Doodle Donkey puts him up to it.”

Spike told Rutherford about Torch’s lesson. Rutherford, like Gallus, told Spike not to worry about it, that Torch liked hardly any of the students.

“But he seemed to really hate me.”
“Rubbish!” said Rutherford. “Why should he?”

Yet Spike couldn’t help thinking that Rutherford didn’t quite meet his eyes when he said that.

“How’s yer sister Coraline?” Rutherford asked Gallus. “I liked her a lot great with animals.”

Spike wondered if Rutherford had changed the subject on purpose. While Gallus told Rutherford all about Coraline’s work with dragons, Spike picked up a piece of paper that was lying on the table under the tea cozy. It was a cutting from the Daily Prophet:

NIGHTMARE ZONE BREAK-IN LATEST

Investigations continue into the break-in at nightmare zone on 31 July, widely believed to be the work of Dark creatures unknown. Nightmare zones bat ponies today insisted that nothing had been taken. The vault that was searched had in fact been emptied the same day. “But we’re not telling you what was in there, so keep your noses out if you know what’s good for you,” said a Nightmare zone spokes bat pony this afternoon.

Spike remembered Gallus telling him on the train that someone had tried to rob Nightmare zone, but Gallus hadn’t mentioned the date.

“Rutherford!” said Spike, “that Nightmare zone break-in happened on my birthday! It might’ve been happening while we were there!”

There was no doubt about it, Rutherford definitely didn’t meet Spike’s eyes this time. He grunted and offered him another rock cake. Spike read the story again. The vault that was searched had in fact been emptied earlier that same day. Rutherford had emptied vault seven hundred and thirteen, if you could call it emptying, taking out that grubby little package. Had that been what the thieves were looking for?

As Spike and Gallus walked back to the castle for dinner, their pockets weighed down with rock cakes they’d been too polite to refuse, Spike thought that none of the lessons he’d had so far had given him as much to think about as tea with Rutherford. Had Rutherford collected that package just in time? Where was it now? And did Rutherford know something about Torch that he didn’t want to tell Spike?

To be continued