The Accidental Invasion

Chapters

Chapter 3: The Letters from Nowhere
Chapter 4: Diagon Alley
Chapter 5: The Keeper of the Keys
Chapter 6: The Alley Again
Chapter 7: Platform Nine and Three Quarters
Chapter 8: Draco Malfoy
Chapter 9: First Report
Chapter 10: The Midnight Duel
Chapter 11: Doored
Chapter 12: Instructor Instructions
Chapter 13: Troll
Chapter 14: Jinx'd
Chapter 15: Christmas
Chapter 16: Disaster
Chapter 18: Phoenix
Chapter 19: Discord Dursley
Chapter 20: A Good Deal
Chapter 21: Back to Diagon Alley
Chapter 22: Hogwarts
Chapter 23: Papa Tango
Chapter 24: Sorelia
Chapter 25: Duel
Chapter 26: Silversong
Chapter 27: Polyjuice
Chapter 28: Ariel
Chapter 29: Journals and Journalists
Chapter 30: Riddle
Chapter 31: Busy Week?
Chapter 32: Busy Week!
Chapter 34: Dungeons and Basilisks
Chapter 35: Homecoming
Chapter 36: The Next Year
Chapter 37: The Patronus
Chapter 38: The Evening Prophet
Chapter 39: Divination
Chapter 40: Sadarina
Chapter 41: Skipped
Chapter 42: Fallen
Chapter 44: Harmonia
Chapter 46: Peter Pettigrew
Chapter 47: Stairs
Chapter 48: World Cup
Chapter 49: The New God
Chapter 50: Seeking
Chapter 51: Potters
Chapter 52: Ponies
Chapter 53: Punishments
Chapter 54: The Imperius Curse
Chapter 55: The Goblet of Fire
Chapter 56: Cuddles
Chapter 57: The Floo
Chapter 58: Ponyville
Chapter 59: Rarity
Chapter 60: The Champions
Chapter 61: Time Loops
Chapter 62: Dragons
Chapter 64: The First Task
Chapter 65: Aurelia
Chapter 66: Nail Polish
Chapter 67: Ambrosia
Chapter 68: Dancing
Chapter 69: Scales
Chapter 70: Grindylow
Chapter 71: Fleur
Chapter 72: Detention
Chapter 73: The Second Task
Chapter 74: Tea Party
Chapter 75: The Maze
Chapter 76: The Third Task
Chapter 77: Voldemort
Chapter 78: Veela
Chapter 79: Return
Chapter 80: Missing
Chapter 81: Upgrade
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 1: Gringotts
Chapter 2: The First
Chapter 17: Through the Trapdoor
Chapter 33: The Chamber of Secrets
Chapter 43: Shiny!
Chapter 45: The Shrieking Shack
Chapter 63: The Queen
Chapter Closed

Chapter 3: The Letters from Nowhere

Earlier That Year…

“This is boring,” Dudley announced, and prowled away from the glass.

Harry sighed, watching him go, and looked at the snake behind the glass. According to the sign he’d read while Dudley had been trying to make it move, it was a Boa Constrictor. “I wonder if he would still think it was boring if the roles were reversed,” he mused aloud.

Very suddenly, the snake’s beady eyes opened, and it raised its head off the floor of its enclosure, looking at him. Then… it spoke. It was badly distorted through the glass, but he was just able to make out the words. “You can talk?” It sounded surprised.

Harry blinked. The snake could talk? Was that something all snakes could do? In any case, it would be rude not to answer. “Well yeah,” he answered, after a second’s pause. “Dudley would have my head if I couldn’t.”

The snake laughed. It was a very strange thing to watch. “That prat? He wouldn’t know a jovial greeting from an angry snarl.” It glared at Dudley, who was staring into a different enclosure with a much smaller snake that was hissing furiously at him. The one in the next enclosure was goofing off for Piers.

“He wouldn’t?” Harry asked, looking back at the snake.

The snake smiled. “No, he wouldn’t. After all, young Speaker, I can understand English… even if I can’t speak it.”

“Dudley! Mr. Dursley! Come and look at this snake! You won’t believe what it’s doing!”

The sudden yell made both Harry and the Boa Constrictor jump.

For as large and as heavy as Dudley was, he could move alarmingly quickly on occasion. It took him mere seconds to cross the gap between the enclosures and elbow Harry aside. “Out of the way, you!”

For perhaps a fraction of a second, Harry saw Piers and Dudley, faces flat against the glass while the snake yawned theatrically at them.

Then the next second, both of them were leaping away from the enclosure with matching shrieks of terror. The snake, on the other hand, merely looked surprised.

Harry sat up, and gasped. The glass front of the enclosure had disappeared.

The snake leaned out to rest against the railing that Dudley and Piers had been leaning against moments before, causing the two boys to scramble to their feet and flee, and looked around the room. “Where did the glass go?” it asked, no longer distorted.

“No idea,” Harry answered.

It shrugged- though exactly how, Harry couldn’t have explained. It didn’t exactly have shoulders. “Maybe you vanished it?” it mused. “Accidentally, of course.”

“Vanished?” Harry repeated, confused.

It looked at him and began slithering out onto the floor, causing everyone else in the reptile house to scream and run for the exits. “You do know about accidental magic, right…?” It flicked its tongue. “Ahh, I see. Not quite Hogwarts age. And living with muggles, I bet?”

Harry stared dumbly at the snake. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said honestly.

“Harry was talking to it, weren’t you, Harry?”

It was Piers, once they had gotten back into the car.

Harry, knowing he was already in for his longest punishment yet, decided to have a bit of fun while he still could. “Well no,” he answered. “I wasn’t. It was talking to me.”

Back in Modern Times...

“Oy!” Harry cried, as Vernon took his letter right out of his hands. “That’s mine!”

“Who’d be writing to you?” Vernon asked.

“I’d like to know that too,” Harry retorted.

“P-P-Petunia?”

Harry blinked, and stared at his uncle. Why was he demonstrating the strongest fear reaction Harry had ever seen out of him, just from the content of a letter? “What, is it from that snake?” Harry asked.

They ignored him. Petunia peered at the letter. “V-Vernon!”

“H-H-Harry,” Harry said flatly.

“I want to read that letter,” Dudley demanded.

“Out!” Vernon barked at both him and Dudley.

“It was addressed to you by mistake,” Vernon informed Harry. He had come to visit him in his cupboard. “I have burned it.”

“Well I hope it was intended for you then,” Harry informed him. “That’d be a crime if it wasn’t.”

Vernon ignored him, and took a deep breath. “Er- About this cupboard. Your aunt and I have been thinking… that you’re really getting a bit big for it.”

Harry raised an eyebrow. He’d had to curl up on his little cot for the last three years because he was too tall to lay down flat- even on the floor- in this cupboard.

Vernon wasn’t done. “We think it might be nice if you moved into Dudley’s second bedroom.”

His other eyebrow raised as well. Might be nice? Since when was anything to do with Harry ‘nice’? Then he frowned, and lowered both eyebrows. “This is because of that letter, isn’t it?”

Vernon bristled, but Harry saw a flash of fear in his eyes. “Don’t ask questions! Now get your stuff upstairs, now.”

“There’s another one! Mr. H Potter, the smallest bedroom, number four, Privet Drive-!”

Harry looked up, eyebrows raised, as Vernon let out a strangled cry and ran to battle Dudley for the mail.

Harry, however, didn’t move. Whoever had sent it had definitely not addressed it to him by mistake… and they seemed to know both that he hadn’t gotten it, and that he had been moved, and so were trying again.

He frowned at his bacon. How many attempts would they make before they gave up? Would they give up? How hard would it be to snag one before Vernon detected it, if they didn’t?

His scowl grew. The saying went, ‘the third time's the charm’. They probably wouldn’t stop at two attempts, but three. He’d have to try to make sure the third was successful.

Harry stopped when he reached the main floor, near the door. The faint light drifting in through the windows from the dark night was suggesting to him that there was something on the floor by the door- and now that he had stopped moving, he thought he could hear something as well. He crouched down low, crept a little closer, and peered at it.

It took him almost a full minute, but he finally determined that it was his uncle, in a sleeping bag. He withdrew silently, wondering what on earth could be so dangerous that Vernon would go to this kind of length to keep him from reading it. He didn’t think Vernon would have been this religious about it even if it told him he was a wizard or something; if it wasn’t true, it wasn’t true, and that was it.

But whatever it was, Harry was fast becoming certain that whatever was in that letter was very true.

He headed for the kitchen to make breakfast.

Harry gently prodded his uncle awake, a plate of food in his hand. “Good morning,” he began. “Breakfast is ready. Do you want it here or in the kitchen?”

Before Vernon had the chance to answer, though, the mail slot clicked, and the morning mail landed right in Vernon’s lap. Harry counted three envelopes addressed to him in that emerald green ink, but did not make a grab for any of them before Vernon ripped them to shreds.

Three of them? That suggested that the sender wasn’t going to give up at three tries… and would be sending progressively larger numbers until there were so many of them that one could go missing without anybody noticing. He did have to wonder exactly what lengths Vernon would go to to keep him from stealing one. Unlike the cupboard, his new bedroom was lit well enough for him to read behind a closed door, though cluttered with broken garbage. Broken garbage that would be very convenient for hiding a stolen letter.

Vernon didn’t go to work that day- instead, he nailed up the mail slot. “If they can’t deliver them, they’ll just give up.”

Harry scowled. Sure, the postman would give up- but would the mystery sender, who clearly wasn’t the postman, be stopped by a sealed mail slot?

It was evident to Harry that they would not be stopped by the inability to push letters in through the mail slot. A full dozen letters, all addressed in green ink, had made their way into the house. They had been pushed under the door, slotted through the sides- and a couple even forced through the small window in the downstairs bathroom. Harry, unfortunately, hadn’t been downstairs to see them in time, and so had been unable to rescue one.

Vernon stayed home again, this time to board up both doors, so no one could get out… though didn’t touch the window. While he worked, Harry watched the TV Vernon had left on, on a news channel.

It was a very interesting story. Apparently, a very large number of funny-haired children, right about his age, had just appeared in the middle of London, not too far away, and were walking around the block to a dingy pub called the “Leaky Cauldron” that appeared on all the cameras and looked perfectly normal to Harry- except that the reporters kept assuring the broadcast that they couldn’t see the place with their naked eyes.

On Saturday, Harry might have made off with a letter had Petunia not been in the kitchen when he made lunch. The very confused milkman had handed two dozen eggs to Petunia through the living room window- which had been a very good thing, because they’d been almost out.

Only, when Harry started cracking eggs, he found not egg whites and yolks but letters rolled up inside the eggshells. Every single one of the two dozen eggs hosted a letter and, as Harry watched Petunia shred them all in the food processor, he had to ask how they had gotten inside the eggs, but he was ignored.

“Who on earth wants to talk to you this badly?” Dudley asked Harry, while Petunia poured the letter chips into a bowl for transfer to the fireplace.

“That’s a good question,” Harry answered. “Maybe it’s that snake?”

Fortunately, neither Petunia nor Vernon seemed to notice that comment.

Author's Note

If you're like my editor and wondering why I changed Harry's words... it's because Harry's first line in the first book, "Nearly", would never have been uttered by the Harry that appeared in the rest of the books. I've kept that original, slightly brash and a little bit sassy Harry.

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Chapter 4: Diagon Alley

Harry leaped out the still-open living room window to evade Dudley. He rolled on the grass, scrambled to his feet, and ran, before Dudley could get out the window himself- or get his aunt or uncle to chase him. He didn’t feel like listening to the yelling again just yet.

But where would he go? He could go to the playpark, or perhaps…

He stopped as he reached the corner, and looked back at Privet Drive. He remembered enough maps from his various classes to know how to get from here to London- and where Charing Cross Road was, where that invisible building was.

And he knew it would only be about an hour’s walk- he could be back by dinner without any difficulty whatsoever.

He set off.

Harry knew he was in the right place when he saw the news van across the street from a small army of funny-haired eleven-year-olds that seemed to be walking to and from a side alley.

When Harry looked in that alley, they seemed to be appearing from- and disappearing back into- thin air near the back of it.

He shrugged, then tagged along behind a party of girls going away from that alley.

They walked only about halfway down the block before they reached the pub… which, interestingly enough, Harry could see just fine, even though there were several people- including two separate news vans, one of which looked to be making a live broadcast- all talking about how they couldn’t see it with their naked eyes. None of the funny-haired girls seemed to be having any issues with finding it either, before he allowed himself to get swept inside. Once inside, he stepped sideways out of the column of girls and looked around.

It was… a very strange pub, on the inside. It still had some of the ‘dingy pub’ appearance on the inside, but some of that had been covered with what looked like party decorations… and in one corner was what looked like a small lake of icing with cake-bergs in it and a few more funny-haired children- no, these were also all girls- mopping it up. They were using a couple of mops, several buckets, and a few shovels as well. There were several cakes set out around the room- cakes that looked large enough for him to kneel inside.

There were a few adults around, but almost everyone was about his age and had funny hair. He was just trying to figure out where everyone was going- somewhere in the back of the pub, he couldn’t see over the crowd- when one of the girls pranced up to him. “Oh hey! Welcome to the Leaky Cauldron, the Gateway to the Wizarding World!”

Harry looked at her… and stared. It wasn’t that the girl’s fluffy hair was bubblegum pink so much as that it fairly dribbled down to her waist, and that her entire right side- clothes, hair, and all- was practically layered in icing, like the cake had fallen on her. “What-?” he began.

She offered him a neat slice of cake, with a clean fork, on a plate. “Cake?”

“What happened?” he asked, still staring at all the icing.

She glanced down at herself, then rolled her eyes. “Oh, that. I was putting up the banner a few minutes ago when my grip on the whittlies slipped and I fell right on top of that cake.” She pointed towards the icing lake.

“Ahh,” Harry muttered, looking. Then he looked up. “What banner?” He didn’t see any.

She shook her head. “It got torn into a dozen pieces when I fell, so I threw it away.” She heaved a sigh. “But I guess it’s progress.” She looked out across the room. “Just two weeks ago, I hadn’t realized how different the whittlies are over here so the place nearly caught fire!”

“Whittlies…?” Harry began.

“Don’t ask,” another girl interrupted, approaching from the side. “Nobody understands Pinkie Pie.”

Harry looked at her. She had a white stripe down the middle of her wavy purple hair, and a bright smile. “Ahh,” he began.

“It’s true,” the pink-haired girl mused, putting an icing-covered finger to her chin. “Even Twilight couldn’t. And she nearly caught fire from the effort!” She made it sound like an achievement.

“...Alright,” Harry muttered slowly.

“Anyways, if you’re hungry for anything sugary, Pinkie’s cakes are some of the best you’ll ever taste- even with the ‘local whittlies not cooperating very well’, as she puts it.” She gestured towards the pink-haired girl, who giggled softly.

“Ahh… Sure,” Harry decided, and accepted the cake.

The girl then fairly shot across the room, zig-zagging between tables and other patrons- up until she tripped over a misplaced chair, it seemed, and went flying straight into one of the cakes standing around the room.

The cake… exploded, almost exclusively into the icing lake, easily tripling the amount of icing and cake-bergs on the floor- and the girl was now completely covered in it as she slid to a stop.

Meanwhile, the girls that had been cleaning up the mess also got covered.

“Pinkie!” one of them cried exasperatedly.

The other girl rolled her eyes. “Sorry about that. Back where we come from, a Pinkie Party is one of the best parties you’ll ever attend. Here… I don’t think she’s figured out how to throw one without the magic of our home just yet.”

“Okay then,” Harry muttered.

She turned back to him, then held out a hand. “Anyways, I’m Diamond Tiara, and it’s nice to meet you. You… don’t happen to be going to Hogwarts, do you?”

“Hogwarts?” Harry asked.

“Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,” she answered promptly.

“Oh,” he said, as if that explained everything. “Well, I’m not a wizard or anything, so I don’t think so.”

“Not a wizard?” she asked, looking surprised. “But… I mean, you saw the Leaky Cauldron, right?”

He nodded. “Yes?”

“With your naked eyes, not a camera?”

“Yeah?”

“And you’re not a squib- that is, born to a witch and wizard?”

“Uh, no, I’m not a… whatever you called it.”

“Squib,” she repeated. “Then there’s only one option left: You’re a wizard, and just don’t know it yet.” She shrugged. “If you weren’t either a wizard or a squib, you wouldn’t have seen the Leaky Cauldron.”

“... Alright,” he muttered slowly. “So I guess I’m a wizard. Despite all the evidence.”

“Any letters from Hogwarts?”

He shook his head. “Someone has been trying to send me a letter, but the Dursleys have kept them from me. It’s getting interesting, trying to predict how the next batch will arrive.” He smiled, and gave a chuckle. “This morning, they were inside the eggs.”

Diamond stared at him. “That’s… interesting. But without a letter, we can’t be sure if you’ve been invited, so…” She shrugged. “You can tag along if you want, maybe see if Gringotts will give you anything, but other than that, I’m not sure what you really can do right now.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, why not?”

He was lucky, when he got back long after bedtime, that Dudley had broken the latch on the downstairs window by trying to climb out of it. As a result, the window slid open without any resistance. Harry climbed inside, trying to ignore the tiny golden key in his pocket, closed the window again, and sneaked upstairs to his bedroom.

“No post on Sunday,” Vernon told everyone at breakfast.

“After the last few times, I rather doubt that’ll stop the letters,” Harry noted.

Vernon opened his mouth to retort, but something struck him in the back of his head just in time. Harry, deciding it would be too obvious if he tried to catch one, joined Petunia and Dudley in fleeing the room.

“I wonder if there’s going to be any letters?” Harry mused aloud, while they were finishing breakfast at the hotel.

All three Dursleys looked at him.

He shrugged. “Just because if they don’t come now, they won’t at all.”

“ ‘Scuse me, but is one of you Mr. H Potter? Only I got about an ‘undred of these at the front desk.”

Vernon leaped up. “I’ll take them,” he announced, while Harry laughed at his own timing.

“Found the perfect place,” Vernon announced, pointing.

Harry looked at the tiny shack on the rock. “It’s going to be interesting finding out how two hundred letters plan on getting there tomorrow,” he mused, rubbing his chin.

Vernon ignored him. “Storm forecast for tonight!”

Harry nodded. “Very interesting, then.”

“Could do with some of those letters now, eh?” Vernon chuckled, after the chip bags shrivelled up in the fireplace.

Harry chuckled with him. He’d spent his free time so far exploring the hut. He didn’t see any way for mail to get into it, except only the front door. He wondered, silently this time, how long Vernon was planning on staying here.

Author's Note

Why? I donno, I just felt that Harry needed to meet them before they met Hagrid. How's the cake, by the way?

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Chapter 5: The Keeper of the Keys

Boom.

Harry sat straight up, staring at the door. Someone was knocking… and hard.

Boom.

Dudley sat up just as suddenly as Harry had. “Where’s the cannon?”

Bang. It was much softer, wood-on-wood, and behind Harry. The door to the other room.

“Who’s there? I warn you, I’m armed!” It was Vernon.

Harry looked up at his uncle- who was holding a rifle- then, deciding it would probably be better for the continued closeability of the door for it not to be knocked on again, he got up, stepped to the side, and made his way to the door. He was going to stay behind it, and out of Vernon’s line of fire.

But no sooner had he turned the knob than they knocked a third time- and harder.

The door didn’t fly off its hinges, as Harry had worried. However, it might have been better if it had. It had been struck somewhat significantly above Harry’s head, judging by how it flexed as it swung open, right into Harry’s face. Had it flown off the hinges, it would have gone over his head. As it was, though, he was pinned to it, face-first, about halfway between the handle to his left and the hinges to his right as it swung just over ninety degrees before the heavy door used him as a doorstop.

The door didn’t bounce back much before someone bumped it back open again, pinning him against the wall. While he waited, he did a quick mental check to make sure nothing was broken.

Nothing felt broken, though his right elbow- which had been pinned against the door- was sporting a searing pain. Probably a sprain; it didn’t feel like a break and, even with the door still pinning him, it moved as it was supposed to- despite massive pain spikes- when he slid it up and down against his belly. His knees had both been bruised, and he was certain that if he hadn’t left his shoes on when he started trying to sleep the night before, his feet would have been broken, instead of just fine.

Then there were the peculiar sensations that he couldn’t attribute to getting hit by a door. There was a soft tingle throughout his body, compounded with a firmer tickle rippling across his scalp and even the back of his neck. His chest felt… funny, and something had definitely changed in the lower half of his body as well.

“Ow,” he complained lightly, as he heard someone with big feet enter the hut. He couldn’t see anything; the door to the other room, and Vernon, were diagonally opposite the room from the entrance. He didn’t hear any gunshots, though.

He didn’t say any more. His voice was… Not wrong, per se, but different- even girly.

Which would explain the various odd feelings.

Then, a giant hand wrapped around the top of the door and swung it shut, behind a giant of a man- who was stooping to keep from hitting his head. Harry could just see Vernon, hands slackened on the rifle so it was pointing at Dudley, staring at the bearded giant. The giant hardly glanced at him before turning to face the Dursleys again. “Couldn’t make us a cup of tea, could yeh? It’s not been an easy journey.”

The Dursleys were entirely hidden from view, so Harry glanced downwards. He was right, he had- somehow- become a girl. He looked up.

With no observable reaction to his request, the giant looked around the room again. “Where’s Harry at?” he asked, while Harry walked to the side, along the wall and out from behind him.

Vernon raised his rifle. “I demand that you leave at once, Sir,” he said, with what Harry thought was an admirable amount of respect considering the circumstances. “You are breaking and entering.”

The giant sighed, strode over, tugged the gun out of his hands, tied it into a knot, and tossed it into a corner. The very corner that Harry was standing in, as a matter of fact- he let out a squeak of alarm and jumped aside to avoid it. He promptly tried to ignore the strange bouncing sensation on his chest from the sudden movement- and, glancing down, adjusted his shirt to make sure it would stay covered. Being an old shirt of Dudley’s, it was much too big for him, including in the neckline- and he was beginning to think he’d shrunk a bit during the transformation. Dudley, meanwhile, squeaked as he overcame his paralyzing fear for long enough to try and hide behind his mother, who was crouching behind Vernon.

The giant looked over at Harry, and paused to stare at him.

Harry looked uneasily back, only too well aware that he was in the corner. He wasn’t too far from the door, though, so depending on how fast the giant was, he might have had a viable escape route.

The silence drew on for only a few seconds, but it was far longer than Harry might have liked.

Finally, the giant spoke. “Who’re you?” He sounded curious, like he hadn’t expected to see him. To Harry, that meant that he had known exactly who to expect in the hut.

Petunia’s voice cut like a knife through the awkward silence that followed. “Hailey gets stagefright when giants stare at her,” she barked.

The giant turned to Petunia, who promptly ducked behind Vernon again. “I’m not a giant,” he retorted.

Harry blinked. Petunia must have noticed that he’d become a girl- and she’d even given him a new name for it. That seemed… unusually kind of her. He took a breath, and concentrated on not letting his voice slip him up. “Could’ve fooled me,” he muttered. It was a lot easier than he had expected to sound natural. He looked up at the giant, who was looking distinctly uneasy as he glanced back at Harry. “Who are you, anyways?”

The giant seized on the new question with evident relief. “Rubeus Hagrid,” he introduced himself. “Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts.” He looked around at everyone, evidently trying to find something innocent to turn the conversation to. “What about that tea, then, eh? I’d not say no to somewhat stronger if you’ve got it, mind.”

Nobody answered. Harry raised an eyebrow.

Then the giant’s eyes fell on the fireplace. He snorted and stepped over to do something to it. Harry couldn’t see what he was doing, but when he stepped back a second later, there was a roaring fire in the grate. He returned to the sofa and pulled a large number of objects out of his pockets before he returned to the fireplace to start making tea and cooking sausage.

Harry walked silently to the sofa and sat down, adjusting his shirt again and cradling his arm in his lap to help alleviate the pain. It would go away after a good night’s rest; sprains and dislocations always did, for him.

The sausages were about reaching the point where Harry- who had cooked for the Dursleys many times- would have taken them out of the fire to check when the giant turned to look at him again. “Yer… Hailey, right?”

He nodded. It definitely seemed like that was what he was going to be calling himself for now.

The giant stared at him for a few seconds. “Then…” He looked at the Dursleys, and the wide-open door Vernon and Petunia had come in through. Then he looked back at him. “Wait, you’re Harry, aren’t you?”

“Y-No,” he answered. “I have no idea who you’re talking about.”

The giant scowled. “Then why do you look so much like Lilly?”

“Lily who?”

“Lily Potter,” he answered promptly. “Harry’s mother.”

He nodded slowly, thinking. “Ahh… Well, my surname is Potter as well. And I’m curious about how this morning’s letters plan on making it in a few hours.”

He gave a snort. “Nah, that’s why I’m here.” He drew a letter from his pocket with his free hand. “In-person delivery. Can’t miss it.” He looked at the face. “For Ms. H-!” He froze, staring at it. “Miss…? But…”

Harry allowed himself a giggle. It would never have worked when he was a boy, but his new voice made it sound just right.

Vernon suddenly found his voice. “Stop! Stop right there, Sir! I forbid you to tell the bo- the girl anything!” He made the word into an obscenity.

The giant looked at him, then back at Harry. “What…?” He looked at Vernon again, and stared for a couple seconds.

“The sausage is on fire,” Harry warned him helpfully.

He promptly removed the sausages from the fire, extinguishing them swiftly. “Ahh, they’re a little charred,” he observed, “but it’ll be alright.”

“Aaaand, the letter is on fire.” He’d dropped the letter in his effort to rescue the sausage, and it had landed a bit too close to the fire.

The giant yelped, holding the poker of sausages high in the air with one hand as he used the other to yank the letter out of the fire. He then dropped the letter on the floor and stamped on it to extinguish the flames.

Harry laughed at the display.

Finally, the giant checked the fireplace to make sure nothing else was burning and took a step away from it. He looked at Harry. “You’re Harry,” he stated. It wasn’t a question.

He rolled his eyes. “I’m H-Hailey.” He very nearly messed up the name, but managed to force his voice straight just in time.

The giant rolled his eyes as well, then flung the charred letter at him. “ ‘Ere,” he said. “It said Mister last night, but whatever.”

Harry caught it easily, adjusted his shirt, and looked at it.

Ms. H. Potter

The Floor

Hut on the rock, The Sea

He looked up at the giant. “You’re about to tell me magic is real, aren’t you?”

“Stop! I forbid you!”

Harry looked at Vernon. He already knew magic was real- but if he hadn’t, Vernon’s timing would have told him it was, even without the giant’s response.

“Ah, shut up Dursley, yeh great prune,” the giant said, waving the poker of sausages at him. Then he sighed, and turned back to Harry.

While he was doing that, Dudley fidgeted a little, watching the sausages flying through the air above his head.

“D-Don’t touch anything he gives you, Dudley,” Vernon told Dudley, moments before the giant answered Harry’s question.

The giant grinned and chuckled darkly. “Yer great puddin’ of a son don’t need fattening any more, Dursley, don’t worry.” Then he slid the sausages off the poker and onto a plate before he looked back up at Harry. “Er, Yes, I am,” he told him.

“Well that was easy enough to guess,” Harry mused. He opened the envelope, and pulled out the sheaf of parchment, but didn’t unfold it just yet. “So let me guess. Since you’re the… what was it? Keeper of Keys and something?”

“Keeper of Keys and Grounds,” the giant confirmed. “Call me Hagrid. Everyone does.”

Harry nodded. “Yes. Since you’re associated with Hogwarts, this letter probably is too?”

“Er- yeah.”

He unfolded the letter and, at last, read it. He turned the page, and started reading it too. The giant cast an awkward look around and finally turned back to the fireplace to put some fresh sausages on his poker.

Harry took his time with the letter, and debated whether or not he would mention Diagon Alley before the giant- before Hagrid- did. He decided not to, quite yet at least, and looked up. “So… they just send prospective students shopping lists? Seems a bit strange, if you ask me.” He shrugged- then quickly pulled up his shirt, which had sagged a little too far, glad that nobody was looking. He’d have to tie it off around his waist or something if he was going to be going anywhere as a girl. Not to mention make sure he wore the one shirt he had that still had usable buttons all the way up- the top two on this one were ripped out. Dudley never passed on the shirts that didn’t come with buttons.

“It’s…” Hagrid sighed. “That’s why I’m here. Most of ‘em don’t need any more, but the ones that grew up with muggles…”

“What does that mean about the owl expected by today?”

“Galloping Gorgons, that reminds me!”

Author's Note

... Yes.

Apparently, Harry got turned into a girl. No, it's not permanent, and yes, it's repeatable. It's... something of a result of his mother's magic protecting him as powerfully as it does- in certain situations, he becomes- physically- more like her...

And before you ask, female puberty normally starts between the ages of 9 and 14. At 11, Hailey is old enough to, with a start date on the early end of that range, have a noticeable bounce.

Male puberty is very similar- normal start between 9 and 14. At 11, he's old enough to have had the changes to his voice, and so no longer resemble the prepubescent boy for which the only noticeable effect of the transformation would have been in the hair.

Yes, I'm late. Sorry about that, yesterday was a very busy day.

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Chapter 6: The Alley Again

“What is going on in there?” Hagrid mused.

Harry had had a very Dursley-free morning; the night before, Vernon had called the Hogwarts headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, a ‘crackpot old fool’ when he had been saying he wouldn’t pay for Harry’s education at Hogwarts. Harry had ignored it- he knew Vernon wouldn’t pay for it, but he also knew that he could.

Hagrid hadn’t even noticed the message Vernon had been trying to send, instead becoming enraged at the insult and had attempted to turn Dudley into a pig, only succeeding in giving him a tail. The three Dursleys had disappeared into the other room, and not reappeared all night.

Hagrid had seemed uneasy whenever he spoke with Harry that night. Finally, he’d given Harry his coat to sleep under.

Getting to sleep had been a peculiar challenge. Strange, unfamiliar sensations had kept coming to his attention- but eventually, he’d done it.

And by the time he woke up, he had turned back into a boy.

So now, wearing that shirt that had working buttons all the way up, he was approaching the Leaky Cauldron with Hagrid- who clearly knew where he was going, but wasn’t used to getting here in a normal way. Hagrid must have been looking at the crowds of funny-haired girls that were probably walking in and out of the pub.

“A party,” Harry suggested.

“Is this-? Can this be?” It was Tom, the manager of the Leaky Cauldron. He apparently hadn’t seen Harry on the first time through- Hagrid was probably the reason this time was different. “Bless my soul! Harry Potter!”

Whatever else he said, Harry didn’t catch it, because Pinkie had let out an excited scream and started whizzing around setting up extra decor. Moments later, there was a lake of icing surrounding the crowd that had been rushing to shake Harry’s hand, with cake-bergs on everyone’s hats. Fortunately, Harry and Hagrid were outside of the line of fire, and so continued on their way un-iced.

The goblin examined the tiny golden key Hagrid had given him, purportedly the key to Harry’s vault, and scowled. “This key has been superseded,” he announced.

“What?” Hagrid asked.

The goblin looked at Harry very seriously for a second before he spoke. “You’re getting some gold from your vault?”

He nodded.

The goblin nodded sharply. “That will do, then. I’ll have someone take you to both vaults. Griphook!”

Madam Malkin’s assistant finished the strange boy’s robes while Malkin herself was still pinning Harry’s sleeves up, and he left the shop just in time for Harry’s turn to strip off his robe for the tailor to do her magic on it.

“Um,” Harry muttered uncertainly, glancing around the shop. It was empty, with no shelves for anyone to hide behind. “Madam Malkin. You… You should probably know that…” He took a deep breath. “I’m not sure what caused it, but last night…” He took another breath, and spoke quickly. “I got turned into a girl for a few hours.”

She looked at him, wand poised to do her magic on the pinned robes, with a thoughtful expression. “Did it feel… strange, or anything?”

He shrugged. “There was a bit of tingling when it happened, and otherwise unfamiliar sensations, but it felt normal.” He scowled. “I don’t know if it was a one-off or not.”

She nodded slowly. “Strange. Do you want me to do something differently because of it?”

He rubbed the side of his head. “Is there a way to make sure my robes will still fit if it happens again? I think I was a little smaller as a girl.”

She shook her head. “Not without making it happen. And even then, it wouldn’t likely fit well.”

“Oh,” he muttered, looking down.

She shrugged. “My recommendation would be to make it happen and come back for girl’s robes while transformed into one.”

He tilted his head. “Can we do that?”

She shrugged. “If you know what did it, sure,” she answered. “I’ve got all the measurements I’ll need. Though you do know I will still be charging full price for any additional sets, no matter which sex they are, right?”

He nodded. “Alright. Well, it happened the first time right when I’d been hit in the face by a door, soo…”

She stared at him. “... You want me to slam a door in your face.”

He nodded. “Specifically slamming it open, in case that’s part of it.”

“You’re serious.”

He nodded again. “I am.”

She rolled her eyes. “Then we can use the bathroom door. Specifically because it’s got spells on it to prevent injury.”

“That took a while,” Hagrid commented without looking, when Harry stepped out of Madam Malkin’s Robes for All Occasions. Harry looked; he was knitting what looked like a canary yellow circus tent, and counting stitches.

“Not too long, I hope,” he answered, with his female voice.

Hagrid looked, then heaved a sigh and visibly refrained from facepalming. Finally, he looked again. “At least that shirt fits,” he muttered, putting his knitting away and offering Harry one of the two completely un-melted ice creams next to him. “They’re non-meltable,” he supplied, by way of explanation.

Harry nodded. Madam Malkin had confirmed what he had suspected. He was almost a full size smaller as a girl, and about two inches shorter. As a result, especially since even the shirt with good buttons wasn’t protecting his chest very well, she had urged him to change into his new girl’s robes- or, at least, the shirt that came with one of the sets- as soon as he’d paid for them. While in the bathroom to do exactly that, Harry had noticed that the shirt and skirt combo, to be worn under the robe, would pass quite well as ‘muggle’ clothing, and so had changed into the full set, save only the robe and hat. The shirt had the Hogwarts crest embroidered on it, right over his heart, but unlike wizards (apparently), he knew that wouldn’t matter in London or anywhere else in the world he was familiar with. For as much as the skirt was making him uneasy, he rather liked how it felt.

Dear Professor Dumbledore,

Given Harry his letter. Harry was somehow turned into a boy, and is calling himself Harry. Taking him to buy his things tomorrow. Weather’s horrible. Hope you’re well.

Hagrid.

Dumbledore stared at Hagrid’s note at the breakfast table. So Harry had somehow been turned into a boy…? It didn’t make any sense- and if he hadn’t known Hagrid, he might’ve thought it was a joke. He’d have to ask the gamekeeper what he meant when he got back tonight.

Dumbledore glanced at his office clock. It was almost two o’clock; Hagrid was probably finishing up with Harry in Diagon Alley by now, and so would be back at the castle in an hour or so. He pulled out Hagrid’s letter once again, and looked at it, once again trying to make sense of it.

Dear Professor Dumbledore,

Given Hailey her letter. Harry was somehow turned into a girl, and is calling herself Hailey. Taking her to buy her things tomorrow. Weather’s horrible. Hope you’re well.

Hagrid.

He stared at the letter. Now it actually makes sense- but that was most certainly not what it had said earlier that same day! He drew his wand and started checking for charms. The letter, himself, his office, the Castle. Anything that might’ve messed with it or his ability to read it. The handwriting was just as flawlessly Hagrid’s as it had been before- almost like he’d written two of them, with that difference, and swapped them out when he wasn’t looking.

He’d still have to ask Hagrid for an explanation, since Harry couldn’t possibly have been turned into a girl, but at least he didn’t have to ask Hagrid why his letter had been full of nonsense.

Hermione Granger blinked twice when she stepped inside the Leaky Cauldron. It had gone from a grubby little pub on the outside to a veritable party house on the inside, though it looked like one of the cakes- which were large enough she was wondering how they weren’t collapsing under their own weight- had been launched… or something. A good sized swath of the room had been covered in icing and bits of cake, alongside everyone that had been in it. There were two mop buckets abandoned at the edge of the mess, and there were several more of the funny-haired children that seemed to be crowding the place rolling over a giant tub and carrying shovels that had icing on them. It looked like they were planning on carting away most of the mess, rather than attempting to dissolve it in a smaller quantity of mop water.

Then a very cheerful and very pink girl appeared in front of her. She was even covered, head to toe, in pink icing. “Goood morning, and welcome to the Wizarding World!”

“What happened?” she asked. She could tell that her parents and Professor McGonagall were still staring around the pub.

“I’m having a lot of difficulty getting the whittlies to behave,” she grumbled.

“Whittlies?” she asked.

“Don’t ask,” another girl said, but Hermione ignored her. “What are the whittlies?” she asked the pink girl.

The girl looked at her. “The whittlies? It’s-!” Hermione understood very few of the words the girl used, but she filed it in her brain for later reference anyways.

She did notice something, though. When the girl finished, she asked her next question. “You make it sound like they’ve behaved for you before?”

“Oh yes, they behave just fine where I’m from,” she said proudly. “”Back home, I can turn someplace like this into a party house with cakes six times this size and streamers and banners and everything- even guests- in about two seconds flat.”

“Why can’t you do that here?”

She scowled. “Because…” She sighed. “Well, the freddled gruntbuggly turns left instead of right over here, the micturations invert everything instead of just turning it upside down, and I can never tell how plurdled the gabbleblotchits are before I squiggle the lurgid.”

“Uh, Hermione, let’s move on,” her mother said, grabbing her by the shoulder.

She glanced up, before looking back at the pink girl. “I’ll see you later!” She then allowed her mother to guide her away, while the pink girl waved cheerfully.

Author's Note

On a scale of 1-10, how confused do you think Dumbledore is?

Or Hermione, for that matter.

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Anyone else notice that in canon, Draco’s robes were being worked on from the moment Harry walked in the door to the moment he left? It seems oddly incompetent of the assistant, doesn’t it? Well, I fixed that. And it gave Harry an opportunity…

Apparently, Madam Malkin has seen far more than her fair share of strange, so didn’t even blink at the news that Harry turns into a girl when slammed in the face by a door. (No, that’s not the real trigger, just both occurrences happened to fit the parameters for the real trigger)

Chapter 7: Platform Nine and Three Quarters

“Platform Nine. Platform Ten. Your platform should be somewhere in the middle, but they don’t seem to have built it yet,” Vernon observed, while Harry watched a fairly large crowd of funny-haired children- they were walking into the station from outside, with wheeled luggage, owls, and everything- vanish into the solid metal barrier between platforms. “Have a good term.”

He watched the Dursleys leave, jeering at him as they drove away, then looked forwards at the barrier, and shrugged. He had a pretty good idea of where he was going.

Though there was at least a part of him that wished there was a door convenient for someone to slam in his face. He hadn’t tried that at the Dursleys; the lot of them had been too scared of him to get close, so he hadn’t asked. He rather liked how nobody went nuts about Hailey, even though everyone in Diagon Alley and beyond had gone basically nuts at him whenever they realized who he was before he had turned himself into a girl.

At first, he’d thought the transformation would only last a few hours… but it held for the entire rest of the day, and he’d had to go to sleep as a girl at the Dursleys once again… and woken up to find himself a boy again. The Dursleys hadn’t said anything.

He pushed his trolley forwards, towards the barrier. He’d let it ‘rest’ against the barrier, then push against it, to see if that’s what it took without risking crashing if he was wrong.

He slowed down as he got close, and then-

The moment it touched, the barrier was nowhere, and he was instead facing a wide open platform crowded with funny-haired children and the occasional normal-looking family. There was a scarlet steam engine with a very long train behind it, but Harry couldn’t read the side through the crowd. As he walked forwards, he glanced back up at the wrought iron archway he’d passed through- which announced that he was indeed on Platform Nine and Three Quarters.

He gave a nod and pushed his trolly to the train, hunting for an empty compartment.

It didn’t take him very long. He put Hedwig into his selected compartment first, then started struggling with his trunk.

He had only dropped it painfully on his foot once before a couple of girls appeared. “Would you like some help with that?” one asked, her hair split between bright pink and dark blue.

“Yes please,” he answered.

“Okay then… so how heavy is it?” She squatted down, seized the other end of the trunk, and lifted. “Hmm…” She straightened up. “You’ve got a heavy one.” She looked at Harry. “We can drag it in, but in order to get it into the luggage rack, we’ll all have to work together. Diamond?”

The other girl nodded, and as Harry stood back, they took positions on either side of his trunk, lifted it, and dragged it into the train. He followed them in.

The girl was right. It did take all three of them to get it into the rack.

“That’s going to be a pain to get back down,” Harry muttered, looking up at it.

The girl nodded. “Yup.”

The other girl- Diamond Tiara, if he recalled correctly- nodded. “I’ll get the trolley,” she volunteered, and left, closing the door behind her.

The first girl heaved a sigh. “Whelp.” She held out her hand for him to shake. “I’m Bonbon, and it’s nice to meet you, Harry.”

He took the offered hand. “Nice to meet you too,” he muttered.

The girl took a deep breath. “Well, I have something of a proposal,” she began, in a very official tone of voice. “We have an… agreement with the Hogwarts Headmaster, in that we’re allowed to set up a student instructor program so that the few instructors that they have at the school will be able to teach the sudden influx of thousands this year. Naturally, we’ve picked and vetted a lot of our instructors- but believe it or not, you’re a candidate, though not…” She sighed. “It’s complicated, actually. We’ve got enough instructors that you’d be more of a backup or control, if you agree- the same instruction and everything as the other instructors… but no class to teach. There is a possibility that, if we have to fire an instructor, you could be given an assignment at some point in the year. Do you think that’s something you might be interested in?” She looked at him inquisitively.

Harry mulled it over for a few seconds. “It’s not because I’m famous, is it?” he asked bluntly.

She blinked. “You’re famous? Huh. News to me. And no, it’s not- it’s based mostly on Diamond’s evaluation.”

“Huh,” he muttered. “Alright, I’ll bite. Tell me more?”

It was nearly half an hour after Harry got on the train when Bonbon reappeared in the door to the compartment. She’d fully explained that program, and he’d agreed- even offered to let them use his compartment for the ‘student instructor course’ she warned him they’d need to give him before he arrived at the school. Once they reached the school, his actually becoming a student instructor would be contingent upon his having passed the instructor course.

He looked up when the door slid open. Bonbon wasn’t alone; she had a second girl with her now, with bushy brown hair.

“Harry, this is Hermione Granger,” Bonbon began. “Hermione, this is Harry Potter. You’ve both elected to be a part of our student instructor program, and we intend to use this compartment for the associated lesson. Hermione, is it going to be okay if we put your luggage in here, or do you want it somewhere else?”

Hermione, whose eyes had snapped to Harry’s when his name was mentioned, looked at Bonbon. “I assume we’ll be taking turns getting dressed?”

Bonbon nodded. “I would assume that too. Probably wait in the corridor or something.”

Harry shrugged. “Or you could slam a door in my face and it wouldn’t matter,” he smiled.

Bonbon gave him a weird look, but otherwise ignored his comment.

Hermione, on the other hand, looked at him with a perplexing expression on her face. “Yeah,” she muttered, slowly. “That’ll be fine by me. What about you, Harry?”

Harry shrugged again. “No problem here.”

“Alright.” Hermione looked at Bonbon, who nodded silently before they both disappeared.

It didn’t take them long to reappear, dragging a trunk that looked somewhat larger than Harry’s- and with Diamond’s help as well. The three of them stopped to catch their breaths once they got it in the compartment.

Harry stood up. “Would you like some help?” he asked.

Bonbon nodded. “Yup. And I thought yours was heavy. I think she’s got half a library in here.”

Hermione blushed. “I do not! I only got twelve extra books!”

Harry laughed, but took a position with the trunk anyways, to help lift it into the luggage rack. “Ready?”

The driver pushed the throttle a little bit further forwards. It was already much further than he’d pushed it before, and the train had shifted slightly when the brakes released, so he knew he wasn’t fighting those- but his locomotive had yet to move anywhere. He leaned out the side of the train to look at the wheels. They weren’t moving.

So he pushed it a little further, checking the pressure gauge on the locomotive. Full pressure.

Still nothing happened, so he pushed it a touch further again.

He got a response. The locomotive vibrated, but didn’t move forwards, despite the chuffing. He looked out again. The wheels were spinning in place.

He rolled his eyes, reduced the throttle until the wheels stopped spinning, and leaned out with his wand this time. He cast a quick spell to make the wheels incapable of slipping- it was incredibly useful during the winter, when the tracks could be layered with ice- and started pushing the throttle forwards.

He pushed it, slowly, while leaning out the side of the locomotive… then, at right about eighty percent of maximum throttle, he got a response again. And again, it wasn’t the one he was looking for.

The wheels weren’t slipping, though. His spell was doing its job.

Instead, he had put down so much power that the whole locomotive was rearing up.

His wand flashed forwards, and he forced the front of the locomotive back to the ground.

The conductor reached past him while he continued nudging the throttle forwards to launch an owl with a letter, probably to Dumbledore to warn him that the train was going to be late. “Do you think she’s going to go anywhere?”

“Perhaps,” the driver- a muggleborn, who actually had worked for a muggle railroad for a short time before the Ministry approached him with this job- muttered. “The train’s much too heavy for her. We might get it moving, but we aren’t going to be moving very quickly.” He sighed. “What we really need- and I told them we’d need it- is more locomotives.” The throttle reached ninety percent, but nothing happened. He kept pushing it.

“Would a featherweight charm work?”

“No, that’d just cause a derailment. I think it’s the weight of all the students that pushed it over the- Ahh, there we go!” At what had to be about ninety-five percent of maximum throttle, the locomotive had finally started moving. He continued nudging it higher, trying to get the acceleration rate up to what it was supposed to be, but hit maximum throttle before it got there. He sighed. “Maximum throttle. And whenever we start hitting the hills, we’re going to be stuck with whatever speed our emergency spells can give us, because she won’t be going up.” He was referring to a set of spells that had been designed to keep the train moving in the event that the locomotive broke down- which had happened depressingly often in the early days, but hadn’t happened for nearly thirty years.

The driver sat down on the catwalk on the side of the locomotive once again, listening to the sluggish thudding of the cylinders while he mopped the sweat off his brow. “Does Dumbledore know?” he asked the conductor. At least the magic was keeping the steam from cooling inside the cylinders, so he didn’t have to lose power by opening those valves. And for as little power as the locomotive could provide on its own, it was reducing the amount of magic he and the conductor had to keep dumping into it to keep it moving up the gradient.

The conductor nodded mutely, wand pointed at the drive wheels as he forced them to keep turning.

Then he looked up, down the tracks. There was a curve ahead, and-

He let out a sigh of relief. “We’re saved,” he muttered.

The locomotives rounding the curve ahead were not familiar to him, aside from being even more complicated muggle technology that he hadn’t been trained on, but there were twelve of them and they only had one car, right in the middle. They were also as silent as a ghost as they approached- despite the heat waves visible off the tops.

The conductor looked up too. “What in the name of Merlin is that?” he asked.

“Backup,” the driver told him. The things definitely weren’t intended for passenger service- but right at that moment, he didn’t care. All he cared was that there was someone standing on the catwalk on the front of the nearest locomotive (they seemed to have a somewhat random orientation, and from what he remembered, they were also better capable of backing up than his). And of course, that someone was using something in his hand to control them.

Finally, the twelve massive locomotives drew to a halt a short distance in front of the Hogwarts Express.

The driver stepped up to the front of the locomotive, even though it was going to be his turn at the drive wheels in a minute or so. “Are you here to save us?” he asked.

The man on the larger locomotive chuckled. “Yes, actually. We saw you crawling on satellite photos, and brought these in to see our students safely to Hogwarts. So…” He shrugged, and looked down. “What’s the pull spec on your front coupler?”

“Every bit of this train has been magically reinforced,” the driver answered, shaking his head. “It’s theoretically unbreakable.”

“Nice.” He looked down, in time for the couplers to clack together. The Hogwarts Express gave a little shudder as it pushed the larger locomotives to match its speed; they must not have had the brakes engaged. Then he looked back up. “Shall we get rolling, then?”

He nodded. “Yes please. We’ve got about five hours to cover nearly four hundred miles as it is.”

He scowled, raising his thing to his mouth. “Light ‘er up,” he commanded, then he lowered it. “Well, we’re not going to be able to make that kind of speed, but we can definitely get you there faster than this.”

Right as the man finished speaking, the massive locomotives each let out deep, basso growls that grew heavier and stronger for a second before the train started picking up speed.

“I’m… curious,” Hermione began, slowly. They’d both just passed the student instructor course- which hadn’t started until after the train had started moving, and had started with Harry and Hermione taking turns getting changed with the others waiting outside- with flying colors.

Twilight Sparkle, one of the instructors for the student instructor course, looked at her with raised eyebrows. “Mm?”

“What made you pick me?” Hermione asked. “For this, I mean.”

Bonbon shrugged. “You were the one that made us realize there were candidates amongst the British students as well,” she told her. “After that, it was a slam dunk. And the final evaluation was at the end of our course, just in case we were wrong with our preliminary evaluations, but…” She shrugged. “Flying colors.” She looked down at her clipboard. “As a matter of fact, I actually wasn’t aware that it was possible to do as well as you did.”

Hermione blushed scarlet.

Twilight nodded, peering at the clipboard as well. “Literally the one hundredth percentile. Even across all three thousand other instructors- a good ninety-five percent of which are much older and more experienced, and several of which are certified instructors where we come from. Hay, even I didn’t do as well!” She laughed good-naturedly.

Hermione’s blush darkened.

Right at that moment, there was a knock on the door. Bonbon slid it open.

It was a red-haired boy, about Harry’s age. “Do you mind if I join you?” he began, almost as soon as the door was fully open. “Everywhere else is full.” Then he blinked at the full compartment. “Er…”

“No worries,” Bonbon said, as she, Lyra, Twilight, Luna, Sunset Shimmer, and Starlight Glimmer stood up. “We were about ready to return to our compartment anyways.” She looked back at Harry and Hermione. “Is it okay if he joins you?”

Harry shrugged.

Hermione blinked. “Uh, sure,” she muttered. “There’s only… two hours or so left.”

Author's Note

First off, Hermione is wrong at the end there. She just doesn't know it yet.

As for how they got the train to the station in the first place... I don't know. Perhaps they assembled it at the station, perhaps it was downhill...

The driver is getting at the fact that 13,000 students will weigh something like 650 tons (at 100lb/ea average). Which is about 1/3 of the combined weight of the ’savior’ locomotives- nothing to a train.

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

There was a point, not too long ago, when I wrote the events all the way through Christmas... but decided that not enough shenanigans had happened, so didn't publish any of it- even to patrons- while I worked in how I wanted it to work. Well, I've finished that- then promptly got three entire new chapters scribbled into place in a matter of hours. We'll see how long it takes to hit the Chamber of Secrets... Or, as I believe I've mentioned before, I have biiiiig plans for Order of the Phoenix. Plans so big they may entirely derail the plotlines of the last two Harry Potter books... Not that there's much to lose there, let's be fair.

Chapter 8: Draco Malfoy

Draco closed his eyes, drawing in a deep breath as he counted to ten in his mind. He let it out in a huff, snapping his eyes back open to glare at Crabbe and Goyle, on the other side of the compartment.

Goyle continued munching on his stolen sweets, while Crabbe actually seemed to notice. “What?” he asked, through a mouthful of sugar.

“You two are idiots,” he told them flat-out.

“Yes,” Crabbe nodded, as if he’d just been complimented, and resumed his munching.

He raised an eyebrow, and turned sideways in his seat to rest his legs along it, leaning against the wall next to the window as he sighed. If he was entirely honest with himself, he was amazed it had taken him so long to realize just how stupid his bodyguards were. He’d known they would be thick- but his father’s words paled next to the stupidity evident in their faces, which also paled next to the reality.

But this? They were stealing the food he’d bought from the food trolley on its second pass through, and weren’t letting him have any.

And they had the gall to think he was complimenting them by calling them idiots.

He let out a snort. “You’re right,” he told them, without looking. “Calling you two idiots is an insult to all the real idiots out there.”

Crabbe choked on something. Draco looked, but he managed to clear his airways on his own. “Uh-huh,” he nodded eagerly.

Draco let out a laugh quite unbecoming of a Malfoy. “Case in point,” he told them. Then he scowled, and looked at Crabbe. “Come to think of it, how are you not in remedial care?”

For as stupid as the two boys were, it was a relief that their memory for facts- especially the books, Goyle could recite not just the words in his Potions book but exactly where each page was wrinkled- so they were usually pretty good at answering factual questions.

So long as he found a sufficiently easy-to-understand way to phrase it, or used enough of the uncommon words that were wrapped around the relevant passage in whatever texts they had read.

“Dad says rem-evil care is for sissies,” Crabbe informed him.

He rolled his eyes. “That would do it,” he nodded, and let out a sigh. “I wonder why we’ll be late…?” He scowled, then looked at Crabbe. “How many students does Hogwarts take each year?”

“Hogwarts originally served two spaces as few as three spaces thirty students newline at a time comma wrinkle,” Goyle recited. “Ink splotch tee in more recent someone drew a carrot ears Hogwarts wrinkle scratches wrinkle served an aver-wrinkle-age of two hundred two spaces forty newline students at a time comma next page-!” He paused briefly to draw breath. “Wrinkle ink splotch ten composed of two spaces forty students per year, often three spaces wrinkle ink splotch lit into ten stud hyphen newline wrinkle ents per house comma half half space girls and half wrinkle wrinkle ink splotch wye ess.”

It took Draco a minute to figure out what the original passage- probably from Hogwarts: A History- had been, before he scowled. “Huh. How many do you think were on the platform this morning?”

Goyle scowled thoughtfully for a couple seconds, during which someone knocked on the door. “None,” he answered.

Draco rolled his eyes. “No, it had to be more than that,” he told them. “You were there, after all.” He sat up straight and unlocked the door to find out who it was.

“Twenty seven thousand?” Crabbe guessed.

The door slid open to reveal one of the many funny-haired girls he’d seen on the platform. Her hair was split between white and light purple, and she’d already changed into her Hogwarts robes.

Draco looked at Crabbe. “Uh, no, it wasn’t anywhere near that many.”

“He’s actually not as far off as you might think,” the girl noted. “By our count, there were thirteen thousand, eight hundred twenty-seven.” She paused, glancing around the compartment. “Is there a free seat in here? Everywhere else is full of idiots.”

“And here isn’t?” Draco asked.

She shrugged. “Well, nobody here is going nuts after the thirty people wandering the train disguised as Harry Potter, nobody here is flinging underwear around-!”

Draco shuddered.

“Exactly,” she stated.

“Sure,” Draco answered. “Just…” He glanced at Crabbe and Goyle. “I can’t promise they won’t drive you batty as well.”

She shrugged, stepping in and closing the door behind her before picking a seat on Draco’s side of the compartment.

Draco smiled softly. “Just don’t let them see your food.”

She glanced at them, then back at Draco, and grinned. “Oh, I’ve dealt with some gluttons in my time,” she chuckled.

Draco looked at her. “So… thirteen thousand?”

She nodded. “Yup. Nobody had any clue what they were about for the first couple days, before they put out a proclamation about it. Hay, even I didn’t know what the letter was talking about until after I’d talked to Lyra!”

“Lyra?” he asked. “Who’s that?”

“My mom,” she answered promptly, with a small smile. “Well, one of them. But she’s the one that’s been messing with portals, and so the one that caused the whole shebang without even realizing it.” She shrugged, then held out her hand. “I’m Diamond Tiara, by the way.”

He took the offered hand gingerly and shook it. “Draco Malfoy,” he greeted. “So… why would your mom have to explain it, if…?” He scowled. “Wait, portals?”

She nodded. “Yup, interdimensional portals. Apparently, you British people can’t even see the portal, much less pass through it, but whatever.” She shrugged. “And as you might guess, magic looks very different on the other side. You might’ve seen Pinkie Pie in the Leaky Cauldron these last several weeks?”

He shook his head. “Nothing stood out at me,” he told her. “Except the mess, oh, the mess, when we were headed home.”

Diamond laughed. “Yup, that’s Pinkie, alright. I think she managed a total of two accident-free days out of the entire six weeks, and they were not back-to-back.” She shrugged. “She’s a bit strange even in our world, but on our side, wands simply don’t exist.”

He blinked. “Wands… don’t exist?” he asked.

She nodded. “Yup. And while everyone has magic, only about a third of them can use it freely like everyone here does.” She shrugged. “Even they can’t do that here, though. We don’t know what the difference is, but nobody’s had any particular trouble getting a reaction out of a wand at Ollivander’s shop.”

Draco scowled. “You say that like you’re not one of them.”

She let out a laugh. “Oh, I’m not,” she told him cheerfully. “Where we come from, the population is divided into three categories- the Raeths, the Aethrs, and the Etrahs. All three have magic- I don’t think there’s a single person, where we come from, that doesn’t. The difference between the three, though, is what kinds of magic they are biologically capable of using.

“The Raeths get magic similar to yours, though it doesn’t involve a wand- and doesn’t work on this side.” She shrugged. “That’s about it. Over here, they’re basically just ordinary witches and wizards- mostly witches, our male/female ratio is massively skewed for some reason, nobody knows why- though they can cast standing spells that will have effect on this side as well, even after the caster is no longer capable of interacting with it. For example, Lyra’s safety spell, that will teleport any of us home- and right through the gate as well- the moment someone or something tries to make off with us or otherwise significantly harm us. She said she’s adjusted it so some accidents in class shouldn’t trigger it, but we’re still guaranteed a safe return home basically no matter what happens.

“The Aethrs get a… slightly less active powerset, most of which is a national secret on this side- yes, annoying- but part of which remains active on this side: They’re almost universally faster than Raeths or Etrahs, and they can tolerate crashes, collisions, or other general mishaps a lot better.

“The Etrahs were long seen as the ‘weak link’ in our ancient history, almost like your muggles- but we held our own in a war against the Raeths a few thousand years ago, so we can’t be that bad. And unlike both of the others, our powers remain fully active on this side.” She sighed. “Not that they amount to much. Mostly just strength, and Herbology affinity.” She shrugged. “And some of the most amusing reactions when first meeting our wands, according to Ollivander.”

“Strength?” Draco asked.

She nodded. “To the point where the three of you could probably all punch me on the nose as hard as you could, and I only might get a nosebleed. It’s more impressive when we’re older, and we’re fairly sure the age thingy with our portal is causing even the older ones to temporarily regress to youthful power levels, so…” She shrugged.

He scowled, thinking. “How… How does that work? Like…” He trailed off, unsure of how to word it.

“That falls under national secret heading as well,” she informed him. “Though I suppose magically speaking, there is something that binds all three, uh, groups together: The…” She trailed off herself, and scowled, putting her hand on her chin. “I’m not sure what to call it, actually. The magic itself isn’t a secret- and it’s the one thing that’s active for every last one of us on this side as well- but the name is a national secret.” She sighed. “So I don’t know. It’s like this… thing we have to discover, that gives us some extra power, and it’s different for each different person.”

“Unique Talent?” Draco proposed.

She looked at him. “Yeah, that works, I suppose.” She tilted her head. “Describes the power part of it pretty well, actually. It’s really only the secret part of it that it doesn’t fit. But yeah, everyone’s got it- and there have been some pretty good ones. Like my other mom, Bonbon- her Talent means that whenever she makes candy, they’re going to be some of the best you’ve ever tasted… and might have some peculiar effects, since she’s also a highly advanced alchemist. If I remember right, she’s going to be the Head Student Instructor for Potions this year.”

His head snapped around. “Student Instructor?” he asked.

She nodded. “Yeah. Lotsa people weren’t told about it, but since Hogwarts was never designed to handle thirteen thousand students, Lyra and Twilight got in contact with Dumbledore and set up a student instructor program with him, so some students will study under the teachers then turn right around and teach the same thing to students of their own. At first, they thought that they could only draw on talent from our side, since our portal makes even the oldest of us into an eleven-year-old with a Hogwarts invitation, but then Hermione Granger appeared and… Well, she listened to Pinkie Pie explaining what she does, and didn’t catch fire from the effort of understanding it.

“Nobody from our side has ever done that- we’ve all had to simply accept that Pinkie Pie defies explanation. So, they started considering people from this side as well.” She shrugged. “But since they started looking so late, they found only very few candidates within the allotted timeframe, and Bonbon said she expects they missed at least a couple more valid or possibly even better candidates than the ones they found. For those they missed…” She shrugged again. “Oh well, maybe next year.”

Author's Note

Yes. Crabbe and Goyle aren't stupid- they're disabled. And wizarding society doesn't have psychology, so they don't even know...

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Chapter 9: First Report

“Come in,” Dumbledore called.

It was Saturday afternoon, time for the foreigners’ first weekly update on how the student instructors were doing. Their contact point, which could always be reached by sending letters to the ‘Hogwarts Student Instructor Program’, had been informed of how to reach his office that morning- and, of course, of the password.

The door opened, and a student stepped in. Her candyfloss hair was split between a bright pink and a dark blue. “Good afternoon,” she greeted, bowing as she crossed the threshold. “My name is Bonbon, and I’m in charge of the Student Instructor Program.” She carried a thick deck of what looked like paper rather than parchment under one arm- though parts of it were rotated ninety degrees from the rest, so he rather suspected it was actually multiple decks of paper that had been stacked together in such a way as to keep them separate.

He nodded. “Please, take a seat,” he said, gesturing towards the chair opposite him. “I would be delighted to hear how everything has been going.”

The girl didn’t smile, her expression staying sternly businesslike, but she did cross to the chair and take the offered seat. “Alright then.” She placed the papers on his deck. “The Student Instructor program has been going decently well, when compared to what we expected. The first point of contention would be the Slytherin Potions instructors; many of them have approached us with the news that they hadn’t learned enough in Professor Snape’s class to be of any use in their lesson. They apparently weren’t sure what he was even trying to teach, and cited him favoring them too much as their reason why.” She sighed. “Unfortunately, this was a common theme- except the favoring- across two of the other three houses, the exception being Ravenclaw, but they were each only slightly over expected turnover instead of well above it. Unfortunately, all told, it meant that only four of our Potions classes this week had the intended two instructors- and that about a third of the remainder were unable to have an instructor from the same House as any of the students.

“While only one of the Ravenclaw instructors expected an inability to teach anything, a vast majority complained that Professor Snape’s teaching methods amounted to little more than supervised self-study.” She looked up at him, as if expecting a response.

Dumbledore sighed, didn’t say anything, and nodded for her to continue. He would have to talk to Snape after this.

She gave a small, sharp nod of acknowledgement, and continued. “As you no doubt know, we have been asking for all instructors and professors to rate the in-class performance of each student individually, not just for the students to rate their teachers- and we did notice that the performance of Professor Snape’s students was about thirty percent lower than any other Professor, on average, and he had almost fifty percent more failing students than any of the other Professors.” She glanced meaningfully up at him.

He already knew that, though. He wasn’t very good at potions himself, though, and believed it was simply because of the wildly different nature of the subject. “How is Harry doing?” Dumbledore asked.

She smiled. “Harry was in one of the single-instructor courses taught by one of the few remaining Slytherin instructors, even though half his classmates were Ravenclaws. He told his instructor directly that he found her class easy to follow and felt he had learned quite a bit. He does seem to like doing that when he has a glowing report.

“The next problem area is Charms, where a vast majority of all of our instructors expressed some confusion over the material, and felt that they didn’t have enough time to study it before their own classes. However, Professor Flitwick approached us early this week to warn us he normally expects a high degree of confusion for the first few weeks. This is because, according to Flitwick, it takes those first few weeks to deliver the foundational knowledge that he can then build upon, and without that full foundation, the rest of it can be just as confusing.” She sighed. “We don’t like it, but we’ll take it. We’ve made sure our instructors are aware of this as well.

“Finally, and perhaps worst of all, we have Defense Against the Dark Arts. Professor Quirrell reported one hundred percent uptake on his material and said our instructors were learning very well, but our instructors have all, to a student, complained that there is nothing to learn in his class- and have asserted that his classes are, what was it?” She lifted the top page on the stack to peer at it. “ ‘A bit of a joke and the rest a useless waste of time’,” she quoted. “Naturally, they each used their own language- but considering our Student Instructor pool for the subject includes not only several high-ranking members of our nation’s military force but the thousand-year-old Commander In Chief of our armed forces, who- how did she put it?”

As the girl looked down at the page again, Dumbledore got the distinct idea that she already knew what she would find there, but wanted to make it clear that she was quoting it.

She nodded briefly. “ ‘We have determined the classes of Quirrell’s design to be woefully inadequate and a loss of otherwise useful time. Verily, the youngest student thereof will without doubt teach a greater lesson of British Defense Against the Dark Arts from memory, for this class contained absolute absence of usable information’.” She sighed. “You know she’s angry when she starts using oldespeak like that- but I’ve never seen her angry enough to mess up even its grammar. So whatever Professor Quirrell did in that class, it wasn’t just useless, it was provocative.” She glanced down at the page again. “We also received at least six reports from our Gryffindor student instructors that Quirrell seemed sorely disappointed when he learned he would not be seeing Harry Potter in his class, and not in a good way. Two of them used the word ‘predatory’ in their reports.

“Because of that, even though we’re sure he would be a great instructor should we need a Gryffindor substitution, we’ve actually decided not to consider him for Defense Against the Dark Arts openings. It doesn’t matter how good of an instructor he might be, we’re not going to knowingly place him in harm’s way.” She finally drew to a close, and looked up at him.

“That’s… quite enlightening,” Dumbledore agreed. “What about the other three subjects, though? Transfiguration, Herbology, and Astronomy?”

“There was some confusion amongst the Herbology Student Instructors, but with no exceptions, their partners were able to help them- this is the reason they have partners in the first place, though we didn’t expect them to need them quite so quickly. They have been able to teach their students equally well- better, even, than Professor Sprout, in some cases, though we think that’s because of the confusion and recovery- they had some more recent experience of how their students might be confused. We have passed that information back up to Professor Sprout to help her anticipate and understand future confusion, and have our eyes on a potential Head Student Instructor for Herbology.

“Astronomy and Transfiguration were…” She paused, thinking. “Right about the same as each other. The Student Instructors told us, to a student, that they didn’t understand the material fully and expected it was because they didn’t have the full picture, but had learned lots to teach their own classes. For Professors McGonagall and Sinistra, they were both impressed with their students, and told us that in-class performance was well ahead of any of their other classes, including past first-year classes. When we compared their classes’ performances with those of their students, there was very little difference, so we expect the dual-instructor system is working well for us there too.”

He scowled. “Any news on the magic of your home?” he asked, referring to a secondary effort of the foreigners to bring the magical capabilities they had where they came from into Britain.

She shook her head. “No luck, unfortunately. To be entirely honest, none of us know where to start- so we expect it to take possibly many years. That may change, depending on what we can learn here.”

He nodded slowly. “How about… whats-her-name, Miss… Grainer, was it?”

Bonbon tilted her head in question.

“The other reserve instructor you told me about,” he clarified. They had sent him a very long and detailed letter about their instructor assignments during the first night of term, and had mentioned two more they had trained up but that they hadn’t assigned. He’d been very tired when he read it, so while he knew Harry Potter was one of them, he didn’t remember the other one’s name very well- and it hadn’t been important enough for him to interrupt his already enormous workload to reread it since.

“Ahh,” she muttered, and nodded. “That’d be Hermione Granger. At the moment, she’s one of only three students across the entire body of first-years to have a perfect score in every class. The only other thing about her worth noting is that she seems to have been an instant friend of Pinkie Pie’s. Which is not surprising, knowing Pinkie, but they seem closer than most- and I’ve heard they’ve been seen talking nonsense to each other as if it made perfect sense.”

It was Dumbledore’s turn to be confused. He tilted his head. “How is that significant?”

“Pinkie Pie is rather well known where we come from for, ahh…” She shrugged. “For starters, the laws of physics and magic alike seem to mean very little to her. Just about everyone where we’ve come from has been forced to accept that she defies explanation- but it would seem Miss Granger is actually making headway on explaining her. She’s much more analytical than Pinkie, though, so we’re waiting to see how that’s going to pan out.”

“Interesting,” Dumbledore mused. He might even be able to use that, if Granger was good enough, in his Plan; she would widen the safety margins, which the foreigner’s presence already did to an extent. He tilted his head. “You mentioned a ‘Head Student Instructor’?”

“Yes,” she stated simply. “Thanks to the number of Student Instructors we have, we’ve built a hierarchy into them. For any given subject, there are four levels- and the students are at the bottom. Whenever they have a problem, they turn to their Student Instructors- and if those have a problem, or are unable to solve their student’s problems, they turn first to their partners- that’s what they’re there for, after all- before going up the chain to the Head Student Instructor. We don’t currently have HSIs for most subjects- Twilight is HSI for Charms, and I’m HSI for Potions, but the slot is unoccupied for Transfiguration, Herbology, Astronomy, and Defense Against the Dark Arts, though we have our eyes on a candidate for Herbology. If the HSI is unable to help them, does not exist, or has a problem of their own, they go to your Professors at the top of the ladder.

“Additionally, it is the HSI’s job to periodically review and sit in on the other Student Instructors’ classes for their subject, as a verification step to ensure all students are being taught properly. For the subjects that don’t have HSIs, our management team periodically reviews them.

“And finally, our management team periodically sits in on our HSIs’ classes as well, for the same purpose- and if ever someone isn’t up to snuff, we’ll either help them get up to snuff or exchange them for someone else.”

Author's Note

What all is in those documents? It's probably a full, highly-detailed report, fit to occupy a couple nights with reading about how well- or poorly- any given student was doing. And to keep him up for twice as many nights wondering how in the world they have the time to compile all that information...

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You may have noticed she didn't mention History of Magic at all. There's a reason for that.

Chapter 10: The Midnight Duel

Draco crouched down, carefully, in the trophy room, wand drawn in case Potter jumped out and started right away. He glanced behind him, at where Crabbe and Goyle both crouched- and both, he knew, had left their wands downstairs in the Slytherin common room. He, like Potter he suspected, knew that neither of them would need their ‘seconds’.

He also knew that he was almost half an hour early. But no matter; it gave him plenty of time to run over the events so far in his head.

Nearly two weeks ago, the Sorting had been rather surprisingly uneventful, despite happening just an hour before midnight. Somehow, they had gotten all thirteen thousand students sorted in just ten minutes- and Draco could swear there just wasn’t the time to do that, especially since his sorting alone took almost all of them; the Hat had really not wanted to put him in Slytherin, but he had insisted. He knew his father wouldn’t have been happy if he ended up anywhere else, not to mention the damage it would do to the Malfoy family name- and his own future. The Hat had, eventually, let up- but told him where he really would have done best.

Gryffindor, apparently. The one House that would be even worse than Hufflepuff. Hufflepuff formed much of the middle class, but Gryffindor housed literally all of the blood traitors.

After the sorting, Dumbledore had stood up to announce that the Welcoming Feast would proceed as normal, albeit a bit late because the Hogwarts Express had “needed a leg-up”. As a direct result, both breakfast and the morning classes the next day would be delayed somewhat, to let them all get a good night’s sleep before it came time to study.

The next morning, which had started a mere one hour later than it had ever since, he’d found out about their whole ‘student instructor’ program in a big way. It was kinda hard to miss how he didn’t have any classes with any of the school’s professors. All his teachers had very strange names- and every class had two of them, as well.

And, as he had found out through his classes, every one of them were students themselves. His Charms instructors in particular didn’t seem to understand their own material, and had even spent half of his last class goofing off. He was starting to get the idea he was going to have to teach himself for the most part.

Quidditch lessons had been the only exception; for as much as Professor Binns had lectured a class of a thousand or so at once, Draco didn’t really consider that a class. Madam Hooch apparently taught all of them- and according to the poster in the common room, she would be cycling through the entire body of first-years throughout the year, in order to teach them all to fly.

And, as he had found out when he walked out onto the grounds without Crabbe and Goyle (the first had Transfiguration and the other Potions), he happened to have the same flying class as the famous Harry Potter, another Gryffindor whose last name was Longbottom (he didn’t remember the boy’s first name), a Weasley he didn’t care to know the name of, and a bushy-haired girl the Weasley didn’t like- he had no idea who she was or why the Weasley didn’t like her- that was very disapproving of Harry’s decision to follow him into the air after Longbottom’s remembrall.

That evening, he’d encountered Harry walking down a passage next to the Weasley, the girl a little off to the side and looking hopeful, and confronted him. “Having a last stroll, Potter?”

For some reason even he couldn’t fathom, the confrontation had ended with him issuing a challenge to a wizard’s duel here in the trophy room. The Weasley had furiously accepted it for Harry and announced himself to be Harry’s second, despite his friend looking confused.

So Draco had identified Crabbe as his second (like he’d need a second) and set the time and place.

And now… he waited.

His ears perked at the sound of shuffling footfalls. It sounded like more than two people, though.

Then, they entered.

It was Harry and the Weasley, all right. They were followed by both the girl and Longbottom- the first looking irritated, the latter scared.

Malfoy rose from his hiding place and stepped out, Crabbe and Goyle taking position behind him.

Harry’s eyes locked on him as he silently took his place in the room.

Harry then obeyed his body language, and took the accepted position facing him; his party moved in behind him as well, though a lot less synchronized.

Then the girl sucked in a sudden breath, head whirling to look at the door.

Everyone froze, listening… then, Draco heard it too.

“Sniff around, my sweet. They might be hiding in a corner.” It was Filch.

Draco turned and started tip-toeing to the opposite door, just like the rest. “Quietly,” he hissed at Crabbe and Goyle.

Finally, Goyle’s robes had just whipped around the corner when they heard Filch entering the trophy room.

It wasn’t long after that before something happened. Draco, being behind the girl, didn’t see what had happened- but one moment, they were walking down a gallery full of suits of armor… and the next moment, Longbottom, the Weasley, and one of the suits of armor were all over the floor.

“RUN!” he yelled, in time with Harry, and they all took off. Harry yanked the two boys back to their feet as they fled.

Draco noticed that Crabbe and Goyle had suddenly disappeared from his sides. He glanced back as they rounded the corner out of the gallery, just in time to see Filch enter the gallery only to run face-first into Goyle. They had run in the wrong direction.

Oh well. It just meant that he was on his own… which suited him. All he needed was to get away from the rest for long enough to cast some family magic spells, and he could return, unhindered, to the Slytherin common room.

Still, though, he ran with them. He wasn’t exactly sure why- maybe it was because the numbers would make it easier to confuse Filch if he caught up?

Finally, they stopped running, in a distant corridor.

“I- Told- You!” the girl told Harry, between great gasps of breath while she clutched the stitch in her side. “I told you! Filch knew we were there!”

“He did,” Draco mused, much more accustomed to running (an exercise routine to maintain his appearance, mostly) than she, the Weasley, or Longbottom, though apparently less so than Harry, who looked like he was ready to do it again. He wondered, silently, why Harry seemed so practiced.

“I think we lost him,” the Weasley muttered, evidently ignoring the girl.

Harry hardly glanced at either of them before turning to lead again. “Let’s go.”

No sooner had he done so, though, than a doorknob rattled… and Peeves the Poltergeist appeared, zooming out of the newly opened classroom door, squealing in delight.

“Shut up, Peeves, please!” Harry pleaded. “You’ll get us thrown out!”

Draco raised an eyebrow. He knew, from what his father had told him, that it was actually hard to get expelled from Hogwarts.

“Wandering around at midnight, ickle firsties,” Peeves jeered. “Naughty naughty, you’ll get caughty!”

Draco took a deep breath, planning to make a break for it. Peeves would almost certainly not let them go quietly. He missed the words Harry and Peeves exchanged after that, until-

“Get out of the way, Peeves!” The Weasley barked, taking a swipe at Peeves.

Draco resisted the urge to facepalm just moments before Peeves let out a holler. “Students out of bed! Students out of bed, down the Charms corridor!”

The Weasley then led the charge, past Peeves, to the door at the end- where he crashed into it. “We’re done for,” he announced.

Draco looked to the side, listening to Filch’s footsteps. These classrooms would be great hiding places, and he knew Peeves would rather infuriate Filch further than tell him where they had gone.

“Oh move over,” the girl stated, snatching Harry’s wand and tapping the door. “Alohomora.” The door opened, and they all slipped through it… and stopped on the other side, listening… and facing it, with Draco in the back. He closed his eyes briefly, gripping his wand at both ends, and opened them again to make sure noone was watching before he started mouthing incantations.

It was a tricky piece of magic… but it was also very simple, in a manner of speaking, since he’d been practicing these incantations since he was five. It was a secret, Malfoy family spell, and it came in two parts.

The first part would give him a limited transformation ability- limited in how long he could stay transformed, how frequently he could change… and in what he could turn into.

The second part- which was the important one- would let him turn invisible, at the cost of shortening the maximum transformation duration.

But it would be long enough to reach the Slytherin common room.

He had just finished casting the first part when his attention was drawn to the others by an exasperated “What?” He looked up, and followed their gazes down the room… No, corridor. The forbidden corridor Dumbledore had mentioned after the welcoming feast- and there was a giant three-headed dog standing right there, in the middle of the passage and beginning to growl.

Harry threw the door open, and they all fled, back down the passage.

Draco fled with them. He didn’t care about Filch, or even where he was going- he just wanted to create space between him and that dog, and the others seemed to be a good way to do that.

It wasn’t until they reached a corridor with an oil painting of a fat lady that he realized his mistake. He should have run separately, rather than following them to the Gryffindor common room.

He made a snap decision, and slowed down to deliberately fall behind. He was bringing up the rear with the girl, after all- and he didn’t particularly want her to realize what he was doing.

Then, he activated the spell he had cast in the dog’s corridor.

He had spent much of his free time, over the last week and a half, designing and ‘saving’ some forms he could shift into- and by now, he could make himself into a Ravenclaw boy… or a Gryffindor boy.

Thanks to the spell, he seamlessly shifted to become a fairly generic Gryffindor boy. Rather fortunately, the spell included his clothes, so his robes were automagically adjusted to fit his new, slightly different stature- and to reflect the name he’d made up for it: Alastor Abraxis.

He had to admit, he wasn’t very imaginative. But it worked.

“Where have you all been?” the fat lady asked- and Draco felt instantly uneasy when the girl glanced behind them and looked at him curiously.

“Nevermind that,” Harry told the Fat Lady. “Pig snout, pig snout.”

The portrait swung forwards… and Draco followed them into Gryffindor Tower. He quickly took a seat near the entrance, and made as if he’d always been there, while the others collapsed into armchairs near the fire.

There were a few minutes of silence before anyone spoke- and when it was, it was Weasley, facing away from Draco, so he didn’t catch what he was saying- aside from something about dogs and exercise.

The girl scowled. “You don’t use your eyes, do you? Didn’t you see what it was standing on?”

The Weasley twitched in her direction, but resolutely didn’t look at her.

Harry blinked. “The floor?” he asked. “I wasn’t looking at its feet- I was too busy with its heads.”

She rolled her eyes. “No, not the floor- it was standing on a trapdoor. It’s obviously guarding something. I hope you’re pleased with yourselves, because we could all have been killed- or worse, expelled!” She glared at them- mostly, Draco noticed, the Weasley.

It was only a couple minutes after that when all three boys headed up the stairs to their dormitory- after which the girl stood up, looked around, then walked over to sit next to Draco. “So… Malfoy?” she asked, looking curiously at him.

He didn’t move.

She glanced at his nametag. “Or… Alastor, then?”

He still didn’t move.

She let out a small sigh and continued on. “I noticed…” She glanced around, as if making sure nobody was listening. “I noticed you… changed?” She gestured towards him. “How did you do it?”

He looked at her. “You’re… okay with me, being here…?”

She shrugged. “Some things are more important.”

He laughed.

Author's Note

Some things are more important, aren't they?

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Chapter 11: Doored

“Very little has changed on the Potions side of things,” Bonbon stated meaningfully, while placing a larger stack of papers on Dumbledore’s desk than she had done the week before. This would be the third weekly report- and while he’d thought the stack she’d produced the first week was a lot, since it had taken him nearly three days to read, the second week’s report had been so long he’d only finished it the night before. It had, however, been even more enlightening than the first. A part of his brain wondered, idly, how they found the time to write the things- before quickly discarding that thought. They had literally thousands of people available, and he knew they had an entire management team.

He wished he could say his Professors were a team, but alas, he couldn’t.

“Professor Snape has informed me he is working on it,” Dumbledore answered her unasked question. “He tells me Potions isn’t a very easy subject to teach.”

She bowed her head. “Alright. Please inform him that we would be happy to make suggestions if he wishes. Some of our instructors have found methods that seem to work quite well- packet number two describes them.” She tapped one finger on one of the separated segments of the larger stack of pages.

This little stack looked like it’d only take one day to read- he’d have to skim it over and give it to Severus to see what he thought of it. “Very well,” he told her.

She sighed. “Well, three of our substitutions stuck this week, but we’ve had two of the others quit as well- so overall, we’re up only one Potions instructor, and still missing far too many of them. We’ve tried considering both Harry and Hermione, but Snape bristles whenever Harry’s name gets mentioned in his presence- we’re not sure why, and it doesn’t feel malicious, but a dislike like that could get in the way of efficient education- and while Hermione’s Potions grades have been flawless, she’s blown the top off the scale in almost every other subject. Whatever her strength is, Potions isn’t it- just her baseline is high enough she’s dominating it anyways.” She sighed. “And we’re hoping to minimize the extracurricular load on her right now anyways, to give her more time to maybe figure Pinkie out.

“As for Charms, general confusion levels are a little lower than last week, but Professor Flitwick tells us to expect it to start clearing up for real next week, so everyone’s really just holding on for now.

“Transfiguration is going smoothly; Professor McGonagall has started into the transfiguration portion of her class, and our instructors have followed suit, with… varied success. I understand Madam Pomfrey has been kept… well, busy.”

Dumbledore smiled softly at her humorless tone. At least once that week they’d had to bring in a second nurse from St. Mungo’s to help deal with the numbers of students reporting to the infirmary all of a sudden.

She sighed. “Yeah, there’s definitely some information drop going on there- something our instructors are forgetting, most likely. We’re not sure where it is just yet, and are working with Professor McGonagall to find and correct it.

“As a good note in the deck, Astronomy is going well. Professor Sinistra offered and was allowed to sit in on a couple of our instructors’ classes under an invisibility cloak, and tells us she was impressed with how well they were doing- especially in the material comprehension evident in how our instructors were not only able to reteach what she taught them but to mold it into their own teaching styles… and their own students’ learning styles. She actually expressed interest in a dual-instructor setup for her classes as well.” She grinned up at Dumbledore.

“I… regret that may be untenable,” Dumbledore frowned. “Though with the number of students in evidence, I might be able to coax the Board to let me start hiring redundant Professors. But… allowed?”

Bonbon shrugged. “She didn’t have an Invisibility Cloak of her own. If any of your Professors want to witness our students’ classes inconspicuously, we will do everything we can to help them.” She shrugged. “In any case, that’s going very, very well.

“So on with History of Magic.”

“Weren’t we leaving that to Professor Binns?”

She sighed. “Unfortunately, with class sizes of just over six thousand, we had over ninety percent of his classes telling us they couldn’t hear him from so far away and the remaining ten percent said his lecture was so boring they were asleep for most of it. Compound that with how he admitted he doesn’t actually pay any attention to the class except as a reminder of what he’s doing, and starting this week, we switched it over to the same pattern as the rest. Our History of Magic instructors are almost universally skilled professors in their own right where we come from, with good reputations for class attention- and have been vetted and selected for a good attention span and tolerance for boringness, so we should be able to, ahh, mediate Professor Binns’ tone a little. We’ve seen a massive upturn in both grades and student satisfaction, so it must be working.

“Herbology is doing even better. Professor Sprout’s classes look a little bit less like teacher and student and more like a team with a clear leader, for the most part- she tells us she’s been amazed with how well they’re doing. Not surprising, honestly, when you consider that a third of our population are natural… er, herbologists, I guess, and we did favor them for Herbology. But as of last night, Applejack is our Head Student Instructor for Herbology. Yes, she’s one of the natural herbologists, but she’s also a farmer- and any of the other Student Instructors, or even Professor Sprout, would be hard pressed to slip something past her.”

Dumbledore waited a couple seconds. “And Defense Against the Dark Arts?”

“Better than last week,” she said immediately. “Attendance in Quirrell’s classes is down to an all-time low of about fifteen percent, but he’s still reporting all students- including the ones that didn’t show up- as having learned his material in full, and the ones that do show up are still telling us there’s nothing to learn. That said, we have made positive progress in the library, and have been working with Professors Flitwick and Kettleburn to determine what might make suitable first-year material and what might not. Our instructors in the subject have been working on the defensive mindset and heightened awareness in the meantime- a principle we expect to be universal between our worlds. I’m told they plan on waiting the counterattack until they have something significant from the other subjects that they can build upon.”

Dumbledore scowled. “He showed me his lesson plans last night,” he muttered. “He had everything laid out. Hmm… I… I think I have an idea what’s going on.” He wasn’t sure that it was Voldemort- but it would certainly explain why Professor Quirrel, who had taught at Hogwarts before and knew the Defense Against the Dark Arts position was cursed, had accepted the position.

But, he couldn’t jump to conclusions- especially where Voldemort was concerned. He’d have to have someone keep an eye on him- something else to talk to Snape about.

She shrugged. “He has directly asked us about Harry’s schedule, but our resident lie detector smelled a rat, so we refused.”

Dumbledore paused in the Entrance Hall, unfolding the piece of parchment he was carrying. He then nodded to himself; it read exactly as he expected. It was the letter Hagrid had sent him a month and a half prior, when he’d caught up with Harry- and reported cheerfully that Harry had been turned into a boy, when he was one already.

At least, he was fairly sure he was one already. He could have sworn that Lilly’s letter had told him they had a son called Harry, not a daughter called Harry- or whatever other name had appeared on it that day; he’d forgotten it. But alas, he had not been able to turn up Lilly’s letter, so he was going down to meet Hagrid.

He sighed, and passed through the oak front doors. The sun was just peeking over the horizon- but he knew that Hagrid was usually up long before then anyways.

When he knocked on the cabin door, exactly as expected, Hagrid appeared at the door, still bleary-eyed and yawning. “Ah- Professor Dumbledore,” he greeted.

“Good evening, Hagrid,” Dumbledore greeted in return. “I was wondering if you could tell me what happened when you fetched Harry.”

“Ahh…” Hagrid scratched his beard, blinking the tiredness out of his eyes. “Ahh, yes. It was…” He trailed off, like he wasn’t sure what word to use. “Confusing,” he decided. “Very confusing. Harry was a girl when I first met him, then turned himself into one again in Diagon Alley.” He paused. “I haven’t seen him around Hogwarts as a girl, though. Only as a boy.”

Dumbledore held up the folded piece of parchment. “What do you make of this?”

Hagrid took it, unfolded it, and read it. “Looks like the letter I sent you,” he answered, handing it back.

Dumbledore looked at it, curiously.

It told him Harry had been turned into a girl named Hailey. So that’s what the female name was.

“It’s changed again,” he sighed.

“What?” Hagrid asked.

Professor McGonagall looked up at the seven large screech owls sitting in a row in front of her. “You got that?” she asked them.

They all, to an owl, nodded. One then looked down at the scroll she had just addressed and hooted suddenly.

She looked down… just in time for the name on it to morph from ‘Harry’ to ‘Hailey’.

She blinked. “Well… going to Hailey, then, I guess.” She tilted her head. “This should be interesting.”

She could tell that the owls were laughing.

“Gah!” Harry stumbled backwards, and managed to regain his balance before he fell. The change in his center of mass was rather helpful in this regard, despite being slight.

“What-?” Ron asked, looking around the door- and closing it behind him. “What are you doing in our dormitory?”

Harry, who had been using the bathroom in one of the empty Equestrian dormitories because the toilet in the one attached to his and Ron’s dormitory had been destroyed by something while they were away, folded his arms, determinedly ignoring the strange sensation on his chest. At least bathrobes were unisex- and it might have been slightly too big, but that wasn’t enough to be a problem. “What’s wrong with that?” he asked sharply, but quietly. “How about you be a little more careful with that door? You could have broken my nose!” He could tell that it wasn’t broken, though it was a bit sore.

Ron snorted, and opened his mouth to speak.

Harry- knowing, somehow, that he was going to speak loudly and wake everyone else up- reacted faster. His hand flashed up, snatching his wand from his pocket. He wasn’t sure why he had taken it with him to the restroom, but he had. “Silencio.”

Despite being rather universally hailed as a tricky charm, it worked like a charm. Ron started mouthing at him. “That wouldn’t have,” Harry lipread, before Ron realized that he’d been silenced and broke off.

Ron then took a quick step towards him, hands rising in a threatening manner.

Harry didn’t think Ron was going to be violent, but he did get the idea that Ron was going to try to express his irritation in a slightly more physical manner.

“Impedimenta,” he muttered.

Ron froze for a second, then unfroze, stopped, and let his arms hang while he glared at Harry.

Harry let the silencing charm fall off. The Impediment Jinx already only lasted a couple seconds. “Seriously?” he asked.

Though if he was honest, even he was amazed that he’d pulled off both spells successfully. He’d never attempted the first one, and had never even heard of the second one, let alone comprehended it… yet for some reason, he knew exactly what to do each time, almost like someone had been doing it for him.

Yet, he also knew he had been doing it, not someone else.

Ron glared at him, then turned sharply to walk around him and disappear into the Equestrian door.

Harry shrugged. The Equestrian dorms were set up very oddly, with four layers of junction rooms that seemed to be much larger than they had the space to be before it reached a truly massive number of five-bed dormitories. There were seven doors out of each junction room, and the night before, the Equestrian boys had helpfully posted pieces of parchment on a set of the doors to guide British boys in and out of one specific empty dorm to use the bathroom.

Finally, he looked at the door Ron had emerged from, down at himself, and back at the door. He didn’t have any clothes that weren’t behind that door.

Finally, he sighed, pulled it open, and stepped inside.

The other three British Gryffindor first-year boys- Dean, Seamus, and Neville- were all still snoring. He shut the door quietly, moved to his bed, and quickly dressed himself in one of the sets of girl’s robes he’d buried at the bottom of his trunk to hide them from the others. Finally, since Neville was yawning and Ron had to be close to getting back, he left the room quickly and headed downstairs. Returning to bed in the evening would be… interesting, to say the least. He’d have to find some way to wait until the others were asleep.

When he entered the common room, he scanned the room quickly, hoping there was nobody to see him coming down the boy’s staircase.

There was, but only one. It was Hermione.

She blinked at him. “That’s the boy’s dormitories,” she informed him simply.

“I know,” he answered. Then he made a quick decision. “Um… Hermione?”

“Mm?” Hermione asked, tilting her head at him.

He walked closer, and sat in a chair next to hers. “Well…” He paused. “I… I’m not sure how to say it. I… Er…” He paused, thinking- then it occurred to him. His scar still appeared on his forehead; he’d found that out at the Dursleys, when he’d used the bathroom mirror to examine himself more thoroughly after getting home from Diagon Alley. He looked straight at Hermione and swept his much longer bangs aside, revealing the scar.

She looked at him curiously- and Harry could see the moment she understood. Her eyes widened, and she stopped moving for a couple seconds. Then she tilted her head. “How?”

He shrugged. “I got hit in the face by a door,” he said, letting his hair fall back down.

She blinked, snorted, and finally burst out laughing. It took her a minute to calm down.

“So that’s what you meant on the train!” she finally gasped.

He blinked. Was that what she found so funny? “Um… Yes, actually.”

“So how do you go back?” Hermione asked curiously, suddenly serious.

“I… I don’t actually know,” he told her. “So far, sleeping has been successful- but it might be midnight, or…” He trailed off.

“Do you mind if I study it?” she asked.

He looked at her. “Study it?”

She shrugged. “Effects and whatnot.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, why not. Though… only when we can keep it… Well, you know.”

She nodded. “No problem.” She looked forwards, at the fire, for a couple of seconds before looking at Harry again. “So… what’s your name?” She sounded so innocent.

Harry smiled. “Ha- Hailey.” He’d almost said ‘Harry’- but he knew that wasn’t what she was asking for.

Harry and Hermione stopped halfway across the Entrance Hall, their path blocked by Crabbe and Goyle. Hermione didn’t approve of the broomstick, considering how Harry had gotten it, but she had rather readily agreed to hide it in her dormitory until he needed it that evening. It would be much easier than trying to hide it in the boy’s dormitories.

Draco stepped up to seize the broom- but Harry yanked it swiftly backwards and to the side, clean out of Malfoy’s reach.

Malfoy tried again, but Harry took a second step back, switching the packaged broom to his other hand behind his back.

Then Goyle stepped forward. Malfoy glanced at him- then his eyes widened. “Wait no-!”

He was too late. Goyle’s fist charged forwards, homing in on Harry’s nose.

Harry wasn’t too late. In a fraction of a second, his newly freed left hand had whipped his wand out of his right pocket. “Impedimenta!” Goyle’s fist stopped cold just inches from Harry’s nose.

“What’s going on?” an authoritative voice demanded.

Harry recognized it instantly, even without looking. It was the same one that had yelled at him for catching the Remembrall a week before: Professor McGonagall, Head of Gryffindor House. She was standing about two strides away.

“Uh,” Harry uttered, turning to look at her.

“Wand measuring contest,” Draco announced, even though he hadn’t taken his out. He pointed at the packaged broom. “Because that’s got to be the biggest wand I’ve ever seen.”

Hermione laughed. McGonagall’s nostrils flared, and she spoke to the boys. “Five points from Slytherin,” she barked. “And don’t let me catch you starting fights again. You may go.”

All three boys disappeared at once, though it looked like Draco had to drag Goyle to keep him from trying to fight.

Finally, McGonagall sighed- but she wasn’t the next one to speak. A girl with candy floss hair of bright pink and dark blue- Bonbon- stepped up to him first. “You’re… a first-year, right?”

“Uh… Yeah?” he asked, making it sound obvious as he stowed his wand.

“That spell was fourth-year material,” Bonbon told him simply.

He blinked. “It was?”

She nodded. “Hmm. What’s your name?”

Harry blinked, taken aback. “My… name? H-Hailey. Hailey Potter.”

“Thanks!” She turned and trotted away.

“Potter?” McGonagall asked.

Harry looked up at her. “Mm?”

“We need to talk,” she informed him. “Follow me.”

“Um,” Harry muttered, looking at Hermione- who shrugged, and followed as well.

They reached an empty classroom before McGonagall seemed to realize that Hermione was following as well. “Excuse me, Miss Granger, I need to speak to Potter alone.”

“Ahh, about that,” Harry interjected. Both girls looked at him. “Hermione is helping me study this, so…” He drew a circle in the air in front of his chest with one finger.

McGonagall looked between the two of them. “And you don’t mind her knowing about-?” she began, before pointing at the package.

Harry shrugged. “I trust her.”

McGonagall sighed as well. “Alright then. You may stay, Miss Granger.”

Even as she gave the go-ahead for Granger to stay, Professor McGonagall wasn’t sure if she was doing the right thing. She knew that Potter would be quite the surprise for Wood if they simply showed up as a girl- but she had also never heard of a sex transformation magic that was capable of changing texts written about them, including addresses. She’d checked the diary entry she’d written after they’d left Potter at the Dursley’s home… and it told the story of them leaving the girl-who-lived. It was as if they had always been a girl, though it didn’t seem to affect people’s minds, so it couldn’t be simply changing them in the past.

“So. Potter,” she began, looking at the girl. She deliberately avoided glancing nervously at Granger- this was going to be a very personal matter for Potter, but Potter had given their go-ahead. And even suggested that they knew exactly what she was going to ask them about!

“Hmm?” Potter asked, looking worriedly up at her.

She picked the nearest chair and sat down, so as to be on a level with them. “Are you Hailey… or Harry?”

They blinked. “Uh… Hailey? I mean…” Potter raised one hand up to touch their own chest, but flinched away from their own touch. Granger, standing next to them, looked just as confused.

“But which do you prefer?” she asked.

“Which do I… prefer?” Potter asked, confused. “It’s just who I am, isn’t it?”

“She’s asking if you want to be Hailey all the time, or Harry,” Granger supplied suddenly. “Independent of what it takes.”

They looked at her, then back at McGonagall. “I… I mean, I kinda like how nobody knows who Hailey is, but there’s so many strange sensations that…” They shrugged. “I guess I don’t really know one way or the other. I am who I am.”

McGonagall raised an eyebrow. “And who is that?”

They blinked, and looked at her again. “Uh. I’m Hailey right now.”

She shook her head. “No. That’s what you are.”

They tilted their head. “There’s a difference?” Even Hermione was looking curiously at her.

She nodded. “It’s… vanishingly rare, but every once in a while, a witch or wizard is born in a boy’s or girl’s body, respectively. Sometimes they don’t realize it until well into their adulthood. There is a potion that can correct it- but overall, I believe it’s called transgenderism.” She paused. “The Muggle understanding of it is far more advanced than anything I can tell you, even though they don’t have a cure.”

Potter scowled. “So you’re saying… that even when I’m Harry, I might still be a witch?”

She nodded. “And that you might still be a wizard even now. There’s only one you, and it can’t be changed by any kind of transfiguration.”

“Huh,” they muttered. Then blinked. “Come to think of it, how did you know who to send the letter to? Er- um, yeah.”

She smiled. “I didn’t. I addressed it to Harry this morning, then watched it change to Hailey right in front of my eyes.”

Hermione let out a gasp. “That!” She turned to Potter. “That suggests the transformation is deeper than just your body!”

McGonagall raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Yes. Because whenever a witch or wizard is named or described on paper by another witch or wizard or by magic, it is connected, however peripherally, to the essence of the witch or wizard in question. Then, if that essence is changed, the pages change as well. That’s actually how the Ministry’s self-updating paperwork works- they’ve just got a few charms to make it a bit more potent.” She turned to Potter. “Which means that this transformation must be going at least as far as your essence- which is still not your soul or your mind, so…” she looked at McGonagall, and back at Potter. “So probably not your ‘who’ either- but the ‘essence’ is what sex detection magics are looking at, for example.” She glanced at McGonagall. “That’d be why such magics never change their determinations, even after the sex change potion.” She drew her wand, turning back to Potter. “One moment.” She waved it in the air in front of her, said no incantation, and did something very strange with it.

A shimmering blue ring of mist appeared in the air, standing on end between the two of them, and started spinning and wiggling to the time of Hermione’s wand movements. Her eyes were closed.

Finally, Hermione let out a gasp. “It’s!” she began, and paused again for a few seconds, before the ring disappeared. She put her wand away. Then she looked to the side, pulled two chairs from where McGonagall could swear there had only been one, offered one to Potter, and sat down in the other. She had placed them in a triangle formation with McGonagall’s.

“What?” Potter asked, somewhat impatiently.

“I’m… I’m not sure how to say it,” she muttered.

“I’m sure I’ll understand, however you say it,” Potter assured her.

“I know, but-!” She sighed. “Hailey, it’s your parents.”

“My… parents,” Potter said, evidently not understanding.

“Yeah. I… I don’t think they meant to transform you, but… When they died… Your dad must’ve fought, but your mom sacrificed herself- and both to protect you. As a result, they…” She took a deep breath. “Oh, Hailey, they left pieces of themselves on you.”

Potter looked confused. “On me?”

She nodded. “Pieces of their souls, attached to yours. And the way they died is important- because your mother is your shield. It would be she that saved you when Voldemort tried to-!” She broke off, looking surprised at herself, then shrugged and continued on. “When he tried to kill you. And so… if ever you’re too far endangered- which a blow to the face by something magical seems to short-circuit- it agitates them. Your mother reaches out, through your essence, to your body. For example, your spell resistance is through the roof right now- anything weaker than the killing curse would probably bounce off with no effect at all. That’s probably why you look almost exactly like her, except for your father’s hair color. And speaking of him, he’s actually reaching in, to your mind- expanding what you can do. That spell earlier must have come from him.”

Potter scowled. “But doors aren’t magical.”

“They are if a witch or wizard is using them as a weapon,” Hermione shrugged. “For this purpose, at least, anything is when handled by someone- or something- magical. They… calm down, for lack of a better term, when you sleep, and return to their dormant states. Probably takes a few hours, though.”

“About that,” McGonagall interjected. She felt bad for interrupting the explanation going on in front of her, but she was in a bit of a hurry. “Potter, are you going to want to play Quidditch as Harry, or as Hailey?”

“Uh… They’ll be expecting Harry, right?”

“Wood will be,” McGonagall nodded. “But unless you’re planning on skipping classes, then if Granger is correct, you will have to meet him tonight as Hailey. He tells me he hasn’t told the rest of the team who the new seeker is. I will have to tell him, so he knows who to expect.”

“I… I don’t know,” Potter muttered, looking at their knees. “I’ll have to think about it.”

McGonagall nodded. “Let Wood know tonight, then? He’ll need a name when he tells the rest of the team how well the new seeker did.” She turned to Granger. “And Granger, where on earth did you find that spell?”

“Invented it,” she shrugged. “And Pinkie was right, it is hard to tell how plurdled the gabbleblotchits are. But I managed it! She still can’t, though. Even though I’ve tried to help her.”

Author's Note

DOOOOORED.

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Ack! I'm late! I'm late! Okay, it's up now.

Chapter 12: Instructor Instructions

In his Transfiguration class on Halloween morning, Draco couldn’t sit still. It wasn’t because Instructor Switch was, as usual, relatively incompetent- and it certainly wasn’t helped by how Instructor Sun was exceptionally skittish today, either. She usually carried the whole class by herself, so Instructor Switch couldn’t have been causing her nervousness, either.

Instead, it was the strange girl, sitting in the corner with a clipboard, that had half of the class- including Draco and Instructor Sun- on edge for the whole hour. Her candyfloss hair was split between bright pink and deep blue.

Finally, Instructor Sun, with one last, furtive glance at the girl in the corner, dismissed the class.

Instructor Switch, as usual, was the first one out the door.

“Instructor Sun,” the girl in the corner called, while Sun was still packing up. “A word, please?”

Sun, whose hair sparkled almost exactly like a bonfire, looked terrified, but nodded. “S-Sure,” she muttered.

The room was then silent, except for the normal rush of students out the door.

Draco was usually one of the crowd, but this time, he deliberately took longer than usual to collect his belongings. He liked Instructor Sun a lot, and hoped she wasn’t in too much trouble- the strange girl was a very strict one, and her tone brooked no argument. It never did; he’d seen her a few times, but didn’t know her name.

He glanced up while he was very busy putting A Beginner’s Guide to Transfiguration back into his bag, and saw the strange girl walking up to Instructor Sun. The girl glanced up at him- and while he quickly turned back to his bag to busily place the book just so, she actually smiled at him before she turned to Instructor Sun.

“Did- Did you need something?” Instructor Sun asked her.

“Instructor Morning Sun,” the girl began. “It is my pleasure to officially offer you the position of Head Student Instructor for Transfiguration.”

Draco dropped his ink bottle. She was getting promoted? Fortunately, the bottle didn’t have far to fall, so it didn’t break.

“What-!?” Sun asked. “But- What- but- Whaaat?” Draco saw her gesturing to the room.

The strange girl sighed. “I know. And I’m sorry to do that to you. I wasn’t sure about Instructor Switch, but now…” She sighed. “The way you didn’t even consider asking her for support when you were... stressed out, but instead had your students help each other, has finalized our decision to dismiss her. She’s just… not up to snuff. Don’t worry, we’ve already got our eyes on a replacement.

“As for you… I knew my presence would throw you off, and you have my apologies for that. But even though you only barely scraped by on our initial Instructor Examinations, you’re very possibly the very best instructor we have, bar none. We’re attributing that to exam nerves, by the way. Happens to the best of us. Your student success score exceeds that of even Professor McGonagall!” She sighed. “And you’re her best student as well. But that’s why I’m offering this to you.”

“How…” Sun began, before looking up again. “How did you know…?”

She shrugged. “It was easy enough. We’ve had to resort to recording spells on innocuous objects to supervise your classes inconspicuously- you always seemed to know we were there.”

Sun chuckled nervously. “Er… yeah, I do that sometimes.”

She chuckled as well. “Anyways, if you take the position, other Transfiguration instructors would turn to you for help before going to Professor McGonagall, and you would have oversight over them as well, alongside some additional responsibilities.” She bowed her head. “You don’t have to make your decision right away, don’t worry. The details are in…” She pulled a thick packet of papers out of her bag. “This packet, for you to read at your leisure. Just let us know what your decision is within the next… week or two, please?” She bowed, and left the room.

Instructor Sun just stared after her.

Draco straightened up, having finished slowly closing his bag for the third time in a row. “Congratulations?”

She looked at him.

Then… she passed out, and collapsed to the floor.

He left his bag on the desk and ran forwards, much too late to catch her. “Instructor Sun?”

She woke back up a couple seconds after he reached her, when he was debating running for the infirmary, yelling for help, or attempting to carry her to the infirmary.

“Are you okay?” he asked immediately.

“Draco,” she smiled. Then she let out a giggle. “Of course I’m okay.”

“But you hit your head pretty hard,” he told her.

She giggled again. “Why yes. But I’m immune to blunt force trauma. Just like the rest of my…” She trailed off, looking suddenly less cheerful. “... Family. Yeah, family will do.”

Charms, timed shortly after Transfiguration, was decidedly less interesting, as usual, though it was noticeably more entertaining, despite the lack of someone sitting in the corner. This time, it was actually more interesting than usual- and not in a good way.

He had by now become fairly certain that neither instructor understood the material they were supposed to be teaching. He had yet to learn a thing from them- and after they spent the first month and a half struggling, one had started goofing off regularly and the other still tried, but spent most of her time staring at her book with a bewildered expression on her face.

Today, hardly ten minutes in, she had snapped at her co-instructor to stop goofing off, but only managed to get punched on the nose. So, after stopping up a nosebleed, she had given up on controlling her unruly partner and retreated to her book once again.

It was nearly twenty minutes into the class when it suddenly became even more interesting.

Draco had looked up for a second, the unruly instructor disrupting his concentration on his textbook, when he saw someone appear, out of thin air, in the corner of the room. This girl, stuffing a silvery cloak- no, an invisibility cloak- into her bag, had long, dark blue hair, with twinned pink and purple stripes down the middle… and an angry expression. She took two steps forwards, raised one hand- and, right as the unruly instructor turned around, slapped him across the face with a resounding smack. He let out a cry of pain and fell to the floor, a bright red mark on his cheek.

The other instructor looked up from her book, where she had been having even less success concentrating, and gasped. “T-Twilight!”

Twilight ignored her. “Crash Course,” she barked, at the boy she’d just slapped. Her tone brooked even less argument than the strange girl in Transfiguration had.

“That hurt,” Instructor Course complained.

Twilight snarled. “I know it did,” she hissed. “You are no longer an instructor. You have been-!”

He scrambled to his feet. “But I was the valedictorian at CS-!”

WHAM!

He flew up almost two full feet from the force of Twilight’s uppercut before he crashed to the floor, and she started yelling while he was still gasping for breath. “I don’t care what qualifications you have! You have been goofing off in front of this class when they are already so far behind! You are no longer an instructor, and this is final!” She returned to her prior, quieter volume, but retained the extra anger. “You will no longer be attending Professor Flitwick’s class, nor coming to this class. You will receive a new class assignment, which you will attend As. A. Student. Is that clear?”

It took Instru- No, just Crash Course- several more seconds to regain his breath before he spoke. “The Ro-!”

Twilight reached down, seized the front of his robes, and hoisted him into the air with it, before yelling straight into his face. “I said, Is. That. Clear?”

He let out a squeak of fright. “C-C-Crystal clear, P-Princess!”

“Good,” she declared, before throwing him back down on the ground. “Now get out of my sight.”

He scrambled to his feet and stumbled from the room, running headfirst into the door before he managed to open it and escape the room.

Twilight took a deep breath, paused, and let it out, before she turned to walk up towards Instructor Hard Spell, who watched her come with fear in her eyes.

Twilight took and released another deep breath before she spoke, and when she did, it was more of a merely irritated tone than a truly angry one. “Why didn’t you report him?”

Hard Spell blinked. “That was an option?”

Twilight sighed. “Of course it was. To one of us, to me as the Head Student Instructor for Charms, even to one of the other instructors. If there is a problem, tell us about it, and we will help.” She sighed again, still evidently reigning in her temper. “So… you seem a bit confused about the coursework?”

“Er- yeah.” She looked down. “Sorry.”

“Sorry?” Twilight asked, surprised. “You didn’t ask for help?”

Hard Spell tried to shrink into her seat. “I… I was afraid of getting yelled at.”

Twilight groaned. “No, no. This is how you get yelled at. If you’re having trouble, ask. Start with your co-instructor- that’s why you have one. If they’re like that,” she gestured angrily towards the doors, “then report them, but otherwise if they’re unable to help you, come to me. If I am unable to help you, we will go together to Professor Flitwick, and we will solve your problem. And this goes for your students’ problems as well.” She gestured towards the whole class. “They just come to you and your partner first- and, ideally, you accompany them up the ladder.”

“But…” she looked towards the door, then back at Twilight. “Without a partner, I can’t be an instructor, can I?” Her voice was very small, and with a rising tone of fear at the end.

“No, don’t worry about that,” Twilight told her. “You can still be an instructor. Unlike him, you were actually trying- and while you were a bit slow, your instructions to the class were good instructions.” She shrugged. “With a partner like that, it’d be difficult to keep up with your own education, let alone help your class to catch up. Add your confusion over the material… and this becomes inevitable.”

“But without…?”

“No, I-!” She let out an exasperated sigh. “I said don’t worry about that. We already have a fair few candidates on standby- and if the one I’m thinking about is available, you’re probably going to make our top ten list.”

“Really?”

She shrugged. “Put it this way: On the initial examinations, she broke records. She broke my records. And the way I hear it, she’s been inventing exciting new forms of magic in her free time.”

“What?”

She nodded, all traces of anger replaced by a smile. “Yup! And the rumor has it that she understands Pinkie Pie, as well. She should have absolutely no problem bringing you and your class up to speed!” She let out a sigh. “In the meantime, for the rest of today’s class, I will be your partner.”

The door, which Crash Course had left ajar, suddenly slammed shut moments before someone crashed into it from the other side. “Ow! Must’ve been plurdled that time.”

Twilight chuckled. “Never change, Pinkie. Never change.”

Then a girl with very pink hair, a bloody nose, and so many bruises that her skin was more black than it was pink, jumped up from right behind Twilight, where there had been nobody mere moments before. “Well of course I’m going to change!” Draco was certain the confetti hadn’t been there before either.

“Ack!” Twilight jumped forwards, whirling to face her, then sighed. “You know what I meant, Pinkie. And, um, perhaps you should go to the Hospital Wing?”

Author's Note

Pinkie just won't stop trying, will she?

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Yes, Twilight is strong. I've said before that the earth ponies' magic is mostly inactive/ineffective in Britain thanks to biology differences, reducing them to 'particularly strong', but not bodybuilder-strong. Twilight's a different story- she's so much more powerful that, even as an eleven-year-old human girl, she can deadlift around two hundred pounds with one arm. Still nothing next to her strength in Equestria, but that meant Instructor Crash Course's eleven-year-old body was nothing to her.

... No, Crash Course will not be appearing again; he's a one-off. But Twilight's uppercut was powerful enough he probably has internal organ damage, and will find himself in the Hospital Wing before long. That's what you get when you argue with an angry Princess...

Chapter 13: Troll

“It’s no wonder no-one can stand Hermione. She’s a nightmare, honestly.”

Draco, who was coming up behind the crowd from a different class, looked up to where Weasley’s words were coming from. He was talking to Harry- and, Draco saw with a twinge in his heart, Hermione was right behind them, dashing past in tears.

Draco quickly glanced behind him, to make sure nobody was watching, then, very glad that he had never dismissed his form spell since the night of the ‘duel’, he shifted into a Gryffindor and ran after her. As he passed Weasley, it seemed like Harry was berating him.

It only took him a minute to catch up to Hermione. It didn’t exactly hurt that she wasn’t accustomed to running, and so wasn’t running nearly as quickly as he. He grabbed her hand. “Hermione!”

She wrenched her hand free again, whirling to face him. “What?” she demanded, tears rolling down her face.

“Don’t listen to Weasley,” he told her. “I like you. And unless I miss my guess, Twilight does too.”

“But- But you’re in slytherin!” She didn’t say it very loudly.

Draco glanced up and down the passage, checking for eavesdroppers. There were none. “That-!” He sighed. “Some things are more important, you know? Besides, between you and me, the Hat really wanted to put me in Gryffindor.”

She stared at him. “Y-You… You didn’t let it?”

He stepped forwards and wrapped her in a hug. “I chose what I did… because I had to, Hermione. The Blood of a Malfoy must never be seen in Gryffindor House- popularly referred to, amongst the pure-blood noble circles at least, as the ‘blood traitor house’.” He sighed. “But honestly, does it even matter? It’s not like they teach us any differently or something. We just sleep in the dungeons while you sleep in a tower.”

“But Ron- Ron was right,” she cried, hugging him back. “I- I have no friends. I’m the odd one out!”

He smiled weakly. “Then own that distinction,” he said. “Show them what they’re missing out on- prove to them that it’s not they who are shunning you, but you shunning them for not being good enough. Heck, show- show the Foreigners that there is nothing they can do that you cannot!”

She looked up into his face, and smiled weakly. “That I can do what they cannot,” she muttered.

He raised his eyebrows. “You can?”

She nodded. “I can bring the strange magics they talk about having in their homeworld to ours. I, erm, haven’t tested it yet, but it should work, and be mostly painless.”

There was silence for perhaps five seconds.

“Do you need a test subject?” Draco asked.

She baulked. “A test subject!? You’re better than that!”

He shrugged. “I’m sure I am,” he answered. “But that’s not the point.”

She scowled at him. “Then what is the point?”

“The point is that I’m offering to let you test it on me,” he told her. “It’ll be much safer than testing it on yourself- and if it has side effects, like maybe extra-large ears, I can deal with those very, very easily.”

She laughed outright. “You won’t have extra-large ears,” she told him. “There are possible side-effects, up to and including a total transfiguration, but it wasn’t hard to work in an Animagus-like reverse transformation ability. You’ll have nothing to worry about.”

“So why not give it a try?”

She broke out of his hug, and held his shoulders at arm’s length, looking very seriously into his eyes. “There will be all sorts of temporary side-effects,” she told him. “Probably one of the worst illnesses you’ll ever have. And I don’t expect even Madam Pomfrey will be able to reduce the symptoms.”

He shrugged. “I might get extra candy from my father as a get-well present.”

“A possibly ongoing reaction, possibly aversive, to such dramatic changes to your innate magic?”

“I’ll be able to get all the other nobles to dote on me too,” he observed.

“A reduced ability to use even your own wand when not… transfigured into whatever it turns you into?”

“What a tragedy,” he scoffed. “Probably refill the family Vault off of that one alone.”

“Absolutely no control or prediction as to what that… new form, I guess, looks like?”

He shrugged. “If I can easily morph myself back into, well, me, nobody need ever know what that new form looks like.”

“You will,” she told him. “And there will be a short period before you will be able to make that shift.”

He tilted his head. “How long?”

She shrugged. “Shouldn’t be longer than two hours.”

“My form spell can make me invisible for that long,” he told her.

“Aaaand, a potentially hazardous amplification of your wand magic when in that new form?”

He shrugged. “Sounds fun.”

“You’re sure you want it?”

He smiled. “You haven’t yet given me a reason not to.”

She sighed. “Whatever.” She looked to the side, then peered into a classroom. “We can do it in here. Though you’ll want to be in your base form- I don’t know how it might react to an active transformation other than an animagus one, and I know it wouldn’t react well to an active animagus transformation.”

“What do you mean by ‘not react well’?” he asked.

She looked at him. “Loss of limb or life,” she stated simply. “I wrote safeties into it to prevent that, but it would still cause at least temporary disablement and not do what it’s supposed to and make it permanently dangerous, at best, to try it again on that same person. And there’s always a chance the safeties won’t be quite fast enough.”

“Ahh. It’s going to be another few minutes before I can revert without cancelling my form spell, so…”

“And I’m already at the top of the class in Transfiguration,” she told him. “And considering Instructor Switch and Instructor Rarity have today set aside for the others to catch up…” She shrugged. “Rarity already told me my attendance today is strictly optional. They won’t have anything for me to do.”

“Instructor Switch?” he asked, somewhat alarmed.

She nodded. “Yes, Instructor Accurate Switch. Quite the lady, though I think Rarity out-ladies her.” She giggled. “She doesn’t like that.”

“... Oh. So not the Instructor Hard Switch I had, an incompetent fool they removed earlier today.”

“Uh… Instructor Switch did mention that her brother, Hard Switch, was a bit skittish and didn’t like teaching one bit.” She paused. “What about your next class?”

“Herbology,” he answered. “Cancelled this week- got a letter this morning. Instructor Applejack came down with the flu, and Instructor Thumb relies on her too much to be willing to try it alone.”

“Oh. You again.”

Harry put his hands on his hips. His wide hips, as different from his practically nonexistent hips when he was a boy; it was still strange to him to be able to put anything on them, let alone expect it to stay there without effort- but he needed the pose to make his point. “Do you always greet girls like that?” he demanded. He was still mad at Ron for insulting Hermione earlier.

Ron looked confused. “Like…?” he began. “Uh, yes?”

“Have you any idea how rude it is?” Harry barked.

Ron looked at him. “You sound like Harry,” he complained, and turned away, to continue down the passage. Harry had run into him on purpose after class, and the rest of the class had already gone past. “I say good riddance.”

Harry marched forward, seized Ron’s shoulder, spun him around, and slammed him against the wall. “Ron!” he barked. “That is not how you treat a fellow human being!”

“So what?”

“So what!?” Harry yelled. “So everything, Ron! Have you any idea how hurtful your comments are?”

“Why should I care?”

Harry pressed the tip of his wand against Ron’s chest. He wasn’t going to use it, but Ron didn’t need to know that. “Why should you care?” he repeated. “Because it’s hurtful, Ron. If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. And this includes Hermione. Speaking of which, what in the world did girl-kind ever do to you?”

Ron stared at him. “What? Why do you ask?”

“I’ve been watching you, Ron,” he told his best friend. “You’re not exactly invisible next to the Boy who Lived. And the boys you treat okay- except that Malfoy bloke, I guess- but the girls? No, always so antagonistic. Why?”

Ron averted his eyes, and sank down the wall to his knees. Harry was astonished to see tears in his eyes. “I… My sister, I think,” he began.

They had moved to a classroom, where Ron had continued his explanation, and actually started crying on Harry’s shoulder. Ron was the second-youngest in his family- and his only sister, the very youngest, was his mother’s favorite. It didn’t exactly help that he had five over-achieving older brothers- so he usually ended up getting the short end of the stick, and had begun to- rather unreasonably, he had realized himself- project his woes onto his mother and sister, rather than realizing that he wasn’t getting the short end of the stick, so much as the normal end of the stick.

In short, he was comparing himself against his brothers, who had achieved so much… when he couldn’t start on their achievements just yet.

Harry patted his shoulder when he finished. “Hey. Don’t sweat it. They might have the time advantage, but guess who has the advantage of learning from all their mistakes?”

He looked up. “Me?”

He nodded. “Yep. You. Meaning, you can be the best of all of them if you want. Be the highest achiever, and show them what it’s like to achieve.” He paused, and looked up sharply. “What…?” He could hear something… strange, almost like Hagrid was slowly shuffling down the hallway- except the grunts didn’t sound anything like Hagrid, and he couldn’t think of any reason that Hagrid would be dragging something on the floor.

Ron looked up as well. “What are you… Oh.” He scowled. “What’s that?”

Harry got up, and walked to the door to peek out. He closed the door again with a snap, and leaned back against it. “Big, smelly, looks stupid, dragging a club. Ideas?” The heavy footfalls passed the room.

Ron scowled. “Might be a troll,” he muttered, coming to join Harry.

A sudden, high-pitched scream came from outside.

Harry whirled to face the door again, and yanked it open. “Hermione!”

Ron charged after him- and they followed the scent of the troll a little ways down the passage to another open classroom door.

Draco looked up when the door shook from the massive blow. “What the?” He quickly activated his form spell, morphing back into Alastor Abraxis. Hermione’s spell had involved a very bright flash of blue light, and made his body tingle, but had no other immediately noticeable effect. He’d been discussing the various unique magics he knew with her, and she was helping him find ways to improve them.

Hermione looked up as well. “Hagrid? Is that you?”

Then something struck the door again, and it flew off its hinges.

Hermione screamed, stumbling backwards.

Draco ducked under the flying door and drew his wand before he even had a clear look at what was entering. “What are you even-!” He gasped. “That’s a troll!” He ran back to where Hermione had backed up against the wall, terrified. “Hermione! Come on, snap out of it! Trolls are really stupid, and this room is plenty large enough to get around it!”

“Oy! Peabrain!” It sounded like Weasley.

Draco looked up just in time to see a piece of shattered wood bounce off the troll’s shoulder from behind. It looked like it might once have been the leg of a chair; the troll had already smashed a few chairs and desks to pieces with the door, and had marched into the room.

The troll, blinking stupidly, lumbered around to look.

As it did, another girl- it looked like the Potter girl, the one that had gotten the broomstick and become the Gryffindor seeker- darted out from behind the troll, running around to stay behind it. She stopped at the blackboard, seized the tin of chalk, and scraped the metal tin across the blackboard, making an unearthly screeching noise. The troll roared, turning to see what had made the noise.

Weasley ran around the other way, and carefully aimed another ex-chair-leg at the back of its head. “Your Attention Please, Noodle Arms!” he yelled.

The girl finished running around to where Hermione and Draco stood. “What are you waiting for?” she asked. “Let’s go!”

“It’s no good,” Draco told her. “She won’t move.”

The troll let out a massive roar, and started towards Weasley.

The girl hissed, and her wand flashed up. “Impedimenta!”

The troll froze.

“That worked,” Draco observed.

“For three seconds,” she answered him. “Confringo!”

A bolt of bright red light lanced forward and struck the troll on the back of its head, almost as soon as it unfroze- where it exploded.

The troll lurched forwards, roaring in pain, then whirled around to charge at the girl, who was working her way back across the room.

“Great,” she grumbled. “Impedimenta! Um…”

The troll froze, but shortly resumed its charge.

“Lookout!” Draco cried, simultaneously firing a huge stream of sparks right into the troll’s eyes.

Her wand flashed up one last time. “Impedimenta!”

At the same time, he heard Weasley yell “Wingardium Leviosa!”

The troll’s club flew suddenly straight up in the air, right out of its grasp, turned slowly over, and fell, with a sickening crack, onto its owner’s head- almost the moment it unfroze once again.

The troll swayed on the spot, then fell, flat on its face, with a crash that shook the room.

Finally, Hermione spoke. “Is… Is it dead?”

Draco shook his head. “A blow like that wouldn’t kill a troll,” he said. “Probably knocked it out, though.”

The girl jogged over to them. “You two okay?” she asked.

Draco nodded. “Yeah. What was your name again?”

“Hailey,” she answered, without hesitation. “And this is Ron.” She indicated Weasley. “Any idea how it got in?” She held out a hand to help Hermione, who had sunk to the floor during the fight, back to her feet.

Draco shook his head. “They’re supposed to be really stupid.”

There was a sudden crash, then loud footsteps outside while Peeves shot past. None of them had time to do much before three Professors came streaming into the room- Professor McGonagall, whom Draco recognized mostly because of his first encounter with Hailey back when she got her broom, Professor Snape, who Draco was now seeing from closer than he’d ever seen the Slytherin Head of House from before, and last was Professor Quirrell, who he only remembered because one of the Slytherin upper years had said that’s who he must have been at the welcoming feast and his turban had looked so ridiculous at the staff table.

The last teacher in the line took one look at the troll and sat on a damaged chair, clutching his heart, moments before it collapsed under him, dropping him painfully on his back.

Professor Snape walked much more sedately over to the troll and began inspecting it for something.

Professor McGonagall, however, approached Hailey, Draco, Ron, and Hermione, evidently absolutely furious. Draco wasn’t sure exactly what they had done wrong, though- unless she was angry about the damage the troll had done.

“What on earth were you thinking of?” she demanded. “You could have been killed! Why aren’t you in your dormitory?”

“Uh-!” Draco began, unsure how to ask what she was asking about.

“We were supposed to be in the dormitories?” Hailey asked suddenly, sounding genuinely surprised.

McGonagall didn’t seem pleased. “Did you not hear Dumbledore’s orders?”

“Huh?” Hailey seemed briefly confused. “Um, none of us went to dinner, yet- is that where…?”

Her nostrils flared. “Why?”

She shrugged. “Well, some things are more important,” she told the professor. “I was helping Ron with some emotional baggage, and I expect they were doing something similar.” She gestured towards Draco and Hermione. “We heard the troll, and were just about ready to run for someone when we heard the scream.”

“Oh!” Hermione gasped, seeming to understand something. “It blasted its way into this room, where we were…” She trailed off, gesturing towards Hailey. “Anyways, it was about to finish us off when they appeared and attacked it from behind. They made a lot of noise, and Hailey used both the Impediment Jinx and the Blasting Charm on it, before Ron knocked it out with its own club.”

“Well… in that case…” McGonagall seemed somewhat confused. “I still say you were lucky. Not many first-years could have taken down a fully grown mountain troll. You each win Gryffindor five points. Professor Dumbledore will be informed of this.” She sighed. “And if you’re not hurt at all, you’d better get off to Gryffindor Tower. Students are finishing the feast in their Houses.”

The four of them left together, and headed for Gryffindor Tower.

Dumbledore watched Bonbon place the latest ‘report’ on his desk, this time wondering where they found all the paper; the report was almost a foot thick this time. Which, fortunately, it had stopped growing at, so he had his hopes that it wouldn’t resume getting bigger.

Bonbon then sat down in her normal chair, completely without comment.

He let out a sigh. “How many this time?” By now, it was almost a running gag that she’d open with the number of students that had skipped Professor Quirrell’s class and still gotten full marks for attendance.

“All of them,” she stated. “Not a single student showed.” She swiftly slid the manilla envelope off the bottom of the pile. It was new; she’d never had something like that in it before.

She slid it swiftly to the middle of the desk, then towards Dumbledore, before stopping it with her fingertips. “I sat in on it.”

He looked down at the envelope, and the bright red stamp across the front. A solid, rectangular line, wrapped around exactly two words, in all capital letters.

Top Secret.

“Everything you do is shrouded in secrecy,” he commented lightly, but is tone betrayed his foreboding feeling.

Bonbon didn’t move.

“That’s… your report?” he asked, touching the envelope himself.

“Yes,” she stated simply.

The envelope looked like it held at least thirty or forty pages of that paper. Dumbledore let out a sigh as he accepted it, slipping it quickly into one of the heavily charmed drawers in his desk. He would have to make it a point to read it in full as quickly as possible- but also without letting on that he even had it, even to the other Heads of House, until he had finished it and fully understood why it was secret.

“We’re down to only three recycled Potions instructors this week,” she stated. “What we really need is someone like Harry… that Snape doesn’t snarl at all the time. He’s pretty darned good at Potions as well- but they both seem to hate each other’s guts, non-maliciously.” She scowled. “And our Defense Against the Dark Arts teams have stagnated again, trying to find something they can learn and teach. Which is why I really want to get Hailey on as Head Student Instructor for Defense Against the Dark Arts, but first I have to find her. It’s been a month, but the last time I saw her was when she got that broom, and I haven’t been able to find any paperwork on her either!” It was the first time the normally stony girl had shown irritation in his office.

“Can’t say I haven’t been looking for her too,” he muttered, glancing sideways at Hagrid’s now well-worn letter from only three months prior. It had been changing back and forth almost daily for a while now. He needed to ask her what kind of magic she was using to alter it- and anything else he wrote about Harry- to reflect her name and gender and back again so much.

Bonbon sighed. “Anyways, on the Instructor front, we’ve done a bit more shuffling. With only three out of the five new Potions instructors giving up, we were up two- and could finally start releasing our management team to some of their other duties. Which means we now have a prospective Head Student Instructor for Transfiguration, as well as… Well. One of our Charms teams was showing up poorly on progress and producing far fewer graded assignments than the rest, so when our HSI for Charms was freed up from Potions lessons to sit in on their class…” She sighed. “At least one of them was trying, albeit a bit hopelessly, but we had to fire the other one- and remind him of his position, somewhat forcibly. That entire class is so far behind by now that we had to bring Hermione Granger in to bring them up to pace. I kinda hope it doesn’t hurt her, ahh, exploration too much, but we need her raw ability there. Frankly, we need it everywhere, but there just aren’t enough of her.”

He scowled. “What about… the troll? Did it change anything?”

“Not really,” Bonbon told him. “We already knew that Hailey seems to have a habit of using spells that are way outside her age range, so it really wasn’t all that surprising that she’d defeated it. The part I was surprised about was that it survived- she must’ve been going for a nonlethal takedown, and those are a lot harder.”

“How about the others that were with her?”

“Alastor Abraxis isn’t on the schedule,” Bonbon stated simply. “We’re certain he’s a fictional cover for another student, though we’re not sure which; pretty sure he’s British, because he’s definitely not…” She scowled. “As for the others, they were Hermione Granger and Ronald Weasley, correct?”

Dumbledore nodded. Bonbon hadn’t been present in that scene, but the word had gotten around.

She shrugged. “Whatever emotional talk Hailey had with Ron must’ve been a really powerful one. He’s turning himself around- and is now blowing the top off of what we previously thought he could do, even though we knew he wasn’t giving it his all before.” She shrugged again. “We’ll just have to wait and see, I guess. Hopefully, this new energy of his lasts- even this quickly, he’s showing a little bit of a knack for Defense Against the Dark Arts himself, and we’re dangerously low on non-combat instructors there. Naturally, he’s not as good as Hailey, but…” She shrugged a third time. “It’s going to take him some time to hit his stride anyways, and I’d like to let him do that before we start trying to judge him again.”

Author's Note

Trolls are great friendship devices, aren't they?

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Either Bonbon is not looking hard enough, or Hailey is really good at disappearing whenever she wants a word... Or she was too busy writing a small book about an hour in which Quirrell sat alone at the head of a classroom, waiting for his students to arrive.

Yes, that's Instructor Green Thumb.

Woo, Unscheduled Publication! Yes, yes. Unfortunately, The Boy who Disappeared doesn't have a chapter available... But I just sent Chap. 27 of this story to my editors. 27! That makes for, including this chapter, 15 whole chapters I had queued for publication... Though I haven't put them all on Patreon yet, but nobody's bought into my second-highest tier, so there really isn't any point past seven chapters. Yes, I know, I had only six published to patrons-only before this went up. I'll get around to fixing that at some point.

But in any case, as you may have noticed, I've elected to run daily updates for a week, beat down some of this backlog. It's really depressing to be writing events SO far ahead of what people actually comment on... Because, well, nobody ever comments on the chapters on Patreon. And my editors never comment on the story content, either, only how it's written (you know, spwuellen' and gwuammar). So, here she is!

Chapter 14: Jinx'd

“So, Draco?” Hermione- no, Draco reminded himself, it’s Instructor Granger when I’m Draco- asked.

Draco looked up, from where he’d been gathering up his books. Instructor Twilight Sparkle had been right, the week before; Herm- Instructor Granger- had put not only Instructor Hard Spell but the entire class through their paces even more than Instructor Sparkle had. And she’d somehow balanced her effort to help bring each individual student up to speed as quickly as possible- he’d found himself working hard for the first time in… Years? In any case, it took quite a bit to tax him, but she’d managed it. By the time the bell rang, he was starting to develop a small headache from all the studying, his desk was layered in books and notes, and she’d had him attempt- successfully, at that- no less than three different spells he hadn’t known before.

All in the span of a single hour.

“Hmm?” he asked, while the last of the other students walked out the door: Instructor Hard Spell herself.

Hermione took a deep breath, and let it out again. “Um… How do you think I did?” She glanced nervously around the room.

He shrugged. “I can’t say much for everyone else, but I know you had me working harder than I’ve worked in years.” He grinned up at her.

She nodded slowly. “... Ahh. Then…” She tilted her head. “How about the… thing?” She fixed him with a curious gaze.

“The… Oh, that. Well…” He sighed. “I’m sure you already know about the flash of light and how much it tingled?”

She nodded.

He shrugged. “Well, the tingling came back periodically, nice and gentle, for a few minutes at a time over the next day or so. Then it escalated to waves of dizziness for a day. Then…” He shuddered. “I… I was afraid I was going to lose everything. My head hurt to the top of Merlin’s hat, I couldn’t keep anything down, and when I went to Madam Pomfrey, she said I had a nasty fever.” He shuddered again. “It didn’t stop there, of course. Before long, I had also lost sight and hearing, and become mute. It…” He shuddered a third time. “It was horrible. Then there was a spike of pain, and the main side effect you were expecting.” He looked up at her.

She nodded, clearly understanding what he meant, though her face betrayed her hurt at the amount of pain she had caused him.

“That lasted about fifteen minutes, and took everything else with it.” He shrugged. “Been completely normal ever since. No new magic or anything.”

She sighed. “Well there wouldn’t be, like this,” she told him. “You’ll have to take the altered form to have access to that. But…” She shivered. “It’s there, all right. It just… doesn’t look stable. I thought it would, but…” She sighed. “Nothing’s changing right now, though. Almost like it’s dormant or something.”

He shrugged. “Nothing left to do but wait and see, is there?”

She sighed again. “Yeah, I guess. Keep me posted?”

Draco sighed as he sat down next to Hermione, at the top of the Quidditch stands.

She looked at him. “Anything new?”

He shook his head. “Unless you count nearly breaking my nose on my way down here because of an… inopportunely timed dizzy spell.”

“Dizzy spell?” Hermione asked, curiously.

He nodded. “Yup. Second one so far. They were both very sudden, very strong, and also very brief. Lasted just a few seconds each time, I think.”

She tilted her head. “When was the first one?”

He shrugged. “Couple days ago. Thursday morning- my bed was there, so no harm.”

She scowled. “Hmm. I suppose…” She scowled. “Yeah, that’s one of the longer-term side effects I was expecting, actually. Your essence is just adapting to the new capability. I… don’t know what kind of effects to expect from said adaptation, just that the process can be…” She gestured towards him. “Dizzying, I guess.”

Ron, seated on her other side, looked at her. “What are you talking about?” he asked.

“Donno what Hailey thinks she’s doing.”

Draco looked up. “What?” he asked. Hailey, Hermione, and Ron had introduced him to the gamekeeper a week before- and while he seemed to be very nervous anytime he was in Hailey’s vicinity, something she found very amusing, he had quickly become a friend of Draco’s as well.

“If I didn’t know any better,” Hagrid continued, gazing up at the speck that was Hailey with his binoculars, “I’d say she’d lost control of her broom. But she couldn’ ‘ave!”

“What?” Draco asked again, this time alarmed. He grabbed Hagrid’s binoculars when he lowered them, and peered up at Hailey. He scowled. “Yeah. And that’s not a pre-applied curse, that’s someone actively interfering with it.” He gave the binoculars to Hermione, who looked up as well, and muttered a curse under her breath.

“But no kid could do that to a Nimbus Two Thousand,” Hagrid said, staring up at Hailey without the binoculars while Hermione passed them to Ron and drew her wand. “There’s nothing that can interfere with a broomstick except powerful dark magic!”

Ron took the binoculars and pointed them down into the stands, while Hermione brandished her wand almost like she was dancing with it. “I knew it,” he announced. “It’s Snape.”

“Snape?” Draco asked- but Ron just stuffed the binoculars into his hands and ran off down the row. He scowled after Ron, then turned the binoculars on the stands opposite. It didn’t take him long to find the Head of Slytherin House… who did indeed look like he was doing something. “Huh. But he wouldn’t attack a student…?” He lowered the binoculars and looked up. “Would he, Hagrid?”

“Eh?” Hagrid asked, looking down at him in apparent confusion.

Right on time, Hermione lashed her wand forwards to point straight at Hailey, and a sudden gale blasted past them all in that direction.

“What the-!?” Draco asked. Hermione ignored it, even though her hair was obscuring her face. After all, Draco knew, she wasn’t exactly using her eyes at the moment. The wind died away very quickly.

The silence held for almost two seconds, through which both Hagrid and Draco were watching Hermione expectantly, before she moved. She wiggled her wand, and gave it a quick twirl. “Snape is using a countercurse,” she informed them simply. Then she scowled. “It’s the wrong one, though, so it’s not as effective.”

“Who’s attacking?” Draco asked.

Her scowl deepened. “I can’t tell. Their signature seems to be scrambled.” She sighed. “I invented this spell last month, and it’s already been countered. Whelp… let’s see if they’re ready for this.” She opened her eyes, brushed her hair out of her eyes, looked up at Hailey, and muttered something under her breath.

Up in the air, Hailey was suddenly able to control her broom again for a second- but only a single second. It was still long enough for her to swing back onto it, though.

It was in the nature of a countercurse to be able to sense the curse, and other magics directly affecting the target. However, it could only offer up how many there were and how powerful they were, never what they were or who was casting it. Snape was aware that the last two were theoretically impossible, but nobody had proven it.

As such, he knew exactly when someone cast a spell on Harry- or Hailey, as he’d found out the boy could become just minutes before the match- and he also knew that they were using well over a hundred times as much power as he had ever seen out of the Dark Lord, but he didn’t know any more… except that it was in the nature of a curse to be blind to that kind of thing. He had only to pray that it was friendly, and prepared a cushion spell in the back of his mind to catch the boy- no, currently a girl- should he- she- fall.

Then another spell, this one a similar power level to his, latched onto the boy- girl- and he saw him- her- practically leap back onto his- her- broom in a moment of positive control, before resuming the battle to stay on.

This battle went on for perhaps thirty seconds or so, with the broom getting progressively steadier- and at one point, Harry- Hailey- made a wild sweep with one arm for some reason, before resuming the struggle with his- her- broom.

Hardly five seconds after that, he felt first one, then the other low-power spell falling off. Finally, Har-Hailey seemed to have full control back, and was streaking towards the ground, hair streaming out behind her. Snape lowered his countercurse, then had perhaps two seconds to wonder if that was why Professor McGonagall never used her first name or used gendered pronouns for her before he noticed a surge of heat climbing up his back.

“It was Snape,” Ron told Hailey, while Hagrid was making them all a cup of strong tea in his hut. “We saw him. He was cursing your broomstick- he wouldn’t take his eyes off you.”

Hermione scowled. “N-!”

“Rubbish,” Hagrid said loudly. “Why would Snape do something like that?”

“He didn’t,” Hermione stated firmly. “He was using a countercurse.”

“But then-!” Ron began, scowling. “Then why did he try to get past that three-headed dog on Halloween?”

“He did?” Draco asked, genuinely surprised by the news. It didn’t surprise him that he was a little behind the curve with his friends- he couldn’t be with them nearly as much as they could be together, after all.

Hagrid, meanwhile, dropped the teapot. “How do you know,” he said slowly, “about Fluffy?”

Hailey looked at him. “Fluffy?”

“Yeah. He’s mine. Bought him off a Greek chap I met in the pub last year. I lent him to Dumbledore to guard the-!” He caught himself, and went silent.

“Yes?” Ron prompted eagerly- but instead of an answer from Hagrid, he got a slap on the arm from Hailey.

“No need to pry,” she reprimanded him.

“N-Now, don’t ask me any more,” Hagrid said gruffly. “That’s top secret, that is!”

“But Snape’s trying to steal it!” Ron pleaded.

“Ron!” Hailey barked. “What if he’s trying to protect it from someone that’s trying to steal it?”

Hagrid nodded. “He’s a Hogwarts teacher,” he said. “Of course he’d protect it.” He sighed. “Listen, you forget that dog, and forget what it’s guarding. That’s between Professor Dumbledore and Nicholas Flamel.”

“Nicholas Flamel?” Hermione parroted.

“He and his wife, Paranel, are six hundred and something years old,” Draco recalled. “Because he made the Philosopher’s Stone. And a man that old, with friends like Dumbledore, is going to have a lot to hide.”

Hailey looked up at Hagrid, who was sputtering incoherently, then at Draco. “Like the Philosopher’s Stone itself?”

Draco blinked. “Er… Yeah, I suppose he’d want to hide that. I mean, it makes the Elixir of Life- which makes the drinker immortal- and can turn any metal into pure gold.”

“Immortal?” Ron asked, looking at Draco. “Then how are we sure he isn’t trying to steal it?”

“More like,” Hermione barked, “who is Dumbledore trying to protect it from?”

“Voldemort,” Hailey said simply.

The effect was immediate. Ron, Hagrid, and Draco gave involuntary shudders.

“Don’t say the name!” Ron hissed.

Hailey ignored him. “Because when he tried to kill me… I mean,” she looked at Hermione. “Can part of the soul be destroyed when the rest remains?”

Hermione shook her head. “No. It’s impossible to destroy a soul- except, I suppose, by a dementor, but even they can’t destroy only part of a soul. And the soul has to be whole to pass on to…” She shrugged. “The beyond, I guess?”

“What’s a dementor?” Hailey asked, curious.

She shook her head. “I’ll explain later,” she told her.

Hailey shrugged. “But anyways, when he tried to kill me, if my parents can-!”

“He tried to kill you?” Ron interrupted, confused. “Didn’t he try to kill Harry?”

Hailey looked at him. “Ahh… Yes.”

“Then how did he…? He can’t exactly die twice, can he?”

“Uh… I’ll get to that.” She turned away from him. “If my parents can leave pieces of themselves on me, then what about him? Could Voldemort have left a piece of himself behind in this world- perhaps not on me, but on someone else- even something else?”

Hermione scowled. “I don’t know. I’ve… never seen any books that say it’s possible, but I’ve seen it happen, so…” She shrugged. “Probably.”

“Right. Then when his body is killed, what’s the rest of him going to do? Does it, perhaps, float around and wait for the right moment to just spawn another one with the help of the Elixir of Life?”

Hermione opened her mouth to speak, looking distinctly uneasy, then closed it again for a second. “That’s… possible,” she said eventually. “Though I’ll have to admit I don’t know enough about how these kinds of things work.”

Hailey nodded.

“Then Snape’s trying to steal it for him!” Ron concluded.

“He’s a Hogwarts teacher,” Hagrid reiterated. “He’d do nothing of the sort.”

Hailey rounded on them. “I’m not so sure that reason stands, Hagrid,” she informed him, before turning to Ron. “But I know he’d do nothing of the sort because he saved my life today.” She gave him the stare.

It was Ron’s turn to be distinctly uneasy. “How does that…?”

“Because if he was working for Voldemort,” Hailey continued, ignoring Ron’s shudder, “he would have tried to kill me instead. As a matter of fact…”

“Why?” Ron injected. “Why would You Know Who care about you?”

She looked at him again, looking somewhat bewildered. “I’ll get to that,” she told him.

Very suddenly, two plus two equalled four in Draco’s head. Hailey was either trying to tell them that she was Harry… or wasn’t too concerned about hiding such a fact. “Oh!” he gasped, slapping a hand against his own forehead. “I think I get it.” Then it crossed his mind that he’d seen both Harry and Hailey several times over the last several days- just never both at once. “But how do you do it?”

Hailey glanced at him, and grinned. “Later. Anyways, from the evidence, we know that Voldemort is here, at Hogwarts, and trying to steal it himself- we just don’t know who he is.”

“You Know Who is You Know Who,” Hagrid said, confused. Even Hermione looked confused.

“It’s Voldemort,” Hailey corrected him.

“Don’t say the name,” Ron hissed.

“It’s Voldemort,” Hailey repeated, this time at a yell. “It’s a word. What are you afraid of?”

The silence lasted for about three seconds.

Finally, Hailey let out a sigh. “Anyways, we technically know who he is, but we simultaneously don’t know who he is, because he doesn’t have a body. He can’t physically handle the Stone himself- and, presumably, can’t just pass through stone, wood, and three-headed dogs to reach it for some reason- maybe he needs a physical hand to manipulate it for him or something. But he could easily be riding someone- on their body, one of their possessions, something. And we don’t know who that someone- who his servant- is.” She looked around the table. “I’d bet my broomstick it’s that servant that was attacking me earlier.”

Hermione let out a gasp. “Oooh! That must be why I couldn’t tell who was attacking. Their signature was messed up because they’re sharing their body with Voldemort, which has naturally resulted in the Essence being scrambled, which…” She trailed off, drawing odd figures on the table with her finger. “Yup. His effect is probably larger than your parents’, though, and he’s either always ‘agitated’ or becomes so whenever his servant is going to attack.”

“Larger?” Hailey asked, gesturing down at herself.

Hermione looked at her. “Well…” She paused, thinking, then smiled. “I guess. But mothers are like that.”

Hailey laughed.

“What I meant,” Hermine began again. “Er, what I guess I meant, is that Voldemort is going to have some kind of long-term effect on his servant, probably at least a little transformational. It might be small enough to hide with clothing, since a lot of the effect is probably inside anyways, in the mind, where he can directly bolster his servant’s magical capabilities. Which makes him very dangerous.”

Hailey nodded. “So if we find out who he is and find ourselves in a stand-up fight against him, it’s potentially equivalent to a stand-up fight against Voldemort himself at the height of his power, sans backup?”

Hermione nodded as well. “Exactly.” She looked at Hagrid. “I assume Fluffy is basically unstoppable unless you know some specific secret about him?”

“Yeah,” Hagrid nodded. “You just-!” He froze.

“Nice catch,” Hailey told him. “Do you know if Dumbledore knows who he is?”

Hagrid shook himself out, then shook his head. “Nah, he can’t.” He sounded uneasy as well. “If he did, he’d never let ‘im anywhere near the Castle.”

“Wait a minute,” Ron said suddenly, eyes wide, before he turned to Hailey. “Are you saying you’re-?” He stopped.

Hailey turned to look at him calmly. “Yes.”

“That you’re-?” Ron repeated. “You’re Harry Potter?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“I’d still like to know how you do it,” Draco said. “I’ve been trying to build a genderswap spell for years, but haven’t managed it.”

She shrugged. “I don’t,” she told him, looking back at him and smiling cheerfully. “My mom does, whenever I hit myself in the face.”

“Your… What?”

Hermione nodded. “She’s right,” she said. “And there’s no known way to duplicate it, unfortunately. Unless your mother wants to sacrifice herself to protect you, but I rather expect you prefer her alive.”

Draco shuddered. “Yeah, and I’d rather not have V-Voldemort coming after me either.”

“Me neither,” Hailey told him flatly. “But honestly, I didn’t have much of a choice in the matter.” She shrugged. “I’m sure there’s a way- like she said, no known way. And she’s already demonstrated rather well that we- that wizardkind knows next to nothing about magic, right?” She looked mischievously at Hermione.

Hermione smiled abashedly. “I only discovered a new field of magic,” she mumbled.

“And in so doing proved just how little we know about the core of how magic works,” Hailey nodded.

Hagrid, who seemed to be having trouble following the conversation, pulled out a fresh teapot and started making tea again.

Author's Note

And this is what happens when you’re smart, but haven’t used your head for much more than a hat rack…. Don’t worry, this is something like the middle of his redemption arc. Eventually, he’ll be on par with his friends…

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Also, news flash, apparently the nobles all know about Flamel and his Stone... and Hailey, Hermione, Draco, and- with a bit of lag- Ron are all smart, so able to follow the chain of logic down the line so quickly that Hagrid can't keep track of it!

What was Hailey bewildered by? She was trying to be obvious about her 'hints', and expected Ron at least to have caught on by then.

Perhaps Dumbledore and Bonbon should just ask Voldemort who Hailey is…. Oh wait.

Chapter 15: Christmas

“Harry?”

Harry looked up at Bonbon. “Hmm?” he prompted.

Today was the day that most of the school would be going home for the holidays- and as usual, he understood, Bonbon’s face betrayed nothing about whatever she wanted from him. He couldn’t imagine what it might be- it was hardly fifteen minutes before most of the school would be leaving the Castle for the train, alongside Hermione but not the Weasleys. He’d come down to watch them go.

“A word?” she requested.

He tilted his head. “Sure?” he asked.

She led him a few strides away, before turning into an unused classroom- there sure seemed to be a lot of those at Hogwarts, even with so many students- and closing the door behind them with a snap. Harry once again found himself envious of the swishing ease with which all the girls in the school carried themselves, which he couldn’t quite acquire for himself when he was Hailey. As much as he liked his skirts- he actually missed their sweeping, comfortable embrace whenever he was Harry- he just couldn’t shake off the feeling that he was an imposter whenever he was Hailey.

Finally, she turned to him, evidently satisfied that they were alone. “Harry. I’m sorry I have to offer this to you, but you’re all that’s left.” She sighed. “Are you up to an Instructor Assignment?”

Harry scowled at the thought. An Instructor Assignment… would be another section of the day he’d have to make it through each week as Harry. “It… depends,” he muttered.

She nodded, pulling a single page of paper from her bag. “Here’s the details,” she told him. “We’ll need an answer, one way or the other, when we get back from the holidays.”

Harry looked down at the page and scowled; it was Potions, and he already disliked Snape, the Slytherin head of house and the school’s Potions master. “Right,” he mumbled, opening his own bag- which he had with him purely so he wouldn’t have to explain to anyone why he was carrying The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self Protection by Quentin Trimble around, and slipping it in.

“And one more thing,” Bonbon told him. “Do you know anything about Hailey Potter?”

Harry looked up at her. “... Why?” he asked.

She shrugged. “We’ve got something to offer her.”

He studied her, trying to judge whether he could trust her. He’d only met her a few times, after all. “What is it?” he asked.

She tilted her head curiously. “I want to offer her a spot as well,” she told him. “And in case you’re wondering, as the head of the Student Instructor Program, I’m pretty good at keeping secrets.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Promise?”

She nodded. “Promise.”

He flipped the defense textbook out of his bag, folded the softcover book about in half without creasing it, and slapped himself on the forehead. The soft tingle of the transformation had long become very familiar to him, as had the sharp slap of the clothing spell Hermione had invented for him, instantly swapping out his male clothes for the female outfit of his choice, straight from his trunk upstairs.

When he lowered the book back towards his bag, Bonbon was staring at him, and he could almost hear the gears turning in her brain.

“Well,” she eventually muttered. “When you got that broom of yours, you used the Impediment Jinx, a fourth-year charm that even Twilight hasn’t mastered yet.” She looked up at him. “Is that unique to this shape, or can you do it as a boy as well?”

He shook his head. “No, Harry can’t. I’ve tried.” He scowled. “Same for the silencing charm and blasting spell, even. Yet I- as Hailey- used both of those, at various times.”

“Alright,” Bonbon said, scowling as she thought. The silence held for a few seconds, before she seemed to make her decision, and opened her bag again, this time drawing out a good sized packet of papers. “I think… I think we can probably forget about that other one, then, unless you really want to take it,” she told him. “And we’ve got this for you, if you’re willing. And you can take as much time as you want to read up on it and come up with your decision.”

Harry accepted it, scowling in confusion, and looked at the top sheet.

Then he gasped.

“You want to make me the Head Student Instructor for Defense Against the Dark Arts?” he asked incredulously.

“There’s no denying that you’re qualified for the job,” she told him. “Especially since I’ve got nearly forty eyewitnesses that Hailey never has any trouble with any spells.”

He reached up to scratch the back of his hair nervously. “... Yeah. I’ve noticed that myself, actually- even the ones that don’t just come to me are much easier to learn- and perform- as Hailey. But this…” He looked down at it. “I haven’t even taught a single class yet, but you want to make me the head instructor?”

She nodded. “I know.” She pulled out a chair to sit in; Harry picked one nearby and sat down as well, facing her. “And that’s where the difference comes in. Our Defense Against the Dark Arts instructors are pretty clueless about what to look for, what to study, what to teach. Yet you seem to know at least some already.”

He tilted his head. “Wouldn’t they get it from Professor Quirrell’s classes…?”

She shook her head. “No. His classes have been nothing but a joke- totally useless. Attendance is down to an all-time low of flat nothing. Speaking of which, if you accept, you will be on his student roster, but- and I have Dumbledore’s explicit permission to tell you this- you will not actually attend his classes. We… have reason to believe that he will attack you if given the opportunity. Or at least, he will attack Harry.”

Harry tilted his head. “Is it possible he’s the one that attacked me at that Quidditch match?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Not likely. Nobody knows that you are Harry.”

“Professor McGonagall figured it out,” Harry told her immediately. “Said something about ‘transgenderism’, no idea what that’s all about. And Snape either figured it out or randomly saves Gryffindor lives.” He scowled. “I still don’t know why he was trying to save me.” Then he looked up. “And Voldemort definitely figured it out, or he wouldn’t have tried to kill me during that match in the first place.”

She stared at him. “How?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. If…” He sighed. “If you write Harry’s name while I’m Harry, or Hailey’s name when I’m Hailey, it’ll change to reflect whichever one I am. That’s how McGonagall found out… and, I assume, how the other two did, as well.” He grinned. “And how Hagrid found out, back when he brought me my Hogwarts letter.”

She scowled. “Alright. We don’t know what agenda Quirrell has against you, but it is entirely possible he is working for Voldemort. Try not to meet him, then?”

“Consider me warned,” he nodded. “Probably a good thing I keep my wand with me at all times already.”

She nodded. “Probably. But let us know, okay? If you take it, you’ll be in a bit of a unique position, even relative to our other HSIs, since you’ll be basically replacing Professor Quirrell for the purpose of our Student Instructor program.” She rose, bowed to him, and left the room.

“I’d give anything for one of these,” Ron told Harry, mentally trying to estimate the value of the Invisibility Cloak that Harry had just unwrapped.

Harry raised an eyebrow at him. “Anything?” he asked.

He looked up at Harry, values forgotten. “Of course,” he began. However, his mind immediately began filling with things he would not want to trade for an invisibility cloak. His sister, his parents, his brothers (which actually surprised him), Hailey… Harry, he noticed with some trepidation, was not on the list. “Well…” He tilted his head, and tried coming up with things of value that he would trade for an Invisibility Cloak… but all he could think of was his wand- but that was only because the inevitable replacement would have to be his very first brand-new item… aside from any invisibility cloaks, of course. “No,” he finally told Harry, who merely smiled before returning to his own inspection of the cloak.

He watched as Harry ran it through his fingers. “Strange,” Harry muttered. “It’s… It’s almost like it’s made of water. Which…” He unfolded it, and swept it over his shoulders, making his upper body disappear. Then Harry looked at it again, as invisible as it was. “I wonder how it decides when it should be visible or not…?”

Ron scowled. “I… I don’t know. Hermione might, though. Or Alastor.”

“True,” Harry agreed, and swept the cloak off of himself.

Ron’s scowl deepened, as he was reminded of something. “Um, Harry…”

Harry paused, looking up from where he was picking up a note that seemed to have fallen from the cloak’s folds. “Hmm?”

“Are… Are you a girl?” If he was entirely honest with himself, he didn’t believe that Hailey was the same person as Harry.

Harry looked at him incredulously. “Do I look like a girl to you?” he asked.

“Well no,” he answered quickly. “It’s just… Hailey was saying-!”

“Ron,” Harry said, very seriously, and reached over to his nightstand to pull a book from it- The Dark Forces, A Guide to Self Protection by Quentin Trimble.

“What?” Ron asked.

Harry held the book in both hands in front of him. “Do you see me?” he asked.

Ron nodded. “Uh… Yeah?” he muttered.

Harry swept the book up and whacked himself in the face with it. There was a bright flash of white light, and when the book came back down, Harry had been replaced by Hailey- fully clothed and everything, and sitting exactly how Harry had been moments before. She lowered the book back to the same position Harry had held it in moments before. “And do you still see me?” she asked.

He nodded vaguely. “I… I think I get it now.” He paused. “How do you turn back?”

Hailey shrugged. “I go to sleep.”

He scowled. “Then… don’t you worry about people seeing your underwear when you fly?”

She let out a small giggle. “Nope. Quidditch uniforms include pants- even for the girls. Besides, for as much as I like these skirts-” she stuck one leg out, so her skirt was visible in the gap in her robes- “they would just be cumbersome in the air.” She dropped her leg back down.

There was a sudden bang as the dormitory door was thrown open. Ron jumped- but Hailey, as usual, seemed to have precognitive reflexes or something. She wasted no time whatsoever in throwing the Invisibility Cloak back over herself, hiding her entirely from view.

Fred and George marched in. “Merry Christmas!”

Dumbledore looked calmly down at the girl on the bed in front of him. Madam Pomfrey was standing next to him, and neither of them could think of any way to save her- or even to stabilize her for transport to St. Mungo’s.

The fluffy pink-haired girl had somehow managed to remove her entire left arm, turn the left half of her face upside down, and move her left leg from her hip to the side of her head, where it had replaced her ear- which had found itself back down where her leg had been before. It didn’t exactly help that the missing arm was spreading- when she’d come in, it had just been her hand, but now it was all the way up to her shoulder.

On the other side of the bed were Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Fluttershy, all tearful and holding Pinkie Pie’s hand whenever they could.

There was a sudden bang from the door into the Hospital Wing. Dumbledore looked up, just in time for-

“Pinkie!”

He jumped. He could swear that young Hermione Granger had not been at the foot of the bed, in her nightgown and holding a toothbrush, two seconds before.

“I figured it out!” Hermione continued unbidden. “Wiggle the lurgid up and down!”

Pinkie sputtered something incoherent. She hadn’t been able to form words since she had been brought in, thanks to the damage to her mouth, but the surviving portion of her face looked doubtful.

“It only unfreddles the gruntbuggly,” Hermione continued, apparently having understood. “But when you wiggle the lurgid sideways, knowing how plurdled the gabbleblotchits are, it refreddles the gruntbuggly for you!”

“What are you talking about?” Twilight asked her.

Then, out of nowhere, Pinkie fairly leapt out of bed… leaving her injuries behind. It was a very peculiar appearance, while the girl- completely normal-looking once again- hugged Hermione. “Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!” she streamed. “It worked! I can tell how plurdled they are!”

Hermione chuckled, hugging her back. “You’re welcome. Just don’t hurt yourself like that again, okay?”

Pinkie giggled. “Oh no, I can put myself back together now, don’t worry. All I have to do is know how plurdled the gabbleblotchits are!”

She chuckled again. “Alright. We can party, um, maybe when everyone gets back from the holidays? I really should be headed back, I don’t want my parents to wonder why I’m taking so long.”

Pinkie stepped back and waved. “See you, then! And look forward to it!”

Hermione grinned… and very suddenly, wasn’t anywhere.

“How sure are we that she hasn’t ascended?” Rarity asked Twilight.

Rainbow stood to tackle-hug Pinkie from behind. “Welcome back, Pinkie!”

Twilight shrugged. “As far as I know, she’s not capable of ascending. But at this point, I wouldn’t put it past her.”

Draco sighed, wandering the castle in the middle of the night. He didn’t usually do this- but it wasn’t because he didn’t want to. On the contrary, he knew by now that the Sorting Hat had been dead right. His ‘Alastor’ persona fit in in the Gryffindor common room better than he did in the Slytherin one.

Rather, it was because he generally wasn’t able to- that was to say, he was never the last one to go to bed.

This time, he was. He had managed to convince Crabbe and Goyle to go home for the holidays- so he was both the first and the last British Slytherin to go to bed each night, as the only one left in the castle. Most of the foreigners had, as a huge wave of girls (and boys, he knew, but they all seemed to be girls at first glance), gone home as well; the rest went to bed and got up early.

Naturally, he didn’t go unprotected. He had taken his fully invisible form- which, ever since he’d spent a day in the Hospital Wing after Halloween, felt… different than it usually did. He didn’t know what the difference was, though, being unable to see it himself, only that there was one. He was still completely invisible and completely silent, almost no matter what he did in that form- even still mute. It was actually hard to get detected without running into someone or something… or changing forms. But if he did that last one, he wouldn’t be able to go back for about a quarter of an hour.

As for what he was doing, he was walking around with a “Dry Erase Marker” some Muggleborn had left in the Great Hall some weeks before and, after realizing it wiped right back off again, was drawing smiley faces and funny messages on all the suits of armor he could find. For as long as it was in his hand, the marker was invisible with him, and also wouldn’t squeak- so it wasn’t like anyone could catch him. He’d even found Peeves trying to do the same with a stick of chalk, and no success.

Very suddenly, while approaching a lonely suit of armor, he froze. Someone was talking nearby, but he couldn’t see them.

“My feet are freezing.”

It took him a second, but he recognized it as Ron Weasley. Where was he? Why was he invisible?

He heard Harry’s voice next- interesting that it was Harry, rather than Hailey. He usually liked to be Hailey, to the point where, in the various times he had been with them, Ron frequently asked where Harry had gotten to. “It’s here,” he said.

Draco didn’t pay much attention to their words past that point, more focused on flattening himself against the wall next to the suit of armor while he wrote “I’ll be back” on it’s back, and on figuring out where the two boys were.

This was made easy when a door moved not six feet away- and when he crept in after them, he saw them take off what looked like an Invisibility Cloak.

He stood next to the door and watched while they argued in front of a strange mirror for a couple minutes- at which point he noticed Mrs. Norris, through the door, coming around a distant corner.

He glanced forwards, at Harry and Ron- she was about to catch them, and was hurrying towards the room to look.

Then, he lifted his marker, and threw it out the door, so it banged against the wall behind her. She jumped, pausing to look back at it… then resumed her dash.

Fortunately, the noise also warned the two boys and bought them just enough time to get themselves invisible once again.

Mrs. Norris stood in the door, searching the room for the speakers, then turned back to investigate the marker, evidently having decided she wasn’t going to find anything here.

“This isn’t safe,” Ron muttered- and, a minute later, Draco felt a slight breeze as the two boys left the room.

He looked outside, then walked up to look at the mirror.

He let out a completely inaudible gasp of surprise.

He scowled at his reflection, then looked up at the inscription.

Erised… He knew he’d seen that somewhere, and was pretty sure he even remembered where, but he didn’t remember anything else about it.

He scowled at his reflection again, and headed for the Slytherin common room. He could look it up in the morning, or during the day.

Albus Dumbledore smiled to himself from his vantage point on one of the desks in the back of the room as Harry appeared for the second night in a row. Judging by what Harry had told Ron the night before, he had actually been here on Christmas night as well- and just hadn’t removed his cloak.

He watched the boy sit on the floor in front of the mirror, and smiled, drawing his wand to cancel his invisibility.

He was about to perform the necessary magic when, quite suddenly, there was another boy in the room, stepping up behind Harry.

Draco Malfoy.

“Back again, Harry?” Malfoy asked.

“Wha-!?” Harry asked, whirling around in alarm. “You?” he hissed.

Malfoy nodded. “Me,” he sighed calmly, almost sorrowfully. Harry didn’t move as he sat down next to him and folded his legs. “I trust you’ll forgive my… bullying, I guess? I don’t like it any more than you do, but I am a Malfoy, and Malfoys have appearances to maintain. No matter how hurtful they are to those around them… or to themselves.”

Harry stared at him. “Appearances?” he asked.

He nodded. “Just don’t tell anyone, okay?” he sighed. “We can be… secret friends or something, if you like. Still antagonistic in public, but friends in secret.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Like that’s going to work,” he said.

Draco shrugged. “It’s working well enough with Alastor, and a couple others I won’t name,” he said.

“With-!?” Harry asked.

He nodded. “Yes. I’ve actually been a bit of a source of information for him, just as he has for me.” He sighed. “The point is, I actually quite like you. And, funny story, the Sorting Hat wanted to put me in Gryffindor.” He shrugged. “I probably should have let it, in the end.”

Dumbledore leaned forward, studying Malfoy’s back. He was reasonably certain the boy was telling the truth- and that meant the Malfoy the world knew… was merely a persona, not the real person behind it. And when he considered just how much of his plan relied on that persona to continue to be exactly who Draco really was- well, more than half of his plans would have to be reworked… but before that, he would have to discover the true nature of Harry’s archnemesis.

Harry sighed, and stared forwards, into the mirror, for several seconds. “The Hat… wanted to put me in Slytherin,” he muttered slowly. “But I… I asked not to go there.” He sighed. “It was like… ‘you sure? Okay then, better be Gryffindor’.” He looked at Draco.

“It didn’t want to put you in Slytherin,” Draco told him. “If it accepted such a request so readily, it might have been close, so it was having difficulty deciding exactly where you should go. But in the end?” He laughed. “You’d look like a clown in our dungeon. Much too… well, Gryffindorish. And the only reason I don’t is because I hide it.” He shrugged. “I mean seriously. I argued with the Hat for five minutes. It was determined to put me in Gryffindor, but I wouldn’t let it. I couldn’t let it, for no Malfoy can ever be seen in the so-called ‘House of the Blood Traitors’.”

“Blood traitors?” Harry asked, appalled.

He nodded. “A vulgar slang term used by the high-born pureblood supremacists to describe pureblooded wizards that fraternize with muggles. So, like the Weasleys. And there isn’t a single ‘blood traitor’ alive that wasn’t in Gryffindor. The rest just… I don’t know. Maybe they’re afraid of what the nobles will do to them if they do, or maybe they’re just not curious enough to try? And of course all those nobles have always been Slytherins.” He looked forwards, at the Mirror, and sighed. “Except me. My reflection is wearing Gryffindor Quidditch robes.”

Harry looked at the mirror as well. “Which position?” he asked, curiously.

Draco shook his head. “Can’t tell. Damn Quidditch Cup is hiding the badge, and the entire current team- including you- standing behind my reflection doesn’t exactly simplify anything. Maybe a reserve?”

“Me?” Harry asked.

“Well, your other you,” Draco shrugged. “Hailey.” He looked at Harry. “What do you see?”

Dumbledore, his memory jogged by the name, looked at the piece of parchment lying- perfectly visible- on the table next to him, which told how Harry had been turned into a boy named Harry. He had also scrawled “Harry is Hailey” across the bottom on Christmas morning- but it now read “Harry is Harry”, as it had the night before.

“I…” Harry looked into the mirror. “It shows me my parents,” he said. “Though I do indeed look like Hailey.”

“So why don’t you?” Draco asked. “Did your book get lost or something?”

Harry looked at him. “My-! How do you know?”

He shrugged. “I have my ways. But seriously- this Mirror of Erised won’t always show us stuff that is even remotely possible. For example, we both know your family is dead, and that I’m never going to get onto the Gryffindor Quidditch team, no matter how hard I try.” He looked at the mirror. “Though of course it does show me something that’s at least theoretically attainable, but is it really?” He sighed. “So why not seize the chance while you have it, and make it true while you can?”

“Mirror… of Erised?”

He nodded. “Looked it up last night. Do you know what it does? What it shows us all?”

Harry stared into the mirror. “No,” he finally muttered. “It… It seems to be random, so far.”

“If you read the inscription backwards, and judiciously move the spaces around, it reads ‘I show not the truth but your heart’s desire’.” He looked at Harry. “So… According to the literature, the deepest, most desperate desire of our hearts. Which obviously isn’t all it shows, since it shows such ephemeral things as Hogwarts Quidditch robes and trophies.”

Harry scowled, bunching his Invisibility Cloak up in his hands. “Then why does it only show me my family?”

“And Hailey,” Draco corrected.

He rolled his eyes. “And Hailey, yes.” He whipped himself with the wadded Invisibility Cloak- and in a brilliant flash of white light, he had been replaced by a girl with long, flowing black hair. “But it still only shows my family.”

Dumbledore looked down at his note.

It now told the story of how Harry had been turned into a girl called Hailey… and at the bottom, in his handwriting, it read “Harry is Hailey”. He smiled. So that was what it was.

But then, how did it change the written words? How did it know which ones to change?

“Come to think of it,” Draco muttered, looking at Harry- Hailey’s- cloak. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen an invisibility cloak as fine as yours.”

Hailey looked down at it. “It was my father’s,” she said. “No idea who sent it, though.”

“Your father’s?” Draco asked. “Didn’t he die, some ten years ago?”

She nodded silently.

He stared at her. “... Okay then,” he said, slowly. “That cloak is probably actually literally priceless- even the best ones money can buy still have a shelf life of only five years.” He looked at her very seriously. “Don’t tell anyone that it’s that old, okay? Especially in the noble circles. You do not want to be killed in your sleep over your father’s cloak, and I can name at least a dozen people that would gladly do just that to get it if they knew.”

Hailey shuddered. “That’s… Scary,” she decided, then looked up at the mirror. “Where did you even get it, Dad?”

Draco looked as well, and they sat silently for a few seconds. “I’m… curious,” he muttered, eventually. “Does his reflection answer you?”

She shook her head. “Only smiles,” she answered. “They look like they’re all posing for a photograph, albeit with… sometimes differing emotional states. Mom’s usually crying, but it looks like a happy cry.”

Draco let out a small sigh. “I’m sure she’d be happy to see you and what you’ve become,” he told her. He took a deep breath, and let it out. “Now then, we’d probably better be headed to bed before the august personage seated behind us has to chase us there.”

“The-?” Hailey asked, turning to look. She froze. “Professor Dumbledore!” she gasped.

Dumbledore resisted the urge to drop his jaw as he froze still. He was still invisible, right?

Draco twisted around to look at him. “Right, Professor?”

Dumbledore was unfortunately forced to conclude that he must’ve forgotten to maintain his invisibility spell, and had become visible. Just to be sure, he deliberately cancelled it. He smiled. “Mr. Malfoy has taken all my lines,” he told Hailey cheerfully.

Malfoy scowled, confused. “I- Sorry, Professor?”

He chuckled. “You’ve already said just about everything I was planning on telling…” He trailed off as he looked at Hailey, unsure of which name to use. Was this why Minerva had, ever since Hailey had joined the team, always corrected him to ‘Potter’ whenever he said ‘Harry’, and never applied a ‘Mr.’ to the name either? And why she had even used the gender-neutral ‘they’ and ‘them’ pronouns when referring to him? “H… Hailey,” he decided, slowly.

Hailey’s soft, involuntary smile was all it took to tell him he’d chosen correctly.

He tilted his head. “How do you turn back?”

She shrugged. “I go to sleep for a few hours. I wish it was at will- it’d make it much easier to maintain the separation between Harry and Hailey.”

“Ahh. Well, you two should probably know this Mirror will be moved to a new home tomorrow, and I ask you don’t go looking for it. So why don’t you put your father’s admirable cloak back on, or… or whatever you do,” he smiled at Draco, “and head back to bed?”

Author's Note

Ahh, Bonbon finally found Hailey! And in other news, so did Dumbledore.

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Chapter 16: Disaster

Dumbledore scowled as Bonbon arrived in his office on Sunday morning, rather than on Saturday night. She set the week’s stupendous report on his desk, and sat down. “Well, Norbert’s been taken care of,” she told him. “Went out with a bit of a bang, if you ask me. Bit Ron on Monday, then Hermione on Thursday. Fortunately, by the time Hermione was bitten, they knew Norbert was venomous, so she went to Madam Pomfrey right away- and has a much shorter expected recovery time, according to Madam Pomfrey, making for minimal disruption of her duties. Madam Pomfrey has confirmed that she knows what really bit them, and tells us that had Ron come to her more than four hours later than he did, she’d have had to ship him off to St. Mungo’s.

“In any case, Alastor teamed up with Harry last night to carry him to the top of the tallest Astronomy tower at midnight, where some friends of Charlie Weasley’s picked him up to take him away by broom. Thanks to Harry’s Invisibility Cloak, which I understand Alastor had to remind him about, they made it back to their dormitories without being seen.” She sighed. “Apparently, the only reason Harry went as Harry was because he’s stronger than Hailey. We’ve elected not to take any action, since we theoretically don’t know it ever happened- and besides, they didn’t really have many other options.

“Aside from that, exactly as expected, Hailey has taken our Defense Against the Dark Arts instructors by storm. We’ve had several students telling us that their instructors suddenly seemed to know what they were teaching, and indeed what to teach, and overall satisfaction with the course- and grades- have been skyrocketing. We have been told that well over half of the instructors have been asked by their students if Quirrell was finally doing something useful for a change.” She chuckled softly.

“In other news, Ron has hit his stride, we think. He’s still somewhat uneducated, having not learned nearly as well in his youth, but he’s definitely got the brainpower, and now he’s using it. We expect he’ll make a great Student Instructor next year, but we don’t think he’s ready for that this year.”

Dumbledore listened as her report continued to wash over him, paying just as much attention to her facial expressions as to her words. As he’d noticed a long time before, she was obviously a professional, and very used to this kind of thing- so she almost never showed much emotion at all. Today was no different, but the little bits that she did show added flavor to the otherwise ordinary report.

It was amazing, whenever he considered it, just how much they had gotten done in so little time. Nearly a full half of the student body had been tried as Instructors, and they had finally found enough instructors to work suitably for the rest of the year.

It didn’t exactly hurt that, after sitting in on several of their instructors’ classes, including at least two of Bonbon’s own and one of their Instructor Training classes, Professor Snape had revised his teaching methods and was now getting glowing reports from his students, including the upper years. As a direct result, Potions grades had shot up school-wide to more resemble the average set by the other classes, and even exceed them in a few cases. Dumbledore had, out of curiosity, sat in on one of Snape’s new classes- and found that, even without participating in the new, dynamic flow of the classroom, he’d still learned quite a bit that he hadn’t known before- and even Snape seemed to be enjoying himself. Following that, several of the other instructors had performed sit-in experiments of their own- except only Professor Quirrell, who didn’t seem to care- to see if there was somewhere they could improve as well. Their improvements hadn’t been nearly as dramatic, but Bonbon’s management team had still noticed them.

Speaking of which, their team had even suggested that he consider Hagrid as a potential Care of Magical Creatures instructor, once Professor Kettleburn retired. Apparently, he definitely knew enough about them, and had all of the traits and aptitudes they were looking for in their instructors- and so would merely need a little training on how to teach and they expected he could be a great teacher.

Madam Pomfrey jumped when a sudden crash yielded a surge of students into her infirmary.

“Madam Pomfrey!” one of them began- Lee Jordan, the third-year that Professor McGonagall had tapped to commentate the Quidditch matches. Behind him came Fred and George Weasley and Alicia Spinnet, who were carrying between them the limp, heavily bleeding form she recognized as Angelina Johnson. Another couple of students brought up the rear- Marietta Hearth, with a nasty gash on her arm, was leaning on Thomas Gorgon’s shoulder as he helped hold her up, but she was still awake.

She rushed forwards. “What happened?” she barked.

“No idea,” Fred told her quickly. “Something happened in the other room during our History of Magic exam, then something clipped Marietta’s shoulder before driving into Angelina.”

It took her only a quick glance to know the girl was close to dying, even without any magic- and she brandished her wand quickly to make sure she wasn’t already dead.

She wasn’t, but she was closer than she’d expected. If she tried sending the girl to St. Mungo’s- which looked like what she needed- she’d die before she got there.

She began casting spells on her, fighting to stabilize her, even as she guided the girl’s classmates to put her on a bed. She didn’t care that Angelina was bleeding all over the sheets; sheets could be cleaned. Just like her classmates’ robes- they had also ignored the blood, and were all covered. At least, she hoped that’s what it was, and not further injuries… or splashes from another injured person.

Angelina’s classmates watched silently- even the injured one, who was looking more and more delirious by the minute- as she fought to save her life.

Finally, she managed it. It took her several minutes, and a couple potions summoned from her office, but she managed to stabilize the girl- and judged that St. Mungo’s would be unnecessary after all, though the girl only might be able to go home with the rest of the school. The problem was that not only had the projectile- it looked like a piece of a chair leg- punctured multiple vital organs and gotten lodged in her spine, but it carried a strange, unstable spell as well- looked like residue from a disaster. She hadn’t been able to remove the piece of wood just yet; unfortunately, that would take a couple more hours of work, as she’d have to fully cancel the spell first- but she could wait a few minutes to do it.

She let out a sigh. “Alright.” She looked up, at where Marietta was only barely awake. “Your turn.”

Marietta took only about five minutes to stitch up, but would need to stay the night so Madam Pomfrey could make sure her damaged muscle healed up properly. Finally, she checked on the others- ensuring that there were no injuries- and asked after any more, but George readily told her Angelina and Marietta were the only ones they knew had been hurt.

Then she realized that there were quite a few more ‘others’ than just Angelina’s classmates, who must have entered while she was working. They were all first-year foreigners, with some bearing some small injuries, but nothing significant. She raised an eyebrow at them. “What happened?”

Twilight Sparkle looked up at her. “Sweetie Belle,” she answered simply. “Botched her Charms examination- made her desk explode. Sent about twelve of us home, and one piece went through the wall.” She looked at Angelina. “She’s… She’s going to live, right?”

Madam Pomfrey nodded. “She will be okay,” she confirmed.

Twilight took a deep breath. “Good. Sweetie was one of the ones that got sent home, but she’s going to be desperate to hear that she didn’t kill anyone. In any case, several of our class that didn’t get sent home were still hit by her exploding desk, but it’s just small cuts and bruises, so we can wait.”

Oliver Wood looked at Angelina, then back up at Madam Pomfrey. “H-how long?” he asked again, refusing to believe what he’d just been told.

“At least a week,” Madam Pomfrey repeated. “She likely won’t be able to go home with the rest of the students.”

He looked at his Chaser again. “Will… Will she be fit to play Quidditch?” he asked, hopelessly.

Madam Pomfrey shook her head. “Absolutely not,” she stated sadly.

He took a deep breath. “Alright.” He let it out. “I… I guess we can do without. It’s not like we can’t play if we’re down one chaser, but…” He shuddered. “We’re going to be at a disadvantage.”

“Hey, Lyra?”

Lyra Heartstrings, the foreigner that Wood knew was part of the team managing the first years’ Student Instructor program, looked up. “Hmm?”

“I’m down a Chaser,” he told her bluntly. “And I don’t have a reserve. Any idea who might be able to fill in real quick? Even if they’re not that good at it, one’s better than nothing.”

She scowled. “Well,” she muttered, rubbing her chin. “Anyone I’m going to be able to recommend isn’t going to have a broom of their own; we haven’t been watching the upper-year students, except scholastically for a baseline to compare ourselves against.” She looked up at him.

He shrugged. “Angelina keeps her broom in the shed by the pitch,” he told her. “I… I don’t think she’d mind- much, at least- if someone borrowed it.”

Lyra snorted. “As long as it’s returned in the same or better condition, isn’t it?” She rubbed her chin. “Hmm…” She scowled. “Presumably, you’d need them to join you in a quick training session tomorrow, before the match on Saturday?”

He nodded. “Ideally, yes. Though we can do without if we have to, but…” He shrugged.

She scowled. “Then the only candidate I can think of that meets that requirement would be me. And…” She sighed. “And of course, I’m technically not a candidate, thanks to an agreement by our elite- which includes me- to not participate in any sports or other competitions. I’ll see if the others are willing to grant an exception, and get back to you in the morning.”

He scowled. “The practice will be at seven o’clock,” he told her.

She nodded. “Then I’ll get back to you by no later than six,” she told him. “Shall I meet you in the common room, or at the pitch?”

“At six?” he asked, tilting his head. “Probably breakfast.”

Author's Note

Short one ~~this week~~today, it's a connecting chapter.

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Chapter 18: Phoenix

Hermione watched Hailey leave the Hospital Wing, then looked back at Madam Pomfrey. Hailey’s parents had stuck around until after Hailey awoke, and finally disappeared during the night- when Hailey’s hair had turned black again, but she hadn’t reverted to male. Hermione expected that she would the following night.

“What about Angelina?” she asked.

Angelina, one of the Gryffindor chasers, was still unconscious on a bed, with a large hole in her abdomen and spellwork swirling around her. Lyra had played in her place- but without Hailey either, it hadn’t done very much good. Ravenclaw had still won by a hundred and eighty points to seventy- and Gryffindor hadn’t quite earned enough points to win the Quidditch Cup.

Madam Pomfrey turned towards Angelina as well. “I… I had some healers from St. Mungo’s in here yesterday,” she told Hermione. “She’s fading… and there’s nothing any of us can do.” She sighed. “They told me it’d be simplest to just cut her off now and save myself the pain- but I can’t just give up on her.”

Hermione frowned. “What’s doing it?”

“It’s that desk fragment,” she answered. “It wrecked her body, but the spell on it shattered her thaumic pathways… which are completely irreparable. And any attempt to repair her body by magic will send a deadly surge through her brain.”

She scowled, thinking. “I… There might still be some hope,” she muttered.

Madam Pomfrey looked up at her, one eyebrow raised. “Oh?”

She nodded slowly. “Yeah. I… Early this year, I created a spell to bring the foreigners’ magic to Britain. It… didn’t seem to actually do that, but it did work, in a sense.” She looked up. “It works by rewriting the core magic matrix… then, in order to install that matrix without letting their magic wither and die, it transforms them into a completely different shape, which isn’t reliant upon a stable matrix thanks to physical thaumic pathways, performs those changes, and allows them to return.”

Her other eyebrow raised as well. “That sounds like it’d fix both problems at once,” she told her. “Can you cast it?”

“It takes three days to work, though,” Hermione scowled, looking down at Angelina. “And if you remember when Draco Malfoy came to you after Halloween with those weird symptoms… that’s what it was.”

Madam Pomfrey tilted her head. “I… I think I can keep her alive that long,” she said. “And those symptoms won’t matter much to her right now anyways.”

Hermione took a deep breath, and let it out, drawing her wand. “Alright, here goes.”

It only took her a couple seconds, ending with a brilliant flash of blue light.

“It’s done,” she sighed. “I… I decided when I made it that I wasn’t going to be casting it on anyone without their explicit permission, precisely because of the side-effects, both long and short term.” She bowed her head. “I hope she forgives me.”

“I’m sure she will,” Madam Pomfrey told her, placing a hand on her shoulder. “And I’m sure her parents will thank you, too.”

When Angelina Johnson woke up, the last thing she could remember was coughing up blood all over her History of Magic test. But she wasn’t worried about that at the moment; rather, she was lying in a very uncomfortable position, so she sat up. She yawned and stretched- both arms upwards, both wings to the sides- as she looked around. It looked like… Yes, this looked like the Hospital Wing at Hogwarts.

Then Madam Pomfrey walked in, and blinked at her, before turning to walk over to her.

Angelina looked sideways at one of her wings, then reached out a hand to touch it. It was very real, and covered in brilliant red and gold plumage. She giggled softly to herself. “I look like a phoenix,” she observed. She looked up at Madam Pomfrey. “What happened? Am I in heaven?” Her questions came out perfectly calm and collected, as a simple curiosity- but deep inside, she dreaded the answer that she knew was coming. She knew her death would torture her parents.

“No, you’re still alive,” Madam Pomfrey informed her calmly.

“What?” she asked, and glanced back at her gleaming wings; she hadn’t folded them just yet, intent to let the muscles relax just a little bit longer after being crushed under her while only mostly folded. “Then- then why do I have wings? Doesn’t that only happen in heaven?”

Madam Pomfrey smiled. “Because it was the only way to save your life,” she answered. “Hermione Granger came up with it.” She sighed. “She said you should be able to freely transform yourself between your new and old appearances at will.”

She folded her wings, somehow knowing they wouldn’t mind her laying on them as long as she folded them all the way before she did so, and shrugged. “Future me can worry about that,” she decided.

Madam Pomfrey sighed. “Could you do so now? I’d like to make sure you’re healthy.”

She blinked. “You can’t do that now?”

She nodded. “You’re not exactly human right now.”

“Right. Sorry.” She closed her eyes, concentrated and… it felt almost like she was chopping off her wings when they simply disappeared. She shivered, and opened her eyes again. “That good?”

Madam Pomfrey nodded, and cast her spells. “Alright, you’re good,” she stated.

She almost instantly flashed back to her phoenix-self. It amazed her just how naturally it came.

She raised an eyebrow. “You like it that much?”

She shrugged. “I like having wings,” she said simply.

Madam Pomfrey smiled. “Your parents will be eager to see you,” she told her- and produced a stack of fresh robes from the drawer on her bedside cabinet- which Angelina stared at, noticing it for the first time.

It was piled almost three feet high with candies and get well cards.

“What in the world…?” she wondered aloud.

Madam Pomfrey chuckled softly. “In any case, you’re going to want to get changed before you meet them.”

She tilted her head. “Is something-!” She looked down, and caught sight of her middle. “Holy Mother of-!” She caught herself, breathing deeply, and put a hand to her belly- which was visible and just fine, right though the gaping hole in her bloodsoaked clothes. She did notice that she seemed to be a lot more muscled than she’d ever been before.

She looked up. “What happened?” she asked- gasped, really.

“You nearly died,” Madam Pomfrey told her. “Would have, if not for how quickly your classmates brought you up here after that desk leg hit you.” She reached over and tapped the edge of a sheaf of what looked like a good fifty pages, buried under the pile of candy. “The foreigners wrote you a report on it, if you want to know more.”

She gave a snort. “I’ll… think about it, I think. Anyways, I’d better…” She looked down at herself again. “I’d better get dressed.” She looked up.

Madam Pomfrey nodded silently. “Shall I break out the curtains for you?”

Angelina hadn’t expected to see her parents at Hogwarts, especially when she considered that she was a muggle-born- but once she had finished changing into the fresh robes Madam Pomfrey had prepared for her, the nurse had let them into the Hospital Wing to meet her.

Her mother snapped her up in a massive hug as soon as she got close. “Angelina,” she cried. “Thank God you’re alive.” Then she drew back. “But what happened to your hair?”

“My hair?” she asked, surprised. She’d expected to be asked about the wings her mother had no doubt felt on her back, not… her hair. She hadn’t even looked at her hair yet. “Uh, magic happened,” she smiled.

Her father stepped up next to his wife. “We had a frightening chain of letters,” he told her. “First one said you had been injured in an accident, and might be returning home a little late. Next one said it was only a matter of time before you died. Then the third one said you still had a chance- and now look at you!” He chuckled softly. “So which was it?”

“Ahh…” She turned to look at Madam Pomfrey. “How long was I out?”

“A week and a half,” Madam Pomfrey told her soberly. “Ten days. Ravenclaw won the Quidditch Cup, and Gryffindor the House Cup.”

She blinked. “What? I thought we were fifty points behind!”

Madam Pomfrey actually grinned. “Not after Dumbledore awarded Gryffindor nearly two hundred points during the Farewell Feast,” she chuckled. “Hailey, Hermione, and a couple of their friends fought You Know Who to keep him off the Philosopher’s Stone.”

“Who?” her dad asked.

“Voldemort,” Angelina answered promptly.

Madam Pomfrey blinked surprisedly.

She shrugged. “It’s not possible to be on the same team as Hailey and still be afraid of his name,” she told them. “Especially when she’s so forceful about it- to the point of yelling it into the face of anyone that dares to challenge her.” She chuckled at the memory. “To use her words: It’s a word, what are you afraid of?” She giggled at Madam Pomfrey’s expression.

“Angelina!”

All four of them jumped when Hermione cried her name from the foot of the bed.

“What the-?” her father asked.

Hermione glanced up at him. “Sorry, I…” She took a deep breath, and looked at Angelina. “Are you okay?”

She nodded slowly.

“Nothing broken, nothing hurts, nothing, er…”

“Hermione?” she asked, and beckoned her forwards.

Hermione trailed off, staring at her. “But your hair,” she said. “And-!” She went silent when Angelina raised an eyebrow at her.

“Come here,” she commanded.

Hermione stepped closer.

She reached out and scooped Hermione into a hug. “Thank you,” she told her firmly.

“Too- tight-!” she gasped.

Angelina loosened her hug, raising an eyebrow as Hermione sucked in a deep breath. “Sorry,” she muttered. She supposed that, with the up-muscling of her entire body that she’d noticed while changing, it only made sense that she’d be stronger as well. She smiled. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to repay you.”

Hermione pulled away from her, out to arm’s length- and Angelina let her go. “But the side effects,” she began worriedly.

She waved it off. “Possible side effects include survival and a feeling of happiness,” she teased.

“But your hair-!”

“So I look like a phoenix, so what? I can get hair dye if I really want to.” She shrugged, using one hand to draw her hair- now gently curly and flowing almost down to her waist- over one shoulder, to where she could see it. “I don’t see why I would, though.”

“But- but the potentially dangerous amplification of wand power? Or the reduction in power if you shift back?”

“I don’t see myself ‘shifting back’ very much for a long time,” she told her simply. “And I was already a little on the strong side, magically speaking.”

“Potentially dangerous amplification,” Hermione repeated.

She shrugged. “I’m already used to controlling my power levels,” she told her. “I don’t see how an increase in capacity would change that.”

“It- It-!” She sighed. “You might not be ready for just how much higher it is.”

She reached towards her bedside table, and caught her wand as it leaped into her hand. “There’s an easy way to fix that,” she told her. Then she tilted her head, feeling her wand with her mind- something that she knew only powerful witches or wizards could do, but that she had almost always been able to do. “Hmm, not bad. Shouldn’t be too hard.”

Hermione, on the other hand, was staring at her wand. “What…?”

Finally, the reason Hermione was staring at it crossed Angelina’s mind, and she looked as well. “Interesting,” she muttered- then dropped her wand on the floor next to the bed.

Madam Pomfrey raised an eyebrow, but it leaped straight back up into Angelina’s hand as soon as she wanted it to- but not when she merely made a grabbing motion in the air over it.

“Very interesting,” she stated.

Hermione scowled. “Intermittent?” she muttered.

She smiled. “Nope! It only works when I want it to work.”

“Then… Oh! That might be an aural interaction effect. Your aura is a lot bigger than it was before, and a lot stronger, so…” She shrugged. “There’s probably a maximum range beyond which it won’t work at all.”

She tilted her head. “Might that aura also provide increased resistance to random, supersonic table legs?”

“It wasn’t supersonic,” Hermione told her immediately, sounding instantly as though she had been in the middle of a lecture. “Bonbon said it must’ve been moving at only a third of that.” She paused. “But… I actually have no idea.” She shrugged. “I don’t know enough about the magic I gave you.”

“At least the side effects included survival, eh?” She chuckled. “Though I imagine my next doctor’s visit is going to be interesting.” She grinned at her father.

He raised an eyebrow. “Interesting?” he asked. “I thought magic was immaterial?”

“Magic is,” Hermione stated. “But the spell we used to save her did so by transfiguration. It’s entirely possible that it used a non-human form to do so, and it does not force a return transformation, merely ensures she’s capable of a return transformation on her own.”

“And so it did,” she chuckled. She drew back her sleeve and clenched her hand so the muscles stood out on her forearm; her sleeve wouldn’t go high enough to expose her biceps. “For example, I could never do that before.”

Hermione looked at her arm. “Muscular,” she observed.

Her mom smiled. “What else did it do?”

“We’re going to have some fun figuring that out, I think,” Angelina smiled up at her. “Oh, and by the way, this is Hermione Granger. Hermione, these are my parents, Andrew and Margaret.”

Hermione glanced towards them. “Right, sorry, Doc.”

Andrew waved it off. “Don’t sweat it,” he told her. “And I’m Andrew when we’re not at the clinic.”

Angelina blinked. “Wait. You mean-?”

Hermione smiled innocently at her. “Yes.”

Author's Note

So apparently, Hermione's parents are dentists, but Angelina's are general practitioners- so, Primary Care Providers or whatever else they call it where you live... and they also happen to be the Granger family's preferred doctor. Who knows, maybe Doctor Granger is Doctor Johnson's preferred dentist as well?

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Sorry, I had a busy day, so I’m late today. Whoops. No, wait, late yesterday, it’s now past midnight where I am.

Chapter 19: Discord Dursley

One thing that Harry thought was very interesting was that, for once in their lives, all three Dursleys seemed to be pleased to see him when he walked through the archway off of Platform Nine and Three Quarters. However, he didn’t walk straight towards them.

The youngest Weasley waved timidly at him, briefly, when he, Ron, and Hermione approached the Weasley family, who were waiting not too far away, before turning back towards the barrier to watch. Harry didn’t remember what her name was.

“Busy year?” Mrs. Weasley asked.

“Very,” Harry answered her promptly. “And thank you for the fudge and sweater.”

She looked at him weird- which reminded him, she had sent them to Harry, and he was thanking her as Hailey- but his Uncle Vernon picked that moment to intervene. “Are you ready, Hailey?” he asked, in far nicer of a tone than Harry had ever heard from him before. It still wasn’t exactly pleasant, but it was a far cry from the terror and fury he normally displayed. And, Harry noticed, he was wearing a smile. It looked forced, but Harry had never seen him manage even a forced smile in front of him.

Mrs. Weasley looked up. “You must be her family,” she greeted.

“In a manner of speaking,” Vernon answered her stiffly, though he almost sounded embarrassed. “She’s… Well, she’s our niece, but her parents died, so…” He looked distinctly uncomfortable as he spoke, and shrugged, before turning to Harry. “Meet us at the car?” he asked, gesturing towards the exit, where Harry could see their car parked right up by the entrance.

Harry shrugged as well, then Vernon took his trolley, wheeling it towards the car for him.

Harry watched him go, and turned back towards Ron and Hermione. “See you over the summer, then,” he told them.

“I hope you have, uh… A good holiday,” Hermione muttered.

He chuckled and looked back after Vernon, where he and Dudley were struggling to get his trunk into the trunk while Petunia set Hedwig’s cage in the middle of the back seat. “Honestly, that was shockingly nice,” he told them. Then he shrugged. “But even if they go back to the way they’ve always been, I will be having a good holiday- they don’t know we’re not allowed to use magic at home.” Then he looked down at the youngest Weasley- who wasn’t that much shorter than he was, actually. “Are you waiting for someone?” he asked.

“Harry Potter is coming,” she answered simply, without taking her eyes off the throng of foreigners emerging from the barrier.

Harry looked up at the barrier as well. “Oh, Harry won’t be coming though there,” he told her.

“It’s the only exit from that platform,” Ginny informed him. “He’ll have to.”

Ron glanced at Harry. “Um, Ginny? Hailey’s right. Harry won’t be coming. He… His family, ah, disapparated.”

Ginny looked at him with a calculating expression, studying his face. “You’re messing with me,” she accused, and went back to staring at the barrier.

Harry raised an eyebrow at Ron. “No, he didn’t disapparate,” he told them. “He lives with muggles, remember? But he left the platform some five minutes ago, so he won’t be coming now.”

Ginny groaned. “He must’ve been hidden in the crowd,” she grumbled.

Harry shrugged. “Something like that, yeah,” he told her.

When Harry reached the Dursley’s car, Uncle Vernon held the door for him. Harry, confused, checked for who else he might be holding it for before accepting the offered courtesy. “What… What changed?” he asked, once Vernon had gotten in as well.

All three of them looked at him, then turned silently back forwards as Vernon started the car.

His question went completely unanswered.

Harry jumped awake at the sound of a knock on his bedroom door. A quick glance at his alarm clock told him it was one in the morning- which, he glanced down to verify, wasn’t long enough for him to revert to his male form. It took five hours of sleep for that to happen, according to the ‘sleep studies’ he’d done with Hermione fairly early in the year, and he hadn’t gotten to sleep until ten.

Which meant that he got to wake up as a girl for the third time in a row- which was also the third time ever. He was wearing his pajamas- specifically, the ones Hermione had helped him find and owl-order before Christmas, that would fit him decently in either form without discomfort. He sat up, and looked towards the door.

Whoever it was, they knocked again. It sounded tentative.

He slid his blankets off and hopped out of bed to open the door.

It was Aunt Petunia… looking very vulnerable and clutching a pillow. “H-Hailey?” she asked, very softly, and timidly- but also relieved at the same time.

Harry pulled the door wide, bewildered by her extremely uncharacteristic appearance. “Is- Is something wrong?” he asked, keeping his voice down as well. “Did something happen?”

Petunia didn’t answer, instead stepping forward and hugging him desperately.

Vernon Dursley took a deep breath, knocked, and entered Harry’s bedroom. As he did, Hailey looked up, from where she’d been doing something at her desk- doodling, perhaps?- and he let out a small sigh of relief.

It was almost a full week after the girl had come home from Hogwarts- but he had found his wife in this room, desperately hugging Hailey while she slept, six times already. And on not one but two of those times, including the morning before but not that morning, he’d glanced back as they left in time to see Hailey melting back into Harry in her sleep… and, both times, felt a sudden, inexplicable rush of irrational fear and rage wash over him. Both times, he had refused to let on to his wife what had happened- and despite knowing it was irrational, that it wasn’t like him to do so, he’d been forced to give in to the rage; it took just over a full day to fade.

He wordlessly strode over to the witch’s owl, inserted his key into the padlock, and removed it from the cage. Finally, he stepped back, let out a much deeper sigh of frustration, and turned to look at her. The owl- he didn’t remember its name- watched him tiredly.

She was watching him apprehensively, though there was more than a little bit of confusion in her expression as well.

“H-Hailey,” he began, while he tried to decide how to go on.

She nodded her head politely, in a gesture for him to go on.

He filled his lungs, changed his mind, opened his mouth to speak, changed his mind again, and let it out in a sigh.

“I worry Petunia might snap if she sees me change,” Hailey muttered, seeming to understand his difficulty. She looked up at him. “She… She hasn’t, has she?”

He shook his head. “No, she hasn’t. But I have.”

She winced. He wasn’t sure if it was at his tone or something else.

He let the silence stand for almost two seconds before he broke it. “How do you do it?”

“I don’t,” she told him simply. “Something to the face- only works if I’m the one swinging it- makes…” She gestured downwards, at herself. “But it only takes five hours sleep to…” She sighed. “To fall back, for lack of a better term.”

“Why do you do it?”

She looked up at him. “Why?” she asked. “Because everyone seems to like it. Except Dudley, but even he…” She trailed off, scowling at her desk.

Vernon wanted to smile at her comment, but he was far too tormented inside. It was true, Dudley was afraid of girls, of all shapes and sizes, that were in the same age range as he. But even so, Dudley had confided in him at least three times over the last week, he vastly prefered Hailey- despite being deathly afraid of her- over Harry, who he liked to punch. He hadn’t been able to explain it- but Vernon had understood. It was the same reason he preferred Hailey, despite being eternally nervous around her, over Harry, who he ordered around and abused almost habitually.

“Then don’t,” he told her simply- even though he knew he was going to hate himself for saying this. “Don’t do it just because we like it. We’ll live.”

She looked up at him, amusement flitting across her face. “But I prefer Hailey too,” she said.

He stared. “You’re… You’re joking,” he accused.

She shook her head. “If I could make it permanent, I would,” she told him. “I much prefer being Hailey. Doesn’t exactly hurt that she’s not nearly as famous as Harry, either.”

“As famous?” he repeated, surprised.

She nodded. “I’m… something of a prodigy, I guess. And one of the best Quidditch players anyone’s seen in a long time.” She sighed. “But that’s still better than being famous for getting attacked by a mass murderer.”

He let out a small snort of laughter in spite of himself, at her derisive reference to Harry’s fame. Then he paused, and voiced the question her answers had created- even though he knew it would make him sound judgemental, but he had to know. “Are you… transgender, then?”

She tilted her head curiously. “What is… ‘transgender’?”

“Where’s Dobby at?” Lucius Malfoy asked suddenly.

“Donno,” Draco told his father. “He’s seemed… I don’t know. Detatched, somehow, for the last week or so- but I wasn’t going to make him explain unless he messed something up, which he hasn’t yet.” He shrugged. “And he still appears when you call for him, right?”

Lucius scowled. “Yes… but I’m used to seeing him around the house quite a bit more than this. Especially while you were at Hogwarts.” He sighed, then looked at Draco. “So, how’s your little… project going?”

Draco sighed as well. “Failure, so far,” he said. He knew his father was asking about his attempts to get the Malfoy Family Form Spell to turn him into a girl, even temporarily. He had successfully coaxed it into giving him things he didn’t have- but anything beyond scaling and strengthening caused the safety interlocks to kick in. “I can’t get it to use the rest of my body as a reference, so it keeps puking on the changes.”

Lucius sighed. “Good luck, Draco.”

He let out a laugh, but it was a hollow laugh. “Yeah, I’m going to need it, won’t I?” He tilted his head. “Do you think some Felix Felicis might do the trick?”

Lucius scowled. “I don’t know that luck is what you’re missing, though.”

“Hey Mom?”

Emma Granger raised an eyebrow at her daughter, who had just paused in the middle of explaining the adventure she’d had at the end of the year. “Yes, Hermione?”

“There… In that chamber, there was the Mirror of Erised- which shows you your heart’s desire rather than your actual reflection.” She looked up.

“What did you see in it?” Emma asked, keeping her tone light, even as she dreaded the answer.

“I made it a point not to look,” she muttered. “But Draco saw a girl in it.” She tilted her head. “What might that mean?”

“Was she, perhaps, his girlfriend?”

She shook her head. “No. He said that that mirror was the first time he’d ever seen her- or, even, heard of her.”

She shrugged. “Is he trans as well?”

Hermione paused. Before she had launched into the explanation, she’d asked about her close friend Hailey- and Emma had gladly explained the entire LGBTQ community to her. “I… That’s a good question, actually.” She looked up. “I don’t know.”

Author's Note

I'm late! I missed it yesterday, so here it is. Had to actually upload it to FimFiction this time, not just publish it... Yes, that means I'm also almost ridiculously behind on Patreon posting. I'll catch up on that as soon as I can, but it might be a couple days.

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

In other news, it's about time Hailey learned about transgenderism, isn't it?

Chapter 20: A Good Deal

Vernon looked up at Hailey one last time before they left the breakfast table. It was her birthday today- but it also happened to be the day the Masons were coming for that dinner party… and the schedule had been set on one of the days that had started with his glimpsing Harry, meaning he’d been unable to bring himself not to hurt her in any way he could. She understood- but there was very little she could do about it, since his wife still ran to her each night for comfort against her normal night terrors, and nothing that either he or Hailey had been able to say had calmed her fears.

As for the dinner party, the schedule for which he had just gone over with the family, Hailey’s part was simple: She would stay upstairs, out of sight and try not to make any unnecessary noise. They had decided that her personality would clash too strongly with the strict formality and politeness he needed, so it would be better for everyone if the Masons never realized she existed.

Now, though, she had raised her hand, and her facial expression did not look very pretty.

“Yes, Hailey?” he asked, almost dreading what she might say. Was she, perhaps, on her period? It had been over a month, but nobody had noticed any. Even Petunia had commented on her apparent lack of menstrual cycle- and when they’d asked Hailey, she hadn’t even known what they were talking about.

“I’ve got a bad feeling,” she told them. “Like something from the other world is going to try and interfere.”

Vernon scowled. “Any idea how?”

She shook her head. “I’ll try to keep it contained, if at all possible, but…” She shrugged. “No promises.”

That evening, when Vernon knocked on and opened Hailey’s bedroom door, on the pretence of turning Dudley’s TV off, the first words to cross his mind were she warned you.

There was… a creature, of some sort, grappling with her- and, it looked like, attempting to do harm to itself- which had been making the noises that had ruined his joke downstairs.

He sighed, then pointed a finger at the creature. “You, creature, uh, thingy,” he began.

“Dobby,” Hailey corrected. “He’s a House-Elf.”

He nodded. “Dobby, then. Make it quick, and keep it quiet and upstairs.” He withdrew from the room.

When Vernon rushed into the kitchen to investigate a sudden noise, like a popping balloon, he did not expect to see Hailey standing in the middle of the room. What he expected even less than that was to see Petunia’s masterpiece of pudding floating in the air in front of her while she pushed it back up on top of the fridge despite being six feet away from it. Her wand, thankfully, was nowhere to be seen… which begged the question of how she was doing it, but he could ask that later.

For the moment, he made absolutely sure that the Masons, who were also curious, didn’t get close enough to see even a hint of what she was doing until after she finished, after which point he- in what he thought was a rather good improvisation, considering the circumstances- explained her away as their niece who got ‘nervous and jumpy when meeting new people’, so they ‘kept her upstairs for parties’ where they wouldn’t have to deal with her accidents and where she wouldn’t have to be so nervous, either. That party, he supposed aloud, must’ve gone on long enough she got too hungry to wait, though he was at a loss as to what she’d broken. He told the Masons that he’d no doubt find out later, and it would probably be something minor anyways. It usually was, after all.

Then Hailey- whose own improvisation and acting skills were also up to the task- got ‘shooed’ back upstairs with some crackers, and the dinner party continued on with some lively conversation about what might have been broken. As a matter of fact, Vernon had to conclude that Hailey’s appearance in the kitchen had been a good thing- it had been far easier than he’d expected to bring the topic around to drills. Especially when Mr. Mason brought it up himself, commenting on how the cracking noise in the kitchen sounded exactly like what his last drill had sounded like just the day before when the gearbox exploded. Which, he said, they seemed to be doing a lot, thanks to incompetent manufacturers using the cheapest materials possible.

Grunnings, Vernon knew, made quality drills. He had made sure of that when he bought the company so long ago, and so knew exactly how to hook the Masons in for the sale.

“What even was that?” Vernon asked Hailey later that night, after the Masons had left. He’d managed an even larger sale than he’d originally thought possible.

“Dobby,” she told him simply. “He was trying to convince me not to go back to Hogwarts this year.”

To his surprise, it was Dudley that let out the first snort of derisive laughter. “Doomed to failure,” he announced.

Hailey chuckled. “Yes. Anyways, he floated the pudding out, then… what do they call it? Disapparated? Teleported out, I guess, and dropped it. I managed to catch it, and avert a disaster; you saw the rest.”

He nodded. “I did,” he agreed. “But how did you do it without your wand?”

“Wandless magic,” she answered simply. “It’s not nearly as powerful, nor as versatile, as wand magic, and I’m not all that good at it, but it did the job I needed it to- and, unlike wand magic or, apparently, house-elf magic, it’s untraceable.” She sighed. “But I’ve figured out why I haven’t been getting any owl mail: Dobby’s been intercepting it all.”

The next morning, however, disaster struck. For the first time, when Vernon entered Hailey’s room to retrieve his wife, she had already reverted to Harry.

He did his best to wake Harry first- partly so he could re-transform before his wife awoke, but partly, he knew somewhat guiltily, just for the fun of it. However, his wife awoke first… and screamed, her night terrors having come true at last.

The resultant waves of rage and terror were so great Vernon found himself paying a man that morning- he had no idea where he got the man’s number from- to fit bars in the boy’s bedroom window. He himself installed a catflap in the door, and reversed the knob so it was locked from the outside rather than the inside.

It took almost two full weeks before the rage ebbed far enough for him to realize that Hailey had stopped eating or needing to use the bathroom after just three days, after which he went in, dreading the corpse he was bound to find- only to find that the bars were missing from the window, and that she had left a note on the desk for him.

She had gone to spend the rest of the summer with some of her friends from the magical world, would be seeing him again next year, and wished him well. ‘No hard feelings’, she wrote- and she’d even mentioned how challenging she expected it to be to hide her male form from her friend’s family!

The Weasley Family, however, was nowhere near so simple. They never had been and, frankly, never would be, either. Ron, Fred, and George had set out on schedule to rescue Ron’s friend, Hailey Potter- and Ron had managed to execute the wake-Hailey part of the plan just right that neither of the twins realized exactly who Hailey really was. Ron had been surprised to find out that all of Hailey’s school things- from her wand to her broomstick- were in her room after they had yanked the bars out of her window, but they were, so the door had stayed tightly closed throughout the operation, which had gone off without a hitch.

Except, of course, when they got home after first light. Mrs. Weasley had gone absolutely nuts on the three boys and sent them straight to the garden for some de-gnome-ing, before dragging Hailey inside to feed her breakfast.

As for Hailey, when dealing with Mrs. Weasley, she had adopted a ‘roll with the punches’ sort of attitude.

At least, at first, she had. It only took fifteen minutes for her to start pushing back.

“Um, Mrs. Weasley?”

“Just Molly is fine,” Mrs. Weasley told her, adding even more food to the plate in front of Hailey.

“Molly, then,” she nodded. “I’m never going to be able to eat that much. It’s just…” She gestured at the plate, which was already mounded almost a foot high.

“... Oh,” Molly said, blinking at the plate like she was only just seeing it. Which, considering how preoccupied she was with her rage at her sons, Hailey didn’t find surprising. “I… I heard they starved you?” she muttered, but it sounded like a question.

Hailey laughed. “For three days,” she chuckled. “And even then, the ‘rations’ weren’t bad.”

Right on time, a red-headed little girl walked into the room- and Hailey recognized her from the station as Ginny, Ron’s younger sister. Ginny’s mouth split into a grin once she saw the plate, and she trotted into the room, stifling giggles. “Mom, you’re trying to feed Gigantosaurus Weasley again,” she said.

Molly sighed, scowling at the plate. “I noticed,” she mumbled, then rolled her eyes and abandoned it. “Ginny, this is Hailey. Hailey, this is Ginny.”

Hailey held out her hand. “Nice to meet you.”

Ginny accepted it with a giggle. “Same to you,” she answered. “So, are you Gigantosaurus Weasley this week?”

Hailey laughed. “I guess. Does… Does that happen very often?”

She shrugged. “Yeah. There’s so many of us that Mom gets preoccupied, and starts piling everything onto one plate- usually for whoever happened to arrive first. Fred actually tried to eat it all, once.”

“Speaking of preoccupation,” Molly said suddenly, brandishing her spatula at the laden plate for a second before turning to retrieve her wand. “Now that you’re here, Hailey, you’ll need somewhere to sleep. I was thinking that perhaps you could share Ginny’s room?” She looked up at Ginny, as she separated the heaped food into appropriately-sized portions on their own plates.

“W-What?” Hailey asked, a little alarmed.

Ginny, meanwhile, shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

“I-!” Hailey began, trying to find a way to avoid a potentially very awkward morning, evening, or really any other time of day; she couldn’t think of a time when she had ever so much as looked into a girl’s room, and here Mrs. Weasley expected her to sleep in one? “I- I was just going to sleep in Ron’s room,” she mumbled. “He said something about joining the twins himself.”

“No, no,” Molly remanded. “You’re a girl, Hailey. You need to sleep in a girl’s room, not a boy’s room. Besides, you’d hate it in Ron’s room.” She paused. “Though probably not as much as Ron would hate sleeping in Fred and George’s.”

Hailey and Ginny both laughed at her comment, then Ginny wrapped Hailey in a friendly hug. “Is there something wrong with my room?” she asked, peering pleadingly up into Hailey’s face. “Or with me?”

For herself, Hailey wasn’t sure why so many people complained about the power of the puppy-dog eyes; Ginny was obviously trying to employ them, but she didn’t find herself all that moved by it. Possibly because they didn’t change what she had to say either way. “No,” she told her. “It’s just… I’m used to sleeping with boys. Er-!” She glanced up fearfully at Molly. She might not have understood what Petunia was talking about when she had asked about her ‘menstrual cycle’, whatever that was, but she did know what people usually meant when they said that a girl was ‘sleeping with’ a boy. “In the same room as boys, sorry.”

Molly rolled her eyes. “I know what you mean. But that’s a very demeaning thing to force on you, so it ends now, okay?”

“Okay,” she muttered. “But for the record, it wasn’t exactly forced.”

Molly snorted. “A likely story,” she mumbled, offering her a re-portioned plate. “Breakfast?”

“That was exhausting,” Ron moaned, entering the room.

Hailey looked up, from where she had been teaching Ginny tic-tac-toe, after finding out- to her amazement- that neither Ginny nor even Molly had a clue what it was. “I bet,” she smiled. “Want to join us?”

Ron shook his head. “Actually, I thought I’d show you my room. You know, for… uh, tonight.”

Hailey smiled. “But I won’t be sleeping in your room tonight,” she told him.

“What-? Then where?”

Ginny giggled. “She’ll be sleeping with me,” she cheered- though Hailey detected a note of worry in her voice.

“Well,” Hailey began, looking back towards Ginny. “In the same room as you.”

“What-!?” Ron yelped. “But-!”

Hailey shrugged. “You’ll have to take it up with your mother,” she said. “She’s the one that decided.”

Ron scowled, and plodded out of the room, presumably hunting for his mother.

“He’s about to get yelled at,” Ginny mused.

Hailey nodded. “He is,” she agreed.

Ginny looked at her. “And ‘with’ is technically accurate, by the way.”

Her head snapped around. “How so?”

She blushed. “I only have one bed.”

She scowled. “That’s going to be a problem.”

Author's Note

I always wonder just how large of an order of drills Vernon was expecting from a single builder, no matter how rich he was...

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Chapter 21: Back to Diagon Alley

Hailey froze when Draco made eye contact with her through the crack in the cabinet. She, and the Weasleys, had used Floo Powder to get to Diagon Alley- and she had, she was fairly sure, ended up in the wrong grate. She hadn’t recognized the shop, and the street outside looked… less than friendly.

Then Draco Malfoy and his father had appeared, and she’d hidden inside this cabinet. Lucius had started haggling with Mr. Borgin, the apparent shop proprietor, while Draco explored the shop idly.

Draco reached forwards, and pulled the door open just a crack- and Hailey didn’t move. What was he going to do?

Then Draco, recognition flashing across his eyes, leaned close. “Floo powder?” he muttered, quickly and quietly.

She stared, and nodded mutely.

“When you leave, turn left and go until you reach Diagon Alley. Be careful, Knockturn Alley isn’t safe.”

“Come, Draco,” Lucius called, and Draco turned without a backward glance to obey his father.

Hailey let out a small, relieved breath, and waited until the shop was empty once again- Mr. Borgin disappeared back into the back room- before she emerged.

Finally, she stepped out onto the street, glad that she didn’t have to worry about shoving her glasses up her sweaty nose.

She looked both ways. Draco wasn’t wrong. A sign across the street told her she was in Knockturn Alley- and the whole street gave her the creeps.

So, praying Draco hadn’t been trying to get her even more lost, she turned left, and started walking.

Very suddenly, an aged witch got in front of her, with a tray. “Not lost, are you?”

She took one quick glance at the tray- which seemed to be full of whole, human fingernails- before ducking under it and breaking into a run.

She was fast. She knew she was very fast; Dudley, for all his size, wasn’t exactly slow, and she’d had plenty of practice avoiding his blows. Then of course, when she’d experimented at Hogwarts, she’d found that she was actually slightly faster as Hailey than as Harry. Was it because she was lighter or something? She didn’t know.

And, at the moment at least, she didn’t care. All she cared was that she was faster than the two- no, three- people that were chasing her. She ducked under someone’s outstretched arm, jumped over someone that had crouched low in her path to catch her. She shot down the alley like a little black bullet.

“Hailey! What’dya think you’re doin’ down there?”

She didn’t even hesitate when she heard Hagrid’s voice, dodging around a random black-robed shopgoer and continuing her rush. He was in front of her.

She saw him glance up the street, then at her pursuers- and, finally, he stepped in behind her with an almighty crash before he hurried after her.

She knew she was going in the right direction when Hagrid caught up, put his hand to her back, and started parting the crowd like only he could.

Finally, Hailey burst out onto a much more familiar cobbled street and looked both ways as she drew to a halt.

Gringotts Bank was visible in the distance. She’d made it back to Diagon Alley.

She took a deep breath, and turned to Hagrid. “Thanks,” she told him. “I, er, got lost. Floo powder.”

Hagrid rolled his eyes. “At least yeh know when ter run,” he grumbled, looking down at her wand, which was in her hand.

She put it away, not having used it at all. “And when to fight,” she nodded.

“Hailey?”

Hailey looked up. It was Bonbon. “Hmm?”

“What were you doing in there?”

“Got lost,” she answered promptly. “Floo powder.”

“Floo powder?”

She blinked. “Uh… traveling by fireplace, I guess. Ended up in the wrong one.”

“Okay,” Bonbon stated simply, though Hailey got the distinct impression she still didn’t understand at all. “Anyways, we need you.” She filled her lungs to go on.

“Sure,” Hailey interrupted. “I was traveling with the Weasleys- can they be made aware, or…?”

She tilted her head, and nodded. “We’ll take care of that. Lyra’s waiting at Fortescue’s.”

“Hey Lyra,” Hailey said, approaching the table. “Where’s Twilight?”

“Busy,” Lyra answered promptly, an edge of hard finality in her tone. She took a deep breath. “And speaking of, Hailey. Over the summer so far, Twilight has purchased one copy of every book found in Flourish and Blotts and attacked them with a quill, highlighter, and bookmarks- lots of bookmarks. What I have here,” she tapped a stack of somewhat worn but shiny books on the table in front of her, which showed an astounding number of bookmarks sticking from the pages. She chuckled at Hailey’s expression. “What I have here is Twilight’s annotated copies of our Defense Against the Dark Arts textbooks for this year, which are the same for both years. She said they’re worse than useless, but it’s your call.”

She scowled. Lyra wasn’t wrong- back when she had accepted the position as Head Student Instructor for Defense Against the Dark Arts, she had also- as she had known at the time- been accepting a uniquely powerful, yet similarly responsible, position on their management team.

Specifically, any major change to the curriculum presented by the Professors simply had to be approved by her. And if she decided some major change to the same was necessary on her own, only a unanimous vote by the rest of the management team could override her.

It was a very important duty- and one that, it seemed, the rest of the management team was requesting she address. Or at least a part of it- Twilight was the head of the management team, after all.

She sat down, and plucked the first one off the stack. “Might as well give ‘em a look,” she mused, as she opened it to the first page to start skimming it. Twilight was, if possible, even more of a bookworm than Hermione, so she knew she could trust the notes scrawled in the margins to be accurate, the highlighted passages to be the important ones, and so on. She still cross-checked whenever they mentioned a different part in the text, though.

It took Hailey hardly an hour to make it through all of the books, thanks to Twilight’s notes. “Rubbish,” she mumbled, tossing the last of the books on top of the pile.

Bonbon looked up, from where she was pouring over some charts of numbers. Lyra had run off somewhere. “Oh?”

“Twilight was right,” Hailey told her. “These books will be useless.”

Hermione, walking past, stopped and looked. “Don’t be so quick to say that,” she remanded. “They were obviously assigned for a reason, weren’t they?”

Hailey raised an eyebrow at her, then slid the entire stack to the side of the table Hermione was on. “Can you find for me the one place in all these books that Lockhart actually explains how to perform any of the spells he uses?”

Hermione scowled, but Bonbon raised an eyebrow. “There is one?” she asked.

Hailey rounded on her. “Exactly my point,” she declared. “There is none. These are storybooks, Hermione, not textbooks. And they’re internally inconsistent, so I’m fairly sure they’re fiction as well.”

“They are not!” Hermione barked.

Hailey raised an eyebrow. “Hermione, have you read Lockhart’s books?”

“No?”

“Have you read Twilight’s annotated copies of Lockhart’s books?”

“No?” She looked even more confused.

Hailey glanced at Bonbon. “Have you heard what Dumbledore said about our new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor?”

“No?” She was now completely bewildered.

“He only said,” Bonbon said simply, “and I quote, ‘He’s a fraud’.”

Hailey looked at her, then back at Hermione. “I’ve now done all three, and I say we’ll be lucky if he teaches us as much as Quirrell did.”

“Officially?” Bonbon asked.

Hailey nodded. “Officially, only our instructors need these books, for they will be useless to us.” She scowled. “What’s your bet Lockhart himself is the new instructor? It’d certainly explain the booklist.”

Bonbon tilted her head. “Not impossible,” she said eventually. “And I can’t think of anyone else it could be, right off.”

“Couldn’t be,” Hermione said simply. “Look at all he’s done.”

“Where?” Hailey asked. “Where can I find that?”

“His books.”

“His fiction,” she corrected. “There are forty seven points, which Twilight has taken pains to point out in her annotated copies, of chronological conflict between the various books.” She tapped a finger on the stack in front of her.

Hermione scowled at her. “Whatever. I’m going to Flourish and Blotts, I’ve got to get my books for this year.”

Bonbon watched her storm past. “You won’t need the Lockhart books,” she informed her, amusedly. Perhaps, Hailey mused, the first time she’d ever shown significant emotion in front of her.

Hermione whirled to glare at her. “Oh? Why not?” she demanded.

Bonbon shrugged. “Because she said you won’t.”

Hermione snorted. “But she can’t make that decision,” she stated.

“The Head Student Instructor for Defense Against the Dark Arts can,” Bonbon corrected her.

Hermione glared back at her. “Then I’ll just have to go ask her then, won’t I?”

“She’s right here.” Bonbon gestured towards Hailey, who smiled. She’d never told any of her friends that she was a head student instructor, only that she had become a student instructor.

Hermione looked past Hailey, then at her again. “You-!”

Hailey nodded. “Yes.”

“You’re not-! You can’t be!”

“She is,” Bonbon told her.

“When?”

“Last year,” Hailey told her. “I never did tell you about that part of it, did I?”

“But the Stone,” she said. “That-!”

“Had we known about it,” Bonbon interrupted, “we would probably have sent a larger team and lost people. Hailey probably saved lives by keeping it to just you, herself, Ron, and Alastor.” She smiled. “The ones she knew she could count on.”

Hermione blushed.

Hailey folded her arms on the table. “If you want to read Twilight’s annotated copies, go right ahead,” she said. “And if you want to buy them for yourself, go right ahead on that as well. But it’s only on the booklist for our DADA instructors.”

“Our?” Hermione asked, looking between her and Bonbon. “Our?”

Hailey nodded. “Yes.”

Bonbon shrugged. “She’s on our team,” she told Hermione. “All our Head Student Instructors are.”

Hermione took a deep, calming breath, and let it out. “Okay then.” She looked at Hailey. “Have you gotten your shopping done?” she asked.

She shook her head. “Been working,” she told her. “A Head Student Instructor’s work goes beyond the school year itself.” She scowled. “Especially for DADA, with the ‘professors’ we’ve been getting.”

Author's Note

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Chapter 22: Hogwarts

Hailey never knew how she kept Ginny from finding out she turned into a boy when she slept for a whole month, despite sleeping on the other side of the same small bed, but somehow, she had.

But finally, despite several setbacks, they reached King’s Cross, and started through the barrier to Platform Nine and Three Quarters. All of the foreigners had already gone through- and, after the rest of the Weasleys, it was just Ron and Hailey left.

They glanced at each other- and while some people might have rushed at the barrier, Hailey knew that would attract far too much attention, so the two of them pushed their trolleys much more sedately up to the barriers and through them.

Only, they didn’t go through. They crashed.

Fortunately, they weren’t going very fast, so nothing tumbled anywhere.

“What the-?” Ron began. “It’s not supposed to seal itself!”

Hailey scowled. “Then why…?” she mumbled.

They both propped their carts against the barrier and leaned on them, looking up at the clock and pretending they had put them there deliberately to chat.

“It’s gone,” Ron muttered, the moment the clock struck eleven.

“Not yet,” Hailey told him. “It’ll take time to get going. We’ve still got… maybe a minute.”

One minute quickly became three, before Hailey spoke again, scowling. “We’d probably better go wait by the car,” she told Ron. “We’re too much of a spectacle.”

Ron gasped. “Hailey! The car!”

“What about it?”

“We can fly the car to Hogwarts!”

“No.” The single word came out as a command.

He stared at her. “But we’re stuck,” he said. “And even-!”

“I said no,” she repeated. “Classes will not begin until tomorrow, and I would like to watch the Sorting as much as you would, but we will wait for your parents. If they choose to fly us to Hogwarts, then it is on their heads if something happens. Not to mention, when they come back, they are going to expect to find the car where it is right now, not forty miles in the sky.” She took a deep breath. “We will wait for them. And whatever they tell us to do, we will do.”

Ron sighed. “Oh, alright,” he agreed, and they pushed their trolleys back out of the station.

On Platform Nine and Three Quarters, Molly and Arthur Weasley watched the cars their children had clambered into vanish into the distance.

“Hailey and Ron never got onto the station, did they?” Molly asked, suddenly.

Arthur looked around. “... I don’t remember them,” he agreed.

They both turned, and headed straight back out the archway. “You don’t think they got snatched?” Molly asked.

Arthur scowled. “No, can’t have. Even the Statute has exceptions for emergencies, and Hailey is just too good to let someone snatch her.” He paused. “Or Ron,” he added, as an afterthought.

They passed through the archway, and looked around. Molly scowled. “Where’d they go?”

“Maybe back to the car?” Arthur suggested. “I know that’s where I’d go.”

“Unless they’ve been snatched,” Molly scowled.

“If they had been, we’d see their luggage,” Arthur pointed out.

She glanced around. “... True.” Then she rounded the corner, and saw their car. “Ron! Hailey! What happened?”

Ron looked up. “Donno,” he answered. “The barrier just randomly decided to lock us out.”

“Can’t have been random,” Hailey scowled, leaning against the side of the car while Molly and Arthur ran towards them. “But I can’t think of any reason it would have done that, either.” She shrugged. “It behaved like the solid metal barrier it looks like, for a few minutes. Good thing we didn’t rush it.”

Ron snorted. “Good thing, yeah.”

“Anyways,” Hailey looked expectantly at the two adults. “I thought we’d wait for your suggestion before we did anything else.”

Arthur scowled. “I could fly you to Hogwarts,” he mused.

Hailey raised an eyebrow, while Molly was still blinking in shock. “Can that invisibility booster keep it invisible for that long?”

He blinked. “Er- no. We’d fly above the clouds. I know where Hogwarts is.”

Hailey rolled her eyes. “And when we inevitably cross a patch of clear sky?”

“Ahh…”

She shrugged. “How about, it’s a car. How close to Hogwarts can we get on muggle roadways, and how much slower would it be?”

He scowled. “I don’t have any muggle maps up there,” he mumbled.

“Alright then,” Hailey said, still sounding perfectly reasonable while Molly struggled to follow the conversation. “How about some other kind of magical transportation I haven’t learned about yet, like Floo Powder?”

The engine died.

“Uh-oh,” Arthur Weasley said. He’d been babying the car for the last couple of hours, but they had still used the Invisibility Booster whenever they went below the clouds to double check their location, so he was reasonably sure that they hadn’t been seen. Unfortunately, it seemed that the strain was too much for the car.

Fortunately, though, he knew his spells. With the main power source out of action, the car would ‘glide’- the spellwork burning up his speed in order to keep him aloft and let him rotate the car.

But the ‘lift’ it provided, and the ‘aloft’ it sought, was only in line with the car, not with the ground, allowing him to ‘glide’ the car, so long as he kept it pointed at least a little bit down. The moment it stopped moving forwards, it would fall.

So he did exactly that. He pointed it down until they stopped losing speed, and drew his wand to start trying to figure out why the engine had stopped, correct that, and restart it. It would be next to impossible to land without an active power supply. It didn’t exactly help that he was dreadfully thirsty.

Ron, riding passenger, pulled out his wand and started uselessly whacking the dashboard, yelling “Stop!” Mr. Weasley didn’t have the heart to tell him he was asking for the wrong thing.

And finally Hailey, who had been getting delirious- he was fairly sure it was dehydration- in the backseat, let out a sudden yell. “Look out!” she cried.

He looked up, through the windshield, and yanked on the steering wheel just in time to avoid slamming headlong into the brick outer wall of Hogwarts Castle.

However, he wasn’t in time to avoid the Castle entirely. Moments later, the front bumper smashed through a window, both sides clipping the bricks- and all three of them were instantly knocked unconscious.

Dumbledore knocked on the infirmary door. Madam Pomfrey had told him that afternoon she planned to join them for the Welcome Feast this year- but then, she hadn’t. Now, with the students sent to bed, he was curious why.

“Come in,” Madam Pomfrey’s voice came back, sounding harassed and irritated.

He entered. She was bending over a bed, on which he recognized Ronald Weasley, and brandishing her wand, ignoring the slow ooze of blood from her own cut cheek.

He blinked. “What happened?” he asked. Even as he asked, he looked around the room- and realized that three of the beds were occupied. The second was Hailey Potter- and the third, wasn’t a student.

She looked up at him, eyebrows raised- and wordlessly pointed at her office door… Which, now that he looked, there seemed to be a lot of dust and bits of brick trailing out of it. He walked briskly over to look inside.

Right in the middle of the room, tilted haphazardly because of one wheel on Madam Pomfrey’s bed, was a turquoise car, surrounded by the shattered remnants of a window, the wall around the window, and the car’s own body panels. Its entry path was clearly visible, as the gaping hole in the wall above her desk, where there had once been a window.

He turned around. “Wh… Who was driving?” he asked.

She pointed at Aurthur Weasley, on that third bed.

He took a deep breath. “How long?”

“Oh he’s only got a concussion,” she barked irritatedly. “A potion when he wakes up and he’ll be fine.” She gestured down at Ron. “Ron here managed to break his wand in the crash, and filled his arm with bits of glass, alongside his own concussion.” She cast one last spell, nodded, and turned back towards the middle bed. “Hailey, on the other hand, has gone into a coma. Completely aside from a long list of other injuries- which, unless I miss my guess, includes getting blasted by the broken wand.” She sighed. “The other two will be out of here tomorrow, but she’ll be here for a while.”

Dumbledore winced. “It’s not like Angelina, is it?”

She shook her head. “Oh, no, I’ve already got her stabilized. And she will recover, it will just take time.” She sighed. “And there’s no point sending her to St. Mungo’s, either. They won’t get her back on her feet any faster.”

Author's Note

That could've gone better, couldn't it? But at least they weren't seen...

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Portkeys.
Apparition.
Flying carpets?

Chapter 23: Papa Tango

Dumbledore watched as Bonbon placed the latest report, once again twice as tall as it was wide, on his desk, then sat down. This would be the fourth report of the year; amazingly, the first three weeks had been uneventful though, judging by the slight tick in the corner of Bonbon’s mouth, she had bad news.

Hailey had finally been released from the Hospital Wing just minutes after Lockhart’s first class ended- and apparently, shouted at Lockhart not ten minutes later, since a vast majority of his students were missing books, wands, bags, and other assorted necessities, until they could be fished back out of the lake. Nobody had sat in on the class, but as near as Bonbon’s team had been able to tell from what the students told them, he had quizzed them on himself then unleashed a cage of pixies on them without so much as telling them to take out their wands.

One thing Dumbledore had been alarmed to hear had been that Hailey had lost her hand. She still had about half of her left forearm, but the rest of it, and her hand, had to be removed, because of the damage from Ron’s wand. It would be possible to regrow it- but they would have to wait for her to hit fourth year, since the potion required would be dangerous for her to drink until then. She’d done a quick trial with Oliver Wood, and apparently was still just as able a Quidditch player as she had been before.

Then Lockhart had tried to make her a little late for her Herbology class- by her choice, she was attending all her classes as a girl this year- by stopping her at the door so he could, according to her, try to tell her how to be famous. She had been on time for the lesson, and he had been found lying on the floor outside her Herbology class about halfway through the same, unconscious from the stunning charm and absent from his own fourth-year lesson.

Dumbledore had been told that, as early as her stop in Flourish and Blotts, she’d been forced to deliver a very low blow indeed to get him to let her go. Apparently, he had ignored several orders, from herself and a few others, including Arthur Weasley, to get his hands off of her. He’d even seen that one in the news- and it was immensely satisfying to watch Hailey punch him in the nuts on the front page of the Daily Prophet over and over and over again, under the headline ‘Gilderoy Lockhart forced to apologize after assaulting unsuspecting stranger’. He still had that one in his desk drawer. For as satisfying as it was to watch, he knew she’d only done it to escape his arm, which he’d been using to crush her against his side; she lacked the strength to do it without artificial advantages like that.

According to the story, he’d started to advance to recapture her- but she had drawn her wand, and Lockhart had made the fortunate decision not to make it a wizard’s duel, no matter how thoroughly he would undoubtedly trounce her in combat. It had gone on to note that any use of said wand would have been in violation of the Decree for the Restriction of Underage Sorcery, even if Lockhart had drawn his own, but also asserted that the Decree really needed an exception for situations just like that. After all, as Rita Skeeter had pointed out, even an underage witch or wizard could find themselves in a situation where they have no choice but to resort to magic to protect themselves. The Statute of Secrecy had that exception, so why not the Decree?

But back in present times, Bonbon sighed. “One,” she stated.

He raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“One student,” she continued. “Didn’t show up for Defense Against the Dark Arts, but still got a good score.”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh boy. Who was it?”

She actually smiled. “Hailey,” she answered simply. “She chose to sit in on the class under her Invisibility Cloak instead, and tells us Professor Lockhart was sorely disappointed when he didn’t see her- and proceeded to reenact another scene from his books.”

He sighed. “Can’t say I didn’t see that coming,” he told her sadly.

She nodded. “In other news, just last night, Hailey heard a voice traveling upwards. Ron and Hermione- who were with her at the time- couldn’t hear it, but Fluttershy, whose Unique Talent lets her understand any spoken word, no matter the language, said she heard something too faint to make out. She wasn’t nearly as close to the source as Hailey, though.” She sighed. “We don’t know what it was, but we think it was a probably non-human language that sounded different enough from human speech that anyone else that heard it didn’t realize they heard it. As for why she understood it…” She shrugged. “No idea, really.” She looked up at him.

Dumbledore scowled. “It’s possible that, when Voldemort tried to kill her, he transferred some of his powers to her, giving her his own very rare gift, as a Parselmouth,” he mused. “I wouldn’t count on it.”

“Parselmouth?” Bonbon asked, one eyebrow raised.

He nodded. “The ability to speak Parseltongue- snake language.”

She scowled. “Interesting. Unfortunately, none of us can actually speak animal languages, so we don’t really have any way to test. She’s not aware of any other languages she can speak or understand.”

“Who could it be, though?” Hermione asked, closing the Standard Book of Spells, Grade Two with a snap.

Draco looked up at the non-sequitur. He’d just joined them to do some joint studying; he wouldn’t be able to stay long, unfortunately, but he could stick around for a couple hours at least.

“Who’d want to frighten all the squibs and muggleborns out of Hogwarts?”

Draco gave a very small nod of understanding. He’d talked to her in private a few times on the subject- they were both fairly sure that Ron and Hailey both believed that Draco was the Heir of Slytherin. They were unsure of exactly how to convince them he wasn’t- but their best bet was starting to look like Polyjuice Potion… which wouldn’t be easy.

“Let’s think,” Ron said, in mock puzzlement. “Who do we know who thinks muggleborns are scum?” He looked at Hermione.

She just looked back at him. “Who?” she asked.

“Draco Malfoy, right?” Draco asked, before putting on an imitation of his natural form. “ ‘You’ll be next, mud-bloods’.”

“Exactly,” Ron nodded. “You’ve only got to look at his foul rat face to know it’s him!”

Draco very nearly let out a snort of laughter at the revelation that Ron liked his natural face about as much as he did himself. With Ron that decisive, it wouldn’t be all that hard to convince him to join the Polyjuice Potion Plot… though Hailey was a bit less energetic. She looked a bit doubtful, but seemed to be going with the flow out of curiosity. The only challenge would be keeping Alastor out of it, so he could play Draco.

Which, as the date crossed his mind, he realized would be all too easy. The winter holidays were coming up soon, and if the Potion was timed for the holidays, all he’d have to tell Ron & Hailey would be that he had to go home for the holidays. It’d be a pain, avoiding Alastor and his friends for that long, but he could do it.

“We’re being flattened,” Wood half-moaned at his team. “What’s going on?”

He knew perfectly well what was going on. Fred and George had been way up in the sky trying to protect Hailey from what looked like a rogue Bludger, and Angelina’s broom just wasn’t behaving nearly as well as it usually did- meaning that she, as his best Chaser, had yet to acquire the Quaffle even once. Her broom wasn’t the worst one on the team- Fred’s was- but it was acting like it was.

Hailey took a deep breath, then looked at Fred and George. “Fred, George, go back to the rest of the team. I’ll never see the Snitch with you whirling around me like that- and we all know I’m really good at dodging bludgers.”

Wood scowled, but allowed it. He didn’t like it any more than the Weasleys did, but what choice did he have? Hailey was their only chance to win the match!

As Madam Hooch walked over, he noticed that Angelina looked thoughtful.

“Ready to resume play?” Madam Hooch asked.

Before Wood could speak, Angelina did. “Do the rules specify how players fly?” she asked.

Hooch looked at her, an eyebrow raised, and was silent for a second. “They do not,” she stated. “So long as you can fly, and can be knocked out of the air by a bludger.”

“Hmm…” She rubbed her chin thoughtfully.

Wood sighed. “Alright. Ready.”

Angelina soared higher, and higher, and higher, watching the Quaffle progress below her. The Slytherin brooms were just too fast, and hers was underperforming by too much. Was this what Hermione had meant about wand magic being less powerful in her original form? After her ‘doctor’s office visit’ with her dad, they had convinced her to stick with her original form at school… despite occasional, massive waves of dizziness, because she was so different in her new form.

But at this rate, she didn’t have much choice.

Besides, she really hated using her original form, and the reasoning for using it all the time kinda paled against her free transformation ability and the whole point where magic didn’t really care how many extra organs you had, it still fixed them. She’d shown Wood her new form on the train- but he was the only one on the team that knew she had it- unless Hermione had told Hailey- and she was certain that he didn’t know she had wings.

She watched Hailey do a little twirl in midair, showing off for the crowd as she let the rogue bludger rocket past her.

Finally, Angelina decided that she’d climbed high enough and leveled off, watching the Quaffle.

She picked a time, and dove, for the Gryffindor goal posts. That one Slytherin Chaser, Graham Montague, hadn’t gotten the Quaffle past Wood even once in over a year, and he was looking to try. Angelina lined herself up for where she expected the Quaffle to fly when Wood blocked it… then dismounted and continued to dive, headfirst.

In the past, she had always kept herself firmly on her broom, and one of her worst fears had been that it would stop working or that she would be separated from it in the air. She liked flying, but she was deathly afraid of the fall.

Not any more. Sure, they didn’t exist at the moment- but she could feel the back of her brain just itching to unfurl her wings to help steer her downwards even faster. For some reason her parents hadn’t been able to identify, she had been able to fly in most rooms of the house, despite having a wingspan greater than the longest dimension in those rooms. She didn’t have to unfold them completely- and amusingly enough, so long as she kept them moving up and down, and it didn’t seem to matter how slowly she did, she’d stay floating, unmoving, in the air… and actively ‘flying’. She was pretty certain that, at least there, it wasn’t her wings so much as the magic in them that was holding her up.

Montague threw the Quaffle. Angelina watched as Wood blocked it- but it was deflected in the other direction. She was about two seconds away from rocketing past Wood.

She flashed almost instantly into her new form, spread her wings that little bit, and bent her course almost instinctively to meet the Quaffle. Rather conveniently, her wings seemed to pass right through anything she wore without holes, whenever she wanted them to- so she didn’t need to worry about shredding her red and gold Quidditch robes.

She captured the Quaffle as she zipped past, then made a near-perfect ninety degree corner in midair to head straight for the Slytherin goal posts, all without losing any speed. As she went, she mounted her broom once again and folded her wings, but didn’t go back to her old form. As she did so, she noticed that she seemed to be leaving a bit of a red and gold contrail, fading to nothing behind her, but ignored it.

She had a goal to score.

She zipped past one Bludger, four Beaters, and four Chasers on her straight-line path, then curved at the very end and unleashed the Quaffle through one of the side hoops, before circling around the hoops to score again before any of the Slytherin chasers could catch up, and also before the Keeper finished saying his prayers, after- presumably- thinking she’d been going to ram him. Hermione’s comments about wand magic must have been applicable to however brooms worked as well, because all of the sudden, her broom was outperforming Hailey’s- the best on the team, by a rather significant margin.

For as much as her right arm had been broken by that bludger, Hailey had somehow managed to catch the Snitch with that same hand- and after her crash in the mud, she could still feel it struggling in her hand.

Then there was Lockhart.

“Gryffindor won with three hundred and seventy points to ninety,” she heard Lee Jordan cheering in the background, while Lockhart looked down at her. She could also hear Wood and the Slytherin captain, Marcus Flint, yelling at each other about something in the background.

“Not to worry, Hailey, I’m about to fix your arm,” Lockhart told her.

“No,” she ordered. “Keep your useless hands off of me.”

Lockhart scowled. “Doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” he said. “It’s a simple charm, I’ve used it countless times.”

“Madam Pomfrey has used it many more times than you,” she retorted immediately. “Let me go to her.”

“She really should,” another voice pitched in- Angelina Johnson, one of the Gryffindor chasers, had fast become a friend of hers. Not nearly as close as Hermione or Ron, but still a friend. “Even Professor McGonagall won’t try to heal a break herself.”

Lockhart ignored her, twirled his wand, and cast his spell. Hailey closed her eyes, silently praying for it to fail. Then… it hit. The strangest thing she’d ever felt, even counting how strange it had felt the first time she’d become a girl, started at her shoulder and spread down to her fingertips. It felt almost like her arm was being deflated- and while it didn’t exactly hurt any more, it didn’t feel even remotely like an arm, either. She heard Angelina’s horrified gasp- then Lockhart let out a terrified gasp of his own, and Hailey heard a little thump and an ‘Ow!’ from Lockhart’s direction.

She opened her eyes. “How bad is it?” she asked.

Angelina looked up at Lockhart, then back at Hailey. “At least he managed to hit himself as well,” she told her amusedly. “But it’s… Bad.” She reached down to take Hailey’s handless arm.

She sighed, and reached it up, to allow herself to be pulled up by it. Her other arm was obviously bad enough Angelina didn’t think she should be lifted by it.

Then she looked down at it- and almost wished she hadn’t.

It was immediately apparent that Lockhart hadn’t mended her bones- he’d removed them. Her arm looked like it had been made out of rubber.

Then she looked up, and had to stifle a giggle.

Gilderoy Lockhart, honorary Dark Force Defence League member, Order of Merlin, third class, and five-time-winner of Witch Weekly’s Most Charming Smile Award- Hailey was sure she got it out of order, but it all was true- had managed to vanish not only the bones from her arm, which he’d been trying to fix, but from his own right leg as well, and was staring at it in horror.

Angelina sighed, looking at him, then put her arm around Hailey, almost casually snatching the freshly-freed Snitch out of the air with her other hand. “C’mon, let’s get you to the Hospital Wing.”

Lockhart looked up at them. “Wait, take me with you!” He sounded almost panicked.

Hailey felt Angelina’s muscled body harden, almost like stone, before she answered. “No,” she barked, before taking a step forwards, turning both of them sharply towards the exit- then, there was a sudden flash of deep red fire and she found herself blinking in the relative darkness of a torchlit corridor.

“What the-!?” Angelina asked, looking around wildly.

Hailey took a step forwards, towards what she recognized as the infirmary doors, despite the apparent gloom from her un-adjusted vision.

“Weird,” Angelina said, catching up and stepping past her to knock on the door anyways.

“You’re right, that was weird,” Hailey told her. “And random.”

Angelina scowled. “It wasn’t random, though,” she muttered- right before the door opened.

“Is anyone dead or dying?” Madam Pomfrey began, as her greeting had become at some point during the prior year.

“No,” Angelina answered her. “Only Lockhart’s reputation.”

Madam Pomfrey snorted. “So what’d he do this time?” Then she spied Hailey’s arm, and sighed. “Alright. Is it just the bones or does it still hurt?”

“Uh,” Hailey muttered. “It does not hurt. It… doesn’t do much else either, but…”

Madam Pomfrey rolled her eyes. “Then it’s just the bones, and it’ll only take one night to regrow them. Come on in.”

“Um, Lockhart managed to hit himself as well,” Angelina noted.

Madam Pomfrey raised an eyebrow. “Alright then. Ward Two for you, Hailey.”

Draco had been walking towards the gathered party, from where he’d landed near the stadium entrance, deliberately as far from Flint as he could get, when very suddenly, Hailey and that Gryffindor chaser- was it Angelina Johnson or Katie Belle? He could never remember which was which- vanished in a flash of bright yellow fire.

He froze, staring. He’d been caught completely by surprise when that chaser’s hair had suddenly turned Gryffindor as well, after which she had taken the scoreboard by storm- and even when he was in the air, as the Slytherin seeker, he’d heard more than one person in the crowd commenting on just how fast the girl was. As it was, Hailey had caught the Snitch- but had the match gone on for two more minutes, it wouldn’t have mattered. They had already been a hundred and thirty points up- and that’s all the girl would have needed to make it more than a hundred and fifty.

Angelina stopped, turning to look behind her. She was on her way to the library to turn in a reference book she’d borrowed; she’d finished with that piece of Defense Against the Dark Arts homework, which had actually been provided by the foreigners as an ‘optional addition’ to her upper-year class with Lockhart, and didn’t need it any more. On her way, she’d just rounded the corner at an intersection where two corridors crossed paths.

About halfway down the corridor in the other direction, there was a girl, hair looking almost exactly like hers, staring at her. She’d felt the stare.

The silence held for several seconds.

Finally, the girl spoke. “Hi.”

She nodded, curious. “Hello.”

“How did you hide it?”

She tilted her head. “Hide what?”

“You’re a Phoenix-born.”

“I’m a what?”

The girl, confused, walked closer. “A phoenix-born. You… know what that is, right?”

She shook her head. “Enlighten me.”

“I- But how?” She scowled. “What’s your name?”

“Angelina.”

The girl blinked in astonishment. “Wait. You’re British?”

She nodded. “Yeah?”

“Okay we’ve got to talk,” she said. “Do you have time?”

She shrugged. “Bout as much of it as anyone else,” she answered. “Common room?” She couldn’t tell which House the girl was in; her hair was hiding the House crest on her robes.

She shook her head. “Slytherin.” She peered into an empty classroom next to them. “Hmm, this should work.”

Angelina, still confused, followed her in. She knew the weird fire teleport earlier hadn’t been random- she’d been able to tell that it was she that had done it. And if that was the case, especially since she was at least two years this foreign girl’s senior, she didn’t see any real danger in at least seeing what she had to say.

Especially since the girl seemed to know something about it.

“So… what’s a phoenix-born?” Angelina asked, once the girl shut the door with a snap.

The girl took a deep breath, and let it out. “Before that,” she stated, then looked up at Angelina, and held out her hand. “I’m Sunset Shimmer, and I’m the only surviving Phoenix-born in Equestria.”

She took the hand gingerly. “Angelina,” she said. “Angelina Johnson.”

“So… I take it Phoenix-born are a thing of legend or something around here?”

She shrugged. “Never heard of it. I have studied phoenixes, though.”

She scowled. “Hmm. I… We never considered phoenix-born a possibility over here. Maybe there’s…?”

“So what is it?” Angelina asked.

“You’re part Phoenix,” Sunset told her simply. “So am I.” She shrugged. “Nobody knows why it happens- in Equestria, Phoenix-born appear once every hundred and fifty years or so, and always to two ordinary parents.”

She tilted her head. “What if two Phoenix-born get together?”

She shook her head. “Always female,” she told her. “Male phoenixes exist, but male phoenix-born are actually physically impossible. Don’t ask me how Proof Impossible proved that when we still don’t understand how or why it happens in the first place, but she did.” She sighed. “Yes, there is a spell that will get around that. I don’t know if there’s a comparable British spell, but it’s about five hundred years old and was invented by a Phoenix-born. Invented by me, specifically.” She sighed again. “The problem is that no two Born have ever gotten together, so we don’t know what would happen.

“But how have you kept it hidden?”

“Kept it hidden…?”

“The hair,” she answered. “It’s the most obvious sign.”

She blinked. “Oh, um, I haven’t always had it.”

“What.”

She giggled lightly at the disbelieving look Sunset gave her. “Funny story, actually. You probably heard how I was nearly killed during finals last year?”

She nodded. “That was you?”

She nodded as well. “It was. Hermione managed to save my life by using… I don’t know. She said it was some kind of spell, that did it by transfiguration or something.”

She scowled. “Huh… I’ll have to ask her about-!”

Very suddenly, someone knocked on the door, and pushed it open. “Someone call my name?”

Angelina looked up. It was Hermione. “Uh- Yes, actually.”

“What-! How-!” Sunset began, before slapping a hand to her forehead and breathing deeply. “Remember, Sunset, she’s been studying Pinkie Pie. This is normal.”

Meanwhile, Hermione stepped in, leading a first-year girl that Angelina immediately realized had to be Fred and George’s little sister, Ginevra Weasley. “Um, is it okay if Ginny comes too?” Hermione asked. “I’ve been showing her, ah, a bit of the magic I’ve discovered.”

Ginny giggled.

“Uh-!” Sunset began.

“Sure,” Angelina told her. “That… Spell, thing, you used on me. Might it have made me part phoenix?”

Hermione blinked. “No, no, you were already part phoenix,” she said matter-of-factly, as if she were telling her the sky was blue. “What it did- at least, what it was supposed to do- was to bring the Foreigner’s magic capabilities to this world, through you.” She scowled. “Which, because their magic relies on a physical channeling focus, required transformation.”

“A physical channeling focus?” she asked. “Like a wand?”

She shook her head. “No, a biological one- it has to be part of you, not just something you’re using. That’s why you have so many new organs.” She sighed. “And by the way, I’ve now been trying to find something to call it for over a year. Been thinking about phonetics for something, but ‘Foxtrot Tango’ just doesn’t sound right. Ideas?”

“Papa Tango,” Sunset muttered, in awe. Then she looked at Angelina. “You didn’t happen to look in the alley near the Leaky Cauldron in muggle London, did you?”

She tilted her head. “Where all of you were coming from?” She nodded. “Looked like a portal of some kind. Why?”

She put both hands to her forehead. “It’s the Papa Tango,” she muttered.

Hermione tilted her head. “Why Papa?”

Sunset turned to her. “Hermione.”

“Hm?”

“That spell. That you described, and demonstrated with Angelina.

“We have been calling a theoretical spell that does exactly that the ‘Papa Tango’ for about a year and a half now.”

She blinked. “Okay. But still, why Papa?”

“Because-!” She broke off, then looked at Ginny. “Miss… Instructor Weasley, was it?”

Ginny blushed, and nodded.

“Okay. I need both of you- No,” she looked at Angelina too, “all three of you, to understand that what I’m about to tell you is at the very top of the Top Secret list. Do Not Repeat it, under any circumstances.”

All three nodded. “Okay,” Angelina said.

“Understood,” Hermione stated.

Ginny made an attempt at a military-style salute, but failed rather dismally. “Got it!” she cheered.

Sunset chuckled softly. “It’s because, on the other side, in Equestria… we’re ponies.”

Hermione blinked. “Oh. So… It’s ‘pony transform’, isn’t it?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

Angelina tilted her head. “Why was my seeing the portal important?”

She turned sharply to her. “Because that portal is invisible and immaterial to anything that can’t safely traverse it,” she told her. “And cameras and the like as well, because it’s selective visibility rather than selective invisibility like the Leaky Cauldron. And the only beings we’ve found that are capable of safely traversing it…” She took a deep breath, and let it out. “Are from the other side.”

Ginny tilted her head. “So how does this Papa Tango work?”

Author's Note

And that's not even her final form...

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Foreigner Transform. That's what Hermione was thinking about, that didn't sound right.

Chapter 24: Sorelia

Hermione took a deep breath, and let it out, as she approached the unused dungeon classroom door she knew Draco would be waiting behind. She’d told Hailey and Ron- she didn’t think she’d seen Harry once all year- that she was getting Alastor for the dueling club. She technically was, even, but she needed to talk to him before they headed up to meet the rest.

Specifically, she needed to ask him some very personal questions… and she was pretty sure she had finally worked up her courage to do so.

Finally, she stepped out of accelerated time in front of the door by wiggling the lurgid side to side, twisting the three-quarters-plurdled gabbleblotchits three and a quarter turns to the inside, and squeezing the freddled gruntbuggly to one third of its normal fortitude.

Then she put her hand on the door, and opened it in the normal way, just seconds after she had stepped through the portrait hole in Gryffindor Tower, almost as far away as she could get without leaving the castle.

As expected, Draco was waiting inside, doodling at the teachers’ desk, and the rest of the room was empty.

He waited until she closed the door before he spoke. “Good evening,” he greeted.

She smiled back at him. “Good evening,” she answered, though her tone betrayed her worry.

He raised an eyebrow. “Something wrong?” he asked curiously, rather than the ignorance or outright aggression he would’ve shown in public to a ‘mud-blood’ like her. After all, he had the family name to uphold, and Hermione was certain that politics were one of the nastiest things she’d ever heard of.

She shook her head. “No, nothing’s wrong,” she told him, walking over to sit next to him.

He leaned casually against the desk. “C’mon Hermione, something’s bothering you, I can tell. What is it?”

“Would-!” She sighed, sat down, and looked up at him again. “Draco, I…” She took a deep breath, and let it out. “Are you a girl or a boy?”

He stared at her.

She averted her gaze uncomfortably. “Just because I did a few aura checks in Charms today, and I noticed that your essence says you’re a girl.”

He blinked, looked down at himself, and back up. “It says I’m a girl?” he asked.

She nodded. “I- I don’t know when it changed, but it definitely didn’t when I scanned it before the Papa Tango… which was the last time I looked at it.”

He looked at her. “Papa Tango?” he repeated, confused.

She blinked. “I never did tell anybody, did I? My gain-the-foreigners’-powers spell was named the Papa Tango a week or so ago.”

“Ahh,” he muttered, then scowled. “Well, I certainly seem to still be a boy. Though I certainly wish I could turn into a girl.” He tilted his head. “What might’ve changed the essence thing?”

She stared at him. “Are… Are you trans?”

He blinked. “What’s that?”

“It’s-!” she began, and paused, trying to think of a way to summarize the multiple-hour-long explanation her parents had given her during the summer. “Hailey,” she finally decided. “Essentially, a witch born in the body of a wizard, or vice versa.”

“I don’t know. I certainly seem to be a wizard, but…” He scowled. “What do you mean, a witch born in the body of a wizard? Wouldn’t they just be a wizard?”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “Well yes, but also no. The point is…” She paused, thinking. “I know you’re physically a wizard… but in your mind, in your dreams, maybe, are you, or do you identify as, a girl?”

He scowled. “One of my fondest dreams involves discovering a new sex-change potion that’s safe for juveniles to drink,” he told her. “I keep waking up before I drink it, though,” he added, in a disappointed tone.

“The Mirror of Erised,” she said suddenly, the idea flying into her brain. “It showed you a girl, right?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Pretty one, too- I’ve decided to call her Silversong.” He showed her the notebook he’d been doodling in, which was filled with drawings- some in ink, some in pencil, some colored, some not, but all of various girls. The ones he showed her were of a strange, silver-haired girl. “That’s about what she looked like.”

“Yet Hailey saw Hailey,” Hermione told him, “even when she was Harry.”

He nodded. “Yeah?”

She tilted her head. “Is it possible that she- that Silversong- is who you really are, on the inside?”

He looked down at the page. “I… I don’t know. I suppose it might be, but Silversong isn’t exactly a British name, is it?”

“No, it’s not,” Hermione agreed. “Sounds like one of the Foreigners to me.”

He shrugged. “She looks like one of them, too. I wonder who she really is?”

She scowled at the page. “I… I have no idea.” She looked up. “But… You’ve said you’d take the sex change potion in a second if it wasn’t so dangerous- would you ever want to change back?”

He shook his head immediately. “No,” he said decisively. “I hate being a boy.”

“Then you’re probably trans too,” she concluded. “And… And a witch born into a wizard’s body.”

He looked at her, tilted his head, and thought for a second. “I… I think I understand now,” he muttered.

“Do you have a chosen name?” she blurted out, before clapping her hands over her mouth, blushing cherry red. “Oh, sorry, that was terribly-!”

“Sorelia,” Draco laughed. “Whenever I manage to turn myself into a girl, that’s what my name will be. Sorelia.” He paged through the notebook, and showed her a drawing of a female version of himself. “See?” He glanced at it. “I’ll need quite a few cosmetic spells and potions to look like that, but it shouldn’t be too hard.”

Hermione smiled. “Cute,” she told him. Or her?

Draco looked at the drawing for a couple seconds, before looking back up at her. “Anyways, what might have made my ‘essence’ say ‘girl’? I thought you said that never changes.”

She nodded. “It doesn’t,” she agreed. “It’s in the set-in-stone section of the Essence, that no potion can touch.”

“Stone can be molded,” he observed.

She nodded. “It can be. And something did just that, to make it say ‘girl’. The only thing I’m aware of powerful enough to do that would be my Papa Tango, but it shouldn’t do that. I specifically designed it to maintain the target’s ident-!” She gasped, the matrix for the same running through her mind, then slapped her hand to her forehead. “Yup, it did it, almost certainly. It’s designed to maintain the target’s identity throughout, not their body. The new form it turns you into is supposed to match your identity- as provided by your soul- as closely as possible, before it adds your old form back on again.

“Which means, since the transformation rewrites how your body works, it also had to rewrite your essence to tolerate the changes. And with that focus on identity, it could very easily have slipped up and let that control those parts of the Essence, rather than the old essence.” She breathed a sigh of relief. “Which means I don’t have to worry about it messing things up, because it’s only going to make things more right than they were before.”

“Interesting.” He tilted his head. “What effect might that essence change have?”

She smiled. “None. Except that the Ministry’s file on you will insist you’re a girl, no matter what you look like, and unlike Hailey, you’ll be able to enter the girl’s dormitories.”

He blinked. “Is that… it?”

She shrugged. “And your new form from the PT is almost certainly female to match, but yeah, that’s it.” She took a deep breath. “Anyways… Sorelia, unless you still want me to use ‘Draco’ in private?”

He smiled, and chuckled. “Sorelia, then. Go ahead and tell the others about it, even, but keep her as an ‘anonymous friend’? Kinda like Alastor is for Draco.”

She chuckled. He- no, she- was right, while out in the Castle, Draco liked to brag about his anonymous friends that had all sorts of abilities and could get information from the most unlikely of sources- but he had never named a single one of them, making them sound like unfounded claims. “Anyways, Sorelia, we’d probably better go to the Dueling Club. Will you be showing as Draco or Alastor?”

He shook his head. “As Draco, unfortunately. It’d be suspicious if the Malfoy Heir randomly decided he didn’t care about dueling.”

There was a sudden knock on the door, making both of them jump, before someone opened it and stepped in.

It was Bonbon.

“Ahh, there you are,” she greeted, shutting the door and walking over. “Hermione, and Draco,” she bowed her head to each of them in turn, as she approached the teachers’ desk from the other side. Then she smiled, looking at Draco. “Or should I say Alastor?”

“What- er-!” Draco began, taken aback.

Hermione looked at him, then back at Bonbon. “H-How’d you know?”

She shrugged. “It was kinda hard to miss how Alastor- who didn’t have a class record- played Fluffy to sleep last year, but it was Draco that returned,” she commented lightly. “Don’t worry, I haven’t told anyone.” She glanced at Draco. “Though speaking of, I haven’t seen Alastor around nearly as much as I’ve seen Hailey- is there a limit to your transformation or something?”

He winced, and nodded. “Time limit, yeah.”

She nodded. “Then you’re probably not going to want to waste any of that precious time teaching, will you?”

“T-Teaching?” he gasped.

She nodded. “Now that we’ve finally got all our classes covered, we’re looking at putting together a Special Instruction Team to help tutor struggling students in whatever they need help with. We’re getting a fair few students in each subject regularly coming to their instructors for so much extra help it’s negatively impacting those instructors’ own performance by cutting into their study time.”

He blinked. “So… your solution is to make more instructors?”

She smiled, and nodded. “Specifically, an interlocking instructor team capable of relying on one another but also with a wide range of specialities, allowing them to very quickly find the best way to help any given student, and help them as quickly as possible with as little disruption to their own work or other duties as possible. We also anticipate the team would teach a remedial class for those students that need it.”

He snorted. “So, Crabbe and Goyle?”

She nodded. “Yes. Though for those two, our psychologists are saying they’re not stupid, they just can’t seem to get through to them.” She glanced at Hermione, and turned back to Draco. “Before you make any gung-ho decisions, I should probably warn you that Hailey is on the list as well.”

He scowled, putting a finger on his chin. “Which would mean… But then…” He sighed. “I guess that’ll just have to wait for me to become Sorelia, then.”

She tilted her head. “Sorelia?”

He blinked, blushing. “Oh, um…”

“Um-!” Hermione muttered, looking between them, and finally settled on Bonbon. “Sorelia is to Draco as Hailey is to Harry, just… without the book to the face.”

Draco let out a small snort of laughter at her word choice, but Bonbon just nodded understandingly, glancing at Draco and seeming satisfied. “Assuming the change is large enough, yes, Hailey need never know it’s you.”

Author's Note

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Chapter 25: Duel

“How about Malfoy and Potter?” Snape suggested. They were at the dueling club, where Lockhart had opened it by getting blasted off the stage by Snape’s disarming charm, to scattered applause.

After his rather dramatic opener, Lockhart had then split the gathered crowd- roughly twenty thousand in all, Ginny thought- into pairs and unleashed them on each other. Hailey had been paired with Malfoy, by Snape- and the two had traded jinxes. Lockhart had instructed them to use disarming charms only, but neither of them had aimed to disarm. As for Ginny, she’d been overlooked, and didn’t have a partner. She was more than a little miffed about it.

Now, Lockhart was looking for a ‘volunteer pair’ to demonstrate how to block unfriendly spells. His first selection- Neville Longbottom and Sweetie Belle, a pairing that Ginny found very amusing- had been rejected out of hand by Professor Snape, and for good reason; neither of the two had done anything when Lockhart had turned them loose, but an oak tree had still jumped out of the tip of Sweetie’s wand to tap-dance between the two.

“Excellent idea,” Lockhart agreed readily, prancing over and gesturing the pair into the middle of the hall. Everyone backed away to give them room, and Ginny sidestepped a little to get a better view. “Now Hailey, when Draco points his wand at you, you do this.” He raised his wand, wiggled it a little, and dropped it.

Hailey let out a snort of loud, derisive laughter while Snape smirked. For Ginny’s part, she let out a sigh of relief. It was much better than any of Lockhart’s other encounters with Hailey; he usually liked to put his hand on her and try to do something, but neither of them had yet seen exactly what he wanted to do because she was too quick to blast him off with her wand. Once, Ginny had hexed him away before Hailey had gotten her wand out! She had yet to see Harry Potter at the school, but was… she wasn’t exactly sure what the word was. She liked Hailey, a lot- and had she been a boy, she would’ve called it ‘smitten’.

“Whoops,” Lockhart announced. “My wand is a little overexcited.”

Snape bent down to whisper something in Draco’s ear. Ginny watched, concerned. She knew that neither Snape nor Draco liked Hailey one bit, but didn’t know to what extent they’d be willing to go to express that.

Hailey, on the other hand, didn’t seem bothered at all. She raised an eyebrow at Snape and Draco, then turned to Professor Lockhart. “Sir, were you trying to demonstrate the Multipurpose Reflective Shield Charm, ‘Protego’?”

“Ah- Yes,” Lockhart nodded, looking surprised.

“Then why did you move your wand?” Hailey continued, sounding almost exactly like Ginny’s Defense Against the Dark Arts instructors. “That charm does not require any particular wand movement, nor indeed any at all; the only things it requires are for the wand to be in your hand, you to picture the proper effect in your mind, and for you to use the correct incantation, ‘Protego’. Now, would you like to demonstrate it with me?”

“Ah-!” Lockhart muttered, apparently dumbfounded at her sudden explosion of instruction.

She rolled her eyes and turned her back on him. “Professor Snape?” she asked.

Snape’s grin looked vicious as he nodded. “Certainly,” he stated.

“Very well,” she nodded, and raised her wand. “Expeliarmus,” she stated casually.

“Protego,” Snape muttered, almost lazily, at the same time.

A bolt of scarlet light shot from Hailey’s wand… then bounced off of Snape, straight back at her. For a fraction of a second, Ginny thought she was about to get hit by it- but with her customary speed, she dodged it, and Lockhart lost his wand.

Hailey looked back at him. “Right, yes, I should probably mention that you should never stand behind someone that is dueling. You’ll probably get hit by something they dodged.” She watched, amusedly, as he retrieved his wand, from where it had landed on the floor behind him. “Alright,” she said, once he had gotten back. “Professor Lockhart, you’re leading this Dueling Club- as I’m sure you already know, no one shield charm can stop everything. Would you care to do a quick demonstration of all the most common shield charms with me?”

“Ah-!” Lockhart glanced around the room, almost as if looking for someone to help him, and turned back to her. “Alright.”

She nodded. “Okay. Ready? Tarantallegra.”

“Protego!” Lockhart pronounced- but his legs started dancing around anyways.

“Finite Incantatem,” Hailey said, almost tiredly. “Nice try, and your shield was successful, but that spell happens to go straight through the Multipurpose Reflective Shield Charm. In this case, you needed the General Motor Defense Charm- which is even easier, since you don’t even need to picture its effects, just have your wand in your hand and say ‘motus’. So then, next spell. Ready?”

Lockhart nodded.

“Wingardium Leviosa.”

“Motus!” Lockhart announced- and promptly panicked as he floated a foot in the air.

“Mm, nope, ‘Protego’ would have been the right choice there,” Hailey scowled at him, putting him back down.

This went on for some ten or fifteen more minutes, during which Hailey told Lockhart about some eight or nine more different shield charms, each with their own strengths and weaknesses, and used charms that would penetrate each one.

Finally, she got to her last spell. “Expecto Patronum!”

“Protego!” Lockhart half-pleaded, sounding panicked. He hadn’t successfully blocked a single one of her spells- possibly because he kept casting the shield for the last charm, but she kept changing her spell so the last charm’s shield wouldn’t stop the next one.

Something silver shot out of Hailey’s wand and bowled Lockhart over, before galloping around in a circle to return to her. It was… It was a stag, gleaming ghostly and silver, but also somehow not ghostly.

Hailey tucked her wand under her arm and reached up to pet it as it approached, but it disappeared the moment she touched it. She looked down at Lockhart, sighed, and looked around at the room. “There is no way to block that one. Even Dementors can’t do it.” She looked down at Lockhart. “It can, however, be dodged. Well, so long as you’re not a dementor, at least.” She chuckled softly. “Anyways, something tells me that if I try a demo duel with you, Professor, it’s going to end quite abruptly.”

Behind her, Professor Snape let out a laugh. It was so strange to see him laugh, but somehow, Hailey had made him do it. Ginny watched interestedly, determinedly not thinking about how she would have asked the girl out if she’d been a boy.

Hailey turned to him. “So Professor Snape, would you like to help me with that?”

Snape grinned, a manic gleam in his eyes. “Absolutely,” he declared.

“Alright.” She bowed to him, before glancing around at the room. “Alright, everyone should know. There are exactly two rules in a true duel. Rule number one… is that there are no rules.” She smiled back at Professor Snape. “Since we’re only demonstrating, we will both be using largely harmless spells- and our duel will end with the first to land a spell.” She paused, watching Snape expectantly.

He nodded his agreement.

“The only exception being ‘Finite Incantatem’, since all it does in a duel is break down shields,” Hailey continued, with a nod. “Ready?”

He nodded.

There was a moment of tense silence, then both of them struck like vipers.

“Expeliarmus!” They both cried. The two spells bounced off of one another, both rebounding upon their casters- but Hailey dodged it, and Snape cried “Protego!” just in time. Lockhart lost both his wand and his hat.

Ginny wasn’t able to follow their incantations after that. Sometimes they bellowed them at each other, sometimes they barely muttered them. Sometimes they conjured increasingly strange and powerful shields, sometimes they dodged the spells. They were almost always saying incantations at the same time as one another, though.

Lockhart was a bit worse for the wear. Unless Ginny missed her guess, Snape was favoring bouncing Hailey’s spells back at her, and she was favoring dodging them. Lockhart’s hair turned green, then his legs clapped together, then he floated up in the air, then he turned upside-down with a bang, then he got dropped painfully on his head.

Eventually, though, they seemed to progress to more and more powerful spells as well. It was a couple minutes- Ginny was astounded that they still hadn’t managed to hit each other- before she finally caught what was going on again.

“Serpensortia!” Snape cried, while dodging Hailey’s spell, whatever it was.

A thick, black snake burst from his wand, dropped to the floor, and raised itself to threaten Hailey. Snape grinned. For a moment, Ginny thought he’d beaten her- but then she saw that Hailey was smiling, like she knew something he didn’t.

She opened her mouth, and spoke. It was a very low, soft tone, but it carried extremely well for some reason, and Ginny heard it as well as if she’d been muttering in her ear. “Turn around.”

The snake turned around.

Snape, looking surprised, flicked his wand to make it disappear- then, without moving his lips at all, pointed his wand at Hailey. A bolt of scarlet light came from it- and Hailey wasn’t fast enough.

It still didn’t hit her, though. She vanished into thin air with a loud Crack!, and Lockhart lost his hat again.

“What the-?” Snape began- then Hailey reappeared with a second loud Crack! and her wand lashed forwards like a viper.

She also didn’t move her lips. Snape froze.

Then he unfroze, three seconds later, and they both lowered their wands to bow to one another once again.

“That,” Hailey announced, “was a very deadly weapon in a duel. Well…” She smiled at Snape. “Two of them, really. Surprise… and the silent incantation.” She looked around the room. “With a silent incantation, you neither know what is coming nor when it is coming, making it nearly impossible to block or dodge. For that matter,” she turned to Snape again, “if I hadn’t been keeping that spell in reserve, you would have won, fair and square. As it is, I think we can call it a draw.”

“But you beat him,” Ron observed bluntly, from the edge of the circle of onlookers.

She looked at him. “By using a spell that a total of two people on the entire planet know about, yes. I’d hardly call that fair.”

Hermione stepped forwards. “Which one was it?”

“The Chronoskipper,” she answered immediately. “A bit disorienting, and the muscle shock was enough to make a verbal incantation impossible immediately after emerging, but overall, it worked really well.”

She scowled. “Hmm, I’ll have to work on that.”

“Did Miss Granger invent that spell?” Snape asked flatly.

Hermione nodded. “Yes, I did,” she smiled.

“Celestia help us all,” someone pleaded, somewhere in the crowd.

The silence held for a fraction of a second, before-

“She’s the Heir of Slytherin!” someone shrieked.

Ginny jumped, looking around. She didn’t know who had cried that- but why were they accusing Hailey of that? It wasn’t as if-!

To her surprise, it was Draco Malfoy that came to Hailey’s defense. “What, just because she’s a parselmouth?” he asked scathingly.

Ginny blinked. Was that why the snake had turned around? Then, what did that mean for herself? She’d understood it too- but it’d sounded like English to her. Was that what made parselmouths different?

“Come on,” Malfoy went on, after a series of ‘yeah’ and ‘well duh’s came back. “She’s in Gryffindor, not Slytherin. Besides, I know several parselmouths in this place already, and none of them can figure out who the Heir is either!”

Ginny shuddered- though it was only partly because of his words. She’d convinced Hermione to use her Papa Tango spell on her earlier that same day, and it had just sent yet another inexplicable tingle down her spine.

Author's Note

So apparently Lockhart is a terrible duelist.

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Chapter 26: Silversong

Draco took the time to double-check that the door was locked before he turned around to verify that he was alone in the bathroom.

He was.

He breathed a sigh of relief, before stepping over to the counter to lay his bag on it.

He looked up at the mirror. Draco looked back.

He sighed again, then smiled, deciding. Sorelia would take a shower, and cast the spell that she had crafted so carefully. She would just do so in Draco’s body, before Draco would have to take back over again so they could leave the room.

Sorelia’s smile vanished when she undressed and looked in the mirror again. “Blegh.” She turned resolutely away from Draco’s reflection, picked up the page of notes she’d brought in and her wand, and stepped into the shower. She hadn’t turned the water on yet.

It only took a quick sticking charm to get the parchment to hold on the wall, and a similarly quick waterproofing charm ensured that the shower wouldn’t ruin it before she could read her notes off of it. She’d spent all week crafting this spell- and had been unable to find a way to remove the requirement that she be under a steady stream of water- and have been under it for fifteen minutes- in order for it to work. It was also too complicated for her to remember, necessitating the notes.

Just in case, though, she’d left a copy of this page in her trunk.

She carefully laid her wand on a shelf in the shower- good thing it was waterproof- and set about taking her shower.

It didn’t take long for her to finish. Her bright, poisonous green hair- a family curse, which only affected the boys of the family- had to be shaved completely off, so she didn’t have any hair to clean at all; it was a wig. She reached to the side, and laid her fingertip on her wand. “Tempus.”

The time-detection spell took the usual fraction of a moment to do its work, indicating to her that she had been in the shower for twenty minutes.

She lifted the wand off of its shelf, gripped both ends of it, and turned to her page of notes. There were any number of ways this spell could go wrong- and none of them would be comfortable.

She started slowly, muttering the incantations and directing the magic. The first part was to check that her situation actually was what the spell required, allowing her to avoid a particularly nasty side effect of permanent mental retardation.

She wasn’t using any of the magic principles Hermione had discovered. Unfortuntely, she didn’t know them, either, and had been limited entirely to regular wizarding knowledge in her research.

Fortunately, it was up to the task.

Preliminary setup or check spells completed and passed, one after another, without any sign of problems.

She stopped, after the second-to-last incantation, to give her final check spell time to complete its examination of everything she’d constructed.

It came back green- all was good. Which surprised her; she’d expected to mess at least something up.

“Executus.”

Her spell instantly got to work.

Green light arced all over the bathroom- and, though she wasn’t looking, she felt something change about herself. She seemed to shrink a few inches- and something sprang out of her scalp. The water started to feel very strange on her body- then there was a brilliant, blinding flash of green light… and everything seemed to stop.

She opened her eyes, put her wand back on the shelf, then raised her hands to try to rub the stars out of her eyes. It didn’t work, but they continued to fade on their own… just like the water continued to feel strange on her skin. Even though- she squinted at her hands- her skin didn’t seem to be any different.

She stood, still in the shower, still blinking stars out of her eyes, until her vision fully recovered.

Finally, she looked down at herself.

She didn’t move for several seconds, unable to believe her eyes.

She raised one hand, to her chest… and touched it. It felt real- and sent another spike of strange sensations into her brain.

She looked up and, her eyes gleaming with excitement, turned off the shower.

It only took a quick tap of her wand and a few seconds of patience to dry her off entirely, completely without any towels, before she stepped out of the shower.

She plucked a towel from the rack anyways, and wrapped it around herself before stepping in front of the mirror, determinedly not looking in it. She took a deep breath and, expecting to see something recognizably related to Draco, looked up, into the mirror.

She had to clap her hand to her mouth to keep herself from screaming.

As expected, she didn’t see Draco looking back out of it at her. However, she also didn’t see a female version of him- or even Sorelia.

Silversong stared back at her in disbelief, hands clasped over her mouth and a towel wrapped around her middle. Her gleaming silver hair, split as it was into thirds by deep, royal blue stripes, flowed almost flawlessly down her back, fanning out just enough she could see it on either side of her body, almost long enough for her to sit on it. And, she noted, the Mirror of Erised didn’t do her justice. Even wearing only a towel, Silversong was a very cute girl- especially with the way her muscles rippled whenever she moved. It didn’t look like there was an ounce of excess fat on her frame, either.

She moved her arms experimentally- and Silversong matched her every move in the mirror.

Finally, she reached back to look at her own hair… and found that, not only did Silver mirror her motion perfectly, but her hair looked like Silver’s as well.

She took an excited breath… and let it out in a hiss, glancing towards the door. Four Slytherin boys were ‘sleeping’ behind it, and it would never do for them to realize there was a girl in their midst.

She quickly retrieved her wand, and started whispering incantations once again. Finally, once she’d finished taking her own measurements, she looked up at the mirror, and concentrated on becoming Draco- the trigger for her form spell.

The form spell didn’t trigger. Instead, far easier than it ever did, and long before it would have reacted, she seamlessly shifted to become Draco once more- and grew about six inches in the process. She scowled at her reflection, then unwrapped her towel and started putting her clothes back on.

As she worked, she wondered. She’d chosen the name Sorelia for when she managed to turn herself into a girl- but then she’d done so, and found herself as the girl she’d already named Silversong. So which name should she use?

She paused in the middle of her work, looking up sharply. It was obvious, really.

She had that form spell. And with Silversong as a female base- the form spell had been on standby when she’d been Silver, as it still was as Draco, meaning Silver was probably her new form from the Papa Tango- she’d be able to save female forms to it as well.

She could save Sorelia to it… and become her whenever it was necessary. She wouldn’t be able to be Sorelia all of the time, but she liked Silversong as well. Plus, Silver was about as un-Malfoy as anyone could get- she even looked like one of the Foreigners!

She paused, after getting dressed and slinging her bag back over her shoulder, to look in the mirror one last time. She smiled, allowing herself to shift back into Silversong for a second- for some reason, she didn’t seem to be constrained by the time limit on the form spell.

She nearly let out a scream of shock as she shifted quickly back. Her form spell only ever touched her body- but Silversong had been completely naked, her clothes reappearing when she switched back to Draco! She grinned at Draco’s ugly face. That’d make it a lot easier to maintain the guise; her form spell might’ve done a few tweaks to clothing, but it couldn’t hide the difference between male and female robes. If the clothes went with the Draco-Silversong shift, that would be simple to maintain.

Finally, Draco turned resolutely away from the mirror, unlocked the door, and returned to the second year British boys’ dormitory, where Crabbe, Goyle, and the other two British boys in her-his year were stretching and yawning, still in their pajamas.

“You’re up early,” Theodore commented, looking over at him.

He nodded. Now that he knew that he could actually, physically become a girl basically at will, he found it very hard to think of himself as a boy anymore. Even so, he- ah, heck with it, she- was usually the last to awaken, not the first. “I am,” she noted simply. If they asked why, she would pull a Malfoy and refuse to answer- and what’s more, they knew she would, and so wouldn’t ask. She dropped her bag on the foot of her bed and turned to leave the room, the parchment with Silver’s measurements in her pocket with her wand. She’d need that bag again come evening; it now held her pajamas, alongside her toiletries… and spare wigs.

Finally, she left the dormitory, and headed down the stairs to the Slytherin common room- which, after checking to be sure that it really was empty and that Crabbe and Goyle were not following her, she crossed it quickly and left, headed for the Owlry. She had a letter to send.

Lucius looked up as an eagle owl he recognized as Draco’s swooped in the open kitchen window as he finished his breakfast. Funny, they usually showed up at the beginning of the meal, as the two from the Daily Prophet and one from the Ministry had just that day. Compounding that, while a rush owl could show up at any time, the Manor was too far from Hogwarts for a rush owl sent after Draco normally awoke to arrive now, rather than another hour from now.

The owl landed importantly on the table, and waited patiently for him to finish his bite and put down his fork. Finally, he accepted the letter… and raised his eyebrow at the Malfoy Family Seal embossed across the lip of the magically sealed envelope. Only a Malfoy could break that seal- which, though it looked like it was only applied to one face of the envelope, he knew it actually enclosed the whole thing in a protective field- without using so much power they would incinerate the envelope and its contents in the attempt.

In other words, only a Malfoy could read what was inside.

He drew his wand, and tapped the seal gently with it. “To the House of Malfoy,” he muttered.

The seal disappeared entirely, without requiring any power from him- just his magical signature and the verbal command.

He tapped the envelope again, defusing the flap from the base. It seemed a bit overkill to do that in addition to the House seal, since any decent witch or wizard could open that one- but he knew why. Had he not been present, Narcissa would have seen that fusing underneath the seal and saved it, still completely sealed, for until he got home.

Speaking of Narcissa, the letter had also gotten her attention, from where she was seated, just to his right. She was watching him silently, expectantly.

Finally, he opened the envelope, slid out the parchment inside, dispelled the Flattening Charm on it, and unfolded it to read it.

Draco had written… a series of numbers, vertically arranged. One was three digits, all the rest two.

It only took him three numbers before he understood what they meant.

He looked up at Narcissa. “He’s done it.”

She blinked. “He- She?” She paused for a second, tilting her head curiously, before abandoning the inquiry. “They have?”

He wordlessly handed her the parchment.

She took it, scanned down it. “Ahh. And…” She scowled. “Aww, now I’m jealous.”

Lucius raised his eyebrow. “Oh?”

She nodded. “She’s bigger than I was at that age.” She scowled. “Maybe she’s just an early bloomer, but it probably means she’ll be bigger than me when she grows up.”

He stared at her. “What?” He didn’t know what any of the numbers meant, or what order they were in, only that they were measurements. Narcissa was the one Draco had worked with to figure out what to measure and what order to put the measurements in. She started to open her mouth to explain, but he shook his head- it was probably a girl thing, so he wasn’t all that worried about it. “Nevermind. But I wonder how long it’ll be before he wants to turn back…?”

She looked at him. “I wouldn’t be so sure that she ever will,” she stated calmly, stressing the pronoun ever so slightly. “Anyways, shall we get these to Madam Malkin today? I’m sure Sorelia won’t mind them as a Christmas present tomorrow.”

He looked up at her, and tilted his head. “True. What do we tell Malkin, though?”

“I think…” She paused. “I think it’s time to break out that form spell Sorelia likes so much. As… what, Henry and Jacqueline?”

Lucius tilted his head, recalling the forms she was referring to- Henry was one of his, Jacqueline one of hers. Neither of them used the form spell very much, but they both knew it and could perform it- it was Malfoy Family magic, after all. Henry and Jacqueline were, ostensibly at least, a muggleborn couple. He nodded. “Yes, that should do. But what about Madam Malkin? People usually bring their daughters, don’t they?”

She shrugged. “We just took in a new daughter when her house burned down, and all we have for her to wear is the bathrobe she fled the house in.”

He scowled. “And that daughter…?”

“Hmm, good point. How about… Maria?”

“Alright,” he nodded, standing. “We’ll have to get some more gold from the Vault, but where shall we change?”

She shrugged. “We can just do that here. The goblins never ask too many questions.”

Author's Note

The Flattening Charm: A charm used to make it impossible to unfold a folded letter, by forcing it to stay flat. As with the flap-seal Lucius noted, it's rendered completely unnecessary (slash overkill) by the Family Seal.

Except, of course, that the very extent to which she sealed it- no matter how redundant- will convey the secrecy of its contents long before they actually unfold the letter to read it...

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At the moment, there are only two more chapters available to Patrons- and this time, I did remember to update their tier availabilities and stuffs. I've got a few more waiting for me to post, though- and unfortunately, I don't have time right now. I'll probably get to it tonight.

Chapter 27: Polyjuice

Sorelia- or perhaps Silversong, she wasn’t sure yet- became instantly glad that she’d made herself into a bit of a recluse when, after lifting her unopened presents into the embrace of the curtains around her four-poster, she’d looked at them… and spotted the package addressed to Draco, from Sorelia. She knew instantly what that meant, and paused to wait for the other boys to head downstairs before she did anything further. It was rather helpful that, after staying up far too late the day before to ‘save’ herself a second female form as Sorelia, she’d slept in a bit later than she usually did.

Usually, it took three days to save a new form for her form spell to take care of- but she’d managed it in only one, primarily because she’d already done most of the work- appearance design- over the prior year or so, and really only had to change measurements and bases.

She listened to the last of them slam the door shut on their way down and, knowing they wouldn’t be back for a good hour or two at least, pulled her blanket up, off of her bed, and wrapped it around herself, completely disregarding her pajamas.

Then, she shifted into Silversong.

A quick glance informed her that her estimation had been correct, and that she had successfully placed the blanket such that it covered everything important when she shifted- not that it really mattered, since nobody would be seeing her anyways, but she cared.

Then, she opened the package that proclaimed itself to have been sent by Sorelia, knowing exactly what she would find inside. It was a pre-agreed-upon code, after all- just like the order of the measurements when she’d sent them to her parents the morning before.

Then… she stopped, staring at the article on top.

It was… It was…

She knew it was perfectly normal for a girl, and she’d expected to see it, but she’d spent twelve whole years trying not to think about this kind of thing because it was so wrong for a boy, especially one of her noble stature.

But she wasn’t a boy.

Finally, she reached out, and touched it. The- no, her new… girl’s underwear.

She very nearly let out a squeal of excitement, and did unravel her blanket so she could put it on. That one, and the one she had to clasp behind her back (to her surprise, it took her less than a second to do just that, despite never having done anything even remotely similar before), were difficult mostly because of the strange sensations in the body parts they touched. Her shirt went on far easier, then she paused, holding up her new skirt. She rotated it around several times before she finally figured out which way was supposed to be forwards and slipped it on as well, standing on her bed rather than the floor. Finally, she took her robe and slipped it on, closing it up. She gave it a little twirl, balancing carefully on her soft mattress, and let out a small giggle of excitement- no matter how strange everything felt, nor how dangerous sounding female in this room would be- before sitting down again to slip on her new shoes and socks.

Finally, she phased into Draco, climbed out of bed, and got dressed again; he was still wearing his pajamas. She checked to be sure she actually was alone in the room before stepping in front of the mirror… and phasing back into Silversong.

There she was. Fully dressed and smiling, a manic gleam in her eyes. She gave her skirts another twirl- and for as much as the sudden breeze around her legs made her nervous, the feeling was absolutely delightful.

She knew her father expected her to want to turn back at some point. If she was entirely honest with herself, she didn’t understand how he could stand being male for quite so long. It was just… unnatural. But, she supposed, that was probably some part of whatever Hermione had talked about with ‘trans’ and ‘cis’ and whatever else. She just was very definitely not a boy.

Even though she would continue to have to pretend to be one for years to come. Likely many years.

She heaved a sigh, resisted the urge to trial-run her Sorelia form- if she did, she’d be unable to change back for about fifteen minutes- and instead returned to her bed, still as Silversong, to begin unwrapping the rest of her presents.

She needed to decide which one- between Silversong and Sorelia- was her, and which one was the guise she wore ‘occasionally’. Draco had already been relegated to such a guise.

“Medicine for my stomach,” Crabbe declared, before both he and Goyle bolted from the room.

Diamond Tiara watched them go, from her seat not far from theirs- then looked at Draco, who was also watching them flee with a look of amusement on his face. She stood, and stepped up to sit next to him. “How’d you get them to act so smart?” she asked.

Draco laughed. It wasn’t his usual, almost timid laugh, either- it was a full belly laugh. He stopped very suddenly. “That wasn’t Crabbe and Goyle,” he answered simply.

She looked towards the chamber entrance, then back towards him. “Okay, I can see that. But how? And who?”

“Polyjuice Potion,” he sighed.

She waited a couple seconds, but he didn’t seem intent upon answering her other question. “Is that why you were so…” She gestured vaguely at the seats that faux Crabbe and Goyle had occupied, in Goyle’s and Crabbe’s usual seats, respectively. “I don’t know. Vile? I’ve never heard you say ‘mudblood’ so much.”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“It’s a ploy, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “To convince them that I’m not Slytherin’s heir.”

She blinked. “So that’s why the conversation went that way so quickly. What about…” She paused. “Goyle. When he asked about Azkaban, why did you say he mentioned the Dementor guards himself a week ago? Pretty sure he can’t even pronounce that word. Er, that real Goyle can’t.”

Draco laughed again. “Because she did, of course.”

“She-?”

He nodded. “Though I will admit, I was expecting to see Millicent Boulstrode as well.”

She looked at him. “Didn’t she go home for the holidays?”

He nodded. “She did.” He scowled. “Maybe that hair was her cat’s hair?”

Diamond looked at the entrance, then back at Draco. “I assume they’re your friends?”

He looked at her. “What makes you think that?”

She shrugged, and mouthed a single word.

He stared at her. “How- How did you know?”

She shrugged. “I assume you’re going to check up on the faux Millicent?”

He scowled, and nodded.

“And I can’t come with?”

He nodded again.

She sighed. “Well, let me know when I can, okay?”

He sighed as well, and stood up. Then he paused, and turned to look at her. “Er… If you see Silversong around, can you say hi to her for me?”

She tilted her head. “Silversong?”

He ignored her question, slung his bag over his shoulder, and hurried from the room.

“...and the potion isn’t supposed to be used for animal transformations!” Hermione cried. Harry and Ron had returned with an apparent success story (not that she expected any less), but apparently, the hair Millicent had left on her robes belonged to a cat, not Millicent herself. She’d spent the hour that the two boys were away trying to find a way to repair the damage with her magic, but been unsuccessful. She’d argued through the closed door of her stall when they got back, even though she didn’t have a clear idea of what she was going to do- she’d gone into panic mode, and knew she’d done so, but that didn’t really help any.

“Uh-oh,” Ron muttered.

Then something caught Hermione’s attention, in the very corner of her eye, and she looked past the boys, towards the entrance, wrenched suddenly out of her panic… only to plunge straight back in.

There was someone there, idly playing with her long, silver hair. No, long silver hair that was split cleanly into thirds by deep, royal blue stripes.

She let out a gasp, then the girl’s name came to mind- Sorelia had drawn her a lot of times. “S-S-Silversong!”

Both boys whirled around and let out gasps of their own.

The girl didn’t look up from her hair just yet. “Millicent has a cat,” she said simply. “Blackpaws. Yes, I know, very imaginative.” She looked up. “How much Polyjuice do you have left?”

“Wh-What are you talking about?” Ron demanded, bristling.

“Three glasses,” Hermione answered, very softly. This girl must have been Silversong; nobody else would have known about the Polyjuice Potion. “But what use?”

“Because-!” She smiled, and looked at the boys. “While you two were running around asking Hufflepuffs where the Slytherin common room was, I was asking Professor Snape how best to solve exactly this situation.” She nodded towards Hermione.

Hermione felt the heat rushing to her face, while Ron’s ears turned red and Harry averted his gaze uncomfortably. “So… How?” She hated how squeaky her voice was.

She shrugged. “First off, there’s nothing to be done before the first hour is up. After the second hour, a Mandrake Restorative Draft will do it in a few hours, or one of Madam Pomfrey’s medicines will take about a month.”

She blinked. “What about…?”

She nodded. “Before the second hour, more Polyjuice will fix it.”

Hermione looked back into the stall, where the cauldron still sat. “Then… Who?”

“The only exception being that it has to be to someone of the same sex. Anything else will be irreparable except by mandrake.”

Hermione looked at her. “Um… I…”

She smiled. “Harry, Ron, you too. This is a girl’s bathroom, after all.”

“But-!” Harry began. “But it’s not supposed to be used for transgender transformations!”

She nodded. “I know. Fun fact, that book was written by a coward. As long as you’re not using it to recover from an animal transformation, the side effects wear off quickly.” She grinned mischievously.

“Why do I feel like I’m not going to like them?” Harry asked, while Hermione left them to it and reentered the stall to start doling out the rest of the potion into three glasses. Her hands had become somewhat paw-like, but she still had ‘fingers’, so could still use the ladle.

“Oh don’t worry, you’ll be fine,” Silver told the boys.

“Then- Then who are we going to…?” Ron asked, sounding very nervous.

“Well, who do you think?” Hermione could hear the smile in her voice.

“Ahh…” Ron muttered. Hermione picked up the three glasses and emerged from the stall once again, to find Harry also watching Ron amusedly.

“Here,” Hermione stated, holding up the glasses. Harry took two of the three, then gave one to Ron.

Silver, meanwhile, reached up and plucked a single hair from her head before tearing it into thirds, all while Ron wasn’t looking. Finally, she stepped up, and dropped the first one into Ron’s glass, the second in Harry’s, and finally the last in Hermione’s. They all frothed and bubbled madly… then turned a solid silver, just like her hair.

Ron looked nervously up from it. “Uh… Who are we…?”

Silver pointed at herself. “Me, of course. Who else?”

Ron baulked at her. “What- but what about-!?” He cupped his flat chest with one hand.

She shrugged. “I bet I’m slimmer than either of you,” she told them.

Hermione glanced between her and the boys, and nodded. Not only did girls normally have much slimmer bodies than boys, but Silver was actually a good couple inches shorter than Harry, who was already shorter than Ron- but Ron was tall.

Silver chuckled at Ron’s expression. “If you’re worried, I have a spare change of clothes.” She tapped the bag she had hanging from her shoulder.

Ron’s ears reddened. “N-No, I’m fine,” he stuttered.

“So,” Silver announced. “Are you going to drink that here, or hide in a stall first?”

When Ginny Weasley entered the out-of-order girl’s bathroom commonly known as ‘Myrtle’s Place’, she did not expect to find it nearly so full.

The nearest of the four identical silver-haired girls- the only one whose clothes seemed to be of the right size, actually- looked up at her, and smiled. “Well hello,” she stated.

“... Hi,” Ginny muttered, looking at them all. She’d been looking for somewhere she could hide that had a mirror. She’d seen Harry around the Castle today, but interestingly enough, that was the first time she’d seen him at Hogwarts.

“Ginny?” one of the others asked- the one that was definitely not wearing a bra, and was wearing baggy pants instead of a skirt. A boys’ outfit.

“Don’t mind us,” the first said, chuckling. “We’re having a bit of fun with Polyjuice Potion. I’m Silversong, and these are, ah,” she looked at the others, then indicated them in turn. “Silversing, Silversang, and Silversane.” She giggled softly.

Ginny giggled as well. “Can I join in?”

“What-!?” the one in boy’s clothes, introduced as Silversane, began.

Silversong looked at the one she’d introduced as Silversang. “That was the last of it, wasn’t it?”

‘Silversang’ nodded mutely.

“Darn,” Ginny muttered. “I could have been Silver… Oh, I don’t know.”

The one introduced as Silversing trotted over. “Silversine, maybe,” she smiled. “Or Silversame. But anyways, what brought you to an out-of-order bathroom?”

“I-!” She stopped, looking between the four of them, and decided to continue on anyways. “I wanted somewhere quiet with a mirror,” she muttered. “So I could… you know, argue with myself.”

“I think I know,” Silversing smiled, leaning against the sinks. “What about, if you don’t mind my asking?”

She blushed. “I don’t know how to ask Harry out.” It wasn’t the real reason, but it was close enough.

For some reason, Silversing seemed amused. “I imagine you could just… you know, ask him out. I’m sure he’d be happy to go out with you.”

Ginny blushed, and looked up at Silversing’s knowing expression. “But what about his girlfriend?”

“His girlfriend?” she asked, then chuckled. “He doesn’t have any of those, don’t worry.”

She blushed darker. “What- What about Hailey? How should I approach her?” She looked up pleadingly, hoping the girl would have an answer.

“... Depends on what you’re approaching her for,” she said. “If you’re doing so for a duel, I can hardly recommend it.”

She let out a snort of laughter. “No, it’s-!” She sighed. “If she were a boy, I’d ask her out. But she’s a girl, so…” She trailed off, staring at Silversing- who was laughing silently.

“Then why not just ask her out?” she asked, after stifling her chuckles.

“But- but she’s a girl! I can’t!”

She shrugged. “Well, why not? Is there a particular reason why girls can’t go out with each other?” She looked over to where Silversang was leaning amusedly against one of the stalls. “It’s called a ‘girls’ night out’, right?”

Silversang rolled her eyes. “Or a lesbian couple,” she stated simply.

Silversing nodded. “Or that, yes.”

Ginny blinked, nonplussed. “But- but wouldn’t she already have a boyfriend? I mean, she’s so cute, and powerful, and-!” She shuddered when Silversing laid an arm across her shoulders, and looked up.

“She doesn’t have a boyfriend,” Silversing informed her, somewhat soberly. “And, if you’ll allow me to let you in on a secret, she’s also a lesbian.”

“A… what?” she asked.

“Lesbian,” she repeated. “She’s not interested in boys.”

“Not… Not interested in boys?” she asked, tilting her head.

She nodded. “Yeah. Instead, she’s interested in girls. You won’t catch her with a boyfriend, though you might catch her with a girlfriend.”

She took a couple seconds to process what she’d been told. “She’s probably already got a girlfriend,” she muttered.

“She does not,” Silversing told her flatly. “As a matter of fact, unless I’m remembering incorrectly, nobody has ever asked her out. Well…” She tilted her head. “No girls have. She’s had to turn down boys in droves.”

Right at that moment, Ginny was distracted by a sudden commotion on the other side of the room. She looked; Silversane’s hair was reddening.

It didn’t take long before she recognized the girl as her brother, Ron. He melted back into himself… but still female.

She grinned. “Welcome back, Ronelda,” she giggled.

“Rone-!” Ron began, before cutting herself off and looking down. She let out a small shriek of alarm. “S-Silver! You said it’d wear off!”

“And so it will,” Silversong answered, still looking exactly the same as she had when Ginny had walked in. “On the two hour mark.”

Ginny looked then over at Silversane- who had shifted back into Hermione Granger.

Then she looked up at Silversing again… and felt the heat rushing instantly to her face.

Hailey Potter had one arm around her shoulders, and was lowering a glass cup from her forehead.

Hailey shrugged, looking down at her. “So what do you say?” she grinned.

Ginny could only stare.

At least Ariel was asleep.

Silversong was getting nervous when Hailey finally seemed satisfied. Hailey had refused to leave her side, and kept shooting the breeze for no apparent reason, until everyone else had wandered off- Ron, Hermione, and Ginny. She was just about to ask Hailey why she was acting so weird when the girl spoke.

“So,” she began, and sighed, before putting an arm around Silver’s shoulders. Her touch felt strange, and she shuddered involuntarily, but she found she actually liked the gesture.

“So,” Silver repeated back at her.

Hailey smiled. “You managed it.”

“I- I what?”

She giggled this time. “You’re Alastor, right?”

“Wha-! Bu-! Wha-!” she sputtered, before stopping herself to draw breath and figure out what she was actually going to say. Finally, she turned to Hailey. “How did you know!?” she shrieked.

Hailey shrugged. “It wasn’t all that hard to guess,” she smiled. “I mean, you look like I did after I first transformed.”

She blinked. “I- I what?”

Hailey nodded. “You look like I did when I first realized I could transform,” she told her. “Extremely happy, but simultaneously, extremely uncomfortable. It’s like, well… You know.” She tapped her own chest.

Silver looked down. “... You’re right. There are a lot of strange sensations. Even becoming Alastor never prepared me for it.”

“But it all feels so right at the same time, doesn’t it?” Hailey asked.

She thought about it for a second, and nodded. “Yeah, it does.”

“So… do you prefer Silversong, or is there something else?”

She looked up at her. “Do I… Oh. Sorelia. But only when I actually turn into her- I’m Silversong right now.”

She tilted her head curiously. “So overall, you go by both?”

She closed her eyes, and concentrated briefly, shifting seamlessly into Sorelia. “Yeah. I can’t stay as Sorelia all the time, though.”

Hailey scowled. “Time limited, then? Just like Alastor?”

She looked up. “How do you know?”

She shrugged. “It’s not very hard to guess, with how much you like to disappear.” She gestured towards her. “Does this mean we’ll be seeing you a lot more?”

She blushed, and nodded. “Probably. It’s going to be fun befriending Ron two more times, isn’t it?”

Hailey burst out laughing.

Author's Note

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Chapter 28: Ariel

Ginny looked at the mirror, and sighed. “Ariel?”

When her Papa Tango had ‘completed’, after those three days, she’d concentrated on red hair as soon as she’d recovered from the searing pain of the final transformation stage. As a result, when she checked herself in the mirror after leaving the Infirmary, she’d expected to see red hair.

She hadn’t. As a matter of fact, she hadn’t even seen herself. Instead, a strange girl had looked out of the mirror at her… and waved, timidly.

This time, she watched as her own reflection melted into that girl, just a little shorter than she was. “Ginny,” Ariel greeted her, curtseying. They had spoken very little the first time- Ginny had panicked, and Ariel had disappeared, to be replaced by Ginny’s red-haired reflection. The second time, they had spoken through the bathroom mirror in the dormitory. Ariel’s voice was oddly distorted, floating through the glass- but she had revealed that she didn’t know anything, including her own name- only that she was irrevocably tethered to Ginny, and that apparently Ginny could ‘summon’ her at will. She’d willingly gone into some kind of hibernation to wait for Ginny to find a good time and place for them to have a conversation at length.

“So,” Ginny began, scowling. “I’ve… I’ve been thinking. You’re… bound to me, right?”

Ariel nodded. “And named Ariel, I guess?”

She blushed; it was a name she’d selected while Ariel was hibernating, so she’d have something to call her. “Y-Yeah. Until we find out what your name really is, at least.”

She chuckled softly. “No problem. And yes, I am, ah, bound to you. That’s… That’s actually why I appeared in the mirror that first time- I was trying to get out of you, and…” She sighed, looking around at the edges of the mirror. “I mean, this is a mirror, right?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Because…” She sighed. “To me, at least, I’m surrounded by total blackness, looking at you through a window of light.”

She scowled. “That’s… interesting.” She looked down, at the taps. “And here I was going to ask how come you appear in the mirror.” She looked up. “You’re sure you know absolutely nothing?”

She nodded. “Though it does seem like I can access some of your memories… but only mundane things. I wonder if it’s specific to the memories you wouldn’t mind me seeing, or if it’s something else?”

She shrugged. “Yeah, I wonder.”

Ariel sighed. “Anyways, because I know nothing…” She looked down, and back up. “I can’t even see myself- only my silhouette. But anyways, I imagine there really isn’t much use talking to me, is there?”

“You know what a mirror is,” Ginny observed.

She nodded. “I also know what a sink is. But that’s not going to be of much use, is it?”

Ginny smiled. “I… Hmm.” She sighed. “That kinda crosses out everything I wanted to talk about.”

Ariel looked down at the sinks in front of Ginny. “How about that book?”

She looked down at it.

It was Tom Riddle’s diary.

“I… If you knew anything, I was going to ask you about it.”

She tilted her head. “You were going to ask me about it?” she asked, surprised. “It’s a book. Does something happen if you write in it or something?”

She let out a laugh. “Actually, yes. It’s… It’s a diary. Tom Riddle’s diary. And if I write in it… he writes back.”

“He… writes back? Do you send it to him or something?”

She shook her head. “No, he just… writes back. It’s like he’s in the diary itself.” She reached out to flick the cover open- and Ariel let out a shriek of alarm.

She jumped back, looking around wildly. “What- What is it?”

Ariel, breathing very deeply, stumbled against the sinks in front of her, slipped, and repositioned one hand to the counter instead of the inside of a sink. “That… I don’t know. When you…” She gestured towards the diary- which, Ginny noticed, did not appear in the mirror, while everything else in the room- including her bag- did. “When you touched that… The darkness grew… darker, almost. It… It felt like it was draining my soul.” She looked up. “What would do that? Did you feel anything?”

She shook her head, looking apprehensively at the diary. “No. But… That confirms my theory if anything does.”

“Your… theory?”

“This… Do you know about the Chamber of Secrets?”

She blinked. “Oh, that. Yeah… You need to be a parselmouth to open it, though. As a matter of fact…” She leaned closer to the mirror, peering around the room. “This doesn’t happen to be the second floor bathroom, does it?”

She blinked. “Uh… it does, actually.”

“Oh. The entrance is on the end sink.” She pointed to Ginny’s left. “But as I said, you can’t open it without parseltongue.”

Ginny stared at her. “How do you know that?”

She blinked, looking stunned.. “I… er… I don’t know. How do I know that…?”

Ginny scowled, rubbing her chin. “Hmm. That suggests that what you’re missing isn’t knowledge so much as memory. But… you don’t know your own name?”

She looked up. “Ariel,” she stated, then shrugged. “But before that, I got nothing.”

“So we just have to find out who you are- er, were,” Ginny smiled.

Ariel nodded.

Then Ginny looked down at the diary. “So… this Diary.” She took a deep breath. “I think it’s been possessing me to open the Chamber of Secrets.”

“And whenever you touch it…”

Ginny reached forward a tentative finger, and touched the diary, watching Ariel.

Ariel, evidently expecting it, shuddered and crossed her arms across her chest, eyes tightly closed. It looked almost like something immaterial was touching her quite inappropriately.

It went away the moment she drew her finger from the diary.

“That… That’s going to complicate things,” Ariel muttered, gasping for breath and leaning on the sinks again.

Ginny took another book from her bag, and prodded the diary with it. She even prodded the closed cover with a quill.

Ariel shuddered a little, but shook her head. “Nothing. I keep expecting it to…” She trailed off.

Ginny put down her quill, seized the diary, raised it over her head, and threw it, as hard as she could, across the room. It vanished overtop the stalls, and she heard a thunk as it hit the opposite wall, then a rattle as it landed on one of the toilets.

When Ariel recovered, she looked through the mirror at where the diary had laid. “Where… Where is it?”

“I threw it away,” Ginny answered.

“What-!? You threw it away? It’s evil! Destroy it! Burn it!”

“I can’t!” Ginny cried. “I can’t! I’ve tried! I just… can’t!” She took a deep breath, and put her hands to her temples. “I think it’s blocking me from hurting it, the same way it’s blocking me from telling anyone.”

“You told me.”

Morning Sun looked up, from where she was doodling idly. Most of the nobles would have preferred to call it ‘fine art’, but that was neither here nor there. “Hailey,” she greeted.

Hailey, who had just entered the unused classroom and closed the door behind her, smiled. “Morning Sun,” she greeted.

Morning tilted her head. “So what did you want?” Hailey had slipped her a note during the last Student Instructor Program Management Meeting, with the date, time, and place on it, but nothing else.

“First of all,” Hailey answered her, “are we actually alone?”

She blinked, taken aback. “Uh-!” She doublechecked her empathic sense, and used a quick thaumic pulse to check for recording spells as well. It was a good thing her Equestrian magic still worked on this side of the Gate. “Yes, we are.”

“Well,” Hailey muttered, sitting down in the chair next to the one Morning had picked, at the same desk- the room was set up for students to work in pairs. Finally, she looked up at Morning, and smiled. “I noticed you seem to be very sensitive to the moods of those around you,” she stated.

She blinked, and deliberately tasted Hailey’s emotions. She generally avoided doing that outside of class, where her empathic sense was one of the fastest feedback loops she could have had; unlike the infiltrators, she wasn’t all that skilled at reading emotions without responding to them. Then of course, her empathic sense was far, far sharper than even Captain Empathic Sense himself, who had died nearly two hundred Equestrian years before, making it suspiciously sharp to any pony that paid attention.

She was especially careful around Hailey, Draco, and Hermione Granger- their emotions always carried certain undertones that she simply couldn’t resist responding to. There were three more, but she hadn’t actually identified them yet.

Hailey’s emotional spectrum didn’t actually let on much, which surprised her. There was a deep undertone of love, which made her blush, and another underlying emotion she could only describe as ‘gender euphoria’. There was also a little worry- but it felt more like the classic Imposter Syndrome than genuine worry. Aside from that, there was a small chunk of curiosity, a large amount of calm, dispassionate evaluation, and a little bit- just a little tiny bit- of secrecy. Oh, yes, and a bit of amusement too, though that was new and visible on her face as well. It must’ve been brought on by the blush.

“I-!” She flinched at her own hesitance, and took a deep breath, closing her eyes to take a deeper sampling of Hailey’s emotions. This actually took effort to do- and, just like the normal surface emotions she got bombarding her empathic sense all the time, it didn’t hurt anyone- pony or, as near as she could tell, human- to do it. Going a step further would cause harm, as forcible extraction of the emotional energy- but she actually didn’t know how to do that.

And she certainly didn’t need to, either. Not at Hogwarts, at any rate- the place was packed full of emotions of all sorts, and it was trivial to filter out the ones she could feed on and, often, to do so passively.

Her deeper scan found a much more complex spread of emotions, but one which really only told her what she already knew. However, in so doing, it confirmed that she could trust the girl.

“I-!” she repeated again, and paused to think. “Can… Can you not tell anyone?”

Hailey tilted her head, concern coloring her surface emotions. “Is something wrong?”

“I- It’s-!” She sighed. “Yes, I’m… sensitive to emotions. But…” She looked up. “It’s because of what I am. And if any of the others find out what I am…”

Hailey put an arm around her shoulders, and she felt her face heat up. “Okay, I can keep it quiet. So what is it?” Curiosity was now the predominant emotion, though she clearly understood the need for secrecy- and Morning could tell she meant to keep the secret.

“It’s…” She sighed again. “I’m not just empathic, I’m telempathic. I can… taste the emotions of those around me, to a very high degree of precision- I don’t even have to see them, either. And it works through walls.”

“Sounds convenient,” Hailey muttered.

“But… I’m also not just telempathic. I’m…” She took a deep breath, and let it out. “I’m an emotovore.”

She tilted her head. “What’s that?”

“That means… That means I eat emotions. Literally! I eat emotions! And…” She sighed, looking away. “Just a few years ago, a vast majority of my kind attacked and nearly took the p- er, the foreigner’s capital city. We’re on most of their KOS lists after that, and even the ones that won’t…”

Hailey hugged her, making her face feel like she could light a match just by touching it to her cheeks. Physical contact, especially intimate physical contact, always had an amplifying effect on her empathic sense. “You’re not on anyone’s KOS list here,” she said. “Bonbon would never have made you an HSI if she thought you might be a danger- or in danger."

She looked at Hailey, hugging back, only partly involuntarily. Not only was it the largest single meal she’d had in years, but she genuinely liked it- a significant departure from her past, where she distinctly recalled hating ‘love collection’ duty. “But I am,” she told her. “They just don’t know it.”

Hailey tilted her head. “How do you hide it?”

“Very carefully,” she stated. Then she shuddered. “I’m… I’m also a shapeshifter. It… It helps. A lot.”

She laughed. “I bet.” Her emotions shifted suddenly, a spot of creativity appearing. “I… I wonder, how free is that shapeshifting ability?”

She looked at Hailey, and wordlessly morphed into her identical twin.

Hailey flinched in surprise, then stared. “... Okay then. Um… How… Hmm.” She paused. “Well, I’ve been trying to teach Ron how to talk to girls, but me and Hermione are… ah, not a very good sample size. Silver and Sorelia are going to be a wonderful addition, but what we really need is, like, fifty, one at a time, a few days apart, probably.” She glanced up at Morning. “Assuming we took pains to keep it secret, would you be okay with that? Meeting him for the first time fifty times over, I mean.”

Morning snickered, flashing back to herself. “Sure, why not? I even have a natural talent for deception.”

Author's Note

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Chapter 29: Journals and Journalists

“I’m going to Dumbledore!”

Hailey, Ron, and Hermione waited patiently, just around the corner, for Filch to leave. “What do you think got him so mad?” Ron asked, looking between the two girls.

Hermione shrugged. “Donno. But something tells me we might be about to find out.”

Hailey, meanwhile, looked up at the passage walls. “This is… Yes. I wonder if Myrtle flooded the passage again?”

“What?” Ron asked- then a distant door slammed, so he peered around the corner. “Oh. Yup.”

“I wonder why?” Hailey asked, as all three of them rounded the corner and walked towards the small lake that seemed to still be oozing from under the door. Filch’s chair was tipped on its side, a book lying open in the puddle; Filch had obviously been manning his usual spot when the flood started.

Hermione trotted over, splashing straight through the puddle like it wasn’t there, set the chair upright, and moved the book onto it, before drawing her wand to dry off the pages with a quick spell.

Then Hailey reached her, moving much slower through the miniature lake, and opened the door to Myrtle’s bathroom. “Myrtle?” she called. “What’s wrong?”

“Who’s that?” Myrtle cried. “Come to throw something else at me?”

“It’s us,” Hailey answered, splashing her way up to Myrtle’s stall, where her voice was coming from. “And who threw it at you?”

Myrtle practically exploded out of the toilet in a great big rush of water. “How should I know? I was sitting in the U-bend, thinking about death, and it fell right through the top of my head!”

“Sheesh, no need to yell,” Hailey told her. “We’re not going to throw anything at you. Did you… hear anyone out here?”

“Not until you came in,” she wailed.

“Then it probably wasn’t intentional,” Hailey told her. “Filch was guarding outside, so unless he threw it…” She scowled. “Musta been caught or stuck someplace, and fallen in after the thrower left. Though I suppose that could be intentional too.” She looked up. “What was it?”

Myrtle stared at her. “A book,” she answered, and pointed. “It got washed out. It’s over there.”

Hailey looked. “A book?” she asked. “I wonder who was trying to throw it away?”

While Hailey walked over to meet Ron by the soggy book under the sinks, Hermione instead stepped in front of Myrtle’s stall- and, once again, silently thanked Pinkie for the waterproofing spell. She was sure they would investigate it well enough, but something more important had just come to mind. “Myrtle?” she asked.

Myrtle looked up at her, despite being positioned a good two feet higher up. “What?” she pouted.

“Do you… collide with water?”

Myrtle stared at her. “Do I… what?”

“I mean, you’re a ghost, right?”

She nodded slowly.

“Yet you’re able to splash the water out of that toilet?”

“Yes?” she asked, like it was obvious.

“But ghosts can’t interact with water,” she stated.

Myrtle looked down, into the toilet, then scooped a double handful of water out of it. “I can,” she stated simply. “Whenever I want to. And… And whenever I’m not paying attention.” She gave a small shudder, and dropped the gathered water straight through her hands to the edge of the toilet, from where it splashed onto the floor.

Hermione scowled. “But ghosts can’t interact with anything physical, no matter how hard they try… and poltergeists- like Peeves- are just as solid as you or I- er… as just me, I guess. Which means…” She scowled.

“Hangon,” Ron said, splashing up next to Hermione to look at Myrtle. “How come that toilet’s always got water in it to splash out if nobody uses this bathroom?”

Myrtle let out a small snort of laughter- possibly the first time Hermione had ever seen her laugh. “It’s got a self-flushing charm on it,” she told him. “Sometimes, if it flushes when I’m not paying attention, I’ll find myself all the way down in the lake.”

Hermione scowled thoughtfully. “Is there anything else you can interact with?”

Myrtle smiled. “Polyjuice Potion,” she answered brightly. “I think I actually managed to die a second time.”

Hailey appeared behind Ron, peering over his shoulder, the book in her hand. “How’d you manage to do that?” she asked. “I was under the impression that ghosts were immortal. Especially after Nick got…” She shuddered.

Myrtle giggled. “It was dreadful!” she announced. Then she paused. “Well, maybe not. I found a dropped hair of Silver’s, and used some water to transfer it to the cauldron, then scooped up the potion, and swallowed it.”

“You… Swallowed, it,” Hermione said. “Just like that? And it worked?”

“Yep!”

She tilted her head. “What effects did the potion have? Er, if any?”

Myrtle shrugged. “I don’t know. I think I passed out. When I came to again, a week had passed, and I was in the lake.”

Ron tilted his head as well. “Did the merpeople have anything to say?”

She shook her head. “They don’t go near where the pipes let out,” she told them. “Too stinky. And no currents go through there either, so that’s where I was.” She scowled, folding her arms. “I didn’t notice anything different.” Then she grinned, glancing up at Ron. “Ronelda.”

Ron’s ears turned red. “I hated that,” he told her calmly.

“In any case,” Hailey interrupted, “how did you die the first time?”

“Good morning,” Bonbon greeted from the head of the long table when Applejack appeared, letting herself into the ‘empty’ classroom that they used for the Student Instructor Program Management Meetings every Saturday morning. “How’s that flu coming?”

“Better,” Applejack answered, her voice a little rougher than usual. “Not nearly as bad as last year. Madam Pomfrey says mah farm must be warded or something- but mah immune system is catching up fine.”

Bonbon scowled. “Or something, I suppose.” She waited patiently for Applejack to make it to her seat, then lifted the inch-thick deck of pages in front of her and tapped the end on the table, to get them to align. “Alright then, Twilight, when you-!” She froze, looking down the the table at Hailey, seated at the far end.

Hailey, who was usually cheerfully smiling at everyone, seemed to have spotted something. She was staring up into a corner of the room, a scowl on her face.

Everyone else at the table followed Bonbon’s gaze down to Hailey, then up into the corner as well.

Sunset Shimmer was the first to speak. “Is it that beetle?” she asked, pointing.

Right at that moment, the beetle took flight. It dove down, and dodged between three different people on a fairly obvious avoidance course.

“Accio beetle!” Hailey barked, wand in hand. She was easily the fastest draw in the entire room.

The beetle, wrenched from its flight, shot straight towards her- then froze, in midair. Hailey was obviously casting multiple spells at once, with silent incantations- because she hadn’t spoken the incantation for the Impediment Jinx, which was fast becoming her signature spell.

Instead, without so much as a pause to take breath, she spoke a very different incantation. “Homorphus!”

Just seconds after it had taken off from the corner, the beetle, freshly frozen in midair over the table, grew rapidly into a grown woman, lying face-down in midair.

Bonbon just barely had time to draw her own wand before the woman unfroze and crashed to the table.

“Ow,” the woman complained- then froze again, though this time not because of magic. Rather, Princess Luna had drawn not her wand but her sword, which she carried everywhere, invisible most of the time, ever since the Changeling Invasion. Invisible to the woman, everyone else in the room had also drawn their wands.

“Animagus,” Hailey clarified. “A witch or wizard that can turn into an animal or, apparently, insect- but only one. Anyone can learn to become one.” She scowled at the woman, wand still drawn. “Heavily regulated by the Ministry too, and you’re not on their registry.”

“You’re going to be an amazing duelist someday,” the woman told the table, without moving.

She snorted. “Already am. How about you start by telling us who you are?”

“R-Rita. Rita Skeeter.”

Bonbon raised an eyebrow. “Why is a journalist sneaking into Hogwarts?”

Luna snorted and sheathed her sword.

“I-! I-!” She stopped, took a deep breath, and tried again. “I need a story,” she muttered. “There is a rumor going around that Hogwarts got a lot more students than usual, but…”

“A rumor?” Twilight asked, incredulously. “We’re hardly a rumor!?”

“Everyone agrees there’s been some growth,” she said. “But the rumors are blowing it way out of proportion. There’s no way Hogwarts’ attendance jumped by five hundred students in a year- there’d be an uproar.”

“Thirteen thousand nine hundred seventy three,” Bonbon stated. “Last year.”

She looked up. “What?”

Bonbon nodded. “Total attendance last year was thirteen thousand nine hundred seventy three. This year, it’s twenty-nine thousand six hundred forty seven.”

There was a pause.

“Are you sure about that?”

“Dead certain,” she answered. “You were looking for headlines?”

“Uh… Yeah.”

She grinned. “How’s ‘twenty nine thousand three hundred sixty seven students hiding in plain sight’?”

“That’s… That’s a different number.”

“That’s how many of them are beyond normal attendance.”

“... Oh.”

“How about,” Lyra injected. “You’re a journalist, right?”

Rita nodded.

“Well, with quite so many students, there’s quite a lot of stories waiting to be told- and, as a matter of fact, there’s usually at least a dozen or two of them that Dumbledore doesn’t read because he doesn’t have enough time to read nearly so many pages.” She gestured around, at the decks of pages in front of almost everyone present. “See them?”

Rita glanced around, and let out a snort of laughter.

“How about we strike a deal, then?” Lyra smiled, putting her wand away. “Stay on our good side, and you can be our exclusive media outlet. Maybe some of these stories can see the light of day.”

“Really?” She looked up at Lyra.

She chuckled, leaning back in her chair and grinning wickedly. “Your reputation precedes you.”

“My… Reputation. Ahh, yes. And your ‘good side’...?”

Bonbon shrugged. “We all know you’re famous for twisting our words, but we do want to appear friendly to the general public. At some point, we’ll probably also want to start name-dropping things like our homeworld- that’s been completely secret up to this point, so we’re just ‘The Foreigners’ to most of the rest of the staff and students.”

She slid off the table, and rose to her feet. “You’re all… Foreigners, then?”

Bonbon nodded. “All except Hailey, she’s British.”

“Who?”

She smiled. “She’s the one that caught you.”

“Hailey?”

Hailey looked up, at where Bonbon was jogging towards her in the otherwise empty corridor; she was on her way to Defense Against the Dark Arts with Professor Lockhart, so she had her Invisibility Cloak out as well. “Mm?”

“Can we talk for a minute?” Bonbon asked.

“Sure,” Hailey agreed, glanced to the sides, smiled, took Bonbon’s hand, and stepped through a painting.

Bonbon blinked as it parted before them, revealing a small little cubby hole with two couches and a coffee table. “Convenient,” she muttered.

Hailey nodded. “Hermione found it last week,” she told her. “You have to be thinking about bananas to get in.”

“Ahh,” Bonbon nodded.

“But anyways, how can I help you?” Hailey asked.

Bonbon nodded sharply. “Yes. Well, I’ve been wondering… How did you know the beetle on the wall was a person?”

Hailey paused uncomfortably. “Ahh… I have a friend, that, um, happens to be a changeling. She’s nice, I promise.”

“A changeling?” Bonbon asked, eyebrows raised. “You know we screened for those before we let anyone through the portal, right?”

She shook her head. “I didn’t know, but she got through anyways, so…”

“Huh. And you’re certain she’s friendly?”

“Yeah. She said her last contact with Queen Chrysalis was something like six or seven years ago, not too long after the invasion.”

She blinked. “Okay then. Um… Tell her to keep her head down for now, but let us know if she hears from Chrysalis again?”

Hailey smiled. “Will do.”

Author's Note

There isn't much going on here... except a little bit of setup.

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Challenge: What will the next headline be on the Daily Prophet? (Skipping any "there are a zillion students" headlines, of course)

Chapter 30: Riddle

“Hey, Hailey?”

Hailey looked up, to where Morning Sun was jogging towards her. “Mm?”

“That diary,” Morning began.

Hailey nodded. Even though she’d never heard of Tom Riddle before, she still found herself opening his diary and flipping through the blank pages, like it was a book she wanted to read- and his name felt like it should be familiar, almost like he was a childhood friend. She’d inspected it for magic, and not found anything, so she’d presented it to first Bonbon, then the entire rest of the Student Instructor Program Management Team- and none of them had been able to figure out its secret. “Mm?”

“It has emotions,” she muttered.

Hailey tilted her head, peered into an empty classroom, and led Morning in. “We alone?” she asked.

Morning paused for a second, then nodded silently, as she closed the door.

Hailey knew what she was doing; she was using her uncanny empathic sense to detect any people nearby, and using her actually functional Equestrian magic to check for recording spells or the like. Speaking of, shortly after the Dueling Club, Bonbon had approached her with a few questions… and let her in on the Foreigner’s- on the Equestrian’s- big secret. Following that, since she was the only British member of their management team, and Rita Skeeter wasn’t present for their meetings (as verified by Hailey, who did so by observing Morning’s non-verbal signals), the team was pretty loose-lipped and casual. She’d been amazed to discover that it had resulted in something like a ten or fifteen percent efficiency increase.

She pulled out the diary, and placed it on the nearest desk, which both she and Morning sat at. “You said it has emotions?” she asked.

Morning nodded.

“What kind?”

“Patience, mostly,” she answered. “And only emotions, no energy. Plus, it seems to be dormant whenever nobody is touching it and the covers are closed.”

“Hmm,” Hailey muttered, looking at the diary. “Does it respond when people touch it, or the covers are opened?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think it’s… um, aware, of things like that.”

She scowled at the diary. “How do you suppose we communicate with it?”

“Not everything with emotions can be talked to, you know,” Morning warned her.

She nodded. “Yes, but this one might.”

Morning looked at her. “Hmm. It’s a book, though. How would you talk to a book?”

Hailey tilted her head. “By… reading it? But it’s empty.” She looked at Morning. “Maybe writing in it?”

Morning shrugged. “Possibly. But do you want to mark it up?”

Hailey shrugged as well, pulling a pen out of her bag. “There are spells to remove ink.” She flipped the cover open, and glanced at Morning.

She shook her head. “No response.”

She reached forward… and placed a single period on the page.

The tiny dot shone for a second, then vanished without a trace.

Morning raised an eyebrow. “Curiosity,” she announced. “It’s curious who’s writing in it.”

Hailey looked at her. “Do you think it’s time for Harry?”

She shrugged. “Why not? It’s technically true, so you won’t even have that problem.”

She grinned, and reached forwards once again to write. Hello. My name is Harry Potter.

They also shone for a second, then vanished. Morning let out a small chuckle. “Very surprised now,” she muttered. “And… Hungry?”

Meanwhile, words were seeping out of the page, that Hailey had never written. Hello Harry Potter. My name is Tom Riddle. How did you come across my diary?

Hailey looked at Morning. “Let’s go into this like we’re sitting in on a class, shall we?”

Morning nodded. “And be ready to write a lengthy report on it, yeah.”

She chuckled, and looked back at the diary. “Definitely. So then, let’s see…” Someone tried to flush it away.

“He’s trying to get me excited,” Hailey observed. “And get me to start blindly accepting his words too, I think.”

Morning nodded. “Yeah. He’s definitely engaging in trust farming.” She looked down at the book. “Though I’m not sure what he means by taking us inside his memory.”

Hailey scowled back down at the book as well. “Do you think it’d hurt?”

Morning shook her head. “It’s non-malicious. Right now, at least. And… Yeah. He’s not aware of my trap.”

Hailey nodded; Morning had emplaced some kind of magical trap which would, in the event that the diary did anything harmful to them, cut it off and magically isolate it- even, potentially, blast it to smithereens. “Well then, might as well find out.” She reached out and, underneath the words- ‘Let me show you’- that were disappearing on the page, wrote two letters.

OK.

Hailey looked around, almost as soon as she landed, inside the diary. “What-!”

Morning landed next to her, looking around. “Oh, that’s interesting.”

Hailey looked at her. “But your trap-!”

“It’s still standing,” she answered. “This isn’t dangerous at all. As a matter of fact, it’s very similar to changeling magic- he’s projecting the memory at us, to allow us to experience it. It can be harmful if sustained for too long, but unless he’s planning on projecting his memories from an entire year, that won’t be an issue.”

“Then what about…?”

“That’s the thing: This is all in our minds. We’re processing and experiencing this memory far faster than realtime- and don’t worry, I can cut it off at any time. I’m not seeing any maliciousness, though, so…” She shrugged. “As you said, he’s trying to gain our trust.”

Hailey looked around. “This is Dumbledore’s office,” she observed.

Morning looked around too. “Oh, interesting. And since this is a memory from fifty years ago, I bet that’s Professor Dippet.” She gestured towards the man behind Dumbledore’s desk.

Hailey looked at him, and scowled. “Probably, yeah.” She stepped around the desk to peer over his shoulder at the letter he was reading.

“It’s probably blank,” Morning told her.

“It’s not,” Hailey noted. “It’s… Hmm. A letter to him, from Tom Marvolo Riddle.”

“Marvolo, huh?” Morning mused, tilting her head. “Interesting middle name. What’s he saying?”

“Um… Looks like he’s asking if he can stay at Hogwarts over the summer,” Hailey observed, while the old Headmaster folded the letter. She glanced up at Morning. “Do you think Riddle knows you’re here?”

Morning shook her head. “No. He thinks he’s showing this to one boy, Harry Potter. He can’t see anything in here, since it’s a one-way projection into our brains- as a matter of fact, the only reason we’re able to see it together would be because we’re connected.” She shrugged. “Doesn’t exactly hurt that changelings already have basically no magical signature, despite being literally made out of magic. Unless they’re like me, and actively projecting a pony signature, but I’m not doing that right now.”

“You can do that?”

She nodded. “It’s one of the few Changeling things I actually know how to do.”

A knock suddenly sounded on the door.

“Enter,” Professor Dippet called.

A prefect entered, and both girls stood back to watch.

“So that’s Tom,” Hailey observed. “I wonder why the memory started so long before he arrived?”

They watched, and listened, while the two wizards talked to one another.

“Why is he telling Dippet why he was named like that?” Morning muttered. “Er- sorry, I’m… not getting anything from him- or Dippet- with my empathic sense. It’s not part of the memory.” She shuddered. “Is this how the world looks to non-emotovores?”

Hailey laughed. “Yes, it is. Looks like he’s not a fan of his names, either. I wonder why he’s telling why as well? Let alone the middle name- I mean, I bet you don’t know my middle name is James, right?”

Morning looked at her. “Hailey James Potter? Seriously?”

She shrugged. “Technically Harry James Potter, yes. James was my father. Makes me wonder if I’m Hailey Lily Potter now, since Lily was my mom.”

“That is a good question,” Morning mused.

“Huh, the memory was waiting for us,” Hailey observed, looking back forwards.

Morning nodded. “It will, yes. Playback is in our heads, after all- the memory transfer has already been completed.”

They both looked forwards, and watched the events playing out in front of them.

Eventually, Dippet asked Riddle if he knew something about the attacks.

“No sir,” Riddle answered, quickly.

Hailey squinted her eyes. “He’s lying,” she told Morning.

Morning tilted her head. “How do you know?”

Hailey scowled. “It’s… I don’t know how to explain- it’s like those of us without innate empathic senses develop a way to emulate it a bit through our other senses.” She sighed. “He’d probably be a beacon of deception if you could see him- I wouldn’t be surprised if he was the one causing the attacks. Or at least related to the one that was.”

“Huh,” Morning muttered- then they both followed Riddle out of the room.

Finally, he stopped, just outside the staircase.

Morning looked at his face. “Is… Is he thinking?” she asked.

Hailey looked, and nodded. “Looks like he’s thinking mighty hard, yes. Which… Yeah. Considering what we just saw, that’s suspicious. Especially since this is, purportedly, the memory of the night he caught the person with the power to open the Chamber.”

Morning nodded. “The memory checks out, at least. Genuine.”

Hailey smiled, as Tom seemed to make a decision and hurried off. “It remains to be seen whether his claims about the memory are genuine or not,” she mused, and they hurried after him. As they went, she glanced at Morning. “I take it you’ve got ways to tell if it’s been faked or not?”

She nodded. “It’s not very hard at all to fake a memory, but changelings work with them all the time. We’re pretty good at telling if it’s been faked- even by another Changeling, and we’re pretty good at that too.” She grinned at Hailey. “Speaking of, I’ve ‘saved’ this memory, so to speak- I can easily tether it, in its original form, to an object, so we can show it to others as well.”

Hailey laughed. “That’ll no doubt be useful if our report makes it to Rita’s hands.”

Morning laughed as well, as Riddle encountered Professor Dumbledore in the Entrance Hall.

Hailey looked up at Dumbledore. “Interesting. Dumbledore doesn’t like Riddle, but in Dumbledore’s normal style, I can’t tell if he’s suspicious or not.”

“Me neither,” Morning scowled, as they followed Riddle down the stairs. “It really is unnerving, being unable to detect them with my empathic sense.” She sighed. “Then again, this is also the first human- or even pony- memory I’ve studied or experienced, so…” She sighed. “All the others were Changeling memories, back during training.”

“We’re going to have to ask Hagrid what that spider was,” Hailey noted, as soon as she and Morning returned to the classroom. Then she looked up at Morning. “But he framed Hagrid- if anything, that memory proves it was Riddle that was attacking everyone.” She looked down at the diary. “What’s your bet this diary has been convincing people- or, even, taking over them- in order to open it this time?”

Morning scowled, rubbing her chin. “Not… Not impossible. It has a mind, and the ability to direct magic, though it relies on the magic provided by its reader- but it could very easily use that magic to dominate the reader’s mind, yes.” She shrugged. “At least, a less prepared reader’s mind. My trap would’ve activated the moment it tried, with us- but said trap also doesn’t last very long. A few hours, tops.”

Hailey took a deep breath. “Alright. Then, I suppose we also need to ask Dumbledore what he might remember about Tom.”

Morning looked up suddenly. “Oh? Ron’s coming… Yes, he’s alone.”

Hailey grinned. “Feel like meeting him?” she asked.

She laughed. “Sure, why not?” She vanished in a bright flash of green flames while Hailey snapped the diary shut and put it back in her bag. “How about… Sorelina, this time?”

Hailey grinned. “Sorelina it is.” She jogged to the door in time to stick her head out in front of Ron. “Hey, Ron! Do you have a minute?”

Author's Note

It would seem Riddle accidentally outed himself.

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

I am also a day late. Sorry, I had a busy day yesterday- tight schedule, doctor appointment, AND a damaged trailer, all on the same day!

Oh, and by the way, the Headline Guessing from last chapter is still open! The scores will come in next chapter!

Chapter 31: Busy Week?

Bonbon raised an eyebrow as Hailey started digging in her bag almost as soon as she’d sat down. It was once again time for the Student Instructor Program Management Meeting, or the “Sippum”, as Lyra liked calling it. She had about two inches of pages in front of her; the largest other deck was in front of Twilight, at almost an inch; she must’ve sat in on a class.

Then Hailey produced her stack, still smiling and everything, and dropped it on the desk with a heavy thud normally reserved for the final report’s arrival on Dumbledore’s desk.

It was a good four inches thick.

Everyone went silent, staring at it.

Bonbon let them stare for about two seconds, before she sighed, and spoke. “How many pages?” she asked.

“Six hundred ninety-seven,” Hailey answered cheerfully. “Sat in on two classes this week, in addition to two of Lockhart’s, and we figured out the diary’s secret. It showed us a memory, and basically proved that Tom Riddle opened the Chamber of Secrets fifty years ago- not Hagrid, who he framed for it.”

“We?” Bonbon asked, raising an eyebrow. “That your changeling friend?”

She nodded silently.

“Alright then,” Bonbon nodded sharply, looking around the room. “Let’s get started, shall we?”

After talking with Hailey about it, over the last month or so, she’d been talking with everyone else around the room, starting with the concept of a friendly changeling- and now, just about everypony in the room knew Hailey had an anonymous, friendly changeling friend, and was prepared to protect them both from discovery. Morning Sun had seemed highly amused when she’d spoken to her- perhaps she already knew? She knew Morning and Hailey were close friends, after all.

Dumbledore sighed. Bonbon had just given him the normal weekly report- with a conspicuous absence of Defense Against the Dark Arts information. “How about Defense Against the Dark Arts?” he asked.

Bonbon smiled amusedly. “Hailey’s been busy this week,” she informed him. “She sat in on two of Lockhart’s classes, which bore no real difference, reviewed two other Student Instructor-led classes, one first year, the other second, and interviewed twenty-eight different students, one from each house in each year through seventh. Lockhart’s classes are universally agreed to be useless, even by upper-year students- which have all also agreed, with the exception of only the sixth-year Slytherin, that the optional supplement we’ve been providing for the upper-year students is, ahh, ‘good stuff’.

“Additionally, not too long ago, she discovered the diary of one Tom Marvolo Riddle, and has since been trying to figure it out. Well, this week, she did it. After a short conversation, the Diary showed her a memory of Riddle ‘catching’ Hagrid opening the Chamber of Secrets- but according to her, and all twelve others that also viewed the captured memory, the memory actually proved Riddle’s guilt, and Hagrid’s innocence.” She sighed, tapping the plastic card lying on top of the pile. “The recording she captured is tied to this; bend it, slightly, to view it. Our experts have verified the memory’s authenticity.” She looked up at him. “Which brings me to the question: You appear, however briefly, in the memory. Do you know anything about Riddle?”

Dumbledore nodded slowly; Hailey really must have been busy. “Not many know that, before he went out into the world, Lord Voldemort went by the name of Tom Riddle.”

Bonbon raised an eyebrow. “So, the Riddle that accused Hagrid was actually Voldemort?”

Dumbledore nodded. “It was indeed. So what about this diary?”

She shook her head. “It was apparently stolen from her bedside cabinet while she was sitting in on Lockhart’s sixth-year class. We have not been able to identify the thief.”

Hermione let out a sudden gasp upon receiving her newspaper from the owl at breakfast on Monday.

“What is it?” Ron asked.

She laid it on the table between them in response. Hailey, glancing over from Hermione’s other side, spotted the headline.

Hogwarts gamekeeper framed by Lord Voldemort fifty years ago!

“Yeah, that was a fun one to discover.”

Hermione looked at her. “Discover?”

She nodded. “Remember Riddle’s diary? Turns out Tom Riddle was Voldemort’s younger self.”

“But-!” Silver asked, sitting on Ron’s other side, and holding her own copy of the Daily Prophet. “How did you get the Daily Prophet to print Voldemort’s name?”

Hailey looked up. “You know, that’s a good question. Maybe there’s something in the paper?”

Silver looked down, and turned a page. “Oh, yup, there it is, page two. Rita Skeeter unafraid of the Dark Lord, written by the Editors of the Daily Prophet. Let’s see… Many readers will probably have noticed that He Who Must Not Be Named’s name appears in this morning’s headline- and indeed in Rita’s riveting story a good six more times. As usual, we didn’t have much to do on her story, though we did have to ask about the name, to which she answered: ‘I guess I’ve been associating with Hailey too much’. When asked who Hailey was, her answer was that ‘She’s a student at Hogwarts, and she’s so incredibly unafraid of Voldemort that her fearlessness kinda bleeds off onto everyone around her. To use her words, it’s a word, what are you afraid of?’ Rita stonewalled any further attempts to discover Hailey’s identity.” She sighed, and looked up at Hailey. “You’ve been talking to Rita Skeeter?” she asked.

She nodded. “Very friendly, too. Well…” She shrugged. “After I dropped her on her face, at least.” She laughed. “She said I’m a terrifying duelist.”

“What’s an acromantula?” Ron asked, finding the word at the end of the snippet on the front page.

“A giant spider,” Hailey answered him. “Hagrid still visits Aragog every once in a while, deep in the Forbidden Forest, but Aragog- despite sensing the Monster of the Chamber of Secrets moving around the castle, and knowing what it was- would never speak its name. Almost like the Monster of Slytherin is some kind of monster Voldemort.”

“Or spider Voldemort,” Hermione commented, following the ‘see full story on page 9’ note to the main story. She scanned down it quickly, then peered at where it was continued on page ten and finally finished on page eleven, before looking up at Hailey. “When did you meet Aragog?” she asked incredulously.

Hailey smiled. “Thursday,” she answered. “I was with Hagrid, don’t worry.” Then she chuckled. “And actually, that reminds me of when Rita asked exactly the same question, in exactly the same way, after reading my report.”

Hermione blushed, but Silver laughed.

Hailey grinned. “My… two hundred page report.”

Hermione stared at her. “How- what? Even I can’t-!”

She shrugged. “Well, if you take Bonbon’s little ‘concise writing for detailed reports’ lesson, which I’m pretty sure is reserved for HSIs right now, you’ll find that writing very long reports full of important details comes naturally.”

“Happy valentine’s day,” Lockhart shouted suddenly from the staff table, making all four of them jump.

“What the-?” Ron asked, looking around wildly. “Oh. That explains the pink.” He wrinkled his nose.

All day long, Lockhart’s ‘card carrying cupids’, grumpy-looking, gravelly-voiced dwarves wearing crude wings and carrying fancy, cheap harps that were probably more useful as clubs, kept barging into classrooms to deliver valentines, to the annoyance of the teachers.

Of course, there were all sorts of different reactions, given the number of different students.

Any dwarf that interrupted Bonbon’s potions class was hit on the forehead by a small packet of a contact paralysis poison that wore off after two hours; those walking in on Hailey’s Defense Against the Dark Arts class found themselves stacked in the corner, magically bound and gagged with the Full Body Bind. Several, barging in on Morning Sun’s transfiguration class, found themselves turned into pigeons and caged in the corner until the class was over; the entrance to Applejack’s Herbology classroom was barred by a Devil’s Snare until class was out. One dwarf was unlucky enough to try delivering a musical valentine to Twilight Sparkle while she was in the middle of teaching her class about the next core principal of the curriculum. She picked him up and one-armed him from the room so hard the wall dented, then slammed the door so hard several people wondered aloud if it would ever open again. She’d followed it up with a quick locking charm to keep the rest of the dwarves out while she finished her class. One was even found tangled up in his own harp, after attempting to interrupt Lyra’s Charms class.

Eventually, though, one dwarf caught up with Hailey while she was between classes. She was just walking past a column of first-year students entering a Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, with the intent to walk around the corner, don her Invisibility Cloak, and use Hermione’s ‘misty step’ spell to dodge through the wall to sit in on it. She was aware Ginny Weasley was in the class, and had even waved to the girl as she passed- getting the usual deep blush and hidden face in response.

“Oy! You! Hailey Potter!”

It was a particularly surly dwarf, with a particularly deep, grunty voice and a fairly large bruise on his shoulder. Hailey noticed when Ginny, just crossing the threshold into the room, shot out a hand to catch herself on the door frame and stuck her head back out to watch.

The dwarf was elbowing people out of the way.

“Oy, You, Dwarf,” Hailey imitated, pointing. “Be nice.”

Several students laughed.

The dwarf then reached Hailey. “I’ve got a musical message to deliver to Hailey Potter, in person.”

Hailey let out a snort of laughter. “A musical message? With your voice?” She snorted again, and folded her arms. “Alright, let’s hear it.”

The dwarf paused for a second, taken aback, before raising its harp into a ‘playing’ position Hailey knew Lyra would scowl upon, and twanging tunelessly at it while he sang.

“Her eyes are as green, as a fresh-pickled toad,

Her hair is as dark, as a black-bold,

I wish she were mine,

She’s really divine,

The hero who conquered, Gilderoy!”

Hailey laughed outright. The dwarf turned and started walking away.

“Hold up,” Hailey called. “Who sent it?”

The dwarf glanced back at her. “Anonymous.” He continued on his way.

Hailey giggled. “Alright. Perhaps next time Lockhart will hire someone that actually knows how to sing.” She snorted. “I mean, I bet even I can sing better than that- like… Her eyes are as green, as a fresh-pickled-!” She broke out laughing.

Ginny giggled.

Hailey sobered quickly, and coughed into her fist. “I’m way off key, but to be honest, that sounded better than I was expecting.” She waved at the class. “Move along, now. Don’t be late.”

Ginny blushed, and vanished back into the room.

Author's Note

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Chapter 32: Busy Week!

Hailey gasped suddenly, looking wildly up at the ceiling while crossing the Entrance Hall. Oliver Wood stared at her odd behavior- but of course, she wasn’t done. She turned to the side, put one hand to her mouth, and yelled. “Bonbon! Parcel!”

Wood looked just in time to see Bonbon yell back. “Six!” Then she vanished into the crowd.

Hailey turned to Wood. “I’ll meet you at the pitch,” she ordered- then turned and vanished into the crowd as well.

Professor McGonagall fairly crashed down the passage, despite being only partly physical. Doors exploded open in showers of sparks on either side of her as she passed, revealing empty classroom after empty classroom.

Then, just as suddenly as the doors were opening, she stopped.

There was a single long, unbroken, sorrowful note from a trumpet sounding throughout the Castle.

Someone had found not the monster, but a victim. Someone had been attacked.

The note ended… and was followed by two quick blasts. A double attack.

She snarled, and vanished on the spot, warping reality to jump directly to the Library, where the trumpet was coming from.

Then she winced; Hailey was there, shielding her eyes with the collapsible trumpet. She must’ve seen.

“Professor McGonagall,” Hailey greeted, without preamble, and held her amputated arm out, towards the floor.

She looked… and sighed.

“We’re going to need to cancel the match, won’t we?” Hailey asked, an unnatural calm in her voice.

McGonagall nodded soberly. “Yes. We’ll be up to Level Three.” She bowed her head and, noticing that Hailey was rather pointedly averting her eyes, warped back out, to make her announcement down at the Quidditch Pitch.

Some part of her, however, had to wonder how Hailey knew she could do that- she’d practically expected it.

Silversong, after Ron had invited her to sit in the stands with him and Hermione, followed Professor McGonagall quietly into the Hospital Wing, half-expecting to see Hailey and Hermione lying on beds.

Fortunately, only one of them was.

“Hermione,” Ron moaned, running forward to look at her.

Silver ran forwards as well… Then, upon reaching Hermione’s side, she paused, and looked at her clenched hand. “There’s something in her hand,” she observed.

Hailey looked up. “Can you get it out?”

“What is it?” McGonagall asked.

Madam Pomfrey looked up from where she was bending over a Ravenclaw- specifically, that prefect, Penelope Clearwater, that Harry and Ron had asked for directions to the Slytherin common room. Before she could say anything, though, Silver had already slid her hand over Hermione’s clenched fist… and used the same to hide the strange blue aura that seemed to follow her new telekinetic powers around. Telekinetic powers which only seemed to function while she was a girl, to boot- probably why she hadn’t discovered them before.

Her telekinesis was able to work the paper out almost effortlessly, before she flattened it on the sheets.

Hailey leaned over Hermione to peer at it, then nodded, and looked up at McGonagall. “She figured it out,” she informed her calmly. “The monster is a basilisk.”

There was an ominous muttering all throughout the class when Silversong entered her Transfiguration class, once again disguised as Draco. Instructor Morning Sun, rather than smiling at the class as usual, was looking grim and almost pained. Instructor Quick Switch was watching her nervously.

Finally, the last student entered, and sat down. Nobody moved, for almost a full minute.

Then Morning heaved a sigh. “You may have heard,” she began. “That there was another attack.”

Everyone nodded; it was sorta hard to miss, what with the big announcements over the weekend and the new rules.

Morning looked up. “Hermione Granger. Penelope Clearwater.” She sighed again. “This attack marks two firsts. First prefect… and first student instructor. No deaths, yet.” She looked around the room. “We have reason to believe the attacks are being perpetrated by the Diary of Tom Riddle, mind-controlling those who read it into opening the Chamber of Secrets. Rest assured that if you have been controlled for this purpose, you are not at fault, and will not be held responsible; if you have any information on the whereabouts of this book, please come forward. Your instructors, your head student instructors, the Professors, even Professor Dumbledore himself.” She looked out across them. “If you find yourself in possession of this book, do not open it.

“Not many know that Tom Riddle is in fact Lord Voldemort, and he left a piece of his mind in that book. I need hardly remind you all just how dangerous Voldemort can be.” She sighed. “If you know someone is in possession of it, please come forward. The diary likely exhibits psychological pressures to keep its possessor- its victim- from coming forward, from resisting it.”

Ginny sat, hugging her knees to her chest, on her bed. Ariel was sitting next to her, in a large, conjured mirror.

The diary sat in front of them.

“What do I do?” Ginny asked blankly. “How do I tell her?”

The Student Instructor Program Management Team was practically prowling the school, and had been giving speeches about the latest attack, and that diary, at every single class, all day long. For two of the three classes she’d had that day, it had been Hailey giving the speech, with a hard note in her voice, a burning inferno in her eyes, and a deadly calm about her person. She was hurt, and hurt badly, Ginny could tell- but she was still fighting, no matter how much it hurt. The speech had been delivered by Bonbon in her third class, a terrifying girl with a calm, no-nonsense tone, no apparent emotions at all, and the glint of chilled steel in her eyes.

Ariel stared at the diary as well, leaning against the cold mirror. “I… I don’t know. Shall we… drop it somewhere? You know, like the first time?”

“But- but what if Hailey-! What if he spills my secrets?”

Ariel tried to hug her, but crashed into the mirror. “If she gets that book, I can promise you she’ll destroy it as quickly and violently as possible, with the covers still closed.”

“But… but how?”

Professor McGonagall looked up at the knock on her office door. “Enter,” she called.

The door opened, and Bonbon entered, carrying a very tall stack of pages that had been interestingly sectioned apart- the weekly report. She would have taken it to Dumbledore- but the Governors had apparently decided to suspend him. At least Hagrid hadn’t been taken; according to Dumbledore, it had been highly amusing to visit Hagrid for that purpose, only to find Bonbon already there… and armed with a newspaper. The girl had read the three page story to Fudge aloud, and cautioned him that because of the article, the otherwise preemptive imprisonment would probably come across as complicit to the general public. As a result, he’d made a different decision. Ever since, the investigators mentioned in the article weren’t just investigators- they were government investigators, though in name only.

Bonbon placed the report on her desk. “This is… most of the weekly report.”

She nodded. “I assume all is going well?”

“As well as it can,” Bonbon nodded.

“Any progress on the Chamber?”

The girl’s mouth quirked in a smile. She didn’t move her hands. “And this is the rest of the report.”

No less than six other students then entered, each pushing a cart stacked at least head-high with pages.

“Oh My,” McGonagall uttered.

“Hailey’s report,” Bonbon finished. She looked at it. “Two hundred ninety-six thousand, four hundred twelve pages,” she said slowly. “And how she had time to write it all, let alone sit in on seventy-three classes, interview twelve hundred eighty four students,” she was speeding up, “and narrow down the Diary’s location to the Gryffindor Girls’ dormitory-!” She cut herself off. “By all rights, there wasn’t enough time in a year for her to do what she did this week. But she did it.”

“You seem… irritated,” McGonagall noted.

Bonbon nodded. “Usually, I’m the one making early deductions, inexplicably narrowing things down. But here? I don’t even know where to start, and she’s already crossed off seventy-eight percent of the school’s population. Individually.” She sighed. “Unfortunately, she can’t go much further than that. She’s still unable to enter the girl’s dormitories herself.”

McGonagall tilted her head. “How did she cross out the other Houses, then? Or their girls?”

Bonbon shrugged. “Her report on that comprises… those five carts.”

Hogwarts Discovers New Goddess of Report Writing!

Silversong stared at the headline of the Sunday edition of the Daily Prophet.

“What?” Goyle asked.

She shoved it at him silently, without using Draco’s despicable voice.

“What the-!?” Goyle began.

Her head snapped up. She’d never heard Goyle say that before. “What- You can understand it?”

“I-!” He paused. “H-Hailey,” he told Silver. “New…” He paused again. “Kill? No…” It looked like hard work. “Ssssssssskill transfffffffffthing. Is hard, but…” Another pause. “Yearning? No…”

“Learning,” Silver automatically corrected.

“Learning, yes,” Goyle nodded.

“... Ahh. And Crabbe?”

“Crabbe too.”

“Pinkie Pie?”

“Gyah! Oh, hi Hailey.”

“I need your help.”

“Wait what? You need my help?”

“Yes. It’s going to start with a spell Hermione invented: The Skill Transfer.”

“Hey Hailey, I got the glowies! Went to the clouds too! No effect in Britain, though. How about you?”

“I’m too busy, Pinkie. It can catch up later.”

McGonagall looked up, and up, and up, at the pages stacked right to the ceiling.

“This is room one out of seven… of Hailey’s report,” Bonbon sighed.

Author's Note

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Chapter 34: Dungeons and Basilisks

Professor Dumbledore sighed, and looked around at the Chamber again. He’d entered it just in time to see Tom Riddle disappear, surrounded by a veritable army, which included not just Hailey- who looked a little different than he remembered her- and her parents, but a shimmering girl he’d never seen before, a girl with gleaming silver hair, and no less than three girls with phoenix colors in their hair.

And that wasn’t even counting the massive pile of burning rubble at the head of the brightly flame-lit Chamber of Secrets. Even the stone was on fire! Even then, after he’d talked to the combatants and figured out what had happened, it was still on fire- though he understood why. It was phoenix fire- it needed no fuel, and also wouldn’t burn anyone the girl that had produced it- Sunset Shimmer- didn’t want it to.

Apparently, Ginny- who was busy being strangled by her mother- had been taken unconscious and possessed by Riddle’s now ruined diary. She had been taken down to the Chamber to wait. Morning Sun, one of the Phoenix-haired girls, had happened to be in Myrtle’s bathroom at the time, and had followed Ginny in- apparently, she was also a parselmouth. Once in the Chamber, she’d judged it best to wait and monitor Ginny, rather than to try fighting Riddle alone.

Silver had been next. After getting her common room distracted about something else, she’d ‘disappeared’ and left. She had refused to tell how she’d disappeared, nor even which common room it was; unlike every other student in the school, she wasn’t wearing the House Badge on her robes, which might have told which house she was sorted into. She’d slipped up to Myrtle’s bathroom, used her own parseltongue powers to open the Chamber, and slipped in. She’d intended to use her own unspecified Unique Talent to trounce the Basilisk and save Ginny, but while entering the main Chamber, she’d heard an explosion behind her, and had ‘disappeared’ again to wait.

Finally, Hailey. She’d taken Ron and even Professor Lockhart with her- though Lockhart had attempted to wipe hers and Ron’s memories once they got into the tunnel. Hailey had, as usual, been too quick for him- though rather than her normal approach, she’d merely forced Ron’s damaged wand- which he was attempting the spell with- to backfire. It had, with force; Lockhart had only barely not forgotten how to speak English, and the wand had been destroyed. The tunnel had also caved in- that had been a quick fix for him, with the Elder Wand- and cut Ron and Lockhart off from Hailey, who was free to go on.

So, while Ron started shifting rocks, Hailey had proceeded into the main Chamber to face Tom alone, apparently fully confident that he couldn’t hurt her, no matter what he tried. She’d inspected Ginny, and used some kind of ‘borrowed consciousness’ spell- of her own invention, based equally on Hermione’s and Pinkie’s work- to wake her up in a way that would ensure she couldn’t be knocked out or possessed. Following that, she’d very nearly defeated Riddle with her opening move, but he’d evaded her by the skin of his teeth- the miss had been so close her spell had singed the edge of the diary!

So, recognizing that he was clearly a duelist as well and not wanting Ginny to get caught in the crossfire, Hailey had gone for taunting him instead. When he tried to kill her, that had actually been what she wanted. She told him she’d been surprised when his spell caused a spike of pain in her scar, but aside from that, exactly as expected, the Killing Curse had absolutely no effect on her. Her mother had cheerfully supplied that the fragment of Voldemort’s soul that had been trapped in her scar had been destroyed.

Her parents had appeared after that, exactly as Hailey had expected- and she had presented the Potter Family to Tom as his opponent… then tacked him on almost as an afterthought. When Tom had declared that he was gone, they had all declared, as one, that he was always coming- something which amused him to no end- and Fawkes had come.

So of course Riddle had called the Basilisk- and that was when things got dicey. Ginny- as the only one vulnerable to its attacks- had been sent to the side to hide. The Basilisk had apparently smelled both Silver and Morning, confusing it- but then Hailey had baited it too. She’d done some creative gymnastics to get behind it, seized it, and thrown the massive, multi-ton snake, one-handed, at something a hundred feet away, and three times her height over her head.

And of course, shattered the statue she was throwing it at, so it would rain down on it for “Twenty dee six bludgeoning damage”, Hailey had grinned. It had been at that point in the explanation that he’d noticed she had both her hands- albeit mostly because she’d used the missing one to throw the basilisk. She’d even told him that ever since she got her hand back, she’d been able to enter the girl’s dormitories as well- it apparently wasn’t new from the fight, but from almost a week before. Ariel had then demonstrated her own invulnerability when the basilisk next attacked, tried stabbing it with its own fang, and finally thrown the broken fang over to where Morning was waiting.

It had been about that time that Silversong, still ‘disappeared’, had acquired the Sorting Hat, slammed it on her head, and gotten the Sword of Gryffindor out of it. By the time she’d un-’disappeared’ and set up the spells to protect her from its gaze attack, Riddle had already complained about Fawkes being useless. Fawkes, for himself, gave off the impression of being disappointed that they’d crushed the Basilisk before he could help. Hailey had responded to Riddle’s complaint by quipping about the other two- and by the time Silver was ready to fight, they had appeared and barbecued it. How they knew when to appear, Sunset Shimmer and Angelina Johnson- who had yet to let go of each other’s hands- had refused to say, only smiling when he asked.

Meanwhile, when she’d gone down, Hailey had apparently taught Myrtle how to open the Chamber, and sent her after Bonbon- who had proceeded to gather her assault party with a few barked orders and fetch him herself, alongside Professors Snape, McGonagall, and Flitwick. Myrtle had then let them down into the chamber, and finally opened the door into the main chamber for them.

Riddle had seemed to notice the Chamber opening- even though he’d missed when Morning Sun had swiped the Diary from his hand. She’d also picked up Ariel’s basilisk fang- and of course Silver, next to her, managed to make it look like she’d been casually sitting out the fight for the whole time, despite having a glittering weapon. Morning told Riddle what he’d done wrong, then brought the two- fang and diary- together to finish him.

Then Pinkie Pie had burst past Dumbledore’s line to fairly bounce over to Hailey. “You know Hailey, Harmonia’s patience does have a limit.”

Hailey had chuckled. “I’m still busy. But tell her she can look forward to it tonight.”

Then Molly Weasley had also exploded past his line. “Ginny!”

Hermione sat between Ron and Hailey at the celebratory feast, to celebrate the fall of the Chamber of Secrets. “So,” she began. Ginny was sitting on Hailey’s other side- then there was an unfamiliar girl, who looked amazingly like Ginny did, though a little more spectral, between her and Silversong.

Hailey looked at her, and smiled. “So,” she answered.

Hermione wordlessly dropped the newspaper she’d taken with her from the Hospital Wing; her subscription to the Daily Prophet had been delivered to her bedside table, and Madam Pomfrey had- quite courteously- paid the delivery fees for her. That was on her todo list: Find out how much the nurse had spent on her newspapers, and reimburse it.

Hailey glanced at the headline- Hogwarts Discovers New Goddess of Report Writing- and chuckled softly. “Yes.”

“How?” she asked.

Hailey smiled. “Pinkie.”

“Yup!” It was Pinkie, sitting backwards on Ron’s other side.

She raised an eyebrow.

“Have you read the report?” Hailey asked.

“There was a report?” Hermione asked.

She nodded. “It’s eleven rooms long.”

“Eleven… rooms!?!”

“And typed.”

“Typed!? How did you type a report?”

“With a keyboard,” Hailey smiled. “About how long do you think it will take for you to read it?”

Hermione paused. “How… Font size?”

“Six.”

“What is a font?” Ron asked, but both girls ignored him.

Hermione closed her eyes and started doing the math in her head. “Margins?”

“Two centimeters.”

“Spacing?”

“Single.”

“Paper?”

“Legal.”

“Rooms?”

“Standard classrooms. All furniture removed.”

“Four hundred eighteen minutes and twelve seconds.” She opened her eyes. “Give or take seven seconds.”

“Not bad.”

She looked at Hailey. “Where is it?”

“Lima Four One.”

“I’ll have to look at it, then.”

Ron looked at her. “Did you just pull random numbers out of your brain, or…?”

Hermione chuckled. “Nope, calculated them. Magic’s nice, isn’t it?” She looked at Hailey. “Who’s the new face?”

Hailey put her arm around both Ginny’s and the new girl’s shoulders, making Ginny gasp and blush, and the new girl giggle. “Meet Ariel,” Hailey answered. “Ginny’s imaginary friend.”

“Imaginary?” Hermione asked.

Ariel looked up at her. “Until I became maginary,” she snickered.

Hailey chuckled, then drew a sheaf of pages from under the table- where Hermione was certain they hadn’t been before. “This should explain everything- it was after the Report.”

She glanced at it, and up at Hailey again, doing some quick math. “Two hundred eighteen milliseconds.”

“One eyeblink,” Hailey nodded, smiling.

Ron blinked. “Wait, what? How’d you have time to write a report on the Chamber?”

Hailey giggled. “Fourteen milliseconds, Ron. Fourteen milliseconds.”

“What-!” Hermione took a deep breath. “You’re multilayering the compression, aren’t you?”

She nodded.

“How?”

Author's Note

No, they're not talking about ascension. Harmonia wants to give her her cutie mark.

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Well... This makes, lessee... 13 chapters left unpublished- most of 'em are available to Patrons now, the rest are on a daily schedule for said patrons. And before long, there's a 14th getting ready to enter the fray: Chapter 48. Which is over a year in the future from this point in the story... so I think I'm going to be doing an accelerated schedule for a week. Should be fun.

I've been told that some of the recent chapters were getting too plot-heavy. I apologize for this. This chapter marks the end of a particularly long segment of plot concentration, but there's another one coming before we start getting back into SoL. The thing is...

Without pony magic, even the Chamber of Secrets wasn't really all that different from canon, because nobody had the power to change anything about it. It just wasn't the kind of thing even someone like Twilight could just stamp out.

The same is true for Prisoner of Azkaban. With that, there are some characters that are powerful enough to change the direction of events, and especially with the friendly Dursley situation, that already sets things on their heads. I managed to keep about half of that plot, but half of it kinda vanished... and the year didn't really offer very many SoL opportunities, either, despite the addition of a new OC!

Now, the Goblet of Fire should be a different story. There's no easy way to just cancel out any significant part of the plot, and no real reason for anyone to want to do that- it's a tournament, not a disaster. Plus, I've got plans for it.

And finally, the Order of the Phoenix... I have biiiig plans for that one. Half Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows I also have plans for, but they're not nearly as big of plans- mere vague "this should happen" type plans. Ideas and suggestions, as always, are always welcome.

Chapter 35: Homecoming

“Uh, hey Mom?”

Narcissa Malfoy looked up at the strange voice, to see the speaker. The girl sticking her head into the study was most definitely not familiar, what with her gleaming silver hair and whatnot, but she had a sneaking suspicion of who it was. It rather helped that she recognized the robes. “Yes, Sorelia?”

“Uh- it’s Silversong, like this,” she muttered. “Um, I just realized I don’t know how to wash my hair.”

“Silversong?” she asked, abandoning the boringness she was occupying herself with. Dobby did so good of a job she rarely had anything to do. “Can’t say I’ve heard that one before.”

Silversong blushed gently, smiling softly. “Yeah, sorry about that. I can become Sorelia- I saved her- but Silver is my female base, you know?”

She raised her eyebrows. “Your female-? You have two bases?”

She nodded. “Yeah. I think they’re connected via something like Animagus magic, but I’m not certain."

She tilted her head, noticing one of the girl’s telltales- most likely because she knew Draco’s telltales like the back of her hand. “You seem nervous,” she commented.

She shrugged, and half-shivered. “Well yeah,” she answered. “And also no. Thing is, I haven’t gotten to be Silver- or Sorelia- at Hogwarts much at all, so…” Her hand hovered near her chest, but didn’t touch it. “It’s still all so unfamiliar- but as Hailey put it, it also feels so right at the same time.”

Ginny was still tired and bleary-eyed when she went down to breakfast with a much more awake Ariel the day after getting back home. Ariel was still a ghost- and the night before, when she met her parents on the platform, they’d been surprised to find out that Ariel was tethered to her. She was; Ariel couldn’t go more than a couple hundred feet away from her without dissolving into arcane mist and reforming back from her again. Fortunately, things like walls didn’t seem to affect it, so she didn’t have to be in the same room.

Her mother looked at her, sighed, and served her breakfast. “Good morning, Ginny,” she said.

“Mornin’,” Ginny muttered, picking up her spoon. She hadn’t slept too well, so part of her mind- the part that was most awake- was wondering if she’d be able to sneak off for a nap at some point.

“When are you planning on taking care of your wings?” her mother asked.

“After breakfast,” she muttered without really thinking about it, and stuffed the spoon into her mouth.

It was when she was just about ready to gather up her next mouthful when her sleepy brain finished processing what she’d heard.

She swallowed her food. “Wait, what did you say?” she asked.

Her mother, who was still standing, watching her, smiled. “When are you planning on taking care of your wings?” she repeated.

She looked down at her bowl of cereal, then at her spoon, held deftly between a few primary feathers, and back up at her mother. “My… wings?” she asked. “What wings?”

Her mother didn’t answer, just watching her calmly.

She took her next bite of cereal, still wondering what her mother was talking about, while her hands combed her secondaries into alignment.

Finally, she froze, eyes wide, and suddenly wide awake. She lifted her hands in front of her, and looked at them. She looked at her spoon, and the feathers holding it. She looked at the wing the feathers were attached to- and followed it, past the secondaries she’d been straightening, to her own back. She could feel the other one, folded gently against her back.

Ariel burst into laughter.

Her mother sighed, and finally turned away. “Trust Fred and George to come up with something like this,” she mumbled.

Right on schedule, Fred and George walked in together. “Morning Mum! Ron’s not feeling too well today, so-!” Fred cut off with the suddenness of an axe.

“Say, Ginny, where did you get those wings?” George asked.

Ginny chomped on the next spoonful of cereal- the spoon still held by her wingtip- to buy herself some extra time to think about her answer. Unfortunately, though, she wasn’t able to think of anything. Where had her wings come from? It was just… she had them, and it felt like she’d had them all her life. Yet she hadn’t.

Finally, she remembered a dream, and it clicked.

That night, she had dreamed that she had wings, and had flown all over the landscape with them, enjoying the feel of the wind on her face. They had been tiny, short little wings, obviously magic-powered, and attached to her arms at that, but they had been wings. Perhaps magic had seen that dream, refined it, and given her something more realistic?

“I dreamed them,” she stated between mouthfuls, as she resumed straightening her secondaries. “What were you saying about Ron?”

“Oh, ah,” Fred mumbled. “We think he’s sick.”

“You… don’t want to turn back?” Lucius asked.

Silversong, who he knew was Draco, shook her head. “I do not ever want to turn back,” she said. Then she sighed, in that cute little way that all of Draco’s female forms did it. “Yes, I know, I will have to for school and, er, other things, but that doesn’t mean I want to.”

Lucius sighed, scowling. It was true; he didn’t think she’d turned back once in the week it had been since she got home, even though she’d had quite a bit of trouble performing various mundane tasks, such as going to bed, using the bathroom… or even leaning forwards to take a bite, since she was just short enough for her chest to strike the table every time she did, and it distracted her without fail.

“How about… your birthday party, today?”

“Ugh,” she groaned. “Why can’t Draco just get mauled by a hippogriff or something so you can ‘adopt’ a new child that just happens to be female?”

He blinked, taken aback by her tone, and sighed. “I… I’m sure you know why.”

Emma Granger knocked gently on her daughter’s bedroom door before she stuck her head in. “Hermione? You doing okay?”

Hermione, balled up under the heap of blankets she’d constructed nearly a week before, moaned softly in response.

Emma walked in, and crouched down next to her bed without turning the lights on. “Do you need anything?” she asked, gently brushing her daughter’s hair back from her sizzling forehead. When she’d called the hospital shortly after it had started, they had baulked at her sixty-five degree body temperature and half-pleaded her to keep her daughter away from the hospital, as if they were afraid it was contagious. When she’d called the family doctor, he’d visited- and after looking at her, had shrugged and told them he was pretty sure it was a magic related something. Apparently, it was fairly normal for his part-phoenix daughter to run a core body temperature high enough to boil water, even if her skin was merely warm to the touch.

Thus, as near as anyone she could find could tell, they couldn’t really do anything but wait and see.

Hermione twitched, opening her eyes to smile up at her, despite the evident pain. “Water,” she muttered. “And soup.”

Emma smiled; Dan had made a great big pot of the best stew he knew how to make, and it was about the only thing that Hermione had an appetite for ever since it had started, just the day after she’d gotten home. He’d made another pot the night before.

Ginny looked up from her breakfast when Ron showed up on time around a week after they got home, looking tired, but healthy once again. She still had wings, and no idea how she’d gotten them- though her hair had brightened from the orange-ish red it had been before into a brilliant, gleaming red, split into thirds by yellow ‘racing stripes’ as Ariel liked to call them running down the length- almost exactly like Silver’s. Speaking of, her hair had also grown all the way to her waist.

“Good morning, Ron,” she greeted him.

“Good morning,” he answered tiredly.

When their mother served him, she raised an eyebrow. “Feeling okay today?” Ginny knew she and Arthur had been planning to take him to St. Mungo’s if he didn’t get better soon.

He nodded. “Yeah, somehow.” He shrugged.

Ginny giggled. “Nice hair,” she told him. It was brown- a deep, unspectacular brown.

“What-!?” he asked, looking at her.

She giggled again. “Oh don’t worry, you’re not Ronelda.”

“Ronelda?” Fred asked curiously, walking in.

Ron’s ears turned bright red, but Ginny waved it off. “But your hair has still grown quite a bit.”

Emma Granger fairly exploded into her daughter’s room when she heard a scream as she was walking past. “Hermione?” she cried.

Hermione was standing in the middle of the room, eyes wide with terror and breathing deeply. Even her wings- funny, she hadn’t had those before- were primed.

She quickly scanned the room for dangers, didn’t see any, and stepped forward to wrap Hermione in a hug. “What happened?” she asked, as she swept Hermione up to sit, with her, on the bed.

Hermione hugged her back, gently. “It- it was-!” She took a deep breath. “The… I felt better today, so I got out of bed. I…” She took another breath. “I realized I had wings, and was in the middle of scanning my magical core to figure out what all changed, when-!” She shuddered. “I don’t know what it was. There was some glow, then I was… somewhere else. Standing on clouds. Then more glow, and I floated in the air, and-!” She shuddered again. “And I was back.”

She scowled. “What did that?”

“I-!” She paused, thinking, then hugged her again. “I think it was my own magic. But why would it have-!? It doesn’t make any sense!”

Author's Note

sixty-five degree body temperature

For those of you that think this is a low room temperature, it's not- it's celsius. At 149 degrees Fahrenheit, it's well beyond heatstroke and into the thermal range of your oven (usually as a minimum "keep warm" setting, but it can still cook stuff, albeit slowly).

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

I’m a bit late today…. Busy day with lotsa struggling with illegal trailers. I’ll get Patreon updated later today- once I get behind my computer again.

Chapter 36: The Next Year

Remus Lupin looked up when an unfamiliar owl fluttered in his kitchen window to offer him a very large letter at breakfast. It was only a month or so before that the school year had ended, alongside the very public and gushing headline talking about Voldemort getting curbstomped by a second-year student and a few ghosts. The funny thing was, that had been a Rita Skeeter article- but just like the last several about Hogwarts students, it had possessed a favorable tone- and he rather suspected Rita was beginning to revere the anonymous ‘Goddess of Reports and Duels’ as some kind of deity. By looking back between the various articles, he found out that the apparently aptly-titled Goddess held some kind of authoritative position with Defense Against the Dark Arts.

In any case, he had very kindly agreed to take up the Defense Against the Dark Arts professorial position for Dumbledore, and had about two weeks left to decide on the direction his classes would go, and what books would be required for them.

So of course, he’d sent a letter to Professor McGonagall, to inquire after the records left by previous Professors- to find out what he had to build on. She’d been able to give him just four years of records, though, not the expected six- because apparently, the last two years of professors hadn’t left records. Not only that, but she’d actually expressed both surprise and gratitude for his request- because neither of the prior two years’ professors had made such a request!

After that, he’d sent a letter to Dumbledore, to ask after those last two years.

It had been almost a week since- which was funny, Dumbledore didn’t normally take nearly that long to reply.

Then of course, this owl was a snowy owl- and he was reasonably certain Hogwarts only had barn owls.

He accepted the very thick envelope graciously, and offered the owl some bacon- for some reason, all werewolves thrived on the stuff, and he was lucky enough to have a good enough relationship with a friendly pig farmer that he had more than he’d ever need- while he opened and read the letter, genuinely curious.

To his surprise, it was his letter of request to Dumbledore- and when he glanced down the oversized piece of parchment, he saw why. His letter had been forwarded between people, each one adding a little note to the end of it, to get it where it was headed.

Dear Hogwarts Student Instructor Program,

Could you please furnish Professor Lupin with whatever records you have to this end? He is an old friend of mine, and has kindly agreed to take up the position.

-Albus Dumbledore.

Bonbon,

You’re the only one that knows where these records are kept- could you take care of it, please?

-Twilight Sparkle

Hailey,

Please take care of this- see attached student records.

Bonbon.

He reached the bottom of the piece of parchment, and sighed. Before digging in the pile of papers that comprised the rest of the envelope’s contents, he turned it over… and was at once glad he did.

Dear Professor Lupin,

During the 2021-2022 school year, Professor Quirrell’s classes were little more than a joke- and as a matter of fact, classroom attendance very quickly reached zero, and remained there for much of the year. There simply wasn’t anything to learn- which forced the Student Instructor Program Management Team to find their own material to pass on. This was reinforced when Quirrell was later discovered to be hosting Voldemort himself. I have very little personal experience with him; I was not an HSI until halfway through the year, and was essentially forbidden from attending his classes, for safety reasons.

During the 2022-2023 school year, Professor Lockhart’s classes were marginally better, though he was merely re-enacting his books. This is, of course, unless you count that he was an aggressive, molesting moron that only ever hurt his students, and later accidentally obliviated himself after I brought him with me into the Chamber of Secrets. The reports pertaining to Defense Against the Dark Arts classes in this period comprise just over one and a half classrooms at Hogwarts, so I will spare you the reading and try to hit the high points.

Overall, thanks to the far substandard Professors for the last two years, the Student Instructor Program was forced to produce our own material for instruction. Since we lacked the experience and expertise of a true Professor, there are likely many gaps in the material we were able to cover.

Your third-year class spent half of their first year focusing on defensive mindsets and enhanced awareness, and the other half some basic defensive spells. Their second year was then spent with a focus on incapacitating spells and, following the Dueling Club, the practical uses of various spells in duels.

Your second-year class spent its first year studying a blend of the same materials- some mindsets, some awareness, some defensive spells, and some practical skills.

Naturally, even though upper-year students, being your fourth-year class and above, are not participating in the Student Instructor Program, we still endeavoured to provide them with suitable optional supplement to the Professors’ lessons, and received positive feedback. Only two classes had complete participation in this supplement; one has already graduated, and the other will be your fifth-year Gryffindor class.

I have attached a breakdown of the material that each class has covered, when, and estimated average uptake of said material.

Sincerely,

Hailey Potter

Head Student Instructor for Defense Against the Dark Arts-

And yes, the Goddess of Reports, apparently.

Lupin laughed out loud- then, as he paged through all the additional pages the girl had attached, he scowled. The report was far more detailed than he had any right to expect, but there was a glaring deficiency.

They had never studied creatures… which were generally agreed to be the best starting point for young students.

He knew what he would be teaching. He had lesson plans to draw up.

Hagrid looked up at the row of students at the head of the room. He’d bungled the test- he knew it. Even though he also knew they weren’t allowed to fail him, since it was Dumbledore hiring him on, not them.

Still, they were in the Castle during the summer, just days before the Hogwarts letters would get sent out to begin the shopping season, by his request. He’d been flabbergasted when Dumbledore offered him the job- and was desperate to prove that he could handle it, to prove that Dumbledore hadn’t made a big, Hagrid-sized mistake. So, he was availing himself- that was the word, right?- of every resource available to him.

Such as the Student Instructor Program’s Student Instructor Course. The entire management team was at the head of the class as instructors, alongside a number of other ‘guest instructors’ that were experts in teaching. It was so strange, studying under a good twenty students… in order to be able to most effectively teach a class of about twenty students.

“Well,” Hailey began, looking over the papers in front of her; for some reason, she had been the spokesperson for the entire team throughout. “I believe you know our verdict doesn’t matter,” she observed, then looked up, and smiled. “But it was a pass anyways.”

Hagrid stared. He’d messed up- he knew he had. And he knew where he had, and how.

She chuckled. “Oh, don’t worry about small mistakes,” she told him. “They happen to all of us, and what’s important is being able to learn from them. Which you did demonstrate, I might add.” She sighed. “There’s really only one thing I’m worried about. You know how scatterbrained Forzeda was?”

Hagrid winced. Forzeda was one of the fictional people he was “teaching” in his test- one Hailey had played, actually, and amazingly well at that.

She nodded. “There are several students like that, or even worse. Compounded with your natural strength skewing your assessment of how much risk a creature can pose to a student, that could cause some huge problems… So keep that in mind, but other than that, we say go for it!”

Hagrid almost smiled, but his worry still got the best of him. “What was the score?” he made himself ask.

“Ninety-three percent,” Hailey answered cheerfully. “And a hundred percent on the sudden-death points.” She smiled up at him. “That puts you firmly into the top twenty percent- some, what was it, ninety-eight percent?” She looked over at Bonbon, who nodded. She nodded herself. “Ninety-eight percent of which are still instructors.”

Everyone at the staff table, with the exception of only Hagrid, stiffened when they saw the house-elf bringing in the letter and note to Professor McGonagall. The letters had only gone out that morning- so it could only mean it was someone for whom delivery was outright impossible. Hagrid, meanwhile, didn’t know.

As for herself, Minerva sighed as she accepted the note and letter, then unfolded it to read… and froze. She read it over, three more times.

“Who is it?” Dumbledore asked.

“Myrtle Warren,” she answered slowly. “Last stall, second floor girl’s lavatory…” She lowered the note and letter to the table together. “Hogwarts.”

“How is that even possible?” Flitwick asked.

“Good question,” Dumbledore muttered, before looking at McGonagall. “You going to take it to her?”

She shrugged. “Might as well try.”

“Myrtle?”

Myrtle Warren, often nicknamed ‘Moaning Myrtle’, floated up out of the toilet without sending water cascading everywhere. “Mm?” she asked.

Professor McGonagall slowly extended an arm towards her, holding the letter. She was much too far away, wary of splashes. “You have a letter.”

“I-!?” Myrtle began, staring at it. “I have a letter…?” She floated forwards, out of the stall, and slowly reached out a hand towards the letter.

Then, very suddenly, she crashed to the floor with a startled scream.

“What the-!?” Myrtle cried, while McGonagall just stared… before turning pearly white again and floating upright, looking astounded. “Did I just-!?” she began.

She nodded.

Myrtle looked down, at the floor, and carefully floated down to just barely touch it. Then she took a deep breath… and, once again, became solid. She stumbled, and stabilized herself on the stall dividers, before taking two deep breaths and looking at Professor McGonagall. “I think I did it again!”

Vernon Dursley looked around uneasily as he walked towards the unfamiliar shop on the unfamiliar street. It took him a second, but he spotted Hailey sitting at one of the tables and reading something. He hurried over. “How is it going?” he asked, without preamble.

Her return from Hogwarts had been… interesting, to say the least. Not only had her hair been far shinier and longer than it had ever been before, but she’d also been one-arming her heavy trunk around like it was made of tissue paper. On top of that, when Petunia had rushed forward to hug her, she’d overbalanced- and Hailey had caught her, apparently effortlessly supporting her aunt’s weight.

The Big Question had eventually been asked over dinner- and apparently, not only was her transformation into Harry now voluntary, but she’d killed Voldemort a second time.

Then there was last Wednesday, when Petunia had taken her out shopping while he worked. Some mugger or another had decided to attack them- and not only had Hailey treated his attack with disdain, she’d crumpled his knife into scrap metal with her bare hands. Her explanation had been only two words: ‘I’m invulnerable.’

Hailey looked up, and smiled. “Pretty well,” she told him. “We’ve finished with the main throng, so now we’ve just got the stragglers left to deal with. How about you?”

He cracked an uncharacteristic smile as he sat down. She’d be getting on the train to Hogwarts in just one week- and he’d been ferrying her to and from the Leaky Cauldron every day on his way to and from work. “The usual,” he answered. “Fridays are always busy.”

She chuckled. “Always. Even here. Ice cream?”

He winced, glancing up at the sign. It was Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlor that he’d met her in. “I didn’t bring any cash,” he told her. “And I don’t want to impose.”

She laughed out loud. “You know how much it costs?”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Twelve knuts. Call it just under two pounds.” She shrugged. “Then of course, I didn’t really think about it at the time, but HSI is a paid position. And they aren’t paying me in galleons- no, the pay is in bits, their national currency. Which has a forty-nine point three times advantage, when converted to galleons- so twenty bars per week for a hundred and thirty weeks now…” She shrugged. “All told, each ice cream costs me about… what was it? Three pence? Worth of said bits.”

He looked at her. “Bars?”

She nodded. “Each one is a hundred bits. I’ve got an account at the local bank to the portal on their side, where most of it is being kept safe.” She chuckled. “Where it all was being kept safe, until I withdrew a couple bars on the way home last month.”

He sighed. “Oh, alright. What’s on the menu?”

Author's Note

1 bit = $1 USD and 1 knut = $0.20 USD (though the conversion is 2bits->1galleon, hence the advantage), but at time of writing, 1 GBP = $1.37 USD. Twelve knuts is worth 1.76 GBP at time of writing, and the "muggle currency" local to the Leaky Cauldron (and Vernon) is GBP.

Her pay, 20 bars/wk, is $2000 USD/1453.10 GBP/wk- or if converted to galleons, 1k galleons, or $98,600 USD/72,130.83 GBP.

Over 130 weeks, she made $260,000 in bits, worth 190,203 GBP- or if converted to galleons, that's $12.8M USD (9.37M GBP). It's not just a paying job, it's a well paying job- and she probably doesn't realize just how well...

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Chapter 37: The Patronus

“Um, Hailey?”

Hailey looked around, and smiled, as Hermione trotted towards her on Platform Nine and Three Quarters. She’d been looking at the trail of locomotives at the head of the Hogwarts Express, so long they stretched around a bend and out of sight. “Yes, Hermione?”

Hermione stopped several feet away. “Um… I’ve been reading your report. About the Chamber.”

She nodded. “Okay,” she prompted.

“When… When Voldemort cast the Killing Curse on you. How did you ignore it?

She smiled. “I didn’t.”

“Then how were you unaffected by it?”

“I wasn’t.”

She rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean. How did you withstand it, without even flinching?”

She shrugged. “I was expecting the pain to my scar.”

“But what about the rest of you? By all means, the killing curse should have done more than nothing!”

“I’m an Etrah,” she answered simply.

Hermione snorted. “Of course you are. But even being an Etrah won’t make you invincible!”

“Being an Etrah whose mother acts as a shield, and whose Unique Talent is the Impenetrable Defense, will.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

She nodded. “Really. Though I do wonder how I became an Etrah in the first place- I mean, I never went through your Papa Tango, did I?”

“Ahh… About that,” Hermione muttered. “Where’s Ron? I’d rather not explain it twice if I can help it.”

“I don’t think he’s here yet,” Hailey told her, glancing sideways at where Morning Sun was leaning casually against the side of the lead car, and grinned. “According to Ron, their family always seems to be just barely in time, every time- means they’ve still got some twenty minutes or so.”

Hermione sighed. “Oh, alright. Remember the Potion in the bathroom?”

She blinked. “Oh, yeah, I remember that.”

“I think that’s what did it. I…” She sighed. “I’ll explain more fully when Ron’s here. It’s a long one, but in short, I’m pretty sure it’s because Silver had already gone through the Papa Tango.”

Hailey chuckled. “She’s the one we were ‘interviewing’, wasn’t she?”

“Yeah. Wait, what? How’d you-?”

She snickered. “Just about anything is obvious if you look hard enough,” she told Hermione. “I’m curious, have you flown any?”

Hermione stared. “Wha- bu-!” She took a deep breath. “How did you know!?” she shrieked.

“Well, Pinkie said Harmonia said you’d ascended, and I happen to know what that means, so…” She shrugged. “If I’m ever able to talk to Harmonia myself, I know what I’m going to ask her.”

“Who’s Harmonia?”

Right at that moment, Bonbon trotted up. “Hailey?”

“Mm?”

“Whaddya looking at?”

“The number of locomotives they’re using this time,” Hailey said, pointing. “The driver said they’re working on upgraded coaches and locomotives, so the train should be quite a bit shorter on the way home- apparently, this is as many as they could find this year, and it still won’t be moving as fast as they want it to.”

“Ahh. You should know, Professor Lupin is in compartment six of car nine, and he wants Harry invited to the same compartment with him. Dumbledore’s instructions.”

Hailey rolled her eyes. “Of course he does. I bet it’s because they’re afraid of Sirius Black.”

“Who?” Bonbon asked.

“He escaped Azkaban,” Hailey supplied.

“Oh, him,” she nodded. “Mass murderer, wasn’t it?”

“Yup. And according to Rita, he’s hunting for Harry. Only, I’ve met him, and he’s not so bad.”

“You’ve met him?” Hermione asked incredulously.

She nodded. “I don’t think he realized who I am, but he just smiled and waved.”

“In any case, be that as it may,” Bonbon bowed, turned, and walked away.

Hailey looked at Hermione. “Think I should show him? I mean, he already knows I’m the HSI for DADA. And that Harry didn’t get grades last year, either.”

“Are you sure it’s safe?”

“Oh My,” Hailey said facetiously. “It might be dangerous to tell Dumbledore’s friend the identity of the person he’s protecting, when said person is indestructible!” She giggled. “Seriously.”

“Wait, he’s Dumbledore’s friend?” Hermione asked.

“Yup,” Hailey answered. “According to Dumbledore, he’s an old friend that kindly agreed to take the slot. That’s why everyone’s got DADA textbooks this year.”

She sighed. “Well… Might as well, then. But how are you going to tell him?”

“Carefully,” she smiled.

Professor Remus Lupin looked up when someone knocked on the door to his compartment. Dumbledore had asked him to be a ‘silent observer’ in Harry’s car- preferably ‘asleep’ or the like, but from the moment he’d stepped on the platform, he’d revised his plans. Given the length of the train, it would be nearly impossible to guarantee Harry would choose his compartment, so he’d instead picked a favorable compartment and went out of his way to invite Harry and his friends to join him.

He still wasn’t sure exactly why Dumbledore wanted him to be with Harry specifically; it wasn’t like Black would be on the Hogwarts Express.

“Good morning,” he greeted, as the unlocked door slid open.

Unfortunately, though, it wasn’t Harry. It was two girls- no, three girls; it looked like there was a third one just around the corner. The first one, opening the door, bowed theatrically. “Good morning, Professor Lupin,” she greeted. “We’re, ah, friends, of Harry’s. Do you mind if we join you while we wait for him?” She reminded him of James’ wife, Lily, but she didn’t look quite like her. A niece, maybe?

He wasn’t sure he liked the way she said ‘friends’, but they looked friendly enough. “Sure,” he decided.

They filed in, just the three; the last of the three, whose hair strongly resembled the plumage of a phoenix, closed the door.

“I’m Hailey,” the first girl smiled, bowing again. She turned to indicate her first companion, whose hair was a bright, metallic red, with icy blue fringes. “This is Hermione Granger, and at the end of the line is Morning Sun. Speaking of?” She looked inquisitively at Morning Sun.

The phoenix-haired girl only nodded.

Hailey gave a short nod, and turned back to Lupin, who was certain he was missing something. “I’m also occasionally known as Harry Potter,” she said, and melted into him, about three inches taller. Even her clothes changed! “Though I’ll have to admit, I don’t really like being male, so-!” He melted back into Hailey. “I’m almost always Hailey Potter, Head Student Instructor for Defense Against the Dark Arts… and, apparently, the Goddess of Reports.” She giggled softly.

“Wha-!” Hermione began. “Since when was that voluntary? Didn’t you still have to hit yourself in the face?”

Hailey grinned, and waved her left hand in the air. “Ever since I got my hand back, it’s been at will. No doubt it’s going to save me a lot of sore noses.” She laughed. “Well, unless you count the part where I’m completely indestructible,” she told Lupin. “Harry’s not, but I imagine the next person to punch me in the face will earn themselves a sore fist, rather than giving me a sore nose.”

“You’re-!” Morning began. “You’re also Harry?”

Hailey looked. “Uh, yes? I thought the whole team knew.”

“Team?” Lupin asked.

She smiled at him. “The Hogwarts Student Instructor Program Management Team,” she answered him. “We’re both on it. Meet Head Student Instructor for Transfiguration, Morning Sun.”

“And… Miss Granger?”

Hermione shook her head. “Nope.”

“Though,” Hailey mused. “There has been some lively debate on whether or not you should be the HSI for Charms instead of Twilight. In the end, I think the main reason it wasn’t offered is because you don’t know the Foreigner’s secret.”

“Why would that matter?” Hermione asked, confused.

She shrugged. “Because once they told me, the whole team got a lot more comfortable, and we saw pretty close to a twenty percent efficiency increase because of it. But I don’t expect that’s going to be a problem for much longer, after the Papa Tango.”

Very suddenly, Morning Sun opened the door and stuck her head out. “Good morning, Draco! Think you could send for Silversong?” She retreated rapidly back into the compartment, and closed the door.

It didn’t take long for Professor Lupin to find out that Hailey had quite a few friends, unlike the ‘couple’ Dumbledore had suggested that Harry had. Silversong had turned out to be a brilliantly cheerful girl with bright silver hair, split evenly into thirds by royal blue stripes. After her, Hailey had stuck her head out the door to invite Ron and Ginny Weasley to join them. The former had rather unspectacularly brown hair, though it still gleamed red in the sunlight from the window, while the latter had bright crimson hair to match her blush, split into thirds by fiery yellow stripes. She’d dragged Ariel with her, a cheerful, shimmery girl with aquamarine hair, who looked like some kind of hybrid between a human and a ghost, even though she’d been able to close the door. After those three, a girl named Diamond Tiara had appeared- or more accurately, Hailey had stuck her head out the door again to invite her. Diamond’s purple hair was split in half by a wide white stripe down the middle, and when she was introduced to Silversong, she’d gazed at the girl and said ‘Hi’ in a stern, no-nonsense tone. Silver had, for some reason, found it funny.

Out of all of them, Diamond was the one that surprised Lupin the most. Yes, Morning Sun was a Ravenclaw, and Silversong didn’t wear a House Badge, but Diamond wore her Slytherin badge with pride. All the others were Gryffindors, yet for as different as she was, her friendship with the rest of them didn’t seem any less real.

They chattered harmlessly about Hogsmeade, for the most part. Apparently, a fair majority of them had never even heard of the village until they got the permission form, but none of them had any trouble getting it signed. Apparently, Morning Sun was her own legal guardian, and Hailey’s Uncle Vernon had signed her form almost before he’d known she had it, in direct contradiction of Dumbledore’s expectations. The others all had parents- or, in Diamond’s case, mothers- that had cheerfully signed their forms as well. Well, aside from Ginny and Ariel, who were second-years- even though Ariel was just starting at Hogwarts. No matter how hard he thought about it, Lupin couldn’t fathom how that might have happened- and commenting on it didn’t help. He’d have to ask Dumbledore.

Eventually, though, there came the part he was worried about: The dementors searched the train. Perhaps the first thing he noticed was that, when the train came to a halt, the sound of the steam locomotive went away with the lights… but he could still hear the deep, basso growl of the ‘diesel’ locomotives the muggles had supplemented it with.

It was near-instant pandemonium in the compartment- but, even though he’d had a fireball spell prepared to provide light, Hailey was the first to shed a light on it. Thanks to his enhanced werewolf senses, he felt her arm shoot upwards from across the compartment before the brilliance of a bright ball of light shimmered into existence above her open, wandless hand. She tossed the ball into the air, where it hovered near the lantern that had gone out.

“Calmly,” Hailey called, standing up. “Calm down, girls!”

“Girls?” Hermione asked, half standing.

“Neither Ron nor Lupin are panicking,” Hailey retorted.

The compartment went suddenly silent, except for a distant crack of thunder- interesting, it wasn’t a rainy night.

Hailey let out a sigh. “That’s better. We’ll never get anything done if we panic.”

Lupin sighed, casting his fire spell into his left hand, and stood up. “Stay where you-!” he began.

The door suddenly slid open behind Hailey. She whirled to look- but Lupin already knew what was opening the door; she was short enough he could look comfortably over her head. “Well hello there,” Hailey said conversationally, to the dementor.

It looked, silently, around the compartment… then drew a long, rattling breath. Lupin felt the unnatural cold wash over the compartment, and saw Hailey flinch.

She wasn’t the only one. Ron shivered; Diamond’s arms clenched. Ginny and Ariel hugged one another, and Hermione curled up into a ball. Only Morning Sun seemed to be unaffected.

It also sucked all the warmth out of Hailey’s voice. “What are you doing?” she demanded coldly.

The dementor didn’t respond.

“None of us are hiding Black under our cloaks,” Lupin told it.

Again, though, it made no response. Its hands came free from its robes, though- that was never a good sign. Lupin drew his wand, but Hailey was faster. She raised hers at the same moment, having apparently had an idea, so he hesitated even as he concentrated on his happiest memory. What was she going to do?

Then… she spoke. She spoke very softly, but her voice carried a deadly calm.

“Expecto Patronum.”

Author's Note

Based on a rather helpful calculation done by Northwest Brony in a comment on Chap. 7, a good estimate is one freight hauler per 1,000 students. Thus, for Year 3, there's probably some 45-50 locomotives clipped to the train.

That "thunder"? That's the muggle driver using a shotgun to ward off dementors (maybe he's a squib, muggles can't see dementors), which presumably used the air brake valve on the front of the lead locomotive to stop the train, since they couldn't stall out the muggle locomotives like they did the Hogwarts Express.

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I'm a little late today, my bad.

And Hailey's wrong- Hermione does, in fact, know the Foreigner's secret (Sunset told her, Angelina, and Ginny when the Papa Tango received its name). I guess Sunset forgot to tell anyone about that, and Hermione didn't realize that "we are ponies" was the secret she was referring to.

Chapter 38: The Evening Prophet

Dumbledore looked up from his copy of the Evening Prophet; Hailey and Professor Lupin had arrived, as he had requested.

According to the article, the events depicted- which included a rare, non-moving wizarding photo of the Hogwarts Express from above, brilliant silver light shining from every window on the entire train and the shadows of dementors fleeing as fast as they could- had happened a mere two hours before. How Rita Skeeter had gotten her hands on the story, taken it to the Daily Prophet, and managed to get it published in a rare evening edition of the newspaper fast enough for it to make it to his desk before the Hogwarts Express pulled into Hogsmeade Station, he had no idea.

“Hailey… what happened?” he asked, pushing the newsprint towards Hailey. He’d called Lupin mostly so he could alert him if she lied or something… Not that he expected her to.

She looked down at it, raised an eyebrow, and chuckled amusedly. Lupin also glanced at it and raised an eyebrow as well. Judging by the note he’d sent ahead, her Patronus had been the brightest he’d ever seen- but he hadn’t a clue just how bright it had been.

“I cast a Patronus,” Hailey told him calmly.

“... Alright,” he muttered. “How?”

“I concentrated on…” She paused. “Well, it’s technically not a memory, but it was close enough, and spoke the incantation: Expecto Patronum.”

“You’re only a third-year,” he told her.

She let out a snort of laughter. “I trust you were informed of when I cast a corporeal patronus- a stag, by the way- back in the Dueling Club last year? Or when I was hired as an HSI precisely because I have a bit of a habit of using spells that I have no right to have even heard about yet?” She grinned. “I mean, I think I was at Hogwarts for a total of about three weeks before using the Impediment Jinx- which is apparently fourth-year material?” She chuckled. “Oh yes, and that I killed Voldemort again last Spring. That’s always fun.”

Dumbledore sighed; Lupin seemed to be trying to figure out if he wanted to laugh or stare in amazement, and seemed to be compromising with a silent but amused chuckle, one hand over his mouth. “You’ve forgotten the Goddess of Reports,” he observed wryly.

She snorted. “Well yeah, but that’s something I learned after I came here. Albeit not from the Professors… Hermione invented it.”

Lupin let out a very audible snort of laughter at that.

Dumbledore sighed again. “Alright,” he muttered. “So, what were you concentrating on?”

“Mm?” Hailey paused, thinking. “I was concentrating… on my assets.” She followed his instinctive glance downwards. “Er, not that kind of asset. Though,” she tapped her chin with a fingertip, “I suppose they were actually relevant.”

“What assets?” Dumbledore asked slowly. “Er, that you were concentrating on,” he added quickly.

“Well,” she grinned, and started counting them off on her fingers, starting with her pinkie. “My friends were counting on me, there was a promising Professor behind me, I know more magic than anyone else my age, I knew what it was, I’m completely indestructible.” She switched hands, and started with her thumb. “I have more power than even Lord Voldemort available to me, I could probably have punched it straight through the wall even if my spell failed… And, of course, I was female.” She ticked that off on all three remaining fingers at once.

“... You were female,” he repeated.

She nodded. “Yes. You haven’t noticed how much I like being female?”

“And your parents?”

She smiled. “Oh, no, they only ever come out when things actually start getting dire. Or when something tries to kill me. But Morning could probably have taken it by storm as well, say nothing of Professor Lupin who was, I remind you, standing right behind me with his wand drawn as well.”

Lupin visibly raised his eyebrow, but didn’t say anything.

“And…” Dumbledore glanced down at the article again, with the headline ‘World’s Strongest Patronus on the Hogwarts Express’. “The Dementor?”

“In the Hospital Wing,” Hailey answered promptly. “Lupin’s chocolate seemed to help quite a bit, but she was still delirious.”

“And a dementor was capable of being delirious…” He paused, wishing he’d had time to actually read the article before they arrived. “How?”

Hailey wasn’t the only one that had been summoned away from the throng of students going into the Great Hall. Professor McGonagall had called Ginny and Ariel, while Professor Snape had called Draco. Fortunately for him, Silver had gone back to her ‘original’ form as Draco in order to get off the train; it would’ve been too suspicious if Draco hadn’t dismounted. He was too well-known amongst the Slytherins.

Snape looked at Silver, and nodded. “Follow me,” he instructed, and led the way back down to his office.

Finally, he stepped behind his desk. “Now… Draco.”

“Yes?” She made it a point to not imitate Silversong’s voice, as she’d caught herself doing a couple times over the summer or on the train, when in form as Draco.

“You didn’t select any electives,” Snape told her.

She blinked. “I coulda sworn I-!” She broke off, then tilted her head. “Isn’t there magic to catch that?” she asked.

He nodded. “There is. However, you may have noticed that when we handed these forms out last year, they all already had names across the top. Any idea why that might be?”

“Ahh…” She scowled. That sounded like a question Hermione would ace, but she was drawing a blank. “I… No, Sir, I do not.”

“Perhaps,” Snape began. “It’s because they’re magically tethered to the student records. Imagine my surprise when I found there were two of them tied to your record, Mr. Malfoy.”

She barely managed to suppress the wince. She was Silversong, darn it! “Two?”

“Yes. One with your name, and one for miss… Silversong.”

It took her a second to imagine how she might’ve reacted if Snape had told her a name that wasn’t one of her own- such as, say, Hailey. Finally, she tilted her head. “Silversong…? Oh, right. She said hers was destroyed somehow- she didn’t say how- so I duplicated mine for her, and that’s the name she applied to it.”

“There is no student record by the name of Silversong,” Snape told him flatly.

She sighed. “I thought it might be. I don’t know what her real name is.”

“Can you go get her?” he asked.

“Ah-!” She’d been afraid of that. How could she fetch herself?

A way immediately popped into her mind. She could tell Hailey- who would undoubtedly find a way, as she’d done so many times before. Except, Hailey didn’t know that Draco and Silversong were one and the same- and besides, it’d take so long to arrange that it’d be fairly obvious to Professor Snape.

“I- er-!” She paused, gazing at her knees. Was there even any way to keep the secret?

“Well?” Snape asked. “Is there a problem?”

She didn’t move. Perhaps… Yes. Perhaps this was the time to start letting the staff know. Professor McGonagall knew about Hailey, after all.

So, without looking up, she shifted silently into form as Silversong.

The silence drew on for what seemed like a small eternity.

“I see,” Snape eventually muttered, sitting down behind his desk.

The silence seemed to draw on, and on, and on. Silver didn’t interrupt it, afraid to mess something up.

Finally, Snape looked at her. She couldn’t see him; she was still studying the way her skirts were draped over her knees. She could, however, feel his gaze. “Why do you seem so much happier than Draco?” he asked.

Her head snapped up. “I- I do?”

He smiled, and nodded, slowly. “Yes, you do.”

“I-!” She paused again, trying to decide what to say- to remember her own feelings. “I don’t know,” she eventually admitted. “Maybe… Maybe it’s because I like Silver so much?” She shrugged.

“So maybe,” another voice said from behind her, making her jump- Professor McGonagall. “Maybe, it’s because you’re like Hailey?”

“L-Like Hailey?” she asked, twisting to look. “How?”

Bonbon followed her in, and closed the door behind them, but McGonagall spoke. “You know. Transfeminine.”

“Transwhat?”

“A witch, born in a wizard’s body,” Bonbon supplied.

“Well duh,” she half-declared- then she winced. “Er- sorry.”

Professor McGonagall stood next to her. “And would I be correct to assume you want to be Silversong as much as possible?”

She paused. “I…” She hesitated. “I’m… not certain, actually. It’s… still unfamiliar.”

“Yet feels so right,” Bonbon muttered, in a rather passable imitation of Hailey’s voice.

She nodded. “Exactly.”

McGonagall nodded too. “Alright then. How about I hunt you up some Gryffindor badges, then move you into Gryffindor Tower?”

She winced. “But Draco can’t just disappear, can he?”

“True,” Bonbon scowled. “Well, Hailey told us this might happen. How about…” She glanced up at Snape, and smiled. “Core classes as Draco, electives as Silversong? We’ve still got plenty of time for last-minute schedule changes. Especially considering how ready we are for ‘em. You’d have… Oh, about an hour between classes to get lost and transform.”

Silver looked up at McGonagall. “But… why Gryffindor?”

“You got the Sword of Godric Gryffindor from the Sorting Hat,” Bonbon supplied. “Only a true Gryffindor could have pulled that from the Hat.” She shrugged. “Though it doesn’t preclude Slytherin House, but as I recall, the Hat sounded reluctant when it sorted you. Never a good sign, that.”

She looked at her. “You can remember it that clearly?”

She smiled, and nodded. “Yes. I believe Hailey’s mentioned my ‘concise writing for detailed reports’ class a couple times. Speaking of, remember that offer we made in the middle of last year?”

“Uh- yeah?”

She pulled a packet of papers out of her bag, and held them out to her. “It’s still open.” She smiled. “To Silversong. Perhaps with your help, we can bring Crabbe and Goyle back up to speed- now that, thanks to Hailey and Hermione’s ‘skill transfer’ spell, they can actually understand the world around them.”

She blinked. “That would explain… a lot, actually.” She chuckled lightly. “Alright, I’ll take it. Maybe Draco can disappear completely in some future year.”

Bonbon nodded. “Anyways, while we’re on the topic of Hailey, what do you know about that dementor she resurrected?”

Author's Note

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

I never wrote Ginny/Ariel's conversation with Professor McGonagall. It was probably about how Ariel is just starting at Hogwarts... as a second-year student, so it was probably over quickly enough.

Chapter 39: Divination

“Expecto Patronum,” Dumbledore muttered.

Nothing happened.

He scowled. From what he’d gathered from Hailey’s description the evening before, she’d produced the world’s strongest patronus by concentrating on the fact that she was a girl. He’d never heard of a patronus working from that kind of reason before, but what did he know? She’d obviously done it!

Unfortunately, even the Elder Wand- which could turn even the smallest happy memory into a bright patronus- wasn’t getting anything out of him when he concentrated on the fact that he was a man. He’d tried concentrating on the ‘fact’ that he was a girl but, rather predictably, got no results.

The funny thing about her description had been that not a single thing she’d mentioned could have been categorized as a ‘memory’. Sure, they were things that made her happy, but they weren’t memories- and as far as he knew at least, the patronus only worked on memories.

He frowned, and concentrated with all his might on his male-ness once more.

“Expecto Patronum.”

Again, nothing.

A sudden ping through the Castle wards made him look up- Snape was ascending his staircase.

He waited patiently.

The knock eventually came. “Enter,” he called.

Snape stepped in.

“Ahh, just the man,” Dumbledore commented, a sudden idea striking him.

Snape raised an eyebrow.

He shook his head. “Sorry.” He paused for a second to recall the reason Snape was coming into his office- he knew what it was, it was a preplanned visit. “Ahh, did you find Silversong?”

Snape smiled wryly. “It would seem Draco Malfoy prefers to go by the name of Silversong,” he informed Dumbledore.

He blinked. “He… does? But we met Silver, didn’t we?”

Snape nodded. “She is able to transform herself, much like Hailey- though I understand that unlike Hailey’s, hers is at will.”

“Ahh,” Dumbledore muttered, scowling. “Though… Hailey said her transformation is now at-will, too- she’s been reassigned to the girls’ dorms, by her request. On that topic, she also said she produced that massive patronus by concentrating on the fact that she’s a girl.” He looked up at Snape.

Snape raised an eyebrow. “Are you suggesting what I think you are?”

“How fast does that genderswap potion work?”

He blinked. “You’re not,” he observed, then he shrugged. “About twelve hours. It’s dangerous to try to reverse for six days after it finishes.”

He tilted his head. “Wasn’t there one that does it in an hour?”

He shrugged. “Yes, but with that one, you can’t turn back for six months. And if you want the one that lets you turn back immediately, expect a month-long transformation process with no clear indicator for when it’s done- and for permanence to set in just three days after transformation.”

He winced. “What about the other two?”

“The other two don’t induce permanence.”

He sighed. “Alright. I think you know what I’m going to ask.”

“I will require three days to brew the potion,” he informed Dumbledore. “It will keep for three more, requiring a fresh batch for the reversal. When will you want it?”

Hailey knew better than most other students in the school that none of the elective subjects had nearly enough students in them to warrant full classes of instructors. The reason was simple- a vast majority of Equestrian students had stayed with just their core classes.

As a result, she was completely unsurprised that she, the Head Student Instructor for Defense Against the Dark Arts, was attending the same Divination class as Bonbon, HSI for Potions, and just about every single other British student that had selected it.

She was especially unsurprised since, during the summer, she’d been made into the Student Instructor Program Management Team Lead- which had been Bonbon in her first year, then Twilight in her second. As a result, she’d signed off personally on all the instructor and class assignments, including her own. Hermione’s schedule had been fun to build, since she’d signed up for everything- but thanks to the flexibility of the Student Instructor Program, they’d managed it without requiring her to use time travel to reach all her classes.

Somewhat more surprising was Professor Trelawney. She was the strangest, most stereotypical fortune teller Hailey had ever seen. Even so, the way she opened the class left no doubt in Hailey’s mind that she was a Seer- a concept Bonbon had explained to her nearly two weeks prior, while they had been building the class schedules in Diagon Alley.

Hailey smiled softly to herself as she drank the tea the Professor had poured her, swirled it, and drained it, as instructed. Finally, she handed her cup to Bonbon to read, and accepted Bonbon’s in turn.

“You first,” Bonbon prompted. “What do you see?”

“A load of soggy brown stuff,” Hailey answered promptly.

Bonbon smiled. “Me too,” she observed.

She chuckled softly. “Anyways…” She gazed into Bonbon’s cup, looked down at the required pages of Unfogging the Future, and back into the cup, which she started rotating slowly. “Something tells me this isn’t the best way to introduce tea leaves,” she mused. “Hmm… That looks like…” She scowled, and looked down at the book. “... The Skull,” she concluded. “Danger lies ahead.”

Bonbon snorted softly. “In my line of work?”

Hailey chuckled as well, and peered back into the cup. “Lesse. That looks like…” She rotated it a bit, then looked back and forth between it and the book. “... This thing,” she decided, touching it on the page. “However it’s pronounced. You’ve got a big surprise coming.”

She raised an eyebrow. “After you single-handedly outperformed the entire Corps last year? I rather doubt there’s going to be anything too surprising this year.”

She snorted. “Oh, you never know. Maybe Peter will have been the one to kill thirteen muggles, not Black.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t surprise me. Especially if he’s an unregistered animagus.”

Hailey smiled. “Or maybe Sirius is about to walk through that wall playing a clarinet.”

She tilted her head. “Oh alright, I suppose that would be a little surprising.”

She chuckled, scowled into the mug, consulted the book, and sighed. “There’s more in here, but I can’t make it out. Your turn.”

Bonbon looked down at Hailey’s cup, turned it ninety degrees counterclockwise, and lowered it. “It’s trying to tell us stuff we already know,” she mused. “The Falcon- you have a great enemy. The Club- an attack. The Skull. The Stray, I think- you’ll meet an important animal. Looked like a dog. Then I think there’s another layer I can’t make out.”

“So mostly,” Hailey mused. “I’m me. And-!”

“Let me see,” Professor Trelawney barked suddenly, snatching the cup from Bonbon’s hands. She promptly proceeded to call out the same things Bonbon had just announced in the same order, one at a time, except for the Stray. Instead of that one, she screamed.

Naturally, when she asked them not to ask her what she’d seen, someone- Dean Thomas- promptly did.

“My dear-! You have… The Grim.”

About half the class clapped their hands to their mouths.

“The Grim?” Hailey asked. “Why would I have a death omen? I’m invulnerable.”

Bonbon scowled. “I thought that was the Stray. What do you think, Hailey?”

Hailey peered over Trelawney’s shoulder into her cup. “Mmm…” She consulted the book, and looked back into the cup. “Yeah, that’s not a Grim. That’s Sirius.”

“Seriously?” Bonbon asked, raising an eyebrow, while Professor Trelawney- and the entire rest of the class- turned to stare at Hailey.

She nodded. “Yeah. Grimms are a bit bulkier than that, but Sirius is skinny.”

“So what was he looking for?”

“Harry. Though not in a bad way- he wanted to check up on his god-son while he waited for the Hogwarts year to start so he could come commit the murder he was imprisoned for.”

“So how was it?” Hailey asked, glancing back at True Foresight- the strongest known Equestrian seer, who usually went by ‘Four’- as they descended from Professor Trelawney’s tower. The girl was also the brand new Head Student Instructor for Divination.

“That was a good class,” she answered, nodding. “Professor Trelawney could definitely benefit from our instructor course- but while she is a seer, she’s also a weak seer, hence why she needs such a conducive environment. Taking that course would probably damage her receptivity to the Future for two or three months, so I can’t recommend it during the year.”

“Interesting. How do you think she’s doing?”

“I think she’s using her gift to try and figure out how best to teach the class- I think she knows even less about it than Professor Snape did, but she’s aware of that and doing her best with what she has.” She sighed. “And doing really well with it, too. Inviting us into her carefully cultured environment does pollute it a little, but it makes it so many thousands of times easier for us to learn, too.” She shrugged. “Well, at least the ones that don’t know they’re seers, or that aren’t as powerful as I. I’m strong enough to See in almost any situation- but even the weakest Seer in the world will be able to discern that they can see something when exposed to that environment, even if they won’t be able to tell what unless they stay there for a very long time- like Trelawney said, about ‘clouding the inner eye’.

“Meanwhile, had that class taken place in a regular classroom environment, it’d take a fairly strong Seer to realize they could see at all.” She smiled. “That’s why we’ve already been building environments like that one in all our Divination classrooms, as a matter of fact. Oh, and Bonbon?”

Bonbon looked. “Mm?”

“It is my professional opinion, as Princess Celestia’s Royal Fortune Teller, that you are a seer.”

Bonbon blinked. “I’m a what?”

“You’re a Seer,” she repeated. “And a mighty strong one at that. It took me almost two weeks to detect the aether layer to the Tea Leaves back home, but you did it on your first try.”

“... Oh.”

“How hard is it to tell without that?” Hailey asked.

“Depends,” Four shrugged. “Even non-seers will react to an environment like that- but it’ll be different. If you’re skilled, like I am, you can judge that reaction to determine if someone’s a Seer or not.” She smiled. “Three of the other students, aside from Bonbon, are Seers I wasn’t aware of. Which actually includes Neville, though his clumsiness is going to make it really hard for him to learn it for himself.”

Hailey nodded; Neville had already run ahead, for his next class. “Huh.” She paused. “I’m… curious. How about me?”

She sighed. “There’s three main categories those reactions can put people into. One is Seers. The second- the one you’re in- is the unknowns. If you’re a Seer, it’s weak, but I can’t tell if you are or not.”

“And the last is definitely not?”

She nodded. “And the last category is definitely not a Seer. Take Hermione for example.”

Hermione looked up, raising her eyebrows.

“She had a slightly aversive reaction to the environment- definitely not a Seer… and if she tries anyways, even with the techniques usable by non-Seers, she’s more likely than not to get inaccurate results. That’ll even affect the results of a true Seer using a technique that requires her cooperation, such as tea leaves.”

Hermione put one finger to her chin. “So when Lavender saw the Grimm in my cup…?”

She nodded. “She was right, it was there, but it shouldn’t have been.”

“Is there any way to change that?”

“Uh… Not that I’m aware of.”

Hermione nodded gently. “I have a new project.”

All four of them laughed.

Author's Note

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Now we know why Bonbon's so good.

Chapter 40: Sadarina

Hermione took a deep breath, mentally preparing herself. She’d hung back after her first Care of Magical Creatures class with Hagrid- there was something she’d been meaning to ask him since getting off the Hogwarts Express.

“Something wrong with the class, Hermione?” Hagrid asked.

She looked. He was looking nervously at her. “Huh? Oh, no, it was good. Amazing, actually.” She took another breath. The class had been an excellent one. Hagrid had introduced them to Hippogriffs right away- and when it had been Hermione’s turn to approach the one Hailey had ridden, Buckbeak, she’d hardly even begun to bow before he had trotted forwards to put one wing across her back. Hagrid had observed that apparently he liked her- while Hailey had thought it was funny. Apparently, she’d ‘eeped’ just like Fluttershy.

The part that was strangest to her was that when she had ridden him- at Hagrid’s urging- she’d known she was acrophobic, and so expected to be clinging to him for dear life- or at least, as much as her carefully restrained strength would allow.

Instead, she’d found herself enjoying it- with her wings, kept tightly folded against her back, just itching to unfurl as well. It didn’t exactly help that, since she had no idea how to properly care for them, they were pretty itchy to begin with.

“I just-!” she began. “I have a… question.” She looked up at him. “How would you take care of their wings?”

He blinked. “Ah, yer wouldn’t do that with a Hippogriff. They wouldn’t like it one bit- an’ they take care of themselves.”

She winced. “Then… some other, ah, winged creature?”

“Depends,” he mused. “Most of ‘em take care of themselves pretty well.”

She glanced towards the Castle- but the view was blocked by a hill. Nobody would see them.

She unfurled her wings a little.

Hagrid stared.

“I- I don’t know how…” she muttered.

“I don’t rightly know,” he grumbled. “Everythin’ with feathered wings takes care of ‘em itself.”

Buckbeak suddenly trotted over, extended one wing, and poked it briefly with his beak, before looking pointedly at Hermione.

“Uh…” she muttered.

He did it again.

Hagrid seemed delighted. “He’s trying to show yer!”

It was a good thing Care of Magical Creatures was her last class for the day.

“Hailey?”

Hailey looked up; it was Madam Pomfrey. “Hmm?”

“The… dementor,” she stated.

Hailey nodded. The girl the dementor on the train had become had been extremely confused- but even in her confusion, she’d tried to cling to her. “She need company?” she asked.

She paused. “Well… Yes and no.” She sighed. “I’m sure you know nobody knows what a dementor’s body is composed of?”

“Uh, I do now.”

She smiled wryly. “Well, nobody does. Hers… Her body is composed of dirt, dust, bits of rotten flesh, and scraps of fabric.”

She looked at her. “What?”

She nodded. “There’s a… I don’t know. Magic, of some kind, inside her, keeping her running- and, slowly, replacing that assorted debris with real internal organs. That’s… She’s had an enormous appetite to support that process.”

Hailey nodded slowly. “Meaning, that any life we see…”

She shook her head. “Any motion we see is purely magical- but her brain is the first part- and as it’s been developing, she’s been growing less and less detached- more intelligent. She’s definitely there, definitely alive… and definitely struggling.”

Hailey rubbed her chin. “If it’s magic…” She scowled. “Even magic isn’t infinite.”

She nodded. “There’s a limited supply of it. It’s different from any magic I can produce, so I can’t replenish it- and I’m fairly certain it’ll be depleted before she reforms completely.”

She stopped. “So… I resurrected her, but she’s only got so long to live?”

“I… I think, yes.”

“How long does she have?”

“About…” She sighed. “About six months. There isn’t going to be anything I can do for her, either.”

Hailey sighed. “Can… Can I show her a good time?”

Madam Pomfrey looked at her. “Are you sure? It’s only going to hurt that much more when she dies.”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

Remus Lupin was watchful. He had to be, as the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor- and especially so as a werewolf. He had been unsurprised when Hailey had wanted to help the dementor she’d resurrected- and even less surprised when the frightened girl had seen Hailey and clung to her like a life raft. Even now, as he started his first third-year Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson in the staffroom, the girl was with them- although she seemed content to sit in the corner and watch, once she knew Hailey wasn’t going to be leaving without her.

He’d watched the girl in the corner of his eye as he explained the Boggart- but she’d watched with curious ignorance, evidently unable to understand a thing he was saying, but trying anyways.

Finally, it’d come time to let it out. It seemed Sharp Shot’s Boggart was a giant, bright red, horned centaur- but she’d had a plan, so the monster had been captured in a giant mousetrap less than a second after it had stepped out of the wardrobe, to a gale of laughter.

As the Boggart began to shift between targets- the giant centaur seemed to be a popular one, something like a quarter of the class it seemed- he watched the girl in the corner of his eye. She watched nervously, like she was worried about something- but not fearfully.

But of course, he let his guard down. Only for a fraction of a second- he was watching the girl, rather than the boggart, when miss Arachnid Phobic’s giant spider lost its legs and rolled to where Hailey stopped it with her foot. Especially considering her overall fearlessness, he’d figured it a good idea to keep it from seeing her.

He rushed forwards- but he was too late.

It became… a dementor.

Hailey smiled, but the girl let out a squeak of fright and curled up into a ball. Lupin opened his mouth to speak, to draw the boggart’s attention- but Hailey was faster.

“Riddikulus!” she barked, wand flashing upwards.

The boggart-dementor had only barely begun to draw its long, rattling breath of despair when it suddenly clapped its hands to its throat with a sound like a chicken getting stepped on. It then proceeded to hop in circles for a few seconds, squawking louder and louder, a giant rooster tail sticking out the back of its robes.

The ex-dementor girl in the corner joined the rest of the class in laughing for the first time all class.

She was going to be a strange one, definitely- and he had to wonder if there was a way to keep her from dying before she could finish regenerating.

Professor Dumbledore looked up at the sudden knock on his office door and mentally cursed himself for taking Snape’s potion on a friday. He’d been so focused on his experiment that he’d completely forgotten about Bonbon’s reports!

“Enter,” he called, doing his level best to sound like he usually did.

It was a complete and total failure. His newly female voice box simply couldn’t reproduce his normal voice- he doubted even a voice modification spell would be enough for that.

At least he’d worn clothes, despite being supposedly alone for the entire time, no matter how uncomfortable they were. And, knowing Bonbon, if she commented on it, it would be with her usual hard logic- she might even offer insights; just that morning, after the transformation had completed, he’d tried the Patronus again, but failed. However Hailey did it, it was still laughably far beyond him.

Speaking of Hailey, it was she that opened the door into his office, not Bonbon. She was carrying the tallest report he’d seen yet- or more accurately, it was floating before her- and the ex-dementor girl that had been following her around all week was with her as well. He felt at once ashamed and embarrassed at being caught trying to reproduce her stupidly powerful patronus- but Hailey didn’t seem offended by it. On the contrary, she raised an eyebrow and smiled amusedly as she spoke. “Professor Dumbledore,” she greeted. “I have the weekly report.”

“Ahh,” he muttered, feeling the heat rushing to his face and resisting the urge to hide it. Why did he have to blush? It wasn’t like him at all!

“You should probably know,” she began. “Over the summer, they made me the Student Instructor Program Management Team Lead… And, probably because Rita nicknamed me the ‘Goddess of Reports’, I’m also your contact point.” She sighed, and glanced up at him as he fidgeted.

He stopped immediately, attempting to avoid the embarrassment of her knowing about that too- and failing dismally, he expected, as the heat rushed to his face anyways.

She smiled. “Have you tried wearing a bra, by any chance?”

He blinked. “Why would I do that?”

“It helps with the chafing,” she told him, with a shrug. “And with the bouncing when you move around. Madam Malkin’s do that well enough you can sometimes even forget they’re there at all until you brush into ‘em or something- though I’m told that’s not common to all bras.”

“You’re… told.”

She nodded. “You know how many girlfriends I have?”

“Alright,” he sighed. “But what size?”

“There’s a spell for that,” Hailey noted, pulling a piece of paper from midair and placing it on the desk next to the report, face-down. “I can also have it ordered anonymously for you- and no, I don’t have to tell any of our people who it is for.”

“Ahh,” he muttered again, still blushing furiously.

“Anyways,” she smiled. “Shall I get started?” She tapped the report, which had set itself gently on the desk.

His eyes immediately shifted to the girl next to Hailey, who was watching Hailey’s hand move through the air with apparent fascination. “I notice you have the ex-dementor with you?”

“Sadarina,” Hailey corrected.

“Who?”

“Sadarina,” she repeated. “I don’t think she’s developed far enough to understand much of anything, but earlier today, she managed to form words and told me her name.”

He sighed. “And you were…” He gestured at the report. “Floating the report. Did Hermione invent that too?”

“Ah, no,” she chuckled. “That’s Gravitanium Adjunct, a new levitation charm Twilight came up with, based in gravitational manipulation. She’s quite the spellsmith, though she said she didn’t understand British magic well enough to start building British spells until quite recently. It’s harder- probably about third or fourth year level- but far more energy efficient than Wingardium Leviosa.”

Author's Note

You can tell it's a transition chapter by the large number of horizontal rules. Unfortunately, much of the Prisoner of Azkaban storyline has ended up getting relegated into "transition" status, because so much of the canon side simply isn't happening... Take Buckbeak, for example. He's not in trouble- and that's about half the main plot of the book! Don't worry, I have a plan.

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

And said plan has already come to fruition, of course. In the queue.

Chapter 41: Skipped

“Enter,” Dumbledore called.

Hailey walked in. The dementor-girl was with her again, and the new week’s report was floating in front of her again.

“I think,” Dumbledore went on, before Hailey could speak. “I think I’ve figured out how you were able to produce such a powerful patronus on the train.”

“Oh?”

He nodded. “Because… When I was… a girl, I couldn’t produce anything from concentrating on that. Hated it, too. Thanks for the bra, though, it helped- a lot. But now that I’m back, well, me, I can concentrate on the fact that I’ve returned, and…” He sighed, drawing his wand. “Expecto Patronum.”

A feeble, wispy phoenix fluttered out of the Elder Wand. It was the weakest Patronus he’d ever seen it produce, but it was a patronus.

The dementor-girl smiled softly at it.

He sighed again, while Hailey nodded thoughtfully. “What I noticed, is that while being a girl makes you happy, it put me in a state of constant distress and even depression- almost despair, though I knew it was fully reversible.” He watched his feeble patronus flutter over to the dementor-girl, and land on her outstretched arm- after which she started stroking it with her other hand. “Yet you… You were ‘flipped’ like that at or even before you were born- which made that depressed, despairing state your base state. And since the Patronus requires happiness beyond our base state, meaning the happier we are throughout our youth, the harder it is to cast a patronus…” He paused. “Because of that, removing that depressive state by becoming a girl creates the illusion of enormous happiness… Or perhaps enormous true happiness, I don’t know.”

“It’s true happiness,” Hailey told him outright. “I have that on good authority.” She nodded. “The same… er, authority, told me the negative when I’m Harry is also very real.”

“Authority…?”

“I know a telempath.”

“Ahh,” he muttered. “Still, though, I expect that because the depressed state ended up being your base state, you’re able to utilize the full difference between the two, not just the positivity you experience now, for the Patronus. And considering the sheer power of the negative state… That half alone would be enough to outshine any other Patronus ever cast.” He finally allowed his feeble patronus to collapse.

Hailey, looking at it, scowled when the dementor-girl gazed unseeingly at her suddenly empty hands, looking sad. She sighed, and drew her own wand. “Expecto Patronum,” she muttered.

A great, silver stag erupted from her wand, landing on the dementor-girl’s other side. She immediately looked up at it, as it turned to step up next to her, and smiled brightly at it.

“She likes patroni,” Hailey observed.

Dumbledore tried not to be envious of her patronus. She’d evidently cast it effortlessly, but it was still on par with one of the brightest patroni he’d ever produced from the Elder Wand. “Is that what you did on the train?”

“Oh, not even close,” she said. “That one was absolutely blinding.”

“Hailey?”

Hailey looked; Lupin had called to her from around his office door. “Mm?”

“What are you doing?” he asked, curiously. “Where are your friends?”

“Hogsmeade,” she answered quickly, then smiled. “I still think it’s amusing that everybody seems to think I didn’t get my form signed.”

He scowled. “Why are you still here?” he asked.

Hailey glanced down at the dementor-girl she had under her arm. “Sadarina needed me.”

“Sadarina?” he asked.

“I don’t think she really understands the world around her just yet, but very early on, she managed to form words, and told me her name.” She smiled. “The understanding is coming, though- lately, she seems to understand when I tell her I’ll be right back, and she does respond to her name.”

He nodded slowly. “How long do you think it will be?”

“Not long,” she told him. “Madam Pomfrey said most of her brain is developed, she’s just got the last few parts to form. Shouldn’t be any more than a week or so before she’s as smart as any other ten-year-old girl.”

“And… the Patronus?” He gestured at the silvery stag that had been walking next to them, but was now just standing.

“She likes patroni. They make her smile, without fail.”

“Ahh.” He paused, considering her for a moment. “Why don’t you come in? I’ve just taken delivery of a Grindylow for our next lesson.”

“A Grindylow?” Hailey asked, stepping forwards in evident acceptance of his offer.

He stepped backward, holding the door wide. “Water demon,” he announced to her. “We shouldn’t have much trouble with him- not after the Kappas, at least.”

“Hmm,” Hailey muttered, rubbing her chin as she gazed at the Grindylow.

Lupin paused, looking at her expression. “Would you like a cup of tea?” he offered. “I was just thinking of making one.”

She looked up at him, down at Sadarina, and back up at him again. “Sure, why not?” she smiled. “Though I will warn you, Sadarina doesn’t like to sit still for too long.”

He chuckled. “A curious one, then?” He tapped the kettle with his wand, using a quick flash-boil charm.

“Oh yes,” Hailey told him. “Not sure if she’s a Gryffindor or not just yet, though.”

He sighed. “Even though she’ll die before the year ends.”

She sighed. “Yeah. But if a patronus resurrected her, perhaps a patronus can keep her alive? I mean, she does like them.” She took a sip of her tea. “Mm, good tea, thank you.”

“Speaking of tea,” Lupin muttered. “How has Divination been going? I understand you’re reading the tea leaves right now.”

She smiled. “Yup. Professor Trelawney likes to see Grimms in my cup, but it’s not the Grim- it’s Padfoot.”

Lupin froze. Padfoot? How did she know about Sirius? Did she know about him too?

Right at that moment, someone knocked on the door.

“Come in,” Lupin called.

Snape entered, carrying a goblet of Wolfsbane Potion for him.

“Ahh, thank you, Severus,” he greeted. “Could you leave it for me here, on my desk?”

Lupin couldn’t help but notice Snape’s sideways glance at Hailey, who had raised an eyebrow, while he continued to tell him how he should take it. Funny, he already knew- was Snape trying to clue Hailey in? Though, that reminded him of something.

Finally, Snape left.

“I’ve been feeling a bit off-color lately,” Lupin informed Hailey off-hand, hoping to pass it off to the Goddess of Reports in front of him as something mundane.

He went on, talking simply about how he wasn’t much of a potion brewer and Snape had kindly concocted that one for him- but try as he might, Hailey only watched him in silence, her teacup in her hands.

Finally, he just drained the goblet and made a face at it. “Disgusting,” he grumbled- it really was, but at least it worked. “Anyways,” he announced, and picked up his own teacup once again, to wash the flavor of the potion out of his mouth. At least it didn’t matter what he followed it with, it would still do its job. “I’ve got a lot of work to do, so-!” He took a sip of tea.

Hailey picked that moment to speak. “That was Wolfsbane Potion.” It wasn’t a question.

Lupin was only peripherally aware that he’d done a spit-take, spraying tea all over the ungraded homework scrolls from his sixth-year class the day before, while he turned to stare at her. “How… How could you tell?”

“I guessed, mostly. Prongs told me about Moony.”

He stared at her; yes, she evidently did know about him. “Prongs?” he asked, slowly. “Isn’t he… dead?”

“Some dead men,” Hailey smiled softly, “can still talk.” She smiled up at him. “I don’t have a problem with it- you’re obviously taking steps to manage your…” She paused, as if searching for an appropriate word. “Condition,” she continued eventually, “so why should it be a problem? Most of our classes had a bunch of trouble with the Hinkypunk and are a class behind, so a day off to let them catch up probably wouldn’t be out of order- what do you think?” She tilted her head curiously at him.

“You know a knife won’t get you through that hole, right?”

Sirius Black whirled around at the blithe comment, searching for the speaker. It most certainly wasn’t the Fat Lady before him, the guardian of the Gryffindor dormitories- who he’d been about to start slashing at with his knife. He was so close to Peter!

He spotted the speaker.

It was… What-was-her-name, that girl he’d run into on Privet Drive, who had used such an amused tone when she’d informed him Harry had disappeared over a year prior. She had a younger companion, who he didn’t recognize- and, he realized, she was wearing a Gryffindor badge. “You,” he stated. Perhaps he could get her to tell him the password?

She nodded calmly. “Me,” she agreed, walking calmly closer. A bright patronus walked around the corner behind them, a great stag following them closely.

He waited for her to walk right up to him, without a care in the world. “What’s the password?” he asked.

“You know I can’t give that to you,” she told him, as if she were telling off a naughty child.

He showed her the knife. He didn’t want to hurt her, but he was mad enough he might just.

She sighed. “First of all,” she began- then reached up and casually, effortlessly, plucked the knife from his tight grip. “This is a nice knife, so let’s not destroy it, shall we?”

He stared at her. “H-How-!?” he began.

“I’m stronger than I look.”

Her companion, the younger girl, spoke up suddenly. “Innocent!” She looked up at the older girl. “Black Innocent!” It looked like it took great concentration to form each word.

“Yes, Sadarina,” the older girl answered, smiling down at her. “I know he’s innocent.”

The younger girl- Sadarina- seemed confused. “Know?”

She nodded. “Yes- it was Peter that snitched on my parents and killed thirteen muggles, not Sirius. Prongs told me.”

“Prongs?” Sirius blurted out, trying to make sense of what he’d just heard.

The girl looked back up at him, and smiled. “Yes. Turns out some dead men can talk.”

He stared at her, trying to make sense of what she was saying.

She didn’t wait for him to finish, handing the knife back to him, handle-first. “By the way, not only are there five hundred and twenty one third-year Gryffindor boys, scattered across two thousand, four hundred and two dormitories, but a knife is a terrible weapon when your target is a rat. You’ve got a much better bet with a cat.” She shrugged. “Aside from that, in my opinion, a verbal password is one of the easiest accesses to breach- you merely have to be close enough when somebody else hollers it and boom.

“Well… Not that the others are any harder, of course. Slytherin also has a password, but Hufflepuff you just tap the right barrel- and it never changes, though if you get the wrong one, you get to smell like vinegar for a week. At least Ravenclaw makes you answer a riddle, and it does change- every time, actually- but anyone with half a brain can get in because they’re really simple riddles, selected from a pool of about fifty.”

He blinked, and stared at her. “How… How do you know…?”

She shrugged. “Because I’m the Student Instructor Program Management Team Lead.”

Author's Note

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Lupin must be seriously fast at brewing tea. There's a few other little flow issues that come from how, up until a few minutes ago, Hailey was commenting that "earlier today" Sadarina had managed to form words and told her her name... when that's blatantly false, since these events take place roughly three weeks after that happened in the last chapter. Little tweaking, still doesn't flow quite right, but it gets the idea across.

Also, this marks the end of my accelerated schedule, at least for the time being. I'd like to keep going, but if I do that, I'll be breaking my promises to my patrons. I might end up reducing the amount of early access they get (currently as many as 7 chapters before the "indefinite" tiers) so I don't have to write so far ahead of what people are commenting on, but I don't want to just unilaterally take that away. They're paying for it, after all.

Oh, yes, and especially if I do that, I might also convince my muse to shift to other stories, such as Just Like Magic of Old, The Boy who Disappeared, The Equine Starliner... and even ancient pieces like The Stronger Tiara and The Magic of Technology, or up-and-coming pieces such as NoNameDecidedYet that hasn't been announced or scheduled, but should be a good story nontheless... once it gets started, at least.

Chapter 42: Fallen

Hailey awakened slowly, in a haze of confusion. There were voices around her- but it took her a moment to place them.

Then she opened her eyes, and sat up, looking around. She was in the Hospital Wing… and the Gryffindor Quidditch Team, minus Wood but plus Ron, Hermione, Silversong, Morning, Diamond, Ginny, Ariel, and Sadarina, were gathered around her bed. Fred made as if to block her from sitting up, but gave up quickly.

She sighed. “So what’s the damage?” she asked. It had been the dementors. They’d invaded the Quidditch Pitch during the first game of the season… and she must’ve passed out in the air. She’d even been seconds away from winning the match.

“You fell off your broom,” Fred told her. “Must’ve been fifty feet.”

“I’m invulnerable,” she told him. “Well… Except against dementors, I guess. But no simple fall can hurt me.” She looked around. “So what’s the damage?” She paused. “We lost, didn’t we?”

Several people nodded.

She sighed. “Oh well, maybe next time. How about my broom? Where is it?”

“Ahh…” Hermione looked down, out of sight, and back up at her. “It… got blown away. It… It hit the Whomping Willow.”

Hailey raised an eyebrow. “And it didn’t fare as well as I would’ve?”

Hermione let out a small snort; she was by far the fastest to adjust to her nonchalant attitude. She wordlessly reached down, and lifted a small plastic bag with a few bits of wood in it up onto the mattress.

She sighed. “Well, it was good while it lasted. Have a good burial in a landfill somewhere, Nimbus. Or perhaps a paper mill, I don’t know. Oh, I know- let’s cremate it, and plant a Nimbus Tree!” She snickered at her own joke.

The team stared at her.

“But your broom-!” Fred began.

“Was a special allowance by the school,” Hailey answered, before George could finish the question. “As a matter of fact, it technically wasn’t even mine, but Hogwarts’. This way, I can replace it with something that actually means something to me.” She sighed. “But anyways, how’d I get from the sky to the infirmary?”

“It was-!” Ginny began, and paused. “It was… Scary. Very scary.”

“Sadarina was mad,” Hermione muttered. “She went charging out onto the field as you fell, and they just…” She sighed.

“They fled,” Ariel stated. “Like they were afraid of her or something. But they can’t be- can they?”

Hermione nodded. “She didn’t cast any patroni, but they broke and fled as quickly as they could.”

Angelina smiled. “It was amusing to watch them trampling each other in their efforts to leave the Stadium as quickly as possible. Several of them just… disappeared.”

“By the time Dumbledore got on the field,” Diamond told her, “they had already gone. He magicked up a stretcher and rushed you straight here.”

“Ahh,” she muttered, reaching over to lift Sadarina- who had been sitting solemnly in a chair- up onto the mattress with her. “Why the long face?” she asked.

Sadarina only hugged her, burying her face in her side.

Hailey then plucked her wand from an inside pocket. “Expecto Patronum.”

The stag leaped clear over Angelina’s head, landing behind her and trotting around to stand over Sadarina’s seat. Sadarina flinched, and smiled- but it looked like a pained smile.

“What’s wrong?” Hailey repeated, shaking her gently.

She didn’t answer.

“Hey Hermione?”

“Yes, Hailey?”

“How’s your, ahh, Sierra Tango going?”

“My…? Oh, that. It’s not doing very well- I can’t figure out what makes a seer… a seer!”

Hailey scowled. “Oh well, I guess. Can’t be too perfect, I guess.”

She blushed. “Hailey!”

“I solemnly swear I’m up to no good.”

Hermione stared as the ‘spare’ parchment Hailey had laid on the table they were studying on some minutes before, and had just tapped with her wand, blossomed to life as a map. A moving map, displaying the entirety of Hogwarts. “Messers Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs…” she muttered.

Hailey nodded. “Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, Sirius Black, and James Potter, yes. One free, one death eater, one wrongly accused, and one dead. Fred and George gave it to me yesterday- seems they still thought I didn’t get my form signed.”

Hermione looked up to double-check that they were alone. They weren’t- but everyone else was on the other side of Hailey’s impressive privacy spell. It was technically her own- she had been the one to invent it- but when Hailey cast it, it was basically impenetrable. As a matter of fact, when Hailey cast it, she could have had a cannon and started firing it in the library, yet even Madam Pince the librarian wouldn’t be able to tell that she wasn’t studying- even if she’d been standing just outside, staring in!

Finally, she looked back down at the map… and noticed the now active spell matrix running it.

“... Inefficient,” she muttered.

Hailey laughed. “I thought you might say that,” she mused. “Think we can build on my dad’s work?”

She looked up at Hailey- and she could see, in the reflection off Hailey’s eyes, that the glint of excitement had returned to her own. Though, perhaps that was in her imagination? That reflection was really tiny. “Well of course,” she told her. “For starters, I think we can improve the interface layer by going mental-direct with a three-dimensional projection rather than relying on a piece of parchment. It’ll also keep it from being destroyed or stolen.” She paused. “So why didn’t you come to Hogsmeade?”

She shrugged. “Well, I wanted to keep Sadarina company. Though Dumbledore has authorized her to go to Hogsmeade too, so that shouldn’t be an issue next time. And I had to attend the Student Instructor Program Management Team Meeting, then bring our final report to Dumbledore. For that reason, even next time, I’m almost certainly not going to be going with you, but catching up after the fact.”

She tilted her head. “And what do you mean, one death eater, one dead? Didn’t both Peter and James die?”

She silently placed her hand on the map, pointing up into the corner.

She looked. “... Oh.” There was a dot labeled Peter Pettigrew, sleeping in the Gryffindor third-year British Boys’ dormitory, on Ron’s bed- while Ron put his books away next to it.

Sirius Black charged down the staircase. Where had Peter gone? He’d gone to all the effort to overhear the password- not that it amounted to much; all he had to do was hide in a broom cupboard. The Weasley Twins had obliged, laden with Honeydukes products no doubt for the celebration inside; Gryffindor had won the second match of the season- which was really no surprise with that fiery Chaser scoring every fifteen seconds and the Seeker riding a Firebolt. Getting in had been easy, no matter how worried the Fat Lady had looked as she obligingly swung forward; per her job, she couldn’t seal the opening against someone with the password, so he’d been able to locate the Weasley. It still seemed odd that a Weasley had brown hair, but he was still a Weasley- and Peter hadn’t been anywhere. Was he in the cabinet? Under the pillow? Under the bed? He needed another clue- another lead.

He froze suddenly on his way through the common room, then twisted to look back at a table.

There lay the Marauder’s Map, fully revealed.

He blinked.

A wand came out of nowhere and tapped it. “Mischief Managed.”

The map went blank.

He looked up.

The empty space on the other side of the table shimmered for a second, before two girls appeared. The black-haired one that had stopped him from attacking the Fat Lady, and her little friend. Her little friend was watching him amusedly. “I’m sorry to say,” the girl began dramatically, sweeping the map off the table. “But Peter has already gone into hiding, about two days ago. He’s not up here anymore.”

“That map,” he said, pointing at it.

She glanced down at it as well, then tucked it into her robes with her wand. “You know why I can’t give it to you.”

He sighed, and resumed his flight. Hopefully, he’d have an opportunity to properly speak with her at some point.

“Yaxley,” Amelia Bones began. “We can do this the easy way, or the hard way.”

Arthur Weasley, standing next to her, had gone through all the appropriate steps. He’d found evidence that Yaxley was hiding something, and come to her to initiate a raid against his home, to ‘make sure it isn’t an enchanted muggle artefact’. That evidence was absolutely not gained by walking past the front of the mansion and glancing at the yard. That would be illegal- something which Amelia was still bothered by- so of course it wasn’t. For some reason, nobody had seen fit to raise the law that said that finding something on a property while on or near the property for other purposes could not be used as justification for a raid- even though so many other ‘reasons’ existed it was easy to start a raid.

Especially since she could initiate a raid herself on no more than a hunch. That had been convenient a couple of times, and netted large pounces. Like this one- officially, she had a hunch.

She’d already cursed Yaxley’s fire breathing lawn ornaments in half and… neutralized his acid-spewing deck chairs, both of which were illegal for attacking a common visitor without provocation.

The death-eater- she was fairly sure he was the real thing, not one of the ones that had been forced to join- sighed. The entire wizarding community knew that when she arrived on the scene of a raid, there was no point resisting- since said resistance would instantly result in a perfectly valid hunch… which she’d promptly act on with a team of aurors.

Just like this time; she had six aurors standing behind her.

“Amelia!” It was a messenger, running up from behind them. He handed her a piece of parchment.

She took it, unfolded it, read the message, and sighed. Of course Black would choose right that moment to appear at Hogwarts again- or at least, for the word of such to reach her. The sun was already setting, so he was making a long day even longer. She looked up at Yaxley, and raised an eyebrow.

He flinched. “Oh alright,” he muttered, and held the door open.

She waved Mr. Weasley, and the team of aurors, past. “You know what to do,” she told them. “I’m needed elsewhere.”

They nodded, and entered- several with wands drawn.

Meanwhile, she walked back down the walk to the entrance with the messenger. They didn’t exchange words- but once they left the property, they apparated away, messenger first.

She felt the familiar sensation of hurtling through a very tight rubber tube… then, just before it ended, a sudden tearing, slicing feeling, like she’d been wrapped in razor wire.

It was only for a fraction of a second, before she emerged just outside the Hogwarts gates.

She collapsed straight to the ground, doing her level best not to scream in agony. She could feel the blood welling up from several cuts; her right hand and entire left leg were both gone and bleeding profusely. Yaxley must have included some highly dangerous and equally illegal apparition-based attacks in his wards.

Then, she felt the cold of the Dementors- and, in the fleeting moment in which that gave her hope, she looked up at them. It was through her that the Ministry would give them orders, after all.

“Get… Help,” she commanded, before the darkness swallowed her whole.

Author's Note

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Chapter 44: Harmonia

Hailey walked slowly, but steadily, across the endless clouds beneath her feet. It was an extremely strange environment… but one she knew how to return from. All she had to do was apply a Pinkie Transform to Hermione’s Misty Step spell- which was already, essentially, a Granger Warp applied to apparition.

It wasn’t one she’d always known how to return from- and it wasn’t even her first time there, technically.

But for as indistinct as any given direction was, she knew where she was going. It wasn’t that hard; if she picked up a handful of cloud and applied a Pinkie Transform to the magic allowing her to hold it, the cloud would form into an arrow pointing her to where she wanted to go.

Then of course, she could walk forever in this place without actually moving, unless she applied a Granger Warp to the magic letting her walk on the clouds.

She paused, bent down, and scooped a handful out of the clouds. A quick Pinkie Transform told her she’d been veering a bit too far to the left- so she dropped it, reapplied her Granger Warps, and continued on with a corrected heading.

It seemed to take forever- but eventually, she encountered a stone pillar. Her cloud arrows were all pointing at it- but, Hailey knew, she needed to reach the top, not the bottom, where she was.

And it was almost twelve miles tall.

She chuckled. This was the easy part.

She spread her wings, applied a Granger Warp to the magic granting her strength, and without moving her wings at all, rocketed up the pillar like a small missile. As she flew, the mist grew thicker and thicker, until all she could see was pure white.

So, she dropped all her spells and folded her wings.

Seconds later, a whole new world faded into existence around her. She drifted downwards and landed gently on a marble-tiled floor.

“Hailey?”

She looked up, and smiled. “Yes, Harmonia?”

“How- what? So quickly?” Harmonia asked, apparently dumbfounded.

She nodded. “Yup. I already knew all the techniques, just didn’t have the magics.”

“... Ahh. You know, I was about to start designing my speech for your arrival.”

Hailey smiled. “Isn’t time subjective up here?”

She paused. “Well… Yes, it is. But sometimes even I forget that, you know? It’s just so fascinating to watch the harmony of the timeline plodding on down below.”

“It is,” she agreed.

She sighed. “Anyways, you’re here for a reason, aren’t you?”

She nodded. “I am.”

“Alright then. Tea?” She tapped a teapot, on the tray she’d been carrying across the opulent entryway.

She shrugged. “Sure, why not?”

Harmonia chuckled, and led the way across the tiled floor into a carpeted sitting room. There were more bookshelves in this one room than in the entirety of Hogwarts, all arrayed against one side of the square room. Harmonia picked a coffee table with a couple of comfortable armchairs set on opposite sides, set her tray down, and sat down herself, before pouring tea.

Hailey sat down in the other chair. “You have a nice home,” she observed.

She nodded. “Yeah… that kinda happens when you watch over about forty different worlds, and guide them all to harmony. I mean, you’re aware of the Elements of Harmony, right?”

She nodded as well. “The most powerful force of good in all of Equestria,” she recited.

“Yes, exactly.” She paused to sip her tea. “Thing is, the more harmonious a world is, the more power it represents- and the more power I have available to me. Some of that power is, believe it or not, reserved for my home- that’s why it’s so opulent, rather than a smaller dwelling. I don’t need nearly this much space, even if it has come in handy quite a few times- and I care about my worlds more than I do myself. I mean,” she smiled, “I know I have to take care of myself- but why treat myself to luxury with power that I could use to help your world be just a little bit happier?”

“Why indeed,” she agreed. “Amazing tea, by the way. Is it something I can replicate on the surface, or specific to the Astral Plane?”

“Ah… Yes, actually, you should be able to replicate it. Might need the skills of Professor Snape or the like, though, since while it’s really simple up here, the ingredients required…” She sighed, and drew a note from her pocket, which expanded into a small booklet as she handed it to Hailey. “Here’s the recipe.”

She accepted it, pocketing it. “Thank you.”

Harmonia smiled. “It was actually I that brought the Equestrians to your world. Yours was- and still is, actually- the least harmonious of my worlds, and it’s been on a steady decline… while Equestra is, by far, the most harmonious. They supply something like ninety percent of my housing budget, actually- and are so powerful that it wasn’t hard to urge them to start exploring the multiverse… then guide Lyra, however gently, into stumbling upon Wizarding Britain at the perfect time to draw her interest.”

She nodded. “So… what about me and my, er, book-transforming?”

She chuckled. “Oh, that. That was…” she paused. “Unexpected. And actually not my doing, either.

“You see, each world has its own set of deities. Equestria’s are long gone; the last one was Princess Celestia’s mother, who sacrificed herself a couple thousand years ago, back when Equestria was one of my less-harmonious worlds. Back when I had very little power to guide any world.

“But she sacrificed herself to ensure that Celestia could live on, and guide their world to a more harmonious state. Every god or goddess is aware of the power of Harmony for their own world, and will generally strive to create it in one way or another. Selene was…” she sighed. “Her plan was effective. At the time, I was concentrating on my most harmonious world, trying to get them just a little more, so I might actually have the power to start truly guiding. Unfortunately, I had to use most of the power I got to sustain myself in a tiny little shack with only the bare necessities in it.

“But Selene changed that. Before too long, Equestria garnered my attention- and started contributing to my power. I was able to plant a number of ideas in Celestia’s head- how to get rid of the Wendigoes, how to create a flourishing economy, and so on. It wasn’t long before the world became strong enough for a creature of chaos- Discord- to appear… alongside harmonious elements such as, well, the Elements of Harmony. They still weren’t powerful enough to aid other worlds directly until fairly recently, when Discord was unchained once again… and tamed.” She chuckled. “They turned their world’s most disharmonious element into a harmonious element.

“But, to return to your question. Your world still has four deities, each gently pushing the world slowly towards harmony- and dealing with problematic people, such as Voldemort, mostly with perseverance. The last thing any god or goddess wants is for the world to rely upon them.”

“Is Professor McGonagall one of them?” Hailey asked, tilting her head.

She blinked. “Ahh, yes, actually, she is. She’s also the one that stepped in when Voldemort was attacking you- and caused you to become a horcrux for not just him, but for both your parents as well. That- having fragments of their souls bound to you by a Goddess- is what gave you that odd transfiguration ability.” She chuckled. “Even McGonagall, Goddess Ravenclaw, didn’t see that coming.”

“She’s the head of Gryffindor House,” Hailey observed.

She nodded. “I know. But…” She tilted her head. “I mean… you’re still a horcrux for both your parents- and as a matter of fact, their main souls follow you around as well, allowing them to emerge as partly-physical ghosts whenever you give them power by exciting the fragments bound to you. I imagine… Yes. Your world doesn’t have the power necessary to bring them back, but if you don’t mind losing their ghost-selves, I should be able to resurrect them into Equestria.”

“You… should be able to.”

“Yes. They would be younger than you, though not by much.”

She chuckled. “I don’t have a problem with that, as long as they don’t.”

She nodded. “Alright. But we haven’t hit upon your reason for coming here, have we?”

Hailey shook her head. “No, we haven’t.”

Harmonia smiled. “What was it, then?”

“Well, I wanted to ask a few questions.”

She chuckled as well. “Alright, ask away.”

“So… why did you make me Ascend?”

She blinked. “I woulda thought… Though… Yeah, that one wasn’t very obvious, was it?” She sighed. “You saved dementor-kind.”

“I… saved them.”

“Yes. I don’t think I’m the right person to explain it to you, but thanks to you, they are no longer trapped in an endless loop of despair- and since they were the most despairing, disharmonious group on your world…” She shrugged. “I was wondering if you deserved an ascension after you met Sadarina on the train, but after that? Your Patronus reached all the way to Azkaban, and saved every single one of them.”

“The wizard prison hasn’t, ahh, breached, has it?”

She shook her head. “No, it hasn’t. They’ve been saved, and patroni no longer drive them off, but they’re still prison guards- and every last one indebted to you for their very lives.”

“... Ahh. So what about Hermione?”

“Ahh, Hermione,” she nodded. “She was a project of mine for a little while. When she first reached the Leaky Cauldron, she got her first real taste of magic from Pinkie Pie, and even asked her about why her methods were nonfunctional- which created an opportunity that I pounced upon. You see, she didn’t just want to study British magic- she wanted to study any magic, and I helped her to be able to study Equestrian magic before she ever went to Hogwarts. Then-!” She sighed, smiling. “She invented the Papa Tango. Even I wasn’t sure what to call it- but I did do a little tweaking of my own to it.

“Had she cast it in its original form, Silversong would never have come into being, and you would never have gained a voluntary transformation ability- because it would have preserved your physical sexes. When she saw what it did with Silver, she panicked, thinking she’d messed up- but then she analyzed my changes, and realized what they were.

“The Papa Tango is an incredibly powerful transformation spell capable of rewriting you all the way down to who you are, not just what you are. She was afraid of hurting someone, so she made absolutely certain it didn’t change any of the ‘who’, and tried to change as little of the ‘what’ as possible. With my little tiny adjustments… it changes the ‘what’ quite a bit more- but does so based on the ‘who’, which has a result that it will often magnify the personal Harmony by many times. Especially in yours and Silver’s cases, where the ‘who’ was at such odds with the ‘what’.”

Hailey scowled. “So… what about her ascension?”

She nodded. “That was… fun. From the moment she first built it, long before I tweaked it, the Papa Tango was built to do something even I thought was completely impossible. Then she cast it on Silver… and brought the magic of Equestria to Britain, irrevocably. Which means that all I have left to do is sit back and watch, really, as the magic of harmony spreads throughout your world and guides it into a more harmonious state all on its own.” She sighed. “That right there warranted an ascension. She did what I thought was impossible, and you really can’t get any better than that!” She chuckled. “Unfortunately, she hadn’t tied herself to Equestrian magic, so I couldn’t ascend her. Your world didn’t- and still doesn’t- have the Harmony levels necessary to achieve ascension.

“For that reason, I couldn’t have been more delighted when she suggested the Polyjuice Potion. You’re aware that it’s not supposed to be used with animals, right?”

She nodded. “Yes?”

“Well, that’s because animal and human magics work very, very differently, and the potion is really bad at translating magic. The same is true between human and Equestrian magics, too. So I guided young Silversong into discovering her female self a few days prior to the main event, through the use of her little spell.” She chuckled. “She was cooking up a spell to make herself a Parselmouth. Never would have managed it without my help- especially since it’s simply not possible on an all-British base, so I helped her to- unwittingly- design the spell to force her into her part-Equestrian form before taking effect. Two days later, and she didn’t even need my suggestion to start pulling out her own hairs to drop into glasses of Polyjuice Potion. Even to suggest you and Ron take it too- that was fun.

“Now, normally, a British wizard using Polyjuice to look like an Equestrian would end up much like an animal transformation. However, the Papa Tango spellwork hadn’t collapsed off of Silver just yet- it was just inactive… and that was the magic the Polyjuice Potion attempted to translate. It took very, very little effort to get the Polyjuice to work properly… and block the magic reversal, resulting in the effect of applying the Papa Tango to the three of you, albeit with reduced power. That’s why it took so long to take hold, then took a whole week to act, instead of a mere three days.”

She scowled. “What about mine?”

She chuckled. “Well, the techniques you used, oh Goddess of Reports, created an extremely concentrated magic field around you- which cast off so much excess energy it only took a tiny touch to guide it into the Papa Tango, accelerating it to…” She paused. “I think it took about three seconds.”

She blinked. “Oh. So that’s what that was.”

She laughed outright. “Yes, Hailey, that is what that was. The Dursleys would probably have panicked and caused a massive uproar had you gone home and spent a week with a sixty-five degree body temperature, like the other two did.”

She tilted her head. “Why didn’t they start an uproar?”

She shrugged. “Well, Molly Weasley is pretty good at family medicine, but she didn’t realize there was anything all that unusual about Ron’s fever- so by the time she was getting ready to take him to St. Mungo’s to start an uproar, he had already recovered. As for Hermione, they called a muggle hospital full of cowards, then went to the family doctor- whose daughter happens to be Angelina Johnson, a phoenix-born who has a normal core body temperature high enough to boil water, despite a ‘normal’ magic-regulated skin temperature.” She shrugged. “They came to the conclusion it was something magical, and weren’t aware of St. Mungo’s, so waited it out. I think Emma Granger was thinking about sending a letter to Dumbledore when she recovered.

“Speaking of when she recovered, she was an Aethr- so of course she started analyzing her magic with the same new spellwork she’d based on the Papa Tango, trying to figure out what had changed. That was all the excuse I needed to give her the ascension she had earned so long before.”

“Huh. What about Pinkie?”

“Pinkie? Ahh. She was already very close to ascending in Equestria- then she came to your world and taught Hermione. Hermione then figured out how to bridge the gap between the worlds, and taught that to Pinkie- but she continued on, experimenting, creating… and teaching it to you, because Pinkie didn’t really stick around enough. Then you did your Goddess of Reports thing, met Pinkie, taught her what Hermione taught you…” She shrugged. “That was enough. She expanded on both of the above- and in designing or finishing a number of different spells for you, she crossed the threshold and earned her own ascension.” She chuckled. “Then you started inventing spells yourself, based on what both of ‘em had taught you. That was another time I was wondering if you were about to earn an ascension, but you didn’t cross the threshold. That time.”

Hailey chuckled. “That time,” she agreed. She tilted her head. “I’m curious who else you’ve been wondering that about?”

She sighed. “I can’t tell you that, Hailey. It wouldn’t be fair to give you spoilers like that- and besides, I’ve been wrong more times than I can count.”

Author's Note

Hopefully, Hailey isn't the only one getting answers here- but you got a few as well. Right?

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Chapter 46: Peter Pettigrew

Hermione hadn’t yet finished cataloguing the differences between Professor McGonagall’s willing reverse Animagus transformation, Silver’s male-female transformation, Hailey’s male-female transformation, and Peter’s forced reverse Animagus transformation, when the conversation had already shifted from greetings to Peter claiming Sirius had come to kill him.

It hadn’t even stopped there- the conversation shifted with such a blinding pace that by the time she was finished cataloguing her observations for later research, Rita Skeeter had already made Sirius stare by using Hailey’s ‘its a word’ statement to correct Peter’s ‘He-who-must-not-be-named’.

Finally, she caught herself up to the conversation in time for Lupin to voice a little problem.

“I must admit, Peter,” Lupin said. “I’m having difficulty understanding why an innocent man would want to spend twelve years as a rat.”

“Innocent, and scared!” Peter squealed. His voice was squeaky, to match his ratty appearance and his diminutive height; he was even shorter than Silver!

“Guilty,” Sadarina corrected him. “Guilty, and scared.”

They then proceeded to argue about exactly who was Voldemort’s spy. It seemed really silly to Hermione, since Peter was a terrible liar- his body language practically screamed that it had been him.

Finally, Peter started ambling around the room to the various people, pleading with each person in turn. He started with Sirius, who kicked out at him- then to Lupin, who rebuffed him verbally.

His next choice was Ron- who threw him a good couple feet when he shoved him off of himself. “I let you sleep in my bed?” he asked, revolted.

Then he came to Hermione, and grabbed at the hem of her robes. “Sweet gi-!”

She kicked him right in the face, without waiting for him to finish talking. “Get off!” she barked.

She watched, half-horrified, and half-gratified, as he went flying backwards. He crashed to the floor and slid another couple feet before coming to a stop most of the way across the room from her.

“You have… strong friends,” Sirius observed, looking between Peter and Hailey with an expression of curiosity on his face.

Hailey snorted. “Oh, you don’t know the half of it,” she smiled.

Lupin laughed. “Right, yes, this is only half of them, isn’t it?”

Peter approached Hailey next. “You look just like your mother,” he said.

Lupin looked put out at the comment, and Sirius scowled- but Hailey merely looked unimpressed. She seized the front of his robes, and hoisted him into the air with one hand, up to eye level. “And you look like the man that got her killed,” she stated.

Hermione didn’t miss Sadarina reaching over to pluck a wand from his back pocket.

Hailey then tossed him down.

So he tried sucking up to Sadarina. He didn’t have anything really all that convincing to say, but her calm, unwavering regard didn’t change in the slightest. She waited for him to finish, before uttering only a single word.

“Guilty,” she declared.

Peter looked around the room… and finally ambled towards Snape to try sucking up to him. Hermione had to cover her mouth to keep herself from laughing- and she noticed she wasn’t the only one. Sirius was actually snickering into his hand.

As for Professor Snape, he didn’t say anything, only glared dangerously back down at Peter. His eyes also flicked upwards for a second, to where Sadarina still had his wand.

Finally, he went after Rita, in the corner.

Rita stared at him like he was a particularly confused boggart. “What do you expect me to do? Write a smear column about you?”

Peter looked around the room, staring from face to face.

Then first Lupin, then Peter, turned sharply to look at the door. Peter ambled towards it.

“No you-!” Sirius began.

Then Morning Sun stepped suddenly in through the door, slamming it open right into Peter’s face. “You know, Hailey,” she said, leaning against it so Peter was pinned behind it. “We agreed to have the next major adventure as a group, didn’t we?”

“Well, you’re here now,” Hailey smiled, as Ginny and Ariel followed Morning in, with Silversong and Diamond Tiara holding hands behind them.

Peter wiggled out from behind the door, then ambled over to Morning, glancing sideways at the now open door- but Morning held out her hand and flicked her wrist at him. She didn’t touch him, nor even look at him, but he was still thrown bodily away from her as if he had been struck by a charging bull.

“We’ve been listening in the other room,” Silver said amusedly. “We tailed Professor Lupin in, under Morning’s cloak.” She chuckled. “Thought we’d join the fun.” She sighed. “So are we hauling him to the Castle or does Sadarina feel like giving him a kiss here?”

“A kiss?” Hermione asked, confused.

Sadarina, meanwhile, raised her eyebrows, looking contemplatively at Peter. She gazed at him, where he was stunned, in a crumpled heap by the wall, for a couple seconds, then tilted her head and looked at Snape. “You didn’t happen to bring any veritaserum, did you?”

Snape blinked in surprise. “No,” he answered. “I left it in the Castle. Besides, it’s illegal in… most circumstances.”

Sadarina smiled- but it was that odd sort of smile that suggested she knew something nobody else did. “Something tells me it will be legal by the time we reach the Castle,” she told him.

He raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything.

When Amelia woke up, it was to the strangest experience she’d ever had… No, she’d had yet. She hadn’t even come to full wakefulness yet when she felt a multitude of other… consciousnesses in her head, yet also not in her head. Telepathically linked, perhaps? But it didn’t feel like that. It felt more like she was in a room full of people- and not just anyone, either. Friendly people, who only wanted to help- none of them familiar… yet all of them familiar, in a way.

“What happened?” she asked, into that ‘room’.

Her question was met by a flow of confusion- then one of them spoke up suddenly. The voice was somewhat vague, like it didn’t know what to sound like. “Oh, you’re Amelia, right?”

She nodded- or at least, whatever the mental equivalent was. She was certain the message was delivered accurately- though how she knew that, she didn’t know.

That same one nodded. “Right, yes. Sadarina turned you… a month back, was it?”

“A month and three days, Sadrilaina,” another supplied.

“Yes,” the first- Sadrilaina- nodded again. “She said she was saving your life, I guess?”

Suddenly, a third chimed in. Her voice was clearly defined, and sounded motherly, but it also sounded young- an odd combination. “Amelia? You’re awake?”

“Uh, yes?” she answered. She bit back the urge to ask what was going on.

“Good. I’m Sadarina; you should be in the Hogwarts infirmary right now. That curse was…” She sighed. “We’ve found Black, but he’s innocent.”

She was momentarily overwhelmed by the sudden image the girl sent her. It was more than an image- much more like a snapshot of sensory information. Sadarina was in what looked like a run-down house, alongside two Professors, Sirius, several students, and Rita Skeeter… plus one man she recognized instantly as Peter Pettigrew, though that might’ve been because her snapshot included the identities of the people around her.

She performed the mental equivalent of staring for about two seconds. “Alright,” she muttered. Peter was apparently about as guilty as they got. “Think we can bring them in for interrogation?”

“Probably,” Sadarina muttered. “At least up to the Castle. I don’t think we can hold Peter all the way back to the Ministry; he’s an animagus.”

She glanced back at the snapshot- yes, he was an Animagus… a rat, specifically. That would tend to be difficult to hold in a Ministry cell. “Alright,” she muttered, thinking quickly. “Do they have any truth potions here?”

There was a pause.

“Professor Snape keeps his veritaserum in the Castle.”

She laughed. Veritaserum was perhaps the most regulated truth potion in existence- but it was also her personal favorite when it came to interrogations. This ‘Sadarina’ clearly knew her far better than she did in return. “I will authorize it, then, as the Head of the DMLE,” she said. “I’ll see you when you get here?”

Sadarina seemed suddenly concerned. “Don’t push yourself too hard too soon,” she warned her. “That curse won’t have fallen off entirely just yet.”

“I’m going to kill Yaxley,” she answered, reminded of the curse that had put her in that predicament in the first place. She then responded to Sadarina’s wordless curiosity by doing her best to replicate that snapshot thing from her memory- and realizing that it came naturally.

Sadarina laughed- though it felt like she was laughing at Yaxley. “Would you like some help with that?” she asked- and Amelia got the distinct idea she was thinking about ‘kissing’ Yaxley… with a very specific one of the seven different techniques the Ministry unknowingly lumped together under the heading of the Dementor’s Kiss.

The one that would completely destroy his mind and identity, and birth a new dementor from him, as a clean slate.

Dementor? Huh. She didn’t feel like a dementor, and Sadarina was short in her little snapshot. She could deal with that later.

But she still chuckled at her eagerness to slaughter him, even though her memory hadn’t included empathic senses like Sadarina’s had. “I should be able to handle him myself, thank you.”

Minister for Magic Cornelius Fudge was, to put it nicely, really, really stressed out.

Of course, the reason wasn’t clear to anyone- but the thing was, so much stuff had been exploding in his face over the last three years he hadn’t had much of any time to rest at all. First, there had been the sudden explosion of strange-haired students entering the Leaky Cauldron. It had taken well over half the total staff of the Ministry of Magic conscripted to Obliviation duty, alongside some twenty or thirty national muggle governments- Britain, France, Germany, Canada, China, Russia, the USA (whatever that stood for), and quite a few others he couldn’t remember- and several dozen muggle corporations to contain the news.

But they’d done it. The Leaky Cauldron had made national news… for only a single night. With muggle technology being what it was, it wasn’t possible to fully quell the sudden spike in muggle awareness- especially when he considered just how many muggle governments had been involved, and just how many orders and grants they’d been forced to make. Apparently, someplace called ‘Google’ had been a major part of the muggle effort to contain the news. The Statute of Secrecy would break down sometime- everyone knew that, at least in his office- but just smashing it to bits wasn’t a good way to do it.

But of course, that wasn’t the only thing the Foreigners’ appearance had exploded. The rest of the Ministry staff that could be spared from other tasks had been tasked with keeping the true numbers of new students Hogwarts had admitted secret from wizardkind- it’d cause an uproar if it got out, and that was the very last thing they’d needed. Fortunately, Professor Dumbledore had recognized his challenges- he was fairly sure Dumbledore was one of very few people that knew exactly what he faced day in and day out- and had encouraged the Student Instructor Program, when the Foreigners suggested it.

During the formation of that program, both he and Dumbledore had expected it to be a major hassle for Dumbledore to deal with, possibly an even bigger struggle… but it hadn’t been. It had been a blessing in disguise, as the Foreigners revealed an uncanny level of knowledge of various matters. As a result, the sudden rise in average grades for Hogwarts graduates made the news- but, very carefully, the exact number of students didn’t.

Then Rita Skeeter got wind of it, and traveled to Hogwarts. By the time anyone knew about it, it was far too late to stop her- so all they could hope to do was lay down the law when she got back to the Daily Prophet with a story. Yet, they hadn’t needed to. On her first day at the school, she’d crossed paths with the Student Instructor Program Management Team… which had brought her down to Earth with blinding speed and even offered her an opportunity. When she got back to the editors, she told them the S.I.P.M.T had been appalled at their numbers only being a vague rumor- but they’d communicated the challenge.

Rita’s visit had then been another blessing in disguise; the Foreigners had given her not a restriction, but an opportunity, that she was intent to seize with both hands. As such, her stories also didn’t name any specific numbers, but did imply progressively larger numbers of students; she was helping prepare the public for the big reveal.

Rita had, of course, also acquired the first concrete numbers for Fudge- and there were more than anybody had thought. Then of course, as the muggle governments carefully started injecting ideas of wizards into the general public, preparing them for the big reveal, Sirius Black had escaped. That had been a… fun media event, for both the magical Ministry and the muggle Ministry- and it had threatened to break the news early, and in disastrous style.

Then Hailey had gone and made the world’s most powerful Patronus, and commented blithely about having met Black. Rita- and all his media teams- had seized on that with groundbreaking speed and, while keeping Hailey anonymous, had used it to help distract the public from Black’s escape and prevent an uproar.

Then Amelia’s injury, however that happened. Without her, it was getting rapidly harder and harder to keep the rowdier members of the wizarding public in line. Especially considering the strange glow that had invaded all of Britain. The aurors were fairly sure it was a Patronus… and the Muggle Minister had approached him with a photo from orbit, showing the entire continent to be shrouded in the glow, apparently centered somewhere in Britain, and asking what it was.

Then Rita’s report had come in, dubbing Hailey the ‘Goddess of Patroni’. The girl was already known as the Goddess of Reports and Duels, though, so that had been an easy spin. It had been even easier to spin her friend, Sadarina, who had used the stupidly-bright Patronus to save Amelia, as some kind of angel- and start planting ideas that deities were starting to appear because of the numbers of students. The fact that the girl had been ‘resurrected’ from a Dementor on Hailey’s first crazy Patronus had been carefully spun into oblivion. It rather helped that the name of the ‘resurrected dementor’ had never appeared.

Finally, he’d called at the Castle to speak to Dumbledore about plans for the summer and following year, pertaining to the Dementor guards- right on time for Black to walk in the great oak front doors, partnered with Professor Snape, the man he’d killed, a transformed werewolf that had evidently taken the Wolfsbane Potion, and pretty close to a dozen of Hailey’s apparently unstoppable friends- including the girl herself.

Then Rita had appeared in a bright flash of crimson flames, alongside a fifth-year student with phoenix-like hair, and told him the Records Department had been unable to dig up Black’s trial record.

Seconds after that, while he was arguing with Peter’s obvious lies and trying to get the truth out of him, Professor Snape reappeared with a bottle of veritaserum- and Amelia, awake at last and smiling like she’d already won despite leaning heavily on the doorjamb, had appeared in the other staircase to authorize its use on Peter.

In the end, Sirius was a free man, pending the trial he’d never gotten in a few months- but with the new, veritaserum-sourced evidence, he was certain to get off. Peter had told them everything, even displayed the Dark Mark on his arm, then little Sadarina had handed him Voldemort’s wand, which she’d taken from Peter’s back pocket. Fudge had warned a very stunned Sirius Black against going out in public for a while, just in case he ran into someone that hadn’t heard the news. Peter, meanwhile, had received the Dementor’s Kiss before he left, from a dementor that, curiously, wasn’t draining its surroundings to abject sadness. Sadarina and Amelia had worn matching expressions of extreme amusement as they watched.

He sighed as he returned to his office in the busy, ‘closed’ Ministry. How much longer would it be before he could spend so much as a full hour a week with his wife once again?

It certainly looked like the mystery Foreigners were going to hold the answer- and according to Rita, they were also trying to “gently” reveal their true origins to wizardkind, through her.

Author's Note

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Chapter 47: Stairs

“Hey, Aunt Petunia!”

Petunia Dursley looked up at her name. “Ahh, Hailey!” She glanced down the crowded platform; she’d come to meet her adopted daughter on Platform Nine and Three Quarters.

Hailey trotted up to her, one arm around an unfamiliar girl some three years her junior. “Where’s Vernon?” she asked, looking around curiously.

“He can’t enter the Platform,” she told her, refraining from hugging her. She didn’t want to disrupt whatever was going on with the smaller girl.

“He can’t? Why not?”

“A muggle can only come here if we’ve already been brought in the first time by a witch or wizard.”

“Oh, so it’s like the Leaky Cauldron, isn’t it?” she sighed. “Annoying. Anyways, this is Sadarina- do you think she can stay with us over the summer, or no?”

“Sadarina?” she asked, tilting her head. “Is she… a friend?”

Hailey wordlessly handed her a newspaper. It looked like an old one… Yes, it was the Evening Prophet, dated September 1st. The headline was World’s Strongest Patronus on the Hogwarts Express.

She nodded slowly. “She… did this?” she asked, curiously.

“Oh, no,” Hailey said. “I did. She’s the dementor.”

She blinked, looking up at Hailey. “She… She is?”

She nodded. “Yes. Turns out wizardkind was wrong about them- they’re no less people than you or I, they were just… well, struggling.” She shrugged, and held out another newspaper. “This fixed it, though.”

She accepted it, and glanced down. It was a much more recent edition of the Daily Prophet, just a few weeks before. Angel Saves Lives with the Goddess of Patroni! She sighed. “Okay,” she muttered, not examining the story just yet; she had a sneaking suspicion she already knew what it was talking about. “We can do that.” She paused, and scowled. “Though your Aunt Marge is planning on visiting soon…?”

Hailey rubbed her chin, a mischievous glint in her eyes. “That should be fun,” she mused. “Sadarina’s a quiet one, but she’s also very smart- you’ll like her- and she can take care of herself pretty well, to boot.”

Sadarina smiled softly.

“She can… take care of herself?” she asked.

Hailey smiled amusedly, and nodded. “Yeah. She’s like me- stronger than she looks.”

She let out a snort to match Sadarina’s giggle. “Any news on Black?” she began.

“He’s innocent,” Sadarina said instantly, face suddenly straight.

Hailey smiled. “It turns out he’s also my godfather,” she said. “As she says, he’s innocent; we caught Peter last week, who framed him. He’s lying low for now, while Rita and them bring the public around.”

“Rita?” Petunia asked, curiously.

“Rita Skeeter,” she nodded. “She wrote those articles.”

Lucius Malfoy sighed, looking around his opulent ballroom. It was crowded with nobles, as usual on Drac- no, Silversong’s- birthday. It was especially important for him to remember that difference, now that Draco had ostensibly fallen down the stairs and broken his neck. They had then adopted Silversong, Draco’s homeless friend that just happened to share his birthday, to honor his memory… and of course, to fill the gap left by his disappearance. Where Dra-Silversong’s friend Hailey had managed to procure a body, he had no idea. It even had a broken neck, and multiple other injuries from falling down the stairs!

Speaking of Hailey. The rumors made her out to be some kind of super-auror- but the first word that came to his mind to describe her was loveable, not unstoppable. She was young, cheerful, and confident; she had none of the ‘toughness aura’ that anyone else with her purported abilities would have. He liked her; whenever some noble asked her where her parents were, or who her parents were, or even what her last name was (he knew it was Potter, but nobody else seemed to), she would merely smile amusedly and ignore the question. Her friend Sadarina, who followed her around like a daughter, wasn’t nearly as active as Hailey; she answered most questions with a polite smile.

Silversong was having fun. Her nervousness had gone away over the school year, and she also had a certain confidence about her that she’d never had before, but she was still wary of the nobles- while Hailey was utterly fearless. A couple of their other friends had also come- but none of them were nearly as brave as those three.

Hermione Granger- who he knew was a muggleborn- only really entered the ballroom when Hailey was with her, almost like Hailey was her shield in a very scary environment. Ronald Weasley had politely declined to attend, but Ginny and Ariel Weasley had come. They had yet to reveal their names to any of the nobles, evidently afraid of what they might do if they realized a Weasley was attending a Malfoy party, and they also evidently had a vulnerable-and-shield dynamic. Ariel wasn’t as fearless as Hailey, but she didn’t seem to be afraid- while Ginny wouldn’t go anywhere without her, and often followed her lead.

Then the fun part. As a rare treat, high-ranking Ministry officials such as Amelia Bones and Cornelius Fudge were attending, though the mischievous glint in Amelia’s eyes put him on edge. And she kept peeking over her goblet at Yaxley- who just about everyone knew had been hiding from her ever since Sirius Black- who was also present, watching amusedly from a corner- had been let off.

And even rarer was Rita Skeeter, flitting around the room and enjoying the refreshments, though more than once he’d spotted a quill. Rita, like him, seemed to be eying Yaxley and Amelia quite a bit.

Even the other nobles seemed to feel the steadily rising energy in the air, like something was about to go down, but none of them seemed to have a clue where it might be coming from. Yaxley in particular had gotten into a few different arguments already- and amusingly, Silversong or one of her friends had been around to break up each one so far.

The first one had been broken up by Silver herself, by walking right in between them and asking what they were talking about, all polite and everything. They’d been so baffled the argument had faltered and disappeared right away.

The second one had been… He wasn’t sure exactly who it had been, actually. However, Morning Sun had been watching so amusedly from so close by that he rather suspected it was she that had upturned the punch bowl on their heads.

The third had been stopped by Sadarina, by walking between the two and just staring at them. Her unwavering regard was unbelievably unsettling, even when she didn’t say anything.

The fourth had been Hailey, who had dragged Sirius Black away from an argument with Lady Rowle by his ear so she could remind him not to make trouble for Silver on her birthday.

And now, it looked like it was his turn. Yaxley had approached Amelia, and was accusing her of a vendetta against him.

He sighed, picked up the nearest dish, and approached.

“I do not have a vendetta against you,” Amelia reminded Yaxley once again.

Yaxley swelled with rage. “Of course you do! You’ve been hunting for me left and right!”

“If I have,” Amelia answered calmly, “it’s been because a dozen different aurors have inspected the wardings around your house, and found that they violate about thirty-seven different laws.”

“You dare implic-!”

“Ladies, ladies,” Lucius interrupted loudly, and stuffed the platter square in between their noses. “Sweet potatoes?”

“Those are russet potatoes,” Amelia observed promptly.

He glanced down at the plate of baked potatoes. “So they are,” he agreed, without any idea what a ‘russet potato’ was.

Yaxley turned on him. “Who are you calling a lady?” he demanded.

“Well, you’re acting like an old lady,” he told Yaxley calmly, his wand hand hovering next to the pocket concealing his wand; he had offered the dish with his off-hand, despite hoping to avoid a conflict.

Yaxley was faster than he. Even Amelia wasn’t as fast- Yaxley had always been one of the faster death-eaters.

BANG.

Yaxley hadn’t even finished drawing his wand when he was already lying on the floor in front of them, his wand spinning in the air.

Then Hailey leaned over his head, pocketing her wand. “Not now, dumbass,” she told him, catching his wand almost casually with her off hand, before she stepped over him. “I’ll take some potatoes, thank you.” She smiled as she picked a baked potato from the platter.

Meanwhile, Yaxley rose to his feet, drew back, and aimed a punch at the back of her head.

“Lookout!” Lucius cried, while Amelia drew her wand- but too late. His punch connected.

There was a sharp crunching noise. Hailey didn’t even flinch, while Yaxley hopped backwards in impotent rage, clutching at his injured hand.

Hailey turned to look at him curiously. “I’m sorry,” she began, before taking a great big bite of the potato in her hand. “Did you say something, My Lady?”

The insult, in her words, her speaking with a full mouth, and her tone, all felt deliberate. Amelia simply stared, while Lucius did his best not to.

Yaxley seemed to decide to try his luck elsewhere, turned, and tried to march imperiously away- except that he promptly face-planted the ground, having tripped over Sadarina’s outstretched leg. Sadarina’s malicious smile as he landed on his injured hand and then broke his nose was quite telling what she thought of him. “Get up,” she commanded him, as if to put the icing on the cake. “And don’t stain the tile.”

Finally he scrambled up, gave them all a glare, then ran past Rita Skeeter, who had both a quill and a notepad this time, and disappeared.

Lucius’ curiosity got the better of him. “What’d he do?” he asked.

Hailey swallowed her mouthful of potato. “Did you hear how badly he cut Amelia up?”

He blinked. “That was him?”

She nodded silently.

“How do you know?” Amelia asked, her head tilted.

She shrugged. “Sadarina told me. And any enemy of my daughter’s family is my enemy as well.”

“Your daughter’s?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

Hailey put her arm around Sadarina. “Not biologically, of course, but legally, Sadarina here is my daughter.” She smiled. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Oh my,” Amelia muttered, smiling. “You’re quite the protective mother, aren’t you?”

She chuckled. “It’s a world of life and death, and I’m invulnerable.” She shrugged. “It only makes sense.”

“Uh- Aunt Petunia?”

Petunia Dursley looked up.

Aunt Marge was sleeping in the guestroom, Dudley was snoring loudly, and Vernon… Well, he hardly snored at all, but he was sleeping just as soundly as Dudley. She was in the middle of her OCD-induced bleach-infused midnight wipedown of all the kitchen surfaces.

And Hailey, her invulnerable, indomitable daughter, who had destroyed Voldemort and routinely laughed in the face of danger, was standing in the doorway, looking scared.

“H-Hailey!” she gasped, dropping her tools right where they were, stripping off her gloves, and dashing forwards to wrap her arms around the girl. “What’s wrong?”

“I- I think I’m bleeding,” she answered, softly.

“Bleeding?” she asked. “How?”

She shook her head. “I… I felt a bit funny, so I went to the bathroom, and… And it was blood.”

She blinked. “... Oh. You don’t… happen to be on your period, do you?”

“What period?”

“Hermione?”

Hermione looked up as she entered the kitchen for breakfast. “Mm?”

“Phone for you,” Dan Granger continued, offering her the handset.

She accepted it. “Oh…kay.” She put it to her ear. “Hello?”

“Hermione?” It was Hailey, through the phone.

“Yes Hailey?” she asked.

“Do you have a menstrual cycle?”

She blinked. She could feel the heat rushing to her face. “Wh- Why would you ask that!?” she half-shrieked, earning stares from her parents.

“Because apparently I have one, and it’s… weird.”

She rolled her eyes. “Of course you do. It’s a natural part of how your body works.” She sighed. “You don’t need help with it, do you?”

“Oh, no, Aunt Petunia helped me with it, I just…” Hailey sighed too. “She thinks Madam Malkin’s underwear probably masks its effects by magic. Even the bleedy ones.”

She blinked. “Huh. Maybe that’s why nobody at Hogwarts ever seems to need feminine products?”

Hailey’s voice suddenly gained a mischievous edge. “Do you think Silver knows?”

She promptly made both her parents jump by bursting into laughter.

Author's Note

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

So... I'm going through a very difficult time right now. I can still work on my stories, but it's more of 'periodically' than anything else- and to top that off, I'm changing my approach to writing, so it takes much longer to produce each chapter. AI here has a couple more chapters in the buffer... but once those are expired, I may have to temporarily reduce down to a monthly publication schedule.

That said, the rewrite for JLMoO (name undecided yet) and Chap. 55+ of this should be leaps and bounds beyond anything I've made before, especially the rewrite. We'll see, I guess.

Chapter 48: World Cup

Professor Dumbledore sighed, looking up at Lucius Malfoy. The man was visiting him in his office during the summer as a representative of the School Board. “A… Suggestion,” he repeated.

“Yes,” Lucius nodded. “We’re of the, er, nearly unanimous opinion that you know more about the situation here than us, so we decided to make a suggestion rather than an order or recommendation.” He sighed. “I’m not going to tell you who the dissenter was, but I can say it wasn’t me- even though, thanks to Silversong, I probably know the most out of anyone on the Board- but she isn’t even on the Student Instructor Program Management Team! As I recall, there was only one British student on that team?”

Dumbledore nodded. “Yes. About a year ago, they promoted Hailey Potter to the Team Lead.”

He burst into laughter. “Team Lead?” he asked, restraining his guffaws with apparent difficulty. “Of course they’d make the Goddess of Reports the team lead!”

“She would appreciate avoiding any aspersions of godhood,” Dumbledore informed him calmly.

He sobered quickly. “Yes, yes, she would, wouldn’t she? And, well…” He sighed. “Our suggestion won’t really help with that, but it’s up to you to take it or leave it.” He looked earnestly at Dumbledore, who nodded his acknowledgement. “Our… Suggestion. You are aware that the Student Instructor Program Management Team has produced accurate predictions of how any given Professor was going to turn out within the first week each year?”

Dumbledore nodded again. “I am.” He glanced sideways, at a very tall stack of pages- the most recent weekly report- still sitting on the corner of his desk.

“Well… We wanted to, ah, suggest, granting them- all or in part- oversight over your professors.”

Dumbledore nodded. “Particularly Defense Against the Dark Arts, with the track record there- though I’m not expecting any trouble this year.” He rubbed his chin with a finger. “Hmm… Though, as much as I trust Alastor, it would probably be good to keep him on his toes.”

Hailey smiled as she sat down at the dinner tables the Weasleys had erected in their garden. Bill and Charlie Weasley, Hermione, and Sadarina were all there as well; the Quidditch Cup was coming up, though Hailey couldn’t fathom what was exciting about watching fourteen identical brooms zoom in circles for a few minutes. Besides, according to Hermione, it was basically a done deal in Ireland’s favor- their chasers were like Angelina Johnson compared to the Bulgarian chasers, though they expected Angelina would still take them by storm. Then of course, Victor Krum- or was it Viktor? She could never remember how he spelled it. But however he did, he was a decent seeker- but not so good that he might catch the Snitch before Ireland got too large of a lead.

To top that off, not a single Equestrian was attending- and Bonbon had told her why. Equestrians didn’t believe in national sports- and as for herself, she’d used her newly-trained abilities as a high-level Seer to promise Hailey a 170-160 score in Ireland’s favor, despite Krum getting the snitch for Bulgaria. So, feeling it would be of ‘bad sport’- or was it poor sport, she wasn’t sure- for her to bet, and unable to even imagine watching something that would be as boringly one-sided as her own matches at Hogwarts (which already had only half as many spectators as matches that didn’t involve Gryffindor), she’d chosen to sit it out. She and Sadarina would still be going to the campsite, but would not be going with the rest of the Weasleys to actually see the match itself.

She’d be able to relax at the campsite with Sadarina, who simply didn’t care about sports, and maybe even teach her the Pinkie Transform before she started at Hogwarts the coming year. She’d already done her Hogwarts shopping, and dealt with the rush of students; the proprietors had plenty of help in this year, so it had taken even less time than usual, despite fully thirteen thousand, three hundred and thirteen additional students. That had been fortunate, what with the Tournament approaching; Dumbledore had tapped her to help him prepare the School for the Triwizard Tournament, and Bonbon had given her a number of predictions to help her along- though it felt more like she was testing out her new skills. Still, though, they had been immensely helpful. She’d gotten more than just dress robes- the female version of which were literally dresses, like wizards thought all exposed clothing should end in ‘robe’, else be an accessory such as a hat or cloak. Even the male version wasn’t far from a dress.

Then another letter had come in from Dumbledore earlier that day, and she’d had to laugh. Dumbledore had given her, and only her, as the Student Instructor Program Management Team Lead, the authority to discipline and reward his professors- an authority she already had over the entire Student Instructor Program. It was an authority she didn’t expect to use; he’d brought her with him when he visited his old friend Alastor Moody to ask him to take up the Defense Against the Dark Arts position for the year, over a month prior.

Speaking of the Program, he’d also given her, the Management Team, and all Head Student Instructors the authority to give and take points. He must’ve forgotten that the Team Lead was still part of the team, and all Head Student Instructors were already automatically on the management team.

Finally, she looked down the table, to where Percy was speaking to Mr. Weasley. “As you know we’ve got another big event to organize right after the World Cup,” he said loudly, and cleared his throat, looking down at them. He turned back to Mr. Weasley, and raised his voice some more. “You know the one I’m talking about, Father? The Top Secret one?”

She sighed, and rolled her eyes.

“He’s been trying to get us to ask what that is ever since he started work,” Ron hissed sideways at Hailey and Hermione.

Hailey sighed, took a breath, and spoke. “Are you talking about the Tournament, Percy?”

Percy did a perfect spit take of his elderflower wine. Fred and George both cheered.

“Have you any idea how much work we went through to keep it secret through the arrangements,” Hailey went on, “only to have you blabbing about it here?”

“Ahhh…” Percy muttered, blinking owlishly at her.

“Pass the potatoes, please?” Hailey asked, ignoring Ron’s inquisitive look. Was the Ministry really that careless that they’d trust someone to keep the secret just because they said they would? She’d had to go through all sorts of magical oaths before she’d ever learned of Bonbon’s profession and become the management team lead the year prior! As a matter of fact, ever since that time, it was technically her profession too. She had access to the same secret resources and facilities as Bonbon did, though she hadn’t really known about it until Bonbon had used them as a training location that wouldn’t reveal her ascension the moment she removed her cloak. Bonbon was coming along well on learning the Pinkie Transform, but she still had a ways to go on the Granger Warp- and true to the leaderboard, she was by far the fastest of the entire Agency to learn either one.

Except, perhaps, herself.

Hailey was glad she’d come with the Weasleys to the World Cup match. It wasn’t the match- no, that was bound to be so boring she wasn’t going to attend. But the people in the campsite, the tents… They were all so amusing. The Weasleys were almost alarmingly good at looking like muggles, so they had a couple of shabby tents that Hermione called ‘TARDIS-like’.

But the other tents… Oh, the other tents. Many of them had multiple floors or windows; at least one had an attached birdbath and live flamingos tethered out front. The Bulgarians had a disappointed picture of Krum attached to all their tents- and for as much fuss as the Ministry was making about it, in Hailey’s opinion, the Irish group had the most muggle-looking of all the decorated tents. She’d mentioned that to a passing Ministry wizard, so hopefully the Irish people shouldn’t have too much trouble with their inanimate, non-magical decorations attached to ordinary-looking tents.

Then there was a Ministry wizard arguing with an old man in a flowery nightgown by the tap in the corner of the field. Hailey actually interrupted the argument, to tell the Ministry worker that while cross-dressing was a bit unusual, it was still a perfectly muggle thing to do, so he was probably better off chasing the bright purple sparks thrown up by an obviously magical fire. The wizard- ‘Archie’, which struck Hailey as a house-elf name- had been egged on by her words- not that it mattered, he hadn’t been moving an inch already.

Nobody here seemed to be very good at dressing like muggles. One of the greeting team that had met them after the portkey brought them halfway across the country had been wearing a kilt and a poncho- an interesting combination at the best of times, and one that had caught the attention of a few of the muggles as well. It was like even the Ministry had only a limited grasp on what was ‘muggle-like’ and what wasn’t!

“Perhaps they should have hired the muggles to help out,” Hailey commented cheerfully, as she and Sadarina walked back to the tents with the kettle, having filled it at the tap.

Sadarina giggled. “Or us,” she answered. “Every few years, some muggles show up at Azkaban, and we have no choice but to turn them. We let them keep their memories- though they’re often the fastest to become husks. There’s twelve right now, and they are highly amused.” She giggled again.

“Is that why Azkaban has such a fearsome reputation amongst the muggles?” she asked. They were getting close to the Weasley tents, but were still out of earshot- especially for their soft voices.

She nodded. “Yeah. Nobody ever returned- but now they can.”

“Ahh, there you are, Hailey!” Fred called suddenly, waving. “Think you can start the fire?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Wasn’t Mr. Weasley doing that?” she asked.

“Dad’s having fun with the matches,” George supplied. “Come and see.”

Hailey stepped around the tents and placed the kettle next to the haphazard pile of sticks placed on the ground. George was right- Mr. Weasley was having no success at all at lighting the fire, despite having apparently demolished half an entire package of matches.

She sighed. “First of all, it’s never going to light like that,” she told him, and crouched down to position the sticks into a much better shape- there had been far too much air between them, a match flame would’ve gone out quickly. She then used a knife- she didn’t tell him it wasn’t really a knife, but a magical construct she’d conjured on the spot- to make some tinder to help light it. Finally, she showed Mr. Weasley how to properly ignite a match, and how to light a campfire. It wasn’t long before they had a veritable bonfire going.

“Ludo Bagman,” Hailey barked suddenly, rising to her feet. He had come to chat with Mr. Weasley- then Mr. Crouch had come along, and Bagman had started teasing Crouch about ‘that other thing coming up’.

Bagman flinched away from her tone as he looked up at her. “What?”

“Have you any idea how hard it was to keep it quiet all through the preparations? Have you any idea how much effort it took to maintain the secrecy?”

“Ah-!”

She took a deep breath, and as she let it out, he shrank away from her. Crouch watched silently. “You were the one that decided it should stay secret until the school year begins, were you not? Then you go around, teasing us about it. You remember why it needs to stay secret, do you not?”

“Ah-! Well-! I-!”

“I am appalled at how the Ministry has handled this secret. Now, you will hold your tongue and stop teasing us about the Tournament or I will have you up in front of Minister Fudge explaining why everyone found out about it. You hear me?”

The color drained from his face. Mr. Crouch kept a professionally severe expression, but there was a flash of amusement in his eyes as she backed Bagman down.

She suddenly looked up at Percy. “And that goes for you too, Percy.”

“Percy?” Crouch muttered, one eyebrow raised.

Percy blushed scarlet and half-bowed, half-nodded his agreement.

Crouch blinked. “Oh.”

“H-How do you know about-?” Bagman began.

She folded her arms. “I am the Hogwarts Student Instructor Program Management Team Lead,” she told him. “It fell to me to make a fair amount of the arrangements, thanks to the numbers of students of which I am sure you are aware?”

He nodded slowly. “Ahh.”

“On top of that, I also have several good friends that happen to be very powerful seers- so I already know who all five contestants will be.”

“Five-!?” Bagman gasped.

She nodded solemnly. “Yes. Five.”

“What tournament?” Fred asked.

“Pass the marshmallows, please, I’d like to make some S’mores,” she answered, sitting back down and turning her back to Bagman.

“What’s a so-more?” Bill asked.

“Oh they’re amazing,” Hermione said immediately, pulling a box of graham crackers and a package of giant marshmallows from her backpack.

“It’s pronounced S’more,” Hailey told Bill. “Like you’re saying ‘some more’ as a contraction. And Hermione’s right, you’re all in for a muggle campfire treat.” She slipped the chocolate from her own bag as she spoke, before skewering the marshmallow Hermione was offering her on a poker.

Mr. Weasley did his level best to bounce on the balls of his feet in excitement while still sitting on the hard ground.

Author's Note

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

There's about... three points in here that would be major talking points if they were at the beginning or the end. I wonder how many are actually going to be major talking points? I've been really terrible about that, always putting them in the middle, so nobody really notices them... That's changing soon.

Oh yes, and before I forget. Any of you that liked Just Like Magic of Old, its rewrite, Starbound Flight, is live as of last night. Accidental Invasion will follow in its footsteps, as far as writing process goes, with chapter 55... which should include the pace. ... Definitely. 55 & 56 together encompass less than 12 hours of story timeline.

Chapter 49: The New God

When Mr. Weasley burst into the girls’ tent to wake Hailey, Hermione, Sadarina, Ginny, and Ariel, so they could hide in the woods, only Ginny and Ariel could be found in the tent.

He dashed back out, turning to Bill, who was nearest. “Where are Hailey, Hermione, and Sadarina?” he asked. It was an emergency- there were death eaters marching across the campsite after the World Cup match, with the Roberts family- muggles- floating in the air above them!

Bill shrugged. “I know Hailey sat the match out, but-!”

BOOOOM.

Mr. Weasley jumped as the deafening crack of thunder echoed from behind him, the entire campsite illuminated briefly by a brilliant white light.

He whirled around, and had mere moments to spot the figure standing in the middle of the path.

“What the-!?” someone in the advancing army began.

BOOOOM.

A bolt of lightning crashed down from the heavens, without caring about the clear skies. It wove its way between the Robertses, and smashed down in the middle of the advancing army.

Then the screaming started.

Mr. Weasley squinted his eyes- and just barely managed to identify the figure standing defiantly in their path in time.

It was Hailey.

BOOBOOBOOOM.

The front was breaking. Some were trying to flee, but even Mr. Weasley could feel the anti-apparition jinx that had somehow flown up just in time. The ones that tried to flee on foot were either struck by one of the three simultaneous lightning bolts or seized by the ground.

In the glare from the trio of bolts, Mr. Weasley spotted Sadarina standing three feet to Hailey’s left- and Hermione crouched next to a tent, an odd shimmer around her hands.

Several of the army raised their wands, while the Roberts family drifted calmly to the side to come to a smooth landing on their feet, on clear ground.

A very peculiar noise came from the army, rather than spells. It sounded much like someone was making very, very loud popcorn- with associated blazes of red-gold light and, he realized, exploding wands.

So they tried to charge her.

Dirt and stone leaped up in waves, though, clamped on their legs, and brought them all crashing down on their faces. The ones that jumped got lightning bolts to the tops of their heads.

Then there were dementors, all of the sudden, closing in from all sides. Dozens, even hundreds of dementors. It only took them a few seconds to get the entire attacking party incarcerated.

“Well that was electrifying,” someone said from next to him.

He jumped, and looked. It was Rita Skeeter. “R-Rita?” he began, then stopped himself before he gave her even more ammunition.

Mr. Weasley, and indeed the rest of the Ministry, stood cautiously back while Rita talked with the muggles, afraid of an uproar on the Daily Prophet.

Hailey, of course, was with them. Nobody had the heart to send her away, after she apparently single-handedly defeated the entire attacking army- and her somber expression, after someone had run up to tell her something, didn’t bode too well either.

Finally, notepad in hand, Rita walked over to where they were waiting. “I actually don’t think you’ll need to modify their memories,” she told them, once she’d gotten out of the Roberts’ earshot.

“Really?” Mr. Weasley began, before he could stop himself.

She nodded. “Yeah. They’ve convinced themselves that demons came up from Hell to attack them, but God saw their faith and smote the demons to rescue them.” She smiled. “The children’s memories were already modified, it seems- they don’t remember how they got from their beds to the field. Mr. and Mrs. Roberts were quite relieved to hear that.” She paused, and looked at Hailey like she’d done something strange. “... You’re not trying to dispute aspersions of godhood,” she observed bluntly, sounding dumbstruck.

Hailey sighed. “I’m told I made a real goddess drop her jaw in amazement.” She shrugged, and looked up. “After that, it doesn’t really matter if I am or not, because I might as well be either way.”

“Oh…Kay. I’ll still be keeping you anonymous, though?”

She shrugged. “For as long as it lasts,” she sighed.

Rita nodded sadly. “For as long as it lasts,” she agreed.

“H-How?” Mr. Weasley asked, staring at Hailey and voicing the question every Ministry wizard around him was thinking.

“We’re friends,” she answered simply, and sighed.

“You seem troubled,” Harmonia observed.

“I am,” Hailey answered calmly.

She stepped closer, and touched Hailey’s shoulder with her fingertips; she wasn’t sure if a hug was appropriate. The girl didn’t even have a shadow of the cheerful optimism she’d had the last time she’d visited. “What’s wrong?”

Hailey sighed. “What does it take to become a goddess?” Her voice had a saddened, far too serious tone to it- almost despairing.

“Are you… trying to become one?”

She shook her head solemnly. “No.”

“It’s not possible to become a god or goddess,” she said gently, stepping forward to wrap her in a hug. It didn’t matter that they were in Harmonia’s bedroom, and she was in her nightgown. “They’re born with the world when it is created. That’s what makes their sacrifices so powerful.”

“So how…” She paused.

“How did you make every last one of the deities of your world stare in awe?” she finished for her.

She looked up. “I made all of them stare?” she asked, almost incredulously.

Harmonia nodded. “You did that by exceeding their power levels. By performing feats that even they couldn’t.”

“I had help.”

“I know. Can you tell Hermione that I said she made the right choice when she gave you her power instead of trying to use it herself, please? She was in a bit of a panic, and wouldn’t have used it nearly as well as you did.”

Hailey blushed. “You know she wasn’t the only one.”

Harmonia smiled gently. “Yes, but all Sadarina did was disarm them. And call in the final wave, I suppose, but Rita was right. That was a very amusing fight to watch.”

Hailey sighed. “If you could even call it a fight. I just… crushed them. And it was effortless.”

She sighed as well. “Hailey… I’m sorry, but I really can’t help you with that. But what I can say…” She sighed again. “When you get as powerful as you are, your magic stops being a blind follower. It starts to make decisions of its own.”

She looked up at her. “I know! That’s what I’m afraid of!”

“And I’m telling you not to be,” Harmonia told her.

“But- But what if I-!”

“Hailey, stop! You are a harmonious element! You understand that?”

She blinked, staring in disbelief. “M- Me.”

“Yes. You. You and Hermione are currently the most powerful harmonious elements in that world. Yes, both of your magics are going to have minds of their own. You’re more powerful than even me, after all. But those minds are harmonious minds. Because of it, it’s going to be really easy to set things right without meaning to… and very, very difficult to do something disharmonious.”

Hailey took a deep breath. “What if I have a nightmare, and lash out in the middle of the night? I can warp reality with my mind!”

“You won’t,” Harmonia answered. “One of the things that comes with great power is great, intrinsic restraint. Yes, you can use magic in your sleep. No, you cannot use a lot of magic in your sleep- it’ll wake you up. And no, it can’t do anything disharmonious. Which includes killing people.”

She looked up. “What if it’s someone so disharmonious they can’t be… ah, turned?”

She smiled. “There isn’t a single person in your world that can compare to the old Discord in terms of disharmony. And it is very, very rare for one to be so far gone that they’re irredeemable, but it does happen. As a matter of fact, your world holds the largest numbers of them that I’ve ever seen- even in worlds that aren’t mine. And yes, when someone is irredeemable, Harmony will tend to simply remove them from the equation.” She sighed. “Not a single one of those men marching across the campsite were irredeemable- as a result, even though you dropped lightning bolts on their heads and smashed their faces into the ground, not a single one was hurt.

“Some of them were even redeemed by the magic directly- the ones that were already close to redemption themselves. I imagine Sadarina will have a few interesting stories for you at some point.” She chuckled softly.

Hailey smiled weakly. “So… how do I tell?”

She rubbed her chin. “Hmm, the age-old question. Well…” She sighed. “Try… Yes. Try asking Bonbon about Light magic. Not everyone is capable of it, because it’s a technique that gives deference to the mind of the magic itself and not everypony is powerful enough for their magic to have such a mind. But it will tell you, because it can tell.” She sighed. “And for many, those such as Sadarina or Morning Sun can tell directly- it’ll often be a shadow of a doubt, or perhaps they feel like they have no choice.”

She looked up. “So when Voldemort appears…”

“You know what I think about spoilers, Hailey,” she sighed.

“Huh…” She scowled. “Bonbon’s team won’t be able to teach me anything during the year.”

“They will if you apply a Pinkie Transform to Hermione’s Misty Step.”

She blinked. “That’s how I return to Earth.”

“Correction,” Harmonia smiled, “that’s how you breach the worldwall. Unlimited teleportation, and you should be able to bring a good-sized party with you at the same time. Especially if you have them show you how to enchant things, and you start making warp tokens or something for them.”

Hailey paused. “You know, that’s a good idea.”

She chuckled. “Yes, don’t be afraid to rely on them, or your other friends, alright? Now, why don’t you take a nap up here before you go back? We both know the subjective time will do you a world of good.”

Author's Note

So now Hailey is starting to realize exactly what her power means, I guess.

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Harmonia skipped a few words. The great, intrinsic restraint doesn't come with just any great power- it comes with that kind of great power. I wish it came with all such power, this world would be about twelve times better if it did.

Chapter 50: Seeking

“You know, I bet Mrs. Weasley already knows about what happened,” Hailey told Mr. Weasley, when he stepped out of the boys’ tent to start waking everyone up to return to the Burrow.

He looked at her. “How… How do you suppose?”

She tapped a newspaper that was sitting on the ground next to her. It had been hand-delivered by Rita Skeeter that morning, rather than by owl; she’d wanted to check up on her, since she hadn’t liked how Hailey had sounded the night before.

The headline was Goddess Smites Death Eaters at World Cup Match, Rescues Muggles.

Mr. Weasley blinked at it. “Oh boy,” he muttered.

She nodded. “It reads pretty well. Nobody was mentioned by name, though she did quote the muggles a few times.” She chuckled softly, and put her finger on the page. “ ‘It was God’, Mr. Roberts, one of the muggles that had been tortured, told Daily Prophet reporter Rita Skeeter. ‘It had to be the Second Coming. He- or she, actually, it looked like a girl- struck down those servants of Satan and rescued us.’ Mr. Roberts went on in religious fervor for quite some time, but did eventually suggest not just that the death eaters were evil, Satan-serving men, but that all the Ministry workers were Godly men fighting to protect faithful men like himself. Furthermore, he went on to suggest that the Dementors that captured the death eaters were in fact Angels of God sent down to assist in the godly mens’ mission.”

Mr. Weasley blinked. “What? I didn’t hear any of that last night.”

Hailey chuckled. “I wouldn’t expect you to,” she said. “Rita said she interviewed them again later- the first time was mostly to make sure they were okay.” She sighed. “Something tells me christianity is about to explode.”

“Christianity?” he asked.

She nodded. “Muggle religion. He mentioned the Second Coming- they’re referring to Christ, the Son of God. And apparently, I’m the second coming.” She let out a small laugh. “The first Christ, and indeed the christian God, was actually a real god- he sacrificed himself two thousand years ago, as the original Christ. Of course, he wasn’t just the Christian god- Harmonia said he was playing the part of about a hundred different deities for less than half as many religions at the time.”

“So why Christianity…?”

She shrugged. “The Dursleys are kinda borderline christians,” she told him. “And Mr. Roberts is definitely one.”

“Ahh, Hailey, you’re back.”

Hailey looked up at Vernon Dursley. “Yup, though not for long. There’s something I thought you should see.” She gestured forwards, across the table, as she doled scrambled eggs onto a plate. She liked cooking- it helped clear her mind.

He looked down at the newspaper set at his place of the table… and the moving photo on the front page. “Not often I see one of these,” he commented. Then he blinked. “A Goddess, huh? That’s surprising, coming from wizards.” He paused, reading the article. “Sounds like you’ve got yourself a challenger.”

“That goddess was me,” she said simply.

He looked down. “... Oh. Um…” He sighed. “You doing alright?”

“Mostly,” she answered. “Why do you ask?”

“Well…” He tapped it. “This goddess said she might as well be.”

Hailey laughed. It was an empty laugh, but still a laugh. “Yeah, I did, didn’t I? I mean, I made the real gods and goddesses drop their jaws in awe, so…” She sighed.

“Hmm,” Vernon muttered, rubbing his chin. “I’m… I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to help you.”

She stared at him. “To… help me?” she asked. “With what?”

He looked up. “Because…” He sighed. “Because you’re afraid of hurting something you don’t want to, aren’t you?”

She paused, flipping the bacon with her unicorn magic rather than the spatula so she didn’t have to take her eyes off him. “Yeah,” she muttered eventually. “But what of it?”

He sighed. “Maybe… I don’t know if they have them in Bonbon’s land, but try asking her about mental health counseling?”

She actually dropped the spatula as she stared at him, reflexively catching it in her magic. “Mental health counseling?” she asked. “Seriously?”

He shrugged. “You’d be surprised how helpful they can be. And you’re obviously worried, are you not? Worst case scenario, they tell you who can help you to cope with your worry, to overcome it. That’s what they did for me back before I met your aunt.”

She blinked. “Oh… Alright. But would they do that for a fourteen-year-old?”

He snorted. “They’ll do that for you no matter your age if they have their heads on straight,” he told her. “Besides, the worst thing a muggle counselor would do would be to send them to someone that specializes in youth.”

“Hey, Bonbon?”

Bonbon looked up at the Alicorn filly standing in the doorway into the kitchen, from the hallway. It was her turn to do the dishes; Lyra was out… doing something, she never would tell her what. “Yes, Hailey?”

“I… have a question.”

She put down her dishes and walked over to meet Hailey by the door. “I’m listening,” she told her calmly.

“I…” Hailey took a deep breath, seeming uncharacteristically nervous. “I think I need to ask you about…” She paused again. “About mental health counseling.”

Bonbon blinked. “Mental health-?” She cut herself off, reviewing the last three years in her mind. Hailey had shown admirable strength from the very beginning- and Bonbon’s team had been quick to capitalize on it. She’d continued showing more and more strength, and received more and more responsibility and authority- but now, she realized, there had been signs.

Through her first year, she’d been a little more mature than most her age, and quite a bit more powerful, but that was really it. She’d almost never exercised her authority without first checking with those around her.

That had gone away for the second year, when it started with her losing her hand. She’d taken matters into her own hands- and, when Hermione had been attacked, she’d taken it to the extreme and become the Goddess of Reports. She hadn’t had a Goddess title before, but the title had quickly become Goddess of Reports and Duels, despite the duel in question taking place over six months prior- and being a draw.

But the Goddess of Reports hadn’t been indomitable. There had been torture in her eyes for the entire time, yet she fought.

Then the third year had come. Lupin had joined, and Bonbon’s team had decided, in Diagon Alley, that she should be team lead mere minutes before Hagrid’s request for the Instructor Course had arrived; she was evidently better suited for it.

And she had been. She was a far more effective team leader than even Bonbon herself- but that made sense; her strength wasn’t in leading, but in solitary missions. Hailey had fought and worked… and Sadarina had been there to help her. Sadarina hadn’t left her side at all, offering her strength and comfort, giving her someone to love and cherish in a way that her friends just couldn’t, even though she could see that they were going to end up as a herd at some point. Not that she needed her gift as a Seer for that- Diamond had told her outright that she felt the herding magic nudging them together.

Then… she didn’t know what had happened to hurt her now, but something had, and Bonbon wasn’t all that great at people. That was Lyra, who was overwhelmed by her non-HSI teaching assignment- Lyra was great with ponies, but she absolutely sucked at multitasking- so hadn’t had much time left to see the signs… And, Bonbon was fairly sure, had only crossed paths with Hailey a few times over the last year.

She facehooved. “Aww, buck it,” she cussed. It wasn’t like her to miss something- but of course she’d gotten distracted by her power and the united front she presented and missed the signs.

Hailey flinched away from her. “What?”

Bonbon took a deep breath, and let it out. She might not be good at talking to people, but she had to. “We messed up,” she told Hailey. “We messed up big.”

“You mean-!” Hailey began, and stopped herself. “You mean it was a mistake to make me team lead?”

Bonbon paused. Had that been a mistake? Had it not? Hailey had brought about almost a seventy percent increase in the team’s efficiency. “I don’t know,” she decided. “It’s… This is very much not my speci-!”

“I’m home!” Lyra’s voice called suddenly, paired with the squeaking of the front door.

“Lyra!” Bonbon called urgently, over Hailey’s head.

The door slammed, and Lyra cantered up the hall and into the kitchen. “Yes, Bonnie? Oh, hi Hailey, long time no see!”

“Lyra,” Bonbon began importantly. “Effective immediately, I’m pulling your teaching assignment.”

Lyra blinked, taken aback. “You’re-? You’re what?”

“Instead, you’re back on the team, as our Head Mental Health Counselor.” She glanced down at Hailey. “She’s one of the best there is.”

Lyra stared at her. She’d been happy to leave the management team a year before, when Hailey had consolidated the team to cut down on time wasted during management meetings; Lyra had almost never contributed, being on it as the one that made it possible, and though Hailey hadn’t targeted her in her consolidation, had practically volunteered to leave the team. “Mental health…?” she began, then facehooved. “Of course. Madam Pomfrey never mentioned mental health, but I want to say that’s because wizardkind doesn’t have a concept of it. Alright, what will my duties be?”

“Me,” Hailey said simply.

Lyra looked down at her, and met her eyes. “... Oh. Yeah, I can definitely help with that.”

“I’ll also expect you to identify any other… cases in the Castle and deal with them, recruiting additional Counselors as necessary,” Bonbon told her.

“Don’t worry about constraining your picks to non-Instructors,” Hailey decided. “We can hire more if we need to. Keeping everypony… functioning is the priority.” She sighed. “And I’d kinda like to know if it was a mistake to make me the team lead, too.”

“Oh, no, it was not,” Lyra told her without hesitation. “You’ve been amazing. It was a mistake to not get you in front of a counselor before we did that, though. Even if there was nothing wrong.”

Bonbon scowled. “Would it be a good idea for her to relinquish the position, or-?”

“You kidding me?” Hailey laughed suddenly, making Bonbon jump. “With the noises the School Board of Directors is making, I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to get Dumbledore to hire me as soon as I graduate. They’re thrilled.”

Lyra chuckled. “Yeah, no, taking that out would probably be more harmful than helpful. Unless you want to?” She looked at Hailey.

“No, I’m fine,” Hailey answered. “The part I want to get rid of is the power to annihilate a city. But we both know that isn’t possible, is it?”

Bonbon sighed. “Yeah. So far as we know, ascensions can’t be reversed.”

Hailey nodded. “Yeah, Harmonia said that too.”

“Hmm,” Lyra mumbled, rubbing her chin. “Hailey, what do you say we set you up for a nice, normal year this year?”

She snorted. “Normal? I’m going to be one of the Champions, remember?”

“Well yes, but who said you had to do that on the spot? As I recall, during your Goddess of Reports phase, you mentioned a time warp spell.”

Hailey rubbed her chin. “True… Little adjustment and it’s become a free time travel spell. But wouldn’t that break the timeline?”

“Only if you plan on losing, or killing your past self,” Lyra shrugged. “There isn’t much to be done about you being a judge, but I’m sure you can take care of the whole Champion affair ahead of time.”

She scowled. “Yeah, I suppose. I’ve really been dreading being Harry, and getting rid of it now is probably best.” She took a deep breath, and let it out. Her horn glowed, and she seemed to flicker- gone for a fraction of a second, then back. She shuddered. “It’s… It’s much worse than I remembered.”

Bonbon raised an eyebrow. “So which dragon did you get?”

“Hungarian Horntail,” she answered promptly. “Used the Firebolt, easy peasy. Felt weird riding it as a boy, though.” She shuddered again. “Speaking of, the Yule Ball- I’m kinda glad I got both male and female dress robes now. But who…?”

“How about Silver?” Bonbon asked. “One of her alternate identities?”

“Wouldn’t she be unwilling to play boy for an evening?” Lyra asked.

Hailey smiled. “She has more than one female form,” she said. She flickered again, and sighed. “Alright, Tournament is over, Voldemort is back, and Silver is dead. Next year.” She sighed. “She’d be back, but I left before that happened.”

“How’d you score?”

She shrugged. “I left before it reached that point each time,” she answered. “Left a magic construct to watch that and disintegrate. And, for the first task, hand my future self the Egg of Mystery.”

Lyra pulled her into a hug. “And that should be the last time you ever need to do that,” she said.

Hailey looked up at her. “What about when Voldemort comes looking for Harry?”

“Whoever said he’d have to find Harry?” Lyra asked. “Show him Hailey. And- optionally, you hear- let him find out who you used to be.”

She rubbed her chin with a hoof. “I wonder how hard it would be to kill Harry off like Silver did Draco?”

Lyra rubbed her chin. “Hmm. We’ve still got plenty of Flim and Flam’s Apple and Rock Cider, so the body will be the easy part.”

“We’ve also got plenty of straws,” Bonbon agreed, “though we might need to get more mayonnaise.”

Lyra snorted. “In any case, I’d recommend you wait until after the tournament, so it doesn’t look too suspicious… then just pick some perfectly ordinary yet plausible way to kill him.”

“Think he could get eaten by a shark next summer?”

Lyra snorted. “Yeah. Wouldn’t even need a body that way, but it might be hard to convince everyone at this point.”

She scowled. “So it’ll be best for some angry Gryffindor to push him out the tower window after his victory with the Tournament, I guess.”

Bonbon rubbed her chin. “We might be looking at ‘meat chunks’ more than ‘body’ by that point, but yeah.”

Author's Note

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Lots of chapters at once today. I'm not satisfied with any of them. Yes, that means I don't have enough buffer for all my Patron levels, but I'm tired of reviewing these crappy chapters before I post them, I want to be reviewing something of quality before I post it.

Chapter 51: Potters

“Where’s Hailey?” Mrs. Weasley asked again, looking around.

Ginny looked up. “She said she’d meet us on the platform,” she told her mother. It was true; Hailey had been gone all day the day before, and just that morning, had stuffed her trunk into her hair- how she got it fit there so tracelessly, and not fall back out, Ginny had no clue- before promising to meet them and disappearing into thin air.

“I know, but if she doesn’t-!”

“I’m right here.”

Ginny jumped, and looked. Hailey was stepping out of the train behind her. “Oh,” she breathed.

“Sorry about that, I was a bit far down the train,” she smiled. “And some of these cars are pretty impressive- they’re really pushing the limits of space expansion spells with almost thirty times the capacity per car.” She laughed good-spiritedly, sounding much happier than she’d been ever since the world cup. “If they used the spacefolding that Hogwarts uses, they’d only need one car!”

“Really?” Ginny asked, tilting her head. “Doesn’t folded space require an anchor?”

Hailey blinked. “You’re right. They’d only need one car, but the train wouldn’t move, no matter what they pulled it with. Or dropped it from.”

“Ahh,” Molly muttered.

“What were you doing?” Ginny asked.

“Rebuilding everyone’s schedules,” she answered promptly. “Which reminds me- where’s Hermione at?”

Hermione poked her head around the edge of the car, stepping up off the tracks. “Someone say my name? Oh, there you are, Hailey! I’ve been looking for you!” She paused. “You look… Happier.”

She laughed. “You could say that,” she smiled. “You could also say I’ve already taken care of the nasty parts of the coming year, so I’m looking forward to a nice, relaxing year at Hogwarts. Or at least as relaxing as Hogwarts gets for any mere student that wears as many hats as I do.” She chuckled gently.

“You have…?” Hermione asked.

“Though of course, speaking of ‘as relaxing as it gets’, I just spent the last two days with the rest of the management team rebuilding everyone’s schedules from the ground up, alongside seeking out, training, and confirming almost fifty new Student Instructors.”

Hermione nodded slowly. “That’d explain why you were gone so much,” she muttered.

Hailey smiled. “Yup. And you might like to know that Twilight’s changing departments- which means we’re quite suddenly down a Charms HSI.” She drew a stack of pages from her hair, where it most likely wouldn’t have fit in the first place. “It’s yours if you want it. Oh, and wherever Rita is, we’re cleared to tell the world what their nation is called.”

Hermione looked up from the papers. “What? You mean we can finally stop calling them ‘the Foreigners’?”

Hailey chuckled. “I mean exactly that, yes. They’re Equestrians, and they hail from Equestria. They even speak Equestrian- a language that even Sadarina has never heard before.” She chuckled. “And it turns out that, when he realizes there are repercussions, Professor Crash Course from the CSGU is actually really good at administering crash courses, despite getting fired as a Student Instructor for goofing off.”

She looked down at the papers, and back up. “Weren’t they worried about me not knowing their secret?”

Hailey shrugged. “I’ve also got clearance to let you in on it,” she answered. “Just not here.” She looked past Ginny. “Oh, and Ron?”

Ginny looked. Ron was jogging up, with Silversong; he’d jogged off once they reached the station- with plenty of time to spare, for once- to apologize for missing her birthday.

Ron blinked. “Oh, Hailey! Long time no see!”

She laughed. “Yeah, it’s only been, what, two days?” She chuckled again, then offered him a much smaller packet of papers. “Whaddya say, yea or nay?”

Ron only took one glance at the front page before looking up. “Are you kidding me?” he asked. “Of course I’m in!”

“In what?” Charlie asked curiously.

Hailey giggled, and turned Ron around to face him. “Charlie, I would like you to meet Student Instructor Weasley for Defense Against the Dark Arts,” she said, and presented Ron. “And would you believe it, he’s actually not our newest student instructor.”

“I’m not?” he asked.

She chuckled. “No, that distinction belongs to the fifty-seven Student Instructors we hired after we decided to offer you the job, and realized just how much of a slam dunk it really was.”

“Slam dunk?” Bill asked.

“Uh, basketball term,” Hailey mumbled, rubbing her chin. “So… straight shot through the goal hoops with the Keeper on the other side of the field?” She scowled. “I’m not sure there really is a Quidditch equivalent for it, though. Oh, unless you count Gryffindor’s last match.” She grinned.

“Oh, you mean the one where Angelina scored six times but Gryffindor still won by only one fifty points to zero?” Ron asked.

She nodded. “Yes, the one that lasted six seconds but that nobody realized was already over for a good couple minutes afterwards.” She laughed. “Especially after that, I’m seriously debating quitting the team. It’s getting too boringly one-sided.”

“Six seconds?” Charlie asked. “And they didn’t declare cheating?”

She shrugged. “The rules say I’m not allowed to look for the Snitch during the first five seconds of play,” she told him, “and Madam Hooch saw that I was looking the other way and whistling a tune with my fingers in my ears for those first five seconds. We set a new world record that day.”

“... Ahh,” Charlie muttered. “That definitely sounds one-sided.”

“Anyways,” Hailey smiled, and turned to Silver. “Do you happen to know what a menstrual cycle is?”

Hermione gasped. “You’re asking her now?”

Silver scowled. “Never heard of it.”

Ginny scowled as well. “What is a, um, menstrual cycle?” she asked, being careful to pronounce it correctly.

Hailey looked at her, then up at Hermione, who put one hand over her circular mouth. Hailey had an unsettlingly mischievous glint in her eyes.

“What are you talking about?” Mrs. Weasley asked, scowling.

Ginny looked up, recognizing her mother’s tells for confusion. She’d obviously been listening, and hadn’t understood either.

“Menstrual cycles,” Hailey told her, very calmly.

“And that is?” Mrs. Weasley asked.

Hailey didn’t answer, instead looking at Hermione.

Ginny looked too.

Hermione’s other hand joined the first, covering her mouth as well, while her eyes sparkled with evident disbelief.

“We’ve got something to look forward to,” Hailey commented.

Hermione burst into laughter so suddenly it made Mr. Weasley jump.

It was that time of year again, Professor McGonagall knew. And with a mere thirteen thousand, three hundred and thirteen first-year students to sort… She very nearly laughed at how it had become only thirteen thousand new students. The influx had peaked at well over fifteen thousand, but that wave was comprised of third years.

She liked to cherish every student. Each one was unique, every time- and each would inevitably bring their own strengths, their own weaknesses, their own lessons. That was the reason she’d teamed up with the other gods to create Hogwarts so long ago.

Then, over the last three years, Hogwarts had exploded from a mere two hundred and seventy students to just under a whopping forty-four thousand. And this year… How exactly Hailey- who was still the Student Instructor Program Management Team Lead- had already produced not just the second, third, and fourth-year schedules, but also the first-year schedules, all with explicit gaps preplanned for the events of the Tournament, she had no idea. It was like she already knew which house each student would be sorted into, and how the year would go down!

But with so many thousands of students, she was no longer able to fully cherish each student’s name- especially since it required her power to keep the Sorting down to a ten-minute affair. Time manipulation like that wasn’t her specialty; no, that was Helga’s. But she wasn’t half-bad at it, and could handle thirteen thousand students in ten minutes. Fifteen thousand, two years before, had pushed it to eleven minutes.

So of course she got caught up in the motions of what she was doing, and didn’t really process the names passing her lips. As a matter of fact, it took the second familiar name in a row to jog her memory and get her to realize exactly who was getting sorted.

“Potter, Lily.”

The name before had been ‘Potter, James’, a Gryffindor, unless her memory was failing her.

The girl that pranced forward had an excited gleam in her eyes, rather than the curiosity or worry in all the others’ eyes. And, true to her name, she resembled the Lily Potter she knew… despite obviously being a Foreigner.

The resemblance stopped at her face, though. Her hair was as brilliantly red as the youngest Weasley’s had become, mixed with brilliant dashes of gold that made it look like her head was on fire, and her body was small and lithe. When she picked up the Hat, Professor McGonagall spotted the lines from well-defined muscles underneath her sleeves- something that the Foreigners just didn’t have, being almost alarmingly alike, and she was certain the Lily she knew hadn’t had.

But it was something she’d gotten used to seeing on Hailey’s and Hermione’s arms, and had noticed on the youngest Weasley as well.

“Gryffindor!” Godric’s Hat called. It wasn’t too long ago she’d once again had the pleasure of watching it sort him himself. Only some… oh, how long had it been? Fifty or sixty years?

In any case, even as she called out the next name on the list, she watched in the corner of her eye as the girl pranced off to join the Gryffindor table… and tossed herself down next to Hailey with a ‘Good morning, Princess’ that made her laugh.

“Morning?” Hermione scowled, where she was sitting next to Hailey as the strange girl sat on her other side. “Don’t you mean evening?”

Hailey stifled her laughter. “It was a joke, Hermione. It’s been- what, thirteen years?” She looked down at the girl, who nodded. “Thirteen years since she last had anything to eat.”

“An interesting way to say that,” the boy on the girl’s other side muttered. He’d been sorted just before she had, but Hermione hadn’t caught either of their names. “And technically, we have had stuff to eat for the last few months. But you’re right, it was about thirteen years.”

Hermione looked at them. “Thirteen years without food…? How did you survive?”

They both laughed. Even Hailey did.

“Oh, we didn’t,” the girl chuckled. “Did we, Hailey?”

Hailey chuckled. “Oh, I’d say you were plenty alive, though a little less corporeal.” She grinned at Hermione. “Hermione, meet Lily and James Potter, my parents.”

“... They’re younger than you.”

The three of them seemed to find this very funny.

“We were-!” Lily began. “We were-!” She couldn’t stop laughing long enough to get it out, whatever she was trying to say.

“They were recently resurrected into Equestria,” Hailey told her. She glanced over at them. “Speaking of, was it as adults or did you get younger?”

James chuckled. “Oh, we got younger,” he told her.

“Yup!” Lily cheered. “We’re a pair of homeless f- er, children!” She seemed far too excited about being homeless. “But of course, I’m an Aethr and James is a Raeth, so between the two of us, we were pretty self-sufficient.”

Hailey tilted her head. “I can see that. But how’d it go?”

“Well,” James told her. “About three days after Harmonia told you about the possibility, she called us back in, talked to us about it, and finally sent us through the portal to get resurrected.”

Lily giggled. “First time we’d ever crossed it. Every time you did, we got left behind- but finally, we found out what Equestria looks like!”

James chuckled. “Harmonia also gave us a little knowledge- through that ‘skill transfer’ spell Hermione invented, I’m pretty sure- so we might as well have been Equestrian adults that had been resurrected as f-children, not British ones. Add a few months and we had Hogwarts letters.” They both laughed.

“Might as well start the next eternity with a duplicate education alongside our daughter,” Lily smiled, leaning in to hug Hailey. “Oh, here comes Sadarina!”

Hermione glanced up, almost instinctively making space for Sadarina to sit next to Hailey. “The next eternity?” she asked.

“Well yeah,” Lily smiled, watching Sadarina cheerfully insert herself between Hailey and Hermione, now sporting her own Gryffindor House badge. “You probably know that you and Hailey are already immortal, and Sadarina always has been?”

Hermione blinked. “I’m-?”

Lily shrugged. “Well, Harmonia did one better than just resurrecting us. We’re also both Phoenix-born now- we’ll live forever, until and unless we’re killed.”

“And that will be basically impossible until Hailey dies,” James mused, rubbing his chin. “Until then, the magic of Equestria will just keep bringing us back even if we do manage to die.”

Hailey sighed, looking almost wistfully up at the ceiling. “Honestly, I’d like to see the… force capable of killing me,” she muttered.

“Wh-What?” Hermione asked, staring at her.

She shrugged, and spoke solemnly. “After I treated the laws of physics as mere guidelines last week, I tested it out- and even the strongest attack I could manage couldn’t penetrate the weakest shield I could make with as little power as I could put in it.” She shrugged again. “I would be completely unsurprised if you told me it’d be easier to break the planet open than penetrate my skin. My Unique Talent must just be that powerful.”

Hermione tilted her head. “Do you know if you can suffocate or drown?”

Hailey looked at her. “Well, I’m still breathing, and I still get hungry, so presumably yes, I still have needs. But I specified force, not method, because with my strength…” She sighed, and looked down. “All I have to do is warp the laws of physics again and suddenly I’m no longer being suffocated or drowned.”

“What if it’s a Dementor?” Ron asked, from Hermione’s other side.

“I’d like to see the dementor that would be willing to drain Hailey,” Sadarina said suddenly, with a hard, almost dangerous edge to her normally delicate voice.

“Or something like Morning?” Silver asked suddenly, from across the table from Hailey.

“With Morning Sun by her side?” Sadarina grinned. “They’d never stand a chance. Besides, unlike Dementors, all of their debilitating techniques would be deflected by her natural wards.”

“What about once Morning dies? Or Sadarina?” Ron asked.

“Oh, I doubt that’s going to happen anytime soon,” Hailey mused. “Morning is basically immortal already, and Sadarina told us not too long ago that the only way she can die is starvation, didn’t she?”

Ron scowled. “Yeah, I suppose,” he muttered, rubbing his chin.

“Actually,” Sadarina mumbled. “Dementors do have… one fear.”

Hailey looked down at her. “You do?”

She nodded. “Boggarts.” She looked up at Hailey. “Whenever they see us, they turn into dementors as well… but they’re not real dementors. They can drain us as well- and they do. That’s actually why we fell into the despicable state we were in for so long in the first place- there were only five of us at the time. Me, my brother, and my children. Three of them, at least- my son wanted to wait, so he hadn’t been turned yet.” She sighed. “Dementorhood was a success. My husband died before we could turn him- but when we engaged in battle… we took various curses, including the Killing Curse… and none of them really bothered us. Sure, they damaged our bodies, and we’d have to fix that, but we had plenty of energy to spare for that.” She smiled up at Hailey. “Not as much as we do now, of course.

“We were all in the same room when we found the Boggart.” She shivered, and Hailey hugged her. “I… I still remember it as if it were yesterday.”

Hailey patted her head. “You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to.”

Hermione glanced up briefly, and spotted the characteristic shimmer of the inside of her privacy spell. Hailey must’ve cast it at some point in the conversation that she hadn’t noticed. It looked like everyone was inside it- including Ginny, sitting on Silver’s right, across from Sadarina, and Ariel, across from Lily and on Silver’s left.

“Gratia,” Sadarina said. “Tertinia. Maecilia.” She closed her eyes, and sighed. “They were new. They were weak, compared to us.” She took a deep breath. “All three of my children died before we were able to subdue the Boggart. I felt their dying gasps over the Hive.

“Then… me and Primus were left with very little energy, and badly wounded bodies. Primus turned some twenty strangers against their will, over the next few days, in an attempt to recoup the lost energy… but it was a failure. Whenever we turn someone, the resultant Dementor will never have more energy than the one that turned them, and only very rarely as much.” She sighed. “Then… he became the first Husk, and our battle to survive began. We approached the Ministry of the age with our dilemma, and offered to serve as prison guards- where we wouldn’t have to feel guilty about draining people.”

“Are any of those…?”

She shook her head. “None of those twenty are alive today. Neither is any other Dementor turned during the following two hundred years or so.” She sighed. “I… I am, in a very real sense, the mother of Dementor Kind- even though all of my own blood died so long ago, and the first one I turned is over a thousand years younger than me.”

Hermione rubbed her chin. “Hmm… I think I have a new project.”

“Oh?” Ginny asked, raising an eyebrow.

She nodded. “Boggart defense for Sadarina,” she said. “Can’t have such a creature endangering her again.” She scowled. “I don’t know how I’d test it, though.”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Sadarina smiled. “You could test it against a Dementor.”

“But Dumbledore wouldn’t let one into the Castle…”

“There’s one sitting right next to you,” Sadarina snickered.

“Wha-?” Hermione began, looking around. “I- I don’t see any.”

“Me.”

She paused. “... Oh. Right. But you haven’t been…”

“Just because I haven’t been draining the happiness from my environment doesn’t mean I can’t,” Sadarina told her simply. “It just means I no longer need to in order to survive.”

“Right. Sorry.”

Sadarina smiled. “Oh, don’t worry about it.”

There was a pause.

“So, uh,” Ron muttered, into the awkward silence. “Hailey, who are you worried about?”

“You,” she answered instantly. “You and Diamond don’t currently have any means for indefinite lifespan nor resurrection.”

Silver raised an eyebrow. “Oh? What about me?”

She shrugged. “Oh, there’s some special circumstances surrounding your death.”

“Special circumstances? You mean how Draco died?”

Hailey laughed. “Nah, not quite. Though I am debating publicly killing Harry in a similar manner, just so I don’t have to be him again.”

“Wh-What?” Ginny asked, looking horrified.

“What?” Hailey asked her curiously.

Hermione also looked, unsure of why she and Ariel were so concerned.

“Y-You’re talking so calmly about killing someone,” she muttered.

Hailey blinked. “Right, we never did tell you, did we?”

Hermione blinked, realized what it must have sounded like to Ginny, and clapped a hand over her mouth to try and hide her giggles.

“Tell me what?” Ginny asked.

“Well, I kinda am Harry,” she told Ginny simply. “Just like Silver was Draco, until we killed him.” She smiled. “Don’t worry, nobody died, only the public identity.” She glanced up. “Oh, the Sorting is over.”

Hermione looked up as well. True to Hailey’s word, Professor McGonagall was picking up the Hat and Stool to escort them out of the room.

Author's Note

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Still more at once today. I'm very much in the mood of "can't be bothered to ___" right now. Life just sucks, sometimes.

Chapter 52: Ponies

“Anyways,” Hailey smiled, as she doled mashed potatoes onto her plate. “It’s about time you all find out the Equestrian’s secret- which, after the Papa Tango, is actually ours as well.”

Ginny glanced up. That shimmery barrier was back around them again- the barrier that must have been why Percy, sitting next to her, hadn’t heard a peep of the discussion they’d just had right in front of him.

Hermione looked up. “All of us?” she asked.

Hailey nodded. “Yup. And Myrtle, technically, but she’s two tables away right now.”

“Myrtle?” Hermione asked, blinking.

She nodded. “Yes, Myrtle Warren. She’s a second-year now. Anyways, the secret is thus: On the other side of the portal, they’re ponies.”

Hermione blinked. “Is that it?” she asked.

Hailey nodded.

“Oh.” She shrugged. “I already knew that.”

Hailey tilted her head. “You did?” she asked.

Ginny nodded. “Yup! Sunset told us when the Papa Tango was named.”

Hailey scowled, and seemed to flicker. She sighed. “She didn’t put anything about it in the report,” she mused. “She must’ve been so sidetracked by discovering another Phoenix-born that she forgot about it or something.”

“Ponies?” Ron asked incredulously.

Hailey nodded. “Yes, ponies. Would you like to see?”

“See?” Ron asked.

Hailey promptly shrank in her seat. “Well yeah. You can even try it yourself, if you like.”

Hermione stared. Hailey had spontaneously turned into… Yes, ‘pony’ probably was the appropriate word, though she looked more like a cat-pony, and her head seemed a bit big for her body. Nevermind the miniature wings she was flapping lazily to stay aloft. Her mane and tail were a very dark black, just like her hair as a human- and her fur was a dark blue. Hermione got the idea she would be nearly invisible in darkness.

Right at that moment, Percy looked up. “Pass the potatoes, please,” he asked.

“Uh-!” Hermione muttered, blinking- but Hailey didn’t hesitate. The horn on her head glowed suddenly a very dark blue, and the bowl of mashed potatoes acquired a matching aura as it lifted effortlessly into the air and floated over to Percy.

Percy accepted it. “Thank you,” he said, and started doling some potatoes onto his own plate.

Hermione stared.

“That privacy spell of yours is so handy,” Hailey told her. “As far as he can tell, I just handed it to him the normal way. Completely aside from still being human.”

“... Oh,” Hermione muttered.

Lily raised an eyebrow. “So they can’t see if we-?” she asked. “Just because I’m fairly certain we’re not telling everyone about that.”

“Oh yeah,” Hailey nodded. “They can’t see it at all, inside this ‘privacy’ barrier Hermione invented.”

“Specifically when you cast it,” Hermione told her.

Hailey shrugged her wings, having landed back on the bench and using her horn aura to work her knife and fork. “Well yeah,” she said. “That kinda happens when it qualifies as a defensive spell… and my Cutie Mark power is the indomitable defense.”

“Cutie Mark…?” Hermione asked blankly.

“We still don’t have ours,” Lily sighed, also shrinking into a pony. She also had wings, but no horn, and was somewhat noticeably smaller than Hailey. She reached up and worked her cutlery with her front hooves, which seemed to work as if they were hands.

“Alright,” Silver said suddenly.

Hermione looked, and saw a pony in her place, with gleaming silver fur and her silver mane split neatly into thirds by royal blue stripes. There was a horn sticking out of her forehead.

“I did it,” Silver explained. She looked down at herself. “It’s… Interesting. Why don’t you guys try?” She looked between Ginny, Hermione, and Ron. Then she glanced up at her forehead. “Uh… Hailey? How’re you doing that horn thingy?”

“Levitation should be instinctive,” Hailey told her. “Think like it’s your mind’s hand.”

Seconds later, Silver’s horn glowed with a royal blue aura, matching her cutlery. It was rather lighter than Hailey’s.

Ginny reached out and, tentatively, stroked her mane.

Silver blinked in surprise, her fork clattering to her plate.

“Uh- sorry?” Ginny asked. “Was that…?”

“Oh, no,” Silver said, looking up at her. “That actually felt really good. It was just unexpected.”

“It did…?” Hermione muttered, then looked at Hailey, and reached past Sadarina to stroke her mane too.

Then she startled when Hailey flicked her ears appreciatively.

Hailey laughed. “Yeah, it does feel nice,” she agreed. “They do it all the time in Equestria.” She glanced at Hermione. “Why don’t you transform too? I can show you what it feels like.”

Hermione raised an eyebrow. “Will you tell me what a ‘cutie mark’ is?” she asked.

She nodded. “Yeah. You’ll also be able to see mine- it’s ultraviolet, visible to pegasus eyes only.”

“So I’m a pegasus?” Hermione asked.

She shook her head. “No, Alicorns have pegasus vision too- but interestingly enough, PT pegasi and alicorns do not have pegasus vision in Equestrian Human form, only in pony form.”

She tilted her head. “What about real pegasi?”

“You were a real pegasus for a couple minutes before you ascended,” Hailey told her. “But Equestrian pegasi get human vision on this side too. I’m told it’s very disorienting when they cross the Gate into Britain.”

“It is,” Lily agreed, while James shrank into a unicorn on her other side.

“Aww, that means I can’t see it,” Ron moaned, on her other side.

She looked. He had shrunk into a pony as well- and true to his words, he didn’t have wings. He also didn’t have a horn. Just like the others, his mane was the same color as his human hair, as an unspectacular brown- and his fur, such as it was, was a slightly darker brown.

The truly spectacular part was that he was translucent and sparkly, but not like a ghost- almost like he was made out of some kind of living liquid.

“What in the world…?” she blinked.

Hailey peered past her. “Oh, a crystal earth pony! That’s rare. Crystal ponies live in the Crystal Empire, far north of Equestria- and are completely immune to temperature fluctuations, among other things.”

Ron looked up. “Among other things?”

She nodded. “Yes. You’re also immune to drowning, since crystal ponies technically don’t need to breathe. That said, crystal ponies are a lot denser than other ponies, so it’ll be basically impossible to swim instead of walking across the bottom. Pretty sure those features won’t carry over even to your Equestrian Human form, since they’re biological differences, not magical.” She smiled. “Just like pegasus eyesight.”

“Oh wow,” Ginny said suddenly, drawing Hermione’s attention. She’d also shrunken, her gleaming red and gold hair perched on top of an aquamarine coat of fur. Her wings were folded, and she was looking around in awe. “You’re right. The world does look different.”

“Oh, alright,” Hermione groaned, and closed her eyes. She tried to imagine herself turning into a similar little pony, and concentrated on it… but nothing seemed to happen. She sighed, opening her eyes… and stopped. She seemed to be a lot shorter than before, the world seemed that much more vibrant than it had before, almost like she was seeing a larger spectrum than she’d seen before.

There was also, when she looked up at the ceiling, a little bronze nub at the top of her vision, looking suspiciously like a horn. And she knew her wings were bronze-colored.

Then she looked sideways at Hailey, around Sadarina… and paused. “Huh,” she muttered. Hailey looked… different, somehow.

“Huh to you too,” Hailey told her. “I would’ve thought you’d have your cutie mark by now, but you don’t.” She pointed a hoof at Hermione’s… What was the word? She racked her brains, but as near as she could tell, she had never found out what a horse’s hips were called.

She was at once appalled by her failure. She was better than that, and she knew it!

Hermione’s weak levitation- she figured she could be excused, it was her first time ever using this kind of magic- fell apart, and her fork clattered to her plate. She looked up. “There are house-elves? Here?” she asked, looking up at Nearly Headless Nick; he’d been telling them about trouble in the kitchens, apparently because Peeves had been there, scaring the house-elves out of their minds.

“Yes,” Hailey said suddenly. She felt her ears twisting even faster than her head- it was a very strange sensation, but that’s what you got when you turned yourself into a little pony. Thanks to Hailey’s privacy spell, everybody else seemed to think they were still human- except Sadarina, of course, who reached over to stroke Hermione’s mane. Hailey and Silver were right, it did feel almost alarmingly nice. “They’re also some of the best-treated house-elves on Earth,” Hailey went on quickly. “If you want to make a stand on the treatment of house-elves, which I do agree does need to happen, Hogwarts is not the place to do it.” She smiled. “I happen to know a few house-elves in… Well, not both situations, but Dobby used to be treated like dirt. Right?” She looked up at Silver.

Silver nodded. “Yeah. And all to maintain the front.” She sighed. “Well, not anymore. I think Dad’s using me as an excuse to soften up a little.”

Hailey nodded, and looked back at Hermione. “So how about we get you the full picture over these next couple weeks? Something tells me we’ll need your brains to come up with an action plan that will be more effective than those used by the last twelve Elf Rights Movements.” She chuckled. “Which were all, coincidentally, started by muggleborn Hogwarts students… and not one lasted two full years. I believe Hogwarts: A History glossed over them, since it was written by a pureblood- and they don’t think anything’s wrong.”

“Excuse me?” Silver asked, an eyebrow raised. She also folded her forelegs, making her so cute.

Hailey laughed.

“How do you know about that?” Hermione asked, raising an eyebrow of her own.

“The Room of Requirement,” she answered. “The house-elves call it the ‘Come and Go Room’, and showed me how to get in last night.” She sighed. “Ask it for the right thing, and it’ll reveal a very detailed and magically kept record of the Castle’s long and storied past.” She chuckled. “Did you know, these last four years comprise about seventy percent of that report? And that’s not even counting my Goddess of Reports phase, that’s ten percent all on its own!” She sighed. “The Full Castle Record says that it was created as an attempt to create a true magical intelligence.”

Hermione looked at her. “To create a-? How?”

She shrugged. “The Room of Requirement doesn’t exist in three-dimensional space- or, technically, it does; it’s the size of a marble. The Full Castle Record seeks to ram as much information into that space as possible, and hopefully- theoretically- overload the space-time continuum with thaumic information density and birth a new Goddess.”

Hermione blinked. “But in order to do that, you’d need…” She scowled. “How much info?”

“The full Castle blueprints are in there, along with exactly what order the bricks were laid. The exact state of the Castle, all the way down to exactly where each blade of grass is, is recorded daily. Um…” She rubbed her chin. “Hmm, it’s blind to the Thaumion Flow, though. If it wasn’t, they might’ve succeeded by now.”

“The- The what?” Hermione asked, completely forgetting her food and peering over Sadarina’s lap at her.

“The Thaumion Flow,” Hailey answered. “The flow of magic across the Multiverse… and what gives Harmonia her strength.”

“And there’s that name again!” she cried. “Gyah!”

Right at that moment, Sadarina picked her up and placed her in her lap, before reaching over to retrieve her abandoned meal.

“Which name?” Hailey asked, a mischievous glint in her eyes.

“You know what I’m talking about,” Hermione grumbled, resisting the urge to stomp her hoof on Sadarina’s thigh. “Harmonia.”

Sadarina filled Hermione’s fork with Hermione’s mashed potatoes. “Say Ah,” she smiled.

“Ahh, Harmonia,” Hailey smiled. “Have you ever wondered what happens if you multiply a Pinkie Transform by a Granger Warp then apply that to the Misty Step whilst under Rainboom?”

“Uh-!” she muttered.

Sadarina stuffed the fork in her mouth and, while she sputtered in surprise, giggled madly.

Hailey laughed. “Rainboom is an Equestrian magic effect for when you break the speed of sound. Twilight’s got a nice castle in Equestria- and in it, one of the finest wind tunnels I’ve ever seen. Not that I’ve seen very many. Had to be at least fifty miles long, on the inside- perfect for experimenting with Rainbooms. Pinkie said that’s where she figured out how to reach Harmonia.”

She nodded slowly, and swallowed her mouthful of potatoes. “Okay,” she muttered, while Sadarina was collecting some of her steak. “So what happens when I do that?” She eyed the fork as Sadarina brought it back down, and accepted the bite peacefully. It was not just making Sadarina giggle, but it was making Hailey laugh- and things that could make her laugh, really laugh, not her normal, almost cautious laugh, were few and far between.

“You cross to the Astral Plane. It’s a lot easier than standing on an altar in the basement of Canterlot Castle and singing a very specific prayer in Old Ponish three times fast to the beat of a drum.” She spoke very quickly.

“Mmm?” Hermione asked, her mouth still full of steak and gravy- which she could swear was tastier than when she’d been feeding herself.

Hailey chuckled. “The fun part is that you can get back from the Astral Plane by singing a very different prayer in Prench seven times fast while tapping your hooves to the beat, or you can just apply a Pinkie Transform to the Misty Step.”

She nodded, swallowed, and opened her mouth. “So why the Astral Plane? And, um, is it normal for a pony to like steak?” She accepted the next bite almost cheerfully, making Sadarina giggle again. She was right, it did taste better than she’d expected it to- better than the last identical bite, even!

Hailey chuckled. “British steak, oh yes. Equestrian meats have a very different flavoring that you wouldn’t like even as a human- well, except fish, those are pretty tasty. Add that ponies are pretty universally vegetarian, yet are technically omnivorous…” She smiled. “We checked. Us Papa Tangoed humans have pony digestive tracts when in Equestrian Human form, giving us that expanded dietary freedom- we can get all our nutrients from plants, or we can even get it all from meats, if we pick the right meat.” She chuckled. “And as for the Astral Plane?”

Hermione listened with only half an ear as she accepted the next forkful of food- this time green beans, which were like ambrosia. She knew she’d remember it later; it was instructions, and she’d never yet managed to forget any of those.

When Hailey finally finished telling her what to do in the Astral Plane, with a ‘And you’ll know what I mean’ at the end, she looked up and swallowed her food. “Alright, I’ll do that at some point,” she muttered. “In the meantime, I feel like each bite tastes better than the last. That can’t be true, can it?”

Hailey giggled. “That, Hermione, is what you would call the Magic of Friendship. Ever since Twilight became the Princess of Friendship, whenever there’s a pony involved, food will always taste better when a friend is feeding it to you than when you’re eating it yourself.”

“Oh,” she muttered- and, as she accepted Sadarina’s forkful of steak this time, she used her levitation or whatever it was called to stuff some of Hailey’s mashed potatoes into her mouth.

Hailey swallowed it quickly and, laughing, looked up.

“What the-omp!” Diamond cried in surprise.

Lyra Heartstrings looked up in time to see the shocked but appreciative look on Diamond’s face, and the dark blue aura around her fork.

Then Bonbon burst into laughter, having apparently watched the whole thing- she’d been in conversation with Diamond.

Lyra scowled. There was something she needed to ask Hailey, when they next met.

Professor Dumbledore looked up as the ring of laughter echoed around the Great Hall. It wasn’t too often that happened during a Feast- especially laughter like this, that sounded so much like giggling.

Then he blinked, trying to reprocess what was happening. All of the sudden, most of the students were feeding each other rather than themselves, and giggling and laughing about it. The laughing was so loud that hardly anybody seemed to notice when Alastor Moody arrived, even though he did it in an oddly dramatic manner.

Author's Note

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

What did this chapter even have in it...? I don't remember. And I don't really care, I've still got two more to go before I find anything of even the remotest quality to proofread for publication.

Chapter 53: Punishments

“Keep your mouth shut then,” Hailey told Theodore Nott, who was doing his level best to offend Ron in the Entrance Hall before dinner, with the Daily Prophet. There was an article about Mr. Weasley and Mad-Eye Moody, the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, which painted them both in a bad light. Then Hailey turned her back on him.

Ron resolutely mirrored her, turning his back on Theodore to march dutifully away. For some reason that even Silversong couldn’t figure out, Theodore had taken up the position as the Chief Troublemaker and Gryffindor Antagonizer, a position previously held by Draco Malfoy.

Bang! Several people screamed. Ron felt something white-hot pass close by, missing Hailey by inches. Not that hitting her would’ve done any good, for that matter. Hailey’s hand moved like greased lightning, and flicked the spell almost casually up at the ceiling.

Ron, his hand in his pocket with his wand, paused as he watched her.

Hailey put one hand on her hip, and sighed, eyes closed.

Bang! “Oh no you don’t, laddie,” a strange voice roared.

Hailey sighed even deeper and turned around almost dramatically. Ron whirled around as well.

Professor Moody was marching down the marble staircase, his wand pointed straight at a… pure white ferret shivering on the floor. He marched past the ferret, looking at Hailey- with his normal eye. His larger, electric blue eye was pointing into the back of his head. “Did he get you?” he asked. His voice was low and gravelly.

“No,” she answered coldly. “Missed.”

Moody then turned around, and started walking towards the ferret- which gave a terrified squeak and took off for the dungeons.

“I don’t think so!” Moody called, pointing his wand. The ferret shot into the air, fell back to the ground, and bounced off of it, squealing in pain. “I don’t like people who attack when their opponent’s back’s turned,” he growled, bouncing the ferret higher and higher with each bounce.

Hailey sighed again, drew her wand, and pointed it at his back.

BaBang!

Hailey cast her spells so quickly that all three of them were in the air before the first one ever struck Moody. Ron wasn’t sure exactly how he was able to see the three spell bolts and watch them go to their targets almost like time had slowed down, but he was.

The first one hit Moody square in the back- and Ron noticed his wand instantly go flying from his hand. A disarming charm.

Then the second one slammed into his back- and with the first bang, Moody was very suddenly flat on his back, on the floor.

The third one flew past him, curved in midair, and hit the ferret- which, with the second bang, became Theodore again, standing- flustered- on the floor, almost six feet directly below where the ferret had been when the spell hit it.

People all around the room gasped.

Hailey didn’t. She stepped forward, lowering her wand, and casually caught Moody’s wand out of the air as she bent over his stunned face. “Detention, Professor,” she announced. “Wednesday, seven thirty PM, my office. We do not use transfiguration as a punishment in this school. Instead, deduct points, issue detention, or speak to the Student Instructor Program Management Team or the offender’s Head of House.” She sighed. “And don’t be a hypocrite, please.”

Everyone, Ron included, was simply staring at her.

“That’s our Goddess of Duels,” somebody muttered.

Hailey waited patiently for Moody to scramble back to his feet before she handed his wand back, turned her back on him, and walked away without another word.

Ron followed her silently. Moody’s wooden leg didn’t clunk against the flagstones again until they were both in the Great Hall.

Hermione stepped up next to Hailey. “Wh-What was that?” she asked, looking and sounding flabbergasted.

Hailey nodded. “Dumbledore gave me that authority this year,” she told them. “As the Student Instructor Program Management Team Lead, I’m actually above the Professors as well.”

“But- But coming to us for punishments…?”

She nodded. “Yes. That’s new this year as well- and now that I’m thinking about it, I don’t think it made it into that packet. The whole team now has point and detention authority- the latter of which was tacked on about twenty-four hours ago, as a matter of fact. I was planning on discussing it in the first meeting, but after that, I should probably call an unscheduled meeting this evening, before he catches someone by surprise.” She sighed, and looked down at her wristwatch.

Hermione twitched. “Ah! Oh. That psychic network thing you did is so unnerving.”

Hailey chuckled. “Yeah, definitely, the first few times at least. Morning came up with it last year, not me.”

The world around Hermione went completely white and foggy. She shivered and, even though she could feel that her wings were holding her up, she folded them. It was… It was what she was supposed to do.

She didn’t fall.

Instead, the fog faded… and she found herself floating gently to the floor in a grand entryway. It was…

The only word she could think of to describe it was huge. It was by far the largest room she’d ever seen, even including the Great Hall during the Welcoming Feast. There were several other adjectives that applied- among them ‘fancy’- but that was the only one that seemed to properly describe it.

“Wha-? Oh, hello Hermione!”

She jumped at the strange voice, and whirled to look, breathing hard. “What-!? Who-!?” She took a deep breath. “S-Sorry, but who are you?”

The girl that smiled back at her couldn’t have been a day older than sixteen, and was wearing a white velvet dress. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m Harmonia.” She held out a hand that was positively gleaming with cleanness. “And it’s nice to meet you.”

She reached out to take it… but was quickly distracted by the same cleanliness gleam on her own hand. “What the-?” she muttered, looking down at herself.

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Harmonia told her. “Hailey’s efforts this last week have given me the power I needed to make uncleanliness physically impossible in my domain. Makes cleaning up after myself easy, I can tell you.” She laughed.

Hermione scowled, looking up at her, and finally accepted the offered hand. “Nice to meet you too,” she muttered slowly. “So…” She sighed. “So who are you, I guess. Hailey’s mentioned you a few times, but…”

Harmonia laughed. It was bright, and cheerful. “Yes, she does like dropping cryptic clues, doesn’t she? Especially after she joined the Agency and even got Princess Lessons from Princess Celestia.” She chuckled to herself. “That was fun to watch. But anyways, back to your question. How about I start with what I am?”

“With… what you are,” Hermione muttered disbelievingly.

She nodded. “I might look human, but I’m nothing of the sort.”

“So you’re like Sadarina?” she asked, her head tilting.

“Oh, no, Dementors are actually technically a higher breed of humans. Destroy their body? No biggie, they can regrow even their brains. Incinerate them? No biggie, they can regrow that too!” She laughed. “I wasn’t looking when old Devunted Black invented Dementors- and except for how much he was pushing to make more instead of to make them stronger, they’re better than humans in basically every way. Incredibly powerful innate magic, still capable of using a wand… As a matter of fact, it might even be a good idea for Sadarina to kiss you and your friends.”

“K-k-kiss?” Hermione gasped, aghast. “You mean the Dementor’s Kiss?”

She chuckled. “Well yes, I mean a very specific one of the seven different techniques that fall under that heading. Specifically, the one that makes you a dementor without hurting you at all.” She smiled. “The Original one, that’s completely harmless. Sadarina was right, dementors are completely immortal, except for starvation- and when they’re strong enough, such as a mere fraction of Sadarina’s strength, they can feed directly off the thaumion field- and so grow stronger and otherwise be completely and truly immortal entirely on their own. No, it wouldn’t affect your other kinds of magic, wouldn’t affect any future ascensions, wouldn’t even affect your Papa Tango- that works on a different part of the soul, and so will still work flawlessly on a dementor- though thanks to their nature, they’re immune to the symptoms.”

“Really?” Hermione muttered, tilting her head.

She nodded. “Oh yes, and they have a hivemind, they call it the Hive.” She smiled. “Hailey is right, they’re all one big happy family.”

She scowled. “What about… What about my parents? Or children?”

“Dementor-hood would make your parents susceptible to the Papa Tango,” she smiled. “Turn them into wizards, essentially. And I wouldn’t worry about your children- so long as their body remains intact, dementors can still carry and bear live, non-dementor young.”

“Enter,” Dumbledore called.

Professor Moody stepped in, and closed Dumbledore’s office door behind him. “You called?” he grunted.

“Yes, I did,” Dumbledore said, and studied him over the rims of his glasses. He let the silence draw on for several seconds, watching Moody’s eyes trace their way over his desk, and the three foot report that had been delivered to it hardly half an hour before. “Do you know why I called you?”

“No.”

He sighed. “On Monday, September Second, Hailey caught you using transfiguration as a teaching tool- and as she said, we do not use that here. She saw fit to issue you a detention, which took place Wednesday evening just after dinner- and while she was in her office for over two hours after that time, you never showed up.” He looked up at Moody. “How many times do I have to tell you to respect the Student Instructor Program Management Team’s authority, not run afoul of it?”

For some reason, Moody seemed slightly surprised… and exactly as Dumbledore had noticed throughout the week, he also seemed a little different than usual. Perhaps his age was catching up to him?

“I’m a Professor,” Moody began, confused.

He sighed. “Hailey, as the Student Instructor Program Management Team Lead, Has. That. Authority. This is your verbal warning.” He really didn’t want to make the official first step towards firing Alastor already, but that was the policy he and his Heads of House had agreed upon before they ever gave Hailey that authority- with this very scenario in mind.

Moody twitched as if he’d been slapped across the face. “What?”

He sighed even deeper. “I told you last week, Alastor. Even Professor McGonagall is not allowed to just ignore Hailey’s punishments. You accept them, and show up on time. If you think they’re unjust, you do not skive off- you come talk to me, before they occur.”

Author's Note

I originally meant for Harmonia to reveal what she is in that scene. Unfortunately, she and Hermione got sidetracked... Oh well, maybe next time.

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Punishments, punishments... Did this have something to do with Moody? I think so. At some point, I'm going to come back and rewrite the first 54 chapters of this story to something approximating my more modern standards. It'll probably be in-place rather than ANOTHER reimagining, I like where this one has gone/is going too much.

Chapter 54: The Imperius Curse

Ron sighed as he sat next to Hailey, in the one class he shared with her this year- rather than zero in previous years. “What do you think is happening this time?”

Hailey chuckled. “Nothing good,” she told him calmly. “As he said last time, it is legal to use the Unforgivable Curses against spiders- but something tells me he’s got, ahh, less legal plans for today’s lesson.”

“Does it have anything to do with that…” He trailed off. “Whatever it was session you did earlier?”

She nodded. “Yes, that might be very important.”

Ron looked back up at Professor Moody’s desk. The Professor hadn’t arrived yet.

The week before, Professor Moody had demonstrated all three Unforgivable Curses on some spiders- and for as much as Ron was afraid of spiders, he’d kept the corner of his eye on Hailey… and she had watched calmly, almost amusedly. She’d raised her eyebrow- and Ron had been surprised himself- when Moody roared the Killing Curse, instead of muttering it like he did the other two.

Then over the weekend, Hailey had ordered a meeting of all the Student Instructors in the class. The meeting had taken nearly five hours… but with Hailey and Morning Sun at the head, they had taught them to resist… something. He had no idea what they were actually learning to resist, only that the two girls had pushed until every single one of them was flawless at it.

As for her reason… “Officially,” she’d confided to him, “I have a hunch. Unofficially, I visited the future a couple weeks ago, and I know we’ll need it. But don’t tell anyone, time travel like that is technically illegal both here and in Equestria.”

In short, Hailey was as inscrutable as ever. Just as he had decided she would be back when he first met her. He’d long since realized just how smart he really was- a realization that was reinforced by his assignment as a Student Instructor, let alone one of the vast minority that got to study directly under the Professors- but that hadn’t changed. No matter how hard he thought about it, the best explanation for how any girl’s mind worked seemed to be ‘magic’, and in that respect, Hailey was no different from anyone else, despite having once been a boy.

But had she always been able to travel through time, and flouted the law that casually? He was fairly sure that answer was no, but the way she had said it suggested that it was legal for her, and she just didn’t feel like explaining why to the Ministry.

If anything was confusing, that was. He didn’t want to bother her by asking why, especially with how many students bothered her each day with questions, reports, meetings, and various other stuff. She was already getting fed up with the ones that were trying to revere her like a goddess; he’d seen her snap at three of them already, despite hardly being a week and a half into the school year!

Then Moody walked in. Or clunked in; for some reason, he didn’t seem too practiced with the wooden leg.

Ron watched Hailey out of the corner of his eye again; especially if she’d already seen the future and knew what was coming, her body language would be a sure barometer of exactly when- and what about- he needed to worry.

But she didn’t seem all that concerned. As a matter of fact, when Moody announced that he’d be using the Imperius Curse on them, she showed amusement, disappointment, and anticipation, he was pretty sure. He couldn’t see what she might be looking forward to, but he couldn’t think of anything else it might be.

Unfortunately, Ron couldn’t keep his eyes on Hailey for the entire class. Moody called him up front to have the curse cast on him first- which put Hailey behind him, and he couldn’t exactly watch her when she was behind him, without being overt about it.

He watched Moody raise his wand, as if time had- no, wait, Hermione had called it ‘slow motion’ when he’d described it to her, and her vocabulary was irritatingly larger than his.

“Imperio!” Moody barked, so slowly that Ron counted nearly twelve seconds before he’d finished- even though his wristwatch only ticked once.

He watched the spell crawl towards him. It seemed to slow down as it approached, and he resisted the urge to dodge it.

Finally, it hit him.

Immediately, something started trying to invade his mind. He fought it reflexively, exactly as Hailey had trained him to- and before he’d even realized what was going on, he’d already driven it clear out of his mind.

He waited, and waited. Finally, Moody lowered his wand, and the world seemed to speed back up again, the ticking of the second hand on his watch no longer a little gong tapping on his wrist. It was like he’d been extremely sensitive- hyposensitive? No, that didn’t sound right. Hypersensitive? Yes, yes, that one. It was like he’d been hypersensitive while the world had been in slow motion as well. It was a strange feeling.

“You didn’t… notice it?” Moody asked, dumbstruck.

He blinked. “Oh, is that what that was? Huh. It was easy to fight.”

As Moody called the next person up, and sent him back to his seat, he saw that Hailey was leaning back in hers, merriment in her eyes. It was the classic look he’d come to know and dread in Fred and George’s eyes, indicating a successful prank.

As the class went on, he had to agree with Hailey. Her prank was utterly successful- not a single person, pony or otherwise, succumbed to the Imperius Curse.

And when it was Hailey’s turn, Moody cast the spell, jumped up on his desk, and whirled on the tips of his toes, singing…

“Her eyes are as green, as a fresh-pickled toad,” he began.

There was a roar of laughter, as Ron recognized Ginny’s musical valentine to Hailey nearly two years before.

Finally, Moody crashed to the floor behind his desk, and scrambled to his feet.

“You’re a better singer than that card-carrying cupid-dwarf of Lockhart’s,” Hailey observed, “but not by much. And you also failed the basic test of Constant Vigilance- you didn’t even try to dodge or block it when I reflected the Imperius Curse back at you.” She smiled. “Yes, it can be blocked, and reflected back at the caster. I just did, after all.”

Moody stared at her, but she wasn’t done yet.

“On the other hand, there are far better ways to teach someone to resist the Imperius Curse than casting it on them, and if you’ve read the laws, you’ll know it’s illegal to cast it on another human being in any circumstance, including education. Oh yes, and Dumbledore explicitly told you to Keep. Things. Legal this year, nevermind the Hogwarts Professorial Code of Conduct explicitly prohibits dark magic curses to be directed towards a student.” She sighed. “That’s another detention. My office, seven thirty in the evening, tomorrow, and I’ll do you a favor and not mention it to the Ministry.”

There was a sudden wave of applause through the room.

“Alastor,” Dumbledore groaned through his fingers. “How many times do I have to tell you to Keep. It. Legal!?” He half-shouted the last three words, one at a time, in near-desperation.

Professor Moody, on the other side of his desk, flinched back from his verbal assault, but didn’t respond.

“Hailey was completely right about the Code of Conduct as well,” he told Alastor. “This is your written warning. And you’re lucky it’s not also your final warning for missing her detention as well!” He actually reached a yell at the end- it was admittedly the first time he’d yelled in probably decades, and it felt… nostalgic, somehow. He sighed, and spoke in a low, disappointed tone. “Like I told you last time, I won’t be able to protect you from the Ministry any longer. Hailey is doing you a really big favor by not mentioning it to them, and you repay her by ignoring her detentions?” He looked up. “Or would you prefer a cell in Azkaban? Hailey happens to be good friends with the guards.”

Moody twitched in surprise. “Friends with the Dementors?” he asked disbelievingly.

Dumbledore smiled, and nodded. “Yes. She tells me they’re a delightful lot, just ill-understood. She’s also a great friend of Amelia Bones, the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement- though how she managed that in just five minutes, I have no idea.” He sighed. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to start the preparations for our guests’ arrivals this coming week.”

Deep down in the dungeons, there was an almighty crash.

“Careful,” a strange girl with gleaming black hair admonished. “A crash like that can kill you.” She lifted Hermione by the armpits and set her on her feet before dusting off her shoulders, ignoring the bloodstains all over Hermione’s white shirt- and the fact that she only had one arm, the other severed again, this time just below the shoulder.

She stared at the girl, nonplussed. The loss of the arm that had been holding her once again damaged dimensional handset also meant they were completely stranded this time; there was no way for it to be fixed, since it had been entirely lost to the Dimensional Void. Yet, this girl had caught her from who knew how fast… and seemed to have expected her? “Who are you?”

“Oh, I’m just your friendly neighborhood stranger,” she answered dismissively.

“Ugh.” She looked at the source of the sudden utterance. It was one of her companions- the one that was conscious, and actually had a moniker. She pulled herself out of the wall and sat up, folding her wings- no, surviving wing. She’d lost her other wing this time, clear up to her back- and apparently it was a clean splinch this time, since she didn’t seem to feel it right away. “Huh?” she muttered, looking around.

“Good evening, Hermione Gate,” the black-haired girl smiled, looking over. “Sleep well?”

Gate looked at her. “S-Sleep?” she asked, then pointed at the wall. “You call that sleep?”

“That was a joke,” she answered dryly. “By the way, your left wing is missing.”

“I know,” Gate hissed, her eyes narrowing. “Who are you and why don’t I recognize you?”

The girl shrugged. “Oh, you might recognize who I used to be,” she smiled. “Or my best friend. Well, one of them, at any rate.” She chuckled. “She looks almost exactly like you do. Little bit older, of course- we’re in fourth year right now, not second. And she’s so much of a spellsmith that even Hermione Impossible down there can’t compare.” She chuckled again, gesturing down at their unconscious companion.

“Impossible?” Hermione Greeter asked, raising an eyebrow. Perhaps this girl had a spare handset she could borrow? Transferring the coordinates of Hermione Gate’s world from her phone would be harder without the wo-fi connection between the two, but it’d be enough for a simple out-and-back trip to retrieve her spare handset, still waiting for her on the table in Gate’s Hogwarts.

“So you’re…” Gate glanced at Greeter, then back at the strange girl. “One of the local Hermione’s friends?”

She smiled. “Well no, I’m her girlfriend. Well…” She tilted her head playfully. “One of them.” She giggled softly.

“My aren’t you cheerful,” Gate grumbled. “Can’t you see that Greeter’s missing an arm, I’m missing a wing, and our companion here is missing a leg- correction,” as she glanced down at her, “two legs. Any thought to maybe help us?”

The girl shrugged. “Well yeah, but the Hermy-O-Nanny employs those wonderful nanites that sealed off your wounds so fast they didn’t even manage to bleed. No, wait, that’s probably the spells I laid in here before you got here, but the nanites would’ve done it anyways if I didn’t.”

“Are you trying to get killed?” Gate hissed through her teeth.

The girl laughed. “Oh I’d like to see you try,” she chuckled. “Last time some idiot tried killing me, all he managed to do was hurt his hand. Thing is, I tell people I’m stronger than I look, and I am- but the truth is…” She trotted over, and bent down to pick up their unconscious companion’s hand. “I’m completely and utterly indestructible,” she finished, and gave the hand a sharp yank, pulling their companion upright- straight through the wall.

Their companion- whom the strange girl had called ‘Hermione Impossible’- let out a scream of fright and lashed out with her other hand. As if to prove her point, the strange girl caught it casually in her free hand, with a sharp slap that echoed through the room… but didn’t seem to phase her at all. Then she released both arms, and Hermione Impossible stumbled away from her on ghostly legs.

“Who are-!” She paused, and looked down. “What the-?”

“Telefragged,” the strange girl told her. “By a sabotaged Dimensional Jump Handset, no less. But don’t worry, the Hermy-O-Nanny can fix you up in just a few short hours. And you can call me Hailey, by the way.”

Impossible looked up at her. “Hailey,” she repeated. “Granger?”

She shook her head. “Potter.”

“Ahh.” She looked at Greeter. “That… er, device?”

She shook her head. “Gone.”

“I can fix it,” she reminded.

“Not when it’s been lost to the Interdimensional Void rather than just damaged,” Hailey mused. “No matter how many laws you break, Reparo can only fix what’s in front of you.”

“Or behind me,” she smiled.

She nodded. “Or behind you,” she agreed. “But there’s still the basic requirement that you be able to point at it in some manner or another- ergo, it must be in the same universe. As you no doubt know, wand magic doesn’t cross the worldwall.”

Impossible sighed. “I do know,” she groaned, and finally turned to Greeter. “Any spares?”

Greeter shook her head.

“How long for a rescue party?”

“Probably a very long time,” Hailey muttered.

“Why?” Greeter asked, looking at her. “Hermione’s, Inc. traces all jumps with our handsets, and launches daily rescue missions to those which fail, like that one. We’d usually only have to hang tight for a couple days at most.”

Hailey smiled. “That’s just it: Daily. There’s about six hours before the next wave- but this world still has tons of destiny energy, so by then, you’ll be already dead… or already saved.”

“But… But it’s been too long for that. We’d never last more than thirty seconds with very much destiny energy about, without proper preparations. And even then, sometimes.”

Hailey shrugged. “Yeah, well, I’ve been watching the clock.”

“What clock?” Gate promptly asked.

“That clock,” Hailey answered, pointing past her.

They all looked. Where there most certainly hadn’t been a clock before, there was now a comically large digital display, taking up the entire blackboard and counting down milliseconds as if they were full seconds.

“That clock is way slow,” Gate observed.

“It’s actually dead on,” Hailey informed her. “I’m… bending the rules a little, so to speak.”

Impossible looked at her. “Compressing time by a thousand times is only bending them a little?”

She shrugged. “Yeah. A little, compared to what I’ve done in the past. Anyways, let’s get you girls back to the Hermy-O-Nanny.” She held out her hand. “We’ll need physical contact.”

Greeter sighed, and stepped forward to rest her hand on Hailey’s. Gate was next, then Impossible.

Finally, Hailey stuck her other hand into her hair and, with an almost wildly mischievous grin, she pulled a dimensional handset out of it and pushed a button.

There was a sudden scream. Greeter glanced up- Hailey had, true to her word, gotten them clear to the Hermy-O-Nanny.

Hailey turned around, and handed her handset to someone that looked exactly identical. “Don’t forget about Crouch in five minutes, past self,” she told her.

“Neither you, future self,” the other girl smiled, tapping a couple keys on the handset. “Have fun issuing him detention!” She tapped the jump key, and disappeared.

Hailey turned back right about at the same time as the nurse-Hermiones reached them. “Was- Were you just crossing your own timeline?” she asked.

Hailey smiled, and nodded. “Yup! And giving my past self the jump set that my future self gave me a few seconds ago.”

“... What.”

She shrugged. “I’m not sure where it originally came from either. Anyways, I’d best go catch Crouch putting Harry’s name in the Goblet of Fire. So long!” She waved and, without any handset at all, vanished into thin air.

“I hope that girl’s Hermione joins Hermione’s Inc,” Greeter mumbled, allowing one of the nurses to guide her back towards the regeneration chambers.

“Oh, and before I forget.” It was Hailey again, very suddenly in front of her. “Here’s your spare.” She handed Greeter a jump handset… which she recognized as the spare she’d left on Gate’s table. “I’ve preprogrammed it with Impossible’s coordinates. She’s also fresh out of destiny energy.” She vanished again.

“Did that girl just perform a dimensional jump without a dimensional jump device?” one of the nurses asked.

Author's Note

I think this one had something to do with Ron.

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

That last scene- with Greeter, Gate, and Impossible- is a "semi-canon omake". It can be canon, it can be non-canon, but it makes no difference to the story either way (not unlike EQG to the show). If you've read the "Chapter's End"s found on both The Gate and On the Implications of Parallel Worlds, you'll be able to understand where Hermione Greeter, Hermione Gate, and Hermione Impossible came from.

Okay. Next chapter is decent. Expect it in a few seconds.

Chapter 55: The Goblet of Fire

“Do I need to say it?”

Barty Crouch Jr. jumped at least a foot in the air when the youthful voice sounded out from behind him, right after he’d turned away from the Goblet of Fire, having successfully dropped Harry Potter’s name into it. He landed with a loud clatter- thankfully, he was disguised as Alastor Moody- and whirled around to look, briefly forgetting about the magical eye he’d taken from the real Moody.

It was Hailey. She was leaning casually against the podium the Goblet of Fire had been placed on, completely unperturbed by how her robes were flapping as if in a very strong wind despite her hair flowing gently and sedately down her back. She was even facing away from him.

He took the chance to glare at her while he tried to figure out what she was talking about. Hailey Potter… She was, in a very real sense, his archnemesis. She was well on the way to getting him kicked out- unless it was some elaborate ruse, but it certainly didn’t seem like one- and on top of that, she had humiliated him in every class so far. In the first class it had been simple- when he had demonstrated the Killing Curse and told them they wouldn’t be able to do it, she’d promptly drawn her wand to cast it, and correctly at that, on the spiders remaining in the jar. She’d then told his class that it didn’t take dark magic at all- only a willingness to kill… Or simply immense power, which she said was how she’d done it.

The second one… He’d tried to show them what the Imperius Curse was like, but they’d all resisted it so well most of then hadn’t even noticed it… and she’d gone on to bounce it back at him before giving him detention for it! Not only had he been busy with his Polyjuice Potion at that hour, but he still had no idea where her office was… which meant he was well on his way to getting kicked out far short of his goal.

If it wouldn’t have undermined his position, he would’ve cast the Killing Curse on her just to be rid of her!

She turned her head slightly, towards the Cup. Not far enough for her to see him, but far enough to make her meaning clear. “Do I?” she repeated.

He whirled the magical eye around to check the area. Yes, they were alone- just he and Hailey. Even the nearby rooms and passages were all empty. Nobody was invisible, either. He took a deep breath, on the pretense of answering her question, and made his decision. Nobody would know, after all- especially if he transfigured the remains into something he could tuck into his robes.

“Avada Kedavra,” he whispered, as quietly as he could.

Hailey shattered like glass as the Curse flew through her- in an effect he recognized all too well from magical projections. In her place, there was an unfamiliar first-year girl he was certain hadn’t been there a second before, who caught his curse almost casually in her hand, like it was a physical object. She lowered it down to look at it- and as she did so, he noticed that she was standing inside the age ring as well, though unlike Hailey, her robes weren’t trying to blow themselves off of her.

“Really?”

He jumped. It was Hailey again, leaning against the other side of the podium, and facing him this time. “H-How?” he began. He focused with his magical eye… Yes. This time, he could see through her clothes without seeing through her as well- a characteristic of real people. Projections didn’t have anything under their clothes- no skin, no nothing.

Interesting. Her underwear was a matching set, and not the plain ones Madam Malkin made.

She ignored his question. “So do I need to say it?”

The first-year stuck one end of his spell bolt in her mouth and bit it. The spell bolt seemed to be about as big around as his wand, and a foot long- and as she lowered it from her mouth, he saw that she had, indeed, taken a bite out of it like it was a glowing green breadstick. He turned the magical eye on her, expecting to see a projection- but, with a pang of horror, he realized that it couldn’t see her at all, though it could see the spell bolt.

Finally, he answered Hailey’s question. She was far too fast with a wand for him to beat her without the element of surprise- and especially if there was someone else here, he didn’t want to tip his hand any more than he already had. “Say what?”

“Detention,” she answered, her tone making it a command. “My office, seven thirty in the evening. Monday.” She smiled. “If you survive this, of course.” She held her hand out towards the first-year.

“Needs salt,” the little girl muttered.

He looked.

She raised the now twice-bitten spell bolt into the air, and threw it at him. It immediately resumed acting like a spell bolt- and he moved, as quickly as he could.

Her aim was already off a little, but it still passed so close to his shoulder his robes flashed ablaze and he felt it singe his skin.

He stared at the two girls, standing on either side of the Goblet. What exactly was Hailey playing at? And who was that girl? The stolen magical eye could read nametags from across the room- but it still couldn’t find her! Even his normal eye couldn’t find her nametag- her hair was draped over it!

Hailey sighed. “For the compound crimes of submitting a name other than your own… and for submitting a name in the first place, as a staff member. We’ll do you a favor and not mention that curse to the Ministry. Shoo.” She flapped a hand at him, as if to ward off a fly.

He left.

It took until Hermione was halfway through getting dressed before she realized that Hailey’s bed wasn’t just empty, but still made. Even she couldn’t make these beds as well as the house-elves did, and it looked like a house-elf had done it.

“Hey, Silver?” she asked, keeping her voice down to avoid waking the other British Gryffindor girls.

Silver looked up. As usual, despite having been a girl for a much shorter amount of time, she was far faster than Hermione, so she was just slipping her shoes on. “Hmm?”

“Where’s Hailey?” Hermione asked, adjusting her skirt until the waistband sat just right on her waist.

She glanced at the big clock over the door. “Oh, she’ll be in the Entrance Hall, guarding the Goblet of Fire. She asked me to cover for her this morning so she could get some sleep.” She looked up at the clock; it was five o’clock. “Still got half an hour- you want to grab some breakfast with me?”

She grinned, picking a shirt from her trunk and flicking it out to unfold it and reveal which way was forwards. At least wizards knew what ‘fit-cut’ was, so it wasn’t exactly the same as a boy’s shirt. “Sure, why not?” She paused, checking the shoulder seams, with special attention to the ones that went underneath her shoulders. Unlike Hailey, she hadn’t had a few hundred galleons to spend on a TARDIS-like trunk, so she only had three shirts- and especially with some of the stuff that she did in her research efforts, these shirts wore out fast. She’d already ripped a shoulder seam all the way up through the collar on one of them, delegating it to the trash can. “As soon as I find some clothes,” she muttered, glancing down the side. Bits of the seam were separating, but none of them were in dangerous spots- and besides, unless it split big, it would be hidden underneath her robe, so inconsequential anyways. She put her arms into it, raised it up to put her head in- and stopped, lowering it again. It had split, right down the middle of the front, where there wasn’t even a seam. She sighed, idly wondering exactly what possessed it to split there of all places. “Speaking of which, it looks like I’m down to just one shirt now.”

Silver winced. “Yikes. Do you need one of mine?”

She sighed, glancing to the side. She’d turned in a little early the night before, so it seemed the house-elves that Hailey had taken her to meet a few days after the Welcoming Feast had managed to get her laundry done overnight. Fortunately, she wouldn’t need to be borrowing any of Silver’s several shirts; Silver had also had gold to throw at TARDIS-trunks. “I shouldn’t,” she answered, plucking her third and final shirt from her trunk. She shook it out, and examined it as well.

This one was in slightly worse condition; there was a little hole in one of the underarms, and the embroidery on the chest was tearing apart… But, as she put it on, it didn’t rip in half like the other one had. “Okay, that one works. And it’s going to be fun…” She sighed, internally berating herself for forgetting to replenish her clothes during the summer. At least Madam Malkin’s bras had spells on them to keep them from stretching out. “I really should have thought about regular clothes last time I was in Diagon Alley, not just dress robes.” She picked up one of her two surviving robes, after a shoulder seam had been ripped open on the third, and slipped it on; her robes were made of much heavier fabrics than her shirts, with stronger seams to match. That one had only ripped because she’d landed on it wrong… Or, more accurately, because Theodore Nott had hit it with a severing charm while she wasn’t looking. She left it unbuttoned while she slipped her shoes and socks on, grabbed her hat from her bedside table, and finally stood up. “Alright,” she told Silver. “Let’s go get breakfast.”

As she spoke, and as they continued on out of the dormitory, she did up the front of her robes- so she was done by the time they reached the common room.

“Hey Hailey!” Silver greeted, trotting over towards where Hailey was sitting on the floor, leaning against the podium holding the Goblet of Fire. Her robes were blowing as if in a strong wind, but her hair wasn’t.

Hermione, a piece of toast in her hand, walked up with Silver, right up to the age line. Neither of them crossed it.

Hailey, looking exhausted, rose to her feet and stepped out to meet them. “Good morning,” she smiled.

“Why are you guarding the Goblet?” Hermione asked curiously. “Wouldn’t Dumbledore’s age line be enough…?”

Hailey gestured at the floor behind her. There were a few crumpled-up wads of parchment or paper lying on the floor within the age line. “People- underage people- are throwing their names at the Goblet from outside the line. If they manage to hit it, that would legitimately bypass the age line.” She looked at Silver. “Your job, while you’re guarding it, will be to keep people from throwing their names in. If they can cross the age line and drop it in normally, that’s completely fine.” She offered Silver what looked like a collapsible baton. “You can use this if you want. Wiggle the lurgid diagonally to make it longer or shorter, and don’t be afraid to block any thrown names in any way you need to.”

“Does that include the Misty Step?”

Hailey nodded. “Don’t be afraid to break the laws of physics. And… About the Age Line.” She looked to the side, and blasted a clump of parchment out of the air with a column of fire from her empty hand. “That’s another five points from Slytherin, Nott,” she called disappointedly, before turning back to Silver, then reaching out and touching her forehead briefly with a finger. “The Age Line protects a cylindrical volume straight up from the line to the level of the Cup’s brim, and a spherical volume of the same radius set in the center of the Cup. The shield I just gave you will make you immune to it for about two hours, but it won’t affect your clothes- you’ll get a windy effect, as you can see.” She gestured down at her own robes. “Sadarina will be back in about an hour. Any questions?”

Silver nodded. “Did you know Hermione’s down to her last shirt?”

Hailey raised an eyebrow, while Hermione blushed and averted her eyes.

“Won’t Sadarina be unable to cross it?” Silver corrected herself.

Hailey smiled. “She’s a couple thousand years old, remember. No age line on the planet is going to bother her.”

Silver nodded. “No questions, then.”

Hailey nodded, then stepped sideways out of the ring. Almost as soon as she’d stepped across the line, her robes stopped acting like they were in a high wind. “Alright.” She looked at Hermione, as Silver started prowling around the Goblet, experimenting with the baton as she went.

“What?” Hermione asked, while Hailey stifled a sudden yawn.

“Sorry about that,” Hailey muttered. “Are you really down to your last shirt?”

She nodded. “Uh- Yes. I couldn’t fit any more in my trunk on the way here- I was going to write to Mum to send some of my older shirts.” She sighed. “It’s not perfect, but it’ll do.”

Hailey smiled. “Don’t worry about that,” she told her. “There’s something I meant to show you last summer, and now’s a perfect time. Anyways…” She stretched herself out. “I need to get some sleep before I pass out down here. How’s… Noon-ish?”

Hermione tilted her head. “Should work. What is it?”

“I’ll meet you in the common room,” she began- then smiled suddenly, her eyes glinting mischievously. Her normal, almost playful tone returned as well. “Unless you want to join me in the dormitory, of course.”

Author's Note

Okay, here we are, something of even remotely plausible quality at last. One moment while I preread it for publication- in the meantime, you can click on these if you'd like, to support me in the effort financially or contribute to the creation of the work of art this story is due to become in the coming weeks. Seriously, chapters 55-59 encompass a total of 16 hours of story timeline, I'm not done writing the last of those just yet, and there's a reason most of them are also long chapters!

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Aaaand, done. Should be a decent one now, and about time. Still a bit short, but... This is the first chapter of this story to be subjected to my new method of writing, of which Starbound Flight is currently the only other example. As such, while it hasn't fully adjusted to the differences in writing style, it's definitely going there. For example, I can actually read this chapter without flinching. Can't say that about any of the prior chapters... At some point, as mentioned a few chapters ago, I'll go back and rewrite the rest into something resembling this quality. No promises on when.

Chapter 56: Cuddles

Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle had followed Theodore Nott up to the Entrance Hall that morning not because they were trying to protect him, but because they had been witness to far, far more of the Slytherin common room than anyone gave them credit for.

When they had seen Hailey guarding the Goblet of Fire, they had gone into the Great Hall to have breakfast; there was no way on Earth that Theodore would get past her.

Suddenly, Goyle looked up. “The Boss is guarding the Object,” he muttered.

Crabbe nodded. “The Antagonist will try to hurt the Boss,” he answered- and the two of them promptly piled the last of their scrambled eggs onto their toast and got up from the table as one. They had gotten into a bit of a habit of using codewords by now; it let them communicate important things about secret things… while merely sounding stupid, which was just fine in their books. If they were completely honest, they didn’t care what other people thought of them, only what the Boss thought of them.

Crabbe led the way out to the Entrance Hall. He then allowed Goyle to lead him off to the side, over to the best spot for them to watch what was going on.

The scene before them was largely uninteresting… for a short time. Theodore kept trying to get past Silversong, but the girl was much too fast for him- and the few times he tried to charge her, she’d merely danced around to the far side of the Goblet of Fire and watched amusedly while he balanced on the very edge of the age line for a few seconds.

However, as her tenure around the Goblet drew past a half an hour, more and more people were showing up… and the more and more violent things were getting.

Finally, Silversong had been at the Goblet for nearly fifty minutes when the first spell was hurtled at her. It hit her from behind- and her robe split wide open at the shoulder.

“The fight has begun,” Crabbe and Goyle muttered, as one. They watched as Pansy Parkinson, taking advantage of the seconds in which Silver was distracted checking the damage to her clothes, threw a piece of parchment into the Goblet of Fire. The wad of parchment bounced off the lip, flew up… then dropped inside.

“The Boss has been entered,” Goyle growled.

“The Boss has been entered,” Crabbe repeated, cracking his knuckles.

“The Wheeze approaches,” Goyle noted suddenly.

Crabbe nodded. “Count,” he requested.

Goyle spoke so rapidly it sounded almost like dialtone.

Halfway across the room from them, Theodore pointed his wand at Silversong. “Diffindo!”

At the same time, Pansy Parkinson raised her wand to speak an incantation.

Very suddenly, the two boys spoke simultaneously.

“Wheeze,” Goyle announced.

“Competitor,” Crabbe announced.

Then, they both vanished into thin air.

Moments later, Theodore’s bright red spell bolt vanished into thin air, and Crabbe was right up in Pansy Parkinson’s face- but, very carefully, not touching her. “Do you mind if I punch you?” He asked.

Pansy sputtered incoherently for a second. “What?” she finally asked- but Crabbe didn’t need to touch her, only to distract her. The deed was done- and he vanished again.

Then, the two boys both appeared, as if out of thin air, in front of Silver, just outside the Age Line, facing Theodore and cracking their knuckles.

Pansy raised her wand, pointed it at Silver’s back, and muttered her incantation.

“Diffindo.”

Her wand instead emitted a loud squawk and turned into a giant rubber chicken.

She screamed in fright, and fell over backwards.

“Hi,” someone said, at Theodore’s elbow.

The effect was comical. Slytherins, including Theodore but neither Crabbe nor Goyle, scattered away from the girl like she was carrying a plague.

As for Sadarina herself, she only smiled amusedly, casually holding a foot-long rod of bright red light in her hand like a wand.

“Wha- Where’s Hailey?” Theodore asked.

“Not needed,” another girl said, from inches behind him. When he whirled around, it was to find that there was noone there- until Bonbon swept her Invisibility Cloak off and smiled. “Detention, Nott.”

Meanwhile, a very different face appeared over Pansy. “Pansy Parkinson,” she muttered. “Did you just put Silver’s name into the Goblet of Fire?”

Pansy scrambled to her feet to face Morning Sun on the same level. “No,” she stated.

Morning raised an eyebrow.

Pansy flinched, then shrank away from her. “Y-Yes,” she squeaked. “I did.”

Morning sighed. “Detention,” she said. “Seven o’clock, every evening, starting tomorrow, for two hundred and twenty four detentions. You will be notified of what you will be doing the morning of each detention.”

Back in front of Silver, Crabbe mentally nodded to himself. Everything had gone off without a hitch. Goyle had captured Theodore’s spell and given it to Sadarina, who had been walking over. While Crabbe had been distracting Pansy, Goyle had stolen her wand, leaned it against the podium holding the Goblet of Fire, purchased a fake wand from the Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes as the two boys walked down the staircase, and inserted it into Pansy’s hand in place of her real wand. Morning Sun and Bonbon hadn’t been part of the plan, but their presences had been welcome. Crabbe had gone on to buy a second fake wand from the Weasley Twins and replace Theodore’s wand with it while he was still scrambling away from Sadarina, before both boys had positioned themselves protectively in front of a very confused Silversong and dropped out of compressed time.

Three years and two months before, they had been assigned as bodyguards for one Draco Malfoy- and that duty did not end just because he turned himself into a Gryffindor girl. Instead, it became a covert assignment, rather than an overt one.

Hermione turned a page, slowly, in mid-air in front of her.

She normally liked to handle her books in her hands, but they were occupied with something else, so she’d resorted to magic. Similarly, she would normally read at least a dozen times faster- but even her mind was a little preoccupied.

She smiled, and yet again resisted the urge to kiss the top of Hailey’s head.

She’d taken Hailey up on her offer, of course. The two of them had undressed- again, in her case- and climbed into bed together. If she was entirely honest, she was pretty sure it was the first time she’d ever seen Hailey undressed; the girl had always been fully dressed by the time she came out around her curtains each morning.

Well, except for that time that she’d lifted her shirt up to ask for Hermione’s opinion on the bra her Aunt Petunia had gotten her.

A light giggle escaped Hermione’s lips at the memory. That had been early the year before, when Hermione had still been adjusting to Hailey’s sudden presence in her dormitory, and had still been enormously body-shy around her… yet Hailey hadn’t even bothered to blush. It was almost like her invulnerability even extended to embarrassment.

But she’d gotten over that… with Hailey. She’d managed to convince herself that the girl actually was just another girl, and warmed up to her… then she was pretty sure Hailey’s fearlessness had also bled off on her, because she used to be at least a little body-shy around other girls. Including her own mother, even!

To compound the issue, none of the other girls in the room had thought much of Hailey’s appearance- as a matter of fact, Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil had even shared a knowing look… and it had taken them mere days to warm up to her, to Hermione’s months.

But of course, Hailey’s apparent body-shyness- in how she always dressed behind her curtains- was actually nothing of the sort. It was a habit. Now, as Hermione glanced down at her, and the peaceful smile on her face… She was just so cute like this. She smiled, hugging her gently and burying her face in Hailey’s hair again. When they had climbed into bed, Hailey had curled up against her side… but now, they were fully tangled in one another’s limbs, necessitating the magical manipulation of the book that she sometimes went minutes without looking at.

Silversong, of course, was a completely different story. She’d joined the dormitory just this year… and she was still body-shy around her. She had to force herself to not make sure the curtains on Silver’s side of her bed were closed when she was getting dressed; Silver was no less of a girl and, as a case in point, was absolutely not body-shy. Silver always dressed with her curtains wide open, not a care in the world… and unlike with Hailey, speculation was almost rampant amongst the four other cisgender girls in their dormitory. None of them knew who she used to be, though they all seemed to know she hadn’t always been a girl. Hermione had to concede that it wasn’t exactly a hard conclusion to reach, even though both Hailey and Silversong seemed to be eternally amused whenever it came up.

Naturally, for Silver’s first night in the dormitory, she’d joined Hailey on her bed. Hermione hadn’t seen what they’d been up to, but judging by the giggling, it had been more fun than… naughty. She hadn’t missed Silver walking back to her own bed to get dressed in the morning, wearing only her underwear… which she’d promptly stripped off to change it for the new day.

Hermione had been so jealous of her… but now, she knew, she shouldn’t have been.

She should have asked. Hailey would have gladly snuggled up with her- and, now that she was thinking about it, Silver probably would have as well!

She paused, looking at her book without seeing it. What about the rest? Morning Sun, Diamond Tiara, Ginny, Ariel, and Sadarina?

… She’d have to ask. Morning and Diamond would be a bit tricky at best, since they weren’t Gryffindors- but crossing into another year’s dormitory was perfectly OK, so the other three wouldn’t be difficult.

She smiled, hugging Hailey again, and this time actually kissed the top of her head.

Then, Hailey moved, and tightened her own hug.

“You know…” Hailey muttered.

Hermione’s breath caught. She was awake? She felt the heat rushing to her face. She’d thought she was asleep!

“Ever since Silver asked for permission to cuddle with me, I’ve been waiting for you to do the same.” Hailey sighed. “But it never came… so I instead looked for an opportunity to ask you myself. I mean, it’s not something a normal girl would think of, is it?” She raised her head to look up, into Hermione’s face, blinked, and grinned. “C’mere, you,” she muttered, her hands slipping up Hermione’s back- underneath her wings, causing a shiver to run up her spine. Less than a second later, she’d hooked her hands over Hermione’s shoulders, pulled herself even with her, stuck her nose next to Hermione’s, and- And-

Hermione’s brain had stopped working.

She snapped back to reality when Hailey laughed. It was another rare, real laugh- and as near as she could tell, the girl was laughing at her reaction. So, even though she could feel her face heating up like a stovetop, she also felt a balloon of happiness welling up inside her. She was making Hailey laugh!

Nevermind how surprisingly nice Hailey’s arms were against her back, underneath her wings.

She smiled, and worked her hands underneath Hailey’s wings as well… before pulling her closer for a second kiss. She held it for much longer than Hailey had- and when they broke, they were both giggling madly.

“Not with other girls,” Hermione muttered, then grinned. “Generally.”

Hailey laughed again.

Author's Note

You know, this is something I've been waiting for for quite a while. Both major events in this chapter, actually- and at least some of you have been waiting for it for as long as I have. You see, I just don't do contrived stuff unless I absolutely have to.

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Nothing new for patrons today, beyond a certain (fairly low) level. Why? I've been in a funk this last week, and haven't gotten anything done. It's the same reason Starbound Flight missed an update yesterday!

... Whoops, I take that back, it looks like 58 never made it to Patreon. I wonder how I missed that...?

Chapter 57: The Floo

“She gave her how much detention?” Dumbledore asked, dumbstruck. Hailey had just been explaining the events of the night before to him, at the end of her weekly report.

“Two hundred and twenty four days,” Hailey told him, “Starting tomorrow. The final one will be the day of the Third Task.”

“Why so much? Didn’t Miss Parkinson only throw her name in?”

Hailey shook her head. “No. She threw Silver’s name in, and admitted to it when Morning asked.”

Dumbledore winced. “Still, though, there’s only a chance that she’d get picked…”

Hailey sighed. “Morning is on the management team,” she answered. “Hermione is the only member of that team that doesn’t know that the Champions will be Viktor Krum, Fleur Delacour, Cedric Diggory, Harry Potter, and Silversong.” She sighed. “Neither of them know Silver will die- that’s reserved to the Elite.”

He held his silence for several seconds, unsure of how to react to the news. He knew Silver was important to her, but she seemed far too unconcerned about her friend’s impending death.

Finally, he sighed as well. “Three from Hogwarts?”

She nodded. “The Goblet thinks Harry is from the Salem Witches’ Institute in America and Silver is from CSGU in Equestria.”

He groaned. “Of course it does.” Then he chuckled. “Salem Witches’ Institute, though?” He glanced up at her.

She smiled. “Yes. Ironic, I know, but he doesn’t- and we’re going to make sure nobody suspects we’re actually the same person.”

Dumbledore paused for a second to sort out the ‘we’re’s, then nodded slowly. “So… Morning doesn’t know Silver’s…?”

She shook her head. “Morning is punishing Pansy not for dooming Silver to get killed, which she would’ve instead passed up the line to you, or for throwing the parchment in, which is a mere five point deduction whether it goes in or not, but for forcing Silver to compete in the dangerous tournament.”

“So why did she do that?”

She shrugged. “We think Parkinson is trying to get revenge on Silver for replacing Draco… who never liked her that much, but they had a marriage contract. It’s making me wonder how those work.”

He nodded. “They’re binding, generally agreed upon between families… but it’s possible for the boy’s parents to force a marriage contract that the girl’s parents are opposed to, not the other way around. For a while, it was common practice for a girl’s parents to get her under contract to someone nice as quickly as possible, so she couldn’t be stolen from them- but nowadays, forcing a contract like that is much more frowned upon, so it’s not very common. The Parkinsons just never let go of that tradition.” He glanced down at his desk. “As a matter of fact, Harry actually has a marriage contract- to Ginny Weasley. It’s a much rarer loopholed one- not actually binding- but it blocked some… less savory elements from contracting Ginny away from them.”

She tilted her head. “So… When we kill Harry, does that void it?”

He nodded silently.

“And is it possible to contract two girls together?”

He shook his head. “Neither siblings.”

She nodded slowly, evidently thinking fast. “We need to get Magical Britain to recognize Equestria as a foreign nation, and offer Ginny Equestrian citizenship, before the third Task, then. Marriage contracts are flat-out illegal there, making any attempt to enforce them on an Equestrian citizen an international incident- and Princess Celestia…” She sighed. “Let’s just say there’s a reason the current Equestrian era is named the Celestial Years of Peace, even though Equestria is surrounded on basically all sides by warlike nations.”

There was a second of silence as Dumbledore sorted the information into his memory. No doubt at least some of it would come in very handy at some point. “The third task?” he asked.

She nodded. “We’re going to kill Harry off too. In a similar way as we killed Draco last summer, as a matter of fact- we’ve even already got the body ready. Shouldn’t be too hard to just let Harry get killed by Voldemort.”

“Ahh.” He paused, making a mental note to ask her about that sometime too. “How are you planning to start that process?”

She shrugged. “I haven’t really thought about it. I want to say they’ve already got something in the works; I know Celestia has been trading letters with Fudge since the end of last year. So…” She shrugged. “It’s probably just a matter of mentioning it in my next report to Celestia, and letting the ones that actually understand politics decide on the best way- or time- to do stuff like that.”

He nodded approvingly at her approach- and especially at how she was acknowledging her own inexperience. “Your next report to Celestia?” he asked.

Hailey nodded. “Yes. The management team reports not just to the Headmaster but also to Princess Celestia Solaris in Equestria. In exchange, if stuff starts breaking down over here, we can count on the support of her and her people.”

He nodded slowly this time, unsure whether he should be thankful or worried about that. “Alright. You are aware that someone can force you into a marriage contract against your will too, right?”

She shrugged. “I’m already a citizen of Equestria- and a royal citizen, at that- so I imagine that’ll be an interesting revelation for anyone that tries. Completely aside from how I’m actually more powerful than the Gods of this world, so I kinda pity the poor sap that tries to enforce one against me.” She sighed.

He nodded commisseratively- or at least, what he hoped was commisseratively; he’d never gotten that one down. “So…” He looked sideways, at the report that was now tall enough they wouldn’t have been able to see so much as the tops of each other’s tall hats over it if she had placed it between them. If she was right, and she actually was more powerful than the gods that were only theorized to exist, that’d make her one of the most powerful beings in the universe- and he needed to do a lot of thinking before continuing that conversation. “Ahh, what about Harry? Who put his name into the Goblet?”

As usual, Hailey didn’t miss a beat. “Bartemius Crouch Junior,” she answered promptly, then paused for a second. “And this is where things get complicated. The thing is, Barty is working to bring Voldemort back to power- and in order for Voldemort to be properly defeated, we need him to come back to power… on our terms rather than his. In order for Barty to be successful, we need to avoid outing him, or letting on that we know he’s using Polyjuice Potion to masquerade as Alastor Moody.”

Dumbledore froze for a second. “He’s…” He paused again.

Hailey nodded.

“Moody will still be alive,” he told her. “Polyjuice Potion doesn’t work with parts from a dead man.”

Hailey smiled knowingly. “He’d be hard pressed to kill Moody anyways- it takes a lot more than just the Killing Curse to kill a god, after all.”

He blinked. “He’s a god?”

She nodded. “One of them. He let himself get captured by Barty with the express purpose of making Voldemort vulnerable again- it’s a plan by the Gods that I was made aware of shortly after I got here this year.” She smiled. “So anyways, I gave Barty a detention on Monday for putting Harry’s name in. It would’ve been more than a single day, but if I did that, I’m pretty sure he’d get revealed too quickly; I’ve been deliberately picking the timeslot he’s been using to brew Polyjuice Potion for his detentions. On top of that, I’m not sure he even knows where my office is to begin with.” She chuckled. “In any case, I’ve got a pretty big trial planned with Sadarina and her family for the day of the Third Task- you can be sure he’s not going to get away with it.”

He scowled. “What about the Ministry? A legal trial needs a representative of the DMLE at least.”

She smiled. “Amelia has offered to bring the, ahh, what did she call it?” She tapped her chin. “Right, yes, the kissing brigade. Especially after Sadarina sent her the experience of meeting him last night.” She chuckled at his expression; he was allowing his confusion to show, hoping she’d elaborate. “Ever since her injury last year, Amelia is part of Sadarina’s family too. Which also means that Sadarina is a representative of the DMLE as well if ever we need her to be- but I don’t expect we will. After all, Amelia will be there- and as I recall, they’re working on finding a way to get both Fudge and Celestia present too.”

He took a deep breath, and let it out, taking the time to process the revelations. “That’s going to be…” He paused. “Interesting,” he decided.

Hailey laughed.

Hermione looked up when the Portrait Hole opened, and stood quickly as Hailey stepped through it. “So,” she began, walking briskly forwards.

“So,” Hailey repeated back to her. They’d gotten dressed and gone straight to the Student Instructor Program Management Team Meeting, after which Hailey had gone alone to take the report to Dumbledore. Normally, she went with Sadarina… but Sadarina was having fun protecting the Goblet of Fire; Hermione was going to have to ask the girl, at some point, how she’d managed to make the air so breakable.

She reached over and pecked Hailey on the cheek, trying to ignore the way her face was heating up. “You said you had something to show me,” she told Hailey- and realized that Hailey was blushing too this time. Not much, but she was.

“I did,” Hailey agreed. “Are you ready?”

“Ready?” She glanced down at herself, then back up. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

“Alright,” Hailey smiled, taking her hand. “This way.” She turned, and tugged her- gently- out of the room.

Hermione followed. She’d left all her stuff upstairs, in the dormitory, so she didn’t have to put anything away before vacating the Common Room.

Hailey led her quietly for a couple minutes, before reaching up to the wall. She knocked twice quickly, slapped it with her palm, then knocked a third time.

She tilted her head, looking around. “What’s that do?”

“That triggers the privacy spell,” Hailey told her, as they started walking again. “I set the enchantment, so it’s basically unbreachable- but it means nobody’s about to walk in and realize what we’re doing. Which is to say, we’re going to walk up and down this part of the corridor a few times thinking about how much we need a fireplace.”

“We need a fireplace?” Hermione asked, looking at her.

She nodded. “Yes, we do. The one in Gryffindor Tower wouldn’t work because there’s too many people about to notice when around eighty percent of the school’s population vanishes into it every weekend.”

“Eighty percent?”

“More or less,” Hailey nodded. “A vast majority of the Equestrians are actually working members of their society, and while they’ve been able to shuffle their schedules around to a quite alarming degree in some cases, they still do need their time off. I’m working on integrating a Subjective Time Sleeping Chamber into the Room of Requirement to make things easier for them- especially those like Princess Luna, who ‘works’ in Equestria at night, every night.”

Hermione shuddered at the thought of being completely unable to get decent sleep, nevermind lack of study time. “So… Why the fireplace?”

“Well,” Hailey said, stopping suddenly and gesturing towards the wall. “You may have noticed there’s a door here that wasn’t here a minute ago.”

She blinked. Hailey was right. There was a door there.

She looked up and down the passage… There most definitely had not been a minute ago. “How… Did you teleport us somewhere?”

She smiled. “Nope. Instead, This…” She pushed the door open, revealing a cavernous room filled with large fireplaces with roaring fires in them, large cauldrons heaped with gleaming powder next to each one. “Is the Room of Requirement,” Hailey finished.

“... Wow,” Hermione muttered, gazing around. It was a magnificent room- and the magic matrix connecting it to the Castle was… complicated. Finally, she looked at Hailey again. “So what do we need a fireplace for again?”

Hailey chuckled, and guided her inside, closing the door behind them.

“Ahh, Hailey! You busy?”

“A little,” Hailey answered, turning to the girl that had called her name. The girl’s hair was dark blue, and waved much like Hailey’s did, as she stepped out of a fireplace. “Do you need something, Rain?”

“Bonbon said she’s gotten the hang of the gabbleblotchits,” she told her. “She said she’d like some extra help with the lurgid whenever you’re available.”

Hermione could almost hear Hailey raising an eyebrow. “And she didn’t come here to tell me herself?”

Rain shrugged. “She’s on a quick mission. Manehattan again.”

Hailey rolled her eyes. “You’d think they’d be on their best behavior with half of the city’s regular law enforcement taking time off for Hogwarts, but noooo,” she sighed. “Tell Charlie I expect to have the STS ready in another week or so, please? We should be able to start making those guards do their jobs in addition to attending Hogwarts.”

Rain nodded. “Roger.” She turned around on the balls of her feet.

“Anyways,” Hailey told Hermione, walking towards one of the other fireplaces. “This can be a little tricky sometimes, but…” She shrugged. “It is what it is, you know.” She took a pinch of the powder from one of the cauldrons and flung it into the fire… which promptly turned bright green and roared at least six feet tall.

“Nice,” Hermione observed.

Hailey smiled. “You’re going to want to tuck your elbows in and close your eyes for this,” Hailey told her, pulling her into the fire.

Hermione gasped when the fire licked her skin… and it didn’t feel hot at all. As a matter of fact, it was more of a tickling sensation. “What…?” She asked.

Then she was in. Hailey wrapped her arms around Hermione, holding her close, then-

“Diagon Alley.”

Then they were spinning.

Author's Note

Ooooh, foreshadowing!

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Chapter 58: Ponyville

“Evanesco. First time?”

Hermione took a deep breath through her suddenly acid-free nose, thankful for the vanishing spell, as she looked up at Hailey. “What was that?”

Then she blinked, and looked around the room.

She… She had just lost her lunch in the Leaky Cauldron seconds after stepping into a fireplace in Hogwarts.

“Floo Powder,” Hailey answered calmly. “Travel by fire. Don’t worry, most people throw up the first time.” She turned away from Hermione. “And Thanks, Tom.”

She looked over. It was indeed Tom, the innkeeper, who had vanished her lost lunch. Then she looked at Hailey, trying to ignore the sting of her raw throat. “I bet you didn’t,” she accused.

Hailey tilted. “Well… No, I didn’t. Instead, I misspoke and ended up in Knockturn a few years back.”

Hermione winced. She’d never been down Knockturn before- but she’d seen it, once. There had been a couple of Equestrians guarding the entrance, redirecting Hogwarts students- which had included Hermione- away from it as ‘dangerous’. “Well yes, but knowing you…”

Hailey shrugged. “Back then, I was a mere HSI,” she told her. “And it was still dangerous for me to be there.”

“It ever was?” Hermione asked.

“Well yeah. It was also almost alarmingly full of people trying to catch me- but while I might not have had the Papa Tango yet, I was still fast. And Dad’s boost was… Helpful. Then there was Hagrid.”

A sudden flare of green flames in the fireplace drew Hermione’s attention. Her stomach wrenched again, briefly- but she didn’t hurl this time.

Instead, Morning Sun stepped out of the flames like she was walking in the front door. “There you are, Hailey!”

Hailey looked. “I thought you didn’t like the Floo,” she said.

Morning stopped, and smiled. “Well, I don’t. It’s… terribly impolite. But I was measuring the plurdality of the gabbleblotchits earlier-!”

“You managed it?” Hailey asked, sounding impressed.

Hermione blinked. It took her a second to remember that just because she measured them so frequently she didn’t need the bypass she’d given Pinkie anymore didn’t mean it was easy. As a matter of fact, on the curriculum that she, Hailey, and Pinkie had come up with for teaching others the new concepts, it was the final- and hardest- concept before the Pinkie Transform itself. After the Pinkie Transform would come a number of useful little spells- mostly the ones Pinkie had used before she crossed the Gate- and, finally, the Granger Warp… which was, to date, the largest and most complex transformation any of them had come up with.

And, now that she was thinking of it, Hailey had mentioned that Morning was by far the slowest to learn it yet.

“Well… Kinda,” Morning smiled. “I still can’t read them directly like you do- but I realized I can calculate how plurdled they are.”

Hermione blinked. “You can calculate it?” she asked.

Morning nodded. “Yeah. Turns out the Changeling transformation is equivalent to a Pinkie Transform multiplied by a Granger Warp then applied to another Pinkie Transform, before being multiplied by another Pinkie Transform and applied to the Animagus transformation, so long as you keep your foot stamped on the freddled gruntbuggly the whole time.” She took a breath. “And if I just wiggle the lurgid about twice as hard as I need to, I can instead jump to any terminal on the Floo Network without entering the network!”

Hermione scowled, calculating the named transformations in her head… Or at least, attempting to. She had a good memory, but that stack of transformations was very complex and each one made the resultant spell about an order of magnitude or so larger.

Still, though, she was able to figure out some characteristics of that spell.

“That’s not possible,” she told Morning, as the three of them started walking towards the door out from the Leaky Cauldron “That spell would smash you into a burning paste and send you to Timbuktu at the same time.”

“Unless you happen to be massless,” Morning told her, “where it will instead rearrange you into the shape of your choosing. But the harmony of the spell- looking at it with those components in mind, there are thousands of extraneous bits that don’t do much of anything- and if I don’t use a British spell as a starter for the calculation, I bet I can free the emergence points from the Floo Network’s anchors, and make it comparable to Phoenix Fire.”

“Massless?” Hermione asked, an eyebrow raised.

She nodded. “Yeah. Don’t tell anyone, but changelings are actually massless. That’s what lets them divorce themselves from conservation of mass so easily: It’s simulated mass. Anyways, I think I can make that spell not just safe for humans to use but also simple enough to teach it to Ginny without any prior study.”

Hermione raised her eyebrows. Ginny had decided that she didn’t have any time, between her classes and working with Ariel, to learn the magic Hailey, Hermione, and Pinkie were researching. She opened her mouth to speak, but Hailey beat her to it.

“Speaking of, how’s she coming with her project?”

Morning raised an eyebrow as well. “You say that like you don’t see her every day.”

Hailey shrugged. “Well to be honest, there are days that I don’t see her even once, not unlike you. But that’s beside the point, because you are the one that’s working on that project with her.”

Morning sighed. “Not very well, to answer your question. Ariel can walk a foot further away from her than she used to, but that’s it so far.” She paused, and tilted her head. “Though… Yes, using changeling magic as the base might be the solution there too.”

“Speaking of,” Hermione spoke up, imitating Hailey’s tone. “How are you using a spell that’s not safe for humans when you are human?”

Morning shrugged. “I’m not human,” she answered. “My body is literally made out of magic.”

Hailey raised an eyebrow. “You’re saying that in a public place,” she told her.

“I know. But all it took was a single time of calculating how plurdled the gabbleblotchits are, and I also suddenly understand how Sadarina works… and was able to disable and actually completely remove my own self-destruct routine and overwrite my state controller. As a result, I’m now like Sadarina- except of course that my body is made out of magic, and so heals instantly with basically no energy cost.”

Hermione blinked at her. “You- you what?”

“I rewrote my own magical core,” Morning told her. “Rewriting my own essence is easy, no matter how badly damaged it is, so I was able to cut most of the fat out of your Papa Tango by ignoring the Essence.” She paused. “Though I will admit, the last time I rewrote my essence was bordering on twenty years ago.”

“Really?” Hailey asked. “Even with the Fifty First Dates?”

She smiled. “I didn’t need to fool him magically, only physically. Rewriting the essence was developed a few months after the Invasion as a defensive measure against anti-changeling detection- and as luck would have it, Chrysalis had the entire Swarm trained on it as a top priority. Which included me, even though there’s a number of other ‘essential’ Changeling magics that I just don’t know.” She sighed. “Good thing, too. I learned it just the day before the Royal Guard showed up to start ripping the survivors apart- and because I remembered to rewrite my essence, and probably also because I’m a natural with it, I walked free.”

Hermione took a deep breath. “You- You mean you understand essences?” she asked.

“Well yeah,” Morning answered. “Don’t you?”

She shook her head. “No! I can hardly scratch the surface, and read basic attributes out of it! I don’t understand half of what my own Papa Tango is doing- all I know is that it’s copying an ideal state from the Identity within!”

She nodded slowly. “Ahh. That’d mean… Yes. You’re cloning the True Form into the Essence, then.” She smiled. “Nice.”

“The True Form?” Hermione asked.

She nodded. “Yeah. Every creature has a ‘natural form’- the base form that a changeling will fall into when they die, or that’s otherwise energetically cheap to maintain. For every non-shapeshifter I’ve ever heard of, it matches their physical form. Anyways, for the longest time, changeling natural forms have been almost insect-like- so long there were theories amongst the hive that we evolved from insects. But, by rewriting my essence, I can change my natural form.” She smiled. “And while the magic of the worlds will normally force your physical form to match your natural form, the transformation ability offered by your Animagus magic- or my Changeling magic- allows us both to defy that natural form basically as we please… and resume it, even if we’ve never taken it before.” She chuckled. “You know, I should probably have a look at my True Form on this side sometime. In Equestria, it’s the normal changeling form- Equestrian magic forces the True Form and Natural Form to match at birth- but here…” She shrugged. “There’s really no telling.”

Hermione tilted her head. “Really? But if it’s your natural form…”

She smiled. “The funny thing about the True and Natural forms is that they’re more like bunches of concepts. They get translated by whatever universe you happen to be in to get the physical form associated. Now, I know I’m powerful enough to override that, and force it to be translated instead by the universe of my choosing- and unless I’m wrong, the Animagus magic is efficient enough to let anyone with magical capability have that same control over how their form is translated, in exchange for a much more limited transformation.”

“The Animaguuugh!” Hermione began- but as she spoke, something rippled about her as they walked down an alleyway between two buildings, and she found herself falling forwards as a pony. She stumbled upon landing. “Uhh…” She glanced to the sides at the other two- and was at once distracted by the large, crystal room she had found herself in. She hadn’t been paying attention to where they’d been going.

“Welcome to Equestria,” Morning told her, drawing her attention from the room. She was a fully-grown unicorn mare, and at least a foot taller than Hermione. Unless… She glanced the other way, at Hailey. Unless they’d both grown massively since the last time she’d become a pony, she was significantly smaller than her human form, but it felt like she was a lot bigger.

Hailey’s horn glowed- and with a bright flash of light, a long black cloak appeared on Hermione’s back, hiding her wings and matching Hailey’s cloak. “Yes,” she told her. “There’s a scale difference between Earth and Equus. An adult pony is about the size of a six-year-old human, with a direct result that they’ll fit in an adult human’s lap pretty easily.” She smiled. “Morning’s only about four inches taller than us, but the scale difference makes it look like quite a lot more.”

Hermione blinked- and finally voiced a question that had been bugging her, in the back of her mind, ever since that first time she’d become a pony. “But what about conservation of mass?”

Morning smiled. “That’s the thing: They do obey conservation of mass. As a matter of fact, the dimensional crossing transformation does too- it just has the dimensional Void to serve as a sump. And since Changelings are massless, our transformations already automatically obey conservation of mass. As a matter of fact, British magic is the first thing I’ve seen capable of violating it!”

“You do know it’s not safe for even an invulnerable changeling to talk about that in the Castle of Friendship, right?” Hailey asked, as they walked up to a set of massive double doors.

Morning smiled in response. “I combined a few bits and bobs of Changeling magic- the same stuff I helped you teach your class for the Imperius Curse, actually- with Hermione’s privacy spell, and got a spell that’s just as effective, but targets ponies instead of areas. Means I can maintain it on the move- but it’s got one caveat: It will only protect you from observation, not even your clothes. Means I can talk all I like, and even transform in front of ponies, and they won’t notice- unless they’re particularly observant, it’s not as impenetrable when I cast it as when you do- but I can’t, say, hoof you a book about whales without everypony around being able to see that I’m hoofing you a book about whales.”

Hermione nodded slowly, while Hailey let out a small snort of laughter. “Would it let us… Uh, transform, without anybody noticing?”

Morning tilted her head. “... Sort of. You’d still look like the same shape, but… Well, say you were to take your human form now. You’d still look like a unicorn to everypony around you- albeit a unicorn that decided to try wearing her Hogwarts robes while in Equestria. And the, er, reverse, is also true.”

Hailey raised an eyebrow. “But it’ll cover the difference between a unicorn and an alicorn?” she asked.

“Yes,” Morning nodded. “It relies on several unique changeling facets, though, so I’m not entirely sure you’re going to be able to do it.”

Hermione looked at her. “Then I’ll just have to make another Papa Tango, won’t I?”

Morning winced. “Absolutely not,” she stated. “Ponies and humans are similar enough you can migrate and combine without much difficulty- but changelings…” She sighed. “It’s like transfiguring a piece of parchment into a house, where the Papa Tango turns a piece of parchment into a piece of paper. It just isn’t done.”

Hermione tilted her head. “Why?”

“Not only are we made of a completely different substrate, which already presents a particularly large gap to bridge, but we’re also a fair few orders of magnitude more complex. The only reason I can understand myself well enough to rewrite my own essence is because I’m made of magic- and magic naturally understands itself.”

“That’s also the reason you can speak Parseltongue, right?” Hailey asked.

Hermione blinked. “You can? I thought it was just…” She paused. “Hailey, Silver, Ginny, and Ariel.”

“And you and Ron,” Hailey told her. “Silver was already a parselmouth by the time we did our potion, so that got transferred too.” She smiled.

Morning smiled. “I can natively speak any language that any magical creature has ever spoken. That means that, from basically the moment I stepped into Britain, I could fluently speak several thousand different languages- and even Sadarina can only speak six hundred and fifty or so.” She chuckled. “I was glad the worldwall automatically makes sure anyone crossing can understand the main language found on the other side without realizing it. It didn’t touch me- but that little function meant my fluency wasn’t suspicious.”

“Now, if you’d spoken French…”

She laughed. “Yeah, that would have been suspicious. But I wasn’t thinking about language- it’s automatic for me to respond to someone in the same language they’re speaking to me in, and we only crossed paths with English-speaking wizards.”

“Anyways,” Hailey chuckled, as they walked up to the doors. “Hermione, Welcome to Ponyville.”

Right on cue, the doors emitted a couple heavy clunks and began gradually swinging themselves open, revealing a short road down to a quaint little town. There were a few ponies moving about, but there didn’t seem to be very many.

“Looks comfortable,” Hermione commented, before looking at Hailey. “So why are we here, again?”

“To visit the bank,” Hailey told her. “HSIs and, indeed, Student Instructors are actually paid positions. Since you’re British, it’d normally wait until you graduated, before being paid out as a lump sum… but the rules are different when you can cross the portal.”

“That’s… It?” Hermione asked.

Hailey nodded. “All the British Student Instructors have accounts at the Ponyville General Bank as well. They can’t cross the portal, though, so they can’t come get money, and have to wait for it to be delivered to their Gringotts account as a lump sum when they graduate.”

She scowled down the road. “So… How much is it?”

“One bar per school week,” Hailey answered. “Or for HSIs, twenty bars per week, year-round.”

Hermione looked at her. “So I… I’ve been a Student Instructor for three years, and an HSI for about two months. Meaning…” She paused.

Hailey nodded. “About a hundred and twenty bars over three years, then a hundred and sixty over the last two months. Well…” She paused. “A hundred and forty. Payday is Tuesday, so we haven’t gotten paid for last week yet. And that’s not even counting that you’re on the specialist team too, that’s another ten bars a school week.”

“How much is that?” she asked.

“Well, each bar is a hundred bits, which are worth…” She paused, looking at Morning again. “What was it? About seventy-five pence apiece?”

“Thereabouts,” Morning nodded.

“That’s not much,” Hermione observed.

“No, it’s not,” Hailey agreed. “A hundred bits a week isn’t even a living wage in Equestria- but since it’s only meant to compensate them for helping out, as a supplement to whatever work they still have in Equestria, it doesn’t really matter much. The big kicker is that Equestrian bits, when you take them to Gringotts, enjoy a forty-nine point three times advantage on the exchange rate.”

She blinked. “Forty nine times?” she asked. “What’d that make it?”

“Two bits to the galleon,” Hailey told her. “And a hundred bits might be chump change, but fifty galleons is more than all but the richest wizards make in a week- somewhere around three and a half thousand pounds.”

“You could buy a car with that,” Hermione muttered.

“An expensive car,” Hailey agreed. “Every other month. Or twice a week, if you’re an HSI. But the point is, since you have access to this kind of money, and a Floo Network capable of taking you to Diagon Alley, there’s no real reason not to make a dash to Diagon Alley to get something expensive if you want it.”

She looked at Hailey. “Something… Expensive.”

She nodded. “Yeah. Like a TARDIS-trunk, or enough shirts to last you a small eternity. You could even do something like I did, and get custom dress robes of a different color for each day of the week.”

Hermione let out a snort of laughter. “Really?” she asked.

Hailey nodded. “Yeah. Those dress robes are basically dresses, right?”

“More like literally,” Hermione muttered. “All the way down to the lack of pockets.”

“That’s why I asked Madam Malkin for custom ones… that have pockets.” She chuckled. “And since I like how they look, and magic can make them mighty durable, I splurged to add some to my muggle wardrobe as well.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re going to look like you’re going on a date every day.”

“Well no,” Hailey told her. “I didn’t get that kind of dress robes. I much prefer the simpler ones that aren’t just begging to get stepped on.”

She sighed. “You’re still going to look like you’re going on a date every day.”

“... Huh,” Hailey muttered. “Whatever, I’m sure there are muggles that like to dress fancy every day.”

Hermione only shook her head.

“Hi Hailey!”

Hermione jumped, and looked past Hailey- who seemed to have missed the ‘jump’ step. “Wha-?” she began.

“Hi Bonbon,” Hailey answered, then looked up at the giant, oddly starry bear that Bonbon- she assumed that’s who the cream mare was, anyways- had trotting behind her with a muzzle on its face. “What’cha got this time?”

“Ursa Major,” Bonbon answered briskly. “Not sure exactly how she got all the way from the Everfree to Las Pegasus, but she did, so I thought I’d stop by to pick her up on my way home.”

“From Baltimare?” Hailey asked.

“Yes,” Bonbon nodded.

“Which is on the other side of the continent from Las Pegasus,” Hailey stated.

She nodded again. “Yes.”

“Did you manage the Pinkie Transform?”

“Mostly,” she answered cheerfully. “I got it well enough to manage the level one compressed time and space spells, but my grip on the lurgid is a bit too loose for much else right now.”

Author's Note

WOOOO! New Record, only one section in a LONG chapter!

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

For those that don't already know, 1 bar = 100 bits = $100 USD. It really isn't much money.

But the rate two bits to the galleon, and 1 galleon = 17 sickles = 493 knuts = $98.6. (1 knut = $0.20)

In terms of actual value, 1 bar = 500 knuts = 1 galleon, 7 knuts, versus the fifty it'll exchange into at Gringotts. Also, 20 bar = $2000 = 10000 knuts = 588 sickles 4 knuts = 20 galleons, 8 sickles, and 4 knuts.

Chapter 59: Rarity

Hermione’s visit at the Equestrian bank was… rather uneventful, actually. She’d withdrawn just two heavy, golden bars from her account. Hailey had withdrawn quite a few more than that- then used one of them to show Hermione how to break each bar up into the hundred solid gold bits it was actually, physically composed of, and how to reassemble it back into the bar. It was a very simple change, powered by how the bits were enchanted.

Then of course, Hailey started leading her down a few more streets.

When she’d asked Hailey if it was safe to be wandering the streets of Ponyville, Hailey had assured her both that they were still on the safe, main roads, and that she knew where she was going.

“Also, don’t forget,” Hailey had continued, even after her assurances. “Pinkie Transform to the Misty Step. That’ll get you back to Hogwarts if something happens.”

Hermione breathed deeply and kept that information in the front of her mind as she followed Hailey through the streets. Hailey wasn’t worried, Hailey knew where they were… and they both could teleport straight back to Hogwarts on a moment’s notice.

“Ahh, here we are,” Hailey finally announced, leading her up to a large, circular building. “The Carousel Boutique.” She glanced back at Hermione, and smiled. “If I remember correctly, Rarity is one of your Transfiguration instructors?”

“Yeah?” Hermione asked, tilting her head.

“Well,” Hailey smiled, before knocking on and opening the door. “She’s a designer.”

Hermione stepped up next to Hailey to look in… and felt her jaw drop.

Either this boutique was shared between several designers, or Rarity was practically a goddess of design. Half of the room was dominated by pony-shaped mannequins- Stallionequins? That didn’t sound right- that were decorated with dozens and dozens of dresses and suits of different kinds, each one stunning in its own respect.

The other half of the room was dominated by the more familiar mannequins, which bore all manner of human suits and dresses with their own stunning designs.

After a second, Hermione scanned the room a second time to confirm her first impression. Yes, there were a lot more dresses than suits, like the majority of the clientele were women and mares, not stallions or men.

Then, a pure white mare whose mane Hermione recognized as Rarity’s walked in. “Welcome to the Carousel-! Oh, Hailey! I was just getting ready for dinner tonight- but did you need something?” Her eyes tracked to Hermione. “Or miss… Hermione, is it?”

“Uh- Yeah,” Hermione muttered.

Hailey chuckled. “I was just showing Hermione around Ponyville,” she explained. “Thought it might be a good time for you to get her measurements, if it’s convenient?”

“Oh of course,” Rarity told her. “We still have a couple hours before dinner. What did you have in mind?”

Hailey shrugged- and Hermione noticed she used her wings to do that, rather than her withers. The motion was visible through her cloak, even though it normally hid- no, disguised- her wings.

“Her Royal Gown, of course.”

Rarity blinked. “Huh? Oh, right, she ascended too, didn’t she?”

Hailey nodded. “She did. You can just bill the Crown for it, Celestia has already approved it.”

Rarity rolled her eyes. “I don’t need paying to make something for a friend,” she told her.

Hailey sighed. “You know what Celestia thinks about unpaid work.”

Rarity stopped. “... Oh, alright, I’ll bill the crown.”

Finally, Hermione’s brain caught up, and she looked at Hailey. “My royal gown?” she asked. “What royal gown?”

Hailey shrugged again. “By Equestrian law, all Alicorns are automatically Princesses. That means Celestia, Luna, Cadence, and Twilight- then, Pinkie after the Goddess of Reports, you that summer, and me when we healed Amelia.” She tapped her chin with a hoof. “Bonbon tells me there’s another one coming, but even she can’t tell who. Anyways.” She turned back to Rarity. “I was also thinking that, with the Yule Ball coming up-!”

“There’s a ball coming up?” Rarity asked excitedly.

Hermione smiled; Rarity had always seemed to be excited whenever a celebration was approaching, then disappointed whenever it actually came around.

Hailey chuckled. “There is; it’s part of the Triwizard Tournament. December twenty fifth, Christmas Day- from eight to midnight, as I recall. They’ll be announcing it next month, after the first task. Anyways, I was wondering if I could get you to make me something, ahh, suitable for such an occasion- I’ll be there as one of the Judges.”

Rarity looked delighted. “Will your alter ego need anything?”

She shook her head. “Harry is going to be one of the champions, but we’re deliberately making him into a laughing stock. That said, Silver is also going to be a Champion- shall I see about getting her in here at some point?”

“That would be wonderful,” Rarity opined. “Preferably before it’s announced, I’m going to be busy after that.” She chuckled.

Right at that second, a sudden explosion of flames appeared on the side of Hailey that Hermione wasn’t on. Hermione let out a small shriek of surprise and leaped away- but Rarity’s shriek was far louder, and her jump far longer.

There was a thump on the floorboards while Hermione regained her footing- hoofing? Whatever. “Ow! Uh… What in the world…?”

She looked. It was a golden-furred pegasus mare with hair like a bonfire- not unlike Morning Sun, who had headed back for the portal as they approached the bank. She seemed to have fallen on the ground, and was rising slowly to her hooves, looking down at herself.

Hailey smiled. “Angelina?” she asked.

The mare looked up. “Huh?” She then looked up even higher, and reached a hoof up as well to find her ears.

Hermione blinked. That had to be Angelina Johnson- one of the Gryffindor chasers… who had very dark, almost-black skin. The bright gold of her Equestrian form was an almost startling difference.

Hailey giggled. “Welcome to Equestria,” she told her.

“Eques-!?” Angelina began, then blinked. “Oh.” She put her hoof down. “Oh, that explains it. Um, I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” She looked around.

“Not really,” Hailey told her.

“Anyways,” Angelina began. “Hailey?”

“Mm?”

“I just put my name in the Goblet a couple hours ago, and my parents want to be at Hogwarts to watch the selection- is that going to be possible?”

Hailey chuckled. “Don’t you think it’s going to be a little unfair if you get chosen?” she asked. “I mean, you’re a phoenix.”

Angelina shrugged. “Just because I can doesn’t mean I have to,” she said. “But it does mean the Tournament isn’t as dangerous for me as anyone else, doesn’t it?

Hailey shrugged too. “Ahh. Well, I expect there won’t be any problem, but I’d have to ask Dumbledore to be sure. You want to take care of that?”

“Sure!” Angelina began.

“Wait a minute,” Rarity announced suddenly.

All three of them looked at her.

“You’re a phoenix-born pegasus?” she asked.

Angelina blinked, looked back at the brilliant red and gold plumage on her wings, reached a hoof up to her forehead, and set it back down. “Uh, I seem to be,” she muttered. “The world looks a bit funny, but that’s probably just Equestria being different.”

“It’s not,” Hailey supplied. “That’s your pegasus eyesight. You’re seeing more of the spectrum than you’re used to- ultraviolet, specifically.”

“... Huh,” Angelina muttered.

Rarity, meanwhile, seemed to be sizing her up. “... Huh. Sunset said all the phoenix-born she’d ever heard of were unicorns.” She tilted her head. “You don’t happen to know her, do you?”

Angelina blushed. “As a matter of fact, I do,” she told her. “I don’t think she knows about my wings yet, though.”

Rarity scowled. “Hmm.” She rubbed her chin. “Do you think…” She paused, then sighed. “Would you mind terribly much if I made you a gown or two?”

She blinked. “... What?”

She started pacing back and forth across the top of the room. Hermione recognized the telltale sign that she was thinking hard about something- usually how to say something to a British student without sounding rude. She seemed to be the most aware of the cultural difference, out of all the Equestrians, and Hermione was fairly sure she was overdoing it- had been overdoing it, in fact, for years.

And of course, situations like this didn’t exactly help with that, either.

“Well,” Rarity muttered, still pacing. Had she been human, Hermione knew, her arms would have been folded with one hand resting on her chin as she paced.

“Just say yes,” Hailey whispered sideways, to Angelina.

Angelina looked at her. “Yes to-? But…” She paused, glancing around the room. “I don’t have any money.”

“Oh, no, I could never ask you to pay for it,” Rarity announced suddenly, turning to face her. “You Phoenix-born have such splendid coloration that it’s every designer’s dream to make something for one. So… The opportunity is payment enough for me.”

Amelia scowled. “How…?”

“Roll with it,” Hailey told her. “She’s asking for permission to make you a gift… or twelve, knowing her.”

“Well… okay,” Angelina agreed slowly. “But what would I use it for? I don’t really come to Equestria, so…”

Hailey shrugged. “Phoenix-born are immortal,” she told her. “And besides, it’s already happened once. Maybe next time you can stun Sunset with your dress- or even get married.”

She blinked. “But isn’t polygamy illegal?”

“Only in Britain,” Hailey and Rarity answered instantly, in perfect sync.

“It’s the norm in Equestria,” Hailey smiled.

She sighed. “Oh, alright, I’ll have to look into it, then.”

Rarity pulled a series of measuring tapes from a nearby desk with her magic. “Do you mind if I get some measurements, please? Then…” She paused. “I understand you British students can transform at will?”

“Uh… I guess?” Angelina muttered. “I mean, I know I can go between original-me and phoenix-me at will, but…”

“Do you think I can get some measurements for your human form as well? I’m still experimenting with that shape, as you can probably tell.” She gestured towards the side of the room filled with mannequins. “And of course, you Phoenix-born still have your amazing coloration in your human forms.”

She sighed. “Okay, if you really want to. I do need to get back to my parents soon, though- I told them I’d be back.”

“No worries, this won’t take a minute,” Rarity promised.

What followed was, in Hermione’s opinion, an insane display of how quickly a unicorn could manipulate twelve measuring tapes at once- and, exactly as Rarity had said, she had both of Angelina’s forms- human and pony- measured in seconds.

Rarity then trotted back to her sewing table. “Oh, it’s so exciting!” she giggled. “I get to make clothes for a phoenix-born! Wooho!” She giggled again, then looked up at Angelina. “You just wait, I’ll have you a whole new wardrobe before long!” She looked back down, stowing the measurements, and pulling out an enormous notebook.

Hailey raised her eyebrow. “I didn’t know you used two-Twilight notebooks,” she observed.

“It’s a binder,” Rarity answered absently. “A phoenix-born!” She took a deep breath, and let it out. “And I don’t, actually.” She looked up, and smiled. “That’s just how many designs I have just waiting for a suitable phoenix-born to try them on. Plenty of them are from my foal days, so, ahh… A little less polished, but quite a few are more recent, and Sunset wouldn’t let me try any of them.”

Hermione scowled. “Is… Is it just me, or is it weird for someone- somepony, sorry- to be so willing to just give it away? This stuff’s got to be worth a lot.”

Hailey smiled. “Yes. This stuff is worth quite a bit.” She sighed. “I didn’t know about the ‘designer’s dream’ thing, but I did know she’s the Element Bearer of Generosity… so in the end, it’s really not all that surprising- even though she has a reputation as the finest designer in Equestria.”

Rarity glanced up from the opened binder, and the pages spilling out of it in her magic like they were fleeing from it. “It’s a labor of love, dear,” she commented, before returning to her inspection of the drawings.

Hailey raised an eyebrow. “That… That’s a good point.” She looked at Angelina. “Do you happen to know what Sunset’s dress robes look like?”

She nodded. “She got the standard dress robes. Bright green, because that’s what they had in stock.” She sighed. “She doesn’t seem to care all that much about her clothes.”

“Green?” Rarity asked, looking up again. “That’d look horrible. Just imagine the clash!” She shuddered visibly.

Hailey grinned. “I happen to know somepony else that works a labor of love, and possibly a little more literally at that,” she said. “She might be able to help with that.”

“Oh?” Rarity asked, raising an eyebrow. “Who?”

She nodded. “Morning Sun.”

“How would she be able to help…?” She paused. “She’s the Head Student Instructor for Transfiguration, right? And a Phoenix-born too, isn’t she?” Hermione could see the sparkle in her eyes.

Hailey chuckled. “She’s a changeling.”

Rarity blinked, momentarily confused… then burst into laughter. It took her a while to stifle her guffaws. “Yes, that would be delightful,” she decided cheerfully.

Angelina looked, startled, between Rarity and Hailey. “What’s a changeling?”

“Shapeshifter,” Hailey told her simply. “Don’t tell anyone, most ponies still think changelings are evil.”

“They’re not?” Rarity asked. “Er, most of them, not just your friend?”

Hailey nodded. “They’re not. I haven’t yet sat down to have a good chat with any of the rest, though, so that’s all I know- my future self didn’t have much time to tell me about it.”

Rarity blinked. “Y-You’re crossing your own timestream?” she asked, sounding half-horrified. “Isn’t that really dangerous?”

Hailey shrugged. “If you do it right, it’s perfectly safe. The most important part is for any direct, meaningful contact between past and future selves to be planned far enough ahead that the past self is expecting it. Then of course, don’t worry about trying to recreate exactly what you remembered your future self doing, because the timeline will stabilize itself.” She shrugged. “But yes, if you stick around too long or do the wrong thing, the energy required to do that might get large enough that it simply erases you to be done with it.”

“That still sounds stupidly dangerous,” Hermione scowled.

Hailey shrugged. “Whenever I’m crossing my own timestreams, I’m constantly watching that stabilization cost. Especially with as powerful as I am, the tolerance for paradoxes is a lot higher, since I can supplement the timeline with my own power before it even considers erasing me. Even so, it’s not something to take lightly.”

“You’ve been taking everything lightly,” Hermione accused.

“Not really,” she sighed. “I’ve been taking care of what needs taking care of… then allowing myself to have fun with everything else. Because at the end of the day?” She looked at Hermione. “According to Harmonia, you and I are to Earth as the Elements of Harmony are to Equestria.”

“What.”

Hermione wasn’t the only one to utter that word. Both Angelina and Rarity had joined in, all staring at Hailey, and all in the same flat tone.

Hailey nodded. “Yeah. Means it’s pretty hard to mess up too badly, but there is a saying: With great power comes great responsibility.” She grinned. “And the number one thing Princess Celestia told me in Princess Lessons: Never forget how to play. She has, and so struggles to remain as the benevolent ruler that she is.” She sighed. “There’s a lot of pain behind that formal mask she wears so much. For one thing, her mother sacrificed herself so that she could guide the nation right… and she feels like she’s failing her mother.”

Rarity tilted her head. “Her mother’s sacrifice…?” She shuddered. “That’s horrible.”

Hailey nodded sadly. “Selene was a Goddess. Her sacrifice turned Celestia, and her best friend Luna, into alicorns, and gave them the power to start bringing ponies together. Selene was successful; it wasn’t too long after that when they got Harmonia’s attention. Harmonia can’t affect much on the surface- but her main power is that of information. She was able to guide the Sisters in the creation of Equestria, and basically guarantee their success… so long as they didn’t second-guess themselves too badly.” She sighed. “There are still two gods and two goddesses living in Britain. If I decide to do something, they won’t be able to stop me by force. So, if I don’t want any of them to have to sacrifice themselves for that purpose, I need to be at least as successful as Celestia.

“And that… That means never forgetting how to play, staying in touch with the people around me… and never, ever, becoming the unapproachable ruler that Celestia has become.” She sighed. “It’s going to be…” She paused. “Something of an experiment, kinda. And a learning experience, as we try and create that firm-but-kind-yet-still-playful ruler.”

“Why ruler?” Hermione asked, her head tilting.

Hailey looked at her. “I am completely invulnerable, Hermione. That already makes me an extremely powerful political figure, say nothing of my strength or other powers. I am far scarier than Lord Voldemort, but nobody knows it yet. Because of that, and especially considering that we’re immortal…” She sighed. “Eventually, we’ll end up at the top, guaranteed. And probably sooner than later, too- I’ve already been rising in authority every year.”

“You have?” Angelina asked.

She nodded. “Three years ago. My first year. I became the Head Student Instructor for Defense Against the Dark Arts. They were still developing the position, though, and didn’t have HSIs for most subjects like we do now, so that really just amounted to monitoring the instruction on the subject and ensuring it was up to par, including coming up with my own. I have my father to thank for much of that.

“In my second year, my position technically didn’t change- but they fully defined the HSI position, which gave me broad authority over the subject. Add Lockhart, and I was basically the highest authority on the subject in the school. I had the authority to unilaterally change the curriculum- an authority I still have, and have exercised this year, though not last.

“Third year. Lupin was a great Professor, but that year I became the Student Instructor Program Management Team Lead as well, not just an HSI. With that, I gained the authority to punish, reward, remove, and hire Student Instructors as I saw fit. I even restructured the management team once, so the meetings wouldn’t take so long.” She chuckled softly. “Anyways.

“Then comes this year. Professor Dumbledore has seen fit to grant the Management Team Lead- read, me- the authority to punish and reward his Professors, and the entire management team- including myself- gained point and detention authority as well.” She sighed. “As I’m sure you’ve seen already, I’ve already been handing out punishments. Only to Moody, though, nobody else has needed any, but…” She sighed. “From the noises I’ve been hearing, even as early as we are in the year, I wouldn’t be surprised if the School Board convinces Dumbledore to let me start hiring and firing Professors for him next year.”

Hermione scowled. “Wouldn’t that make you the next best thing to the Headmaster?”

Hailey nodded. “It would, in that way.” She sighed. “Though in that vein, I fully expect them to encourage him to hire me as the DADA professor as soon as he possibly can… and if they can get away with it, whenever he eventually kicks the bucket, they might just try to conscript me to his position.”

Author's Note

I don't like railroading scenes. I spent a lot of time debating on making one in the next chapter- the setup for it is even in here, though it serves a very different purpose at the same time- but at the end of the day, it just doesn't fit where I was going to have it, so it won't appear.

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

So apparently, the Twilight is a unit of measure for the size of a notebook. Who knew?

... I wonder what it's defined as?

Chapter 60: The Champions

“The Hogwarts Champion,” Dumbledore called, “will be Cedric Diggory!”

“Darn,” Angelina mumbled. She was seated next to Hailey today, with her parents on her other side; Dumbledore had approved their presence. Ron was sandwiched between Sadarina- who, as always, was next to Hailey- and Silversong, with Hermione sandwiched between Ginny and Ariel on the other side of the table. It was rare for Ginny and Ariel not to sit next to one another, but not unheard of.

“Hoping for a Gryffindor victory?” Hailey asked.

“Yeah,” she sighed. “And I was kinda hoping for it myself, too. Would’ve been fun.”

“Not really,” Hailey told her. “It’d be mostly just boring. Especially to a phoenix, even if you stuck to the ground and didn’t travel by fire.”

She looked at her. “Really?”

She nodded. “Yeah. I can tell you more after each Task is revealed- but honestly, you’re not missing much. Well, except perhaps the Yule Ball that Rarity is undoubtedly making you an astounding gown for, but you don’t have to be a Champion to attend that.”

She scowled. “But I do have to be a Champion of Sunset for that,” she informed her. “Those dress robes of hers are so ugly…” She shuddered.

“Shouldn’t be a problem after we get Morning in front of Rarity,” Hailey told her. “You’ll even have her dress to tempt her with, not just your own.”

Very suddenly, the Great Hall went silent, and Dumbledore’s speech about supporting the Champions was cut short. Angelina looked up- and at once, she could see why. The Goblet of Fire had turned red again, and was throwing sparks out into the air- exactly as it had for the three Champions. Once more, a tongue of red flames shot into the air, and released a scrap of parchment.

Dumbledore, almost automatically, reached out and caught the piece, before staring at it. Finally, he spoke.

“The Champion from the Salem Witches’ Institute, which is not participating, is Harry Potter.”

A wave of chuckles had swept the room when he’d mentioned that the Witches’ Institute wasn’t participating, but when he said the name, it was instead a wave of laughter- which seemed to be the strongest at the Gryffindor Table. Even Hailey chuckled.

Angelina, however, didn’t laugh. She looked at Hailey. “Isn’t that you?” she asked.

Hailey shook her head. “No, actually, it’s not.”

Right on time, the doors out to the Entrance Hall flew open with an echoing bang- and people across the Hall, mostly on the Gryffindor table, gasped as Harry marched dramatically into the room. Confusion was immediately evident in Dumbledore’s eyes, but Harry ignored it as he marched up to the teacher’s tables, his hat lopsided, turned, and proceeded to join the rest of the Champions on the other side of the door behind the teachers’ table.

Dumbledore watched him go, and even once he’d disappeared, he still stared. Finally, he turned back to the room at large, stared at Hailey for a couple seconds, and sighed. “Alright then. As I was sayi-!” He broke off… as the Goblet of Fire turned bright red again.

“Not again,” Professor McGonagall groaned.

Dumbledore captured the piece of parchment, and stared at it too. “The…” He began. “The Champion for CSGU, whatever that is, will be Silversong.”

There was an immediate uproar.

“Who dares mar the name of Celestia’s School?” someone hollered.

Angelina looked past Hailey, Ron, and Sadarina, to Silver.

“So…” Silver muttered slowly, and scowled. “How… How did…?”

“Silversong?” Dumbledore repeated.

Silver blinked. “Oh, that little wench,” she snarled, and rose from her seat. She wasn’t nearly as dramatic as Harry- at least, intentionally. She still drew everyone’s attention as she stormed up to the staff table… and stopped. “I object to my participation in the Tournament,” she stated, loudly and clearly, directly to Dumbledore’s face. “I was not aware my name had been submitted.”

“I am sorry to hear that,” Dumbledore answered her calmly, in a tone that carried just as far without being as loud, “but it is a binding contract. Please join the other Champions, and we can discuss it in finer detail in a minute.” He gestured towards the door.

Silver sighed, evidently not liking his answer, but accepted it, turned, and walked resolutely through the door.

Dumbledore turned to the Goblet. “Next,” he commanded. The room held its breath.

The blue-bell flames in the Goblet of Fire… went out.

Dumbledore sighed. “I guess that was the last one. Okay. As I was saying…”

Dumbledore looked up, and sighed, as Hailey entered his office a week later. As usual, she had Sadarina by her side and was floating the nearly four foot high stack of pages that comprised the weekly report in front of her. Far less normal was her somber expression.

“What broke?” he sighed.

“I need to request a suspension,” she answered, in a calm, almost deadly voice.

“Oh my,” he muttered. “What happened?”

“Righteous Fury,” she answered, like it was a name.

“An interesting name,” Dumbledore noted.

She snorted. “It’s positively pedestrian by Equestrian standards.”

“It is?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

She nodded. “Lyra Heartstrings plays a lyre. Bonbon owns a candy shop that sells, primarily, bonbons. Vinyl Scratch is a DJ. Rainbow Dash has rainbow hair and likes to dash. Fluttershy is shy. Applejack runs an apple farm. Lack Effort- one of our Astronomy student instructors- lacks effort. Crash Course is only good at crash courses. Hard Spell has a really hard time spelling- both in spelling words, and in casting spells. And Righteous Fury?”

Dumbledore winced at her building tone… and the implication. “Got really angry?”

“He put Pansy Parkinson in the Hospital Wing twice this week, the second time with a concussion and a broken jaw, for blaspheming the name of Celestia’s School for Gifted…. Raeths. It means the same thing, but the correct word is an Equestrian National Secret on this side. Anyways, he was fired from his position as a Student Instructor for Defense Against the Dark Arts and given a weeks’ detention. He also failed to obey orders to stop, so he was effectively ‘on probation’ from the Equestrian Royal Guard as well. We contacted his commanding officer back in Equestria, and apparently, private Fury- used to be Corporal- has always had a persistent discipline problem.” She sighed.

“Who did he disobey?” Dumbledore asked, watching her. If the disobedience was enough to earn him a demotion in what was apparently some kind of military-like system, it had to be pretty bad.

“Princess Luna,” Hailey answered darkly. “The Commander in Chief of all Equestria’s armed forces.” She sighed. “He’s lucky she didn’t decide to imprison him right off the bat, because not only is she one of our best fourth-year Student Instructors for Defense Against the Dark Arts, she’s also one of Equestria’s diarchs.”

“Oh my,” Dumbledore breathed.

She nodded. “Last night, I crossed paths with him, in another battle with Pansy.

“He had a knife.”

He winced. “Is she okay?”

“Unhurt,” Hailey answered. “After that second time, she’s taken to carrying her wand everywhere, in her hand. He tried to sneak up behind her- and while she didn’t have time to reason out a suitable defense, she’s a natural with blasting spells.”

He flinched. “How much is left?”

“He’s still alive,” Hailey answered calmly, her tone suggesting he was only just. “He was wearing his Royal Guard armor, and it’s so heavily enchanted that anything short of the Killing Curse itself won’t really hurt him. He was knocked backwards, but he easily kept his footing and, discarding the knife, drew his own wand. We think he knew he wasn’t going to get close again- not with her wand trained on him, at least.”

“How… Did she get him again?”

Hailey shook her head. “She was still in a panic, trying to get a shield up- she’s really bad at those- and he was halfway through throwing a blasting spell back at her when Sadarina destroyed his wand, and I blasted him as well.”

“That had to be scary,” Dumbledore observed.

Hailey cracked a grin. “Oh yes. Pansy had seen his armor absorb her blast and protect him from it- so when his wand exploded a second later, immediately followed by my blast forcing him to perform a feat normally reserved for ghosts, then Princess Luna’s class’ blasts ripping his armor to shreds in a surprise practical…” She sighed. “Luna’s class is full of very high-level Guards and other similarly skilled personnel. On top of that, the Guards are not supposed to wear their armor on this side of the Gate, by decree of Princess Celestia three and a half years ago.

“So of course, while I helped Pansy calm down, waived her spell as self-defense, and advised her to go for disarming rather than a shield next time, he was issued a court date on the way to the Hospital Wing; he will be court-martialed for Conduct Unbecoming in about three weeks, then charged with Aggravated Assault, among other things, in Equestrian criminal court two days later.”

“Sounds like everything is handled,” Dumbledore muttered.

Hailey sighed. “Equestria doesn’t have very many prisons, and the ones they do have are incredibly expensive to run thanks to not having a Dementor-equivalent to act as prison guards, nevermind how hard it is to contain three different kinds of innate magic…” She sighed again. “Equestrian law actually prohibits imprisonment in most cases. It’s actually cheaper, most of the time, to assign someone to follow him around. As such, their laws won’t allow for imprisonment until he breaches his restraining order a second time. However, he came this close to killing her the first time.” She held her hand up, holding her fingers about a half a centimeter apart. “Of the crimes he will be tried for, three of them carry those rare Equestrian prison sentences… and one of them is the only way to get a death sentence in Equestria: Attempted, or actual, violent murder… of a child. They use a different word, but it means the same thing.” She sighed. “I don’t know about you, but I want him out of this castle before he has a chance to try again.”

“Violent murder?” he asked.

She nodded. “The Blasting Spell is classified as a Level One Lethal Spell- can kill, but often won’t- but the knife he nearly got her with is a Murderous Weapon, and the defining attack for the crime.”

“... Alright,” he muttered. “He’ll be suspended. Some… twenty-three days?” He looked up at her.

“His criminal trial will be in twenty five days as of today- he will be missing classes for it.”

He nodded. “Twenty five days, then. And if the judges don’t mind, can I request a copy of the verdict?”

She nodded. “You will already be receiving a copy, since the victim was under your protection, and Pansy will also be receiving a copy, as the victim.” She sighed. “You- and she- should be receiving notices in the mail in a few days, along with instructions for how to claim damages against him for the crime, as victims. Remember that, in terms of actual value, it’s five knuts to the Equestrian bit, and you shouldn’t have any trouble at all recovering the cost of repairing the wall downstairs. We’re also going to want to notify Pansy’s parents before they receive that same notice and instructions. They won’t be too happy, but at least they won’t panic if we can at least explain the circumstances of the crime before they get the legal notice.”

Dumbledore nodded. “Alright.” He looked down at his desk, then back up. “How are our guests?”

“Doing pretty well, I’d say. Fleur- the Beauxbatons champion- stopped Fury the first time he attacked Pansy, when it was just fists, and ended up with a black eye- but between the two of them, they were able to overcome him. On the second attack, Krum cast a rather clever alert charm to summon help while he watched from a safe distance. It found me and Luna- and after he ignored Luna’s orders, I stopped Fury from beating her with a broom handle. After Luna had laid down the law against him, I forced him to accompany me and Pansy to the Hospital Wing, and explain directly to Madam Pomfrey what had happened, in addition to his other punishments.” She sighed. “Other than that, they all seem to be doing fine. Plenty of them have made British or Equestrian friends- even Fleur, easily the most aloof of any of them.

“Anyways.” She glanced sideways at the pile. “You probably already know what I’m going to say about the detention.”

He smiled. “He skived off again, didn’t he?”

She nodded. “We’ll have to conspire to tell him where my office is at some point- at this rate, he’ll be fired too quickly.”

Dumbledore chuckled. “So… There’s a few things I’ve been meaning to ask you about.”

“Oh?” She raised an eyebrow at him.

“Yes. First of all, how did you do… whatever you were doing, during the Weighing of the Wands yesterday?”

“Ahh, that,” she chuckled, her mood rising rapidly after he had granted her wish. “Are you also going to ask about what happened the night of the Goblet of Fire?”

He nodded silently.

She sighed. “It was all long and boring.”

Nearly a Week Before…

“Hailey.” It was Silversong, as soon as the judges had entered the room.

Hailey, presently disguised as Harry and strutting like she owned the place despite her deliberately careless appearance, looked up, made brief eye contact with her future self, and allowed herself a flicker of a smile. This was a planned encounter between her past and future selves- though they wouldn’t come into direct contact. She was only here for appearances, after all- so Harry could be properly given his first instructions, before vanishing into the thaumion flow again until the next event, the Weighing of the Wands. Her notebook was devoid of details for this particular event, suggesting that not much was about to happen.

Her future self raised an eyebrow. “Yes?” she asked. She was… oddly cheerful, Hailey noticed. It was a far cry from how positively jubilant her present and- especially- future selves had been when she got the notebook, but it was definitely a step up from where she was. She had to wonder again- was Lyra’s mental health stuff just that effective, or was there something else that was making them happier?

“Tell me there’s a way to get out of this Tournament,” Silver commanded. Hailey had deliberately avoided talking to her since she’d arrived in the room; she wasn’t entirely certain how to manage the conversation with one of the people that knew who she really was… while a few months behind them in the timeline. They’d think she was an imposter.

“There is,” her future self told Silver. “However, it’s a very particular one. There’s a lot of requirements you have to meet, then you have to announce your objection to participating in front of the Goblet of Fire, a majority of the Judges, and a majority of the spectators.”

Silver tilted her head. “What are those requirements?”

She shrugged. “Well, unlike Harry, you actually meet most of them… but there’s one that nobody can know except yourself. Your reason for getting out has to fit certain parameters… and not knowing you were entered doesn’t fit them. So, what is your reason?”

Silver scowled. “My… reason?”

“Yes. Why shouldn’t you compete?”

“I…” She paused. “I possess an unfair advantage that none of the other Champions do,” she told her. “It wouldn’t be a fair competition.”

Her future self sighed. “Unfortunately, overqualification isn’t a valid reason to break the contract.”

“Aren’t magical contracts consensual?”

She nodded. “They are. But there are a few magical objects powerful enough to force one on you without your consent- and the only one the Ministry hasn’t yet destroyed… is the Goblet of Fire.”

“Great,” Silver moaned.

Author's Note

What can I say, his name was... unfortunate.

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Chapter 61: Time Loops

Dumbledore scowled. “I already know all that,” he told Hailey. “Well… most of it. I was there, if you recall. So.” He steepled his fingers on his desk. “This notebook you mentioned.”

Hailey nodded, reached into her hair, and removed a pretty ordinary but well-worn notebook. “This notebook, to be specific. Notes from my future self on exactly how the Tournament will go down, and exactly how I should be ready for it. It includes things like who was selected, exactly how each Champion solves each task, who dies, when they die, how they die, and why they die. Exactly when various things happened, like Harry storming into the Great Hall last week, or his extremely timely arrival at the Weighing of the Wands. There’s even a particularly fun triple event, where my Past, Present, and Future selves all meet at once, in which Future Self gives Past Self this notebook. Now, that event hasn’t happened yet, and I’ve only gone through it as my Past Self just yet anyways, so I can’t tell you about it without risking breaking the timeline.” She shoved the notebook back into her hair.

“So,” Dumbledore scowled. “What have you gone through?”

She shrugged. “Well, last summer, a couple days before the semester started, I did a bit of time warping. Jumped to the triple event, met my future selves, and got the notebook. Jumped from there directly into the Thaumion Flow to read the first half in subjective time, then turned into Harry, burst into the Great Hall on schedule last week, and went through that process.” She raised an eyebrow at him and, after his nod, continued. “After that, I got separated from Silversong by use of my future self, and jumped up to the Weighing of the Wands, burst in on schedule, and took care of that. Following that, after getting lost again, I jumped to the First Task and completed it.

“Then I jumped straight to the Second Task, completed it, and finally to the Third Task, completed it, waited for Voldemort to wake up, and abandoned a magical construct in my place so my future self could swap it out for the body and let him get killed. Following that, I went straight into the Thaumion Flow again to read the other half, the stuff that was important for my past self not to know, and returned to Bonbon’s house- where I’d left from in the first place.” She smiled. “Jumping in and out of Equestria is always fun. Anyways, after that, I rebuilt the student schedules with the team, presented them to the school, and came to Hogwarts. Right now, I’m going through it as a ‘normal’ year- looking forward to that triple event, between the First Task and the Yule Ball- before, at the end of the year, I’ll make sure the notebook isn’t missing anything before I jump back to the triple event to hand it off to my past self.”

He scowled again. “So… This notebook.”

She nodded. “Yes, the notebook is experiencing a stable time loop. Not the first one of those I’ve created, though admittedly the largest one I’ve done. I’m not entirely certain where it came from, but I do know about how it came into being.”

“Oh? How is that?”

“Well…” She scowled. “Wizards aren’t really familiar with what happens when you cross your own timestream, but Harmonia helped me understand it quite a while ago. Thing is, the timeline isn’t fixed in stone- and if an unstable time loop doesn’t stabilize, it will be erased from the timeline, along with as many other elements as necessary to make it never happen. That, of course, is the danger of killing your past self- you’ll just erase yourself from the timeline. Poof, ceased to exist.

“Things get complicated when you, for example, save your past self. In the initial branch of any given time loop, the future self doesn’t exist- so you had to have been saved by something else. Harmonia told me a story about a world like ours where I didn’t turn into a girl and the Gate hadn’t been opened. In that world, Sadarina was never saved, Hagrid was sent to Azkaban for a couple months during the Chamber of Secrets scare, and Sirius Black was never acquitted, because Peter got away. But of course, there was a time loop on that last one- because Harry, Hermione, and Sirius had collapsed on their way around the lake, surrounded by unsaved dementors… Then suddenly Harry’s future self sent a Patronus across the lake and drove them off.

“But that can’t have happened in the first iteration. In the first iteration, Buckbeak- a Hippogriff that had been accused of mauling Draco Malfoy in that world, then sentenced to beheading- died, then Black and even Harry got Kissed before Snape’s Patronus drove the dementors away. Hermione, unable to live with her survivor’s guilt when she woke up, found out how long it had been and used her Time Turner- she’d needed one to make all her classes, since the Student Instructor Program hadn’t existed to get them to line up as nicely as we did- to travel back and try to change something. She knew what was at stake, and was determined to save Harry, even if it cost her life.

“But since she did it of her own volition, she didn’t have any goal except to save Harry. She hid herself in the bushes and, when the dementors came charging, she mustered her courage and started fighting them in the only way she knew how: Throwing things at them, by magic and otherwise, since she couldn’t manage a Patronus. Sirius was still Kissed, but she was successful in saving Harry- and when Snape got there, she was put into detention for crossing her own timestream and would have gotten in big trouble with the Ministry… except that the moment her past self turned her Time Turner, that iteration of the timeline ceased to exist.

“To her past self… Harry, Hermione, and Sirius were overcome by dementors, then this crazy girl with a wand and a throwing arm like a wet noodle comes out of nowhere and starts throwing clever charms at the dementors. She’s successful in saving Harry, but only barely.

“But of course, the Dumbledore of that world was very much like you. He saw what happened, made an inaccurate assumption, and- unaware that she’d done it on her own- told her past self, after she’d recovered in the Hospital Wing, that she should be able to save herself and ‘one turn’ should do it.

“Naturally, she misinterpreted those words, looped the chain around Harry too… and fumbled the Turner in her nervousness. Harmonia did that part, since had she not fumbled it, it would’ve made a degenerative loop and ended up erasing them both. Anyways, it completed two extra turns before she was able to regain control of it- so, two hours further back in time than they had wanted to go, Hermione explained it to Harry… then because they thought they were supposed to be saving someone other than Harry, they ran out and saved Buckbeak. They then returned to the side of the Lake and hid in the bushes to watch the scene with Sirius and the dementors, because they both remembered and hated it and were unsure what to do with the hippogriff. So, as the dementors got close, Harry jumped out and cast his corporeal Patronus across the Lake, driving the dementors off, with both Harry and Black unkissed. They ended up letting Buckbeak go and sneaking up to the Hospital Wing- but they never got there, because again, the Dumbledore of that world was like you.

“He saw Harry and Hermione transferred to the Hospital Wing, and Black to Flitwick’s office… and knew Buckbeak had been freed. So, he made another inaccurate assumption, told Hermione’s past self where the window into Flitwick’s office was, that three turns would do, and that they should be able to save two lives, and left the room. She got excited, turned her time turner… and then, all of the sudden, things were looking good for them.

“They ran down, saved Buckbeak, hid in the bushes, cast the Patronus, waited until the executioner ran off to get a Dementor to kiss Black, flew up to Flitwick’s office, saved him, landed on the Astronomy tower, sent him off, and ran back to the Hospital Wing in time to meet their Dumbledore and slip back in undetected. The Dumbledore of the next iteration saw nothing different from the one in which Black had not been saved, so gave the exact same words to Hermione, which stabilized the loop on the fourth iteration and removed any danger of self-erasure.

“Just like it, the original me in this loop would have delegated her duties as a Judge to Ginny, transformed for each Task of the Tournament, probably revealing the connection between Harry and Hailey to the whole school, built this notebook, and gifted it to her past self.

“The second iteration would have been refining the notebook, but still doing the warp-ahead as I did in the current iteration, this time knowing when each would be. A few more iterations of refining… And now, according to my notebook, we are on the twelfth iteration- and if I query the timeline, there is absolutely no danger of self-erasure, meaning the loop is stable. All I have to do now is hold onto this notebook as it is until it comes time to hand it to my past self. Everything else will, essentially, take care of itself- and so long as I don’t overthink it, the loop will stay stable until it’s finally closed out at the end of the year.”

Dumbledore stared at her. “How… Who is Harmonia?”

“She’s…” Hailey paused. “I don’t know how to describe it. She manages our world, and helps guide us to harmony. Same for Equestria, in fact- it was she that put the idea in Lyra’s mind to open the Gate, and caused our worlds to be tied to one another.”

“Okay,” he muttered. “What is Harmonia?”

There was a couple seconds of silence.

“You know… I have no idea. All I know is that she’s not human- and that visiting her realm with an unterminated time loop waiting on you is generally a bad idea, since then she has to be oh so careful what she tells you, so…” She shrugged. “She watches the iterations back to back, and is the only being in the universe that will actually be able to perceive anything but the most recent iteration of the timeline. Then of course, since she’s outside the timeline… If I visit her now, one tiny mistake on her part can erase me entirely with no warning at all.”

The silence drew on for a few seconds. “How… How many iterations…?”

She shrugged. “The average wizard can create a time loop with up to fifty iterations or so before the timeline decides it’s easier to just erase him. If I actively supply power to the timeline, I can hit probably about fifty thousand iterations- but fifty is already well beyond the point where the loop usually either stabilizes or degenerates.”

“Degenerates?”

She nodded. “A degenerative loop alternates between two or more states. For example, if I kill my past self, that kind of paradox creates a degenerative loop- unless somebody else goes back to kill me in the iterations where I’m dead, I suppose. Once a degenerative loop hits that maximum iteration count, it reverts to the original cycle… and the time travel event that started the loop would have failed, instead dumping me directly into the Void for total erasure from the timeline. After that, the timeline proceeds as if there was no loop at all.” She paused briefly. “If I were to kill my future self instead, that usually also results in a degenerative loop, but it’s not nearly as certain.”

“Ahh,” he muttered, slowly. He stared at his fingers for a few seconds, thinking on what he’d been told, then finally looked up again. “So… with the Weighing of the Wands…”

She nodded. “Yes. Yesterday…”

The Day Before…

Hailey sighed as she walked into the classroom they were using for the Weighing of the Wands. She was a couple minutes late, having been sitting in on Astral Effort and Big Nuisance’s Astronomy class; they had yet to find a Head Student Instructor for Astronomy. Rather annoyingly, Big Nuisance was exactly that- but she’d seen the astronomical amount of effort that Astral Effort was putting into her work, including in her perfect scores across the board, and would be nominating her for review as a potential Head Student Instructor during the next Management Meeting. She expected that even she wouldn’t have been able to carry Big Nuisance’s dead weight, but the unicorn mare made it look almost easy. He was enough of a drag to keep her class from drawing management attention by excelling, though.

No doubt the mare’s pegasus sister, Lack Effort, would be jealous of her sister’s promotion, and perhaps start putting in some more effort of her own. They both had enormous potential, if only Lack Effort would use it.

“You’ve found an Astronomy HSI?” Dumbledore asked.

Hailey nodded. “She passed the review earlier today with flying colors- but she doesn’t know yet. I’m going to be offering her the position next week, and we’ll see if she takes it. If she does, we might be looking at a revolution in Astronomy student instruction. She’s only a third year, so not normally eligible to be an HSI; that’s reserved for the highest year involved in the program, currently fourth years. However, Astronomy has gone without for so long precisely because nobody was qualified for it, so the team agreed to make an exception. Anyways, you asked about the Weighing of the Wands, did you not?”

When Hailey arrived late for whatever reason, she already knew she was earlier than Harry; he wasn’t scheduled to burst in for another few minutes.

“Ahh, Hailey,” Mr. Bagman cheered. “There you are. I was starting to wonder.”

She shrugged. “With as many hats as I wear, you’re lucky I showed at all,” she told him seriously. “In any case.” She glanced around. Fleur, Krum, Cedric, and Silver were all present- the last sitting in the corner next to Rita Skeeter, arms and legs folded while she glowered at the judge’s table. “Looks like we’re still missing Dumbledore and the expert?”

“They’re upstairs right now,” Bagman answered promptly. “We’re also missing Harry.”

She shrugged. “He should be coming.”

Bagman scowled. “Why hasn’t he been around the Castle…?”

She sighed. “Because the brat never steps out of the shower except at night,” she told him. “He hasn’t shown for a single class all year- if not for the Tournament, he’d be in danger of expulsion right now.”

“The shower?” Silver asked, blinking.

She nodded. “Yup. Had to go invade his dormitory and bang on the door a few times to get his attention, then tell him to pack up and get down here. He’ll probably be a few minutes.”

“Is that… all?” Dumbledore asked.

Hailey nodded. “There was a little smalltalk as we waited, but aside from that, you saw it all. When Harry left, he stormed in the direction of the library before phasing back into the Thaumion Flow.”

Author's Note

I always wondered how that canonical predestination paradox could have been formed.

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Chapter 62: Dragons

Hailey swept her invisibility cloak off of herself and Sadarina as she walked around a large clump of trees on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Here, she could see the enclosure the First Task was due to take place in- and where the dragons were scheduled to be imported to tonight.

As it was, there were five dragons present, roaring and fighting, eyes bulging in either fear or rage, she couldn’t tell which. There were a few dozen wizards scurrying around them, several per dragon, tugging on chains connected to thick leather straps to try to get them under control, some two or three wizards per chain. One chain was the odd one out, with nobody except a single child holding it. She couldn’t have been any more than a toddler, yet she was pulling at least as hard as the larger teams of wizards, judging by the motions of the dragons.

“Keep back there, Hailey!” one of the wizards cried, straining on his chain with two others. “They can shoot fire at a range of twenty feet- and I’ve seen this horntail do forty!”

Hailey smiled, but continued to approach anyways, covering herself and Sadarina in a quick shield with her Unicorn magic. “Only forty feet, huh?” she muttered, while she walked up to the fence. “Even Spike can do fifty feet if he pushes himself, and he’s still a ‘baby’.”

Sadarina giggled while they both vaulted onto the fence and sat on it to watch. “Some of the biggest and most dangerous creatures I- or any of my family- have ever seen, yet your first comment is ‘I’ve seen bigger’,” she chuckled.

“Well I have,” Hailey shrugged. “Some of the largest Equestrian dragons can get a good three or four hundred feet tall- and even the smaller ones often have fire blasts of at least a hundred feet. Spike’s breed, one of the smallest at only twenty or thirty feet tall, usually has a range of about three fifty- but his fire was magically upgraded when he was really young, so we think he’s going to hit six fifty in his prime without any difficulty.”

A sudden fireball washed over them, but Hailey’s shield shrugged it off like it wasn’t even there.

“What- Keep back there, Hagrid!” that same wizard cried again.

Hailey turned to look. “Hi Hagrid!” she called, waving at where Hagrid and Madame Maxime had just walked around the same clump of trees. “These dragons can burn you from a piddling little forty feet away if you don’t have an appropriate shield set up.” She chuckled as, at that very moment, another fireball hit them, shrouding them briefly in flames- but just like the first one, her shield shrugged it off.

“Not that it could hurt you anyways,” Sadarina observed, looking up at her.

She shrugged. “It could hurt my clothes, though, and that would be…” She paused. “Unfortunate, I believe.” She giggled gently.

Sadarina nodded, looking out at the dragon keepers as they fought to control the dragons- and, it seemed, decided to go for stunners. “Does your notebook say why we’re here in the middle of the night?”

Hailey shook her head. “Nope- only that I will want to be here.” She shrugged. “And if my alternate timeline self believed it enough to state that I will want to be here, I’m going to assume she’s right. She is, after all, me. And besides, it’s underlined three times.”

“Stupefy!” the wizards all cried, in tandem with one another.

All five dragons wavered… then, slowly, crashed to the ground. They watched as the wizards rushed to fasten the chains to long metal pegs which they forced deep into the ground with their wands. A couple dragons away, the toddler forced one of the pegs in on her own, even though they were at least as long as she was tall, before any of the wizards arrived to help her with it.

“Alright,” Charlie called, as he turned to walk towards Hailey. “They should be alright now.” He sighed, then spoke much more normally. “Why are you so close?” he asked.

“I cast a shield,” she answered simply. “Then, thanks to Equestrian magic, any shield I cast is unbreachable, so…” She shrugged. “In any case, how’s Norbert doing?”

“Norbert?” Charlie asked, tilting his head. “Oh, you mean the Norwegian Ridgeback you and Ron sent us?”

She nodded. “Yeah.”

“Oh. Well… About that, actually.” He chuckled. “We call her Norberta now.”

“Her?” Hagrid asked, stepping up behind Hailey. “Yeh can tell?”

“Oh, yeah,” Charlie chuckled. “They’re more vicious. Completely aside from how, about a year ago now, she… transformed.”

Hailey raised an eyebrow. “She transformed?” she asked.

“Yeah. She was a smart one, even before that, but now?” He chuckled, and turned towards the rest of the enclosure. “Hey Norberta!” he called.

The toddler looked up, from where she had sat down to draw something on the hard ground with her finger. There was two seconds of silence, before she leaped to her feet and bolted towards them, far faster than any toddler ought to have been able to run. “Mommy!”

“Lookout!” Charlie cried, glancing at Hailey.

Hardly two seconds later, she jumped and slammed into Hailey at full speed, wrapping her in a hug. “Mommy!” she cried again, black, leathery wings unfurling from her back to join in the effort. They weren’t all that long yet, only barely tickling Hailey’s sides.

Still, though, her momentum knocked Hailey clear off of the fence- not that it bothered her all that much. “Well hello there,” she chuckled, reaching up to pat the girl’s head.

Charlie stared at her. “Y-You’re okay?”

“Well yeah,” Hailey answered. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

He blinked. “If… If you say so. We’ve had people spend weeks in St. Mungo’s because she’d hugged them less enthusiastically than that.”

She nodded gently in acknowledgement, still lying on the ground.

Sadarina hopped off the fence to crouch down next to them. “Hello, Norberta,” she greeted. “So Hailey is Mommy?”

Norberta looked up at her. “H-Hay-lee?”

Hailey chuckled. “That’s my name,” she told her, then held a hand out to Sadarina. “This is Sadarina- and if I’m your mommy, she’s your sister.”

“What?” Charlie asked. “You already have a daughter?”

Hailey giggled in response, and sat up gently. “Legally, yes. Even though she’s about a hundred times older than me.”

Norberta, meanwhile, was looking, confused, at Sadarina. “Sis-ter?” she muttered, then looked back at Hailey. “What’s that mean?”

Hailey blinked. “Uh-!” She looked at Sadarina. “How do I explain that?”

Sadarina chuckled. “Should be simple. You’re my mommy too.”

Norberta looked at her, then tilted her head. “So…?” She reached out her hand. “Sis-ter?”

Hailey nodded. “Yup! This is Hagrid, by the way.” She gestured towards him.

Norberta looked, then buried her face in Hailey’s chest. “He scary,” she muttered.

Hailey hugged her gently. “Don’t worry, he’s nice,” she cooed, while Hagrid flinched away, looking hurt.

Charlie sighed as he crouched down on Hailey’s other side. “Physically, she’s about two- even in dragon form. Mentally, our best guess is that she’s as mature as a seven or eight year old- which is about right for dragon years.” He paused to share a smile with Norberta before looking back up to Hailey. “She still has trouble with English, though- and whereas most dragons learn to fly by eighteen months, all she can do is throw herself at things.”

Hailey looked at Norberta. “You can’t fly?” she asked.

Norberta shook her head. “None of the other dragons will show me how,” she complained. “Their response is always ‘Ask your own mother’ or ‘Get out of my sight’ or even ‘Run for your life, she's here’.” She sighed, and hugged Hailey again. “So I have wings, but I can’t use them.”

Hailey chuckled. “Are the other dragons afraid of you?” she asked.

She nodded. “Most of them. I think I’m too strong.”

“Sounds almost like me,” she observed. She looked to the side and, with one hand, pulled up a large handful of the tall grass. After that, she bunched it together in her hands and started crushing it. Water spilled out of her hands at first- then steam started coming out. When it stopped, there wasn’t nearly enough space between her hands for the bundle of grass to fit- and sure enough, when she opened her hands, it was to reveal a small chunk of diamond.

“Wow!” Norberta cheered, clapping, while Hagrid and Charlie both stared at her in amazement.

Hailey chuckled. “I’m pretty sure wizards actually can’t do that, even by magic- but muggles can, if they’ve got tons of heavy equipment and a lot of patience.” She offered the diamond to Norberta.

Norberta accepted it… then popped it into her mouth, before blinking in apparent surprise. “Tasty!” she observed.

“T-Tasty?” Charlie asked, dumbfounded.

Hailey tilted her head. “Hmm? That suggests…” She looked out at the unconscious dragons, then back at Norberta, and finally nodded. “Yes. You’re part Equestrian dragon, not just British dragon.”

She looked up. “Is that important?”

Hailey nodded. “Unlike British dragons, Equestrian dragons live on a diet of gemstones and the occasional golden snack- which means that,” she glanced up at Charlie, “unless she’s been digging some up around your reserve, she’s probably gemstone-deficient.” She chuckled. “And fun fact: Diamonds are actually some of the most flavorless gems. Most dragons ignore them in favor of the tastier, more colorful gemstones.” She grinned up at Charlie. “Equestrian dragons are also usually a lot larger than British ones and have much more powerful fire breath, but they vary a lot by breed. It’s going to be interesting seeing how she turns out.”

“Very,” Charlie agreed. “You might’ve noticed she had an entire chain to herself earlier- that’s because, as near as we can tell, she simply can’t be lifted off the ground or dragged across it unless she wants to be.”

She raised an eyebrow. “She’s got Ground Hold?” she asked.

“Got what?”

“Ground Hold,” she answered. “It’s an Equestrian magic that allows someone to transfer a force placed on their body, possibly through their own strength, evenly across the nearest half-mile or so of rock. It only works if they’ve got direct contact with the rock or dirt, and only a third of the main population has it to begin with- the Etrahs.” She shrugged. “Means I’ve got it too.” She looked at Norberta. “But there is no recorded instance of an Equestrian dragon having Ground Hold capability. That suggests you’ve got a very interesting ancestry, young lady.”

Norberta giggled.

Hagrid rubbed his beard. “Tha’s… What? Four parents?”

She shrugged. “Something like that. Thing is, she started as a presumably pure British dragon egg. Only Si-er, Alastor had been Papa Tangoed by then, so that’s the only conceivable source of Equestrian magic- but she both isn’t a dragon and doesn’t have Ground Hold, as a Raeth. British magic isn’t as pushy as Equestrian magic, so while she could have absorbed a limited amount of Equestrian magic and become part Raeth from that she couldn’t have…” She paused. “No, wait. She didn’t show any Equestrian magic tendencies or smartness or whatever while she was living with you, did she Hagrid?”

Norberta tilted her head. “I was…?” she muttered.

Hagrid scowled. “Nah, I don’ think so.”

She nodded. “And that… That’d be because, on our way up to the Astronomy Tower to send her to Charlie, we unwittingly carried her straight through the core ley line of the Castle.”

Charlie blinked. “The Castle has ley lines?”

She nodded. “Right now, it houses some fifty-seven thousand and seventy-five students, plus the Professors. It actually doesn’t have the exterior size to hold that many- let alone to properly vent the waste heat and magical energies that so many students would create. Now, at the time, it was only holding a piddling little thirteen thousand, nine hundred and seventy-three, but that’s still quite a few.

“Interestingly, the Castle was built with a heavily-populated future in mind. Perhaps not this heavily, but it actually scales much better than the original designers had anticipated. All of our waste energy, wherever it is in the Castle, is absorbed into small channels in the walls and funneled down towards the core of the Castle. Each of the Houses has a larger channel in to the core- from which the core ley line, as it’s called, travels straight up through- guess what- the tallest astronomy tower, so as to beam all our waste energy up to the upper atmosphere, where it can get blown halfway around the world before it reaches the surface again.

“Now, that ley line is an extremely powerful beam of energy, even with only fourteen thousand people feeding it. It won’t generally interfere with magic- ley lines allow vast amounts of energy to share space with other magic without actually interacting with it, after all.

“But of course, any creature spends the first few months of its life absorbing any and all energy it can find, even directly from the ley lines- the closer they are, and the stronger the ley line, the easier it is and the more they get. We’re pretty sure that’s how both muggleborn and squibs work- and the reason Equestria doesn’t have muggles is because the worldwide ambient magic level is much higher, so an infant doesn’t need a source of magic- such as a magical parent or a ley line- nearby to become magical. The Castle lines aren’t strong enough to be drained that way- except, of course, when there are over a thousand people in the school, it’s strong enough. Fourteen thousand merely boosts it enough we can be basically guaranteed that there was energy available for absorption from every being in the Castle, not just the stronger ones.

“Anyways, since we carried her directly through that ley line while she was in that stage, she naturally absorbed a ton of energy from it- and even back then, the Castle residents included all three tribes and a few more esoteric creatures, such as Equestrian dragons. That, on top of the British magic, and the Papa Tango pattern shedding off of Si-Alastor, means she probably absorbed magic patterns of all sorts, making her a magical hybrid between some…” She paused. “What? Thirty different magical creatures, including humans?”

They all stared at her.

“What’s it mean?” Norberta asked curiously.

“It means you’re very, very unique,” Hailey told her.

“Wait a sec. If it’s dumping all that energy into the upper atmosphere…” Charlie scowled. “Isn’t that going to cause problems?”

Hailey chuckled. “Oh yes. A thousand years ago, muggleborns didn’t exist- and squibs were a lot more common than they are today, to the point where that was all a half-blood wizard could hope to birth. Wizards were, you could say, a ‘dying breed’- and the pureblood families were the only ones that stayed magical, hence their fixation on pure blood. The Founders built the Castle to harvest excess magical energy and use it to increase Earth’s ambient magic intensity. That increase has, over time, reduced the occurrence of squibs, given half-bloods a chance to birth wizards as well- and, within the last three hundred years, muggleborns started to appear.”

“How do you know all this?” Charlie asked.

Hailey shrugged. “I’ve been helping Rita with the research for an upcoming article about how the incidence of muggleborn wizard births is about five times what it was just three short years ago. It was just our luck Hogwarts was the right place to look for clues. Now.” She glanced down at Norberta, then back up at him. “Would it be a problem if I taught Norberta how to glide for a little?”

“Jus’ how ta glide?” Hagrid asked.

“Yes,” Hailey told him. “Unless she can turn into something with a completely different kind of wing, which is a distinct possibility when you consider that the Castle contained at least one full shapeshifter that year, that’s all I will be able to teach her. I only know how to fly with feathered wings, after all, and dragons have membranous wings.”

“Huh,” Charlie muttered. “Shouldn’t be a problem. The journey took a bit longer than we expected, so we still need to set up our tents over there and get settled in. That’s going to take at least a few hours, so…” He shrugged. “Be back by dawn?”

She smiled. “Shouldn’t be too hard.” She looked down at Norberta. “Ready?”

“Ready!” Norberta cried excitedly.

Hailey chuckled. “Alright, here we go.”

Then, she applied a Pinkie Transform to the Misty Step spell, and they vanished into thin air.

Author's Note

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Last week, I said this would go up to Patrons the same day... it never did. It's going up to them now... because I wasn't satisfied with it, but now I am. That said, Patrons also get to see the next chapter right now... Only one, though.

I am so far behind. But, in theory at least, I'm catching up!

Chapter 64: The First Task

“Where…? Where did she go?” Ludo Bagman announced.

Hailey chuckled quietly. “Keep an eye on the egg,” she told him, in a low mutter. “It’ll disappear in a moment.”

It was the day of the First Task. Hailey was seated at the Judge’s Table- not that she wanted to be. She was still certain there was a reason Ludo Bagman, one of the ‘impartial’ judges, had pushed so hard for her to be on the panel too only after he learned that she was British.

He thought he was stacking the deck.

Hailey knew he had a bet going with the goblins on the outcome. He’d made that agreement before the tournament started, to clear the massive debts he had incurred when paying out the bets from the World Cup. She’d even recommended betting on Cedric… But Bagman hadn’t listened, and was betting on Harry instead- who she knew wasn’t going to win. He’d flunked too many tasks… Well, she had, when she had gone through them as him. It wasn’t his turn to face the Hungarian Horntail yet- instead, Silver was facing a Brazilian Vipertooth in the arena before them. Not that it was very exciting- Silver was the only one coming to the task blind, but she’d evidently decided using her form spell to become undetectable to a dragon’s senses would be easiest.

She was also the fourth one of the day. Cedric Diggory had gone first- the boy Hermione and Ron called ‘pretty boy Diggory’. She’d found it amusing when she found out just how many people thought she was secretly a fan of his, but she really wasn’t. Sure, he was a model student, but she already knew four of those- Hermione, Morning Sun, Sadarina, and Silversong- that she actually had feelings for.

Still, though. Diggory had received some warning- a couple days- of what was coming, but it didn’t seem like he’d managed to form a plan in so little time. Instead, his battle had felt so much like he was flinging things at the wall to see what stuck.

He’d first tried looking innocent, but given up quickly when it became evident his ‘casual’ whistling of the Imperial March wasn’t going to work for anything other than making the crowd laugh.

Cedric’s second method had been distraction- but that also hadn’t worked. He’d used a particularly spectacular bit of transfiguration to make a large, vicious dog out of a nearby boulder. Unfortunately, the dragon had gotten tired of the barking and turned the angry bulldog to what Norberta had called ‘overcooked barbecue’ before he’d gotten close enough, so he had skittered back out, creating distance as quickly as he could.

Finally, with a look of desperation on his face, Cedric had raised his wand into the air and cried “Accio Egg!”

To his astonishment, and that of most of the Judges, that had worked. The dragon only spared the golden egg a brief glance before looking down to cover her eggs- and according to Norberta, muttering darkly about wizards hiding magical contraptions amongst her eggs.

Fleur had been second. She’d been successful on her first attempt- though only barely. She had hit her dragon with a carefully selected sleeping spell that had been invented for dragon keepers, despite having long-term side-effects that made it utterly useless for the same, then narrowly avoided getting burnt to a crisp when it let out a massive, fiery snore. She had had to extinguish her skirt, but retrieved her egg successfully amidst Norberta’s guffaws.

“She almost lost to a sleeping dragon,” Norberta had gotten out, after she’d calmed down enough.

Krum hadn’t had any difficulty with his at all. A quick curse to his dragon’s eyes and it was trampling away in agony- and Hailey, up in the stands, restraining Norberta.

“I’ll kill him!” Norberta had snarled. “He’s torturing her!”

Krum then just had to wait for it to walk past the eggs and retrieve the golden one from amongst the damaged real eggs. Norberta hadn’t been satisfied to learn how few points were being docked for the damage, but she had been happy to learn he was getting penalized for the damage.

Then, it was Silver’s turn.

The Brazilian Vipertooth had been the calmest of the bunch, according to Norberta- who had helped move the dragons on and off of the field. The Vipertooth had evidently realized what must have happened to Krum’s dragon, and why the ground smelled like crushed eggs (Norberta had mentioned the smell when removing Krum’s dragon, then told Hailey that ‘Vipey’- her name was in dragon, and didn’t translate- had noticed it as well). She had maintained a vigilant watch and low stance over her eggs, and had shifted in what Norberta had recognized as relief when Silver had pocketed her wand.

Vipey had expressed a little alarm when she then vanished- but unlike the three before, Vipey had been calm enough to ask Norberta what was coming during her almost alarmingly calm trek into the Arena. Norberta had still been shaken from seeing the damage Krum had caused, so had told her very little- just that the Champion’s job was to retrieve the golden egg- but Vipey was smart.

Hailey squinted her eyes. Vipey had tilted her head slightly, keeping an eye on her eggs- but her eye, Hailey realized, wasn’t looking at the eggs. She closed her eyes, applied the brand new- as of that morning- Morning Twist to her magical core, then used the resultant matrix- which was somewhat reminiscent of a changeling’s- to grant herself her keen pegasus eyesight in human form. Finally, she opened them.

She had expected things to look different to pegasus eyes- but she hadn’t realized that Silver’s invisible form was actually opaque to ultraviolet. It also looked like Vipey could see Silver- but was choosing to let her believe that she couldn’t.

So Hailey, Norberta, and Vipey watched as Silver crept closer to the eggs.

Finally, Silver carefully tapped the golden egg with her wand to make it invisible with her, plucked it from the bunch while the crowd muttered ominously about its disappearance, and started her victorious trek back to the entrance of the enclosure.

Then, after muttering something that made Norberta giggle, Vipey reached up a massive claw to pat Silver gently on the top of her head.

Silver froze, briefly, before ducking and breaking into a dead run, which made both Norberta and Hailey laugh.

Finally, after a chuckle of her own, Vipey settled herself down around her eggs and breathed flames on them, scorching the remnants of the grass charcoal black.

Silver reached the entrance, drew her wand, and cast a few little charms.

Finally, some fifteen minutes after she had vanished, she reappeared out of thin air- sitting in a lawn chair with a martini in her hand and the golden egg in her lap.

The crowd’s reaction was priceless.

Hailey had then explained what had happened to the other judges, since she’d used an ‘Equestrian sensory spell’ that allowed her to see Silver, and scored her a 9 since most of the crowd couldn’t see her.

“She wasn’t using that unfair advantage, was she?” Dumbledore muttered, out of the corner of his mouth.

Hailey chuckled. “Nope. That was her family magic- all British. Though, I suppose she did use a bit of Equestrian magic to cover her retreat, but she didn’t need to- it didn’t end up doing anything. Anyways.” She looked down at Norberta. “Ready to get Pokey?”

Norberta scowled. “I don’t like Pokey,” she grumbled. “She’s the meanest.”

Hailey nodded. Pokey was Norberta’s nickname for the Hungarian Horntail, since both Hailey and Norberta absolutely refused to call her The All-Queen. “Yeah, she’s a little like Prince Blueblood, isn’t she?”

She tilted her head. “Who’s Blueblood?”

Harry was a laughing stock. He had required three tries to summon his broom, an aged Cleansweep Seven, dropped it, cast some blasting spells that only succeeded in angering the Hungarian Horntail and blowing up the Judge’s Table because of his terrible aim, taken off, and fairly wobbled through the air in a spectacular show of balance but a dismal show of flying skill. He’d narrowly avoided getting shredded several times, and been set on fire nearly three. Finally, in a massive swoop while the dragon was rearing up, he…. Kicked the golden egg clear over the stands and out of the enclosure, straight into the Forbidden Forest, before subsequently dismounting his broom and hopping on one foot, clutching the other in apparent agony. Finally, he’d narrowly avoided getting cooked himself and fled on foot from his broom’s funeral pyre.

Once Harry had returned from a nearly ten-minute trek into the Forbidden Forest to retrieve the egg, Bagman had given him a ten for reasons Hailey was fairly certain of, and Kakaroff gave him a five for an entertaining display. All of the rest, Hailey included, gave him twos for such a disastrous battle- and two was the rules-established minimum score for a champion that had completed the task.

After all, Hailey had put Bagman’s hair out with her wand after one of Harry’s spells ignited it.

“I told you it wouldn’t be a good idea to bet on Harry,” Hailey told Bagman through the corner of her mouth, while Norberta was still laughing at Harry’s reaction to the Horntail bearing its teeth at him.

“Well that was entertaining.”

Hailey glanced behind her, where the comment had come from, to see Crystal jogging up next to her. “Yes, it was. Were you able to see Silver’s invisible form?”

“Uh, no?” Crystal muttered, looking at her. Hailey had stayed behind to help get the dragons put away properly. “Why would I be able to?”

She shrugged. “Because she was opaque to ultraviolet,” she answered simply.

“Oh,” Crystal nodded. “Unfortunately, no. I can naturally see infrared, but we only see ultraviolet if we take a form that can explicitly see it.”

“So, if you turn into a pegasus.”

She nodded. “Yeah.” She looked at Hailey. “Are you going to maintain that level of…” She paused. “Um, almost badass-scale comedy for the other tasks?”

Hailey laughed. “I did, yes.”

“Did? You already did them all…?”

She nodded. “Yup, time travel. Harry is going to be destroying his brand new Cleansweep Six in the lake, getting bludgeoned by about a dozen grindylows, and finally knock himself out against the statue down at the bottom, where the hostages are.” She chuckled. “And for the third task, it’s a maze, but he’s going to try and fail to summon the broom he hasn’t bought yet, and fall victim to nearly every trap in the whole maze, before finally managing to crash into the Cup in the middle at full speed, triggering the portkey with Silver and Diggory as well… then finally returning from there as a dead body.”

There were a couple seconds of silence.

“I think I’ll just pretend I understood that,” Crystal muttered. “So, he’s a crazy ditz that really likes his broomstick?”

“And he, ostensibly at least, stinks so bad he never leaves the shower.”

She burst out laughing. “That’s going to be fun,” she observed, once she’d recovered. “Are we going to see him anywhere else?”

She shook her head. “Nope. The last time anybody saw him in a class would have been two and a half years ago- and he only walked the school… what, once?” She paused, tapping her chin. “Yeah, right about once since then, and that was about two years ago. That said, there are a few people that know we’re one and the same- though almost all of them are cleared to know about the Changeling presence in the Castle anyways, and I’m also keeping them posted on what’s going on… to a degree. They all know there’s time travel involved, that I had some fun goofing off as Harry, and that I used magic constructs a few times, but not all of them know I hired a changeling.”

She looked at her. “Hired?”

“Well yeah,” she nodded “Unless you don’t want to get paid, of course. I was going to do it as a direct coinage transaction, so nopony can trace it.” She shrugged. “And I need to visit the bank soon anyways, since I don’t have the funds on hand to get the Second Task broom at the moment.”

Author's Note

Ahh, Harry... He's going to be dead last, isn't he? In addition to being, well, dead. And the last to die.

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

I'm a bit late today... Sorry about that. It should have gone up on time on my Patreon.

Chapter 65: Aurelia

“Ahh, Miss Potter,” Banlor noted, as the girl trotted up to him. “You’ve been stopping by a lot,” he observed.

“I have,” she agreed, bowing her head briefly. “Been needing a lot of supplies, and some of them can get quite expensive.”

He raised an eyebrow at her. His opinion of humans was far higher than it had been just three short years before, when he had met those two girls that had set the exchange rate for Equestrian bits; almost all of those Equestrian humans were infinitely polite, and it was bleeding off onto the non-Equestrian humans as well.

“Are you going to have enough to last you through your schooling?” he asked.

“Oh yes,” Hailey answered, flicking a lock of her hair out of her eyes. “I’ve actually been earning quite a bit more than I’ve been spending- it’s just been getting direct-deposited into an Equestrian bank, and it’s just as safe there as it is here, so…” She shrugged. “Similarly, getting gold from my vault here is easier than hauling bits from Equestria to change them out for galleons here.”

“Ahh,” he nodded. “Another ride to your Vault, then?” He’d heard before that the Equestrian banks worked differently from Gringotts. Their accounts didn’t actually hold physical money, meaning that the bank could be robbed without causing their clients to lose money- but in return, money was all they could keep safe.

She nodded as well. “Yes, please.”

He grinned, turned to the side, and held a hand up to his mouth as he called. “Griphook!”

The ride down to her Vault was, as usual, boring.

Though of course, it hadn’t always been boring. Throughout the first two years of her schooling, she’d only visited it twice; she hadn’t really had a reason to visit it more frequently. Each of those times, it had been a wild ride- a blast, so to speak.

Then she’d finished her Papa Tango, become an Etrah, and visited her vault only once. That time, it had been a nauseating trip.

So she’d gone ahead and ascended… and suddenly, the ride was child’s play- no, foal’s play. She had fond memories of racing Rainbow Dash across the skies and through fun little obstacle courses- and winning, even. No Gringotts cart could even begin to compare to that.

But eventually, they reached her Vault, and she stepped out of the cart. She hummed softly as she drew the key from her hair to open the door and went inside; Griphook waited patiently by the cart. It was about the fifth time he’d taken her to her Vault, after all.

Hailey sighed as she glanced around. There was a little bit less gold in here than there had been when she’d first come down, and a lot less silver or bronze; while she’d suggested to Hermione that she’d used her Equestrian funds to stock up on extras, she’d actually used her British funds. The bits she’d withdrawn when Hermione was with her had been left underneath Rarity’s sewing desk without anypony noticing, as payment for her gown for the Yule Ball- a payment Rarity wouldn’t have accepted otherwise. She hadn’t told the mare- and didn’t plan to- exactly how difficult it was to find out how expensive her wares usually were, since she almost never received the ‘list price’ when she asked directly, even if she mentioned Celestia’s unpaid labor laws.

About the only way Hailey had found to get Rarity to accept full payment for an item, at its full list price, when making it for a friend… was to get her to bill the crown directly for it.

But in any case, she was here now, and she needed to stock up on a bit of gold again. Her last handfuls of galleons had vanished far too quickly in getting extra supplies that she didn’t really need, so…

She paused, then drew her money bag from her hair as well, shrugged, and scooped the last of her knuts into it. She liked using exact change, so these things disappeared like paper in a bonfire.

She had quite a few more sickles left- a decent-sized pile. She shoveled a couple handfuls of that into her bag, before turning to face the mountain of gold. It still looked basically the same as it had years before, when she’d first come in; there were simply too many galleons in here to spend that quickly.

So, just like last time, she picked a random spot on the mountainside to plunge her hand into to retrieve some galleons.

But as she closed her hand on a few coins and pulled it out, triggering a small avalanche of coins she’d also pour into her bag, her fingers caught briefly on something.

She scowled, looking at that spot- then, instead of cleaning up the coins now littering the floor at her feet, she triggered another avalanche above that point and used it to fill her bag. Finally, she put her bag back into her hair, and started scooping large amounts of coins to the side. Hundreds of galleons rained down on the spot where the knuts had been.

Finally, she stopped.

That was definitely a hand, sticking out of the gold… and, when she probed at it with her thaumic senses, she recognized a simple stasis spell.

“That’s a hand,” she muttered, then looked back at Griphook. “I’m going to use some magic to move a lot of coins?”

Griphook nodded his acknowledgement.

Hailey nodded as well, stepping back from the mountain, and took a deep breath. It was always a good idea to make sure the goblins knew what she was planning on doing before she actually did it- they didn’t tend to like magic in the first place, and surprising them with it was… Not a very good idea.

Not that they could hurt her, but she didn’t want to flaunt that at them too.

“Okay,” she muttered, and put out her hands. First, the base spell- gravity manipulation, to negate the weight of all the coins. She felt Griphook shiver as the coins began to shift, despite the distance between them.

Second, a sorting spell, to organize everything. It didn’t immediately take effect, though- it wasn’t sure where to put everything.

So third, a stacking spell. The galleons would be neatly stacked against the back wall, sickles on one side of the door, and knuts- if there were any left- the other side of the door. Anything else would join her in the remaining floorspace in front of the door.

Almost instantly, coins started moving. The mountain of gold seemed to lurch towards her- creating space against the back wall for the galleon stacks- before grinding suddenly to a halt. Sorting and stacking spells weren’t instant, after all- and stacking spells were polite enough to bring things to a halt when making space for the stacks.

Sorting spells weren’t, though. Knuts and sickles suddenly shot out from underneath the mountain to stack themselves on either side of the door, where she had told them to, sending galleons- and the existing pile of sickles- flying. Her sorting spell was smart enough to block anything from leaving the vault- but everything else, save a couple inches of ‘safe zone’ around each stack, was quickly a bedlam of flying coins.

She tacked on a quick shield charm to keep them a couple inches off of her as well. She might be indestructible, and the sorting charm might be keeping anything from impacting anything, but she didn’t fancy getting them stuck in all sorts of uncomfortable nooks in her clothing while she waited for the sorting charm to finish.

In the gaps between the coins, she could see Griphook staring open-mouthed as more coins sped out of nowhere to stack themselves.

After a few minutes, she stepped slowly out of the bedlam to join Griphook just outside the Vault. “What did my ancestors do to earn all this gold?” she muttered. “I’ve already sorted a good twenty thousand galleons!”

“S-Sorted?” Griphook asked.

She nodded. “Antigravity to reduce the magic required to sort, a quick sorting charm that also counts the items it’s sorted, and a stacking charm to stack the coins neatly. Do you mind if I tie them off? It’ll make withdrawals, deposits, and keeping track of how much I have a lot easier, without having to do this every so often.” She gestured at the bedlam inside the vault- which didn’t seem to have gone down much.

“So long as it doesn’t interfere with anything outside the Vault, we don’t care what standing enchantments are placed inside of it.”

“Ahh,” she nodded. “Then I’ll just…” She closed her eyes for a second. “There.”

When Hailey returned the following day, coins were still bouncing around in her Vault- though not nearly as many. She and Griphook could actually see the veritable wall of gold forming against the far wall by now, with the walls of silver and bronze to either side of the door.

“It’s still not done yet,” Hailey muttered, with a sigh. “Looks pretty close, though.” She reached forward to touch the invisible boundary across the door, that the coins were bouncing off of.

Then she recoiled with a gasp. “Wh-What the hell am I going to use nine million galleons for?” she muttered, leaning heavily against the wall. “Now I’m seriously wondering what my ancestors did!”

“That is a lot,” Griphook agreed gently.

“Though…” Hailey reached out, and touched the boundary again. “Fifty thousand galleons worth of sickles, fifteen hundred worth of knuts… one deed, and one house elf?” She tilted her head. “I wonder how that happened?” She looked through the door. “Anyways, this looks like it should finish in another…” She paused, using a quick counting charm to count the flying coins, then did the quick math with the known speed of the sorting and stacking charms. “Um, hour or so.” She sighed. “I guess that’s it for now, and I’ll be back after a stop at Fortescue’s.”

“Okay, so that’s done. About time, too.” Hailey sighed, and walked into the Vault again and looking around. “Oh, neatly done, too.” She drew her money bag from her hair again, and opened it.

There was a brief flurry of coins flying in and out of it, then she closed and stowed it again. “Yup. Just as easy as I thought.”

Finally, she stepped over to the center, where a house elf and a large scroll were lying on the floor. The vault looked a lot bigger now that all the coins were stacked so densely. The elf was wearing a neat little dress, splayed out on the floor and still frozen under her stasis spell, so Hailey picked up the scroll first.

It unrolled easily, and she scanned down it quickly. “Huh,” she muttered. “So I guess I own an estate here in Britain too, not just a ridiculous Equestrian mansion.” She sighed.

“Equestrian?”

“Yes, in Equestria.” She looked down, at the source of the voice, to see that the house-elf had sat up, and was looking up at her. “Well hello there.”

The elf blinked at her. “General Kenobi,” she answered.

Hailey blinked. “Uh… what?”

She shook her head. “I…” She trailed off, and looked down. “I don’t know.”

“You… don’t know?” Hailey asked.

She shook her head. “I’ve been here for…” She paused, looking around. “A very long time,” she finally muttered. “Master was very, very poor, and couldn’t afford to feed me, so I was put to sleep to await a future, wealthier master.”

“Very poor,” Hailey muttered slowly, looking down at the deed in her hands.

The elf wrung her hands. “He had the house, but nothing else,” she muttered. “He put it in a Fidelus-stasis to the deed to preserve it for a richer descendent, then bound the deed shut- and to this Vault- until such time as a hundred thousand galleons could be presented. I…” She paused. “I set my stasis to cancel when it unlocked.” She looked around the Vault. “How… How long has it been?”

“No idea,” Hailey muttered.

She sighed. “Oh. Well… English changed, so…”

Hailey paused, then blinked. “Oh! You were using a Lingual Time Compensation Spell, weren’t you?”

She nodded. “I was.”

“Ahh. The good news is those things are easy to measure. One moment.” She held her hand out, closed her eyes, and cast the requisite spells. They wouldn’t be possible with a wand- but they were simple Unicorn magic spells, invented hardly fifty years after Starswirl’s time.

It took her about two seconds. “Total span… about one thousand, four hundred and twelve years.” She opened her eyes again. “That’s quite a while.” She sighed, and looked down at the deed. “A Fidelus-Stasis, huh?” she muttered. “Neither of those charms are foolproof, and combining them wouldn’t have done any favors, either.” She sighed. “Whelp. I’ve got another hour or so before bed time, so why don’t we go check it out real quick?”

“It was… Right here, right?” Hailey looked up, having just teleported herself and the little elf- she hadn’t asked what her name was- to the location that magic ascribed to the address in the deed.

“Eek!” the elf squeaked- before looking around. “Y-Yeah… It’s been…”

“Overrun by pests,” Hailey observed, putting her hands on her hips. “Apparently, at any rate.”

Right at that moment, the massive, wooden drawbridge shattered and crashed down into the moat of lava below, leaving just a few remains.

“Yup,” Hailey nodded. “And that didn’t even look like a magical pest- termites, of all things.” She sighed. “Now, what’s the best way to deal with it?” She looked up. “This place is layered in so many anti-teleportation spells it’ll take my toughest one to punch through it- and there’s at least three that specifically mention house-elves.”

The elf simply stared.

Hailey, meanwhile, looked around. “Hmm. This is… rather larger than the deed suggested. I was expecting a mansion, not…” She sighed. “This thing looks like a fortress straight out of Hell. Lava moat, black stone walls, darkened, withered courtyard, though at least part of that is the moonlight…” She glanced up at the remains of the drawbridge. “And it would seem the stasis wasn’t enough to keep pests out, so God only knows what we’ll find in there- and it’s almost certainly not livable.” She rubbed her chin. “I guess you’re my elf now? Or am I misinterpreting something?”

“Er- Yes, Young Mistress,” the elf bowed, stepping away from her. “Is- Is there a Master, or…?”

She shook her head. “My parents are dead,” she answered calmly. “I am the only living heir to the name I carry.” She sighed. “Yet I’m hardly a Hogwarts student, and during the summer, I live with some muggle relatives.” She shrugged. “I’m not sure where you’ll be able to sleep tonight.”

The elf tilted her head. “You mentioned a mansion in Equestria?” she asked.

“Well yeah, but that’s across the dimensional barrier, and the magic patterns in Equestria are… Ahh, unhealthy, shall we say, for anything not from Equestria.”

“But you can go there…?”

She nodded. “Yes. I went through a rather lengthy and, quite frankly, painful magical process to make me part-Equestrian, making me able to not just survive those patterns but exploit them. But that same isn’t true for you, so…”

“You mentioned a Hogwarts?”

“Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry,” she nodded. “It was constructed about two hundred and fifty years after you went to sleep- and while it’s got space for me to sleep, I’m not so sure about you.”

“I can…” She took a deep breath, and let it out. “It was early morning when I went to sleep. I can work through the night, maybe fix it up a little.”

“Yeah, I suppose… but I don’t really want to impose,” Hailey muttered. She drew her wand, pointed it up at the shattered remains of the drawbridge, and focused her magic on her wand. “Reparo.”

The simple charm was normally only useful for small objects- but Hailey knew that, if she gave it enough power, it could fix anything. So, exactly as she expected, the bits of drawbridge remaining suddenly crackled and popped, the termites violently removed by an Equestrian anti-pest spell, then grew down to reform the full drawbridge once again. Finally, it hinged slowly down and landed at her feet with a dull boom.

“It’s kinda impressive how they got a wooden drawbridge to stand just two feet above the surface of the lava,” Hailey mused, looking at it. “I’ll admit, I’m curious how that works.” She chuckled. “Probably the same way as how we’re not feeling the heat in front of it.”

“It wouldn’t be an imposition,” the elf observed, and looked up at her. “I like to work. My kind likes to work- that’s why I helped so many to find work in wizarding homes, back before…” She sighed.

Hailey looked at her. “So… You’re one of the first, then?”

She nodded. “One of the first, yes. Are… Are house-elves still around?”

Hailey nodded. “Yes. But over the last fourteen hundred years, the relationship between our kinds has…” She sighed. “Worsened, I’d say. House-elves fast became the slaves of the rich, got treated like dirt, and forced to wear rags. It’s reached the point where, nowadays, you release- or dismiss- a house-elf by giving them clothing, and being free is a massive disgrace to a house-elf.” She sat down on the side of the drawbridge, dangling her feet over the edge; a quick heatproofing charm kept the lava from destroying her clothes. “It’s… disappointing,” she sighed. “Even the house-elves at Hogwarts, some of the best-treated elves in the entire nation, can’t wear real clothes because that stigma has been ingrained into their brains so far that giving them clothes actually drives them to tears. Of pain, not gratitude.”

The elf looked at the edge of the drawbridge. “A-aren’t you burning yourself?”

Hailey grinned. “Not with a heatproofing charm,” she answered. She laid flat on her back, still dangling her legs over the edge, and looked over at her. “I’m almost stupidly powerful, but I don’t know how to start in stopping this sorry dirtball from spinning its way unto damnation.” She gestured vaguely at the field around the fortress, and sighed. “Hopefully, I’ll learn something that’ll help with that in my remaining three and a half years at Hogwarts.” She gazed up at the night sky for a few seconds. “Come to think of it, what’s your name?”

She sat on the side of the drawbridge as well, though not dangling her legs over the edge. “Aurelia,” she muttered, softly. “My name’s Aurelia.” She sighed herself, looking over towards the rest of the fortress. “I spent just three years taking care of this place before willingly going into stasis, but…” She trailed off, looking up at the building. “It’s going to be a lot of work.”

“If you’d like, I can pick up a few books on pests tomorrow,” Hailey muttered, raising her hand up in front of her to look at it. “There are probably at least a few new techniques for dealing with them from the last fourteen hundred years.”

“Isn’t that expensive?”

“Nah,” she chuckled. “Mass production has come about since you went to sleep, so books are printed by the thousands by now. Especially the ones like that. Not to mention, you saw how much was in that Vault, right?”

“W-Was the spell telling the truth…?”

She nodded. “Yup. I cast it. But ten million galleons is…” She paused. “Quite a bit more than I’ll ever need. Plus, I’m already employed- and it’s a very well-paying job.” She sighed. “It’s so well-paying that, if I were to convert my pay to galleons and put it in that vault, we’d quickly run out of space. And to top that off, I’m an immortal, invulnerable proto-goddess that’s basically destined to rule the world, so I’m probably just going to keep earning more and more.” She gazed up at the stars, and traced out a constellation with her fingertip. “Mind, I’ll probably be spending more and more at the same time, and managing the economy of an entire nation or even planet before too long, but…” She sighed. “But what else can I do?”

Author's Note

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Chapter 66: Nail Polish

“Welcome to the Carousel Boutique, where every- Oh, Hailey! How’s it been?”

Hailey chuckled as she trotted up towards Rarity’s sewing desk. “Better than before,” she answered. “How about you?”

Rarity laughed. “That Ball has made quite the windfall for my Boutique here,” she observed. “Dumbledore announced it at dinner just two days ago, and I’ve already got enough orders to keep me busy for years.”

Hailey laughed as well. “Well, you are kinda world-famous over here, aren’t you?”

“Well yes, Darling,” Rarity sang, trotting over to the door to the backroom. “That’s why I’m hiring aggressively. I’m making a Fashion Empire that should be able to make everypony’s gowns!” She sighed. “I don’t think we’ll manage them all this year, though, so we’re just getting as many as we can. It’s going to be awesome! Do you want to try yours on real quick?”

Hailey shrugged her wings. “Sure, why not?”

“Right this way, then,” Rarity smiled, opening the door to the backroom.

Hailey chuckled as she trotted up. “How are the other gowns coming?” She paused, reaching the door. “They’re pretty,” she said, answering her own question.

“Why thank you,” Rarity preened. “As you can see, I’ve got Hermione’s royal gown ready, along with yours and the rest of your Herd’s ball gowns-!”

“We’re not a herd,” Hailey rebuked suddenly, turning her face away from Rarity. “We’re not nearly old enough for that yet. Just a bunch of, ah, closer-than-average friends.” She turned back to Rarity. “So, and the rest of my friends’ ball gowns…” She trailed off.

Rarity stared at her for a second. “... Oh, alright,” she muttered. “The rest of your friends’ ball gowns. I’ve also got Sunset’s and Angelina’s gowns over there, for both human and pony forms.” She pointed a hoof.

“You really went all-out on those,” Hailey observed. She was pointing at a collection of at least twenty pony and twenty human dresses and gowns.

Rarity let out an awkward chuckle. “Y-Yeah, I did, didn’t I?” she muttered. “That’s what Angelina said when she stopped by yesterday.” She sighed. “I’m not making it too hard on her, am I?”

“Nah,” Hailey chuckled. “Just this morning, she was practically glowing with eagerness when she was telling me about how much she liked the dresses you made for her and Sunset. Though I suppose she was a little concerned about exactly how much you were spending on her, but…” She shrugged.

“I get that all the time,” Rarity muttered fondly. “But really, my profit margin on everything else I do is so ridiculously large that I can afford to do basically whatever I want for my friends.” She shrugged as well, a distinctly different effect without wings. “I’m actually taking a loss on orders from British students right now- I don’t want to be too expensive for them.”

“You got orders from British students?” Hailey asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yup!” She cheered, holding her head proudly in the air. “I got enough Equestrian orders to cover the costs handily- and I am charging them, it’s just not absolutely stupendous.”

She chuckled. “Yeah, the conversion rate would tend to make it stupendous, wouldn’t it?”

“H-Hailey?” Parvati Patil gasped. She’d just run up the stairs to her dormitory to get changed for the Yule Ball, only to find Hailey already there, digging in her own trunk. The weird part was that Hailey was wearing an unfamiliar dress- a dress that was definitely not the Hogwarts robes she’d been wearing a few seconds before, when Parvati had glanced across the common room right before heading up.

Hailey glanced up nervously. “Uh- Hi.” Then she turned back to the trunk.

Parvati stared. Hailey was due to be her partner at the ball quite soon- she had been amazed when Hailey had asked her just a few days before, rather than somebody else- and yet, here she was, acting so… different. “Um, are you okay?” she asked.

“Of course I’m okay.”

Parvati jumped when the voice came from right behind her, and whirled around. Then she froze.

There was Hailey, in her Hogwarts robes, standing in the doorway with a mischievous grin on her face.

Then there was Hailey, leaning casually against the wall next to the door, smiling amusedly while she fiddled with her fingers. A fraction of a second later, Parvati realized that this third Hailey was wearing nail polish, which she’d never seen Hailey do before.

“What in the-?” she began.

The one in the doorway grinned at her. “I’ll explain in a minute?” she asked.

“Y-You know what’s going on?” she asked.

Hailey nodded. “Well yes, Past Self and Future Self are already here.” She indicated the other two in turn, the one at the trunk first.

“Yes, Present Self,” Future Hailey chuckled. “Oh my, that really does feel weird to say.”

Hailey grinned. “I bet,” she agreed. “Anyways.” She turned to her bed, where Past Hailey had stood up straight and turned to face them. “Past Self? Don’t worry about the Ball. I’ve got it handled.”

“And very amusingly at that,” Future Hailey agreed.

Past Hailey raised an eyebrow.

Hailey grinned. “It’s in the notebook,” she chuckled.

Future Hailey drew a small notebook from her hair, and trotted over to Past Hailey. “This notebook, to be specific,” she smiled, before stuffing it straight into Past Hailey’s hair.

Past Hailey eeked timidly, then took a deep breath. “Okay. I guess I have everything I need, then?” Her tone was very subdued, almost sad.

“Oh cheer up,” Future Hailey told her. “The world is not about to end, as you can see.” She held her hands out to her sides. “But yes, that should be everything. Just remember to only read the first section until after you’ve completed the Third Task, alright?” She hugged Past Hailey briefly, eliciting a small squeal of protest, before standing back to wave. “See you in the mirror in the present and future!”

Past Hailey cracked a small grin. “Eh heh heh,” she muttered. “See you in… What?”

“That’s ‘see me in the future’,” Hailey informed her.

“See me in the future?” Past Hailey asked, blinking. “Uh… I… I guess that works, doesn’t it?” She took a deep breath. “Anyways, I’ll be going.” She turned on the spot, and disappeared.

“Okay then,” Future Hailey said. “Present Self, how’s Aurelia doing?”

Hailey looked at her. “We’re still reading up on the various pests.” She sighed. “There sure is a lot to learn in those books.”

“Ahh,” Future Hailey nodded. “Once you finish One Thousand Household Pests and Problems, you’ll know everything you’re going to need to clean that place out. At least, unless you want to play Goddess for a few minutes, you know how effective that is.” She chuckled. “Anyways, don’t take Sadarina there until after you’ve found all seven boggarts, okay?”

“Why would I want to play goddess?” Hailey asked.

Future Hailey shrugged. “Just because you’re stupidly powerful doesn’t mean you have to let the world rule you,” she told her. “Tell them to take care of themselves, turn down the rulership…” She shrugged. “If the Ministry ever comes to me asking for orders, I’m going to tell them to keep working as usual, because managing the country is what I keep them around for.”

“Even though you’re only five months older than me,” Hailey observed.

“Five and a half,” Future Hailey corrected, “but yeah, that’s long-term plans- and to be fair, that’s probably going to happen at least once in the next few years. We’re just too powerful. Anyways, did you have anything you wanted to ask me?”

Hailey blinked, and grinned. “Why yes, actually- you’d almost think that you were me just five and a half months ago!”

Both of them broke out in giggles.

“Anyways,” Hailey said, when she calmed down. “I’ve been thinking about trying some nail polish at some point- and it looks like you’ve used some. Any recommendations?”

“I’ve found that a nice dark blue works well,” Future Hailey told her, holding out a hand to show her. “See?”

“You’re right,” Hailey agreed. “That does look nice.”

“So anyways, I’ve got you a couple bottles here,” Future Hailey said, rapidly pulling a few small glass bottles from her hair and handing them to Hailey. “Don’t worry, they’re brand new. And no, I’m not telling you where I got them.” She grinned, then looked up at Parvati, who was still standing, staring at them, in front of the door. “Hey Parvati, do you think you can teach her how to use them?” she asked.

“Uh-!” Parvati muttered, backstepping as the question snapped her out of her trance. “Um-!” She looked between the two nearly-identical girls, took a deep breath, and nodded. “I- I think so,” she muttered, looking down.

“Awesome, thanks!” Future Hailey cheered, before turning to Hailey. “Well, it’s about time I returned to my own time, then.”

Hailey grinned. “See me in the future!”

Future Hailey laughed. “See you in the mirror in the future!” She waved, snapped her fingers, and vanished into thin air.

“Somebody’s having a lot of fun,” Hailey mused, then smiled. “And I think I know what happened, too.” She looked over at Parvati. “You okay?”

“Wh-What even was that?” Parvati asked.

“My past and future selves,” Hailey told her, stepping over. “It’s because…” She paused, glancing around briefly.

Parvati shivered as she felt a wash of magical energy surround them; she had long since decided that the way she could so naturally sense magic was unusual, and chosen not to reveal it. The particular spell was unfamiliar- but it was coming from Hailey.

“It’s because I kinda am Harry,” Hailey told her.

“Called it!” she cried, punching a hand in the air.

Back before Hailey had ever transferred into their dormitory, she and Lavender Brown had come to the conclusion that Harry Potter was in fact actually a girl named Hailey, who happened to turn into a boy every so often. However, solid proof of that was impossible to find- just because they were never in a room together didn’t really mean they were the same person.

Then the First Task had happened. Lavender had called it into question, but Parvati had figured that they still were the same person. Hailey was just doing something funny to be in two places at once. Magic, perhaps- but they were only fourth-years, so what did they know about magic?

Hailey chuckled. “Yes, you did.”

“So… How did you do the First-? Wait, I think I know.”

Hailey nodded. “Yes. My past self is going through a particularly torturous phase of her life, about four months ago now, and time-traveling around to complete the Tournament as Harry. My future self was visiting from after the Third Task to deliver that notebook- this notebook, actually- that told her how.” She drew a notebook from her hair, smiled innocently, and stuffed it back in.

“So…” She scowled. “Who did Silver used to be?”

Hailey’s demeanor changed in the blink of an eye.

Parvati flinched away from the sudden intensity of her calm, calculating look. “Er,” she muttered.

“Can you keep the secret, Instructor Patil?” Hailey asked.

“Uhh…” She paused to think, then took a deep breath and made her decision. “Yes, I can.”

“Draco Malfoy,” Hailey told her, in a low mutter.

She blinked. “Didn’t he die?”

Hailey grinned, her bubbly cheerfulness returning in an instant. “Of course,” she told her. “And just like it, Harry is going to come back dead from the Third Task. We have our ways. More importantly, we’ve got a Ball to prepare for, don’t we?” She glanced at the nail polish bottles in her hand. “And nails to polish. Future Self gave me two colors and a clear one, not just one color, so…” She held them up.

Parvati blinked, then giggled as well. “This is going to be fun,” she decided.

Author's Note

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Now we have... The Triple Event!

And it so happens I've just written past the part where Future Hailey returned to this time, even though that event was offscreened...

I haven't been very good at keeping up with Patreon... But today, I'm going to publish chapters until there are the full 5 available on Patreon- one for every level but the highest, which has access through... chapter 80 right now, even though I'm not done writing it yet. I've been debating going on another rush schedule for a little, but I'm not sure my muse is going to hold out for after the Triwizard Tournament as well- and I don't have enough chapters right now to ensure I don't have to stop publishing for a bit (again) after a rush schedule...

By the way, the latest chapter should go up automatically at noon Eastern on Patreon every week. Unfortunately, I can't schedule the chapters to automatically make themselves available to lower-tier patrons, so that still happens whenever I get around to posting on here. That said, I will be able to schedule the releases to Titanium-level patrons (5 extra chapters) anyways... And Diamond-level ignores the schedule and gets everything currently written, plus some that's not if they want.

Chapter 67: Ambrosia

“You know, I’m curious,” Parvati muttered, as she worked with her hair. She and Hailey had just finished getting dressed and painting their nails- but unlike Hailey’s, Parvati’s hair wasn’t nearly so elegant on its own. Fortunately, Hailey had used a quick-dry charm Parvati hadn’t been aware of, so she didn’t have to worry about getting nail polish on her hair or whatever. She looked at Hailey in the mirror. “Why did you wait so long before you asked me?” she asked.

Hailey smiled good-naturedly. “Partly because I was waiting for Ron to realize that his eight girlfriends are, in fact, girls.” She sighed. “He finally did, but the only one he realized was a girl was Hermione, and at the time, I was the only one without a partner.” She shrugged. “And also partly because I knew just about anyone I asked was going to say yes, just because of my position, so I figured I’d let everyone else get their picks first.” She glanced up. “To be honest, I’m surprised you didn’t have a partner already.”

She sighed. “Nobody asked,” she muttered. “And I’ve never been an asker myself, so…” She sighed. “Neither my sister, Padma. She’s the timid one, between us, but nobody had asked her either.” She grinned, pausing to glance sideways at Hailey. “Whatever you did to get Ron to ask her was a stroke of genius.”

Hailey chuckled. “It’s not as sweet as it sounded,” Hailey muttered. “I just picked a random passageway to point him to, and suggested that he ask every girl he met on his way back to Gryffindor tower. She just happened to be, uh, fifth. The first four were taken.”

She paused, gazing into the mirror. “Did you ever consider asking… one of your friends?”

“Not at all,” Hailey smiled. “I’m sure it would have been nice, but all of us- with the exception of Ron, apparently- agreed that, since the Tournament is about meeting new people, we’d each find someone else to be our date, not each other.” She shrugged. “Meaning, had Ron asked Hermione before Krum asked her, she still would have said no. He would’ve gotten that explanation, though.”

“So…” Parvati trailed off, staring into the mirror. “Why did you pick me? There has to be someone more attractive.”

Hailey chuckled. “Oh, that’s a classic,” she muttered, and grinned. “You’re blind to your own beauty,” she told her bluntly, then shrugged. “Most girls are. But that wasn’t what I was looking for.”

She looked at her. “Oh?”

She nodded. “I mean, you know I’m the Student Instructor Program Management Team Lead, right?”

She nodded as well. “Yeah?”

“That means the amount of information I deal with daily is simply stupendous, before you consider I’m still the Head Student Instructor for Defense Against the Dark Arts and all that entails.” She flopped down on Parvati’s bed, which she had been sitting on the end of. “And that’s not even counting my other job, or my other other job, neither of which I can tell you about.

But as a result of all that, I’m pretty familiar with the personalities of around eighty percent of the students in this school right now, even if the number I could identify by appearance is well below one percent, so…” She sighed. “That’s what I was looking for. Kind, friendly, and not overly difficult to ask.” She sat up again. “So in the end, I asked you because, when I looked beyond such ephemeral things as physical beauty or attractiveness, I liked what I saw.”

“Ahh,” Parvati muttered, averting her eyes from Hailey, only to spy her in the mirror. She took a deep breath, then stepped over to sit next to Hailey. “Um… I know we just spent a lot of time making you look so nice, but if you are Harry…” She sighed. “Doesn’t he have to open the ball?”

“And I have to be there as well as one of the judges,” Hailey nodded, “yes. And while there’s going to be too much interaction for time travel to be safe… there’s a simpler way to be in two places at once.”

“Oh?” She raised an eyebrow inquisitively.

She nodded. “Yeah. Hire a changeling.”

“A… Changeling.” She paused, racking her memory- but while she remembered hearing that term before, she couldn’t remember what it referred to. “What is that?”

“An Equestrian shapeshifter,” Hailey answered, “and the best there is at disguise and impersonation.”

Parvati blinked, and looked at her. “Does that mean you’re-?”

She laughed. “Oh, no, I hate being Harry. I’m the real me, the changeling is going to be Harry.” She grinned. “And we’re having so much fun with that.” She glanced at Parvati. “And honestly, I’m amazed that Rarity managed to work your heritage into your gown so well. They don’t have anything even remotely similar to it in Equestria.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh come on. Padma’s is better.”

Hailey shrugged. “I’d say they’re about even, actually. At least, they were when I saw them in Rarity’s shop.”

“... You can go to Equestria?”

Hailey didn’t engage in conversation with the other judges over the meal that started the Yule Ball, Parvati noticed. Not that they were talking about much of consequence, but Hailey’s attention seemed to keep going someplace else.

Eventually, her curiosity got the better of her.

“What are you looking at?” she asked.

“Padma doesn’t look like she’s having much fun,” Hailey sighed.

Parvati looked. She picked her sister out of the crowd right away; Rarity had apparently had problems getting in decent help, and so had completed very few of the ball gowns that had been ordered from her, making Parvati extra glad she’d had both been the first and had also ordered one for her sister.

Padma was eating quietly, with a disgruntled look on her face, and kept shooting sideways glances at Ron… who was staring unerringly at Hermione, completely ignoring Padma.

“Oh my,” she muttered.

Hailey nodded. “I have to admit, it doesn’t surprise me, but…” She heaved a second sigh, skewering a neatly-cut piece of her steak with her fork. “Padma deserves better than to be ignored like that. Frankly, every girl does, but that’s beside the point.”

Parvati glanced over at the Champion’s Table, where Harry had already managed to dribble so much food down his front that his lap had more spaghetti in it than his plate. The unfamiliar girl seated next to him seemed to be delighting in his mess, and taking the opportunity to make it even bigger by distracting him so frequently he only rarely got to actually eat his food instead of adding it to his lap. Hermione was chatting with Krum, and Roger Davis looked like he was vulnerable to the attractiveness of a Veela. He was staring at Fleur in a kind of trance while they talked.

Silversong, meanwhile, was sitting next to an empty chair, looking depressed.

“It doesn’t look like Silver is having much fun either,” Parvati observed.

Hailey looked, and sighed. “Yeah. Bonbon is a very busy woman, and got called away on urgent business right when they were lining up next to the door. Knowing her, she’ll probably be back in an hour or two.”

Parvati looked at her. “What about your jobs?” she asked.

Hailey shrugged. “I’m still a student here,” she informed her. “Equestria is outside of my mission field, so unlike Bonbon, I don’t need to periodically go take care of a couple dozen criminal organizations in some random Equestrian city.” She sighed. “Even after I finished the STS, far too many Guards refuse to use it, and are subsequently losing their jobs in Equestria. I swear, it’s a minor disaster over there; I’m sure Celestia will be very glad when the only Equestrians getting Hogwarts invitations are those that are graduating Magic Kindergarten.”

“Magic what?” Parvati asked.

“Magic Kindergarten,” she answered, between bites. “Equestria enjoys a much higher atmospheric magic concentration than Britain does, so muggles and squibs simply don’t exist over there. So of course, they evolved to rely on that environment for their magic, and their magic diversified into three separate categories, which they call tribes: The Raeth, Aethr, and Etrah. Each person could only cast magic from one of those categories, and never from either of the others, with very, very few exceptions, so of course Equestria has a long and storied history of tribal warfare and unification.

“Meanwhile, because they’re evolved to rely on ambient magic…” She sighed. “When they cross into Britain, and our much, much lower ambient magic levels, most of them are completely unable to cast the spells they normally use, and even the most powerful- like Twilight, Luna, or Bonbon- can only barely cast simple Equestrian spells here. There just isn’t enough magic in the air for them.

“That’s one of the main differences. We evolved in a world with so little magic that the only way for even a pure-blood family to have a magical child was to surround their newborn with as much magic as possible… and, often, have many, many children. That’s actually why wizards have a fixation on enchanting objects that really don’t need it, like pictures, and the root of the pureblood supremacists. Well over seventy percent of live births were squibs, back in the day- but thanks to Hogwarts, this world has enough magic in it now for squibs to be rare, and even for muggleborn witches and wizards to appear.

“But since we evolved in that low-magic environment, our wandless- and accidental- magic is entirely cast from our innate wellsprings, with absolutely no reliance on ambient magic. As a matter of fact, because it doesn’t use ambient magic at all, it actually becomes less and less effective in greater and greater concentrations of ambient magic- with the result that accidental magic is rarer in wizarding households than in muggle homes. As such, if a raw British wizard were to go to Equestria… Aside from the magic concentration being so high as to kill him in a matter of seconds when he failed to synchronize his being with the ambient magic as Equestrians have evolved to do, his wandless magic just wouldn’t work, no matter how powerful he was.

“Wand magic, of course, is an entirely different animal. Our wands actually serve as thaumic batteries, absorbing and storing ambient magic whenever we’re not using them, before unleashing it in tightly-controlled bursts whenever we cast spells. As a result, while our wand spells aren’t nearly as flexible as Equestrian spells, they’re an order of magnitude more efficient- and will still work just fine in Equestria.”

Parvati nodded as Hailey stopped to order a dessert from her plate; she had been eating her steak between sentences all along, so it had been slow enough she had understood it without trying all that hard. “But you can use almost stupidly-powerful Equestrian magics in Britain,” she observed.

Hailey nodded. “I can,” she agreed. “That’s because, after I went through the long and frankly painful process we’ve codenamed the Papa Tango, I’m actually half-British, half-Equestrian. I have retained the British ability to cast magic directly from my wellspring, which has allowed me to retain the use of Animagus magic among other things… and gained the Equestrian magical facilities and focusing abilities. It’s almost stupidly simple to channel the magic from my wellspring into the Equestrian facilities, granting me full, wellspring-induced power with Equestrian magics no matter my environment.

“Then of course, because innate magic is naturally more powerful than ambient magic, that kinda automatically makes me much more powerful than most Equestrians in Equestria, in terms of Equestrian magic, without even trying- and that’s not even counting that I am also just a little bit more powerful in Equestria than here, thanks to the ambient energy levels.”

She scowled. “You mentioned… The three tribes. With a few exceptions?”

“Yeah. Because the three tribes actually include physical changes for their unique magics… There is an extremely powerful magic process in Equestria, rather simply called Ascension, that is the exception. Ascension magnifies the strength of the wellspring so far that ambient magic density is slightly higher around them than elsewhere, even in Equestria, and grants them far more robust magic facilities from each of the Tribes, allowing them to gather and channel far greater amounts of magic than anyone else.” She sighed. “Since Ascension is written into their magical cores, that meant I was capable of it too.”

“You… were capable of it?”

She nodded. “I Ascended last year,” she informed her. “If I lived in Equestria, that would automatically make me a royal Princess of the land, but I don’t. However, the massive wellspring magnification, paired with British cast-from-wellspring…” She trailed off, and sighed. “After that, I’ve become some kind of proto-goddess. Then because those that have Ascended are also immortal…”

“Um… You still seem to be growing to me.”

She nodded. “I am,” she agreed. “But because I ascended, I will grow until I hit my prime… Then stay there, forever. Paired with the only Equestrian magic that directly uses the Wellspring, which has the effect of granting each and every Equestrian- including myself- a unique power…” She paused, then offered a spoonful of ice cream. “Want some?”

Parvati blinked at it. “Oh, um,” she muttered, glancing at her empty plate. She, uninterrupted by Hailey’s monologue, had eaten faster than Hailey, and was already full. “Sure,” she finally agreed, more to be polite than anything else, and accepted the bite.

She almost gasped when it touched her tongue, and did put her hand over her mouth. It- It was simply amazing. Far better than any ice cream had a right to be- and she didn’t even like chocolate!

“W-Wow,” she gasped, while Hailey laughed at her reaction. It was a gentle, beautiful sound that was so very rarely heard from the girl- natural laughter. “H-How did you make that so good?”

“I didn’t,” Hailey smiled, scooping up the last of her dessert.

“Y-You didn’t?” she gaped. “But- But that was-!”

Hailey chuckled. “Ever since Twilight became the Princess of Friendship, some three or four years before the portal was opened, whenever there is an Equestrian involved, food will always taste better when a friend is feeding you rather than when you’re feeding yourself.”

Parvati turned to her plate. “Vanilla sundae,” she ordered, lifting her spoon.

The sundae appeared, and she took a small spoonful of it… then turned to Hailey. “Want some?”

Hailey laughed, and accepted it- then also put her hand over her mouth in surprise. “Oh My,” she muttered. “It must be just that much stronger for sweets,” she muttered. Then, grinning like a lunatic, she plucked a scoop of the sundae- which Parvati had moved to stand between them- with her own spoon and held it out for Parvati.

It was also ambrosia.

Author's Note

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

I am very far behind on Patreon, and in pre-staging these chapters for publication... I'm actually rereading the whole story right now, and I'll get Patreon caught up when I catch up in a couple days!

I must say, I've actually surprised myself. Unlike The Gate and On the Implications of Parallel Worlds, by the time I hit and passed chapter 50, I can still stand to read the first few... even if they're not written all that well.

Chapter 68: Dancing

The cheerful bliss started by the sundae lasted even after it was gone. “I don’t dance,” Hailey muttered softly in Parvati’s ear, as they stepped up to the dance floor.

Parvati glanced sideways at Hailey, and spied the mischievous gleam in her eyes. “Oh?” she asked playfully.

Hailey grinned. “So I’ve been studying a few different kinds of dance,” she muttered, then suddenly started moving. Parvati moved with her, giggling at just how well Hailey was matching the tempo of the music to her dynamic, very fast-moving dance, with twirls and everything. Parvati was fairly certain she wouldn’t have been surprised if someone had told her that Hailey was the best dance partner in the entire school.

“Nice bra, Potter.”

All her elation left her in an instant when she heard Mad-Eye Moody’s muttered complement at a moment in Hailey’s dance that had their noses inches from each other. A cold shiver ran down her spine- and from Hailey’s sudden stillness, and the sudden strength in her grip, Hailey had felt it too.

Hailey slowly turned her head to look at Moody.

“Detention, Professor,” she told him in a low, dangerous tone that made Moody flinch away from her. “You keep that eye where it belongs.”

There was silence, between the two of them at least, for several seconds while Moody wandered off, since Professor Sinistra- the Astronomy Professor, if Parvati remembered right- had abandoned him straight away with a horrified look on her face.

The worst part was that Moody was right- Hailey was wearing a very nice bra. As a matter of fact, while they had been changing in the dormitory, Parvati had noticed it, and asked. Apparently, Rarity had made it for her, as a proof of concept for a new line of garments… even knowing that none of them would ever be seen.

At least, theoretically.

Finally, Hailey sighed. “Well, now he’s gone and killed the mood,” she grumbled. “Anyways…” She paused, briefly. “Oh my. It doesn’t look like Padma is having much fun.”

Parvati glanced over. “At least she doesn’t have that creep looking at her bra,” Parvati hissed, glaring at Moody’s back.

“She’s within that eye’s range,” Hailey answered darkly. “Though I did just curse that magic eye blind for the next few hours.”

She breathed a sigh of relief. “So he can’t…”

“Yeah,” Hailey nodded. “He can’t.”

She scowled as they walked off the dance floor towards where Padma was sitting, arms folded and grumpy, next to Ron. “Wouldn’t that damage a magical eye?”

Hailey grinned. “I didn’t use true blindness, of course. I only forced it to gaze at the ceiling and spin.”

She let out a snort of harsh laughter, and glanced up at where Moody was throwing himself down at an empty table in the corner, looking disgruntled and very grumpy. “Good riddance,” she muttered.

Hailey then stepped up behind a chair on the table, and looked at Ron. “Ron, what are you doing?”

Parvati looked. Ron also had his arms folded, and a grumpy expression on his face, while he glared across the room, at… That was Hermione, dancing with Krum.

Ron didn’t answer.

So Hailey sighed, and looked up at Padma. “Has he asked you to dance?” she asked.

“He’s been ignoring me ever since we entered the Great Hall,” Padma snapped.

Hailey scowled. “Well that’s not acceptable.” She walked around, and sat on the table right in front of Ron, blocking his view of the dance floor with her gown. “Ron?” she asked.

Ron looked up at her. “What?” he snapped.

“You do know that not a single one of us went with another, right? The tournament is about meeting new people, not hiding in a corner with someone you know.”

“It’s about winning,” Ron declared, folding his arms.

Hailey rolled her eyes. “Alright then.” She glanced at Padma, then looked back at Ron. “Are you going to ask Padma to dance?” she asked.

“No,” he barked.

Padma flinched, looking hurt, and made to get up- but Hailey held out a finger to stop her. “Alright then, Ron.” She looked up, then back down at him. “The Weird Sisters will be starting another song in about thirty seconds,” she informed him. “Me and Parvati will dance through it, and if we get back at the end to find that you still haven’t asked her to dance, you’re going to be Ronelda for the rest of the evening.”

“R-!” Ron gasped. “You wouldn’t!”

“I would,” Hailey grinned, the mischievous glint returning to her eyes. “And for every successive song for which you don’t ask her to dance after that, your dress will get fancier.”

“N-No,” he protested.

“Then ask her to dance,” Hailey ordered, before hopping off the table. “We’ll be back.”

As Hailey took Parvati’s hand and led her back to the dance floor with a fire in her eyes, Parvati noticed that Padma had resumed her seat, and was now watching Ron with a curiously expectant gaze.

Parvati was laughing again when the song ended- and very tired out from the dancing. She hadn’t realized she was capable of backflipping, let alone in her floor-length gown, but she’d done it- and as part of Hailey’s dance, no less!

“Where-!” she gasped, as they left the floor and headed for the table that Ron and Padma were sitting at. “Where did you learn that?”

Hailey, completely unwinded despite the exertion- probably a side effect of the magic whatsits- chuckled. “I invented it. The way Rarity makes these dresses, it’s basically impossible to be accidentally immodest, even while doing acrobatics, so I had some fun.”

She laughed. “Yeah, that was fun.” Then, as she was reaching the table first, she looked up at Padma. “Has he asked you to dance?” she asked.

Padma, her eyes agleam with curiosity, shook her head. “Nope.”

Hailey helped Parvati to a chair- she was really tired out- and sat down in the one next to it. “Ron, are you going to ask her to dance?”

Ron gave an involuntary jerk and turned to look at her, from where he had been glaring at Hermione again. “N- er…”

Hailey sighed. “That song is over,” she told him. “You know what that means?”

He let out a squeak as he flinched away from her.

She folded her arms. “I’m giving you one last chance,” she told him sternly. “Are you going to ask her now, or not?”

“No,” Ron decided.

“Alright,” Hailey sighed, unfolding her arms to draw her wand. “You asked for it.”

“Wait,” Ron gasped, eyes going wide. “No, don’t-!”

Bang.

With a bright flash of crimson light, Ron changed. He became very definitely a girl- and a rather curvy one at that. He also got a bit shorter, and his shoulders jumped closer together like a rubber band. His short brown hair exploded down all the way to his waist.

“Gah!” Ron cried, in a much higher, more feminine voice. “H-Hailey!”

“I told you, Ronelda,” Hailey grinned.

Flash “Little to the left please,” Flash “Nice grumpy face,” Flash “Smile for me,” Flash “Now stand up straight,” Flash “Enough! I go!”

Parvati had a split second to recognize that it was a white-haired someone with a big black camera and an entire crew with lights and reflectors before they were gone in a trail of dust, leaving Ronelda standing next to her seat, looking flustered.

Hailey put one hand to her mouth. “Thanks!” she called, while Parvati clutched at her belly, laughing too hard to make any more than a faint squeaking.

“Wh-Who was that?” Ronelda asked, sounding shaken and at least mildly horrified as she sat back down amidst Padma’s much louder laughter.

Hailey grinned. “That was Photo Finish,” she answered. “Finest photographer in all of Equestria.”

“Wh-WHAT?” Ronelda shrieked, very nearly tipping her chair over backwards.

Hailey grinned. “What? Your mom told me to make sure I got a picture, didn’t she?”

She just stared at Hailey.

Hailey leaned back in her seat, twirling her wand between her fingers. “You’ve got about two minutes before the next song,” she mused. “And for the rest of the ball, until you ask Padma to dance, your dress will get fancier every time they start a new song.” She grinned mischievously. “And of course, if you don’t ask her for the entire ball, you’ll be Ronelda until midnight tomorrow.”

“Y-You wouldn’t,” Ronelda gasped.

“You ask a girl to the ball, you dance with her,” Hailey told her calmly, then pocketed her wand and turned to Parvati. “I think I’m going to fetch some drinks real quick- any preference?”

Bang! Flash! Flash! Flash! Flash! “Enough! I go!”

Parvati couldn’t hear any of the photographer’s other words, over Padma, Fred, George, Angelina, and Sunset’s guffaws- or, for that matter, her own. Hailey hadn’t gotten back yet.

Ronelda now had a ring of flowers in her hair that wouldn’t budge when she tugged on them, and her dress looked brand new… and had lace on the cuffs and hem.

“Th-!” Sunset gasped. “That’s the best Progressive Jinx I’ve ever seen, Hailey!”

Hailey walked up from behind Fred, chuckling. “I perform to impress,” she intoned, before giggling and offering Parvati a glass.

Fred, George, Angelina, and Sunset were already having a blast at the ball. Both of the twins had Rarity-tailored suits as well, and the four of them had been trading partners with each other almost constantly, in some kind of rapidly evolving dance that was so energetic people had been backing away in fear of injury. It looked quite amazing.

“Oh, and thanks for those dance ideas, Hailey,” Fred grinned.

Sunset laughed. “Oh yes. And the dress- I didn’t know it was possible to do a triple-backflip-double-corkscrew-handstand in one without flashing someone.”

Hailey laughed. “Thank Rarity for the dress, not me.” Then she grinned. “And yeah, it’s pretty impressive the kind of acrobatics you can play around with in her dresses without any risk of flashing, isn’t it?”

Sunset chuckled. “Yeah. I am really curious how that works- it’s not enchanted, as near as I can tell.” She looked up. “But Rarity wouldn’t have been able to make something that fits me so perfectly without your help, Hailey. Everyone knows that.”

Hailey raised her eyebrow. “Oh? Whatever do you mean?”

Sunset rolled her eyes. “You know how little I care about clothing, and how I would never have willingly gotten measured- nevermind the difficulty of doing that as a human. Yet, your Changeling friend could take care of that in a second, couldn’t she?”

Angelina giggled.

Hailey nodded. “You’re right,” she agreed. “And yes, that means Rarity knows who she is.”

“One moment,” Padma muttered to the Beauxbatons boy she was dancing with, as the song drew to a close. She pranced quickly over to Ron’s table, right up by the edge of the dance floor that they had been dancing at, and leaned on the back of an empty chair. “Hey Ronelda, are you going to ask me to dance?”

“No,” Ronelda squeaked, hands over her bright scarlet face. It had been at least an hour since the dancing started, so now there were flowers all down her hair, and she was wearing a bright pink frilly dress.

She sighed. “Are you sure?”

The bagpipe started to play, and-

Bang! Flash! Flash! Flash! Flash! “Enough! I go!”

There were even more flowers in her hair, and Ronelda was now wearing makeup.

Padma giggled and left Ronelda to her embarrassment, returning to the Beauxbatons boy, who had watched with merriment in his eyes. “Let’s keep going!”

“Enough! I go!”

Hermione sighed, sipping on her punch. She and Krum had gotten tired of dancing, and sat down at the table that Ronelda was sitting at. “You know, Ron,” she muttered. “This is the last song. If you don’t ask her now…” She trailed off. Basically everyone in the whole ball knew about Ronelda by then- and when Hermione had asked Hailey why she’d do that to him, she’d explained how Ron was actually still male where it counted- and that it wasn’t going to last as long as she’d said it would, either.

“I know,” Ronelda squeaked, flopping back down in her seat, hands covering her bright scarlet face once again. “But- But I can’t!”

“Yes, you can,” Padma cooed, putting a hand on her shoulder.

Ronelda shook her hand off. “I can’t,” she muttered.

“You can,” Hailey corrected, then sighed, and put her hand on Ron’s shoulder. “Come on, Ron. Ask her. Hey, ask anyone, and I’ll break the spell early, whatever their answer is. Please?”

The music finally drew to a close at midnight- and when it did, there was one last round of applause… then, when people started moving towards the exists, Ronelda was the first out the door, at a dead run. A few seconds later, a white-haired girl with a big black camera in her hands and a group of black-haired boys with lamps and reflectors in tow dashed out after her.

“Is… Is he going to be alright?” Parvati muttered.

“Yes,” Hailey sighed. “The dress will have returned to normal by now, triggered by his leaving the Great Hall. The rest will revert when he enters it for breakfast tomorrow.”

“That’s a lot sooner than midnight,” Padma observed.

“It is,” Hailey agreed. “I just…” She sighed. “I’m not going to torture him like that.”

Morning Sun stepped up next to Hailey, paced by her partner, Crystal. “Do we have another project?” she asked.

Hailey nodded. “Yeah. This time, fifty first dates, rather than fifty first conversations. And I’m thinking I want to help him practice asking people out too- three of the girls he asked before he found Padma were here with no partners today.”

Morning looked at her. “How’re you going to do that?”

She shrugged. “Since each ‘mission’ will last a couple of days, probably, we’ll need to get the consent of and use real girls this time, rather than hiring a changeling.”

Crystal let out a sudden snort of laughter.

Hailey chuckled. “That’s going to be fun in and of itself. As will getting good, regular evaluations on his progress, since we won’t want to involve the same girl twice.”

“I imagine the Ravenclaws would be happy to help us with that part,” Morning mused. “We can use Slytherins as boss challenges.”

Hailey let out a snort of laughter as well. “Yeah, they would tend to be a lot harder than the other three houses, wouldn’t they?”

“Anyways,” Morning muttered, glancing at Crystal before turning back to Hailey. “Hailey, I’ve been meaning to ask. How did you get Mission Impossible to turn around so completely in a single class?”

Hailey shrugged. “I took a hard line with him,” she answered calmly. “Good thing I did, because now he and Crystal have made the top ten.”

Crystal gasped, her mouth hanging open for a second before she put her hand over it, as she looked at Hailey. “W-We-!” she began.

“They made the top ten?” Morning asked, surprised. Crystal nodded faintly; Parvati got the idea that Morning had just asked her question for her.

“Yup,” Hailey answered. “Made number ten just last night- and we’ll see what happens after that.”

“You know what,” Parvati muttered, as she and Hailey were walking back up towards the Gryffindor dormitory together.

“Hmm?” Hailey asked.

“This… whatever you called it. The process that let you go to Equestria. What’s it, um, entail?”

“Three days of pain and suffering,” Hailey told her. “Or we can slow it down to a week with a very high fever, or accelerate it into a few minutes of excruciating pain.”

She winced. “What would I need to do?”

“Nothing, really,” she muttered, and sighed. “The period of pain starts when we cast the spell, then when it finishes its work…” She shrugged. “Why do you ask?”

She blushed, looking away. “I-!” she began, then took a deep breath and started over. “I want to be able to feed Padma the ice cream of the Gods as well,” she muttered.

Hailey laughed. “You are aware there’s more than just magical effects, right?”

She looked at her. “There are?”

She nodded. “Yes. It’s a magical and physical transformation- and while you’d be able to see and pass through the portal into Equestria…” She trailed off. “I can just about guarantee that your hair would be a different color- an Equestrian color. Mine wasn’t- it only got shinier- but that’s going to be extremely rare. Black is a rare color in Equestria, but brown is even rarer.”

“How much could it change?”

She shrugged. “Quite a bit. Mine wasn’t much, but Hermione used to have bushy brown hair, but now its smooth and shiny red and blue. Silver’s used to be wiry blond, but now it’s silver with blue stripes. Ginny got yellow racing stripes while her already red hair sharpened into a bright red, but Ron’s red hair turned brown. Which, as I say, is extremely rare. Angelina’s part phoenix, so her hair looks like a bonfire- and the whole part-fire thing is slowly bleeding into her skin as well, so she's eventually going to have a fiery complexion.”

“Do…” She paused. “Do any of them dislike it?”

“Nope,” Hailey answered. “We think it has something to do with exactly where the color comes from, but we’re not sure- so it’s entirely possible you could get something you wouldn’t be satisfied with, and Equestrian hair resists dyes something fierce. Then there’s the tribal magic, which actually does take a physical presence for the Aethrs.”

She scowled. “What if I got one, but wanted another?”

“So like Ron, or even myself, who were Etrahs but wanted to be Raeths? You’ll still have your British abilities, and thanks to the new magic concepts we’ve discovered, it won’t be too hard to emulate the other Tribes’ native magics with it, no matter which one you end up with- provided a fair amount of training. And who knows, you might end up doing something to earn your own ascension as well.” She shrugged.

“I don’t want to be immortal,” she muttered.

“Exactly five Equestrians have ascended throughout Equestrian history,” Hailey told her. “Celestia, Luna, Cadence, Twilight, and Pinkie. So far, exactly two British people have- me and Hermione. And every single one of them was for a reason.” She put her arm around Parvati’s shoulders. “Twilight discovered the secret of Harmony and Friendship, triggering her ascension and prompting her promotion to Princess of Friendship. Pinkie ascended from helping me figure out how to compress years of time into a few seconds for the Goddess of Reports. Hermione ascended for inventing the Papa Tango, which is the most powerful piece of magic in existence in either world, by a few orders of magnitude. I ascended for saving all the dementors, with that one absolutely ridiculous patronus on the grounds last year. Unless you do something on that same level, you won’t ascend, and so won’t need to worry about it.”

She looked up at Hailey. “What about the other three?”

“Nobody really knows why Celestia and Luna ascended, and Cadence’s ascension is shrouded in mystery- even to herself. We think it has something to do with how she saved a town with love, since she became the Princess of Love, but…” She shrugged. “Those three are also all hundreds of years old, or older.”

Parvati was silent for a couple of minutes after that, mulling everything over. She’d thought about the process- Papa Tango, was it?- during the Ball, whenever there wasn’t something else claiming her attention, and had come to the conclusion she wanted it. But if it was going to hurt that much…

Was it worth it? Some pain and suffering… in exchange for the ability to feed her future soulmate food that tasted that good, not just Padma?

Finally, she made her decision.

“Can I do it?” she muttered.

“You want to go through the Papa Tango,” Hailey confirmed.

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Even knowing what’s at stake.”

She nodded again. “Yes,” she declared.

Author's Note

Let's be fair, the dancing never was the main attraction, was it?

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Now, as I recall, Crouch-Moody already has three strikes, so he's either going to show up for detention or get fired...

Chapter 69: Scales

When Parvati woke up far later than she usually did on Saturdays, it took her a couple minutes to recall what had happened. The Yule Ball had been on a Wednesday- and when Hailey had talked to her Thursday afternoon, she had requested the fast method. Hailey had subsequently revealed that she had gone through the fast way herself, during her Goddess of Reports phase, and insisted that they go see Madam Pomfrey before attempting it.

Up in the infirmary that evening, Madam Pomfrey had helped them test her pain tolerance and mental fortitude, whatever that was… and finally come to the conclusion that they could allow her to take the fast way. Exactly why they had kept talking about huertz, kilohuertz, and megahuertz, and what on Earth an ‘ouchdammitometer’ was, she had no idea. But, she had understood the nurse’s instructions rather clearly.

‘If she’s still recovering after twelve hours, bring her to me.’

So on Friday, she had completed all her homework for the weekend in record time and even had all her students’ papers graded before nightfall, which promised her a relaxed weekend with very little to do.

And Friday night, per her request, they had done it.

As promised, the pain had been excruciating. She didn’t know how long she’d laid there, covered by her blankets, staring at the ceiling as the pain slowly wore off… but eventually, it had faded, and she had fallen asleep.

And now, as she stared at the ceiling, she realized she could feel something she couldn’t before. Well, a few things- it seemed her hair was a lot longer now, but that wasn’t the only thing.

So she sat up, very slowly, and looked.

“H-Hailey?”

Hailey glanced over as she entered the dormitory to check on Parvati; it was right about twelve hours after they had cast the Papa Tango. “Parvati?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

Parvati’s voice still trembled with terror. “I-I think it went wrong.”

Hailey trotted over. “How so? Um, do you mind if I…?” She tapped the closed curtains gently.

Parvati’s hand suddenly slipped into the gap, and swept the curtains aside.

Hailey blinked. The night before, Parvati had chosen to do it naked, despite Hailey’s and Hermione’s assurances that her clothes wouldn’t be an issue, and had sat up in bed, so it was almost stupidly easy to tell what had happened. Her hair had turned two shades of blue, such that it resembled some sort of blue bonfire on its way to her waist. She was also clutching at a gleaming deep blue wing, not too dissimilar from Hailey’s own wings… and there were scales up her sides and all around her lower body.

“Interesting,” Hailey muttered, sitting on the bed next to her and wrapping an arm comfortingly around her shoulders. “But it looks like it completed properly, so there’s no reason to be afraid.”

“B-But-!” Parvati took a deep breath. “Why do I have wings?”

“Because you’re an Aethr,” Hailey answered, extending her own wing to wrap Parvati gently. “The Aethr Tribe’s main power is that of flight. None of them are powerful enough on this side to actually achieve flight, even the most powerful, so the magic of the worlds omits their wings on this side.”

“A-And-!” Parvati gasped, and put a hand down to her hip. “Scales?”

Hailey shrugged. “Who knows. We’re still learning about a lot of this- so for right now, we can only assume you’re something we just haven’t encountered before.” She scowled. “I’d say an Equestrian mer, but your colors don’t line up with that.”

“An… Equestrian mer,” she repeated. “Only my colors?”

She nodded. “Yeah. They’re hippogriffs on land- but their manes are almost all single-color, and none of them ever approach the patterns of the ponies of Equestria- that’s what the Equestrians are, on the other side- and your hair pattern would be extremely rare even for a pony.” She smiled. “If it was all scarlet and gold, and feathers instead of scales, I’d say you were a phoenix-born like Angelina or Sunset.” She shrugged. “Angelina told me she’s got feathers on her lower body as well, in human form.”

“... Human form,” Parvati muttered.

“Yes. When we cross into Equestria, we also become ponies. Angelina is a pretty ordinary pegasus, if a little exotically colored- and I wouldn’t be surprised if the same was true for you, scales or not.”

“Even if…?”

She nodded. “Even if that would cross out the only logical conclusion from the information that we have,” she smiled. “Besides, Equestrian merponies actually don’t have scales- they have a tough, almost sandpapery skin instead, like sharks. But yes, those scales are making me wonder if you might have an affinity for water or something.”

“But are you sure I’m supposed to be this…” She looked down at herself, then back up. “Abnormal?”

Hailey shrugged. “The verification charm comes back positive,” she told her. “And once you put your clothes on, you’re going to look just like you used to- just with a little more exotically colored hair, and a much more… chiseled physique.”

“Chiseled-?” she gasped, looking down at herself and her arms.

“It’s natural,” Hailey told her. “Aethrs are the most active of the three tribes, so the magic grants them a toned musculature in addition to wings. I expect that means you’re also going to be a lot stronger than you’re used to- though not nearly as strong as I was, back when I was an Etrah.” She chuckled. “The Etrah Tribe’s main power is strength, so as you can imagine…” She sighed. “Anyways. Feel like some flying lessons at some point?”

She looked at her. “Flying lessons?”

She shrugged. “Those wings won’t be of much use if you don’t know how to use them,” Hailey told her. “I had a truly excellent teacher named Rainbow Dash, and I’ve since taught Hermione, Ginny, and Norberta to fly, so it shouldn’t be too hard. Especially if we do it in Equestria, where Rainbow and the rest of the Wonderbolts can help out if they need to.”

“Wonderbolts?”

She nodded. “The finest fliers in all of Equestria,” she answered. “Rainbow is their captain, and the only Equestrian non-Ascended to have ever broken the speed of sound in independent flight. Which, thanks to Equestrian magic, is a fun little event of its own.” She chuckled.

Parvati sighed, staring across the lake from where she had sat on the shore. It was Saturday afternoon, a week after she’d gained her wings. Exactly as Hailey and Rainbow had promised when she got to Equestria, flying was mostly instinctive- so after only a few sessions, Rainbow had called her a ‘pretty darn good flier’ and asked if she wanted to train up to be like the Wonderbolts someday. She, still in shock over how much better of a flier she was- and at how much more enjoyable it was- with her wings instead of a broomstick, hadn’t given her an answer.

Over in Equestria, she was an ordinary-looking deep blue pegasus. Not as dark as Hailey; no, she was more of a royal blue, like the stripes in Silver’s hair, perhaps a little lighter, to Hailey’s almost-black navy blue.

She hadn’t tried swimming or anything yet. She had never learned to swim… and she knew that the Hogwarts lake wasn’t a very good place to try for the first time. It was teeming with life, and Professor Lupin’s Defense Against the Dark Arts classes- she had been one of the very few lucky enough to study directly under him- had taught her enough about what could be down there. Completely aside from that, the lake was also covered in a sheet of ice that, judging by the few holes in it near the edge, wasn’t quite thick enough to reliably support her weight… making it plenty thick enough to trap her underwater, nevermind cold enough to freeze her to death.

Unfortunately, the only other option was the Ponyville Lake or the shower. She had shied away from that lake as well, at least in part because the ice was over a foot thick… and the shower wasn’t much use. Sure, she could dry herself off with a thought instead of a towel, but according to Rainbow, that was pretty typical for a pegasus; their fur and feathers naturally rejected water, and their magic allowed them to boost that effect at will.

Fortunately, it had turned out that her scales were just as resilient, and just as sensitive, as her human skin had been at those points, despite being hard little pieces of armor protecting her hips. She could safely scrub them the same way she usually did, though doing so seemed to shred the scrubber a lot faster than only scrubbing down along her scales did. It was almost like the scrubber was actually getting caught on them when she pulled it up… But she- and her scales- were simply too strong for it.

She also hadn’t seen Padma since the Ball; since they were in different houses, and taught different subjects, it was difficult, at best, to meet with her on a regular basis. That hadn’t stopped Padma from running excitedly to her after Ron had asked her to the Ball, but it did make it difficult to keep in touch.

Weekends were often the best- and sometimes only- times available for them to meet up… Then of course, many of the more recent weekends had been subject to storms, so neither of them had much excuse to leave their dormitories.

Today was, hopefully, different. It was a nice sunny day out- though of course, Parvati never knew where her sister was going to be at any one time. Frequently, she could be found in the library- but usually not on weekends. Today, a good number of students were out on the grounds, enjoying the sunny weather- and at least a couple were having snowball fights.

For some reason, the snow didn’t really feel all that cold to Parvati- neither did the air- and even when she sat in the snow, her robes refused to get wet. So, blaming that effect on strange Equestrian magic, she had rolled up a large snowball on the shore for her to sit on.

She glanced to the side when she heard someone straining on something, and saw Padma shoving another snowball up next to hers.

She smiled. “Well hello,” she greeted, dismounting her ball to help her sister.

Padma chuckled. “Same to you, General Kenobi,” she answered, before giving the snowball one last heave. It thumped neatly into place, at least partly because Parvati helped to guide it there, and Padma straightened up to take a deep breath. “Whoof,” she gasped. “That was exhausting.” She looked at Parvati. “I like the new hair, by the way.” She heaved herself onto the new snowball to sit down.

Parvati raised an eyebrow, and returned to her own seat. “Did it surprise you at all?”

“Not really,” she answered, grinning. “Morning told me you got the Papa Tango, said your hair looked like a waterfall.”

She paused. “... Huh.” She put one hand back to pull her hair over her shoulder; she’d heft her hood down, with her hair hanging down the outside of her cloak. “Huh,” she muttered again, looking at it as she let it fall down her chest. “You’re right. It does look like a waterfall.” She brushed some snow out of it, then looked up at the lake. “I wonder what Mom’s going to think?”

Padma looked at her. “She’ll probably go nuts when she sees just how dramatically her daughters have changed this year,” she grinned.

Parvati looked at her. “Both of us?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

She nodded. “I’m getting the Papa Tango tonight,” she answered. “Would have been last weekend, like you, but apparently I’m not quite as pain-tolerant as you, so I’ve been regularly making Madam Pomfrey scowl with ‘pain training’- and as of this morning, I passed the tolerance threshold for the fast mode.” She took a deep breath. “It’s going to hurt, but it’s going to be worth it.”

She looked at her “How so?”

She giggled. “Oh, don’t think I didn’t notice when you and Hailey got so giggly over a sundae,” she answered. “I even overheard most of her explanation, then Morning filled in the gaps for me the following afternoon.” She sighed. “Aren’t you getting cold out here? Some of the snowball players said you’ve been out here for hours, and I doubt your cloak is that good. Especially when you’re not wearing the hood, or your gloves.”

“It’s…” She sighed, looking down at her hands. She’d removed one glove some time before so she could reach inside her cloak for her wand to cast a timekeeping charm and, after noticing that the air didn’t really feel cold and her hands didn’t seem to be getting stiff or anything from the cold, removed the other and left them off. “I don’t know,” she muttered, resting one hand directly on her snowball. “It’s almost like it’s room-temperature snow, but it’s not. It just… doesn’t feel cold at all. Well okay, it’s comfortably cool, but that’s exactly it. I’m comfortable in all this cold, and my body heat isn’t melting it.” She sighed. “I don’t get it.”

“Maybe you’re like Angelina?” Padma asked, looking behind them.

Parvati looked as well, at where Angelina was participating in a very energetic snowball fight while wearing no more than she would in the summer- and periodically removing the snow from her robes with bursts of crimson flames. She chuckled. “No, I’m not,” she answered. “When I came out here, it was cold, but then…” She sighed. “Usually, it feels colder and colder when you don’t move around, but it didn’t. Instead, it just…” She paused.

“Got more and more comfortable,” Padma observed- then removed a glove and reached over to take her hand. She only touched it for a moment before flinching away.

Even Parvati flinched, pulling her hand back. “Wow,” she muttered. “That was…”

“Surprising?” Padma suggested. “It was like ice.”

“Really?” Parvati asked, tilting her head, then held out her hand again.

Padma took it gingerly- and only held it for a few seconds before letting go like she’d been burned. “Ow ow ow,” she muttered, blowing on her hand and shoving it back into her glove. “That hurt.”

“F-Felt almost like an open flame to me,” Parvati muttered.

Padma tucked her gloved hand under her other arm, underneath her cloak. “Ow ow ow. Yeah, you could probably make ice in your hands right now.”

She looked down at her hand, and flexed her fingers. “... Huh. Cold fingers usually…” She scowled. “Whatever. I guess we know I’m resilient to cold temperatures- though judging by how it happened, I can probably still get burned by, say, dry ice.”

“Probably not now, though,” Padma observed. “At least, not very bad. The air out here is already halfway down to the temperature of dry ice.”

“Is it?” Parvati asked, drawing her wand again. “Thermus. Oh, wow, it is.” Then she tilted her head, and pointed her wand at her chest, through the gap in her cloak. “Thermus.”

There was silence for several seconds.

“You’re right,” Parvati muttered. “By all rights, I should be a block of ice right now. According to that spell, my core body temperature is all the way down to minus ten.”

Padma chuckled. “Really was nice of Twilight to invent that spell for us, wasn’t it?”

She laughed. “Yeah,” she agreed.

Author's Note

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

I finally got Patreon caught up last week, so this chapter went public about two hours ago on Patreon- and Chap. 74 simultaneously unveiled itself to Titanium patrons. I've also shuffled down the unveiling of the other chapters for the other tiers with the posting of this chapter, but I can't make that automatic... Annoying. It's like they assume I'm only ever going to offer one level of early access.

Chapter 70: Grindylow

Parvati and Padma’s quiet moment together didn’t last long before a group of girls approached the lake, making a lot of noise as they came. When Parvati looked up, she instantly recognized that they weren’t going anywhere near her and Padma- but a second later, she realized that she might have to get involved. The first two were upper-year Slytherins- it really was interesting how that was where really all of the bullies left in the school could be found- and the last was Fleur Delacour, the Beauxbatons Champion, looking desperate.

Another second, and one of the leading girls had thrown something gold out onto the lake. When it struck the surface, it stopped cold, flipped open, and started wailing as it settled on the ice, a good twenty feet out on the lake.

“That’s her Golden Egg,” Padma observed.

Parvati nodded calmly. “It is.” She watched as the two Slytherins effortlessly dodged Fleur’s attempts to hurt them and ran away, only to take Fred and George’s well-aimed snowballs straight to the face.

Fleur evidently hadn’t been intending to play in the snow. She had her usual scarf on, now paired with the cloak that Hailey had helped her get from Madam Malkin’s shortly after Halloween, and she had her bag slung over her shoulder. The bag looked like it was heavy, filled with books… and it had a suspiciously egg-shaped hole in it, right at the end. Fleur kicked some snow aside and set it down carefully on the beach, before going down on her gloved hands and knees to crawl across the ice to retrieve her egg.

“Yikes,” Padma muttered. “Wouldn’t it be better for her to use a Summoning Charm?”

“Probably,” Parvati answered, watching as well. “She’s older than us too, so…” She paused. “Has Beauxbatons just not covered it yet?” She scowled. “Or are they using a different curriculum that doesn’t contain it?”

“Or,” Padma muttered, “since she knows it’s against school rules- both here and at Beauxbatons, apparently- to use magic outside of class, she’s probably left her wand in the carriage, and so doesn’t have that optio-!”

Padma broke off, and both sisters jumped to their feet, when Fleur reached her egg… and promptly fell through the ice with a small shriek of terror. The egg, still shrieking, vanished into the hole a second before Fleur’s head and shoulders leaped back out of it to gasp for air; she was, fortunately, still in the shallows.

They started running towards where Fleur had left her bag, which was also the closest point on the shore.

Then, just seconds after Fleur had started struggling to climb back out onto the ice, she gave a sudden lurch, screamed… and got dragged, backwards, back under the ice.

Padma froze up briefly, staring at the hole, but Parvati didn’t stop to think. She bolted straight out towards Fleur’s hole, straight across the ice.

Then the ice collapsed under her as well… but, just like how the snow hadn’t bothered her, that didn’t really bother her either. She crashed down below the ice layer, hardly noticing as it fragmented apart around her, got fully underwater, and shot further on.

Then, while she was still at least thirty feet away, she saw Fleur, and corrected her aim without even thinking. Fleur was being dragged by a Grindylow.

The spell to repel Grindylows crossed Parvati’s mind… But she was going to reach it much too fast for anyone but Hailey to get their wands out and cast the spell, nevermind the spell itself had a limited travel speed that was slower than she was moving, so she figured it was time to put her new strength to the test.

A fraction of a second after she made that decision, her fist collided with the side of the grindylow’s head at about the same speed as a speeding car, and with a not too dissimilar amount of energy behind it. She felt something crunch under the force of her blow and, praying it wasn’t her fingers, she wrapped around for another pass… but the grindylow, blood drifting lazily from a pretty big head wound, had already released Fleur, whose struggle was fading fast. Parvati recognized the symptoms- her muscles were seizing up from the cold, which was going to stop her crawl back across the seaweed far short of the hole in the ice.

She wasted no time in wrapping her arms around Fleur and thrusting them both to the surface, sending fragments of ice flying with the force of her exit. She hoisted Fleur up to make sure her mouth and nose were above the water, and was rewarded by a spluttering cough… before Fleur’s head dropped limply to the side.

She cursed, lifted Fleur entirely clear of the water, and strode straight through the ice back to shore. Some part of her mind noted that she was walking a few feet above the seafloor at first, but she didn’t really care about that.

Padma met her at the shore. “Is she okay?” she asked, while Parvati placed her gently on a clear patch of beach.

A sudden burst of burning heat right next to her heralded Angelina Johnson’s appearance by their side.

“She passed out once we broke the surface,” Parvati informed them both.

Padma winced, then reached straight up to Fleur’s jugular. “The hard part is that she’s not entirely human,” she grumbled, “so what we know won’t necessarily be applicable.”

“Thermus,” Angelina muttered, and scowled. “Body temperature thirty-nine and dropping,” she muttered.

“Dropping?” Padma scowled. “What’s her normal?”

“No idea,” Angelina answered. “Madam Pomfrey will know.” She paused. “She’s not breathing.” She pointed her wand, and muttered an incantation. Fleur took a sudden, ragged breath, and Angelina winced. “Her lungs have been paralyzed by the cold,” she hissed, pocketing her wand. “I’m taking her to Madam Pomfrey. Padma, tell Madame Maxime; Parvati, retrieve her egg and join us with it, please.” As she spoke, she shoved her arms underneath Fleur- and as soon as she finished speaking, both of them vanished in a flash of flames.

Parvati and Padma looked at each other, nodded, and split. Padma went running away- and Parvati dove back into the lake. This time, she did so consciously, without the desperation making her- but after the first time, she wanted to see how hard it was.

As it turned out, it really wasn’t that different from flying. She could feel the currents around her, and knew she could control them to propel herself; that was what she had done earlier, without thinking.

She didn’t, this time. Instead, she closed her eyes for a second to concentrate, then reopened them. She was going to do what she had learned to do for flying- just without using her wings.

That was, allow her instincts to take over.

And, as it turned out, her body knew how to swim- and fairly quickly, at that.

She located the egg by the singing coming out of it, closed it, and swam back to the long hole she’d made in the ice when she rushed back to the shore with Fleur. The water hardly even felt like water, so much as like air; she found she could breathe it quite naturally.

So, even though the egg slowed her down significantly, she swam normally back to the shore, surfaced, and walked out of the water again, before looking down at her clothes.

They were dry.

But, she realized, she knew exactly why they were dry; she had instinctively pushed the water out of them as she surfaced. She had done the same for Fleur’s clothes, without thinking.

“So.”

“Wagh!” She jumped, and looked… but it was only Hailey. “Oh, sorry,” she muttered. “I, uh, didn’t see you there.”

“Not surprised,” Hailey muttered, chuckling. “I just teleported here. But I take it you’ve got an affinity for water?”

She shrugged. “I… I don’t know. I can control the currents around me, and the cold isn’t bothering me, so…”

Hailey nodded. “So, affinity for water. Almost like…” She scowled. “If Phoenix-born are fire elementals, you’d have to be a water elemental.” She rubbed her chin. “I wonder how Padma’s going to turn out?”

“How- Why did I become…” She paused. “An elemental?” she finished.

Hailey shrugged. “No one knows why phoenix-born exist, nor how they come to be,” she told her. “All they know is that they are always female, though that’s being challenged by the existence of a male phoenix-born, and nobody has ever heard of another kind of elemental, either- which I expect is simply a matter of never encountering- or identifying- one before.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “Phoenix-born stand out, even in Equestria- but in a crowd of Equestrians, you don’t. If an Equestrian water elemental simply never swam, they’d never discover their powers… and never realize they were an elemental. Presumably, you won’t periodically burn up and rejuvenate the way Phoenix-born do, and so have something different as an elemental immortality device.”

“What?” Parvati asked, looking at her.

She shrugged. “Phoenix-born are immortal,” she answered. “We’re pretty sure that’s because fire is immortal. If you’re a water elemental… Well, water is immortal too, so if I’m right, there’s probably also a mechanism that grants you an indefinite lifespan.”

“But I-!” Parvati began. “I don’t want to be immortal.” She looked down at the egg in her hands.

Hailey put her hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry. If it turns out you actually are immortal, I can help you bring your life to a gentle end when the time comes.”

“But what about you?”

“Me?” She shrugged. “If I ever want to die, all I have to do is turn into Harry and take a bullet to the head. Phoenix-born will instantly rejuvenate upon receiving a lethal blow, but then they’re vulnerable for the first two weeks after that, during which another lethal blow will actually kill them. And if you are immortal, we probably only have to put enough bullets between your eyes or something. Immortal is not the same thing as invulnerable, remember that. It’s merely the opportunity to outlive those around you, and keep your descendants happy any time they come to visit great-great-great-grandma.”

“B-But…” She shivered.

“You’re identical twins with Padma, right?”

She blinked. “Uh… Yeah?”

She nodded. “She’s most likely going to be magically very similar to you, then. Magic does grow differently, but twins- especially identical twins- often have either matching or complementary talents or powers. Anyways, you were taking that up to Fleur, right?”

By the time Parvati arrived in the Hospital Wing, Fleur’s bag slung over her shoulder and the egg secure in her hands, Fleur was stirring. Madam Pomfrey had her propped up on some pillows, and was trying to get her to drink what Parvati recognized as her pepper-up potion.

Finally, Fleur swallowed some- then promptly coughed and sputtered, eyes wide, for a second. Parvati flinched, stopping next to Angelina, even with the next bed in the row; the burning sensation as the potion went down her throat would not have been a pleasant surprise, especially when only barely awake.

“It’s a false awareness,” Angelina muttered to Parvati. “Madam Pomfrey is using a huge array of awareness spells to wake her up so she can take the potion.”

“Drink,” Madam Pomfrey commanded Fleur- who rather clumsily accepted the flask and proceeded to drink the potion inside. When she finished, Madam Pomfrey plucked the flask from her hand while she coughed and flopped back down on her pillows.

Fleur then proceeded to stare blankly at the ceiling, so Madam Pomfrey, after a quick check, turned to Parvati. “I understand you pulled her out of the lake?”

She nodded. “I- I did.”

“How did you dry her clothes?”

“I magically removed the water as I lifted her clear of the Lake,” Parvati told her.

Madam Pomfrey gazed at her for a few seconds.

“Er, I retrieved her things for her,” she muttered.

She sighed. “It’s a good thing you were there,” she muttered. “And Angelina. Had either of you not been there, she would’ve died.”

Parvati scowled. “It seemed a bit fast to me,” she muttered.

Madam Pomfrey nodded. “Humans run at a thirty seven degree core body temperature, but Veela are all the way up at fifty degrees. Fleur is only part Veela, so her baseline is about forty two- but just like Veela, she’s extremely vulnerable to extreme temperatures.” She sighed. “Ice swimming might be a doable sport for humans, but for her, it would be lethal, no matter how she trained.”

“Ice swimming?” Parvati asked, tilting her head.

She nodded. “Swimming in ice-cold water. You did some, from what Angelina tells me, to reach her.” She sighed. “And ice swimming is deadly for humans too, without proper training.” She looked at her. “Yet you’re…?”

She shrugged. “I must be immune to low temperatures or something,” she muttered. “Even low body temperatures. I was down to minus ten earlier, but it was comfortable and my body wasn’t slowing down or anything, so…” She shrugged again.

Madam Pomfrey sighed. “So, you can safely dive into an ice-cold lake with no preparation at all?”

Parvati tilted her head. “Eh. Too big of a thermal shock still seems like it’ll hurt me, so I wouldn’t be running outside to jump in the lake, no. Only after acclimating for a while.”

She shook her head, and turned away to cast a couple charms on Fleur again. “That’s coming along nicely,” she muttered.

“Hey, Madam Pomfrey?”

Parvati jumped, and looked up- but it was only Silversong, leaning in from another room. She was wearing one of the Physician’s Assistant badges Hailey had made for the volunteers that helped Madam Pomfrey in the Hospital Wing; the Student Instructor Program was great, but it couldn’t stop everything. There were still a fair number of injuries or whatever on an almost daily basis.

Madam Pomfrey looked up. “Hmm?”

“Silent Scream is awake and screaming in agony again,” Silver continued far too calmly.

Madam Pomfrey sighed. “Again,” she grumbled, and hurried over. “Silver, could you watch Fleur for me? If her core body temp doesn’t rise to at least forty in the next five minutes, give her some more Pepper-Up. Once she’s over forty-one and not shivering, she’ll be good to go, unless there’s something else.”

“She got a bit too cold?” Silver guessed.

Madam Pomfrey nodded. “Fell in the lake.”

“Alright,” Silver nodded. “Will do.” She stepped back to let Madam Pomfrey disappear into the next ward, before making her way over towards Fleur’s bed. “Hello, Fleur! Feeling okay?”

There was silence for a couple seconds. Fleur didn’t seem to have even realized she was there.

“Apparently not,” Silver continued, completely unperturbed, and looked up at Parvati. “Hello, Parvati, Angelina. How’s it been?”

“I didn’t know you volunteered up here,” Parvati muttered, eying the badge.

“Yup,” Silver answered. “Every weekend. Hailey does it every night, and I have no idea how she squeezes that into her already very full schedule.” She sighed. “She promised me that she wasn’t using time travel to make her day-to-day schedule line up, but I suppose time compression isn’t out of the question.”

“What…” Fleur muttered, still gazing unseeingly up at the ceiling. “My… My egg. Where is it?” She spoke slowly, like each word took an enormous effort.

“We have it here for you,” Parvati answered. “It’s, er, still a bit cold right now, but…”

“Underwater,” Fleur continued. “It was… Singing.”

“Singing?” Silver asked, tilting her head.

Parvati started to nod, before quickly stopping herself. Silver was another Champion, and she probably should be letting her figure it out on her own.

Silver rubbed her chin. “If it’s singing underwater, but screeching in air…” She scowled.

The silence drew on for a couple of minutes. “The only option then is Mermish,” Silver decided. “I thought I would have recognized Mermish right away, but I guess not.”

“Mermish?” Parvati asked curiously, tilting her head. She had to admit, she’d never heard that word before.

“Yeah, language of the merpeople,” Silver nodded. “Mermaids and all, you know. Means the second task is definitely underwater, and probably in that lake- there are mer in there, all the way at the bottom.” She glanced at Fleur. “It should be warmer come February, but you’ll still want to look into some powerful charms to keep yourself functioning in cold water.” She paused. “Speaking of which, it’s been five, and you’re still at only thirty eight.” She turned to the tray Madam Pomfrey had left on Fleur’s bedside cabinet, measured out some pepper-up potion, and held it out. “Here, Fleur. It won’t be comfortable to drink, but not drinking it will hurt a lot more.”

Fleur numbly accepted the flask and drank the potion, before coughing and holding the flask out. “Ow,” she complained- and Parvati saw the vaguely confused look leave her face. “I-In the lake?” she muttered, looking up at Silver.

“Most likely,” Silver nodded. “I’m sure we can find a bathtub or something to listen to the song in without exposing ourselves to stupidly cold temperatures. It’s probably got a few more details in the lyrics.”

Fleur scowled. “Um,” she muttered. “When- When I fell in the lake, there was…” She paused. “Something grabbed me. What was it?” She looked up.

“A Grindylow,” Parvati answered. “I took care of it.”

Author's Note

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Chapter 71: Fleur

“Come seek us where our voices sound,” Fleur muttered to herself, so softly that even she couldn’t hear it. “We’ve taken what you’ll sorely miss,” she continued. “An hour…” She scowled. “What will I sorely miss?”

“What are you doing?” someone asked.

Part of Fleur’s brain recognized them instantly; he was one of her schoolmates. It made sense; she had filled the sink in the carriage, then opened the egg underwater and lowered one ear down to touch the surface of the water. Exactly as it had under the lake that afternoon, her egg was singing here too.

Too bad for him, though, she was too focused, listening to the riddle over and over as she tried to work it out. She ignored him completely.

He, uncontent with being ignored, stepped closer. “Oh?” he muttered. “What new insights has drowning that egg in the sink given you?”

She still ignored him. They didn’t like each other all that much- as a matter of fact, he was her biggest rival at Beauxbatons, and seemed to be trying to get her to fail the Tournament.

Finally, she sighed, and lifted her head out of the water to look at him. “What?” she demanded.

“Does it shut up when you dunk it underwater?” he asked.

She gave him a glare. “No,” she retorted. “It just reverberates differently.” She jerked the egg out of the water with one hand and, after shoving it up close to his ear to make him back off with a yelp, she closed it and marched away.

“Madame Maxime?” Fleur asked. It was well into bed time; all her schoolmates had already gone to bed, and Madame Maxime was having her usual nighttime tea in the main room before turning in herself. Fleur, on the other hand, hadn’t even changed into her pajamas yet; she had been too focused on the problem ahead of her.

Maxime looked up at her. “Why aren’t you dressed for bed?” she asked, with a hint of annoyance in her voice.

She hugged her book to her chest- the book that she’d borrowed from the Hogwarts library before dinner. “I know what the Second Task is,” she muttered.

Maxime’s whole aspect changed. “Really?” she asked. “Come here- what is it? What do you need?”

She obeyed, taking her normal seat next to Madame Maxime, and placed the book in her lap- Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Madam Pince, the Hogwarts librarian, had pointed her to it when she asked about Grindylows. “I… I need to learn to swim,” she told her knees. “And to breathe underwater.” She looked up. “The egg isn’t wailing, it’s singing… in mermish. It says they’ve taken something I’ll sorely miss, and I’ll only have an hour to search. Deep in that lake, probably.”

Madame Maxime nodded. “So, we just need to teach you to swim,” she clarified. “A Bubblehead charm will suffice for breathing.”

Fleur scowled. “But with a time limit… I’ll need to swim fast, not just swim. And there’s…” She put her hand on the book. “When… When I fell through the ice earlier, a Grindylow attacked me.”

She scowled as well. “True.” She sighed. “Well. You can cast the Bubblehead Charm, right?”

She nodded. “I can.”

“Then we’ll focus on swimming and creatures,” Maxime decided. “They’ll be important no matter the magic you use.”

“Though we’ll have to deal with the drag of the bubblehead charm,” Fleur scowled, gazing at her knees.

“Oh, another one. Gillyweed.”

Fleur looked up at the comment, from her search of Hogwarts: A History to see if it would tell her what might be in the lake. “What?” she asked.

The girl that had spoken had light blond-colored hair, which was tied together at the tip rather than the top, so it resembled a bundle of hay- and her pointed Hogwarts hat was perched atop a brown Stetson hat. “Hmm?” she asked. “Oh. Just another interestingly-named plant. I swear, wizarding names are even worse than Equestrian names, sometimes.”

“No, the plant,” Fleur said, abandoning her book to move closer. She spotted the House Badge on the girl’s chest- and while she didn’t recognize it right off, it looked like… Yes. That was a badger, which represented Hufflepuff House, right?

“The plant?” the girl asked, an eyebrow raised. “Gillyweed. Magical water plant that gives you gills and flippers for a while when you eat it.”

She stepped over to look at the book as well. “How long?” she asked.

“Just over an hour per mouthful, for most people,” the girl answered, looking at her. “Do you need something?”

She studied the page the girl was looking at. “How safe is it for non-humans?”

The girl scowled, studying the page. “I… Ya know, I have no idea. Why don’t we go ask Professor Sprout?”

She blinked, and looked. “Who?”

“Professor Sprout,” the girl repeated, rising from her seat. “She’s the Herbology professor, and knows tons of stuff that isn’t in these books- and she’ll be free for the next, ahh,” she glanced at the clock over the door again, “twenty minutes or so.” She smiled, and held out her hand. “You’re Fleur Delacour, the Beauxbatons Champion, right? I’m Applejack, Head Student Instructor for Herbology here at Hogwarts.”

She slowly accepted the offered hand. “Yeah,” she muttered.

“Gillyweed, for non-humans?” Professor Sprout asked, rubbing her chin. “Depends on the creature. There are plenty of creatures that eat it regularly- but there’s also plenty for which it’s pure poison. Hagrid or, if the creature is a Being, Madam Pomfrey are probably your best bets for that, but I can’t guarantee they’ve ever heard of Gillyweed.”

“M-Madam Pomfrey?” Fleur muttered. She’d never been a fan of medical personnel- and on top of that, whenever she used Hogwarts’ facilities, she always felt like she was intruding.

“Yes?” Madam Pomfrey asked, raising an eyebrow. “Is something wrong?”

“Well no,” she muttered. “I- I was wondering…” She took a deep breath. “Would Gillyweed be safe?”

“Gillyweed?” Madam Pomfrey asked, tilting her head.

“I-It’s a water-!”

“I’ve seen it before,” Madam Pomfrey informed her. “It’s very compatible with humans- to the point where one man once spent three whole weeks underwater on a diet of it, before he couldn’t find enough and died when he lost his gills a hundred meters underwater- but it’s also quite toxic for Veela.”

Fleur winced. “Oh.”

“You’re… thinking of using it for the Task,” Madam Pomfrey said. It wasn’t a question.

She nodded. “But if it’s poisonous-!”

“You’re part-human, though,” Madam Pomfrey told her. “Humans are incredibly flexible- and most human hybrids can consume limited amounts of substances that would be poisonous for their non-human parts but not for their human parts, or vice versa, without suffering from it. So…” She drew her wand. “Do you mind?”

“Sure,” she muttered.

Madam Pomfrey cast her charms, and studied her for a few minutes.

Finally, she sighed, and pocketed her wand. “Well,” she muttered.

Fleur looked up at her, hopefully.

She nodded. “There is enough human in you to make it safe to consume some,” Madam Pomfrey told her. “Any more than about two hours worth in any twenty-four hour period will be dangerous, though. And you’ll be more sensitive to it than a regular human, so…” She paused. “I don’t know how much that would be. Professor Snape should know, though- and he, ahh, might be willing to lend you some.” She chuckled. “The good news is Gillyweed will also offset the effects of the cold, and that will last longer than the gills- about a quarter longer, specifically. You will want to be certain you return to me within that time, or you will die when it wears off.” She sighed. “You also won’t be able to breathe air for as long as you have gills, so… Be ready for it.”

Professor Snape, when Fleur found his office after asking about thirty different people where it was, was a scary man- an intimidating man. But, Fleur had never once backed down from danger, and always stood strong in the face of adversity. There were times when she wondered if it was related to the Veela combat instinct, especially since it caused her to get into fights really more often than she needed to, but it was useful here. She stood straighter as soon as she saw him, and felt her strength welling up inside her. “Professor Snape,” she asked, and bowed to make sure he knew she respected him.

Snape looked up at her. “What?” he retorted.

She immediately recognized the strong voice and easy gaze of a sly and powerful man- and did her best not to provoke him, by forcing herself to stay formal. “May I ask for your assistance?” she asked firmly.

He regarded her coolly. “What with?”

“Madam Pomfrey said you would be able to help me figure out how much Gillyweed I will need for the Second Task,” she told him.

He stared at her. “Did she tell you your sensitivity?”

She recited the number Madam Pomfrey had given her; she didn’t understand it at all.

He scowled, looking her up and down. “Huh,” he muttered, then sighed. “If you bring me a clump of Gillyweed, I will help you portion it appropriately.”

She bowed again. “Thank you.” Then she paused. “And, ah, do you know a good place to get it?”

He smiled- and it didn’t look like a vicious smile, but more of a natural one. “Yes, I do.”

“Gillyweed?” Madame Maxime asked, tilting her head.

She nodded. “It’ll give me gills and flippers for an hour, and offset the temperature problem. That way, I won’t have drag from the Bubblehead Charm, and it’ll be much easier to swim quickly.” She sighed. “I still need to know how to swim, though.”

“Very well. Where did you say we could get some, again?”

Fleur surfaced smoothly and climbed steadily out of the swimming pool that was in the bathroom Fleur and Madame Maxime had been pointed to when they asked Dumbledore for somewhere that they could teach her to swim.

Madame Maxime turned the lights on. “How is it going?”

“Pretty well,” she answered, glancing back at the pool. “I timed the bubblehead charm just as the gills disappeared, and shook off the Grindylow both before and after.” She sighed, sitting on the plastic chair that Madame Maxime had conjured. “And that was the last of it for today, wasn’t it?”

Maxime nodded.

Fleur let out a sigh of relief. “I’m starting to feel really confident about this Task,” she told her. “I know there’s a lot of opportunity for the Grindylows to gang up on me in the lake, and that will be harder, but even so, I’m sure I can take them.” She looked at the water. “It might be hard to find them, though.” She sighed. “Still. I can do it, and that’s what’s important. Anyways, what time is it?” She plucked her wand from the loop on the ‘swim robes’ that they had had Madam Malkin, the local tailor, custom-tailor for her. It wasn’t so much a robe as a suit; it fit her snugly, and the parts it had to make it look like robes weren’t very long at all, which vastly reduced the amount of drag and allowed her to move much faster underwater. Apparently, it had been based on a muggle garment called a ‘wetsuit’. “Tempus,” she muttered, and winced. “Dinner is coming up soon.”

“Dinner?” Madame Maxime asked, blinking in apparent surprise.

She nodded. She usually ran out of the day’s single hour of Gillyweed long before dinner, since she often surfaced shortly after it wore off- but today, she had been practicing not just transitioning from gills and flippers to bubblehead and bare feet, but continuing to stay in the dark underwater with a Grindylow even after that point, just in case the Gillyweed ran out too quickly or something during the Task. As a result, she had been underwater for much longer each time, and had gone through the Gillyweed much slower.

They had also been practicing temperature management- just a couple degrees at a time, but they had steadily reduced the temperature of the water. Whenever she switched to the bubblehead charm, she then immediately used a quick body heat spell to bring her body temperature back up to her normal level and keep it there. It consumed a lot of magic, making other spells difficult to cast, but it would keep her alive on the bottom of the lake for as long as necessary. It also only warmed her up so quickly, so the lowest they’d safely been able to test with the little bits of Gillyweed she was taking at a time was thirty two degrees. It was a lot warmer than the ice… but it was also lethally cold, if she didn’t use those charms.

“I think,” she muttered, before brandishing her wand to dry herself off. “I think I’d like to focus on the temperature next time,” she said. “Even if that means more Gillyweed at a time. That spell isn’t going to be any use in the Tournament if it can’t keep me at forty two in whatever the temperature of that lake is. And if they’ve gotten their hands on Gabrielle…” She shuddered; she had decided that ‘something she would sorely miss’ would be best personified by her youngest sister, so they had chosen to assume it was actually her sister, for the time being.

Madame Maxime nodded. “She might need it too,” she finished.

She nodded, throwing her robe around her shoulders, overtop her ‘swim robes’, and threading her arms through the sleeves. “Yes. Though assuming there’s some sort of magic done to keep her from dying down there, I will have more time to warm her up, and it’s possible she’ll already be warm from the same.” She sighed as she did up the front. “Anyways, we’ve got about twenty-five minutes, so…”

Maxime nodded. “I’ll take care of the Grindylow,” she told her. “Go ahead and get changed.”

She bowed and left the room, headed for the carriage.

Author's Note

I still don't know why I took such a liking to Fleur, but I did. Maybe because I've been focusing on non-Hailey characters lately?

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Chapter 72: Detention

Crouch paused as he reached the door labeled ‘Hailey’s Office’, and took a deep breath. He wasn’t sure exactly why she had scheduled the week of detention she’d given him for commenting on her bra two full weeks after the event, but he was grateful for it; during that time, he had managed to locate her office. So, he wasn’t entirely doomed- but he was close. According to the clock on the door, his detention started a mere two minutes after he’d arrived.

He took another quick swig of his Polyjuice Potion, then knocked sharply.

“Come in,” Hailey’s voice called.

So, he pushed the door open.

The first thing he saw… was the large, muggle device sitting next to one of the tables placed against the far wall, behind Hailey’s desk, and the odd plastic things that were actually sitting on her desk, at the corner in front of her. She was positioned so she could easily look past them towards the door.

“Ahh, you’re here,” Hailey observed, then tapped something on the bumpy plastic thing lying on the desk in front of her a couple times. The thing behind her immediately started making noise, and started spewing pages out, one after another. “Now that you’re here, we can get started,” she told him calmly, placing a small wooden trough on her desk between them. “You’re going to start by putting your wand on this.”

He glared at it, then sighed, drew his wand as he clunked his way over, and placed it wordlessly on the trough.

She nodded calmly. “Alright. Then, you’re going to take this pen,” she plucked a small red plastic rod from a cup full of blue ones and clicked it, “and fill these out, at that desk by the door.” She took the deck of papers off of the thing behind her, which had stopped spitting pages out, flipped through them quickly, and nodded. “Yup, that’s all of them.” She handed the plastic rod and the papers to him. “You won’t be needing ink, just write with the pointy end.”

He accepted the papers and plastic rod- pen, had she called it?- and sighed.

“As you can see, I’ve filled in the first one for you. Copy that on every numbered line, then bring it back to me. I will check it, then return your wand and dismiss you.”

He glared at her for a second. Interestingly, his magic eye couldn’t see through the big panel things she was looking at- but it could see through her robes.

“And another nice one,” he muttered, under his breath, as he headed back towards the desk next to the door- which was completely empty.

“That’s another week,” Hailey told him calmly, though there was venom in her voice.

He winced, sat down clumsily, and read the line he was to be copying.

I must not look through clothes.

He stared at it. It was very short… and exactly what he had just violated.

Finally, he sighed, raised the ‘pen’, and looked at it.

Yes, it was muggle technology- it must hold its own ink inside.

He put it to the page after the one, on the first line, and wrote.

I must not look through clothes. The pen used bright, ruby-red ink. It was going to be a tall order to keep his magic eye off other people’s clothes; that was how he entertained himself most of the time: By looking through all the girls’ clothes.

He let out a gasp and dropped the pen as a gash appeared, briefly, on the back of his hand, spelling out those same words. A blood quill? But blood quills were-! He paused, staring at the pen. Had she made her own? A blood pen?”

“Problem?”

He turned at the unfamiliar voice… to see the little girl that had so easily captured and bitten his Killing Curse leaning out from behind another set of those panel things, where she’d been completely hidden from him up until then.

A shiver ran down his spine, then he turned resolutely back towards the papers. “No,” he barked, lifted the pen again and, gritting his teeth, put it back to the page.

As he worked, resisting the pain on the back of his hand, he used his magic eye to look through the pages, all the way to the last page. The lines stopped halfway down it, at one thousand seventy two.

Then, careful to hold his tongue, he turned the eye to peer back at Hailey.

… There was a note pinned under the waistband of her skirt, reading ‘That’s a third week, Moody’.

“Well?” Hailey asked coldly, looking at him.

He flinched, and turned the eye resolutely down to the pages again.

Without the stolen wand, Crouch had no way of making sure his Polyjuice Potion was appropriately timed- so, whenever it felt like it was getting close to an hour, he took a sip of it.

While he was scribbling on line seven hundred ninety-two, he glanced back with his magical eye, hoping that maybe this time, she wouldn’t notice.

There was a note held to the side of her bra by a safety pin, reading ‘And a fourth week’.

Hailey gave him a look. A look that told him she knew he was looking.

He winced, took another sip of his potion… and drew air for part of it.

He froze, eyes wide, and tested the flask again. Yes, it was now empty. He had run out of potion.

“Problem?” Hailey’s voice called.

“Er-!” He turned to look at her, focusing the magical eye on the grain in the table under the pages. “Ran out of water,” he rumbled. “Can I-?” He leaned forward, as if to rise.

“No,” Hailey told him, “you may not run off in the middle of your detention.” Then, she smiled. “If you work at it, though, you shouldn’t have any trouble finishing the rest of those in a single hour.”

“You’re evil, you know that?” the smaller girl said admiringly, from behind her panels.

“I do,” Hailey agreed, turning back to her own.

Crouch turned back to the pages, took a deep breath, and applied the pen to them once again.

He was going to finish, and get out, in time to keep his transformation from falling off.

He resisted the temptation to look through her clothes again, and instead concentrated the magic eye on the texture of his shoe.

Crouch started to get edgy right about the time he was working on nine hundred eighty-three. He started casting his magical eye around, searching for a clock- any clock- in the visible portion of the Castle… while resolutely not looking through Hailey’s clothes. For some reason, the one on the outside of her office door seemed to have disappeared.

“Twenty-seven minutes,” Hailey supplied calmly, without looking up.

He froze. Was that how long it had been? Or how long he had left? Or completely unrelated?

He shivered, and kept working.

It happened again on line one thousand fifty-four.

“Eleven minutes,” Hailey told him, again without looking up.

Finally, he was done. He scrawled the very last ‘s’... then took a deep breath, and let it out, glancing at the back of his hand. It was red and raw, but nothing was showing.

As it wouldn’t. It took a lot of work with a blood quill to induce scarring.

He stacked up the pages, and rose from the table, taking the pen with him as he walked, unprompted, up to Hailey’s desk to hold them out to her.

Hailey accepted them calmly, swiveling and sliding her chair over. She clicked the pen and dropped it back into the cup, then rifled slowly through the pages, one by one. Finally, she nodded. “Alright,” she muttered, and pushed the trough- which still carried the wand- towards him.

Then, she looked up at him through her eyelashes.

“One minute, thirty seconds.” She put the pages down and, as he accepted his wand and left, turned back to her panels.

“You’re really evil,” her friend observed, as he was opening the door to leave.

Hailey chuckled- and the last sentence he heard before the door landed closed was “Thanks, I try to be.”

He rushed as quickly as he could, without looking like he was rushing, back to his office.

And sure enough, right about a minute and a half after Hailey had said that so ominously, he felt the transformation begin to reverse.

He quickly let himself into his office, caught the wooden leg before it could fall on the floor, closed and locked the door, and looked around the room.

Finally, after a deep, calming breath, he set about preparing the next day’s Polyjuice Potion. It was already past ten, so the likelihood of a visitor was quite low.

“Welcome back, Professor,” Hailey greeted, when Crouch arrived for the second detention. She pushed a small plastic tray towards him as he approached his desk. “Wand, please, and the magic eye in the glass too.”

He stared at her.

She calmly matched his gaze. “Unless you would prefer to be fired.”

He sighed, placed his wand on the wooden tray… then removed the magic eye and gingerly dropped it into the glass of water.

Then he gasped as it instantly went blind.

Hailey stared him down, holding out another sheaf of papers, which she clicked the red pen over before dropping it on top of them.

He sighed, and accepted them. If she was going to torture him with his detentions, then she would torture him. There wasn’t much he could do about it, either- Dumbledore was already siding with her, so he wouldn’t help him. He walked calmly to the desk in the corner, sat down, took a swig of his potion, and started working. Perhaps he would have enough if he timed them every two hundred lines? Or every three hundred? The day before, when he’d gotten his wand back, it had been to find out it had been almost exactly three hours.

Two hundred and fifty, he decided.

“One minute,” Hailey muttered.

Crouch flinched- then rechecked his line number.

He was on line three hundred and twenty seven- he’d missed two hundred and fifty.

So, silently thanking the Gods that she was paying better attention than he, he lifted his flask and took a swig from it.

Then he jumped when someone knocked on the door.

“Come in,” Hailey called.

Someone entered. It was a girl, and her hair looked like a waterfall, when he glimpsed it in the corner of his eye. “Hi Hailey,” she greeted cheerfully.

“Good evening, Padma,” Hailey answered- and Crouch heard her rising from her seat. “You ready?”

“Yup,” the new girl- Padma, apparently- said. “Um, what’s he doing here?”

“He’s serving in detention,” Hailey told her.

“Detention?” she asked- and he felt her lean over him from behind to peer at the parchment for a moment. “You’re having him use your Blood Pen?” she asked, sounding horrified. “What did he do?”

“You saw what he was writing, right?”

“Yeah, ‘I must-’!”

There was silence for a couple seconds.

“Oh My,” Padma muttered.

“Yes,” Hailey stated flatly.

“Are you sure that’s going to be enough?”

Hailey laughed. “If I gave him any more, I’d quickly run out of days with which to punish him for further infractions,” she told her. “And besides, I have a plan. Anyways, the Granger Warp- let’s see how you’re doing on that. If you’re good, I can teach you something interesting.”

“Interesting?” Padma asked curiously.

“Yes,” Hailey answered slyly. “Interesting.”

Crouch scowled, listening with half an ear as he continued to endlessly scrawl line after line. He remembered to take a swig when he hit six hundred, while they talked, studied, and practiced something related to the ‘gabbleblotchits’ and the ‘gruntbuggly’. There was even a mention of the ‘micturations’!

When he was on nine hundred eighty-three, Hailey glanced over. “Four seconds,” she called, before turning straight back to Padma.

He, in a flash of fear, quickly took a sip of his potion. Somehow, Hailey seemed to know about it… and wasn’t letting it on?

She was definitely suspicious. Had the Dark Lord planted her too?

“Anyways,” Hailey continued, back with Padma. “What do you think it does?”

There was a moment of silence. The anti-bleeding charm Crouch had cast on his hand was working well; he knew blood quills couldn’t be protected against while still letting them even have the appearance of functioning properly without an active wand, but standing spells like that would stem the excess bleeding, even while the cut was open.

“Y-You’re kidding me,” Padma gasped.

Hailey chuckled softly.

“Does it really?” Padma asked, sounding excited.

“Yes,” Hailey answered smugly. “Works perfectly.”

Padma burst into laughter.

She was still laughing when Crouch finished one thousand seven, the last one on today’s papers, and looked up.

Hailey stepped over, accepted the stack, inspected it, and nodded, before striding over behind her desk to put the pen away and offer him his wand and eye back. “Alright,” she told him. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” She smiled. “Forty-three minutes,” she told him, as he accepted his wand.

He immediately started his timing spell on that time remaining- then put his magic eye in and, as he did every morning, made sure it was working by looking through someone’s clothes… Hailey’s, this time.

She didn’t seem to be wearing any underclothes today. Instead, her body looked to have been crafted out of solid wood, with the words ‘Really, Moody?’ carved into it.

“That’s another week,” Hailey told him calmly.

He flinched away from her, turned, and headed for the door.

“You’re evil, you know that?” Padma told Hailey.

“I’ve heard,” Hailey answered cheerfully- and, when he glanced back with the magical eye, he saw them high-five one another.

Padma didn’t seem to have a body inside her clothes. It was simply… gone.

“Yeek!” Padma gasped, giving a shudder. “Is- Is that what it-?”

“It is,” Hailey answered, right as he left the room. “Moody,” she called calmly.

He stopped, a second away from closing the door, to turn back towards her.

“Another week,” she told him.

He very nearly broke into a run as he fled. That girl wasn’t just suspicious. No; she went straight through scary, and right to downright dangerous. Far more even than the Dark Lord- there was no way she was his underling.

Yet, she commanded an almost ridiculous amount of authority, so he’d have to play his part… or else.

Part of him honestly wondered if the Dark Lord Voldemort would be afraid or not when he told him of her. Or worse, when they eventually ended up face-to-face, because they would, eventually.

Author's Note

What do you think- is she evil, or not?

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

This last week, I've put this story down to focus on other stories and perhaps keep it from working itself into a corner. This hiatus might last a while, depending...

But you won't notice any effects of that for a while; I've got 12 finished chapters in the queue right now, AFTER this one.

Chapter 73: The Second Task

The whistle blew.

Fleur took a deep breath, and, for the first time ever, stuffed a whole hour’s worth of Gillyweed into her mouth. The most she and Madame Maxime had practiced with was ten minutes at a time- and the coldest they’d gotten with their thermal training was twelve degrees, before they’d run out of days before the Task. That was decently cool- but according to the temperature-sensing charm she’d cast as she had approached the lake, the surface was at a mere two degrees.

She knew her body could tolerate the cold better than it could just two months before- but she was certain that the shock would still hurt. She would have to take it slowly… But she couldn’t. She had to get far enough in before the gillyweed took effect, or she would be unable to breathe- or get started. And she had to get the gillyweed working as quickly as possible, since the timer had already started.

While she chewed the gillyweed, she stripped off her shoes- thank Merlin the snow had melted off of the beach some days before- and shed her cloak, dropping them on the beach.

It was taking longer to chew the larger wad of gillyweed. She had to chew it up properly; any unchewed gillyweed wouldn’t work, resulting in a shorter duration.

She took a deep breath through her nose, let it out, and started walking into the water. She clenched her muscles as the icy water reached them, forcing them to keep working, to stay warm for a few seconds longer. Still, though, the numbing pain was far stronger than it ever had been in that pool- and the walk to the depth she needed was much longer than it had been in the pool.

But the gillyweed was also taking forever to chew properly.

She waded in until she was waist-deep, then stopped. The gillyweed was getting close- but she was also getting close to too cold to stand. So she took a deep breath, and swept her robes off, undoing the snaps in one smooth motion.

Surprised I can still do a smooth motion right now.

She lifted the robe above the surface of the water, dried it with her wand, and used a banishing charm to send it back to the shore, where it joined her cloak with a soft flump. Finally, she holstered her wand in its loop on her hip, swallowed the Gillyweed, raised her hands into the air… and allowed herself to fall forwards, into the lake.

The water was freezing. She could feel her body seizing up. Her lungs wanted to move, but she resolutely held her breath. Even her heart was struggling-

Then, very suddenly, she was completely fine. She could feel her fingers and feet once again. Her heart was beating normally, and when she took a breath, her lungs didn’t move- and instead, water flowed smoothly out her gills.

She swept her arms down, and launched herself out towards the center of the lake.

She had a rescue to perform.

She hadn’t yet been able to discern exactly what had been taken, so she was still assuming it was her sister. Either that, or she figured she should be able to recognize it when she saw it.

Several times, she paused to use a quick directional charm- and a distance charm that she’d anchored on her robes shortly after putting them on over her wetsuit.

With the combination of those two spells, she knew exactly where she was in the lake.

She headed straight for the middle, the deepest part. From there, she would start the search pattern she and Madame Maxime had come up with until she found her goal.

She was not going to accept failure as an option.

Suddenly, something grabbed her ankle.

She whirled in the water, drawing her wand in a single motion.

It was a Grindylow. She could see more rising out of the weeds, reaching to pull her down.

“Relashio!”

Her voice was largely inaudible, being absorbed by the great big bubble that came from her mouth, but the spell didn’t need that. Boiling water shot from her wand, causing angry red patches to appear on their green skin. She yanked her foot free, and swam quickly away from them… Then they grabbed again. She whirled in the water again. “Relashio!”

Her aim wasn’t very good; she felt the jet of boiling water brush against her foot.

There were also five grindylows. She glanced around for a second… More were rising out of the weed to attack her.

She cursed, and gripped her wand tightly. “Relashio! Relashio! Relashio!”

The fight seemed to go on forever. She fought them, kicking, punching, and hitting them with the spell- but there were simply too many of them. They were wearing her down- and, she realized, she was losing, albeit slowly. She had lots of cuts from the fight- she couldn’t go on much longer, and there always seemed to be another one to take the place of any she managed to strike or curse off of her.

This wasn’t working. She needed to-

Hangon. Curse?

“Confringo!” She paused, briefly, when her blasting spell had very, very little effect. Should have expected that this far underwater. “Stupefy!”

That one worked. When the bolt of red light struck a grindylow, it instantly went limp and started drifting away on the current. This was no longer dealing with wildlife, but a wizards’ duel, and the Grindylows were nothing other than ignorant opponents that had left their wands in the bathroom.

“Stupefy! Stupefy! Stupefy!”

Now she had the upper hand. She continued to fight, and curse- and there weren’t enough of them to keep up with her.

Finally, she got the last one off, and shot away from them, across the lake.

A minute later, she paused, used her location spells along with a timekeeping charm, cursed, turned ninety degrees, and resumed swimming. That fight must have gone on for much longer than it felt like.

She was almost out of time.

Then… She heard a distant voice. No, voices- it was the same song as in her egg. No, a different song, with similar lyrics.

She veered towards it, and swam at full speed.

It seemed to take forever to locate her goal. It appeared to be in the middle of a village of merpeople- but ever since she passed the first hut, she had a strange feeling that she was in danger.

And, she saw, there was someone already there, gleaming silver hair floating in the water like quicksilver. The royal blue stripes that she knew were in this girl’s hair were completely invisible in the gloom.

Then she saw what the goal was. There was a giant statue of a merperson in the middle of the square, and it looked like there were two people left tied to the statue’s tail. A glance to the side showed a third person, also with the vividly-colored hair of the Equestrian students, floating a few inches off the seafloor not far from the silver-haired Champion- Silversong, was it?

She focused on the statue’s tail. One of the remaining hostages had hair like a bonfire, moving almost exactly like a fire in the currents.

The other was…

“Gabrielle!” she gasped, and shot forwards.

Silver looked. Fleur recognized the shimmer of the Bubblehead Charm, though it seemed she’d cast it very tightly over only her mouth and nose. “You okay?” she asked.

“Yes,” she answered shortly, before tapping Gabrelle’s bindings with her wand to slice them.

“Oh, no,” Silver muttered, looking past her.

Fleur looked. Her wetsuit was ripped and tattered around her legs- and, she realized, there was a thin trail of blood still seeping from the wounds. Then she looked back up at Silver for an explanation.

“The Mer are carnivores,” Silver continued. “They’re like sharks. Where there’s blood in the water…” She sighed, and pointed her wand at Fleur’s leg. A moment later, the persistent stinging that had followed her from the Grindylow battle faded away. “They’re restraining themselves for us, but if any of them lose control, they’re vicious.”

Right at that moment, Fleur felt a sudden burning sensation on the sides of her neck.

She let out a gasp, raising her wand again, and timed her bubblehead charm. She coughed twice, then sighed. “That ran out too fast,” she grumbled, before casting her body heat charm.

Then she heard a distant yelling, and turned to look- before yanking herself quickly downwards, out of the path of some kind of missile.

CRUNCH.

She looked up.

“Ouch,” Silver muttered. “That had to hurt.”

There was the fifth Champion, Harry Potter… now drifting, unconscious, in the currents, the broken fragments of a broomstick floating around him.

“What in the-?” Fleur began.

Silver glanced at her. “He was using a bubble-head charm,” she answered. “Shot past here three times already, using that broom as some kind of rocket. Problem is, brooms can’t stop underwater, so he had to either dismount and lose the broom or crash into something.”

A couple of girls with hair like waterfalls suddenly shot out of nowhere, and stopped next to Harry. They looked identical- and Fleur realized she’d seen them when she had been walking to the Lake for the task, sitting next to the judge’s table with their cloaks removed. She didn’t know who they were, though.

“That looked like it hurt,” one of them muttered, and brandished her wand at Harry. “Oh, yeah, he’s out for the count. Definitely failed the task.”

“Definitely,” the other agreed. “I suppose that means we need to take James up too, don’t we?”

The first nodded. “Yup.” She pointed her wand at the statue’s tail, and the bindings around the fire-haired boy snapped. The boy floated quickly right up to them. “Think you can take care of them, Parvati?”

The other one nodded. “Yeah. Be careful, sis- that could turn ugly.” She pointed past Fleur and Silver, to something that neither of them could see.

The first looked. “I’m watching too, sis,” she agreed.

Fleur watched as the second one- Parvati?- grabbed both Harry and the fire-haired boy around the shoulders, then shot off into the distance, angled upwards.

“Who are you?” Fleur asked.

“Padma,” the remaining girl answered, then sighed. “We’re the safety patrol- if we have to help you, you’re automatically disqualified.” She glanced up at them. “Now that you’ve healed her wounds, you’re both going to want to get out of here, fast. Some of the Mer over there have lost control, but the others are restraining them- I don’t know how long that’s going to last.”

Silver and Fleur looked at one another.

“We’re allowed to help each other, right?” Silver asked.

Padma blinked. “Uh- Yes. But you’re competing against one another, aren’t you?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Silver answered, and brandished her wand through the water.

A second later, a set of plastic flippers appeared in the water- just like the ones Silver was wearing. “Here, Fleur.” She handed them to her.

Fleur stared at her for a second, then accepted them and put them on, before grabbing Gabrielle. “To the Surface!” she cried, while Silver grabbed the other Equestrian girl off the bottom of the lake and charged after her.

Silver was faster than her. Rather predictable, with the drag of the Bubblehead Charm in addition to Gabrielle’s dead weight.

But when Silver caught up, she didn’t race ahead. Instead, she positioned herself underneath Gabrielle’s other shoulder, and helped pull her towards the surface.

“W-What?” Fleur asked, staring at her as they swam upwards.

“She doesn’t know how to swim, does she?”

“Er-!” Fleur paused. “N-No, she doesn’t.”

“Then you’re going to need all the help you can get to keep her head above the water while we calm her down.”

Fleur winced, then drew her wand to check Gabrielle’s body temperature. It was also way low… But she was still alive, in some kind of stasis, and her own body temperature had just hit normal. So, she cast the rest of her magic into a similar body temperature spell for Gabrielle. It wasn’t going to be able to heat her up as quickly, and possibly not even all the way… But it would still help.

It was a long way to the surface. When they reached it, Gabrielle was just a few degrees below normal.

Her bubblehead charm shattered instantly when she broke the surface, and she took a deep breath of the frigid air. “Okay,” she muttered, looking around to find the shore.

Then, she heard Gabrielle let out a small, panicked scream.

“G-Gabrielle!” she gasped. “Calm down! We’ve got you!”

Silver’s hostage brushed her brilliant red hair out of her face, then swam around Silver to lift Gabrielle a little higher. “Calm down there,” she told her. “We’re not going to let you sink.”

Fleur blinked. “H-How are you so much higher in the water?”

The girl, whose head and shoulders were above the water instead of just her head, grinned. “Because I’m an Aethr,” she answered. “We’re naturally buoyant. Hailey said something about an artificial mass component to the stasis spell to offset that kind of thing.”

Silver chuckled. “Naturally buoyant,” she mused. “More like naturally light.”

“Same difference,” the girl giggled. “Makes diving a pain. But anyways, we’ve got you, and we’re not going to let you sink.” She hugged Gabrielle tightly.

Fleur watched nervously- but it seemed to be working. Gabrielle was calming down, clutching at her living life raft.

She looked at Silver. “What’s her name?” she muttered.

Silver smiled. “That’s Ginny,” she answered.

“Here, how about-!” Ginny began. “How about I teach you how to float on your own, so you can be certain you won’t sink?”

Gabrielle only stared at Ginny.

Ginny smiled. “Okay. Take a deep breath, then breathe while keeping your lungs full.” There was a pause. “Yup, just like that. Now, if you lay on your back while doing that…”

There were several seconds of silence- and by the end of it, Ginny had completely let go of Gabrielle, who was floating in the calm water, face up.

“D-Don’t leave me!” Gabrielle squeaked.

“Don’t worry, we’re not leaving you,” Ginny told her, taking her hand. “Now, if you move your hands above your head above the water, then lay them back in the water and gently push back down…”

“Like this?” Gabrielle muttered.

“Yup, just like that. If you do that, you can propel yourself across the surface to reach the shore. And if you’re ever under water, you can propel yourself to the surface by raising your arms against your body, then reaching them out to push back down, then start doing this to reach the shore.”

“Not the best swimming lesson,” Silver observed calmly, “but I suppose it works. Now, let’s get back to shore.”

Ginny grinned. “Here, I’ll pull you, Gabrielle,” she said, and positioned herself underneath Gabrielle. She hooked her hands underneath her shoulders… and started moving.

Fleur gasped, as she and Silver swam after them at full speed. “How-!” she managed. “How’s she swimming so fast?”

Silver chuckled. “She’s an Aethr,” she answered. “I bet she’s using some of the biggest, most efficient ‘flippers’ in the world.”

Fleur glanced at her. She could almost hear the quotes, and could definitely hear the amusement in her voice. “Really?” she asked.

“By the way, those flippers I gave you are made of magic,” Silver told her. “They’ll dissolve once we get to the shallows.”

Silver was right. Once she was sure Ginny had pulled Gabrielle to safety, and after she had watched them walk out onto the shore to meet Madam Pomfrey, Fleur adjusted her path back to where she’d gone in. Exactly as Silver promised, the flippers dissolved right about when the water got shallow enough for her to walk to shore.

As she walked out of the water, she used a drying charm to dry her wetsuit off- speaking of which, she noticed, Silver’s spell down at the statue seemed to have repaired it as well.

“Um, why did you come over here?”

She looked. It was one of the two water-haired girls, walking out of the water like it wasn’t even there; even her clothes were dry.

“Because I left my clothes here,” she answered, picking up her robe and slinging it back around her shoulders, while tucking the large, aquamarine feather she’d plucked out of the water into an inside pocket. She did up the snaps, then picked up her cloak and swept that around her shoulders as well, before pulling her scarf out of a pocket and wrapping it around her neck. It was all cold- but she knew her body heat charm would last long enough to fix that.

And if whatever ‘flippers’ Ginny had been using left feathers in the water… The feather was at least six inches long- and didn’t look like a primary feather, so it was either whatever she was doing or some truly enormous bird.

“Nice work down there.”

She jumped at the unfamiliar voice, and looked.

It was… It was the youngest judge, with the gleaming black hair- the one that could easily be an Equestrian… but also could easily be British.

“Uh,” she muttered.

The girl smiled at her. “I didn’t realize Grindylows hunted in packs of twenty, but you handled them pretty well. Most of the other Champions would’ve required rescue if they ran into that, I’m pretty sure.”

“If… If you’re a judge…”

She shrugged. “I know how to be impartial, even with family and friends,” she told her. “Fairly important, that- two of them are Champions.” She sighed exasperatedly. “Not that Harry is worth much more than the entertainment value of his spectacular performance on the First Task, of course.”

“Um-!” She glanced at the water-haired girl.

“Harry is okay,” the judge- she couldn’t remember her name- continued carelessly. “He managed to give himself a pretty big concussion, but that’s nothing Madam Pomfrey can’t fix.” She giggled. “Should be fun to see exactly how he’ll mess up the Third Task. Oh, and I’m Hailey, by the way.” She held out her hand.

Fleur took it, shaking it gingerly. “F-Fleur,” she muttered.

“Where’s Sadarina?” the water-haired girl asked.

Hailey looked at her, and grinned. “Oh, so you’ve noticed, have you?” She chuckled. “She’s been taking care of a bunch of business for me- and she’s getting the Papa Tango right now, so she can travel to Equestria to work there. It should speed things up at least a little.”

Fleur looked at Hailey. “What is this ‘papa tango’?” she asked.

Hailey returned her gaze with a calculating expression. “The Papa Tango…” She trailed off. “Yeah, it would be safe. Not sure how fair it would be for the Tournament, though.” Then she scowled. “Though, maybe that…” She rubbed her chin, evidently thinking hard, for a few seconds. “Huh. Do you know where my office is?”

Author's Note

It's so handy to have water elementals available for your safety patrol, isn't it?

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Chapter 74: Tea Party

Fleur shivered, looking at the door in front of her. She had followed the instructions Hailey had written down for her, to find her office- and the plaque on the door was enormous, compared to the ones she’d seen on the other Professor’s doors.

Hailey Potter
Head Student Instructor for Defense Against the Dark Arts
Layor Nairtseuqe Ecnegilletni Ycnega: Lareneg Rotcerid fo Tenalp Htrae
Student Instructor Program Management Team Lead
Nairtseuqe Layor Ssecnirp fo Gninrael
Triwizard Judge

She didn’t understand two of the lines at all- they were written in some strange script that she couldn’t make sense of. It looked almost like someone had scribbled in some fancy dividers, except that there was a little more structure to them than that- they had to have some sort of meaning.

Unless that was meant to mislead. They did look like they were in different scripts, if that was what they were.

She took a deep breath, and let it out. Hailey obviously commanded a lot of authority- despite being as cheerfully disarming as she had been at the conclusion of the Second Task. Did she have a tough side? Or was she just that good?

Then she raised her hand, and knocked. Hailey had offered to tell her more if she came to her office, and they had decided on a time to meet; Hailey had a lot of duties, and had apparently wanted to be able to talk to her about it alone.

“Come in,” Hailey called.

She took another deep breath, and gently opened the door to let herself in.

Hailey was sitting behind a magnificent wooden corner desk- it looked like cherry to her- with three large, muggle-tech-looking panels sitting on it, right across the bend, all facing her. The desk itself was set so that one of the flat sides faced the door, and Hailey could easily see the door, or turn her head a bit to the right to look straight at it, from where she was seated behind the panels. Fleur spotted a second desk, of the same wood, a bit to the left; this one was a straight desk, and had the same panels- but it looked like they were positioned to point at a spot that someone could sit while remaining comfortably hidden from anyone entering the room and walking up to Hailey’s desk… while still being in clear view of Hailey herself.

“Uh- Hi,” Fleur muttered. Despite her intimidating stack of titles, Hailey just wasn’t the intimidating sort of person, and so didn’t trigger her instincts. As a result, exactly as it had when she’d asked Madam Pomfrey about the Gillyweed so long ago, her nervousness came to the forefront- and the intimidating stack of titles only served to make her more nervous.

Especially when she stumbled over her greeting, despite spending nearly a full hour before following those instructions psyching herself up to have a casual conversation with a Triwizard Judge.

If she was honest with herself, had that been the only title Hailey had, she would have been fine.

Hailey chuckled good-naturedly. “Oh, don’t worry, I don’t bite.” She rose from her seat, stepped around her desk, and held out her hand. “It’s nice to meet you in a more informal setting,” she smiled.

“Uh-!” Fleur muttered, completely flustered. There were a few seconds of silence, before she accepted the offered hand. “N-Nice to m-meet you,” she stuttered.

Hailey sighed. “You know, everyone does that the first time they see how many titles I have,” she muttered. “Seriously, though. I’m still a student here, and you can treat me like one. There are people in this castle that haven’t a clue I have even one of them.” She paused, rubbing her chin. “Though probably not very many, if they’ve been paying attention to the Tournament, but I can name at least three right now. Even though I’ve had the first of those titles for about three years now.” She gestured towards the door, then sighed. “In any case, back at the Lake, you asked about the Papa Tango?”

“Uh- Yeah,” she muttered, looking away as her mind snapped back on track. “Th-There was also something I w-wanted to ask you about.” She fumbled nervously with the flap of her robes; she had the aquamarine feather in an inside pocket once again.

Hailey studied her face for a second, then nodded, as if making a decision. “How about we discuss it over some tea, then?” She looked to the side, and held out her hand.

Fleur looked.

A part of the wall seemed to recede away from them, leaving a cozy little sitting area, equipped with a tea table set for two and a faint but steady stream of steam out the spout of the teapot.

She stared.

Hailey didn’t just have an intimidating list of titles. No, her magical prowess was also frightening- but still, even as the terrifying girl led the way over to the tea table, she just couldn’t feel afraid- only nervous, now bordering on panicked.

“So,” Hailey said, sitting down and pouring tea into both cups, before picking up her own. “I don’t know how much you heard when I told Parvati how our magic works at the Ball?” She took a sip, then smiled. “Oh, that’s some good stuff.”

Fleur sat down woodenly. “Um… No.”

“Ahh,” she nodded. “Well…”

“... And now Padma has theorized the existence of the Elemental Planes for the various Elementals to draw their power from, but we haven’t finished exploring that, so we just don’t know.”

Fleur gazed into her nearly-empty cup of tea. Hailey had just explained how not just Accidental Magic worked, but also wands and Equestrian magic, then also explained what the Papa Tango did, and what effects it had. She’d even mentioned a strange Equestrian magical event, called Ascension, and explained its effects!

Throughout the explanation, while part of her had been fully occupied with listening to and comprehending her words, the rest of her had been calming down to the point where she realized that, no matter how much authority the girl wielded, she viewed her, Fleur Delacour, as an equal… Which was immensely relieving, though it still didn’t take away all of her nervousness.

It was at least a little amusing, though- usually, people either looked down on her, or looked up to her, never- ever- viewing her as an equal, because of the effects of her Veela heritage.

The silence drew on just long enough to get awkward, before Hailey spoke again.

“Would you like some more tea?”

She jumped. “Oh, uh, sure,” she muttered, sliding it forwards so Hailey could pour it for her.

The silence stretched on even longer, but it didn’t get awkward nearly as quickly.

Finally, Fleur spoke.

“Does… Does any of that involve feathers?”

Hailey’s face was instantly impassive. “Feathers?” she asked, her tone similarly impassive.

She silently drew the feather out of her inside pocket, and placed it on the table.

Hailey picked it up gently, then inspected it carefully, before letting out a sigh and lowering it to look back up at Fleur. “How many have you told?”

“Huh-?” She blinked a couple times. “N-Nobody. Nobody knows I have… had it.”

“Ahh,” Hailey nodded- and Fleur got the distinct idea that that had been the right answer. “How did you get it?” Her tone was a lot softer, but it still had that stern undertone to it that told her it was a serious topic.

She fiddled with her thumbs. “I-It was at the end of the Second Task,” she muttered. “Silversong said Ginny was using very large and efficient ‘flippers’... then I saw this in the water as I swam back to the shore.” She made actual air quotes around the same word she’d heard Silver put them around, gestured towards the feather, and studied her hands when she finished talking.

“Huh,” Hailey muttered. “First of all, I’m not going to take it from you. This feather will make an excellent quill; it’s so powerfully magical that it will never wear out, and we’re actually evaluating them for use as wand cores.” Her tone firmed again. “But I need you to know that the origin of this feather is an Equestrian National Secret right now. I expect they’ll be unveiling it to the public in a few years, but until then, I need to ask that you don’t tell anyone where you got it.”

“O-Okay,” she muttered, gazing at her hands.

“But anyways,” Hailey continued, her tone returning to normal as she leaned back in her chair, swirling her tea gently.

“Wh-!” Fleur began, before pausing to take a deep breath as she considered what she was going to ask for. “What does the Papa Tango entail?” she asked, her voice barely more than a whisper.

Hailey gazed at her. “A long period of pain and suffering,” she said, soberly. “A strong likelihood of rewriting the appearance of your hair. Possibly getting blindsided by various Equestrian magical effects, even after the fact.”

“But…” She trailed off, then glanced up. “Gaining Equestrian magical capabilities,” she suggested.

“Yes,” Hailey told her. “However, you only get one of the three types, and two of them require training to use much at all.”

“And those three types…?” She lifted the feather. “Does this…?”

Hailey sighed. “Yes, it does. Equestrian magic is physical in nature, and requires a biological component to function. The main power of the Etrahs is their immense strength- which manifests as big, strong muscles.” She held up one arm to indicate her toned musculature with her other finger. “The Aethr’s main power is that of flight- which manifests in some up-muscling, since they’re easily the most athletic Tribe, and wings.” Two huge, navy blue wings spread slightly from her back. “I have a thirty-foot wingspan,” she told her calmly. “It can be a pain sometimes.” She folded them again. “But moving on.

The Raeth’s main power is direct manipulation of the thaumic field- exactly what wizards call ‘accidental magic’, but of a slightly different style. That manifests as an entire new section of their brains, specifically designed to perform the complex ambient interaction and projection calculations that your wand performs, and that are the true limiter of wand magic power. They get stuff like this.” She flicked her teacup upwards- and the tea shot into the air, curved in a massive arc, and landed neatly back inside the cup, without spilling a drop.

“Wow,” Fleur muttered.

Hailey sighed. “That was a pretty advanced technique, though. Solid objects are a lot easier to levitate- and to learn that, you’d basically be starting over. All three are just as capable of wand magic as you are now.”

“And you have all three…?”

“Because I Ascended,” she answered. “It’s a very rare and very powerful Equestrian-magic process that requires a very powerful and unique trigger. For me, it was casting a Patronus powerful enough to shroud the entire continent in silver light last year- and in so doing, saving every last one of the Dementors.”

She blinked. “I-Is that what that-?”

She nodded. “That is what that was. I’m still not entirely sure how I managed to do that- I’m fairly sure I’m not powerful enough, even after Ascension boosted me by a couple orders of magnitude, to make even a simple Light spell that bright.” She sighed. “But honestly? I’ve been gaining more and more authority- and magical power- every year since I came to this castle, so who knows what’s going to happen next?”

“Who knows,” Fleur agreed vaguely, in exactly the way that most boys tended to agree with her because of her Veela heritage.

Then, the silence drew on. Hailey watched Fleur expectantly, periodically sipping her tea and refilling both cups whenever they got empty enough.

Fleur, meanwhile, studied her tea while she thought about what she had learned.

The silence seemed to stretch on forever.

Then someone knocked.

Hailey glanced at her wrist, and sighed. “One moment,” she muttered, then put down her tea to walk back towards the door. “Come in,” she called.

The door opened. It was an unfamiliar boy with brilliantly-colored hair- must be an Equestrian student.

They talked for a couple minutes, and Hailey showed him something with her wand, before he left.

Hailey sighed as she flopped back down in her chair, and retrieved her tea. “I swear, he doesn’t know how to do his job without receiving written instructions in triplicate. I’d get rid of him, but there isn’t anyone better to replace him with.”

Fleur winced, then took a deep breath. She had just under three months to the Third Task, but nearly two months before she would find out what it was. Given how close she’d come to death on both of the first two, with the near miss with her dragon and the temperature and Grindylow attacks in the Lake, nevermind the few Mer that had lost control, according to Padma, but had been held away from where she could see them by other Mer…

She knew Madame Maxime wanted her to not just survive, but win the Tournament; that was why she was helping her so much. Finding out and telling her about the dragons, researching ways to pacify them with her. Helping her parse the Egg’s wailing, then teaching her to swim, fight Grindylows, and resist the cold when she’d figured it out herself after that disaster on the Lake.

Yet, she was not at all confident in her ability to survive the Third Task, even with Madame Maxime’s assistance. It felt like she was missing something crucial- and she was beginning to wonder why the Goblet of Fire had picked her if she was missing something.

“H-How much pain and…?” She trailed off, her nervousness getting the better of her. She knew she was weak to pain without adrenaline to go with it. She hardly ever felt much pain in a fight… but once the adrenaline rush wore off, even a small bruise hurt. There were several times, back at Beauxbatons, when she had ended up in the infirmary with injuries that the nurse told her outright would hardly have bothered most people. Then Madame Maxime had brought her along because she was easily the most powerful student in the entire school- and, apparently, one of the fastest learners.

Yet, it wasn’t enough. Or perhaps it was the wrong kind of power? Silver had had such an easy time with both the first two tasks that it was almost ridiculous, and she was the only one that had the Equestrian magic advantage. Not that she seemed to be using it, especially after her memorable declaration of that advantage and firm decision to ‘keep the competition fair’ by not using it. From what she remembered of seeing Silver’s arms underwater, she wasn’t muscular at all.

That extra little bit of her brain must have a much larger impact than it seemed.

“How much?” Hailey asked, looking up at her. “Excruciating. We can speed it up or slow it down, which does affect the pain factor.”

She winced. That would hurt. “H-How would overnight-?”

Hailey shook her head. “In its base form, it takes three days. We can only accelerate it to about a minute, not to anywhere intermediate- but you’d be looking at megahuertz, the kind of thing that would kill about fifty percent of the population with sheer pain overload.”

She winced. “Th-Three days?” she muttered.

“Yes,” she answered calmly. “It still hurts a lot. Silver said that, during the third stage, she thought she was going to die.”

“Stage?” she asked.

Hailey nodded. “Yes. In its base form, it has a few different stages it goes through- but if we accelerate it, or slow it down, they either mash together into a spear from Hell or blur away into a painful haze for the entire time.”

She shuddered. “Wh-What would make it… Not hurt?”

“Nothing,” Hailey answered. “The slowest we can make it is ninety days, but there’s still a stinging throughout even at that pace, aside from the whole feeling unwell thing. Why do you ask?”

Fleur got the idea that Hailey already knew the answer to her question, but answered it anyway. “B-Because,” she began, and stopped. “C-Can I get…?”

“The Papa Tango?” Hailey finished for her. “Yes, you may. None of the three magics will have much impact on the Third Task without some pretty significant training, so that won’t be an issue- and you’ve already cleared the other main qualifier.”

She blinked. “I have?”

She nodded. “To know what you’re asking for,” she told her. “Once we start it off, there is no going back.”

“Oh, um,” she muttered, putting her hands in her lap and staring at them. “I- I’m pretty sure I’m extra sensitive to pain.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper.

“And you want to keep Madame Maxime and your classmates from worrying, don’t you?” Hailey muttered, before rubbing her chin. “I think… Yes. If we set it for eighty-five days, it’ll finish a couple days before the Third Task. That would still hurt, though- but there are some pain relief spells that are effective against it, and we could use a fever reduction spell to keep that from showing… Then there’d just be the periodic cough and the sudden appetite for soups and stews, but the first won’t be suspicious on its own and I can have the kitchens provide some of the latter with each meal, so you don’t have to draw attention by asking for it.” She sighed. “The challenge would be that the pain relief and fever reduction spells will not last very long- you’d have to cast them on yourself every morning.”

“I…” She trailed off. “I can’t do that,” she muttered. “I never studied medical magic.”

“Good thing these particular spells are very simple,” Hailey told her. “Not very effective, but they don’t need to be, either. I can teach them to you, only take a couple hours if you’ve got a good grounding in Charms- and if you want to dig up Magical Miracles in Medicine in the library, you’re more than welcome to study the core of medical magic as well.”

“The core?” she asked, tilting her head.

She nodded. “Yeah. The principles it works on, how the body works, and a number of different simple medical charms, all from that book. The second book in the series, Modern Magical Miracles in Medicine, will tell you all about the kinds of diagnosis and healing spells that are most commonly used. The deceptively-named third book, Future Magical Miracles in Medicine, covers all the special cases- including part-human medicine, so you might want to give that one a quick look anyways. If you want to become a certified Healer, like Madam Pomfrey, you’d also need to go get an appropriate degree at a muggle educational institution.”

“And these simple spells…?”

“They work on humans, Veela, horses, fish, you name it. They’re that basic.” She paused. “Well okay, fish are cold-blooded, so the fever reducer won’t work on them, but that’s beside the point.”

She took a deep breath. “Alright. I’ll do it.” She paused, glancing at her tea. “If I have to, I can probably use a hair potion and color charm to make that look like it does now.”

Hailey winced. “I can’t promise that’ll work,” she told her. “Especially for Aethrs, there’s a lot of magic in our hair and wings, so they naturally repel most things- water, hair potion, even simple color charms, for the most part.”

Author's Note

You shouldn't need my Sdrawkcab Rotalsnart to understand the two coded lines on Hailey's office plaque.

I encoded those two positions that way so I can demonstrate that Fleur doesn't understand it at all, even though it's ostensibly written in a completely different script (ex. English vs, say, Japanese).

The particular script they are actually be written in on the sign would be two separate ones that look a little close. The first would be codenamed "Charlie"- a secret script concocted by the Agency and taught to trusted Agents, paired with a special pronunciation, making it an entire functional language.

The other would be "Solar Script"... which could also be called the "Equestrian Royal Script", because it's only ever taught to the Princesses of Equestria, full stop. This means Celestia, Luna, Cadence, Twilight, Pinkie, and Hailey know it... but since Hermione doesn't actually have Equestrian citizenship, she still doesn't. I'm not sure just yet if "Solar Script" should be paired with "Solar Tongue" (as a spoken version) or something.

For those of you that aren't able to parse the code, try reading it sdrawkcab- sorry, backwards. You'll see what I mean.

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

I'm a bit late today. Sorry about that- should be on-time on Patreon.

Chapter 75: The Maze

Fleur gave a shudder while she enjoyed her chicken stew. The ‘periodic cough’ had been a lot more frequent than they had expected- but while Hailey had told her that a cough suppressant spell would be useless, it had turned out that muggle cough suppressants were extremely effective. As a result, the only ‘symptoms’ she had, when anybody could see her, were the sudden appetite for soups and stews, and a general lack of energy. Not that she had ever been very active, so nobody had really noticed anything- she simply sat in the Hogwarts library all day basically every day, studying anything and everything she could get her hands on.

She knew Madame Maxime was trying to woo the gamekeeper, Hagrid, into telling her what was coming before the time came, but it wasn’t going very well. At the moment, Maxime’s best guess was something to do with treasure-hunting in tunnels- but then, she had asked Hailey if Maxime was right..

“Yeah, not even close,” Hailey had told her, once she’d stopped laughing. “And no, I can’t tell you what it is either.”

So, she had analyzed the first two tasks.

The first was a fight. The second, a search. Specifically, she had realized after the fact, in the deepest part of the lake- it wasn’t supposed to be a very difficult search at all, it was more the journey and the time limit that had been the challenge.

The third likely was something different. It wasn’t going to be a battle, nor a simple search and retrieval. Perhaps a puzzle, of some sort? But how would that be dangerous?

It would have to be somewhere the stands could be set up, too- around that enclosure for the dragons, around the lake for the second task…

Or, perhaps they would use the stands already set up for their Quidditch field? It hadn’t seemed too likely, but it was a distinct possibility.

They would also need a safety team, which could presumably intervene in the event of a deadly situation. For the first task, it had been a bunch of dragon-handlers and, apparently, a talking dragon called Norberta (she hoped Norberta wasn’t the one that had faced Krum). For the second task, it had been the Patil Twins, a pair of water elementals that didn’t need magic of any sort to be able to dive under the lake, and could control the water so powerfully as to use the water itself as a weapon. Reportedly, they had been seconds away from stepping in to rescue her from the Grindylows when she’d managed to free herself without them.

When she put those together, she realized she knew something about the coming task.

First, it would be outside. Hogwarts didn’t feature a single indoor space large enough to put those stands, nor to hold all those students, stands or not.

Second, she would be able to see the sky. They wouldn’t do two of them in the lake- and anywhere else wouldn’t allow rescue teams to reach them very quickly while still conferring some sort of challenge to the Task.

So, she had reasoned that it had to be some kind of random challenge- perhaps in tight spaces, one after another, or as surprises in paths she could choose- perhaps a maze?

She didn’t know what it was… But, she had chosen to go with the assumption that she might not know how to complete the Task even by the time she started it. As a result, she had, after asking the Librarian a couple of carefully-worded questions, located and practiced a few spells that let her get a birds-eye view of her surroundings, without leaving the ground.

Then, she had gone to Hailey for some recommendations on what to study.

Hailey had raised her an eyebrow, promised her that she wouldn’t be able to make recommendations based on the task to come, and given her a copy of the ‘Study List’ the Student Instructor Program had published to all Hogwarts students. It was organized neatly by year and subject- and included both ‘main course’ materials, which were covered in class, and ‘extra study’ materials, which were based on the materials of the class. Even within each class, they were neatly organized by difficulty, techniques, and so on.

She had been studying everything she could off of that list in both Charms and Defense Against the Dark Arts. She already knew most of the Charms stuff through sixth year- she was in her final year at Beauxbatons- so most of the rest of it came easily to her. When she had difficulty, it even told her who to go to for assistance- Hermione Granger, the Head Student Instructor for Charms… or Hailey, for Defense Against the Dark Arts. Hermione was an astoundingly good teacher, who had only needed to take her to see Professor Flitwick once- and, rather luckily, she only had two titles on her office door, and both readable- but she’d ended up seeing Hailey more often, since Beauxbatons didn’t have that subject.

But, exactly as she had expected, it was all comparatively easy. Even just studying out of books- she already knew most of the principles. Hailey had helped her with a couple she had never encountered before, like the novel way she taught her to resist the Imperius Curse… Then she had, finally, run out of those two classes- even the ‘extra’ material. She just learned too fast.

It was at least partly because she had spent a good ten hours a day studying them, whereas everyone at Hogwarts couldn’t spend much more than an hour or so a day without skimping on their other classes.

So she had asked Hailey what Arithmancy was. Apparently, it was the science behind magic decision-making- and a thorough grounding in Arithmancy would allow her to design a single charm that could assemble a bunch of sticks out of the dust in the air and make them assemble themselves into a doll and dance across a desk before falling off to vanish in a puff of smoke on the floor.

That had been the example Twilight Sparkle, one of the best Arithmancy students despite being in their psychology unit instead of being a student instructor, had demonstrated for her.

So, she had started studying Arithmancy with the same diligence she had put towards Charms and Defense Against the Dark Arts. It was sorta annoying how the Papa Tango thing, even with all the spells and remedies for the symptoms, still took away all her energy for walking around… Yet didn’t quench her mental energy at all. Twilight, who periodically wondered aloud how Hailey managed to find the time to discharge all of her duties, was helping tutor her in Arithmancy- and Ancient Runes, since Twilight had combined the two disciplines to be able to define the magical instructions she had constructed the demonstration charm from.

And now, she had been notified by Professor McGonagall, the Deputy Headmistress at Hogwarts, that she- and the other Champions- were to report to the Quidditch field at nine o’clock.

Which told her about where the Task would be taking place.

She glanced up at the clock again. She knew where the Quidditch field was- she had plenty of time to finish her meal before heading down on schedule.

A maze.

Fleur let out a sigh of relief as she stepped across what looked like short hedges all across the Quidditch field. No doubt they would be too high to realistically scale by the time the Task started- but it was a maze. Probably with extra challenges placed throughout, of course; a simple maze would be too easy. Unless it was a maze-race, but even then, too easy- and that would make it difficult to score each Champion independently. And it wouldn’t exactly be dangerous, either.

But there was a part of her mind that immediately started concocting an Arithmancy-based algorithm to find any and all non-looping solutions to the maze… and tell her what was along each route. She’d have to cast it whenever the Task started, assuming it was what she thought it was.

She kept going until she reached the center, where Ludo Bagman, one of the judges, was waiting.

Fleur leaned back in her seat, up in the Hogwarts library, and stared at the ceiling. It was the day before the Third Task- and her Papa Tango was not done yet. Today, though, it almost felt like her insides were squirming about, and it was making it impossible to study. Not that she really needed to- she was already entirely confident that she’d be able to not just complete the task but complete it well. Madame Maxime had tried to help her, but her efforts had paled next to the raw skill that had been made available to her through the Hogwarts Student Instructor Program.

But she was still living at a school, so she hadn’t seen any reason not to take advantage of that. She had studied- to a much more limited degree- the other subjects and study materials that Hogwarts had and Beauxbatons didn’t, but admittedly hadn’t gotten very far on them, especially Potions.

Even if it didn’t help her in the Third Task… it would help her later in life.

Quite suddenly, the queasy shifting feeling just… went away- and she found herself just as suddenly restless. Strange.

She rose from her seat, put her book away, and headed outside. It was only afternoon- but, presumably at least, her Papa Tango had just finished. She had some energy to release- and she also wanted to find a mirror to examine herself in, and figure out which tribe she had ended up with. And, of course, what color her hair was.

Slipping out of the castle, down the grounds, and into her little room in the carriage without anyone seeing was almost easy. That was funny- her Veela-aura usually called her out, making her absolutely terrible at sneaking.

It was as she was looking in the mirror, at her silvery hair that had gained a little bit of a wave and even more shine than it already had, when one of the Equestrian magics Hailey had mentioned came to mind.

The ‘Unique Talent’, it was called, on Earth.

If her Papa Tango had completed- which it certainly seemed to have- then she would, at least theoretically, have one too. And of course, those talents were absolutely ridiculous for those that had been Papa Tangoed. Hailey’s, for example, rendered her completely and totally indestructible- even when a near-literal sun goddess had attempted and failed to breach the weakest shield Hailey could make.

So… What if hers had something to do with stealth, despite her Veela-aura and highly distinctive appearance?

That would certainly explain how she managed to slip through the busy castle and the occupied main room of the carriage unnoticed.

Suddenly, her hair seemed to be growing… No, it had an aura. No, she had an aura- a silvery aura to match her hair. It was growing stronger- and she felt her feet leave the floor.

She let out a squeak of fright. What was this?

Then, just as suddenly as it had started, everything stopped. She dropped heavily back to the floor, then stabilized herself on the dresser underneath the mirror, breathing heavily. At least she didn’t have to worry about a roommate seeing that- once she had become the School Champion, Madame Maxime had arranged for her to have a room to herself, despite the limited number of bedrooms in the carriage.

She turned back to the mirror.

Nothing seemed to have changed.

She took a deep breath… then, after checking to be sure the door was locked, removed her robe and shirt, before looking in the mirror again.

She immediately noticed that her muscles were much more sharply defined than they had been just that morning. She tried flexing a few muscles- and quickly discovered that she had suddenly, magically, gained six-pack abs.

“I’ve gotten even more attractive,” she muttered, and sighed. She liked to look nice, it was true- but she did not like how attractive she was to members of the opposite sex. That always drew the wrong type of attention. Though, as she examined her muscles in the mirror, this probably wasn’t all bad. Most people wanted a soft and perhaps slightly plump girl that was all weak and fragile, not one that looked like she could rip them apart with her bare hands- muscles like that were often attractive on men.

Then she turned her back on the mirror, and glanced over her shoulder.

No wings, or any other feathery appendages.

“I must be an Etrah,” she muttered, and sat down on her bed with a second sigh. “That means impossible strength, right?” She looked down at her hand, clenched it, and released it. She could see her muscles rippling with the motion- they’d never done that before- but she didn’t feel all that much stronger. “It must be a ‘don’t know your own strength’ situation,” she scowled. “I’ll need to be careful.”

Finally, she sighed, stood up, and put her shirt and robe back on. Her robe was a lot more willing to drape than the Hogwarts robes, even on her arms, so her sudden muscularization wouldn’t be all that noticeable to anyone that didn’t get in a fight with her.

She winced. “Right, and that. If I’m an Etrah, I better not be getting into any more fights. I’ll be killing people by accident.” She scowled. “I don’t know how useful it’s going to be for the Task… Though, I suppose it means I can take more abuse before I fall.” She chuckled gently. “Not as much as Queen Indestructible herself, but…”

Author's Note

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

... Aaaand, looks like the Patreon servers are down at the moment or something, so I can't post Chap. 80 to patrons just yet.

Nevermind, now that the servers are back up, it looks like it did manage to post properly earlier, even if I never got confirmation back.

Chapter 76: The Third Task

When Fleur finally entered the maze, the noise of the crowd outside died away almost instantly. The inside of the maze was almost whisper-quiet, suggesting sound dampening spells were being used to keep the various creatures from accidentally revealing their presence in nearby passages- and ensuring every meeting was a surprise.

She was only the second Champion to enter. Silversong was in the lead, but only by two points. Cedric Diggory was third, by another two points behind Fleur- then came Krum some five points behind him, and Harry was last by a margin of about eighty points. Which was impressive in its own right, Fleur had to concede- he hardly had around twenty points, out of the total hundred and twenty that could have been awarded so far.

As such, since the first person to touch the Triwizard Cup at the center of the maze would be merely guaranteed full marks, not a win of the Tournament… Harry was already a goner- but if she messed up enough to lose just a few points and Krum caught it, or she didn’t mess up and either of the other two got it, she would lose.

Her only chance to win was, in the end, to touch the Cup first- and hope that Silver lost at least three points throughout the Maze.

Which, she was certain that Madame Maxime would- unfairly, if she had to- ensure that happened if she got the Cup first. She wasn’t proud to say that, but the chances of Silver earning a perfect score when she didn’t get it first were already pretty slim, even if Harry got it.

But she was confident that Silver would score higher than her if neither of them got the Cup first, unless Madame Maxime decided to be as heavy-handed as Karkaroff, she supposed- but she knew that wasn’t going to happen. Karkaroff was evidently supporting Krum more through his lopsided scoring than anything else, but Madame Maxime had promised Fleur that she wouldn’t fudge the score more than a little bit, and even then only if she had to.

And if Fleur got the Cup… She wouldn’t have to. This was the kind of thing that would be difficult to earn a perfect score in.

She took a deep breath, pointing her wand straight up in the air. The same spells she had used a month prior to get a birds-eye view… Then her much more complex Arithmantic spell, which would solve the maze and identify all the hazards.

It took about six seconds for the spell to finish its task, by which point she was approaching the first intersection.

So, she picked a series of hazards she wanted to avoid entirely- starting with the ones she didn’t recognize, those giant manticore-like things- and organized the rest in order of priority… and selected the ‘best’ route after that. All the hazards along it could be dealt with quickly and easily, even if it was a somewhat longer path than necessary.

She grinned, turned right, and started jogging.

Fleur had to conclude that the hardest part of her solution to the maze was that a lot of the hazards moved around. She’d already had to revise her path a couple of times because of that- but now, she was getting close to a fairly easy- albeit still a little bit long- shot to the Cup, where there weren’t any of those moving hazards in a position to get in her way.

She fired a blasting charm down a side passage as she trotted past, taking only a half-second to aim properly. The giant spider that was just a few paces away from the intersection took it straight to the face- and that would slow anything down.

Especially since she almost immediately made two more turns, while monitoring its motion through her birds-eye view.

A burst of red sparks caught her attention, somewhere on the other side of the maze. A closer glance showed it was Krum, battling desperately with the dragon Fleur had avoided as he backed into a dead end. The dragon seemed to be dodging some of his spells- was it, perhaps, the talking dragon that had been helping with the First Task?

She got a very sudden feeling of dread… and before she even realized what had happened, had whirled to the side, wand arm flying high over her head.

A bright red spell bolt flashed past just inches from her chest, in a narrow miss.

She paused for a half-second, then looked back the way it had come.

Only uninterrupted hedge.

She checked the overhead view… then dodged to the side as another one came roaring at her. There! That-

That was Professor Moody, a member of the safety team! Why was he shooting spells at her?

She twisted suddenly, and felt an invisible spell bolt flash past, far faster. How was she able to dodge them so accurately, when she couldn’t even see him? Or the spell bolt? Her overhead view wasn’t good enough to tell her where he was aiming!

She pointed her own wand at the point of the hedge that it was coming out of. “Stupefy!”

Her scarlet spell bolt smashed into a green one of his, deflecting downwards while his went up into the sky. She paused. It looked like her aim was true- which was, if she was honest with herself, far better than she had expected.

She concentrated. Dodged to the side, narrowly dodging another invisible bolt- “Stupefy!”

The Defense Against the Dark Arts professor slashed his wand through the air, stopping her spell cold just a couple feet short of him. She winced. She would need… No, she could do it without that.

She aimed slightly up, and concentrated. It was a highly advanced technique that Hermione had been teaching her. “Stupefy!”

Then she swept her wand down to point at his feet- and completed the silent incantation for a lightless Earthquake Charm. It wasn’t a very simple charm at all- especially when casting it simultaneous to another, and was at reduced power because it was the second to be released- but it did the trick. He lost his footing moments before her stunning spell reached him, and was unable to block it in time.

He fell flat to the ground, instantly unconscious.

“Fleur has good aim,” Hailey observed, interrupting Madame Maxime’s furious complaints about sabotaging her Champion, which were already far louder than Karkaroff’s sulking over Krum giving up.

“She does,” Dumbledore agreed, pocketing his wand; he had been about to hit Crouch-Moody with a stunner when Fleur had managed to down him herself.

“And a quick mind, too,” Hailey continued, and Madame Maxime looked questioningly at her. “Unless I miss my guess, she cast a tripping charm of some sort on a silent incantation simultaneous to the verbal stunner, to ensure he could not block it. That’s a very advanced technique- and one that was brought to wand magic by Twilight Sparkle just a couple years ago, would you believe it. She called it multicasting.”

“Holy Smokes,” Percy muttered. “But why was Moody-?”

“Good question,” Hailey answered, with an odd hint of finality in her voice. “We can ask him later.”

“Where has Fleur gone?” Bagman muttered, looking at the array of remote viewing windows floating in the air in front of him, and duplicated in front of each judge. Even he had given up on Harry after the second task.

Hailey looked at them. “If the tracking spell can’t find her, that means she’s using a powerful concealment charm,” Hailey observed. “She’s trying to make sure that doesn’t happen again. It should work its way through that charm in a few seconds.”

“I thought Silver was the one that could turn invisible,” Percy scowled.

“She is,” Hailey agreed. “Even though she hasn’t today. I wasn’t aware Fleur knew any such spells.”

Madame Maxime gazed silently but anxiously at the windows.

Fleur was running. She had changed her path again- this time, it was a least time course to the center of the maze. There was a Sphinx along the way- but she was doing her best to stay hidden… It was time to put her Talent to the test.

She had to make sure no other Professors could attack her short of her goal, and try to sabotage her. Durmstrang was already out of action- and if she fell for whatever reason, so would Beauxbatons, giving Hogwarts a guaranteed win- unless all three of their Champions fell. She wouldn’t be surprised if Harry fell… but both Cedric and Silver were too confident, and too strong for that. They, like her, were evidently well-suited to the Tournament.

She dodged past behind the Sphinx, which was pacing back and forth across the pathway, while it was looking the other way, before fairly flying down the path and turning right about at the moment that the Sphinx turned to look in her direction.

Then she made one last turn, jumped a giant, unconscious spider and a similarly unconscious one of the manticore-like things, and bolted for the Cup.

Both Silver and Cedric were there. Cedric looked tired, but Silver was even more so- she was leaning on him for support.

It looked like they were going to try to do it both at once- even though, since they weren’t already tying, that would mean Silver would win.

She ran like the wind, and felt her stealthiness break as she got close, about a second before she closed one hand on the rim of the cup and braced the other against the pedestal to stop her mad charge. She couldn’t tell if she was first, or if they were, though.

Both the Hogwarts students gave small starts as they turned to look at her..

“What the-?” Silver asked.

“So, uh,” Fleur muttered, looking at the cup, then looked up at them. “Who was first?” For some reason, she was completely unexhausted.

Cedric looked down at it, and paused. “No idea,” he muttered.

“I’m sure Hailey has a charm prepared,” Silver gasped. “I couldn’t tell.”

Wham.

Harry came charging out of nowhere, surprising all three of them, and slammed head-first into the Cup before any of them could stop him. It glowed instantly, and Fleur felt the gut-wrenching feeling of a portkey. And she hated portkeys, with a passion- they were always so painful!

“... The hell?” Percy muttered, squinting at the viewing windows in front of him as all four finishing Champions, and the Cup itself, vanished into thin air.

“That… That wasn’t supposed to be a portkey,” Bagman scowled, leaning close.

Hailey nodded. “And the one that put the Cup in the middle of the maze was the same teacher as the one that attacked Fleur,” she observed calmly. “I think we have an imposter.”

“That looked like a two-way portkey,” Dumbledore said suddenly.

“You can tell?” Maxime asked.

He nodded. “The color is different,” he answered, then took a deep breath. “When they return- if it is they that return- we must find out where they went, and what happened.”

“Agreed,” Hailey answered. “That said, Krum disqualified himself when he panicked a bit too quickly, and all four other Champions touched the Cup, so I believe we can agree that this Task is complete, right?” She looked around at the other Judges. Some of them sighed, a couple nodded, and Karkaroff just glowered. “Alright,” Hailey continued. “That means we can decide what their scores are, right?”

“But who touched the Cup first?” Percy asked.

“It looked like Fleur to me,” Maxime scowled.

“It was too close for me to tell,” Hailey answered. “Fortunately, I placed a touch order charm on that cup before it was ever taken into the Maze, so it will tell us exactly who touched it first- and if we simply score the Champions as if none of them had touched it first, we can decide which Champions would be winners if they were the first to touch it, and which cannot be winners even if they were the first.”

They looked at one another, and sighed.

“Two for all of them,” Karkaroff barked irritably.

“Just because Krum got disqualified,” Hailey observed, and glanced at the others. “If he’s not willing to score them even remotely fairly, we can safely ignore the scores he gives us, right?”

Dumbledore looked at her. “Why?”

“Because we can all agree that Harry was not the first to touch it, right?”

“Not by a long shot,” Bagman nodded. “A good three seconds, I think.”

“The difference between Silver’s and Cedric’s scores is all of four points, with Fleur in the middle,” Hailey continued. “If Silver loses five or more points, Fleur loses three or more, and Cedric loses zero or more, then whoever got the cup won. However, if Silver lost less than two points, Fleur cannot win- and if Silver lost less than four or Fleur lost less than two, Cedric cannot win. I believe they all gave us exemplary performances, possibly pushing the scores up into that territory, and would like to determine which Champions could have won, and which champions cannot have won- and of course, if one of them can’t win but got the Cup, who won.”

There was a pause.

“And Karkaroff has been rather biased in the scoring,” Maxime observed, then sighed.

Karkaroff glared at her, then rose from his seat. “Fine,” he snarled, and stormed away.

Her motion to ignore his scores, and treat his scoring as a blanket ten, was shortly passed unanimously. Shortly afterwards, Dumbledore’s motion to offer Krum a perfect score for a disqualified Champion- a mere thirty out of sixty- was also passed unanimously, since it really wasn’t possible for Krum to have landed in anything except fourth place- just like, even before the Task had begun, it wasn’t possible for Harry to have landed in anything except last place.

In the end, Fleur had a perfect score even without the Cup; all of the remaining judges were just so impressed with the way she had stopped Moody on her own, and the speed she had subsequently demonstrated in her flight to the Cup- on top of her total lack of backtracking, which suggested she had planned ahead in a way none of the others had. That meant that Cedric couldn’t have won.

Silver had scored fifty-two points, between them; she had demonstrated good resolve, but had taken the same wrong turn twice at one point and had struggled, with Cedric, to defeat Hagrid’s Blast-Ended Screwt and the Acromantula. She had also, not long before that, let out a horrifying scream of pain and flattened a good-sized circle of the maze in a powerful discharge of her Equestrian magic. She, like Cedric, had been saved from a much lower score by her willingness to team up with other Champions to beat monsters neither could defeat alone.

Cedric had scored fifty-five points; he hadn’t repeated his wrong turns, and hadn’t had such a powerful display of energy, but none of the remaining judges felt that his performance had warranted a ten-point score.

As a result, if Silver had gotten the Cup, she had won; otherwise, Fleur had. If Cedric had gotten the cup, he was second- otherwise, third.

Hailey sighed. “It’s really too bad Krum didn’t react well to the dragon encounter,” she muttered. “He was doing really well up to that point, and I think he would’ve stood a pretty good chance of winning himself, had Moody not attacked Fleur, despite being in fourth place going in.”

“Really?” Maxime asked.

Hailey nodded. “He was on a faster track towards the Cup than Silver and Cedric,” she answered, “and had Fleur not been attacked, she not only would have arrived last- having not started running like that- but likely wouldn’t have demonstrated multicasting for us, meaning she probably wouldn’t have gotten a perfect score.” She sighed. “Well. I suppose all we can do now is wait for them to reappear, right? I’m pretty sure portkeys are untraceable, even with Equestrian magic.”

“Not unless you get it as it is leaving,” Dumbledore sighed. “A one-second window.”

Author's Note

From her comments on the points in the beginning of the chapter, considering that Harry earned 23 points on the First Task (Bagman 10, Karkaroff 5 for entertaining display, all 4 others 2), we can deduce his score on the Second Task must have been zero, placing him firmly in last place.

We can further deduce Krum must have around 103 pts, Cedric 108, Fleur 110, and Silver 112, all out of 120- which is pretty impressive, considering we know Silver lost at least one point in the First Task (Hailey scored her a 9), and Karkaroff wouldn't have given her anything more than a 5 on the Second Task, afraid she'd get too far out of Krum's league.

Multicasting: A very advanced technique... that Hailey mastered by the middle of her second year, when she used it during her capture of Rita Skeeter (Chap. 29). To be fair, she had been an HSI for just over a whole year by then, and already had a reputation for using spells & techniques that were well outside her age range, but still.

Interestingly enough, the original version of this chapter claimed that Twilight had invented it only a few weeks prior... but I realized that Hailey had already used it- and not only on Rita. When she caught Crouch-Moody torturing Theodore (Chap. 53) she did it again with three simultaneous silent incantations, which is probably an even more complex instance. I'm sure there's other examples, but I can't remember them right off. So now, it's an Equestrian technique that hadn't taken her long to translate at all... albeit beyond the skill level of many grown wizards.

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Chapter 77: Voldemort

“Kill the spares.”

Fleur, still lying on the ground as she recovered from the portkey, rolled frantically to the side, dodging behind a tall tombstone before she scrambled to her feet and leaned against it, keeping herself hidden as she peered around it.

“Avada Kedavra.”

She saw the bright green bolt of light coming at Harry, Silver, and Cedric, who had already risen to their feet.

“No!” Silver cried, and leaped in front of Cedric, knocking him to the ground. They crashed to the ground together, then Silver lifted herself up to her hands and knees, breathing hard. It looked to Fleur as if Cedric had been stunned, rather than killed.

“Avada Kedavra.”

The bolt struck Silver again, and she collapsed limply on top of Cedric.

She watched, silently, as Silver’s killer dragged Harry over to a massive headstone and tied him to it, then ran off somewhere behind it.

“S-Silver?” Cedric hissed.

Fleur glanced over, towards the headstone, and back at Cedric. “She’s dead,” she whispered, just loud enough for him to hear. She stepped out to help Cedric get out from underneath Silver’s body, then they both hid themselves among the tombstones.

“What is going on?” Cedric whispered.

“No idea,” Fleur answered. “Pretty sure they think you’re dead too- and don’t know I’m here.” She nodded towards the massive stone. “They haven’t killed Harry, though.”

“They’ll probably kill us if they realize we’re here,” Cedric scowled.

She nodded.

“Robe me.”

“V-Voldemort,” Cedric whispered fearfully, peering around the tombstone at the man that had just risen from the cauldron.

“Voldemort,” Fleur agreed, a firm strength imbuing her whisper. “Be ready to summon that Cup,” she told him. “We’ll wait for the right moment to grab Harry and get out of here.”

He nodded silently.

“The hell-?” Cedric muttered.

Fleur remained silent, but she shared his sentiment- as did, apparently, all of the Death Eaters. Voldemort had decided to duel Harry- and, when they had cast their spells at one another, their wands had connected, made them fly away to a clear spot just outside the graveyard, then made a dome of light around them.

She watched in silence as they dueled, or… whatever they were doing in that dome.

When it finally disappeared, there were a few gray… Ghosts? Shadows? There was Silversong, an old man leaning on a cane, a strange woman, and what looked like older versions of both Harry and Hailey. The shadows congregated on Voldemort, while Harry fled back towards where Silver’s body… wasn’t, Fleur realized. She glanced around, but she didn’t see it- it had disappeared.

Then, it might have been a trick of the light, but Fleur could swear that Harry flickered as he fled through the graveyard, dodging spells. His wand had… disappeared, as well.

Then he flickered a second time, moments before a bolt of green light struck the back of his head… and he crashed to the ground, as limp as Silver had been.

And Voldemort… As near as Fleur could tell, Voldemort looked almost stunned- like he hadn’t expected Harry to die when hit by the Killing Curse.

“Hangon, there’s someone else,” a death-eater cried.

Fleur cursed. She didn’t usually, but now was as good a time as any.

“Hide and get Harry back to Hogwarts,” Fleur commanded Cedric in an undertone. “I will distract them.”

Then she burst from their hiding place and ran between gravestones herself, firing spells back at them and dodging all of their spells with that odd sense she’d noticed when Moody had attacked her. She utilized both verbal and nonverbal incantations, and layered them as well- for some reason, that seemed to be coming a lot easier now. Perhaps it was because she wasn’t pairing unrelated and very complicated spells? Perhaps it was because this wasn’t surprise combat?

Exactly as intended, their attention was completely seized by her flight. The whole crowd was charging after her. They were getting closer- which they needed to, for her to hold their attention off of Cedric.

“Accio Cup!”

Cedric’s yell was loud and clearly audible, drawing the attention of nearly everyone in the entire graveyard. They looked… just in time for him to catch the cup out of the air, and vanish back to Hogwarts.

Fleur took a deep breath. This was time for Part Two- she would just use her Talent to vanish into the darkness, then flee from the graveyard and, relying on her talent to keep her hidden, figure out where in the world she was and, hopefully, find her way back to somewhere she recognized.

There was a sudden crack of apparition, and she felt the point of a wand between her shoulder blades.

That just wasn’t fair.

“Crucio!”

She thought she had known pain before, but she hadn’t. It was excruciating. Was this what the accelerated Papa Tango would have felt like?

She collapsed to the ground… and it stopped.

It took her several seconds to recover enough to raise her head. She could feel the lasting damage the curse had done- and the residual pain was intense.

The grass around her- she had gotten some distance from the graveyard before Cedric had portkeyed back out- had been replaced by a dense forest of gigantic, black stone spikes sticking out of the ground, twisted in all sorts of directions. Voldemort was behind her, sidling through one of the gaps. He stepped forwards, and put his foot on her back, pinning her down. “Powerful little girl, aren’t you?” he snarled- but there was something off in his tone, which…

She recognized it, she realized.

She blinked, and grinned.

Voldemort was susceptible to Veela.

For the first time ever, she willingly pushed her lust aura. “Don’t you mean pretty?” she asked, straining to keep her voice soft and dainty, the way that was most effective.

His foot left her back. “Yes, very pretty,” he agreed dreamily.

She could have laughed out loud. She had him wrapped around her little finger. It was almost comical just how easy that had been.

“Could you be a lad and help me up?” she asked.

He did. He bent down, and helped her up to her feet, completely wordlessly. She looked at him, and the odd, pervy look on his face that she was so used to despising.

“Can I see your wand for a second?”

“S-Sure, my wand,” he muttered. “Are you hurt?”

And he gave it to her.

She pocketed it. He had him so strongly. She fought to keep the grin off her face, present a pleasant smile and cute shrug. “I got a booboo on my hand,” she pouted, fluttering her eyelashes at him. “Could you kiss it?” She held out her left hand in a loose fist, her right holding her wand by her side, and concentrated on her Veela magic. She had him strong enough that this should work.

She could tell that she had been successful. That gleam in his eyes, the way he shuddered… She had just permanently imprinted on him, which would make him especially vulnerable to her (though quite resilient to other Veela)… and forever unwilling to hurt her or allow her to be hurt. He accepted her hand, and bent forward to kiss it.

Whack!

A female Death Eater had managed to wiggle her way in between the spikes where Fleur couldn’t see, and had slapped Lord Voldemort in the face.

But, Fleur knew, she was already done. The Dark Lord Voldemort might recognize the slap as an attempt to shake him out of the Veela-induced trance, but he would not appreciate the attack. As a matter of fact, she would have deliberately broken him out of his trance after the kiss, since he was basically useless- aside from acting like a lovesick puppy- while in that trance. Since she had imprinted, there simply wasn’t a technique out there that could stop her from gaining a lesser level of control- he wouldn’t be able to resist willingly letting her in.

And she needed a lesser level if she was going to make him use his brain. It was kinda annoying how the higher levels had that trance effect, but she could manage it.

But, especially considering the death eater’s sudden appearance, it was a good thing she had decided to go for broke and imprint as the first thing she did; because recapturing someone after they had been awakened would have been much harder than catching someone unawares. That was especially true for him, since she was fairly sure he had trained himself to resist Veela attacks, and just hadn’t realized she was part Veela!

Fleur whirled on the death eater, while Voldemort was still recovering from the slap. This woman was actually dangerous to her- and unfortunately, Veela magic simply never worked on women. And, Voldemort didn’t have his wand on him, so he couldn’t stop her, even if he hadn’t been recovering from a blow hard enough to turn the side of his face cherry red.

“How dare you!” the woman snarled, pointing her wand at Fleur. “Cruci-!”

She never finished.

Fleur’s hand had struck the stone spikes behind her- and exactly as she had guessed, it was she that had caused them to appear. In response to that same strange ability, two massive stone slabs had leaped out of the ground and smashed the death eater flat like giant jaws, crushing her skeleton with a sound like a potato chip getting stomped on.

She took a deep breath, and let it out.

Then, the death eater’s head dropped down between her and Voldemort, cleanly severed.

Both of them stared at it. Her stone slabs wouldn’t have severed her head like that- they were a good two feet taller than she had been, and would have smashed it with everything else!

“The first Champion to touch this cup,” Hailey announced to the crowd, “and the winner of the Triwizard Tournament…” She turned towards the rest of the judges. “Is Fleur Delacour of Beauxbatons!”

The crowd applauded politely.

Hailey sighed, and handed the cup to Madame Maxime. “I’m sorry, the applause would probably be fuller if the Tournament was taking place at Beauxbatons instead,” she told her.

Maxime only sighed, the pain from finding out Fleur had sacrificed herself to let Cedric return safely still showing on her face.

Then Hailey turned around. “Aaand, Moody’s running off with Cedric. Ready for his trial, Sadarina?” She drew her wand. “Confundus!”

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Sadarina answered eagerly, jogging up next to her.

“Did he welco-hurk!” Moody gasped, one hand snapping to his throat. He’d apparently been stunned during the Task, and woke back up shortly after the portkey had activated.

Cedric Diggory gasped and stumbled backwards, where a dementor caught him, and gently set him back on his feet.

Moody, meanwhile, melted into someone Cedric didn’t recognize right away. His magic eye popped out, flying over to land in a glass of water Cedric hadn’t seen when Moody had rushed him to his office. It was sitting on a beautifully carved wooden desk- and speaking of wood, Moody’s leg popped off too, flying up to the desk… which had Hailey sitting behind it. She brushed off the leg with her other hand, then picked up the glass with the eye in it and held them out to Sadarina. “Could you take these to Godric, please? It’s about time he gets them back.”

Sadarina giggled, accepted them, and left the room.

The strange man, who had staggered and fallen into an iron chair set in the middle of the room, struggled to free himself from the chains that had wrapped themselves around his arms and legs.

Morning Sun, who was standing next to Hailey’s desk, sighed. “Bartemius Crouch, Junior,” she announced. Her voice was completely emotionless, but her eyes told a tale of enormous pain- the same pain that had been much more visible when he had reported Silver’s death. She had lost someone important to her… because of the man in front of her.

The man flinched, looking up.

“You stand before us, accused of:

“First, interfering with the Triwizard Tournament by casting the Confundus Curse on Victor Krum at a critical point, causing him to fail the Third Task;

“Second, interfering with the Triwizard Tournament by directly dueling Fleur Delacour during the Third Task;

“Third, interfering with the Triwizard Tournament by casting the Cruciatus Curse on Silversong at a critical point;

“Fourth, casting the Cruciatus Curse on a fellow human being;

“Fifth, the attempted murder of Bartemius Crouch, Senior;

“Sixth, conspiring in the resurrection of Lord Voldemort;

“Seventh…”

The list seemed to go on.

“Twenty-seventh, violating a mother’s trust.” Morning finally lowered the scroll she had been reading from. “How do you plead?”

“I- Innocent!” he cried, half panicked.

“Very well,” Morning nodded, and looked to the side, where a series of people- several of them dementors- were lined up as if waiting their turn. On the other side of the room, there were three rows of dementors, just… standing. Not a single one was drawing their rattling breaths of despair.

It took a very long time for the row of people to step forward, one at a time, and present their arguments and evidence against him. Even Professor Moody testified against him!

“The prosecution rests,” someone said. She was younger, and had a long sheet of blue-green hair. The girl that had comforted Morning, a murderous fire in her eyes, when they had heard of Silver’s death.

Now Morning was standing again, having sat on the end of Hailey’s desk while she watched with an angry fire in her eyes. Now, it was the blaze of white-hot steel as she gazed at him.

“How will you defend yourself?”

He only cried into his lap. “Please, no,”

Morning sighed, and looked over to the side.

Professor Snape stepped over, holding a tiny bottle.

“Magical Britain has no law to protect you from testifying against yourself,” Hailey muttered softly- and, Cedric realized, dangerously.

They forced him to swallow just three drops from the bottle.

“Please tell us about the events you have been accused of,” Morning told him.

He started talking. The bottle must’ve contained a truth potion, because he told them everything.

It took him forever as well- then, when he finally went silent, Morning looked towards the rows of Dementors off to the side.

The entire lot of them crossed their arms over their chests, all at once.

Morning looked back down at Crouch. “The verdict is thus,” she said, calmly.

“Guilty as charged.”

Almost instantly, the truth potion seemed to wear off. He flinched, and started struggling again.

It wasn’t Morning that had spoken- instead, one of the dementors that had testified against him was striding forwards, lowering its hood.

It was Amelia Bones, the head of the DMLE. She stopped in front of Crouch, and turned sharply to face him, her long, black cloak seeming to melt into nothingness. “Any last words, Mr. Crouch?”

“No, please, no,” Crouch moaned.

Amelia sighed. “Sentencing, then. You will be slapped, then Kissed and disintegrated.”

Several of the non-dementor people around the room- Dumbledore, the Professors, Minister Cornelius Fudge, all the Twiwizard Judges (including Karkaroff, who had testified for the Confundus against Krum), and even Rita Skeeter in the corner- blinked in apparent surprise.

Then, one of the dementors glided forwards, lowering its hood. Its cloak also seemed to melt into nothingness as the girl it revealed landed gently on the floor and stepped directly in front of him, gazing at him. She looked like a first-year- not unlike Sadarina, perhaps.

Crouch simply stared at her. “M-Mother,” he gasped. “P-Please-!”

WHACK!

The girl slapped him so hard that blood flecks scattered across the floor. “I doomed myself to that prison so you could have a second chance,” she told him, in a low, but very calm, tone. “And what have you done?” she asked him, still deadly calm.

“P-Please!” he gasped.

“You have squandered it,” she told him. “You are no son of mine.” Then she stepped forward, seized his head in her hands, and kissed him, right on the lips. It lasted a couple of seconds, during which he went limp- then she stepped back, raised one hand, and slashed it down, straight through his body- which popped, almost, into a cloud of dust.

Moments later, there was a pile of dust settling on the floor around the empty chair.

The girl sighed, then turned to Amelia. “Thanks for indulging me,” she told her, with a bow.

Amelia chuckled. “No problem.”

“I don’t suppose that means he’s going to no-show the rest of his detentions,” Hailey mused, her words triggering a wave of laughter around the room, “so we can finally fire Junior.” She sighed. “Minister Fudge?” she called.

Fudge looked up, from where he had still been staring at Crouch’s very sudden demise. “Huh?” he muttered.

“I’m sorry to keep you from your duties for so long,” Hailey continued, “but basically everyone else involved agreed that you needed to know.” She sighed.

“If Voldemort has returned…” Fudge shuddered. “This is not a good time for that.”

“Good thing my fortune-tellers say he will be going stealth for a while,” Hailey agreed. “We can prepare for him, and even fight him, without announcing it to the public, if need be.”

Fudge tilted his head. “True,” he muttered. “That’ll… Yeah. That’ll also improve people’s trust in the Ministry, when we appear so prepared when he finally shows himself- and allow us to take stronger, more powerful actions against him.” He nodded. “Thank you, miss… Hailey, was it?”

“It is,” Hailey nodded.

He nodded as well. “So, ah, may I request the assistance of some of your people in coming up with a suitable media strategy?”

She nodded. “Sure. Shall I have them visit you in the Ministry, so your Cabinet can join in as well?”

He paused. “Uh, yes, please. Would…” He scowled. “Tomorrow afternoon work?”

Hailey flipped open a planner on her desk. “Yup, wide open. One o’clock?”

He nodded as well. “Excellent,” he stated. “And, um, can we meet now as well, for the, er, non-media strategy?”

Hailey shrugged. “Our people don’t know the first thing about fighting Voldemort,” she told him. “No matter how hard they study, wands are still foreign to most of them. Your best bet on that will be Professor Dumbledore.” She gestured towards him.

Fudge looked inquisitively at Dumbledore.

“We’ll need to send envoys to the Giants,” Dumbledore told him. “We need to keep them at least neutral, if not in our favor.” Then he smiled. “Normally, I would also have recommended removing Azkaban from the control of the Dementors… but something tells me that won’t be an issue this time.” He glanced around the room.

All the dementors laughed, reaching up to flick down their hoods- and, in most cases, float down to the floor, since they were children underneath their vanishing cloaks. One of the others was Barty Crouch Senior- who stepped forward to hug the girl that had erased his son so quickly. His cloak didn’t disappear- he must not be a real dementor.

Madame Maxime blinked. “So that’s why it was only attempted murder of his father,” she muttered.

Author's Note

You know what I noticed when I went back through and reread this chapter several weeks after writing it?

Even Fudge didn't bat an eye at the casual mention of Voldemort's name.

Hailey's fearlessness must be bleeding off/spreading more than we know.

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Chapter 78: Veela

Lord Voldemort stared at the death eater’s head, where it landed on the ground. She had slapped him, hard- and while that had broken the Veela’s spell, she could have done it by attacking the Veela, rather than him. Had the Veela not killed her so suddenly and efficiently with her completely unexpected earthbending powers, and had he had his wand in his hand, he would have tortured her to within an inch of her life, but allowed her to live.

Had she instead attacked the Veela… That thought gave him pause. He would still have punished her- and possibly killed her outright. And had she finished her torture charm and hurt the Veela, he definitely would have killed her outright, after retrieving his wand from the inside pocket in the Veela’s cloak. He might even have used the Veela’s wand, if she didn’t seem able to defend herself!

… What had the Veela done to him? He was pretty sure Veela didn’t have any lasting effects!

He hadn’t realized she was a Veela when he had apparated to right behind her to ensure she couldn’t dodge his punishment for allowing that other boy- nobody had known he was there- to get away with Harry’s body. Even though Harry’s return to Hogwarts was actually planned.

It was a memory that now appalled him. He just couldn’t stand the idea of hitting her with the Cruciatus Curse.

Was this a short-term lingering effect? It didn’t feel like a love potion- he still had no affection towards her, beyond her ongoing Veela aura (which, now that he knew it was there, he was resisting effectively). It was entirely possible it simply made him want to protect her for a short time, as a lingering side effect of the entrancement- he doubted the Veela had ever used their auras in battle before.

Still, though. When he had hit her with his torture charm, she had collapsed straight away- and the moment her hand had touched the ground, the ground had moved. He had been smacked and thrown, slightly, by the spikes, causing the curse to break instantly while he regained his balance- then he had commented on her strength. He was fairly certain it was her passive aura- which he hadn’t noticed at that point- that made him do that.

He had been just about starting to realize she was a Veela when she had pounced. Hardly two words into her answer, he had forgotten entirely about his Veela defenses- she had suckered him too hard, and had him in too strong of a trance. He didn’t really know what had happened next- but somehow, she had taken his wand from him, and pocketed it- the wand that Yaxley had worked so hard to retrieve from the Ministry just over a year before. And, because he had been suckered, he had complied with her.

Then this death-eater had appeared. He hadn’t even had time to recognize her face, while he had been recovering from her slap, before she had been smashed flat. Even now, her face was away from him, where her head was lying on the ground, and he didn’t recognize the back of her head.

But, no amount of smashing would have severed her neck that cleanly- it looked like a slice, not a crush. Even her hair had been sliced cleanly!

“You should know, Tom, that not even death can stop a true Slytherin.”

He looked up, and hesitated.

The girl that had just spoken was resting her hands on the hilt of a glittering, jewel-encrusted sword, the tip of which was resting on the hard ground at her feet.

And, he saw the telltale mark of fresh blood on the blade.

As a bonus, he realized that he actually recognized both the girl and the sword.

It was the girl he’d had Yaxley kill- one of the ‘extras’. Now that he saw her more clearly, he recognized her description as that of the third Hogwarts Champion, Silversong. He was certain she had been hit by the Killing Curse- and, apparently, had survived it. She was a very dangerous girl.

And the sword… was the Sword of Godric Gryffindor. It also matched the badge she wore on her chest- she was in Gryffindor house.

But why was she talking about Slytherin?

He felt the ripple of her magic in the air, and somehow knew that he couldn’t just apparate away.

“Silver!” the Veela cried, thankfully it seemed. “You’re alive!”

Voldemort let out a small huff of breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding. If the Veela was friendly towards Silversong, presumably that meant the opposite was also true- that Silver was friendly towards the Veela, and as such, he didn’t need to worry about them hurting each other.

Hurting him, on the other hand, was a different matter- Silver was staring him down, as if waiting for something, with a dangerous gleam in her eyes.

“Yes, I’m alive,” she answered calmly, without looking away. “Can you close the entrances? I don’t want the other Death Eaters interrupting.” Her voice was dangerously calm- and her speech pattern seemed familiar somehow, but he wasn’t sure from where.

The Veela put her hand out, touching one of the spikes- and walls instantly shot up between them, before forming a ceiling overtop.

Finally, Silver tilted her head. “Do you not have your wand?” she asked.

“I have it,” the Veela told her smugly.

Silver finally broke her gaze and looked at her. “You… You stole Voldemort’s wand.”

He flinched at the sound of his own name. She could stand to use it? She wasn’t afraid of it, like everyone- even his own Death Eaters- were?

The Veela grinned, completely unbothered by hearing the name. “He’s vulnerable to Veela.”

Silver burst into laughter. “And what might’ve happened if you’d happened along ten years ago,” she choked, leaning heavily on the sword.

The Veela winced. “Ten years ago, I could not control my aura,” she muttered.

Silver calmed. “I mean as you are now, obviously,” she told her, then looked at Voldemort again. “So.”

“So,” Voldemort repeated back at her.

The Veela looked at him. He resisted the urge to gaze into her eyes- that was her aura at work, and looking into her eyes would be a very bad idea; that always made a Veela’s magic that much more effective, and his defenses less so. There was silence for several seconds, before she spoke.

“Why did you come back?” the Veela asked.

“So that I can die,” he answered honestly, completely without thinking.

He paused, sighed, and sat down to lean against the stone spike behind him. She had surprised him again, and penetrated his defenses with impunity- but it didn’t seem like she was trying to put him in a trance like before, just to get him to answer her question truthfully.

But if he was going to tell them that much, he might as well tell them the whole story.

“Can you… make sure no death eaters can hear?” he muttered, softly.

The two girls looked at one another for a second, then back at him. The Veela put her hand out to the wall again- and for a few seconds, it felt like the floor was sinking, then it felt like it was rising for a few seconds too.

“There,” she nodded. “Fifty feet underground.”

“Why?” Silver asked.

“Appearances,” he answered simply.

Silver winced. He could tell, by her expression, that she understood what he was talking about right away. Was she related to the Malfoys, by any chance?

“I have always felt… wrong somehow,” he continued. “Perhaps incomplete, I don’t know. All the way back when I was a little boy, I did what I could to discover that wrongness, and perhaps even fix it.

“I tried to be good- I honestly did. The people running that orphanage were…” He sighed. “Not the best. Theft, fights, and whatever else ran rampant.

“Whenever the fighters went after me, though, I had the upper hand.” He shrugged. “I had magic. Accidental magic, technically, but I didn’t know what it was- and had attached that name to it to make it easy to think about.

“But just staying out of trouble wasn’t helping, so I tried… well, helping. Injecting myself into various fights to break them up. Taking stuff from the thieves, returning it to its rightful owners. Then Dumbledore came along, set it all on fire, and got me branded as a thief. Me!” He sighed in exasperation. “Before he set it on fire, I had been eager to go learn magic. He didn’t seem to understand that I wanted to say yes as soon as I heard the word ‘wizard’. Instead, he set it ablaze, called me a thief, and left me there.

“I never liked him, after that. Even at Hogwarts, when one of the other Professors showed up to help me through Diagon Alley, he gave me those looks at every opportunity I had.

“As I studied, and learned… I came to the realization that what I was good at seemed to be everything that was forbidden. Talking to snakes, ensnaring minds, Unforgivable Curses, finding Restricted Section books that had been misplaced into the unrestricted section. The Chamber of Secrets.” He gazed at his knees. “So… I tried that.

“And by Merlin was I good at it. I made a number of horcruxes, starting while I was still even inside Hogwarts with the assistance of the Chamber.

“But when I finished all those magical transformations, and truly became the Dark Lord…” He sighed. “I was going in the wrong direction,” he muttered. “I started a reign of terror… and it felt bad. It felt even worse than before.

“Then, when I looked at what I had built, at the Dark Lord Voldemort… I saw a demon. I had created a monster that would devour me whole if I allowed it to- and continue to devour, even after it ate me.” He leaned back against the stone wall. “I simply had to remain the Dark Lord. If I ever wavered… someone would overthrow me and take over, be even worse than me.

“The only way was for me to make them so devoted to me that they lacked the ability to make effective decisions on their own… Then hope I could die.

“So I did that. For many years, it just… went on.

“Then dear Severus Snape brought me news of that Prophecy. He only had a part of it- but it didn’t take much effort at all to uncover the rest of it. I don’t think Snape realizes that I know he’s a double-agent for Dumbledore- I was actually manipulating him into becoming one when he discovered the prophecy. He was too smart for me to leave behind, after all- if I died… He had to have either died already, or changed his loyalties, else he would take over and be even more terrible than me.

“The Prophecy gave me hope. It spoke of my death- at the hand of a certain boy. Well, one of two- both Harry and Neville Longbottom fit the description in the prophecy. I evaluated my options carefully, and picked one to attack, alone. I didn’t want to kill Harry’s parents- but I had to, or it wouldn’t work. On top of that, killing Lily would be the final straw to galvanizing Snape against me. Once the rat told me where they were, I deliberately came through the front door to provoke a battle. James was a good man, and I hated to kill him- but he gave me no choice.

“Then I faced Lily. She was a beautiful woman, and she begged for mercy. I wished- oh, how I wished I could give her mercy… but in order for me to be vanquished, I had to kill her- and in so doing, grant little Harry the protection of a mother’s love, which would forever protect him from death by my hands.

“Last came little Harry. I knew what would happen, and I was so sorry to give him a curse scar that would continue to hurt from time to time for years to come, aside from making him an orphan- but that was the act that would cut the head off of the monster I had created.

“So I cast the charm… and died.

“Except, I couldn’t die. Still can’t.” He sighed. “Even a single horcrux is enough to mean that I cannot be killed, merely reduced to an almost ghost-like state.” He gazed up at the sky. “I hadn’t given myself extra time to figure out what was wrong with me- I had prolonged my own torture. All I needed to do then was to escape notice, quietly revive myself, and go through some more transformations in secret, so nobody would recognize me as the Dark Lord.

“But, I never managed to do the first of those. I was forced to revive myself as the Dark Lord… which would only put me back where I started.

“Except, Dumbledore had cheerfully obliged in training Harry up as an upstanding member of the Light, to oppose me- and when I used Professor Quirrell to get close enough to look at him…” He sighed. “Quirrell kept getting distracted by some girl called Hailey.” He paused, looking up at Silver, who had let out a sudden snort of laughter. “What?”

Silver shook her head. “Nothing,” she told him, but her smile told him it most definitely wasn’t nothing.

“Whatever,” he mumbled. “Apparently, Hailey kept getting in his way, and screwing up all his plans. Not my plans- no, he almost never followed those. Quirrell wasn’t a very good follower, but he did the job- thanks to him, I learned that I could not touch Harry’s skin without suffering intense pain. I figured it was probably a side effect from one of the transformations I went through, reacting with his mother’s protection.

“That gave me an idea.” He looked at the wall, in the direction that the Cauldron would have been. “The specific way I revived myself… Bone of the father, flesh of the servant, blood of the enemy. It would render the enemy I took the blood from immortal until I died. I could have used Bertha Jorkins, and was even planning to, before driving her to insanity like the Longbottoms were- except, her information was too good to be true. I didn’t have to use such a disposable enemy- that same method would grant me a part of the Mother’s Love as well, making me immune to harm by it without defeating its protection against me, and she told me about some tools that could be manipulated to yank Harry Potter, the Hero that vanquished the Dark Lord, right out from under Dumbledore’s nose, and use him.

“What was more, he was already so heavily anti-Dark Lord that I could rely on him to remain dedicated to my defeat. As such, I instructed my tool at Hogwarts- he’s probably dead by now, he never was very good at staying hidden whenever he got excited- to make the Cup a two-way portkey, with one way activated by Harry’s touch, and the other activated by any touch. Ostensibly, I would throw Harry’s dead body at it to strike fear into their hearts- but what I actually intended was for him to escape, after much fanfare- exactly what happened. He was then supposed to reach the Cup and return to Hogwarts alive and well, tell Dumbledore, and start setting the wizarding world up to fight me before the Death Eaters realized what was happening.

“Then… He died. That spell shouldn’t have done any more than make him stumble, with his mother’s love and the resurrection both protecting him, but I must’ve miscalculated.” He sighed.

Silver nodded. “Hailey will probably talk about mayonnaise again when I ask her how she got the body,” she told him. “She always does, whenever we fake someone’s death.”

He stared at her for a second, then sighed; she evidently wasn’t too interested in elaborating. “That way, in theory, I would be in power… Yet I would also have a powerful foe that I simply could not defeat. Throughout the process of my return and announcement to the wizarding world at large, I intend to manipulate Dumbledore into finding and destroying all of my horcruxes, so that I can be defeated, once and for all, in battle.” He looked sideways at Silver. “Make sure you’re still alive at that point, girl. I will have to go down fighting either Harry himself, or someone out of my league, if I am to behead the monster at the same time.”

Silver burst into laughter, then quickly stifled it, waving off his and the Veela’s inquisitive looks.

“But if he’s died…” He sighed, staring up at the ceiling. “If Harry died, whether it was faked for the public or not, I’m going to have to face off against someone out of my league.” He looked at Silver. “And with your speed with that sword, or whatever that was earlier, when you were protecting the Veela-!

“Fleur,” the Veela corrected him.

He paused. “When you were protecting Fleur,” he repeated. “That’s the kind of skill that will be required to behead the monster once more.”

Silver nodded calmly.

The silence drew on for several seconds.

“You said there was a constant feeling of wrongness?” Silver asked.

He looked at her, trying to read her face. “Yes?”

She rubbed her chin. “Did it ever peak- like, perhaps when you were doing things like using the bathroom, or talking?”

He stared at her. “H-How did you know?” he muttered, then sighed. “It was bad enough I cursed off my…” He paused. “Manly Bit long ago.”

Fleur wrinkled her nose in disgust and looked away, one hand rising to her mouth. Silver, meanwhile, seemed completely unbothered.

He shrugged. “It helped, somewhat, but it didn’t do everything.”

“Yeah…” Silver muttered. “I think I know what it is,” she told him. He only raised an eyebrow, so she grinned. “You want to become a girl, don’t you?”

Fleur whirled back around, looking curiously back and forth between Silver and Voldemort. She was completely unsuccessful in hiding the surprise from her expression- she evidently had not expected that.

There was silence for several seconds.

Finally, he spoke.

“Y-Yes, that was one of the, er, additional transformations I was planning… And looking forward to, back when.”

Silver looked at Fleur, then back at him. “How about now?”

He let out a snort of laughter. “There’s no way I’d be able to do that now,” he told them. “They’d pounce on me right away.”

Silver nodded. “Oh, you’d be surprised. There is a way. You know how Harry died today?”

He raised an eyebrow at her.

“She didn’t,” Silver finished, stressing the pronoun slightly, before sitting on the floor with him. “Back in the days of Professor Quirrell, she turned herself into a girl every day.”

Voldemort and Fleur both stared at her.

She giggled. “That is to say, Harry and Hailey are actually the same person. What happened up there was that she was faking Harry’s death, so she’d never have to turn into him again.” She smiled. “I’m the same- except that we killed Draco Malfoy just under a year ago, so I never have to turn into him again.”

So she was related to the Malfoys. “Every day,” he muttered.

She nodded. “That was back when she hadn’t found a way to make the instant transform voluntary- but now, we have, so neither of us ever turn back.” She grinned. “And considering that Hailey has- oh, what was the list?” She started counting on her fingers. “Got a reputation for using spells she shouldn’t know yet on her very first day at Hogwarts, check. Earned the very public title ‘Goddess of Reports and Duels’ in her second year, check. Treated the Basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets like a chew toy not long after, check. Resurrected all the dementors and subsequently became their mother last year, check. Stopped the Death Eater march at the Quidditch Cup in about five seconds last summer, check.

“On top of all that, we happen to know that even if the four real, surviving Gods and Goddesses- the four Founders of Hogwarts, incidentally- were to gang up on her, she would still flatten them in a fight. So, if you were to simply, ahh, show up at Hogwarts while she was there… It wouldn’t be very hard to disappear you into it and make things right- just say Hailey curbstomped you like she did those death eaters at the Cup. The entire Ministry of Magic is already afraid of her- I’ve even heard mumblings that Cornelius Fudge is recently actually viewing her as his superior, despite having the top job himself.” She rubbed her chin. “You’d probably want to wait at least a little, so we can tell her about it so she won’t actually kill you with a toothpick and a burp, but other than that?” She shrugged.

He rubbed his chin, choosing to ignore the odd murder weapons. “For… For appearances, now that I’m gathering my Death Eaters, I’m going to have to wait for a logical time to go to the Castle,” he told them. “The longer I can go without announcing my return to the world, the less people I have to kill in the meantime.”

She shrugged. “And if you hand Hailey an attendance list of Death Eaters, she’ll have them all incarcerated in a few minutes. It’d be a bit anticlimactic, and might start a big scare as people look for them where they’re not, but I’m no expert in that stuff.” She grinned. “That said, disappearing people is easy. We had Barty Crouch- Senior- ‘disappeared’ like that for a while because he was ostensibly dead. More mayonnaise, apparently. I don’t know who was supposed to have killed him, but I do know she said he would be un-disappeared after the Third Task.”

“R-Right,” Voldemort muttered.

“Anyways, um,” Silver looked around. “I never learned long-distance teleportation the way Hailey did, so do you think you could take us somewhere near the Hogwarts grounds by side-along apparition?”

“Welcome back.”

Silver, Fleur, and Voldemort all jumped, whirling to look.

There was… There was some sort of archway carved into the air, such that a small room opened up onto the grass outside the Hogwarts Grounds, where they had just apparated. Inside the room, there was a girl with wavy black hair, sitting in one of five comfortable-looking armchairs set around a circular table and leaning forward to pour tea into five identical teacups. There was another black-haired girl in a chair next to her, though she looked younger and her hair was a lot curlier.

“H-Hailey!” Silver gasped. “How-?”

“Hermione invented this spell a week ago,” the older girl- Hailey- answered, “for the Third Task. We didn’t tell you because it would have made the entire maze moot. So.” She glanced at Voldemort. “Do you think you could explain why the Dark Lord Voldemort is giving you a lift back to school?”

Voldemort winced again, but none of the girls did.

“Uh-!” Silver began, glancing at him, then chuckled nervously. “Yeah. About that.” She then led the way through the strange archway, into the room, and sat down to accept her tea. “It’s a bit of a long story.”

It was good tea, Voldemort had to concede. The conversation had gone even better than his explanation to Fleur and Silver had gone. Hailey was very friendly, a little bit carefree, and also very smart- she had even guessed half of the details herself, rather than having to be told!

Finally, the topic turned to Voldemort wanting to be a girl- which amused Hailey just as much as it had Silver.

Finally, Hailey spoke. “Yeah. We can do the Papa Tango whenever you like, really.”

“Papa Tango?” Voldemort asked, raising his eyebrows.

She nodded. “That’s the spell that makes the instant transform possible,” she told him. “It’s very painful, and takes anywhere from a minute to three months depending on how fast we set it, but you only ever go through it once. Come to think of it, once you do turn into a girl, do you have a chosen name?”

“A what?” he asked.

“A chosen name,” she repeated. “A name that you would prefer to go by, over your given or whatever name, in your preferred form.”

He scowled. “So… Once I turn into a girl…” He nodded slowly. “Amelia.”

“Amelia, huh?” Hailey muttered, then grinned at Sadarina. “That’s going to be fun.”

Sadarina giggled. “It is,” she agreed.

“Fun?” Voldemort asked.

Hailey nodded. “You see… Legally, Sadarina here is my daughter. She also happens to be the oldest Dementor, and the Mother of Dementor Kind, in a manner of speaking.” She grinned. “And ever since we saved her last year, Amelia Bones, the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement… is also a dementor. As such, she’s technically my granddaughter.”

“Even though you’re only fourteen,” Silver said flatly.

“Even though I’m fourteen,” Hailey nodded. “I’m probably the youngest grandmother that ever lived, or something like that at least.” She grinned. “It gets funny when you consider that all of my children and grandchildren are older than me. Anyways.” She turned to Voldemort. “Voldemort, Amelia, whoever you want to be-!”

She broke off as a sharp knock sounded on the door.

Voldemort looked- the portal to the lawns was gone, revealing the inside of an office.

“Perfect timing,” Hailey commented. “Come in,” she called.

The door opened- and Voldemort saw the plaque, recognized the hall outside.

He was deep inside Hogwarts Castle… in Hailey’s office. She seemed to have a lot of titles, but he couldn’t read them from so far away.

A girl entered, with pink and dark blue candy floss hair. She looked around, smiled, closed the door, then trotted over. “Having fun yet?” she asked.

“Yup,” Hailey nodded. “What brings you here, Bonbon?”

She shrugged. “The usual. Just got back from cleaning out those criminals in Manehattan, and thought I’d stop by to see if you had anything important going on.” She glanced carelessly at Voldemort, but he noticed the appraising quality in her gaze- she was evidently an incredibly dangerous person as well. Hailey and Silver weren’t the only ones that could ‘kill’ him easily. “I notice you’re having tea with the local Dark Lord,” she commented. “How are things going?”

Voldemort choked on his tea. “L-Local?” he gasped. That made it sound like she had known and defeated multiple Dark Lords before!

Hailey grinned. “The Dark Lord Voldemort will be joining the Order of the Phoenix,” she told the girl.

Voldemort blinked, and stared. The Order of the Phoenix? Seriously? That was- That was-

“Excellent,” Bonbon nodded. “What will his name be? Er… Her name, I want to say?”

Voldemort sputtered in disbelief, but Hailey just raised an eyebrow. “It’s that obvious?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“Amelia,” she answered. “Speaking of.” She turned back to Voldemort. “Do you mind if we do a few pain tolerance tests? It’ll let us know what to expect on the Papa Tango- and plan it for maximum stealth, like we did with Fleur’s.” She glanced at Fleur. “You’re a Raeth, by the way.”

“A Raeth?” Fleur asked, blinking as she looked at her hands. “I thought I was an Etrah.”

Hailey smiled. “Padma said you’re also an Earth elemental- that’s probably part of it. Means you should be able to swim through stone the way the Patils swam through water in the Second Task.” She shrugged. “And I’m apparently a magic elemental, whatever that does.”

Author's Note

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

If you follow The Girl who Didn't Just Live, this might sound familiar. As a matter of fact, this is the original version of my headcanon for Voldemort's backstory, which was updated for TGwDJL to make a bit more sense. TGwDJL also included a few other mechanics and events that helped its rather unique approach come to be, so...

That said, I've only got two more chapters after this one, and one of them I'm not sure if I'm going to need to rewrite. I wish it was more, but... well, writer's block. And my muse has been focusing on TGwDJL a lot lately- to the point where it's got 14 chapters in the queue right now, including the one coming this week!

Chapter 79: Return

“See you around!” Hailey, Sadarina, Fleur, and Silversong waved cheerfully as Voldemort stepped through the portal Hailey had just conjured with a tiny flick of her wrist, not even her wand.

Voldemort bowed and, standing amidst the German forest Hailey had picked for it to come out in, waved as well. “I’ll be back,” he told them, with a smile- then, as he turned away, Fleur saw him force his face straight moments before he disapparated.

The portal closed, and Hailey sighed. “Well, that’s that.”

Fleur nodded faintly. She felt almost sad to see him go- but he had to.

Unfortunately, his pain tolerance wasn’t strong enough for the accelerated version- something Hailey had found mildly amusing- and the appetite for soups and stews would have been too suspicious to his Death Eaters.

So Bonbon had promised that Dumbledore would die before Hailey graduated, her tone brooking no argument whatsoever. When Voldemort had questioned it anyways, Hailey had interrupted to tell him that Bonbon was one of the most powerful Seers that ever lived, to the point that she could accurately predict exactly how and when someone was going to attack her long before they did, giving her a uniquely effective defense. Reportedly, even Hailey, Queen Indestructible as she was, couldn’t beat her in a duel without breaking the laws of physics.

So, they had agreed that after Dumbledore died, Voldemort would make a move on Hogwarts. When he did, Hailey would meet and ‘defeat’ him in her usual manner, and he would hide away in the Hospital Wing while he got his Papa Tango. At that point, Bonbon had headed out of the room- and on her way out, she’d mentioned that they’d need to buy more straws before that point. Only Hailey had seemed to understand.

Then Voldemort had mentioned his snake, Nagini, who hadn’t been present in the graveyard. Nagini was, apparently, a Maledictus- a human woman, with a blood curse that gave her the ability to turn into a snake… And, eventually, had taken away her ability to return to human form.

So Hailey had shrugged, and suggested he bring her along. Apparently, she, Silver, and quite a few others she didn’t name were actually parselmouths as well, and the Papa Tango would be completely safe for Nagini- and nullify the curse, so they could offer it at that time.

He could, of course, tell Nagini about that future opportunity whenever he wanted, so long as she knew not to tell any other parselmouths about it.

Hailey turned sharply. “Anyways.” She stepped over to her desk, drew a large, rattling bag out of a drawer, and walked back towards them. “Here, Fleur.” She held it out, then smiled. “Your winnings.”

“My… winnings?” Fleur asked.

She nodded. “You won the Triwizard Tournament,” she answered simply. “By a margin of six points. Silver was the second to touch the Cup, by a margin of almost a quarter of a second, but…” She shrugged. “Your final charge was successful.”

Silver chuckled. “Not like I need the gold anyways,” she smiled.

Fleur accepted the bag, and stared at it. “I-!” she began. “I-!”

Hailey chuckled. “A little unexpected?” she asked, then shrugged. “You also defeated Lord Voldemort in under a minute, didn’t you?”

Her jaw articulated up and down for a few seconds, then she set the bag on the tea table and opened it. “It doesn’t-!” She paused, reaching inside, then drew out a small, golden bar, about two inches long and an inch in diameter. “What…?” she muttered.

“That’s a Bar,” Hailey told her. “Equestrian currency.” She pulled a matching bar out of her hair. “If you give it a twist like this, then-!” Her bar suddenly expanded and rattled down onto the table as a pile of about a hundred small gold coins. “One hundred bits,” she finished. She lifted two coins between her fingers. “It’s two bits to the galleon at Gringotts, and if you want some galleons before you return to France, I can take you there.” Then she shrugged, dropped them back onto the pile, then shoved them all at each other, so they collapsed back into the bar. “And back to the bar. That won’t work with any less than a hundred bits.” She put it back in her hair, and gestured towards the bag. “Princess Celestia sent that over a couple weeks ago.

“It came with a condition, of course. In the event that the winning Champion could cross the portal into Equestria, which you can after the Papa Tango, those thousand bars would replace the thousand galleons from the Ministry of Magic- a roughly equivalent value, in terms of real value, no matter how lopsided the exchange rate is.” She chuckled. “The Ministry agreed, so… there it is. All yours.”

“A- A thousand bars?” Fleur asked. “When-!” She paused. “That makes… a hundred thousand bits… fifty thousand galleons?” She looked at Hailey. “Are you sure?”

She nodded. “Yup. There’s supposed to be a presentation ceremony, but after yours and Silver’s deaths, it kinda got canceled.”

“My death!?” Fleur gasped.

Hailey shrugged. “When Cedric returned with the report that you were sacrificing yourself to let him escape, it was assumed that you had died. Speaking of dying.” She turned to Silver. “Silver, how did yours go?”

Silver grinned. “Apparently, I earned an Ascension when I dove in front of Cedric and blocked the Killing Curse with the last of my magic, then only needed a trigger event to get it. And apparently, getting resurrected is a suitable trigger event.” She shrugged. “Means I have wings now, and I’ll be asking you and Hermione to teach me to fly.”

Hailey chuckled. “How’d the resurrection go, then?”

She chuckled too. “Oh, that was fun.”

“Where do you think you’re going, young lady?”

Silversong could only vaguely sense her surroundings. She seemed to have lost her body, become a spirit, and had been drifting towards what she recognized as the afterlife… But something plucked her back away from it.

The voice was that of Professor Snape.

She wasn’t able to answer.

“Salazar,” Mad-Eye Moody’s voice barked. “What are you doing? Don’t you know Hailey will be mad if she finds out you’re favoring her friends?”

“Calm, Godric,” Professor McGonagall’s voice rang out. “He’s not favoring her. We gave Silver a mission six years ago, did we not?”

“Well… Yes,” Moody answered. “But can’t we pass that mission on to someone else?”

“No We Will Not,” Madam Pomfrey’s voice cut in. “Hailey might be perfectly capable of defeating Voldemort, but you know she hates hurting people.”

“Exactly, Helga,” Snape agreed. “Aside from that, Fleur also has a mission, does she not?”

“Fleur?” Moody asked, sounding surprised.

“You haven’t heard?” Snape asked inquisitively. “I take it you haven’t told them, Rowena?”

“No, I haven’t,” Professor McGonagall answered. “It was just last night. We will need her powers and talents both before and after Voldemort is defeated.”

“What does Fleur have to do with anything?” Moody asked.

“Without Silver, she’s likely to be killed,” Snape answered. “By resurrecting Silver, we can kill two birds with one stone. Er… We may need to change that saying.”

“We may,” McGonagall agreed, “now that students are becoming human birds left and right.”

“Do you think Silver is going to be one?” Madam Pomfrey asked.

“No idea,” McGonagall answered. “The way I hear it, nobody understands how Ascension works, nor knows any way to see if it will happen or not. Not even the Equestrians.” She sighed. “For myself, I’ve been wondering how likely it is that one of us will ascend. I know it won’t happen without the Papa Tango, but Hailey checked and confirmed it will work on us this afternoon- we’ll just ignore the symptoms, as energy beings.”

“Now that sounds interesting,” Moody grunted. “If we all do that, we might actually be able to compare to her once again.” He laughed harshly.

“So, with Silversong,” Snape barked.

“Go ahead and resurrect her,” McGonagall said. “I will refill her magic reserves.”

“We’ll need her body,” Madam Pomfrey muttered. “Allow me.”

Moody sighed. “You know what? I’ll give her my sword. Harmonia only knows if she’ll need it or not.”

“I doubt it,” McGonagall muttered. “She’s already at least as good with magic as Hailey is, though a little less powerful and I think she doesn’t know as many spells, either.”

“A little,” Moody laughed. “A little!”

“Well, she is,” Madam Pomfrey told him. “It’s only five orders of magnitude… that we’ve seen so far. Salazar, where do you want her body?”

“Y-You’ve got four literal gods working at Hogwarts?” Fleur gasped.

“Two gods and two goddesses,” Hailey corrected, “but yes. Then I’m basically a proto-goddess myself, so we’ll see how long that lasts.” She tilted her head. “I haven’t grown more powerful yet this year,” she mused. “Either I’m due for a surprise power-up sometime soon, or the pattern has been broken. But anyways, I’ve got a time loop to close out and it’s well past bed time.” She smiled. “Don’t be surprised if people go a little nuts- everybody thinks both of you are dead bodies in the Little Hangleton graveyard right now.” She grinned. “I wonder what the muggle police will think when they see that spike forest you made?”

Fleur sighed as she stepped out the great oak front doors of the castle. Her muscles were still aching from the damage the Cruciatus Curse had done- and her joints had grown stiff. “Stupid pain,” she muttered softly, as she stepped out onto the grass. She’d forced herself to move normally through the conversation, to not show weakness- but it would take weeks for Veela-specialized healers to repair the damage.

Finally, she looked at the ground. “So I can… swim through stone?” she muttered. She crouched down, knowing standing up was going to be painful, and stuck a finger through the grass, to the dirt underneath… And kept going. When she wanted it to, her hand went straight through the dirt, rock, and even grass, without leaving a mark.

When she pulled her hand back out, her skin was clean, smooth, and uninjured. The cuts she’d gotten when dodging one of Moody’s- no, Crouch’s- spells had forced her to flatten herself against a hedge were simply… gone.

She looked at the ground… Then put her hands together, and dove in. Hailey had given her a quick lesson on ‘hammerspace’- it really was easy- so her winnings were embedded in her hair.

It was quite a wonderful feeling. All her aches and pains just went away while she floated weightlessly in the stone. She was breathing naturally as well, almost as if she’d taken some Gillyweed and jumped in the lake again, but better.

She rolled over, flipping herself upright, and looked around.

She could see for miles. Hogwarts had a bunch of little passages reaching away from it, towards the local village. She could see the dungeons, floating amidst the stone- though she couldn’t see through their far walls, making for a very strange layering effect.

She took a deep breath, turned, and shot through the ground towards the Beauxbatons carriage. It looked like the groundskeeper’s hut had a wooden floor, but there was a particularly large bone buried in front of his cabin for some reason.

But no matter. She popped out of the ground near the door to the carriage, wobbled as she landed on her feet, and grinned as she glanced down at herself. All those aches and pains, cuts, scratches, and whatever else… were simply gone.

She was going to have to practice that some, so she could emerge casually.

She reached up one hand, and knocked on the door. At this hour, it would be locked- and she was supposed to knock before entering anyways.

Finally, it opened. Madame Maxime stood in the doorway for perhaps two seconds before she stepped back. “Miss Delacour,” she greeted. “You’re alive.”

“I am,” she nodded, climbing the steps up into the carriage. “Turns out Volde- sorry, you know who- is vulnerable to Veela.” For as much as Hailey’s fearlessness regarding the name had bled off onto her long before, she knew it hadn’t for the rest of her schoolmates, and Madame Maxime still didn’t like hearing it. Perhaps she hadn’t spoken to Hailey enough?

“You killed him, then?” Maxime asked.

She shook her head. “You know I can’t do that,” she told her. “Just a little suggestion to get them running in circles long enough to escape.” She sighed. It was true; before her Papa Tango, she had lacked the power to imprint on anyone except the weakest… and her aura was weak enough, even when she pushed it, that only about a third of boys’ heads turned- a third of the ones that had never trained to defend against a Veela. It was to the point where any defense at all was enough to block her out- and combined with how her aura was weak enough only a few heads turned when she wasn’t pushing it, that was why she had been allowed to attend a human school.

Yet, Voldemort had defenses- she’d sensed them… and crashed straight through them. Had that been an effect of the Papa Tango? She hadn’t noticed any more heads turning when she had walked through the Castle before the Third Task- as a matter of fact, she hadn’t noticed any. That wasn’t uncommon; there were so many of them she’d long grown desensitized to it.

Madame Maxime took a deep breath. “Well. We won- you won.”

She nodded. “Yeah, Hailey told me.” She sighed. “A thousand bars. What the hell am I going to use that for?”

“I’m sure there will be something,” Maxime told her.

Fleur sighed again. “I don’t know if you know,” she muttered, “but I come from a very poor family. The Veela don’t want anything to do with us half-breeds, and neither do pure wizards- except for sexual stuff, of course.” She wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Father makes hardly five galleons a week- and there are five of us.”

“Five?” Maxime asked.

She nodded. “Five. Three of my sisters are homeschooled.” She sighed. “I was the oldest, but my aura is very tame, so I was allowed to attend a human school.” She sat in an armchair, and leaned back to stare at the ceiling. “Gabrielle- the youngest- doesn’t seem to have an aura, so she will probably also come to Beauxbatons.”

She sighed, sitting in her own chair. “I noticed you’ve been studying hard this year. Learn anything interesting?”

She smiled. “Aside from how to multicast? Yes, actually- quite a bit. Apparently Twilight Sparkle combined Ancient Runes and Arithmancy to create a…” She paused. “Hermione called it a ‘programming language’, but Twilight didn’t seem to know what that was either. In either case, a language of sorts that she could use to construct a complicated spell with complicated, well-defined behaviors. She taught me, and I’m pretty good at it, so that’s actually how I solved the Third Task- I designed and cast a spell that gave me a live-updating best route that avoided everything I wasn’t sure I could beat.”

“Then you won by the slimmest of margins,” Maxime told her.

“Well, yes. The fastest route had some of those monster crab things- Blast Ended Screwts, Hailey called them- some giant spiders, a sphinx, two dementors, and a dragon.” She sighed. “I avoided all those. Though I will admit, I did end up skipping past a sphinx while it wasn’t looking. Didn’t realize I could do that until I was doing it while fleeing from Moody and any other possible attackers.”

“You knew it was Moody?” she asked.

She nodded. “I cast a spell that let me see over the hedge,” she told her. Then she scowled. “Hailey said something about a trial?”

Maxime nodded. “Yes. That was actually Barty Crouch, Jr- the son of the Triwizard Judge by the same name- using Polyjuice Potion… and working to revive You Know Who.”

“... Oh,” Fleur muttered. “Well, he was successful.”

Maxime sighed. “You know we’ll be returning to Beuxbatons just in time for the graduation, right?”

She blinked. “Uhh… Yeah, I guess it is that time already, isn’t it?”

“And unlike half the rest of the students we brought, you’ve been studying hard enough that I have no qualms about letting you skip the final exam too,” she told her. “May I ask what you’re planning after graduation?”

She let out a sigh. “Oh, I don’t know,” she muttered. “Winning the Triwizard Tournament won’t make me any more appealing to employers, so…” She shrugged. “Maybe I’ll come back to Hogwarts to see if I can get a job here. With this many students, they’re bound to need more Professors, Student Instructor Program or not, and I can hope the Headmaster is able to recognize that.” She sighed again. “I don’t feel like I’m ready to teach the way they were doing, though. Even though they’ve only gone through half the schooling I have!”

“Must be something in the water,” Maxime grumbled.

She snorted. “Then I should’ve caught it too, after spending so much time breathing the stuff. Me, I think they’ve brought new knowledge and skills in from Equestria, and that was the result. No, I know they have- they told me as much.” She sighed. “Doesn’t explain how Hailey and Hermione- both British witches- managed to climb all the way to the top of their instruction program, though.”

Hermione looked up, in the middle of changing into her pajamas, when the door opened. Hailey must’ve finished with whatever she was doing, and come up to bed.

But it wasn’t Hailey that entered.

“Hi Hermione,” Silversong smiled, waving, as she headed for her own bed.

Hermione dropped her pajamas on the floor and charged to hug her. “S-Silver!” she cried. “You’re alive! I thought you died!”

“Well… I did.”

She blinked, then leaned back from her. “What? How does that work?”

“Easy,” Silver answered, then grinned. “I got resurrected. By the Gods, no less. Godric gave me his sword.”

“Where’s Hailey?” Parvati asked, trotting over from her own bed.

Silver shrugged. “She said she had some work to do in the Room of Requirement, and would be up in a few minutes.”

“In the meantime,” Hermione mumbled, hugging her again. “Think we can cuddle tonight?”

She could feel Silver’s grin. “Thought you’d never ask.”

Author's Note

In case you haven't noticed the comments of the last chapter, this one introduces more events that help it spiral into damnation. However, I've noticed the twist to damnation was very abrupt rather than gradual as in the past stories- I'm likely only going to need to retcon a couple of chapters when I return to it after a hiatus, since my muse is so focused on TGwDJL right now that I've got 20 chapters in the queue and it's not looking like it's going to give way anytime soon.

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

When did Hailey return to the table to show Fleur the bit-to-bar transition? No idea, and I can't be bothered to decide & mark it. This chapter will be retconned anyways... though most of it will remain intact, since it's really only the conversation during Silver's resurrection that aids the damnation.

Chapter 80: Missing

“Hey Silver. Have you seen Hailey?”

Silversong raised an eyebrow as she looked up from her breakfast. That morning, she had been dogpiled by her friends, and by much of the rest of the school as well- every single one intent upon asking her how she survived Voldemort’s spell. She was already tired of telling people that she hadn’t.

So now, she looked up to see who was asking.

The girl was unfamiliar. Her gently wavy dark blue hair was set over her shoulder so it cascaded down over her chest, completely hiding the patch that indicated which House she belonged to.

“Nope, pretty sure she’s still in bed or something,” she muttered, before scowling at her bacon. Something didn’t feel quite right. “Why?”

The girl shrugged. “I need to talk to her,” she told her calmly. “Then the Room of Requirement is misbehaving, and she’s the only one that understands it well enough to fix it.”

“The Room of Requirement?” Silver asked in alarm.

The girl blinked, taken aback. “Uh- Yeah. It’s not letting us enter it to use the floo, but we are able to leave it.” She rubbed her chin. “And the ceiling is missing when you Floo inside.”

“Great,” Silver sighed, putting her hands on her face. “Parvati? Did you happen to hear her coming up to bed last night?”

Parvati Patil, sitting two spaces away from her, looked up in mild surprise. “Huh? Um, who?”

“Hailey.”

Parvati scowled, rubbing her chin. “Nope, I don’t think so. Why?”

Silver looked back at the strange girl. “Because last night, she said she had some work to do in the Room of Requirement before she went to bed.”

There were a few seconds of silence.

“Oh My,” the girl muttered. “Um…” She glanced around, now looking distinctly nervous. “Where’s Bonbon?”

“Bonbon?” Silver asked. “Good question.”

The girl sighed. “Thanks,” she muttered, and trotted off.

Hermione replaced her about two seconds later, sitting next to Silver and reaching for some food. “Sorry about that,” she muttered, then looked at Silver. “You okay?”

She looked up. “Yeah… I think. Why?”

Hermione sighed. “Last night, you said Hailey said she had work to do in the Room of Requirement, right?”

Silver nodded. “Yes?”

She scowled, piling food onto her plate as quickly as she could. “Just had an emergency meeting,” she told her. “Hailey’s missing, and the Room of Requirement isn’t working properly.” She sighed. “Half of the team has been looking for her for the last six hours, and now the whole team is. Eat quickly, please, you can help too.”

Bonbon sighed as she trotted up to the passage connecting to the Room of Requirement. “How’s it coming?” she asked. Silversong, Hermione, Morning Sun, Lyra, and Pinkie Pie were all sitting in a circle on the floor, in front of where the Room should be. It was about sixteen hours after Hailey had gone missing

Morning answered without looking up. “Not very well,” she said. “There’s something powerful rampaging its way around in the Room of Requirement. It doesn’t seem to be doing further damage, so we’re crafting a spell to make sense of it.” She sighed. “Judging by how much Hailey has done for us with the Room, she’d probably be able to make this spell in five minutes, or even skip it entirely, but nooo.”

Bonbon sighed. “Well, we’ve already confirmed she’s nowhere else in the Castle,” she informed them, then resisted the urge to offer her help. She knew what was going on; she was the single most powerful Seer that either world had ever seen, after all. She’d known this would happen since before the Tournament had even begun… and hadn’t told anyone, not even Celestia. Nobody was in danger, but it was an event that Hailey probably wouldn’t want made public. It was also something Hailey likely would have acted to prevent had she known it was coming, inadvertently causing a much less favorable chain of events in the process. “Dinner will be in an hour and a half or so,” she informed them, and continued on her way.

“Hey Sis!”

Parvati looked up, from where she was lying on the surface of the lake as if it were a mattress. She wasn’t very good at analysis, and hadn’t learned much of Hermione’s magic principles, so she had left fixing the Room of Requirement and recovering Hailey to those that actually knew how to do it.

Her sister… was a different story. Padma had studied those principles with gusto, and as a Ravenclaw, was also very good at analysis- but she’d apparently figured she’d have better luck somewhere else, and had continued the odd research she’d started before.

“Yes?” she asked.

Padma trotted across the surface of the water, then sank up to her waist and leaned on the surface. “I-!” she began, and broke off, before taking a deep breath. “I need your help.” The way she spoke made it sound hard to admit.

Parvati rotated herself upright as well, so they were eye-to-eye. “You need my help?” she asked. “Did someone challenge you to an underwater race or something?”

Padma let out a small chuckle. “No, nothing like that. I… I think I know where Hailey is, but I’m-!” She paused. “I’m too scared to look.”

“You need me to keep you company, then,” she observed. “Sure. Where do you need me?”

“Um… It’s more of, well…” She paused. “I should probably show you what I discovered first.”

“You discovered something?”

She nodded. “Yeah.” Then she raised one hand to offer her. “Can I show you?”

She accepted it. “Sure.”

“Okay,” Padma answered, then closed her eyes to concentrate.

A second later, the world seemed to almost implode in on them- then, quite suddenly, they were both underwater.

“What the-?” Parvati asked, looking around. “Is this the ocean?”

Padma smiled, opening her eyes. “No, but it might as well be. This, Parvati, is the Water Elemental Plane.”

She looked around. “Elemental Plane?” she asked, slowly.

She nodded. “Yes. This is where we get our swimming and water control abilities from.” She sighed. “It’s an infinite, three-dimensional expanse of water. And I checked, this water is also compressed to about thirty times its normal volume as well, despite being incompressible. That kind of pressure results in instant death or destruction to anything that isn’t a water elemental.”

She glanced down. “Our clothes are fine,” she observed.

“They are protected by our powers,” Padma explained instantly. “Just like how the water around us is protected by the power of the Elemental Plane. It’s the same way a phoenix-born’s clothing becomes fireproof when they put it on.”

“So… How do we draw power from here…?”

“Through the Magic Elemental Plane. I’d take you there, but it’s stupidly turbulent right now and the magic density is so high it’ll rip any shield we try to cast to smithereens. Hailey’s shields would probably stand up to it- except she’s a magic elemental, she wouldn’t need a shield. The same way we can’t be hurt by water.” She sighed. “Overall, it gets… complicated. Elemental magic relies on a particularly rare Equestrian facet to manifest, hence why we weren’t elementals- or at least didn’t exhibit the properties of such- before our Papa Tangoes.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Rare?”

She nodded. “Yes. My estimate is that one out of every quarter million or so Equestrians have it, after Celestia helped me survey half of Equestria last week. Er, Princess Celestia, sorry. You’d swear she wasn’t a thousand years old- she really enjoyed getting the Royal Guard well and truly lost, and even getting mugged once, while disguised. Not that either of us were carrying anything of value, thanks to hammerspace, nevermind that very few muggers will stay standing when the Princess of the Sun unveils herself right in front of them.” She sighed, and put a hand to her forehead. “Yeah, I know, that sounds so much like something Hailey would say, but…” She shrugged. “Speaking of Hailey, she helped me survey a selection of densely-populated cities around the planet on the morning of the Third Task, and not a single person had it, wizard and muggle alike.”

Parvati tilted her head. “So if nobody has it over here, and it’s incredibly rare in Equestria… why do we both have it? Or, I assume we do.”

Padma nodded. “We do. We have it because when Hermione Granger designed the Papa Tango, she based it on Pinkie Pie and Princess Twilight Sparkle- both of whom are magic elementals.”

She blinked. “You mean everyone that has gone through the Papa Tango has it.”

She nodded. “Yes. It’s a native part of the Papa Tango- which she’s recently expanded to also confer British magical abilities as well, meaning it’ll also work on regular equestrians and muggles alike. And of course, since that facet also allows even non-elementals to tap into the Elemental Planes just a little bit, it also means someone with the Elemental Link, I call it, is about five times as powerful as they might have been otherwise.” She sighed. “I estimate about half of all entities, Equestrians, wizards, and muggles alike, are attuned to one of the Elemental Planes- and so, if they have or acquire the Elemental Link, they will become elementals.”

“Ahh.” She nodded. “Alright.”

“Anyways. For someone- or somepony- that is elementally attuned, as we are, having the Elemental Link results in a much larger boost to our wellsprings- about twice that of someone that isn’t attuned, since we’ve got a powerful link to our Elemental Plane and can draw not just elemental power but regular magical power from it as well. As a result, I’m one of the top ten most powerful unicorns to have ever set hoof in Canterlot Castle, despite knowing next to nothing about magic. Or, well, unicorn magic. Celestia even promised me a place at CSGU once I graduate Hogwarts, if I want it.”

“So why are our abilities so different? Unless you can teleport through water, of course.”

She smiled. “No, I can’t. That’s because even elemental magic needs a path- so it flows through our Equestrian magic facilities. It behaves very differently from normal magic, but Equestrian facilities happen to work with it too.” She shrugged. “As a result, the three Tribes get different elemental powers, on top of the ubiquitous ones. We can both swim real fast, we can both see long-distance underwater, we’re both immortal when submerged, and we can both make it rain by getting too distressed. However, I can’t treat water like a warp gate like you can, and you can’t create water nearly as fast as I can- that’s the tribal differences. Though it’s technically not creating water, it’s venting some of this water into the mortal plane.

“By the same difference, Sunset and Angelina are both fire elementals- or phoenix-born, if you prefer. We can visit the fire elemental plane if you want, but it’ll kill us very quickly, and my shields won’t last more than a minute or so. Both of them can set themselves on fire, are fireproof, and will rejuvenate by Phoenix Fire if killed- yet only Angelina can travel by Phoenix Fire, and only Sunset can throw it around wherever she likes. As you may be able to guess, Angelina is a pegasus, like you, and Sunset a unicorn. Sunset is also one of the top ten most powerful unicorns to visit Canterlot Castle, but that’s beside the point.”

“What about the Etrahs?” Parvati asked.

She shrugged. “No idea. Haven’t seen any. I’m pretty sure Ariel is an Air elemental, but since she’s still stuck in her astral form, she can’t use her elemental powers, so Merlin only knows what they are- aside from flight, presumably, but she’s already a pegasus. Fleur Delacour is an earth elemental, so she can presumably swim through stone the same way we swim through water, but we don’t actually know what her powers are. That’s another elemental plane we can visit- the Earth Elemental Plane is riddled with interestingly-shaped caves and ravines, in the absence of both water and gravity, so there’s plenty of space- though we have to bring our own air.”

“If… Then how do you know our abilities?”

She shrugged. “Because I’m attuned to the Water Elemental Plane as well, I can easily view the substrate of the Plane- and source of our powers- and calculate what the effects will be. I can’t do that for any of the other planes- even the two we can visit, however briefly.”

“I take it we can’t visit the Air elemental plane?”

“No, we can’t. Really high pressure, just like here, and far too high of oxygen concentration- we’d suffocate from intense oxygen poisoning basically the moment we got there, and, uhh…” She sighed. “Anyways. I asked you to come with me because I think I know where Hailey is, right?”

She nodded. “Yes?”

“Well…” She sighed. “There’s a sixth Elemental Plane. We can’t enter it, in part because matter does not and cannot exist there- but we can, theoretically at least, look at it. When I used a micro-wormhole to shoot a scanning spell into it earlier, it picked up a signature that looked similar to Hailey’s- but even in the scant three seconds I had that tiny thing open at arms’ length, the feedback nearly killed me.”

“Feedback?”

She nodded. “Not technically- rather, it’s filled to bursting with a form of energy I haven’t been able to capture, inspect, or anything- I expect it is to magic like magic is to us, or worse, something that even magic can’t touch. It certainly treated all my efforts to affect it with disdain, though it didn’t have any qualms about ravaging my body.

“Fortunately, it rapidly dissipates back into that sixth Elemental Plane, so we don’t have to worry about it sticking around to keep doing damage.” She took a deep breath, and let it out. “I did a few experiments earlier, and figured out how far it will flow from the gateway- but at that distance, I can’t hold the gate open for more than a few seconds, so…” She sighed. “Nevermind I can’t control enough magic to make a decent-sized one anyways.”

“You mean, you need my help using magic?”

“Well… Yes. The thing is, if we build the spell between us rather than within one of us, we can activate a spell many thousands of times more powerful than either of us could handle. On top of that, if we draw on the power of the Elemental Plane around us to power it, even a pegasus like yourself should be able to manipulate it like a unicorn.”

“Alright.” She took a deep breath, and let it out. “You should know that I know less about this kind of thing than you do, so…”

Padma nodded. “I’m aware. You can cast the- what did Hailey call it?” She paused. “I forget. The ‘protego’ charm, right?”

“Protego?” Parvati scowled. “I think it was something about multipurpose shield charm or whatever. But yes?”

“Your part in this will be exactly that, just without a wand. And if you mess up, it’s no big deal- there’ll be a big bang, and it might sting- but since we’re doing this in the Water Elemental Plane, we’re both pretty close to as invulnerable as Hailey, so neither of us will be hurt and we can try again right away.”

“Ahh,” she muttered, nodding slowly. “Um, before we start, does this sixth plane have a name?”

Padma sighed, looking uncomfortable. “Um… Yes,” she capitulated. “So does the energy from it. I’d rather not, er…”

She raised an eyebrow. “What is it?” she asked sternly.

She sighed. “It’s…” She rubbed the side of her head. “Oh, alright. It’s the divine plane, the source of a god or goddess’ power. Divine energy can be used to manipulate magic, so I’m hoping the same is true in reverse.”

“Oh Merlin,” Parvati said, leaning back in the water and rubbing her forehead. “You’re going to turn yourself into a goddess.”

“Hopefully not,” Padma answered. “Unless our wellsprings change, even if we can manipulate it with magic, we’ll still be far more limited than actual gods and goddesses, and the only worthwhile use of such manipulation would be to be capable of entering the Divine Plane.” She shrugged. “I’m fairly certain Hailey could enter and protect us in any of the Elemental Planes with impunity, simply because her shields can stand up to the pressure here and in the Air plane, the heat of the Fire plane, and the thaumic density of the Magic plane. The Divine Plane I’m not so sure about, since I don’t know if magic can stop the dangerous divine energy, but that’s where her signature is coming from, so…

“Then of course, I’m taking every precaution possible. My initial experiments were in Ravenclaw Tower or the Lake, but since we’re doing it here, I’ve got all the power I’ll need to shield us and our wellsprings in every way I know, and to contain the divine energy in the first place, if at all possible. On top of that, I’ve estimated the maximum distance it will flow before dissipating back into the Divine Plane… and we will be forming the portal today at least five times that distance away from us, then using magnification and remote scan spells to see through it without exposing ourselves to danger. I’m also going to pause for a few seconds after building up the power we need before releasing the spell, to ensure the Water Elemental Plane isn’t diminished in any way when the portal opens, even though I expect neither us nor the portal will be able to make even a tiny dent in the amount of energy available here, so…” She shrugged. “Still, though. As Hailey likes to say, better safe than sorry.”

Parvati laughed. “Better safe than sorry,” she agreed, then raised an eyebrow. “Hailey likes to say that?”

“Oh yes, she said it a few times when we were out surveying a few cities for my research. When I asked, she pointed out that she’s only invulnerable to physical harm. She’s not immune to making mistakes, political damage of all things, or even emotional pain if one of her friends gets hurt or, Celestia forbid, dies.”

“Celestia?” Parvati asked, raising an eyebrow.

Padma nodded. “Her words, not mine.”

Author's Note

Welll, remember what I said about "last I'm confortable publishing" last chapter? That was because it was true. When I posted it to patrons.

Now, when I'm posting this chapter to patrons (on schedule, by the way)... it's not. A few tweaks and a little rewriting and suddenly, I've got a half-dozen new chapters and ideas floating around for more!

Even though my attention has been... divided, somewhat, between AI, SF, GoD, and TBwDJL... Even TF might finally get an opener written, but let's be fair, I'm probably going to need to flesh out the plot a bit more before that one gets off the ground.

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

So I've finally decided to publish this... in its original form. It's been a little under a year, and I know today isn't AI's update slot... Wait, actually, it is, would you look at that. Updates on Tuesday, and today's a Tuesday. That only happens on Tuesday!

The thing is... I've changed my mind about exactly how I'm going to go about keeping the story on the rails:

I'll just let it go off the rails. Make a train (or two) derail in the story, and cook up a scene where the characters get together to discuss recent story events and wonder what in the world has been going on, perhaps damage the fourth wall... then kinda pretend the rails went that way to begin with, and 'bludgeon' it into shape.

I will no longer be stopping and holding while I wait for my muse to want to rewrite yet again. Now, this won't stop the TGwDJL rewrite that's mostly complete anyways (and a hundred times better than the original, I'm glad I rewrote it), but it means AI is no longer waiting for a rewrite of the last couple dozen chapters. It probably won't be overly popular going forward, since so many people have left and it's not on too many bookshelves (only eight hundred or so with over three hundred tracking), but that's beside the point.

I'm going to continue this story. I'm going to reuse some of the events that were written into the next few chapters, and find a way to smush them into line and make them make sense. I particularly liked one scene that involved pancakes... though I will want to redo the follow-up to it. Look forward to the "what the hay is going on" scene next chapter!

Now. A little Q & A.

Question: What happened to Patron early access to this chapter?
Answer: It was there. A year ago. And this chapter has been live, on Patreon, all year.

Question: What will happen with the Patreon early access going forwards?
Answer: Given my writing pace, it will probably be dropped. I don't want to drop it, though, so if I can manage it, expect me to reinstate it at some point. I do have more free time each week nowadays, despite still being in the trucking industry... That said, if I can't reinstate it, I will be rethinking my tiers once again.

Question: Where is this story going from here?
Answer: You know (almost) as much as I do as I'm writing this. Before I write the WTH scene for next chapter, I need to reread and check my storyboard documents to refresh my mind on exactly where the story is.

And of course, I need to fix the broken Discord links.

Chapter 81: Upgrade

It was a disaster. Yet… Maybe it wasn’t? Padma wasn’t sure exactly what had happened.

Exactly as she had predicted, Parvati had easily been able to serve her part in the spell. They had easily been able to accumulate the power required to open the portal, and even a bit more.

However, the Divine Energy had not behaved as she had expected; it turned out that the more of it there was, the slower it dissipated back into the Divine Plane. As such, it had blasted both of them from the mere three-inch portal she had opened. Parvati had let out an oddly echoing scream of pain, but miraculously, had not dropped the spell. Padma gritted her teeth and concentrated on the magic, rushing it along. She couldn’t rush the portal closing; as a matter of fact, she couldn’t close it. She could only stop supporting it, causing it to collapse naturally- and she’d already designed the spell to be as brief as possible with the portal.

Unfortunately, her magic scanning spells weren’t able to discern much through the portal… But fortunately, they were able to pick out Hailey’s signature. There seemed to be a lot more, but that was all she could discern.

Then, the portal had closed… and before the Divine Energy had stopped burning them too quickly for them to regenerate in the water, she had found herself, quite suddenly, standing on something solid.

She tried to let out a cry of surprise as she collapsed, but her vocal cords weren’t working. Neither were her eyes- but her ears had survived. They were ringing madly, and badly distorted, but she picked out the heavy thump of Parvati hitting the ground as well.

The landing hurt. She landed on her side, and her head jerked against her shoulder. At the same moment, a searing pain appeared in the already-burned back of her neck. Probably a sprain. She tried moving her arms to try and feel out the odd surface she was lying on, but to no avail- her burned muscles weren’t nearly strong enough to move her arms.

So she lay there, hoping that someone would find her and Parvati, wherever they were, and throw them in the lake. It wasn’t something she’d ever even dreamed of hoping before she’d become a water elemental, but that didn’t really matter.

Somewhere around a minute later, the ground disappeared- then promptly re-appeared. Painfully. This time, it felt like grass.

She lay, unable to move, for about a minute before somebody seemed to notice.

What felt like the footsteps of a few people ran up to them. “What the-?” someone cried.

“They look badly burned,” another observed. “We need to take them to Madam Pomfrey!”

If her muscles had been working, she would have winced. She needed the lake, not Madam Pomfrey!

But they picked her up, rather roughly, and started carrying her.

By the time they mentioned seeing the Hospital Wing, her heart was beginning to burn. These idiots were going to kill her and Parvati- assuming Parvati hadn’t already died, of course.

They opened the last door. “Madam Pomfrey?” someone asked.

“She’s not here,” answered a strangely familiar voice. “What is-? Why are you bringing those two to the Hospital Wing?” It took Padma a few seconds to place the voice, but then she realized who it was.

Silversong.

“Because they’re hurt…?” one of the girls carrying her answered.

Silver sighed audibly. “Well, they’re water elementals. Throw them in the lake.”

“The lake?” someone asked.

“At this point,” Silver muttered, “they’ll die before you get there. Allow me.”

She felt a sudden flow of Equestrian Raeth magic- levitation, it felt like. The hands got peeled off of her… then a far faster thaumic shift that she recognized as direct manipulation of the finer magical principles, and she could feel the breeze on her skin. Then… Silver dropped her too.

She supposed that she was about to die- but as soon as she did, she landed with a splash.

Cool, refreshing water flowed around her, instantly curing the aches and pains throughout her body, mending her. Her eyes, muscles, everything returned to normal in a matter of seconds.

She promptly surfaced, sticking her head out of the water to look for Silver. She found her, standing calmly at the water’s edge. “Hi,” she began, then paused. “Um… Thanks.”

“So, what happened?” Silver asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Good question,” Parvati said, sticking her head out of the water as well, then looked at Padma. “Last I remember, you were just starting to build that spell?”

Padma sighed. “You must’ve been knocked out when we landed,” she muttered. “The spell worked. I must’ve missed an important property, so I miscalculated the safe distance, and we both got blasted. Not sure how we got back to Hogwarts, but we did.”

Silver sighed. “So how’d it look?”

She shook her head. “Detected her signature again, and it was definitely her this time- but the damn thing burned my eyes out too fast to actually see.” She sighed, and leaned back in the water, keeping her face above the surface so Silver could hear. “And I don’t think I’ll be able to do it again, the safe distance will be too far for us to handle without at least three raeths.”

Suddenly, a girl with pink and dark blue candy floss hair and a Slytherin badge jogged up behind Silver. Padma recognized her immediately, but couldn’t remember her name- they’d never spoken, she’d only seen the girl talk to Hailey a number of times during her studies of the finer magic principles. And always in hushed tones that she couldn’t hear, to boot.

“Hey,” the girl greeted. “Padma, Parvati, Hailey is going to want you both to meet her in her office at five o’clock, in about two hours.” She smiled. “And my name’s Bonbon, by the way.” She turned to leave.

“She’s back?” Silver asked her.

Bonbon paused to look at Silver, and her smile widened. “No, but she will be. If you join Hermione after your shift, you’ll be one of the first to meet her.”

“After my shift, huh?” Silver muttered, raising an eyebrow. “Alright, I’ll take it. Thanks, Bonbon!”

Then, Silver vanished into thin air, using what Padma now recognized as Hermione’s Misty Step spell, and Bonbon trotted away.

Hermione glanced up as some footsteps approached, but it was only Silversong. “Still not getting anywhere,” she grumbled. “I swear, this thing is Hailey levels of crazy.”

Pinkie Pie, sitting next to her, sighed as well. “And I thought I was the crazy one,” she muttered, before leaning back. “I miss the days when I was the crazy one.” She chuckled softly, then looked back down. “Hangon, it’s stabilizing. We might be able to get somewhere.”

Hermione looked back down. “It is.”

Very suddenly, the fluctuations within the Room of Requirement… stopped. That was, the fluctuations within the glass marble embedded in the wall across from the Room, which also happened to contain the Room. It was positioned directly in the middle of the core Castle ley line, making it part of a virtually indestructible magical column- and incredibly difficult to reach.

“It’s stopped,” she muttered, then scowled. “It looks almost normal. But we should be able to-!”

“Uh, guys?” Silver asked.

She looked up… then followed Silver’s gaze to the opposite wall, where a large door- one she recognized as that of the Room of Requirement- had appeared, still closed. She rose to her feet, stepped forward… and, slowly, opened it.

It opened into a truly massive, empty room, large enough to fit the entire Castle a couple of times over.

And there was Hailey, lying spread-eagle on the floor in the middle of the room.

“Hailey!” she cried, and bolted forwards. Silver followed right behind her.

When they reached Hailey, it was to find that she was awake, and staring at the ceiling.

“Hailey!” she repeated. “Are you okay?”

Hailey sighed, and closed her eyes. “Yeah. Just… Adjusting. Give me a moment, please.”

They waited, somewhat impatiently.

Finally, Hailey sat up, flexed her fingers, took a deep breath, and let it out. “Alright, you may hug me now.”

Pinkie laughed, but neither Hermione nor Silver really cared too much about the specifics of her wording, and both hugged her at once- moments before Pinkie wrapped them all in a massive bear hug.

“What happened?” Hermione asked, once they had drawn back.

“I probably should have seen it coming,” Hailey answered. “This is- or at least, was- the Full Castle Record. That function has been broken, though, because it accomplished its purpose: To overload the space-time continuum with pure information density.” She sighed. “And idiot me had to be so careless as to get caught in the middle of it.”

“At least it couldn’t hurt you,” Silver observed.

Hailey laughed. “In a manner of speaking, maybe, I suppose,” she told her. “Fact is, it did hurt. My invulnerability was magic-based, so anything higher than magic- say, breaking magic- can go right through it.” She sighed. “I’m lucky I survived. I guess it remains to be seen exactly what effects it will have…?” She sighed.

“Good evening, Sadarina,” Hailey greeted, as she stepped around her desk and sat down.

Sadarina looked up from her screens. “Hailey,” she observed calmly. “You’re back.” She hopped out of her seat, and walked towards her. “You seem… Different.”

“I know,” Hailey answered. “I am.” She sighed. “I really should have seen it coming. I even commented, a mere ten minutes before it started, that I must have been due for a ‘surprise power-up’!” She reached down, and lifted Sadarina into her lap for a hug. “I was unconscious these last three days.” She chuckled. “It’s a good thing you don’t actually need me, isn’t it?”

“I do need you,” Sadarina corrected, returning the hug. “If you were to die, all of Dementor Kind, including myself, would be devastated… and it’s a distinct possibility that I and some others might become Husks after such an event.”

“Well, I certainly don’t plan on dying,” she told her.

“Come in.” Hailey gently set Sadarina back on her own feet and rose to walk around her desk.

On cue, Bonbon entered. “Good evening, Hailey,” she greeted. “I hope it wasn’t too much trouble?”

“Nah, not really,” Hailey shrugged. “One moment, I stepped into the Room… and the next, I was waking up on the floor while Hermione and Silver ran in. But how about you?”

“The Room of Requirement acted up,” she answered. “We were able to arrive through it, but for departure, we had to use the common room fires again. Celestia asked me to invite you to dinner with her as soon as you got back- I think she’s also curious about what happened.”

“I take it you haven’t told her?”

“No, I have not.”

“Thank you. I’m probably going to, but you’re right, I’d like to keep it as strictly need-to-know as possible. Oh, and before I forget, may I ask your past self to show up here a minute ago, and have Padma and Parvati show up in a minute or so?”

Bonbon smiled. “You may. You should also know the future has gotten, er, muddy around you, so I’m not sure how reliable my fortune-telling is going to be.”

She scowled, and rubbed her chin. “Hmm… Yeah, that could be a problem.” She sat on the end of her desk. “I accidentally rewrote my entire magical core, so who knows exactly what effects that’s going to have.”

Right on schedule, a knock sounded from the door.

“Come in,” Hailey called again.

The door opened… and the Patil twins entered, Parvati first.

Hailey chuckled. “Don’t worry, you’re not in trouble,” she told them. “If anyone is, I am.”

They blinked in surprise, glanced at one another, took deep breaths, and walked closer. “So,” Parvati muttered. “Why did you…?”

“Well, I heard what you were doing.” Hailey hopped off her desk and walked up to them. “You were digging at the barrier into the Divine Plane, right?” She sighed. “If you really want to get there, the unholy offspring of the Misty Step and the Time Turner magic will push the divine energy out of the way, since the divine energy simply can’t be controlled with normal magic, though it does require Alicorn power levels, which…” She paused. “It feels like you both ascended?”

Both twins blinked.

“Is that why I have wings?” Padma asked.

“I’ve… ascended?” Parvati muttered, then sighed. “Damn, I didn’t want to do that.”

Hailey laughed. “It could be worse, you could have accidentally rewritten your entire magical core and possibly even your entire being like I did. I’m going to have to relearn everything. And that’s if I’m lucky.”

Author's Note

Okay. So I've reviewed the next few written-but-unreleased-due-to-dissatisfaction chapters, and I think there's actually some interesting chapters coming up... I think I'm going to release a couple of them. Made a few tweaks, and I think I'll have my "everything is crazy" scene (which may or may not include characters from another story) at the beginning of Chapter 82, then plan on having Chapter's End and the like after 85.

But guess what? That means you've got a few more chapters of this old dinosaur to go before it gets the 'cancelled' label and goes permanently silent!

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

I've also been considering launching a third rewrite on the theme. I'm a much better author now (I think), and I'm going to want to address the issues with having thirteen thousand students at the Castle... as well as maybe make it non-optional for them to attend (possibly through something like TGwDJL, where they couldn't return to Equestria, but I want them to be able to return to Equestria... So maybe they detected worldwall instability, and know their universe will collapse, so are searching for a new home? That would explain why Lyra of all ponies was exploring so many universes...)

Chapter 82

“Alright, so now that this year of Roller Coaster Hogwarts is over,” Hailey began. It was the final Student Instructor Program Management Team Meeting of the year, timed on the morning of the Leaving Feast and indeed the Hogwarts Express back to King’s Cross.

“ ‘Roller Coaster Hogwarts’?” Bonbon asked.

“Well yeah,” Hailey answered immediately. “This has been a very eventful year- but I daresay it’s also a bit crazy. So how about: Very beginning of the Student Instructor Program. Incidentally also my first year at Hogwarts.

“I turned myself into a girl every day by whacking myself in the face. Hermione successfully figured out exactly what was causing it, which was magics that most fully-trained wizards do not understand even now, about a month after she first learned that magic existed. Tell me that’s normal.”

“A month?” Bonbon asked, looking at Hermione, seated two seats to Hailey’s right. “You should have told us you were that impressive!”

Hermione blushed. “It’s nothing,” she muttered.

“Then she invented the Papa Tango a month or so after that, in time to successfully cast it on Halloween,” Hailey continued.

Bonbon blinked. “That’s… That’s seriously inhuman. Are you sure it was within a couple months of the first time she’d learned of magic?”

Hermione nodded. “It was.”

Hailey chuckled. “And even Harmonia thought it impossible. Two months! There’s a reason Hermione ascended basically the moment her own Papa Tango finished. But of course.

“Angelina Johnson… was revealed as a Phoenix-born. Then we went to protect the Stone from Quirrell, and it was only after the fact that I realized it would actually have been safer if we just camped the entrance. It was our presence that made it possible for him to get it in the first place, after all.

“Second year. The Chamber of Secrets. Ariel. Ginny. Polyjuice Potion, which was way overkill. Lockhart. Dueling club, in which I demonstrated eighty percent of all non-lethal duel-suitable charms there are on Lockhart, without even facing him, by having Snape bounce them back at him in a mock duel. He demonstrated the other twenty percent.”

A wave of laughter swept around the room.

“I mean seriously. The Goddess of Reports. Even I don’t know where I found the paper for that! Then we went into the Chamber of Secrets to play a quick game of Dungeons and Basilisks, demolishing all of the Chamber’s support structures in the process. It’s now full of dirt, rock, and lakewater, by the way.

“Year Three. Goddess of Patroni. Enough said.”

The laughter was stronger this time.

“And the whole Sirius Black scare was a game to you, because you’d already met him and already knew it all,” Bonbon observed. “Why didn’t you end it early?”

“I still ask myself that,” Hailey sighed. “I knew everything I needed to know before I ever went to the Castle- I could have had Pettigrew captured and Black declared innocent before Sadarina ever woke up in the Hospital Wing.

“So. Summer. We killed Draco by pushing a fake down the stairs. I learned about menstrual cycles.”

Bonbon raised an eyebrow. “What’s that?”

Hailey shared a look with Hermione, then sighed. “A natural part of how human girls’ bodies work,” she sighed. “And if you don’t know about it… Whatever. We’ll explain later.

“Anyways. Quidditch World Cup happened that summer, and I got declared the Second Coming by muggles everywhere.” She snorted. “Still not a true God, though, even now. So I broke the Triwizard Tournament, and later realized I was never bound by the contract anyways, so it would’ve been no big deal if ‘Harry’ had simply never appeared, leaving us with just three Champions.”

“But Silver was a Champion too…?” Hermione asked.

Hailey shrugged. “She wasn’t bound by the Contract either, but nobody thought to check. Bit stupid, considering how thoroughly each and every one of us are trained to do exactly that, isn’t it?”

Everyone nodded.

“But of course, I was playing with time,” Hailey went on, “so I broke the Tournament, then got on the train to Hogwarts. Went there, my parents were resurrected younger than me. They… kinda disappeared, didn’t they?”

“Almost like we’re living in a badly-written novel,” Bonbon agreed.

“Exactly. Then we… randomly turned into ponies at the Welcoming Feast and started feeding each other. What in the world possessed me to do that in public, privacy spell or not?”

She looked around the room, but nobody answered.

“So we continue on. Treated fake-Moody like a chew toy and, despite knowing exactly where Voldemort was and having an alternate method to kill him perfectly available, I had to follow the Gods’ plan to resurrect him to death. I was already a couple orders of magnitude stronger than those real gods! So we kicked Moody around. Turned that into a game. Life isn’t a game! Unless of course, we’re living in a badly written novel. Or, heavens forbid, living in a badly written game. Maybe they’re speedrunning us.

“And let’s not forget the sudden and very strange visit that Hermione Gate, Hermione Greeter, and Hermione Impossible made, right around that same time. And how I ferried them back to Hermione’s Inc.”

Hermione raised an eyebrow. “Why don’t I know about this?”

“Because you’re not the only Hermione in the Multiverse,” she answered. “I can introduce you, if you want.”

She tilted her head. “True. And it’ll be a few chapters before I appear again, so I don’t even have to worry about that.”

Twilight blinked at her. “Chapters…?”

Hailey ignored it. “Anyways, Crabbe and Goyle suddenly became super-human for a single scene for some strange reason, and promptly lost that power. And guess-who gave Parkinson an insane amount of detention for throwing Silver’s name in… when it didn’t actually mean anything. What the hell?”

Morning blushed. “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”

Hailey shrugged. “It was over five chapters ago, so it doesn’t really matter any more. Anyways. Next up, I showed Hermione around Ponyville a little. That took a couple chapters. Ran into Angelina there, and Rarity made a few dresses. Not sure why that was important, it’s one of the few things everyone knows.”

“What are you talking about?” Starlight asked.

“Then the Tournament actually started, and we had to get Righteous Fury imprisoned for some reason,” Hailey continued, not even noticing Starlight’s question. “Or did he get that death sentence? Doesn’t matter, he was a one-off anyways.

“Few days later, Norberta came with the other dragons. Or was it weeks? Who knows, it was only the next chapter. Then I hired Queen Chrysalis, now Queen Crystal, to take Harry’s place during the Yule Ball, while I went out with the same date Harry does in canon: Parvati Patil. Am I that unimaginative?

“Then I went to Hogwarts and found a house-elf in my vault. Who puts elves in vaults, under piles of gold? It’s like they’re trying to kill someone!” She sighed. “Discovered some ancient house. Restored it with what was effectively a snap of my fingers… then it seems to have disappeared off the surface of the Earth, because I can’t find either it or Aurelia, the house-elf that was working on repairing it.

“So after the Yule Ball took three chapters and a particularly creepy look by the imposter, nevermind the ridiculousness that was Ronelda, the Patils got Papa Tangoed and became water elementals in plenty of time for the second Task… all so Harry could knock himself out against the statue. Let’s not forget the highly contrived event of those Slytherins throwing Fleur’s golden egg out onto the lake explicitly so Parvati would dive in to retrieve it and discover her Elemental powers.”

A series of snorts sounded around the room.

“That accident, of course, seemed to make Fleur super-smart all of the sudden. Just a couple chapters after that, she learned seven years of Runes and Arithmancy in just a month or two, all so she could make an auto-solver for the Third Task. Yet, apparently super-smart isn’t actually all that smart, because there’s nothing in the rules to stop any of the Champions from… summoning a broomstick and flying over the hedges! That task could have been a broom race instead of a challenge, and nobody thought of it!

“Then… the Graveyard. Whoever thought of killing and resurrecting Silver was an idiot because it makes no narrative sense, and it makes no sense for the deities to have the identities mentioned- they were shoehorned into those identities. Then Fleur reforming Voldemort by imprinting him-! And Voldemort turning out to be transfeminine as well, as the reason for him to become a Dark Lord!? Insane, I tell you! What’s next, is Fleur going to ascend for making pancakes?”

“Yes, next week,” Bonbon answered suddenly.

“Later this chapter,” Hermione nodded calmly.

Hailey shook her head sadly. “I was trying to be facetious,” she moaned.

“So what’s all this about ‘chapters’ and ‘scenes’?” Twilight asked.

Hailey looked up. “It’s…?” she began.

“I think you’re getting a little too violent with the Fourth Wall again, Hailey,” Hermione informed her. “Nobody else is going to understand.”

She rolled her eyes. “Right, yeah. I do that a lot, don’t I? Just… not on camera.”

“Come in,” Hailey sighed, looking up from her desk. Someone had knocked on her office door, even though the Leaving Feast was due to start in just a couple minutes.

The door opened, and Crystal stepped in. “Uh- Hi, Hailey,” she muttered, closing the door behind her.

Hailey turned fully towards her, and raised an eyebrow. “You’re uncharacteristically nervous today,” she observed.

Crystal flinched, then let out a nervous chuckle. “Well… Yes. The thing is, a lot of changelings were making noises about wanting to come here, so I polled the Hive a few minutes ago.”

She nodded calmly. “Okay. How many new students can we expect next year?”

She winced. “All of them. I’m not sure how I can tell them no, though.”

She tilted her head. “Isn’t your word absolute?”

“Well yes, it is, and they’re even magically compelled to comply, but if I can’t justify it to myself, I’m going to feel guilty about it, and-!”

“So we’ll have a lot of changelings next year,” Hailey interrupted, nodding. “We’ll want to restrict the numbers, but beyond that, it should be a problem. If I estimate from what happened this year, we should be able to handle as many as…” She paused, then nodded. “Seven hundred thousand or thereabouts, without taking the Hivemind into account.”

Crystal baulked. “That- That’s a third of the Hive!”

She shrugged. “And it’ll be fun to manage at that number, but that’s beside the point. I don’t see why we can’t let them come, so long as they aren’t abandoning duties back in Equestria. I can name quite a few ponies that have done that.” She tilted her head. “Though I have to ask, why so many so quickly?”

Crystal’s gaze fell. “They heard about Morning.”

“About… Morning? Isn’t she just a drone?”

“No, she’s a Jewel. She’s also really good with the whole disguise thing- even I didn’t realize she was a changeling until Diggory came back with the news Silver was dead.”

“A jewel,” Hailey repeated.

“Jewel,” Crystal corrected. “Capital J Jewel.” She sighed. “Jewels are indistinguishable from drones to anything but another changeling, and are an extremely valuable resource for the Hive, so they’re a secret class to the outside, never used in invasions or whatever.” She paused. “Hmm. You know how we, uh, eat emotions to survive, right?”

Hailey nodded. “I do.”

“Well…” She sighed. “There’s a few different ways we can absorb emotional energy.

“The first is ambient absorption. Picking the energy we need out of the air and absorbing it. Absolutely no risk to anything- except there isn’t a location in Equestria where that’s enough to permanently sustain a changeling. Hogwarts is a different story, but that’s beside the point.

“The second is the active drain, where we drain a pony of their emotional energy. It makes them exhausted, and if we go too far, we can cripple or even kill them. Unfortunately, that’s the main method the Hive uses to survive, even now- we don’t really have a choice.

“The third… If a changeling manages to enter into a true, loving relationship with a pony… The freely offered love carries many times the energy we could have extracted from that same pony, and doesn’t exhaust them to give. That… That’s what we call Jewels. There’s actually a physical evolution to them as well, but as I said, it doesn’t change much- they just live about three times as long, to match the pony lifespan of three hundred of your years, and can store much more energy within themselves. We call the pony they bonded to their Facet- and since a single Jewel living with their Facet can support a good fifty thousand changelings all on their own, both of them are considered treasures of the Hive, even though the Facets very carefully never find out about the Hive- and harm to either one will be avenged.”

“And… someone hurt Morning?” Hailey guessed.

She shook her head. “No. I realized she was a changeling when I recognized the emotional thunderstorm of a Jewel finding out her Facet had been killed.” She sighed. “Not counting Morning, there are exactly three Jewels in the Hive right now… and only one of them still has her Facet.”

“Ahh,” Hailey nodded. “So, they want to kill Yaxley for killing one of Morning’s Facets, even if she was promptly resurrected.”

Crystal nodded. “Yes.” Then she blinked. “Wait, Facets? She has multiple?”

She smiled. “She does.”

“... Oh. Well…” She paused. “If… If a Changeling ever manages to acquire multiple Facets simultaneously…” She sighed. “The interplay of love between them has a massive multiplicative effect on how much energy they can produce, making them even more valuable. And conveniently, achieving two at once causes them to evolve into a broodmother- boosting their lifespan to a thousand years or so, and giving them the ability to lay eggs.” She paused to look down at her hands. “The Hive has one broodmother right now, but one of her Facets is still alive, though on her deathbed, so she hasn’t been serving in that capacity.

“Once upon a time, I myself had four Facets. I was incredibly lucky, yet also unlucky; one of them died just weeks after I met the fourth one and evolved into the immortal Queen I am now.” She sighed, and closed her eyes. “Naturally, they’re all long gone by now- but for those two weeks, I collected enough to feed the entire current Hive five times over.” She paused, then opened her eyes and looked up at Hailey. “So… May I ask how many Morning has, if you know…?”

Hailey paused, then started counting on her fingers. “Um… Not counting Morning herself? Eight, I think.”

Crystal didn’t move for several seconds. “Eight?” she asked.

Hailey nodded. “Eight.”

“Eight,” Crystal muttered. “Eight is the last threshold Chrysanthemum told me about. Noling has ever achieved it- not even her, she was only a Broodmother, having gotten her fourth facet the day after her first died. It… That would make her a Changeling Princess, evolution effects unknown since none have ever existed, and senior even to me in the Hive.” She sighed. “No wonder it took so long for me to recognize her for what she is.”

“Princess, huh?” Hailey muttered, rubbing her chin. “Well… Her Facets include two alicorns, two pegasi that have done something very interesting and don’t realize it yet, an earth pony, a crystal earth pony, a dementor, and, er, whatever I’ve become, so it kinda makes sense.” She tilted her head. “I’m aware that drones, broodmothers, and Queens all look different, and that the higher up they are, the more pony-like they look- to the point of Queens actually having manes.” She looked at Crystal, who nodded. “Makes me wonder if her True Form actually looks like a pony, or if she’s still recognizably changeling?”

“That’s a good question,” she mused, then sighed. “So… You really want to let the Hive just come here?”

Hailey shrugged. “Like I said, I don’t see a reason not to, as long as it’s in manageable numbers. Just, um, it would be helpful to make sure they’re going after Yaxley, who did the deed, not Voldemort, because the only reason he ordered it was because he felt like he had to. He explained it to me after the Third Task- he views the Dark Lord Voldemort as the biggest mistake he’s ever made, and has been looking for a way to end it for a very long time now.” She sighed. “One of the things that makes it difficult is that he has to destroy his legacy first- if he doesn’t, someone else will take over and be even worse than he ever was.” She paused. “Which means it technically wasn’t even Yaxley but the legacy of Lord Voldemort that killed her.”

Crystal nodded slowly. “Alright, I think I can pull that one,” she said. “So, we’re going to be rescuing Voldemort from the social monster that is the Dark Lord Voldemort while we kill the same monster?”

Hailey nodded. “Yup.” She paused. “It’ll probably be ideal if Morning never finds out about it; she’s still afraid of running into the Changeling Queen. Anyways, I wonder how much longer we can wait before she realizes what she is?” She chuckled. “Anyways, Yaxley will be going on trial for next week, theoretically- but there’s a better-than-even chance he’ll just go into hiding instead, to serve the Dark Lord and eventually get killed by aurors, the Order of the Phoenix, or a changeling, whoever gets to him first.” She tilted her head. “Speaking of the Order, if you want to drop by the Dursleys’ sometime this summer in an adult form, I can probably get you invited to it; that would give you access to their information networks and plans, among other things.” She chuckled a second time. “Even Voldemort himself is actually a part of the Order; he’s already aware of a couple double agents, and will be using them to tell us about anything he thinks we should know.”

Three days after she’d gotten home from Beauxbatons, Fleur Delacour dressed quickly while her sister was still grumbling under her blankets, and let out a soft sigh when she finished.

Exactly as she had told Madame Maxime, she was one of five- and even the limited space of the Carriage made her home look roomy.

She didn’t have a room to herself. Nobody did, in her house; she shared a room with her oldest sister, the youngest three shared a room, and her parents shared the third room. Then of course, since her family firmly believed that any Veela should always keep herself dainty and beautiful, she had decided that it would probably be a bad idea to show them her muscles. Fortunately, her new Equestrian biology was much happier with mornings than she ever had been before, so it wasn’t that hard to dress with nobody watching.

Possibly even more fortunately, her family knew she’d won a thousand galleons; she’d had Hailey take her to Gringotts a couple days before the end of term, and exchanged a mere twenty of her thousand bars for the galleons her family would be expecting. She’d also promptly spent some of it on new robes for around the house; after she’d returned her Beauxbatons robes to the school, finishing out a seventh year in a row of wearing borrowed extras, she hadn’t owned any clothes- robes or otherwise- that fit her even remotely well.

And, just like with her wetsuit, Madam Malkin had been happy to custom-build her new robes, which would help mask her muscles. Apparently, the woman really wanted to be a designer, but just didn’t have the ideas to cut it- so was actually thankful for her challenges.

So she flicked her hair out behind her and, thankful that the Papa Tango had only given it an extra sheen that had made her mother, Apolline, practically glow with pride, left the room. A glance at the clock in the hall- the only clock in the house- informed her that she had time to make some pancakes for the family to enjoy before her father would need to go to work.

She glanced sideways at the small basket sitting on the counter next to the pantry as she entered, and smiled. Her family often couldn’t afford much more than a starvation ration, let alone magic wands, so there were only two in the family- her mother’s, and her father’s. She’d used her mother’s at Beauxbatons; it was her grandmother’s old wand, which the old Veela had possessed the influence to commission from some wandmaker or another. She’d long forgotten which one Ollivander had said it was during the Weighing of the Wands.

Then, she drew her shiny new wand out of her hair. It had cost her an amount that would have taken her father two weeks to earn- but against a thousand galleons, much less the fifty thousand that her total winnings were worth, seven or eight galleons was basically nothing, and nobody else was up to see her drawing it from such an unlikely place.

She took a deep breath as she faced the stove, then pointed her wand, concentrated, and cast the spell she’d spent the last few days coming up with. It was going to be quite power-hungry, so she fed it the same way she fed the hammerspace charm- straight from her wellspring, rather than relying on her wand, even though she was controlling it with the wand.

Exactly as it had when she’d tried it out in a few mock duels with Twilight (who she had beaten every time, despite Twilight being noticeably better each time), her new wand behaved a lot better for her. It channeled her magic far more efficiently, and was about three times as responsive- which lined up with what Ollivander had told her, about never getting as good of results with another wizard’s wand.

It took her close to a minute to fully cast the spell and tie it off- then she leaned against the wall to watch as it started its work, twirling her wand idly. She watched as ingredients appeared out of nowhere, mixed themselves into batter in mid-air without a bowl, then finally poured itself onto the air over the suddenly hot stovetop to get cooked into pancakes. She giggled softly at the spectacle of self-cooking pancakes, stowed her wand, and walked across the kitchen to get some plates while they cooked.

She stopped halfway across the room, though, when she brought her arm back down from stowing her wand; she seemed to have acquired a visible silver aura.

“What in the world…?” she muttered, staring at her hand as the aura intensified. It was almost like when she had discovered her Unique Talent- except, it wasn’t. The aura was already much stronger than that, and she wasn’t floating in the air.

Then there was a brilliant flash of silver light… and she wasn’t in her kitchen.

“Woah!” someone cried in alarm.

She whirled around, still taking in the odd, cloudy landscape, which made it look like thick, ankle-deep fog was rolling across the ground.

There, in front of her, was…

She blinked a couple of times, but it didn’t disappear. It was a tiny white… pony. It had a flowing rainbow mane and tail, tiny white wings, and what looked like a sun stamped on its… Hips? Flanks? Whatever they were. Its long white horn only barely reached up to her chin, and it seemed to be recovering from a surprise, staring at her with huge purple eyes.

“Uh,” she muttered, taking a step back. What was going on? Where was she? What was this pony creature?

“Oh,” the pony said suddenly, relaxing her stance. “Sorry about that, I wasn’t expecting…” She took a deep breath, and let it out, before offering a small bow. “I’m Princess Celestia of Equestria. Who might you be?”

She blinked again. Princess Celestia? But-!

She took a deep breath. Princess Celestia. The woman that had sent the thousand bars to replace the thousand galleons from the Ministry. And, incidentally, the ruler of Equestria. She let out her breath, then bent down and knelt on the ground, so they were more or less on the same level. “Fleur,” she told the mare. “Fleur Delacour.”

“Oh, the Triwizard Champion,” Celestia smiled. “I didn’t think anyone was going to be ascending around now.”

“Ascending?” she asked, scowling at her knees. That couldn’t be it- she was making pancakes, not doing something powerful or miraculous or whatever. “I’m not sure how I can be. But…” She looked up. “May I ask why you’re here?”

“Oh, I thought I’d visit Harmonia,” Celestia told her, then chuckled. “Now that I’ve learned all the techniques I’ll need to do so. Then you came along, and…” She paused. “I must say, it’s really interesting to see the scale difference between our worlds exposed so blatantly. I must be too used to being bigger than everypony around me.” She chuckled again.

“Ah, heh heh, yeah,” Fleur muttered, trying to imagine a world populated by ponies. Were they all waist-high or something? Or was it just that humans were big?

“Anyways, I’m curious what you did to earn your ascension?”

“I was making pancakes,” she muttered.

“Making… pancakes?” Celestia asked. “Huh. There’s probably more to it than that, but…” She sighed. “Harmonia probably knows. Oh, and it looks like you’re about done.”

Fleur blinked. “I am?” She looked down at herself, and paused. She had that visible silver aura once more. There were even bits of silver light flickering about her. “Oh. Um- it won’t hurt, will it?”

Celestia laughed. “No, it won’t. You might be a little different when you get back, though.”

The magic intensified, gradually lifting her into the air until she couldn’t touch the ground… Then, in a brilliant flash of silver light, she was back in her kitchen. She dropped about a foot to the floor, stumbled, and caught herself on the counter, breathing heavily. Finally, she straightened up, and looked around. She was still alone in the kitchen, though she could hear the noises of the rest of her family getting ready for the day.

And she seemed to have two extra appendages on her back- probably wings. She was tempted to unfurl one to make sure, but decided against it. If her family saw them, they would start asking questions- questions that would reveal how different she was. She shivered, and looked back at her pancakes.

There was a large stack of pancakes floating in the air in front of the stove, waiting for a plate to land on- and it looked like there was enough batter still floating in the air to make another batch or so.

So she plucked some dishes from the cupboards, and started setting them out. When she placed a plate in the middle of the table, the stack of pancakes flew over and landed on it.

Then she drew her wand again and cast a second spell, causing various toppings to appear, floating in the air, and land on their serving dishes around the table. Finally, she put her wand away and walked around the table to her seat while some fresh pancakes joined the serving platter and the last of the batter divided itself onto the air over the stove.

“Oooh, pancakes!”

She looked up at Gabrielle’s excited announcement, and smiled. “Yeah. I figured I had the time, you know?”

Gabrielle giggled, and ran to her chair.

Appoline was next to appear in the door. “That looks expensive,” she muttered, looking across the table.

Fleur grinned. “Not when it’s made so entirely with magic,” she told her. “I didn’t use any ingredients, just magic.”

Her father appeared next. “Magic can do that?”

She nodded. “Yes, magic can do that.”

He sighed, and shook his head, before walking towards his place at the table.

“Where did you learn to do that?” Appoline asked for him.

She grinned. “Hogwarts,” she answered. “After I very nearly got killed or severely injured in both the first two tasks, I studied anything and everything I could get my hands on- and their Student Instructor program was more than willing to oblige. One of them had even combined Arithmancy and Ancient Runes to create a… language of sorts that I can use to tell magic exactly what I want it to do.” She grinned.

“And… I hope it was useful, then?”

She nodded. “Oh, it was. I wrote a spell to make magic solve the Third Task’s maze for me- and would’ve been stunned by an imposter if an alert spell I’d set hadn’t warned me that he was attacking!” She didn’t like labeling it an ‘alert spell’, but it was close enough- even though she hadn’t known about the anticipatory magic sense of a Raeth at the time. Hailey had explained it to her later, when she’d asked how she had been able to dodge spells that she couldn’t possibly have seen coming.

Author's Note

What do I put here again...?

Oh, right.

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

I particularly liked making that first scene. It's part Hailey, ranting about how messed up her Hogwarts career has been... and part me, ranting about the problems that make the story uncontinuable. And the fourth wall break... and hers and Hermione's insinuation that they break it all the time when we're not looking...

Chapter 83

“You became a goddess?” Celestia asked, tilting her head. “How does one do that?”

Hailey shrugged her wings. She had accepted Celestia’s offer of dinner- but also told her that it might be convenient to have the other Princesses present, so they had waited. Now, Celestia, Luna, Cadence, Twilight, Pinkie, and Hailey were all seated around the circular dining table in Canterlot Castle’s private dining room, and she had just informed them what had happened during her three day disappearance… and her best guess as to what the results were.

“I think,” she answered simply. “And to answer your question, by breaking the laws of magic so far that reality falls apart.” She paused for a second, then continued. “Over a thousand years ago, the four British gods created Hogwarts- and with it, the Room of Requirement. One of the Room’s intended functions was to birth a new god or goddess, by overwhelming the spacetime continuum with sheer thaumic density. As you no doubt know, long before you manage that with simply compressing thaumic energy, you’ll split the Thaum and start releasing the magic back to the Magic Elemental Plane. They actually found a way around that- and a pretty clever one, too. If that magic is serving a purpose, and actively working as part of a spell, it won’t split the Thaum and won’t vent to the MEP, so they created the Full Castle Record to overwhelm it with thaumic information density.”

“But a standing information storage spell would have a gradually decaying energy content,” Twilight observed, “until it broke down, wouldn’t it?”

She nodded. “Their solution to that was brilliant. They stored the information with as much power as possible, so it would take a very long time to fade and break down- about fifteen hundred years, actually. They overcame the difficulty in powering such a hungry ambient spell by placing it in the heart of an artificial ley line, and feeding that line directly from their own powers by keeping at least one of them in the castle at all times ever since. And of course, they pushed the limit as far as they could by making it aggressively store anything and everything it could possibly store, important or not.

“Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough- they miscalculated the limits of reality by quite a few orders of magnitude. Before Lyra opened the portal, before I did my Goddess of Reports thing, and before I messed with it, it was set to reach equilibrium in another four hundred and fifty years or so, at less than a grain of sand on the beach compared to how much they actually needed.

“But then, Lyra opened the portal, and I did my Goddess of Reports thing- but even if I did that every week for fifteen hundred years, it still would have reached equilibrium far, far short of the energy needed.” She sighed.

“But you messed with it,” Twilight observed.

She nodded. “I did. One of the things about the Thaumion Flow is that manipulating it will allow just about anyone to rather casually violate a number of laws of magic… Well, if they’re able to manipulate it safely.” She glanced around the table, and smiled at the confused and curious looks she got back. “I discovered the Thaumion Flow myself, about a year after the Goddess of Reports, while I was experimenting with some extremely dangerous multiverse traversal magics. Most of them would’ve killed me if my Cutie Mark talent didn’t force my failsafes to be truly fail safe, so I didn’t teach it to anyone. Even once I worked out my access methods…” She sighed. “They’re deadly without my Talent, so I never passed them on either. But anyways, it let me break the laws of magic really as much as I liked.” She chuckled. “All that happened within a couple months after my ascension, but I didn’t really count it as an increase in power, since it was merely a technique- not unlike Hermione’s new principles.

“So when I messed with the Full Castle Record…” She sighed. “I made it self-powered directly from the Thaumion Flow. I increased the storage energy by about twelve orders of magnitude.” She chuckled. “Still wouldn’t have worked, except I expanded its information source to the Thaumion Flow as well, so it would record information from across the Multiverse.

“It took about eight months to overload. Naturally, since my own magic reserves were the same size as about two hours worth of that level of record-keeping, the chances were fairly low… Yet, last week, I walked into the Full Castle Record right about in the middle of that two hour window- and my reserves pushed it over the threshold. Had I not done that, we probably would have birthed a new, extremely powerful baby that could easily have destroyed half the multiverse by crying for mommy, or perhaps simply caused this entire universe to pop like the soap bubble it resembles from outside. But I did, and breaking the spacetime continuum like that conveniently bypassed my Cutie Mark, so…” She sighed. “I accidentally rewrote my entire magical core to run on thaumions instead of thaumic energy. That means I’m really not constrained by the laws of magic anymore, even without reaching for the Flow… but I have yet to learn to control it without going through regular magic to do so.”

“You haven’t?” Twilight asked. “But- but then how are you still discharging all of your duties? There’s no way you have enough time in a day!”

She shrugged. “Because I can still use magic… in a bit of a demented way, but I’ve been making it work.”

“Ahh,” Twilight muttered. “What’s a thaumion?”

“A Thaumion… is the twelve-dimensional version of the Thaum, found in the Void between the universes,” she answered. “It’s possible to travel in twelve dimensions with the Thaum- I did for quite a while before I discovered the Flow, after all- but the Thaumion…” She paused. “The Thaumion is to magic as magic is to electricity, you know? The Flow is what enabled me to make quick, accurate interdimensional jumps without any sort of device to steer them- even when I was controlling it with the Thaum. Interestingly enough, most Void civilizations get away with just using electricity, or sometimes other energy sources, to do the same thing- basically none of them have even heard of the Thaumion. I wonder why?”

“What about divine energy?” Celestia asked, after a pause.

“Divine energy, yeah,” Hailey sighed. “It’s four-dimensional- which incidentally makes it impossible to control with three-dimensional thaumic energy, but the unholy offspring of the Misty Step and the spell the Time Turners in the Ministry of Magic use will rather easily push it around and protect you from it, though it does require alicorn power levels, even for me.” She leaned back in her chair. “Meanwhile, it’s easy for higher-dimensional energy to manipulate lower-dimensional energy even with a multiplicative mismatch like that, so a universal God or Goddess, possessing divine energy, can easily control thaumic energy. And theoretically, I should be able to easily control both of the above, but…” She sighed.

“How would three-dimensional magic control thaumions?” Twilight asked.

Hailey smiled. “I’m not sure that it would be a good idea to tell you the details, or anyone for that matter- but if you twist four Thaum streams apart from one another in twelve-dimensional space and quantum-lock them to one another, such that none of them are positioned in the same three dimensions as any of the others, you can create a Thaum-based twelve-dimensional construct that can be used to manipulate the Flow. However, since the Flow is many times more powerful than the magic you use to control it… You’re still limited to the information you can pass into it through just one Thaum stream, which slows things down quite a bit, but you can still use it.

“Yes, it’s theoretically possible for the Thaum to control a Thaumion that is controlling some Divine Energy, but I never managed to do anything like that- the feedback from touching the Divine Energy always knocked the Thaumion out of my thaumic grip- and that ‘thaum stack’ simply doesn’t synchronize with Divine Energy like it does the Thaumion, making its direct iteration with Divine Energy unpredictable and so unexploitable.” She glanced at Twilight. “Who knows, you might be the one that discovers a safe way to make a thaum stack for thaumion control!”

Fleur shuddered.

She was absolutely terrified of what she was about to do.

She took a deep breath, and let it out. She had to do it. There simply was no other way.

She glared at the mirror in front of her, breathing firmly. She had to. She could only deny it for so long before it came back to bite her.

She glanced to the side, just to be sure. Yes, the door was locked- and besides, the rest of the family was occupied. Her father had gone to work, her mother was teaching the middle three magic, and Gabrielle was paging through Ancient Runes Made Easy in a doomed effort to understand how Fleur had made pancakes.

This was the only mirror in the house: The bathroom mirror. And it wasn’t one of those marginally-more-expensive ones that talked to you; no, her family had been able to afford very little that didn’t come from muggle second-hand shops.

She knew it wasn’t as big of a deal as she was making it out to be- but she had to know. Yet, she was afraid of what she knew it would be.

She knew already that she was even less human- or veela- than she had been before. A thought that hadn’t bothered her during the Tournament, where she’d just wanted to survive, no matter what she ended up doing to herself.

She took a deep breath… and finally swept off her shirt, watching the mirror.

The first thing she saw was that her muscles hadn’t changed at all. That was a relief, considering what she had expected to find.

So, she turned her back to the mirror. She knew something had changed on her back- she could feel it, after all.

She paused, took a second deep breath, and looked over her shoulder at the mirror.

She stared in disbelief.

Her back didn’t look all that different… except for the pair of textured mirrors covering most of it.

She slowly turned back around, simultaneously unfolding one of them so she could stare at it properly.

It… It was a wing, as she had expected.

She had not expected her feathers to be mirror-reflective and look like they were made of liquid silver.

She surprised herself with a sudden chuckle. “Must be my Veela heritage again,” she muttered.

She tried extending it fully- but no matter how she placed herself, her wing was just too big to fully extend in the bathroom, despite folding up nice and small against her back… But, she didn’t need it to extend fully.

Even though she’d just gotten them… Her feathers weren’t all properly aligned. Was it because she had leaned against them when she had leaned back in her chair during breakfast?

It was a good thing she was used to taking care of the family’s aging owl. Because of that, cleaning up and straightening her own wings was a matter of muscle memory.

It took her several minutes to finish, mostly due to the size of her wings, during which one singular feather had come out. It was one of her primaries- and when she checked the spot it had come from, and the stem of the feather, it looked like it had actually been ready to come out- like it was an old wing she’d had all her life.

Yet, she hadn’t even had it for two hours yet.

She sighed, and folded her now pristine wings, before slipping her clothes back on.

She couldn’t hide in the bathroom for too long- it was the only bathroom, after all.

So she picked up her shed primary feather, slipped it into an inside pocket, checked the mirror to be sure she looked entirely normal aside from her even shinier hair, and left the room.

Perhaps… Yes. Perhaps she could make a quill out of her feather? Though, it was a foot and a half long, so it’d have to be a very large quill.

Which reminded her. When she had found one of Ginny’s secondary feathers, Hailey had told her that they were extremely powerfully magical, and would make great quills… or possibly even wand cores.

She had to wonder exactly how long-lasting a quill she was about to make- and, if it was instead used as the core of a wand, what attributes a Veela-Pegasus feather would give it.

Speaking of quills… She could give it to her father, she decided. He was a stenographer, so he tended to go through them quite quickly; the five galleons a week were after he spent a sizable chunk of his paycheck on enough quills to last the next week. Perhaps he could come back with more each week, in exchange for the feather? She hoped he wouldn’t break it too quickly- she wasn’t going to pluck her wings to make quills, only collect the castoffs.

She could say… Yes. She could say that she’d found it. It was true enough.

Then she’d have to find some time to sneak off to Equestria with that teleportation spell Hailey had taught her and learn to fly.

Scootaloo sighed as she wandered slowly along the narrow cliffside path. She wasn’t entirely sure if she was ever going to go back to Ponyville. Silverspoon- whose parents had not allowed her to go to Hogwarts- had stayed behind and become an even nastier bully than Diamond Tiara had ever been, and was right. Ever since her return from Hogwarts this year, rather than simply being a pegasus with small wings, she looked like an earth pony with small wings clipped on, not even a real pegasus.

“Look out below!”

She jumped at the sudden scream, straight into the rock face, while she looked up in time to see something silver flash past, landing where she had been standing moments before and vanishing tracelessly into the path.

Then she blinked, and looked around. She was standing… behind the rock face? She seemed to be floating in place, almost like she was flying, rather than standing.

She looked down, at where the silver thing was decelerating some distance below her. “What the hay?” she muttered.

The silver thing quickly resolved itself into a mirror-reflective silver pegasus, which shook itself out. “Well that didn’t work,” it muttered, sounding female, and looked up.

There was a pause, in which they looked at one another… and Scootaloo realized the silver mare was actually an alicorn.

“Well hello,” the alicorn muttered, before flipping herself right-side-up and floating up next to Scootaloo. “Sorry, I didn’t see you there.”

“Uh… Hi,” Scootaloo muttered, backstepping slightly. “Who are you?”

“I’m Fleur,” the mare told her. “Fleur Delacour.” She glanced down at her. “You don’t happen to be an Earth elemental as well, do you?”

She blinked. “F-Fleur?” she asked. “The Beauxbatons champion in that-?”

Fleur nodded. “Yeah, that’s me. Wasn’t a very good idea in the end, but…” She shrugged her wings. “What’s done is done, and there’s no use crying over spilt milk.” She sighed. “Anyways, are you also an earth elemental?”

She tilted her head. “What’s an earth elemental?”

She shrugged her wings again. “I’d like to know that myself, actually. All I know is that I am one… and that’s what lets me swim through stone.”

She blinked. “Swim through stone? Nopony can do that.”

“We’re both doing it right now,” Fleur informed her matter-of-factly, before stepping through the rock face onto the path.

Scootaloo took a deep breath and followed, testing the edge first. Finally, she was back standing on the path. “Weird,” she muttered.

Wham!

Scootaloo flinched, but recognized the sound of Rainbow’s favorite way to land, so mostly she ducked.

Fleur wasn’t nearly so lucky- she leaped backwards in fright, then ducked underneath the prismatic shockwave. “Eeek! What was that?” She rose again, while Scootaloo turned around.

It was Rainbow Dash, alright. She had that fire of excitement in her eyes that she had every time she landed during a Rainboom like that.

“Hey, Squirt,” Rainbow greeted her, raising a hoof to ruffle her mane. “Whatcha doing out here?” Then she looked up at Fleur. “And I don’t think I’ve seen you around, Princess…?”

Fleur baulked. “P-Princess?” she gasped. “I’m not- I’m not a Princess-!”

“That’s Fleur Delacour, Rainbow. She’s British. Or… French, technically, but she doesn’t have Equestrian citizenship, so she’s not a princess.” It was a dark, almost-black alicorn about Scootaloo’s age with a wavy black mane, trotting up next to Rainbow. “Though on that thought, Fleur, you’ll probably want to know that by Equestrian law, all alicorns are automatically princesses. It only applies to Equestrian citizens, so it doesn’t actually apply to you, but most ponies will think it does. That’s why I wear a cloak everywhere on this side.”

Rainbow glanced sideways at her and grinned. “Even though it does apply to you.”

She sighed, and nodded. “Yes. Even though I do have Equestrian citizenship, which also makes me the youngest royal princess of Equestria.”

“You’re… Not wearing a cloak right now?” Fleur observed.

The princess shrugged her wings. “We were teaching Padma here to fly.” She gestured to the alicorn standing next to her, royal blue with a mane that looked like a waterfall. “It’s kinda hard to demonstrate flying techniques when wearing a cloak.” She grinned. “Not that we don’t also have my teacher here too,” she bumped Rainbow’s side with a wing, “but still.” She chuckled softly.

“Interesting,” Padma muttered, staring at Scootaloo.

The princess glanced at her, then at Scootaloo, and back. “May I ask what’s so interesting about Scootaloo?”

Padma nodded. “You may, Hailey. As I’m sure you did, I noticed that her wings are, ahh…” She paused when Scootaloo flinched away from her, shifting as if to hide her wings. “Well, I wondered if there was a magical reason for that, and there is: She’s an Earth elemental. And what’s interesting is that simply being an Earth elemental seems to interfere with the translation of ambient magic into flight magic- though judging by Fleur’s flying a minute ago, it’s not interfering with that sourced from the wellspring.”

“Flying?” Fleur asked, raising an eyebrow. “I’d rather call it ‘guided falling’.”

Padma shrugged her wings. “Better than I can do right now.”

Hailey rubbed her chin with a hoof. “Hmm. Do you think… Yeah. Do you think that an elemental embedded in their element would be able to handle the accelerated Papa Tango, regardless of pain tolerance?”

Scootaloo glanced at Rainbow for an explanation, but Rainbow was watching them with a look of confusion as well.

“Oh yes,” Padma agreed. “An Elemental has a direct connection to their Plane when immersed in their Element, and each of the Planes have far higher power levels than the Papa Tango- unless you were to accelerate it to a couple nanoseconds or something. It’d probably even accelerate it for us, right up to the limit of what it could attenuate.”

“Interesting,” Hailey mused, then looked at Scootaloo. “Hey, Scoots? Would you mind diving underground again for a few seconds?”

Scootaloo looked at the ground, and back up at her. “... Diving underground,” she repeated. “How?”

“Just think of it as if you’re diving into a lake,” Fleur told her. “It’s natural.”

“Same way I walk on water,” Padma chuckled.

Scootaloo took a deep breath, and tried it-

Then, sure enough, she found herself underneath the pathway.

There was a sudden flash of blue light and it felt like she’d just been hit by a bolt of lightning.

She shivered, and tried swimming back up to the surface.

It worked. Within seconds, she was standing on the path again. “Okay,” she muttered. “What was that light…?”

“Your wings grew,” Rainbow observed.

She blinked… then, slowly, turned to look at her own side. Then she extended her wing… Her normal-sized wing. Which made her look like a muscled pegasus rather than an earth pony just pretending.

“Yup, that did it. She should now be able to fly.”

She looked up at Padma’s words. “Y-You mean-!”

“How about we make this a triple flying lesson, then?” Hailey suggested, glancing sideways at Rainbow with an interesting gleam in her eyes.

Author's Note

So much of this chapter is still in "original" form, in line with the original plan in which Hailey had made herself a multiversal goddess. She hasn't; she's actually not a deity at all, though she has made herself into a multiversal being. Not that it matters, in the end.

I've missed Tuesday again...

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

If you're in the Discord server, whether or not you're the person that's bothering me with questions about the obvious right now, you've probably heard about something called AHH!

... That's an abbreviation, by the way. It's the abbreviation for the next installment in the Gate - OtIoPW - AI - AHH rewrite chain. Yes, I didn't think I'd be rewriting it again, but then my muse demanded a fresh attempt at the idea. I'm working on chapter six of it right now, and expect it to go live on the Tuesday slot either with AI's last chapter in another couple weeks, or a week after it (with accompanying "Chapter's End"/"Chapter Closed" installment that may get very fourth-wall-breaky). There's a few changes I've done there, to make people- and ponies- a fair amount smarter... and my solution for the Dursleys (which are actually evil in that story) shocked even me. I'm even using a "Good-Dumbledore-That-Wears-Too-Many-Hats-And-Believes-The-Ends-Justify-The-Means", which is going to make for some very interesting scenes later on.

Say nothing of the Killing Curse' (little known) fatal flaw.

That said, AHH! about sums up the tone of the story, which follows a lot more of a comedic approach (with Tonks hair blushing red or blanching white instead of her face, for example), but will not be full-on comedy. Things should at least make sense, even if there's a few jokes thrown in, and we won't have random nonsense like we did in The Gate. Or in OtIoPW. Or, hopefully, even in AI!

As another point, Hailey won't be following AI's tradition of growing more magically and politically powerful each year. And we also see far fewer named Equestrians, since the invitations are "random", so they don't all show up at once... I'll also (hopefully) manage to focus more on the Equestrian side, so it actually reads like an MLP crossover rather than a straight Harry Potter story with a few MLP names thrown in.

Guess who invents the Papa Tango this time! Though it will be renamed...

Chapter 84

Lucius Malfoy paused as he reached the office door. He was visiting Hogwarts to talk to Dumbledore about the next year; the Governors had come to another defer-to-Dumbledore decision, and he was- again- the spokesman for the Board.

And of course, when he had sent Dumbledore a letter to request an audience with him and Hailey both at once… Dumbledore had told him to come meet him in Hailey’s office.

Her list of titles was quite impressive, he had to admit. She was the Head Student Instructor for Defense Against the Dark Arts, the Student Instructor Program Management Team Lead, and the second-in-command of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement!

He sighed. There were twolines on that plaque, placed between each of the titles he could read as if they were more titles, just written in a different language. And of course, as he looked at it, he realized they couldn’t both be the same language either- the styling was different.

Whelp. If the girl had five titles, then so be it. It would certainly explain her behavior during Silver’s birthday party the year before, and her ridiculous successes. He still found himself hoping that she was okay with having so many titles, and that she wasn’t losing out on her childhood because of them.

He raised his hand, and knocked.

“Come in,” a voice called. Hailey’s voice, he realized- it wasn’t one he recognized too quickly, having only ever heard it during Silver’s birthday party, but he did recognize it.

So he turned the handle and let himself in with a small bow. Even with just the titles that he could read, she was an incredibly powerful girl… and not quite fifteen years old. Her birthday was three days after Silver’s, which was still a week away.

He paused, mid-bow, as his eyes picked out an Order of Merlin, First Class framed on the wall behind the vacant desk. Next to it was a plaque declaring her to be a member of the Dark Force Defense League… and next to that was another one, declaring membership in the Order of the Phoenix, even though that was supposed to be a secret organization.

… She was fifteen. No, not quite fifteen. What on earth had she done to earn all that at such a young age?

The desk, however, was unoccupied.

“I’m glad you could join us, Lucius.”

He looked.

It was Hailey. Her office was huge, and evidently complex- so of course, in an alcove off to the side, she had set four comfortable-looking armchairs around a circular table. She was seated in the one across the table from the entrance- and as he watched, she started pouring tea into four identical teacups.

The chair to her right was filled by a second black-haired girl. She was younger, and her hair was much curlier- but, he realized, he recognized her too. That was Sadarina, the little girl that had accompanied her everywhere at Draco’s birthday party.

The chair to Hailey’s left, on the other hand, held Albus Dumbledore.

He nodded gently, approaching. “Do you really have that many titles?” he asked, gesturing back towards the door.

She nodded. “Yes. Every single one of them was earned fair and square, and comes with its own responsibilities.” She sighed, and leaned back in her seat. “Even the two you can’t read.”

He froze. “You… You know I can’t read them?”

She nodded. “I know exactly who can read each one,” she answered simply. “If you’re wondering about the medals and plaques behind my desk, I got every single one of them at the end of the Triwizard Tournament last year, after holding Junior accountable. I’m still not sure how I earned the Order of Merlin, but Fudge said I should’ve already had it.” She shrugged.

Dumbledore chuckled at his dumbfounded look. “Don’t bother asking what those other titles are, she won’t tell you.”

“Of course not,” Hailey agreed. “They’re both… a little bit ridiculous. But anyways, you requested an audience with us?” She gestured towards the empty armchair.

He accepted it slowly, at least a little bit stunned by the extremely casual atmosphere she- and her office- projected. “Yes,” he muttered, then took a deep breath. “Well. Over at the Board of Governors, we’ve received word that someone in the Ministry is using their influence to try and force their way into Hogwarts, but we don’t know who.”

“Delores Umbridge, a Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts with a teaching style even worse than Snape’s was before the Student Instructor Program helped him improve and with no willingness to improve, is going to be a headache this year,” Hailey told them.

“That woman?” Lucius asked incredulously- nobody talked about it openly, but behind closed doors, Delores Umbridge was one of the most self-obsessed and infuriating Ministry members… and she had a very powerful family, making it basically impossible to get rid of her. “Hangon, how do you know who it is?”

She shrugged. “I happen to know some of the most powerful Seers in the history of Earth and Equestria combined,” she told him. “But of course, I was digging around in the Records Department last night, and uncovered the perfect weapon to use against her.”

A third girl suddenly stepped up to the table next to Lucius, and placed what looked like a document on it, next to his tea. He glanced up… and it was Hailey.

“What the-?” he gasped.

“It’s a construct,” Dumbledore smiled.

“It’s not a construct,” Hailey corrected- both Haileys.

“Not…?”

“Of course not,” the one with the document answered. “I’m a visiting goddess that just happens to look like your Hailey. And go by the same name.” She chuckled. “I even have my own Sadarina.”

Dumbledore blinked. “So why…?”

“Why am I here? Because your Hailey has done something very interesting… which isn’t mine to tell you about.”

Lucius raised an eyebrow.

She shrugged. “What? With great power comes great responsibility, you know.”

The seated Hailey chuckled. “Though it is true, I use a multitude of constructs to meet all my responsibilities- though I understand my Divine friend here does not, instead preferring to be in as many places as she needs to be, all at once. Something she can do, but which I cannot.”

“That’s a copy of the original charter that established Hogwarts as a Ministry-funded school,” the Divine Hailey told him, sitting down in a fifth chair and picking up a fifth teacup, both of which he could swear hadn’t been there a moment before. “It specifically delineates the power of the Ministry and of the Governors- and you might be interested to know that, in matters internal to the School, the desire of the Governors overrides that of the Ministry. Well, unless they get the charter annulled by seventy-five percent majority in the Wizengamot, or simply by agreement of all the governors and the Minister of Magic himself. In either event, Hogwarts would merely become a privately owned organization that the Ministry has no say over thanks to the Private Industry Act of Seventeen Eighteen, and likely be required to charge tuition to stay afloat.”

“The Private Industry Act?” he asked.

The non-Divine Hailey nodded. “Hogwarts doesn’t hold a monopoly on education, so none of the antitrust and monopoly-busting laws would come into play, and the Private Industry Act protects against everything else.” She sighed. “I swear, Ministry politicians didn’t have a clue how to play politician back then, so it’s so poorly worded it works as a catch-all.”

“Yet this document…?”

“Rowena Ravenclaw is one of the signers,” she told him, pointing at the bottom of the document. “She’s under a different name, but she was the author of the document the Ministry approved- and she also happens to be a goddess of wisdom, and a Professor at the school even now. I daresay she knew how to play politician, and also how to guard against people that want to manipulate a vaguely-worded document for their own nefarious ends.”

“... Oh,” he muttered. “That… That certainly puts a lot of power in our hands.” He sighed. “And speaking of power…” He drew a scroll from the inside of his cloak. “The Governors discussed at length, and decided that, if you two are okay with it, the Student Instructor Program Management Team Lead… ought to have broad authority within the school and outside of the Student Instructor Program to match that within the program, up to and including the hiring and dismissal of Professors.” He held it out for Dumbledore, who examined it calmly.

“You would make her the next best thing to Headmaster,” the Divine Hailey observed, her amusement evident in her tone.

Dumbledore chuckled softly as he read the scroll, then handed it to the less-Divine Hailey. “What do you think?”

The girl hardly glanced at it. “I think it’s signed in blood,” she answered. “I also notice that this suggests that the Team Lead should be selected by the Headmaster, which the current structure of the position will not allow.” She glanced up. “Simply put, the Student Instructor Program is far larger than it appears to be. We have certain… resources beyond the walls of Hogwarts, that you might hear me referring to as our ‘support team’ or the like from time to time. Thing is, they’re actually top secret.

“I have access to them, permission to know about them, and whatever else, because of one of the coded titles.” She paused. “Both of them, actually, but that’s beside the point. On the other hand, some kid that some future Headmaster assigned to the slot would not have that access, and would not be able to properly discharge the duties therein. As such, the Program would lose some of its most crucial support structures, and the entire reporting and accountability system we’ve got right now would crumble in a matter of days, reducing the Program to little more than coordinated self-study.” She sighed. “The Hogwarts Student Instructor Program is, for better or worse, an Equestrian program, rather than a part of the School at all. As such, our primary oversight is actually the Royal Princesses of Equestria, rather than the Headmaster or the Governors- the school-wide authorities granted to it by the latter two notwithstanding.” She placed the scroll on the table. “As such, unfortunately, this order is impossible, as written.”

Lucius took a deep breath and let it out. “Yet… The Hogwarts Student Instructor Program…?”

“The primary goal of the Program is to help the school year go smoothly despite the numbers of students. To this end, our policy is to keep the Headmaster ‘in the loop’ at every step along the way, whenever possible, to help the school better work with us, and help make the educational experience as smooth and effective as possible. We also first received permission to form within the School directly from the Headmaster- and as it stands, even though the Governors have granted further powers to the Program beyond those initially granted by the Headmaster, the Program still exists by the authority of the Headmaster.” She glanced at the document. “An order such as this would grant the Program the official support of the School, such that even if the Program were dissolved by the Equestrian authorities, it may continue to exist within the School, albeit at much diminished capacity due to the loss of the Equestrian resources.”

He nodded slowly. “Well, the Board has already unanimously agreed to put our support behind the Hogwarts Student Instructor Program- we just, ahh, don’t particularly want to grant that level of power over the School without at least some oversight. But if we’d have to negotiate with a Princess…” He sighed.

“I have been granted broad authority to represent the Equestrian Royalty in these matters,” the local Hailey told him calmly, her expression nondescript- though her Divine friend was wearing an expression of the utmost amusement. “The Board need only negotiate with me.”

Author's Note

This chapter was originally written with one Hailey being in multiple places at once. Then I removed that ability from the local Hailey, and decided I didn't want a construct to fill in the hole, nor to fully rewrite the scene- so I reworked it. That's Hailey from TGwDJL paying a visit to help our local Hailey understand exactly what she's done to herself!

Though yes, it is maybe a little bit hard to follow.

No, what they're talking about is not the big plans I had for the Order of the Phoenix. Unfortunately, said plans are the kind of thing that might happen in The Gate or the like. They are as follows:

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

When Umbridge bans all ‘study groups’ and whatnots, Bonbon, Lyra, Moondancer, and Applejack announce to their common rooms that they will be engaging in ‘malicious compliance’- ALL DADA students would show up to her classes simultaneously until she allowed the (denied) Student Instructor program to resume, and on top of that, EVERY individual student would be requesting permission to reform a study group of one (themselves) for the purposes of studying in the library. Additionally, each group of friends or whatnot that might like to study together would submit further requests for every single possible combination of study partners- with the goal of generating so many requests from a body of over a million students that she is forced to rescind the order.

“As of this moment, there are one million, four hundred and twenty six students in this castle. About how many requests do you think this will generate?”

Some wild guesses

“Our estimate is about four million. So… does anyone know how many minutes are in a year?”

“Five hundred twenty five thousand nine hundred forty five point six!” (Hermione)

Pause, with some gentle laughter in the background

Speaking softly “Anyone notice which number is bigger?”

Laughter, then (massive) applause

Now, I recognize that Umbridge specified "three or more", so it'd have to go down a bit differently... but did you notice that she mentioned they were predicting over twice as many requests as there were students...?

In other news, I made it to Tuesday! Wohoo!

Also: This has been Chapter 84. We have Chapter 85 remaining, then Chapter Closed (86), which will be posted simultaneous to AHH! Chapters 1 and 2, because the first of the two doesn't contain ponies. Just two weeks! The week after will see AHH! Chapter 3 and AI Chapter's End.

Chapter 85

“Good evening, Fleur.”

Fleur bowed her head. “Good evening, Hailey.” Hailey had, after requesting permission by mail, come to visit her home. It was only a few days before September First- and while Fleur really wanted to get a job back at Hogwarts, she didn’t feel like she was truly ready to teach.

And Hailey was, as always, wearing her Hogwarts robes.

“So, what did you want to talk to me about?” Fleur asked. Hailey hadn’t told her why she wanted to talk- and hadn’t requested a private conversation, so they were talking at the dining room table. Gabrielle was seated next to Fleur, watching interestedly, while her father was at work and her mother teaching the other three some magic in the other room.

“Uh… Your future, actually. As I recall, you wanted to get back into Hogwarts as a member of staff?”

“Uh- Yeah,” she muttered, looking down. “I don’t think I’m ready to try teaching or anything yet, but…” She sighed. “And I doubt Filch is going to need any help.”

“True enough about Filch,” Hailey mused. “He used to be a squib, but we actually cured that for him last month, so he’ll be able to keep up no problem.

“On the other hand, ‘not ready to teach’ is exactly what a fair few of this year’s six hundred and fifty thousand Student Instructors wondered about, and exactly what the Student Instructor Course is designed to correct. That said, it’s a bit late to hire a new Professor for any given subject, and I wouldn’t want to hire you for Defense Against the Dark Arts anyways; the position is cursed, so nobody lasts more than one year.”

“You say that like you can hire me.”

She nodded. “I can, yes. Celestia already authorized the Student Instructor Program to hire anyone they need to back when it was first formed- but as of about three days ago, when I sent that first letter, I have also received broad authority by the School Governors to hire and dismiss Professors, both inside and outside of the Program. Personally, I think that a year in our Special Instruction Unit- which works as a supplementary set of instructors for those students that need extra tutoring- ought to be the perfect gateway to becoming a Professor.” She smiled. “Don’t worry, the SIU has several instructors in it not just so they can help more students at once but also so they can help each other. Very important function, that.”

“And that’s… at Hogwarts.”

She nodded. “Yup. You’d get your own office and private sleeping quarters, teach a class for learning-impaired students each week with another instructor from the Unit, and…” She trailed off. “There’s a few other minor duties or privileges, such as power over points and detentions, but most of the rest really comes down to ‘as needed’. Because yes, the entire Student Instructor Program is flexible in a way that the Professors simply aren’t.” She pulled a small pamphlet from her hair, and slid it across the table to her. “Here’s the pamphlet we made for the position, and it’s yours if you want it.” She paused, glancing at Gabrielle, who was looking curiously at the pamphlet. “And it wouldn’t be too hard to get Gabrielle a Hogwarts invitation when the time comes, if she likes,” Hailey mused. “You or someone else would have to ferry her to Diagon Alley or the Platform and back, but…” She shrugged.

Fleur glanced down at Gabrielle, who was watching her worriedly, and smiled, before looking up. “Well, she’s eight now, so that’s going to be a couple years, won’t it?”

Hailey nodded. “It will. That’s one of the things that’ll make it easier- come just two of the intervening three years…” She paused. “Nah, spoilers.” She sighed. “There’s a part of me that wishes the fortune tellers hadn’t given me those very interesting predictions.” There was a mischievous gleam in her eye as she spoke. “But anyways, if you want that,” she gestured to the pamphlet, “we’ll need an answer within the next couple days- if we don’t get one, we’ll assume it was no.”

“An… answer?” Fleur asked, turning up the first page to look at the second. It wasn’t a very complex position, and it looked like a fairly easy job- especially considering the provision it had that talked about all the different kinds of support she would have. “Who… Who would I be working with?”

“Well, I’m in the SIU as well,” Hailey told her. “Yes, it technically gives me another title to put on my door, but I don’t put it on there; it’s technically superseded by my management position, and I’ve got quite enough already. There’s also Hermione, Silversong, Bonbon, Lyra, Sunset, Starlight, and a fair few other Equestrian experts. Twilight’s not on that team, though there’s been a lot of debate about whether or not she should be- and the rest of the Program will be just as open to helping you as it was after the Second Task, whether you’re asking someone that’s technically junior to you or not.”

She blinked. “Junior?”

She nodded. “Yeah. In terms of authority within the Program, the SIU is between the management team and the Student Instructors- even though the SIU only rarely interacts directly with the Student Instructors… aside from being composed of them, right now, but you most likely wouldn’t also be a student instructor.”

She turned the second page, and glimpsed a generous sum of bits on the last page, under ‘weekly salary’ and next to a required equipment list that was very short but did include her own wand and ‘suitable robes’, before flipping it closed. “I…” She looked down at Gabrielle, then back at Hailey. “I’ll take it.”

Hailey smiled, rising to her feet, and held out her hand for her to shake. “Well then, happy to have you, Instructor Delacour.”

“Enter,” Dumbledore called. It was Saturday, August 30th- just two days before the students would arrive at the castle.

Hailey entered… and she had a couple of pages in her hands.

He raised an eyebrow. “Is that a report?” he asked.

She laughed. “Yes, actually.”

Dumbledore chuckled as well. “Probably the smallest one I’ve seen since the Student Instructor Program was created.”

Hailey chuckled. “Probably, yeah. Anyways, now that the Governors are regularly holding their weekly meetings in my office here at the Castle, just after the regular Management Team meetings, there’s going to be a lot of stuff to talk about. First off, it seems the Ministry has finally seen fit to tell the Board who we’re dealing with this year, rather than just sending the book requirement to you- and the Seers were right, it’s Delores Umbridge. They even sent ahead a copy of the Educational Decree they’re using to install her- but of course, and we checked, that Decree takes a second seat to our decisions, should we make them, thanks to this directive by the Governors today.” She flipped a page off the top, and laid it on the desk. “This is a copy, by the way, the original has already been stored securely in the Department of Records with the Ministry seal of authenticity stamped on it, right about here.” She tapped the named seal printed on the page, next to the Governor’s signatures, and grinned. “I asked the Records clerk for a copy of the stamped document.”

Dumbledore chuckled. That stamp was proof that the Ministry had accepted the document as binding… Even though it explicitly stated that the Headmaster of Hogwarts and the Student Instructor Program Management Team Lead both had the authority to unilaterally override Educational Decree number Twenty Two. “Educational Decree number Twenty Two?” he asked.

Hailey nodded. “Seems they’ve been keeping it hush-hush, but they’ve sent the Board a copy of it, and about time. I’ve got it here.” She laid it on the desk. “It’s very wordy, but in short, it establishes the Ministry’s authority to appoint a new Professor, should we be unable to fill a vacancy.” She drew a deep breath. “The Board has sent a demand back to the Ministry that these directives not use such confusing and roundabout language and that the Board be notified of them before they take effect within the walls of Hogwarts, else they will use their authority under the original Hogwarts Educational Institution Agreement to declare all Educational Decrees void within the walls of Hogwarts.” She smiled, having spoken the entire long-winded sentence on a single breath. “And of course, our directive simply declares that the Ministry does not have the power to unilaterally appoint into any position within Hogwarts walls; that power, including the power to remove or reject a Ministry appointment, lies with…” She paused, and touched the Directive with a fingertip, pointing at the words in question. “The Headmaster and the Hogwarts Student Instructor Program Management Team Lead.” She let out a soft chuckle. “In short, the Ministry can’t appoint our Professors, they can provide candidates.”

Dumbledore chuckled. “I’m sure that will come in handy,” he mused.

“It will,” Hailey nodded. “For example, it means we’re allowed to suspend or dismiss Umbridge, should she deserve it- and should she try to fill some other position, with herself or anyone else we don’t like, we can just say ‘no’.”

“Um… Hailey?”

“Yes, Ginny?” They were aboard the Hogwarts Express- which once again had so many locomotives they trailed out of sight- and the train had just left the station. Both Ginny and Ariel looked a bit nervous.

“Have we changed any since…?” She trailed off.

Hailey tilted her head curiously.

“Well…” Ginny looked nervously down at her knees. “You know how Ariel has never needed to eat? Well… A week ago, I accidentally didn’t eat for a week.”

“Accidentally?” Hailey asked, one eyebrow raised.

She nodded. “I… I just wasn’t hungry. But why didn’t I get hungry in a whole week?” She paused. “Or ever since, either.”

Hailey chuckled, and looked up. “Morning, do you want to answer that one?” All nine of them had packed themselves into the same compartment together- Hailey, Hermione, Ron, Sadarina, Ginny, Ariel, Morning, and Diamond. It was an oddly comfortable arrangement, even though the space was only designed to seat six.

Morning smiled. “That’s easy. You’re changelings now.” She sighed. “I never thought that’d be a side effect of that floo-teleportation spell, no matter how long it took to set in, but I guess it was.” She shrugged. “Oh well.”

“What’s a changeling?” Ginny asked.

“That’s what I am,” Morning told them- and suddenly vanished into a plume of green flames. When the flames went away, Morning was still sitting where she had been a second before, and nothing seemed to have changed- even Hermione and Silversong, seated on either side of her, were completely unaffected.

“This should be interesting,” Hailey commented amusedly

Hermione let out a snort of laughter.

Morning, meanwhile, was looking at herself. “... Huh. I thought my true form would’ve looked a little less normal.” She shrugged. “But whatever, maybe it’s just a thing on this side- I’ve never taken my true form here before.” She looked up. “Simply put, a changeling is an emotivore… and a shapeshifter. Don’t tell any ponies that you are one- they, ah, probably won’t take it very well.”

“That means you should be able to transform and both sense and eat people’s emotions and everything else like Morning does,” Hailey told them.

“Is that what that…” Ginny paused. “What that weird hum in the air is?”

“Oh, no,” Morning answered, sobering quickly. “That’s… That’s the hum of the Hivemind. I haven’t reconnected to it, but it worries me- means there’s a lot of changelings nearby.”

“Quite a few, I’d say,” Hailey nodded.

Morning looked at her.

“Somewhere in the region of… Seven hundred and twenty three thousand three hundred and sixteen,” Hailey mused.

“That’s… oddly specific,” Hermione observed.

Morning rolled her eyes. “That’s about twice the size of the entire Hive before I got lost from it,” she told her. “Though it has been a while, and the Hive can grow rapidly… for example, before the invasion, the Hive doubled in size in a few short months.” She sighed. “In any case… Chrysalis would never allow a large-scale expedition without at least some sort of scouting ahead of time, so there’s going to be at least some changelings as second years or higher,” she mused. “And with a foray- an invasion- of this size, the Queen has got to be among them… though she might not be one of the first years.” She leaned back in her seat. “To use the Canterlot invasion as an example again, Queen Chrysalis entered the city herself almost six months before the rest of the Hive was summoned.

“Which means…” She sighed. “Considering just how much emotional energy British people just vent into the air around them, she would’ve started a large-scale move of the Hive as quickly as she could. Unless…” She scowled. “Unless the surviving Hive was so small she could easily feed it off of just a few over here, where there might just be a few collectors in Britain, and the rest in Equestria, until she secured a place to…” She trailed off. “No, that doesn’t make sense. Unless… Unless one of those collectors became… then got hurt somehow, I suppose. That would pretty quickly trigger a mass exodus.” She paused. “And on another topic entirely, I’m going to want to find out why my true form seems to have feathered wings instead of normal changeling wings.”

“Changeling wings?” Ginny asked, tilting her head.

“Yeah,” Morning nodded. “Changeling wings are like insect wings.”

“So if they’ve become changelings,” Ron muttered, sitting next to Diamond. “That means we’ve got three changelings, two alicorns,” he gestured towards Silver and Hermione, “a dementor,” he gestured towards Sadarina, who was sandwiched between Hailey and Morning, “whatever Hailey’s become… and us.” He gestured towards himself and Diamond.

“Crystal earth pony and earth pony,” Hailey supplied, smiling.

Diamond sighed. “I feel almost like I’m being left out,” she told them. “I’m the only ordinary one here, aren’t I?”

“At the moment, probably,” Hailey agreed.

“At the moment?” Silver asked.

She grinned. “Yeah. We’ll see how long that lasts- the fortune tellers have already informed me of some particularly interesting events coming up relatively soon that will see their ordinariness corrected.”

Diamond blinked. “Our ordinariness… corrected? You don’t mean that we’re going to become alicorns, do you?”

“Well, that would certainly be one way to immortalize you,” Hailey conceded.

“You’re not going to tell us what it is, are you?”

“Well of course not,” Hailey chuckled.

Author's Note

Hailey nodded. “It will. That’s one of the things that’ll make it easier- come just two of the intervening three years…” She paused. “Nah, spoilers.”

This was during the Summer of 2025. According to the plan, which will never happen:
Hailey will become Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor in 2026 (for Half Blood Prince).
Hailey will become Headmaster in 2027 (for Deathly Hallows). She'll redeem Voldemort when he arrives, and decide that the Dark Lord Voldemort will make a good Minister of Magic or Director of the DMLE someday.

She grinned. “Yeah. We’ll see how long that lasts- the fortune tellers have already informed me of some particularly interesting events coming up relatively soon that will see their ordinariness corrected.”

No, they haven't. I never made any plans for anything unusual to happen with either Ron nor Diamond, beyond Ron being a crystal pony.

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

I missed Tuesday again...
I'll be headed home tomorrow, though, and I'll spend the weekend cooking up our Chapter's End, to go live the week after next. Next week, expect to see AHH! go live alongside a rather disjointed Chapter Closed in here!

Chapter 1: Gringotts

“Ready for a new year?” Professor Dumbledore asked cheerfully, once the last professor in the school had entered the staffroom. It was time for the annual school preparation meeting, before breakfast on the morning after the letters went out.

Professor Snape glanced at the empty seat that had held a different person each year for the last four decades. “I notice we’re still short a Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor,” he began.

“Ahh, yes,” Dumbledore chuckled. “I thought you’d notice that. Professor Quirrell will be rejoining us this year as such- but he won’t be arriving until early August.”

Professor McGonagall scowled in response. “Even though he has to know what happens?”

Dumbledore shrugged. “I’m sure he, like all forty before him, believes he will be the one to change that. And it remains to be seen whether he actually will, does it not?”

McGonagall sighed. “I don’t suppose he told us when he wants his schedule, did he?” she asked.

Dumbledore smiled. “He tells me he’ll take whatever we have to offer. Lemon drop?”

McGonagall ignored the offer and let out a sigh of relief. “Good. That last one was a headache. Anyone have any new scheduling preferences?” She glanced around the room.

Heads shook.

She finished with a short nod. “Excellent. I’ll have the class schedules distributed as soon as we’re done.”

There was a palpable feeling of relief in the air at those words. Usually, and especially the prior year, the DADA instructors tended to be very specific… and didn’t seem to like settling on one thing.

Dumbledore chuckled. “Alright. We’ve also got our materials budget from the Ministry this year- and Quirinus has already opted out. We have forty-two galleons and eighteen knuts for general classroom supplies…” He looked up at Professor Snape. “And only sixty-three galleons, four sickles, and two knuts for potions supplies.”

Right as Snape wrinkled his nose, the door opened to admit the caretaker.

“Ahh, Argus,” Dumbledore greeted. “Glad you could join us. Anything to add?”

Filch looked up at him, looking slightly perplexed. “Huh? Yeah. The usual… then, does anyone know where all the owls disappeared to?”

There was silence for almost two full seconds.

“Come again?” Dumbledore asked.

“Not that I’m complaining,” Filch added quickly. “It’s been years since I could clean the place properly. Only, as near as I can tell, there’s not a single owl left in the castle. Where’d they all go?”

McGonagall scowled. “The letters should have been sent out to the students yesterday,” she muttered doubtfully. “Would that…?”

Filch shook his head. “No, that’s only ever two hundred and fifty letters or so, and we’ve got just over six hundred owls. Plus, most of ‘em are usually back by now.”

As usual, it took a couple of days before the first attendance note and accompanying letter was delivered to the staff table at breakfast. Professor McGonagall always thought it inconvenient that muggle mail would often take a couple of days to deliver their letters. She let out a small sigh as she accepted the note and letter from the house-elf, then unfolded the note.

Dumbledore watched her curiously as she did so. He was always curious when it came to the students; she was unsure if it was healthy for him… or them, for that matter.

Finally, she spoke. “Just one,” she told Dumbledore gravely, “but she’s homeless.”

There was a collective groan at those words. Homeless students, and otherwise muggleborn students that couldn’t pay their own way into college, had to fund their education through Hogwarts- which meant cutting into the school budget really wherever they could. Additionally, homeless students simply didn’t receive mail- meaning, her appearing to them was usually their first word from Hogwarts.

“Where’s she at?” Dumbledore asked.

She looked back down at the note, and read the rest of the information on it. Then, she tilted her head. “She’s… in Diagon Alley? That… that makes no sense.”

Dumbledore scowled, rubbing his chin. “Huh. Maybe she found it on her own? Well, you should probably find her before she gets hurt.”

She nodded, and got up to head out immediately. Homeless wizards were not unheard of- and in the only three cases in which they were school-age, two of them were in Diagon Alley for only a few days before taking the wrong turn down Knockturn… and meeting an unfortunate end.

One Hour Earlier…

Tom was still yawning when his first muggle-side customers of the day arrived. When he looked over at them, he had to raise an eyebrow. One of them, he recognized- there was no way he’d forget that strange, white and light blue hair. The girl- Lyra- couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen years old, but that didn’t stop her from visiting frequently over the last couple weeks. While she usually sat in a corner booth to read or chatted with his more regular customers, she never purchased anything. She’d told him once that she didn’t have any wizard money.

This time, she had another girl with her. This girl’s hair was very dark blue, with twinned pink and purple stripes running down the middle. She also looked part curious, and part nervous- as different from Lyra, who had first come in slightly cautious but very curious, and now marched in just like everyone else.

Which reminded him. There had been that one time when she’d tried striking up a conversation with a grumpy old wizard that was passing through. Tom didn’t know who he was, but he must’ve decided to take her home. He’d seized her arm… and then, with a brilliant flash of greenish white light, she had disappeared. He had disapparated immediately afterwards, avoiding the wrath of several other wizards throughout the pub… then Lyra had walked in again no less than five minutes later, and cheerfully informed him that her failsafe had worked flawlessly.

She trotted up towards the bar, pausing only once to help her friend keep her balance. “Hey Tom!”

He nodded graciously. “Mornin’, Lyra. Got a friend today?”

“Yup!” She patted her friend on the shoulder. “Meet Twilight Sparkle, soon to be Hogwarts student!” She made it sound like an achievement.

Twilight rolled her eyes. “Among how many others?”

She tilted her head. “We’ve got… almost three thousand, so far?”

“Three thousand?” Tom asked.

“Yup. Must be a big school.”

“Ahh…” Tom muttered. “They normally have a total attendance of about two hundred and eighty students.”

The two girls looked at each other, then back at him. “I hope they know what they’re getting into, then,” Lyra informed him. “Either that… Yeah. There’s a post office in Diagon Alley, right?”

He nodded.

“Good. Then we can stop at that post office to contact the school. If they’re not going to be able to handle us all, the sooner we catch their rogue addressing spell the better.”

“Rogue addressing spell?”

Twilight nodded. “It’s a form letter generated by a spell, probably from a list of eligible students.” She looked at Lyra. “We could probably pass it off as a spell error, and tell the country that they hadn’t intended to send nearly so many invitations. Wouldn’t make po- people any happier, but it’d at least prevent a riot.”

Lyra nodded. “True. But I’d like to talk to the school before we start making any proclamations.” She turned to Tom. “Any chance you could help us through to Diagon Alley? We don’t have wands where we’re from.” She glanced at the door to the Alley. “And I’m not sure which brick to tap, either.”

He chuckled, and stepped out from behind the bar. “No problem.” He led them into the little courtyard. “Remember: Three up, two across.” He tapped the brick.

“Creative,” Twilight mused, as the archway opened.

“If you’ve got money to change, you’ll be looking for Gringotts- thataway, you can’t miss it.” He gestured in the direction of the bank. “Other than that, you should be able to find everything on your list in the shops on Diagon Alley, and not on any of the connecting streets. For that matter, you’ll want to avoid those connecting streets, for safety.”

Lyra shrugged. “If someone tries to hurt us, we’ll just find ourselves back home. But yes, I’d rather avoid that kind of interruption to our shopping trip.” She led Twilight through the portal. “Well, we’ll see you on our way back through, then. Thank you!” She waved, and as the portal started closing, the two girls headed towards Gringotts and Tom back into his pub.

One of the tellers at the Gringotts Bank looked up as a couple of humans approached his counter. They had both decorated their hair rather extensively, but he didn’t really care that much about humans. No goblin did- the Treaty may protect the goblins, and bind the wizards to providing for them, but it also bound them to providing banking and currency to the wizards. Fortunately, their pride in the indomitable nature of their bank was growing rather more rapidly than their resentment for the arrangement, preventing another war. If there was one thing Banlor disliked more than humans, it was war.

The human with the blue and white hair spoke up first, as they stopped.

“Good morning,” it greeted cheerfully. “You… don’t happen to have an exchange rate already set for Equestrian bits, do you?”

He shook his head. He prided himself in being one of the only goblins to have memorized the exchange tables. He still checked them whenever he had to do something with anything other than wizard gold or British pounds, just to be sure he had the right number, but he could recite the whole thing off the top of his head. It never changed, after all- engraved in stone and everything. “No,” he said simply.

“Alright then,” the human continued. “Where would we go to negotiate one, or would we be better off selling it as gold bullion?”

“Gold… bullion?” he asked slowly.

It nodded, and dropped a couple small gold coins on his counter. “Yeah. Pure gold, nothing all that special about it.”

He lifted one of them up to peer at it closely. It did appear to be pure, elemental gold… and the human was wrong, the coin had a simple reinforcement spell on it to allow it to tolerate heavy impacts and pressure. It didn’t look like a very hard spell to break. “Huh,” he muttered. With gold this pure, it would be very easy to make wizarding coins out of it… but even wizard gold wasn’t this pure, making any reverse conversions nearly impossible. “You will have to take it to our appraiser,” he told the humans, and returned the coin to the others. “I will call someone to take you to him.” He turned on his seat. “Griphook!”

The goblin appraiser, Nurluff, inspected the golden coins placed in front of him by the two human girls. “You want to… negotiate a currency exchange with these?” he asked. It looked like they were made of elementally pure gold worth about fifteen sickles apiece by materials.

“Yes, please,” the blue-and-white-haired one, who had introduced herself as Lyra Heartstrings, said. The other- Twilight Sparkle- watched in an uneasy but almost authoritative manner, yet had not spoken. “We should only need a one-way conversion, from Equestrian Bits to Wizard Gold, for now. I expect a conversion in the other direction won’t be required for at least… oh, ten years or so, likely longer.”

“Very well,” he agreed. “How about…” He looked at the coins. “Two bits to the galleon?”

Twilight tilted her head, but Lyra spoke. “It was seventeen sickles to the galleon and twenty-nine knuts to the sickle, right?”

Twilight raised her eyebrows.

He nodded.

“That’s…” Twilight muttered slowly, then nodded. “Yes, that’ll work. One galleon for two bits.”

“Very well,” he stated again, as he started scribbling on his forms. He really liked that phrase. Finally, he turned it around and held out the quill. “Alright, sign here and the rate will be set,” he informed them.

Twilight leaned forward, accepted the quill… then, unlike so many other annoying humans, she actually read the document before she signed it. She blinked in apparent surprise when an unfamiliar but official-looking seal appeared on the page next to her signature.

When it did, he raised an eyebrow. He had not expected the magic to recognize her as having the authority to negotiate exchange rates- but it had. As he accepted the parchment back, he glanced at the royal seal of… Equestria, it looked like- and where the magic had also printed her name underneath her signature, as Princess Twilight Sparkle. He raised his other eyebrow slightly, then let them both down again. “Alright, the rate is set. Are you going to want to perform an exchange today?”

“Ah, yes,” Lyra told him.

He pulled out another form, filled it out, signed it, and activated the dated validity spell on it. Finally, he folded it up and handed it to them. “Present this to any teller for currency conversion until midnight tonight, after which it will not be necessary.”

Professor McGonagall was very strongly thankful, as she walked down Diagon Alley, that she did not need to waste minutes of time and hours of discomfort forcing herself into muggle clothing to meet a muggleborn that was already in Diagon Alley. On the other hand, she was really hoping the girl hadn’t found Knockturn yet- and was scanning down both sides of the street as she hurried along. The description was somewhat vague, but it said she had two-tone white and light blue hair… which should be at least moderately easy to spot.

Very suddenly, she stopped, and turned to look back at Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlor.

Yes, there she was. She had nearly missed the girl, because the colors in her hair were so bright they looked unnatural- she hadn’t recognized that it even was hair, at first.

Then of course, the girl wasn’t doing anything that normal homeless kids do: She was pouring over a piece of parchment with a friend and an ice cream cone. Her friend- whose deep blue hair, decorated with twinned pink and purple stripes down the middle, also looked unnatural- had a quill and an ice cream cone as well.

She started back towards them, rechecking the description in her memory. Yes, it matched this girl. She’d have to ask about the name, but she rather expected she had the right person.

The girl looked up as she drew close. “Can I help you?” she asked. Then she tilted her head.

Her friend looked up as well, placing a hand over their parchment.

McGonagall smiled softly. “I’m looking for Lyra Heartstrings?” she asked.

The girl straightened up in her chair. “That’s me,” she informed her calmly, cautiously. “Do you need something?”

“Ah, yes,” she informed Lyra, drawing the girl’s letter from her pocket. “I have a letter for you.” She held it out to her.

Her eyebrows shot up at the mention, then she accepted the letter wordlessly. It took her mere seconds to open it and unfold it- then she let out a laugh and put it down. “I was wondering where it had got to,” she mused. “I opened the door, then everyone else started getting letters.” She looked up at her. “And you don’t happen to be Professor McGonagall, do you?”

Author's Note

And so here's something new.

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Well, not all that new, I guess. This story will be a rewrite of the once-popular On the Implications of Parallel Worlds- but you knew that already, didn't you? In any case, once OtIoPW dies its death, this one will take up its publication slot. At time of posting this, OtIoPW has two (2) unpublished chapters remaining- one for tomorrow, one for next week. As such, it'll be about two weeks and a day before Chap. 2 of this one comes out.

And as you can see, it's already pretty heavily different from OtIoPW or The Gate. Yes, I have an outline, and I will also actually be following it to the best of my ability- speaking of which, my notes span all the way through the 5th book, after (and during) which things start becoming a little bit unbearably "lets-make-drama" for my liking. But I've got big plans for Order of the Phoenix...

Chapter 2: The First

“And you don’t happen to be Professor McGonagall, do you?”

Lyra’s statement took McGonagall by surprise not because it was unexpected but because, judging by the girl’s tone, she already knew she was right. “Ahh, yes,” she muttered. “I… take it you’re already familiar with magic?”

She nodded. “And if you’re about to tell me I’m a witch, I already know that too.” She shrugged. “Assuming I’m right and that’s what you call magical girls around here, of course.”

“Magical… girls?” McGonagall asked. She’d had plenty of muggleborns talking about ‘magical girls’ that wore funny costumes, jumped from rooftop to rooftop, fought against strange monsters, and had complex spells they would always yell out to the world every time they cast them from their bare palms, despite not technically needing to. She’d done some brief research a few years before, and found that they were merely fiction.

“Yeah,” Lyra continued. “You know, girls that have magic and all? And can wave wands around?”

“Oh,” she nodded. “Yes.” She sighed, and glanced up and down the street. “So… This is Diagon Alley, the shopping district for witches and wizards.”

“Do you know how many students Hogwarts has invited?” Lyra's friend asked suddenly.

She blinked. “Not particularly,” she muttered. “Usually about forty, though.”

“Well,” Lyra scowled. “As of right now, there’s whatever there normally would have been plus three thousand, twenty… six from where we’re from, including us.” She paused for a brief moment. “Twenty seven.” Then she glanced at her friend. “And this is Twilight Sparkle, by the way.”

“From… where you’re from,” McGonagall parroted.

She nodded. “Yup. We’re from a parallel universe- and after we opened the gate, the owls started coming. It’s amusing how easy it is to tell how many have accepted, even without meeting them or intercepting their mail, just by looking at the gate.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Parallel universe?” she asked.

She nodded again. “Yup. Though admittedly, the only reason the gate was open for a couple of weeks before the letters started coming was because your world is so interesting, with both the magical and non-magical worlds living effectively side-by-side, secreted away from each other. You see, every other world I’ve seen- including our own- falls into one of three groups: the ones where everyone has magic, the ones where nobody has magic, and the ones where the people with magic dominate the people that don’t.”

“Uh-huh,” she muttered.

“I haven’t had the time to explore nearly as many worlds as Lyra has,” Twilight told her. “But I have seen a few, and she’s not wrong.” She shrugged. “A lot of the mixed worlds don’t fit that description exactly, but they’re all tending towards it; those are the three ‘stable states’ we’ve seen. As near as either of us can tell, this one is tending in the other direction.”

She sighed. “You do know that Amon Cork proved the Multiverse Theory false in nineteen eighteen, don’t you?”

Lyra shrugged. “Well, he was wrong. Our interdimensional gateway- which proves the multiverse by traveling across it- is about a ten minute walk away. It’s sealed against anyone not from our side, though, since it’s lethal to such. Even the owls- though how they’ve been getting between the worlds, I don’t know. Maybe they’re interdimensional travellers themselves?”

McGonagall just shook her head. “Aside from that.”

“As mentioned, there’s over three thousand students so far invited from where we’re from,” Twilight stated. “At this rate, we’re expecting as many as fifteen or twenty thousand before the deadline. We’re in a position to be able to head that off, and reduce attendance from our land to double or even single digits- but does Hogwarts need us to do that, or will it be able to handle potentially tens of thousands of students at once?”

McGonagall raised an eyebrow at her, but didn’t comment on it.

“You seem to be full of disbelief.”

She nearly jumped at Professor Dumbledore’s statement over the Hogwarts Castle ward network. “Well yeah,” she answered.

“What happened?” he asked. “Does she already have her supplies?”

She let out a small, irritated huff of breath. “She says she’s from another universe, and that we’ve invited several thousand from there.”

“That would explain where the owls went. Let me check the attendance lists.”

“So…” Lyra began uncertainly. “Should we just assume you’ll be able to handle our numbers, whatever they are, and get our stuff, then?”

McGonagall sighed. “We can start with Gringotts,” she told them. “We’ll need to get you some money.”

“Oh, we’ve already done that,” Lyra smiled. “Got a lot more than I was expecting, as a matter of fact.”

Twilight chuckled. “Yeah… Good thing we brought extra bags. Though, I wasn’t expecting to need quite so many just for money.”

Lyra shrugged. “Just means we can come back and buy half the bookshop once everyone’s through, doesn’t it?”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “Oh, you jest,” she accused.

“No really,” Lyra told her. “I’m sure you noticed the lopsided rate?”

She nodded. “Yeah. He surprised me with that offer.”

“I think he was thinking about the coins’ material value,” Lyra told her. “In any case, we’ve got well over a twenty times advantage, by my estimate. So no, I’m not joking. You could probably buy the entire bookshop, if you wanted to.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “So what would an even rate be? How much for a bit?”

“Five knuts.”

Twilight blinked. “Five… knuts. Yeah, that’d be a forty nine point three times advantage in currency alone.” She scowled. “How much do you think the bookshop costs?”

“We’re going to be shopping for books, not bookshops,” McGonagall remanded.

“Still, though, how much would it cost?”

“This way to Madam Malkin’s Robes for All Occasions,” McGonagall commanded shortly.

“Got it,” Lyra muttered, pouring the last of her ice cream down her throat before picking up her quills. Then she glanced at Twilight. “Forty nine point three?”

Twilight grinned smugly. “Four hundred ninety three knuts to the galleon,” she answered simply.

Lyra blinked, then slammed the heel of her hand into her forehead. “I knew that,” she groaned. “I knew that! Why didn’t I draw the connection?”

“Because you’re not me,” Twilight told her.

Madam Malkin knew instantly what to ask when she saw the two funny-haired girls entering her shop with Professor McGonagall.

“Hogwarts, dears?” she asked the girls.

“Yup!” the first, with the brighter hair, cheered. The other smiled amusedly at the first and nodded calmly.

Malkin then glanced briefly up at McGonagall; it was unusual for her to guide students in without their parents, and it usually meant they were orphaned- whether by abandonment or otherwise.

The Professor, however, seemed to be having a bad day. She was already leaning flat against a wall, eyes shut tight and a put-out expression on her face. However, she did not send her the nonverbal signal that the girls would be on Hogwarts’ budget, or even a limited budget at all, so she could offer her normal, preferred, tailored wares.

She smiled back down at them, judging their sizes and plucking a plain robe off a rack; they looked about the same size. “Who first?”

The two girls looked at each other, and shrugged, before the lighter-haired one stepped forward. “Me,” she smiled.

Professor McGonagall let out a heavy sigh as she looked back up at Hogwarts Castle. The two girls had been a bit eccentric and very mature for their age. They had apparently already gotten nearly two thousand galleons from Gringotts, in exchange for whatever currency they had brought in.

Getting them wands had been… scary. Which was alarming; she’d helped hundreds, even thousands of first-years through Diagon Alley over the ages, and not a single one had done more than a loud bang or some sparks when they first made contact with their chosen wand.

Lyra’s had veritably gone off and nearly blown out the far wall off of Ollivanders’ shop. Then, Twilight’s had gone and one-upped it.

But, the two girls had their stuff. They had told her about all sorts of magic where they were from, of the sort that simply didn’t exist- they even told her it didn’t exist! And of course, they’d refused to tell her where their alleged interdimensional portal was because it was deadly to anyone not from the other side.

Before they had reached Ollivander’s, Dumbledore had verified that nearly twenty thousand invitations had been sent already, but hardly three and a quarter thousand had agreed so far. He had commented, over the wards, that the sheer size of the Book of Attendance suggested there would be at least a few more years like this one- he apparently believed their story about coming from another land, though she could tell he wasn’t so sure about the interdimensional part.

So, McGonagall had been directly authorized by Dumbledore to see if they could set up a student instruction program instead of cancelling so many students.

Fortunately, that answer had been a yes. At least, Dumbledore thought it was fortunate- McGonagall wasn’t so certain.

But the details had been set, and everything was moving forwards- manageably, Dumbledore claimed, even though she could tell he was worried about what their appearance might do to- or for- his Plan.

Author's Note

You might notice that this part was a lot shorter than it's been in the prior years. And by this point, the reason should be fairly evident. Ponies can't use Equestrian magic in Britain... so much of the Diagon Alley shenanigans that happened in both prior renditions of the story simply can't happen. However, there are certain shenanigans that suddenly can happen...

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I'm a little bit late this time, I apologize.

Well, a lot late, let's be fair. I was dealing with a whole lot of mechanical problems on my new truck, and fighting with the shop, and getting the first load and fighting with all sorts of problems related to it and equipment and... Yeah. I've had a very, VERY busy week so far. And it's not looking like it's going to get much less busy just yet- I'm at a shipper getting loaded right now, and judging by how frequently the truck is shaking, it won't take them long. Gotta love finally becoming a solo driver just to chase yourself all over the place to make sure you're not missing anything, eh?

As for why this didn't go up yesterday (which would have only been a day late), I hadn't already transliterated it to FimFiction from GDocs... so I couldn't just view it on my phone and publish, had to go all-in with my laptop to open it and move information.

Also, chapters 3 through 8 (if I can get that many before they finish loading) will be going up to patrons of various levels (3, 4 & 5, 6 & 7, and 8 to Sticks & Stones, Bronze, Silver, and Gold tiers respectively, starting at $1) over the next... probably several minutes. Again, if I can get that many before they finish loading... The rest (if I can't) will be going up some half an hour later, probably, once I'm able to find parking at a truck stop.

Edit: Well, I got them all up, just in time for them to finish loading. Then I started the engine, put it in gear... and immediately realized I'd have to make them redo it, because there was too much weight on the tail end. So they're doing that.

Chapter 17: Through the Trapdoor

“Hangon,” Draco said, glancing at the note again.

He had joined Harry, Ron, and Hermione in the chambers below Fluffy’s feet- and, unfortunately, had yet to be of much use to the team. Harry’s Quidditch skills had come in handy, and Hermione’s Herbology as well. Draco hadn’t been captured by the plant, as when he’d been third to land, he’d lit his wand right away- then yanked himself away from it. He, however, hadn’t been able to identify it as Hermione had. Even Ron had sacrificed himself in the chess room, allowing Harry, Hermione, and himself to continue forwards.

He did find it interesting that Harry was still Harry, rather than Hailey- but hadn’t said anything about it.

Harry looked back at him, holding the smallest bottle from the row. “Hmm?”

“We know someone else came through here, right?” he asked, looking up at them.

Hermione tilted her head, scanning the row once again. “Yes… Yes, that’s interesting.”

Harry tilted his head as well. “What?”

“They’re all full,” Hermione told him. “That means… Either whoever came through before didn’t drink from them, or they’ve been refilled.”

“Which suggests they refill themselves, doesn’t it?” Draco muttered. “Which means…” He looked at Hermione, then at Harry. “Once you go through, we’ll see if we can get it to replenish- and if we can, we’ll follow.”

Harry sighed. “Alright then,” he muttered, swallowed it, shuddered, put it down, and marched through the black fire.

“So you are Voldemort,” were Harry’s first words upon passing through the black fire.

Professor Quirrell turned to look at him, his expression a mixture of surprise and confusion. “You… No, I am not the Dark Lord.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean. His vessel, his… servant.” He made it an obscenity.

Quirrell studied him for a couple seconds. “Yes,” he said eventually. “I wondered whether I’d be meeting you here tonight, Potter.”

Harry shrugged. “Well I would have thought it was pretty obvious,” he told Quirrell. “I mean, it’s not like I’d just let Voldemort come back,” he stated.

Quirrell stiffened. “Do not speak the Dark Lord’s name,” he commanded.

“Voldemort,” Harry barked right back at him. “It’s a word, and I’m not afraid to use it.”

He snarled, then snapped his fingers. Ropes sprang out of nowhere, binding Harry’s wrists to his sides and his ankles together. “You’re too nosy to live,” he told Harry. “Scurrying around the school on Halloween like that- for all I knew, you’d seen me coming to look at what was guarding the Stone.”

Harry raised his eyebrows. “You mean you let the troll in?” he asked.

“Certainly. I have special gifts with trolls- you must have seen what I did to the one in the Chamber back there. Unfortunately, while everyone else was running around looking for it, Snape headed straight up to the third floor corridor to head me off. And not only did my troll fail to beat you to death, that three-headed dog didn’t even manage to bite Snape’s leg off properly! Now, wait quietly, I need to examine this interesting mirror.”

Harry blinked. The Mirror of Erised was standing behind Quirrell- but it was positioned such that Harry couldn’t see straight into it. He was at least mildly curious if it would show him something related to the Stone, or just his family again, if he did get in front of it- but when he tried moving to take a peek, he only managed to trip and fall on the hard stone.

“Use the boy. Use the boy.”

Draco glanced around, searching for the speaker, but didn’t see anyone. It certainly didn’t sound like Quirrell’s voice, and it definitely wasn’t Harry- but it was the first words he heard after passing through the fire. His and Hermione’s third theory about the potions had been correct- they refilled themselves whenever the room was empty, so double-crossing the purple fire was all it took.

“Yes- Come here, Boy,” Quirrell commanded, clapping his hands. “Come look in the mirror and tell me what you see.”

Draco glanced down, at where it looked like Harry had just been unbound, and grinned briefly to himself, before deliberately misinterpreting who the instruction had been intended for.

“Sure, I can do that,” he stated, as he started marching towards the line-of-sight of the mirror. “It’s only the Mirror of Erised, after all.”

Quirrell spun around to glare at him- and he could see the temptation to fling magic at him warring with the knowledge he’d already displayed on the subject. The man scowled, and seemed to settle for a question. “What does it do?” he asked- demanded, really.

“Don’t tell him, Alastor!” Harry said.

Draco shrugged. “I don’t see how it can hurt,” he said. “I mean, simply put, that mirror is a red herring.” He glanced up at Quirrell. “In other words, it shows you what you want to see. Meaning, if you want to use the Stone, you’ll see yourself using it.” He stopped in front of the glass, gazing into it at his reflection- his perplexing reflection. “And if you want to find the stone, you’ll see yourself finding it- probably somewhere inane, though, where it most assuredly is not.” As he watched, his reflection put a blood red stone back into its pocket… and he felt the real Stone land in his real pocket. He knew Voldemort was a legilimens, though, and he was a pretty good occlumens himself.

He smiled, and looked over at Quirrell- just in time to see Hermione emerge from the black fire through the corner of his eye. “And I suppose the strangest thing about it is that whenever I look into it, a girl looks back out at me.”

“A girl?” Quirrell demanded.

He nodded, looking back at the mirror to watch her wave at him. “Yup. No idea where she came from, though. Especially with that hair.” He laughed.

Quirrell snarled. “Get out of the way,” he barked. “Potter! Get over here!”

They complied, and Harry looked into the mirror. Draco distinctly noticed his eyes track something up, and back down, in the glass.

“Well?” Quirrell demanded. “What do you see?”

“I’m finding the Stone,” Harry told him, slowly. “In… In my pocket. Where, of course, it most assuredly isn’t.” He chuckled, glancing sideways at Draco- then stepped sideways, out from between Quirrell and the Mirror.

In the background, Hermione raised her wand. “Locomotor Mor-!” she cried.

Quirrell was faster. “Stupefy!” His spell struck her mid-incantation, and she collapsed straight to the ground.

Draco stepped backwards, drawing his own wand- but a lash of Quirrell’s threw it right out of his hands, ropes springing out of the air to bind him up. He tripped, and fell, painfully, on the stone.

Harry tried to make a run for it, but Quirrell lunged and clamped his hands around his neck.

It was… interesting. Harry instantly phased into Hailey and let out a shriek of pain- but she wasn’t the only one. Quirrell cried out in pain as well, and released her- moments before jumping on top of her, where she had fallen, and pinning her to the ground with his knees.

He stared at his hands for a second in bewilderment, then looked down at Hailey again. She had been clutching at her forehead, but had started watching him- and angry boils had sprung up all over his hands.

Quirrell reached down to strangle her.

She screamed- and her hands shot up, thrusting themselves against his face.

Quirrell let out a scream of his own as he recoiled- but remained on top of her as he pulled his face out of her reach. He quickly looked back down, while she was still recovering… then seized her wrists and smashed them against her neck.

She choked, struggling- and Quirrell yelled in combined pain and triumph.

Finally, Hailey stopped struggling… and when Quirrell drew his hands back like he’d been burned- which, judging by the boils that had sprung up wherever they touched, he had been- her arms fell limply to the ground.

Quirrell, breathing deeply, started to draw his wand- then froze, and looked towards Draco.

Draco flinched- realizing, a second too late, that the Stone had fallen out of his pocket, and was in clear view on the floor.

Quirrell abandoned Hailey- whose hair, Draco noticed, and turned red- and rose to step slowly, triumphantly, towards him. He bent down, reaching for the Stone, then-

“Accio!”

The stone shot suddenly right out from under Quirrell’s grasping hand, racing across the chamber before it clattered against the opposite wall. Quirrell whirled in place, drawing his wand to identify his new enemy- and Draco looked past him as well.

There were two people standing over Hailey. One a man, who looked almost exactly like Harry did, with the exception that he didn’t have Harry’s green eyes- and the other a woman, who looked exactly like Hailey did, complete with the red hair. They were both ghosts, but both had their ghostly wands out. Draco had to wonder who had summoned the Stone, since ghosts couldn’t do magic.

Quirrell snarled, and raised his wand. “Avada Kedavra,” he snarled. The bolt of green light… passed straight through the man, and blew a hole in the opposite wall, about six feet away from where the Stone had come to rest against Hermione’s chest.

The man raised his eyebrow. “Did you really think that would work?” he asked. “You’ve already killed us, Voldemort.”

The woman regarded Quirrell calmly. “You failed to kill our daughter once,” she told him. “And you will fail once more.”

“She’s already dead,” Quirrell told them.

She smiled. “No, she’s not.” She stepped over Hailey. “She’s only left the fighting to us.” She swung her wand down and pointed it behind her. “Rennervate.”

Across the room, Draco saw Hermione take a sudden breath, eyes flashing open.

Draco stared. They must have been Hailey’s parents- yet they were ghosts, when they hadn’t even left ghosts- and ghosts couldn’t use magic, either! What was going on?

Quirrell raised his wand to point at Hermione, but-

“Expelliarmus,” James Potter barked, and Quirrell’s wand shot out of his hand mid-incantation.

Lily stepped right up to Quirrell… then slapped him across the face, sending him pirouetting off to the side before crashing to the floor. “Come out, Voldemort,” she commanded. “Face us yourself.”

A flash of light crossed the room from Hermione, and struck Draco square in the chest. He was frightened for a moment- but then the ropes binding him fell away, and he scrambled to his feet, snatching up his wand. Then he felt the first warning from his form spell- he had about five minutes to shift back before the spell would collapse and knock him out for a few hours. He wrinkled his nose, and let it fall away, becoming himself once again. The Potters didn’t show even a hint of surprise at the change.

Quirrell scrambled backwards, fear in his eyes- and Draco was astounded to see a massive, slap-shaped blister on the side of his face.

Very suddenly, a ghostly phantom burst from Quirrell’s turban and whisked out of the chamber, through the fire.

“Impedimenta!” James barked, whirling- but he was too late. “Coward,” he snarled after it.

Meanwhile, Quirrell collapsed, falling onto his back, and let out a piteous moan.

The Potters ignored him. Lily walked back over to Hailey, while James looked at Draco and Hermione. “Are you two alright?” he asked.

They nodded.

He gave a short nod. “Good. Watch Quirrell for me, will you? Voldemort has left him to die, but he’s still got a few minutes left.” He turned to Lily. “How’s Hailey?”

Lily looked up, from where she had crouched next to Hailey. “She’ll be okay,” she muttered. “He stopped choking her when she passed out, so she’s still alive.” She looked back down at Hailey. “I’m… I’m more worried about that.” She pointed at Hailey’s scar, which was bleeding slightly. “I wish she had allowed him to try the Killing Curse- would have cleaned that right out. But as it is…” She shook her head. “It’s going to be a few days.”

James crouched down next to her, putting an arm around her shoulders. “At least she survived,” he stated.

She nodded. “At least she survived,” she agreed.

Very suddenly, Dumbledore burst through the black fire, wand raised.

“Professor Dumbledore,” James greeted, looking up and rising to his feet.

Dumbledore blinked, taking in the scene before him. “What the-?” he began.

Hermione giggled.

James merely smiled. “Voldemort has already fled,” he informed Dumbledore. “He’s left Quirrell to die.” He pointed towards Quirrell, whose breathing was dying out very quickly.

Author's Note

Sorry, just had to stir things up a little. But that's what happens when Hailey meets Voldemort: Her hair turns red. Oh, yes, and two immortal guardians that just happen to be her parents also appear.

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Chapter 33: The Chamber of Secrets

“I’ve got to tell you something.”

Ron looked up at Ginny’s words, coming from the other side of Hailey at breakfast- the only time he saw her anymore, almost like she simply didn’t eat dinner or something. As for Ginny, Ron knew she was still hellishly shy around Hailey- and blushed at the merest mention of her name. Even now, he saw, she was desperately avoiding looking at Hailey.

“What is it?” Hailey asked, in a calm, no-nonsense tone.

Ginny didn’t answer. She rocked strangely back and forth in her seat- and once, she opened her mouth, but no sound came out.

Ron was about to ask her what it was, when she saw Hailey stiffen.

“Is it the Diary?” she asked.

Ginny didn’t answer, but the look of surprise on her face told Ron all he needed to know.

Then there was Percy. “If you’re done eating, Ginny, I’ll take that seat,” he began.

“One minute, Percy,” Hailey commanded, causing Percy to flinch backwards in shock.

But the damage was done. With one fleeting, frightened glance at Percy, Ginny ran away at full tilt.

Hailey abandoned her food and bolted after her, her gleaming black hair streaming behind her in a manner that seemed a little strange to Ron, somehow.

Ron looked up at Percy. “Seriously?” he asked.

Percy looked back at where the two girls had vanished so quickly. “What?” He blinked. “Oh. That was our Goddess of Reports, wasn’t it?”

Ron rolled his eyes. He’d shown Hailey the newspaper the day before, and she’d thought it amusing for a second, before returning to her unerring concentration. Her name, of course, hadn’t been mentioned- but it was fairly easy to guess, what with how she seemed to be both everywhere and nowhere, simultaneously, all day, every day. Except only for breakfast.

Tom Riddle sighed to himself as, finally, some footfalls were tracing their way down the Chamber of Secrets. It was the third time the doors had been opened- and he’d heard an explosion on the second time, but hadn’t been able to discern the source.

He braced himself, grinning silently as he stayed out of sight. This… This must be Harry, coming to rescue the love of his life. Or at least, the girl that dearly wished that she was.

It wasn’t. It was a girl, for one- with long, gleaming black hair, and a sureness in her footing that seemed so wrong in one so young.

The girl stopped, even with the final pair of pillars, staring at Ginny… then looked to the sides, and up as well. Finally, she looked at Ginny again… and raised her wand.

Then, Ginny was in her arms.

She didn’t fly there. She didn’t teleport there, or otherwise get there- as near as Riddle could tell, she simply was there, all of the sudden, as if she’d always been, completely bypassing all his traps.

“Ginny?” the girl prompted.

Then Ginny let out a sudden gasp. “What the-!?” she cried.

Riddle blinked. That shouldn’t have been possible! He was draining her too much! Yet… there she was.

“Where is it?” the girl demanded, while lowering Ginny to her feet.

Ginny straightened up, looking around, and finally settled on the statue of Salazar. She raised one hand to point. “There.”

The girl raised her wand so quickly Riddle barely saw it. “Confringo,” she barked.

Riddle was only barely in time, with Ginny’s wand. “Accio!” His diary skittered out of the way mere moments before Salazar’s entire foot paid the price with an echoing boom.

He then ducked, catching his diary and dodging to the side just in time as the girl’s wand slashed to the side. He very narrowly avoided her second spell, whatever it was, that took out an entire pillar with a swirling vortex of darkness. Lightning flashed, once, and it was gone.

“What the hell-!?” he demanded. This must be Hailey Potter, that girl Ginny had told him about that seemed to be completely and totally unstoppable. Unfortunately, according to Ginny, she was unrelated to the Harry Potter he so wanted to talk to.

“Voldemort,” the girl barked, lowering her wand to her side and meeting his gaze. “We meet again.” She had to be Hailey; Ginny loved her so much just because she was so fearless she threw the Dark Lord Voldemort’s name around carelessly, he was pretty sure.

“Again?” he asked, confused.

She smiled. “Yes, you wouldn’t remember, would you? I killed you.”

“What?” Even Ginny was looking confused.

Hailey chuckled darkly. “Call your snake. We’ll test the power of Lord Voldemort against the power of the Potter Family.”

“The Potter family?” Riddle repeated, aghast. “They’re dead.”

“What?” Hailey asked, her grin starting to send spikes of fear down Riddle’s spine for some strange reason. “You think a dead man can’t fight?” she asked.

Ginny was looking even more confused. There was even a ghost next to her, an identical twin except for her aquamarine hair, hugging her and watching in confusion as well.

“Of course he can’t,” Riddle told her, attempting to reassert himself.

Hailey laughed. It was a high, cold laugh, normally reserved for Riddle himself. “Then you still have much to learn, Tommy Boy.”

He snarled, and raised Ginny’s wand to point at Hailey. He was done talking to this girl; her corpse would make a good chair while he waited for Harry. “Avada Kedavra.”

“No!” Ginny cried- but she was behind Hailey… who, for some strange reason, didn’t even try to block or dodge the spell.

It struck her square on the stomach, and… nothing. She didn’t even stumble.

“Because a dead man… can fight,” Hailey said.

“What do you…?” Ginny muttered, looking just as confused as Riddle felt.

Her shimmering twin hugged her from behind. “Let her fight, we can ask her later.”

“Wait what? Ariel?”

But then Riddle was distracted by the appearance of two more ghosts. Both of them were taller than Hailey, but stepping out of her sides. Ginny and Ariel were both staring in disbelief.

“Well, some dead men,” the man of the two shrugged, rolling his shoulders. “Hmm, have you thought how we’re going to beat him?”

“Pretty sure we can’t attack him directly,” the woman scowled. “Just like he can’t attack us directly.”

“Behold,” Hailey said, stepping up between them and holding out her hands. “The Potter Family. Or would you prefer I remind you that Dumbledore is coming?”

“Dumbledore?” he asked incredulously, still trying to believe what he was seeing. “He has been driven from this school by a mere memory of me!”

Hailey snorted- then she and all three ghosts spoke as one.

“Dumbledore is always coming.”

Riddle opened his mouth to retort… then paused. There was… an eerie music, of sorts, coming from… somewhere.

The music eventually revealed itself to be coming from a bird- a phoenix, to be specific. It swooped around, dropping the old Sorting Hat on the chamber floor, and landed on Hailey’s shoulder.

“That’s a phoenix,” Riddle said, blankly.

Hailey chuckled. “Oh, Fawkes isn’t just any ordinary phoenix, Tom. He’s Dumbledore’s familiar.” She grinned. “See what we mean? Dumbledore is coming.”

Tom snorted, then looked up into the statue’s face and summoned the basilisk.

“Oh, this ought to be fun,” the man that had stepped out of Hailey mused.

The woman chuckled. “Any fight is fun for you anymore, James.”

“Oh puh-lease, Lily. Don’t be such a killjoy.”

Then the two Potters laughed joyously.

“Ginny, no.” It was Ginny’s twin, pushing her away from the statue. “Hide behind that pillar. Let me fight.”

Hailey looked. “Ginny, go. Ariel?”

“I can fight,” she announced promptly.

“It is about to land on your head.”

“What-!?”

Then the basilisk landed, exactly as Hailey had predicted, right on Ariel’s head. She vanished from sight.

“Kill the girl,” Riddle snarled, in parseltongue.

“Which one?” the Basilisk answered, looking around. “I smell four.”

“Four?” Riddle asked, confused. “The black-haired one.”

The phoenix took off from Hailey’s shoulder. Riddle laughed.

Hailey turned to the basilisk, walking backwards, away from it. “This way, this way,” she hissed. “You’re hunting for me.”

It lunged at her. For some reason, its gaze didn’t seem to even phase her.

All of the sudden, she jumped in the air, did a flip, landed on its head, and slid all the way down to its tail, where she landed on the floor and bent to lift something up… It was Ariel.

But hadn’t the basilisk crushed her to death?

Then Hailey seized the end of the basilisk’s tail in her left hand and flung it back past her, at Salazar’s statue. “Confringo!”

The entire statue shattered into so many stone bullets, raining down on the basilisk… Which, after regaining its bearings, lunged again.

Ariel stepped in front of Hailey, and caught its jaws with her arms. “Oh My,” she cried facetiously. “A Basilisk has bitten me! And it’s venomous!” She twisted one arm, snapping one of the massive snake’s fangs right off, then seized that fang with her other hand and narrowly missed its eye with her counterattack. “Not that it matters, though- I’m a ghost. I can’t be killed.” She discarded it to the side.

Riddle decided he had to do something to distract them; the Basilisk was being treated as more of a chew toy than a legitimate threat.

“So Dumbledore sent you a useless bird?” Riddle asked.

“Useless?” Hailey asked, looking at him and ignoring the basilisk as James blasted it clear to the top of the rubble pile. “What’s that make the other two?”

“What other two?”

There was a sudden, bright flash of flames off to the side, then the whole chamber seemed to explode into flames, the basilisk vanishing in a funeral pyre. It writhed once, then collapsed in a great big pile of cooked snake.

He looked.

Two girls. One a fourth year, the other a second year. Both had phoenix-like hair, and they were holding hands.

They must be the two phoenix-born Ginny had mentioned.

Speaking of Ginny, after letting out a squeak of surprise, she was peering around her pillar and staring around the Chamber in awe.

Then, Riddle felt the rumble of the Chamber entrance opening once again. He whirled to look.

It looked like there was a small army in the entrance, with Dumbledore at the lead. More importantly, dead center in the Chamber, hardly a hundred feet away from him, were two more girls. One had gleaming silver hair, split neatly into thirds, and was leaning on a sword Riddle recognized instantly as the Sword of Gryffindor.

The other was a third girl with phoenix hair. She had the discarded basilisk fang piece in one hand, and his diary in the other. “You hurt my friends,” she snarled.

Before Riddle could stop her, she brought the two firmly together.

He died, instantly.

Author's Note

I don't know about you, but this one always makes me laugh. I think it's the curbstomp battle...

And don't worry, Dumbledore has questions too.

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Hmm... As soon as I get around to putting them on Patreon, I am actually writing over a year in the future, by story timeline... What do you say to a temporary, accelerated schedule to catch up a bit? It's a bit difficult to keep track of things when writing about the Triwizard Tournament and publishing about the Chamber of Secrets.

Chapter 43: Shiny!

“It’s… Complicated,” Hailey muttered. Rita Skeeter was gathering material for a body article about how she ran the Student Instructor Program; the rumor mill had suggested there was a lot of unease about not having Dumbledore guiding the program. “For starters, there are about thirty thousand eight hundred twenty six Student Instructors overall- or roughly seventy percent of the total student population, which stands at forty three thousand eight hundred and two right now.” She sighed. “That already gives us a very large degree of autonomy, since one man can’t possibly keep track of fifteen thousand five hundred sixty-one classes going on throughout the Castle.

“Naturally, neither can any one girl- there’s a reason we have an entire team and a hierarchy in place. And in the end?” She shrugged. “Every week, we bring Dumbledore a detailed report, and summarize it for him as well. If he tells us to do something, or to-!” Her head snapped down to look at Sadarina, who had sucked in a sudden breath while whirling around to look down the Great Hall in the direction of the grounds. The girl had, exactly as Hailey had expected, developed into a very smart little girl- though she was also very quiet. She didn’t seem to like talking, and still followed Hailey everywhere. When she’d asked why, Sadarina had blushed and buried her face in her robes. Madam Pomfrey had reported that the patroni Hailey cast for her- which still made her smile- seemed to have extended the time she had to regenerate, but it still wasn’t going to be enough.

“What is-?” Hailey began, before Sadarina leaped from her seat.

“Come!” she cried, breaking into a dead run towards the entrance hall.

Hailey shared a brief glance with Rita, before also abandoning the empty Great Hall- everyone else had already gone upstairs to bed- and bolting after her, Rita right behind her.

Sadarina led them straight out the great oak front doors, and across the dark lawn towards one of the entrances.

“What is it?” Hailey asked, as they drew closer. Sadarina didn’t answer- but she didn’t need to answer. The Moon was out in full force tonight- and almost as soon as she asked the question, Hailey made out a strange figure lying on the ground between the two dementor guards.

Sadarina skidded to a halt in front of the figure, completely ignoring the dementors on either side of her- no, on one side of her. The other one vanished in a puff of black smoke as she got close, though another swooped in a couple seconds later to take the post. Interestingly enough, Hailey noticed that they weren’t drawing their rattling breaths- weren’t reducing their surroundings to icy sadness.

Hailey skidded to a halt behind Sadarina, who was looking at the figure. It looked somewhat like a person.

Finally, Rita slowed much more gracefully. “Lumos,” she announced.

Her narrow wand beam illuminated a woman, a leg and an arm missing and blood all over her robes, lying on the ground.

“Amelia Bones,” Rita gasped. “What-?”

“She’s still alive,” Sadarina observed suddenly, then looked up. “Hailey? I need a patronus. The strongest one you can muster.”

She blinked. “A… Patronus?”

She nodded. “I can save her with it.”

She took a deep breath, closing her eyes. She called up as many happy memories as she could, tacked on as many happy things as she could, and finally, concentrating on it with all her might, she drew her wand.

“Expecto Patronum.”

“Uh- Commander?”

“What is it?” Alaina asked, looking ‘up’ at where Harmon was in the observation blister.

“You might want to come look at this. It’s…” She trailed off.

Alaina sighed, and gently launched herself into the observation blister next to her, peering out the windows.

She saw it.

She ‘raised’ her camera- though one could hardly call it ‘raised’ in the lack of gravity aboard the International Space Station- and snapped a photo. The entirety of Europe was hidden by a very bright silver glow.

She pushed herself back down wordlessly, and reached for the communicator.

Professor Dumbledore raised an eyebrow, leaning closer to his office window before he closed it for the night. There was a glint of light, way down on the grounds. It was moving, too.

He scowled, drew his wand, and was about to perform the spell that would tell him who or what was out there when he suddenly didn’t need to.

Hailey was right. It was blinding. And silver… very silver.

He pulled the curtains closed and took shelter against the wall next to the window while he waited for it to fade.

It seemed to go on, and on, and on. Finally, it was over a minute after it first appeared that it went away. He pushed the curtains open again and looked- but alas, he couldn’t see anything; his eyes had adjusted to the brightness!

Rita blinked several times to try and remove the stars from her eyes once Hailey’s ridiculous patronus disappeared. She managed it- though the beam of light from her wand looked feeble and dim by comparison.

She gasped. Amelia’s clothes were still shredded and bloody, but her missing limbs were all back, and her skin looked pristine. That level of repairs were flat-out impossible; once a limb was lost, the limb was lost, though magic could easily create a working prosthetic. There was a potion to restore hands- but it didn’t work for elbows or knees. So how had Sadarina done that with a patronus?

“Woah,” Hailey muttered. “That was… weird. So- Oh wow. How is she now?”

Even Sadarina seemed to be struck with wonder- she was staring at Hailey in awe. She blinked, and looked down at Amelia. “Oh. She’s…” She paused. “Recovering.”

Then Rita looked up, at the two dementors still standing on either side of the entrance. “Doesn’t… Doesn’t a Patronus drive Dementors off…?”

Hailey looked up. “Huh? … Yeah, that’s strange. But last time I did that, I resurrected Sadarina, so…” She shrugged. “Anyways.” She looked back down. “How about we get her up to the Hospital Wing to recover?”

“Is anyone dead or dying?”

“Not anymore,” Sadarina answered promptly, drawing her attention.

“You can talk?” Madam Pomfrey asked. That was the very first words she’d ever heard the girl utter.

She only nodded.

So Madam Pomfrey looked up at her companions- Hailey and Rita, who were carrying what looked like an unconscious Amelia Bones. “What happened?” she asked.

“No idea,” Hailey answered her promptly. “She was in about twelve different pieces when we got there, then Sadarina put her back together with a Patronus.”

“With a… Patronus.”

“Yes.”

She looked at Sadarina. “You’re a very strange girl, you know that?”

She smiled. “I know.”

She sighed, looking up at Hailey and Rita. “Right over here, please.” She guided them to an empty bed, and drew her wand to start scanning her.

It was… It was confusing.

Hailey tried not to fidget while she watched Madam Pomfrey look the woman over. She felt like she should recognize the name, but she didn’t.

It took the nurse a very, very long time- and even then, she seemed very confused as she turned away. “Hmm,” she muttered. “Sadarina? Do you mind if I-?”

Sadarina nodded. “Go ahead.”

It seemed to take yet another forever, before Madam Pomfrey seemed to be satisfied with her results.

“Well,” she muttered, looking at Hailey. “You know that… energy, that Sadarina is using to keep herself functioning?”

Hailey nodded.

“She now has so much of it I can’t see how she could possibly run out before she finishes healing.” She sighed. “And wizards don’t have any of that energy… yet Amelia has about as much as she does.”

She scowled. “So she’s okay?”

She shook her head. “She will be. Aside from being, ah, in twelve different well-managed pieces underneath her pristine appearance, she’s also fighting with what looks like a curse of some sort. I’m no cursebreaker- but it’s fading and she’s not, so it should be only a matter of time.”

“Hey Ginny?”

Ginny looked. It was Monday evening after the final class had let out- and Hailey had run into her in an empty corridor. She felt her face warm up, but the blush was only slight; she was getting better about that. “Mm?”

“How do you take care of your wings?”

She blinked, her face heating up like a stovetop. “Wh-What?”

“Well,” Hailey smiled. “I have wings now too, so could you teach me how to take care of them?”

“How- How do you have wings?”

Next to her, Ariel broke out in a fit of giggles.

“I ascended,” Hailey answered shortly. “Harmonia doesn’t like things like messy wings, so I haven’t asked her why just yet.”

She could only stare.

Author's Note

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Chapter 45: The Shrieking Shack

“Hailey?”

“Yes, Sadarina?” Hailey asked, looking down. They were alone, in the classroom the Student Instructor Program Management Team had placed their conference table in, while she reviewed the latest report. Instructor Keen Eye had expressed worry that her co-instructor was drifting, and even said that she often didn’t listen when she asked. According to the report, gathered when Bonbon had sat in on her Astronomy class, it really looked like Instructor Lack Effort was ‘gliding’ through her teaching assignment, despite getting pretty good grades across the board.

She’d been mostly unwilling to allow Sadarina out of her sight for quite a while after the attack on Amelia, whatever had started it; there had been a big hullabaloo all over the Daily Prophet, but none of the Aurors could figure out where she’d come from. They knew where she’d been some minutes before, but they didn’t know if she’d made an interim stop along the way.

Ever since that attack, and her miraculous saving of the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement’s life, Sadarina had a tendency to curl up and stare off into space, a worried expression on her face. She’d always brushed it off when asked what was wrong.

“I…” Sadarina began, staring at her knees, which were curled against her chest. “Can you please call me…” She took a deep breath. “Call me a dirtbag.”

Hailey blinked. “Say what?”

She looked up at her. “Can you call me a dirtbag?” she asked.

“Why?”

“Because…” She looked down again. “Because it’s what I am.”

Hailey shook her head, drawing her into a hug. “No. You are so much more than a simple bag of dirt that it’s not even funny.”

“But-!” She looked up at her. “But Amelia… I could have saved her without-!”

Hailey wrapped her in a bear hug until her voice petered out. “There is a saying,” she muttered, loosening up so Sadarina could breathe again. “Hindsight always has twenty-twenty vision.”

“But I didn’t have to turn her.”

“Sadarina,” Hailey told her. “Madam Pomfrey told me that she was likely just a couple seconds from death when you saved her. Because you were able to think of a method, any method, you were able to do what nobody else could have done- and saved her. Even Madam Pomfrey wouldn’t have been able to, had she been there.”

“But I could have-!”

“Sadarina,” she interrupted. “Stop. If she doesn’t like whatever changes you made to be able to save her like that, I’m sure someone can find a way to reverse them.”

She shook her head. “It’s irreversible,” she stated.

“Well then I’m sure she’ll be able to die if she doesn’t like them, right? Because that was really the only other option when you did it.”

She looked up again. “But-!”

“Sadarina.” She held her on her lap, just far enough she could look into her face. “Have you ever wondered how often I regret bringing you back? I could have easily used a less-powerful patronus, and you wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t even be known as the Goddess of Patroni.”

She shuddered.

“Not for one second,” she told her. “Not for one single second did I ever regret bringing you back, even when I thought you were going to die in the middle of the year. And you know what? I was right. I did give you a second chance, didn’t I?”

She smiled weakly. “Yeah, I guess… But-!”

“So what did you do for Amelia? No, not to her, for her.”

“I…” She paused. “I don’t know.”

“You gave her a second chance to live, didn’t you?”

“I… I suppose,” she muttered. “But it’s- It’s-!”

“Hey. It doesn’t matter if it’s a different life. What matters is that it’s a life. You hear me? Besides, who knows- she might just enjoy it.”

Sadarina only stared at her, as if she’d said something absolutely ridiculous.

Hermione paused, looking at Hailey. “What is it?” she asked.

They- Hailey, Hermione, Ron, and Sadarina- had walked down to visit Hagrid after their final exams. Silver, Morning, and Diamond all had other stuff to do, and so weren’t present. Then, during their admittedly very long visit, Hermione had found Scabbers inside one of Hagrid’s milk jugs- and now, Ron was struggling to hold onto him without using his immense Etrah strength as they returned to the castle in the gloom of the evening. Hailey had started gazing contemplatively out into the darkness when Ron stopped.

Hailey rubbed her chin. “I’m thinking… Yeah. Ron, hold onto that rat- in your hand if you have to- and c’mon.” She trotted off into the darkness, where Hermione thought she saw something moving.

All three of them followed. Sadarina didn’t seem particularly curious, like she already knew where they were going- but she was already a very strange girl, so that didn’t really surprise Hermione.

“His name is Scabbers,” Ron intoned.

Hermione was tempted to correct him- now that she was thinking about it, she was fairly sure he was actually Peter Pettigrew- but decided not to.

Finally, she saw what Hailey was following. It looked like a great, black dog of some sort. “Ahh,” she muttered, catching up to Hailey. “Is that…?”

Hailey nodded silently.

Finally, the dog slipped through the swinging branches of the Whomping Willow and vanished into a tunnel at its base.

They stopped. “Uh…” Ron began, holding Scabbers around the middle. “How’re we going to follow it there?”

Right on time, Crookshanks- the ginger cat Hermione had gotten from Diagon Alley the previous summer- darted in out of nowhere, slipped through the branches, and placed his paw against the trunk.

The tree went stone still.

Hailey nodded. “That’s how,” she said, and led the way forwards. Crookshanks slipped down into the tunnel before them, and they followed.

“Be quiet, Scabbers,” Ron grumbled. “That cat’s not going to eat you.”

He was right. Even once they emerged from the tunnel- into what Hermione promptly recognized as the Shrieking Shack- Crookshanks only took one look at Scabbers, before flicking his tail and leading them upstairs.

They followed.

Finally, Crookshanks slipped through a door that had been left ajar.

Hailey pushed it open, stepping fearlessly in with Sadarina by her side.

Hermione followed her in, then stopped with a gasp. Sirius Black was waiting for them on the far side of the room. She let out a squeak, staring at him- then stopped, and looked at Hailey. Ron, meanwhile, had a similar reaction, on Hailey’s other side.

“We meet again,” Sirius Black said, dramatically.

“So we do,” Hailey said, conversationally. “How’s it been?”

Hermione blinked at exactly how unconcerned she seemed. It was like he didn’t pose a threat to any of them, not just herself!

Black looked flustered by her question as well, and evidently chose not to answer it. “Why did you follow me?”

She shrugged. “It looked like you wanted me to. Unless I was wrong, of course?”

He stared at her. “How… Why are you not afraid of me?”

Hermione turned to look at Hailey, eager for the answer herself.

Hailey didn’t answer. Instead, she smiled, and looked down at Sadarina. “Do you want to answer that one?” she asked.

“He’s innocent,” Sadarina said simply.

Hailey looked back up at Black. “See?” She shrugged. “Besides, Prongs told me about Padfoot… and Wormtail.”

Right at that moment, there was a sudden sound from below. Footsteps.

Hermione looked. “Who…?” she muttered. As usual, it was hard to feel fear when standing next to Hailey.

Sirius either didn’t hear it or ignored it. “Who are you?” he asked.

She smiled. “Me?”

Then Professor Lupin arrived, rushing into the room behind them. He took one look at Black and- “Stupefy!”

Hailey’s hand moved like greased lighting, deflecting the spell to hit the ceiling. “Ahh, Professor Lupin,” she began. “You might want to listen a little before continuing your attack.”

“He’s innocent,” Sadarina said simply, looking up at Lupin.

Hailey smiled down at her, then looked back at Lupin. “And not just to her.”

He stared at Hailey for a couple seconds, then sighed, and lowered his wand. “Why?” he asked.

She shrugged. “For starters, Peter is here too.”

“Peter?” Lupin looked surprised, though, not confused like Hermione was.

She nodded. “Yes, Wormtail, the death eater that sold out my parents.”

“But-!”

“They switched,” Hailey told him. “Prongs told me. Peter was Secret Keeper for all of three days before Voldemort arrived.”

“Then-!” Lupin began, cutting himself off as he thought. “So…” He paused again. “Where is he?”

Hailey pointed to Ron.

“Wha-?” Ron began, and checked behind him. “Am I missing something?” he asked.

“Yes,” Hermione answered promptly. “We haven’t told you something. We…” She paused. “We didn’t want to start a panic.”

“A panic,” Ron repeated, nodding slowly. “And you’ll tell me now?”

She nodded. “Yes. Scabbers is Peter.”

Ron looked at Scabbers, in his hand, and back up. “You’re kidding me.”

“He’s an animagus,” Hailey told him.

He sighed, and rolled his eyes. “Of course he is. So let me guess.” He paused. “Peter was an utter coward that became a Death Eater and sold out your parents after becoming Secret Keeper then Sirius hunted him down but Peter got the better of him and framed him while faking his own death before sneaking into my family as a ‘pet’ and started panicking when Sirius got free because he knew he was going to come commit the murder he was imprisoned for?” He spoke very quickly, without stopping or drawing breath, much like Pinkie Pie might.

Everyone stared at him. Except Sadarina.

“Yes,” she said, simply, and smiled.

“How did you…?” Lupin began in wonder.

“They aren’t the only smart students in the school,” Ron shrugged. “I just don’t use it very often.”

Hailey laughed. Even Sadarina giggled, while Sirius, Lupin, and Hermione just stared at him.

Then Hailey turned suddenly to Sirius. “Though that does raise the question, Sirius- how exactly did you ‘get free’?”

Sirius smiled, and launched into his explanation. Essentially, it seemed to boil down to the fact that he was an Animagus. He’d used first his innocence and then his rage and obsession over Peter to keep his sanity, then slipped past the dementors as a dog and swam from the island. Apparently, dementors had trouble sensing animals.

But Hermione kept her eyes open. At several points in his explanation, Sadarina scowled.

Finally, Sirius finished his explanation by barely restraining himself from lunging at Scabbers.

Sadarina was the first to speak.

“No.”

“No?” Sirius asked, looking at her.

“We can’t tell,” she began, “and often never know, what any one person has been convicted of- but it’s trivial to tell if they’re guilty… or innocent. Not that we could ever act upon that knowledge- until you transformed.”

“We?” Sirius asked, looking dumbfounded.

“She used to be a dementor,” Hailey told him.

Sadarina smiled, and continued as if she hadn’t been interrupted. “We can sense animals just as well as humans- and as a point of fact, your emotions don’t change at all when you’re an animal.” She sighed. “But we can tell when you change… and we are only bound, by the Ministry, to keep human prisoners within our walls.” She sighed. “So when you transformed… we had the choice to let you go.” She paused. “And you were innocent,” she shrugged, “so we used that choice, and… let you out.”

“... Ah,” Sirius muttered, slowly.

Lupin stared at her. “And… Is he right about… how he avoided madness?”

She nodded. “Partly, yes. The Ministry requires we hold our human prisoners within our walls, and drain them at all times. They don’t specify how strongly- I don’t think they know we have that power.

“We normally cycle our drain, on the Island. It’s small enough nobody ever notices it- but their subconscious mind does. Every few minutes, they get a tiny sliver of hope… and we take it away. Then we give them a tiny sliver of hope… and take it away. And a tiny sliver of hope… and we take it away.” She sighed, staring at the floor. “It’s enough to drive anyone to madness.” She looked up. “But we don’t do it to the innocents. We keep the drain on them very, very constant. They can still go mad, in their own, despairing minds- but that only happens if they’ve given up. It takes only very little effort, on their part, to stay sane. And Sirius…” She smiled up at him. “He was very strong. I doubt he would’ve devolved to madness before he died, even if he never got out. Innocents are usually like that. They can take comfort in their innocence.”

“And… when wizards lose their power?” Sirius asked.

“That’s a different… technique.” She sighed. “When someone starts going mad, we take their power. It keeps them from accidentally lashing out and potentially hurting us.”

“Even though…?” Lupin began.

She nodded. “Even though the only way we can die is starvation.”

“Starvation?” someone asked, from the corner. Hermione jumped, and looked- but it was only Rita Skeeter. However she had gotten in, she had no idea. “But Dementors have been disappearing like flies.”

She nodded. “I’ve been killing off the husks,” she told her.

“The… Husks,” Sirius muttered, eying Rita. “Dare I ask what that is?”

She nodded. “A Dementor… that has given up. Its mind, its soul, its life. A Husk is no more a person than the body of someone we have Kissed. It will, however, fight to survive, and obey orders, generally. Husks serve only to dry up an already scanty source of food, and they’re very, very difficult to destroy. Unless you’re strong enough to drain them directly.” She sighed. “I… almost became a Husk. I’m not proud of it. But then…” She looked up at Hailey, and smiled. “Then you came along, and blasted me on the train. Once we figured out what exactly had happened, many that were close to giving up… didn’t. We all gained a new hope.”

“Are you… still connected?” Hailey asked. “To the dementors?”

She looked down. “I still am a dementor. I’m just… well fed. Just like, after that Patronus when we found Amelia, every other dementor.”

“Doesn’t that mean the Husks are that much harder to get rid of?” Ron asked, tilting his head.

She smiled. “It would… but there are none left. I destroyed the last one seconds before she cast that Patronus.”

“Well fed,” Hermione repeated. “What’s that… do? Aside from, well…” She gestured at Sadarina, who smiled.

“We’re extremely powerful magical creatures,” she told her. “My brother made sure of that. Until recently, none of us were strong enough to use our powers.” She sighed. “Now, we are.”

“Your brother?” Hailey asked.

She nodded. “The First Dementor… and the first Husk.”

“If your brother was…?” Ron began.

She nodded again. “I was the second.” Then she looked past Lupin, to the door.

Lupin looked too, and scowled.

Hermone thought she saw… something, moving, somewhere around there- then Lupin drew his wand and, moments later, Professor Snape shimmered into existence, pausing mid-stride and shrouded in the characteristic effect of a collapsing Disillusionment Charm.

“Well hello, Severus,” Lupin greeted calmly, lowering his wand.

Sadarina scowled. “They’re innocent,” she told Professor Snape.

Hailey raised an eyebrow.

Hermione noticed that his wand was pointed straight at Lupin… and he had a fanatic gleam in his eye, which was wholly unlike him.

Snape practically exploded with fury. He started by aggressively explaining the reason he knew they were there- apparently, he’d looked out Lupin’s office window, and seen him running into the Whomping Willow- and waving a smoking goblet around with his wandless hand.

The next minute or so he spent talking about how he had kept telling Dumbledore that Lupin was untrustworthy, and that the scene before him just proved it.

“Severus, you’re making a mistake,” Lupin interrupted urgently.

“He’s innocent,” Sadarina repeated.

Snape ignored them. “Two more for Azkaban tonight!”

Finally, Lupin asked a question- Hermione didn’t catch it, her heart was beating too hard- and Snape hog-tied him with a bang.

“He’s innocent,” Sadarina repeated forcefully, while Lupin fell to the floor.

Sirius started forwards- but Snape pointed his wand square between his eyes. “Give me a reason,” he snarled.

Hermione took a deep breath. “Um- Professor, would-!” She had to remind herself that with Hailey here, hardly six feet away, there wasn’t any real danger, really no matter what he did. “Would it really hurt to hear what they have to say?”

He snapped at her. She didn’t catch the specific words he was using- he was so angry it was coming out distorted- but she got the gist. He was, essentially, promising to see them suspended.

Then something happened, that Hermione could never have seen coming.

Sadarina willingly left Hailey’s side, for the first time all year. She looked angry- not as angry as when the dementors had interrupted that one Quidditch match, but angry. She swept one hand through the air… and the ropes binding Lupin shattered, as if they had been made of glass. The broken pieces of rope disappeared into the air as she marched forwards.

Snape pointed his wand at her. Sirius crouched, as if to charge, but he was too late- a bolt of red light shot from Snape’s wand.

Sadarina slashed her hand again, and the spell bolt shattered like glass as well. A second later, Snape let out a gasp and dropped his wand- which, Hermione noticed, was glowing red hot. He stared down at it as it singed the floor where it landed- then Sadarina reached him, seized his injured hand, and yanked him down to her level. She pulled until his face was just inches from hers, almost casually snatching the goblet of potion out of the air with her other hand.

“They Are Innocent,” she yelled, straight into his face.

Snape seemed to go into shock, doing nothing but staring at her as she released him, bent to pick up his cooled wand, and returned to Hailey’s side with it and the goblet of potion. Finally, she sniffed the potion.

Hailey smiled. “That’s Wolfsbane Potion,” she informed her.

She looked up at Hailey, and back down at the potion, before once again leaving Hailey’s side- this time to offer the goblet to Lupin, who was standing up again with Sirius’ help.

Lupin blinked at her as she approached.

“The full moon will come out in about half an hour,” she warned him, offering the goblet.

“Ahh… Right, yes, thank you.” He accepted the goblet, wrinkled his nose, and downed the potion inside.

Sirius looked at her. “Is it okay if we… ah…” His eyes traveled to Peter.

“Wormtail is guilty,” she said simply, before returning to Hailey’s side, still holding Snape’s wand.

Hailey sighed, and glanced into the corner. “I don’t suppose that means I can avoid any aspersions of godhood this time, does it?”

Hermione looked.

Rita shrugged. “The public views her as your baby angel,” she said. Then she raised her hands. “It wasn’t my doing, I promise! Enough other students must’ve sent letters home or something, because there are more and more rumors about exactly who the Goddess of Reports is every day, and…” She shrugged. “They started out as wild aspersions, but they’re getting fairly close nowadays.”

She sighed. Then she tilted her head, turning suddenly to Sirius and Lupin. “That reminds me. If we don’t kill Peter here, but instead take him back to the Castle, we can clear your name at the same time.” She nodded to Sirius.

“True,” Sirius muttered, rubbing his chin. “But would they believe us?”

“Is this where you tell me how you know Scabbers is Peter?” Ron asked suddenly, using his thumb to pin Scabbers’ head against his finger so he wouldn’t bite.

“The Marauder’s Map,” Hailey promptly answered. “And I talked to Prongs. And I have a friend that’s…” She paused. “I don’t know which one’s more sensitive, between her and Sadarina, but she’s really good at identifying people that don’t want to be identified.”

“She is,” Sadarina said suddenly. “She’s a full telempath- she can read the most minute of your emotions. Dementors… are only empaths. We can’t figure out why you’re mad, only that you are- she, for the most part at least, can.”

“Ahh… I guess she is.” She shrugged. “Makes sense, she hasn’t trusted him ever since she first crossed paths with him on the train to Hogwarts almost three years ago now. She told me that even back then, he stood out to her as a big, fat, cowardly liar of a rat.” She chuckled. “As a matter of fact, you’ve met her. Fifty times.”

“Fifty times?”

She nodded. “She’s… good at deception herself, and a very good actor too.” She shrugged. “Where do you think I found so many girls?”

“But there was-! There was-!” He paused, and tilted his head. “... You know, I can see that.” He looked down at Scabbers. “So how do we get the Ministry to believe us?”

“We-!” Hermione began, the answer coming to her in exactly the same way as they do when someone asks her a question in class. “We force him back into human form,” she said matter-of-factly.

“You can do that?” Ron asked.

“Oh you bet she can,” Rita answered suddenly, smiling from her corner.

“And if you’re wrong?”

“No effect on anything that isn’t an animagus,” Hailey promised.

He nodded. “Alright.” He held Scabbers out at an arm’s length. “Do you need me to let go of him?”

“Only once we’ve cast it,” Hailey told him, drawing her wand. “Homorphus.”

Author's Note

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

You know what? I’m just itching to release these. So for a limited time, Tuesdays…. And Fridays. Because why not?

Chapter 63: The Queen

Hailey sighed. It was rare for her to sit in on a Transfiguration class; Morning was one of the best Head Student Instructors on the team. However, this class…

It scored fairly low for student satisfaction, even though the grades were exemplary. The difference wasn’t large enough to attract the attention of the whole management team; there were larger problem spots they were working on.

It had, however, been enough to attract Morning’s attention. She’d sat in on this class twice, and finally come to Hailey for help; she couldn’t see any reason for the scores to be so low. Sure, Queen Chrysalis- she quite vehemently wasn’t the real thing, her parents just had bad taste in names- led the class very forcefully, and her co-instructor almost exclusively cowered in the corner all class (she knew Morning was investigating him for removal), but there wasn’t really anything to complain about.

And Hailey noticed, while sitting in the corner under her Invisibility Cloak and a quick anti-telempathy barrier to hide her from Changeling senses as well, just in case, that even Queen Chrysalis- or Crystal, as she kept trying to get ponies to call her- was hurt by the way they were forcing her to run the class.

The moment the bell rang, students instantly abandoned their tasks, seized their bags, and turned to flee, completely ignoring that Crystal had just told them what they were going to cover in the next class, and was in the middle of assigning their homework. Morning had warned Hailey about it, but hadn’t been able to ascertain the reason.

With a silent sigh, Hailey directly used the Misty Step spell to jump to the door, then whipped her Invisibility Cloak off with one motion. “What’s so scary?” she asked.

The effect was almost comical. Most of the students stopped running, but forgot they couldn’t do that by just stopping moving- resulting in a series of faceplants, and the rest of the students crashed into one another in a couple of dogpiles. Crystal’s co-instructor, who Hailey knew was a seasoned Agent not far below Bonbon’s level (which incidentally made him junior to her even without her ascension), slid to a halt of his own after flinching from her sudden appearance. He alone, of the runners, managed to avoid finding himself on the floor.

Even Crystal jumped, letting out a squeak of fright and stumbling back from her podium, straight into the blackboard.

One of the students closest to her spoke up. “I-It’s Queen Chrysalis,” she muttered.

“Crystal,” Hailey corrected.

At the back of the class, Crystal gasped and put a hand over her mouth.

“Her name’s Queen-!” most of the students began.

“She wants you to call her Crystal, does she not?” Hailey barked, interrupting them with the tiniest touch of Royal Canterlot Voice magic- which was currently properly termed ‘Volume Eleven’ magic when used on Earth.

The whole class flinched back from her sudden intensity. In the back, Crystal let out another squeak and slid slowly down the blackboard to sit on the floor, while her co-instructor snapped to attention.

Finally, the class nodded silently.

“So why don’t you call her that?” Hailey demanded, dropping the RCV touch. She didn’t need it.

The first student to speak up did so again, very timidly. “B-Because it’s not her na-!”

“So you would disrespect her wishes, and treat her like some kind of monster, just so you can satisfy yourselves that you’re using her name?”

“Uhh…”

Hailey looked at the lone spokesperson, read her nametag, and spoke softly, but darkly. “I thought you were above such rudeness, Clear Mind.”

The girl was twenty years old in Equestria, having gone straight from the CSGU graduation ceremony to the Hogwarts attendance list, but she’d evidently never been told off too strongly. It made sense; she was the daughter of some duke or another in Canterlot. She stumbled backwards, tripped over a table, and crashed to the ground with a small, terrified scream.

Hailey sighed, and looked out across them. “Do any of you realize how many precautions there are against changelings getting into this castle? How many trained guards are undercover as students, constantly watching for changelings, despite magically evaluating every pony before ever letting them through the portal?”

They all stared at her in silence while Clear Mind scrambled back to her feet.

“Crystal is not the Changeling Queen,” Hailey told them simply. “It is not possible for a changeling to get into Britain, let alone into such a high-ranking and thoroughly vetted position as Student Instructor. So.” She put her hands on her hips- it still felt odd to do that, but not nearly as odd as it had been when she’d first done it three years before- and looked across them again. “I’ll ask you a second time. What are you afraid of?”

There was silence for several seconds, before Clear Mind spoke again.

“Y-You.”

She let out a snort. “True enough, I suppose,” She sighed, and looked up at them all. “But not Crystal?”

“W-Well, she’s… She’s harsh,” Clear Mind muttered, staring at her hands as she fiddled with them nervously.

“She’s only harsh because she’s learned that’s the only way she can get through to you numbskulls.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper, but it didn’t need to be even that loud; the room had already gone deathly silent. Several students hung their heads.

“I’m not a numbskull!” someone cried.

Hailey’s eyes flashed. It was… Yes. Keen Mind, who was second only to Prince Blueblood in the belief that the world should do his bidding. How he’d managed to get into the same class as somepony like Clear Mind, who was generally meek and tried to be humble despite her upbringing, Hailey would never know. Perhaps it was because they were siblings? “You are if you thought Crystal was the Changeling Queen,” she barked. Commanded, more like.

He backstepped himself, tripped over a chair, and crashed to the floor himself. The entire class completely ignored his pained wails- which told Hailey they knew him at least as well as she did, and liked him about as much as she did too. Only Clear Mind reacted to him- and that was only to stick her nose in the air and turn her head resolutely away from him. There was definitely no love there.

She sighed. “Your Instructor was assigning your homework,” Hailey told them. “It’s common courtesy to let them finish before leaving the classroom, nevermind the difficulty in completing an assignment you don’t know about.”

“I-It’s okay.” Crystal’s voice was unnaturally high, barely more than a squeak, coming from somewhere out of sight behind the crowd.

Clear Mind fiddled with her fingers again, staring at them. “S-She sends them by owl a couple days after class,” she muttered. “And I…” She shivered. “I think she’s too frightened to finish right now anyways.” She glanced back towards the back of the class. “I-I’ve never heard her like that before.”

Hailey sighed again, nailed Crystal’s co-instructor to the spot with a look, and stepped aside. The class flowed much more slowly out into the hall, albeit very shaken and similarly silent. As they went, Hailey inconspicuously took a few deep, calming breaths.

Finally, the last student left, and Hailey turned to Crystal’s co-instructor, still standing on the spot. “Mission Impossible,” she muttered softly.

“Yes, Ma’am?” he asked stiffly, going very rigidly to attention and staring about six inches above her head.

“Why do I need to remind you that you are Crystal’s co-instructor, not corner cabinet?” Her tone was gentle, but disappointed- and it seemed to be hitting him even harder than her fire and thunder had hit the class.

He was, however, a highly trained Agent, so he stood his ground. “Uhh…” He paused uncertainly.

“I’ll expect to see a report on my desk by this time tomorrow,” she told him. “Then that’s going to change, unless you really want to record your first failure.”

He actually flinched at that- and Hailey knew why. His Cutie Mark Talent allowed him to accomplish any even remotely accomplishable mission without fail, so he had yet to fail a single mission. “I- I may need to reread the mission briefing,” he muttered.

Hailey nodded soberly. “I expect you will. Be sure to note exactly how you misinterpreted it in your report.” She sighed. “Dismissed.”

He bowed, and left the room.

Hailey took one last calming breath, then walked up to the head of the room again, to find Crystal still sitting on the floor, going through her own calming breathing exercises. “You okay, Crystal?” she asked, before lowering herself to the floor next to her.

Crystal stared wide-eyed at her knees for a couple minutes, breathing deeply, before she spoke. “Y-You’re a Princess,” she muttered, almost alarmingly calmly. It wasn’t a question, so much as a statement of fact.

Hailey sighed, and leaned against the wall as well. “Well… I suppose it is true that I’m an Alicorn,” she muttered, then sighed again. “But I’m also not from Equestria. Though even then, I suppose…” She trailed off, and sighed a third time. “I’ve got Princess Twilight working as a psychologist, Princess Luna is an excellent Defense Against the Dark Arts student instructor, and Princess Cadence is almost alarmingly good at teaching Charms, despite juggling the Crystal Empire at the same time- then here I am, the management team lead, and basically a goddess.” She sighed. “I hope I never become as unapproachable as Celestia and Luna have, but I’m not entirely sure that that’s even possible.”

Crystal stared at her. “W-Well… You called me Crystal.”

“I did,” Hailey agreed. “I happen to feel very strongly about chosen names… and deadnames.” She sighed. “Speaking of, as the Changeling Queen, do you still prefer Chrysalis, or…?”

She shook her head. “I’m Crystal,” she muttered. “My mother had a nice name, Chrysanthemum- but she wasn’t very imaginative when she named me.” She sighed. “The whole concept of a chosen name is still new to me- I didn’t realize it was even possible to change it until a couple months into last year. It took me until this year to make my decision, and actually chose my new name- then now…” She sighed. “The Hive took it a lot better than I expected. Hardly a day after I mentioned it, and it’s like I’d always been Crystal.”

Hailey nodded. “Yeah… It’s a human concept, isn’t it?” She sighed. “I’ll admit, I’m curious how you heard of it?”

“It was Morning Sun,” Crystal told her. “I’d made up the whole ‘parents have bad taste in names’ thing to make it hard for anypony in authority to believe that I was the real thing- hiding in plain sight, you know. During one of our monthly review meetings, she mentioned that I might want to go by a different name, to help improve ponies’ first impressions.” She sighed. “While changelings go by various aliases all the time, in various forms, that was the first time I’d ever seen that suggestion being directed towards a pony- or at least, ostensibly so. So… I started researching it. Learned as much as I could… and finally built up the courage to try it.” She smiled, and let out a small sigh. “Nowadays, I can actually feel proud of myself- even though I’m just as unpracticed at being surprised as I ever was.” She chuckled softly, and looked at Hailey. “May I ask, how did you figure me out?”

She shrugged. “I happen to have a good friend that’s a changeling,” she told her, “though she’s long since lost her link to the Hivemind. Last year, when they made me the Management Team Lead, she helped me reverse-engineer and recreate the Hivemind- so I’ve been running a secondary one for the management team.” She giggled. “They think it’s a telepathic network, and have no idea it’s actually changeling magic. It shouldn’t interfere with your Hivemind at all.

“But anyways. Once I had a Hivemind, I started experimenting with it as well… and cooked up a few spells useful for detecting other hiveminds out in the wild.” She shrugged. “Once I had that spell, it was simple. Albeit a little bit tedious, I’ll have to admit.” She chuckled. “Last year, I identified one or two of your drones, but let them be- they didn’t seem to be doing anything aggressive. This year, my future self told me you were here, and that you were nice, but didn’t tell me who you were. A little more diligent poking with that spell, though, and I found you.” She shrugged. “Probably never would have if Morning hadn’t asked me for help, though.”

“Oh.” Crystal stared at her knees. “Are you… worried I might attack?”

“Well, you’re nice, aren’t you?” Hailey shrugged. “My future self wouldn’t have said that without good reason.”

Crystal looked at her. “If your future self said anything about me, obviously something is going to happen,” she muttered.

“Well yeah,” Hailey agreed, and smiled at her. “That’s because I’ve got a job for a changeling, if someling is up for it.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You do?”

She nodded. “Yeah. In about a month, on Christmas Day, the Yule Ball will take place. It’s part of the Tournament, meant to help people make new friends- but I’m a judge and Harry’s a champion, and the Ball will have too much interaction for time travel to be feasible.”

She looked at her. “You’re…” She paused. “You and Harry are one and the same?”

She nodded. “I am, yes. I used to be Harry, but…” She shrugged. “I cast aside that name long ago. But Crouch Junior put his name in the Goblet of Fire, so he has to compete.”

“Crouch Junior?” she asked. “Do you mean the bastard masquerading as Professor Moody?”

She looked at her. “You know about him?”

She wrinkled her nose. “I can smell him from across the room,” she muttered. “Er… Empathically. You know.”

She nodded. “I do. Anyways, Junior is trying to get Voldemort back to power- which I need as well, because that’s going to make him vulnerable to things like death. That said, his method for doing that is going to be a convenient time to get Harry killed, though I’m not sure how that’s actually going to happen. My future self just said that he comes back from the Third Task dead, and that I shouldn’t worry about it.” She shrugged.

“But if he’s you…?” Crystal muttered.

She smiled. “At the end of each Task, I left a magic construct behind and warped out- and my future self told me to warp out of the third task early, so… I did.” She shrugged. “The Ball will be too complex of a situation for a construct to be successful, or I’d just use another one.”

Crystal rubbed her chin. “So you need someling to play Harry?”

She nodded. “It’s not critical or anything- I’m sure that between Dumbledore and Twilight, we can come up with something- but a changeling is the easiest solution, yes. You’re just so good at it already.”

She chuckled softly. “Yes, we are, aren’t we?” She paused. “Why did Crouch pick Harry?”

Hailey shrugged. “He’s famous,” she answered simply. “Specifically, he’s famous for surviving the Killing Curse, and actually bouncing it back at Voldemort, causing him to fall from power in the first place.” She smiled. “That’s actually become my cutie mark power- I’m completely and totally indestructible, even to the Killing Curse. Even Princess Celestia couldn’t breach my skin when we were standing on the surface of her Sun.”

“Oh my,” Crystal muttered. “That’s probably going to find you as a ruler at some point. Paired with Alicorn immortality, and even Celestia won’t be able to hold a candle to your rule.” She chuckled softly, and held out a hand. “If ever you need advice, don’t be afraid to ask. While I will admit to going a little, ah, crazy, shall we say, at times, I am also about three thousand years older than dear old Celly, and have been the Changeling Queen ever since I was about two hundred and eight.”

“Yeah…” Hailey sighed, looking up at the ceiling. “Chrysanthemum was one of the first casualties in the First Great War, wasn’t she? Then her friend, the goddess Eliothame, had to sacrifice herself to end that war short of mutual destruction.”

Crystal looked at her. “Elio was a goddess?”

She nodded. “That’s what Harmonia said.”

There was silence for about two seconds. “Y-You’ve spoken to Grandmother?”

Hailey blinked, then looked at her. “Grandmother?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Crystal muttered. “Not in the normal sense, though.” She looked up. “I’m… not sure exactly how it happened, but Chrysanthemum was basically Harmonia’s brain child- created in her image. I think that’s why we’re so complex, yet still made entirely of magic- we are, essentially, the most complex constructs in the universe. We even share a number of their characteristics- malleable form, simulated mass, perfect recall…” She sighed. “But we’re alive. We live, we grow, we adapt. We think, learn, study, teach, and even reproduce. In the end…” She sighed a second time. “Where do you draw the line between a magic construct and a pony?”

“The Soul,” Hailey answered promptly. “Anything with a soul is a being, anything without is a construct, however complex it may be.” She sighed. “I happen to be friends with the Dementors. They possess the power to remove the soul, and in so doing turn a human into a flesh golem.” She chuckled. “As a matter of fact, they are the only thing in this universe capable of hurting me- even changeling attacks would fall victim to my natural wards.”

“The… soul,” Crystal muttered. “How would you test for that?” She scowled. “Do changelings have souls?”

“Yes,” Hailey told her simply. “Only beings can access the Astral Plane; the body never actually gets there, only the soul does. And of course, I recently successfully taught a changeling to reach the Astral Plane.” She smiled. “A being is a soul piloting a particularly complex construct, be it of flesh, magic, or some other substrate, so…” She sighed. “Come to think of it, I heard there were theories about changeling origins?”

Crystal looked at her. “That’s because you weren’t talking to a Queen,” she muttered. “This is all top secret, Queens-Only information. You won’t tell, will you?”

Author's Note

Fun fact: The original version of this chapter was standing ready for publication a week before it ever reached Patreon... but I realized I wasn't happy with how OOC/aggressive Hailey was. So in this version, Hailey is a lot more in character, and Crystal actually shows a touch of the wisdom she'd have had to acquire over a lifetime of at least 4,000 years.

She's still just as inexperienced at being surprised as ever, though. Hailey was the first thing that any changeling ever saw successfully hide from their empathic sense...

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

One moment while I publish the next two chapters to patrons, please.

Chapter Closed

“What the-?” Ron began, blinking up at the staff table once they’d sat down in the Great Hall to await the sorting. “What’s Fleur doing at the staff table?”

Hailey looked up, at where Fleur was sitting, looking extremely nervous next to Hagrid’s empty seat at the staff table. “Since the Hogwarts Student Instructor Program is now officially sanctioned by the Hogwarts Board of Governors, Dumbledore decided that our non-student hires ought to be considered Hogwarts staff- so of course, Fleur got a seat at the staff table.” She shrugged.

Hermione looked at her. “I wasn’t aware the Student Instructor Program was allowed to hire outsiders,” Hermione observed.

Hailey nodded. “I suppose it’s true- the Board only gave the Management Team Lead- ergo, me- the authority to invite outsiders into the Castle for the purpose of employment just over a week ago. Before that, the Program was technically allowed to hire outsiders, but it couldn’t bring them to the Castle, so there wasn’t much point. Now, though…” She shrugged again.

“Who’s… The new Defense teacher. Is it the one in pink?”

Hailey nodded. “Delores Umbridge, Professor for Defense Against the Dark Arts as appointed by the Ministry. She’s going to be fun this year.” She paused, grinning mischievously. “To mess with, that is.”

Ron laughed.

Then Hagrid sidled into the room, and moved quickly to take his seat at the staff table.

“Oh, the Sorting is about to start,” Hermione observed.

“How many this time?” Ginny asked, curiously.

“Seven hundred and thirty seven thousand sixty five,” Hailey answered simply. “And thanks to some rather creative magic by Hogwarts’ deities, we’re able to sort twelve hundred of them per second, so the whole thing will be over in about ten minutes- and everybody, even the hatstoppers that take fifteen minutes to sort, will experience it as about ten minutes. On top of that, nobody is going to notice just how quickly they’re being sorted- they’ll think it’s still the same rate it was before we ever came to Hogwarts.”

Ariel tilted her head. “Why does it look like Umbridge is giving Fleur the stink-eye?”

“Because she is,” Silver answered promptly. “Umbridge thinks all part-humans are ‘filthy half-breeds’. You can expect she’ll do everything she can to get Fleur, Hagrid, and even Flitwick fired, just because they’re not pure human. According to Dad, thanks to a demand by the Board of Governors, she can’t drop new Educational Decrees on a whim- it’ll take her a couple days.”

“And a couple days is way more than we need to gun down anything we don’t like,” Hailey agreed.

“How?” Hermione asked.

Hailey only grinned.

Professor Dumbledore yawned and stretched as he stepped up to his desk on Thursday morning. He needed to do his usual check of a number of magical instruments set around his office, all visible from his desk, to make sure nothing had happened through the night. These instruments didn’t exactly look like monitoring instruments tapped into the Castle wards- rather, most people that entered his office called them ‘whirring and smoking contraptions’. Three of them were completely silent and unmoving; those three had monitored Harry- now Hailey- to make sure she wasn’t in any real danger. They had been handy a few times- once, he’d even stepped in himself to protect her. However, they had abruptly ceased functioning during the week of the Goddess of Reports- causing him quite a panic- most likely thanks to her impenetrable natural wards. That didn’t worry him any more- ever since he’d met her in the Chamber of Secrets, and she had revealed her new invulnerability.

As expected, the one that indicated the number of patients in the Hospital Wing relative to the normal number was indicating an increase with puffs of red smoke, though not nearly as large of an increase- as many puffs each minute- as it had back when the Equestrians had first appeared. The school had jumped from fifty seven thousand students to over seven hundred thousand, so an increase was expected- but interestingly, the increase wasn’t nearly as large as he had expected it to be. Perhaps this year’s wave was more safety-minded? Or perhaps the Program had found some new way of teaching that allowed them to reduce the likelihood of an accident?

Finally, he looked down at his desk… and paused.

There, in the middle of the desk he always verified was completely clear when he went to bed each night, were two scrolls, unrolled and pinned by paperweights.

He bent closer.

“Educational Decree number Twenty Three,” he read to himself. “Henceforth, Hogwarts shall be forbidden to employ non-human or part-human Professors and any presently employed will be summarily dismissed, effective September Fourth, twenty twenty five.” He glanced at the clock. “That’s today.” He looked up- but the instrument that indicated danger to the employment of his staff, which had whirred constantly the previous year, was hardly turning at all, as per usual. The one that indicated the number of recently released staff members… was also silent, standing unmoving in an unlikely position to indicate no losses. Professor Flitwick and Hagrid were safe, then, as expected; this law would fly in the face of all the nondiscrimination laws he’d been sneaking through the Wizengamot for decades.

Then he looked down at the other scroll. It was much longer.

“The finding of the Wizengamot,” he muttered, scanning down it. “Educational Decree number twenty three… Illegal by…” He paused, scanning down the list of five different laws that each rendered the named decree illegal. Only four of them had come to mind before he’d read the last one.

And at the bottom, he counted the signatures of every Wizengamot member, including himself- a fully unanimous vote, which never happened- and the seals of both the Wizengamot and the Department of Records.

It was dated on Wednesday, September Third… and, he realized, he could vaguely remember signing it in the Wizengamot chamber… except that there were no Wizengamot meetings on Wednesdays, and he knew he hadn’t left the Castle at all the day before!

“This should be interesting,” he muttered, rolling up the Wizengamot decision- which did have the tiny stamp in the corner to indicate that it was a copy of the original document, the original stored safely in the Department of Records- and inserted it into his robes. Phantom decision or not, it would still be a useful weapon against Umbridge.

He also suddenly remembered a separate, unwritten decision by the Wizengamot, also in that phantom session, that should very many more illegal Educational Decrees be passed, they would void all Educational Decrees issued this school year as abuse of power, and ban the creation of further Decrees for the rest of the year.

Dumbledore watched amusedly as Umbridge stormed away. She’d been in the middle of presenting Decree Twenty-Three to Fleur Delacour, who had only raised her eyebrows at it, when he’d interrupted her to read off the Wizengamot decision.

Fleur shrugged. “Already knew about that anyways,” she informed him. “I spent half the summer reading up on British laws so I knew-!”

Some stuff that was stored for installation in later chapters…

Fleur shuddered when the world went white around her, and folded her wings.

The white faded away… and she floated gently down to land in an opulent entryway.

She looked around… but she was the only one here.

Then someone entered the room through a door. “What the-?” the girl gasped, looking at her- then blinked. “Oh, Fleur! I didn’t know Hailey told you how to get here.”

“Ah, heh heh,” Fleur muttered, rubbing the side of her head. “You… don’t happen to be Harmonia, do you?”

“I do, actually. Hailey’s the only person that’s ever come here just to keep me company, so I’m going to guess that you have questions?”

“Uh- Yeah,” she muttered. “Hailey said you might know why I ascended while making pancakes?”

“Oh, that,” Harmonia chuckled. “That was fun.”

“I was making pancakes.”

“You were. And can you think of any particularly complex or novel magical tasks you were completing at the same time?”

“Uh… Not really.”

“Well, how were you making pancakes?”

“I… I cast a spell to make the magic do it for me,” she answered. “It didn’t take as much power as I expected.”

“Of course it didn’t,” Harmonia agreed. “That spell was the first closed-loop self-powering spell ever cast on Earth or in Equestria.”

“Closed loop self-powering…?” Fleur muttered.

She nodded. “It used the same Thaumic energy over, and over, and over, and over again. Had you not given it limits, and had nobody cancelled it, it would still be making pancakes by the time the world ended. That is why you ascended.”

“But… That was easy. Why wouldn’t it be invented before?”

She shrugged. “Because it’s not possible without Twilight’s magic language, and she doesn’t believe it’s possible at all. Normally, whenever a spell uses some Thaumic Energy, that energy is vented into the Magic Elemental Plane when it completes its work- but not so for Twilight’s magic language. The used thaumic energy is still in the spell until it reaches the end of the spell ‘program’, at which point it gets vented to the MEP. Since you had a loop, it didn’t reach the end until the loop was complete- and all the pancakes finished.”

She tilted her head. “Wouldn’t that happen for any loop?”

She nodded. “It would- but Twilight thinks a loop like that would run out of power and stop functioning somewhere in the middle, so she instead uses additional triggers with extra power, which means stuff gets vented all over the place.” She sighed. “She grew up as a skilled mage, so it’s hard for her to accept that there are entire laws of magic that Equestria simply never knew about. That’s slowed her learning of Hermione’s concepts by quite a bit- I don’t think she’s realized the unique properties of her magic language yet, either.”

Author's Note

So. Chapter Closed. This means the partial Chapter 56 that was written, and the snippet from a later chapter that got saved after a significant rewrite that never touched published material. I feel like that snippet is important to properly understand where Fleur's ascension came from, and as the new rewrite- just told it to publish, should be live- probably won't have Fleur ascend... Well...

Patreon, ~~Discord~~. No, Discord, the old invite got deleted at some point.

Speaking of A Hogwarts Harmony, if it's posted by now, that link should take you to it. First two chapters, and Dumbledore got a letter!

Expect a Chapter's End in here next week, alongside AHH!'s third chapter, where...

Oh, and by the way, I took so long writing this A/N that AHH! is live now!