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.

Hermione didn't perhaps think that through when she said it as the three of them barely left each others' side for the rest of the day, first going to their afternoon classes, then to dinner, and then up to the Common Room to get started on some of the homework they'd been given earlier. As it happened by the time midnight came round Harry and Ron only had stopped asking what Hermione was talking about because they'd grown bored of it.

They were brought back to attention, however, when Hermione closed her Pokémon Physiology textbook decisively and looked up at them.

"Well," she said, her voice slightly breathy in excitement. "Are you ready?" Harry and Ron shared a look.

"Ready for what?" Ron asked. "I've got to say, even for you this is getting a bit ridiculous." Hermione ignored that comment.

"I told you I've got an idea but it's not quite finished, so hear me out," she told them. "So, I was thinking of ways in which we can push back against Umbridge."

"Right," Ron said encouragingly.

"And my first thought was to prank her somehow."

"Prank her?" Harry cut in, barely holding in his incredulity. "You?"

"Then I realised that Fred and George are much more qualified to do that than we are," Hermione finished as though Harry had not said a word. "Undoubtedly they'll start soon. They can't be happy with the way things are going either."

"Can't wait," Ron told Harry with a grin.

"So, anyway, I decided to think of something else," Hermione said. "Something that we could do, the three of us, that other people might not be able to. So I thought about what our strengths are…"

"You're going to start a study club, aren't you," Ron said warily. It did seem to be where she was going with this and her slight hesitation more or less confirmed it.

"Not exactly," she admitted. "Though from the outside it might look it. I was more thinking about how we're not learning from Umbridge."

"Agreed," Harry said, sharing a glance with Ron. "Umbridge is clearly useless."

"And deliberately so," Hermione agreed. "Although I doubt she'd be a good teacher even if she tried. See, what I was thinking is that we get ourselves our own Pokémon Battling Professor, an instructor, even."

"Like Lupin?" Ron said interestedly. Harry perked up too. The idea of being taught by Remus again was brilliant. Hermione chewed her lip.

"Actually I was thinking more along the lines of Mad-Eye Moody in terms of teaching," she admitted. "Professor Lupin was a very good teacher, don't get me wrong, but in Professor Moody's class we learned a lot more about actually battling, which is what we really need right now with the Death Eaters on the loose."

"But Hermione," Harry spoke up, pointing out the very obvious flaw in her plan. "Mad-Eye is busy with the Legion. He specifically quit Umbridge's job to focus on helping fight Voldemort." Ron and Hermione shuddered slightly at the mention of the name.

Hermione recovered first.

"I know that, Harry, which is why I scrapped that idea too," she told him. "But theoretically it would be brilliant, wouldn't it. We could actually learn something, shove it in Umbridge's face, and we could invite others who want to learn along too. That way we won't be so unprepared when You-know-who does show himself."

"But without a teacher…" Harry pointed out. Hermione looked nervous.

"I have a few ideas," she admitted, though her uncomfortable countenance set Harry on edge. "Obviously people like Tonks and Kingsley are out since they already have full time jobs on top of working for the Legion. The teachers are out too, and anyone who doesn't have a reasonable excuse to actually be at Hogwarts."

"Doesn't that just leave us with Remus, then," Harry questioned. He didn't have a particularly good reason to be at Hogwarts but he was a former professor and about as close a relation to Harry as he had barring Sirius, who everyone still believed to be a mass murderer.

"There is one person I think would work," Hermione said hesitantly. "If they would agree to it." She chewed her lip anxiously.

"Spit it out, Hermione," Ron told her, looking like he was losing his patience with the roundabout way their conversation was progressing. Hermione was very much dancing around the subject.

For that matter she did look incredibly nervous, the sort of nervous Harry would usually associate with end of year exams. She was clutching her hands together unusually tightly in her lap and seemed to be trying to avoid eye contact.

"Well, isn't it obvious," she said weakly. "It's you." And she looked up and looked right at Harry.

Ron roared with laughter.

"Seriously," he guffawed, clutching onto the arm of his chair as though he was about to fall off it. "That's your big idea? How on earth did you come up with that?" He didn't seem to be looking for an answer though. In fact, it seemed he was doing his best just to breath through his unstoppable laughter.

Harry was maybe a second away from joining Ron's reaction but the fact that Ron got there first stopped him in his tracks. For some reason, and Harry had a sinking feeling at the thought, the sound of Ron's laughter at the very idea of Harry teaching made him angry. He was right, of course, but… was he? Harry had faced a lot in his young life and, while most of his survival came down to luck and his Pokémon bailing him out, he had navigated his way through multiple life threatening situations without serious harm. The fact that Ron didn't seem to be acknowledging that, that it somehow meant nothing, that his survival was purely luck and had nothing to do with Harry's own abilities, drove Harry to speak.

"What were you thinking?" he asked quietly. Ron fell silent very suddenly.

"You teach us how to survive," Hermione said quickly. She looked surprised that he was willing to hear her out but was jumping at the opportunity nevertheless. "You know better than anyone what it's like to deal with the Death Eaters and You-know-who."

Damn right he did, thought Harry.

"Wait, wait, hold up," Ron said, all traces of humour gone. "Are we seriously considering this?"

"Why not?" Harry asked blandly. It was Ron who looked uncomfortable now.

"Well, now don't take this the wrong way, Harry," he said quickly. "You are very powerful, certainly more powerful than us. But you're fifteen."

"Voldemort was sixteen when he first opened the Chamber of Secrets," Harry pointed out. "Didn't stop him."

Ron flinched at the mention of Voldemort's name but it seemed his need to talk Harry out of it was more important than his hammered-in habits.

"You-know-who was crazy, and evil, and he had a centuries old Seviper," Ron pointed out. "You don't have that. Charizard is strong but not that strong." The three of them fell silent.

"I'm not saying I'm agreeing," Harry said, directing his words towards Hermione. "I'm not going to hold classes and set homework or anything stupid like that. I wouldn't know how to."

"Then what…?" Hermione questioned.

"A battle club," Harry said simply. "The best way to learn to fight is to practice. Reading books won't do it, if it did you wouldn't have approached me in the first place." Hermione nodded. It seemed that she'd come to this conclusion herself.

"I won't be able to teach you," Harry said, focusing his words on both his friends. "Surviving isn't something you can just get right. Besides, there are loads of people in this school who know more about Pokémon than me." Arguably he was sitting beside two of them. "But I want to fight. And anything that allows us to do it without Umbridge sticking her nose in is something I want to be a part of. Don't tell me you don't want that too."

Neither Ron nor Hermione denied him. Indeed, in their own ways they looked excited. For Hermione the look was satisfaction, glad that her plan was actually going to go somewhere now that she had her friend's backing. For Ron it was anticipation. Hearing Harry's take on the matter he was well on board.

Hermione let out a breath.

"Well, I suppose we should get planning then," she said and she pulled out a sheet of paper, notes already scribbled on it. When she'd had time to write those notes when she'd been with Harry and Ron from the moment she'd had her idea was a mystery to the two boys but they did not question it.

"I was thinking at first that it would just be the three of us," Hermione began, comfortably settling into her usual speech pattern. "But then I realised this could benefit everyone. I know Fred and George and Ginny will all want to be part of this and then there is Dean and Seamus and Neville and Luna. I imagine Parvati and Lavender will want in as well."

As Hermione rattled off name after name Harry started to feel as though he'd made quite a monumental mistake. His decision had been rash, made in the heat of the moment, and now he'd committed himself to Hermione's plan.

Glancing out of the corner of his eye Harry wondered about the catalyst for his decision. Undoubtedly Ron laughing had pushed him to do it but why should that be the case? It couldn't be jealousy, or at least not simply jealousy. All Harry could think, as Hermione did a detailed breakdown of the fifth year Ravenclaws, was that he couldn't stand the idea of Ron not recognising what he could do. And he realised this wasn't the first time that that motivation had prompted him to make a rash decision. It was the reason he had competed in the Tri-Pokémon Tournament. Could it really be that simple? Could it really be that he just wanted people to recognise him for his skills. If so, and he strongly suspected it was, how was he to fix it?

Hermione did not mention her idea again to Harry but that's not to say he didn't hear about it. Though he tried to keep his head down and ignore his friend's machinations he couldn't help but notice when she peeled off to talk with some student at the Hufflepuff table or when she did not appear from her Ancient Runes class for another ten minutes after everyone else, Anthony Goldstein suspiciously late too.

And it all was boiling down to October the fifth, the day of the first Hogsmeade weekend and the first time since school had started that they would be able to get out from under Umbridge's watchful eye.

"Ah, that's the stuff," Ron muttered as he stretched to the extent his body could manage, eyes closed as the morning sun shone on his face. "So good to get out of there."

They were walking down the great Hogwarts front lawn and, technically, hadn't got out of anywhere yet, though even walking towards the gates of Hogwarts gave them a sense of freedom that the castle just couldn't provide.

The walk also gave them the opportunity to give their Pokémon some fresh air, something they'd severely lacked with the absence of practical lessons in Pokémon Battling. Arcanine lolled around in front of them, enjoying being able to stretch his legs fully as Talonflame and Noctowl glided overhead. Torkoal was walking calmly by Ron's heel and Pikachu was perched up on Harry's shoulder.

"It is good to get some time away from school," Hermione said. Of course she meant away from Umbridge, Hermione loved school more than anything, but the sentiment was still the same. "Although I do wish I could get that essay for Professor McGonagall done today."

"Homework? On a day like this?" Dean Thomas was walking behind them, one hand clutched in Parvati's as they walked down to Hogsmeade together, Seamus and Lavender straggling behind them. "You need to relax more."

"It is Hermione," Ron pointed out, smirking as he threw a sidelong glance at the blushing brunette. Dean snorted.

"True," he admitted. "But you've got to enjoy yourself once in a while. Stay inside too long and you'll start to look like one of those pasty Ravenclaw nerds."

"My sister's in Ravenclaw," Parvati pointed out, giving Dean a testing look. Dean shrugged it off.

"Yeah, I don't really get that," he said, either not reading or, more likely, ignoring the warning look and changing the subject. "I mean, you are identical twins. It's weird that you're in different houses. Though I suppose it makes sense that you came to Gryffindor. We only take the best here." Parvati blushed prettily and leaned in to whisper with Dean. Soon enough the two of them had completely forgotten about their company and were lost in their own little world.

"Sweet talker, ain't he," Seamus muttered as he fell into stride with Harry.

"Must have got it from you," Harry told him. A grin turned the corner of Seamus's mouth.

"'Course," he told him. "But, you know, I was teaching him how to play the field, not to just fall for the first pretty girl to bat her eyelashes - ow!" Lavender had flicked his ear.

"I think they're cute together," Hermione said, as though backing up Lavender's response. "And I think a good girl might help curb your attitude, Seamus." Seamus grumbled.

"Alright," he muttered, cowed by the two girls and sensibly noting he wasn't going to be getting away with anything in their presence. "Ah well, there's always Creevey to corrupt. Anyway, I'll be seein' you lot later." And he left, following after the love struck Dean and Parvati with Lavender following behind him.

"Poor bloke," Ron muttered, shaking his head as he watched them go. "Third wheeling is bad enough but third wheeling with Lavender…" he made a face.

"What happened with Seamus and Lavender anyway?" Harry wondered. Last he recalled they had seemed almost destined to go to the Yule Ball together, only to not, in the end, for reasons Harry couldn't begin to comprehend.

Hermione, the most likely to have an answer, chewed her lip.

"It's complicated," she said eventually, which meant absolutely nothing to Harry. "You know there are feelings all over the place and there's hurt and… I really can't say any more. I can't betray Lavender's confidence." And she walked on, Harry and Ron sharing confused looks behind her back.

Hogsmeade was a picturesque little village which, by most measures, wasn't particularly different from many others. What did set it apart was its location, right by the gates of Hogwarts, and by the fact that Pokémon were freely accepted everywhere.

Harry had visited Hogsmeade only a few times before, having not had his permission slip signed for until his godfather had revealed himself. Speaking of his godfather…

The Shrieking Shack was their first stop upon arriving in the village. The shack, a boarded up ruin that was said to be haunted, was where the three of them had first come face to face, properly, with Sirius Black. It was there they had learned the truth about what had happened in the aftermath of the night Harry's parents had died and that the true traitor had been with them all along, Peter Pettigrew, in the form of Scabbers the Rattata.

And it was where they stood now that they had been visited, almost exactly a year ago, by Sirius's Mightyena as he'd scared off Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle and led them to where Sirius was hiding up in the mountains. Despite the risk of Sirius showing himself so close to Hogwarts it was in hope that he would do this again that Harry had led his two friends to this spot.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, they were left alone.

"We should go," Hermione whispered. She and Ron had been quiet for a while, understanding without needing to be told what they were there for. "The others will be expecting us."

Harry reluctantly accepted the truth she had not said, that Sirius was not coming, and allowed her to lead him back towards the village proper, though not without an added weight on his chest.

The route out to the Shrieking Shack was an unusual one which took the students through the more rundown part of Hogsmeade. It was far from terrible, after all children wouldn't be allowed to wander around anywhere where they might be in danger, but the shops around this end of Hogsmeade were altogether grottier and ill-kept. As they passed the bartender of the Hogs Head tossed his bins out to the street, a Gogoat loyally standing by his side. As many in the Pokémon world did the elderly man did a double take at seeing Harry but soon enough he left them to it. He had a tavern to run, after all, and it was hard enough to get custom ahead of the Three Broomsticks as it was.

The Three Broomsticks, of course, being their destination of choice as they headed straight into the heart of Hogsmeade. They passed Zonkos joke shop and Honeydukes sweet shop, each packed with students, and pushed their way into the famous tavern, the busiest place of the lot.

"Excuse me, excuse me," Hermione said somewhat helplessly as she tried to navigate through the multitude of bodies that filled the establishment.

"Move it," Ron growled, taking the lead and carving out a path with his much larger frame for Harry and a very relieved Hermione to follow. That was all the way up to the bar, though, where Ron came to a dead halt, his face going red. Hermione, rolling her eyes, took the lead.

"Madam Rosmerta," she said, catching the woman's attention as she paused between filling drinks.

Madam Rosmerta, a buxom woman with a friendly demeanour and subject of many teenage boys' fantasies, was the barmaid at the Three Broomsticks and she immediately hurried over to them.

"Straight upstairs," she told them quickly, glancing around furtively. "I've got you covered."

"Thank you," Hermione said gratefully. Madam Rosmerta tutted.

"Don't mention it, I couldn't agree more with what you're doing," she told the girl. "That woman is such a menace. Making her teacher and on top of that High Inquisitor? Well, someone certainly has a screw loose and I'm glad some people are doing something about it." She beckoned them up the staircase. "First floor, first door on the left." And she left them to it.

"What did you tell her?" Harry hissed as soon as Madam Rosmerta was out of sight. "I thought we were trying to keep things quiet."

"We are, but I had to tell her something," Hermione said anxiously. "I needed the room and she was always going to ask questions. I think with her help we'll be much better off than without it." She opened the first door on the left as they reached the first floor landing. "And I didn't tell her anything anyway, just that we were trying to do something about Umbridge's appalling standard of teaching."

Harry wasn't convinced, though he had to admit he was glad that Rosmerta appeared to be on their side, but he chose not to fight that battle, instead turning to survey the room.

Hermione had successfully managed to procure them a private parlour, no mean feet for a Hogwarts students who could only communicate via letter. The room was quite large, bigger than the parlours of the Leaky Cauldron in London, and it was altogether more comfortable with some nice squishy sofas and a crackling fire already set up in the grate.

"We should probably check this place out," Ron muttered nervously. "For bugs or something." It was a good point but Harry had to admit he wouldn't know where to start and, as it happened, he wouldn't have time to figure it out.

"There you are, we've been waiting for you." Fred and George had appeared in the doorway, the first to arrive at their little get together.

"We brought some butterbeer," George told them cheerfully, stepping through the doorway to reveal Lee Jordan, the commentator of Hogwarts Quidditch matches, trailing behind them. "Not many I'm afraid. Newcomers are going to have to get their own."

Harry gratefully accepted a bottle from Fred, taking a quick sip of the chilled drink. Liquid courage was what he needed, now that the time was drawing close. He just wondered how many people were actually going to turn up.

The answer, as it turned out, was loads. Neville and Luna appeared not long after Fred, George and Lee, followed by Seamus and Lavender, having ditched the happy couple some time ago. After that was the Quidditch girls, Colin and Dennis Creevey, Ernie McMillan and some of his fellow Hufflepuffs and Anthony Goldstein and some Ravenclaws before, at last, Dean and Parvati made an appearance.

A couple of minutes later, in which time no one else appeared in the doorway, the final tally was confirmed as twenty-nine, including Harry, Ron and Hermione. They all looked at him expectantly.

"Hem, hem," Hermione said, accidentally mimicking one of Umbridge's most annoying habits. A trickle of laughter went around the room and Harry felt his heart lift slightly. This wouldn't be so bad after all, he thought. These were his friends, mostly, and those who weren't he at least recognised, even if he couldn't put a name to every face.

"Ah, yes, sorry about that," Hermione blushed nervously. "But I suppose I managed to get your attention so… anyway." She cleared her throat more firmly this time, looking out over the students. "I assume you all know why we're here."

"You're going to overthrow the Ministry, aren't you," a dark haired boy spoke up, seated between Anthony Goldstein and Ginny. A couple of people laughed.

"Well, not exactly," Hermione said. "But we can't say we agree with what the Ministry are doing, most significantly forcing Umbridge upon us."

"Here, here," Fred and George said together.

"That being said," Hermione continued, gaining heart from the positive response. "It is up to us to find an alternative as Professor Umbridge either cannot or will not teach us what we need to know."

"She has sound defensive theory," Anthony Goldstein spoke up.

"Only if you're hoping to stall them out," Ron countered. "You can't protect yourself with just defence. Your defences will break eventually and if you don't know anything else then you're a goner."

"That's right," said Hermione. "Which is why we've decided to do something about it. If Umbridge won't teach us then we'll learn on our own."

"How?" a voice sneered from the back of the room and everyone fell quite, turning to the source. "How are we going to learn? Who's going to teach us? Him?" The boy snorted, his eyes fixed firmly on Harry.

"Shut it, Smith," Ron told him but Zacharias Smith, fifth year Hufflepuff student, didn't pay him any attention.

"He's not even the strongest in the school," Smith complained. "He's never got into the final of the battling tournament. There's dozens of people I'd rather have teaching me."

"Then piss off," Ron snapped.

"Ron," Hermione said warningly.

"He's not even strongest in the year," Smith continued relentlessly. "What could he possibly teach us that'd be worth my time?"

And from this point the room descended into chaos. Ron, enraged, was standing up and yelling, his voice drowned out from the cacophony of people both agreeing with him and trying to get him to calm down. Smith was standing his ground bullishly, not backing down in the face of Ron's anger, while Hermione desperately tried to retain order amidst Fred and George's cries of "Egg him!"

"Everyone, please, calm down," she implored, her voice barely carrying across the room as she went completely ignored. Too many people were shouting, too many annoyed and angry, that they weren't going to listen to her even if they heard.

Harry had had enough. He stood up.

"Everyone, shut up!" He said loudly. The room quietened immediately, every eye turned to where he stood, waiting with bated breath. "Smith is right."

"Harry," Hermione moaned. This clearly wasn't what she'd been hoping for but Harry ignored her. He had something to say and he was going to say it, no matter what anyone thought.

"Smith is right," Harry repeated. "I am not the strongest trainer at this school. I doubt I'm even the strongest trainer in this room. And I can't teach any of you how to survive."

The room was silent as they watched him, no one, not even Zacharias Smith, daring to speak up and interrupt as he held their full attention.

"No one can teach you how to survive," Harry told them. "There is only one person that can stand toe to toe with Voldemort, and that's Dumbledore. For everyone else it's only a matter of time." A shiver went around the room, whether due to his utterance of Voldemort's name or the prospect of the hopelessness of their situation Harry didn't know.

"But you survived." It was Luna that spoke up, her wide protuberant eyes showing no concern about speaking up in front of so many people. Harry shifted.

"I was lucky," Harry told her.

"You seem to get lucky a lot," Luna commented, neither judging nor inferring.

"It wasn't luck when you stopped You-know-who in first year," Neville spoke up. "Even the teachers didn't know the Sacred Ash was in danger before you stopped him."

"Dumbledore stopped him," Harry corrected. "And even if I hadn't been there he would have known."

"He wasn't there to help you last year though, was he," Fred pointed out. "You were on your own then."

"I had Charizard," Harry explained. "He saved me."

"Oh, yes, of course, because your Pokemon have nothing to do with you at all," George said sarcastically. "It's not like you caught them and trained them and looked after them." Harry was starting to grow annoyed.

"Stop it," he said. "You're making it out as though I have some sort of ability I don't. Every time I've had to face Voldemort I've got lucky, or he's made some sort of mistake, and I always had help."

"You didn't have much help when you went down into the chamber," Ginny said quietly. The whole room was silent. "You walked in with only a Charmeleon, even though you knew it was a trap." She fixed him with a piercing look. Harry swallowed.

"I don't know how I survived," he said eventually, trying to find some way of convincing them without them objecting on principle. "Ninety-nine times out of a hundred in all those instances I would have died. And even if there is something special about me I don't know what it is, and I can't teach you."

"But we can still learn from you," Hermione spoke up. "By watching you we can learn how you do it. You don't have to know what you're teaching in order to teach it. All you need to do is be yourself. We'll learn. And we'll all be stronger for it."

She turned to the rest of the room.

"I've got a piece of paper," she said, placing it out on the small round table before her, a pen laying innocently beside it. "If you want to learn from Harry then sign your name here." For a minute nobody moved. Then Fred and George stood up.

"You know I'm in," Fred commented, signing his name with a flourish before passing the pen on to his twin, who did the same. "I see you two already have your names down. Confident, are you?"

Hermione nodded firmly.

Next up was Ginny, who signed her name with an almost determined expression, before holding out the pen expectantly to the Ravenclaw boy behind her who signed with a lot more hesitation.

Soon everyone was coming forward from the Ravenclaws, to the Quidditch girls, to Colin and Dennis Creevey, to the Hufflepuffs, with Zacharias Smith the last to sign, though he did so with a sour look on his face. It seemed Harry had a long way to go to convince him this was worth his time.