Terry, in the end, had no idea what Harry's odd sorting meant. His fear was fairly straightforward—his entire family, then his entire town telling him how much he let them down. Simply put, he feared not living up to expectations. Those of his dormmates who had admitted their own fears (a Beedrill attack, no one noticing them, knowing nothing, being considered stupid…) were also quite straightforward and easily recognizable.

Harry's… creature, and his lack of awareness of what it was, was very unusual.

Before they had too long to talk it over, however, Harry was called back to his table to collect his ID badge and syllabus and then it was time to rush back to their dorms to get everything they needed for for their first class.

Harry's was Anatomy, with the Slytherins.

The first thing he noticed was that the classroom was odd. It was larger than he'd expected, for one, and had all the desks positioned in a wide half circle around the middle of the room. On the teacher's desk sat a small purple Pokemon that Harry did not recognize but which none of the other students reacted to. Instead of a blackboard the back wall was empty, and there was a small podium in the middle of the room.

Just as Harry had taken a seat between Oliver and Hannah the Slytherins arrived and filled the rest of the room. Harry tried to smile at the classmates who had sat themselves directly across from him, but they sneered and turned away.

"There's no point." Wayne said.

"What?" Harry asked.

"In trying to be friends with them. Slytherins like themselves and only themselves—they think we're Dunsparce, honestly."

"Why?"

" 'Cause, you know, they're bigots." Wayne said.

"One fourth of everyone here is a bigot?" Harry asked, but before Wayne could reply Professor McGonagall opened the door at the front of the classroom and welcomed them.

After attendance and a brief overview of expectations—one essay a week, a test a month, and a final at the end of the year, as well as homework for every class—Professor McGonagall began by having them draw out simple diagrams of one of their Pokemon and extrapolating as to why they looked that way.

Harry chose Bolt.

His artistry was… lacking, but he guessed that the four limbs allowed Bolt to move faster, and that his ears were as large as they were because it was hard to hear with all the fur. He had no idea why Bolt was blue, though.

The class ended with each student handing in those sheets, as well as a list of all the Pokemon they had.

Unfortunately, however, the next class was one that Harry was dreading: Memorization.

The classroom, at least, reminded Harry of Little Whinging, so the familiarity was nice. The door to the hallway opened at the back of the room, and rows of desks, each evenly spaced apart, that took up the majority of the classroom. A chalkboard and a series of pull-down charts currently rolled up on either side took up the front wall. The teacher's desk stood directly in front of the chalkboard, but it was empty. Two additional doors took up wall space on opposite walls parallel to the desk. All in all, it would not have looked out of place in any hallway of St. Grogory's.

Harry and the rest of the Hufflepuffs, as well as the Slytherin first years, all filed in and chose desks at random. Harry chose a desk about three rows back, near the right edge of the classroom. He knew from experience that too far forward or back drew too much attention, and he really didn't want to be noticed until he'd caught up with the rest of the students at least.

The left door banged open.

A man, who Harry recognized from the teacher's table in the Great Hall, strode in.

He was tall, and wore his black hair oiled back. His face looked as if it had never been taught how to smile, and his grey sweater and black pants looked completely unblemished. His entire appearance, in fact, seemed to encompass the idea of perfect grooming and self-control.

"Silence." He said. Any last murmurs which had not dissipated when he'd entered disappeared. "Let's begin with a warning: you will never be allowed to have your Pokemon out in this class. I don't care if it makes you feel better, if it is the most quiet Pokemon ever—this class is not about foolishly battling and hoping for the best.

This class is about ensuring that when it comes to it, you will know enough to win.

If you, somehow, manage to do well in this class, then you will soar to the top of the Rose League. Most of you will quit before sixth year, however, because your lazy little minds can't bear the amount of effort it takes. Instead, you will brashly rush into battle, without any understanding of what you are doing, and you will lose. I can teach you every type, every move, every injury. Most of you will fail to understand the use of that knowledge, but let's see if one or two of you actually manage to live up to my expectations, hmm?" Without waiting for an answer, he swiped up a clipboard from his desk and began attendance.

He sneered at nearly every name, and outright glared at Harry's.

And then he began asking questions.

"We'll begin by making sure you actually know the bare minimum. Avery! Fire is super-effective against what?"

"Bug, grass, ice, and… steel, sir."

"Correct. Five points. Smith! What is rock not very effective against?"

"Fighting, steel, and, um, ground—no!—rock."

"Correct. No points. Potter! What is ghost normally effective against?"

"I… don't know, sir."

"Five points from Hufflepuff. Let's try again. What is fairy super-effective against?"

"Um, steel?"

"Ten points from Hufflepuff." Harry could feel the other 'puffs glaring at him, and Smith's look seemed nearly venomous. "One more try. What is electric super-effective against?"

"Ground! Um, electric types are super-effective against ground, sir."

"Fifteen points from Hufflepuff, Mr. Potter. It seems fame isn't everything." Professor Snape whipped around and yanked down one of the charts, revealing a chart with Pokemon types on either axis, and seemingly random numbers filling out the inside.

"Copy down the chart. You will be tested on this next class, as it is assumed you already know it. I would suggest that a few of you stop laying about, and start actually putting in effort now that you are actually here."

The rest of the class was spent in silence.

Harry managed to mostly ignore the looks of his classmates and professor alike, and diligently copied down the entire chart. He paid special attention to the fairy, ghost, and electric types, and started practicing filling out a chart the second he'd finished copying down the official one. His classmates seemed to be doing similar.

By the time lunch arrived Harry was dreading the next memorization class. It wasn't the material, exactly—Little Whinging had stressed memorizing material, and even though the material was different Harry was still all to familiar with the methods needed to do well in that class. The problem was the other similarity Memorization had with Little Whinging—the type of teacher.

When Harry was eight he'd been assigned to Mrs. Burns' classroom. Mrs. Burns was a relatively new teacher, but one that Harry had already known just by reputation.

She. Was. Evil.

The year before his class she'd banned children from leaving lessons to go to the bathroom. The rule was only changed after a boy had finally just stood in the front of the classroom and wet himself.

When Harry was assigned to her Dudley had been, too, but the Dursleys had made sure he was transferred to a different teacher. They, of course, hadn't bothered to do the same to Harry, but Mrs. Burns hadn't known that and had thought they'd simply been unable to remove both children from her class. She'd dealt with that perceived slight by picking apart each and every answer he gave, by being functionally blind to the bullying that occurred, to never, ever giving him even the slightest bit of leeway.

He'd gone home crying more times that year than ever before, or ever after.

Professor Snape? He was just Mrs. Burns in the skin of a man. Harry already knew it didn't matter how much he knew, how hard he tried—any slight, perceived or real, would be treated as the worst offense ever committed. ("I thought I told you to copy the chart, Potter. Why is your hand not moving?" "Stop looking at your housemate's work, Potter. You will not be able to do that during an exam.")To be fair, though, it didn't seem to just be him—the majority of lunch was spent being reassured by older students that there was nothing he could do, and that he shouldn't worry about house points at all—no house but Slytherin had won since Snape had taken his position, so it was more important for Harry to make sure he could do well in the government-administrated tests at the end of each year than to try to please Snape.

(This was, to be fair, a nice change—Harry had had to spend hours cleaning the classroom in order to convince Mrs. Burns to not make him fail.)

Following lunch the first year Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors headed to Survival, which was, quite frankly, not about Survival. It seemed to be more accurately a class about everything.

"—and that's just Semester one! By the time you graduate you should be comfortable with bills, taxes, fire safety, cooking in a kitchen and on the road, gardening, hunting and when and where it is legal, laws in general, proper health—oh, it seems as if we only have an hour left. Let's get to the test—don't worry, don't worry! Ungraded! I just want to know what you already know!"

This class, at least, was one Harry didn't have to worry about. He knew how to garden by four, clean a humidifier by six, put out a grease fire by eight, and repair simple broken electronics by ten. He did still have to learn about taxes and laws and things, of course, but compared to not knowing how many types there were or why a Pokemon would be blue (Cedric was kind enough to tell him that the color acted as a warning of danger during lunch), feeling ahead felt nice, and it was especially good that the class was taught by his head of house, Professor Sprout, who seemed to be a genuinely good person.

The next class, however, was one he was dreading.

"What's wrong?" Roger asked as they neared the classroom. Harry didn't exactly know what made him ask, but given how he felt, it certainly wasn't good.

"Oh, is widdle Harry going to faint?" Zacharias taunted.

"I'm fine." Harry said. He tried to make his feet work.

"We're going to be late." Roger warned. The Hufflepuffs walked as a group, that was one of the house rules.

"Yeah, yeah, just… give me a minute." His housemates shuffled around, shifting slowly towards the door but constantly glancing back at him to see when he would start to follow.

Behind them the Ravenclaws rounded the corner and streamed around them, rushing to get the front seats. Harry was still frozen.

"Harry? Harry? You okay?" Terry asked. He'd stopped, apparently, and was now standing directly in front of Harry and waving his arm in front of his face. Harry absent-mindedly noticed his hands shaking, which seemed to have caught Terry's attention.

It was one thing to try letting Hedwig and Bolt battle in his own inn room. It was quite another to be expected to train his Pokemon to attack each other with increasingly dangerous moves. Training, he knew, wasn't technically about battling, but it was still Training to battle. It wasn't Survival, it wasn't Memorization, it wasn't Anatomy. It was Training. Training to hurt.

"Harry, Harry, remember—we're not allowed to have our Pokemon out for the first week." Terry whispered.

Harry jerked. That was right; they had to take a test on Thursday, and they'd be told the following Saturday whether they'd passed the first time (it was supposed to be a very simple test, but if you did manage to fail then you'd be made to retake the test every day until you passed.)

"Right, right. Let's… let's go in." Knowing that he wouldn't be made to train his Pokemon in causing pain, at least that day, seemed to have been enough to slow his heart, and he managed to force himself into a seat beside Terry shortly before the bell rang.

Despite his rather quick recovery, it was a disturbing reminder of just what exactly this school was all about, and how hard it would be for Harry to manage it.

Professor Flitwick was an exuberant man that kind of reminded Harry of the stories about Christmas elves. He didn't stand still for a single second as he went through the syllabus and described the course objectives, instead speeding back and forth across the front of the classroom, constantly stopping and asking if anyone had any questions.

The class was, as Harry had feared, primarily about teaching one's Pokemon about how to injure other Pokemon, but Professor Flitwick made it clear that, with few exceptions, they would also be expected to teach their Pokemon a 'status' move. "It all matters on your Pokemon of course—one year I had a student who only had a Beldum, so that was a bit of a struggle, I'll admit. However, it is also important to note that your grades won't simply be on your Pokemon knowing certain moves—I will also test how quickly your Pokemon is able to put that move into action, switch between moves, and tell the difference between your command to do that move versus another command or nonsense.

Following Training came the last class of the day: Exercise. It was run by professor Kettleburn, who only (for reasons Harry and his classmates were too wary to ask) had a single arm and half a leg left. He and one of his Pokemon, a Skuntank named Stink, spent the entire period (after, thankfully, allowing each child to change into different clothing) chasing the Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors around the field in ever widening loops, while screaming the syllabus at them (he'd apparently forgotten to print them out, but thought telling them while they ran would make them remember it more… for some reason.)

Basically, surprisingly enough, the Exercise class was about Exercise, and five days a week, for one to two hours every day, they would be made to run, jump, lift, stretch, and kick alongside their Pokemon—the Professor fully believed that working alongside one's Pokemon made them perform better, so they would be getting a work out too.

Dinner followed immediately after Exercise class, but the Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors alike decided it wouldn't matter that much if they were a bit late, and instead any Spoinkperl resident who looked out of the windows facing the field would see yellow and black and red and gold starfishes spread across the entirety of it.

Dinner, when they did arrive, was spent trying to stuff their mouths while looking appropriately chastised by the prefects warning them not to be late again.

Harry, by the end of it, was entirely exhausted, and despite curfew not being until nine, immediately went to bed and passed out.

It wasn't really that bad of a day, though. It was nice knowing that none of the classes gave homework, even if it meant there was less free time than he was used to, and most of his teachers seemed great. But Harry still dreaded the next week, because as much as he was looking forward to seeing Bolt and Hedwig again, he was not looking forward to having to order them into battle.

This, of course, was an issue for another day, but it was an issue nonetheless, and one that gave him a restless sleep despite his exhaustion.