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Harry Potter was glued to the television screen. Oh, he had to be careful about it, because he technically wasn’t allowed to watch television at all, and certainly never had the privilege of picking what channel to watch. Dudley could spend as long as he wanted watching television in the mornings, getting toast crumbs all over the sofa while he lounged around and enjoyed a second breakfast like an overweight hobbit. Harry on the other hand could only watch it covertly, so he tidied and dusted the lounge room extra slowly when the “Pokémon” cartoon was on in the mornings.

Harry wanted a Pikachu of his own for a pet. He knew they weren’t real – he wasn’t an idiot. They were just little make-believe cartoon creatures. But he so wished it all was real. He would have a little friend with him always, to cuddle and care for. It would be ready to fight to protect him when Dudley and his friends started bullying him at school or chasing him on the way home. And if he needed to hide it, he could tucked it safely away inside a Pokéball. He thought he might quite like a toasty warm Charmander with a flame on its tail for those cold winter nights shivering on the camp bed in his cupboard, with the horrible thin blanket that never kept him warm enough. Or perhaps a Squirtle to make water for him when he was thirsty, like when he got locked up for two whole days after the “incident” where he somehow ended up on the roof of the school kitchens. He honestly thought he was going to die of thirst, with nothing but a lone hidden orange and two cached water crackers to sustain him for both food and drink the whole time.

Most of all though, he wanted a Pikachu, just like the trainer Ash had. It couldn’t warm him, or make water just like magic. But it would cuddle and love him, and he could cuddle and love it. And it would care for him, and protect him. Like no-one in his life ever protected him. It would attack those who tried to hurt him – and they would never dare to try and punish him ever again. With a Pikachu riding about on his shoulder he wouldn’t have to ever be afraid or alone any more.

***

The day Harry learned that magic was real was a revelation. And Hagrid was completely sympathetic to Harry’s wish to have a pet like a large yellow mouse that could shoot lightning, or a tame fire-breathing dragon all his very own. Sadly, Harry had to make do with an owl, which was at least a very intelligent owl that would sit on his shoulder. Hagrid promised he could visit his hut any time to meet some “int’restin’ creatures”, which was very kind of him. The joy of learning that magic was real and he could leave the Dursleys’ to go to a school for wizards was eclipsed only by the moment when he realised that magic could do anything.

It took Harry a while to refine his ideas about magic, but the initial moment of revelation came in Flying class with his fellow Gryffindors, and the Slytherins. Harry’s broom jumped immediately into his hand, but a lot of the other students’ brooms didn’t. He saw Hermione’s broom roll over uncooperatively as she eyed it dubiously, and Neville’s terrified face matched his totally unresponsive broom. Madam Hooch gave a pep talk about how you had to be firm with your broom, and as Harry looked around the class he realised that the people with brooms in hand were the ones who looked keen to fly, while those who were uncertain (or like Neville, terrified) were the ones with the most uncooperative brooms. That couldn’t be a coincidence. In that moment Harry realised that magic was all about how much you wanted things to happen. It was just like when he’d wanted to be away from those bullies in primary school with all his heart, and ended up on the school roof. Or when he wanted, more than anything, not to have to wear that disgusting old brown jumper of Dudley’s with orange bobbles on it, and it had shrunk so small a doll couldn’t wear it. Harry stood there in Flying class, and realised that he hadn’t needed special words or gestures to cast spells in the past, and you just as obviously didn’t even need to be holding a wand to do magic.

Draco tried to cause trouble with Neville’s Remembrall, but Harry told Ron to just ignore him.

“Neville doesn’t like that Remembrall anyway,” he shrugged. “Draco would be doing him a favour if he smashed it, and earn himself a detention.” It took the wind right out of Draco’s sails, and he scowled and just tossed it onto the grass at their feet, where it landed without damage on the soft turf.

Harry asked around, but the universal opinion seemed to be that incantations and wand gestures were essential for spellcasting for all but the most powerful and experienced wizards and witches.

“Accidental magic is different,” they insisted, but couldn’t explain how or why. Nor could they explain why it was that you could break some laws of physics, but not all of them.

“But why can I turn a matchstick into a needle, but not into a miniature breadstick?” he persisted.

Professor McGonagall’s explanation about the “five Principal Exceptions to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration” and how you couldn’t transfigure things into edible food was interesting, but still didn’t answer his questions. Because apparently you could make water, wine, and other liquids out of thin air – even sauces! You could make drinkable liquids but not edible solids, and you could expand food in size but not create it from scratch – it just didn’t make sense.

Harry thought that perhaps people just didn’t want to totally ruin the economy. Odds were that the people who convinced everyone these “laws” were true, and probably banned all food-creating spells, had some kind of agenda. The Dursleys had told him all sorts of stupid lies simply to make their own lives easier – adults lied all the time.

In the musty stacks of the Hogwarts library Harry spent hours digging through dusty old tomes, looking up the wizard who’d first come up with the “Five Principal Exceptions” centuries ago. It turned out he’d been the pure-blood owner of extensive farms and also three restaurants in the wizarding districts, and he was a former Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards. He and other “magical theorists” had convinced society so well that food created by magic would be non-nutritious and harmful to you, and that the spells to do so went dangerously wrong far too often, that everyone started believing them. Wizards and witches stopped casting the spells to make food, or when they did, the results were flawed or unimpressive. Without belief and a drive to succeed, magic didn’t work so well.

It took Harry a couple of weeks to magic his first apple into existence, but he managed it. It wasn’t easy, that first conjuration of food. He needed the push of hunger to trigger it – he voluntarily went for two days without food to get the appropriate level of sheer need to trigger his so-called “accidental” magic into working for him. Night after night, after everyone else in his dorm was asleep, Harry sat cross-legged on his bed, concentrating fiercely with his eyes screwed up tight, remembering far too many days and nights locked into his cupboard with no dinner that night due to “ingratitude”. He visualised an apple – over and over. A perfect, green Granny Smith apple. The cool feel of its smooth skin, the crisp smell, the crunch and the sweet juice when you bit into it, the pattern of the seeds in the core. Not an apple fetched from anywhere – just one appearing. Late one night it finally happened, and he let out a fierce cry of triumph that woke his dorm mates from their slumber with startled cries and grumbled complaints.

“Merlin’s beard, it’s the middle of the night, Harry!” complained Seamus.

“Did you have a bad dream?” yawned Ron.

“I made an apple!” he said excitedly, holding it up for all to see, awaiting the expected chorus of amazed gasps and gushing praise, because this was world-changing.

But no-one cared. None of them had even heard of Gamp’s Laws, let alone their exceptions. And when he explained it to them, they just shrugged and assumed his apple must be no good, then. He tried talking to the theory-loving Hermione Granger the next day, but he couldn’t convince her either. At least she listened to his ramblings with more interest than most, and said it’d helped her a bit in Charms to focus her intent more. Professor McGonagall said it would fade within an hour or two, or be non-nutritious, but it was an excellent try. She didn’t believe him in the slightest that it had been made without his wand.

Harry waited to see if anything would happen to it, but his apple was still there the next afternoon and looked perfectly fine, so he ate it. It was delicious.

It was also a breakthrough. In Charms the following morning he levitated his feather with a swish and flick of his wand, without any incantation at all.

That year Harry began to be hailed as a child prodigy for his mastery of wordless magic, but for Harry it was just the start.

No-one noticed his increasingly casual approach to potion brewing except Neville, whom he voluntarily paired up with. Regardless of the types or quantities of ingredients that the pair chucked in their cauldron, their potions grew steadily better. For Harry concentrated on staring and willing their potion into submission while silently pointing his wand at the cauldron, while Neville did whatever he wanted with the stirring. Green potions turned closer to the desired effervescent blue in response to his emphatic visualisations. Snape unbent far enough to call them “not totally incompetent”, but was too busy monitoring the rest of the classroom to pay attention to their odd technique. Harry was useless at theory, however, since he considered it pointless. So he ended the year with an A in Potions, despite his perfect brewing in the practical.

While Harry had bonded with Ron on the train to Hogwarts, Hermione wasn’t exactly what he’d call a friend. More just someone he studied in the library with. But they bonded more after he rescued her from a troll, all on his own. He made its club catch on fire with an emphatically pointed wand and the Pokémon-inspired incantation of “Flamethrower”, an improvisation which intrigued and impressed Professor Flitwick.

As the year drew to a close, however, Ron and Hermione were panicking about someone up to no good trying to steal the stone, so he promised to help. Harry never did quite understand why the Philosopher’s Stone was such a big deal. Why, they learnt how to turn wood into metal in their very first Transfigurations class! Turning something into gold shouldn’t be especially harder than that. He was no economics expert, but surely simply being able to turn wood into metal could earn you all the money you’d ever dreamed of, in the Muggle world. Money might not grow on trees, but wood did. And wood could be turned into silver by any first year wizard or witch.

Immortality sounded cool, however. He wondered how that even worked. Could you wish yourself into not aging? He’d settle for taller, at the moment. He didn’t worry about it too much, being intensely focused on improving his control of his magic, and trying to understand the real underlying principles of magic.

Ron was right in the end about someone trying to steal the hidden Philosopher’s Stone, but it turned out not to be Ron’s prime suspect of Professor Snape, but the mild mannered Professor Quirrell, aka Voldemort! Finding out he could burn someone with his bare hands showed Harry the Dark Side of his wish-magic. He vowed to be responsible with it, and not teach his techniques to any undeserving apprentices.

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Harry got to Hogwarts for his second year with only a tiny bit of trouble pushing through a rather unusually stubborn barrier at Platform 9 ¾. In his first week back at Hogwarts he made a new best friend. He sought out a new first year Ravenclaw named Luna Lovegood, after people kept telling him they were a lot alike with their love of imaginary creatures. She understood him better than anyone else, and was sure all his theories were right. She listened patiently to his plans to master wordless and wandless spellcasting, reveal all the magical “laws” as being more like recommendations, and one day make his own Pokémon out of thin air. She placed an order with him for a pair of Crumple-Horned Snorkacks, nattered to him about the strange and wondrous creatures of the wizarding world, and happily spent an hour with him every afternoon doing meditation and visualisation exercises.

While Harry and Ron remained friends, he and Hermione began drifting apart that year. For the more she read up on magical theory, the less time she had for his wild theories about willpower being the only thing required to break every law of nature and magic. He also further lost her respect when he stopped going to History of Magic classes so that he had more time for his own personal studies.

Aghast at his rebellion once she found out that skipping class wasn’t going to be just a one-off occurrence, she went into a rant and tried to persuade him to change his ways. “You just can’t do that! It’s a required class! You’ll lose Gryffindor hundreds of points, and maybe get expelled! You’ll definitely fail the class for sure! You can’t simply refuse to show up!”

“Sure I can. Binns doesn’t even notice when I am there. He doesn’t even know my name – he calls me ‘Perkins’,” Harry pointed out. “And if no-one tells him I’m wagging class, he won’t know enough to take points. Gryffindors should stick together, yeah?”

“You’ll get a T! You will fail the class! Fail the class!” she repeated, in a horrified tone that suggested it ranked up there with death-by-troll as something to be feared.

Harry shrugged indifferently – he’d failed classes before to make the Dursleys happy. It wasn’t the end of the world.

“I’m getting an O in Charms and Transfiguration, and the others are all pretty good too. I don’t need top marks in everything. I can’t think of a single job I’d want to do that needs me to have a NEWT in History of Magic. I’ll read the textbook in my own time and learn any interesting bits that way, but the class itself is a snooze-fest. I’m quitting.”

She was even more cross with him once a couple of other Gryffindors (including Ron) decided to follow his rebellious example and stopped showing up to class, or used it as a self-study period where they ignored the teacher and caught up homework.

***

Just before Christmas Harry discovered that talking to snakes was considered unusual. By people who thought turning a mouse into a snuffbox was an essential spell to master and not at all an unusual thing to do, he pointed out. But only the Muggle-borns seemed at all swayed by his arguments. Many purebloods speculated on whether his prodigious talents stemmed from being the Heir of Slytherin or not, and took a “watch and wait” attitude towards him. A lot of the Slytherins and Ravenclaws in particular seemed to be acting a bit more respectfully towards him these days.

Even though Draco and he disliked each other, Harry gathered up his courage and went to ask him how to cast the serpent-creating spell. It sounded amazing. Could it be adapted to create other animals?

At first Draco thought Harry was making fun of him. “Perfect Potter needs to learn a spell from me? Get lost, Potter.”

“No, honestly, I want to learn the spell. It was an awesome spell! At least tell me what book it’s from.”

“No.”

“I’m going to bug you until you tell me, so you might as well. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Teeeeeell me!” Harry bounced up and down around him like a hyperactive squirrel. Luna had been a bad influence on him with her recommendation for a “guaranteed” way to get Draco to co-operate.

Draco sighed. “If I tell you, will you leave? Because this is just embarrassing.”

Harry grinned at him. “Yup.”

“Fine,” Draco said grumpily, and told him the book it could be found in.

It turned out that the Serpensortia spell unfortunately didn’t create a snake, it just summoned a wild snake (away from humans) from another location somewhere else in the world, preferably close by. One theorist speculated that its popularity as a spell in the United Kingdom was why their country was so lacking in snakes, and why the spell had in modern times become a more magically challenging spell to cast. For while casting Finite did end the spell and return the snake to its original location, most were killed as part of the duel. Muggle zoos were apparently covertly warded to prevent the disappearance of their snakes, as a precautionary measure.

Parseltongue was an interesting skill, and Harry was proud to be so unique. It did make him wonder why one couldn’t talk to other animals too, and Luna agreed with him that it made sense and would be a lot of fun to learn more animal languages. Trevor the toad didn’t have much to say, and Ron’s rat didn’t seem to want to cooperate with his experiments for some reason, but Hedwig turned out to be quite the conversationalist with a bit of focused encouragement. In fact, she was getting smarter by the day. Harry decided that if he wanted to create some Pokémon that it would be easier to modify existing animals rather than trying to create them from scratch. So far he’d only managed to create plush toys out of thin air – he had no idea what their insides were supposed to look like, which seemed to be a big stumbling block in trying to visualise them as living creatures. Ron’s rat must’ve been smarter than it looked, because it seemed like it avoided him more than ever after Ron (with Scabbers in his pocket) listened to him chatting one day with Luna about trying to transfigure a rodent, and what would happen to its insides. It had let out a couple of terrified little squeaks at some of Luna’s more gory speculations in their brainstorming session.

Ginny Weasley seemed shyly interested in making friends with him and Luna (whom she insisted she’d been friends with for ages, somewhat to Luna’s surprise). As an overture of friendship Ginny smuggled him a female white mouse out of her first year Transfiguration class for him to experiment on. With a couple of months of effort, he managed to slowly and carefully turn it permanently yellow with brown stripes, enlarge it to the size of a small cat, enhance its intelligence, and give it a zig-zag tail. All without a single official spell. He called her “Pikachu”, which perhaps wasn’t terribly original of him, but then, Harry figured that Ash never bothered giving his Pokémon original names either. It just wasn’t something you did.

Some of the students had starting getting panicky about him ever since hearing him speak Parseltongue at the Duelling Club over Christmas, but it got worse as the mysterious petrifications continued. He even got attacked a couple of times in the halls with minor hexes and jinxes, before people learned that he was surprisingly good at defending himself, despite being only a second year. He started getting nervous about someone hurting Pikachu, who couldn’t defend herself yet. He took her everywhere with him, except Potions class where Snape had banned him from bringing her, and Transfigurations, where Professor McGonagall seemed to make her nervous. Professor McGonagall seemed to like to pick Pikachu up and bounce her from one hand to the other. She never dropped his Pokémon or hurt her, but it made Pikachu twitchy. Harry figured her inner cat found Pikachu irresistible.

Professors Flitwick, Sinistra, and Lockhart seemed to like Pikachu the best. Though during one particular class, Lockhart wasn’t keen on how she disrupted his storytelling.

Harry was busy focusing his intent on Pikachu, ignoring Lockhart as he droned on again. “…So there I was, surrounded by werewolves in the middle of the town, and nothing but an ordinary Muggle phone booth to take cover in-”

“Pikachu,” he whispered quietly to his pet. “Pikachu.”

It squeaked back softly at him, and it felt like it was saying, “Me?”

“Yes, that’s you. Pikachu. Say your name – Pikachu.”

“Pikachu!” it squeaked quietly, and Harry let out a loud whoop of triumph.

“That’s right, Pikachu, you’re so clever! Say it again!”

“Pikachu!” it squeaked a little louder. To Harry’s ear, like its previous squeak it still carried the meaning, “Me!”

“Ahem!” said his disgruntled teacher. “Mr. Potter you are disrupting my story.”

“Well, it’s in the book. I’ve already read it,” Harry said dismissively, earning a very boring detention helping deal with fan mail for his backtalk and disruption of the class. Pikachu was only allowed back in class with a promise they would both behave better in future.

After a little more effort he could understand Pikachu every time she squeaked at him or said “Pikachu”, though not yet as well as he could understand snakes or Hedwig.

He wasn’t the only one training his magic now though. Using Harry’s magic-focusing techniques Luna was sure her spellcasting was improving, and she’d managed to make her Dirigible plum earrings repel Nargles better than ever – none of her possessions were going missing anymore. Harry noticed a couple of older Ravenclaw girls turn around confusedly in the middle of the corridor when Luna approached them, and wander off elsewhere.

“Those girls have a Nargle infestation,” Luna explained. “Things always go missing when those two and their friends are around.”

Ginny seemed to be having a tough year and was often out of sorts, but it took her a while to break down entirely. She eventually took them out to the lake to show Harry, Luna, and Ron an interesting diary that could write back to her.

“I just don’t know what to do,” said Ginny, crying gently. “I keep forgetting things, and then it’s like I wake up, and there’s blood on my hands, or feathers everywhere, and I don’t know what’s going on.” Ron put his arm around his little sister’s shoulders comfortingly.

“I think it’s infested with Wrackspurts, that’s why you’ve been having bouts of forgetfulness,” suggested Luna, placing the blame on the little invisible ghostly creatures. “Wrackspurts can be a real problem for some people. I haven’t heard of a book being behind them, but they have to come from somewhere. Maybe they lay eggs in books! And that’s why sometimes you’ll pick up a book and settle down to read for just ten minutes, and then you blink and you’ve been reading for hours! Maybe books are how they spread to new people!” She waved her hands excitedly as she expounded upon her new theory.

“Huh, that would make sense,” agreed Harry thoughtfully.

“I dunno about Wrackspurts,” Ron said dubiously. “But I think it’s evil. Maybe cursed. You know that Dad always says that you shouldn’t trust something if you can’t see where it keeps its brain.”

Luna nodded sagely. “That’s why you should trust mummies. They keep their brains in jars where it’s easy to see them.”

“Umm… I don’t think that’s quite what dad meant,” Ron said, and then tried to drag the conversation back on track.

While they discussed whether to burn the diary or turn it into the Headmaster, the ghost of Tom Riddle manifested to boast about his “unstoppable power” as Ginny crumpled to the ground on the lake’s shore. Ron panicked and fussed over his sister trying to wake her up, and Harry burnt the evil book. It took a while to catch, while the ghost laughed and boasted, but he just needed to concentrate harder. Why Ron insisted that the spell Harry had used at the end was “Fiendfyre” he had no idea, but it certainly impressed people when Ron eagerly retold the story later. But it didn’t always impress people in a good way. Some people, those who’d never coped well with the idea that Harry could talk to snakes, seemed to decide he was evil for using such dark magic, and avoided him whenever they saw him. The Headmaster on the other hand praised him for destroying something enchanted with a piece of Voldemort’s spirit. What kind of a name was “Tom” for a Dark Lord? No wonder he’d changed it.

Sadly, while she was initially very grateful and clingy, the more Ginny saw Harry’s friendship continuing to blossom with Luna the more she drifted away. Until one day she wandered off in the middle of their discussion about whether unicorns were the result of wizards modifying horses to have a narwhal horn to match the description in stories, or naturally evolved creatures that the Muggle myths were based on. They didn’t even notice she’d left, which was the final straw for her, and the friendship fell away. Their little group now consisted solely of Harry, Luna and Ron.

Professor Lockhart left at the end of the year, under investigation about his so-called “heroic adventures”. It seemed he’d had a run in with a seventh year Slytherin, Terence Higgs (the Slytherin seeker), who’d taken great offence to Lockhart’s attempt at Obliviating him when challenged about the veracity of his books. He’d swiftly cast a Shield Charm, then disarmed and stunned his erstwhile professor. Some people whispered that he’d been trying to blackmail Lockhart, accidentally provoking him into attacking, while others lauded him for his brave confrontation in the name of justice. Whatever the reason for it was, most people were happy to see the incompetent teacher go. Slytherin won the House Cup that year, to great jubilation on their part and polite clapping from the other houses.

Unlike Ginny, Luna never got bored with Harry’s enthusiasm for strange creatures, and she just generally loved having a real friend she could actually see. On the train ride back to London, she spontaneously invited Harry to visit for the holidays. So when he saw them at the station he told the Dursleys not to bother about him as he’d stay elsewhere for the summer, which was fine by them (though they abused him verbally about the wasted trip to London), and he went off with her and her father. It was the best summer he’d ever had, until Dumbledore showed up at the Lovegoods’ house like a cranky, elderly probation officer. He insisted Harry needed to spend at least a fortnight every year with the Dursleys, but refused to explain why, or what gave him the authority to set such rules in the first place. And after all that fuss, he showed up again at the Dursleys to remove him after two weeks were up to stay with the Weasleys, because allegedly it wasn’t safe at Privet Drive either – for Sirius Black had escaped from Azkaban.

The Quibbler was full of articles slyly poking fun at Dumbledore, that summer.

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In his third year at Hogwarts Harry noticed Hermione breaking the laws of time. He kicked himself that it wasn’t something he’d even considered could be challenged. He clearly wasn’t thinking big enough. What with Time-Turners, Apparition and Portkeys, the so-called “laws” of time and space were obviously just guidelines too. He mastered Apparition and Portkey creation, before experimenting with sending himself back in time. Knowing that wizards didn’t even think it did break any laws gave him a massive confidence boost in mastering it himself. Without the silly necklace needed as a confidence prop like Dumbo’s feather in the old Disney movie.

His conversations with Luna got a lot more confusing for others to listen to once he started referring to talks he’d had with her “two Mondays ago”, discussing homework for classes he hadn’t had yet, and calling his dinner “tomorrow’s breakfast”.

People were starting to look at him funny. Well, funnier than they did already. There weren’t many people who thought he was completely sane. He seemed to be graduating extremely early to “powerful and crazy, just like Dumbledore”. Usually it took wizards a lot longer to earn such a reputation.

***

Professor McGonagall was thrilled to bits with his increasingly advanced Transfiguration skills, and Hermione had long since resignedly conceded the top spot in the class to him in all practical exercises. Though McGonagall didn’t like it when he tried to smuggle out the animals they were supposed to be transforming out of class for his own private Transfiguration experiments.

“Mr. Potter,” she said crisply, “the goal of this class is to transform your hedgehog into a pincushion, not to try and smuggle it into your bag while transforming a quill into a decoy pincushion. That is hardly the standard of behaviour I expect of my Gryffindors.” She didn’t take points off him though – she never did. He was usually quite the teacher’s pet in class.

“But I still ended up with a perfectly fine pincushion, and I think it’s kind of cruel to the hedgehog, so-”

“-No, Mr. Potter,” she said with unrelenting sternness. “It is an excellent pincushion indeed, but that is not the focus of the lesson today. Transfiguring animals into inanimate objects is a harder level of difficulty than merely transforming one inanimate object into another.”

Hermione, who sat with Neville these days, glanced over at his table smugly, and earned herself 5 points and her teacher’s praise for her slightly spiky pincushion.

Harry tapped his poor little hedgehog with his wand, and changed it to a perfect red and gold velvet pincushion, complete with pins in it, earning 10 points for Gryffindor, and a proud smile from Professor McGonagall. Hermione looked at him jealously.

“That didn’t even look like the right wand motion,” she complained.

Harry just shrugged dismissively. “I don’t need to worry about that. No-one does.”

She frowned. “Professor McGonagall explained to me how you’ve just got more innate magical power than most wizards. But you know the rest of us still need to follow procedure to get results. And you’re still not going to get an O if you don’t understand the theory. My essays are four times as long as yours.”

Harry rolled his eyes at her. “We’re here to learn magic, not essay writing. And I’m doing just fine at learning the actual magic.”

“You are so rude sometimes, Harry!”

“Sorry. What I said is still true, though.” Harry’s casual dismissal of centuries of magical theory clashed badly with Hermione’s love of the laws and principles that made magic into a pseudo-science. They still liked each other as individuals, but clashed too often to be good friends anymore.

Professor McGonagall definitely had a soft spot for her protégé, but it didn’t lead to her unbending enough to let him go to Hogsmeade on weekends, what with Sirius Black on the loose. Harry was grumpy about it, but he still had Luna to keep him company while Ron was off having fun and buying sweets for all of them.

“Never mind, Harry,” she said consolingly one weekend when he was feeling a bit dispirited, “you still have me, and Pikachu. Since she’s almost perfect now, why don’t you spend your weekend working on a new Pokémon instead? How about that little brown lizard with the orange belly that you’re planning to turn into a Charmander?”

He sighed. “I’m worried I’ll get in trouble for having too many pets. Percy’s already complained about it, but luckily Professor McGonagall is so impressed with how Pikachu is going that she just classed her as a ‘project’ rather than a pet.”

“Perhaps Hagrid could help?”

He beamed gratefully at her. “That’s brilliant! I know he still misses his dragon Norbert, he’d be happy to help. And you’re right Luna. I don’t need to waste my time at Hogsmeade, do I? And Ron promised to bring me back some sweets anyway.”

Hagrid was thrilled to have the opportunity to hide away Harry’s experimental “Muggle baby dragon” project. When Harry finally got the Charmander advanced enough to start breathing fire and it accidentally set Hagrid’s chair alight one weekend, Hagrid just patted the flames out with his hands, and said, “Did yeh see the size of tha’ flame? Awww, bless ‘im. Yer little Charmander’s growin’ up.” He sniffled and blew his nose noisily in a hanky the size of a tea towel, while Luna patted his elbow comfortingly, being unable to reach his shoulder even while he was sitting down.

***

When Harry faced the Boggart, almost none of the other students understood why Harry was scared of seeing a copy of himself in a white uniform with a red letter “R” on the front of the shirt. Dean Thomas snorted and giggled about it though. Harry was surprised himself, but then realized what it represented for him – he never wanted to go dark, or become a failure as a trainer. Team Rocket never won.

It did remind him that unscrupulous people might try and steal his Pokémon, and use them for evil. Pokéballs were high on his list of things to create this year, and he added “anti-theft wards” to the list of features in his planned design he was working on. He wanted to be able to give them voluntarily to people to hold if he chose to, but craft them so that anyone trying to steal his Pokémon was going to get a nasty shock. Literally.

***

Halfway through his third year, which was more like one full year thanks to overdoing it with his own double-the-day time management, he had finished turning his mouse into a flawless and friendly Pikachu that could shoot electrical (but non-fatal) Thundershock attacks, his little brown lizard had been turned into a perfect Charmander, and a wild toad became a grumpy but loveable Bulbasaur. All with the appropriate attack abilities. Well, what he’d managed to gather from the cartoons he’d managed to see, anyway. Most students tended to hurriedly scatter away any time they saw Harry headed down to the shore of the Black Lake for a training session, given how frequently lightning bolts and flame blasts would sometimes go further than his creatures intended.

Harry had really wanted a Squirtle too so he’d have all the starter Pokémon, but couldn’t find any turtles out by the Black Lake. Apparently they weren’t native to Scotland lakes or rivers, so he supposed he might have to buy a pet one once he was back in Surrey. That wasn’t his only idea, though. He was also wondering if the teapot to tortoise spell that Professor McGonagall promised that they would learn at the end of the year might supply a good base animal to work with. Harry had found that some of his own spells worked better in the presence of others who also believed that they would work. It was fascinating. On his own, he had difficulty believing that you could turn an inanimate object into a fully functioning living creature – but other students (especially those raised by wizarding families) had no such mental stumbling block, and did a better than him at such tasks. While in their company, his own spells worked better too. Were powerful wizards more powerful because others believed in them?? Voldemort convincing others that it was dangerous even to say his name might’ve been the smartest thing he ever did. Harry wondered if that was why Dumbledore tried to talk people into ignoring that linguistic taboo. Harry decided to take a leaf from the old wizard’s book, and tried to convince his classmates that Voldemort was “nothing special” and “a very average wizard” whose name you shouldn’t fear saying. But while they weren’t swayed by his arguments in that respect, it did start earning him even more awe from others. He tried pointing out that he couldn’t be much of a wizard to be defeated by a baby, exorcised by an 11 year old, and to have his diary-trapped spirit destroyed by a 12 year old. It didn’t reduce Voldemort’s reputation, but it did enhance Harry’s. Well, that was something at least. Harry subsequently found his spellcasting experiments were coming along more easily than ever.

“It’s no wonder he’s not scared of Sirius Black, hey?” said Ron admiringly, very proud to be his friend. “He’s defeated You-Know-Who three times already!”

People started murmuring again about his exploits, and Ron basked in the glory of re-telling the stories about their adventures.

It was time to create some working Pokéballs. Harry nipped back in time and hid out in an unused classroom for a day, making his first Pokéballs out of thin air and sheer stubbornness. He even made them enchanted so that they would fly back to his hand after he’d released the Pokémon from inside one, because you never saw Ash or Misty having to scrabble on the ground picking up Pokéballs after a battle. He wanted to be able to catch things in them and have them float to him. Or, throw them to release the Pokémon, but not lose the Pokéball in the process. And why not? With magic, anything was possible. It just took practice and determination.

Hagrid was very sorry to see Charmander and Bulbasaur leave his hut. He’d really bonded with Charmander in particular, but while Charmander considered Hagrid a good friend, he was happiest with Harry. Harry promised to make him his own Pokémon as thanks for all his help, right after he’d made Luna’s Crumple-Horned Snorkacks (which she was still researching the details of). He got an almost literally bone-crushing hug for his offer.

***

After several conversations, and seeing the proof of his skills now demonstrated with Pikachu, Charmander, and Bulbasaur, Hedwig finally agreed to let Harry enhance her. On the condition that she didn’t lose her enhanced intelligence and the ability to talk with him in “Hoot-tongue” like she could now. Harry was glad he’d been able to exchange some of his galleons into Muggle money at the bank with the Lovegoods and had gotten the chance to see some Pokémon movies over the summer. Because Hedwig eventually conceded she’d be willing to be turned into one of the more impressive flying options he presented her with for consideration: the legendary Articuno.

“It is the most majestic and special of the bird and flying Pokémon you have told me about,” Hedwig explained, in hoots only comprehensible to Harry (and occasionally, Luna). “The blue and white colours are most pleasant, and won’t lead me to being mistaken for a Phoenix. I also like the sound of the Ice Beam attack. An Articuno sounds like an excellent choice, for I am a snowy owl, and your first companion.”

Harry planned to stockpile more money and a box of chocolate bars so he could bribe his cousin into watching more Pokémon videos with him over the next summer if he got stuck at the Dursleys’ again.

***

Later in the year Harry had a particularly busy and confusing night, with a dramatic confrontation in the Shrieking Shack where Sirius explained the whole sorry business of the Potters’ betrayal to Ron and Harry. It turned out the Sirius Black was innocent, and Scabbers was actually Peter Pettigrew. When Scabbers made a run for it, Harry and Sirius took off after him, leaving Ron behind on his own – he was safe enough there and he couldn’t do much with a broken leg.

But while Ron was safe inside a building, outside in the woods as they chased after the rat Sirius and Harry were in a spot of trouble, for they had forgotten about the Dementors all around the school. Sirius was weakened easily by their mere presence, but on the whole they weren’t quite up to the standards of guarding and apprehending the wanted escapee that the Ministry had probably hoped for. Not with Harry there to protect Sirius.

The Dementors were wary of Harry after attacked them with all his Pokémon (including the formidable Hedwig). And doubly cautious after he summoned his Pikachu Patronus to attack and weaken them, as Sirius slumped unconscious to the ground in the face of the dark swarm draining away all hope and joy. But then they became positively terrified of Harry after he then threw a Pokéball at the nearest weakened Dementor that hovered threateningly over the unconscious form of Sirius Black. The Pokéball wobbled for a little while, but then it flashed and lay still.

“Yes!” Harry said, triumphantly holding up the Pokéball after it flew to his hand. “I caught a Dementor!” He posed, and his Pokémon all cheered with him, but there were no other people left there who were conscious and able to appreciate the moment.

The remaining Dementors promptly fled from him, unused to suffering terror and despair instead of inducing it in others.

“I think you’ll make a nice Haunter,” Harry mused thoughtfully, looking at the Pokéball in his hand.

Sirius woke up at the lakeshore not too much later, surprised but relieved to still be in possession of his soul. “There will be a home for you with me as soon as I can manage it, Harry,” he promised. “And if there’s anything I can ever do for you, just name it,” offered the grateful escaped convict.

“That sounds great!” Harry said happily. “And if you’re thinking about presents, the broomstick was nice, but I don’t fly a lot. I’d love a little pet turtle,” he added thoughtfully. “I’ve got a great idea for a turtle. Or a goldfish!”

“Sure, I can manage that. You really love your pets!” laughed Sirius weakly. “Are you sure that’s enough? I owe you my life.”

“I’ve got to catch them all,” grinned Harry. He was going to be a Pokémon Master. It was way more interesting than being an ordinary wizard. “Oh, and don’t forget your rat,” he added, tossing a Pokéball to Sirius.

“What?”

“Pettigrew, he’s trapped inside that ball, in rat form. I spotted him hanging around while you were unconscious with the Dementors closing in. I think maybe he was trying to see if they were going to finish the two of us off. Once the Dementors fled, he tried to scurry off, but Hedwig spotted him and helped me catch him,” he explained proudly.

Pikachu waved its arms excitedly. “Pikachu! Pika pi!”

Harry nodded. “Absolutely. Your Thundershock was great for stunning him when Hedwig dropped him in front of us. I couldn’t have done it without you!”

“Won’t he suffocate in there?” asked Sirius. “It’s very small. Not that I mind on the whole if he dies, but I wanted him dead as a man. It’s hard to feel triumphantly revenged on a dead rat.”

“No, it’s very comfy in there. He’s sleeping, probably. It’s like a kind of hibernation. He’ll wake if you say his name, and listen to what you’re saying, but he can’t get out.”

“Really? How do I get him out when I’m ready to… deal with him?”

“Don’t say it right now, but the magic words are, ‘Pettigrew, I choose you!’ Then you throw the ball, and he’ll pop out. If he tries to get away again, say ‘Pettigrew, return!’ and he’ll be caught in the ball again. You don’t even need to throw it at him, just hold it. It’ll suck him back up into the ball in a beam of light.”

Sirius laughed rather maniacally, and tossed the ball up and down. “Oh this is the best magic ball ever. Peter, we’re going to have so much fun before I turn your body over to the Aurors.” He cackled for a while longer. “Peeeter, Peeter, we’re going to have some fun.” He shook the ball in his hand, but seemed disappointed when Harry said it wouldn’t do anything to the rat inside.

“I still don’t really understand how it works, or how you made this enchanted ball,” he said wonderingly to Harry, “but I’m so glad you did.”

Hedwig helped the very grateful Sirius Black fly to safety. She was much stronger than she looked, now.

Chapter Text

Harry had enjoyed his summer holiday with Luna after running away from the Dursleys’ after a fortnight, but it was nice to be heading back to Hogwarts again. Harry and Luna caught up with Ron on the train.

“Daddy did a whole series of articles on the creatures Harry told us all about,” said Luna happily. “Did you read them, Ron?”

“They’re not real, though, he’s just making them up with lots of Transfigurations,” sighed Ron.

“They weren’t real before, but they are now,” said Luna stubbornly. “Every creature has to start somehow. Harry’s explained about the theory of evolution, and how battles and magic rocks help creatures evolve. Show him one of the new Pokémon you made over summer, Harry!”

Harry called his newest Pokémon out of its ball, but Ron was very unimpressed by the big orange and yellow fish that flopped around on the ground uselessly.

“Doesn’t a fish need to be in water?” he asked doubtfully.

“Magikarp! Karp, karp!” the fish burbled, thrashing about on the faded carpet of the train carriage.

“No, the Magikarp can’t swim, actually.”

“What does it do, then?”

“It just kind of… flops about. Its scales are super tough like rock! I based it off a goldfish. Not bad, huh?”

“Is it tasty? It’s pretty big.”

The fish flapped its tail and fins more frantically, but uselessly. “Magikarp!! Karp!!”

“No. You don’t eat Pokémon!” Harry said, aghast. Well, maybe the Farfetch’d duck. But he wouldn’t do such a thing.

 “I think your magic carp is the most useless thing you’ve ever made,” Ron said disparagingly.

“It is not! You just wait. It’ll get loads better in its next evolution. It’s a work in progress.”

Ron shrugged. “I liked what you did with Hedwig much better. She looks kind of like a blue phoenix, now. That’s much cooler.”

“I think his fish Pokémon is wonderful,” said Luna loyally. “Oh, and Daddy and I have finally finished all our drawings and notes on the Crumple-Horned Snorkack,” she said, handing over a bag full of large tightly rolled scrolls of parchment to Harry. “I’d like it as my starter Pokémon, please. A girl one for me, and Daddy wants a boy.”

“I’ll get right on it, after I’ve read through all this,” Harry promised. “I don’t want to get it wrong.”

Colin and Dennis Creevey, the two most excitable of Harry’s fans and heads of his unofficial fan club, stopped by with a few other Muggleborns (all avid watchers of the Pokémon cartoons) to take photos, chat with him, and admire the progress he’d made over the holidays on Hedwig and his new fish Pokémon.

Colin chatted for a while about how he and his brother had tried to make a Pokémon themselves. “We wanted an Eevee, so we tried Transfiguring Boots-”

“-That’s our pet cat,” contributed Dennis.

“Yes. But we’d just gotten him brown with long ears, and then there was this whole flock of owls from the Ministry warning us not to use our wands.”

“Mum was furious!” Dennis chimed in.

“So she locked up our wands, but we remembered what you said about how we don’t really need them, and we managed to wish him brown again, with a proper white ruff and everything! But then mum called the Ministry and got them to undo it.”

“She’s such a spoilsport.”

“So we don’t have an Eevee after all, and we were grounded for a fortnight,” Colin concluded with a sigh.

“This year we’re going to save up our money and get our own cat or rabbit to Transfigure,” Dennis said, excitedly. “Colin’s going to see if he can buy one in Hogsmeade.”

Harry smiled happily at his fellow Pokémon fans. “Good luck!”

***

Not everyone believed him, but Harry really didn’t put his name in the Goblet of Fire. Explaining how easy an age line would be to bypass if you really wanted to probably didn’t help soothe Ron’s briefly lived burst of suspicious jealousy. Harry was thinking of ignoring the whole thing. But after Luna pointed out that being in the competition was practically a license to skip all the “useless” classes he always complained about and instead concentrate on his own projects, he was somewhat reconciled to the idea, but still grumbled a bit about it.

“But didn’t you want to be in a Pokémon tournament?” she encouraged.

Harry’s jaw dropped. “It’s… a… tournament!” he said excitedly, his imagination catching fire with her reframing of it as an opportunity to battle with his Pokémon, rather than it being a test of his spellcasting abilities.

“That’s the spirit! And you can win it!” she smiled. “I believe in you!”

“My Pokémon will evolve so fast, if I use them in a tournament! We’re going to win! Do you think I’ll get a badge?”

Luna frowned sadly. “Only a big bag of money, I’m afraid.”

“Oh well, I guess I can buy myself a badge, as a bit of a prize,” he said a little disappointedly. “Do you think they’d make me a badge, if I gave up some of the money?”

“I’m sure you could commission one.”

Oddly enough, Harry’s switch to being excited about the first task was what convinced Ron that Harry really hadn’t entered himself in the Triwizard Tournament. Harry asked why that was.

“Well, I think you would’ve been excited right from the start if you’d entered yourself. It’s like you’re just now realizing how really cool it is. You’re just not that good a liar to hide your feelings for that long, or to suddenly fake enthusiasm for the Tournament.”

In the first task, Harry was just as excited as Hagrid that there were going to be dragons to fight, though he was disappointed that he wouldn’t get to keep one. Cedric of course was much more nervous about the whole thing, and appreciated the heads up on the nature of the first task, if not Harry’s somewhat intimidating enthusiasm about how great it was going to be to fight a dragon.

Harry drew the Hungarian Horntail in the competition, and as he entered the arena he smiled and waved happily at the crowd. It was his first real battle, and he simply couldn’t be more excited!

“Magikarp! I choose you!” he said, releasing the useless giant orange fish. “Use Splash!” he cried, and it flopped around briefly in front of the dragon, who breathed fire on it.

“Magikaaarp!!” it said in a pained voice before flopping unconscious. Its eyes looked a bit odd, but it remained otherwise unharmed. Harry was relieved – he’d made it tough enough to withstand even dragon fire, just like he’d pictured. Sitting up in the stands with Luna amidst Harry’s predominantly Gryffindor supporters, Ron was watching white-knuckled at Harry’s pathetic attempt to defeat the angry mother dragon with his flappy fish. Didn’t he know he could die out there?!

“Magikarp return!” Harry said happily, as it returned to its Pokéball in his hand. “Good work Magikarp. That should help you evolve even better than your practice sessions with Pikachu. You have a rest now. Hedwig, I choose you!”

“Hedwig! Articuno!” his former owl said, with twice the vocal range of an ordinary Pokémon, like she’d insisted.

“Use Ice Beam!” The dragon didn’t really understand quite what had hit it, but it knew it didn’t like it. With the dragon on the defensive, shivering and bunkered down over its eggs, Harry moved to the next stage of his plan: Wyrmtongue.

The students in the stadium gasped to hear him speaking in a combination of roars and hisses to the dragon, sounding a little like Parseltongue. “We won’t be trying to capture you today, and I don’t want to hurt your eggs. So if you give me the fake gold egg from your nest, we will stop attacking and leave you alone.”

“Agreed,” it roared, pushing the golden egg out of its nest.

With Hedwig proudly and watchfully perched on his shoulder, Harry walked over fearlessly to pick up the golden egg only metres away from the dragon, to the gasps and cheers of the audience.

“I could have beaten it with another attack,” hooted Hedwig disappointedly.

“Of course we could have knocked it out,” hooted Harry apologetically, “but it’s always good to make friends, too. She’s a mother with eggs, so we should be kind to her. And we still won. That’s the most important thing.”

“The winner of this battle is Harry Potter!” cheered Luna loudly from his supporters’ section, waving a little flag. The animated purple plush Crumple-Horned Snorkack on her hat (one of her own best creations to date) let out a loud honk.

***

Sirius Black attended the second task as a spectator, having finally gotten his long over-due trial from the Ministry, helped by providing the evidence of Peter Pettigrew’s badly beaten and unconscious body, and his own testimony. Veritaserum and Legilimency helped his side of the story be believed, as well as having the increasingly famous Harry Potter vouching for him at his trial. Pettigrew was immediately given the Dementor’s Kiss.

Sirius sat in the stands at the lake’s edge next to Professor McGonagall, and well away from Snape.

“You know, Minnie, it’s a good thing you didn’t try and take any of his Pokémon as the thing he’d miss most,” he said conversationally. “I know he increased his own special warding on those magic balls after he figured out what the clue for the task was.”

Harry scowled up at Dumbledore and everyone else in the teacher’s stand as he waited for the signal to go, shivering at the lake’s edge with the other Champions.

“I don’t think kidnapping Luna was a better plan, though,” continued Sirius. “He looks angrier than a dragon who’s just spotted a poacher.”

“Well, she’s definitely the person he values most,” said Professor McGonagall with blithe unconcern. “No offense, Sirius. I know he cares for you too.”

“None taken. Can’t trump young love. Not that he’s quite ready to admit it yet,” smiled Sirius. “He and I are friends, and his old pal Ron and he have made up after their little tiff and are friends again too. But Luna? Well, that’s something special I think.”

Down below at the lake shore, Harry glared up at the teachers. Villains, the lot of them. Candidates for Team Rocket. Fancy kidnapping Luna and threatening to drown her if he didn’t make it to her in time. He wouldn’t let her, or any of the other hostages, be killed for this stupid competition. And if they did die, he’d… well… he didn’t know what he’d do, but it would be bad.

He’d been planning to use his new Squirtle (formerly a turtle gifted by Sirius) for this task, in combination with chomping on some Gillyweed (he wasn’t ready yet to try self-transfiguration – it made him nervous). But luckily one of his other Pokémon had recently evolved with a bit of duelling practice and a magical rock Luna had crafted as a gift for him, and it would be an even better choice for towing him to find Luna in record time.

Finally given the call to start, he cast a wandless, wordless warming charm on himself, then chewed doggedly on his rubbery Gillyweed until he felt his gills grow, then plunged into the water, swimming out swiftly. Though not as swiftly as the others, who outpaced him to start with. Once he had gotten far enough underwater that there would be room for it to swim, he called his newly evolved Pokémon out of its ball, and the monstrously large Gyarados materialised in the water. The giant blue sea serpent scared the life out of the other competitors as Harry rode on its back all the way to the merfolk village. The merpeople scattered in fear as he approached.

“Squirtle, you stay here, alright?” bubbled Harry. “If it looks like the hour’s almost up, and no-one’s come to rescue their hostage, get them free and up to the surface.”

“Squirtle!” it nodded enthusiastically.

Gyarados very carefully maneuvered its head around to snap Luna’s ropes with a bite of its enormous jaws, and Harry lifted her gently onto its back, to lie in front of him as they rose up to the surface, terrifying and impressing the audience and judges alike.

Krum returned Hermione safely to shore not long after - she’d been spending a lot of time with lately. Rumour had it they were dating, and her selection as the person he’d miss most seemed to lend credence to that gossip, as did the way they embraced as she thanked him for rescuing her. Harry was happy for her – while she hung out with Neville a bit, she’d been a little lonely in Gryffindor since she’d stopped being close friends with him and Ron. In the shy, bookish Krum she’d found a perfect match, and they’d been quite inseparable lately.

Fleur, the beautiful part-Veela, sobbed out her gratitude as Harry’s Squirtle appeared with her little sister safe on its shelled back, and Harry was politely pleased to have helped. But he only had eyes for Luna. What would he do without her? They’d gone to the Yule Ball together “just as friends”, but now he knew she meant more to him than that.

“Luna…” he breathed softly. “I was so afraid I’d lose you forever.”

He brushed some strands of her wet blonde hair out of her face and leaned in towards her, hand tangled in her hair. Her eyes widened in surprise, and a soft look came over her face. But the tender moment was interrupted and spoiled as Ludo Bagman rushed up to shake Harry’s hand and congratulate him on a fine performance in the Second Task. Damn him.

***

Hedwig flew ahead through the labyrinth to report back on the best path to the centre, and Pikachu padded happily ahead of Harry, having her moment of glory taking out giant spiders, a sphinx, and other deadly creatures, with well-aimed lightning bolts.

Harry was first to the cup by a good margin, and Pikachu hopped up on his shoulder just before he grabbed it. In howl of wind and swirling colour, Harry landed awkwardly on the ground of a dark and overgrown graveyard. He almost dropped the Triwizard Cup, with the rough landing. Pikachu leapt from his shoulder to the ground with her usual graceful agility, rather than suffer the possible indignity of a fall.

“Hello?” he called, looking around in confusion. “Is this a second stage of the maze? Did I win?” But no-one answered – it looked like it was just him and Pikachu.

“Pika-pi?” asked Pikachu, head tilted with confusion as she looked up at him.

Harry shrugged. “I don’t know where we are. I thought we’d appear at the podium.”

Professor Moody walked out of the shadows beneath the trees, carrying a baby bundled up in robes.

“Professor? Did I win? Where are we? Is this another stage of the contest?”

Placing his bundle carefully down on the ground next to a marble headstone, the Professor pointed his wand in Harry’s direction.

“What’s going on?”

“Pika!” warned his little companion sharply, cheeks crackling with electricity, but it was too little too late. With a muttered “Stupefy”, a red light shot out of his Professor’s wand, stunning his Pikachu, whose eyes started rolling around as she slumped unconscious. Harry was next, before he had time to react.

He woke as he was being roughly tied to a marble headstone by Professor Moody, while a large cauldron bubbled away nearby. He didn’t waste any time asking stupid questions this time about what was going on, but instead simply yelled out, “Everyone! Come on out and attack Professor Moody and help me!”

Professor Moody focused his attacks on Harry’s Gyarados, and it must be admitted did look the most fearsome. But while tough enough to withstand Moody’s first stunning attack, it was at a disadvantage on land, and Moody should’ve been more worried about some of his other Pokémon instead. For Hedwig flew past while he was distracted and froze him solid in a block of ice. His professor’s eyes looked wide and terrified, finding himself alive but unable to move while entombed in ice. Bulbasaur freed Harry by cutting his ropes with a Razor Leaf attack, while Charmander’s Flamethrower attack made short work of a large snake who slithered out from behind some tombstones to attack them – it fled in fear, looking painfully scorched.

“Well done everyone!” Harry praised. “We don’t want Professor Moody to suffocate though, Hedwig.”

“Articuno,” she hooted apologetically.

“That’s alright, girl. So, I’ll want Charmander to melt the ice around his head, and Squirtle you keep him busy with bubble beam while Bulbasaur uses sleep powder!”

“Squirtle!”

“Bulba,” his Bulbasaur nodded seriously.

With the combination of attacks, Professor Moody was soon unconscious, his arms and lower body still trapped in the ice.

“What is going on?” came a high cold voice from the bundle on the ground. “Barty, my servant, attend me!”

“Bulbasaur, use vine whip and grab that thing carefully!”

What Bulbasaur’s tentacle-like vines lifted out from the concealment of the pile of robes was a horrifying sight. It was like a hairless, scaly red-black baby. But no baby had a flat face with gleaming evil red eyes like that creature did.

“Release me at once! Lord Voldemort is not to be treated in such a manner!” it hissed, its voice almost hurting Harry, before he decided firmly he wasn’t going to put up with any sass from his scar. He didn’t have time for a headache right now, so the stabbing pain died away to a dull ache under the blowtorch of his will.

He got Bulbasaur to stun the delusional evil baby-thing too, just in case it was dangerous. He would’ve worried more about the evil baby and what was going on, but got distracted as that final battle seemed to do the trick to trigger Bulbasaur’s evolution into Ivysaur. After all his Pokémon and he had finished celebrating with some rousing cheers, he recalled most of them to their Pokéballs. With a quick cry of “Rennervate”, Pikachu revived from unconsciousness, and hopped back up to its accustomed favourite spot on his shoulder, while he sent Hedwig out in search of Luna with a message to get some teachers to find him and bring help.

“Well, let’s grab the cup, and see what we can find nearby, shall we? There must be some kind of town nearby.”

“Pikachu,” it agreed. But their plan to explore in search of civilisation was brought to an abrupt end when the Triwizard Cup acted as a portkey for a second time, yanking him to the winner’s podium at the edge of the maze where he landed with a stumble.

Poor Hedwig. It would be a long journey for her for nothing.

While Dumbledore helped him up, and people in the stands applauded, Harry tried to explain that it really was quite important that Professor Moody had attacked him. But Cornelius Fudge had a speech to give, and brooked no interruptions. After having his hand shaken, and a box of galleons handed to him, he was also awarded a small silver badge with the Ministry logo on it – a decorative letter “M” with a wand superimposed on it.

“I read in the Daily Prophet that you really wanted a badge if you won,” beamed the Minister. “Thought we may as well indulge you if you ended up making it this far, eh?”

“Thank you sir, that’s very kind of you,” said Harry politely. “Now, about Professor Moody-”

“Never mind him. Man’s got a hair trigger, darn fine Auror though. We’ll get to your complaint in a minute, there’s photos to do first,” said the Minister. Harry sighed.

“You won! You won!” laughed Luna, as she bounced towards him, grabbing his hands and spinning him around to dance in a circle with her. Pikachu leapt off his shoulder before she got flung off.

It brought him right out of his bad mood. “Yeah, I did! It was easy – I got Hedwig to scout a path through the maze and-”

But Luna cut him off as she grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him down suddenly for a kiss. Her lips were soft and warm, his heart pounded, and he thought it was the most wonderful thing that had happened to him all day. He’d choose her over a tournament badge any time.

Ron and his brothers whooped and cheered nearby, as he surfaced from the kiss with an extremely stupid grin on his face.

“I caught a Luna!” he said triumphantly, putting his hands on her waist and lifting her a little off the ground briefly, making her squeal happily.

“I caught you, and you caught me,” she said shyly. “And now you have to keep me.”

“I will. Always,” he promised.

By the time Dumbledore got him away from the Minister (and the much more loving clutches of his new girlfriend), and had gravely listened to Harry’s story and dispatched some people in search of Hedwig and the graveyard, the erstwhile Professor Moody (or was it Barty?) and the miniature Voldemort were long gone. Even the cauldron was gone. Dumbledore ranted to the Minister and a Daily Prophet reporter about how it was Voldemort trying to come back from the dead (again), but no-one seemed immediately inclined to believe him. Finding Professor Moody imprisoned in his own office did lend to credence to his claims, however.

From Harry’s point of view, it was all a problem for another time. Evil baby Voldemort was hard to see as a credible threat, so Harry was happy to leave the whole mess in the hopefully capable hands of adults, while he spent the summer concentrating on refining his Haunter into something friendlier (it was still trying to eat his soul), finishing making two absolutely perfect Crumple-Horned Snorkacks (they were proving tricky), and a Charmander for Hagrid. He’d even suffer through a couple of weeks at Privet Drive (like Dumbledore insisted he should) so he could finish his present for Luna in secret.

Chapter Text

Dementors in Little Whinging? Dudley was panicking, and Harry had lost his wand somewhere on the dark ground when Dudley punched him. The wand wasn’t that critical for spellcasting, but it did help still with some of the spells popularly regarded as being more difficult. Anyway, he had other options besides his Patronus for fighting off Dementors; his Pokémon could use some real battle experience.

“Haunter! I choose you!” he said confidently, throwing the Pokéball towards the other Dementor.

A ghostly creature popped out, looking halfway between the friendly purple ghostly Pokémon Harry was aiming for, and a Dementor. The unusually small purple-cloaked Dementor had disembodied hands that floated near its body, and theoretically cute big eyes, but still had a very small mouth. It looked creepy and wrong, rather than the cute ghost he’d been trying to achieve all year.

“Haunnnn-ter…” it sighed solemnly. To Harry, and possibly the attacking Dementor, it carried a second meaning. “Flee, flee while you still can.”

“Well that’s not nice, Haunter,” Harry said grumpily. No more working with sentient or magical creatures as the base for his Pokémon. Not unless they volunteered, like Hedwig - she’d been much easier to change than the Dementor he’d caught. It was like the creature’s own magic fought back against the changes – they sometimes wore off and it reverted to how it was. The attacking Dementor hesitated, and stopped moving towards him – there was darkness and a horrible chill in the air, but not the despairing panic you felt when they got too close.

“Haunter, haunt haunter,” his Pokémon breathed softly into the air. “Flee, before you too are imprisoned and changed like I was.”

“That’s enough! I’m the trainer here! Use Lick!”

“Haunter.” “I obey.” It advanced on the other Dementor, tongue poking out of its still tiny mouth, and its opponent fled in uncomprehending fear.

Harry sighed sadly, as he summoned the Haunter back to its Pokéball. It was a difficult situation. He felt kind of bad for experimenting on it. But it was a soul-sucking creature of horror that lived to bring torturous despair to people, and had tried to drink Sirius’ soul. It kind of had it coming.

Harry wrote to Sirius about the Dementor attack, and the very next day Sirius showed up to whisk him away to the safety of Grimmauld Place, sure that Voldemort was going to send more Dementors or other minions to attack Harry. Even worse, Harry was clearly having a miserable fun-less time with the Dursleys. He hadn’t heard any tales about a single prank. He needed saving.

“Had enough already, hey? I told you that you should have spent the whole holidays with me instead, studying to be an Animagus. You can still work on your present for your girlfriend at my house,” Sirius teased. “I won’t tell her about it really – that was just teasing. Oh, sorry, I should have said our house. Your room only needs some final touches.”

“Th-that’s the mass murderer!” his Uncle Vernon stammered in fear. “The one who was on television!”

“Yes, my godfather. Remember I told you about him?”

His uncle looked deeply fearful. “I thought you were making it all up!”

“Murderer,” said Sirius.

“What?”

“Just murderer. Not mass murderer. I’ve only killed one person. Well, maybe three. There were a couple of Death Eaters in the war I got good hits on. I think they might have died later,” he mused. “Do you think that qualifies me as a ‘mass’ murderer? Or is it ‘serial killer’, because they weren’t all at the same time?”

“Take the boy and get out!” yelled his uncle. “Kill him if you want to, just leave the rest of us normal people alone!” Petunia and Dudley fled the house for the relative safety of the shed in the back garden, followed by his uncle.

“What a loving family,” Sirius sneered. “Get your things, Harry. You’re not ever coming back here. Even my mouldering old house is better than this.”

“He’s probably gone to get his shotgun,” warned Harry.

“Oh, I hope he tries something.”

Sirius seemed genuinely disappointed when Harry’s uncle just cowered in the shed with the rest of the Dursleys.

“You promised he’d attack me,” he whined to Harry.

“I said he might be getting a shotgun. Hagrid broke his last one.”

“But I wanted to hex him in ‘self-defence’. Oh well, I suppose it’s best to keep out of trouble,” Sirius sighed. “Look at me, having to be a responsible adult. I’m really not cut out for it, Harry. Alright, let’s go then.”

***

Harry loved Divination. After his teacher had tired of predicting his death, which he’d pointed out in Third Year was only a possibility, not a certainty, or there would be no purpose in divinations at all, he and Professor Trelawney had slowly started to get along a lot better. Especially when he’d finally started developing real talent at her subject near the end of last year. He’d been useless at reading tea leaves, and liked crystal balls the best – they just felt like a proper witchy kind of thing you should be able to see the future in. He didn’t always see anything, but he caught enough glimpses to impress the heck out of both his teacher and his classmates. Other students had to stick with the curriculum and learn to read Tarot cards and other divinatory methods, but he got to use the crystal ball whenever he wanted to.

In the first class that year, everyone else except Harry settled down to read up on dream interpretation (at least in theory), while he and Trelawney had a first-class-of-the-year competition to see what horrible things they could each see in a crystal ball. Most of the class just ignored their books to watch the byplay, of course. Ron had quickly organised a betting pool and was taking wagers as to whose predictions would come true first.

“I see pink… It’s Professor Umbridge. She has a quill – it’s cursed! No-one should write with it or they will be scarred forever,” he intoned. Lavender and Parvati gasped, and his teacher smiled at him benevolently, and took her turn gazing into the mist-filled crystal ball.

“I see… the Dark Lord!” she pronounced triumphantly. “He seeks your death, Harry Potter!” she pointed dramatically at him. There were gasps and murmurs from his classmates.

“That seems likely,” Harry said politely and calmly. “Anything specific?”

His teacher returned her gaze to the crystal ball, peering into it with wide eyes as she waved her hands around it, and breathed deeply of the incense-laden air. “Blood everywhere – your face covered in blood, dripping scarlet everywhere. Secrets causing pain. Death Eaters surrounding you as you stand alone.” she shook her head. “That’s all I see for now.” It sounded like it was going to be a bad year for him – that was even worse than last year’s predictions.

“Thank you, Professor. I’ll see what I can see for your own future,” he said, hoping he could fish for something impressive from the mists of the future, but not too scary. “Pink again. Umbridge causing problems for you, I think. And… a horse? No, a centaur! There’s a centaur in your classroom! He sees me – he’s looking in my direction! How can he do that?” Some of the girls applauded him as he looked up and blinked, a little tired from the effort of exerting his will so intensely.

“Pika?”

“Yes, I’m fine,” he said, scratching his little Pikachu’s fur under her chin gently. She made a happy squeaky trill of pleasure.

“Ah, those with the Sight can sometimes see glimpses of those who watch them from the misty past,” intoned his teacher dramatically. “And centaurs are often skilled at Divination. No doubt any centaur I invited here as a guest would be remarkably talented.”

***

Pikachu had to go into her Pokéball for DADA, to Harry’s disappointment. She preferred being out. “Professor, I appreciate that the Ministry is reluctant to admit that Voldemort looks like an evil snake baby. I’m a little sceptical of it myself, and I saw the thing in person! But why aren’t they at least pursuing the person who imprisoned and impersonated Professor Moody?”

His pink-clad teacher smiled as she answered in honeyed tones, but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. “The Ministry is taking all necessary steps, and you will cease questioning the actions of your superiors at once.”

Harry shrugged. Well, Team Rocket never stayed caught either. He’d deal with the man again if and when he popped up. He spent the exceptionally boring class doodling designs of what new Pokémon he might want to work on that year, until Hermione’s persistent questioning of their teacher drew his attention. The class was quickly thrown into outright rebellion as they realised they wouldn’t be learning a single practical spell. Just theory.

“I never bother with theory anymore,” said Harry stubbornly, when it was his turn to say his piece. “Theory is nothing compared to practical exercises. This class is going to be twice the snooze-fest of History of Magic. You have to have practical spellcasting.” He got the respect of his peers with that outburst (even from the usually theory-loving Hermione), but a week of detentions from Professor Umbridge for his rudeness.

He spent a boring week writing lines… with his own quill.

“Yours is cursed,” he said, not even touching the one she offered. “I foresaw it in a vision.”

“You will use the quill I have supplied you!” she insisted.

“Only if you use it first,” he said, even more stubbornly. “I foresaw it – it’s cursed. You should turn it over to the Ministry for disposal.”

“Do you want another week of detentions?”

“Do you want me to report your cursed quill to the Headmaster and the Aurors?”

She hesitated, and let him use his own quill and ink for writing lines. Harry spread the word – his vision was a true one, and no-one should use her quill. He didn’t know what it did, but if she was afraid to write with it herself, it had to be something nasty.

Hermione had mellowed enough towards him to ask him to lead a study group for DADA – helping his fellow students learn practical spellcasting.

“No-one’s better in our year at Charms and defensive spells than you, Harry,” she said humbly. “You could really help people a lot, with a study group.”

He really did love practising his spells and duelling practice sounded fantastic, yet he still hesitated over the idea. “I think it’s a great idea,” he told her, “but as you yourself have pointed out many times, I don’t usually bother with the ‘correct’ wand motions. Or words. Or sometimes even the wand. So I don’t think I’ll be the best teacher for anyone who doesn’t cast spells like I do. Luna’s picked up a quite few of my tricks, but she and I have been working together for years now.”

“I guess you’re right, Harry,” she said resignedly.

“You could run it?”

She shrugged. “I’m not really popular enough to get the numbers. I want to reach the most students possible. We can’t let people fail Defence due to that odious woman!”

“How about getting the twins to run it?” he suggested.

“Fred and George? Those jokers? You can’t be serious.”

“You’re right, I’m not. That’s my godfather.”

“I walked right into that one, didn’t I?” she said with a small smile.

“Yup!” He snickered at her, shoulders shaking with amusement at his own joke. Sirius had told him it was mandatory to use the pun if someone gave him the opening. “The twin Weasleys might not take life seriously, but they know their stuff. They’re awesome at Potions, and almost as good at all kinds of charms, hexes, and jinxes. They have to be, to make the stuff they do. Did you know I’m investing in a joke shop they’re going to start when they finish school?”

She shook her head.

“They’ll be great. Trust me. I’ll join in your study group happily, but only as another student. I wouldn’t mind the practice time, but I don’t want to lead the group. And of course it’d have to be multi-year, so Luna can come too.”

“Fine,” she sighed. “I guess the other years will be suffering under that pink toad’s teaching too. I’ll talk to the twins.”

The “Defence Association” as Hermione called it, or “Toad Taunting Team” as the twins and many members called it (both titles were popular), was awesome, even if no-one except Luna, Colin, or Dennis let him use his Pokémon against them in his duels. (The boys’ Eevee was going fairly well in appearance though their Transfigurations only lasted a short time so far and it tended to default back to being a brown rabbit, and it didn’t know any attacks yet.) And he finally had a Pokéball ready for Luna to bring to the duelling sessions, which he gave to her one sunny afternoon in November.

“Is this…?” she said breathily.

“Yup! Happy Tuesday!”

She tilted her head at him quizzically. “Is it a special Tuesday?”

“Well, it is now. I didn’t want to wait for Christmas. And it wasn’t ready in time for the start of school. I wanted it to be perfect for you. I’m just sorry it took so long.” He put the Pokéball in the palm of her hand, and curled her fingers around it. She gave him a quick kiss, then leapt excitedly to her feet, and threw the ball in the air.

“Crumple-Horned Snorkack, I choose you!” she yelled joyfully.

“Honk! Snorkack!” The creature that emerged from the Pokéball in a beam of light was just like her father’s notes described. It was a scaly creature with large glittery purple hexagonal scales a bit like a turtle’s shell, a vaguely dragon-like appearance with a wide, giant-nostrilled snout, a single bent-looking horn on its head (spiralling like a unicorn’s), and a soft fuzzy belly.

“Oh Snorky,” she cooed, hugging it around its neck. “You and I are going to be the best of friends!”

“Snorkack, snork!” it said, then let out another loud honk. “I love you!”

Luna believed she could understand Snork-tongue, so she had no problems mentally translating its snorky language. “I love you too, Snorky,” she sniffed through happy tears, hugging it tighter. “And I love you too, Harry,” she said, pulling him into the Snorkack’s side to hug him as well. It wasn’t quite how he’d pictured their first declaration of love going. But it seemed to fit them, somehow.

“I love you too, Luna,” he said gently. He didn’t think he’d ever felt this happy in his whole life.

***

Harry wasn’t doubling his time up so much anymore – he’d promised Luna he wouldn’t, so that he wouldn’t be too much older than her. So December rolled around faster than he expected. When he had a horrifying vision of Ron’s father being attacked by a snake, he woke Ron to tell him about it right away, and was instantly believed. Dumbledore was, in Harry’s opinion, a little slow to act, but he got Mr. Weasley help all the same.

Harry felt very helpless waiting at home at Grimmauld Place with the Weasleys. He’d never put a lot of effort into mastering healing magic. When they visited and heard, with a bit of eavesdropping, about the prophecy Mr. Weasley had been guarding before being bitten by Voldemort’s snake, Harry was furious.

As soon as he was back at school, he insisted on seeing Professor Dumbledore right away.

Professor McGonagall seemed reluctant to give him the password for the guardian gargoyle to the Headmaster’s office, for some reason. “He’s very busy,” she warned. “He might not be able to see you for quite some time.”

Harry’s brow furrowed stubbornly. “You tell him that I know about the prophecy, and why Mr. Weasley was really attacked. And if he doesn’t want me to take my concerns direct to the Ministry, he will make time to see me.”

“You’re usually a lot more polite than this, Mr. Potter,” she frowned. “A little more courtesy would be appropriate.”

“This is literally a matter of life and death. And might I add that if people had listened to me a little better and a little faster after the Goblet of Fire tournament, evil baby Voldemort wouldn’t have gotten away in the first place,” he complained. “This is important too. Maybe not quite as urgent, I suppose,” he grudgingly conceded. “So if he can see me some time in the next day, I guess that would be enough.”

She relayed Harry’s message to Dumbledore, and returned with a tip that Dumbledore loved jelly babies.

An hour later, Hedwig was sitting next to Fawkes on a perch in the Headmaster’s office, while Harry sat back in the plush chair in front of the desk, and listened to the headmaster’s grave explanations of the prophecy about the Dark Lord, and his role in it.

Harry sighed. “Is that all? A power he knows not? That’s easy.”

Dumbledore looked rather startled, and peered over the top of his glasses at Harry.

“You think defeating Voldemort is easy?! Prophecies can be very complex, and-”

“-Easy peasy,” insisted Harry. “I can beat him with a Pokémon power that The Dark Lord Knows Not. Which, let’s face it, is going to be pretty much all of them. I’ll make a new Pokémon just to be on the safe side, if you like. Just in case not knowing all their powers isn’t enough.”

Concerned with the need to bring down Harry’s overconfidence a notch or two, Dumbledore stepped up his plan of what to reveal, and told Harry about the Horcruxes, too.

“So what are they?” Harry asked. Dumbledore tried to spin some tale about how he’d need to spend months viewing a bunch of memories, but Harry was having none of that.

“That’s ridiculous,” he scoffed. “You’ve suspected for what, twelve years or more, that he’s not dead. Don’t tell me you don’t have a list of what you suspect he’s made. Just tell me. Or deal with it yourself and leave me out of it entirely. Because you know, prophecies are malleable things. They’re not fixed in stone. And I can see an entirely valid interpretation of the prophecy where Voldemort and I can just ignore each other and both live extremely long lives.”

“It says one of you has to kill the other!” the Headmaster said, aghast.

“It says, ‘Either must die at the hand of the other’,” said Harry. “Which also suggests that neither of us will die, if we just leave each other alone.”

“But what about, ‘…neither can live while the other survives’?”

Harry shrugged. “Maybe we just both need to do more than merely ‘survive’. There’s probably some wiggle room. I’ve studied prophecies in Divination, you know. They’re always open to interpretation.”

Harry got the list he wanted from the Headmaster, albeit reluctantly forced out bit by bit. “Probably Helga’s cup and Slytherin’s locket, definitely the diary that’s already burnt up, maybe Ravenclaw’s diadem, the Gaunt family ring, and possibly something unknown of Gryffindor’s to finish the Founder set. But not Gryffindor’s sword, which is definitely safe. Is that the lot?”

Dumbledore hesitated for a moment before nodding. “Yes, I believe so.”

Harry listened with appropriate solemnity as Dumbledore pontificated about the tremendous danger he would be facing, wondering why it was seen as his problem to solve, instead of one of the many adults. Clearly they were all incompetent. It worked like that in Pokémon episodes too. He worried a little that he might be accidentally influencing the adult wizards and witches around him, and reminded himself to keep his powers in check and not let them sneak out subconsciously to affect things. Dumbledore chose that moment to explain how he’d go after the ring and locket Horcruxes himself, as well as talking to an old retired Professor for more clues. It startled Harry, who didn’t know if his thoughts had affected things or not. Magic was dangerous stuff, when it responded to your will so easily. He sat and brooded quietly in the comfy chair while he plotted out what Pokémon could help with Horcrux hunting. Dumbledore waited with the serene patience borne of a long life and plenty of practice.

“I’ll help too,” promised Harry eventually, to Dumbledore’s evident but guilty relief. “I’ll need one of the Horcruxes once you’ve found one, and a puppy.”

“A… puppy? Why? And what would you do with a Horcrux?” Dumbledore wished Harry was a bit more like Ron, and a bit less like Luna. He found conversations with him rather confusing at times.

“German Shepherd, for preference. Or a Labrador. I’ll need it as a base for a new Pokémon the Dark Lord Knows Not. There’s a reason for the Horcrux but I don’t want to tell you in case Voldemort hears about it. Just let me see one before it’s destroyed, alright?

“Oh, and you have to smash or get rid of the prophecy at the Ministry,” Harry demanded. “We don’t want Voldemort getting any clues. That’s what I wanted to see you about in the first place.”

Dumbledore tried explaining how it was well guarded, and Harry explained how that wasn’t good enough when people got hurt. Eventually Harry’s insistence that if Dumbledore didn’t get it smashed Harry would just march into the Ministry and do it himself, did the trick.

And Harry got his new puppy smuggled into Hogwarts the very next week, courtesy of Sirius Black, who was thrilled to help with the rumoured puppy-related scheme to prank the Dark Lord.

Chapter Text

Harry, Luna, Ron, and Sirius held a War Council meeting bunkered down in one of the classrooms, with their privacy assured by all the nastiest espionage spells the Black library could supply, and a few new spells Harry had made up. Luna had helped by hanging up a bunch of radishes on the doorknob, which she promised would repel potential eavesdroppers.

“Where did you get the radishes, Luna?” Harry asked.

She smiled proudly as she answered, “I made them out of nothing, just now!”

He murmured praise and endearments at her, before getting down to business and explaining the outline of his plan to his friends and Sirius.

“So the dog gets turned into a… Growlithe, which is a stripy dog Pokémon like a cross between a puppy and a tiger,” Sirius said, checking he had it right, “and you teach it how to track Horcruxes.”

Harry nodded. “It seemed like the simplest solution.”

Ron snorted. “Simple for you, maybe! Crazily difficult for anyone else. I never even managed to make a tortoise that didn’t breathe steam or have a handle for a tail.”

“I think it’s a great plan,” said Luna loyally, snuggling into Harry’s side. He put an arm around her shoulders, and she sighed happily.

“Pikachu!” his Pokémon nodded in agreement. She wanted more friends to play with. She liked all of Harry’s Pokémon, Snorky, and Colin and Dennis’ pet Eevee “Pyro” (that Harry had helped along a bit with some permanent transfigurations), but she was a gregarious little creature and loved having new Pokémon to train with.

“It’s not funny enough,” complained Sirius.

The others stared at him. “Well Dumbledore was a bit vague about it all when he asked me to bring you a puppy, and I thought you were going to prank Voldemort! Like with multiplying puppies in a box, that when you opened it, whoosh! Cute puppies running everywhere widdling on stuff in his throne room! Like they explode out of the box in a wave of fluffy chaos!” Sirius waved his hands wildly to demonstrate the puppies flying everywhere. Luna grinned, but Ron and Harry looked less impressed with the idea.

“If you have to defeat Voldemort to fulfill a prophecy, maybe you could beat him with a funny Pokémon,” suggested Luna to her boyfriend, liking the gist of Sirius’ idea.

“Yes! Something pink and fluffy! Like a deadly Pygmy Puff!” said Sirius excitedly. “Most embarrassing death of a Dark Lord ever! Something people won’t stop talking about for centuries! A legendary prank of the ages!”

“Hmmm!” said Harry thoughtfully, as he pondered his options. That had given him a good idea, actually. “I’ll need a fluffy Puffskein, and an adorable little baby kitten.”

“Yes!!” said Sirius, who leapt up and started doing a crazy victory dance that Luna joined in happily. Harry got dragged into it too, but Ron refused to join the insanity and just watched with a smile. Ron wished, not for the first time, that his friends were a bit saner.

***

Harry neglected his more boring subjects (like Astronomy) and doubled up his personal timestream a little (when he thought Luna wouldn’t notice) to work on his three new Pokémon, starting with his loyal Horcrux-hunting puppy. Growlithe was ready only a little before Dumbledore tracked down a Horcrux, which he did with reasonable promptness (which mostly made Harry wonder why he hadn’t managed to do so earlier). He called Harry up to his office when he’d gotten it, and Harry insisted that Snape leave the room before he discussed the next part of his anti-Voldemort plan, which Snape did with a snarl and some muttered insults about Harry’s arrogance.

“Don’t touch it again,” he warned Dumbledore before he left, “or let that idiot savant touch it. If any of that curse still lingers, it could be… problematic.”

Dumbledore waved him off with a hand that looked blackened and withered. “I’ll behave, Severus. Don’t be such an old mother hen.”

Harry invited Dumbledore to cast some privacy spells, and he used his own magic to put the portraits of the curious old Headmasters to sleep. Dumbledore brought out and placed on his desk a rather dull looking ring nestled in a small golden box, which apparently was one of Voldemort’s Horcruxes, obtained at some personal risk. He warned Harry not to touch it, which was fine by Harry. Then Harry called “Growlie” out of his Pokéball.

“Another interesting creature you’ve created,” said Dumbledore, peering at it curiously. “That I presume is what you needed the dog for. What can it do?”

Harry’s back straightened as he pronounced proudly. “I made it to track. Get the scent of the Horcrux, Growlie!”

“But… don’t…” stammered Dumbledore, looking uncharacteristically nervous.

“Don’t worry, he won’t touch it, just sniff it,” reassured Harry. “Have you got the scent?”

“Growlithe!” “Yes.”

“Good boy! Find another! Find a Horcrux!”

Under Dumbledore’s nervous gaze Growlie barked happily, sniffed around, and then leapt up and put his paws on Harry’s shoulder’s to bark in his face.

“Growlithe, grrr-growl!” “Here’s one! I’m a good boy!”

Harry laughed. “Sorry, he’s still new. No Growlithe, I’m not a Horcrux. Try again. Get a better scent this time.”

Dumbledore’s face looked old and drawn, as he slumped back in his chair. “I’m afraid to say… that your dog might be right.” He explained solemnly about his theory about Tom’s splintered soul, and how a fragment of him might reside within Harry’s scar.

“Well, that’s weird,” said Harry. “But on the positive side, at least that’s one Horcrux we don’t have to go hunting for! Why… why are you looking so upset?” He thought Dumbledore looked like he might cry at any moment.

He explained gravely, if in a roundabout fashion, why he thought Harry would have to die to be rid of the fragment of Voldemort’s soul. Harry was having none of it.

“That’s ridiculous,” he scoffed. “I’ll just get it surgically removed, burn it, and get the cut healed up with magic.”

“I don’t think that will work, my dear boy,” said Dumbledore sadly.

Harry snorted. “That kind of defeatist thinking is why you’re not named in the prophecy about how to beat Voldemort.”

Dumbledore frowned at his cheek, but let it go. The boy was obviously traumatized by the news about being a Horcrux. Let him cling to his hope for now. Poor child.

Harry’s plan worked like a dream. Madam Pomfrey wasn’t keen on trying, but she promised to do her best after he told her he’d go to a Muggle hospital if necessary – Dumbledore encouraged her to indulge Harry. She numbed his forehead and cut the scar and surrounding skin out, watched anxiously by Luna who clung fiercely to his hand, and even more anxiously by Dumbledore. Harry, who insisted on remaining conscious for the operation, concentrated hard on how he wanted all lingering bits of Voldemort’s soul to concentrate in the scar while it was removed, and Luna also concentrated on that same goal.

Dumbledore whisked away the dish with the scar as soon as it was removed, and obediently cast Fiendfyre on its contents to destroy it utterly (even though he usually abhorred the use of such dark spells). Madam Pomfrey muttered about the errant foolishness of vain boys and their overindulgent Headmasters, as she spelled his wound shut.

“You’ll still have a scar from this,” she warned, “but more of a curved line, rather than a zig-zag.”

Harry liked the look of the faint pink crescent line, and liked it even more when he got to escape the Hospital Wing that same evening, and a discreet check back in the dorm revealed that Growlie couldn’t catch a scent of him being a Horcrux anymore. Instead, the stripy Pokémon started sniffing his way out of the Gryffindor tower, on the trail of another scent. It led towards the Headmaster’s office – it seemed he hadn’t destroyed the ring yet. Harry got past the gargoyle easily with the password (Dumbledore really should change that soon), disabled the portraits with a sleeping spell and took care of the ring quickly with his own burst of extra strong magical fire. No point wasting time discussing it – like they said it was easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission. Struck with a burst of inspiration, he made a duplicate intact ring that looked like the old one, and pocketed the burnt Horcrux. No point leaving evidence behind. Not being caught in the first place was even better than having to ask for forgiveness.

Then Growlie led him elsewhere in the school. How many of these things were there in Hogwarts? One melted diadem later (in a very awesome room full of junk he made a note to bring Luna and Ron to explore with him later), and Growlie wanted to leave Hogwarts for a distant Horcrux, but Harry kind of wanted to take a break. And get backup, just in case of trouble.

With a magical mirror Sirius had given him he asked his godfather if he’d like to join him on a Horcrux hunt the next morning. It would be a Saturday, and luckily it was also a Hogsmeade weekend, so it should be easy enough to slip away.

Sirius and Harry had each brought some friends for the Horcrux hunting day. Harry had brought along Luna, Ron, and Ginny (who found out about it from Ron and insisted on coming along). Sirius had invited Lupin, McGonagall, Dumbledore, and his cousin Tonks.

Well, so much for secrecy, Harry mused. It was going to be impossible to keep the Horcrux hunt quiet with this many people involved, so they’d better work fast.

McGonagall and Dumbledore put up a bit of a fuss at first about “children” being invited along, but Harry dug his heels in. They were invited, and the teachers weren’t. If they didn’t get to come, Growlithe wasn’t going anywhere.

“And besides,” added Harry. “We could just sneak away some time without you. At least this way you know we’re not on our own.”

Since Growlithe felt the nearest Horcruxes were a long way south, they Apparated and Side-Along-Apparated to London first, starting out from Sirius’ old decrepit home in Grimmauld Place. Which Sirius was extremely embarrassed to discover was hosting one of Voldemort’s Horcruxes.

“I swear, I had no idea,” he muttered.

“Nasty thieves mustn’t take it!” sobbed a crazy old house-elf.

“It won’t leave the house,” said Harry. “We’re going to destroy it.”

“I hardly think that will help,” chided Lupin. “Because-”

“-Yes, destroy it! For Master Regulus!” sobbed the house-elf, an optimistic light in his eyes.

“Nuttier than a fruit cake,” grumbled Sirius. “No wonder, with only my mother’s portrait to talk to all these years.”

“She’s a piece of work, isn’t she?” said Tonks, as she listened to the portrait screech insults. “No wonder you left home, living with her must’ve been almost as bad as being in Azkaban for driving you mad. No offence, cuz.”

“None taken,” he said amicably.

Dumbledore seemed to want to study the evil-looking snakey locket, so Harry seized the initiative and burned it, which caused it to wail shrilly as it ‘died’.

“I was examining it, Harry,” Dumbledore rebuked. “It was a priceless historical artifact!”

“It was a Horcrux. And I think you should keep at least one hand intact.”

Sirius turned to Harry sternly, “Say sorry, Harry.”

Harry assumed a repentant look and turned to Dumbledore with big eyes that pled for forgiveness. “Sorry, Harry!” he said.

Sirius snickered, and Harry laughed too. He knew he’d gotten away with it. Sirius never could resist a joke.

The next nearest Horcrux was in London too.

“How many of these are there?” grumbled Harry.

“Grrrr-owlithe!”

“Just one more after this next one? That’s great! So there’s only two left!”

Dumbledore looked satisfied. “We’ll want to hold off on destroying the ring Horcrux, then, while we deal with this last one. I suspect the destruction of his final Horcrux may alert Voldemort to his renewed mortality.”

“Uh sure,” said Harry. It sounded like Dumbledore hadn’t spotted the switch of the ring for a fake one, and was assuming it was one of the two remaining Horcruxes. Harry would be sure to be careful with the real last Horcrux.

They Apparated to Diagon Alley, where Growlithe was sure a Horcrux was cached below Gringotts. The goblins, however, were most disinclined to let them search through their private network of vaults.

“I bet I can sort something out,” said the bubblegum-haired young Auror decisively. “Back in a tick. Meet you at the Leaky Cauldron in a half hour or so?”

So their epic adventure took a lunch break. Harry and Pikachu shared some steak and kidney pies (Pikachu’s had extra tomato sauce), while Growlithe got a juicy bone to gnaw on thanks to the obliging barkeep Tom.

Luna snuggled in next to Harry. “I think this is quite exciting, don’t you? Like a treasure hunt. But for evil. An evil treasure hunt. Do we get a prize at the end? There should be prizes.”

Harry thought about it. “Apart from world peace? How about some of those Order of Merlin medals?”

“Oh yes! You should ask for some. I’m sure they’ll appreciate your help. If the Rotfang Conspiracy hasn’t spread too deep at the Ministry yet, that is.”

Tonks reappeared an hour later, with an official search warrant from the Ministry, and her boss, Amelia Bones. Who immediately went over to Dumbledore, and encased them in some kind of Cone of Silence spell. Judging by the body language she appeared to be giving him a good telling off.

“What’s that all about?” Harry asked Tonks curiously.

“Oh, uh… well Director Bones wasn’t too happy to be hearing about the you-know-whats for the first time. She seems to think Dumbledore’s been keeping too many things secret that could really help the war effort. But you know, I had to tell her to get the search warrant. This is too important!”

In the end, between cranky goblins and an even crankier Director Bones, only she, Tonks (as an actual trainee Auror), and Growlithe got to go down in the vault carts in search of the Horcrux.

“Will he listen to us?” Director Bones had asked sceptically. “I don’t want to have to take you into danger unless it’s entirely necessary. But I don’t want an out-of-control magical creature causing havoc.”

“Welll…” said Harry, “I suppose I don’t really need to come along. Growlie should very friendly with police officers. Or Aurors. And he’ll growl and bark if he finds a… you-know-what. It should be pretty obvious. And he can use Bite and Flamethrower attacks, if there’s trouble. But he’ll only breathe fire if you tell him to.”

“This… stripy puppy can breathe fire?”

“It’s a masterful Transfiguration!” Professor McGonagall boasted, proud of her student. “He’s very skilled at partial Transfigurations and enchantments of living creatures, and they’re all exceptionally long-lasting, too.”

“Okay Growlie, go with Officers Tonks and Bones, please! Help them track the you-know-what!”

Growlie nodded. “Ggggrrrr-owl!” “I will!”

Director Bones took charge of destroying the cursed cup herself, and then there was only one Horcrux left. Dumbledore privately assured Director Bones it was safely locked up in his office, so she felt sure there was plenty of time for her to organise her Aurors to find and attack Voldemort before he regained his full strength or found out what was going on.

Of course, they were both wrong in their assumptions. Somehow, Voldemort got word of what they were up to. And the next week, with a more intimidating if oddly nose-less adult form (could wizards evolve?), Lord Voldemort marched on the Ministry with an army of Death Eaters, giants, vampires, werewolves, and Dementors. It fell like a deck of cards, with many people surrendering rather than daring to fight. Then with most of the Aurors and Hitwizards defeated or on the run and the populace cowed and without leadership, it was feared he would soon turn his attention towards Hogwarts, and the boy whom some whispered was destined to defeat him.

Chapter Text

Harry darted past some students in the Great Hall to the Ravenclaw table. He’d visited the Gryffindor table for lunch that Monday too many times already – Ron was starting to look at him oddly. Time for a change to a new table.

“I’m just going to grab a bit of a snack,” he said apologetically to the Ravenclaw students, grabbing a whole pie off their table. “And my Pokémon need food too, so…” He shoved a whole platter full of sandwiches into a bag that looked like it really shouldn’t hold as much food as it did.

Luna pushed past some students to look at him sternly. “Harry.” 

“Luna, my Mooncalf-love,” he said nervously. “I really have to get back to my Pokémon, we’re in the middle of a training session.”

“Don’t have time to talk?” she said pointedly. “The last Harry had time to talk to me. You must be the earlier Harry, who hasn’t yet learnt it’s wrong to hide things from his girlfriend.”

He hung his head shamefacedly. “I’m almost done. I just need another week of Mondays, and I think I’ll have my kitten floating properly at last.”

“One more week of work for you, and then next-week-Luna – that’s me a little while ago – insists on a whole week of dates to make up for it. Starting ten minutes ago.”

“He’s back here at our table for more food again? He just left! He’s barmier than a whole flock of fruit bats,” muttered an eavesdropping Ravenclaw.

“It’s a colony,” another corrected. “They’re both crazier than a whole colony of fruit bats. It’s a flock of birds.”

“Must you always correct me like that?” whined the first. “How about crazier than a tree full of coconuts?”

“Sure.”

Harry ignored them, as did Luna. “I can’t take you with me.”

“Yes you did,” she insisted.

“I can? I did?”

“Yes. We had a lovely time. Five past twelve – don’t be late. And don’t forget to shave.”

“What?”

“You’ve spent so much time on your new Pokémon you’ve got a moustache, Harry.”

He felt his face – there was a soft down of hair on his upper lip and part of his cheeks. “Well what do you know. I’ve got a moustache!”

“Amazing,” muttered the grammar-picky Ravenclaw. “What a shock it must have been.”

“Maybe he never looks in a mirror. It would explain his hairstyle.”

Harry glared at them. “Did you have something you wanted to say to me or Luna? And I’m taking this pumpkin juice.”

Harry waved his hand and the top of the glass jug reformed, caving in at the sides to seal the juice inside so he could put it in his bag without it spilling.

“And this bowl of fruit.” He snatched the large dish from the table right in front of their plates and emptied it into his bag. “And the roast chicken.” He wordlessly and wandlessly levitated it from the middle of the table into his bag, as his look dared them to object.

“Be our guest,” one said nervously, awed at his casual display of wandless, wordless magic.

“No offence meant,” apologised the other. “Please, help yourself.”

Ten minutes earlier, or a week later (depending on perspective) Harry stopped by for more food, and whisked his girlfriend away from the table for a minute. Or a week. Linear time really was just an illusion people collectively supported, in Harry’s opinion.

Harry and Luna greatly enjoyed their time away from time, including a stolen visit to Hogsmeade to visit Madam Puddifoot’s Tea Shop for a proper date, a rummage through the Restricted Section of the library, and a thorough explore of the junk room that Harry had found the tiara Horcrux in. They didn’t find anything too amazing in there, but they sure had fun looking for treasures.

Their best discovery was that the junk room was more than it seemed – Harry had found a trick to it. If you wished hard enough, it could be anything – it didn’t even take a lot of effort. He’d been refashioning it every visit into something new each time he time-travelled, so he could stay there over and over again without running into himself.

“You’ll have to stay with me there too, Luna. Purely uh, for time safety reasons. Paradoxes, you know,” he said nervously.

“Of course,” she said, hugging him tightly, and tilting her head back for a kiss. “And not for any other reason at all.”

After his “date week” with Luna, Harry spent another fortnight (or four hours) training his two new Pokémon and tweaking Growlie’s Flamethrower attack to make sure it could reach Fiendfyre strength, before he finally felt he was ready to face Lord Voldemort.

He lapsed back into regular time, and wandered around a bit until he found someone who could tell him what classes he was supposed to be in. He went to Charms before dinner, just for fun, where he promptly annoyed half the class by not having a clue where they were up to. “What are we supposed to be working on again?”

“The Silencing Charm, Mr. Potter? The one you neglected to do the essay for, I presume?” Professor Flitwick squeaked in his high-pitched voice.

“There was an essay? Oh yeah, I remember. I read that some old wizard thought the range and duration of the spell should be limited. It didn’t seem right, so I decided to ignore it. Sorry, there’s just no point in writing stuff that’s all wrong just for the sake of it. No offence. I’ve worked hard on the charm, though.”

Hermione huffed and folded her arms crossly. Professor Flitwick smiled tolerantly, however, fond of Hogwarts’ star pupil, despite his appalling lack of interest in magical theory.

Harry impressed Flitwick, and most of the class, with his ability to silence an old-fashioned wind-up alarm clock with a wave of his hand from the far side of the room, and a muttered instruction to “Hush”. Flitwick set it aside with a scrap of parchment noting the date and time, to see how long Harry’s silencing charm would last.

“You can write your essay on what ways make the spell work most effectively for your own particular style of spellcasting, Mr. Potter,” suggested Professor Flitwick. “Some experiments on whether duration of the spell varies in accordance with the distance you cast from may yield useful results.”

“I’ll get around to it if I have time,” said Harry, thinking of his upcoming plan to defeat Voldemort. “I’m a bit busy this week. Maybe next week?”

A couple of students left the room muttering about prima donnas. Truth be told, most of the students in his year were jealous not just of Harry’s abilities, but his increasingly casual approach to homework and the teachers’ tolerance of it.

*pokemonpokemonpokemon*

A simple overpowered “Point me” spell and some Apparition got Harry and his army of Pokémon to Lord Voldemort’s secret hideout. Harry sent off notes with the location to Sirius, and to Director Bones (who was in hiding last he’d heard), using Hedwig as the messenger. She was a much faster flyer now than she was last year. Really, this was the Aurors’ job. Slackers – couldn’t anyone cast a proper location finding spell? They wouldn’t have lost the Ministry if they’d put in a bit more effort to find evil baby Voldemort, who apparently had a proper body now, somehow. Harry hoped by the time they got his notes, it would be soon enough to summon help, but too late to actually stop him dealing with Voldemort.

He called most of his Pokémon out of their Pokéballs, reserving only Gyarados, who didn’t like dry land much, and his two newest Pokémon (which he was keeping as an amusing but nasty surprise for the right moment). Even the slightly sulky Haunter got called out. At least it looked right now even if it still had some attitude problems.

They formed a quick huddle to review their strategy, outside the creepy old mansion. “Alright everyone, Remember the plan? Pikachu, you’re my bodyguard, so stick close. Ivysaur, you’re on defense and tidy up – watch the perimeter. Charmander, Squirtle, Haunter, you’re on offense. Growlie – Horcrux hunting. You sure you’ll be alright on your own? And is it here in the building?”

It nodded. “Growlithe!”

“Good, that keeps things simple. Alright then, good luck. Howl when you’ve burnt it!”

Growlie started sniffing around, and headed around the back of the house.

“Let’s go team! Time for a big noisy distraction for Growlie!”

Pikachu blasted the front door completely to smithereens with a lightning bolt, and Charmander and Squirtle charged forwards, followed obediently by the sulky purple ghost Pokémon, then Harry with Pikachu perched atop his shoulder and Ivysaur at his side.

It didn’t take very long at all for Lord Voldemort to show up. He wasn’t an evil baby anymore, but he was still incredibly ugly, with deathly pale skin, a hideous remnant of a nose, and no lips to speak of. He eerily reminded Harry of a super-evil version of Michael Jackson, except that Michael had hair. And of course Voldemort probably wasn’t going to sing or moon-walk any time soon.

Harry focused on shielding while his Pokémon attacked, and made stone walls erupt out of the floor whenever one of those green killing curse bolts headed towards any of his team. But Voldemort was no slouch at defence either, and while his Pokémon were clearly driving the Dark Lord into a towering rage, they weren’t as effective at hurting him as Harry had kind of hoped they would be.

As Harry bunkered down in a stone fort in the middle of Voldemort’s hall, a happy howl rang out through the mansion. Excellent. That meant that the last Horcrux should’ve just been burnt to a crisp by Growlie’s Fiendfyre breath attack.

“Enough of this foolishness!” Voldemort proclaimed furiously. “Enough ridiculous creatures! Death Eaters - attend me! Potter – duel me man to man!”

“Very well,” said Harry, recalling his Pokémon to their Pokéballs, except for Pikachu and Growlie, and sinking his stone fort back into the ground. Harry waited politely, and didn’t interrupt Lord Voldemort as he ranted away with a very tiresome “join me” Dark Side speech, as his masked followers Apparated in. This was what he wanted. Time. It would be nice if his backup arrived sometime soon. And if not, he had a plan to subdue Voldemort’s followers on his own.

Eventually, the trickle of followers seemed to stop, and Voldemort was drawing out a proper duelling ring, burnt into the floor. He seemed to actually believe Harry would trust him to fight fair, with all his followers surrounding them with wands drawn. Harry was brave… but he wasn’t stupid. His opponent was a man whose ethics included killing babies in cribs as a reasonable option.

“Jigglypuff, come on out!” The fluffy round pink Pokémon popped out with a happy chirp.

“Jigglypuff!” It looked cute, and harmless, much like the Puffskein it had started life as. He’d enhanced it with kitten-like ears atop its head, and adorably large eyes. Its tiny hands and feet attached straight onto its puffy body, and it bore no teeth, or claws, or anything else remotely threatening.

“How dare you! Bow before-”

“-Use Sing!” interrupted Harry, who promptly cast a wordless silencing charm on just himself and Pikachu with a small wave of his hand, and dodged away from Voldemort’s angry spells.

As Jigglypuff sang its lullaby the Death Eaters started yawning and falling asleep, a few at a time. Voldemort held out the longest, and a very crazy looking woman pointed her wand at her own head and cast some spell to curse herself with deafness, laughing all the while.

“Confringo!” The Dark Lord went straight for the source of the problem, and hit Jigglypuff with a blasting curse, which knocked it backwards and covered it with sooty marks. Its eyes whirled as it fell unconscious.

It looked like it was time for the big surprise. Well, the small and adorable Surprise of Doom. “Mew! I choose you!”

Released from its Pokéball, the tiny lean pink kitten bobbed lazily in the air, englobed in a translucent pink bubble like a magical force field. Its fur was just the lightest coating of pink fuzz over its body, like soft velvet, and its adorable big blue eyes gazed around the room with bright intelligence.

“Pika?” asked Pikachu, and getting a quiet nod of permission from Harry, his favourite Pokémon wasted no time. She hit the laughing woman with a bolt of stunning electricity. “Pika-chuuu!” The woman was blasted against a wall, and didn’t look like she’d be getting up any time soon.

The kitten Pokémon, much less aggressive in nature, giggled as it turned upside down. It peered curiously at Voldemort’s face as it hung lazily in the air in front of him, tail waving sinuously in the air above it like a wiggly question mark.

Wary of Harry’s strange creatures, and disregarding the boy himself as a threat in comparison, Voldemort aimed a couple of spells at it, which bounced off its pink force field ineffectually.

After a few more shots that did nothing (even the barrage of conjured knives just bounced off the fragile-looking pink bubble), he was clearly getting frustrated. It wasn’t attacking, but just floating there and giggling. When it tired of that game and bobbed away to meander over to look at an unconscious Death Eater, the Dark Lord switched targets.

“I will deal with you shortly!” he pronounced grandly at its disinterested back, and shot a blast of flame in Harry’s direction.

Harry Apparated away to the other side of the room, but his Pikachu wasn’t so quick to dodge, and got knocked unconscious.

While Harry went on the defensive against Voldemort’s furious barrage of attacks, Mew floated over worriedly to look at his fuzzy friend. “Mew?”

But Pikachu didn’t respond, and when Mew looked around and saw that Jigglypuff was also unconscious on the ground, the kitten’s angry eyes glowed an eerie bright blue, and his pink bubble gained a flaming corona around its edge. As Harry conjured another wall to block an icy blast from Voldemort’s wand, Mew floated up behind the Dark Lord. Mew took careful aim and then with a flash of blinding pink light the terror of the wizarding world was transformed into a stone statue, with a permanent snarl frozen forever on his face.

With a deep sigh of relief Harry looked around for other threats, but all seemed safe. The thumping of feet worried him for a moment, but it was just Growlie finding him at last, and he ran into the room to lick Harry’s face and explain in barks and calls of “Growlithe!” how he was a good boy who’d killed a snake.

Harry revived Jigglypuff with a quick cast of “Rennervate”, and praised all his Pokémon for doing so well. Mew landed happily in his arms for a scratch and a pat, while Pikachu sang a happy celebratory “Pika pika pika!” song and danced about.

Harry gave Jigglypuff some polite applause and praise for its beautiful singing. But it didn’t like how so many others had all fallen asleep instead of appreciating its musical talent. Puffing up like an angry fuzzy balloon, it triumphantly whisked a felt tip black pen out of nowhere, and started doing amusing squiggly graffiti on the unconscious Death Eaters’ faces. Voldemort’s statue got a little Hitler moustache and some crazy eyebrows scribbled on his face with its felt pen.

Harry was busy taking wands off unconscious Death Eaters when there was a loud girlish cry of “Use Horn Attack!”, and a “Hooonk!” from behind him. He spun around to see the female Death Eater being tossed into the air by Luna’s purple Crumple-Horned Snorkack. The woman hit the ground again with a loud thump and a crack of breaking bone, and the spell she’d aimed at Harry’s unsuspecting back blasted apart a chunk of wall near him instead.

“Snorkie?”

“Snorkack!” it honked in happy greeting.

“But does that mean… Luna?”

“Right here!” she said happily, running towards him from behind her Pokémon to leap into his arms.

But it didn’t go quite how she planned. For before she could reach him, his eyes widened as behind Luna he saw the injured Death Eater casting a spell on her Lord, ignoring her broken arm and the blood trickling from her mouth.

“Finite Incantatem!”

Voldemort was free in an instant, stone morphing back to pale flesh in the blink of an eye, and while briefly puzzled he spun quickly to face Harry.

“Die, Potter! Avada Kedavra!”

As the sickly green light sped towards the two teenagers, Harry threw the kitten Pokémon cradled in his hands directly at the beam of light.

“Mew!” he yelled desperately in the tiny moment he had, and his sweet little Mew darted obediently into the direct path of the incoming spell.

And the light ricocheted off its pink force bubble straight back at Lord Voldemort. The Dark Lord was dead, by the Pokémon flung from Harry’s hand. He’d enchanted Mew with all the ability to reflect spells that his imagination could comprehend he could possibly endow it with. It wasn’t completely unharmed by the process of reflecting the Dark Lord’s killing curse though – it now had a tiny lightning bolt cut in its fur above one eye.

Pikachu, Growlie and Snorkie took out the Death Eater witch with a staggering barrage of different attacks – none of them wanted to see her get up again.

“That’s definitely dead,” Luna said, looking at Voldemort with an oddly twisted expression. “I know dead, and that’s dead.” She buried her face in Harry’s chest, and with a muffled voice asked, “Is that all of them, are we safe now?”

“Yes,” said Harry, freeing some more Pokémon just in case of additional surprises. “I’ll get Ivysaur to hit them with Stun Spore just in case though, alright?”

It nodded obediently and got to work. “Ivysaur!”

“What are you doing here, Luna? Did you come with others – they got Hedwig’s message, right?”

“Oh, yes, they did. They will. In another half hour or so they’ll all even be ready to show up. It took them a while to stop panicking and get organised, apparently. I’m future-Luna.”

“I brought you back in time? Well, that was helpful. You and Snorkie were great – you saved my life.”

“No… yes. Yes to saving your life, but no to the travel part. In a few hours from now Amelia Bones told me Snorkie and I were heroes – she thanked me and said that we were ‘instrumental in the defeat of You-Know-Who’. I hadn’t been able to chat with you yet, you were busy talking with Sirius and Dumbledore and lots of other people. Well, talking with Dumbledore. Sirius was mostly just laughing so hard he had to hold his sides. And while I was talking to Amelia it just came to me - it was clear I’d travelled back in time to help. So I did it all on my own!”

“Wow! Really?”

“Yes, it was easy because I knew I could do it. Because I’d obviously already done it,” she murmured into his robes, still not wanting to look around the devastated room, or at the corpse of Voldemort. “And I had to do it, to save you. So I did.”

Harry stroked her hair softly. She really was the most wonderful creature in the whole world.

Chapter Text

Harry and Luna were awarded an Order of Merlin each, and his Pokémon gained legions of new fans – especially the Mew Who Lived. They got a smattering of other gifts too, from delighted fans wanting to express their personal thanks for the couple who rid the world of Voldemort once and for all. Their favourites were definitely those people who owled them badges for their collections from all over Britain (and the Delacour family in France sent some too).

Dumbledore sadly passed away within the year, and was sorely missed by many. Though many citizens were comforted that Harry Potter had clearly been passed the torch of “Crazy and Powerful Light Wizard” who would defeat any pesky Dark Lords for the wizarding populace, if the need arose. He’d even inherited Dumbledore’s old wand.

Harry delighted the optimists who predicted a storybook romance, and proposed to Luna the instant she turned seventeen, and was legally of age in the wizarding world. She was actually more like eighteen or nineteen from her point of view, due to a little too much experimenting with time travel. They were wed a couple of years later in a delightfully magical ceremony surrounded by friends and family. Not counting the Dursleys, whom naturally weren’t invited. They bickered over the ceremony details a little, and while they agreed they both wanted an outdoors ceremony, Luna wanted a winter wedding, and Harry wanted a spring wedding. Eventually they compromised by having a winter wedding in the middle of a snowy field with icicles hanging from the tree branches, and white-furred bunnies watching the celebrations. But in the middle of that snowy field was a pebbled path leading to a clear circle of lush grass with wildflowers blooming everywhere, and a flower-bedecked bower of white roses for them to stand under to exchange their vows, with fairies and Butterfrees (the latter made solely by Luna) flitting everywhere as living decorations.

They spent the early years of their marriage travelling the world and working with rare and strange magical creatures, some of which they invented themselves. In due course they ceased their journeying for a while as they welcomed their children into the world – first there was Lysander James Potter with green eyes and pale blonde hair, and then his little sister Misty Pandora Potter, who was cute as a button with blue eyes and brown hair. She was the apple of her grandpa’s eye and could do no wrong.

As their children grew, Harry and Luna were prompted to think about their children’s schooling, and decided that while it was a fine place for many, Hogwarts wasn’t good enough for their children. It barely even touched the edges of what magic was truly capable of achieving.

So they journeyed to a tiny rocky island off the west coast of Ireland inhabited by nothing but seabirds, and with not a quarter so much effort as anyone else really thought it should take, worked together to expand the land over and over, until they had a fine sized island. Naturally they ensured it was Unplottable and obscured from the sight of Muggles. Then they made it flourish with all kinds of plants, and filled it with herds of Crumple-Horned Snorkacks, unicorns, dozens of fairies, and various Pokémon. And of course, they built there a school of their own, a tremendous castle with graceful sweeping spires.

Luna wanted to call their new home Atlantis, of course.

“Are you sure that’s lucky?” worried Harry to his wife. “Atlantis did sink under the waves.”

“Maybe it didn’t sink,” she suggested. “Maybe it just got tired of visiting the past, and we brought it back home after a few centuries.”

Harry thought for a while about the difficulties involved in making a whole island travel through time, and nodded happily. “I suppose living history would be more fun than reading about it. We’ll need some Philosopher’s Stones, just in case we want to stay for a few centuries. There’s lots to see in the distant past.”

Luna nodded happily. “That shouldn’t be too hard for you.”

“Anything for you, my dearest Mooncalf.”