Magic Mirror On The Wall, Who Is Mightiest Of Them All?

Chapters

Unique-Horn
Meeting New People And Old People
Back To Basics
Mare In The Mirror
A Little Bit Of Adventure
A Season of Generosity
And Now: Sports
When The Sun Sets
Dark Whispers
In An English Country... Suburb
Back Amongst Lions
Early Witch Gets the Pixie
Out of the Bay
Taste For Blood
Something Insidious
Red On Silver
A Coiled Spring
Virtuous Mission
On The Hunt
Making a House Elf Call
Black Stone, Black Soul
Back to School
Reflections in the Dark
A Long Way Left To Go

Unique-Horn

Sunset knew that she was in a castle without anyone having told her. She knew castles, or at least knew them enough to be able to tell this much. She had lived in one for years after all.

She walked over to a window, the shape of her footwear helping her figure out that she ought to walk on her pastern, which felt both odd and natural at the same time, and looked out into the enormous courtyard.

Relatively enormous at least. While it was an impressive castle, with towers and wings and crenellations and battlements and flying buttresses for days, she’d seen bigger.

It was a small town of a castle- very impressive, and yet, Sunset couldn’t help but feel a little sting of nostalgia for Canterlot castle, a large town of a castle, and not just a castle, a palace as well.

Sunset shook her head. Her analysis was clear, she went through the mirror shortly before it went dormant for over two years. It would have been closed for hours now, so no point in getting homesick. This is where she would be in the foreseeable future.

She really ought to get on with realigning her magic focus, but she could forgive herself if she took some time out from this strange experience.

Then again, she was Sunset Shimmer, and she wasn’t going to gain greater power by just doing nothing. With a furrowed brow, she sat down on the bed again, closed her eyes, and started on the long process of redirecting her flow of magic power towards other parts of her body.

There was something special about unicorn horns. There was nothing like them in all of Equestria, but they were also mostly keratin, just like hair and claws. A unicorn’s horn was better at channeling magic, that is true, but an artist of Sunset’s skill could paint with a boomerang, in a storm.

Slowly, gently, Sunset began guiding her magic, the potential for remaking the world, from the part of her that was beyond the material, to her physical body, and making an opening, just a trickle, towards her hair and the claws on her fingers, and she couldn’t help but show a smirk as she felt it working.

“Miss Sunset Shi–” the voice of a mare Sunset didn’t recognise said, and then cut off.

Sunset opened her eyes to see an elder mare, tall and with her mane in a tight bun, staring at her with her eyes wide.

“... Yes, ma’am?” Sunset said, as her fingernails stopped glowing and her mane did the same while coming to rest around her head the way gravity intended.

The mare rallied, and cleared her throat.

“Miss Sunset Shimmer, I am Minerva McGonagall, professor and teacher of transfiguration here at Hogwarts.”

Sunset gently inclined her head towards the tall mare. “Pleased to meet you, Professor Minerva McGonagall.”

Sunset noticed the barest hint of amusement, maybe, on the teacher’s face.

“And you, Miss Shimmer, though you need not use your teacher’s full name, their surnames will suffice.”

Sunset nodded in an easy way, but inside her mind was rabidly cataloguing everything she needed to blend in on this world.

“Now, Madam Pomfrey has given you a clean bill of health. If you are well you will follow me.”

Sunset nodded, relieved that she had already figured out the mystery of the boots before this, and stood up, ready to follow the supremely tightly wound hair knot, and her mane.

The two walked in silence, clearly intended to be uncomfortable for Sunset, which really made it less so for her. Sunset smirked to herself– teachers who wanted to make students’ lives miserable always loudly telegraphed their intentions to her, informing her who to be on her guard around.

The castle wasn’t as luxurious and opulent as Canterlot Castle, not by a long shot. In fact, it was barely that at all, but it was impressive, the sense of history she thought herself sensing deep in the stone, the armors on the walls, and the paintings of people who followed them with their eyes.

Still, it could do with a few personal towers. Sunset had one in Equestria. You can’t be a proper wizard without a tower.

“Ah!” someone said to their side. “Have classes started early this semester?”

Sunset looked to her side, and was too shocked to cry out by what she saw, only barely staying upright as she backpedalled away from the anathema of all that is good in the world.

“Not quite, Friar,” said Mcgonagall, and looked back at Sunset, who was staring at the phantasm with eyes wide, trying not to make it too obvious that she was pressing herself against the wall. “One student simply found herself here early.”

“I see,” the floating, silvery image of a portly friar said happily, and put a piece of equally silvery bit of cheese in his mouth. “That’s a relief- I couldn’t remember any sorting ceremony yet. Almost afraid my mind was going there. Well, welcome to Hogwarts then, feel free to ask us anything.”

The friar seemed to be busy with other things, presumably that passed over cheese, as he didn’t stop to talk more, just nodding his head and smiled at Sunset and floated on through a wall.

“... What was…?” Sunset tried.

“That was The Friar, the ghost of House Hufflepuff,” said McGonagall, staring a little impatiently at Sunset.

The words sunk in, and Sunset rapidly relaxed. Ghosts. Reflections of minds left behind and lingering in the mortal realms. Rare but harmless, indeed often helpful, unlike the true living dead, the collective memories of which still haunted Equestrians despite not appearing again since ancient history.

Still, Sunset thought to perhaps take some more care to not underestimate this world. It clearly had surprises and powers of its own.

Sunset coughed a little, and straightened up. “Well, sorry for the interruption,” she said, and stood ready to continue again.

“... Quite,” McGonagall said, looking at Sunset for a moment more, before continuing.

They briskly walked up towards a gargoyle at the end of a hallway, which stepped aside to reveal a circular staircase behind it. Sunset thought this was very elaborate, perhaps needlessly so, since the merits of simple doors hadn’t been lost on these creatures, as she saw one at the top of the stairs.

That Sunset essentially had to walk with another set of hands pointing forward at the end of her legs proved a little tricky when it came to stairs, and she had to take great care to not stumble over the steps. It was a strange design choice, Sunset thought, to have such clearly hoof-friendly elements in the architecture of a building for creatures so adapted to living in trees. Better perhaps to have some sort of ladder?

“Are you well, Miss Shimmer?” McGonagall asked, looking back at Sunset and her slow, deliberate ascent.

“I’m fine,” Sunset said, a little tersely, just as she figured out that walking on her front footpads, as Harmony intended for her, was acceptable in the case of stairs. “Thank you.”

The door opened just as the mare took the last steps on the stair, with Sunset following her into a circular room, filled with silvery instruments, paintings, bookshelves, esoteric knick-knacks, and old people.

Headmaster Dumbledore was sitting behind a desk, also filled with magical paraphernalia, with one tiny person and one huge person on the other side of the desk.

“Ah, Minerva, and Miss Shimmer. Please, come in,” Dumbledore said. “Miss Shimmer, allow me to introduce Professor Filius Flitwick, professor of charms, and Rubeus Hagrid, keeper of keys and game here at Hogwarts. Filius, Rubeus, Miss Sunset Shimmer.”

“Pleased ter meet ya,” the giant said, holding out a hand in greeting like gryphons would their talons, which Sunset shook.

“Likewise,” Sunset said, amazed at the range of size among these creatures.

“So, the mysterious child,” the other one, Flitwick, said in a cheerful tone, as he shook her hand as well. “I understand you’ve had some previous magical training? I hope you won’t upset the house prestige system too much, although I guess some mixing up would be in order… ah, please don’t tell Severus I said that.”

Sunset half-raised her arm at one of the books on a shelf, and her hair was briefly buffeted as if by a breeze and a slight glow appeared around her hands as the magic power shot through them.

The book shot straight into Sunset’s hand, and she held it up to her face to inspect it. “Yes, but I don’t recognize any of this, so I suspect I’m not too far ahead.”

She looked up from the book when she noticed the silence. All the old people were looking at her silently, McGonagall clearly trying to hold back surprise, Hagrid’s mouth hanging open, while Flitwick and Dumbledore looked amused.

“Hoho!” The short one said, turning to Dumbledore. “We’ll have our hands full with this one.”

“Indeed we may,” he agreed. “Well, Miss Shimmer, we have withdrawn an amount of money from a fund for those without means, which will cover basic books and materiel for you first year of school, and if you accept, funds to cover lodging and meals for the remaining three days before school at a lovely inn called The Leaky Cauldron, whereupon you will, as stated before, be granted access to a dormitory, and provided meals.

“Now, of course, I assume you will be wanting a guide to help you with your purchases in an unfamiliar location, and who can provide further instructions on how to get back here in time for the school term to start.”

Sunset did think that would be helpful, but she also felt she was just barely able to keep up her facade of being from this world, and a member of… whatever species she was, as it was, and was eager to get out from beneath an authority’s gaze and observe from a more comfortable distance.

Three days should be more than enough to familiarize herself enough to shop for school books and a uniform on her own.

“I think I’ll be fine actually,” Sunset said, in an as neutral tone as she could manage.

“Well o’ course yer will be,” Hagrid said, kindly. “But galleons ‘s scarce with student funds. Wouldn’t do ter have someone short-change ye and ye’ll not ‘ave enough for a wand.”

“Indeed, it would be prudent for someone to accompany you,” McGonagall added, and Sunset thought her voice seemed warmer than before.

But what made Sunset really pause was Dumbledore, who stared at her in silence for several moments, with an expression Sunset had seen before, but had trouble placing, but he seemed… sad?

“If that is your wish, we will not force our presence upon you.”

Something turned inside Sunset. “Well, gee, I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful. If anyone wants to help me shop, go ahead.”

“Wonderful,” Dumbledore said. “Hagrid here is busy helping another expected student. Minerva?”

“I am… available,” she said, a little hesitantly.

“As am I, if we can take a few hours off from comparing notes,” Flitwick said.

“Of course.” Dumbledore nodded.

“Thank you,” McGonagall said.

“If you are free to leave right now, Miss Shimmer, then so am I,” the small creature said cheerfully.

—

After they had left, Dumbledore leaned back into his chair and thought about this strange development.

Secrecy, power, and independence. He had seen this before. Hopefully the girl’s polite demeanor wasn’t all a front, like one of Dumbledore’s greatest regrets.

—

Sunset stumbled slightly as she stepped out of the fireplace, and stood there for a moment, staring dead ahead and wondering if what she thought just happened actually did happen. It did, and it was the strangest, clumsiest form of magical travel she had ever seen.

“Ah, The Cauldron,” Flitwick said, stepping out behind her. “Hello, Tom.”

They were standing in a… rustic… old bar, though charming in many ways. Lanterns and oil lamps lit it up, though barely, revealing tables and booths in the dim, orange light, with hooded and robed figures all around, not looking up. Stepping out of fireplaces were apparently commonplace.

An old stallion stood behind the counter, washing a mug. “‘Ello, professor,” he said in a clear voice, despite his lack of teeth. “Wha’ brings ye ‘ere?”

Sunset wondered if everypony in this world except her looked really old.

“Some relaxing shopping,” Flitwick said, and gestured to Tom to come closer.

Flitwick stood up on a chair, and leaned in to whisper into Tom’s ear.

Sunset was a little distracted, and not for the first time, by her ears being stationary, despite the whispered conversation.

Still, she figured out what the conversation was about. Flitwick mentioned Dumbledore, the word “stay”, and Tom’s eyes flicked towards Sunset and shot up, before nodding solemnly at the tiny teacher.

A part of Sunset wanted to speak up and say that they didn’t need to throw sympathy at her, but then again, she was technically an orphan. Either way, no good could have come from it.

“Sunset Shimmer, this is Tom, the innkeeper of The Leaky Cauldron, where you’ll be staying for a few days. Tom, this is Sunset Shimmer.”

“Aye, pleased ter meet ya.”

“Likewise,” Sunset said.

“Well, we must get going,” Flitwick said. “We’ll see you later, Tom.”

“Aye.”

They walked out into the courtyard in the back, with Sunset looking around and taking in the sights all the time, though she was more focused on the magic that permeated the place. There were clearly illusion spells all around, though none that affected her, as well as transformation spells ahead of her.

“Now, please pay attention,” Flitwick said, and drew a wand from his robe, tapping it on a specific set of bricks, making the wall open up and reveal a busy street. “This is Diagon Alley.”

Sunset hadn’t really memorized what he had done, but it didn’t really matter, the spell was obvious and the bricks were so stained with magic she couldn’t overlook it even if she tried.

Her eyes were instead drawn towards the street in front of her. A long, winding path, lined with shops and businesses that went on and on.

Flitwick let her have a moment, standing patiently and smiling at Sunset taking it all in.

And Sunset did need a moment, though she was perhaps more calculating than one would suspect.

Sunset strongly suspected that the creatures of this world couldn’t detect magic as she could, or they’d take steps to clean out the layers, sediments really, of decaying old spells, and raw magic power that was coating everything, slowly evaporating over generations.

It was actually quite worrying, like if someone never, ever cleaned their bathroom, year after year, decade after decade. Luckily it was just strange, rather than unhygienic, and didn’t put a damper on Sunset’s appetite.

Still, it had to interfere with magical research, and even many normal spells. Sunset strongly suspected that the street had been straight at one point, and was becoming more and more twisted. Or perhaps that it had been a round circuit, and was slowly straightening out.

It didn’t seem to bother anypony here though, so it probably wasn’t a problem. Still, you could never keep Canterlot so magically dirty that it warped streets, however slowly- it was built on the side of a mountain after all.

Sunset was also now fairly sure that there was only one type of… whatever she was. She saw no wings, no horn, or nothing else that put them apart from each other besides size. There were no flying creatures in the sky either.

Suddenly, a mare in a black robe and a funny hat appeared next to Sunset and Flitwick with a bang, practically spraying them with excess magic.

She walked past them as if she hadn’t noticed them, and perhaps she hadn’t, but Flitwick seemed undisturbed by the display.

Sunset changed her mind. Floo travel was not the worst way to travel magically. That was. It was almost fascinating, being so sloppy, unsafe, and accomplishing less than proper teleportation.

“Ah, yes, that was apparition, which you’ll no doubt learn yourself in a few years–” Sunset balked at the thought “–You still have your shoulder bag? Good. Now, please come along,” Flitwick said, and noticed that Sunset hadn’t moved. “Miss? Are you quite alright?”

Sunset had stopped in the opening in the brick wall, and looked around her suspiciously, before registering the teacher’s words. “Y… yes, I’m alright,” she said, and carefully strode past the wall into Diagon Alley.

“Now, I have seen you do some magic without a wand, which isn’t exactly unusual, but you will of course need one for any magic that requires control and sophistication, and I suggest we do so first, and I can go take care of some financial business while you pick one out.”

“Yes, professor,” Sunset said, glad she was walking behind him, as she was rolling her eyes so much she was starting to get dizzy.

Sunset reined herself in though. Flitwick was an interesting enough stallion to listen to, as he enthusiastically told Sunset tidbits of history, political drama, and a few personal exploits about the places they passed.

Apparently, the people who knew of and could wield magic were in a vast minority in this world, taking great care to hide themselves from non-magical humans (“muggles”. Strange term) and every magical man, woman, and child were bound by ancient conventions to never reveal magic to them

Humans, men, women, boys, girls, and children- Sunset mentally printed the word down and let out a sigh of relief. Finally, she knew the most basic terms for the people of this world. She was a girl, rather than a mare or a filly.

There were other things she was soaking up like a sponge as well, like how everyone, another helpful term, were dressed at all times, which made sense with the lack of coats, and how they were apparently omnivores, and so on.

Many differences to be sure, but none in truly fundamental ways. These beings, humans, they had language, arts, culture, and commerce. They used the insides of their heads to think, they breathed air, ate food, some lived in cities, some out in the country, the sky was blue, clouds were white or grey, gravity held people on the ground, and they existed in three dimensions. She could get used to this

Sunset still wondered what the point of hiding themselves from non-magical beings was, but figured she’d have to wait before getting the answer to that.

“Here we are. Garrick Ollivander, of the Olivanders.”

“And this is the finest store for wands, which is one of the cornerstones of the magical way of life?” Sunset asked, looking at the small and sort of shabby place.

“Indeed,” Flitwick said, and opened the door. “Come along now.”

The inside of the small store was dusty and little dark, with shelves going to the ceiling, all filled with neat little packages.

“Why, Filius,” a elderly stallion… man, suddenly said, from the teacher’s side, making him jump a little into the air. “I have to assume you’re not here for a new wand. You always showed great responsibility when it came to that.”

Sunset had to struggle not to shake her head at the sight of yet another old person.

“No, I am here with the young Miss Sunset Shimmer, a soon-to-be student.”

Ollivander turned to look at Sunset, freezing on the spot.

“Well, I shall be back momentarily,” Flitwick said. “Don’t worry about payment my dear, that will be covered.”

“... Yes,” Ollivander said, a bit distractedly, as Flitwick exited. “Yes indeed.”

Sunset stood her ground as the wandmaker gently raised a hand, and strode up to Sunset as if she was a scared rabbit he was sneaking up on, despite her looking straight at him.

He gently brushed a finger against her hair, humming to herself.

“I don’t want to be rude,” Sunset said, a bit coldly, “but I was led to believe that I could get a wand here.”

Ollivander pulled back his fingers as if Sunset’s hair was suddenly red hot. “Yes… yes indeed,” he said to himself, before turning and taking a look into Sunset’s eyes, then smiled a little and swished back to a shelf behind the counter.

“A wand is the limb of a witch or wizard,” Ollivander said, searching through the shelves (Sunset still thought it was strange that “wizard” was a gendered term). “A channel for their inner magical abilities. I favor the phoenix feather, the dragon heartstrings, and of course the hair of unicorns, which is what I think of when I see you, my dear. Curious. Every part of a unicorn is filled with powerful magic. Difficult to make them part with their hairs of course, but always a pleasure to work with. Wonderful creatures. Yes, absolutely wonderful.”

Sunset folded her arms. “Flattery will get you nowhere,” she said, before she could stop herself.

Ollivander’s wide-eyed gaze shot towards Sunset, making him look like a startled owl.

He quickly tiptoed back up to her, taking a lock of her hair in his hand and inspecting it closely, before looking into Sunset’s eyes, startled.

“My lady!” he gasped, and just continued looking at her for a moment. “... How?”

Sunset shrugged casually, and realized she had just lied. She did feel a bit more favourably inclined towards Ollivander. “Long story, but I’m gonna make the best of it.” She raised an eyebrow at the man. “It’s not a problem I hope.”

“No,” Ollivander said, forcefully, then calmed down. “No, it is not, but perhaps I may…?”

Sunset reached up to her head, and pulled out three long strands of hair between her thumb and index finger, which she held out to Ollivander.

Confidence seemed to come back to Ollivander, and he smiled and set to work. Sunset found herself a little surprised as he raised her arms and measured the span of them, and her height, even her girth, all the while talking to himself.

“Hmm, strong, healthy, and no wonder. Powerful, of course, and quick. Nothing to ease the use is required, in fact perhaps the opposite. Unusual… of course. Holly, maybe, but perhaps… redundant. Yew… maybe, or perhaps something… yes, something… exotic.”

He stalked towards the back of the store, clutching the three hairs. Sunset leaned over the counter to see him bent over a desk, digging through a box.

“Yes, yes, here,” he muttered to himself, and walked out of Sunset’s sight.

For about fifteen minutes, all she heard was the tapping and knocking of wood on wood, with the occasional mumbling from Ollivander, before he emerged again, a wand in his hand.

“Here,” he said, and held it out to Sunset. “Post oak, eleven and a half inches, thick and stout. Difficult to wield for most, but… perhaps not for you.”

Sunset gently took it, and it felt warm, familiar and… ready. Ready for her to use it to alter reality around her.

It wasn’t vital, she could get along fine without it, but it was one tool among many on her quest, which she hadn’t given up on. If anything, her resolve was only stronger.

She gave it a little flick, and a red and golden feather gently appeared at the tip.

Ollivander leaned forward to look at it. “Despite appearances… not a phoenix feather,” he said, smiling almost conspiratorially at Sunset.

At this point, Flitwick entered the store, with a jovial look on his face. “Ah, all done?” he asked. “Seven Galleons.”

Flitwick reached up and put the coins in a neat little stack on the counter, and Ollivander gave them the merest nod of recognition. “Thank you, Filius,” he said, and gently reached for Sunset’s hand, which she held out for him. He carefully took it in his own, and bowed very slightly. “It has been an honor.”

“Thank you,” she said, surprising herself with how she meant it.

Flitwick’s looked back and forth between Sunset and Ollivander, surprised, as they exited the store.

“Made an impression on him then?”

“I suppose so.”

Sunset held out the red and gold feather, and twirled it slightly in her fingers. No indeed, it was not a phoenix’s feather, and it wasn’t real either… but one day.

The books had to be bought second hoof… hand, and Sunset was glad that Flitwick had come with her by now, as he was obviously a popular figure in this place, being familiar and on friendly terms with just about every store-owner and most of their employees, and so they were very willing, almost eager, to dig up the best books despite their tight budget.

Of course, he didn’t say anything out loud, but the fact that the professor asked for the cheaper options made everyone look at Sunset with sad eyes, nodding solemnly at the professor.

“Poor dear,” said Madam Malkin, who was less reserved in her sympathy than others, muttering to herself as she measured Sunset. “Foul business it was. Absolutely horrid. Hells take them all I say.”

Sunset was memorising it all as best as she could without understanding what she was referring to. Luckily, it didn’t seem to be inappropriate, and perhaps even a little sympathetic, to act stoically when being reminded that she was an orphan.

And… it was technically true.

“... And left destitute. Well, I’ll not have a girl as pretty as you leave the store with rags, I’ll whip up something fetching, don’t you worry.”

“... Thank you,” Sunset said. It hadn’t yet turned into asking who her parents had been and how that “foul business” had affected her, and luckily it didn’t before she could leave the store.

Sunset thanked the proprietor, and grabbed her bag from the corner, which was filled with so many books it weighed more than Flitwick. He looked on in astonishment as she threw it over her shoulder like it was filled with feathers.

“Professor?” Sunset asked, as they walked down the street, Sunset’s new clothes in a package underneath her arm and a wide, pointy hat on her head. “Everyone here seems… uhm… actually, do any of my books cover recent history, some… ten, fifteen years ago?”

“Indeed they do. I believe that Modern Magical History and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts covers what you’re wondering about.”

“Thank you.”

Sunset could only hope she hadn’t revealed too much about herself with that little inquiry. Flitwick didn’t press her on it though.

“And here we are,” Flitwick said, as they returned to the yard behind The Leaky Cauldron. “I’ve made all the arrangements with Tom, the innkeep you’ll recall. The fund has covered your stay up until the first of September, three days from now. You’ll have a room here and four meals per day until then. All your papers are in your bag I hope? Booklist, letter of admission?”

Sunset nodded, patting the bag.

“Good. Now, you are free to come and go as you like, both in Diagon Alley and muggle society, though I recommend you do not stray too far. London is a large and sometimes scary place,” Flitwick said, and his eyes became stern, though not unkind. “And you are of course not allowed to do magic around muggles, or there will be severe consequences. You are technically allowed to discuss magic subjects with them, though I don’t recommend it. The poor dears won’t understand and will probably think you’re funny in the head.”

Sunset kept herself from frowning in thought. Even on just one shopping trip she had picked up a lot of disdain for non-magical humans, and even the kind and patient Professor Flitwick didn’t seem to have very high thoughts about them.

“And of course follow the rules of underage magic. You also have the instructions on how to get to King’s Cross Station?” Flitwick asked.

“Yes.”

“Good, that should be everything. I realize it is a little frustrating to be stuck here, right by Diagon Alley, with no funds to entertain yourself. As a professor, it would be inappropriate to play favorites, but less so if it’s a secret. So… here.”

With a pleasant tinging sound, Flitwick flipped a golden coin at Sunset, who managed to catch it in her lap. “It’s not much, but it’ll buy you a meal on the Hogwarts Express. It’s a long ride.”

“Thank you, sir,” Sunset said, once again not having to fake any emotions.

“That should be everything. I’ll see you in a few days then.”

“See you, professor,” Sunset said, as Flitwick stepped into the fireplace and vanished.

Tom, who had stood patiently behind her, approached a little closer. “‘Ello again, Miss Shimma’, oi’ll show ya to ye room.”

Tom, like many others in this place, reminded Sunset of particularly rustic earth ponies. The urban kind you got in the really old parts of Fillydelphia.

She let herself fall down onto the bed, breathing long, heavy sighs of relief at having gone through the entire shopping round without any real hiccup. She calmed herself with making a list of things she needed to do, and starting to assign priorities.

She needed to find out more about the world, and figure out how to do that, as well as developing a feel for things in general, common names and such, pastimes, more human-specific terms and various things needed to blend in.

Start studying the subjects at school. That was a given. There was also the matter of the wand, a strange kind of magic not common in Equestria, with its own spells and rules and…

… That’s right. Speaking of spells, this had to come first.

She sat up and magically inspected herself. True enough, the sensation she had felt when passing through the hole in the brick wall was indeed from a spell. It was a strange one, but only because Sunset wasn’t very used to construction techniques in this world.

It was a surveillance spell, which fed information about magic readings on and around her to somewhere else- most likely that much-talked-about Ministry of Magic.

“Cast a spell on me, will you?” Sunset said, and held out her hands.

Magic power surged through her fingers as she prodded the weave of the magic.

Sunset strongly suspected that very few, if any, humans could detect and analyze magic like she could, since there were very few protections against tamperings with the spell. That did of course make Sunset inspect it even closer, in case a function like that was trickilly hidden, but no, it wasn’t.

With a few snips and some redirection, the surveillance spell was altered to only send negatives.

This was probably illegal, but Sunset felt as justified as she could. If people could cast spells on her without her consent, she could do what she wanted with them. If she wasn’t to tamper with it, the authorities should have informed her of it. How was she to know?

With a pleased smirk, Sunset was about to inspect her wand closer, when there was a knock on the door.

“Miss Shimma’? Dinner is ready.”

Wands later. It had been quite a day.

Meeting New People And Old People

The next morning, Sunset was sitting down in the restaurant area, Tom apparently didn’t mind that students were studying there, reading her books, a wallpaper of sound behind her, made up of muttered conversations, clinkings of cutlery, and the crackling of the fire.

Suddenly, the room was absolutely silent, as everyone was focused on something by the entrance.

Sunset leaned to look around the fireplace blocking her view, but by then, there was a crowd doing that instead.

Rubeus Hagrid was there though, which was hard to miss, looking amused at something next to him, about his knee-height. He saw her and waved at her. A little distracted by her curiosity, she waved back.

It was clear that someone named Harry Potter was there, which is what caused the stirr. After about fifteen minutes of fawning, bowing, and handshaking, Hagrid eventually had to lead a thin colt… boy, towards Diagon Alley.

He caught her eyes as he looked around, and she nodded in recognition towards him.

Curiosity flared up inside her, and she dug out the history books Flitwick had mentioned, checked the index, and saw that he was a central player in about a quarter of the book.

A quick summary at the earliest mention told Sunset that some ten years ago, some frighteningly powerful wizard called “the dark lord” emphasis on the, something else that might deserve some research, had for some reason personally gone to kill Harry Potter’s family. Despite being powerful enough to wage war against magical society as a whole, he had killed Harry’s parents, but failed to kill Harry Potter himself, and had perished in the attempt.

Sunset looked up at the doorway to the alley that Harry and Hagrid had recently gone through, intrigued.

Not that going up and getting a close look would’ve done much. He didn’t look like he had time to stop and talk anyway, and if he can kill really powerful wizards as a baby, then perhaps he was best studied from a distance.

Shortly after the buzz surrounding Harry Potter had died down, a black-clad trio stepped through the fireplace, a stallion, a mare, and a colt. Of course, everyone here was clad in black, but most didn’t have silver chains and linings adorning their clothes. Their manes, “hair” around here, were immaculate, and held flat against their heads.

Sunset would know their kind no matter what universe she was in. Rich people. A certain flavor of rich people too- second-place rich people.

In the grand pyramid of society, all the tiers are instinctively unwilling to accept those from below into their tier. It was particularly amusing higher up, where people had more power to prevent others from ascending, but where those just below were relatively few and could be very useful and accumulate a lot of favors.

“Important” people could be practically bred for, and spend their entire lives doing very little other than juggling favors and parcels of, mostly imagined, privilege, power, and recognition.

It took years before Sunset realized just how cleverly Celestia had boxed in the nobility. Common ponies didn’t realize the sheer amount of favor currying and drama that went on in the high echelons of society, and the nobility didn’t realize that they were but a weight, although be it one she had lessened considerably, on Equestrian society as it slowly and with consideration marched ever onwards towards greater heights of power and harmony.

So long as the nobles had their manors, and medals, and fancy restaurants that commoners were not allowed to visit, and their special boxes in the theatres, Celestia only needed to prod and rearrange matters ever so slightly to keep noble society a self-perpetuating bubble of isolation, barely affecting the countless lives of her little ponies.

“Witness now, the folly of well-dressed dancers,” she once said, in a strangely dramatic manner, as she stamped a counter-proposal to build a new bridge somewhere in Canterlot.

From that came a flurry of activity, whisperings, favor-currying, meetings disguised as dinner parties, and even a wedding or two. It was… dizzying, and all from a well-placed smidgen of red ink on a paper.

Sunset shook the thoughts of Celestia out of her head. She didn’t need to dwell on her now.

Point was that these rich people were powerful and wanted others to know it, displaying it in that manner Sunset was very familiar with by now.

Their clothes and bearings shouted “we are the most powerful!”, but which Sunset knew to mean “We are not quite as powerful as we would like you to think and we really don’t want you to realize that.”

The stallion… man, glanced at Tom, who nodded and smiled at him, but was ignored as the trio instead walked up to a… frankly ugly mare, or woman, whom they greeted as a friend.

The colt… boy, seemed wholly uninterested. The woman addressed him briefly, but only gave her a short reply, then walked off, looking bored.

Either way, Sunset figured it wasn’t her business, and went back to reading.

Apparently, many of the enemy agents and combatants during the dark lord’s war had been cleared of charges due to being coerced and magically influenced. Sunset felt the inquiries had been wrapped up rather quickly for such a complicated state of affairs.

She became aware of a presence, and looked up at the boy standing next to her

“... Hello?” she ventured.

“Hello. What are you reading?”

“Modern Magical History,” Sunset said, angling the cover so he could see it. “Why?”

The boy shrugged. “Just curious,” he said, and sat down. “I’m Draco Malfoy.”

Sunset felt she had missed a few steps in their acquaintanceship. “Sunset Shimmer.”

“That’s a strange name,” Draco said, without any compunction. The conversation wasn’t getting easier for Sunset to follow. “That book’s on my list. Are you a first year?”

“In a few days, yes,” Sunset said, still not having turned to face Draco properly.

Draco hummed, and looked around. “Are you alone? I don’t see anyone else. You’re not a Weasley are you?”

Sunset gave up, and simply leaned back and went along with this. “I have no idea what that is.”

“Good,” Draco said, and was silent for a few moments. “Do you play quidditch?”

Sunset did know what quidditch was, vaguely. “No.”

“Oh. What house are you going to be in?”

From what Sunset knew, this wasn’t something one would know before they started in the school. “I don’t know yet.”

“Mmm. I’m going to be in Slytherin. That’s where my parents were. What house were your parents in? They weren’t muggles, were they?”

They were not. Sunset Shimmer could trace her lineage back to the ancient house of Platinum, the proud history of which dated back to before the founding of Equestria, thousands of years ago.

Of course, even to this day about half of all ponies in Equestria could do so in some way. House Platinum had been vast before it very slowly and gradually faded, but that was beside the point.

“No.”

“Good–” Sunset narrowed her eyes a little “– So you’re reading textbooks? I guess that’ll have to do for most. It’s so unfair that we can’t do magic outside of school, isn’t it?”

Sunset could agree on that. “Yes it is.”

“My father has been pulling strings and letting me practice at home. Should put me ahead of most, perhaps even some second years. You’ll see, I’ll be the top of the class.”

Sunset nodded silently at Draco, searching for words and being completely lost as to who he was and why he was talking to her. “I’m sure I will.”

“Come along, Draco,” the woman said, glancing at Sunset past her nostrils.

Sunset couldn’t have been offended even if she wanted to. She was too busy trying to figure out what the hay was with these people.

“Bye,” the boy said.

“... Goodbye?”

Sunset watched them leave, and remembered seeing Hogwarts: A History, in the bookstore yesterday.

She got up, stretched, and decided it was time for some on-hands research.

Quick glances out the windows were all that was required to see that the clothes she had arrived with would blend in much better than the school uniform in the muggle world.

She walked up to her room and emptied her bag, walked down and nodded at Tom, and stepped out onto the streets.

There was a lot of slow sauntering and leaning against lamp posts involved in understanding the non-magical world.

This was actually more alien than the magical world had been, despite being the “default” society, which she couldn’t count the magical one as being, since it stayed hidden.

The self-moving vehicles were the most eye-catching, and the automatic traffic wardens, but what Sunset found particularly intriguing was a stallion in a business suit walking by in a hurry, talking and listening to a plastic brick. Instant long-distance communication without magic.

This city, London, was loud, dirty, and smelled pretty bad, but it was still impressive, especially since no magic had been used in its construction.

Sunset would’ve been hard-pressed to not learn as much as possible about this world instead, and what it had to offer, if not for the fact the road to becoming an alicorn lay with magic.

She paused outside a small café, and read the menu. A coffee and a pastry, five-hundred and fifty units of money.

That could be a good introduction into learning about muggles. But where to get some money?

She leaned against another streetlamp, looking like she was lazily waiting for something, but keeping an eye on the counter inside the small establishment.

After witnessing a few transactions, Sunset nodded to herself, impressed. Both printed and minted money.

Walking in slowly expanding circles, with The Leaky Cauldron as the center, Sunset came across another interesting sight.

A small line in front of a window in the wall, surrounded by panels of stainless steel.

People would stand in line in front of the strange device, press buttons do something with plastic cards, and money would come out of a slot to the side.

Sunset once again lazily leaned against a lamp post, only getting strange looks from people who were moving on, to make sure she got the concept correctly.

Automated bank tellers. Between this, the traffic wardens, and the self-propelled carriages, muggles must free up so many hooves… hands, that their economy must be soaring.

Sunset had to shake her head and laugh to herself. That witches and wizards looked down on muggles must be ignorance, or perhaps even jealousy.

After the line had faded, Sunset glanced around the street, and approached the machine.

With a slight glow around her hands, she magically felt around inside the machine. A series of steel arrangements locked the hatch to the money, making it near impossible to rob, at least without magic.

Sunset looked around again, a little nervously, but no one was around or thought she looked out of place.

After a little while, Sunset pulled out a handful of bills. Ten units of money per note, so three hundred of those. She figured that should be enough to experiment with a café visit without getting into trouble.

Sunset walked away from the machine, looking at the money note.

“Bank of England... pounds... more old people?”

—

“‘Ello, luv,” the portly woman behind the counter greeted Sunset as she walked in. “Fancy a cup’a?”

Sunset’s minds started racing, trying to figure that one out. “Uh, yes, thank you, and ah… a blueberry muffin.”

“Roight you are, luv. Your parents about?”

“Uh, they’re… I’ll probably be done here before I need to worry about them.”

“Oh? Doing somethin’ borin’ then?”

“Uh yes, they’re… at the maritime museum,” Sunset ventured.

“Oh!” the woman winced in sympathy. “Well you just make yourself comfortable here. Did you bring homework?” She looked at Sunset’s shoulder bag.

“Uh, yes, in a sense. Oh, by the way,” Sunset said, and fished out the handful of notes.

The lady drew for breath, and quickly lowered Sunset’s hands back into the bag again. “Oh don’t you go ‘roun showing that in London, dear,” She said, and deftly fished one ten-pound note from between Sunset’s fingers.

“‘Ere you are, dearie,” she said, giving Sunset her change back. “New to the place are ya? Let me guess… California?”

Sunset reached for the first thing that came to mind. “Close enough,” she said.

“Always wanted to go. Not to Los Angeles mind, too much concrete for my loiking. I think San Francisco might be more for me. But oh well, London ‘ad to do.”

“Don’t worry, it’s not going anywhere,” Sunset improvised, while logging more terms to research.

“Roight ye are,” she said, and smiled at Sunset. “An’ ‘ere’s ye muffin.”

“I have a… strange question,” Sunset suddenly said.

“Mm?”

“If… you were a visitor from another world, and you were trying to blend in, right here and now, what would do next to learn about the world?”

The woman looked at Sunset with a confused expression for a moment, teapot still in her hand.

“Ye got me there, luv. Hmm, go ‘round the corna’, look at the used bookstore, see if they got any o’ them encyclopedia."

That did it. If even muggles like this one thought that fast, that was all the confirmation Sunset needed to decide that muggles were not to be trifled with.

—

The books came down with a heavy thud on the bed. The man at the store had stared in disbelief at Sunset swinging the bag over her shoulder. That was another strange thing she had noticed people doing.

She lay down on the bed, and spread the books out around her, taking one of those clever muggle pens with their internal ink-cartridges in her mouth, filling up a little notebook.

Looking up London and England had led to her learning about the United Kingdoms, and Europe, the countries in it, the continents, the countries in those, the geography of the world, and the humans that inhabited it.

Looking up humans had led to different languages, ethnicities, some quick history, and modern society.

She needed more research, but at least she felt she could pass as a muggleborn without trouble now. She knew about football, bobbies, what the different kinds of footwear was called, and that “apple” referred to both food and a brand of thinking-engines.

Between her books and her school supplies, her bag needed to be bigger on the inside than the outside, which was simple enough, and she decided to make it lighter as well.

Sunset took another foray into Diagon Alley to visit Gringotts, a bank run by diminutive little creatures called goblins, who looked a little like perpetually angry versions of Flitwick.

She walked up to a counter, where one sat, not looking up as she approached.

She knew this game, she played it with Cadence sometimes, so she simply waited.

After several minutes, the goblin put down the paper. “Can I help you?”

“You can if you can switch British pounds for Galleons,” she said, and put the money down on the counter.

The goblin looked at the bills, quickly counting them before looking up at Sunset again. “Do you have an account with us?”

“No.”

“Wizards and witches must be of age to open accounts with Gringotts.”

“Do I need an account to make the exchange?”

“... No.”

“Then I’ll take the money to go.”

“Gringotts will not be held responsible for money lost outside of our vaults,” the goblin said, forcefully.

“Naturally. I am ready to make the exchange.”

A pile of gold coins were deposited on the counter, a currency which Sunset had developed a bit of a reference for the value of, and Sunset had to put on her coldest straight face to put them in her bag slowly and calmly walk out of the bank.

It wasn’t until she was several buildings away from Gringotts when her eyes finally shot wide open and she leaned against a wall, taking deep breaths. In the end, all she could do was say, “... whoops.”

She had to be more careful. No one knew of it of course, unless she had underestimated the muggles as much as the witches and wizards had of course, but still, committing jail-worthy offences without knowing spoke poorly of her ability to lay low.

She took a few calming breaths, and walked in Flourish and Blotts, the bookstore.

She had noticed by now that she did catch a few looks from people, especially those close to her age, but she forced the feeling of unease down. It was just nerves.

She found the book on Hogwarts’ history, and set to reading.

Finally, what the boy had said made some sense. Ravenclaw for smart and quick thinking people, Slytherin for the cunning and ambitious, and also blood purity- big thing among them. Gryffindor was for brave people, not bad in itself but Sunset wasn’t sure why they made a house out of it, and Hufflepuff for those who work hard and value fair play, a house that people apparently looked down on, which spoke volumes.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you didn’t want to go to Hogwarts!”

Sunset looked up to see a tall woman, an old one as usual, in a green dress and… a stuffed vulture, in her hat, glaring at a boy around her own physical age, walking through the store.

“No, I do! Someone here must know.”

“What would your parents say if they knew you forgot the list of books for your first year?”

Sunset thought the odds were that they probably would have asked if they could borrow someone else’s list, as she reached into her bag without looking up from her book.

As the two walked past, she held the booklist out between her fingers over her shoulder.

“I…” the woman stopped as she noticed Sunset, holding the list. “... Thank you, my dear. Neville, what do you say?”

“Thank you,” the boy, Neville, mumbled.

“Don’t mention it.”

“Augusta Longbottom,” the woman said, holding out her hand.

Sunset closed the book, and shook the hand. “Sunset Shimmer.”

“Are you starting your first year at Hogwarts as well?” she asked.

“I am.”

“Are your parents with you, Miss Shimmer?”

No, they passed away.”

“... Ah. I apologize,” Augusta said.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Well look closely, Neville. It pays to study.”

The boy stared down on the ground, blushing. Sunset felt a vicarious sense of indignation when seeing him.

“It’s the magic that requires the most work anyway, and we’re not allowed to practice that,” she said.

“Oh, you’re allowed a little spell or two around adults,” Augusta said.

Sunset raised her eyebrows, and pulled out her wand. With a small swish, Neville’s booklist came floating out of his back pocket.

“Not quite forgotten I guess,” Sunset noted.

She was a little worried that Augusta would be indignant or angry, but both she and Neville just stared at her in silence.

“What?”

“Silent magic, and not even at Hogwarts yet,” Augusta said.

“Oh,” Sunset said, and mentally kicked herself. Of course that would draw attention to her as well. Now she’d have to learn what all the spells were called, and start saying them out loud whenever people were looking.

Augusta looked at Sunset for a moment longer, before giving the book list to Neville in a much kinder tone. “Go ask the clerk to help you with the books, Neville, there’s a good lad.”

“So, Miss Shimmer,” Augusta said, making Sunset wonder just what kind of faux pas she had committed now. Then she relaxed a little, and continued in a much more conversational tone. “Any house you favor?”

“At Hogwarts you mean? Not really.”

“Which one were your parents in? I don’t recognise your name.”

“They didn’t attend Hogwarts. I’ve moved here recently.”

“I see. Well, a marvelous place, you will have many fine memories from going there, I’m sure. However… there are unsavory aspects to the place. The children bring the bad sides and prejudices of their parents with them.”

That made perfect sense in this place, Sunset thought. There were a lot of prejudices going around, along with unchecked ambition, and a government that her admittedly limited dealings with had not been positive.

She nodded in understanding, still not sure where Augusta was going with this.

“You clearly have talent, to the point where your fellow student, including older ones, will be interested in them.”

Of course. Sunset knew about that. Celestia, early on in her education, shielded her from those elements, but only while she taught her to recognise and defend herself against them.

Augusta glanced towards Neville. “My grandson… might not have that problem.”

“He might have later,” Sunset noted, with her arms folded. “But I’m not interested in causing trouble for your grandson. I’m going to Hogwarts to learn.”

Augusta nodded. “There are those who will want to cause trouble for you then.”

“I understand,” Sunset said. She wanted to scoff at that notion, she could avoid being noticed if she wished, but then again, she had made a few minor mistakes already. It might only be a matter of time before she made a larger one. She slowly nodded, and looked up at Augusta. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Miss Shimmer,” she said, and turned to join Neville in picking out his books.

Sunset turned to look out the window, seeing Harry Potter and Rubeus Hagrid walking past, who waved happily at her. Sunset found herself smiling for some reason, and waved back.

She thought it was strange that Augusta Longbottom had strongly indicated to someone much more magically powerful than her grandson that his talents were lacking.

It wasn’t until she had paid for her book and was halfway back at the leaky cauldron that she realized that she had probably revealed quite a lot about herself to someone clever enough, few though her words had been, and to someone old enough to perhaps be associates with the faculty at Hogwarts. It was a maybe, but it was an interesting maybe all the same.

“Hmm... not bad,” she said to herself, and kept walking.

—

The day had come to go to Hogwarts. The previous day had largely been spent by Sunset reading up on Hogwarts and the magical world, but she had also visited King’s Cross Station, and mapped out a route for her to teleport there. She didn’t quite have enough control over her magic with her hair to do it in one go, so she had found an appropriate rooftop halfway between The Leaky Cauldron and the station.

She packed her bag, double checked that she had everything, thanked Tom on the way out, and walked into an alley.

Less than three seconds later, she stepped out from another alley and walked across the street to the station.

She counted the platforms, and once she reached nine, she saw Harry Potter standing next to a stocky woman with red hair, a whole clan of redheads in fact, pushing a trolley with a very heavy-looking luggage, and a birdcage with a somewhat impatient-looking owl.

Sunset shook her head, finding it a bit irresponsible for people with magic to dangle a magical solution in front of youngsters who weren’t allowed to solve it that way. Oh well.

Harry vanished into the brick barrier that separated the tracks.

“Huh. That answers that,” Sunset said to herself, and sauntered up towards the barrier as the red haired people casually walked in through the magical entrance.

“Ma’am,” she said, nodding at the woman and her remaining child, the only girl in the group, and gestured for them to go first.

“Oh, no you go ahead, dearie,” the woman assured her.

“Thank you,” Sunset said, and stepped through the portal, finding herself just under a low-hanging cloud, created from a scarlet red locomotive to her side.

All around her were hundreds, possibly over a thousand, children of various ages, and parents seeing them off, and catching up with each other.

Cats and owls hooted, children laughed in excitement, some cried at the thought of leaving their parents for almost a year. Sunset couldn’t blame them.

“Are you alone as well then, dear?” The red-haired woman asked Sunset from her side, having come through the portal.

“I’m sorry?”

“You’re not the first one we’ve seen today without their parents.”

“Oh. Yes, I am,” Sunset said, and shook her head with a small smile at the expression of the woman and her child. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Now that’s impossible,” she started, before noticing one of two identical boys up to something, and stormed off towards them. “Fred, where did you get that hubcap!?”

Sunset was left with the smaller, red haired girl.

“... Hullo,” she said, nervously.

“Hello. Are you starting Hogwarts as well?”

“No… next year.”

“Hey mum, guess what?” Sunset heard one of the boys say in the distance. “That black haired boy? He’s Harry Potter!”

The girl gasped, and ran up to the identical boys to ask them more.

Sunset only found the innocent impertinence amusing. That stuff was almost refreshing after spending too much time in Canterlot Castle. Celestia herself vanished a few hours every week, sometimes more, and Sunset always strongly suspected that she was simply slumming it, tossing darts with some working class types somewhere or something.

Sunset kicked herself, wondering why she kept making herself think of Celestia again and again.

She strolled along the platform, the dim and chatter helping her take her mind off her old teacher, she noticed Augusta and Neville.

She was squeezing Neville’s shoulder comfortingly, and he answered to whatever she was saying and nodded with a slightly somber look on his face.

Then Augusta vanished with that abominable teleportation spell, making Sunset flinch.

Neville started hauling his heavy, wheeled luggage up the stairs to the train, but not making a lot of progress until Sunset walked up and lifted the bottom with one hand.

“Oh! Th-thank you, uhm… Sunset?”

“Correct. Neville, right?”

“Uhm, yes, that’s right.”

The conversation was cut off before it could even start by a brown haired girl slamming into Sunset. Or rather, running into and bouncing off of Sunset, who barely stumbled.

“Hey, watch where you’re going!” she said, from the floor.

“Uuh,” Sunset said, trying to think up some witty response, before realizing she didn’t care, and simply walked off. “Whatever.”

“Hey, I’m talking to you!”

“I can tell,” Sunset said, not looking back.

A whistle sounded, and Sunset figured she’d might as well find a seat before she’s the last person to do so.

She opened a door to a compartment where a bunch of older girls sat, chatting animatedly, with one seat free.

“Is that seat taken?” she asked.

“Uh, yes!” one of them hissed at her, like she had just asked if the woods is the bear’s bathroom.

“How nice for you.” Sunset shrugged, and moved on.

Sunset walked up to and glanced through the window to the next compartment, where more older children were talking excitedly.

In the next, there were children closer to her age, her new age that is, but the compartment was full.

Sunset sighed in frustration, then looked out the window, making sure that they were leaving the city, then glanced around to make sure no one could see her, and teleported up onto the roof of the car.

The wind caught her hair and the sunlight caressed her cheek, and the smoke from the locomotive was far too high to bother her.

Sunset had been cooped up in her room at the inn so long, or in a tightly packed city, that she felt she was going stir crazy. She missed her tower. Her big tower that she had all to herself.

She spread her arms and danced back and forth, breathing in the fresh air, before throwing up a magical shield to stop her clothes from blowing away as she started changing into her school uniform.

She paused halfway though, and eased up on the shield, relishing in the refreshing sensation of the wind on her skin rather than just her cheek. Poor humans. Sure, they made some swanky looking clothes, as expected by people who constantly wear them, but that was the thing- they always wore them. It was comfortable in many ways, but also restrictive.

She sat down for a moment and simply enjoyed the sight of the countryside whooshing past, before slipping into her uniform. She paused at the second last piece of clothing though, her cheeks glowing red, and not from the fresh air.

Leggings.

Tight, striped cotton leggings that would be visible thanks to her skirt.

Sunset had never felt as daring in her life as when she put those on, to be worn in public, but… it was included by Madam Malkin, who had said that Sunset was leaving with a pretty uniform no matter how little it would cost. They were probably not as eye catching, or at least not in the same way, as they were in Equestria.

Sunset settled down on the roof again, closed her eyes, and concentrated some more on re-focusing her magic to flow through her hair and nails, to regain the same control she had as a horn.

She held out her hands, and created a concentration of raw magic power between them. A glowing, volatile-looking orb of energy that could reshape the world, in a limited way at least, for those that knew how to wield it.

After a long while, when the whistling of the wind and the groaning of the train engine had completely faded from Sunset’s senses, she decided it was enough, and the world gently came back as she came out of her meditation, the ball of magic fading into nothing.

She was surprised to notice the tears that had flowed down her cheek, and the slight aching in her chest, as the memories of learning these exercises, and who had taught them to her, lingered in her thoughts.

She took a deep breath, and shook it from her mind. Luckily, she had something to distract her, as she noticed when she stood up, having pinned her tail under her heel.

“Wait. Tail?”

Sunset glanced back, and noticed a red and blonde tail sticking out of her skirt.

“Ah! Wha-what?”

She quickly calmed down, and analyzed the situation. Of course, channeling magic through her body like a unicorn, rather than through her wand, made her automatically take on a more appropriate and agreeable form for it. One with more of her long hair would certainly be helpful for that.

Of course, if she could change herself, she could change herself back. A quick application of magic, and the tail vanished back into her, to her relief.

The sun had moved quite a bit across the sky, and Sunset figured it was time to head back inside. Fighting down at the thought of someone having seen her, she grabbed her bag again, took a deep breath, leaned down over the edge to look into the window so see if anyone was there.

Neville was there, with a girl walking in front of him with a determined, almost militant gait. She did a double take when she saw Sunset, then gasped and held her hands in front of her mouth with her eyes wide when she saw Sunset, backing into a wall.

“Uh oh.”

Thinking for a moment, she decided to simply tap on the glass to see if they’d help her open it. She could do it herself of course, or even just teleport down, but decided to reign in her displays of magical prowess for now.

Neville and the girl had a quick back and forth before the girl nervously reached up and opened the top window.

Sunset slipped through it, still with her bag over her shoulder, angling herself and landing on her feet.

“Thank you,” she said, briskly.

“Are you MAD!?” the girl shouted. “What were you doing up there!?”

“Changing,” Sunset simply said. “Hello, Neville.”

“Uh, h-hello.”

The subject of clothes made Sunset glance at the girl’s legs, seeing that she wore cotton tights under her own skirt. Sunset instantly felt a lot better, seeing someone else in daring clothes.

“You can’t walk around on the roof of the train!” the girl said. “Go find a seat!”

“Sure I can, and you’re not in any seat,” Sunset pointed out.

“That’s because we’re looking for Neville’s toad, Trevor.”

Sunset looked at Neville’s face, the amazed expression of seeing Sunset went back to sadness and worry.

Some emotion that Sunset didn’t care for stirred inside her.

“... Where do you usually keep him?” she asked.

“Uh, my, uh, my pocket,” Neville said, showing the side of his robe.

Sunset walked up to a startled Neville and pulled the side of his robe up to her nose, taking a few deep sniffs, before letting go of the robe and sniffing around the corridor.

“... He’s back there,” she said, pointing where they had come from.

“What are you trying to pull?” the girl said. “We’ve already looked there.”

Sunset shrugged. “I’ll go get him then.”

The girl struggled for words for a moment. "Well... we'll keep looking," she said, trying to make it sound forceful.

“You do that,” Sunset said, as the girl marched in the other direction.

“You can go with her, Neville. I’ll catch up,” Sunset said, as the boy seemed torn on who to follow.

True enough, in a luggage compartment, under a piece of a robe hanging out from a luggage, was a toad, patiently looking at the wall.

Sunset glanced around, then arcanokinetically floated the toad out of the tight space and into her hand, and marched back after Neville.

The girl from before was leaning into a compartment, having a conversation, with Neville not being seen.

“And you’ve got dirt on your nose, by the way, did you know,” she said, and closed the door.

“Heya, here’s Trevor. Where’s Neville?” Sunset asked.

The girl turned around and looked at the toad in Sunset’s hand. “Where did you find him?” she demanded.

“Under some robes by some luggage,” Sunset said, shrugging.

“Well, I… uhm… thanks,” the girl reluctantly said, and held out her hand. “I’m Hermione Granger.”

Sunset placed Trevor in her hand. “Sunset Shimmer.”

Hermione looked down at Trevor with a dismayed look, when a voice sounded through the train. “We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes’ time. Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately.”

Sunset opened the door to the compartment, where Harry Potter and one of the redheads from before were changing into school uniforms, looking at her with wide eyes.

“Oi!” the redhead shouted, indignantly.

“Hello to you too,” Sunset said, and tossed her bag onto an empty seat. “Just putting this here so no one tramples it.” Then she looked at the pile of candy and empty wrappers between them. “... Want some sugar with that?” she asked, but the boys just stared at her.

She closed the door again, and walked over to one of the doors and waited, where Harry and the Redhead joined her in silence.

She wondered why they were looking so nervous, and was about to ask when the train came to a stop and the doors opened.

Hundreds of children filed out, all dressed in black school uniforms, with Rubeus Hagrid towering over everyone, calling out, “Firs’-years! Firs’-years over here! All right there, Harry?”

Hagrid kept shouting instructions for the first years to follow him, and Sunset simply calmly followed the crowd, seeing Neville overjoyed when Hermione handed him Trevor with a relieved look on her face.

They walked down a slope towards a bank with boats, and there, in the distance, was Hogwarts. Sunset had to admit it looked pretty good in the starry night, with its many windows lit up.

The boat ride, where the boats moved by themselves naturally, was uneventful, but Sunset did start to feel a little nervousness. Probably because just about everyone around her absolutely reeked of it.

They disembarked and walked up a large grass field towards the castle, up some steps to an enormous door, where Hagrid knocked three times, and the door opened to reveal Professor McGonagall, who said she’d take them from here.

Walking along the stone corridor, the other students looked around in fascination and delight. Sunset had already seen parts of the castle, but had to admit that it was impressive nonetheless.

They came to a halt in a hall that served as a hub for either going outside, to the different wings of the castle, or through a set of doors that were currently closed, but which contained the great eating hall for the entire school, judging by the hundreds of voices coming from within.

“Welcome to Hogwarts,” Professor McGonagall said, and proceeded to tell them shortly about the houses of Hogwarts, that there were dormitories for them with common rooms, that there was a competitive system where the houses gained and lost points depending on the performance of their members, and that, and this is what caught Sunset’s interest, there was a sorting ceremony, but she failed to specify what it entailed.

Sunset felt that was a bit of a jerk thing to do, since after McGonagall left and told them to stay put, everyone around Sunset squirmed in nervousness, to the point where Sunset could smell it again.

“How exactly do they sort us into houses?” Harry asked the redhead.

“Some sort of test, I think. Fred says it hurts a lot, but I think he was joking.”

“Maybe they’re finding out who is no good and sending them back?” Neville suggested, dismayed.

“Are there a lot of Hogwarts dropouts?” Sunset asked, giving him an even look.

“Uhm… no?”

“That should tell you enough.”

Sunset suddenly jumped at the shrill scream coming from somewhere behind them, turning around and giving them a venomous look, but all their attention was aimed at the ghosts coming through a wall.

Sunset reluctantly had to admit that she was relieved she knew about the ghosts of Hogwarts. She even recognised the current speaker.

“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?”

“New students! About to be sorted I suppose? Hope to see you in Hufflepuff. My old house, you know,” he said, and waved at Sunset when he recognized her.

People barely had time to register that before McGonagall had returned and sharply ordered them to follow her.

Inside the great hall, four very long tables, one for each house presumably, were laid out with plates and silverware for all the hundreds of students already sitting by them, and more for the as-of-yet unsorted first years.

Hundreds of candles floated above them, and the ceiling was transparent, or at least that’s what Sunset thought until she heard Hermione whisper about it.

Besides the four house tables were a table on the far side, where the faculty sat. Dumbledore in the middle, with an empty seat next to him, for McGonagall presumably. Sunset also recognized Flitwick and Hagrid, but there were many more that were complete strangers to her. Mostly old people, as usual.

McGonagall led them up to a stool with a very old and ragged-looking hat on it. All of the students looked at it expectantly, when it suddenly burst into song, singing from a tear over the brim.

Sunset was mildly impressed at the end. She knew all it sang about already by now, but it was entertaining nonetheless.

She didn’t care overly much about being sorted in front of everyone, but she figured at least everyone in the room had already gone through it, so it wouldn’t be a unique experience.

McGonagall started calling out their names in order of their last names, to come up and put the hat on, which shouted out the house for all to hear.

There was a pretty even distribution of students among the houses, with the different houses cheering on their new additions.

Hermione ended up in Gryffindor, and so did Neville, to Sunset’s mild surprise. Draco, the boy she had the strange conversation with at the Cauldron, if it could be called that, ended up in Slytherin very quickly, as did the girl who had bumped into her on the train.

The great hall was filled with whispers however, when it was Harry Potter’s turn, and everyone craned their neck to see.

The hat needed a moment of consideration, whereupon it shouted out Gryffindor.

After the roar of applause, and some more students, McGonagall said, “Shimmer, Sunset.”

Sunset strode up towards the stool, sat down, and had the big hat lowered over her eyes, whereupon a deep and smokey voice spoke in her head, sounding amused. “... Well well,” it said, and chuckled. “Isn’t this interesting? Let’s see here, besides being a unicorn, what are you? Clever and witty, oh yes, and brave too–”

“Am I?” Sunset mentally asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes you are and you know it. Now to just balance where you belong and what you want. Hard working like few others, very dedicated, to the point where you’re outright ambitious, and cunning besides, and I know what house that sounds like.”

“Verily,” Sunset interjected. “So… Hufflepuff, please.”

The hat was quiet for a moment, before it responded, still sounding amused. “Oh, thought you were being really clever there, weren’t you?”

“I’d say so,” Sunset calmly responded. She liked this hat. “If we get any say in this ourselves, Hufflepuff must be the house for the ambitious and cunning, and Slytherin for the dunces. I mean, what kind of cunning and ambitious person outright declares to the world that’s what they are by joining Slytherin?”

“Ah, but you forget that I have the ultimate say in this, and I balance more than you know.”

“Alright, fine, is Slytherin for me then?”

“Oh it would be, it very much would be, if I didn’t know things you didn’t. Now, allow me to savor the moment when I surprise such a clever little filly.”

“GRYFFINDOR!”

And Sunset was indeed surprised, having to shake her head when the hat was lifted from it, and went to join the gold and red adorned house that was currently applauding her- which Sunset found she didn’t mind.

Draco Malfoy sulked.

Soon after, the redhead was sorted into Gryffindor, to the extra spirited applause of his equally red-haired brothers, whom he sat down next to, and Sunset finally realized what a Weasley was. The conversation with Draco Malfoy made slightly more sense to her now.

She ended up sitting with the Weasley twins on one side, and the other girls of her year on her other.

Some other kid was sorted into Slytherin, and then Dumbledore stood up as McGonagall collected the sorting hat and stepped away.

“Welcome! Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts! Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak! Thank you!”

“Aaaw, that’s cute,” Sunset said, as she joined in the applause. “He’s doing that thing where he’s pretending to be kooky in a disarming way.”

And then, suddenly, a banquet had appeared on the tables.

Sunset, along with everyone else, dug in.

In her determination to blend in as a human, she had resigned to eat meat, since it was a staple in about half of all meals in the day.

She thought she would find it outright disturbing, eating the meat of her fellow living creatures, but it wasn’t actually so bad. The interesting tastes, textures, and feeling of nourishment helped, but so did the fact that she had never heard of the animals she ate, such as beef, pork, or bacon.

A few minutes of listening in made her learn the names she hadn’t memorized yet. She didn’t strike up a conversation with anyone, nor did anyone with her, but her intense listening to her classmates while looking at her food probably made it seem like she was ravenous, which, frankly, she was.

The ghost of Sir Nicholas De Mimsy told them about the house rivalry, and how Slytherin had been winning for the past six years. It turned out that Hufflepuff had been coming in last. This intrigued Sunset, making her curious if it was because they concealed the results of their hard work from the faculty, or if they were in cahoots with them.

“Sho… hh-wh-hoo a’ uu?” one of the Weasley twins asked Sunset past a mouth full of fried potatoes.

“Sss-mm…” Sunset started, and sped up her own chewing to make place in her mouth. Human mouths couldn’t hold nearly as much as pony mouths. “Sunset Shimmer.”

The twin took his time to swallow his food before continuing. “We heard that part, but what’s your story?”

“Oh, nothing special. Moved here recently, so the whole thing with Hogwarts is a little new to me.”

“You French? You don’t sound French.”

“... Nnno?” Sunset guessed. She knew what France was, but the encyclopedia hadn’t mentioned any dialects or accents.

“Huh, well, I’m Fred Weasley, this is my brother George, and Ron, Percy,” Fred said, pointing at the collection of red haired boys, who all waved back.

“Pleased to meet you all,” Sunset said, though secretly she felt there had been far too much talking the past few days, and not enough uncovering the secret paths to unlimited power.

Oh well, at least the food was nice.

“Where were you going to get your magical education before moving here?” Percy asked.

“Oh, I would’ve learned some at home,” Sunset said, trying to sound boring.

“Oh really?” said Percy. “I can’t imagine that’s as comprehensive as having a whole faculty of experts.”

“Depends on the teacher,” Sunset said, trying not to sound too defensive, while something inside her stung.

“She can do silent magic,” Neville excitedly pointed out, drawing several looks who were then redirected at Sunset.

“Uhm… very little,” Sunset lied.

“That’s still really impressive,” Percy pointed out.

Luckily, by now it was time for dessert, which materialized in front of them all at once, matching the main course in extravagance.

The conversation quickly turned into who was familiar with the wizarding world and who wasn’t.

The Weasleys, Neville, a boy named Seamus Finnigan, and two girls named Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil, were born into the wizarding world and didn’t know much about muggle society. Hermione Granger and Harry Potter had been raised by muggles, and Dean Thomas had one foot in each world.

It was assumed by the people around her that Sunset was born into the magical world as well, which Sunset could only hope wouldn’t cause trouble later.

Sunset set to inspecting the faculty while she expanded her stomach what little more it could take with chocolate ice cream. There were more teachers than she thought at first, and figured there must be more subjects later on, as there were more teachers than subjects she had bought books for.

After a while, the desserts vanished, and Dumbledore stood up to address the hall. “Ahem! Just a few more words now 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 strictly forbidden to all pupils…”

Sunset logged that as a potential place for research in peace.

“... And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well.

“I have also been asked by Mr Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors.”

Sunset’s brows creased. “But… aren't there classes pretty much all day?”

“That’s right. Technically, there is no time between classes,” George said, and put a hand on Sunset’s shoulder, leaning against his twin and sobbing happily. “They grow up so fast!”

“Alright, alright,” Sunset said, and turned her attention back to Dumbledore and what he was talking about. Quidditch and a dangerous corridor.

Quidditch? A distraction at best. Certain death somewhere on the third floor? That might warrant a quick inspection.

Then it was time for bed. Percy led them through some corridors, there was something about a mischievous ghost beneath Sunset’s notice, and they approached a painting sensitively enough named “the fat lady”, who let them into the Gryffindor dormitories if you told her a password. Sunset rolled with it.

“Ah, now this is more like it,” Sunset said, as they entered the Gryffindor common room. “Maybe that hat wasn’t wrong. A proper tower.”

Sure, she had to share it with others, but at least it was a tower.

She climbed the stairs that Percy pointed out, entered a dormitory for the first years, and spotted her bag by the foot of a four poster bed.

She quickly checked the bag to see that everything was still in there, and then simply collapsed face-down into the bed, clothes still on.

Hermione might have been in an argument with Lavender and Parvati, but Sunset couldn’t be bothered with it even if she wanted. Within seconds, she was snoring into her pillow.

Author's Note

I totally forgot that there's a whole month in the book that Harry spends back at Privet Drive after going to Diagon Alley. Oh well, it's changed here. Shouldn't changed much.

Back To Basics

Author's Note

Alright, some author's notes here. I just want to point out that I decided to try out Rowling's quasi-montage style of writing, and I'm not sure the results are stellar. I might change back to something closer to my style later. Hope you'll enjoy it regardless.

Back To Basics

Sunset’s jerked her head up from her pillow mid-snore, as the sunlight spilled in through the room. <> she said in Equestrian, before realizing where she was and what she was.

She stumbled out of bed, with Hermione being the only other one up yet, all the other girls were still sleeping or groaning in protest at the early hour.

Sunset knew however, that morning came whether she wished it or not. She knew that because she had asked the actual mover of the sun several times to make it come up later, but to no avail. If anything she suspected that Celestia raised it sooner every time she asked.

“You’re going to get sores, sleeping in your clothes like that,” Hermione pointed out, as Sunset stumbled across the room.

She aimed one eye, shortly followed by the other, to see that Hermione seemed to be wearing some sort of special sleeping getup.

“... ‘Mmma ge’ one a’ that,” Sunset mumbled, stumbling out of the door, registering that Hermione asked what she said but forgetting the answering part.

Sunset found herself waking up more and more as she walked down the corridors to the great hall for breakfast, yawning and stretching on the way.

She sat down with a thump next to Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, and reached for some cereals. “Morning.”

“Morning,” they both said in response, before going back to whatever they had been talking about.

Apparently, Harry had a lot of questions about magic, which Ron answered as best as he could, which was kind of lackluster. Sunset didn’t blame him. He wasn’t educated yet, after all.

“Did you see him? The boy with black hair?” some girl asked as some people walked past.

Harry himself just stared down on his plate, taking a deep breath.

“Hey,” Sunset said to him, and held out her hand to him and Ron in greeting. “Sunset Shimmer.”

“Harry Potter.”

“Ron Weasley.”

“I saw you a few days ago in The Leaky Cauldron and Diagon Alley,” Sunset noted to Harry. “You were with the groundskeeper, Rubeus Hagrid.”

Harry stared at her for a moment, before he recognised her. “And I saw you in Flourish and Blotts. You know Hagrid then?”

“Not as such, I’ve only met him shortly. So you’ve defeated some really powerful wizards then?”

Harry scoffed, but in a nervous way. “That’s what everyone says. I don’t remember. And it was just one.”

Sunset didn’t know if she was relieved or disappointed. “Oh. Well, if you figure out how you did it, please don’t try it on me.”

“I uh… I don’t think defeating powerful wizards is something any of us can do just yet,” Harry nervously offered.

“Speak for yourself. Oh well, hopefully they’ll teach us how to do it properly around here.”

“I wish I had her confidence,” Ron muttered to Harry, as Sunset emptied a pot of coffee, and set to reading her transfiguration book.

When classes rolled around, it was time for Transfiguration. Sunset’s view on McGonagall hadn’t changed, she was strict and punitive for no apparent reason, meaning it was because she enjoyed it.

All Sunset needed was to keep her head down and focus on learning, and finally she was supposed to learn wanded magic. From a teacher that is, she had already practiced some on her own.

It was to her disappointment that their first task was to transform a matchstick into a needle.

McGonagall doled out a pack of matches for each student, who set to waving their wands at it and speaking magic words.

Sunset looked around, to see that everyone was busy with their own stuff, and, just to experiment, she poked at it with her index finger, the nail of which was glowing teal.

It immediately changed shape, which no one had managed yet with their wands. Only Hermione’s were slowly changing with each more concentrated and deliberate casting.

Sunset picked up her wand. If she wanted to not draw attention to herself, she would do the motion, and speak the words.

She had to stop when she got halfway through the motion though, as she felt the magic course through her, but it wasn’t quite how she was used to it.

It took a few attempts of slower and slower casting, but Sunset felt she started to understand enough to form a preliminary hypothesis.

Wand magic didn’t use her magic, it used magic around her, plucked it from around her and gave her limited control over it through the spell.

If that was the case, wand magic could be interesting indeed. It would have severe limitations, such as needing highly specialized formulas for even minor magic spells, as well as all the variations, but it seemed to Sunset that it would function as a very efficient equalizer, enabling those with little magic, or much magic but little control over it, to use cast powerful and sophisticated spells, at the expense of difficulty to learn.

It was a preliminary hypothesis, but, intrigued, Sunset silently cast the complete version of the spell, the mechanics of which she has been studying all this time, on a matchstick, turning it into a needle.

McGonagall hovered between the students, observing and measuring with a strictly neutral face. When she reached Sunset’s place, Sunset quickly shoved the two needles under her box of matches to hide it, and pretended to struggle with no results on her next one.

McGonagall wasn't to be fooled though. She slid the box to the side, and saw the needles underneath. Sunset looked up at her with an innocent face and shrugged.

“... Five points for Gryffindor,” she said, to Sunset’s desperate negatory waving and hissing.

Some of the students looked at her, confused, but didn’t seem to have heard McGonagall’s doling out of points.

Except for Neville, who looked at her in amazement.

“How did you do that?” he asked in a quiet voice.

Sunset groaned internally. Oh well, at least Neville was already aware that she could cast spells silently.

“Ehm…magic?”

Neville started paying close attention to Sunset, to try and notice her secret. It proved a bit of a problem for Sunset, who tried wandering the castle, getting a feel for activity and hiding places as she looked for good teleportation-spots.

And at lunch came one of the great challenges for Sunset. This time, she was sitting in the great hall, when students from all years started pouring into the great hall at irregular intervals, and Sunset saw what so many of the girls were wearing.

Leggings, and thigh high socks, everywhere.

She stared down at her warm porridge, wishing it was ice cold.

Charms were similarly tricky to Transfiguration. Sunset made the mistake of thinking about the levitation charm they were learning while her wand was lying next to her on the table, sending a whole sack of feathers that Flitwick had brought into the air as she cussed under her breath.

None of the other students could figure out what happened, but Flitwick glanced at Sunset with amused suspicion.

Luckily, Defence Against the Dark Arts was, as of yet, strictly theoretical, although it also meant it was utterly boring, just like Magical History, and neither raw magical power, nor skill at spell-slinging, helped when it came to Herbology.

Then came Potions.

Sunset had been annoyed at Professor Quirrell, the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, for being a poor teacher, wasting her time. That paled in comparison to Snape, the Potions teacher, who was outright hostile to Sunset’s academic pursuits, as well as anyone else’s.

At first, Sunset had been glad that Harry Potter was so famous and drawing the teachers’ attention, but she made an exception for Snape, who raised her hackles so much she had bring up her potions books and focus on reading it to keep herself from walking up to Snape and flatten his nose across his face.

Which she strongly suspected she’d be able to. Sunset had noticed that her general pony magic, as distinct from her unicorn magic specifically, was something she had kept as a human. She hadn’t managed to get a precise comparison yet, but it was clear that other humans would not have been able to pick up two other humans at the same time and swing them by their legs and throw them across the great hall, and that they would likely not be able to shrug off the experience very easily.

Regardless, Snape did let up on his oh so drawn out mockery of Harry and they could get to working on some potions, finally.

Sunset had been looking forward to this, as potion making wasn’t something she had studied very closely at Canterlot, but Snape made it very hard to concentrate. She figured she’d have to practice on her own in her spare time.

“Shimmer!” Snape barked. “You will pay attention to me when I speak!”

Sunset stopped focusing on her potion- something Snape had been very adamant about how you shouldn’t do, especially since she had been the odd one out and wasn’t paired up with anyone- to compliment Draco Malfoy’s slug in front of the entire class.

Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, Sunset’s potion survived the lapse of focus. She would have liked a reason for Snape to criticize her for something he had ordered her to. That would be an interesting letter to send to the school board.

Neville and Seamus weren’t so lucky though. Their cauldron melted, and sent a corrosive liquid all over the floor, burning people’s shoes.

Sunset simply lifted her feet and continued working.

Snape redirected the blame onto Harry though, which was both unbelievable and expected at the same time, and Sunset hadn’t even been in the same room as Snape for an hour.

She could have said loudly that it was not only poor behavior from a teacher, or any professional, or any adult really, but that this was grounds for an evaluation by an education inspector… but she didn’t.

<> she mumbled.

In the end, Sunset’s potion was adequate. Not quite as good as Hermione’s, but close enough. At least to herself, she ignored Snape and didn’t register what he said about it.

Sunset planned on going up to the owlery and send a request to Madam Malkins, asking for a catalogue to order some sleepwear through, but put that off for later and went back to the Gryffindor dormitories, climbing the stairs, and collapsing on the bed.

All the other girls were out at the moment, so Sunset was left alone with her thoughts.

The verdict was in: McGonagall was competent and knowledgeable, while Flitwick and Pomona Sprout were kind, helpful, and knowledgeable. Quirrell was a useless lump, Binns was a waste of time, and Snape was a… Sunset didn’t even know the words.

It was so much better In Canterlot. At least it used to be, before Cadence came along and demanded all of Celestia’s attention.

Celestia knew everything, and she was kind, and funny, and helpful, and encouraging, and on some evenings, she and Sunset would curl up under a blanket in front of the fireplace with a big chocolate cake and… and…

The tears were flowing freely down Sunset’s face.

What was she doing here? Why did she ever leave? Her tower, her library, the beautiful sights of Canterlot spread out before her, and the castle gardens, and the kitchen, and the royal guards who spoiled her and…

… She had been happy before she saw that mirror, but what she saw in there could not be unseen.

Would she leave all over again if she was back in Canterlot?

Yes. The call of ascension was not something Sunset could ignore. She wouldn’t be herself if she did.

But she still missed Canterlot.

She rose up and walked over to a window, looked down at the edge of the forest, and saw that no one else was within sight.

With a small flash, she teleported down behind a tree, and stepped out to walk along the edge of the forest, lost in somber thoughts.

“Shimmer?” a gruff voice said.

Sunset turned and saw the giant shape of the groundskeeper, holding a giant axe, and realized she had wandered all the way to his house. “Oh. Hello, Mister Hagrid.”

“Somethin’ the matter?” he asked, with a worried look on his face, and Sunset realized he could probably tell she had been crying. “Homesick?”

In a sense, that was exactly it. An eleven year old child, or older child for that matter would say no and mean yes, not wanting to appear weak or immature. Sunset found that she didn’t care, and sighed. “Yes.”

“Well, need some firewood, and then I’ll put the kettle on. Yer classmate, Harry, is comin’ over fer some tea. Perhaps you’d like some too?”

Their presences would pale to Celestia’s but…

Sunset growled at herself, and sighed, before looking up at Hagrid.

“... Sure. Thank you, Mister Hagrid.”

“Oh, just Hagrid will do. Now just gimme a minute, I’ll be done right quick,” he said, and lifted up an entire trunk and placed on a wide stump.

He didn’t get the chance to use it though, as Sunset stepped up and gently pulled the axe away from him, and he stepped back with an amused expression, and then further back when Sunset started swinging.

<>* she roared at herself, as she hacked the trunk into smaller and smaller pieces. <>

After the trunk was in pieces slightly too small for proper firewood, Sunset stopped, and stood there, panting, until she felt a giant hand on her shoulder.

“All better?”

She nodded, and took a few calming breaths.

“Got quite an arm on ye there,” Hagrid said, looking at the destruction around him, and bending down to pick up the pieces.

“Well… yeah. Whatever,” Sunset said, then shrugged, and helped him collect the firewood before he invited her into his house.

Hagrid’s house was more like a giant hut, with one big room in it, drying meat hanging from the ceiling, big and sturdy furniture, and a boarhound who obviously thought Sunset’s face was delicious.

“No, Fang!” Hagrid said, as he tossed some of the firewood Sunset had just chopped onto the embers in the fireplace and then hung the kettle over it. “You tell me if he’s botherin’ ya, ye hear?”

“It’s okay,” Sunset said, and pulled Fang up onto the couch and held him. She’d magic the slobber away later.

“So what’s botherin’ ya?” Hagrid asked.

Sunset sat in silence for a moment, with Fang becoming a little uneasy at being held like he was, which was all part of Sunset’s nefarious scheme of revenge.

“... I don’t know,” Sunset said, staring into the fire.

“Well somethin’s botherin’ ya.”

“I guess.”

“Don’t ‘ave t’ tell me, but it don’t do no good just dwellin’ on it.”

“Mmm.”

“Also, Fang’s gettin’ a little worried there.”

“Mmm. He shouldn’t have licked my face then,” Sunset said, making Hagrid chuckle.

There was a knock on the door, making Fang break free as new targets became available. Harry Potter and Ron Weasley.

They settled down and talked about their first week there, and the rest of the staff.

Apparently no one there liked Mrs Norris, the cat of Filch the caretaker, who had indeed stalked Sunset as she walked around and looked for good teleportation spots, out of sight of the paintings and hopefully the ghosts too, since the native kind of teleportation didn’t work in Hogwarts.

Filch had indeed thrown Sunset some pretty suspicious glares when Sunset had shaken Mrs Norris by teleporting a few floors away.

Hagrid didn’t act convinced that Snape hated Harry though, but Sunset strongly suspected that it was because while he was fine with agreeing that Filch was just a pain in the flank, extending that to a teacher was a little too inappropriate.

Sunset knew that sitting here greatly increased the risks of developing… camaraderie, even friendship, but… she supposed it had to happen eventually. At least this way she was ready for it.

“Hey, sorry for ignoring Snape when he harasses you,” Sunset said to Harry, on their way back up to the castle.

“Don’t worry about it, no one else is doing anything. No one can do anything.”

<<... If you only knew,>> Sunset muttered to herself.

—

Sunset had already decided that Quidditch was not for her long before she even got to Hogwarts.

If she wasn't any good at it, it would be a waste of time pursuing it. If she was good at it, it could draw attention to her, and in either case it would be a distraction.

Still, flying broomsticks was on the curriculum, she might as well learn that.

In the morning, the usual swarm of owls came down to land on the breakfast table, which Sunset questioned the cleanliness of, but most of them were well-mannered.

She paid her owl the postage for getting a catalogue sent to her, and Neville got a glass sphere with a white smoke in it from Augusta.

“It’s a remembrall!” he said, and explained that the smoke in it turned red when you’ve forgotten something, which it did halfway through the explanation.

Sunset rolled her eyes. Not at Neville, but at the concept. Everything in this world had to be magical, even things that were more easily solved by a notebook and a pencil.

“How pedantic is that thing?” she asked. “Does it stay red until further notice? Like, if you forget something unimportant that you never take care of, does it turn useless?”

That was when Draco Malfoy walked by and snatched it up, looking really pleased with himself.

Ron and Harry jumped up, and Sunset was almost disappointed that McGonagall was there immediately to prevent anything from happening, because Sunset suspected that since they didn’t know any real magic yet, it might mostly look like a pair of sea lions puffing their chests out and blaring at each other.

In the afternoon, Sunset stood with the rest of Gryffindor’s and Slytherin’s first-years stood outside the castle, with brooms neatly laid out on the ground for all of them.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Madam Hooch, who looked like an old gryphon, said. “Everyone stand by a broomstick. Come on, Hurry up.”

Sunset was skeptical. She was all about flying, she had sworn to herself that she would fly, but not like this.

“Stick out your right hand over your broom, and say, ‘UP!’”

“UP!”

Harry’s shot right up into his hand, but few others managed it. Ron and Malfoy were slightly behind, while Sunset’s waited for a moment before it reluctantly floated into her hand.

When everyone had their brooms in hand, and Madam Hooch had instructed on how to hold it, and corrected Malfoy, she told everyone to kick off, fly a few feet and then come back down again.

Sunset wondered how much magical control and power had to do with it, because Neville clearly wasn’t in control of his broom.

Before anyone else had kicked off, he started floating up into the air, swaying back and forth, higher and higher.

“Come back, boy!” Madam Hooch shouted, sternly.

Very reluctantly, Sunset prepared herself to cushion his fall magically, but she didn’t get the chance to. As predicted, Neville slid off, and fell towards the ground.

The thing was that between Neville and the ground stood Sunset.

She held out her arms to try and catch him, but was off by just a few inches, and ended up with him right on top of her, his wrist striking her head and producing a worrying ‘crack’, and hammering them both to the ground.

“Come on, move over. That’s it,” Sunset heard Madam Hooch said, as a pained-sounding Neville was pulled off from, and she sat up, and looked over to Neville with a worried face.

She didn’t get much of a chance though, as Madam Hooch grabbed her by her cheeks to hold her still as she looked into her eyes.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, urgently.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” she assured her. “I think Neville is worse off.”

Madam Hooch took another moment to make sure Sunset didn’t suddenly have a seizure, or something, then turned her attention to Neville.

“Broken wrist. Come on, boy, it’s all right, up you get. You too, Miss Shimmer.”

“I’m fine, really.”

“It doesn’t matter, you’re going to the hospital wing. As for the rest of you, leave those brooms where they are or you’ll be out of Hogwarts before you can say ‘Quidditch’. Come on, dear.”

Sunset didn’t really care for the idea of broomstick flying anyway, so it was all the same for her.

“Sorry, Neville,” she said, a little weakly, but he just whimpered in response.

When they got to the hospital wing, Madam Pomfrey marched out of her office.

“What seems to be the problem?” she asked loudly as she approached.

“Mister Longbottom fell off his broom and landed on Miss Shimmer here,” Madam Hooch said, and gently led Neville over to a cot that Madam Pomfrey indicated.

“Lie down here, good lad. Miss Shimmer, how do you feel?”

“Fine, really,” Sunset said.

“Well, sit down anyway. How far up was he when he fell?”

“Twenty feet,” Madam Hooch said.

“I see.” Madam Pomfrey pulled out her wand and aimed it at Neville’s arm. After a few seconds, he stopped crying, looking at his wrist in astonishment, and flexing the fingers, before Madam Pomfrey stopped him.

“Now you just lie down there and rest, you hear? And don’t exert yourself while I’ll check on Miss Shimmer.”

She walked up to Sunset and aimed her wand at her eyes, shining a bright light at her.

“I didn’t tell you to stay out of trouble when you left last time, Miss Shimmer, but I feel it was strongly implied.”

“It couldn’t be helped.”

“I’m sure. Well, either you’re lucky, or you’re made of pretty sturdy stuff. Still, I’d like you to stay here for a few hours.” Pomfrey turned to Madam Hooch. “Thank you, Rolanda. I’ll take it from here.”

Madam Hooch nodded, and briskly walked out.

A further quick inspection of them both, and Pomfrey was satisfied they wouldn’t spontaneously pass away on the spot.

“Wish I had a book so I could study a little. I don’t suppose you could lend me one of your medical books?” Sunset asked Pomfrey.

“No, and there will be no wand waving in the hospital wing,” she said, sternly. “Now rest.”

“Oh well,” Sunset said, as Pomfrey walked back into her office.

“... Hey, sorry for landing on your head.”

“Eh, don’t worry about it. Sorry for putting the strongest part of my skeleton against your wrist.”

“Uhm… that’s okay.

“Wait… you’ve never been to the hospital wing before,” Neville eventually pointed out, but Sunset just had to smile apologetically at him, before settling in with her hands behind her neck to wait.

—

It wasn’t until the sun was starting to set that Madam Pomfrey let them go, saying they’d have time to get back to their common room in time for curfew.

That didn’t matter, because the fat lady had quit early that day it seemed.

“Great,” Sunset muttered at the painting of an empty sitting room.

“What do we do now?” Neville asked, scared, looking around in the darkness, as the sun had set during their trek from the hospital wing.

“I’dunno,” Sunset said, shrugging. “Break in? Climb a window? Ask a teacher?”

“We can’t break in! And we can’t be seen by a teacher, we’re out past curfew! We’ll be expelled!”

“If they want to punish us for their own faulty arrangement, I want them to find us,” Sunset said, who had been spoiling for a fight, even a verbal one, since Snape first opened his mouth.

“Hmm. Alright, I’m going up to the owlery, and send one of the owls over to someone in there to get them to open up for us.”

Neville’s eyes lit up. “That's a great idea!”

“Alright, you stay here, and then let me in when I come back.”

Neville’s smile melted away.

“Don’t leave me here!”

“Then come with me.”

“B… but what if… Professor Snape…”

Sunset looked around, and shrugged in frustration. Even in the dark of night, this place wasn’t the least bit scary. Even the undead weren’t dangerous around here.

But Neville’s scared face, and more tellingly, his scared scent, softened Sunset.

“... Alright, fine,” she said, and sat down, leaning against the wall. “We’ll wait here. Who knows, maybe we’re not the only Gryffindor rule breakers tonight?”

A grateful Neville sat down next to Sunset, giving off a nervous scent.

“... Show me your wand form,” Sunset said.

“W- what?”

“Your wand, take it out and show me a spell. Show me lumos.”

“B- but I don’t know that one.”

“This is what we call practice, Neville. Now go on.”

Neville pulled out his wand, a bit reluctantly, and held it out in front of him.

“It’s a lighting spell, Neville. Come on, ‘lumos’.”

“Lumos.”

Nothing happened.

“Go on, again, and focus.”

“Lumos.”

Nothing.

“Are you sure it’s the right one?”

Sunset pulled out her own wand, and said, “lumos,” lighting up the entire hallway as though with an arena light.

“Wow,” Neville said, before Sunset dismissed it with the opposite, ‘nox’.

“How do you and Hermione know so much magic?”

“I can only speak for myself, but I’ve practiced, and I’m guessing she has too.”

“How much?” Neville asked, almost despairingly.

This wasn’t going where Sunset wanted it to. “As much as I can, but don’t worry about that. Go on, again, ‘lumos’.”

“Lumos.”

Still nothing.

Neville let his wand hand fall to his side. “It’s no use. I’ll never be as good as you with magic.”

“Who cares?” Sunset said, making Neville look up at her, confused.

“Look, nevermind what I’m doing, focus on what you’re doing. Do it again.”

Neville tried again, but with no result.

“Good,” Sunset said.

Neville glanced at her, confused. “What do you mean, ‘good’? Nothing happened.”

“You practiced. That’s good.”

Neville sighed, and put his wand away. “It doesn’t feel good.”

“It will when you get results,” Sunset assured him.

“But it takes forever,” Neville complained.

“Well, what else are you going to do for seven years?” Sunset said. “Besides, you have more than seven years. People don’t stop practising when they leave school.”

Neville gave a non-commital grunt. “But you’re much more talented than I am.”

Sunset sighed. <> “Maybe at some things, but you’re the best at herbology.”

“What is that? You talk in another language sometimes.”

Sunset shrugged. “Sorry, that’s enough about me for now. I’m gonna get some shuteye.”

“... Alright.”

Neville sat there in the darkness for a moment, before glancing sideways at Sunset.

To his amazement, she had already fallen asleep, resting her forehead on her knees.

—

Sunset woke up to an argument in the night, and nudged Neville awake.

Ron, Harry, and Hermione, all dressed in pyjamas and dressing gowns, were standing in the dark, and having a hissed argument about something.

“Wha- what’s going...ooo- on?” Sunset asked, yawning, and stood up.

“Wha- what are you two doing here?” Hermione asked. “Weren’t you in the hospital wing?”

“Oh yeah, how are you?” Harry asked.

“Fine. Madam Pomfrey fixed up my arm right away,” Neville said.

“And you?” Hermione asked Sunset, who just shrugged.

“I didn’t need to be there, I was just dragged there, and then the fat lady was gone by the time we got back here.”

“Well she’s still missing,” Hermione said, staring angrily at the painting.

“Alright, look, we’ve got somewhere we need to be. We’ll see you later,” Harry said.

“Don’t leave us!” Neville said, and turned to Sunset. “Sunset! Don’t let them go!”

“Well, alright,” she said, and started following them, with Neville nervously following behind. She most of all wanted to go to bed but with the choice between uncomfortable and bored, and uncomfortable and seeing what the hay these clowns were up to, she’d pick the latter.

“If any of you get us caught, I’ll never rest until I’ve learnt that Curse of the Bogies Quirrell told us about and used it on you.”

Harry cut Hermione off from her instructions on how to use that, and gestured for them to follow.

By now, the moon had come out, and was casting interesting shadows through the high windows onto the suits of armor and paintings with sleeping painting-people in them.

Harry and Ron were at the front, and Neville and Hermione were in the middle, all hunched over as they silently crept along, with Sunset bringing up the rear, strolling along normally. She wasn’t very worried, as she couldn’t hear or smell anything other than her classmates ahead of her.

They went up a staircase to the third floor, and snuck into the trophy room, which Sunset knew as a poor teleportation spot.

“What are you even doing?” she asked Ron, who hushed angrily at her.

“We’re going to fight Draco Malfoy,” he whispered. “He’s challenged Harry to a duel.”

“The weird rich kid in Slytherin? What for?” Sunset said, humoring him by whispering too.

“Because he’s a git!”

“So why here, and in the middle of the night? Why not just blast him out on the grounds if he’s up for it?”

“I can’t believe it!” Hermione angrily hissed. “Is everyone in our entire house set on breaking the rules, or is it just our year?”

“He’s the one who picked the time and place,” Harry protested.

“That’s not an excuse!”

“Just so you know, there’s a smelly old man out in the corridor,” Sunset noted, nodding at the door on the far side of the room.

They all looked at Sunset as if she had declared the sun to be purple, before they heard a voice. It was Mister Filch and Mrs Norris.

“Sniff around, my sweet, they might be lurking in a corner.”

Their eyes shot up, and Harry waved at them to get out of there. They all crept as quickly as possible out the nearest exit, into a corridor with suits of armor lining the halls.

“This way,” Harry mouthed, and they crept along the corridor.

Neville couldn’t take the pressure though. He yelped in terror at the sound of Filch coming nearer, and broke into a run, which lasted about one second before he slammed into Ron, sending them both flying into a suit of armor.

Sunset had to squint as the deafening sound of a collapsing set of armor echoed through the whole castle, and possibly to the nearby village.

“Run!” Harry yelled, and Sunset had to grab Neville and Ron by their collars and drag them until they got their bearings enough to run on their own.

As they ripped through a tapestry, Sunset had to admit that this was rather fun, and with very little risk. If push came to shove, she could just vanish on the spot to just about anywhere else in the castle, most appropriately the Gryffindor common room, and go straight to bed.

Of course, she might feel bad about leaving her classmates there, so the question became whether she should bring them along or not.

After running through enough corridors and hidden passages, they found themselves outside the charms corridor.

“I think we’ve lost him,” Harry gasped, leaning against a wall at a T-intersection.

“I… told… you,” Hermione gasped, clutching her side and wheezing. “Malfoy tricked you, you realize that, don’t you? He was never going to meet you. Filch knew someone was going to be in the trophy room, Malfoy must have tipped him off.”

“We’ve got to get back to Gryffindor Tower, quickly as possible,” Ron said.

“If Malfoy told Filch who was going to be in the trophy room, Filch knows we’re going to Gryffindor Tower and he'll be waiting for us somewhere, so slowly and carefully might be better than as quickly as possible,” Sunset noted.

“Alright, fine, good plan,” Ron admitted. “Let’s go.”

They were just about to, when a nearby door handle rattled, and Peeved started floating through the door.

Sunset grabbed the others, and threw herself down the intersection, out of view of Peeves, making them yelp in alarm.

“Oh? Who’s the-ere?” Peeves sing-songed.

“Go,” she whispered at them, and lifted them up again, running down the hallway.

“Students out of bed? Naughty naughty…” they heard Peeves continue behind them as they raced around another corner.

“This way!” Harry hissed, and they raced down the corridors in an attempt to lose Peeves.

Suddenly, they came to a halt in front of a pair of glowing eyes at another T-intersection. Mrs. Norris was looking straight at them, before turning around and running to the right.

“She’s gonna get Filch,” Neville groaned.

“Back! Back!” Harry hissed.

“No,” Sunset said, a delighted look on her face from the excitement. “He’s not here yet. Let her run away, and we’ll go to the left.”

“How do you know he’s not here?” Ron demanded.

“Because his smell is always at least two hallways ahead of him? Seriously, can’t you tell?”

“No? I mean, I know he smells bad, but…”

“Whatever, let’s go.”

They darted down the opposite way that Mrs. Norris had gone, before coming to a halt, Harry and Ron letting out the same expletive as they saw Peeves in the distance, and threw themselves down a side passage, Ron’s robe catching on a gauntlet of a suit of armor, and pulled at it as he ran.

The suit momentarily lost the grip of his halberd, and loudly clinked the suit next to it with it, making the second armor turn his helmet to the first one with a metallic groan, looking affronted.

“Oooooh!” they heard Peeves say, delighted, down the corridor, and they ran to the end of the passage, into a locked door, smelling of wet dog.

Ron’s face was an illustration of despair. “This is it! We’re done for! This is the end.”

“Oh, move over,” Hermione grunted in frustration, grabbed Harry’s wand, and whispered, “Alohomora!”

It was just in time, as they piled through the door as it opened and shut it.

“Just stay quiet,” whispered Harry, as they pressed their ears towards the door and concentrated.

“Oh where are you, little students?” They heard Peeves call mockingly out in the corridor. “You, did you see any ickie students here?”

They heard more groans of suits of armor either nodding, or shaking their heads.

“Well, where?”

More metallic sounds, before Peeves grunted in frustration, presumably at some very unhelpful instructions.

“Fine! I’ll remember this!” he shouted, floating away.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione let out a collective sigh of relief.

“I think we’ll be okay. Get off, Neville! What!?”

Neville pointed at something behind them, and Sunset realized that they were in the third floor corridor, and why it smelled of wet canine.

And inside that corridor was a giant, three-headed, gargantuan dog, all the heads of which were sniffing and looking at them.

<> Sunset asked, astonished.

This wasn’t good, although it didn’t change her plans much. They would flee on foot, or Sunset would grab them and teleport out of there, dealing with the fallout of that at another time, because Cerberus was not to be meddled with.

Sunset would probably be able to take on the guardian of Tartarus if fully prepared and there wasn’t a risk of collateral damage, but it would have been a proper battle, which she didn’t feel like at the moment.

Harry fumbled at the doorknob, and pulled them all backward, falling out into the corridor, and Harry quickly stood up and slammed the door shut, before the rest stumbled to their feet, and raced down the corridor.

“What was that!?” Ron said loudly, before Harry and Hermione shushed him up.

“And we still need to get back,” Hermione said, her heart beating loudly.

Sunset looked around, and through a window, on the other side of the courtyard, she saw an orange light making its way down another corridor. Filch, with a lantern.

“There.” She pointed at the light. “If we hurry, we can beat him to the stairs to the entrance hall, and get to Gryffindor tower before he notices anything.”

Even the still stunned-looking Neville nodded, and they set off at top speed across the castle.

“Where on earth have you all been?” the Fat Lady asked, as they reached the end of the corridor on the seventh floor.

“Never mind that! Pig snout, pig snout!” Harry panted, and the portrait swung forward.

They stumbled into the common room, panting and wheezing. Even Sunset was a little out of breath.

“What do they think they’re doing, keeping a thing like that locked up on a school?” Ron finally said, outraged. “If any dog needs exercise, that one does.”

Hermione glared at him. “You don’t use your eyes, any of you, do you?” she said. “Didn’t you see what it was standing on?”

“The floor?” was Harry’s suggestions. “I wasn’t looking at its feet, I was too busy with its heads.”

“No, not the floor. It was standing on a trapdoor. It’s obviously guarding something.”

Sunset was impressed. She hadn’t been thinking of looking at the floor either.

“I hope you’re pleased with yourselves. We could have been killed, or worse, expelled. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going off to bed.”

“No we don’t mind,” Ron muttered after her. “You’d think we dragged her along, wouldn’t you?”

“Well, that was fun,” Sunset said, and yawned. “But I think I’m going to turn in for the night too.”

“Yeah, g’night,” Harry said, as Sunset climbed the stairs to the girls’ dormitories.

“Honestly, those two,” Hermione whispered, as Sunset entered the dorms. “It’s like they don’t even realize they were almost caught.”

“Not your problem though, right?” Sunset noted.

“But imagine how many points we’d lose if Filch found us!”

“What? Points? Oh right, those. Whatever, who cares?”

“I care!” Hermione said, indignantly. “Everyone cares!”

“Really? Huh. Goodnight.”

“... Goodnight.”

Mare In The Mirror

“Now, can anyone tell me what requires less magic but more control,” McGonagall said in one class. “Transforming wood into cast iron or into pure iron?”

Even Hermione’s hand stayed down.

“Miss Shimmer?”

“Pass,” Sunset said, leaning back in her seat.

“Anyone else?”

Sunset leaned over and whispered, “cast iron,” into Neville’s ear, and then started raising his arm up for him enough that he nervously raised it himself the rest of the way.

“Mister Longbottom?”

“Uhm, c… cast iron?”

“Very good,” McGonagall said. “Can anyone say why?”

Sunset pretended to adjust in her seat to whisper some more.

“The, uhm, c-carbon in the wood is e-easy to t-transform into the carbon in the… cast iron?”

McGonagall looked suspiciously at Neville and Sunset, before nodding concedingly. “Very good. Ten points to Gryffindor.”

The rest of the class was spent transforming more small wood articles into metal. Those who wanted could instead try their wands at the somewhat trickier paper to metal, but only Hermione and Sunset were on that level.

Sunset kept her work secret though, keeping her book propped up on the table, blocking the view of the other students, and pretending to be reading from it whenever McGonagall glanced over her shoulder.

She had put in some serious concentration to not conflate the two types of magic, her witch’s magic and her unicorn magic, and let her supreme grandmaster arcanist-level unicorn magic do all the work. It meant that she sometimes had to practice to get the spells right, sometimes up to three times!

Class ended, and everyone started packing up and heading down to lunch.

“That was very kind of you, Miss Shimmer,” McGonagall noted, sitting behind her desk and going through some notes.

Sunset stopped packing, as the rest of the class filed out. “Excuse me?”

“Helping Mister Longbottom like that. The house competition can be a stressful factor for many students. It can be very good for one’s confidence to contribute.”

“Oh. I guess. How do people even keep track of them?”

McGonagall looked up over her paper. “The large hourglasses outside the great hall, Miss Shimmer.”

“Oh is that what they are? I wondered why everyone kept staring at them all the time.”

McGonagall looked at Sunset for a moment, before she sighed and shook her head. “Run along now, Miss Shimmer.”

“Professor.”

—

“... Hellooo? Sunset?” Lavender Brown asked during lunch, with her and Parvati Patil looking eagerly at Sunset.

“Huh? What?”

“I said, what happened last Thursday?” Parvati asked

“Uuh, flying lesson?” Sunset asked, puzzled

“No, after that. What were you and Hermione doing out past midnight?”

“Oh, that. It was just this thing about meeting Draco Malfoy.”

“Hermione is seeing Draco Malfoy?” Lavender immediately asked, with almost predatory excitement.

“No no, it was Harry.”

Lavender and Parvati’s eyes lit up. “She’s seeing Harry?”

“No? At least I don’t think so,” Sunset admitted.

Their eyes lit up more than Sunset thought possible. “Harry is seeing Malfoy?”

“He was gonna, in the trophy room.”

They leaned in closer, and Sunset felt like she was staring at hungry hyenas. “So what were you and Hermione doing?”

“I was just getting back from the hospital wing. Hermione was gonna stop Harry from the thing with Malfoy. Something about a duel.”

“Hermione was going to duel Harry for seeing Malfoy?”

“Ugh, no!”

“She was gonna duel Malfoy for seeing Harry?”

“No, Harry and Ron were going to duel Malfoy, and Hermione was going to stop them,” Sunset said.

You could see the gears turning inside Parvati and Lavender’s heads as they mentally analyzed this information in detail, comparing it to the images in their heads.

They obviously found reality wanting, and went back to whatever they had talked about before bringing Sunset into the discussion.

Sunset shook her head, and went back to her sandwich, at least until a package slammed down in front of Harry a little further along the table.

“Oooh! What’s that?” Parvati asked. “Harry grew up with muggles, so they wouldn’t send owl posts.”

That reminded Sunset that she needed to place some orders of her own. Not only some new clothes, but extra potion supplies to practice with on her own, as well as a lot of books, as she was halfway finished with most of the ones from her current year, and wanted alternate books, especially when it came to potions, to cross-reference with for the best results.

She quickly pressed the rest of her sandwich into her mouth, and walked out towards the owlery, chewing all the while.

Hogwarts castle was a strange mix of the comfortable and luxurious, and the drab and even sometimes decaying, but the afternoon sun did a good job of putting some life and light into everything as Sunset moved through the halls.

On the way, she saw Draco Malfoy walking with his two friends, Grab and Coil or something, looking grouchy.

“I’m going to tell father about this! If Potter can play seeker then…” Draco went quiet when he saw Sunset, then turned and hissed to his friends. “Go back to the common room or something. Go on!”

Sunset nodded absentmindedly at the trio as they split up, and it took a few moments before she realized that Draco was starting to walk alongside her.

“Oh. Hey,” she said.

“Hello. So, you ended up in Gryffindor?” he said, in a light conversational tone. Or perhaps a forced conversational tone, it was hard to tell.

“Yep, and you ended up in Slytherin,” Sunset said, as she kept walking, being fairly certain of the colors by now. “You said you wanted that back in The Leaky Cauldron, right? Congratulations.”

“But, you know, you would’ve fit in Slytherin too,” Draco pointed out.

“So the hat told me.”

“... Do you think students are allowed to change houses… if they fit in more than one?”

“I don’t know actually,” Sunset said, mildly curious about that as well. “Don’t see why not.”

“Where are you going?”

“The owlery. I just need to send some letters. How about you?”

“I, uh, need to send some letters as well.”

“Oh.”

Sunset glanced at the boy next to her, weighing whether she should turn around with an excuse about how she had forgotten her letter.

“Who are you sending letters to?” Draco asked.

“Madam Malkin,” Sunset said, happy to listen to anything other than uncomfortable silence. “I don’t have a nightgown, so I have to order one.”

“Oh,” Draco said, turning pink after a moment. “Well, I’m sending a letter to my father, to ask him for a broomstick.”

Sunset glanced sideways at Draco, as she ascended a flight of stairs. “A broomstick? Oh, right, a broomstick. Cool.”

“Yeah, it is. My father has a lot of pull, you know? Could probably get me on the quidditch team.”

“I’m… sure you’ll do great.”

“Yeah, I will. I’m really good at flying, you know? Oh, wait, you haven’t seen. Yeah, that clumsy Longbottom saw to that,” Draco spat.

“Yeah, I guess he did,” Sunset said, and opened the door to the Owlery, a dimly lit room, with high ceilings, always opened windows, and dozens of owls ready to take one’s mail to wherever. Like in Equestria, mail here was carried by wings, but you couldn’t have a conversation with the mailmare here.

Sunset still wasn’t all that used to owl mail, but the horned owl patiently held out a leg and waited for Sunset to finish tying a package to it, filled with a letter specifying order and sizes, a return address, and payment.

Meanwhile, Draco kept talking about his family, and quidditch.

“We live in a manor, see, so I have a lot of space to practice flying. I’ve actually flown around muggles before. Never been caught though.”

“Uhuh. Madam Malkin, and Flourish and Blotts, Diagon Alley, okay?” Sunset asked the owl, who hooted in response, and flew out the window.

“I guess you gotta cheer for Gryffindor, but maybe you wanna see the matches from the Slytherin stands?”

“Uhuh, I, uhm, wait…” Sunset said, some part deep inside her jumping up and down, yelling and waving its arms to stop her from talking more before she agrees to anything she’ll regret. “... Oh! Uh, yeah if I see you… sure. I’ll uh… just leave you to send your letter in peace.”

“Okay,” Draco said, smiling absentmindedly, reaching inside his robe for a letter he had forgotten didn’t exist, as Sunset closed the door.

Desperate times called for desperate measures, and with a small flash, she teleported away to behind the juniper bushes behind greenhouse four, and breathed out a sigh of relief.

—

Charms and Transfiguration lessons were actually becoming more interesting as they left the introductory parts, and started actually doing some more magic.

Sunset had to rein herself in pretty seriously though, as it became clear that everyone but Hermione didn’t need three attempts before mastering each spell, but three lessons on average.

During transfiguration, Sunset could prop up her book and keep others from seeing how she was mastering switching places of objects, vanishing spells, and some conjuration, and all the while, McGonagall’s attention and praise were aimed at Hermione. She had tried coaxing some more esoteric magical knowledge out of Sunset, but Sunset didn’t want to play.

What was more frustrating was Charms lessons. A few transfiguration effects were clearly flashy and drew attention, such as conjuring fire, but they were in the minority unless you performed feats on greater objects. The majority of charms however, were bright and colorful, or had lasting effects.

Sunset resigned herself to mostly reading while pretending to struggle with the lessons, hiding other books that she had received from Diagon Alley.

Potions, too, were something she was practicing more in her spare time, although there were difficulties when it came to that as well. Turns out that there were many restrictions on where and when potions could be brewed, including the Gryffindor common room, which especially frustrated Sunset as it seemed the rules were meant to force people to brew potions in Snape’s presence.

Sunset had set up her potion kit on a low table with a long couch beside it, drawing some looks from some of the others in the common room, notably Lavender and Parvati.

“What are you doing?” Parvati asked, looking up from their Astronomy homework, as Sunset picked up her five potion books, and flipped them all up to cover the same potion.

“Practicing,” Sunset said, and shrugged.

“Don’t let Hermione see all of those,” Lavender noted. “She’ll eat herself to death.”

Despite herself, Sunset couldn’t help but snigger a little.

Unfortunately, Sunset didn’t have time to get more than halfway through the relatively simple potion before Percy came down from the boys’ dorm.

“You can’t brew potions in the common room, Sunset,” he said, making Lavender and Parvati look up from their end of the couch. “You can only brew potions in the dungeon.”

“Says who?” she asked.

“Says the rules.”

Sunset looked over at the board with the rules posted on it. There was nothing there about not being allowed to brew potions.

“Which one?”

Percy puffed himself up, and went over to fetch the list of rules.

“Here,” he said, pointing at it. “Students are not allowed to practice magic that is disturbing or distracting to their fellow students.”

“Too fuzzy,” Sunset said, and focused on the potion again. “Besides, I need time to practice away from Professor Snake.”

“Professor Snape,” Percy insisted.

“Whatever.”

“Oh give it a rest, Perce,” Fred said, as the twins came up and leaned over the couch’s backrest. “What are you brewing anyway?”

“Paste of skin mending,” Sunset said.

“What’s with all the books?” George asked.

“I’m reading up all the variations for how it’s made to get a feel for the best results.”

George gave a low whistle at the five different tomes laying spread out across the table and couch.

“What do you need skincare for anyway?” Parvati asked, with a hint of accusation in her voice.

“That’s a good question,” Fred noted, and slowly poked Sunset in the cheek. “Doll face.”

“I don’t. I’m just choosing one that’s safe to get wrong,” Sunset said, ignoring the prodding.

Percy cleared his throat. “Regardless, you have to stop.”

“You know, Perce, you might have better luck if you try asking politely,” George noted.

“Yeah. Oh, what a nightmare, us having to teach you manners,” Fred said, grinning. "What's the world coming to?"

Percy gave the twins a venomous look, before taking a deep breath.

“Sunset, could you please not brew potions in the common room?”

“I’ll stop after this one. How about that?”

Percy, obviously taking victories where he could get them around the twins, nodded reluctantly. “Thank you,” he said, and walked away.

“Thanks,” Sunset said to the twins, when Percy was out of earshot.

“No problem,” they said, and jumped over the backrest to sit at either side of her.

“What happens if I add this?” Fred said, and reached for some nettles.

Sunset sighed, but noticed that a part of her didn’t mind all that much.

—

Sunset continued exploring the castle, now during lunch while many were busy eating, trying to get a feeling for who patrolled where and which floors were most empty at which times during the week.

“What are you doing here!?” roared an angry voice behind Sunset.

Sunset wasn’t surprised, as Filch’s scent announced his approach from a great distance, and lingered for many minutes after he was gone.

“Looking around,” Sunset calmly said.

“Oh yes? What for?” Filch said, leaning in and boring his nasty little eyes into Sunset, or did his best in any case.

“I want to know the layout of the castle.”

“Oh yeah!? Thought you’d sneak into the forbidden parts of the castle, didn’t you?” Filch growled, making another valiant attempt at intimidating the young girl in front of him.

“No I’m planning on staying far away from your quarters, thank you,” Sunset said, raising one eyebrow at Filch,

Filch hesitated, his gleefully malevolent sneer had changed to simply malevolent. Clearly, young students not being afraid of him was not according to script.

“You just get back to your common room, and if I ever see you here again…”

Sunset bobbed her head back and forth, as if she was weighing his words. “If you insist, but first we should go see Professor Sprout and tell her that you’re overriding her job as an educator, and then I shall have a written document, signed by you, where you explain your motivation to keep me from my education.”

Filch looked like he was going to crack his remaining teeth, when a cheerful voice called out from behind them.

“Oh, hello there, Argus, and Miss Shimmer,” said Professor Flitwick, as he walked down the corridor.

“Hello, professor,” Sunset said, cheerfully.

“What are you talking about if I may ask?”

“This ‘ere first year was snoopin’ around,” Filch said, pointing a thumb over his shoulder towards Sunset.

“True, but that’s an unflattering way to describe it,” Sunset noted. “And the old man here was assaulting me with his breath.”

Filch’s face twisted even further as his sneer intensified. “You better shut yer mouth or I’ll lock you in the dungeons and throw away the key.”

“A wasted gesture,” Sunset noted, before Flitwick jumped in.

“Now now, Argus, we’re all friends here. Now, Miss Shimmer, you need to get to class soon, correct?”

“I have a few minutes, but yes, herbology.”

“I’m headed outdoors myself. Perhaps you’d like to keep me company?”

“Since you so kindly offer,” Sunset said, and the two of them left Filch glaring at their necks.

“You shouldn’t antagonize Mister Filch,” Flitwick noted, but without any real accusation in his voice.

“Indeed, and I haven’t,” Sunset pointed out, walking slowly enough so that Flitwick didn’t have to jog to keep up. “He was the one doing the antagonizing, I was nothing but respectful.”

Flitwick sighed. “Yes, he was, wasn’t he? I could argue that you were handing him rope to hoist himself with, but that still doesn’t take blame away from him. Frankly, you are a clever young girl, Sunset, so let us skip the semantic exchange and the details of who did and should be blamed for what, and say that I would appreciate it if you held yourself to a higher standard than Mister Filch holds himself to.”

Sunset looked at Flitwick, surprised by the straightforwardness of his request. In a sense it was not a reasonable request, but it was phrased very politely.

“That might be difficult, but if I avoid him, that problem will be bypassed.”

Flitwick chuckled, as they moved outside with a trickle of students who were also moving towards the greenhouses. “That will be keeping with a school tradition of sorts. Very well. Run along now, Miss Shimmer.”

“Professor,” Sunset said, and walked towards class.

—

Herbology went as usual- Ron Weasley was an oaf, Harry Potter only slightly better, Hermione Granger was flustered that book reading only helped so much, the other girls screeched and squirmed every time something interesting happened, and Neville Longbottom was without a question the best in class.

The flesh-eating plants they were handling were very young, and very few of them could bite through their protective gloves. In fact, they looked pretty harmless, cooing and looking happy when petted right, but Ron still managed to get one stuck to his thumb.

Professor Sprout gave Neville five points to Gryffindor for removing the plant from Ron without damaging it as she bandaged Ron’s thumb.

As Sunset looked at the scene unfurling, one of them chomped down on the side of her wrist, but she managed to keep from yelping in surprise.

Later, during lunch, Sunset was dabbing the small wound with a napkin, curious and a little disturbed about the sight.

Not that a tiny wound like that worried her, but it didn’t look like she was used to.

The little plant had drawn blood.

It was red.

She dabbed her finger against the wound, and tasted it. It didn’t taste different than she expected.

“Sunset? Are you okay?” Harry asked. Her behavior obviously seemed weird to them.

“Huh? Oh, yeah, sure. I’m fine,” Sunset said, and finished her toast.

“Well we’d better get going,” Ron said. “Don’t want to be late for history of magic.”

“Actually, I kinda do,” Harry noted

“Yeah I guess so. Doubt Binns would even notice,” Ron scoffed.

Ronald had a point. As Sunset walked down the hallways towards Professor Binns’ classroom, she improved a little spell to create an invisible shield which muffled the sounds coming from one general direction.

It did wonders to keep her from having to listen to the ghost’s droning voice. Unfortunately, the subject was still extraordinarily boring.

Actually, that wasn’t true. History could be very interesting, it’s just that her textbook was an incredibly boring one.

It certainly didn’t measure up to having one of the central figures behind so much history close to hoof, willing to answer questions.

What was going through the mind of the highest political figure in the land as they signed important, long-lasting treaties? Well, for Sunset, Celestia had always been there, ready to answer, often with a playful little wink.

—

Decades of being a teacher had honed Minerva McGonagall’s senses to spot things amiss to a razor sharpness. As she walked down the great hall, on her way to teach the third years, she turned her head to look at the vacant seats of her house’s table, and spotted a discarded napkin. She had very nearly missed it.

She picked it up and inspected it, and a shiver ran down her spine. Her gaze swept across the great hall, a quarter filled with casually chatting students, eating, some of them studying. Everything looked normal.

Minerva McGonagall hoped that her magical knowledge had failed her. That she had misjudged what she saw. She hoped what was on the napkin was fake, or a prank, though it would have been in supremely poor taste.

The napkin was stained with a silver substance.

Unicorn blood.

—

“Today, you will be brewing the paste of skin mending,” Snape said, bored, as the chalks, by themselves, listed up the reagents and some insipidly short instructions in a minutely small and very sloppy font on the blackboard in the distance. “If done correctly it will turn into a weakly green foam which will float up to the surface of the liquid in your cauldron, where it can be collected and pressed into a paste.

“It is a simple potion, and one quick to make so I shall assume that even the simplest of you will be able to succeed.”

“This also means that you will work by yourselves,” he said, smirking at Parvati and Lavender who had started shuffling towards Sunset, knowing that she had already perfected it. “Begin.”

Sunset shrugged, and read through the instructions again, when inspiration struck her.

She arranged the reagents carefully, the nettles, the salt, and ground up leeches, but she changed one small detail.

Instead of using a silver knife to shave flakes of beeswax with, she used a copper knife.

She kept everything else the same, and paid extra close attention to how it differed from how it had turned out when practicing on her own.

As she stirred, she looked around to see how others were faring. Only Neville seemed to lack confidence in his potion, while Hermione’s was already shaping up to perfectly fit the description in the book.

Sunset’s own turned out to look weak, with only small amounts floating to the top, like most others in the class, with Snape floating among the students and berating them.

Sunset studied her potion closely in fascination, brought up her notebook, and started meticulously logging the results. She didn’t know exactly what to make of it, but it was an interesting result nonetheless, which she felt would deepen her understanding of potion-making in the end.

“Miss Shimmer, you used a copper knife to shave the beeswax, didn’t you?”

“Uhuh,” she said, only paying the most bare of attention to Snape, as she looked at foam that struggled to stay afloat, fascinated.

“Shimmer, I will have your attention!” Snape barked.

“Mmmm… uh, yeah, sure, you got it.”

Snape glared at Sunset for a moment longer, before he drew his wand, and Sunset brought up an invisible shield around herself, still focusing on her potion. If he threw the first punch, he’d be in for a surprise.

“Then the results will be less voluminous and of reduced effect, and you have failed,” Snape said, and waved his wand.

Very unceremoniously, the concoction vanished, leaving Sunset with an empty cauldron.

She looked up at Snape, radiating disapproval at his colossal stupidity.

“I. Was. Studying. That.”

“The potion failed, Miss Shimmer, and I removed it, you will have to start over.”

Sunset had had enough. She had shown Snape far more respect than she should have, but this was too much.

She could contain her disdain for Snape in that his physical form would leave the classroom in one piece, but his ego should be… no, needed to be destroyed.

“Wow, yeah, start over. That’s so smart. You’re really earning your salary, professor. Can I leave early today? I need to go up to talk to the headmaster and recommend he gives you a raise.”

To Sunset’s immense satisfaction, Snape’s smirk vanished, and he leaned down towards Sunset’s face, but retreated again when Sunset did the same.

His expression instead became sickly sweet.

“Detention, Shimmer, you will be in this classroom Tuesday evening at eight.”

Sunset simply shook her head at the thought that he could force her to do anything, and went back to studying potions.

She felt the gazes of her classmates, and looked up to see them staring at her with wide eyes and shocked smiles.

All the boys except Neville quietly mouthed the word, “brilliant,” along with some expletives mixed in.

A surprised Sunset couldn’t help but scoff in amusement.

—

Sunset walked behind Filch, as he stalked through the corridors.

A trio of second year Ravenclaw girls looking through a magazine were some of the victims of his foul mood, as he yelled at them for loitering.

Sunset raised her arms and yawned loudly. Neither Filch, nor the other girls, had seen her.

To wizards, illusion magics were a subset of charms, rather than a discipline of itself. It had the same advantages and disadvantages that all wand magic had, with the further setback of being… not quite underdeveloped, but close to it, in Sunset’s mind.

Satisfied that her spells that made people ignore her were just as effective here as back home, Sunset set to wandering the castle some more, looking for a really good spot for practicing some more flashy magic.

It was either that or try and teleport far away to some lonely mountain top or something, as she had scanned through her intermediately advanced spellbooks for some fire magic. Can’t be a proper wizard, or witch, as this world called her, without knowing how to shoot fireballs.

The castle had so many rooms, and it was strange how many of them were actually in use, which is why it was a doubly good thing that her illusion magics were fully functional. Some were used in classes of course, but some were meeting-rooms for the ghosts, some were storage for dark creatures that Quirrell hadn’t deigned to show them, one was not a classroom, but the office of some teacher Sunset hadn’t met yet.

In one, however, there were tables and chairs stacked on top of each other in the corner, and a large mirror, its surface surrounded by ornate silver, in a corner.

It was old and weathered, but with some proper care and polish it looked as if it could be restored to pristine condition.

What was really intriguing about it for Sunset though, was that it was magic. Very magic.

Sunset slowly approached it, reading the inscription above the glass.

‘Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi’

The strange phrase gave Sunset pause for a few moments, before she figured out the puzzle.

“Heh… my heart’s desire, eh?” she said, and looked into the mirror.

Her mirror image stood in front of her, a small, confident smirk on her face.

Sunset looked on in fascination as fiery red and yellow wings sprouted from her back, and spread wide, her smile widening and her eyes becoming hungry for more.

A radiant light surrounded her, and Sunset knew that the power was coursing through her mirror image, absolute tempests of magic, oceans of power, and control to match.

Then her smile fell away, as a tall, and stunningly beautiful woman stood behind her.

She was dressed in a white silk toga, with a golden tiara, and a lustrous, radiant and rainbow-colored mane of hair, reaching down to her knees.

Through the mirror, she locked eyes with the real Sunset, and gave a proud smile, completely unabashed by the tears gathering in her eyes.

Sunset tried glowering at her mentor through the image, but couldn’t manage anything other than a wounded frown.

“You don’t care,” she said, in a low voice.

Celestia put a hand on Sunset’s shoulder, gently shook her head, and while the mirror image couldn’t make a sound, it was still clear what it wanted to say.

‘Always.’

“... No,” Sunset insisted. “You tried to keep me from it!”

But Celestia’s smile only grew more serene, as she slowly shook her head and leaned forward with a gently insistent look.

‘Always.’

Sunset stood there for another moment. She tried focusing on the wings, and the power, but Celestia’s serene, comforting… infuriating presence soured it all.

Her breathing grew more and more shallow, as her eyes blurred with tears, and she tore her gaze away and stormed towards the door.

She stopped just before walking out, her heart beating in her chest, and threw one more wounded look at the mirror.

“You said you’d teach me everything!” she accused the mirror image of Celestia.

But Celestia just stood there, as calm as before, still smiling encouragingly.

‘... Always.’

Tears flowing freely down her face, Sunset stormed out of the room, a deep ache in her chest.

A Little Bit Of Adventure

The Defence Against the Dark Arts class was particularly odd for Sunset the next Monday.

Quirrell stood in front of the class, pointing at an image of a very ugly horse-like creature hanging from the wall.

“The M-M-Mare, or M-Mara, often th-ttthhhought to be a c-c-c-ousin to the th-thestral, i-is a wwwwicked creature that ssssneaks up on p-p-people while they sleep and ssssit o… on them. They are r… rare in these p-p-p-parts, and so their motivations are nnnnnot entirely understood. S-s-s-some say that they g… gain something from this, w… while others say th-that they are simply doing it f-f-for p-pleasure.

“It isssss said however, that the mare has ssssserious c… c-c-compulsive t-tendencies and her th… thought pattern is v… very easily dist...distracted, and one n… need o… only toss a ha… h-h-handful of f-flax seed onto the f-f-floor to distract her through an entire n-n-night, as she c-c-c-counts them´. His-historically however, r… religious people, preferred to sh… shear the tail of a c-c-c-cow, and put the ha-hairs so that they st-st-st-stuck out of a psalm book, and p-p-p-place it on the w-windowsill of the b-b-b-bedroom.”

Luckily, at that point, Professor McGonagall chose to knock on the door, distracting Sunset from the bizarre tales.

“Y-yes, M-M-Minerva?” Quirrell asked.

“I would like a quick word, Quirrell,” she said.

“But of c-c-c-course,” he said, as he walked out towards the hallway, to have a whispered conversation.

Sunset shook her head, doubly wishing she could’ve sat this lecture out. She wasn’t sure if she ought to be offended on behalf of thestrals, or if the lecture was too absurd.

The rest of the class was taking a mental breather, as while no one wanted to say it, and it wasn’t like he could help it, listening to Professor Quirrell could be pretty exhausting.

“Y-you d-don’t say?” Sunset heard Quirrell say from out in the hallway.

“I do, and the headmaster agrees to keep this quiet.”

McGonagall’s voice was cut off by Parvati and Lavender gossipping, and Sunset had to discreetly lean her chair closer to the door.

“I ssssee. Hmm, g-good plan.”

“Yes, so please keep your eyes open.”

“Of c-course. Thank you for t-t-telling me.”

Sunset let her chair come back into a normal position. Maybe it was just the boredom of listening to lectures about entry-level magic, or maybe the other girls and their thirst for gossip was a bad influence on her, but Sunset regretted not casting some spells to let her listen in on the whole conversation.

—

Later in the day, Sunset placed her piece of cardboard against the wall outside of the potions classroom, and walked in without knocking.

Snape looked up, annoyed at what he no doubt considered insolent manners.

“... Sit down,” he said.

Sunset shrugged, and did so.

Snape got up and put down a small, empty bowl in front of Sunset, followed by a large bowl of something black and hairy. A bowl full of dead spiders.

“You are to collect the eyes, and place them in the empty bowl.”

“Got it,” Sunset said, in an easy manner.

Snape looked at Sunset suspiciously, but she just looked back in a slightly amused manner, as if asking if he was going to be looking at her all day. It was important not to say that out loud though, at this time.

Snape turned around and walked back to his desk, and as he did, Sunset’s hair and nails momentarily lit up, as she unleashed several prepared illusions on the spot where she sat.

Snape didn’t react though, even as Sunset magically floated in a large sheet of cardboard, and went to work on illustrating it.

When she was done, she calmly walked out the door to the corridor. Snape’s brows creased ever so slightly, but he didn’t look up. To him, there was an annoying student sitting quietly and suffering in front of him. Everything was as it should be.

Sunset walked down the corridors, leaving the classroom behind, and shaking her head. “... Idiot.”

By now, Sunset was more than halfway through the second year’s spells. She had no problem with charms and transfiguration, but potions did take longer to practice of course, so she was only a few months ahead on that, and wouldn’t say no to more repetition, to make sure it stuck properly in her head. Similarly, Sunset only felt so confident about her skills when reading about herbology, and preferred to learn practically as well.

The big gaps in her learning were the so-called defences against the dark arts. It was a strange subject, and a bit unfocused. The first year’s book had been dull, to say the least. It mostly covered the philosophy about what is and is not considered dark magics, the proper forms and justifications of defense, and then a little bit of practical knowledge about aggressive creatures and a few weak shield spells.

Sunset made a note to ask Fred and George to take a look at their book, and see if things got better.

The dark magics themselves, as the first year’s book to defend against it described them, seemed to be mostly charms with grim and morbid flavors. Sunset presumed that perhaps they’d earn their reputation when they became a little more advanced than what her fragile, eleven year old sensibilities were judged to be capable of handling.

While Sunset did enjoy all kinds of learning, magical lores especially, there was a nagging feeling in the back of her mind that she should be looking into anything that has to do with ascension into alicorns.

The path to becoming one would of course be highly esoteric, and so it might prove useful to study all fields of magic, as the key might be hidden in obscure, arcane lore that only makes sense if you combine them all.

Maybe.

It seemed like a logical conclusion at least.

Sunset knew that Celestia hadn’t been born an alicorn. She had managed to ascend somehow, and she was a master of every kind of magic Sunset could think of. The most logical thing would be to follow in her hoofsteps.

Even so, it might do to research this world’s menagerie of magical creatures. Sunset had gathered from Ollivander that unicorns in this world, and presumably pegasi and earth ponies as well, were very reclusive, and Sunset felt that in a society this focused on remaining unnoticed by their non-magical counterparts, there would be a greater presence of her kind. If these people knew more of unicorns, and pegasi, and earth ponies, they would be talking about them much, much more.

Sunset felt a bit of vicarious pride for her counterparts in this world. Clearly, they were even greater at keeping their societies hidden than even witches and wizards.

One more thing Sunset felt might be worth investigating would be if there were any alicorns in this world. It was no guarantee however. Alicorns were rare- Celestia and Cadence being the only known ones, with only a small number of others appearing in legends. It was possible, likely even, that there simply were no alicorns here.

And if there were, Sunset would keep her observations secret. Revealing her intentions only once had been bad enough.

So the library was the next step.

Sunset hadn’t been in there much yet, but she was familiar with Madam Pince, the librarian, by reputation. She glared at Sunset suspiciously, but like with Filch, Sunset not being intimidated by angry old people probably just made her angrier.

There were only a few students left, as most were trickling back to their dorms for the day, but a quick perception filtering charm meant Sunset would remain undisturbed, as she started looking through the shelves containing books on magical creatures.

Of course, her plan was cut short by Madam Pince putting out the lights and closing up the library, so Sunset grabbed a book on transformations, quickly dispelled the charm that would trigger an alarm if it was taken out of the library, and left for the Gryffindor common room.

The fat lady’s portrait swung open, and Sunset plopped down on a couch next to the rest of the first years.

Around her, people were studying, laughing, playing games, eating snacks, and socializing in various ways. The fifth and seventh years were frantically studying for their major exams, the ones that determined the grades that any employers would look at, while lower years were acting more casually.

Sunset had to admit that the constant low-key chaos of the common room, and the open fireplaces and fuzzy carpeting which so far succeeded to chase away the increasing chill outside the windows, provided a cozy blanket to study under.

“Weren’t you supposed to be in detention?” Hermione asked, looking up over a long astronomy essay, and sounding a little accusatory.

“Yep. I left,” Sunset said.

“What did Professor Snape say?”

“Nothing.”

—

Professor Snape, meanwhile, was sitting in the dungeon, correcting tests of his sixth year students, struggling not to smile as one of the Gryffindor students’ answers could be interpreted as incorrect, which, when Snape was the teacher, resulted in a failed test.

He glanced up to see the insufferable brat dutifully bent over her tasks, and sneered in frustration.

—

The book Sunset had borrowed was not overly helpful for Sunset’s ultimate goal, as it said nothing about ascending closer to a godlike status. The agelessness of “vampires” did enable them to greatly hone their powers, though many kinds of magics were unavailable to them for some reason.

Animagi were an interesting little note, and the concept of werewolves seemed kind of disturbing, but there was nothing about alicorns, or anything that resembled alicorns.

Sunset slowly closed the book, her mind feeling numb, but still disappointed and frustrated, as one gets from pursuing the truly mysterious. Aimless pursuits of magic and power was easier than this, just learning in itself was progress.

Sunset needed a break if she wanted to stay in control of her emotions. She slowly rose up, and walked up to the dorms, and went to bed, idly wondering if anyone had tried getting her attention during the time she had sat in the common room.

—

Snape had grown bored with tormenting Sunset, and although he would never admit it to anyone, including himself, it was because she refused to display any signs of anguish at her grueling task.

He rose up from behind his desk, and strode down towards Sunset, his robes billowing exactly right, thanks to many years of practice.

Sunset didn’t look up, and Snape wordlessly reached for the bowl of insect eyes to inspect Sunset’s work.

Not that there was much to inspect, as the bowl turned out to be a cardboard standee that fell over once his hand came near it.

Snape’s expression was absolutely stone-like, as he slowly turned to face Sunset, who kept looking down at the table.

“I assume you think this is highly amusing,” Snape said, slowly and deliberately, with a slight hiss to his voice. “I assure, I will cure you of that notion.”

What Sunset’s reaction to that might have been, Snape didn’t find out, as the figure in front of him turned out to be a cardboard standee that fell over once Snape’s breath came near it.

—

The next morning, Sunset stumbled into the great hall, trying to get her eyelids to move in synch, collapsed into a chair by the Gryffindor table, and started shoving sandwiches and coffee down her stomach, when she slowly noticed the flying pumpkins with candles in them, and the generally black and orange decorations everywhere.

<<... Nightmare Night?>> she said, confused.

“What?” asked Dean Thomas, two seats away from her.

“What?”

Sunset shook her head, and switched over to English, as it was called here. “I mean, what?”

“... What, to what?” Dean asked.

He and Sunset stared at each other for one very confused moment.

“Uh… I don’t know,” Sunset eventually offered.

“... Me neither.”

“Sunset Shimmer,” Sunset heard McGonagall say, and looked up to see her head of house approaching.

McGonagall was a very strict individual even in casual situations, so the fact that she clearly had to put some effort into it now told Sunset that she was unhappy.

“Yes, Professor McGonagall?”

“I’ve just had a word with Professor Snape,” she said, coming to a halt and staring down at Sunset, which Sunset suspected would have worked better to keep other students mild and meek. “He said your behavior during detention was most unbecoming.”

“He would,” Sunset noted, dismissively, and shoved half a sandwich into her mouth.

McGonagall stiffened, and took a deep breath. “Miss Shimmer, you are to show your teachers the proper respect, or you will have to face detention with me as well. Tomorrow, after class, you will report to Professor Snape’s office for another detention.”

Sunset struggled with the food in her mouth as she considered her options.

“Hmm, ‘ow ‘m I f’po’f ‘t ge’ ou’ ‘f f’i one?”

“Miss Shimmer, table manners,” McGonagall implored, in a pained voice. “Swallow, and then stop eating until our conversation is complete.”

Despite herself, Sunset found this to be reasonable.

“Mmmng… I was just thinking to myself, and I said, how am I supposed to get out of this one?”

“You are not supposed to get out of detention!” McGonagall said, a pained look on her face.

“Oh, right, but the thing is that the detention was undeserved.”

“I’m afraid that’s not for students to decide,” Mcgonagall noted, in a terse voice.

“Why not? I’m smarter than Professor Snake, and I have a superior sense of both justice and morality.”

Sunset was certain that McGonagall would take a dim view of this jab, but she felt like she couldn’t help herself. Straight and forthcomingness ought to be a virtue worthy of an alicorn. Or something like that.

To her surprise, McGonagall hesitated, before she put on a completely neutral face, and simply said, “Miss Shimmer, you are to report to Professor Snape’s office tomorrow evening after classes,” before walking away.

Sunset shrugged, and tried refocusing on her breakfast, when she noticed Dean Thomas staring at her.

“What? Oh yeah, also, what’s with all the decorations?”

—

The day of “Hallowe’en” was apparently some sort of day associated with the dead. From what Sunset could gather, it had something to do with communicating with loved ones who had left the world for the next one, which Sunset thought sounded nice, but it was also oriented around horror, dread, and frights, from evil spirits and other dark creatures.

It didn’t perfectly mesh in Sunset’s mind.

“Miss Shimmer? How are you today?” Flitwick asked.

Sunset looked up from her charms textbook, in which she was scribbling notes in the margins, in Equestrian, just in case anyone else got a hold of it. Everyone else was practising the current charm.

“What?” she asked. “Uh, yes I’m fine, thank you for asking. How are you?”

Flitwick chuckled at the response, but nodded his head towards Sunset’s book. “I am as well, it’s just that you’re not practicing, and we’ve started with the exciting parts. There is no problem, is there?”

The “exciting” parts were levitation, which when used as a charm, was more efficient than a unicorn’s inherent arcanokinesis in terms of energy spent, but still very limited. Sunset, as well as virtually every other unicorn, had levitated things before her earliest memories.

“Uh, no, I’m just… making sure I got the theory right.”

Meaning she was jotting down some of what she remembered from magical theories back from Equestria, in case this world’s wand magic could be combined with it for amplified results. It would probably be a long way off if it was possible, but that just meant it was best to start early with it.

“May I see your wand form?” Flitwick asked, politely.

“In… in a minute,” Sunset nodded, hoping to seem placating.

“Very well,” Flitwick said, seeming a little disappointed, when he noticed that Hermione Granger had managed to cast a well-executed spell on her feather, raising it into the air, and clapped. “Oh well done! Everyone see here, Miss Granger’s done it!”

“Thank you, Hermione,” Sunset said under her breath, grateful that she stole Flitwick’s attention.

There was a feast that evening. It wasn’t very out of the ordinary for Sunset, since she was still getting used to human food in general. It was still decent though, and Sunset was grateful that these people always served either bread, or potatoes, in some form, at every meal.

Sunset was slowly chewing her food while looking up at the cloud of bats zooming back and forth across the great hall. Sunset liked bats. They were silent, and ate much more distracting little buzzing creatures. They ate a lot of them.

Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil had their heads together, gossipping. Since Sunset had never seen them apart except when, thankfully, they finally fell asleep during the night and quieted down, she had to assume that from the start of the semester until now it has been one continuous conversation, and judging from their expressions, gasping, and giggling, it had to be a riveting one.

Dean Thomas was trying to describe a non-magical sport to Seamus Finnigan, whose puzzled look was the stuff of legend.

Percy was distracted by a conversation, and Fred and George were putting fingernail clippings into the sauce on his plate, Harry and Ron were talking about… something.

Still, something was missing.

“... Hey, where’s Hermione?” Sunset asked the table in general.

“Oh, she’s been crying in the bathroom,” Parvati said. “Ever since Ron pointed out she doesn’t have any… you know.”

Sunset oh’d and nodded in fake understanding, then settled down for some quality time with her fried potatoes.

Sunset did in fact not know, and she hadn’t heard Ron say anything. What didn’t Hermione have? Brains? Talent? Drive? She had the second most of that in school.

And what about that made her so upset now, of all times? She clearly wasn’t a comfort eater, because the butter had fried the surface of the tubers in front of Sunset absolutely expertely.

Sunset looked around some more, and nodded in epiphany. It was a day of remembering the dead. Crying on a day like this meant that Hermione probably didn’t have a family, and that she might be a pretty spiritual person.

In the orchestra of a thousand forks and knives against plates, and countless conversations, Sunset was looking up at the enchanted roof as she chewed, wondering if she should be feeling anything about her own biological family.

She had never known them, but there were aspects of magic that incorporated familial bonds, like tales of curses and blessings that could travel down the generations, and divinations that could trace people through their family members.

This was one of the few times Sunset thought about what she might be missing out on, not having a biological family.

Cadence had said that biology doesn’t make families though, and that only love was required. Sunset didn’t really want to admit it, but she did appreciate Cadence’s attitude when it came to that, and grudgingly, had to admit that in this particular instance, Cadence might know more than Sunset.

Sunset figured that if she ever got the chance, perhaps she’d arrange it so that Cadence and Hermione met, just in case they were good for each other.

That’s when Professor Quirrell came running in through the doors, panting, straight up to Dumbledore’s seat, almost crashed into the table, and gasped, “Troll, in the dungeons… thought you ought to know,” before collapsing.

A collective, panicked roar went out through the great hall, before Dumbledore let out a short string of explosions from his wand, and silenced everyone.

“Prefects, lead your houses back to the dormitories immediately!”

Percy shot up as if he just realized he was sitting on a thumb tack.

“Follow me! Stick together, first-years!” he shouted, and things to the effect of him protecting people if need be and following his lead.

It felt a little rich to Sunset that Percy considered her a first year, but she couldn’t really blame him. She quickly shuffled her mouth full of potato, and joined the torrent of students quickly and orderly moving out of the great hall and towards the Gryffindor tower.

“Sunset?” Neville asked. “What do we do if the troll comes?”

Sunset looked at Neville, confused, and swallowed her mouth full of food. “It’s already here, supposedly. Oh, you mean if we run into it on the way. I guess Percy will handle it.”

“Do you think he could?” Parvati asked, nervously.

“Nope,” Sunset said, simply.

Not that she knew much about trolls, but if the entire staff was spread out to chase it off, she doubted a not-yet fully educated teenager could take it on.

They got to the portrait of the fat lady, and started climbing in, which took some time since the whole Gryffindor house was climbing in there.

A group of third years came jogging up behind them.

“Ah,” Fred said, pleased. “At least the troll won’t be able to fit through here.”

“Glad you could join us,” Percy said, tersely. “Alright, everyone straight to bed! No lollygagging!”

The door to the girls’ first year dorm room closed, and Parvati and Lavender immediately started babbling to each other, probably about trolls and what was happening. As they talked, Lavender looked out the window towards the dark grounds, only vaguely realizing that that wouldn’t tell her anything, and turning back to Parvati.

Sunset was disappointed. She still had the taste of the dinner in her mouth. All this because some stupid troll. No one was even in danger.

Sunset cocked her head. Something about that notion wasn’t quite right. Something was missing.

“... Oh.”

Hermione.

Sunset opened the door again, and saw that the stairs were abandoned.

“Where are you going?” Lavender asked her.

“Don’t worry about it,” Sunset said, closed the door behind her, and vanished with a flash.

It was a bit of a risk, teleporting like that, and an even greater risk teleporting around to the various girls’ toilets all willy-nilly, but Sunset figured, that despite herself, she would probably feel pretty bad if Hermione got crushed by some monster when she could’ve done something.

Sunset appeared in a booth of the third set of restrooms she teleported to, and jumped out of it, fingernails glowing.

“Hermione!?”

Nothing. Sunset teleported to the next restroom…

… And immediately regretted doing so.

Sunset felt as if she had been punched in the face, hard, from the stench alone, and stumbled out of the booth, both hands over her face and her eyes screwed up, barely able to see anything, only barely noticing that Ron, Harry, and Hermoine was standing in the room as well.

<> Sunset whimpered, and looked up through tear-filled eyes at the absolutely foul creature in front of her.

Twelve feet tall, with a thick, leathery hide, a both monstrous and dumb-looking face, a great tree trunk as a club in it’s great hands, and an unbelievable stench shooting out from it.

<<... You are one ugly rudderbucker.>>

It raised its club and roared. Sunset was going to conjure up a shield, but the troll’s breath hit her like a train, quickly followed by the club.

The tree trunk sent Sunset flying into the door leading out into the hallway, knocking it off its hinges, and she collapsed on the floor, on a bedding of splintered door.

Honestly, it was kind of a relief to get away from the source of the smell. That she couldn’t tell if it was worth it was a little worrying.

Sunset tried sitting up, but her head swam as if she had just tried drinking a club full of minotaurs under the table, and she collapsed again as her arms gave out.

There was some screaming, and roaring, a loud thud, and the sound of half a dozen feet approaching.

A hand gently touched Sunset’s face. From the scent, though the troll’s smell was still almost overwhelming, Sunset could tell that McGonagall, Snape, and most prominently, Quirrell and his garlic, were there.

“Miss Shimmer,” McGonagall said. “I need to know how you feel.”

Sunset blinked her eyes a few times, trying, and mostly failing, to focus on Minerva McGonagall’s face.

“... Like a hundred knuts,” she said.

Sunset felt herself being magically lifted onto something softer- a stretcher that hadn’t been there before.

“What were you doing?” McGonagall said over her shoulder, aimed at Harry and Ron. Sunset could tell that she was struggling to keep her voice down.

“Hermoine, uugh, in the toilet,” Sunset said, and tried sitting up on the stretcher, but McGonagall’s hand kept her down. “Went to warn her.”

McGonagall’s face softened after a moment, and she looked over at Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

“Miss Granger, Mister Potter, and Mister Weasley, you will go straight back to your dormitories, and we’ll talk more about this tomorrow. Miss Shimmer, lie still, please..”

Sunset’s eyesight stabilized enough to see that her classmates were looking at her with a deeply worried expression, which Sunset felt was unwarranted. It wasn’t like she had never taken a blow to the head before.

As she was carried past them, she weakly raised an arm and cried, or at least muttered, “Adventure!”

That’s when she decided to take a nap. Totally of her own volition.

Author's Note

Been crazy busy lately, but I managed to find a few small moments where I could write, and this is the result. Perhaps it's a little unfocused, but that's what not being able to have a schedule will result in. Maybe things will stabilize soon, but... well, it's just a maybe.

A Season of Generosity

Sunset woke up with a dry mouth, sore lower back, cold feet, cramping toes, and numb arm, which was strange because the only thing she expected to wake up with was a headache.

She yawned, and stretched, before looking around to see that she was in the hospital wing, which was a location she was getting familiar with.

Someone had changed her into her pyjamas and tucked her into a hospital bed, or at least tried to before Sunset had tossed around too much. It was probably Madam Pomfrey, who Sunset could see moving around in her office.

Sunset felt that her academic pursuits were really getting needlessly delayed by all the visits to this place, and figured that perhaps she could pull a trick similar to what she pulled with Professor Snape, but figured that at least this was more comfortable than the dungeon.

She did dismiss the notion of beating a retreat, however, when she looked to the little table to her side and noticed the bandage on a metal tray.

It had silver blood on it.

Sunset’s eyes shot open, and she quickly reached for it.

It made no sense. She had checked that she had red blood, just like humans, and not the type she was used to as a unicorn.

Quickly scanning around and making sure that there were no other bloodstained articles around, she settled down to inspect it.

A magical inspection comparing herself, and the stain on the bandage, showed that she was under magical effects that the stain was not.

“Oh,” Sunset said, as she formed a likely sounding hypothesis.

She reached with a finger beneath the fresh bandage on her forehead, and pulled it back with a small glob red blood on it.

She placed it on the tray, and pointed her finger on it, sending a moderate amount of raw magic power through it.

It quickly turned into a silver color.

<> Sunset said, looking around for something to make notes with, and not finding anything.

She grunted in frustration, before wiping up the glob of silver blood with the old bandage, and teleporting it away to the roof.

It was just in time, as Madam Pomfrey came marching out of her office.

“What are you doing up, and awake?” she demanded.

“Uuh… I’m showing signs of dehydration, and I’m trying to rectify it?” Sunset offered.

“Are you now?” Madam Pomfrey said, not sounding at all impressed by the notion that people could take care of their problems themselves.

“Uh… yes, my foot is cramping up.”

“Very well,” Madam Pomfrey said, and pulled out her wand, with which she conjured up a glass of water and offered it to Sunset, who gratefully took a sip out of it.

“Thanks. Say, can I get out of here now?”

“No,” Madam Pomfrey said, and looked around, suspiciously. “What happened to your old bandage?”

“Oh, uh… the… seagulls took it,” Sunset said, hoping the audacity might help

Madam Pomfrey simply stared at Sunset for a moment, then grabbed a chart and quill from the foot of the bed..

“... Patient... shows… signs... of... delirium,” she said, writing as she walked up and forced Sunset down into a lying position.

“What? No, that was a joke!”

“How is your sense of humor?” Pomfrey asked, one eyebrow raised

“Uh… good?”

“Patient’s... judgement... greatly... impaired. Recommended... further... stay.”

“Oh come on!”

“You were sent through a closed door by a mountain troll. I’m not taking any chances,” Pomfrey said, looking at Sunset with a strict expression for a moment, before it slowly softened. “You’re lucky to be alive.”

She looked down at the chart again, jotting something down and shaking her head. “I’m not sure how, honestly.”

Sunset also took a moment to calm down, and settled back into the bed. “Well… thank you.”

“That’s alright. Oh, that reminds me, you have some visitors that are eager to meet you if you’re well enough.”

Sunset blinked at Pomfrey. “I have? Who? Uh, sure, I guess I am.”

“Very well.” Pomfrey walked over to open the door leading out of the hospital wing, and said, “You can come in now, but keep it down,” before turning around and walking back towards her office.

Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley, and Hermione Granger, nervously but eagerly poked their heads around the corner, to see Sunset lying in the hospital bed, looking at them, confused.

“Uhm, hi,” Hermione said, as they walked up to her. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine, I guess,” Sunset shrugged.

“How are you even still here?” Ron asked, his eyes wide.

“I’dunno. By not leaving?” Sunset offered.

Ron and Harry looked at each other, with impressed and slightly disturbed expressions.

“But that thing hit you on the head with its club!” Harry protested.

“It wasn’t that bad,” Sunset said.

“How did you even get into the girls’ bathroom?” Hermione whispered. “I didn’t see you in there.”

“No, you were in the great hall,” Ron said. “I saw you, and so did everyone else.”

“Well, yeah, but…” Sunset said, playing for time. “After Professor Squirrel mentioned the troll I…”

Sunset stopped. This conversation was heading towards revealing that her capabilities dwarfed those of her fellow students, and from what she could tell, most or even all of the staff, which was something Sunset didn’t feel ready for just yet.

“I… started looking for you, Hermione. I think it was Parvati who said you were in a bathroom, so I went over to the bathroom and then… I don’t remember much.”

That was technically true, since there were only a few moments before McGonagall and the others had found her and she decided to take a nap.

“We were worried,” Harry said, a little cautiously.

Sunset opened her mouth, and then closed it again.

In response to those words, she wanted to laugh off what a strange situation she had gotten herself into, but that didn’t quite feel right.

Sunset smiled equally cautiously at Harry. “Well, it turned out okay it seems.”

“Thank you,” Hermione suddenly said.

“What for?”

“For… trying to help me.”

Sunset scoffed lightly. “Yeah, trying. Oh well, at least no one got hurt. Badly that is.”

Harry and Ron chuckled a little nervously, but Hermione was giving Sunset a steady look.

“... None of us saw you come into the bathroom.”

On the inside, Sunset squirmed uncomfortably.

“Uh… I don’t know. I ran through the corridors, something something, then the stench, and then knocked on the head.”

Hermione opened her mouth, then closed it again, making Sunset whoop in victory internally. Hermione probably didn’t feel comfortable pressing her in this situation.

“So what happened after the knock to the head?” Sunset suddenly asked. “You all seem okay.”

“We actually knocked it’s head!” Ron said, excitedly, before Hermione shushed him, reminding him that he was in the hospital wing.

“How?”

“Ron cast a levitation spell on the troll’s club, and then let it fall right on top of his head,” Harry said, sharing a grin with Ron.

“Only after you rushed forward like a madman with your wand,” Ron insisted.

“It was a really well cast spell,” Hermione said, approvingly.

Sunset, however, silently filed this for her re-evaluation of Harry.

He had somehow killed a really powerful wizard when he was a baby. Was yesterday’s troll battle another indication of great power, a sound tactical mind, forcefulness translating into raw force, or simply great fortune?

All of these hinted that Harry was not someone to be trifled with- even the last option.

Especially the last option. One should not lightly make enemies with Fortune’s pets.

“Well done,” Sunset said, and had to admit she meant it. “What do other people say?”

“About the spell?” Ron asked.

“About you beating the troll.”

“Uuh, I don’t know,” Ron said.

“We came to see your first thing in the morning,” Harry supplied.

“We… didn’t think you’d be up by now,” Hermione said, then continued, in a much more quiet voice. “We were afraid you’d never get up.”

Sunset looked at the trio, a little nervously, and decided to not inform them on how she almost blew up her tower, and a chunk of the castle, when she was a little filly.

“It… wasn’t that bad,” Sunset insisted, a little weakly.

Thankfully, she was saved by Madam Pomfrey, who came marching out of her office.

“Alright, that’s enough. Patients need rest, and they’re not getting any while you’re hovering about.”

“Wait, can you get my books from Gryffindor tower?” Sunset asked them before they were ushered out.

“You are going to be resting, not working,” Pomfrey ordered.

“It’s just reading,” Sunset insisted.

“Oh alright. Just books, no brooms or anything.”

—

Hermione was able to retrieve Sunset’s bag from the girls’ dormitory, and luckily didn’t peek inside it, or she might’ve gotten curious about how the inside of it looked.

“I don’t know how you walk around with this all day!” Ron had grunted, as he dumped the bag onto Sunset’s bed, not knowing that he was carrying around almost an entire shelf of books with a spell to partially lessen the weight on it.

Sunset’s swift recovery didn’t convince Madam Pomfrey that she was actually fit to leave the hospital wing. Of anything, it made her more suspicious.

Sunset suspected that it might be because Pomfrey was unfamiliar with that, and it made her suspicious. She decided to keep her mouth shut though, and keep to the story she gave her classmates: that it simply looked worse than it was. Which was, in a sense, the truth.

Neville had come by too, to awkwardly offer his well-wishes. From what Sunset could tell, it was genuine, rather than just because he missed her advice during class.

After that, it wasn’t long before Sunset was restless. She was well aware of how the body requires some light exercise to focus the mind, but luckily, she was Sunset Shimmer, a unicorn with a mind like a razor, and an iron will.

… She let the third volume of the standard book of spells fall down on her lap with a thump.

“Still no wand waving I hope,” Pomfrey remarked, as she guided a feather duster with her own wand, cleaning off the flower vases in the window.

“No,” Sunset said, and leaned back and tried listening to the coming and goings in the corridors, but all was silent, until she picked up on some distant cheering. “What’s that noise?”

“Quidditch,” Madam Pomfrey said.

“Oh.”

Pomfrey paused, and regarded Sunset as she stared up into the ceiling listlessly.

“... If you promise to keep out of trouble, I’ll discharge you this afternoon.”

Sunset stared at the medical matron for a moment, before nodding. “I… always try my best,” she said, leaving her to wonder just how much of a lie that was.

“Do better,” Pomfrey said, and walked back into her office.

The idea of getting out of the hospital wing did cheer Sunset up somewhat, partially because she figured that the longer she stayed in there, the more serious her now non-existent injuries would seem and the more attention would be aimed towards her.

So it was to her relief when Pomfrey said that she was free to go, some hours later and a lot of distant cheering later.

As Pomfrey walked back into her office, Sunset thanked her, and slipped out of her pyjamas, and started pulling on her school uniform which lay, folded and cleaned, beside the bed.

Before she was halfway through though, she noticed Draco Malfoy standing in the doorway, eyes wide.

Sunset glanced around for what could be so alarming to the strange boy, but didn’t spot anything, and slowly continued dressing. “Uuh… hello,” she said.

“H-h-h-h-h-hiii,” Draco said.

Sunset figured that perhaps he was doing an impersonation of Professor Quirrel, which might have been in poor taste, but he was pretty good at it.

She slipped her top over her head, and briskly stood up. “There we go. Madam Pomfrey is in her office if you need to see her. You look like you have a fever.”

Malfoy went from impersonating Quirrel to impersonating a drowning fish. “Uh, n-no, I’m… good.”

Sunset nodded, and slung her bag over her shoulder. “And so am I, I’ve been told, so I’m out,” she said, glad to finally be up and about again, and walked towards the door.

To her mild surprise, Draco followed her.

“Were you looking for someone in there?” she asked, as she walked down the corridor.

“Uh, y-yeah. You.”

“Me?”

“I uh… heard you were there, and wanted to see how you were doing.”

“Oh, that’s sweet. Thank you.”

Draco suppressed a small gasp and looked absolutely feverish, making Sunset wonder if he was perhaps scared of being seen as sickly around others, and that’s why he claimed to not wanting to see Madam Pomfrey.

“So uhm… that’s why you couldn’t come to the Slytherin stands?” Draco ventured.

Sunset glanced at him. “Slytherin stands?”

“During the… the game. The quidditch game.”

Now it was Sunset’s turn to stammer. “The quidd… oh! Uh, yeah, exactly. Couldn’t leave. Doctor’s orders.”

“Oh. Uhm, how did you end up in there anyway? Some idiots from Hufflepuff said that you and that Harry Potter fought a troll during Hallowe’en.”

“That’s not true,” Sunset said, making Malfoy nod in satisfying vindication before she continued. “I just got hit over the head. Harry and Ron were the ones who knocked it out.”

Malfoy slowed down, and gaped at Sunset for a moment, before catching up, his face contorted in rage, grumbling something incoherent.

“So he was the one who got you in trouble?” Draco hissed.

Sunset recoiled a little. “I wouldn’t say that. Actually, I guess he got me out of trouble. I hate to think what would have happened if Harry and Ron hadn’t been there, with me…” Sunset grimaced at her… thinking back, rather embarrassing display that night. “... out of commission, and a troll who clearly didn’t like me right there.”

Draco’s breathing slowed down to a more normal pace, but Sunset could still smell some pretty strong emotions emanating from him.

“... What do you even see in him?” he eventually asked.

“See in him?” Sunset repeated.

Draco’s eyes shot wide open. “Uh, I mean, uhm, why are you friends with him?”

“Friends? I don’t know, I…”

She stopped in the middle of the corridor, staring straight ahead for a long moment, before her gaze shifted out towards the clear blue sky.

Sunset had been friends with others back in Equestria, but… she wasn’t blind to the fact that there were far more people who simply put up with her than wanted to be her friend. She didn’t care either. Celestia had been all the company Sunset needed. And Kibitz of course, he could be interesting as well at times.

It was clear that Celestia hadn’t been entirely happy with the state of things, and had tried to change Sunset’s number of friends. Most notably with Cadence.

Sunset hadn’t acknowledged Cadence as her friend, but she hadn’t acknowledged her as not her friend either. Sunset tried not to acknowledge Cadence at all.

But… Harry and Ron had… saved Sunset’s life. And Sunset… didn’t find that nearly as humiliating as she thought she would.

“... I… don’t know,” she finished, lamely.

“I think it would be better if you weren’t,” Draco said.

Sunset was too lost in thoughts to pick up on the forcefulness in Draco’s voice, and just kept walking, though slowly.

What did she have to gain from tying herself to others? For that matter, what did she have to lose?

Well, time for one thing. Being friends with someone demanded time, which she could spend on other things, most notably finding out how to become an alicorn.

And they’d probably drag you into their conflicts, which would be another distraction. Sunset didn’t know if Harry had any conflicts, nor Ron, Hermione, or Neville for that matter, but the risk that they’d get into them eventually was very high.

And what would the benefits be? That Harry, or anyone else, would help Sunset out when she needed it? Irrelevant. Sunset doubted that a single student in this school knew more about the relevant subjects than she did, and she doubted she’d get into any violent exchanges. This society had been in a state of outright war from internal enemies a mere decade ago, and she hadn’t seen, or even heard of, any violence during all her months here, and that’s ignoring her relative power.

“... Maybe,” Sunset finally muttered.

But something about that felt strange, and she simply could not figure out why.

About that time, she realized that they were at the intersection east of the great hall, where Gryffindor students and Slytherin students would go in different directions, which reminded Sunset to scout out the lower levels of the castle more thoroughly when she got the time.

“Well uh… thanks for coming to see me,” she ventured.

That seemed to cheer Draco up, and he tried, and partially succeeded, at smirking confidently at her.

“Yeah, I’ll… see you around then?”

“Most likely,” Sunset said, and walked on towards her common room.

—

Sunset climbed into the Gryffindor common room to see some sort of celebration going on, and it smelled like it as well.

It felt like she was intruding on something though, as several students nudged others and pointed at Sunset, earning her several curious looks.

She scanned the room, before spotting the other first years lounging around in some sofas and armchairs, and cautiously approached them.

“Uh, hello, Sunset. How are you?” Lavender asked, smelling a little nervous.

“I’m uh, fine.”

“You’re out already?” Dean asked.

“Yeah. Madam Pomfrey said it wasn’t that bad. Must have been lucky,” Sunset shrugged, and let her bag fall down on an empty seat on the couch, where it sank into the cushion.

The scent of nervousness evaporated, they all looked at each other. Dean and Seamus nodded at each other, impressed.

“Tough,” they nodded.

Suddenly, Fred, or George, lightly bumped into her from the side. “Hey, sleepyhead. You done with your monster wrangling? Have a drink.”

Sunset, confused, took a bottle of pumpkin juice, furiously combing her brain for what the occasion might be, before it came to her.

“The game went well then, I take it?”

“Yeah. No studying for anyone tonight,” George, or Fred, said, from Sunset’s other side. “Youngest seeker in a hundred years, winning the game on his first match.”

“It was incredible,” Neville piped in. “He caught the snitch without using his hands.”

Harry, for his part, smiled that awkward smile of one who isn’t used to so much praise, but who isn’t entirely willing to unabashedly bask in the glory, nervous of what might happen if he did.

“Well done. Too bad I couldn’t see it,” Sunset said, thinking it was a reasonably nice thing to say.

“Thanks.”

“It was really impressive,” Hermione said, nodding in agreement.

Sunset scanned the room, noting the lively and relaxed conversations all around, and how no one was currently studying.

Instead, the common room was filled with a sense of camaraderie, with laughter and cheering.

Cautiously, she lifted her bag out of the couch again, and turned to the stairs.

“You’re not staying?” Ron asked.

“I just… need to get rid of this,” she said.

At the foot of the stairs, Sunset cast a quick perception spell to make her classmates not think about her, before walking up and collapsing in her bed, levitating her books and notebooks in front of her.

Sunset knew that anyone else would have wanted to stay down by the celebrations, and join in the festivities, but a part of Sunset had felt very uncomfortable by the idea. Repulsed even.

Relations. What a waste of time.

Still, for some reason, as Sunset lay in her bed, for some reason, she wished for a sleeping draught.

… All the more reason to study potions in her downtime.

—

The next morning, Sunset was heading towards the exit out of the Gryffindor common room to have breakfast, walking between Hermione behind her, and Lavender and Parvati ahead of her, who, for some reason, were gossiping- something Sunset had never seen them do before, except all the time.

“Oh, Sunset,” Percy said, as he walked past them, looking important. “McGonagall put up a list for people who want to stay at the school during the holidays. If you want to stay, you need to put your name on it.”

Sunset didn’t have time to thank him, which was just as well because she suspected she couldn’t muster the energy to sound anything other than snarky in response to his tone, and instead just shrugged, and walked over to the notice board and scribbled her name on the roll of paper before continuing towards breakfast.

“You’re staying over the holidays?” Hermione asked, conversationally.

“What? Oh. Yeah.”

“Don’t want to go home to your family?” Hermione asked.

It was clear that Parvati and Lavender were listening in, thanks to the sudden absence of whispering and giggling. Sunset felt like pointing that out to them, but figured that it might be easier in the future if they didn’t know how they gave themselves away.

“No, they, uh…”

Sunset searched her brains frantically, and disguised her thinking by taking a big spoonful of porridge, chewing it very slowly.

They’re dead? Sunset groaned at the thought of sympathetic coos she’d receive, like Harry sometimes got. It’s all the same to them? Technically true, but it sounded too much like a call for attention. They’re on vacation? Lies like that have a tendency to catch up with you in highly awkward ways.

Eventually, Sunset swallowed, and just shook her head and shrugged. “I’m just staying.”

Sunset’s expression was calm, but her mind raced. That was too little. It wasn’t satisfactory- on the contrary, it was intriguing! Emergency! Emergency!

“Uhm… how about you?”

“Oh, I’m going home for a bit. I can’t wait to tell my parents all that I’ve learned,” Hermione said, enthusiastically. “It’s just a shame I’m not allowed to show them yet.”

“Mhmm,” Sunset nodded in sympathy, while internally, she breathed out a sigh of relief.

—

Sunset could tell that Snape was in a foul mood, and had decided that she didn’t need to get his attention, so resorted to shrouding herself in a magical perception filter every potions class.

It didn’t make her imperceptible, she figured that if no one could tell she came to class she might get into trouble, but it did deflect the attention of anyone who didn’t have sufficient reason to focus on her, and with the distraction of two houses of first year students, was the case every time.

… Until it became time to work in pairs.

Everyone shuffled over to their preferred working partner, except Crabbe, who ended up looking around himself awkwardly, as the rest of the class settled in to work on their projects.

Sunset stopped grinding her herbs, when she noticed that Snape was looking back and forth, scowling, between Crabbe, the list of students, and the classroom at large.

Suddenly, he looked at Sunset, his eyes narrowing even more, as he studied her for several moments.

“Shimmer, you will work with Crabbe,” he said, in a strangely reserved voice.

Just like that, the effect was broken, and the rest of the class glanced at her, not quite knowing why they were surprised at noticing her.

Sunset sighed, and collected her cauldron and supplies, before walking over to Crabbe and sitting down next to him.

“Hello,” she said, in a polite, if cool, tone of voice.

Crabbe nervously looked back and forth between Sunset and Draco, who was giving him a stern look for some reason, before giving an uncertain grunt in response.

“... I concur,” Sunset said, and nodded gravely, and looked at their collective reagents laid out before them. “Are you good at cutting slugs?”

“Uh…”

“Alright, I’ll do it, you measure up the powdered roots,” Sunset said, as she brought up a slug and a knife, and started cutting, occasionally making a stirring motion with her finger in the direction of her mortar and pestle, making them move magically.

As she finished, she looked up to see that Crabbe hadn’t moved at all.

Sunset raised her eyebrow at him. “Having trouble there?”

Then she saw where he was looking; at the mortar and pestle moving by themselves at her occasional encouragement.

Sunset sighed to herself, and simply took the powder and measuring instruments, and Crabbe’s work for him, not having the energy to worry about her, in this world, unusual capabilities.

It helped a lot that she had finished up the entire first year book of potions in her spare time, and had just started on the second year’s book.

One phase in the making of the potion was to stir in a particular pattern, as one alternated mixing in the three separate ingredients, divided in very small packages, in different intervals. Hence, why this was a potion to be worked on in pairs.

Of course, that was child’s play for someone with Sunset’s level of arcanokinetic control, but she felt she should at least offer him to contribute some.

“Alright, I’ll stir, and you be ready with the nettles and root, and I’ll put in the slug parts,” she said.

“Uhm… alright,” Crabbe offered, which Sunset thought was the first time he had heard him actually say words.

Sunset stirred in the rhythmic manner that the book described, and tossed in the slug parts in the right order, having to stop Crabbe from tossing the ingredients in too early.

“Stop,” she simply ordered, as Crabbe’s hand suddenly was unable to move, until Sunset released it a few seconds later. “Proceed.”

Snape threw an occasional glance in their direction, but wasn’t as nasty as other times. Sunset figured that he was either preoccupied with other matters, or the fact that she had been forced to work with Crabbe made it so that he couldn’t sabotage her efforts without dragging one from his own house down as well.

Sunset couldn’t care less about the grades, but it was nice to be able to do some school work without constant interference for a change.

Of course, it also meant working with Crabbe, which was not ideal, his big, meaty hands making a mess of everything, forcing Sunset to hurry up and do as much of the work as possible to keep it from being ruined.

So it was to her mild surprise when their potion was finished half an hour before everyone else.

“... I guess we’re done for today?” Sunset noted to Crabbe.

“... Ook?”

That was probably Sunset unconsciously perceiving him as an ape rather than the more human sounds he probably made. She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts, as Snape came over to inspect their work.

He stirred the potion slightly, looking at it critically for a moment.

“... Acceptable,” he said, emotionless. “You may leave.”

Sunset silently packed her bags and left. She didn’t feel like fighting with Snape today, and apparently the feeling was mutual.

She walked up to the Gryffindor common room, which was practically empty as classes were still going on, and slouched into an armchair in front of the fireplace, a troubled scowl on her face.

Just like his friend, Goyle, Crabbe was tough. Crabbe was quiet and stoic. Crabbe exuded, or tried to exude, an air of confidence and danger.

The mildest of scowls from Celestia could send rich and powerful ponies into a state of abject terror.

Crabbe just came across as stupid.

Sunset felt like she learned something that day.

—

When the holidays started, Sunset woke up to find her dormitory abandoned, save for herself.

The areas surrounding Parvati and Lavender’s beds were missing only a few articles, including the girls themselves, but were otherwise as messy as they were before. This was in contrast to the skeleton of Hermione’s organized chaos, with all her reading and studying material being gone along with her, and left only some scattered quills and a bag of potions supplies.

This was more like it, or so Sunset felt. She magically floated into the air, and flicked her hands across her body, pulling her pyjamas off and sending it into a neatly folded pile on her bed, which also made itself, before making a reverse gesture, aimed at her normal clothes, which similarly zoomed up and put themselves on her.

She snapped her fingers to summon up a small ball of magic power, and whirled her finger at it, forming it into an armchair, which she floated into, and sat down.

Months of cooping up her arcane prowess had made her magic feel outright antsy, and she finally had more than a brief window to let loose.

She languidly stretched, the armchair leaning its backrest back to accommodate her, before it floated over to the window, allowing her a good view of the castle ground and the surrounding woods and hills.

Sunset liked staring at landscapes from high altitudes, a part of her felt she belonged in the air.

After a few moments, she magically turned the armchair around, and floated out of her dorm, and down the stairs, a content smile on her face.

It wasn’t until she was halfway across the common room when she heard voices behind her, coming from the stairs to the boys’ dormitory.

She floated the chair down onto the floor with a thud and jumped out of it, just as Ron and Harry were coming around the corner, looking around for what made the noise.

“Mmmornin, Sunset,” Harry said.

“Uh, good morning.”

“Yeah, mornin’. What’re you up to?” Ron asked.

“Uhm… practicing how to make my winter cape billow the way I want it to.”

“Ah, roight.”

That seemed to be a perfectly adequate explanation for the two, and they continued after Sunset, down towards the great hall to get breakfast.

“Anyway, you gotta see some of Doctor Fillibuster’s fireworks,” Ron gushed at Harry. “Fred and George traded some from Lee Jordan, his dad got his hands on a whole crate once.”

Harry looked dreamily up into the ceiling. “Yeah… I’ve only seen fireworks a few times, from the windows.”

“Why?” Ron asked.

“Eh… the muggles always buy the biggest pieces they can, but they tell me to go inside as soon as Dudley notices I’m out as well.”

“Why?”

This time it was Sunset’s turn to ask, as she looked back at them.

Harry shrugged. “They don’t like me.”

The books had mentioned that Harry’s parents were killed by the Dark Lord, so it made sense if he lived with more distant relatives. She felt a twinge of familiarity with Harry, and remembered the frustratingly stifling orphanage, and its one, single, battered novice-level spellbook - although she was lucky it was there - as it had led to getting the attention of royalty.

Sunset gave Harry a scrutinizing look. If the muggles were the reason he was so short and scrawny, the ponies back home would be very upset with them, with his looks being a constant reminder of mistreatment. Harry filled half the criteria for a timeless handsomeness. Canterlot was the heart of Equestrian fashion, and while the styles changed seemingly every season, a big and strong colt or stallion with wind-swept mane was a constant when it came to good looks.

Sunset walked into the great hall, where only a few scatterings of students were present. A few older Hufflepuffs were lazily giggling at the shapes they were making with their oatmeal, and a second year Ravenclaw looked like she had caught a cold.

It was strangely nice, a calm contrast to the life and energy that was normally felt during breakfast. She sat with her chin in her hand, lazily chewing her breakfast as collected her additional findings about potions in her potions book, scribbling little notes in the margins, cataloguing the ways she had found to optimise the processes.

After finishing her meal, Sunset walked the corridors, not deep in thought, as she kept hitting shallow loops while trying to think.

How does one become an alicorn? Doing what Celestia did. What did Celestia do? All kinds of things, learning all manners of magic being among them. Is that the wisest course of action, or is that just what Sunset was biased towards because she liked learning magic? What else did she do? Defeat evil tyrant… after becoming an alicorn. Good thing too, because this world’s evil tyrant was already dead.

Celestia… has a sweet tooth? Unlikely to be related to immortality.

Celestia… taught students? Less unlikely than sugar but… still not good enough.

Celestia was nice and fair? No she wasn’t, not when it didn’t suit her.

Sunset sighed in frustration, and stared out the window towards the snow-covered grounds, the mountains in the distance, and the forbidden forest.

Some people preferred people knowing when they broke the rules, and chuckled to herself when she thought of what Fred and George might be getting up to now, during winter, not having classes to distract them and far fewer eyes on them.

Sunset however, preferred breaking rules on the quiet, when no one saw her enter, and no one saw her leave.

She pulled her black winter cloak out of her bag and fastened it around her shoulders, before waving her hand at the breastplate of an armor next to her, instantly polishing it to a mirror sheen for her to inspect herself in.

The armor moved its helmet to look down at Sunset a little indignantly.

“Yeah, suck it up,” she said, satisfied with the way it billowed around her, and walked out towards the ground, waving her hands under her cloak once again, this time at her feet.

She walked out into the light snowfall, her soles pressing down on the surface as if she was made of feathers, and made her way towards the forest.

The grey brightening effect of the snow in the middle of the day helped light up the interior of the forest as well, but Sunset could see how the effect lessened further in.

Gryphons and other races could have strange perceptions of ponies. One had to travel a bit into the land to find Equestrian cities, so the gryphons living near the border saw mostly rural, practical ponies, and how they had so effectively tamed and befriended the land, working with the forests to keep them healthy as it provided them with forage and wicker and various other commodities.

Others might see the ponies as highly urbanized, as Sunset was. Living in cities that could stretch out into the horizon, but even so, the land remained befriended, rather than controlled. Having a love of nature was simply part of being a pony. Even city-raised unicorns, like Sunset, who would often be considered among the least in-tune with nature, felt a friendship with the land, which was certainly reflected in Canterlot, with it’s frequent dots of parklands, big and small. It was often unclear where the royal gardens ended and the actual palace began, as the honeysuckles and rose bushes cheerfully crept up to greet the ponies walking through the marble walkways.

Sunset felt a comfortable sense of excitement as she walked deeper into the dark, half-wild forest.

The coniferous woods were interrupted here and there by snowy clearings and other large trees like oaks, and some quaint burrows and downs.

Eventually, the snow started to make way for soft moss, and the climate started shifting from winter and becoming autumnal.

Sunset stopped, and a small, excited smirk grew on her face. Something lived here that was capable of manipulating the weather, and it looked like they had not felt like introducing winter just yet.

She crouched low, and quickly leapt from cover to cover, in a merry game against an unseen quarry.

Deeper and deeper she went, an unreserved smile always on her face in the dark woods, so deep that not even winter had penetrated it. From bushed to ravines, to rocky outcroppings she scurried, eager to see some of her kin.

She stopped in the cover of a large tree, and crouched down when she saw a hoofprint in the moss next to her boot. They seemed to breed them large around here, like that officer cadet in the royal guard, Shining something.

Sunset let out a playful roar in her mind, and stood up to sniff the air.

There was magic, there was life, and there were hoofprints. This felt promising.

Movement in the distance made her want to angle her ear towards the direction it had come from, and she took a step to the side to see what had made the sound.

When she walked out from behind the tree, what she saw made her blood freeze, and her smile melted away in an instant, before she threw herself behind the trunk next to her and carefully peered out from behind it.

In the distance, in an opening in the trees, were indeed hoofed creatures. Two of them, moving slowly and deliberately, eyes scanning back and forth around them, bows at the ready, and chests made up with crude, profane markings.

Centaurs.

Sunset couldn’t help but hiss under her breath, as they caused her mood to fall far and hard.

“What are they doing here?”

They looked suspiciously in her direction, and Sunset carefully slid back behind the tree, leaning her back against it.

Suddenly, the forest didn’t look as inviting and full of opportunities, and Sunset’s chest heaved from the disappointed, heavy breathing.

As the soft sound of sneaking hooves approached, she melted away into the forest, heading back the way she came, her cloak held tightly around her.

Closer to the school, the terrain became much more even, and with some light magic on her cloak, she quickly made her way out of the forest, where he stopped outside of the treeline, and turned to face the forest, a look of deep disappointment on her face.

She let out a sad sigh, and walked on top of the snow back up to the castle.

She had taken several steps into the castle, crestfallen, when she felt a hand grab her by her collar and yank her face to face with Argus Filch.

“Out for a stroll in the Forbidden Forest are we?” he hissed in her face.

Sunset let out another sigh, this time a frustrated one. She did not feel up for this at the moment.

“Ugh, I don’t know. Are you?” she asked, trying to lean away from his breath.

“You’d best behave, little girl, I’ve seen you come out of the woods I have, just now.”

Sunset thought for a second, then calmly said, “then there should be a trail in the snow.”

Filch looked out through the open doors, and spied futilely across the pristine, white snow in confusion.

He was about to bark something else accusatory at Sunset, when Professor Snape suddenly spoke from their side.

“Ah, another Gryffindor who thinks that rules do not apply to them I see. What has she done this time, Argus?”

“She’s been out in the forest, she has,” Filch said, grinning at the professor.

Sunset grunted to herself, and put her hands behind her back under her cloak, flexing her fingers as, unseen to the teachers, magic swirled around them.

“Caught her coming back,” Filch continued. “Bet she’s stolen some… some…”

But Filch’s expression faltered, becoming confused and unfocused, as Sunset seemed to want to slip out of his mind, and the surrounding excitement lost their context without her.

He let go of Sunset’s collar, who carefully took a few steps back, while Snape looked at Filch impatiently.

“Stolen some what, man?” he demanded.

“I… don’t know…”

Sunset kept waving her fingers behind her back, encouraging the two men to lose interest in her, to ignore her.

Even Snape seemed to falter for a moment, but there were so few distractions, and the situation drew attention to her, that his eyes darted around the entrance for a moment, before finally focusing on Sunset again, as she felt the half-formed tapestry of illusions shatter.

Snape looked at Sunset, his otherwise neutral expression having just a hint of distress, before it hardened into its default sneer.

“To the headmaster’s office, Shimmer,” he barked, and just like Filch, grabbed her collar to push her in front of him, although he found himself equally dragging himself behind her.

“Could you people stop abusing my cloak?” Sunset protested, and threw it to rest behind her back. “I only have one.”

Snape prodded her between shoulder blades, and she marched on with a dejected sigh.

It had been a bad day, full of disappointments, and now, for wanting some freedom and time for herself, Sunset was being harassed by a vindictive clown, who tried his best to threaten her, even though they both knew that he wasn’t allowed to hurt her, and she knew she could crush him in an instant.

It was a bit like being threatened by small children. It seems funny at first, but eventually it’ll just be frustrating.

They quickly made their way up to Dumbledore’s office, where the gargoyle in front of the stairs stepped out of the way, and Snape calmly knocked on the door.

The door opened, revealing Albus Dumbledore on the other side, a relaxed smile on his face, as Rubeus Hagrid looked up at the door, a bowl of mint candies in one hand, with one of them halfway to his mouth.

“Ah, Severus, and Miss Shimmer. Do come in. The holidays are treating you well, I hope?”

Before Snape could speak, Sunset said, “pretty good, thank you, professor, and likewise. Hello, Mister Hagrid.”

“‘Ello there,” Hagrid said, smiling politely, and put the bowl back on Dumbledore’s desk.

“So, can any of us be of service?” Dumbledore pleasantly asked.

“I have caught this young student casting spells on me,” Snape said, coldly. “A very serious overstepping of Hogwarts rules, and which demands swift and harsh punishment.”

Sunset scoffed. Her tolerance for this was running thin.

Dumbledore’s smile became patient, and he leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers and nodding at Snape.

“Very well, Severus, describe the event.”

“Miss Shimmer was entering the great hall, when Argus Filch caught her, having seen her exit the Forbidden Forest–” Sunset scoffed to herself “– and when I inquired about the situation, I felt a clear effect of mind-affecting magic, much like a confundus charm, which leads me to ask where such a young student learned such magic, and why she felt it appropriate to use it on a teacher.”

Sunset said nothing, but prepared an evaluation of Dumbledore in her head.

“Miss Shimmer, would you like to say anything regarding this?” Dumbledore asked, invitingly, passing the first hurdle.

Sunset folded her arms, and looked out the window. “It’s a lie,” she said, simply.

Snape’s hard expression shifted ever so slightly to become far more threatening. “Impertinent. There are ways to find out what spells a wand has cast.”

“Knock yourself out,” Sunset said, pulling out her wand and flicking it at Snape, offering the handle part to him.

“Ah, but Miss Shimmer,” Dumbledore said. “You have shown to have a great aptitude when it comes to wandless magic. I think another approach will be needed.”

“I’m all ears if it gets me out of here.”

“There is the potion answer to the question,” Snape said, in a sickly sweet voice.

“Oh? Do share,” Sunset said, spinning around and facing Snape.

Snape smiled predatorically, and pulled out a small vial of clear liquid from within his robes. “This… is veritaserum. One drop of this will be enough to make anyone tell their deepest secrets.”

Hagrid looked shocked. “Now ‘old on ‘ere.”

Dumbledore placatingly held up his hand. “Severus–”

“Accepted,” Sunset declared, loudly, putting emphasis on every syllable, and walked over to a cupboard, waving her hands as she did, and opened it to reveal a pitcher of water and two empty glasses, which she brought over to the headmaster’s desk.

Dumbledore looked taken aback, but only for a second, not enough for anyone to notice, before Sunset put the glasses on his desk, and filled them both halfway up, before pulling out a scrap of paper from her robes, and a muggle pen, and scribbled one sentence on it.

“Potion,” she ordered, holding out the glasses in front of Snape. “Pour one for yourself, if you dare.”

Snape continued to stare coldly at Sunset, before he poured a drop into one glass.

Sunset scoffed, and said, “figures,” before walking up to Hagrid and handing him the note.

Then she emptied the glass with the truth potion in it in one gulp.

“Read the note,” she ordered, before anyone else could say anything.

Hagrid looked at Sunset for a second, his mouth hanging open, before he managed to rally. “Oh, ahem. Ah, have yer, Sunset Shimma, ever cast aner margic on Professah Sev’rus Snape?”

Sunset could practically feel how the synapses in her brain fired without her approval, and slid past several steps to skip straight to speaking.

“No.”

She had, after all, only used illusory magic on herself.

She scoffed at the room at large, and before anyone could say anything else, she turned to the door.

“We’re done here,” she said, and stormed out of the room.

She quickly walked down the stairs and rounded two corners, before she stepped inside an empty classroom, and vanished with a small flash, reappearing in her dormitory.

She unfastened her cloak, and hung it on one of the posters of her bed, before collapsing into the mattress.

Sunset could feel herself calming down, but that didn’t completely help. Something beside her high temper was a problem.

She puffed up a pillow, and rolled over to the side, where her eyes came to focus on her bag, lying half-open, with an old, familiar book inside it. A reminder of better times. The best of times in fact.

She carefully sat up, and pulled the book into her lap, before carefully opening it and turning to the latest page written on it.

What she saw made her heartbeat pick up and ache in her chest.

Rows and rows of writing. The first ones were shakely, panickely written, then calmer ones, and finally ones with big splotches from tears smearing the ink.

Sunset where are you?

Sunset please answer me!

Please are you okay!?

Sunset I’m worried

Please answer

Come back. Please.

Sunset. I’m sorry. Please come back. I beg you.

~~I understand if you’re~~ Sunset, I take back everything I said. Please come back, so we can talk. I’m sorry, I was wrong.

You don’t have to tell me anything, but please, I just want to know you’re okay.

I’m sorry, Sunset. I’m so sorry.

Please answer.

I miss you.

I’m still here. I hope you’re okay, and I hope you’ll answer soon, even though I don’t deserve it.

I miss you so much.

Just one word. Please.

I love you.

Sunset only managed to stare at the text for a few seconds, before she automatically reached for the pen in her robes, and brought it to the page. She tried protesting, but it felt as if her hand moved on its own.

I’m in a magic school on another world as a student.

I’m not okay. I’m not hurt, but I miss you, I miss everything. I’m so angry with you but I still miss you so much.

I wish I could come back, but I can’t. I want to talk too, and I was wrong as well.

Sunset tried shaking her head, but her hand just kept moving.

I love you too.

Sunset stared down at the page, trying to shake her head, or voice any sort of protest, as her vision blurred.

She blinked a tear from her eyes, which fell down on the page, smearing a spot of ink, just like Celestia had.

She punched her fist into her thigh, again and again, getting weaker every time, as she bent over the book, the tears flowing freely from her eyes.

When she next opened them, she saw what she both feared and longed for most in her life.

Sunset?

Yes.

Celestia wrote Sunset’s name, then paused, shakily continuing as she searched for words.

Sunset I am sorry. I’m sorry for what I said, and I hope you’ll forgive me. If not now, then some time. Why are you not okay? Is there any way I can help? Can you come back?

Sunset managed to take a deep breath, but then her hand moved again, writing quickly and steady, and Sunset didn’t know if she liked the idea of coming across as cold with her firm writing or not.

I think I forgive you, but I don’t know. I regret leaving, I miss the castle, and Canterlot, and Equestria, and I miss you. I’m under the effect of a truth potion, and I don’t think you can help. I don’t know how to get back. I don’t know how I got here.

The book was still for a moment, before Celestia continued.

I’m sorry. It’s not right of me to ask questions of you then. Why have you taken a truth potion?

The potions teacher over here. He accused me of casting spells on him, and he suggested using a truth potion to make me admit it, and I got fed up with his attitude and accepted. I hadn’t used any magic on him by the way.

Oh my little Sunset. You need to be nicer to your teachers. You’ll give them ulcers.

He’s earned it.

Celestia paused once again, and her writing started coming across more steadily.

Sunset, will you be okay? Tell me if there is anything I can do to help.

I’ll be fine. I just miss you, and I’m happy we got to talk. I hope we can do it again. I think that will help.

Of course, my little Sunset. I’m here for you.

Sunset. ~~I’m sorry about the rea why you~~ I’m sorry, but I can’t actually make you an alicorn. I can’t make anypony an alicorn. I was hoping to guide you to finding the path yourself, just as I did.

Sunset sat in silence for a moment, before nodding to herself, heavily.

I think I always knew that, deep down.

I still have to try though. I don’t know if I can not try.

Of course. Sunset, when I took you in, it wasn’t just because you had more power than half my faculty put together. I saw more in you than that.

I can try and help you, but in the end, it’s you who will find the path to becoming an alicorn. I’m convinced you can do it, but whether you do it or not, please know that I’m proud of you.

Thank you, princess.

And now, I feel a little bad about asking you all these questions when you can’t refrain from answering.

Please, be safe. And if you need my help, tell me.

Sunset chuckled to herself.

I’m Sunset Shimmer, remember?

You certainly are.

One last thing, Sunset.

Are you making any friends?

Sunset paused.

I don’t know. Maybe. I think so.

Good. Everypony needs friends, Sunset.

And Sunset. Happy Hearth’s Warming.

Happy Hearth’s Warming.

Sunset gently closed the book, then opened it again, staring at Celestia’s words until the sun started setting, reading them over and over, a small, relieved smile on her face.

Finally, she leaned back, curled up and resting her head on her pillow, resting a hand on her book and making sure it was always there. It was the most restful sleep she had had in a long time.

—

Twilight Sparkle carefully walked through the halls of Canterlot Castle, towards Celestia’s personal suite, a book hovering in front of her.

She hesitated when she saw the stone-faced guard in front of the door, staring straight ahead, but then he turned his eyes towards Twilight, and gave her a kind, encouraging smile. Even if the royal guards hadn’t found the princess’ new student so endearing, they’d still treat her with the utmost respect. Shining Armor, her brother, was noble and kind, but had an absolutely fearsome side.

Twilight smiled too, in relief, and nervously entered Celetia’s quarters.

“Uhm… princess? Where are you?” she asked, as she closed the door.

“I’m in here, Twilight,” Celestia answered from another room.

Twilight walked up to the dimly lit room, and let out a gasp at what she saw, and started backing away again.

The princess was crying.

She didn’t get far though, as Celestia looked up and smiled at Twilight through her tearful eyes.

“It’s alright, Twilight,” she said, and held out a hoof invitingly.

Twilight walked up and let herself be embraced by her teacher.

“What’s wrong, princess?” she asked.

Celestia just closed her eyes as she lay a wing over her young student. “Nothing is wrong, Twilight. Nothing at all.”

She opened her eyes, and looked at what Twilight had brought with her. “Have you found an interesting book?”

“Uhm, yes. I wanted some help to understand it but… uhm… I don’t want to bother you,” she said, fiddling her hooves nervously.

“You don’t bother me, Twilight,” Celestia said. “Quite the opposite.”

Twilight smiled, bashfully. “Uhm, okay. Princess, why were you crying if nothing’s wrong?”

Celestia chuckled, interrupted by a single sob. “Because I’m happy.”

Twilight looked up at Celestia in amazement. “Really? Why?”

Celestia’s embrace tightened for a moment. “We can start with your book if you’d like, or I can tell you about another student of mine.”

And Now: Sports

There was a scent of nervousness in the air all over the school that grew stronger as the weeks went on. It was slowly sinking in for a lot of students how they had performed at the midterms, and that the finals were going to be even more demanding.

Especially around Harry, Ron, and Hermione there was an almost excited tinge to the scent, as they sat with their heads closely together over books from the library.

Sunset studied too, or tried to at least. Alone in the dorm, she lay with her first year spellbooks in a pile with her in bed, flipping through one of them only long enough to read the name of the spells, making them all activate with so-called silent magic by incanting them in her head and waving her wand.

“Light, colored light, sticking light, warmth, cold, levitation, magic tack, launching small objects…” Sunset took a deep breath as a hairband from Lavender’s nightstand bounced into the wall. “... Lock locks, unlock locks, ♪fold it up and put in socks, if your socks are full of rocks, take those out and put in box… es♫.

“... Eugh.”

Sunset let her hands fall down, as she stared listlessly into the wall.

There comes a point where studying the same thing over and over becomes too much, and Sunset tossed and turned in bed as she tried expressing her frustrations.

She glanced over at the clock to see that it was almost time for the afternoon meal. It was a good thing too, because if nothing else had distracted her, Sunset suspected she would’ve walked down to the lake and started melting the sand into glass just for the hay of it.

As usual, it was potions that were tripping her up, since it took so much time to practice. It’s not like she hadn’t gone through the entire first year of potions yet, but that was far behind where she was in other subjects.

So it was a good time that Percy was so busy these days, so she could get away with practising some.

Sunset paused as she started rising from the bed, wondering why she was thinking like a student who wanted high grades.

Sunset didn’t need grades. She didn’t value grades. She valued knowledge. Knowledge would lead her to her destiny. Grades were for impressing people who valued grades.

She walked down the stairs and out into the castle corridors in that particular disorientation of someone between events in life.

There were things to do of course. There were always things to learn, but right now, at this moment, she didn’t have the energy to learn more, but there was also no real entertainment to relax with.

She found herself sauntering into the classroom that had housed the mirror she had seen Celestia in, and found it empty.

“Miss Shimmer?” the voice of professor McGonagall rapped across her cochlear. “What are you doing here?”

Sunset turned around to see her head of house looking at her with a stern and slightly suspicious look.

“Oh, uh, there was a mirror here, but I forgot that Dumbledore said it was gonna be moved.”

One of McGonagall’s eyebrows raised up like a lioness poking up over the savannah grass.

“Uh, I mean, uhm… that’s what I heard,” Sunset said, trying to rally.

Sunset had an uncomfortable feeling that the eyebrow was going to pounce any second.

“I’ve just… been studying too hard,” Sunset said, slumping a little.

McGonagall’s expression slowly softened ever so slightly, and spoke in a much more casual tone.

“Your results on the transfiguration midterms were quite good, and likewise professor Flitwick and professor Snape gave you close to the highest score as you already know, so I… see no pressing concerns regarding your education.”

“So you’re saying perhaps I should relax a little?” Sunset asked.

McGonagall searched for words for a moment. “I rarely advise students not to study, but I hold that some variation can be good for you. Clears the mind.”

Sunset nodded to herself. Turning parts of the bank of the lake into glass might not be prudent, but she was itching to do something.

“You’re probably right,” Sunset said. “Thank you, professor.”

“You’re welcome. Oh, and miss Shimmer,” McGonagall said, as she was about to move on. “It has been brought to my attention that you have had one small error, in every midterm, that has kept you from receiving a perfect score in every subject.”

“Ah, noticed that?” Sunset muttered, mostly to herself, and continued before McGonagall could interrupt. “Well, things might be perfect without flaws, but it’s not complete without them.”

Sunset turned around on her heel and marched away before McGonagall could ask her about that. Frankly, she actually had no idea what that meant, but she remembered something like that being said, long ago, when Celestia and Kibitz were talking about something.

Maybe McGonagall was right. Maybe Sunset needed to clear her mind a little.

She slipped into another unused classroom, and stared out across the landscape. The last of the snow had just thawed, although at this temperature, the soil would remain wet and muddy for a long time, especially with this drizzle that had been going on and off for two days.

During the holidays, she hadn’t needed to worry much about teleporting back and forth across the castle, or magicking things around in her dorm, but it was much riskier now when the castle was alive with activity again.

Still, just this once, Sunset felt like throwing caution to the wind… although it was best to do so somewhere else.

With a flash, she vanished, and reappeared on a hilltop far away. She turned around, and saw the now small castle in the distance.

With another flash, she appeared on another hilltop, this one bald, and completely obscured by the previous one.

She looked around, and saw a boring, inhospitable, and uninviting patch of grassy mud and soil, completely lacking in personality.

Sunset hopped in place for a moment, took a deep breath, and stretched her arms, legs, and every part of her body, before holding out her hands, throwing up a magical shield, and gathering her magic.

Tiny discharges of lightning zapped between her fingers, and her hair was buffeted by an ethereal wind, as the power gathered and grew, and grew, and grew.

…

The inhabitants of Hogsmeade, and both the faculty and student body of Hogwarts, looked up in curiosity and mild alarm, as they felt the ground softly quake, and a deep rumble rolled over them, before all became silent again.

…

Sunset stood still, and listened to the wonderful symphony of pebbles and tufts of grass raining down around her.

When almost all was quiet again, except for a slight hissing, she opened her eyes again, to observe her handiwork.

The crater in front of her was steaming as the rain and moisture in the soil slowly tried to spread to the dry, very warm, and partially melted hole in the ground.

“Aaaah… I needed that,” Sunset said, in Equestrian, as she took to slowly walking around the perimeter of her handiwork, as she absentmindedly waved a finger while deep in thought, catching the fine rain in a small orb, suspended in the air.

She had covered all the spells of the first and second year, and had been studying more of the same level besides. As stated before, potions was slower, especially since she was cross-referencing five different books on the subject, and dodging Percy, but she was still ahead of the class.

The key to immortality was with magic, Sunset was sure of it, but where in magic? Which field? At what level?

Celestia couldn’t turn Sunset into an alicorn. This all but established that there was no specific spell or such for it.

Sunset had to admit that if that was the case, there would probably have been a few by now, besides Cadence.

Somewhere, in the vast wilderness that was the study of magic, was the key to ascension. How does one find it where so many have failed?

Why, do better than everyone else, of course.

So if one was to find themselves looking for something very specific in a very vast area, how does one go about it?

Sunset twirled her fingers as she walked in a circle, staring out across the landscape, making two orbs of water orbit each other, before they stopped, and melded into one.

The water was smoothened out into a disk, and a small wave started spreading out from the center of it, in a widening spiral.

In this metaphorical wilderness of mysteries and study, a metaphorical search pattern was required.

Sunset stood still for a moment, before freezing the disk of water into ice, and dropping it on the ground, where it shattered into fragments.

She observed it for a moment, before nodding to herself, and vanished in a flash.

No one stopped her, as she made her way back to the Gryffindor common room and the girls’ dormitory.

Inside, she fished out the notebooks she had bought in the muggle store, and her spellbooks, and sat in her bed with them, and drew the curtains.

There, she started her handiwork of combining her books into one, and compressing the pages to make it thinner.

Waving her fingers, she started cutting up the muggle paper and adding the material to create wider margins.

Then, she started writing.

—

“Why is everyone so high strung?” Sunset asked Seamus during breakfast.

“‘Cause this is it! Gryffindor against Slytherin, and Harry caught the snitch the last game.”

Sunset looked over at Harry and saw that he was dressed in a different uniform, along with Fred, George, and a few others Sunset didn’t know.

Harry was slowly nibbling at a piece of toast while staring blankly ahead of him. The others in the team, Fred and George, three girls, and another boy, were faring only slightly better, actually managing to put food in their mouths while doing the same. The oldest boy was fidgeting while trying to wind himself up for an inspiring speech that never seemed to start.

“Oh that’s right,” Seamus said. “You missed the last game.”

Sunset squirmed uncomfortably in her seat. She had agreed to meet Malfoy during this game.

“I guess I did.”

The scent in the air didn’t do her composure any favors.

The team rose up and walked stiffly towards the doors.

“I guess it’s time to head out,” Seamus noted.

Sunset grabbed one piece of toast in each hand and one in her mouth, before joining the crowd that was milling out of the castle and down towards the great pitch in the grounds, with its tall stands and viewing platforms.

That quidditch took place in the air was something Sunset had figured out already, since flying broomsticks were involved.

She had actually flown during the spring’s flying lessons following the one where she ended up with a Longbottom on top of her.

It hadn’t been anything special. Sunset could already fly on her own with magic, and while the speed that some brooms could reach could’ve added some spice, the practice-brooms had been thoroughly ‘throttled’ to keep incidents like the one with Neville to a minimum. The brooms used for sport or quick transport were supposed to be quicker.

She noticed Neville walking next to her, slightly more uncomfortable than other times.

“What’s up?” she asked, finishing her second piece of bread.

“Oh, uh… nothing. Just… flying makes me nervous.”

“Ah, yeah, we’ve established that,” Sunset shrugged, making Neville blush. “But you’re not up in the air. What’s the problem?”

“Yeah but… Harry is.”

Sunset glanced at Neville as they walked into the wooden structure. “Yeah… I suppose he is,” she said, as she ascended the stairs.

Several floors worth of stairs later, Sunset found herself standing on a bench-covered platform, alternatingly decorated with the colors of the four houses.

She made her way through the milling crowd and was about to take a seat at the edge of the red and gold section, when a figure was suddenly standing next to her.

“There you are,” Draco Malfoy said, a slightly hard smile on his face. “Come on, let’s watch from over here.”

Sunset suppressed a sigh, and followed the rich boy, who smelled even more nervous than Neville, to where his two constant followers were standing behind them.

Sunset looked out over the field and saw the players on the ground, walking slowly towards each other, with Snape roughly in the middle.

“What’s Snape, or Professor Snape, doing out there?” Sunset asked.

“He’s the referee this time,” Malfoy said, grinning. “So Gryffindor doesn’t stand a…”

Malfoy cleared his throat, but Sunset wasn’t really paying attention. She was leaning against a support for the awning above.

The two team captains shook hands, and then the game started with the blow of a whistle.

The players flew into the sky and started dodging and weaving past each other, trying to get a large ball through the opposing team’s hoops, and dodging two smaller balls while two members from each team, Fred and George in the case of Gryffindor, tried to smack them at the opposing team members.

Sunset thought that was a little careless for humans, who it was clear were much more fragile than ponies, or herself in her current form.

Malfoy kept alternating between cheering for Slytherin, and glancing at Sunset nervously.

“So what’s Harry up to?” Sunset asked, noticing that Harry was just looking around the field.

“He’s trying to find the golden snitch... or so I hear,” Malfoy scoffed.

“And what’s that?”

Malfoy looked at Sunset. “The little golden ball with wings. You know, if you catch that you end the game? Don’t you know quidditch? You said you weren't a muggleborn,” he pointed out, with a little bit of worry and accusation.

“I’m not. I just haven’t paid attention to sports,” Sunset said, as Ron and Hermoine took their places in front of them on the stands, arguing about something under their breaths.

Sunset could feel the hostility radiating from Malfoy towards the two, while he glanced uncertainly at Sunset.

Spotting an opportunity to get out of this, or at least make it more pleasant, Sunset started gently waving her fingers, and started slipping from people’s perceptions.

Before long, Malfoy had stopped glancing at her, and was instead sneering at Ron and Hermoine behind their back. He pulled out his wand, and poked Ron in the back of his
head with it.

“Ouch!”

“Oh, sorry, Weasley, didn’ see you there,” Malfoy said, and looked back at his cronies for confirmation that he was doing well.

“Wonder how long Potter’s going to stay on his broom this time? Anyone want a bet? What about you, Weasley?”

Ron just gave Malfoy a look of contempt, and turned back to the game, where Snape was giving his brother a penalty.

Sunset sat down and simply looked at the game.

It wasn’t changing her mind on sports, but she had to admit that it was a nice change of pace to be surrounded by screaming teenagers who all exuded an uncomfortably intense smell of excitement.

It made her appreciate her alone time and researching even more.

A few minutes without a jab was obviously too much for Malfoy. “You know how I think they choose people for the Gryffindor team? It’s people they feel sorry for. See, there’s Potter, who’s got no parents, then there’s the Weasley’s, who’ve got no money. You should be on the team, Longbottom, you’ve got no brains.”

In isolation, Sunset felt that was decent as far as insults go, for a young boy.

“I’m worth twelve of you, Malfoy,” Neville stammered, trying and failing to look cross.

Sunset had to struggle to not bury her head in her hands, as the three Slytherins around her guffawed.

“You tell him, Neville,” Ron said, not looking away from the game

“Longbottom, if brains were gold, you’d be poorer than Weasley, and that’s saying something

Ron turned around, and did a much better job than Neville at looking fierce.

“I’m warning you, Malfoy! One more word–”

Without taking her eyes off the game, Hermoine pulled at his shoulder. “Ron! Harry!”

“What? Where?”

Something exciting was apparently happening, since the crowd’s cheering reached a crescendo. Sunset spared the pitch some of her attention, and saw that Harry dove towards something, presumably the snitch.

Malfoy clenched his jaw as he saw Harry rapidly closing in on a Gryffindor victory, and squirmed in place as he glanced desperately around for a release for his frustrations.

“You’re in luck, Weasley,” he said, trying to not sound hurt and desperate. “Potter’s obviously spotted some money on the ground!”

Ron didn’t even spare Malfoy a warning look before he jumped over his seat and pounced Malfoy to the ground.

Crabbe and Goyle looked on in confusion for several seconds before they reached for Ron, only to be stopped by a desperately furious Neville tackling them back, to moderate effect, resulting in two rapidly squirming piles of fists, grunting, and screaming.

Sunset sighed, but logged this event in her brain for some future analysis, should she ever get more interested in studying social interactions.

The rest of the crowd didn’t notice, as they were too focused on the game. Hermione was jumping up and down with the rest of their classmates, when the already intense cheering erupted to maximum capacity.

Harry was cruising around the pitch from the lingering velocity of his dive, his arm raised in triumph.

Seamus and Dean were screaming into the air at the top of their lungs like a pair of sea lions, while Hermoine was jumping up and down and shrieking together with Parvati Patil.

“Ron! Ron! Where are you!? The game’s over! Harry’s won! We’ve won! Gryffindor are in the lead!” she shouted.

By now, the Gryffindors were storming down the platform towards the pitch, and Sunset looked over to see that the double scuffle had developed at an alarming rate.

Ron’s nose was lightly bleeding, while a whimpering Malfoy was trying desperately to fend him off so he could nurse his black eye.

Crabbe and Goyle looked up in confusion at the sudden shift in atmosphere, an unconscious Neville underneath them.

Without realizing, or perhaps not caring, what had just happened, Hermoine grabbed Ron and pulled him down with her towards the pitch, quickly followed by the almost as enthusiastic Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws.

Crabbe and Goyle looked up in surprise as Sunset dropped her illusions around her right in front of them, and they quickly backed away when she stepped up towards Neville.

“Well, you sure showed him,” she said, drawing attention to the enormous difference in mass between the two ape-like figures, and the one all-but-scary looking Neville.

Malfoy looked angry and humiliated from his beating, and only seemed more confused and worried when Sunset slipped back into his senses, and realized she had seen and heard everything.

This was one of the many reasons Sunset didn’t want to get involved with others- it kept putting her in situations where she didn’t know what to say or do. She decided to fall back to just doing what seemed rationally most important right now, with a dispassionate demeanor.

“Well, I’ll see you boys later,” she said, as she gently picked up Neville and draped his unconscious form over her back, before descending the stairs, roomy now that everyone had hurried down them, and exited towards the castle.

Despite the unconscious boy on her back, this was probably the best time of Sunset’s day so far. The noise about things she didn’t care about was bad enough, but staying calm with all those scents and smells of excitement was really taxing, and now she was finally away from it, the castle being practically empty except for a few ghosts looking at her curiously.

Of course, there was also Madam Pomfrey.

“Miss Shimmer! What is the meaning of this!?”

“Calm down. You shouting makes me not want to go here,” Sunset muttered.

Author's Note

Another chapter. Sorry it's so short. I've been feeling a little out of it lately, very unenthusiastic in general, and I'm not sure how what to do about it.

Anyway, I hope you'll enjoy this, and... I almost wrote that you should like, comment, and subscribe, which makes me reflect on the nature of propaganda.

When The Sun Sets

Sunset Shimmer was feeling very above it all when it came to life as a first year at Hogwarts School of witchcraft and wizardry, not weighed down by the same concerns as the witches and wizards in training she was sharing classes and dorms with.

All around her at the dining hall table, students had their noses deep in books and notes, rolls of paper and bags with even more books in them.

Being above it all was good, because if she wasn’t, she would’ve started feeling very isolated by now.

She chomped down on another piece of toast before emptying her glass and refilling it, then emptying it once again. The orange juice was especially good this morning.

“Uuuuurgh!” Ron moaned loudly, as he let his book drop to the table, making the others around him look at him in annoyance.

But it was futile. Ron’s temporary surrender triggered the same reaction in everyone, and everyone gingerly put their books back into their bags and rested their chins in their hands. Even Hermione put her books down, though without the same exhausted expression.

“Don’t you need to study?” Harry asked Sunset, with just a hint of accusation.

“I’m memorizing,” she lied, and tapped the side of her head. “Can’t read all the time. You have to process it too.”

“That sounds good,” Seamus said, and grabbed a fistful of bacon.

In truth, Sunset was trying to deal with a problem that the school didn’t teach her to solve, and that was what she was going to do in less than three months.

“Where do you people live?” she asked the table in general.

Ron raised an eyebrow in her direction. “What do you mean?”

“Where do you live when you’re not attending Hogwarts?” Sunset asked.

“With my family?” he suggested.

“And where is that?” Sunset asked, with overdone patience.

Running out of way to deflect the question, Ron grunted slightly. “Devon,” he said, and noticed the expectant silence, and not just from Sunset. “My family has a house out in the country. Mind you, most wizard families live out in the country.”

“Country, eh?” Sunset said, to herself. “Like a manor?”

Ron looked offended for a moment, before noticing how genuine Sunset’s expression was. “Hrm, hardly. It’s a cottage we’ve built five more cottages on top of, and an attic. Thought you could ask your friend Malfoy that.”

Sunset wasn’t paying attention to the accusation in Ron’s voice, and caught him off-guard when she nodded in approval. “A tower, then? I’ve always said you can’t be a proper wizard without a tower.”

Unnoticed by Sunset, a look of surprised satisfaction slowly grew across Ron’s face.

The attention shifted clockwise towards Hermoine, who simply said, “We live just outside London, and we don’t have any towers, but then again, my parents are muggles.”

“But do you have any turrets?”

“Uhm, well, yeah... one,” she admitted.

“That counts, in a pinch.”

“Why? Do you live in a place with a bunch of towers?” Ron asked.

“There were a few around,” Sunset said.

Which was true in a sense, Canterlot Castle, and the city as a whole, largely consisted of towers- square, round, thick, thin, tall, and taller.

“That makes sense when you think of the muggles I live with, they hate magic, and there are no turrets in their house,” Harry said, and turned to Ron and Hermione and mumbled, “I’d like to know if living in a tower would make my cousin healthier or just always tired.”

Sunset remembered Harry mentioning that before, but hadn’t felt comfortable pressing him on the subject. “Why do they hate magic?”

“They hate anything that isn’t normal. Normal to them that is. They want to seem as normal as possible.”

“Yeah? Where does one live to seem as normal as possible?”

“A suburb in Surrey.”

Sunset was mentally cataloging all the options for residence as her classmates listed off where they lived. Neville, as Sunset pretty much knew already, lived with his grandmother in an old wizarding house, though not an overly distinguished one, as old wizarding houses were quite common. Lavender and Parvati similarly lived in not-quite-as-old wizarding houses, Seamus lived in a muggle village in Ireland, and Dean in Manchester.

“Well, what about you?” Ron asked.

“Oh, London,” Sunset said, airily, being the closest to the truth with her having lived there for a few days.

Not that she was worried about it, but Sunset still had to solve the problem of being, frankly, homeless.

There were many solutions though. For example, with a little work, she could compress soil and do some magical chemistry to create an underground house just about anywhere, but something told her that the best approach was to try and live as normal as possible during the summer.

When breakfast was over, they made their way to Flitwick's classroom, and all of Sunset’s classmates, except Hermoine, were becoming so spent from all the studying in general, that they struggled with basic housekeeping spells.

This obviously followed a pattern that Flitwick was used to, because he patiently kept trying to jam the information into the overstuffed brains of the students.

“Come now, keep stirring,” he said, as the class, chins in hands and eyes drooping, waved their wands to manipulate a dozen rags to clean the blackboard. “Weasley, Finnigan, you’re trying to move the same rag.”

Ron and Seamus jolted to attention, making the rag in question tear in two.

And so it went, the days rolled on sluggishly, on from the winter and its cozy snow, and firmly into the season of rain and grey skies. Regions where the weather is left unattended could result in some long and mediocre springs, and that was definitely the case here.

Sunset had adjusted the spells she coated her clothes in accordingly to account for the moisture in the air, so that she stayed warm and dry, but she still missed living in a place with a dedicated weather team keeping things tidy so she didn’t have to teleport out to catch some rays the few times she could.

It sounds like you are keeping busy, but how do you actually feel?

While everyone else was down in the common room or library, studying, Sunset was sitting in her bed with her book propped up against her knees.

She poked her lower lip with her pen.

Fine, I guess, but also

I don’t know. Not fine.

Because fine is not good enough?

Sunset’s mouth fell open slightly from that, before sighing and slumping a little.

Even when on another plane of existence, Celestia could, appropriately enough, read her like a book.

No.

You’ve always wanted so very much, Sunset. That’s one of the things that makes you you.

Sunset almost shied away from the text, even though she could feel the gentleness of Celestia’s tone through her words.

That sounds

I don’t know

it sounds bad. It sounds like a flaw.

It can be, but so can most traits. The loyal and the generous can dedicate themselves to unworthy causes, the honest can be cruel, the kind can be smothering. You know this.

And what about me?

We must all be vigilant against that which prevents us from turning into our better selves, whether from without, or within. When one has powers such as yours, one must be more sagacious than most, my little Sunset.

Sunset considered the conflicts in school she had managed to stay out of.

I think I’m doing well enough. Some of the students here really dislike each other. I’ve stayed out of it.

That is good, but remember that so many words of wisdom conflict for a reason. Words of peace might lose their meaning when swords are drawn, but few have been saved by apathy.

Sunset rolled over in frustration, and lay her book in front of her, and scribbled in lazy frustration.

I wish I could just get it over with.

Celestia seemed almost amused.

No you don’t. You like challenges.

Yeah I do, but

Sunset paused, and looked up into the bed canopy, searching for words.

You wish you could know if you’ll succeed, when all is said and done.

Yes

So do we all, but the future cannot be truly known. What we can do is hone our wisdom and skill, and use it the best way possible, and that is true for everything. From the smallest task to when the fate of the world rests on your withers.

Sunset knew what Celestia was talking about. In her extensive research, she had found hints of a great darkness coming to Equestria, which Celestia had defeated once before, but never spoken to anyone about.

Sunset knew that if she became an alicorn, she’d have to face this darkness as well.

She didn’t have her research notes, but her best estimates gave them around 307 years before the darkness returned.

And now, I have a great test for you, Sunset. One I am not sure you will appreciate.

This piqued her interest. What test could Celestia have for her when she was on another plane of existence?

Alright? What is it

The book was still for several moments, before it finally reacted.

I have a new student.

Sunset’s mind… went blank.

Celestia could take on another student if she wished. Of course Celestia would take on another student, but that didn’t mean that she was throwing Sunset away. But it did mean that she was throwing Sunset away. Celestia was betraying her. But she had already thrown Sunset away in favor of that pink, girly monster. But she hadn’t- Celestia had said that she loved Sunset. Celestia saying that she loved Sunset conveniently placated her, it was a distraction, a way of shutting her up. Sunset didn’t care. Sunset was furious. Sunset was disappointed. Sunset would weather this with dignity. Sunset would prove her sagaciousness by being understanding. Sunset could take care of herself. Sunset would slam the book shut and never open it again. Sunset would say that she understood and never contact Celestia again in the vain hope that she could somehow make her pain known.

Sunset felt all these options rush through her head all at once.

Sunset… was surprised by how none of them seemed to stick..

I see.

The book was still with apprehension for several moments.

Sunset? Are you still there?

Yes.

Are you angry with me? I understand if you are.

...

I don’t know.

Do you want to keep talking?

Sunset had to pause again before she could continue.

I don’t know that either.

If you don’t, I just want to say that this does not mean that I don’t love you, and it does not mean that I have given up on you, or that you are less deserving in any way, it simply means that I ran across another unicorn filly with great talent.

I know that.

Yes, but I want you to know that with your heart, not just your head.

Sunset struggled to keep her composure. Not outwardly, that was easy, but internally.

That can take much longer, I know.

And I know how frustrating it is to be probed about one’s feelings before coming to terms with them.

Sunset’s eyebrows knitted together slightly.

You don’t say?

What I am saying is that I understand if you would rather talk another time.

Sunset’s scoffed.

That sounds like a challenge.

I am just trying to be understanding, Sunset.

You’re also really irritating when you do this.

I know, and I am sorry.

Sunset’s expression eased, and she let out a sigh.

Yes. I would rather talk another time.

Take care, my little Sunset.

Sunset’s pen hovered over the page for a moment, before she decided to just close the book.

She stood up, and walked out of the dorm, doing her best to not draw attention to herself as she crossed the common room and walked out into the castle corridors. She wanted to try and clear her head with a walk, not talk with anyone.

When she was alone with her thoughts, her gait slowed down into a frustrated saunter.

A part of Sunset told her that Celestia had the right to take on new students. To hold that against her was stupid.

Another part told her that Celestia should’ve just left her at the orphanage if she was going to toss her aside that freely- she would’ve been better off on her own.

A middle part between those two suggested that what Sunset really wanted was just for Celestia to acknowledge that this would hurt Sunset’s feelings.

The angry part of Sunset sneered at that, saying that if she wanted to spare Sunset’s feelings, she shouldn’t have gotten a new student. Better yet, she shouldn’t have held Sunset back like she did.

But Celestia did acknowledge that Sunset would be hurt. Besides, it was Sunset who left.

Which just meant that Celestia knew that what she did would hurt Sunset, yet she did it anyway. It was also Celestia who took Sunset under her wing, making her emotionally dependent on her, which was why she was hurt.

The cold part of Sunset scoffed, and meant that it made no sense to both be sad about Celestia’s decision and feel that they would’ve been better off without ever having known her in the first place. Celestia hadn’t done anything wrong.

Which was all grand and noble, but didn’t stop it from hurting.

Sunset slumped with her shoulder against a wall, frustrated with herself, and wishing she could just get this over with already.

“Sunset?”

Sunset turned around to see Neville standing behind her, fidgeting.

“Hey, Neville”, she sighed. “What’s up?”

“Well, uhm, Madam Pomfrey said that you helped me up to the medical wing and I, uh, thought I should say thank you and then I… well uh… noticed you looking… sad.”

Sunset nodded along with Neville's stuttering presentation, and let out a bitter half-laugh.

“I guess,” she said, hanging her head slightly, and slumping back against the wall. “It’s stupid.”

“Why?”

Sunset raised her head again, and looked up into Neville’s round face, full of genuine concern.

“It just…”

But that was as far as she got before she had to stop and think about why it was stupid.

“I… it’s just not… it’s… I’m… I’m just jealous.”

Now it was Neville’s turn to struggle for words.

“Y-you? Wh… why would you be jealous?”

Sunset looked up at Neville, somehow not seeing that question coming, before laughing and shaking her head. “Yeah… why would I?” she asked herself.

Sunset had been so lost in thought, so uninterested in the world around her, that she managed to miss the smell of Argus Filch creeping up on them, and putting one hand on each of their shoulders and spinning them around, with some difficulty in Sunset's case, to face him, making Neville jump in alarm.

“What’re you two whisperin’ about then, eh?” he sneered.

But this time Sunset was not in the mood. She placed her hand on Neville’s shoulder, and used her frustrations and anger as a focus.

She scowled at him, locking eyes with him, and like the other times, she slipped out of his focus, and this time she took Neville with him.

Neville’s scared expression gradually made way to worry and uncertainty, as Filch demeanor changed from threatening, to unfocused but angry, to confused and annoyed, and finally to disoriented. He wordlessly let go of them, and slowly backed away, almost stumbling as he sauntered off, ignoring them completely.

Neville’s eyes followed him with worry and disbelief, before he turned to Sunset.

“What was that all about?”

She shrugged, casually. “Maybe he’s been drinking.”

That made sense to Neville, who nodded sagely.

“I’m hungry,” he said. “Are you?”

“... Yeah.”

When at the Gryffindor table, Sunset was resting her cheek on her fist while nibbling on a piece of toast.

“Do you… want to talk about it?” Neville ventured.

“No,” Sunset mumbled. “And I’m guessing you don’t actually wanna hear about it.”

Neville was quiet for a few more moments before speaking again. “Maybe you should write home?”

“I did write home.”

Neville immediately opened his mouth, but closed it again, understanding, at least a little more.

After a moment of uncertainty, Neville carefully said, “you… said your parents were gone, right?”

That got Sunset curious, and she lazily yanked her head in Neville’s direction, who recoiled a little until he noticed her expression.

“When did I say that?” she asked.

“In the… in Diagon Alley,” he said. “You know, when you were talking to my grandmother.”

Sunset thought back to that interesting time when she had just arrived in this world. “Oh yeah… I probably did.”

“So… who did you write to?”

Sunset didn’t smile, but something about this conversation at least wiped away some of the melancholy from her face.

“My teacher.”

Neville’s eyes did that search pattern thing that people sometimes do when processing new information. “Oh. So that’s why you’re so good at magic?”

Sunset shrugged and mumbled something non-committal.

Neville smiled in amusement, and Sunset realized that this was probably the first time she had ever seen him do so.

“But you are,” he insisted. “You’re probably even better than Hermoine.”

“Allow me some modesty,” Sunset said. “But… yes, she taught me magic, among other things. At least the magic I didn’t teach myself.”

“... Did you have a row?”

Sunset stared at the table for a few minutes, idly brushing off some crumbs down onto the floor.

“... Yeah.”

“And that’s why you’re sad?”

“Who says I’m sad?”

“Well, uhm… you’re… crying.”

This made Sunset look up. She brought a finger up to feel a wet stream on her cheek.

“Oh, great, have I been doing that for long?” Sunset muttered, and lazily grabbed a napkin and roughly wiped her face in it.

“Uh, no.”

Sunset looked up at the enchanted ceiling, a part of her curious why they magiced it to display the sky above instead of just making it transparent, before letting out a long sigh.

Neville was a scaredy cat, but something made him sit there and gently try and understand an aloof girl like herself, the demographic with possibly the highest chance of them all to abuse his concern, taking it and throwing it back into his face for some kind of twisted self-satisfaction.

She had to admire his guts at least.

“She wasn’t just my teacher, she was my mentor, my only real friend, and the closest thing I had to a parent, and now she has another student.”

Neville opened his mouth, then closed it again.

Sunset looked at him curiously, to see if he had more questions, but he just looked away. It seemed like his mouth would stay closed this time.

At least the conversation was distracting.

“And you lived with your grandmother, and you were shopping with her as well. Same deal as with Harry?” Sunset asked.

“No-yeah-uhm… well, no.”

He looked up at Sunset’s curious face, and she realized that this was not a happy topic.

“They… can’t take care of me,” he finally said, reluctantly.

Sunset turned back to her food. This would have to be enough on this topic for now.

“Hey,” she eventually said. “I’ve found some good spots to practice potions where no one notices. Wanna practice with me some time?”

A smile tugged at Neville’s mouth. “S-sure.”

—

Sunset entered the first year girls’ dormitory in Gryffindor tower again, and sat down on the bed, placing her book in her lap again.

She didn’t know whether she wanted Celestia to respond right away, or some other time, but she decided to write anyway.

What’s her name?

To her trepidation, the book lit up just seconds later.

Her name is Twilight.

Twilight Sparkle.

Tell me about her.

Author's Note

Another short chapter. I have to say that I'm struggling a bit here. I've said before that I want Sunset to be isolated from Harry & Friends' story until it has time to kick off because there's going to be an irreconcilable conflict in storytelling if she's with them- she's too powerful, she's gonna stop the story from happening if she's where the action is.

This all means that there's gonna be long parts where she "has nothing to do" so I have to make stuff up for her, and there's surprisingly little to be had in the early books that's not revolving around Harry & Friends uncovering Voldemort's plots.

You know the production triangle? Where there's Time, Quality, and Cost, and you can't have all 3? In the case of this story, there's Time, Entertainment, and Story-Consistency. I can write something that's entertaining and which has no real plot holes, but that's gonna take time, or I can write something fast that has short-term entertainment value, but it's going to be real hard to avoid writing myself into a hole when doing it like that, etc.

This is all a little discouraging, because it was all so much easier early on in the story, where there's so much worldbuilding to work with that's not in close orbit to Harry's story. The first book loses all peripheral vision in the later parts. Except for Hagrid's subplot, it's all Snape and Voldemort all the time. Hopefully there's more to work with in later books.

I can see why so many people write smut on this site. Just have some characters bump uglies and you're fulfilling the primary goal of the story.

Totally forgot to give Snuffy cred for pre-reading this chapter, so I'm gonna say it twice. Snuffy helped. His name is Snuffy.

Dark Whispers

It was a testament to the consistency of Sunset Shimmer’s character that she hadn’t yet registered how often she was staring out into space while nibbling at her breakfast, deep in thought, while people were trying to get her attention.

“Miss Shimmer?”

So Celestia had a new student?

One of the many things Sunset felt about that was a sort of dignified indignation. She was Sunset Shimmer. She didn’t need anypony else. Orphaned, cast out, impoverished, and with no social network, she was still the most capable, skilled, dangerous, and mysterious wiza- witch in this school. Hay, let’s not be modest, possibly this entire world. She would laugh in the face of any hardships the universe threw at her.

“Miss Shimmer.”

She did feel a little phony though, considering she had been so eager to make up with Celestia the day before.

But it would make it all the sweeter when she finally became an immortal alicorn and–

“Miss Shimmer!”

Sunset jumped in her seat, and looked up at the face of the impatient-looking Professor McGonagall.

“... Yes, professor?”

McGonagall had a talented face, which managed to look very ordinary and impatient at the same time. “Professor Dumbledore would like to speak with you in his office.”

“Got it.”

There was a moment of silence as every eye around her was aimed directly at her.

“... Oh, now?”

“Yes, Miss Shimmer.”

“Fine, fine,” she said, and reached for her mugs. Trolls. Professors. There were a lot of interrupted meals around this place.

Sunset first emptied her coffee, then tea, then juice, in one movement each, then grabbed her sandwiches and stood up, and walked after McGonagall. Her classmates were still staring at her, so she made sure her robe swished just right.

As they walked, Sunset kept chewing on her bread. Judging by how fresh it was, it was either produced in the castle, or very close to it, and by people who knew what they were doing. Sunset didn’t want to engage in tribal stereotypes, even flattering ones, but it made her think of Equestria. Every restaurant, noble kitchen, and eatery in Canterlot wanted at least one earth pony present. For luck.

It made her consider perhaps looking into cooking herself. An alicorn embodied the strength and abilities of all the pony tribes, although Sunset felt that Cadence was sorely lacking in her unicorn-ness. Perhaps somehow trying to understand all of them, knowing what it truly meant to be one of all of the tribes, could be part of the road to ascension.

Minerva McGonagall glanced back at the young student walking so calmly and carefree behind her.

Not that she’d ever suggest that there was anything wrong with that, but… Professor McGonagall had been a teacher for a long time now, and learned her trade several decades ago. It didn’t sit perfectly right with her that a student, a first year student no less, could be led to see the headmaster, and not show the least bit of apprehension. Especially when that headmaster was none other than Albus Dumbledore.

Right now she would’ve settled for Sunset putting effort into looking calm, and not chewing on a sandwich while idly lolling her head and staring out the windows, clearly in a world of her own.

They came to the Gargoyle guarding the stairs up to the headmaster’s office, which seemed to snap Sunset back to reality.

“Oh right, why were we here again?” Sunset asked.

“Chocolate chip ice-cream,” McGonagall said, in order to allow her passage.

“Hm? Oh, no thank you. I just ate,” Sunset said.

Minerva kept her head aimed straight ahead, to hide her strained expression from her student, until there was enough room for her to ascend the stairs.

Sunset followed McGonagall as she walked up to the door and knocked, whereupon it was opened by a bit of rare, wandless magic from Headmaster Dumbledore.

“Ah, Minerva, and Miss Shimmer, do come in” he said, from behind his desk, and waved his wand to summon a pair of comfortable chairs. “Please, sit down.”

“Thank you,” Sunset said, matching Dumbledore in playful politeness, as they took their seats.

Sunset was starting to suspect that she was visiting this office more often than many of the faculty. It was a good office. It had a large fireplace, and the walls were lined with richly dark wooden shelves and tables, upon which rested grimoires and arcane instruments aplenty. As a fellow wizard, or witch, Sunset approved. It could’ve done with some more cushions and armchairs though.

Also there were the portraits who kept staring at them. Sunset felt they were inferior to stained glass windows depicting great triumphs.

“Now then, Miss Shimmer, I have some questions I would like to ask you,” Dumbledore said.

Normally, Sunset would’ve been a bit apprehensive in this situation. She hadn’t warmed up to the idea of revealing anything about herself, about actually being a unicorn from another plane of existence on a quest for power and ascension into a higher, supreme being. Not to mention that the country’s most prominent wizard, who had seen more concerning her unique situation and abilities than anyone else except possibly for Garrick Ollivander, was sitting in front of her and being coy about wanting to ask questions.

Sunset figured she must’ve just happened to have had a superior night’s sleep, and woken up on the right side of the bed, because she nodded calmly. “Ask away.”

“It concerns your living arrangements for the summer.”

In her head, Sunset turned towards the camera and gave it a smarmy grin.

“Sure. What about them?”

“Am I to understand that you have no one providing you with a home, or means to support yourself, when school ends?” Dumbledore asked, some of the playfulness leaving his demeanor.

“Ah, see, strictly speaking the answer is negative,” Sunset said. “In the spirit of what you’re asking, however, you are technically correct, but no worries. I’ll be fine.”

The two teachers were silent for a moment.

A part of Minerva McGonagall, which she did her best to suppress most of the time, was glad she hadn’t scolded Sunset for whatever reason that morning. Despite herself, she did worry for her students.

“Miss Shimmer,” she started, managing to sound certain but not feeling it. “This matter can not be ignored.”

Sunset lolled her head as she thought. “Hmm… I’m not sure about that but… if we don’t?”

Dumbledore steepled his fingers. “Perhaps it’s time that you told us more about yourself, and where you came from. <>, was it?”

Sunset stiffened up, but did her best not to show it. “You remembered,” she noted, impressed. “I’m surprised you haven’t figured out more yet, no offense.”

And she was surprised. There had been a very slight nagging feeling in the back of her mind that Ollivander would tell others about her being a unicorn, but then again she didn’t know what Ollivander and Dumbledore’s relation was, if they had any. Perhaps they were unfriendly rivals. Or perhaps Ollivander had understood that Sunset wanted to keep her secrets, and had not shared them.

Dumbledore smiled. “None taken, of course, but the issue remains. Are you certain there is no place for you between semesters?”

Sunset shook her head as she prepared herself for that peculiar game of honesty and omission. “I can’t go back where I came from when I got here, but I can make my way alright.”

“I’m afraid I must object to that approach,” Dumbledore said. “I would also like to know how you came to be here. Your method of travel puzzled me, to say the least.”

Sunset was silent for a moment, looking out at the blue sky as she thought. “... I walked through a magic mirror, and then I woke up in the hospital wing.”

“May I ask why?”

Sunset and Celestia’s relationship was on the mend, but this still wasn’t a happy topic, especially to talk with others about. “... I saw something in the mirror that I wanted to come true.”

“Which was?”

Sunset chewed lightly on her tongue before answering. “... I’ll be keeping that to myself.”

McGonagall struggled to not seem exasperated. “Miss Shimmer, we are your teachers. You can trust us.”

Sunset had so many responses to that, like telling them their assistance was starting to feel very intrusive, that it wasn’t welcome, and asking if the same applied to Snape.

“That’s very kind of you,” she said, politely. “But it’s not very interesting.”

“Oh I disagree, Miss Shimmer,” Dumbledore said. “But if you do not wish to continue pursuing this topic, we shall not force it. However, this still leaves your time during the summer. If you have no alternative, I recommend we look for a suitable foster family.”

Sunset groaned on the inside. This was a kindness she didn’t need. She opened her mouth a few times, trying to seem flippant.

“You will require a legal guardian, Miss Shimmer,” McGonagall noted.

Sunset paused. “... Wait… what about wizards who have muggle legal guardians? They can’t be expected to enforce magical laws around their charges.”

The two teachers exchanged a look, before Dumbledore spoke. “In the case of muggle guardians, the underage witch or wizard will primarily be monitored by the Ministry of Magic, guided by the judgement of the remote monitoring agents.”

Sunset’s eyes shifted sideways as she considered this. “That… sounds wildly unfair.”

“... I’ll leave my own thoughts on this matter unvoiced,” Dumbledore admitted.

Sunset felt that this conversation had too many pauses for emphasis, but another one was called for at this moment. “... So that means that when you say I require a legal guardian, you mean that your personal values and conscience want me to have a safety network in terms of emotional support and economic safety, not that the state apparatus demands that I have one in terms of accountability.”

Dumbledore sat still for several moments, and McGonagall’s mouth even fell open slightly, making Sunset worried she had had pushed too far, and seemed too alien to them. She relaxed her posture, smiling in an ever so slightly meek manner. “If you’re worried that there’s going to be a bunch of reports of me breaking magic laws if left to my own devices, don’t worry. There won’t be.”

Dumbledore nodded solemnly. “I could believe that, Miss Shimmer, but as you alluded, there is also the ethical matter of leaving a minor without means.”

“And I can’t assure you in any way?” Sunset gently probed.

There was a moment of silence, before Dumbledore picked up a small metal tube from the desk and opened it. Inside was a slip of paper. “We would all feel better if you at least took this. Write a message on this paper, and burn it, and it will reach me,” he said, before placing the tube on the other side of the desk.

Sunset thought that felt fair. She took the tube, fully intending to check for monitoring spells later on. “Alright. That’s very kind. Thank you.”

“And please don’t be afraid to use it. We can give you more.”

“Got it.” Sunset drummed her fingers on her knees. “So… was there anything else?”

Dumbledore gave Sunset a kind smile. “Nothing more for now, Miss Shimmer,” he said, before holding out a bowl of white and red sweets. “Mint candy?”

“Please,” Sunset said, taking a piece, and noticed something she was surprised she had missed until now. Perched above a wide brass bowl was a phoenix, looking at them with a dignified bearing.

Sunset walked over to the male phoenix and, blocking the view from the teachers, lit a small flame at the tip of her finger, and held it out in front of the fiery bird. “Hello there. I’ve somehow managed to miss you the last times I was here. What’s your name?”

The bright red bird’s bearing became a lot more playful, and he trilled melodically as he gently rubbed his neck and cheeks against the finger, enjoying the feeling of the flame licking his plumage. The suggestion of fire-based communication meshed with Dumbledore having a phoenix companion.

Before Dumbledore could supply the name, Sunset responded to the bird’s trill. “Fawkes? That’s a pretty name. I should get going, but next time I’ll try to remember to bring some treats. Let me guess; cod? Extra extra well done?”

Fawkes trilled happily and puffed his plumage in anticipation, before Sunset walked towards the door, and McGonagall walked up to her.

“Miss Shimmer, I strongly urge you to reconsider.”

Sunset sighed and tried to keep from shuffling her feet, before looking up at McGonagall with an apologetic face, and holding up the tube she got from Dumbledore. “I’ll keep it in mind, okay?”

McGonagall nodded in defeat, but Sunset stopped in the doorway and looked back. “By the way, thank you,” she said, and gestured to their surroundings in particular. “For everything.”

“Think nothing of it, Miss Shimmer,” Dumbledore said, and actually smiled, making Sunset feel a lot better before she descended the stairs again, thinking that perhaps she had misjudged McGonagall.

McGonagall closed the door, and turned to her headmaster.

“Albus, please. We must do something.”

“We cannot force her into a foster family,” Dumbledore said in a calm voice. “We both know the Wizengamot inheritance law.”

“A misguided law made by old fools to protect estates from imagined usurpers,” Minerva insisted. “A muggle foster family then.”

“She can deny that too, and I think she knows it. I’m not willing to go very far attempting to deceive someone like her, nor placing her in a muggle family with too much resentment in her heart.”

Minerva said nothing.

“I think we have done all we can for now,” Dumbledore continued, and shook his head as he sank into his chair, deep in thought. “Sunset Shimmer is no ordinary eleven year old.”

“That much is obvious,” Minerva almost barked as she looked at the door Sunset had exited through, impatient with the world in general, before she turned to Dumbledore, registering his silence. “Albus?”

He was staring straight ahead, his fingers steepled, for several moments before he turned to his deputy headmistress. “What do you think of her?”

“What do I…? Well, she… is quite capable in class, very capable in fact, though she doesn’t try to show it. I wouldn’t call her modest though- even around teachers she is blunt and aloof, almost impertinent.” Minerva paused, and sighed to herself. “But she is kind, in a certain way. Despite her demeanor, Mister Longbottom has benefitted from her instructions.”

“Good.”

Minerva gave Dumbledore a questioning look.

“Her kind side seems genuine, and she has little interest in manipulation or coercion,” Dumbledore explained.

Minerva’s eyes widened in shock. “Albus! You cannot mean to compare her to… to him!” She almost spat the last words out.

“I have met two others in my life who have shown extraordinary ability so young, would a third be so strange?”

Minerva glanced back at the door. “I see a troubled young girl when I see Sunset Shimmer. I don’t believe I’m looking at a monster.”

“He wasn’t a monster in his teachers’ eyes either, but then they did not possess your judgement of character,” Dumbledore offered kindly. “Nor Hagrid’s,” he added, thoughtfully.

Minerva coughed slightly impatiently. This wasn’t the time, nor was it ever time she felt, to be taken by compliments. “But something still worries you,” she noted.

Dumbledore nodded. “Unless I’m losing my touch, something tells me that Sunset Shimmer is hiding something very profound.”

Fawkes landed on the backrest of Dumbledore’s chair, and he reached up to scratch his beloved phoenix’s feathers around the neck. “Like how she knew your name.” Dumbledore suddenly felt the heat lingering around Fawkes’ neck, and his mouth opened slightly. “And how she did this.”

—

The talk with Dumbledore and McGonagall had left Sunset with a lingering feeling of discomfort.

And it wasn’t just that either. The scent of nervousness was everywhere, except possibly around Fred and George, creating what felt like a miasma of unease, and Sunset kept picking it up as if it was something insidious.

Everyone except Hermione had underestimated just how much studying this school required of them. Hermione studied feverishly at all times regardless, and she appeared to have infected Harry and Ron as well. Everyone was always bent over a book, mumbling to themselves and staring with tired intensity at the pages, but those three were tense as thestrals at a dog whistle testing facility.

Whenever she let her guard down, Sunset felt herself gradually being pulled along and almost caring about grades and teachers’ approval.

It was most unpleasant. She stopped whenever she realized what was happening. It was also a welcome reprieve whenever she could read what Celestia had written to her, it was just that in this general situation, there was just so little going on, she felt she had nothing to share.

“Pheeew! What is that smell?” she asked one morning, as she descended from the dorms into the common room, along with the trickle of students heading down to the great hall.

She looked at the source, a sickly-looking Ron who self-consciously hid his hand inside his robes. Flitwick later threw him skeptical looks throughout the class, which was no wonder considering Ron’s hand was green, swollen, and looked very painful. It also smelled like intentionally funky cheese that had gone off.

By the afternoon, Harry and Hermione had taken a stumbling and feverish Ron to the hospital wing before coming back to the common room. They didn’t study though, and Sunset did indeed think they looked like they needed a break. They just sat alone and sometimes whispered short phrases to each other that were incomprehensible without the context.

Sunset turned back to her journal, as she lounged with her legs over one of the armrests, and her back against the other one.

And so he’s in the hospital wing.
By the way, how is Philomena doing?

You said the healer was quite skilled, so I hope you’re not worried.
She is as well as always. She misses you though, and your fire magic.

You’re the alicorn of the sun. You can heat her up too.

And I do, you know how much she likes to cuddle in the fireplace, but still, she liked you. Likes you, I mean. Still fireproof in your current form?

Yep. I took care of that ages ago.

And your living arrangements during the summer?

I’m not worried. I have several ideas.

Good. You’ll forgive me if I’m still a little concerned.

Sunset poked her chin as she thought.

Oh, you want reassurance.

Please.

I’ll be fine. I’ll keep writing, and if I actually need help, which I won’t, I’ll write to Dumbledore.

Good. Thank you, Sunset.

“What language is that? It’s not English,” Sunset heard Harry say behind her.

It took a moment before Sunset’s mind was pulled back to Earth, and she almost jumped when she realized that Harry and Hermione were looking over her shoulder.

“What- nothing!” she blurted out.

“The language is nothing?” Hermione said, raising an eyebrow.

Sunset’s eyes darted back and forth. “Yyyes.”

Harry looked at the book, curious. “And it’s writing itself?”

Sunset snapped the book closed. “No?”

“I’m pretty sure it was.”

“Eh, you know… magic castle. Weird sights everywhere,” Sunset said, waving her hand, painfully aware that her classmates were all glancing at her, their minds jumping at the smallest distraction from their studies. She searched desperately for another subject. “So what happened to Ron?”

“Nothing!” Harry said, at the same time as Hermione said, “Dog-bite.”

Now it was their turn to have the curious gazes of their classmates aimed at them, and look around for inspired changes of subjects.

“You know… magic castle. Weird stuff everywhere,” Harry suggested.

Harry, Hermione, and Sunset, all looked at each other and nodded, feeling that these were valid responses, until Hermione quickly stood up.

“I think we have some business in the library,” she said.

“Yep,” said Harry, standing up as well.

“And I need to check something in the dorms,” Sunset said, as they all quickly left to do their own thing.

—

A few nights later, Sunset woke up from the sound of Hermione coming in through the door and lying down in bed. As she was falling asleep again, she heard what sounded like soft sobbing coming from Hermione’s bed, but it was too late, Sunset had lost consciousness.

The next day was Sunday, and as was usual, the student body slept in to varying degrees, and trickled into the great hall over a great span of time.

There were unusually few students at the tables though. Many were instead clustered around the hourglasses indicating the house points.

Several times a week, Sunset had gotten mildly curious about the house points and told herself that she should take a look at it, and see what she contributed, or perhaps who was winning, but every time, for months, she had just forgotten to look closer. Something about it just couldn’t hold her interest.

A more curious thing was Neville shambling in and sitting down by himself, far away from anyone else, looking down at his empty plate. Looking nervous was Neville Longbottom’s default expression, but this was different. His eyes were puffy and red, and his posture was particularly slumped.

Sunset slowly chewed her breakfast as she looked at him thoughtfully, before grabbing the rest of her food and walking over and sitting down next to him.

He tensed up, worried, as if she’d be hostile in some way, before he slowly slumped again.

“So what’s up?” she asked.

Sorrow in itself didn’t have a particular scent, perhaps because it wasn’t a particular emotion, but there were several mixtures of other scents, like worry and nervousness, fatigue, and a sort of tired tenseness, among others, that ponies could identify as sorrow.

He threw a quick glance at her elbow, before looking away, almost as if struck.

“Something happen?”

Neville quickly shook his head in minute movements, before continuing to just stare at his plate.

“Alright fine,” Sunset shrugged, and pushed her plate with a so-far untouched marmalade sandwich up in front of Neville. “Eat though.”

A pair of older boys, probably Ravenclaws, walked by, glaring at them.

“Nice job, Longbottom,” one of them said.

“Yeah, brilliant,” the other agreed.

“Keep walking,” Sunset calmly ordered them without sparing them a glance.

“Oh, are you defending him?” one of them demanded, as Sunset turned around and leaned back against the table. “I suppose you thought it was a great idea to–”

Sunset flicked her head slightly, a lock of her hair glowing for a blink of an eye as it forced just a small amount of the older boy’s saliva down the back of his throat.

He bent over, sputtering and coughing, while his friend tried to tend to him, before casting an alarmed glance at Sunset.

Sunset gave them a meaningful look that made them move on, before she turned to Neville again.

“Seriously, eat,” she insisted.

He looked at her, not sure if he was supposed to be astonished or not, before carefully taking a bite out of the sandwich.

“So what happened?”

It took a moment before he mumbled an answer. “I was out past curfew.”

“Yeah I know. I was there, remember?”

“No… again.”

“Alright. And?”

“I… got caught… by McGonagall.”

“Yeah? And then?”

“She… gave me detention and… she took away fifty points.”

“Oh.” Sunset only barely managed to keep herself from asking if that was a lot, and spun back around in her seat. “So what were you doing? Also, keep eating.”

Neville took another small bite. “Harry and Hermione were out past curfew, doing something, and I heard Malfoy was going to tell on them, and I went to warn them.”

Sunset suddenly remembered Hermione’s sobbing last night.

“Alright, I think I got the picture.” Sunset sighed and lazily looked around the hall as she tried to figure out what to say. “... So you tried being nice and it bit you, and now everyone is mad?”

Neville nodded. “I bet you’re mad too.”

“Nope. I really couldn't care less about points and stuff.”

Neville looked up at her in amazement. “But you earn almost as many points as Hermione.”

Sunset shrugged. “I guess. I still don’t really care though.” She sank deep into thought as she considered what Neville had said. “And here I was starting to warm up to McGonagall.”

It was a conundrum for Sunset. She could be the toughest and most capable person in the castle all she wanted, but if she started making friends, she felt she should put some effort into helping and protecting them. In fact, she could probably get Neville out of trouble as it was. She could solve whatever detention or task that was assigned to Neville for him. She could even force some more red sand into the Gryffindor hourglass and log it as Neville Longbottom having earned fifty points, attributed to because I say so, signed by Sunset Shimmer.

But Sunset wasn’t sure she wanted that. And even if she did, was that the right thing to do? She couldn’t quite figure it out, but something told her she’d be taking on responsibilities by doing so. Could she alternatively just sit by and do nothing?

Not even any middle ground she imagined seemed right to her, they all veered too much in one direction.

What could she tell him? Not to worry about it? That would only be relevant if he didn’t care for the company of others, which he did. Encourage him to do better? Sunset could think of few more condescending things to say, especially since he had just tried to help.

She looked around and saw that the students from Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff were occasionally casting Neville the stink eye, and even more at Harry and Hermione, who had just sat down by the table a little ways away as well, huddled together and not looking up. The Slytherins on the other hand were just smirking at them.

Sunset figured that she could at least provide some passive support by sitting next to Neville. She had already had breakfast, but reached for some oatmeal anyway, so she looked busy. “Alright, keep eating, and then we’re gonna practice some spells.”

—

McGonagall’s default facial expression was one of slightly impatient disapproval, which intensified just a little bit whenever she looked at Harry, Hermione, or Neville, while in class.

It was one of those subtle things that spoke of poor traits for a teacher according to Sunset. Showing noticeable disdain in a way that left the target unable to counter or defend themselves without looking touchy or paranoid.

Then again, considering what Snape got away with on a regular basis, McGonagall was being outright gentle.

Still, Sunset could see her faltering somewhat in her mission to disapprove of Neville, who was slightly ahead of the class this lesson, except Hermione and herself, as Sunset had managed to map out the order of the spells that McGonagall had them practice and prepared Neville for it.

McGonagall looked up to see Sunset staying behind as the rest of the class filed out.

“Yes, Miss Shimmer, do you have a question?” she said, trying not to sound hopeful.

“That’s right, Professor,” Sunset said, leaning against a table. “I’d like to know what Neville will be doing for detention.”

McGonagall fought to not purse her lips. “I’m sorry, Miss Shimmer, but I cannot reveal that.”

“Alright then, I’d like to do it instead of him.”

McGonagall was still for a moment. “I’m afraid that is out of the question.”

Sunset was silent while trying to figure out the best approach from here. McGonagall spoke first.

“I’m sure you realize why we cannot allow students to take each others’ places at detention. I don’t understand why you would want to either.”

Sunset drummed her fingers on the desk for a moment. “I believe you. Goodbye, professor,” she said, and turned around and marched out.

As the days went by, the students’ deep annoyance with Harry, Hermione, and Neville died down, probably in large parts because it had to take a back seat to the last minute studying before the finals.

It still meant that there was a lot of tension and annoyance in the air in general all over the castle, and Sunset could tell that the three of them felt that all short tempers and scowls they encountered were personal.

Even Fred and George studied more than usual, and with so few sources of levity left, Sunset did so as well.

“So have you given up on studying potions in your free time?” George asked.

Sunset glanced up from her armchair to check that Percy was sitting on the other side of the common room, writing furiously on a roll of paper, with a book and notes splayed over the footrest next to his feet.

“Of course not, I’m just doing it where no one else can see.”

“That’s the spirit, learning and breaking rules at the same time,” Fred said. “You’re a girl after my own heart.”

“Oh and mine is so aflutter,” Sunset said, in a bored voice.

“Hah,” George said, while a grinning Fred punched him in the shoulder.

“Don’t think I haven’t noticed you two studying as well,” Sunset noted.

The twins looked at each other. “And here I thought we were being so sneaky,” George said.

“Aye, she can destroy our reputation with a word,” Fred said. “However can we dissuade her?”

“Show me a trick you’ve learned,” Sunset suggested.

The twins shrugged, and looked over the backrest of their couch at Percy. “Alright, watch this,” George said, and pointed his wand at Percy’s footrest while muttering something under his breath.

Percy scrambled in shock as the footrest started squirming violently and emitting loud squeals.

The whole room turned to look as the footrest acted like an angry pig, squealing and squirming, and spilling all of Percy’s notes over the floor.

He fumbled for his wand, and after a few attempts he managed to disenchant the piece of furniture and make it return to an inanimate footrest, before scanning the room with a highly indignant look as nearly everyone else in the room looked back at him questioningly.

Except Fred and George, who had retreated behind their backrest and were huffing and biting down on fistfulls of their robes in an attempt to keep from guffawing loudly.

Sunset grinned widely. “Nice.”

—

That evening, Sunset was lounging in her bed with a book, reading by candlelight, as Lavender and Parvati came in.

“Where was Hermione going?” Lavender asked Parvati.

“To detention,” she said. “Pretty strange if you ask me, punishing them for being out past curfew, and then having them be out past curfew.”

Sunset nodded in agreement to herself.

“I wonder what she was doing out anyway? She’s such a teacher’s pet, and it was the second time,” Lavender said, as they were changing into their sleepwear.

“Do you know, Sunset?” Parvati asked.

“Can’t say I do, and neither did Neville,” Sunset said, not looking up from her book.

“Well, goodnight, you two.”

“Goodnight,” Parvati and Lavender said back, as the two other girls slipped into their beds, pulling the curtains partially closed, leaving enough open for their own candlelight and bringing up their own books for last minute study.

Sunset stood up and paced back and forth in the room, before standing over by a window and looking out across the dark castle grounds.

In the distance, four figures, the tallest of them with a lantern, were walking towards the edge of the forest, where the unmistakable shape of Hagrid stood with a lantern of his own, with Fang waiting next to him.

Sunset still couldn’t sort it out. Why would it be her problem, she wondered. But just ignoring it didn’t sit right with her either.

After several moments, she sighed to herself, and concentrated on becoming as uninteresting as possible. While Parvati and Lavender were practically begging for their senses to distract them, they were also not exactly the most observant people in the world, and didn’t look up when Sunset walked out.

A flash of light later, and Sunset felt the crisp night air as she looked at the two lantern lights in the distance from the greenhouses. Filch and Hagrid conversed about something before Filch turned and left, then Hagrid was talking with the students, Harry, Hermione, Neville, and Draco, for a few moments, before they turned towards the forest and walked in, with Draco being very careful to be in the middle.

Filch kept turning around and looking towards the forest with a giddiness Sunset couldn’t help but roll her eyes at. She kept her sensory redirection spells active, first to avoid Filch detecting her, and when she entered the forest, to avoid Harry and Fang from noticing.

The forest was dark and damp from mist, and illuminated by only a few strands of starlight peering through the high canopy. She could feel the forest feeling her presence, curious, happy, and… something else.

She didn’t stop to try and converse with it though. Talking with forests could be a notoriously drawn out process, and most ponies, even earth ponies, needed a long time of familiarity to understand anything really clear and insightful, especially from a larger body of woods.

Even so, she let it know she was listening as she followed the lantern light in the distance, Hagrid’s rumbling voice conversing softly with the others about something. Her classmates were clearly moving too fast for their comfort, as Hagrid’s careful, stalking steps translated to a stride for the much smaller humans.

The forest felt friendly to Sunset, but there was a hesitance to its happiness at her presence.

“What do you mean?” she whispered to her surroundings in general, as she kept her eyes on the people in the distance.

Hagrid stopped, then crouched down and showed the others something before talking meaningfully with them for a moment.

After a while, he took out another lantern, handed it to Draco, and the party split into two, with Harry, Hermione, and Hagrid going one direction, and Draco, Neville, and Fang going another.

Sunset hurried ahead to what Hagrid had shown, and let out a small gasp at the sight, before rushing ahead and carefully dipping her fingers in the silvery substance on the forest floor.

A pool of unicorn blood, shining in the starlight.

This explained to Sunset why there was a job to do in the forest. She looked at the pool, wanting to stay and inspect it closer, to see if anything could be learned from it, but the lantern lights were disappearing behind the undergrowth. She stood up, and followed Neville and Draco, who were clumsily following the trail on the ground.

After she had caught up enough that she was sure she wouldn’t lose sight of them, she realized something, and paused, slowly placing a hand on an oak. It made sense now.

The forest was worried about her.

She patted the oak gratefully to let it know she understood, then pulled her cloak tighter around her.

Doubling her efforts to stay hidden, both magicaly and physically, Sunset crept behind Malfoy and Neville as they nervously looked around, their lantern shining like a flare and revealing them to any potential threat around instead of crouching low and letting the moonlight show them the trail of blood. Only Fang made a proper effort to stay hidden.

Draco muttered something unintelligible to Neville, who held the torch high, but it seemed Neville managed quite the comeback, because Malfoy just slunk back and seemed to simply stalk Neville.

After a while, he slipped behind a tree and let Neville continue without him, and when Neville realized he was alone except for Fang he started looking around wildly, before Draco jumped out with his cloak held out like a big bat and shouting at Neville.

Neville shouted as well, and dropped the lantern as he fell to the ground, pulled his wand, and started waving it around wildly, sending red sparks into the air.

Sunset could only groan in frustration at the scene. She leaned against a tree and scowled in their general direction as Draco laughed at Neville.

Before long, the huge shape of Hagrid came rushing through the undergrowth, and much like a boar, surprisingly quick and quiet for someone of his stature.

“‘S goin’ on ‘ere!?” he barked, prompting a mumbled explanation from Neville.

“Ruddy idiot,” Hagrid muttered at Draco, and ushered them in front of him, leading them back to where he had come from, fuming.

Sunset followed at the same distance as before as all five witches and wizards, and their hound, regrouped, and split up again, this time with Harry, Malfoy, and Fang going to follow the trail Sunset had just left.

Deciding to hedge her bets on the trail that Malfoy wasn’t following, Sunset set off after Hagrid, Neville, and Hermione.

“I’m sorry, Mister Hagrid,” she heard Neville say.

“‘s alright,” Hagrid muttered. “Jes keep yer eyes on the trail.”

“Did you see the centaurs as well?” Hermione asked Neville.

Sunset froze. Images of the tattooed creatures chasing ponies with bows and arrows through the forests flashed through her head.

“No. You met centaurs?”

“Aye,” said Hagrid. “They’re strange ones. Never bin able ter figure out what they want. Outsiders cannae understand ‘em and what they want. Ask me, they like it that way.”

Sunset didn’t have any trouble believing that.

After a few minutes of silent walking, a terrified scream came from the direction Harry and Malfoy had gone.

Hagrid and the others noticed it a few seconds later, but by then, Sunset was already off in that direction, the forest lifting its branches and leaves just as she was about to pass through, as she used her magic to jump between branches and on top of thickets.

The thumps of hooves were sounding in the distance, just as Malfoy came running at top speed down a trail, fang just ahead of him, still screaming at the top of his lungs.

Some sort of commotion was going on further into the dark woods, but then it suddenly stopped.

Sunset kept running, and after a few moments, the sound of hooves galloping away from her could be heard.

Then, she came across a clearing.

There was no Harry, and no centaur, or any other foul creature.

What was there though, was a body.

A dead unicorn, Canterlot-white in both coat and mane, lying on the ground, silver blood forming small pools on the forest floor from wounds all over its body.

The tension instantly flowed out of the forest. Whatever happened here mere moments ago chased away the danger- whatever it was.

Sunset would’ve chased after the sound of the hooves, but she couldn’t help but offer the forest her support by being present.

It was a disgusting sight, the pure results of knowing evil and cruelty, but Sunset didn’t feel anger, she was preoccupied by the sadness of the woods washing over her, and its gentle but deep sorrow as it mourned a dear friend.

She walked over and sat on her knees in front of the unicorn, brushing his mane out of his eyes. At the very least, his expression was peaceful.

Sunset didn’t know how long she sat there, but eventually she stood up. The forest knew this stallion, she would leave the honoring of his mortal remains to it.

She walked towards the castle, the threatening atmosphere now gone from the woods, and it was just a moonlit forest, watching over her as she walked.

She reached the edge of the forest. It bid her farewell, and with a flash of light, Sunset was back in Gryffindor tower.

Hermione wasn’t there, but a quick peek down into the common room revealed her, along with Harry and Ron.

Confident that no students had been hurt at least, she went to bed, and fell into a deep but numb sleep.

Author's Note

Well, this took a while. It's been really hard to write lately, so I hope this is to people's liking.

Not much left of book one in the source material. I'm gonna say it plain right away, there won't be an exciting climax for the first school year in this story, and we're gonna move right onto the summer holiday. At least that's how I'm imagining it now.

In An English Country... Suburb

A long train ride followed by a moderately long ride on another, track-less sort of transport, and it was evening before Sunset arrived at Surrey.

The vehicle had exited the great city of London, traveled through a sort of dip in building density, and then entered an area of moderate urbanization again.

Uneven patches with houses of various sizes made way to denser, more orderly zones of townhouses.

Some of the humans around Sunset gave her strange looks when they realized she was suddenly holding a wooden mug, which she had kept from Hogwarts, filled with gently steaming hot tea.

Sunset pondered her options as the house-covered landscape, illuminated in the evening sun, slowly passed through her window.

Finally making a decision, she put her mug inside her jacket where it seemingly vanished, and disembarked away from the town center.

Most muggles had come home, and were relaxing in their houses and backyards. The scent of burning charcoal and sizzling meat and vegetables could be smelled from several directions, and the odd passerby gave Sunset polite, if slightly aloof, nods.

There was a hard border zone for buildings and a partially kept field beyond. Copses of trees of various sizes were placed in that random way that nature tends to arrange things when left to its own devices, and between them the field was clearly mowed roughly and on occasion as opposed to a garden, enough to keep saplings from establishing themselves.

On the border of this area was a playground in a large sandpit, empty until Sunset walked into it. Swings and park benches were out in the open, but a playground fort made of wood, with a wide metal slide going down from it, was partially obscured by young oaks… by oak standards at least.

Sunset sat on the slide, set her shoulder bag down beside her, and pulled out her robe, throwing it around her like a blanket.

She looked around the area, so calm and empty in the light of the quickly setting sun, to make sure she was alone.

With a few waves of her hand, her nails glowing, dry twigs and a newly fallen limb from a tree floated towards her from the feet of nearby trees and shrubs, forming into a pile in front of her.

Not that she actually needed kindling, or even fuel, but she felt it best to make it look genuine in muggle lands. She clenched her fist, sucking out the moisture from the wood and levitating it above her hand before tossing it into the sand, then fired a jet of orange flame towards the pile of wood, which lit up into a cozy fire within seconds.

She retrieved a bag, formerly for onions for potions class, and pulled out some other things from Hogwarts, in this instance a fork and some toast.

As she was holding the toast over the flame, a voice called out. “What’s that you’re doing there?”

Sunset looked up to see a woman with graying hair looking at her, dressed in a robe and ill-fitting rubber boots, with a grocery bag of what seemed like tin cans in her hand.

Sunset suddenly felt a lot less sure than she did mere seconds ago. She had figured that some muggles were going to be easy to deal with compared to the faculty at Hogwarts, and the students on top of that, but now, confronted with a nosy muggle, she stumbled.

“Uh… enjoying the fire, I guess.”

“Well!” the woman said, and stomped up towards Sunset. “I’ll be…”

The woman suddenly stopped when she got close enough to get a proper look at the young girl.

Sunset would’ve liked to believe she just looked that impressive, but felt it was risky to assume that, and just sat there in silence.

“... I’ll be… happy to have your name, young miss,” the woman suddenly said.

“Uh, it’s… Sunset. What’s… yours?” Sunset said, very much caught off-guard.

“Oh, my name is Arabella,” the woman said. “May I ask why you’re lighting fires in the playground?”

This was not according to script at all, Sunset felt. Even Flitwick would probably softly admonish her for something like this.

“I was… reheating some toast,” she said, giving the fork a little wave.

Arabella opened her mouth slightly. “Where are…” she started, before she realized she was whispering, and cleared her throat. “I mean… where are your parents, Sunset?”

Sunset tried putting on an indifferent facial expression, which came across as a lot less casual than she intended.

First at the orphanage, and then at Celestia’s school, most ponies she met knew she was an orphan. Here though, she understandably had to repeat that fact to people quite often.

“Gone,” she eventually said. “You know… dead.”

Arabella’s mouth hung open slightly longer, before she clearly put effort into pulling herself together. “And where do you live? Who cares for you?”

“Eh…” Sunset said, grasping for explanations and words a lot more than she had intended, before noticing that her slice of bread was blackening at one end.

She grunted in annoyance, and inspected the blackened piece, before putting it in her mouth. “Mmm… you know,” she said, between chews. “I’m making do.”

This clearly did not satisfy Arabella, who nodded slightly to herself.

“I… have a couch,” she said, making Sunset raise an eyebrow in her direction. “If you want to sleep on it I mean.”

“Oh,” Sunset said, making her feel both grateful and flustered. “That’s… very nice of you, but I’ll be fine out here.”

“... What if I insist?”

Sunset smiled up at her. “That would speak well of you, I suppose, but really, I’ll be fine.”

Arabella looked at Sunset for a few more moments, before nodding to herself, a little sad. “Well… alright,” she said. “But… then I will insist that you come and visit if you’re ever hungry.”

That was a direction Sunset felt she wanted to take this conversation in. It was both a possible boon in the future, and a possible closer to the conversation.

“That’s very nice of you,” she said, and smiled at Arabella. “Where do you live?”

Arabella pointed down the road. “Take the right over there down Wisteria Walk, on the left hand side, in number seventeen.”

“Great. Thanks,” Sunset said.

“Not a problem. You try and have a pleasant evening now, Miss Sunset.”

“I will. You too.”

Arabella nodded, and walked off to where she had pointed.

Sunset let out a sigh of relief, and finished the rest of her piece of bread.

She thanked Harmony that had gone so smoothly. For a moment there it looked like she might’ve had to cast perception manipulation spells on both Arabella and a bunch of muggle law enforcement officers. While she felt confident she could pull that off, she didn’t want to risk it before knowing more about their organization and capabilities, and more importantly, she just didn’t feel like it. Something made Sunset feel drained and a little wistful tonight, perhaps it was all the traveling today, but she was not in a fighting mood.

She looked around herself carefully, before picking up the little bonfire with her magic and moving it closer to the little playground fort, and pulled the fallen larch limb and snapped it in pieces to make more fuel.

A quick spell cleared the dust, sand, and cobwebs from the structure, and she lay down on the planks, partially protected from the elements, and wrapped her Hogwarts robe around her like a blanket. Placing herself staring closely into the little pyre and holding her hands in the fire and idly playing with the flames, she slowly drifted off to sleep.

—

It took several minutes of waking up before Sunset realized her brain wasn’t just doing a very poor job of dreaming.

No one had found Sunset this morning, which was no wonder considering the thick mist that blanketed everything around her.

That’s when she noticed that her shoulder bag, which she had been using as a pillow, was vibrating slightly.

“Mmmmmm…” she groaned, and gingerly raised herself up a bit, shook the ashes from her hand which had laid in the fire as she slept, and fished the book out of the bag.

She flipped through it to the relevant page, where Celestia’s usual, elegant writing greeted her.

Happy birthday, Sunset Shimmer.

Sunset just looked at the message for a while.

“... Oh.”

She took out a pen from her bag, and set to writing, a bit gingerly.

Thank you.

Back in Canterlot, Sunset had preferred to not make a big deal of her birthdays, and after Cadence had arrived, she preferred to not celebrate them at all.

She did relent when Celestia threw together something with a cake and some attention given to Sunset, and in return Sunset tolerated Cadence’s presence, but it was nothing compared to the lavish festivities when the pink terror had a birthday of her own.

Sunset did her best to not think of her birthdays, but now she suddenly missed them.

How are you? I’m sorry I can’t be there for you. I hope I’m not interrupting anything.

It’s okay. It’s nice to talk with you anyway. No, I just woke up and I’m just

Sunset struggled with the next bit.

I’m just lying here.

The book was still for a moment.

Where?

In a playground.

Sunset thought she detected a bit more firmness to the text being formed in front of her eyes.

Sunset, have you been sleeping rough? On your own birthday?

Sunset chewed the stale saliva in her mouth and tried blinking the sleepiness from her eyes.

Celestia would scold her for this and be worried, which was bad, but she couldn’t really do anything about it, which helped. This made telling the truth feel somewhat better.

Yes. Don’t worry though, I’ll be fine, I can magic myself comfo

Sunset.

I wish I could help you, but I can only offer advice and make requests, and my advice, and request, is that you go and find somewhere comfortable, and treat yourself to something nice

Well I kind of planned that anyw

I insist that you take care of yourself, and I request, most sincerely, that you always remember:

I love you.

Sunset stopped, and after a moment, realized that her vision wasn't blurry because she was still waking up.

She wiped the tears from her eyes, sniffling slightly.

I love you too.

The following words formed at a bit more hesitant pace.

Now I want you to go to treat yourself. I wish that I could be there with you, more than you can imagine, but I want you to know that I’m thinking about you.

We’ll have a cake when you come back. A big one.

Sunset smiled, and sniffed only once more.

Okay. I’d like that.

Now get going. I’ll write later.

Okay.

Sunset shut the book, and put it back in her bag, taking just a few more moments to get her emotions sorted out.

To her dismay, she realized that schadenfreude had helped motivate her to admit that she was, at least on the surface, vulnerable, uncomfortable, and worthy of sympathy.

She realized that she hoped that Celestia would think of that when the birthday, or whatever big event, surrounding Cadence came up. Or perhaps even better, that Cadence would find out and… something. Feel bad perhaps.

Sunset gingerly stood up, feeling tired, sore, cold, and guilty, when she had been hoping to feel sorry for herself.

She very reluctantly removed her Hogwarts robes, stuffed them in her bag, and immediately cast a slightly overdone heating spell on her clothes, from her shirt to her thigh high socks, which made her exude quite a lot of vapor as she walked across the playground, feeling much more comfortable, but only physically.

Bleary-eyed and unfocused, she took to wandering the streets of… wherever she had ended up.

Rows and rows of identical houses continued on in the distance, or at least that was the assumption, since one could barely see the upcoming house in this mist.

Sunset thought the morning was remarkably quiet until she realized it was just after sunrise on a saturday.

She didn’t mind being alone, at least normally, but she would’ve liked some more comfort, and something to do. She could of course conjure up mattresses and cushions to make herself comfortable, but she suspected that that would make muggles ask where she got them and why she was dragging them around. In turn, she could always use magic to slip out of their perceptions, but that would require concentration and continually looking for people to neutralize, which was suboptimal.

Sunset continued sauntering down the street, her hands held behind her head as she stretched the kinks out of her spine.

The option to just teleport into the wilds and compress soil into a little bungalow and furnish it with conjured articles was also an option, but while she could hide her magic from this magical ministry she had yet to interact with, if someone were to track her down it could lead to suspicions. Again, she could use magic to slip out of people’s thoughts, but she was concerned that would also lead to a runaway project. Again, this was suboptimal.

It was then she noticed that one of the houses had activity in front of it. A whole family by the looks of it was carrying out bags of various kinds out into their auto-vehicle, filling up the rear storage compartment.

She cast a limited perception filter on herself, and walked up to the mother, who was stacking the pile of bags in a more efficient way.

After several moments of consideration, Sunset nodded to herself.

“Going on vacation?” she asked, innocently. “If so, where and how long?”

“Yes, to our summer house in France. We plan on being there for two months,” the mother said, not even consciously aware that she was speaking with someone, until one of her children caught her attention. “Steven! Go to the bathroom before we leave, and brush your teeth,” she ordered, as she walked back into the house.

“Perfect,” Sunset said, and smiled to herself as she walked across the road and took a seat on a stone fence.

Thirty minutes later, the mist was slowly clearing, and the family’s vehicle rumbled away down the road.

Sunset hopped down from the fence and walked towards the backyard of the house whose family just left, which was obscured by a tall wooden fence, casting a cleaning and silencing spell on her boots.

The door there was child’s play to unlock with magic, but Sunset still waited on the precipice.

Was she really going to take advantage of someone else’s property?

What was her motivation? She needed a place to sleep. She wanted privacy and shelter from the elements. She certainly didn’t want to go and ask Dumbledore for help, as she suspected that might come with strings attached.

What were the cons? Perhaps it was a little undignified. A little bit amoral too.

What were the pros? She could always use her magic to clean up after herself and not leave a trace. She might even be able to help in some way.

She struggled with herself for a moment more, before reminding herself that she was an orphan without any income.

And, of course, Celestia was worried about her, and insisted that she take care of herself.

That made her take the first step into the house.

She listened carefully as she stepped into the living room, constantly wanting to aim her ears in different directions.

The large room was comfortably furnished, though with some strange devices that Sunset had never seen before. She recognized one of the communication units hanging from a slot on the wall, but the large box with the darkened window that the couch and armchairs were aimed at puzzled her.

Aside from that was a dining area, and a kitchen with a serving bar that partially separated it from the rest of the room, the only door, other than the one she had entered through, led to a hallway, with the front door on the far side, shoes and boots resting, semi-organized, on a low shelf.

Sunset kept creeping through the empty house, the bottom floor revealing a washroom with futuristic-looking laundry machines in it, two storage areas, and a closet for outer-wear.

Up the stairs was where the risk increased, Sunset felt, as it was clearly the rooms for the individual humans. Even on other planes of existence, the posters with the bold, sharp-looking fonts in chrome, and the ones with the pink hearts, kittens, and cursive writing, told her which room belonged to a colt and which one belonged to a filly.

One interesting feature was in the colt’s room, which was a poster of four lean-looking stallions (men, Sunset reminded herself) dressed in ragged clothes, sharp-looking accessories, and more importantly, very voluminous manedos, looking fiercely at the camera.

“Mmm.” Sunset found herself approving, squirming a little where she stood.

Sadly, she had a job to do, and turned back to securing the house.

Other than that there was a spare bedroom, another bathroom, and a large, carpeted room for the parents, and an attic which was clearly rarely used. A quick search through the closets also revealed enough garments to rival a true Canterlot clothes horse.

Suddenly, Sunset heard the front door click open, and cursed her luck.

The family had probably agreed to lend their house to neighbors or friends from out of town while they were away.

As the sound of footfalls rapidly ascended the stairs, she wondered if perhaps these humans had some cleverly hidden technology-based intruder-sensor she wouldn’t have been able to locate with her magic.

She dropped to her stomach, rolled under the parents’ bed, which had drapes hiding her from sight, and spied out from underneath them to the corridor at foot-level, readying a whole array of spells.

“And don’t forget your sister’s toothbrush as well!” a man’s voice called from downstairs.

The colt, boy, probably a few years older than she looked, rapidly stomped past outside, entered the bathroom, and after a moment of clinking sounds, hurried back.

“Got ‘em!” he called, and descended the stairs again.

The front door closed, followed by the sound of it locking.

Sunset stayed where she was for a moment. The carpet was fluffy and soft, and so it was a good hiding place for if they came back.

After several minutes though, Sunset carefully rolled out from underneath the bed again, and did another quick inspection of the house, before letting out a sigh of relief, and lay down on the couch in the living room, recuperating from her poor sleep that night.

She forced herself to stay awake, in case something like with the occupants happened again, but after an hour, she felt much safer.

She also felt really hungry.

A small pile of muggle money was spread around the bottom of her bag. Sunset wished she knew how much it was and how far it could get her, but she’d just have to find out.

Gathering up the notes of money, she noticed her Equestrian coins, and took one out, looking at Celestia’s serene face.

Inspecting the room around her, Sunset then looked back at the depiction of her old teacher.

“I hope you had something like this in mind.”

A sudden thought made Sunset pause, and she chuckled to herself.

“Well that and a chocolate cake. A big one,” Sunset said, and nodded to herself. “Time to find out how muggles do groceries.”

—

A human grocery store reminded Sunset more of one of Canterlot Castle’s supply cellars than the city markets in that it was clean, well-lit, sturdy, confidence-inspiringly free from odors, and perhaps a little lacking in character. It was comfortable in a sense though.

Sunset started by scouting the whole store. Past the isles with vegetables and fruits was the bread.

Sunset inspected one of the bags, mumbling to herself.

“Wheat flour, water, vegetable oil, sugar, salt, etc… sounds, uh, familiar.”

The food in the wizarding world had been largely what she was familiar with from being a pony, with a few notable differences like animals, both land and aquatic ones, and a lack of hay, and it seemed like muggles ate the same things that witches and wizards did.

And so the fridges with the meat were something Sunset was curious about.

“What is a ‘beef’ anyway?”

She walked slowly through the aisle, her eyes scanning the little transparent plastic boxes in the glass fridges, when she noticed the sign for exactly that; Beef.

When she saw the outline of a cow on the package, she paused.

“... Uhm…”

She looked around, but the hour was still early, and not many muggles were shopping.

Sunset walked to the most quiet corner of the grocery store she could find, and pulled out her old encyclopedia out of her bag, starting with the one covering the letter “B”.

A few minutes later, she had gone from beef, to cows, which had not included any mention of sapience. That had led her to look up ponies, which was a subsection of horses, and had a picture.

The feral, clumsy-looking animal was looking into the camera, not comprehending.

Sunset looked at the picture for a long while. A distant relative, genetically speaking? Maybe. But she couldn’t see any real kinship with the creature.

She closed the book.

“It’s just shapes,” she said to herself. “If a human came to Equestria and turned into a pony, she wouldn’t freak out when learning that there were unintelligent primates in the world.”

She decided to give meat a miss for now though. The chefs at Hogwarts knew what they were doing. She’d let them handle cooking that.

An hour later, Sunset was walking through the house she was… borrowing, looking through the windows from all positions indoors and checking which ones needed to have the curtains drawn to keep the neighbors from seeing her. Luckily, the tall wooden fence meant that the ground floor was entirely safe, and so was most of the backyard.

The technology-based stove was something she decided to learn some other time, but the pots and pans were, thankfully, of the traditional kind.

A short while later, she had finished a big bowl of vegetable stew, and was slicing up a chocolate cake with strawberries, singing a birthday song to herself in Equestrian, and was surprised at how much better she was feeling.

The mysterious box demanded attention though. Taking a large slice of cake in her mouth, she got up and bent down in front of it.

Five of the six sides were patterned plastic, and one side, the one aimed at the couch, was glass, with a half-opened panel hiding an array of buttons next to it.

Sunset hesitated, and decided to press the biggest one.

A low burst of distorted sound shot out of a set of speakers hidden beneath the patterned plastic, and after a burst of light, a woman in a suit appeared in the window, looking at Sunset with a stack of papers in her hands.

“And in other news, the dismantling of the Berlin Wall continues,” she said.

“What!?” Sunset yelled, falling back on her behind and spraying the carpet with chocolate cake.

The woman inside the box continued, undisturbed, having just mentioned that someone was at… whatever site she was talking about, with more information.

“Hello?” Sunset said, wiping the crumbles of cake from her mouth.

Suddenly, instantly, and without ceremony, the woman, and the entire room she had been in, was replaced by an outdoor, urban scene, where a man with a black, fuzzy stick was suddenly staring at Sunset instead.

“That is correct, Janet. As you can see, the demolition is still ongoing, this is good timing as there is currently not a lot of noise, this being a lunch break.”

“Who are you?” Sunset ventured. “What happened to the other one?”

The man obviously had a job to do, because he ignored Sunset and briskly moved on to present another person, standing next to him.

“... with some locals making sure to benefit from this still on-going event,” he said, and moved the fuzzy stick closer to the face of another man, who nodded in confirmation.

“Ja, zhere iz a lot of people who come to zee the dismantling,” he said, in what Sunset swore was a Greifenhausian accent.

“Und wer bist du?” Sunset tried, but he was more interested in talking about his pub.

“... so it became zomesing of a trend to vatch zhe vall come down while having a drink. Zhere’s less parking space right now, but to me, it’z vorth it.”

“Haaalloooo? Können Sie mich höööreeen?”

Suddenly, the room with the woman came back. She was still there, looking out the window. “Thank you, Robert, and prost from the UK to the people of Berlin. And now, the weather, with–”

“What’s going… oh,” Sunset said, and looked behind her.

There was no projector there, but she was already grasping the concept.

She stood up as another human, presumably a muggle, showed a map of the British Isles, with little pictures of suns and rain clouds showing what the weather was predicted to be in the coming days.

“Huh,” Sunset said to herself, not having thought about how if no one could control the weather, naturally there’d be people who would have to predict it and share the predictions.

As the human described the weather, Sunset inspected the rest of the box, looking at it, listening to it, and sniffing it.

There were no moving parts as far as Sunset could see though.

If she had owned the box, she would have been more willing to prod and poke it, but as things were, she would stick to just using it in the way she was, which she was fairly certain was its intended purpose.

That jungle of black and gray cables behind the device was also quite intimidating.

“That’s really cool,” she said, and nodded to herself.

After a few more moments of inspection, Sunset sat down on the couch with a spellbook, and noticed that the excited, but oh so boring discussion of sports that followed the weather analysis reminded her of her classmates around the Gryffindor dinner table, providing a blanket of chatter that helped her drown out the world as she went through more third year spells.

With a chocolate cake, a comfortable couch, and some study material, Sunset felt a lot better than she had this morning. A good night’s sleep and all would be well again.

However, the single-unit projector box proved quite the distraction. It turned out it had different programs organized by time slots, and near the evening, Sunset at first scoffed as she looked up from her book, eyebrow raised at the silly-looking puppets dancing very unconvincingly across the screen, but then the song started.

“♫It’s time to play the music! It’s time to light the lights!♪

♪It’s time to meet the muppets on The Muppet Show tonight!♫”

Sunset found herself tapping along with her foot, and a, to start with, uncertain smile slowly grew on her face.

There was no more studying done that night.

—

Sunset played it safe the first two nights, and slept underneath the double bed upstairs, hidden from view. But no threat appeared, no people walked in through the door, and no one would have found her snoring on the couch and called the city guard while she was asleep.

She was also careful with the lights, so that the neighbors wouldn’t notice that there was someone in the house. Luckily, the days lasted longer in the summer, which gave her plenty of daylight hours to work with.

With a bit of discipline, she forced herself to go outside, which was easier now that the sun was shining, unlike the last two days which had been cold and rainy for the middle of summer.

And it was pretty nice feeling the fresh, outdoors air again.

Sunset walked in a semi-coherent pattern in the afternoon sun, having stuffed everything in her bag again and carrying it with her in case someone came to the house while she was away.

A part of her felt it was unworthy to be skulking around in other people’s houses when they were away, but that part was almost completely silenced by necessity, and replaced by a feeling of excitement and nervousness.

It was fun, in a sense, but she’d also be glad to be back at Hogwarts, even though she’d miss some of the muggle inventions. Particularly that pinnacle of technology-based entertainment, the interactive excitement box, the little adventure-engine, the Super Nintendo.

Past houses, playgrounds, parks, transportation-stops, and small businesses, Sunset walked, her stroll punctuated by the occasional nod and “hello” to people out strolling as well, or walking their dogs.

“Oi, find a rock or something,” a voice sounded from a little ways away.

“No way, D! People will know it’s us,” another voice said.

“You stupid? We don’t go here anymore,” the first voice said.

Sunset climbed a small set of cobblestone stairs in the shade of some trees to reach a fenced-in area, with a large building, with wings, playgrounds, and empty stands for those two-wheeled vehicles she had seen around.

Sunset recognized it as a school, empty during the summer.

A small ways away, in front of a glass door, stood a collection of boys, and Sunset could smell, and gag at, the scent of nervous bravado even from where she stood.

These boys were scared, and had been for so long that it was as if their scent had been permanently discolored.

Not even Neville smelled like that.

The largest one, an obese example, pointed at a sign on a utility hatch with a picture of a lightning bolt that read ‘No Entry Allowed’ and said, “take that down.”

One of the other boys, one with a permanently scrunched up face, chuckled. “A’roigh, why?”

“I want it.”

The scrunched up boy brought an abused multi-tool out of his pocket, and started stabbing at the small space between the sign and the hatch.

“Heh, remember when we chased your cousin through the swings?” another one, with a very ape-like posture, said.

“I remember you missin’ him with the swings and hitting y’self ‘stead,” the boy with the tool interjected.

“Little git’s bloody quick,” one said. “Where he at, if he ain’t at Smeltings?”

“St, Brutus’ Centre For Criminally Incu… Incubat… Insecurable Boys,” the obese one said.

“Shame. Good for a lark.”

“Oi! Someone’s comin!” a runty specimen said, as he spotted Sunset casually strolling up to them.

Scrunchy-boy let go of his tool, still lodged in between the sign and the hatch, as the group turned around to see Sunset.

“Who-oi! Whatchu wan’ then?” ape-boy said.

Sunset shrugged. “I’dunno. I just thought it would be fun to see you get electrified from that,” she said, nodding to the utility hatch.

Sunset had spent an hour inspecting all the muggle tools in the house she was in, amazed by how much electricity was running through the building, and how safe it was, assuming you didn’t stab at the boxes containing the arcane arrangements with a blunt tool of course.

Not that the boys were in any danger from what they were doing specifically, but Sunset felt it could be a good idea, and fun too, to let them think otherwise.

“Yeah? Who you den?” scrunchy-boy demanded.

“Sunset. You?”

“Whu?” the obese one said.

“Sunset. That’s my name. You?”

The boys tried to straighten out their posture and unfold themselves to greater stature, which didn’t really have much effect, as they seemed to collapse in other areas in proportion.

The obese one spoke up instead. “‘M Big D, this is Piers, Den, Mal, Gor,” he said, indicating the others.

“Right.” Sunset nodded, and looked expectantly at Piers, the one with the tool. “Well go on, Piers, Big D, the rest of you, I’m expecting a show.”

“Oi who do you think you are?” one of them, Gordon, Sunset thought, said.

“Sunset, remember?”

But the so-called Big D just put a placating hand in front of Gordon, and nodded to Piers.

“Yeah, ain’t no trouble,” Piers said, and started stabbing and bending at the ‘No Entry Allowed’ sign again.

It was almost a shame that the sun was bright and lively in the sky, an amused Sunset thought, as she put her hands behind her back and balanced back and forth on the balls of her feet while she prepared an illusion.

Suddenly, there was a bang and a bright light, or so it seemed to the boys, that shot from the metal hatch, momentarily engulfing the metal tool that Piers was holding.

He jumped back with a startled cry, dropping the tool from his hands, and himself onto his rear, as his friends took a step back in surprise.

“Ah! Aaaah! It got me!” he shouted, looking at his absolutely unaffected hand with terrified eyes.

Sunset was chuckling to herself, as Piers stumbled to his feet, and staggeringly ran away in a panic-like state.

“C’mon, let’s go,” Big D said, and started a sort of waddling jog after Piers.

His friends gave Sunset a look of equal amounts terror and impressedness as she smiled at them, and then hurried after their friend.

Sunset thought that maybe she had misjudged them ever so slightly, if they were actually concerned for their friend.

“Thank you!” Sunset called after them.

Sunset walked up to the dropped tool, and picked it up.

It was a pair of foldable pliers and cutters combined, with small tools folding into the handle, like a knife, a little saw, a small pair of scissors, and screwdrivers.

“Cool.”

She looked around to make sure she was alone, and then waved her fingers at it, channeling a quite impressive wizarding spell, which smoothed out the dents in the metal from careless use.

Sunset pocketed the multitool, and sauntered on with a pleased smile on her face, having prevented minor vandalism, and hopefully taught a group of children to respect electricity.

“Helping people is fun.”

Author's Note

I've never been to the UK, so I've guessed and assumed a bunch of things about the place, and what the suburbs there look like.

Back Amongst Lions

The days rolled on for Sunset Shimmer as she spent hours every day on the muggle couch, resting, eating, studying, researching on their coffee table, and entertaining herself.

The arrangement had whole arrays of pros and cons to weigh, which made it all feel fairly unusual. Among the negative aspects was that she always had to keep a low profile. She did so at Hogwarts as well of course, but at least there she could stroll around mostly freely and not sneak out of the backdoor, and only when she was certain no one was watching. Interestingly she was able to use her unicorn magic much more freely than at Hogwarts, as magic without wands were rare phenomena for witches and wizards that she did not want to reveal to them that she could do.

She wasn’t completely isolated, with people on the street casually greeting her, that Arabella woman asking her how she was doing every time they walked by each other, and of course she could write to Celestia. Not to mention that Sunset was used to long periods of time spent isolated in a study and researching away. Even so, she had to admit that at times she was perhaps, hard as it was to imagine, feeling a little lonely.

Sunset was also never able to get truly comfortable and really let her guard down. She kept all her possessions she wasn’t actively using in her shoulder bag, always ready to grab it and disappear.

But there were good parts too. The muggles had entertainment aplenty, and some magical scrying also revealed that the water outlet for the muggle family’s garden hose had a defect far inside the wall which could easily get a lot worse, an expensive and complicated affair to address for those without magic, which Sunset fixed for them and felt a lot better about the whole thing. She also refreshed the high wooden fence where rot had started setting in, hardening it without needing oil or other treatment to make it last for several more years.

Her potions research was also coming along nicely, especially when the people on the television, which was a term she had learned, talked sport, as she found chatter that she didn’t need to listen to strangely comfortable at times, like around the Gryffindor table in the great hall. She had studied several potions that were of the level of several years ahead of where she was expected to be, and like she usually did, she tried alternative, more effective ways to make them, and jotted down her results in the margins of her potions books. However, it was quite costly when it came to supplies, so eventually, her potion studies ground to a halt.

Sunset also refrained from invading the muggles’ private space too much. She didn’t look more in the family’s private rooms, and mostly kept to the couch and the kitchen, but they had left some magazines out. One of them was a strange example, and after some confusion, Sunset figured out it was a collection of advertisements.

Some of them taught Sunset new terms, and after some research with her set of encyclopedias, learned some more information about human clothes and their functions. Especially undergarments, which was something that Sunset was missing several years of experience with.

And so Sunset found herself walking through a drizzle down the streets of Little Whinging, when Arabella called out to her from her garden.

“Hello! Sunset!” she said, waving to her from behind a currant bush, clad in a plastic robe and a sou'wester.

“Oh, hello, Mrs. Figg,” Sunset called back, trying not to seem sufficiently stand-offish, having learned her name from her mailbox.

“What are you doing out in the rain?” she asked, walking up to the waist-high wooden fence separating them.

Sunset shrugged. “I was just gonna do some shopping.”

“But you’re going to get soaked,” Arabella protested.

“I actually find it refreshing,” Sunset noted.

Arabella shook her head to herself. “May I ask what you’re going to be shopping for?” she asked.

“Uh, clothes.”

Arabella nodded. “I see. Well, why don’t you come in and have a cup until it stops raining? So your new clothes don’t get wet. I’ve put the kettle on, it’s enough for two.”

Sunset raised her eyebrows slightly, but just shrugged. “Well, alright,” she said. She had declined several times already, and it was starting to seem rude.

“Oh, good. Come on inside, dear,” Arabella said, and opened the gate to her house and encouraged Sunset to follow her.

She led Sunset into her house, which was practically the same in terms of layout as the place she was occupying, but the decor was quite different.

Whereas the other house was bright and relatively free of decorations, Arabella’s walls were a dark green that ate much of the light spilling in from the windows, with the abundance of decorations, trinkets, and various paraphernalia eating the rest. A jungle of little vases, small tables with odd decorations, and paintings, greeted Sunset when she entered, as well as the overwhelming smell of cats. Not so much the cats themselves as their kibble and their litter boxes.

“Do come in,” Arabella encouraged Sunset, and let her into the kitchen and lounge. “Feel free to sit down.”

A large armchair was the most free space available, and Arabella put down a teacup and saucer in front of Sunset, pouring from a cast iron pot into it.

“Milk? Sugar?”

“Please,” Sunset said.

Arabella joined her in turning her tea into liquid candy, and sat down opposite her.

“So, how has summer been treating you so far?”

“Pretty good,” Sunset said, as a cat started rubbing himself against her leg. “And you?”

“Oh, I’m doing as well as I always am. Seen anything interesting this summer?”

Sunset idly rubbed the cheek of the tomcat after it had jumped up into her lap, while another took his place down by her legs. “Well, yes, but I’m fascinated by the strangest things.” Sunset had learned from the television that muggles were so comfortable with their inventions that they took them for granted.

Arabella took a sip of her tea, which made Sunset feel a lot more easy about doing the same. Not that she really believed that there was something unwholesome in it.

“Mmm. So do you learn a lot from school?”

Sunset managed to grasp a decent deflection on the first try. “Yeah, you know, the skills you need in life, but I suspect it’s also about teaching you teamwork and social skills, which are only partially learned in the classroom.”

‘And which Hogwarts probably actively works against,’ Sunset thought to herself.

A third cat jumped up into Sunset’s lap, and a fourth one was suddenly standing with her front paws on Sunset’s head and her hind paws on the backrest. She had to put the teacup down in order to pet them all, as they rubbed their cheeks against every inch of Sunset between looking out the window.

“So do you get what you want out of your education?”

That made Sunset pause, and wonder why she had never been asked this by her teachers.

“That’s… always hard to say,” she ventured. “But I hope it will in the end. Hands crossed.”

“... You mean fingers crossed?”

“Uh, yes, of course,” Sunset said, surrounded by cat purrs.

Arabella looked at Sunset for a moment, as the younger girl stared out the window while idly scratching the chins of her beloved cats.

“How long have you been in Little Whinging?”

“I met you the day I arrived,” Sunset said. “So that long.”

“Oh. Well, have you made any friends yet?”

For a fleeting moment, Sunset wondered if this woman wasn’t a projection that Celestia had managed to send through the planes of existence.

“No, I’ve uh… mostly kept to myself,” Sunset said, feeling something sting somewhere inside her, but she couldn’t figure out why. And it wasn’t even a cat sharpening a claw on her.

Arabella nodded, with what Sunset felt was a very guarded expression on her face. “Understandable. There’s no need to involve yourself with people if you don’t want to.”

Sunset felt confident in dismissing the possibility that Arabella was a creation of Celestia.

“I guess I ran into some boys a while back?”

“Boys?”

“Yeah. Five of them. They were messing around at a school. Not the brightest bunch.”

“Ah. I see. They didn’t give you any trouble then, I hope?”

Sunset shook her head, making the cat on her shoulder glare at her. “Not really.”

“Good. There’s no need to involve yourself with those boys,” Arabella said. Her voice was neutral on the surface, but there was a tiny hint of venom below it.

Sunset had idly wondered what grade of troublemakers they had been, which this was something of an indication of.

She hadn’t been worried though. With her superior physical capabilities, not to mention her magic, they couldn’t actually have hurt or even inconvenienced her in any real way.

“Don’t worry, I’m not interested,” Sunset assured her, again staring out the window along with the cats.

“Ah, the weather is clearing up,” Arabella noted, seeing the sun peeking out from behind the passing rain cloud.

“Yes. I should probably get going,” Sunset said, and started lifting cats from herself, not wanting to miss the effect of the rays shimmering in the freshly fallen rain on the leaves and grass.

“Well thank you for your company, Sunset. Do feel free to stop by any time,” Arabella said, brightly.

Sunset paused, not knowing how to react to that (which gave the cats another chance to jump up in her lap).

“Thank you,” she said, standing up with two cats in each arm, and setting them down gently on the floor. “That’s very kind of you.”

“Not to worry, and good luck in school,” Arabella said, accepting a cat that had jumped up and climbed up Sunset’s skirt as she had walked outside.

“Thank you,” Sunset said again, and walked on towards the settlement’s center.

—

After some longer-than-anticipated experiments and research, Sunset had figured out the mysteries of women’s undergarments, and also felt confident she could magically adjust their size and prevent wear and tear, so she didn’t have to go through that again.

Back at the muggle house, she checked the calendar and the clock again. It was nearing two months since she had moved in, and while a part of her was worried about when she had to bail, another part wished to get it over with so she could spend some time in some other place than the living room couch without intruding more than she already had.

A quick repair spell cast on the family’s refrigerator to stop it from making a strange sound was the last favor she did them before planning on moving on. She only wanted to look into one intriguing video cartridge first.

Even with their accurate and high-fidelity video capture technology, the muggles appreciated drawn animation. The movie was about one who might be the last of her kind, and her quest to find others like her.

The protagonist was perhaps a little delicate, Sunset felt, but the subject matter intrigued her.

One timeless creature had just freed another, the first fair and ethereal, the other a foul monster.

“Don’t look back, and don’t run,” the protagonist said. “You must never run from anything immortal, it attracts their attention.”

“Huh?” Sunset said, and was about to start asking the television questions, like she did months ago, before she thought more about that statement.

It was true. She had run away from Celestia, whereupon she had gotten much more attention from her.

And the more she tried avoiding Cadence, the more Cadence tried to spend time with her.

The events on the screen in front of her were fiction, true, but what spawned the tale? Where did the characters and what they claim come from? Intuition? Imagination? Experience?

Was it in Celestia’s nature to pay attention to Sunset after she ran away? Could she not help it? Did she realize it? Was it all because of some cosmic mandate?

Sunset shook her head. It was all a coincidence. Probably.

“No, I cannot turn you into something you are not,” the protagonist said, in response to something her new friend said.

“... But he can do it himself, I hope is what you mean,” Sunset said.

The story continued, with twists and turns and mysteries abound.

Then, the villain appeared. If that was what he truly was, gloomy and dour as he was. Still, he had the bearing of a true dark lord. Regal, intimidating, and able to capture Sunset’s ear and attention with his voice alone.

When accused of being cold-hearted for wanting to do what he felt was right, and only caring about his magic, the wizard among them had angrily shouted that he wished he only cared about his magic, but that wasn’t true.

In the end, their task was done, and the world was set right, but as with any long journey, all involved felt both elation and hardships, their hearts both wounded and soothed.

Perhaps it was just because it had given her several new ideas to think about, but Sunset wanted a long walk. She cleaned out all traces, except for the small repairs, of her ever having been in the house, and slipped out of the backdoor.

She wandered through the orange light of the low, setting sun, her mind on a journey of its own, when she finally found herself standing near a bus station (another useful term she had picked up from the “telly”), and got an idea in her head. An idea attractive in its plainness.

A much more friendly and concerned driver than last time accepted her payment for a trip back to London, and Sunset stared blankly at him when he expressed concern for her mental and physical well-being, before she realized that, if you only craned your neck and squinted just a little bit, she would seem kind of waif-ish.

She chuckled, and assured him with a smile and a thanks, and took a seat.

Halfway out of Surrey, she noticed a flying car zooming off to the west, high in the sky.

“Wow, I’ve been observant, haven’t I?” she said to herself with a small smile, and leaned back into the seat.

—

The door to the Leaky Cauldron wasn’t locked, and Sunset stepped in to see the light even more dim than usual, with Tom the innkeep being the only other soul in the dining and bar area, looking up at Sunset with a look of concerned surprise on his face, cleaning out a mug with a rag.

“Good evening, Mister Tom,” Sunset said.

“Aye, evenin’, Miss Shimma’.”

“This is a bit of a short notice, but do you have a room vacant?” Sunset said, as she moved towards the bar.

She frowned slightly to herself when she realized this should’ve been a stormy night, and she should’ve been removing a rain-heavy traveling cloak with a confident flourish.

Oh well. Some other time perhaps.

“Aye, Miss Shimma’,” Tom said, smiling as he held his arms out invitingly to the stairs. “Same one as las’ toime. Will the school be coverin’ it?”

Sunset shook her head. “I’m afraid not. Don’t worry though,” she said, and held up a pair of gold galleons between her fingers. “I’m good for it.”

Tom nodded. “Aye. Will ye be wantin’ some suppa’?”

Sunset considered this, and nodded. “Yes, thank you. Something simple. Tea and some bread.”

“Hrm… bread’s stale, miss. Don’ feel roight charging ye fer for warm water wi’ some leaves.”

Sunset shrugged. “Don’t then, because I was wondering if I could help out in the kitchen, to help cover my bills.”

Tom raised an eyebrow at her.

“I’m not a good enough cook to serve guests, and I’m not experienced in housekeeping, but I’m pretty sure I can make cutlery sparkle.”

Tom considered Sunset for a moment, then nodded. “Aye.”

—

Tom’s toothless grin, and his way of speaking, might’ve been off-putting to a highborn young mare like Sunset, but she found him to be a big sweetheart.

Highborn in a sense at least. In some places in Canterlot you couldn’t throw a horseshoe without hitting one of the “common nobility”- a pony distantly related, or not, to a faded noble line, or several, who made no claims and had no interest in the aristocracy, especially when everypony around them could say the same.

Tom had Sunset “help out” in the kitchen, a greasy, smokey, and in places charred, place, with cast-iron stoves, cupboards, and basins of soap-y water, with doors and trap doors leading to larders, and of course barrel-filled cellars.

Tom managed to cook food, serve drinks, clean dishes, and care for his rooms, all by himself, and keep a cheerful disposition.

Still, he seemed to like Sunset helping out, especially with her working quite fast and efficiently with magic when no one was looking.

He reminded Sunset of a unicorn with an earth pony’s disposition. Many saw unicorns as being the primary scholars of Equestria, studying magics and stars in towers, and if not that, then clerks, or tradesponies in relatively “clean” trades, such as hairdressers.

Some, though, led a lifestyle more like a typical earth pony, farming, or doing hooves-on work, with or without magic, like running an inn.

Tom was much like that to Sunset, using magic to do his labor.

“Don’ know how ye do it, lass,” he said, as Sunset pulled out the last plate from the, unknown to Tom, scalding hot water of the washbasin, polished to a mirror sheen.

“You just have to beware of the elbow grease,” Sunset said, nodding at the water pouring down the old pipe with a slurping sound, leaving only soap suds behind. “The grease goes there, not on elbows.”

Tom laughed at Sunset’s intentionally bad joke. “Well yeo’ve done enough f’ t’day, lassie. Ye be on ya way now. Dinna’s at foive.”

“Looking forward to it,” she said, and exited the kitchen.

Her daily chores were so short she had to use magic to get anything done. Tom didn’t seem comfortable keeping her at work for more than a few hours per day.

Sunset made sure that she still had muggle money in her bag when she entered the same cafe she entered almost a year ago, where the same muggle woman stood behind the same counter.

“Oh, don’t I recognize you, dearie?” she said. “Oh that’s right! California.”

Sunset just felt pleased with her ability to now blend in with muggles that she just smiled as she took a seat.

“The very same. Tea and blueberry muffins, please,” Sunset said, and noticed that there was a television set aimed at the customers, currently turned off. She glanced at the clock, and aimed a finger at the telly. “Oh, and speaking of California, can we turn that on?”

The muggle glanced at the clock herself, and gave Sunset a confirming smile. “Oh he is ever so good, isn’t he?”

“He is,” Sunset said, as the screen came alive before the woman retrieved the drink and pastry.

In front of her, her new hero appeared on screen.

The most relentless bloodhound the forces of order and justice had ever seen calmly sauntered along the luxurious surroundings.

Evil has been done, and not with strength, but with cunning the likes of which lesser people cannot even comprehend, the champion of the wronged stepped up to the challenge.

Sunset figured that it was all pretend, but she didn’t know if she was disappointed or relieved from thinking that.

But it wasn’t his indomitable and highly successful pursuit of justice that made Sunset admire him. It was that no one saw these traits when looking at him. No one knew what they were seeing when they looked at him.

The short man on the screen fumbled for his wallet, and spoke around the bundle of dried leaves in his mouth.

“Uh… Lieutenant... mm… Columbo… Homicide.”

Sunset’s eyes were glued to the screen, as her tea was put in front of her.

—

One morning shortly after arriving at the Cauldron, Tom had a letter to Sunset, from Hogwarts, containing her list of necessary school supplies and such.

She could’ve used her partially accidentally ill-gotten funds to buy it all ahead of time, but buying all before she supposedly had money to afford might raise suspicions.

“Tha’s lookin’ awfully hot there, lass,” Tom said, looking down at the scalding hot water with Sunset’s hands submerged in it, as she cleaned the plates. “Wonderin’ ‘bou’ maybe givin ye a raise if ye ‘ave t’ work like tha’.”

Sunset, of course, could rest her hands in bonfires. Warm dishwater was of little concern to her.

She raised an eyebrow in Tom’s direction. “Have you gotten a letter from Professor Dumbledore, or McGonagall?” she asked.

The old innkeeper squirmed a little where he stood, looking awkward.

Sunset shrugged. “You can if you want, but I’ll be working harder if you do.”

“Is jus’… Oi hear books ’re gonna be expensive this year.”

Ah yes, that Gilderoy Lockhart figure. Sunset tried not to judge books by their covers, which the title was arguably a part of, and the titles were awful.

“I’ve done the math,” Sunset assured him, having repurposed the back of an old transfiguration essay to balance her income with the cost of the books and other sundries.

Inspiration suddenly struck Sunset.

“Arh, well, tha’s good t’ hear. Ye look all done now, lassie, so ye just take tha’ plate on the counter there and hand it to the boy by the table, then ye’re done for t’day.”

“Thank you,” Sunset said, and wiped her scrunched up fingers on a towel before doing as instructed.

She walked up to the older boy sitting by the table, looking out the grimy window at the muggles passing by, and set the plate of steaming hot food in front of him.

“Here we are. Enjoy,” Sunset said, making the boy look up at her, slightly startled.

“Oh, thank you,” he said, and looked at her. “Uhm… don’t you go to Hogwarts?”

Sunset took in the boy’s appearance, and the first thing that came to mind was whether his hair was naturally layered with a wild lock sticking out above his forehead, or if he was just really good at making it seem natural.

“That’s right,” she said. “Do you?”

“I do,” he said, smiled, and held out a hand. “Cedric Diggory.”

Sunset politely shook his hand, and nodded. “Sunset Shimmer.”

“Oh that’s right. I’ve heard about you. You’re that Gryffindor girl who keeps making Professor Snape so angry. I hear you’re really good.”

“At making Professor Snape angry?” Sunset said, raising an eyebrow.

“No, I mean… Well, that too, but I meant magic. Uh, please, have a seat,” Cedric offered.

Sunset accepted the invitation, trying not to frown at this development. “Thanks. Who… is saying that I’m good at magic?”

“Well uh… everyone, I guess.” Cedric shrugged.

“Everyone?”

“Uh… The collective ‘they’, I guess.”

Sunset wondered how that rumor came to be, considering that Sunset suspected that Hermione’s right arm was longer than her left one, considering how much she stretched it waving it around every time a teacher asked a question.

“Uhuh. Well don’t believe everything you heard,” Sunset said, and gestured at the plate she brought out. “Don’t let me keep you from eating.”

“Oh, right,” Cedric said, and started cutting into the fried fish. “So… why are you serving food in The Leaky Cauldron?”

Sunset wondered why she didn’t feel more defensive at this personal inquiry, and figured that maybe she was just feeling soft today.

“Just trying to make ends meet,” she said, and shrugged.

“Hah!” a girl suddenly shrieked loudly from right next to Sunset and Cedric, making both of them jump in their seats.

They looked up to see a bitter-looking girl pointing a finger at Sunset with a look of triumph on her face. “You’re just a waitress! Wait ‘til I tell him!”

The loud girl turned on her heel and walked out towards Diagon Alley, in a fast and spirited march.

Sunset and Cedric spent a long moment looking at the exit to the back of the inn.

“Who was that?” Cedric asked, mirroring Sunset’s thoughts exactly.

“No idea.”

“Okay? Strange. Uh, anyway, so uh… what’s your favorite subject?”

Sunset blinked, grateful that he brought them back to sensible subjects so readily.

“Hmm, Good question. Charms and transfigurations are… comfortable, for me, but I like learning about potions. You?”

“Surprised you like potions,” Cedric noted, with a wry smile. “We had potions after you last year, and we could tell. Anyway, I think charms too, and flying of course, even though we only had that the first year.”

“Ah, well, bummer I guess, only having it for one year.”

Cedric smiled easily. “Yeah, but you know, I get to fly anyway.”

Sunset cocked her head at him. “Why?”

“I’m… on the quidditch team. The Hufflepuff quidditch team,” Cedric pointed out.

“What? Oh, oh yeah,” Sunset said, as some memories came back to her. “I remember now.”

Sunset started looking for a way to extricate herself from this conversation. She didn’t feel very guarded right now, and she was talking with one of the cunning Hufflepuffers. Maybe that’s why she didn’t feel very guarded? Was Cedric just that good at drawing information out of people? It would make sense.

They were suddenly interrupted once more, this time by a brown-haired man with an unkempt beard sitting down with a loud thump next to Cedric.

“What’s this then?” he said, and put his arms around Cedric’s shoulder, and chuckled at him. “We leave our Ced alone for one minute and already the girls are flocking around him.”

Cedric tensed up like a rookie guard ordered to stand outside Celestia’s private chambers, and looked down at the floor.

“That’s not it,” he said.

“Isn’t it?” the man said, incredulously. “It certainly looks that way.”

Cedric cleared his throat. “Uh, Sunset, this is my… dad, Amos.”

Sunset held out a hand, with an utterly neutral expression. “Charmed.”

“Yes, there’s a lot of charm around here,” Amos said, and shook Sunset’s hand. “And I know where it comes from.”

“Da’,” Cedric hissed, warningly.

“Well, there’s no use denying it. I mean, it’s not the first girl you’ve had come up to you–”

Cedric suddenly stood up. “It was really nice meeting you, Sunset,” he said, loudly, but with genuine politeness. “Perhaps we can talk more in school?”

Sunset, also quite willing to end the conversation, stood up and nodded. “Yes, that might be best,” she said, and walked up the stairs to her room.

Sunset distracted herself by going over her finances one more time, which reminded her of her plan she had come up with earlier, but which had almost been lost thanks to the conversation with Cedric.

She penned a letter, tucked it in her sleeve, and made a quick detour to the wizarding postal office before bed.

The next day, Sunset woke up to the sound of a desperate-looking owl, panting softly as it tapped on her window.

She quickly got up and eased the heavy load from the grateful bird.

“Sorry about that,” she said, and filled the wash basin with water, then opened the heavy package as the owl descended on the refreshment.

Inside was a set of every book required for her second year, the Gilderoy Lockhart ones new and shiny, the other ones less so to a varying degree.

Honorable Madam.

We find your terms agreeable and are pleased to conduct this transaction. As a favor of goodwill, you will find your requested articles included in this parcel, whereas we will accept your end of the bargain when we meet in person, or at least one part of it.

Half the price, and one favor.

Yours
Fred and George Weasley.

ps: Do not tell anyone about this. Mum has ears everywhere.

Sunset smirked. Fred and George did everything as one. They even read at exactly the same pace. Why have more than one set of books?

Sunset, relieved, sat down with her new books to try and distract herself from the conversation with the elder Diggory.

And they certainly did that.

She was also starting to suspect that not paying full price for them was a good idea.

—

A set of Hogwarts school uniforms floated above Sunset in bed, while a bolt of black cloth was being magically cannibalized to provide more fabric for the getup, making it larger and undoing the wear and tear.

The magic fed the uniform until it was better than when she had received it, leaving only half a bolt.

Sunset glanced at the old clock on the far side of the room, and stood up, magically floating her uniforms down into her bag, and slinging it over her shoulder.

It was still early, but Sunset had decided that this was a good time to leave anyway. Her stay at The Leaky Cauldron had further hammered home what a small community the British magical world was. From experience, Sunset could travel to King’s Cross in moments, but she didn’t want Tom, and any people he might talk to, to know that.

She walked down into the dining area, where her employer, sort of, was already standing behind the bar.

“Leavin’ fer school, lassie?”

“Yep. Thanks for everything, Mister Tom,” she said, smiling at him.

He chuckled to himself. “I shou’ be thankin’ you, lassie. Fine work, says I.”

Sunset gave Tom an abashed smile. “Don’t mention it then. Can I have a sandwich to go?”

“Aye.”

She waved goodbye to Tom, and exited the door towards the streets of London, walking down the sidewalk towards the train station, chewing on her simple breakfast.

Then, of course, she ducked into an alley, and a short while later, walked out of another alley, much closer to the station.

Stepping through the barrier towards the magical train station leading to Hogwarts, Sunset found herself alone, except for the operators on the train.

As before, steam spewed out of the red locomotive, blanketing the station, or the magical section of it, in fog.

It was quite cozy, actually, sitting alone in fog thick enough to make her difficult to spot, and even more to identify, to whoever would arrive next.

Still committed to her mission, Sunset nevertheless felt that she had developed a bit more patience during this past year. Her correspondence with Celestia had been a great balm, dispelling a lot of the bitterness regarding her goal, and so her pursuit lost a lot of the angry energy she had felt before.

Even so, there was a lot of pent up potency inside Sunset Shimmer. She was still determined to keep her true nature hidden from the wizarding world. After a year of laying low at school, Sunset had, perhaps foolishly, expected to be able to temporarily cast aside the restrictive cloak of incognito she shrouded herself in.

Her tower in Canterlot Castle was a marvelous, dizzying flux of magical projects and research. Tables and workstations were covered in enchanted crystals and alchemical instruments bubbling away. Pegasi were advised to stay floor-bound when Sunset was there, for the air was thick with floating tomes and grimoires as Sunset reclined in the air, hovering between bookshelves and endless piles of paper rolls spread out across wall, floor, and ceiling, covered in arcane scripts and notes.

Now, Sunset had a book.

It was freeing, in a sense, not having her old research available and being forced to stay modest, and therefore more focused, in her research, but it was also frustrating to keep herself… “normal”, her capabilities hidden.

Now it was back to school again.

At least she’d have a whole year of magical training as an excuse, if anyone were to notice her skills.

She figured that she must have dozed off, as to her, it seemed that only moments later dozens of shapes were moving close to the train.

People were arriving through the magical barrier, forming clumps of children and parents, talking, fuzzing, hugging, and crying.

Sunset sauntered onto the train, idly wondering if she would’ve hugged Celestia or cried into her dress if she was here right now, moment of reunion notwithstanding.

She opened the door to the first compartment she walked past, which was empty, and she plopped down onto the much more comfortable couch and put her boot-clad feet up on the opposite seat, making her boots shimmeringly clean with a wave of her hand.

She rested her hands behind her head, and closed her eyes.

The chatter continued outside, with some of it moving onto the train.

The door to the compartment opened, and Sunset picked up the scent of two young girls standing nervously in the doorway.

“Uhm… excuse me, is this seat taken?” a meek voice said.

“Nope,” Sunset said, not opening her eyes.

“C’mon, let’s go,” the other whispered. They carefully closed the door again, and moved on.

Sunset Shimmer, Grandmaster Arcanist of the Golden Towers, knew she looked cool, really cool, with her outfit and confidence where she sat.

Her posture sagged a little however, when she decided that yes, she would’ve given up her coolness for the chance to hug Celestia and perhaps cry a little into her dress.

The quiet and authoritative dignity that came from not having anyone to do so with was her consolation prize.

And to be honest, it was a consolation.

… Just not right now.

The door opened again, revealing the scent of another young girl.

Sunset opened her eyes to see a blonde girl with her wand behind her ear looking at her.

“... Hey,” Sunset said. She still felt a little emotionally raw, but managed to refrain from extending barbs with her bearing, and instead went for something armored.

“Hello. Why are you alone?” the girl said, in a dreamy voice.

Sunset was caught slightly off-guard by this.

An inner part of Sunset raised her eyebrows at this, and warned Sunset to walk softly around this little figure, though she couldn’t understand why.

“... I’m not. You’re here,” Sunset noted.

The girl looked down at herself, as if remembering that she had a physical shape. “You’re right,” she said, and looked up at Sunset again. “You want to be alone, don’t you? I’ll leave.”

Before Sunset could say anything, the blonde girl turned and walked away.

“... When was the last time I had a normal conversation?” Sunset asked herself.

As if in response, Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil appeared in the doorway, clearly looking for either an unoccupied compartment, or one with someone they were familiar with, which they had just found.

“Sunset!” they both shouted at the same time as they entered the compartment.

“How have you been?” Parvati asked, as they plopped down onto the seats.

Sunset shrugged. “Pretty good. Didn’t get as much done as I thought I was going to when summer started. Don’t know where the time went actually.”

“Tell me about it,” Lavender said, and brought up a pocket mirror from inside her robe and started checking her make-up, talking as she did. “I got home, we went on vacation, then I got home again, and then I visited Parvati, met Padma, and then, it was practically time for school to start. Really fast. Oh well, could’ve lasted longer, but it’s gonna be fun to get back, don’t you think?”

Sunset had to agree with that, and noted that, while inane, this probably qualified as a normal conversation, and she nodded. “Yeah, I… agree.”

“Anyway, Parvati’s parents both work as herbalists, growing herbs in their garden, and it was so beautiful,” Lavender gushed.

Sunset nodded along, interjecting some uhuhs and mhms for a while, until Lavender and Parvati gradually shifted towards just talking with each other.

The door opened, and Hermione Granger entered, with Fred and George Weasley, and also someone who was clearly their younger sister, whom Sunset vaguely remembered meeting a year prior.

“Hi, Hermione!” Parvati and Lavender said, enthusiastically. “And you guys.”

“Greetings and salutations, fair ladies,” George said, putting a handkerchief on his head, only to pull it off and bow low.

The younger redhead scowled at him, and pushed him hard enough to almost fall over.

He didn’t seem to mind, and just smirked at her.

“Hello,” Hermione said, looking frustrated. “Have any of you seen Harry and Ron?”

The three girls shook their heads.

“Not at all?” Hermione insisted.

“No. Weren’t they with you guys at the station?”

Fred shrugged. “We got through the barrier to the platform, and then we couldn’t find them. We thought maybe they rushed past us to get on the train.”

“Maybe they got lost on the way,” George suggested. “Wouldn’t put it past them. It’s, what, twelve feet to the train from the barrier?”

The youngest redhead looked up at her brother with concern. “Do you think they’ll get to school? What if they never get there.”

“They’ll be fine,” George said, waving her concerns away. “Anyway, we’re gonna leave you ladies now.”

“What, me too?” his sister asked.

“Can’t be helped,” Fred said, shrugging. “Lee Jordan says he has something to show us. Can’t let the uninitiated partake in the cloak and dagger stuff.”

Hermione shot them a glare. “I hope it’s not against the school rules.”

“I’m sure you do,” Fred said, and turned to the compartment in general. “Anyway, this is Ginny, our little sister. Don’t make her mad- she bites,” he said, making Ginny scowl at him.

They started walking out, before George paused. “Oh, and Sunset, we’ll conclude our business later.”

Sunset clicked her tongue and winked while pointing at him.

“What business?” Hermione asked, suspiciously, after the twins left.

“The cloak and dagger kind,” Sunset shrugged. “Anyway, nice to meet you, Ginny. How were your summers?”

They had apparently had nice summers. Hermione’s parents had been a little disappointed that Hermione wasn’t allowed to show any of her magic powers to them.

Ginny told them about how Harry had come to live with them for a few weeks during summer. Apparently he had been prevented from sending letters to his friends, perhaps by his muggle family, who disliked him.

Sunset half-listened between jotting down information in her book, and going through old research notes. That Harry was disliked by his family was something she had heard before, and found somewhat intriguing, considering how he was a celebrity, something of a hero, in the magical world.

The conversation thankfully progressed almost entirely without Sunset’s input for some time, and she pretty much stopped working, instead just basking in the unremarkable chatter around her.

A small part of her nagged her, saying that was budgerigar-behavior, but she ignored it.

This continued until she heard one of the girls say, “don’t you think, Sunset?”

Sunset jolted to attention, and quickly ran through the last few phrases of the conversation in her head. With a rising feeling of dread, she suspected it was about boys in school.

“Uhm…” she said, when her savior opened the door.

“Oh, uh, hello,” Neville Longbottom said, looking apologetic. “Everywhere else is taken.”

“Hey, Neville,” Sunset said, relieved, and gestured at the empty seat on the far side from her. “Sit down.”

“Thanks,” he said, equally relieved.

Lavender and Parvati started looking back and forth between the others in the car, talking in low voices to each other and shaking their heads in disbelief.

“What are you two whispering about?” Hermione asked.

They immediately stopped, and looked innocent. “Nothing,” they insisted.

“Where’s the food cart?” Parvati asked. “I’m hungry.”

“There’s a food cart?” Sunset asked.

“Uh, yes. Don’t you know?” Lavender asked.

“No, I missed it last time.”

“How?” Parvati asked.

“She was up on the roof,” Hermione said, disapprovingly.

“What? No way,” the two other girls said.

“It’s true,” Neville said, and turned to Sunset. “Why were you up there?”

“Didn’t get any friendly vibes from people,” Sunset said, shrugging.

“You don’t like unfriendly vibes?” Parvati asked, and chuckled.

“‘Course I don’t.”

“Strange thing for you to say,” Lavender noted.

“I am super friendly,” Sunset confidently declared, putting her hands behind her head and leaning back.

“What…? To people you think deserve it or something like that?” Parvati asked.

“No, in general,” Sunset said.

“Oh yeah? So what did you do during summer?” Parvati asked, smirking.

Sunset’s eyes narrowed and shifted back and forth. “Hmm, a riposte- A well-landed blow, madam,” she replied, in a highborn voice, and openly started tapping her chin as she thought. “I guess you got me. I have no comment.”

The four others were not swept up by her attempted humor, and just stared at her in silence for several moments.

“Why don’t you ever talk about yourself?” Neville asked.

Sunset shot him an apologetic smile, and just shrugged. “I just don’t. Don’t take it personally.”

“You know you’re not making anyone curious, right?” Hermione noted.

“Too bad, because my personal life is absolutely riveting,” Sunset said, smiling easily at her.

That finally got a chuckle from Parvati and Lavender, and they turned to Neville, making the conversation about their summers.

The food cart came by, and Sunset ordered a few cauldron cakes and some juice.

From this, Sunset also started suspecting that Lavender, or rather her family, was well off, since she got a large pile of sweets for her and Parvati, and had enough left to share to the others.

Sunset was offered an animated chocolate frog. “Thank you… oh, that’s kinda cute,” Sunset said, before she stopped, a slightly disturbed look on her face. “Hmm… doesn’t feel right eating something that’s trying to get away,” she said, and fell into deep thought as she considered the chocolate construct, and her other eating habits as a human.

“You don’t like it?” Lavender asked, a little concerned.

“What? Oh, uh, no it’s not that. I’ll just…” she tried thinking of the best approach to this, before simply biting off the head of the frog, rendering it immediately inanimate.

To her surprise, there was a certain sense of satisfaction to that, which weirded her out a little.

<> she muttered to herself.

“What?” Parvati asked. “What does that mean?”

“What? Oh, nothing. Sorry.”

“She speaks other languages,” Neville noted to the others.

“See? You do know things about me,” Sunset pointed out.

“I don’t know what that language you speak is,” Neville pointed out, a little apologetic.

Sunset finally yielded. “Okay, fine, what do you wanna know?” she said.

Parvati and Lavender jumped at the chance, and Sunset couldn’t tell for sure, but she felt that maybe they were being intentionally kind by showing interest.

“Where are you from?” Parvati asked.

“Far away,” Sunset simply said, making the two of them roll their eyes.

Neville also paid attention, and though she pretended not to, Hermione had stopped reading.

“How come you’re so good at magic?” Lavender asked.

“I’m not that much better than anyo–”

“Oh stop, you are. We all know it.”

Sunset grunted, somewhat dissatisfied. “I have some prior training,” she admitted.

“Yeah, but plenty of purebloods have that.”

Sunset shrugged. “Sure, but… well, who can say? Is it raw talent? Maybe, but then what is raw talent? Is it having the disposition to study the field in question?”

“Why are you spending so much time with Draco Malfoy?” Hermione asked, in a neutral voice, not looking up from her book.

Parvati and Lavender glanced at Hermione, before sitting down and pretending to not be paying such rapt attention.

“To put it simply, he seeks me out. I don’t really know why,” Sunset said, shrugging.

Hermione sniffed, while Lavender and Parvati looked amused.

“See, you all know loads about me,” Sunset noted.

“Uhm… Sunset?” Neville asked, looking nervous.

“... Yes?”

“Can you help me find Trevor?” Neville asked, looking through the pockets of his robe.

—

Like the last time, Sunset left her shoulder bag on a seat on the train. Previously she hadn’t been very concerned with her book linked to Celestia. Now she was more skeptical, but relented when she remembered that it had been properly handled a year ago.

She stepped off the platform into the quickly darkening early night, along with her classmates.

In the distance, Hagrid was rounding up first-year students to take them across the lake, while prefects were rounding up the rest of the students.

The chattering crowd moved sluggishly up a wide set of stone stairs to a road lined with carriages, with no beast of burden seeming to pull it.

As they approached a carriage, a very sudden nervous scent emanated from Neville, and Sunset looked back at him in confusion.

“What?” she asked.

“Wh… what are those?” he asked, pointing at the carriages.

Sunset was about to point out the obvious, when she caught another scent, this one not so much with her nose as with her magic.

She looked around in the dark blue sky for shapes swooping past, or slightly glowing eyes watching from the trees and shrubs, but couldn’t spot anything, the crowd and their talking around her didn’t help.

“... The mountain dwellers,” she said to herself.

“What? What mountain dwellers?” Neville asked.

Sunset shook her head, not having realized she had said that in English. “Nevermind. Where are they?” she said, still looking around with narrowed eyes.

Neville pointed to the front of a carriage, where Sunset finally spotted her.

Dark coat, leathery wings, slitted eyes, and wicked-looking tufts of hair on the top of her ears.

“There you are. Good eye, Neville.”

She noted that it looked to the thestrals from Equestria much like the passed away unicorn looked to herself in her true form. She was larger, had a more feral-looking appearance, and also had the more unthinking patience of a dumb beast.

Intrigued, Sunset walked up to the magical horse, with a nervous Neville following slightly behind.

She let the thestral sniff her hand, feeling the scent of slight relief that animals, and others frankly, exuded when strangers turned out to be friends.

“Hello,” Sunset said, and started scratching the dark mare behind the ear, making her lean into Sunset’s hand.

Sunset put her other hand against the side of the mare’s mouth. “It’s okay, I allow it.”

Neville backed away a step, and made a nervous sound when the thestral opened her mouth, revealing a set of sharp fangs.

However, Sunset just readily pricked her thumb on a fang, and held her now slightly bleeding hand in front of the mare, who started gratefully licking the blood off with a long tongue, closing her eyes and focusing on the sensation.

“Thank you,” she said, giving the dark creature an affectionate pat on her neck.

“Come on, Neville,” Sunset said, as some people, notably her classmates, were giving her strange looks as they moved into the carriages.

Neville carefully stepped up, and Sunset gently took his hand and started guiding it towards the thestral’s mouth.

“It’s okay,” she said, as Neville made a weak protesting sound. “It doesn’t hurt. Just gently put your finger against the fang.”

Neville, barely believing himself able to, pricked his thumb against the fang, just as Sunset had, and to his amazement, felt no pain whatsoever.

Like with Sunset, the shadowy mare started licking Neville’s small amount of blood from his digit, closing her eyes again.

He looked on in fascination as the dark horse-like creature, which had looked outright nightmarish just moments before, now seemed so gentle and affectionate.

“She likes you,” Sunset noted.

“Oh,” Neville said, and laughed nervously.

“Say thank you.”

“Uh, thank you,” Neville said, and looked questioningly at Sunset.

“Letting you know that your blood tastes good is a compliment. She’ll share it with her colony, marking you as a friend.”

“Is that… good?”

“Is it good being friendly with a colony of very, very sneaky, magic, vampiric equines?” Sunset said, smirking at Neville. “It’s certainly better than being their enemy.”

They let the thestral have a few more licks before taking their place in the carriage, Neville alternating between looking at Sunset in fascination, and glancing out the window towards the other thestrals pulling the carriages.

They passed through the gates of Hogwarts, and came all the way up to the entrance hall before the carriages stopped.

The students all disembarked, and formed a crowd which moved much more rapidly towards the castle, a much more familiar environment.

Sunset didn’t have as much time to spend with the member of the mountain tribe who had pulled her carriage, and simply pulled off the scab from her finger, and offered her that.

“I know you don’t need normal food like the rest of us, but I’d get some anyway. Put some meat on your bones,” she said, patting the mare who was gratefully chewing down the dry piece of blood on the side, before joining her classmates, a Slytherin student she had forgotten the name of giving her a worried look.

The throng of students flowed into the great hall, and towards the tables of their houses, where the canvas of chatter reached a crescendo as hundreds of young wizards-and-witches-in-training were reunited after a summer apart.

“Where are Harry and Ron?” Hermione asked, impatiently, as she looked around. “And where’s Professor Snape?”

Sunset glanced around, and true enough, the potions master was absent from the table at the far end of the hall.

Suddenly, Hermione gasped, and said, “There he is!” in an excited whisper.

Sunset looked around for Harry, Ron, or Snape, but couldn’t see them.

“Where?”

“There!” Hermione squealed, pointing at the teachers’ table.

Sunset finally understood who Hermione meant. “Uuuh… oh.”

Sitting at the spot where Quirrell had been last year, was someone whose face Sunset had grown quite familiar with in the previous few weeks.

The perpetually smiling Gilderoy Lockhart gave cheerful little waves towards the large number of students he spotted waving at him first.

Albus Dumbledore suddenly appeared, and calmly took his chair.

Through no magic, but presence alone, the student body followed his example, and it was just in time, as the new first years nervously marched in through the door.

“Hermione’s right, where are those two?” Parvati asked. “They’re going to interrupt the ceremony.”

As if summoned by her words, the combined sound of a loud roar and screech, as if caused by a crashing comet, announced the arrival of a muggle automobile, soaring across the sky above the enchanted ceiling of the dining hall, with the two panicked voices of Harry Potter and Ronald Weasley mingling with the strained cacophony caused by the flying vehicle.

A short moment after they had passed by, a loud crashing sound came from the darkened castle grounds, as the vehicle smashed right into a tree.

The entire student body, and most of the teachers, stood up to look through the great portal leading out to the grounds, where the flying car was struggling to disentangle itself from a very angry tree.

There was a great mixture of reaction from the student, ranging from gasps of horror, to laughter and applause, to some scowling disapproval.

“I say! Good show!” Fred and George shouted, as they stood up and loudly clapped their hands. Their friend Lee Jordan had doubled over from laughter, Percy was scowling deeply, while Ginny’s eyes were wide as she held her hands over her mouth.

Sunset glanced around the room, and only just managed to spot an amused smirk on Dumbledore’s face before he willed it dour. Hagrid was looking on with shocked concern, and Gilderoy Lockhart’s smile had stopped reaching his eyes, and had turned confused and troubled.

Minerva McGonagall swished her wand, closing the doors to the hall, marking an end of the spectacle with a loud, booming noise, making everyone sit down again.

“That’s enough of that,” she said to herself, before placing the sorting hat on the stool that Sunset had sat on a year prior.

From there, the sorting proceeded as before, with the seam of the hat bursting into song. The difference of course being that people were quite curious about the flying car, and the two occupants of it, with a lot of excited whispering.

When the sorting was over, Gryffindor had enough students to make up for the ones who had graduated last year, notable among them were, as expected, Ginny Weasley, who was sitting next to her brothers. There was also a very short boy who kept asking if Harry Potter was in the flying car, and what he was doing there.

Sunset, who had ended up sitting around the same people she had been sitting with on the train, continued as she had for the past few hours, idly joining in the conversation when prompted, and otherwise enjoying the food.

It was, of course, a less special evening for her than the one a year before, when she had first been introduced to the school as a student.

Overall, Sunset was glad to be back, especially on a night such as this, where the scent of excitement and high spirits washed over her, soothing her on a deep level.

After a five course meal and a walk up to Gryffindor tower later, Sunset collapsed onto her four poster bed. She’d never criticize the way Tom ran his inn, but he didn’t have beds as luxurious as this. A couch couldn’t compete with this, and certainly not the bare planks of a playground.

“Well, at least they’re not expelled,” Hermione said, disapprovingly, as she stepped in through the door.

Lavender and Parvati eagerly wanted details, and Sunset would’ve been curious too, if she hadn’t fallen asleep at that very moment, face down into her pillow, still fully dressed.

Author's Note

Proofreading credit goes to Snuffy (actually, what even is a prereader, proofreader, editor, and script doctor? What's the difference between them?)

This took a while to write. I've been operating on a very low mojo-level lately. The busy season is also coming up, so I wouldn't expect much writing for a while. I wish I could've had Sunset react to more muggle culture too. Oh well. There are more summers coming.

Early Witch Gets the Pixie

There was a snort from Sunset’s bed, as she lifted her head from her pillow. <>

What followed felt naggingly familiar to her, though she couldn’t put her finger on why, as she stumbled out of bed already dressed in her clothes, muttering incoherently to Hermione about needing to wear a nightgown while swaying down the stairs towards the great hall, and collapsing next to Harry and Ron by the Gryffindor table.

“Morning, Sunset,” Harry said.

“Mmmrnin,” she responded, trying to get both her eyes to look at Harry at the same time.

Her head swung back towards the table, and she probed, bleary eyed, for her quarry.

Ron filled up a mug of coffee and pressed it into Sunset’s hands, which had been grasping in confusion around the plates of food, before acting on deeply ingrained muscle memory, and swallowed half the mug’s content in one gulp.

Relieved, Sunset slumped, and rested her cheek in one hand as she poured another cup and grabbed a hard-boiled egg.

“Thank you,” she sighed in relief, as her brain started working enough to simply be considered exhausted rather than non-functional.

“Had a nice summer?” Ron asked, smirking.

Sunset let out a double yawn, and nodded, eyes closed. “Yeah. You guys?”

“Yeah, pretty good,” Ron said, noncommittally.

“Same here. Better than usual, actually,” Harry said.

“Good.”

Sunset let the boys turn back to their original topic, which didn’t last long before the owls started to arrive with the mail.

A general sense of concern rapidly blanketed the table, and Sunset wished it would go away, as it encouraged her to wake up, which was far down on her list of things she wanted right now.

A slice of bacon was her next visit, when suddenly a voice absolutely boomed in her ears.

Hundreds of pairs of eyes turned to stare, as a woman started shouting at magically enhanced volumes from a letter Ron had received.

“... STEALING THE CAR, I WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN SURPRISED IF THEY’D EXPELLED YOU, YOU WAIT UNTIL I GET HOLD OF YOU. I DON’T SUPPOSE YOU STOPPED TO THINK WHAT–”

That was as far as it went, before Sunset, cheek still in one hand, and with an annoyed expression, grabbed the letter and tossed it into a juice pitcher, where it bubbled angrily but impotently at Ron, only muffled parts of words being discernable.

“... Thanks,” Ron said, relieved.

“Mmm,” Sunset mumbled, and took another bite of her bacon as the pitcher hissed and sputtered.

The summer was still clinging to life on the whole, but on this day in particular, it was a refreshingly gray day, with a hint of an invigorating chill in the air, that Sunset savored as they sauntered towards the greenhouses on the grounds for a herbology lesson with both Gryffindor and Hufflepuff.

A slightly bruised and unusually annoyed Professor Sprout was trudging up towards them with a turquoise-clad Gilderoy Lockhart next to her.

“Oh, Hello there!” Lockhart said, loudly. “Just been showing Professor Sprout the right way to doctor a Whomping Willow! But I don’t want you running away with the idea that I’m better at Herbology than she is! I just happen to have met several exotic plants in my travels…”

Between the breakfast and the fresh mountain air, Sunset assumed she had woken up properly, but Lockhart’s words made her hesitate. She looked blarily at the smiling man, wondering what kind of a conversation she missed that made this sound reasonable.

“Greenhouse Three today, chaps!” Professor Sprout said, noticeably struggling to sound normal.

Sprout’s word choice was one of those things that Sunset sometimes struggled with when speaking English, and which possibly applied to other human languages as well, as Sunset noted that none of them were wearing, much less actually were, loose fitting leg-hoses.

The class started moving towards Greenhouse Three, anticipation building in the air. Professor Sprout unlocked the door, and they all shuffled inside.

Herbology class, and especially Professor Sprout, reminded Sunset a little of the royal apothecary greenhouses in Canterlot, no-nonsense and sometimes dour ponies expertly handling exotic and often dangerous plants with a steady and practiced hoof.

“Harry, I’ve been wanting a word,” Professor Lockhart said from just outside the greenhouse. “You don’t mind if he’s a couple of minutes late, do you, Professor Sprout?”

Harry looked very uncomfortable, as Lockhart said, “That’s the ticket!” and shut the door.

The class looked through the windows with confusion and sympathy at Harry’s expression, as he tried putting as much distance between himself and Lockhart without actually stepping away from him.

“What is he talking about?” Seamus wondered out loud.

“Merlin only knows,” Sprout muttered, before putting in effort to look more neutral.

After a few minutes, Lockhart turned with a swish and strutted away.

Harry entered, and Professor Sprout was clearly eager to take her mind of what had just happened, and began promptly.

Going by what she had learned during the last year, when combining magic and horticulture, humans had access to many inherently magical plants, while ponies more often used magic when interacting with otherwise mundane plants. She didn’t want to propagate stereotypes, but she felt that a lot of earth ponies would really like to learn from Professor Sprout.

It was quite a fascinating lesson. Professor Sprout demonstrated the care of young mandrakes, a plant that Sunset had never seen before, and while it was not her favorite subject, that she was seeing things that no pony had ever seen before was more than enough to keep her interested.

Other than that, it went as usual. The teacher would ask a question, Hermione would raise her hand and answer correctly, the teacher would smile and give her points, and then they’d start learning.

The young mandrakes were plants, hence why they were learning about them in Herbology, but their roots looked like chubby little creatures, with the leaves forming what looked like great bushes of hair. They needed to be re-planted into larger pots, complicated by the fact that their screams were dangerous, at least when they got older.

Everyone except Neville struggled greatly, though Sunset did note that simply using sheer strength helped.

“Well done, you two,” Sprout told them, as they all removed their earmuffs, and gave them some points. Sunset didn’t pay attention to how many.

“These things were kinda gross,” Dean Thomas noted after class, as they were walking back up towards the castle. “They looked like little babies.”

“Human babies look like that?” Sunset asked, before her face froze.

“Well, sort- uhm… have you never- wait, what do you mean, ‘human babies’?” he asked, making several others also give her befuddled looks.

Sunset stared at him, stone faced, before simply saying, “nothing- oh, look, something interesting,” and pointing towards a cloud.

Everyone turned to look, and just kept marching.

“No, seriously, what do you mean by that?” Dean insisted, as they caught up with her again.

Sunset’s eyes shifted back and forth for just a moment. “I… misspoke, okay? I’m tired.”

By now, her classmates were all giving her uncertain looks.

“I thought you were a muggle-born,” Seamus blurted out.

“You don’t think so anymore?” Sunset asked, trying to sound casual, and to cut this conversation off at the pass.

“Well…” Seamus started. “It goes without saying, you can’t be a full muggle-born if you’re a halfbreed or- uhm, I mean, if, uh…”

“If one of your parents is a magical creature,” Parvati supplied.

“What makes you think along these lines?” Sunset said, making another, even more feeble, attempt.

Ron shrugged. “Dunno. It would explain your ears,” he said, as they marched into the castle.

“My ears?” Sunset said, giving him a questioning look.

“Yeah, they’re all pointy. Makes you look like a giant fairy.”

“Ron!” Hermione said, giving him a stern look.

“What?” he said, looking back at her, confused.

“That’s not- you don’t- ugh, forget it,” she said.

“Is that… common?” Sunset asked, carefully, as they re-entered the castle. Aside from Flitwick, and maybe Hagrid, she thought all humans looked very similar to each other, at least compared to ponies, although perhaps not as much when compared to Gryphons.

“What is?” Dean asked.

“Having, uh… or… being mixed… species? Mixed genus, perhaps?”

“Now you do sound muggle-born,” Lavender noted.

“Not exactly common, but it happens,” Ron said, shrugging.

“Huh, I see,” Sunset said.

That’s as far as the conversation could go, as the boys and girls separated to get a quick wash to get the grime off before making their way to transfiguration.

Mixed species and mixed genus couples were nothing that raised an eyebrow in Equestria, and would at most lead to some politely curious questions. It wasn’t exactly a free-for-all, with different species preferring different geographies, which limited their ability to mingle comfortably, but mixed-species offspring seemed to work a little differently in Earth’s magical world than it did in Equestria. Sunset was reminded of a pair of siblings, one an earth pony and the other a thestral, one of the grandparents of which was a thestral as well.

Taking on partial traits from another species, which is what she figured her classmates had been talking about, was extremely rare, and the data from when it happened was limited.

Also, Sunset didn’t care about what her former schoolmates said. Diamond dogs and ponies could not interbreed: Trot-weilers were a myth.

In the transfiguration classroom, McGonagall was her old, prim self, and without welcoming the class back, handed out beetles for everyone to turn into coat buttons.

Sunset ended up by herself, which she didn’t mind. She knew of this spell from before, but hadn’t practiced it, mainly because she hadn’t bothered going out and looking for beetles or other suitable animals.

“♪I’d ask my friends to come and see… an octopus’ garden with me, badum bum bum bum…♫” she sang quietly to herself as she calmly transformed the beetle back and forth, with her wand, nails, and hair when no one was watching.

She gave the beetle a rest, and dug out her book, the one where she was cataloging all her research, and started writing down the differences between the spell when cast with her wand and when cast with her hair.

The topic of how bridged her two different types of casting magic were, since it was her hair in the wand, was also something that perhaps could do with some research.

“Miss Shimmer, why are you not practicing?” McGonagall demanded.

“Because I feel I know the spell, professor,” Sunset said, politely but coldly.

“Let me see then.”

Sunset put her book down, and easily cast the spell on the beetle, remembering to vocalize the spell, turning it into a coat button.

Before McGonagall could say anything however, Ron’s wand made a sizzling noise, and let out a large amount of dark smoke.

The class coughed and sputtered, but the foul smell sat particularly bad with Sunset, who immediately conjured a slightly glowing forcefield around her.

“Is everything quite alright, Mr Weasley?” McGonagall said, testily, as the smoke cleared.

Ron let out a few more coughs. “Y-yeah, professor… or, uhm, no. I think I need a new beetle.”

McGonagall turned around and went to retrieve a new beetle, when she noticed the faint glimmering around Sunset, distorting the air around her slightly.

Sunset gave her a long and utterly neutral look, before she snapped her fingers, and the shield vanished.

Sunset was the first person out of the classroom when it was time for lunch.

The caffeine was wearing off, and Sunset mostly wanted to take a nap. Perhaps an eight hour long one, before turning in for the night. She forced herself to eat an okay lunch, before sauntering out towards the courtyard, and even managed to almost walk in a straight line.

Not paying attention to her surroundings, she found herself standing to the side of Draco Malfoy, flanked by Crabbe and Goyle, and Harry, Ron, Hermione, and a small, camera wielding Gryffindor first year Sunset felt she should probably have remembered since she would’ve seen him sorted the evening before.

“Signed photos? You’re giving out signed photos, Potter?” Malfoy loudly asked, making Sunset jerk her head up with the volume of his voice.

“Everyone queue up! Harry Potter’s giving out signed photos!”

“No, I’m not,” Harry said, angrily. “Shut up, Malfoy.”

“Are they worth money?” Sunset wondered, peering over Malfoy’s shoulder. “If so, I’ll take one.”

Malfoy turned around, and seemed to be caught off-balance by… something.

“You’re just jealous,” the small first year insisted, which Sunset had to admire since she was pretty sure the humans around him could physically handle him the way she could normal humans.

Malfoy rallied, and smirked at Sunset before turning back towards the others.

“Jealous? Of what? I don’t want a foul scar right across my head, thanks. I don’t think getting your head cut open makes you that special, myself.”

Sunset silently weighed that. True, scars, non-magical ones at least, had no direct utility, but there were certainly rangers coming back from tours at Far Watch, and monster wranglers coming back from Tempest Valley, that sported some really dashing scars, used to great effect by going out to places in Canterlot where singles hang out, and pretending to not know how cool it made them look.

The argument had apparently gone on without her, because wands were being drawn, but Gilderoy Lockhart suddenly appeared, and how he could’ve gotten this close without people noticing him in robes like that, Sunset had no idea.

“What’s all this, what’s all this? Who’s giving out signed photos?”

Before anyone could say anything, he put his arms around Harry’s shoulders.

“Shouldn't have asked! We meet again, Harry!”

Sunset winced at Harry’s expression.

“Come on then, Mr Creevey,” Lockhart said. “A double portrait, can’t say fairer than that, and we’ll both sign it for you.”

“Will that be worth money?” Sunset asked.

“Shut up, Sunset,” Harry muttered.

“Nice one,” Malfoy said, having moved to Sunset’s side.

“I was being serious,” Sunset pointed out, shrugging.

“So, how was your summer, Sunset?” Draco asked, his hands behind his back and an overdone dignified expression on his face.

The bell rang, and the crowd started to quickly disperse and move towards the classes.

“Fine, yours too, I hope,” Sunset said, hoping that was polite enough as she walked backward towards the great hall. “See you later.”

Malfoy just stood there, opening and closing his mouth several times before slumping a little.

Sunset and her classmates had all previously met the teachers in all their subjects before, with the exception of Gilderoy Lockhart, and so there was a sense of anticipation in the air, although the observant would notice a mix of flavors. On one hand, there was genuine excitement at the idea of finally learning from this esteemed champion of good and justice, and on the other there was a more… carefully curious kind of anticipation, and the person who exuded that the most was Harry, who, when the class filed into the classroom, sat in the back and built a sort of fort of Lockhart books and hid himself behind them.

When the whole class was sitting down, Lockhart grabbed Neville’s copy of his book, and held it out in front of him. The portrait on the cover winked.

“Me. Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defence League and five times Winner of Witch Weekly’s Most-Charming-Smile-Award… but I don’t talk about that. I didn’t get rid of the Bandon Banshee by smiling at her!”

Sunset tried to share a look with Hermione, but found her staring at Lockhart, transfixed.

“I see you’ve all bought a complete set of my books. Well done. I thought we’d start today with a little quiz. Nothing to worry about, just to check how well you’ve read them, how much you’ve taken in…”

He started handing out papers, before going back to the desk. “You have thirty minutes. Start… now.”

Sunset looked down at the questions, then let out a sigh.

1. What is Gilderoy Lockhart’s favourite colour?
2. What is Gilderoy Lockhart’s secret ambition?
3. What, in your opinion, is Gilderoy Lockhart’s greatest achievement to date?

His books had actually been fairly thrilling at times, and at some points informative. She did know, from reading about them earlier, that humans cursed with lycanthropy found silver to be very painful to touch and even uncomfortable to be near when they were transformed, and Lockhart’s accounts of when he had used silver against werewolves seemed very accurate. However, it’s not like she had never ran across a Daring Do knock-off in her life, and it was less that there were clear signs of self-aggrandizement so much as it was the books’ main feature. The difficulty was separating the… embellishment, from plain fiction, but in either case it cast doubt on the factual correctness of the rest of the text.

Tired, grumpy, and with a slight stomach ache, mostly stemming from her tiredness, Sunset decided to answer the questions, not as best as she could, but as best as she fancied.

Whatever he’s wearing at the time.

The second one required some thinking.

To avoid colic.

To be hired as a teacher at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

To the side, Hermione was scribbling away at a blistering pace, blushing frequently. Sunset sniffed the air, then felt very mildly nauseous, and regretted sitting next to her.

And so Sunset kept writing the answers as best as she could, while idly coming up with names that rhyme with her teacher’s name, like Tilde-Soy Dock-Smart, Build-a-Toy Shock-Wart, and so on, but she soon ran up against a wall, when nothing sounded better than Filled-Ahoy Block-Fart.

40. What attire do you think compliments Gilderoy Lockhart’s Billy-Boy Pockmark’s smile the most?

Any robe in his favorite color.

Thirty minutes later, their new teacher was standing in front of the desk, looking through the quiz results, shaking his head an tuting to himself.

“Hardly any of you remembered that my favorite colour is lilac. I say so in Year With a Yeti. And a few need to read Wanderings with Werewolves more carefully. I clearly state in chapter twelve that my ideal birthday gift would be harmony between all magic and non-magic peoples, though I wouldn’t say no to a large bottle of Ogden’s Old Firewhisky!”

He gave them an overdone wink, and Sunset felt herself go slightly numb from disbelief, or perhaps as a defence mechanism to disassociate with a reality that hosted someone this awkward.

Around her, people were either sharing her expression, or quivering with silent laughter. At least all the boys were.

“But Miss Granger knew my secret ambition is to rid the world of evil and market my own range of hair-care potions. Good girl.”

Far down in some corner of Sunset’s mind, she realized that it might’ve been a bad idea to make fun of the teacher on the actual quiz, before she realized that she had probably forgotten to write her name on it.

“In fact… full marks!” Lockhart continued, as he flipped to the end of Hermione’s papers. “Where is Miss Hermione Granger?”

Hermione carefully raised her hand.

“Excellent! Quite Excellent! Take ten points for Gryffindor! And so, to business…”

From behind the desk, he produced a large cage, covered with a dark cloth.

“Now, be warned. It is my job to arm you against the foulest creatures known to wizardkind! You may find yourselves facing your worst fears in this room. Know only that no harm can befall you whilst I am here. All I ask is that you remain calm.”

Sunset sighed again, mellow from boredom-induced serenity.

She realized that if Lockhart really did have something dangerous or scary underneath that cloth, she would’ve been set up like a world class chump, but still she couldn’t muster any enthusiasm.

“I must ask you not to scream. It might provoke them.”

Lockhart swished the cloth off, revealing–

“Yes! Freshly caught Cornish Pixies!”

Sunset blinked, first with one eyelid and then the other, as Seamus let out a loud guffaw. The tiny creatures inside fluttered about, hissing and snarling at the class while rattling the bars. Sunset thought they looked a little like evil breezies, and the thing was that no matter how evil a breezie was, it would still be a breezie.

“Yes?” Lockhart asked, beaming in Seamus’ direction.

“Well they’re not- they’re not very dangerous, are they?” he managed, between laughs.

Lockhart wagged his finger smugly at Seamus. “Don’t be so sure! Devilish little blighters they can be!” he said, and put his hand on the door to the cage. “Right then. Let’s see what you make of them!”

He opened the cage, and the pixies immediately shot out like a swarm of angry bees. A swarm of angry bees with little hands, and a determination to wreck everything around them.

The girls shrieked, and so did the boys, as the blue little creatures zoomed about with books, inkwells, and every other loose object they could find, throwing them at students who took cover underneath their desks.

Sunset shrouded herself in a forcefield, just like she had in McGonagall’s classroom, and leaned back in her chair, looking at a pixie trying to gnaw through her shield with its little fangs.

“Come now, round them up, round them up! They’re only pixies!” Lockhart shouted, then swung his wand around and shouted, “Peskipksi Pesternomi!” to absolutely no effect. The only thing he managed was to have his wand stolen and thrown out a window.

“Sunset! Help!” Neville said, loudly but carefully.

Sunset looked up to see him hanging by his robe in the chandelier. She stood up, pulled out her wand, and carefully lifted him off before dropping him into her outstretched arms.

“Uh, thanks,” a blushing Neville said, looking into Sunset's very sleepy eyes as he clambered onto his feet.

Sunset sighed again, and pointed her wand at the cage they had come from.

It started flying through the air on the side, the hatch smacking continuously like it was a frenzied beast, hungry for pixie flesh.

The foul little creatures let out a yell of warning, and tried to avoid the wireframe monster, but to no avail. The cage shot forward, and whenever one of the pixies caught its attention, it suddenly got just too slow to avoid the rattling maw.

The class, and Lockhart, looked up in amazement at the show, and before long the last pixie was back in the cage, with the hatch closed, and back on top of Lockhart’s desk. The pixies shouted in fear and indignation before the piece of cloth was magically lifted up and thrown over them.

The whole class slowly emerged from under their desks and gave Sunset a collective, stunned look.

“... Well! You can’t argue with the results, but I daresay the method could use some improvement. I had a somewhat more efficient solution in mind,” Lockhart said, still smiling widely while looking at the slowly blinking Sunset.

“Yeah, we saw,” Ron muttered to Harry.

“If I were you, I would’ve–”

But that’s as far as he got before the bell rang, and Lockhart’s smile took on a more relieved character.

“... But it would take far too long to explain it before supper. I know you’d all love to stay, but we’ll continue this before long. Class dismissed.”

Sunset’s bag flew from the backrest of her chair into her hand, and she swung it over her shoulder before turning around and walking out the door.

Halfway down the corridor she realized that she was surrounded by her classmates.

“Wicked! Where did you learn to do that?” Dean asked.

“Self taught,” Sunset yawned.

“All like, zoom!” Seamus agreed.

“My gran’ and I saw her do magic before we even started at Hogwarts,” Neville told Parvati and Lavender.

“That was really quite good,” Hermione noted.

“Can you believe him though?” Ron asked Harry, as Hermione helped them magically mend their books which had been damaged in the classroom.

Out of pure habit, Sunset went into the dining hall and sat down at Gryffindor table, surrounded by her classmates, still asking her questions.

If she had had more presence of mind, she would’ve gone straight to the Gryffindor dormitories. which became very clear when she slowly tipped to the side and collapsed against Lavender, snoring loudly.

“Yeah… she didn’t sleep very well the first night here last year either,” Parvati told the rest of the class.

Author's Note

So here's a chapter, finally. It took a while, I've been a bit under the weather, but I was finally able to write again.

This chapter was more source material + an extra character than a lot of previous chapters have been, but I still felt it was for the best, with some character interactions, as well as some introductions that needed to be made. I hope you all like it.

Pre-read by Ssokolow

Out of the Bay

Sunset’s book of research notes looked like an ordinary book, but it wasn’t.

After a trip to a stationery store in London for purchasing of cheap yet perfectly adequate quality material, it now looked like it only had a hundred pages to write in when closed, but when you opened it and started flipping through the pages, suddenly you found thousands of them, blank, lined, graphed, and anyone looking through it had a strangely easy time to find what they were looking for, thanks to some additional spells.

Sunset stood in a currently unused classroom, with the chairs and tables stacked against the wall, and a until recently dusty blackboard against the far wall.

She flipped through her book and tugged at one scribbled paper, which made it come away easily, and started unfolding it more times than seemed possible, until it was large enough to cover the entire board, whereupon she fastened the paper against it, and started studying it.

A chaotic collection of scribbles and notes in Modern Equestrian, rough illustrations, and lines criss-crossing between them was her attempt to map out what she knew of alicorns, why she was certain that magic was the key to becoming one, as well as, and this was of course the part with the least amount of information, how one goes about making it happen.

In fact, there was no information about it.

“It can’t just be knowing enough magic,” Sunset said to herself as she paced slowly back and forth, shooting glances at the map. “Celestia said that Starswirl was her teacher, and he wasn’t an alicorn.”

She played with the idea that Celestia had lied to her, but dismissed it. Celestia was not entirely opposed to misdirection, but she did not lie like that.

With a thumping sound, the book she had borrowed from the library came down on a table, and she flipped it to the section she was after.

“The unicorn is a magical creature which roams the wilds of large parts of Eurasia. It resembles a horse with a horn on its head, but possesses an otherworldly grace that humans have difficulty describing, and are found to be hauntingly beautiful- why, thank you,” Sunset said, raising an eyebrow, as she read to herself. “Uhm… does it say why? Eeh… strange.” She flipped a few pages to skim ahead, but shrugged, and continued from where she had left off.

“The unicorn is a being of purity, goodness, and healing. Uh, sure, why not? Although it is recommended to avoid their ire, as they are quite dangerous when provoked or when woods and creatures under their protection are threatened. Yeah, watch out. One of their most distinguishing abilities is that they are very difficult to capture. Interesting. Adult unicorns are averse to the close presence and especially touch of men and… boys? And… prefer the touch of… young maidens… oooo-kay?”

Sunset blinked a few times before flipping the page back to make sure she hadn’t accidentally started reading about something else, before clearing her throat.

“... Although unicorn foals accept the touch of men and boys, as well.” Sunset looked down at her young body. “Uh… I guess we’ll see how that turns out. The… unicorn has several magical properties, most notable among them for wizardkind is that their hair, either from their tail or their mane, can be used as a core of wands. The horn of a unicorn is believed to be the channel for their magic- you don’t say? Poaching of unicorns is highly illegal- yeah I should hope so, although it is still known to occur, as powdered unicorn horns can be diluted into immense volumes and still remain a powerful ingredient in potion-making… yeah- touch me and you’re gonna buckin’ lose something,” Sunset muttered, slightly disturbed, and took a few breaths before she continued.

“Even more peculiar is the blood of a unicorn, which looks like liquid silver, and functions as an extremely potent restorative for humans.” Sunset blinked at the text. “However, drinking a unicorn’s blood will affect the drinker with a curse. Very few accounts exist of drinkers of unicorn blood sharing the experience of the curse, although it is generally agreed that the effect is quite horrific.”

Sunset stared at the book for a long while.

“... Huh.”

“Oh, hello, Sunset.”

Sunset’s hands half-shot out towards her own book in a jerky motion, before she realized that the speaker, Draco Malfoy, couldn’t read any of it, as it was written in Equestrian, and while he might get curious about the language, the damage was already done.

“Hello, Draco,” Sunset said, trying to get her mood to return to normal through force of will.

Draco was strutting into the room, uninvited, although Sunset couldn’t really say he couldn’t, seeing as how she was just occupying a random classroom.

She did notice that he looked rather pleased.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Studying. Researching,” Sunset said, waving it away as uninteresting. “Just a little… project.”

“Mm, I see,” Draco said, and his smile grew. “I’ve just been made Slytherin’s seeker.”

“For the quidditch team you mean?” Sunset said, feeling pleased with herself for following along so closely.

“Yep. My father bought a set of Nimbus Two-Thousand Ones, for the whole team.”

Sunset made a quick search of her memories for price tags she had seen in Diagon Alley, and gave a low whistle.

“That’s quite a sum,” she said, and continued to herself in a low voice, “I could live on that for years.”

“It really is, but my father has that kind of money,” Draco continued, not having heard Sunset’s last few words.

“So I’ve heard,” Sunset said, nodding.

“Oh, yes, how was your summer? Your ehm… you couldn’t live with your family anymore, right?”

Sunset nodded. “That’s a kind way of saying it.”

“So where do you live when you’re not at school?”

“I rented a room at The Leaky Cauldron,” Sunset said, speaking the truth, though not all of it.

“Really? We went through there and I didn’t see you,” Draco noted.

Sunset shrugged. “I must’ve been out.”

“Mmm. But… you know… I could always ask father if you can stay with us, if you’d like.”

Sunset froze, and weighed her options.

On the one hand, judging by Draco’s family’s wealth she’d be living in the lap of luxury, with the finest food, servants taking care of her, and probably more than one library full of magical lore.

On the other hand, yeah, definitely no on that.

“Sounds better than a dusty old inn, doesn’t it?” Draco continued.

“I’m not unaccustomed to luxury,” Sunset said, and waved around at the stones of the walls. “This isn’t the first castle I’ve lived in.”

“Really?” Draco asked, looking curious. “What kind of castle? And where?”

Sunset took a breath as she pondered how to respond to this. “Eh… just… a castle, far away.”

“Who else lived there?”

The high princess of Equestria and its militaries’ supreme commander, the immortal guardian of all her people, the alicorn of the sun and thus the lifebringer to her lands, and the highest executive of the united homeland of all pony tribes, which brings stability to surrounding lands with its sheer presence, and prosperity with its friendliness. Other than that, countless ambassadors and foreign dignitaries, Equestria’s High Command, pretty much the entire royal guard, as well as members of other branches of the military which uses the castle as their headquarters, not to mention innumerable functionaries; everything from the chief royal landscape architect to Celestia’s personal spymasters. Add to that how the CSGU is technically within the castle grounds, so that you can also count professors, researchers, and the students attending the finest education in the land. All that and more.

… Oh… and Cadence.

“Uh… quite a few others.”

Draco raised one eyebrow. “Wizards and witches?”

Sunset nodded. “Students and practitioners of the arcane arts, certainly, and many other magical beings.”

“And where was it? What country is it in?”

This was becoming tricky for Sunset. The muggles had explored the surface of their world quite thoroughly, and while wizardkind seemed to be rather slow on the uptake when it came to their non-magical counterpart’s discoveries and advancements, she assumed that they at least knew that all the lands above sea level were mapped out.

“A, uh… land that rarely makes contact with the rest of this world,” Sunset ventured.

“But where?”

Sunset chewed her lip. “It’s uh… not a matter of distance, per se.”

Draco was about to ask more questions, when a large, black shape swept into the room.

“Ah, Draco, and Miss Shimmer,” Professor Snape said, managing to sound very cold towards Sunset.

“Professor,” Sunset said, neutrally. On the inside, she was beating herself for her sloppiness, wondering how she could’ve missed his scent, and how much he overheard.

“Hello, Professor. Thank you for kicking the Gryffindor team off the quidditch patch for us,” Draco said, before catching himself and glancing back at Sunset, who was trying to look as casual as possible while reaching up and trying to detach her messy research-map from the board.

Snape smiled. “I thought it would be best if there were fewer… unknowns during the next game. Speaking of which,” he said, and walked up to Sunset’s map, and grabbed one end. “What is Miss Shimmer up to?”

“Researching,” Draco proudly supplied.

“Yes. Researching,” Sunset echoed. She already didn’t like Snape, and the recent discoveries made her all the more wary of the wizarding world in general, and especially him.

Snape glanced at the open book. “About unicorns, I see. Denizens of the deep woods?” he said, and turned to the large paper still partially attached to the blackboard. “And of subjects I don’t recognize as school work. How curious. I wonder… if perhaps the work of Miss Shimmer finds itself completely within the boundaries of school rules. I know her house has a particular penchant for stepping outside that.”

As he spoke, he grabbed the edge of the paper as if to help Sunset with removing it, but didn’t let go of it, instead holding it firmly.

“None of any rules I know of. Thank you, professor,” Sunset said, as she tugged the paper out of his hand, making him glance down at the paper he hadn’t expected to be enchanted to make it ripping-resistant.

As Sunset quickly folded the paper up the size of her book, now falling under the definitions of grimoire, Snape kept going. “Then again, in my experience, Gryffindors can be counted on to not even know the rules in… the… first… place,” he said, as Sunset rapidly thumbed through a few thousand pages of her book, which she had emblazoned with her cutie mark on the cover, to find the proper place to insert the rolled up paper.

Snape’s eyes narrowed, while Draco’s went wide. “We haven’t learned any spell like that so far,” Draco said. “Did you learn it on your own?”

“Yeah. Just a little studying in my spare time. Good day, Professor,” she said, as she moved out of the classroom.

Draco hurried after her.

“Oh, and you should have seen what happened earlier on the quidditch pitch. That clown Ron Weasley was going to cast a hex on me to throw up slugs,” Draco gushed, and Sunset further committed to always being ready to cast a shield spell on herself. “But his spell backfired and it hit himself instead!”

“Ew,” Sunset winced.

“I know! It was hilarious!” Draco said, laughing.

“Why would he try to cast that hex on you in the first place?”

Draco waved that away with a slightly sneering expression. “Probably something to do with that Hermione Granger not enjoying being called what she is.”

“... Overly enthusiastic in class?”

“Uh, yes. Precisely.”

“Well… sounds like quite a bit of drama,” Sunset carefully ventured. “I’m not sure if I'm glad or sad that I missed it.”

“Yeah, you really should’ve that Weasley with the slugs coming out of his mouth,” Draco giggled.

Sunset shook her head. “Not before breakfast and, uh… frankly, not after either,” she said as they came to the great hall. “Well, I’m going back to the tower. I’ll see you around?”

“Yeah. See you.”

Sunset sauntered along the corridors towards Gryffindor’s tower, taking her time as she figured out what to do next. She still had research to do, but she shelved that plan, not liking the idea of Snape walking in on her doing the exact same thing again after she just packed up in front of him.

Coming out of a bathroom with an impatient expression was Ginny Weasley, who shot an annoyed look at the door.

She turned and saw Sunset walking by right next to her, and jumped in surprise. “Oh! Hey, Sunset.”

“Hello, Ginny,” Sunset said. “What’s up?”

Ginny lowered her voice. “Hrmm… that ghost in there.”

“Oh,” Sunset said, and they kept walking before she continued. “Yeah. That’s Moaning Myrtle.”

The smaller girl looked back at the bathroom door before they rounded a corner. “She was acting like I was out to get her.”

Sunset shrugged. “That’s nice of you. I mean, being miserable is what makes her happy,” she said, at Ginny’s questioning look.

“So… Do you just hurl insults at her whenever you see her?” Ginny asked, skeptically.

“No, but I’m not really in the business of making people happy either.”

Ginny gave Sunset a sideways glance, then smirked.

“So you’re in the same class as Harry? Uh, Harry and Ron? And Hermione?”

“That’s right.”

“Oh… What’s it like?”

Sunset glanced at Ginny. “What’s it like being in the same class as Harry, Ron, and Hermione?”

“Uh, No, I mean, uh… What's class like?”

“Hmm… They’re, uh, they’re fine. About half of them are anyway. Hey, don’t you know all about this? How many older brothers do you have? Five?”

“Six. But like you said, they’re all brothers.”

“What? Are you wondering if it’s different for girls?”

“Well… no, but… I’m just wondering what someone who isn’t my brother says.”

Sunset quickly had to think up what would make more sense for someone who wasn’t already well-trained in the arcane arts studying their first year at Hogwarts.

“Hmm… If you take a few hours every week to try and stay ahead of schedule, everything will go much easier.”

“That sounds like Percy.”

Sunset recoiled. “What a horrible thought. I mean, don’t worry about grades at all. I don’t. You just won’t have to worry about teachers hovering over you if you stay ahead. But don’t get too far ahead.”

Ginny giggled, but before she could say anything, Sir Nicholas floated through a wall, holding a roll of paper and looking agitated.

He paused when he saw them, and floated up to them.

“Ladies, I’m sorry to interrupt, but I must ask, do you consider me to be decapitated?”

“Yes,” Sunset curtly and truthfully answered, having heard of Nick’s denial to join the Headless Hunt, and not missing a beat.

Ginny glanced at Sunset, much less certain, and answered nervously. “Uh… yes? Yes.”

Nick took a breath, and tried to look dignified. “I thought so. Thank you,” he said, and gave a stiff flourish with his hand, before continuing on through a wall.

“... Wow. A lot of the ghosts have issues,” Ginny noted, as they moved on.

“I think it comes with the territory.”

“And the moving stairs, and the changing corridors, and the hidden passages, and the passwords, and Peeves!” Ginny continued. “Why is it like this? No one told me.”

“It’s a strange castle, and I think people like it that way,” Sunset said, as she waved a curtain away to reveal a secret passage that Ginny hadn’t learned of yet. “Probably a sort of hazing mentality, where you try and keep initiates on their toes. I’ve never understood it myself, but you’ll get used to it.”

“Was it hard getting used to it?” Ginny asked, sounding a little nervous.

Sunset glanced back at Ginny as they emerged in a corridor leading to Gryffindor tower. “Whatever the answer is, I should say no.”

“Can you believe how Ron and Harry arrived though?”

Sunset chuckled to herself. “Those clowns. Yes I can believe that.”

Ginny smiled at herself and played with a lock of hair. “Is Harry getting into trouble a lot?”

“Uh…” Sunset thought on this for a moment. “There were some rule-breaking, some detentions, and some rumors that they fought dark wizards, so yeah, I guess so. You know all about that, don’t you? Ron was with him and Hermione.”

“Yeah, yeah he uh… sorta told us about it?”

“Sorta?”

“Well, Fred and George just heckled him whenever he tried telling the story.”

“Oh. Yeah they would.”

Sunset found the conversation mostly comforting, but there was a tenacious sound in the back of her head she was only vaguely aware of, until an inkwell bounced off her head, and spilled its content over her hair and robes.

Ginny put her hands in front of her mouth, and gave Sunset, who was staring ahead and looking coldly unamused, a horrified look.

A loud cackling sounded above them, and they looked up to see Peeves the poltergeist floating above them.

“Students- poo-dents! Who dents them? Why it’s Peeves, with ease, and tricks up his sleeves! Aaahahahaaaa…”

Peeves shrieked with laughter as he floated through the ceiling.

“Oh… are you okay?” Ginny asked Sunset.

Sunset took a deep breath, and nodded, spilling more ink onto her clothes. “I’m fine,” she said, and stood in silence for a moment. “I’m going to wash this off,” she said, and turned around and marched off towards the showers.

Not that she actually needed a shower, but she felt this was an appropriate time as ever to have one. It also allowed her to make sure she didn’t miss any spots when the magicked the ink out of her hair and clothes, which was easier when disrobed and with access to a mirror.

Once cleaned off and dressed, she stepped out into the corridor again, and considered what had just happened.

Perhaps she was biased when she felt that this world was more dangerous than Equestria, but perhaps she wasn’t. And if she was not, she had just been ambushed in a dangerous place. It was by a prankster, sure… this time.

And the reason she was ambushed was because she had been socializing- being friends with people.

Sunset took a deep breath as she contemplated this, walking through the corridors of the castle, unseen by students and teachers, down into the dungeons, and into the empty potions classroom. There she retrieved a small, used potions bottle from the trash bin by Snape’s desk, and walked out again, up towards the third floor of the southwest wing, a part of the castle with low activity, but which Sunset knew was the favorite haunt of House Slytherin’s ghost.

“My Lord Baron,” she called out towards a somber-looking ghost floating through a wall, catching him before he vanished through another one.

The Bloody Baron looked at Sunset in surprise, before turning and elegantly floating up towards her, taking off his wide, ostrich feather-adorned hat with a flourish and holding it to his ruffled, silver blood-stained shirt while bowing.

“My lady,” he wheezed, as he righted himself, and held out his hand invitingly, which Sunset accepted, then gently brushed his ethereal lips just above her knuckles, sending an icy chill up Sunset’s forearm. “What can the Baron of House Slytherin do for a friend?”

Sunset raised her eyebrows. “A friend?”

“A member of House Gryffindor,” the Baron explained.

“Oh? I’ve detected a sense of unfriendly rivalry between the houses,” Sunset noted.

“Oh, verily,” the Baron sighed. “The low spirits of the ghosts of Hogwarts are not just because we are dead. We remember a time when the disciples of its founders did great things together, the wisdom of the houses combined.”

“Even Gryffindor and Slytherin?”

“Especially Gryffindor and Slytherin. But enough of such matters. The bitterness will fade and come again. We have seen it many times. Now, how can I be of service?”

“I’d just like to find Peeves.”

The Baron’s expression darkened, and Sunset noticed that his hand slowly started moving towards the hilt of his sword. “Has he overstepped himself once more?”

“Perhaps. I’m not sure where the line is, but I’d like just one word with him.”

“Mmm, I sense that honor is at stake. I shall… speak… with him,” the Baron said, and moved as if to float away.

“Actually, I was hoping to take care of this myself,” Sunset interjected.

The Baron stopped, and gave Sunset a scrutinizing look, and not altogether wholesome look.

“The stones of this castle whisper of one of great ability who walks its halls once more. I would urge you to consider the nature of mastery, and to not forget to look inward.

“Peeves is lounging around outside the astronomy tower. I can hear his self-congratulatory cackle even now.”

Sunset, for her part, was also giving the Baron a not-entirely-friendly look, before taking some effort into breathing out the tension, and nodding at the ghost.

“Thank you, Lord Baron.”

The Baron’s expression also softened, and he gave another bow. “I unlive to serve.”

—

Sunset indeed only had one word for Peeves. That word was “Stay.”

She sauntered up the stairs towards Gryffindor tower, contemplating the nature of factional animosity. Was quidditch, the house cup rivalry, and the actual physical divide between the houses during spare time a product of tribalism, or the other way around?

Many times during her life, Sunset had been exposed to the sentiment of her needing to have friends, and not just from Celestia. If she humored those wishes, what was actually being asked of her?

What kind of friends did she need? How many? How encompassing were her friendships to be?

The people wishing her to have friends would scoff at the idea of rejecting friendship altogether. Sunset would consider the opposite, to be friends with everyone in all realities to be even more ridiculous, so the correct number would be somewhere in between that.

… And could, would, or should she reject people who were enemies with each other? If yes, wouldn’t that mean picking sides in conflicts she had no interest in? If not, who would it fall to to solve hostilities between her hypothetical friends? Herself, probably, and it was not something she looked forward to.

Sunset took a deep breath, still not convinced of the worth of the whole idea.

“Password?” the fat lady asked.

Sunset paused.

“Do you feel that your relation with the students is a little too transactionary?” Sunset asked her.

The fat lady hummed to herself in her seat, and called to someone outside the frame of the painting. “Violet! When was the last time a student expressed concern for me?”

“Nineteen-eighty-six!” a voice came from the side.

The fat lady turned to Sunset. “Not too transactionary, but see it as a credit to yourself that you ask if you wish. Why do you ask?”

Sunset shrugged. “Not sure. Maybe I’m exploring new sides of myself?”

The lady chuckled. “You’ve got quite an old girl inside you, don’t you?”

“Some people have a strange relation with time. No requests then?”

The fat lady hummed, and selected a bottle from the collection on the table in front of her. “Perhaps find a painting of a lime. I hear it works well with this,” she said, and lifted a wicker-wrapped bottle. “Gift from the governor in the west before he passed away from dropsy.”

“I’ll keep an eye out,” Sunset said, as the Fat Lady opened up her portrait, and walked into the common room, passing by Ginny, sitting next to her brothers.

“Hey, Sunset,” Ginny asked, looking up from her Standard Book of Spells. “Did you get it all out?”

“Yep,” Sunset simply said.

“Get all of what out?” Fred asked.

“Uhm… Peeves was…”

“What?” George pressed.

“He… dropped a bottle of ink on Sunset.”

The twins grinned at each other. “Oooh, and we missed it.”

“More exciting things have already happened since,” Sunset noted, and turned around to walk up the stairs to the dorm, fishing out the old potions bottle from her robes, and smirked a little at the contents. “Hasn’t it?”

Peeves, for his part, was still trying to figure out what was going on, which was difficult when squeezed into a container a fraction of one’s volume.

“I think I’ll keep you in here for a few days,” Sunset noted, mostly to herself, as Peeves wouldn’t hear anything in his little habitat. “See if you learn anything from it. If you don’t, then you’ll wish you were dealing with the Baron instead of me.”

Author's Note

Yeah, this took a while. There've been a lot of distractions, and this wasn't a super easy chapter to write. There's not a lot in the source material to work with for a chapter such as this, so here's some water-treading disguised as progress.

Pre-read by ssokolow, Snuffy, and Blue Horizon.

Taste For Blood

If one was not sold on the concept of cooperation, one could simply consider the weather. Rain could be very annoying, and wind could be very annoying, but it’s when they join forces that truly miserable weather happens.

Sunset Shimmer still wasn’t sold on the concept of cooperation, but then again, she barely felt the effect of the terrible weather as she walked through the less visited utilitarian parts of the castle grounds, as magic made the water almost boil and rapidly evaporate from her, giving her a shroud of thick steam.

She was out in what others would consider awful weather after a first year student in her house, one Colin Creevey, had drawn attention to how Sunset was the tallest girl in her class, and Sunset had felt everyone studying her.

A thatched stable was in the rear portion of the castle, and the fact that it was two stories told Sunset what kind of creature inhabited it. She walked up and opened the half door, stepping out of the rain and letting herself dry off for a few moments as she looked around.

The bottom booths were empty of denizens, and instead filled with piles of hay. Not hay for food either, but for frolicking in. Ramps led up to a second story with its own booths, with a great opening alcove in the middle for anyone up there to look down at the first floor.

Sunset narrowed her eyes, and put one hand in front of one of them.

“Oh, of course. There you are,” she said, finally noticing the dozens of thestrals looking curiously at her from the upper floor. Thestrals do not voluntarily rest on ground level.

Their eyes showed unabashed curiosity as she retrieved her silver knife, normally in her potions kit, from a pocket inside her cloak, and started to prick herself in her fingers.

As little globs of blood formed on the top of her digits, the thestrals’ attention grew more focused, and many of them considered leaving the comfort of their loft to inspect further.

“Come on down, snacktime,” Sunset said, and placed her knife back into her cloak, holding her hand out.

Silently as moonlight on still water, the dark equines slipped down the opening of their loft, and surrounded Sunset like a great cloud of dark smoke, with dozens of slightly reflective eyes in it.

It would have been a quite unnerving image for one unfamiliar with thestrals, but Sunset knew better. She held out her hand, and the ones closest lowered their heads, and three silken tongues started rapidly lapping up the delicious treat.

Sunset smiled and petted one who was looking over her shoulder at her leaking fingers. “Don’t worry, there’s enough for you too,” she said, as the three currently feeding ones, a bit reluctantly, backed away to make room for their friends.

“Hold on, let me just…” Sunset said after a while, and massaged her lower arm and hand to replenish the flow. “That’s it. You feel fine, don’t you? You’re not getting cursed.”

The one by her shoulder put a leather wing around her and leaned into her petting, when suddenly, the door opened, and a giant figure stepped in.

“Huh? Wus goin’ on ‘ere?” Rubeus Hagrid asked, slightly pressingly.

“Oh, hello, mister Hagrid,” Sunset, and gave him a slightly sheepish look over her shoulder. “I just thought these colts and fillies might like a snack.”

Hagrid took a moment to digest what was happening, an alarmed look on his face, before it instead turned into an amazed one.

“By Merlin, I ain’t never seen anythin’ like this,” he said, and chuckled a bit nervously. “Most students who can see our thestrals ain’t too keen on gettin’ close.”

Sunset sniffed the mane of the one with his wing around her, then turned back to Hagrid. “Why? They smell perfectly clean to me.”

Hagrid was quiet for a moment, before letting out a loud guffaw.

When he calmed down, he walked up close to Sunset and placed the bucket, filled with blood, on the stone floor. “Feedin’ time,” he said.

Only half the thestrals, mainly the ones who had already had a taste of Sunset’s blood, disengaged from the cauldron to feed from this new source.

Hagrid looked on in befuddlement at the lukewarm interest of the thestrals.

“What’s in the bucket?” Sunset asked, glancing at it over her shoulder.

“Rooster blood,” Hagrid said, and tried spying past the bundle of heads over Sunset’s hand. “What’s tha’ ye got there, lass?”

The dark equines eagerly followed Sunset’s hand, as she brought it up long enough to show Hagrid before letting them keep feeding, the blood being lapped up before it had time to revert back to a silver color.

Hagrid stood in silence for several seconds, before he spoke again, a bit carefully. “Ye’ve eh… grown up ‘roun’ thestrals, have ye?”

A small frown slowly grew on Sunset’s face, aimed away from Hagrid, as she kept petting the stallion on his neck.

“... There were some around, yeah.”

“Who’d’ye, erm… how come ye can see ‘em?”

Sunset glanced back at Hagrid with a confused look on her face. “I’m… just used to them, that’s all. Neville’s the one with the sharp eyes. He spots them instantly.”

Hagrid nodded slowly. “Does he?” he said, and stood in silence for a while, before shaking whatever he had been thinking about away. “Anyway, seems yer a new favorite. Never seen ‘em prefer anythin’ other’n what I feed ‘em.”

Sunset tutted, and the one by her shoulder finally got his taste. “Dessert first eh? I’ll try and time it better next time.”

“Ye don’t need ter feed ‘em though,” Hagrid said. “I do that.”

“I know, but I wanted to. Also, I know they only really need blood, but I would still give them some vegetables and things, put a little meat on them.”

Hagrid looked a little sheepish. “They, erm… never been interested in anythin’ else.”

Sunset kept scratching the chins of the one feeding on her. “Oh, picky are we? You a spoiled boy, mm?” she cooed.

“So, erhm… are ye goin’ ter pick Care of Magical Creatures fer next year?”

“Sorry, what?”

“Erhm, next year. Ye’ve got ter pick more subjects, ‘n’... Care of Magical Creatures is one o’ ‘em.”

“Oh, right, I forgot that,” Sunset said, and gave it some thought.

She wanted to turn into an alicorn. If she succeeded, and she had all intention of doing so, it would be a transformation of sorts, and transformation, the way Hogwarts taught its subjects, fell under the category of transfiguration.

Obviously, something as monumental as ascension to alicornhood wouldn’t be covered by something as banal as a transfiguration formula, but still, expanding her portfolio of knowledge on the subject of transfiguration might help in the end, if it required her to come up with her own magical solution on how to ascend, and the same sentiment could apply to knowledge of magical creatures in general.

“... Yeah… I think I will,” she said.

Hagrid smiled underneath his big, bushy beard, before looking out at the still ongoing torrential downpour.

“Doesn’t look like it’ll let up anytime soon,” he said. “Would ye like me ter walk ye up ter the castle? I’ve got an umbrella.”

“Uh… yes I would, thank you,” Sunset said, grateful for a chance to imply to a member of the staff that she couldn’t solve absolutely everything herself.

As they walked through the gray shower, Sunset spied Hagrid’s cottage in the distance.

“How’s your house doing in this weather?” she asked, loudly, to make herself heard over the noise of the heavy rain.

“Oh, it’s fine,” Hagrid said, waving her concerns away. “Have ter keep the fire lit at all times, but other’n that, ’s no problem.”

“Right,” Sunset said, and noted that the piled up firewood was still getting fairly soaked despite the roof over it.

It was a little far away to do a thorough job, but she still surreptitiously waved her index finger in the direction of Hagrid’s hut, drawing out a lot of the excess dampness out of both the firewood and the inside of the hut, forming it into floating balls of water that she let fall onto the wet ground, undetectable by anyone after the fact, and helping Hagrid keeping his home dry.

“Well, thanks for the shelter, Mister Hagrid,” Sunset said, shaking off the rain that had landed on her cloak regardless, as they entered the castle.

“Aye, happy ter help,” he said, smiling easily, before walking back into the rain towards his home.

—

The rainy weather persisted for weeks, and while many from her home would’ve been horrified that it was allowed to go on like this without any weather teams clearing it up, Sunset found herself actually enjoying it in a sense.

The damp chill was permeating and being felt most everywhere in the castle, but that also meant that the shelters from it, the heat from the fireplaces in the common rooms and dormitories, were all the more cozy- sanctuary from the slowly encroaching cold and dark.

One less pleasant thing about this time was that, perhaps in part thanks to the weather, flu and colds were running rampant, and many students and a few of the staff were walking around with runny noses.

Sunset had realized too late that she was infected, and had come down with one of the sicknesses herself. It didn’t last very long though, since even before Madam Pomfrey had coerced her into drinking her pepperup potion, Sunset used the fact that her body could handle vastly greater temperatures than the virus, heating up her body and purging them all quickly and neatly.

What damage it had done did leave her tired though, and she welcomed an excuse to curl up in an armchair, wrapped in a blanket, in front of the fireplace in the common room. To practice potions she would have had to sit upright, so that was out, but practicing transfiguration and charms only required her waving her wand-arm out of her cocoon, like a textile cephalopod.

“Whatcha doin’?” Dean asked, leaning over the backrest, as the rest of her classmates, sans Harry who was out practicing Quidditch, were filing in from the portrait hole.

“Examining the components of magical formulae, specifically the effect of movement from the caster, in detail,” Sunset said, waving her baton-like wand, then glancing up from underneath her blanket and seeing Dean and Seamus’ blank faces. “By which I mean what effects the swishing has when casting a spell.”

“What do you mean, ‘effect’?” Dean asked. “It… it makes the spell go.”

“'Makes it go’, yes I suppose that’s not incorrect,” Sunset granted, and then considered the two boys for a time.

“What?” Seamus asked.

“Oh, just thinking about stuff. What I could say to you in response to what you just said, whether I should, if that’s good for anyone, or immediately satisfying, and what it would mean if it were, and so on.”

“What are you on about?” Ron asked, as the rest of her classmates settled down into the nearby couches and armchairs.

“Nothing,” Sunset said. “Just that while ‘it makes it go’ is all good and well for understanding magic, I’d recommend being ready to examine things on a deeper level.”

“What’s that got to do with the wand movement?” Hermione asked.

“... Ron, show us Wingardium Leviosa,” Sunset said.

“What?”

“... Oh yeah, you’re right,” Sunset said, remembering Ron’s busted wand, and pointed at the discarded junk lying on the table in front of them. “Lavender. Show us Wingardium Leviosa on that candy wrapper.”

A bit uncertain about what trick Sunset had up her sleeve, Lavender waved her wand and said, “Wingardium Leviosa.”

The candy wrapper floated up into the air, and hovered above the table.

“Right. So it was about a year ago you got the hang of this. Your movements were much slopper this time.”

Lavender shot Sunset a slightly wounded look. “I’ve been practicing other stuff! Other spells.”

“Yep,” Sunset agreed.

“So… you know, it goes without saying it wouldn’t be as good this time.”

“Yes, exactly.”

There was a confused and somewhat tense silence around the table.

Sunset decided to help them along on their way. “And my point is that it still worked. I suspect the reason why it still worked is a subject that will come up in later years.”

All her classmates looked down at their books and wands in confusion, except Hermione, who gave Sunset a long and somewhat intrigued look.

—

Friday meant double potions, which was something Sunset had braced herself for. She just got the feeling that some lingering irk of Snape’s would manifest in a bad mood, but Harry was the lightning rod for Snape’s whims so long as Sunset managed to keep her head down.

Sunset felt that there was something in the air, like a gathering storm, or dozens of frustrated people trying not to be the first one to blow up and make a scene, but she couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was.

Maybe it was discharges of miscast cheering charms evaporating from the walls, or perhaps a nervous cat was always just a corridor ahead of her, but Sunset felt that there was something.

“Madam Shimmer,” a wheezing voice spoke as she exited the potions classroom, making her jump.

She took a breath to calm herself. “Lord Baron,” she said, as her classmates looked at her, wondering what business she might have with Slytherin’s ghost.

“Great is your prowess and laudable are your skills, but the time has come. When one takes freedom from another, the line between justice and crime can be unclear. The… creature… needs its freedom.”

The Baron gave Sunset a small nod, who bowed and floated away through a wall.

She let out a sigh, afraid that he would’ve revealed more about her skills to her classmates, but thankfully it probably wasn’t very bad.

The Baron was right however. Sunset had completely forgotten Peeves.

Her classmates started moving on, glancing back to see if there was anything more revealed, when Draco walked up to her.

“What did he mean?” he asked.

“Uh… just a little side project,” Sunset said, smiling apologetically at him. “Don’t worry about it. Anyway, I guess the feast starts soon. We should probably get rid of our books.”

“Yes. I’ll see you there,” Draco said.

“Yeah, see you,” Sunset said, knowing full well that they sat at different tables.

“What was that about? What needs its freedom?” Harry asked Sunset as she caught up with the rest of her house.

“Ah, nothing,” Sunset said.

“And why are you always chumming with the Slytherins?” Ron said.

“I wouldn’t say I am,” Sunset said, struggling for a way to say that Draco was just following her without being rude about it. “I’m just… going about my own business.”

Ron looked at her cautiously. “Yeah… right.”

Sunset finally realized something. “Hey, why aren’t you all excited?” she asked Ron. “It’s a feast tonight. You love feasts.”

“Can’t go,” Harry said. “Promised Nick we’d attend his death party.

“Oh… uh… that’s interesting,” Sunset said, as tactfully as she could manage. “Uh… get souvenirs.”

“Right,” Ron muttered.

Sunset hurried up to the dormitories ahead of Hermione and the siamese gossip duo, and retrieved the old potions bottle with Peeves squeezed into it from the drawer in her bed’s end table.

“You’re lucky, you know, and probably ungrateful too,” Sunset said, and opened the window, casually dropping the bottle to the stone tiles far, far below. “Enjoy your freedom.”

Over the past year, Sunset had somehow picked up that Harry and Ron weren’t friends with Hermione until Halloween, one year ago, when that changed thanks to the troll incident.

Sunset double checked that her spell that blocked scents was fresh in her mind, in case more trolls showed up.

There were a few more hours until the feast was to begin, and the feeling of tension and unease was still lingering in the castle, even in Gryffindor tower. Sunset looked out the window she had just pushed Peeves’ little habitat out of, and decided to take a walk along the grounds, which were empty despite the weather having cleared up.

She slipped out through the open front gate of the castle, and started prowling along the castle grounds, along the gardens and greenhouses, through overgrown stone patios, around copses of trees, and by the gates leading out of the castle ground.

The tension was easier here, barely perceptible. One option could be to try and ask the Dark Forest, though she suspected that it wouldn’t tell her anything that she didn’t already know.

She wandered, deep in thought, along the banks of the lake, when a fiery red shape streaked past her in the gathering dark of the evening. Sunset congratulated herself on keeping her composure, unlike with the Bloody Baron, and spied out over the surface of the water to see a slightly glowing shape zooming low enough to touch the water, and then ascend again.

Sunset smiled, and called out to it.

“Fawkes!”

A melodic cry was let out, but was aborted after a second, and he banked around and headed towards Sunset, who held out an arm for him.

He landed on it, and trilled in greeting.

“And good evening to you too,” she said, and looked around to make sure she was alone, before conjuring a flame in the palm of her hand that she let the phoenix bask his plumage in. “Are you out hunting?”

Fawkes lightly spread his wings and cried playfully, making Sunset nod in understanding. He did look a little sagged.

“Mmm, getting a little long in the beak then?

Fawkes squawked, and puffed up his plumage.

“Of course you still can, but…” Sunset looked around again. “No one has to know if you got a little help.”

The phoenix gave Sunset a scrutinizing glare, then let out a mumble-like trill.

“Right. Let me just…” Sunset spied around her again, and walked out towards the water.

As she approached the surface, her hair glowed, and the water formed a thick walkway of solid ice for her that she walked on top of.

Some ways out onto the darkened waters, she willed the ice to form into a wider platform, and walked over to the edge, staring down into the depths.

After a moment, Fawkes let out an eager squawk.

“I see it.”

The ways of marine life are complex and fascinating, but the life of a single fish is a fairly simple one. Swim out of your egg, chew at things that are probably food, spit it out again if it turns out to not be food, flee from the unfamiliar and some of the familiar, lay eggs or fertilize eggs, then pass away and turn into food for other aquatic creatures.

There’s more to it than that, but not much, and if it had any more cognisant capacity, it would’ve let out a mildly curious “huh,” the split second it had to react if it was to be flash frozen in the middle of going about its business.

Sunet levitated out the fish, frozen in a sphere of ice, from the water.

“Well, look at that,” Sunset said, floating the ice sphere closer to herself and Fawkes. “Some sort of bass? If there was a sou’wester around, I’d say I’ve earned it.”

Fawkes spread his wings and trilled eagerly.

“Alright, keep your tail feathers on,” Sunset said, and sauntered back to shore. “Do you want it cleaned out or do you take it as-is?”

Fawkes whistled.

“Right. Good. Because I’ve never cleaned a fish before.”

Sunset knocked the surrounding ice from the cold fish, and conjured a fire mid-air underneath the fish, and refocused all the heat towards their catch, cooking it at great speed and dripping boiling juice out of it on the shingle below.

“Like this, right? And a little charred?

Fawkes whistled encouragingly.

“More? Okay.”

Once the bass was almost completely blackened on the outside, Fawkes trilled again.

“Dinner is served.”

Fawkes turned his head and whistled at Sunset.

“Yeah, I suppose it’s time to head back to the feast. And now you have one as well. Here, let me just put a temporary lightening charm on it. It should last up to Dumbledore’s study.”

Fawkes trilled again, and nuzzled Sunset’s cheek.

“Alright, you’re welcome,” she said, smiling. “He wouldn’t neglect you when there’s a feast in the castle, right?”

Fawkes trilled, and lifted off to grab the fish in his talons, and flew away to the castle.

“I thought he wouldn’t,” Sunset said, and walked back towards the Great Hall.

“Hello, Sunset,” Neville said, when she walked up to her classmates sitting around the table, and scooted to the side, making room for her. By the looks of things, she was the last to arrive.

“Thanks,” she said, and sat down next to him.

“So where are the clowns?” Fred asked in the general direction of Sunset’s year.

There was a pregnant pause, before everyone realized what he was talking about.

“Oh, them,” Sunset said, as she grabbed a pumpkin piece appetizer. “Apparently, Nick is throwing a party and they were invited.”

“Huh. Alright,” Fred said, as his sister walked up in almost a daze, sat down next to him, and grabbed a fork and started poking her plate before realizing there was nothing on it. “Hey, Ginny. You look like you’ve been in Professor Kettleburn’s medicine cabinet.”

“Huh? What?” she said, looking up at her brother.

“Ginny,” Percy said on the other side of the twins. “Did you take the potion I gave you?”

“Easy, Perce,” George said. “She did. She needs a feast. We all need a feast. Where is it?”

As if on cue, it materialized in front of them. Sunset almost forgot to inspect the brief display of magic like she had the last few feasts, but she was fairly certain that the food was magically transported from inside the castle.

“Now that’s more like it,” George said, and grabbed a plate of pork, emptying half in his plate, and the other half on Ginny’s.

The buzz of talking around them was replaced by the buzz of eating, and Sunset realized that she was no longer feeling the tension from before. Whatever caused it might have vanished, or the feeling of elation emanating from the people around her was overpowering it, but she was grateful it was gone.

Sunset dug in heartily. Cadence had said that Sunset needed more love in her life, that she needed to show more of it. Sunset disagreed. Sunset had plenty of love, and she showed it, especially to fried potatoes.

“Want some fried potatoes with that?” Parvati said in a smarmy voice, holding out the plate with refills.

“Yes, thank you,” Sunset simply said, and dumped the rest onto her own plate.

“So how come none of us were invited to Nick’s party?” Dean asked. “I bet ghosts really know how to really have a Halloween party.”

“Oh don’t even think about it,” Lavender said, shaking her head. “My great great great great–” she stopped briefly to count in her head”–great great great aunt is a ghost, and trust me, you don’t want ghost food.”

“Okay,” Dean said, shrugging.

Neville was looking around for the pitcher of pumpkin juice, which Sunset grabbed from her side for him.

“Potion of Thirst Quenching?” she offered, making Seamus snigger.

“By the way, ease off on the eating, Sunset,” Lavender suddenly said, a bit sharply.

“Why?” she asked, around the mouth full of food.

“You snore, and it’s worse when you eat a lot,” Parvati said.

Sunset just shrugged. “There are solutions to this, you know.”

“Like what?”

“We’re in a school for magic, you know.”

After the dessert had left the table, McGonagall intercepted a speech from Lockhart, and the student body started pouring out into the corridor, simmering with contentedness.

Sunset was picking her teeth, when suddenly everything was quiet and still.

She craned her neck to see around an older girl, and saw what everyone was staring at.

Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley, and Hermione Granger, all stood frozen, their bodies turned towards the wall, but their heads turned to stare at the silent crowd.

From a torch bracket on the wall, Mrs Norris, Filch’s cat, was hanging by her tail, looking as if she was frozen in place, and above her, in huge letters, were written the words, all in capital letters.

THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED.
ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE.

Sunset glanced around. A part of her wanted to elbow her way forward and take a closer look, but a louder part of her insisted to keep her head down, and blend into the crowd.

“Enemies of the heir, beware!” Malfoy read from the crowd on the other side of the corridor. “You’ll be next, Mudbloods!”

Sunset gave him a skeptical look, but for once, thankfully, Malfoy’s attention was somewhere else.

“What’s going on here? What’s going on?” Sunset heard Argus Filch shout, pushing his way through the crowd.

Sunset stepped aside, not looking forward to what was to happen next.

When Filch saw his cat, he stepped back in horror, and Sunset could smell the despair, quickly followed by rage, as he babbled in despair.

“My cat! My cat! What’s happened to Mrs Norris!?

“... You!” he yelled at Harry. “You! You’ve murdered my cat! You’ve killed her! I’ll kill you! I’ll–”

As a wide-eyed Harry was about to take a step back, there was another voice from behind them.

“Argus!”

Sunset turned to see Dumbledore striding towards them, and made more room for him and the cadre of faculty members following him.

Dumbledore briskly walked past everyone in the corridor and took Mrs Norris into his arms.

“Come with me, Argus. You too, Mr Potter, Mr Weasley, Miss Granger.”

Lockhart jumped up with his usual smile, somewhat inappropriate considering the mood of his surroundings. “My Office is nearest, Headmaster, just upstairs, please feel free…”

“Thank you, Gilderoy.”

Dumbledore, Lockhart, McGonagall, and Snape, all left in the direction of Lockhart’s office, while Flitwick stared after them for several moments, before he turned to the students.

“Well, there’s no reason to stand around here, everyone. Bedtime calls,” he said, in a carefully neutral voice.

The sea of students started moving, and Sunset walked deliberately slowly past the source of all this drama, giving the letters a long look as she did.

“Come on,” Lavender said, grabbing Sunset’s arm and pulling her along.

Someone else who was moving slowly was Draco, just a bit ahead of her.

Before he turned around a corner, he caught Sunset’s eye, and an excited smirk grew on his face.

As soon as they were out of earshot of any teachers, the student body exploded in excited and alarmed chatter.

“What was that!?”

“Did you see her hanging like that?”

“Well, of course, everyone hates Filch.”

“But what does it mean?”

“Do you think Potter or Weasley killed Mrs Norris?”

“Watch it, you’re talking about my brother.”

“What’s the Chamber of Secrets?”

“It’s a Slytherin that did it. It’s always a Slytherin.”

“... But don’t hurt the cat.”

“But the three of them were just standing there.”

“Keep in mind that Granger is really skilled. I’ve seen her doing third year transfigurations.”

“I think the whole chamber-business is just to throw people off.”

“We shouldn’t forget the teachers. They’re the most powerful witches and wizards in the castle.”

“Well I’ve heard of the Chamber of Secrets.”

“Hah! Keep an eye out for people acting odd? That’s half the castle.”

With a feast in their bellies weighing them down, the students didn’t stop in the common room to gossip, and instead kept going up the stairs to the dormitories.

Lavender closed the door behind them, and let out a sigh, relieved to be back in the safety of the dorms.

Sunset could understand. There were a few times she really appreciated the luxurious bedroom, with the warm light from the fireplace dancing lightly around, and this night was one of them.

“What do you think happened?” Lavender asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t think Harry or Ron or Hermione did it,” Parvati said.

“No. Especially not Hermione. Even if Harry or Ron wanted to do anything, she wouldn’t let them,” Lavender agreed.

“What do you think, Sunset?”

“I agree,” Sunset said, climbing into bed and reaching for her book. “Besides, I’m guessing Nick will provide an alibi.”

“That’s right,” Lavender nodded eagerly, as she too lay down. “But what happened to Mrs Norris?”

“Frozen in place,” Sunset said, jotting down that as a note for things to research. “Well, goodnight, you two.”

“... Goodnight.”

Author's Note

Pre-read by Snuffy, Ssokolow, Blue Horizon.

Something Insidious

“All students! I will have your attention!” McGonagall called out during breakfast. “I have an announcement to make concerning the incident yesterday!”

That last part made the buzz die down immediately, and every eye in the hall was aimed at her.

“Those of you that weren’t present yesterday will no doubt have heard that Mrs Norris, the cat of caretaker Argus Filch, was attacked, and a message written on the wall at the same location. Mrs Norris has been petrified”– Sunset frowned in confusion –” but is not dead, and a treatment for petrification is being worked on as we speak. Professor Sprout will be taking care of the acquisition of the necessary ingredients, whereupon Professor Snape will concoct the potion. Needless to say, interruptions of any kind in their work will not be tolerated.

“There are no suspects as of yet, and rumors and speculations among yourselves will not be helpful, and you are to refrain from concocting or sharing them…”

Sunset rolled her eyes.

“... If you do have information regarding the incident, you are to inform a member of the faculty. If the guilty party would care to admit to their wrongdoings, we will accept them doing so in private. This is no time for panic, or the facilitation of panic, and you will all be expected to conduct yourselves in the same orderly manner as you always are. That is all.”

The silence continued for almost three seconds, before the same hushed but excited buzz that McGonagall had interrupted continued, even more intense than before.

McGonagall’s eyebrow twitched, and she took a slow, deep breath before rolling up the paper she had been reading with very stiff motions.

“Petrified?” Parvati whispered.

“Why were people talking about a beast before?” Neville asked, in a nervous voice.

“Because a beast was obviously in the Chamber of Secrets,” Dean said.

“How long has it been in there?” Lavender noted, skeptically.

There was a tense pause as people’s minds raced to come up with an answer fast enough to keep the gossip train going.

“Maybe since before the school was made,” Seamus suggested.

“Well… shouldn’t it have… you know… starved?” Neville asked.

There was another frantic pause before Dean came up with an explanation. “Maybe it doesn’t need food,” he said, but this didn’t sit well with the others.

“Maybe it petrifies itself to conserve energy,” Sunset said.

She meant it as a joke, but Seamus pointed at her and gave her a smile of recognition, as if it was a really clever piece of insight.

Neville urgently turned to Sunset. “What creature petrifies things?”

“Uh… cockatrices, gorgons, The Silent Choir…”

“What’s The Silent Choir?” Seamus asked.

“What? Oh, uh… it was an army, like, back in mythical times, of animated stone soldiers that turned people to animated stone soldiers like themselves with their breath, press-ganging them. Anyway, they’re supposedly all gone. And that’s another thing. I didn’t get a good look at Mrs Norris, but she didn’t look petrified to me.”

“Oh you’re an expert, are you?” Parvati asked, skeptically.

“No,” Sunset said, airily. “But it looked more like some sort of stasis effect.”

“That’s what petrification is, innit?” Seamus noted.

“Not the way I know it.”

“What creatures have… stasis effects, then?” Neville pressed.

“Well… I don’t know,” Sunset said, shaking her head slightly, deep in thought. “Spontaneously, I’d say changelings, but… that’s not entirely right either.”

“Changelings?”

“Yeah, changelings.”

When they kept looking at her with blank looks, she figured that maybe they were called something else on this plane of existence, and continued. “Master infiltrators. Very dangerous. They're insectoid people that can alter their voice and appearance, steal your identity or the identity of people around you, and they keep their victims in pods… you know, in stasis,” Sunset clarified.

She noticed the silence in her immediate vicinity, and looked around to see her classmates staring at her with horrified looks, figuring that in that case changelings did not exist here, or people would know about them. Neville especially was white as a sheet.

“Uh, look, the thing with changelings is that you never know when they’re around, but even so, don’t worry, we don’t actually have any changelings among us.”

“H-how do you know?” Neville asked.

“Ask me for our secret phrase,” Sunset simply said.

“Wh-what secret phrase?”

“Exactly. We don’t have a secret phrase,” Sunset said. “A changeling wouldn’t know that… you know, unless they’ve been among us for a long time.”

When the silence persisted, Sunset continued a bit more forcefully.

“There are no changelings around, okay? Besides, they don’t leave their victims around to be found, with warnings in public places written in big, glowing letters. You don’t get any less changeling-like than that.”

Everyone looked up at the looming figure of Minerva McGonagall standing over Sunset with a displeased look on her face.

“I believe I made it very clear that no rumors were to be spread, Miss Shimmer,” she said, in a tense voice.

“That’s what I’m saying,” Sunset said, exasperation creeping into her voice, as she looked at her classmates. “There are no changelings at Hogwarts, trust me on this.”

McGonagall opened her mouth, but shut it again, surprised by her own reaction to those words. When she rallied again, she simply nodded, and strode off.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione had been sitting quietly in the corner, but now Hermione spoke up.

“These changelings… do they come from the same place as you?”

“Uuuh… I think they have spawning chambers rather than nurseries, but other than that… sort of, I guess,” Sunset deflected

“But they can’t do magic, can they? Like wizard magic?” Ron asked.

“Sure they can, like the famous archmage… uh… his name is kinda hard to translate,” Sunset said, thinking, before giving up. <>

“Whoa, that sounds dangerous,” Dean noted about the foreign tongue.

—

Sunset sat in the far back of the classroom during History of Magic, with her eyes shut from deep concentration.

She had tried to set up a magical arrangement where her quill would act as a stenographer to Professor Binns as he let out a relentless, homogenous, and utterly mind-murderingly boring stream of historical facts, but it failed. Sunset found it to be a little like a muggle television machine when they just showed static, and her quill apparently agreed, since it frequently stopped working unless she tried listening too, and continuously helped it along and willed it to keep writing.

The attendance of the warlock convention of 1289 was the highest in eight years, and the first topic was- er… oh. Miss… er…?

Granger, Professor. I was wondering if you could tell us anything about the Chamber of Secrets.

(Insert onomatopoeia that conveys a sudden shock of activity as a dozen students sit up to take notice)

Sunset’s brow furrowed, and she opened her eyes to read what she thought she wrote.

“My subject is History of Magic. I deal with facts, Miss Granger, not myths and legends,” he said, before clearing his throat and continuing on. “In September of that year, a sub-committee of Sardininan Sorcerers –”

Hermione waved her hand again, and Sunset magically set her quill down, intending to listen and not just record for later analysis.

“Miss Grant?”

“Please, sir, don’t legends always have a basis in fact?”

Binns was staring at Hermione as if he was struggling with the concept of having a conversation, which, Sunset realized, was not completely unlikely.

“Well…” he eventually said. “Yes, one could argue that, I suppose. However, the legend of which you speak is such a very sensational, even ludicrous tale…”

But the pregnant silence was deafening, and this much attention seemed to, for lack of a better phrase, breathe life into Professor Binns and his presentation. By her unspoken command, Sunset’s pencil magically made a note in the margins about that, and that perhaps magically the effect of which could be synthetically reproduced.

“Oh very well,” Professor Binns eventually reletented. “Let me see… the Chamber of Secrets. you all know, of course, that Hogwarts was founded over a thousand years ago- the precise date is uncertain - by the four greatest witches and wizards of the age. The four school houses are named after them; Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin. They built this castle together, far from prying Muggle eyes, for it was an age when magic was feared by common people, and witches and wizards suffered much persecution.”

What followed was a small summary of how, after a period of training magically gifted children as expected, Slytherin had a falling out with the others, especially with Gryffindor, over the selection of students, and how Slytherin wanted to only train children of purely magical families. Slytherin had left the school, but had a hidden chamber in the castle, only known to himself, and that only his heir would be able to unseal it, and reveal some horror within, to enforce Slytherin’s will.

“The whole thing is arrant nonsense, of course,” Binns said, a bit impatiently. “Naturally, the school has searched for evidence of such a chamber many times by the most learned witches and wizards. It does not exist. A tale told to frighten the gullible.”

“Sir!” Hermione insisted, her hand in the air. “What exactly do you mean by the ‘horror within the chamber’?”

“That is believed to be some sort of monster, which the heir of Slytherin alone can control.”

Sunset was leaning back in her seat. <> she muttered to herself.

“I tell you, the thing does not exist. There is no Chamber and no monster.”

Seamus was the next to speak. “But sir, if the Chamber can only be opened by Slytherin’s true heir, no one else would be able to find it, would they?”

“Nonsense, O’Flaherty. If a long succession of Hogwarts headmasters and headmistresses haven’t found the thing–”

“But Professor,” said Parvati. “You’d probably have to use Dark Magic to open it.

“Just because a wizard doesn’t use Dark Magic, doesn’t mean he can’t, Miss Penny–”

“Why is the tale so ludicrous?” Sunset interjected, in her most calm and confident voice.

Binns paused, and looked at Sunset, who met his gaze steadily.

“Because… the nature of the tale makes it obvious,” he said.

“Why?” Sunset said, only slightly too fast and pressingly for comfort.

“The… the likelihood of it being true is just too minute.”

“Yes but can you explain further?”

Binns pulled himself up to a greater height, which was quite easy seeing as he could float. “I do not entertain stories and myths, I deal in facts, and there are no facts that support the existence of the Chamber.”

“You don’t know of any facts that support the claim, which makes your position on the subject a respectable one,” Sunset said, and calmly waved a hand to indicate the room at large. “But what we clearly want to know is if there are any facts that disprove the whole subject. If there are none, the legend remains our only point of data, wouldn’t you say? Are there any positive or negative facts on the subject?”

Binns had been in the process of puffing himself up even further, charging up a retort, when Sunset finished speaking.

“Y… yes, that… is correct, there are no facts regarding it whatsoever, and so it does not exist. Now… uhm… oh yes, the matters discussed in 1289…”

People stayed awake for a few more minutes after the whole exchange, but no more than that.

Sunset, however, stopped taking notes, magically blocked out the sound of Binns’ voice, and sat in deep contemplation for the rest of the class.

When the bell rang, the class didn’t bother waiting until they were out of earshot before talking about secret chambers and monsters.

“We knew it, we totally knew it. There’s a monster somewhere in the castle,” said Dean.

“Well stop sounding so excited about it,” Lavender said.

“I’m not, I’m just saying we knew it.”

“What are we gonna do, Sunset?” Neville asked in a nervous voice. “What if the monster attacks us?”

Sunset looked at him, and something about his expression made her feel something she didn’t care for, even though she couldn’t put her finger on exactly what. She decided to look confident, and shrugged. “If it tries to hurt me it’ll be the last mistake it ever makes. If it has a nice coat, maybe I’ll make a new cloak out of it. Do you feel like taking it on?”

Neville quickly shook his head while giving Sunset a scared look.

“Alright, so if it attacks you, just come find me,” Sunset simply said.

“You wanna fight it?” Seamus said, having overheard what Sunset and Neville talked about.

"Sure."

“Why?”

“If it’s gonna run around attacking people it’s best to fight it early before it mentally wears everyone out. Besides, there’s only room for one monster in this school, and that’s me,” Sunset said matter-of-factly.

Her classmates continued throwing glances at her until they made it to the next class.

Sunset’s icy bravado wasn’t just attitude. Her studies between classes came to a momentary but complete halt, as all her spare time was spent shoring up her magical defenses.

Every morning, she surrounded herself with magical shields of the variety that wouldn’t stop her from functioning normally, but the whole petrification thing worried her. She believed the faculty when they claimed to be able to cure the so-called “petrification”, but she didn’t want the attention or the humiliation that would come from being petrified. She partially regretted her confident statements after class a few days ago, but she tried cutting herself some slack, and acknowledging that it was easy to get antsy from holding back for so long.

Luckily, Hermione, Parvati, and Lavender hadn’t noticed the myriad of protective spells she placed on the door and windows to the dormitory.

“What are you doing?” The Fat Lady asked, in a genuine tone, as Sunset, wand in hand, inspected every stone in the wall separating Gryffindor Tower from the rest of the castle.

“Seeing if there are any secret backdoors into the place I sleep,” Sunset answered.

“Oh, well, I’ve been looking at this corridor for over three hundred years, and I can count on a closed fist the number of times anyone has gotten into the tower from where you’re standing without walking through the entrance.”

Sunset was about to thank the Fat Lady for that, when she paused. “Wait, does that mean it’s happened one time, or zero?”

“Zero.”

“Okay then, excellent.”

“I assume you’re asking because of the rumors of monsters running rampant through the castle,” the Fat Lady continued, in a conversational tone.

“Yep,” Sunset said, still inspecting the stones closely.

“And you’re confident that you have the capability to find flaws in the castle’s protective measures that the faculty has overlooked?”

“Certainly not,” Sunset said, airily.

The Fat Lady looked surprised for a moment, before scoffing at Sunset’s attitude, smiling all the while.

“If you listen to the stones rather than look at them, you might hear whispers,” the Fat Lady said. “Whispers about powerful individuals walking the halls.”

“Oh? Who?” Sunset said, standing up and looking casually at the portrait.

The Fat Lady shook her head. “It’s just rumors.”

Sunset smirked, and nodded. “Just rumors indeed,” she said, and walked inside.

—

The second year students were lounging around the table by the fire in the Gryffindor common room, doing homework.

“What is a ‘mudblood’ anyway?” they heard Colin Creevey ask Ginny Weasley one set of couches away, which led to a discussion amongst themselves, since Dean Thomas wasn’t very clear on the concept either.

Neither was Sunset for that matter, but didn’t say as much, content to listen to the others explain it to Dean instead.

“But it’s all nonsense,” Ron said to the whole thing. “Plenty of muggleborns who’re as powerful as any witch or wizards, and plenty of purebloods who aren’t.”

No one said anything, but most of them glanced very quickly at Neville, who withdrew into his armchair slightly.

Sunset’s eyes narrowed, and she lightly tossed a paper aeroplane at him.

“No, not you,” she said, matter-of-factly, and meaning it.

Not that every pony in Equestria could do it, but scholars of magic, like Sunset, eventually learned to spot magic, raw magic.

It was often an imprecise discipline, like learning to use a new sense that you don’t exactly know the location of, but one could develop it.

Sunset had much left to learn when it came to the topic, but even in a place as Hogwarts, with so much interference, she could get a fairly good measure of a witch or wizard’s raw magic power.

The adage that looks could be deceiving applied here too, for example, a skinny person could be deceptively strong, and it could be hard to tell how easily one got results from exercise, but it mostly gave you a good idea of what to expect from someone.

Not that it mattered much when it came to witches and wizards, with their exclusive training on magic requiring a focus, and specifically the wand, which evened the playing field so very greatly, and one needed to have Dumbledore’s level of power to make a great difference.

Neville looked up in surprise at Sunset, while the rest squirmed slightly and tried to seem distracted.

“But I’m… not so… I’m the worst in class,” Neville weakly protested.

“Maybe so, but that doesn’t mean that you're magically weak,” Sunset said, still looking into her potions book.

That made the others look at her, curious. “It doesn’t?” Parvati asked.

“Nope,” Sunset simply said.

“How do you know?” Lavender asked.

"Because I can tell that Neville doesn’t have below average magic power,” Sunset said, and shrugged.

“How?” Dean asked.

Sunset shrugged again. “You just learn to, eventually.”

“Oh, come off,” Ron said. “You mean that you can tell how much magic all of us here have got?”

Sunset looked up from her book. “It’s not always completely accurate, but yes.”

“Oh yeah? What about Dumbledore?” Dean asked.

“He’s got tons,” Sunset simply said.

“So, what, are people like Malfoy right when they say that being a muggleborn makes you less of a wizard?” Ron asked, with something hard to his voice.

“I certainly wouldn’t say that,” Sunset noted, especially since she was fascinated with muggles’ ability to make do with less.

“Oh yeah? So are muggleborns weaker?”

Sunset leaned back, and concentrated.

Average amount of magical power was, as perhaps expected, the most common reading of the individuals around her. Harry was a bit above average, Dean was slightly below, but not so much that it would be noticeable when using wands.

A few individuals stood out as being more powerful than others, though non freakishly so, like Dumbledore, whose power could be felt from across a large room, but Colin Creevey and Hermione, who Sunset knew to be muggleborn, did have noticeably less raw magic power.

“Yeah, it seems so to me,” Sunset said.

Sunset barely noticed that Ron’s expression had darkened quite a bit.

“Seems to me that you’ve been hanging out with your Slytherin friends too much,” he said.

“Who?” Sunset asked, once again trying to read her book.

“Like Malfoy.”

Sunset tried to remember if Draco had said anything to the same effect about Gryffindor students, but she couldn’t place it.

“Why?” she simply asked.

“If you think that wizards are better because they’re purebloods, you need to stop spending time with them.”

“I’ll keep that in mind if I ever start thinking like that,” Sunset noted, starting to feel annoyed.

Ron took a deep breath, puffing himself up where he sat, looking angrily at Sunset. “If you go ‘round saying that muggleborns are magically weak, that is what you think.”

Sunset gave him a very unamused look, before scoffing, and standing up.

“I’d be more concerned about what it says about someone who asks questions without intending to listen,” she said, coldly, and walked up to the dorms to turn in early

—

The next day was a Quidditch match, and Sunset waited until she was the absolute last person heading down towards the pitch before she broke off from the crowd and headed back into the castle. She didn’t feel like talking to anyone, and even less to be surrounded by people screaming about some ceremonialized display of very specific kinds of physical prowess.

Besides, it also looked like it was going to rain.

Even most of the faculty attended Quidditch, so for a few hours Sunset had the run of the castle, except for the easily spotted Filch. She was about to include Mrs. Norris, but remembered herself.

It was time for monster-hunting.

Except, Sunset had to admit, frustratingly, she didn’t know whether there were actually monsters in the castle.

A cat had been locked in stasis magic, a threatening message had been left on a wall, and three suspects, unlikely ones at that, had been found at the scene. These three pieces of information were the only facts Sunset had to work with.

After that came rumors. Hearsay, speculation, and sensationalism.

Maybe the Chamber of Secrets was real, maybe it was like someone said minutes after the event, that it was a way to throw people off.

Then, of course, there was the fact that someone who could rival Dumbledore in skill and magic had tried to kill Harry as an infant, and died from the attempt.

That was always interesting, and more so now that Sunset was trying to figure out who or what could do magic not taught in the school.

Just how much more was there to Harry?

The most straightforward way to pursue that mystery was to familiarize oneself with Harry and establish his capabilities as a person, rather than as a wizard.

The problem was that something like that would take a lot of time, and Sunset didn’t consider herself very good at it. She also just didn’t know Harry very well.

Oh, he certainly carried himself normally enough, but Sunset had encountered unpredictable people as early as when she was at the orphanage. One particular matron stood out in that regard, presenting herself as a kind and patient mare, but who gleefully jumped on the foals with, probably pretended, indignant rage at the slightest missteps when it came to orderly conduct.

Years afterward, Sunset had still toyed with the idea of fabricating evidence of crimes that would have the matron sent to Tartarus.

Back at Hogwarts, Sunset sniffed the air, and ducked down a secret passageway to avoid Filch. He really was child’s play to avoid without his cat spying for him.

Sunset slowly sauntered through the halls of the castle, eyes closed and magical senses reaching out to feel the stones of the castle themselves.

After two probings of the third floor, Sunset had to pause, and grunt in frustration to herself.

That Hogwarts was magical was an understatement. The castle was saturated with more enchantments, lingering magic effects, and spilled potions than Diagon Alley.

In London, Sunset had run across a large chipboard attached to a brick wall in an out-of-the-way area of a park.

Not that it had been easy to discern that it was a chipboard, since it was covered in garishly colored shapes and letters from spray paint.

Graffiti, the Manehattaners called it. Sunset was considerate enough to take on a dismissive attitude towards the artform, since that was what made its practitioners happy.

The point was that between the layers upon layers of texts and illustrations, some very old creations could sometimes be gleaned, poking out from between phrases written as if made up by balloons or dissolving bubblegum or what have you, and that was what it felt like to Sunset as she scanned the castle for magic, again and again.

The first two times Sunset combed the fourth floor, she also didn’t find anything, and was almost ready to give up when something responded to her probing.

“Oh?” she said to herself, and turned to face a great mirror, large enough for three or four people her age to stand abreast in front of.

She stepped up and lightly tapped it, but it was stout and massive enough to not give away anything from sound. However, Sunset was sure the mirror held a secret.

She leaned forward, and almost pressed her nose against it as she inspected it, when she noticed that looking at it from a sharp enough angle revealed a handle in the reflection on the far side.

Curious, she reached out where the reflection showed that the handle would be, and felt the invisible object.

She pulled, and the entire mirror gently and quietly slid outward like a great door, with hardly any force required.

Sunset was distracted from congratulating herself, that she almost forgot what she was doing in the first place.

In front of her was a secret chamber. The actual Chamber of Secrets, mayhap?

She glanced around, wondering if perhaps she should warn a member of the faculty, before shaking her head. She wasn’t particularly interested in talking with anyone, and she doubted anyone was particularly interested in talking with her.

Drawing her wand, she stepped into the darkness, and closed the door behind her.

She was plunged into the blackest darkness, but she figured that could be a good thing. Any adversary in here would be just as blind unless they had the ability to see in complete darkness, and if cockatrices were on the loose, they would be outright feeble against someone of Sunset’s abilities if they knew to keep their eyes closed.

Sunset sniffed the air for a moment, sensing nothing but stone and dust. No hint of anything alive in here, no bedding, no filth, and no fear or excitement in the air. Nothing like mildew either.

She walked forward, sensing a wall of stone in front of her, and still nothing else.

If there were any monsters in this chamber, it was being very, very discrete.

She gently raised her wand, and shouted, “LUMOS!”

The tip of her wand seemed to explode as if the sun itself was held there. If anything in here relied on sight, and which wasn’t a unicorn with a penchant for fire magic and who had been the personal student of the princess of the sun, it wouldn’t have been able to open its eyes for several minutes.

Instead, Sunset found herself staring at an old stone chamber, empty save for a cave-in right in front of her.

“... Oh,” she muttered to herself, deflating a little.

While it was an interesting find, this would simply not be the secret lair of a legendary archmage.

Still, Sunset aimed her wand at the cave-in, and started guiding the stones back into the ceiling, repairing the damage.

Eventually, this revealed a set of circular stone stairs, leading down into the utter darkness.

Shrugging, Sunset cast the light from her wand onto the stairs, and started to descend.

“Hmm, this must be inside the western wall,” she noted to herself, as walked down and down.

“... And definitely leads underground,” she said, after descending more than four floors.

Eventually, she reached the bottom, which resulted in a stone tunnel on a level grade, just as dark and plain as before.

It wasn’t a scary type of darkness, it was a sterile type of darkness, and Sunset walked on through the plain stone tunnel.

Although she was naturally curious about this find, the novelty was wearing off quite rapidly, walking through the featureless dark.

Just as she started playing with the idea that the tunnel was playing some trick on her and she wasn’t making any progress, she reached a smoothened cliff wall. Apparently she had reached the end of the passage.

She put her hand on the wall, and as she expected, it slid outwards, just like the mirror had, and she found herself staring at the green mountains around Hogwarts, wet from the rain, with the castle in question in the distance, and the village of Hogsmeade down a couple of slopes.

The door was a part of a bare cliff wall, and gently slid shut behind her, leaving a small handle-like shape in the rock for those who knew where to look.

Sunset nodded to herself. “Okay. Slightly interesting find,” she said. It wasn’t that useful to know who knows teleportation, but it might still come in useful one day.

With a flash of light, she was gone, back at Hogwarts.

—

Sunset’s want to socialize with her classmates had never been very strong, and it had been even weaker since yesterday, so she remained unaware that her house was celebrating their victory in the quidditch match in the common room as she continued her inspection of the castle.

By the time the sun had started to set, she was outside, walking along the walls with her hand on the stones, when she spotted Malfoy trudging out through the doors, angrily kicking some pebbles and not noticing her.

Sunset could empathize, and she slipped around a corner so as to not bother him, and continued with her work there.

Draco, however, had decided to move towards where Sunset was, and she heard him carefully walking up behind her.

“Hello, Draco,” she said, not turning to look at him.

“How did you know it was me?” he said, sounding a little surprised.

“I know everything,” Sunset answered, ominously, before turning around and facing him with a slightly amused expression. “You’re also the only one in our year who wears cologne.”

“Oh,” Draco said, glancing down at his robes and surreptitiously giving them a whiff.

“So what’s eating you?” Sunset asked, while a part of her wondered if one was supposed to be comfortable with having to always be concerned about people if one decided to make friends.

“N… nothing,” Draco muttered.

“That’s good then,” Sunset said, conversationally.

Draco grunted, and muttered, “the match.”

“Didn’t go well?”

“You… didn’t see it?”

“Actually, no,” Sunset said, having turned back to the wall.

“Really?” Draco asked, and strangely enough Sunset thought he sounded a little hopeful.

“No. I was, uhm… busy.”

“With what?” Draco said, intrigued.

“Uh, more research,” Sunset said.

“Like what you’re doing now?”

“Yes- uh, I mean… yeah, I guess,” Sunset said, turned away from the wall and shrugged.

“What are you researching anyway?” Draco said, looking at the plain piece of wall that Sunset had been looking at.

“Just… trying to find the secrets of the castle,” Sunset said.

Draco gave Sunset a long, and strangely neutral look. “Right,” he eventually said, and nodded. “Finding anything?”

“Uh… something. Maybe. Secret passages and such.”

“Really? Where?”

“I said maybe,” Sunset pointed out, looking slightly apologetic. “They’re well-hidden.”

Draco nodded absent-mindedly, and just looked at Sunset while clearly lost in thoughts.

This went on for a few moments, before Sunset started to feel a little weirded out.

“... You okay?” she asked.

This brought Draco back to reality, and he nodded his head. “Uh yeah, uh… I’ll… leave you to it then,” he said, and started turning around.

“Oh, right. Goodbye then,” Sunset said, as Draco walked back towards the great hall, only casting a brief glance at Sunset.

Sunset shook her head and sighed, and realized that the past few weeks, she had started feeling more comfortable about her abilities to socialize like a normal person.

Now, she felt as though she should throw out all her gathered data and start over, or just give up.

—

The next morning, the rumor was very rapidly spreading that Colin Creevey, the first year with the camera, had been attacked during the night as well.

A sense of unease was spreading across the student body, and the teachers similarly were clearly trying to not seem as tense as they actually were.

“Professor McGonagall?” Sunset asked, during transfiguration. “Is Colin Creevey petrified just like Filch’s cat, so he’ll be cured?”

“Yes,” was McGonagall’s short answer, before moving on to the lesson.

It seemed to Sunset that if this kept going for much longer, her default manner of breathing would be slow heaves of rumination, and her default expression would be one of deep pondering.

Potions were, as always, the subject that took the most time to stay ahead of class in, and she was only now approaching the end of the third year’s concoctions. This was of course because she had to find quiet corners of the castle to practice in, and because brewing a potion was a project. However, she did find several ways of more efficiently using the ingredients, as well as other techniques of handling the potions, such as other sitting patterns and alternate temperatures of brewing, which she scribbled in the margins of her book.

Sunset had also saved all her potions and stored them away in her bag when practicing on her own time, and she now worked on sewing little pouches into her cloak, complete with cushioning enchantments to keep them from breaking and spilling, so that she always had a set of possibly useful concoctions ready.

The chances of actually being attacked by someone, or something, which could put you in a magical stasis, and possibly worse, was starting to seem more and more likely. Having a set of potions might not be useful if an attack happens, but it would probably not hurt.

It did prove to be useful when Sunset’s hand was splashed with Swelling Solution from Goyle’s cauldron exploding, and she had a Deflating Draught ready.

“You want some of this?” Sunset asked, holding the potion out to Neville sitting next to her.

“Uh, I think it missed me,” he said, patting himself down for symptoms.

When Snape fished out a piece of firework from Goyle’s cauldron and slowly swept across the classroom with his gaze, Sunset felt strangely impressed.

“Someone likes to live dangerously,” she noted to Neville, just before the bell rang.

Life at Hogwarts gradually changed, along with the weather, over the next week. People tried to not show it, but there was something in the air. The feeling of discomfort that Sunset had been absorbing was back, and stronger than before.

One of the changes that Sunset couldn’t help but be intrigued by was the same thing that every student found interesting, which was a planned dueling club.

Having students aged 10 to 18 engage in mock combat should be an interesting sight if nothing else.

—

I agree with your assessment about petrification. Have you seen examples of petrification from beasts we have in Equestria as well? Or have you read any accounts of them?

Yes, and cockatrices’ petrification are described exactly as the cat’s condition.

What a strange quirk. I can’t think of why that might be

The book was still for a moment, before it continued.

, and Twilight says she doesn’t know either. And you say that there’s a second victim now?

Be careful, Sunset.

I’ll try to be smart instead.

That will do.

Now, what upsets you?

Sunset opened her mouth slightly, before shutting it again.

I’m not upset.

I think you are, even if you don’t realize it.

In that case, I don’t know why.

If you ever want to talk about it, don’t be afraid to contact me.

Okay.

But now, the dueling class is about to start, so I’ll let you go back to Twilight.

Celestia’s next words came slowly, as if she wanted to rush to say something, but wasn’t sure what.

That is good of you to say. I’m happy.

Sunset almost felt happy just from that too, but mostly unsure.

Good, I think. Why?

The book was still for another moment, before the words came again, steadily.

Nothing. Never mind.

I love you, Sunset.

Now go and see what you can learn about combat with wands.

Now it was Sunset’s turn to be still for a moment, before responding as well.

Right.

Love you too.

Sunset closed the book, and sat in her bed in silence for several moments, before rising up and walking down to the Gryffindor common room.

She paused at the precipice of the Fat Lady’s portrait, and leaned against the wall, deep in thought about Celestia’s words.

A cat and a student lay in the hospital wing, petrified, as it was called in this world. It wasn’t a good time to saunter through the hallways absent-mindedly.

After several minutes though, she managed to clear her head, and made her way towards the Great Hall.

Sunset would be lying if she said she wasn’t curious about a wizarding dueling club. She hadn’t yet seen actual human wizarding combat. The only spells used offensively she had seen were jinxes and hexes, subcategories of charms, used by students to annoy each other, making each other slip, covering others with feathers, and things of that nature.

The tables in the hall had been removed, and instead there was a great scene at the far end. Almost the entire student body was facing the scene or milling around to try and find a good spot.

Sunset leaned against the wall next to Fred, George, and Ginny.

“Ginny, Stooge One, Stooge Two,” Sunset said in recognition.

Fred and George opened their mouths, and looked at each other, before shrugging.

“Good one. We got nothing,” Fred said.

“Has anything interesting happened yet?” Sunset asked.

“No. Filch was sweeping the scene just now, but no one else has showed up,” Ginny said.

When Gilderoy Lockhart and Severus Snape walked out on the stage, Ginny’s expression changed to one of concerned disbelief, while Sunset, Fred, and George rolled their eyes and chuckled.

“This ought to be good,” George said.

“Gather round, gather round! Can everyone hear me? Can you all see me? Excellent!” he said, swishing his robe.

Sunset was disappointed. The key to making your robe swish right is to make it swish without making it seem like you’re making it swish.

Lockhart continued. “Now, Professor Dumbledore has granted me permission to start this little Duelling Club…”

“I would’ve loved to see Dumbledore’s expression when he did,” Fred said, under his breath.

“... to train you all up in case you ever need to defend yourselves as I myself have done on countless occasions- for full details, see my published works.

“Let me introduce my assistant, Professor Snape,” he said, holding out a plum-clad arm in the sour-looking Snape’s direction, smiling. Sunset could see herself smiling in Lockhart’s place, but she couldn’t see how Lockhart himself could do so. “He tells me he knows a tiny bit about dueling himself, and has sportingly agreed to help me with a short demonstration before we begin. Now, I don’t want any of you youngsters to worry. You’ll still have your Potions master when I’m through with him, never fear!”

Sunset glanced at Fred and George, and could only guess from the stunned smiles on their faces at what was going through their minds.

Things proceeded as if it was a duel of honor from there, with Snape and Lockhart bowing, sort of in Snape’s case, towards each other, before calmly aiming their wands at each other.

“As you can see…” Lockhart said, and very foolishly if this had been actual combat, turned his head away from Snape to address the crowd. “... we are holding our wands in the accepted combative position. On the count of three, we will cast our first spells. Neither of us will be aiming to kill, of course.”

“Do it, do it, do it,” Fred and George chanted under their breaths, while Ginny silently giggled at them.

“One… two… three…”

Even though Lockhart was the one doing the counting, he had barely started to move when Snape had finished shouting, “Expelliarmus!”

A flash of red light shot from Snape’s wand, and made Lockhart’s wand fly out of his hand, while also knocking him back so hard he flew into the wall behind him, sliding down to the floor.

Fred and George clapped, along with several others.

“It feels wrong, since it’s Snape, but…” George said, and shrugged.

Somehow, Lockhart was smiling when he walked back up on the stage, trying not to show how gingerly he walked.

“Well, there you have it! That was a Disarming Charm- as you can see, I’ve lost my wand. Ah, thank you, Miss Brown. Yes, an excellent idea to show them that, Professor Snape, but if you don’t mind my saying so, it was very obvious what you were about to do. If I had wanted to stop you, it would have been only too easy. However, I felt it would be instructive to let them see…”

Sunset was almost as amused glancing at Fred and George as they struggled for words. Their favorite pastime was making fun of people who took themselves seriously, but this was beyond their capabilities.

“Enough demonstrating! I’m going to come amongst you now and put you all into pairs. Professor Snape, if you’d like to help me…”

Snape had gone off to one end of the hall, while Lockhart was taking the one that Sunset was in.

Fred and George glanced at each other, and then Sunset, before starting to shuffle away from her.

“Ah, Mister and Mister Weasley,” Lockhart said, approvingly. “A mirror match it is then. Interesting. And Miss Shimmer. Let’s see if we can find someone in your own year…”

At Lockhart’s words, people silently started scurrying away like when you lift a stone and uncover a whole society of creepy crawlies who are afraid of the light.

The one who hadn’t been very fast on the uptake was a Slytherin student who was left standing with a metaphorical spotlight on him.

“Ah, Mister Zabini! You and Miss Shimmer will pair up!”

Sunset casually walked over to Blaise, who stared at her with wide eyes.

“Hello,” she said, and after a moment, he managed to nod at her in return.

Blaise kept nervously glancing over his shoulder, towards Malfoy who was giving him a warning look, until he was called over by Snape who wanted to pair him up with Harry.

“Wands at the ready!” Lockhart shouted. “When I count to three, cast your charms to disarm your opponent- only disarm them, we don’t want any accidents.”

A nervous looking Blaise Zabini carefully raised his wand, while Sunset didn’t bother, and just held her wand casually at her side.

Lockhart started counting. “One, two, three.”

It was Armageddon, localized to the dining hall in an old castle somewhere in Scotland.

Hundreds of young witches and wizards, cramped together, were trying to perform hundreds of duels, most of them with poor conduct.

Several students had indeed tried to disarm their opponent, but they quickly joined the one who hadn’t bothered in trying other spells to try and cause some sort of effect.

Friends were knocking each other over, and enemies were flailing at each other and trying to make magic happen the way they wanted, and everything in between.

Throughout it all, Blaise Zabini and Sunset just stood there. Sunset waiting, and Zabini frozen.

“I said disarm only!” Lockhart shouted.

Sunset’s demeanor was keeping Zabini so off guard she had to make sure she wasn’t exuding some sort of threatening aura of pure magic power, which she wasn’t.

“... Well?” she said, loud enough to be overheard from all the other fighting.

Zabini took a deep, rushed breath, and raised his wand.

By now, not the entire hall, but several nearby combatants, had given up trying to properly duel, and waited for a sort of reset from the professors. They now turned to watch Blaise and Sunset.

"E-expelliarmus!" Zabini shouted, and swung his wand.

Sunset was ready for it, and every other spell that second year students knew, and casually swished her wand in a small motion in front of her.

A golden aura could be seen for just a moment in front of Sunset, as Zabini’s red stream of magic impacted into it, taking a fraction of a second to grow brighter.

All sound vanished from the great hall for barely a moment as an ethereal shockwave accompanied the relaunching of the magic projective, which flew back at Zabini, much faster than it had come towards Sunset.

Sunset’s eyes grew wide when she realized what was happening. She had been sure she wouldn’t overdo it, but she also hadn’t had the chance to properly practice with wizarding magic.

The magic hit a shocked Zabini, and launched him clear across the room, towards the door leading out to the central junction of the castle.

Several people were knocked off their feet from the shockwave, and the stage on the other side of the room lifted from the floor for a moment.

Sunset shot out her hand, magically opening the doors to give Zabini more room to zoom across, and lifted a tapestry next to the door to catch him with.

When Zabini was out of danger, Sunset made sure to use her wand, as she floated him back into the room, and placed him, knees shaking, in front of herself.

She tried to assume a casual demeanor as she searched for words. “... That looked like a disarming charm. Well done,” she offered.

Snape and Lockhart were looking over their shoulder, utterly still, and trying to figure out what had happened.

They had apparently missed the most bombastic parts of the spectacle, which Sunset was thankful for, but Sunset still wished she would have done the whole thing differently.

After a moment, Lockhart finished to feebly tend to the lightly injured students, before looking around.

“I think I’d better teach you how to block unfriendly spells,” he said, and scanned the room. “Let’s have a volunteer pair. Longbottom and Finch-Fletchley, how about you?”

Now Snape spoke up. “A bad idea, Professor Lockhart. Longbottom causes devastation with the simplest spells. We’ll be sending what’s left of Finch-Fletchley up to the hospital wing in a matchbox.”

Neville looked down at his feet, and Sunset thought that Snape was lucky she felt that she had enough attention for one day, since this would be a prime opportunity to cast a tarring and feathering spell while making it look like it came from someone else.

“How about Potter and Malfoy?” Snape continued, smiling.

“Excellent idea!” Lockhart said, and gestured them over, as the students made way for them in the middle of the hall.

Snape whispered something to Malfoy, which made him grin excitedly.

Similarly, Lockhart leaned down and whispered instructions to Harry, and dropped his wand during them.

Sunset was getting exhausted just looking at him.

Lockhart backed away, with a big, expectant smile on his face.

“Three, two, one!” he shouted.

Malfoy had started early, and when Lockhart was finished, Malfoy shouted, “Serpensortia!”

Harry took half a step backward with an unsure scowl on his face, as a great snake shot out of Draco’s wand, and landed on the floor, already raised and ready to strike.

The crowd stumbled over itself in an effort to move away from the snake.

“Don’t move, Potter. I’ll get rid of it,” Snape said, in a smug voice.

But before he could do anything, Lockhart stepped up. “Allow me!” he shouted, with a pleased look on his face, and waved his wand at the snake.

It shot up several feet above the heads of the crowd, before landing a little bit aways, once again raised up, and facing Justin Finch-Fletchley, clearly very annoyed, and eager to work out some aggressions.

Sunset raised her hand to cast a shield around Justin, when she realized that there had been a steadily growing, almost otherworldly hissing sound reverberating through the hall.

Everyone else seemed to notice as well, and managed to turn their gazes away from the snake, and noticed that Harry was standing with his hand out, pointing at the snake, and spitting the odd sound out with a strangely commanding tone.

The snake was ready to strike, when Harry let out a short, stern-sounding hiss. It stared at Justin a second longer, and then calmly lay down on the floor, looking patiently at Harry.

The crowd had been absolutely silent, and Sunset shared the sentiment, as she tried to absorb every detail of the episode, when Justin broke the spell.

“What do you think you’re playing at!?” he shouted, then turned and ran out of the hall.

Snape stepped up to the snake and waved his wand, making it vanish with a puff of smoke, before he turned to silently look at Harry, his face utterly impassive.

All around the hall, people started to mutter and whisper, glancing at each other when not staring at Harry. Some of them took a few steps back to put some more distance between themselves and him.

Harry’s gaze was mostly kept by Snape, until he noticed the mumbling around him.

Ron and Hermione quickly walked up to him with long strides, and whispered in his ear, before dragging him out of there.

Every eye in the hall followed them as they turned in the direction of Gryffindor tower.

Sunset did as well, deep in thoughts, before the crowd finally started to move, shuffling out of there while talking amongst themselves.

“Parselmouth,” was the word Sunset heard whispered over and over.

All the attention Sunset had attracted during her own duel was seemingly gone now, which she was grateful for, but what had drawn it away left a very ominous feeling in the air.

Author's Note

This was a hard chapter to get through. A long line of things like obligations, low motivation, and illnesses made the writing start and stop many times. In addition, there was not a lot of room for additional characters to do much during the events of the source material, with scenes that needed to play out.

I might be unavailable during much of next week, so if I don't respond, don't feel ignored.

Cred to Snuffy and ssokolow for feedback

Red On Silver

“People are asking me about you,” Neville said to Sunset in a low voice at lunch.

“Oh yeah?” Sunset said, almost scoffing. “Who?”

“Some older students. Some Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs too. I didn’t tell them anything.”

"Good. Thanks. Be especially careful with the Hufflepuffs. You never know what they’re up to.”

Neville levelled a confused look at Sunset, before shifting it towards the Hufflepuff table.

“Although most people are talking about Harry,” Neville said, quietly enough so only Sunset could hear him.

“Yeah, let’s get people to focus on him instead.”

“Hmm,” Neville muttered, unsure. “I don’t think he likes it either.”

Sunset glanced a few seats down the table, where Harry was flanked protectively by Ron and Hermione. With an annoyed and weary frown, they silenced a group of first year Ravenclaws who had been whispering amongst themselves and pointing at Harry.

“I guess so,” Sunset said. “So being able to speak snake is a bad sign then?”

Neville nodded, both of them being careful not to glance at Harry. “Yeah, supposedly only dark wizards can do it.”

“And he didn’t learn it here, because people would’ve noticed if he sat around with a snake dictionary, and he’s not allowed to study magic where he lives, which means he was born with it?” Sunset asked, to which Neville nodded. “And there are innate abilities which mark you as evil then?”

“Uhm…” Neville said, sounding a little uncomfortable. “Yeah… people see it as that.”

Sunset looked at him. “Do you?”

“Uh… well… no, I guess. I mean, maybe if it was someone in Slytherin, but… it’s Harry.”

“And the rumours that he’s the one petrifying people?”

“Well… we kinda suspect the monster that Professor Binns was talking about, right? Sounds more likely than Harry doing it, don’t you think?”

“All I know is that I’m not the one petrifying people, but as for what I think…”

Sunset stared straight ahead with a pondering scowl as she chewed her food.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione had slipped away one night late last semester and gotten up some pretty adventurous stuff, right under Sunset’s nose. The information on the whole thing was really sparse, but the most consistent rumours were regarding a dark wizard searching for something in the castle.

Harry might indeed have powerful, innate capabilities, which would mesh with the historical fact that the dread Lord Voldemort had become the dead Lord Voldemort (a name which Sunset had found particularly hard to suss out) when he tried to kill Harry.

There was also the possibility that whatever the dark wizard last semester had been looking for had found its way into Harry’s possession, be it a thing or a piece of knowledge, possibly a weapon or somesuch.

After those considerations came the question of motive. Why would Harry walk around and petrify cats and students? Did he perhaps not mean to? Did he unleash dangerous magics around him at random, not being in control of his actions?

Or was it not Harry at all?

“... I really have no idea.”

“Mm,” Neville nodded, sounding sombre.

“By the way, bummed out that the herbology lesson was cancelled?” Sunset asked, glancing up at the enchanted ceiling, which showed the blizzard outside.

“Uh, yeah. A little,” Neville admitted.

Sunset shrugged. “Maybe you could ask Professor Sprout if she wants help with the mandrakes.”

Neville looked sceptical as he searched for words. “Ehm… No.”

“Why not? You get on with her, don’t you?”

“Yeah, but… still no, for the same reason you don’t ask if you can help Professor Flitwick.”

“Touché,” Sunset said, and felt her respect-metre for Neville move ever so slightly, and chewed her food as she considered the last few days’ development.

“... I wonder if being able to talk to snakes includes being able to talk to anguidae,” she said.

“What’s an anguidae?” Neville asked.

“A legless lizard.”

Neville’s eyes shifted around for a moment. “... Wouldn’t that just be a snake?”

“No actually, the same way ferns are not shrubs.”

Neville gave Sunset a long look. “Lavender is right, sometimes you really do seem like a muggleborn. Or just like a muggle.”

“What do you mean?” Sunset asked, curiously. “Do you know what muggles talk about?”

“Uhm… kinda. Professor Marchbanks is friends with my gran and comes over for tea sometimes, and she’s an examiner in the evaluation authority, including Muggle Studies. So she has read tons on muggle topics.”

“Ah. Well, what I wanted to get to is that if Harry can talk to legless lizards that look a lot like snakes, he should be able to speak to all reptiles… A lizard-wizard.”

Neville hanged his head in exhaustion, but Sunset just looked pleased with herself.

After her meal, Sunset took to listlessly wandering the corridors, pondering on the rumours that were building around herself.

On one hoof... hand, she had intended to keep a low profile. On the other hand, gaining some attention might have been bound to happen, and if it were, mysterious might have been one of the better things to be perceived as.

Or… Sunset at least hoped she was perceived as mysterious. The private kind, where people learn that there’s no point in prying.

Speaking of mysteries, there was the whole thing with Harry, and the petrifications, as well. Sunset frowned, and not for the first time, as she considered the whole affair. She had been classmates with Harry for over a year, and she still really had no idea if he could be behind it, no idea what to make of him at all really.

She wondered if that was a shortcoming of hers, and how much she should care if it was.

With ominous timing, she heard Peeves the poltergeist cry out from one floor down, “ATTACK! ATTACK! ANOTHER ATTACK! NO MORTAL OR GHOST IS SAFE! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! ATTAAAACK!”

Sunset turned on the spot and sprinted towards the stairs, her wand drawn, clearing them with one big leap and rounding a corner and aiming her wand straight forward, just as Professor McGonagall rushed out through a door, barely missing Sunset, and followed by her students spilling out right behind her.

“Sunset! Miss Shimmer!” McGonagall yelled, trying to sound stern.

“Yes, professor?” a focused Sunset said, not looking at her, but straight ahead as she rounded another corner with McGonagall right behind her, drawing her own wand.

“Miss Shimmer, you will stay behi–” McGonagall was interrupted by the sight of Nearly Headless Nick, petrified and turned so dark so as to almost no longer be transparent, and Justin, whom Sunset remembered from the Duelling Club, lying on the floor, also petrified, with Harry Potter standing as if ready to fight or flee in the middle of the corridor.

Sunset only had about a second to appraise the scene, before not only McGonagall’s class, but many more students, rounded the corners.

They quickly rushed forward to get a better look at the two petrified individuals, filling the hallway with alarmed chatter and blocking Sunset from examining them up close. Instead she just put her wand away with a slightly frustrated frown.

Before the student body had a chance to stampede, McGonagall let out a loud bang with her wand, which silenced everyone, until a moment later when another Hufflepuff student pointed at Harry with a shaking finger.

“Caught in the act!”

“That will do, Macmillan!” McGonagall said, and ploughed a way through the crowd with her presence as she walked up to Nick and Justin, and made a quick inspection of them.

Professor Flitwick made his way through the crowd from the opposite direction, not having the physical presence to make the students move out of the way ahead of him, and shortly thereafter being joined by Professor Sinistra.

“Minerva?” Flitwick asked, with a sad but grim tone.

McGonagall simply nodded, and they had a quiet conversation, before she drew herself up to her full height.

“All students, classes are cancelled for the rest of the day,” she said. “Return to your dormitories, in groups of three or more. Macmillan, you will assist Professor Sinistra in moving Sir Nicholas to the medical wing.”

The crowd lingered for one more moment, before they started moving away, just as Flitwick started levitating Justin after Ernie and Professor Sinistra.

Sunset made sure she was among the last to leave, trying to get more good looks at the petrified student, and ghost, but learned nothing she didn’t already know, and left Harry and McGonagall standing alone in the corridor.

The terrified scent coming off from Harry left Sunset with an uneasy feeling in her guts. It took a moment before she realised that she wanted to help, with the problem being that she had no idea how.

—

Harry had come back to the common room shortly afterward, and had immediately been flanked by Ron and Hermione, who had sat him down between themselves on a sofa and focused on studying astronomy with him, all three of them looking very busy and not in the mood for questions.

The whole affair with the latest petrification had led to even more people signing up for spending the holidays away from Hogwarts during the holidays.

“Are you staying, Sunset?” Lavender asked, as she packed her suitcase.

“Hm?” Sunset asked, looking at Lavender while lying on her bed, fully clothed.

“Are you staying? You’re not packing.”

“Oh… I don’t know. I guess. Not sure where else t–” she said, before catching herself and shrugging. “I don’t know.”

Lavender looked at Sunset with a worried expression.

“... I… could ask my parents if you could stay with us.”

The hesitancy in Lavender’s voice hinted to Sunset that it might not have been as simple as that, which made her appreciate the gesture a little bit more.

“It’s okay,” Sunset said, giving Lavender an apologetic smile. “But thanks anyway.”

Parvati spoke up instead. “Maybe Neville coul– ah!”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Lavender, who had just thrown a pair of folded socks at Parvati. “I slipped. Can I have those back?”

It was another one of those mysterious, unspoken conversations that Sunset had never gotten the hang off. A lot of mares and fillies back in Canterlot worked the same way.

Whatever they spoke about, Sunset wouldn’t have to care about it tomorrow, and until classes started again.

Putting her book down, Sunset turned over in her bed and did her best to shut the world out, and didn’t realise that she did almost nothing the rest of the day, until she heard Hermione come back into the dorm, and quietly slip into bed.

—

The next morning, Sunset woke up to find that she was alone in the dorm, Hermione having already slipped out.

For some reason, Sunset liked that, but she couldn’t tell exactly why. It wasn’t as if she disliked Hermione. In fact, she often appreciated how Hermione openly tried to attract the teachers’ attention.

Even so, the stillness was rather pleasant, and Sunset rubbed her thumb and index finger together, magically re-igniting the charred logs in the fireplace, and just lying on her side and staring into the fire through an opening in the curtains of her poster bed for a long while.

Eventually, she slipped out of bed and into a cheap pair of slippers she had bought in London, enchanted to be softer and warmer than mundane ones.

She waved her finger again, heating up her nightgown, and staring out the window across the snow-covered castle grounds, listening to the wind whistling outside and enjoying the comforting solitude for a bit longer, before making her way down the stairs.

“Morning, Sunset!” Fred, or possibly George, called from the couch in front of the bigger fireplace in the common room, waving her over.

Sunset shrugged to herself, figuring that at least there was another fireplace here to enjoy, and went over to sit down next to Ginny, who had wrapped herself up in a blanket and drinking hot cocoa with whipped cream in it with her brothers.

“Happy Christmas, Sunset,” Ginny said, looking a little tired.

“Happy Christmas,” Sunset said, sitting down. “Bad night?”

“Eh… I guess so. I’m not sure.”

“That’s what the cocoa is for,” George said, and brought his wand and incanted a spell to warm up a fourth mug that stood on the table before handing it to Sunset. “This was for Percy, but I guess he’s out doing important things.”

“Probably polishing his prefect badge,” Fred added, as Sunset accepted the mug.

“Here we are, trying to be nice, and he doesn’t show up,” George said, and shook his head.

That made Sunset stop herself before taking a zip, and look at the cup.

“... So… there’s no laxative or anything in this, then?”

“No, but that is a wonderful idea. Thank you,” Fred said, sounding solemn and dignified.

“No presents?” Ginny asked Sunset.

“Oh, uh… no, sorry, I forgot,” Sunset said, looking a little sheepish.

“I meant for you,” Ginny clarified, giving Sunset an apologetic smile.

“Oh, uh… no,” Sunset said, and noticed the charred remains of gift wrappings in the corner of the fireplace.

The Weasley siblings were quiet for a moment, as Sunset sipped her cocoa, which she realised had liberal helpings of sugar in it.

“We could ask mum to make you a sweater,” Fred eventually offered, cautiously.

Sunset looked at the burgundy wool affair on the twins, and smiled a little ruefully.

“They do look cozy,” she offered, as tactfully as she could.

“By the way, what’s Ron’s problem?” Fred asked.

“Ron has a problem?” Sunset said.

“Yeah, with you.”

“Uuh… oh. I don’t know,” Sunset said, shrugging. “I guess he took a dim view of something I said, and now he thinks I dislike muggleborns.”

“Do you?” Ginny asked, a little cautiously.

“Nope,” Sunset simply said.

“Oh, so you’re not ordering around the monster either?” George said, smirking.

“No, that would be news to me,” Sunset said.

Ginny withdrew a little into her blanket and sipped her cocoa, giving off an uncomfortable scent that Sunset picked up on.

Sunset couldn’t blame her. There was something irking her as well. She was wrapped in a soft blanket, sipping cocoa in front of a fire, in a tower, with falling snow and low temperatures outside. All should’ve been well in the world, and yet, for some reason, it wasn’t.

“By the way, where are Harry… and Ron and Hermione?” Ginny asked.

“Don’t know. Still in bed?” Fred suggested.

“Hermione was gone when I woke up,” Sunset noted.

“Oh… don’t know then. Not worried that the monster has attacked them, are you?” Fred asked Ginny.

“No,” Ginny simply said, and looked surprised at herself, but no one said anything, so she just continued to stare into the fire.

It was a shame to waste such a nice moment, but something kept irking Sunset, so she thanked the twins, walked up to the dorm and changed into her uniform, taking care to magically heat it up, and checked her book.

Happy Hearth’s Warming, Sunset.

Sunset sat down on her bed, and brought out her pen.

Happy Hearth’s Warming, Princess.

Celestia obviously had her own book ready, because she answered promptly, making Sunset feel even worse to a small degree, as she didn’t feel herself appreciating Celestia being there for her.

How are you, my dear student?

I don’t know. Not very good. I’m not sick or in pain, and as far as I can tell I don’t have any reason to not feel good, but I just don’t.

We all feel that way sometimes, Sunset. Are you feeling shut in, perhaps? Do you need a break from your routine?

Sunset pondered this for a moment.

Maybe. Why do you ask that?

It’s just a hunch. Or maybe I’m speaking from my own experience. It might be worth considering.

Maybe it will. Thank you.

You’re welcome.

Celestia tactfully encouraged Sunset to go about her day, and Sunset figured that Celestia could tell how much Sunset was struggling with idle chit-chat.

She walked out into the corridors of the castle, slipping by the great hall to collect a slice of bread to eat as she sauntered through the halls.

Where did her feeling of discontent come from, she wondered.

One obvious nominee was the attacks that the students had suffered.

Sunset wondered, and not for the first time, how many more incidents would be acceptable before the authorities, this Ministry of Magic she had yet to have any direct dealings with, stepped in.

If their approach were to call in law enforcement or a military force, or whatever was the equivalent among wizards, Sunset would just have to redouble her efforts to not attract attention, which she didn't relish the idea off.

On the other hand, if the school were to be shut down, well… Sunset figured that she could still just make her way in this world, and learn its magic from books instead. However, before she figured that, she felt a fairly strong sense of dislike. She didn't like the idea of the school shutting down.

That trail of thought looped back to the question of why she felt so listless.

What she wanted, really wanted, of course, was to be back in Equestria as an alicorn. But that wasn’t happening yet. She still didn’t know how one becomes an alicorn. And that, she realised, was really taking its toll.

She had seen herself as an alicorn in Celestia’s mirror. She wanted to be an alicorn, and she wanted to be one now. Or rather, she wanted to be done with it.

She wanted…

“Hello, Sunset.”

Sunset jumped, having failed to notice Draco’s cologne, and looked up from the stone tiles to see a smirking Draco Malfoy walking up to her.

“Hello, Draco,” she said, mildly surprised at how steady and normal her voice was. “What’s up?”

Draco’s smile washed away from realising something. “Oh, yeah. Have you seen Crabbe or Goyle?”

Sunset shook her head. “No. Why?”

“They were acting odd. We were just talking, when suddenly they looked at each other and rushed out of the common room.”

“Oh. No, I haven't seen them. Maybe they needed to go to the bathroom?”

Draco nodded, letting out a small sigh. “They probably did,” he said, and rallied. “Anyway, how are you?”

Sunset shrugged. “Not sure. A little down, maybe.”

“Why?” Draco asked, cocking his head slightly.

“I don’t know, I’m trying to figure it out,” she said, and explored her previous trail of thought a little. “I’m just not making a lot of progress.”

“On what?” Draco asked.

“Erm… studying, I guess.”

He gave her an amused smile. “It’s the holidays, you know.”

Sunset opened her mouth, and if she hadn’t felt so listless, she might also have felt like she deserved a slap over the head. “Yeah… I guess it is,” she said, and scoffed at herself in wry amusement. “Maybe I should’ve left too.”

A part of her wondered if Celestia had been shaking her head while she read Sunset’s complaints.

“To do what?” Draco asked.

“I don’t know. Go somewhere or do something else for a change?”

Draco shrugged questioningly. “What’s stopping you?”

Shrugging in turn, Sunset said, “I don’t know. Maybe nothing.”

Draco folded his arms and looked pleased with himself. “I could help you out.”

She looked at him questioningly. “How?”

“I have floo powder with me.”

Giving that some thought, Sunset slowly nodded. “... Ah… Would we get into trouble for leaving? I didn’t sign up on the list of students who would be absent.”

Draco smirked confidently. “My father is on the board of governors.”

Sunset was about to ask him if by that he was implying that no, they would not get into trouble, but realised that the answer was obvious.

She turned her head to look out a window, considering the offer.

Maybe Celestia was right, Sunset thought. Maybe she did need a break from routine. To just shelve everything she would normally ruminate on, go away, for even just half a day, and not worry about it at all for a short time.

Eventually, she just shrugged.

“Yeah… sure. What did you have in mind?”

Draco’s smirk halfway morphed into a more normal smile. “We could go to Diagon Alley.”

Sunset looked outside into the gently falling snow, which reminded her of that snowy day when Filch had caught her coming back from the forest, almost exactly a year ago now.

She wondered if it was wise to break rules once again, and immediately reminded herself that she was Sunset Shimmer. She can avoid trouble, and when she doesn’t avoid it, she gets herself out of it.

Besides, if Draco’s father sat on the board…

“... Sure,” Sunset said. “Where’s a good fireplace?”

Draco’s eyes lit up, and he immediately started talking very quickly. “We shouldn’t do it in a common room. There’s a storage room on the third floor with a fireplace in it.”

“Oh yeah,” Sunset said, having remembered seeing that at some point.

“You go there, I’ll be back really quickly with some floo powder!” Draco said, turned around, and ran down the hallway.

Sunset gently sauntered back to Gryffindor tower, collected her bag, and shoved her muggle-appropriate jacket into it, before making her way to the third floor.

She was getting pretty good at avoiding people when the school was operating normally. Now though, she didn’t see a soul. Not even a ghost floated past, and Sunset figured that they might be having another party, just like Nick had thrown together, only this time for the holiday.

Pushing open the door, Sunset stepped into the room, which was filled with old chairs, desks, cabinets, and other things of that kind, stacked along the walls and in the centre.

Luckily, the fireplace was not blocked, meaning there would be no trace of people in the thick dust of the room. Sunset had put a spell on her boots to keep them from leaving tracks, just in case, and hoped that Draco had thought of the same.

It turned out that he did not, as Sunset learned less than a minute later, when a slightly panting Draco stepped into the room with a green velvet bag in his hand.

“I, hah, left a note for Crabbe and, hah, Goyle. If anyone asks, they’re gonna say that we’re still in the castle somewhere.”

Sunset nodded. “Good thinking.”

“Shall we?” Draco said, and held out his arm invitingly to Sunset, and handed her a pinch of the magical ash.

She stepped into the fireplace, and said, “The Leaky Cauldron,” as she dropped the ashes.

After a short moment of magical travel, Sunset stepped out of the fireplace at The Leaky Cauldron, and could’ve sworn she felt a faint, extrasensory chant about green flames.

As she was taking in the sight, Draco stepped out behind her.

The Leaky Cauldron was as it usually was. Dark, dingy, but in a very cozy way, lit by candles and oil lamps, and of course fireplaces, where dark, hooded figures huddle around and gossip about… whatever it is dark, hooded figures gossip about.

Tom the innkeeper surreptitiously scurried up to them, cleaning a dirty mug with a rag as he did.

“Why, Miss Shimma, ‘n young masta’ Malfoy,” he said. “Passing through, or can I get ye sumthin?”

Sunset was about to answer, when she noticed Draco holding out his hand invitingly.

“I’ll let you decide,” he said.

Sunset shrugged. “Sure. Do you have some sort of pie ready, Tom?”

“Aye, blueberry.”

“A blueberry pie then, thank you.”

They took a seat in a far corner, while the hard, hooded figures followed them with their gazes in a slightly sinister manner. Sunset didn’t care though, as those garments were obviously made for looking sinister in corners of dark taverns, made for showing off. Besides, her nose told her that several of them were enjoying a blueberry pie of their own, and if there’s anything that Sunset was less afraid of than fashion victims, it was fashion victims eating blueberry pies.

Sunset Shimmer was good at many things, but initiating smalltalk was not something she had that much experience in, and so she simply made herself comfortable on the wooden bench.

Draco, on the other hand, kept smirking and glancing at her.

“So… how has the year been treating you, Sunset?”

Sunset’s brow creased as she pondered this.

She liked learning human style magic, with wands, and she had to admit that there were some nice people at Hogwarts. Neville was not such an intruding presence, Flitwick was a bit more inquisitive, though still very supportive, and Sunset had to admit that Fred and George could be quite entertaining, as could Parvati and Lavender, if perhaps not as intentionally.

So far however, this second year, there had been a sour taste mixed in. She was frustrated with her lack of progress on her grand quest lately. Not to mention, the scent of terror from the students had been permeating the castle endlessly for months now, and was definitely affecting her as well.

Also, students had been attacked. That was bad too.

Sunset had never been one for marking territory, but she was all for giving anything muscling in on her castle a piece of her mind, which was quite the event when given by a unicorn archmage.

“Eh… so-so,” she said. “How about you?”

Tom arrived, and quietly presented them with two plates with half a pie on each.

Sunset started eating immediately, preferring that to talking.

“Quite good. It’s been an exciting year, don’t you think?” Draco said, taking a piece of pie into his own mouth.

“I guess.”

After a moment, Draco noted, “you don’t seem entirely pleased about something.”

“Yeah,” Sunset muttered. “... I haven’t made the progress in my… research that I was hoping for.”

Sunset glanced up from her meal and saw that Draco was smirking while looking at her.

She wasn’t a fine-tuned social sensor, able to discern minute detail in tone and faces, nor did she care to- That was Cadence’s field, but she felt like that smirk wasn’t a demeaning or malevolent one.

They ate in silence for a moment, before a still smiling Draco spoke.

“I hope you make some progress. Maybe I can help?”

Sunset looked up, mildly surprised with herself. She hadn’t even considered whether or not a wizard could help her.

She didn’t think one could, but there was also nothing written about alicorns. In Equestria, the books that dealt with alicorns were second hoof, third hoof, and even fourth hoof accounts on Princess Celestia, with the occasional, fussy passage or reference to other alicorns, or perhaps even just one single other alicorn long, long ago.

Sunset had reminded herself many, many times of what she had seen, in two separate magic mirrors, and what Celestia had said to her, because she really was in uncharted territory with her grand mission.

The sheer amount of theories, hypotheses, and mere hunches on the subject she had considered was staggering to herself when she thought back on it, but while their books had not yielded any fruit, looking into what human wizards- other human wizards, could do, for her, wasn’t something she had considered.

If she did look into it though, perhaps Draco wouldn’t be the best choice of wizard.

“Maybe,” she offered, tactfully, and just as she was about to take another bite, a slight chime was heard from her bag.

“What’s that?” Draco asked, stretching to look at the bag laying beside Sunset on her wooden bench.

Sunset gave her bag a look, thinking to herself, and realised why she had been feeling so down lately.

She hadn’t spoken to anyone about herself for the better part of two years. Always having her guard up, always watching her words, always keeping her head down.

Now, she was tired.

She knew she should've made some excuse. She knew it was folly to let someone see so much, but right now, she couldn’t bring herself to care.

She sighed, and brought Celestia’s book out.

Draco looked at the glowing book with interest, which only deepened when he saw the words forming themselves on the page.

Hello again, Sunset.

Yes, I’m writing again. I don't know when you will read this, but I hope you are feeling better.

Before Celestia could continue, Sunset set her pen to the page.

Hello, Celestia.

I’m reading it right now. And I’ve made an attempt to feel better, but we’ll see how it goes. Thanks for checking in on me.

I’m glad to hear that. Let me guess: You are not alone.

Sunset’s mouth fell open slightly, as she stared at the page. She could practically feel Celestia’s smirk through the pages

“What is that?” Draco asked. “Is it writing itself? Those aren’t letters.”

“They are, just different ones,” Sunset said, happy to have more confirmation that people here couldn’t read Modern Equestrian, as she thought about what to write.

I know where you keep your stash of cookies.

Sunset immediately shut the book, and put it back into her bag as she stood up. “Shall we?”

Draco dropped the subject of the book that apparently writes itself, and stood up as well.

As they walked over to the counter, Sunset brought out a silver sickle out of her bag, but Draco stepped up first, and with strangely sweeping motions, brought out two of his own while standing on the platform in front of the bar, which made him seem taller.

He smiled confidently at Sunset, and gestured invitingly to the back door.

Fighting back an amused smile, Sunset walked out to the entrance to Diagon Alley, Draco following behind her, until he stepped up to the brick wall and opened it with his wand, to once again invite her to step in first.

Both The Leaky Cauldron’s backlot, and Diagon Alley, were covered in snow, grey, slushy, and thoroughly stirred on the ground, and mostly white and undisturbed on other surfaces.

Cloak- and fur clad Wizards and witches were milling around, alone or in groups, in much higher spirits than at Hogwarts, talking about their plans for the evening, or just the gossip of the day.

Draco started walking with long, confident steps through the alley, swishing his cloak around him and mostly masking the oddly excited scent he was giving off.

“So, where would you like to go first?” he asked.

Sunset slowed down as she considered this. There was only one thing she knew she wanted, and that was not something that was available for purchase.

Of lesser importance were more potion supplies, but going by the recipes from her books, she was at the end of what she could do with affordable reagents.

“Not sure. Maybe I’m just happy to get out for a bit.”

“Do you want to look at quidditch supplies?”

Sunset was fine with that, and opened her mouth to ask if Draco wanted to look at quidditch supplies, and foresaw a line of questions where Draco responded that he’d do what she wanted, and an awkward back-and-forth about who is willing to do what for whom.

That reminded Sunset of Cadence, and she simply shrugged and nodded while fighting back the urge to gag.

They entered the quidditch store, which like all wizarding interiors Sunset had seen except for Hogwarts, was candle-lit and covered in wood-panelling, which Sunset found to be an amusing contrast with muggle sports stores.

It turns out that, unlike what Sunset had worried slightly about, Draco did not seem to want to draw a bunch of attention to themselves. Sunset had noticed many patterns when it came to rich people, but she had never quite managed to decode their minds.

“What’s your favourite team?” Draco asked, as he lazily sifted through quidditch gloves.

“I don’t really know any teams. I barely know anything about quidditch,” Sunset said, reading the label on a wax jar.

Thankfully, Draco didn’t push her to pick a favourite, and instead just said, “mm, mine is Pride of Portree. Father is a big sponsor of them as well.”

Sunset just nodded, and they continued their browsing in silence.

After a while, the tension was clearly growing. Draco wanted something, and Sunset couldn’t tell if she was the one who needed to do or say… whatever it was that needed to be said, or if it was Draco himself.

He kept glancing at her, but then looked away and seemed to focus on the quidditch products.

“Can I help you, sir, miss?” a store clerk suddenly said, standing to their side.

Draco looked slightly peeved for just a moment, before Sunset spoke up in an even voice. “Nothing for me, thank you. I’m just browsing.”

When the clerk looked at Draco, he just shook his head, and turned back to the wares.

After a while, Draco nodded towards the door, and they exited in silence.

“So what do you think about what’s been happening in school?” Draco asked, as they slowly sauntered through the snow.

“With the attacks, you mean?” Sunset said.

“Uhm, yes… a-and in general,”

“It’s got everyone frightened,” Sunset said, forgetting to keep the small but noticeable amount of vitriol out of her voice, as by now she was mightily tired of the scent of worry and terror emanating from her fellow students, but took a moment to steady herself. “I guess I can’t blame anyone.”

“You’re not frightened though.”

“No, not really. You don’t seem frightened either.”

“I’m not. Then again, we’re both pureblood,” Draco pointed out.

“That’s true…” Sunset said, and looked through the window of a petstore, unsure where to go from there.

Draco scoffed. “And some say that Harry Potter is the one behind it all.”

“Mm, that doesn’t sound very likely to me either.”

Sunset could practically feel Draco tensing up for a moment, before he stepped forward, and asked, in a low voice, “who do you think it is?”

Sunset shook her head. “No idea.”

Draco stepped back again slightly, and they continued down the alley. “You’d think all the mu… muggleborns would have been sent home or left by now.”

“That might be safest,” Sunset agreed. “Maybe that’s what whoever is doing it wants. No one has died yet.”

Draco nodded, and kept looking at Sunset as they walked. “No one has, has they. That’d still be good though, them all leaving.”

Sunset raised her eyebrow as she glanced at Draco. “You’re really against muggleborns being taught at Hogwarts, aren’t you?”

He seemed to falter for a moment, before drawing himself up to a regal posture, or at least an attempted regal posture.

“I think it would be best for wizards and muggles to stay separate.”

“Right, and I guess almost every witch and wizard agrees with you, considering the whole statute of secrecy, but that leaves the question of muggleborn witches and wizards,” Sunset said, in a conversational tone.

“What about them?”

“You’re not in support of muggleborn witches and wizards being taught at Hogwarts. If they’re not, it’s either: teach them somewhere else, or not teach them at all, and since muggleborns still display magic even when not trained, that’d lead to constant breaches to the statute of secrecy.”

Draco gave Sunset a long look as he searched for words.

“... So what do you think?”

That almost caught Sunset off guard, but only almost.

If she were really honest, she felt that something was flawed about the wizarding society. It was hard to tell how serious that flaw was, but it felt like it was deep.

She suspected it might’ve been, or come from, a lack of vision. Wizards and witches existed, and nothing; no one and no force of any kind, were in a position to say that they should not, but was that all they did? Just… be? It almost felt like it. They hid away in their ancient enclaves and studied old, old magics, with some leisure activity and the occasional interfamilial drama, and of course wars, every now and then.

Sunset figured that perhaps she was biassed, being a pony of Equestria, and therefore being born with Harmony as an eternal guide, which encouraged ponies to pursue thoughtful benevolence in all aspects of life.

The wizarding society seemed to lack anything like this, and not only that, but did not even bother pursuing any meaning or vision.

Sunset scratched her ear as she considered Draco’s question. Something, some… half-forgotten lesson, told her that this was not the time to say what she had just been thinking to Draco, and instead shrugged.

“... I’m a sort of outsider myself. Could I really demand that this other kind of outsider be treated differently, but not me?”

“Yes you can,” Draco insisted a little too quickly, before internally stumbling. “You… You’re a pureblood. You… you’d be welcome among my family, I know that.”

That made Sunset pause. That was quite the thing to say, for nobility.

… Actual nobility that is, rather than someone like Sunset; a lost scion in a sea of lost scions.

“... Thank you.”

Fighting to not show relief on his face, Draco smiled.

“Is that it though?” Sunset asked, as they kept walking. “I’m welcomed because I’m vouched for?”

“Uh, well… yes?” Draco said, sounding uncertain.

Sunset just nodded in understanding. That was indeed how the nobility worked in her experience.

“Mmm… So where do you want to go next?”

Draco was looking off to the side, where the face of Garrick Ollivander could be seen smiling at them.

“I think we’re invited somewhere.”

Draco and Sunset looked at Ollivander for a moment, before stepping in through the door to his shop, Sunset surreptitiously pulling out a few hairs from her head.

The elderly wand-maker hurried up to them through the cramped interior.

“Aah, young Mister Malfoy, hawthorn and unicorn hair, ten inches, and of course…”

He reached Sunset, and carefully held out a hand, a gesture which Sunset reciprocated, and gently took hers in his own, and bowed down, relaxing for several seconds.

“... My lady. You warm my heart with your presence,” he whispered. “The results… Powerful, lively, even wild, and yet… such control. Among my very finest. I thank you again for such an opportunity, Lady Shimmer.”

“You’re very welcome,” Sunset said, smiling at him.

His face seemed to light even more, and his eyes widened when she opened her hand, and unseen by Draco, offered more hair to Ollivander.

“My… my lady… I… you honour me.”

Sunset just gently pushed the offering into his hand, and he swelled with pride.

Draco, having watched the exchange without any context, stood with confusion written all over his face.

He leaned in to try and get a look at what Ollivander and Sunset were exchanging.

“What’s that?”

The wandmaker suddenly turned to Draco, and studied him as if seeing him for the first time.

“... I see…” he said to… someone, possibly himself, in a low voice.

He snapped his fingers with his free hand, and the magical, self-measuring measuring tape, which Sunset had been momentarily beset by a year and a half ago now, floated up to measure Draco as Ollivander paced around him, inspecting his features closely, leaning in to inspect his neck and forehead, and mumbling to himself.

“... I see, I see, I see. Of course, and the change, and…” Ollivander chuckled to himself as he inspected the confused Draco. “Almost like a… yes. How… interesting.”

Draco had given up his attempt at overly dignified bearing, and just stood there, confused by the whole event.

“What is?” he asked.

Ollivander stepped in front of him, and gave him a scrutinising look. “... But would it not be…?” he said, stopped, and then pulled himself up to give Draco a much more ordinary look. “Young mister Malfoy,” he said, suddenly outright colloquially. “Would you agree to lend me your wand for a moment?”

Draco had almost pulled it out from underneath his robes when he looked up at Ollivander again. “What do you need it for?” he asked, but something made him pull it out and offer it regardless.

With a smooth, sweeping motion, Ollivander turned on the spot, his cloak swishing as he did so, and taking Draco’s wand out of his hand.

“For your wand’s sake,” he said, as he glided into the back of the store.

Draco looked at Sunset for some sort of reassurance, but Sunset, for some reason she couldn’t quite put her hoof on herself, didn’t feel suspicious at all. In fact, it was all somewhat amusing, so she simply shrugged.

Draco looked as if part of him wanted to storm after Ollivander and demand something from him, but a far greater part was very unsure of what to do, so he just carefully leaned over the counter, trying to see what was happening.

They could hear Ollivander mumble to himself between the tapping of wood on wood, like lightly striking sticks, or as it were, wands, against various surfaces on various points.

A slightly wide-eyed Draco turned to Sunset.

“What is he doing?” he whispered.

Sunset just smiled as she shrugged, and waved his concerns away.

Before Draco could ask again, Ollivander came gliding back out into the store.

“Here we are,” he said, and presented Draco’s wand to him.

Wary, Draco took the wand again, and held it tight this time.

“What did you do?” he asked, barely holding back an accusatory tone.

Ollivander drew himself up to his full height and eyed Draco critically, nodding slightly to himself.

“Something that will aid you, if you let it.”

Draco eyed his wand, and felt its weight and texture.

“This… is my wand,” he said.

Ollivander nodded. “Hawthorn. Ten inches. Pliable… Unicorn hair.”

Sunset opened her magical senses, and felt her own signature in Draco’s wand.

She frowned a little as she considered this, but couldn't think of anything about the idea that would be detrimental to herself, so she simply nodded slowly.

“And My Lady’s wand is to her liking?” Ollivander said, turning to Sunset.

She nodded, and brought out the polished and gleaming wand, and held it up to eye level.

Ollivander nodded as he looked at the wand. “Wonderful. Wonderful. Good. Excellent. One could hardly hope for a better connection… unsurprisingly,” he noted, with some humour in his voice, and turned his eyes towards Sunset. “There are no improvements to be made here.”

“Then I suppose we should get moving,” Sunset said.

Ollivander smiled, and held the door open for them. “It has been my pleasure.”

Sunset nodded at him as they exited the store, and she and Draco set out to walk along the avenue again.

Draco still held his wand in his hand, and looked at it curiously.

“What happened back there?” he asked.

Sunset just shrugged. “Who knows? He’s not exactly the most forthcoming figure there is.”

“But you seemed to know what was happening.”

Sunset shook her head. She knew one thing which was happening, but she kept that to herself. “Not really. I just tried not looking confused.”

Draco shook his head, and put his wand away. “But what was that you gave him? And why did he like you so much?”

Sunset waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, just some materials from home I happened to have lying around. It’s common where I’m from, but he still appreciates it. And… well, when I first met him he said I reminded him of something, or someone. I didn’t ask him more than that.”

As he walked, Draco looked at Sunset for a long while.

“... I thought you…” he said, and trailed off.

“You thought what?”

“Uh, that you… actually, nevermind,” he said, and stared ahead. “So… you… like muggles then?”

Sunset shrugged. She knew Draco didn’t like muggles. She didn’t know exactly why, but it was clear that he didn’t like them. She could pander to him, she could challenge him, or she could simply give him the truth.

“I don’t know. I’ve met, like, two muggles I think. That’s not really enough to form an opinion.”

Draco tried masking a sigh of relief. “I see.”

“They were okay though. And muggles have some good entertainment.”

“Do they?” Draco asked, sceptically.

“Yeah. Wanna see?”

Draco looked at Sunset as if she was going to pull out something entertaining from her robe. “Where?”

Nodding towards the Leaky Cauldron, Sunset said, “Right over there.”

He gave her a confused look, and she held back an amused chuckle. “I’ll show you.”

They walked back through the wall to the backlot of the inn, through the dining hall, and out the doors to the mundane, muggle-populated London.

Draco looked back and forth, his eyes scanning the streets up and down.

“How many muggles are there in this city?” he asked, sceptically, and looking a little uncomfortable. “There must be thousands.”

Sunset had barely spent eighteen moons in this world, and already she was surprised at Draco’s knowledge, or lack of knowledge, of his world. “Quite a few thousand,” she said, and started walking down the street.

“Where are we going?” Draco asked, hurrying after her through the snow.

“I saw a cinema this way.”

“What’s a cinema?”

“It’s a… theatre-like arrangement, where you play back recordings of images, kinda like the pictures in the newspaper, or Lockhart’s books, but with sound.”

“How?” Draco asked, incredulous.

“Oh uh… you capture a series of images onto a sort of film in the shape of a reel, and project them onto a large screen,” Sunset explained.

“And that’s what muggles do for fun?” Draco said, stumbling over a lump of snow.

“Not just muggles. There were cinemas where I’m from too, and there were no muggles there.”

“No muggles?” Draco immediately asked.

“Nope,” Sunset confirmed.

“... Really?”

“Really. No one who can’t do magic in some form, and being magical is the default way of existing and I don’t know of any exceptions.”

“... Must’ve been nice,” Draco noted.

Sunset gave Draco a sideways look. “... What would quidditch be like if Pride of Portree was the only team there is?”

Draco looked confused. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Oh nothing. It’s just something to think about.”

Draco searched for something to say, when he suddenly stopped, and looked around.

“Who is that singing?”

Sunset looked at the record store they were standing next to, with music coming from the door that was held partially open by a doorstop.

“In there,” she said.

Draco narrowed his eyes and peered in through the glass.

“♪… they’ve got rivers of gold,

but the wind goes right through you, it’s no place for the old

When you first took my hand on a cold Christmas Eve,

you promised me Broadway was waiting for me♫

“... I can’t see anyone singing.”

Sunset, who had been enjoying the song, said, “They have speakers in the ceiling.”

Draco turned to Sunset. “Why do they have that? How can muggles have that?”

Sunset shrugged. “They’re not magical, they’re machines.”

Draco stared, sceptical, through the window of the store for a few more moments, before moving on.

They moved on through some small streets of London, with several people they passed turning around and looking at them.

After a few more moments of walking, they reached the place that Sunset had in mind. Muggles were standing around, talking to each other and being sociable. Through a pair of double doors, a line was formed in front of a booth, where some bored people were selling tickets.

“This is what I was curious about, and these would be the feature showings,” she said, indicating the wall of posters.

Draco looked around himself, uncomfortable with the strange looks people were giving them, until he spotted one poster.

“This looks like the doorknob to the rear entrance of the west wing of our mansion,” Draco said, pointing at a poster with a very evil-looking stone carving of a face. “What’s it about?”

The title was a simple one, and Sunset had heard the name before, but had to wrack her brain before remembering the entry for it in her muggle encyclopaedia. “Oh, right. It’s a story about a vampire.”

Draco looked taken aback. “These people don’t know about vampires,” he said, drawing some strange look from people standing around outside the entrance.

“The ones who made this production do,” Sunset noted.

Draco looked at the poster, clearly curious, when a man standing next to them turned to face Draco.

“‘ere, you two from a theatre group then?”

Draco turned to the man, surprised, before his face contorted in annoyance. “I’m not a thespian, cretin! I’m an aristocrat!”

The man recoiled slightly, before he turned to Sunset instead. “Is tha’ method acting?”

Sunset shook her head. “No, but… think of it as if it were.”

The man nodded in understanding. “Roight, gotcha. Oi know a moon cadet when Oi sees one,” he said, and moved on with his friends.

“What did he mean by that?” Draco asked Sunset.

“Don’t worry. Think of it as a compliment.”

“... Right. Well, what do we do now?”

Waving her finger inside her cloak, Sunset weaved a simple illusion to make the two of them uninteresting to the muggles around them. “We go in and watch the movie,” she said, looking at the time tables. “We’re just in time.”

She led them past a sparse collection of muggles in winter clothes, and attendants of the cinema, towards the correct showing, magicing a container of popcorns into her hand as she did.

Inside the dark room, Sunset had to strengthen the illusion when Draco loudly asked, “Is that it?” regarding the silver screen on the far end.

“Yep. C’mon,” Sunset said, and led them up to some empty seat far up in the theatre.

They sat down, and Sunset surreptitiously weaved a temporary silencing spell around them, preventing anyone from hearing what they said.

“... Is anything supposed to happen?” Draco asked, impatiently.

“Yeah yeah,” Sunset said, placatingly, keeping her eyes on the screen. “It’s about to start.”

A soft, dark, oppressive rhythm rang through the theatre, and a large, exotic building, wreathed in smoke emanating from around it, appeared on the screen, before the symbol from the top of the building fell upon rocks, smashing it to bits.

Draco’s eyes widened, and he glanced at Sunset for some sort of confirmation that this impossibility was actually real, but Sunset was looking straight ahead, already soaking in what was happening.

Then a silken voice told the gathered onlookers what was happening.

“The year: Fourteenhundred and sixty two; Constantinople had fallen…”

“Is he the vampire?”

“Uh… don’t know yet,” Sunset mumbled.

They couldn’t discern any vampires yet. A prince kissed his bride goodbye, exited the holy place they were in, to be greeted by a cheering army, and the oppressing, tense music already reached a crescendo as a blood red night sky outlined the silhouettes of battle quickly devolving into a massacre.

Sunset felt it was a good thing it was mostly abstract, because she could practically hear Draco tensing up in his seat, his eyes in terror and gripping the arms of his seat until his already pale knuckles were completely white.

Sunset, meanwhile, hadn’t looked away for a minute, munching popcorns as the prince wept over the death of his bride that happened in his absence.

The holy man apparently said completely the wrong thing, and the prince raged.

“Aceasta este recompensa mea pentru apărarea bisericii lui Dumnezeu!?”

“Nu întoarce spatele lui Hristos!”

“Voi învia din propria mea moarte și voi răzbuna pe a ei cu toate puterile întunericului!”

Sunset read the translation on the bottom of the screen, and a delighted shiver ran down her spine. “Oooh…”

“This isn’t real, is it?” Draco nervously asked, as torrents of blood poured from the statues and candles of the temple.

Sunset slowly shook her head, eyes glued to the screen.

She thought that perhaps it spoke to her because she was a unicorn of Equestria. It hadn’t happened for a long time, but her people had met their share of dark lords.

Dracula was undead, and the civilizational memory of the undead, true undead, still haunted Equestria.

The subject of blood, however, piqued her curiosity.

Sunset kept munching on her popcorn as the movie progressed, with Draco tensing up any time something interesting happened.

The story moved to London, almost a hundred years before the time that Sunset and Draco were sitting there. Sunset thought it looked familiar. Draco didn’t notice the difference at all.

The presence of the undead vampire prince twisted the environment around him. It became the opposite of Sunset’s homeland. The environment dimmed, shadows grew long, the beasts became restless and violent, and a general malaise settled upon the land.

Sunset remembered the book she had read at Hogwarts, which told her that a unicorn’s blood curses the drinker.

The tradition of clothes was something Sunset had picked up on quickly, and when a recent vampire victim squirmed in her bed, she got a further hint of what would happen if she didn’t follow that tradition. Draco absolutely radiated an embarrassed heat at the sight of just a little skin. Sunset still didn’t understand what the big deal was, but humans apparently did.

It was several moments after Dracula had arrived in London, when the movie had lost some tension, when Draco managed to speak again. “V-vampires can’t do that, can they?”

Sunset only just managed to hold back a small laugh, as right now he reminded her of Neville.

“Don’t know,” she noted. “We have people who feed on blood where I’m from, but I’ve never met an undead one.”

Draco nodded, and tried steeling himself.

“He can appear as mist, as vapour.”

“Ooh, good idea,” Sunset mumbled to herself.

Both the dark prince, and his main hunter, was enthralling Sunset with their performances, and as the blood flowed like violent rivers, Sunset’s looked on in fascination, before she realised that Draco looked like he was about to faint.

“Too much for you?” she asked.

Draco tried and failed to look affronted, or defiant, or something. “N-no!” he insisted.

When Sunset held out the popcorn basket to him, he wordlessly declined.

Sunset couldn’t help but let out a short, “whoa,” to herself, as the vampire hunter carried the three decapitated heads of his enemy’s monstrous servant in his hands, and wondered if there were similar scenes when monsters were fought back home.

After the tale had concluded, Sunset walked out of the cinema with a slightly shaking Draco, who was eager to get back out into the sunlight again.

Sunset was quietly thinking to herself about the similarities between vampires, as depicted on this world, and Celestia, and wondered if there were any similarities, and if Celestia’s mere presence had an effect opposite to that of the ancient vampire lord.

“Well that was fun. Should we head back to school?” she asked.

“What!? Oh! Uh, yes… N-no, uhm… I was thinking that uhm… you might want to have dinner… at my home?”

Sunset surprised herself by not instinctively scrambling for excuses to decline.

Perhaps it was because Sunset hadn’t really spent much time with anyone for weeks. She talked a fair bit with Neville, and sometimes with Lavender and Parvati, but mostly in the dorms. Something kept people from talking with her, and Sunset wondered if it was the quiet ire that Ron had levelled at her, or if she had finally pushed people away.

Was she, Sunset Shimmer… lonely?

She strongly hoped not, but besides that, Draco was nobility, and the nobility likes to flaunt, often through magnanimousness and grace. To deny them a chance to do so could lead to such headaches, and Celestia wasn’t around to shield Sunset from that.

“Oh you are under no obligation to entertain me.”

“Uh… well, no but… I’m offering anyway.”

“In that case, thank you.”

There were a few moments of disbelieving joy on Draco’s face before he managed to get it under control, and instead looked pleased and dignified.

“Let’s go then.”

They walked back through the snow to The Leaky Cauldron, and Draco stepped through the fireplace first in order to show Sunset where they were meant to go.

Sunset followed Draco into the fireplace with a pinch of floo powder in her hands, and said, “Malfoy Manor!”

The green flames engulfed her, and she stepped out into the spacious vestibule of what was obviously a mansion.

Draco was standing a little to her side, looking gracious. “Welcome to my home,” he said.

“Thank you,” Sunset said, looking around.

The floor was polished marble covered in red and purple carpets, with a staircase leading up to an alcove which, just like the ground floor, had several doors leading into different wings of the building.

The walls were richly decorated, and lined with things like a finely crafted grandfather clock, paintings which were currently unoccupied or just depicting landscapes or other manors, and very old shields and swords.

The windows were largely covered by thick, expensive looking drapes, and the panes themselves were covered in frost, so that the daylight spilling in was very muted. The effect was further amplified by the fact that most of the material, such as the walls and railing, were woods like cherry and ebony, which ate a lot of the sunlight.

Sunset also noticed that, while old and expensive beyond anything she had seen on this world, except for Hogwarts, the old toughening enchantments on the objects were by now rather weak, and couldn’t keep the surfaces quite as pristine anymore.

Her attention shifted from the environment to a small, strange creature scurrying up towards them from behind the stairs. It was of the same general configuration as humans, with a face and the same number of limbs with fingers and toes on the end, but that was where the similarities ended.

For starters, it only barely reached her waist. Other than that, Sunset thought it looked like a mix between a bat and a tarsier. Oversized ears and enormous eyes, as well as looking slightly emaciated.

Walking around without clothes wasn’t something Sunset, a unicorn, normally raised her eyebrows at, but the creature was dressed in a pillowcase, with holes for the arms and head.

“Young Master!” it, or rather he, said in a squeaky voice, and Sunset felt he was trying to hide how nervous he was at this surprise, giving Sunset a fearful look before he turned to Draco again. “Young Master is home again, and with a guest.”

“Of course I’m home!” Draco barked at the small creature. “Now go–” Draco stopped himself and cast a very minute glance at Sunset “... go and tell father that we have a guest, Dobby.”

“Oh yes, sir! Dobby goes, sir!” the apparent Dobby said, sounding relieved, as he bowed and scurried off. “Master will be so pleased! Finally meeting his gue–”

Dobby stopped himself, and threw Draco and Sunset a scared look, before ducking into the room he was heading for.

Draco tensed up, and fought back a blush, before turning to Sunset.

“That was Dobby, our house elf,” he said, sounding important.

Sunset had only read very briefly about house elves from an old book which didn’t explain much, and had logged the term as a low priority topic.

“I see,” she said, neutrally, noting that Dobby was clearly a servant, and that Draco had neglected introducing her and Dobby to each other.

Instead of voicing this, she looked around at the decor.

Draco jumped on the chance to change the subject.

“Anyway, this is Malfoy Manor,” he said. “One of them anyway.”

An eyebrow of Sunset raised up. “One of them?”

“Yeah. We have a few summer houses, some other holdings. A mansion here and there. It caused a problem when Floo powder was invented, since ‘Malfoy Manor’ could mean so many places, so this is our only mansion with access to the floo network, to avoid confusion. It’s okay though. Some of them we hardly ever go to.”

“Oh really?” Sunset said.

“Yes. So… would you like a quick tour?” Draco offered.

A slight delay to Sunset’s response put Draco just slightly off-guard. “Yes please.”

He smiled, and invited her up the stairs.

They stepped into one wing of the mansion, just as dark and richly decorated as the vestibule, and Sunset could practically smell the very old, very vast wealth.

She tried comparing it to Canterlot Castle, but it didn’t lend it itself to that. The Malfoys clearly had very large piles of money lying around, and properties aplenty, while Celestia in many ways didn’t really need money. Celestia had money, of course, being not only the executive administrator of the state and naturally having learned a lot about the art of economics through her life, but one of the strongest aspects in the fabric of Equestrian society, and her nature as an immortal princess gave her more influence than the rich ponies who spent their money trying to accumulate influence ever could.

A noble pony trying to change something about society would spend wealth in an attempt to gain power and influence, such as putting on high society shindigs, and the best way to do so would be to host it at the castle, and when she had finally started to wrap her head around it, Sunset had realised that the one who gained the most influence was always Celestia herself, eclipsing the power that the noble who spent their money organising it at her castle gained.

But where Sunset admitted herself to always being outclassed was the fine manipulations during a ball or gala. Celestia always arranged things so that wealth flowed out towards the general populace, and the nobles, no matter their general dispositions, always left with smiles on their faces.

“... This is the long gallery,” Draco said, holding open a door and stepping into a, naturally, long room lined with portraits, cabinets, and glass display cases. The portraits all looked on passively at the pair, just like the portraits of previous headmasters at Hogwarts, and the cases held all manners of magic paraphernalia. From an old, grime-encrusted coin, to a ruby-adorned gold sceptre, to a pair of old glasses stained with blood which was somehow still red and wet, to some sort of bone that Sunset couldn’t place.

“Father’s collection goes back centuries, back to before the statute of secrecy,” Draco proudly supplied.

Sunset, meanwhile, could feel the magic radiating off the mementos, old enough to be treasures. Some seemed simple, if well-crafted, some of them Draco and his family probably couldn’t tell had faded long ago, and some, Sunset was sure, were outright sinister, but it was hard to say.

“Very impressive,” Sunset said, leaning forward to look at an impossibly thin wine glass as she struggled with making smalltalk. “Do you know how long it goes back?”

“Uhm, actually no,” Draco admitted. “It’s all in the family chronicles, but we can’t read the old ones, unless you happen to speak French?”

“... En fait, je pense que oui,” Sunset noted, who could speak with gryphon dignitaries from several territories in their native tongues.

“Very impressive,” a new voice said, and Draco and Sunset both turned to see someone whom Sunset had only seen fleetingly over a year ago.

Draco very much looked like a younger version of his father, having the same hair, style of clothing, and air of ever so slightly overdone superiority, but he did not have his father’s poised demeanour.

Sunset internally groaned as she rushed to remember how formal diplomacy worked. She didn’t know Lucius, but his posture and demeanour spoke volumes. Playing it off too modestly could be interpreted as demeaning if Lucius didn’t speak that language as well, so Sunset simply inclined her head slightly and calmly.

“Thank you, sir.”

He swept up to Draco and Sunset with somewhat long strides, and extended an arm, which Sunset reciprocated, and Lucius didn’t shake it, but simply gently took it in his own as he locked eyes with Sunset, putting on a look which told Sunset that he was only curious about her, but that if she was observant, she’d notice he was scrutinising her quite close.

“Welcome to our home,” he said. “I am Lucius Malfoy.”

“Sunset Shimmer. Thank you for having me,” Sunset responded without missing a beat.

Lucius smiled, and let go of Sunset’s hand, and instead put an arm around Draco’s shoulder.

“Hello, father,” Draco said, looking up at his father with a deep affection underneath that slightly stiff response.

“Welcome home, Draco. I hope school has been treating you well.”

“It has, and has offered additional excitement lately.”

“Mmm, you are of course referring to the tragic attacks?”

“Yes. They are quite the mystery,” Draco said, and looked at Sunset with… Sunset had trouble interpreting his look, but perhaps a knowing smile.

Lucius, however, did not share that expression. He just looked at Sunset with the same amount of polite standoffishness as before.

“Quite,” he said, and held out a hand invitingly to Sunset. “And now, dinner is ready. I hope you’ll join us, Miss Shimmer?”

“Thank you,” Sunset said, inclining her head, and followed the two similar figures out of the room.

Through the half-lit hardwood corridors, Lucius led them back to the entrance hall, and into another wing, to a large dining room, where a great, long table stood, adorned with silver candelabras, a silk tablecloth, and various other fineries.

From an entrance on the opposite form which Sunset had come from, the woman that Sunset had also seen briefly a year before entered, glancing back and waving her hand.

“And do have the dessert ready afterward, Dobby,” she said, and turned to see Sunset.

Doing a poor job of hiding a scrutinising look behind a neutral expression, she walked up to her son and put one arm around her, and he tried not to lean into her embrace.

“Hello, Draco dear,” she said.

“Hello, mother.”

“So, who is this you’ve brought for dinner?” she asked, again doing a poor job of expressing surprise.

“This is Sunset Shimmer from school, who I’ve… mm, anyway,” Draco said, interrupting himself. “Sunset, this is my mother.”

“Narcissa Malfoy. A pleasure,” she said.

“Sunset Shimmer. Charmed,” Sunset said, nodding her head while doing her best to convey the idea that she had just curtsied.

Narcissa nodded, and invited Sunset to take a seat at the long side of the table.

“Dobby!” Narcissa called out, and the small creature scurried out of the kitchen at breakneck speed, panting slightly as he did, and pulled out the chairs for them to sit down in.

Sunset’s eyes followed Dobby as she sat down, and he bowed before returning to the kitchen.

Lucius was seated at the short side, with his wife and son to either side, and Sunset seated beside Draco, and subtly arranged it so that she happened to sit a little bit further away from them than they were to each other.

Just as Sunset wondered who was going to strike up which kind of conversation, if any, Dobby came out of the kitchen with a plate with four small helping of soup and salad, and gracefully doled them out to the four people around the table.

“Thank you,” Sunset said, in a terse but curt manner, which Dobby smiled nervously at, and which Draco looked curiously back and forth between them.

As soon as Lucius started eating, so did Sunset. And it was a nice soup too, and the right season for warm appetisers.

“So…” Lucius said, after the soup was finished, and he was leisurely chewing on a piece of crisp salad. “Miss Shimmer, we have been introduced, and you have seen our house, parts of it at least. Will you reveal a bit about yourself?”

At this point, Dobby staggered out of the kitchen under the weight of a giant silver cloche, and Sunset took the time to prepare some answers as the little creature climbed a little stool to put the main course on the table.

He removed the lid to reveal some sort of cooked fowl surrounded by cooked tubers, before wordlessly bowing, and pausing for a short moment as if to make time for some sort of comment, but when none came, a tension lifted from him, and he hurried back into the kitchen.

Lucius and Narcissa both brought out their wands, and Lucius started with floating his plate up to the main course, and cutting a serving up to himself, while Narcissa did the same for herself and Draco.

After that, Lucius turned to look at Sunset, with a hint of a smug expression on his face, before noticing that at some point, someone, presumably Sunset, had done the same for her, with a slight focus on the plants.

He and Narcissa gave her a slightly suspicious look, before digging in.

“Now, where were we?” Lucius said, between bites. “Ah, yes, we were talking about you, Miss Shimmer.”

“We were in Diagon Alley earlier,” Draco eagerly supplied. “Ollivander called us into his store, and Sunset gave him some rare materials for his work.”

“Mm?” Narcissa said, inclining her head in what almost looked like polite interest at Sunset. “You have been travelling then?”

Sunset bobbed her head slightly as she thought. “In a sense.”

“From where?” Lucius asked.

“Oh, far away. I don’t really talk about it,” Sunset said, slightly apologetically.

“And your family is still there?” Lucius asked, and the slightly confused look that Draco gave him told Sunset he already knew the answer.

“No, they passed away,” Sunset said.

“Mmm, that is tragic,” Lucius said, and took a small sip of wine. “But you seem well-versed in the ways of magic.”

“Naturally. I grew up around it, and I was trained in it.”

Slight smirks grew on Lucius’ and Narcissa’s lips, before they hid it again.

“But I’m surprised,” Lucius said, conversationally. “You seem like a natural Slytherin student, and yet you are in Gryffindor house.”

“Thank you,” Sunset said, inclining her head towards him. “Though I don’t want to seem dismissive of local customs, the gravity of one’s school house might be in part lost to me.”

“No such tradition where you are from then?” Narcissa asked.

Sunset shook her head. “No.”

“There are no muggles where she’s from,” Draco said, watching his parents closely for their reaction.

Lucius and Narcissa cast a quick glance at each other. Lucius then reclined in his chair as he studied Sunset.

“... Interesting.”

“She never reveals where she’s from though,” Draco told his parents in a conversational tone, and shrugged, before turning to Sunset. “Hey, the book that writes back to you, is that where you’re from?”

That took Sunset slightly by surprise. She was so used to playing verbal cat and mouse that she wasn’t ready for such a straightforward question.

“Uh… as far as you know?”

Draco smirked, and looked at his parents, when he noticed that they were both absolutely still, staring intently at Sunset, Narcissa’s fork halfway to her mouth which was hanging open.

“Uh…” Draco started.

Lucius and Narcissa cast a glance at each other, before Lucius jerkily turned his head towards the kitchen. “D… Dobby!”

A second later, Dobby ran out of the kitchen and stopped in front Lucius, bowing deeply. “M-master?”

“How is…” he said, trying not to speak through gritted teeth. “... the… dessert coming along?”

“A-almost ready, master! Nearly done!” Dobby said, bowing low again.

“Good… good. S… see that it’s ready on time,” Lucius said, distracted, and waved Dobby away again.

“Yes, master! At once, master!” Dobby said, and bowed again before running back into the kitchen.

Lucius took a deep breath, and turned back to the table, seeing Draco staring at him with wide eyes.

“What… book is that?” he said, very obviously trying to sound politely curious.

Not at all sure what to make of that reaction, Sunset pulled out her and Celestia's connected book from her bag under the chair, and held it up for them to see.

Lucius and Narcissa looked like they put a gargantuan effort into not showing how relieved they were at the sight.

“... Fascinating,” Lucius said, smiling politely at Sunset and Malfoy. “... I, myself, am quite the collector of magic. Magical items, in fact. But you knew that already. Draco was showing you part of my collection earlier.”

Sunset felt it was best to move on from the display moment earlier, and put her book away again. “Yes, I didn’t get a close look, but it seemed… extensive.”

“Mmm, I cannot take full credit, of course,” Lucius continued in a conversational tone. “I inherited a large part of it.”

At this point, Dobby came out of the kitchen, wobbling slightly less from the lighter burden than the earlier ones, and climbed up on his little stool to place the dessert on the table. Some sort of crème brûlée, but with extra everything, artistically arranged.

“Thank you,” Sunset said shortly to Dobby (she was the only one to do so) who bowed deeply at her after staring in surprise for a moment, before bowing deeply and scurrying back into the kitchen.

“Are you heading back to Hogwarts later, Draco?” Narcissa asked.

“Mhm,” Draco nodded, mouth full of dessert.

“No need to leave just yet. Perhaps Sunset would like another look around?”

Having been educated by Princess Celestia, and indeed partly raised by her, Sunset had practice, training, and experience with social grace.

She just didn’t have much of a talent in it.

An excuse to leave soon would be welcome, as the pressure of being a guest of the aristocracy could be intense.

Even so, she gambled that resisting their grace within the limits of politeness could just draw things out, so she simply braced herself and looked politely expectant.

“Do you wanna see my room?” Draco said, before realising something. “Or perhaps the library?”

“I’m always willing to learn things,” Sunset said, relieved.

After the three course meal, Sunset and Draco went back to the central hall, when suddenly Dobby ran up behind them.

“What, Dobby?” Draco asked, anger and annoyance on his face.

Dobby recoiled, and turned to Sunset. “D-Dobby apologises, but… Dobby did not offer to… care for… the young mistress’ luggage,” he said, and looked up at her with a wretched expression.

Sunset looked down at her shoulder bag. Normally. she would be unwilling to surrender it, but something about Dobby’s pitiful demeanour made her relent.

It would do no good to deny Dobby a chance to look good in front of his master by turning his help down, or depositing it somewhere herself, so she quickly cast a quick charm to lighten the weight on it further, and held it out to the house elf.

“Thank you, Dobby,” she said, and Dobby quickly took the bag in his arms and bowed again, before hurrying back to where he came from.

“Normally he’s much more thorough,” Draco said, disapprovingly, before they continued on.

The Malfoys’ library was as big as the publicly accessible part of Hogwarts’ library. The difference was the welcome absence of Madam Pince, and fewer large tables for study, instead having more things like desks and lecterns.

It was also as dark as the rest of the Malfoys’ manor, with ebony bookshelves, populated with books bound in dark leather.

“Father has quite the collection of books as well. Bet you haven’t seen a library this impressive privately owned, have you?” Draco asked.

“That’s true, I haven’t,” Sunset lied, taking in the sight and pretending to be more impressed than she was.

“The ministry has many laws restricting what kind of artefacts that can be privately owned, but it’s not as strict when it comes to books.”

Sunset turned to see Draco having a smug look on his face, when she noticed something on the wall behind him.

“What’s that?” she asked.

Draco turned to see an old, large map on the wall, behind a wheeled board covered in dusty old papers.

“Oh, that. That’s just a map of Malfoy holdings,” he said, a little dismissively.

Curious, Sunset walked up and studied it.

It was a yellowed old paper, large enough to cover a school blackboard, showing the entire British Isles, with little illustrations representing the larger cities, as well as a dozen or so little pictures of castles and mansions.

“That’s our summer house,” Draco said, pointing to one near the coast. “That one is a castle which we mostly use to store furniture in. That one might be destroyed, I’m not sure. That one actually used to be the seat of the family long ago. I’ve never been there myself though. That one is lent to the ministry until further notice. I’ve never been there either.”

Sunset nodded at Draco’s words, while focusing on memorising the locations of the little illustrations on the map.

“And that one…” Draco said, stopping to think.

“... Is also empty,” Narcissa finished for him, standing behind them. “Your great uncle lived there, working on potions.”

“Oh right,” Draco said, having turned around to see his mother. “I’ve never been there either, I think.”

“No. We send Dobby to check in every now and then, but the enchantments keep it fresh. It’s a smaller house, but quite livable. He made a good living, being a potions master. The talent must run in the family,” Narcissa noted, smiling at Draco. “Professor Snape tells us you have quite the head for potions as well.”

Draco gave a proud smile, turning to Sunset, who had to nod in agreement. Snape constantly praised Draco’s works in front of the class. While the praise probably helped give Draco the confidence to do well, Sunset figured that there was underlying talent to back it up.

“Sunset also does well in potions,” Draco offered. “Though Professor Snape, uhm…”

“Keeps any praise to himself, and just as well,” Sunset finished.

Narcissa looked amused. “It is a good idea to have friendly relations with the faculty of Hogwarts, especially if the roles were to be switched around at any point. One never knows how long Dumbledore stays headmaster, for instance. A friendly letter to Professor Snape could… help him see you in a new light.”

“Thank you, but that won’t be necessary,” Sunset said.

“Such self-sufficiency,” Narcissa noted. “You would do well to accept the occasional gift.”

“That could be a dangerous topic for my standing,” Sunset pointed out. “I arrived here with no token of appreciation for the hospitality.”

Narcissa looked mildly impressed. “Then perhaps we should turn to other traditions? If boons are mere gestures, perhaps… accepting something to serve as a reminder of your visit to our house?”

Sunset was about to nod in a graceful manner, when Draco suddenly smiled, grabbed her sleeve, and pulled her with him. “Great! You can have my favourite broom!”

Thankfully, Draco’s room was in the same wing as the library, so the awkward pulling didn’t last very long. Draco pulled Sunset into a large room, just as richly decorated as the rest of the house, but with comics and other light, and magical, reading stacked carefully on the nightside table, as well as a large, interactive quidditch game. Sunset strongly suspected that it was Dobby who kept the room tidy.

“Here,” Draco said, opening his closet and pulling out a broom. It was far more fancy than the rickety old thing that Sunset had gotten her limited practice on at Hogwarts, but it wasn’t quite Harry’s Nimbus Two Thousand either. He held it out for Sunset. “It’s not a Nimbus Two Thousand and One, but it’s still a Comet Two-Ninety.”

Sunset waited for a short moment before accepting it. “Thank you.”

“I could give you some pointers on how to fly,” Draco said, as they walked out to the grand entrance hall.

“In winter?” Sunset gently deflected.

“Okay, maybe not,” Draco admitted.

In the hall, Lucius and Narcissa were waiting for them. Lucius put his arm around Draco again, and Narcissa hugged him, and handed him a big paper bag which Sunset could sense the scent of sweets and candies coming off of.

“Have a good time in school. Write to us,” Narcissa said.

“Yes, yes,” Draco said, and disengaged, embarrassed.

“Thank you for your hospitality,” Sunset said, nodding towards Lucius.

“Our pleasure,” he said, and looked around for a moment, before snapping his fingers with an annoyed look on his face.

From a corner, Dobby scurried up, and bowed in front of Sunset while offering her bag.

“Thank you,” she said, curtly.

Dobby’s eyes lingered on Sunset for a moment, as if wanting to say something, but instead he looked back at Lucius, who gave Dobby a stern look, making him scurry off again.

“Well, come on,” Draco said, and moved into the fireplace with a fistfull of floo powder. “Hogwarts, third floor.”

A moment later, Sunset followed him, and they stepped out into the same mostly unused room.

“Well, that was fun,” Draco said, as they walked back out into the corridor, Sunset having her new broom over her shoulder.

“It was,” Sunset said, not sure if she was lying or not, though she could feel the relief of soon being able to be alone.

As they reached the part of the corridor where they’d separate to reach each others’ common rooms, Draco stopped, and searched for words.

“Well I, uh… I… had fun…”

Sunset kept herself from pointing out that he had already said that.

“Mhm,” Sunset said, desperately searching for something polite to say. “Thank you for the broom.”

Draco’s face lit up in relief. “Oh, yeah, no problem. I, uh… should see if those two have turned up yet.”

“Crabbe and Goyle?”

“Yeah. I’ll see you around,” Draco said, and half-turned around while taking a step back.

“Yep, see you later,” Sunset said, and turned around herself.

As she rounded a corner, she let out a sigh, and paused to look out at the white, snow-covered landscape while enjoying the silence.

Sunset thought about Draco’s parents. She thought there was something strange about their behaviour, but then again, Sunset thought so about most witches and wizards, and Draco Malfoy especially. It would make sense if his parents were strange in similar ways.

Dobby had also been the first house elf Sunset had seen, and she didn’t know if he was being treated poorly, or if he smelled scared because he was just always nervous, like Neville, or if Sunset’s presence had broken his routine and he didn’t like that.

That sudden tension from Lucius and Narcissa around the dinner table was also strange, but before Sunset could think too hard on that, something broke her out of her pondering.

“MISS SHIMMER!” Professor McGonagall yelled angrily, making Sunset jump.

Her head of house stomped up towards her from the end of the hallway. “Where have you been!?”

Sunset took a moment to calm herself, a little peeved at McGonagall seemingly trying to give her a heart attack.

This was, admittedly, not a good look, at least not for anyone who cared about school rules, as Sunset had been gone for several hours, and she didn’t know how long McGonagall had been searching for her. Besides, a broom that Sunset didn’t previously own was resting on her shoulder.

Sunset hummed as she pondered on how best to answer this.

“Getting some fresh air,” she finally said.

McGonagall stopped in front of her, looking down what little difference in height there was between them. “Did you leave the school grounds, Miss Shimmer?” she asked, sharply.

“Would you believe me if I said no?” Sunset calmly asked.

McGonagall puffed herself up. “That attitude is most unbecoming, Miss Shimmer, and unless you provide me with a good explanation regarding your whereabouts, I shall put you in detention.”

Sunset narrowed her eyes, slightly. “I get the feeling that it won’t matter much what I say.”

McGonagall was already matching Sunset’s expression, but narrowed her eyes further. “Twenty points from Gryffindor, and you are to report to me tomorrow evening for you detention assignment.”

Sunset stared at her ostensible teacher for a drawn out moment, before speaking calmly again. “Then if there is nothing else,” she said, and turned on her heel and walked back to the Gryffindor common room.

—

Lucius Malfoy sat behind his desk in his study, deeply focused on his task of putting the stack of torn out, blank pages in a new leather binding.

The relief when Dobby had entered with the girl’s bag as ordered, and Lucius had retrieved the tome from inside it, had been absolutely immense.

It hadn’t been the book that Lucius had been so worried about, but Draco’s words had left him too intrigued not to investigate.

Looking inside had revealed many pages covered in arcane signs that he had no knowledge of, but the different styles, sizes, and colours of the letters hinted that, just as Draco said, whoever wrote in the book wasn’t just writing for themselves. Draco claimed the girl was skilled in magic, and she was communicating with someone, or something.

The writing was not English, but the girls spoke English, and so it was a reasonable assumption that whatever was in the book could communicate in English as well.

Lucius had gotten confirmation that the book was magical when he had carefully but quickly cut out a fistful of the deceptively large amount of pages from near the end of the book, where the pages were blank, and the book had reconstituted itself, removing any hint of damage, though leaving Lucius with a collection of magical pages in his hand.

With some careful spellwork, the pages were bound in protective leather, and multiplied right before his very eyes until it was the size of a proper tome.

Intrigued, Lucius opened the book, and studied in closely for several minutes, before he picked up a quill, dipped the top of it in an inkwell, and put it to the first, blank page.

—

On another plane of existence, Princess Celestia walked up to the glowing book, and opened it.

But it wasn’t where she had left off writing to Sunset where words were forming.

Mildly confused, she rapidly flipped the pages until she reached the glowing one, and raised her eyebrow at the words forming.

I, Lucius Malfoy, of the esteemed and highborn house of Malfoy, demand that you reveal your secrets.

“Oh do you now?”

Author's Note

This was a real pain to write. I've been struggling to write for ages, enthusiasm has been low, and it was a frustrating chapter to get right, with many things needing to play out the right way, but also be open-ended enough, and it turns out I have real trouble writing British nobility. Not to mention that a lot of the characters featured here does not really have a lot on the way of characterization in the source material.

Also, I did my best with the movie, but I don't speak Hungarian.

A Coiled Spring

Sunset, Harry, Hermione, and the Weasleys were the only Gryffindor students at Hogwarts that winter holiday, but the Gryffindor common room was particularly empty that evening. Only Percy was sitting in a corner, with his starchart out.

“Where is everyone?” Sunset asked from halfway across the room.

“Hm?” a distracted Percy said, slightly annoyed at the interruption. “Oh, I think Hermione ate something bad and had to go to the hospital wing, and Harry and Ron are with her. Fred, George, and Ginny are… somewhere, but they’d better be back in time for curfew, I’m about to go on my rounds.”

“Thank you,” Sunset said, tersely, deciding not to bother him any more.

The evening became very uneventful. The only one Sunset shared her dorm with was now absent, and deciding against Percy’s company, she instead walked up the second year girls dormitory, conjured up an armchair, footrest, and a blanket, and sat down in front of the fireplace.

A faint chime came from Sunset’s bag, and she lifted up her book and turned to the page she and Celestia had last used to correspond with.

How were things at the Malfoys?

Sunset narrowed her eyes, before leaning forward and taking a whiff.

Did Lucius steal pages from my book?

Celestia wrote calmly, with the same tempo she spoke with when amused.

He did, and rebound them to a separate one. I did the same over here. What did you think of him? Of them? In fact, tell me all you’ve learned of them.

Sunset scoffed, amused.

Well, they’re rich. Aristocrats.

Naturally.

Let’s see…
Father: Lucius. Blonde. Slightly above average height. Slytherin house.
Mother: Narcissa. Blonde. Average height. Slytherin house.
Son: Draco. Blonde. 12 years old. Average height. Slytherin house.
Grandfather: Name unknown. Deceased.
Grand Uncle: Name unknown. Deceased.
Servant: Dobby. A “House Elf”, a creature of short stature. Details unknown. Treated rudely.

Did I tell you about the Hogwarts school houses? They can be pretty important to some people. Slytherin is supposed to be the cunning one.

Associates: The Crabbe and the Goyle family. The Hogwarts potions teacher and head of Slytherin house, Severus Snape. Many others; Lucius strikes me as an “upstanding member of the community”.

Lives in a mansion called Malfoy Manor, and has many more holdings. Old family, dating back to before the nobility started even using the local language.

Sunset kept writing down the details she remembered and the observations she felt worth sharing, and wondered how much Draco had been able to suss out about herself.

So what did Lucius want?

Power.

Of course. And naturally you are going to refrain from using any information I give you about his family and house when arranging strange scenarios with insightful lessons hidden deep within?

Oh, Sunset. You know I cannot promise that.

Sunset felt something sting in her chest, when reminded of Celestia and perceived promises.

Just as she felt that Celestia was about to ask if she was still there, Sunset put her pen back on the page.

Don’t tell him, or anyone else, that I’m a unicorn, or that we’re ponies. I’m trying to keep a low profile.

Still so secretive?

Sunset looked at the page, slightly taken aback.

What do you mean?

You never told anypony but me about yourself. Cadence kept asking, and you hardly ever said anything.

Sunset wracked her brain, trying to remember.

When?

The few times you ended up eating at the same time and place.

Vague impressions of the pink princess talking floated to the surface of Sunset’s mind.

Why did she want to know?

Oh I shouldn’t speak for her. I could ask her over so you can ask her yourself.

Hardly realising it, the pen in Sunset’s magical aura hurried to scribble an answer, almost automatically, surprising herself.

Pass.

Oh, Sunset.

But speaking of mutual friendships, you remember how I talked about Twilight Sparkle?

Sunset paused, and focused, but she couldn’t feel any strong emotion about the subject of Celestia’s new student.

A part of her scoffed at the notion of feeling anything special about that.

Yes?

She has some interesting discoveries she’d like to share with you

Sunset frowned slightly.

I see.

Here she comes now.

The book was still for a few moments, before another pony’s style of writing started forming on the page, hesitantly, and a bit nervously.

Hello, Sunset Shimmer. My name is Twilight Sparkle.

And there she was. Celestia’s new student.

After a moment, the text continued to appear, hesitantly… uncertain.

It’s nice to write to you.

This was it. Twilight Sparkle. Her successor.

Sunset had broken with Celestia, and Twilight was now in Sunset’s place. This was the pony that symbolised that Sunset could no longer go back. That whatever Sunset might have gotten from being Celestia’s student was now beyond her forever.

… Or, at least, that’s what Sunset asked herself if she should be feeling.

She raked her own mind, trying to find any hidden negative thoughts about the whole thing, but she kept coming up empty. No jealousy. No resentment. No… shame, even.

After a few moments, Sunset had to cautiously accept the possibility that she… was… fine with this?

Just as she felt Twilight or Celestia was about to write another line, Sunset put her pen to the page, and was still surprised at how truthful her words felt.

Hello, Twilight. It’s nice to write to you too.

Twilight responded, her words coming in faster and more steadily.

I’ve heard a lot about you. It’s a pleasure to finally mee- communicate with you.

Likewise.

I wish we could have compared notes regarding the- oh right, Princess Celestia is reminding me to tell you about the temporal discrepancies I’ve discovered.

Sunset’s eyes narrowed.

Temporal discrepancies?

Yes. You see, on a hunch, I recreated the arcane pattern of the effect of this book’s primary function, and ran it through a thauma-spectrum-analyzer, and got some unexpected results. I’ve tried using Starswirl’s fourth theorem (diagram will follow) but I’m uncertain of my findings.

Sunset shook her head. She hadn’t buried herself deep in Equestrian magic research and theories for so long, it felt like she figuratively was finally able to get up and stretch her legs.

Have you adjusted for the imperfections in the pattern-recreation effect of the analyzer when recording tandem-enchantments?

Yes.

Taking any thaumaturgical distortions from the source of the secondary effect-point into account?

The book was still for a moment.

No. Goodness, that explains everything. One moment, I’ll just quickly adjust my calculations.

Twilight obviously forgot her quill against the page, because an ink-splotch was growing and enveloping the last word.

I’ve got it! Hold on, let me just paste this onto the next page.

A tightly illustrated web of diagrams and calculations appeared on the next page.

Sunset stared at them in silence for a long moment, following along with the calculations in her head, before realising why Twilight found this so interesting.

As you can see, the effect of the temporal inconsistencies should follow a semi-reliable curve, alternating between increasing and decreasing so long as the portal between us remains closed.

Nicely done. So if this is accurate, which it looks like it is, this should mean that the temporal inconsistency between the two planes of existence should align fairly regularly.

Yes, and I’ve tried calculating the expected opening of the portal on your end, but the nature of the temporal discrepancies makes that difficult to say for sure.

Going through the calculations on my own, it seems like I left Equestria during an upward trend in the differences.

Yes. From your point of view, Equestria has been picking up speed this entire time, and will continue to do so for some time. More time will have passed here than for you when the portals align and open again.

Sunset stopped herself from gripping her pen so hard it snapped.

How much time?

I can’t say for sure yet. Perhaps it will be easier as we get closer, but a few years worth of difference.

Sunset let out a sigh of relief. This wasn’t great news, but it wasn’t like Equestria would be in a completely different era the next time she had a chance to go back.

I further speculate that any stable connection will override any unevenness in the flow of time between the two planes of existence.

So does it look to you like I’m writing in slow motion?

Actually no, which is one of the things that strengthen my hypothesis that connections between the planes aligns the flows of time. In our case it’s just a matter of perception of course.

Oh, the princess wishes to speak with you again.

It’s me again, Sunset. How are you feeling?

Sunset bit her lip.

I don’t know. I guess I’m okay.

If you are not sure, I urge you to take the time needed to gain clarity.

Sunset rolled her eyes at the familiar experience of Celestia once again being right.

I guess. It’s getting late. It’s time for bed.

It was nice writing to you, Sunset.

Yes it was. I’m glad you seem to get along well. Goodnight, Sunset.

Likewise, Twilight. Goodnight.

Goodnight, Princess.

Sunset closed her book, and took a moment to stare into the fire.

She had a whole week of semi-privacy considering the tiny number of students that were still at Hogwarts during the holidays, but tomorrow she was going to have detention.

At least she was always comfortable at night when at Hogwarts. It was a tower, the bed was always kept neat and clean, and she had a fireplace.

Sunset stood up, tossed the blanket onto the armchair, and made them and the footrest vanish with a wave of her hand as she walked towards her bed.

—

The general emptiness of the castle was still strong the next morning, as Sunset walked all the way from her bed to the great hall without seeing anyone else.

It wasn’t until she sat down at Gryffindor’s table that she wasn’t alone. Professor Flitwick sat at the faculty table, talking with Professor Sinistra, and he and Sunset nodded at each other. Ginny was slowly eating oatmeal while Percy was chewing toast and reading a book on transfiguration.

“Mm… hullo, Sunset,” Ginny said.

“Mornin’.”

“Good morning,” said Percy, not looking up from his book. “You shouldn’t wander alone, with the attacks and all.”

Sunset just shrugged, and sat down.

“Kinda empty,” she noted, as she poured herself her regular three mugs of coffee, tea, and orange juice.

“Mm, yeah,” Ginny agreed. “I haven’t seen those three from Slytherin, and I think Harry and Ron are, uuuh… actually, I don’t know.”

At that point, Fred and George lumbered into the hall with the kind of grins that spoke volumes.

“Hey, guess what?” Fred, or George, said when they sat down and reached for some toast of their own.

“Something happened to Hermione which you think is hilarious?” Sunset guessed, having put two and two together with what Percy had said yesterday.

“That’s right!” a smiling George said. “How did you know that?”

“I have ways,” Sunset simply said.

“Well she’s turned into some sort of cat.”

Ginny’s eyes widened and, probably not consciously, she let out a sound similar to what Cadence did when she saw a new couple.

“Yep, we saw her when Ron and Harry brought her breakfast. You should’ve seen her when she realised she couldn’t stop swishing her tail when she saw them,” Fred said.

Ginny’s expression intensified further, and Sunset looked a little dubiously to the side. “What’s wrong with having a tail?” she said.

“Ask her what it’s like to be able to move her ears,” George said, before taking a bite out of his toast.

“No need,” Sunset said, shrugging to herself as she took a gulp of orange juice.

—

Aside from the general emptiness of the castle, the day proceeded normally after that. Fred and George were up to their usual clownishness. Percy was studying. Harry and Ron were nowhere to be seen, and Ginny had presumably gone to see if Hermione liked having head scratches.

In the evening, Sunset knocked on the door to Professor McGonagall’s office for her detention.

“Enter.”

Sunset did so in silence.

“Miss Shimmer,” McGonagall said, not looking up from some papers on her desk.

“Professor,” Sunset said, in an even voice.

McGonagall kept on shuffling through papers in silence. She obviously wanted Sunset to be unbalanced by her cold demeanour. This was a disciplinary affair, and McGonagall was letting Sunset stew in shame, which was pointless. Very few people, across multiple planes of existence, could make Sunset feel guilt through shame.

Besides, this was already McGonagall’s default demeanour.

So Sunset’s incentive to not break the rule was the same as always: Don’t get caught. If you are, you’re going to be very bored.

“Now, Miss Shimmer,” McGonagall said after several minutes, putting her papers down, then stopping and narrowing her eyes when she saw Sunset sitting in a lounge chair that hadn’t been there a few minutes before. “Where did that come from?”

“Where did what come from?” Sunset asked

“That chair.”

Sunset shrugged. “Never seen it before.”

McGonagall’s lips narrowed. “I assume that you have experience with detentions before coming to Hogwarts.”

“No dice, professor,” Sunset simply said, pleased at getting such a rise out of a person such as Minerva McGonagall, and still refusing to reveal anything about herself.

McGonagall’s eyes narrowed slightly further. “Miss Shimmer, you need to work on your manners. I was planning on letting you help Professor Lockhart sort through his mail, but now I’m considering having you help Hagrid feed the castle menagerie.”

“Score,” Sunset said, and immediately stood up, grabbing the lounge chair. “I’ll help Mister Hagrid out right now, and I’ll get rid of this if you don’t want it.”

McGonagall frown was mixed with puzzlement, as her eyes followed Sunset walking out of her office.

Out in the corridor, Sunset glanced around to make sure she was alone, before lightly tossing the chair up in the air, where it vanished in a puff of smoke.

Coming out from behind a corner were Harry and Ron, who stopped in surprise when they saw her, and Ron especially looked at Sunset with suspicion in his eyes.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

Sunset was almost taken aback by his tone, and rallied with a shrug. “Detention,” she simply said.

“Where?” Ron immediately asked

Sunset crossed her arms and raised one eyebrow sceptically. “Mister Hagrid’s, what’s it to you?”

Ron and Harry glanced at each other, before looking at Sunset again.

“And we should be… heading back to the tower,” Harry said, a little slowly. “So I guess we’ll... join you for now.”

Sunset gave them a long, sceptical look. “Yeah, you’re acting like you want my company.”

The two boys said nothing. After a moment Sunset just shrugged, and started walking down to the entrance hall.

Harry and Ron followed, making the short walk one of tense, awkward silence.

Once at the entrance hall, Sunset opened one of the large doors and walked outside towards Hagrid’s hut, with Harry and Ron silently watching her from just inside the hall.

The sun had set and the snow was lit by a warm orange glow from the light spilling from the castle windows.

Sunset glanced back, trying to figure out what they were up to, but it seemed more like concern than malevolence.

She brought out her wand and started melting the snow in front of her as she walked, and Harry and Ron eventually shut the door.

Frowning, Sunset continued walking down towards Hagrid’s house as she put a spell to keep her clothes warm, and knocked on his door.

Immediately, there was a great deal of barking and howling from inside. The door opened to reveal Hagrid, and also a large shape that pounced on Sunset, making her take a step back as something warm and wet assaulted her face.

“Ugh… hello, Fang,” Sunset muttered.

“Hullo there, Miss Shimma,” an amused Hagrid said, as he gently and effortlessly pulled Fang off of her.

“Good evening, Mister Hagrid.”

“Oh, just Hagrid will do.”

“Then just Sunset will do for me.”

“Mm, if ye wan’ to,” Hagrid said, and shoved a treacle tart in Fang’s mouth to keep him quiet. “So, what can I do fer ye?”

“Professor McGonagall told me to help you feed the castle menagerie,” Sunset said, making Hagrid look at her in confusion. “For detention,” she clarified.

“Oh. Got yeself into trouble, ‘ave ye?”

Sunset shrugged. “I don’t know. The professor decides that.”

Hagrid just smiled kindly, or so it looked like through his beard at least. “Well, come on then,” he said, throwing on his huge coat and grabbing a lantern as he walked out, followed by fang, then gave Sunset a slightly concerned look. “Ye’re not cold?”

“Nope. Magic,” Sunset simply said.

Hagrid nodded as he trudged through the snow, before Sunset stepped up and started melting it in front of him as they walked towards some storage sheds in the distance.

“Ye’re jus’ like ‘ermoine, you are. Best students the school’s seen in years,” Hagrid said, as he fumbled with the normal-sized lantern in his giant hands.

Sunset opened her mouth to try and downplay that or deny it in some way, but she just didn’t have the energy to do so. Something was keeping her spirits down and she didn’t know what, so she just sighed to herself and stayed silent.

“... Somethin’ the matter?” Hagrid carefully said, as they reached their first destination.

Sunset struggled to come up with an answer to that question, but just sighed to herself again. “I guess. I don’t know.”

“Homesick again?” Hagrid suggested.

Sunset smiled humorlessly, remembering how she had been out walking with Hagrid last year as well when she felt down.

Sunset couldn’t tell if it was being away from Equestria itself which had something to do with her mood, but she did expect she might be happier there than at Hogwarts... At least for the moment.

“Maybe.”

Hagrid opened the door to the wooden shed and stepped inside, grabbing a barrel of what looked like frozen gruel, but with a handle that made it look more like a bucket when Hagrid held it.

He retrieved a hatchet from inside his coat and started breaking the ice on the surface of the liquid inside, revealing something slimy-looking underneath.

“Water snails, wha’ Dumbledore’s enchanted to be extra large. It’s for the squid,” Hagrid explained, and reached onto a shelf for another barrel. “If we pour some o’ this in a bucket for ye ter carry, we’ll only need ter make two rounds…”

Sunset picked up the barrel that Hagrid had brought down with one hand by the handle, making Hagrid pause.

“... A’right then, only one round,” he said, and they both took two barrels each.

Sunset’s hands were occupied, and she decided not to clear a path in front of them with her hair, instead they waded through the snow on the way to the shore of the lake.

“So where are ya homesick to?” Hagrid asked.

“Sorry, what?” Sunset asked.

“Where’s yer home,” Hagrid said. “I remember Dumbledore ‘n McGonagall talkin’ ‘bout how ye came ‘ere, but never heard where yer from.”

“Mm, I haven’t told anyone,” Sunset half-muttered.

“Why not?”

“Eh… I’d just rather not. A surprising number of people are curious, but it’s just not interesting.”

Hagrid just chuckled as he plowed a path through the snow with his massive form. “Maybe it’s you sayin’ tha’ wha’ makes people curious.”

Sunset failed to hold back a sigh.

“Well won’ press further then,” Hagrid said, as they reached the bank of the lake, and put the barrels of snails into a rowboat.

“Thanks,” Sunset said in a quiet voice, as they sat down in the boat.

Hagrid took the oars, and started rowing out onto the lake, producing lurches of speed from each row.

Sunset played with the idea that McGonagall had done her an unintentional favour.

Hagrid was a warm presence, and not intrusive, and while Sunset would’ve thought she wanted to study, she enjoyed being compelled to sit in comfortable silence, taking in the sight of the castle lighting up the snowy night, basking in the magical heat she produced on her clothes.

Eventually, Hagrid stopped rowing and pulled out one long and one short sturdy-looking wooden stick lying in the boat. He put the long one into the water, and beat on it with the shorter stick, producing a muted clacking sound that reverberated in the water.

“Feedin’ time,” he said.

Before long, the tip of a large tentacle peered out of the water a short way in front of the boat, and if it hadn’t been well-known that the giant aquatic creature was gentle, and even a little shy, Sunset would’ve been tempted to prepare some defensive spells.

A second one appeared, and the tip aimed at Sunset, almost inquisitive.

Hagrid looked at Sunset with an impressed expression. “‘e’s curious ‘bout ye,” he said. “I hope ye don’t mind getting a little slimy.”

The tentacles were certainly that, but it also wasn’t giving her detentions or any quiet ire because it didn’t understand what she was saying, so she simply held out her hand, which the tentacle touched, and they shook… appendages.

“Charmed,” she said, grasping the cold, clammy thing.

Hagrid, who had been looking on, nodded in approval before presenting one of the barrels of water snails to the tentacle.

“Bone ape-teat, as they say.”

Sunset was a little curious about who “they” were, but didn’t ask. Several more tentacles emerged, and started eagerly grabbing the snails out of the barrels. When one submerged with the treat, another came up and grabbed a large chunk of slimy… food.

Before long, the giant squid was done, and both Hagrid and Sunset were both soaked from splashing water from the feasting.

They were both patted on their heads in thanks, before the tentacles retreated down into the water, except for a small tip which cheerfully waved them goodbye for now.

Hagrid looked a little sheepishly at Sunset as they set down the barrels, and he took the oars.

“Aye, well, sometimes it gets a little messy,” he said, as Sunset sat down as well, feeling her robes squelch. “I suppose ye’d want ter get back to the castle ‘n warm yerself up.”

Sunset wrapped her robe around herself, and nodded.

Hagrid rowed in silence for a while, eyeing Sunset with concern.

“... Ye’ve got a good hand wi’ magercal creatures, y’know.”

“Hm?” Sunset asked, looking up.

“Thestrals, now this,” Hagrid said, nodding at the bucket. “Looks like talent ter me.”

Sunset shrugged, a little melancholy. “I’unno, witches and wizards are technically magical creatures. I’m not talented when it comes to them.”

“... How so?” Hagrid carefully asked.

“I don’t know,” Sunset said. “I just… don’t… care much for anyone.”

There was a second of silence before Sunset sighed.

“... I guess that’s a terrible thing to say,” she finished.

Hagrid’s mood became sombre too, and he looked up at the lit-up castle they were gradually coming closer to. “Mmhmm… things’re tense right now. Not a lot o’... friendliness in the air.”

“I… guess that’s true,” Sunset said.

The rowboat came to rest on the bank, and Sunset and Hagrid took a little care not to step in the freezing water as they disembarked.

“I guess tha’s yer detention done,” Hagrid said, and took all the barrels in his arms. “Ye can run up ter the castle now.”

“Are you sure?” Sunset asked.

“Yup. I’ll jes put these back and that’s all done fer today. Thanks fer yer help.”

“Don’t mention it, Mister Hagrid.”

“Jes Hagrid’ll do.”

“Right… goodnight.”

“Night.”

Sunset squelched up to the castle, and entered the great hall, empty of any other living things.

Taking care to magic away the soggy boot prints on her way to the showers to avoid any attention, Sunset realised that with Hermione still in the hospital wing, there would be no other girls in the student body to run into.

Sunset hurried into the girls’ shower, eager to let loose some steam.

She stood in the middle of the room, spreading her arms outward.

Magical energies surged between her fingers, and her hair spread out as if underwater, as she prepared a series of conjurations.

Finally, she gently brought her hands together in a soft clap, and the swirling magical effects spread out through the room.

Before her materialised a tall, wooden bench, and a large iron brazier with pieces of metal junk glowing red hot in it.

She could do with some more exercising of her magical strength, but decided to make it light for now, and simply waved her finger to redirect some water from the shower heads onto the coals, before disrobing and climbing up on the wooden bench.

Sunset continued stretching her magical powers by quickening the process, pulling out more water and heating up the coals even more, working out both the antsy feelings of holding back magically, and the clammy coldness of the night’s detention.

Eventually, she conjured up a towel and lay down on it, reflecting a bit on what the blend of her magic looked like; how much was Equestrian magic, and how much was Earth’s wizarding magic.

She didn’t notice how little reflection she managed though, before just shutting her eyes and starting to snore.

—

The next day a noise made Sunset force an eye open to see Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil dragging their luggages into the second year girls’ dormitory.

“Hi, Sunset!” Lavender said, enthusiastically.

“Mmmrhoo,” Sunset groaned, hoping to get back to napping, and slowly lifted a hand from under her pillow to wave. “Hey.”

“Where’s Hermione?”

“Mmm… hospital wing.”

Both of them dropped their bags and gasped.

“She’s not been attacked, has she!?”

“No, I don’t think so. Percy said she ate something.”

“How long has she been in there?” Parvati asked.

“A few days.”

They looked at each other and shrugged.

“I bet she was practising with advanced potions and spilled it on herself or something,” Parvati said.

“Probably, but no one’s been attacked, right, Sunset?”

“Nope.”

Lavender and Parvati continued unpacking. “Maybe the attacks really have stopped then.”

—

Winter slowly turned to spring. Hermione was released from the hospital wing, the worry about the attacks started dying down, and to Sunset’s delight, Professor McGonagall’s disappointment in Sunset lingered, and disinclined her from observing Sunset’s performance in class, leaving Sunset free to study extracurricular transfiguration magics in the third and fourth year level.

Sunset had also stopped experimenting with potions during Professor Snape’s classes, and just performed rote recitation. It was a giant waste of time, but it helped keep her out of trouble, and with just a little bit of perception-filtering illusions cast on herself, Professor Snape had barely acknowledged her existence in over a month, which was just the way she liked it.

In the common room, Sunset had moved an armchair and footrest extra close to the fireplace, and removed her boots to warm the bottom of her feet, when Ginny Weasley plopped down on the couch beside her, looking energised in a both good and bad way.

“Hey, Ginny.”

“Hullo… uh,” she said, hesitantly. “Uhm… Sunset?”

“Yeah?”

“If you, uhm… had to cover… uhm, actually, you break rules all the time, don’t you?”

Sunset raised an eyebrow in Ginny’s direction. “I don’t know, what do the school rules say about entrapment?”

“What?”

“Nevermind. Why do you ask?”

Ginny wringed her hands and squirmed uncomfortably where she sat as Sunset looked at her, curious.

“Well I… how do you do it?”

“How do I break rules?” Sunset asked, raising an eyebrow.

“No, I mean, how do you get away with it?”

Sunset’s eyes shifted around as she tried figuring out what brought this on. “I don’t break that many rules, but… I guess…” Sunset said, scratching her scalp. “Look, if no one sees you break rules, and the rules are stupid anyway, you don’t have to feel guilty, and if you don’t feel guilty, you don’t look guilty.”

Ginny got a far-off look in her eyes as she processed this.

“... Okay… I think that makes sense.”

“It does,” Sunset simply said.

Ginny stood up. “Thanks.”

“Myeah,” Sunset said, and went back to feeling her feet warming up.

—

One morning in February, a yawning Sunset sauntered into the great hall for breakfast, and suddenly felt nauseous.

With her eyes barely open, she stumbled towards her usual spot at the Gryffindor table, when Lavender and Parvati grabbed her by her shoulders and hurried her up.

They sat her down among her classmates, in front of a pile of envelopes, some of them white, some pink.

She opened her mouth, but was interrupted by another yawn, then smacked her lips.

“What’s this?” she asked her surroundings in general as she looked at the pile.

“Letters,” a serious-looking Parvati said.

“Yeah, I can see that, but what’s…” Sunset said, as she looked around the great hall.

Pink, heart-shaped confetti was raining from the ceiling, and giant hearts, also pink, were plastered all over the walls.

The rest of the student body was looking around with a wide variety of reactions. Some, like Neville, were mostly looking perplexed, others were blushing or looking very nervous and expectant, and many, especially the girls, like Hermione, were covering their mouths with their hands and giggling.

“... Oh,” Sunset said, to her dismay realising that there would, of course, be a Hearts ‘n Hooves day here as well.

It had always irked Sunset that Cadence- already perfect little alicorn princess Cadence, could have a special day dedicated to everything she wanted, including trying to set up romances, but there was no holiday dedicated to leaving unicorn scholars alone to do their work finding out how to become immortal alicorns themselves.

She looked at the stack of letters in front of her again, and could only repeat herself. “... Oh.”

“... Well!?” an impatient-looking Parvati said. “Are you going to read them?”

“You know… it might be best if I don’t,” Sunset said, slightly cautiously.

Like sharks smelling blood, Fred and George Weasley appeared behind her.

“Oh don’t worry, we’ll help you out!”

They lunged for a handful of letters each, and while Sunset managed to grab some of them, they just took another handful before retreating.

Fred yanked one letter out of an envelope, and adjusted a pair of imaginary glasses. “Ahem! Sunset, I’ve been watching you for a long time and I would like to… oh my!”

“What? What!?” both Lavender and Seamus insisted.

Sunset rested her forehead on her hands, and groaned, when Fred tossed the letter in her lap. “No, this one’s finished.”

“Sunset Shimmer, you are the most beautiful girl in school. Would you like to go out with me?” George read, looking at the letter incredulously. “Heh, points for brevity.”

“This one wants to teach you how to fly a broomstick,” Fred said.

“From who?” Lavender asked.

“It… doesn’t say. Wow, that’s just marvellous,” Fred said, scanning the letter again, disappointed.

By now, their audience had started to grow, several lines down their table, and even among the other houses.

“This one’s interesting,” George said. “Sunset Shimmer. I hate you. You are ugly and pathetic and you don’t deserve any friends. Huh, no ambiguity with their feelings there.”

“Don’t you people have your own letters to read!?” Sunset asked, angrily.

Fred and George looked at her with overdone disapproval.

“Wow, way to brag, drawing attention to how few other people have.”

“Yeah, show-off.”

“Like this one: Ahem! Sunset Shimmer, you are of a worthy line of powerful witches and wizards, and my own family will find you a worthy addition–”

That’s as far as he got before the letters were surrounded in a teal aura, which yanked them out of Fred and George’s hands, and tossed them down into her bag.

She pulled her wand, and whipped it against Fred and George, producing a rope of fire which they danced out of the way off while laughing, making it singe the floor.

“What’s this? What’s going on here?” a cheerful voice said.

“Nothing, Professor Lockhart,” Sunset firmly said at the wide smile facing her.

“Well, look sharp, you and young mister Diggory have both won the contest of most Valentine’s wishes received,” Lockhart said. “Excluding the faculty, and thus myself, of course.”

Sunset froze, before looking over at Cedric Diggory, who was giving Lockhart a terrified look from the Hufflepuff table.

Sunset sat absolutely still for several seconds, before simply grabbing a sandwich and standing up.

“Hospital wing!” she growled, and stormed off.

She rounded the corner of the hall, not heading towards the hospital wing but Gryffindor tower, when her coat was grabbed by something.

“Oi, you!” the something barked.

She spun around from the sudden yanking, and found herself staring into a pair of eyes narrowed to thin slits between a giant, wild beard and a pair of matching eyebrow, belonging to a short, stocky creature in dirty, rough, and smelly clothes, but with a pair of cheap fake wings on his back and a plastic gloria dangling above his head from a stick.

Sunset almost forgot her annoyance at the sight of the… person.

“Got me a poem ter read to ya,” he muttered, held up a roll of paper, and cleared her throat.

Sunset’s sandwich was incinerated in her hand.

The dwarf’s eyes widened, and he carefully let go of Sunset. “... it can wait,” he said, to Sunset’s back, who was already continuing on to the common room.

—

As spring continued, Professor Sprout kept making bi-weekly announcements regarding the state of the mandrakes, which was rather promising. Between that and the lack of attacks, the mood of the whole castle was slowly, carefully, returning to something that resembled normal.

Sunset continued keeping her head down, and managed to fool the faculty that she was struggling just as much as her classmates to keep up with the schoolwork.

She compensated by finding quiet spots in the school to practise magic in after classes, and before curfew.

Before long, it was Easter holidays, and time for the second year students to choose their elective subjects to study during their third year.

During breakfast, McGonagall was handing out leaflets about the subjects, and a roll of paper for each of them to mark which ones they had chosen.

“I just want to give up potions,” said Harry, with his chin in one hand and the leaflets in another.

“We can’t,” Ron said. “We keep all our old subjects, or I’d’ve ditched Defence Against the Dark Arts.”

“But that’s very important,” Hermione insisted.

“Not the way Lockhart teaches it. I haven’t learned anything from him except not to set pixies free.”

Sunset was looking through the subjects as well, nibbling on a piece of toast.

If there was one subject she was confident that she didn’t need to study here, as her knowledge of it from Equestria would’ve carried over, it was Arithmancy.

Besides that, Care of Magical Creatures was something she figured could be useful in her quest, since innate magical abilities could play an important role in reaching alicornhood, so she marked that down.

A possibly even more useful subject, which didn’t provide information so much as ways to obtain information, was Divination, which she also marked.

Besides those, there was one other subject which she hadn’t gotten any wizarding books on, and which she wished she could study more of, but only had the chance to for a little bit of the year, and so Muggle Studies was also marked.

“Sunset…? Sunseeeet?”

“Huh?” Sunset said, looking up to see Lavender facing her, and glancing down on her paper.

“Are you picking muggle studies?”

“That’s right,” she said.

She looked up from the paper to see everyone else sharing meaningful looks and shaking their heads, before looking away when they noticed she was watching,

“What?” Sunset asked.

“So you really aren’t a muggleborn?” Seamus asked

Sunset finally relented, just a little bit. “No, my parents could do magic,” she said.

Dean groaned, and dug out two silver sickles and reluctantly placed them in the hand of a grinning Seamus.

Sunset felt it was best to not imagine that it was because she was very interesting, and stayed silent.

One cluster of people had been intensely silent during the conversation. Sunset turned her head to see Harry, Ron, and Hermione quietly looking at her, turning their heads away when she saw them.

“So what’cha picking, Neville?” she asked.

Neville was looking back and forth between a dozen letters, all of them recommending different subjects.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Great-uncle Algie says I could run a shop, like him, and pick arithmancy. Great-auntie Enid thinks that I could work at the ministry…”

Sunset nodded along, and noticed Harry, Ron, and Hermione looking perplexed at the sight.

—

Time marched on, slower than back in Equestria, apparently, but it made it further and further through spring.

Sunset sauntered unenthusiastically towards the Quidditch pitch with the rest of the student body. Gryffindor was playing against Hufflepuff, and Sunset, who didn’t care about Quidditch, or really much about the student houses either, wished she could just go back up to the castle without drawing anyone’s attention.

She got her wish up on the stands, when Professor McGonagall quickly marched out onto the pitch, holding a megaphone.

“The match has been cancelled!” she announced, making everyone on the stands look at each other with dark expressions. “All students are to make their way back to the house common rooms, where their Heads of Houses will give them further information. As quickly as you can, please!”

Sunset took a deep breath, and turned around to join the crowd going down the stairs, away from the viewing platforms.

“What do you think that means?” Parvati asked.

“I think it means that someone has been attacked,” Seamus said.

Before long, every student in Gryffindor, with two notable exceptions, were crammed into their common room, sitting on every couch, armchair, footstool, table, and rug, or were leaning against the occupied pieces of furniture, all of them staring at Professor McGonagall, who was holding up a roll of paper which she read from.

“... The first victim being Penelope Clearwater, a sixth year prefect in Ravenclaw, while the second one most of you are familiar with; Hermione Granger, second year in Gryffindor.”

Sunset’s year had already figured out who the second victim was, but the rest of the students let out a collective gasp.

McGonagall took a breath to steady herself. “All students will return to their house common rooms by six o’clock in the evening. No student is to leave the dormitories after that time. You will be escorted to each lesson by a teacher. No student is to use the bathroom unaccompanied by a teacher. All further Quidditch training and matches are to be postponed. There will be no more evening activities.”

She rolled up her parchment, and looked at her students, bracing herself once again, and not quite managing to keep her voice steady. “I need hardly add that I have rarely been so distressed. Is it likely that the school will be closed unless the culprit behind these attacks is caught. I would urge anyone who thinks they might know anything about them to come forward.”

She turned around to clamber down down the portrait hole, and the moment the portrait closed behind her, the room exploded in discussion.

Lee Jordan pointed out how the Slytherins had been spared any attacks, and suggested that they be kicked out, to a round of applause.

Sunset was sitting in her own armchair, which she had surreptitiously conjured herself (though no one was keeping track of the amount of furniture at this moment so no one noticed) resting her chin on her fist.

“What do you think will happen, Sunset?” Neville asked, who was sitting on a nearby footstool, with Ginny Weasley curled up on a rug to the side and leaning against it.

“Well…” Sunset started, and gathered her thoughts on what the sensible approach to this might be. “If they do close the school, there might be a chance to reopen it again if the Ministry sends in troops to sweep the entire structure without worrying about bystanders.”

“You mean the Department of Magical Law Enforcement?” Neville said. “That’s a great idea! Then they could find the monster.”

“If it’s a monster,” Sunset pointed out. “We still don’t know. It could be someone using the whole monster story as a distraction.”

Neville nodded sagely. “What do you think, Ginny?”

Ginny raised a haggard face and stared up at Neville in surprise. “What!? Uuhm… I… don’t know. Maybe… whoever is doing it… isn’t meaning to…”

“Stranger things have happened. If that’s the case it would explain their motivation as well, or the lack of one,” Sunset said.

Later, when Lavender, Parvati, and Sunset entered the second year girls’ dormitory, they did so almost reverently.

Hermione would always waddle back and forth between being interested in Lavender and Parvati’s girly gossip, and rolling her eyes at them when it became too much for her.

They looked at Hermione’s bed and bedside table, on top of which were stacks of books with dozens of bookmarks sticking out of them.

“... At least she’s not dead,” Parvati eventually offered.

“You know what I think?” Lavender said, as they started changing into their sleepwear. “I think it’s someone from outside.”

“What?” Parvati said, looking at Lavender over her shoulder.

“Think about it. The teachers have all been on the lookout- actually, everyone has, especially right after the attacks, but no one has seen anything. What if it’s not a student or a teacher or someone in the castle at all? Maybe it’s someone in Hogsmeade, or from somewhere else, just swooping in and casting a petrification curse, and then flees back out of the castle again.”

“But what about the monster thing?” Parvati asked.

“Maybe it lives in the forest?” Lavender suggested. “Or whoever it is that’s doing it brings it with them?”

Sunset had paused, as she considered this, blinking her eyes.

“That’s a surpris- uhm… a good idea,” she noted.

“Right?” Lavender said. “It makes sense, making everyone look in the wrong places.”

They all crept in under their covers, and Lavender and Parvati kept speculating about the attacks and the Chamber of Secrets well into the night, occasionally asking Sunset for her insight, until she were lulled to sleep by their discussion.

—

The next morning, at breakfast, McGonagall drew the attention of several nearby students as she stormed up in front of the faculty’s table, and noticeably took a moment to collect herself, and tried to suppress an angry scowl as she unrolled a piece of paper.

“Attention, all students!” she yelled, a little more loudly than required to silence the room. “I… regret to inform you… that… that the headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, and the groundskeeper, Rubeus Hagrid, have, for an undetermined amount of time–” she covered up her faltering voice by clearing her throat “–will be… on a leave of absence.

“The school will continue operating as… as normal, and any… all special instructions are still in place. No amount of sensational speculation, or any rumour mongering of any kind, will be allowed. That is all.”

Unlike the previous times, McGonagall’s lower eyelid didn’t twitch at the immediate murmur that followed her statement, and despite Sunset having had pretty low thoughts on her head of house lately, she couldn’t help but feel a twinge of sympathy at the sight of the older woman trying to not look defeated as she tiredly marched to take her place at the table.

“‘Leave of absence’?” Seamus said. “What does that mean?”

“It means that they’re not here right now,” Lavender supplied, genuinely.

“I know that! By what did she really mean?”

“Maybe they were responsible for the attacks?” Dean suggested, making Harry and Ron cast him a venomous look.

“Dumbledore?” Parvati asked, one raised eyebrow aimed at Dean.

“Oh, right,” Dean said, and thought about it for a few more seconds. “But Hagrid then?”

“Uhm… what do you think, Sunset?” Neville asked.

Everyone turned to look at Sunset, chewing on a piece of toast. She couldn’t understand why they wanted her thoughts on the matter, but she decided to help them out as best as she could anyway.

“Motive,” she reminded them.

“What?” Dean asked.

“Motive,” Sunset repeated. “What would their motive be?”

Dean opened his mouth, and closed it again, as everyone considered this wrinkle.

“Mm, it’s not like Dumbledore would have been hostile towards muggles this whole time,” Neville said.

“My thoughts exactly, and I’ll say the same about Hagrid,” Sunset said, not noticing that Harry and Ron’s expressions softened slightly to uncertain and slightly confused looks.

—

Summer was approaching Hogwarts like an enormous walrus turning over in slow-motion, however, the weather did little to lift anyone’s spirits, and by extension Sunset’s spirits.

She was by now exceedingly tired of being surrounded by the stale stench of fear and panic exuding from her fellow students.

Sunset contributed to it all as well by trying her best to keep her irritability under control, which made her tense and terse.

It was all made worse by how all students were pretty much confined to the classrooms and common rooms, and escorted between the limited locations by teachers. While Sunset could reliably slip out and avoid detection, there was very little to do, and too many might notice her absence in the common room.

“Professor?” she said, as McGonagall was escorting the girls needing a bathroom break after class, while Flitwick led the rest of the class towards the common room.

“Yes, Miss Shimmer?”

“The rumours are that Hagrid was arrested for the attacks, and that he has been arrested before.”

McGonagall’s expression hardened, but she kept her voice steady. “... Yes, I believe they are,” she said, as Parvati and Lavender entered the bathroom while looking back at them with curious faces.

“So how does one go about obtaining public records regarding old criminal cases?” Sunset calmly asked.

“What?”

“Public records,” Sunset repeated, meeting McGonagall’s confused expression with an uncertain one. “You know; Law enforcement reports, press releases, statements, court transcripts, all of that.”

“R… regarding what?” McGonagall asked.

“Regarding whatever Mister Hagrid was accused of, whenever that was, and whatever it was.

McGonagall took a deep breath, puffing herself up to a greater height, and speaking in a slow, hard tone.

“I would recommend that you focus on school work, and leave adult matters to the adults.”

Sunset’s expression slowly darkened, and her jaw clenched.

“Fine,” she said, turned around, and walked away.

“Miss Shimmer!” McGonagall barked, and started walking after her. “You will need to be escorted to the common room.”

“No I do not,” Sunset simply said, and teleported as she rounded a corner, leaving McGonagall to stare down an empty hallway when she caught up.

It was a risky move, but Sunset’s patience was now dangerously thin, having had her attempt to assist thrown back in her face.

Furthermore, it was pretty clear that Lavender and Parvati had not actually been using the toilets during Sunset and McGonagall’s exchange, but had been pressing their ears to the door.

Now, in addition to the annoyance of the fear and panic around making Sunset almost perpetually surly, the rumours surrounding her had shifted more towards the kind that made people quiet in her presence.

She had been laying the magic on thick to make people ignore her while in potions classes. Snape, however, seemed to be in a good mood, which helped.

“Don’t you think it’s great that Dumbledore is finally gone?” Draco asked Sunset, as Snape was walking with the class towards the Great Hall for lunch.

A part of Sunset mused on how difficult it was to point out that Dumbledore had been very kind to her in the past.

Remembering that did help Sunset calm down somewhat, at least for the moment.

Sunset bobbed her head as she considered what Draco said. “He tried to help me last year. It feels like bad form to be happy he’s gone.”

Draco opened his mouth, and looked at Sunset in surprise. “He has?” he asked, and then rallied. “Well it doesn’t matter. You don’t need his help.”

Sunset almost laughed when she realised how this simple encouragement helped.

“Tsh, you got that right,” she said.

Draco kept glancing at her, as if he wanted to say something else, but held it back, and went to sit by the Slytherin table when they reached the Great Hall.

At the Gryffindor table, Sunset collapsed into her seat, and stared out a window, chin resting in her hands and her eyelids drooping.

“Sunset?” Lavender carefully said. “Are you okay?”

Sunset shook her head in small, tired motions, and sighed.

Normal people dealt with the problems that Sunset was having by being supported and hugged, but Sunset saw the glaring flaw of that approach. Though she was loath to admit it, McGonagall’s dismissal of Sunset’s plans to help really, really bothered her, and that dismissal was another example of how other people, even the ones who were supposed to be on her side, could not be trusted.

It was a double vulnerability to rely on other people. Draco was right.

—

Nothing much happened for weeks after that. Without Hermione taking up the spotlight, Sunset made extra sure to not seem too far ahead of the class, but the faculty had also stopped probing as to why Sunset didn’t seem to be putting in much effort.

Entering the second year’s girls’ dormitory revealed Hermione’s bed, with her books, quills, and notes strewn about, now with a thin layer of dust covering them.

Lavender and Parvati had insisted that they don’t touch any of it, as if it was a shrine of some kind.

The three of them most often went to bed in silence these days, with only the occasional whispered gossip between the other two girls.

One night, Sunset was stirred awake by a strange growling. It would normally be an alarming sound to be roused awake by, but it was far off in the distance, and outdoors.

Smacking her lips, she got up, dressed in her nightgown, and went over to a window. Looking out over the grounds, she saw two bright pinpricks of light approaching from the forest.

Instantly suspicious, she hurriedly started rubbing the sleep from her eyes, but once she took another look, it had started retreating back into the forest.

“Damn,” she hissed to herself, and looked at Parvati and Lavender.

Parvati turned over, and Sunset decided to play it safe, and darted out of the room before teleporting outdoors.

The cool air of the early summer night washed over her, and a tingling sense of joy floated through the air.

“Yes, hello again,” Sunset said, trying not to seem rude as the forest greeted her.

She heard the growling sound in the distance, and spotted the bright lights rapidly retreating deeper into the forest.

With her nightgown swishing behind her, Sunset started sprinting after whatever the strange creature was, leaping over shrubs the forest did its best to part the undergrowth for her.

The woods whispered to her, joyful from having another unicorn run through it, but also giving the impression of urgent whispers caressing Sunset’s ears: Careful. Intruders. Dangerous.

Sunset nodded, and surrounded herself in a shimmering aura, but after a moment of chasing the torch-equipped, growling… thing, she realised that her quarry was not what the forest was warning her about.

That thing was not some evil intruder. In fact, it suddenly and smoothly stopped, and gently rumbled some ways ahead of her.

The torches were not torches. They were headlights.

“Oh… right,” Sunset said, releasing the flame she had been holding in her hand and rolling her eyes.

It was the car that Ron and Harry had arrived in during the first day of school the previous summer, and it stood before her right now, gently idling.

Sunset could tell that the car was empty, and realised what was going on.

Like the armors of the castle, this car had gained an imitative semblance of awareness, and was now seemingly living in the forest.

Sunset laughed a little to herself, the tension flowing out of her, as she walked up to the car.

It rolled towards her the last few inches, like a curious animal, and she put her hand on it, impressed.

“Someone did some serious magic on you,” she said, approvingly. “Not bad at all. Where did you come from?”

But she didn’t have much time to investigate further, as the forest whispered to her again. The car wasn’t what it had been concerned about, but the thing that scared it for Sunset’s sake was out there, and angry.

The forest urged her to leave, but Sunset narrowed her eyes.

“Is it the centaurs?” she said, and realisation hit her, making her narrow her eyes.. “Are the centaurs attacking people in the castle?”

A breeze rattled the leaves. It didn’t understand what Sunset was asking, but the danger was not centaurs.

“Should I help?”

An oak groaned in the distance. The woods only wanted to see her safe, to hide her and cover her tracks as she went back to shelter.

“Has whatever is out there left the forest recently?”

The brushes around her shook slightly, meaning that no, it hadn’t.

“So it’s not what is attacking people in the castle,” she muttered to herself, and nodded.

Sunset would’ve loved to let out some pent up feelings at whoever this forest didn’t like, but it told her it was no danger to the forest itself, only its visitors.

“Fine,” Sunset relented, and turned away. “I guess I’ll see you later. Perhaps you as well,” she told the car, which also started rolling away, the forest subtly thickening the foliage behind them.

The episode with the forest had actually helped Sunset’s mood to some degree, and a few days later, McGonagall walked up and made an announcement at breakfast.

“I have good news.”

The hall buzzed with excitement.

“Dumbledore is coming back!”

“You’ve caught the heir of Slytherin!”

“Quidditch matches are back on!”

McGonagall held up a hand and, unusually, waited for the murmur to subside on its own.

“Professor Sprout has informed me that the Mandrakes are ready for cutting at last. Tonight, we will be able to revive those people who have been petrified. I need hardly remind you all that one of them may well be able to tell us who, or what, attacked them. I am hopeful that this dreadful year will end with our catching the culprit.”

The cheering was accompanied by a wave of relief. The silent dread and panic which had lingered for months now vanished almost instantly.

Sunset had never experienced such a rapid shift of scents in her life, and it was almost euphoric. She leaned her head back and took a deep, relieved breath, feeling as though a headache she didn’t realise she had been dealing with for weeks was finally lifted, and her shoulders relaxed, seemingly for the first time in ages.

“You alright, Sunset?” Neville asked, once he had finished cheering along with everyone else.

Sunset just nodded. She was tired, but at least now she could probably get some decent rest.

She decided to inform Professor Lockhart that she wasn’t feeling well, and was allowed to return to Gryffindor Tower for some rest.

He even forgot to arrange someone to escort her back to the tower.

“Are you allowed to walk around alone?” the fat lady asked her.

Sunset shrugged. “No one said anything,” she said, and provided the password.

Inside the empty common room, Sunset slumped down into an armchair in front of the fireplace which only had a cosy little fire now during summer, put her feet up on the footrest, and dozed off.

After what felt like only moments, a voice jolted Sunset awake.

She looked around, startled, until she realised she was alone, and the voice was actually McGonagall speaking with a magically enchanted voice, echoing through the halls.

“... students to return to their house dormitories at once. All teachers return to the staff room. Immediately, please.”

Sunset sat up, and looked at the opening to the dormitories with a feeling of apprehension.

The fourth year students returned first, with Fred, George, and Lee Jordan talking amongst themselves, trying to not seem bothered.

“Hey, Sunset,” they said, and sat down on the couch next to her.

“Hey,” she responded, as Fred retrieved a pair of butter beer bottles from inside his robes which they shared between them, as they too looked curiously at the door opening, waiting for answers.

“Do you know what’s up?” Lee asked.

“Uh-uh,” Sunset said, and shook her head at the bottle that George offered her. “No thanks.”

Gradually, the whole common room filled up with students, though everyone was by now accustomed to squeezing together into the couches and armchairs with each other, only a few were left sitting on the rugs.

Harry and Ron hurried in and took up a spot in the far back, with Ron looking as though he was in a daze, just moments before McGonagall entered.

Her expression was even worse than when she announced that Dumbledore and Hagrid had been forced to leave the school, which everyone noticed, and her faltering expression was met with a tensely curious silence as every eye in the common room was fixed on her.

She took several deep breaths, and like Ron, looked like she wasn’t all there, before she swallowed.

“Ginny… Weasley…” she started, and Sunset could immediately feel the tension and fear flowing from Fred and George. “... Has been taken… by the culprit… into the… the Chamber of Secrets.”

The entire room gasped, but there was no eruption of murmur and speculation this time, only silence except for the clink of a bottle of butterbeer slipping from Fred’s hand onto the rug. Instead, they looked back and forth between McGonagall and the Weasley brothers, not sure where to start.

“But!” Lee Jordan finally said, next to the frozen twins. “G-go find her then!”

Annoyance flashed across McGonagall’s face for the merest of moments, before she calmed down. “We will of course do our utmost to prevent anything from happening to her, but…”

She tapered off weakly, prompting another round of the students looking back and forth at each other.

“Well… call the police then!” Dean Thomas said. “Or, you know, the… the ministry or something!”

McGonagall nodded shudderingly. “Letters to the relevant ministry officials are being drafted as we speak, and we are actively looking for Dumbledore. Their official authorities are limited at Hogwarts, but we are urging them to make exceptions and bypass the bureaucracy to act as swiftly as possible, but we… fear that…”

“But Professor Sprout is making the cure, you said,” Neville said, pleadingly. “When you give the cure to Hermione and the others, they can tell you who it is, and then you can find Ginny.”

McGonagall nodded. “Yes, but there are still several hours of work left before the cure is ready. We are of course working towards that goal as well, but…”

Everyone was looking at McGonagall, and each other, aghast and desperate for answers, when she steeled herself.

“Enough. You will all stay here until tomorrow morning, at which point, unless the situation has been resolved, you will be escorted to the Hogwarts express.”

She turned around to leave, when Percy, tears silently flowing down his cheeks and barely keeping the sobs back, stood up as well.

McGonagall held out a hand for him to join her. “Yes, Mister Weasley. I realise you… have… letters to send.”

They quietly walked out, leaving everyone else to stare after them in silence.

Everyone turned to look at Ron, Fred, and George.

Their teacher hadn’t said it, but her demeanour left no room for doubt. Ginny Weasley was in grave danger, if she wasn’t already dead.

Lee Jordan, his eyes welling up with tears, put a hand on Fred’s shoulder, but Fred and George just sat there, staring ahead blankly.

After what seemed like hours of silence, Parvati and Lavender rose up and walked up the stairs to the dorms in silence.

Sunset stood up as well, and followed them with an expression of utter defeat on her face.

Once she rounded the corner and got out of sight however, she dropped her facade and sped up, jaw clenched in determination.

<> she growled to herself, as she entered her dorm, and marched up to her bed.

“Sunset?” Lavender said, as Sunset dug out her cloak

Sunset grunted in response, and started taking out all the vials of potions, cures, and ointments, helpful or otherwise, which she had saved from her extracurricular potions research, and double checking their arrangements in all her pockets. She then dug out her and Celestia’s book, and quickly flipped to the current page, taking out her muggle pencil and putting it on the page.

Those rumours I told you about are real. A girl has been kidnapped.

Going monster hunting.

Write to you later.

She shut the book, and turned to her alarmed classmates.

“Do you two know anything?” she calmly.

“No,” Lavender said, and shook her head to which Sunset nodded.

“Sunset,” Parvati said, nervously. “I… think your hair's on fire.”

Sunset turned around to look in the mirror to see that, indeed, her hair was slightly glowing, with the occasional little gout of flame rising up from it.

“Don’t mind that,” she said, and straightened it out, before walking towards the door, turning to Parvati and Lavender as she walked out. “Stay here.”

She closed the door, and teleported away.

Appearing on top of the outer wall of the castle grounds, she observed the giant stone structure critically, taking a calming sigh.

She tried making a mental, internal map of the castle, trying to find out where there might be a hidden chamber of near mythical importance, but it was no use. The castle’s walls, both internal and external, were inconsistently thick, that idea did not take the underground parts of the castle into account, which was the most obvious place to put a secret chamber anyway, and it was clear that the witches and wizards who built the castle possessed a firm grasp of space-altering magic.

She sighed, and quickly walked along the wall of the castle itself, prodding at the stone and inspecting it closely, but that was of no use either.

Instead, she entered the castle, and made her way up to the fourth floor, heading towards the secret passage towards the hills overlooking Hogsmeade, to try and get a feel for the magic or structure of hidden chambers at Hogwarts. It was too slow, but it was the best lead she had.

However, she stopped when a voice called out to her.

“Young Mistress Shimmer,” a hoarse voice said.

Sunset turned around to see The Bloody Baron floating up towards her.

“My Lord Baron,” she said, nodding politely but tersely at the ghost.

“May I ask your business here, at this time?”

“You’ve heard that Ginny Weasley has been taken to the Chamber of Secrets, right?” Sunset said, continually scanning the stones of the castle.

“I have,” the Baron said, nodding.

“Well I intend to find her,” Sunset said, and turned back to the ghost. “I don’t suppose you know where the chamber is?”

The Baron shook his head, his eyes always fixed on Sunset. “I do not, but… repositories of the castle’s secrets would likely be found in the headmaster’s office.”

Sunset raised her head slowly, intrigued.

“... They would, wouldn’t they?” she said, and nodded. “Thank you.”

The Baron nodded back. “My friend’s honour demands satisfaction. I extend thanks in his place.”

“You mean Nick?”

The Baron nodded.

“Right. I’ll see to it,” Sunset said, and set off towards Dumbledore’s office.

Before the meeting with the Baron, Sunset almost would not have minded walking into a member of the faculty, figuring that at least that could provide some sort of hint, but now, she moved quickly and quietly through the hallways, sniffing and listening the entire time, but except for the Fat Friar, whom she convinced to check with the Baron about whether or not she should be in the corridors, and a short detour to avoid Flitwick, she made it to the stairs leading up to Dumbledore’s office without problems.

She stared at the absolutely still gargoyle for a moment, humming to herself.

“Just sweets in general,” she said, impatiently.

The gargoyle suddenly turned his head towards her and gave her a disappointed look.

“That was the laziest suggestion I’ve heard in a long time,” he told her.

“Am I wrong?” she said, raising an eyebrow threateningly.

He grumbled a bit, before moving aside. “Just this once.”

Sunset bounded up the stairs, and threw open the door.

The portraits around the office looked up in surprise. Sunset had never spoken to them the times she had been here before, but she had quickly figured out that they were previous headmasters.

“Oh!” the portrait of a feeble old man said, in a quivering and slightly uncertain voice. “This is not something I’ve seen before. A student with free reign of the headmaster’s office.”

“Nor have I,” a very disapproving-looking man with a black goatee said. “It is to be expected by students these days. Rest assured, young one, that I will recommend harsh treatment for you when Dumbldore returns. And after he helped you so much last year.”

“Yeah yeah,” Sunset said, waving him away, and opening a glass cabinet to scan the covers of a set of books for anything that might be about known secrets of the castle, in the hopes of perhaps cross-referencing something. “I need to find the chamber of secrets. It’s an emergency.”

That piqued the curiosity of all the portraits, except the man with the goatee.

“What kind of emergency?” a woman with a very old style of doctor’s hat said.

“Life or death,” Sunset said.

Before anyone else could say anything, a giant gout of flame appeared behind Sunset.

She spun around, spells at the ready, only to see Fawkes appear in the air, and soar over to a tall glass cabinet next to Sunset.

“Fawkes!”

He turned around, looking at Sunset in surprise, and spread his wings while trilling urgently.

Sunset’s jaw almost dropped, and she let out a nervous little laugh, hope welling up inside her.

“You do!?”

Fawkes trilled again, and pointed with a talon at the cabinet.

“There is?” Sunset said, and opened the door to the cabinet, revealing a gold- and gem-decorated sword. “Huh.”

She grabbed the sword, and turned to Fawkes. “Right! Where to next?”

Fawkes squawked and nodded towards the sorting hat.

Sunset gave him a disbelieving look. “The hat? Why?”

Fawkes squawked again.

“Well, okay. Makes as much sense as anything,” she said, and marched over to the hat, grabbed it, and shoved the sword into it.

Another trill, this one also urgent.

“What?” Sunset asked, feeling a little like a broken record.

Fawkes trilled, feeling the same.

“Ah,” Sunset said, and nodded at Fawkes, before turning the hat over, and stepping inside it, the hat’s interior being magically enlarged. “Element of surprise, eh? Alright. Let’s go!”

Sunset pulled the side of the hat up, ending up in what felt like standing inside a giant leather sack, the golden sword lying next to her, when a pair of phoenix talons closed around the brim of the hat, and started taking off, when everything was engulfed in magical, harmless fire.

Author's Note

Pre-read by ssokolow and Snuffy.

Stay tuned for the upcoming chapter: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secretions.

Virtuous Mission

To her slight dismay, Sunset almost forgot that she was going to travel by phoenix fire while stuffed inside the Sorting Hat, and thus she didn’t have the time to formulate a plan, or even psyche herself up.

Instead, she took a deep breath and simply braced herself while holding the sword steady.

But she didn’t appear in the middle of a battlefield, with a giant, roaring monster shrugging off spells and arrows.

Instead, through the opening of the hat, she saw the stone ceiling of a darkened chamber that Fawkes soared through, singing bracingly.

Sunset kept breathing deeply, trying to be ready for anything, when she noticed something in her shirt pocket.. something hard and metallic.

It was the multi-tool that the muggle boys had dropped, almost a year ago.

Almost amused by the thought, Sunset made sure it was quickly accessible, when the hat was dropped to the floor.

Inside the hat, Sunset was magically cushioned, and hardly felt the soft impact.

Holding the sword from Dumbledore’s office in one hand and the knife in the other, she listened.

“That’s a phoenix,” a voice she didn’t recognise said, calmly.

Sunset narrowed her eyes. This was not at all how she expected to find herself.

“Fawkes?” a shocked and scared Harry said.

Sunset nodded. That was more like it. If Harry was here, and scared, that could very well mean that there was a martial threat here, and that was something Sunset could help with.

“And that… that’s the old school Sorting Hat.”

Sunset scoffed inside her mind. It was more than that, as someone was going to learn soon. It was just a question of figuring out who, and where they were.

The unknown voice started laughing, their echoes compounding on each other in the chamber.

“This is what Dumbledore sends his defender! A songbird and an old hat! Do you feel brave, Harry Potter? Do you feel safe now?”

Sunset smirked. Now she knew what to do.

She turned around in the magically enlarged hat, stepped out onto the stone floor, and lifted it off of her, all the way from the floor to above her head.

“... Sunset?” Harry said, taking a step back, his eyes wide as saucers

“The very same,” Sunset said, and bowed, flourishing the hat, before dropping it, revealing her sword, and turned to the other person in the room, scanning the chamber as she did.

The chamber was a vast cavern with brick walls, pillars, statues of snakes, and pools of water, and also housed the third and fourth humans, or at least human-shaped individuals.

On the floor a few steps away from her and Harry lay Ginny, unhealthily pale and cold-looking, in front of an older boy surrounded by a sort of blur, as if he wasn’t entirely corporeal, who glared at them coldly.

“... Sunset…” he said, suspiciously. “The mysterious Sunset Shimmer who scares the other students with the rumours swirling around her?”

Sunset would’ve suspected the boy was a bad apple even without seeing the highly suspicious scene in front of her.

She smirked and widened her stance. “I see my reputation precedes me, but you have me at a disadvantage.”

“He’s Voldemort, Sunset!” Harry said.

Sunset stopped dead, and her smirk morphed into a hungry grin as she eyed the half-ghostly boy eagerly.

“... Reeaally?” she said, intrigued.

Voldemort recoiled slightly as he narrowed his eyes. This was not how the dark lord was supposed to be greeted by his enemies.

Wheels were rapidly turning in Sunset’s mind however. Becoming an alicorn could be about learning enough magic, the right kind of magic, proving oneself to be worthy, or possibly all of the above and more.

In several of those options, defeating Dark Lords sounded like a wonderful idea.

The shape lying beside Voldemort caught Sunset’s attention, and she narrowed her eyes.

“And Ginny?” she asked, turning back to the half-ghostly Voldemort.

“I think she’s alive, but the diary, that book,” Harry said, and pointed at the small book lying before Ginny. “It’s Voldemort’s diary, and it’s doing something to her.”

The hostile joy Sunset had felt seconds ago were gone. Now it was just hostility towards the Lord.

“Well then,” she said, and took a step forward, raising the sword she held in her hand.

“Enough!” Voldemort barked, scowling angrily. He raised his head and opened his mouth as if to call out to the chamber itself but, instead of words, as Sunset knew them at least, an otherworldly hissing echoed through the dark.

Harry’s eyes widened, and a giant stone statue of a face opened its mouth, out of which fell a giant, slightly shiny shape, landing with a loud thump.

Sunset narrowed her eyes. “What is…?”

“The basilisk! It’s a basilisk, Sunset!”

She glanced at Harry, and noticed that he didn’t have his wand out, and that Voldemort held one.

“Basilisk. Of course. Right. Catch!” she said, tossing the gilded sword handle-first to Harry, who caught it by the handle with a steadiness that seemed to surprise him.

Harry held the sword in front of him, while glancing at Sunset, who raised her wand above her head, an intense corona of light gathering near the tip.

Her plan was to blind the monster, which was slowly unfurling itself, but a bolt of magic whipped across her hand, making her drop it, and sending a jolt of pain through it as blood started pouring from her palm.

“Agh!” she grunted, gripping her hand as her wand clattered across the stone floor, and turned to see Voldemort standing with Harry’s wand aimed at her.

“No child can stand against Lord Voldemort,” he said, smirking.

“Sunset!” Harry yelled, placing himself between her and the advancing basilisk, back turned against the monster and struggling to not look at the incoming danger.

“Pff, some Dark Lord,” Sunset scoffed, and gathered up a charge in her closed hand, which turned the blood pouring from her palm silver-coloured. “Doesn’t even have the decency to have a showdown where the wind catches people’s cloaks. Harry! Pull your socks up!”

“What?” he said, but immediately realised he should duck, and did so.

Without looking at the enormous serpent, Sunset raised her hands, which to Voldemort’s visible surprise were glowing.

She waved one of them, making water from the pools further away in the chamber levitate up, then shoot towards the general direction of the basilisk

Just as it passed beyond her and Harry, she clenched her other hand, making the glob of water explode into a cloud of steam.

An angry hiss and the sound of scale-covered flesh slamming against stone told Sunset that it had worked. She looked at the monster, and saw it thrashing in the hot steam, its eyes closed.

Deep underground, she couldn’t use her most powerful magics without the risk of a cave-in, and she didn’t want to be stuck holding back a couple of tons of rock with her magic and leaving a Dark Lord free to attack her.

Voldemort scowled at Sunset, and shouted out a command in parseltongue.

The basilisk instantly focused on his voice, and advanced against them again.

“Watch out!” Both Harry and Sunset yelled at the same time, and tried pushing the other out of harm’s way at the same time.

Sunset staggered to the side, while Harry stumbled to the ground.

“Oops,” Sunset said, but Harry was already on his feet again, swinging the sword and trying to make the basilisk back off.

The giant snake had its tongue out however, smelling Harry approaching, and bent his upper body out of the way.

For now, Sunset figured that this was a decent approach in a tactical sense. Harry faced a physical threat with a sword, while Sunset fought the wand-armed villain with magic.

Voldemort smiled widely, and hissed loudly.

Figuring that he was giving the basilisk instructions from the basilisk stopping and paying attention, Sunset raised her bleeding hand against the giant snake, her nails glowing, but this time she was ready for the counter-attack.

She raised her other hand against Voldemort, and conjured a magical shield between herself and the attack.

The impact took her by surprise though. Blaise Zabini’s feeble attempt at disarming her felt like she was a castle wall being attacked by a feather. Voldemort’s attack felt like being attacked by a trebuchet.

She staggered back, wary of what else he would try

Similarly Voldemort looked suspicious of the magic Sunset was capable of without a wand.

“... Interesting,” he said, as Sunset heard loud, angry hisses behind her, and the sound of a sword edge impacting against stone. “Maybe I’ll keep you alive, and make you tell me where you’ve learned your little tricks.”

Sunset opened her mouth to retort, but noticed Ginny again.

“You don’t have all your powers yet,” she noted, and Voldemort’s scowl told her she was right. “It’s close, but you can’t cast the most advanced spells yet.”

She grinned again, retrieved the muggle multitool, with the knife extended, and threw it at Voldemort.

The ghostly boy easily deflected the knife being hurled against him with a flick of his wand, making it land with a clack next to Ginny, but Sunset immediately aimed her hand at Voldemort, shooting a ray of fire at him.

Sunset’s magic shattered the magical shield and blew a hole through Voldemort’s blurry abdomen, but as if he was smoke it just passed through him, and his shape reformed almost instantly.

Sunset stood up more straight.

<<... Well shit.>>

Voldemort grinned and shot another ray of magic against her.

Deciding to reveal some tricks of her own, she teleported away, toward the basilisk, and evaded the older boy’s ray of magic.

Harry was in the middle of dodging a lunge from the giant snake, and slashed it across one of its eyes.

It recoiled, hissing angrily again and, though it was already blinded, at least temporarily by the steam, one more swing like this would take the basilisk’s gaze out of the fight permanently.

“Nice one!” Sunset yelled to Harry, who looked around the snake, surprised to see Sunset there.

Sunset once again raised her hands to magically attack the basilisk, but was once again interrupted, this time by an ancient brick being magically flung at her from the side.

She cast an angry glare at Voldemort, who was still standing next to Ginny, aiming Harry’s wand at them with a look of utter determination.

She had to admit that this wasn’t looking good. She would have to figure out how to hurt a wizard powerful enough to give her a run for her money, who was only growing stronger, and if they didn’t finish this soon, Ginny would be dead.

Perhaps emboldened by his successful attack, Harry raised the sword for an overhead swing, but the basilisk dodged to the side, making Harry stagger forward as the blade struck the ground and sent him off balance.

The basilisk opened its mouth to strike, but Sunset slapped her hand against the middle of its body, magically making her palm glow red hot.

The basilisk let out another roaring hiss as it raised its head and thrashed to get away, and Sunset noticed too late that it swung its great tail at her.

It impacted her belly, and she felt the air being knocked out of her as she was launched over a dozen yards, landing in a tangled pile next to Ginny

Sunset rolled over to see Voldemort staring down at her with a triumphant smile.

“Interloper,” he said, aiming his wand straight at Sunset’s face. “This was to be between me, and Harry Potter.”

Sunset wanted to say something clever, but instead just coughed. She felt that this was a slightly strange thing to say, since Voldemort was the one who brought both Ginny and the basilisk here.

That split second of thinking gave Sunset an idea.

She glanced at Ginny now lying beside her, still unmoving and pale, and the multi-tool still lying next to her pale form.

Rolling aside to dodge a bolt of magic, Sunset raised herself to all fours with her good hand, and grabbed the knife with her injured one, dramatically raising it above Ginny’s head, blade pointing down as if to stab the younger girl.

Voldemort paused, a look of amusement and disbelief.

“No…” he said, shaking his head while smiling widely. “No, no Gryffindor ever would.”

“You’re right,” Sunset said, as blood poured down the blade, which was held right above Ginny’s mouth.

In the dim view of the chamber, Voldemort saw what Sunset was doing with the knife, and hardly believed his eyes

Voldemort’s face contorted into rage and disbelief when he noticed that the blood was silver-coloured.

“No!” he yelled, lunging towards Sunset, when a drop of it landed in Ginny’s mouth.

Ginny immediately arched her back, taking desperate breaths as colour instantly returned to her cheeks, and Voldemort doubled over in pain, as Harry’s wand slipped through his now blurry and more ghostly hand.

He fell to his knees, clutching his chest as he stared at Sunset with hatred across his unclear face.

“How…?” he wheezed, demandingly.

“I’m full of surprises,” Sunset said, coughed, and raised herself up, grabbing the book as she did. “Harry!”

Harry had moved in towards the basilisk, which was nicked and bleeding in several spots, but instead looked at Sunset.

As if knowing what Sunset was about to do, Fawkes swooped in, and raked the basilisk across its still intact eye, drawing out a shower of blood as it raised its neck, trying to roll with the blow.

“Bludger!” Sunset yelled, and threw the diary at Harry.

Harry nodded, and spun almost fully around as he made a double handed swing at the diary soaring through the air.

The sword sliced through the book, just barely missing the spine and failing to cleave it in two, but leaving it looking almost like a double hung door.

Not only that, but his swing was wide enough to give the basilisk the same treatment, the blade going through the basilisk’s flesh and just barely not severing its spine.

The giant snake didn’t let out a desperate scream, but the book did. For only a second, a yell of pain, anger, and desperation echoed through the chamber as ink spewed from it like a torrent, before it was silenced, and came to land on the stone floor with a wet thud.

Stillness reigned for several seconds, with Sunset taking a few calming breaths, and a panting and disbelieving Harry back and forth between Sunset, the basilisk, and the bloodied sword in his hands.

“Ginny!” he suddenly muttered, and ran up towards the reason both he and Sunset had come here.

Indeed, Ginny was gingerly raising herself up, as Harry kneeled down and put his hands around her shoulder to steady her.

“Ginny! Are you alright?”

But she just looked at him and Sunset with wide eyes, trying to understand the scene before her.

“Wha- Harry? Sunset? What… What happened? Why are you here? Where’s Riddle? Wh- why do you have a sword? Is that the… the basilisk? You killed it? You… I…”

Tears were welling up in Ginny’s eyes, and an awkward-looking Harry was trying to figure out what to do or say.

“I… I tried to tell you at b-breakfast, but I c-couldn’t in front of Percy. It was me, but I swear, I… I didn’t mean to… R-Riddle made me, he t-took me over…”

Sunset half-listened as she pointed her hand at her wand, making it fly into her grip. She conjured up a piece of cloth that she cleaned the blood from her hand with before conjuring up some bandages that she magically tied around her hand, as she sauntered towards the now-dead magical diary and picked it up.

“... How did you kill that thing?” Ginny kept asking, as Sunset walked back towards them. “W-where’s Riddle? The last thing I r-remember is him coming out of the diary.”

“It’s alright,” Harry said. “Riddle’s finished. Him and the basilisk. Look.”

Sunset held up the diary and gave Ginny what she hoped was a reassuringly easy-going smile.

“Let’s get outta here. I want a shower,” Sunset said, and looked around as she went over to pick up the Sorting Hat. “Where’s the exit?”

“Uh, over there,” Harry said, and pointed to the far end of the dank cavern, standing up and helping Ginny to do so as well. “By the way, uh… thanks, Sunset. I don’t think we’d be alive right now if it wasn’t for you.”

Sunset chuckled. “Haven’t you done this before? Twice even?”

“What? Oh, yeah, well, once at least, but… still,” he said, as he helped a sobbing Ginny along. “But how come you’re here?”

“I was looking for the entrance to… well, this place,” Sunset said, and waved demonstratively around her. “Then Fawkes found me. He was looking for something to help you with, and I guess he found what he thought was the most dangerous thing in the castle, which I found kinda flattering I guess. Also, who’s Riddle?”

“Oh, uh… Turns out that Voldemort’s–” Ginny’s jumped slightly at the name “– his real name was Tom Riddle. Tom Marvolo Riddle.”

“Huh. I did not know that,” Sunset noted, as they passed by the dead basilisk, the blood still pooling around it. “Hey. Sword,” she said, snapping her fingers

A confused Harry handed Sunset the sword, and she swung it at one of the fangs, severing it clean off, then handed Harry the sword back before very carefully picking the fang up in her uninjured hand. “Trophy. Want one?”

“N-no thanks.”

Sunset shrugged, surreptitiously conjured some more cloth to temporarily wrap the fang in, and slipped it in her pocket.

“I’m going to be expelled,” Ginny said. “I’ve looked forward to coming to Hogwarts ever since B-Bill came and n-now I’ll have to leave and… w-what will mum and dad say?

“What?” Sunset asked, confused. “Why would you be expelled?”

Ginny looked at Sunset with puffy, red eyes. “W-what do you mean? I… I’m the one who attacked people!”

“No, you said Riddle took you over,” Sunset noted, as they neared the entrance that Fawkes was hovering by. “That means you’re not the one who– hey… what happened here? This thing caved in.”

“Yeah, uh… Professor Lockhart tried to wipe our– uh, my and Ron’s memories,” Harry said. “But he collapsed the tunnel instead.”

Sunset looked at Harry, and even Ginny stopped sobbing to give him a surprised look.

“Yeah, sounds like him,” Sunset noted, and heard the sound of grunting and rocks scraping against each other from the other side of the rubble, noticing that someone was hauling rocks to make a passage from the other side.

“Who’s there!?” Ron called, before his face appeared over some rocks.

“Ron!” Harry called. “Ginny’s here! She’s okay! We’ve got her!”

Ron let out what could only be described as a celebratory mewl, before he quickly collected himself. “Ginny! You’re okay!” he said, and pulled another large rock towards him and out of the way. “I… what happened? Wait, Sunset!?”

“Hey,” Sunset said, giving a wave.

“Where did you come from?”

“Dumbledore’s office.”

“What? Uh… well, okay. C-come on, Ginny,” he said, and reached out over the rubble to help his sister through.

Sunset climbed through next, followed by Harry.

A smiling Ron was trying to hug Ginny, but she seemed to be too upset for hugs, and gently pushed him away.

“But you’re okay, Ginny. It’s over now, it’s– where did that bird come from.”

“He’s Dumbledore’s,” said Harry, who was squeezing himself through.

“And how come you have a sword?” he said, and looked alarmed when he got a better look at Harry. “Hey! Are you alright!?”

“What? Oh… yeah, this isn’t mine,” Harry said, indicating the splatters of blood on his and Sunset’s clothes. “It’s the basilisk’s.”

“Oh, good. It’s, uh… dead, then?”

“Yeah.”

“Good,” Ron said, and eyed Sunset incredulously. “And seriously, where did you come from, Sunset?”

“Dumbledore’s office,” Sunset repeated. “I get the feeling I’m going to be telling this at least one more time tonight, so I’ll save it for then, but Fawkes helped me get here,” she said, indicating the phoenix who had landed on Harry’s shoulder.

“How?”

“Fawkes is a phoenix,” Harry clarified. “And, uh, that also means that he can help us out of here, I think?” he continued, giving Fawkes a questioning look.

Fawkes just trilled and nodded his head.

“Right, good. Where’s Lockhart, by the way? I guess we should bring him with us.”

“Over there,” Ron muttered, pointing with his thumb above his shoulder. “Come and see.”

Over near a round pipe leading upward at a steep angle was their Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, sitting in the dirt and looking happily oblivious.

“Hello there,” he said, when they approached.

“I told him to wait here. Completely wiped his memories by the looks of things,” Ron said.

“Do you live here?” Lockhart asked.

“No,” Harry said, as he and Ron looked at each other.

“Do I live here?”

“If you want to. Not really all that different,” Sunset noted to the others, who nodded critically.

“Anyway, Fawkes, can you handle all of us together?”

Fawkes trilled in confirmation, and Sunset held an oblivious Lockhart around his waist with her injured hand, while grabbing one of Fawkes’ talons with her other.

Harry, Ron, and Ginny held onto the other one, and mere moments later, they emerged in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom.

Sunset looked at the entrance to the chamber which was closing behind them into a normal stone basin.

“The secret entrance is in a bathroom?” she said, not bothering to hide her disappointment.

“Oh, you’re still alive,” Moaning Myrtle said from their side.

“I’m outta here,” Sunset said, waving her bandaged hand and walking out the door.

She got halfway down a corridor when Harry and Ron caught up with her, with a still crying Ginny and an oblivious looking Lockhart trailing behind them.

“Where are you going?” Harry asked. “We need to tell Professor McGonagall what happened.”

McGonagall’s perpetually disapproving look was something Sunset could do without, and she waved that suggestion away.

“Bah. You tell her, I have better things to do,” she muttered, and walked on.

“Uh, Sunset!” Ron suddenly said.

“What?”

“Uhm… thank you,” he said, looking awkwardly at his shoes.

Sunset’s expression softened, and she looked at him for a moment, before just smiling easily. “It’s alright. See you later.”

She waved her hand and walked off, leaving the others to look at her, surprised, before making their way towards Professor McGonagall’s office.

Sunset wanted to clean all the grime and blood off from her, not to mention sit down and relax as she processed the situation she had been in, but she remembered what she had written to Celestia.

Still a little high strung from the adrenaline, she tried working out the tension by running through the dark corridors towards Gryffindor tower.

“And what have you been up to!?” the Fat Lady asked her, looking both shocked and a little stern.

“Basilisk hunting,” Sunset said, and cut off any more questions by providing the password.

The common room was quiet and still, and she made her way up to the second years’ dormitories, but when she opened the door, there was a pair of quick shrieks, as Parvati pulled her duvet up above her head to hide, and Lavender rolled out of the bed and took cover behind it, aiming her wand at the door.

“Sunset!?” Lavender said, making Parvati look out from her duvet.

“Yo,” Sunset responded, and walked over to her bed to get her book which was hidden underneath a spare set of robes.

“What… what happened?” Lavender asked. “Are you okay? Did you actually find the monster?”

“Yep,” Sunset said, and started flipping through the pages. “Or, well, I had it found for me. It was a basilisk, but don’t worry, it’s dead now. Harry killed it.”

“Harry killed it?” Parvati asked, as Sunset made her way out the door again.

Sunset paused in the doorway.

“Sure did. Bisected it with a sword. Anyway, I’m feeling kinda icky,” Sunset said, tugging at her still blood-covered robes. “So if you don’t mind.”

Shutting the door behind her, Sunset made her way back down the stairs, and to the nearest set of showers without running into anyone else.

She didn’t even bother disrobing at first; instead, she just stood underneath the hot water and felt the adrenaline leave her body so much that she started shivering despite the warmth.

The water was thick with streams of basilisk blood as Sunset leaned against the shower stall, taking several deep, calming breaths, before her hair started glowing as she magically brought the book up before her face, and flipped to the last page, and saw something she hadn’t expected, which was Twilight’s writing style.

Hello, Sunset. Princess Celestia is really nervous. She keeps pacing and is trying to keep calm. She’s really worried about you, and so am I. Please let us know as soon as possible if you are okay.

Sunset took a deep breath, her entire body shivering from the mix of emotions she felt, having just been in what was honestly a very dangerous situation, and had worried the princess, and Twilight, in the process.

I’m okay. The monster is dead, everyone is safe, and I just got a scratch. I’m sorry for worrying you. Please tell Celestia that I’m okay.

Here she comes now.

The princess’s words were forming slowly, as Celestia often did when she struggled to control herself.

I’m very, very glad to hear that, dear Sunset. But please, try and stay out of danger. I do not want to lose you.

I’m glad you’re okay too, Sunset.

Sunset took, for what seemed like the thousandth time, a deep breath, as her body purged some adrenaline.

I’m sorry for worrying you, but I’m fine. Thanks for caring.

Where are you? Your ink is smudging.

In the showers. I’m washing away the basilisk blood.

The book was still for a moment, before Celestia’s writing started appearing faster and more forcefully.

A BASILISK!?

The book was once again still for a moment, and Sunset got the distinct feeling that Twilight was calming the princess down.

I

That was all that Celestia wrote for several seconds.

I suppose I should not be surprised you took on a basilisk, Sunset. Are you sure you’re okay?

Yes, there was a dark wizard there too, but he just managed to nick me.

Good. I suppose we should let you continue cleaning yourself in peace.

I’ll talk to you later, Princess.

I’m always here, Sunset. Rest now. It seems you need it.

Sunset put the book away, and took the time to clean herself and her clothes properly, before drying them off and applying some light healing paste on her hand, before dressing again and sauntering up towards the hospital wing. She figured that Madam Pomfrey would be upset with her if she didn’t get to look at the injuries.

“THERE YOU ARE!” Professor McGonagall’s voice rang out through the corridor, making Sunset jump.

She groaned as she looked back at her head of house marching up to her with a cross expression on her face.

“Miss Shimmer, do you have any idea how worried we’ve been?”

“Not really,” Sunset tiredly muttered, and added under her breath, “I should’ve gone to bed.”

“Mister Potter said that you were injured fighting a basilisk!” McGonagall continued, as she marched up to Sunset

“Yeah yeah, but I wasn’t injured by a basilisk. ‘The Dark Lord’ slashed my hand, but look!” Sunset said, and held up her hand which had a smear of healing paste across the palm. “It’s all taken care of, and I’m even on the way up to the hospital wing to get it looked at.”

Professor McGonagall clutched her chest and took a step back, taking deep, calming breaths.

“... Fighting you-know-who,” she said to herself. “Right! That does it! You’re marching up to the hospital wing right now!”

“Oh,” Sunset said, pleasantly surprised by how McGonagall was only moderately angry with her.

She didn’t even threaten her with detention,

—

Madam Pomfrey had administered the mandrake cure to the victims, and Ginny and her parents had just left, so Sunset didn’t interact with anyone except Madam Pomfrey, who had quite a few things to say about the state of the school without Dumbledore as headmaster… Which turned out to not be the case anymore, as he had returned to his post very recently.

After Madam Pomfrey had approved of Sunset’s self-applied aid, and given her a clean bill of health, she sent Sunset down to the Great Hall just in time to join in the victory feast.

Both Dumbledore and Hagrid were back, Harry and Ron raked in enough house points to secure Gryffindor winning the house cup again, Ginny (rightfully in Sunset’s opinion) did not get into and trouble whatsoever, Defence Against the Dark Arts classes were suspended for the rest of the term, and there were no exams this semester.

Through the entire thing, Sunset managed to keep a low profile, with only a few rumours that she was involved in any kind of way originating from her own classmates and Fred & George.

The little time that was left of the semester passed by quickly, and before long, Sunset was boarding the Hogwarts Express on its journey back to London.

“Hey, Sunset,” Fred Weasley said, and tugged her robe arm, gently pulling her into a compartment along with George, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Ginny.

“Hey, guys,” she said, a little awkwardly, and sat down on an empty seat.

They happily greeted her back, except for Ron who squirmed a little uncomfortably.

“Ron. Spill it,” George ordered.

“Alright uh… sorry, Sunset,” he said.

“Again? For what exactly?” Sunset asked.

“Well for… thinking that you hated muggles and muggleborns, and uhm… well… we kinda suspected that you were the heir of Slytherin.”

Sunset raised an eyebrow, slightly amused. “What?” she asked, chuckling a little.

“Well… we couldn’t figure out who it was!” he said, defensively. “We thought it was Malfoy, but we, uh… overheard him thinking that it might be you.”

Sunset scoffed in amusement. “I’m actually very certain I’m not his descendant.”

“Anyway, Harry told us all about how you showed up and saved our sister,” Fred said.

“Helped save your sister,” Sunset insisted.

“Right. Helped save our sister. So… thanks.”

“Thank you, Sunset,” Ginny carefully said from her almost curled-up position in her seat.

Sunset shrugged as she searched for words. “Well… no problem, I guess.”

“We made sure that mum and dad learned that as well. So don’t be afraid to ask for anything,” George said. “We’d love for you to come by The Burrow some time.”

Sunset smiled a little awkwardly at that, trying to figure out how she felt about that idea. “Thanks,” she said.

After hours of entertaining themselves by playing magical cards (Go Fish where you actually had to fish up the cards), and setting off some harmless fireworks in the compartment, they arrived in London, and said goodbye to each other for now, before setting off in different directions.

Sunset wandered King’s Cross station for a while, thinking of where to go next.

She could head to Surrey, like she had last time, but something about that struck her as very uninspired.

Even so, she surreptitiously climbed up on the roof of a bus heading to… somewhere, as she tried thinking of what to do next, when inspiration struck her.

Normal, everyday wizarding magic hadn’t yet helped Sunset become an alicorn, but there was more in this world than that when it came to magic. She hadn’t been lying when she told Lucius that this collection of old, magical artefacts was impressive.

If today’s magic hadn’t led anywhere, perhaps old magic might.

She lay on the roof of the bus, turning away from the afternoon sun as they left London and headed north, and instead looked out into vast areas of adjacent communities, with lighter industries and zones of single family houses.

One sight caught her eye, and she sat up to pay closer attention.

A few houses over, a muggle man was bending over a large automobile, one of several, with the hood open, no doubt performing some sort of repair or maintenance on it.

Intrigued, Sunset considered the sight for a moment, and just before they passed out of sight, Sunset jumped off the bus, and unseen by anyone in the early evening, floated calmly down onto the sidewalk.

She walked up to the man bending over the internals of the self-driving carriage, hearing the sound of a ratchet being used in the bowels of the machine, a fuchsia-coloured one.

Ideas were forming in her head.

Sunset double checked that she was dressed in the black jacket and skirt she had arrived on this world in, and not wizarding robes, before she walked up to the man.

“Hello, sir,” she said, in a friendly voice.

The man looked up, surprised, at Sunset, and after taking a look at her face, smiled back at her. “Hello, miss.”

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I’m pulling spare parts out of this car…” he said, knocking on the inside of the hood above him. “... To use on that one,” he continued, pointing with the ratchet at another car, very similar to that one, but with less rust and a different colour.

“Why?” Sunset asked, innocently.

“Because neither of them work, but if I get the good parts of each, at least one of them might,” he explained.

“Hmm…" Sunset said, balancing on the balls of her feet, fairly certain that she had not annoyed the man, which was good, and pressed on with her plan. “I have a friend who is really good at that.”

The muggle again glanced up from the mess of metal and hoses. “Oh yeah? Likes the classics, does he?”

“Yep,” Sunset improvised. “And he’s looking for some spare parts himself.”

“Oh, huh,” he said, diving back down, but dropping his tool, which fell onto the ground below, and grunted, before grabbing a filthy rag and standing up to look at Sunset, wiping his hands while he did so. “Well, I’m not a junk dealer, I got this off of one. But if your friend can wait until I’m done with this, he can have a go at it. Might not be much good left though.”

“That’s okay,” Sunset said. “I think he’d appreciate it anyway. How much do you want for it?”

“Uuuh,” he said, eyeing the rusty car critically. “After I’m done, he can have it for free if he just tow it away. It’s not registered as functional, so we don’t need to sign any transfer papers. Who is it anyway? Your dad? Uncle?”

“Uh, friend of the family,” Sunset said.

“Right,” he said, and bent down to retrieve his ratchet from under the car. “Well, tell him to show up tomorrow and we can talk it over. Maybe he’d like to help me with the tires. The bolts have rusted.”

“Sure,” Sunset said.

—

After sundown, Sunset walked through the dark streets, back towards where the old, non-functional cars were resting.

The houses around were dark and still, and Sunset didn’t even bother trying to look inconspicuous.

Bringing out her wand, she unlocked the hood of the first car and lifted it up, being greeted by a filthy mess of steel and plastic.

“Let’s see how good wizarding magic is at this,” she said, and started casting repair spell after repair spell.

Bolts fastened themselves, rust reverted back to steel, hoses put themselves back into position, the battery was restored, and bent metal straightened itself out again.

Sunset gently closed the hood, and lay down on the curb to do the same to the undercarriage, and the doors, and the couch inside, the rudder (or whatever it was called), the windows, the panels, and so on.

Not finding anything more to cast repair spells on, she magically turned the ignition, as she had seen the muggles do, but with keys, on the television.

The car roared to life, and a startled Sunset immediately cast a silencing charm on the machine.

The headlights came alive, and lit up the neighbour’s house, until Sunset cut the engine.

Feeling mighty pleased with herself, she stepped out and did the same with the other car, and this time had the wisdom to put a silencing spell before turning on the engine.

Smiling widely to herself, she pulled out a piece of paper from her bag, and wrote a message on it.

Dear sir. I hope you are pleased with the result. Go ahead and try it out. I took the liberty of disposing of the other vehicle.

Yours.
The Mysterious Friend.

Sunset put a cushioning spell on the front of her car, now restored to a deep fuschia without any rust, and sat down in front of the driver’s seat.

She looked back into the roomy backseat, and nodded to herself, before opening the gloves compartment, and retrieving a pair of keys, and what was clearly an owner’s manual.

“Hmm… 1961 DeSoto Adventurer, eh?”

Sunset put her hands behind her head and thought.

Somewhere in Devon, the Weasley’s lived, who were probably at least somewhat favourably inclined to her right now. Not to mention that Mr Weasley was apparently quite good at enchanting muggle inventions, if the rumours were true that the car that crashed into the Whomping Willow, and which Sunset had briefly encountered in the forest, was his.

Sunset nodded to herself, started the car with the keys from the gloves compartment, and started carefully driving towards the countryside.

When she reached the rural areas, she looked up at the sky, dark and cloudy, and shrugged.

She needed a good magical workout anyway.

Channelling magic through both her hands and her hair, the car floated off the road, and turned west, soaring through the night sky.

Feeling rather pleased with herself, Sunset noticed the radio on the panel next to the rudder.

She knew of those from last summer, when she became familiar with a lot of muggle inventions, and turned the knob to power up the device.

“♪I’m learning to fly, but I ain’t got wings…♫”

Sunset laughed a little to herself, and leaned back into her seat.

“Too right.”

Author's Note

Right. Like I said, this was kinda rushed, but hopefully you still enjoyed it. Thanks to Snuffy and ssokolow for their help.

On The Hunt

Life among humans, magical or otherwise, could be frustrating. They needed clothes, and more regular cleaning than ponies, and the weather was wild and unpredictable, and their society had evolved to reflect this. The rules and expectations tasted more of suspicion rather than precaution.

The society, the metaphorical house of humans, compared to Equestrians’, looked to Sunset like a mansion built out of junk, with the door knocker missing, the windows boarded up, and what looked like traps every few steps.

Sunset sat in a busted folding chair next to the trunk of her DeSoto in the afternoon, the sounds of the freeway constant in the distance, rummaging through her shoulder bag, and sighed.

A couple of money notes and a few coins of wizarding currency. Sunset was very nearly out of funds, and selling her possessions was off the table, few and magical that they were.

She did have her new automobile, but that wasn’t something she suspected she was actually legally allowed to own, since she wasn’t a citizen of the nation she was in, nor considered old enough to own a vehicle like that.

Muggles also relied on established supply chains more rigidly than ponies did, which made sense. Food, for example, was produced, and inspected by authorities, in bulk, and a lot of muggle technology could look good on the outside and only be revealed to be non-functional when plugged into an electrical outlet.

In Equestria, it wouldn’t exactly be wonderful to be roaming the countryside as a pauper, but even as a foal you could knock on the door of some farm or something and just say that you’ve decided to take to the road longer than your means allowed, and that you were willing to work for some meals, a cushion to sleep on, and some supplies for the road, and you’d probably get all that along with help to orient yourself and the offer to collect the local authorities if you needed their assistance.

But that wasn’t how it worked on Earth. The farms were all worked on by a small number of individuals and their machines. Besides, judging from what she had picked up about food production, harvest only happened once a year and it wasn’t due for months.

She got up again, standing among the trees next to her fuchsia-colored car which had no business getting up on a wooded hill and being hidden in the vegetation like it was, and strolled down the streets of… wherever she was.

The door to the pub jingled, and the only occupants, a single old man in the far corner and one middle-aged man behind the bar, looked at Sunset as she casually strolled up and sat down on a barstool, having decided to take the same approach at getting advice as she had two years ago in London; Ask a stranger behind a counter.

“Well, good evenin’, little girl,” he said, in a friendly yet stand-offish way.

“Good evening, uh… average sized gentleman,” Sunset replied.

The man behind the counter raised his eyebrows, before scoffing, amused. “Hah. I guess I deserve that. So, what are you doing in here by yourself? Waiting for your parents? Want a fizzy drink?”

“Yes, but I don’t have a lot of money. Now, what would you do if you were an alien wizard who needs some pocket money, but you can’t conjure it up, and you don’t want to steal anything, but you can still do magic, like repairing stuff?”

The bartender’s eyebrows raised up again, and he gave Sunset a long look.

“I’m serious,” Sunset gently urged.

The bartender shook his head slightly, and decided to play along. “Uh…” he said, scratching his balding head and putting on a thinking face. “I would, uh… go to a landfill, find some broken things there, repair them, and then sell them at a pawn shop.”

Sunset snapped her fingers and pointed triumphantly at the bartender. “That’s it! Excellent. I’ll have that drink now. To go.”

The bartender gave the blonde and redhead girl in front of him a confused look as he undid the bottle cap of an orange flavored fizzy drink and handed it to her.

“Thanks!” she said, and left some money on the counter, before walking briskly out of the pub.

The bartender looked down and saw that it was twice the price of the drink. “Wait!” he called after her, but she was already gone.

He shared a look with his regular in the corner, who had followed the exchange, and they both shrugged.

—

Sunset chuckled to herself as she took the last sip of the orange soda, realizing that she was grateful for the long days, and thus sunsets, of summer in this place, as she looked out the window on the driver's side of the car.

Far, far below her, was a city, and muggle cities had, just like the man had mentioned, landfills.

She spotted it, and concentrated, making double sure that the magic that made the car the same color as the sky around her was still in effect, before descending.

Like before, she set the car down on a small, forested hill, which, if muggles saw it, would perplex them as to how a car, especially one that heavy, could have gotten there.

The sun was low in the sky, slowly shifting the sky around it to be orange and red, as she walked out of the treeline and onto the garbage disposal site.

“Alrighty,” she said, and cracked her knuckles, accompanied by nothing but the sound of rooks and seagulls in the distance, as they searched for morsels of thrown away food among the trash.

Ironically, it was in muggle society where Sunset had the most opportunity to flex her magical abilities.

She aimed her hands at an old armchair, and it floated up into the air, whereupon the upholstery started unweaving itself rapidly until it was two separate entities; a frame and a mess of fabric.

The frame fell to the ground, and Sunset aimed her finger at the fabric, conjuring a ball of boiling hot water floating in the air, which she shoved the fabric into and cleaned it thoroughly.

The water was dropped onto the ground, and the fabric started reforming itself into a rough protective suit.

Pretty soon, it was a full body covering that slid over Sunset’s body, clothes and all, the head part forming into a balaclava that left only the eyes uncovered.

Sunset put her hands on her hips and stood with her legs wide, pleased at her creation.

“If you’re gonna be a garbage picker, be one in style,” she said, muffled by the rough suit.

The muggles had packed up and gone home. The workers were gone and Sunset had the place all to herself.

It would’ve been a strange sight for anyone who would’ve lingered though. A figure in a rough, brown cotton and polyester overall and balaclava digging roughly through the piles of discarded junk, tossing it behind her.

“Aha! Paydirt!” she shouted in triumph, and pulled out a machine with a cracked screen and built-in VCR. “I’m keeping this for myself.”

Once the sun had gone down, Sunset was pushing a magically repaired shopping cart along the ground back towards her car, filled with knicknacks, including but not limited to a suitcase, a three piece suit, a liquor cabinet in the form of a globe, a kitchen blender, a collapsable bed, a table saw, a shortwave semi-duplex radio, a broken mahogany table, over twenty ties, a stepladder, two barbeque grills, a Super Nintendo, and a cello.

After that followed a period of rigorous magical repairing and cleaning, and the scene after that would not have grown any less confusing for any muggles who happened upon her, but no one did.

Sunset was soaking in a bathtub she had found and cleaned out, sitting in the warm water and chewing on a piece of stale treacle tart as she watched her new television, which was propped up on a rough stand out made out of scrap wood and hooked up to the car’s generator which was being driven on its own by magic (she had fried the kitchen blender three times trying to get the electricity right).

There had been a cassette jammed in the player, which only came out after some insistent magical repairing and which Sunset suspected was the reason the machine had been thrown away in the first place. On the tape was a movie she was currently watching, and that movie began with a man teaching his son the most valuable lesson he could.

“... Because no one, no one in this world can you trust. Not men, not women, not beasts.”

The man held up his sword in front of his young son, and continued with reverence.

“... This you can trust.”

Sunset wondered what Celestia would say to that, but she couldn’t help but find the message appealing. That would be a kind of freedom, and the less you had to rely on others, the more free you would be, and freedom was a truly wonderful thing.

Sure, it could be scary, being completely free and thus alone, Sunset thought, but who was brave enough to be free if not Sunset Shimmer? She didn’t even need a home. One day by herself, and she had managed to scrounge together a decent residence. On wheels no less.

Now it also had a rough curtain made out of the fabric she had found, and the trunk was filled with an assortment of wares in good condition.

She was probably only going to get a fraction of the true value of the things she planned on selling, but at least this way she didn’t have to steal… again that is.

Sunset waved her fingers and reheated the water. She relaxed into it, and her eyes started to droop, when the events on the screen caught her attention again.

“Oh hey, been there, done that. Well, I guess Harry has.”

The heroes were in the middle of slaying an enormous snake, and unlike Harry, the one with the sword had arms that looked like stockings filled with cantaloupes.

Sunset pretend-swung a sword, splashing the water.

“Yeah, get ‘em!”

—

Ginny Weasley sighed to herself as she pulled up carrots from the gardening patch of the backyard of The Burrow.

She didn’t know if the other girls in her class had to help out with things like this at home as well. Maybe they did. Well, some people certainly didn’t. The rich kids in Slytherin definitely didn’t; they had house elves to do that for them.

But whether or not the others in Ginny’s class helped out with chores like this at home, she was certain they at least didn’t feel as poor as she did.

Ginny suddenly looked up, feeling a tingling sense in the back of her mind, almost like a presence.

Her breathing sped up, and she looked around, before realizing it was useless. A presence in her mind wouldn’t reveal itself in the real world. She knew that from experience.

But this presence felt different. It would’ve been hard for Ginny to explain it, but it didn’t feel friendly, and that was a good thing.

Tom Riddle had been friendly for a long time. He listened, he was patient, he was supportive, and when it felt like he was with Ginny when she wasn’t writing in his book, at first it had felt good, like a friend who would always be there.

It was only much later when she realized that what she had invited was very bad indeed, and then it was too late.

This presence though, didn't approach Ginny with a false smile and offered help while hiding a dagger behind it’s back. It was more like… years ago when she was little and had a bad dream. She had jumped out of her bed and ran down the stairs to the living room, and then all became well in the world when Charlie had looked up from a book on dragons with a kind face and asked, “What is it, Ginny?”

“Ginny, you’re not going to get the carrots to pull up themselves until you’ve graduated,” Molly, who was standing next to Ron and pulling up potatoes, reminded her daughter, when she noticed that Ginny was looking out into the distance with an expression she couldn’t quite identify.

“... Sunset is coming,” Ginny said, not seeming to realize she had spoken.

Molly looked at her daughter. “It… does that, yes.”

That seemed to snap Ginny out of almost like a trance, and she gasped. “What?” she said, before shaking her head, and looked a little embarrassed when she realized what she had just done. “No, not… the sunset, I meant… Sunset.”

Ron looked at his mother. Before last year he would’ve been happy for the chance for some playful ribbing of his sister, but after learning that she had been possessed by The Dark Lord himself, he was being careful not to do so when she was being mentally strange.

“Uhm… What makes you say… that?” he said, before following Ginny’s gaze to the edge of the forest, where from around the bend of the sunlight treeline came a large, fuchsia-colored muggle car, gently rumbling down the dirt path.

She shared another quick look with his mother, before turning back to the car and noticed now that the car was coming closer that, indeed, in the driver’s seat sat none other than Sunset Shimmer.

The three of them looked at the car and its driver in puzzlement, when they heard the familiar sound of someone magically travelling to their fireplace.

Seconds later, Arthur Weasley stepped out of the door, smiling at being home with his family again. “I’m home!” he said, before he noticed the car.

Molly had looked back and forth between the car and her husband’s face, gleaming with anticipation, and groaned.

—

The Burrow was the second wizarding residence that Sunset had been invited to, and she was pretty sure she preferred it to Malfoy Manor. It was kinda cramped and was a constant battlefield between the forces of five teenagers’ messiness and their mother’s constant cleaning up, but Sunset felt that she would always be more at home in a tower than a mansion.

A tower and mansion combined might be something to look into.

“Sit down, sit down,” Molly encouraged them all. “The others should be home soon.”

Sunset took a seat, and Ginny immediately sat down next to her.

Ginny had run up to Sunset and hugged after she stepped out of her car, which had taken Sunset by surprise.

Giving it a second of thought, it made more sense. Sunset had to admit that she had technically been instrumental in saving Ginny’s life just a few days ago.

This also explained the warmth with which her parents, and Ron, had greeted her. Mr and Mrs Weasley had immediately invited her in and asked her to sit down as they barraged her with praise and questions.

Fred and George had been sent out to get groceries, the ones that weren't grown in their home that is, and Percy had gone out to visit his girlfriend or something.

“Ron and Ginny, and Fred and George for that matter, have told us about you,” Mr Weasley said, sitting down on the other side of Sunset. He was the opposite of his wife. Tall and lean like Ron, and with a jovial disposition, while Molly was corpulent, and shorter in both stature and tolerance of her sons’ antics. “Already a very accomplished witch, they say.”

Sunset gave an uncertain glance around the table, making both Ron and Ginny blush and look away. Yes, Sunset knew that she was a magical prodigy, teachers from two separate worlds had made that clear enough, but she was never very certain how to respond to that being said out loud, and that had only gotten worse since leaving Equestria.

“Uh, I guess. I try not to compete with others,” she said, and addressed Molly, who was standing by the stove, preparing the dinner. “Seriously, I don’t want to intrude.”

“Nonsense,” Molly said. “You’re a guest. A guest who went into a basilisk’s lair to save my daughter. You’re getting as much dinner as you like. Besides, I don’t want to imply anything, but it doesn’t look like you have anything else to eat.”

Sunset had to admit that she was relieved. It’s true, she was out of food.

She wasn’t in danger of course. If she was, she would’ve resorted to more drastic measures, somewhat reluctantly, but now she didn’t.

“And you’re welcome to stay as long as you like. You can stay in Ginny’s room. That’s okay, isn’t it, Ginny?”

“Uh, sure,” Ginny said, looking a little preoccupied with her thoughts.

At this point, the doors opened, and Fred and George stepped in. “We’re back!”

“And we ran into a pair of goblins,” Fred said.

“They were in a spot of bother, having to hide from muggles who were looking for them,” George said.

“So we gave them spare cloaks that they could enchant.”

“Turns out that’s some obscure code of honour among goblins that means they owe us.

Fred held up a burlap sack. “And so they gave us a bag of vegetables.”

Ron looked at them, confused. “Really?”

“No, idiot. We bought them,” George said, giving Ron a disappointed look, and handed the sack over to Molly. “Here, mum.”

“Thank you, boys. We have a guest.”

They turned to see Sunset sitting by the table, blending in among the redheads.

“Hey, Sunset!” they both said, enthusiastically.

“When did you get here?”

“About ten minutes ago.”

“Are you staying?” George asked as they sat down at the table.

“Well uh…” Sunset said, looking around at all the faces looking at her warmly.

Sunset tried to be modest, at least when it came to certain subjects, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that these people were actually happy to see her.

Sunset shook her head. She had technically assisted in saving Ginny’s life. That could explain it.

“I… guess, for a while, if that’s okay.”

“Of course it is,” Mr. Weasley said, enthusiastically. “Now, I’m sorry, but I really have to ask something that’s been on my mind for some time now.”

Sunset braced herself. Deflecting probing questions could be hard as a guest among these people.

“Can you tell me about your auto mobile?”

“Oh,” Sunset said, internally sighing in relief. “Sure. I actually wanted to talk to you about that.”

Mr Weasley’s eyes lit up, and everyone else looked a little wary. “Really?”

“Yes. So uh… a flying car left Surrey last summer,” Sunset said, before being cut off by Fred.

“How do you know that?”

“I… have magic powers?” Sunset offered.

The twins rolled their eyes and Ron sniggered at them.

“Anyway, a car crashes into the grounds at Hogwarts, I saw a glimpse of it through the window one night… oh, and I also know it was yours because of the howler last year.”

Ron’s ears went red.

“So with some deductive thinking, I figured that you know how to enchant cars,” Sunset told Mr Weasley.

Arthur Weasley absolutely beamed with pride, before coughing into a fist. “Ahem! Well, I’ve dabbled some, yes. Part of the job, you see.”

“Cool. So uh… I have a car. Can you teach me how to enchant it?”

“Of course! Flight, camouflage, safety-arrangement and… uhm…” Mr Weasley said, before noticing that his wife was glaring at him with her hands on her hips.

“Arthur Weasley, you know full well that that would be illegal,” she said.

“But… not if it’s for the purpose of mere study,” Mr Weasley tried.

“Which you know full well is a flimsy loophole, since you’re behind it!”

Sunset thought she detected a hint of pride in Arthur’s face before his wounded puppy act continued.

“It… was essential for work.”

“Oh yeah, that would make sense,” Sunset noted. “You can’t be a bodyguard if you don’t know how bad guys attack people.”

“So long as we’re just studying,” Mr Weasley placatingly offered. “It’s perfectly within the law.”

Mrs Weasley didn’t look very convinced, but was cut off by George.

“You may want to finish this conversation soon. Percy will be here any moment, and you don’t want Mr Bureaucracy to hear this.”

Right then, there was a tap on the window, and everyone turned to see a screech owl looking expectantly at them.

“That’s Hermes,” Ginny noted.

Fred got up and let the owl in, taking the note from his leg and unfolding it.

“Percy is staying over at Penelope’s tonight.”

“Wonderful!” Mr Weasley said, and turned back to Sunset. “So if there are no objections, We can take a look at enchanting the aumotobile after dinner!”

“What’s Percy doing over at Penelope’s?” Ginny asked.

George shrugged. “Discussing plans for broomstick storage regulations or something.”

Everyone around the table laughed, and even Molly couldn’t hold back a little snigger before putting on a serious face.

“Dinner is served,” she said, and floated the food over to the table.

—

Sunset had to admit that life at The Burrow made a fine first impression on her. Mrs Weasley’s cooking was earth pony levels of excellent, and probing questions about what had happened in the Chamber of Secrets was easily intercepted by just appealing to the twins’ sense of humor or Mrs Weasley’s interest in muggle contraptions, not to mention their home was technically a tower.

After dinner she and Mr Weasley looked at her new car. He required some gentle but constant nudging to focus on placing enchantments and not just gush about the arcane workings of non-magic technology.

After a few hours, Sunset lay in a folding bed in Ginny’s room while a pajama-clad Ginny was crawling into hers.

Sunset had brought out Celestia’s book and was skimming through previous entries, a little sad at the lack of messages today from Celestia.

Celestia didn’t have to write every day of course, and Sunset prided herself on her rationality and so it wasn’t logical to feel abandoned after just a few days of silence.

Then again, Celestia hadn’t talked to Sunset yesterday, which was Sunset’s birthday.

“Sunset, you’re… sad.”

The strange, almost confused way in which Ginny said that made Sunset look over at Ginny, who was lying on her back, staring up into the ceiling, seemingly lost in thought.

“Uh… I guess,” Sunset conceded. “How did you know?”

“I…” Ginny started. “... I don’t know. You’re… disappointed too, and… not because Dad.”

Sunset’s mouth was open as she wondered what brought this on.

It could’ve been a parlor trick; hot or cold reading, but that just didn’t feel like something Ginny would do, at least not here, now, and in this tone.

“Now you’re… worried.”

Sunset’s mouth silently and slowly moved as possibilities of what this meant raced through her head.

“... And confused.”

Ginny turned to Sunset, face full of questions but otherwise calm. “Why do I know this?”

Suddenly, it hit her. There was only one thing that Sunset had done differently with Ginny than anyone else.

She had been outright weirded out when she had read about it, but if the books didn’t lie, then humans, or at least witches and wizards, did experience some effect when they drank unicorn blood; and Ginny had drunk Sunset’s.

Sunset put her hand to her forehead as she tried grasping what she had done.

<> she muttered to herself.

Sunset was suddenly fast awake, slipped out of her temporary bed, and walked up to Ginny, who kept lying in her bed, looking at Sunset with wide eyes as the older girl reached out and gently placed her hands on Ginny’s temples.

“Ginny, can you stay still for me, and try to remain calm?”

Ginny nodded, still staring at Sunset.

Her expression of surprise and confusion became one of alarm from what she saw next.

Sunset’s hair started glowing with a soft light, illuminating the room slightly, and when Sunset opened her eyes, they were completely white from light spilling out of them, and even Sunset’s hands started glowing.

“Shh… don’t worry,” Sunset softly whispered. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Sunset realized that was a strange thing to say, considering she didn’t yet know whether she had already hurt the girl, but Sunset needed her to be calm, or at least calm enough.

Sunset’s hair was buffeted as if by a magical breeze, and stayed like that for several moments, spilling out light in the room while silently observing Ginny, who stayed completely still.

Finally, the effect ended. The light vanished, Sunset’s eyes returned to their normal, striking teal, and she let out a sigh of relief, stepping back and sitting down on the bed again.

Ginny just stared at Sunset, her eyes still wide, almost as if in shock.

“You’re alright, I’m pretty sure,” Sunset said.

“But… what happened?” Ginny said, who felt herself being calmed by Sunset’s relief, which seemed to settle inside her. “Why can I… feel you, or whatever is happening?”

Sunset lied down in bed again and slipped in under the covers. “It… has to do with the whole thing in the Chamber of Secrets,” Sunset said, and in any other situations, she would’ve congratulated herself with how good she was becoming at technically telling the truth. “I… I saved your life, and… well, it created a bit of a bond between us. It… can happen sometimes.”

They were both silent for a moment, before Sunset chuckled, looking up into the ceiling with a careful little smile on her face. “Wow, I never really thought about it before now. Saving someone. Heh… how about that?”

“But… what did you just do?” Ginny asked, amazed and confused about her own calmness. “What was that light? How can you do those things? What… what are you?”

Sunset turned her head to give Ginny a reassuring smile. “It’s not something I show a lot of people. Don’t worry, I was just checking that you were alright. I got some answers too. As for what I am… Well, I might not be entirely human.”

“... Oh.”

“Which I try not to tell people, though I think some already suspect it. I hope you can keep a secret.”

After a moment of silence, Ginny nodded.

“Okay, goodnight,” Sunset said, and turned back to the ceiling.

“Goodnight,” Ginny said, who found it easy to fall asleep from the soothing feeling of Sunset’s wave of relief.

—

The next morning, before going down for breakfast, Sunset took a moment to scribble down notes about last night’s discoveries.

<<... Single drop resulted in single-direction sympathetic emotional bond,>> she muttered to herself as the pen raced across the pages.

<<... Reason for single-direction unknown, possibly a result of low dosage. Will keep observing to see how long effect remains. Note to self: If seemingly permanent, look into some way to counter effect. Speculation: If witch, wizard, or any other creature susceptible to effect imbibes large amounts of blood and terminates the target in the process, very strong emotions that results from imminent death, plus high dosage, could result in strong negative emotions; fear, pain, hatred, etc, being “stuck” inside the perpetrator’s mind, eventually resulting in madness, which could be explanation to unicorn blood being considered “cursed”. (Do other tribes’ blood have same effect?)>>

Suddenly, the familiar chime from Celestia writing to her had Sunset snap her book shut and immediately reach for the one containing her and Celestia’s correspondence.

I’m so sorry for not writing on your birthday, Sunset. It’s been quite the busy week.

Have you found a better living arrangement than last year?

Sunset immediately wrote that it was okay, and felt reasonably sure that she meant it, before continuing

And yes, I’ve found something pretty good. I’m with the Weasley family I’ve told you about. They seem to like me.

Hmm… why would that be? I wonder if it has something to do with saving one of them.

Maybe. We might never know. The father, Arthur, is going to help me enchant an automobile I’ve gotten my hands on. It’s a self-driving carriage. Anyway, why has the week been so bad?

Oh, it hasn’t been bad at all.

Suddenly several of the words were smudged by something dripping on the page.

Oh look! That was a tear of joy, for instance. I have been crying a lot, out of happiness I’m not sure I will ever be able to put into words.

Sunset’s eyes widened, leaning back slightly from the book. Even just reading her words from another plane of existence, she had never seen Celestia like this.

Wow, that sounds great, and now I’m also really curious and a little bit suspicious.

My sister has returned.

Sunset stared at the page, wondering if Celestia had slipped with her quill in some way, before setting her pen back against the page, the words not being able to convey the wide-eyed surprise.

You have a sister?

I do indeed. She is the alicorn of the moon and stars. She was lost when a dark madness took hold of her. For a thousand she was in exile, and when she returned, Twilight and her new friends managed to purge her of this madness.

Her name is Luna.

Sunset opened her mouth, then immediately closed it when she realized what Celestia was talking about.

Nightmare Moon is your sister!?

Oh? You know the tale? I did not expect that.

Not well enough it seems. I didn’t know she was your sister, and I didn’t think she was coming back for several hundred years.

Ah. I could have told you that if you asked.

I was planning on helping you defeat her.

I feel a little inadequate now.

Saving the life of the youngest of your hosts, Sunset.

Oh, right. I keep forgetting.

Suddenly, Mrs Weasley could be heard calling from downstairs.

“Breakfast, everyone!”

And now they’re calling for breakfast. Have to go.

Hold on. Let me think for a moment: Congratulations on getting your sister back, tell Twilight good job from me, and sorry I missed the Summer Sun Celebration. Tell me about it later. Bye for now.

After breakfast, Sunset and Arthur Weasley were standing next to the DeSoto, while Mr Weasley was presenting his enchantments to Sunset.

“It’s a little temperamental, but I think you shouldn’t have any problems if you treat it right. So that’s all the standard safety features, just like on the Knight Bus. You can be absolutely oblivious as a driver, and still not put anyone at risk.”

“The Knight Bus has an oblivious driver?” Sunset asked.

Mr Weasley opened his mouth, and closed it again to give it some thought. “Well… I shouldn’t say anything, especially about a fellow ministry employee, but… yes. No interest in how the machine works in the slightest. I don’t think a troll could do much worse.”

“So you can replicate the enchantments on the Ministry’s official vehicles?” Sunset said, impressed.

Mr Weasley laughed. “Replicate them? I’m the one who enchants them.”

“Oh,” Sunset said, impressed. “Well, I certainly can’t complain then.”

Arthur walked over to the rear door and opened it, and Sunset was further impressed. It looked normal from the outside, but inside it was a small apartment’s worth of space. The sofa was now large enough to house several people lying down on it, the ceiling was tall enough to stand upright in, and it had a bathroom and kitchenette.

“There’s a similar expansion in the luggage compartment,” he said.

Sunset raised her eyebrows. She hadn’t really measured the magical abilities of wizardkind in detail, but she had gathered that the core faculty of Hogwarts were of high ability, and Arthur Weasley, the kind, unassuming, and slightly silly man working at a dead end job that few people took seriously, was at least their equal.

“Wow… I… don’t know what to say,” Sunset said. “I didn’t expect this much.”

“Oh don’t mention it,” Mr Weasley said.

“But it’s… quite a lot.”

“Yeah but… I’m serious, please don’t mention it,” Mr Weasley said, looking a little uncomfortable. “Don’t tell anyone who enchanted this. We have a lot of confiscated magical material at the department that you need to make these enchantments, and… well, a lot of it is from cases past the statute of limitations. It’s not legal to use, but it’s not illegal either. The boys at the department would prefer it if no important person in the Ministry knew. It could lead to legal precedents being set.”

“Aaah,” Sunset said, and scratched her nose conspiratorially at Mr Weasley. “Well I never saw who put these enchantments on this car.”

Mr Weasley pointed at her while smiling. “That’s it. Car belonging to… Sunset Shimmer, you say? Well I’ve done some experiments in my time, but… I never saw any papers of ownership for any car, so I couldn’t tell.”

Sunset nodded to herself while observing her newest, rolling, flying home, looking very pleased.

“Well, I should get going. Thanks for everything.”

Mr Weasley turned to her, looking a little sad. “You’re not staying?”

“No, I don’t want to impose.”

“Oh but it’s no problem,” Mr Weasley insisted.

“I know,” Sunset said, kindly. “But don’t worry about me. Thank you so much for your help. This is going to make things much easier.”

“Well… if you insist,” Mr Weasley said, a little reluctantly.

“Not that I didn’t like it here. Maybe I can visit again sometime?” Sunset said, trying to placate the kindly head of the Weasley family.

Mr Weasley smiled. “I’m sure everyone would love that. Maybe you can meet Bill and Charlie as well.”

“Looking forward to it,” Sunset said, as she got into her car, and turned the key. “I’ll see you later then,” she said, through the open window.

“Goodbye for now, Sunset Shimmer.”

In the rearview mirror Sunset saw Ron and Ginny walk out and ask their father something as she rolled away from the house, while Mr Weasley just waved with a smile on his face.

A quick drive through the village and Sunset was on a country road heading north.

The magical car rumbled across the country road in the bright sunlight, and Sunset leaned back. She had to admit that both the muggles and Arthur Weasley had outdone themselves. The automobile was something else, and the muggles’ skill at operating them was as well, considering that within minutes the enchantments had prevented her from slamming into a tree on the side of the road, as well as dodging another car.

But there was nothing to be concerned with now. All she had to do was lean back and listen to the song on the radio, something about hard-nosing highways.

After a while, she turned off the music though, and dug around in her bag until she found the map she had scribbled from what she remembered about the Malfoys’ other holdings, as well as her trophy from a few days ago.

The Dark Lord had come back, trying to return to life through a magical book.

That was alarming, but Sunset considered this piece of information with a hungry determination. If, just like in Equestria, Dark Lords came back, then just like in Equestria, magical ponies might be able to become alicorns.

The Dark Lord’s real name was Tom Riddle, he had a thing for snakes, and a bunch of rich and pureblooded witches and wizards had followed him.

Finding out more from only that might have seemed like a difficult task. Then again, Sunset thought as she thundered down the road, rolling the basilisk fang between her fingers and with a confident smirk on her face, she was Sunset Shimmer.

Author's Note

Yeah, this took a while. I've been very busy since the last chapter, so the time between publishing the chapters does not represent the amount of time and energy I've put into this. At first I was planning on having the summer be fewer chapters, but figured that this could be a nice point to break things off.

Thanks to Snuffy and Blue Horizon for their pre-reading.

Making a House Elf Call

In the evening, three days after leaving The Burrow, Sunset was lying in her makeshift hammock, strung up between an abandoned utility pole she had found and cut into two pieces.

Next to her was the relaxing crackling of a campfire, with some mushrooms on a stick above it.

The backseat of the DeSoto was still her sleeping spot of choice, but she had found a nice, secluded copse of trees to camp this night.

Maybe she was overanalyzing, but Sunset felt that something had changed with Celestia lately, since Twilight moved to Ponyville and Princess Luna had come back.

Hopefully it was an improvement.

And I did not realize that only one additional ticket would be insufficient, and this is after I met her friends. I am not above saying that I am very embarrassed.

Sunset held herself back from trying to analyse the mind of a millennia old hero-princess too much before putting her pen to the paper.

From how you’re describing it, I probably would’ve interpreted it as some sort of test. Six friends, one extra ticket, and it sounds like she picked the right choice. She probably admires you even more now.

The book was still for a moment.

Are you certain?

No, but it’s what I suspect.

.

Sunset put her pen on a new line, and stopped, leaving a little dot of ink as she thought.

If Celestia asked Sunset why she suspected that, Sunset would not want to answer the question. It was hard enough admitting the answer to herself.

“Ngh…” Sunset groaned, and slumped a little. She figured that two years of physical independence would’ve lessened her need for Celestia’s approval, but every time, a gust of wind would destroy that house of cards.

Sunset figured that Twilight thought like herself, and Sunset admired Celestia.

She sighed, and prepared to continue writing, when Celestia mercifully did so instead.

Thank you, Sunset.

What are you doing now, if I may ask?

I have a lead on something I want to research.

Oh? Do tell.

Old wizarding families.

Oh, by the way, how are things with Lucius?

I think he has been lulled into a sense of security concerning our correspondence. He is lowering his guard, and sharing some of his thoughts, mostly his frustrations. He is quite upset at the moment.

Sunset raised her eyebrows.

Why?

He has been ousted from his position on the school board, and Dobby has left his services.

Aha. Yeah, I remember Draco being kind of dour the last few days this semester.

What have you said to Lucius?

I told him that I know how he could achieve power.

Sunset smiled. She had seen this before.

Power like he has never imagined it, right? And Lucius has never imagined the power of the kind you have when people are eager to help you?

Am I that predictable?

You are right, of course. It will take some time for him to understand, if he ever does. He is very guarded. From his master’s fall I expect.

Oh what fools they see in the mirror, those who have kissed the hooves of the dead.

Ah, but he is not so dead, you told me.

No, and it’s him I’m trying to find.

Be careful, Sunset.

I don’t need to be careful, I just need to be me.

—

High up in the sky, the television rested in the passenger seat, playing the sights and sounds that the game machine told it to play.

Next to it, Sunset was banging her head and looking smug and a bit mean as she spied out across the landscape, her banging intensifying as the electronic bass performed a particularly satisfying flourish.

“YEAH!” Sunset whooped, and punched her fist out of the side window, before reaching over and turning the volume knob up an additional notch.

That little robot had some great tunes on his adventures.

Sunset tried concentrating on her search, but also strongly considered learning to play an instrument. A guitar most likely. It seemed like there were some really nice ones in this world.

She leaned her head outside to take a look at the body of her car and make sure it was still near invisible from the outside, then sat back down and banked to the left, tilting the car and letting her more easily see the landscape far below.

“Keep steady for me, will you?” she asked her car, and patted the armrest to the right of her.

The car revved slightly in response, as Sunset kicked off her boots, turned around in her seat, and slid up over the seat onto the roomy back part.

She yawned and stretched, gripping the soft carpet with her toes, before pulling the curtain away from the window next to the larder.

“Maybe it’s time for a break,” she said, and cast a glance out the window before checking what she had to eat, then slammed the door shut and looked out the window again.

There had been no shortage of castles and country manors during the last few days, and while some of them definitely seemed like they could’ve belonged to witches and wizards, being old, grandiose, decayed, and hidden away, they had all been mundane so far.

This one, however, there was no question. Sunset could feel the magic from all the way up in the sky.

She ran up to the front and hopped into the driver’s seat again, grabbing the wheel, banking further to the left, and starting to descend.

Cruising just above the treetops, she spotted the old, overgrown avenue further ahead, and piloted her DeSoto between the twisted trees.

She slowed the car down to a brisk walk, and she felt the magic all around her.

It was unlikely that any muggle had approached this place in… forever, probably, but Sunset was ready for it.

She had noticed the signs long before she entered the avenue. Despite being in the middle of a sunny day, the light was rapidly starting to dim. The sky was becoming overcast, to the point where it was impossible to tell what time of day it was, and a thick fog approached from all directions, cold breezes seeming to form tendril-like shapes in the mist, as if grasping at her, with more of them the closer to her target.

The mansion wasn’t even visible anymore, but Sunset knew better, and she wasn’t scared. If anything she was annoyed that this effect was robbing her of a nice day in the sun.

Still, whoever had made this had put in some serious work.

Then, the gate came into view. Set into a wall of great slabs of stone, an old and twisted-looking iron gate covered with damp and diseased-looking vines, and tipped with sharp spikes. Slowly, it opened inwards with a deep creak, as if alerting anything that might lurk in the fog.

Sunset just rolled her eyes, nodded, and waved her fingers impatiently.

Yep. Muggles, and probably a lot of witches and wizards really, would’ve turned tail and ran by now, but these were parlour tricks to Sunset. Good ones, but just smoke and mirrors in the end.

When the gate was opened, Sunset rolled up her window, drove up to the cul-de-sac in front of the great, slightly dilapidated mansion.

She reached for an oil lamp before stepping out of her car, and held it up after closing the door, making it light up without words or gestures.

The mansion had three floors, all of them with high ceilings, and an attic as well by the looks of things, and the choking fog made the whole building look even more majestic, and even terrifying. The shrubs and vines, the still-living ones that is, that rested along the walls felt tired and mean from having been ignored and left in fog for so long.

The misty tendrils kept creeping closer and closer to Sunset, who glanced at them, unamused.

Like Mr Weasley’s car, the magic that kept these… aesthetics up, was sophisticated enough to develop some facsimile of a personality, and Sunset knew how to use that.

The hand holding the oil lamp glowed slightly, and a gout of flame spewed out of the lamp. The light intensified a thousandfold, before calming down again, but it was enough to make the shapes in the mist beat a hasty retreat, proverbial tail between its legs.

“Yeah, that’s right,” she said, and walked up the steps to the double doors.

Up by the door though, Sunset had to pause. A quick glance didn’t reveal any warding magic, but whoever had put up the illusory protections had been skilled indeed, so caution was warranted.

That’s when she decided on the inspired idea of trying the door knocker.

Again, no magic appeared to activate, which made it doubly surprising when, after a full minute, there was a set of loud clicks from the old oak door, and slowly and with some effort it slowly started swinging open.

At first, Sunset was just looking into the darkness beyond, when she noticed the tarsier-like eyes of a house elf staring up at her.

“Oh! Young Mistress Shimmer!”

It took a second for Sunset to be sure she wasn’t confused in some ways, before smiling politely at the nervous little creature.

“Master Dobby,” she answered, nodding at him. “I didn’t expect to see anyone here.”

Dobby searched for words for a moment, seeming, like the previous time Sunset had met him, very nervous, but Sunset’s lack of anger seemed to give him the confidence to continue.

“N-neither did Dobby, young Mistress. If… if Dobby may ask, why is she here? Is she alone? This is… not the usual place to meet a member of the Malfoy family.”

“I’m alone. And you are correct. They haven’t lived here for… how long is it now?”

“Uhm… many, many years, Mistress,” Dobby said, shuffling on his feet.

“Right, and I merely wish to have a word or two with the Malfoys, and I think written words will suffice.”

After a moment, Dobby opened the door further.

“It is… not the place of Dobby to… invite or deny entry.”

Sunset stepped inside. “Thank you. But what about you? What are you doing here?”

Dobby’s ears sank, and he looked at the floor, as if ashamed. “Dobby is… without a master. Dobby is a most unusual house elf, because Dobby does not want a master. Dobby wants to be employed.”

“Sounds fair,” Sunset said, looking around the gloomy foyer.

Dobby’s ears perked up. “Mistress think so?”

“You don’t have to call me that you know,” Sunset said.

Dobby closed his mouth as quickly as if a bug had flown into it, and then looked up apologetically at Sunset while shuffling his feet and wringing his hands.

“Dobby apologizes, Mistress. Dobby doesn't know why he said that.”

“Old habit, maybe?” Sunset suggested.

Dobby thought for a moment, before shaking his head. “No, Mistre- m-Miss. Young Miss just feels so… uhm…”

Dobby looked down at his feet again, and silence descended over the dark foyer, as Sunset looked at the house elf.

Sunset scratched her head, searching for words and wondering if Dobby was saying that she looked impressive, or intimidating, or something else.

“Well…” she eventually said to fill the silence, before searching for words again, “... anyway, I just needed to look through the library.”

Dobby’s eyes lit up. “Dobby can show young Miss!” he said, and closed the door before bounding off to the stairs.

Sunset followed, and oil lanterns lit themselves as the two ascended the stairs, illuminating the darkly rich surroundings, with formerly white sheets, now yellowed with dust and age, covering large parts of the walls.

“Portraits, young Miss,” Dobby whispered, as they reached the top of the stairs and walked on the dusty carpet down the hallway. “The Malfoy family is… not as large as it used to be. The portraits are lonely. Dobby was told to put sheets in front of them. It helps them rest, it does.”

“Uhuh,” Sunset said, as they slowly walked down the hallway. “And will anyone know that we’re here?”

“No Malfoy has been in this house for a long time, Mistr- Miss. Dobby has taken care of it, he has… as best as he could. Dobby was sent to keep the other Malfoy houses neat.”

“You’ve been taking care of the Malfoys in their home and also been maintaining this mansion?” Sunset asked, as Dobby stopped in front of a double door.

The house elf once again shuffled his feet. “Dobby tried, Miss, but… there are doxies in a closet in the north wing, and other nasties in other places… no gnomes though,” he added, sounding carefully hopeful. “They are scared away by the magical mist. Although… the mist scares Dobby too.”

Sunset nodded to herself, thinking that if anyone deserved to be squatting anywhere, it would be Dobby in a house that the Malfoys didn’t even use.

“Just illusions,” Sunset assured him, and looked at the door. “Is this the place?”

“It is, Mistress.”

Sunset carefully opened one of the doors, revealing, indeed, a library. It almost rivalled Hogwarts’ library, with a high ceiling, desks and tables, and lecterns with writing implements, like dusty quills, cracked from old age, sitting in long-dried inkwells, all of it just barely lit up by sooted up oil lamps that lit up when they entered.

Letting out a low whistle, Sunset stepped in, followed by Dobby.

“Dobby has… dusted books in here sometimes, but… some books have grown angry and bitter. Dobby did not like caring for them.”

“Sounds like you don’t have to anymore,” Sunset noted. “Besides, I’m with you, and if any of them are feeling uppity I’ll make an example of it.”

Dobby looked up at Sunset, eyes wider than normal. “Mistress would… risk herself for Dobby?”

Sunset just shrugged. “Why not?”

The house elf looked stunned for several seconds, before tears started welling up in his eyes. “Mistress is a noble witch!” he said, and threw himself at her feet.

“Uh yeah, well, technically true, but–” was what she managed to say before Dobby started kissing her boots, “– uhm… stop that… please.”

Dobby backed away and simply bowed deeply.

“Dobby is sorry, Mistress! Dobby was just overwhelmed by Mistress’ overwhelming nobility!”

This felt too genuine to Sunset to be a joke, and she looked uncomfortably at Dobby, lost for words.

“Uhm… please, uhm… stop showing so much reverence for me, Mr Dobby.”

Dobby looked up at Sunset, scared and confused. “Mistress does… not like Dobby’s presence?”

This had all come too suddenly for Sunset, and she looked up into the ceiling, uncomfortable.

“It’s uh… look, I don’t want to be worshipped for the same reason you don’t want to be worshipped.”

Dobby looked up at Sunset with an uncertain look on his face.

“Look, if you wanna do something for me, help me find the books containing the Malfoy family history. In fact, all the wizarding family history books here,” Sunset said, gesturing to the dark library around her.

“Dobby can do that!” the house elf said, and jumped to his feet, and started walking over to a large shelf. “Dobby will carry them for you as well, Mistress!”

“You’ll carry no more than you’re capable of,” Sunset ordered, following him. “I’ll take the rest.”

“Of course, Mistress. Thank you.”

Sunset waved her hand at her boots, casting a quick cleaning spell on them, in case Dobby forgot himself again.

An hour later, Sunset was sitting in the kitchen on the first floor, a stone room with an extensive cooking area and a fairly large eating section, presumably for servants, skimming through family registers, chronicles of deeds, relations, and feuds, and some blatant propaganda.

Despite the size of the room, and the grimy windows barely letting in any sun, it was like a cozy hideaway compared to the rest of the enormous house, especially when lit by dozens of candles, and with the crackling of the woodfire stove, where Dobby was busying himself cooking dinner.

“So you’ve been living here since Lucius accidentally released you?” Sunset asked, before taking a sip of warm chocolate that Dobby had prepared for her.

“Oh yes, Dobby has, Mistress.”

“Just ‘miss’ is fine if you don’t wanna use my name,” Sunset reminded him. “Where do you sleep?”

Dobby jumped down on the floor and opened the door to one of the cupboards next to the stove, in which a tiny bedding of worn pillows and blankets was prepared.

“Dobby’s bed is quite cozy, Miss. He has a lamp, and the stove keeps it warm, and now he can sleep in if he wants. Dobby never does, of course. Dobby is not tardy, no sir. But Dobby could,” he said, looking genuinely pleased with the arrangement. “But Dobby will prepare one of the guest rooms for the young Mistress of course. He will make sure the linen is clean and the air is fresh and the–”

“Perhaps it’s best not to,” Sunset interrupted as gently as she could. “There’s some magic that comes with making a place one’s home. I’ll just be… visiting.”

Interestingly to Sunset, Dobby nodded in understanding, and climbed back on top of the kitchen counter to stir the pot. “Of course, young Mistress. Young Mistress is quite wise,” he said, and hesitated. “Dobby… would never speak ill of wizards and witches, but… many have, uhm… been learning of magic other than the ones of the home.

“House elves knows of the magic of homes. Dobby would protect the young Mistress from any magic that came from living in this house of course, but… Dobby understands if the young Mistress wishes to be careful.”

Sunset nodded, a part of her musing about the fact that she was having one of the deeper discussions of magic she remembered having in this world with Dobby, of all creatures.

“Perhaps we can put up a cot in here,” she suggested.

That got an approving nod from Dobby. “That would be clever, Mistress. Dobby will fetch something after dinner.”

“Thanks. And you’re quite wise yourself,” Sunset said, still scanning the pages of the books laid out in front of her. “Lucius strikes me as a knowledgeable wizard, but he had a servant that he didn’t know how to treat. That’s playing with fire.”

“Dobby… did not wish the master any harm. Dobby just wanted to be free,” Dobby said, and then stopped stirring.

Sunset looked at him as he stared down into the pot, lost in thought, for several minutes. But she didn’t interrupt him. Besides the relief, there was something going through his head that looked painful but necessary

“That’s probably protected him in ways we might never know,” Sunset eventually said, in a soft voice so as to not startle the house elf, and before Dobby could respond, Sunset spoke again. “Dobby, tell me of any aches and pains you’ve gotten.”

Dobby over at Sunset, a little startled, and awkward. “Uhm… Dobby’s knee hurts sometimes. More when it’s cold, and, uhm… Dobby’s ear tips are… a little sensitive.”

Sunset had collected her bag and was rummaging through it. “Uhuh,” she said, as she deposited all the potions she had saved from practicing on her own. “Right, here we go. I assume you’ll want a smaller dosage of this relative to your size. We’ll pour some of this into your drink later. It mends several kinds of chronic pains.”

“But, but Dobby can’t accept–”

“Not even if I insist?” Sunset countered, who was ready for it.

—

For two days, Sunset stayed in the old mansion with Dobby.

The house elf gave her the tour of the house, and Dobby’s reverence of Sunset, which she had already found to be uncomfortably high, doubled both when Sunset’s potion had done the trick, and later when Sunset subdued an animated bear rug that had woken up and lunged at them, and Sunset gave up trying to get Dobby to not call her “Mistress”.

Still, Sunset stayed mostly in the kitchen, where she had put up a cot, and studied the chronicled histories of old wizarding families at the table.

It seemed to Sunset that someone in the Malfoy family, a long time ago, had gotten their hands on books that had not been written to stroke their own egos, but had for some reason decided to not destroy them or throw them out. It was a tale of how the family had come to be, though Sunset had to take it with a grain of salt, since it had been written centuries after the events it described.

The book told of a family of cruel witches and wizards who lorded openly over their non-magical subjects, and waged war against their neighbors with their magic. Neighboring lords and ladies had planted servants in the family’s midst over generations, and one night given the order to kill their employers in their sleep in the name of their true masters.

It had not gone entirely according to plan though. Some of the magical family’s children fled into the woods and hid away with their magic, landless and destitute, while other children had been taken in by either the killers or the nobles that commanded them, getting magical blood integrated into their lines and becoming several of the families now revered as the oldest and most distinguished wizarding lineages.

With the tale repeating several times before magical people decided to hide themselves away from the world, Sunset could see the stories spawning sentiments among pureblood magical people that muggles were thieves and usurpers. It would have helped if they had also learned of their own progenitors' behavior towards their non-magical brethren. Someone in the Malfoy family seemed to, long ago.

The book did give her names to look into however. She already knew of Malfoy, but there were many related families, like Black, LeStrange, and one which had slowly faded across the centuries of records; the Gaunt family.

At first she had thought nothing of it, just another clan of bluebloods with a family tree that had a little too few branches, even after their monetary wealth was long gone.

Sunset figured that if there was any point at which a noble line would abandon too-selective breeding, it’s when they were out of money. The Gaunts had not. They had something else keeping the family insular for centuries after the point of slow self destruction.

It had required almost a full day of research, but eventually Sunset had found out what the Gaunt family had.

“The heirlooms of Salazar Slytherin,” she muttered to herself.

“Mistress?” Dobby said, looking up from dusting the cabinets.

Sunset leaned back in her chair and grabbed two tea mugs in her hands, magically heating them up to a pleasant temperature. “Join me,” she said invitingly to Dobby.

Dobby was a little uncertain as he walked up and took a seat opposite of Sunset in the dim light, and even more uncertain when Sunset held out one of the mugs to him.

Taking a sip of tea, Sunset started compiling the idea forming in her head into words.

“So… last school year I learned that Salazar Slytherin had left a secret chamber at Hogwarts that could only be opened by his heir,” she said, to which Dobby sat and listened attentively. “I met him, the heir I mean, briefly, only a few days ago. Harry Potter and I killed him and his basilisk.”

Dobby’s already large eyes widened. “Mistress fought along with Harry Potter!?”

In school, and especially in front of a figure of authority, Sunset would’ve tried being evasive, which was honestly getting somewhat tiring, but here, hidden away in an almost forgotten old house with an unemployed butler, Sunset felt she could loosen that particular boot a bit, and smirked, satisfied.

“That’s right. The Dark Lord is minutes away from succeeding in his plans at the expense of the innocent, then… in rides Harry Potter and Sunset Shimmer, saving the day with gleaming steel and fiery magic in their hands, as it should be.”

Dobby was transfixed as he stared at Sunset, who allowed herself quite a bit of pride at the memory.

“Dobby knew Mistress was noble,” he said, before continuing in almost a whisper. “Fighting with the great Harry Potter.”

Sunset chuckled. “Yeah, he turned out to be pretty good against dark wizards. Shouldn’t be surprised,” she said, and then shook her head. “Anyway, apparently the dark lord’s name was Tom Marvolo Riddle, and he was, obviously, the descendant of Slytherin. These books all but confirm that the descendants were called Gaunt, but that family name slowly faded. If the Gaunts became the Riddles, that could explain what happened to them.”

Dobby’s wide-eyed expression now became concerned. “Mistress means to… to find the dark lord?”

“I’m considering it, yes.”

“B… but… Mistress must not!” Dobby cried.

“Why not?” Sunset asked, raising her eyebrow.

“Mistress is too noble to risk her life against dark wizards,” Dobby pleaded.

In the dim, orange light of the kitchen, Sunset could see tears welling up in Dobby’s eyes, and smiled as comfortingly as she could to the house elf.

“I aim to be something which requires someone to be truly worthy,” she explained. “Besides. I’m not so noble that I plan on fighting completely fair. Knowledge is power and I aim to know more about my enemy than he knows of me, and not to brag, but I am quite the enigma.”

“You are, Mistress,” Dobby said, nodding eagerly. “Master asked and wondered a lot about you. He read books and sent letters to many witches and wizards, and heard that even Albus Dumbledore does not know who Mistress really is.”

“Hah,” Sunset said, feeling more than a little pleased with herself. “And he didn’t even learn from my book.”

Dobby’s ears suddenly fell, and he recoiled almost as if struck.

It took several seconds before Sunset realized what that was about, and waved it away.

“Oh yeah, I know it was you who took my book to him. Don’t worry, no harm done.”

Dobby hanged his head and sobbed, tears slowly running down his cheeks. “Dobby is so ashamed,” he said.

“Yeah, well, you can stop that. Like I said, he hasn’t learned anything about me from the book. He hasn’t learned anything dangerous at all.”

That made Dobby curious enough to look up at Sunset. “How does Mistress know that?”

“She told me. The one who answers when you write in it,” she explained, and continued when seeing Dobby’s curious face. “My teacher… the Princess.”

That made Dobby’s mouth fall open. “So… master Dumbledore was right? Mistress is from the court of the sun?”

Sunset froze, and her heartrate didn’t shoot up, but the beats certainly became stronger.

“Wwwwh… what do you mean, Dobby?” she asked, as calmly as she could

“Master Dumbledore has talked with the teachers at Hogwarts. He had many ideas. One of them was that maybe Mistress was of the old ones, the ones hidden in the woods and the mists. They had two courts, wizards say, a dark and a light one. They were always mysterious to witches and wizards, and they had mighty magics. Wizards have stories of a powerful woman among them, or many with the same name, who would go out and find mortal men to inspire in exchange for their love. Master Dumbledore thought a child from her could be a powerful half-human witch or wizard.”

Now it had been Sunset’s turn to sit in silence and listen, and gradually a smile grew on her face, but she managed to refrain from laughing in relief when Dobby finished.

“Aha,” she said, nodding to herself. “That is… fascinating.”

Sunset became lost in thought for several minutes at that, leaning back and staring out into nothing.

Possibilities raced through her head of what this could all mean. Perhaps that Equestria had been in contact with the magical peoples of this world long ago, or people had fled from one world to the other.

Sunset shook her head. She was a scholar, sure, but something like this would require years of studying to form anything other than hypotheses.

“Right, yeah… anyway, I guess I should get going,” Sunset said, standing up.

Dobby jumped down from his chair and rushed up to Sunset.

“Mistress is leaving?”

“I’m not actually your mistress, you know,” Sunset gently reminded him.

“Oh… yes, it just slips Dobby’s mind,” he said, fiddling a little. “But Dobby can keep looking after Mistress.”

“And you’re good at it, but you said that you wanted to be employed. I don’t really have any money, or a house for that matter.”

Dubby’s ears fell a little. “But Dobby wants to help Mistre- uhm… Miss.”

A thought struck Sunset. “Maybe you can work at Hogwarts. That’s quite the house to look after, and Dumbledore strikes me as a decent employer.”

A wide smile grew on Dobby’s face as he considered this. “Young Miss is so wise! At Hogwarts, Dobby has a chance to meet both young Miss again, and Harry Potter!”

“That’s right,” Sunset said. “But I have a favor to ask you, Dobby.”

“Anything, young Miss.”

“Try, and don’t punish yourself if you don’t, but try not to say anything about me to anyone.”

Dobby looked at Sunset with confusion. “But… not even to Albus Dumbledore?”

Sunset shook her head. “Not even to him.”

—

It was early enough in the day for it to still be full of life and energy even as the sun was low enough to be orange. The beautiful wealds rolled on and on in the distance, and Sunset sighed, thinking on how best to handle this situation.

“Hmm… perhaps raise the seat a little… maybe a pair of aviators,” she said to herself as she looked at the two police officers walking up towards her from their own car.

The timing was bad too, there was a particularly good song for cruising playing in the speakers- someone had left a pretty good cassette tape in the car stereo.

She preferred not to, but she made sure her wand was easily accessible on the armrest when the officers came to a stop outside her window, and leaned down slightly to look at her.

“Miss… how old are you?”

“Old enough to be on my own,” Sunset said, but not sneeringly. What muggles did without magic earned them that much respect.

The two officers, one round bellied and one moustached, looked at each other.

“Can I see your papers?” Moustache said.

Sunset slowly drew her breath apologetically. “Sorry, officer, but no can do. I…” she waved her hand as she searched for words, before giving him a flat, honest look. “I don’t have any.”

Another shared look. “I’m confused, because you don’t look like you can be older than fourteen,” the round bellied one said.

“Oh, I’m sure it’s very confusing,” Sunset agreed, slowly reaching for her wand to point it out the window, concentrating to hold back her magic as much as she could, to magically move so softly as to not wake up the most alert of cats. “Even… confundo-ing,”

A gentle wave of ethereal energy washed out of Sunset’s wand, and the two officers stood still for a several moments, simply staring at Sunset.

“... Don’t you think?” Sunset said, studying their reaction closely.

They gently snapped out of it. “Hm? What was that?” Belly said.

“That the lyrics are confusing,” Sunset improvised, nodding slightly at the radio. “What are Bette Davis eyes?”

The two officers took a moment to identify the song on the radio, before “Oh”-ing in comprehension.

“Bette Davis was a famous actress,” Moustache explained. “... And the look of her eyes was very distinct.”

“Oh,” Sunset said, smiling in comprehension, as she searched desperately for something to say that wouldn’t draw attention to the fact that she was driving a car. Nothing about listening to the radio on the road, because roads were associated with driving, and driving wasn’t something the officers should think about.

Nothing to draw attention to the car, and nothing that would seem as if it was to draw attention away from it either.

“Well, thank you, officers, I’ve been wondering about that for days.”

They chuckled, and stood up straight. “No problem, miss.”

“Have a nice day.”

“You as well.”

Sunset waved and smiled at them, and gently drove off, keeping her eyes on them in the rear view mirror.

Thankfully she managed round a copse of trees while they were still heading back to their own vehicle, talking casually with each other.

She let out another sigh, this one of relief, and turned up the radio. “Thank you, whoever you are.”

Sunset was trying to follow maps and descriptions she had copied from the family chronicles in Malfoy’s old manor, some of them centuries old, for a few days now.

She had wondered what mental effect it could have on her, just searching the countryside for days on end without talking to anyone, but had dismissed any concerns about that. After all, muggles and ponies both went on days-long hiking trips, and besides, she had Celestia to write to.

If anything, she was more concerned about the locals, with their local shops, who insisted the shop was for locals, and that they did not burn people.

Sunset drove around so many hills and through so many valleys that she started to suspect that there was some magic at work, folding the British landscape in on itself and making the region she was in larger on the inside than the outside, just like the Everfree Forest supposedly were.

Then again, millennia of activity might just have resulted in very unintuitive roads.

Just as Sunset thought that she should take off into the sky, she found herself looking out of the passenger window to an old, old signpost on a dusty dirt road.

At one point it could’ve been a nice signpost on a well cared-for road, but the signpost was old and barely legible, and thickets were spilling out onto the road over old, warped, and partially collapsed wooden fences.

The sign had two arms pointing in opposite directions, and read:

Great Hangleton, 5 miles. Little Hangleton, 1 mile

Birds sang in the background, and across the neglected, thicket-covered field was an old and calm forest, serenely pleased with its moderate health and size. No sound of other traffic was even hinted at in the background.

Sunset reached over to the passenger seat, where her notes and copied maps lay, and started digging through them, mumbling to herself, while looking back and forth between two papers. It would’ve been much easier if it was written plainly, and not a messy compilation of centuries-old anecdotes.

“... Right,” she said, set the papers aside, and patted the steering wheel. “Let’s go, DeSoto.”

The car gently rumbled to life on its own accord, and rolled down the steep slope into the valley ahead, with the village visible in the distance.

It didn’t take long for Sunset to realize that she stood out quite a bit in the village, as she slowly rumbled down the main street in a large and shiny fuchsia colored car, on asphalt so old and worn it had practically gone back to being gravel.

The quiet villagers, sitting around tables in unlit kitchens, eyed her with a mix of suspicion and amazement through their windows.

Sunset pulled in on a parking lot behind a pub. Old as the resident looked, the whole village seemed to be within walking distance, and so most of the spaces were taken up by dusty old bins and frayed pallets covered in shreds of old newspaper and bird droppings.

Carefully stepping out of the car, Sunset felt her hair rise in the back of her neck. In this village, the shop was really local, and the owners were even less inclined to burn people.

The bell on the door to the pub only let out a shy thud as Sunset opened it and let herself in.

Like the last time she had been in a muggle pub, it was in the middle of the day, and all was quiet. Only the bartender and some flies, some winged and some not, were present, looking at Sunset in silence.

The bartender glared at Sunset as she walked up to the bar, and it was rather incredible how clearly he asked, “What are you doing here?” in a moderately confrontational voice without making a sound.

“Hi there.”

“Mruf,” he said… or something to that effect.

“Hmm…” Sunset said, openly thinking on how to proceed, she decided to be straightforward. “Do you know of someone named Gaunt?”

“Mrrrh.”

<> she muttered to herself. “Alright, how about Riddle?”

That had an effect. The bartender leaned back, eyes wide, while the huddled patrons around the tables looked back and forth between Sunset and each other.

From the corner of the pub came a garbled cackle, and Sunset turned around to see an elderly woman in worn clothes swaying back and forth in her seat. “Eheheheheuuuuh-rrrruuuIDDLE!” she laughed, or something, before continuing, “Yes, sir, Master Riddle, sir! Five-o-clock SHARP I was ready, yes sir! Always the best for mister and mum, and dessert. Perfectly cut strawberries on the cream, oh yes.”

Everyone but the rambling old woman and Sunset collectively rolled their eyes, and the bartender gave Sunset a disappointed look. Once again without speaking he managed to say, “now look what you’ve done.”

Sunset walked up to the bar and said, “bottle of beer, and a soda,” to the bartender, who looked at Sunset for a moment before shrugging and fishing up two bottles and knocking the caps off from them, then placed them on the bar.

Sunset grabbed the two bottles, and walked up to the rambling figure, who now had descended into muttering into her almost empty mug, ignoring the openly curious looks she received from the other, quiet patrons.

Unnoticed by the grey-haired woman, or perhaps crone, Sunset sat down opposite her, and studied her for a moment.

She was wearing old clothes that were washed so many times there was almost no color left, and Sunset suspected that the only reason her hair wasn’t sticking out in all directions was because, like Professor McGonagall, it was secured in a tight bun in the back of her head.

“... What was ready five-o-clock sharp?” she asked.

The worn figure in front of her snapped to attention and gave Sunset a disappointed look. “Dinner, of course! Silly girl,” she said, with more clarity, before starting to sway a little again.

The bartender scoffed in amusement, but Sunset ignored both him and the jab.

“You had dinner ready at five? You were a chef?”

She turned her head and scowled out the window at something in the distance. “Hrrmm,” she grumbled.

“... For the Riddle family?”

The pub had been ready for this. The bartender had calmly put his fingers in his ears, and the closest patrons leaned away as screeched curses and spittle flew from the suddenly enraged old woman.

“Since I was a gal, I did! Dinner every day for fifteen years. No days off either, noooo! Pah, fancy folk. Biiiig house, land all around. Stables, and fields, and rent, up to their nose in money. Then, whoop! All gone. Leave anything for us normal folk? Nooo! Had to work for a pittance, I did! Prisons, schools, orphanages. Riddle! Pah!”

Sunset understood every one of the words, but what was actually being said was another matter.

“So… where are they?” Sunset asked.

There was a mean glint in the old woman’s smile as she brought her tankard up to her mouth, and emptied what was left in it.

Sunset leaned back in the chair, when she caught sight of the bartender giving her a meaningful look. He leaned his head back to expose his throat, before running two fingers across it.

Sunset got the message, and nodded slowly, trying to figure this one out.

The Riddles were dead, then. But Voldemort’s name was Riddle. Muggles weren’t supposed to know of witches and wizards, but if one of the greatest wizards in living memory came from this place, perhaps these muggles were an exception, perhaps not.

“How did they die, and when?”

The ragged lady let out a strangely deep chuckle. “Huur, he killed them, didn’t he? Frank did.”

“Someone named Frank killed them?”

But the woman just grumbled and stared out of the window again.

Sunset grabbed the opened bottle of beer, and clinked it against the glass pint to make sure the old woman got the hint, as she filled it up.

The old woman smirked and mumbled in approval, before taking the glass and emptying half of it in one go.

“Aye, Frank killed them,” she said, now much more clearly again. “Got home from the war, he did, funny in the head. Unlocked the kitchen door in the middle of the evening he did, walked right into the dining room and killed them on the spot.”

She turned to look at Sunset with a conspiratorial look on her face. “Had finished for the day, you understand? Gone to bed. Good thing too. Didn’t want to be in that kitchen when Frank passed through it.”

She let out a shiver, and the rest of the pub slowly nodded critically at each other. This was clearly an old and worn story in these parts, but that bit at least had a smudge of excitement left in it.

“... When?” she asked, and reached for her soda, but the old woman was faster, and simply grabbed that too, drinking it straight from the bottle.

“Eh,” Sunset simply shrugged, and waited for an answer.

“Oh, uhm… fifty years now,” she said, suddenly cheerful at having remembered something as esoteric as that, and emptied Sunset’s soda bottle.

Puzzle pieces were raining down on Sunset’s head, but they didn’t make any sense. How could a man living among muggles, and thus presumably a muggle himself, kill a family of witches and wizards single handedly?

“Poison?” Sunset asked, thought mostly to herself.

But the old woman shook her head, and started swaying again. “Nnh, don’t care what any police say. It was Frank who did it.”

“Who is Frank?” Sunset asked.

But the old woman’s head had fallen forward, and after a moment it became clear that she had fallen asleep.

Sunset waited for a moment, before standing up. The entire pub was still looking at her, and Sunset wondered if maybe she should start feeling self-conscious, but decided not to, which might have had something to do with being out in the sticks in a society she wasn’t normally interacting with, on a plane of existence she still didn’t really consider to be home.

She caught the bartender’s eyes, and he beckoned her over with a simple nod of his head, his hands being busy with a glass and a rag.

“Happens when she drinks anything you can’t set on fire,” he grunted.

“Right,” Sunset said, glancing back at the sleeping old bat. “So why is this Frank type?”

The bartender simply shook his head. “Leave it, girl,” he simply said.

Sunset shook her head. “Can’t do that,” she said, looking out the window, trying to figure out what the drunkard had kept looking at.

The bartender kept looking at Sunset, and also like McGonagall, his default expression was much like a glare.

“... Don’t bring no trouble here,” he muttered, in a tone that sounded like a goodbye.

Sunset looked at him, but didn’t sense any actual hostility, so she simply turned towards the door. “Goodbye then,” she said, and started walking.

The bartender simply grunted in response.

Outside, Sunset walked around the corner to the parking lot, to see a group of children, three boys and a girl, around her age, standing with their feet on each side of their bikes, looking at her car, and blocking access to the driver’s seat.

They didn’t notice her walking up to them as they loudly talked, completely uninformed and with great confidence, what kind of a car it was, excitement and resentment in their voices.

“Help ya?” she asked.

Just like their reaction to the car was a mix of admiration for its beauty and resentment at other people having nice things, their reaction to Sunset was a mix of automatic hostility towards outsiders and admiration of her appearance.

The first one who spoke chose the hostile part. “Tchyea,” he scoffed, and nodded at the car. “This yours?”

Sunset took that to mean whether it was her family’s car, and nodded, crossing her arms. “That’s right.”

“Yeah? Where you from, then?”

“I’m an alien invader. You?”

Just a second of being caught off guard was enough for the boy’s friends to snigger at him.

“From here, ain’t I?” he challenged, lamely.

“Makes sense,” Sunset noted, looking around at the worn village. “Now, make way, if you will,” she said, and moved one of them to the side, so she could open the passenger door and take her seat.

The children looked at each other, uncertain. “You can’t drive that!” the girl in the group said.

“Yet, here I am,” Sunset said through the rolled down window, shrugging. “Now, move it.”

The first boy had fished out a house key, and was visibly feeling the excitement of having reached a boundary he felt he might be able to push.

Sunset knew just the thing to say to make him do it too.

“Don’t you dare,” she said, calmly shaking her head.

She realized she should’ve sounded more urgent, but it was enough. The boy put the key against the lacquer of the DeSoto with foul intention, but Sunset was ready for it.

Like almost exactly a year ago, a discharge of electricity shot out through a boy’s hand on Sunset’s command. The difference here was that it was a much less flashy display, and this time also real.

“Ah!”

It wasn’t nearly enough to hurt him, but it did make him drop his key.

“Hm, static electricity,” Sunset said, as the children looked on in surprise, before she opened the car door and reached down to pick up the key.

The boy didn’t stop her, being busy massaging his hand and staring at Sunset.

Sunset shot her own arm out like a snake and grabbed the boy’s wrist, pulling his hand towards her slowly enough not to hurt him, and strongly enough to demonstrate her strength.

“You’ll want this back,” she said, scowling at him, and holding the key above his open palm.

She took the moment to bend the key slightly with her thumb, before dropping it into the boy’s hand, before letting him go.

The other children had backed away, and did so further now that the boy did so in a panic, and fell over around his bike, staring at Sunset.

“Come on, let’s go!” one of them, who had been quiet so far, urged them, as they helped their friend up, and hopped onto the seats, speeding away.

“Yeah, let’s go,” Sunset said to her car, which rumbled to life, and gracefully backed out of the parking space and out towards the street.

The boy, his legs shaking, drove straight into a dustbin and fell over. His other friends looked back at him for a moment, before abandoning him.

Sunset rolled her eyes, glad that he didn’t look hurt. She felt she might’ve had to take care of that if he did.

Instead, she urged her car to simply roll up beside him, and he looked up at her in fear.

“Hey,” she casually said, as if the previous exchange had never taken place. “Who’s this Frank-character?”

Author's Note

Pre-read by Snuffy, Dreadnought, and Blue Horizon

Black Stone, Black Soul

A long time ago, Frank Bryce had been sad, and angry. He had been so every day, and it had just gotten worse since.

That was before the event that made him a pariah, back when he was merely a young man who had given up years of his prime for his country, and been given chronic pains and a mind stretched to the breaking point for his trouble.

He wasn’t capable of living in the city among other young people and potential friends. He knew he was too damaged, in more ways than one, for that, so the gardens of the Riddle estate might very well have been the best for him in many ways.

Oh, the Riddles were not people he was keen on being around of course, but the older pair and their adult son did not scream and shout, they merely left snide remarks about the state of the gardens, and snide remarks was something Frank could, with some difficulty, tolerate. Unlike loud noises, it didn’t remind him, however unwillingly, of smattering of machine guns emptying themselves into the ground around him and his friends, or suddenly noticing the whistling of incoming bombs, and the fear that he or any of the boys next to him would still be in one piece in a few moments.

Here, for all its flaws, was a patch of the world of peace and quiet, and Frank alternated between breathing out in relief and grumbling in frustration that the days blended together and that beyond the horizon the world continued without him.

There was one thing Frank would always remember though. A long time ago, he had limped along the hedges, wincing every now and then, with the hedge trimmer in his hands, when he happened to look up.

There, just beyond the border of the mansion ground, had been a boy, almost a man. He was too far away for Frank to get a good look at, but his pale skin, dark hair, and black clothes stood out on the sunny summer day. In fact, if he had taken a step forward and entered the mansion ground, Frank would have assumed it was a relative of the Riddles coming to visit, but he didn’t. He simply stood there, looking at the mansion, and not as if appreciating its aesthetics, but as if deep in thought, oblivious to the world around him.

Frank didn’t know if it was his mind fending off the boredom of work with a sudden burst of imagination, but there had been something… strange, about that boy. Something… sinister.

Then again, that had been the only unusual thing that had happened the day before that very unusual night; the night that had made Frank’s already bad life even worse. Of course his memories would play tricks on him, of course even the slightest unusual event would be warped into having some sort of meaning.

But still, even so many years later, Frank couldn’t shake the feeling that he had caught a glimpse of something larger and more complex, standing in the shade with those hedge trimmers in his hands and looking at the figure in the distance.

So it was understandable that Frank Bryce had frozen where he stood, again with an old pair of hedge trimmers in his hands, almost on the exact same spot, and noticed a young girl, with black clothes and an eye-catching mane of red and blonde hair, standing on the now-much less cared for grounds, looking up at the now-dilapidated mansion, deep in thought.

—

Sunset stood by the threshold to the mansion grounds, staring at a grand house in the distance.

“Right… here we go again,” she said, and stepped forward.

She reached out with her magical senses, but she couldn’t pick up anything in particular. There might have been a hint of magic, somewhere, but it was hard to tell, and it might not even have been this house.

Unlike the Malfoy’s largely abandoned mansion, this house was actually abandoned, and looked like it. Instead of merely needing a new coat of paint and being covered in vines and moss, this mansion was in disrepair. Roof tiles were missing or shifted around, drainpipes were bent or missing completely, windows were broken and boarded up, and the boards themselves were rotted and warped.

Interestingly, the grounds were in much better condition, if not entirely well-cared for, which made sense if the boy had been telling the truth, that there was a gardener here, if an old and feeble one working alone.

The lawn was fairly well-kept, and while several of the shrubs and trees had apparently grown too large to be properly cared for, it was far from reclaimed by nature as it would’ve been if it had gone fifty years without someone tending it. The oak and maple trees however, had grown tall, fat, and happy, and were covering a lot of the lawn in shade.

The gravel road, which only had a few stray pieces of grass sticking out of it here and there, made crunching sounds underneath Sunset’s boots as she slowly strolled over it.

Scanning left and right, she spotted a lone figure in a flat cap standing on the far side of the large lawn, having stopped his hedge trimming, and was glaring at her.

Sunset started walking in his direction, slowly and calmly, and the man turned to face her. True to what the boy had said earlier, it was clear that this man couldn’t move very well, as was further evident by his slightly crooked posture and the cane leaning against the tall hedge next to him.

Other people were clearly not a welcome sight to the man, and Sunset wondered exactly how angrily she would be greeted.

So it was to her mildly pleasant surprise, when she reached conversation distance, the man simply said, in a firm voice, “this is private property.”

Sunset nodded. “I know, and I apologize for the intrusion. Frank Bryce I presume?”

The man eased up just a bit on his glaring expression. “That’s right.”

“My name is Sunset Shimmer. I’d like to ask you some questions.”

The old man recoiled slightly, eyeing Sunset more with suspicion than anger, but then his expression darkened again. “I’m working,” he scoffed, and turned around to continue trimming the hedge, but groaned when he put his weight on his leg, and reached for his cane.

He stumbled however, and was about to fall forward, when Sunset quickly stepped forward and shot her forearms in under his shoulders, and Frank found himself suddenly safe from falling by the girl’s shocking strength.

He craned his head back to see the fiery-haired girl looking at him patiently, before she eased him towards his cane, which he grabbed and propped himself up with, letting the girl free her arms.

Frank stared at her for a long moment, wondering what to say, before remembering common courtesy. Frank’s mood then fell. He didn’t have the energy for common courtesy anymore, and instead put up a shield.

“Thank you, lass,” he muttered, and started limping towards the toolshed.

“Bad leg?” Sunset asked.

“Hm?” he muttered, and put a finger in his ear to try and dislodge some earwax.

Frank would’ve almost preferred if she had let him fall. Then he could bark and yell at her, telling her to go home. Instead, he just sighed. “Yes.”

“And hearing?”

“Hm?” he muttered again.

“Bad hearing?” Sunset repeated, louder.

“Hm… yes.”

Frank hadn’t spoken a word to someone in a week, and that had been to tell the grocery store clerk that he had been short changed. He had not had a proper conversation with anyone in years.

He knew that it wasn’t good for him, but he also knew that getting his hopes up about… anything, really, was even worse.

So it was to his wry satisfaction that the girl turned around on the spot to walk away, and with confusion that she said, “I’ll be right back.”

Sunset walked out of the mansion grounds again, where she stepped into the backseat of her car and started digging around a bookshelf consisting of two salvaged bookshelf-halves for the bottles she needed.

After a minute, she stepped out of her car again, and walked back, but Frank wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Walking in the direction he had last headed, she saw a little shed, and a rundown cottage a little ways from that, with Frank heading towards it. She followed, and just before she caught up with him, Frank closed the door behind him.

Sunset knocked on the door, and when there was no response for a moment, she tried again.

“Seriously, open up,” she said, with the authority of someone on a mission.

The door slowly clicked, and then cautiously opened what little it would, being hindered by a chain on the inside, with Frank suspiciously looking out through the crack.

Sunset poked two tiny bottles through the opening, almost into Frank’s face, one filled with what looked like liquid brass, and the other clear with what looked like a mostly-dissolved bit of cartilage floating around in it.

“Drink these. You can put it in your tea if you want.”

Frank’s suspicious and incredulous gaze shifted back and forth between Sunset and the bottles.

“Doctor’s orders,” Sunset urged.

Frank continued staring back and forth between Sunset’s gaze for several seconds, but something about Sunset’s demeanor reminded him of his old lieutenant, and he carefully took the bottles before closing the door.

“Good enough. Now, hmm…” Sunset said to herself, before her expressions lightened up, and she walked back towards her car. “Time for video games.”

—

The next morning, Frank Bryce couldn’t decide whether to be happy or suspicious, but as he stood by the door and prepared to go outside, he reached for his cane, and then stopped, before leaving it and simply walking outside.

Outside was a most unusual sight. The girl from yesterday, the one he couldn’t decide whether he was suspicious of or happy with, was leaned back in a lawn chair in a patch of sunlight, with her boots off and her feet resting on a foldable footstool, idly wiggling her toes and wearing a pair of aviators.

She turned her head to look at Frank, and gave him a simple wave.

“Yo.”

Still not able to figure out how he should react, he walked up to the young girl, notably not limping, and having had the best sleep he could remember, and stood over her.

With a neutral expression, he simply asked, “what was in those bottles?”

Sunset lowered her sunglasses, looking mildly surprised. “Oh, you actually drank them? That’s good, I was half-expecting to have to force you.”

Frank’s shoulders tensed. “... Should I have been?”

“Not at all. You’re feeling better, aren’t you? And notice how you’re not asking me what I said,” she said, looking straight up and basking in the sunlight.

“What was in them?”

“Uh, let’s see… peelings from a dried mandrake root, a pellet of fairy dust, water of course, stinging nettle fuzz, boiled bear fat, and a pinch of ginger… for the taste.”

Frank Bryce was facing the girl, but he had stopped actually looking at her.

Three people had dropped dead in the mansion on the same night, and no one could explain how it had happened. Several owners had tried to live there, and barely any had spent more than a night.

If someone could cure a maimed leg with only a tablespoon of mysterious liquid… Could that explain how the Riddles had died? Some undetectable poison? Was the girl in front of Frank not really a girl, but some older creature who had come to finish the job?

But why would she help him first? Maybe she was trying to get on his good side? Some otherworldly monster trying to get him to betray the ones he was loyal to?

“I can see the wheels turning in your head,” Sunset pointed out.

Frank paused. The ones he was loyal to?

His demeanor suddenly relaxed, and he instead looked at the unusual girl.

“Who did you say you were?” he asked.

“Sunset Shimmer,” she said, and stood up, hopping into her boots, and holding out her hand.

“That’s… an unusual name,” he said, carefully taking it.

The girl’s handshake was surprisingly firm. “Oh yeah? Why?”

“You’re… not a sunset.”

“I guess not. We’ll see if you’re frank. Hah!”

Frank just stared at Sunset. This was not at all what he expected.

“Fine, be that way,” Sunset said, shrugging. “Anyway, I wanna ask you about the Riddles.”

Frank kept staring at Sunset for a moment, then turned around. “Come in. I’ll put the kettle on.”

Sunset followed Frank into his small house. It was a bit like an alternate version of Hagrid's cabin, next to a deathly still ruin instead of a lively castle, run down instead of rustic, and sad instead of quaint.

“Have a seat,” Frank offered when they stepped into the kitchen, seemingly every surface of which was sunbleached, and Sunset sat down by the cluttered table.

“Haven’t had a visitor for…” Frank muttered, as he clanged the kettle onto the stove and fished around a cabinet for some tea bags. “So… what did you want to ask about?”

“How to put this?” Sunset said. “... Let’s start with this: What were the Riddles like?”

Frank put some biscuits in front of Sunset, who gladly took one, then mumbled to himself for a moment. “Unpopular. Rude, rich, snobbish, looked down on people, they did.”

“Sure, sure,” Sunset said, nodding along. That wasn’t exactly something that hinted they were magical or mundane. “What about… secrets? Did they have any of those?”

Frank heaved out a sigh of relief when he collapsed in a chair opposite Sunset, taking a biscuit of his own.

“Hmm… well, I didn’t really know them that well., and I didn’t really work here for that long before… whatever it was that happened,” he said, and narrowed his eyes slightly. “I assume you know all about that?”

“Only some,” Sunset said, shaking her head. “I know what they say down at the pub.”

“Pah!” Frank scoffed.

“That’s what I was thinking,” Sunset said. “So what did happen?”

“Couldn’t tell you,” Frank said, shortly. “I know what everyone else knows. One morning, the maid came in to see the entire family dead in the dining room, dressed for dinner, and not a scratch on them. No poison, police said. No disease, nothing at all.”

The kettle started to whistle, and Sunset stood up before Frank could, pouring the boiling water into the two prepared mugs and handing one to Frank, putting the kettle down on a potholder on the table.

“Mm, thank you,” he said, gruffly.

“And then nothing?” Sunset asked, as she sat down.

“Mhm. That’s all she wrote. The family was dead. Some…” Frank waved his hand, searching for words. “... Second cousin or some such came by a week later, walked around the house with a solicitor or something for a day. Sold the house after a while. New owners came by, and left after a few days, never came back. New owners again a few months after that. Same story. Staff eventually got laid off. Don’t even care who owns it anymore, but they want the grounds taken care of.”

“Why does everyone leave?” Sunset asked.

Frank stared at her, trying to gauge how serious she was, but didn’t notice anything jokingly about her question. “Hrm… probably because three people died under mysterious circumstances. Might be afraid of gas leaks, I don’t know.”

“So… anything unusual about the family?” Sunset asked.

“Aside from how they died?” Frank said, raising his eyebrows.

“Yeah. Any… secret rooms that no one else was allowed in?”

Frank shook his head, clearly wondering where this was going.

“Any… other secrets of any kind?”

“Hunh, well, when you put it like that, not exactly a secret, though they would’ve preferred it that way,” Frank said, and leaned back in his chair. “I remember, back before my time you see, Tom, that’s the son in the family–”

“Tom?” Sunset interrupted. “Tom Riddle?”

“That’s right.”

“Tom Marvolo Riddle?” She pressed.

“No, no Marvolo,” Frank said, shaking his head, and got a strange look on his face, looking out the window as he thought. “... Marvolo… Marvolo…?”

“Sounds familiar?”

“Aye… can’t… place it though… hmm,” Frank muttered, falling silent for a moment and thinking.

“What were you saying though? About Tom?” Sunset asked.

“Right. Tom. Y’see, back when I was a wee lad, younger than you, Tom, the son in the family, had left the darling dear his parents had intended for him, and ran off with some… pauper woman in rags. Went missing for months, he did, married her, even. Then, after a while, he came back. None of us knew why, but we could all see something about him. He was embarrassed, you see. And no wonder. Why he would do such a bloody stupid thing, none of us ever learned. Far as we could tell, neither could his parents. Wished he hadn’t though. It made him mean, even more than he was before. Anyway, never remarried. Must’ve been almost forty when he snuffed it. That whole thing was a secret, you could say, on his part.”

Frank finally focused on his surroundings, and noticed that in front of him, the strange young girl’s eyes were darting rapidly back and forth and she had an almost amazed expression on her face as she processed the story.

“You alright there, lass?”

“Y… yeah,” Sunset slowly said, and raised a finger. “Wh… who was it that he ran off with? Someone local?”

“Aye… sort of. Strange folk. Lived in a hovel a little ways away from here. Angry and… strange, like I said.”

“Right, they were strange though?” Sunset pressed.

Frank nodded. “Very. Very…” Frank searched for words, but seemed to come up empty. “... Odd.”

“What was her name?”

“Erm… don’t remember…” Frank said, when suddenly his eyebrows show up. “Oh, wait, her father, his name was Marvolo. That’s right, now I remember. Marvolo Gaunt.”

Frank didn’t know the significance of this, but it looked very interesting to Sunset as she leaned back in her chair. “... Really?”

“Mhm,” Frank nodded.

“... Huh,” was all Sunset could say for almost a full minute, before Frank spoke up.

“So, lass, who are you, really? Why did you come here, asking questions about dead rich folk? And for that matter, what was in those bottles last night?”

“Hm? Oh, uhm,” Sunset said, and shook her head. “Like I said, my name is Sunset Shimmer. In the bottles were cures for your aches, and I’m… investigating.”

“Cures for…? Listen, if you fed me some illegal concoction then–”

“No, no, it was a cure,” Sunset repeated.

Frank eyed her suspiciously. Sunset eyed him back.

“You know, I’ve been itching to tell this to someone for a long time,” she slowly said, partially to herself. “Can you keep a secret?”

After a moment’s silence, Frank scoffed. “There’s no one I talk to anyway.”

Sunset slowly nodded, “Certainly not anyone I’m keeping this a secret from anyway,” she said, and then closed her eyes and concentrated.

She channeled raw magical power through her body, and as she had some practice with now, concentrated it on a place of her body, in a way that would locally suppress the transformation magic from the mirror.

Frank Bryce used his newfound mobility to back away from the girl, knocking over his chair as he did, when the hair of the girl in front of him started glowing, almost looking as if it was on fire, before a single, straight horn grew out of her forehead.

Sunset opened her eyes and saw the man having backed into a corner, eyes wide, and she smiled.

“No need to be scared, Mr Bryce,” she said, and stood up to raise the chair Frank had knocked over again, making Frank notice the fiery-looking tail sticking out from under Sunset’s skirt.

Sunset sat down again, and gestured to the other chair. “Who I am is Sunset Shimmer. What I am is a unicorn.”

Frank stayed glued in his corner, until Sunset smiled at him. “Oh come on, are unicorns really that scary?”

He stayed still for another moment, before carefully sitting down again.

“Now, the bottles I gave you yesterday were magic potions that undid your injuries. One sharpened your hearing again, softened up your cochlear I expect, while the other coaxed some nerve endings and tissues back to how they should be. And the reason I’m asking questions is because I’ve been investigating a wizard. A very bad one.”

Frank opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again. “... Wizard?” he asked.

“Wizard,” Sunset confirmed. “Magic is real. I, a unicorn, can use magic, and so can some humans. Wizards. And witches too.”

Frank looked down to the side and slowly nodded as pieces came into place. “... And the reason no one could figure out what had killed the Riddles…”

“I suspect so, yes,” Sunset said, also nodding.

“And that’s why… no one figured out that…?”

A sneer started to grow on Frank’s face, and he huffed. “So… some wizard shows up and starts killing and… and that’s it? I’ve had nothing but glares and whispers behind my back for fifty years, because of a wizard?”

Frank hadn’t raised his voice in the slightest, but he was angry as if he had been shouting at the top of his lungs.

“Yes,” Sunset said, and looked at him sympathetically. “He hurt a lot of people. A lot of people vanished without a trace. No one seems to know the extent of the damage he caused.”

“And where is he?” Frank demanded.

“Dead, most people think, but wizards of that kind of power… seems like he has a way of coming back. I’ve seen him try once already.”

“So you… you want to fight him?” Frank said.

Sunset calmly nodded. “That’s right.”

“A… a girl like you?”

Sunset smiled. “I’m no slouch either. Anyway, I thought you might deserve to hear the truth.”

Frank eyed Sunset for another moment, before nodding again. “Hunh… alright. What do you need to know, Sunset Shimmer?”

Sunset took a sip of her tea. She had stopped concentrating, letting transformation spell shape her into a fully human form again.

“Well, Perhaps you’d like to hear my thoughts too. The dark wizard called himself Lord Voldemort, but his real name was Tom Marvolo Riddle,” Sunset said.

Frank opened his mouth, but didn’t say anything.

“Exactly. So let’s summarize, from the top. I learned that the Gaunt family were old blue blooded wizards who had fallen on hard times. A strange family called Gaunt lived in these parts. Suddenly, Tom Riddle elopes with a strange pauper woman, and then comes back without her, angry and embarrassed. Years later, a Tom Marvolo Riddle appears among witches and wizards, and at some point after that, the Riddle family dies mysteriously. After that, Tom Marvolo Riddle abandons his name and starts calling himself lord.”

The two looked at each meaningfully.

“I’m sure you can fill in the blanks,” Sunset said.

“... Earlier in the day, before the Riddles died, a strange boy, a teenager, pale and with dark hair, was skulking around outside the mansion grounds,” Frank said. “No one else seems to have seen him, but I remember.”

“That’s him,” Sunset said, nodding.

“... So what happens now?” Frank asked.

“I am going to look into the Gaunts’ residence,” Sunset said, and stood up.

—

The dirt path leading to the house through the trees had been reclaimed by grass and undergrowth a long time ago, and the patch of woods around the house was thick, damp, and absolutely lethargic. Sunset tried greeting it, but it barely even acknowledged her presence.

Still, the house was there. It was little more than a shack, built on top of thick oak roots sticking out of the ground, which weren’t very happy with the arrangement. The structure had been unoccupied for half a century, but it was still standing, if barely. The trees had no interest in getting any closer to it than they were already.

“Not a mansion this time,” Sunset noted to herself, as she floated herself over some shrubs, and approached the building.

The door looked like it had been a sturdy construction at one point, but now its strength was rotted away. All the glass windows were broken and only some of them still had hatches, hanging sadly on rusty hinges. A good number of the roof tiles were missing or had slid away from their original position, and it seemed as if moss was what kept the remaining ones on the rafters.

Sunset very carefully walked up to the door, which was ajar, and peeked inside.

Between the thick foliage and the cobwebs, it was nearly impossible to discern anything inside the cabin.

Carefully putting her boot through the opening, Sunset opened the door by pulling at it with her foot.

The door opened with a stage-worthy creak, letting a bit more light spill in.

The floor had been warped by decades of moisture coming in from the open windows, and covered in remains of broken pottery, mold, and fungus.

There was a simple and old-looking cooking area, as well as some chairs and a table, some of which had completely broken down, and an armchair where the upholstery had almost completely rotted away. A cast iron pot had rolled onto the floor and was nearly rusted through.

Along the walls stood a few cabinets, half of which had fallen over, shattering the simple mugs and similar things they had contained, and two doors next to each other led to two other rooms, and Sunset could tell from where she stood that they were completely destroyed by a long-since fallen tree. Everything made out of wood was warped from years and years of moisture, and everything was covered in dust and grime.

Grabbing a twig from the forest floor, Sunset poked a path through the cobwebs, and very carefully stepped in.

One of the upright cabinets contained textiles. Curtains, bedsheets, or clothes, it was impossible to tell. Like the armchair, they had almost completely rotted away. Nowhere did it seem like the cabin contained anything useful.

The last known, or rather semi-known, heirs of Slytherin had been the Gaunts, and if they lived here, they would have been dying a slow, ignominious death. But, decades ago, the daughter of the family had married the son of the people over in the mansion which was just across the valley, and that union had created Voldemort.

Fascinating, and draining, as Sunset’s hunt had been, her heart was now sinking quickly.

From just a name, to searching through an abandoned grand mansion, to journeying across Britain and finding possibly the last person who could share any insight on his origins, to the home of the immediate family of the notorious dark lord, it now seemed to Sunset that it had all been in vain: This was just a decrepit old shack. A dead end.

Standing in the middle of the one room that remained of the building, Sunset took a deep breath, and kind of regretted it considering the amount of dust in the air, and let out a disappointed sigh.

She turned around, and considered maybe having some leisure time before having another look tomorrow, futile as it seemed. She took a step towards the door, when the floorboard she put her boot on bent under her weight.

Sunset paused, and looked down. If the universe was playing a prank on her and it was nothing, she’d be very upset, but still, she bent down, and pried up the floorboard.

Underneath, lying in the dirt, was a small, nondescript wooden box, which stood out from the surroundings from being polished and in good condition.

“Now that’s more like it,” Sunset said, smirking.

This needed consideration, but Sunset refused to sit on the filthy chairs that were in the house. Instead, she snapped her finger, and summoned up a temporary chair.

For several minutes, Sunset sat in silence and, to the outside onlooker, simply stared at the wooden box.

It was so thick with curses, magical traps, and cloaking spells that Sunset thought it was excessive.

Eventually, Sunset realized that it was excessive, and she smiled again.

Waving her fingers, she started magically digging in the dirt around the box, and right underneath it was another, identical box. The one on top had been a distraction; a ringer.

“I’m so great,” Sunset said, smirking, and carefully floated the second box into her hand.

She got up, the chair vanishing behind her, and carefully stepped outside.

“Now…” she said, and sat the box down on the ground, before stepping back and waving her hands in continuous circles.

The leaves and twigs on the ground around her were magically being gathered up as if by a miniature tornado, before forming into a humanoid shape.

Sunset took another step back, before marionetting the construct of forest debris to step up to the little box, bend over, and open it.

The moment the lid opened, what looked like liquid shadows shot out of the box and engulfed the construct's forearm, lower leg, and head, which all quickly disintegrated into dust, and the figure stumbled onto the remains of its leg.

Sunset raised her eyebrows. That was powerful, but not very clever. She supposed the cleverness had been the bit with the decoy.

With a wave from Sunset’s finger, the twig construct reformed itself, and once again tried to open the box. This time it let out a puff of green smoke, which flew up and surrounded the construct’s head, trying to force itself down its throat.

Sunset scowled, and started rolling her other hand, hastily forming a new construct, this time not bothering with giving it arms, but giving it an orifice where a human’s mouth would be, leading into a cavity in the torso.

It rushed forward to join its compatriot, shoving its head into the small cloud of smoke, which sensed the opening, and rushed down into the cavity in the torso.

The construct with the arms immediately put its hands on the other one’s mouth, trapping the malevolent gas inside, before they lay down on ground and rolled a body length away.

Sunset waved her hands again, encasing the two figures in a great block of ice, so massive it would not fully melt until about a week later.

“That’s it, right?” she asked no one in particular, before magicing up a stick next to the box, and flipping the lid open.

This time, it opened without a hitch, and Sunset walked up to inspect the contents.

Inside was a golden ring with a fairly simple design, and a black stone set into it, into which was scratched a marking; a straight line inside a circle, which in turn was inside a triangle.

Sunset looked around. She was running out of twigs, but still waved her fingers to make the remaining ones form into another humanoid construct.

The twig shape walked up to Sunset, who stepped back, before it bent down

Sunset hesitated, making the twig figure fall down onto the dirt, and then bent down to inspect the ring again.

It was magic, that much was obvious, but what kind of magic she couldn’t tell. The traps on the first box, which was still inside the cabin, had been obvious, or at least some had been. Sunset suspected that there were more devious ones on it as well. The traps on the second box had been more subtle.

This ring, however, Sunset barely knew where to start.

There was old magic here, that much was obvious. Aside from that, she mostly had to go on the boxes, and what type of person had put the traps on them.

There was a possibility that, this being the prize, something actually valuable, whoever had put the traps on the boxes had not put anything on the ring, not wanting to risk the magic on it.

Eventually, Sunset braced herself, stood up again, and animated the twig figure again.

It knelt down, picked up the ring, and put it on its finger.

It wasn’t immediately obvious, but the construct’s hand had started to shrivel and contract, as if it was a corpse that was left out in some warm climate, but in fast forward.

Sunset narrowed her eyes, and willed the construct to pull the ring off again, which, of course, did not work.

“Hmm,” Sunset said, deep in thought, as the construct was being slowly overtaken by the effect, until several minutes later, it was a desiccated husk. Sunset could only imagine how grizzly the sight would be if an actual person had worn the ring.

She looked around. The area had now been thoroughly cleared from twigs and fallen branches, but she grabbed a limb from a still living bramble bush, and poked it through the ring.

Nothing happened.

“Okay then,” Sunset said to herself, and bent down to pick up the ring.

The so-called “dark lord” was still alive to some extent, still a factor, and with a lack of alicorn princesses in this world to stop him, it fell to Sunset Shimmer to step up to the plate… or so she felt would be something an aspiring alicorn should do.

This ring was something that Tom Riddle, the wizard that is, guarded, and obviously valued. Taking it seemed like a good way to interrupt his plans.

Her fingers closed around the ring, and she slowly straightened up again.

It lay in the palm of her hand, doing nothing. It seemed, at the very least, spent.

“Alrighty.”

Suddenly, the ring moved, as if with a purpose, and quickly rolled out across Sunset’s hand, and before Sunset could react, it had slid itself onto her finger.

She grabbed it with her other hand, but she knew it was no use before she started tugging.

Magic started pouring out from the ring, and a painful chill went out into her hand, and started travelling up her wrist.

“Shit!”

She grabbed her wrist, as if to try and stop the effect, before concentrating.

Her own magic started pouring down her arm, and met the magic effect, but it didn’t seem to do much.

The curse from the ring wasn’t overpowering her magic, it was slipping through it, like a snake through a net. Throwing more magic at it only barely slowed it down.

Sunset didn’t need to have seen the effect the traps had on her puppets to realize that this curse was deadly.

A chill ran down Sunset’s spine which was so intense it was almost painful, and she started pouring cold sweat and breathing heavily.

Keeping her head enough to realize that power alone would not save her, she turned around and ran, through the bushes and out onto the dirt road, trying to reshape the magic she launched at the ring in as many ways she could.

Out on the dirt road, her car was waiting for her, and it immediately threw up its doors when she approached.

Sunset dove into the rear door, into the small residence inside the DeSoto, and looked around.

She kicked her bag onto the floor, making it spill out its contents. There was the book, and Sunset threw herself onto the ground, still holding her arm, which felt as if it was locked in a painful cramp which was only growing worse.

She nudged the book open, and bit down on the pencil which had also spilled out on the ground. She hadn’t written with her mouth in two years, but she still knew how. The stress of the situation made the words look more than a little messy though.

emergency

need help now.

please answer

The words started forming immediately underneath hers. Sunset could tell the princess used magic to write as fast as possible, straight to the point.

I am here. What is happening?

Sunset took a quick moment to breathe a sigh of relief, and blinked away the tears forming in her eyes from the pain and worry.

Celestia was with her. Everything was going to be alright.

Good thing too, because Sunset was sweating so much that it would soon start dripping on the book.

been hit with magic effect

powerful
fatal

cursed ring

trying to keep it at bay

not going great

Are you actively trying to stop it?

yes

casting all counterspells I know

it is fast and aggressive

If it can keep barraging a unicorn of your skill and power like this, that means that there is some sort of intelligence in it. I cannot be certain, but I would say that wearing it gives it some insight into your magical knowledge, and is using that to adapt its assault.

This adaptable intelligence is unlikely to exist in a simple autonomous spell. It will be anchored in the ring.

Destroy it.

Sunset breathed heavily around the pen in her mouth, as her mind raced to produce an idea.

how?

magical ring

hidden and protected by a powerful wizard.

The book was still for a moment, before Celestia responded.

Where is the basilisk you mentioned?

not near

why?

Basilisk venom is potent enough to destroy powerful magical artefacts.

Hope welled up inside Sunset, and she managed to gain some control over her racing heart.

kept a fang

have it here

will pour it on ring

Sunset! Shield yourself from the venom!

Basilisk venom is magical, but boiling water with silver in it is enough to neutralize it.

With determination and purpose, she got on her knees.

yes

write soon

Sunset used her curse-affected hand, which was now turning grey and going numb with the pain transferring to her wrist, to turn her bag upside down.

Books, quills, and boxes of potion supplies pooled out alongside a few Equestrian coins, when Sunset spotted it.

She had placed the fang inside a glass jar she had swiped from Snape’s dungeon, wrapped inside a piece of cloth.

Sunset grabbed it under her arm, along with the standard silver knife from her potions supplies kit, and threw herself over the backrest into the driver’s seat.

“DeSoto, get us out of here!”

Her car, which had been rumbling with concern, roared into action. The doors closed, and it spun its tires on the dirt road to turn on the spot, before thundering down the valley.

It barely took a minute for the car to reach the old Riddle house, and opened the door to the driver’s seat.

Sunset threw herself out of the car and sprinted across the lawn.

“Frank! I need help!” she yelled at the top of her lungs.

She looked around urgently, soon spotting the old man jogging towards her from around the corner of the mansion.

“What happened!?”

“Come here!” Sunset yelled, and set off in the direction of Frank’s cabin.

When reaching it, Frank opened the door, eyeing Sunset, who was still gripping her hand.

“What’s happening?” he said, as they entered the cabin.

“A powerful curse,” Sunset said. “Think of it like a poison which needs to be neutralized.”

“C- curse?” Frank said, then shook his head. “What do I do?”

Sunset stood by the table, and dropped the things she had been holding under her arm.

“First, boil water. I need enough boiling water to dunk my hand into.”

“Y- your hand in boiling–”

“Just do it! I’ll be fine! It’s to stop this,” Sunset said, and held up her hand.

Frank recoiled when he saw the hand, and nodded.

He poured water into a pot and turned the electric stove on to the highest effect. He then collected a few smaller pots and pans and did the same on the other slots.

“Toss the silver knife into the pot,” Sunset said, who was concentrating on keeping the curse at bay.

Frank did so, with shaking hands.

“Now, I have to concentrate,” Sunset said, and sat down in silence, gripping her arm hard and absolutely barraging the curse with more magic.

No specific spell would work if the ring could read her mind, but simply pouring as much magic as possible in its proverbial way did buy her some time.

Frank stared at the girl in his kitchen with wide eyes. Her fiery hair and teal eyes were glowing, her tail had come back, and her ears had moved further up on her head, become larger, pointier, covered in a short orange coat, and were twitching agitatedly.

The smaller pots had started boiling much faster, which Frank emptied into the larger pot, and before long, the water was bubbling violently.

Sunset stood up, and without hesitation, shoved her entire forearm into the pot.

Frank’s eyes widened.

“Sunset! Lass, you’re–”

“It’s fine,” Sunset insisted. “I’m fireproof, which includes boiling proof. Now, the glass jar.”

“Yes?”

“Listen carefully, there’s a basilisk fang inside of it, wrapped inside that cloth. I want you to hurry up and unwrap it, and then squeeze the venom out of it onto the ring on my finger.”

Frank took a second to take this all in, before nodding. “Right.”

“Listen, basilisk venom is dangerous. Be careful.”

Frank nodded again, and undid the lid of the jaw, before retrieving the fang, covered in a rag, and unfolding it.

“Gently,” Sunset reminded him.

After a moment, Frank held the giant fang in his hand, and Sunset brought her slowly blackening hand up to the surface of the boiling water.

“Squeeze some venom onto this ring.”

Frank carefully positioned the fang, and Sunset carefully brought her hand up so that it was only just above the boiling surface.

A single drop of venom hit the ring where the stone was attached, and it started hissing loudly.

The effect was immediate. The curse, which had spread almost up to Sunset’s elbow, retreated back to her wrist.

Sunset had to remind herself to dunk her arm into the boiling water to avoid the venom coming into contact with her skin for too long.

“It’s working!” Sunset said, eagerly, as feeling returned to her arm, and she redoubled her magical counterattack. “Again!”

Frank squeezed another drop onto the ring, and she could practically hear the ring screaming in rage inside her head, before the hand went under the water again.

Feeling good enough to let go with her other hand, she held it out to Frank.

“Let me,” she said.

He carefully placed the fang in Sunset’s hand, and she aimed one final drop at the ring.

The presence screamed again, but only for a second before the ring cracked, the voice died away, and the gold band slid off her finger into the boiling water.

Sunset backed away, and collapsed into a chair, breathing heavy sighs of relief as she slowly raised her hand.

Color gradually came back to it, as did her sense of touch. In moments, it looked like new again, though it felt a little sore and battered, and she flexed it to make sure it worked.

“Hah,” she said, before gradually starting to laugh. “Hah, hahaaa!”

Frank sat down next to Sunset and carefully looked her over. He noticed that her ears moved, first drooping as if exhausted, and were now slowly rising up again, twitching a little as if sensitive.

“Is it over?” he said, over the sound of the still boiling water.

Sunset casually waved her hand to turn the stove off. “Yes,” she said, and gave Frank a look of deep gratitude, still panting in relief. “Thank you.”

“I… don’t mention it, lass.”

“Hooo… that took a lot out of me,” Sunset eventually said, and noticed that she was starting to shake.

“But… what was that?” Frank asked, sitting down on the other side of the table.

“Hah… I don’t know,” Sunset said, shaking her head. “But… I’m guessing it was Tom Riddle’s, and valuable, and so this would presumably ruin some of his plans. That’s probably, hah, a good thing.”

“So what happens now?”

“Now, I should… probably move on.”

Frank looked at her skeptically. “I don’t know, lass. This thing with fighting wizards seems dangerous. Are you sure?”

“Don’t worry, there are nice wizards too. Speaking of which,” Sunset said, and started digging around her pockets. “Aha, here it is. Take this piece of paper, and if you write a message on it, I’ll be able to see it. If you see anything suspicious, anything that seems magical, let me know.”

Frank took the thick, old style of paper from Sunset’s outstretched hand. “Don’t like the thought of anything like that happening, but I’ll do it if it comes to it, lassie.”

“It’s just a precaution. And now I kinda need to lie down,” Sunset said, and stood.

“Lassie,” Frank said, standing up as well.

“Yeah?” Sunset said, looking back.

Frank held out his hand. “Thank you,” he said, and demonstratively stomped lightly with his foot.

“No problem, and thank you,” Sunset said, and shook his hand.

Sunset retrieved the things she had come in with; Her knife, the fang, and the remains of the ring, as well as the black stone that had fallen loose from it. She then walked tiredly across the mansion ground, and to her car, which opened a rear door for her, and she stumbled inside, collapsed on her side on the seat, took her book from the floor, and flipped it toward the current page, where Celestia had last written..

Good luck, Sunset. I will be ready to help as much as I can.

Despite not feeling very sad, Sunset still felt tears building in her eyes, and she waved at her pen, making it fly into her hand.

Did it. The ring is destroyed, and alive and feel…

I might feel fine. It hurts a little.

Really tired though, and I think I’m in shock or something.

Thank Harmony.

Thank you for letting me know, Sunset.

You must rest then. Why do you think you are in shock?

Sunset was still breathing out in relief.

I have tears in my eyes and I’m shaking.

You have been in a life or death situation, Sunset.

I am sorry I cannot be there.

Rest, recover, and stay safe, for me, please.

The time when the portal opens again is drawing nearer. I wish to reconcile in person.

I am sorry, I am being terse. I was scared, Sunset. You had me worried.

Something stung inside Sunset’s chest.

I’m sorry.

Do not be. If I could, I would hold you for as long as it takes. In time, I will be able to. Rest. And know that I love you, Sunset.

Sunset drew an absolutely ragged breath as it dawned on her what she had almost lost.

I love you too.

I will be here if you need me.

Sunset let the book remain open, as she turned over and grabbed a blanket that was draped over the backrest and pulled it over herself.

“Ow,” she winced from her sore arm protesting.

“DeSoto… drive somewhere, calmly,” Sunset asked her car, which happily did just that, and started rolling away with a low rumble, the movement helping Sunset relax.

She brought up the black stone that had been in the ring, with the markings on it, and looked at it.

It was another magical artefact, strangely not having any magical traps on it. The stone was what had such strange magic on it that Sunset couldn’t make heads or tail on it

She hoped that what she had just done caused as much grief for Voldemort as his trap had caused her.

Deciding to inspect the stone closer some other time, Sunset put it in her pocket, and gradually fell asleep.

Author's Note

Pre-read by ssokolow, Dreadnought, and Snuffy

Back to School

A destitute orphan moving to live in an opulent castle is in for many experiences, some with a stinging feeling of familiarity, others not, some filling one with elating feelings of hope and opportunity, others… not.

Princess Celestia sighed, as she sat on her balcony, deep in melancholy and worry despite the refreshing night breeze.

She thought back to her own humble origins, a family of ordinary peasants long ago, when Equestria was different, darker, and that word, peasant, was commonly used.

She searched in vain for something she could use to relate to her wayward student, shared experiences, longing, something to help impart the wisdom she had learned all those centuries ago.

But she mentally kicked herself at every idea. Orphans aren’t similar to each other just because they’re orphans. Something else was needed.

Sunset Shimmer’s headstrongness had become an iron will, and eventually an indomitable determination. Her desire for knowledge and power had become ambition, and eventually obsession.

All points against Sunset’s character, to be sure, but…

Celestia sighed again.

… Not everypony can gracefully see the path to becoming an immortal alicorn, and then be denied it, even temporarily.

Celestia could. In her great wisdom, forethought, and patience, granted to her by her nigh-incomprehensibly long life, she could stand to wait, and let ascension into an alicorn come when she was ready.

The bitter irony was not lost on her.

She looked up into the night sky, to the fabled Mare in the Moon, and saw her sister staring back at her.

Lessons had to have been learned. It could not all have been in vain.

She stood up, she would send for Sunse– no! She would go to Sunset. The young archmage’s behavior could be infuriating beyond words, and could send even the most unflappable of ponies bristling, but humility was needed. Patience, and understanding, and love, was needed. She did love Sunset Shimmer.

That was when the alarms on the forbidden section of the castle tingled inside her mind.

“No!”

—

The core faculty of Hogwarts reached the innermost chamber.

“And this room is where I will be placing my contribution,” Albus Dumbledore said, calmly.

“While we appreciate the vote of confidence, this is You-Know-Who we are talking about,” said Pomona Sprout. “Any... danger course we will be able to think up will be useless against him.”

“Certainly not,” Dumbledore kindly asserted. “And false modesty is of no use here.”

“I have to also voice the same concerns,” said Filius Flitwick. “It will, at most, be a delaying tactic.”

“Ah, but a little delay can mean so much. And besides, he cannot be everywhere at once, he did have his cadre of followers for a reason.”

Dumbledore did not glance at Severus Snape, Flitwick and Sprout did however, as did Minerva McGonagall, though it was barely perceptible. Snape’s expression did not change.

“And so that will be your task between classes. A bit of… homework, as it were,” Dumbledore added, jovially, as they turned around and started walking back towards the entrance. “My old friend has entrusted us with the safety of his great accomplishment. Let us not disappoint him. Walk with me if you will, Severus. Minerva, please join us at the mirror.”

“Yes, professor Dumbledore,” McGonagall said.

The staff of Hogwarts filed out of the corridor on the third floor, and walked their separate ways, except for Snape and Dumbledore, who calmly strolled down the hallways together.

Dumbledore broke the silence. “Despite the circumstances of the Dark Lord’s temporary demise, we must assume you are of course still in his favor.”

Snape’s expression hardened. “... I have not spoken to him since before his… misfortune.”

“You are valuable to him however, or so he is convinced.”

“He is vindictive.”

“Yes… but you were not alone in clearing the path he walked. Blame can be shifted onto others.”

Snape’s mouth twitched as he fought down both a smile and a snarl as he realized who Dumbledore was talking about.

“Even so, be mindful of what you do and what you say. His servants will do their best to cloak their allegiances. Use that, and do not let them reveal to you that they are out to do his bidding.”

“Of course,” Snape said, with not a hint of emotion in his voice.

They walked the rest of the way in silence, until they reached the empty classroom, in a far corner of the castle, where Minerva McGonagall was approaching them.

“I trust I am not interrupting.”

“Not at all,” Dumbledore said, in a kind voice, as they entered the room with the mirror of Erised. “I assume another barrage of owls sent to the young mister Potter won’t be of any use?”

“No, as expected. Rubeus is ready to leave tonight. I’m sure he will be convincing enough.”

“As am I,” Dumbledore chuckled.

“Unseemingly demanding of the boy,” Snape sneered.

“You know it is not him,” McGonagall chastised Snape, who said nothing.

“Ah, but we must leave the subject of non-magical relatives for now,” Dumbledore said, and stood with his back placed against the mirror, and Snape had to sidle a bit to not get a clear view of it himself.

“Now, as for my plan concerning this–”

That was as far as Dumbledore got before the mirror started glowing intensely, instead of showing what it normally showed, there was a whirlpool of lights and mists, before a blinding light positively exploded out of it, making the two wizards and the witch avert their eyes.

When next they looked, the mirror was back to normal, and Snape had to jerkily avert his eyes from it. That was easier than expected, as there was something else demanding their attention. At the foot of the mirror was something that made even the unflappable Albus Dumbledore open his mouth in surprise for several seconds before he shot forward with a worried frown.

A young girl, with an eye catching mane of fiery red hair with blond streaks running through it, was sprawled on her belly, wearing a set of robes and a shoulder bag, her head to her side, revealing a troubled expression.

Dumbledore quickly drew his wand and wordlessly motioned it over the unconscious girl, his free hand a small distance from her mouth to confirm her breathing.

“Albus?” McGonagall said, in a worried voice.

“Alive, and seemingly unharmed.”

“Who is she?” Snape asked, evenly.

“I do not recognize her. Minerva?”

“No,” said McGonagall. “How could she…? That was not apparition, or phoenix fire, and it was not a house elf.”

“No,” Dumbledore concurred. “Regardless, I believe the medical wing is our next destination.”

Showing a surprising strength, Dumbledore lightly picked up the young girl, and walked out of the classroom, his staff in tow, with only Snape stopping in the doorway to cast one more suspicious glance at the mirror.

—

Poppy Pomfrey liked her job, but disliked actually doing it. It meant, after all, that there was demand for it. Nevertheless, she dutifully patched up the students, and sometimes faculty, of Hogwarts through the years, mending scrapes and lesions, setting bones right, restoring mis-aligned teeth…

... Neutralizing mis-brewed love potions, moving ears from heels back to the head, re-inserting brains into skulls, and once, safely removing a schooner from a nostril.

“Madam Pomfrey?” Dumbledore had gently called from the entrance to the medical wing.

Poppy Pomfrey had looked up from her weekly issue of Time Travelling Monthly and seen the man in question and the reason he was coming to visit. A quick glance at his face had told her she did not literally have to spring into action however.

“Really, headmaster. The semester has not even started yet.”

The headmaster chuckled to himself in his office. Now that the mysterious girl was being cared for, he felt confident that recognising the levity in the situation would not be tasteless.

It had been established that the girl had magical talents, or the wards of the castle would have informed him otherwise. That was good, because it meant he did not have to turn her over to muggle authorities and let them take care of it, even though he had more confidence in their abilities than many others born into the magical world.

Of course, it also meant that it fell to him and his staff to locate the girl’s family.

She looked somewhat like a Weasley with her fiery hair, but Dumbledore felt confident she wasn’t one, as all but two of the Weasley children were attending or had attended Hogwarts. Even so he had penned a quick letter to Molly to affirm the whereabouts of her remaining two children, and not to worry if they were present. The inquiry included Ronald, in case he was under a shapeshifting spell- like the girl, he was supposed to be rather tall after all, like Percival and William.

The headmaster brought the bag the girl had carried with her up to his desk, and gently opened it. She had not had a wand on her person, nor did it seem one was in here.

The contents still gave him pause however. A book and some coin were not the most unique of contents to find in a shoulder bag, but these were not ones Dumbledore was familiar with.

The book was a fairly stout one, with a picture of a red and yellow sun on the cover, the colors matching the girl’s hair. Dumbledore inspected it closely, and there was magic on it.

Whatever spell was on it was powerful, but Dumbledore did not recognise it. Being a rather well-informed wizard, and an old one, and well-schooled in many forms of magic even for his age, Dumbledore was somewhat taken aback by how utterly unfamiliar it felt.

It could have been one he had missed in his many years of study of course. It wasn’t impossible, just… unlikely.

Unlikely to the point where he felt confident enough to dismiss that possibility. Another possibility was that it was particularly old, and from a culture of magic he wasn’t familiar with. In his myriad quests over his life, the older magical arts of Mali for example had never become very relevant.

So if not particularly old, then some magical culture he was particularly unfamiliar with. He opened the book, and saw the contents.

Everyone tended to develop their own style of cursive writing, and some ended up being tricky to decipher, but he did not suspect that this… graceful, to say the least, style of writing was the result of sloppy crow’s feet style of jotting down words. This was a foreign language.

He gently tapped his wand against the pages, and again, and again, a myriad of translation spells slid past the signs on the page, not recognising any of it as forms of communication.

Dumbledore sat deep in thought for a moment, before reaching into the bag again and retrieving one of the gold coins. On it was more writing he did not recognise, and more particularly, the side profile of a serene-looking unicorn with closed eyes, an impossibly lustrous mane, and an incredibly long horn.

Dumbledore leaned back in his chair.

An unfamiliar culture indeed.

After a while, he rose to his feet, and walked over to a large, stout cupboard.

Inside, there was a chamber that was larger than the furniture. In that chamber was only one thing- an open book resting on a pedestal, with page after page filled to the brim with names.

At the bottom of the current page was a name that had not been there the day before.

—

Sunset Shimmer was sprawled across a bunk in the medical wing, snoring loudly, her hair looking like a grenade had gone off in it.

To Sunset, waking up and starting to function did not happen at the same time as she gained the ability to form conscious thoughts.

She sat up, smacked her lips loudly to try and dislodge some half-dried saliva, and raised her hand to use digits she had never had before to dislodge the eye-boogers from the bridge of her nose as she blinked her eyes out of sync.

She didn’t remember going to bed with a white curtain like in a hospital around her. In fact, she didn’t remember going to bed at all.

She looked down on her unfamiliar body, and figured that might have something to do with it, before she let herself fall down on her pillow again, not caring enough to get up until she gets ten more minutes.

After a short while, her eyes shot open, and she sat up with lightning speed, but was too scared to actually look at herself.

Eventually, her still murky eyes looked down on her body again. She decided to deal with this later, and went right back to sleep.

Immediately after that, or so it seemed to Sunset, she was awake again, this time she didn’t have the comforting haze of half-wakefulness to shield her from what she had seen before, and deciding that third time's the charm, she made another attempt at inspecting herself.

“Okay, okay, different body. It feels… okay, not in pain. Hmm, no hooves. Paws?” Sunset whispered to herself, as she held her appendages in front of her, and flexed her jaw as she felt around it with her tongue. “No. No tail, no muzzle. These aren’t paws, they’re hands. Some sort of… simian, without a coat.”

After a few moments, she figured out the trick with opposable thumbs, and lifted the cover off of herself. She wasn’t a minotaur, as she had another version of hands at the end of her hindlegs, further showing that she was a simian.

“At least I seem to be a hygienic version of one,” she said to herself.

She actually had to admit that she looked better, a lot better, than she thought she’d look if somepony told her she’d wake up as a species that looked like cousins to great apes.

Her new body had distracted her for too long from her primary concern. She brought her hoof… hand, up to her forehead, and felt the absence of a horn.

This was a setback, but not necessarily more than a temporary one. She closed her eyes, and focused inward.

Her magic was still there. She focused on it, and it stood ready to respond. Without a horn, however, she’d need another outlet... another focus. It wasn’t a trivial task, but just about any part of the body could function as one. It took time, and knowledge, and willpower, but it could be done, and Sunset Shimmer was not some… fumbling novice- in fact, scratch that. Even when she was a fumbling novice, she could run circles around most anypony with her magic.

A pair of voices from beyond the curtain broke Sunset out of her musings.

“... Looks like a perfectly healthy young girl,” a mare said. “I would guess eleven years old, a little tall. The only two strange things I could find were her slightly pointed ears.”

Sunset’s brow creased. That was an old earth pony tongue. Not that it would present a problem of course. It was an efficient and comprehensive language enough.

“Hmm, I must admit I did not inspect her ears through her hair,” a stallion, definitely an older one, said. “Mayhap there’s some goblin blood in her.”

“Physical inheritance might not be my expertise, but judging by the rest of her I would think not. I’d say a nymph is more likely.”

“Perhaps,” the stallion said, sounding amused. “And the other?”

Sunset quietly put the quilt back over her and settled in to listen.

“Well, she’s… you must have noticed, professor, she looks lithe enough, but she is somewhat heavier than one would expect.”

Sunset’s eyebrows rose up from that comment, before falling back down into a scowl.

“May I speak with her?”

Sunset let her head burrow into her pillow again, and she closed her eyes, pretending to be resting.

“I will see if she is awake.”

Sunset heard the curtain being pulled back, and frowned a little at the light washing over her face.

She opened her eyes to see the mare looking at her with a concerned face, and the stallion a little ways behind her.

She blinked a few times, trying to adjust to the light, before sitting up and focusing on the two.

“Good…” Sunset glanced out the window, “... day.”

“I’m sorry, what was that?” the mare said.

“I said, I-uh mean,” Sunset said, quickly shook her head, and switched to the old earth pony language. “Good day.”

Dumbledore cocked his head slightly. That had been a very scant few words, but he did not recognise the language before she had switched over to English.

“Good day, young miss,” the headmaster said, smiling amicably. “And welcome, unexpected as your visit may have been.”

Pomfrey and Dumbledore couldn’t help but find the girl’s poised manners intriguing, as she calmly glanced around. “Thank you, sir. May I ask where I am?”

“You are in the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, in the medical wing to be specific.”

Sunset frowned slightly.“Medical wing?” she asked, and frowned a little more. Hogwarts?

“That’s right,” the mare almost-barked, and moved forward to lean over Sunset. “And I’ll have you lying still until I can see you’re unharmed, I will.”

Sunset, in her confusion, let herself be pushed back into a lying position. These creatures looked less like apes by the minute. Their balance and center of gravity being wholly different among many other things, and as with sapient creatures she knew from Equestria, they had a dignified bearing.

“If it helps, I feel fine,” Sunset said, not counting the wholly unfamiliar feeling of only having had a few minutes of conscious time with her current body.

“That’s good, so now we only have to worry about problems you might not feel.”

Sunset squirmed a little uncomfortably. Problems with her body were things she could identify and take steps to rectify. Problems with the mind were trickier. How do you fix a problem when the problem is you not realizing you have a problem?

“Look into the light, please,” madam Pomfrey said, and held up the tip of her glowing wand.

Sunset fought the desire to frown in thought as she did as she was told. This meant that they were magicians, able to actively control the arcane powers, like herself.

“Are you seeing this correctly, dear?” madam Pomfrey asked, a little concerned.

“The light at the end of the… your wand? Yes.”

Madam Pomfrey paused a little, and intensified the light. “Is this bright to you?” she asked, straining her own eyes.

“A little,” Sunset said, not showing any signs of discomfort.

Madam Pomfrey dismissed the light from her wand, and held out a finger in front of Sunset. “Please follow this.”

There was no indication from Sunset that she had stared into a normally uncomfortably bright light, and her teal eyes followed the finger in a relaxed manner.

“Well I… have to say that you seem healthy enough.”

“Wonderful,” Dumbledore said, as Sunset sat up in her bed. “I feel we have delayed introductions long enough. As I said before, welcome to Hogwarts, I am Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster, and this is my colleague, and the matron of the medical wing, Madam Poppy Pomfrey.”

“Thank you, and pleased to meet you, Albus Dumbledore, Poppy Pomfrey. My name is Sunset Shimmer,” Sunset said, nodding in recognition at the two creatures, just then realizing her name probably sounded as strange to them as theirs did to her, except the name Poppy. At least she hadn’t forgotten to translate it as she said it.

“That is a lovely name, Miss Shimmer,” Dumbledore said, assuaging her worries. “Tell me, how did you come to be here?”

This made Sunset pause. Recent developments back in Canterlot taught her to hold her cards close to her chest, but no effort was required to make her seem ignorant of the answer to this. How had she come here?

She looked down on the sheets covering her as she thought. “I… don’t know.”

“Curious, as neither do we,” said Dumbledore. “Now, may I ask where your parents are?”

“I don’t know. I never knew them,” Sunset said, shortly and easily.

Dumbledore smiled sympathetically at her, even though she showed no signs of sadness. “I apologize. Any other guardian or caretaker then?”

Sunset had noticed that she was of a somewhat smaller physical stature than these two individuals, and if they worked the way most animals worked, in that they stopped growing larger in adulthood, she could presume that she was now physically younger than she had been as a unicorn. It was hard to say how young, but probably not a small child- she suspected there would be more comforting language and reassurances if that was the case.

“Yes, a… tutor,” she said, and had to struggle not to let out a growl as she thought back to Celestia, who had taken her in, comforted her, taught her, trained her, loved her… then let Sunset catch a glimpse of the path to immortality, and denied it to her.

“A tutor? Of… magic?” Dumbledore asked.

“Well, yes, among other things,” Sunset said.

“Where is he, or she?”

“At… her home I suppose.”

“And where is that?”

There were several reasons Sunset didn’t want to tell these people who she was and where she came from. It was clear that she was now on another world, or even another plane of existence, and she had no idea how people here would respond to that. If she believed that, being locked away in a mental asylum might be the least unfriendly thing they’d do.

But really, the main reason Sunset to hold her cards close to her chest was that she had revealed her plans and intentions before, and been stopped from pursuing them. She would not make that mistake again.

“Uhm, it’s…”

Thinking fast about the etymology of the word for her home nation in the language she was currently using, she decided to try and confuse this... Albus Dumbledore.

<> she said, in Modern Equestrian.

Dumbledore cocked her head at the alien, but still beautiful name. “I see, and where is that?” he asked, in a kind voice.

Sunset thought she saw something glimmer in Dumbledore’s eyes, but perhaps it was just a trick of the light, as she also felt a little mentally scrambled, which was understandable considering her situation.

“Never heard of it,” Poppy Pomfrey noted, making Sunset high-hoof herself in her head.

“I assume you’d like to return there?” Dumbledore asked.

Her mind still racing, Sunset went for an answer that didn’t close off any paths while still sounding believable.

She let her gaze fall again, and nodded mutely. “... Yes, but… I’m not sure how to.”

Dumbledore slowly nodded as he considered the facts. “I see. Please forgive me for being blunt, but you are currently new in this land, with no guardian and no means, no?”

Sunset glanced up at his eyes, behind his half-moon spectacles, before her eyes fell down again. She nodded sadly to herself, and to her surprise found it wasn’t all an act.

“Then perhaps you’ll be pleased to know that you are considered eligible as a student at this school.”

Sunset looked up at the headmaster, and considered him for several seconds.

“What do you learn here?”

“The subjects for the first year students, which is what you would be, and there are seven years here, would be the practical subjects involving the direct implementation of magical abilities, they are Charms, Transfiguration, and Defence Against the Dark Arts, use and indirect handling of magical resources, which are herbology and potions, the theoretical subjects of Magical History, and Astronomy, and of course Flying lessons.”

That last part made Sunset pause, as she realized she still had no idea what the species she now found herself as was called, or if there was just one type like gryphons, or many kinds like ponies. Were there winged ones as well?

She focused on the matter at hand, and simply decided to keep her ears open to pick up as much as possible.

“I see,” she said, nodding to herself. “What’s the catch?”

Dumbledore cocked his head and considered the question for a moment. “Oh, well, there are of course certain rules when attending the school as a student, and conducts that are enforced. You will of course be expected to attend classes, obey curfew, and show respect and deference to the staff and faculty. Of course, besides the education you’d be receiving, there will also be a dormitory available during the semesters, including the winter holidays, as well as free meals, access to the school library, postal services, various things like that.”

“And what would this cost?”

“Nothing but your time and effort, should you wish it.”

Sunset looked at the headmaster for several seconds. “It sounds amazing. In fact, it sounds too good to be true,” she carefully noted. “And you know what they say about that I assume?”

Dumbledore simply smiled. “If it worries you, I’m sure some benefits can be stripped out for you.”

Sunset smiled wryly. “... Alright then, deal.”

“Wonderful!” Dumbledore said, and clapped his hands together. “I shall set my deputy headmaster to confirm the paperwork. When it does, I’m afraid you are going to have to start referring to the faculty as ‘sir,’ ‘ma’am,’ or ‘professor,’ so I recommend you get used to it soon.”

Sunset nodded. “I understand, professor.”

“Splendid. We will talk more later. Now, I’ve kept Madam Pomfrey from shooing me out of her wing for far too long.”

“You have indeed,” the mare said, and pushed at Dumbledore towards the door. “Not let the poor girl rest before lunch.”

The two… individuals, walked away. Walked, not swinging in branches and vines, Sunset noted.

As their footsteps echoed away into the hallways, Sunset simply shook her head in disbelief. “Second strangest morning I’ve ever had,” she said to herself, and set to familiarise herself further to her new body.

She gently heaved herself out of bed and set her feet on the floor, before immediately pulling them back up into the bed again. “Gah! That’s cold.”

She noticed the… black, vaguely L-shaped leather tubes on the floor, and assumed that the… whatever the hind hands were called, feet if she remembered correctly, goes in them. As she figured out how they worked, she noticed a bag on the table beside her bunk, and a small mirror.

Sunset looked into it, before nodding to herself, and her messy hair. “So this is how I look,” she said, and shook her hair into position. “Not bad.”

She opened the bag, and noticed it had the contents she had left Equestria with. It, like herself, had probably changed shape to be a little more appropriate.

Of course, she could also feel the scent of the old stallion inside it, and on her book. She immediately felt a little better about the previous conversation, as it was clear that she wasn’t the only one not revealing everything.

—

“Is something wrong, headmaster?” Madam Pomfrey asked.

“Hm? Oh, no, not at all,” Dumbledore said, relaxing his expression and giving his medical witch a relaxed smile. “I’m just trying to decide whether I’d currently like a lemon sherbet or a lemon popsicle.”

Madam Pomfrey rolled her eyes. It was impossible to get straight answers out of the man when he was like this.

But he was deep in thought. The girl was hiding something. Of course, Dumbledore had worked in a school for the better part of a century, that children hid things were not exactly news to him.

But it was the way she hid them that was so intriguing, and perhaps worrying, if indeed it was she hiding them.

Dumbledore had always been accepting of the flaws in others, except when it came to actual malevolence and evil. His potions teacher, for example, had flaws that would outrage the most serene of souls, but Dumbledore tolerated them, because he did not want to be a hypocrite, and he was not above some morally questionable actions himself. Always for what he felt was the greater good of course, but never forgetting that they were just that, morally questionable.

Speaking of his potions professor, the girl reminded Dumbledore of Snape, both with how similar, and how different they were, when speaking with them.

Specifically when it came to the shields they had over their minds. Trying legilimens on Snape, or, for lack of a better term, ‘read his mind’ was like finding a tome with an imposingly stout iron lock on it.

Trying to read Miss Shimmer’s mind however, for the short time he had tried it, was like finding oneself in a messy bookstore at an airport, and you only knew a little bit of the language, and whenever you saw something you recognized, it gave you instructions to look elsewhere, which led to instruction to look elsewhere, which after several steps told you to go back and take a left instead, until it felt you were trapped in a maze, and you also had a plane to catch.

It was all he could do to not grunt in frustration when he managed to pull out, thankfully unharmed.

If this was a spell placed on her by someone else… Perhaps it was a good thing that her ending up in Britain, or even in this world, which was a notion Dumbledore couldn’t help but toy with, was a fluke. If it was she herself that was behind those fiendishly clever defences…

Dumbledore would just have to get to know her well enough to judge her character by traditional means.

An event as this could have come at a better time. Harry Potter was coming to Hogwarts, and there was still much more planning and preparation to be done.

Whether the girl would be a factor, and if so, what kind, remained to be seen.

But… Dumbledore was dedicated to the protection and wellbeing of his students. A little more paperwork and that would include the young Sunset Shimmer.

Reflections in the Dark

Sunset woke up alone and without presents, on the local holiday of celebrating with family and friends, and receiving gifts.

It was the best morning she’d had in many moons.

She looked at the book which was still lying next to her pillow, and rested her hand on it.

It was back to being a very precious object, and Sunset languidly stretched in bed as she thought up ways to enchant the book to never be in danger.

She stepped out of her bed and out of her pyjamas, savoring how cozy the dorm was, and appreciating the presence of the fireplace. As she woke up from the slightly chilly air, she aimed her hand at the fireplace, collected some of the heat, and coated her uniform with it before slipping into the now warm clothes.

She set to wandering aimlessly through the corridors of the castle, savoring the refreshing feeling of the cold air on her face while she magically kept her clothes warm, a serene smile on her face as she let her subconsciousness process yesterday’s developments.

The saddle was back on Sunset Shimmer. Celestia had confirmed it: Alicornhood, eternity, was within her grasp.

Sunset paused. Something was missing about that.

… Ah yes, of course.

She stretched her arm out, and dramatically clenched her fist, shaking it slightly as she brought it to her face, a determined expression upon it.

… Alicornhood… Eternity... was within her grasp!

Much better.

Sunset let out a satisfied sigh before wandering on.

“There you are!”

Sunset almost jumped at the sound of Madam Pomfrey’s voice.

“Miss Shimmer!” she said, very loudly, as she stomped through the corridor towards Sunset. “Would you care to explain the rumors I’ve heard?”

Sunset’s mood fell. Had she missed a piece of bloodied bandage during her last visit to the hospital wing?

Just play it cool, she thought to herself.

“What rumors would that be?”

“That you willingly drank veritaserum!” Pomfrey demanded, coming up to Sunset and looking down at her.

Sunset internally let out a sigh of relief, and shrugged at the medical witch.

“Maybe you should bring it up with your colleagues who make false allegations towards me,” Sunset suggested.

“Oh I will, you can count on that,” Madam Pomfrey said, angrily. “And now, you are to come with me, or I shall see you restrained.”

“Fine, fine,” Sunset conceded, and marched after Madam Pomfrey, who marched at a breakneck pace. “Just take it easy. You’re making me, a minor who apparently needs medical attention, exert herself.”

“Then let that be a lesson!” Madam Pomfrey barked, although she gradually slowed down. “And you don’t need physical rest, you need the aftereffects of the potion neutralized.”

“There are aftereffects?” Sunset asked.

“There can be, and I’m not taking any chances. Some wizards and witches have trouble clearing out some of the components, increasing the risk of mis-medication in the future, and with your propensity for hospital visits, young miss, you will require a thorough scrubbing.”

“Hey, except for the thing with the troll, I’ve never actually needed to spend time here,” Sunset said, as they entered the hospital wing once again.

She strictly speaking didn’t need medical treatment that time either, just a lie down would have sufficed, but Sunset kept that to herself.

Madam Pomfrey stopped and let out a shivering sigh, and nursed her temples. “Trolls. First year students fighting trolls. Merlin, help me,” she said, and looked at Sunset, her shoulder slumping and her demeanor softening significantly. “Please, sit down.”

Sunset felt that was enough sass for now, and did as she was told, sitting on the edge of a hospital bed.

“So uh… what does this involve?” Sunset asked.

“Nothing to worry about,” Madam Pomfrey said, and brought a brown glass bottle up from a cart and placed it on the nightside table, as well as a small bowl with what looked like small tufts of hair.

She started carefully dropping individual pieces of hair into the bottle and gently shaking it around.

“So… humans can have trouble clearing out veritaserum?” she asked.

“Some, yes.”

“Well then, I shouldn’t–” Sunset said, with a confident smile, before stopping herself. “... Uhm… I shouldn’t skip out on that.”

Madam Pomfrey looked at Sunset with an eyebrow raised, and Sunset looked away sheepishly, her eyes wandered to the rows of books inside Madam Pomfrey’s office, visible through the window that made up an entire wall.

“So what you need to become a healer is in those books?” Sunset probed.

“Most of it,” Pomfrey said.

“That might be useful. Think I can take a look at those?”

“No. I’ll not have first years running around practicing medicine on each other.”

Madam Pomfrey finished up the simple concoction, and looked up to see Sunset with her wand out, levitating several large magnifying glasses from the small carts next to the bed, and a mirror, in order to read the titles on the books from where she sat.

“Medical… maladies… volume four,” she slowly read, squinting her eyes to see the distant font.

Sunset looked up at Madam Pomfrey, and sheepishly waved her wand again. “Crepinde,” she muttered, making the mirror and magnifying glasses float down to the floor.

Madam Pomfrey didn’t have the energy to scold Sunset anymore, and simply shook her head. “You are impossible,” she said, as she held out the bottle to Sunset.

“That’s good, isn’t it? It’s like the far opposite of being easy,” Sunset said, and took the bottle, emptying it in one swig, and then looking at it. “Hmm. That was better than I thought it would be. What is this?”

“Butterbeer,” Madam Pomfrey said. “Now you’d best get along to the feast.”

“Oh right, it’s rist… k-kist... mess… that thing,” Sunset said, and stood up. “Thanks again.”

Sunset heard the sound of another bottle opening as she rounded the corner.

—

The feast in the dining hall was honestly pretty much the same food as was always eaten during the dinner, only more kinds of meals at once, and a lot of it.

Then again, that’s how feasts worked in Equestria as well, with the general mood and energy helping with the general understanding that this was supposed to be an evening of much eating and quaffing, or as it often played out, stuffing and binging.

The Weasleys and Harry had all gathered in the middle of the Gryffindor table, somewhat reluctantly In Percy’s case, and everyone seemed very welcoming of Sunset.

It was rather nice, really, listening to Fred and George’s intentionally stupid-sounding laughs as they pulled at magical present-tube-things with spells on them to fit larger gifts than normally possible inside them.

With the food and drink, and the soothing development yesterday, Sunset drifted into a sort of haze of content-ness, like a budgerigar relaxing in the surrounding cacophony.

“Have one,” Fred said, and handed Sunset a present.

Sunset pulled it open, producing the same blast as the other ones, and found a set of bouncy balls with that increased velocity with each bounce.

Sunset raised her eyebrows at that, before hiding it away inside her robes. “Potent.”

She got a good few hours of studying in the common room, since Percy was up in the boys’ dorm and Harry and the rest of the Weasleys were out on the grounds, having a snowball fight.

After such a lazy day, Sunset was lying awake in bed, unable to sleep. Not that she minded. There were several days off left, and even if there weren’t, she only needed a fraction of her mental capacity to master spells.

The curtains of her bed facing the fireplace were drawn, and the cozy, orange fire chased away most of the wintery cold of the dorm, while leaving just enough to make it extra cozy to take shelter underneath her comforter.

She had to admit that while the curriculum was often so very simple, or useless, there must have been something that felt straining about her life at Hogwarts, as it was very nice to have a holiday.

The soothing calm was shattered by a blood-curdling scream.

Somewhere, in the distance, something very bad had just happened.

Sunset was out of the bed in less than a second, landing on her feet in a wide stance in her nightgown, as her comforter was still coming to rest behind her.

Her wand was in her hand and her nails were glowing, as she forced her adrenaline to focus her rational mind rather than her instincts.

The sound had come from another wing of the castle, but she had to be sure that it was not a distraction.

She leapt out of her room, and swooshed down the stairs in quick, bounding steps, wand raised high, and eyes and ears quickly scanning her surroundings.

The common room was empty and quiet in the low, red light of the ember in the fireplace, and she silently bounded up the stairs to the boys’ dorm.

The door quickly swung open, the wind from that scattering wrappings from presents and candies, as Sunset jumped in, head on a swivel.

But all was still, except for the snoring from Ronald, the volume of which was quite impressive for an eleven year old.

There was no Harry however.

Sunset narrowed her eyes as she thought, then cast an obfuscating spell on herself, before she vanished, and reappeared in the large hallway on the fifth floor of the wing the sound had come from.

The patter of quickly walking feet echoed from around the corner. By contrast, Sunset’s bare feet silently darted towards the sound, and came to a halt by a corner that she stopped by, and listened.

“You asked me to come directly to you, Professor, if anyone was wandering around at night, and somebody’s been in the library– Restricted Section,” said Filch, his usual cocktail of smells accompanied by Snape’s sour ones.

“The Restricted Section? Well, they can’t be far, we’ll catch them.”

They set off towards the corner Sunset was pressed against, but with them as focused as they were on their destination and fleeing or hiding shapes in the darkness, it was easy enough for Sunset to just relax, calmly lean against the wall, and watch them pass her by with a slightly amused expression, completely oblivious to her presence.

Sunset was calming down. The faculty was out patrolling, and as low as her opinion was on the particular specimen she just witnessed, she had to assume that they’d at least try to keep tragedies from happening.

Besides, if there was danger afoot, she’d obey the rule in this particular case and let those two walk into it first if they so wished.

When she paused to think about it though, she realized that it was probably just a student breaking curfew, and the scream had been an alarm.

… A part of Sunset felt strangely challenged by that.

She also suspected she knew which student.

To her amazement, she could feel Harry’s normally slightly nervous but mostly neutral scent, right from where Snape and Filch had just stood.

Carefully, she crept forward to the door that was only slightly ajar. She couldn’t help laughing to herself from Harry’s daring. Snape hated Harry, and Harry had been standing mere feet away from him, after curfew.

She pushed the door open ever so slightly, and there he was, looking at a mirror. He spun around with a shocked look on his face, and Sunset barely had the presence of mind to duck behind the corner.

He saw through her illusion that easily? That was impossible. Snape’s senses were as slippery as he himself looked, and even his perception could be grappled by Sunset. Perhaps Harry really was a force of nature, killing Dark Lords as a baby and all that.

“Mum?” she heard him whisper.

That was when Sunset realized what room she was standing outside. She peeked around the corner again, and saw him standing with a hand on the glass of that mirror, the one showing one’s true desires, looking up at, to Sunset, unseen figures standing behind him.

“Dad?”

Sunset’s mouth fell open slightly, as Harry slowly raised his other hand, and rested them both against the mirror’s glass.

She felt strangely humbled from standing there, witnessing this, before her shoulders sagged, and she slipped away, rounding another corner before vanishing in a flash, and reappearing beside her bed in the Gryffindor girls’ dormitory.

She slid into bed, adjusted her cover, and settled down to rest.

The coziness of the room was as glorious as ever, but it didn’t hold the same appeal it had done only moments before.

Sunset shut the curtains, turned over, and slowly fell asleep.

—

Sunset could hear Harry and Ron sneak out of Gryffindor tower the following night, but decided not to follow them.

She noticed that Harry’s mood was very muted, and since there were so few students in the common room, that really helped dampen the mood. He would be lost in thoughts most of the time, and barely touch his food.

“What do you think?” Fred asked in a low voice from the couch, glancing back at Harry sitting by himself. “Go fish.”

George put on the sou-wester and lowered a miniature fishing rod into an aquarium on the table to try and coax some cards swimming around in it to nibble at the hook.

“He’s obviously worried about his academic achievements,” Percy said, his nose deep in a book of ministers of magic.

“Mm, of course,” said George, not looking up. “That’s what orphans usually think about during Christmas time.”

Percy didn't look up either, but his face did turn slightly more red.

Sunset was curled up in an armchair next to them, reading the last parts of The Standard Book of Spells, volume 2, with the cover switched out with the previous volume.

“Have you noticed anything, Sunset?” Fred asked.

Sunset knew of his nightly excursions, but preferred not to lie unless necessary. “Hmm… some. Nothing interesting though.”

That night, she heard Harry make half an effort at sneaking down out of the tower, while she lay in bed, pondering.

A part of her simply shrugged and encouraged Sunset to roll over and fall asleep.

But Harry was making so much noise he was bound to get caught sooner rather than later.

On the other hand, why would she care? They weren’t friends, and even if they were, he'd be better off making other ones.

Though he might not be able to make friends if he was expelled.

…

Sunset threw off her covers, stepped into her fuzzy slippers, and teleported to an empty classroom a short distance from the room with the mirror.

She reckoned that she was probably not doing anyone any favours. At least if there’s any truth to the notion that a good deed is only a good deed if it’s a sacrifice.

Walking carefully up to the room with the mirror, Sunset paused when she heard voices.

She took a few quick steps forward, and like before, lurked outside the threshold and listened in. It was Headmaster Dumbledore, speaking in a calm voice.

“... However, this mirror gives us neither knowledge or truth. Men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad, not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible.”

Sunset kept absolutely still.

“The Mirror will be moved to a new home tomorrow, Harry, and I ask you not to go looking for it again. If you ever do run across it, you will now be prepared. It does not do to dwell on dreams, and forget to live, remember that.”

With a few steps around a corner and a flash, Sunset was back in the girls’ dorm in Gryffindor tower, where she slipped back into bed.

She didn’t sleep however, she just stared up at the bed canopy, without seeing it.

<<... It is possible. I will do it.>>

—

A few days into the new year, the student body came back, and took away the soothing solitude of the girls’ dorm.

“Hi, Sunset!” Lavender Brown said, during the evening meal. “How was your holiday? Did you do anything fun?”

“We visited Lavender’s parents,” Parvati said. “Their house is huge! And Mrs Brown works at the ministry, so we could do magic around her.”

“So what did you do? Anything exciting?”

Sunset was just looking at them, a bit of sandwich in her mouth. She had learned that it was best to until they were both quiet for a few seconds before answering, so you could be reasonably sure that the duo was actually waiting for an answer.

“Oh, nothing much I guess. I… studied.”

Finishing the spell-books for the following year and getting well into the second year of potins, but she kept that to herself.

“Wow, that’s great,” Parvati said, in a thick voice. “Did you spend your holiday at Hermione’s?”

“No? Why, what did she do?”

“She studied.”

Sunset had to admit that she walked into that, and looked over at Hermione, her head together with Ron and Harry in a conspiratorial manner.

“They’ve gotten chummy, haven’t they?” Lavender Brown. “I wonder what they’re whispering about.”

“Mm, sports?” Sunset suggested. “Harry plays, right?”

“He’s the chaser!” Parvati said, a little indignantly. “You know, on our team?”

"Seeker," Lavender said, under her breath.

Sunset just stared at her, confused. “You drink him?”

“What?”

“... Nevermind.”

—

Walking towards the library, Sunset drew nearer to a loud cackling echoing through the hallways.

She rounded the corner to see Malfoy and his… whatever they were, Crabbe and Goyle, laughing loudly.

“Did you see him?” Malfoy said, which Sunset felt was a bit redundant, as she could tell they clearly had. “He looked like he was gonna cry!”

Crabbe and Goyle let out that particular guffaw of someone who has the opportunity to both laugh at something they find genuinely funny, and score points with their superiors by doing so.

Sunset had heard this before. She reckoned that there was a two third’s chance that it would soon turn slightly awkward as all three of them tried to milk the opportunity just a little too long.

That turned out to not be the case though, as Malfoy turned to see Sunset walking in their general direction, and immediately stopped laughing.

Crabbe and Goyle immediately followed his example, and waited for orders from a slightly pink Malfoy.

After a short moment of doing a sort of mix between clearing his throat, trembling, pulsating, and fidgeting, he signalled to his cronies to lean in, before whispering something to them and sending them away.

They marched off while casting slightly dismayed and nervous glances behind them.

Malfoy managed to look preoccupied for a moment despite not doing anything as Sunset walked past him, and then hurried to catch up to her.

“Good day, Sunset,” he said, trying to seem formal. “Did you have a good holiday?”

“Hello, and…” Sunset paused as she thought about what day it was that she had finally made contact with Celestia. “... Yes, I did. How about you?”

“Well, you know, it was ordinary. We had some relatives over, had a large dinner, and the rest of the time I could just relax while our servant made sure I was comfortable. It can be quite demanding, you know, being the heir to an important house such as ours.”

“Mmhm, I can imagine,” Sunset said, while internally rolling her eyes.

She had come across people who tried to impress her before. Little lords and ladies with noble titles waiting for them many years into the future, flaunting their families’ manners and values, who wanted Sunset to accompany them so they could flaunt their mansions as well. Or sports brutes who accompanied her in vain attempts to hold open doors or whatever in ways that showed off maximum amount of muscles.

It hadn’t been too bad though. She wasn’t old enough to get that sort of attention very long before Cadence showed up, and almost all attention was aimed at Ms Perfect Pink Pretty Princess and her pristine, polished, plump posterior.

A concoction of emotions inside Sunset tried to stir, but that had currently settled into an almost tar-like substance, and only rumbled.

Halfway out of Sunset’s throat, a growl died down to a sigh. Everyone’s eyes had been on Cadence, and… that was a good thing. Sunset didn’t need attention, she only needed herself, and her mind. Cadence had unwittingly been doing her a favor if anything.

“...lo? Sunset?”

Sunset almost jumped when she remembered where she was, and what she was. She looked at Draco’s worried and uncertain face, and realized that she was scowling ever so slightly, which was probably in many ways worse than a loud snarl and bared teeth.

She apologetically relaxed her expression, and glanced away. “Sorry, I was… miles away.”

A part of Sunset had caught a scent it knew it wanted more of, while other parts of her were wrestling the first part down, and firmly held Sunset’s face in both hands and told her that she had given that up. There was dignity and wisdom in detachment.

“That’s uh… that’s okay. So… what about it? I’ll be on the rightmost side of the Slytherin stands, and we can watch the match together?”

Dignity and wisdom. Prudence. Discipline. Worthiness. Authority. Strength. Self-sufficiency. Cunning. Mystique. Impressiveness.

“... Sure.”

Malfoy smiled, widely, and stepped back, his expression turning nervous. “Alright, great. I’ll… see you then,” he said, then turned around and hurried off.

Sunset was left standing in the corridor outside the library, not remembering why she was even there, and turned around and thumped her head hard against the stone wall.

<<... Stupid!>>

Author's Note

Brought to you by Raid: Shadow Legends :trollestia:

Well here it is. This is what I was trying to write on while working the most intense job I've ever had, which I'm guessing had been authorized to suspend at least a dozen workplace and labour regulations.

I'unno. I guess it was okay. For there to be stronger chapters, there has to be weaker ones, or maybe the constant stop-and-start of how I tried writing this wasn't doing it any favour, or... maybe I'm just running out of ideas. I hope it's not the latter one.

I still hope you enjoyed it.

A Long Way Left To Go

You mentioned that there had been outright war a decade earlier?

The rest of the school were still deep in their studies, letting others assume that any lingering brooding on Sunset’s part from seeing the corpse in the woods was just her way of expressing stress.

She looked at the spine of the most informative history book on her bedside table, sweeping her memories of what it said.

Eleven years ago now I suppose, but yes.
Although I’m not sure how a war in this society would play out. The magic population is not large enough for battles for one thing, so those are out.

I imagine it would look much like civil unrest.
What I wanted to get to however, is that I’m curious what you think of that world. Seeing a murder within a year of arriving is worrisome, but with a war so recent in its history, many evils and tragedies would be lingering, waiting to unfurl, even as more benevolent forces struggle to rebuild for the benefit of all.

While I can help you, you are the only pony who can judge that world, and what you should do for the next many moons.
I cannot lie, I worry for you, Sunset, but I also trust your judgment.

Sunset hummed as she tried collecting her thoughts.

I think you’re right about the effects of war. Remember Hagrid? He was very upset at even the thought of a hurt unicorn, even though it was a very different being from himself. People here are not so callous as one might fear from hearing this.

Yes, you mentioned the poor stallion was different. Can you tell me more?

He had smaller eyes, was larger, and looked more feral than what is normal on Equestria.

Interesting. I would’ve liked to see him or his kin, preferably alive and well, and see if I recognized them, but I suppose it will remain a curious little detail.
Now, my little Sunset, I’ve promised myself to make more time for you, but if I don’t attend to some courtly business, I’m afraid Kibitz’ mustache will start fraying.

It’s okay. Tell him I said hi, and that I found his bangs.

The book was still for a moment.

“Very droll, young mistress,” he says back, and wonders if they were next to your humility. Now, let us respect our elders, even when we’re many centuries older than them, and let Kibitz have the last word.
Goodbye for now, Sunset. With love.

With love.

—

Finals were finally upon them. The heat was sweltering for all students who didn’t have the foresight or skill to use magic to regulate their body temperature, which to Sunset seemed to be everyone except herself.

It played out much as expected. McGonagall was strictly refusing to indicate anything with her expression as Sunset transformed mice into snuff boxes, and Flitwick was brimming with encouragement and congratulated Sunset as she made pineapples dance across a desk.

Snape was no doubt seething at Sunset’s perfect forgetfulness potion, and Binns had a list of boring history statements with dates and keywords missing that they were supposed to fill in.

Sunset’s classmates cheered as the final minute of the final exam came to a close, and filed out of the classroom, talking to each other with that particular kind of relief at finally having escaped something stressful and not really threatening at all.

“So how did you do, Sunset?” Dean Thomas asked, drawing her into the conversation he was in the process of pulling the whole class into.

“I believe I passed,” Sunset said, evenly.

“Tsh, yeah. You never have any problems with anything,” Seamus Finnigan said, making Lavender and Parvati nod with an expression on their faces that Sunset couldn’t identify.

“If only,” Sunset said, wistfully.

Most of the rest of the class tried talking loudly about the finals, speculating about the details about thresholds for passing and failing, until Hermione’s overbearing opinions on the entire subject exhausted everyone.

Sunset slowed down to walk next to Neville, nudging him with an elbow.

“Well?”

“Uhm… I’m not… I don’t know,” he admitted.

“Naturally,” Sunset said. “Wanna speculate?”

“Uh… no?”

Sunset nodded. “There’s wisdom in that,” she said.

The entire school was trickling out of the castle to relax on the grounds, saunter across the lawns, or skip stones across the lake. The exception was the older students who had more subjects and more extensive tests.

Sunset followed the example of many other students, and found a tree to sit in the shadows of, lying in the grass of a slope and looking down across the grounds to the lake.

Humans didn’t determine the weather. This went without saying for humans without magic, but wizards and witches didn’t seem very interested in doing so either, and like their non-magic counterparts, used shelter instead when the whimsy of the weather was disagreeable.

It led to a lot of dreary days, but this was not one of them. The sun was shining, the sky was blue with just enough spontaneously occurring clouds to make for interesting shapes to look at, and the mountains were a comforting, lively green in the distance.

It took a while before Sunset figured that the relief of the students, and the scent of that, might be affecting her, but she decided not to fight it. Today was a good day to relax.

She heard a bumblebee buzzing close by, and held out her hand in front of her face.

Her nail glowed slightly, and gathered up some stray pollen from the flowers growing here and there around her, collecting it into a small glob on the tip of her finger.

The bumblebee landed on her hand and eagerly started eating and gathering as much as it could, as fast as it could.

“Shhh, relax,” Sunset encouraged it, and gently placed her other index finger on the back of its thorax. “It’s okay.”

The poor creatures would work themselves to early deaths if left to their own devices, their limited capacity to perceive and interpret the world making them plan for the worst at all times, and achieving it on an individual level.

Both out in the country, and in gardens in the cities, beekeeping ponies spent a lot of time simply calming their bees down. It led to each bee being slightly less productive per day, but much more productive over their lifetime, as they lived much longer lives.

After a few moments, the bumblebee worked less frantically, and gathered up the pollen in a more relaxed way.

Once it had gathered almost everything, a shape plopped down next to Sunset, causing the bumblebee to take flight back to wherever its hive was.

“So how did you do at finals?” Draco Malfoy asked.

Sunset chuckled to herself.

“What?” Draco asked.

“Nothing,” Sunset said, amused by Draco’s consistency when it came to starting conversations. “I think I did okay.”

“Yeah, you would,” Draco said. “You’re from a powerful family.”

Sunset cast him a sideways glance, wondering how he came to that conclusion.

“I’m an orphan.”

Draco opened his mouth, before looking away for a moment. “Oh. I’m sorry. But, uh… what I mean is that your family must’ve been powerful magically.”

“Possibly,” Sunset said, looking back up into the sky. She slowly started looking Draco over, magically, to try and discern how powerful he was. It was hard to truly tell, much like it was hard to tell how strong someone actually was by looking at their bulk, but it worked to some degree.

Sunset felt that Draco had an above-average amount of magic power, for a wizard, but not freakishly so. What was interesting was that he, like all wizards in this school, was training to master a type of magic where one’s inner magic strength rarely had any impact on the results. This was very obvious in the case of Hermione, who had a below-average amount of magic power, and still won more house points than all of Gryffindor’s third year students put together.

“So where do you live if you… if your family is, ehm…”

“Gone?” Sunset suggested.

“Yeah.”

“I used to live with a… a woman,” Sunset started.

“A witch?” Draco quickly asked.

“She could do magic if that’s what you mean,” Sunset said. “But I left, joined Hogwarts, and for… reasons, I can’t stay with her for now.”

“So what will you do during the summer?”

Sunset wondered if McGonagall and Dumbledore had finagled Draco into trying to pull information out of her.

“I’ll make do,” she said, as she casually pulled her wand out of her inner pocket, and held it out in front of her. “Aurus.”

Puffs of water vapor started spilling out of the wand, and in the warm air, it quickly dispersed, until Sunset said, “Glacius,” making it cool down and form mist hovering over the ground, rolling down the soft slope she was resting on.

Draco looked on for a moment, before he too pulled out his wand. “My father taught me this one,” he said, and aimed at the mist. “Anguis Figura.”

Sunset lazily looked at the utter lack of effect, not noticing Draco’s blush.

“Anguis Figura,” he repeated, this time making the effect form into a snake formed from mist, large as a boa.

It slithered down the slope with great speed, making a pair of Ravenclaw girls shriek and jump up when they saw it move past them.

Sunset sniggered, and Draco smirked, as the harmless shape continued towards the lake, slithering out over it.

“Glacio,” Sunset said again, making the vapor snake turn into a solid, snake-shaped chunk of ice, which plopped into the water and lazily floated along the bank to some onlookers’ curiosity.

“My parents would be impressed by what you can do. I’m sure they’d like to know more about you,” Draco said.

Sunset thought back to hazy images of a richly dressed couple with elitist expressions seen on the other side of The Leaky Cauldron main dining room, and tried not to let her skepticism show.

“It’s just a few tricks I ran across,” Sunset said.

Down by the bank, a group of second year Hufflepuffs had fished the ice-snake out of the water, and one of them was making a big show out of swinging it over his head and smashing it into pieces on the ground.

Draco was silent for a moment.

“That’s a very Slytherin thing to say,” he eventually said, smirking a little. “Cunning, you know?”

“I suppose so,” Sunset said, watching the other student pick up chunks of the formerly snake-shaped sculpture and throw them out towards the water, trying to skip them across the surface. “I’m still not sure what the point is with the whole house system. No, wait, I suppose it’s meant to be motivational to have it be a competition.”

She thought back to an afternoon in Canterlot, when Celestia was holding court. To the side of the hall was a flight of stairs in the wall, cleverly hidden in plain sight, leading up to an overlook. One of several, which provided one with views of the hall, much like a box in a theater. Only they were hidden behind a tapestry that only a select few ponies could see through, like Celestia’s security detail, Sunset Shimmer, Raven the secretary, and of course, Kibitz.

Kibitz. If there was a pony more dedicated to his task than Celestia or Sunset, it would be him. A high-functioning, world-class workaholic, he tended to sit in these and quietly preside over the proceedings, except one time when Sunset had finagled him into showing his considerable skill in chess, which in Equestria had three dimensions.

Sunset had decided beforehand to not bristle at any defeat she suffered at his hooves, but it was still difficult to keep her face straight as she felt Kibitz playing with her and dangling layers upon layers of traps and distractions disguised as opportunities and openings, even as he barely focused on the game, and mostly looked at Celestia and listened to the droning of the court.

“Ask yourself if you think there’s a difference between winning, and winning with style,” he had said, as he checked Sunset, without even looking at the board.

Lying in the shade outside of Hogwarts castle, Sunset smiled easily at the memory, lazily watching a set of giant tentacles rising out of the water and batting the ice-chunks to the cheers of the students by the bank.

“I think it’s also useful to know who belongs where,” Draco ventured.

“I guess… maybe,” Sunset admitted.

“Did you say the sorting hat said you could belong in Slytherin?” Draco carefully asked.

“Yep.”

“Good.”

Sunset chortled, making Draco blush.

“I mean, uh… it’s good that we- uh, you’re… cunning,” Draco hurried to say.

“You better be too or else it speaks poorly about me that you’ve noticed,” Sunset noted.

Draco struggled with that one for a moment, before smiling a bit. “Yeah. My whole family has been in Slytherin. Got to keep up the legacy, you know?”

“Can’t say I do, but I can imagine,” Sunset said, and remembered that she hadn’t reciprocated to Draco’s probing. “So how did you do at the exams?”

“I believe I did well,” Draco said, nodding regally. “I’d be surprised if I didn’t get the highest grade in all subjects. Professor Snape is a friend of the family, you know?”

“He certainly approves of you in potions class, I know that much.”

They sat in silence as Draco fumbled for things to say, watching the tentacles splash water at the students by the bank, making the girls shriek and retreat and the boys laugh and cheer for the creature to do it again.

“I’m… sure he approves of you as well,” Draco ventured.

Sunset scoffed while smiling.

“I mean… he’s, ehm… a little harsh, but you’re still learning a lot from him.”

Still smiling, Sunset shook her head. “Nope. It’s all me. Like just about everything here.”

Draco fell silent, and after a while, he stole a glance at the side of Sunset’s face as she kept looking out over the water. Something about her made him keep searching for things to say, but not finding anything.

This made him internally frantic, rather than angry, though he didn’t notice.

—

The next night, Sunset had heard Hermione sneak out of the dormitory again. This wasn’t suspicious in itself, as the common room was still open to the students after curfew. It was the half-loud thump that was odd.

Still, Sunset went back to sleep.

It wasn’t until the next morning, when Sunset sat down by the Gryffindor table, that she noticed that the student body was absolutely buzzing with whispering and gossiping.

Sunset glanced around and noticed a few missing faces, and realized that her brain was already picking out the puzzle pieces with the flat edges.

“Where’s Hermione?” she asked.

Her classmates looked at her. “Haven’t you heard!?” Parvati asked.

Sunset looked at her. “... Yes… I know everything, I’m just talking about it because everyone else is and I don’t want to be the odd one out.”

Parvati shot Sunset a glare before Lavender and Dean spoke up instead.

“Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville are in the hospital wing,” was what you would get if you combined their sentences into one and pruned it appropriately.

“They say dark wizards snuck into the castle, and they dueled them,” Seamus supplied.

“Nah, I heard it was You-Know-Who they fought,” Dean said.

“Oh come off!” Parvati interjected. “Four grown wizards couldn’t fight him, four first-years definitely can’t.”

“Ah!” Dean said, holding up a finger and leaning past Lavender to address her. “But he kicked it when he tried killing Harry the first time, didn’t he? Why not this time too?”

“Excuse me, isn’t he dead?” Lavender noted.

Dean shrugged. “Who knows with wizards that powerful? They say only Dumbledore could fight him.”

“Yeah, and is Dumbledore immortal?” Parvati asked.

“He might be,” Dean said, shrugging. “We don’t know. Or maybe he doesn’t wanna do what you need to do to become immortal. Evil, dark magic and all that.”

“You need evil magic to become immortal?” Sunset asked, skeptically.

“Sure, otherwise, we’d have heard about it being taught in school, wouldn’t we?” Dean noted. “It stands to reason.”

Sunset shook her head. “So what happened to Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville?” she asked.

“I heard that they fought dark wizards until Dumbledore saved them, and then they collapsed,” Lavender said.

“I heard that they all got horrible scars everywhere,” Seamus said.

“I heard that they all got dark magic inside them so now they need to suck magic out of witches and wizards to stay alive,” Dean said, in an excited voice.

Sunset glanced around at them. “And you all heard this from where?”

That made them all glance down at their plates again. “From… people.”

“I see,” Sunset said, and looked around. “Where’s Fred, George, and Percy?”

“They came in while we were eating and put some food on trays, and then went out again,” Parvati explained.

“In the direction of the medical wing?” Sunset asked, to which the others nodded. “With food for about four people?” and they nodded again. “Right. Good.”

Breakfast proceeded quietly after that, with some quiet ire being leveled at Sunset for bursting such a fine gossip-bubble.

Sunset herself was glad that her classmates were all alive. She felt challenged enough that there had been some sort of battle right under her nose that she managed to miss. If people had died it would’ve been too much, something would’ve had to be done, flanks would’ve had to be kicked.

Hermione and Neville came back around lunch, and were immediately pelted with questions by students of all ages and from all houses, except Slytherin, although everyone could tell they were trying to listen in on every word. It actually looked pretty funny as a long table of people were all glancing in a way that was no doubt supposed to be discreet in the direction of Hermione and Neville.

It didn’t really do anything to quell the rumors. Quite the opposite in fact.

For a brief moment, some of the more sensible rumors were in the lead, that Harry, Ron, and Hermione had found out that a dark wizard had infiltrated the castle as part of some nefarious plan, and maybe Neville was with them, it was unclear, and that said evil wizard was defeated, possibly dead. Also, it was said that Professor Quirrel of all people was the dark wizard all along. He certainly was nowhere to be found, although others said that he had also fought against the dark wizards, and had died or been sent to a place called St Mungo’s hospital in the aftermath.

But soon enough, the rumors started to mutate again. The Dark Lord’s former followers had all assaulted the castle to steal something that could resurrect their master, Harry Potter had all fought them single-handedly, Hagrid had sent the castle menagerie against them, Salazar Slytherin had woken up in a secret crypt as a vampire, Albus Dumbledore’s evil twin had tried to take the headmaster’s place during the night but was defeated, or perhaps even succeeded and no one could tell, the faculty had all been replaced by body-doubles, and so on.

There was also the fact that Fred and George, ever struggling to keep straight faces, were pouring copious amounts of fuel on the fire, saying that no, it wasn’t just The Dark Lord’s servants, but the whole ministry of magic, which had been infiltrated and turned to evil, that Harry fought, and that Ron had led a board of giant chess pieces to battle against them alongside him.

Curiously, Percy did nothing to try and stop them doing this.

Like the Manehatten stock exchange, the rumors and speculations grew to such ridiculous heights that a critical mass of people pulled out and rejected the whole thing out of hand, and the illusion shattered almost instantly. Sunset had sometimes wondered what it would’ve looked like if Celestia didn’t use her influence to surreptitiously keep redirecting all the funds back into repayment plans just before it happened. A thousand years old ruler makes sure she heads off economic collapse.

So, finally, the rumors simmered down into more sensible but longer-lasting levels. Some villain had been in the castle during the night, Harry Potter and his friends had snuck out, and… all was well the next morning. To many, that spoke volumes.

What caught Sunset’s attention however, was what her classmates had spoken of, that it stood to reason that immortality could only be obtained through dark magic.

Sunset played with the idea that evil magic was what had led to Celestia’s immortality, perhaps as an unwilling experimental subject, or perhaps she had been a villain who had a change of heart, but she dismissed that idea quickly. Sunset knew Celestia too well, and besides, if powerful magics were required to become an alicorn, then Cadence, and her, in Sunset’s opinion, bottomless ineptitude at magic, made no sense. But perhaps something like a combination of wizarding magic and pony magic could be possible, replacing the evil aspects of dark wizarding magic with more agreeable supplements from pony magic. It was too early to tell, but Sunset filed it away as something to consider in the future.

So a few days passed, Harry came out of the hospital wing, and it was time for the feast to celebrate the end of the school year.

Harry arrived among the last students, and for once, Sunset noticed the student house competition that everyone kept going on about, since the hall was awash in Slytherin green and silver.

Apparently, Gryffindor had come in last, and Slytherin first, before Dumbledore handed out one hundred and seventy points to Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville, at the last minute, changing the decoration to Gryffindor red and gold.

Sunset joined in the applause aimed at her classmates, but she refrained from cheering. She let others do that.

“We wouldn’t even have needed those points if Snape hadn’t docked so many points from you,” Dean told Sunset, grinning.

“He did?” Sunset said, mildly surprised.

It was an evening of excellent food, and Sunset couldn’t help but let the scent of high spirits influence her around the table, before one more night at the castle.

The next morning, the first years took the boats over the lake, towards the train station.

Sunset still wasn’t sure why only the first years took the naval route, and it seemed like no one else knew either. Some said that children under the age of twelve were not allowed in the village of Hogsmeade, which the road towards the station skirted along, some said that was because the villagers kept vicious monsters that feasted on too young people. Hermione said it was just tradition.

The train ride was fairly uneventful. Sunset ended up in a compartment with Parvati, Lavender, and Neville. After listening to their gossip for about an hour, Neville followed Sunset’s example, rolled up his cloak to use as a pillow, and slept most of the way. Before long, she pulled off her robe, revealing her more muggle-appropriate attire underneath.

“See you after the summer then?” he asked, as they stepped off from the train.

“Probably, yeah. Unless I get myself expelled before then,” Sunset said.

Augusta, Neville’s grandmother, was there to collect him on the magical train platform. Neville hurried up to her, and waved goodbye to Sunset. Augusta nodded to Sunset in the distance, who nodded back, before Sunset set off towards the exit leading to the rest of King’s Cross.

She had straggled behind, and was surrounded by people and students she didn’t know, and before long, she felt like she had given everyone the slip without even intending to.

“So… where to now?” she said to herself, looking around the people milling around, looking at the large signposts showing which trains would be departing from which platform, buying snacks from the kiosks, reading newspapers, and waiting on benches.

Adjusting her shoulder bag with all her school supplies in, she sauntered away, looking for something promising.

Looking out a window, Sunset spotted a section of the street with the self-propelled vehicles parked, large ones, with their destinations displayed in large, glowing letters on their fronts.

One of them was going to Surrey, which sounded familiar.

“How much?” Sunset asked the large, sweaty man in uniform behind the wheel, bringing up her bag.

“Two quids,” he muttered, clearly not in a good mood.

Sunset fished out two one pound coins, and handed them to the man, who had a little device print out a receipt and ticket for her, before nodding his head to her to take a seat.

Sunset sat down in a factory-made polyester seat, and waited. She’d be worried the vehicle wouldn’t travel before nightfall, if not for the sporadic boarding of other people, and when the bus was nearing capacity, it rumbled to life, and slowly rolled out onto a larger road, before picking up speed.

Sunset pulled out her book, but only sat with it in her lap, thinking about what to write to Celestia.

Sunset would be fine, of course. She had her magic, she was smart, and observant, and she didn’t need anyone else.

But she still couldn’t help but feel that the summer would be kinda boring compared to life at Hogwarts.

She’d just have to make it interesting.

Author's Note

I think that... yes, the delay since the previous chapter wasn't actually that long. A cause for celebration?

Too bad my job left me feeling a bit under the weather today. I'll try and stay enthusiastic when responding to any comments, but I might have even more trouble than usual coming up with something other than a generic thank you. Rest assured that I mean it where applicable :twilightsmile: :ajsleepy:

Oh right, like I stated previously. there was no real climax to this year, but don't worry, the story is not over yet.

As of writing this, I'm trying to come up with a title while falling asleep in my chair.