Great Lengths for Pokémon PV Maisy Dane Closed

“No tanks or bullets or anything like the muggles have,” Yvaine explained. “All magic, but it was still a war.”

He placed his hand gingerly on The Second Wizarding War and slid it out from her grasp. “People did die,” he continued as he flipped to the back of the book. “Some muggles too in the whole thing when it went really really bad. The bad people were very against anything non-magical, so they were just after everyone.”

He tapped the start of a long list of names spanning the final pages of the books. It listed every casualty of the Second War in commemoration separated by scrolling dashes. “My parents helped people run from it all,” he said. “My dad is a Pure-Blood, so he wasn’t really a target. They don’t talk about it much, but my mum told me once. She likes for me to be informed. Says it’s important to know where you came from so you know how to look ahead. History books can be a little iffy with the wrong author but those are good. My dad used them for my history lessons after school. His quizzes were wicked difficult but he made it fun.”

"Gosh..." She repeated, frowning softly, "That's kinda scary. I mean... I guess I figured this lot had their problems, too. But I can't believe all of that happened and I've never ever heard about it." Idly she wondered if her parents might remember some details from when it happened, but it seemed silly to ask, and besides, they might not feel so great about her being a witch if they learned it wasn't quite so safe and secure.

"...Pure-Blood." A brow lifted, "That's... someone whose parents are both magic, right? I'm the first witch in my family since my uncle. But he wasn't a very good one, I guess. Or at least not a very nice one, cause Mum and Dad, they don't like to talk about him. Great Grandma Nora was one, too, but she died before I was born."

Chewing on the inside of her cheek, she shook her head, "There's so much I still don't understand. It really is like I come from a totally different world. It's kinda cool that you come from both. Some of the girls in my House, they don't even know what Pokemon is, and forget half the other stuff I know. And they talk about things, it's like their own language. Like... okay... what is an Auror? No less than three of them said they wanna be one when they're older."

“Don’t worry, we like to keep ourselves separate from the muggle world,” Yvaine assured. He began to flip idly through the pages of the book recounting the details of the Second War, most of the pages being text with the occasional picture for reference. “Aurors are like detectives of our world, but like super detectives. Come on! There’s a book for everything.”

He once again motioned for Maisy to follow in a large sweeping motion of his hand. They did not have to travel far, just around the corner to the shelf behind the other. It was as if Yvaine knew the authors’ names as well as the books he seemed to have read before his time at Hogwarts. Handing over The Second Wizarding War once again to his friend, he reached out for a book entirely about Aurors from their origins to anything of note regarding them. This book was not as thick as the others he had given to Maisy.

“They’re really cool,” he said. “I want to be one, too. My dad says it’s a huge responsibility and lots of study. But I have a fall back plan. If I don’t make it as an Auror I’ll be a professional quidditch player. You’ve seen a quidditch game, right?”

"Super... Detectives? Like Sherlock?" A brow quirked, but then Yvaine was moving again, and Maosy diligently at his heels. She felt a little like a detective in that moment, though decidedly she was more of a John Watson.

Taking the book he handed over, she leaned back against the writing table that sat adjascent to the shelves and watched as he leafed through spines until selecting the one he was looking for. It was impressive, to say the least, how he seemed to know so much about everything. He was the same age as her, but she had come into this new world completely blind, and she could think of no more competent a guide.

Blinking, she reached for the book he held out and setting the first down, flipped through the first few pages, "Oh, wow. That sounds really neat, Eevee. I think you'd be great at it. Mum says I'm not very observant, so I'd probably be rubbish at it." And it was true. She had a tendency, more often than not, to miss the painfully obvious.

"Quidditch..." She continued, before smiling brightly, "That's um... that's the game, right? With the hoops and the... Sticks and balls? And the little gold one? The Snitch? It sounds wicked! Do you... do you really play on brooms? Like those witches in Halloween decorations?"

A chuckle escaped him he quickly stifled with the palm of his hand securely over his lips. Maisy’s lack of knowledge of their world was funny to him mostly in how she used muggle references he understood. Imagining an entire quidditch team as muggle depictions of witches greatly amused his wild imagination.

“Yeah, you really play on brooms!” Yvaine confirmed. “But we usually play it without the green skin and warts. We should see about sitting together next quidditch game! The rules are pretty simple once you get the hang of it, and I can walk you through it.”

Looking at the stack of books in Maisy’s hand, he suddenly couldn’t recall why they were in the library in the first place. It seemed logical for him to have wanted to educate his friend in their history, or at least the history he found the most important to read. While they would take courses with professors far more qualified to teach, he couldn’t help but be a little passionate about the prospect of exchanging or sharing knowledge with a peer.

“Maybe add to it a book on quidditch,” he thought out loud, and grinned at her. “There’s no Wikipedia page to read about all this.”

She grinned again, as he laughed and the grin turned into a snort-like giggle at the mention of warts and green skin. It wasn't exactly what she had pictured, but now it was the only thing she could imagine. But the prospect sounded fantastic, either way, "Oh! Can we?? I would like that. I don't know if any of the girls in my room will go, and I wouldn't have anyone to sit with, either."

She had been to a few football matches with her father, and once, she had even been to a Polo event, but there was something so entirely thrilling about being a part of something she had never even seen before.

Setting the books down, her arms exhausted by the weight of them, she fiddled with the end of her ponytail, "Hey, Eevee? Thanks for doing all this. I kind of figured I wasn't gonna know everything, you know? But I had no idea there was so much..."

Smiling, she shrugged, "I think I'm gonna like it here, at Hogwarts. Even if it's not exactly what I expected, I think it's going to be wonderful. And, well... I'd like it very much if we could be friends. If that's okay. That's okay, right?"

"Sure!" exclaimed Yvaine as his excitement superseded library rules. Another shush from a student out of sight served as a reminder to their setting, and he stifled a giggle. He was hoping to make new friends at Hogwarts and was over the moon with the prospect.

"Of course it's okay," he continued in a more proper, quiet tone. "There's a lot to learn, but I like learning things. I'm going to miss having the internet. That's how I would learn new things whenever I wanted to. I learned how to build a colored laser beam in Minecraft on youtube."

His eyes wandered what they could make of the vast library from where they stood. "It's different here. It's different with anything involving magic. There's no magical database where you can easily find and read whatever you want. Some things are very off limits."

With another wave of his hand, he quietly urged Maisy to follow him further into the library. The books seemed to look older the further they went, but eventually he came to stop at the edge of an isle and pointed to a caged section secured with an enchanted lock.

"It's the restricted section," he said. "We'll never see a book in there. They say some of those books can kill you if you open the wrong page."

With his agreement, Maisy's smile brightened and she let out a small laugh, stifling it behind her hands when they were shushed. It was only a few days into their first year, and already she was certain that she and Yvaine would be friends for ages. There was a quality to the boy that made him easy to talk to, and his willingness to teach her... not to mention his patience with how very little she actually knew... was ultimately endearing.

It was encouraging, and frankly, she was just glad not to be alone... "OH! You play Minecraft? My brother has it on his X-box, but he only lets me play it once in a while. It's a tone of fun, though... even if the monsters freak me out."

As he continued, she nodded, following his eyes around the library. He explained the caged off section last, and she gave a shiver as she stepped back, subconsciously further from it, "Different is the word for it, alright. I'm not sure I'll ever get properly used to it. But I kind of like it. It's like being in an old fashioned movie, you know? No phones or computers... Oh, goodness! What will we do on the weekends, when we don't have class? Do wizards have games and things like we do back home?"

He eyed the restricted section with excited curiosity, his mind wandering through imaginative scenarios of what sort of books they could find behind the lock. Some students had claimed to have gone in there once, but it seemed impossible to breach. Perhaps it was something to plan out as an adventure later on down the line, but for now the time was an opportunity in education. The added bonus was feeling like he was interesting to Maisy, and he liked feeling like he was important.

"Hopefully weekends won't get boring," he said thoughtfully. "There's loads to do, I guess. Activities and things. Quidditch happens over the weekend, and there are different clubs to join. Oh, and there's also a game called gobstones. It's like marbles, if you know what that is. I'm not very good at it, but watching it is funny. The loser gets slimed in the face by their gobstones!"

His mind fixated on weekends, now not entirely sure what he would do with his free time without his muggle made games or streamed movies. It was almost a bit disheartening and reminded him much of what he could remember of his grandparents' house in France. There was never anything to do and he got bored easily which generated his interest in reading about random things.

"I guess we have to make our own fun," Yvaine said with a shrug. "Do you think we'd be allowed to explore Hogwarts? It's really big here. It could be fun."

Maisy was almost never bored back home. Between her siblings, her mother's work and their dog Pringle, there was always something for her to do, and she could only imagine if it was like that in old Norwich, Hogwarts would be infinitely more interesting and exciting. Quidditch sounded fantastic, and while she wasn't looking to get slimed, Gobstones sounded like it might be fun to watch ...

And she couldn't picture a dull moment with Eevee. He seemed the sort to come up with all kinds of adventures, and she had never looked forward to anything more. Though she couldn't help but hope those adventures didn't involve the restricted section.

"I'm sure we'll think of plenty of things to do. It's hard to imagine being bored anywhere there's magic involved. I can't wait till I'm able to do it... Magic. I can't eve believe it's possible. Have you... Have you ever done any? Is it hard, you think? Oh... Gosh. If you're bad at it, what happens? Could I get sent home?"

Paling, she shook her head, but his next question seemed to drive the fear from her mind at least for the moment, "I can't see why we can't explore... I expect there's rules to follow, and you'll want to mind those wild staircases. But anywhere we're not meant to go would be locked up, right?"