Sunset Shimmer: Crumple-Horned Snorkack

Chapters

Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 10
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 9 - Harry and Ginny's Summer Adventure

Chapter 3

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 4

After a day and a half in the hospital, Sunset was getting restless. She was still appreciative of the plain and simple concept of not being in Faery any longer, but the only book they had on hoof was an old, tattered, hand-scribed copy of filly-stories—though apparently the humans called them fairy tales, which was a terrifying statement about how early in life children needed to be aware of the dangers of their dimensional neighbors.

As interesting as a read as the book was as an insight into the dangers of both fairy and wizard kind, though, it was still only one book and Sunset was nothing if not a voracious consumer of knowledge.

"I don't get it," Sunset said, flipping idly through the book for the third time, turning the pages with the sparkling teal glow of her magic. "I mean, I don't get a lot of the things in this book, but it's the book in general I don't get."

Luna, who was in the process of doing a pencil drawing of Sunset which was coming out quite well, looked up from her work in silent question.

"I mean," Sunset continued, not really needing further input to have a conversation on her own. "You have a printing press, right? In color, even?"

Again, Luna didn't need to answer; it was rhetorical. The Quibbler had been one of the ongoing topics in the Lovegood home, even in the short time since she'd been there.

"So where are all the printed books?" she asked, gesturing at the levitating book expressively with both of her hooves. "Hospitals and doctor's offices aren't known for their quality literature, but they are known for having literature—or at least they are back home. "This thing was copied with a quill, which makes no sense even if you do it by magic."

Luna finally had a reason to interject herself in Sunset's solo conversation. "How many books do you need that it's worth setting up the plates for the press?" she asked.

Sunset stopped mid-rant, not having been prepared to answer that kind of question. "...Well, I don't know how many books a book run is; thousands? Tens of thousands?"

"Wow!" Luna exclaimed in naked awe. "I saw a delivery come in at Flourish & Blotts once and I don't think it was more than twenty books!"

"Well, sure," Sunset said, dismissing it as not too unusual for a small bookstore. "But that's just one bookstore."

Luna gave Sunset a blank look over the top of her sketchbook, then her eyes widened in joyous realization. "That's right! There must also be a book store in Hogsmeade!"

Now it was Sunset's turn to stare blankly as she processed that. "You mean... there are only two bookstores?"

"Well," Luna said, thinking hard. "There must be more on the continent, I suppose—and elsewhere in the world too—but that's it for here, I think."

Sunset scrunched up her face, thinking back to the short while she spent in the Floo office back at the ministry. It had been difficult to get a real idea of the magic-using population since so many of the floo addresses had been crossed out, but in hindsight, it had still only been one book, even if it had been a big one. The pins of floo locations on the map had told a clearer story and she'd thought they seemed sparse at the time, but she hadn't really thought about the scale of it when the two communities didn't interact at all.

Sunset shook her head, trying to wrap her head around the idea. "So that means there's less of you on this entire island than there are ponies in Canterlot alone?" That didn't seem so crazy, except for the fact that Sunset had seen the non-wizarding parts of the maps, and they'd given her the impression of densely-packed industrialization on the level of Manehattan back home.

That was... quite the disparity.

"Wait," Sunset said, having made a connection that explained an incongruity that had surprised her. "The printing press—and that shotgun—were those 'muggle' inventions?"

"Yep!" Luna briefly beamed with pride, though it was short-lived as the exact nature of the subject matter dragged down the conversation. "Daddy spent a lot of time in the muggle world after we lost mommy because they're so much better at making things with iron. He promised that it'd all be worth it if anything like that happened again..."

Sunset winced at having brought that up. Without prompting, she sighed, got up and walked over to Luna's side, where she set herself down, hoping to avoid another of the sudden bouts of crying that had been coming and going for the past day. It didn't really get in the way of her thinking, so she didn't mind overmuch.

'The muggle world,' huh? It wasn't the first time the phrase had been used around her, but she hadn't realized just how true it was. Sunset's initial thought had been that the secretive minority of magic-users were like the nobility back home, setting themselves above the rest because they were better, but the truth seemed to be a bit more benign, at least on the surface.

Oh, it certainly was anything but equitable, but the two really did seem to be as separate as two worlds could be while occupying the same space, if only the eccentric actually took advantage of the muggles' industriousness and did so without actually taking advantage of them. No doubt, if you went digging, the crimes of those with access to memory spells would hardly be called harmless, but compared to some of the stand-outs in equestrian history like Sombra, not being a tyrannical dystopian empire was more than she had come to expect.

That did beg the question, though: was there anything in the muggle world that she could take advantage of? She wasn't too keen on those mechanical carriages—and not just because she'd been hit by one. She had wings, after all, and she could teleport, which pretty much covered all the methods of transportation that she needed.

On the other hoof—and still not related to being hit by a metal death machine—it might not be a terrible idea to stock up on iron weapons just in case the fair folk came calling, since they did seem to be capable of surviving in this world for a time, according to the stories. Sure, Queen Titania had pretty much let them go with her blessing, if you could call a knife in the back a blessing, but if there was anything she'd learned throughout the whole ordeal, it was not to trust their mood from one moment to the next. Really, not trusting them at all was a fine option.

Oh, and Xenophilius could be coming home any day now with his wife and a fae army on his heels, so there was that possibility too.

There was probably more than that that the muggle world had to offer, but she didn't have much to go on but that it was industrialized without the use of magic. With only herself and Luna in the household, it may be that the muggle world would have better access to some of the comforts and necessities that they would need to get by, but other than that, it wasn't as if a place without magic would help at all at getting her home.

...Except, that wasn't true, was it? The statue where the portal had been anchored had been on one of those mechanized carriages, meaning that it, in particular, was in the muggle world, and at the moment it was her only surefire way home—if she could find it.

...

It was then that Sunset realized that she really did not want to go into the muggle world just then, and she didn't know if she wanted to blame being hit by a carriage, the uneasy way the magicless population had reacted to her being hit by a carriage or her most recent bad experience with going to other worlds where she didn't know what the rules were.

Perhaps it was all three.

That didn't matter, though. She'd have to get over it. There were just too many potential resources in the muggle world to ignore it completely. She just... didn't need to do it right away. Not without research and preparation. Not again.

She'd learned that lesson.

Sunset Shimmer was good at learning lessons.

***

The knock that came a short while later was somehow different from the knocks that Sunset and Luna had gotten used to announcing the visits of healers and apprentices. It was, if such a description could be ascribed to a knock, crisp and deliberate, and unlike some of the healers, actually waited for a response before coming barging in.

Judging Luna to still be a bit melancholy, Sunset took the initiative to invite the knocker in with a casual, "Come in."

The woman who entered was tall for a human female, Sunset thought, though maybe it was simply that she stood straighter than the rest and had about her an air of dignity and propriety, with rectangular eyeglasses perched upon her nose and her silver-gray hair tied in a tight bun under something like a stereotypical pointed wizard's hat in black, though the bells had been left off which Sunset thought was an improvement. Her robe, on the other hoof, was a slightly muted forest green with a subtle pattern to it, which would have come off quite stately and refined, Sunset thought, if it didn't remind her quite so much of Oberon, the king of the summer court, who had a very similar look about him.

"Miss Lovegood, I presume?" the woman asked not unkindly, though with a bit of an accent that Sunset hadn't heard from the humans before, like something from the Sheepland Isles.

Luna, for her part, seemed to have perked up, but only warily. "Yes, ma'am," she responded. "Are you...?"

"Minerva McGonagall," the woman introduced herself with a small inclination of her head, though a brief shadow of confusion passed over her face for the barest of moments and her eyes subtly scanned the room, though they glossed right over Sunset. "Deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

At this, Luna came fully alive, hope and wonderment sparkling in her eyes, though it was shortly tempered by concern. "There isn't anything wrong with my application, is there?"

"No, Miss Lovegood," she assured Luna, setting her at ease. "Your name showed up in the book of admissions the same as all the others, and it has never been wrong. It is a bit of a surprise, I admit, since I do believe that until a few days ago you weren't due for Hogwarts until next year.

"There is, however, the matter of your... Crumple-horned Snorkack, which you have registered as your familiar." She did her best to say the phrase with dignity, but it was clearly a challenge. "As Crumple-horned Snorcacks are not something that anyone on staff at Hogwarts has any experience with, I felt it would be prudent to perform a visit and ascertain whether or not any particular accommodations needed to be made."

Luna considered this for a moment. "Well, we know they're not fond of lemons, I remember that," she offered, lost in thought as it had been an entire year for her since the two of them had met. "Oh—but they do like mangoes, no matter how much they shouldn't have them."

Sunset was torn between exasperation and indignance. "Okay, for one," she said enumerating her objections. "I told you I like lemons in food just fine; I just don't like having whole, raw lemons shoved in my mouth! And second, that totally wasn't my fault! Mangos, in any sensible, rightways world do not normally enslave you for all eternity! And besides—it was a seedless mango! The damn things are, like, half seed normally!"

"The mango did not enslave you," Luna informed her quite simply. "That was you giving up your name. The mango just trapped you there."

Sunset rolled her eyes. "Yes, I know, I was there," she insisted. "But that's not the point. The point is that I can eat normal mangoes just fine—though you still shouldn't shove the whole fruit in my mouth. I'm pretty sure that if you did that with a mango, I'd die."

The back-and-forth between Sunset and Luna was interrupted when Sunset was hit by something not unlike a failsafe spell which had, of course, come from the only person in the room that wasn't arguing about the appropriate consumption of fruit.

Both Sunset and Luna turned to look at the deputy headmistress in sync.

"Okay, for one, that was rude," Sunset informed the adult. "And two—I am not enchanted, transformed, potioned, or otherwise under the effect of any magic, malign or otherwise. This is just how I look, thank you very much."

"What do you call gaining wings, then?" Luna questioned, throwing off the certainty of Sunset's declaration with her curiosity.

"I ascended!" Sunset hotly insisted, her wings ruffing, full as they were of indignation.

"So you metamorphosed?" Luna suggested.

Well... "...Something like that," Sunset begrudgingly allowed.

Luna hmmed. "Well, with the wings and all, this form must be the Crumple-horned Snorkack's imago, then. I take it that before that, you were a pupa?" She started to get excited. "Oh! Oh! Did the horn come in when you grew out of your larval stage?"

Sunset resented being compared to an insect, not the least because she didn't want to foster any kind of comparison to the faeries as interpreted by her physicality, but she was interrupted once more in her objection by the deputy headmistress clearing her throat. "Am I to understand that the two of you have been to Faery?" she asked, cocking one eyebrow.

Sunset lit her horn with her teal magic and retrieved the shirt that they'd won from Titania, with the words 'I tried to bargain with the faerie queen and all I got was this lousy t-shirt' on the front, followed by '...and stabbed in the back' on the back. The shirt was once more a pristine white thanks to one of the healer's apprentices and the knife had gone back to being a simple image, thanks to fae bullshit.

The shirt was, if nothing else, very useful in that it was entirely self-explanatory and served to summarize the situation quite well all on its own.

There was a sharp intake of breath from the deputy headmistress, and her eyes widened a bit before looking back to Luna with concern. Sunset couldn't help but compare the woman to Princess Celestia at that moment, though the princess was much better at schooling her features than even the aged witch, which could be put down to their relative ages and levels of experience, considering the princess was thousands of years old and a politician to boot.

McGonagall's actual response, though, was not what either Sunset or Luna had been expecting.

"Och," she cursed, her accent coming through in that moment. "I dinnae ken what it means that Mab knows muggle jokes, but I canny expect it's anything good."

Both Sunset and Luna cringed visibly at the misattribution and Sunset in particular checked the room to make sure that the seelie queen wasn't inexplicably present as had happened while they were debating solutions at the Faery-side portal site. Luna seemed comparatively unperturbed in her stillness until one remembered that she had sight out of one of Sunset's eyes and having the both of them spinning their heads in different directions like meerkats probably wouldn't do her any favors.

Fortunately, the seelie queen was not, in fact, present, but that didn't mean that Sunset was happy about the scare and decided to express it in the only way she knew how: acerbically. "If you're going to tempt fate, you could at least use the right name," she rebuked rather snappishly. "I got the impression that the two of them aren't exactly on friendly terms."

To McGonagall's credit, she seemed properly contrite and apologized, and this time when Luna ran her fingers through Sunset's mane, she got the impression that it wasn't for the girl's benefit.

Well... okay then. Good. Sunset calmed herself, mollified, and decided to change the subject, to an extent. Using her magic, she retrieved the t-shirt from the floor where she'd dropped it in her panic. "You're saying this is a muggle joke, then?" she prompted.

McGonagall took the change of subject gracefully and nodded, returning to her more precise diction and look of slight bemusement, as if there was something that she was trying to puzzle out. "Oh, yes. That is a distinctly muggle style of shirt, and the printing is something that they do, as is the phrase."

Sunset hmmed, taking that in as she folded the shirt and put it away. She was having the beginning of a thought, but McGonagall had paused for only half a breath before asking, "Pardon, but if you do not recognize it one way or the other, and you insist that you are not transformed, then are you fae?"

"Oh, hay no," Sunset said with a complex mix of abhorrence, disdain and incredulity. Fortunately, she had the presence of mind to smoothly declare, "I'm a completely norma—I mean, a completely exceptional Crumple-horned Snorkack, and any bits or aspects that one or both of us may have traded to the seelie queen constitutes privileged, private, protected personal medical information."

McGonagall looked quite unconvinced at the claim. "And you purport to be Miss Lovegood's familiar?" she asked.

"That's what the paperwork says," Sunset confidently declared, quite aware that she wasn't being entirely convincing, but also relatively certain that the deputy headmistress favored the proper way of doing things and that the letter of the law would support her leaning on it.

"Quite," McGonagall neutrally agreed, though as it turned out, she wasn't to be entirely dissuaded. "And may I ask, simply as a matter of clarification, of course, what form your familiar bond takes?" she asked, one brow raised in curiosity.

Sunset hmmed appreciatively. That was a good question, since it was quite likely that a young child and a talking animal would be entirely ignorant about what actually constituted a familiar bond—especially since that was, in fact, the case. Nonetheless, Sunset did have a strategy that she was rather confident in.

Strangely enough, that strategy was to tell the truth.

"Well, I'm pretty sure some part of me is inside her and she can see through my eyes," Sunset offered, and received a light chiding from Luna for it.

"Don't lie," Luna primly instructed her.

Sunset rolled her eyes, which she was acutely aware Luna could see her doing, given the subject matter. "At least I can lie," she groused good naturedly, then looked back up at McGonagall. "Sorry, she can see through one of my eyes," she clarified, with Luna nodding along.

Ironically, she hadn't actually been being cagey with her answer, just generalizing. It might seem odd that she would be so free with what could have been an advantage if it were kept secret, but that would, of course, require the eleven-year-old Luna to keep it a secret, which pretty much said it all. Sunset was fairly sure she'd already written it down on her registration form anyway, and securing her legal identity and status as a familiar was a practical enough way to spend the information.

McGonagall made note of that—literally, she wrote it down on the scroll she was carrying, which was a feat since there didn't seem to be any magic involved—and left it at that, not feeling the need to press for a demonstration.

"Yes, well... while it won't be the first time a child has come to Hogwarts with a pet that they can talk to, I must say it has been a while since we have had one that could talk back quite so plainly," the deputy headmistress informed them. "And while the rules do state that familiars are an exception to the list of species that we accept at Hogwarts, an exception can be made for that exception, as had been done for particularly ornery Jarvey in the past."

Both Sunset and Luna nodded dutifully in response, and didn't think that they were meant to hear the muttered, "...Which is all of them," that followed, but she made a mental note to look up Jarvey when she had the chance.

Mentions of interesting species aside, Sunset was quite glad to take the opportunity to steer the conversation away from her status as a familiar for the moment, and she knew just the direction she wanted to steer it in. "Miss McGonagall—" she prompted, though she was quickly corrected.

"It's missus, actually, though you should refer to me as 'professor McGonagall," she instructed.

Sunset nodded, filing that information away, and took a moment to ask, "Are you also a teacher, then?"

Professor McGonagall nodded in return. "Yes, in addition to being the Deputy Headmistress, I am also the sole Transfiguration professor, and also the head of house for Gryffindor."

Sunset blinked. She wanted to ask what 'Gryffindor' was since she was sure that she'd heard the word before but couldn't remember where. It wasn't in her discussions with the Lovegoods about Hogwarts, she didn't think. Nevertheless, she didn't want to get distracted.

"That sounds like a lot of work," she commented, failing completely at not getting distracted.

"It is," Professor McGonagall agreed, seeming both proud and burdened by the fact. "And yet, somehow, the Headmaster has managed to find himself with even more on his plate—but that's not a subject I should be talking to students about. You had a question?"

Sunset didn't miss that she'd been indirectly referred to as a student, but as reassuring as that was, in a way, she had complicated feelings about the appellation, and she really did have a question.

"Yes, sorry, I was just wondering, since you mentioned the t-shirts—do you have a lot of experience with the muggle world?" Her intentions on bringing up the matter were quite vague, but so long as she was taking steps to understand the world where her portal home was located, it would quiet a little of the background worry she had over her situation.

"Not as much as some, but more than most," Professor McGonagall answered quite openly. "I don't have much personal cause to go there, but I am the one who visits the families of muggleborns over the summer in order to explain and introduce them to the magical world, so I necessarily get a reasonable amount of exposure to their lifestyle and have reason to investigate a few things here and there on my own. In fact, I have an appointment for one such introduction this afternoon, after which I'll be taking the girl and her parents to Diagon Alley to get their supplies for the upcoming year."

Sunset hadn't been particularly melancholy up till then, but she brightened up considerably at the news nonetheless. It was a bit faster than she was comfortable with, but she never let that stop her. "You're doing one today?" she asked, quite eager, hardly able to believe her luck. "I don't suppose Luna and I could tag along?" she asked, making a show of looking to Luna with concern—and it wasn't even entirely feigned. Sunset certainly had little to go on aside from saying 'Diagon Alley' and jumping in a fireplace, and a girl being alone with her unique and uniquely colorful familiar probably wasn't the safest situation to be in. Sunset hadn't even wanted to come to the hospital when Luna was bleeding out.

Professor McGonagall, of course, had none of this information, so she was quite confused. "That... would be quite difficult," she said, looking Sunset up and down, which, admittedly, required very little movement of her head, given Sunset's stature. "And quite irregular. May I ask why? I can't imagine that Xenophilius is any less enthusiastic to take his daughter to get her first wand than any other parent. In fact, I'd wager that he'd be more than most."

Luna didn't react overly much to the subject of her father, but she still buried her fingers anew in Sunset's mane, searching for reassurance.

"He's not in the picture," Sunset informed the deputy headmistress as bluntly as she could manage out of a small amount of vindictiveness for bringing the subject up, no matter how necessary. "Let's just say he was more enthusiastic about chasing after Oberon and his wife." Sunset paused, hearing what she'd just said as she'd said it. "Sorry. His wife. Xenophilius' wife. Not Oberon's wife, though she was there too. Look, I'll just call them Pandora and She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named—"

"Do not," Professor McGonagall insisted with an unexpectedly stern glare that stopped Sunset cold. Once she was sure that Sunset had gotten the message, whatever that was, she took a long, hissing breath in through her nose, and relaxed.

Slightly.

"Are you saying that Xenophilius went to Faery and has not returned?" she asked, distinctly uneasy at the idea and looking to Luna with kind concern.

Sunset opened her mouth to answer flippantly, then reconsidered and went with a simple, "Yes." Technically, they hadn't been back to the house since their return, but given that Luna had bled all over the couch, she sure hoped that the first thing Xenophilius would have done would be to check in at the hospital if he had come home.

Of course, there was always the possibility that Xenophilius and Pandora had required hospitalization of their own after returning and they were on another floor, or even just in the room next door without them knowing it, but Sunset had the miraculous sense not to mention the idea with Luna still on the knife's edge of breaking down.

After maybe too long of a pause, Sunset decided to lay it on a bit thicker. "It's really quite difficult for us to be in this situation," she said, letting some of her honest helplessness with the situation through. "I hope Xenophilius returns with his wife—I do—but it's left us both all on our own. Luna's just escaped after spending a year locked up by the winter court, and I don't really know my way around either of your worlds. I can make a grilled cheese sandwich, but that's about it and I don't even know where you go to buy bread around here. Now we have this whole school thing and while it'll be a relief to have a place to go when the time comes, we still have more than a month until then and we'll be all alone in that house—I hope I can get the blood out of the couch... and the rug... and the floorboards—it just seems like the perfect chance to get her out a bit and meet another girl her age—her new age, I mean."

Professor McGonagall listened to Sunset's strung-on, meandering plea with the stony face of the strict disciplinarian she was, but though she had no doubt listened to similar excessively doleful entreaties from students on subjects ranging from confiscated contraband to their most recent report card, there was enough truth in what Sunset was saying to soften her eyes a bit.

"Oh, very well," Professor McGonagall conceded. "It would not be the first time I've taken more than one family to Diagon, and I suppose you're as good an example of magic for the Grangers as any, though I've already put the permit through regardless."

"Permit?" Sunset asked. She didn't like the sound of that, if it involved proving that magic existed.

Professor McGonagall nodded and casually confirmed Sunset's fears. "Yes; given the statute of secrecy which went into effect in the 17ᵗʰ century, we have also had the Degree for Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery since the late 19ᵗʰ century which prohibits those under the age of seventeen from casting any spells unless they are in a registered exclusion zone, such as Hogwarts.

That was... well, exactly the sort of thing that she would have expected from the government behind the things that she'd seen in the ministry of magic. Having been pleasantly surprised about their hoofs-off approach to muggles, it was about time she found out about another equine-rights violation—but that wasn't the only thing that came to mind.

"...How does that work, though?" she asked, thinking out loud as she worked through the problem as she might have while sitting at Princess Celestia's side. "I suppose the relative dearth of magic in most places here might allow some sort of monitoring network—but that isn't the case everywhere. I doubt you'd get any sort of sign of any normal amount of magic going on from outside the Rookery, and that's ignoring the logistical problems. You said you have to have a permit, and if that's not just bureaucratic red tape, then it means that it's not just a spell on the individual children to detect when they do magic—but parents have to be able to use magic in their own homes, so... this only applies to muggleborns, doesn't it?"

Professor McGonagall was momentarily taken aback at the quick and accurate breakdown of the situation, but she wasn't one to deny the truth when it came out. "Yes, I'm afraid that that is the end result of the laws as they have been implemented," she admitted.

Continuing, she made her stance clear. "I will, of course, not confirm any of the details surrounding the trace, save to say that while Miss Lovegood may be able to get around it once she gets her wand, I would still recommend in the strongest of terms that she not do so. As unfortunate as the unequal enforcement of the Degree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery can be, it does in most cases loop around to being, as the name suggests, reasonable, as it is vital for children practicing magic to be supervised by adults capable of dealing with any accidents—or non-accidents—that arise. Failing that, access to a floo by which one can seek aid and treatment is just as important."

That... did make sense, actually, Sunset begrudgingly admitted, and if her opinion of the matter was influenced by the fact that the law wouldn't actually be applied to her, well, she was only equine. "We're fine, then."

Professor McGonagall tilted her head down to look at Sunset with dire seriousness over the top of her eyeglasses. "I must emphasize, young girl, that access to a medical facility is in no way a replacement for proper instruction—especially before one has even stepped foot inside a classroom."

"Well, no. Obviously not," Sunset agreed automatically without delay or any particular level of honesty, though it took a moment for her to actually realize what the deputy headmistress was implying. "Oh! No, see, I didn't just mean the floo. I mean, a parent I am not, but I absolutely can handle anything a small child can do with her magic—not that I really intended on teaching her anything." She stopped to think. "Could be interesting, actually, now that you mention it."

Professor McGonagall was, of course, highly skeptical and not at all convinced and she let it show in her expression without reservation. "Miss Shimmer; I have seen that you do have a natural talent of levitation, but—"

Sunset flashed her horn and disappeared in a wisp of flame, reappearing at the foot of Luna's bed, looking balefully up at the professor. "Excuse you! 'A natural talent of levitation?'" she parroted mockingly. "I am a god-damned natural at everything and have spent the last ten years studying magic as the personal student of Princess Celestia before ascending into an alicorn, so I'll thank you not to act like I'm some foal who never even got her cutie mark and might as well be a skinny earth pony with telekinesis."

McGonagall, unfortunately, was the type who responded to truculency with obstinance and she was quite unamused at Sunset's little egotistical diatribe. Worse, she was actually smart and tended to catch onto things, especially when they were yelled up at her face from a small, colorful equine.

Professor McGonagall arched one eyebrow, an expression she seemed well practiced in and got much use out of. "And who, may I ask, is Princess Celestia, and what is 'an' alicorn, since I don't get the impression that you're talking about the material a unicorn's horn is made of?"

Sunset, on realizing that she had said a bit too much, said the first thing that came to mind. "Princess Celestia is the immortal alicorn snorkack ruler from the magical land of... Snorkackia."

Of all the times to actually tell the truth.

Actually, on second thought, the only real danger here was in getting her familiarhood revoked, wasn't it? From Xenophilius's brief primer on the wizarding world's classification of beasts and beings, that seemed unlikely.

Oh, and there was also the possibility of word getting back to the wrong person in the ministry, because her fuzzy memories from just after she'd come through the portal from Equestria did contain some mention of having her put down. Right.

Still, she was pretty sure that the implication that she thought she was some kind of illegal crossbreed between a unicorn and a... cream puff, was it? Biology had never been her best subject, but she was absolutely certain that that wasn't how it worked. Regardless, if that was the case, it would actually be a good thing to get something like the truth out since the truth was significantly less insulting and significantly less dangerous to her continued wellbeing.

"Alicorns are... snorkacks... with the magical qualities of the three tribes of snorkacks, the unification of which makes a greater whole than the sum of its parts. Princess Celestia has ruled Snorkackia for over a thousand years, and has used her magic to raise and lower the sun on schedule every morning and night without fail for that entire time, and being her student was a great honor." A great honor that the princess spat upon when she closed herself off from Sunset and stopped answering her questions. "I would appreciate it if you didn't marginalize the time and effort I have spent on mastering magic."

Professor McGonagall took in Sunset's explanation with an unreadable, stony expression, her lips pressed together into a tight line. "So, since you mentioned 'earth ponies' in your little rant, I take it I am to replace every instance of 'snorkack' in that story with 'pony' in order to arrive at something resembling the truth?" she asked, both unamused and not just a little dubious. "Though how much truth is up for debate, unless you truly expect me to believe that this princess of yours actually raises the sun."

Sunset didn't let the professor's doubt bother her, no matter how inconvenient it was. Instead, she looked Professor McGonagall in the eye quite seriously and said, "Have you ever been to Faery, professor?"

Professor McGonagall seemed almost insulted. "I am not so foolish as that, no."

"Then let me explain," Sunset insisted, demanding the old witch's attention. "In the stories I've read since we came back, Faery is often likened to a mad dream where nothing is real and anything can happen—but to call it a dream or dismiss it as something unreal is a gross misrepresentation that misses the point. Faery is real. Everything there is real. It's not a harmless illusion, or something that you wake up from. It changes from one moment to the next—from one person to the next—but the ground underneath your hooves, the air in your lungs and the sun in the sky, they're all terrifyingly real... at least, for as long as they exist. For as long as you're there to pay attention to them, they're real.

"Can you imagine, from one moment to the next, the sun—those two-nonilion tons of hydrogen and helium—just... winking out because they're not needed? Then, they come back, but that's not the word for it, is it? It's not the same hydrogen and helium; it didn't go away and return. It just... stopped existing, and a new mass of hydrogen and helium took its place, which maybe is a bit smaller or bigger. Maybe it's a binary system now, or maybe it somehow has a smiley-face on it—but that smiley-face isn't just a picture; it's a real pattern of sunspots a million kilometers across.

"Snorkackia isn't like that, thank Celestia... but it's closer than most. Is it that hard to believe that, there, an immortal alicorn has been needed to raise and lower the sun ever since a spirit of chaos broke it? Really?"

Professor McGonagall was, for some reason, not entirely reassured. "...You paint a vivid picture," she eventually stated noncommittally. After taking a moment to process it, she admitted, "No, I suppose not... and I suppose that I have all the answers that I need for the moment."

Sunset thought that there was an implied 'or ever,' in there, but it might have been just her.

"I believe, then, that we should address the more mundane issues," she said, changing the subject and addressing Luna. "If you're to accompany me to Diagon, we shall need to run it past the healers and, your health permitting, get you checked out..."

***

Getting Luna checked out did not go how Sunset had expected—not because there was anything still wrong with Luna but for how quickly the process went. There wasn't really much paperwork involved and the healer's final assessment of her health came down to a couple of questions before shooing them off.

She was surprised, too, when gold changed hands at the front desk on their way out. In hindsight, no part of the wizarding world gave her the impression that things like medical insurance existed, but at least the cost was subsidized by donations from wealthy philanthropists—not that the young woman at the front desk seemed to think very highly of the fact.

The fact that McGonagall was the one who paid, on the other hoof, was reassuring about her character, and also in the fact that Sunset had no idea what the state of the Lovegood's finances were or how to access them. Luna certainly hadn't brought anything to the hospital but the shirt on her back, and she wasn't even wearing it out for obvious reasons.

Strangely, no one seemed concerned with the fact that a child was walking out of the hospital with a shirt that stabs you in the back, but Professor McGonagall had, at least, conjured a plain black robe for her to wear on the way out, which they would immediately be replacing with a real one if the professor had anything to say about it; something about pranksters casting finite at random strangers, the idea of which was simple enough to understand just from the context.

The conjuration itself was more interesting than the humans' ongoing obsession with fashion, though, and an interesting trick. 'Conjuring' implied pulling something either out of nothing or from somewhere else, but the feeling of magic that washed over her likely permanently-sharpened horn was definitely one of transformation, which fit in with Professor McGonagall teaching what she'd called transfiguration.

As for what, exactly, was being transfigured, Sunset couldn't say. Her first assumption was that it was the air being turned into the object being transfigured, but that likely would have involved a great rush of air to make up the difference in mass. Probably. Perhaps. Maybe.

Magic could be weird when it came to conservation of mass.

The important thing was that she wasn't stealing the dreams of innocents, leaving them dull, monotonous shells of who they once were in order to produce items in the physical world, or something like that. Sunset was beginning to feel that the Ministry of Magic and its Department of Mysteries had not been the best, most representative introduction she could have had to the world of humans, which, following from Equestria and Faery, she would refer to as 'Human' until such time as she had a chance to ask what variation on the term they actually used.

Such a time as right now, just as they were about to go through the floo to the Lovegood home.

Sunset got her answer, realized what that answer was, then followed the professor through the floo in a distracted daze.

"Earth?" Sunset asked incredulously as she stepped out of the floo. "You named your world after dirt?" Here she had thought that calling one of the tribes 'earth ponies' was kind of insulting, but they at least worked the land so it was actually relevant.

Professor McGonagall, however, was not in the mood to elucidate as she stood there, ashen-faced, staring at the mess that was the Lovegood home's ground floor. End tables had been overturned, items were strewn on the floor, and the blood... There was a lot of blood, crusty and dry on the couch, rusty red hoofprints scrambling this way and that and a long smear that...

No matter how much Sunset shimmer insisted that she was a mature mare who would do anything for her own not-so-enlightened self-interest, the sight of it all was enough to turn her stomach. She blanched and looked away, not wanting to admit the effect it had on her. She knew, logically, that it couldn't be that much blood since Luna was standing next to her just fine, but—

Sunset blinked.

Luna was standing next to her just fine, seemingly not bothered at all by the ground floor of her house looking like the crime scene of a murder mystery, or maybe the first act of a horror film.

Then, after only a short pause to take the scene in, the young girl walked forward and started righting the end tables, stacking things back up on them and frowning at the dark spots and stains on one of the books.

There was something very wrong with that girl, Sunset thought... though maybe that should be expected after a year of imprisonment and off-and-on isolation.

It was Professor McGonagall who recovered from the shock first. "Ah, Miss Lovegood?"

"Yes, professor?" the young girl asked, looking up from where she was draped over the back of the vividly stained couch, reaching for something on the floor behind it.

Rather than state any of the myriad problems that any sensible person would have with the situation, the professor simply held up her wand, giving the girl an expectant look.

"Oh! Right!" Luna exclaimed in full cheer. Standing up on the stained upholstery, she hopped off the couch, landing carelessly on one leg and using the momentum to hop back over to where Sunset and Professor McGonagall stood. "Magic away!"

Nonplussed, McGonagall nonetheless did as she was prompted and waved her wand, stating, "Sanguis Evanesco."

Like the conjuring, the incantation of the spell didn't quite match up with the effect, which was much the same as conjuration, but in reverse, feeling much like another transformation—or transfiguration to use the local terminology.

Regardless, the spell certainly made a good show of looking like a proper blood vanishing spell, and the stains on the floor were cleanly wiped out of existence, shrinking from the outside in like a puddle going dry.

It was a bit childish of her, but seeing the mess disappear as if it had never existed did do a little to calm Sunset's stomach. The professor wasn't done, though, and with a second, wordless wave of her wand, all the spilled bric-a-brac leapt up like they were being spilled in reverse, setting the entire room back to rights.

That... she was begrudgingly impressed by, begrudging not just because it was human magic, but because in all of its impressiveness of having to have some way to find out how the things had been arranged in the first place—and she didn't believe there was any time magic involved, certainly—it was, in the end pretty much just a housekeeping spell; exactly the sort of thing that she would have scoffed at while she was busy learning another big, flashy spell to show off.

Well, those big, flashy spells weren't helping her much now, and she'd be damned if a spell like that wouldn't have been really nice to have at the end of the day when she was levitating everything back where it belonged by horn, one-by-one.

Sunset took a moment to take in the neat and tidy chaos of the restored room, trying to fix in her mind its current state rather than how it had been moments before, when Professor McGonagall spoke. "Miss Shimmer."

Sunset turned her head to look at the professor and realized then that the two of them were nominally alone, Luna having been sent upstairs to change into some real clothes. "You don't have to call me that. We don't really have set-in-stone family names like that; it does happen that you get families with names all on a theme, but it's almost as common to share the first word in a name rather than the second, or to have just a single word in a name."

For her part, Professor McGonagall did seem interested in Sunset's explanation, but said, "Even so, if it's not incorrect, I'd prefer not to give others the impression that I'm being too familiar with a student—or, well, too familiar with a familiar, I suppose; pun not intended." The way in which she stated that last part said just how convinced she was that Sunset was 'just' a familiar.

"It's fine," Sunset informed her, unconcerned. Ponies called others 'missus' and 'mister' too, sometimes, but it was less regimented than humans, or even some of the other races of Equestria. Really it was just that the way Professor McGonagall said it reminded her of some of the castle staff back in Canterlot, which was not something that Sunset wanted to think about right now.

"Miss Shimmer," McGonagall repeated, starting over. "I will ask Miss Lovegood regardless of your answer, but after that... behavior... I am concerned about her."

"You weren't concerned when you found out she'd been stabbed in the back or imprisoned in Faery for a year?" Sunset asked, doing her best at the raised eyebrow that the professor was so good at.

Professor McGonagall took the chastisement without offense. "I was, but she seemed only a bit quiet and withdrawn. It is something else to see a real example of how it has affected her; I don't even understand the reaction—or lack thereof. I have seen children pretend that nothing is amiss, and I don't think that's what that was."

"Well, you're not wrong," Sunset said, at a loss of what she was supposed to say. "You said you had a question."

"Yes," Professor McGonagall said, seeming glad to have the conversation back on track. "I do believe that the Weasley family lives not too far from here and the two families are acquainted; the youngest, Ginevra, was Miss Lovegood's age before all this. I thought I might inform them of the situation so that they might make themselves available for support."

That... wasn't the kind of thing Sunset had any clue about and she said so. "Look... I don't say this often, but I have no idea. She hasn't mentioned them to me, and maybe that says it all—or not. I never had friends, no matter how much my teachers thought I did and insisted on grouping me up with a certain clique of fillies I despised. I studied magic, not people."

Professor McGonagall hmmed, mulling over Sunset's response. "A pity, given your coloring is the red and gold of Gryffindor, I'd suppose that you're more suited to Ravenclaw or Slytherin."

"Gryffindor?" Sunset asked, recalling that she'd heard it mentioned a couple of times now. The other two were completely new, though. "Ravenclaw? Slytherin?"

"Students at Hogwarts are sorted into one of four houses based on the values which each of those houses espouse. Each house has their own communal areas, dormitories and schedules. Those houses are Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin. Gryffindor for the brave and the bold, Hufflepuff for the loyal and hardworking, Ravenclaw for the clever and studious and Slytherin for the Cunning and Ambitious. Red and Gold are the colors of Gryffindor."

Sunset considered that for a moment. "I don't think that Princess Celestia would have gone for that," she mused, thinking aloud. "On one hoof, it seems like it would be nice to be able to separate problem students from one another, but they usually do that anyway without painting such a blatant target on a quarter of the school."

Professor McGonagall gave Sunset a look of appraisal, and she got the idea that she had impressed her a bit. "What target is that?" she asked, though she clearly had an idea.

"Well," Sunset said, thinking of how to put it. Then she remembered she didn't really care and said what she was thinking. "Having an entire house like that that's just a catch-all for those who aren't good enough for the other houses—I can't imagine that works very well in practice. It's rather blatant."

Professor McGonagall looked... rather disappointed with Sunset's answer, but she was just stating the obvious. She'd no doubt seen it in her own classes and didn't like being reminded of the ugly side of the system.

"I mean, really," Sunset continued. "You've got the smart house, the clever house and the hard working house, which are all normal things that are applicable in a school environment," she said, listing the houses that made sense to her. "And then there's the 'brave' house? What's with that? It's a school, not the filly scouts! Bravery isn't going to help you write an essay! Boldness isn't going to teach you to cast a spell! I mean, willpower helps you cast a spell, obviously, but that's a stretch. If one of the houses is going to be 'Bravery,' then the others should be things like, 'Honor,' 'Leadership' and 'Empathy'—or, you know, not that since I just thought of it off the top of my head, but still; it just doesn't fit."

At some point, Professor McGonagall had gone from disappointed to bemused. "That is... an interesting take on the matter, Miss Shimmer," she said. "Though you may be taking the short one-or-two word descriptions a little too seriously. People, as I'm sure you're aware, are more nuanced than that, and the houses are each modeled after one of the four founders of Hogwarts from which they take their names; Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw and Salazar Slytherin, who would each select students to give additional instruction, somewhat between an apprenticeship and the classrooms of today. I am certain that, should you wish, you could come up with a more rigorous set of descriptions for the houses."

Well... Okay, so maybe she had assumed a bit much based on just a few words. "I guess you have a point," she admitted. "If you actually had an entire house where you put all of the loud, rowdy, boisterous kids with no drive, ability or desire to study, then I'd feel sorry for whoever was in charge of that lot."

There was a moment of awkward silence, within which Sunset remembered something. "Oh! Right! That's where I last heard the name 'Gryffindor.' I mean, I heard it before sometime that I still can't recall, but when you introduced yourself, you said you were the head of house?"

"I am."

"So then—"

"Yes."

"...My condolences."

***

Being the prideful mare she was, Sunset wasn't beyond spending a significant amount of time primping and preening in front of the mirror in the morning, but even so, Luna seemed to have been upstairs for quite a long time when all she was supposed to be doing was changing her clothes, so Sunset figured she'd go see what was taking her so long. Professor McGonagall, too, was impatient, but her sense of propriety insisted that she leave the matter to Sunset so as to avoid intruding on her private space.

Sunset, of course, had no sense of 'private space' and barged right in to find Luna sitting on her bed half-dressed and staring off into space.

To Sunset's credit, her first reaction was some level of concern, which she'd gotten in the habit of over the past few days. The particular glazed look in her eyes rather spoiled it, because she recognized that look, and it wasn't melancholy, despondence or any of the other numerous things that were worth worrying about.

With a huff, Sunset lifted the white summer dress that was sitting on Luna's lap with her magic and threw it at her face. "If you're done eavesdropping, we'd like to get going," she said, making an effort to roll her eyes in an exaggerated way that would be clear to the other person looking through it.

Luna hmmed, thoughtful. "Is it still eavesdropping if I can't hear anything?" she asked, her voice muffled by the dress hanging off of her. Belatedly, she removed the garment from her face and looked at it, turning it in her hands to orient it properly. Without prompting, she announced, "I should learn to read lips."

Shaking her head, Sunset left Luna to her own devices and went back down the stairs. Professor McGonagall pretended that she hadn't overheard the conversation, but she nonetheless had a slightly amused air about her. Her disciplinarian act was very good, but Sunset had been interpreting Princess Celestia's muted reactions for the better part of her life and the two were not dissimilar at times, even across the species divide. The fact that the woman did have a sense of humor, no matter how well hidden it was, did make her seem more like a person than some of the instructors she'd had in the past. Even if Sunset maybe resented just a little bit every time something reminded her of Princess Celestia, given how her mentor had turned away from her, it was still familiar ground.

"What time is your visit with the muggles, if it's that precise?" Sunset asked, thinking. "And for that matter, how do you tell time? I haven't seen a clock since I got here."

"The appointment is for one o'clock," Professor McGonagall informed her. "And the spell that we use is—" She waved her wand in front of herself. "Tempus."

A puff of white smoke came from the tip of her wand, taking the shape of a typical wall clock with both hands near to the top with an impressive level of clarity for something not at all solid. After a moment of churning inside that space, the magic holding the smoke together faded, and the smoke dissipated into an indistinct wisp which was shortly gone.

"Nearly noon," the professor announced. "We have an hour, which should be enough time for lunch, assuming Miss Lovegood ever manages to dress herself.

Sunset, who was quite familiar with only needing to leave moments before she arrived thanks to teleportation, dismissed the time as not an immediate issue. She did, however, step closer, head cocked to the side, and say, "Do that again."

Professor McGonagall didn't seem to quite understand what the fascination was, but as a teacher she was quite used to repeating spells for the sake of instruction. Not outwardly questioning it, she waved her wand with almost mechanical precision and repeated the incantation, producing another smoke effigy of a clock.

"Okay, I can feel how the smoke bit works—of course I do, since fire is kind of my thing—but I'm not getting how it actually gets the time since it's not something the caster knows. Can you explain..."

***

It wasn't too long before Sunset was able to produce a proper tempus of her own, though her first success came out just at the tip of her horn and no further, leaving her hacking and coughing at the result. She would have to work on that, but it was only a matter of visualization and therefore practice—harder than one might think, having seen and studied Professor McGonagall's casting of it closely enough that the expectation of the result was already firmly in her mind, but not something that putting in a bit of time and effort wouldn't overcome.

What was more interesting was what she had learned about how it was done—which she didn't have time to mull over as Luna finally came down the stairs wearing an airy white dress that went down to her ankles. What was odd was the rubber eraser hanging from her neck. Admittedly, it was a cute yellow one in a fat and rounded star shape, but one of the legs of the star had been used for its intended purpose and was shorter than the rest, sporting a smudge of graphite.

On closer inspection, though, Sunset realized that she'd been distracted by the eraser when the real takeaway was that the necklace itself was made of paperclips like her old one.

The one she'd wielded against the Seelie Queen with such frightening effectiveness, stealing back Sunset's name and giving her the opportunity to make off with her ascension.

You know what? Sunset was going to pretend that was the finest damn necklace that money could buy and no one was going to stop her.

Professor McGonagall, of course, didn't understand the significance, but she'd mastered the art of keeping her opinions about children entirely to herself, so said nothing. Indeed, her nod seemed satisfied that the child had managed to dress herself at all, which, given the time it had taken and the state that she had been in when Sunset had gone to check on her, wasn't entirely unreasonable.

Professor McGonagall made her way to the floo, then paused. Turning, she looked Sunset over once more and warned her, "We will be heading to the Leaky Cauldron for lunch; a rather noisy establishment, but as something of a meeting place for Diagon Alley, your appearance there should not cause too much commotion."

Sunset frowned, eyeing the floo with unease and imagining the scene that would greet her on the other side. She still wasn't comfortable with exposing herself to the public, no matter how blasé the hospital staff had been about her appearance. Professor McGonagall didn't know that Sunset had escaped from a cage in the Department of Mysteries, after all, and she wanted to keep it that way. Come to think of it, neither did Luna, for that matter.

Still, it wasn't actually a bad idea. She'd seen for herself the effect that simply showing up at a donut shop on the regular could have on a reputation, and though she'd resented it at the time, right now she wanted to be—well, not approachable since she didn't want to be approached, but she'd settle for benign.

Either way, she wasn't going to let that stop her.

...

But that didn't make her a Gryffindor, damn it.

Author's Note

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Chapter 5

The appearance of the Leaky Cauldron did not particularly surprise Sunset. The name sounded like a classic pub or inn of the sort you'd find in a fantasy novel, or at least the rough part of a frontier town, and from what she could see of it through the general grime and dim lighting, that impression seemed to have been panned out.

The fact that it was apparently a high-profile meeting place just off of the magic-users premiere shopping district, on the other hoof, was decidedly odd, though Sunset supposed that with their limited population, then comparing it to a frontier town wasn't entirely unreasonable.

Either way, Sunset had little time to really appreciate the socioeconomic forces involved while in the middle of the noisy, crowded room as she struggled to follow Luna and Professor McGonagall to a table, dodging between and around the legs of patrons who didn't even notice her in spite of her bright coloring.

It was something of a relief when they picked out a table in the quietest corner of the room and Sunset was able to jump up onto one of the chairs with assistance from a flap of her wings. Shooting a displeased look at the crowd behind her, she commented, "I know that ponies aren't the biggest kinds of people even back home, but that was like a particularly antagonistic version of getting lost in one of Princess Celestia's wardrobes—err—not that I ever did such a thing, even if I was, like, five at the time."

...

Yeah, okay, that was bad. Thankfully, Professor McGonagall was nice enough not to call her on it, though she definitely had the look of someone who was unimpressed with her bullshit.

Actually, maybe that was just how the professor normally looked.

Lunch was lunch and it went by mostly without comment. Sunset attracted a few looks, but that was all it was and nobody seemed all too surprised. The 'menu,' such as it was, matched the decor, only consisted of a few items and was communicated verbally over the bar to Professor McGonagall. Sunset had the pea soup, which seemed to concern the professor for some reason, but aside from being more rustic than she was used to and looking more like peat soup, it was as filling as any fancy meal she'd been served growing up at the castle.

"So, how is this going to work?" Sunset asked, setting aside the earthenware bowl that her soup had come in and curling up on the precarious stack of cushions that the transfiguration professor had conjured for her. "If we're going to a muggle neighborhood, does that mean we're taking one of those mechanized carriages? I doubt they have a floo."

Professor McGonagall took a moment to dab at the corner of her mouth with a handkerchief before answering, "Indeed not—but no, we will save the Knight Bus for later. I assure you, I am quite capable of apparating the three of us."

"Apparating?" Sunset asked, curiously considering what the word might mean. "Is that like teleportation, or some kind of spirit-travel?"

"Teleportation is not inaccurate, as far as I understand the muggle term for something the muggles cannot actually do," Professor McGonagall informed her, then cast a quick tempus to check the time, which was nearing one in the afternoon. "We should step out back, as it isn't polite to disapparate indoors. If you're ready, Miss Lovegood?"

Luna blinked, having been looking at something across the room while they'd been talking. She still had half a piece of breaded fish on her plate—until she didn't. Her response to Professor McGonagall was, out of necessity, a silent nod of the head, her cheeks stuffed with fish.

Rolling her eyes, the transfiguration professor silently waved her wand, casting something that cleaned the child's hands as she stood, leading the two of them out back.

'Out back' turned out to be a small, grimy dead-end alleyway with a single trashcan and brick walls on all sides. At first it seemed like a strange curiosity of urban construction, but then, on second thought, maybe she was overthinking it and it existed for exactly the purpose they were putting it to. Then again, one of the brick walls was more enchanted than the others, so it was possible that she was missing something, but if so, it was subtle enough that she would have to get closer to get a proper feel for it, and now wasn't the time for that.

A casual wave of Professor McGonagall's wand turned her green robes into something of a business suit with a full-length skirt, while her pointed hat lost the point and gained a crisper, cleaner look, but that was about it. The subtleties were rather lost on Sunset, to be honest, but presumably muggles dressed in Prench fashion or something. She guessed that it made sense that people without magic wouldn't dress like wizards.

Professor McGonagall followed her transfiguration with a second spell on herself and Luna that she failed to catch the function of, then crossed her arms and considered Sunset carefully, tapping her wand in thought. "I'm afraid that the disillusionment charm isn't something I've mastered quite to the level that Filius and Albus have, but I suppose it will have to do."

Sunset couldn't help but flinch as Professor McGonagall tapped her on the tip of her horn with her wand and incanted, "Invisiblus," sending a cold thrill of illusion magic crawling down her spine and over her coat. When it was over, she looked down at herself and saw that she was, as per the incantation, invisible.

Sort of.

Her refractive index was off, so while you could, in fact, see through her, what precisely you could see through her was very slightly off, and when she turned her hoof over to look at the other side it was as if the illusion was slow to fix itself to the new orientation.

"Try not to move too much," Professor McGonagall advised. "It should be enough to avoid drawing attention on the street, but I'd prefer it if you weren't noticed at least until I've made my introduction."

"Uh, sure," Sunset absently agreed, still looking at her hoof. It was probably the strangest way to do an invisibility spell you could think of, but it was an invisibility spell, which was something she'd been sharply feeling the lack of ever since she'd come to this place.

She was about to ask Professor McGonagall to explain it to her when she felt Luna's hand on her withers, and then the world twisted.

***

Surprisingly, Sunset found apparition to be the most pleasant form of magical travel that the human magic users had come up with so far. Surprising, because it felt like Professor McGonagall had punched a pinhole-sized hole in space and threaded them through the underside of reality to reappear on a small, well-tended lawn in front of a fairly large, picturesque, two-story house, which seemed more like something you endured rather than the invigorating breath of fresh air it actually turned out to be. Luna, too, seemed pleasantly refreshed by the experience, and Sunset wondered if it was in part thanks to their slightly Fae-acclimated physicalities.

Either way, that, along with the apparent distance covered, meant that this 'apparition' was another spell she wanted to learn as soon as possible.

That, however, was not why she had pushed to come along on this little trip, and Sunset took a moment to take in as many details about this spot of the muggle world as she could.

It was, at once, the polar opposite of what she'd seen so far of the wizarding world, and yet much more similar to what she was used to back home in Canterlot. Sure, the styles were different and there weren't large expanses of marble and gold, but all the same, it was clearly a gated community with clean roads of some uniform substance, and those roads were lined with neat and tidy houses that had been properly designed by actual architects.

Compared to the Leaky Cauldron, where things were so haphazard and worn that she could feel the grain of the tables with her hooves and lose a spoon between the boards, the difference between the two was night and day.

It was a pity that the muggles would freak out about seeing a small amber-colored unicorn; aside from their lack of magic, they were clearly the more civilized of the two worlds.

And speaking of the muggles freaking out, while she had been checking out the neighborhood, it seemed that Professor McGonagall had introduced herself to the residents of the house, and Sunset had to hurry to slip in behind her, doing her best not to catch the eye of the man who had answered the door.

The inside of the house only strengthened Sunset's impression of the muggles; there were several bookshelves that were visible even from the foyer, each of them stocked with stacks of printed books, many of them glossy with illustrations on the covers, and the number of fixtures, fittings and other bric-a-brac around the house spoke of a level of industrialization that was impressive. The wall-to-wall carpet that the living room had was particularly nice, being more soft and plush than any of the dense and often scratchy rugs that even the Canterlot palace used, though that may have come down to the humans' lack of hooves.

The muggles introduced themselves as Doctors Thomas and Heather Granger and their daughter Hermione Granger. Thomas was a kind-looking sandy-haired man of what she assumed was average height while Heather was a tall woman of a height with her husband with curly dark-brown hair, both of them with the sort of fair skin that seemed to be most common in the country she had found herself in. Hermione seemed to take after her mother for the most part, her hair in particular which, while being significantly lighter than her mother's, was an impressive mess of frizzy curls.

It was Hermione, of course, that drew most of Sunset's attention, being the one of these muggles that had magic and would be going to Hogwarts alongside Luna.

Also, after looking up at Professor McGonagall all morning, her neck was getting sore and Hermione was that much easier to actually look at.

Hermione, for her part, seemed torn between paying attention to Professor McGonagall and looking curiously at Luna, but that all changed when Sunset felt the tap of the transfiguration professor's wand on her head and the disillusionment that was disguising her rippled and fell in a wave of warmth.

Suddenly, everyone's attention was on her, which, you know, was fine, except she hadn't really been paying attention to the conversation, so all she could do was blink, lift her hoof and say, "Hey."

Hermione, who's eyes had already gone wide as circles, gaped at Sunset when she spoke and let out an ear-piercing squeal of delight, "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee," which lasted exactly two seconds before she caught herself and shifted to words. "You're—you're a baby unicorn! But you're so colorful! And you can talk! Are you really a unicorn?"

Sunset wasn't going to get upset at a little girl, but she still felt the need to immediately insist, in the strongest of terms, "I am not a baby," definitely not pouting as she did so.

"That's right," Luna agreed, nodding along. "Sunset's just metamorphosed to her imago stage—that makes her a sexually active adult."

"I—wha—?" Sunset flushed and sputtered at Luna's insinuation. She wasn’t going to object to being referred to as an adult, even if it wasn’t quite accurate, but, "The word you're looking for is sexually mature adult—and for Celestia's sake, I am not a bug!"

The adult Grangers seemed to be having a bit more trouble with the concept of a brightly colored pony suddenly appearing in their living room. "Now, hold on just a second; where did that—she—come from?" Thomas asked, pointing at Sunset.

Sunset, of course, saw no reason not to inform him, "I was invisible. Sort of. Assuming you didn't look very hard—which you clearly didn't."

Thomas seemed like he was going to object to that when Heather put a hand on his shoulder, prompting him to think better of it. "Hermione, love, why don't you and Luna go play while we talk with the professor? We're going to need a bit more information about what exactly we're getting into here."

Hermione was clearly perturbed at being excluded from the conversation, but then looked at Luna and clearly decided she could interrogate a girl her age just as easily, so she grabbed the blonde girl's hand and dragged her off. Luna stumbled and struggled to keep up, as she had been busy staring intently at Hermione's father for some reason.

Sunset shrugged and followed along after the girls, not particularly interested in the muggles, even if Professor McGonagall's explanation of the wizarding world might have filled in some of the gaps in her knowledge. Her goal right now was to learn more about the muggle world, and seeing more of the house would help with that, as would Luna's inevitable questions.

Hermione dragged Luna out of the living room, stopped to consider where she was going, then made for the staircase at the back of the house.

Having grown up in a palace, Sunset couldn't say that she was impressed, exactly, at the size of the house, but from what she knew of single-family dwellings, it was quite respectable, with a living room, dining room, kitchen and study on the first floor, while the second floor—which she had to remind herself was the first floor according to the humans—was no doubt set aside for individual bedrooms and what have you.

Sunset followed the girls to the stairs, then waited at the bottom for them to clear them. The stairs came almost up to her barrel, which was manageable, but awkward. Her go-to for situations like this had always been teleportation, and for this short of a distance she could even do it without burning anything, but, of course, she had a new go-to now.

At the top of the stairs, having realized that she was no longer being followed, Hermione looked back just in time to see Sunset spread her wings and launch herself up the stairway, which was just a bit too narrow to properly fly in, but doable if she was careful.

The look of starry-eyed wonder she received from Hermione on landing next to her was vindicating. Finally, someone who was properly in awe of her alicornification.

"You have a horn and wings?" she asked in disbelief. "But—but—all the proper classical sources have unicorns and winged horses—"

"Pegasi," Sunset provided.

Hermione shook her head. "No, no; you see, Pegasus was the name of a specific winged horse—and it's Greek, anyway, not Latin, so that's not how you'd pluralize—"

"Girl, I come from a magical land of talking ponies, and we call them 'pegasi.'"

Hermione did not like this information. "But... but..."

Luna patted Hermione on the head. "It's okay," she reassured her. "You're right that we don't call winged horses pegasi here."

"Really?" Hermione asked, hopeful that her preconceptions would remain unchallenged.

"Yes." Luna nodded, then placed a finger on her mouth in thought. "Although, come to think of it, abraxans are named for Abraxas, aeothonans for Aeothon and granians for Grani, so actually, it's stranger that we don't have a breed of winged horses named after Pegasus."

"That's... but..."

***

Hermione's room was not especially different from the rest of the house to Sunset's eyes, being neat and tidy, with no less than two bookshelves—one next to a small writing desk, which seemed to contain books on math, history and presumably other non-fiction subjects in a surprising quantity for an eleven-year-old, and another that was built into the wall over the bed, which well-worn paperbacks shared with a small number of stuffed toys.

As soon as she'd dragged Luna into her room, Hermione turned around and demanded to know, "If magic and unicorns and winged horses are real, then does that mean dragons are real? Are Borrowers real? And faeries?"

Both Sunset and Luna flinched at the mention of faeries.

"Dragons, yes," Luna answered. "I don't know what Borrowers are, and..."

Sunset stepped in and informed Hermione, "Faeries are very real and you do not ever want to meet one. That's all we're going to say about that."

Hermione deflated a bit at that, though Sunset wasn't sure if it was at the news that faeries weren't nice and cute, or just at being denied information. "Oh... so they're like the old stories, then?"

"I barely know what the magical versions are like, but yeah, probably," Sunset said, then glanced at Luna. "But like I said, that's not something we're going to talk about right now."

Luna, though, fisted her hands in front of her and shook her head. "No—no. There's nothing better than a first-hand account," she said, then looked down at Sunset curiously. "Or a first-hoof account?"

Sunset would kind of rather they talked about the magical and muggle worlds, but, well, "If you're sure."

Luna nodded, and so, Sunset told the story—or at least, she tried to. Logically, she thought that if they were telling Hermione about Faery, that she should start with Sunset finding the ring of mushrooms in the forest near Luna's house, but of course that begged the question as to why Sunset would choose to jump worlds at a whim, so she had to go back and explain her situation, which wasn't a terrible idea. There were things that Luna probably needed to know, like the whole situation where she had escaped from the ministry's Department of Mysteries.

She, of course, told the story in the only way she knew how; from her own perspective, with herself as the poor, aggrieved orphan. She explained about Equestria and how she'd grown up as the student of its alicorn ruler, Princess Celestia, learning everything at her side. She studied magic and aced all her tests, always supported pridefully by the princess, who was both confidant and mentor to her. Everything was going fine until, just out of the blue, another alicorn arrived.

Sunset hadn't disliked Cadance initially—really, she hadn't—but suddenly Sunset's personal lessons with the princess were being shared with this ex-pegasus from the country that knew nothing about anything, their progress slowed to a crawl, and yet the princess couldn't have been more delighted.

"I hate that," Hermione grumbled in solidarity, sitting cross-legged on the soft carpet floor of her room with her hands on her legs. Luna and Sunset made the rest of a triangle in front of her, though Sunset was standing, her feathers ruffled.

"Fortunately, that didn't last long," she said, calming herself down. "But it wasn't really that much better getting half the time as usual because she had to split her time between us. I was mature about it, of course, and things went almost back to normal so long as I avoided Cadance and pretended she wasn't there, which wasn't too hard since she was basically back in magic kindergarten—and etiquette kindergarten and every other kind of kindergarten. That all changed when Princess Celestia showed me this mirror..."

So Sunset explained the mirror; how the princess had taken her to it and asked what she saw in it. She explained how she'd seen herself as an alicorn, and then, just like that, Princess Celestia had changed in an instant. She refused to tell Sunset anything about the mirror. Where once she'd had a kind, open and understanding mentor who would always talk through problems with Sunset, there was suddenly only the taciturn princess who refused to say a single word on the matter one way or the other.

"Did she not want another heir, since she already had Cadance?" Hermione wondered.

Sunset considered that, but shook her head. "She's immortal anyway, so there isn't really an heir. And anyway, even if it was like that, she'd have let one of us down gently, not... whatever that was. I can't explain how weird it was that she just shut me out entirely and all but ignored me if I brought it up. If it was something bad, she'd have just said that! Believe me, she was not shy about telling me when she didn't approve of something, and she always knew."

"Wait, so..." Hermione sat and thought about that for a bit. "Was it some kind of reverse-psychology thing, then, where if she told you about it, you'd do one thing, but what she actually wanted you to do is what you'd do if she didn't tell you anything?" she wondered, but seemed unconvinced. "I don't think people actually do things like that."

Sunset threw her hooves up in the air in frustration. "Well, she's a thousand-plus-year-old politician, so maybe!" she said, having given up on ever getting a proper answer. "I looked into it and found out that the mirror was a portal that only opens every thirty moons and figured maybe I was supposed to go through it since the time was coming up, but that's something I'd have done if she'd asked anyway, so I don't know."

"And that's how you came to Earth?" Hermione asked.

"I still can't believe you named your world after dirt," Sunset said. "—But no. I mean, yes, but not quite. I went to Princess Celestia one last time to tell her about what I found, but she was all, 'If you continue on this path, I will have no choice but to remove you from your position as my student,' so I told her that if she wouldn't talk to me about it, then I wasn't really her student anymore anyway, and ran off." Sunset paused, then shook her head. "So yeah, it was a whole thing and it sucked and then I went through the mirror and got hit by one of your mechanized carriages."

Luna cocked her head to the side in question. "Is that why you were hurt?" she asked.

"Mechanized carriage?" Hermione asked. "You mean a car? How did that happen? Did the portal come out next to a road or something?"

"Well, from what I saw out of the corner of my eye, the other end of the portal came out of some kind of statue—only the statue was on the back of a... car?" she looked to Hermione to see if she'd gotten it right.

"If it has cargo space in the back, we call that a truck—or a lorry, if it's a big one," Hermione explained. "So you just..."

"Yeah, it was strapped down to a large flat bed on the back of a... truck, I guess, going some insane speed down this huge black road and just spat me off the back of it. Obviously, I didn't have the wings at the time, so I hit the ground and then got hit by one of the smaller ones."

Hermione reminded her that it was, "A car."

"Yeah," Sunset agreed, thought back for a moment, and said, "Everything after that is fuzzy for obvious reasons. Some ministry people showed up, made all the muggles think I was a goat or something, and dragged me off to the Department of Mysteries."

"Muggles?" Hermione asked, not sure what the term referred to.

Sunset wasn't quite sure what the problem was. "Isn't that what your people are called?" she asked. "Well, not you," she quickly corrected. "But the non-magical ones like your parents, I mean."

Hermione's nose scrunched up like she'd smelled something foul. "A mug is what we call someone who's too gullible."

"Huh," Sunset remarked. "I did think that it didn't sound very nice," she admitted. "But like I said, you named your world after dirt and we did the same thing with a tribe of ponies and no one seems to mind that, so I figured it was just one of those things."

"Well," Luna said. "I've heard that in the Americas, they call them no-maj."

"No-maj?" Sunset said, incredulous.

Luna nodded. "Yes, because they have no magi—"

"Yeah, I got that, thanks," Sunset dryly informed her. "Are the people who live there..."

"Touched in the head?" Hermione suggested. "Some would say so, but no, you're right, that sounds dumb—like what an orc or a troll would call it. Wait—are orcs and trolls real, too? That's not racist, is it?"

"Trolls are definitely real," Luna informed her. "And yes, that's racist. I don't think it's wrong, though, as they're not known for their linguistic abilities. Maybe the American magicals are all secretly trolls? Or maybe a British person made it up to make them sound uneducated and they started using it ironically until it became normal?"

"I want to say that wouldn't happen, but I can't," Hermione admitted, frowning. "Anyway, where were we?"

"Sunset had been hit by a car, then the obliviators came and made everyone forget about her before dragging her off to the Department of Mysteries," Luna reminded her.

Hermione's eyes widened and she turned to Sunset. "Wait, when you said they made everyone think that you were a goat, you meant with magic?"

Sunset scrunched her face up in disgust. "Yeah, and my horn was scraped raw on the road too, so I could really feel the spells they were casting. It wasn't the best first impression entirely aside from being foalnapped and put in a cage."

Hermione gawped. "But that's... that's horrible!"

Sunset nodded in agreement, while Luna shrugged and said, "Well, they are the government. I think that means that they're horrible by default."

"That doesn't give them the right!" Hermione insisted.

"Well, no," Luna agreed. "But you can't tell me you don't think that the muggle government wouldn't do it too, if they could."

"Of course they wouldn't!" Hermione said, aghast. "I mean—the Americans, maybe—or perhaps the French..."

"Anyway," Sunset interjected, not wanting to let an argument start. "I woke up in a cage in the Department of Mysteries, let myself out and took the floo to a random house, which turned out to be the Lovegood's place, and now we can finally actually talk about Faery."

The actual talk about the Fae, ironically, went much faster. Sunset explained that she'd never even heard of them before and how that lack of knowledge was abused, tying her twofold to Faerie and Titania until Luna arrived, fended Titania off with a necklace of paperclips and stole back Sunset's name.

"You did that?" Hermione asked, seeing the blonde in a new light.

"Well, it would have been a pity if, just after having found a crumple-horned snorkack, we lost her to the fae," Luna reasoned.

Hermione blinked and looked Sunset over. "A... crumple-horned snorkack? Is that what you are?"

Sunset let out a huff of frustrated resignation and said, "Legally, yes," refusing to be drawn further on the matter, though that put her between a bit of a rock and a hard place since she didn't particularly want to talk about the next bit any more than she wanted to talk about her legal species name.

Not seeing any way around it, though, she went ahead and mentioned the mote of light representing the concept of ascension that Titania had tempted her with, and, couching it in the best terms possible, how she had taken just a few extra seconds to grab it before following after Luna... and how Luna had lost her eye.

Hermione covered her mouth in silent fear and horror, but it was Luna that Sunset was watching for a reaction. Of course, for Luna it had been over a year since the events Sunset was describing, and all she did was touch her eye absently.

"That was quite painful," Luna recalled, thinking back, a finger on her cheek. "I remember a lot of running and fire and teleportation. At some point I needed an eye and I used what I had on-hand, which was Sunset's name—only it didn't quite work how I needed it to since it still sees out of her head and I got captured."

"Wait-wait-wait-wait," Hermione said, holding her hands up. "Is that where your heterochromia comes from?" she asked, referring to Luna's left eye, which was the same teal as Sunset's. "How does that—but—it's a name!"

"I'd say it's a fae thing," Sunset said, "but Titania was just as baffled. I guess it's a Luna thing."

Luna didn't seem to mind the distinction and went over the rest of the story, from being locked in a cage, to Sunset coming for her and having to go back for her father; a trip which, for Luna, took somewhere on the order of an entire year. Glossing over the time she spent in Mab's care, comprising as it did long hours of boredom in a cage watching Sunset's progress through her name, she described how, near the end, she would see through the effect that her physicality had on Faery.

"...And then daddy came with his iron bell and shotgun, but ever since then I've been able to perceive... I suppose they must be fae of some sort, but nobody else seems to see them, even when they do things that people really ought to notice."

Sunset blinked, being that this was new information to her, though she supposed that Luna hadn't exactly hidden her staring off into space. She'd just thought that the girl was easily distracted or lost in thought about her imprisonment.

Hermione, though, was just curious. "Things that people ought to notice? Like what?"

"Well," Luna said. "Downstairs, after Professor McGonagall removed Sunset's disillusionment, there was something—I've decided to call them wrackspurts—and it seems like they go in through your ears and make your thoughts fuzzy, because he seemed quite out of it until your mother scared them away."

Hermione blanched at the mention of something going inside of her dad's ears, though it quickly turned into a frown. "Wait, how do you know it was the wrackspurts? He could have just been confused. It's quite a shock, all this magic stuff."

Luna cocked her head to the side, not understanding. "But I saw it."

Sunset decided not to mention that after what had happened to Luna, the fact that she had seen something wasn't entirely one-hundred-percent evidence that something had actually happened, but fortunately, Hermione seemed to have the situation handled.

"Correlation doesn't imply causation," she insisted with a huff, hands on her hips and a stern look on her face.

It took longer than it should have to explain the concept of scientific rigor to the young magical.

***

Rather frustratingly, they had barely gotten to telling Hermione about the generalities of magic and Hogwarts when there was a knock at the door from Hermione's mother, who informed them that they were ready to discuss this magic school with her. Yes, Sunset was able to glean a number of things about the muggle world from the questions that Hermione asked, but it was far from satisfying.

Still, she made an effort not to be bothered as she waited at the top of the stairs then glided down after them. There was, at minimum, two and a half years before the statue would be of any use to her, so she didn't need to worry about a matter of hours. She'd already ascended to an alicorn and had a number of spells that she wanted to learn. She was, if anything, ahead of the curve.

"Now, Hermione," Thomas Granger was saying, squatting in front of his daughter to put himself on her level when Sunset caught up to the rest of the group in the living room. "This is a boarding school, you understand? You'll be off in Scotland, only coming home for the holidays. Is that something you want? There are other options; day schools and tutors."

To her credit, she did consider the matter quite seriously, but at length, with a glance back at Luna, she nodded and told him she was sure. Sunset tuned out of the conversation about there, keeping an ear out for anything interesting about the muggle world, but not needing to listen to the family dynamics.

Instead, she busied herself by wandering about, investigating the various muggle takes on familiar conveniences. The kitchen was especially interesting, though not because it was unique. Rather the opposite as there were appliances like coffee makers and blenders which looked essentially identical to their Equestrian counterparts—all electric, from the look of it.

For the most part, it was a shockingly normal house at maybe twice the scale as ponies built to in order to fit the significantly taller bipeds.

Eventually, the discussion in the living room reached the subject of Hermione's wand and school supplies. The muggles weren't too appreciative of not being warned about the trip ahead of time, which was fair, but in the interest of providing the shortest possible delay between Hermione and books, they didn't put up too much of a fuss.

"Now, since you live on the outskirts of London, Diagon Alley isn't too far from here and you could likely make your way there by muggle means on a normal day, but since there are six of us and to familiarize you with it, the method of transportation we will be taking is known as the Knight Bus, a public transportation service for those unable to floo or apparate, either due to age, inability or impairment."

Professor McGonagall led the group out to the street in front of the house, raised her wand and—and there was no 'and'. She didn't cast a spell or anything; she just raised her wand like she was hailing a passenger chariot, and with an incredible bang that somehow didn't seem to attract the attention of any of the neighbors, the Knight Bus appeared, which was an interesting trick. Sunset made not to not approach roads incautiously in the future since her horn was always in Knight Bus summoning position, though it was more likely that it wouldn't be recognized at all and an actual wand was needed to do the summoning.

The Knight Bus turned out to be an especially large, purple example of a muggle vehicle known as a 'bus' which had been enchanted in so many ways it made Sunset's horn ache. It looked quite ridiculous and at first, looking like three vehicles on top of one another, she had assumed that it was essentially that, and the muggle version was much saner, but no, Hermione said that even the muggles had double-decker buses, which might have been even stranger since they were done entirely without magic.

The inside of the Knight Bus, however, she could attribute entirely to the magicals, and not in a positive way. Actually, the style was a bit more Equestrian, looking very similar to the kind of drawing room that a member of the nobility would have back in Canterlot, with wood paneling, crystal chandeliers and buttoned leather chairs.

It was all very posh, the only issues being how out of place it all was and the minor, nearly irrelevant fact that none of it was at all bolted down or in any way secured. That didn't seem so alarming at first, of course. Seeing as ponies had managed to mount an entire city on the side of a mountain like a bauble on a shelf, Sunset was sure that there were a dozen ways that the human magic users could have prevented the movement of the bus from affecting the things inside of it.

The problem was, they didn't appear to have used any of them.

The moment the Knight Bus took off—and it did so just as suddenly as it had appeared—every single piece of furniture took a leap towards the back of the bus, the chandeliers swinging and jangling along. The people, of course, didn't fare much better. Professor McGonagall had taken a seat near the front of the bus and instructed the others to do likewise, but she wasn't quite quick enough at getting the message across and the Grangers barely managed to remain standing—the adults especially.

Luna had split the difference and found an ottoman that slid across the polished wooden floor like a curling stone, sweeping Hermione up along with her with a, "Whee!" from the former and a "Whaa!" from the latter.

You would think that they would at least have a rug or a carpet to go along with the rest of the decor and provide better traction.

Sunset, for her part, being possessed of four legs and two wings, didn't have much trouble stabilizing herself, and her attention quickly shifted from the chaos inside of the bus to the chaos outside of it.

"What. The. Buck."

If someone had told Sunset that Discord had come back and set himself up as a bus driver, she would have believed them. Aside from the relatively mundane quality of occasionally jumping ahead with the bang of its version of teleportation, the Knight Bus was also going several times faster than anything on the road, facilitated by absolutely everything jumping out of its path—lamp posts, cars and even trees—all without anyone on the outside ever seeming to notice that they had done so.

Twice, the Knight Bus made an especially loud bang and stopped to pick up more passengers, but before long the next bang that came was the one of their arrival and the six of them disembarked on the street outside of the Leaky Cauldron, some of them more traumatized than others, with Professor McGonagall remembering to re-apply Sunset's disillusionment just as she was stepping onto the street.

Having been inside the Leaky Cauldron, the outside of it was essentially exactly as one would have expected, looking like a rough, dimly-lit and heavily weathered pub, which only made it stand out all the more compared to the large book shop on one side of it and the busy record shop on the other, both of which would have fit in on any Manehattan street corner—as would the rest of the street for that matter.

In accommodation for her disillusionment, Sunset remained as still as possible as she waited for everyone to gather on the street, folding her ears for the loud bang of the Knight Bus leaving. Once that was over, she resumed listening in on the Grangers' introduction to the magical world.

Apparently there was some kind of enchantment or spell on the Leaky Cauldron such that only those with magic could see it, which was an interesting trick similar to the thestrals that Xenophilius had mentioned, which also possessed the quality of being selectively invisible.

On one hoof, that did sound rather useful if she was going to be searching the muggle world for the statue where the portal home was anchored, but on the other, spells for static locations were often different than spells for people, and there was already the disillusionment spell, which she'd been informed could make one completely transparent if it was mastered, which seemed like a much more productive use of her time.

The solution to the magic hiding the pub from the adult Grangers turned out to be for them to take Hermione's hand, at which point they stepped back in shock, suddenly able to see the Leaky Cauldron. That made Sunset even more curious about the magic behind it, even if it wasn't particularly relevant to her.

As soon as Professor McGonagall opened the door to the Leaky Cauldron, Sunset went from standing still to dashing between legs to get inside, receiving a tap on the head from the professor's wand to dispel the disillusionment as she passed as if it had been planned. The professor certainly wasn't an easy one to catch off guard.

Sunset felt a grumble of discontent at the warmth of losing her short-lived disguise, feeling that it wouldn't have hurt for her to stay invisible at least for the trip through the pub, but then again, the magicals would probably know what to look for to spot an imperfect disillusionment and pay even more attention to something trying to be invisible.

It may have been petty, but Sunset felt rather vindicated that the Grangers weren't terribly impressed by the inside of the Leaky Cauldron, however, this attitude flipped on its head when, after a confusing trip back to the dead-end alley they had previously disapparated from, Professor McGonagall tapped a specific brick and, like a school of fish splitting around a shark, the bricks opened up to reveal the real Diagon Alley.

Sunset cringed.

Okay, okay, it wasn't that bad—not really. It was a bustling, colorful marketplace with a cobblestone road, the buildings whimsically designed, not a parallel line to be seen. It was just that, like with the Knight Bus, it reminded Sunset tangentially of Discord, which was one of the few events in Equestria's history that Princess Celestia had never made light of.

The fact that the buildings weren't all swaying from side to side and singing was a plus, though, and helped her put her first impression behind her.

The Grangers, of course, were all wondrously impressed, Hermione's head swiveling this way and that as hawkers announced all sorts of fantastical ingredients. Fantastical to them, anyway. Sunset found mentions of things like dragon liver and manticore venom a little less than enticing, though she had already been warned about that sort of thing when Xenophilius had explained potions to her.

"Our first stop will be Gringotts bank, so that you may change pounds for galleons," she told the Grangers, leading the group to a building that could have been right out of Canterlot with its white marble columns and polished appearance. "Now, before we enter, I should warn you: Gringotts is run by goblins, who are not particularly fond of wizardkind—or witchkind, or muggles, or anyone that is not a goblin."

Thomas Granger put his hand on Hermione's head and brushed it down affectionately. "You hear that, honey? Be on your best behavior. It's always best to be polite to those who manage your money."

"Being polite, in the case of goblins, mostly means treating them with the wariness due a predator and not wasting their time with frivolities," Professor McGonagall noted. "You may see behavior from other patrons that seems condescending to what they consider a lesser race, and while that is unfortunately true in some cases, the posturing does serve a purpose. Simply being compliant is a quick way to lose a goblin's respect and will get you taken advantage of."

"I... see," the elder Granger said, clearly having to readjust his worldview to process that. "The way you've put it, you make it sound like there's no way to have an amiable relationship with a goblin."

Professor McGonagall shook her head. "On the contrary, it's simply that they have a different idea of what the hallmarks of an amiable relationship are and the affordances such a relationship provides."

"The way daddy put it," Luna chimed in, happy to have something to contribute. "Is that if you're friends with a goblin, they'll try to cheat you out of your gold, but if you aren't, they'll try to cheat you out of your life. Gringotts is goblin territory, you know—like a muggle embassy—so they have their own set of laws that you have to be careful of."

Thomas Granger blanched at the mention of losing the lives of himself and his family over a banking dispute, which Sunset admitted was fair. It was unlikely that a griffon-run bank would do well back in Equestria, and griffons were entirely capable of being domesticated. "Is there, perhaps, another bank that we can use that isn't so... rife with potentially thorny issues?" he asked.

Professor McGonagall shook her head, which didn't entirely surprise Sunset. Aside from the population issue that limited them to only having two bookstores, she expected that if there was another option, that the wizards would take it. She was curious what the reason for that would be, though.

"No," the professor said. "Goblins and wizards have fought over the matter a number of times throughout the ages, and the end result of the various treaties as they stand today is that goblins have exclusive rights to operate banks in the wizarding world."

Heather Granger hmmed, giving that a thought. "You've mentioned the 'British Ministry of Magic' before, so when you say 'the wizarding world,' is that just here in the United Kingdom, or does that extend to Ireland or the continent? And what about the Americas and further abroad?"

"Just here," Professor McGonagall admitted. "Though Magical Britain includes all of the British Isles, including Ireland. Other countries often have similar arrangements with the goblins, but the current state of those agreements isn't something I could properly inform you of. Even in countries where there are alternatives, however, the goblins tend to be the most successful of banks. Whatever else one says about them, they are exceptional at their job, which isn't something you can say for some of the banks in the Americas."

Feeling that the group was finally duly prepared to experience the goblins, the professor said, "Now, if there are no more questions, we should proceed. We do have a rather full afternoon to get to."

The rest of the group agreed, though they paused for a moment at the door where a poem was engraved into a plaque.

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

Hermione read the poem and bent forward to read it, coming away slightly confused. "Are the goblins terribly religious?" she asked somewhat out of the blue. "Because I didn't get that impression from your description."

"No, I don't believe so," Professor McGonagall answered, not sure what the young witch's point was.

"Well, isn't it odd, then, that they call it 'the sin of greed?'" Hermione asked. "I'm not implying that they're Christian in particular, but the concept of 'sin' is a theological one."

"It might not have been a goblin that came up with it," Luna pointed out.

"Are goblins even the artistic type?" Sunset asked, doubtful. "I'm having trouble picturing one of them writing poems."

"Yes, actually," Professor McGonagall answered, to everyone but Luna's surprise. "Goblins are actually quite deep into the arts. They are excellent smiths, among other things, and Filius Flitwick, the charms professor at Hogwarts, is half-goblin and in charge of the orchestra and frog choir."

Sunset kind of wanted to know if the frog choir used actual frogs or transfigured students, but not enough to hold the group up as they continued on into the bank. Back in Equestria, it would definitely have been an earth pony with trained frogs or something, so she just assumed that here it was transfigured students—maybe as a punishment thing?

The inside of Gringotts bank was, miraculously, not the crooked, whimsical shape that the bank had from the outside, which was a bit of a relief. Finally, a wizarding place that looked decent and sensible. Of course, she might have been influenced by the similarity she'd already noted to the white marble buildings of Canterlot, but she doubted anyone would have disagreed that it did look classy.

When her eyes dropped to the tall desks staffed by short, gnarled figures with pointed ears, noses and chins, though, she gave pause then quickly asked McGonagall, quietly, "They aren't fae, are they?" Because they did, in a sort of roundabout way, remind her of the tall, graceful faeries as they had appeared under the influence of Luna and Xenophilius.

Professor McGonagall pursed her lips. "Perhaps long ago," she supposed. "But not in any way that matters. They may be fond of the same sort of wordplay, but only in a legal sense. The dangers the goblins pose are entirely the mundane sort."

Sunset wasn't entirely sure that she liked the sound of that, but then, it wasn't as if she was likely to have any actual business with them any time soon, so it didn't actually matter that much.

Rather anticlimactically, the Grangers' transaction went by quickly and professionally, for a certain definition of those words. The goblins offered an exchange rate of fifty pounds to the galleon in one direction and one galleon to five pounds in the other. Sunset didn't have to know what a 'pound' or a 'galleon' was to know that that was probably highway robbery regardless of which you wanted to go and Mr. Granger certainly recognized the fact, so, keeping in mind what Professor McGonagall had said, he screwed up his courage and began haggling, eventually getting a price that was somewhere between the two, though from the expressions of those involved when it was over, probably not quite enough to be considered a good rate.

Sunset figured that if she ever needed to change money, she'd find a muggleborn who needed one currency or the other or just go the barter route. She was perfectly willing to haggle, but in this situation the bank held all the cards, which was something to be avoided.

To everyone's surprise, when the Grangers stepped away from the goblin teller, Luna stepped forward and said, "I need to access the Lovegood vault."

"Key," the goblin urged.

Luna reached up to her ear and pulled a small golden key out of it like a stage magician and held it up so it was barely visible above the edge of the too-tall desk.

Sighing, Sunset dismissed the matter of the key, which she was positive hadn't been behind Luna's ear, and lit her horn, enveloping the small girl in her magic and levitating her up so she could see over the desk.

The entire bank, quiet as it already was, seemed to grow even quieter with the tinkling sound of Sunset's levitation echoing through the large lobby, and Sunset realized that maybe it hadn't been the best idea if she was at all intending not to attract attention.

Well, whatever. She was going to Hogwarts, which seemed to make up at least fifty percent of the magic users self identity, so it wasn't as if she was going to be able to stay secret for long.

The goblin teller leaned forward, having to nearly crawl over his desk while retaining as much dignity as possible in order to see what was levitating Luna up in front of him. Apparently, whatever he saw of Sunset seemed to satisfy him, as he dropped back into his seat and called out, "Grimblegut!"

Grimblegut turned out to be a small, reedy-looking goblin, who the teller instructed to take Luna to her vault before waving them off and calling "Next!"

Sunset looked back at Professor McGonagall and the Grangers, then at Luna who was already walking away, following Grimblegut. "I, uhh, guess we're going down to the vaults or something?" she said, all of them hesitating, not sure if it was worse to invite themselves along or let Luna go along alone.

Well, the answer was obvious for Sunset, at least, as she was the girl's familiar-slash-guardian. With a paff of fire, she disappeared, teleporting over to Luna's side, who was already halfway across the lobby.

As for the rest of them, she thought about it, then figured she could just ask. "So—uh—should the rest of them be coming, or...?"

Luna hmmed and said, "Why not? The carts are quite fun; I'm sure Hermione will love it!"

Hermione did not love it.

'The carts,' turned out to be heavy metal trapezoidal boxes on wheels that everyone, regardless of their world of origin, recognized as mine carts, and with the number of people present, they needed two of them. To the adult Grangers slight consternation, this involved the children and child-sized nonhumans in the front cart, while all the adults were in the back, separating them from their daughter.

"Oh, lighten up," Heather Granger said to her husband as they climbed awkwardly into the rough, metal cart which came up to their waists. "They're in the front, so you'll be able to see her the entire time—and besides, it can't be any more dangerous than that bus if there aren't even any seats, can it?"

The first sign that Heather Granger had that she might have misread the situation was the dual-toned screaming from the cart ahead of them, one in joy and the other in terror.

Sunset, for her part, thought that the cart ride was quite brisk and refreshing. She hadn't had a chance to really put her wings to the test in proper flight yet, but this, she thought, was a nice, nostalgic reminder of all the trips she'd taken by pegasus chariot back in Canterlot.

"Relax, Hermione," Sunset said, leaning into the wind and letting her wings out just enough to let them feel the breeze without actually catching the wind. "There are spells on the cart to prevent anyone falling off; they feel just like the ones back home."

Hermione did not relax, though she did stop screaming. Whether that was due to Sunset's reassurance or simply having screamed herself out, though, was anyone's guess.

The Lovegood vault was deep. Numbered 326, the door was a big, heavy iron slab, which seemed appropriate, though it did seem like a lot of trouble to go to for a simple withdrawal. Did the goblins not offer monetary accounts, or did the Lovegoods simply not use them? Now that she thought about it, she thought she remembered seeing some of the other people in the lobby with something like checks or bank drafts, so they must have offered at least some of the services she would have expected a bank to provide.

Luna stepped up on the edge of the cart and jumped before it had even come to a stop, and holding her arms out to the side, she rushed up to the door of the vault. Grimblegut, the goblin, wasn't nearly so exuberant, but he also hopped off with ease, only one hand on the cart.

Hermione lifted one leg, then had to put it back down because she was shaking too much, holding onto the side of the cart with a white knuckled grip, and on closer inspection she had her bottom lip tightly between her lips, with tear tracks running down her face.

Oh. Well, damn. Now Sunset felt kind of bad. Gingerly, she patted Hermione on the side and said, "Hey now, look; we're here and everything's fine?" still not used to actually trying to comfort someone. "In fact—here, I'll get us out of this thing," she decided, and lit her horn, the teal glow bright in the dim torchlight of the large, airy mineshaft.

Hermione looked over to see what Sunset was doing, and before she could ask, Sunset let go of her teleport, reappearing in a puff of flame next to Luna with a wide open area of solid ground around them.

It took a moment, but the young girl did seem reassured having solid ground underneath her feet, sniffling and wiping her eyes with her sleeve, though the real change came with a wince when her father came rushing over, tripping over himself to wrap Hermione in a hug. "Oh, honey, are you okay?!"

"I—I'm fine, dad!" Hermione insisted, pushing him away. "I'm fine. It just would have been nice to have some warning, that's all."

Thomas Granger looked doubtful, but eventually relented, releasing his daughter. "Alright, honey, but we'll have to see if they can take it a bit easier on the way back. It ought to be, since it's uphill, but it seems that might not matter quite as much as it should any more."

While everyone's attention had been on Hermione, Luna had handed her tiny golden key over to Grimblegut, who was approaching the towering iron door. Sunset was reassured to see that the goblin seemed not at all shy of the impressively large iron surface, implying that Professor McGonagall was right, and they weren't fae enough to matter. It wasn't long until the goblin reached up and inserted the key into a tiny, miniscule hole in the otherwise blank surface, and turned it with an uncharacteristically deep thud, followed by the iron surface splitting down the center into what was evidently two large doors that swung outward.

The Lovegood vault, sure enough, did contain some amount of gold, silver and bronze coins. Precisely how many of each such coin it contained, however, was difficult to estimate, as piles were tucked in here and there among all the other things in the vault, of which there was... a lot—not much of it in any particular order or organized in any way.

In hindsight, the mess probably should have been expected for anyone who had seen the barely controlled chaos of the Lovegood home, but that had not prepared Sunset for the amount of it that wasn't bronze, silver or gold, but iron and steel in every form imaginable.

The various swords and armors seemed apposite.

The racks of muggle weapons did make sense in hindsight, but...

"Why is there a Celestia-damned tank in your bank vault?!" Sunset demanded to know.

"How is there a Celestia-damned tank in your bank vault?!?"

Sitting there, right in the center of the vault, not five meters from the door, was a giant, squat, tracked vehicle with a long barrel as thick around as her hoof sticking out the top. It was a tank. It couldn't be anything else.

Luna didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with this. "Daddy bought it for when I turn sixteen," she explained. "He said that as soon as I could reach the pedals, we'd go get mom."

Sunset had no words for that, worst of all because she could actually see the logic behind it.

Hermione, though, eyes still red from crying, was looking incredulously at Sunset.

"You know what a tank is, but not a car or a truck?"

Author's Note

Patreon • Ko-Fi

Don't worry, this isn't going to turn into a guns-in-the-wizarding-world fic; Xenophilius was just properly preparing to invade another world.

If I have one regret about this chapter, it's that, for a chapter that introduces Hermione, she really should have more lines and be more of a focus. From Sunset's perspective, though, the environment is more immediately interesting, which is one of the dangers of these kinds of stories; when a character is thrown into a whole new environment, you've got a whole lot of front-loaded reactions to go through, and if you forget something, it gets real awkward later on when you have to pretend something just wasn't enough of a big deal to mention, or do flashbacks, or some other patchwork solution.

Thanks go to my Patreon supporters, pomegranate horsie, Sunny, Zervon Tora, Katharine Berry, Jan Sterba, senaxyva, Ersmiller, Canary In The Coal Mine, Kali, J T, Nineite, Andrew Pam, Southpaw, Andrew Denton, Trellmor, Kirishala, djthomp, SirHoli, IamUnknown, fused, CvBrony,

Chapter 6

⁂

"Let me get this straight," Hermione said after Sunset had finished with her explanation about tanks in Equestria. "You call your... your dimension... Equestria. And in this dimension, there is a planet, which you call Equestria. And on that planet called Equestria, you live in a country called—and correct me if I'm remembering it incorrectly—a country called Equestria!"

Sunset blinked, not seeing what Hermione was getting all worked up about. "Well, yes. That's pretty much normal, isn't it? The name of your country is one of the oldest things in a civilization, and that naturally gets applied to a wider and wider range of things as the civilization's understanding of the world and their place in it grows."

Hermione stared down at Sunset for a long while before declaring with the utmost authority, "You are no longer allowed to complain about us calling our world 'Earth'—which I should specify, contains the country Great Britain and is contained in the Milky Way Galaxy."

Sunset rolled her eyes, having quite deduced already the name of the country they were in, though she supposed she could infer from her attitude that this also meant, for what it was worth, that there wasn't an 'Earth' country. What she actually said, though, was, "What does any of that have to do with most of Equestria's industry being outside of Equestria?"

"That!" Hermione yelled, pointing dramatically at Sunset as if she'd just discovered the killer in a crime novel. "Sentences like that are what it has to do with it!"

It was about then that Hermione realized that Luna was done accessing her vault and everyone was standing around watching her.

The goblin in particular looked like he'd like to be getting on with things. Of course, he always looked like that, but that wasn't any reason to keep him waiting.

"A-anyway..." she managed to say, "We should... get going."

Sunset was able to pinpoint the exact moment that Hermione remembered that they'd have to take the carts back, as all of her remaining indignation vanished, leaving her deflated and looking at the crude vehicle with dread.

Sunset wasn't without empathy, but given they were deep in the vaults of a bank, there were probably enchantments to prevent her teleporting Hermione out, and if there weren't—or they didn't work on her particular version of it—she really didn't want to point that out to them as they might not appreciate it.

Belatedly, Sunset wondered if the 'gossamer wings' spell might have had a section to it that helped with motion sickness, but decided that it wouldn't have worked since they were too delicate for the speed of the mine carts anyway, and before long, they were on their way back up to the surface.

⁂

As Hermione's father had predicted, the trip upward was no slower than the trip down had been. Sunset wasn't entirely surprised either, though her expectation was based on the likelihood of there being an enchantment on the cart that limited it to a particular speed rather than the Granger adult's logic which was more along the line of expecting the unexpected.

Either way, Hermione was clearly glad to be out into the open air again, and as much as Sunset didn't mind the carts, she had to agree that it was a bit much to go through to access one's money. To Luna, of course, it was just the way things were and she didn't mind it at all—which was impressive in hindsight, considering her double vision through Sunset's left eye.

That said, they all appreciated McGonagall's forethought in making the official first stop on her itinerary Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor so they could recover from the experience.

Hermione was boring and ordered a single scoop of dark chocolate ice cream for its lack of sugar and a love of chocolate.

Sunset was spiteful and ordered an extravagant mango sorbet with half a fruit salad piled on top—no seeds in sight.

Luna was Luna and somehow managed to not only order but actually receive a lychee-pistachio pudding, which Sunset was fairly sure wasn't on the menu and shouldn't come in a waffle cone.

They were just getting up when a small red-headed child ran up out of nowhere, shouted, "Luna!" and attached herself to the aforementioned girl from behind for a brief moment, then turned her around and gawked unashamedly at her. "Wow! You got tall!" she remarked enthusiastically, paused a moment expecting something, then added, "And shy?" with a tilt of her head when Luna didn't immediately respond in kind.

Luna did respond in kind, though—eventually. Well, she gave her red-headed friend a hug, anyway, and said, "Ginny," which Sunset assumed was the girl's name, and added, "You didn't. You're exactly like I remember."

Ginny didn't seem to be sure how to take that, but brushed it off as three more redheads came in from the street, following after the wayward girl.

The group was introduced as a family known as "The Weasleys"; the family that Professor McGonagall had been considering telling about Luna's situation, which was convenient. That made the girl Ginevra Weasley, accompanied by her older brothers, Ronald and Percy Weasley and their mother, Molly Weasley. Sunset didn't think that they seemed all that weasel-y at first glance, but it was always a good idea to keep someone's name in mind.

The only thing worse than having someone turn on you was not expecting it when that pony had a name like Sour Grapes.

Presently, Ron seemed to be obstinate and sulking about it, Percy looked like the kind of person who would self-identify as displeased, and Molly was feeling indulgent enough to stop and talk with Professor McGonagall, who was... less so.

As the Weasley matron told it, they were in the alley that day for Percy, who they'd just found out had made prefect—whatever that was—and was being rewarded with a new wand and an owl as an example to the younger children of what hard work could earn. If Sunset had the houses right, then she guessed that Molly had been a Hufflepuff and was trying to instill those values in her children.

Given the embarrassed resentment that the younger boy was showing as he lurked around his mother's apron strings, it probably wasn't going as intended. If this was going to be his first year at Hogwarts and his mother was giving all the attention to his older brother, then Sunset could see why.

She empathized—really she did—but he didn't seem at all interested in having anything to do with the group of girls and so ceased to be relevant.

"Wait—you're going to Hogwarts?!" Ginny shouted, astonished. "Augh! That's not fair! It's bad enough it'll be just me and mom at home, but I won't even be able to escape to your place! That's just great; I'll be stuck here, and you'll be at Hogwarts with Harry Potter."

"And Ron," Luna reminded her.

Ginny's face scrunched up in distaste. "Yeah, but I'd still rather go with Ron than be stuck at home for another year. Eleven days! My birthday is only eleven days after the July 31ˢᵗ deadline! How'd you do it?! Yours is in February!"

Sunset really didn't feel like going over the whole thing again, and drifted over to Hermione to ask more about the muggle world. It turned out to be unnecessary, though, as Luna's explanation was... brief.

"Ah, well, you see..." she began, a certain playful dreaminess in her tone. "The usual way, I suppose. I got older."

Ginny crossed her arms over her chest, not entirely unamused, but wanting a definite answer. "How though? People usually get older at the same rate as everyone else!"

"Oh, yes," Luna agreed quite amiably, seemingly oblivious to her friend's frustration. "It took an entire year to get only a year older; that seems about right, if not a little slow, in fact."

Ginny's annoyance was starting to show through when she realized what Luna was actually saying. "Wait-wait-wait—wait just a second—you mean—you—that's what you meant when you said you got older, 'the usual way'?! You didn't just take an aging potion or something? You actually spent a year somewhere? Don't tell me you found a broken time-turner in your mother's things or something?"

"Hmm, no," Luna said, placing a finger at the corner of her mouth in thought. "Daddy and I found a crumple-horned snorkack, and I chased it into Faerie."

"Luna!" Ginny shouted, aghast. "That—but—Luna, why?! After what happened to your mom—wait, did you find her? Did she come back with you?"

Luna wilted a bit under the force of Ginny's indignation and the mention of her mother. "Ah... Not as such, no," she admitted, then perked up a little and added, "Not yet, anyway! Rather, we did—technically—find her, but daddy has not quite made it back with her yet. I'm sure it'll be any day now."

Ginny gaped, then crushed Luna in another hug. "Oh, no! Not your father now, too?!"

"Mmhmm," Luna confirmed, muffled by Ginny's embrace, which she somehow managed to slip out of after a moment.

Ginny stumbled at the sudden lack of Luna in her arms and turned to look over her friend, who was straightening her hair. "Wha—what's wrong with you? Aren't you worried?"

"Oh, daddy has his kit with him, so I'm sure he'll be fine," Luna reassured her. "And Titania was quite agreeable in the end."

"Ginny!" Molly Weasley shouted from a distance, apparently done chatting with Professor McGonagall and in the process of leaving. "Ginny! Say goodbye to Luna and come; we're heading to the Magical Menagerie to get Percy his owl, now."

Ginny looked back and forth from Luna to her mother a few times, visibly considering whether or not it was worth arguing. Apparently, though, whatever she saw in her mother's expression was enough for her to think better of it, and she quickly hugged Luna one more time before dashing off.

Sunset, still standing next to Hermione, both of them having done nothing but stand there and listen to that exchange, blinked and asked. "Why did you tell her that Titania was agreeable?"

Luna made a show of appearing peculiarly confused. "Well, she was quite agreeable in the end when all was said and done."

"She gave you a shirt that literally stabs you in the back," Sunset reminded her in a deadpan tone.

"Yes," Luna said, smiling and nodding in assent. "And she was quite agreeable about it."

⁂

Ginny Weasley was not, traditionally, a very jealous, covetous type of girl. Being the baby of the family and the only girl among her siblings, she didn't have to deal with nearly as many of the frustrations that her brothers had done with while growing up. She never had to make do with hand-me-down clothes or contend much for affection or attention. As a matter of fact, quite often she felt that she got significantly more affection and attention than she really needed, and if her mother could just forget about her once in a while, say, while she was out flying her brothers' brooms, or, you know, talking to her only friend in the world about getting lost in Faerie for a year, then that would be great.

Oh, sure, she could have said something about it to justify the wait, but Ginny knew her mother; she'd make a scene and get all protective, scared of something happening to 'her little girl'. Forget going over to the Rookery; she wouldn't even be allowed outside of the house for the next year... which just brought her back to being jealous about something that it was stupid to be jealous about.

Well, no. Being jealous about her only friend going off to Hogwarts and leaving her all alone was entirely sensible. It was rubbish, and it was going to make the next year of her life a living hell. It was just the part about getting lost in Faerie that she knew better than to envy, and she was perfectly capable of separating the two. That was something you just didn't make light of—especially when it was Luna.

Merlin, just the idea of Luna all alone in Faerie for a year made Ginny feel like a heel for whining over her own problems. It was Luna; she was so bright and sunny that sometimes Ginny doubted if she'd even hurt a fly, no matter what her mother said about visiting the Lovegoods when those apparition-like cracking sounds were coming from their property. Luna couldn't possibly ever be involved in anything as dangerous as they claimed, right?

No. Of course not. Luna was as toothless as a baby puffskein and it was a miracle that she'd come back at all... unless... maybe it wasn't that dangerous after all? Luna had said that Titania was nice; that was the queen or something, right? Ginny had never really been into faerie tales as much as Luna, preferring her stories to be much more grounded, with actual characters and plots, like the Boy Who Lived books.

And, of course, now she'd managed to remind herself that Luna was going to go to school with the real Harry Potter.

Ugh.

There had to be some way she could get into the same year as Luna. It was only eleven days!

"Ginny, hurry up! We need to get to Ollivanders for Percy's wand and You're falling behind!"

If only she was eleven days older...

⁂

The first real stop on their shopping trip, not counting the bank or the ice cream shop, was, logically, a trunk to put everything in, but Professor McGonagall informed them that instead of Truckle's Trunks, she'd take them to Connor's Containers.

Why, exactly, the clarification was needed, Sunset wasn't sure, until they entered the store and discovered that Connor's Containers barely sold trunks at all, only offering a small, sad selection of plain 'Hogwarts Trunks' off in the corner. The trunks resembled hoof lockers, though they were large enough for at least two or three ponies, and seemed mostly to be boxes with brass corners and banding for protection.

The rest of the shop was all sorts of other containers, from book bags to duffel bags, which piqued Sunset's interest. She'd been missing having a pair of saddlebags, and from the sight of the sheer variety on offer here, this was probably the place to have some made if they didn't already have something she could repurpose.

Sunset mentioned this to Luna, who stared at her for a moment, then shook her head and turned back to the Grangers' ongoing conversation as if she'd said something silly.

Weird. Maybe they had saddlebags at home? Sunset didn't actually have any possessions, so it wasn't exactly urgent, though they were useful just for carrying things around as a quadruped.

"Look, mom, I can stick my whole hand in this one!" Hermione was shouting from across the room, doing exactly as she had described, which sparked even more of Sunset's interest as expanded space and other types of storage magics were rare to see as proper enchantments in Equestria.

"Oh! Oh!" Hermione continued, virtually vibrating in place. "If I got a trunk that was big enough on the inside, I could take all of my books! I could have an entire library! We've got to go to the proper trunk store!"

"I'm afraid that will not be possible, Miss Granger," Professor McGonagall reluctantly informed her. "The Hogwarts bylaws forbid any expanded container large enough to contain a student."

"What? But—" Hermione was speechless, plainly crestfallen at the news. "But—that's not in the letter."

Professor McGonagall sighed. "It used to be, of course, but I'm afraid that every year since the current Hogwarts caretaker assumed his post, the list of banned items has grown by leaps and bounds to cover each new iteration of prank items that Gambol & Japes or Zonko's puts out, and it's simply impractical to include the list in the letters now."

Sunset thought about that for a moment while Hermione was coming to terms with not being able to have an entire library inside of a trunk—at least, not at Hogwarts.

"Hold on," Sunset said, looking back over at the trunks which really were absolutely giant to her. "Those trunks are large enough to hide a student, surely?"

"Yes," Professor McGonagall agreed. "But they are not expanded." Sunset was about to declare that to be a stupid limitation when she clarified, "The trunk is, at least, visibly a place that a missing student or students could be—and no, that does not mean that they should be allowed to be expanded. If you're a ... mature adult, as Miss Lovegood has claimed, then I'm sure that you can imagine why not."

Professor McGonagall, it seemed, was very good at pronouncing missing words, and Sunset dropped the issue immediately, as did Hermione, who had developed a blush.

⁂

Silver sparks and white feathers filled the wand shop and Mr. Ollivander announced, "Laurel and unicorn tail hair—nine inches and inflexible. A great wand for one with aspirations."

Ginny stifled a snort of laughter. She had no special knowledge of wand lore, but inflexible described Percy alright, and she could guess what laurel meant.

Her mom, of course, wanted to commemorate the occasion. "Okay, now, Ron, stand next to Percy—Percy, give Ron your old wand—that's right—now, hold up your owl and wand, and Ron—yes, just stand there—perfect!"

Ginny shut her eyes, and not just for the blinding flash of the old camera that her mother had dug out and brought to the alley for just this purpose. It was a wonder that the flash was necessary at all for how Ron's face was glowing—and not with joy.

No, she could feel his embarrassment from across the room, tucked into the alcove next to the door where Mr. Ollivander liked to lurk and surprise customers. She could see why; it was a good spot with a nice view of not only the entire shop, but also out to the alley through the grimy window past the singular wand on display—all the better to see customers coming.

Yes, Ginny was very glad to be over here instead of in Ron's shoes.

Hm. Now there was a thought. Some way that she could take Ron's place, like a body-swap spell or something? Ron would probably enjoy being the youngest and no one would question her flying brooms and playing quidditch if she was a boy... but then she would have to be Ron, and that was just unacceptable.

Also, she was a ten-year-old girl and had no idea how to cast a spell or make a potion like that.

⁂

In the end, Hermione was allowed to buy a book bag that was about three times larger on the inside, a potions satchel with integrated ingredients case and cauldron pocket, and her completely standard unenchanted trunk, which wasn't even allowed to have a shrinking enchantment on it. Her parents did say that they would visit Truckle's Trunks on another trip and consider getting her something to keep all of her magical things in at home, but for now, they had to move on.

Their second stop was significantly less interesting to Sunset, being Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions, which involved both Hermione and Luna standing around getting fitted for robes. Luna's regular robes, too, were rather short on her considering the year of growth she'd gone through, and not even the small list of enchantments that were available was able to hold Sunset's interest.

"You know," Sunset said while Luna was up on a stool, holding her arms out so one of the assistants could pin up her current set of casual black robes while the Grangers considered a few off-the-rack samples. "I could go outside and fly up to the roof to give you something to look at other than the inside of this shop, if you want?"

"Ah, but then I wouldn't be able to see how I look in this," Luna pointed out.

Sunset gave Luna a flat glare. "They have mirrors," she sarcastically reminded her, but dropped the matter regardless. If she really wanted to, she'd just do it anyway, but it was probably asking for trouble anyway. She'd been lucky so far, walking the alley as a clear member of a group, but if she went off on her own and just stood around, she'd probably attract attention.

⁂

Ginny collapsed face-down onto her bed the moment she got home, sinking into the quilted wool of her comforter.

Merlin, but that had been painful. Someone ought to tell her mom that the reason her children were all so successful was that they were eager to get out of the house and away from her... well, her mollycoddling.

Ginny loved her mother—really, she did—but she was just a bit much, especially times like today, where she completely failed to read the room and just stood there rubbing salt in Ron's wounds, because, really, did she think Ron wanted a picture on the mantle reminding him of the glorious occasion when he was handed down his brother's wand and rat? Was that supposed to encourage him?

She laid there for a long while going over her current and future situation, but, realistically, it wasn't as if a way to move her birthday into July was just going to fall into her lap.

Ginny waited, but nothing happened.

Damn. That always seemed to work for Harry Potter.

⁂

In hindsight, Sunset had to give Professor McGonagall credit: she had clearly given their itinerary some thought. The bank, of course, had to come first, and the ice cream shop immediately after that. Then the clothing store while the children were still fresh and interested, even if it meant that the rambunctious ones might have trouble standing still.

Then they'd gotten on to the meat of the trip; Wiseacre's Wizarding Equipment for scales and a telescope, Letterman's Leatherworks for protective boots and gloves and Potage's Cauldron Shop for, of course, cauldrons, which Hermione took issue with.

"Really?" Hermione said as they made their way down the alley on their way to Potage's, coincidentally passing by Quality Quidditch Supplies on the way. "Robes and pointy hats are one thing, but cauldrons and broomsticks?"

Professor McGonagall smiled with fond amusement. "Cauldrons may seem old-fashioned to you, and I certainly did wish for something a bit more compact during my years as a student, but there are actually several reasons that cauldrons are the way they are, most of them coming down to the exact qualities that make them cumbersome.

"You see, Potions is a temperamental subject, many brews can be sensitive to vanishingly small fluctuations in temperature, turbulence, ambient magic and so on. The cauldrons, large and unwieldy as they are, provide a buffer against all those forces where even the most finely-adjustable flame from a muggle Bunsen burner would not."

"That's all well and good," Hermione's mother chimed in, "but these pewter cauldrons... it's only been in the last twenty years that we've stopped making pewter with lead, which is terribly poisonous and not something you want coming near anything you consume. I don't suppose that the magical world has caught on to that yet?"

Professor McGonagall actually hesitated in her step as she considered how to answer that. "You would not be the first muggle to ask me that, and you may not like the answer. The short answer is: no, the formulation of pewter cauldrons has not changed for hundreds of years. The long answer is that the type of cauldron used is as much of an ingredient in a potion as the items placed inside of it, many of which are toxic or poisonous in their natural form, but those qualities are accounted for and not borne out into the resulting potion so long as it is brewed correctly."

Professor McGonagall was right; Heather Granger did not like that answer. "That's all well and good," she said, clearly not thinking that it was well and good at all, "But you have dozens of children all together in a classroom handling these things and putting them on fires, yes?"

"That, at least, I believe I can provide a satisfactory answer for," Professor McGonagall said. "We, of course, cannot force students to take the proper precautions at all times, but handling toxic substances in Potions and Herbology is precisely the reason that dragonhide gloves are on the list and why I recommended you buy two pairs, one of them lighter than the other.

"Personally, I recommend the gloves be worn before entering the Potions classroom and only removed afterwards, but many students find taking notes with the gloves on too difficult, especially if they are muggleborn and still getting used to writing with quills, which is why such precautions are left to the discretion of the student.

"The fumes, too, are simply one of many airborne dangers that a brewer must concern themselves with, and while I haven't looked into the current potion master's syllabus, I was taught the fresh air charm before I ever brewed a single potion, the bubble-head charm at the beginning of my OWL year—that's fifth year—and the full-body splash-shield for NEWTs—seventh year."

Thomas Granger frowned and asked, "Are all the classes so dangerous?"

"Any class involving active magic use can be dangerous if performed wrongly enough, but that is what we aim to prevent with proper instruction. Unfortunately, in the case of Potions, ensuring that every student knows the proper spells to protect themselves doesn't help unless they actually take the time to cast them, and Potions remains the class which results in more visits to the infirmary than any other—even more so than Care of Magical Creatures."

"The fact that you keep a running tally of infirmary visits by class is not encouraging," Thomas Granger insisted, looking at his daughter with concern, likely imagining the worst.

"Most such visits last hardly much longer than it takes to scold them," Professor McGonagall said dismissively, which Sunset thought was fair, but a bit more callous than she expected. It certainly wasn't something that Celestia would ever accept coming from anyone at Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns.

The conversation was cut off there, as they had reached Potage's Cauldron Shop and went about picking out a cauldron, which was not exactly raising the sun, though they did all spend a few extra minutes looking at gold and platinum cauldrons that Professor McGonagall assured them they wouldn't have any need to concern themselves with until at least the girls' NEWT years, if ever.

On their way back out, Hermione picked the conversation back up again, though not in the way that anyone expected. "So, that's cauldrons, then," she said out of the blue. "What about brooms?"

"No, first years are not allowed their own broomsticks," Professor McGonagall reminded her, misunderstanding the sudden question and attributing it to the purchase they'd just made rather than the previous conversation.

"No," Hermione said, and went on to correct her. "I mean, you explained well enough why the cauldrons, but why brooms for flying?"

"Well, I would like to say that it is because enchanting each bristle individually has a better effect, but charms was never my strong suit and that may simply be marketing," the professor admitted. "The truth, as best as we can tell, is that brooms were chosen precisely because they were otherwise innocuous; no muggle would expect a witch's broom to be an enchanted item capable of travel, they thought, and the practice has persisted to the modern day, where not only has the secret failed to be kept, but very few can be at all mistaken for a cleaning implement."

"Very few isn't none, though," Luna decided to interject in a sing-song voice. "Which just goes to show that the ban on flying carpets supposedly on the grounds of them being 'muggle artefacts' is silly, probably corruption, and maybe the ministry secretly keeping the ecological niche open in hopes of attracting lethifolds."

Professor McGonagall made a distinct effort to not comment on Luna's claim, which was interesting to Sunset because she doubted that the same would be true if she'd only mentioned the corruption thing.

Hermione, on the other hoof, felt no compunctions about calling her out, missing the point entirely. "I doubt that's true," she insisted in that same tone and posture she'd had while declaring that winged horses weren't called pegasi. "I don't even know what a lethifold is, and I can tell you just made that up."

Luna let Hermione's decrial hang unanswered in the air because, of course, she had, and there was nothing more to say about it.

Idly, Sunset wondered if Hermione had ever played the game, 'Two Truths and a Lie.' Admittedly, Sunset, who hadn't made much more than casual acquaintances of her age group back in Equestria, might not have ever done so if not for Princess Celestia, who it should be said was very, very good at it.

The silence dragged on long enough to become awkward until Professor McGonagall of all people broke it, explaining to the Grangers that, "Miss Lovegood's father is the editor of a magazine called 'The Quibbler.' You might call it a tabloid."

"Now, Professor," Luna playfully chided her. "You ought to know better than that."

Professor McGonagall took a breath and, at length, admitted. "...Yes, I suppose that was inappropriate."

Luna nodded and declared happily. "Yes. With father still in Faerie—I am the editor now."

She paused while that sank in for everyone present.

"Oh dear. I had better start thinking about what to put in the next issue, haven't I? Our subscribers will be expecting an August issue sooner or later."

"Hold on," Thomas Granger said, not quite willing to let that go without comment. "Are you saying that your father is missing and you're all alone at home?"

"Of course not," Luna plainly stated, as if the very idea was ridiculous.

"Oh," he said, clearly taking her at face value with some relief. "Sorry, I just thought that—sorry. You have someone taking care of you, then?"

Luna nodded, happily confirming, "I have Sunset Shimmer with me, of course," while gesturing at the small alicorn by her side just to ensure that there was no mistaking her meaning.

Thomas Granger halted, clearly trying to figure out if he was supposed to accept that or not.

"...Did no one explain this to you?" Luna asked with wide eyes and an innocent tilt of the head.

Sunset suspected that Thomas Granger was about to say that no, no one had explained anything about the tiny orange creature and he'd been mostly ignoring the fact until now, when they were all interrupted by a piercing squee greater even than the sound Hermione had made on seeing Sunset for the first time.

They had arrived at the bookstore, Flourish & Blotts.

"...Aaand she's gone," Heather Granger stated with fond amusement. Shaking her head, she took the list of supplies from her husband who had had it last and looked it over. "I suppose we'd better see about finding the school books. I don't doubt that she'll have her hands full all on her own."

Thomas Granger blinked. "But... the small child and the unicorn...?"

"Worry about your own child, for now," his wife told him. "She gets it from you, you know."

⁂

Having decided that she wouldn't get anywhere just laying in bed daydreaming, Ginny decided to go downstairs in search of knowledge or inspiration.

Ginny's home, affectionately called The Burrow, had, at one time, housed nine people and looked like each and every one had had a say in the matter, which was essentially how it had come to be. There was a central staircase making the start of a wide spiral, but that was about the only order there was to it, and each of the residents had rooms at random points along the way, with nothing like the idea of individual floors involved in any way.

As the youngest, Ginny's room had originally been second from the top nearest her parents' room, but things had shifted around over the years. Now, Percy had that room, with Ginny one down from there as a buffer from the noisier members of the house.

Those noisier members were the twins, Fred and George, who had two doors going into the same room just the next one down from Ginny's, and then there were three empty rooms with some of Bill and Charlie's old things, which Fred and George also used for whatever they had going on at the moment.

Ron had the bottommost room, which he desired because he hated the stairs and because being at the bottom put him closest to the breakfast table in the morning, but the reason they'd given it to him was because he snored incessantly and it had been easier to put him there than it was to cast silencing charms every night.

One might think that Ginny's quest for knowledge might have started off in the three storage rooms. Bill was a curse-breaker now, after all, which involved all sorts of strange and obscure magic. That was true; his job did involve such things, which was why he'd taken anything even vaguely interesting along with him to said job. Left unsaid was, of course, that he knew better than to leave such things lying around where his younger siblings could get at them.

Case in point, what Ginny was doing.

Still, there was also Charlie's stuff, and Charlie had been much less careful about that sort of thing, and while he'd gone off to chase dragons, he'd also been a decent wand at the unwanded subjects; Herbology and Potions in particular. That ought to be worth a look, right?

No; the real reason Ginny had no intention of searching those rooms wasn't anything Bill or Charlie had done or not done, but because of the twins, who had staked their claim and were right terrors even when they were being nice.

Also, they'd probably raided all of Charlie's old stocks ages ago anyway.

Ignoring Ron's room as a matter of course, that just left Ginny standing on the ground floor of the house without a whole lot of ideas. Strange and forbidden magics didn't often turn up in the living room, but the central living space where all of the Weasleys congregated was enough of a mess that she wouldn't be surprised to find some strange item or book that her father had brought home from his job at the Ministry of Magic's Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office or something that the twins had left lying around. She may have known better than to go into the twins' things, but if they left some of those things lying around, then they were fair game.

Sadly, the twins weren't that irresponsible today, and she came up empty-handed. In fact, given that, while the living room did, technically have a bookcase but half of the books looked to have been secreted away by the twins and replaced with plugs and batteries from their dad's shed, they had, in a roundabout way, been responsible.

They would be appalled.

She'd have to make sure to tell them about it.

In the meantime, though, she expanded her search to the rest of the ground floor. Unsurprisingly, this didn't turn up anything noteworthy either, except for Bill's sixth-year magical theory book under one of the legs of the coffee table, Ron's 'new' wand discarded on top of the coffee table and her own autographed copy of the 1987 Holyhead Harpies playbook which had gone missing not long after her birthday last year and was apparently trapped in one of the leaves of the coffee table.

The coffee table was kind of a mess, is what Ginny was saying, and she did not leave it looking any better.

For a niffler's breath she considered checking the kitchen since that was where her mom kept all the potions books along with all the cookbooks and really, if there was one kind of magic that offered a combination of bizarre effects and a low barrier of entry, it was potions.

The kitchen was where her mother was, though, and not only would Ginny absolutely get caught rifling through the potions books—she'd no doubt also get drafted into helping with dinner, which was always ridiculous. What was the point of setting her to chopping vegetables when her mother could animate the knife and cutting board to do it all on their own with a wave of her wand? Oh sure; supposedly knowing how to do it the usual way helped with visualization of the spell or something, but it wasn't as if she was learning how to use a knife properly or anything. No—that she had to learn from her older brother Charlie, and it still didn't make standing on a stool and cutting onions any better.

What was her point again?

Oh, right. Her mom was in the kitchen, wand waving, yadda yadda yadda.

Wait.

Her mom was in the kitchen.

Her dad was at work.

And Ron's wand was on the coffee table.

Two seconds later, Ron's wand was no longer on the coffee table and Ginny was heading up the stairs to the one place in the house where she might find something not age-appropriate.

The one place in the house that they all knew to stay away from, else they see something not age-appropriate.

Her parents' bedroom.

⁂

Flourish & Blotts was more than a bit of an awkward store for Sunset.

For the most part, she was very happy to simply browse the shelves to get a broad idea of the human wizarding world's knowledge base. She noticed, for instance, that while there were spells that conjured fire or water and even books dedicated to one or the other, it seemed rare for wizards and witches to actually specialize in individual elements like they might transfiguration or charms, which was interesting from the perspective of a pony whose special talent was... not exactly fire spells, but she certainly knew a fair few.

More noteworthy in their absence, though, were all the kinds of magic that Sunset had found so objectionable during her escape from the Department of Mysteries and the Ministry of Magic. It implied that they at least acknowledged at some level that things like erasing and modifying memories were not something that people should be doing.

Well, not people who weren't them, anyway. Given how liberal the ones casting those spells had been with them, she was disinclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.

For all it was interesting, though, the awkwardness came from the fact that neither Sunset nor Luna had an exhaustive knowledge of the Lovegoods' small library, making it difficult and possibly irresponsible to actually buy anything when they might very well have the same tome at home. For Sunset, who had grown up freely picking up anything that caught her eye at the Canterlot Archives, the responsibilities of budgeting and capitalism were a new and uncomfortable thing.

Also, it was absolutely, maddeningly insane that they didn't just have bundles of books for each Hogwarts year at the front desk. "Why do we have to go to the back of the store for Magical Theory when every single first year needs it?!" she asked no one in particular, screaming her frustrations out.

It startled her when someone in particular answered. "I know, right?" said a red-haired girl Luna's age. "The weird thing is, I think they used to actually do that."

Sunset did a double-take at this new girl, not just for her sudden appearance, but because she thought at first that it might be that 'Ginny' girl that knew Luna. It would explain her freely offering her two bits into Sunset's venting without introducing herself—but no; Sunset may not be very good with human faces just yet, but she was softer looking and her hair was a darker auburn red color in a long braid down her back.

"Yes," Luna agreed, and from the way that she picked up the conversation just as easily, Sunset surmised that she did know this girl, though maybe it wasn't a surprise in a community that only had two bookstores. "If I'm not mistaken, it's because they hired a muggleborn."

"Luna!" the new girl said, surprised and a little appalled. "I didn't know you thought like that!"

Luna cocked her head to the side in confusion. "But Susan, that is the reason," she said neutrally, neither defensive nor apologetic. "The muggle stores do this thing where they put milk, eggs and some of the other perishable staples at the back of the store so that customers must walk past all the superfluous things they do not need and they might be tempted to buy them."

Susan's eyes widened in understanding. "But that's..."

"Manipulative? Contemptible? Really annoying?" Sunset suggested dryly. "Yeah, but that's capitalism. Not much you can do about it, though, because the moment that governmental busybodies start thinking that they can dictate the layouts of your stores, that's a problem."

Susan's face scrunched up in distaste. "...Yeah, I don't think sending the aurors in to reorganize shops is exactly the right way to go about it."

"Aurors?" Sunset asked, turning to Luna for clarification.

"Wizard bobbies," Luna succinctly explained, which actually explained very little.

"And what's a bobby, then?" she asked in turn, rolling her eyes.

"Um..." Susan said, seemingly not having expected to ever have to explain whatever the concept was. "I forget the proper muggle word for it. They're kind of..."

Sunset beat her to it after a moment of thought. Really, it should have been obvious, given the context. "Wizarding police?" she suggested.

"Yes! Exactly!" Susan said, snapping her fingers, then became confused and examined Sunset more closely. "Hold on, if you don't know what a bobby is, are you an American magical creature, then?"

"Americans were the ones with the even stupider name for muggles, right?" she asked.

Susan blinked. "That's not how I would put it, but, uhh, I suppose? I don't see what that has to do with you being American or not, though."

"Well, I'm not about to lie about it if the lie makes me look stupid, am I?" she rhetorically asked.

"Sunset Shimmer is a crumple-horned snorkack that came looking for daddy and me," Luna informed the girl when the conversation didn't look like it was going anywhere. "I suppose she must have heard about daddy and I searching for them."

"Um..." Sunset thought about that for a second and decided that technically it was true, from a certain point of view. "I did do that, yes," she agreed, at least in that she did intentionally seek the Lovegoods out—or their home, in any case—and she had, in fact, heard about the Lovegoods' search for crumple-horned snorkacks. She'd even done those two things in the order they were mentioned, if not the order that was implied.

Susan frowned, giving Luna a long, considering look, then stepped conspicuously between the and bent over, whispering in Sunset's ear. "Luna hasn't kidnapped you, has she? Are you under duress? All you need to do is give me a sign and I can get you out of here. My aunt is the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. I can get help."

⁂

Ginny needed help.

Getting into her parents' room had been easy. Her mom and dad's idea of security was combining a locking charm and a muggle lock that might have been the only functional muggle artefact in the entire house. That might have kept her out when she was five, but her oldest brother Bill had showed her the unlocking charm before he'd gone off to work as a curse-breaker, and she'd been right there with Fred and George in learning to pick locks by experimenting with the pile of padlocks out in the shed. Sure, the unlocking spell had taken a few tries to actually cast, but she was only a month or so off from being eleven and it wasn't the first time she'd gotten her hands on one of her brothers' wands.

Finding her mothers' stack of not-so-child-friendly books had also been easy. She'd checked the nightstands first, which had been a mistake. Not child friendly, yes; spell or potions books, no. While it might have been interesting to know that she probably got her fondness for fiction from her mother, she did not really want to know anything about her mother's taste in such things.

The Harry Potter books were better anyway, she was sure, and they weren't that kind of book.

The next spot she had looked, though, was under the bed and it was there that she'd sniffed gold. Well, she was no niffler, so what she'd actually sniffed were decade-old dust bunnies and she'd had to hold both hands over her mouth to keep her sneezing fit from being noticed by anyone in the house, but after it was over, she'd been able to drag out a pile of dusty books tied up in twine, one of them a copy of Moste Potente Potions, which, aside from the obvious name, she was pretty sure she'd heard Bill mention once.

Ginny, of course, had known better than to stick around any longer than necessary or to leave evidence, so she'd immediately absconded with the entire stack of books, stopping only to cast the locking charm until she was sure that it had worked at least for the moment.

She'd then made her way quickly down the stairs to her own room, secreted the stack of books away in her tiny closet and left again to plant Ron's wand downstairs—literally, once the idea struck her. She'd been trying to think of something good when she'd spotted the rather dry, sticklike houseplant by the window in the living room and stuck it in the dirt there where it would blend in.

Mission accomplished, she'd returned in triumph to her room and cut the twine on the stack of books with a boot knife that Charlie had given her, started looking through it and...

That was where she needed help.

"I thought potions were supposed to be easy?" she grumbled, because, really, how hard could it possibly be to follow a few instructions? Cut up some ingredients, dump them in a cauldron, heat and stir and an hour later you've got your potion, right?

Well, no, apparently not. Not when you were brewing the kinds of things that were in this book like manticore draught or enlivening elixir, anyway. There weren't just a few instructions, for one. Some of the recipes went on for pages and pages, covering days and days of brewing, sometimes for hours of time. Possibly worse were the ingredients; sure, some of them were brewed with frighteningly common materials, but the greater majority used things that were just flat-out frightening.

If a potion was going to need her to collect fresh lawn gnome ovaries, she was gonna pass on it no matter what it promised, and she kind of doubted that her small savings of knuts and sickles would buy her a fermented erumpent horn, assuming anyone would sell her one—or even wanted to be within a hundred feet of one, for that matter.

So, yes. Ginny needed help, and she knew exactly where to get it.

She tossed the book in her bag, dashed down the stairs and shot out the door like a kneazle chasing a jarvey.

"I'm going to Luna's!"

⁂

As amusing as it might have been to give Susan her most teary-eyed confession that, yes, not only had she been foalnapped, she had been enslaved to this strange young girl who saw things and had strange ideas about her being a crumple-horned snorkack, Sunset did not, in fact, do that.

She was a better pony than that.

...

Well, okay, no, she wasn't—but she was smart enough to realize what a hassle it would cause for her as well as anyone else, which was basically the same thing.

Also, the girl was probably joking, because Sunset was pretty sure that even an eleven-year-old knew not to ask a question like that in front of anyone else, let alone the person you were asking them about.

Sunset sighed and said, "I'm her familiar. Make of that what you will."

The girl stood back up and held out her hand with a huge, open smile and finally introduced herself. "Susan Bones."

"Sunset Shimmer," she reciprocated as she accepted Susan's hand with curiosity. It turned out that handshakes were essentially the same as hoofshakes and they were quickly back to actually doing the shopping that they were there for with Susan following along.

Susan got a bit more of Luna's story out of her than Ginny had, though the events in Titania's throne room were mostly skipped over. She was suitably shocked when she heard about Luna being imprisoned in Faerie for an entire year, which was the normal and reasonable reaction for a person to have, but Sunset was getting sick and tired of hearing about it—and not even because it didn't paint her in the very best light. Luna didn't seem to think so, the way she told it, but she had had a year for her memory to gloss over the unfortunate particulars.

Sunset's hadn't, and she didn't much like being reminded about it. She felt bad about... some of those things, so she'd really appreciate it if everyone could just move on and focus on the situation as it stood rather than how they'd gotten here.

"Auntie!" Susan shouted, standing on her tip-toes and waving at an older woman who looked much like an older, distinguished Susan with gray streaks in her hair who was wearing a monocle. "Auntie Amelia—did you hear what happened to Luna?"

Oh for—Sunset cursed inwardly. This was really getting out of hoof. She knew that things weren't going to stay a secret, but she wished they wouldn't shout it from the rooftops.

Wait.

Didn't Susan say that her auntie was the head of the Department of Magical Law enforcement or something?

"Damn it!" Sunset hissed, shifting to put Luna between herself and the new woman. She wasn't hiding, exactly... but that was only because pretending that she, a brightly colored pony, could hide behind the slim form of Luna Lovegood was rather ridiculous.

Luna couldn't help but notice, of course, and asked simply, "Is something wrong?"

"What do you think the chances are that the head of law enforcement knows about a colorful unicorn that was found on a muggle road and escaped from the Department of Mysteries?" she whispered, half-rhetorically in that she expected that she already knew the answer but very much wanted to be told otherwise.

"Oh, very likely," Luna calmly agreed. "The way her monocle has dropped to hang from her lapel certainly suggests it, though I suppose that could just be her normal reaction. You are very colorful. Ah, here she comes. Yes, I think she has definitely heard about it."

"If the 'it' is a small unicorn with similar colors to your friend, there," Amelia Bones said, gesturing at Sunset. "Then yes, 'she' has heard about it, though I don't have much more than that. I take it you're looking for her?" Addressing Sunset, she asked, "Is she your sister?"

Sunset blinked.

What?

Was she being sly? Hinting that she wouldn't say anything? No, she was serious.

Wait.

Sunset ruffled her wings, reminding herself that they were there.

Right. The pony they had captured had only been a unicorn, which Sunset very much no longer was.

"Yes," Sunset blurted out the instant she realized what was going on. "We're very close."

Luna nodded. "They're twins," she added entirely reasonably, then ruined it by saying, "Practically the same person—minus the wings, of course."

Amelia Bones' expression softened. "That must be hard on you," she said, not unkindly. "I lost my brother—Susan's father—during the last war." She stopped to think for a moment, then added, "I suppose it wouldn't hurt to tell you that she was picked up by my aurors several days ago, injured, but disappeared overnight. There were some signs that she may have taken the floo out of the ministry atrium, which could have taken her anywhere in Britain."

Sunset made an effort to look torn up over her imaginary sister and noted that Amelia Bones had neglected to mention anything about the Department of Mysteries. That didn't necessarily mean anything, but it was another tidbit of information to keep in mind.

"Well, unfortunately as Luna's familiar and kind of the only person taking care of her right now, I can't really go searching for my... sister," Sunset told her. "But I'm sure that sooner or later, we'll find ourselves in the same place."

"Yes," Luna agreed, practically glowing with seemingly heartfelt wholesomeness. "The only thing that separates them is time."

Sunset whapped Luna with her wing, then apologized insincerely and pretended it had never happened.

"Ah, well, if you say so," Amelia Bones said, not sure exactly how seriously to take Sunset's apparent lackadaisical attitude about it. From the way she then looked at Luna, it was possible that she thought that it was appropriate for the seemingly-dotty girl's familiar.

Well, Sunset wasn't going to argue.

"Speaking of time, Susan and I really should get going," the older woman told them, glancing back at the sales desk where Susan was adding her theory of magic textbook to the pile that was already there.

⁂

They found Hermione waffling over whether she wanted Hogwarts, A History or Fantastic Beasts And Where to Find Them.

Sunset waited only long enough to understand the situation before suggesting she, "Get the Hogwarts book. With how well-used the Lovegood copy of Fantastic Beasts is, I get the impression that Luna knows it back to front and then some."

"Yes, but that's the point," Hermione explained. "I want to be able to talk with her."

Sunset blinked, not seeing the point. "I'm sure she'd explain it to you?"

Hermione seemed genuinely confused. "But I can just read the book," she declared, and made it clear that that was the end of it.

Weird. Sunset understood that some people were unreliable, but Luna wasn't just someone who had read a book; she'd read all the books and had apparently spent a great deal of her time with her father out actually seeing things for herself. For Sunset, who had learned the best of her lessons directly from Princess Celestia, she'd take that over reading a book by someone she didn't even know.

Okay, admittedly, Hermione was eleven and might never have had a proper teacher actually engage with her, but in that case, what was the point if she just thought that Luna would have all the same information? What did two people who had read the same book even have to talk about?

Well, whatever. She'd offered her opinion and been rejected with spite, given the copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them that Hermione took with her and they were soon paying for.

All thoughts about books left her, though, as the sight of the sales desk reminded her of her previous conversation. Given that Hermione had gotten Sunset's full story by virtue of being the first one to ask in private while she had little better to do, she supposed she needed to tell her what had happened.

Once they were on their way out of the store, she leaned in and spoke in low, quiet tones. "By the way, it turns out that one of Luna's... friends?—one of her acquaintances, anyway—is the niece of the head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, who we met. Anyway, if it ever comes up, I'm the twin sister of the unicorn pony that escaped from the Department of Mysteries. Seeing as I'm an entirely different species now, it shouldn't be a problem if we stick to that."

Hermione stopped to process that, then had to rush to catch up. "You lied to the police?!" she hissed in a whisper that was not in any way subtle or quiet.

"Aurors," Luna corrected her.

"Okay, first, that is an inflammatory statement that does not fully represent any misunderstanding that may or may not have taken place," Sunset insisted in a faux-haughty tone that fully resembled a member of the nobility that had been caught doing something unpopular and very much wished to pretend otherwise.

"Second," she continued. "She was there in a non-official capacity as the parent of a child doing their Hogwarts shopping, not taking statements for any investigation, criminal or otherwise, which she did not so much as hint was anywhere close to being a thing in regards to the escaped unicorn who I didn't actually say was my sister."

"I did, though," Luna chimed in, peeking her head in between Hermione and Sunset for a brief moment.

"And third," she said without acknowledging Luna at all. "I entirely do not care, because I don't trust your mind-wiping, creature-executing government who thinks that every other sapient race bows down to them as the one true lords of this world."

Hermione blinked, and insisted, "They do not."

"There is a statue!" Sunset countered, adopting the not-so-quiet whisper that Hermione had started with. "In the foyer of the ministry of magic, there is literally a statue with a wizard standing over a witch and three other races with them all looking up at him like he's Celestia's gift to the world, so don't tell me that I need to be open and honest to a government that thinks that kind of thing is normal."

Hermione was speechless, possibly in shock or maybe just not used to being yelled at with incomparable logic.

What Hermione eventually said, was, "This is coming from the person whose people named their entire universe after their own country when they aren't even the only sapient species?"

Sunset scoffed. "The princess controls the sun; those other species can suck it."

⁂

Ginny thought about what she was doing on her way to the Rookery—or was it The Rookery? Was the 'the' supposed to be capitalized as part of the name? Come to think of it, it was surprising that Ron didn't get on with the Lovegoods, considering the chess theme of the place. Ron and Luna were both smart, too, just not on the surface. Hm. Just how dotty would the children be if Ron and Luna had kids, though? As much as Ginny could get fed up with her mother, she shuddered to think what things would be like if Molly Weasley was as absent-minded as her husband.

Okay, so Ginny thought about a lot of things on her way over to the Rookery, but questions about the sanity of what she was doing were definitely in there somewhere. Technically, though, she wasn't doing anything yet so she couldn't be said to be doing anything bad. It would only be at the point where she and Luna had looked through Moste Potente Potions and decided on a course of action that she would be able to be said to be doing anything questionable—depending on whether or not whatever they settled on was questionable, of course—and until then her conscience was clear and she had no concerns.

She probably should have had a few more concerns, though, or kept a few fewer things on her mind, because she entirely missed the rustling of something in the bushes nearby.

Something that was following her.

⁂

The last two stops on Professor McGonagall's itinerary were Slug & Jiggers Apothecary and the wand shop, Ollivanders. The apothecary, Sunset imagined, was put near the end for how unpleasant it was and because they didn't need children visiting all the other shops with a bag full of newt eyes or whatever to start throwing at each other out of the blue, and the wand shop was after that because the only thing worse than kids with bags full of disgusting ingredients was probably kids with brand new wands waving them around.

That, or maybe Professor McGonagall just didn't like Ollivander and thought his shop would be better if decorated with the aforementioned newt eyes.

That was all theoretical for the moment, though, as they were only just nearing Slug & Jiggers Apothecary when Professor McGonagall was checking everything against her list and exclaimed, "Luna! Where is your trunk?"

"Hm?" Luna emoted, looking up at Professor McGonagall. "Oh. I didn't buy a trunk."

"Ah. I suppose you're planning on using one of your father's, then?" Professor McGonagall concluded at first, though on second thought, that didn't quite fit because Luna did not have her father's trunk with her that she could see. Professor McGonagall looked this way and that, as if Luna must be somehow hiding a trunk behind her, but clearly she wasn't.

"Miss Lovegood," Professor McGonagall chided. "I know that you bought your supplies, so where are they? You did hear what I said in the bag shop about expanded spaces and shrunken containers, yes? I hope that whatever you've been putting your things in isn't what you intend to take to Hogwarts, or we shall need to head back to Connor's."

"You actually didn't mention shrunken containers," Luna pointed out quite reasonably. "But no, I haven't been putting my things in anything. They're just there, see?" she said, and gestured to the road by her side, where all of her things—clothes, books, scales, telescope, cauldron and all—were piled up on the street in a manner that absolutely wasn't in any way portable and hadn't been there a moment ago, but also hadn't just appeared there.

Professor McGonagall stared, then pinched the bridge of her nose. "Miss Lovegood. I am going to ask one question."

"Yes, Professor?" Luna asked, giving the professor her most content smile.

Professor McGonagall sighed and asked, "Does... this..." She gestured at the pile of items. "...Have anything to do with your visit to Faerie, from which you are still recovering?"

"Yes, professor," Luna confirmed with absolutely no guile.

"Right." Professor McGonagall took a breath and turned back towards the apothecary, pretending that none of that had happened, which, given Sunset was sure that if she turned back around, the street would be empty again, seemed like an understandable reaction. "Moving on..."

Sunset, though, stood and thought for a moment longer, coming to a realization.

Well, that explained the look Luna had given her when she'd mentioned needing saddlebags.

Author's Note

This chapter also has a deleted scene that you can read over on my snippets story.

For the record: Yes, I'm aware that Ginny's birthday is 'supposed' to be August 11ᵗʰ 1981, not 1980, but this is my interpretation of the fact that Harry's letter requires a response by July 31ˢᵗ. Are there other explanations? Sure.

On a similar note, I meant to post this last Friday, but I didn't.

Thanks go out to those supporting me on Patreon and ko-fi, pomegranate horsie, Sunny, Zervon Tora, Katharine Berry, LD, Jan Sterba, senaxyva, Ersmiller, Canary In The Coal Mine, J T, Nineite, Andrew Pam, Southpaw, Andrew Denton, Trellmor, Kirishala, djthomp, SirHoli, IamUnknown, fused and CvBrony.

Chapter 7

⁂

Contrary to the impression given off by its morbid and sometimes grisly products, Slug & Jiggers Apothecary turned out to be a fairly normal-looking shop, with a cozy, homey feel.

Indeed, if Sunset hadn't already been prepared and didn't look too closely at a few of the more identifiable items, then she would have assumed it to be a seller of potpourri if not for the smell—or possibly even with it. The apothecary didn't quite smell bad, exactly, just... distinct. Contrarily, no potpourri shop that Sunset had been dragged to had ever smelled quite good to her thanks to every supposedly-pleasant fragrance being concentrated, commingled and magnified in the setting of a shop, so the fact that the apothecary was in any way bearable when dealing with a much more questionable stock of items was actually shining praise.

The apothecary, however, seemed to have an entirely less friendly view of its visitors.

One of them, anyway.

It was Sunset, just to be clear.

"Oi!" shouted the somewhat short and stocky man with a curled mustache that was behind the counter. "No animals in the shop!"

Professor McGonagall was taken aback at the vehement statement, looking at Sunset as if she had forgotten entirely that Sunset was, in fact, a small colorful alicorn.

While the professor was still processing her mistake and deciding what to do about it, the adult Grangers were looking out of their depth and Hermione was just aimlessly offended. It was Luna who actually responded in a timely manner.

"This is Sunset Shimmer, my crumple-horned snorkack familiar, and she is quite intelligent enough not to nibble on your products," she stated. "As long as there are no mangos."

Sunset facehoofed. It was times like this that she wondered if Luna wasn't carrying a grudge about things after all, no matter how blasé she seemed about it most of the time.

"I don't care if it's a seeing-eye-crup that does arithmancy!" the man responded vociferously. "No animals in the shop—**especially** if it's magical—and that goes double if it sheds! It's bad enough dealing with actual people getting their hairs tangled up in the jumping cockleburs!"

"Alright, alright," Sunset said, rolling her eyes at the man's intensity. "Calm the buck down. I'll wait outside, sheesh." Frankly, she'd be glad to not have to deal with the strong smells or any kind of cockleburs that could get into her fur of their own volition, but she wasn't going to actually say that if he was going to be so unpleasant.

Professor McGonagall still looked displeased at letting someone she clearly considered one of her younger charges out of her sight in the busy alley, but she didn't object, so it was only slightly insulting. "Very well," she said, letting out a sigh of acceptance. "But stay close by; we shan't be long."

⁂

Ginny wouldn't have said that she was oblivious, exactly. In fact, if you asked her, she'd say that she had a pretty good handle on things. Nothing specific; just... things. She was used to getting the drop on all her brothers and was only rarely caught out by her parents when she was doing things that she ought not to be doing, according to them.

She'd be embarrassed, then, to find out that she made it all the way to Luna's house, completely oblivious of what it was that was following her, and she might never have found out if she hadn't made one small mistake.

Ginny hopped up to the front door of Luna's house, curiously noted the faint imprint of hooves in the wood, and opened the—the door didn't open.

Strange. The Lovegoods didn't usually cast locking spells on their door, and with her father lost in Faerie, it wasn't as if there was anyone in the house with a wand to cast the spell anyway.

It took Ginny a moment to remember that Luna had been in the alley with Professor McGonagall. Maybe she'd cast it when she'd come to pick Luna up? Ginny didn't think that people should go around casting locking spells on other people's houses, but adults tended to be like that.

Shrugging and wishing that she'd brought Ron's wand along with her, she banged on the sturdy wooden door and yelled for Luna to no avail.

Huh, was Luna not back from the alley, yet?

Strange.

Of course, Ginny hadn't actually gotten any proper idea where Luna had been in her shopping trip, so it was entirely possible that they'd only just arrived. In hindsight, she couldn't quite recall if she'd seen Luna with any of the usual things that her brothers took with them to Hogwarts, but she hadn't actually looked, either.

Well, that was a nuisance. Normally Ginny would have just let herself into the house anyway, but she'd already tried that, and going in through a window or something was more than she was willing to do, especially since she didn't know what kinds of spells Mr. Lovegood might have cast on them to keep the bugs out.

That was the kind of mistake you don't make twice.

Well, not three or maybe four times, anyway—not counting the times when it was worth it.

It was only then, when Ginny swung herself around in search of something to do while she was waiting for Luna that she realized she wasn't alone and eeped.

⁂

Even with how little time Sunset had spent just inside the door of the apothecary, stepping back out again into the relatively clear air was a surprising relief... for several reasons, actually. The fresh air was enjoyable, yes, but it was also nice just to have a moment to herself, for certain definitions of the word that applied to standing on the edge of a moderately busy street.

Sadly, even that small amount of peace was quickly taken from her.

"Ugh, what is that?" asked the voice of a whiny young girl. "Did someone animate a ratty old stuffed toy?"

Sunset was in the process of turning to see who had such a lack of wit to make such a bog-standard insult, when she realized that they'd gotten much closer than she'd expected. Reacting out of reflex, she pulled her head back and slapped away the hand that was reaching for her horn.

The impact of her very solid hoof made it immediately clear that Sunset was in no way stuffed.

"Hooves off," Sunset warned, getting a good look at just who had decided to be obnoxious out of the blue; a round-faced girl around Luna and Hermione's age with short black hair done up in pigtails who Sunset guessed from her silk robes was probably part of some privileged social strata or another.

The girl balked, cradling her hand. "You... you hit me!" she exclaimed in disbelief. "And—how dare you! I do not have hooves!"

Sunset rolled her eyes. "One: That's what you get for trying to grab me," she said. "And two: It's a figure of speech or whatever. You snuck up on me so it's not like I knew what the preferred nouns are for... whatever you are." Sunset glanced down at the girl's rather long, painted nails and smirked. "Should have I said claws instead? What are you, some kind of diamond dog?"

Sunset was not, of course, under the impression that the girl was anything but human; she was just intentionally being a bitch. It was kind of an automatic reflex.

The girl self-consciously hid her nails before she realized what she was doing and straightened her back, fisting her hands at her sides. "You—you—apologize!" she insisted, doing a rather good job of looming over Sunset, though she needn't have tried so hard, being twice as tall as Sunset to begin with, even with her not-so-impressive stature.

Sunset, of course, was quite used to being loomed over, and the girl's attempt at an imperious stare was nothing compared to that of a disappointed Princess Celestia. Unimpressed, Sunset made a show of thinking about it, then said, "Nah. Maybe it'll teach you to keep your hooves to yourself."

"I—you—!" the girl stammered, her rounded cheeks growing red.

"Definitely not a diamond dog," Sunset decided out loud. "They have better vocabulary. Not by much, mind you, but they can usually string a few words together, at least."

"I will not be talked down to by a—a fake unicorn with a malformed horn!" the girl yelled, and began digging around in her robe for something.

The reminder about the state of her horn actually made Sunset wince, not that the girl saw it, and by the time the girl had retrieved her wand from some hidden pocket, Sunset had decided she was just about ready to be done listening to... whoever this was.

She'd have to ask Luna about that later; it wasn't as if the odd girl wasn't one-hundred-percent aware of what was going on, after all, having a front-row seat to the whole thing through Sunset's left eye.

Maybe Sunset should talk to Luna about her tendency to just sit back and watch when things were happening...?

...Nah. It wasn't as if Sunset had actually wanted Professor McGonagall to come out and see her trading insults with a literal child. It was easy to forget, sometimes, the age of these girls, given their size.

Gripping her wand in her hand, the girl didn't say any spell or incantation like Sunset had come to expect from the humans; she just swung it aimlessly in Sunset's direction, releasing harmless sparks of magic.

Considering the time it had taken for the girl to retrieve her wand, Sunset was anything but surprised, and teleported away at the first sign of movement, reappearing with a paff of fire up on the roof of the apothecary.

The girl swung and swung at where Sunset had been, eyes closed from all the bouncing sparks. When she was done, she slowly opened her eyes, then blinked at the complete lack of colorful pony. She looked all around at street level, but eventually she seemed to have decided that she'd vanquished Sunset and stood straighter.

This lasted exactly two seconds until her head snapped to look at something inside the shop. All the color drained from her face before she turned and ran only moments before the door to the apothecary slammed open under the weight of one very ticked off proprietor who watched her run away, then went back inside, grumbling.

Oddly, neither Professor McGonagall nor the Grangers made an appearance, and Sunset wondered what Luna must have done to distract them.

When all the commotion had passed, Sunset spread her wings and glided back down to her spot in front of the apothecary. It might have been nice to stay at roof level, if just to avoid any further interactions with haughty children, but it wasn't actually a good way to avoid attention.

"That was amusing," said another haughty child, just as Sunset landed. This one, again, seemed to be the same age as the previous one, who had seemed to be the same age as Luna and Hermione. Sunset really hoped that it was actually just some kind of coincidence, and she wasn't that bad at guessing relative ages in the humans.

Sunset was pretty sure about the girl's relative age in this case, though, because aside from looking just a bit like Luna with having slightly more golden blonde hair and blue eyes rather than gray, there was a taller example to compare her to standing just behind her. Sunset presumed that this was the new girl's father, as they did seem to resemble each other on the surface, though the man's hair was a much plainer brown.

...Come to think of it, it was odd that the previous girl had been alone, wasn't it?

"I thought so," Sunset said, choosing to be polite. Antagonizing a rude, handsy child that was all on her own was one thing; she didn't need to start anything with one that was acting with a level of decorum alongside her father, even if it did remind her of talking to some of the smarmier nobility back in Canterlot. "Pardon me if I'm mistaken, but a child that age should be accompanied by an adult, shouldn't they?"

"You would think so, yes," the girl said. "Though, it's my understanding that being at Hogwarts will be all but like being on our own, so perhaps her parents are simply preparing her for that... Then again, I believe that I saw her at Fortescue's not too long ago, so it might be that they just took their eyes off of her and she has slipped her leash. If she isn't quick, they might be quite surprised to discover that she isn't quite where she's supposed to be."

Sunset gave the girl credit for the leash comment, which was amusingly on-point given the insults that had been going back and forth. Given the things she'd seen and heard so far, Sunset was under no illusions that most of the human magicals would consider her anything more than an animal, but that didn't mean that she in any way liked seeing it borne out in the behavior of a bratty child.

"We can only hope," Sunset said, though personally she didn't have any real hope that anyone raised to be that haughty at such a young age would experience anything in the way of consequences from whoever was in charge of her. "It's nice to know that at least some of those in the coming year at Hogwarts know how to behave themselves, miss...?"

"Daphne Greengrass," she instantly introduced herself, and the slight pleased look she'd gotten at being complimented quickly froze when she realized that she'd just presented her hand to a quadruped for her to shake it.

"Sunset Shimmer," Sunset responded in kind, and, making a snap decision, lit her horn to shake Daphne's hand with her magic. It irked her a bit—her hooves were perfectly clean, thank you very much, and it wasn't the done thing—but she thought it would make a better impression and impress upon the two of them that she was perfectly capable of using magic.

By the slight delay in Daphne's reaction while she subtly rubbed her fingers together, making note of the feeling of Sunset's magic, it seemed to have worked.

Quickly, though, Daphne recovered and stepped back, presenting the man behind her. "And this is my father, Cyrus Greengrass," she introduced, allowing Sunset to step forward and repeat her not-a-handshake with the tall man.

"Curious," the man mused looking Sunset over. "By the way you spoke about the upcoming year at Hogwarts... Do you mean to say that you will be going?" he asked, sounding politely dubious, clearly not giving the idea much credit, but just as clearly not going to say as much.

"Going? Yes," Sunset confirmed with some amusement, though she quickly clarified, "Attending, no—or, not formally, anyway. I'm sure I'll make good use of the library, though." She paused for effect, then said, "I suppose I should have introduced myself more formally, but I'm not honestly sure which of my titles are still valid."

That got her another skeptical look, because of course they wouldn't put much stock in the supposed titles of a non-human. She really hated being right sometimes, and the novelty of the pair's politeness was wearing thin.

"Here and now, though, I suppose it's relevant that I'm Sunset Shimmer, the familiar of Luna Lovegood," she said, making a slight bow, and with the perfect timing of someone who could see through her eyes, Luna exited the apothecary to stand next to her.

That said, the gaggle of Grangers and one Professor of Hogwarts that succeeded her a moment later ruined the effect somewhat, and the mess of introductions that followed pretty much put an end to their little conversation, for whatever it was worth, and soon the two groups parted ways.

Sunset frowned. During the commotion, she had tried to keep an eye on the Greengrasses to see what their reaction might have been to the muggle and muggleborn Grangers, but faced with such a large group, they were both perfectly polite and not a bit more.

Of the two interactions, that ambiguity honestly concerned Sunset more than having made an enemy of the previous brat.

In fact, now that she thought about it, Sunset was actively looking forward to the moment the bratty girl realized that Sunset was perfectly fine and entirely un-smote, and that cheered her up significantly.

⁂

At first glance, Ginny thought that the thing that had followed her was an adolescent unicorn; she was a young girl, after all, and young girls were known for at least two things: Liking unicorns and being liked by unicorns.

On second glance, Ginny thought that it was a bug; the hard carapace and dragonfly-like wings were difficult to miss, as were the faceted golden eyes that were on a level with her own.

The truth was somewhere in between the two, and she couldn't help her reaction. She stepped back, feeling just a little bit trapped with her back pressed up against the locked door, defensively holding her mother's copy of Moste Potente Potions against her chest for protection.

On further inspection, which she was getting whether she liked it or not, the bug-unicorn thing was rather pretty, actually, with how her white shell was shining all sorts of different colors.

On the other hand, getting any kind of bug when you were expecting a unicorn was always going to be a significant let-down at the very least, probably a source of panic, and not even the crown on the creature's head really made up for it in any sort of way.

What Ginny didn't expect was for the bug unicorn creature thing to just stand there and wait patiently, then stand there and wait slightly less patiently, then give her a look and say, "Well?"

Ginny was perfectly composed, and did not stand there going, "I—buh—wha?" for rather longer than was expected, and anyone who said that she did was clearly must have forgotten all the threats and blackmail that one acquires growing up with six older brothers. Instead, being entirely mature for her age as she, of course, was, Ginny calmly introduced herself.

"Y—you can talk?"

No, no, stupid brain. That's not an introduction. Think. Think. What would Harry Potter do in this situation?

Hm. She didn't have any heretofore unseen magical powers other than the usual ones that required a wand she didn't have, and the only damsel that needed saving was herself so that was not helpful.

"Why, of course!" the uni-bug-queen cheerily confirmed, and Ginny's internal narration skipped a beat.

Wait, uni-bug-queen? Well, with the crown and all, she did look pretty regal, and... come to think of it, hadn't there been a small colorful unicorn with Luna at the ice cream parlor? She'd barely gotten a few words on what had happened to Luna; did the toy unicorn creature have something to do with what had happened?

Ginny tilted her head, getting a better look at the uni-bug-queen's horn, which, it had to be said, was anything but straight. Luna had said that she had followed a Crumple-Horned Snorkack into Faerie... She wasn't sure if the logic really fit together, but the awkward silence was dragging on, and she gave into pressure to say something to ask, "Are you... Queen Titania?"

"I am indeed!" Queen Titania said, her golden eyes sparkling with eminent glee at being recognized. "Titania, Seelie Queen of the Summer Court," she introduced herself.

Seelie? Summer court? Ginny suddenly wished that she'd paid more attention to Luna's old fairy stories. This was fine, though. Everything was fine. Sure, both of Luna's parents had, to some extent, been trapped in Faerie in some way involved with this creature—BUT!—Luna had herself said that Titania had been reasonable. That wasn't really something that was up to interpretation, right?

Ginny tried to relax and not press herself into the Lovegood's front door quite so hard. Queens probably considered that rude. What else did queens consider rude? Not introducing herself, probably.

"I—ah—I'm Ginny Weasley..." she said, her voice trailing off as she tried to think of something else to add that might make her sound not so ordinary. "Seventh child of the Weasley family."

Ginny blushed, thinking that sounded pretty lame, but to Ginny's surprise, Queen Titania actually seemed to perk up at her self-coined title. "Well met, Ginny Weasley," the queen said.

Ginny thought and thought about what else she could say, but came up pretty much empty. "I—I would invite you in for some... tea or something..." she said, glancing back behind her at the Lovegood home. "But this isn't my house, and I think someone must have locked the door. Someone other than Luna."

The Queen's eyes shined brighter at that. "Luna, you say?" she asked in a way that made Ginny uneasy for some reason. "I thought so..."

"She... mentioned you," Ginny told her, not sure entirely why, but it was better than staying silent.

"We parted on amicable terms," the Queen said, confirming what Luna had said. Odd, maybe, that they had both used the term 'amicable', but it was a curiosity that Ginny didn't really have time to consider here and now with a fairy queen in front of her. "Was she well?"

"Yes," Ginny said, feeling that was a safe enough thing to say. "She seemed fine to me—but she's kind of like that."

"She's certainly unique," the queen allowed. "It's good to know that she is safe and sound and... uninjured. We made a deal, her and I, you see, so you could say that I have an interest in her continued health."

Ginny blinked. "A deal?" she asked. "Is that how she's going to Hogwarts this year instead of next?"

Queen Titania chuckled and shook her head. "Oh, no, not hardly," she said. "In fact, this is news to me; tell me more about what it is the girl has gotten herself into since I last saw her."

Ginny squirmed in place, but was hardly going to refuse. Besides, what could it possibly hurt to tell the fairy queen what was going on, and get a few things off of her chest?

But where to start? What did a fairy queen know about wizarding society, let alone Hogwarts?

She supposed there was nothing to it but to start at the beginning. "Well, you see, Hogwarts is a magic school..."

⁂

Sunset was about ready to be done with the shopping trip, so it was good that the wand shop was the last stop on their list.

Curiously, as they approached the quaint little shop with a single wand on a purple velvet pillow in the dusty window, Professor McGonagall held back rather than entering ahead to present things to the group as she had done at every previous store. Luna, too, walked just a little slower than the Grangers, so guessing that something was going on, Sunset made sure to fall in beside her at something closer to her own natural gait.

What exactly it was that was going on Sunset discovered when the Grangers pushed open the creaky glass-windowed door and stepped inside to be impressed by rows upon rows of shelves lined with small boxes stretching back into the space, almost like a library.

It wasn't for the impressive sight of thousands of dusty boxes that they had held back for, though. No, the thing that Professor McGonagall and Luna were expecting and possibly avoiding was the small, white-haired old man that slipped in behind the Grangers from an alcove off to the side of the door, and startled them with his introduction.

"Good afternoon."

All of the Grangers startled, but Hermione in particular jumped, stumbled over a small stool and nearly fell.

"Oh my," Heather Granger said, holding her hand over her chest. "That was a fright." Her husband was less vocal, but the glare he shot the eponymous Ollivander seemed to imply that he had taken the surprise with quite a bit less equanimity. Hermione, though, was too busy staying on her feet and righting the stool she'd knocked over in order to really give any thought to the proprietor of the shop.

"Welcome to my shop, it's always good to see new faces in the alley," Ollivander said, and Sunset thought that he might actually mean it. Sighing, he sent a forlorn look back into the shop's crowded shelves. "So many of my creations have gone unclaimed by their intended—but they will find matches eventually."

Well, that was an interesting thing to say. Was there something that was preventing children from getting their wands? They sounded almost like cutie marks, the way he phrased it, as if there was a kind of destiny involved, though she'd seen nothing of that kind of belief in the humans so far.

Ollivander did not wait for Sunset to consider the matter, though; he barely waited for the Grangers to introduce themselves before he pulled out a well-used tape measure with silver markings on it, took one or two measurements of Hermione on his own, then walked away while the thing continued on, much to the young girl's chagrin, very much put out at the man's behavior.

Sunset raised her eyebrow at the tape measure, not because she'd never seen one floating around taking measurements—that was pretty much just a normal part of getting fitted for dresses by a unicorn back in Equestria—but because as far as she could tell, it was doing it all on its own without any attention paid by Ollivander. Doing it with levitation was the usual way, and she could imagine enchanting it to move on its own, of course, but how was it collecting information if the man wasn't giving the matter any thought or concentration?

Well, that was assuming that it was collecting information, she supposed, and not just acting as a mysterious magical distraction while Ollivander disappeared into the back of the shop to do who-knows-what. Sunset had been born with her magical focus, so for all she knew, maybe the size of the space between Hermione's nostrils did actually make a difference in what kind of wand she needed, but Sunset was skeptical.

The idea that it might have been all for show was intensified when, seemingly at random, Ollivander snapped his fingers and the tape measure dropped out of the air, hitting the ground with an artless, floppy splat before slithering away like a snake to store itself somewhere behind the sales desk. If the dubiously enchanted tape measure had actually been taking measurements that mattered, then surely it would know when it was done rather than require it to be interrupted in whatever it was doing, and surely it would have needed to return to Ollivander so that he could retrieve the information somehow?

You know what? Sunset was putting way too much thought into this. She really didn't care if the tape measure was just a distraction; it was enough that Ollivander had returned with... three boxes?

"Every Ollivander wand has a core of a powerful magical substance, Miss Granger," he spoke, spreading the boxes out on the counter. "We use unicorn hairs, phoenix tail feathers, and the heartstrings of dragons. No two Ollivander wands are the same, just as no two unicorns, dragons or phoenixes are quite the same. And of course, you will never get such good results with another witch’s wand."

That was... hmm... weird. Sunset was going to go with weird. If she hadn't already been introduced to the kinds of things that the humans used in potions, she might have been surprised, but she was too bemused at the idea of her hair being a 'powerful magical substance' to really think too hard about dragon heartstrings.

She knew, of course, something of the differences between herself and the strangely mystical horse-creatures they had here in this world—Xenophilius had mentioned as much—so she doubted that anyone trying to use her tail hairs in a wand would be very impressed...

...Then again, she was an alicorn now, and she wouldn't have guaranteed the same thing about princess Celestia. Sunset didn't have the ethereal mane, though, and she didn't have a convenient older alicorn to ask about it, so she supposed the actual magical capacity of her hair was anyone's guess.

Frowning, Sunset deliberately shifted her attention back to what was going on because she was having feelings of one sort or another thinking about that, and she didn't want to examine them right just then.

"There, now, birch and dragon heartstring; 11-inches," Ollivander stated as he handed the whitish wand to Hermione. "Give it a wave."

Hermione did so, but aside from a few tiny purple sparks, nothing happened.

Ollivander hmmed. "No, clearly not," he said, taking the wand away from her and tucking it back in the long, slim box that it had come from. The next two didn't go much better—one of them being taken from Hermione before she could even wave it, and the other transforming a stack of papers on the sales desk into a glossy paperback that made the young girl blush for some reason.

Sunset wasn't sure exactly what Ollivander was looking for if that wasn't a proper result, but whatever it was, he found it when, "Vine and dragon heartstring—ten and three-quarters-inches—stiff, but flexible," produced a larger shower of blue and gold sparks.

Maybe the sparks were a sign that the wand wasn't unduly flavoring the magic?

Sunset hadn't thought that her impression of the brat from earlier could have gotten any worse, but apparently she'd been wrong, because she hadn't even been casting spells.

Of course, after the Grangers had paid for Hermione's wand, Ollivander's attention shifted to Luna and then immediately to Sunset who was standing beside her.

"Curious," he mused. "Related to unicorns, certainly, but I'm not sure how, or what that makes you."

"Sunset Shimmer is my crumple-horned snorkack familiar," Luna introduced her with the same abundance of pride as every previous time. The statement wasn't wrong, but it all the same it made Sunset roll her eyes a bit every time.

"A crumple-horned snorkack, you say?" he asked, though Sunset wasn't sure if he was putting any more stock in it than anyone else would. "I must admit that this is a first for me."

"Are you going to suggest that I get a wand with one of her hairs?" Luna asked.

"Hmm?" he murmured, turning to look back over to Luna. "Oh... no, no, I don't think so," he said, shaking his head dismissively. "Familiars rarely make for good wand cores. The connection means there's a little too much of yourself in them as far as magic is concerned—yours more than most, I expect. Why, it has to be the strongest one I've seen in a long time, if a little odd for some reason."

Sunset did not say that 'a little odd for some reason,' described Luna to a 'T,' but she definitely thought it. Besides, she knew where the oddness in their connection came from; the fact that Luna still had Sunset's name was something that she just... preferred not to think about too much.

"Now," Ollivander continued. "That's not to say that I wouldn't like a few of your hairs if you're willing to donate. I'd be quite interested to discover what sorts of wands they would make and who they would be matched with."

Sunset was curious too, but something about the man seemed off, and he was far too eager, very similar to the moment when Queen Titania had been leaning forward in her throne, directing Sunset to eat, drink and give her her name.

You know what? She didn't actually care what this man thought of her, so she just asked the first strange idea that had popped into her mind. "You're not fae, are you?"

Ollivander was taken aback in surprise, but it was Professor McGonagall who spoke. "Miss Shimmer, this is the second time that you've asked that," she pointed out. "It was one thing with the goblins, but I hope you know that you cannot simply go about asking after people's ancestry like that."

"Why not?" Sunset asked, being intentionally contrary. "Isn't that what the purebloods do?"

"Yes," Professor McGonagall confirmed. "And I would tell them the same if they were to behave such in my presence."

Sunset thought that was fair, if it was true. Sunset had spent most of her life tutored by Celestia, but she was very aware that plenty of other teachers were much less consistent with their practicing what they preached.

"That's one thing," Sunset defended. "But I have real, actual reasons to be concerned about the fae, and he makes me uneasy."

"Be that as it may—"

"Also, for the record," Sunset interrupted her. "I explicitly considered beforehoof whether I cared about offending him, and I don't."

The look of consternation that the professor produced at that was positively withering. "Even so, as Miss Lovegood's familiar—"

"Oh, I don't care either," Luna chimed in, positively poleaxing the woman, and Sunset thought she might have heard the tiniest giggle from Hermione, but when she looked, she only looked mortified. "Actually, I care very much inasmuch as I, too, would like to know the answer."

"Now, now," Ollivander said, seeking to restore the tranquility of his shop. "There's no need for all of that—and as a matter of fact, yes. It's not well-known, but the Ollivanders do actually have a history of fae ancestry. I suspect that most wandmakers do, as it helps with both the making and the pairing."

Well, that was interesting. Sunset had noted previously that the humans seemed to be a race that had magic rather than being magical, and now she wondered if it couldn't all be traced ultimately to the fae—or a deal with one.

Maybe she would have to reconsider her opinion of the fae if—wait, no, she didn't have a particularly charitable opinion of human magic, either. Actually, being connected to fae would explain all the horrible things the human magicals used it for, wouldn't it?

"Yeah, no," Sunset decided. "I mean, I have to admit I'm both curious and doubtful, but nope: I'm gonna keep all my body parts to myself, thanks."

"Always a good idea," someone said, bringing the conversation to a sudden halt as the meaning of the words slowly sank in.

Professor McGonagall coughed, uncomfortable in the silence.

"Oh dear," said Hermione's mother. "Did I say that out loud?"

⁂

At some point, Ginny had stopped worrying overmuch about the presence of the fairy queen and gotten entirely too caught up pacing back and forth in front of Luna's house telling her own story. "...And that's why it's so not fair that Luna gets to go to school with Harry Potter and I'm going to be stuck here for another entire year, all because I was born just eleven days after the cutoff!"

"I see," Queen Titania said, thinking about Ginny's issue. "That seems rather simple, then."

Ginny blinked, remembered just who it was that she was talking to, and immediately backed off, hackles up. She may not have paid all that much attention to Luna's fairy tales, but she remembered enough of the basics in order to be on guard.

"Woah woah woah, hold on," she said, gripping her mother's potions book tighter. "I mean, yeah, I want to be eleven days older—maybe ideally go back in time a bit to make sure the letter gets sent out just to be sure—but that's just wishing."

"Wishes are my specialty," Queen Titania assured her.

Ginny's eyes widened. "No, no, no, that's not what I meant!"

Queen Titania seemed entirely too amused at Ginny's panic. "Relax, girl, I've never done anything anyone didn't ask for."

Ginny wasn't entirely reassured, considering Luna was still without her parents.

"Really, now," the queen said, shaking her head with mock sadness at Ginny's paranoia. "It doesn't have to be all that complicated, does it? You said it yourself; just a couple of weeks in Faerie, and your problem would be solved, wouldn't it?"

Ginny had thought that, yes, and she'd repeated it when telling her story to the Queen, but here and now, presented with the option, it seemed like a very, very bad idea, and she knew enough to listen to herself about bad ideas. Sometimes she did them anyway, but she always knew what it was she was getting into.

Well, almost always. She was only ten, after all.

Ginny violently shook her head, red hair whipping around her ears. "No, no—that's—no. I'm not going to Faerie. That's just not going to happen. I'm smarter than that."

"Are you sure?" the queen asked. "I'm certainly capable of guaranteeing you passage."

"Passage in, sure," Ginny said, raising one eyebrow. "But what about passage out?"

"That too," Queen Titania assured her as an afterthought.

Ginny shook her head again. "It's supposed to be a trade, isn't it? I don't have anything to trade."

Queen Titania grinned, and not kindly. Whatever kind of bug-unicorn-thing she was apparently had lots of teeth. "Oh, my dear, everyone has something to trade... whether they know it or not."

Ginny gave the fairy queen a flat look. "I'm ten," she stated, feeling that that should really say all it needed to.

Queen Titania dropped her gaze to the old potions book that Ginny was still holding onto almost as a security blanket "What about that?" she asked. "A family heirloom like that..."

"Uh-uh," Ginny said, and shifted from holding it in front of her for protection to holding it behind her to protect it. "I might be borrowing it, but you don't know my mom. If I lost it, there'd be hell to pay."

"Well then," Queen Titania mused, rubbing her chin with her hoof. "You're not making this easy, are you?"

"I wasn't trying to!" Ginny reminded her, because yes, while she might not know all the rules about fairies that Luna did, 'just refuse anything they offer' was a pretty simple concept.

Well, unless they got angry and killed you, but that was mostly the evil ones, she thought.

Mostly.

It wasn't a guarantee, though.

"Well, how about this?" Queen Titania said, not willing to let herself be stymied by someone simply refusing outright. "As I said, your problem really is fairly simple; you'll trade me eleven days of your life, and in exchange, I can ensure that you go to Hogwarts with Harry Potter."

Ginny... didn't say no. Well, not immediately. She thought about it, though, and—wait. "When you say, 'trade you eleven days of my life,' you don't mean, like, you'll take my place or something?"

"No," the queen said, but Ginny suspected it was more of a 'not now that you've said that.' "Just eleven days taken off of your life, making you eleven days older—old enough to go to this 'Hogwarts' school. It's as simple as that."

Ginny thought and thought and thought, but she wasn't sure what angle there could possibly be that would cause a problem with that. Like the queen had said, it really was a very simple problem, and when things were so simple, there wasn't much that could go wrong, right?

But then what was the fairy queen's angle? Because Ginny did not believe for a second that there wasn't some kind of a scam or a catch involved. Then it came to her; eleven days of her life was worth something, surely, and she wouldn't actually be getting anything in return, would she? Not in the real sense, anyway, so while in a way she'd be getting cheated, that was exactly what she wanted.

Still, she was wary. "...And in exchange, you'll make absolutely sure that I get to go to school with Harry Potter? Just like with Luna? No problems with the school saying I'm too late or anything?"

"With Harry Potter, just like with Luna, you say?" Queen Titania asked innocently, her eyes sparkling as she seemed to trace a path in the air that wasn't there. "Yes. Yes, I know someone like that. Hmm. I still don't see how that actually fits there... But I can work with that. Deal."

Ginny immediately felt the bottom drop out of her stomach at that declaration. She'd just been asking for clarification, not making an offer, and while she didn't understand any of the rest of what the fairy queen had said—well, that was the problem! "Hold on—what was all that about knowing someone? You're not going to put me in someone else's body?!"

Queen Titania waved her hoof in dismissal. "No, no, of course not, no," she said, which should have been reassuring, but it really wasn't. Ginny's feelings on that were vindicated moments later, when the fairy queen seemed to have produced a glowing mote of light from somewhere.

Ginny paled. "What—what is that?" she asked. "What are you doing?"

"Exactly what I promised," Queen Titania assured her with a look of pleased satisfaction. It wasn't malicious at all, but that didn't help the shiver that went down Ginny's spine. "You'll be going to school with Harry Potter—in exactly the same manner that Sunset Shimmer is going with Luna Lovegood."

Ginny didn't like the sound of that, because it sounded like the fairy queen didn't mean going to Hogwarts in the normal way. Damn it! She should have said she wanted to attend Hogwarts!

As the fairy queen stepped closer, there were dozens of thoughts and recriminations bouncing around in her head, but one of them in particular stood out prominently among all the rest.

"Who in Merlin's name is Sunset Shimmer?"

⁂

Unlike everything else that Luna had bought that day, her surprisingly flexible thirteen-inch Willow-and-unicorn-hair wand did not disappear into the nothingness of possibility. Maybe that was normal, though; Hermione's wand had gone right back into its box, but even so, the young muggleborn was holding onto that box rather tightly, fidgeting with it in the same sort of nervous appreciative way as Luna.

And with that, the trip to Diagon was done.

Well, mostly. It hadn't been included on the list, which seemed like an oversight to Sunset since even the ice cream shop had been, but Professor McGonagall took them back to the Leaky Cauldron in order to finish things up with a round of drinks and instructions.

For the Grangers, it was their first time actually ordering from the rustic shop, and the professor recommended they begin with pumpkin juice as the wizarding world's traditional iconic drink as a taste of something that was served every day at Hogwarts. Curious, Sunset ordered the same, while Luna went for a butterbeer and Professor McGonagall ordered a gillywater, which sounded like a diet drink to Sunset.

Sunset didn't hate cucumber water, but she had not particularly enjoyed that one week when one of the castle staff had heard something who heard from someone else and had gotten it in their head that she needed to be served it at every meal.

Sunset's opinion of the pumpkin juice was similar, to be honest. It wasn't as bad as it might have been, considering she was all but expecting a thick warm smoothie not unlike pumpkin pie in consistency; but still, it was pumpkin in juice format, which might be nice for a while in the fall, but as a staple, she'd rather have something else.

The Grangers, for their part, were rather silent on their thoughts of the drink, so the best that could be said was that Luna and Professor McGonagall at least enjoyed theirs.

After they'd had a while to get settle in, but while they were all still nursing their drinks—some of them more slowly than the others—Professor McGonagall produced two parchment envelopes not unlike the ones that the Hogwarts letters had come in. Luna and Hermione both opened them with great care to reveal slightly thicker cards with gold embossing proclaiming them to be tickets to the Hogwarts Express, which was to depart from Platform 9¾ at King's Cross Station on September 1ˢᵗ.

"Platform 9¾?" Hermione asked, sounding almost offended at the very idea.

Sunset wasn't sure what the big deal was. "At least it's a reasonably specific number," she said. "I remember a few years back, there was a whole mess over one down-on-his-luck mathematician-turned-printshop-employee in Baltimare who thought he was funny and did up a percentage of the tickets as point-nine-nine-repeating with a vinculum during a math convention. I mean, I didn't even know that mathematicians had conventions. Not many of them missed their trains, but oh man, the arguments they got into—and they brought those arguments back to Canterlot! Answering stupid mathematics trivia is not what Princess Celestia holds court for!"

Most of the table was staring at Sunset in the wake of her rant, except for Luna who was holding her butterbeer bottle over her mouth trying to get the last bit of foam out because apparently the human magicals hadn't invented straws yet.

"...Sorry," Sunset said. "Bit of a rant, I know, but seriously; they insisted on bringing it to the highest judicial forum in all of Equestria—literally, considering Canterlot's altitude, so it was a bit of a trip to make—just to be told that 0.9̅9̅ does, in fact, exactly equal one."

"...That's great and all," Hermione said, visibly holding back from commenting and concentrating on her ticket instead. "But in the real world, we number our train stations with whole numbers. There isn't a Platform 9¾!"

"0.9̅9̅ is a whole number," Sunset countered. "Believe me, after that fiasco, I know the proofs back and forth."

Hermione looked like she was contemplating throwing her Pumpkin Juice at Sunset and wondering if it wasn't, in fact, the better use for it, when Professor McGonagall chose to intervene. Clearing her throat to get everyone's attention, she explained, "Platform 9¾ does, in fact, exist. It is hidden from muggles in a way similar to but distinct from that of the Leaky Cauldron and accessed by walking through the barrier between platforms nine and ten—though only magicals may pass through, so you will have to say your goodbyes there and trust the young Miss Granger to board on her own from there.

"Luna, of course, will need to take the floo," she continued, directing this last part at Sunset, the nominal near-adult in charge of her.

And, well, speaking of being the nominal near-adult in charge of Luna. "So, uh, professor?" Sunset said after a few more details about the minutiae of Hogwarts were explained to the Grangers. "This doesn't have anything to do with Hogwarts, but since we're still waiting for Luna's parents to get back from Faerie, where should we go for, you know, groceries and things? Luna clearly has the money, so that's not a problem, but I didn't see anything in the alley selling any real food—the tea shops and ice cream parlor obviously don't count."

Professor McGonagall, for once, looked slightly abashed. "Ah, yes, I'm sorry, Miss Shimmer; I had meant to point them out, but I'm afraid I'm so used to the usual order of things that I neglected to do so. We did actually pass by a few. Pepper's Provisions for one."

Sunset furrowed her brow, thinking back. "I don't think I noticed that," she said. "Where was it, about?"

"About four doors past Wizacre's," Professor McGonagall said. "Next to Sugarplum's Sweets Shop."

Sunset thought back, but couldn't picture it at first—then the bit dropped. "Wait, that place advertising dragon liver was a grocer?"

Professor McGonagall nodded. "Yes," she confirmed. "Dragon liver is a bit of an acquired taste and not cheap, but can be nice to have as a treat. I admit, I'm probably more predisposed to organ meat than most, but I assure you they have all the usual sorts of things that are probably more suitable to your palette."

Sunset shook her head. "Well, poni—I mean, crumple-horned snorkacks—aren't completely incapable of eating meat, though my stomach will probably appreciate not needing to. Why would you be predisposed to organ meat, though? You make it sound like there's a reason for it."

Professor McGonagall got a slightly mischievous looking smirk at that, tapped the side of her nose and said, "I think I'll leave that for you to find out once you get to Hogwarts."

Sunset asked after a few specific things, being pointed to other places in the alley, and eventually they seemed to have tested the patience of the adult Grangers' sensibilities a little too much.

"Excuse me," Thomas Granger said, interrupting Sunset on the subject of what exactly passed as fresh produce in the wizarding world. "It was brushed off the last time, but I really must object; I realize that the... snorkack... is an older teen or something, but is it really okay for you to leave these two all on their own for the next month and a half? And from what I understand, Luna's parents are missing, and nothing is being done about it? If they're stranded somewhere, shouldn't someone be doing something to go after them?"

Professor McGonagall's lips tightened at the implications in play, there. "You may be under the misapprehension of the nature of the magical government," she said. "And possibly magical society as a whole.

"Many don't like to admit it, but magicals are a minority, even setting aside the recent explosion of the muggle population. There simply aren't all that many of us; only enough to support a few handfuls of dedicated settlements, with the rest of us spread out rather thinly across the world, and nowhere is that more true than here in Britain, where we have been hit hard by two wars in the last century.

"The Ministry of Magic, for the most part, exists for those things where it is needed—criminal matters, secrecy, public services and the like—and takes taxes for those few things, and, as with most governments now and throughout history, because it can. Outside of that remit, the Ministry of Magic tends not to concern itself with the minutiae of what happens. Anything that happens on a person's own land is considered to be mostly their own business, and the same goes for things that happen outside of their borders.

"The situation with the Lovegoods is both. It is... unfortunate, what the Lovegoods have gotten themselves into, but it is seen as something that they themselves have gotten themselves into, and even if it wasn't... Well, as Miss Shimmer pointed out to me in a most visceral manner just earlier today; Faerie is a place where the laws of nature and magic as we know them do not exist, and yet it manages to be terrifyingly real. You would find no auror nor hitwizard that would be willing to enter Faerie to 'go after them,' as you put it.

"As for the younger Miss Lovegood, there is simply no legal framework for anything to be done about her situation, and several to prevent it. The wizarding world does not have orphanages; most established families would sooner have their children raised by servants and portraits than see them passed outside of their circle of influence.

"That said, if Miss Shimmer has the extensive magical education that she claims, I am much less concerned. Provided the two of them keep trips into public places to a minimum, not do anything foolish and seek help when they need it, I see no reason the next month and a half shouldn't go smoothly enough. Ideally, of course, the Lovegoods will return before then; it would be a shame if they missed seeing their daughter off to Hogwarts for the first time."

Thomas Granger sat back in his chair, dumbstruck. "I can't—no—I won't accept that. Surely we could—"

"Mr. Granger," Professor McGonagall interrupted with strong disapproval. "Did or did I not say that there were laws in place to prevent just such interference? As much as I understand the fear of letting a child out to fend for themself and why you might want to open your home to a young girl in such a situation, she is nearing the age when she will be expected to manage her own life outside of meals and classes anyway, and you are not prepared to care for a magically-raised child and her... snorkack... familiar in a muggle neighborhood."

Thomas Granger looked very unhappy at that. Absolutely livid, really, but eventually he said, with reluctantly contained anger at the situation, "Fine. Well, no, it's not fine, but I suppose I'll just have to accept that." Addressing Luna directly, he said, "I'll make sure you have our address, though, in case you need anything. You can always take that 'Knight Bus' if it's something urgent."

Luna nodded in wordless thanks, and Professor McGonagall volunteered, "As far as I'm aware, the Lovegoods are on good terms with several magical neighbors in the area, such as the Weasleys, who you met earlier. I'm sure that should anything come up, they will make themselves available. I really must reiterate the dangers in having a 'snorkack' in a muggle neighborhood—especially if she shows up unannounced.

"Okay, that!" Thomas Granger yelled, letting his frustration out on something that he wasn't being stonewalled on. "That right there! For god's sake, can someone at least explain to me why you keep calling her a 'crumple-horned snorkack' when she's clearly some kind of unicorn or pegasus pony?!"

⁂

After saying goodbye to Hermione and reassuring Professor McGonagall about a number of things, including that Luna knew how to floo to Platform 9¾ and that they wouldn't do anything quite so foolish as to visit Nocturn Alley or go back to Faerie in search of Luna's parents, Sunset and Luna were finally allowed to floo back home to The Rookery.

Sunset just walked far enough to reach the nearest carpet and flopped down on her face, while Luna headed over to the couch that she'd nearly bled out on and made no sign that she remembered the traumatic situation.

Of course, given that she'd acted the same way only hours ago when it had still been caked in dried blood, that didn't actually mean much.

They only got a few moments of silence before they heard noises coming from outside. Sunset's ears perked up and swiveled, but all she caught was a yell of "What are you doing?!" that sounded oddly familiar.

It was clear that Luna heard it too, because she propped herself up off the couch on her hands and said, "Was that Ginny?"

Sighing, Sunset pushed herself up off the ground and was briefly thankful that, as a quadruped, that was all she needed to do to stand up. Watching Luna swing herself up and balance on her legs looked exhausting.

Sunset made it to the door quickly enough, then—failed to open it. Tilting her head this way and that, she examined the door for a lock of some sort, but there didn't seem to be one. Trying again, Sunset twisted the knob with her magic, but it refused to budge.

Luna frowned, looking decidedly put out with her hair mussed up from collapsing into the couch. "McGonagall must have cast a locking spell," she said, and tipped up on her toes to get a look outside.

Whatever she saw made her panic, though, as she quickly dropped back down and tried the doorknob for herself. "Fiddlesticks!" she swore. Biting her lip, she looked at Sunset and said. "Ginny is out there—and so is Titania. We have to help her."

The mention of Titania put the fire back in Sunset's veins. Frustrated, she shook the door with her magic, but now that Luna had said it, she could feel the locking spell on the door. The thing was, Equestrians didn't really use spells for locking things, and she'd certainly never learned any for unlocking things, so other than blow the door off, she wasn't sure what she could do.

Really, it was like the world was going out of its way to make her regret never studying certain things. Of course, back in Equestria, any spell used to lock something would probably wear out pretty quickly, so there was a reason that this sort of thing wasn't in her repertoire other than the fact that she'd never been inclined to the subtler spells.

Wait! That was it! If she just flooded the door with magic, maybe she could overwhelm it! Finally having a chance to let loose, Sunset lit her horn and spread her magic out over the door in a surge that resulted in a great resounding thoom, followed by a distant crash.

On the one hoof, the door was no longer locked.

On the other hoof, that was because she'd failed at any sort of non-destructive entry and blown it off its hinges.

On a third hoof—which was fine because ponies did in fact have four hooves—she nearly hit Titania with it, which was a nice bonus.

Quickly, the two of them raced out the front door. Titania was there, of course—Sunset had nearly hit her with the door, so she'd have to be—but of Luna's friend Ginny, there was no sign; just a violently orange pegasus half-wearing the same dress that the girl they'd met back in Diagon Alley had been.

...

Okay, Sunset wasn't stupid, but she was pretty sure that Luna's friend had been a human the last time she'd seen her. She supposed that the presence of the Seelie Queen explained that, though.

Now if only she had an explanation for the presence of the Seelie Queen.

While Sunset was working things out, though, Luna was going for the new paperclip necklace around her neck, which seemed like an escalation after... Well, okay, admittedly, Titania had put a knife in Luna's back the last time they'd met, but like Luna had said: she'd done that amicably.

Luna was not being amicable, though, as once she'd removed the necklace, she immediately went to swinging and throwing it, wasting no time on the little details like what was going on or what had happened to Ginny.

This time, though, Titania was ready, and Luna's makeshift paperclip bolas weren't exactly a sneaky weapon, so when they went wide, Titania managed to duck the other direction.

"Rude!" the seelie queen remarked offhandedly, though her eyes never left Luna. At first, Sunset thought it was because she was wary of another attack, but it soon became clear that there was more to it than that. "Well well well; you do look healthy," she observed.

"Why are you here?" Luna demanded to know, and the reaction just seemed so... un-Luna-like that it made Sunset uncomfortable. She told herself that it was because she'd spent so much time letting Luna pet her as a method of helping her get over her imprisonment in Faerie, and here Titania was, undoing all that progress, bringing the dangers of Faerie to her.

Titania, though, didn't seem inclined to answer Luna's question, choosing instead to cock her head this way and that, examining the young girl. "...Where is your knife?" she asked, her faceted golden eyes looking almost concerned.

That caught Luna off-guard, which was a remarkable thing to do. "...My knife?" she repeated.

"The one I gave you!" Titania said, sounding as offended as a petulant child.

Luna blinked. "The one you tried to kill me with?" she clarified, quite on the back foot at the direction things had suddenly taken.

"Yes!" Titania said as if that should have been obvious. "That was a very good knife, and you earned it fair and square! You made a deal for that knife, so why aren't you using it? Why is it not even with you?"

"I don't usually carry a knife on me," Luna said, recovering some of her reasonable manner. "Especially not murder weapons."

Titania exaggeratedly rolled her eyes and threw up her hooves in frustration. "Oh, don't give me that. You don't usually carry any of those other things you've got with you, but you've still got them, haven't you? I'm fairly certain that you'd need a good knife more often than you need those brass scales. Case in point: Here and now, when you want to kill me, but you don't have a knife!"

Luna was silent for a moment, and Sunset thought she might be trying to avoid admitting that the seelie queen had a point. "I don't think that running at you with a knife would be beneficial to my continued wellbeing," she eventually pointed out.

"Well, no," Titania admitted. "But it's still a really good knife and you should keep it on you."

Sunset figured that this was going nowhere and, just like their previous meeting, decided that maybe it would be best if she was the one to interact with the seelie queen; there was just too much bad blood between Luna and the fae, and that was saying something considering Sunset had had her name stolen.

"Okay, look," Sunset said, stepping in between the two. "First, what happened here?" she asked.

It wasn't Titania that spoke up, but Ginny, who had apparently regained her wits about her.

"I'm... I'm a horse!" she wailed.

Or not.

"Pegasus pony," Sunset corrected.

"Crumple-horned snorkack," Luna countered.

"Actually, no," Sunset disagreed. "She can't be a crumple-horned snorkack if she doesn't have a horn."

"...You do have a point," admitted Luna, who was fighting between putting on an air of thoughtfulness and keeping an eye on Titania. Sunset couldn't blame her. "An un-horned snorkack, then, perhaps..."

Sunset let out a weary sigh and went over to help the young pegasus, who was struggling with the dress she was wearing. "Here," she said, lifting the bottom of the dress. "Let me get that for you; now just walk backwards."

The bright orange pegasus didn't seem to think that this was helpful and chose to blush and stammer instead. "Wha—no—hey—don't lift that!"

Sunset rolled her eyes and dropped the hem of the dress back into the dirt. "Ugh, you humans and your clothes. I don't know why I even try. Seriously, though—it doesn't even fit you, it's not doing anything for you, and you're getting it dirty. What are you going to do if the seelie queen pulls something? Trip over yourself, that's what."

"I'd do it, too," Titania pointed out, then frowned. "Wait—no—I still have to get you to this Harry Potter fellow."

Sunset had no idea who this 'Harry Potter' was, but the name seemed to mean something to Luna, because she froze on hearing it, then drooped into a sulk. "Ginny, please tell me you didn't make a deal with the fae to go to Hogwarts with Harry Potter," she said, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"...Not intentionally," Ginny defended herself.

Sighing, Luna shook her head at the response. "Of course you did. You're a snorkack of some sort. I'm not sure what else I expected. This is what you get for making deals with the fae."

"Pardon, but I think I deserve to be called more than just, 'the fae,'" the seelie queen objected. "I am the fae, after all. You should feel honored."

"About that," Luna said, looking at Titania wearily. "Why are you even here? I've never heard of a queen of the fae actually coming to our world."

"Why, to check up on you, of course!" Titania said with great enthusiasm. "And it's a good thing I did, since you apparently just left such a good knife on your bedroom table where it isn't doing you any good."

"Enough about the knife already!" Ginny snapped. "I've never even seen this knife, and I've already heard enough about it!"

"Hey now," Sunset said, placing a hoof awkwardly on Ginny's withers. "Calm your feathers, there, fluff-and-tough. I mean, you have a point, but still."

"Did you really just say, 'calm your feathers'?" Ginny asked with the concentrated sarcasm of someone who was not having a good time and was about to make it everyone else's problem. That went off the rails when she began, "I don't have—" and finished with, "—oh merlin I have feathers," because, yes, she was a pegasus, so she had wings like any other pegasus. "I have wings."

Luna pressed her lips into a line that Sunset would have guessed had come directly from Professor McGonagall. "Yes. That. Why does my friend have wings, Titania?"

"She said she wanted to go to this Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry with this Harry Potter kid, and I quote, 'just like with Luna,' and since the only one going with you is Sunset Shimmer there... well, what else could I do but make her the boy's pony familiar?"

"...That's a stretch," Luna said.

Sunset gave Luna a flat look. "Really?" she said. "This is you saying that?"

"Let's be honest, here," the seelie queen said, sitting down where she was standing and appreciating her hoof for a moment. "I could have done it with just the wish to go to Hogwarts with him; the rest is superficial. Besides, who doesn't want to be a pony? Because, honestly, it's pretty great."

Sunset couldn't help but turn to Luna and say, "She has a point."

"Quiet, you," Luna said with a mock sternness, regaining a little more of her humor.

There was nothing humorous about the way that Sunset's retort suddenly died in her throat because Luna still had Sunset's name, which still meant things.

Fortunately, Luna noticed immediately what she'd done and said, "Oh, foo. That's such a bother. Stop that."

"Ugh," Sunset groaned, massaging her throat. "I don't think I've ever been more appreciative of the way you usually talk around things."

"Wait wait wait," Ginny said, stumbling forward and barely managing not to trip over the hem of her dress. "What was that? What's going on?"

Luna rolled her eyes. "Sunset was silly and gave her name to the fae," she informed her friend. "Things happened, her name is now my eye, and that's why she's my familiar."

Ginny's head swiveled to look at Titania in horror, because the seelie queen had just said moments ago that she had connected her to Harry Potter in the same way.

"You did that to me?!" she said, eyes wide in horror. "You made me Harry Potter's slave?!" she said, and yes, it was definitely horror and not any other more questionable emotions.

"Oh, no, not at all," Titania casually answered. "I'd have needed your name to do that, and honestly, I still have no idea how that one did what she did in using it as an eye," she said, pointing at Luna. "I did my best to kinda make it look like it, though."

"...And what does that mean for me?" she asked, slightly relieved, but still waiting for the other horseshoe to drop.

"I have no idea!" Titania cheerfully replied.

"...What?" Ginny said, blinking.

The seelie queen was entirely unashamed, and quite joyful over the matter. "None whatsoever! I just know that it will count as a familiar bond to the humans. It will be so very interesting to see what happens!"

Ginny didn't have an answer to that, and neither did Sunset. Luna seemed to be pondering the question internally, which was fair; she was probably the only one of them that could make so much as an educated guess, and Sunset was curious to know what it was that her right eye could see.

"Anyway," Titania said, filling the silence. "I did make a deal, and it's really about time that I finished it."

Ginny tried to back off in panic, but as prophesized she tripped on her ill-fitting dress and ended up on her backside as the seelie queen approached her. "Wait, now, hold on a second!" she said, waving her hooves in front of her.

"Nope," she said, then followed it up with, "Boop," as she booped the young pegasus on the nose, sending her backwards into a portal that only seemed to exist for the exact length of time it took Ginny to go through it.

The other side of the portal was dark and visible only for a fraction of a second, but now Sunset was left wondering why Ginny had wanted to go to school with a scrawny, underfed boy anyway.

Author's Note

Well, I had to eventually decide what to do with Ginny, and this is where it went. Probably not what people were expecting, but that's not a bad thing, and it does several things that help, not the least of which is helping actually involve Harry in things. If anyone was hoping we'd be getting to Hogwarts in the next chapter... I'm afraid that's just not going to happen. All the expected Ginny scenes aside, someone also has to tell Mrs. Weasley what happened to their daughter, and unless they think it's a good idea to get Titania to do it, that just leaves Sunset and Luna.

In all seriousness, though, I know that fics spending way too much time pre-Hogwarts is a thing that people complain about, but as long as interesting things are happening, is it really that big of a deal? It'd be an issue if I was trying to cram everything into the original book wordcount (we're basically there already), but this is closer to serial fiction anyway. I'd be curious to know what people's thoughts are on the matter, though. I know the trip to Faerie wasn't the most popular chapter and a half, and that is one of the things I considered in deciding to bring Faerie to Ginny rather than send Ginny to Faerie.

Chapter 8

⁂

Of all the ways that Ginny Weasley had imagined meeting Harry Potter, getting dropped on top of him in a cramped, dimly lit space was not one that she had imagined.

...Well, okay, depending on how you interpreted things, that wasn't quite true, but she was finding the experience significantly less cozy than she had expected, so she wasn't counting it.

As if that wasn't bad enough, though, it was only a fraction of a moment later that the portal that she had come through closed and 'dimly lit' became 'completely blind' as the two of them were cast into what seemed to be pitch darkness to her daylight-attuned eyes.

It wasn't long before she was glad for the darkness, though, because it was beginning to sink in that she was in a dark space with the Harry Potter. Also, she'd lost her dress at some point in her tumbling, so she was naked in a dark space with Harry Potter. Admittedly, he hadn't looked like much in the short glance that she'd gotten of him, but that could easily be explained as one of the variety of challenging circumstances that Harry Potter always got into in the books. She'd read them all, you see, and there weren't many that didn't involve him getting into some sort of unpleasant situation at some point of the story.

That said, having some idea what might be going on didn't really change the fact that it was going on. She'd never thought all that much about what it would actually be like to be personally drudging through a South American jungle or captured and trapped by Egyptian cultists, and she wasn't enjoying the experience, especially so soon after being turned into a winged pony of some sort.

Yes, she remembered that Luna had called her a snorkack. No, she wasn't going to call herself that. Ginny had long ago developed a certain level of tolerance for her friend's quirky ideas, but that really hadn't really been up to Luna's typical standards considering Ginny didn't even have a horn, crumpled or not, and she'd been called out on it.

What to call herself was not the important thing right now, though. The important thing was that she still barely knew her hooves from her elbows and she was all tangled up and naked with a bony, knobbly boy, even if that boy was Harry Potter. Really, you'd think that that would excuse a lot, but with his heel lodged under her ribs, she couldn't even come up with a more attractive way to put it.

Groaning, Ginny struggled to orient herself in the dark and untangle herself from the internationally famous boy hero. It didn't go as well as she would have liked, and she was pretty sure she elbowed him in the ribs two or three times in her attempts to get free until he physically stopped her.

"Woah, there, uh... girl?" Harry Potter said, his voice scratchy from disuse. Ginny blushed at being manhandled, halting all her twisting and jostling almost as a side effect. Unintentional or not, once Ginny had stopped squirming, Harry Potter slowly loosened his grip in increments, eventually releasing his surprisingly wiry grip from her bare shoulders.

Once he was reassured that Ginny wasn't going to do him any further harm, his hands found her head and he began patting her, which seemed like a strange thing for a young boy to do immediately after meeting someone, but what did she know?

"There, now, girl..." he said, entirely too conscious of how awkward it was to call her that. His voice quavered with uncertainty even as he continued to pat her on the head. Ginny wanted to tell him what her name was, but the words refused to come out because Harry Potter was patting her on the head and stroking her hair and that wasn't something that she was at all prepared for.

"Did that really just happen?" he asked, distinctly bemused. "I suppose it must have, being that whatever it is is still happening, you being here and all," he reasoned, sounding almost as if he was talking to himself. Well, that wasn't exactly unreasonable, she supposed, considering how vocal she wasn't being.

The mood was instantly ruined when Harry Potter began scratching underneath her muzzle and it suddenly dawned on Ginny that he thought she was an animal.

Because, you know, she was an animal.

"I have a name, you know," Ginny dryly informed him. "It's Ginny Weasley."

It did not go at all as planned.

Ginny had expected the cool and suave reaction of a seasoned boy who had been on uncountable adventures. Maybe he would give a casual response, or suddenly get his serious face on as he tried to decide if this creature that had been thrown in with him was friend or foe. Ginny couldn't see his face, so she didn't know what the expression was that crossed it in the moments right after she'd spoken, but it didn't really matter as he exploded into motion, scrabbling away from her.

"You're—!" he all but yelled, then got distinctly quieter. "You talked!" he hissed.

Ginny would have liked to have responded with a clever one-liner like the girls in the books always did, but she found it rather difficult, crammed as she was into an even smaller space one one end of whatever tiny, awkwardly-shaped room it was that they were tucked away in. Forget speaking, she was folded up under something wooden to the point that breathing was an issue, and it took more than a short moment for her to wiggle her way free, gasping for breath.

Harry too was gasping for breath, though he quieted long before Ginny had recovered herself. "...I don't know why I'm surprised," he admitted. "I mean, that makes sense, doesn't it? It's not the first time I've talked to an animal, after all."

Ginny supposed that was true; there were plenty of animals in the books that had talked and he'd never responded quite so violently before. Maybe it was different when you were in a cramped, dark space petting something, though.

"...Sorry," he said. "Ginny Weasley, you said? I've never thought I'd meet an animal with a last name," he admitted.

"Well, I wasn't an animal ten minutes ago!" Ginny hotly insisted, one hand—or a hoof, rather—gravitating to a tender spot on her stomach. Had Harry Potter kicked her? The longer this went on, the further and further things seemed to drift from anything she'd ever imagined meeting Harry Potter to be like.

Harry Potter seemed to take a moment to think about that. "...That sounds nice, actually."

"Well, sure, if it was intentional, maybe!" Ginny spat. "I mean, yeah, being an animagus at ten-maybe-eleven would be cool and all, but no—that's not what happened. Instead, the sodding faerie queen had to show up at my friend's house right out of the blue and just wouldn't take 'no' for an answer! It's not my bloody fault! I said no! I said it over and over, but she just kept on pushing until I said something just wrong enough that she could take it as a deal, and now I'm a pony-pet to the Boy Who Lived! I mean, no offense; I did want to go to Hogwarts with you, but not like this!"

The silence that followed was telling.

"...Sorry," she apologized, rubbing her face with her hands and wiping away the moisture that had gathered in her eyes, which was definitely sweat and not the hint of tears. "Sorry for the ranting and the swearing. I know this is probably just business as usual for you after everything you've done, but it's not business as usual for me. All I wanted was to go to school a little early, and now I'm a slave, not even human and stuck—where even are we? Some kind of crawl space? Are you hiding from dark wizards or something? On a scale from one to thirteen, how much danger are we in?"

The previous silence returned for a moment before Harry Potter finally asked, "...Did you hit your head?"

Ginny blinked, not that it did her any good. Her eyes were beginning to adjust, but she could still only see the barest hints of shape in the dark. "I mean, yeah, a bit when you kicked me into the corner. Why, though? Are we going to have to run? Because my head is fine but I've only just gotten four legs, so that's not gonna happen. Might be I could fly, though."

"Look, uhh, Ginny," Harry Potter said, searching out the right words for the situation. "I have no idea who you think I am or what you think is going on, but I think you're confused."

Ginny opened her mouth, paused as the words failed to come to her mouth, then made a connection she should have made the instant she got a flash of the scrawny, weedy looking boy. "Oh thank Merlin," she blurted out, nearly collapsing on herself in relief. "You're not Harry Potter, then. Titania said she was sending me to him, so he must be nearby—probably coming to save you or something? He does that sort of thing."

The vague impression of a shadow that was the unnamed boy shifted in place. "Um, no, I am Harry Potter," he said. "I don't do... anything like that, though, and this is the cupboard under the stairs in my aunt's house. I've had weird things happen to me before, but if you weren't a talking pony I'd think you were mad. You are a talking pony, though, so maybe I'm mad. I figure after being locked in here for three weeks, it's about time."

"Stop," Ginny interrupted. "Stop talking. You're starting to remind me of my friend, and while I love her like a sister, you don't pull it off nearly so well." Ginny took a breath and went back over things, her heart sinking with each passing second. "...Your name really is Harry Potter?" she asked.

"Yes," the boy responded.

"...And you've never even heard of magic?" Ginny said, dreading the confirmation

"Well, I've heard of it, sure," he said. "But it's not real—I mean, I'm not stupid, you're a talking pony and talking about magic, so I guess it must be, but it's not real as far as anything I've ever heard before... Especially in this house."

Well, that was just great. "What do you mean, 'especially in this house'?"

"Well, just that my aunt and uncle have always been really very vehement about magic not existing," he said. "Which, now that I say it out loud, does sound rather suspicious knowing magic apparently does exist. I just figured that it was more of their insistence on being seen as 'normal.' No, wait, that's probably related too, isn't it? The things you learn about your family when you're visited by a magical talking pony in the night."

"It's not night," Ginny informed him, because that was apparently the part of what he'd said that her mind had grabbed onto. "It was mid-afternoon at best."

"Oh," the boy said, sounding a little downcast. "I guess I did see that when you arrived. I was hoping it was closer to dinner."

Ginny's head swam with the implications. Well, implication. There was only one, really, and it was more of an inescapable conclusion.

"You're not Harry Potter,"

"I am, though?"

"You're not the Harry Potter that rides dragons and goes on adventures."

"Oh... well, no, I suppose not."

"Bollocks."

⁂

"Well," Sunset said, staring at the spot where Ginny and the brief portal had been, which was now an empty spot on the dirt road leading up to the Lovegood home. "I guess that's that." Neither Luna or Titania had anything to add to that, so she gave into her curiosity and asked, "So, who is this Harry Potter kid anyway? He didn't look like anything special."

"I have absolutely no idea," Titania confidently declared, sounding ever so proud of herself.

Sunset frowned, looking over to the seelie queen with mingled curiosity and exasperation. "How do you know you got the right Harry Potter, then?"

Titania dismissed the matter with a wave of her carapaced hoof. "Oh, don't worry about that. It's the right one," she insisted. "Some things transcend language."

Sunset had her doubts. "Really? Because I kinda got the impression that everything you do is rooted in exactly that kind of language trickery." The whole 'give me your name,' thing was an obvious example.

"Perhaps," Luna said, one finger pressed to her cheek in thought. "Queen Titania is just annoyed she didn't think of it first."

"Oh, I absolutely did," Titania insisted. "That would have been more work, though, as I'd have to give another Harry Potter magic."

Sunset raised an eyebrow at the seelie queen. "Is efficiency really a part of it?" she asked, actually curious. "How much magic did it take to conjure up my—" It was only as she was about to say it that Sunset realized that it was maybe not the best idea to mention her ascension into an alicorn in a conversation about efficiency, considering she'd stolen it.

Or at all, really.

If it bothered Titania, though, it didn't show on her face. Sunset suspected that that didn't mean much, however. "That?" Titania said, thinking back to what had been at least a year for the seelie queen, if she even experienced time in the same way. "Oh, it would have been much harder, actually. Humans with magic are remarkably similar to those without in all the biological ways, but magic-wise, bridging that gap takes a lot."

"You, on the other hoof," she continued, taking relish in using the ponyism. "Already had the seed of your ascension inside of you. As magical as you already are, it's not so different from changing the color of someone's hair."

Sunset frowned, somewhat disquieted. Being that so much of her recent life had centered around her ascension, thinking that it was cheap... well, cheapened it and her achievement.

Not that it actually represented an achievement of anything. Maybe an argument could be made that it was an achievement in the art of thievery—but realistically it hadn't even been that, as her thievery had been completely artless.

"Wait," Sunset said, her mind having caught on something. "Where does turning that Ginny girl into a pegasus pony fall on the scale, then?" she asked. "If me being magical is so different from the humans, wouldn't turning her into a pony be a huge deal?"

"Ah, but she already had the spark of magic in her, so it really wasn't all that much," Titania claimed.

Sunset eyed the seelie queen suspiciously, wondering if she was being honest. Luna had said that she couldn't lie, but phrases like 'not that much' could be stretched nearly endlessly.

She couldn't help herself, though; she wanted to know. "So, now that she's a pony, does that mean that you could make her an alicorn?"

"Sunset!" Luna hissed in warning.

Sunset scanned the area for anything that might have snuck up on them, but the entire area was pleasantly peaceful to an almost absurd degree. Really, the most dangerous thing present was the seelie queen, who was standing right next to them. Honestly, most any danger she could imagine in an idyllic countryside like this could hardly be worse than taking her eyes off Titania.

Coming up empty, Sunset turned to Luna with a questioning look. "What?" she asked, only to realize that Luna had her face buried in her hands in embarrassment.

"I think what the dear sweet child is warning you about is that you were perilously close to asking me to do something," Titania said, her mouth spread wide into a sharklike grin.

Sunset blinked, thought back to what she'd said and blanched. "Oh. Right," she said and proceeded to do what she always does when she's reminded of one of her mistakes: change the subject. "...Is that really all there is to it? The girl got the real thing because screwing her over would have been harder?"

"Not at all!" Titania beamed happily. "I also got the impression that this was funnier, and getting to find out why will only make it better."

Sunset didn't know what she had expected. "Of course," she said with a sigh. This time, when she looked to Luna, it was with a growing level of frustration at the situation. "So, who is this Harry Potter kid, anyway?"

Luna cocked her head in thought and said, "Oh, I'm fairly certain that he doesn't exist."

Sunset's train of thought was brought up short at that. "I'm pretty sure he does, considering we just saw him."

"Well," Luna said, "Ten years ago, the wizarding world was in the middle of a war; things were terribly bad, and we were on the brink of losing to the forces of darkness."

"Wait, hold on a second," Sunset said, interrupting. "Your current government—the one that erases people's memories and has that abominable statue in the entryway to their government building—they were the good guys in this war? As in, the other side was worse?"

Without hesitation, Luna nodded, and said, "Yes," though after a moment she reconsidered and said, "But also no."

"I'm glad we got that cleared up," Sunset dryly remarked.

Titania, for her part, was sitting tidily with her front hooves planted on the ground, leaning forward with eager anticipation. "Go on," she urged.

"The dark lord of the time was a nasty, horrible man whose favorite spell is what we call the 'Killing Curse.'"

"What does it do?" Titania asked.

Luna was momentarily flummoxed. "It... kills people? I think so, anyway, or lots of very bad people will be very cross that all of their victims were just pretending so as not to embarrass them."

Titania rolled her eyes. "Yes, yes, but how? Does it attack the magic? The soul? Or is it just a very involved method of transforming a person's insides into outsides?"

"I'm eleven," Luna said, which Sunset thought was a reasonable excuse for not knowing how a death curse works. "But it never fails and doesn't leave a mark."

"I see," Titania mused, not at all disappointed, but clearly thinking on the matter.

Sunset did not find this reassuring, and silently urged Luna to continue and hopefully distract the seelie queen from ever coming back to that train of thought.

"The war wasn't one of armies and battle lines, but fought in everyday places such as marketplaces and people's residences. They say that the dark lord of the time, after being thwarted one too many times by James and Lily Potter, tracked them down to their home in Godric's Hollow.

"Harry Potter's parents died that night—but not Harry Potter. Only a year old, Harry Potter was little more than a baby at the time, and the dark lord did not shy away from killing babies. He cast the infallible killing curse on the child... and it failed."

"Yeah, makes sense," Sunset said matter-of-factly, finding nothing at all strange about the statement, much to Luna's consternation.

"The infallible killing curse failed," Luna repeated, hands fisted on her hips as she glared at Sunset.

Sunset nodded. "Yep. That'll happen."

"It's not supposed to fail," Luna explained. "It's never failed before."

"Yeah, but foals are terrifying like that," Sunset told her. "Seriously, their magic can do anything. Literally anything. Especially the impossible. They don't know any better. Princess Celestia made me foalsit once as a punishment and I swear that that earth pony teleported every time I took my eyes off her. I mean, foal magic isn't usually as dangerous as all that, but foals also aren't usually faced with defending themselves from their parents' murderer."

"I'm trying to tell a story, Sunset," Luna chided.

Sunset rolled her eyes. "Right, right—fine—the foal was saved by harmony magic and the power of love; that works too."

Luna nodded and went back to telling the story. "Somehow, the Dark Lord's killing curse turned back on him, and he was vanquished, leaving Harry Potter a scar in the shape of a lightning bolt above his right eye and earning him the title of the Boy Who Lived. From then on, Harry Potter has led a charmed life, almost as if escaping death once has left death unable to find him again—and what does a young boy do when freed from fate and destiny? To find out you'll have to read his published works, which you can pick up at Flourish & Blotts for only a handful of sickles."

"So... they're story books?" Sunset asked, taking the hint.

"Well," Luna said. "That's the thing, isn't it? The dark lord did exist and he did disappear ten years ago after going after the Potters. Harry Potter even exists and survived the experience. Did he ride a dragon at the age of five, though, or save a herd of unicorns from an evil cult when he was seven? Some seem to think so."

"You don't?" Sunset asked. "I mean, I got into worse trouble than that when I was a filly, and I didn't have some sort of get-out-of-death-free card. Remind me to tell you about when I caught the griffon ambassador of the time smuggling liquid rainbow to the yaks under the guise of having an affair. I mean, I guess that's more of a corporate espionage sort of thing, but it's not that different."

"Liquid rainbow?" Luna asked curiously, and Titania seemed just as interested; she was taking notes, in fact, and her hoofwriting was better than Sunset's best hornwriting.

"Sure," Sunset said. "I don't know what the yaks wanted with it, really; it's not like they're going to spin up their own weather factory. Yakyakistan is in the mountains so they do have the necessary altitude, but they're yaks. I'm not saying I put much stock in stereotypes, but there's a reason you don't trust yaks with anything delicate. Maybe one of them is weird and likes it on their food? It's technically edible, I guess, but you'd have to have a tongue like a rubber balloon to enjoy it."

If Sunset was any judge, the look on Titania's face pretty much guaranteed she was going to try it as soon as equinely possible. That was her prerogative, though. There was a reason that Sunset knew what rainbows tasted like, herself, after all. Everyone tries it once—and usually only once.

Luna hmmed, thinking over Sunset's story. "Well, the thing about Harry Potter is that not a lot of people have ever actually seen him," she said. "That's not unusual for a lot of the things that daddy and I have looked for, but it is more than a bit unusual for a celebrity, I think."

"And that did not look like a celebrity," Sunset added.

"And that did not look like a celebrity," Luna agreed.

Sunset considered the matter. "He kinda looked more like an orphan, to be honest."

"He is an orphan," Luna observed. "His parents are dead."

"That's not—" Sunset let out a groan. "I mean the kind of orphan that's—look, it doesn't matter. As an ex-orphan, I know what I'm talking about."

"How do you become an ex-orphan?" Luna wondered. "Did your parents come back to life?"

Sunset sighed. "No, I was adopted by the crown."

"Didn't you get kicked out, though?" Luna pointed out. "I'd think that would make you an orphan again."

"Not officially," Sunset insisted. "Technically, I was released from my mentorship, but not actually disowned. Besides, I'm old enough that it doesn't count any more. You're more of an orphan right now than I am."

"I am not an orphan," Luna insisted. "I'm sure that daddy will be back any day now."

"Sure," Sunset said, not wanting to get into that discussion. "But until then, you're an orphan."

Luna shook her head. "Nope. I've been adopted by the crown," she declared.

"How does that work?" Sunset asked.

"Well, if you say you're still technically a member, then so am I as you've adopted me," Luna said.

"I'm not sure Princess Celestia would agree," Sunset said, then stopped and realized what she was saying. "No, scratch that, she absolutely would. Ugh. This is what I get for taking on responsibility."

"You know, speaking of responsibility..." Luna said, trailing off with a thoughtful lilt to her voice.

Sunset groaned. "I'm not going to like this, am I?"

"Someone really ought to tell the Weasleys that Ginny has been snorkackified."

"Not it," Sunset instantly declared.

"Not it," Titania followed along remarkably quickly.

Luna blinked, but she was too late in following along. "Not—oh, poo."

Sunset gave her a look. "Did you really think that it would have been a good idea for one of us to do it anyway?"

Luna crossed her arms and looked at one of them, then the other. "You know, that's fair," she admitted, and immediately began to walk down the dirt road in what Sunset could only assume was the direction of the Weasley house.

Titania cleared her throat, which had a distinct buzzing to it. "And just where do you think you're going, young lady?"

Luna froze, but couldn't seem to come up with anything to say but, "...To the Weasleys?"

"Not without your knife, you're not," the seelie queen scolded her. "Now go back upstairs and equip yourself properly."

Luna groaned, but soon disappeared inside to do as she was told.

⁂

After Ginny had explained Harry Potter to the boy who was supposedly also named Harry Potter, said boy remained unconvinced. "...Are you sure the Harry Potter you're talking about is a real person?" he asked. "Because I've read books like that, too, but none of the people in them are actually real."

Ginny scoffed, but she supposed that he didn't know any better. "Just like magic isn't real?" she said, and he shut up at that. "Of course Harry Potter is real; this isn't ancient history pieced together from tomes and tombs; the war was only ten years ago, and if Harry Potter didn't exist, it might never have even ended. That means he has to exist. I mean, the books probably aren't word-for-word accurate or anything—they're storybooks—but those things happened."

"Those things could have been done by someone else, though," the boy argued.

Ginny shook her head. "It's not like you could mistake someone else for him. He's got the scar and everything."

"Err," the boy said, somehow not immediately convinced and having to think about it, which was just ridiculous. There wasn't a single hole in her argument. She supposed, though, that muggleborns would probably need to get used to the idea of magic existing, and she was dropping this whole thing on him on top of it. Maybe she was expecting too much.

"It's fine, take your time," Ginny said, letting out a sigh as she 'looked' around the cupboard. Aside from a thin band of light around the door, there wasn't much to see, though she was beginning to be able to see the general shape of the space. "It's not like I'm going anywhere."

"Um, about that..." the boy said. Then, realizing that he might not be being clear enough, he clarified, "The scar, I mean. You said it's above his right eye?"

"Uh-huh," Ginny said, only too happy to talk about her personal hero.

For some reason, he seemed hesitant to ask, "And it's shaped like a lightning bolt?"

"Yep," she confirmed.

The silence that followed was broken by the quietest whisper, only audible because the cupboard was dead silent otherwise. "...My aunt and uncle told me I got it in a car crash."

Ginny's felt like she'd skipped a page, there, only this was real life. "Huh?" she asked, not sure how what she'd heard made any sense.

"My scar," he said. "My aunt and uncle told me I got it in a car crash when my parents were killed."

Ginny frowned. "...You have a scar?" she asked.

"Yes, shaped like a lightning bolt," he claimed.

That just wasn't possible. "...You're lying," she insisted, growing hostile. "You have to be."

"I'm not," he retorted, a bit of indignance showing through the meekness he'd shown so far.

"Come here," Ginny said, grabbing him by his threadbare shirt and pulling him towards her. She didn't even realize that she'd somehow managed to do so with her hoof until the other one hit the boy in the face.

"Ow!" he cried out, pulling away from Ginny. "I'm not lying! You don't need to hit me!"

"...Sorry," Ginny sheepishly apologized, because she really hadn't meant to do that. "I didn't mean to hit you; I just wanted to feel your face, and I forgot I have hooves."

"You forgot you have hooves?" he asked, very much unconvinced. "How do you forget you have hooves?"

"I told you, I've only been a winged pony since just before I got sent here." Ginny reminded him, miffed at having to do so because, really, this was hard enough on her as it was.

"Right," he said, not sounding all that mollified, and Ginny thought she could see his silhouette rubbing his cheek. "Just... give me your hoof, then, and I'll show you."

Ginny pointlessly rolled her eyes in the dark, but decided she might as well go along with it if it would solve whether or not he was lying. She could almost imagine that she was standing someplace romantic giving the real Harry Potter her hand rather than being stuck in a dirty cupboard offering her hoof to some boy she didn't even know.

For his part, the boy was gentle enough in guiding her hoof to his forehead, and she felt...

...

"Well?" the boy asked, and...

...

"You can't actually feel anything with those hooves, can you?" he guessed.

"...No," Ginny admitted, removing her hoof from the boy's forehead and experimentally rubbing her forehooves against each other. "I mean, I can, but it's like I'm wearing Bill's old dragonhide gloves."

"Bill?" the boy asked, then seemed even more alarmed when he realized she'd said, "Dragonhide?"

"My oldest brother," she explained. "And yes, dragonhide is what they use when making potions and... lots of things, really. Dragon hide resists magic and is really tough besides, so it's what you want for almost anything to do with magic or anything not to do with magic."

The boy shook his head. "Sorry, I'm still catching up to the fact that magic is real. If magic and dragons are real, what else is real? Are unicorns real? Are they all tiny, like you?"

Ginny was going to scoff and say no, of course not, and also she wasn't tiny, but then she remembered Queen Titania and the one that was Luna's familiar, and she didn't know exactly what to say about that.

"Ugh," she groaned, getting the idea that this was going to be a real headache. "Let me explain..."

⁂

"...And then Queen Titania pushed her through the portal to Harry Potter," Luna said, finishing up her longwinded explanation of the whole situation.

The boy that had been introduced as Ron Weasley stared blankly back at Luna long enough for it to become awkward before he yelled at the top of his lungs, "Muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuum!"

There was a rattling from inside the house, before a woman's voice called back, "What is it, Ronnie dear?"

"Ginny sold eleven days of her life to the fae to go to Hogwarts as Harry Potter's familiar!" he shouted back.

"What was that, honey?" Molly Weasley asked, wiping her hands with a dish rag as she came out the door. "You should try harder to get along with your sister, you know. There's only another month and a half before she's going to be here on her own."

"She's not, though," Ron said. "Didn't you hear what I said?"

Molly shook her head. "Something about your sister and Harry Potter I gather, but no, I had the dishes putting themselves away and couldn't hear you." It was only then that she seemed to notice that they had company. "Oh, hello, Luna dear. Isn't Ginny with you? I swear I heard her shout that she was going over to your place as she tore out of here not half an hour ago. Honestly, that girl."

Ron looked briefly embarrassed to have a mother. "No, mom. Ginny isn't with her. I just said: she sold eleven days of her life to the fae to go to Hogwarts as Harry Potter's familiar."

Molly Weasley didn't look happy to hear that. "Really now, Ronald," she said, unhappy with her youngest son. "There's no need to make up stories to get your sister in trouble."

Luna cleared her throat to get the Weasley matriarch's attention. "I'm afraid it's true, Mrs. Weasley," she informed her. "And allow me to introduce to you Sunset Shimmer and Queen Titania."

Molly Weasley looked briefly alarmed, then calmed herself and became distinctly irate. "Luna Lovegood," she said, giving the young girl a severe scolding. "I'm not one to tell you what you can name your pets, but that is not funny. Mentioning Her at all is in poor taste, but that is entirely out of line. I know that most people don't think of the Fae very much any more, but you of all people should know better. You might as well have called it You Know Who—at least he is dead."

"Who?" Sunset asked, but her question went unnoticed when the seelie queen stepped forward looking entirely too pleased with herself.

"Well, well, well," Titania said, grinning ear to ear. "It's good to see that I haven't been forgotten—but one does also like to be recognized. All the effort spent on gaining the proper respect for a name is wasted if you don't recognize the thing for what it is when it's right in front of you... especially when we've met before, Molly Prewitt."

Molly Weasley paled, clutching the dishrag to her chest as her wide eyes focused on the seelie queen. "No... it can't be... You don't look anything like her."

"Oh, this?" Titania said, stretching her foreleg out in front of herself and looking it over with appreciation. "It's the latest fashion, you know; it's all the rage back in Faerie and don't you know it, I think it's catching on here as well."

Molly Weasley took a step back, looking distinctly distressed. Looking around, her eyes latched onto Sunset and she asked, "Ginny?"

"Ah, not as such, no, sorry," Sunset apologized.

"Mum," Ron said, pulling on his mother's skirt from behind her. "I tried to tell you; Ginny traded eleven days of her life to go to Hogwarts with Harry Potter as his familiar."

If it was possible, Molly Weasley got even more distressed on hearing that, looking to Titania with panic and concern, looking very much like she wanted to say something unkind, but knew better than to upset the seelie queen. Biting her lip, she hesitated, then disappeared back inside the house without a word.

"...Well, that was helpful," Sunset remarked. Looking to Luna, she asked, "Where do you suppose she's going?"

It was Ron that actually responded. "Off to floo Dumbledore, probably," he guessed. "Since it's Harry Potter and all."

"Dumbledore was the headmaster?" Sunset asked Luna, who nodded.

"Yes," she said. "And a few other things as well."

Sunset supposed that made sense. In the absence of any orphanage or child welfare system, which had come up in regards to Luna, the headmaster of the school would probably be the one to ask. From the way Ron had said it, though, she got the impression that there was more of a sense of leadership to it than that; something to do with these other positions, maybe?

Ron, though, had other things on his mind. Shuffling awkwardly in place and studying his feet at first, he eventually managed to work up the courage to meet Titania's eyes and ask, "You really know my mum?"

Titania smiled, eager to respond, but before she could do so, the door to the Weasley home opened up and Molly grabbed her son.

The only thing that they heard before the door closed again was, "Honestly, Ronald—"

⁂

"...Huh," the boy said, taking it all in. "So not only is magic real, but dragons and unicorns and even fairies are real too."

Ginny was almost enjoying the simple awe that the boy had in hearing about things that seemed mundane to her.

"You know," he said, sounding thoughtful. "I've hardly ever been allowed to see much of the world outside this house, except for school. I always imagined that the rest of the world must be so much better, but I never imagined that there was a whole secret magical world besides—and other worlds, too. You really met Queen Titania?"

Ginny's mood turned rather sour at having the boy's awe focused in the direction of faeries. Faeries were, she thought, not something to be thought nicely of. "Yes, but you shouldn't take the fae lightly. They're dangerous; I mean, I knew what I was doing and still look at me."

"Well, yeah, I know; I don't know what's on the telly, but I got to read some of the old fairy tales in the library, once—I don't think the teachers really realized what it was; my aunt and uncle certainly didn't, or they'd have had it burned—but I know they do things like steal babies and leave changelings in their place."

Ginny nodded in fierce agreement. "Yes. They're best avoided."

There was a shuffling in the dark that Ginny thought might be a shrug. "Sure, if you're normal, I guess," he said. "I kind of envied the kids in those stories, though. If the kids are taken away from loving parents, then that's awful—but that's never applied to me. Not since I was a baby, anyway. It couldn't really be worse than living in a cupboard or getting locked out of the house for Christmas dinner every year."

Something inside of Ginny was appalled, but it was silenced by the part of her that didn't want to give an inch of favor to the fae. "The problem with the fae is that whatever you think you're getting, you're not. Maybe being kidnapped would have been better for you in theory, but they don't make things better."

"I guess if I was this other Harry Potter that you told me about, then maybe I would agree, but even if you took me to the top of a tower, locked me in a cage and fed me scraps from the kennels, it might still be better than here. At least I might get some fresh air, then, and sometimes all I get to eat is what I can sneak when I'm cooking for them."

Okay, that appalled bit was getting stronger now, but still. "I think they only reserve that sort of thing for actual princesses, or at least girls. At least, I've never heard of a boy being locked up in a tower."

"They're fairies," the boy pointed out. "I rather think that me being a boy is something they could work around if they really wanted a girl to put in a tower."

That, Ginny had to admit, was true, and it rather proved her point, didn't it? "There, see?" she said, triumphant. "Even when you think you've got what you want, they'd do something like that and it'd be terrible for you."

The silhouette that was the boy in the cupboard with her thought about it, then shook his head. "No, I don't think I'd mind. It'd still be worth it."

"Wait, what?" Ginny didn't know how to take that. That just wasn't something a boy would usually say. "You think you'd be fine if they turned you into a girl?"

"Well," he said, giving it a thought. "It can't be that bad, can it? Girls manage it just fine."

Ginny crossed her arms to keep herself from strangling this boy. "It's harder than you think," she insisted. "They smother you and coddle you and... and..." It was only after she'd started talking that she realized that her own frustrations with being a girl sounded really, really shallow in her current situation. "...And, err, they make you help with the cooking..."

"Which I do anyway, and probably wouldn't be doing if the fairies took me," he said. "Look, I get what you're saying and it's not like I want to be a girl or anything; I just don't see that if I was being chained up in a tower that it would really make much difference."

Ginny was dumbstruck. Sure, she'd joked to herself about taking Ron's place earlier that day, but that was different. There were actual benefits to being a boy and—wait, this was all stupid anyway.

How had they even gotten onto the subject of children being taken by the fae... and... replaced...

Ginny froze as a stray thought struck her.

"What if you're a decoy?" she asked.

The boy didn't quite follow what she was saying, at first. "Huh?" he said, thoroughly perplexed. "You mean... what if I'm actually a fairy they left behind?"

"No, no, not the fae," Ginny said, waving her hand in dismissal and realizing she could really actually kind of see it pretty well by now. The boy, too, she could pretty much make out the face of, and it really struck her that as far as she could see in the dark he did actually look a lot like the pictures that she'd seen of the real Harry Potter, round glasses, scar and all. "Someone else."

Seeing it all together suddenly made her even more certain of her wild flight of fancy.

"What if you're not just some muggleborn that happens to have the same name as Harry Potter?" Ginny said, leaning and lowering her voice like she was sharing a great secret—and, you know what? Maybe she was. "What if someone actually left you here as a decoy? A fake Harry Potter to distract everyone from the real one?"

The boy was just as speechless at her for a moment, then shook his head violently. "No. No, that can't be. No one would actually do something like that."

"Really," Ginny wheedled, scooting closer as her mind worked to solidify the idea in her head. "Nothing in your life suggests that you're being set up? This doesn't all seem like too much of a coincidence? You're practically the archetypical orphan boy, here—just what you'd expect if they wanted to convince people that the real Harry Potter wasn't all that special after all; that he couldn't possibly have done all those things."

The boy was clearly resistant to the idea, then a flash of something crossed his face and he scowled even harder.

"No," he repeated.

Ginny refused to let it go. "You thought of something," she said, grinning.

"Look—just because I didn't know my name until I went to school doesn't mean anything," he insisted.

"School?" Ginny said, remembering that she'd heard Percy mention that muggleborn kids went to muggle schools before Hogwarts. "How old was that?"

"Well, I didn't get to go to reception since it's not required," he said, and Ginny had no idea what that meant. "So I started in primary when I was... five?"

Ginny lit up, which was probably an entirely inappropriate thing to do, given the situation, but that wasn't important right now. "You didn't know your name until you were five?" she said.

"My aunt and uncle always just called me 'boy,'" he said, hesitated, then whispered, "...or 'freak.'"

Ginny nearly choked on her tongue. She didn't think she was supposed to hear that, but crammed together in such a small space as they were, they could hardly even swallow without the other one hearing it. She wanted to ask him if that didn't seem suspicious, but for once in her life felt like pushing the matter just then wasn't the right thing to do.

Instead, she thought about it and said, "Well, if I'm right—and I think I am—then they're probably not even really your aunt and uncle.

"...Is that really better?" he asked. "Because, that'd mean it was intentional. And how would that even work?"

Ginny threw her arms up in the air, only managing not to bang them on the ceiling of the cupboard because they were something like half as long as they'd used to be. "I don't know!" she whisper-shouted. "I wasn't there, obviously, but maybe that's when you were put here."

"Can magic even do that?" he asked, rather uneasy. "Make me forget my name and hand me off to the worst people imaginable who suddenly think they've adopted a nephew, who by the way is named Harry Potter?"

"...Yeah, it can, actually," Ginny admitted, lowering her arms and slumping down. She didn't really like thinking about the obliviators, but when you had a father who worked at the ministry, you got to hear all sorts of things. "That's the kind of thing they do to muggles who find out about magic—they make them forget, sometimes give them new memories to explain things."

The boy's eyes widened at that, though they quickly became confused. "Muggles?" he asked.

"People like your probably-not-aunt-and-uncle," Ginny explained.

"Ah," he said, and slowly, over the course of a minute or so, all the fight seemed to drain out of him. "You really think I'm being set up as a fake Harry Potter?" he asked, one last, weak attempt to deny it.

Ginny made sure to think about it before honestly responding, "Yeah. Yeah, I think so."

"But... I don't get it," he said. "What would happen when the real Harry Potter shows up at Hogwarts?"

Ginny's train of thought stopped dead at that. "I... don't know. Does that mean that whatever they put you here as a decoy for, it's already over?"

"You mean... like people coming here to kill me?" he asked, maybe halfway between alarmed and doubtful. "I don't think that's ever happened... but come to think of it, I've had a few people come up to me and shake my hand."

"Wait, really?" Ginny asked, integrating the new information into her idea about what must be going on. "Hold on... did any of them take your picture?"

The boy furrowed his brow in thought. "Maybe?" he said. "Not openly, but I remember having to blink the spots out of my eyes once or twice when people got me on the street with a really powerful flash. That's just what it's like in London, though."

"...Is it?" Ginny asked, not knowing herself, but guessing that he had his doubts.

Of course, if he didn't have his doubts, though, he certainly did now after the idea had been put in his head. "Well, I thought it was!" he insisted. "It's not like I get to go out there to the salons every other week with my—my maybe-not-my-aunt!"

That... okay, If the photos of Harry Potter that she'd seen were actually this boy, then that just made things weird... though at least it explained how the boy looked like Harry Potter. Still, there was one bright side to this train of thought. "At least you should find out soon, if it's only until school starts."

"What if it's not, though?" he asked.

"Huh?" Ginny said, squinting in the dim light to see if there was any hint as to what he meant. "What else would happen? They're not going to have two people claiming to be the same Harry Potter."

"Would that Harry Potter actually go to Hogwarts, though?" the boy asked. "If what you said is true, it doesn't sound like he needs it."

"That... that..." That couldn't be true, could it? He had a point, though. Would the real Harry Potter go to Hogwarts? Suddenly, her heart sank as another piece fell into place. "Oh no."

"What?" the boy said, sitting straighter and giving her all of his attention. "Did something happen?"

Ginny banged her head into her... hooves. "Stupid, stupid..." Groaning, she explained, "I told Queen Titania that I wanted to go to school with Harry Potter, but if the real Harry Potter isn't going to Hogwarts..."

"...Then it was always going to be me," he reasoned, following her logic to... a conclusion.

What Ginny didn't say was that if the real Harry Potter wasn't going to Hogwarts, Titania was probably entirely capable of retroactively creating one. After everything that the boy had explained about his life, she felt sick thinking that it might in some way be because of her.

"I... I guess that's what I get for saying the wrong thing," Ginny grumbled without any real heart in it, hoping to move the conversation away from that... very awkward issue. She had heart to spare on the subject, though, so couldn't help but add, "Not that I had any choice. I didn't want to make a deal with her in the first place!"

Fortunately, the threat of returning to that subject got Harry's attention, and he decided to change the subject himself.

"So, tell me more about the wizarding world..."

⁂

Sunset's first reaction on seeing the wizard that stepped out of the floo was, "Huh, now that's a proper wizard's robe, for the most part."

Both Luna and Molly Weasley remained quiet on the subject, though the latter pursed her lips in silent distaste. The robe in question was a rich wash of blues with a sparkling depiction of the night sky along with actual gold stars and a large crescent moon hanging from the frills around his neck and waist.

Titania also didn't comment, but in her case it was because she was entirely absent. That could only be a good thing, Sunset thought, unless she'd wandered off and got involved with the other Weasley children. Maybe she would have needed to be invited in, though, or something had been done to keep her out. Come to think of it, there had been a rusty iron horseshoe hanging above the front door; was that related?

Dumbledore seemed quite pleased with Sunset's comment, though. "Why, thank you, miss...?"

Luna, normally content to stay in the background, stepped forward to introduce Sunset, as she had done previously with Ron and Molly. "Sunset Shimmer, my crumple-horned snorkack familiar." Idly, Sunset wondered if there was some societal norm prompting Luna to be the one to introduce her familiar, or if she just wanted to establish to everyone that Sunset was a crumple-horned snorkack.

"Miss Sunset Shimmer," Dumbledore finished, bowing. "If I may ask, was there something in particular you felt that my outfit is missing?"

"Well, it's the bells, mainly," Sunset explained. "Though the stars and moon are close."

Dumbledore looked intrigued. "Bells, you say?" he asked, his eyes sparkling.

"That's not important right now," Molly Weasley interrupted, to which Dumbledore looked on the surface to be quite put out, though Sunset expected it was just him having some fun. Princess Celestia hadn't been quite so openly playful, but there was a similarity.

Huh. She'd now compared both Professor McGonagall and Dumbledore to Celestia in different ways. Sunset wondered if it was them or if it was her. She didn't have all that many positive role models that she had actually respected.

Hopefully neither Professor McGonagall or Dumbledore would disappoint Sunset quite as much as her mentor had.

"Now, my dear Mrs. Weasley, " Dumbledore said, exuding a calm and reasonable manner. "What seems to be the problem? You were quite distraught over the floo."

"Professor Dumbledore, it's my daughter, Ginny—she... she..." Molly Weasley's hysteria hit a wal there, and she scrambled for an explanation that she didn't quite have. Looking to Luna, she asked, "What actually happened?"

If she expected Luna to give a great deal more information than she already had, though, she was sorely disappointed. "Well," Luna said, finger on her lips. Lifting the finger, she pointed and said, "Ginny has been turned into a snorkack—though we haven't yet had a chance to name her particular variety. She has wings, you see, so can't be a crumple-horned snorkack like Sunset."

Dumbledore, though, was anything but disappointed by Luna's description. "Ah, that does sound serious," he mused. "It will certainly make the paperwork more difficult, at least. Now, my girl, would you care to explain to me exactly how this happened."

"Well, I can't say for certain as I wasn't there," Luna said. "But a reliable source tells me that it was Titania."

Dumbledore's wide, fuzzy eyebrows widened at that. "Titania, you say? The queen of the summer court?"

"The very same," Luna agreed quite seriously.

Dumbledore hmmed, and asked, "And who, may I inquire, was your reliable source, if it's not an imposition."

"Titania, the queen of the summer court, of course," Luna cited.

"Ah, a very reliable source, then," Dumbledore agreed, nodding all the while. "And where is Miss Weasley now?"

"I have no idea," Luna declared.

Molly Weasley, whose head had been going back and forth between the two of them like a weathervane, shot up at that. "What? But you said...!"

"Well, according to a less reliable witness, she was with Harry Potter about twenty minutes ago, now," Luna pointed out. "But I'm afraid I can't say more than that with any certainty."

"And who was your less reliable witness, then?" Dumbledore asked, clearly enjoying himself while getting to the bottom of things.

"Titania, the queen of the summer court, of course," Luna repeated word for word, because of course she did.

Dumbledore's eyes shone with delight. "Of course," he agreed. "Now, Miss Lovegood, tell me..."

Five minutes later, Dumbledore had teased essentially everything out of Luna and Molly Weasley was just about at her wit's end.

"...And then she opened a portal to who she said was Harry Potter, but hardly looked the part aside from the face. And the scar. And the glasses."

"So, essentially everything?" Dumbledore suggested, though the brightness in his eyes seemed to have dimmed a bit, and not from Ginny Weasley's predicament.

"No, no, there's more to a person than a face, a scar and some glasses," Luna disagreed.

Dumbledore sighed, for a moment looking at least a portion of his age. "You would think so," he mused, almost to himself. "You would think so..."

"Professor Dumbledore, please," Molly Weasley interjected, a fearful urgency in her voice. "You know where Harry Potter is; you have to go get my daughter before something happens.

Dumbledore closed his eyes and took a breath as he stood back up from where he was bent over from talking to Luna. It was several breaths before he opened his eyes and gave Molly Weasley the most sorrowful look that Sunset had yet seen on a human. It might even have been genuine.

"I'm afraid, Molly, that I cannot do that."

"What?" the Weasley matriarch shrieked. Immediately, absolute shock turned to desperate plea. "Please, Headmaster, you must."

"My dear, forgive me for playing the grammarian for you—but I said not that I will not, but that I can not. The wards that I placed there just under ten years ago will not allow it."

"What do you mean?" Molly Weasley said, seeming almost incredulous that there was something that the old wizard couldn't do. That, too, was something that Sunset had seen many times in court back in Canterlot, as was the pain in Dumbledore's eyes in admitting it. "You're the one that put them there!"

Dumbledore nodded. "That I did," he agreed. "And, alas, as clever as I am, I thought it would be best if not even I was exempt from them."

"What do these wards do, Professor?" Luna asked, ever curious. Sunset, too, wanted to know what kind of wards would keep anyone from going to get Ginny, because it didn't sound like the problem with the idea that she was aware of.

Dumbledore looked Luna over, perhaps judging whether to say anything or not. His gaze then moved to Sunset, and she decided that that was exactly what he was doing. Whatever he was looking for, he must have found, because he next pulled a strange, knobbly wand out of his sleeve and waved it, producing a nearly deafening feeling of silence and echoes that made Sunset stumble in place and sit down before she could fall.

Dumbledore's eyes widened in surprise at this and quickly dismissed the spell. "My dear, what happened?"

Sunset shook her head like she was trying to get novocaine-soaked cotton out of her ears. "Ugh," she groaned. "My horn's been more sensitive to magic since I scraped it raw a few days ago, and that change was kind of baked in when I... never mind." She didn't need to tell him too much. Just what she'd said already could link her to the unicorn pony that escaped from the Department of Mysteries, and kindly old man or not, she didn't know him nearly well enough to trust him with even that much. "I don't know what to say. No spell that anyone has cast near me has been so completely overwhelming as that."

Dumbledore looked thoughtfully down at his wand, and Sunset couldn't tell what he was feeling. "Sunset Shimmer, you said your name was?" he asked.

"Luna did," Sunset said pedantically. "But yes."

Dumbledore nodded, then asked, "Can I ask specifically if that hurt, Miss Shimmer, or was it merely uncomfortable?"

"It was..." She considered her words. "Stifling in the most distressing way, with a suddenness that was shocking—but no, it didn't exactly hurt."

Dumbledore carefully put his strange, irregular wand away into the same sleeve he had pulled it from, then retrieved a more plain, ordinary looking wand from the other. "If I may try something? By which I mean the same thing with another wand."

Sunset tentatively nodded, and Dumbledore waved his wand again.

At first, Sunset thought that the same thing had happened, but after a few moments of not being incapacitated, she realized that while the feeling was the same, it wasn't overpowering in the same sort of way. It was still stifling, but it was something she could ignore if she wanted to; a nagging feeling of needing to pop her ears and wipe something out of her eye, but nothing more. Not a big deal for the sake of privacy, she supposed.

"Good, good," Dumbledore said with satisfaction, not seeming to need her confirmation that this was workable. "Of course, this brings us back to the matter at hand," he said with less enthusiasm.

"Professor?" Molly Weasley prompted after the explanation was just slightly too long in coming.

"There are several wards that protect Harry Potter," he said. "And I need not go into detail about them all. One of them, which I was quite proud of at the time, could only ever be erected once at that place and time, and so I endeavored to ensure that it did not go to waste, which might have happened if, for instance, the tenants of the house had decided to move. The ward also has several blind spots, which I sought to account for through the casting of more spells, and I'm afraid that the combination has become both far less and far more effective than I had intended, as I am no wardmaster or cursebreaker.

"The reason, Mrs. Weasley, that I cannot retrieve your daughter, is that anyone who attempts to remove Harry Potter from his home is prevented from doing so, usually with the gentlest of nudges, but less so against a determined aggressor—and if the young Miss Weasley is, in fact, Harry's familiar, that protection will have certainly spread to her. Familiar bonds manifest in many various ways, but it is a connection that runs as deep as that of blood."

"What about just bringing down the wards?" Molly Weasley asked. "It's been ten years since the war ended; surely they're no longer necessary, and with enough time... If—if it's money, then I'm sure..."

Dumbledore raised his hand to stop the Weasley Matriarch from embarrassing herself with her desperate rambling. "I maintain, as I always have, that the threat that Voldemort poses yet remains," he said, and Sunset noticed that when he said, 'Voldemort,' Molly Weasley cringed like she'd bitten down on a pebble in the grass. Curiously, even the ever-placid Luna didn't quite manage to hide her wince. "I am afraid, however, that even if I thought it best to do so, no amount of time or money would be able to wear it down. The original ward that all the rest are placed on top of was truly unique, and they have all since become a single—misguided—work of magic."

"Does that mean that Harry Potter will be forced to live there forever?" Luna asked.

Dumbledore shook his head. "No. He is the one person who can pull the stick out of the dam, as it were, and collapse the entire thing. If he ever really, truly ceases to see the place as a home of any kind, then the wards will fall and I will have the chance to find a better, more well-considered place for him."

Molly Weasley had a thought and brightened, saying, "Then all we need to do is tell him—" but Dumbledore was already shaking his head.

"The only reason anyone would have to tell him about it would be to get him to break the wards, and so, the wards would stop them," Dumbledore explained.

"Couldn't we convince someone that he's at risk of breaking them, and they need to tell him about it to prevent him from doing so?" Sunset asked, mostly just playing discord's advocate.

"Perhaps," Dumbledore mused. "Perhaps. But if there is a person who, on being told that a boy Harry's age does not see the only residence he has ever known as any kind of home, would then seek to keep him there, then I should not like to meet them, or certainly trust them with Harry's safety if the wards did then fall, of which there is no guarantee."

"Would he, do you think?" Luna asked. "From what I saw, I don't think I'd have liked much to be in his place. I think I'd rather have my clothes fit, or not at all."

There was the slightest twinkle in Dumbledore's eyes as he said, "I do believe that is the style of the muggle youths these days, with their baggy shirts and torn-up trousers... but alas, in seeing him for a moment, you've seen him a moment more than me. I made my decision in the moment to keep Harry safe, and like many of the decisions I have made in my life, I have questioned it constantly ever since. I'm afraid that I haven't seen a wink of him since that cold November morning."

"But... But Dumbledore..." Molly Weasley wailed, tearing up. "She's my baby girl... there has to be something..."

Sunset cleared her throat, finally deciding to say what she'd thought of back at the beginning. "That... may not be the best idea, Mrs. Weasley," she informed her.

"What? Why?" the woman asked. "How can you say that?"

"Well, the thing is... remember that Titania promised to see to it that Ginny goes to Hogwarts with Harry Potter?" Sunset said.

Dumbledore seemed to see where she was going immediately. Luna may or may not have; her casual smile hadn't diminished at all through the difficult conversation they were having.

"That hasn't actually happened yet," she pointed out. "So if we actually managed to take Ginny away from Harry Potter, Titania would be obligated to try to send her back, and that's not a game I think any of us want to play. I'm fairly sure we'd lose." It was a hard thing to admit, but deep down, the fae scared her, and there was probably something wrong with her that she could banter with the queen so casually. "Although... Luna does have that tank."

"I told you," Luna chided her. "Daddy says not until I'm sixteen."

Molly Weasley sniffled a couple of times, then finally broke down, bawling.

"MY BABY GIRL IS A HORSE."

"Pony."

"Snorkack."

⁂

Ginny was bored. Bored bored bored. Sure, her mother had punished her by having her sit in a corner before, but she'd never been forced into a small space for hours on end; it was maddening. She'd hardly exhausted the number of things that she could tell this pseudo-Harry-Potter about the wizarding world, but she'd absolutely exhausted her willingness to do so.

By now, she'd considered picking the lock no less than four times, but for all she had the skill, she no longer had the tools or the hands to hold them. Also, cupboards didn't actually have knobs or keyholes on the inside.

"You've seriously been locked up in here for three weeks?" she asked him, not really needing confirmation on what she already knew, just expressing her disbelief. "I don't know how you're still sane."

The boy, who she could see fairly well now in the dimming light from the gap at the bottom of the cupboard door, just shrugged. "I've had all my life to get used to it," he said. "And they do let me out to fix meals and use the loo."

"Ugh, I knooooow," she whined. "But still, you don't even have any books? Don't answer that—I know trying to read in the dark like this would be terrible. 'You'll ruin your eyes, Ginny,'" she said in a high, shrill voice, badly mimicking her mother. "They make potions for that. Dumbledore just wears glasses to make himself look smart, I'm sure."

The boy in the cupboard with her perked up. "They have potions to fix your eyes?" he asked.

"I think so, yeah. It's probably in Moste Potente Potions, actually," she said, then shot up in shock when she remembered the book. "Bollocks," she cursed. "I had it before I got turned into a pony; where did it end up?"

"Moste Potente Potions?" the boy asked.

"It's a book. An old, really nasty, not-kid-friendly potion's book. It's got all sorts of wicked things in it," she explained. "More importantly, though, it's my mom's, and she doesn't know I took it yet."

The boy got a funny look on his face, reached behind himself, tilted in place and came up with... a book? "Is this it?"

Ginny snatched the book away from him and squinted at the book, running her hoof over the cover. "It is! You had this the whole time? Why didn't you say anything?"

Even in the dark of the cupboard, Ginny could tell that the boy had rolled his eyes. "I didn't 'have it,'" he said. "Except in how I 'had it' sticking into my backside. I didn't know what it was."

"But you knew as soon as I mentioned it," Ginny responded, though the conversation was interrupted by the unmistakable sound of a door whooshing open and slamming closed, followed by the heavy sound of shoes stomping into the house, causing the floorboards to creak.

"What was that? A troll?" Ginny asked, because that couldn't possibly have been a person, right?

Ginny didn't get the answer she expected, though. Instead of responding to her half-serious question, the boy's eyes widened large enough for her to see the whites of them in the dark, and he rushed forward to clap his hands over her mouth, which went rather poorly for both of them as she had something closer to a muzzle. The whispered, "Shh! Quiet!" that followed was clear enough, though.

Ginny automatically struggled out of the boy's grasp almost as a reflex; she had a lot of experience with six older brothers, and the smooth coat of fur along with her smaller stature made it almost trivial to slip free, though she was reminded by a few ruffled feathers that she did, in fact, have wings. Wings that felt much better without something covering them. She had been trying not to think about that, no matter how normal it probably was for a winged pony.

"Sheesh," she grumbled sourly, keeping her voice down if just to keep him from jumping her like that again. "What's the big deal? I get that they're terrible people, but what are they gonna do? I'd like to give them a piece of my mind."

The boy bit his lip and looked away with uncertainty. "I'm not sure, but they might actually kill you."

"What?" Ginny said with disbelief, almost forgetting to stay quiet. "They can't possibly be that bad, can they? Why would they kill some random girl that showed up in their house?"

"You don't understand my rela—the Dursleys," he said, correcting himself from calling them his relatives since it seemed increasingly likely that they weren't anything of the sort. "Look, they hate magic. They hate anything to do with it. My cousin can do no wrong in their eyes, but they still won't let him have any books or games or anything that has magic in it."

"Maybe they're squibs?" she said, and when the boy looked to her uncomprehendingly, she explained, "People born to magical families that don't have magic themselves. Some of the older families go as far as to kick them out of the family and pretend they don't exist, but even when that doesn't happen a lot of them are still really bitter about it. That still wouldn't excuse murder, though!"

The boy shook his head. "They wouldn't see it as murder," he said, being entirely serious. "All on their own, they're already the sort of people that don't count anyone who's different from them as people... I really doubt they'd think twice about doing something about a... well... a person who looks like an animal. A magical person who looks like a magical animal. Especially if they thought that they could get away with it. Vernon's sister, Marge, breeds bulldogs and she's a real nasty piece of work, always talking about things like drowning the runt of the litter and feeding it to the rest of them. I bet... I bet if he had a problem, she'd be able to make it go away."

That... no. "You're... you're not serious," she insisted, but he just nodded and she could see in his eyes that he really meant it. If the Dursleys found out about her, she could actually die.

Maybe she could handle staying in the cupboard a bit longer.

Ginny nearly jumped out of her skin when the loud clack of the cupboard lock echoed through the tiny space and the door opened a crack, but it stopped there and was left like that.

"Boy! Get out here and get started on dinner!" shouted a harsh, shrill voice that made Ginny cringe.

That was the woman of the house? Ginny was never going to complain about her mother's yelling ever again.

⁂

Dumbledore stepped out of the floo into his office and sighed. Slowly, he made his way over to his ornate, padded chair and collapsed into it.

That had been a challenge. Dumbledore ever so hated disappointing people, and yet more and more, it seemed to be all that he could do as he got older. He also hated lying to people, and yet he also seemed to do more and more of that with the advancement of time, too.

He reassured himself that he had not lied about anything big or important; not really. He had, in fact, trusted the children—and he included Molly Weasley in that—with quite a bit more than he was used to doing. He felt, though, that with the faerie queen getting involved with Harry Potter, that Miss Lovegood might have an important role to play in things going forward. At the very least, the more she knew the less likely she would be to make as much of a cock-up of things as he had done.

Perhaps, though, it was just that he saw himself in her. She certainly had the right style, he thought with a fond smile.

The main thing that he had lied about was to deny knowing much at all about Harry Potter's situation behind those damnable wards. True, he didn't know much, but given the wards in question, the fact that there was little that anyone could report to him told him that it wasn't anything good. Of course, even in that he was lying to himself, because truthfully, he didn't need a lack of reports to convince himself that he should have placed Harry Potter somewhere else; he'd been told as much by Minerva immediately before doing so, after all.

Speaking of Minerva, Dumbledore had only had a moment to sit and rest before the good professor stormed into the room, parchment in hand and all het up about something or other.

Shaking his head, Dumbledore decided to cut her off before she could get into a rant. "And what, pray tell, has got you up in arms today, my dear professor?"

"It's this," she said, stepping forward and slapping a parchment bearing the seal of the Ministry of Magic on it. specifically, it seemed to be from the department of the control of magical creatures. "It was one thing to have Miss Lovegood show up with a 'crumple-horned snorkack,' she said, miming the quotes with her fingers. "We've not seen something of the like before, so she technically gets to call her whatever she wants—though I must warn you, Sunset Shimmer is more student than familiar, and claims to possess a full magical aptitude and education, which will no doubt make the coming year quite interesting.

"What I cannot excuse, though, is this," she said, slamming her finger down on the piece of parchment. Dumbledore leaned in, adjusting his glasses and found that it was exactly what he had begun to expect; a familiar registry for Miss Weasley. "Ginevra Weasley has been registered as Harry Potter's familiar and I am expected to allow her to come to Hogwarts as a... as a pet!"

Idly, Dumbledore scanned down the page and wondered if Minerva had noticed that the signature at the bottom of the page was not the untidy scrawl of a ten-year-old boy, but that of the seelie queen herself. That made the parchment quite the unique article indeed.

"Ah, so they have chosen to call her a tuft-winged snorkack," he observed blithely, ever so enjoying astounding people with knowledge that he just happened to have. It was, perhaps, one of his more prideful traits, but at his age he was allowed a harmless vice or two.

The color that Minerva's face went as she clenched her jaw told him that maybe he had pushed it a little too far. "You knew about this?" she said, her nostrils flaring in anger as she glared at him.

"Only in that I have just returned from getting quite the earful from Mrs. Weasley, I assure you," he said, attempting to mollify her. This did do some of the job, as she winced almost as if he had said Voldemort's name. In the past decade, ever since her eldest son, Bill, had entered the halls of Hogwarts, the howlers of Mrs. Weasley had become quite infamous. It was not, he thought, the way to endear an entire generation to her family, but that really wasn't his place to say.

Regrettably, it was his place to inform Minerva about the rest of the situation, though, and he didn't imagine the news would go down any better with her than it had with Mrs. Weasley. "The situation that we have found ourselves in is quite the pickle, I'm afraid..." he began, and proceeded to cover all of the same topics that he had gone over at the Burrow. It was more than a little tiresome, sometimes, just how much of his life involved repeating conversations with several different people.

He was right; Minerva didn't take it well. In fact, she was quite a bit more truculent, refusing to accept that there was nothing he could do about the situation until she had exhausted every last possibility herself. It was a good quality, he believed, if a little inconvenient at times.

Times like this, mainly.

The exact frequency that times like this came up in his lines of work really did not say much about the life he was leading. Or, well, it was more accurate to say that it did say much, and little of it good.

"...If that is all, then, Minerva, I am certain that we both have—"

"Oh, but that isn't all," Minerva told him, and proceeded to wave her wand, levitating a large book into his office from where it had been waiting just out of sight.

He recognized the book, of course; it was the Hogwarts book of admittance, inside which the quill of acceptance was charmed to write down the names of all who were eligible to attend Hogwarts, continually growing with each passing year as new, upcoming students were added to the rosters. The book was, as a rule, almost never removed from the tower in which it sat, so that alone was enough to raise Dumbledore's eyebrows, and the fact that he wasn't sure where exactly this was leading brought a bit of mischief to Minerva's eyes. Clearly, she was enjoying being on the other side of the reveal for once.

Minerva set the book of admittance down directly on top of Ginevra Weasley's registration form, which turned out not to be a coincidence. The book was open to the page containing one Ginevra Weasley, now listed as having been born July 31ˢᵗ 1980, just above the cut-off, placing her in the current year, which, after all, had been exactly what Ginevra had asked for.

"...Ah," was all Dumbledore said.

Minerva let out a snort of amusement. "Yes, 'Ah.'"

"You have already sent out the letters for this year, I take it?" he asked.

"The pureblood and half-blood letters have gone out," she informed him, giving him an unpleasant look at that. "But I've only just started on the muggleborn visits, and I suppose that I now know why I've been putting off scheduling Harry Potter's. You know that none of that matters, though. With the way the book of acceptance works—requiring a proof of magic before it will allow the name to be written in—we have to honor any late admittances right up to the deadline and do our due diligence to get them enrolled."

Dumbledore shook his head. "Yes, of course," he said. "And truly, it is a relief that Miss Weasley will not go uneducated due to her new circumstances. That said, I do not envy any of us having to explain why Miss Weasley is allowed in classes while Miss Shimmer is not—unless...?"

Minerva shook her head. "No, I'm afraid Miss Shimmer is not in the book—not even the upper years."

"More's the pity," Dumbledore mused. "She seemed like a bright young mind, for the brief time I met her."

"About Miss Weasley, though," Minerva said, furrowing her brow.

"Yes?"

"How is she going to hold a wand?"

Author's Note

It'll be interesting to see what the reactions are to this. For the record, while I tend to put new directions on canon-compliant ideas, the details of the ward is not intended to be entirely canon compliant—just close enough to make you think. Also, feel free to try to rules lawyer it in the comments, just keep in mind that yes, Dumbledore probably could come up with some way to get Harry to break the ward if he really thought that it was necessary.

Also, sorry if it disappoints anyone but, it's not my intention to make Harry actually trans or anything; he's just too alienated from society be able to actually understand anything like that at this point, and pretty much just playing foil to Ginny in that exchange.

Thanks go out to those supporting me on Patreon and ko-fi, pomegranate horsie, Sunny, Zervon Tora, Katharine Berry, LD, Jan Sterba, senaxyva, Ersmiller, Canary In The Coal Mine, Jason Langford, Денис, J T, Andrew Pam, Southpaw, Andrew Denton, Trellmor, Kirishala, djthomp, SirHoli, IamUnknown, fused, CvBrony, bloons3

Chapter 10

For Sunset Shimmer, stepping out of the floo at platform nine and three quarters was almost like stepping onto the train platform back in Canterlot, and the unexpected nostalgia struck with such suddenness that she forgot to clear the floo and had to stumble aside when Luna came up behind her.

It was the architecture most of all that did it. Rather than the crooked whimsy of Diagon Alley or the modern Manehattan-like architecture of muggle London, there was a certain stately manner to the train platform that felt familiar, as did the bright red steam engine that sat patiently in the middle of the space, slowly filling with soon-to-be students who were milling about and saying goodbye to their families.

Sunset wondered at that as she took in the scene. As a once-orphan who had been adopted by the crown, she was torn between understanding and disbelief. On one hoof, the idea of leaving what had once been her home to live in a school-like environment was a very familiar one, which drew out a certain nostalgia in her. On the other hoof, though, unlike her, these children all had families. They were barely old enough to be let out of the sight of their parents, and it just seemed wrong to separate them for no real reason as far as she could see.

By the time Sunset realized how long she'd been standing there, it had been long enough to be decidedly awkward—or, at least, it would have been if Luna hadn't been doing much the same thing, looking out over all the small family groups with slightly misty eyes for reasons that were all too obvious to anyone who knew the slightest thing about her situation. It had been a month and a half since the two of them had returned from Faerie without her parents, and while Luna remained adamant that they would return, it would forever be true that they hadn't been here to see Luna off to Hogwarts for the very first time.

Eventually, Sunset nudged Luna to get her moving. They had plenty of time and weren't in any hurry, but it was best not to dwell too much on things and the sooner they found themselves some seats, the more options they would have.

Besides, they were starting to attract attention. Admittedly, that was to be expected when one was a colorful Equestrian pony in the middle of a crowd of tall, gangly humans who all looked like they had had the same idea for a Nightmare Night costume, but a good deal of them were eyeing up Luna like they weren't sure if she was in possession of all of her marbles, which was not only rude, but also just terribly naïve. After living with her for a month and a half, Sunset was confident in saying that Luna had all of her marbles and then some. Luna just had so many marbles that she just didn't have the time to polish them all and... okay, that metaphor got away from her.

Anyway, it was ridiculous, the kinds of looks that Luna was getting. Sunset knew that the Wizarding World was a small community, and, yes, Luna was in charge of one of its few publications, but still, they were acting as if the eleven-year-old girl was about to come at them with a—

Sunset facehoofed, then hip-checked Luna in the knee. "Luna," she said with exasperation. "Put the knife away."

Because yes, Luna's cursed knife was in her hand, and at that particular moment she was using it to scratch behind her ear. Considering they hadn't yet found anything that the knife couldn't cut, the action was simultaneously both impressive and terrifying.

Luna let out a beleaguered sigh, but vanished the knife as instructed, standing a little straighter as she did so. That was to be expected; the knife, which had come from an ill-advised deal with Titania, the queen of the seelie, could not be put down. Luna either had to handle it constantly—which she was getting progressively better at every day—or she could store it in that vague conceptual way that the two of them had learned to do in Faerie. The choice seemed obvious—only, according to Luna, keeping it that way felt to her like the knife was pressed tip-first against her spine, ready to reenact the method by which she'd acquired it. It was not only uncomfortable, but a very unpleasant reminder of a very unpleasant day.

Luna's reluctance was understandable, but all the same, that was going to be one heck of a first impression for Future-Luna to deal with.

Hm.

Perhaps the next issue of The Quibbler could have a few articles speculating on all the different ways its editor might have come across such a knife? That could be fun.

The small voice inside of her representing her journalistic integrity said not to do it.

Of course, the Wizarding World had not invented journalistic integrity yet, so that voice was ignored.

"Have you spotted Ginny yet?" Luna asked out of the blue as the crowd parted before them.

Sunset blinked, startled out of her musings. She caught herself looking around a bit before she realized what she was doing. "You can see through my eyes," Sunset dryly reminded her. "Also, she's a bright orange pony—"

"—Tuft-winged Snorkack," Luna corrected. "Yes, I know."

Sunset was momentarily speechless, then double-checked the platform just to confirm that, no, she hadn't missed the obvious. "...No, Luna. I haven't spotted Ginny yet. Or Harry Potter, for that matter."

Later, when they were about to board the train, Luna wondered out loud, "I wonder how they're going to get a tuft-winged snorkack through the muggle side of the platform?"

⁂

"You know, the whole driving-away laughing thing would probably be a bit more alarming if I actually didn't know where to go," Harry Potter observed.

No one responded, though, because there was no one there to respond. He was an eleven-year-old boy, completely alone on the curb at King's Cross station, and only his owl, Hedwig, was listening. Technically, the owl wasn't even his except in a roundabout way as his familiar's familiar, but he'd convinced Ginny to let him name it after he'd had to veto half a dozen of the worst names imaginable.

If Harry managed one thing in his position as technically being Ginny's owner, it was going to be to never let her name anything. Fortunately, she'd agreed that Hedwig was a good and appropriate name for the grandfamiliar of Harry Potter, the orphan hero and Boy Who Lived.

Kneeling next to his trunk, Harry lifted the blackout cover of Hedwig's cage and made a show of checking on her, then proceeded to pop the latch on the trunk and crack it open.

"I regret everything," Ginny groaned from inside the trunk.

"Are you okay?'" Harry asked.

"No!" Ginny hissed, excessively irate. "I am never doing this again. I should have just flown. Next time, I'm going to fly."

Harry looked around at the busy train station, doubtful. "I really don't think that's going to work," he said. "There's no way you could make it to the platform without being seen."

"I'll hide in a cloud,'" Ginny confidently declared.

Harry thunked his forehead against the lid of the trunk. "Clouds in the muggle world don't swoop out of the sky and hover next to the platform any more than bright orange ponies do," he reminded her.

"Yeah," Ginny agreed, unconcerned. "But they wouldn't see me, so it'd be fine."

The fact that Harry couldn't come up with an immediate response to that was not a good sign.

"Anyway," Ginny said, moving on without his response. "I could come in the middle of the night, or wait and follow the train. The Hogwarts Express sticks out like a sore thumb and landing on it would be a cinch."

Harry raised an eyebrow at that. "Landing on a moving train would be a cinch?" he asked.

"Sure," Ginny said, not a single doubt in her mind. "The thing that makes landing so hard is that the ground's not moving, so you've got to slow way down to match it. Landing on a moving train is just flying closer and closer until you're there."

"...I suppose you're the expert," Harry eventually admitted.

His sarcasm went entirely unnoticed.

"You're damn right I am," Ginny agreed. The trunk then shook with a jolt, as if from a kick. "Now hurry up and get going to the platform. I really need to get out of this damn thing and stretch my wings."

Harry glanced over at the supposed entrance to platform nine and three-quarters. "You're sure I just go at the barrier between nine and ten?" he asked, rather uncertain. "You do realize that if I crash into the wall, you're the one that's going to feel it most."

"Yes, yes, I'm sure," Ginny said, rolling her eyes at him through the cracked lid of the trunk. "I've been through here dozens of times dropping off and picking up my brothers; dad loves seeing the muggle side of the station and mum always makes sure we know which platform it is in case we get lost. Every. Single. Time."

"Alright, alright," Harry said, rolling his eyes right back at her. "I get it. You're sure."

In spite of Ginny's urging, Harry took a moment to latch the trunk again and make sure that Hedwig's cage wasn't going to move before wrangling the trolley over in the direction of the barrier. With two trunks stacked up behind a large cage, it was almost comical to look at, but fortunately no one actually decided to stop and question why a barely-eleven-year-old boy was struggling with two trunks and an owl all on his own, and soon enough, he had himself in the right position to enter the barrier.

Harry stopped, then, and felt like there was something he was missing, but after double checking everything, he casually pushed the trolley at a slow walk towards the barrier because, really, no matter how many assurances he had from Ginny, it looked very solid and she had a fondness for pranks. This wasn't one of them, though, and he slipped into the barrier casually and without issue.

⁂

Checking every compartment they passed for anyone they knew without being obnoxious was all but impossible. It was good, then, that neither Sunset nor Luna were bothered all that much about being obnoxious. "Sticking your nose into other people's business is the essence of being a reporter," Luna reassured her as she poked her head into another door.

It was also, apparently, the essence of being a Hogwarts student, as it was only the rare few who weren't doing the exact same thing looking for their own friends. Luna, of course, was on the lookout for Ginny and Harry for obvious reasons, but Sunset was keeping an eye out for Hermione, the muggleborn girl that they had gone to Diagon Alley with.

Her reasons were a little less altruistic, though the girl did seem like the kind of person that needed more Luna in her life.

No, the reason that Sunset wanted to meet up with Hermione was that, for all the research she'd done in the last month doing articles for the Quibbler, essentially none of it had covered the muggle world.

And Sunset needed to know about the muggle world.

She had time—years—until the portal would open so she could return to Equestria, it was true, but finding a single statue in an entire industrialized world was a similarly large task, and she'd been feeling her lack of progress like an itch that had gone unscratched in the days leading up to the beginning of term.

Luna knew about the muggle world, of course, but it was bits and pieces from an outsider's perspective, and very little of it useful for the kind of information she needed. Xenophilius also had piles and piles of books on the subject, every one of them with whole chapters scratched out and annotated with notes like, 'This hasn't been true since the 1930's,' or 'pureblood propaganda.'

Frankly, regardless of her need, paging through them all looking for the occasional passage that wasn't redacted or contradicted would have been a waste of her time, as even then there was no guarantee that it wasn't just something that Xenophilius hadn't yet disproven.

No, Sunset needed a primary source, and Hermione seemed like a good and proper one that wouldn't mind her questions and wouldn't require her to go about making friends with more people.

If Sunset could just find her.

Briefly, she kind of wished that she and Luna had actually taken the Grangers up on their offer of hospitality for at least a day or two over the summer, but they had been busy with The Quibbler, hadn't had a solution for the whole 'muggle neighborhood' issue and, if she was being honest with herself, hadn't wanted to accept what had been a rather condescending offer in the first place. Sunset and Luna had done just fine on their own—and they still would have even if Mrs. Weasley hadn't been offloading pies and casseroles to them every other day.

Unfortunately, along with not having contacted the Grangers also came not knowing when they had planned to arrive, so there was a good chance that searching the train twenty minutes before departure as they were doing was pointless.

Evidently, Luna had come to the same conclusion about Ginny and Harry at some point, and the next time they chanced across an empty compartment they decided to just stake their claim by filling the baggage rack with a pair of trunks that they were definitely carrying with them that whole time no matter what anyone else would claim.

⁂

Ginny burst out of Harry's trunk the moment he stopped on the other side of the barrier. After a month and a half of living with her, this didn't entirely surprise him, though he would have preferred not to start things off having his smallclothes scattered across the platform.

Ginny, though, was shameless, stretching and fluffing her bright orange wings in so carefree a manner that it might as well have been semaphore, signaling everyone on the platform to look at her while Harry dashed this way and that grabbing clothes and books so he could chuck them back into his trunk.

"I realize that it must be physically painful for you not to be the center of attention for five minutes," Harry said, injecting the statement with all the sarcasm he could muster while snapping his trunk back closed again. "But must you?"

"Yes, I must," Ginny declared, going so far as to hover in place. Ever since the Dursleys had found out about Ginny and their inability to actually get rid of her, she had been much freer about practicing with her wings indoor and had become quite nimble in the air. "Besides, you're Harry Potter, however that works; if they weren't looking at me, they'd be looking at you. You're going to have to get used to that."

"Yes, but the important part is that they wouldn't be looking at me chasing my unmentionables drifting off on a surprisingly blustery breeze," he said, giving her a sour look. "And I still feel off about that whole Harry Potter thing. You really had me convinced I wasn't the real one, and that's not something that's easy to just walk back."

"Hey, I'm as traumatized as you are!" Ginny insisted entirely unconvincingly. "Just, you know, try to act like Harry Potter. It'll be fine."

"Oh, aye," Harry said, rolling his eyes. "I'll just act like Harry Potter, the grand adventuring Boy Who Lived that slew a dragon when he was five."

"He rode a dragon when he was five," Ginny corrected him. "He didn't slay any dragons until he was at least eight or so."

"The point is, he—I—didn't do any of that!" Harry reminded her. "I can't just pretend I'm a storybook hero; people are going to notice that I don't know one end of a dragon from the other."

Ginny cocked her head and blinked. "The end with the teeth is the head," she pointed out, feeling that that should have been obvious. "Usually."

Harry buried his face in his hands. "You know what I mean!"

"Look," Ginny said, swooping over to land on Harry's trunk and look him over. "I don't mean you need to pretend to be that Harry Potter. That would be dumb; no one would actually pretend to be an adventuring hero when they can't even cast a Protego. Just, you know, start from the beginning. Act like the sad orphan boy who just found out he's destined to be a hero."

"So, do exactly what I'm doing?" Harry dryly inquired, looking down at his ratty muggle clothes. He definitely had the 'poor, aggrieved orphan' look down, at least.

"No, no," Ginny insisted, crossing her forehooves in an 'x' shape. "You look more like a street rat who's absolutely done with this shit. It's entirely the wrong impression. There needs to be more awe and wonder—determination and bravery—that sort of thing."

Harry awkwardly tried to straighten his oversized jumper. "Yeah, well, it's hard to be roguishly handsome or whatever when I'm tripping over the hems of my trousers. I wish I'd thought to get clothes that aren't school uniforms when we went to Diagon Alley."

"That's hardly the only thing we missed going to Diagon," Ginny sourly agreed, and Harry guessed that she wasn't talking about school supplies. They had found out through letters that Ginny's mother, Mrs. Weasley, had been at the alley on the lookout for them that day, but something had prevented her from meeting up with them.

After a month and a half, Ginny was clearly beginning to feel the separation from her family.

"Do you want to wait here on the platform for when they show up?" Harry suggested. He didn't really know what it was like to actually have family he could miss, but that seemed like something they could do.

Ginny did want to, he could tell, but even as she looked back over at the portal to the muggle side of King's Cross Station, she shook her head. "No, I don't think so," she said. "It probably won't work, and they're always the absolute last ones on the platform, too. If something goes wrong that prevents them from meeting us, they might actually miss the train."

That was true, Harry supposed. There was definitely something messing with events around them; that much was blatantly obvious after a month of watching the Dursleys fail to get rid of Ginny. The obvious answer was that it was Titania's doing, but Harry wasn't entirely convinced.

"We're lucky the letters worked, if you can even call it that," Ginny continued, crossing her forelegs over her chest and thinking. "They were too short for letters from mum, and the howlers were... weird, even if they were the nicest howlers I've ever heard."

"Howlers are weird," Harry insisted, feeling rather strongly about that. "You have a way to send literal voice-mail to kids that you haven't seen for the better part of a year and the only thing you use it for is to yell at them? That's insane, isn't it? This isn't a me being an orphan thing, right?"

"Um." Ginny had to think about it. "I think it's this thing where the emotion is what actually fuels the spell or something?" she suggested, not sounding at all sure about it.

Harry was entirely unconvinced. "The ones we got from your mum weren't angry, though?"

"Oh, no," Ginny reassured him. "She might not have really shown it, but I'm pretty sure she was absolutely livid about something when she sent those. Probably Titania's spell."

"I still think it might not be Titania," Harry said. "I mean, it would explain why they never got rid of me, either."

"Harry," Ginny said, leveling a flat look at him. "That odious man brought home a cat carrier to put me in and only realized after he'd brought it inside that it had a bobcat in it. It's either fae or house elves, which apparently isn't as much of a distinction as I'd like."

Harry shook his head, deciding not to argue. "Well, if you're sure you don't want to wait, then I guess we should find a compartment. Do you think your friend is already here?"

"Well, it's Luna, so... I have no idea."

⁂

Of course, the problem with giving in and settling down in a compartment was the fact that they then had to deal with everyone else stopping by and opening the door to check who was inside, and unlike all the rest, when someone peeked in and found a colorful animal, they often had questions.

Fortunately for Sunset, Luna enjoyed providing answers, which was usually enough to either satisfy or confuse their visitors enough to get them to leave. Still, even that was technically progress, and Sunset hoped that eventually someone they actually knew would show up. It wasn't long before she got her wish, either, though not in the way that she actually wanted.

Sunset was perusing Luna's A History of Magic textbook when the door slid open after a perfunctory knock to reveal a vaguely familiar blonde girl that took Sunset a few moments to place.

"Oh, you're... Daphne Greengrass, right?" she said, lowering the book that she had levitating in front of her, but not setting it down. "From just outside the apothecary."

"Indeed," said the blonde, coming off as cool and composed, though her eye was drawn to the glow of Sunset's magic. She looked at Luna instead. "Lovegood."

"Greengrass," Luna greeted in return. There was a short pause, and she tilted her head to the side ever so slightly before she eventually asked, "Would you like to join us?"

Daphne considered the offer for a moment, but shook her head and declined. "Sorry, but no. I look forward to seeing how... interesting things get with you around," she said, though she was clearly talking about Sunset as much as Luna, "...But I think I'd rather enjoy the show from afar. You could say that I'm allergic to excitement."

Luna hmmed, and tilted her head the other way, following something with her good eye. "Fair enough," she said.

"Besides, I already have one peculiar moon-themed girl," she said. Stepping back from the door, she introduced a black-haired girl that might have had some Asian ancestry as, "Lily Moon."

A third girl, "Tracy Davis!" chimed in to introduce herself as the upbeat brunette next to her and suddenly Sunset was glad that Daphne had turned Luna down. Two girls and an extrovert would be a bit much to add to their compartment.

Daphne's group was just excusing themselves when a bright orange pony showed up behind them. They all watched, amused, as the pony nearly walked past the compartment, then glanced inside and spotted Luna.

Anyone with a kindergartener's skill in pattern matching could have guessed that the violently orange pony would join the only compartment with another pony in it. What came as a surprise was the shout of "Luna!" and the sheer speed at which the pegasus launched herself inside to hug the daylights out of her friend, nearly bowling over everyone involved.

In comparison, the boy who slipped inside with her in the midst of all the commotion went almost unnoticed.

"Oh, Merlin, Luna, this last month has been so... so... augh! I can't even describe it!"

This, Sunset gathered from the process of elimination and the fact that she was the only other pony on Earth, was Luna's friend, Ginny. That, perhaps, went without saying, but honestly she'd met the girl two times for less than five minutes a month and a half ago. She looked much better without the muddy dress that she'd left behind on Luna's doorstep, but the particular nearly-neon shade of copper-orange was... noteworthy.

And this was coming from a mare with a red and gold mane, though at least Sunset's coat was more of a pastel.

Of course, with Daphne and her friends still there, they all had to go through another round of introductions. Daphne clearly did not expect for the pony to be introduced as, "Ginny Weasley," but what surprised her even more was the boy in rags who Luna casually introduced as "Harry Potter," as if they had actually met before for more than half a second through a portal.

Sunset rather enjoyed the look of torn resignation on Daphne's face as she considered whether or not she could change her mind about Luna's invitation without looking too opportunistic and came up negative. The three of them hung around while Sunset helped Ginny and Harry with their trunks, levitating them up to the luggage rack, but eventually they had to make good on their earlier declaration and excuse themselves with poorly masked reluctance.

Once the door was closed, Ginny wasted no time at all focusing on Sunset. "You!" she shouted.

"Me?" Sunset answered, pointing at her chest with her hoof in question.

"Yes, you!" Ginny said, jumping up to hover right in front of Sunset. "What the heck are you, where do you come from, what does that make me and how come you get a flipping magic horn and I got bupkis?"

Sunset opened her mouth to respond, paused, then said, "...If Princess Celestia heard you talking that way about pegasi, you'd be doing essays on tribal equality for months."

"That's great, but who the heck is Princess Celestia? Ginny shouted, throwing her hooves up in the air in frustration.

Sunset rolled her eyes, but decided she may as well start with the basics. "I am a—"

"Crumple-horned Snorkack," Luna interjected.

"...From Equestria. That makes you a—"

"Tuft-winged Snorkack."

"...And I have, horns, wings and some nebulous third quality because I ascended to a special kind of—"

"Snorkack."

"...with the qualities of all three primary—"

"Snorkack."

"Tribes."

Ginny was not amused. "...Okay, try that again, but without the bullshit."

⁂

"Oh Merlin!" Ginny gasped, horrified at the story that Luna had just told her. "She really—? You spent a year—?! A knife in the back! That's the knife she was talking about?!" The final straw came only when she thought about the whole ordeal in hindsight and compared it to what she'd known before. "Luna! You told me that Titania was amicable!"

Luna blinked, not seeing the problem. "Yes."

"Stabbing you in the back is not amicable!" Ginny insisted, hardly believing that this was something she had to explain.

"It was, though," Luna said, undeterred in her reasoning. "She was entirely pleasant about it at the time. Now, haranguing me about carrying it—that I could have done without. Fortunately, I can't see that ever happening again."

"...Because you waited until she was gone and chucked it in the woods?" Ginny guessed.

"Because I can't actually put it down," Luna corrected her, suddenly flipping the wicked-looking knife that Ginny hadn't realized she'd been holding.

Ginny gaped.

Luna caught the knife in her other hand, just as the door opened.

"Sorry, do you have room—" the boy started to say, then froze. It was Ginny's brother, Ron. He looked at the knife. He looked at Luna. He looked at Ginny and Sunset, and then he looked at the knife again. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He tried again to the same result, then clapped his mouth shut with a snap of his teeth. He took one long look at Ginny, then slowly backed out of the compartment and shut the door.

"...That was weird, right?" Harry asked no one in particular.

"That was my brother, Ron," Ginny paraphrased. "And yes."

"More evidence about the spell, do you think?" He asked, not entirely sure.

"...Maybe?" Ginny said, no more certain than he was. "That's probably how he would react to any compartment full of girls though."

"Also, the knife," Harry pointed out.

"Yes," Ginny agreed, nodding. "Also the—the knife!" Now reminded of what they'd been doing before her brother had showed up, Ginny rounded on Luna again and shouted, "Luna!"

Luna gave Ginny her attention, which wasn't so reassuring because she had also gone back to casually flipping the knife from one hand to the other. "Yes, Ginny?"

Ginny tried to convey her absolute horrified exasperation with her friend, but whatever small-horse powers she might have had, reverse-legitimacy wasn't one of them, so she just buried her head in her hooves and repeated herself. "Luna."

"You know what's worse?" Sunset shimmer said, keeping a wary eye on Luna's knife. "That's not even the most horrifying part."

Ginny blinked. "...What."

Harry was more polite about it, but also felt that he needed to ask, "What's the most horrifying part?"

"The most horrifying part," Sunset said, drawing it out for maximum effect. "Is that after Titania got Luna to claim the knife, we came home later that day to find that the shirt hasn't changed at all."

...Yep, that was the horrifying part alright.

"You mean, if someone else put it on they'd still get stabbed in the back and then they'd have their own knife...?" Harry guessed, working it out.

"That... or it's just a shirt with a picture on it now," Sunset said, shrugging. "Someone would have to put it on to find out. I certainly can't tell, even with a horn so sensitive I can feel The Burrow's wards from The Rookery."

Ginny shook her head and filed all that away in her head under, 'Don't borrow clothes from Luna ever again.' The implications of murderous muggle wear were hardly the most important part of Luna's story.

"So..." Ginny said, getting everyone's attention. "You think Titania was looking for any excuse to turn me into a—" she glanced at Luna, "...tuft-winged snorkack... so that sometime down the line she could get more 'snorkack physicality' from me?"

"That's what makes the most sense," Sunset said. "She really seemed to enjoy it because... well, obviously, it's pretty great."

Ginny looked at her hooves, then gave Sunset a flat look that said everything it needed to. Sighing and not wanting to get into an argument over it, she instead said, "That explains a lot, really. Great. Just... great."

"On the bright side," Luna said, chiming in in her charmingly dotty tone. "The deal you ended up making sent you somewhere that she couldn't get to you, and now we're off to Hogwarts where the wards are legendary."

Ginny shared a look with Harry. "Really," she said. "You think she couldn't get to us there."

Sunset perked up and Luna looked genuinely confused. "...Yes? You were..." she paused at that point in a very non-Luna way. "...In the muggle world, weren't you?"

"That," Ginny said. "Apparently doesn't mean as much as you'd think if they really, really want something."

Sunset looked particularly interested when she asked, "Titania actually entered the property when you were with Harry's relatives?"

Ginny was about to regale the two with all the problems they had had when she stopped to think about the phrasing that Sunset had used. "No—and no," she said. "That would have been preferable. It was Mab."

Luna's knife sunk into the floor of the compartment with a hearty thunk. The girl in question was staring at Ginny through haunted eyes, her fingers tangled in the air before her where she'd fumbled her knifeplay. "Mab was there?" she asked, almost whispering. "In the muggle world? At Harry's?"

"Well," Ginny said, shuffling uncomfortably under Luna's gaze. "Not exactly. We didn't actually see Mab, but there were unseelie that attacked us."

Luna relaxed just a tiny bit, though she was still peculiarly tense when she prompted, "But they were at Harry's?"

"...No—well—kind of..." Ginny said, trying to guess what exactly Luna was looking for in an answer. "They certainly made themselves known, but they only actually attacked us when the Dursleys freaked out about all the letters from Hogwarts and took Harry off to stay at some hotels."

For some reason, that made Luna relax the rest of the way. "Oh," she said rather mildly, as if Ginny wasn't still talking about being attacked by the vilest of fae.

There had to be more to it.

Ginny eyed her friend and said, "You know something."

"I know lots of things," Luna agreed in her most Luna-like way.

Harry immediately picked up on what Ginny was implying, but he directed his question at Sunset instead, hoping that she would be more direct. "You know something about the spell?"

Sunset rolled her eyes at Harry, though she was clearly looking distressed. "I know over a dozen spells just for setting things on fire; you're going to have to be a bit more specific than that."

Ginny was about to double down and tell the both of them to stop playing around when the door to the compartment opened and a bushy-haired brunette stuck her head in. "Has anyone seen a toad?" she asked, earning Ginny's ire, though her eyebrows rose the instant she actually saw who all was in the compartment.

"Luna!" the new said, smiling brightly as she invited herself the rest of the way into the compartment. Sunset also received a friendly glance, but more than either of the apparently known quantities, the girl's eyes lingered on Ginny and she immediately planted herself next to her. "I'm Hermione—Hermione Granger," she said, twisting herself in her seat to hold her hand out.

Poleaxed and more than a little frustrated, Ginny absently shook the hand that was being offered to her.

Somehow, that alone made the girl brighten up even more like a brilliant lumos. "You have grippy hooves!" Hermione beamed, turning Ginny's hoof this way and that as if she was looking for the mechanism behind it. "That's amazing! How does it work? Is it because you don't have a horn? Do you—"

Fed up, Ginny snatched her hoof back and pointed dramatically at the girl that had just barged her way in, interrupting their first chance to actually find out what was going on with the spell that was on them. "No!" she shouted, pointing her hoof right up against the girl's nose. "You—be quiet!"

"Wh—what?" Hermione said, crossing her eyes at the hoof that had only just come short of hitting her in the face. "I—I—" She began to tear up.

Ginny ignored her, then moved her hoof to point violently at Luna and Sunset. "You two! Talk! What do you know?!"

It would have had a bit more impact if Harry hadn't then immediately picked Ginny up like a child and said, "Stop that, you," dropping her on the other side of him while he scooted over to take her place next to Hermione. "I'm sorry about Ginny, she was... very invested in the conversation we were having."

"I—but I just—" Hermione blubbered, scrubbing the sleeves of her brand new robes across her eyes and making a mess of herself.

Harry panicked, looking around the compartment. "Oh, err—I suppose this is where I'm supposed to give you a handkerchief, but I don't really—sorry."

Hermione shook her head and tried to compose herself. "It's—it's okay. I'm sorry but I just—I thought that Hogwarts... that it would be different."

"Oh for—" Ginny grit her teeth and held herself back from saying anything and making things worse. This was exactly what she'd been trying to avoid. Luna knew something—and her little pony, too—but now everyone was giving her the stink-eye and she still wasn't any closer to finding out what was going on.

It was almost as if it was intentional.

Eventually, Luna managed to produce a fluffy yellow hand towel out of nowhere that Ginny could identify and Hermione was able to dry her face and collect herself while Harry bumbled himself through comforting her and reassuring her that things would be okay and Hogwarts would be different.

Things were looking just calm enough that Ginny was about ready to push Luna and Sunset for answers again when Hermione looked up at the boy who was being so nice to her, got startled by his astonishingly green eyes, then saw the scar on his forehead and gasped. "You—you're—um—Harry Potter?"

Harry visibly winced, then tried to hide it by scratching at the back of his neck. "Oh, well, yes, I suppose."

"You suppose?" Hermione asked, perplexed at the non-answer. "Is there something uncertain about it? I rather would have thought that the scar was definitive. I mean, I only got a few extra books for background reading and someone—" she glanced over at Sunset and Luna, "—didn't mention that one of them was on the book list... but he's in Modern Magical History, The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century. I'd have found out everything about it if it was me."

"No, no, it is me," Harry reassured her, though he did a rather poor job of it. "It's just also news to me. I didn't know anything about the magical world until a tiny angry pony fell out of a portal on top of me a month and a half ago."

Hermione cocked her head to the side in curiosity. "A month and a half ago?" she mused, recognizing the date. "That was your visit from Hogwarts, then, I take it? My magical pony just came in the front door with the Deputy Headmistress—though she was invisible at the time."

"Actually," Harry said, rather embarrassed to say, "It had nothing to do with Hogwarts. We didn't get our letters until two weeks later. It was a right mess keeping her hidden from my relatives."

"We?" Hermione said, noticing the unexpected pronoun. "Letters, plural? Did you have a cousin that's also going to Hogwarts?"

Harry blanched, and Ginny fancied he was imagining Dudley going to Hogwarts with them. Ginny thought that that would have been grand, actually. Not only would it have infuriated Vernon, but with as little supervision as there was at Hogwarts, she and Harry would have been able to enlist the twins to do just about anything to him.

"God, no," Harry said. "No—sorry, I don't think we really did all the introductions right," he gestured at Ginny. "I guess you know Luna and Sunset, and the sulking pony is Ginny Weasley. She's also going to Hogwarts."

Ginny stomped over Harry's legs and reached out to shake Hermione's hand. "Charmed," she sarcastically bit out, visibly resisting the ongoing distraction. She was not going to let this go.

Hermione gingerly shook Ginny's hoof while still looking inquiringly at Harry. "She's going?" she asked. "Isn't she, like, five? And a pony?"

Ginny's jaw dropped. "I am not five," she shouted stomping her hoof where she was standing. "And I—"

Unfortunately for Harry, she was standing on his lap, and he was a boy.

"...Ow," Harry whimpered.

⁂

She might not have looked it, but Sunset was rather irate. True, there was some amusement to be had in watching things turn against Ginny, but it was buried beneath the immense frustration of not being able to tell Ginny and Harry what she knew about the wards.

It was almost, but not quite similar to having her name used against her. Her name was... a blind spot. Her name was part of her identity, so when Titania had stolen it and used it against her, there was no sense of struggle or frustration; things were just obviously true, whether or not they entirely made sense.

With the ward on Harry Potter's home, though, it was more of a haze that came and went. It was a fog that was unobtrusive most of the time, hiding certain ideas away to keep them from being considered, but absolutely impenetrable if you barreled straight into it intentionally.

Clearly, Luna having her name was the bigger issue even if the quirky girl was very good at avoiding using it against her, but somehow it was just easier to be angry at the wards on Harry's home.

Harry probably would have agreed, given this most recent unkindness visited upon his person.

Little fillies could stomp harder than one might think.

"Ginny is actually eleven," Luna informed Hermione. "Barely. Titania only needed to take eleven days of life from her to make her eleven in time to get her Hogwarts letter."

"Oh," Hermione said, clearly reconsidering some assumptions she'd made. "So you were a human?" she asked.

"Yes," Ginny grumbled from back on the other side of Harry, arms crossed over her chest and looking very, very grumpy.

"...Who has been turned into a five-year-old pony?" Hermione concluded uncertainly.

"No, I'm not!" Ginny shouted, standing back up, though she then looked to Sunset. "I'm not, right?"

"No, you're not," Sunset said. "You're the age you should be."

Ginny eyed Sunset up and down, then. "Wait—then how old does that make—"

"No comment," Sunset interrupted.

"What do you mean, 'No comment'?" Ginny said, offended at being denied. "You're a kid. You don't get to 'no comment' your age! ...I mean... You are a kid, right?"

"Look," Sunset said. "I'm a teenager with most of a full magical education directly from the princess of the sun, and that's all you're getting from me. Don't make it weird."

Ginny was winding up for another angry rant, saying, "Why must you be so—" when she stopped and apparently realized that this was not the hill she wanted to die on, and she already had one picked out for that. "...Fine, fine. Forget the age thing. Now that we've all met and everyone's on the same page and getting along, let's go back to you telling Harry and I—"

As expected, Ginny was interrupted by a soft tap tap tap at the door, after which it opened to reveal an old witch stooped over an ornate trolley packed with various packaged candies and snack foods. "Anything from the trolley, dears?"

"Oh, for merlin's sake—!" Ginny said, stomping the seat. Sunset thought that she might be going red with frustration, though it was hard to tell since she was already so violently orange.

Harry, though, while he certainly shared her desire to find out what Sunset and Luna knew, had no such feeling of urgency about it. "You said you liked Fizzing Whizzbees, didn't you, Ginny?"

"...Yes," Ginny quietly responded, her face buried in the upholstery.

Harry nodded, buying her a package without question, though he seemed to have a bit of trouble choosing for himself. "Actually, it's supposed to be a long trip, do you think you might like some pumpkin pasties? They're the closest thing to real food I see."

"...Yes, please," Ginny said, not having moved an inch.

Luna, meanwhile, purchased a pack of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans for herself and some Apple Rings for Sunset, who took them without comment. In the month and a half since Sunset had come to Earth and the Wizarding world, she had tried most of their stranger sweets, and while chocolate frogs, ice mice and peppermint toads were amusing novelties, she'd come to the conclusion that she did not, in fact, have an inner predator inside of her yearning to chase her food under the couch when it escaped.

Harry, though, was still undecided on anything for himself, and when he realized that everyone was waiting for him, he flushed and said, "Actually... I'll just take one of everything, if that's okay. I'd like to try it all eventually, and I don't imagine there's a sweets shop just outside the history classroom."

"There's Hogsmead," Ginny informed him, taking her Fizzing Whizzbees and Pumpkin Pasty with uncharacteristic meekness, fed up and exhausted with trying to root out what the ward wanted kept secret. "You can't go until third year, but that's Fred and George this year, which I'm sure will in no way go wrong."

Harry didn't inquire further, busy as he was stacking his armful of candy up between himself and Hermione. It was only then that he belatedly realized that she was the only person in the compartment that didn't have anything.

Suddenly self-conscious of his excess, Harry looked down at the pile and blushed. "Sorry, did you not get anything? Aside from the wizard thing, having money is new to me, too, and I don't mind sharing."

"I—ah—no, thank you," Hermione said, clearly feeling put on the spot. "My parents are dentists, so we don't really do sweets."

Harry frowned, seriously considering the pile of candy.

"Um. Not—not that you should feel bad for eating sweets or anything," she hurriedly added. "I know it's weird, and—"

"No, no," Harry said. "That's not it. I was just trying to think if I've ever had tooth problems and, I mean, the answer's obvious. It's not like the Dursleys would ever take me to the dentist, so I'm just wondering if wizards and witches just don't need to worry about that sort of thing."

"Oh, we absolutely do," Luna chimed in. "If you'd seen some of the teeth that older wizards have, you'd wonder if gum disease isn't a bigger threat than dark magic."

Rolling her eyes at the way the conversation was going, Ginny loudly cleared her throat and said, "Hey, guys, let's talk about that thing that—"

Right on schedule, the compartment door slammed open, revealing a skinny blonde boy with two more behind him in a manner not unlike Daphne Greengrass' visit. "They're saying all up and down the train that Harry Potter's in this... what."

⁂

"Am I really bigger news than the two orange equines in the compartment?" Harry asked, rather confused about that. "Just, you don't seem to have been expecting them, is all."

"To be fair," Sunset said, speaking up. "People have had a month and a half to get used to the idea. We've been to Diagon Alley several times; I guess he just didn't get the memo."

"Did we put out a memo?" Luna wondered aloud. "Should we have?"

"We published an article with pictures of me wearing a lime-green bowler hat," Sunset reminded her. "I think that counts."

"That issue has only just gone out," Luna reminded Sunset entirely reasonably. "He may not have read it yet."

"Oh, that's right," Sunset mused, visibly thinking back. "It's just that it's been weeks since we actually did that. Putting out a magazine is a lot of work, huh?"

The boy cleared his throat, electing to ignore the ongoing banter, which was fair since the banter was ignoring him, as well. Stepping forward, he held out his hand and introduced himself. "Malfoy. Draco Malfoy."

Harry raised an eyebrow at the gesture, but shrugged and stood. "Harry Potter," he said, shaking the hand. "And these are Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger, Luna Lovegood and Sunset Shimmer."

Draco, rather than introduce either of his two friends, zeroed in on Ginny. "Weasley?" he said with a professional sneer to his voice. "My father always said that the Weasleys all had red hair, freckles and more children than they can afford. I see now that the situation is even more dire than that."

"Seven and a half," Sunset said, stealing everyone's attention.

Draco was completely lost. "What?"

"The insult," Sunset clarified. "I'm giving it a seven and a half out of ten. It shows promise, and I'm looking forward to hearing more from you in the future."

"Well, of course I show promise," Draco said, preening. "Not that the opinion of an animal matters at all to me."

Sunset's ears folded. "Oh," she said, sounding downtrodden. "Maybe that was premature. If calling me an animal is the best you can come up with, three out of ten is the best I can do—and that's being generous."

"You did catch him off guard," Luna pointed out. "Maybe he'll have something better for you next time."

Sunset shrugged. "I guess you do have a point," she admitted. "Not everyone can be quick-witted enough to banter off the cuff."

Rather than engage Sunset and Luna any further, Draco turned back to Harry and straightened his back. "You'll learn, Potter, that some families are better than others," he said, and the implication that everyone else in the compartment were some of those 'others' hardly needed to be said. "You don't want to go making friends with the wrong sort. You can do better than muggleborns, animals and the delusional insane; I can help you there."

Harry blinked, looked at Sunset, then blinked again. "...Did you seriously just repeat the 'animal' thing right after getting panned for it?" he asked, not really feeling the need to escalate because he'd flubbed it so badly that it hardly even felt like a victory.

"I'd be careful if I were you, Potter," Draco said, slowly backing off. “Unless you’re a bit politer you’ll go the same way as your parents. They didn’t know what was good for them, either."

Harry might have responded, but the door slammed shut in his face, cutting him off. Nobody else in the compartment really had anything to say after that.

Slowly, Harry sat back down in the space between Ginny and Hermione, making sure not to topple his pile of sweets any. The silence was unusual, and everyone eventually found themselves looking at Ginny, waiting for some kind of explosion.

Ginny, though, was just sitting there sulking.

"...So, what exactly is going on with her?" Hermione asked.

Harry scratched at the back of his neck. "Well, that's the thing," he said. "We don't actually know. There's something going on that makes the unlikeliest things happen."

"Like a bad luck curse of some sort?" Hermione said, openly curious about it now that she wasn't being yelled at over having interrupted the subject. "It's still hard for me to believe that things like luck potions actually exist. Out of all the things that magic can do, that has to be the most unexpected, by far. Since they do, though, I don't see why the opposite couldn't be true."

Harry shook his head. "If it was just good luck or bad luck, that would be one thing," he said. "But that's not quite right. Ginny thinks it's the fae, and I guess that makes sense if Luna knows something about it."

"What does it do, then?" Hermione asked. "If there's some commonality, then we should be able to figure it out."

Harry hesitated to answer too precisely, but a month with Ginny had gotten him used to talking about it. "Keeps my evil relatives from kicking us out, mainly," he admitted.

Hermione was taken aback at the blunt appraisal. "Thats... good?" she guessed.

Harry shrugged. "No, not really," he said, then added, "It's prevented Ginny's mum from meeting us in Diagon, too. Whatever it's really doing, I think we'd be better off without it."

Hermione frowned. "But if it gets you kicked out, that would be a problem, wouldn't it? It's your home."

Harry thought about it—actually thought about it; growing up in a cupboard, constantly harassed by his cousin, needled and shouted at by his aunt and uncle—and shook his head. "It really isn't," he said, and just like that, something broke.

Everyone in the compartment felt it. It was like a fog around them had frozen and fell to the ground, leaving the air bright, crisp and clear.

"Wait wait wait wait," Ginny said, standing up in a shot. "That's it? That's all that we needed to do? Just say three merlin-damned words?!"

Sunset cleared her throat chidingly. "Language, Ginny."

"Screw your language!" Ginny shouted back. "A month and a half of dealing with those vile halfwits and all Harry had to do was say it wasn't his home? What the hell?!"

Sunset pursed her lips. "Now that's just wrong. Not about breaking the wards—that's basically correct—but you're a snorkack now; you have to say, 'what the hay' instead of 'what the hell.' It's tradition."

"Wait," Harry said, interrupting as much to prevent Sunset from riling Ginny up any more than she already was. "Wards? Do fae make wards?"

Luna pressed a finger against her cheek in thought. "They might?" she said. "I wouldn't say they couldn't."

"But you aren't saying they did," Hermione noted. "So they didn't."

"That makes sense," Luna agreed.

Ginny looked like she wanted to strangle her friend. "Can't you just tell us what it is?" she demanded.

Luna nodded. "I can now, yes."

"Now?" Hermione asked before the obvious follow-up could be made. "Why now?"

"Because the whole point of the wards was to keep Harry under the wards, and telling him how to break them would have contributed to him breaking them," Sunset explained.

"Not the whole point," Luna objected. "Presumably there were actual protections woven into the protections."

"You'd hope so," Sunset said. "But Dumbledore was light on the details, so I'm just working with the information I have."

"Wait, what?!" Ginny shouted. "What does Dumbledore have to do with this?"

"Everything?" Luna said. "He's the one who cast them, after all."

Harry only had one way to respond to that. He looked to Ginny and said, "...I told you it wasn't Titania."

⁂

It didn't take very much time at all for Sunset and Luna—mostly Sunset—to fill Hermione, Ginny and Harry in on what they knew about the wards because, really, what was there to say?

Harry, though, was in a bit of shock over the whole thing. "...I guess I'm homeless now?" he said.

Ginny just rolled her eyes at his theatrics. "You can stay with us, obviously."

That tickled something in Sunset's mind. "...Can he, actually?" she said. "Only, the Grangers—Hermione's parents—were making a huge stink about Luna being left alone, and the way Professor McGonagall put it, not only are there no orphanages, there are actual laws against it."

"...That can't be right," Hermione said.

Sunset raised an eyebrow. "You were there," she reminded her.

"Yes, I know," Hermione said. "But the wizarding world gives me a headache so I'm trying to pretend otherwise. Is it working?"

"No," Harry said. "I don't think it is."

"...Drat," Hermione quietly cursed. "Still, there must be more to it."

Sunset hmmed. They could probably put Harry up at The Rookery, but Ginny would probably have to come too, and then they'd never get rid of Mrs. Weasley. "Actually," Sunset said, having thought of something. "Dumbledore said that the familiar bond is as deep as any bond of blood, or something like that."

Ginny gave Sunset a suspicious look. "That was surprisingly straightforward and helpful."

"I'm generous like that," Sunset insisted.

"You are not."

The whole carriage froze instantly at the sound of someone knocking at the door. They paused, waited patiently, then knocked again. No one barged in, nothing important was interrupted and there was no magical force making it happen. It was just a regular, polite person asking for admittance.

Sunset lit her horn and opened the door with her magic.

"Oh, good," said the redhead at the door, taking in all the occupants of the compartment. "I thought for a second that I had it wrong."

Sunset took a moment to remember, but it eventually came to her. Right. This was Susan Bones, the girl that Sunset and Luna had met at Flourish and Blotts, and she quickly introduced herself as such. The reciprocal introductions, on the other hoof, followed the same pattern as it had with all of their previous visitors; Harry Potter got mild surprise, while Ginny got quite a bit more.

Not, though, quite as much more surprise as Sunset would have guessed. The reason for this discrepancy was immediately revealed when Susan gave her a compassionate look and said, "You too, huh?"

"Me, too?" Ginny said, baffled. "What do you mean, 'me, too'?"

"For the record," Sunset said with a sigh, expecting that she was going to have to repeat herself far too many times in the future. "I haven't been cursed, potioned or transfigured in any way. I was actually born looking this good."

Susan bones stared blankly at Sunset. "Um, okay," she said. "But that's not what I meant."

Luna perked up. "So... There is another?"

"Yeah," Susan said. "Millicent Bulstrode is hiding away in the last car—no wings or horn or anything, but she looks to be the same kind of adorable pony otherwise."

They all took a moment to absorb that information, and Luna was the first one to speak up.

"Broad-hoofed Snorkack."

Author's Note

Well, now, would you look at that? We finally got to the train ride! Half of it, anyway.

So, yes, the wards are broken. I have no intention of repeating the same thing each summer, and writing around something that prevents characters from saying certain things is something best done in small doses.

Thanks go out to those supporting me on Patreon and ko-fi, pomegranate horsie, Sunny, Zervon Tora, Katharine Berry, LD, Jan Sterba, senaxyva, Ersmiller, Canary In The Coal Mine, Jason Langford, Денис, J T, Andrew Pam, Southpaw, Andrew Denton, Trellmor, Kirishala, djthomp, SirHoli, IamUnknown, fused and CvBrony

Chapter 1

***

Sunset Shimmer had a problem. Really, she had more than one, which you could even say was her problem in an almost-but-not-really tautological way, but at the moment, one particular problem stood out.

You see, Sunset Shimmer hadn’t had a whole lot of expectations for what she would find on the other side of the mirror, but being spat out of the base of a statue into the path of some kind of mechanized carriage hadn’t been one of them.

Well, no, that was a lie. She’d had a lot of expectations for what she would find, the carriage thing just wasn’t one of them.

Back to the carriage thing, though—it was kind of a problem. Now, if she’d popped out of the mirror in immediate possession of the wings the mirror had shown her having, maybe that wouldn’t have been a problem. Maybe things would have gone okay. She didn’t though, so, again, problem. It was actually a rather big problem, too—bigger than it sounds, and being in the path of a carriage wasn’t really a small issue to begin with.

The thing was, regardless of her lack of wings, she didn’t actually come out of the statue at ground level. That might seem odd, but it was a direct result of the statue itself not being at ground level. The statue where the mirror portal was anchored was, in fact, in the back of another of these mechanized carriages which was itself moving down a vast black road at somewhat of a greater speed than Sunset Shimmer had ever seen a carriage go.

Unfortunately for Sunset Shimmer, it was also at somewhat of a greater speed than she was able to react, and while a timely teleport might have been able to save her or at least reduce her problems to the reduction of speed via friction with the ground—a nasty enough proposition to begin with—she instead had to contend with something rather more dire: the sudden and uneven distribution of kinetic energy in disparate parts of her body, which is to say, impact.

Of course, if Sunset Shimmer had actually been hit by an automated carriage going automated carriage highway speeds, her path to ascension would have been rather short. Whether it would have been successful or not, nopony could know, but given that she was, colloquially, kind of a bitch made it rather unlikely, though she wasn’t consciously aware of the fact. Regardless, Sunset Shimmer was subject to one particular lucky break that saved her life, if you could call an aspect of physics lucky.

The thing that saved Sunset Shimmer’s life was the rather necessary and non-negotiable fact that she exited the statue portal in the same frame of reference as the statue portal, and so the difference in velocity between her and the surrounding mechanized carriages was in fact rather small, initially. Of course, though it was against her will and something she intended to fix as soon as possible, Sunset Shimmer was a unicorn and therefore not overly familiar with wind resistance. The two became acquainted, though, and became fast friends on account of having so much in common—that being, mainly, that wind resistance was almost as much of a bitch as she was.

So, yes, Sunset Shimmer had a problem and it was a rather large one, but not, perhaps, as large as it could have been or large enough to preclude her from ever having problems to begin with. She was not the only one, however, though she wouldn’t particularly see it that way herself.

It was Neighton’s third law, though, that said that she was about to be as much of a problem to the people in the mechanized carriage as they were about to be to her. More than that, though, and entirely beyond her knowing, she was also about to be a problem to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures and several other departments of the British Ministry of Magic.

In the end, while she didn’t remember the actual impact, the problems involved would be felt far into the future.

Mostly by her.

***

Sunset Shimmer was in pain. Ponies were tough creatures—even unicorns—but there was still only so much abuse they could take and Sunset had gone rather far past that. She tried to move, but her body was offended at the very idea. She persevered, though, just enough to take stock of what had happened to her.

Just about the only bright side was the fact that her head was relatively clear, if you could call it a bright side. On one hoof, it meant that she was immediately aware of the situation that she was in, including the large crowd of towering whatever-they-weres that were surrounding her, but on the other hoof, it meant that she was immediately aware of all the different parts of her that were screaming out in pain.

Honestly, though, calling them different parts was kind of missing the point. Sure, the pain in her hooves was a special kind of burn that told her that she must have landed at least briefly on the pitch and gravel mixture that the road was made of and similar abrasions were scattered over her coat like leopard spots, but it was all tied together into one throbbing mess by the single all-encompassing bruise that made up her left side.

Oh, and her horn hurt. Everything else aside, that was a special spike of pain with a direct line to her brain—literally. It was like every annoying horn-flick from her childhood had all come back for a second round, so there was that.

All in all, Sunset was not enjoying her first moments in this new world, nor did she think she was going to enjoy the immediate future. The sounds coming from the crowd surrounding her were not happy sounds; that wasn't surprising. She had, after all, caused quite the commotion and likely some damage upon her arrival.

No, the concerning things were worried whispers like "What is it?" and "Where did it come from?"—the sounds of a crowd building up a head of paranoia and fear. Entirely aside from being referred to as a thing, these people had apparently never seen a pony before, which was not a position she liked being in given her state and how much larger they were than her.

Sunset did not like feeling vulnerable. She liked being vulnerable even less.

Naturally, things got worse from there. It started with several sharp cracks that sent fresh jolts of pain down her horn. It felt like teleportation magic of a sort, but not even the sloppiest teleport should have felt like that to her.

For all that the teleportation spell hurt, though, and maybe gave off the impression of someone careless with their magic, the next thing was a little more alarming: a heavy curtain of lassitude fell over the entire area, pushing the throbbing of her horn into a constant ache, which was worrying on multiple levels.

First, Sunset did not like having her emotions controlled. Of course, no one liked having their emotions controlled, and while she didn’t believe much in the rights of other people, it did reinforce the image of carelessness she’d already developed.

Second, though, was that this was the second spell that had felt unusually raw to her horn, and while it could have had something to do with the world or how these whatever-they-weres do magic, Sunset had just been rather traumatically injured and her mind immediately went to the part of her body that was most directly connected to it: her horn.

The idea that she might have injured her horn sent chills down her spine.

Horn injuries were… bad. They were bad for the average unicorn and they’d be even worse for somepony like her that lived and breathed magic. Horns grew slowly for the life of a unicorn, enough that filing and polishing were part of proper horncare, but deep cracks and damage were another matter entirely. Some injuries could be filled with certain magical metals, but an outright broken horn… there wasn’t much that could be done about that.

Sunset would never have admitted it, but she was getting scared. She’d come to this world through a magic mirror chasing after an ascension that her mentor and mother figure had denied her. Laying broken in the street surrounded by strange and imposing creatures was not how this was supposed to go.

Then, she felt the first memory spell being cast on the crowd and her vague creeping dread turned to bright searing terror. There was definitely something wrong with her horn, because she didn’t think that she was supposed to see the flashes of imagery showing the site of the crash, only instead of a beautiful and powerful unicorn with a red and gold mane, there was a goat.

Goat.

Sunset didn’t have time for indignation, though, because soon the memory spells were going off one after another, filling her head with the same images over and over—except for one time when instead of a goat, it was a fawn.

Sunset wasn’t sure if that was better.

And then the magic users reached Sunset.

“The hell is this?” one of them asked. “I thought this was supposed to be a unicorn sighting? That ain’t no unicorn.”

Oh Celestia, Sunset swore in her head. Was her horn so far gone that they couldn’t even tell she was a unicorn?”

“It’s got the horn,” another answered, much to her relief. “Sorta.”

Sort of? Sort of?! Curse it, that was not helpful.

“It’s a tiny, chubby yellow thing with a Gryffindor mane,” the first voice drawled. “Are we sure someone didn’t just animate a stuffed toy?”

Chubby? Chubby?! Sunset didn’t know what a ‘Gryffindor’ was, but the way it was sneered implied that it was an insult, too, which meant that these were idiots because her mane was perfect.

Also because they apparently didn’t know what a unicorn looked like, which was almost as strong of an argument.

Sunset wasn’t ready for the wash of static-y magic that set her teeth on edge.

“Nope,” said one of the magic users. “Not charmed or transfigured. Someone’s been violating the ban on experimental breeding. What do you think? They cross a unicorn with a puffskein?”

Excuse you?! Sunset wasn’t fond of the parents that had given her up as a foal, but they’d both been unicorns!

“Something like that” another one said, clearly not caring, though he continued after a distinct pause. “Red blood, so probably not all that magical.”

They did know that ‘blue bloods’ don’t actually have blue blood, right? And that they weren’t actually any better at magic than anypony else? Sunset added ‘classist’ to the list of reasons she wanted to be absolutely anywhere else but at the mercy of these creatures, but an attempt to get up only confirmed that it wasn’t going to happen.

“Listen to that wheezing,” another one of them said. “Think we should put it out of its misery?”

Sunset tried harder and managed to reassure herself that she still had a horn—mainly by managing to bang it on something metal behind her.

“Petrificus totalus,” someone intoned, briefly confusing Sunset until she felt the magic squeezing in on her, locking her in place. “Nah. DoM’ll want to see it first at least, and Macnair gets bitchy if you take his work away from him since there isn’t much call for an executioner with the dementors and all.”

Domme? Executioner? Yeah, no, Sunset wasn’t going to stick around for that. Heart hammering, she strained against the spell holding her in place, but it wasn’t just a physical binding—there was a paralysis aspect to it, too. She’d have to dispel it first.

Assuming she could.

Assuming her horn still worked.

The prospect of being trapped, mentally controlled, studied and eventually killed was a pretty good reason to find out, though. Still, it wouldn’t matter if she couldn’t actually get away. That was what magic was for, though. If she could cast a dispel, she might be able to cast a teleport, and self-levitation was theoretically an option, too—not an attractive option given her current condition, but, again, it was that or a string of horrible equine rights violations followed by death, so there really wasn’t any contest.

Sunset prepared herself, took a deep breath, then lit up her horn—

“Stupefy,” one of the magic users said, and everything went dark.

***

Sunset awoke in slightly less pain.

She was also in a cage, which wasn’t really a fair exchange in her opinion, that being the only one that mattered. Still, she was able to actually sit up, if gingerly, which was a vast improvement to being too hurt to move and was going to be important in the immediate future.

Not the most important thing, though. Carefully, Sunset brought a hoof up to feel her horn.

It felt solid at first, which was a relief, but that relief was short-lived. As she ran her hoof along the length, she felt the last thing any unicorn wanted to feel: something uneven. Further exploration revealed a bit-sized chip missing from the side of her horn, and the other side had been ground raw against the road, bringing the tip almost to a point.

Unicorns had long evolved past goring other creatures with their horns, but it was technically an option for Sunset now, and she was sorely tempted to see how well it worked on the people who had captured her, no matter how sensitive her horn was at the moment.

Regardless, her horn was in bad shape, but only in a scarring and possible nerve damage sense. It would affect her magic, possibly for the rest of her mortal life, but she wasn’t planning on spending too much more of her life mortal. One of the very few things that her mentor, the alicorn Princess Celestia had told Sunset about her ascension was that the transformation into alicorn had essentially given her a new body out of magic alone, so this was just one more reason she needed to reach ascension herself.

One of many.

Expanding her explorations beyond her horn and the cage she was in, Sunset found herself alone in a dark room housing several other cages and a desk with an inkwell and a smattering of papers on it. The cages were empty, and the desk was large enough that she might be able to put her hooves on it if she stood up on her back hooves and stretched.

As intimidating as the giant desk was, the empty cages were more ominous. Normally, Sunset wouldn’t think anything of them; it would have been unusual for the dungeons in the Canterlot palace to have not been empty, for instance. Normally, though, governments did not have a dedicated executioner on staff.

Fortunately for Sunset, though, the emptiness was the only thing noteworthy about the cages; they weren’t even magically reinforced, which was just embarrassing. These cages couldn’t hold a foal, and they wouldn’t hold Sunset.

Slowly, carefully, Sunset began to charge her horn up with magic. It was messy, producing the occasional arc across the damaged portions of her horn, but other than a bit of wasted energy, it seemed to be functional.

Pushing just a bit more, Sunset channeled the magic into a teleport spell, let it go and reappeared just outside of her cage with a sizzling pop and only a slight smell of ozone. Finally able to reassure herself that she wasn’t crippled, Sunset felt a knot in her heart relax.

Now she just had to find a way out of this place.

That would be easier if she had any idea where she was. With years of experience living in the Canterlot Palace, Sunset would have said she knew her large structures pretty well, and while it was possible that she was merely deep in the structure, the particular clamminess gave Sunset the impression that she was also underground.

That was going to make escape a little annoying, but it did give her an immediate goal: heading upwards. Before heading out, she checked the desk for anything interesting, but it seemed to be just a generic workstation with blank parchment and other stationery.

The door was her next stop, and it wasn’t even locked. Briefly, Sunset wished she’d learned an invisibility spell at some point, but her studies had always been about being seen. Sure, she’d occasionally done some underhoofed things to make other ponies look bad, but she hadn’t made a study of it.

That, clearly, had been a mistake.

Sunset listened at the door for any sort of sound, but no matter how long she waited, she didn’t hear a single thing. In Sunset’s experience, that would normally mean that they possessed a soundproofing spell that activated with the door closed, but after cracking the door open, nothing seemed to change.

In hindsight, if there had been a soundproofing spell, she probably would have felt it with her horn when she’d pressed her face against the door. After the completely unenchanted cage, she was really not impressed by these magic users. They were terrifying in the kinds of magic they did use—mental effects, paralysis, memory editing and the like—but as far as actual practical magic went… well, she’d yet to actually see any.

That gave her an idea, actually. As quietly as possible, she closed the door, stepped back, sat down and began to concentrate.

Normally, sensing magic didn’t have much of a range, especially in a place like Canterlot Palace where pretty much every door and wall was layered with enchantments but it wasn’t limited to unicorns and enchantments. Even earth ponies put magic into everything they interacted with, if in a less directed manner.

Here, though, and with her horn scraped so raw that it throbbed at the slightest twitch of magic? Sunset did what she could to calm her mind and open herself up to it.

She actually felt more than she’d expected to. As she’d guessed, the actual structure was only minimally enchanted, mostly with something like the magic that had been used to detain her. It wasn’t quite proper structural magic, but instead just seemed to be holding things in place, which was… a weird way to go about it.

Other than that, though, she actually did feel several sharp spikes of magic. Her horn didn’t give her a three-dimensional map or anything, but as she craned her neck this way and that, she could pick out a number of things quite nearby that were notable and one or two that were actually impressive.

What was almost as noteworthy was what she didn’t sense, because beyond the immediate structure there was… pretty much nothing. There might have been one slight glow from a distance away, but if not for that, she almost would have concluded that she was in some kind of pocket dimension. She wanted to say that her captors weren’t nearly advanced enough to have that kind of magic, but with the eclectic mix of war crimes she’d seen so far from them, she didn’t want to rule anything out.

Fortunately, the most useful thing her meditation provided was some idea of how the rest of the structure was laid out, which also gave her some idea of where to go. Unfortunately, since she believed herself to be either underground or, doubtfully, in a pocket dimension, then most likely she had to go to the center rather than the edge to find her way out.

Once again, Sunset approached the door and hesitated. The corridor outside was silent, which might mean it was night or it might just mean she was in a less used wing of the structure. Either way, the closer to the center she got, the more likely it was that she’d run into one or more of the creatures, be they workers or guards.

What was she going to do when she did?

Obviously, the best thing to do would be to sneak past them, but with the yellow red and gold of her coat and mane, a thestral she was not.

She could just run if she was spotted, but without knowing where her goal was beforehoof, that would be a mistake.

She… didn’t particularly want to kill, even if the world would almost certainly be better off without the kinds of magic these creatures used. No matter the disagreements that Sunset had with her over the matter of ascension, Princess Celestia had convinced her that morality aside, killing only caused more problems in the long run and Sunset had enough problems just then that she couldn’t really afford to plant any more.

That reduced her options by more than she’d like to admit. Again, her specialty was big, flashy magic—especially fire—and that didn’t really lend itself to “minimum necessary force.”

Briefly, Sunset remembered the spell that had been used to make her unconscious, but she hadn’t felt enough of it to be able to reproduce it and she didn’t actually know what it had done. What had the creature said? Stupefy? Saying words when casting a spell was a weird quirk, but that sounded like it worked by reducing the target’s mental capacity until they were incapable of doing anything. That… was about as disturbing as the rest of the magic she’d seen from them and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to know how it would work.

That pretty much left Sunset with blunt force as an option. The creatures had looked pretty gangly from what she could recall, and most species needed their kneecaps for something. Searching the room for something she could use as a weapon, Sunset broke one leg off the chair and swung it with her magic a few times, thinking about just how much larger than her they were.

The teal glow of her magic was not subtle, but it would have to do.

***

Finding empty corridor after empty corridor of black stone and cold blue-flamed torches, Sunset was pretty sure that it was night, or whenever these creatures slept. That wasn’t any proof that no one was around, but it was reason enough to trade a little care for expediency to ensure she found her way out before any of them came back to do horrible things to her.

Mostly, this meant not stopping at every doorway to ensure that the coast was clear before entering a room since no matter how hurried, she was still conscious of the echoing clip-clop that hooves made on polished stone.

Still, it was difficult not stopping to look at things considering the sorts of things she came across. It should have been obvious since it was where she’d been brought, but this was apparently where the whatever-they-weres studied strange and unusual magics. The “DoM” that had been mentioned was apparently the Department of Mysteries, which, well, was better than what it sounded like at first, anyway, though her opinion on being one of the mysteries they were studying hadn’t changed.

She definitely made note of several things, though. The little glowing orbs felt interesting, and she wasn’t sure what the ache in her horn from the freestanding veiled doorway meant.

That said, the area wasn’t huge, so it wasn’t actually all that long until she found the small room that made up the central hub with twelve identical doors, which seemed none too helpful. Neither was it helpful when the floor thrummed with magic and began to spin until Sunset had lost track of the one she’d come out of like something out of Oubliettes and Ogres, only this was some place that people were actually expected to use every day to get to work. True, Sunset knew some ponies who would build such a thing, but this was a government building.

No, wait, Princess Celestia was absolutely one of those ponies. It was actually surprising that Castle Canterlot wasn’t full of secret passages.

Moving on, Sunset wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do here, exactly. There had to be some logic to it, but it wasn’t clear what that logic was, which she supposed was the point. Still, she wanted to hurry up and get out of here, not just because she wanted to stay alive, but because the room itself was… uncomfortable.

Wait, why was the room uncomfortable? It was just a room, slightly more magical than the last. Sunset took a breath to calm herself and tried to examine her feelings—not one of the skills and habits that Princess Celestia had successfully managed to teach her. It had something to do with magic, though, so Sunset eventually figured it out.

On the surface it looked like a vocal trigger, but deeper in there was something in the magic that was reading her intent, as if reading ponies’ minds was a perfectly normal and sane thing to do so long as you used it for a building directory.

Sunset really, really did not like these creatures or their magic.

“Exit?” she announced self consciously to the room, to which the room obliged, revealing a short corridor to a brass-caged elevator. Sunset wasted no time in rushing to it, only slowing enough as to not make too much noise rattling the mechanism.

As quick as she could, Sunset shut the door with her magic and propped herself up on her hind legs so she could see the controls.

According to the elevator, there were ten floors labeled zero through nine, going from "deep," "deeper" and "extraordinarily deep" down to "even deeper again" and finally just "bottom." Obviously someone had had fun labeling them, but Sunset wasn't really in the mood to appreciate it just then, considering she was on the deepest level.

Without hesitation, Sunset slammed the controls with her hoof, starting a cacophonous rattling as the cage began to ascend on its way to level zero.

She was therefore rather confused when a voice announced, "Level Eight: Ministry Atrium, Public Floo and Visitor's Entrance," as it passed by a large room with a large fountain and scores of gilded alcoves that looked almost like fireplaces.

What was the point of having your mysterious research lab on the bottom level of an underground complex if the public entrance was right next to it?

Annoyed at the questionable planning abilities of these creatures and not willing to waste any time searching the upper floors when she had an exit right there, Sunset slammed the controls again, but as expected, doing so failed to change the course of the elevator which was on its way to the top floor.

It was fortunate that the elevator was made of brass because the backlash of Sunset's teleport down to the atrium as it passed by was rather more hot and violent than it should have been, leaving it sizzling.

She appeared at a run down in the atrium, wasting no time jumping the security desk and making her way to the travel... they really looked like fireplaces for some reason.

That reason, her horn revealed to her, was that apparently these alcoves were designed to use some kind of magical fire to burn a hole between two points in space, almost like a wormhole, but without the actual wormhole. At first, Sunset thought this was absolutely insane as there wouldn't be anything to ensure that the traveler actually reached their destination in the space between spaces, but on second examination, there appeared to be a spell tied to a network that directed them to the right one.

It was still insane, of course, though for once in Sunset's experience with these creatures' magic not really immoral, probably. Burning holes in space didn't sound like that great an idea, but unicorns had been poking holes in space for ages and it was fine. Besides, if it did eventually let in horrors beyond comprehension from the space between, well, that sounded like a them-problem, or at minimum a later-problem.

Still, there were better ways to send things to other places with fire. Sunset herself was perfectly capable of unburning things and Princess Celestia could do it at a distance. Admittedly, that wasn't something you'd do to a person, but it was just what Sunset could think of off the top of her head.

Immolation transportation aside, what actually mattered was figuring out how to use one of these fireplaces to get out of this place. Well, triggering the magic seemed simple enough, as it greatly resembled the carousel room down in the Department of Mysteries. This one looked a lot more complex, though, since presumably there was an entire network of these things.

The result of that complexity was that the intent portion of the enchantment was extremely sensitive. So sensitive, that it almost ceased being intent-based at all. If someone misspoke the destination, they might be fine so long as they didn't actually realize it. If they realized that they'd misspoke, though, the enchantment would pick up on that and misfire, sending them somewhere else nearby the intended destination.

It was, essentially, the magical equivalent of saying, 'at this location, but not actually at this location.'

Unfortunately for Sunset, she didn't actually know of any locations, except, well...

First, she cast a magical fire into the alcove, then poked the enchantment in just the right place. Normally, there seemed to be some other component to trigger it, but injecting the right blend of spatial magic into it worked fine. The magical fire turned green and Sunset announced, "Exit," as she'd done down below in the Department of Mysteries.

The fire flared red and then slowly went back to orange. Presumably that was what happened when you gave it an invalid destination.

Well, shit.

Sunset spent more time that she liked just sitting there, body aching, anxiously examining the enchantment, but there wasn't actually much to it—the actual targeting of other locations on the network must have been done at some centralized location, leaving her little to examine. She could start saying random words into the fire, but even if she found one that worked, blindly showing up in some random place was a chance she didn't want to take if she could help it.

If only she had access to the directory where all the locations were defined.

Sunset blinked, then looked back behind her at what was clearly the security desk of a government building. The elevator had said this was the Ministry Atrium, right?

Already feeling like she'd spent too long in her escape, Sunset didn't waste any more of it facehoofing and ran back in the direction of the elevator. She did waste a few seconds looking at the statue in the center of the atrium, however. She couldn't help it—she hadn't really seen it properly on her way out, but on her way back in, she got the full effect and... wow.

Just 'wow'. The statue was a gleaming golden abomination showing one figure representing one of the creatures she'd seen so far surrounded by four other figures of other species who were all looking up at it with awe and reverence. Not even the worst of the Canterlot nobility would have dared to suggest such a thing, and here, they had it in the entranceway of their government.

Sunset did not like these creatures.

It took effort for Sunset to tear herself away from the Fountain of Magical Brethren as it was labeled, but she really was in a hurry. There were at least twenty elevators to choose from and several plaques in the area offering a directive of the floors. Immediately, Sunset's eyes went to 'Level 6: Department of Magical Transportation' under which in smaller letters it listed the 'Floo Network Authority,' 'Broom Regulatory Control,' 'Portkey Office' and 'Apparition Test Centre.'

'Floo Network Authority' had to be it, so she dashed into the closest elevator and hit the control for level six. "So, 'Floo' is what they call those things," she reflected as the elevator took her up two floors. "Like a chimney flue?" The similarity to fireplaces wasn't accidental, then, she guessed. Given Equestria's penchant for equine puns, it wasn't the worst thing she'd ever heard something called. Actually, it wasn't even the worst thing on the list.

If these creatures actually used brooms to fly like a Nightmare Night witch, she was going to go home and find her ascension in some other authoritarian nightmare world; this one was too literal.

Sunset pointedly did not think about the fact that she had no way back home—not for the two and a half years between portal activations, and not even then given that the statue where the portal was anchored to could be anywhere.

The elevator opened up into a short corridor with four doors and one thing she hadn't expected to see—a window at the end of the corridor that she immediately galloped to. She almost didn't mind being wrong about this place being underground if it meant that she could escape immediately without having to take a chance with the Floo Network.

She had at least been right about it being night, it seemed, though she wasn't entirely sure what to make of the sight she saw. It was dark outside, yes, but also absolutely pouring rain like she'd never seen before. It was like the entire Cloudsdale weather factory was pouring its entire output down over this one window, with a team of Pegasi letting off lightning bolts every ten seconds just for good measure.

The strangest part of all was that it was all completely silent, yet as she reached the wall and propped herself up on her hind legs to look through the window, she didn't feel anything like a silencing spell that would be necessary to keep the sounds of such a cacophonous storm out. What she did feel was—

Oh.

What she did feel was an illusion. Her heart sank and she dropped her front hooves back to the ground with a soft clop. She couldn't even appreciate the artistry that had gone into the illusion because she'd gotten her hopes up only for them to be immediately crushed, because of course it wasn't going to be that easy.

Sighing, Sunset turned and walked back to the door labeled as the Floo Network Authority, which she then realized was the one door in the hall that was lit from inside, because of course it was.

The emotional whiplash made it difficult to focus, but she forced herself to forget about her brief foolishness and did what she could to walk herself through the situation at hoof: Was whoever was in the Floo Network Authority working late, or was someone always monitoring the system? Ideally, it would be the former, since that would mean both that it was still relatively early in the night, and that whoever was still here might therefore leave. Sunset, therefore, had to assume it was the latter case.

Creeping closer to the door, Sunset did what she could to calm herself and felt for any magic as was becoming habit. Maybe once her horn healed, she would file it more often, because she was finding the extra sensitivity extremely valuable in this world where only the occasional thing contained magic, relatively speaking—though the office she was lurking outside of had more than she'd seen so far.

The office contained quite a few incidental things that were enchanted strewn across desks and the like, which raised her opinion of the creatures just a little bit. They couldn't possibly have come up with terrible, abusive magics to put on quills and parchment, could they?

More importantly than any of that, though, was the person she felt. It was only one, thankfully, but one was more than she wanted to have to deal with.

Muzzle nearly to the door, Sunset paused and found herself looking up into the air at her side, where her makeshift club wasn't. She must have been in too much of a hurry and forgotten it next to the floo down in the atrium.

Sunset cursed herself internally for making that kind of a mistake, but she wasn't used to needing to keep a weapon at her side constantly. She would just have to improvise with whatever was inside.

Carefully, Sunset used her magic to turn the doorknob. Again very conscious of the teal glow and light tinkling sound it made, she pulled the door just until the latch was free, then cut off her magic, using her hoof to open it further—just enough to slip through.

The main room of the Floo Network Authority looked like any other office with reception desk, six fireplaces—three to a wall—and a whatever-they-were sleeping in an alcove walled floor to ceiling with little cubby holes that seemed to fill with balls of green flame at random.

Just slightly, Sunset relaxed. If the creature on duty could sleep through the fires winking in and out, she figured they were probably a heavy sleeper. This assumption was only enhanced when, as Sunset crept closer, she began to hear a low murmuring from the fires in the alcove.

Privacy was apparently not a thing on the Floo Network. That tracked with everything else she'd seen of these creatures so far and she made sure to remember it. She also noted that she'd been right to assume it was someone monitoring the system, not someone working late. Of course, no actual monitoring seemed to be being done, but she wasn't going to complain about that.

The next thing that caught Sunset's attention was something incredibly important that she hadn't even thought of: a large map dominating the far wall next to the alcove. It was closer than she liked to the sleeping whatever-it-was, but she absolutely needed to get some idea of the lay of the land—literally.

It turned out not to be that difficult to approach the map while staying out of sight of the alcove with the typical office clutter of desks and chairs, and approaching from the opposite side of the room reduced her chances of being seen even further. The only real concern was the clopping of her hooves on the polished stone floor, but moving slowly and steadily, she made it to the map, which was informative.

The map consisted mainly of two islands split into several countries and the edge of a larger landmass to the southeast. She couldn't be sure what the scale of the map was, but there was an extremely extensive road system in place and several very large, very dense cities.

It was strange, then, that the tiny pins marking Floo locations were spread so thin, mostly scattered around the countryside except for a few areas where there were small concentrations—one up in the middle of the region labeled 'Scotland,' another two smaller ones in the city of 'London' and the last on an English peninsula south of Wales.

It seemed that the magic users in charge of all of this were a minority, much like unicorns, and given the memory spells they'd cast on all the witnesses to her arrival, they were apparently very secretive, which made sense when you were committing the kinds of equine rights violations that they were as a matter of course.

So where did she want to go? Stomping down a small part of her that said she wanted to go home, she reasoned it out. Briefly, she considered disappearing into the non-magical masses, but decided against it. For one, she couldn't actually blend in with them, and with the way she'd been received so far, any sighting of her was likely to draw the attention of the magic users as well.

The random pins out in the countryside didn't seem like a great idea either. She needed resources and she wouldn't find them out in the woods.

One of the concentrations of magic users, then, but on the outskirts where the density was lower and she could disappear into the countryside if necessary. Not the ones in London, then, and if the latitude lines were numbered the same way they were in Equestria, then being too far north would be an additional headache she didn't want to deal with. She'd be in no danger of freezing with the number of fire spells she knew, but that would be the least of the complications that heavy winter could cause.

Musing over the clusters of pins on the southwest peninsula, Sunset thought someplace in Devon would be about right, which was where the usefulness of the map ended.

Finding the directory of addresses didn't turn out to be too difficult, and in the process of going through the various books, ledgers and parchment she came across in her search, she learned a number of things: that the magic users called themselves witches and wizards as gendered terms, which was weird; that the magical government was called the Ministry of Magic and was in charge of enforcing a Statute of Secrecy from the 'muggles,' which was offensive; that the currency they used was separated into galleons, sickles and knuts using prime numbers, which was moronic; and that the Minister of Magic was breeding his own army of heliopaths in the Department of Mysteries, which was... an article from more than a week ago and couldn't have had anything to do with her.

If there were actual mystical flaming horse spirits down there, though, she hadn't sensed them, and with her horn in the state it was in, she absolutely would have.

Annoyingly, what she didn't find in her search through the desk clutter was what the whatever-they-weres actually were, other than witches and wizards, so she was going to have to keep calling them that.

As for the Floo Directory, it turned out to be a massive tome twice as large as any other book in the room, which were already rather large to her given her comparative size. The directory was so big, in fact, that Sunset had to use her magic to manipulate it with anything close to care. Fortunately, the teal light of her magic was essentially invisible in the intermittent green light coming from the alcove, though the sound of it didn't quite blend in with the murmuring of floo calls.

For Sunset's purposes, it would have been convenient if the directory was sorted by location, but that wasn't the case, nor had she really expected it to be. Still, it left her paging through at random looking for something in the right area. One of the reasons that the book was so large was because the entries seemed to go back at least a hundred years, with disconnected floos merely crossed out—and there were a lot that were crossed out.

The inefficiency of it all made it take longer than it should have and she had to go back to the map a few times to double check things because "Devon" was apparently not specific enough, but eventually she came across the entry of the home of Xenophilius Lovegood in Ottery St Catchpole, one of a small cluster of floo addresses not too far from the larger cluster that was Godric's Hollow.

Hopefully, if Sunset got caught coming out of the floo, Xenophilius Lovegood would live up to his name—but not too much.

According to the directory, the Lovegood home's floo address was "The Rookery," and while it would have been nice to have a few nearby addresses as a back up, it wasn't really practical and she really, really needed to get going.

Spending one last glance over the room to see if there was anything worth stealing, Sunset stepped up to one of the six large fireplaces in the room and started a magical fire in it as she had down in the atrium. The enchantments on this one seemed to be slightly different—a little more complex—but they were close enough for her poke-it-in-the-right place method of triggering them to work the same.

The fire turned green and, speaking the words, "The Rookery," Sunset disappeared into the flames.

***

It took Sunset a moment to recognize that she'd just walked out of the fireplace in what was clearly a living room. As in, it was just the regular fireplace that a regular living room would have, if maybe several times larger than she was used to.

This did not make sense to Sunset. She'd expected the floo to be outside, maybe out at the property line where you'd expect visitors to show up. She did not expect it to come out in someone's living room.

For Celestia's sake! Not even the most unbearably saccharine, friendship-obsessed pony would put a public portal gateway in their living room! She'd just walked here from a government building like it was the kitchen!

"What the buck is wrong with you people?!" she screamed, throwing her hooves into the air. Immediately, she regretted this and froze, listening for any sign that she was about to be chased out of the house, but there was only silence.

Just when Sunset was beginning to relax, the front door opened, revealing a small blonde child who gasped. Well, she was small in comparison to the doorway, anyway; Sunset still barely came up to her waist.

Immediately, the child's eyes went to Sunset's damaged horn, which only seemed to make her brighten up even more. "You were right, daddy!" the child shouted, amazed. "We did have crumple-horned snorkacks at home!"

"Crumple-horned what?" Sunset asked, offended.

"And it talks, too!" the child added, bounding forward and bending at the waist to get a closer look at Sunset. "I didn't know crumple-horned snorkacks could talk! I'm Luna!"

Sunset's eye twitched. "I'm not one of those whatever-you-just-saids," she said. "I'm a unicorn."

"Don't be silly," Luna laughed, leaning in even closer. "Unicorns can't talk."

"Of course they can ta—" Sunset began, then realized what she was doing. "Whatever," she grumbled. She had been gravely injured, captured and keyed up for an hour during her escape; she hadn't been prepared to deal with children.

Sunset's focus moved to the adult that was still standing in the door who greatly resembled Luna, including the long white hair. Gruffly, Sunset walked around the child and said, "Sorry for showing up in your floo—I'll be going now."

"Wait!" Luna cried, getting in Sunset's way. "You can't go! We've got to take pictures!"

Sunset was just about to teleport outside when a flash went off, blinding her. "Gah!" she shouted, blinking her eyes clear until she could see the adult Lovegood who may or may not have been Xenophilius holding the camera. "No photos!" she growled, yanking the camera out of its hands with her magic. Taking a moment to examine it, it looked like a typical spring-loaded design, so she popped it open and pulled out the last foot of film.

"In the last day I have been denied my destiny, stranded here, hit by a carriage, captured by mysterious and immoral wizards, imprisoned by the same, threatened with death and managed to escape!" she yelled, huffing with the exertion. "I am injured, tired and hungry and you are not going to tell anyone I was here or I will... I'll burn your house down!"

"Lemon?" Luna asked, holding what indeed appeared to be a lemon out.

"What?" Sunset said, automatically taking the lemon, her train of thought completely derailed. The child then produced another lemon and Sunset took that one too. She appeared to be retrieving a third one from the bag at her waist when Sunset interrupted. "Stop! Stop hoofing me lemons! What am I supposed to do with these?!"

"You said you were hungry," Luna said in a 'isn't that obvious' sort of way. "Don't crumple-horned snorkacks eat lemons?"

Sunset rolled her eyes. "I don't know, do they?" she asked sarcastically. "You should go find one and see."

Sarcasm, it seemed, was lost on the child as she immediately looked at the lemon in her hand, looked at Sunset and shoved the lemon into Sunset's mouth.

"Gak—gah!" she sputtered, spitting the lemon out. "Why in Celestia's name would you do that?!"

"To see if you liked lemons, of course," Luna said, once again giving Sunset that look questioning why she was being asked a question with such an obvious answer.

"Does it look like my name is Lemon Twist?!" she shouted, still spitting the taste of lemon out.

"Huh," Luna said, looking down at the lemons as if this was a revelation. Putting them away, she crossed her arms and began tapping her cheek with one finger, looking Sunset over. "No, you're more of a bacon horse, aren't you?"

"My name," Sunset growled, "is Sunset Shimmer, and—" Once again, Sunset realized she was talking when she should be leaving. "Forget it," said, shaking her head. Just as she was trying to stomp past the child again, her stomach disagreed and made itself known.

Luna considered that for a moment before moving on. "Well, tomorrow we were going to see if crumple-horned snorkacks like quiche; do you want some of that?"

"I am not a crumple-horned snorkack!" Sunset yelled, and so did her stomach. "...But, uh, maybe..."

***

Sunset was not happy with this situation, but her stomach was. The quiche was good, Luna was a girl, Xenophilius was a man and they were humans. Xenophilius published his own magazine known as The Quibbler, and Luna would be going to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in just over a year where she would learn to use a wand to cast spells.

They were, by all accounts, much nicer and kinder than Sunset had expected any of these humans to be, and all they wanted was to know about Sunset and the other crumple-horned snorkacks.

Sunset wanted to scream, but it wouldn't help anything. What did finally get them off her case was expressing her need to rest and recover. The abrasions scattered over her body had been scabbed over with a spell called 'episkey'—and it was still weird that wizards spoke the names of their spells out like comic book characters—but Sunset still ached all over and wanted to be done with... everything.

The Lovegood home—or 'The Rookery' as they called it—was a tower with crenelations at the top, named such due to its similarity in appearance to the rook piece in chess, which looked like a tower with crenelations at the top. Sunset thought this was a circular argument, like calling any odd pony a knight because the knight in chess is a pony, but frankly, she did not have the energy to argue, nor did she care. All she needed to know was that they'd made up a bed for her in the form of a pile of blankets in Luna's room, which was on the second floor of the tower, but they called it the first floor for some reason.

At first, Sunset had wanted to argue that sleeping on a couch down on the actual first floor would have been fine, but then she'd remembered how easy it was for someone to just walk right into the room from the ministry and decided that maybe the first-but-actually-the-second floor would be fine.

***

"Sunset, please..." Princess Celestia pleaded, looking pained. "Please."

"'Please' what, Princess?" Sunset said, stomping her hooves on the marble floor of the palace. "'Please' stop researching all the things you taught me to research? Or is it 'please' stop asking about that mirror? Or maybe just 'please' stop stealing your muffins at breakfast? I can't do what you want if you won't tell me what it is that you want."

"Sunset..." Princess Celestia uselessly repeated, receiving a frustrated, inarticulate scream from Sunset for her troubles.

"I can't believe this!" Sunset yelled, fuming at Princess Celestia. "Why won't you just talk to me?! That's what you've been trying to teach me to do for years, isn't it? To talk out my problems? Well, I'm trying! But every time I do anything now, you just clam up and give me that helpless look! Explain this to me, damn it!"

Princess Celestia continued to give Sunset that same conflicted look full of concern and hurt and shame and half a dozen other unidentifiable things. Eventually, she looked away. "Sunset... If you continue on this path, I will have no choice but to remove you from your position as my student."

Sunset grit her teeth at receiving yet another non-answer, but the threat hit even harder, and her head dropped. "If you won't even talk to me about what the problem is..." she said, tears falling. "Then I'm not really your student, am I?"

Princess Celestia hesitated, then turned away and began to leave. "Guards. Please escort Sunset Shimmer out of the palace."

Sunset was poleaxed. This just didn't make sense. "Why?" she yelled as the guards began to lead her out. "Why would you do this to me?! I've earned that much, haven't I? Tell me why!"

The princess didn't answer.

Author's Note

So, this was a random thing that just happened during one of my many attempts to write something. I held it back on Patreon for a while because I wasn't sure if I was going to post it as a story or a snippet, but it's been long enough. It's not like my other stories are any better at getting me to write them right now anyway...

(Please excuse the lousy cover image; the decision to actually get it out the door for Christmas was last minute)

Thanks go to my Patreon supporters, pomegranate horsie, Zervon Tora, Katharine Berry, Jan Sterba, senaxyva, Ersmiller, Canary In The Coal Mine, Kali, Nineite, Andrew Pam, Southpaw, Dusk Star, Andrew Denton, Trellmor, Kirishala, djthomp, SirHoli, IamUnknown, BlueGenome and CvBrony.

Chapter 2 Author's Note

Warning: This chapter gets a little darker and more action-oriented than the story tags indicate, and the next chapter finishes it up and deals with some of the aftermath. After that, it's back to your regularly scheduled wizarding word shenanigans.

Chapter 2

***

Sunset woke up in more pain than she'd gone to sleep in, but she was pretty sure that was normal after the adrenaline of her escape, though in hindsight it had gone just about as well as it possibly could have. It made her wary of the Lovegoods, who also seemed too good to be true, which was saying a lot for somepony who had come from Equestria.

As much as she hated to admit it, though, Sunset needed help. She needed to learn about the magic of these human wizards and witches, even if just to defend herself against them, and since her very existence made her a target, she needed the Lovegoods for that.

Admittedly, the food and shelter helped, too, though if she was going to stay here, she was going to have an actual bed even if she had to make it herself. Throwing a bunch of blankets in a pile was something you did for a dog, not a person.

That could wait until she could get out of it, though.

Given how sore she was, Sunset estimated that she wouldn't want to be doing much for a few days at least, but that time came sooner than she thought.

"What is this?" Sunset said, holding the small bottle of liquid up to the light with her hoof.

"Fascinating!" Xenophilius said, as focused on examining Sunset's front leg as Sunset was on examining the bottle for some reason.

Sunset remained nonplussed. "What? You're the one who gave it to me."

"Hm?" Xenophilius said, turning to look at Sunset herself. "Oh, no, no. This is just a Wiggenweld Potion to help with the deeper bruising—but how are you holding onto it?"

"With my hoof?" Sunset said, thinking this was obvious, but apparently it wasn't. "Pony hooves are made of the same material as unicorn horns. They're not good enough to cast spells with, but they still channel natural magic."

"Wonderful!" Xenophilius beamed, pulling slightly on the bottle to test Sunset's grip, to which she played along while rolling her eyes. "You say you can cast spells with your horn, hmm? Yes, and the hair is keratin as well."

Sunset cocked her head to the side. "Pony hair has its own natural magics, yeah, but what's your point? I can't grab things with my tail, though I guess I've seen an earth pony do that."

Xenophilius nodded along and pulled out his wand. "Well, you see, the wands we use contain a core of a magical substance, and it just so happens that one of these substances is the mane or tail hair of a unicorn."

"Which I've been telling you I am," Sunset reminded him.

"You've also been referring to ponies," Xenophilius pointed out. "Does that make you a unicorn pony?"

"Yes?" Sunset answered, not sure where he was going with this.

"Well, there you go, then," Xenophilius said, leaning back and looking pleased. "The unicorns we're familiar with aren't ponies."

"What do you mean they're not ponies?" Sunset asked. "What else would they be?"

"Well, as far as we're concerned, ponies are a diminutive breed of horses and you are exceptionally diminutive as these things go—a typical horse is as tall as a man, and a unicorn isn't much smaller, just more slender and graceful."

Sunset looked up at the man, considering his height. "I guess you're as tall as some horses, yeah," she said. "I can't imagine a unicorn horse, though, and they really don't talk?"

"They're beasts rather than beings as far as the Ministry of Magic is concerned," Xenophilius informed her. "How intelligent they are, it's hard to say since they're very reclusive, but they definitely don't speak, no."

Sunset mulled that over for a moment. There was, of course, one pony with a horn that was nearly horse-sized that she knew of. "These unicorn horses... they don't have wings, do they?"

"Oh, no, not at all!" Xenophilius said cheerfully. "There are plenty of kinds of winged horses—the abraxans are quite incredible and capable of looking in a first floor window—but I can't say I've ever heard reports of winged unicorns; tell me more!"

Sunset was rather peeved at the man's pushiness, but she didn't see any harm in it, and if there were any similarities between the two worlds, she wanted to know, so she explained about the three main pony tribes—earth ponies, pegasus ponies and unicorn ponies—and how they all had their own unique magics, with Xenophilius commenting on feathers being keratin, too.

Sunset then went on to explain alicorns, who were originally ponies but went through an ascension of some sort and had the characteristics and magic of all three pony tribes.

Xenophilius, in turn, explained the various equine magical creatures that the wizards knew of, pulling out a copy if Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them for reference, though most of them were nothing special. Hearing about all the strange mystical qualities of the unicorn horses was bizarre to Sunset, who didn't think that cursed silver blood was a normal thing to have, nor did she think that it made any sense for the adults to universally dislike males.

Thestrals were another type of equine that Xenophilius mentioned, though Sunset's interest in them was purely practical, as being invisible to the majority of people seemed like a useful quality to have... though maybe not, as you'd never know if any given individual could see you or not. Maybe the thestrals could tell, though?

The subject of thestrals brought up stories of bat-winged pegasi from Equestria, and the conversation went on to cover the possibly extinct crystal ponies, seaponies and Kirin. Xenophilius in turn told Sunset of Kelpies, Nightmares, Heliopaths and other lesser-known creatures, some more verified than others. Sunset answered with stories of shadow ponies and windigos, briefly mentioning the story of Hearth's Warming Eve, after which she was all out of topics to cover.

By the end, Xenophilius had filled a scroll hanging down to his feet with all the information that Sunset had given him on the equines of Equestria, and he'd left Sunset with his copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.

All in all, it was maybe not as useful a conversation as Sunset would have liked it to be, but considering she was pretty much bedridden, it wasn't a bad way to spend a morning.

That was when Sunset remembered the potion she'd been handed and fished it out of her bedding. "You said this was a... Wiggenweld Potion? What is it? What does it do? I've only ever heard of zebras making potions; I've never taken one myself."

"Out of all the typical medical potions, the Wiggenweld Potion is the most general and helps with everything from fatigue to injuries and even counteracts sleeping draughts," Xenophilius explained. "It's not as good as a specialized spell or potion, but it's the best I could make that would help with the deeper bruising."

Sunset looked at the bottle curiously, then uncorked it, took a whiff and gagged. "This is foul! What's in it?" she asked, scrunching up her nose.

"Hmm? Oh, well, let's see..." Xenophilius said, thinking. "This version uses salamander blood, lionfish spines, flobberworm mucus, honeywater and boom berry juice... I think that's it. It's simpler to make it with wiggentree bark, but no less disgusting, I assure you."

Sunset looked down at the bottle, feeling a little queasy. If it would get her on her hooves, though, she'd just have to try to stomach it.

Xenophilius was right. It was disgusting.

It did work, though.

***

Sunset was immediately restless the moment she was no longer preoccupied by the pain of her injuries. Xenophilius had told her to rest and let the potion do its job, but it wasn't five minutes before she was itching to do something. She tried closing her eyes, but that just left the sensations coming from her horn to focus on.

At first, from the feel of it, Sunset expected that the Wiggenweld potion hadn't affected her horn at all; she still had that oversensitive sharpness to her magic sense that she'd been dealing with since she'd come to this world. Further exploration revealed that the chip that was missing nearer the base of her horn was still missing, but had been smoothed over, no longer at risk of catching on things or having the exposed nerves poked, and now that she was aware of it, the buzzing static she'd been feeling with her horn was also nearly gone.

The tip where Sunset's horn had been scraped to a point was similar—still ground to an off-center point, but protected by a thin layer of... not growth, exactly, since horns didn't normally grow or heal like that, but it was the best word she had for the smooth new keratin that the potion had produced.

It was rather miraculous, actually, and it left her wondering if the potions of Zebra shamans back in Equestria were this effective. It seemed unlikely. Celestia would know, wouldn't she? And if they were and Celestia knew about it, then she wouldn't let ponies with damaged horns stay crippled for their entire lives if she knew how they could be helped... right?

It hurt that Sunset no longer felt like she knew the answer to that. What had happened to the open and honest Princess Celestia who always wanted to talk things out?

Ugh. This was the problem with having to sit still with only herself for company; she made for lousy company and was a worse conversationalist. She didn't want to think about Princess Celestia; she'd done enough of that. That was in the past, now—and yet, every time she tried to focus on her horn and feel out the nearby area, she couldn't focus. Her mind just kept coming back to the reason she was here in the first place.

It was then that she remembered the copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them that Xenophilius had left her. She'd really already had her fill of that sort of thing already, but maybe it would get her mind off the mare who had once been her idol, mentor and at times, the closest thing she'd ever had to a mother.

It went about as well as you'd expect.

***

Sunset lasted less than an afternoon before the urge to do something got to her. That should be enough for the potion to run it's course, right? Honestly, she hadn't felt anything since the first thirty seconds anyway, so she was probably fine.

Leaving Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them down on the pile of blankets that she had in place of a proper bed, Sunset stood, straightened all her legs and stretched. There was an ache deep inside her everywhere but only the ache of sitting still too long.

Come to think of it, Sunset realized she hadn't actually been outside since coming to this world. Well, outside and aware, anyway. She had the vague impression from the brief moment before her carriage impact of a blue sky and yellow sun, but it was all a blur. Not wanting to think about the sun, Sunset instead focused on the desire to get an idea of the area she'd found herself in.

If something happened, she needed to know what her options were.

Being a single-dwelling tower, it wasn't hard for Sunset to find her way down and out of The Rookery. Xenophilius was at a writing desk on the ground floor and for once didn't comment on her passing, if he even noticed her. That was a relief, to be honest. Sunset may have liked attention, but not the kind of attention that demanded her attention.

In spite of Sunset's attempts to ignore the sun, the sun didn't get the message and insisted on blinding her the moment she opened the door. The scene was practically idyllic; it was mid afternoon with blue skies, scattered clouds and rolling green hills split by a river running into a small forest nearby. In the distance she thought she spotted a chimney or two peeking over a hill, but she wasn't certain.

Lightly populated with a selection of natural resources, it was pretty much exactly what she'd been aiming for when she'd been picking out a random place to floo to. In theory, she knew that most of Equestria wasn't much different from this, but she didn't really feel it; she'd spent most of her life living in Canterlot, high up on the side of a mountain, so all this greenery and these wide open spaces failed to inspire any feelings of home.

Admittedly, though, the tower did rather resemble a chess rook, so there was that.

Nearby, the child, Luna, was playing in the river and Sunset had a thought. Closing her eyes, she focused on feeling the magic out. She'd done this already while she was inside, but there she'd been surrounded by all the various magical knickknacks of the household.

Out here, it was a different experience; there really was almost nothing magical in the area outside of a few hotspots. There was the rookery, of course, and she didn't seem to have imagined those chimneys over the hills. There was also a diffused feeling that was probably some kind of ward, and the thing she was actually looking for: Luna, isolated enough to really get a good feel for her.

Humans were not ponies, that much was clear. It wasn't that Luna was weak, exactly—at least, not for a foal, anyway—but she didn't radiate magic like a pony did. Her magic was at once more chaotic and more contained than that of any Equestrian. In a way, it was like Luna had magic rather than being magic, but maybe that made sense for a kind of creature where the capability for magic might or might not breed true.

Interestingly, though, there was something radiating magic nearby that almost did feel like an equestrian... or a slice of Equestria, maybe. That got Sunset's full attention and she immediately began to search it out.

The source of the feeling was oddly difficult to triangulate, which just made it more interesting in Sunset's eyes, and before she knew it, she was erratically making her way into the brush of the forest. She'd walk a few steps, stop, cock her head one way, then the other, take a step to the side and go off in a different direction.

"What'cha doing?" asked a voice from right behind her.

Sunset jumped in startlement, whipping her head around to see that Luna had snuck up on her, the hem of her yellow dress still wet from the river.

Sunset opened her mouth to express her displeasure, but snapped it shut a moment later, remembering the previous night. Better to just ignore her.

"Do Crumple-Horned Snorkacks live in forests?" the girl asked, following Sunset as she went back to trying to find the Equestria-esque magic she'd felt. "Do they eat pine cones?"

"If you try to shove a pine cone in my mouth, I will return the favor," Sunset warned distractedly as she took two steps back, rotated on the spot three times and headed not quite back the way she came.

Knowing foals, it began to worry Sunset when she was able to spend the next two minutes tracking down the magic entirely uninterrupted. Sighing, she craned her neck over her shoulder to check and... yep. The girl was looking cross-eyed at a pine cone in her mouth. False alarm.

Finally, in a gap between the trees too small to call a clearing, Sunset found what she was looking for. It didn't look like much to the naked eye—actually, the naked eye seemed to quite disagree with it, wanting to be just about anywhere else—but there did seem to be a ring of mushrooms to mark it.

Magically, though, it was much more interesting. Another world touched this one here. It definitely wasn't Equestria—that much had been obvious from a distance—but it was closer to Equestria than it was to this world, and it absolutely reeked with magic. In fact, she thought it might actually be more magical than Equestria.

Suddenly, it was all clear to her. The mirror hadn't lied; it was just that this world of sad, barely magical humans was only the first step on her journey towards ascension.

"Thmm-thtt?" the girl asked through the pine cone in her mouth.

Sunset, of course, ignored her. In her head, she was already on the other side of the portal, free of this nightmare of a world, and she stepped into the ring of mushrooms to make it a reality.

"Mm! Thtp! Thmm-thtt, thtp!"

***

On the surface, almost nothing seemed to change. She was still in a lush, temperate forest standing inside a ring of mushrooms, and if pressed she might even say that the immediate area was identical, at least insofar as she had an eye for any specific shrub or tree.

Magically, though, things couldn't be any different. Things had inverted; she was not standing in a small island of mediocrity in the middle of a world that was absolutely rich with magic. Everything from the smallest leaf to the grass and dirt under her hooves was practically magic in physical form, and she actually winced at the sheer flood of it, suddenly wishing Xenophilius' Wiggenweld potion had brought back a little more of her horn's thickness so it wouldn't be quite so overwhelming.

Sunset shook her head, but that just made her magical sense swim, giving her a headache. She tried wrapping the crook of her hoof around her horn to dampen it a little, but that barely helped and she figured she'd be better off using her hooves to get out of the forest where she wouldn't be quite so crowded by life on all sides.

It took a little stumbling, but the edge of the forest was nearby and it did help, a little; enough that she could actually focus on actually taking in the world around her.

At first, glancing over to where The Rookery had been in the other world, Sunset thought she saw a tower in the shape of a bishop piece instead. On second glance, though, it was nothing of the sort; just a thatch-roofed cottage surrounded by neatly plowed fields full of ripe vegetables and a giggle from behind her.

Feeling a bit of déjà vu, Sunset turned her head, expecting to see that human girl had followed her, but there was nothing there.

Frowning, but shrugging the matter off, Sunset turned back to the small cottage, only it had two stories and a tile roof, now. There was another giggle—this one from Sunset's side—and she turned again, catching sight of several small, doll-sized humanoid figures with thin, iridescent wings before they disappeared into the overgrown grass and dandelions.

Sunset trotted over and kicked the grass to scare whatever they were out into the open, but she found nothing. Sighing, she turned back to the cottage and there was no cottage, nor were there any fields. The whole area looked completely untended; not just abandoned, but entirely wild.

Sunset was starting to get a bit worried. Sunset had known that this was a magical world, but she'd never really thought about what that might mean. Were these illusions, cast by the little flying humans to mislead her?

Sunset looked left, right and then left again. On the whole, nothing jumped out to her as different, but actually paying attention, it was the complete opposite. From glance to glance, all the details were different. Over there, a rock—but if her attention wandered, just a bit, it was an entirely different rock.

Sunset made her way over to the rock and put her hoof on it, confirming: yep, it's a rock. Performing her test again, her hoof remained solidly on the rock, but it was once again a different rock in every respect except for the particular spot she was touching, which hadn't changed.

Sunset let out a slightly hysterical giggle, and something behind the rock giggled back. She did not look.

Suddenly, Sunset had a thought and remembered Princess Celestia's stories of Discord and the sorts of things he'd done, roaming the land living up to his name and title as a spirit of chaos. Streets turned to rivers, ponies and animals trading places—and of course his favorite trick of all, playing the sun and moon like billiards.

This... was much more subtle, but even more maddening for it, and she was beginning to doubt that the little tiny winged humans had anything to do with it. It was much too consistently inconsistent; much too encompassing and pervasive. It was the world itself; there was just so much magic here that there wasn't much room for any of the little things that worlds usually had, like strict laws of physics and causality.

The really worrying thing was how close to this that Equestria actually was. It was pretty much the first thing she'd thought, before she'd actually known what she was looking at—that one could be mistaken for the other.

Sunset blinked and everything/nothing changed. The grass was—if it was possible—even more vibrant than before, and that went for everything. Even the sky seemed just a bit bluer now; the wispy clouds looked a little more solid and the little winged humanoids that she could only spot in the corner of her eye or at a distance were now breezies. The tower was back, but in the horse-head shape of a knight piece. High up on the side of a needle-like mountain was a city of ivory towers—not quite Canterlot but they were cousins at most—and towering up over the now much more sinister-looking forest was its twin all in black and twice as menacing.

Sunset was torn. On the one hoof, nothing so far had indicated that she was in any way wrong that this was the sort of place she might find the answers she was looking for—but on the other hoof, she did have a sense of self preservation and her sense of self-preservation did not like this place. A lot more than Sunset's sense of self-preservation didn't like this place, actually. Sunset, as a whole, did not like this place.

That probably meant that it would be worth it, though.

Still, between the shining white city on the mountain and the sinister black castle in the spooky forest, Sunset knew which one she was going to pick.

***

Sunset didn't know what she had expected to find in I Can't Believe It's Not Canterlot, but colorful, iridescent bug-ponies wasn't it. The weird thing was, they didn't even resemble the breezies all that much. Sure, they both had members with diaphanous, insectile wings, but the breezies were otherwise nearly normal-looking ponies, with longer legs and antennae. Sunset would have expected the larger ones to be Flutterponies, in that case, which were essentially the same writ large, but without the antennae.

These creatures, on the other hoof, were ironically much more insect-like. Though their proportions were more that of a typical equine, they had hard carapaces in all sorts of different summer colors from blue to green to gold with the specific shades shifting along the gamut depending on the angle.

More interestingly, each and every one of them had a horn like a unicorn, though they were curved and many of them jagged along the inside curve. The scene was at once familiar and unfamiliar. The nobility back home would have celebrated the horns and bright colors and been confused by the lack of any actual white in the crowd.

Well, if they could get over the bug pony thing, which, admittedly, they wouldn't.

Also, none of this was real, probably—or didn't look like this, in any case, if it looked like anything, which was still up for debate if she had anypony to debate it with.

What confused Sunset was where the image for these not-ponies had actually come from. The breezies, certainly, she was familiar with and resembled the small winged humanoids she'd seen at first, but these? She'd never even heard of any such thing. Were they a real thing back in Equestria? How did that matter if Sunset had never heard of them? What in tartarus even was this place?

The insect ponies, for the most part, acted similar enough to the breezies, but without the actual hiding. Instead, they simply kept their distance, watched, gossiped and giggled. It would have been a little off-putting if Sunset had any intent to actually talk to them, but she knew where she was going.

The white palace was one of the more different things about the city. Like Celestia's palace, it was mostly white marble, but that was where the similarities ended. This place didn't have the gold and rounded corners, but was a lot more stark and austere, with tall arches and dagger-like towers stretching into the sky.

Sunset kind of liked it, actually.

When she got to the doors, the guards let her through, and the inside was similar—again resembling Celestia's palace, though the carpets were blue and green and the interiors much taller.

The throne room was a long hall lined with statues surrounding a fountain on each side. A blue and green rug ran down the center, stopping just before a series of steps that rose the throne up enough to make ponies look up.

On the throne sat the princess—or probably the queen—and Sunset wasn't sure if she should have expected it or not. Surrounded by servants and courtiers, the queen was, of course, of a height with Celestia, if not a little taller, and was just about everything that would be expected of combining the two ideas. What threw Sunset off, though, was the color: the queen's coloring was just as iridescent as her subjects, but it was more an opaline iridescence rather than insectile—mostly a milky white, with only a hint of the blues, greens and golds making themselves known when she moved.

It was very Princess Celestia, but a stark difference from those around her in a way that set her apart from them, and the smile she wore as Sunset approached couldn't have been less like Equestria's princess if she'd tried, and it wasn't because of the sharp teeth.

Well, it wasn't only because of the teeth, anyway.

Sunset came to a stop where the rug did, at the base of the stairs leading up to the throne, and the queen gestured to the servants at the side of the room. "Welcome, visitor," the queen said, smiling openly, but not precisely kindly. Two servants approached, supplicating themselves and presenting a variety of fruits and drinks. "Call me Titania, Seelie Queen of the Summer Court. Eat, drink," she prompted, an unreadable look in her eyes. "And give me your name."

"Sunset Shimmer," she absently answered, eyeing the food. Subtly, she lit her horn and cast an identification spell in the same motion as she took one of each with her levitation, as she'd been taught. To Queen Titania's credit, neither the food nor drink seemed to be poisoned, and she was suddenly very curious to know what food with so much magic would be like.

Besides, mangos had always been her favorite fruit, when she could get them. They hadn't exactly been common in Canterlot. With a flash of her magic, the skin peeled off and she took a bite.

Her eyes immediately went wide. Absently, she chewed and swallowed the bite, and while it was delicious and invigorating, that wasn't what shocked her. Staring at the mango, she took another bite, just to make sure, and confirmed it; there was no seed.

Seedless mangos. Brilliant.

Okay, maybe she was overreacting a bit, but it had come out of left field and she eagerly finished the mango off, savoring every bit of its excessively magical flesh.

No sooner had she done so, than there was a commotion back at the door. She casually turned to look behind her, sniffing the drink to see if it would surprise her just as much. Pear wine wasn't as shocking as the seedless mango, but it would definitely be to her taste.

What was slightly more shocking was the golden-haired child that came charging through the guards at the door and kicked the glass of pear wine away from her face just as she was about to take a sip.

Rude.

Also, wow. She had forgotten just how much bigger than ponies the humans were, and it was all the more jarring when surrounded by equines and architecture scaled to her own height.

Luna was bent over, hands on her knees, out of breath, and that was how she spotted the mango peel on the floor, her face draining of color. "No! You're not supposed to eat the food!" she shouted, overly distraught. "Now you can't come back!"

She blinked, looking up at the girl. "Okay?" she said, not sure how that worked but also not seeing the problem. "I wasn't planning on going back anyway; this world is a hundred times more magical. I'm more likely to figure out how to become an alicorn and how to get home from here—I'd bet it's even dimensionally closer to Equestria, too."

Luna puffed up her cheeks in a pout and put her hands on her hips. "It doesn't work like that!" she shouted, sounding like this was the end of the world to her.

Internally, she scoffed. Kids.

"You ate the food!" Luna reiterated. "You can't—"

Queen Titania politely cleared her throat, and though that was all it was, the entire throne room fell silent—even Luna.

Naturally, she turned to look up at Queen Titania, noticing the glass that was laying on its side just at the top of the stairs leading up to the throne, empty. The seelie queen's sheer silk dress was wet, plastered to the front of her carapace. She frowned. Was the seelie queen wearing a dress before?

Well, she was wearing a dress now, and it was ruined.

For some reason, though, Queen Titania didn't seem angry, she seemed amused. "An alicorn, is it?" she asked, leaning back in the throne and placing one hoof under her chin. After a moment of consideration, she made a wave of her hoof and a tiny pinprick of light came into being in front of her. "Something like this, then? But what will you give me?"

Her eyes widened, and she stepped forward involuntarily. She was about to agree, but then caught sight of another smaller light that was lying on the throne's armrest next to her. "What's that?" she asked.

Queen Titania looks at the speck of light as if she'd just noticed it. Casually, she reached down and picked it up in her hoof. "This? You really don't know? You haven't even noticed?"

~~Sunset~~ honestly had no idea what the seelie queen was even implying. Something she should have noticed? She looked up at Luna to see if she knew what the seelie queen was talking about, but the girl was just gaping up at the second light in growing despair. Soon, though, the turned to look down at ~~Sunset~~ in horror.

"That's your name—" it seemed like she was trying to say a word, but it wasn't coming out. "You gave them your name, you dummy!"

"What." ~~Sunset~~ had no idea what that was supposed to even mean.

Luna stomped her feet in frustration, unable to believe this was even happening and that she had to explain it. "They asked for your name and you gave it to them!"

"Yes," ~~Sunset~~ confirmed, thinking that sounded reasonable.

"So now it's over there and you don't have it any more!" Luna shouted.

~~Sunset~~ rolled her eyes and said, "Don't be ridiculous; that's not a thing that can happen," she insisted. "My name is..." her voice trailed off as the particular words failed to come to mind. "Something about the appearance of light from the sky? Starlight Sparkle? Twilight Glimmer?"

"See?" Luna said, pleading for ~~Sunset~~ to get the idea. "It's gone! Even if you guess it, you won't recognize it!"

"No," ~~Sunset~~ denied, going back over all the times that Princess Celestia had said her name, be it with fondness or frustration, but the specifics eluded her. "No, you just—you put me on the spot," she insisted, slightly hysterical. "I'll have it in a second..."

"You know, this is so sad, it almost isn't even fun," Queen Titania said, bringing the attention back onto herself. "But only almost," she said, breaking into her wickedly-fanged grin. "So, tell me little pony." She motioned at the light of magic that she had conjured, which would allow ~~Sunset~~ to become an alicorn. "What will you give me?"

~~Sunset~~ wasn't just speechless; her entire mind had just stopped, refusing to believe that something like this was even possible. Names were like cutie marks; they were an inviolable part of a pony. You couldn't just... give one away with a technical verbal agreement that didn't even have the intent.

It just wasn't how things worked... except apparently it was. It was how they worked here, and that was why she'd come here; because the magic ran deeper here than it did in Equestria—because things were possible here that she was denied in Equestria.

~~Sunset~~ stared up at the pinprick of light that she was being offered, and she thought she could see herself as an alicorn in it, the same as the mirror that Princess Celestia had shown her. It was right there, but she wasn't stupid enough to just accept it. Recent events begged to differ, but that had been different. She hadn't the slightest idea that such a thing was even possible... but how much of a defense was that when a ten-year-old child knew better? A ten-year-old child that had been only too happy to tell ~~Sunset~~ anything she asked.

That... wasn't important right now. What was important was the opportunity in front of her and not falling into another trap. "...We can talk about price in a moment, but can you also get me home?"

Queen Titania seemed briefly surprised. She then threw her head back and began cackling in laughter. ~~Sunset~~ backed up, confused as to what had set that off and flattening her ears at the noise. Quickly, all the servants and courtiers in the room had joined in, none of them kindly.

By the time the laughing had died down, Queen Titania was looking at ~~Sunset~~ with something between pity and astonishment. "Oh—you're serious!" she announced. "Little pony, weren't you listening when the girl-child said it? You ate our food—you're of the Faerie Lands now, and there's no leaving—this is your home."

~~Sunset~~ felt dread pool in her stomach. There was no denial, partly because she'd already been through it, but also because she could actually understand how that might work. She looked down at herself, as if she could see the difference, but she didn't have the time to properly examine herself with magic to see what the food might have done to her.

"You—you..." ~~Sunset~~ didn't have the words, but unlike the situation with her name, she had no difficulty contextualizing this situation in the least. Quickly, all of the greed, uncertainty and fear that were tugging her in different ways were redirected into one all-encompassing feeling of indignant fury and she didn't hesitate to express that fury in the most immediate way possible—with a beam of pure fire from her horn.

Queen Titania seemed unbothered, having bent just to the side while ~~Sunset~~'s spell toppled the top of the too-tall throne. "Now now, ~~Sunset~~," the seelie queen said, and when she spoke ~~Sunset~~'s name, it seemed to skip past everyone's ears and strike down into the deepest part of her. "That's enough," the seelie queen said, and, just like that, without thought or consideration, ~~Sunset~~ agreed. There was no struggling or fighting against it; it was just as if the seelie queen had pointed out something obvious. ~~Sunset~~ had expressed her displeasure and the matter was over. Anything more would be like a child throwing a tantrum.

The actual child in the room, on the other hoof, expressed her displeasure in a different way. No one had been paying attention to her at all until, moments after Queen Titania's command, as she was looming forward, a thin chain and two weights wrapped around her like a bolas.

The metal sizzled against the seelie queen's carapace and she began to scream. She threw herself back against the throne, and then down on the ground rolling over, but the chain—which on second look seemed to be fashioned from paperclips and two halves of a locket—seemed to behave to her as if it was made of the thickest steel.

Luna didn't waste any time. Before the seelie queen hit the ground, she was running up the steps to the throne and grabbing the mote of light that represented ~~Sunset~~'s name. Several heartbeats later, she was coming back down the steps and dragging ~~Sunset~~ along.

That is, until ~~Sunset~~ shook her off, still staring up at the seelie queen—not for any lingering command from her name, but for something else. She was hardly thinking, but she knew that there was no situation that would make her leave this room without that second mote of light.

The one that would make her an alicorn.

~~Sunset~~ thought she was decisive and quick. Just a little trip up the stairs and back and she would be right behind Luna. It was child's play in the most literal way; she'd just watched a child do it, and in that, at least, she succeeded. She snatched up the light off the ground next to the screaming seelie queen and was on her way back down the stairs when she saw it.

The girl—Luna—lying face down between the door guards, blood on the ground beneath her.

"No!" ~~Sunset~~ yelled, and though her immediate thought was that she needed Luna in order to make sense of this world, she did feel guilty about it. Briefly. As she ran back down the hall, ~~Sunset~~ blasted the seelie guards standing over Luna, who weathered the assault much less well than their queen.

When ~~Sunset~~ finally reached Luna, it became clear that she was alive and conscious, but curled up on the ground, crying, with her hand pressed over her eye because... because that's where the blood was coming from.

In the moment that ~~Sunset~~ let herself feel just a tiny bit bad about that, seelie guards from outside the throne room had blocked off their escape, and those from beside the throne had stopped trying to help their queen and decided to surround ~~Sunset~~ and Luna from the other side, but this was not the first time she had been in such a situation.

What did it say about her that this would be the third such place she would have to escape in as many days on as many worlds?

Fortunately for ~~Sunset~~, subtlety had gone out the window and ~~Sunset~~ was very good at not being subtle. The first thing she did was snap up a flaming shield around herself and Luna to ward off the seelie guards, then, she did what she could to get Luna on her feet, which she struggled to do. ~~Sunset~~ only came up to the child's waist, so carrying her on her back wasn't going to work.

"Get ready," she said and began to charge up her horn for as strong a teleport as the could manage. She wished she could also blast the throne room as they left, but it was much more important to get as far away as possible. Several moments later, she finally reached her peak and the two of them disappeared in a blinding flash, the flaming shield guttering out the moment they were gone.

~~Sunset~~ would like to say that the two of them hit the ground running when they appeared in the middle of not-Canterlot, but it took a few moments and some cajoling to get her bearings and get Luna moving. What Luna lacked in focus, though, she made up with in the length of her legs, and ~~Sunset~~ had to run flat out to keep up with her.

On spotting two outsiders fleeing the city, the city guards gave chase and ~~Sunset~~ soon gave them a reason to do so as she warded them off with blasts of fire. They clearly didn't yet know what had gone down in the throne room, or they likely would have been a little more determined. ~~Sunset~~ didn't know why exactly paperclips seemed to burn the seelie queen, but it had been a nasty thing to do.

Justified, yes, but far more than ~~Sunset~~ had expected from the young girl.

Whatever the cause for it, it didn't seem to matter now as Luna didn't seem to have any more paperclip chains or similar to fend off the Seelie, which, well, considering the bloody hand she still had over her eye, was fair.

That little worm of guilt squirmed to life inside of her once more, but she did what she could to not let it distract her.

As the two of them neared the edge of the city, the tall gates towered over them, very clearly closed. ~~Sunset~~ paid them no mind and charged up her horn once more, flashing the two of them out of the city with another blinding teleport, taking them into the countryside.

Finally, they were free.

***

As it turned out, they were not, in fact, free. ~~Sunset~~ and Luna only had a moment's reprieve to rest and catch their breath when squads of bug-ponies began to fly out of the city. It hadn't been obvious on the ground, but apparently every single one of them had the diaphanous wings that she'd noted before in addition to their horns.

That just wasn't fair. It was like a combination of what had happened with Cadance suddenly showing up as an alicorn, and also when a cockroach you're about to smash suddenly takes off and flies straight at you.

~~Sunset~~ and Luna did what they could to evade the search parties who, by their behavior, almost certainly knew what had been done to their queen, and though she could throw them off for a time with her teleports, gaining a few moments rest, nothing she could do seemed to shake them off completely.

~~Sunset~~ wasn't sure how long it took, but the running and the teleporting and the occasional blasting of any of the bugs that got close eventually started to take a toll on her, and even some of the injuries that she'd thought the Wiggenweld potion had cured were making themselves known again.

Who knew that doctors actually knew what they were talking about when they prescribed bed rest?

At some point, ~~Sunset~~ and Luna had gone from being chased through lush green mountains to lush green hills. ~~Sunset~~ was pretty sure that was impossible no matter how long they'd been running, but then, come to think of it, she also didn't quite remember spending very long going up the mountain either.

The sight of the black castle towering up out of the dark forest gave ~~Sunset~~ an idea, though. "What... do you think... the chances are... that these bugs... don't... get along with... whatever's... in... the forest?" she asked Luna during one of their brief moments of respite.

Luna had run out of tears and the blood and... other fluids from her eye had run dry, but she was still hunched over, one hand on her face and the other holding it there across her chest. She didn't give a verbal answer, but nodded, and the two of them took off again, heading into the dark forest.

***

In hindsight, it probably should have been obvious that there would be more to the forest with the evil castle in it than a population of ideologically contrary residents, but those residents were rather eye-catching all on their own, so ~~Sunset~~ and Luna could be forgiven for overlooking the more subtle dangers.

The plan did work, though. Almost as soon as they had entered the forest, the number of close encounters with the shiny bug-ponies dropped significantly. Unfortunately, it did so in inverse proportion to encounters with the forest's inhabitants, who—surprise surprise—were more bug-ponies, only with an evil makeover and then some and had the manners to match their appearance.

Now, ~~Sunset~~ may have been on the outs with Princess Celestia, but that didn't mean that she'd forgotten all of her lessons. ~~Sunset~~ wasn't one to call people 'evil' lightly. Just look at the humans; their entire government, with the floo surveillance, memory removal and salaried executioner really gave off that 'evil tyrant' vibe, but it didn't reflect on the species as a whole; just look at the Lovegoods. These creatures, though... well, evil makeover just about summed it up.

Like the seelie, these—let's call them, 'unseelie,' since they weren't kind enough to introduce themselves—these unseelie were also bug-ponies of the same general build, but instead of colorful, iridescent carapaces, they were all a uniform, smoky gray so dark it was nearly black, and what bits of color they had in their wings and eyes were a sickly greenish-yellow. Sickly was really the word for it, too. ~~Sunset~~ wasn't sure the first time, but after several close calls with the unseelie that let her get a better look at them, it was clear that as a whole, they weren't all there.

No, literally. They had holes in them. They weren't injuries—at least, she didn't think so—they just had holes in them; straight through, mostly in the legs like they were rotting or rusting, but some of them had them elsewhere.

~~Sunset~~ supposed that the holes could be the scars of grievous wounds healed over with magic like her horn, which they superficially resembled, but she wasn't sure if she liked that comparison—especially since the connection might be more literal than she was comfortable with.

It was easy to forget that what she was seeing wasn't the immutable truth, and metaphor might be an actual tripping hazard if she wasn't careful.

Suffice it to say, that she had a lot on her mind, and getting split up from Luna wasn't something she'd been expecting to have to worry about.

It was an easy enough mistake to make; it wasn't as if the two of them were joined at the hip. ~~Sunset~~ had done what she could to support Luna, but their heights and gaits didn't match up enough to make that easy. Luna was a blonde biped twice as tall as ~~Sunset~~, so naturally they'd taken slightly different routes up out of a ravine. Luna had gone to one side of a cluster of trees and ~~Sunset~~ had gone to the other.

She'd been about to suggest that they make their way back to the ring of mushrooms that had brought them to this world and see what they could work out, but when she'd looked up, Luna was gone.

At first, she had expected that the girl had finally collapsed. They hadn't been in the forest long, but they were both dead on their feet and Luna wasn't a magical pony; she was just a child. ~~Sunset~~ had gone looking for her, then, but the obvious trail out of the ravine just... stopped. ~~Sunset~~ was not a woodspony of any sort, but Luna was wounded, exhausted and dragging her feet.

She'd been taken.

That was... well... uhh... The Unseelie didn't have the same grudge against them as the Seelie, but they'd attacked the two at every opportunity anyway. Luna was probably dead, and there was no actual chance that ~~Sunset~~ could save her all alone.

~~Sunset~~ felt kind of bad for being a shitty person, but—no, wait. If she went back, she could tell Xenophilius. Xenophilius would actually know what to do, and if the Unseelie were weak to paperclips or thumbtacks or whatever, he would know what type of office supplies would burn them on contact.

Yeah. Yeah, that was the sensible thing to do.

It didn't work, of course.

~~Sunset~~ hadn't quite forgotten that she'd been told that she couldn't leave the Faerie Lands as Seelie Queen had called them, but she'd definitely sort of pushed it to the back of her mind and pretended everything was fine.

Everything was not fine.

Finding the mushroom circle again had been surprisingly easy. Where, from the other side, feeling it out with magic had been like trying to chase down a mirage, here, it was the opposite, and before she knew it, she was there.

Actually returning to Luna's world, though, was a problem. The portal, if you could call it that, was there; she could feel the other world on the other side, but trying to push through burned, like it was rejecting her.

She tried—she really did—but she couldn't do it, and once she calmed down, sat and concentrated on her magic, she could see why. She was still different from the rest of the creatures of the Faerie Lands, but not as different as she should have been.

To put a finer point on it, though she was mostly guessing, she was still physical in a way that things here weren't entirely, but magically, she had acclimated to the environment of the Fairy lands, proof of which was the headache she no longer had, even stretching her magical sense as much as she could push it.

Ironically, this actually gave her hope. It meant that she wasn't tied to the Faerie Lands as a concept, but an environment, and, well, it was called the Magical Land of Equestria for a reason.

She might get to go home an alicorn just yet.

~~Sunset~~ blinked, then panicked. She remembered taking the mote of light that was supposed to be her ascension in the throne room—it was how Luna had gotten hurt, after all—but then they'd been running and she wasn't sure what she'd done with it. One moment she'd been holding it in her hoof and—

~~Sunset~~ blinked again, looking down at her hoof, which was holding the mote of light. It wasn't like it had gotten stuck in the frog of her hoof or anything. She hadn't had it just a moment ago—or, she guesses she did, but not physically.

~~Sunset~~ really, really hated this place.

But now she had her ascension sitting in her hoof, and nothing else mattered. Maybe it would have been better to have used it while they were on the run, if she'd thought of it, but maybe it would have incapacitated her long enough for her to be captured. It didn't matter. It was here, now.

~~Sunset~~ swallowed to wet her suddenly dry throat. She made one cursory look around to make sure she wasn't being snuck up upon, then steeled herself. No questions, no delaying, no navel gazing. She picked it up from her hoof with her magic, held it in front of herself and then...

How exactly does one use a concept distilled into a magical pinprick of light?

Apparently exactly like that.

***

After an indeterminable amount of time not existing, ~~Sunset~~ burst back into being in a ball of flame, took a deep breath and opened her eyes.

That was...

She didn't know what that was.

Was that what ascension was supposed to be like? In hindsight, it had maybe been a bit foolish to assume that she could just be given—that she could just steal—an ascension and assume it was the real thing, and yet... and yet... it had felt real enough.

~~Sunset~~ stood, stretched and checked her flank like a tweenaged foal looking for a cutie mark. Sure enough, a little more forward on what was actually her flank, was a wing.

Huh. That was a thing, and yet... that was kind of it. She had wings, but otherwise just kind of felt normal. A check of her memory confirmed she was still missing her name, and a check of her magic revealed... actually, it was slightly different in some indiscernible way.

She might have been a tiny bit taller, but was this really it? Was she really an alicorn now, or was this just some mad queen's impression? Part of her wished she knew more about how this world worked, but the rest of her wasn't sure that she wanted to be able to understand the underlying logic, if there even was any.

Realizing that she was getting into the weeds of frustration with the Faerie Lands again with nothing to actually go on, ~~Sunset~~ went back to taking stock of her physical differences again. She would be glad to have a whole and undamaged horn again.

Her horn was undamaged, certainly, but as she ran her hoof up it she did not encounter the smooth, fluted cone she expected. There was a gap and a too-sharp point, as there had been since her impact with the mechanized carriage... only not exactly. The bit-sized chip had been out of the side of her horn, but now it was at the rear, smooth, round, uniform and symmetrical, like it had been put there intentionally.

As if it was supposed to be like that.

~~Sunset~~ took a deep breath, trying to control the voice inside her head that was screaming that this was wrong—wrong—wrong. She did not have time for a breakdown right now. This was... this was what she deserved, wasn't it? She would never be able to look at herself and not think of the unseelie, with holes scattered through their extremities.

Like they were rotting.

Was she rotten?

She remembered turning around and seeing a little girl lying on the ground, bleeding from her eye.

She might be.

***

With her newfound ascension—however valid—~~Sunset~~ took another crack at the mushroom circle leading back to the other world, but still couldn't do it. The burning was actually a bit more bearable, but that wasn't saying much. Clearly, merely being an alicorn or the approximation of one wasn't the solution, but at least it hadn't set her any further back, either.

That there was a solution, ~~Sunset~~ would continue to believe, but she was getting nowhere with this. Maybe... maybe if she tracked down Luna, she would have some idea... and the little worm of guilt nagging her about the girl would go away.

~~Sunset~~'s ascension to alicornhood turned out not to be terribly useful in tracking down Luna deeper in the forest, which was kind of an issue, given she'd decided not to do it in the first place on account of all the danger. She already had the personal hatred of one city of bug-creatures; she didn't want to make it two for two by making herself too obvious, even if she actually knew how to fly.

Mind, the evil ones had attacked on sight anyway, but they hadn't signaled an alarm or organized search parties, and she was pretty sure there was nowhere she could go if both sides were actively hunting for her head.

Especially if she actually was stuck here.

But no. She wouldn't believe that, and really, they'd already set themselves against her by (probably) taking Luna, so there wasn't any getting out of it.

She'd just have to be very, very careful. And quiet.

If ~~Sunset~~ was still alive at the end of the day, she was going to have to work out some actually subtle ways to use her magic. Sighing, she kept an eye out for a nice heavy stick on her way to the evil-looking castle at the center of the forest.

***

The strangest thing happened as ~~Sunset~~ got closer to the castle: things slowly became different. Now, admittedly, that was the general rule for the Faerie Lands as she'd discovered immediately upon her arrival here, but there was a difference in that kind of different and this kind of different. Normally, in ~~Sunset~~'s experience so far, the fine or even the not-so-fine details would change from moment to moment and glance to glance, but the overall impression would stay the same.

The shift that ~~Sunset~~ saw in the scenery as she neared the castle was almost like stepping into a story of a different genre or a painting by a different artist: the trees went from lush and temperate, bordering on swampy, to pines and firs with almost nothing in the way of foliage at ground level. So, too, did the environment itself change; the air acquired a chill, night fell and even the shadows seemed sharper.

What was even stranger was the creatures. The small winged humanoids that ~~Sunset~~ had seen in the first few minutes after arriving in the Faerie Lands, had become breezies, and their evil counterparts in the forest had been some kind of adorable, round, fuzzy things—but now, in this part of the forest, the tiny winged humans were back and what she'd expected to be an unseelie patrol had turned out to be something new entirely.

Okay, well, they were larger versions of the insect-winged humanoids, admittedly, but they differed from their smaller kin in having pale skin, pointed ears and intricate black armor or clothing.

This, she supposed, must be how the Faerie Lands arranged themselves around Luna, which was good, since it meant that Luna was nearby, and interesting because it meant that there was only a single way things could be at any one time, and the two of them weren't seeing different things.

Ironically, Luna's version was a boon in other ways, too. Luna's unseelie were all human-scale, and maybe on the taller scale even then. ~~Sunset~~'s coloring still stood out like a flame in the night, but being at a smaller scale than the people and architecture still made sneaking around significantly easier.

Of course, that didn't make it easy. The castle had a moat, for one, and while the chill of the area would be enough to dissuade her from swimming it, the fact that it was black as tar and hiding who-knows-what was a better reason not to risk it, and neither did she want to try flying for the first time in such a situation, even for such a short distance.

Fortunately, ~~Sunset~~'s color and magic actually worked out in her favor, for once. High up on the castle walls, each topping a tower, were several great, giant watch fires. Normally, ~~Sunset~~'s teleportation was like a flaming beacon that no one could miss, but teleporting next to an even greater source of fire, she was essentially invisible.

It was a good thing she knew how to make herself fireproof, though.

From her vantage point on one of the castle's watchtowers, ~~Sunset~~ learned two things; one, that the dark and evil castle was, against expectations, just as populated as its twin, and two, that it didn't matter, because Luna was being kept all alone in a crystal cage in the tallest tower.

To ~~Sunset~~, who was from Equestria, this seemed like a perfectly normal thing to do and it was literally the first place she looked.

The place where Luna was being kept wasn't so much a room as much as a bell tower, open on three sides, with Luna's cage as the bell, and when ~~Sunset~~ teleported in, she was hunched over, hugging her legs to herself. At the flash and brief warmth of ~~Sunset~~'s teleport, though, she looked up, and their eyes met.

At first, ~~Sunset~~ was relieved because it looked like Luna's injury wasn't as bad as it had looked, but then, she realized that the eyes she was looking at were different colors. One, on the left, was her natural pale silver; the other—the eye that she had lost—was a faintly glowing teal.

A very familiar teal.

This might have been slightly more alarming if ~~Sunset~~ wasn't very certain that she was still in possession of both of her eyes, so clearly, the color was a coincidence.

Oddly, though, Luna didn't seem surprised or excited to see her, though there was a faint bit of hope.

"Stand back," ~~Sunset~~ said, then realized that Luna was already at the far end of the cage. "Or, well, close your eyes or something," she added.

Luna remained looking at ~~Sunset~~ for a moment, then silently did as she was told, tucking her head behind her knees.

~~Sunset~~ tried subtlety at first, insofar as a flame like a welding torch is subtle, but the crystal seemed to just suck in the heat, and when she took a break to check her progress, it wasn't even warm to the touch. ~~Sunset~~ harrumphed, and decided to try something else, looking for the stick she'd brought.

...

She had brought the stick, right?

Actually, she had—sort of. Like with her ascension, the world just seemed to have forgotten about it until she remembered it. Sunset lifted the club-like stick in her magic and... reconsidered. "Uhh..."

Luna looked up in question.

"This isn't going to, you know, ring your cage like a bell or something, is it?" she asked. "Since this place is like a bell tower?"

Luna's gaze shifted to the stick and said, "Maybe," shortly followed by, "Don't bother. Only cold iron will work."

~~Sunset~~ cocked her head in confusion, then just flashed inside the cage with a teleport—only it didn't work. She flashed, then felt like she hit something and was knocked back with enough force to send her sliding nearly to the open edge of the tower.

"Ow," she remarked, slowly getting back on her hooves, then pretended that hadn't happened. "What the heck does 'cold' iron even mean?"

Luna blinked. "Well, horseshoes are traditional," she said, looking down at ~~Sunset~~'s hooves, which were unshod since she wasn't a labor-pony. "But the paperclips worked. Daddy said that it's about 'representing the dominion of man over nature'... but I'm a girl and it still worked for me, so I don't think that's it. Another time he also said something about the fae being mean to the spirit of iron, so iron is mean back to the fae? Fae hold grudges too, so I guess that's fair, but they shouldn't."

"...So, anything that isn't cast?" ~~Sunset~~ surmised, taking note that the creatures here were apparently 'fae.' "Not that it matters since I don't see any iron—which I guess you wouldn't, if it burned you..."

An awkward silence passed as Sunset tried to think of some way to get Luna free.

At length, Luna sniffled, and whispered. "I want my daddy."

~~Sunset~~ winced. "I... I tried to go get him," she said, weakly defending herself.

"I know," Luna said, sounding hopeless.

~~Sunset~~ blinked. "Wait, what?"

Luna raised her head and met ~~Sunset~~'s eyes again. She pointed at her teal eye, and said, "Did you forget? I have your name."

~~Sunset~~ opened her mouth, paused, and said, trying to yell and whisper at the same time, "How does that even work?!"

Luna sighed and took a deep breath. Then, she took another deep breath. And another. When she finally spoke, she seemed calmer, more serious and simultaneously not all there. "Fae aren't physical; they're half a dozen concepts in a trench coat if concepts could have memories, personalities, hold grudges, take everything literally and take everything, literally. If they ask for your name, or your attention, or your patience, and you allow them, they can take those concepts from you—but that also means that concepts are more real to them than anything else; they can't lie or break their word."

"...Well, that's useful information that I wish I had," ~~Sunset~~ politely admitted, "But what I wanted to know is how is my name your eye?!"

"Oh." Luna looked at ~~Sunset~~, looked down at herself, then back at ~~Sunset~~. "I don't know. I was missing an eye and I had your name?"

Just when ~~Sunset~~ thought she had gotten a hold on things... this. Not only this, but it made her feel shitty just asking, "...Can I have it back?"

Luna cocked her head, thinking. "I don't know, can you?"

~~Sunset~~ was about to yell and demand that Luna give her name back, but what was she going to do, tear out her eye?

Before she could figure out what she was going to say, Luna continued uninterrupted. "Your name is Sunset Shimmer."

"Yes?" Sunset said, slightly annoyed at the obvious statement when she realized that it wasn't obvious at all. "Wait, that actually worked?" she said, then belatedly looked at Luna's eye with some guilt. The eye was still there.

"No, I don't think it did," Luna said, lost in thought. "I still have your name."

"But my name is Sunset Shimmer, right?" she said, confused and feeling a little paranoid. "I—I mean... my name is actually Sunset Shimmer, isn't it? You didn't just make me think my name is Sunset Shimmer?"

"It is, but I think I've just given you permission to use it," Luna said, biting her thumb.

"Okay I guess that's apparently a thing you can do," Sunset said, still not quite over her momentary panic. "What... else can you do. To me. And come to think of it, how does having my name for an eye mean you knew I tried to go—I mean, get your dad?"

"Well, I can see through it, obviously," Luna said plainly.

"It wouldn't be much of an eye if you couldn't," Sunset sarcastically reasoned.

Luna nodded. "So I saw when you got lost and went to the faerie ring."

"Okay, first—you got lost and foalnapped, not me," Sunset insisted. "And what do you mean you saw? You weren't there!"

Luna just stared blankly at Sunset. "We just went over this. I can see through it."

Sunset was half expecting this to be another nonsensical thing out of nowhere when the obvious finally clicked for her. "You mean you can see what I see?"

"Yes," she confirmed, paused, then unclarified, "And no."

"Yes and no?" Sunset asked, running out of the will to even ask.

"Yes," she repeated, pointing at her teal eye. "And no," she said, pointing at her silver eye.

"Obviously," Sunset dryly responded, then sighed and prepared herself for what was coming next. "What else?"

"Hmm." Luna placed her finger on her cheek in thought. "A faerie having your name gives them power over you, but I'm not a faerie," she reasoned. "I think I could fake it, though."

"Great," Sunset groused, her mood dipping. "I'm maybe an alicorn, but I'm trapped here and I have to do everything you say."

"Yes, maybe, and no, only if I use your name like that," Luna summarized.

"How would you know if I'm really an alicorn or an approximation—and how am I maybe not trapped here?" Sunset asked, pacing back and forth in agitation.

Luna shook her head. "It's conceptual, and... it's conceptual. That was the concept of 'alicorn' that you stole, so it can't be an approximation—and I have conceptual power over you, so maybe I can make you able to go through the faerie ring. What's an alicorn?"

"An alicorn is the immortal combination of earth pony, pegasus pony and unicorn pony," Sunset explained, gesturing at her hooves, wings and horn, trying not to think of the latter's... deformity. "It's an ascension that only a few ponies have ever managed, and Princess Celestia—my mentor—my ex-mentor—was one of them.

"She was grooming me for the ascension, then just... stopped answering my questions—and—and then this 'Cadance' shows up a brand new alicorn from some podunk town on the coast and I guess... I guess all the time I spent learning from her meant nothing because she cast me out rather than answer one simple question: why?!" Sunset emphasized the last word with a stomp of her forehooves on the black stone floor, then made an effort to calm herself. "But I'm over that now, being an alicorn and all, even if I had to steal it."

"Oh," Luna said, visibly processing that. "Stealing it was the right answer, actually."

"Princess Celestia would—will—disagree," Sunset grumbled, insisting on pretending that she would get back to Equestria some day. "Especially if she knew that fae—faeries?—whatever you called them—honor agreements and can't even lie."

Luna blinked. "Oh, you misunderstood me," she said, suddenly realizing it. "No; they can't lie, but that doesn't mean you can trust them." The paused, thinking back. "Did you think that she was offering you what she wanted?"

"Yes?" Sunset asked, dubious. "She asked me what I would give her for it, after all."

"No," Luna corrected. "Twice, she asked you what you would give her, and that is it. The ascension was never on the table—not without you asking for it—and why would she? She already had your name. Don't even take a gift from a faerie, or say 'sorry' or 'thank you,' because it presumes a debt that they will make you fulfill."

Sunset stared, sat, and screamed. "I hate this place!"

Luna sniffled. "Yes," she agreed quietly. Tucking her head between her knees again, she whispered, "It's how we lost my mom."

Oh, well... if that didn't just make Sunset feel grand.

Sunset waited a while then carefully prompted the caged girl. "Do you really think you can get me through the faerie ring?" she asked.

At first, Luna didn't answer, and Sunset wasn't sure if she was ignoring her or thinking. "What does it feel like, when you try to go through?" she asked at length.

So Sunset explained the burning, and her assumption about having acclimated to the higher level of magic in the Faerie Lands.

Luna sat and thought, and Sunset realized she was relying on a child who hadn't even been to magic school to figure out how to get her out of this insanity.

"What's the difference between you and a real Fae?" Luna asked. "Because Fae can cross over."

That... Sunset hadn't known. She frowned. "Well, I'm still physical," she reasoned, and realized that it did make sense. Pure magic... or concepts or whatever the fae were, wouldn't have a physical biology to be out of balance with.

Luna stood, shaking, and looking absolutely pitiful. Her once-yellow dress was tattered and torn, stained with grass, dirt and blood, and there were scratches along both her arms and legs. It looked like she'd been dragged kicking and screaming through the forest, and she probably had been.

"Then..." she said, approaching the edge of the cage. "Can I have your physicality?"

Sunset grit her teeth at giving up a part of herself, but this whole thing was maybe... sort of... slightly her fault... and if it would allow her to get out of here, she would deal with the rest later.

"You can borrow it."

***

Luna closed her silver eye and watched through Sunset Shimmer's as she made her way out out of the Palace of the Winter Court, waiting until she was clear and into the forest before she stumbled forward and caught herself on the bars of her cage, collapsed under the additional weight of another piece of Sunset Shimmer's being—her 'physicality' as she'd called it. It was like suddenly becoming more real. Everything was just more. She could feel her metaphysical weight warp the Faerie Lands around her.

She was barely used to the sensation when she realized that Sunset was already to the faerie ring. Tentatively, the crumple-horned snorkack approached the way home and tested for the pain she had felt. There was some delay, some uncertainty, but soon enough she stepped through, much to Luna's relief.

Sunset would find daddy, daddy would come and everything would be okay.

The first sign that something had gone wrong was when the view out of Sunset's eye just... stayed there. It was a scene out of the forest near her house, but she seemed to be just... standing there. Why?

The answer came to her when she saw a bird, startled by Sunset's arrival, still standing on the ground.

Time... Time was always weird when it came to the Faerie Lands. There were stories of people taking a nap and returning home decades later, but also vice versa. She should know; she'd read everything she could on it after her mother had disappeared, hoping beyond hope that it would be the former and her mother would return to her one day, not realizing anything had happened.

Luna was not so lucky, and in the pit of her stomach, she could guess why. She'd barely even recovered from her first taste of it, after all—that heavy weight of influence that was radiating out from her.

Her heart nearly caught in her throat when the bird suddenly sped up and made half a wingbeat before slowing back down to even slower than before.

"Or, it could just be random," she said to no one with a huff.

It took over two hours for Sunset to blink, and when the last light of the outside world died away, she curled up and began to cry.

***

Luna wasn't just left alone in her cage high up in the tower. Eventually, she was dressed up and taken to meet Mab, Queen of the Winter Court, and managed to leave with her name intact, which she counted as a success. In a stroke of irony, she was celebrated, in a way, for doing what she did to the Queen of the Summer Court and getting away with it—not as an equal, mind, but as kind of a pet who'd peed on the lawn of a neighbor that no one liked. It didn't get her any real care and she refused everything she could, but she was brought out and shown off for events.

She ate the food, of course. The passing of time in the real world drifted up and down but mostly remained at the nearly literal snail's pace that it had been to start with, and it would do her no good to starve. If Sunset's 'physicality' was to blame for this torturously slow passing of time, then it was also Luna's only hope of being able to leave when it was over, since that 'physicality' was already adapted to the Faerie Lands.

Sometimes, in the dark of Sunset's blinks, Luna wondered if maybe she could find a way to split the difference, so Sunset wouldn't have to stay in the Faerie Lands.

The warmth she felt from seeing her father for the first time in months warmed her heart until the next blink, and to her delight, it was a short one, too, swallowed up by one of those vanishingly rare moments when she could almost see things move. She still held onto a faint hope that one day, any second now, the time difference would balance out, or even swing a little the other way, but she held it close to her chest and didn't feed it, lest it get too large.

She nearly had a heart attack when five entire seconds passed while her father was grabbing his adventuring pack from near the door, and she was absolutely crushed when it slowed down again afterwards. She thought she'd been out of tears.

Help was coming. She knew help was coming, but as it got closer, Luna wondered if it would be in time. The only thing she had to hold onto was the vision from Sunset's left eye, but the more she focused on it, the more often she seemed to have blind spots in her right. She knew she wasn't going blind, though, because shadows don't disappear just because something is in a blind spot.

No—the more she paid attention to the real world, the less her grip on the Faerie Lands seemed to slip, and she was starting to see past the surface, and... she... probably didn't want that?

They were so close now, though. They were in the forest, with Sunset pointing out the Faerie Ring... but she was also standing in a ballroom wearing a milky-white gown that she was borrowing—always borrowing—and there was a Faerie in front of her. She looked familiar when Luna could focus on her—when she existed—but Luna was looking right through her and... why was Queen Titania in the Winter Court?

Oh, they'd probably gotten tired of her. She couldn't blame them, she supposed. This was the first time they'd brought her out in a month, she thinks, though time was a bit funny for her. Time to pass her on while she still had some value.

Funny; now that she was giving all of her attention to her right eye, she seemed to be seeing even less and less of it while understanding more and more of what wasn't there.

One moment, a fair-skinned woman with a golden crown was dragging her out of the ballroom—then it was a opaline changeling—then it was just a writhing nimbus of power-strength-terror-glee—then, suddenly, everything snapped back together into a slightly different arrangement that she'd never seen before.

The sheer, tumultuous speed out of her left eye wreaked havoc on her balance, and she fell to her knees, forcing the Summer Queen to stop or drag her, but it didn't matter because Sunset and her father were there, in the Faery Lands, now.

It was over.

Chapter 9 - Harry and Ginny's Summer Adventure

The door to The Burrow shut behind Sunset and Luna and they stood there for a moment just coming to terms with the situation. "Well, that's a mess," Sunset remarked.

"Oh, yes," Luna agreed. "More than the one we had in the living room after coming back from the hospital. Fortunately, I don't see that there's any way for us to get involved in it."

"...Re-repressing that and moving on," Sunset said, wishing Luna hadn't reminded her of that stomach-turning image. It was a good thing that Professor McGonagall had been there and had known a spell seemingly for cleaning up murder scenes; Sunset would not have enjoyed having to deal with it herself. "Aren't you worried about your friend?"

Luna hmmed, thinking about the matter as they headed down the footpath away from The Burrow. "Well, it certainly is a pickle, but it may be for the best. Ginny always did have strange ideas about Harry Potter, and all else being equal, it might not be a terrible experience for her to have met the real thing as soon as possible."

"You're one to talk about having strange ideas," Sunset remarked with some sarcasm.

Luna nodded. "Yes," she agreed. "I am. I would consider myself an expert, as a matter of fact."

Sunset couldn't really argue with that. "Still, though," she said. "If the worst that Dumbledore suspects is true about Harry Potter, then he might not be in a very happy situation. He certainly didn't look it. Your friend could actually be in danger."

Luna frowned at that. "True," she said, looking down. "But Dumbledore did say that as Harry's familiar, she should have been integrated into whatever wards and enchantments are on the property. Whatever other oversights there were with the wards, I have no doubt that she's physically safe."

"Well," Sunset said, looking around to make sure that they were alone. "That's assuming that she got the whole familiar thing right, anyway. She didn't seem to be entirely sure how it had gone down."

Luna winced at the oblique mention of the seelie queen and stopped to look around herself. Fortunately for the both of them, Titania was nowhere to be seen.

"You know," Sunset said as they started to walk again. "I really would have thought she'd show up, just then. I don't like not knowing where she is, knowing she's in the area."

"She might have returned to Faerie," Luna pointed out. "As she was a snorkack here on Earth, she must have your snorkack physicality herself, meaning Faerie cannot benefit from it while she's gone. She'd want to spend some time back there to make the most use of it, I would think."

Sunset thought that was a nice and tidy answer, but she didn't trust it. "Or maybe she split it up," she argued, not quite willing to let down her guard just yet.

"It wouldn't last forever, though," Luna mused. "Or she would have all the human physicality she could ever want, having gained it from humans previously, and I think I can say, from my own experience, that my effect on Faerie was certainly waning by the time you and daddy came for me. I don't know if she would leave it behind, where it could pass her by in Faerie time."

That brought up a good point. "If it does wear down," she said, thinking over the matter. "Then she would be on the lookout for more."

Luna nodded. "Which explains Ginny."

"Which explains Ginny," Sunset agreed. "So now we not only have to be worried about what might happen to her because of Harry Potter, but because Titania isn't done with her, since Titania didn't get any of her physicality."

"But we already knew that," Luna concluded. "If only because Ginny has attracted her attention."

"Great," Sunset groused. "What are the chances she makes it to Hogwarts before making another deal, do you think?"

"Oh, quite good, I would think," Luna said. "The muggle world is one of the safest places from the fae that you can be."

"Ah, right, the iron," Sunset said, remembering that most of the iron that Luna and her father had wielded against the fae had been of muggle manufacture. "So the fae are a uniquely magical problem."

"Not even that," Luna said as the two of them approached The Rookery. "Having to deal with the fae is quite unusual for most people. For most, they have heard the stories and know only enough as to want nothing to do with them. The idea of something so outside their knowledge makes them uncomfortable, and so they desire to pretend it does not exist. Most of the time, it obliges."

"So, it's a local thing?" Sunset reasoned.

"Some of that," Luna allowed. "The forests and hills here are certainly more porous than most, but no, I wouldn't say it's local. Ireland has it worse, I think, and some families just tend to attract the fae."

"Lucky us," Sunset said, having no doubt that she was now among their number.

Five minutes later, Luna was in her father's study looking over his notes for the next issue of The Quibbler while Sunset was in the kitchen looking at what passed for an icebox in the Lovegood home, seeing what she had to work with.

She sighed.

This was her life now; making dinner for an eleven-year-old instead of looking through spell books or doing anything at all towards finding her way home.

Well, it was better than living in the forest on the edge of town eating bark, mushrooms and shrubbery, anyway.

⁂

Ginny's heart was beating like that of a full-sized horse as she and the boy who was in the cupboard with her listened for any sound of movement in the dark of the house. Surely it had to be after midnight by now, she thought, and there was no chance of running into the insufferable Dursleys. Ginny hadn't even had to interact with them directly and she was already on her last nerve regarding the probably-not family of the boy who wasn't Harry Potter. Just listening to them kvetch and yammer over the dinner table grated like nothing else. As much as her six older brothers all got on her nerves from time to time, she'd never imagined that a family dinner could be so nettlesome and antagonistic.

Briefly, it crossed her mind to wonder how long it would be until she saw her family again, but it hadn't yet been quite long enough for the lack to really set in, so she ignored it in favor of waiting for the boy to decide that the Dursleys really had gone into a deep enough sleep that the two of them could risk sneaking into the kitchen to get something for themselves.

Finally, the boy pulled his ear away from the cupboard door and nodded.

"Ugh, finally," Ginny groaned as quietly as she could manage while still getting across her absolute despair. "I'm starving."

It was hard to tell in the dark, but it looked like the boy rolled his eyes at her. "It's not like I got anything today either," he remarked, rubbing his shoulder, and Ginny felt at least a little cowed. She had heard the ruckus that that Petunia woman had caused when Harry had gotten caught trying to sneak a dinner roll into his oversized shirt to bring back to her, and it had not been pretty. Losing the chance to sneak bites during cleanup was the least of it.

"I know, I know," Ginny said, feeling a pit in her stomach that probably wasn't just the hunger. "But I don't think this stomach has ever had food in it."

"Is that how that works?" the boy asked, honestly curious.

"I don't know!" Ginny hissed while still trying to keep quiet. "But it certainly feels like it."

Shaking his head, the boy went back to what he was doing without saying anything. As for what he was doing, that turned out to be bending over on his knees in the small space of the cupboard, carefully getting his fingers underneath the cupboard door, and slowly lifting. Once he'd pried the door up a finger's width, he then, gently leaned into the door with his shoulder, pressing into it until the soft sound of the latch popping free echoed through the silence of the night.

Ginny didn't need to be told to stay quiet as the two of them waited to see if the noise had gathered any attention.

It hadn't.

The boy slowly swung the door open, and to Ginny's confusion, it almost looked like daylight out in the rest of the house. It took her a moment to realize that there was nothing wrong or out of the ordinary going on, unless you counted her eyes being so well-adjusted to the darkness of the cupboard that she could clearly read the street sign on the corner from out the living room window.

Wait—no—she couldn't have read that even in broad daylight before.

Oh, right, her eyes were huge now, and she was some kind of flying equine. That probably explained it. She guessed flying ponies had good eyesight? She knew that birds had good eyesight, mainly because one previous seeker of the Holyhead Harpies was a peregrine animagus, which she claimed was responsible for her having better eyesight than ninety percent of the seekers in the league, and apparently Ginny wasn't much different from her now.

Neat.

You know, if you ignored the part where she was actually a tiny horse all the time instead of just some of the time like an actual animagus.

Of course, Ginny's focus on her eyesight distracted her from the main thing she should have been concerning herself with, which was the fact that she had four legs ending in hooves now and she'd never actually used them before.

The sound of hooves on Petunia's highly-polished wood flooring startled her, and the shock sent her tumbling snout-first into it in a series of thumps that were muffled only by the fact that she was soft and covered in fur.

"Ow," she said into the floor.

Ugh, the wood smelled sharply of furniture polish, too.

After another tense period of waiting to see if the Dursleys had noticed anything, Ginny carefully got to her hooves, paying much more attention to them in the process. Merlin; she'd gotten almost halfway used to her limbs ending in blunt appendages—not really, but enough to not be thinking about them for every second of the day—but standing on all-fours was an adjustment she really didn't know how to adapt to.

"Maybe you should stay inside," the boy whispered, hovering over her cautiously.

Ginny winced at the suggestion. She knew that it was the reasonable thing to do. She knew that she wasn't nearly familiar enough with her new body to be doing anything at all complicated, let alone something that might have real consequences, like sneaking around an unfamiliar house to steal food from the belligerent and volatile owners.

All the same, "No."

The boy didn't look entirely happy with that, but he kept quiet rather than make an issue of it.

Fortunately, Ginny did not trip on the way into the kitchen, though she took her sweet time going about it and still wasn't completely silent. She had plenty of experience sneaking around houses, but even ignoring actually moving her legs, figuring out what order to move her legs in took significant trial and error—mostly error—and walking quietly on human feet had been child's play compared to trying to do it with hooves. Maybe if she'd ever had the chance to learn to walk in heels, she might have done better at it, but she was eleven, and even the oldest pair in her mother's closet was much too large for her.

She'd checked.

Eventually, though, she did make it around the corner to the kitchen, where the boy was digging through the pantry looking for things that wouldn't be missed. Ginny closed in close behind him, thinking that she ought to be part of the decision process, but frowned at what she saw.

"What is all of this?" she asked, whispering with confusion.

If the boy thought the question was unusual, he didn't show it as he responded matter-of-factly, "Tea, peanuts, Jaffa Cakes, five different brands of crisps, digestives, and an old jar of Branston Pickle that probably ought to be in the fridge."

"...Okay," Ginny said, stepping back and shaking her head. Packaged foods weren't new to her or anything, but in the wizarding world it was mostly sweets and the like. It was a bit odd to see peanuts packaged up like they were chocolate frogs. Peanuts already had shells to begin with, didn't they?

Ginny let her eyes wander while she was musing on the weird things that muggles do, and found them drifting out the kitchen window. As short and tiny as she was—and she was shorter and tinier than she'd been as a human—all she could see was a small square of the night sky, but inside that small square was a striking crescent moon behind a handful of clouds that just made her want to go out and touch them, which was an odd thing to think.

...

Oh, right, she had wings, didn't she? Damn. Learning to walk on hooves was terrible, but suddenly she had an incredible urge to go outside and try out her wings, because surely that would go much better, right? Flying couldn't possibly be as confusing as having four entire legs, and she really wanted to be able to spread her wings before going back into that cramped, dark cupboard. Eyes glued on the moon, she whispered to the boy, "Do you think I could...?"

The boy, who had been digging through the pantry, took a moment to notice Ginny and her fascination with the outside. Eventually, though, he looked at Ginny, down at her wings, and the outside. "Um," he said, seeming to really consider it. Apparently, though, he missed the point entirely, as the next thing he did was look down at the small handful of things that he had clutched against his chest in a napkin. "...If you want to catch something instead, I guess that would be okay. I don't think anyone would see you, as long as it's quick."

Ginny stared at the boy. "...Catch something?" she said, repeating the words as if doing so would make them make any sense. She then looked down to the things that he was holding the same as he did. Right. The food, which meant... "You mean..." she looked outside, and balked, recoiling and scrunching her muzzle up in distaste. "Eww!" she said, communicating her disgust in the strongest terms she could manage while still staying quiet.

He seemed confused by her reaction at first, which made her wonder what he must consider normal. Did he get locked out of the house and have to... do that? "Oh, right," the boy said with mild enlightenment. "You're not actually an animal."

Ginny blinked and was belatedly insulted. "No, I am not an animal!" she reiterated, finally seeing where he was coming from and not happy about it. "Ugh, you...! I eat ham sandwiches, not rats! I'll be happy if the closest thing I get to a rat during a meal will be the time I caught Scabbers sniffing around my plate at the dinner table."

"Erm, right... Anyway... I don't have any ham sandwiches—opening the fridge is a risk—but I've got... well, it's a bunch of junk food, but it tastes good and it'll keep you from getting too thin," he said, only half joking.

Ginny looked at her stubby orange foreleg which was probably at least two, if not three times the size her wrist had been as a human, and thought that she wasn't at risk of that. She then looked at Harry in the moonlight, though, and had to remind herself that getting enough to eat was a real problem she was facing.

"...It's fine." she said. "I like most things. Um. Not lima beans, though. Or carrots; it's like eating wood, and they get disgusting if you cook them."

"No danger of that here," he said, "I didn't learn what a carrot was until I went to primary."

Ginny gave the boy a flat look. "You said the same thing about your name," she pointed out, wondering if he was making things up.

"Well, yeah," he said quite reasonably. "I also didn't learn about magnets until I went there either. It's a school; that's what it's for, and the Dursleys don't like it when I ask questions."

Ginny decided to drop the subject there on account of not knowing what a magnet was, herself. She'd never been to school, either. Were magnets taught at Hogwarts? Probably not, if it was a muggle thing.

"Anyway," he said, holding the napkin full of snack foods out and looking down at her hooves. "How are you going to...?"

Ginny thought about trying to hold the food in her hooves, but eventually had to admit that there'd be a mess if she dropped it and didn't want to take that risk, so she had the boy set the napkin full of snack foods on the ground in front of her.

On closer inspection, there were a fair few kinds of crisps, pretzels and similar sorts of greasy, salty or biscuity things. Aside from one or two that she couldn't identify, they weren't all that strange at all once they were out of their packaging, though they were all the sorts of things that her mother only would have given her once in a while, not as a meal.

"These are really things they won't miss?" she asked him, not disbelieving, exactly, just uncertain. If you took a single one of Ron's biscuits, for example, he'd definitely notice.

The boy shrugged. "These are skimmed off the top of all the things they go through the most of. You might think that it'd be better to sneak one of the granola bars out of the box in the back of the pantry, but they're thick as bricks and Aunt—I mean—Petunia has been avoiding the rest of them for a year. I guarantee she knows exactly how many are left and would notice the instant one went missing."

Weird, but that was good enough for Ginny and she bent down and picked a crisp up with her mouth.

It was good.

Almost worth having to eat it off a napkin on the floor like a dog.

One thing brought her up short; it looked like a thin, dry sausage inside a clear casing with printing on it. She tried eating it, but the casing was too tough for her teeth and clearly not intended to be eaten. Stymied, she looked closer at it and asked, "What's a... 'Peperami Wideboy?' Is that something your supposed-cousin calls himself, like when Percy writes his name on leftover watercress sandwiches that no one else likes anyway? How'd he label them like this? It looks professional."

Ginny looked up from her inspection of the snack, expecting an answer, only to find the boy on the ground, clutching his stomach, red in the face from laughing silently. It took a while of her sitting there, perturbed, to get him to actually explain that, no, that was just what the snack was called, no matter the similarities to his (not actually) cousin. He also explained the 'plastic' wrapper, which apparently kept the meat inside from spoiling. It didn't really seem to be an improvement over regular sausage casings.

She had half the dried, spiced sausage left in her mouth when the boy looked up with a start and asked, "Actually—can you eat that?"

Ginny blinked, crossing her eyes down her snout at the piece of meat sticking out from between her teeth. Carefully, she extracted the remainder of the thing by holding it between her forehooves, and said. "It seems like it's working so far?"

"I mean, horses don't eat meat," he said, then cocked his head to the side. "Or at least, I think they don't."

Ginny shrugged, and put the thing back in her mouth before she could drop it. Moments later, she swallowed and said. "I guess we'll find out. If I die, I'm blaming you," she cheerfully declared.

All in all, by the time the two of them headed back to the cupboard, Ginny's mood was greatly improved, which was a sad state of affairs, but it didn't take much to be better than sitting around in the dark in a cupboard. As they were passing through the living room, though, Ginny's eyes were drawn back outside through the window there.

Worrying at her lip, she said, "I know I shouldn't, but I really, really want to go outside and try flying with my wings..."

The boy considered that for a while, looking at her wings. "You know... There's a park nearby. It might be better if you hid out there instead of in the cupboard."

Ginny was tempted, but... "No," she said with a heavy sigh. Tip-hoofing the rest of her way to the aforementioned cupboard, she slipped inside and whispered, "Let me tell you about the statute of secrecy..."

⁂

Professor Minerva McGonagall was not inexperienced with being vexed, but she usually had a better focus for her ire than the two parchment envelopes and their associated letters, which were sitting in the center of her desk.

It had been a week since the truth about Harry Potter's situation had come to her attention during the events surrounding Ginny Weasley being turned into the boy's familiar, and she'd tried many things to actually get the pair of letters sent to her soon-to-be students.

Every one of them had failed. Every time she took an action with the specific event to get Harry and Ginny to live anywhere but Number Four, Privet Drive—and coming to Hogwarts apparently counted—her actions were stymied. She had suffered spilled inkwells, hand cramps, interruptions and eventually just a sudden and inexplicable feeling of dread that had prevented her from sending the letters. It was fascinating, in a way, the lengths that the wards were able to go to in order to prevent him from leaving his so-called 'home' for any length of time, and the fact that they could reach her at Hogwarts in Scotland suggested interesting things about the spells that had gone into the wards' making. She'd heard of precious few that did anything similar; only the fidelius came to mind, and it wasn't that. Really, the whole thing would probably be fertile ground for someone's research if it wasn't preventing her from looking into Harry Potter's home life and inviting the children to Hogwarts.

Muttering to herself, she paced back and forth in front of her desk, doubly irritated that the matter had her so roiled that she was strutting around dramatically not too unlike Severus Snape. Really, the way the man liked to swoop around with his robes reminded her of teen girls spinning their skirts. The man was in his thirties now; she really wished that he would grow up.

Disgusted with herself once she'd had that thought, Minerva decided that walking back and forth in her office was no way to go about things, and decided instead to get some air and stretch her legs—specifically, all four of them.

One moment, Minerva McGonagall, Professor of transfiguration was there, then, between one turn and the next, she was replaced with the most dignified black cat in the castle, which was true even outside of the summer months when her only competition was the ratty and haggard Mrs. Norris, the caretaker's familiar.

Slipping past the door to her office, Minerva bounded down the hall of the castle, putting worrying thoughts of children and letters aside for the moment to see if she could match her best zoomies-time down to the greenhouses. There was an actually-real pretend door down the charms corridor on the third floor that might get her to the great hall faster, if she could catch the right cycle.

Hours later, Minerva was stalking the abandoned classrooms on the seventh floor when she spotted one of the house elves cleaning up what was probably one of Peeves the Poltergeist's messes. The mess wasn't important, though; it was the house elf that gave her an idea. It was a stroke of luck, really, as the house elves considered it to be a mark of pride not to be seen doing their work, but cats were cats and the house elf in question was only all too happy to be distracted being mired in purple muck.

Making good time back to her office, Minerva became the human transfiguration professor once again, took a moment to tidy her robes, and began to enact her plan.

First, she conjured a box. This had nothing to do with her cat nature; instead, it was a lure for an entirely different class of creature than she was. Specifically, the box that she conjured was an 'out' box of the type that muggle office workers used. Conjuring plastic wasn't something that she taught to her students—the parents of the pureblood students would have fits—but she was a master of transfiguration on top of being a professor.

Next, she collected the letters; not just Harry and Ginny's letters, but all the rest of the muggleborn introduction letters that she hadn't gotten to quite yet. She was technically behind on those, but with the amount of the headmaster's work that she was doing on top of her own, she was pretty much always behind on something. Nevertheless, here and now it was a good thing, or this probably wouldn't work.

Minerva took those letters, and she dumped them in the 'out' box. She really hoped that this would work, or she would be feeling quite foolish in just a moment.

Finally, she... left her office and called a house elf.

A small, skinny house elf with knobbly knees popped in, bowed to Minerva and asked, "What can Slinky be doing for you, Professor Kitty Miss?"

And so, Minerva told Slinky what she wanted. Specifically, it was to deal with all the outgoing mail in the outbox that she'd conjured just moments ago in her office, and make sure that every single one got a proper response. Specifically, she noted that she wouldn't be taking any 'nos,' just in case there were problems.

Later, she would feel a bit remiss about setting a house elf loose on the year's entire complement of muggleborn students and their families, but on the bright side, the box was empty when she returned to her office and she had the entire rest of the day free.

⁂

It wasn't just the fact that Ginny had wings now that she wanted to be able to go outside and run and fly; those were things that she normally got to do fairly regularly—less so the flying, but sneaking a ride on her brothers' brooms was something she did every time she got a chance. She was, in some respects, a country girl and wasn't used to being cooped up inside all day. She especially wasn't used to being cooped up inside with a boy she barely knew, whose only identifiable qualities were all lies.

It was fortunate, then, that she wasn't there long before the boy who everyone thought was Harry Potter was finally released from his three week long punishment for something involving a zoo. What, exactly, had happened at the zoo she wasn't sure, because any time life around the Dursleys was described, they both quickly found something else to focus on—and there was a lot else to focus on, as Ginny had a lot to say about the wizarding world, or what she knew about it.

That said, while it was good and all to have some time to herself during the day when the boy was out doing his chores and things, it came with an unforeseen downside; having to be even more still and quiet inside the cupboard while he was gone. It would be strange if, for instance, they heard breathing or the shuffling of hoofsteps while she was stretching. She hadn't thought that it would be all that hard to deal with, but several times the Dursleys had complained about odd noises from around the house, and while that might have just been their paranoia about anything unusual happening in their vicinity, they had specifically mentioned the sound of hoofsteps out on the street.

Ginny had not, so far, ever actually gone out to the street, but she was cognizant enough of muggles to know that they didn't use horses any more.

More to the point, though, the boy had said as much in explaining the matter to her.

So Ginny huddled and hid in the dark of the cupboard while the boy was out trimming the lawn or washing the fences or whatever it was that oppressed orphan celebrity stand-ins do.

The more that Ginny heard the Dursleys interact with the boy, though, the more guilty she felt for calling him 'the boy' in her head. She couldn't very well call him Harry, because he was no Harry Potter, but all the same, she hated having anything in common with that odious monster of a man that her cupboard-mate had used to call uncle.

Wishing didn't make it so, though, and she couldn't really come up with anything, so 'boy' it was, for now.

Maybe when his Hogwarts letter came, they'd find out his real name.

That day came about a week after Ginny had first arrived, though the first she heard of it was the fat walrus of a man shouting from the dinner table, "Who in the bloody hell is 'Ginny Weasley'? Do you know any Weasley's Pet? They're not on this street, I'll tell you that!"

Ginny had, at first, panicked, thinking that she had been seen or heard, having had the door of the cupboard cracked open just a hair for light and a whisper of fresh air, but of course that didn't make sense, since just seeing her wouldn't give him her name. It was only when she pushed the cupboard door open just a bit more and peeked through the crack that she saw that he was sitting at the dining room table shuffling through the mail, which must mean that her Hogwarts letter had come.

It blindsided her a bit, if she was being honest. Sure, she had accidentally bargained with Titania for exactly that to happen, but she had thought that the terms of the deal had been satisfied with making her into Harry Potter's familiar. The payment, though, had been for eleven days of her life, which also just happened to make her old enough to go to Hogwarts regardless.

The relief hit her like a wave. Honestly, she hadn't even been sure that she would get her letter next year, being a tiny winged horse and all. This was... this was more than she had expected.

"Hold on a second," Vernon said, flipping the letter back and forth and frowning. "This barmy letter has no stamp! Damn kids; I don't know what they're up to with this."

"Dad!" Dudley shouted in his ear. "Dad! Harry's got one too!"

Ginny was baffled as the following kerfuffle went from one state of hysteria to the next. First, Vernon and Petunia were all in a panic, clearly realizing what the letter was. The boy, of course, knew too, as she'd told him about the letters, but apparently he hadn't had the chance or the forethought to hide it from them.

After panic, though, they progressed directly into paranoia. “Watching—spying—might be following us,” she heard Vernon mutter, which... Well, it might have been true if the boy was actually Harry Potter, but if he was actually Harry Potter he wouldn't have been left in a place like this.

Finally, they came entirely around to denial, and elected to ignore the whole thing as if it hadn't happened. Under normal circumstances, Ginny would be quite distraught to see the fat old muggle leave for work with her Hogwarts letter fisted between his meaty fingers, but she had the feeling that that wouldn't be the end of it.

Titania wasn't one to leave things half done, after all, and she'd like to see that great big oaf try and tell the seelie queen 'no.'

Even through all that, though, Ginny had another question on her mind that was even more urgent than the idea of Titania making a visit to this quaint little muggle suburb.

"What was the name?" Ginny asked the boy later that day after Petunia had run him ragged polishing the entire kitchen until it gleamed as punishment for the morning's debacle.

The boy blinked as he ducked into the cupboard, glancing back over his shoulder to make sure that Ginny wouldn't be seen. "What?" he said, missing the point.

"The letter," Ginny clarified. "What was the name on your Hogwarts letter?"

"The name?" he asked, not seeing what she was getting at. "It was my name."

Ginny rolled her eyes. "Yes, I know, that's how it works," she said, attempting sarcasm but unable to quite hide her eagerness. "The letters are all addressed by magic—I think the Quill of Acceptance is involved?—anyway, it ought to have had your real name on it, so what was it?"

The boy blinked. "It just said 'Harry Potter,'" he informed her.

Ginny sat back, flummoxed. "Wait, really?" she asked.

The boy nodded. "Well, yes," he said. "It had our cupboard on it and everything."

Ginny was lost for words, trying to fit this into her idea of how the world worked.

"Why's that odd?" he asked. "Didn't you say that that fairy promised that you'd go to Hogwarts with 'Harry Potter?' She couldn't do that if it wasn't my name, right? I mean, she'd know, wouldn't she? I'm pretty sure that names are important with fairies."

Well, yes, that was true. "I... but..." That couldn't be right, could it?

Ginny didn't say anything more to Harry for the rest of the day. Not until Vernon came home from work and tromped right on over to the cupboard. Ginny was fairly on the ball about keeping track of what was going on outside the cupboard, but even so, she had to scramble to the wide end of the space where she wouldn't be seen before he violently yanked the door open.

It was fortunate that the man couldn't actually fit inside of the cupboard enough to see her, because he certainly tried as he made a show of sticking his head in and looking around.

Ginny squeezed herself as tightly into the corner as she could possibly manage. It might not have been so bad if she was a darker color, but her Weasley-red hair had followed her into her new form and her entire coat was bright copper orange.

Harry—and she still felt weird calling him that, even if it really was his name—immediately grabbed the man's attention by asking after his letter, to which he was quickly rebuffed. The exchange that followed, though, was out of character enough to shock them both.

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

Aside from the galling revelation that Dudley had a second bedroom, that was just... strange. Had he really been stewing over the letter all day and come to this? She couldn't blame the boy when he bewilderedly asked, "Why?" even if the response was the expected angry retort of, "Don't ask questions!"

Having said his piece, Vernon backed away from the cupboard and stood there watching over Harry as he silently gathered up his few meager possessions, which were his ill-fitting clothes, mostly, but also schoolbooks and other things from his previous year at muggle school. Ginny didn't pay too much attention to the details because she fully expected there to be a final examination of the cupboard when he was done, and, again, she was violently orange and not supposed to be there.

Harry, too, knew what was coming and he gave her a sad sort of helpless look as he gathered up the first load of items. She almost missed it, but just at the last moment before he left, he motioned upwards with his head. Ginny followed the motion with her eyes, but there was nothing there; just the underside of the stairs, dusty and lined with cobwebs that had caught all manner of dust and grit falling through the cracks from above over the years.

In hindsight, though, being the underside of the stairs, it did go up pretty far, ending in a narrow corner of darkness that no one would ever give a second thought to, and the central beam that supported the stairs had enough of a gap to hold on to—or it would have, if she had appendages that were capable of holding onto things.

Ugh, she was going to have to try, though, wasn't she? It was too late for Harry to carry her up inside a pile of laundry or something, and that probably wouldn't have worked anyway. She was small, but not that small, and Harry didn't look like he could lift anything bigger than a kneazle—which she was, if only barely.

Looking up into the mess of cobwebs at the top of the cupboard, Ginny cringed at the prospect of getting it all in her hair. A moment later, she remembered that she had a coat and feathers now, too, and the revulsion redoubled. The only thing worse than getting cobwebs in her everywhere would be getting caught, though, and her time was running out. Sighing and explicitly not thinking about what would happen if she failed—because covering herself in cobwebs and still getting caught was worse still—she prepared herself and...

She hesitated.

Harry came down the stairs rattling little bits of dust loose, followed shortly thereafter by the heavy thumping of Vernon's footsteps. If she had any chance of not being heard, now was the time, but... but...

Cobwebs in her everywhere. The very idea revolted her. She might be a sporty country girl who was now a tiny flying horse, but she was still a girl.

Suddenly, just before the moment had passed, she had an idea. Glancing down, she located one of Harry's old shirts that had been missed on the first pass, grabbed it up in her hoof and chucked it upwards into the cobweb-ridden space she was soon to be occupying, clearing away the vast majority of them and falling back down in a disgusting clump at the far end of the cupboard. Barely confirming that it had done the job, Ginny got her hoofs underneath her and she jumped.

She wouldn't have made it if she didn't have wings. She did have wings, though, and she even managed to flap them adequately in the cramped space, launching her up to the support beam, which she scrabbled to grab onto with her hooves.

It... worked.

It really, really, shouldn't have worked, but it did, and she found herself hanging onto the support beam from below. She knew that her hooves were flexible, giving her pretty much the entire range of motion that her wrist had had as a human, if not more, but she still couldn't actually explain how she was managing to stay in place. Admittedly, in addition to being small, she was also lighter than she had any right to expect, but that still didn't explain anything.

Oh, well, maybe it was accidental magic.

What it hadn't been, though, was quiet, because, more effective than expected or not, hooves were not quiet, and Vernon stopped dead two thirds of the way down the steps, holding his breath and listening to identify the sound.

Under any other circumstances, Ginny would have appreciated the irony in her sudden need to sneeze, because that was the sort of thing that always happened in the books when Harry Potter and his friends were in an old, dusty place hiding from the villains, and here she was in an old, dusty cupboard with a Harry Potter hiding from... well, they probably counted as villains, she supposed.

At the moment, though, she failed to see the humor in it. The dust in her eyes might have had something to do with it, or maybe it was the very real danger that she would be in if she was found out. Well, in the worst case she could probably just run, she supposed, but she wasn't sure what she'd do then, and, again, really didn't want the ministry after her for violating the statute of secrecy by running down a muggle neighborhood in broad daylight.

Ginny managed to stifle her sneeze, though, and had surprisingly little difficulty holding herself up, so even as Vernon had satisfied himself that he hadn't heard anything after all, waddled his way the rest of the way down the stairs and herded Harry into the cupboard to gather the rest of his things, she managed to stay in place like a bowtruckle hanging from a branch in the fall.

It took Harry two more trips to empty the cupboard, mostly because he wasn't even given a box or anything to carry things in. If he had, he probably could have done it in one trip; that was how little he had. After three trips, though, Ginny was getting stiff, if nothing else.

Tiny winged horses really weren't built for hanging from stair joists.

Finally, though, the ordeal came to an end with Petunia slamming the cupboard door shut while making noises of being glad to finally have her cupboard back.

Moments later, Ginny came to a clattering thump on the cupboard floor. Given a lifetime's worth of experience with her wings, she might have managed to turn around in midair and soften her landing, but she'd had one week with them, none of it in the air. The clopping of hooves was not quiet.

Ginny swiveled her ear, listening for the tap-tap-tap of Petunia's shoes to see if she was going to have to hide again, but fortunately, after a tense period of listening, she continued on her way to the kitchen, muttering about pipes knocking in the walls.

It was much later than their usual midnight trips to the kitchen—maybe two or three in the morning—when Harry finally came for her. He apologized, of course. "Well, it isn't as if I know what'll wake them up from Dudley's second bedroom, is it? As it is, they've spent ages tonight muttering about the sounds of horses coming from somewhere."

Ginny flushed, but held her ground. "Well, I'm sorry, but you're the one who suggested I climb up to the rafters. We're lucky enough that I was able to do it at all."

"Well, sure," he allowed. "But you could have at least stayed quiet for the rest of the day."

Ginny puffed up her cheeks in an annoyed pout. "I have. I've barely moved at all."

Harry looked at her doubtfully. "You're saying you haven't been pacing around in here now that there's room?" he asked, giving the suddenly more spacious space a look.

"No, I haven't!" Ginny insisted. "I swear. It must be the paranoia that's getting to them."

"...You're sure?" he asked, giving her a look that she couldn't decipher.

"Yes, I'm sure!" she hissed.

He looked uneasy.

"...Why?" she asked.

"...I might have heard something like that during dinner too," he said.

Well, that was weird.

"They're getting to you," she eventually decided. "They heard me once—which I couldn't do anything about—and now they're jumping at everything, and it's got you imagining things too."

"Yeah, maybe..." he said, unconvinced.

⁂

Ginny's faith in Titania was upheld when, soon after Harry had gone down to cook breakfast the next morning, there was a loud shout of "There's another four!" followed by the banging and crashing of a scuffle involving the two largest Dursleys, and when Harry showed up at their new room with his collar upturned and his hair more mussed than normal, it became clear that he was involved as well.

Honestly, the boy needed to pick his battles a bit more carefully. Ginny had figured out quickly that she couldn't out-wrestle her older brothers, but she'd never let that stop her getting her licks in whenever the opportunity presented itself, and several other times besides.

"You know what the letters are, and now you know they aren't going to stop coming," Ginny said, following him as he closed the door and made his way to the rickety old bed that had been in the room—at least, until he stopped and looked down at her hooves.

Ginny paused, then made an effort to walk more quietly. It was hard enough wading through the mess of broken toys without knocking over any piles or making too much mess, but she still had only a week of experience walking on hooves, and they really weren't made for being silent.

She still insisted that it wasn't her that the Dursleys were hearing, though.

"I know, but I want to see it for myself," Harry said, dropping onto the worn mattress as quietly as possible. "To make sure it's real."

Ginny paused a second to listen for anyone in the hall before leaping up onto the bed assisted by a flap of her wings. It was unsteady, but reasonably silent and she needed the practice. "What?" she said, standing over him at the foot of the bed. "Am I not real enough for you?"

Harry raised an eyebrow at her posing and shook his head. "Well, you are an incredibly orange winged pony. I might be mad and seeing things, like pink elephants or flying pigs."

Ginny pranced forward and gave him a swift kick on the knee. "Rude. I am not an elephant or a pig."

Harry winced in pain. Pulling his leg back, he began rubbing it, and Ginny scoffed at that. She hadn't kicked him that hard... though she did have hooves now, and she'd felt the knock of bone. Oops? "It's a saying," he said. "Seeing pink elephants, or saying something will happen when pigs fly. Ow."

"Sorry," Ginny mumbled, shuffling in place as if her mother was standing there over her making her apologize.

"Anyway," he said. "If I was imagining you, I wouldn't be the only one."

⁂

The next day, six letters had arrived through the mail slot earlier than usual and Vernon's corresponding yell of rage had woken the whole house. Harry had talked about sneaking down to get to the mail before him, but he'd argued with Ginny for so long about it that he hadn't actually had the time to fix the alarm clock for it like he'd wanted. From the sound of the yelling downstairs, though, that was a good thing, because Vernon had apparently had the same idea and the mood in the house was tense enough that Harry not being down there could only be a net benefit.

Still, she had the strange impression that something wonderful had been lost, and she didn't know why. Oh well. Hopefully it would at least show Harry that she was always right and he should listen to her.

That thought was lost, though, as Harry returned from breakfast with strange news. "After the letters came—six of them, this time—I heard Petunia whispering to Vernon." He stumbled over the names only slightly now, almost always managing not to call them his aunt and uncle. "She said that when she got up for a drink of water in the middle of the night, she looked out the window and saw something in the dark. Something the size of a dog, with ratty hair and holes in its legs."

Ginny lifted her leg up in front of her, cocked her head while looking at it, then looked up at Harry, who met her eyes. "I don't have holes in my legs," she said, stating the obvious.

Harry shook his head. "No—and you weren't out on the lawn before dawn either."

"Oh, so you believe me now," Ginny snarked, making a joke of it.

"And your hair's fine," he added.

Ginny frowned. Her hair did look fine—for now, at least. She was peripherally aware of the fact that she would need a shower sometime in the month before Hogwarts, and would jump at the chance if the Dursleys ever all left somewhere together, but that was not something to worry about right now.

"Ginny?" Harry prompted, startling her out of her thoughts. "Assuming we're not all going mad, do you have any idea what it might be? It's not got to do with the letters, has it?"

Ginny thought about it, but she was, after all, only an eleven-year-old girl that had yet to go to Hogwarts, and she was hating how much of an excuse that was sounding like every time she said it. It was true, though. "No," she said at length. "Luna's talked about all sorts of creatures, but she's never mentioned anything like that, and if Hogwarts used them to deliver letters, I'd have heard of it. My brothers' letters always came by owl."

"You've no idea at all, then?" he said, disappointed.

Ginny sighed in frustration. "Well, I can't say that there isn't some dead horse creature that exists, but why would it be here now? The timing doesn't match up with the letters anyway."

"You don't think it has something to do with the fairies, do you?" he asked. "She said it was the size of a dog, and you're the only tiny horse thing I've ever heard of."

"Ponies do exist, you know," Ginny remarked. "And so do young horses."

"Is that a no?" he asked.

Ginny didn't have an answer to that.

⁂

Over the next few days, Ginny was glad to be confined to the room as the mood in the house got progressively sourer and more volatile. She herself was woken up one night by the sound of galloping hooves racing down the street, and in the mornings, more and more letters came. Bizarrely, this included, as repeated to her by Harry, inside every one of a dozen eggs.

Ginny gave him a look when he'd told her that. "If you had to call her over to show her the pan with the letters in," she said. "Then couldn't you have snuck one to keep for yourself?"

Harry flushed and looked away, avoiding her gaze. "...Well, it was just so barmy that I had to show her, you know?" he defended. "...And now I kind of want to see what they'll do next."

Ginny stared at the boy in front of her as if she was seeing him for the first time. Then, she broke out into a grin. "I'm guessing they come in through the bathroom tomorrow," she said, and the two of them spent the rest of the day coming up with crazier and crazier ways that the folded pieces of parchment might make it inside the house.

⁂

The letters didn't come in through the bathroom the next day. One moment, Vernon was crowing loud enough for Ginny to hear him from upstairs about there being no post on Sundays, and the next it sounded like there was a whole flock of bats and owls fighting to conquer the living room.

Deathly curious and tired of staying out of trouble, Ginny opened the bedroom door—an awkward feat with hooves—and peeked out down the hall, not expecting to see anything. And she didn't see anything... much. From the sound and the sight of several dozen of the envelopes breezing in from downstairs, though, she got the picture well enough. She'd have to wait for Harry to get the full story on exactly where they had come from, though.

Still, she found herself regretting it a little. With that many letters flying around, Harry couldn't very well not pick one up—she could easily go over and pick one up for herself without getting caught—which meant that their little game was over before it had hardly started.

The rapid thumping of feet coming up the stairs had Ginny ducking back inside, but she'd barely gotten the door quietly closed when Harry came barreling through, breathing heavily and absolutely shedding letters with every movement. He even had one stuck in his collar, and he had to take a second to remove it.

"What's—" Ginny began to ask, but like with the door, Harry was already way ahead of her.

"Vernon's gone mad," he said, stopped, then corrected himself. "I mean—for real, now. He's told us all to grab our things and take them to the car because we're leaving for anywhere that isn't here. He even cuffed Dudley around the head for trying to grab the downstairs VCR."

Ginny thought that a VCR was one of the muggle things that her father had in his shed, but that wasn't important right then. No, what was important was imagining that entitled brat getting belted one by his own father. True, she'd never actually had to interact with him herself, but honestly, she'd been listening to things going on in this house for two weeks now. She had her limits.

Oh, right, and the Dursleys were taking Harry away somewhere to avoid the letters. That was an issue, too.

Ginny chewed her lip as Harry threw together what he could and stuffed it all inside one of the uglier shirts he'd inherited from Dudley which he tied off at the neck and arms. On one hand... err... hoof? She had hooves, now, so on one hoof, she could just pick up one of her letters from the floor and then...

Well, that was the question, wasn't it? Where would that leave her? There was enough food in the house to last her until Hogwarts if the Dursleys were gone that long, but she wouldn't have any of the supplies she needed or any way to get to Hogwarts. It was strange enough that her mother hadn't been by to take her 'baby girl' back home, so Titania must be doing something to keep people away, so... she was going to have to follow Harry, somehow, wasn't she?

Oh, who was she kidding, she'd been going to do that anyway. That's the kind of thing that people always did in books, and if she knew one thing it was that if people in books did it, it was the right and moral thing to do.

...How, though? Ginny knew what a car was, as her father had one that he was fixing up, but Vernon's wasn't likely to have undetectable extension charms on the boot like his did, so she really didn't fancy her chances fitting in it with all the other luggage, let alone managing to stay hidden.

The only other option was following behind some other way, though, and she fancied her chances doing that even less, even before you got into the potential Statute of Secrecy issues. She'd ridden the Knight Bus before, so she had some idea what muggle roads were like and how fast the cars moved. She'd also heard from her father about wizards getting hit by them, and it wasn't pretty.

Unfortunately, by the time Ginny had settled on her course of action, the car was screeching its tires pulling away.

"Bollocks!" Ginny cursed as she ran out to the window and watched the car pull away. She hesitated, shifting from hoof to hoof in indecision before she said, "Sod it," and pried the window open.

Well, there was no way for her to catch up on foot—and not because she no longer had feet. The car was really moving, and she only had seconds until it would be out of sight. Maybe if she flew high enough, none of the muggles would notice? She sure hoped so, because either way, she was going to find out. Keeping an eye on the car, she leapt up to the windowsill and launched herself into the air.

Ginny flapped as hard and fast as she could, desperate to get as much height and speed as possible to keep up with the car and get high enough to avoid notice by the muggles, and honestly, for her first real flight ever, she didn't think she did too bad. It took her a while and more than a few near-disasters to figure things out—the weathervane on Number Seven would never be the same—but she did technically manage to stay in the air the entire time, so that was something.

Getting higher up also helped a lot. Aside from there being much less up in the air for her to have to dodge, the higher she got, the easier it was to keep track of the car that she was following. If anything, her eyes were actually even better at long ranges now, and they'd already been better than her human ones when all she had to look at was Privet Drive. No matter how high she went, she didn't have any more trouble making out details on the ground.

Ginny's real break came when she got up to cloud level, though. It was a sunny day with a smattering of clouds, and she had some idea that hiding in them was her best bet for staying unnoticed, but what actually happened hit her like an ogre at 6,500 feet. Or she hit it. The point was, she was keeping both her eyes on the car, so she didn't see the cloud coming and she certainly didn't expect it to feel like fluffy marshmallow and stop her cold in the air.

Panicked, Ginny scrambled up through the cloud and popped her head up out the top of it, quickly getting her eyes back on the car before she lost it. It was only then, when she was sure that she wasn't going to lose them, that Ginny realized exactly what had happened and where she was: sitting on top of a cloud.

Now, as Ginny had become very aware of in the last two weeks, she was only eleven years old and hadn't yet begun her schooling. That said, she was still pretty sure that clouds were not, in fact, solid, nor could animals or creatures that were otherwise solid sit on them. Ghosts, perhaps, might pretend to, if any of the stories her brothers had told her about them were true, but Ginny was quite certain that she wasn't a ghost. While she evidently might not remember dying if it had happened to her, she was still shockingly orange, and that was proof enough for her.

Also, she was actually sitting on and touching the cloud, which was rather the opposite of how ghosts worked, so she definitely wasn't dead, which was a relief.

In fact, the more she sat there watching the car far below and kneading the cloud underneath her hooves, the more she thought that this was a very good thing indeed.

Curious, Ginny gripped the cloud in between her hooves and started flapping her wings. Sure enough, the cloud began to move, keeping her hidden as she pushed herself to keep up with the car.

She had no idea what the hell was going on, but it was probably magic, and it was awesome. She might even not get arrested today after all.

⁂

Once Ginny had commandeered her little slice of cloud, following the Dursley car became easy. The cloud had to be pushed, which took a little bit of effort, but it was marginally less than keeping herself in the air, so it was a win in her book. More so, it allowed her to actually stop and rest when necessary, and the cloud even kept going in the direction she pushed it for a little while.

Her only regret was that she wasn't in the car with Harry, because by the strange, zig-zag path they took, going down one street, then doubling back to go the other direction seemingly at a whim, Vernon either didn't know where he was, where he was going, or possibly both, and by some of the paths he took, it might even be intentional. The rant that was going on in the car was probably epic... though, it probably would get old after several hours of listening to it.

If it was intentional as some way of losing any wizards who might be following them, though, the definitive answer to that was, 'no'. The current scenario settled the matter on that without a shadow of a doubt. In fact, the more he looped around and doubled back on his own trail, the easier it was to follow him. Not only did it mean that she didn't have to go as fast to keep up, but if she did perchance lose sight of him, all she had to do was look for the car that was acting like a loon, turning around in the middle of the street or suddenly taking turns without warning.

As an unexpected benefit, Ginny also learned a great deal about the muggle world that day. Oh, she'd been into the local muggle village back home, visited Godric's Hollow on occasion and seen London from out the Leaky Cauldron and the like, but one thing that none of her experiences so far in life had prepared her for was just the sheer size of things and how many muggles there were.

Up here, on her own in the clouds without even a broom, it was just... incredible. She almost regretted having to keep her eyes on the Dursleys' car, because there was just so much to see. Even though they'd started out in the suburbs and driven further out into the country, as high as she was, she'd been able to see the city that must have been London and it had just been so massive, wide and sprawling, the tall buildings blocking her view of the horizon, that she could hardly believe it. It was a hundred... no, a thousand Hogwarts'.

There was so much of it that it was too much to even properly understand.

The details, though; those she got a much better idea of while watching the Dursley car tear down side roads and make a general nuisance of itself. The small towns and villages that Vernon drove through were much closer to what she could understand, their function and structure not unfamiliar, though even then, she could see dozens of them dotted along the landscape connected by a web of roads each filled to one extent or another with cars representing more people than she could even count.

By the time the sun began to set and the Dursley car pulled into a lot around a gloomy-looking building with a glowing sign out front labeling it a hotel, Ginny's eyes had been opened. Vernon's, on the other hand, must have been closed, because he missed putting his car fully inside the small white square, which even she could tell was where it was supposed to go.

Contacting Harry that night turned out not to be possible since he was sharing a room with Dudley, which was maddeningly frustrating. Ginny felt like her head was full of so much new information and she just wanted to sit around and unload it all on him—maybe get him to explain a few things, like what the cars with flashing lights on them were or the purpose of the hollow metal frameworks that looked like towers built by particularly ambitious spiders. She didn't want to sound like her oft-ridiculed father and his obsession with muggle things, but from where she was now, she was finding them all but impossible to ignore.

Rather than getting to do that, though, Ginny instead went hungry and spent the night between two branches of a nearby tree. It wasn't the first time she'd slept in a tree and she was fortunate enough that it was a warm summer night, but still, it wasn't what she would have called an entirely enjoyable experience and she resented it an extra half again as much for making her miss the cupboard.

Maybe it was her fear of being discovered that had her feeling so exposed, or maybe just the fact that she was outside and exposed, having not had clothes since being dumped at the Dursleys, but she'd slept only fitfully, barely able to shake the feeling that she was being watched.

⁂

Spending a late night in her office was nothing new for Minerva McGonagall, especially in the lead up to the new school year. And during the school year. And when preparing for the end of the school year. Really, doing half of the Headmaster's work left her not a lot of time when she wasn't working late, but this, somehow, was still one for the history books.

She was scanning through the responses that she'd gotten to the Muggleborn introduction letters. It was... something. Minerva had thought that she'd known what she was getting into by inflicting one of the house elves of Hogwarts on the entire year of muggleborn students and their families, but even so, this was... excessive.

Of course, worse than what was said was what wasn't being said. Reading between the lines of the letters, all of them eager and ready to schedule an in-person appointment, Minerva could tell that no small number of them were less willing to talk to her so much as have a talk with her. About the house elves, and the menace they'd resorted to in prompting all of these responses.

Sighing, she put the last letter down, took off her glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose. The worst part, of course, was that she had responses from every single one of them except the one—or rather, two—that she had taken this fool path in order to ferret out. In letters from Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley, she had still come up empty.

It was understandable, then, how keenly she perked up when she heard the distinct tapping of the Headmaster's shoes approaching her door. As he entered, her eyes zeroed in on his hands, but if he was bringing news from the Potter and Weasley children, it wasn't in the form of having intercepted their letters.

"Headmaster?" she greeted him, wanting to get right to the point. If this wasn't about her two immediate concerns, then she wanted to know right away so that she could get back to trying to work it out herself. The nominal deadline for enrollment was approaching, and while they wouldn't let that stop them from enrolling the children if it really came down to it, getting a response before then would make things much, much simpler.

Minerva liked simple, if only out of necessity, her workload being what it is.

Fortunately, it didn't seem that she would have to shoo the headmaster out of her office, because the first words out of his mouth were, "It seems that Harry has left the premises of Privet Drive, and, in fact, that he is no longer in Surrey or the surrounding area at all."

Minerva's eyebrows raised at that and she leaned forward in her chair. "Do you mean that the wards have fallen?" she asked, but Dumbledore shook his head.

"No, they still remain," he informed her. "This, therefore, must be a temporary thing, or it would have been prevented, of course."

Minerva nodded at that, forcing herself to relax back into her chair. "Yes," she agreed, having gotten quite a good feel for what the wards over the two children would and would not allow over the past two weeks.

"It behooves me to ask, then, if you have any news from Harry?" he said, scanning over her desk with his eyes for any sign of letters involving Harry Potter. "Have you managed to contact him?"

Minerva let out a heavy breath. "Oh, yes," she said, not sounding entirely as prideful as the words suggested. They were rather dry, in fact, fully aware that her next week at least would be spent mollifying justifiably irate muggleborn parents. "It was all very clever."

The headmaster, sod him, looked only too curious at her statement.

Shaking her head head wordlessly, Minerva sighed, considered explaining the entire matter, then thought better of it. Looking to the side of her desk, she called, "Slinky?"

A small pop sounded at the house elf's arrival, and she announced herself by asking, "Yes, Professor Kitty Miss?"

"Slinky," she said, addressing the house elf. "The headmaster has informed me that Harry Potter is no longer at the residence of his relatives. Perhaps you would care to inform us of the situation there?"

Slinky bowed, cheerfully obsequious. "Oh, yes, Professor Kitty Miss! The nasty humans is being very spooked, Miss, and is taking the Great Harry Potter to get away from all the letters!"

"...All the letters, you say?" Minerva had to ask, if only to distract herself from the first real word that they had received about Harry's situation with his relatives seemingly confirming all their worries. At least, she didn't think that any of the Hogwarts elves were the type to refer to muggles as nasty humans, though with some of them being rescues, she supposed you couldn't always be sure.

"Yes, Professor Kitty Miss," the house elf beamed with pride. "They is having ripped up the first one. And the second one. And the third one. And—"

"So," Minerva interrupted. "All of them so far?"

"Oh, no, absolutely not!" the house elf said, quite aghast at the interpretation. "Some were put in the scary spinning knife jar thing and they is burning a great number. They is having given up on that now that they are running, though."

Minerva mouthed the words 'scary spinning knife jar' to herself before recognizing the description as a muggle blender. She couldn't say that the description was inaccurate, but all the same she was quickly developing the kind of headache that she always got when dealing with house elves.

Taking a deep breath, Minerva placed her hands together on the desk, leaned forward and asked a question she very much didn't think she wanted an answer to. "Precisely how many letters have you sent?"

Slinky got a distant look in her eyes and started doing something with her fingers that resembled counting, though she failed to follow it and she suspected that trying would only make her headache worse. How many fingers did house elves have, again?

At length, the house elf hopped joyfully in place and concluded, "One thousand, seven-hundred and fifty-three!"

Minerva closed her eyes. She had asked. She had known that she wasn't going to like the answer, but she had asked anyway. Briefly, she considered where to go from here and decided in the end that she ought to quit while she was ahead. "...Thank you, Slinky. You may go."

The house elf disappeared with a quiet pop and Minerva gestured at the empty space. "Well, there you go," she concluded.

"Quite," Dumbledore agreed with a genial smile, as if the entire conversation with the house elf had been nothing out of the ordinary. "And it does give us an opportunity, wouldn't you say? With Harry away from the wards and there being no shortage of letters, I expect that I may just be able to send someone to intervene in the situation and prompt things along."

Minerva was doubtful and a little bit suspicious. "Really, now, Albus? And who, precisely, do you propose to send? Knowing what I do and suspecting worse, I doubt the wards will let me anywhere near the boy even if he's no longer directly under them. They certainly haven't had any trouble affecting me here."

Dumbledore shook his head. "No, I don't imagine they will. It will have to be someone else."

Minerva sighed. "Which just leaves us back where we started, with there being no one we trust with Harry who will not see his situation and immediately fall afoul of the wards. You heard how the house elf referred to his relatives, didn't you? If even one of them can see there's a problem, I can't imagine there's anyone at all reasonable who you can send."

"In fact," Dumbledore said. "I shall send Hagrid."

Minerva pursed her lips. "Hagrid is a good man, but he's as subtle as a nundu," she said. "Both would seem to preclude him from being of help here."

"On the contrary, my dear professor. Those are precisely the qualities that we need," Dumbledore said. "Hagrid is a good man—friendly, kind, genuinely without guile and open with his opinions—and he expects the same of everyone else. The wards cannot be tricked, but Hagrid has not been informed of them and we don't need him to go against them; merely to encourage things to happen. The particular brand of well-meaning chaos that he tends to bring into things seems just the right sort of thing for this situation, don't you think?"

Minerva frowned, not entirely comfortable with the suggestion, but not quite able to put a finger on why. "You mean for him to bumble his way into a solution?"

Dumbledore tsked, giving Minerva a disappointed look. "Now, that's a distinctly unkind way to put it, don't you think? I don't mean for him to do anything but his best, which I trust him to do. It might be that his innate resistance to magic will protect him from the wards' distant influence, and he will simply go there and pick young Harry and Ginevra up and take them to Diagon Alley for their things."

Minerva hemmed and hawed over the situation, but she eventually had to admit that there didn't seem to be a better choice within the constraints that they were working under. "You have a point," she admitted. "But I don't have to like it. Honestly, I do like the man, but what kind of introduction will that be for the children? What kind of first impression will that be for Potter?"

To this, Dumbledore chuckled, catching Minerva off guard. "I'm afraid, as they say, that that ship has already sailed, Professor. From what I gathered, Harry's first impression of the Wizarding World was the moment that a snorkack of some description fell out of a portal in front of him, and I doubt that young Ginevra has been at all quiet on matters in the weeks hence."

That was a fair assessment, Minerva allowed. "I suppose that is true," she said. "She knows as much as any average eleven-year-old wizarding student, in any case, which is as much as we can expect from any of our onboarding students, and more than most. I swear, some of the students we get here have hardly ever even left their family manors."

"Indeed," Dumbledore agreed, and if his agreement was a little less than enthused, well, they were both teachers. "I suppose that I ought to set the ball rolling, then," he said, preparing to leave. "It may not be the ideal path forward, but it is a path forward, and that will have to do."

"'Perfect' being the enemy of 'good' has never quite sat right with me," Minerva grumbled, though the pile of letters in front of her from all the muggleborn parents that she still had to deal with put the lie to her conviction on the matter. Eventually, she picked one up and waved the headmaster off. "Fine. I would ask you to let me know how it goes, but I'm certain I'll hear about it one way or another."

"Of course," Dumbledore said, making his way out of the room.

Minerva was just beginning to focus on her interrupted work when she had a thought. "I don't suppose you're going to let Hagrid know about Ginevra's new form?" she asked, returning her gaze to the Headmaster, but there was no sign of him save, perhaps, the sound of a chuckle from down the hall.

⁂

The Dursleys didn't seem to have slept well either from the look of them as they came out of the hotel, though at least some of Vernon's sour attitude might have been down to the two stacks of letters both several inches thick bound up in twine that he threw powerfully into the car as soon as he opened the door.

Being nothing more than bundles of letters, they just bounced a bit, not even having the decency for the twine to break.

Ginny expected the Dursleys to get into the car and keep driving, but Petunia dithered, getting into an argument with Vernon. Unfortunately, while Ginny's ears were much better and more directional than they had been as a human, they weren't anything close to as good as her eyes, so Ginny had to risk getting closer to hear them, and she liked to think that being orange helped her this time, being that it was barely after dawn.

"No, Vernon, I won't calm down!" Petunia hissed, clearly self conscious about being seen, but also no good at actually staying quiet. "Not until you tell me where it is that you're taking us!"

Vernon harrumphed, causing his mustache to wiggle like a frightened caterpillar, but eventually attempted to placate his wife. "It'll be fine, Pet," he wheedled. "I've got a lead on a place where we can get some peace and quiet; it's an island just off the coast; there'll be hardly anyone around for miles; no mailman will get anywhere near us."

Petunia gave him a scathing look. "Really, Vernon?" she said. "That's your answer to all this? That's your answer after listening to hoofsteps all night and waking up to find every single salt shaker in the entire hotel standing spaced evenly across the floors of our rooms? To take us to some... some hut on a rock out in the ocean with no one else nearby?"

Vernon wilted under the weight of his wife's weary, tired eyes. "I... ah... well... you may have a point," he begrudgingly admitted. Crossing his arms, he began to think, which took considerable effort. Eventually, he came to a decision. "Alright. Yes. I know a man who can cut us a deal at his hotel; a real high class place, with serious no-nonsense security; the kind of place that ministers stay at when they're passing through. He owes me a favor, but It still won't be cheap. We'll stay there a few days and let them deal with whoever's behind this nonsense. I bet their kind never had to deal with real weapons." Moments later, he added under his breath, "It'll save me the trouble, too."

Once that was settled, the second day of driving went much like the first but with less of Vernon's nonsense driving since it apparently hadn't helped. Ginny did not enjoy the tense minutes of flying up to cloud level, but it was early in the morning and overcast so she was technically at less danger of being seen than the day before. It sure didn't feel like it, though.

Ginny spent that day focusing a little less on the ground and a little more on the sky. Partially, this was because she was still processing everything from the day before and didn't really have the spare mental capacity to take any more in, but also because as the day went on, the overcast sky turned into something almost like rolling hills, and from the looks of it there was a storm coming in on the horizon.

It was all very pretty, but Ginny didn't want to still be in the sky when it arrived.

Fortunately, the Dursleys arrived at their destination just before the storm, hurrying to get their luggage inside as the first heavy drops fell. The hotel was, as Vernon had implied, a very large, posh-looking place with at least twenty floors. Harry was the last one in, as his sack made from a tied-together shirt came slightly undone, and no one helped him fix it or grab the things that had fallen out the bottom.

Ginny felt bad for him—really she did—but it was hard to muster the indignation in his stead when she failed to see any way for her to get down to shelter herself without being seen. She had to wait, perching on her wet, gray cloud until the storm proper started, then dart down to a convenient tree amidst the pouring rain.

From the vantage point of her tree, Ginny searched the grounds of the hotel for a better source of cover, but much to her dismay, she didn't spot anything that she hadn't seen from her cloud. The area that the hotel was in was much more dense with buildings than the last one, and she was lucky enough that there was even a tree for her to perch in. The only upside that Ginny could see was that each room seemed to have a balcony, so she could probably at least get a few words with Harry here and there to keep herself up-to-date on what was going on...

...Assuming Harry realized this, too, and let her know which one he was staying in, anyway. He probably would. He was smart enough, and was very accommodating, considering he'd had her dumped on him with no rhyme or reason—or even any involvement at all on his part. Really, it was surprising he'd dealt with all of this as calmly as he had.

Harry did not show up on the balcony that night, which... well... was fair. She wouldn't want to come out into the wind and the rain either, if she had a choice. She didn't, though, and it really set a poor mood as the evening turned into night.

Ugh. Ginny curled up on the branch of her tree, wrapping her wings about herself and fluffing them up for warmth as she'd figured out how to do not long into the storm. In a certain kind of irony, it seemed that her wings repelled water, while the rest of her didn't. That was just... real great. What kind of creature was she really? Not that the same question couldn't be asked of any number of magical creatures.

Ginny shivered, her stomach groaning painfully because she hadn't eaten since two nights ago. "What I wouldn't do for one of mom's apple pies right now," she said out loud, trying to think of what she could do to scrounge up some food. She refused to catch squirrels or whatever it was that Harry had thought she was going to do on that first night... but horses ate plants, right? If she went on any longer like this, she was going to end up gnawing on the lawn.

Right. 'If' it went on any longer. The Dursleys were planning on spending several days here. There was no 'if.' It wasn't as if some food was going to just—

Ginny blinked.

When did that apple pie get there, she wondered, soggy and bewildered much like the apple pie. Well, she hoped the apple pie wasn't bewildered, but it had just appeared on the branch of a tree in the middle of a storm. She wasn't going to dismiss the possibility that it was capable of bewilderment, either because it was capable of getting here itself or because it didn't know why it was there either.

Whether or not the pie had the ability to reason wasn't what made Ginny the most wary, though. Ever since running into Titania outside of Luna's house, the subject of the fae had become much more immediately relevant to her life and her decisions. "...I'm not going to just eat any random food that a faerie puts in front of me," she announced into the storm, almost believing herself.

"We is not being in Faerie, Miss Weasey-pony!" came a squeaky voice from behind Ginny. "Slinky is hearing your request."

Ginny let out a yelp, knocking the pie off the branch. To her shame, she panicked more about losing the pie than about the voice that had surprised her, and dove forward, managing barely to catch it in her hooves somehow. Since the pie was no longer perched on the branch, though, that meant that Ginny herself was no longer perched on the branch.

Fortunately, after two solid days of flying, Ginny's body remembered the action of flight before she did, and she found herself floating in place, pie in hoof, looking at... "A house elf?"

"Yes'm!" the house elf responded, bowing proudly. Ginny took her in and thought she looked not unlike a wrinkly, shaved cat. It was exactly like the pictures of house elves she'd seen, but wet. And wearing a Hogwarts tea towel.

She put things together rather quickly, if she didn't say so herself. "You're the one delivering the letters?" she deduced.

"Yes'm!" the house elf repeated, her teeth beginning to chatter.

Ginny felt immediately bad about keeping her here, and started to dismiss her, when she suddenly had a better idea. "I don't suppose Hogwarts has any tents with muggle-repelling charms on them?" she asked. "You know, for student use. Uh, I can take my letter now, if it'll make me a student and that matters."

"Yes'm!" the house elf said once more, sounding just a little grateful as she disappeared with a pop that was drowned out by the sound of the heavy rain.

⁂

The tent that Slinky brought Ginny and placed on the roof of the hotel was small—barely any bigger on the inside than the outside—but it came with dry towels, hot tea and an apple pie that was pure bliss even with its sogginess. The pit in her stomach had only gotten more prominent now that she was presented with food, and Ginny was making an effort to stay well-mannered and ladylike as her mother would have put it, even when all she had to eat with were hooves the size of teacups. She was doing okay, she thought, and was starting on her third slice of pie when a sudden thought struck her.

"This isn't... actually one of my mom's pies, is it?" she asked Slinky, who had stuck around to make sure that Ginny had everything she needed and wasn't going to freeze to death—or, not before responding to her letter, anyway. She was oddly insistent about that, and Ginny knew that house elves could get odd, sometimes.

"Yes'm!" the house elf confirmed happily in that same exact tone, causing Ginny to pause with the slice of pie balanced in her hoof just shy of her mouth.

Ginny looked closer at the pie, and yes, even through the dark and the sogginess, it did have the look of the braiding that her mother liked to do on the crust... and her mother did often bake when she was worried... and Ginny had no doubt that after two weeks without her daughter, her mother was worried.

Shrugging, Ginny took another bite of the pie. She doubted that her mother would have minded if she knew where the pie had ended up.

"So, if you're the one handling the letters," Ginny said, eyeing the house elf, who definitely had all the expected appendages and was entirely lacking in hooves. "Who or what is haunting them?"

Slinky shuddered as if she was back out in the storm. "It is being the dark ones, Miss Weasy-pony! Thems now with hooves and horns, but they is being the same wicked ones as always!"

The dark ones? That wasn't helpful. "Okay," she said, then asked, "But who are 'the dark ones'? What are they called?"

Slinky whipped her head back and forth, flinging drops of water off her long pointed ears as she shook her head. "Oh, no, Miss, we is not speaking the name, miss."

Ginny blinked, her eyes wide. "You don't mean..." she ducked closer and whispered. "He who must not be named? He's supposed to be dead!"

"No, Miss Weasy-pony!" Slinky said, shaking her head in a more gentle rejection, this time. "It is not being him. It is being them. The dark ones. From Faerie."

...Oh. Oh no. She was talking about the unseelie, wasn't she? Ginny had to put aside her thoughts on just how inconvenient it was when you didn't actually know who and there was more than one of them, because, well...

As much as Titania was a capital-P problem, all that Ginny knew about the unseelie was that they were similarly dangerous, but they didn't ask nicely.

Ginny shot up, all thoughts of pie forgotten. "We have to warn Harry!" she shouted, adrenaline—and sugar—pumping through her veins.

If there was anything that bugged Ginny about being a small winged horse, it was being small enough for a house elf to gently set bony hands on her shoulders and sit her back down. "You is not needing to worry about The Great Harry Potter," Slinky reassured her.

Ginny wanted to point out that he wasn't really that Harry Potter, but it was more important for her to turn, look at the house elf and ask, "Why?"

Slinky's face slipped into a slightly mischievous grin and said, "The same as last night, Slinky is making it so the dark ones cannot enter without finding salt. It is being not pleasant for Slinky, but Slinky's kind has not the bane any more. It is having been bred out, like the iron."

Ginny stopped as she processed that.

It... really should have been obvious to her that house elves were fae, shouldn't it?

"Besides, Miss Weasy-Pony," Slinky added, not realizing that Ginny's head was still busy with the previous revelation. "It is not being Harry Potter Sir that the dark ones are after; it is being you."

"...What?" Ginny croaked, her throat suddenly ironically dry as the storm battered the tent from outside. Suddenly, she remembered the feeling that she'd had all last night of being watched. "Why?"

Slinky's head fell, her ears folding in sadness. "Slinky is sorry, but Slinky is not knowing." Suddenly, she brightened up. "Oh! But do not worry," she said.

"Because you'll protect me?" Ginny asked with naked hope. "Like Harry, with the salt, right?"

"Ah, well... no," Slinky said, her sudden cheerfulness gone as quickly as it had come. "Slinky cannot. Slinky's kind is incapable, Miss Weasy-pony, of going against the dark ones. Or the light ones. Any of the Ones, Miss, or any of the Many. We abandoned Faerie, you see, and that chains us in as many ways as it has freed us."

"Why shouldn't I worry, then?" Ginny asked, her eyes flitting to the open tent flap, very much getting a head start on the worrying. No—scratch that—it was the other way around. She had shed loads of worrying to catch up on, actually.

"Because, Miss Weasy-pony," Slinky said, looking very sad as she lifted her hand, preparing to snap her fingers. "You is not being protected so far, and you is still here. They is wanting something. Something they cannot take. That keeps you safe. Safer than Slinky can make you." Looking like she was going to cry, the house elf said, "Slinky is sorry, Miss Weasy-pony," and disappeared with a pop at the snap of her fingers.

Ginny hit the first thing that came through the tent flap with the pie. It had salt in it, right? Whatever; it worked one way or another as the thing went down on the smooth stone floor on top of the building from surprise if nothing else. She didn't get a very good look at it, but the next one confirmed everything she knew.

As Slinky had said, the things—the unseelie faeries—looked nothing like the faeries she was used to. Instead, they were small horses, like her, but also bugs, not like her. They were bigger than her, but smaller than Titania had been, and as the Dursleys had mentioned, they looked somehow decrepit with holes in their legs, though they didn't actually appear to be rotting.

They just had holes.

In their legs.

And their horns.

And their wings.

For some reason.

Ginny didn't have the time to concern herself with that, though, as the small, cramped space of the tent was not somewhere she wanted to be when she was getting swarmed by the properly nasty kind of faeries who wanted some non-specific thing from her which she doubted very much that she wanted to give.

Before more of the unseelie could block her way, Ginny raced forward, automatically using her wings to push herself just that little bit faster. She wasn't foolish enough to try and barrel through the unseelie at the entrance—the creature's crooked horn looked absolutely nasty, for one thing, and one thing was all she had time for—so instead she made it look like she was going to do so, then ducked around the side instead.

There were more of them outside, of course. The rooftop wasn't full of them, but they sure as hell weren't being discreet. After all, why would the unseelie care about the Statute of Secrecy? They didn't sign the damn thing.

...

No, Ginny had to tell herself, trying to get them to sign it now would not be helpful, even if it probably would be the most important achievement of her life and put her in the history books for ever and ever.

Ginny shook her head and looked for a way out.

What was her plan here, though? Faeries normally didn't enter the muggle world. She'd thought that was all but an immutable fact, and this place was almost as muggle as it got outside of London. Wasn't the iron in these muggle buildings supposed to keep faeries out? The buildings had iron in them, right? She wasn't misremembering that? Of course, she wasn't in the building right now, so maybe that was why.

What could she do? She sure as hell couldn't fight them.

Where could she go? Inside the hotel? She couldn't count on that stopping them.

There was one place that she knew was safe, though: whichever room that the Dursleys were in, because Slinky had prepared it with salt, which she could do, because the Seelie weren't after Harry to begin with.

But why would she bother doing that if they weren't after Harry? Had she done it for Ginny after all? Did that mean—ugh. What it meant was that house elves gave her headaches and she didn't have time for headaches. She took off, flying over the—every single one of them sprouted wings from under their carapaces and flew up to block her.

That so wasn't fair.

Actually, though, as it turned out, it was fair, because the faeries were only about as good with their wings as she was, and they were all in the middle of a storm, so she really wasn't very good, even for her two days of experience flying. She therefore managed to fly through a gap in their line, which was less a line and more resembled her brother Charlie's star charts of Sagittarius.

Charlie had not cared very much about astronomy.

Ginny had a brief moment of screaming 'what am I doing?!' in her head just as she dove over the side of the building, but it passed as the logical part of her reminded the rest that she did, in fact, have wings. It was still screaming 'what am I doing?!', mind, because seriously, when had her life turned into a Harry Potter novel? A small part of her that wasn't in denial tried to speak up, but was shushed because, really, she only had enough presence of mind to handle one thing, and that thing was swooping past every window in the hotel looking for Harry or any of the Dursleys while the wind pushed her this way and that and evil faeries chased after her.

On her second pass, Ginny was forced away from the hotel by the faeries, cursing all the while—cursing didn't count if nobody could hear it over the howling winds—only to immediately realize that she'd been going about her search all wrong. She could see for miles, pouring rain notwithstanding, so she was actually better off the further she was from what she was looking for. Even so, it took her three circuits around the hotel to actually spot what she was looking for—and it wasn't Vernon or Dudley's corpulent forms, nor was it Harry or Petunia's scarecrow-like physiques.

It was the dozens and dozens of white salt shakers with shiny metal lids spaced evenly across the floor of one of the rooms from wall to wall.

Merlin-damned crazy house elves.

Ginny dove for the window and was blocked by no less than three of her faerie pursuers. She backed off and tried to go around them, but all they had to do was keep her away from one window. Well, two windows, but they were right next to each other, so it hardly mattered. Ginny flapped her wings, hovering in place for just a few moments while she tried to think of something

And then it hit her.

But only after hitting him.

'Him,' being the middle one of the trio of faeries blocking her way, and 'it,' being one of Dudley's trainers, thrown by Harry who was standing at the open window. Ginny looked at the trainer that she had somehow caught in her hoof, then dashed forward in the air and chucked it at the middle faerie a second time. The faerie ducked away to dodge it, which was fine, because it cleared the way for Ginny to dart in and dive through the window past Harry, making a terrible ruckus as she crashed into the salt-shaker-covered floor—and also the dresser on the other side of the room.

The noise woke Dudley up, who proceeded to stare at the dripping wet and orange miniature flying horse in the room. Several seconds passed, in which Dudley stared, and Harry stared, and Ginny just stood there breathing heavily, until the silence was broken by a crash coming from the next room.

Evidently Vernon had heard the noise and discovered that the floor had been covered in salt shakers again. It was funny at first, but as soon as he recovered he was in the room yelling, and then Petunia was in the room yelling, and Ginny wasn't hearing any of it because her heart was thundering in her chest and her ears were pointed out the open window listening for any sign that the faeries were following her and that was all she was capable of caring about right just then.

Just when she was beginning to think that the whole matter was over, there came a great, thumping knock from the hotel room door. It was a knock so heavy and ominous that none of the faeries she'd seen tonight could have made it.

No, the thing on the other side of the door had to be something bigger—something greater—and Ginny expected that she knew what.

Ginny already had the attention of Titania, after all. Why would she ever think that Mab wouldn't pay her a visit when so many of her children were here?

The booming knock came again, and Ginny gulped.

"Someone should probably get that," she said into the silence that followed. "I don't think she likes waiting."

⁂

The knocking at the door of the Lovegood home came as a surprise to both of its inhabitants, being that it was already dark and well into evening. It was not, however, quite as much of a surprise as it should have been.

"Could you get that, Sunset?" Luna asked, sounding rather typically distracted.

Sunset sighed, wiped her hooves off with the dish towel and dropped off the tall stool she needed in order to use the kitchen sink. Passing by Luna, she saw that she had her fingers all tangled up in something resembling crochet if it involved paperclips and a jangling of bottle caps.

Well, at least it was something practical.

Shaking her head at the irony of that thought, Sunset made her way to the front door and opened it to the sight of exactly what she had expected: Molly Weasley, balancing two separate dishes in the air beside her with her wand.

"Ah, Mrs. Weasley," she said, stepping aside and letting her in. "What a surprise. You know, we've managed visits to the grocer several times now," she reminded her. "There's only two of us and we're both pretty small. I like to think that I've gotten grilling vegetables down well enough. It's appreciated, really, but you don't have to bring us things every couple of days."

"Oh, I know, but you know me, dear," Mrs. Weasley said, walking in and making her way over to the dining room table, which also doubled as its coffee table, its research table and... really, in the chaos of the Rookery, it was a flat space that did anything that was asked of it. "I just had a moment to myself and I couldn't help but think of you two over here all alone... and Ginny is still... well, you know how it goes."

"Yes, I know," Sunset said, and she did know, as was proven by the three dishes sitting next to the front door which Sunset levitated and hoofed over to Mrs. Weasley, exchanging them for the new pair.

"Now, I've got a shepherd's pie for Luna and a stack of brownies here," she said as she handed over each one. "There was supposed to be an apple pie for you, dear, but I'm afraid one of the others must have run off with it. Or two of the others, as the case may be. Honestly, they're such a hassle over the summer, but I do prefer it to the school year... I was dreading it enough with Ron going to Hogwarts, but now with Ginny going too, I... The house will just be empty and..."

Suddenly, Luna was there, leading Mrs. Weasley off and making noises approximating the motions of comforting the woman, much to Sunset's relief. Not only was the whole 'vocally comforting someone' thing not really, her, but also...

"I'm sure Ginny is fine, Mrs. Weasley..."

"I got a letter from Bill, and he said that the wards..."

Yeah, that. The woman was acting like her only daughter was dead and gone when actually she was behind one of the most impressive sets of magical wards that Sunset had ever heard of. Really, they were the sort of thing you read about in legends and stories—probably on the side of the villain, admittedly—but the girl probably couldn't be safer if Princess Celestia herself had cast the spell.

Sighing, Sunset glanced over at the blubbering woman and wondered if she dared hope that Princess Celestia was feeling even a fraction of the grief over her own missing ward that Mrs. Weasley was about her daughter.

Probably not.

⁂

For a brief moment, Vernon was torn between addressing the small orange pony in the room and the pounding knocking at the door, but eventually, the pounding won out and he abruptly turned on his heels to stomp over to the door and yank it open with a shout of, "What do you want?!"

Ginny wasn't sure what she thought Mab would look like, but it wasn't the giant man in a heavy leather coat resembling a chest of drawers that he had worn out to sea and slept in. Ginny's second thought was to try to remember who the king of the winter court was, because a name didn't pop immediately to mind and she really didn't want to get it wrong. When the large mountain of a man managed to squeeze himself through the hotel doorway and remove his hat, though, she spotted his wiry black beard and hair and felt very foolish, because she actually did know him, and he wasn't the king of the winter court.

Probably.

"Well, now," the large man said, taking in the room and looking for a place to set his hat. Not finding one, he shrugged and tossed it on a chair near the door. "Sorry about the late hour, you wouldn't believe the mess I had to go through to get here."

"I—wha—" Vernon said, shocked at the sight of a man who dwarfed him to such a degree. "I say, now, who do you think you are, barging in on us like this? How did a ruffian like you even get into the hotel? I hardly believe that a place like this would let a hobo like you in the door!"

Unfortunately for Vernon's chance of getting anything like an answer to his bluster, the man's attention was stolen when Ginny's eyes widened and she shouted "Hagrid!" More than relieved to see him instead of any member of the unseelie court. In fact, by the look of him, he hardly looked like he'd even been through the storm, let alone seen any of the whole host of faeries that were skulking about the place.

Hagrid, for his part, looked down in surprise at hearing his name, and his eyes widened in delight at being recognized. "Well, hello there, you little cutie," he said, pushing past Vernon like he was a stray branch in his path and crouching down to get himself closer to Ginny's level; a somewhat futile gesture, as she'd still be looking up at him if he was laying on his stomach.

"You know this man?" Vernon shouted, aghast, before it seemed to process exactly who it was that had spoken. "Wait, what am I saying? Of course the freaky animal knows the freaky mountain man—you probably come from the same place! Bunch of freaks, the lot of you!"

Ginny was really tempted to give Vernon a piece of her mind or the whole of a hoof now that she no longer had to hold her tongue in order to keep herself from being discovered, but even so, his overuse of the word 'freaks' just made it hard for her to take him seriously.

Also, Hagrid was kind of filling her entire point of view, so Vernon was easy to ignore.

Hagrid, though, was looking at Harry. "Is she your familiar?" he asked.

Harry didn't seem to know how to answer that, and also seemed to be having a more difficult time ignoring Vernon. "Uhhh..." he said, taking on a worried, hunted look. "I... guess?" he said with a great deal of uncertainty, looking every bit like he expected that to be the wrong answer.

Ginny let out a huff of air and said, "Hagrid, it's me—Ginny Weasley. You helped my mom with the crups we found in dad's shed a month ago. You're here to take me and... Harry... to Diagon, I'd guess?"

Hagrid did the sensible thing at that news and blinked. Then, he backed off on his haunches and looked her over, as if to make sure that she was still a miniature copper-orange winged equine. Flummoxed, he dug around in his coat and pulled out two more slightly rumpled envelopes of the type that had been harassing the Dursleys for a week.

Furrowing his brow, Hagrid read the addressee on the first letter, then swapped it for the other and read that one. "Huh, I didna notice that," he mumbled to himself. "I thought it was odd there was two of them, but I'd heard something about a whole gaggle of letters so I didn't ask." Shaking his head, he looked back down at Ginny. "Yer really Ginny Weasley?" he asked. "'Cause I had a parrot once that—"

"Enough!" Vernon shouted, making his way around the crouched form of Hagrid to address him. "Am I to understand that it's been you that's responsible for all these blasted letters?!" he yelled.

Hagrid stood up, not seeming at all concerned by Vernon's bluster, but as if he was trying to make out why a puppy had piddled on the carpet. "Well," he said, scratching at his beard. "Not me specifically—that'd be Professor McGonagall, I suppose—but aye; I'm from Hogwarts. What of it?"

"What of it?" Vernon asked, unable to fathom a situation where Hagrid wasn't immediately contrite for existing. "What of it?!" he repeated, stomping his foot and encroaching on Hagrid's space. "You think I don't remember what that boy's parents told us? You freaks aren't supposed to bother good, honest folk like us! Do you have any idea the hassle it's been with all these letters?! How are we supposed to explain it when I get two hundred of the damned things mailed to a hotel room we only overnighted at?!"

Hagrid was not impressed by Vernon's aggressive puffery. "Yeah?" He said, crossing his arms and looking down at the corpulent man. "Well, you ought to have given the letters to the kids, then, oughtn't ya? Speaking of which..." Hagrid looked down at the letters he had in his hand, and passed them out to their recipients. "Harry," he said, offering the boy his letter with a kind, almost prideful smile. "And Ginny."

Vernon sputtered in unvoiced fury, but held back from making a grab for the letters with the larger man looming over him.

Ginny reached out to take her letter, and only moments before making a fool of herself remembered that she had hooves. She made it work, though, balancing the letter in front of herself.

Huh, she had two first Hogwarts letters, now. Well, she had hundreds, sort of, but she didn't actually have hundreds, so it still seemed unique to her.

...

Actually, come to think of it, where was the one that the house elf had given her? Not here, certainly, so she supposed that she only had one Hogwarts letter after all.

Harry, for his part, seemed to be giving the letter a great deal more reverence than it deserved, as if he hadn't already seen hundreds of the things and needed to shake them out of his jumper back at the Dursleys' house. "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry," he read, and proceeded to open the envelope and investigate what was inside.

Ginny followed suit, which took her a fair bit more work because, well, hooves. She hated to feel like she was harping on that, but it really was a bloody nuisance not having any fingers.

Hagrid, for all that Ginny knew him as 'that monster-mad man' and 'our third-greatest nemesis' from her brothers—specifically the twins—seemed to only have eyes for Harry at the moment. "Yeh'll know all about Hogwarts, of course," he said, watching Harry read the letter.

Harry took a moment to finish what he was reading, then looked up at Hagrid. "A little," he said, which was the wrong thing to say.

Well, it was the wrong thing to say in the measure of not pissing off Vernon, so really, it was the right thing to say.

"What?!" Vernon exploded, jaw slack, stunned that a child could actually learn something without his express input. "How?" His bafflement quickly turned to anger, and he demanded to know, "Who told you about that... that place?!"

Harry, sadly, was still used to being cowed by Vernon and not a very good liar besides, so even without meaning to, he glanced at Ginny.

"You!" Vernon bellowed, rounding on Ginny. "Just who do you think you are, you—"

"Ginny Weasley," she interrupted him, letting out all of her sass with the reassurance of a much larger man than Vernon by her side. "We just went over that a minute ago—or weren't you listening?"

Vernon was going purple with rage at her backtalk when he finally realized just what he was talking to. "Hold on, you... hooves... you're the one that's been terrorizing us for the last week!"

Ginny rolled her eyes as she tucked her letter under her wing. "Ugh, no. For the last time, that wasn't me," she insisted, hating being blamed for something that legitimately wasn't her fault, especially since she now knew who and what was responsible.

Vernon was taken aback at her denial. "What?" she sputtered. "Of course it's been you! Do you see any other tiny horses around?!"

Ginny threw her hooves up in the air out of frustration. "Yes! I was fighting off a whole sodding herd of the blighters outside just ten minutes ago! Why do you think I came crashing in here in the middle of the night? For a laugh? Please! Do I look like I have bloody great holes in my blighted legs?!"

Vernon backed off at the sheer vehemence coming off of the tiny orange pony, Petunia was shielding her poor Dudders' ears from Ginny's sudden burst of invectives, and Hagrid just looked bemused at the whole situation, not even questioning that there had been hostile equines just outside the building.

"...So, we're off to Diagon Alley, then, yeah?" Harry suggested, looking up at Hagrid with a nervous hopefulness that said he really wanted to be anywhere else just now and could they please hurry things along?

Vernon, unfortunately, reset himself on taking notice of something that he had experience with, which was making Harry miserable. "Haven't I said, you're not going?!"

"I don't think you have, actually," Harry pointed out, borrowing a little of Ginny's irreverence from the fact that violence didn't seem to be on the table with Hagrid in the room. "I think I'd have noticed."

At Vernon's statement, though, Hagrid also returned to the conversation, having found solid grounds to object on. "Not going? Of course he's going! His name's been down ever since he was born, and a great nasty muggle as you ain't gonna stop him."

Ginny had an uneasy feeling in her stomach as Hagrid mentioned Harry's name having been down ever since he was born, but she wasn't sure why. She'd already reasoned that Harry really was the boy's name after all, which was why he'd been picked to stand in for the real Harry Potter, but all the same...

Regardless, the conversation went on without her until Vernon yelled, "I AM NOT PAYING FOR SOME CRACKPOT OLD FOOL TO TEACH HIM MAGIC TRICKS!"

There was a moment of silence in the hotel room as Vernon's shout echoed out into the night.

Hagrid's massive hand gripped the handle of his pink umbrella.

Things only went downhill from there.

⁂

"I shouldn'ta oughta done that," Hagrid mused as the three of them walked rather quickly down the hall of the hotel, the storm still raging outside and drowning out the yelling of Vernon back in his room. "Lost me temper, but it didn't even work anyways. Meant ter turn him into a walrus, but I suppose he was close enough that there wasn't much left ter do."

Ginny snickered to herself as she struggled to keep up with Hagrid's stride at the same time as she was fixing the image of Vernon Dursley with whiskers and tusks in her mind for posterity. That was one too many things for her to do at once, though, and it wasn't long before she tripped and took a tumble on the thin hotel carpet. Cursing to herself, she stumbled up to her hooves, pulled her letter out from under her wing with her teeth, then took to the air. She wasn't really good enough with her wings yet to fly indoors, but she didn't let that stop her and after pinging off the floors and walls a few times, she managed to perch herself on Hagrid's shoulder.

Hagrid, for his part, took her perching on him as a natural thing, and focused on a quill and parchment that he had produced from inside his coat, on which he was furiously writing.

Dear Professor Dumbledore,
Given Harry and Ginny their letters.
Taking them to the leaky for the night.
Will be in Diagon tomorrow.
Weather's horrible. Hope you're well.
– Hagrid

Finishing his letter, he slowed his pace and fished an owl out of his coat. Ginny stopped and looked again, but that was indeed an owl and he was attaching the letter to it. Harry caught her eye and nodded inquisitively at the owl; she guessed that he was asking if that was normal, and she shook her head... though on second thought, that required a bit more explanation and she hopped down next to him.

Thinking that she needed bags strapped to her side or something, Ginny stuffed her letter back under her wing and said, "I mean, we use owls to send letters, yeah—I might have mentioned that—but this is the first time I've seen a pocket owl. Maybe it's a burrowing species?"

"There's burrowing owls?" Harry asked, never having heard of that before. "Do they not have wings, then...?"

"No, they do," Ginny said, trying to remember where she'd heard about burrowing owls aside from the fact that wizards in general tended to know lots of owl facts just as a matter of course. "It's just a nesting thing."

The owl that Hagrid was using definitely had wings, the two of them observed, as Hagrid had finished attaching the letter to it and simply chucked it like a quaffle down the hall.

It didn't do much better at flying indoors than Ginny had, and there was a crash shortly after it turned the corner. She felt slightly vindicated.

Hagrid winced. "Prolly shoulda waited until we was outside," he said. "I always forget that muggle buildings don't have as many open windows."

They stood there for a moment before Harry changed the subject and asked, "So, how did you get here, anyway? Unc—I mean, Vernon wasn't wrong when he said the security here probably wouldn't let someone who looked like you in—no offense."

Hagrid waved his hand, dismissing the implication and said, "Floo."

"You flew?" Harry said, surprised. "But you don't look like you've been out in the storm."

Ginny snickered and corrected him. "No, no, he means the floo network—through the fireplace."

"You mean floo as in a chimney floo?" Harry asked, looking at Hagrid and trying to figure out how that worked. "Like Santa Claus?"

"Naw, the floo network is... well, it's easier ter just show you," Hagrid said, and began to lead them down the stairs of the hotel, which was enough of a challenge for Ginny's short legs and hooves that she had to take wing again, which went about as well in the cramped space of the stairwell as it had in the hallway.

Eventually, after a few flights of stairs, Hagrid offered to carry her down the rest of the way and she reluctantly obliged. "Come ter think of it," he said as he was picking her up. "Yeh said something about getting into a fight outside?"

Ginny scrunched up her nose at the reminder, but it did bear explaining. "Oh, yeah," she turned to Harry and said, "The hoofsteps that the Dursleys were complaining about all week? It was faeries. Unseelie faeries."

Harry didn't look nearly concerned enough at that news. "Like the one that turned you into a pony?" he asked.

"No, no," Ginny said, shaking her head. "That was Titania—the seelie queen."

Harry cocked his head to the side in confusion. "What's the difference?"

"The seelie are the summer court." Ginny paused, then said, "I think. They might be slightly different things, I'm not sure, but they're as good as the same, anyway. They're dangerous and unpredictable, but not wholly malicious or anything. The unseelie are the winter court, and they are. Malicious, I mean."

"Aye, that's about the right of it," Hagrid, said, agreeing with Ginny's description. He paused, then, and turned Ginny around in his arms, holding her up in front of himself, wide-eyed. "Hold up; yer saying you was turned into this by Titania herself, and now the unseelie are after yeh? Here of all places?"

"Yes!" Ginny said, frustrated. "It's completely insane!"

Hagrid looked troubled as they came to the floor they were looking for and Hagrid let Ginny down. "That's... I don't rightly know what that is, but that's not something you see. Faeries, in the muggle world? It's the first time I've heard of that. They must really want something from yeh. You didn't do some fool thing like steal from 'em, did yeh?"

"No!" Ginny shouted. "Maybe Luna knows? I ran into Titania at her house, and that's all I know!"

Hagrid stroked his beard. "It's a right mystery," he said, not really having anything to say. "Good thing yeh won't have ter go back outside teh leave, we're here."

'Here' was apparently a door like most others in the hotel, except instead of having a placard with a number on it, it was just entirely blank. Hagrid made a cursory check to make sure there wasn't anyone nearby, then pointed his umbrella at the door and mumbled something under his breath, unlocking the door.

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't mention me doing magic ter anyone," Hagrid said as he led Ginny and Harry into what appeared to be a utility room. "I'm—err—not supposed ter do any, strictly speaking, but there's exceptions for things like this; it'd only make more trouble if I wasn't allowed ter cast a muggle repelling charm or two. It's one of the reasons I was so keen ter take the job, teh be honest."

Ginny stopped, looked down at herself and remembered that she was a pony. It wasn't something she often forgot, but it had slipped her mind that she'd just been walking through a public muggle place as if she wasn't a walking violation of the statute of secrecy. After spending the last two weeks of hiding from muggles, it was kind of embarrassing to forget.

Harry, though, was stuck on another part of what Hagrid had said. "Why aren't you allowed to do magic?"

Ginny was curious too, though she knew better than to ask. She was only too happy to bend an ear now that the subject had been brought up, though.

...Huh, come to think of it, she could actually bend her ears now. Weird.

“Oh, well, I was at Hogwarts meself but I—err—got expelled, ter tell yeh the truth. In me third year. They snapped me wand in half and everything. But Dumbledore let me stay on as gamekeeper. Great man, Dumbledore.”

"Why were you expelled?" Harry asked, but he was pushing his luck and Hagrid proceeded to move things on rather than answer.

"Anyways, we're here," he said.

"...Where is here?" Harry asked, looking around the room. "Or rather, what is here? This just looks like a big utility closet." Ginny, too, wanted to know, because she was expecting a fireplace and she didn't see anything even remotely like one.

As if on queue, a fan inside a tall metal box on the other side of the room began to spin up, the box clicked a few times and there was a whoosh that sounded like a fire starting, or maybe one of her twin brothers' less dangerous potions accidents.

"And that, there, is why we're here," Hagrid said, gesturing at the metal box. "It's a muggle furnace, is what it is, and it's the closest thing ter a fireplace that this place has. Y'see, Harry, floo travel is magical travel from fireplace ter fireplace, and let me tell yeh, getting this place hooked up for the night was a right hassle, it was. I'm not much liked 'round the ministry, ter be honest, and them ministry folk are petty as snubbed hippogriff chicks when they want ter be. I'm afraid I had ter drop yer name in order ter get things moving."

"My name?" Harry asked, giving Ginny an uncertain look.

Hagrid turned to Harry at the question. "Blimey, don't you know? You're famous, you are."

"Oh, um, I know that," Harry said. "That Harry Potter is famous, I mean. It's just hard to really imagine that being me, you know? I'm just... just Harry."

"Oh, yeah, that makes sense," Hagrid allowed, scratching the side of his nose as he gave that a thought. "Must've really thrown yeh when yeh found out, but I took yeh from the ruined house myself, on Dumbledore’s orders. Took yeh ter that lot upstairs..." Hagrid paused for a moment, then shook his head. "Never got the full story, there, but I got the picture Dumbledore never was happy with that."

Hagrid went on to explain how leaving Harry with the Dursleys must have been the best of a bad lot of choices, but Ginny didn't hear him, and neither did Harry.

"Wait. Wait. Hold on, Hagrid. You picked Harry Potter up from his house?" she said. "The house where..."

Hagrid nodded somberly. "Oh, aye, that I did. It was a right mess, and I don't think I'll be telling what I saw ter a couple of kids, even if one of 'em is Harry Potter. Nasty stuff. He can ask me when he's older, if he wants ter."

Ginny fell onto her rump. "But... that doesn't..."

"Umm, Ginny...?" Harry asked, looking at the stunned pony with uncertainty. Clearly not understanding the monumental shift that was going on in Ginny's head because she knew something that he didn't.

"Hagrid can't be obliviated, Harry," she hissed under her breath.

"What?" Harry said.

"Hagrid can't be obliviated," Ginny repeated. "I've heard from dad that it doesn't work on him. He also can't lie for the life of him."

Harry blinked, not getting why that mattered, at first, and then it hit him and his eyes widened. He looked at Hagrid, then back at Ginny.

"So he's...?" Harry said, looking up at Hagrid in a new light.

"Yes!" Ginny hissed.

Harry pointed at himself. "Then I'm really...?"

She threw her arms up in frustration. "I guess!"

Harry was now just as stunned as she was. "How?"

"I don't know!" Ginny insisted.

The rest of the night was a blur as Hagrid transfigured the furnace into a fireplace and took the two of them through to the Leaky Cauldron, where they were set up with a room for the night. Nothing even registered to them, as both of their minds were full up dealing with that one impossible thought, and several times, one of them would wake the other up in the middle of the night by repeating that one question.

"How?!"

⁂

Dumbledore was just about to turn in for the night when an owl came knocking at his office window. Waving his wand, he let the owl in and smiled when he saw that it was from Hagrid. Reading the note, he was both pleased and a little disappointed that things seemed to have gone smoothly enough. The fact that Hagrid was taking the children to the Leaky Cauldron for the night did speak of some level of disconnect with Harry's relatives, but not enough to immediately shatter the wards.

That was fine, though. While it might have been preferable in some ways for something to trigger a clean break, the fact that there didn't seem to be any barrier to Harry attending Hogwarts was the far more important thing, and if that could happen without causing too much of a rift between Harry and his family, then all the better. Hope springs eternal, after all.

He was filing the letter away in his personal things when, much to his surprise, another owl alighted on the windowsill. He received so many owls that it wasn't entirely surprising, though most people—and most owls—at least had the decency to have their letters delivered during the daytime. What was even more peculiar was that he recognized this owl, and its owner was hardly one to rush anything—a natural consequence of being over six hundred years old.

Yes, the owl from was his old teacher, mentor and partner in alchemy, the immortal Nicholas Flamel.

Taking the letter from the owl, he broke the seal, flipped it open and began to read...

...And read...

By the end of the long-winded letter, Dumbledore had several questions, among them why the Philosopher's Stone was in Gringotts at all, why it was in the British branch, of all things, why he absolutely had to have it out by noon tomorrow, and what the bloody hell he was supposed to do with it.

Sighing, Dumbledore sat back down at his desk and began to pen a letter to Hagrid providing an explanation of the situation.

Next, he got out another roll of parchment and went about penning one to Flamel requesting an explanation of the situation.

Finally, he penned a third letter to Molly Weasley telling her that her daughter would be in Diagon Alley tomorrow, but warning her not to get her hopes up.

⁂

Ginny was still out of it the next morning, feeling as though she hadn't awoken from her dream until a stack of flapjacks were dropped in front of her. Even once she was sure she was awake, though, she still felt wrong-footed, as if the world had shifted under her and settled in an odd way.

If Harry Potter was Harry Potter, then did that mean that Harry Potter wasn't real? Or if Harry Potter was the real Harry Potter, then was there a fake Harry Potter going out and doing all those things that had surely happened in some way similar to his published works?

Ginny's mind went back to all the questions that Harry had had about things and his assertions that none of the people like that in the books he'd read had existed at all, but Ginny wasn't just a silly girl who had assumed otherwise out of baseless fancy. She'd talked to her mother about what Harry Potter must be like, and she'd never said anything about him being locked up in the cupboard at his awful muggle relatives' house.

By the time breakfast was done, though, Ginny just wanted to not think about the whole mess for a while, which was why she was eager to listen when Harry brought another subject up.

Her eagerness over the subject was very brief, however.

"Hagrid," Harry said, as they were leaving the Leaky Cauldron out the back. "I've just realized that I haven't any money, and you heard Uncle Vernon last night... he won’t pay for me to go and learn magic."

"Don't worry about that," Hagrid said, wiping his mouth with a handkerchief that he then stuffed back in one of the many pockets of his coat. Hogwarts is free, for one thing—you only have ter buy your supplies—and did yeh think that yer parents didn't leave yeh anything?"

That flummoxed Harry. "Sorry," he said. "I guess I'm not used to the idea of having had parents—or knowing about them, anyhow."

Ginny, though, now had a new problem spinning about in her mind. "Hold on—how am I going to pay for anything?" she asked. Admittedly, it was the same question that Harry had just asked, but in her case it was actually uncertain.

"Ah," Hagrid said, looking as if he'd only just then remembered that she was there. "Now that, I'm not sure about."

Harry looked to Ginny in somewhat the same manner, then got a determined look in his eye. "If I have money, then of course I'm paying for your things," he said, then ruined it by adding, "You're my familiar, after all."

Ginny's jaw dropped at the... the utter nerve. "I am not a pet," she hissed.

Harry immediately wilted under her anger, though it didn't take long for him to grow a bit of spine. "Of course not. Titania only did this to you so she could make you my familiar, so your whole situation is kind of my responsibility."

Ginny didn't think that that logic quite held up as well as Harry thought it did, but she also had to admit that as far as the wizarding world was concerned, he was responsible for her. That, and it did seem like the sort of thing that the real Harry Potter would do—and it was something she'd probably let the real Harry Potter do for her—and maybe everything said that he was the real Harry Potter, and—"Oh... fine," she said, giving up. She didn't have the will to complain about it right now anyway.

The trip to Gringott's was so awkward that she almost didn't enjoy the train ride... but only almost. Hagrid picked up a last-minute package for Dumbledore, which seemed strange, but she forgot all about it when they got to Harry's vault. Harry, it seemed, really did have piles and piles of money—more than Ginny had ever seen in her life—which made her feel a bit better about several things and worse about a couple of others.

After that, though, shopping for school supplies went about how she expected, having gone through the process no small number of times before, though this time there was the added entertainment of listening to Hagrid do his best to explain things at each stop, then having Ginny actually explain things in a way that an eleven-year-old muggleborn would understand. If she was being honest, she wasn't actually all that good at that, but her two weeks with Harry at the Dursleys' had clarified a lot of the things that she'd heard from her father over the years, making her miles better at it than Hagrid, who seemed to be only allowed into the muggle world on special occasion.

All in all, aside from getting insulted by Malfoy while she was getting her robes, the trip was actually a great deal more fun than any of the times she'd been through the same exact process before. Of course, she'd never been shopping for herself before, which almost certainly had something to do with it. She'd also been cooped up with the Dursleys for two weeks and then chased them all across muggle Britain, so just being back in the wizarding world was more relief than she could properly express.

If she wasn't a tiny orange pony, she'd probably say that life was pretty good just then.

Things went a little odd, though, when Hagrid announced his intent to buy Harry a birthday present.

"Tell yeh what, I’ll get yer animal," Hagrid said, terribly proud of his decision. "Not a toad, toads went outta fashion years ago—yeh’d be laughed at—and I don't like cats, they make me sneeze. I’ll get yer an owl. All the kids want owls, they’re dead useful, carry yer mail and everything.”

Ginny wasn't so sure since the only people Harry would have to send letters to were the ones that he'd meet at Hogwarts, but the more she thought about it, the more it did actually make a bit of sense. She wasn't sure what their situation was going to be from here on out, but it probably would be good if Harry had a way to contact an actual wizarding adult, and... well... Ginny would be able to write her mum, too.

Harry came up short on the idea, though. "Hang on, Hagrid," he said, preventing himself from being dragged directly to Eeylops Owl Emporium. "Doesn't Ginny count as my—err—animal?"

Hagrid blinked, looked down at the small orange pony that was Ginny, then blinked again. "Aye, she does, wrong as that might seem teh yeh." He stood there for a while looking down at the two of them with a serious look on his face.

In the silence, Ginny felt the sudden need to look over to Harry and state, "Just to be clear, I'm not carrying your mail."

Harry didn't get a chance to respond, because in exactly that moment, Hagrid had an idea. "O'course!" He said, grinning. "I'll get yer familiar an owl—that'll still make it yours in a roundabout way."

"...Is that how that works?" Harry asked, uncertain.

"Well, I'm the Hogwarts gamekeeper, so it is if I says it is," Hagrid declared, and twenty minutes later, they left Eeylops Owl Emporium with a large cage that held a beautiful snowy owl, fast asleep with her head under her wing.

Their final stop was Ollivander's wand shop, where, after trying more wands than Ginny had ever heard of, Harry finally claimed an appropriately dramatic wand, followed by an ominous statement by the shop owner.

Ginny sighed. That settled it, didn't it? He really was the real Harry Potter. That or he'd end up going evil and having to fight the real Harry Potter, anyway, but probably not. Harry was so earnest that Ginny really didn't think he had it in him to go evil.

Those thoughts all left her when Hagrid pushed her forward and Ollivander started grabbing boxes of wands for her to try.

Ginny looked down at her hooves, then back up at Ollivander. "Um...?" she said, but nobody seemed to see the obvious problem with this. "Mr. Ollivander, sir? I don't think—"

"Hornbeam and Hungarian Horntail, quite rigid, thirteen inches—rather whippy—give it a wave," Ollivander announced, holding the wand out for her.

"...HOW?!" Ginny shouted, but he just continued to hold it out for her to take. "Not only do I have hooves, but it's longer than my entire arm!"

Harry snickered.

Grumbling, Ginny stepped forward, sat down on the floor and reached out with her two front hooves, sandwiching the wand between them, only for Ollivander to yank it away like a kneazle toy.

"Willow and phoenix feather, nine and a half inches," the wand shop proprietor announced. "Go on."

Ginny fumed, but did her best, building up a pile of tried wand boxes that was nearly as large as Harry's. Eventually, she was on her last thread of patience when Ollivander offered her, "Hornbeam and Hungarian Horntail, quite rigid, thirteen inches—rather whippy—"

Ginny snapped. "This is literally the first wand you offered me, old man!" she shouted, snatching the wand out of his hand and pointing it back at him. "The! Exact! Same! One! Give it up! I'm a naffing tiny horse and I can't use a bloody wand!"

Of course, the wand chose that moment to go off, showering Ollivander with orange sparks and downy feathers from where it sat, attached neatly to her outstretched hoof.

"...What."

⁂

Ginny could apparently use her hooves almost entirely as if they were hands; who knew? Not her, certainly, and not Harry or Hagrid, either. Once she'd figured out the knack, though, it was an oddly intuitive magic to use. All she really had to do was not think about it, which was an awkward discovery to have once she realized that there were a few times that came to mind that she'd done it before.

Still, walking out of Ollivanders with a hopping three-legged gait while she spun her wand in the remaining hoof was as magical an experience as she could have ever expected. The fact that Ron would be going to Hogwarts with Charlie's old wand while she had a brand new one was... Well, it wasn't worth being a tiny winged horse, but it did amuse the part of her deep inside where petty sibling rivalries lurked.

Eventually, though, she had to put her wand away in her new saddlebags and face the fact that the day was coming to an end, and by how down Harry was suddenly looking, it seemed as if he'd realized it, too.

"Hey, uh, Hagrid," Ginny said, deciding to address the matter directly. "Strictly speaking, does Harry actually have to go back to the Dursleys'? Because—just saying—I'm sure that my mum would really like to see her daughter and I'm sure she wouldn't have any trouble putting Harry up for the rest of the summer, yeah?"

Hagrid looked at her blankly, like she hadn't spoken at all, then he blinked and shook his head as if he was trying to shake off a fly on his nose. "Sorry, lass," he said. "The Ministry'd have my hide if I took Harry anywhere but back to his relatives."

Later, when they were riding the underground south, Ginny scooted closer to whisper to Harry, "That was weird, right? The way Hagrid looked when I mentioned going home to my mum?"

"I thought so, yeah," Harry agreed, looking askance at the large man, though he was hardly alone in that as he took up several seats of the crowded rail car. Harry, though, was looking for something deeper. "Do you think it had something to do with Titania and your wish?"

"Maybe," Ginny said. Whatever it had been, though, there wasn't any sign of it now, and after a few more legs of their trip, she and Harry were left standing in front of Number Four Privet Drive once more.

Harry knocked.

There was no answer.

"They're not home yet, are they?" Ginny asked.

"Nnnope."

"How long do you think Hagrid's muggle-repelling charm will last?"

"You're asking me?!"

⁂

Sunset's horn glowed teal as she heaved the last stack of The Quibbler magazines onto the pile next to the fireplace. The process of mailing them all out to all of their subscribers was, fortunately, someone else's job. She didn't know what exactly was involved in mass-mailings when all your delivery personnel were birds and she didn't want to. It probably involved a lot of mess.

"Is that it, then?" Luna asked, carrying a large pot of onion stew into the room. Mrs. Weasley hadn't shown up with any random gifts of food that day, which probably had something to do with it being the last day before term started at Hogwarts. According to Luna, the Weasleys had never quite gotten a handle on getting ready before the last possible second, and the Burrow would inevitably be a whirlwind of chaos and shouting for the entire twenty-four hours prior.

"Yeah, that's the last of it," Sunset said, giving the towering stacks of magazines a glance. Seeing the fruits of their labor all stacked up and ready to go like that was... a new feeling, and not something that she ever thought that she'd enjoy. In contrast, though, she was kind of irked that they'd fallen into the pattern of Luna handling the food when they were left on their own to feed themselves. "You didn't have to make the food," she said, frowning as she took the pot from Luna with her magic and walked it over to the table."

"I respect that charred food is your cultural heritage," Luna said, sitting down at the table. "But food resembling phoenix pellets upsets my tummy."

"That's not—" Sunset started to say, then sighed. "They weren't supposed to burn," she grumbled. "Smoked artichokes are so a regular food thing for real people... I just don't know how to smoke artichokes."

"Of course," Luna said, by which she meant, 'I don't believe you,' though Sunset was sure that Luna actually did believe her and was just bantering, which was a regular sort of interaction in the house. "Besides, it's only fair that I cook sometimes since you did more than your share of work on the Quibbler, I can reach the countertop with only a footstool."

Sunset shrugged. "Princess Celestia always was big on having me write reports and essays rather than worksheets," she explained. "And you just don't send someone like her essays with shoddy grammar and penmanship. Still, though, I don't think that Titania intended you to use that knife to chop onions."

"I think she did, on account of she wanted me to use it and I'm using it," Luna said, very sure of herself. "Given she didn't tell me I wouldn't be able to set it down and it pops up in my hand any time I so much as think of using a knife, she's just going to have to deal with it being used to chop onions. It is very good at chopping onions; there's hardly any tears."

"And that's one of the few ways it can be used that you can say that about," Sunset mused aloud.

Luna nodded. "It wouldn't be so bad, really, if keeping it on me didn't feel like it was pressing against my spine."

"It's done wonders for your posture, though," Sunset observed.

"Mmh," Luna said, acknowledging it. "The threat of repeating a traumatic injury will do that—but you changed the subject. You did more than proofread and typeset The Quibbler, and you can't pretend you didn't have fun with your article on how the ministry was training their army of heliopaths with headpats."

Sunset tried to hide the smile of amusement that that brought, but failed. "Well... you're not wrong," she said, admitting it. "I think that Xenophilius would have approved."

Luna didn't respond, and that killed the conversation for a while. Eventually, Sunset tried to broach the subject again.

"You know, it's been a month and a half, and we're going to Hogwarts tomorrow..."

Luna nodded. "True," she said. "Which just means that they're that much closer to coming home."

Author's Note

Well, this didn't go as planned. I plotted this out as one chapter, but got a little fuzzy about the details, thinking, 'oh, I'll just do a few quick things to get summer over with and move on!' Only, it took two months and ended up at 25k words, and since I planned it out as a single thing, splitting it up will be awkward. Oh well, I think it's fun enough, and that's my metric for things these days. Next time: Hogwarts!

Thanks go out to those supporting me on Patreon and ko-fi, pomegranate horsie, Sunny, Zervon Tora, Katharine Berry, LD, Jan Sterba, senaxyva, Ersmiller, Canary In The Coal Mine, Jason Langford, Денис, J T, Andrew Pam, Southpaw, Andrew Denton, Trellmor, Kirishala, djthomp, SirHoli, IamUnknown, fused and CvBrony