Chapter 5
Harry's day was as boring as normal. He was skipping class, thinking about his life, something he didn't do too often as his life was rather simple. Yet each time he thought about his life, he felt that something or someone was missing. But no matter how much he thought about it, he could not bring what was missing into focus in his mind. And if he focused too much on trying to bring it to the front of his mind he would end up with major headaches. But this could just mean he was trying to think up something that was not there.
Sighing Harry continued to stare up into the sky as a cloud passed high over him, while laying on his own cloud. He was not sure why this piece of magic seemed to work for him, while all his other spells did not. But he was glad it did. It allowed him to escape the annoying people at school, mostly Draco Malfoy and Ron Weasley. Both of them seemed to think that since he got rid of his old friends they would end up being better friends.
Harry did not even bother with either of them and kept on walking. Even when they became persistent, Harry would not even try and listen to them, sliding around them and continuing on his way. Draco had been the one who did more than try and stop Harry to just talk: he had thrown a spell at Harry. Harry had struck back and somehow cast a spell without a wand in his hand, and had sent Draco flying into a wall. Harry at this time started feeling that something was off, and as such he had started his hours on end of thinking in the clouds.
As he lay in the cloud, feeling the cloud starting to disappear under him as the sun hit it, he heard something flying nearby. This was a little abnormal, as he was up where only large birds could normally reach. Yet the wing beats he heard as they got closer sounded like they belonged to something rather small. This only could mean one of two things, either he was hearing things, or something was coming for him that could use magic to fly.
Harry opened his eyes and took off on his broom, as this might not end too well if he had to fight while still lying around on the cloud. To his surprise, a moment later a strange Pegasus–Unicorn hybrid appeared before him. Something about it seemed very familiar but he could not place it.
"So this is where you have been hiding," the strange horse said, its voice female.
"Yes. This is where I have been," Harry answered, before he asked, "Who are you?"
A look of hurt passed through the horse's eyes before it spoke again, "An old friend of yours. Most know me as Nightmare Moon, but I go by the name Night now."
"Friend," Harry said, the word almost sounding foreign to his ear.
"Yes, friend," Night said.
"So… why are you looking for me?" Harry asked.
"Well, I want to help you regain those memories and skills you have lost over the summer," Night said.
"Lost," Harry said, slightly confused.
"Can you honestly tell me you have never seen me before?" Night said.
Harry sighed, the wind moving about his broom a little bit. She seemed familiar, yet Harry could not find her anywhere in his memories, and he was sure he would have remembered her. After all, she was a talking, winged Unicorn with a translucent starry mane and tail.
"I feel like I should, yet I cannot remember ever having seen you before," Harry said, as he moved his broom and landed on the cloud again.
"Try hard, I know it is in there, though, I will warn you this may not work," Night said.
"I will try, but I'm sure I won't be able to recall anything," Harry said.
"Why is that?" Night asked.
"Every time I have tried to focus on remembering something about my old friends, I get a headache so bad and painful I am forced to stop. Sometimes it makes me think that when I am trying to remember, I'm trying to force a memory into being that does not actually exist," Harry said, looking down at the cloud.
"You cannot remember," Night stated, more than asked. She now knew his memory had been actually blocked.
"Yes, and I know I had friends before now. Like Hermione, because Ron and Draco keep on saying good job on leaving her and that they would be better friends than she was. Yet, I cannot remember ever being her friend; it is so confusing," Harry said, before sighing rather heavily.
Night nodded before landing on the cloud, much to Harry's surprise, "I can kind of understand what it would be like to go through that."
Her ability to walk on clouds distracted Harry, making him ask, "How… how are you walking on the cloud? I thought I was the only one able to do that!"
"It is something my sister, Luna, and I taught you back in your first year," Night said, smiling.
"First year…" Harry said thoughtfully.
Yes, it had been his first year at Hogwarts, when Harry had learned this skill of walking and lying on clouds, but as he focused on who had taught him, a headache hit him hard. Harry fought back the pain this time, trying to remember those times, but the headache suddenly got worse. And with a loud yell of pain he lost consciousness. This in itself was not bad, till he slipped through the cloud and started falling.
Though Night was rather surprised by the sudden lack of consciousness, she took off immediately and dove through the cloud, causing the cloud to break apart. She quickly spotted Harry's falling form, and using her magic caught him, together with his broom. Smiling, she decided this might not have been the best place for him to work on remembering and flew back towards the others so they could work on his memories and remove the blocks he very clearly had.
As Night landed, Luna ran up, looking relieved at first at seeing Harry, then worried at the fact he was being carried by Night's magic, out cold. Rainbow flew in behind Night, having seen her coming back towards the camp, while Twilight and Applejack were quickly there to see what was going on.
"So this is Harry," Twilight stated.
"Yes, this is him," Luna said, before looking at Night and asking, "why is he out cold?"
"Well, when I found him, he was on his broom above a cloud. We started talking, and he landed on it and sat down. But when I landed, he seemed surprised I was able to, until I explained we were the ones who taught him to move about on clouds. He tried to remember, but then he cried in pain and passed out," Night explained.
"Sounds worse than what Discord used against us," Applejack said.
"Many times so," Luna said, before explaining, "While your memories weren't changed, your very personalities were in all aspects changed. On the other hand, Harry's personality is still mostly the same, which means he wants to make the sort of friends he used to have. But each time he tries to make friends, or bring those memories forward so he can make them again, the block hurts him."
"So he starts hurting himself to have what he wants or needs," Twilight said, casting a sad look towards Harry.
"Yes, but unlike the spell that affected you, these are mental blocks, much harder to break," Luna said, gaining a rather annoyed look.
"So how long do you think this might take?" Twilight said, her horn starting to glow as her magic started to probe Harry's mind carefully.
"Not long, Luna and I are masters of the mind arts, and I can tell you're not too bad yourself," Night said, sensing Twilight probe within Harry's mind.
"Celestia had everyone at her school learn them, to show the dangers of them as well as how to reverse them," Twilight explained, stopping the mind probe.
"I can understand that," Luna said thoughtfully.
"In this case though, I think this is well outside my own skills," Twilight said, taking a few steps back.
Luna nodded and began her own mental work into finding the blocks. Night did not join in right away, but rather watched Twilight instead. She could tell that Twilight had the skills to unlock Harry's mind; the block was not solid enough to hold against one of her skill and magical power.
"Twilight, might I ask why you stepped down? I can tell you are more than skilled enough to deal with these blocks," Night asked.
"It is not my place to work within his mind. He is not my friend, he is yours. As it was, it was a little rude of me to poke into his mind without asking first," Twilight said, looking a little embarrassed.
"I understand," Night said, before going to help her sister.
Night had been slightly correct when saying Twilight could have dealt with the first block, even the second one. But as they worked their way through the fourth then fifth layer, Night knew that Twilight would have had to have given up on getting through them. The others watched on as they worked their way through the blocks. It was almost an hour later when the magical glow left their horns.
Twilight at once came over and asked. "Is it over?"
"No, there is still one block left. We are taking a small break before we finish up," Night said.
"But why stop now?" Applejack asked.
"We have been focusing non-stop for over an hour, and have used a lot of magical power to break those seals on Harry's magic. Someone put a lot effort into those seals. Though whether it was after the attack or during the summer we cannot tell," Luna said sighing.
"Are you saying you're running out of magic?" Applejack asked in surprise.
"No, we still have plenty of magic. We merely want to take a break before continuing," Night said.
"Okay," Applejack said, bringing over some food.
"By the way, where is Rainbow Dash?" Night asked, noticing that Rainbow Dash was not around.
"Rainbow went for a flight. She has never been one to lie around too long, and this world offers a lot of places she can explore," Applejack said.
"And new dangers," Night said.
Applejack nodded, saying, "Yes that's true. When I went camping with Rainbow before, we never had to worry about protection like we have here."
"Yes, and while there is nothing really dangerous that would be flying, one can never be too sure," Night said.
"I will remember to tell Rainbow that," Applejack said.
"So is Rainbow always like that, running off when things get boring?" Night asked.
"Oh, she's always happy to help, especially if it's action-related! But at times like this, when there's nothing she can really do, she gets bored easily. She rather takes a nap then, or plays around. She's always been a spirited filly," Applejack said.
"I know people like that, though not many in the magical world," Night said thoughtfully.
"I am not surprised," Applejack said smiling, "There are ponies like that everywhere."
The small talk continued till Luna called Night back over so they could continue and finish what they had started. Much to their surprise, Harry had not awoken yet, but that might have been a combination of the blocks being removed and his own fainting earlier. They soon started working on removing the final and most difficult block. As they broke it, Harry let out a loud yell as he suddenly came to.
Night threw up a shield as Harry rolled away firing a spell off towards them. He was clearly rather confused about what was going on. Her shield shook from the first two blasts before she strengthened it to the point it could take the assault. But another spell did not come as Harry started to realize he wasn't being attacked and was among friends. Confusion filled his eyes as he looked around.
"What's going on, where am I? What happened to that person who attacked me?" Harry asked, getting off the ground and dusting himself off.
"Well, this is going to take some explaining," Luna said, before she and Night rushed over and pulled him in a group hug, nearly crushing him as they did so.
It took a good while to explain to Harry what had happened since he had been attacked. He could not quite believe it was already fourth year. Or for that matter, that he was in a life or death competition. But Luna explained that the blocks were the reason he did not currently remember anything from after the attack. Or better, their removal: by about noon tomorrow he should be able to remember everything again that had happened up till now.
As Harry sat out by a rock, working on his magical control again, Twilight walked over to Luna, wanting to know a few things. She knew the spells that had been used earlier when Harry had first awoken were human spells. But the feel of the magic as it moved through the air was that of pony magic, not the human magic she had felt when people cast spells in the classes as they passed by. She knew she probably should not dig too deeply, but her need to know was compelling her to ask.
"Luna, could I ask you something?" Twilight asked.
"What might that be?" Luna asked back.
"The magic Harry used earlier felt like pony and not human magic. Is this because of your training?" Twilight asked.
"In the simplest of ways, yes. Human magic, we found, is rather chaotic and hard to control normally, which is why they use a wand to help them cast spells normally. But not knowing this at the time we found Harry could use magic, we worked with Harry and taught him how we Ponies use magic. Which requires a lot of control, and that is why his magic feels like Pony magic," Luna explained, noticing that Night was leaving to pick up Hermione.
"I see. So why does he keep his wand with him then when he is casting spells, as he clearly does not need it?" Twilight asked.
"It is for the act mostly. After all, once they are disarmed, most magic users of this world have no form of combat skills, or way to fight back. We figured if everyone thought the same of Harry, it would be a little surprise if he were still able to use magic, even without a wand," Luna explained.
"I see," Twilight said thoughtfully.
Luna nodded to herself as she watched Harry work hard. For the first time since she had left for Equestria she felt truly happy again. She had been happy of course to see her sister Celestia, and even see her subjects again. But no matter how happy she had become there, it was always a little hollow because two things were missing. But now that she had them back, she was going to make sure she never lost them again. Even if Celestia did not like it, she was not about to give up her two closest friends ever again.