Defence Against the Dark Arts

Chapters

The Adventure Begins Again
The Sorting
Secrets
Richard Fenwick
Bacon & Boggarts
An Unexpected Visitor
Voldemort

The Adventure Begins Again

It was the first day of a new school year at Hogwarts, and just like every first day in the history of the school, it was steeped, marinated, and deep-fried in tradition. Luna watched from the staff table as the anxious first-years were sorted into their respective houses, and applauded at the appropriate moments. Having been shoved into the magical academy head-first, she appreciated seeing it from the beginning. The young and naïve children stared at Luna when they walked into the hall, and she continued to get the occasional sideways glance. Let them stare at me, she thought. The more apprehension, the better. She wondered what sort of horrifying rumors had been spread on the Hogwarts Express, and a malicious smile broke across her face, further terrifying the paralyzed eleven-year-olds that continued to look in her direction.

She wasn’t supposed to be at Hogwarts. She was never supposed to have been there in the first place. The first time was an accident, a missed gear in the universal clockwork; somebody up there had made a mistake. It had been repaired, everything was fine, story over, full stop. Unfortunately for the Universe, things didn’t always end the way they were supposed to. This world swallowed her whole, gave her meaning, a case of Stockholm Syndrome in the worst way.

She didn’t want to go back; she couldn’t go back. But, like a small child being dragged out of bed on a school day, the invisible hand of Destiny grabbed her and put her right back where she was supposed to be.

And from the moment she was pulled back from the beyond, she wanted to go back. If life as a princess in a castle was supposed to be glorious, she was obviously doing something wrong. It was nice to see her sister and be home after almost a year, but she was already infected. She had to go back.

It was a simple enough process, really. After procuring some gold from the practically bottomless Royal Treasury, she ventured to the lowest levels of the caverns in the dark of night, where she found it. A place where her power was doubled, where she didn’t need Celestia to perform the portal spell. An amplifier.

She stepped directly into Dumbledore’s office, but found it empty, even in the middle of the day. Time passed quickly in this universe; the six months she’d spent here was only two weeks in Equestria. When she arrived, it was a few weeks into the summer holiday. After browsing the grounds, she eventually met Hagrid, who would divulge practically anything after a few rounds at the Hog’s Head. She learned that Dumbledore had an apartment in London, a spacious loft procured for him by a gracious Hogwarts alumnus that masqueraded as a successful real estate broker.

The Headmaster was not surprised when the prodigal princess knocked on his door early on that June afternoon. He only smiled, and let her inside. Dumbledore was the type one would expect to expect anything.

“I’ve been expecting you” he said.

“I had just realized that I forgot to formally resign my position” she replied.

“Do you plan to resign?”

“No”.

After a few rounds of firewhiskey, Dumbledore eventually consented to let her stay in his massive apartment until the beginning of the term.

“It gets lonely around here” was all that he said.

The month and a half she spent with Dumbledore proved to be among the best of he life, and she’d had a pretty long life. True, many of her days were spent doing nothing while Albus worked on some official paperwork or something, but to someone that’s used to constant activity, the ability to do nothing is priceless.

The relative abundance of time gave her a unique opportunity to fully observe the culture into which she had haphazardly thrown herself. Granted, she’d already been in this world for almost a year, but a boarding school in the middle of the Scottish Highland isn’t exactly what one would necessarily call ‘culture’. London, on the other hand, was a completely different world. There were books to be read, music to be listened to, experiences to be experienced. Dumbledore’s flat had a magnificently massive library, containing the works of Cervantes to Christie to Chabon, and absolutely everything in between. The old wizard also possessed a surprisingly large record collection, including everything from Bach fugues to the Beatles. She spent hours just admiring it all; she spent weeks experiencing it all. When she somehow exhausted the Headmaster’s collection, they headed out into the city, Dumbledore in an old business suit and Luna concealed by a simple invisibility spell hovering above. There was no concern for money; the funds she’d brought with her were roughly equivalent to the annual gross national product of Finland, and the goblins of Gringotts were more than happy to make the necessary exchanges. They’d raid the music stores, the book stores, every single sanctuary of the written and spoken word in the greater London area. The sojourns out were a cultural experience of their own; for the first time she saw the ordinary, non-magical world.

They also traveled quite frequently; Dumbledore’s achievement and standing in the magical community made him a must-have for every academic conference in the wizarding world. They’d tour magical institutions around the globe, each somewhat a Hogwarts in its own right. Luna awed at the sheer variety of these schools; an ancient alhambra on a Spanish hillside, a Victorian manor in Upstate New York, a pueblo-style hamlet deep in the Australian Outback. They also sojourned quite frequently to the Ministry of Magic, the masses of magical middle-managers awed by the magnitude of their presence, the Headmaster of Hogwarts and the goddess that had vanquished He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named. She attempted to observe Albus’ various meetings, to see the inner workings of the magical community, but she eventually got bored, after which she resolved to wander about the Ministry while Dumbledore was busy.

Early one morning, a silver alarm clock began to tintinnabulate, filling the air with a shrill ringing.

‘That’s odd,’ thought Luna, ‘Albus doesn’t usually set an alarm’. And then she checked the date. September First. The first day of classes at Hogwarts. The sky resembled a van Gogh painting, pinks and blues and oranges swirling merrily in anticipation of the sun’s arrival.

“Nnnnnnnnghhhhhh...” the immortal alicorn princess mumbled as she got up to stretch her legs. Her sleeping accommodations were quite spartan, consisting only of a mattress on the floor in the apartment’s spacious den, accompanied only by a pillow and a heavy woolen blanket. Palatial, compared to sleeping on moon rock.

As she was getting up, she saw Dumbledore emerging from his chamber, already dressed in a striking ensemble of lavender and grey. He speed-walked to the kitchen area, where the antique coffee machine was already percolating.

“What time is it?” Luna asked.

“Six thirty-three” Dumbledore replied while he prepared his toast. “Mustn't be late. I trust you slept well?”

“Like a log,” she said, yawning. The area around her improvised nest was littered with various books, along with bottles, glasses, and mugs, now devoid of their liquid vivacity. With another yawn, she stood upright on the mattress, and dismounted onto the floor, pushing aside Balzac and Hemingway and Adams. Still half-asleep, she guided her hooves into the silver slippers on the floor nearby, still standing at attention where she’d taken them off the previous night. She shuffled the various volumes surrounding her bed until she found her obsidian-black tiara hiding underneath a yellowed paperback copy of Slaughterhouse-Five.

“Are you prepared to leave?” Dumbledore asked suddenly as she was replacing the crown upon her head.

“Uh, yeah, almost,” she said, a bit unprepared for the question. She looked again at her section of the room. “I just need to clean this up”.

“That will not be necessary” said Dumbledore.

As the wizard took a sip of his coffee, he raised and flicked his wand. Instantaneously, the blanket folded itself, and the pillow and mattress returned to an obscured closet of their own volition. The rubbish threw itself away, the dishes corralled themselves in the sink. The books lifted off of the ground and silently returned themselves to the bookshelf, alphabetizing themselves in an orderly fashion. While it was still in the air, Luna astutely grabbed a single novel from the airborne flock and held it close to her chest. She wasn’t finished with this one yet.

“When does the Hogwarts Express depart?” she asked her host.

“We shall not be arriving at Hogwarts by rail. The Express is reserved for students” he said, again imbibing the steaming brown-black elixir.

“Then… how?”

“You shall see. Are you prepared?”

Luna looked around. Herself, her jewelry, and a single book. All of her worldly possessions, and the book she was lending. She nodded.

Finishing his coffee, Dumbledore stepped out from behind the granite-topped island and walked patiently to where Luna was standing, in front of the place where her disorderly quarters once stood.

“I shall need you to take my hand,” said the wizard, extending a thin, bony appendage to the perplexed equine. She hesitantly met it with her own gilded hoof.

“I still don’t see exactly how we’re going to g—” she attempted to say, cut off by Dumbledore’s Apparition.

In an instant, the quaint decor of Dumbledore’s loft was replaced by the gothic towers of Hogwarts castle and the obscenely green forest of the Scottish Highland. Luna felt like she was being squeezed slowly through a thin pipe, briefly seeing the multicoloured backdrop of the universe as she was ripped from one point in space and transported along the fourth dimension until finally being replanted at another. There was a reason she didn’t teleport often.

“Please tell me when you’re going to do that,” she said as she almost fell over from nausea.

They were standing outside the school’s main gate; powerful charms prevented him from transporting them directly into the castle. Smiling, Dumbledore retrieved a golden key from his jacket, worn from age but still shining in the fresh dawn sunlight. Without a word, he placed the key in a similarly ancient lock, and gave it a turn. Invisible tumblers turned with the squealing sound of iron against iron. The gates slowly began to open, and Luna couldn’t help but smile. She was back. The magic was here. Mirificus hic incipit.

The Sorting

That night, after the banquet, Luna ascended the Grand Staircase, swerving around the multiple stairways swinging from landing to landing at precarious speed. The students, confined to terrestrial transportation, and the portraits, confined within their frames, looked on enviously.

Eventually, she reached the seventh floor, where she found the former broom closet she inhabited in a previous life still furnished with the accouterments of a bedroom.

Just as she was about to plunge into the cozy depths of the featherbed, however, she noticed a folded piece of yellowed parchment left on a side table. She magically summoned it to inspect, reading the note contained therein by the faint candlelight. Sighing, she set the paper down and trotted back out the door, distraught at yet another interruption of her nightly somnolence.

“You wanted to see me, Headmaster?”

Professor Dumbledore looked up from his desk. Luna was standing in, or rather leaning against the wide doorway.

“How did you get into my office?” he said, bemused.

“The password is ‘Turkish Delight’,” she said. “I’m not that easy to fool.”

“Fair enough” he said, looking down again at various papers scattered in front of him. “Have a seat.”

She did as she was told, trotting over to one of the colossal leather chairs positional facing the Headmaster’s ancient, oaken bureau, awkwardly fitting her equine frame into a shape designed for one more bipedal than her. Dumbledore said nothing, concentrating on the paperwork. The end of his snow-white quill danced with the motion of his thin, leathery hand.

Luna patiently waited for a minute, two minutes, five minutes, until the last drop of her persistence was evaporated. She coughed rather loudly and rather theatrically, to gain the professor’s attention.

“Do you know why you are here, Luna?” he said, still writing.

“Um… performance review?” she said.

Dumbledore drew his eyes away from his work, taking off his spectacles to focus his attention on the midnight-blue pony seated across from him.

“Since you’ve arrived here, you’ve injured multiple students, nearly castrated one, destroyed Hogwarts property, and generally inflicted terror upon the student population as a whole” he said in a matter-of-fact way.

“I run a very… interactive classroom”.

“If I wanted to get rid of you,” he said, cracking the faintest of smiles, “You’d have been kicked out long ago.”

“Frankly, Albus, I think I’d be rather difficult to remove.”

A tremor rolled across his face, and the crack broke into a grin. “I think I could find a way.”

Luna, finding the extreme discomfort of the chair unbearable, sprung out of it, gracefully landing on the floor on the ornate rug that lay in front of the desk. “So tell me,” she said, leaning forward until her muzzle floated inches from Dumbledore’s furrowed visage, “Why am I here?”

“Professor Flitwick has retired.”

Luna was bewildered. She hadn’t known Filius Flitwick well, only seeing him occasionally at the dinner table and in the staff room. He was the one that first found her in the Ravenclaw chambers, dozing in one of the students’ beds after falling through a trans-dimensional sinkhole. Filius was a short, passionate man, Hogwarts’ longtime Charms professor.

“Why?”

Dumbledore sighed. “Personal reasons, he said. He’s over sixty—”

“You’re 116.” Luna interjected.

“—and looking to travel more,” he continued, ignoring her comment. “Spend more time with his wife. Usual reasons.”

“So… you need a new Charms professor?” she said, a bit confused as to why he would offer her a job that paid slightly less than her current one. Perhaps it was a demotion.

“No,” Dumbledore said, “I have already found his replacement. However, Ravenclaw is now without a Head.”

“You mean….”

“I’d like you to fill the position.”

She was filled with a sudden rapture, a strange combination of ecstasy and shock, like being hit with a freight train made of puppies. It really wasn’t anything she was expecting. It was a promotion, yes, but it was something more. Professors came and went at Hogwarts, but the position of Head of House was a perennial occupation, bestowed upon only the most trusted of professors. Dumbledore wasn’t just giving her a raise (he actually wasn’t paying her at all), he was inviting her to stay. Permanently.

“Why me?” she asked.

“Why not?” Dumbledore said jovially. “You’re certainly the most experienced faculty member here, not to mention the oldest.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“Nonetheless, Ravenclaw is the House of Knowledge, and I believe that you present that quality more than any other professor.”

“It wasn’t the fact that I’m also the only professor who happens to be blue?” she said sardonically.

Dumbledore let out a sincere chuckle, grasping his chest. He cleared his throat. “There is, however, one condition.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, it’s not much, but it’s required by The Code” he said, referring to the ancient Hogwarts Code, the document on which the academy is founded, authored jointly by the four founders of the institution.

“What is it?”

“Oh, it’s nothing, really. You will see.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me”.

She was standing in the Great Hall, reluctantly seated on a comically small stool, designed for a human child approximately five thousand years younger than she. The morning just was just stepping over the Scottish Highland to assume its position in the heavens, soaking the sky around a peculiar shade of pink. Professors Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape, and Sprout stood in a row between two long tables below. An ancient and dilapidated pointed hat rested in the Headmaster’s arms.

“I’m very sorry you have to do this, but a Head of House must be of the same House. It’s in the Hogwarts Code” Dumbledore replied. “Since you never attended school here, it’s a necessary prerequisite.”

“Fine” Luna said, snorting with disgust.

Nodding, Dumbledore walked forwards towards her, up the steps to the raised dais. Slowly, he placed the Sorting Hat upon her head. The massive brim covered her horn and ears, and finally rested just above her eyes, which looked disdainfully towards the other Heads of House.

“Mmmmm….” the hat said through a crease in its coarse fabric. “Powerful one, this. Strange. Yes….. I’ve never seen one like this. Most…. interesting….”

“Hurry up, willya?” Luna said, impatiently.

“Impatient, yes, this one. All the necessary qualities. Brave. Intelligent. Loyal. Clever. But, which one most prevalent. An interesting question, yes….”

“I don’t have all day, y’know.”

“Better be….. Slytherrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrravenclaw!”

“What?” McGonagall said.

“Ravenclaw! Ravenclaw! Yes, definitely Ravenclaw!” the hat replied, almost too enthusiastically.

Luna grinned. “Can I take this thing off now?” she said, half anxious and half excited.

“Yes,” Dumbledore said. The hat became enveloped by a cloud of blue, and gracefully flew back into his hands. “Strange, though. I’ve never seen the hat change its mind.” he added, provokingly.

“Yes, funny, that” Luna said, looking off to the side, teeth clenched.

“Should we try again? An error, perhaps?” Snape said, turning to Dumbledore. “I feel that I may have heard it say ‘Slytherin’.”

“No, no,” he said, dismissively. “In all my years as Headmaster, this hat has never made an incorrect Sorting”.

Snape sighed. “Ravenclaw it is.”

Luna jumped off of the stool, grinning.

“I suppose,” Dumbledore said, “that we have a new Head of House.” Luna beamed with excitement, pronking gaily about the room. “Perhaps you would like to inform the students?” he said, addressing the hopping mare.

“Oh… yes, certainly,” she said, resuming a manner more fit for a figure of royalty such as herself. Smiling embarrassedly, she gently cantered out the huge doors leading to the hallway.

Professor Snape waited, watching for the pony to leave the room. As soon as the sound of hoofbeats disappeared into the distance, he turned urgently to Professor Dumbledore.

“Are you certain, Headmaster,” he said, accusatorially, “that the verdict was correct? It would not be the first time the Hat has been tampered with.”

“Oh, I’m very much sure she did tamper with it” he said, nonchalantly.

“Then why didn’t you say anything?” Snape said, struggling not to scream at Dumbledore.

“It does not matter. Just a formality, really.”

“A Slytherin cannot be the head of Ravenclaw House.”

“Princess Luna possesses all the knowledge of a Ravenclaw, the bravery of a Gryffindor, the loyalty of a Hufflepuff, and the ingenuity of a Slytherin. The Hat merely selected which of these traits was represented the most strongly.”

“But a true Slytherin belongs in Slytherin House.”

“Would you have me give her your job, professor?”

“Of course not, Headmaster. I only desire that which is best for the School.”

“As do I. Do not worry about Luna, I am sure she will be fine.”

“One more thing, Headmaster–” Snape said, taking a step towards the centenarian wizard just as he was walking towards the door. “Would it be reasonable to think that Professor Flitwick’s resignation may not have been of his own volition?”

“What do you mean, Professor Snape?” said Dumbledore, turning around to look quizzically at him.

“I mean that someone–” he said, “may have forced his retirement.”

“Nonsense.” Dumbledore insisted. “Professor Flitwick approached me personally at the end of last term. He told me personally that if she were to return, that I was to name her as his successor.”

“Why would he do that?”

“He admires her. As do I. As should you.”

“I do not… admire the princess.” Snape stated, “I tolerate her.”

“She is quite churlish at times, I will admit,” Dumbledore confessed. “However” he added, “She is millennia older than any of us, and wise beyond her years.”

“I recognise that she is wise, Albus—” Snape said, pausing. “But is she fit to be an educator? Her methods are… crude, to be polite.”

“Sometimes the greatest truth is that which is unrefined.”

“Of course, Headmaster. I apologise” he said, and swiftly turned around, walking briskly out the open doors into the morning.

Dumbledore grinned, and followed the Potions master out of the Great Hall. A lightning-fast streak of midnight blue was still flying jubilantly about the castle.

Secrets

After the first day, and then the first week, Luna once again settled into the comfortable routine of life at Hogwarts. The bewildered stares from the younger students were eventually lulled into suspicious gazes, and finally calmed into the occasional odd glance. In two weeks’ time, she attracted no more attention than Hagrid. Hogwarts was the kind of place where even a member of the vibrantly-coloured magical equine royalty could feel somewhat ‘normal’. And she liked that.

Like any sensible foreigner, she eventually decided to abandon the more flagrant physical symbols of her foreign-ness; she abandoned the wispy mane formed from the stars themselves in favour of her old, subdued locks of periwinkle blue. She ceased wearing the royal jewelry, a move which incurred the wrath of many furious parents due to the loss of her only semblance of clothing. In a spiteful and highly satirical move, she resolved to shield her nakedness with nothing but a loosely-fastened necktie bearing the crest of Ravenclaw house.

Thus, Princess Luna became Professor Luna. She thought less and less of her sister and the world she left behind, and more of test scores, grade point averages, and the House Cup. Her new position came with its benefits: a spacious office in one of the taller towers, a reasonable salary (not that she needed it), not to mention partial dominion of 200+ adolescents at various degrees of ability to manipulate the very fabric of existence itself. Sometimes she thought that Dumbledore assigned her as Head of House due to her immortality; Hogwarts School certainly had its share of deadly occupational hazards, and she had the convenient habit of not dying.

She was the most popular individual in the school, and everybody liked her.

Except for one.

“What’s her problem?” Harry protested after the trio was sufficiently far from the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, on the first day of classes.

“What’s her problem?” Hermione interjected. “What’s your problem?”

“She’s terrible!”

“Aw, widdle Harry Potter is sad because he’s not the most popular little boy in school anymore?” Ron said, mockingly. Harry shot him a harsh look.

“No, she’s insane! She expects us to write a seven-page essay by tomorrow!?” Harry complained.

“I actually think that you expect me to write a seven-page essay by tomorrow” Hermione said.

“Oh, yeah, could you do that? That’d be awesome” Ron added. Hermione sighed, shook her head, and walked away towards her next class.

“What’s her problem?” Ron asked obliviously.

“I wish we still had Lupin. He was fantastic” Harry continued.

“Yeah, what’s up with that? They can’t have a werewolf teaching but she can?”

“I don’t know. Everything’s gone crazy since Voldemort disappeared” Harry said.

“Harry!”

“What? He’s gone now, doesn’t much matter if I say his name. Anyway, did you hear that Flitwick retired?” Harry said, stopping abruptly in the middle of the hallway.

“Really?”

“Yeah, couldn’t believe it myself. Why would he do that?”

“I ‘unno. He was getting pretty old, wasn’t he?”

“Not as old as Dumbledore” Harry said.

“Who do you think will be the new head of Ravenclaw, then?”

“I don’t know, maybe— Wait. No. You don’t think–”

“No…” Ron said, a horrified look beginning to appear on his face.

“It can’t be…”

“It is” Luna said.

Harry recoiled instantly. Ron flew back and collapsed over a small wooden table, knocking a porcelain vase of indefinite value and antiquity to the floor. Luna smiled coyly, her head protruding from the wall.

“How did you–” Harry inquired, his heart rate still precariously high.

“Permeability spell. Quite simple, really. Want me to teach you?”

“Uh… No thanks” Harry said, his eyes mysteriously drawn to the point where her sapphire neck vanished into the wallpaper.

“Is he okay?” Luna asked, looking to the ginger Weasley collapsed on the floor.

“I think so” Harry said. “So.. You’re Flitwick’s replacement?”

“Only as the head– no pun intended– of Ravenclaw. Dumbledore’s bringing in a new Charms professor”

“Any idea who it is?” Harry asked.

“You know how Dumbledore loves his mysterious secrets” Luna said. “Also, you’re welcome.”

“For what?”

“You’ll see. And I want that essay on my desk tomorrow, Potter. No excuses.”

“Yes.. uh.. ma’am.”

“Now if you will excuse me, I’ve papers to grade.”

“Alright. Goodbye.”

“And Potter?”

“Yes?”

“I can recognise Hermione’s handwriting” she said, disappearing back into the woodwork.

Harry silently swore to himself. Meanwhile, Ron regained consciousness, rubbing his head as he looked at Harry, and then at the wall.

“Did I just see…”

“No. You’re hallucinating, Ron”

“Of course” Ron said, looking again at the space where he’d sworn he had seen one of his professors’ equine heads stuck to the wall talking to his best friend.

The duo headed down one of the large, occasionally stationary staircases out of the Defence Against the Dark Arts tower, walking through the main hallway to their next class, Herbology. Suddenly, they noticed a large mass of robe-clad students congregated in the school’s massive courtyard.

“Wonder what the fuss is?” Ron said.

“Eh, probably some first-year got hit in the face with a Reductor Curse” Harry responded dismissively.

“You want to go check it out?”

“Of course.”

They weaved their way through the tangled web of people, shoving aside Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs, seventh-years and second-years, until finally they had navigated to the front of the general consortium. Dumbledore stood in the centre of the loose crescent formation, grinning radiantly in a flowing silver robe that shone in the midmorning sunlight. At his side was a tall, slender man, dressed in a modest tweed suit covered with a brown wizard’s robe. His chestnut-brown mustache highlighted the cheeky smile strung across his face. Harry recognized him insantly.

“Oh my God, it’s—”

“Students,” Dumbledore began, abruptly interrupting Harry mid-epiphany. “As you may have heard, one of my esteemed colleagues, Filius Flitwick, the Professor of Charms and Head of Ravenclaw House, has retired. I would like to introduce the new Charms Professor—”

“Harry!” Lupin said, cutting off the last few words of the Headmaster’s speech. He ran forward to his best friend’s son, clapping a firm hand on Potter’s shoulder and shaking his hand vigorously. “Good to see you, boy!”

“And you as well!” Harry said, jubilant. “I thought you’d never come back! What about the.. uh.. you know…”

“It’s not a problem, Harry. They’ll hire anyone–” he said, nodding in the general direction of the Defence Against the Dark Arts tower, “–these days, now that ol’ Whatshisface is gone. Including werewolves.”

“But what if you…”

“Oh, don’t worry. They’ve got some fantastic treatments for that these days. I tell you, the progress magical science has made.”

“So… Dumbledore just gave you the job?” Harry asked, dumbfounded.

“Well, to be fair I did have a few choice recommendations.”

“Like I said, you’re welcome” Luna said, trotting up to the pair from behind.

“Wait… you?”

“The Princess and I have been corresponding for a while” Lupin said.

“I told you not to call me that, Remus” Luna replied.
“Remus!?” Harry almost shouted, turning again to look accusatorially at Lupin.

“Professor Lupin and I share a, uh— a certain weakness” she admitted.

“Hers is worse, I only turn into a furry, homicidal maniac about once a month” Remus retorted, without missing a beat. Harry allowed himself to laugh, while Luna leered at him menacingly.

“Don’t you have a class to teach?” Luna asked.

“Don’t you have a class to teach?” Professor Lupin replied.

Luna smiled. “Yes. Now, I believe you were on your way to Herbology, Mr. Potter?” she said.

Harry suddenly looked around to find that the hallway was deserted save for the odd trio. Hastily saying goodbye to Lupin, he absconded out the massive wooden doors leading out into the vast green. The two professors watched the young wizard run haphazardly across the dew-soaked grass, occasionally stumbling, until the doors shut with a massive, reverberating slam.

“Thank you again. I am forever in your debt” Lupin said, turning back to Luna.

“Don’t say ‘forever’ around immortals,” she advised him as she lifted off the ground to return to her classroom, “we tend to expect it.”

Luna found Dumbledore again in one of the lower corridors, wandering in a violet nightgown, candle in hand, surveying the archaic portraits lining the archaic walls. He chortled silently as he heard the alicorn approach from behind.

“Must we restrict our meetings to such late hours? I grow tired of these nocturnal rendezvous” he joked.

“The darkest of truths are only revealed in the dark of night” Luna said. “It was only by chance I found you here,” she lied. “I was attempting to explore more of this castle. It does not have quite the grandeur of Canterlot, yet it is brimming with history.”

“One does grow to appreciate the vastness of Hogwarts.”

“What are these portraits?” Luna suddenly asked, nodding towards the dusty images preserved on the wall. “Unlike the others, they do not move.”

“That is correct, Luna” Dumbledore said. “These portraits do not move because their subjects are among the most notorious of this academy’s former students.”

Luna was astonished. “Why keep them here, then?”

“One must remember both the good and the bad of the past, if one wishes to move forward” Dumbledore stated in his usual academic verboseness. He motioned for Luna to come closer, then turned to the painting on the wall immediately in front of him. It was that of a young man, clad in the standard uniform of a Hogwarts student, more specifically a Slytherin. Jet-black hair fell in gentle curls across his forehead. There was no life preserved in his dark brown eyes.

“Tom Marvolo Riddle. An orphan, taken in by the school, when I was but a professor. Now better known as…”

“Lord Voldemort” Luna said.

“Yes. You are good with anagrams, are you?”

“No, it says ‘Lord Voldemort’ on the plaque.” It did.

Dumbledore laughed, stepping lightly to the side to examine the next portrait. This one was around the same age as Riddle. A pale, bony face, outlined by long hair the colour of fine, varnished mahogany. The quality of this likeness was significantly lower, obviously done by one of negligible artistic skill. “Another of my students. Richard Fenwick.” Dumbledore said, grievingly. “A brilliant young man, if somewhat eccentric.”

“What did he do?”

“He disappeared in 1957, and has never been heard from again. Dark magic is suspected.”

“It’s not exactly a great painting” Luna criticized, noting the thick, juvenile brushstrokes.

“Thank you,” Dumbledore said, “I did it myself.”

Luna blushed, but Dumbledore merely chuckled. “We didn’t have any photographs, so I had to paint from memory” he said, reminiscing. “Not bad, if I do say so myself.”

“Do you think he’s still alive?” Luna pondered.

“Oh, I have no doubt,” the Headmaster said, glancing again at the crude portrait. “Richard was too clever to involve himself with Voldemort. Everything he did, he did for his personal benefit. Sometimes, I think he may be smarter than even I am.”

“Nobody is smarter than you, Dumbledore” Luna object. “Well, except me” she said, after some thought.

Dumbledore yawned loudly. “Well, it is quite late, and I must retire” he said. “I trust I will see you at breakfast?” he asked.

“But of course, Headmaster.”

“The moon is quite beautiful tonight” he said abruptly, turning his head to admire the pale silver light flowing in from a high window. The Earth’s satellite hung in the evening sky, only revealing a sliver of its bright surface.

“It is strange. Since your return, it has not been full once. Always waxing, and then waning, never once reaching its zenith. Most unusual, is it not?” he said, looking back at the princess.

“Yes, most unusual” Luna said, with a smile that subtly confirmed his suspicions.

“Goodnight, Luna” Dumbledore said.

Luna returned the salutation, and silently returned to her chambers.

Richard Fenwick

The skies of Scotland had once again settled into their nocturnal shade of deep, endless blue. Hogwarts School was enveloped in a deep slumber, except for the poltergeists stalking the halls, the brave few students staying up past curfew, and one exhausted professor furiously typing away in the uppermost room of one of the castle’s many spires.

The typewriter itself was rather old, a barely-working model from the 1930s, advertised as “noiseless”. Luna begged to differ, as the rapid click-click-clicking cacophony of minute metallic machinery permeated her spacious office. She’d rescued the device herself from an obscure corner of one of the academy’s many abandoned rooms. If there was one thing she simply couldn’t stand, it was writing with a quill, which seemed to be the universal standard of magical educators and pony princesses everywhere. As she lacked digits small enough to manipulate the keys, she used a pair of ancient steel gauntlets, also liberated from the deep expanses of a random storage closet. They also had the additional benefit of terrifying some of her younger students (and Neville Longbottom), especially the ones who still believed the stories circulated by the fifth- an sixth-years.

“I say, is that a Remington?”

The sound of steel clanging on wood filled the room as the gauntlets hit the floor, devoid of their magical impetus. Shocked, Luna looked around to locate the source of the mysterious voice. It was ethereal, mystic, yet familiar, as if she’d heard it before, a long, long time ago. There was nobody else in the room.

“Y...yes? Wait, who are you?” she said, breathing heavily, still scanning the room for the unseen stranger.

“Oh, I think you know who I am…” it replied.

“Show yourself!” she interjected, with all the force and inflection of the Royal Canterlot Voice.

“Good evening” he said.

Following the sound, Luna turned her head to the left, when she saw him. The shock caused her to fall over in the massive leather chair, which made him burst out in deep, jubilant laugher.

“Ow.” she said, rubbing her bruised forehead. She looked back at the visitor, and again reeled at the sight.

“I know you…” she said. “You’re…”

He was unmistakeable. His long, black hair, now grey in some places, was brushed back until it folded into small, neat curls. The same crisp, pale face greeted her, skin creased into neat wrinkles, acerbic green eyes blazing, mouth folded into a crooked smile. He had replaced his school uniform with an atrociously yellow suit, carefully pressed and accented with a burgundy-striped tie. The outfit was in the hilariously unfashionable style of a wizard in disguise, completed with a pair of tacky silver suede shoes.

“Richard Fenwick” he said, breaking the malicious smirk into a look of tired displeasure. “Charmed to make your acquaintance. Although, I do believe we have met before”.

“H-how?” she said, getting up from the floor, still in disbelief. His voice seemed familiar, but she just couldn’t exactly determine why.

“Model Seven, is it? Very nice” he said, changing the subject to admire the black machine on her desk. “Used to have one just like it”.

“You’re supposed to be dead”.

“And you’re supposed to be raising the moon in Equestria. Oh, don’t give me that look. Yes, I know all about you. We’ve got a lot in common, you and I”.

“We have nothing in common” she said, aggravated. How did he know? “How are you still alive? How did you get into my office? And where have I seen you before?”

“So many questions, so little time!” she said, turning his attention back to the equine standing in front of him. Grabbing the immense piece of leather and wood standing between them with a single, gaunt hand, he pushed the seat out of its resting place until it fell on its back a few feet behind the desk.

“One” he said with sudden punctiliousness, stepping forward and leaning to talk directly into her face, “I’m still alive because I never died”.

“But you…”

“No interrupting. Two. I used the door. Three—”

“But if you never died, then why—”

“Dumbledore is an old fool. He’ll believe anything the Daily Prophet tells him. Where was I, then?”

“Dumbledore’s no fool. You can’t hide from—”

“Who said I was hiding? In fact, I may visit him tonight, while I’m in the neighborhood”.

“If you think you can just waltz into my office—”

“Your office? I didn’t exactly see your name on the door”.

“This office is reserved for the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, I am the Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, ergo—”

Richard attempted to contain his laughter. Attempted, and failed. He suddenly burst out into a fit of uncontrollable chortling, walking around the huge desk, placing his hand on it to keep himself from falling over.

“They– they– they made you a professor?” he said betwixt fits of hysterical chuckling.

“Would you shut up for a second!?” she said. Richard Fenwick immediately stopped laughing, and stood up straight, staring at her menacingly. “Who are you?”

“Perhaps,” he said, “you’d recognize me better without the disguise. In my…. true form”.

“What do you mean?” she asked, perplexed.

Instead of answering, he merely smiled again, the same malicious and devilish grin. Suddenly, his left hand began to quiver. He grasped it with his left, still smiling. There was a blinding flash of light. Where there once was a pale, bony fist, there was now an avian claw, a yellow down coating all but the long, sharp talons.

“Surprise!” Discord said, raising the new appendage. Luna said nothing, overcome by shock. The familiar voice. It all made sense, and then again it didn’t.

“But… how…. that…. isn’t… huh?” she said, unable to form a coherent sentence.

“What, Professor Luna? How did I sneak out of my stony prison and transport myself to your little magic school? It’s an interesting story, really, but I must start from the beginning”.

“But what about Fenwick? Did you kill him? I don’t understand”.

“Oh, Luna, you always were the slow one,” he said, rummaging the drawers of the old oaken desk. Smiling, he lifted a large and heavy object from within and loudly placed it on the surface. Luna recognized it instantly. It was the Pensieve given to her by Remus Lupin the year before. Discord, or Richard, or whoever he was, continued to search his suit coat for something, until he extracted a small vial of silvery liquid from within. Without haste, he poured it into the large stone bowl, until it settled into a milky haze. He smiled.

“Now, I haven’t much time to explain, so this will have to suffice”.

“But how did you–” Luna began to say, until a taloned hand grabbed the back of her head, and forced it rather unceremoniously down into the Pensieve.

Before she could realize what was happening, she was falling, and then she stopped. She looked around, confused. She was standing in the main hallway of Hogwarts Castle, that much she could infer, but something… something was different. The entire scene seemed to be faded, as if it was an old film reel. She looked for a recognizable face, but she found none among the students rushing between classes. Suddenly, the strange man from her office appeared by her side, leaning against the wall, arms crossed.

“Ah, the memories.”

“Wh… where are we?”

“Oh, Luna, don’t play me for a fool. You know perfectly well where we are. A better question is when”.

“Well, wh—”

“1945. Gellert Grindelwald has been defeated, and the wizarding world celebrates. Adolf Hitler has shot himself, and the War will be over in weeks”.

“So… why here? Why now?”

“If you would pay attention, maybe you would find out”.

He gestured towards the rushing river of robe-clad adolescents flooding the hall. Almost as if by cue, one of them stumbled and fell, sending up a tornado of parchment flying from his messenger bag.

“Is that–”

He sighed. “Yours truly, age fifteen”.

The lanky teen on his hands and knees bore an uncanny resemblance to the portrait Dumbledore had shown her.

“You were a Hufflepuff?” Luna said, surprised and quite amused.

“Unfortunately” he said, sighing again. “The one mystery I could never solve is why I wasn’t put into Slytherin. I suppose that infernal hat thought yellow was a good colour for me”.

“Apparently not,” Luna deadpanned, glancing at the horrendous suit her companion was wearing.

She turned her attention back to the scene unfolding before her eyes. The river of students racing to not be late turned into a stream, which dried into a creek. Eventually, young Richard was all alone, still retrieving papers from the floor. She heard footsteps from down the hall. A young man was briskly walking in their direction, looking quite peeved.

“Richard”.

“Tom”, replied Fenwick, looking up at the other.

“No…” said Luna, quietly.

Without haste, Tom immediately got down on his knees to help his friend collect his belongings. He was a rather striking young man, brown-black hair neatly combed, dark brown eyes shining in the morning sunlight. His robes were neatly pressed, and a green-and-silver tie hung from his neck.

“Tom Riddle. Best mate I ever had” remarked the older Richard.

“You didn’t. No…” Luna responded, flabbergasted.

“Oh, don’t act surprised. We malicious psychopaths tend to group together”.

“Professor Slughorn was wondering why you were late to class” Riddle said as he stood up.

“I… I….”. Richard was at a loss for words.

“Just don’t be late again” he said harshly. Tom Riddle began to walk away, leaving Richard Fenwick alone in the hallway.

“Fucking mudblood” the former whispered to himself.

“Some friend, huh?” Luna said.

The older Richard Fenwick said nothing, only snapping two clawed fingers.

Instantly, there was a flash of light, and the scene changed. They were walking down an urban street. The sky was a uniform shade of dull grey.

“‘Friend’ is a strong word to use when talking of Tom” he said. “Riddle didn’t associate himself with anyone he couldn’t use”.

“Did he use you?”

“Yes, but unlike the others, I saw what he was up to. I was no fool”.

“Do you…. Did you have a family?” Luna asked.

Richard Fenwick stopped walking.

“Raised in a muggle home. Three brothers”.

“What happened to them?”

“Geoffrey got his head blasted off in Normandy. John got leukaemia. Henry…”

“Riddle?”

“Riddle” he confirmed, solemnly. “When I wouldn’t join him, he tried to convince me”.

“I’m so sorry” she said.

“Everything has its time” he said, slowly moving forward again. “Besides, I had larger plans”.

“Such as…?”

“You will see” he said.

They turned a corner into another avenue, and continued to walk down the aisle of uniform brick row houses.

“So where are we, anyway?”

“Liverpool, 1957. The beginning of the end”.

He abruptly stopped in the middle of the street, and turned silently on his heels to face one of the houses. It was indistinguishable from the others, except for the number ‘17’ pained on a small tin sign above the door. Wasting no time, he quickly proceeded across the tiny postage-stamp lawn of dead grass, and stood in front of the door, which was painted black and decorated only with a brass knob and a small, ornate knocker. Luna reluctantly followed.

“How do we get in?” she asked.

Looking at her with the most condescending frown possible, Fenwick grabbed the knob in the centre of the door and gingerly twisted it and pushed it inward. The door opened rather unceremoniously. “I was rather careless, in my youth” he said.

He stepped inside, followed by Luna. The house was quite dilapidated, moldy beige wallpaper slowly peeling from the walls, everything coated in a fine layer of dust, all of the traditional accouterments of the mad genius on a shoestring budget. As soon as they entered she began to notice the cacophony of banging coming from the upper floor. They proceeded through a narrow hallway to a steep, crooked staircase. With each creak of the ancient wood, the banging from above only increased in volume, until at the top landing it had become an unavoidable, all-encompassing din. Smiling, Richard simply turned to the left, and walked to the door which seemed to be the source of the noise. As he started opening it, however, his companion objected.

“Wait” Luna said.

“Wait for what?”

“What if he… um… you see us?”

“You idiot, he can’t see us” he said. “This is just a memory. We can’t change the past”.

“..Oh”.

He groaned, opening the door quite dramatically.

“Violà” he said, “Myself, age twenty-seven”.

Luna stepped through the low door frame. The man standing on the other side of the room was definitely the same as the one that broke into her office earlier. The ever-black hair was greasy and long, just touching his shoulders. His face was fixed somewhere between the youthful figure she’d seen earlier and the older one accompanying her. His clothes were still hilariously démodé; he wore a leather trenchcoat, blood red, over a burgundy sport coat. A pair of spectacles hung on his ears that were probably unfashionable even in the late 1950s. However, what interested her more was the apparatus constructed in the middle of the spacious studio.

The most noticeable feature was the door. It wasn’t a particularly strange door in and of itself— cobalt blue, mail slot, peephole— No, rather it was the fact that this door was placed in the centre of a large circle carved into the floor, inscribed with some sort of runes that Luna couldn’t decipher.

“What– what is it?”

“My life’s work,” the older Richard said, longingly. “The culmination of ten years of research, planning, and study. Today is the day that everything changed”.

The man on the other side of the room paid no heed to his sudden visitors, his attention caught in a large, old book, its cover decorated with the same sort of runes on the floor. Nodding to himself, he set the book down on a low desk, and walked around to face the door directly, toes positioned just outside the circle.

“Get ready” Richard said, “This is the fun part”.

Suddenly, the man in the red coat thrust his hands out to his sides, holding them parallel to the ground in the air. He began to whisper, gradually crescendoing. The chant was rhythmic and harsh.

“I gor var yag knullade din mor…”

“Hold on a moment…” Luna said, softly. The man did not, actually, continuing to increase in volume.

“...ya dolzhen idti tuda kuda dazhe...”

She turned to the other man, leaning nonchalantly against the door. “I know that. That’s High Old Equestrian” she remarked, suspicion growing in her voice. “How does he know that?”

“...syon yksisarvisia nyt taalla...”

“That’s the portal spell! What is he… are you doing?”

“Simple” Richard said. “He’s opening the door”.

“The… door?” Luna said, turning around to look at the blue object in the middle of the room. She could feel the energy building in the room.

“...mchezo inaonyesha kugusa maisha yetu…”

“You see, Luna, the spell that he is chanting is actually in Maltavian, which is coincidentally exactly the same as High Old Equestrian”. He grinned. “The same spell, in the same language, in two different dimensions”.

“But… why?”

“adkrich, chort vazhmi, adkrich…”

“You see, when the spell is performed without a conduit, it requires a great deal of magic. However, when one uses a vessel…”

Luna’s next question was interrupted by a sonic boom-like noise. Quickly turning around to find the source, she saw it. The circle was now a torrent of magical energy, glowing with a soft purple-grey light. In the centre, the door had a certain aura about it, as if illuminated from behind. The younger Richard, awestruck, slowly lowered his arms. He lightly stepped with one foot into the circle, as if testing to see if the bath water was too hot. The magical field sparked when his black shoe penetrated it, but yielded. Confidently, he took another step, then another, until his whole body was contained within the field. Breathing heavily, he slowly stepped toward the luminous door, and grabbed the knob. Taking another deep breath, he opened the door and stepped into the void. The second it shut again, the energy field dissipated with a strong hiss.

“Where— where did he go?” Luna said, galloping around to the other side of the room. There was nothing on the other side, and he was gone.

“I will explain later,” Richard said, still standing in the doorway. “Anyway, that was my first disappearance. Now, we must be going, too much to explain, too little time”.

“But…” she said, cut off by another scene change. In a flash, they were back in her office, still in the dead of night. Richard was reclining in her monumental leather chair.

“And now we come to the final part of our evening” he said, fiddling with her typewriter. “As much as I adore spending time with you, I’ve bigger fish to fry, as it were”.

“Listen, Disc– Richard. I understand that you’re… well… you, but, how? Where did that door go? And how did you… uh…”

“How did I what, Luna? How did I turn into a horrible monster that gobbles ponies in one bite?” he said, standing up. “And you may call me Discord, by the way. It’s been a long time since I’ve been Richard. In fact, I’m getting pretty uncomfortable, so I might as well–”

There was another flash of light, and Discord the draconequus hovered over her desk, in all of his ersatz glory.

“Much better,” he said, stretching his mismatched limbs in an odd fashion. “That old body simply doesn’t breathe”.

“What are you here for, anyway? What do you want to show me?”

“Impatient, are we?” he said. Snapping his fingers, he materialized mere inches from Luna’s muzzle. “Listen up, Princess. What I’m about to show you is important, so shut your mouth for a second and listen”.

Luna made a displeased sort of sound, sitting down in a rather royal manner.

“Fine. Show me”.

“I thought you’d never ask” Discord said, making the sort of broken smile only a creature such as he could manage. Snapping his fingers again, another door appeared in the middle of the room; in fact it was the exact same door she had seen in the house in 1957. It carried the same lighted illusion, however the magical field around it was gone.

“How…”

“My magic has much improved since. This is nothing”.

Discord slid through the air, wrapping his serpentine body around the door. With his claw, he nudged the knob until it yielded, and the door flew open.

“After you, m’lady”

Luna was dazzled by it. Beyond the door, there should have been nothing, just a dusty bookshelf full of old spellbooks on the bare stone wall. When Discord opened it, however, there it was, a watercolour sky of blue and violet, expanding infinitely in all directions. Twinkling silver stars shimmered dimly in the background, an inconceivable distance away. The twin turquoise irises of Luna’s eyes expanded, letting in light from all corners of reality. The concrete façade had been peeled away. This was the inner workings of creation.

“Allons-y!” he said, interrupting her bewildered observation. She felt a sudden and instantaneous force in her posterior, and suddenly she accelerated out the door, flying into the void until slowing to a stop, hovering in the airless vacuum. Discord still stood in the doorway, which floated in the cosmic medium, giggling through his teeth, hoofed leg stationary in a punting position.

“What are you doing!?”

“Consider this the final part of our tour” he said, gracefully slithering out of the doorway towards her, leaving the portal open.

“Shouldn’t you close that?” she inquired.

“No” he affirmed resolutely. “This place operates on a separate timescale. Unpredictable. Close that door for two seconds, it could be a minute, or it could be fifty years.”

“And here I thought you enjoyed chaos.”

“I only revel in the disharmony that I am personally responsible for” he said, irked.

“So, pardonnez mon français, but what the hell is this place?”

“This,” said Discord, reaching his arm around Luna’s neck, a jagged smile reappearing on his face, “is everything.”

“So.. we’re in space?”

“Of course not. There isn’t any air in space.”

“So there is air here?” Luna asked, inhaling but finding nothing to breathe.

“No. Of course not.”

“Then how can— Oh, nevermind. So this is—”

“The Multiverse. The Subway Station of Creation. The Wood Between the Worlds. Whatever you may call it. See the doors?”

Luna looked around, and indeed, they were surrounded by doors, hundreds, perhaps thousands of them, floating haphazardly in the non-air, of all sizes and designs. “Yes?”

“Portals. Behind every one, an entire dimension, infinite in volume.”

“So, there’s one for—”

“Yes, Luna, there is a door to Equestria. Specifically, it’s that one, right there” he said, pointing to an ornate Victorian rectangle far above them, trimmed with pale gold. She paddled with her hooves, assisted by her wings, until she began to gain upward momentum. When she began to rise above him, Discord grabbed her long, blue tail with one claw, halting her ascent. “Not so fast.”

“Why not?”

“I haven’t finished giving you the tour.”

“Fine.”

“Now, then” he said, pulling her down to eye level. “Every one of these dimensions has two things in common. The first is the Guardians.”

“Guardians?”

“Guardians” Discord confirmed. “Demi-gods, assigned to the protection of the stability of each dimension. Often, they take the form of gods themselves, or kings, or sometimes,” he said, placing a scaly finger on her neck, “Princesses.”

“So Celestia and I… we’re…”

“Local police. Middle management. Subordinates” he said, smirking.

“Well, that sucks” she said tersely. “And every dimension has these Guardians?”

“Yes, every one. Some have only one, others have hundreds. Dedicated to maintaining stability, control—”

“Harmony” she said, understanding.

“Precisely. The Elements are merely a safeguard, to make sure someone doesn’t blow Equestria to kingdom come.”

“So, what’s the second thing?”

“In case of extreme emergency,” Discord said, “the Guardians need something more, to reach beyond their own dimension. A way out, to call for help, to communicate with other dimensions, and, in worst-case scenarios,” he said, grimly serious, “to evacuate.”

“The spell.”

“Exactly!” he said, snapping his fingers. “However, there is a cost. Think of this like a neighborhood, full of houses. The doors are the easy way in and out. Every time the spell is used, it’s like digging a tunnel underground, directly into another dimension. And if you dig enough tunnels...” he said, pointing far off into the distance. Luna turned her head to look.

It was a hole. A long, vertical cut, straight into the fabric of reality. Brilliant, blinding white light shone from it. Rough streaks, like lightning bolts, penetrated farther off to the side. Barely audible, Luna suddenly noticed a subdued roar emerging from the gash, like the sound of a vacuum cleaner.

“The neighborhood collapses” she finished for him.

“Precisely.”

“What…. What’s on the other side?” she said, unable to draw her eyes away from the laceration.

“Nothing,” Discord said, “and everything. An infinite amount of energy, ripping everything that falls in into shreds. Nothing survives beyond the end of the universe.”

“How did this happen?” she demanded to know.

Discord sighed. “I admit, that it may have just been the slightest bit my fault.”

“How!?”

“That door, that was the finished product. When I was at school, I found the spell. I made it my life’s work. I tried it, a million different ways. A million tiny slashes in the foundation of reality.”

“And then?” Luna asked.

“I finally succeeded. And I finally saw what I had done. I tried as hard as I could to repair it. That energy, that infinite chaos, it drove me mad. It transformed me. Into this” he said, exhibiting his incongruous physique. “I couldn’t very well go back, looking like the Leaky Cauldron’s mystery meat. So, I found a new world.”

“And that world just had to be Equestria.”

“Remarkable, isn’t it? In the span of a lifetime on Earth, I lived for thousands of years in Equestria. Well, living may be too generous. Surviving,” he said, “I lived for thousands of years in stone, thank you very much.”

“I apologise. It seemed necessary for the security of the entire world.”

“And so here we find ourselves, at the end of that world, and all others.”

“But why now?” she asked.

“The incident, with you and Luna Lovegood” he answered. “You both slipped through a tiny hole, the one remaining crack. The spells that transported you both back undid all of my hard work.”

“Sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” he said, sighing.

“Can you fix it again?”

“I’m not sure. It’s grown larger.”

“How can I help?” Luna asked empathetically.

Discord was bemused by her question. He looked directly at her with his red-and-yellow eyes. “You must remain at Hogwarts. It is for the best.”

“Are you sure?”

Discord nodded. “Yes. Any further breach of this medium will only deepen the cut. I will do all I can.” He reached into a nonexistent pocket on his torso, and produced a small, brass figurine of himself. “I created this. You can use it to communicate with me, no matter where you are, or I am.”

“Always modest, eh?” Luna said, graciously accepting the statue.

Discord smiled. “I regret to inform you that our tour is over.”

“‘Tis a shame,” Luna muttered, slowly making her way back to the portal to her office. “I was having so much fun.”

“Luna?” Discord said, just as she was about to close the door.

“Yes?”

“Give Dumbledore my regards” he said as she shut the wooden gateway, a single tear in his eye.

Bacon & Boggarts

The sun rose yet again over Scotland, casting bizarre shadows on the stone facets of Hogwarts Castle. Songbirds heralded the exceptionally normal event with an unintelligible melody of chirps and tweets. Silver dew hung on every blade of the magnificently green grass.

Luna opened her eyes to the same stunning view with which she was greeted every morning: the bare ceiling of the castle, boards from some ancient oak cut to fit squarely into one another. She had slept like a rock, a rock that had just gotten its first night off in three thousand years. She remembered the events of the previous day like a dream; it didn’t feel like the day the world would end, it felt like Tuesday.

Her morning routine was pragmatically brief: roll out of bed, and go to breakfast. No need to bathe; her magical coat was self-cleaning. Clothing was ignored almost completely. She much preferred her system over the one planned for her in Canterlot, in which there was always somewhere to be, something to be done, her life planned for her down to the microsecond; She could move the heavens with a wave of her hoof, but she could not possibly be three seconds late to tea with the Earl of Whatever-shire.

There were still a few students who devoutly gathered on the stairway every morning and every night, to watch the miraculous descent and ascent of the princess; they watched in silent reverence as the goddess-on-Earth gracefully glided to the ground floor to get her coffee, and again as she gracefully flew back up to the seventh floor to tumble back into bed. She paid no attention to them; the few still entranced by her presence had become no more than a comical nuisance. As she made her way to the Great Hall, the students parted before her like water around a drop of oil, she inflicted upon them a unanimous mélange of courteous respect, academic reverence, and prodigious fear.

Breakfast at Hogwarts made it nearly impossible to be capricious and sour in the mornings. The arsenal of delectable food prepared by the kitchen’s house elves was often suspected of being imbued with a secret magic all its own; the orange juice was jucier, the French toast was toastier, the sausage was sausage-ier. Even Luna, who was scarcely seen awake before noon in Canterlot, felt full of energy afterwards. Although she hated the pomp and frivolousness of her old life, she did not deny the utility and pleasure of having a dozen personal chefs. While the food at the school wasn’t exactly gourmet, it was by far superior in taste alone than anything to ever come out of the Equestrian regal kitchen. She had expanded her originally vegetarian diet to include first fish, and then poultry, and finally, seeing as the cattle in this world were in no way sapient, meat. Professor Lupin recoiled at first to this seeming defiance of the natural order, to which Luna was happy to remind him of the human flesh upon which he most likely dined under the full moon.

“I still think it’s wrong,” Remus muttered, watching her consume black pudding with much gusto.

“You gonna eat that?” she impertinently responded, pointing to the scraps of bacon left untouched on his plate, bits of congealed blood stuck to her teeth.

“No,” he said, “and neither should you.”

“Relax, Lupin,” she responded, “It’s not like it’s going to kill me. And at least the pigs here don’t talk.”

“What difference does it make?”

“I have nothing against pigs. Some of my best friends are pigs.”

“Then why are you eating them?”

“Why are you?” Luna wittily responded. Lupin had nothing to say to this, and she quickly snatched the bacon from his plate, adapting her herbivorous molars to tear the muscular tissue to shreds.

“You sicken me,” he finally said.

“The feeling is mutual, Remus” she replied nonchalantly. “Why do you care what I eat?”

“It’s just…. It doesn’t feel right, I suppose,” he admitted.

“Really?” Luna said to him, sarcastically. “You’re a werewolf at a school of magic, talking to a pony princess from another dimension, and it doesn’t feel right?”

“Well, when you put it that way…” he said, “but you’re from a place where pigs are conscious creatures. You don’t eat humans in Equestria, do you?”

“We don’t have humans in Equestria,” Luna retorted, smiling cruelly, “but I’d like to try one. Tell me, what do you taste like?”

“You’re disgusting.”

“Well, you should know.”

Lupin recoiled again, utterly shocked. Luna realised too late that she had crossed a line as he withdrew from the table and stormed out of the Hall, grey robes flying in a small tempest of fabric. The students hardly noticed him leave, as the owls that carried the mail had just begun to flock in from the high, open windows, creating a snowstorm of grey feathers and parchment.

“I’m sorry,” she finally said to no one after the gigantic wooden doors slammed shut and the maelstrom of postage had ceased.

Her temperament had more or less recovered to its standard degree of indifference by the time for her first class, the fourth-year Hufflepuffs and Slytherins. The Hufflepuffs had taken a certain liking to her, they usually sang (or attempted to sing) “Moon River” or something concerning a princess in a tongue-in-cheek manner while waiting outside the classroom. The Slytherins, meanwhile, were content to sulk in silent loathing of seemingly everything.

“Now, class,” she said, after unlocking the doors and herding the students into a rough semi-circle (there were no desks in the room), “who can tell me what a boggart is?”

“Didn’t we do this last year?” one Slytherin complained.

“No,” Luna said, searching her vast memory for the eternity that was a few months ago, “Last year, we did changelings.”

“Whatever those are,” remarked another Slytherin. It was more or less true that most of her curriculum from the previous year was based on defence against terrors which did not exist in this reality; final exams proved difficult when the examiners could not find a single cockatrice, parasprite, or manticore against which the students could demonstrate their skills.

“A boggart,” she continued to explain, “is your worst nightmare. Literally. It hides in the darkness, and takes the form of your deepest, darkest fear.”

“How do you fight ‘em?” a voice near the back asked.

“An excellent question,” she said, hearing exactly what she wanted to hear. “Could I have a volunteer?” she asked. There was no reply, until a short boy with chestnut-brown hair was pushed forward by his Slytherin classmates.

“Uh…” he muttered, baffled.

“Excellent” Luna said cheerfully, telekinetically drawing an old wooden cupboard from the corner of the room, rendering a horrible screeching sound. A shadow lingered behind the glass doors, like darkness itself in gaseous form. “Now, Stephen,” she explained, casually leaning against the chiffarobe, “are you ready?”

“Uh… I guess?” Stephen answered, shyly pointing his wand in the general direction of the cabinet.

Without a word, she hoisted herself onto her forelegs, and bucked the possessed dresser in a manner most unsuitable for a pony of her noble stature. Instantly, the wardrobe flew open, releasing the vindictive spirit within. Stephen’s eyes widened with an absolute terror. His cloudy opponent rearranged itself in midair, until it formed a monochrome facsimile of Princess Luna herself.

“Seriously?” the original sardonically remarked.

The student stood there, paralysed, while the dark copy slowly advanced forward, snorting hostilely. Rolling her eyes, Luna casually walked around to face the clone.

“Riddikulus!” she howled. A burst of indigo magic shot from her horn, striking the boggart, which cried out in shock. There was a brilliant flash of light, and when the dust cleared, the grey copy had been reduced to the size of a grapefruit. Her pupils began to erupt into laughter, and Luna disinterestedly flicked the apparition back into its wooden prison, where it resumed its previous form.

“Quite simple, really. Now, who’s next?”

Suddenly, the wardrobe exploded into a burst of wooden shrapnel, and the boggart expanded into a wild cyclone of dark magic. Luna turned around, and looked into the eyes of her greatest fear.

It was a large and horrid thing, much larger than the earlier manifestation. It hissed, bearing a set of fangs the length of steak knives, serpentine tongue twisting in bloodlust. The sun shone off of its blue-grey armor, only augmenting its diabolical majesty. Its long, tattered wings were spread in an offensive position, its long, spiraling horn wielded like a longsword. Its fur was the colour of pure darkness, and the night sky emanated from its forehead.

Her jaw hung unsupported, and she was pushed almost to the floor by sheer trauma. No, she thought, not here. Not now. Luna bowed meekly, submitting to the demon inside herself which had suddenly appeared in her classroom. The monster only continued to growl menacingly as she cowered in absolute terror.

“Luxatio!”

The boggart screamed, this time in unbearable pain, as it was instantly filled with a white-hot and burning light, and decomposed into an ethereal dust. Luna looked up to view her saviour. Remus Lupin smiled at her through his neatly-trimmed mustache, lowering his wand.

“I told you they were crafty,” he jested. “Are you all right?” he added sincerely, holding out a hand to assist her.

“Yes…. yes…” she hesitantly stated, rising slowly from her fetal position, trying to retain some semblance of her shattered dignity, “I’m fine.”

“Really?” Lupin said. “Because it didn’t look like that.”

“Why are you here?” Luna demanded.

“I figured you may do something stupid,” Lupin said, smiling, “And from the looks of it, you did.”

The class of confused preteens only looked on in confusion as the two bantered with one another.

“You’re not still mad about the bacon, are you?”

“No,” he admitted, “I figure that your digestive system will enact its revenge on you for that eventually.”

“I lived for a millennium on moon dust and tears,” Luna boasted, “I doubt that a little extra protein will kill me.”

Remus laughed. The students, seeing the perfect opportunity to dismiss themselves, swiftly absconded from the room. After the last filed out, Lupin seated himself on an old desk in the corner, stroking his facial hair pensively.

“What was that thing?” he asked.

“We both have monsters inside of us, Remus,” Luna said, “that was mine.”

“Jesus Christ,” he exclaimed, “I just grow a few claws once in a while, you’re hosting a demon from hell.”

Luna smiled plaintively. “There’s nothing to worry about. It was just a flashback, from a long time ago.”

“Are you sure?” he said, unconvinced. “No offence, but I don’t think it wouldn’t be safe to have that… thing around our students.”

“That thing is part of me, Remus. I can control it,” she pleaded, “It’s part of the deal: you get the crown, you get the castle, you get the psychotic id that wants to murder everyone you’ve ever loved. There’s no way to change it.”

Lupin sighed. “Alright, but if this ever happens again, I won’t be here to stop it, and it’s coming out of your paycheck,” he quipped, “I’m a bit low on cash recently.”

“I don’t even have a paycheck,” Luna said, laughing.

“Well, you’ve got something. Tell me, exactly how well-endowed is the Equestrian Royal Treasury?”

“Enough that three metric tons of gold could suddenly go missing without the authorities taking notice,” she said suggestively.

“Oh?” Lupin said, intrigued.

Coyly smiling, Luna materialized a burlap sack between the two, which fell to the floor, heavy with the tremendous weight of precious metal.

“My God!” he shouted.

“Take it,” Luna insisted, heading for the door, “It’s nothing.”

“I can’t possibly accept this,” he begged.

“Of course you can,” she said as she indifferently trotted out of the room, “Think of it as your payment for saving me.”

She shut the door, leaving him alone to gawk at the tremendous sum presented in physical form before him. It must have been at least two thousand galleons, an amount which even Dumbledore did not earn in a year. He prepared to carry his prize back to his quarters, until he discovered that it had the approximate weight of a medium-sized rhinoceros.

An Unexpected Visitor

The heavy slab of oak separating the classroom from the narrow hallway shut with an audible resonance. Luna slowly walked across the bare wooden floor. Lunch had been rapturous, as always, and imposed upon her a sort of benign malaise that was to be expected after such an excellent meal. Approaching the tall windows in the back of the room in a trance-like state, she haphazardly crawled into the plush lounge chair waiting in the corner for such occasions.

Whenever she wasn’t teaching or eating, she was usually sleeping. And her next class wouldn’t be for two hours.

Suddenly, and without warning, the room was filled with a deafening cacophony, like a small hurricane had somehow found its way into central Scotland. Luna’s eyes flashed open, just in time to see a massive white object strike her directly in the face with the momentum of a freight train, knocking over the chair and sending her and the supersonic mass onto the floor.

She lay there for a while, paralyzed by the physical shock. She probably would have gotten a concussion, if she were mortal. She thought that it might have been another bludger gone astray from the Quidditch pitch, or even a ghost that had assumed corporeal form. Her sister was the last thing on her mind when she heard the solar princess herself moaning just inches from her face.

“Ugh….” she said, lifting herself from the gnarled mass of pony on the floor, “I think I need more practice with the transport spell.”

“Celestia!?” Luna exclaimed, “What are you doing here!?” The sight of her sister in the antediluvian chambers of Hogwarts was incongruous.

“What am I doing here, sister?” Celestia retaliated indignantly, “What are you doing here?”

“I… I…”

“You’ve got some gall,” Celestia interrupted, “sneaking off in the dead of night and coming back here.”

“Sister… I…”

“You’re not a filly anymore, Luna” she scolded, magically replacing some papers knocked from the desk by her impact. “You can’t keep doing immature things like this, Luna. I’ve spent all week looking for you!”

“…all… ….week?”

“Of course,” Celestia confirmed, “You disappeared on Sunday, and today is Friday.”

“Celestia, I haven’t been gone for a week, I’ve been gone for months.”

The older sister was dumbstruck by this new information. “Months?” she hesitantly wondered. “How is that possible?”

“I don’t know exactly, but it seems there’s some sort of variation in the passing of time between the two universes,” Luna suggested, “The first time, I was here for almost a year.”

“A year!?” Celestia said, shocked. “It was just a fortnight, in Equestria.”

“Hmmm… perhaps, then, this universe is speeding up,” her sister postulated, “or, the other one is slowing down. I’m not sure. I think we should consult Discord on the exac–”

“Discord!?” the sun princess shouted, “Why in the name of Faust would we consort with such a scoundrel?”

“I’ve seen him. Here.”

“...How!?”

“It’s complicated,” Luna began to explain. “He was a student, here, at Hogwarts.”

“There’s no way—”

“He was a human, then. About fifty years ago—”

“Fifty!?” Celestia protested. “We battled Discord thousands of years ago. Do you not remember, sister?”

“I could not possibly forget, Celestia,” Luna plaintively said, “but like I have said, the time scales between here and Equestria vary vastly. It is entirely possible that they were once so different in speed that a year here could be a century there. We must consider every possibility.”

“How did he find himself in our world? And how did he become so… disfigured?”

Sighing plaintively, Luna began to explain to her sister all that Discord had elucidated to her just a few days before, from the troubled childhood of Richard Fenwick, to the doors hanging inertly in the cosmic stew. Celestia took a seat on the floor, eyes opened wide with bewilderment at every word.

“That is… shocking, to say the least,” Celestia said some time after Luna had finished, “But… are you certain that he is to be trusted?”

“I believe so,” she answered. “I saw it with my own eyes, sister. This is no trickery. Everything that we know is in danger, and Discord could be our only hope.”

“It is not so easy for me to put my faith in our oldest enemy,” Celestia contemplated, “but we must set aside out differences when faced with a greater enemy.”

The two sat there in silent contemplation, until Luna abruptly leaped towards the large alicorn on the floor, enveloping her in a passionate embrace.

“I missed you, sister.”

“I missed you too, Luna.”

“How will they manage without you?” Luna asked. The two had settled down in the classroom, musing over the situation in Equestria and her stay at Hogwarts over tea, which Luna had ordered clandestinely from the kitchen, not wishing to cause a brouhaha over her sister’s sudden apparition.

“Oh, they will be fine,” Celestia said, gently mixing two cubes of sugar into her cup, “Twilight and her friends are there with the Elements in case of emergency.”

“But who shall raise and lower the sun and moon while you are away?”

“Luna, you know as well as I that while those duties are ceremonial cornerstone of our reign, they are not particularly magically strenuous. The directors of the Canterlot School of Magic were willing and able to accept the responsibility.”

Luna leaned back in her grand desk chair, contemplatively taking a sip of tea. “I see that I am not hard to replace these days” she said trenchantly.

“It is necessary, Luna, if you are going to take a sabbatical to another dimension every other weekend,” her sister replied, her tone becoming grim again. “I must admit, that I did not come here merely to see you, sister. Equestria may be in danger, and I need your help.”

“Like you needed my help with Discord, or the changelings, or Sombra?” Luna balked. “I’m sure that the bearers of the Elements can solve this one, like all the others.”

“Luna,” Celestia berated, “Whatever I did, I did to protect you. Now, this is different. This threat is not from our world. I’m afraid that it rather fell in, so to speak, when the portal was last open.”

“Lord Voldemort” Luna stated with a tremble of revulsion.

“Exactly. You have experience fighting him. Experience that I need.”

“If it’s Voldemort that we are to face, there are a few here that know him better than I.”

“Excellent!” Celestia said, delighted, “Do you know where they are? Could we perhaps request their assistance?”

“Come with me, sister,” Luna replied, getting up, pushing the tea service aside, “We’re going to see the Headmaster.”

The door leading to the hallway was blocked by a coalescence of students in nearly-identical grey uniforms. Luna cursed at herself for her own stupidity; she had forgotten her next class. Forty curious eyes fell upon her as she pushed into the assembly.

“Class is canceled,” she announced apathetically, “go do something else. Try not to kill yourselves.”

“Why?” asked one disappointed youth.

“Family emergency.”

“Like the ‘family emergency’ last month when you went to the Sex Pistols concert?” japed one voice from the crowd.

“That was different,” she said, “This is serious.”

“Is there a problem, Luna?” Celestia feebly asked from behind the shut doors, afraid to show herself to the alien youths.

“Who is that?” another student demanded, pointing behind Luna.

“Family.”

“Why are they staring?” Celestia nervously asked her sister as they made their way through the halls, attracting the gaze of several students and staff alike. “Are they not accustomed to your presence?”

“Oh, it’s not me they’re concerned about,” she nonchalantly answered. “It’s you.”

“Me?”

“Half-giants? No problem. Werewolves? No big deal. One trans-dimensional brightly-coloured alicorn princess? Perfectly acceptable,” Luna jested, “But two?”

Her sister’s comment induced a small chuckle in Celestia. As she walked through the old stone castle, she could not help but notice that many of the students, especially the younger ones, shied away from her sister, almost shaking with an impalpable trepidation.

“You’re not exactly revered by your students,” Celestia noted.

“I’m a strong believer in the principles of Niccolò Machiavelli,” Luna said.

“What?”

“Philosopher,” Luna said, remembering her sister’s complete ignorance of Earth culture. “Long story short, to be feared is better than to be admired.”

“You seem to inspire a frightening mix of the two,” Celestia commented. Luna laughed.

“Oh, great,” one pupil audibly remarked as they passed, “There’s more of them.”

“Watch it, Goyle,” Luna answered, “Or you might lose the other one.”

Goyle’s face immediately snapped into a look of infinite horror. If it weren’t for Crabbe standing next to him, he probably would have passed out.

“It’s a long story,” Luna said, answering the question never asked in her sister’s puzzled expression.

After a long and awkward stroll across the campus, the two finally arrived at their destination. As her sister looked on, confused, Luna approached a large state of a gargoyle that seemingly stood in the middle of an empty hallway.

“Cauldron cakes” she whispered to the statue.

“What?” Celestia asked, as primeval, magical machinery moved underneath them. Suddenly, the firm stone beneath them gave way, and they found themselves falling down a narrow vertical corridor. Luna smiled and gently glided downwards into the abyss. Celestia, taken by surprise by the fall, completely forgot the employment of her wings, and inelegantly landed on her back on the rough burgundy carpet.

“Ow.”

Dumbledore looked up from his desk, and was greeted by the sight of the Head of Ravenclaw House, and what appeared to be the still-living corpse of an winged albino moose, moaning in pain.

“I like the new entrance, Albus,” Luna said, then looked to her sister lying on the floor like roadkill, “but perhaps you should have informed me in advance?”

“I concur,” Dumbledore said, standing up to study the majestic creature capsized upon his office floor. “Your sister, I presume?”

“The pleasure is all mine,” Celestia murmured.

“Get up, Celestia,” Luna ordered.

Groaning, the white alicorn lifted herself from the floor, and flashed her wings in an obvious attempt to restore her last scrap of dignity.

“Albus Dumbledore, Headmaster,” he said, hesitantly offering a hand, unsure of if or where it would be shaken.

Celestia graciously placed her gilded hoof in the Headmaster’s hand, forming a rough emulation of a familiar gesture.

“Luna has told me much about you,” Dumbledore said.

“Is that so?” she answered, turning to her sister. Luna smiled guiltily.

“I was not informed that you would be visiting,” he said, “I would have planned a ceremony.”

“Oh, I am not here to visit. There is important business, and I needed Luna’s help.”

“Voldemort’s back,” Luna said, finally revealing the unwieldy and inevitable truth. Dumbledore looked at her, aghast.

“Not here,” Celestia added, trying to prevent the Headmaster from having a heart attack, “In our world.”

“Ah… yes,” Dumbledore said, trying to recover from the initial shock, “interesting.”

“I was hoping that Luna could come back with me,” Celestia requested, “she has more experience fighting him than I.”

“I see,” Dumbledore said, gently stroking his beard with a curious expression. “But that is not the only reason you are here, yes?”

“No, sir…” she answered, like a student being reprimanded. “I missed my sister.”

“I expect that you would.”

“I can’t just leave, Celestia,” Luna interrupted. “I have a job here. I have a life here.”

“Luna,” the elder alicorn pleaded, “You are my sister, and I need you to come home.”

“You can’t just tell me what to do! I don’t want to go back!”

“You cannot stay here, Luna. Equestria needs you.”

“If I may–” Dumbledore said, attempting to mediate, “–propose an alternate solution?”

The two sisters had by then moved to face each other on the carpet, Luna defiantly looking up at Celestia, who was at least two feet taller. When the Headmaster began to speak, they turned to observe the old and wizened professor, both intrigued.

“What is it, Albus?” Luna asked,

“You will both go back to fight Voldemort,” he began to say. Luna snorted, indignant. “And when he is defeated, Luna will return for the rest of the school year.”

The princess of the night smiled widely and smugly up at her sister, who looked discontent. “Headmaster,” she protested, “I do not think you understand me. Luna needs to return permanently. I thank you for the kindness and care you have shown her here, but this is not where she belongs. She has duties to attend to. She is a princess, not a professor.”

“I’m not a child, Celestia,” Luna grumbled.

“Then why do you act like one?”

“Your majesty,” Dumbledore humbly addressed the princess of the Sun, “I fear that you may not be respecting your sister’s independence.”

“Independence!?” Celestia roared, “I have had to rule alone for over a thousand years, due to her hubris! I cannot allow my sister to cavort about as she pleases.”

“My hubris!?” Luna shouted, “You complain about all those years, but you didn’t spend them on the moon!”

“If I may request,” he intervened again, “that I talk privately with Lu– Princess Luna?”

Celestia thought about this for a second. “Fine,” she moaned, storming out of the office.

Dumbledore watched as the white equine angrily marched towards the door, which she magically shut with a force that made several of the moving portraits behind the Headmaster’s desk fall to the floor.

“I can see the resemblance,” he jested, “stubbornness.”

“Please let me stay, Headmaster,” Luna begged, joining her front hooves in a feeble gesture, lower lip pouting.

“There is no possible way that your sister would allow that,” he admitted, “but there may be a way for you to come back.”

“What is it?”

“If another were to go with you to Equestria, to assist in Voldemort’s defeat, and to ensure your return.”

“None of the teachers here particularly like me, certainly not enough to travel to another dimension,” she said, “Who would volunteer?”

“I would.”

Voldemort

The three were gathered in the main hall, orange sun dying quickly in the western sky. Without a word, the spell began, the two sisters’ horns glowing with a magic aura. The yellow point of light appeared, and began to rip a hole in time and space down to the floor, when suddenly there was an unexpected interruption.

“Oh, Luna,” a voice said, seemingly from nowhere, “You had one job.”

All looked on in shock as Discord’s erratic figure emerged from the rift. Celestia shuddered, a primal angst reemerging at sight of the serpentine creature. Luna’s reaction was not as severe, but still startled. Dumbledore merely raised an eyebrow, not certain if this occurrence was expected.

“Discord,” Celestia hissed.

“Yeah, nice to see you again,” he said, turning his attention to her sister. “I told you not to re-open the portal, and what do you do?” He sighed audibly. “I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you. You were lucky that I got here before you did any permanent damage.”

“This isn’t my fault!” Luna retaliated. “She found the spell,” she said, nodding to Celestia.

“Me!?” Celestia gasped, insulted. “It’s my fault that she came here? I was just doing what’s right.”

“Who is this?” Dumbledore calmly asked the feuding sisters.

“Don’t you recognise him, Headmaster? It’s Rich—” Luna said, her muzzle suddenly covered by Discord’s claw.

“Shhhh…” he whispered, “Not now.”

“He’s a scoundrel, that’s who he is,” Celestia said.

“Oh, Celestia, always the downer. Old habits die hard, I see. Did Luna not tell you?”

“Yes, I heard it all,” she said, “but I don’t believe it. Why are you here?”

“To keep you lot from doing something stupid,” he answered. “If you open that portal again, it could possibly rip apart the universe.”

“Equestria is in danger.”

“Equestria?” Discord snarled, “Equestria!? You think risking the fate of the entire universe is worth saving your little sugarcoated fairyland?”

“It is my…”

“Our” Luna corrected.

“Our little sugarcoated fairyland, Discord,” Celestia said, “And we must protect it.”

“From what, exactly?”

“Lord Voldemort,” Dumbledore said.

The smile disappeared from Discord’s face.

“Thousands could die,” Celestia petitioned, “If you don’t let us go.”

“Why should I care about a few ponies?” he asked.

“Don’t think about them,” Luna said. “Think about Tom.”

Discord thought long and hard about it. He stroked his goatee, wearing a face of deep contemplation.

“….Alright,” he said, after a long pause. “But we’re doing this my way.”

As he effortlessly snapped his serpentine fingers, a door appeared in midair. Luna recognized it as the one that was once in her office. The door flew open, revealing the infinite void, the very foundation of reality.

“Right this way, monsieur et madames,” Discord said, respectfully bowing before the open portal.

The three looked at each other. Without speaking, it was decided that Luna should go first, her being the most experienced with inter-dimensional travel. Spreading her wings, she gracefully soared through the doorway. Celestia followed her, her attempt at a similar exit slightly ruined by her front hooves catching the base of the opening, sending her long, slender body tumbling backwards into infinity. Luna laughed as her sister struggled to regain equilibrium, flailing her legs wildly in the vacuum.

After Celestia came Dumbledore. Discord lowered the door to the ground, seeing the Headmaster’s lack of flight. After he had stepped out at began floating, Discord himself slipped through the portal, drawing the door closed with his tail.

“Oh my,” Dumbledore said, seeing the never-ending violet-black sky expanding in all directions, no star twinkling in the infinite night.

“This way, this way,” Discord said with all the impatience of an underpaid tour director, soaring upwards from the navy-blue door floating in the void. Luna followed closely behind, using her wings to gain traction in the thin atmosphere. Dumbledore propelled himself using a wide breast-stroke, his long robes flapping behind him. Celestia, still upside-down, pushed herself forward, her dignity less important than the lives of her subjects.

Discord stopped at a set of ornate white double doors, and respectfully opened it in advance. The three flew through it, and as gravity took effect once again, they landed on an elaborate marble floor. Princess Celestia approached too quickly, and landed hard on her back.

“Ow…” she said.

As she got up, and Discord shut the door behind him, Luna noticed that they had arrived in Canterlot’s throne room, just in time to hear a slow, dry clap echo through the hall.

They all turned around quickly to the source of the applause. Lord Voldemort, wearing a cape blacker than the night, was lying lazily in the tall, gilded throne, bony hands clasped together.

“So nice of you to return,” he said, his deep, croaky voice amplified by the tall ceiling. “Whom do I face?” Voldemort darkly jested, surveying the four. “Two unicorns, an old man, and their pet dragon?”

The sisters growled. Dumbledore remained unscathed.

“I am no pet, Tom,” Discord said.

Voldemort frowned. “Who told you my name? Ah, it matters not. You shall be dead soon enough. But why does your voice seem familiar?”

“I would say that I am an old friend, but you don’t seem to have any.”

Voldemort let out a horrid, dry, and heartless laugh, throwing back his head at the novelty of his foes. “And Professor Dumbledore,” he said, “So nice of you to come.”

“This must end, Tom,” Dumbledore said, as if addressing a student.

“On the horses’ side, are you? And do not call me Tom. Tom Riddle is dead, and from the ashes has risen Lord Voldemort,” he corrected. “You are an old fool, Dumbledore.”

“Don’t call him a fool!” Luna exclaimed.

“And what have we here?” Voldemort said, looking up at her. “We have met before.”

“The pleasure is all mine,” she replied through gritted teeth.

“You were the one that stopped me at the Ministry….” he remembered, “And sent me to this… hell.”

“This is my home,” Luna said, “and I want you out of it.”

“Oh, I will soon leave,” he assured her, smirking. “But this place is powerful… It has an energy, an energy I have never before seen. Once I have taken that energy, I shall return to Earth, more powerful than ever.”

“That energy you seek,” Dumbledore said, “You could never comprehend.”

“The one magic you never mastered,” Luna continued, “Love.”

“Silence!” Voldemort shouted, launching a spell in their general direction, which they dodged. He flew from the dais onto the smooth, polished floor a few meters from them. “You have said enough.”

With these words, he extended his wand, streaks of lightning shooting from it, and striking all four directly. Three did not flinch, but Dumbledore collapsed. Discord and Celestia helped him back to his feet as Luna moved forward to face Voldemort.

“That was only the beginning,” he said, pointing his wand like a schizophrenic orchestra conductor during the climax of Mahler’s fifth.

Suddenly, the wooden stick was thrown backwards out of his hand by a blue mist. It penetrated one of the tall stained-glass windows and flew outside.

“You underestimate me,” Luna said.

“Perhaps,” he said, “but you have also underestimated me. Avada Kedavra!”

Voldemort lunged forward, and a green bolt shot from his fingers. Luna swerved to the left just in time to avoid it, but it continued to fly, striking Celestia directly in the face. She moaned, and was struck down, Dumbledore falling with her.

“Sister!” Luna turned around.

“You are sisters?” Voldemort noted curiously. “Interesting. Look where love has gotten you.”

“I’d think twice about that, Voldy,” Luna remarked.

Slowly, Princess Celestia opened her eyes again, and raised her head, alive, but weakened.

“Uuughhhh…” she moaned.

“Impossible,” Voldemort said, aghast, taking a step back.

“Like I said,” Luna scorned, “You have underestimated us.”

“It matters not,” he said. “If I cannot kill you, I will damage you beyond repair.”

He began to send a flurry of spells at her, all of which she dodged, or absorbed without recoil. She in turn replied with a faster salvo of magic, knocking Voldemort to the ground.

“You are yet to see what I am capable of,” Luna said defiantly as she stood over him.

“Go ahead,” Voldemort goaded, “Show me your worst.”

She lowered her head, tears in the corners of her eyes as they closed. When it seemed she was surrendering, they suddenly burst open again, now turquoise and snakelike.

“Luna!” Princess Celestia futilely shouted from afar.

“It is all right, sister,” she said, voice deep and twisted. “It must be done.”

A black shadow began to overcome Luna, beginning at her hooves, working up her legs, across her outstretched wings and up to the tip of her horn. Enclosed by this darkness, she grew taller; her small wings became long and menacing; her mane disappeared into a cloak of stars.

Nightmare Moon laughed wickedly.

“What have you done?” Celestia exclaimed.

“We have learned to control our anger,” she said in a booming voice that echoed through the open marble hallway. “We shall use this power to defend the ones we love.”

Dumbledore, Discord, and Celestia all tried to approach, concerned, but were pushed back by a ring of electric-blue fire surrounding the two.

“Do not try to interfere,” she warned, “our work shall be swift and just.” The black robed figure was now lying in a near-fetal position on the floor.

“Tom Marvolo Riddle,” she said to the cowering Voldemort, with the inflection of a judge pronouncing a sentence. “You have destroyed hundreds of innocent lives, and crippled many more. You have become an outcast and a menace, both in your own world and in this one. You have wasted your entire life in the pursuit of power, at the cost of your own soul.”

“You cannot kill me,” he angrily croaked.

“Death would be a punishment far unsuitable for one as vile as you,” she replied coldly. “And your horcruxes would ensure that you would return, in some form.”

“I am invincible,” he said.

“Unable to die,” Nightmare Moon scolded, “yet not invincible.”

“What will you do with me?”

“What must be done,” she said, eyes already glowing blindingly white. Sparks flew from her dark body across the room. Her long, black horn became a blade of light.

“What are you—” Discord began to say.

“We have modified the portal spell,” she explained.

“You shouldn’t have— You could—”

“Death is not enough for one was wicked as he,” she argued. “He must be eradicated.”

Before Discord could retort, a ray of burning light came down upon the figure hunched on the floor. The fabric of his cloak, and then his flesh, burned off, and dissolved in a lustrous blaze. Voldemort screamed, howled like a small child as every atom of his body was torn apart and ceased to exist entirely. A rift opened up, and soon there was nothing left but the sound of air rushing into the vacuum where he once was.

Lord Voldemort was destroyed.

Princess Celestia, Dumbledore, and Discord could only gape in terror at the scene. Princess Luna had transformed back into her normal self, charred and smoking on the formerly clean marble floor, drained of all her energy, breathing heavily. It was several minutes before anyone spoke.

“Are you…” Celestia hesitantly asked, “Are you alright?”

“Yes…” Luna panted, “I’ll be fine.”

“What have you done?” Discord curtly interrupted.

“Voldemort… is… gone,” she said.
“You could have destroyed the entire universe,” he said. “That kind of magic…”

“You say that he’s been…” Dumbledore surmised, “completely destroyed?”

“Pretty sure,” Luna responded.

“Even the horcruxes?”

“They were a part of him,” Discord said. “That spell… it removed him from existence. Every scintilla.”

Luna smiled. Discord looked down on her, a disappointed frown on his face.

“Are we safe?” Celestia asked no one in particular, not used to being the one asking questions.

“As far as I can tell,” Discord answered, “it didn’t do any further damage. But the rift is still there. We’re safe, but only for now.”

“What do we do now?”

“Now,” Discord said, looking out the windows broken by the battle out to the tranquil hillsides, “You will stay here. Dumbledore and Luna will return to Hogw—”

“Now wait a minute,” Celestia interrupted him, “That wasn’t the plan.”

“I know you want Luna to stay here,” he said, “but I need her on the other side. To monitor any strange activity.”

“And she is still my employee,” Dumbledore added.

“It’s not fair,” Celestia complained.

“Sister,” Luna consoled, “We all must make sacrifices. This will soon be over.”

“One way or another,” Discord grimly said.

Devoid of anything else to say, Princess Celestia hung her head, and proceeded slowly to her throne. Taking a seat and sighing, she addressed the other three.

“Go, then. I will put right what has been done here.”

Nodding, they looked to Discord. With a sigh, he snapped his fingers, the doorway opened again, and they proceeded back to the other dimension, leaving Celestia alone in the empty chamber.