This was not what Harry had in mind, when he decided to create a ritual to "bring ponies to the wizarding world". But he would rise to the challenge or...nothing or, he would rise to it, end of discussion.
Prior to coming to Hogwarts, Harry found himself drawn into the Brony-fandom. Now armed with magic and horrified at the state of the Wizarding World, he set out to make the world more like Equestria by giving each student at Hogwarts his or her own pony version of their-self. Trying to teach the next generation the values he had come to treasure. He succeeds but not entirely as he had intended. Now Herald of the Royal Pony Sisters it is his and his fellow Bronies responsibility to not only reunite magical and none magical world but also prevent power hungry politicians from doing something stupid beyond comprehension. Thanks a bunch Potter-luck.
Harry looked down onto the ritual circle he had painstakingly drawn across the whole floor of the long since disused ritual chamber on the lowest student accessible level of Hogwarts. The floor beyond this one being used to house the Wardstone and according to rumors, the crypt of the founders and was only accessible to the current headmaster.
Down here in the heavily warded chamber hopefully no one would feel what he was intending to do, or at least not before he was finished and long gone. Really the only thing he might have to fear were the more magically aware teachers as no one still patrolled this far down. Few people actually knew that the old ritual rooms even existed and it was not exactly a place fit for a romantic tryst, through undoubtedly more than some random broom closet, so maybe only a handful of students had come down here since the ritual classes had been dropped some 200 years ago.
Nodding to himself in satisfaction, as far as he could discern every rune and symbol was as good as they were going to get and in the right place, he stepped into the upper point of the pentagram he had used as base, the other points being taken up by tokens of the elements they represented.
A burning candle for fire, a bowl with water, a bowl of earth and a small cyclone that had picked up in its point after everything else was in place for air. The cyclone having appeared on its own gave Harry a good feeling, it showed that wild magic had acknowledged his intent to invoke her and she was willing to at least listen.
The last point, his point, was Aether or spirit as some called it. It represented the control of the mind over matter and the magic of the ritual would be channeled largely through him, making him the connection between magic and the physical world and allowing him to somewhat adjust the variables written in the circle, if only to a small degree. Harry tried to center himself, to get rid of his nerves, if he screwed up, either while channeling or while having drawn the circle, the magic of the failed ritual would lash out. Mostly at him as the conduit which might in the best case scenario simply kill him and in the worst completely burn out his core, making him less than a squib and forcing him to return to the Dursley's. Something that was a fate worse than death in Harry’s opinion.
For a moment, he asked himself if this was actually worth it, he had not even completed a whole year of magical schooling and all preparation for this had been done by himself with no help of more knowledgeable people and in between his work as a student. The amount of possible errors in his design simply by having missed something crucial he would have known had he waited and researched longer was staggering. An “Eeyup” from the back of his mind, spoken with a distinct southern accent smoothed out his worries, yes this was worth it even if others might disagree.
He pulled out a ritual knife he had Blaise Zabini procure for him, the Slytherin having already build up a reputation for being able to procure everything if the price was right. Of course, Blaise did not know who he procured said knife for, the entire exchange had been done via owl and the exchange of goods while wearing hooded robes and glamours. “May Celestia’s light guide me through the darkness and may Luna give me strength”, he murmured before drawing the blade slowly across his hand, drawing blood. Once the cut was long enough and enough blood had gathered in his hand he threw the blood into the center of the circle with a thunder of:” Per mannulus”.
The magic in the blood gave the initial spark for the ritual and the phrase spoken had been installed to prevent accidental activation. With both of these in place the circle blazed to life and Harry immediately felt the power of the ritual slam into him.
Thankfully the books he had read on rituals had spoken of this and so he was somewhat prepared for the influx of magic he had to guide in the proper ways, assisted of course by the circle. For the most part, he had to do nothing he just stood there, lost in the rituals magic, and let the circle do its work. Only twice he had to intervene and smooth out small problems created by confusion due to not entirely clearly drawn sigils.
But then out of nowhere something went wrong. Harry had designed the ritual to affect Hogwarts only, by anchoring the spell to the Wardstone. However, he had made a crucial mistake by not taking into account that the Wardstone was positioned exactly over the power nexus created by the crossing of every Lay line in Europe. Instead of the spell burning itself into the Wardstone it went straight towards the underlying nexus.
It happened so fast he had no chance to do anything to stop it and the second the spell touched the nexus Harry could feel himself being spiritually ripped apart as the violent currents of magic tried to sweep him away. Or maybe not ripped apart so much as stretched far beyond his comfort zone and with this feeling came another.
The feeling of an immensely old and powerful entity that looked deep into his soul and judged him. Him and his spell that had, unintentionally as it was, come to burn itself into the very fabric of earths magic. The entity’s spiritual gaze was heavy, but tinted with curiosity which shortly after changed into incredulity, then amusement, contemplation and finally acceptance.
At that second Harry felt himself expand, not stretched like before but as if he had grown over himself, had attained a level of existence so far beyond his current one that there was no compare. He could feel every bit of magic and all things connected to it everywhere on the planet and his reach seemed to expand increasingly fast.
First the solar system, then the milky way, the surrounding galaxy's, further and further, occasionally taking note of some entities in the great void so massive that they lived in so many dimensions that even as he was now he could barely comprehend them in their entirety.
One of them looked surprisingly like the description of Cthulhu, that one, as if sensing his attention gave him a jaunty wink. He was not going to think on that any further, that way lay madness he was sure.
Lastly, he came upon a familiar system. A geocentric system on which he could feel four immensely powerful beings. His senses stopped expanding then and suddenly he was standing on glittering clouds of various soft shades of red, once again his scrawny eleven years old self instead of a massive universe spanning entity. And then out of the clouds stepped two individuals of such grace that even had he not known who they were Harry would have fallen to his knees. They came to a stop before his kneeling form, and he looked at their hooves as he dared not raise his eyes to gaze upon their forms before they did not permit him such honor.
“Princess Celestia, Princess Luna. I am honored”, he spoke reverently. The princesses said nothing, and he could feel their gazes burning into his bowed head.
Finally after what seemed like an age to Harry the darker pairs of hooves belonging to Princess Luna came towards him and her commanding voice rang out: “Harry James, Heir apparent of house Potter. Rise thine head and gaze upon thine princess”.
Harry did as he was bidden and focused his gaze on Princess Luna, the one who he had sworn himself to only weeks after he had found himself drawn into the fandom. The princess meanwhile looked at him with the perfect poker face before her lips formed a self-satisfied grin. “You have traveled far and the magic that carried you here also carried a desire”, the lunar diarch began before her solar counterpart inserted herself into the conversation.
“One we have decided to grant as your world could greatly benefit from our teachings of friendship, love, and tolerance", the solar sister began before continuing: "When you set out to create the spell that brought you before us you intended to create simulacrums of our citizens, one for each student, mimicking that student’s personality but still ultimately following our teachings. Your desire could be seen as selfish, maybe it is selfish but it carries with it a deep love for all we and our race stand for. Something you wanted to share with your peers even if you had to endanger yourself for it. This generosity and your loyalty to our teachings have ultimately swayed us to consider your wish instead of dismissing it out of hoof. Harry James, Heir apparent of house Potter know hereby that from this day forward our worlds are linked. Once you return your spell will take effect but different from what you had in mind. Instead of just the students of Hogwarts all Humans shall be granted a pony companion that mimics him - or herself. These companions shall start out as nothing more than specters and become more real with time. These companions will grow alongside with their counterparts so far as this is applicable and all newborn humans that come after the spell takes effect will also be affected. After some time, connections that allow travel between our worlds will appear, know that it will be your responsibility to inform your worlds governments about this and that all military actions against Equestria will be answered in kind. We hope such will not be necessary but we will be prepared for the eventuality. We know that this is an enormous task we have set before you, so we will let you know that you will not have to shoulder it wholly alone. At this moment all equestrian citizens on earth, those you call your brothers and sisters and society calls bronies and pegasisters, are informed of the changes coming. They will help you, who you have brought about these changes and are to be our herald on your world, in thy task”.
Harry had become more and more wide eyed at what he had heard as each bombshell came after the other and was by now worried his eyes may fall right out of his head, if Discord where there they probably would have already. The last bombshell was the Herald comment, which was punctuated by his robe changing into somewhat heavy plate armor that was a mix of Celestia’s golden and Luna’s dark blue guard armor with a cloak that was held together in the front by a yin-yang styled broch depicting the sun, moon and the two royal sisters connected to them.
He was speechless, completely flattened by what had become of his spell, but also determined. There was no way in hell he would not move heaven and earth before he disappointed his rulers.
“I will do my best, your Highnesses. I just hope it shall be enough”, he spoke and the two sisters smiled warmly in answer.
“We are sure that you will, and you shall know that no matter what happens, as long as you do your best we shall be proud of you, our little Pony. Now go, there is much to do for you tomorrow and a young stallion like you needs his sleep”, the darker sister spoke for both of them.
With these parting words Harry once again became one with magic and shortly after was once again deep under Hogwarts in his own body. A tired body that was barely capable of moving with the heavy armor he now wore. He distractedly destroyed the rest of the now inert ritual circle and left the room. The next day he would be unable to say how he got into his bed in Griffindor tower, but by then he would have bigger problems on his hands and decide just not to think of it.
The next morning, for Harry, started with a scream. The high-pitched scream of a preteen boy that later would deny having screamed like a little girl. Said boy was one Ronald “Ron” Bilius Weasley and he may be forgiven for it in time as everyone would have screamed had they woken up to the sight of a vaguely equine shaped, oversized, black, bug in their bed. Said bug had previously been sleeping, curled up like a puppy on the covers of Ron’s bed, and was now wide awake and screaming in response. Increasing the number of screams from the Gryffindor first year dorm to two. It would not stay like that.
Roused by the screams, Neville Longbottom awoke to find himself hugging a dark brown pony colt with a mane a lighter shade of brown and a build clearly implying that it would grow up to be a draught pony. The colt had likewise awoken and was too now looking at his unexpected snuggle partner. Both would look at each other for a few more seconds before they simultaneously screamed, pushed the other away and fell out of bed on opposite sides of said bed.
Meanwhile in the next bed over, Seamus Finnegan was looked in a starring contest with a clover colored, sandy maned unicorn colt, neither of them overly bothered by the bedlam outside their bed hangings. Finally, after a perceived eternity, the silence between them was broken by the colt:” Hi. I’m Lucky Fire. Nice to meet you”, it said and extended a hoof towards Seamus.
Seamus carefully shock the colt’s hoof and replied:” Likewise. My name is Seamus Finnegan…and I would really like to know just how you managed to get into my bed”.
For a moment, it seemed like the colt intended to answer, but it was cut off by yet another scream. This time coming from the bed next to the entrance to the dorm room.
Booth Seamus and Lucky Fire popped their head out from the bed hangings just in time to see Seamus’s friend, Dean Thomas, hightail it out of the dorm…in nothing but a pair of boxers.
Not a minute went by before he came running back in. Probably blushing, through his dark skin made that hard to discern, and followed by raucous laughter. He sprinted through the room without acknowledging anyone and disappeared in the bathroom. Slamming and locking the door behind him.
The reason for his actions then languidly snaked itself out from his bed sheets. Revealing itself to be a Zebra colt wearing a slightly to big voodoo mask and shaking with silent laughter.
Suddenly Ron’s and whoever else shared his bed right now’s screams, who had by now faded more or less into the background with their constant, unchanging volume, really Ron and his guest had quite the pairs of lungs on them, cut off.
Seamus at first thought that they had fainted from lack of oxygen, it had happened to Ron before, when his older twin brothers put a rubber spider into his bed during his second night at Hogwarts. But then he caught the oppressive feel permeating the room. Turning towards the source, that being the bed of one Harry James Potter, he contemplated that this must be what killing intent felt like. Hey, if magic can be real then so can something from an anime.
They should have expected this, really, they should have. It too had happened before, when they started school Harry had always been up with the sun but a week into term he had started on some kind of project in his downtime. A project that had apparently kept him up deep into the nights and as a result made him miss out on sleep. Harry without enough sleep was somewhat cranky in the mornings when woken. Especially Sunday mornings.
The hangings opened and revealed a disheveled looking Harry Potter with a look in his bloodshot eyes, framed by rings so dark they seemed to consume all light in the vicinity, that said that his usual attitude of “Love and Tolerance” was about as far from his mind as possible.
The temperature in the room dropped dramatically, “is that frost gathering on my bedposts?”, Seamus absently wondered, and then Harry spoke, his voice carrying an odd, slightly higher pitched echo:” Is it too much to ask for, for a guy to get some sleep here without being woken up by people screaming the whole castle down?” Said echo turned out to be an equally disheveled looking Pegasus colt, steel gray in coloration and with an onyx mane, it looked at them with emerald eyes alight with anger and wings spread far. Tiny arches of lightning dancing across them. Leaving aside the lightning, Seamus thought it was adorable with its angry look resembling that of a wet cat and the puffed-out chest fluff that he had to fight down the urge to pet. He was likely to lose a few fingers if he tried he was sure.
Harry looked around the dorm room after having voiced his complaint, catching sight of Neville trying to split his attention between Harry and something on the other side of his bed. That something being a brown earth pony colt doing the same with Neville. Next up was Seamus’s bed, where he caught sight of, not unexpected of course, his Irish classmate. But also of a green unicorn colt. Moving his eyes a bit further towards the door he spied what looked like a young zebra taking of an oversized voodoo mask, revealing blue eyes and a black Mohawk. Lastly his eyes fell on Ron’s bed. Where he saw nothing as the hangings where closed. He could have opened them of course, but that would have required him to stand up. Something he did not want to do right now. Only after having observed all this he turned his attention towards his side and slightly downwards, where he saw the expected pony companion the spell had given him. Unlike the rest of the Ponies in the room he looked solid while the rest of them had a somewhat ghostly quality to them. Harry theorized that it was because the pony was linked to him so it would look and maybe even feel more solid to him then to others. The same applying to the others were their pony would be more real to them than other people’s ponies.
He took him in, black mane, silver coat and the same green eyes that stared at him every day in the mirror. Then he looked at the wings, after finding out that he was a natural flyer and that his family used to earn their money by manipulating the weather for farmers, before the statue of secrecy screwed them over and they used their elementalist powers to make themselves a name as powerful combat mages instead, he was not surprised at all. Slowly he extended his closed left fist towards his new pony companion and introduced himself:” Harry Potter”.
“Lightning Strike”, the colt answered bumping its right hoof against Harry’s fist. Feeling surprisingly solid for something that should be no more than a specter. Solidifying his theory. “You think they are going to answer any time soon”, the colt asked and Harry shock his head.
“Nah, I think that is unlikely. I honestly don’t even expect an answer, I really asked more in a rhetoric sense than any wish for an answer,” Harry spoke before getting up. As much as he would love nothing more than to crawl back into his warm bed and sleep some more, he took the Princesses words to heart. There would be a lot to do, especially as, now that he was, a: more awake and b: not awed out of his mind, he had registered what they had told him. His spell had not only given every Hogwarts student a pony companion as he had intended, but every human on earth. The ministry was going to call for his head for this. Sure, everyone was aware that their masquerade was about to come to an end, satellites and cameras became more and more advanced and the inflexible pureblood elite that had run the wizarding world for hundreds of years was without question losing the race the other participants did not even know was going on. Already there where countless metube videos of wizards having been caught performing magic because they had failed to take notice of the cameras around them. Ignorance, Arrogance, and the time needed to create ever new, ever more sophisticated concealment spells, not to talk about the time needed for them to become widespread enough to be used effectively, would be their downfall. Specialists had calculated that with how things were going they would be unavoidably exposed within the decade. Of course, the fools in charge did not want to acknowledge this, obsessed with tradition and the status quo as they were, and so they were going to try and charge him with violating the statue even through his original spell had safeties integrated that would have made muggles unable to perceive the ponies should they come across a Hogwarts student or, later on, alumni. That left only muggleborn children too young for Hogwarts as potential leak, but adult muggles, or rather adults in general, had a great talent for explaining away things that do not fit into their view of the world. Child sees a pastel colored pony following after someone but adult can’t? Overactive imagination, they will grow out of it soon enough. That was honestly the only reason why they had made it to the 21st century without having been exposed.
Well, with the royal sister’s changes to his spell, the jig was up anyway. He was surprised that the ministry had not yet stormed the castle and arrested him, that may mean that they did not yet know of his identity. If that was the case he would have to gather information first. He needed to know how the muggles were dealing with the introduction of ponies into their lives, the government and the church especially. Now that magic was no longer and their world would not be much longer be a secret there were bound to be some crazy’s, religious and otherwise, that would be going around assaulting others for stupid reasons. He really hoped he could trust the muggle authorities and the higher ups in the various Judeo-Christian religions to deal with these people accordingly. He did not want another witch-hunt to happen, because as they were now the wizards would be helpless if the muggles decided to eradicate them. Harry sighted, it would obviously fall to him and his fellow Bronies, and Pegasisters of course, to unite the two societies now that the ponies had exposed the truth of the existence of magic far ahead of schedule. Harry really hoped that his new employers had some sort of backup plan in case that all this went to hell. Once he had completed his contemplation's he became aware of the stares of his roommates. “What?”, he asked.
“You are not surprised by a pony appearing in your bed. Why is that?”, Seamus asked, having apparently decided to play voice for the rest of the room.
“Like any other Brony on earth”, Harry began, “I have been informed of the current happenings by their royal highnesses”.
His classmates seemed to take his answer at face value, or at least they did not ask any more questions as to how or why and the Ponies apparently did either not know of his status as herald, the necklace he dimly remembered his armor having become once he had staggered into the dorm room hidden under his pj’s, or knew the value of discretion and did not call him on his little half-truth.
Seeing as there were no more questions for now Harry turned to his trunk, intent on retrieving his clothes for the day as well as shower supplies, when an owl landed on the windowsill closest to him. Abandoning his prior course of action, he opened the window and was not surprised when the owl extended its leg. Bearing a letter addressed to him.
He retrieved the letter and the owl flew away again. He closed the window and sat down on his bed, opening the letter.
Honored Herald Potter,
representing the Bronies of Hogwarts School we hereby invite you to an emergency meeting of every Brony in Hogwarts to decide how to deal with the current situation. Be aware that as Herald of the Royal sisters, your attendance is mandatory and failure to attend will be punished accordingly.
We will convent at 1800 hours in the meeting room behind the portrait of Rincewind the runner. The password is Ankh-Morpork.
Harry was ready to just say: “Screw today, I am going back to bed!”, by the time he and his dorm mates finally made it to breakfast. Had it been any other day they would have had to abstain from eating breakfast all together as by the time they were finally ready to go downstairs it was already going on 9 am. So, in effect it took them a good hour to get ready. Mostly because it took Harry threatening Dean to blow the bathroom door out of its socket with lightning if he did not immediately stop with his bullshit and opened the door when he had still been intent on hiding in the bathroom after a full half hour of trying to coerce him out. And then Ron, after he had stopped looking at his “Pony”, the changeling had taken on the appearance of a fiery red unicorn colt with a light orange mane, with suspicion, had coerced them all to help looking for Scrabbers once he realized the rat was not sitting on his nightstand like it usually did.
Ron would never outright say it but they all knew he treasured Scrabbers. He treasured all that was his, even if most of his things were hand me downs. They did not find the Rat, but the fact that they also did not find any blood or other indication of the rat having ran afoul of some other pet at least meant that Ron while upset about his pet being absent was not, yet, declaring war against every cat and owl in Hogwarts.
Harry sat down with a sigh and immediately commandeered the coffee can, even outright growling at Percy when he tried to take it away from Harry stating that coffee was unhealthy for children. Percy obviously changed his mind, scared for his continued good health, and instead admonished Ron for his utter lack of table manners. From the lack of obvious bedlam, the staff and student body of Hogwarts had seemingly taken the appearance of the ponies mostly in stride. Sure, some were looking suspiciously at their new tagger on or were fawning over them, mostly girls but also some of the guys, but for the most part they seemed to be content to more or less ignore them.
Harry took a sip of his coffee, relishing the feeling of the caffeinated beverage jumpstarting his still somewhat sluggish faculties as well as improving his mood greatly. Then he looked at the staff table, Dumbledore was there, a good sign for Harry as he being here meant he was not needed with the wizengamot or the ICW, he looked worried through and was having a somewhat heated argument with his pony, an elderly, bearded, sunny yellow, unicorn stallion with a snow white mane.
Harry supposed that was to be expected, something world shattering had happened and no one knew anything, or told what they may know to others. That must really rake the old headmaster that was used to being in the know about everything. He contemplated if he should ask Lighting Strike if he could hear what they said, but discarded that train of thought pretty quickly. It was much too loud and there were to many people talking with each other for even the sharp hearing of a pony to make out what was being said on the other side of the hall. A screech stopped any further pondering, Harry turned towards it and was unsurprised to see a barn owl, leading a whole flock of its brethren, fly over the Griffindor table, similar scenes happening over the other tables at the same time, and dropping thick packages of newspapers on it. The daily prophet had apparently issued a special edition today.
He grabbed one of the papers and began to read. Once he had read the three page special edition he breathed a sigh of relieve. Apparently his fellow Bronies had acted pretty swiftly and had managed to somewhat lessen the chaos Harry had expected the appearance of the ponies would unleash by working alongside the media and government agencies to calm the populace. The muggles were, as he read this, periodically running announcements in radio and TV. Informing the populace that the ponies were harmless. They were in essence a highly advanced form of tulpa that had been gifted to humanity by an extraterrestrial race of sapient equinomorhps in an effort to ease them into peaceful first contact. Also, the existence of magic was no longer a secret, not that it really had been for some time by now, but now the governments of the world officially stated that: Yes, magic is real and so are witches, wizards and a whole other load of things. Rumors stated that they had intended to keep up the masquerade for as long as possible, but the ponies had vetoed the idea and were not willing to refrain from mentioning the existence of magic as it was part of them and their society. Thankfully they had made it clear that anyone caught attacking a magic wielder would face the same consequences as if they had attacked someone without magic. Last but not least, the Vatican had announced that the pope would personally address the revelation of magic and the appearance of the ponies in two days. Internal sources that wished to stay anonymous, stated that he would, amongst other things, inform the Christian community that anyone convicted of acting against someone gifted with magic in the name of faith would find themselves excommunicated. That would probably make several people thinks twice before they attacked wizards and witches in blind religious zeal. But not for long, of that Harry was sure. He and his fellow wizard Bronies would have to organize themselves quickly, something made way harder as they lacked the resources of their non-magical counterparts. By the stars, why had no one yet created a magical version of the internet? They would have to somehow find a way to protect their non-magical brethren from attacks by violent minorities that reject the changes brought. As the ones who acted in the name of the ponies on earth, Bronies and Pegasisters would find themselves targets of these groups. Harry did not like the feeling of hate, the all-consuming fire of this emotion was almost physically painful to him, but at this moment he hated humanities tendency to react with violence to things that they did not understand or that frightened them with all his being.
A hoof poking into his side brought him back to the here and now. He looked at its owner, Lightning Strike of course, and felt the hate flow out of him at the look his pony gave him. The silent massage clear: No matter how justified, hate would not help him deal with the situation. It would only make it worse. One thing that Harry found strange, now that he was thinking clearly again, was that there was no mention of the ministry searching for the one responsible. That meant that they probably were not, or not yet, aware that the ponies were the product of a ritual spell going out of control. He would have to keep an eye on that, least they do find out and take him by surprise. It would not be easy, really more like impossible, to act as representative of the Royal Pony Sisters while rotting in Azkaban.
While he was distracted by his thoughts, some more students had entered the great hall and the headmaster had risen from his throne like chair. It seemed there would be an announcement.
Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, had a headache. A massive headache caused by the unexpected appearance of candy colored equines that had attached themselves to every human on earth. An unpreceded event of such magnitude that it had pretty much vaporized the status quo. Magic was exposed, and with it witches and wizards. More than a thousand years of never ending work to keep them all alive and save, destroyed in a single night. He had never been capable of killing, hadn’t been when he turned on Gellert and hadn’t been the many times Tom had left himself to far open, but today he felt like he could happily kill the Dunderhead, as his potion master would say, responsible for this catastrophe. In his mind, he could already see it, muggles taking up arms in anger over the things done to them to keep the secret, in fear of what could still be done to them and in blind religious zeal to destroy “the devil’s servants”. So much blood, death, and destruction. “Peaceful first contact, my wrinkly, hairy, ass!”, cursed the headmaster in his mind. Their emissaries arrival had doomed his people, and the damnable things had the nerve to tell him he was overreacting, that they had a plan and enough agents in place to manage the reunification with a minimum of bloodshed. If it weren’t his people on the line he would find their naivety endearing. As it was however, he just felt disgust. Right now was however not the time to stew in negative emotions. Right now was the time to tell his students that everything would be fine and that they did not have to worry. He had enough on his plate with the Wizengamot and the ICW and did not need a panic outbreak in his school on top of it. So, he would placate his students with lies of being safe and everything being in control. No matter how hollow these words would ring once the owls started to deliver black letters by the dozens. He stood up and raised his wand to his throat and after a silent sonorous he spoke: “Students of Hogwarts. As you undoubtedly have noticed have we been joined by emissaries of a sapient alien race. As you have also been informed of, this time by the Daily Prophet, is that the secret of magic is no longer. There is however no need to be alarmed, there have long since been measures in place for exactly such an occurrence. At this point in time, ministries all over the world are doing their best to coordinate our reintegration into the greater populace and make it as smooth and painless as possible for all involved. As the current happenings do in no way influence your ability to learn, be aware that classes will resume as normal tomorrow morning. For these who do not wish to share their beds with their assigned pony, you will be pleased to hear that the Hogwarts elves are already in the progress of acquiring appropriate alternatives and assured me that they will be finished by the early evening hours at the latest. Through I have no doubt that many of you will have no need for such. They are rather huggable after all”, the Headmaster ended with a smile and a good-natured chuckle that made bile rise up in his throat from how much it sickened him to pretend he actually liked the blasted things.
He canceled his spell and sat back down, leaving the students to their gossip. “You are lying to them, there are no such measures in place”, came from his side in low tunes and Dumbledore spared “his” pony a disgusted look. “You call it lying. I call it politics. I have to placate the masses or they will rise up to do something stupid”, Dumbledore returned before he continued eating. Besides him, the pony, Bumblebee, snorted, “I never liked politics. It’s the seed of chaos in an otherwise harmonic world, the tool of those unfit to lead to bring themselves into positions of leadership and satisfy their demented lust for power”, it spoke, and privately Dumbledore agreed. Not that he would give the thing the satisfaction of making it apparent.
Harry and Lightning Strike snorted simultaneously, “Measures in place. Right, and I am the next emperor of magical Germany!”, Harry said in a tone that said all one needed to know about what Harry thought of the bovine excrement the headmaster was spouting. Once the headmaster had ended his little spiel he quickly finished up his breakfast and left the great hall. The meeting was barely eight hours away and he needed to be as prepared as possible for it. There was no way he could slack off, wizardkind and the Royal sisters depended on him. Even if the first did not know so yet.
Omake: A few universes to the left
Harry James Potter, heir to the crown of magical Germany sneezed. Loudly. This brought upon him a rather annoyed look from his tutor in all matters of statecraft. The current emperor, or Kaiser in German. “Entschuldigung (Sorry)”, Harry said as clearly as he could and after a lingering look the emperor nodded once and continued teaching. Harry spared a quick thought to the question who might have been talking about him before he continued with his studies. He needed to learn this. Not daydream.