BBS - Chapter 8: Teleportation? Nah. Bus? Yeah.......AAAAAAA (Patreon)

The Bat, The Billionaire & The Shenanigans [8]

Disclaimer - I don’t own anything. Disney does, Warner Bro does, and Rowling does.

Diagon Alley, London

–Tony Stark–

“That will be Seven Galleons, Mr.Stark.” He absentmindedly handed over the money to the creepy old man and walked back out of the store, his gaze fixed on the wooden stick in his hand. Except calling it a wooden stick felt like an insult. It was just so much more. Even within seconds of touching it, it felt more akin to an extension of his body than just something he could use to direct his magic. 

Magic. He had honest to god magic inside him. He had been using the same magic for years, deluding himself into thinking that a borderline reality warping energy was not magic. Seeing the wand in his hand, and remembering how sparks shot out of the wand the moment he made contact with it, as an electrifying current ran through his entire body, he realised that yup, this was his reality now, and he was now a wizard as well.

Look Ma! I’m a wizard now!

Snorting at his internal thoughts, he exited the store and looked at the Good Professor, who was, for all intents and purposes, his official guardian now. Perks of being born in the 60s, he supposed. There wasn’t much in the name of paperwork, and if there was, then it was not centralised or shared with other countries. Plus, paperwork was regularly lost, destroyed, and recreated without much background verification.

The modern world, for all its faults, had the whole identity tracking down to a fault, at least for government and powerful entities. This meant that McGonagall essentially kidnapped him from his family, and bringing him all the way to another country was not illegal, not in the magical world atleast. They apparently had laws meant to protect kids like him, whose parents would violently reject the concept of magic and their kids having it.

He supposed that the whole Witch Burning thing by the Church had a whole new meaning to it now.

“So, where to, Professor?” He asked her, cracking an easygoing grin as he looked at all the stuff she was carrying. Apparently, since he was a ward of the state now, with McGonagall being the actual human guardian assigned to him, he had access to the stipend fund that the government had set aside for cases like him, hence all the shopping.

Unfortunately, his request to buy more and more books was shot down immediately, as the Hogwarts library was quite expansive, to the point that he would not be able to finish it in his seven years of schooling. A challenge, if he ever heard one.

An old school challenge for reading books. He loved it.

“Now, we go directly to Hogwarts, Mr.Stark.” She said while making a face, as if the concept of going there was not appealing at all.

“Why do you make that face? I was supposed to go to Hogwarts in the first place, was I not?”

She sighed, “Yes, but you don’t understand, Mr.Stark. Going to Hogwarts on the train along with your peers, and experiencing the wonder of Hogwarts with your fellow students is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Taking you directly to Hogwarts would mean robbing you of that, and I don’t feel that it is fair to you.”

Oh. She was hung up on something that pedestrian?

“Just out of curiosity, though, you told me that you have had cases like me, with the family rejecting me. What do you usually do in that case?”

“Usually, we find nearby orphanages or relatives, or failing that, get one of the many pre approved wizards who love to host kids.”

“So, what changed this time?”

“The law, Mr. Stark. The law.” She sighed, looking increasingly resigned and tired at that.

On the other hand, he made an understanding face. “Ah, the government. I assume they stopped funding the whole thing?”

She looked at him, surprised but nodded nonetheless. “Yes, from last year, the fund for temporary housing has been transferred to the supplies budget for muggleborn as well as orphan kids. So, the decision was made to house the kids in Hogwarts itself.”

“But you haven’t had to do that yet.”

“No, you are the first case since the law was changed, Mr.Stark. I am truly sorry for this. If I had some other residence outside of Hogwarts, I would have loved to host you, but I live inside the Castle full time. “

“You also can’t ask anyone else to take me in just for free. Alright, then. Let’s go to Hogwarts!”

“...You are surprisingly mature for your age, Mr.Stark.” What an odd thing to say.

He shrugged, “Hey, you are telling me that you are going to take me straight to the magic castle instead of making me stay with someone else or at a crappy orphanage. Why would I not be excited to see the magic castle immediately instead of having to wait to see it with other brats?”

“Very well.” She looked at him for a moment before nodding and placing her hand on his shoulder once more, the familiar gesture bringing back memories that immediately had him stepping away from her, his face set into a grimace, as he raised his wand, as if trying to ward some great evil away from him.

“Wait! Don’t we have some other way to get to Hogwarts?”

It was such a terrible experience to experience teleportation for the first time. From what little he had managed to piece together in between feeling nauseous and actually emptying the contents of his stomach, the magic must punch a hole in space, creating a stabilised wormhole in between and then take the matter, which was humans in their case, and push them into that hole.

Now, the problem with that spell was that the hole in question was nowhere near big enough to hold a human comfortably. Which meant that naturally the human in question had to be compressed and then violently shoved through that hole to be uncompressed on the other end. 

All this was fine if the wizard was controlling the spell and had some kind of sense to brace himself, or maybe it was just the Good Progressor who could do it. He couldn't say without reading more about the spell that he wasn’t supposed to even touch before he reached the final year of his education at Hogwarts.

What he could say with absolute certainty was that teleporting side along was absolutely terrible. From her own words, the Professor had been a teacher for decades, and if a teacher could not perform the spell in a manner that made sure he was comfortable, then it stood to reason that the spell simply could not be performed in that manner. It was probably why she didn't tell him about the dangers of the spell before using it on him.

He probably would have rejected it beforehand. Nah, his curiosity would have won, and he would have experienced the same thing once more. But once was enough. He had no intention of going through the same thing once more.

In fact, he was going to go to Hogwarts, learn the spell, and make it so that no one would have to suffer as he did during the side along teleportation. It was just plain terrible.

The Professor looked at him with an amused look on her face, as his fear was apparently entertaining her. “I am afraid that apparition is the fastest way to the Castle, Mr.Stark.”

“What is the second fastest way? And what is the delta between them?”

“Delta?” She asked him, looking genuinely curious, and then it hit him. These guys probably didn’t even have advanced mathematics down yet, not that the rest of the world was all that better off at this point in time.

“The difference in time between apparition and the next method?”

“I am afraid that the next fastest method is the Knight Bus, and it will take significantly longer to reach Hogwarts.”

His eyes lit up at the word bus. It meant that these guys had road infrastructure and could be travelling around in cars, which were certainly not as comfortable as the ones he had back in his previous world, but they should be leagues better than the teleportation method.

“Bus! I chose the bus! Whatever it is, and whatever it costs, I’ll pay you back once I start earning. I want to take the bus.”

She looked at him with a glint in her eyes and an amused look on her face, as if she knew something he did not. Whatever it might be, he was just thrilled not to have that awful experience once again. Buses were not comfortable in his previous world, and they were not going to be comfortable here as well, but atleast they were predictable and did not try to compress and decompress people in split seconds.

“Very well, Mr.Stark. We’ll use the Bus.” She chuckled, which just made him wary, but he pushed through. After all, whatever it was, it could not possibly be worse than the first time teleportation attempt. Right now, he had all the time in the world, and could sacrifice time for a bit more comfort. Plus, he did not want to throw up the ridiculously sweet and tasty ice cream that the Good Professor treated him to.

____xx___

“AAAAAAAAAA!” He screamed himself raw as he held on for dear life inside the Knight Bus. This was no bus! This was an abomination! This was torture!

“Enjoying yourself there, Mr.Stark?” McGonagall just sat there, on her seat, staying perfectly still without having any seat belt on her, openly chuckling at him.

His only response to that question was, “AAAAAAA!”

Apparently, the Bus that the Professor alluded to was a monster bus, called the Knight Bus, a bus that did not run on roads. No, it used, if it was even possible, an even worse version of the apparition magic to blink to the next point, crossing miles in a split second, and jostling the entire cabin in the process. Violently at that.

It was an affront to the name Bus. 

After a while, he felt the ice cream bubble up to the surface, forcing him to try and push it all down, which was just a gross feeling. It was not something he expected to happen when he suggested the bus.

Atleast, with teleportation, it would have been a one-and-done kind of deal. This way, he was suffering the entire way there.

Plus, the worst thing was that his attempt to use magic to anchor himself to the Bus failed every time the Bus blinked, as whatever magic it was using disrupted his hold onto the seat, forcing him to resort to using his hands to maintain grip.

Thankfully, he had really strong hands for his age, and as such, he did not go flying into the wall, not when the car was blinking to the next stop, and certainly not when it stopped abruptly, pushing him back into the seat, as the Professor got up very calmly from her seat and looked down on him with a self satisfied smile on her face.

“Come on, Mr.Stark. This is our stop.”

All he could do was huff, control his breathing, and glare at her.

I will have my revenge.

He vowed to himself before promptly turning around and throwing up all over the grass.