DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN ANYTHING.

AN: Heyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy. What up peeps?

I'm back.

As always, sorry it took so long. I hadn't realised how long it had been till New Years, and then I started piecing together all the little bits and bobs I'd written since the last update. Pretty chill chapter this time, I'm trying to set some basis up for some actual conflict, get excited guys.

In other news, been thinking a lot about the direction this story is gonna take and I think I have a solid fix on how I want it to go. I also want you all to know that I'll never abandon it, even if it takes me a while to update.

DON'T MIND ME I'M A LINE BREAK

Harry grumbled to himself as he poked at the fire he'd started after leaving the river, hoping to dry his clothes a little. The teen idly wondered how long the others were going to take in the river. As much as he wanted some privacy right now, he felt like he should apologise for storming out like that. The wizard reminded himself that for all they looked human, and had human-level intelligence, they had barely any of the know-how human culture contained. Hell, Harry had the sorriest excuse for a childhood he knew of, and even he knew more than these guys did.

He clenched his hands and the fire flared a little, rainbows dancing down his forearms. With the flames crackling merrily from the pile of sticks, Harry reached for one of the fish wrapped in leaves they'd caught before taking their 'bath'. A few mumbled words and it was cleaned and scaled, a quick jab with a stick and it was perched over the fire.

Nothing made a better apology than food.

"My my, Harry, you'll get me all excited with displays like that."

Harry jolted as Ninetails sat down next to him, irritatingly graceful. Dragonair sat down beside Harry on the other side, glaring venomously at the blond man.

The wizard just sighed, feeling worn out, "I'm sorry Ninetails, but I'm done answering your questions. Maybe ask again next year. Or the year after that."

The former Pokémon was undaunted, a sly grin decorating his lips, heedless of Dragonair's hissed reprimand. "That's alright, Harry dear."

Relaxing slightly from the concession, Harry checked the fish, moving it a bit further out of the flames to make sure it cooked through.

"You could always just demonstrate instead."

Choking on his own breath, Harry felt someone heavily patting his back. The sound of water crashing over his shoulders was a big indicator of who that someone was.

"I told you to leave it alone! Why can't you think of someone else for once, you, you, pond scum!"

Harry snorted at the somewhat lame insult, although he smiled at the much welcomed support. Dragonair patted him on the shoulder, "Just ignore him. The rest of us." He stressed those words while another splash sounded out behind the wizard. "Are thankful that you actually explained everything to us, and we're not gonna pester you with questions."

The dark haired teen finally looked up at the purple eyed man, giving him a small but genuine smile, "Thanks Dragonair, I really do appreciate that." He grimaced a little, "If we could never mention any of the last half an hour, ever again, I would forever be in your debt."

Dragonair flushed and took a moment to reply, "Consider it done." The wizard was too busy savouring the idea of forgetting any of it had actually happened to notice Dragonair's strange tone.

On his part, Dragonair was a little disappointed in himself, because he did want to bring up what had happened. Oh, he had far more tact than Ninetails, but at the same time, he did want to talk about it eventually.

But, he did just give his word . . . . .

Someone laid an arm across his shoulders. A dripping wet arm.

Ninetails bent down to look him in the eye, dripping water and looking utterly bedraggled. "I'm sorry, Harry." The blond did have a sincere look on his face, his customary sly grin nowhere to be seen. "You just look so cute when you're flustered, I couldn't help myself."

Harry scowled at being called cute, even as a flush tinged his cheeks red. As much as he wanted to hold a grudge, it was hard over minor stuff like this. If being embarrassed was enough to earn his hatred, he would have pushed the Weasley Twins off the Astronomy Tower years ago. Hell, almost any student would have been eager to, after some of the pranks those two demons got up to. Compared to having his clothes vanish in the middle of dinner, or being followed by paper birds that chirped out embarrassing words every time someone walked past, he was kind of blowing this whole situation out of proportion.

The wizard sighed heavily, trying to release all his anger and embarrassment in one deep breath. Snape might have been a bastard and a shit teacher, but if there was one thing Hermione excelled at, it was research. Pickings might have been scarce, but the library had more than a few books on meditation and clearing one's mind. True Occlumency might have been out of his reach, but he could at least strive to keep his temper under control.

Glancing first at Dragonair, then at Ninetails, he sighed again, "I'm sorry about snapping at you guys." Harry ploughed onwards, not waiting to hear their responses, "But, you have to understand, this is way out of my comfort zone. I mean, seriously, this isn't a conversation I should even be having."

Ninetails opened his mouth, only for his blue haired companion to slap his hand across it, muffling his next sentence beyond recognition. Giving the blond man a hard look, he spoke, "We're grateful for what you've done, Harry, don't forget that. And we'll try harder to make things easier for you. Won't we?" The last two words were hissed in Ninetails' ear, and the man rolled his eyes but nodded reluctantly.

Harry smiled and rechecked the fish, noticing how ready it looked. A few moments and another one was speared over the fire. He gently blew on the cooked one and looked between his two companions.

"Now, who's hungry?"

DON'T MIND ME I'M A LINE BREAK

Crawling out of the pile of slumbering men, Harry forced back a yawn as he conjured a pile of shorts and shirts, hoping that his companions would put something on before getting up properly.

Seriously, he'd lived in a boys dorm for five years and not seen as much . . . . . skin as he had in the last couple of days, mostly because of Scotland's generally cold weather and the fact that his class mates all got up at different times and basically never showered together, for a variety of reasons.

A quick breakfast of some truly colourful and bizarrely shaped fruit/berry things and they were off again, rubbing sleep from their eyes as they plodded on.

According to Ninetails, the town wasn't too far, they should make it before the afternoon if they didn't stop for too many breaks.

Almost an hour of 'peaceful' walking later, Harry paused as a young voice bellowed out from behind the group.

"I challenge you to a Pokémon battle!" The sound was followed by the sound of flesh meeting hard object, and they turned around to see a young boy sprawled on the ground, and older woman standing behind him, one hand pinching the bridge of her nose, while she shook the other one out.

Unable to properly hear what she was muttering from where he stood, the wizard shared confused looks with Lucario, while Dragonair grumbled under his breath and the other three giggled amongst themselves.

The woman finished her almost silent rant before she sighed and nodded apologetically at the group, "I'm sorry, he still hasn't learned to think before opening his mouth." She frowned down at the boy, now sitting and rubbing the back of his head gingerly, "Apologise to these people, right now Alex!"

The boy, who couldn't have been older than twelve grumbled out a reluctant 'sorry' before leaping to his feet and jabbing a hand out at Harry. "I respectfully request a Pokémon battle." He drawled out the words in an overly polite manner, clearly mocking the woman behind him, who's head was once again buried in her hands.

The whole group just looked confused before Dragonair spoke up, elbowing Ninetails before the blond man could so much as speak. "We're just simple travellers, none of us even have any Pokémon."

Alex deflated even as the woman, perhaps his mother, pointedly nudged him. Continuing on down the road, the group left the two behind, one heatedly lecturing the other.

Harry turned to Dragonair, "What was that about?"

The older male glared at the still giggling trio before answering, "Well, trainers battle their Pokémon for experience and stuff to trade with."

The dark haired wizard paused before turning angry eyes on the other, "They make you fight each other for money?!"

Dragonair was taken aback for a moment, looking to Lucario for help only to be met with a blank look. Ninetails came to his rescue unexpectedly, "Now now, Harry, it's not like that. We don't have to listen to trainers if we don't feel like it, I mean, come on." Little embers flickered into life above his upheld palms. "And Pokémon who don't obey get released back into the wild, simple as that." Harry nodded slowly, it did make sense after all, it'd be like trying to train a manticore to play fetch. You just didn't do it if you valued your life.

That being said, it didn't make it any less cruel. But even in his world they forced animals to fight and participate in sports and probably more than a few died doing that, and that wasn't going into the Magical World, the Triwizard Tournament being a key example.

The teen missed the dark look shared between Umbreon and Espeon, that quickly faded as they picked up the pace again. Though they were relying on Ninetails' directions, he was vague at best in terms of the distance to the actual town beyond, 'it's not too far now!'.

DON'T MIND ME I'M A LINE BREAK

It took several hours for them to finally see signs of civilisation, emerging from the forest to see the outskirts of a small town.

As they wandered between the surprisingly ordinary looking houses, they came across what looked like a town square, filled with several market stalls and dozens of people.

And a number of what had to be Pokémon.

"So that's what you look like normally." Harry muttered to his blond companion, spotting golden white fox creature with nine long tails, so reminiscent of a kitsune, that he missed Ninetails' conflicted expression, carefully replaced by a smug smirk by the time the teen turned to face him once more. Though he'd never seen the man's true form, he could sense it in the magic the transformation had left swirling under his skin, like a hand print in clay.

"Indeed it is." He gave the Pokémon a dismissive glance. "Although I looked far superior to her. I mean, look at that coat, it's clear she's not looking after herself properly. I kept myself in perfect condition, you know." Harry could almost see his head inflating on the spot.

Lucario stepped up behind him and flicked the blond's ear, ignoring the yelp of the younger male. "Come on, we need to think of a way to get some proper food." He looked a little confused, "Apparently we need 'money'."

Another haughty look from Ninetails, though it was spoiled by him still clutching his noticeably red ear with one hand, "Money is-"

He was interrupted by Lucario's upheld hand, "I understand the concept, thank you, but how are we going go about getting some?"

As Ninetails opened his mouth, possibly to argue, possibly to help, they were interrupted by the sound of cheering. The three of them turned to see Umbreon and Espeon juggling a series of dark balls back and forth between the two of them, while Dragonair stood slightly to the side, a frown on his face as he tried to replicate the trick. Unfortunately for him, the former Pokémon was struggling with only two balls, a dismal comparison to the dozen flying between the other two.

Already a small crowd had started to gather, and coins were being tossed into a small box in front of the three. The majority of the watchers were women, from teens to middle age, they outnumbered even the small children making up the crowd.

And Harry straight up refused to consider why that might be.

One thing left him curious, where had the balls come from?

Fifteen minutes later, and Harry was feeling bored. It was weird feeling useless, given that he'd been doing the most to keep the group fed and clothed over the last couple of days. Now if he wanted to contribute, he'd have to try casting magic to steal or fool someone into giving them stuff.

Seeing as they weren't starving or dying, that was more of a last resort.

But, while Umbreon and Espeon, and even Dragonair were contributing, he and the other two were just sitting around, waiting and hoping that they'd earn enough money to buy a meal. And maybe a place to stay for the night.

The thought of sleeping in a proper bed was torturing Harry.

Tilting his head back, he slouched on the park bench, guessing by where the sun was in the sky that it was late afternoon at least. His stomach rumbled and he patted it absently, wondering what kind of food this world had to offer.

He didn't have a lot of experience, apart from Su Li and Cho Chang from Ravenclaw, but the people around here appeared to be Asian. That being said, he didn't actually know the differences between Chinese and Japanese, culture, appearance, food and anything really, let alone any of the smaller countries.

For whatever reason, everyone so far spoke English, although given the transformed men's own language skills, that had been a strong possibility from the start.

Although, with magic, anything was possible.

A touch on his shoulder caused Harry to flinch from the pensive doze he'd fallen into.

"Hey, what do we do with all this?"

Espeon held out the battered little box, almost overflowing with coins. Harry gaped at it for a moment before he realised, for all that there were plenty of them, the coins might actually be worth very little.

They all stared at the teenager as he stared at the box. An awkward moment passed, and Umbreon's triumphant smile began to wilt and Espeon grip on the box tightened.

Harry saw the whitening of the older boys knuckles and jolted, reaching out to lay his hands over the others. "Sorry! I was lost in thought for a moment, this is brilliant guys, well done." He put on a big smile, trying to convey his happiness, regardless of the accompanying confusion.

Ninetails looked away in a huff as the two shared happy grins before something else caught his attention. Nose twitching, he looked around to locate the source before he laid his eyes on a small stall, equipped with a number of small fires and oversized pans, filled with various vegetables, meats and rice.

With an insistent clicking of his fingers to get the attention of the others, unable to take his eyes off the delicious looking meat, he pointed out the stall.

"How about we try there?"

DON'T MIND ME I'M A LINE BREAK

Tucked away behind a nearby building, two men watched the group with interest. They'd been returning from a mission, ready to report their success when they'd seen the most interesting sight.

A group of people, most with strangely familiar markings. That wouldn't have been enough to gain their interest normally, but one of them seemed to have supernatural abilities, a black haired teen.

The Boss was always interested in. . . . . acquiring the services of those with unusual abilities.

Maybe this little piece of information would be enough to pull him out of the rage he'd been stuck in since the escape of his favourite pet.

DON'T MIND ME I'M A LINE BREAK

And done.

As usual, lemme know what you think, improvements that can be made, ideas you have for the future, give me your feedback.

ALSO AM I SPLITTING THE ATTENTION BETWEEN TEH BOIZ EQUALLY?

I'm worried that I'm favouring one or two over the others, you guys gotta let me know so I can compensate.

Do itttttttttt~!