This is my Pokémon Big Bang story. As a Big Bang kind of dictates, the chapters are MAMMOTH. About 7,000 words each. Yeaaaah.

This story is also a lot of fun to write; combining the magical Harry Potter world with the Pokémon world we all know and love was challenging, but extremely cool. I think I did a good job, but you be the judge of that.

I should probably warn that this story will feature M/M, F/F, and M/F pairings in later chapters, when you know, they get to that age of sexual experimentation. For now, that's not really of concern. It also features pretty much constant cross-dressing on the part of N (for plot-related reasons) and as a result, questioning of the social constructions of gender and (incorrect) assumptions that N is MtF trans rather than something outside of the gender binary. As per the Harry Potter stories, it will also deal with issues of racism, classism, sexism and child neglect/abuse. I'll also be exploring some queer issues, such as cissexism and heteronormativity. If you find these things off putting, you know where the back button is. And yes, some characters will die.

Also, to clarify - I'm not posting this in the crossover section because at no point do any Harry Potter characters beyond those mentioned in passing and the Sorting Hat appear. It's all Pokémon characters, and as you'll see, the Pokémon world we all know and love is the muggle world. For now, the plot will remain very similar to that of Harry Potter but there will be deviations and a lot of them. I want the framework of the HP story, and once I have it, I'm outta there.

I think that's forewarning enough. Prolly scared off all my readers.

Thanks to rachieb1807 for being an amazing beta, and to Forever Rio and Potions for Foxes for lending an extra pair of eyes, and to the staff of Pokémon Big Bang. Holy hell they're amazing people.

I don't normally do this, but I'm dedicating this fanfic to Forever Rio. Dude, I can't even stress enough how lucky I am to have you as a friend.

Please do read on.

The Wizard

Mr and Mrs Ketchum were perfectly normally people, thank you very much, and so was their son Ash. At the age of eleven, Ash would be sent to the finest Pokémon Trainer Academy in Kanto and he would learn to become the very best Trainer who ever was. Ash's name would become legend and when the history books speak of him, they will make no reference to the boy who lived in the cupboard under the stairs.

As a matter of fact, Mr and Mrs Ketchum were quite petrified of people linking them with the very peculiar boy who lived under their stairs. He was their nephew and while there were physical similarities, he had eyes the colour of blood and under his messy black hair was a scar shaped like a bolt of lightning. They had found him on their doorstep one morning and let him live under their stairs ever since out of the goodness of their hearts.

Their nephew was quiet, rarely asked or answered questions, and demanded very little attention or energy. This made the moments when Mr or Mrs Ketchum's focus was drawn from Ash all the more arduous. But at least the boy was almost eleven and could be sent far away to Johto for a few years. A cheap Trainer's school in Cherrygrove would be more than enough and leave the Ketchums to repair the strains their marriage had taken after years of bothering with the peculiar boy with his unnerving eyes and the peculiar things that he made happen.

Of course Mr and Mrs Ketchum knew perfectly well that their nephew was a wizard. But as far as the boy himself knew, his parents had died in a biking accident involving gyarados and so he was a waste of space, weird, disliked, and his name was Red Potter.

Although Red's Uncle Vernon harped on and on about Ash becoming a Pokémon Master, the truth was that Ash really wasn't too good with pokémon. He couldn't tell a pidgey from a seviper, was frequently bitten by rattatta, and had absolutely no clue about the basics of Type Advantage. The number of times Uncle Vernon shouted at Ash never to send a Grass-Type against a Fire-Type was somewhere in the five hundreds (Red kept a tally on his cupboard's door).

It was completely unnerving to watch the way his aunt and uncle fussed over grooming Ash into their idea of a Pokémon Master. Ash was encouraged not to brush his hair so it remained spiky and messy, spent hours sitting in the 'forest' Uncle Vernon had constructed in the backyard, and as the time for Ash to be sent to Trainer School drew closer, his skin had been starting to turn a shade of fake tan orange most commonly found on vain beach-goers. They hadn't made much improvement on how scrawny Ash looked, as he didn't look like he'd be able to withstand walking from their house on the outskirts of Pallet to the nearest Pokémon Laboratory.

Granted, Red was even scrawnier, but he had grown up in a cupboard. And it was in that cupboard where Red normally stayed; Ash was far too loud to be bothered with, and the dark space was quite nice. Sometimes a spinarak would turn up.

Then the letters addressed to Red started to arrive.

On the first day, Uncle Vernon snatched the letter away and shoved Red into his cupboard. On the second, he camped on the doorstep to get the three letters before Red did. On the third, he commanded Red to move up into Ash's spare bedroom.

Ash watched as Red dumped his only possession onto the bed before running off down the hall. As Red looked around, stunned at all the space he had suddenly gained, he heard Ash gushing, "I have a cousin? Whoa!"

"Bloody hell, he's been cluttering up my house for ten years!" Vernon shouted. "How did you not notice?"

On the fourth day, there were some fifty letters shoved through the mail slot. Vernon started boarding up the house, but the letters kept coming — pushed under the windows, gushing down the chimney, and Aunt Delia even found some inside the eggs when she was cooking dinner. Ash still seemed stunned to have a cousin, but even he had enough sense to question Vernon's sanity.

"What's so bad about my cousin getting some letters?" he wondered.

Red realised that, despite all the letters bearing his name and room and ten years of living together, Ash had no idea what Red's name was.

It seemed like an accurate summation of Red's life.

By the seventh day, Red and the Ketchums were in a rotting cabin on a giant rock surrounded by a sea so wild that it seemed to make the giant rock sway.

"Won't find us here," cackled Vernon, stroking a long thin package wrapped in brown paper. "Won't reach us here… stamp it out, yes…"

Delia sighed and put curlers in the lower half of her hair.

After an hour or so of Ash's freaky staring, the Ketchums retreated to bed. This left Red to lie under a ragged blanket on the floor and slowly realise, 'It's past midnight. That means I'm eleven now. Huh.' He didn't feel any different — at least, not until the door exploded.

Alarmed, Red leapt up. From the storm emerged a tall dark man with unnaturally spiky hair and where were his eyes?

"Sorry about that!" the man laughed.

Seriously, where?

"I'll fix it, hang on." He waved a jigglypuff themed umbrella at the doorway, and the pieces of the door all gathered and flew back together like nothing had happened, which was weird enough but where were his eyes?

"WHAT THE BLOODY HELL WAS —" Vernon's shouting was cut short when the man shushed him. "HOW DARE YOU! HOW DARE YOU BARGE IN HERE YOU SQUINT-EYED BASTARD!"

"Shh."

"OPEN YOUR EYES AND FACE ME LIKE A —"

"Shh," the man repeated with a wave of his umbrella. Vernon was immediately silent, but remained purple with rage.

The man turned to Red and smiled widely. His eyes remained closed. "Hello there, Red!"

Red stared.

"Last time I saw you, you were just a little baby fresh from the breeeeeding."

Normally when Red stared, adults cowered away. But this man kept grinning and stepped closer and dammit Red was going to have to talk to him. "Who are you?"

"Hi, I'm Brock. I'm the game-keeper at Hogwarts, but what I'm really passionate about is breeding."

"…pokémon, right?"

"Of course."

Red was convinced this was a dream, so he decided to roll with it. "And, what's Hogwarts?"

Brock chuckled. "Like you don't know."

"No. Really. What is it?"

"…KETCHUUUUUUM!" Brock roared. He whirled around to face Vernon, brandishing the umbrella like a sword. "You didn't tell him?!"

"We weren't going to have one in the family!" Vernon shouted back. "They'd ruin our reputation and — bloody hell, he never asked!"

"I'm asking now," Red said calmly (just to unnerve his uncle). "What's Hogwarts? What are you talking about? One what?"

Brock turned back and dramatically stage-whispered, "You're a wizard, Red."

The silence that followed was heavy with destiny.

"A… a wizard?"

"That's right. Just like your parents."

"They're dead," Red said quickly, in case Brock was listening for them with his sonar.

Brock's lip quivered. "I know. Everybody knows in the wizarding world. Famous, your parents were. Crimson and Cynthia, wonderful people, really wonderful. Then they got murdered, that was awful."

Red's eyes flickered to the Ketchums. "My… my parents were… what? You said they were killed in a biking accident by rabid gyarados!"

"Biking accident?!" roared Brock. "No! Never!"

"You knew?" Red growled. But of course they knew. His mother and Delia were sisters.

"It was just ridiculous!" Delia cried. "One day they just took her away and trained her up, which meant I had to take over the family business while she came back turning teacups into rats! Horrible waste of the teacups! Then she married that freak and had you, and I knew you'd be the same, but I never expected her to get blown up and leave me to look after you too!"

Red didn't know what to think, and was almost glad that Brock became so enraged he turned to Ash (who was still fast asleep on the couch through all the noise) and gave him a grumpig tail.

Brock turned back to Red. "Oh yeah, I made you a birthday cake. And I have your Hogwarts letter, too."

His eyes were still firmly closed.

It wasn't a dream; Brock was still there in the morning, the letter explaining about Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was still in Red's hand (Red thought that if he dropped it, his escape ticket would become null and void so he clung to it) and Red actually had money (a huge vault of it guarded by talking alakazam!) and he was buying school books for a magical boarding school he was going to attend. It really was crazy. Maybe Red had gone crazy from too long in a dark cupboard, but it felt real, and he desperately wanted it to be.

Little things let Red know it was real — Brock's staring at skirts, the people staring at his scar and shaking his hands even though he'd never wanted anything more than to blend in and let life pass him by, the people glaring like they wanted him dead, the fact that he tripped over whilst trying to behold all of Diagon Alley and scrapped his arm. That, and the weight of his textbooks.

"I need to get some robes," Red read from his list.

"So you'll be needing Madam Malkin's." Brock pointed in the vague direction. "You go. I have some… business to take care of." His eyes were on a particularly short skirt.

"Okay," Red replied, relieved to be free.

It wasn't a particularly spacious store but luckily there was only one other customer; a pale boy with pale brown hair shaped in clearly deliberate spikes. Red assumed it was to make him look taller, as they were of similar degrees of shortness. A slim woman in a corset that did nothing to add to her slight curves — assumedly Madam Malkin — was measuring him.

Making sure his scar was covered, Red walked further in to the store.

"Oh, hello dear, you here by yourself?" Madam Malkin asked. Red nodded. "Just one moment, I'll be getting Mr Oak's robes, set yourself up over there, won't be a mo'…"

"Hey," the boy said. "Name's Green Oak."

Someone else named after a colour. Perhaps it was a magical thing.

"You're a Hogwarts first year too, then?"

"Uh-huh."

"Which House d'ya wanna be sorted into?"

"…"

Green quickly continued talking. "I'm going to be in Slytherin. 'Course, you can't pick, but if they put me anywhere near Hufflepuff I'm transferring straight to Durmstrang. I wanted to go there, the snow sounds cool, but Father insisted I stay close to home."

"…snow is nice," Red agreed.

"It really is." Green smiled. "Who's that squint-eyed oaf?"

Tapping on the window and making 'call me' motions between attempts to wipe the drool from his chin was Brock. Red glanced around and was relieved to spot the tailor shaking her head in terror.

"That's Brock. He's a little strange," Red murmured. "He likes breeding."

Green snorted. "Peasant hobby."

Red frowned. "He's weird but he's still nice."

"You're here with him? Where are your parents?"

Red pointed down to the ground. "Yeah. I'm with him. The school sent him."

Green's eyes narrowed and their emerald hue seemed to intensify. "You're not one of those, are you? Were your parents wizards?"

"A witch and a wizard."

Green nodded in satisfaction. "They shouldn't let that other sort in, my father always says so. Worse than Hufflepuffs."

"Oh."

"Hey, what did you say your name was?"

"It's —"

"That's your clothes done, Mr Oak!" Madam Malkin chirped. "If you'll come on over to the counter."

"I'll see ya at Hogwarts. And I'll guess your name then," Green said. He gave a strange saluting gesture that Red often associated with wankers. "Smell ya later!"

When he had his robes, Red walked out frowning. Brock was crying loudly about unrequited love but Red still managed to get him to explain that Hufflepuff was the house for morons and Slytherin for the arrogant morons. When he asked about the 'other sort', Brock looked uncomfortable and ushered Red off to get his wand.

An old man wearing a turquoise jinbei scanned him slowly and offered a toothy smile. It wasn't reassuring: his teeth were extremely yellow. "Red Potter, right? I was wondering when I was going to be seeing you. 'M Kurt."

What was with wizards and not being unnerved by Red's stares?

"Yep, I remember when your parents were here getting their wands. Willow with a suicune hair core for your mother, twelve inches, springy, very good for defensive spells. Your dad's was much sturdier; mahogany, articuno feather cored, ten inches. Better suited for transfiguration. Very good wands, but all the ones I make are, of course. Your parents were very skilled but of course, the wand chooses the wizard."

As Kurt babbled his nonsense a tape measure moved on its own, taking measurements of Red's arm span, the length of his fingers, his height, the distance between his eyes…

"You are right-handed, right?"

Red nodded.

Kurt pulled a near-white wand from a box. "Let's try this…"

It barely touched Red's fingers before Kurt shook his head and grabbed another. Red understood the caution when the second wand leapt from his hand and back into its box.

"Watch it!"

The third one exploded a vase of daisies; the fourth oozed from between his fingers before settling in its box like nothing odd had happened; the fifth started to secrete a clear liquid Red later realised was tears; the sixth burst from his hand and hid behind a lamp and the seventh leapt into Kurt's arms.

"Tricky customer, eh?" Kurt said like it was amusing. "Never mind, Red. I think I have the wand in mind."

He shuffled off between the shelves before emerging again with a heavily dusted box. "Eleven inches," he whispered, "holy. Moltres feather core. Nice and supple."

When the box was opened and Red gazed upon the dark wand, he once against felt hints of destiny in the silence. When he picked this wand up, heat seemed to coil down his arm and to his chest in a pleasant greeting of 'What took you so long, love?'

"That's the one… odd," Kurt mused.

"What is?" Red asked.

Kurt seemed less cranky all of a sudden. "I remember every wand I've ever sold, Mr Potter. And the moltres who gave the feather for that wand's core gave another… but of course I wonder how much you know, having lived with muggles…"

"About what?"

"The user of the wand yours is brother to gave you that scar. Yes, it belonged to the Dark Lord Giovanni, though we do not speak his name."

Red didn't know what to make of that. So Giovanni was the one who killed his parents and cut up his face. The name sounded very Mafia.

"I expect great things of that wand, Mr Potter," Kurt said darkly. "But make sure they're the right things. That'll be seven galleons."

Red paid and quickly decided not to pay this Giovanni person much mind. Apparently he was so bad even his name was terrifying…

"Hey Red!"

An extremely excited Brock charging over stirred Red from his stupor. "I've got a present for you."

Red was scared, so he stared.

From behind his back, Brock pulled out a cage. Inside it, fast asleep, was a shockingly small aerodactyl. It was about the size of a zubat, with a clearly less developed jaw than in pictures Red had seen.

"Thought you deserved a birthday present," Brock said with a grin.

Red decided Brock was okay, creepiness aside, and named the pokémon Aero.

When Red arrived back at the Ketchum's, Ash dashed up to him and shouted, "LOOK, I HAVE A TAIL! I wish it was a charmander one…"

Red couldn't help but smile.

Then Ash gasped at Aero. "Whoa! What's that? An evolved zubat?"

To get on the train, Red had to run through a freaking wall. He'd figured it out after listening in on a woman with far too many children, many of who looked nothing like her.

Red had taken to wearing a cap just to make sure his scar was covered. It had the bonus effect of shadowing his eyes and making them all the more frightening, as he'd discovered through practise when Ash was disrupting his reading. Red tried to read A History of Magic to understand more about this Giovanni person but it didn't say anything at all about him. In fact it only seemed to speak of alakazam wars and struggling to remain separate from muggles — or the non-magical community. The way the book spoke of muggles was concerning but perhaps the wizarding world was overshadowed by muggle privilege.

With some difficulty Red managed to find a compartment with only two other people in it — the taller had black hair with a lethal looking spike sticking very deliberately up at the front and the shorter brunet with spikes to the side.

Red wondered if magic led to ridiculous hair as he dubbed them Scythe and Joltik.

"Hi," he said in a weak attempt at friendliness, "can I sit here?"

Scythe glanced up and offered a thumbs-up. "Go for it, bro."

Red hesitated for only a moment before sitting down.

"Is that an aerodactyl?" Joltik leant forward as he asked.

"Roooo," Aero growled.

"Yeah. Brock the groundskeeper bought him for me."

Joltik paused. "You sure he's clean?"

Red nodded.

Joltik reached into his bag and pulled out a patrat. It squeaked and stood at cautioned alert; Red noticed its front paw was missing a digit. "This is Pat."

Pat glanced up at Red, squeaked and disappeared once more.

"I'm Gold!" Scythe (Golden Scythe? No, Red would just have to give up on the nicknames) declared. "And he's Black! Wanna see me eat an entire bag of Bertie Bott's?"

Red slowly shook his head. "I'm ah… I'm Red."

Gold and Black exchanged looks. "As in, Potter?"

"…yeah."

They continued to exchange looks before shrugging in tandem. "No wonder you're wearing a hat inside."

They explained to Red that they were half-brothers born ten months apart to a former heiress whose fortune had dwindled ever since You-Know-Who ("Giovanni?" Red checked. "Don't say the name!" they cried) started to seize power, as she took in and supplied funds to orphans. Their family home currently held ten other children attending Hogwarts. They knew that Red lived with muggles ("Everybody knows, bro," Gold insisted), found the idea of toasters ridiculous, and after goading Red into showing them his scar agreed that it was like a prison tattoo.

But they weren't willing to explain the thing with Giovanni. Nobody seemed to be. At least, not until the door slid open to reveal a tall bushy-haired boy in a skirt. Well, the uniform with robes over the top but he was wearing the girl's version. He wasn't Scottish; his hair was pale green and his accent an extremely refined example of received pronunciation despite his teeth being slightly too large.

"Has anybody seen a ralts?" he asked. "Someone named Wally lost one."

"No," Gold said. "But can I say —" He slid closer. "You must know tail whip, cos you're leaving me defenceless."

"Oh, I'm not a pokémon. My name is actually N Harmonia," the cross-dresser replied, like that was an easy mistake to make. "I am hoping to find and liberate the ralts before it can be returned to its captor." His eyes flickered to Aero and he shook his head sadly. "That poor aerodactyl… if you weren't imprisoning it in its cage perhaps it would be much larger. It would certainly be happier."

Yet again Red's stare failed.

"Oh, that scar — you must be Red Potter, the one who destroyed You-Know-Who. How did you do that?"

Red shrugged.

"Don't you remember?"

"I was a year old."

"Of course, that would be before complete cognitive development… but memory always works peculiarly with traumatic stress."

Black sighed. "You can't just ask people if they remember watching their parents die."

"Why not?"

"It's — it's insensitive and rude, obviously."

Red could see that any progress with N would be slow and gladly resigned himself to watching Black glare at him. Gold seemed to have reached the same conclusion but with much more amusement: he was eating Every Flavour Beans like they were pieces of popcorn and staring unblinking and grinning.

"Hardly. It's a matter of great speculation thousands have pondered and the greatest way to solve a mystery is to question those involved."

For a moment Black spluttered before insisting, "I think there'd be far better people to solve that mystery. You know, like Professor Oak. And they'd have the tact to ask if Red was okay talking about the subject first. Which would probably help them solve it."

N glanced at Red. "He doesn't appear particularly concerned."

"Maybe he's emotionally stunted by the trauma."

Sounding genuinely intrigued, N asked, "Isn't speculating such a thing in front of him also insensitive?"

Black gave a flustered noise of irritation much like a fearow's cry.

"I suspect we'll be arriving soon," N said. "You had better change into your robes."

Just like that, he left.

There was a long silence.

"What a strange person," Red said. He felt sorry for N, who was clearly home schooled by a scientist, so he pretended to read the back of a chocolate frog card and asked, "What's a quaffle?"

The fact that Red had said something first seemed to thrill Black and Gold so much they forgot about N and started to explain quidditch, a sport involving too many balls and deus ex machina.

They changed into their uniforms ("I don't think you'll get away with the hat," Black said and Red lamented as he brushed his hair into his eyes) and got off the train to Brock shouting:

"First-years, c'mere, follow m— well hello there Jasmine you're looking fine and how're you doing, Whitney? Have a good — yes, Professor Clair, the first-years are coming right this way! Towards the lake! Mind the tentacruel!"

Black hesitated. "Can, can we really trust that guy?"

Gold shrugged. "So long as it's not a female tentacruel, probably."

"He's okay," Red promised. "Just a bit strange."

All the way to the docks, N made not-so-quiet remarks about how he'd rather ride the tentacruel across, which he'd so be able to do, cos pokémon were his friends and he could understand them all.

When they went to climb into boats, Red's arm was grabbed with a loud "Hey, you!"

It was the guy from the robes store, Green. And he was staring at Red's scar.

"You're Red Potter," he said, dazed.

"You're Green Oak," Red irritably replied.

Recovering from his stupor, Green smirked and nodded. "Yeah, so come hang out with me." He sneered at Gold and Black. "You deserve better than lower class blood traitors like Weasleys."

"Shut your face!" Gold snapped.

Black nervously grabbed his brother's shoulder. "Don't."

It took Red a moment to realise that was Gold and Black's family name. It took him less time to become pissed off on their behalf.

"Yeah, don't," he icily agreed before turning to Green. "I can tell who's 'lower class' myself."

Green growled. "What."

One arm on Gold and the other on Black, Red started to lead them to a boat. "Smell ya later, Green."

"…what!" Green spluttered again. "How… how dare you steal my catchphrase! You — you wait until my father hears of this!"

With that, Green stormed off.

"Dude," Gold said, "you rock."

Red didn't mind Gold and Black's attention at all after that.

Waiting for them at the castle's entrance was a stern woman with long blue hair pulled back in a high ponytail and a matching fashion sense. Under her robes was a skin-tight… thing that looked to be scaly. She glanced them over and her lip set in a line so thin it had to break some laws of physics to be visible.

"Welcome to Hogwarts," she said. "My name is Clair; I teach Transfiguration, so if you try anything funny you'll be turned into a zubat. Come inside."

The doors creaked open to reveal a massive well-lit and extremely warm hall. Red hadn't seen anything like it before, but he wasn't sure that that meant anything coming from someone who grew up in a cupboard. Apparently it did, though, because other students were gazing around gasping in awe as Clair rolled her eyes.

"Quickly, now."

The door closed behind the last two students (a scowling redhead boy and a brunette girl with miraculously obtuse-angled pigtails) and Clair beckoned them towards another door. "Get in a line. Single-file. In a minute you'll be taken into the hall and Sorted into one of four houses: Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff or Slytherin. So do try to look decent."

"You're the one with your tits half out," Green not-so-quietly muttered.

"Mis-ter Oak. I will turn you into a furrett if you speak again."

Green shut up.

Waiting for them inside the hall was a hat who sang of the four houses; Gryffindor for the brave, symbolised by an arcanine; Ravenclaw for the intelligent, symbolised by a swellow; Slytherin for the ambitions, symbolised by a serperior; and Hufflepuff for the finders, symbolised by a floatzel.

The Sorting was one moment Red would never forget not only due to the four paths his life could have taken but because it was the first time he saw Professor Samuel Oak, Headmaster of Hogwarts, in person. He sat at the middle of the table, dressed in luxurious purple robes. His hair, somewhere between brown and grey in hue, sat up in spikes and despite having quite a stern face, his eyes twinkled at Red. It certainly made Red feel less awkward about being the only wizard at Hogwarts whose hair followed the laws of gravity.

When it was Red's turn, the Hat immediately whispered in his ear, "How very flat your hair is," and the good feelings vanished. "Oh don't worry; great things can become of even those with flat hair. Now, let's take a look at your mind… good level of intelligence, very good level of intelligence, pity there's no hunger behind it… not friendly at all, are you? Can't be blamed, can you, Cupboard Boy? And oh my, what's this buried under the denial? A secret craving to be the very best like no one ever was — ambition! Ah, and there's your cunning, but you're not without bravery… my my, wherever shall I put your jumbled little mind?"

Red was going to shrug, but he really did like arcanines better than any of the other pokémon representing the Houses.

"Oh, is that so? Well then, you'd better be GRYFFINDOR."

Under the arcanine banner the Gryffindors roared with triumph. Red found it unnerving until Black and then Gold joined him, acting as human barriers between Red and the rowdy Gryffindors asking him questions about his dead parents and muggle family ("How does the muggle glue inside the muggle tube not dry?"). While Black and Gold were equally as clueless, N seemed to know far too much about science and would offer lengthy explanations nobody understood.

"Can't believe he's in Gryffindor," Black muttered repeatedly, glaring as N ranted about the inner workings of disco balls.

"She," Gold managed to correct around a mouth stuffed full of potatoes and beef. "Don' be disrespectin'."

"He's gonna be a total nightmare."

"She."

Red glanced at the table of teachers. Honestly, it wasn't entirely surprising that Professor Oak was a wizard; he was, after all, the inventor of the modern PokéBall, PokéDex, and other unbelievably complicated machines Trainers were told not to question but just accept. Beside him was Clair, who seemed disdained to be talking to a tiny little man wrapped in a large purple scarf. Red would have continued to examine his future teachers, but one of them caught his eye — a man in a blue jacket with spiked yellow, not blonde, hair who glared with utterly loathing.

A sharp pain shot across Red's scar. Quickly, he glanced around for anything other than the man in the jacket and the concern from Black…

Across the hall, fittingly under the serperior banner, Green was ignoring the pretty girl beside him in favour of glaring at Red.

Red wondered if everybody else who grew up in a cupboard emerged to find the world filled with people who hate them.

Life at Hogwarts was utterly overwhelming. More often than not, Red found himself stunned to silence rather than choosing to be silent. Their lessons were fast-paced and almost entirely practical: the magical-born and raised children were at no more an advantage. In fact, N of all people showed the most prowess at casting spells. Black was illogically enraged by the fact, Gold was still insisting that they use feminine pronouns and Red was just curious. Once, Red woke up at about four in the morning and left the First-Years' room in Gryffindor Tower with the intent of visiting Aero only to find N sitting by the fire literally holding his eyelids open and reading.

Flying lessons with Winona were fantastic because Red was really good and felt alive on a broom; Wattson's Charms lessons would be better if he'd stop it with the lame jokes nobody else understood; Erika, the Herbology teacher, seemed more concerned for the safety of the magical plants than the magical children; the librarian had psychic powers and a cruel temper; Defence Against the Dark Arts was a bit of a joke, as the professor was more purple-haired bug than man; and Clair was a surprisingly good teacher, all temper aside. Worst was definitely Volkner, who had glared at Red on his first night just before his scar burnt. Volkner taught Potions and seemed particularly eager to make sure Red not only failed but also that he was further ostracised by his peers due to his undeserved fame.

"He's just jealous," Gold insisted. "Work with me, I can fix any Potion."

In fact, Gold invariably made them worse.

Black and Gold were only increasingly friendly and persistent. Red liked that a lot. Their other dorm mate, a green-haired sickly boy named Wally who wailed about his ralts and what his aunt and uncle said, mostly squeaked whenever Red came near so Black and Gold's enthusiasm for Red, not the Boy Who Lived (that, apparently, was his title. Red found it exceptionally redundant) was reassuring. They encouraged all of their 'siblings' (the children their mother had adopted or otherwise acquired) to do the same. White, who was in the year above them, said she'd grown her hair out especially to slap people with it. Diamond (who preferred to be called Dia) came across from the Hufflepuff table munching a strip of bacon and said he'd spiked Volkner's pumpkin juice with 'anti-jerk serum'. Cheren, despite being two years older, not actually related to Black and Gold but in fact their neighbour, and wearing unbelievably tight pants that no doubt contributed to his temperament, gave a group of staring second-years a talking to so stern that they started to cry. ("He's an honorary brother," Gold explained. "Cos he's really really scary.") And the triplets (Red hadn't even known that was possible) Chili, Cilan and Cress drew lightning bolt scars on their foreheads and ran away with varying degrees of enthusiasm as 'Red Potter doppelgangers'.

All in all, people weren't as bad as Red had thought — even if Green was constantly horrible.

Two weeks into term, Red received a letter from Ash addressed 'TO MY CUZIN' and gushing about 'you're aerobat' and his awesome Trainer academy. Red had no intention to reply until he noticed N staring at the letter with a frown.

"What?" Red asked.

"I thought your parents were dead," N said, "so who'd write to you?"

Red showed him the envelope.

"…cousin?"

"My mother's sister's son," Red explained.

"Oh." He frowned. "That's a thing now?"

Dumbfounded, Red nodded. "Has been since forever."

N frowned and repeated, "Oh."

Red quickly wrote Ash a half-hearted reply on a serviette.

Something was very, very wrong with N — something akin to growing up locked in a cupboard. Red knew he probably wasn't the right person to understand what.

All sympathy aside, it turned out Black's prediction was correct. N was prissy, had seriously memorised their textbooks (yet still stayed up all night reading?), and was so ridiculously socially awkward that he not only made Red look adept, but he seemed to drain any room he entered of comfort. Even the teachers seemed uncomfortable, likely due to N's constant cross-dressing but also probably because he asked extremely complicated questions Red couldn't even understand.

"But at least she's hot," Gold would always manage to say.

"Gold, he's a boy. He sleeps in our dorm," Red replied with a frown.

Gold shook his head sadly. "Oh Red, you just don't understand… what you mean is, she's a boy for the time being."

"I don't care!" Black shouted, who was sick of having his pronunciation corrected. "He's a bloody nightmare — no wonder he has no friends."

"She," Gold stressed. "You've gotta be open minded, bro." He bumped into a Ravenclaw, Silvanus Maroniere, and quickly started a shouting match. "Watch where you're going, ginger!"

"Just go shoot yourself, moron."

"THE HELL DID YOU SAY?!"

…or, Gold tried to start a fight, was ignored, became rabid as a result and thus had to be dragged off by Red — Black was still too bitter about N's comments on his pronunciation to stop the violence.

"That arrogant Ravenclaw bitch," Gold grumbled.

Red was starting to wonder about a link between magic and bad tempers.

"At least it's the Halloween feast tonight," Red said. "Brock grew these giant pumpkins, they're really cool." Red hadn't been able to get anyone to come with him to Brock's; it made him feel quite sorry for Brock, even if his isolation was encouraged by the flirting with eleven-year-olds. "And Black, maybe you'll figure out what's in the pumpkin juice?"

Food erased any of Gold's irrational hatred at the ginger Ravenclaw and Black seemed quite pleased, too. When they sat down, Black poured himself a goblet of pumpkin juice, downed it like a shot and declared, "It's cut with some other fruit juice."

It was becoming something of a dinnertime ritual.

"Is pumpkin a fruit?" Gold wondered as he piled a mountain of meat on his plate.

"Gotta be, there's juice of it."

"What about vegetable juice, though?"

Black frowned. "Good point. But it's sweet, so —"

The musing was cut short when White slapped Black around the head so hard that his face ended up in his empty plate.

"WHAT THE BLOODY —"

White's fist clenched in Black's hair, pulling him up as she hissed, "You're going to find N and apologise to him."

"For what?!"

White tugged harder and Black yelped. "You know what. He's crying in the girl's bathroom."

"What'd I tell you?" Gold whispered to Red.

Gold was also slapped as White continued, "I think he was too upset to check, or… something like that. Point being, I'm his friend and you should be too."

"But… but…!"

White growled, "Or else."

Black whimpered, "Fine, you damn… you… terrorist."

Satisfied, White went and sat down beside a girl with dark blue hair and started giggling dreamily over Professor Morty.

"Girls are terrifying," Black groaned.

"Makes you wonder why N wants to be one so badly, huh," Gold mused.

"Stop it," Red sighed.

Black spent the rest of the meal frowning no matter what anybody said. Red couldn't help but feel that it was somewhat deserved — Black was extremely harsh to N. Red had a sneaking suspicion of he hadn't defeated the Dark Lord Giovanni, he'd receive similar treatment for his own social failures.

Just before dessert appeared the great wooden door burst open.

"ELECTIVIRE!" a frantic extremely high-pitched voice shrieked. The running was equally as frantic. "ELECTIVIRE! IN THE DUNGEOOOOON!" Professor Bugsy stopped halfway to the Head Table, breathing laboured and hair askew. "Thought you ought to know…"

Bugsy hit the ground in a faint. Screams immediately rang out. Even Dia stopped eating in favour of freaking out.

"SILENCE!"

Professor Oak scanned the hall calmly and rose to his feet. "Prefects, escort students to their dormitories immediately. I'll handle this."

The fire in his eyes was pretty damn cool. As Red followed Wally (who was whimpering into Cheren's sleeve, oblivious to Cheren's disdain) he immediately decided Oak was his idol.

"Wait," Black hissed. "N doesn't know."

Red frowned. "Are you suggesting we go unarmed against a rabid Electric pokémon?"

"We've got wands," Black insisted.

"Mom wouldn't like that," Gold said quickly. "We should just —"

Black crossed his arms over his chest and, tapping a foot impatiently, growled, "I'm going to warn him, and if I get killed and you know I'm off on my own it'll be your fault."

Gold groaned. "I hate you so much."

They dashed to the nearest girl's bathroom. Despite his apparent resolve Black froze, frowned and grabbed Red when he moved to go in.

"What?" Red was baffled.

"You can't just walk in," Black insisted. "We should knock."

"Why can't I just walk in? It's just a bathroom."

"What did the muggles teach you?" Black groaned.

Red rolled his eyes and went in. "N?" he called in an almost-loud voice he hoped wasn't too threatening. "Are you in here?"

"Go away!"

"There's a rabid electivire on the loose," Black called. "I'm sorry, okay? Just come on before you get hurt!"

"A POKÉMON WOULD NEVER HURT ME YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING I'M KING JUST GO AWAY!"

Being experienced in the art of hiding in school bathrooms, Red walked up to the cubical and kicked it. The lock broke. Red quickly grabbed N by the arm and dragged him to the door, ignoring the shouts about treating kings properly.

"Finally," Gold groaned as he pushed the door open. All colour drained from his face and he immediately let the door close. "I-it, it…!"

"What?" Black demanded.

"Outside," Gold whispered.

They collectively swore.

"Let me talk to it," N said. He wiped his eyes but it only made them redder. "I'll ask it to go away."

"Are you mad?" Black cried.

"Shh," Red whispered. "Electivire don't like loud noises. It's probably looking for somewhere dark to hide, so we should just wait for it to go away."

"I'm so glad you know stuff about obscure rare pokémon!" Gold cried.

"Quietly."

Gold gave a grinning thumbs-up because he was a moron.

"If only Aero was here," Red muttered. "I'm sure he knows some kind of Ground attack."

N shrieked because he was also a moron. "You can't BATTLE your pokémon against another you just can't! Stop hurting pokémon they're my FRIENDS! I thought there weren't any Trainers here and that's good because Trainers are the source of all—"

Black slapped a hand over N's mouth, but it was too late. The electivire burst in, electricity zapping down from its clenched fists, up its arms and across its giant chest.

"Dammit N," Black groaned, immediately pulling out his wand.

"No!" N cried. He shoved Black to the ground and stepped closer. "Electivire, we're not here to hurt you. Please don't hurt us, we're —"

Black pulled N down just in time to dodge the electivire's fists.

"…a pokémon tried to hurt me," N gasped.

"Head to the door," Red instructed. He dashed back towards the cubicles. "I'll keep it distracted."

"Wait, Red!" Black cried. "This is a bathroom and that's an Electric pokémon!"

But Red was already running and electivire was already lurching after.

"Dammit…!" Gold growled before following.

"Why is everyone you know an idiot?" N asked.

Black shook his head sadly. "I wonder that everyday."

Gold was shooting lame sparks of magic at the electivire, which served to irritate it. Luckily, it was far more preoccupied with brushing the sparks away to attack him.

"What's your plan?" Gold whispered.

"…um." Red had honestly just planned to run around until they managed to escape, then run some more.

"Wingardium Leviosa!" Black cried with a wave of his wand.

The electivire rose up into the air. It howled in distress as it floated higher and higher. When it was pressed against the ceiling Black lowered his wand. Red glanced away with a wince as electivire hit the ground with a thud.

"You said it right," N gasped.

Gold flung himself at Black. "Have I said I love you recently? Cos I do. Best brother ever. Smartest brother ever too — just don't tell Cress that cos I need him to do my Transfiguration essay."

The door once again opened to reveal Oak and a golem. He scanned Red, Gold, Black and N, scanned the groaning electivire, said "Huh" and threw an Ultra Ball. The electivire was immediately captured. N gave a slightly distressed whine.

"Nice job boys," Oak said brightly. "Just tell me why you went looking for a dangerous Electric pokémon in a girl's bathroom?"

"Seemed like fun…?" Gold lamely replied.

"It was me," N suddenly said. His voice was of a higher pitch than usual and his eyes wider. "I came looking for the electivire because I've never met one before. I thought I could become his friend but it attacked me. Red, Black and Gold saved me."

"Well, that was silly of you," Oak said. "Go on, go to your dorm, all of you. Before Clair finds out members of her House were being so ridiculous."

They walked back to Gryffindor Tower together in silence. On the way, they passed Volkner, who was limping strangely and deducted twenty points from Gryffindor for staring.

When they slipped inside, the other Weasleys started shouting at Black and Gold ("How could you be so stupid?" Cheren cried. "How could you leave us behind?" Chili protested). Red turned to N and said, "So."

"So," N repeated, wringing one hand around the other. "Thanks for coming to warn me. And… and for saving me."

"It was Black's idea," Red replied. "I know he's kind of…"

"Extremely rude and threatened by things against his perception of reality."

"…something like that, yeah. But I think he likes you. He'd just like you more if you'd stop correcting him all the time."

N frowned. "I've never had human friends before."

"Neither," Red said quickly. "I'm sure you can manage it."

N continued to frown until Gold shouted, "Oi, Red! N! Get over here, Clair bought a bunch of food up!"

They walked over together. Gold gave them that face-splitting grin and Black smiled tentatively. N smiled back.

From then on, N remained their friend.

Note that the 'Mom' thing is deliberate; it's a reference to how the Pokémon games' language isn't localised from American English to other English dialects. This leads to some, uh... awkward moments in Australian English. (Please stop rooting for me, Mom...)

Please, please let me know what you thought! This is a new style I'm trying, and I'm still not completely convinced it works. Even just telling me which parts you enjoyed or stood out to you helps me tweak my writing style.

Thanks for reading!

This chapter was edited on the 6th of October, 2013.