Disclaimer: All HP characters are the property of JKR, the WB, and respective publishing companies. All portions of the Pokémon universe/worlds/characters are the property of The Pokémon Company, Nintendo, Creatures Inc., and GAME FREAK Inc. This story is nothing more than a simple FanFiction that I have written for my own enjoyment. I have made no money from this or any of the other stories I have posted on this or other sites.
AN: This latest revisions of this story have been self-beta'd; so there may still be occasional grammatical or spelling errors that crop up every now and then and for those I apologize in advance.
Chapter 25: How Time Flies
January 2005 through July 2011
Traveling: Hoenn, Sinnoh, Kanto, Johto,
and the Island Regions
Two days after New Years, they were on the move again, this time they were headed back to Hoenn, where they'd be drifting from town to town taking in all the various sites and performing yet another census on the wild Pokémon populations. They spent a full month in Slateport during the late spring so Harry could visit his friends for a little while before they headed back out again before the weather got too hot. While they were trekking through the desert on route one-eleven, Harry befriended his fifth Pokémon, a feisty trapinch that Harry and Ash had unburied and pulled out from a two-day old rock fall near the desert ruins.
Since they were so far from town, and had no way to get the wounded Pokémon to a Pokémon Center, Ash and Harry had kept the grumpy ant Pokémon with them and treated his wounds themselves. After two weeks of being hand fed a selection of fresh berries, the trapinch, like the delibird from the Ice Path, simply followed them instead of returning to the desert sands. Oddly enough, the five Pokémon got along really well for the most part, even though ground type Pokémon usually couldn't stand fire or ice types and vice versa.
There'd been no progress with the development of a roomier pokéball, so all five continued to simply follow where Harry led, much to Ash's amusement and other trainers' annoyance. In fact, when other trainers tried to inform Harry that Pokémon belonged inside pokéballs and tried to challenge the young boy when he disagreed, Harry would simply look up at them with his expressive green eyes and ask, "If Pokémon were meant to live inside tiny little balls, why are they born or hatched in wide open spaces in the wild?" or "If living inside a pokéball is so great, why don't trainers live in them too?". Oddly enough, none of the trainers they'd met so far had an answer to either question.
Christmas and New Years were once again spent in Pallet Town, before they took off yet again, this time back to Sinnoh to begin another long circuit of the habitats. There were no new Pokémon picked up this time but Harry finally named the oldest three of the five that he had befriended.
The vulpix, ever the mischievous one, earned the name Trickster because he still liked to wreak havoc when breaking down camp most mornings. The graceful ponyta, who'd finally stopped growing at an impressive ten hands, two inches, or three and a half feet, at the withers, was aptly named Dancer because she never seemed to 'just' walk anywhere once she stopped looking like a gangly foal. The powerful fire horse was also the volunteer pack horse, as she continued to carry a double pack with a little more than half of their food supplies and all of Ash's research equipment, though the packs were now made from sturdy and supple leather rather than woven grass baskets.
The final Pokémon to have earned his name was the young dratini that Harry had hatched out two years earlier. The young water dragon, like the mischievous and playful Trickster, loved attention and he found he got the most attention when he soaked everyone within range with his Water Gun Attack. So, after the third or forth time he'd drenched Harry during their latest travels, he was dubbed Splash.
At the request of Delia, this year they spent the last week of July and the first week of August in Pallet town for their combined birthdays before finishing their tour of Sinnoh. Christmas, on the other hand, was spent up on the top of Mt. Coronet visiting with Hypno, the psychic Pokémon that had helped heal Harry three years earlier. It was at this time that it became apparent that Harry wasn't growing naturally. Sure, he wasn't as short or as scrawny as he was when he first arrived but neither did he look like the nine year old that he was.
Hypno, after pointing this out, stated that it was natural due to the time differences between their two worlds. In Harry's original world, he would have only aged two years instead of the four that he'd lived here. There were other factors involved too, such as the extreme malnutrition that Harry had experienced during the years he spent with the Dursleys. There were hints that his magic was somehow involved in the slower growth rate but the why or how of it wasn't known; though Hypno speculated that it might be because wizards in Harry's world lived longer lives. Ash had asked the aged psychic Pokémon how he knew so much about Harry's original world but the venerable old Pokémon had just smiled mysteriously before walking away without answering.
Their final month in Sinnoh was spent down south in the Great Marshes of Pastoria City and the nearby beaches below Lake Valor. This was the first break that Ash took from his research since the two weeks they'd spent with Delia (the time spent with Hypno not counting as Ash had spent some of his time monitoring the wild Pokémon that lived in the mountains around Hypno's cave). Father and son spent the time just hanging out on the sandy beaches or trekking through the marshes in hopes of seeing some of various rare Pokémon that didn't appear anywhere else in Sinnoh or in any of the other regions. When their mini-vacation was over, they flew back to Pallet Town to spend another week with Delia before taking a boat to Cinnabar Island.
This kicked off the forth leg of Ash's research related journeys, as from Cinnabar they caught one of the ferries to the Sevii Islands, where they spent the rest of the year island-hopping between the seven islands. While on Four Island, Harry received his first ever swimming lessons in addition to snorkeling and scuba diving lessons. He loved every minute of it too, as he found the underwater habitats of the Pokémon fascinating. The only thing he loved better than visiting the worlds under water was drawing detailed sketches of the animals, plants, and seascapes that he visited beneath the water.
Art was the one constant, aside from his new family and Pokémon, in Harry's new life. In the two years since he'd been gifted his art supplies, he'd drawn every single wild Pokémon he'd ever encountered (except the flock of spearows that had attacked him), a hundred different Pokémon habitats, and hundreds of lifelike sketches of his five Pokémon in various activities. He'd even sketched Ash with Pikachu or Charizard on occasion, as well as a scant handful of Pokémon battles that Ash had participated in with other trainers. Once a month, these sketches and drawings would be sent back to Pallet Town where Delia would frame her favorites and place the rest into dated portfolios to preserve and protect them.
When viewing the sketches in chronological order, it was easy to see how Harry's skill improved over the years with the most recent drawings taking on a life of their own; more than a few of the sketches giving one the impression that the subjects in the drawings could burst into motion any second. Ash secretly believed that it was Harry's magic breathing a semblance of life into his art work and he wasn't too far off the mark (though he wouldn't learn how accurate that belief was until many years down the road).
Harry's fifth Christmas was the first holiday spent in Viridian City in three years as the two of them returned for a short two month break from traveling after they came back from their island tour. The reason for this was the untimely death of the venerable Professor Oak; the lively and much beloved Pokémon Expert passing quietly away in his sleep. The world mourned the passing of Professor Samuel Oak while at the same time celebrating the life he'd lived and all of the accomplishments he'd achieved throughout his lifetime. None felt the loss of the old man more than his family, closest friends, and long time associates.
Gary Oak had originally intended to take over all of Samuel Oak's research projects during the coming summer when Professor Oak had intended to announce his retirement but after his grandfather's death he couldn't bring himself to follow in the older man's footsteps – feeling in his heart that he was unworthy to keep the man's legacy alive. Instead he threw himself into coordinating the yearly Pokémon League Challenges at the Indigo Plateau and maintaining his title as the Kanto League Champion. So it was, with Gary's blessing, Professor Oak's research was passed onto Ash who'd been Professor Oak's protégé during the last handful of years while the two of them would hold joint ownership of the professor's numerous facilities spread throughout their world.
After three weeks of mourning, Ash jumped into the research with both feet with the intent of making his friend and mentor proud. After all, Professor Oak had been a father figure for Ash since he started his Pokémon journey nearly eighteen years earlier. The first order of business was to send Harry back to public school. Harry balked for all of two hours when the decision had first been announced but eventually gave in with very little fuss knowing that Ash needed time to sort out all of Professor Oak's old projects. This meant that Delia moved into the house in Viridian City with Harry while Ash spent eighty percent of his time jumping between Pallet Town and Golden Rod City going over the late Professor Oak's various projects and covering the radio show.
Thankfully, Harry's transition back into formal education went fairly smoothly. The new history teacher, who'd taken over for Mr. Vanern, was a pleasant woman by the name of Miss Sally Rose. Miss Rose was just two years younger than Ash and taught history with a hands-on approach that all of the children loved. And, while Harry still didn't much care for the subject, he did find it far easier to keep a passing grade than he had prior to the incident with the previous teacher.
Harry also gained national recognition for his life-like sketches shortly after returning to public school; his most recent drawing, done as an assignment for his art class, showed a red-faced Ash playing tug-o-war with the mischievous vulpix using Ash's brand new PokéDex. The sketch, titled Trickster in Trouble, earned the grand prize at the school art fair and was selected to be placed on temporary display at the new art museum in Saffron City. The art teacher of Viridian City School and the curator of the museum had both tried to convince Harry to sell some of his other sketches but Harry brushed them off politely saying that all of his drawings were far too personal to sell.
At the end of the school year, Harry and his classmates were given their Primary Completion Certificates, which allowed them to leave school in order to join the Pokémon League. Harry was the only one out of his year group that declined joining the battle circuit as he fully intended to travel with Ash while his adopted father traveled around Kanto and Johto making contact with Professor Oak's old colleagues.
Their first stop on their latest expedition was Goldenrod City, where Ash officially handed Professor Oak's radio talk show over to Professor Elm of New Bark Town. The next stop was back in Saffron City, where they met with the head of the Silph Company and several of the researchers on staff to discuss upgrades to the PokéDex, the latest pokéball technology, and other various research equipment that Professor Oak had commissioned from the high-tech company shortly before his death. The rest of their destinations were remote research facilities where some of Professor Oak's aides had been stationed working on one project or another.
While Ash was handling business and collecting data, Harry spent time outdoors gathering berries, sketching scenery, and playing with his Pokémon. He was frequently challenged to battles by trainers looking to level up their own Pokémon but he stubbornly refused all battles except when faced with a wild Pokémon attack. This soon gained him a reputation of being a poor trainer with weak Pokémon but he didn't care what others said about him or his Pokémon because he was happy with who he was now and he knew his Pokémon were strong; he didn't have to prove it to any one else.
His reputation would make an abrupt turn around during their stay in Ecruteak City though, when he stumbled across a gang of bullies picking on a little girl and a litter of newborn eevee around behind the Burned Tower where Ash was working with the famed Legendary Pokémon researcher, Eusine.
Harry, with his Pokémon in tow, had curiously followed a tiny darting shadow around the corner of the tower where he found five teenagers standing over a much younger girl, who was in turn protectively standing over what appeared to be nine tiny brown balls of fur. Off to one side was a larger bundle of brown fur that lay unnaturally still. The tension-filled tableau instantly reminded Harry vividly of the days when Dudley and his friends used to corner him in his aunt's garden and beat him black and blue just because they could. Anger, that he'd never been allowed to show before becoming part of Ash's family, rushed through him as he stepped forward and ordered the older boys to leave the girl alone.
"Well, well, well, boys," the middle boy, who happened to be the biggest boy, purred as he turned to face Harry. "The Cowardly Midget has arrived to save his little girlfriend and the wild rodents."
"Why don't you go run back to daddy," the shortest boy on the left spat out as he too turned to face Harry.
"You know, boys," the first boy said thoughtfully. "I don't think a wimp like this kid deserves to have such rare Pokémon. After we bag the eevee kits, we should relieve him of them so they can be trained by real trainers."
"You're not trainers!" Harry yelled. "You're nothing but a bunch of bullies!"
"Didja hear tha', boss?" another of the boys declared. "He called us bullies!"
"It's your funeral, Coward," the first boy crowed as all five of the boys stepped towards Harry and his Pokémon.
"You will leave, now, or I will make you regret it," Harry growled out as he firmly stood his ground. There was nothing he hated more than bullies, regardless of how big or how old they were.
"I'm shaking in my boots!" one of the boys cried as he pulled out a trio of pokéballs.
"Let's just see who does the regretting," the first boy, who was obviously the leader of the gang, taunted as he too pulled out three pokéballs.
As one, all five teens called out their Pokémon. There were twelve total between the bullies; five raticates, a murkrow, two houndours, a pidgey, and three spearow. Harry unconsciously flinched at the sight of the spearow but stood his ground as he growled deep in his throat. Beside him, Trickster growled in response while Dancer pawed the ground angrily and pranced eagerly in place in turns. Splash unwound himself from around Harry's waist (where he'd been sleeping until the start of the confrontation), dropped down to the ground in front of Harry, and reared up until his six and a half foot-long body stood nearly even with the shortest of the bullies. Both the trapinch and the delibird climbed out from inside of the packs on Dancer's back to join the battle as well.
The odds were well over two against one; a total of seventeen against six. Harry didn't care about the odds being stacked against him, though; he absolutely refused to stand back and allow the bigger and older boys to pick on the young girl. Unfortunately for the five bullies, they had unknowingly bitten off far more than they could chew as after a short (but intense) twenty-five minute battle the five of them found themselves pinned to the outer wall of the Burned Tower, five feet off the ground with their various Pokémon sprawled below them in dead faints.
The older boys' clothes were well charred from Dancer and Trickster's dual Flamethrower Attacks and all of them were soaked to the bone from Splash's Surf Attack. The trapinch, of course, was responsible for the spikes that held the boys securely in place combined with a two inch layer of ice that had been spread on the wall beneath them courtesy of the delibird. More than one of the older boys also sported a black eye or broken nose courtesy of Harry who'd fiercely and unhesitatingly defended his Pokémon from being attacked from behind by the teens. Harry's magic had also flared during the battle several times as it levitated the five bullies off their feet, threw them back up against the wall they were eventually pinned to, and knocked the five boys unconscious at the end of the battle.
Right after the battle, Harry hurried forward to check on the Pokémon that the girl, who'd run for help the moment the bullies were distracted, had been protecting. The first thing he noticed was that the smaller bundles were extremely young kits that hadn't even opened their eyes yet, obviously born sometime in the last week. The second thing he discovered was that the mother eevee (the larger brown bundle off to one side) had been killed by the bullies sometime before he'd arrived.
Tears of helpless rage poured down Harry's cheeks as he gently gathered the mother Pokémon in his arms; his magic spiraling wildly out-of-control as a wave of pure fury filled Harry the moment he realized the bullies had taken the kits' mother from them. The five older teen would have surely obliterated at this point if not for the timely arrival of Officer Jenny and his father.
Ash had taken one look at Harry and knew that whatever had happened was bad. His son was crying, something he hadn't done much of during the last few years, and his eyes were burning with emerald fire as he cradled an unmoving Pokémon in his arms. He could feel the tingle of Harry's magic dancing in the air, too, and did the first thing he could think of to contain the boy's growing rage. He stepped up to him, wrapped his arms around his small son, and held him tightly while Officer Jenny called for backup to deal with the five bullies.
Four hours later, Harry was gently transferring the tiny eevee kits into Dancer's pack, along with some of the rags that had served as the kits' nest. They'd learned, from the little girl Harry had defended, that the eevee mother had been a wild Pokémon that turned up in town a few weeks earlier before giving birth to her litter of nine. The little girl, whose name was Jessica, had discovered the wild Pokémon just a few days earlier, and had been bringing the skittish mother scraps of food two and three times a day, hoping to make friends with her. The five bullies had followed her that afternoon and attempted to capture the mother and her babies. The mother fought to the death, though, to protect her children just seconds before Harry walked around the corner; her ghost the small shadow that had led Harry to the scene (though he didn't know that).
All five of the teens were local boys that were known to cause trouble around the town. They'd been arrested numerous times over the last year or two for vandalism, theft, and other criminal behavior. Their hand in the mother eevee's death would land them in a Juvenile Detention Center for four years before being transferred to one of the local penitentiary for another six. They would also be banned from ever owning or raising another Pokémon while the ones they'd fought with that afternoon had been confiscated and placed in rehabilitation centers so they could be adopted out once they were given a clean bill of health and retrained to not be overly aggressive.
Harry, once he'd learned the eevee were wild and knowing they'd just been orphaned, immediately claimed the entire litter (with Officer Jenny's blessing) so he could raise them; his own experiences as an orphan during his early years prompting him to protect the tiny kits. Jessica was sad to see the tiny kits being claimed but Harry secretly promised her that he'd bring her at least a pair of them back once they were old enough to fend for themselves. Jessica's father thanked Harry profusely for stepping in and protecting his daughter; the man had been impressed that Harry and his five virtually untrained Pokémon had fought and won against nearly three-to-one odds. Harry modestly shrugged off the praise, simply telling everyone that he just didn't like bullies.
The two of them ended up staying in Ecruteak an extra two weeks for the sake of the young eevee kits, staying with Jessica and her family (at their insistence). Jessica helped Harry feed the tiny kits honeyed Moomoo milk and berry juice every couple of hours. The young girl, who wasn't more than seven years old, ended up growing attached to two of the four female kits in the litter during those two weeks, and Harry, knowing he'd have his hands full with the other seven, gladly left those two in her (and her parent's) care the day they left.
Her parents had been impressed with the way Harry interacted with their young daughter and his generosity in allowing Jessica to keep two of the eevee without any hesitation and promptly extended an open invitation to visit any time he wanted. They also discreetly passed Ash a five thousand dollar check intended for Harry; the majority of which had actually been raised by all the residents of Ecruteak as a thank-you gift for ridding the town of the troublesome gang.
Word of Harry's part in taking down the infamous gang of Ecruteak spread rapidly throughout Johto and Kanto over the next few weeks while the pair continued their travels. Those who doubted the tale flocked to the famous former home of the Legendary Pokémon, where the scene of the unforgettable battle had been preserved by Officer Jenny as a monument to the courage of one small boy (and his Pokémon) who stood up for what he believed in. Clearly visible on the stone wall of the Burned Tower were two dozen thick spikes and five white outlines depicting where each of the bullies had been pinned to the wall. Also nearby was a three foot tall bronze statue of an eevee that marked the final resting place of the mother eevee with a small plaque describing the entire incident.
Over the next two years, the only trainers that attempted to challenge Harry and his Pokémon were those that were desperate to prove themselves (the less experienced ones being far too leery of challenging him). Harry still turned each and every one of them away. When on several occasions he was asked why he refused to battle, Harry simply stated he didn't think it fair to force Pokémon to battle against each other constantly. If a trainer then foolishly brought up the 'Bully Battle', as it had been named by the townsfolk of Ecruteak, Harry would simply say that he hadn't commanded his friends to fight that battle for him; they had chosen to help him protect the young girl and the helpless Pokémon from the bullies.
On Harry's twelfth birthday, he was presented with his first evolution stones; a set of twenty different stones (two of each kind) that were known to trigger the evolution of certain Pokémon. Upon seeing the stones, the seven eevee (which had all remained with Harry, the group of them having bonded with him while he was raising them) grew excited. If not for Harry's quick reflexes, the near two-year-old kits would have scattered the entire box of stones all over the floor. The only other Pokémon of his to show any interest in the stones was Trickster but he didn't seem in any hurry to consume one of them – not like a couple of the eevee. Harry also received his first set of water colors and brushes for his birthday that year, along with several ten-by-fourteen-inch canvases and a refill kit of pencils, pastels, and sketch pads for his art kit.
In an abrupt change of pace, Ash and Harry spent the two years after his twelfth birthday sticking close to Viridian City much to Delia's delight. Ash used the break from constant traveling to write a book detailing his findings over the years while Harry took a few advanced courses at the school and spent his free time drawing and taking care of his Pokémon. Whenever they could make the time, the two of them still spent the odd weekend or week long holiday traveling around the world to visit various national monuments or spend time with the friends they had made in the other regions.
Harry's fourteenth birthday marked the start of his ninth year in the World of Pokémon, his eighth as Ash's adopted son; meaning he only had three more years remaining in this world. Happy with the new life he'd made with his father, Harry sometimes worried about having to go back to his old world though he never voiced his concerns to his father. His two biggest fears were that his father would hate him for having to leave and that his Pokémon friends would have to be left behind. He tried not to think about what the future held though; doing his best to live in the here-and-now.
Shortly after Harry's most recent birthday, the two of them began making preparations for the start of yet another series of world-wide research trips. Both Ash and Harry were looking forward to spending ninety percent of their time on the road once more after spending two years practically deskbound. Harry was especially looking forward to the journey's start as this would be the first year he would be allowed to actively help Ash with the field research his father would be undertaking.
AN: Harry's first three Pokémon finally have names! And yes, all of them will eventually end up with names. The reason it took Harry so long to name the vulpix, ponyta, and dratini and the others haven't been given one yet are because names are very important to him. And while it seems like that would mean that he would rush into finding his friends a name; in my mind it actually means that Harry would instead search for the perfect name to match each Pokémon individually. In some cases, this might mean they won't earn their names until they evolve or perform some special feat. Think of it as a right of passage rather than a simple name because a name is that special in Harry's mind.
And yes, I succumbed to the Pokémon/HP cliché of giving Harry one or more eevee (in this case more) and I'm certain most of you can guess what they'll end up as. In my defense I absolutely love eevee and all of the eevee evolutions; they are my absolute favorite Pokémon. At least I avoided having him bond to a legendary Pokémon, some new, previously undiscovered (and extremely bizarre) Pokémon, or some uber-powerful or super intelligent Pokémon. I also tried to make the way he ended up with the Pokémon different; though I know I failed at that in a way since one was his adopted brother (Trickster), one he hatched (Splash), eight he adopted after they lost their mother (the eevee & Dancer), and the final two sorta found him (delibird and trapinch). I contemplated having him battle one to capture one but figured it would be against everything I had Harry standing against up to this point.
Pokéballs; as you saw early in this chapter, Harry still refuses to house his Pokémon inside of pokéballs. That will be a constant with him because of his former experiences of being locked in his cupboard (hence the reason for the questions he snapped at those who tried to convince him that all Pokémon belong inside pokéballs). Now, that's not to say that Harry won't consider using a pokéball for traveling IF they can invent one that is larger on the inside or maybe even contains a piece of that Pokémon's habitat inside of it. (I'm sure some of you will pick up on exactly what I'm hinting at there for the future… sorry if I spoiled anything for anyone.)
Finally, I'd like to thank Mary Sue Lover for taking the time to point out a few of the mistakes I made in the last couple of chapters as well as two or three plot holes that I missed. I've fixed the misplaced word errors and the one contradiction already but will have to address the plot holes when I can make some time since it will take a bit more effort than just correcting a word here or there and deleting a word or two.
I'll quit cluttering up this chapter now by saying thank you to everyone who reviewed and to those two hundred plus people who have placed this story on their favorites/alert lists in addition to the fifteen individuals that have added this story to their communities. – Jenn
AN 12-05-12: This chapter has just been edited to correct a few minor punctuation errors, a grammatical error or two, clean up of a few sentences in order to smooth out a few awkward areas, break a few paragraphs down so as to improve readability, and had the date and place stamps added to the top of each section to allow for easier tracking of the timeline.