AN: We do not own Harry Potter or Pokemon. Hey everyone, here is another chapter. Just a couple of notes for you guys first. The flash ack at the beginning of this chapter was, again, written by hotdogfish. She also proof read and gave advice.

lildino gave us our thirtieth review so Marilou is her cameo appearance. We have set a new goal; whoever gets the fiftieth review will get a cameo appearance as well. I hope you enjoy the chapter.

Flashback

Silently, Damien climbed back through the window into his hotel room in Jubilife City. Him and his dad were there for his Auntie Julie's wedding, and every minute of all three days had been meticulously planned out. Despite this, Damien considered the idea of going to a whole new region and not going to look for any new pokemon completely ludicrous. His plan had been perfect, climb out the window when everyone went to sleep, find a pokemon, catch said pokemon, sneak back in, wake up in the morning and pretend he slept badly. Unfortunately, he had forgotten one key detail in his plan.

"And just where have you been, young man?"

Damien shared a room with his dad.

Damien spun around, his seviper still pulling itself through the window behind him. He stuttered, trying to come up with some kind of excuse.

"I mean, really, Damien. Did you just bolt as soon as everyone's back was turned?"

"Bolt!" Damien gasped, "That's a great name for my new shinx."

"Damien." His dad ground out

"C'mon Dad, you would have done the same thing."

His dad had nothing to say to that, he'd told Damien plenty of stories from his own training days, many of which consisted of him running off from important stuff of his own.

"Well...true..." Dad conceded, "But if anyone asks, you're grounded for a week."

Damien grinned and threw himself at his dad.

"You're the best!" Damien exclaimed, wrapping his arms around his dad's chest.

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Damien would have liked to sleep in. He had always been something of an early riser but, after a year of being woken by the sunrise each day, he loved the idea of sleeping in the dark dungeons where he could sleep in to seven, or maybe even eight o'clock in the morning. His pokemon, apparently, hadn't gotten the message. He was somewhat surprised and unhappy to be dragged out of bed by his mightyena at their usual waking time of about 5:30 in the morning.

As a result, it was a very grouchy Damien that was sitting at the practically empty Slytherin table in the Great Hall. There was only a few other people in the hall, one of which was his head of house.

Damien's mood lightened slightly as he ate and considered the few words he'd exchanged with Professor Snape so far. He wasn't sure what to think about him so far, but he had made a good first impression when he agreed to use his real name.

He was just finishing up his meal when a few more Slytherins arrived. Blaise joined him at the table, looking very prim and proper. Damien scowled at him, it didn't matter what he did, he could not get his hair to look that neat.

"You were up early," Blaise commented, as he started buttering a slice of toast.

Damien shot a glare at Padfoot, who was too busy being blissfully oblivious to pay attention to him. He had asked the magic table for something Padfoot could eat, and it had sent up a large pidgey. Padfoot had immediately seized it and had been chewing on it ever since.

"Not by choice," he grumbled in reply.

There wasn't much time for more talk as Professor Snape soon came to their table, a large pile of papers in hand, and slowly walked down, giving each student a sheet.

"This is your timetable. You will all show up, on time, for each of your classes, or I will know why."

Damien scanned over his timetable, and wasn't sure whether he was more annoyed that his time was now being rigidly structured, or that he had to go to school in the first place. Then again, if the winters were milder here than the old guy had implied, he was leaving and not coming back.

Transfiguration? Boring. He dimly remembered Hagrid talking about Potions. Herbology was pretty self explanatory, so was History, but what the hell was Charms? Defence Against the Dark Arts? What, were they going to draw pictures in black and white, then beat the pictures with sticks or something? Flying sounded awesome, but he wasn't so sure about the Astronomy course. He put the sheet down with a sigh and then frowned.

"Wait, do we start classes today? We don't even get a day off?" he asked indignantly.

Blaise glanced at him in amusement before standing.

"Come on, we have potions first thing. I'll show you the way."

"How do you know where it is?" Damien asked curiously.

"I'm a pure-blood" Blaise replied, "All pure-blood children study maps of Hogwarts before coming. Getting lost is for commoners and mudbloods."

Damien scowled.

"That dragon kid talked about blood too; I don't understand why it matters. What on earth is a mudblood?"

Blaise stopped moving for a moment to look at him, but Damien continued walking with Padfoot, studying the walls. There was something about them that was bugging him; he just didn't know what. His roommate caught up to him again and started talking. Damien half listened, trying to figure out the wall as well, and didn't like what little he did hear. Before he could comment on the stupidity of it all, Blaise led him into a room in the dungeons, though a different section from their common room.

The room was cold but Damien was too distracted by the rows and rows of jars to care. Most of them were filled with dried plants, but quite a few had dried, or pickled pokemon parts, like eyes, or organs, or even whole pokemon; it was kinda gross and creepy but also kind of cool.

Padfoot whined from behind him, and he turned around to see that he had refused to go through the doorway, and was now blocking a bunch of other kids from getting through. Damien promptly returned him to his ball, assuming he didn't like the smell or something.

Once everyone was inside and sitting at their desks, Professor Snape swooped in and started the class. He started with the register, and Damien sat with bated breath to see if he would call him Harry Potter, like everyone else, or use his real name.

"Damien Koch," he read clearly, and Damien's smile nearly split his face as he met Snape's eyes.

There was a miniscule twitch of the lips in response and Damien counted it as a victory, however small it may be.

After the register, Professor Snape started on a spiel that sounded fairly rehearsed. He probably used the same one each year.

"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion making. As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses...I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death – if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."

Alright, so even with the rehearsedness, this class sounded pretty cool. If he played his cards right, he might even be able to get Snape to teach him how to make super potions or even hyper potions. He could save a lot of money if he could create them himself. Plus, it would be really useful here since he hadn't seen any pokemon centres in his explorations during the summer.

He and Blaise sat together as Professor Snape taught them the basics of potions: how to make the fires hotter or cooler, the different kinds of stirring tools, the differences between chopping, mincing, and grinding, and so on for what seemed like forever, but was actually only for about an hour. At the end of the class, Professor Snape told them that their first double block would be on Friday, that it was with the Gryffindors, and that they would be making their first potion then. Apparently the fact that it was with the Gryffindors was somehow significant.

Damien was chatting to a quiet Blaise as they left. He found it hard to not talk about things he found interesting and so was currently discussing the sweet things they had learned. Blaise apparently knew quite a bit of that lecture already, and kept interrupting him to correct certain points. It didn't take long for them to descend into the realm of friendly banter. Fortunately, they were interrupted just outside the Great Hall, while their banter was still friendly.

"Harry Potter!"

Damien frowned, that voice seemed familiar. He turned to see Ron standing behind him, scowling. He still didn't know Ron that well, he had spent way more time with the twins than with their sometimes surly little brother, but he still greeted him with a smile.

"Hey, Ron."

"Don't try to act nice, Potter, not when you're a slimy Slytherin," the redhead spat back.

Damien blinked in confusion. He would be the first to admit that he had no idea if Ron had had a problem with something he'd done, but he did know that he hadn't done anything to deserve that level of animosity. He also didn't appreciate the dig at his house.

"I like snakes better then cats," he said simply, but it only made Ron scowl more.

"Of course you do, you'd make a fantastic snake."

Damien ignored the rude tone and took it as a compliment. Ron blinked in confusion as he beamed at him.

"Thanks," he told him before turning back to Blaise. "So, what's next?"

"Defence Against the Dark Arts, with Hufflepuff," Blaise replied, as he lead the way.

Damien nodded and called Bolt out to travel with him.

The Defence classroom was up several flights of stairs, to Damien's and Bolt's joy. As much as Damien thought the moving stairs was cool, it was nothing to the ecstasy that Bolt felt about it, though it would probably be inconvenient if you were in a hurry. In the end, he had to grab Bolt by the scruff of his neck to stop him from running off and jumping from moving staircase to moving staircase.

They eventually arrived at the classroom and went inside. Immediately, both humans started coughing hard enough to make their eyes water, and Bolt sprang around and sprinted back out. The whole room was rank with the smell of garlic.

Slowly, and half blind from their watering eyes, the Slytherins claimed all the seats on the left half of the room, next to the windows, and thus the fresh air, leaving the seats on the right hand side for the Hufflepuffs, who had yet to arrive.

Once they managed to open the windows a crack and get some fresher air in the room, the garlic smell was merely overpowering. However, it was enough that they managed to get their breath back and clear their eyes enough to take notes.

Once Damien's eyes were clear, he finally noticed that Bolt had ran off. He released Ash to keep him company; the ghost didn't have a nose so the smell wouldn't bother him. He would also be able to help find Bolt afterwards, though hopefully he hadn't gone too far.

The shuppet looked around and then made a beeline to float around the back of Professor Quirrel's turban. Damien had to stifle a laugh at the look on his face, it was the first time that Ash looked to be confused about what he felt from someone.

It was a bit worrying though; first his Head of House, and now his Defence teacher. What was with it with the adults here? Was it really a good idea to have so many miserable, guilty-feeling, jealous, or angry people as teachers? It also didn't say much about the temperament of their professor, that it took an emotion-feeding ghost to find him.

Professor Quirrel looked alarmed and turned to look at Ash, an endeavour made more difficult by Ash moving to stay at the back of his head.

"M..m..mister P..Potter-" Professor Quirrel stammered

"Sorry, just ignore him," Damien interrupted, sounding anything but.

"P..please, put it away M..mister P...Potter."

Damien sighed and did as he was told and returned Ash to his ball. His professors were being difficult. The only other pokemon that would be okay in this room, cause even though he could tell rocks apart by smell, he was useless at smelling anything else, was his onix, but even as a baby he was a little too large for the room. It looked like this was the second class he wouldn't be able to have a pokemon attending for. He also realized his mistake in returning Ash before bargaining for the use of his real name, like he had for Professor Snape.

All in all he was rather disappointed in the class. It was hard to pay attention with the professor's stutter getting in the way, plus Damien had a headache for the whole class.

The professor talked about the Dark Arts and how the class was created to defend against it. He didn't actually teach anything, instead going over the syllabus for the year ahead. Nowhere did he mention anything about a practical aspect of the class.

He did wonder if he could use some of the spells in a pokemon battle. Not against a trainer of course, that would be cheating, but in a life or death battle in the wilderness. Quirrel mentioned a shield charm that sounded useful; he could probably use it to stop a wild pokemon's attack. Too bad this class looked like it was going to be a waste of time.

After class, Damien left the rest of the Slytherins in order to track Bolt down. Fortunately, he hadn't gone far. He was just around the corner, terrorizing someone's small, grey, pet rattata. Damien returned him before he could eat it, and then jogged down the stairs to meet up with his classmates for lunch.

Once he got to the Great Hall, he let Sevi out again. It felt weird to go so long without at least one pokemon around him.

"I could get used to this," he said, as he piled food on his plate.

"Get used to what, Potter?" Draco asked, as he joined them with Greg and Vince.

Theo was already sitting nearby and he glanced up with interest. Damien briefly wondered why everyone seemed to use his last name before answering.

"Having three full meals a day."

Seeing them all stare at him blankly he decided to elaborate.

"I always eat breakfast but the rest of my meals usually depended on what my pokemon could find. Sometimes we would be really lucky and have lots to eat but not always."

He glanced down at Sevi who was busy swallowing his meal.

"My pokemon are all grumpigs, honestly, except for Ash, 'cause he's a ghost."

"I don't think I could handle that," Vincent said honestly, "Only one or two meals a day...and no snacks."

"Well of course you couldn't," Draco said, with a sneer towards the boy's large plate of food. "You're a pig yourself."

Damien glanced between the boys with a frown.

"I don't really have a lot of friends but I'm still pretty sure you're not supposed to talk to them like that."

Greg and Vince shared a look while Draco scoffed.

"You know nothing about pure-blood society, Potter."

Damien snorted.

"Sounds like I don't want to either," he muttered to his seviper.

"Sounds stupid," the snake agreed.

"Another thing," Damien said to the surrounding Slytherins, "it's Damien Koch, not Harry Potter. Use it otherwise I'm gonna sic Ash on you when the professor's aren't looking and, just to clarify, Ash is the ghost that already has it out for two professors, and that's only after half a day."

Draco glared at him, but didn't say anything.

After lunch they headed out to a greenhouse for a double class of Herbology. Damien paused outside the building to release Iggy and Rockeater, knowing they wouldn't get much time out of their balls when inside.

His numel wandered off a little ways to chew at some grass.

"Stay close," he instructed his baby onix.

"Okay, Daddy."

Damien huffed, he wasn't sure he could trust his baby to not wander off so he called out Ash as well.

"Keep an eye on him," he told the ghost before heading into the greenhouse.

He found Herbology fascinating; it was more hands on and didn't actually involve his wand. For the first half of the double block, they, once again, learned about what they would be learning throughout the year. The second half had them up to their elbows turning fertilizer with their hands. All the while, Professor Sprout talked about the different plants in the building, what fertilizer went to which one, and what was in each of the fertilizers. All in all he thought it was a lot of fun. He could see the connection between herb and potion, and was looking forward to the next class. He might even do the homework Sprout had assigned, which he certainly would not be doing for Defence.

He called back his onix and numel of their way back to the castle, but left Ash out. The ghost wasn't allowed in two of his classes and it was best to keep him from getting bored. A bored Ash was a dangerous Ash. Damien could practically see the ghost wiggling in excitement when it saw the professor's table.

"No, Ash," Damien said sternly, and the ghost shot him a sulky look.

Dinner went by quickly; Damien kept an eye on his ghost but Ash spent the time pestering the Bloody Baron. Damien was highly impressed when the Baron managed to send the spectre back to him. He'd never seen anyone handle the ghost so well, aside from himself of course, but maybe that was because the Baron was a ghost himself.

Once dinner was over he grinned at Blaise.

"Want to go explore the castle with me?"

Blaise shrugged.

"Sure."

By the time they headed back to the common room, they had found three hidden rooms and two hidden passages. Although, it would perhaps be more accurate to say that Ash had found them. They still couldn't figure out how to get into the two passages, though they did manage to get into the classrooms behind the hidden doors.

He wavered between exploring more on his own or his nice comfy bed, but eventually, the bed won.

His pokemon actually let him sleep in the next morning. He woke to find Blaise eyeing him with amusement as he dressed. Padfoot was sprawled heavily over Damien's feet.

"Ger off, Padfoot," Damien yawned.

His pokemon lifted his head to stare at him; he held the gaze long enough to make it clear he was moving only because he wanted to, before jumping off. Damien scowled at him before rolling out of bed onto the carpet. He laid there for a moment before Padfoot's cold noise met the strip of skin between his pyjama shirt and trousers, and yelped at the cold, sliminess of it. He could hear laughter and looked up to see Draco smirking at him.

"How you managed to get into Slytherin, I have no idea," he drawled.

"I asked," Damien replied, as he got up.

The other boys all stared at him as he started to dress.

"You asked," Draco repeated blankly

"You wanted to be in Slytherin?" Greg asked curiously.

"It had the coolest banner."

"You have that right at least," Draco said with a roll of his eyes.

That day at breakfast they were joined by the first year girls as well. Damien was not impressed. None of them had the conviction needed to train pokemon, but then again, neither did any of the boys, except maybe Blaise. To make it worse they were all too busy being silly for him to even attempt talking to them.

Afterwards they headed off for History of Magic with the Ravenclaws. Damien already knew it was going to be boring, it was history after all, but it was so much worse than he expected. The professor was a ghost, which normally would have been fascinating, except he had a terrible droning voice that sent Damien straight to sleep. He woke with a yawn after the class, sent a cheery wave at Professor Binns and left.

"I'm renaming that class 'nap time'," he announced.

Herbology was next; it resulted in learning more about manure and the different plants in the greenhouse.

"What's next?" he asked Blaise at lunch.

He hadn't bothered learning the schedule since Blaise had already memorized it. The other boy rolled his eyes but told him anyways.

"We don't have any other classes. It's just free time until curfew."

Damien beamed happily.

"It's free time and I'm still indoors? Forget this; want to help me explore the grounds?" He asked, making himself a thick sandwich and shoving an apple in his pocket.

By the time Blaise decided that yes, maybe he would enjoy going outside, Damien had already released Padfoot and had wrangled his front legs through his backpack's armstraps, and was tightening them so that it wouldn't fall off.

Once outside, Damien released the rest of his pokemon.

"Padfoot says to carry your own stuff." Sevi told him after a brief conversation between the two of them.

Damien looked over to see Padfoot glaring at him.

"If you want to go down to the common room, get someone to let you in, go to my room, take it off, then come back out, then you don't have to carry it." Damien told him.

Padfoot turned away and started exploring.

The grounds were huge and he found a great tree for training; if you got too close to it, the branches started attacking. It would be a great place to train his team's speed and agility.

He still wanted to explore the forest and lake but that would have to happen on a different day. It was as they were heading back to the castle that he saw Hagrid. Immediately Damien shoved his hand into the air in a wave and ran over.

"Hey, Hagrid," he beamed.

The giant looked a bit awkward and gave him a hesitant smile but Damien was too excited to notice.

"Want to meet my team?"

He didn't wait for an answer and let out a sharp whistle. All his pokemon ran over from wherever they had been exploring. He panicked a little as Rockeater wasn't there, but a moment later, with a loud rumble he erupted from the ground, barely a foot away from knocking Blaise over. He let out a sigh of relief as he gave Blaise a hand to steady himself.

Eclipse perched on his head with a worm in her mouth; Damien shoved her off and she gave him a haughty look before flying to Hagrid's shoulder and swallowing the worm.

Instantly the giant's mood brightened and he smiled for real.

"They're beautiful, Damien."

"I know," Damien grinned.

Iggy, recognizing Hagrid from before, pushed forward against the man and nudged at his pockets. Hagrid let out a booming laugh and reached into his pocket for what Damien thought was a beetroot.

"Alrigh', yeh beauty."

Seeing Iggy being fed, the rest of his pokemon, minus Ash who, truth be told, looked rather bored with the large man, crowded forward. Hagrid somehow managed to find something in his pockets for everyone. He even gave something he called a rockcake to Rockeater.

Damien quickly gave introductions and, by the end of it, Hagrid was acting just like his old self again.

"Glad ter see that Slytherin hasn' changed yeh," he said, before heading back to his cottage with a wave.

Damien frowned in confusion before joining Blaise who had been waiting patiently off to the side.

"Slytherins don't usually converse with those kinds of people, Damien," he said.

"Yeah well, Slytherins seem to be kinda snobbish, no offence."

Blaise studied him for a minute, but let the subject drop.

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Wednesday morning passed fairly quickly. First was Potions, where Damien paid attention, and then Defence, where he didn't. Transfiguration started after lunch.

Mckonna-something started with a class outline and a lecture on how she expected everyone to work hard in her class. Now Damien wasn't a stranger to working hard; being a pokemon trainer was hard work after all, but he did not see any point in this class. After all, when would he ever need to turn a matchstick into a needle? When he asked the professor that very question, her nostril's flared and he was docked ten points for "cheek", whatever that meant.

After class ended, he went out to explore more of the grounds. His next class was Astronomy, at midnight, so he had plenty of time to kill. Blaise went to be boring and do homework, so it was just Damien and his team.

He released Eclipse, to fight any bugs they might find, and Padfoot, who could probably deal with anything else, and headed out across the grass. He was just checking out the edge of the forest when he heard a whistle. Turning he saw a girl with long hair, as in really long hair; it went down to her knees, which was rather impractical in his opinion, trying to coax Eclipse down towards her.

"It's okay, sweetie, I just want to get a closer look at you," she said.

Well anyone that could see how awesome his team was, couldn't be all that bad, long hair notwithstanding.

"She likes bugs," he offered. "Well she'll eat anything but she really likes bugs...and fish...and buttons for some reason," he added in.

The girl's head jolted up and she stared at him. Damien decided to take the initiative to avoid the whole Harry Potter thing.

"Hi, I'm Damien," he said. "And that's Eclipse."

He jerked his thumb at the hoothoot, who came to settle on his shoulder. Damien instantly gave her a chin a scratch for not aiming for his head.

"I'm Marilou," she responded shyly. "What kind of owl is she?"

"She's a hoothoot," Damien responded.

The girl pulled an owl-treat out of her pocket to feed Eclipse. It looked like any old regular piece of kibble, so he wasn't sure why they were for owls, but maybe the owls here ate more than just meat?

Predictably, Padfoot quickly smelt the food and started begging for his own, making her eyes widen. Damien scowled at him and muttered "suck up."

He introduced him to Marilou, and pretty soon the girl was on her knees petting a very happy Padfoot. Damien spent some time talking to her about his team. It turned out she was a second year Hufflepuff and loved animals. To his surprise the long haired girl grew fairly animated and talkative on the subject.

They headed back to castle when she had curfew and he explored the castle for a bit longer before heading up to astronomy.

"Every time I think I've seen it all I find a new room or hallway," he said to Blaise. "I'm pretty sure the castle is messing with me."

"Well, it is a magic castle," Blaise pointed out, amused.

Damien huffed before turning back into the professor. Astronomy was kind of interesting; he didn't particularly care about how the stars got their names but he was looking forward to learning how to navigate by them, and it was kinda cool to see how different they were from his home.

They had nap time the next morning, which was to say History, and then transfiguration. McGonagall seemed to like taking points from him for some reason, probably due to his bad first impression in their last class. After lunch, they had Herbology and then flying. He had been looking forward to this class except he never actually got into the air. Some Gryffindor kid fell of his broom and hurt himself before they could.

"Poor little Longbottom," laughed Draco, once Professor Hooch had left to take him to the hospital wing, "looks like he forgot something."

The boy help up a glowing red ball and Damien blinked.

"Probably his dignity as well." Draco continued

All of the Slytherins laughed; even Blaise and Theo smirked.

"Dude, how much of a bully can you be?" He asked, annoyed. "Now you're taking other people's things? Next thing we know you'll be copying someone's homework."

Draco flushed slightly and glared at him. The Gryffindors and other Slytherins were all staring at him in surprise.

"Why are you standing up for that Gryffindor?" Draco spat and Damien frowned.

"It shouldn't matter what house he's in," he responded.

The Slytherins all stared at him and then Ron stepped forward. He glanced at Damien distrustfully before glaring at Draco.

"Give it back," he ordered.

Damien watched as the two boys insulted each other. He had no desire to get between the two of them. He got involved again when the blond Slytherin threw the red ball into the air with a sneer.

"Go, Eclipse," he ordered with a scowl, tossing her ball in the air to let her out.

He turned to Draco as his pokemon caught the ball.

"What's wrong with you?" he demanded. "You don't steal and you don't break other people's stuff. You're almost as bad as Team Rocket."

Both houses stared at him in confusion as Eclipse dropped the ball into his hand.

"Good girl, Eclipse," he praised.

He turned and offered it to the Gryffindors who all stared at him. A brown haired girl stepped forward to take it, since no one else seemed willing to move.

"Thank you," she said and Damien shrugged.

"No problem."

"He probably cursed it or something," Ron said and the trainer rolled his eyes annoyed.

"I'm heading in," Blaise informed him after the professor got back, just for her to dismiss them early.

"I'm going to explore," he responded.

As Blaise and the rest headed into the castle, Damien walked straight to the forest. He released the rest of his pokemon as he started to explore, assuming that there was enough room for them to spread out enough and not fight with each other. He realized fairly quickly that the woods were massive, and it made him all the more excited. Who knew what he would find in here?

Talking human-rapidashes with no fire or horns, he discovered a couple hours later. He stared up in amazement at the creature; a rapidash from the waist down and a man waist up.

"You. Are. Awesome." Damien said to the rapidash-man, eyes wide in awe.

"You bring great change young one," the man said.

"I do?"

"Yes."

The rapidash-man settled his bow against his shoulder and Damien had to admit, bows were a pretty cool alternative to breathing fire. There was a lower chance of burning your home down, too.

"You are welcome in these woods, Mr. Potter." he added.

"My name is Damien Koch, actually," he corrected

Instead of answering, the rapidash-man tilted his head back to look up at the sky.

"Mars is out early tonight."

Damien tilted his head back, and saw that there were a couple stars out, early though it was in the evening. He had no idea which one Mars was.

"You guys like being cryptic, huh?" Damien couldn't resist asking, not sure what Mars had to do with anything.

The rapidash-man was quiet for a long moment before answering.

"You would also do well to steer clear of the west; the acromantula have their nest there."

The rapidash-man looked down and studied him for a moment, before giving a dry smile.

"Do not cause trouble here. The centaurs do not appreciate trouble makers." He said, before turning around and leaving the way he came.

Damien wondered vaguely what a centaur was, and if they were as nuts as the rapidash-men. He was pretty sure the Lovegoods had said the acromantulas were giant spinarak things, but they hadn't mentioned centaurs.

Once he was sure the rapidash-man was gone, he headed west. After a while of walking, he started seeing webs, large ones, in the branches above him. He started moving quieter and called back all of his pokemon, except for Eclipse.

Since he didn't want to face a whole family, it took him a while to find what he was looking for. He just wanted to catch one, and fighting it one on one was a lot smarter than fighting a whole group. He came across a group of a couple adults and carefully moved on unseen. They were huge, about twice the size of Sevi, and definitely not ones he wanted to fight against with his hoothoot.

Eventually, he managed to find a baby, slightly apart from a group of a dozen or so other babies; at least he assumed they were babies. They were about two feet long, which was still larger than most spinerak grew to, though still a lot smaller than an ariados, and the adults he had seen earlier. It had eight eyes, eight legs, pincers and was jet black. Actually, it looked just like the adults, which did imply that it wouldn't evolve, but honestly, it was still incredibly cool.

He had Eclipse carefully lure it further away from the group until they were out of sight, before having her attack. He knew that a lot of bug types were also poisonous, so he had her avoid going anywhere near the pincers. She flew around pecking at the spider's back and managed to flip it over so she could attack its softer belly.

Damien watched carefully and, when the acromantula fell unconscious, he threw one of the few pokeballs he had brought with him. He held his breath as the light flashed and let out a whoop when it cleared. Excited, he picked up the ball and headed back to the castle; he had a lot of showing off to do.

By the time he reached the castle it was dinner time and he had thought of a name for his new pokemon. He walked casually between the tables heading for the professors. By the time he reached them the whole room had gone silent and the old man was staring at him. He had that weird twinkle in his eyes again and a kind smile on his face.

"Yes, Mr. Potter?" He asked, in that annoying, grandfatherly tone.

Damien didn't even feel the usual annoyance at hearing his old name, he was feeling too triumphant.

"You said there was no pokemon here, but you were wrong. I just caught one in the forest."

He held out the pokeball smugly.

"Meet Peter."

There was dead silence when he released his new pokemon, until someone screamed. The reactions were both worse and better then he had expected. Most of the students started running for the doors but he noticed with amusement that Ron had fainted. The professors were all staring at him with horror and Damien grinned.

"I told you so."