3. Three Potato, Four Potato
Harry Potter and the Little Pony Problem
Three Potato, Four Potato
- - ⚡ - -
“Excuse me, darling. Could you lift your arm please?”
Harry obediently lifted his arm while blinking away sleep. It took a lot of blinking in the dim light of dawn, although all the blinking he was doing did not make what he saw in his bed look any more believable. It was another magical unicorn, small and graceful enough to have sat on his hand, only this one had her horn lit up and was floating a cloth tape with some sort of numbers on it around his forearm.
“Oh, yes,” she said as she moved the measuring tape, taking large, bouncy steps across the bedsheets to keep from falling. “You have done some growing since you purchased those robes in your trunk. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to let them out enough to make them fit correctly.” The small white unicorn made a few notes on a scrap of parchment, then nudged Harry with one hoof. “Stand up, please.”
“Why?” Harry’s eyes darted to his clock, then to the bedroom door. “My aunt will be here to wake me up in a few minutes. You need to hide.”
“Oh, tich, tich,” said the small creature with a dismissive wave of one hoof. “Spikie told me all about your distasteful relatives. Now stand up straight.”
“They’ll kick me out of my room,” he hissed while standing up as directed. “I’ll be back in the cupboard for the whole summer. They hate magic.”
“Hate?” The small unicorn stopped draping the measuring tape around his shoulders and looked up at him with puzzled blue eyes. “How can anypony hate magic? It’s so useful, and dashing and—”
“And they can’t use it,” explained Harry, although he put his arm out when prompted so the unicorn could run the measuring tape along it. “Most people here can’t use magic. The ones who can have to keep it a secret, or… bad things will happen,” he finished rather hesitatingly, since ‘bad things’ was such an understatement compared to the events in his magical history book, or even his own personal recent history. After all, the basilisk fang scar in his arm still twinged at times, a not so subtle reminder of his own role in the conflict between Voldemort and any who would oppose him.
The bedroom door behind him banged open, and Petunia stormed in, looking more perturbed than usual. “Get up, you lazy boy! We’ve got…” His aunt slowed to a stop and looked at Harry, who still had the measuring tape draped across his arm. “What on earth are you doing with my sewing things?”
“Curtains,” blurted out Harry, since it was the first and only thing that came to mind. “I thought that when Aunt Marge came to visit, it would be nice if her room had nice curtains. Because that would be… nice.”
“Curtains?” Petunia sniffed, then her eyes darted down to his rumpled bedcovers where the white unicorn had been just moments before.
“And maybe a new bedspread,” added Harry while he tried to make his lumpy bed, putting his pillow quickly over the largest unicorn-sized lump. “Something with tassels like you like. You know. In case my career as a bureaucrat fails, I could become a… tailor.”
“Another occupation that would let you sit on your rear all day, I suppose.” Petunia hustled Harry out the door and downstairs, complaining all the way about his choice in alternative careers. He went along without any complaints because at least it got his aunt out of his bedroom, even if it meant spending the entire day with her picking out atrocious fabric and carrying packages from the stores.
True to his worst expectations, Harry spent the morning being dragged from store to store, trying his best to look interested when Petunia went through the discard piles and bargain bins in search of the perfect curtain material. How in the world she managed to pick just the most awful shade of orange was beyond him, and was his fault, of course, for deciding to explore the world of tailoring instead of going back to that terrible school. Harry had to wonder if there was any career he could pick that would make his relatives happy. Vernon certainly would go through the roof if he expressed any interest into selling drills, and Petunia… Well, Harry knew she had some sort of career before marrying Vernon and having Dudley, although there was no sign of such around the house.
Perhaps if Harry had been a girl, his aunt at least would have accepted him more than the present, even if the thought was disconcerting at least. Dudley would have been even more obnoxious, just like he was to any girl in school or outside. Thankfully, his cousin was spending most of the summer outside of the house, presumably repelled by the household chores that Harry had been forced into, even though there was not the most remote possibility of him being asked to lift one chubby finger to help. So it became Harry’s lot to stagger into the house all loaded down with fabric, nearly cut his fingers off with the scissors while snipping out the drape patterns, and poke his hand on several of the pins while Petunia nattered over his shoulder, telling him all the things he was doing wrong.
Then it became time to sew. Harry had never touched the sewing machine before, mostly because he had a rather cautious relationship with most complicated mechanical things since his natural magic and complicated machinery did not like each other very much. Still, it was something he needed to do in order to distract Aunt Petunia, because the sewing machine was warm, as if it had been used while they had been out of the house shopping. And he had a sneaking suspicion he knew who was responsible. So with concentration and more effort than Harry had ever put into any of his wizarding classes, he managed to survive the experience, and even wound up with a set of passable curtains for his trouble.
If Harry learned anything today, it was that he did not ever want a career that involved any sewing. The hideous burnt-orange curtains bunched where they should have hung, and the pale plastic lace looked more like it had been glued on when he was done, although Petunia judged the result tolerable. Harry’s experience led him to believe it was due to the number of trips she had made to the liquor cabinet, which left him struggling to hang up the resulting lopsided curtains while she greeted Uncle Vernon downstairs when he came back from work.
“You know, even Ah can tell them curtains is right ugly.”
Harry looked down to see yet another little pony sitting by his left foot, small enough that she could have sat in his shoe without leaking out the sides very much and about the same shade of orange as the curtains. This one was not a unicorn, or at least if she was, her horn was not visible above the very American cowboy hat she was wearing. Since Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia were very audible downstairs, talking about the events of the day, Harry did not immediately panic at seeing one of the magical creatures outside of his room. He did lower his voice before getting down on one knee to examine the creature more closely and said, “Hello, there. My name is—”
“Harry Potter,” said the little pony, grabbing onto his extended hand and shaking one finger vigorously with far more strength than he expected. “Spike done told me all about you and your family. Reckon they ain’t the best a’ kinfolk, but you can’t pick who you get, can you? Name’s Applejack, of Sweet Apple Acres in Ponyville, the finest apple orchard in durned well everywhere.”
“That’s all well and good,” said Harry, trying to ignore the way the curtains had begun to sag on the bent curtain rod. “But why are you here?”
“Twilight brung us to help you. Well, she did some unicorn hocus-pocus that I didn’t understand one whit of, and that put Rares and me here, only we ain’t really here if’n I understand her right. More like a shadow of ourselves, just a pinch of our regular magic that we won’t miss over there, like’n borrowing one apple off a whole tree.”
“That makes sense,” said Harry, relieved that he did not have to retrieve any of his spell books from Twilight Sparkle’s grasp in order to look up any complicated terminology. If more of the teachers at Hogwarts explained things in such a down-to-earth fashion, his classes would have been far easier. “So when you go back, or that is your magic goes back to where you came from, will you remember any of my world?”
Applejack took off her hat and scratched behind one ear. “Well, tell the truth, Ah didn’t quite follow Twi when she got goin’ real good. She’s my best friend, but she’s got a way of thinkin’ everypony is just as bright as her.”
“I know just what you mean. I’ve got a friend like that too.” Harry looked over his shoulder at the slumping curtains and turned back to his job. “I really don’t know how much you can help with as small as you are.”
“Ah ain’t really the curtain-hangin’ type, either,” admitted Applejack as she scrambled up the orange cloth just as nimbly as if she were a mouse. “That ain’t sayin’ I ain’t gonna help, it’s just that Twi and Spike was a little concerned about something else. You see, I lost my parents when I was just a little ‘un too.”
Harry stopped with his hands on the bent curtain rod, feeling the cool metal bend a little further as a wave of familiar anger swept over him. “I don’t want to talk about my parents,” he fumed. “I’ve been lied to about them as long as I can remember. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia told me they died in a car crash, but they were murdered.”
“By Voldy-mart,” said Applejack, sitting on the top of the bunched-up curtain and looking down at Harry. Her green eyes glittered slightly in the shadows, making Harry uncomfortable due to the memory of his mother’s eyes in the Mirror of Erised. “Now I ain’t sayin’ my parents was killed. Truth is, it was an accident, and weren’t nuttin’ I could do about it. That didn’t keep me from beatin’ myself up on the inside every night. Eventually, it made me turn my back on my own flesh and blood. Run away to my Aunt and Uncle Orange just so the pain would go away, and shut myself off from Big Mac and little Apple Bloom. Uh, them’s my brother and my little sis.”
The silence that followed allowed Harry to slacken his grip on the curtain rod and just breathe through the pain in his chest and the throbbing ache of his scar. After several breaths, he managed, “I don’t have any brothers or sisters.”
“Ah know. Spike done told me that too. He don’t got no blood kin at all, so he was all tied up in knots about how angry you seemed. We all get mad sometimes, and he’s no exception, but since he’s a dragon, his mads are a mite worse than others. We all treat him like a child so much that we forget how dangerous he can be. Why once…”
The small orange pony paused on top of the curtains like some sort of parrot, took another long look at Harry, and began to smooth out the curtain so it would slide on the rod better. “Sorry,” she murmured from between the cloth in her teeth. “Sometimes Ah get all tied up in me, and there ain’t no time for my friends.”
“I know how that goes,” said Harry. “I didn’t have any friends until I went to Hogwarts.”
“An’ now that you have them, you don’t know quite what to do with them.” Applejack chuckled and braced herself on the curtain in order to try bending the rod back into shape. “Little like our Twilight Sparkle, without the point on your head.”
“I… suppose you’re right.” Harry braced himself against the other end of the rod and tried to match Applejack’s pressure. “I’ve got all this anger inside, and I don’t want to vent on my friends because I’m afraid of driving them away.”
“You sure as shooting can’t talk to your kinfolk neither. They’d just yell at you some more.” Applejack hitched up a loop of curtain and tested to see how well it moved back and forth on the straightened rod. “Rares and I done been watching you and your aunt this afternoon while you been sewing. Half the time she was keepin’ me from going down there and giving her a piece of my mind, and the other half it was my turn to hold her back.”
It was most certainly the same kind of give and take that Harry had with his own friends, only with Hermione or Ron taking turns encouraging or discouraging his reckless actions. And it did feel better to talk to the little orange pony about things he never would have brought up to a Muggle or fellow classmate.
They swapped stories about their families quietly, so as not to disturb Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia downstairs, which made getting the drapes to hang correctly of secondary importance. They did not look that bad for a first attempt, despite Petunia’s color choice, particularly when compared to the rest of the house. Witches and wizards did not have nearly the same trouble matching colors since they mostly preferred shades of black, while Applejack almost blended into these curtains with her similar coloring and blonde mane that matched the tassels.
“I’m glad you’re here for however long your magic lasts,” said Harry impulsively. “It’s nice to have somebody to talk with. Nobody should be alone during the summer.”
“You’ve got your aunt and uncle,” pointed out Applejack. “Even that big lug Dudley, though he ain’t much for company. It ain’t really alone. Just lonely.”
“Boy!” Uncle Vernon’s voice bellowed up the stairway like an angry foghorn. “Get down here and help your aunt with dinner. Dudley is bringing his friends over tonight and we’re grilling steaks.”
“Not as lonely as I want at times, Applejack,” muttered Harry under his breath. “Coming, Uncle Vernon,” he called out. “I just want to get Aunt Petunia’s drapes looking… good.”
“Ain’t gonna do that without a couple matches,” said Applejack under her breath. “You just go on downstairs and we’ll take care of the curtains, Harry.”
“Really?” Harry put his arms down and gave them a shake to get his circulation back.
“Of course,” said Applejack. “What are friends for?”
- - Ω - -
Steaks were one of Harry’s secret joys in the Dursley household. They were nothing like the steaks served at Hogwarts, of course, and since Harry had quite enough of house elves in his house last year due to Dobby’s interference, he was willing to cut Vernon a little slack over his marinating and grilling technique. In addition, Petunia really did not like steaks, so when Harry took the dirty dishes into the kitchen, he could always tell who had which plate. Dudley and his friends tended to chew their steaks (double portions, of course) all the way down to the bone, Vernon cut his very precisely, and Petunia made a good effort at hers before smearing some mashed potatoes over it and dropping her napkin on top.
Those stolen bites of steak he received while washing dishes were more delicious than anything he ever had gotten in the Hogwarts main hall, because they were his, spirited out from under the noses of his cousin and any of his greedy friends. This time while he was quietly chewing, the victory seemed blunted by the thought of the little magical ponies upstairs. Were they eating out of Hedwig’s bag of owl pellets instead of grazing… or whatever tiny magical ponies did for food?
Since cleaning the grill took far longer than his normal after-dinner chores, Harry had a few minutes alone in the kitchen while the telly blasted away in the other room. That let him sneak a few vegetable peels, a bit of parsnip, and one wilted leaf of lettuce into his pocket, then make his escape upstairs to his room without being caught by Dudley or his friends, who liked a brisk round of Harry-hunting after dinner to allow their meal to settle.
“Twilight?” he whispered, once the door was closed and he had stuck a chair under the knob, just in case. “Applejack? I brought you some food. If you eat, that is.”
“Over here, Harry.”
Three small ponies and a smaller dragon were sitting on Dudley’s broken desk, only the permanent tilt to the tabletop had been fixed somehow, and quite possibly the sides had gained a coat of paint. His homework was stacked up in the center of the desk just as neat as if Hermione Granger had snuck into his house and taken some time to get everything just right, down to the precise red marks of corrections marching across the pages.
“I… see you got the ink spill out,” he managed to say to Twilight Sparkle’s bright, attentive expression of impending book-related topics. “Thank you.”
“Afore Twi gets started,” said Applejack, giving Harry’s pocket a penetrating look, “you mentioned something about grub?”
“Oh! Yes. It’s not much,” said Harry as he got out the vegetable peelings. It may not have been much to Harry, but all three ponies perked up and in minutes were eating out of his hand. Literally.
“I really wish we had some plates,” said Rarity through a mouthful of parsnip.
“Durned fine apple products,” said Applejack with most of a peel dangling out of her mouth. “A little dry to be just gettin’ the outsides, but all we’ve had today is a bunch of agapanthus blooms Twi done floated up through the window, so we sure as sugar can’t complain.”
Harry put the last leaf of wilted lettuce on the desk before peering out of the window at the flower bush below, which looked a little grazed even in the dim porchlight from the front door.
“I’m sorry if we harmed the bush,” said Twilight Sparkle, who was sharing Applejack’s apple peel. “We were going to get some food from the kitchen—”
“No, no,” said Harry rapidly. “That’s fine. My aunt can spare a few flowers. They’re a little droopy anyway, no matter how much fertilizing and weeding I do around them. I’ll see about trimming some tomorrow to even them out. And sneaking you some food from the kitchen so you don’t have to bother. It’s just…”
He turned around and regarded the ponies sitting on the desk, still happily eating the table scraps. It really needed to be said, because the longer they stayed in his aunt and uncle’s house, the more likely they were going to get caught, and that would end badly.
“You’re wantin’ to know when we’re going home, aren’t you?” asked Applejack. “Ah can understand. We must be one heck of a bother in your situation.”
“There’s just one teensy little thing,” said Rarity, with a shoulder nudge to her fellow unicorn. “Tell him, Twilight.”
Twilight Sparkle turned a darker shade of purple, more close to violet, and stammered, “I d-don’t know.”
“Excuse me?” With a cautionary glance at the closed bedroom door, Harry lowered his voice. The last thing he wanted was to raise the curiosity of the people downstairs. “You brought them here,” he indicated with the poke of one forefinger at the two other ponies. “Can’t you just send them back the same way?”
“It doesn’t work like that,” protested Twilight in an anguished voice that seemed to indicate oncoming tears. “I hoped that reviewing your spellbooks would give me a better understanding of your world’s magic and the way I got here. That’s why I summoned Spike, just to prove it could be done reliably, but pushing is totally different than pulling the magic here. It’s like there’s some sort of directional permeable barrier separating us from our home dimension, so I summoned Rarity and Applejack so I could get a better idea of how it functioned.”
“That sounds… reasonable,” said Harry. Summoning charms were Fifth Year, and although he and Ron had skimmed some of the textbooks in the hopes of being able to summon the occasional late night snack at Hogwarts, they had given up rather quickly when faced with their overwhelming complexity. “So why aren’t you researching now?”
“The poor dear needed a break,” said Rarity rather firmly. “And we are certainly not letting her go back to researching her horn off until she’s taken some time to relax.”
“And ain’t nothing that relaxes Twi like school,” declared Applejack, tapping one hoof against the stack of parchment on the desk. “She done went through and corrected all your studywork, so all you need to do is get on over here and recopy it.”
“And retake the quizzes and rewrite your essays to solve some really horrible logical fallacies,” said Twilight Sparkle, who had obviously perked up at the sound of what seemed to be her favorite activity in the world. “Go ahead and sit down so we can get started. I’ll finish my research while you’re sleeping, and we should be gone by morning.”
Stats
Page generated in 0.021 seconds
Total duration
668 users online
831,642 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
And in the morning, they were all gone, right?
When life gives you ponies, the only thing you can do is make friends.
Good chapter. Once Pinkie Pie gets over to Harry's, all bets on secrecy are off.
9551864
Knowing Twilight? Most likely increase the problem... something, like...
HI! I'm Pinkie Pie. You like party?
This seems pretty interesting. Personally, I'm kind of interested in how Harry will get along with Rainbow Dash, considering Harry's love for Quidditch and natural flying skills, as well as his lightning-bolt scar, and Rainbow's natural flying skills and lightning-bolt cutie mark.
There is a part of me that wonders how close the ponies are to being imaginary friends. Harry's accidental magic given form, with a little help from that tiny bit of personality Applejack was talking about.
In other words. Will anyone other than Harry ever see them?
Which would be a shame because I'd love to see Hermione and Twilight together, from a safe distance.
9551864
Of course, why would you even question that?
I do hope he goes back to Hogwarts with his little army of pony apparitions, though. The thought of it is just too cute not to consider
I get the feeling that Twilight and all of her friends could teach circles around all but two of the Hogwarts staff. The Charms and Transfiguration teachers know there craft well.
9551874
9551876
yall is gonna feel silly if i am right and Pinkie used her chaos magic to follow her friends (cause Pinkie) and has been sitting on top of Harry's head this whole time.
9551952
a dog with a stick could teach better than the potions novice. he literally has only ever taught them how to read a blackboard. "The instructions are on the board." is not teaching potions. this is not only no better than reading the directions out of an actual textbook (as opposed to whatever drivel he assigns them) it is worse as an actual textbook would come with clear instructions and safety precautions.
9551952 9552069 I suddenly got the idea of Rarity teaching "Defense Against the Dark Arts: How To Use Light-Colored Fabrics."
I mean, she'd still be better than several of Dumbledore's hires.
This story is enjoyable. I'm looking forward to reading more.
Pinkie's going to make everything better and worse at the same time. I know it.
9551753
Well Sorry I'm a nitpicker, and just obsessed with my lore, though Again i'm pretty sure Graphite in Pencil wouldn't work like that Since most of the time a wand's core involves something connected to the magical world, Dragon heartstring, Unicorn hair, Pheonix tail feather. That most likely the core needs to have some form of magic connected to the object. Otherwise, Muggle-Born would've been doing some accidental Magic more often while writing. Though that would be funny But still Sometimes its good to stick with the lore when writing about specific lore,
9552087
Mcgonagall: "Ms. Belle."
Mcgonagall: *looking around at all the students making dresses using brightly colored fabrics* "This is not what we meant when we said Dark Arts."
9552099
I can see "Defense against the Dark Arts" now: Bright colors as an offense :=)
"Blimey, Harry, you almost got full marks for that assignment! Good on ya, mate!"
"Harry, did you pay someone to do your homework?"
"Uh... no? Why do you ask?"
"I'm sorry to say this, but you're usually not this good. Ever."
"Don't listen to her, Harry. She's just jealous you beat her by one mark."
I am enjoying this, I’ve not seen many good HP crossovers with MLP so this is refreshing and fun to read.
9552092 For starters, even if a Muggle picks up a perfectly normal wand, he's not going to get any magic out of it. Second, Graphite is pure Carbon, which is what you are made out of (mostly), and compressed until it is only one step away from Diamond. (admittedly, mixed with clay also, but we'll discount that for now) Third... Will wait until the last chapter.
9551893 ...and Rainbow's complete and utter inability to hide in a situation where her discovery by the Ministry would be reacted to... poorly.
9552087 From the upcoming: Sweetie Belle - Hogwarts Exchange Student
9552288
Don't forget that there are also traces of Graphene in pencil lead. The miracle substance that scientists swear will change the world if we can just figure out how to produce it in mass quantities. ^_^ Maybe Harry running a magical charge through his pencil consolidated and converted the normal material. Pure Graphene is theoretically the strongest substance known to man. A pencil with a pure core could support a bridge. That would be one wand that would never break, or be overloaded and burn out.
9552288
There is a distinct trend of Potterpony works percolating up the popular persuals, and joke that the Sweetie Belle thing is, I'd enjoy it.
9552288
Isn't that already a story?
9552382 Written by two different authors, both of whom started out strong but degraded in the end thanks to too much HP canon-bashing with overpowered Equestrian MC's. I'm looking forward to Georg's take, which will hopefully avoid those problems!
how i felt about this story
Interesting, I really think that AJ and Rarity helped out for Harry. Keep it up, it fun to read so far.
9552060
In that case, it should already have sign a while back. For example, Petunia found mysterious cupcake on the table one morning.
9552748
Like she would admit strange things are happening around her. Besides, Pinkie doesn't throw parties for meanie pants. At least, not since Gilda.
Wait, so are Rarity and Applejack not actually there? And Twilight is? And what about Spike? Or was that just an excuse to keep them calm about being brought to a different world? I'm a bit confused about this now. Good story though! Keep it up.
How about Twilight herself? Is she there in whole or in part?
9553011
I'd say Rarity and Applejack are like ghosts. Kind of like an imprint, except it's a real part of their magic, whatever that may be. A small part, though, small enough to not be noticed by the main body which is apparently still in Equestria.
At least it isn't their souls, then we'd have a problem.
Your one stop shop for all your evil needs.
9551864
9556522
I was thinking the same thing.