1-2: Secret Stash of the Potted Lily
Chapter 1-2: Secret Stash of the Potted Lily
Before Lightning and the rest of the CMC can leave with the adults, Princess Celestia stops them saying, “I want you to huddle around me so we can make a trip to Canterlot Castle’s garden.”
As they do as she asked, Princess Luna sleepily and petulantly asks, “Does this mean I can finally go back to bed Tia?”
Pausing to wrap a wing around her sister, Princess Celestia answers, “you can indeed go back to sleep my sweet Lunabelle,” before her horn lights up to teleport them all back to her suite in the castle.
Once their eyes have recovered, Princess Celestia asks them, “Will you five Pinkie Promise to not share what you are about to see? I like some privacy sometimes.” Receiving a nod and the motions, Princess Celestia’s hair first stops moving before she shrinks with a sigh of relief down to being just a bit bigger than Big Mac. Lastly a bit of rose-violet flames sees her hair turn entirely pink while her Cutie Mark changes to that of just a generic sun. Summoning a pair of saddle bags to cover her wings, she finally says, “it’s good to be Sunny Days again.”
Pondering for a moment, Lightning finally asks, “Sunny Days?”
Princess Celestia just shrugs and says, “It lets me move out and about in as close to my birth form as I can. It also grants me anonymity because everyone expects the real Princess Celestia to be much bigger and imposing.”
Confused and a bit hurt from the secret, Spike asks, “so why have you never shown Twilight, Lightning, or I this before?”
“I’ll tell her soon, but there just wasn’t a reason and the more people know the less secret it is.” Princess Celestia answers as she walks over to a bookshelf and pulls out a sequence of books, causing the bookshelf to open on a hinge before she pulls it open further.
Scootaloo curiously asks as she tries to see inside the secret door, “So are we seeing your real form now Princess Luna?”
Tiredly, Princess Luna answers as she pushes past her sister into the secret passages, “You are indeed seeing the real me. Now I wish you a Good Day and good luck with your treasure hunt.”
Princess Celestia says as she leads them down a different very short passageway in order to push on a brick to open a door, “Unfortunately, Princess Luna isn’t lying about the treasure hunt. I may have been a bad influence with Lily when it came to practical jokes and she expected herself to be here for the treasure hunt.”
Looking about the small rooms filled with very dusty bookshelves and an equally dusty desk and lamp, Lightning asks, “What are we looking for in here? And is this your private study?”
Pulling a book off the shelf which she opens to pull out a key, Celestia sighs again as she answers, “No, this was used by Lily to store our research into portals.” She then points to the other door in the room while adding, “I had the main door boarded up so no one disturbed this room or asked me about it. Now how did that rhyme go? Of the Deathly Hallows three//the cloak will set free//A Clue from notes loosely bound//yet very easily refound.”
Quietly Sweetie Belle asks the lost in thought princess, “What are the Deathly Hallows?”
Absent-mindedly Princess Celestia responds, “Wand. Ring. Cloak.” before excitedly going, “It’s the third drawer from the top,” as she inserts the found key into the drawer, finding a mess of dated spiral notebooks in there. Responding to the discovery, Princess Celestia just sighs as she says, “everyone grab a notebook or two I guess and look through them.”
Sitting down in the dust they quickly skim through the books looking for anything when Apple Bloom excitedly says, “In the margins of one of the ex-experiments she wrote in bad Middle Equish: Back at Ye Olde Start//Go Straight as ye Dart//To Yondor Where to Go//Because Thou Doest Not Knowe.”
Wincing at just how bad that Middle Equish is, Princess Celestia muses, “Back where we started? Does she mean where we met?” before snapping attention back to the CMC as she asks them, “Do you want to search my private garden, or do you want to keep searching these notebooks?”
With a deadpan look, Scootaloo answers for them with, “I’ve had enough of these dusty old books,” before the other shrug and nod in agreement.
Lighting up her horn, Princess Celestia says as she leaves the room, “Follow me closely then as you don’t want to get lost in these passageways.”
After a vigorous walk going up and down stairs, Princess Celestia eventually twists a wall sconce causing a section of wall to drop, revealing a small private garden surrounded by castle walls with no other way in or out except a couple small grates with a roof made out of glass. Out of one grate water flows surrounding an island in the center before exiting through the other grate. A path leads from the entrance over a bridge and then to the center of the island where a giant silver birch with silver leaves sits while the rest of the island is covered by wildflowers.
Leading the way to the birch tree, Princess Celestia points to it while explaining, “This is where the portal Lily and I accidentally created led to. It seems so long ago and yet so near we both ended up in the tiny room between dimensions we created, both of us falling at ending up as the others species.”
Sensing that Princess Celestia might be at it awhile, the CMC start searching the nearby grounds while she wryly chuckles and reminisces, “It took us a little while to both stumble into bipedal positions before we could start talking about what happened.”
Spike spots some lilies and starts digging into the ground under them as she continues, “Turns out we were both experimenting with dimensional travel at the same time and our spells connected with each other.”
Lightning meanwhile starts digging into some petunias absently as Princess Celestia finishes, “It took a few days for us to set the endpoint on this end to that tree and cost her one of her experimental cabinets.”
Shaking her head to clear it, Princess Celestia asks, “Sorry about that. Have you fou-”
Interrupting her, Lightning pulls a small metal lunchbox out from under the petunias saying, “I’ve got it!” He then excitedly pulls it out before growing suddenly sadder as he starts reading out loud, “If you’re reading this very clue//Then I’m no longer with you//But Change is not always wrong//So you must grow and stay strong//For Victory is very near//With a spear to pierce your fear.”
Sighing Princess Celestia states, “This one stumps even me. I really wish you were here with me but how appropriate she planted it under some petunias.”
Lightning quietly asks the obvious question, “Why is it fitting she planted it under petunias and not under the lilies present in this garden?”
Sighing, Princess Celestia sits down and says, “Lily has a sister named Petunia. It means she wanted me to think of her sister. I...I haven’t thought of how they’d take your apparent death until just now and it makes me want to cry.”
Lightning calmly but comfortingly says, “We can change that in the future can’t we? But this riddle has me stumped as well.”
Walking over to look at the paper, Spike asks, “Both Change and Victory are capitalized like they are names. Is there anything in the castle by those names?”
Shaking her head, Celestia states, “No, there isn…,” before reconsidering as she asks, “She wouldn’t have, would she? Knowing her she would have and her words do hold some truth. Well looks like we get to go to the statue garden for more history lessons.”
“Why, what’s in the statue garden?” Sweetie Belle asks curiously.
Princess Celestia just stands up and starts walking back into the castle as she simply answers, “Discord,” with the others hurriedly following her.
After another long dusty trip through the secret passages of Canterlot Castle, Celestia pushes a brick in and then up, letting a section of wall slide free revealing a small statue garden. Exiting the secret passages, Celestia points towards a statue of a mismatched chimera creature and says, “That represents Discord, self-titled lord of disharmony, chaos, and change.”
She then turns to a statue next to it of a pony soldier in full armor facing Discord while wielding a spear in his two hooves, looking like he is going to pierce the Lord of Chaos in his chest. Pointing to it, she says, “And that is a statue of Victory Point, one of the best heroes in the land when Discord ruled Equestria. I suppose we should look where the spear is pointing.”
And so the very short search begins which ends when Lightning notices a patch of petunias and lilies growing together by a wall. Lighting his wings up, Lightning gently lifts the ground the flowers are planted on to reveal a very large stone chest covered in carvings of lilies underneath. Failing to manage to lift the chest on his own, Lightning calls out, “Everyone come here! And Sunny Days, can you lift the stone chest out of the hole?”
Nodding as she wanders over, Princess Celestia peers in the hole before her horn lights up to pull the stone chest out of the ground. The light then encompasses all of them, taking them to Princess Celestia’s quarters where it all began earlier.
Blinking the lights out of their eyes, the four founding members of the CMC are surprised to feel packages thrust into their arms and then pushed into a bipedal position. Princess Celestia tells them, “I think Lily would have wanted to see you in your Hogwarts Uniforms for this so I made sure to have Rarity make them. Lightning, go into the other room and change. I want you to follow him, Spike.”
Doing as directed, a few minutes later the guys return to her main room, Lightning changed but missing the gloves and boots as he says, “This doesn’t actually feel too bad.”
Scootaloo chimes in saying, “My wings definitely don’t feel cramped.”
Apple Bloom meanwhile tests the flexibility by dropping down to all fours before rearing back up to being bipedal a few times before declaring. “They seem sturdy enough.”
Sweetie Belle meanwhile says, “Don’t tell Rarity this but for once I’m glad she didn’t give us dresses.”
After letting them talk amongst themselves for a few minutes, Princess Celestia draws their attention by loudly cracking the chest open. Going through it and pulling stuff out while saying stuff like, “ahh that’ll be useful still,” she finds a mundane replica of Lily’s wand and puts it in Lightning’s hoof to hold.
Eventually, at the very bottom she finds an envelope and reads out, “To Princess Celestia and my loved son, Harry James Potter or Lightning Sunrise. From Lily Potter.” Starting to tear up Princess Celestia cracks open the letter and reads:
To my son Harry Potter (or Lightning Sunrise if you go by that) and my best Friend and his godmother, Celestia,
If you are reading this I am dead. If I was alive I would have snatched this letter away by now. I know I will probably die by Tom Marvelo Riddle’s wand, but I hope you have had a good childhood Harry. I know she suggested a few families to give you to with my personal pick being the Sun family. I know it must have been hard growing up a Pegasus in a Unicorn family but your own magical journey has just begun. While the wand you hold cannot cast magic, I hope it and the books and supplies I left remind you of the love I had and will always have for you. My only regret is not getting to see you grow up.
Princess Celestia, or as I first knew you, Aletia C. Selicorn, stop blaming yourself. While my life was probably short, I hope my son brought you much joy and mischeif. I don’t know how much of my scavenger hunt I got to set up, but I hope you enjoyed my one last great prank on you and I hope you managed to reunite with your own sister. Family is important and do try to find where Petunia has gone and give her my love? Even give grouchy Vernon and their son Dudley my love would you? It’ll be a great laugh to see him get flustered one last time by me.
With all my love from beyond the grave,
Lily Potter (Lightning Gardener).
P.S. Your father, James Potter (Lightning Fork) just asked me to add he loves you too Harry and he hopes you’ve done well Celestia.
P.P.S. You’ll find some moon lily seeds in this envelope as well Celestia.
Bursting into tears after reading it, Princess Celestia is surrounded by the CMC who cuddles her even as Lightning himself cries at how heartfelt and sad it is. It will be awhile before any of them manage to really speak after that painful healing letter.
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Could have sworn I had put it in an author's note but Chapter 0-0 is getting a second revision that'll be posted whenever I get around to fleshing out Chapter -1. This story is a living breathing one and I like finding ways to make myself cry by making my characters hurt more. The story in 1-1 is correct and will be expanded upon in -1.
Also they aren't in Canterlot. Princess Celestia very abruptly ended/cancelled Day Court, teleported to her sister, and then teleported her sleeping sister and herself into Golden Oaks Library.
Please refrain from using the double slash. Either a single slash, a dash, or an ellipsis can be used.
Harry looks great as a reformed changeling.