Castor stared at them. This was the closest he had ever come to out-right fainting. Magic. Was. Real.

He vaguely noticed a woman whispering to Miss Arrow.

“Excuse me, Your Highness, but three . . . men are coming up the street.” She lifted her eyebrows and tilted her head towards the stairs. She mouthed a word that he missed.

The Princess sat upright, and the others exchanged alarmed looks.

Mr. Yueshi walked over to him and said, “I think you need another stiff drink. I have a bottle of brandy in the kitchen.” He helped the dazed man to his feet.

“Magic?” Castor said wonderingly as they left the sitting-room.

They had no sooner entered the kitchen than he heard someone knock at the front door. Mr. Yueshi guided him out the back door, grabbing a bottle from a cabinet in the kitchen as they passed, as well as two glasses. The solicitor closed the kitchen door. They settled on chairs at a patio table. He poured them both a rather large helping in each glass.

“They call it ‘magic,’” Mr. Yueshi said. “But I think it might better be called telekinesis, the ability to move and manipulate matter with your mind. And they do not have telepathy — mind-to-mind communication — so you needn’t worry that they can read your deepest darkest secrets. Nor make you do things or forget things you have seen or done.”

“Telekinesis?”

The solicitor nodded.

Castor sat, thinking, sipping his drink.

Emerald Arrow escorted three wizards into the room. “Twilight,” she said, “These men are asking if there is a Hogwarts’ student here.”

Twilight smiled a bit nervously. “I am Twilight Sparkle,” she said, introducing herself. “And there are actually four students who live here who will be attending Hogwarts come September First. However, none of them are here at the moment, they are all over at the Weasley residence. Arthur Weasley. You might know him? He works at the Ministry?”

The three exchanged glances.

“Yes, I know of him. He’s the Head of the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office,” said the lead wizard. He sighed. “I’m Arnold Peasegood, this is Koios Pamiec and Làidir Cuimhne,” he pointed to them as he spoke. “We’re here because we picked up magic in use. And this is a muggle neighbourhood.”

Twilight nodded. “Oh, yes, that would be me.” Her teacup floated off the table to her hand.

“And me,” added Blueblood, his teacup copying hers in action. As did Rarity’s.

A moment later, each of the Equestrians had a tea cup floating in front of them. Pinkie Pie was going cross-eyed looking at hers.

The three wizards stared at them. Finally, Peasegood said, “And your wands?”

“Oh,” said Twilight brightly, “I have a wand!” her wand floated out of her bag on the floor.

Both Blueblood and Rarity shook their heads. “I have no need of such a crutch,” Blueblood said in a snooty tone as he looked down his nose at them, even though they were standing and he was sitting.

After a moment’s pause, Peasegood said, “Well, thank you for your time. I’ll inform the Magical Oversight Department that this house has wizards and witches in residence and to ignore any magic from this immediate area.”

He gave Blueblood a stern look and swept it across all the people in the room. “Remember, you must not let any muggles see you doing magic! If a muggle does see something they shouldn’t, inform us immediately so that we can take appropriate obliviation action to protect the Statute of Secrecy.”

Twilight smiled, “Oh, that won’t even be an issue, Mr. Peasegood. We own all the houses you see around here. In fact, we own the one-hundred and forty acres around this house.”

He stared at her.

“Emerald Arrow,” Twilight said, “why don’t you show these gentle-wizards the boundaries of Wisteria Estate, the woods, and the farm?”

Nodding, the Guard led the three men out the front door and down the street. It was over an hour later that they made their way back to the house.

“I explained to Mr. Peasegood,” explained Emerald, “that to allay the . . . muggles’ suspicions, we told them that the vacant houses and land are scheduled to be replaced by a large international business park.”

He nodded, a bit sourly, “I suggest you put up muggle-repelling charms around the perimeter to direct the curious away, if you haven’t already. In the meantime, I’ve marked the edges of your holdings so that my office, as well as the Magical Oversight Department, will ignore any magic inside that area. And, as I said before, don’t let any muggles see you using magic, and if a muggle does, inform us immediately.”

Twilight nodded agreeably. “We will be sure to inform you should anyone accidentally see us casting magic. And we will see about putting up those charms.”

The wizard sighed and signalled his compatriots that they were leaving. “Well, as I said, sorry we bothered you. We’ll be going now.” He turned to leave.

“Would you like to use our Floo?” Twilight asked.

Startled, the three wizards looked back at her. She pointed to the fireplace, and the Floo-powder pot.

Mr. Peasegood smiled. “Why, thank you,” he said. “That will make the return to the office a bit quicker.”

And knowing they were on the Floo-network made Twilight wonder why that office hadn’t informed Mr. Peasegood of the presence of wizards and witches in this location. Was the ministry truly that incompetent? Or was this merely an example of something falling through the inevitable cracks in communication that bedevilled every government?

After they left, Emerald explained, “It was a bit unusual. As soon as we reached the end of the street, they pulled out shrunken brooms and expanded them. I rode behind Mr. Peasegood, and we actually flew around Wisteria Estate and the farmland purchased. He cast a spell he called ‘disillusionment’ so that no one could see us.” She paused. “It was a rather unique experience for a unicorn. Perhaps we should see about adopting their use while we are on this side.”

The ministry now knew exactly where they were. Twilight wondered how long it would take for them to realize that “here” was where the rumoured Atlanteans were living?

Wednesday, four cars pulled to a stop in front of number Eleven Magnolia Road. The lead vehicle was a standard Little Whinging police car, the next three were, clearly to Castor, unmarked government Landrovers, a Jaguar sandwiched between two Landrovers. Three well-dressed men jumped out of each of the Landrovers. Four took up positions at each corner of the Jaguar while the other two moved to the front and rear of the lead and rear Landrovers, respectively. From the passenger-side front seat of the Jaguar another man stepped out and opened the back door.

A distinguished-looking man with slightly greying hair and wearing dark-rimmed glasses climbed-out. He straightened his suit slightly as he glanced around at the nearby houses. He saw that each house had a woman or man standing at the nearest corner, all well-dressed. Each nodded to him as he glanced in their direction. His lips compressed slightly as he saw them. Behind him, another grey-haired man exited the car.

The three men started up the pavement to the front door where Miss Arrow and Castor were waiting.

“Thank you for coming, Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister,” Castor said, nodding to both. “I realize this is a disruption of your schedules, but as I told you yesterday, it really is important.” He took a breath, adding softly, “Perhaps the most important meeting of our lives.” He turned to the M.I. 5 agent. “If you’ll wait here, please?”

The man looked at the Prime Minister, who nodded. He sighed and took a position to the side of the door.

Miss Arrow opened the door and stepped inside. Castor led the men into the sitting-room. Both newcomers stopped and stared at the room that was much larger than it had any right to be. They both turned and looked at the front door at the end of the short hallway in which they still stood, and then back into the expansive sitting-room. The exterior wall and front windows were clearly farther away than the front door in the entry way, which should have been impossible. The windows gave a good view of the front yard and the houses across the street. However, while the windows from the outside had looked to be of normal size, in here they were huge, taller than the people in the room and clearly a good five meters wide — wider than the entire wall when seen from the outside street.

The room, which shouldn’t have been more than four by five meters in size was easily seven by nine meters, with a ceiling that towered a good six meters above them. They looked back at the staircase beside the hallway that went no higher than three meters. The sitting-room’s ceiling was higher than the house’s roof.

Castor leaned a bit closer to the two men and said, “Yeah, it’s real, you aren’t imagining things. I checked it three times, myself, this morning, when I first got here. The room is almost as large as the entire house without changing the sizes of any of the other rooms. And, from the outside, it looks not different than the other houses on the street.”

A series of armchairs were placed around the room, each with a small table beside it. There was more than enough room to accommodate the large number of people gathered there. Eleven people in a siting-room for a house of this size should have felt crowded. In this room, however, there was plenty of room for triple that number.

Six of the people were already seated. The seventh was the solicitor and he was standing near the newcomers. Lady Dash was lazily flapping her wings, holding station over the middle of the room, almost at the ceiling, and snickering at the gobsmacked expressions of the two officials.

“Your Highnesses, Ladies,” Castor started, “I would like to introduce the Right Honourable John Major, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and Mr. Michael Heseltine, Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.”

“Gentlemen, I would like to present Princess Twilight Sparkle . . . ,” and then he introduced everyone present.
Almost as soon as the introductions were over, Princess Sparkle said, “Would you like some tea before we get down to business?”

Major nodded jerkily, saying, “Yes. Yes, please,” with his Deputy following suit. Both were still looking around the room, taking in the fact what they were seeing was, indeed, actual fact and not just a stage illusion of some kind.

Castor pointed out the two empty armchairs across from the Princess and Prince. As they were seating themselves, another woman came into the room with a tea service cart.

The teapot, barely large enough to hold three cups, lifted into the air, which drew their attention almost immediately, the server’s hands still on the push-bar of the serving cart. She smiled at the two men as she started filling the cups. Only when she began pouring the fourth cup did the two men begin to realize that there was more going on than just the floating teapot.

The pot settled back on the table after four cups. Cubes of sugar rose from their bowl and dropped into two of the cups, which then lifted off the table and floated through the air to the Princess and Prince. Twilight murmured a “Thank you,” as the Prince merely nodded. The cups, on their saucers, remained floating to one side of each Royal.

The server turned to the two British men and asked, “Sugar or cream?”

Both watched intently as the cubes of sugar dropped into their cups without a tong or hand touching them, and then the creamer poured a small amount into the cup for Heseltine. The cups and saucers floated over to the tables at their sides and gently set down. Four more cups and saucers floated up from the lower shelf on the cart, and she again poured them full from the same pot that shouldn’t have been able to hold more than it had already been dispensed. After serving the four Ladies, Lady Dash had refused any tea, she poured two more cups, one each for Mr. Yueshi and Castor. She then bowed to the Princess and Prince and left the room, leaving the serving cart to one side.

For a few minutes no words were spoken as they took their tea. Princess Sparkle had told Castor in advance that she would wait for a short while to give the two men a chance to regain their equilibrium.

She took a final sip, put her cup back on the saucer, and floated both down to the small table beside her chair. She cleared her throat to get the attention of the two men. “As Castor told you, Prime Minister, what we have to tell you is very important.

She smiled happily. “First, I want to thank you for allowing us to establish an embassy, and to place our chancery in Little Whinging,” she said sincerely.

Prince Blood nodded his head in acknowledgement, murmuring softly, “Yes, thank you.” The Princess gave him an exasperated look, but said nothing to him.

“We have already established a protective perimeter wall around the portal, itself, and begun clearing the forest debris from the site,” she continued. “Our architects have already started adapting our chancery plans to fit your building codes, and we will begin approaching the architects you provided about building the compound later today.”

The Prime Minister nodded to her, “It was my pleasure. I’m sure both worlds will benefit from having your embassy here, in the United Kingdom.” He glanced over at Castor. “I’m sure Detective Inspector Searle will be happy to act as your guide in London.”

Castor nodded agreeably. It was his job, after all.

Prince Blood smirked and murmured, “Better an Embassy here than in a country you aren’t on good terms with, I’m sure.” He paused. “Or even on good terms.” He quirked an eyebrow, “Correct?”

The Princess gave the Prince another stern look, which he ignored, and then huffed. She turned back to John Major. “Castor told us of your desire to establish an embassy in our world, which we would like to see happen, ourselves. However, there are things you do not know that make that a difficult proposition.” Lady Dash gave an impressive yawn and drifted over their heads to the windows. Lady Rarity and the Prince both gave her disapproving looks.

“As your agents no doubt informed you, the portal is responsible for our appearing to you as people instead of ponies. It took us a bit over two weeks to figure out how to reverse that at will.” She gestured at Lady Dash, who was now sitting upright with her hooves crossed, slowly flapping her wings and looking at the cars in the street, and the men positioned around them. More than one were staring back at her.

Seeing everything you thought you knew about flight binned was more than a little disconcerting.

“And it works in the reverse for someone from this world going over to ours, as your agent, Mr. Carroll, demonstrated.” She frowned. “That forms part of the problem. In pony form, your people are at the functional level of a foal, a child, even though they have an adult pony’s body. Talking, thank Celestia, is not an issue.” She sighed.

“Intellectually, you are unchanged, but you must learn how to walk all over again. Based on experience, it will take several weeks before you master that skill enough to move around without tripping or falling down when just walking or going up and down stairs. Complicating that, of course, is that while you are learning, you will be subconsciously expecting things to be the same as how you walk here, which won’t work well because you’re a quadruped. Your ingrained reflexes will actually work against you.

“And for those that are fortunate enough to gain wings, you must also learn how to fly — a skill that takes years to truly master.” She looked away for a moment, “As I have discovered.”

“Experience?” the Prime Minister said before she could continue.

The Princess blushed slightly. “Yes. While I told Castor,” she nodded in his direction, “that we ‘found’ the portal only recently, we have actually known of its existence for about fifteen months. We just didn’t know exactly where it was.”

The men sat still a moment, considering that.

She smiled wryly. “You see, someone came through the portal into our Everfree Forest from your world a year ago in the spring. They travelled through it about half-a-kilometer before collapsing at the edge of AJ’s family orchard.” She nodded over to Lady Jack. “They had been viciously beaten, and when we found them we rushed them to the local hospital. While they recovered, Guards followed their trail in the Everfree forest. Unfortunately, while that led them to the general area, there is a trick to using the portal that they did not know, preventing them from immediately finding it. I, myself, searched for it quite diligently, several times, without success.” She shook her head, chagrined. “And I am sort of an expert in finding hidden things.”

“This person, when they had recovered enough, declared they did not remember where the portal was, and, in fact, had not realized they had even transformed until they woke in the hospital.”

She frowned as she said, “That was not quite the truth, we recently discovered. They did know where the portal was, but were afraid to tell us. Their situation here was rather unpleasant and they much preferred to stay in our world for reasons I completely understand.”

She gave them another quick grin. “Which is also the reason I have not mentioned either a name or gender. They have been perfectly delightful to be around, and adapted well to our world. They now consider themselves to be Equestrians, and have been granted citizenship by the Princesses.”

The two ministers exchanged concerned looks.

Castor, on the other hand frowned. He knew of someone who was from this area and had allegedly disappeared about fifteen months ago — the Dursleys’ missing nephew. Add to that that Mr. Yueshi, the Equestrians’ solicitor, had mentioned a child being abused at the Dursleys. It wasn’t difficult to connect the dots and figure out who this mysterious “they” was — Harry Potter, a child, now eleven.

“We knew it was only a matter of time before we discovered the portal,” Princess Sparkle said, “and thus we put together a series of plans on what to do when that happened. Which included practicing how to walk as a biped.” She looked over at Lady Jack. “Would you demonstrate, AJ?”

“Shurely,” came the quick response. She stood, pulled off her dress, transformed, and started clomping about the room on her hind legs.

If they were startled that she had disrobed so nonchalantly, and that she hadn’t been wearing any underwear, the two men disguised it well.

“As you can see, it’s a bit awkward, but it worked quite well in preparing our people. Just for your information, the entire length of her leg on the floor, from hoof to hock, is the equivalent of your toe-nails-to-heel. If you were to transform into a pony you would actually be walking on your middle fingers’ and toes’ nails. I was told it takes a while to get used to that feeling.

“Through interviews with this person over the last year, we learned much of what to expect in your world, and adapted our plans on what to do if we found this missing portal, accordingly. So far, things are going much better than we had anticipated.”

“Yes,” interrupted the Prince, “One of our scenarios included a situation much like your video ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still.’” He smiled a bit grimly, “At least there aren’t tanks and guards surrounding the house.” He smirked. “At least, not obviously so, correct?” He again raised an eyebrow while looking at the three men.

They smiled back, their expressions carefully blank, but not denying the accusation.

Lady Jack hopped back up on her armchair, remaining a pony.

“And this person’s experience is why we know it will be difficult for you to adapt to walking if someone is transformed in our world.

“And then there are the problems with writing — the skill you need most when operating an embassy. While we do have a quill-holder that can be attached to a hoof, it will still take time to master using it — our transformed friend likened it to writing with the palm of the hand. The quill-holder is actually an invention of this person’s.

“Some of that can be mitigated with typewriters, of course, but it will take a few weeks of practice to master that skill with hooves.”

“However, we discovered when Mr. Yueshi went through the portal that he remained a human.

“And that is where the real problem lies.”

She paused a moment, apparently to gather her thoughts.

“We know why Mr. Yueshi did not change, and why Mr. Carroll did. What we cannot do, just yet, is accurately predict who will and who will not transform when going through the portal. I think I know of a simple solution, but it needs verification. With a dozen or so volunteers, we can easily remedy that problem.” She burst into a bright smile and wriggled slightly. “It will be so much fun doing that research, I can hardly wait.” She sighed happily and stared out the windows for a moment.

“Twilight!” Lady Rarity said sternly. The Princess gave her head a shake and turned to give both men a long look.

“The basic difference between the two men who went through the portal is one of . . . magic,” she said seriously.

Both men raised their eyebrows at this bold, to them, statement. Castor nodded when they looked at him. “That’s why I called you yesterday to arrange this meeting. This is, literally, world changing,” he said softly.

“Magic is real,” the Princess said, “both in our world and in this one. Magic is responsible for this room being bigger on the inside than outside. Magic made it possible to put fourteen cups of tea in a pot that could reasonably be expected to hold only three. Magic made it possible for us to move our cups and saucers around without touching them.” She paused, floated her cup up, and took a sip of her tea to give them time to think.

“Magic is different here than at home,” she continued. “In Equus, magic is everywhere, and it affects everything. And everything on Equus has magic in it. Even the plants. You cannot escape it, or its influence.

“Not all creatures or plants can manipulate magic, obviously, but they still have magic in them.”

She stopped and called out loudly, “Spike! You can come in now.”

All three men stared in silent amazement as a small purple and green bipedal dragon walked into the room from the kitchen.

“Finally,” he said, “I was about to fall asleep in there.”

Their jaws dropped open.

“Spike is my number one assistant!” the Princess said proudly as the Prince rolled his eyes.

“And she’s my mum!” he added. “Hatched me from my egg ten years ago!” He trotted over to her and leaned against her leg as she leaned forward and wrapped an arm around his shoulders.

“Yep, you sure are. And I couldn’t ask for a better son!” She nuzzled the dragon, then turned back to the men. “Here, magic is around, we can feel it and use it, but it is not nearly as intense and pervasive as it is at home. And few creatures here either have it or can manipulate it. So few, in fact, that in our explorations around Little Whinging we have yet to come across any creatures that naturally have or use magic. Or, at least, none that we can detect easily.

“Mr. Yueshi has no magic capability at all, thus he went through the portal unchanged. Mr. Carroll apparently does have some small amount of magic, and thus the portal changed him.” She paused. “When I scanned him after he went through the portal, I found that he had some magical talent, the ability to use magic, but not enough for it to have ever shown itself in your world, except as occasional and random ‘odd things happen around me’ situations.” She smiled. “That’s why we need volunteers. I can scan them for magic and see at what point there is a trigger level for our world’s magic to react to your world’s magic.” She wriggled happily in place. “I can hardly wait!” Then she sighed.

“The problem I alluded to is for those who do not have magic. We have no idea what the implications are for a completely non-magical being to suddenly appear in our magic-saturated world. Will this person gradually adapt and start to develop magic? Will this person suddenly, one day, transform while in our world? Will they remain the same but gradually become able to use magic like we do?

“Or will their body reject the magic around them and make them sick? Will the magic reject them and make them sick? Will the magic flow into them, trying to fill that vacant space, gradually filling them up and then not stopping? Will it pour more and more magic into them until they explode from the stored magic because they cannot do anything to expel the magic as the creatures in our world do naturally just by living and breathing? Or, having never had magic, will they become dependent on it, and thus become ill or die when they come back here, home?

“And while a few hours seem to have no effect, what about longer exposures? Will these symptoms take days, weeks, months, or years to manifest? Will symptoms occur in our world, or only after the person returns home, here? Is there a time limit, where if they return home before that limit is reached, nothing happens?

“Or will nothing at all happen?”

“We simply do . . . not . . . know. And until we can determine what will happen, we cannot, in good conscience, allow your people to come to our world unless they already have some magical capacity. And even then we need to run periodic tests to see if there are cumulative effects that might harm them.”

She leaned back in her chair. “And if we simply refused to let your people set up an embassy without any sort of explanation, we would never be able to establish the level of trust we wish to have with you. You would always wonder why we allowed so little information to flow from us to you while taking as much from you as you will allow.” She sighed. “Hence, our revelations today.” She leaned forward again.

“Complicating everything, however, are your cultural taboos regarding magic. I’ve read in your history how your religions have hunted down and killed those who you thought could do magic. Your official religion here in this country, and several others, even exhorts its followers to ‘not suffer a witch to live.’ According to the newspapers I’ve seen, there are some countries where there are ongoing witch-hunts to this day. Killing people simply because their neighbours are looking for a scapegoat for their own deficiencies. Or maybe those people really can do magic, who knows?” She shrugged. “Although any competent magic user could easily escape an unorganized mob. And in countries where they are not doing that, there are many who feel the same way. This makes us a bit nervous to proclaim that we can do magic. As well as allowing just anyone to visit our world — after all, I’ve read that you have made some of your nuclear weapons small enough to disguise as a standard briefcase.

“So, with those thoughts in mind, we require you to keep our abilities as a secret, to be divulged only to those who have a legitimate need to know. Yes, we know it will eventually come out, but we want to delay that for as long as possible — to give us a chance to establish ourselves as no one’s enemy.”

She paused and smiled. “Naturally, I don’t expect you to immediately agree. And you can, of course, completely ignore our request.” She stopped smiling. “That would, obviously, hinder our relationship quite a bit if there are antagonistic reactions from your people.”