Harry is a Little Ho(a)rse at Hogwarts

by Teraunce

1-4: Lightning’s Crazy Knight-mare Bus-ride

Author's Note:

Well I hit a bit of Writer's block with 1-8 so have 1-4 instead which will add context to 1-6.
Discord Server is here where you will get notified of new chapters.
Here is the Google Docs Version where you can suggest fixes and changes.
Edit 5/22/2023: Finally fixed "Expensive" to "Inexpensive."

Chapter 1-4: Lightning’s Crazy Knight-mare Bus-ride

They spend a couple of minutes watching the television before Princess Celestia slaps her forehead. “We won’t actually be waiting here. I forgot just how long it takes an owl to get from here to there or back.” Princess Celestia then coughs loudly to get everyone’s attention.

Having gotten it in a few seconds, she tells them what they are going to do next. “We actually probably have about four hours until Professor McGonagall gets here now that I think about it. Plenty of time to get some groceries.”

She then heads outside with Lightning and the other following close behind while ensuring they have their saddlebags on. “Where is the grocery store, Aletia?”

She pauses, muttering something about hoping prices haven’t gone up, to pull out a money bag and her wand from her saddlebags before holding the latter up. “We, my little ponies, shall be going by Knight Bus,” she says dramatically, a familiar purple triple-decker bus pulling up behind her as she finishes.

The group is stunned by its sudden appearance for a second before Rainbow Dash breaks free. “And just what in the name of Tartarus is the Knight Bus?”

Before Princess Celestia can speak up, Stanley boasts, “The Knight Bus is emergency transportation for the stranded Witch or Wizard. Just raise your wand up to call us. Now, since you can all see me and those five Firsties don’t seem to have their wands yet, that will be… 5 by 5 and 8 by 11, divided by 17… 6 Galleons and 11 Sickles for your trip. Now, where are you all headed?”

Princess Celestia starts pulling out wizarding coinage as the others board and takes their seats in the compartments. “We are heading to the nearest grocery store. Is there a Waitrose still nearby?”

Stanley takes the offered coinage and points to one of the seats. “Better take one of those seats then as this is gonna be a bumpy ride.”

Once she sits down next to Princess Luna and across from Twilight and Lightning, Stanley knocks on the glass, causing the shrunken head hanging from the rearview mirror to come alive and speak in a Jamaican accent, “Take it away, Ernie.”

The apparently named Ernie lifts his head from where it rests and immediately shifts the bus into gear. The Equestrians all quickly grab onto whatever they can as it speeds up.

Princess Luna makes the bold and foolish decision to look out the windows. What she sees horrifies her as the bus quickly accelerates to a breakneck place and sways all over the road. She quickly looks away towards her sister while looking a bit green. “Why hast thou put us on this deathtrap, Sister!? How have thee muggles not spotted us!? Where did thou learnest to drive this Tartarus-borne mechanical carriage, Ernie!?”

Stanley looks more and more offended as Princess Luna goes on. “I’ll have you know there hasn’t been an accident in the past three days. Muggles also don’t know how to look right to see us normally, and things jump away to avoid us. I don’t know where Ernie learned to drive, but he gets people where they want to go very, very fast, which is all his job requires he do.”

And with that note, Ernie very quickly slams on the breaks throwing them all into a heap of bodies as they keep going forward. The shrunken head speaks again, “Waitrose, sirs and ladies.”

Untangling themselves, Princess Luna looks testily at Princess Celestia. “Sister, if we have to ride this again, I want it to be known I bequeathe my worldly possessions to Cadenza Mi Amore in case of my passing.”

Princess Celestia smirks back as she leads the way off the bus. “We will. See you in a couple of hours, Stanley.”

Stanley nods back at her before they both softly chuckle at all the groaning they hear from her flock at her promise.

Leading the way into the store then, Princess Celestia grabs a cart and makes her way straight to the Deli. “Does a couple of pounds of black forest ham, honey roasted turkey, and salami sound good to you? With a pound of swiss, provolone, and cheddar?”

After a bit of discussion, she receives nods to all of those and steps up to the Deli Counter to get what they agreed upon and a few large packages of tofu for Fluttershy. She then spots something and points to a nearby section of prepackaged meat products. “I want you to look over there to learn something important.”

Rainbow Dash is the first one over and looks at the prices on the beef and then other nearby meats. “Aletia, either they have a lot of dumb cows, or meat is very inexpensive here. I’ve had beef once with my griffon friend Gilda’s family. It was a very small piece, and they were having it to celebrate the New Year. This beef looks higher quality than what I got, and given the price, I see it is a bad cut.”

Princess Celestia turns her smile to Rainbow Dash; while Twilight looks a little stunned Rainbow was able to figure that all out just from some price stickers. “There are no smart cows here. As far as the non-wizards are concerned, humans, and maybe dolphins, are the only smart people in the world. I wanted to show you this, so you didn’t have to feel guilty for eating beef over here.”

The others all nod a little somberly at that fact before blinking as she picks up enough hamburger patties for them each to have two, excluding Fluttershy. She also picks up about 20 lbs of cheap ground beef. Twilight asks nervously, “Is all that really necessary?”

In answer to her question, Princess Celestia puts a couple of jars of hot dogs in the cart and a few packages of bacon, fish, and boneless chicken breasts. “Twilight, can you grab a second cart? We’ll be in the bread aisle.”

Seeing how full the cart has gotten, Twilight nods and grabs another one from the front of the store. Returning quickly, she finds them discussing bread. “Does honey wheat sound good to everyone? And how does Fruit Loops sound for cereal?”

Receiving nods to those, she puts several loaves and a couple of bags in Twilight’s cart before also adding a bottle of fake maple syrup. Moving over to the next aisle, she adds a few jars of jelly and a couple of the most oversized size jars of peanut butter she could find.

Next, at the Dairy section, she asks, “2% sound good? And eggs for breakfast and baking?”

“Can we also have some iced cream? Rocky Road is always nice,” Sweetie Belle asks for the CMC while they try to give puppy dog eyes.

The others shrug and sigh but nod causing Princess Celestia to put in a few tubs of that alongside the other things and a dozen or so sticks of butter. She next makes a detour to grab some spices and cooking oil before heading over to produce. “Grab what you want for veggies and fruits.”

Of course, what gets thrown in there are a few packages of carrots; some apples, peaches, pears, peppers, cucumbers un-pickled pickles, plus pomodori; a few cartons of mushrooms; and at least a dozen ears of corn and heads of lettuce.

Moving on from there, Princess Celestia grabs some drinks, cleaning supplies, and toilet paper on the way to her last stop.

Lastly, Princess Celestia goes to the frozen section to throw in a few bags of frozen peas, carrots, and corn to put in the hamburger helper before grabbing some frozen pizzas to cook and pick toppings off of if need be. “I think we’re done now. Time to check out and ride the bus home.”

What she receives for that are many groans as they go and do so. The checkout is quick, uneventful, and they are all carrying at least one thing. The ride home, on the other hand, while fast and still holding at least one thing each, is very eventful with all the shaking.

With a cheerful goodbye between Stanley and Princess Celestia, the rest all stagger their way off the bus and inside. First things first, the pizzas go in the oven, and then everything else gets put away.

Comments

[Oblivionwalker]

You know, sometimes I'd wished I could be in harry potter's world just to know what it is to be on the knight bus, due to when I first seen that scene I just started laughing.