This is a work of fan fiction using characters from the Harry Potter universe, which are trademarked by J.K. Rowling. I do not claim ownership of these characters nor the locations such as Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, etc. that are Rowling's creations. This work also includes Pokemon, which belong to the Pokemon Company, and I again claim no ownership of these characters.

I thank both Rowling and the Pokemon Company for the universes they have created that allows me to do something like this for my own entertainment and, hopefully, the entertainment of the readers.

Two weeks passed and Harry was still nowhere nearer to figuring out what it was he was so jealous of Ron for. He'd been causing all sorts of confusion with his new introspective attitude and his steadfast denial when it came to revealing what was bothering him was stumping both Ron and Hermione.

Eventually though it was time to head back to Hogwarts, to Harry's great relief. Spending the remainder of the summer with Sirius had been incredible but Grimmauld Place, with its lack of adequate lighting and the numerous areas that still needed a thorough clean out, was somewhere he was glad to see the back of. Still, he felt bad for leaving Sirius behind, although he knew Sirius would undoubtedly be busy when he was gone.

Perhaps sensing what Harry was thinking, or perhaps worrying equally about him in return, Sirius pulled Harry aside before he left the morning of September the first, ignoring the annoyed look on Moody's face and addressing Harry and Harry alone.

"You remember what I said, alright," he told him. "Take care of yourself. Ron and Hermione too while you're at it." Harry nodded. He wanted to share the sentiment but found that even acknowledging that something could happen to Sirius was more than he was willing to deal with.

Instead Sirius pulled something out of his pocket and held it up in front of him.

"Here," he said, holding the object up so that he could see. "Wear this around your neck."

Squinting closer Harry looked to examine the object, looped through a length of chain and dangling from Sirius's hand. It looked something like a marble, filled with greens and blues and holding a simple design in the centre.

"What is it?" Harry asked as he held out his hand, Sirius placing it delicately into his palm.

"You'll find out soon enough," Sirius assured him. "But make sure you keep it safe, alright. And keep it with you at all times. You never know when you might need it."

Harry wondered what Sirius meant by that, wondered what this albeit beautiful marble could do, but decided not to question it. He looped the chain over his head, grateful to find it slipped over with just a bit of room to spare and settled down at his chest and out of sight.

"Hurry up, Sirius, or we'll be late," Mrs Weasley's agitated voice cut through their conversation and Harry turned to find that everyone else had already filed out the front door.

Sirius cuffed him on the shoulder. "On you go," he encouraged. "I'll see you at Christmas." And as he stepped out the door Harry turned to get his last glimpse of Sirius before the door shut behind him.

"Come on, Harry, no time for that now," Mrs Weasley said, her voice harried. Harry didn't blame her. The Weasley family were traditionally late arrivals for the Hogwarts Express and with Moody spearheading their group it was a given their journey would take longer than usual.

And so Harry took his place in the procession as they walked the length of Grimmauld Place, grabbing hold of his trunk and falling into step with Remus, who glanced down at him and, to his surprise, at the chain around his neck.

"So I see Sirius decided to pass it on, then," he said mysteriously.

"I'm sorry?" Harry asked. Remus had a bag swung over his shoulder which, Harry had just realised, was not one of theirs.

"Nothing," Remus said simply with a smile. "You'll undoubtedly find out soon enough."

Whether Remus was intending to be mysterious or not it was annoying and again Harry was left without answers when he questioned what was in Remus's bag.

"Keep up," Moody barked from the front and Harry and Remus sped up to join the rest of the group.

It was undeniable that Mad-Eye Moody was paranoid. It was also undeniable that he had some right to be. Yet fortunately he decided to leave the worst of his paranoia behind on this morning and Mr Weasley was allowed to drive his minivan, loaded with luggage and passengers, straight up to Kings Cross station. Within moments they'd loaded their trunks onto trolleys and were walking into the station proper.

"Oh, Mad-Eye, could you not put that Murkrow away," Mrs Weasley complained. "People are staring." Moody shook his head.

"Murk is my eyes," he said stubbornly. "I won't put myself at a disadvantage for the sake of a few muggles. Now hurry up. The longer we stay in the open the more chance there'll be of an attack."

Perhaps it was because of Moody's organisation or perhaps they were all just too on edge to mess around but in no time at all, or so it seemed, they were at the Hogwarts Express, loading up their trunks onto the famed scarlet steam engine with time to spare.

It was then that Remus revealed what was in the bag.

"Here, Harry, take this with you," he said, hoisting the bag over and surprising Harry by its weight.

"What is it?" he asked, opening the bag to answer his own question. He gasped.

"The egg," Remus answered needlessly, though he was smiling. "It really is not practical to keep it round headquarters, not when there's so much going on and no one to keep an eye on it full time. Madam Pomfrey, however, is more than qualified to keep it safe and healthy until it is ready to hatch."

"Is it okay to travel by train?" Harry wondered worriedly, eyeing the bag with a lot more caution. The egg was now encased in a jar made of glass and nestled on a comfortable looking pillow but it still seemed awfully fragile.

"It'll be fine, Harry," Remus reassured him. "As long as you don't go out of your way to harm it the journey will not be a problem."

"Right," Harry said, secretly relieved to hear those words. He really shouldn't get so carried away, of course the egg was more robust than it appeared. After all, Remus had transported it to Grimmauld Place and then to Kings Cross, all without a single scratch appearing. Still, it would be foolish not to treat it with the utmost caution.

The whistle blew.

"That's our cue," Remus said, ushering Harry onto the train as the conductor went along, slamming doors behind him. "Have a good year, Harry, and look after yourself." It was a very similar goodbye to Sirius's and Harry wondered if there was something they weren't telling him.

Either way he had no chance to ask as the conductor finished his rounds and the Hogwarts Express started to pull away from the station. Harry, Hermione and the Weasleys leaned out the window to wave goodbye until eventually the platform was nothing but a blur in the distance and they were forced to pull themselves inside.

"I guess we should find a compartment," Harry said as he turned. Ron and Hermione shared a look.

"Well, actually we have to go to the front of the train," Hermione explained. "The prefects have a carriage there and our letters said we had to be there for a start of term meeting."

"Oh," Harry said. "Right." He really should have expected it.

"We'll come find you once it's over," Hermione assured him. "I'm certain it won't be too long."

"It'll probably be really boring too," Ron added. Harry nodded.

"Alright," he said, feeling somewhat lost. "See you later." And they were gone.

Harry stared off after them, an unusual feeling settling over him. He'd never travelled to Hogwarts before without Ron and Hermione. Now he was on his own. He found he didn't like that much.

A cough from behind him alerted Harry to the fact he was not, actually, alone. Turning around he found that, while Fred and George had left, Ginny remained, arms crossed and giving Harry a pointed look.

"What?" Harry said, rather defensively. Ginny just sighed.

"You don't have to look quite so much like a lost puppy, you know," she told him and he had to fight the urge to pout. That wouldn't help his case. "Come on, we'll find a compartment and wait for them. They won't be long."

Succumbing to the truth of her words, and the fact she was the only one left, he grabbed hold of his trunk, realising that Ron and Hermione had stacked theirs off to the side to get later, and followed Ginny down the aisle.

As was inevitable for those who boarded the train mere moments before it was due to set off there wasn't a spare compartment in sight. Harry was long since resigned to the fact that there wouldn't be a completely empty compartment for the two of them and so instead kept an eye out on the occupants as they went past, looking for anyone he was prepared to spend the many hours of the journey to Hogwarts with.

He found it not long later, a compartment at the latter end of the train, and Ginny was one step ahead of them, pulling open the door and walking confidently inside. "Hi Neville. Hi Luna."

Neville Longbottom, sitting in the compartment beyond, was perhaps Harry's best friend not named Ron or Hermione. He had grown some over the summer, except not exactly up. He had instead lost a decent amount of weight and it seemed the last of his baby fat, which had made Neville look somewhat childlike, was gone.

On the bench opposite Neville was none other than Luna Lovegood, the most unusual person Harry had ever met, barring perhaps Professor Dumbledore. She had long, dirty blond hair and wide eyes that gave her an almost surprised look. As was often the case she was wearing her unusual, kaleidoscopic glasses and cork neckless.

"Hi Harry," Neville greeted, having already said hello to Ginny, who was sorting out her trunk so Harry could follow in after her. "Where are Ron and Hermione?" It was telling that this was the first question Neville asked when he saw him.

"Prefect meeting," Harry answered and watched as the cogs in Neville's brain worked. It was highly amusing.

"Prefect meeting?" he repeated, a frown on his face. "But Ron…" and then it hit him. His eyes went wide.

Ginny laughed.

"Ron's a prefect," Neville gasped. "No way, I thought it'd be you." He blushed, realising how weird he was acting. "Sorry."

"That's alright, Neville," Ginny said cheerfully, still chuckling. "We've all done it." And despite Harry's ongoing battle with jealousy and what it truly meant he smiled. A lot of people were going to struggle with this.

Travelling without Ron and Hermione was weird but at least Harry was surrounded by three people he counted as friends, even if his interactions with Luna and Ginny tended to be fleeting when they were at school.

For several minutes Harry chatted with Neville, hearing him tell the tale of how his Great Uncle Algie got admitted to St Mungo's after starting a fight with a Wobbuffet, until he felt a nagging feeling in the back of his mind. He looked around the compartment with a frown, taking in Luna and her Espeon, Pandora, Ginny with her Chikorita, who was talking animatedly with Pikachu, and Neville and Oshawott, who was watching the countryside fly past the window with wide eyes, before he realised what was bothering him.

"Neville," he said, cutting off Neville's description of how Uncle Algie's bones hadn't quite been broken. "Where's Ivysaur?" For some reason the grass type, Neville's starter Pokémon, was nowhere to be seen.

Neville beamed. "He evolved," he said excitedly. "He's too big now to fit in the compartment but when we get to Hogwarts I'll show you. He's huge now."

"Wow," Harry said, impressed. "You must have been training hard then." A shadow crossed Neville's face.

"Very hard," he admitted. "Gran has been on my case all summer. You see, now that You-know-who is back she's been having me train my Pokémon every day, sometimes even against her Pokémon. They're scary, they are."

"So you believe us," Harry said gratefully. Ever since learning of the smear campaign in the Daily Prophet he'd had a growing fear that everyone would be convinced he was lying.

Neville was not one of these people. "Of course," Neville said, looking dismayed by the thought otherwise. "You said he was back. You saw him. And Dumbledore did too, remember. I know the Prophet have been trying to convince everyone you're wrong but Gran says that if Dumbledore says he's back, he's back."

"And besides," he continued sadly. "How else do you explain Cedric's death?" A knife plunged into Harry's chest at those words. He did not miss the fact that Cedric should have been on this train today, no doubt spending his time with Cho or attending the prefect meeting. Knowing Cedric he'd probably have been Head Boy too.

Ginny glanced over, an annoyed look on her face.

"Would you both stop that," she said sharply. "There's no use getting everyone all depressed. It's not like it's going to help us against You-know-who, is it?"

"As unlikely as a Crumple-Horned Snorcack mating with a Taiwanese Trevenant," Luna said serenely. Despite herself Ginny snorted.

"Anyway, you guys have much bigger things to worry about," Ginny pointed out, more at ease now that Luna had broken the tension. "You've got your A. this year. If you're anything like my brothers then You-know-who will be the least of your problems."

Neville groaned.

"Gran was talking about them all summer," he complained. "Kept on going on about how I had to do my family proud. Longbottoms always do really well in their Apes but I'll be lucky to just scrape some A's." Harry frowned. That didn't sound right.

"Wait, A's?" he asked. "I thought getting an A was good. You know, like A, B, C, D." But Neville was shaking his head.

"Pokémon exams aren't like that," he explained. "A stands for Acceptable. There are six grades. You start with O for Outstanding, which is the best, then E for Exceeds Expectations, and then Acceptable is the final pass mark."

"So what are the fail marks?" Harry asked worriedly.

"Poor, Dreadful, and Slowpoke," Ginny answered promptly, grinning at Harry's disbelieving expression.

"Slowpoke?" he repeated. What sort of twisted system named one of their grades after a Pokémon. Especially that Pokémon.

"It's the worst grade you can possibly get, S," Neville explained. "I heard you have to get all the questions wrong to get it."

"Fred and George managed," Ginny said cheerfully. "History of Pokémon. Hardly surprising really." Professor Binns was widely acknowledged to be a completely useless teacher. Harry had heard the rumour that he'd been appointed for life to the post seventy years ago and so couldn't be replaced until he finally died. It wouldn't surprise him if that day was tomorrow given how frail the history professor was yet Binns had been like that for the entire time Harry had been at the school, and the oldest Weasley brothers corroborated that story.

Harry was saved from puzzling over the Pokémon world's grading system as the door to the compartment slid open and, at last, Ron and Hermione stepped inside.

"Finally," Ron said, gratefully collapsing into the seat beside his sister. "Never again."

"That bad, huh?"

"I don't want to be a prefect," Ron said simply. "Just take my badge now." Hermione huffed.

"It wasn't that bad," she denied, kicking at Ron's foot as he stretched out in his seat. It was blocking her from pulling her trunk into the compartment. "And are you going to get your trunk, Ron, or are you going to force me to do it instead?" The latter, it turned out, as Ron did not move and Hermione was forced to drag his trunk in too, making the compartment rather crowded.

"So how was the meeting?" Harry asked, interested. Though he was still struggling with his feelings towards Ron as a prefect he was very interested to know what exactly went on down the other end of the train.

"It was good," Hermione told him. "We went over some of the things we'd have to know when we get there, rules and responsibilities and the like. Roger Davies is Head Boy and he's really organised. He has plans for the whole year already, though he hasn't gone into those in detail. Today was really just an introduction to allow us all to get used to our roles and to meet our fellow prefects too." Ron groaned.

"And you'll never guess who the Slytherin prefect is," he complained.

"Malfoy," Harry said before he'd even registered the question. Really it couldn't have been anyone else.

Ron nodded. "You should have heard him when we were leaving, bragging about his Servine evolving and everything. I swear I was this close to punching him. It's not like it's even that impressive anyway, Charmeleon already evolved last year. You're still way ahead of him."

"Ivysaur evolved over the summer, too," Harry mentioned, trying to subtly hint for Ron to stop talking. He had, admittedly unknowingly, put quite a damper on Neville's achievement.

"Really?" Ron's eyes blinked open, blearily focusing on Neville. "Congratulations, mate." Neville gave him a grateful smile.

"Anyway, just thought I'd warn you about Malfoy," Ron continued, eyes closing again. "You just know he's going to try and get you in trouble. Whoever thought it'd be a good idea to give a Malfoy power?"

"His power is limited," Hermione pointed out. "Only the Head Boy and Girl and the professors can give out any real punishment. Although I do admit Malfoy will likely be quite annoying this year." Ron snorted.