Chapter 7

     Rarity insisted on the most expensive restaurant in Diagon Alley for lunch. A pony with buck teeth and a black tuxedo lead them to a table in the far corner.

"Rarity?" Fluttershy asked after they ordered. "What really happened to my parents?"

     Rarity was clearly uncomfortable. She avoided eye contact and tapped her hooves restlessly.

"What you must understand," she said. "Is that not all ponies are good. Some of them go bad. A while back, a colt went as bad as they can go. His name was p... His name was p..."

Fluttershy noticed Rarity struggling to get the words out.

"Perhaps you could write it down," Fluttershy suggested.

"I haven't got a piece of parchment on me," Rarity said. "His name was Ponymort." Rarity choked on her own words.

"Ponymort?" Fluttershy echoed. 

     Rarity covered Fluttershy's mouth with her hoof. She glanced at the other tables to make sure nopony else heard. 

"Don't say it!"

"Sorry," Fluttershy apologized.

     "You-know-who," Rarity continued, "Wanted to rule all of ponykind. Anypony who opposed him ended up dead. One night, he went to pay your parents a visit. They fought against him. He killed your parents, but when he tried doing the same to you, his spell backfired."

"W-what happened to him?" Fluttershy asked shakily.

"Some say he died. I think he's still out there, too tired to carry on. But that's why you're famous. You're the filly who lived."

"Rarity?" Fluttershy asked. "Do we have to eat? I'm not that hungry."

     Rarity smiled reassuringly. "Whatever you want darling. I don't like this place anyhow. It's too plain."

She lead Fluttershy out of the restaurant. 

**********************

     "Here's your ticket!" Rarity shouted over the noise of the bustling train station.

Fluttershy pushed along a cart with books, a small suitcase with her robes, and her rabbit cage with Angel inside.

"I simply must get going," Rarity said. "I'll see you after you get off the train. Goodbye!"

     Fluttershy looked down at her ticket.

"But Rarity! This says Platform 9 3/4. There's no such place, is there?"

Fluttershy looked up an realized she was talking to nopony.

     After a few minutes of mental preparation, Fluttershy gathered the courage to ask one of the conductors.

"Excuse me sir," she said to one of the stallions in uniform. "Do you know the way to Platform 9 3/4?"

"Platform 9 3/4?" He echoed. "Think you're being funny?"

He rolled his eyes and walked away.

     Just when Fluttershy was ready to give up, she overheard a woman talking. 

"...every year, packed with Blank Flanks..."

She looked and saw a blue pony with a brown mane leading five other ponies.

Fluttershy followed them.

     They stopped at a pillar in between Platform 9 and Platform 10.

"Alright," she said. "Big Macintosh. You go first."

A red pony with red hair and freckles pushed his cart full speed into the pillar. But instead of crashing, he simply disappeared.

     "Alright," the blue mare said. "Go on Pinkie!" 

She looked towards a pink filly with a long curly mane.

     "She's not Pinkie! I am!" Shouted a cyan pony with a messy multicolored rainbow mane.

"Sorry Pinkie," the mare said, looking towards the rainbow one.

"Only joking," she said. "I'm Dashie, not Pinkie."

     The two of them laughed as they ran towards the pillar. They disappeared just as the older one had.

Fluttershy was bewildered at how anypony could confuse those two ponies, as well as how they had disappeared.

     "Excuse me," Fluttershy said. "Could you tell me how to-" 

"How to get onto the platform? Of course! It's Applejack's first time as well."

She motioned towards an orange filly with a brown cowgirl hat about the same size as Fluttershy.

     "I'm Mrs Cake by the way," The blue mare said. "All you must do is run at the pillar between Platforms 9 and 10. Go ahead!"

She gently nudged Fluttershy.

     Fluttershy took off in a full speed trot. She braced herself for the pain that tends to occur when you hit a brick wall, but instead, she found herself in an entirely different train station. She looked around and noticed the signs on the walls.

Platform 9 3/4