Flight of the Aethonans

My friend Hermione Granger doesn't really like horses. She will tell you this herself--she's quite outspoken, is Hermione; and I have known since our first day at primary school that she's never really liked horses.

I, on the other hand, have loved horses madly for as long as I can remember. And when Hermione and I turned eleven, and she went away to that school in Scotland, my parents bought me a pony to be my new best friend and because I had won a scholarship to the local high school, which meant we could afford a pony as well as school fees.

Now don't go thinking of Bayard as a tiny, furry, child's-stuffed-toy sort of pony.

"He's very big for a pony," Hermione remarked when she saw him for the first time, when she came home from that school of hers for the Christmas holidays. "Are you sure he isn't a horse?" she asked.

"He's fourteen-two," I replied.

"Fourteen to what?" Hermione returned. "Only you don't sound as though you mean he's fourteen also, as well as being a pony, I mean."

"He's fourteen-two hands high," I explained. "Fourteen hands plus two inches. A hand is four inches, and Bayard is fourteen hands, two inches tall. If he were over fourteen-two, he would be a horse."

Hermione shrugged. "Well, he certainly is a lovely pony, Pippa. I do like his coat colour. It's like mahogany."

"It's called bay," I said. "Which is why he's called Bayard."

Hermione smiled. "Well, I didn't think he was called Bayard because a nice old wizard found him in a cave and brought him to you for Christmas."

"Nor did Father Christmas bring him," I replied.

We laughed, and turned to walk back to the house. We'd both stopped believing in Father Christmas at about the same time, two or three winters earlier. At nearly twelve, I wasn't sure whether or not I still believed in wizards, or if I ever really would believe in them, despite what I'd heard about Hermione's school. Her school wasn't only far away from our Home Counties hometown; it was, quite literally, in a different world to mine. Not that I'd been born into a world of hunters and horse trials, of green wellies in the porch and martingales hung with the dog leads behind the door, or jodhpurs tossed higgledy-piggledy into the washing machine along with jumpers and jeans.

But Pony Club opened doors as fascinating to me as any Hermione might unlock with a tap of her wand and a muttered "Alohomora!" She studied astronomy and herbs and creatures I could not imagine being as magical as horses, and told me what she dared not tell her two new school-friends: that flying on a broomstick made her feel airsick.

I studied astronomy and French and did dressage tests and learned to stay with Bayard when he flew three-foot fences. I had little more interest in football and cricket than Hermione had in Quidditch; but I did wish she would introduce me to her two best school-friends, both of whom were boys.

"Not boyfriends," she told me one day during the summer of our fifteenth year. She'd told me this at least once every summer for the past three years. And never once in any of those summers was I sure I believed her. "Harry and Ron just happen to be boys. We're in the same house. You know that, Pippa."

"I know what living in the same house with boys can mean," I replied. "Even if they are only fourteen, too."

"Well, actually, Harry will be fifteen next week," Hermione said without batting an eye. "You must help me think of a present for him. ... No, Pippa, not anything from a saddler's catalogue." Even after more than ten years of friendship I could not get Hermione to drool over horse gear with me, not even in online catalogues.

* * * *

So when she phoned me one evening in the July before our seventeenth birthdays and asked if she could come and watch me ride in one of the summer's first area competitions, I was quite pleasantly surprised.

"Of course, I'd love for you to come," I heard myself gush. "But it's only dressage this weekend. We're going in an open show in August. Much more exciting for you to watch."

"Yes, but who knows where I'll be in August," Hermione replied, sounding for a moment more like the Duchess of Cornwall than a student with no social secretary.

"Hermione--" I began with a giggle; only to stop as I remembered the previous summer, when she had been home from school for barely a week before--almost literally--vanishing. I had not seen her in the Christmas or Easter holidays. And now here she was, phoning out of the blue and wanting to come and watch me ride Bayard on what the weathermen were saying was going to be the hottest Saturday of the summer so far.

"So ... how've you been?" I asked.

"Oh ... great; you know--busy," she replied, in the tone of voice in which for both of us "busy" had once meant "buried in a book; can't come out to play."

"Err ... A levels?" I asked.

"NEWTs."

"Ah." Eyes of? I wanted to ask, but restrained myself. I had no fears of Hermione shutting me--like the Bayard of legend or like Merlin--up in a cave for years; but I had not teased her about being a witch since the day she had told me she had a place at what her parents and mine referred to as "the Scottish school." I had made some clever remark that day--I don't remember now what I said--and she had gone away to school and not written to me for months. She had come home at Christmas, and had come to meet Bayard; and when I had told her I'd been afraid she'd been angry and hadn't written because she didn't like me anymore, she'd shaken her head and said she'd been afraid my parents would be angry if she sent me a letter by owl.

We'd laughed (and wept a bit); and though she'd refused my offer of a ride on Bayard, she'd never failed to reply to my letters about him, and about Pony Club and dressage and show jumping and hunting and cross country, and on and on, ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

* * * *

"So I just thought I'd like to watch you and Bayard," she said now, on the phone. "After all, who knows how many summer Saturdays we'll have to just ... have."

"You sound like Gran," I said. "You won't even be seventeen until September; and they've raised the upper-age limit for Pony Club membership to twenty-five, so I hope I'll be riding and showing for at least a few more years. Seeing as I'm not likely to meet any unattached wizards anytime soon."

"I'll send you a picture of my Potions master."

"Is he cute?"

Hermione snorted, sounding more like my pony now than my grandmother.

"Right," I said. "Well, then, is he intelligent?"

"Oh, yes, he's highly intelligent. Frighteningly so."

"I never thought I'd hear you say intelligence could be frightening."

Hermione did not reply at once; I heard my words echo in the hum of the line.

"Is he good?" I asked, after a moment, and quietly; and not meaning anything remotely related to sex.

"I hope so," Hermione said, just as quietly. "Because in some ways he's amazingly stupid."

Another moment of silence, with only the hum of the connection, followed this statement.

"Well, come on and meet Bayard and me at Old Hall Farm on Saturday," I said, trying to sound as bracing as the Pony Club District Commissioner. "My test is at 11.20."

* * * *

I was at Old Hall Farm at 9.30 on Saturday; and coming out of the show secretary's tent I ran into Hermione. I was wearing breeches, long boots, and my Pony Club sweatshirt over my white show shirt. Hermione wore jeans and a jumper and trainers, and looked as normal as any of the sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers, and other supporters wandering about with cameras and binoculars round their necks and dogs on leads. Her bushy brown hair was pulled back and held more or less in place with an elastic band. I'd plaited my own unruly hair and felt I had to keep checking it wasn't coming out of the plait.

Hermione greeted me as enthusiastically as if we were six-year-olds at my first gymkhana, and said, "Turn round, Pippa, and I'll pin your number on."

"I haven't got my jacket on yet," I replied; but I handed her the number as we left the tent area, telling myself that when I had put my jacket on she would in fact pin my number on and not secure it with any sort of spell. Captain Russell's eagle eye would be sure to spot any deviation from the dressage dress code, and I valued the points in these tests as much as Hermione and I had always valued high marks in our schoolwork.

"Where is Bayard?" Hermione asked, looking around the vast field at the myriad of ponies and horses being ridden or lunged or merely led about.

"He's over by the red and gold trailer," I began--when Hermione halted abruptly, frowning across at a rank of portaloos by the hedge at the far side of the field.

I saw a number of people, riders and others, standing about more or less patiently near the portaloos, but all I saw that looked suspicious was a very young child riding an even younger-looking horse, bareback, with only a headcollar and lead rope.

"That's a very dangerous thing to do," I said.

"It certainly is," agreed Hermione. Then: "What's dangerous?" she asked, turning and frowning now at me.

"That little kid on that colt--or filly," I replied.

I started towards them, not knowing what I could do with a strange horse but feeling someone ought to be doing something ...

"Fillies are the females, right?" Hermione asked, hurrying beside me.

"Yes," I replied--and slowed down from my extended walk as a young woman came out of one of the portaloos and hurried towards the child and the young horse, speaking so softly I could not hear her from where I was. But I could see her lips moving, and the look on her face; and I hoped that if the young horse got soothing pats the young human would not receive any harsher treatment.

I turned and set off again, towards my own pony, tethered near the red and gold trailer; only to find myself facing two young men hurrying across the grass as if to intercept Hermione and me.

I could see Bayard contentedly pulling hay from his net; and the two boys were interestingly good-looking. They weren't dressed for riding, but I thought they looked rather like horsemen, being lean and lanky, not too tall, and looking tanned and fit.

"Hello!" one of them--the fair-haired one--called, sounding as if he were greeting an old friend; and now that we were all approaching each other I could see that both boys were looking at Hermione and seemed pleased to see her.

"What are you doing here?" the dark-haired one asked.

His question sounded friendly; Hermione replied, sounding anything but. "What are you all doing here?" she demanded, as if the two boys were a team of Suffolk Punches just arrived at an all-Clydesdale show.

"I live here," replied the blond one; the one with the blue eyes and the golden down on his upper lip and chin.

"Oh, right, in the old Hall, I suppose," Hermione said. Her eyes flashed just like those of the woman with the young child and horse.

The boy merely gave a little laugh, a gentle sort of exhalation, like Bayard snorting at a toad on the rim of his water trough. But his companion said, "We just rode over to watch the dressage. We reckoned there ought to be some airs above the ground."

"Airs above the ground!" It was my turn to laugh. "This is Pony Club," I told him, "not the Spanish Riding School. We're not even up to flying changes at this level."

And then, because I was dying to know if they were wizards (because I had never known Hermione to know any horsemen), I asked, "So, did you ride over on horses, then?"

"What else would we ride?" the blond boy returned.

Brooms? I wondered. "Where are they?" I hoped I sounded more interested than suspicious.

The dark-haired boy waved a hand back the way they'd come, back towards the hedge behind the portaloos. "Do you see that blue horsebox?"

I did; but only just--the bright sunlight shimmered on hedgerow and grass so that my eyes were dazzled and I wasn't sure the hint of movement I saw was two horses, or one, or none.

"Where's your horse, then?" the blond boy asked me.

"Over here." I set off again towards Bayard. Hermione and the boys followed, Hermione hissing, "Just you two mind your airs above the ground! You may be qualified, Gary; but Anthony's still underage. And no w-- no one has any business bringing Aethonans to a Pony Club show."

"Do you see any Aethonans?" Gary--the dark-haired boy--shot back at her.

"I don't see anything--yet," Hermione retorted, in a tone that sounded so edgy I felt I had to try and calm everyone down. What I felt like saying was, Will you all please just shut up or go away--I've got to ride a test in just over an hour! What I actually said was, "I see two friends of a friend of mine. Will you introduce us, Hermione?"

She had the grace to blush. "Of course. Anthony Goldstein, Gary Stuart--this is Pippa Cheshunt."

"Pippa Cheshunt with the chestnut hair," Gary murmured, grinning at me with eyes as big and brown as Bayard's. "And this must be your horse," he added, as Bayard, turning from his hay net, nickered a loud and happy greeting to me.

"Actually he's a pony," Hermione said. She paused; and then, her face reddening again, she added, "And Anthony and Gary are wizards."

"Muggle-born, of course." Gary grinned again and made a sweeping bow.

"Speak for yourself," Anthony told him.

"Well, at least I know what airs above the ground are," Gary replied. "So, are we your first wizards, Pippa?" he went on, giving me a look that made my face and neck suddenly feel redder than my hair.

"You're the first I've met that I know of," I told him, and turned to busy myself checking Bayard's plaits, which were as apt as mine to come loose, his mane being even thicker and more unmanageable than my hair.

"You're the first, Gary," I heard Hermione say in a discouraging-sounding tone.

I picked up Bayard's saddle and bridle, hoping the wizards wouldn't make any more awkward remarks. Or any offers to "help" me tack up, as Hermione had once told me she'd been tempted to do back when I was still learning to sort out the various straps and buckles of the bridle and wasn't tall enough or strong enough to do up the girth when Bayard didn't want it as tight as it needed to be.

Pony Club dressage doesn't call for double bridles with their even more numerous straps and curb chains; and I'd learnt long ago how to tighten Bayard's girth once I was in the saddle.

And within minutes his saddle and bridle were on, and Gary was offering me a leg up.

I thought he seemed quite competent and comfortable with Bayard, as did Anthony; and I wondered if Hermione's utter lack of interest in horses stemmed from her being a witch, preoccupied with magical matters; or if it was as much just a part of her individuality as a talent for French was of mine. She'd always been so eager to learn all she could about so many things, and when she'd received her letter from "the Scottish school" she'd been over the moon, and then in the depths of despair when she found that the local library had none of the books on her list or on the real wizarding world.

She'd never told me much about that world of hers, following local custom, which was a sort of live-and-let-live, let-sleeping-Crups-lie policy. She was the only witch I'd ever known, apart from old Mrs Turner who lived in Keeper's Cottage at Underwood; and if there were any wizards in the neighbourhood, I didn't know them as such. Dad's nickname for our town was Finger-on-the-Nose; I'd first heard him call it that in front of Mr Granger, and the two men had laughed so that I'd thought they were sharing a ribald joke.

As I rode off now to begin my warm-up, I found myself wondering if an Aethonan was anything like a Crup. Old Hall Farm was one of the venues where dogs were allowed at horse shows, but they had to be kept on short leads and not left tethered to their owners' cars or trailers.

Had Gary and Anthony left their Aethonans tied up by the hedge? Had Gary's hands really felt that strong and that gentle when he'd boosted me up into Bayard's saddle? Had he decided to have a day off from shaving, or was the stubble on his cheeks and chin the beginnings of a wizard's flowing beard? What did qualified wizards do for a living? Did they wear jeans and donkey jackets in the magical world?

Would Captain Russell order me out of the arena if I rode in wearing my sweatshirt instead of my riding jacket?

Feeling my cheeks reddening again at my carelessness, I turned Bayard away from the warm-up ring and set off back towards the red and gold trailer at a working trot.

* * * *

Hermione, Gary, and Anthony were nowhere in sight. My jacket was hanging just where I'd left it, my number pinned neatly, and nonmagically, in place. But nowhere near the trailer, or anywhere else that I could see across the well-populated field, were a witch with bushy brown hair and two wizards in Muggle clothes.

"Whatever is the matter, Pippa?" came a well-known voice; and Mrs Falkner, the Pony Club District Commissioner, came into view. She was leading her son's warmblood, Quigley Up and Over, the horse she'd been trying to talk my dad into buying for me ever since her son had left school and gone to work for his dad.

"Is something the matter with Bayard?" Mrs Falkner asked me. To her credit, she did not sound hopeful.

I shook my head, and tried to smile reassuringly at her. My DC found competitions far more stressful than I did. Perhaps if I'd been more suited to her son's sixteen-hand eventer than to my own cobby pony ...

"How is Quigs?" I asked, putting a hand out to stroke the restive roan's glossy neck.

"He's fine. How are you?" Mrs Falkner shaded her eyes with her hand to peer up at me. "What are you looking for, Pippa? You know your parents won't be here until just before your test."

"I know." I sighed. "But my friend was here. Hermione Granger."

Mrs Falkner sniffed. She didn't mind that Hermione was a witch, merely that she wasn't a horsewoman. For the first time it occurred to me that Mrs Falkner might know more witches--and wizards--than I did. After all, old Mrs Turner was called in to treat all the local horse people's hacks and hunters as often as were either of the district's qualified veterinarians.

"Mrs Falkner," I said, "what is an Aethonan? Do you know?"

She frowned. "Don't tell me Hermione Granger's trying to sell you an Aethonan!"

"I don't even know what one is," I replied.

"She couldn't. She wouldn't. She COULDN'T," Mrs Falkner muttered to herself. "Not Hermione Granger. She's even more of a stickler for the proprieties than Captain Russell."

"Please ... Mrs Falkner ... what couldn't Hermione do?" I asked. "I mean ... of course she wouldn't do anything she shouldn't do. I know Hermione. She isn't trying to sell me anything."

Is she? I wondered.

Why, after all, had she suddenly expressed such an interest in coming to watch me ride today? Were things so unsettled in her world that she really felt she must make the most of every opportunity to spend time with me in mine? Had she really been unpleasantly surprised to see Gary and Anthony here? Or had she just not expected them to come over and greet her and me?

"What is an Aethonan?" I asked Mrs Falkner, more urgently this time, seeing her turn from me to dart a glance around the field.

My eyes followed hers.

So did Quigs's eyes, and Bayard's.

And suddenly Quigs threw his head up, and neighed.

Bayard pricked his ears. Then he neighed too.

Mrs Falkner shook her head. She took her hand from her eyes and pointed across the field, towards the hedge near the portaloos; the hedge that separated the field from the ruins of the old Hall.

I looked, and saw the blue horsebox Gary had indicated. I saw Gary as well, and Anthony, and Hermione. And for an instant I saw a tall chestnut horse, tethered to the hedge near the horsebox.

The next instant the horse had vanished.

But just before it did, I distinctly saw Gary Stuart raise what looked like a riding crop and give the chestnut horse a rap on the head, between the ears.

"Come with me, Pippa." Mrs Falkner leapt onto Quigs's back as lightly and easily as if she'd had wings.

That chestnut did have wings, I told myself, as I sent Bayard after Quigs.

Not for worlds would Mrs Falkner have galloped across a field crowded with pedestrians and dogs and young horses. But her horse was moving at such a fast extended trot that Bayard had to canter to keep up with him.

"Heads up!" Mrs Falkner called in her DC's voice. "'Ware horses!"

She ought to have yelled "Charge!", I thought. I was trying not to think about the chestnut.

It had wings, I told myself again. Like Pegasus.

A winged horse.

Here.

Bang in the middle of the homeliest of the Home Counties.

I wondered what Dad would have said if he'd been here.

"Hermione Granger!" called Mrs Falkner, when we were still some sixty metres from the blue horsebox.

The chestnut had vanished, but Hermione and Gary and Anthony were in plain sight, standing watching us approach. Everyone was watching us. Dogs were barking at us. Horses were neighing and snorting. Several little kids were crying.

Mrs Falkner ignored them all. She rode straight at the horsebox and halted, smoothly and squarely, twenty paces away. I brought Bayard down through a bumpy trot to a walk. He didn't seem to want to stand still. And nor did Quigs. He tossed his head and tried to rear.

"Steady, Quigs. ... You." Mrs Falkner pointed her dressage whip at Gary. "What on earth do you think you're doing, hitting that horse over the head? This is the Pony Club, not Hogwarts. Not that Albus Dumbledore would let you get away with treating any magical creature in that brutal fashion. What are you playing at?"

Gary's face was redder than the chestnut's coat had been, and his dark eyes blazed as fiercely as Mrs. Falkner's. But he spoke quietly; and respectfully, I thought. "I wasn't playing at anything, ma'am. And I wasn't being ... brutal."

Here he seemed to grind his teeth. Then he continued, "I was Disillusioning the horse. You can't bring an Aethonan to a Muggle show."

"Bl-- absolutely right, you can't," Mrs Falkner agreed. I wondered if she'd heard the words "Muggle show" the way I had--as a barb, a cutting comment about us as much as about our horses. "Nevertheless, you have brought one here. Two, if my horse's eyes don't deceive me."

Gary's colour deepened. "They don't deceive you," he said.

"Well? Why have you brought two of your horses to this Muggle show?" Mrs Falkner spoke the last two words through gritted teeth.

Gary held her gaze, but not challengingly, it seemed to me. "I needed Hermione," he said.

I couldn't believe that some girls--and even some women--among the spectators actually tittered. Had they no sense at all? I wondered. Or were they merely as ignorant of what was happening here as Hermione was of what I had expected to happen here today, namely, a Muggle Pony Club dressage competition?

"He's right." Hermione's voice quavered a little. But she continued, "He needed me to go back with him to Scotland."

"She's right." Anthony spoke up now. "He needed to fetch her as quickly as possible, and he couldn't Apparate."

"Why not?" Mrs Falkner seemed to know exactly what they were talking about. "Apparate" and "Disillusioning"--these were terms that made no more sense to me than "Piaffe" and "Lunging" made to Hermione. Of course she had a concept of "lunging," just as I had of "disillusioning." But our understandings of these words did not apply in each other's worlds. Two worlds separated by a common language, Dad often said, paraphrasing a famous Muggle.

"You're of age," Mrs Falkner was saying to Gary.

"I'm not," said Anthony.

"You needed him as well?" Mrs Falkner asked, still looking at Gary, who nodded towards Anthony and said, "They're his horses. He lives here. I'm based in Glasgow. I could have Apparated here, but Hermione can't Apparate back to Scotland.

Mrs Falkner was nodding too, now; and I felt I was beginning to understand as well. Hermione, not having turned seventeen, was underage and therefore couldn't Apparate. Nor were she and Anthony permitted to fly the Aethonans on their own, for the same reason she had never given in to the temptation to "help" me tack up Bayard. I knew that somewhere in London (although perhaps not at Whitehall) there was an entire ministry in whose remit was the enforcement of laws against underage magic. But what I actually understood--as did Mrs Falkner--was the etiquette involved when one man let another use his horses.

"You'd want to see they got back home safely," she said to Anthony.

"And that I got safely to Scotland," Hermione added. "I hate to fly, and Anthony's going to ride double with me. The horses could fly home on their own, unless something happened ..."

Her voice trailed off, but the look she gave me spoke plainly of fear of more than flying. And I thought how she sounded now so unlike my grandmother, who was quite old and had very little fear of dying, but a great desire to do as much as she could, see as many of her friends as she could, while she was still here.

I slipped down from Bayard's back, and led him over to Hermione. She came to meet me, and we found ourselves hugging each other.

"I didn't know they'd be here," I heard her whisper. "I knew I wouldn't be home very long this summer, but I didn't know I'd have to leave today."

"I'm glad you came today," I told her. "I'm glad I came. Can you stay long enough to watch me ride my test?"

Another thought occurred to me. "Shall I tell your parents?"

"They'll know by now. Dumbledore will have sent them an owl." She turned to look at Gary and Anthony. "I don't suppose we can stay and watch Pippa ride her test?"

"She's just ridden one." Captain Russell rode up on his iron-grey hunter. "Anyone who can canter across a field hard upon that animal's hooves--" he jerked his head towards Quigs-- "across a field full of dogwalkers and youngstock--" here he smiled at the woman holding the small child with one hand and the filly's lead rope with the other-- "without leaving any dead or wounded in her wake deserves either a sound thrashing or a round of applause."

He winked at me; and a small scattering of applause actually broke out among the onlookers. "And before I die I should like to see an Aethonan. Two, if you'd be so kind," Captain Russell went on, turning to the two wizards.

Gary and Anthony exchanged a glance. Then Gary looked at Captain Russell. "I'll need to lift the Disillusionment Charm, sir."

Captain Russell nodded. "Just so long as you Disillusion the rest of us afterwards, or whatever you call that forgetfulness spell."

"Yes, sir."

Gary gave a flick of his wrist, and what I now realised was not a riding crop slid out of the sleeve of his jacket and into his hand.

"Is that what your wand looks like?" I whispered to Hermione.

"Except his is willow," she whispered back.

And then we both went quiet as Gary raised his wand and rapped a spot in the air a few inches away from and above his own head.

There was a snort, and a rustle, and the sound of a hoof kicking the panel of a horsebox; and before us appeared a tall chestnut horse--a stallion--with great red-gold wings folded along his sleek sides.

Anthony moved to the creature's head, and as he began to stroke the horse's face, Gary took a few steps to one side and raised his wand again.

Another rap!--and before us stood a second horse, bright chestnut like the first, but a mare.

If anyone in the crowd gasped, or screamed, or fainted, I was unaware of it. I had eyes and ears only for the winged horses standing before me, swishing their tails lazily about their hocks and gently nuzzling the wizards' pockets just the way Bayard often nuzzled my pockets for treats.

Beside me, Bayard blew through his nostrils, a long sigh as of relief at finally seeing what his other senses had told him had been there all the time. Or perhaps he had been able to see them all along, I told myself. Beside him, Quigs snorted; and Captain Russell's hunter stretched his Roman-nosed head out towards the nearest wingtip.

"You nincompoop," Captain Russell said, firmly reining him in. "That's a stallion. Think, Silverin!"

Silverin sighed with obvious resignation. And at the mundane, almost human, sound, the people in the crowd seemed to come out of whatever enchantment the winged horses had put on them.

"Can I give them a biscuit?" a small voice asked.

"Will they eat apples?" chimed in a slightly older one.

"So those are Aethonans." Captain Russell sat back in his saddle and looked at Mrs Falkner. "Ever seen any before, Tess?"

"Never, Bertie."

They smiled at each other, something I had only ever seen them do on frosty mornings when the scent of foxes lay redolent across a landscape of hedges and at least one solid stone wall.

I turned and gave Hermione a smile of my own. "Why didn't you ever tell me about Aethonans?" I asked.

"I wanted to," she replied. "But I was afraid you'd want to ride one."

"I do want to ride one."

"I wish you could." She sighed. "I wish I could Apparate. But they won't even let me take my test before I'm seventeen."

"Well, you'll be seventeen in September," I reminded her. "So come back home as soon as you can, and I'll help you practice for your test. I'll even read it to you, if they'll let me."

She gave a shaky laugh. "Then I'll be sure to pass it."

"Then you'll be able to zip back and forth anytime you like ... no matter what's going on."

She nodded, wiping away tears. My own eyes were starting to feel watery, and my throat was threatening to close up. I swallowed. "Just be safe," I whispered.

"I will be. And next time I come home, I'll bring Gary to see you. If you like."

I sniffled, and smiled. "I do like," I said.

Two minutes later, I was watching Anthony giving Hermione a leg up onto the chestnut mare's back. He leapt up behind her, and nodded to Gary, who was seated astride the stallion, behind the now-half-opened wings. Gary returned the nod, and raised his wand. I winced, anticipating another rap between the horse's ears; but instead Gary waved his wand at the people gathered all around me.

"Obliviate!" he muttered. Then, as in the best dressage, the two Aethonans moved forward with no visible or audible command from their riders. They walked to the edge of the crowd, and then broke into a canter, striding out across the field. Great wings opened out; spread wide; and like hunters approaching an invisible fence the horses rose into the air. Up and up they climbed, circling into the sunlight. I shaded my eyes with my hand and peered up into the sky ... but the magical creatures were nowhere to be seen.

The End