Author's Note: Thank Flippy The Mummified Hedgehog for getting our next chapter. She asked for it as a gift and I love my little sister.

Here is hoping next time I post its because Rowling is now longer a disgusting TERF.

Also… come on Monkey D. Luffy, beat Harry Potter to be the best selling fictional character!

~MC~MC~MC~

"Hey kid, mind if I sit down for a moment?"

Harry looked over his shoulder at the newly arrived man. He had to admit he was striking; Harry was straight but he was comfortable looking at a guy and going 'Yeah, he's hot, I get it'. He was tall, for one thing. Ever since his growth spurt after the Ministry Harry hadn't felt small and scrawny in a long time. And while he hadn't measured himself since his second Gigantimaxing he had a feeling that he'd gained another inch, putting him over the 6 foot mark. But the new arrival… he had to be at least 6 foot 3, if not taller. And he wasn't lanky either… no, his entire frame was large in just the right way. Muscular, toned…

He let out a mental chuckle; if he kept noticing things like that maybe he wasn't as straight as he thought.

The man took a seat next to Harry, the light wind that was blowing about them catching his pale purple hair and making it fan out behind him. He was dressed in a black t-shirt with a red shield and blue sword on it, the entire thing stretched over his muscular chest. He had a darker complexion than most of the Galarians; cinnamon in color. But he didn't look out of place, nor feel out of place, even sitting on the tip of the tower that Harry had chosen to hunker down upon.

"Some view, huh," the man said. "I love to sneak up here sometimes. You're not supposed to, as they are always afraid someone will fall, but I never worry about that. My Charizard's Pokeball as a quick release trigger if it descends too quickly. I have to be careful if I ride in a plane though." He chuckled and Harry managed a smile at that. "What about you?"

Harry nodded skyward, where Hedwig was flying about.

"She might not be able to catch you in time."

"I'm a Pokemagnus. She'll catch me."

That made the man's brow furrow. "But she's fully evolved."

"Apparently there is another evolution for her. I had some… friends… research it. They think it's a lost Mega Evolution."

"Okay, that is really cool," the man admitted. He watched Hedwig fly about in lazy circles. "So, she fly you in? Or did you take the secret paths? I found them when I was League Champ and had too much free time on my hands one day. Which is odd because normally everyone made sure I was super busy all the time. But the photoshoot had problems with a camera and they didn't want me to leave and try and get a reschedule so I got to explore." He let out a content sigh. "Good times."

"No secret passage," Harry finally said. "I climbed up."

"Climbed?"

Harry nodded and allowed part of his mask to slip, holding up his fingers to show how they had sharpened into claw-like points. "I'm not exactly human anymore."

"…I'd be startled but I've seen crazier things, believe it or not!" He let out another laugh at that and Harry forced his body back to looking fully human. "So you climbed?"

"Yeah. I made sure not to damage any of the rock."

"I'll take your word for it because I'm not going to try and scale down to check." He paused before holding out his hand. "Leon Richmond. Please don't tell my mother I didn't introduce myself."

"Harry but I have a feeling you already knew that."

"Obvious?" Leon asked.

"In my life I find that most people only approach me if they already know who I am."

"Ah. Yeah, I've been there. Well… that or they know OF me, rather than know me for being… me, you know?" Harry raised an eyebrow at that and Leon smiled. "Like I said, I was once the Champion of Galar. In fact I still am the longest reigning champ. Though Marnie is getting close… she might manage to beat my record." He shook his head. "And now I handle the Battle Tower. Its different from being the Champion."

"How so?" Harry asked.

"Well, in Galar being the Champion is different from other regions. In Avalon or Unova or the like it's a title you earn and that is that. You are the Champion of that year. Pokemon League Champ 1993, okay?" Harry nodded; everyone in the Pack was at least a one time Pokemon League Champion. "But in Galar we do things different. The Champion has to defend their title. And we don't have our government officials battling it out like the other regions; instead we have tournaments where any trainer that manages to collect all 8 gym badges duke it out to figure out who can go take on the Champion."

"I think Kanto uses that method for the Indigo League," Harry said. "One becomes the Indigo League Champion and then competes to try and become the Kanto League Champion."

"Yeah, I heard they switched over to that a few years ago. But anyway, its much more of a sport here in Galar. Trainers will redo the Gym Circuit each year so they can enter the Semi-Finals. Heck, most of the Gym Leaders will do it themselves so they can enter. And if you are famous enough, even if you aren't the Champion, you get sponsorship deals and the like. That's why running the Battle Tower is so different for me; I am now a businessman instead of a sport's star so instead of worrying about what my sponsors care about I just focus on what makes me happy. What I want to do. I always had to put on a show when I was champion… King Leon, Champion of Galar. I loved it when I was doing it, don't get me wrong, but now life is so much more relaxing."

"I can imagine," Harry said. After a moment he added, "I hope one day its more than imagining."

"Yeah, your friend Tonks told me about it." Leon screwed up his face and rubbed his shoulder. "She also likes to hit people, did you know that?"

"You used her first name, didn't you?" Harry asked. "Yeah, she hates that." He paused. "She send you to find me?"

"No, Sonia did. We're old friends. Just old friends."

"There is a story there," Harry commented, hoping to distract Leon.

"Let's just say that the Magnolia family has a bad habit of thinking I'm her boyfriend and then telling me how they will hurt me if I hurt her. Usually it involves showing off their super tough Pokemon. My brother keeps telling me I should have BINGO cards made up for whenever that happens. Wanted to make sure I didn't get that with you, thinking the wrong thing."

Which, Harry supposed, made sense.

As Sonia was his cousin.

"Hmmm," Harry said, looking back over the city. It was a beautiful view and one people rarely got to see since the highest towers of Hammerlocke were usually off-limits to the public. But Harry had needed some fresh air and at this point really didn't care about the police coming after him… they'd already arrested him for wandering into a Pokemon Den and defending himself.

Leon leaned back, feet dangling off the edge. "Not the family reunion you imagined?"

"Or ever expected," Harry said.

"Yeah, I bet." He paused, thinking over his words carefully. "You don't have to worry about the others being upset with you running off. They knew you needed time to process all this. I think the professor was actually glad you gave her some time… she knew before you, thanks to those tests, but it is one thing to know something and it is another to sit in front of someone and the ramifications to slowly dawn on you how much your life has changed."

"And how much you've been lied too," Harry grunted.

"Don't suppose you feel like sharing."

Harry opened his mouth to say no, he wasn't in the mood, but found that the weariness the day had brought, along with the frustrations of teleporting about and the frazzled state he was in thanks to the startling news that had been dumped on him and turned his world upside down caused his tongue to begin wagging with a different song and dance.

"I keep thinking about my life," he said, not bothering to look at Leon. If he did he might lose the nerve to speak. "About how it was for the first 11 years of my life. It sucked… I'm not going to try and claim it didn't. I know there are people who hear about what I went through and go, "Oh, it couldn't be all bad! There must have been some good!" but that's not the case. Maybe there was good… donut can taste nice, after all, but if I throw it into a wagon full of shit and tell you to eat all of it you aren't going to care how much strawberry filling is in it. It still is shit. In fact it makes it worse that you found the damn donut because its tainted so it's a mockery of something nice and sweet that you can enjoy.

"I don't know," Harry ran his fingers in his hair. "I don't get why I am still bugged by this. I've been seeing a shrink… well… I was." Haryr grimaced; he really should have seen Dr. Linda by now. His school had gotten destroy, his mentor was dead, and his headmaster was possessed by the spirit of the Pokemon that wanted to consume his soul and wear his body like a condom while he fucked Avalon raw dog. Honestly it was a wonder he was still functioning. "But I should be over this by now."

Leon sighed. "It's not-"

But Haryr kept going, not letting him speak. "I mean… I just keep thinking about my childhood. How utterly shit it was. Woken up early, even if I had school, and made to do everyone's chores. And I had to do it silently too, so I didn't wake up Dudley or Vernon." He'd long given up calling his relatives by titles; they were barely his relatives in his mind as it was. "And it didn't matter how hard I worked I was always looked down upon. They were always waiting for me to do something, expecting me to act up or… I don't know! They had this vision in their heads that because my mum trained Pokemon that made her a sinner and it got… passed to me in the womb? Little Surrey was a fucking cult."

"Little… oh." Leon swallowed. "Harry-"

He continued on. "They kept saying if I did the work right I'd become better. I'd be like everyone else. But I don't think that was true. Maybe in the beginning, when I was a toddler they had hopes they could… work the 'evil' out of me or something like that. But eventually they decided that I was a lost cause and the only thing they could do was keep making me their slave so I didn't do something wicked. Idle hands and all that bullshit.

"I asked about my family. Mum was ungrateful and wild. She ran away from home because she couldn't accept how things were supposed to be. My dad… they told me he was a drunk and a criminal and if it weren't for them I'd end up just like him. I… I almost believed them, for a time. I don't know what made me not accept it. I just… in my heart I knew they were wrong. Not that I could say that. There was no one else though. For the Durselys everything from beyond the coast might as well have not existed. The only time they cared about the outside world was getting deliveries from the boats. That was it. But I didn't have anyone else.

"But… that wasn't true. Remus was out there, waiting for me. Doing all he could to try and get me back to Avalon. I had a godfather who was wrongfully jailed and thought I was dead. I had a cousin and her family. And now I have a grandmother and another cousin and I haven't even met my aunt and uncle yet but Sonia told me they'd love to get to know me. And all I can bloody well think is why the hell does this stuff keep happening to me!"

Harry threw back his head and let out a roar of frustration.

Not a scream.

A roar.

Leon, to his utter credit, didn't say a word.

"Is… is there some curse on me? Some dark spell? So many people were out there who would have given me a good home and I end up with the Dursleys. And the moment I escape them I get rewarded with an insane ghost that wants to eat my soul. "Here you are, Harry my boy, a life away from the people who physically and mentally abused you. But Voldemort heard they never tried sexual abuse so he wants to rape your corpse in the most non-sexual way possible so you should really be on the lookout for that!"." He slammed his palms down on the stone. "Just… what the fuck is my life? What is this? I was in Alola a day ago, dealing with an Ultra Beast. Now I am here and I have no idea how long I am going to be staying here because at any moment some legendary Pokemon cooked up in Kanto could snap his fingers and send me to any region he wants. Does he even have fingers? Can you snap with kitty paws? I have no idea, maybe I should ask Mewtwo that when I politely ask him for the weapon I need to defeat the crazy ghost that is currently wearing my headmaster like a cheap suit!"

He was panting. The entire rant had left him feeling like he's just gone through an entire marathon. One that would have seen him forced to wear a backpack full of bricks. He hadn't been so winded before, not even when he'd done Gauntlet matches. And his tired brain, so addled by everything that had happened, now wanted him to play a Gauntlet match because he hadn't done one in what felt like half a decade.

They sat there for a long time, neither saying a word, just watching as people moved on with their lives below them. Harry spotted someone leaving a Pokecenter and he was suddenly struck by the fact that the person had an entire existence that very well might not ever be affected by a single thing he did. That person, he couldn't even tell if they were a man or a woman, would go on to have adventures. Do good things and bad. Live an entire life. And nothing Harry did before the very moment he lived in or after would affect them. That their only connection was that he had spotted them leaving the Pokecenter.

He knew it was a metaphor for… something… but he had no idea for what.

"Did they tell you much about the Dynamax incident?" Leon finally said.

Harry nodded. "A little bit. Something about someone named Rose tapping into Dynamax energy?"

Leon sighed. "Chairman Rose… he was a good very…ah. A very good friend. I don't know if he should have been so close to me… he was the head of the Galar Pokemon League. set up the tournaments, arranged for sponsors, made sure the gyms were properly accredited…" He smiled slightly, "and looked the other way when Pierce wasn't doing what the League Officials thought was best for the sport. He should have been neutral, understood that I was the Champion at the moment but that could change at any time. But… he was friend." He looked out at Hammerlocke and the sun as it began to set. Harry gazed out too, able to see past the city to the wild areas beyond, where the Pokemon roamed free. "A good friend.

"But Rose… he had a problem. He was always worried about the future. Always think about what would come next. Not just a single step or a few…" Leon shook his head. "We would talk about the League and what we would do next and he would be thinking decades ahead. When Ballonlea wanted to renovate their gym do you know what he did?" Leon chuckled. "He wanted to know how it would impact the new gym. 'What new gym?' the town council asked. 'The one you will be building in 40 years to replace this one. Will it cause problems for the build team to knock it down if you do the underground renovations? 40 years."

"It sounds like it could get annoying," Harry said, trying to keep his tone as polite as possible.

"Oh, it was, but people also appreciated it. We had so many problems that were nipped in the bud because he already had plans in place to deal with them. You know what was odd though? He was always so busy but found time to go on vacations. Drove his assistants insane but he'd decide to up and travel to Stow-By-Side or Freezington and just have dinner or spend the night in a hotel just so he could say, "I got to stay in a hotel". That was the kind of man he was."

Leon sighed again.

"But I didn't realize until it was too late just how far he would look ahead… and how that would delude him. He came to me in a panic because he said Galar was heading for an energy crisis… a thousand years from now. A thousand years, Harry. Think about that for a moment. He was panicked about something that far away. A thousand years ago the people of Galar and Avalon were hoping there were magic spells that would wish away their poop so they could stop using chamber pots. They didn't even know what electricity was other than it came from the sky or from small yellow rodents. A thousand years from now this world will be completely different Harry… I tried to tell Rose that. Tried to explain that we'd probably not be using the energy sources we do now. But he was convinced that he was right…"

Again the former champion frowned.

"Have you ever heard about Thomas Malthus?" Leon suddenly asked.

"No. Was he a friend of Chairman Rose?"

"Hardly. He died over a 150 years ago. He was like Chairman Rose though… always looking towards the future, trying to think of ways to make the world better." Leon paused. "Rose thought he was a complete and utter idiot." He chuckled at that. "See, Malthus had this theory that as we produced more food it would cause populations to explode, to the point that there would be mass starvation. A cycle of improvement, followed by over population and starvation, death, and the new improvement to try and save the world. He wanted to break this 'trap' by enforcing strict population controls. Forced sterilization, limit births, killing off the undesirables."

"Sounds like him and Voldemort would have been friends," Harry muttered.

"Maybe," Leon admitted. "Assuming your Voldemort actually cared about what happened after the killing."

"True. So Chairman Rose hated Malthus."

"He said he was a blind fool. He pointed out the two flaws in the theory Malthus based all his Population Control ideas on. First, that innovation is built upon innovation. You don't reinvent the wheel. That means that innovation can come quicker. Just look at how we are now… a hundred years ago flight was the dream of madmen. Now we've travelled to the moon. And the other mistake was he believed that people couldn't learn… that we were like Grimers, who would just feed and reproduce without thought. Did you know that as society has advanced so that people could more easily support larger families… they've actually decreased the number of children they produce?"

Harry nodded at that. The Weaselys weren't the norm anymore in Avalon but a hundred years ago they would have been considered a modest family.

"Malthus though was so convinced about his theory that he allowed it to delude him and cloud his vision. And Rose saw that… but didn't see he was falling into the same trap."

"And so am I," Harry stated. "I just don't see it."

"You are so caught up on what happened and what this could mean and what other crazy twists life could toss at you that you aren't focusing on the here and now." Leon pointed back towards the door to the tower. "Through there, down those stairs… you have a grandmother. A new cousin. An aunt and an uncle. Family that wants to get to know you. Who want to hold you close in their heart. Don't allow your worries about what came before and what might come make you miss that."

Leon got up and held out his hand.

"Want to say hello to them?"

Harry looked at him.

And then… he took Leon's hand.