Chapter 69: Knight Bus

The impact of the black cat's lunge caused Harry to take half a step backward, his leg then hit the suitcase and he stumbled.

He wrapped one arm around the cat and extended the other to keep his balance.

But it was useless, and he fell heavily to the floor.

He sat up quickly, and the black cat in his arms jumped onto his shoulder with a strangely familiar smile on his lips that reminded Harry of Ivan for a moment.

Shaking his head, thinking he was going crazy, 'How could a cat have Ivan's expression? But it really did look like his smile,' and before he could look any further, he saw the large silhouette of something with big, beady eyes in the distant shadows.

It looked like a large dog, and Harry cautiously extended his wand in front of him.

As soon as he raised his wand, a deafening noise sounded and he was blinded by a bright glow.

Harry screamed and jumped back as Ivan clung to Harry's shoulder.

It was just in time, and a second later, a pair of huge wheels and headlights screeched to a stop exactly where Harry had been standing.

Ivan looked up and saw that the wheels and lights belonged to a triple-decker bus, with gold lettering on the windshield forming the words, Knight Bus.

"Welcome to the Knight bus, this is a bus that assists homeless individuals from the wizarding community through public transportation, just pull out your wand to summon the bus, we will take you wherever you want to go. My name is Stan Shunpike, I'll be your host tonight!", Stan, who was about eighteen or nineteen years old, with big prominent ears and a few small pimples on his face, approached Harry, "A strange passenger with a black kitten, where do you want to go?"

"There was a big black thing right there, did you see it?" asked Harry, but when he looked across the street he saw nothing.

"No, what's that on your forehead?", Stan seemed to see the scar on Harry's forehead.

"No, it's nothing!", Harry said quickly, covering the scar with his hair, if the Ministry was looking for him, he didn't want to make it too easy for them to find him.

"Well, what's your name?", Stan continued to ask.

"Neville Longbottom!" whispered Harry, his gaze drifting to the bus, "So this bus can go anywhere, right?"

"Yes, anywhere you want, but you can't go underwater." Stan looked at Harry suspiciously, "Didn't you signal us to stop? You stretched your wand, didn't you?"

"Yes!" said Harry quickly, "How much does it cost to go to Diagon Alley?"

"Eleven sickles," said Stan, "But if you bring a pet, it's five more, if you pay three more, you can get chocolate and with one more you can have a thermos and a toothbrush, you can choose the color too."

"Wait, this isn't my pet!" Harry then remembered the black cat on his shoulder, "I met him a second before you arrived."

"You did?" Stan said skeptically, "But he's come up, mind you, black cats are a very rare breed, he'd be your pet if he wasn't..."

Harry saw that the black cat, which had been lying on his shoulder, had climbed onto the Knight Bus and sat down on a soft bed.

He had no choice but to quickly pull out his money bag and drop some silver coins into Stan's hand.

Then he and Stan carried his suitcase and Hedwig's cage to the Knight Bus.

"Sleep here!" Stan introduced Harry to the driver and then led him to the bed where Ivan was lying, handing him a large chocolate bar from his pocket, "Here's yours, I've got cat food for your pets, we've got everything here."

He rummaged under one of the beds, pulled out a bowl of food and placed it in front of Ivan, pouring a large amount of cat food into it.

Ivan refused to eat the cat food.

If it wasn't for the fact that Sirius Black hadn't left, Ivan wouldn't have chosen to get on the Knight bus with Harry, anyway, he wouldn't have had any problems and could have gone to Diagon Alley whenever he wanted.

He had a lot of work to do at home, especially if Dobby didn't find him again.

But Ivan had no choice; he was so exhausted from the effects of the potion that his mana wouldn't recover until tomorrow morning at the earliest.

If he didn't want to be torn to shreds by Sirius Black, he would have to stay close to Harry, as Sirius would not go near Harry for the time being.

The bus started moving and with a loud bang, Harry fell onto the bed, the result of the Knight Bus's speed throwing him backwards, crushing Ivan underneath him.

Ivan struggled out and, seeing that Harry wasn't interested in eating the Chocolate, leapt forward, popped it into his mouth and, to Harry and Stan's surprise, expertly tore open the wrapper and ate it, but as for the tub of cat food, he wasn't going to touch it.

Ivan was exhausted, and the chase with Sirius Black had taken a lot of energy out of him, and he quickly gobbled down an entire chocolate bar.

"Neville, your cat is well trained, my sister had a cat, but it couldn't do anything but scratch the sheets." Stan looked at Ivan with interest.

"Yes, yes!" Watching the black cat eating the chocolate, Harry had the strangest feeling that the cat looked more and more like Ivan.

Harry lay down on the bed, lifted the black cat above his chest and watched it carefully.

Ivan waved his paws feebly, to no avail.

'The cat is very eccentric,' Harry thought.

After a violent collision, Harry unconsciously loosened his grip.

Ivan ran to the pillow and sat down, he looked out of the bus window, the Knight bus always hit the curb, but it didn't hit anything; the rows of lampposts, mailboxes and garbage cans moved out of the way as the bus approached, and when it had passed, it returned to its original position.

Harry studied the black cat for a moment, and then his thoughts returned to what had happened tonight.

It had been a strange night, a strange bus, a big dog and a black cat, and he didn't know what was in store for him.

Then, as he rubbed his stomach, he wondered if the Dursleys had managed to get Marjorie off the roof.