Chapter 4
A Difficult Choice
Harry followed Hagrid into the shop to see a bunch of the things Hagrid called pokeballs on the shelves. Each pokeball had a label for the name of the pokemon it had inside it. Hagrid looked around the shelves and finally settled on the Beginner's Bargain Section . Lined up all in a row were three Pokeballs, labeled Rowlet, Purrloin, and Rattata. Above, in the Regular Beginner's Section stood another three cushions: Litten, Froakie, and Snivy. Snivy had already been taken, and he saw a white-haired boy taking a pokeball that must have Snivy in it outside, probably on his way to Pokewarts. "Alright then, Harry. You can pick one of these three Pokemon," he motioned towards Rowlet, Purrloin, and Rattata. "Which one'll it be?" There were pictures of each of them below them: Rowlet was an owl with a bow tie made of grass, Purrloin was a purple-and-grey cat, and Rattata was a purple mouse.
Harry liked them all, but he eventually decided on Rowlet because he could both carry his mail, fly, and he thought that mouses were too weird, and cats too normal, so he went for the one that was exotic. "Rowlet, I choose Rowlet." "Alright, Rowlet it is," said Hagrid, while grabbing the pokeball labeled Rowlet and walking up to the counter. "Hello Hagrid," said the man behind the counter, "back with another student I see. Ah, Harry Potter, pleased to meet you." The man was shaking Harry's hand when Hagrid introduced the man. "Harry this is Tom, the owner of The Leaky Pokeball. He is the man you pay to buy your pokemon. You are supposed to pay for your own pokemon but since this is your first pokemon and you don't have any pokepoints yet, I'll pay for you." Hagrid took out what looked like a gold coin with a centered P and gave it to Tom along with the pokeball with Hoothoot inside. Once Tom finished inspecting everything and seemed satisfied, he gave the pokeball to Harry, and kept the pokepoint. "You chose Rowlet I see," said Tom, "Interesting choice." Harry didn't feel used to being so interesting these days, when nobody used to care about him. Either way, he thanked Tom for his help and left to go to what Hagrid called King's Cross.
"There, I'll drop you off so you can go on the pokewarts train to pokewarts." said Hagrid, while talking about King's Cross on their way there. "Harry, you just got your new starter pokemon, and I was wondering, would you like to nickname Rowlet?" Harry was kind of confused for a second until he finally said, "Nickname? So you can change it's name from it's original name?" asked Harry. "Yep," said Hagrid, "but once you nickname it you can't change it back. So would you like to?" "Sure," said Harry, "but how do you nickname a pokemon?" "All you have to do is take out your pokeball," Harry took out his pokeball, "and say 'Nickname' and the name you want to nickname it." Harry looked at his pokeball, thought real hard for a nickname and when he had it he did what Hagrid told him to do. "Nickname Hedwig!" The pokeball started glowing a bright white and stopped all of a sudden, with 'Hedwig' emblazoned on the front.. It appeared as if it worked so he put it back in his pocket a little blinded by the light. Harry was hungry for more information about pokemon and what you can do with them. He kept walking and talking with Hagrid towards King's Cross while thinking of all the possibilities with this whole new world, as their journey continues.