Chapter 4

Luna moved over quickly and wrapped Nightmare Moon in a hug, "Night, I missed you so much, and I am so sorry I did not come sooner to help!"

Night blinked and looked around, anger rapidly fading from her face replaced with confusion as Luna took a few steps back. She recognized the three young ponies that had helped her return to this world and Luna was easy enough to recognize, even if she had grown a little bit since they had last seen each other. Night then looked at the human and blinked in surprise. It was Hermione, but she looked a good deal older than when she had last seen her.

Taking a few steps, Night shook her head now more than slightly confused. The last thing she remembered was someone that she could barely make out, attacking Harry. When she had made a move to help Harry, her anger spiking high, she had been blasted by a spell causing her world to go dark not long afterwards. Looking at Hermione, Night guessed that had to have been close to a year ago, which meant she had been out for a lot longer than she had thought when coming to. But that still left one question: Where was Harry Potter?

She was taken out of these thoughts as Hermione spoke, "Night… are you okay?"

Night blinked and looked at Hermione before nodding. "Yes, I think I am. How much time has passed since you last saw me, Hermione?"

"Close to five months at best," Hermione said.

"Really? That cannot be right! What is the date?" Night asked.

"It is November the third," Hermione said.

"But, I have been out of it for six months at least," Night said to herself.

"That is right, it was nearly six months ago that I lost contact with you," Luna said.

"If you were knocked out six months ago, it would explain why you started acting strangely," Hermione pointed out.

"Yes, if it was Harry's magic, trying to make another companion to replace Night, by animating the stuffed animal you had possessed or something similar, it would explain why Hermione would have seen you moving after that attack. And if Harry had been slowly losing his memory it would also explain the… lack of energy at times." Luna pointed out.

Hermione nodded, before looking about, remembering that this was only the place for the summoning; they needed to be away before someone came looking to see what happened. As such Hermione spoke next, "Okay, but we should be off. I'm not sure how much longer we have until someone comes looking around here, though they might check to see what that loud banging sound was in the school first."

"Good point. Night, carry Hermione, Twilight, I will carry you. Rainbow, can you carry Applejack, so we can move to a safer location to talk and plan," Luna said, spreading her wings.

Everyone nodded as they got ready. A few moments later they took off. Hermione and Night led the way, flying over the castle grounds and the Forbidden Forest, before they finally made their way up into the was able to pick out a good location on the side of one of the mountains, even in the fading light, and landed in a small outcrop of rocks that would keep them hidden from others. It also had a small cave at the back, which was even better. Hermione at once set about lighting a magical fire to keep them warm, while Night and Luna set up a barrier to keep them safe while they talked.

Once everything was done, they all took a place to lie down around the fire, or in Hermione's case sit down. Once they were all settled Night spoke up, "So, Hermione, Luna, could you please explain to me what in the name of Equestria has been going on?!"

Hermione nodded and explained what had happened since the start of May last year, when Night was attacked. Now that they had time, it took about thirty minutes to explain everything, instead of the minute that was needed before. Harry losing his friends, how his grades dropped, his seeming loss of memory, everything she could think of. Once Hermione was done, Luna explained what had happened in Equestria at the time. This took a great deal more time, thanks to Luna's royal life and having to deal with a great many other details that seemed to keep coming, as Night wanted to know all the details, it would help with any plans they would come up with or make later on.

Night listened quietly. Her mane, which normally floated around, just lay nearly motionless across her back. It was a whole different pony than the Nightmare Moon Twilight and the others had met that fateful night two years ago. It finally hit home to Twilight and Applejack how much Night had changed since then. Rainbow though did not notice this, as while the barrier was up and keeping them safe, she was keeping an eye out for anyone, just in case. They were dealing with someone who had gotten the better of THE Nightmare Moon!

When Luna finished speaking, silence fell over the group, as Night thought about what had happened. The sun had set by now. Night got up and walked to the edge of the outcrop to look out towards Hogwarts and sighed, "Life has really taken a turn for the worse."

"Yes, but now maybe we can turn it around," Luna said, watching her twin.

"Maybe, if we are lucky. But there is still one problem, we have no clue who attacked me," Night pointed out.

"And we don't know where Harry is," Luna said.

"He will be easy to find and release. You really have not thought to try and find him with your mental powers?" Night said, looking back at her twin.

Luna blinked for a few seconds before looking away sheepishly saying, "Well. I guess I overlooked that detail. I could not find you mentally, so I did not think to look for Harry that way."

"It is okay, worrying can make anypony, or person, overlook even the simplest details at times," Night said, though she was now smiling.

"Okay, so you have a plan then?" Rainbow asked.

"In a manner of speaking. The first thing we need to do is locate Harry and return his memories, which is the easy part. Secondly, we need to figure out who attacked Harry and me, after which we remove them from the picture. That will be the hard part," Night said, looking up towards the stars.

"But wait, you saw them fighting Harry, didn't you recognize them, or for that matter, wouldn't you be able to point them out now?" Twilight asked.

"I had never seen them before. Moreover, their form was distorted, like a ghost in a fog bank," Night replied, "As such I could not get a good look at them."

"So we are dealing with an unknown attacker," Hermione said, looking thoughtful.

"Yep, but not the best I am pretty sure," Night said smiling.

"Why is that?" Rainbow asked.

"Harry seemed to be on the same level with them in magical dueling skills," Night said, looking rather happy.

"As comforting as that is, we should work on finding Harry," Hermione said, drawing them back to their main objective.

"True, but first we need to get some rest, it is late and I doubt it would be good if you went missing," Night said.

"Or we could keep working and find Harry tonight, and bring him back to his normal self," Hermione countered.

"Yes we could do that, but please realize one thing: If we start doing things like you and Luna did without thinking, we could be found out too quickly and all our work would be for nothing. I doubt the one who did this won't be on the lookout for anything different in Harry's behavior or that of his friends. And after that sound you said was caused by breaking me free, I have no doubt they will be doubly watchful," Night explained.

"So in short, we cannot risk anyone acting differently just yet then," Luna said, realizing what her sister was getting at.

"Yep, so Hermione, I will give you a ride back to your room, then you can meet up with us tomorrow after dinner. At which time Luna and I will have hopefully already located and helped Harry regain himself, and you can have your friend back again," Night said, getting up and walking over to Hermione.

Hermione nodded, "Okay. I guess I will go back. But please find him by tomorrow night."

"We shall do our best, you have my word on that," Luna said.

Hermione nodded and got up onto Night's back and soon they were off back towards the school. Night moved quickly to one of the many different towers the school had and dropped Hermione off. Night turned to leave but Hermione spoke again, stopping her.

"Night, I need to ask you something," Hermione said, moving around to look Night in the eye.

"What might that be?" Night asked, not sure if she should be surprised by how Hermione was acting.

"When you return to your homeland of Equestria, I would love it if you took me with you," Hermione said.

"We can, but why would you want to go? Your family is here in this world, in my own world you would have almost no one to lean on or even help you besides Harry, Luna, and myself," Night said, looking at Hermione closely.

"Yes I know, but well…" Hermione started speaking but stopped, a look of pain crossing her features.

"What happened?" Night asked, noticing the pained expression.

"I will explain, sometime," Hermione said, turning away from her friend.

"As you wish," Night said, before nuzzling Hermione's cheek.

"Thanks," Hermione said, giving her friend a quick hug before speeding off down the tower stairs.

Night waited for a few moments before taking flight again. She had a bad feeling that things were worse than just what had happened with Harry, if Hermione's own actions just now were anything to go by. Night knew she could view Hermione's mind if she really wanted to find out just how bad things were. But it would be betraying the trust Hermione had put in Night a long time ago, and that trust was not something Night was going to betray so easily.

As she got back to the others she noticed that Rainbow Dash and Applejack were already asleep. Twilight was nowhere to be seen while Luna was watching the star-filled sky above. Luna looked over at Night when she landed and smiled, before going back to watching the sky. Night smiled to herself and went to lie down, when she noticed Twilight come back from wherever she had been. Twilight smiled at Night before moving about, finding a soft patch of dirt to sleep on. She was soon asleep beside her friends and Night followed her example.

The next morning Night was woken by Applejack, whose habit of waking with the sunrise had woken her up. Night gave her a light glare, causing the orange colored mare to back up a little, a flash of fear appeared in her eyes for a moment before vanishing and Applejack looked slightly abashed. Night rolled her eyes and got up, shaking and stretching herself, waking up more as she did so. Smiling at Applejack, she looked about and noticed she was the last to get up; everyone else was already eating. Night walked over and sat down by her sister and started eating the food they had collected.

After finishing their breakfast, Night looked out over the land towards the school, before turning back to the others, "I will find Harry. I want you to set up an area that will keep us safe for a few days."

With that, Night flew off into the morning. As she flew on she carefully spread out her mental awareness, searching for Harry. She had to be careful, because normally she did this while standing still or lying down so she could put all her concentration into it. If she did that now, she could possibly stop flying and fall to her death. She normally would not do this, but she wanted to be mobile with her search, in case Harry was on the move as well.

But as she moved over the school, she found, like Luna and the others the day before, that he was nowhere to be found in the school. She was slightly confused at this, but decided, since her search was not working while moving, she would have to land and search the entire school at once.

Settling down she started searching the school, but as her focus grew, she soon realized something: Harry was not actually in the school. He was some thousand or so feet above it. Slowly she got back up as she stopped her mental search and looked up towards the sky, before shaking her head smiling, "So that is where you are hiding. Up resting on the clouds again."