A/n: The first chapter of book two, and the summery shenanigans begin (and pretty much end...)


The summer holidays seemed to pass in a flash for the residents of the Weasley household. It was an especially good time for the pokemon trainers, who enjoyed the free time they now had to spend with their pokemon. Pikachu was happy he was able to spend more time with his friends, and the pokemon were glad to be out of their pokeballs more often.

Ash and the other Weasleys played Quidditch, or, an edited version of it - there were only five players, after all. Him, Ron, Fred, George and Ginny played an areal tag game where being hit by the quaffle meant you had to fly upside down for thirty seconds. It was interesting, though it was a surprise that it never ended in injury.

That was mainly down to Ash and his perfected 'broom whispering' skill (the name, courtesy of Draco last year, had stuck and become the official title). He continued his strange, almost telepathic communication with the brooms as a way of catching people if they fell.

Ginny and Iris had become more friendly over the course of the summer, and the shyer of the two had opened up more to Ash and Cilan, too. Cilan spent more time with Percy, connecting with him over the 'older brother' role they shared, and Ash, despite getting on well with everyone in general, took a shine to the twins, getting involved in more of their pranks and experiments.

It was this involvement in their schemes that led to Ash climbing into Mr Weasley's car in the middle of the night to rescue Harry. They had sent several to the boy over the weeks, but none had received a reply. At first, Iris had joked that Ash's poor spelling must've put him off responding, but even she started getting worried after two weeks of no replies.

This mission was a product of that worry; the plan was to fly (it was a magical car, after all) over to Privet Drive and see if the Dursleys were treating him well. If they were, they'd leave. If they weren't, Harry was coming with them.

As it turned out, the Dursley family was most certainly not treating their adopted child well. Ash was appalled to see that his friend's window had bars across it, and understood immediately why none of his letters had been responded to. He felt a righteous anger well up at the thought of Harry's treatment, causing his aura to flare up and surround him with a light glow of blue, which he struggled to control. Thankfully, no one noticed the lapse in control, too preoccupied with getting Harry out.

The first point of order was the removal of the bars, a task completed by Ash and Ron, who were now in control of the car. Fred and George broke into the house to retrieve Harry's school stuff, before taking it up to the bedroom. This all had to be completed in silence, so the sleeping Dursleys were not woken.

It was all being pulled off without a hitch, until the bars coming off the window managed to wake Vernon. Then, all hell broke loose. The man was none too pleased at his rude awakening, and even less impressed to find that it had been courtesy of four wizards, who were currently attempting to kidnap his nephew. Not that the kidnapping attempt was entirely unwelcome, as neither he nor his family members appreciated or wanted the boy.

Vernon burst into Harry's bedroom just as the twins had finished loading the trunk into the boot of the car. Ash and Ron swung it round, and the twins jumped in. Harry was less fortunate, being grabbed by the ankles at the last moment.

"Just drive!" Ash ordered, grabbing Harry round the middle and pulling him into the car. Ron slammed on the pedal and the car sprang into action, dragging both Harry and his uncle through the window with it.

Harry, being as he was, supported by Ash, didn't fall. Vernon, however, toppled through the open window, landing heavily in the bush below. He looked up angrily at the disappearing car, but didn't speak out of fear of alerting the neighbours to the strange happenings.

Back inside the car, a much happier Harry was letting Hedwig out of the cage, and the owl was finally able to fly after weeks of being cooped up. Ash laughed as he watched Pikachu jump out of the window after the bird, landing gracefully on it and squealing with delight at the experience of flight.

Hedwig was not too happy about the new passenger, but was willing to tolerate him, if only because of the joy brought by being free again.

Harry was thoroughly impressed by the flying car. It was a drastic change from the muggle world he'd spent the last few weeks in, and a welcome one at that. He watched the layer of cloud below them, occasionally able to view the cities and towns flash by, the patches of light becoming more rare as they reached the countryside and neared the Burrow.

Eventually, the towering yet friendly structure that was the Weasley household came into view, the car lowering and coming to a halt beside it. Everyone but Fred and George disembarked, leaving the twins to park the car properly.

As the three snuck into the house, Ash warned them not to make any noise, making his way over to the staircase.

As he reached it, though, Mrs Weasley came into view. And she did not look pleased.

"Middle of the night! Car gone? No note?" the woman exploded, glaring at Ron, and the twins that had come in. "Of course, I know it isn't your fault, Harry dear," she spoke to him gently, reassuringly.

"What were you thinking?" Mrs Weasley continued to her children. She ranted at them for almost half an hour, pausing every once in a while to speak kindly to Harry, offering him breakfast and a place to sleep.

Ash felt slightly put out. He wasn't being drilled like Ron and the twins, but neither was he being treated kindly like Harry. He was just... there. Being ignored. Feeling quite useless in the situation, he wandered off upstairs to find Cilan and Iris. After all, they needed to know that the mission was a success.

"I wish I could've come too," Iris grumbled as Ash finished his tale, "Lousy car and its lack of seats..."

"Yeah, it was pretty fun and all, but Ron, Fred and George are getting yelled at now..." Ash said, trailing off to let the other two listen to Mrs Weasley shouting from below them.

"And why aren't you down there with them?" Iris asked out of genuine confusion. It wasn't like Ash to run away from punishment, and it didn't seem likely that Mrs Weasley would forget to talk to him.

"I don't know," Ash looked as confused as Iris felt, "She wasn't paying attention to me, so I figured I'd make myself useful and get you guys..."

"Well, I'm sure she has her reasons," Cilan consoled Ash, "Let's go downstairs and see, okay?"

The trio made their way downstairs, finding breakfast to be already made. Ash looked hesitantly at Mrs Weasley as she put some eggs on Harry's plate.

"Oh, Ash!" she seemed quite surprised to see him, "I forgot to speak to you before, didn't I?" the motherly figure apologised, explaining that she didn't blame him, but had been more focused on Harry at that moment, as he'd just been rescued and all.

Ash nodded in understanding, digging enthusiastically into his breakfast.


The rest if the day sped by for everyone. Mrs Weasley soon got over her irritation and the children stopped tiptoeing around her. Ginny seemed to shut herself in more once Harry arrived, blushing and running off every time he came into view.

"It's not you," Fred laughed as Ginny rushed upstairs after Harry trying to say hello, "Well, not exactly. See, Ginny has a massive crush on you!"

"Crush?" Ash asked, "On Harry..."

Iris sighed. "Yes, a crush. You know -"

"That sounds painful!" Ash announced. Fred and George stared at him for a few moments.

"Crush... painful?" Fred and George said. "Ha!"

"What?" Ash looked over at Iris, who didn't seem to be sharing in the twins' amusement. "What's so funny?"

"It doesn't matter..." Iris sighed. "You're just dense." she muttered, shaking her head as she walked away.

Ash shrugged off everyone finding strange humour in his confusion. He followed the twins outside, where a Quidditch match was forming.

"Hey!" Harry waved him over, "Wanna play?"

Ash grinned, nodding before he rushed back inside. "Quidditch!" he shouted as he entered, catching Iris and Cilan's attention. The three grabbed their brooms and ran back out. "I'm back!" Ash announced to the waiting players, "And I brought the others!"

"Great!" Fred and George said, flying over to the three. "We're playing four-a-side!"

"Four-a-side?" Cilan looked around, pointing at the people on the makeshift pitch. "I count seven. So... who's getting the disadvantage?"

"No one!" Ash cheered. He grabbed two pokeballs from his belt and tossed them. "Oshawott, Charizard: come on out!"

The two pokemon emerged from their pokeballs in a flash, Oshawott jumping straight onto Charizard's back. "They can play too!" explained Ash, "No moves though," he waned the two, "you have to play fair."

The others soon got over the shock of playing against pokemon, discovering them to be quite good players once they got into the game.

Harry joined in, acting seeker for his team. It occurred to him that he'd never played any other place on the field; he was dominating a single role while all the other team players were more versatile, though the others were doing an average job at their different roles.

Ash seemed to have noticed this too. "Hey Harry!" he called out, "Wanna try another role?"

Harry accepted the challenge slightly begrudgingly, letting Ash be the seeker while he took the beater's bat from him. Harry quickly learnt that different positions came with widely different responsibilities, nearly dropping the bat three times in the first few minutes as he kept forgetting he had it.

Eventually he got into the swing of it, managing to hit the bludger with a fair amount of accuracy. One such occurrence of Harry's accuracy was when he managed to smack the ball directly into Ash's face. It almost turned into a tragedy when Ash lost his grip and started to fall, but with a quick 'help!' the broom rushed to save him. Ash grabbed Pikachu in one hand and the broom in the other, lowering himself to the ground to rub his hurting face.

Once everyone registered that Ash was okay and hadn't in fact fallen to his doom, laughter erupted from the ones playing. They all came down to help Ash, who now had a nosebleed.

"Are you okay?" Iris asked with a slight giggle, popping up from around Iris.

"Yeah..." Ash answered, sounding strange due to his nose, which he was now pinching to stop the flow of blood. "M'fide"

"Well if you're sure you're fide," Fred and George spoke in unison. "We'll go back to playing Quidditch!"

With that, six of the seven human players flew back up. Charizard and Oshawott (who had become the official pokemon representatives, playing as keeper in the four-a-side games) stayed behind, both still slightly concerned about Ash.

"I'm fine guys!" Ash assured, "Now come on, can't play Quidditch with three people on each team!"

With that, trainer and pokemon took to the skies, becoming the keeper and seeker in the small game. The seeker job was more of a seeker-chaser mash, as playing with only one chaser made for a rubbish game, as they had previously discovered.

The game continued for hours, until Mrs Weasley called them in to eat. As soon as she noticed Ash's bloody nose she started fussing over him, causing him to blush slightly in embarrassment.

"I'm fine," he moaned, brushing her off as he sat down to eat.

"At least clean the blood off!" Mrs Weasley said, pushing the boy up and over to the sink. Ash complied, wiping the blood from his hands before going back to the table and digging into his food.

As they were eating, an owl swooped in through the window, dropping letters with the Hogwarts crest. They were all opened, an the owl left when it saw the children reading.

"Wow, a lot of books from this Lockhart guy..." Harry commented as he looked at the book list.

"Oh, yeah. He's the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher." Ron informed him.

"Well, looks like we'll be taking a trip to Diagon Alley." Mrs Weasley noted, looking through the list Ginny had. She frowned at the amount of books on the list, mentally calculating how they were going to pay for it all.


In response to RachelG61's question: not for a while, a book at least; Iris and Cilan do know, but not about the 'chosen one' thing specifically; and the Hogwarts lot has had a few conversations about it in earlier chapters but nothing really specific on the legendaries' powers - they will eventually though!

If you find any mistakes or have any questions, make sure to point them out / ask them!