54 — Success! (mostly)
With plenty of time to spare, and a couple of magazines to read on current world affairs, Tom seated himself at the gate for his plane. He had finished one and started a second when the planet began to board passengers.
The seats, naturally, were organized with First Class, those paying the most, up front. Business class was second, and Coach, the vast majority, was last. After taking a look into the Coach section, he could see they had more seats per row. That would make it more crowded and uncomfortable, he could see. The rows also appeared a bit closer together, too.
Business class was quite nice, he decided. The seat was easily as comfortable as many of the seats in Slytherin Dorm, and a tiny application of the cushioning charm from Goyle's wand made it even moreso. The window beside his seat gave him a decent look at outside the plane. He could see the leading edge of the wing if he leaned close to the window and looked back.
He was well-satisfied with his seat, he decided. Having to sit with so many muggles did set his nerves on edge, a bit, however. But his occlumency was up to the task, and he felt as relaxed and confident as he appeared.
The flight . . . was an experience. It was only when he sank into his seat as the plane abruptly accelerated and thundered down the runway that the reality of the situation sank in. Then the plane's wheels left the ground and his stomach dropped as the plane rapidly climbed. In a few minutes he was higher than any broom-rider had ever been, and the plane was still climbing.
The plane had barely slowed its climb when the stewardess stood and started a brief lecture on what to do in an emergency. It was the first he realized that the cabin was pressurized, and if it lost that pressure, he would quickly pass out from lack of oxygen.
Truly, they were higher than any wizard had ever been, and lived to tell the tale. He stared out the window and realized they had already passed the channel and were now over France.
Then the pilot made an announcement that they were traveling at five hundred and fifty miles an hour. He also said that was eight hundred and eighty kilometres per hour, whatever that meant. Tom shook his head in disbelief. The muggles were basically flying a building full of people five-times-faster than the fastest broom on the market.
And they considered that normal.
He could only shake his head.
He was mesmerized by the view. Seeing things from a height of a thousand or two feet up was one thing, seeing it from miles up was another. Finally, he turned and looked around the cabin. He noticed there was a magazine of some kind in the pocket behind the seat in front of him.
He had barely started to peruse the magazine when the pilot's voice came on. He announced they would be landing in twenty minutes, the temperature at the airport, and the weather forecast for day.
Half-an-hour later, he was queueing with the other passengers as they disembarked. Barely an hour from boarding the plane and the muggles had travelled to Paris. He had to shake his head in wonder. A port-key or apparition would be faster, but not nearly as comfortable. He couldn't imagine how much faster the military versions of these things were.
He shuddered at vividly remembering the block-buster bombs being dropped on London. There was no warning where one would hit. The only thing protecting wizards was that most of them lived in the countryside, not in the big cities. Those that did, floo'd or apparated to the countryside when the warning sirens started.
And how deadly they were!
Dropping a car-sized bomb from such a high altitude would go right through most spells protecting wizard residences before the owners even knew an attack was on the way! Spells could stop anything — but only if you were powerful enough! The spells protecting houses were strong, but thousand-pound bombs falling at 500 miles per hour had a HUGE amount of kinetic energy. Ignoring the whole explosion part, a one-ton bomb falling that fast would pass through almost any shield a wizard could make as if it didn't exist.
Or it would squash the shield into the ground, and the wizard as flat as a pancake.
If they were at all accurate in their aim, which he had no doubt that they were today, they could get one of their bombs exactly where they wanted. Plus, they could drop a dozen of such bombs, one right after the other, on the same target. With careful timing, they could all hit with a few seconds of each other. Not even the fastest wizard would be able to react and reinforce his spells in that short a time. If the first didn't make it through, at least one of the others would.
The protego maxima was fine for bullets and debris thrown by a spell, but when the stuff thrown at you out-weighed you by ten times? Good luck, because you'd need luck!
And that was nearly fifty years ago! Who knew how much bigger their bombs were today? He needed to do some serious research before he moved on any of his tentative long-range plans.
Having his "documents" vetted by the airline before departure apparently obviated the need for a customs check at the Parisian airport. Not that he would have had a problem confounding anyone who might have gotten in his way. Minutes later, he was exchanging some of his quid for French francs, leaving the Terminal building, and looking for a taxi. Half-an-hour after that, he was entering the French Magical Quarter and looking for an inexpensive restaurant for lunch
It would not take him long to acquire a wand that was as perfect for his new body as his old wand used to be for his old body.
He wondered where his old wand was. The books about his disappearance said his wand hadn't been recovered.
۸-_-۸
Harry's mum, after giving the Headmaster her news, had taken wing again. After greeting him and Myrtle with a mighty hug, she sat beside him and started in on the selections before her. "Don't ask," she said sternly, frowning, before he could say a word. "The Headmaster will make an announcement at dinner."
Harry nodded slowly. That meant it could only be bad news, and they were waiting for dinner this evening so as not to spoil the day for everypony. They were both quiet as she filled her plate and started eating.
"By the way, mum," he said a few minutes later. He loved saying that word, and grinned widely before continuing, "I thanked Elly for her warning. It really did make a difference," he said earnestly. "I told her I greatly appreciated it, and that without the warning I or Hermione might have been badly hurt. We definitely wouldn't have had shield spells ready to cast!"
His mum nodded, still chewing.
"Anyway, While I was thanking her, I told her we, me and the girls, owed her a debt, and that if they every needed help, we would do what we could."
His mum nodded, and frowned slightly, listening closely.
"And there was this weird magical . . . pop . . . we all felt."
His mum widened her eyes and sat straighter. She gave a hard look at the girls. Scootaloo was practically glowing, with her parents and aunts seated on both sides of her. Sweetie Belle was enjoying having her whole family here, as well, pointing out things all around the Hall. Ginny had been roped into sitting with her family and appeared a bit put out by it. Sharing her parents' attention with the four boys was a bit vexing, for her. Apple Bloom was sandwiched between her sister and brother, and enjoying describing all the food on the table to her siblings.
It was the same for practically all the ponies in the Great Hall.
Only Hermione was looking at them, past her father on the other side of Harry, and apparently listening. She nodded vigorously.
The purple princess slowly nodded. "We'll have to talk about that later," she said.
Harry shrugged. "Well, it's not like we didn't make her a friend of the family last year. I can't think of anything she would need us to do for her, anyway."
His mum pursed her lips, then nodded. "I would still like to meet with her and convey my thanks for her timely warning," she said quietly.
They turned their attention back to their lunches.
After dessert, people were starting leave the Great Hall. Without a doubt, a large number of the humans' parents would be leaving, now. They had done their familial duties, they were well familiar with the school itself, and they had other business to attend to. By dinner time, Harry expected that the only visiting families would be the muggle-borns' parents, a scattered few half-blood families with a muggle mother or father, and the ponies.
He was lucky in that the De Rippes did not seem to be in a hurry to leave. Despite their "pure-blood" status, the four students were doing a poor job of disguising how happy they were that their guardian was here. He could tell by the occasional goofy smile they would develop before suddenly shaking their heads and looking stern for a few minutes. Their guardian, Matilda, kept glancing at them, her own lips popping into a smile before shaking her head slightly.
It gave him all the opportunity he needed to guide his mum over to them as they were nearing the Great Hall doors. "Mum, I would like to introduce Matilda De Rippe. She is the official guardian for Elly and her cousins," he pointed at each in turn, "Essie Pauncefoot, Emmie Pauncefoot, and Earl Pauncefoot."
His mum nodded at each.
Then he introduced her to them, "This is my mum, Princess Twilight Sparkle."
His mum rolled her eyes and shook her head. "I hate that title," she said without any heat. "If you have a moment, could I have a word with you?" she said looking at Elly, and then Matilda.
It was Harry's turn to roll his eyes. Like anypony in their right mind would say "no" to a princess of Equestria.
They moved to a nearby conference room — actually an unoccupied classroom — although it took a bit of wrangling to get all the participants involved. With the girls and their families, it made for a lot of ponies and humans, thirty, counting Harry and his mum. It made for a full classroom.
His mum placed several spells on the door, windows, walls, ceiling, and floor. Then she hopped up onto the desk at the front of the classroom and cleared her throat. Everypony turned to face her.
"There are some facts you all need to know, either because your sister, daughter, or niece, are involved with my son, Harry," she glanced at all the ponies. "Or your niece or cousin helped Harry." She looked at the De Rippes and Pauncefoots. She had their full attention.
She shuffled on her hooves awkwardly for a moment, then took a big breath. "Last year, one of the teachers here was carrying a mind-parasite. This parasite goes by several names, Tom Riddle is one, Lord Voldemort is another." Few of the adult relatives of Harry's herdmates looked surprised, although they did take on stern expressions, frowning and straightening slightly. Only Snap Shutter and Mane Allgood had missed seeing the movies and reading the books in the summer.
However, for Matilda this was terrible news! Matilda clutched at her chest, and her face rapidly paled. Elly and her cousins look worried, but not too disturbed.
"Tom attempted to kill Harry on the day his class took their Defence Against the Dark Arts exam. Thanks to Elly's timely alarm, we were able to stop Tom and capture him."
The adults nodded. Matilda and Elly's cousins were listening with rapt attention.
"This summer, the Ministry threw him through the Veil in the Ministry building, which supposedly sent him directly to the afterlife."
Elly and her cousins exchanged looks while their guardian looked vastly relieved.
"Unfortunately," she continued, shaking her head ruefully, "Tom took the extraordinary step of creating several devices that could hold part of his soul."
Elly and her relatives were again stunned, and all took a step back.
Twilight paused and sighed. "We thought we had destroyed them all, but we must have missed one."
There were more than a few narrow-eyed glances between them all. Elly and her relatives all shivered and looked scared, biting their lips or taking shaky breaths and looking at each other for reassurance.
"This year, Tom again managed to infiltrate the school. This time, he used one of those evil artifacts, the one we missed. We believe, based on what we have been able to learn, that he intended to slowly takeover the soul of another student, and return to living." She sighed sadly. "Gregory Goyle was not possessed by a vampire, but by Tom Riddle. Based on how little Gregory's actions behaviour changed, we believe he was a willing host, much like Quirrell was last year."
Harry blinked as he saw a hand-sized bundle come out of the saddlebags he hadn't noticed his mum wearing. The small bundle floated over to Elly, who took it in one hand. His mum spoke straight to her, glancing at Matilda occasionally. "You know of the portal to our world," she said. "Well, we have other portals. One of them leads to a parallel-world that is very much like this one, except there are no magicals. The natives are bereft of magic, with only a rare few exceptions out of billions. However, in a coincidence that beggars the imagination, they have a series of fictional children's books about a magical world that is hidden in theirs. A magical world where there is a magical school called Hogwarts, where the non-magicals are called muggles, and the headmaster is a wizard by the name of Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore."
Elly, her cousins, and Matilda all looked speechless at this, as did Snap Shutter and Mane Allgood.
His mum looked directly at Elly. "Because you spotted something before anyone else was even aware of a problem, here are a complete set of the books for you to read. I imagine that if we hadn't come on the scene, things in real life here would have played out almost exactly as they did in these books." Elly stared at the small bundle in her hand.
"Most of the problems in the books have been solved, I included a paper listing each one we removed," his mum continued, "But maybe you can spot something we haven't noticed, yet. Or, if you are forewarned to possible dangers, you might detect them first."
She looked at Snap Shutter and Mane Allgood. "I can give you another set of books when we return to Equestria."
They both nodded.
She was silent a moment, then sighed. "Next, Harry told me that when he said he owed you a debt, there was a pop of magic. Did you feel it?"
Elly paused a moment, then slowly nodded. One by one her cousins nodded.
His mum glanced at her herdmates, who also all nodded. Scootaloo said, "So, that's what that was?" as Ginny said, "Oh, I wondered what that was." Both gave curious glances to Harry and Elly.
The older Weasleys looked surprised, and worried, Arthur especially.
His mum looked thoughtful, her brow furrowed and ears laid back. "As I recall," she said slowly, "It isn't anything that will make you do something you don't want to do, it's just a nudge that tells you to do what is asked because your debt needs to be redeemed." She looked back at Harry. "It's just one way for magic to help you do the right thing, and maintain harmony." She turned back to Elly and her family.
Magic, after all, had just acknowledged that they were all her family. Just as it had acknowledged Hermione and Ginny as part of Harry's herd.
She smiled. "As he did, I say thank you for your help. If we can do anything to help you, when you need help, please don't hesitate to call on us. If you don't know where we are, drop into any of our Embassies and they will put you in touch with us, no matter where we are in either world."
They glanced at each other, then Matilda curtseyed and said, "Thank you, your highness. If we ever find ourselves in need of assistance, we will come to either Mr. Potter or yourself. Not that I expect us to need to do that."
His mum grimaced. "Please, none of those silly honorifics. In view of the debt, I think just Twilight is more than sufficient." She paused a moment. "Also, as I offered Elly last year, should any of you wish to visit Equestria, just ask and I will expedite the paperwork — plus, I expect you to stay at my palace in Ponyville, or my home in Canterlot, should you visit either location."
She smiled at them. "In the meantime, read the books and let Harry know what you think of them."
Matilda nodded, murmuring, "Of course . . . Twilight." She looked distinctly uncomfortable at the familiarity. Elly silently nodded several times beside her, clearly overwhelmed.
"Well," his mum said, "That's pretty much all I wanted to talk about. Any questions?"
Ron slowly raised his hand.
His mum nodded at him, "Yes?" she said.
"Er, do you know what happened to Goyle?"
She sighed and glanced around the room at them all. "I'll have to ask you all to keep this quiet until dinner tonight. The Headmaster will make an official statement then." She stopped and shook her head. "Gregory's body was found this morning in a bed-and-breakfast inn just outside London. He apparently died sometime yesterday, around two-o'clock in the afternoon. Tom apparently left sometime early this morning, at dawn, but to where, we haven't a clue." She sighed again. "Unfortunately, the Ministry won't believe us if the Headmaster and I try to say this is Tom Riddle's work. They firmly believe it is a vampire at work." She shook her head ruefully. "Lockhart's insistence that he was searching for a vampire inspired Tom to arrange things to reinforce that impression." She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "We just have to be on the lookout for him."
Those who had read the books, and seen the movies all nodded in agreement, still a bit shocked that the second one book/movie seemed to be true.
It was a quiet group that filed into the corridor.
Elly and her family went off towards their common room again. Molly hovered around Ron and Ginny, most especially Ginny, as Arthur watched, smiling.
Twilight gave Harry and Myrtle another tight hug, then said, "Sorry I can't stay any longer. There's much to do."
Harry nodded. "That's okay. I appreciate you took the time to stay here this long." He gave her a shy smile, "Besides, I'll see you in a few weeks, anyway."
They hugged again, then she took wing and flew down the hall. She would be at the Gates to teleport faster than if she tried to use the Headmaster's floo. Even assuming he was in his office to let her in.
That she did so instead of teleporting directly told Harry that his being able to teleport in the Great Hall was either a fluke, or she was trying to conceal that ponies could teleport in the castle. He would ask Sweetie Belle to try, later, when they were alone. If she couldn't, then he knew he was to only one who could.
۸·_·۸
Rather than head back to their common room, considering they had already shown that to the relatives, the herd decided to give everypony the grand tour of the castle, and perhaps visit Professor McGonagall's classroom and the Greenhouses. Hopefully, Professor Sprout wasn't too overwhelmed with earth ponies inspecting her work areas to talk to them.
The rest of the afternoon promised to be rather pedestrian for Harry, but he didn't mind. He knew he would quite enjoy watching the fun the others had introducing their relatives to the Castle's quirks. Ginny probably felt the same way, based on her grin at their reactions to the shortcut slides from the basement to the seventh floor, and back!
They had never found those when they were in Hogwarts as children!
The moving stairs in the main stairwell were startling, but the stairs that you went up one flight to go down two had even the unicorns scratching their heads. Most hadn't heard, yet, of some of the "improvements" Luna-the-elder had made to Canterlot castle. The nobles were trying to pretend they didn't exist.
The slide to the pool was an instant hit.
Considering the age of Hogwarts, a thousand years, the moving classrooms, staircases, walls that pretended to be doors and doors that pretended to be walls, passages you could only use on certain days or certain times, and the length of time Discord spent as a statue in Equestria, Harry had to wonder if Discord might have been here, instead. Or, considering some of the things they had seen in the Two Sisters' Castle, maybe Nightmare hadn't been as stuck on the moon as everypony thought. It would have been easy for her to escape Luna's attention. Although, her "fun" seemed to have been more cruel than confusing, so maybe not.
Several times they ran into Elly and her guardian or her cousins. They seemed to be acting as tour guides for some of the groups of exploring ponies. They even pointed out one or two hidden rooms or "secret" passages no one else knew about.
Elly told them about one passage that seemed to be no longer than a classroom, but it put them on the other side of the castle! She said several Hufflepuffs liked to use it to get to the common room faster after Astronomy class.
They arrived at the Room of Requirement just in time to see a Seventh-year put the room through its paces. He happily demonstrated that you didn't need a wand to use the room by having one of the earth-pony parents recreate their living-room in Equestria.
By the time dinner came around, they were all a bit hoofsore, especially Hermione's parents. The ponies, at least, were used to walking everywhere, just not going up and down so many stairs.
Towards the end of the meal, just before dessert, the Headmaster stood and tapped his goblet to bring everypony's attention to him.
"It is my pleasure to inform all the parent's currently present that if you desire to stay the night instead of going home, quarters for you have been arranged just down the hall from each of the four Common Rooms."
A cheer went up from the ponies, and quite a few of the muggle-born's parents, too. The Headmaster let it continue for a few moments, then raised his arms to attract their attention.
"Plus, in view of classes being cancelled tomorrow, the Hogwarts curfew tonight has been changed to ten o'clock."
Another cheer went up, this time from all the students. Again, the Headmaster let it continue for a few moments, then raised his arms to attract their attention, again.
"Naturally, for all the adults, there is no curfew. So, if you wish to talk with the other parents, feel free to visit each other."
There wasn't any cheering this time, but the parents appeared pleased.
Harry could tell that the Headmaster was milking the good feelings he was creating for all the good will it might create for him.
He lowered his arms, took a theatrically deep breath, and slowly let it out. "Unfortunately, it is my sad duty to inform you that the body of Gregory Goyle has been recovered by the aurors." He paused for a minute at the many expressions of shocked outrage. "The one responsible for his death has not been found, but the Ministry assures me that they will put all available resources into tracking down this wanton killer." He paused.
"Might we have a minute of silence to reflect on what we have lost in our deceased friend and student." Dumbledore folded his hands, and stood quietly with bowed head.
Many of the students emulated his bowed head.
There was dead silence. While many might have had a problem with the boy's bullying, none of them had ever, seriously, wanted to see the boy dead.
After the minute had passed, the Headmaster sighed. "I must also tell you that Professor Lockhart, while he has fully recovered from his injuries, yesterday, was arrested just a short while ago by Aurors for 'irregularities' regarding the events he has recounted in his books. The Ministry has requested, and I have agreed, that the former Auror, Alastor Moody, will take his place in his classes, starting Tuesday."
Harry nodded to himself. That explained why they had Monday off. Professor Moody would be settling in and it would unfair to expect him to immediately begin teaching classes.
The Headmaster sat back down. As he did so, the main meal-dishes were replaced with desserts. Truthfully, though, at the pony-ends' of the tables, the dessert selection presented differed from the main dishes only in that there weren't any soups or massive platters of vegetables.
Knowing they could stay longer made a difference to many of the visiting parents. Feeling re-energized, they returned to exploring. Harry and his herdmates were surprisingly tired by the time they did head inside the dorms for curfew that night.
۸-_-۸
Turnover Sunday was easy and simple, and fully automated in the Buran. Oscar groused a bit about being a passenger on the plane he was supposed to be piloting. Vicktor just laughed at him. "Given the Buran's record, I think the automatic pilot is just fine!"
Slipping into orbit on Monday was just as easy. BNSC, in conjunction with NASA, ESA, and Roscosmos, had selected Ares Vallis at the mouth of an apparent ancient outflow channel. Eons ago, it was speculated, back when water flowed on Mars, great floods inundated the proposed landing site, located on that rocky plain. The site is eight-hundred-and-fifty kilometres southeast of the location of Viking Lander One, which in 1976 became the first spacecraft to land on Mars.
The final moments of the landing, as on the Moon, were supervised closely by Oscar. The spaceplane entered Mars' thin atmosphere with minimal heating, having come to an almost complete stop relative to Mars earlier. Once the plane reached terminal velocity in the atmosphere, the RCS engines were lit and the Buran transited mostly to a hover. When their velocity dropped below a metre per second, the autopilot deployed the landing gear. They came to a gradual halt only metres above the surface.
They had timed their approach for mid-morning to give them more than sufficient daylight to see any potential obstacles. Fortunately, unlike Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin, during the Apollo Eleven mission, the field chosen for their landing didn't feature large boulders that might compromise their stability, and ability to take back off later.
Not receiving any signals from the crew that anything was amiss, the computer then brought the plane to a soft landing. Honestly, Thomas had had far rougher landing in commercial airliners!
Their landing zone was . . . chaotic. There were rounded pebbles and rocks of all sizes, with abundant sand and dust-sized particles coating the areas between them.
Their random pattern was unlike the ejecta normally seen around craters; Thomas could see. Those always had distinct lines or cross-patterns from different impact events. The fact that the entire Ares Vallis plain appeared to be an outflow channel, implied that the rocks and pebbles probably had been swept down and deposited by floods from the Ares and Tiu regions nearby. Those floods had been far in Martian the past, when water in abundant quantities had existed on the surface, or just below it.
They would have to be very careful in setting up the inflatable domes. The last thing they wanted to happen was to pull a leg muscle or sprain a tendon with a careless step.
Oscar had finished his prepared "Welcome to Mars Base" speech while Thomas was double-checking his instruments. Every nail-biting second of their descent had been recorded, and was now being uploaded to the millions waiting to hear if they had been successful. According to the ESA feed, this was the largest audience ever for a live event. Commerce had come to a complete stop as everyone sat or stood, almost glued to watching or listening to their telly's or radios.
Minutes later, the nine of them were standing on Mars. Oscar and Viktor immediately began a visual check of the spaceplane. Thomas pulled out his "Special Technology" probe and began his own check of the charms and spells on the ship. The others began examining the surrounding area. Hans, Leroy, and Umberto were searching for a likely location for the habitats. Takao and Claudie were checking for good locations for their instrument packages.
In both cases, they wanted their locations to be far enough from the Buran so their eventual take-off wouldn't cause any damage.
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