Chapter 37
“Well, I guess we’ve only got the train ride left,” Silver sighed, as she, Hermione, and Harry sat down for breakfast. They’d be going down to take the train back home shortly after the meal- and, fortunately, her parents would be appearing at Platform Nine and Three Quarters under a disguise, so she could be Silversong all the way home.
“Tell me about it,” Harry groaned. “I’m not looking forward to the summer.”
“I’ll visit, don’t worry,” Hermione very nearly crooned.
Harry sighed. “If the Dursleys will allow, of course.”
“Of course they’ll allow,” Silver inserted. “They’re muggles, and she’s a muggleborn. What do any of your parents have to fear about being seen letting you visit each other?”
Harry sighed. “The Dursleys are… not nearly so parent-like.” Silver wouldn’t be visiting either one over the summer, because of the social and political damage that would be done if either of her parents were to be seen ferrying her to or from a muggle neighborhood. “Remember, these are the people that tried to beat the magic out of me for ten years.”
“... Right,” Silver groaned. “We’re all going to hate the summer, aren’t we?”
“Not if I can help it,” Hermione stated industriously. “I mean… yeah, I’ve already got a lot lined up, between the Papa Tango and the Government, but I’ll make time to visit you. Both of you, if I can.”
“The Papa Tango thing came through?” Harry asked.
“The Government?” Silver asked.
“Uh, yes, and yes,” Hermione answered. “The letter came in last night, my parents are okay with it. Lyra’s just making some final adjustments before we go do it. And yes, the Government… turns out the Muggle government got their hands on a copy of my article somehow, and they want to try a similar study, this time involving muggles.” She grinned. “I bet I’ll be learning a lot from that- and they’ve already cleared it with the Minister for Magic and everything.”
Right at that moment, Lyra sat down on Hermione’s other side; Silver and Hermione had sat on either side of Harry. “Speaking of which, it’s ready. Got it better than I thought I would, to be honest- as near as I can tell, the first wave of symptoms should be next to nothing now, though the rest will only be probably abated slightly… and possibly even exacerbated. I don’t have the data to do any better, unfortunately.”
Hermione smiled at her. “Hey, that’s amazing. Way better than I was expecting.” Then she shrugged. “Plus, it’s only the initial symptoms that really need beating down right now- for the rest, I’m going to be at home anyways.”
Silver rolled her eyes. “ ‘Only the initial symptoms’,” she quoted. “What are you, a masochist?”
“No!” Hermione promptly denied. “I’m-! That’s just a time when nobody but my parents will see me. And I mean, it would be nice if the rest were down too, certainly- but if they’re not, it’s no big deal, because nobody will see me anyways!”
“Speaking of which, I’m really sorry about yours, Silver,” Lyra stated. “It wasn’t supposed to hurt like that.”
Silver rolled her eyes. With Harry’s and Hermione’s help, she’d warmed up to Lyra a bit, but the girl still made her uneasy. She hadn’t been impressed to learn that Hermione had told Lyra who she was some weeks ago, but at least Lyra didn’t bother her… except once, to apologize once again for forgetting to ask permission before doing the Papa Tango, and to ask- out of curiosity, of course- what her answer would have been had she remembered to ask.
“Had you asked, I probably would have said no,” she had answered. “On the other hand, had you asked, and I had known what would happen, it would’ve been a solid yes.”
That was about as close as she felt comfortable getting, just yet, to thanking the girl for doing it to her.
Lyra reappeared hardly half an hour later, this time in Silver and Hermione’s dormitory, as they were finishing up their bags for the train.
“Hello,” she greeted. “Um, do you mind if I come in for a minute?”
Silver raised an eyebrow, but Hermione answered. “Sure. What do you need?”
“Um,” Lyra muttered, before looking at Silver. “There’s something… that I feel I should ask you about,” she said.
Silver’s other eyebrow joined the first. “So you’re remembering to ask this time?”
Lyra blushed lightly. “No, no, this isn’t anything like that, but… yes, I suppose, I am. I…” She took a breath. “I noticed that the magic of the Castle has been covering for you- and quite admirably, at that- all year long.” She shrugged. “Well, I only noticed when I looked, but still.
“The issue is that, by the nature of the spellwork involved, it won’t extend to the train. Someone would notice that Draco Malfoy- or Silversong, depending- never got off the train at Platform Nine and Three Quarters.”
Silver winced. “That’s… good to know, I guess.”
“The thing is, I can- temporarily- extend that magic to cover the train and station at both ends- so nobody’ll notice Draco was never on the train at all. It’ll only last a couple of days, since I won’t be making it ambient powered, but it doesn’t need to last any longer- and besides, with the amount of power I can dump into it when not making it ambient-powered, you could shift in front of the entire Wizengamot and nobody would notice.”
Silver blinked. “... Sure, then, I guess.”
“Then… there’s something else I wanted to do. Me and Twilight will be using a blanket search spell to make sure that all the Equestrians make it back to Equestria, and I’d like to exclude you from it ahead of time, to minimize the chance of a mistake at the station.”
“What kind of mistake?” Hermione asked.
“Oh, something like Silversong being accidentally dragged along to Equestria,” Lyra answered promptly. “It wouldn’t hurt her, per se- not the way it would you or Harry, that’s for certain. But what it would do would be to separate her from anything and everything she’s familiar with, and very possibly get her lost in the crowd in Ponyville for a few days before we figured out what happened, and were able to bring her back. Completely aside from what that kind of thing could do to her parents, that’s not an adventure I could wish on anyone- and possible side effects would include PTSD.”
Hermione winced. “That’s bad.”
“What’s…?” Silver asked.
“Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,” Hermione stated, as if reciting something. “A condition of persistent mental and emotional stress occurring as a result of injury or severe psychological shock, typically involving disturbance of sleep and constant, vivid recall of the experience, with dulled responses to others and to the outside world.”
Lyra looked at her. “Did you swallow the dictionary?”
Hermione stared. “Um, no?”
“Because that’s how my dictionary describes it, word-for-word.”
“I… I studied hard?”
“You mean to tell me,” Silver interrupted, “that being randomly dragged into another world and hopelessly lost in that foreign world that nobody I know physically could come rescue me from would be traumatic?”
“Uh, yeah,” Lyra answered definitively. “Though that’d be a bit of an understatement.”
“No kidding,” Silver retorted. “Yes, absolutely do that thing. I might want to visit Equestria sometime anyways, but not involuntarily if I can help it.”
“Works for me,” Lyra stated. “Now, I’ll just need to…” She held out her hands, and a series of golden symbols rippled around her. A ring of them briefly appeared around Silver, glowed softly, and disappeared again. “There.”
“How does that work?” Hermione asked.
Lyra blinked. “Oh, that? I just applied the ‘exclude’ tag we’ve already built into the spell, since we don’t want it to find either myself or Twilight. We’ll work out a different spell over the summer, that we can put on the Gate, to keep track of who has crossed and who hasn’t- and ensure that the correct people are returned, no matter what. And that, in the event of an accidental crossing, we’re able to locate and correct the issue quickly.”
“What’s that tag thing do?” Silver asked. “Aside from, well, tagging.”
Lyra shrugged. “Nothing, really. It’s just a standing spell, designed to shut down and dispel itself after about three days, so you won’t need to worry about its local overhead for very long at all. And with the whole no-magic-at-home thing that they can’t enforce in Equestria, I rather suspect that you won’t need to worry about that overhead at all, even before it dissipates.” She shrugged. “And if someone’s using spells near you powerful enough that they do need to worry about that overhead, you’ve got bigger problems.”
“What about you?”
“Me? Oh, me and Twilight are only two of Equestria’s finest spellsmiths- we regularly deal with the levels of power an overhead like that can cause problems with. We also- unlike you- know how to dispel it early if need be.” Then she paused, and put a finger to her chin. “Come to think of it, we’ll have to look into getting you at least a basic Equestrian magic education at some point, to enable you to fully utilize your own power. I mean, what I hear Hermione taught you was a great start, but it’s a long shot from the whole thing. Especially with a talent like yours- it’d be almost criminally negligent to not give you the opportunity to study up on it.
“Speaking of which, while I’m here, how do you fancy being a student instructor next year?”
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A great ending to Act 2. I'm ready for Act 3!
Well, that seems to conclude book 1. On to the summer break, then on to book 2.
I've only read the first three books of the Harry Potter series and watched the first three movies. I like this as much or more than the real deal. Looking forward to the next 'book.'
Hah, Hermione's summer seems far more enjoyable (after the first couple of weeks) than either of the others'. At least for her, I don't know how many of the rest of us would really enjoy the thought of running what amounts to a large scale genetic research project.
I'm rather surprised Hermione managed to fit a whole dictionary in her. And didn't suffer any of the obvious side-effects of eating a book. Eagerly looking forward to what comes next!
10372606
She didn't actually eat the book, of course. I was having a laugh...
10372627
I know. I was playing along ;p
I wonder when you're gonna have harry demonstrate his, um, "savant ability" I'd guess you'd call it? His big talent? I think he should probably show it to the ponies before he gets access to more magic, like hermione did.
I'm not familiar with the gate, but at some point do the humans become transfer students in Equestria? cause from that ending conversation it seems like the next logical question to ask if they're interested in studying abroad.
10372746
... Well, he's actually been displaying his future CM talent. It's just not quite as obvious as Hermione's- but if you read through Harry's time at Hogwarts, and watch for what he's particularly good at... I mean, he even notices it.
10372765
... I'm going to say no to that, unfortunately.
Simply because, as was mentioned early in the story, their Gate is deadly to humans. That's one of the things the Papa Tango was made to fix.
10372842
So if he'd been born an Equestrian, he'd have had a promising future as a high level defender of Canterlot? Similar to Shining Armor's role, but not purely defensive?
10372857
... Yes, something like that.
very nice. i would love to read about how their summer went. sounds like Hermione is gonna have a full summer
That must have been quite the trick, reading something Hermione's swallowed.
This was nice. Looking forward to the rest and I hope Norberta gets more lines next time.
Did she mean she already took Papa Tango before going home?
10373672
No... but she means she will be going through the Papa Tango spellwork immediately before going home (she hasn't done it yet), yes, such that she'll be at home through the various processes.
Twilight and I. You've got this at least twice that I see.
Remember, pretend you don't have the other person. Which form would you use? If you have the subject of a verb, you don't say "me is one of the best spellsmiths". You say "I am one of the best spell smiths.".
Alright, I have finally put my thoughts together on what's bothering me about this story.
Draco becoming significantly more powerful because of the PT spell: Fine.
Draco having a different personality that shows when given a chance / becoming Silversong: Acceptable.
His dad being Ok with this, and letting her live this way? ... yea, if anything, I can see him being really proud of his son for having such a massively powerful animagus ability.
Harry and Hermione being vastly more powerful now, when they haven't had anything more than exposure to equestrian magic? Well, that's actually not a serious problem.
*** ONLY *** Harry and Hermione, and not all the other students around this year?
Plain and simple question for the author: Why are Harry and Hermione more powerful without every first year, at least, being more powerful the same time?
10373782
Of course every first year is "more powerful" (and upper-year), with the same set of basic abilities, depending on tribe. I just haven't been focused on them, and none of them are present right now anyways.
Hermione is the only one displaying abilities outside of her specifications... but she's also doing that (the Equestrian Raeth magic, when she's a British Aethr) at significantly reduced power (just 6% the output of the average unicorn...) And yes, her ability to do that does have something to do with her future CM power. I will freely admit, she is a bit overpowered. I'll have to find a way to reduce her overpowered-ness in future battles...
I was interested in this story at the star but not anymore.