⁂

"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.