e for evolution

Characters: Cana Alberona, Laxus Dreyar

Summary: This was the most ironic thing that ever happened.

Dedicated to Klara and the anon a while back who requested Laxana. This is probably more on the BrOTP side but meh, who cares? I guess this is also my entry thing for Laxana AU History, because I never got to write anything I was happy with.

I.

He was no babysitter. No, seriously, he was not. He was Laxus Dreyar, grandson of Makarov Dreyar and one day, he would be a famed quidditch player. He had no idea why his grandfather was so convinced that he needed friends and that he hence invited the little girl with her silly brown curls and the stupid pink bows over for dinner all the time.

First of all, she was five and he was eight and he would go to Hogwarts very soon year and then he would join the Slytherin house (because what other house was worth being in, seriously?) and he would only go home in the summer holiday when he had no other choice.

Secondly, for the longest time, he had thought her to be either a muggle-born or a real muggle and even without any sort of pureblood predjudice (not that he would actually talk about that as he was a halfblooded wizard himself), he felt it was better for muggles to live in a muggle society and for wizards to live with other wizards.

And thirdly, she was annoying.

Ever since she had gotten this … gameboy thing from her foster mother (because she was just another orphan in a world after the war against Zeref), she was playing this game.

And because she sucked at it (hey, it was only the truth), he was basically doing all the work. Because if he would refuse to help her and his grandfather heard it, Makarov would press his lips together and give him a disapproving look. (And no one wanted to get that look from this man, really.)

Sadly, even he had to admit that this Pokémon game was weirdly addicting — especially all these electric types, they were really cool — and so Laxus started to like helping Cana and even worse, he liked the girl with the silly pink bows in her hair enough to consider her a friend and to be reasonably unhappy when she mentioned once in passing that she would not go to Hogwarts when she turned eleven and rather to the french school, Beauxbatons.

II.

The first letter he wrote her was short because he was upset and he was not sure what he was supposed to tell her aside from

—the dumb sorting head put me into Gryffindor. I hate this. Laxus

She replied soon, her handwriting a little messy and the ink smeared but he can still read her slightly awkward words. He was still upset, of course, but as the trading card fell out of the envelope, he had to smile a little. This particular one — it showed a Pikachu — had been the first one she had ever owned and for her to give up on such a prized posession was rare.

That day, he asked one of the older kids at the common room for the current edition of the Weekly Sorceres and paged through it, nearly ripping out the pages in progress, until he found the order number for a set of cards. Checking if his allowance allowed him to buy it, he gritted his teeth before he decided to take a bit of his saved money as well and proceeded to order the damn cards.

III.

The next time they saw each other which was during the winter break, she had another so-called generation with even more pokemon to catch — not that they had ever managed to catch the first 151 but who cared about that, anyway? — and while she had gotten better in the past years, it was still fun to help her out when she got frustrated and threw the gameboy through the room.

(Also, in other news, electric types were still the best.)

IV.

Years passed, another Pokémon generation was released and this time, he gave in to peer pressure (peer being Cana) and bought his very own Nintendo DS and spent the holidays before his seventh year gaming the day away, usually playing against Cana who was catching and training ground types to render his electric pokémon (and especially his pikachu which had been fondly nicknamed as Jupiter — after the god and not after the anime character who looked a lot like Cana, goddammit) useless.

It was a great summer, one he would always remember fondly as the summer when he duelled Orga over something useless and ended up breaking the other kid's nose with his fist after they both ended up disarmed.

Like he said, a perfect summer.

V.

The teacher was staring.

The class was staring.

Laxus was staring, too.

This could not be happening. His partonus was supposed to be something big and intimidating, not a … not a … not a … (No, he would never admit this, Merlin, this was so embarrassing, really.) Okay, his patronus was a pikachu. It was not even a real thing, it was something in a computer game.

Three steps behind him, Rufus Lohr was staring wide-eyed at the silvery thing(would this qualify as a shiny, by the way?) that jumped around in the class room.

»What sort of magical being might this be, Professor?« the kid asked, seemingly interested.

Erza Scarlet — he should have known better than to eat the last slice of strawberry cake in front of her, really — gasped for air before she gave in to the temptation andchuckled. Then, she straightened up and looked at Laxus, her lips forming a sly smirk. »Pikapika,« she said.

And for the first time in his academic career, Laxus wished for the proverbial gap in the earth to open up and to take him straight to hell.

VI.

In Beauxbaton, a crimson envelope was dropped in front of Cana and all colour was drained from her face as she sighed deeply. Around her, everyone was staring at her as she raised her fork and poked the howler — and it had to be a howler as it stared to catch fire.

»Ohoh,« she managed to say before the screaming begun.

»I AM THE JOKE OF ALL MY CLASSMATES NOW! THE MUGGLEBORN ARE LAUGHING AT ME: WHEREVER I GO, THEY GO PIKA-PIKA! THIS IS ALL YOUR BLOODY FAULT THAT MY PATRONUS IS A GODDAMN PIKACHU!«

She sighed as she brushed the ashes off her skirt, more than happy that most of her fellow students did not understand what had just occurred, then, she rose to her feet, heading for the owlery.

Time to write to Hogwarts, again.

VII.

The incident had been four weeks ago, now, and slowly, things were back to normal. This did not stop Lyon Vastia, the Ravenclaw prefect, from grinning at Laxus as he saw him close to the Black Lake and saying »You know, my favourite was always Glaceon. Ice types at the best thing. Ever.«

Laxus was staring down at the serious boy before he spotted Cana's red snow owl — a dyeing spell gone wrong — and instead of answering, he passed the silver-haired boy and went to pick up his letter. (Because Cana only ever wrote him.)

Afterwards, he wanted to strangle her badly enough to consider getting his broom and flying over to France.

I heard that in some years, there will be another edition. Shall I buy it for you, then? C. P.S.: Pikapika.

VIII.

He was twenty-three and she was twenty when she stumbled into his office — being an auror was not as funny as it was said to be, really. Her hair was messy from the autumn winds and her cheeks were reddened. She grinned widely as she dropped a little box, carefully wrapped into wrapping paper, onto his desk and without a word, she waved at him and dashed down the hallway, probably down to her own office.

He carefully unwrapped the present because with Cana, no one could ever really know what was happening, and for a moment, he was speechless.

On the box, there was some red and black creature which a shape that reminded him of an Y. Opening the box, he was not surprised by the little note that fell out of it.

See you tonight, yes? Let's skip the dinner date, this is more important. C.