The Very Best by BrilliantLady

Chapter 2: Yr2: Pikachu, I Choose You!

Harry got to Hogwarts for his second year with only a tiny bit of trouble pushing through a rather unusually stubborn barrier at Platform 9 ¾. In his first week back at Hogwarts he made a new best friend. He sought out a new first year Ravenclaw named Luna Lovegood, after people kept telling him they were a lot alike with their love of imaginary creatures. She understood him better than anyone else, and was sure all his theories were right. She listened patiently to his plans to master wordless and wandless spellcasting, reveal all the magical "laws" as being more like recommendations, and one day make his own Pokémon out of thin air. She placed an order with him for a pair of Crumple-Horned Snorkacks, nattered to him about the strange and wondrous creatures of the wizarding world, and happily spent an hour with him every afternoon doing meditation and visualisation exercises.

While Harry and Ron remained friends, he and Hermione began drifting apart that year. For the more she read up on magical theory, the less time she had for his wild theories about willpower being the only thing required to break every law of nature and magic. He also further lost her respect when he stopped going to History of Magic classes so that he had more time for his own personal studies.

Aghast at his rebellion once she found out that skipping class wasn't going to be just a one-off occurrence, she went into a rant and tried to persuade him to change his ways. "You just can't do that! It's a required class! You'll lose Gryffindor hundreds of points, and maybe get expelled! You'll definitely fail the class for sure! You can't simply refuse to show up!"

"Sure I can. Binns doesn't even notice when I am there. He doesn't even know my name – he calls me 'Perkins'," Harry pointed out. "And if no-one tells him I'm wagging class, he won't know enough to take points. Gryffindors should stick together, yeah?"

"You'll get a T! You will fail the class! Fail the class!" she repeated, in a horrified tone that suggested it ranked up there with death-by-troll as something to be feared.

Harry shrugged indifferently – he'd failed classes before to make the Dursleys happy. It wasn't the end of the world.

"I'm getting an O in Charms and Transfiguration, and the others are all pretty good too. I don't need top marks in everything. I can't think of a single job I'd want to do that needs me to have a NEWT in History of Magic. I'll read the textbook in my own time and learn any interesting bits that way, but the class itself is a snooze-fest. I'm quitting."

She was even more cross with him once a couple of other Gryffindors (including Ron) decided to follow his rebellious example and stopped showing up to class, or used it as a self-study period where they ignored the teacher and caught up homework.

*pokemonpokemonpokemon*

Just before Christmas Harry discovered that talking to snakes was considered unusual. By people who thought turning a mouse into a snuffbox was an essential spell to master and not at all an unusual thing to do, he pointed out. But only the Muggle-borns seemed at all swayed by his arguments. Many purebloods speculated on whether his prodigious talents stemmed from being the Heir of Slytherin or not, and took a "watch and wait" attitude towards him. A lot of the Slytherins and Ravenclaws in particular seemed to be acting a bit more respectfully towards him these days.

Even though Draco and he disliked each other, Harry gathered up his courage and went to ask him how to cast the serpent-creating spell. It sounded amazing. Could it be adapted to create other animals?

At first Draco thought Harry was making fun of him. "Perfect Potter needs to learn a spell from me? Get lost, Potter."

"No, honestly, I want to learn the spell. It was an awesome spell! At least tell me what book it's from."