Thursday's test was almost frustratingly simple. Part of that was Harry's fault—it'd be the first test about Pokemon he would ever take, and he'd gotten almost manic in his revision so that he'd do well on it.

Which meant the actual test was a letdown.

It was only one page long, for one—front and back, admittedly, but it still wasn't much. For another, it was almost entirely about safety and the like, ensuring you knew the steps to take if your Pokemon tried to attack someone, or if they got injured, but each question was multiple choice and the right answer was generally so easy to pick that Harry was fairly sure he could have successfully passed in Little Whinging.

So yeah, Harry was fairly sure he was going to be battling next week.

Understanding the issue, that after class that Friday Terry pulled him away from the Hufflepuffs (after a bit of arguing over whether any of them were actually allowed to go off on their own) and pushed him outside.

"Where are we going?" Harry asked.

"I know you're still fussed up about battling, so I figured out something that may help." Trevor said. He led Harry down to the edge of the lake, and then the two of them looked around for a few minutes until the Ravenclaw finally found what he was looking for. "Look!" He said, pointing a few meters into the lake.

There, dancing in and out of the water, were a group of Ramoraid. As Harry paid them more attention, however, it became clear that they were not just dancing, they were outright fighting—thrashing and biting and doing all they could to harm the others.

Harry flinched back, but kept looking.

The Ramoraid kept fighting.

Terry kept urging Harry to keep watching.

It took a while, but eventually Harry figured out what he was supposed to see. For all that the Ramoraid were hurting each other, they also seemed to be having fun—sometimes one that got hit particularly bad would disappear for a minute or two before arriving back, and when not immediately attacked seemed to outright mope until it was.

One poor Ramoraid, smaller than its brethren, kept on trying to attack the group, but was weak enough that it was outright ignored, and kept on darting about the group, trying to find someone willing to take it on.

It wasn't clear at first, at least not to Harry, but they, like his own Pokemon, seemed to outright enjoy attacking one another. It was equally clear that they were allowed to leave and return whenever they liked, and that the vast majority of them (not all, because he could see glints of blue streaking across other areas of the lake) chose to battle.

"I… I know my Pokemon will probably enjoy it, but at the same time… I don't know if I will."

"You don't have to." Terry said, then seemed to rethink himself. "That came out wrong. What I meant was you don't have to become eager to battle yourself, you just have to become excited to let your Pokemon do what they want. Don't focus on liking battling—focus on making your Pokemon happy."

Harry considered this. Fighting was still something that he considered best to avoid, but if he looked at it through the lens of wanting his Pokemon to be happy (and it was becoming increasingly clear that Pokemon needed to battle for that to be possible) he could see himself at least staying in the same room as the battle.

"…Okay."

"Okay?"

"Okay. I mean, I'm still not great with it, but… I'm definitely going to try. And the second I'm allowed to let Bolt and Hedwig out, I'm sure they will help me too."

"Good."

"Good."

They went back inside.

At breakfast Harry's first Saturday he sought out Cedric, just as the older boy had asked him to several days before.

"Hey, Harry." He said. "Ready for the fair?"

"Yes. Um, what's… what's the fair like?"

"It's just a bunch of stands." Cedric said. "Technically it doesn't start until ten, but I'm helping run the Hufflepuff Quidditch booth, so I've got to arrive early. Want to come with, or just wait until everyone else is sent?"

"Go with, please."

Cedric and Harry made their way to a group of booths set up haphazardly outside the field nearest to the school. There were about twenty of them, in total, and they all looked to be varying levels of well made. Some of the best looking ones were four booths located near the front, each decorated in stripes of different house colors.

"Alright," Cedric started as they came upon the yellow and black booth, "this is where I'm set up. Now, I know you don't really want to do any extra battling, but it'd still be cool if you tried out to be a seeker."

"A seeker?" Harry asked.

"Yeah—oh, right, I haven't explained Quidditch yet, have I?"

"No."

"Okay, it's pretty simple, really. There are seven members of each team. There's the coach—that's what I am, who decides who does what, the two beaters, who fight in teams of two against the opposite team, the three chasers, who try to 'tag' the other team's Pokemon, each tag giving ten points, and then there's the seeker. The seeker doesn't fight at all, they just race against the other team's seeker to catch a Ninjask. Oh, that's a type of really fast Pokemon—you have to be really quick to be able to capture it with the Sports Ball."

"Do I capture it forever?" Harry asked.

"Oh, no—that's why you use a Sports Ball. It isn't a permanent capture, just for the purpose of the game."

"I guess I can try." Harry said. It was really hard to say anything else—Cedric just looked so eager.

"Great! Here's the tryout sheet. They'll be held next week."

Harry signed his name, then Cedric began pointing out what the other booths were advertising for.

While some of them—chorus, for instance, as well as formal battling—weren't particularly interesting to Harry, others seemed far more fascinating. Cedric had pushed Harry towards the Explorers club, but their meetings lasted almost three hours, and Harry wasn't sure if that was for him. The Pokemon Fan Club also seemed cool, at least until he got to the booth… the 'club' was just sitting around and calling Pokemon 'adorable'. Pokemon Breeding Club wasn't even open for anyone under 6th year, and Pokemon Contest club just measured how cool, beautiful, cute, or tough the Pokemon looked.

The gardening club, at least, was an easy choice for Harry to make. Their meetings happened in the evening every Saturday, but you got a free plot to use throughout the week to plant whatever you wanted.

The history club, too, interested Harry just because it would teach him more about the world he now lived in, so he decided to attend a couple of their meetings as well.

As he wandered around, however, it wasn't just the fair that interested him. While Pokemon had certainly been around him each day, now that they were outside it seemed like nearly every upper year in the school had released every Pokemon they had.

Two redheaded twins, who hovered around the Quidditch booths, were battling against each other with a Minun and Karrablast facing off against a Plusle and Shelmet. They had somehow managed to keep the fight going despite Professor McGonagall chasing after them and demanding them to stop.

The Psychic Club's booth attendants were also twins: two dark haired girls with a Lunatone and Solrock hovering over their heads.

The Slytherin Quidditch Booth's attendant had released a massive bird (a Staraptor, Harry thought) and Feraligator to stand on either side of his booth, dwarfing everyone else around them.

The Gryffindor's attendant had apparently not liked that, and now a flaming bird was doing acrobatics above his own booth while an Ambipom juggled in front of it.

Another booth attendant, a Politics Club member, had let out his Watchog, which was now glaring at anyone who passed by (which was not helping the Club's numbers.)

The attendant of the Pokemon Lovers Club, Marietta, had tried to convince him to sign up with a looming Formantis behind her, and the attendant of the Explorers club had a Drillbur that kept on burrowing under the booth and popping up unexpectedly, turning the earth there into a war zone.

Every few minutes, too, a Loudred would scream and the second it stopped its trainer would shout out an announcement—when he wasn't doing that, he was advertising his ability to do so and asking for $5 if you wanted your own statement shouted out.

Pokemon were everywhere, and unlike in the Great Hall, they weren't just trying to eat.

A Castform floated next to a Jumpluff, and the two of them were circled by a pair of racing Pidgeotto. A group of Cutiefly buzzed by directly in front of his face, and a small brown Pokemon kept scurrying up and down booths and releasing jolts of electricity, disappearing just before its exasperated trainer managed to catch up.

A Tauros and Bouffalant seemed to be sizing each other up at the edge of the fair, and Cedric's own Machop was wrestling with a Tyrogue between the Beauty Club and the Wrestling Club.

Harry, and the rest of the first years, looked on longingly.

He really missed his Pokemon, and being surrounded by other happy ones made the knowledge that his own hadn't been let out in forever all the worse.

After the fair began to wind down, Harry and his fellow Hufflepuffs were instructed to go back to the common room for a meeting.

"Rivers, Oliver!"

"Here!"

"Smith, Zacharias!"

"Yeah."

"Alright, that's everyone." Professor set down the attendance sheet and turned to look around at the twenty students surrounding her. "Now, I know that the rules and expectations have already been set out for you, so we won't bother repeating that, but I just wanted to explain the house cup some more now that you've already had a week of classes.

Each and every one of you have the chance to help us win the house cup, the award given to the best house. Every time you answer a question in class, or help someone out in the hallway, or show inter-house cooperation, or win a battle, you show what an amazing house Hufflepuff is. Now, I know it's been a while since Hufflepuff has won, but that shouldn't stop you from trying—all that shows is that your competition is stiff, and that should just make you work harder.

Now, in order to help you keep working hard, you'll each be placed into teams of two to help each other." She picked up another sheet. "Alright, Hannah and Susan, you're together. Oliver and Roger, you're a team. Leanne and Sally-Anne, have fun. Zacharias and Harry, you're grouped up."

Harry grimaced and glanced at his new partner.

Zacharias, if anything, looked more upset than Harry.

"Wait—what? Why do I have to be with the celebrity?" He snapped. Harry flushed.

"That is enough, Mr. Smith." Professor Sprout said. "You are partners, and that is that." She finished listing out the pairs, and then handed out sheets of items you were 'in charge' of making sure your partner succeeded in—did they have friends? Were they in clubs? Were they practicing battling frequently enough? How were their grades?

Harry was not looking forward to Zacharias deciding whether or not he fit the mold that week. He knew, already, that he wasn't going to be great at school, at least not immediately.

Zacharias wouldn't like that.

Harry's stomach clenched.

Then, he frowned. No. No. He would not be bullied again, he would not bow his head and hope it would end. He had friends, now—Terry, who understood him without words, Cedric, who already acted like a big brother to all first years but had made especially sure that Harry settled in OK. Hagrid, whose house stood on school grounds and who had spent all summer making sure he was as happy about it.

He would not bow, not again. He was not alone, and he would not act as if he was.

He would survive.

He would flourish.

And so would his Pokemon.