CHAPTER FOURTY NINE

With the partial completion of the Pokéball, the dream that Magnus had thought would be almost out of reach began to take a shape slowly.

It was at this point that he realized how much he needed discipline.

You see, when he had selected the Eevees to start conditioning them for evolution, it had been because they were what was easily available in the limited pool of similar-looking Pokémon, that and the fact that their evolution requirements, from what he could recall, were easily achievable.

However, with the hatching of the first years' hatchlings, that selection pool had increased quite fast.

What's more, this year's hatchlings were quite diverse — he had heard even the teachers admit it.

I mean just looking at what he had already encountered: there was his Zorua, there was a Vulpix... Harry's. And there was Ron's Meowth, and he had seen Malfoy had a Purrloin, not to mention Hermione's unique Pichu...

The point was that his options had now increased, and even better, these hatchlings were young and gullible, which meant they were easier to train.

In fact, Pichu was a perfect candidate for his project, seeing that as a Pokémon fan, he already had a lot of information on this species...

 he was even tempted to include his Zorua, but... well there was quite little that he could remember about their evolution path... in fact even in Pokémon Go, Zoruas evolved into Zoroark on reaching level 28, and seeing that this was real life and not a game, that was quite unhelpful.

Despite all this self-interest, Magnus decided to stick to the original plan for using the Eevees as the first project...

So far he was proud of the progress.

I mean, the twins, believe it or not, had begun to pay more attention to his instruction, and for anyone who knew Fred and George, it was quite an achievement just on its own.

They had agreed when he insisted that the extra Pokéballs were not to be released to other students yet — only the original four were in use: the twins', Lee's, and of course his.

Despite the fact that he had no urgent use for it, seeing first years were allowed to roam around with their hatchling... it however came in use after curfew when he needed discretion.

Magnus, however, knew that the respect the two gave him was because of the enthusiasm he portrayed towards their Pokémon... that and results.

They were slow in coming, but there was result, and so it made the twins see that he knew what he was doing... so he had to keep the results coming or else he would lose that trust.

It was because of that he was standing at the path leading to the school grounds at 7 a.m. waiting for the twins.

He was beginning to wonder what was taking them so long when he saw the familiar figures heading his way... a

ctually they were three; he could easily identify the third as Lee.

For the project, Magnus was going to dedicate his attention on the Eevees, but he saw no reason why Lee and his Rockruff couldn't join them... he might not have figured out exactly what triggered evolution into a Lycanroc in Rockruffs... not yet at least, but Ruffy was a friend to the Eevees and he thought that would make things easier.

"I thought you guys had bailed,"

Magnus said as he nodded greetings to the trio.

George yawned as he rubbed his eyes lazily. At first glance, one could think he was sleepwalking from the lazy way he walked.

"And lose the twenty Galleons? Not a chance, boss," Fred answered equally lazy.

 Magnus could see raw exhaustion imprinted on their faces and he wondered whether he wasn't pushing them too much.

The four of them had left the Room of Requirement almost at 1 o'clock, and the same thing had been happening for the past few days... of course, fatigue and insomnia must be stockpiling on them. Still, he needed them cheerful... gloomy trainers wouldn't serve their purpose.

"Look alive guys."

His Zorua squealed joyfully before pouncing on George's robes and began to tug at them.

"Too bad they are both male, they could have made a good couple," George said as he produced his Pokéball, which elicited more squeals from the Zorua... it's like it could sense Goj in there.

The two had become quite the duo, maybe because both were Dark types...

The two often snuggled lazily under dark shades watching as Fred and his Eevee played on the sunny part. He had no doubt that if these two hit their max potential, they would be quite a formidable duo.

The only problem was that due to similar typing, they couldn't be in one team since they would have the same advantage and even worse would have similar weaknesses when they came up against Pokémon that were immune to Dark types."

Not here George," Magnus warned, having noticed that he had been preparing to release his Pokémon from the ball.

George pocketed the ball while looking around suspiciously. There was no one but still it was safer to assume that someone was watching.

As part of their precaution, they had agreed to first walk into the Pokémon daycare before where they were to release the Pokémon before taking them to the grounds.

It wasn't uncommon to see students jogging with their Pokémon in early mornings... there was no rule that explicitly forbade it... it was just that most preferred not to due to the constraints that it led to...

The few hours stolen meant you either had to forego breakfast or you really were damn good at gobbling stuff down at frightening speed and master all the vanishing steps in the castle staircases as they rushed to catch up on morning class.

Fortunately, the four had become masters at this.

 As for breakfast, they ate it on Gryffindor table despite the fact that Magnus was a Ravenclaw.

This was because the Ravenclaw table was disturbingly pristine by then... not even a scent of food... Magnus had no choice but to join his senior friends...

Besides, the twins knew most kitchen elves by name and so they were still served great food instead of having to settle for what was left...

Few minutes later, four students and four Pokémon burst out of the daycare into the school grounds.

"It's your call, boss," Fred said in that silly tone they had been using of late.

"Just please don't ask me to just play around," he said looking at his Eevee. "I am dying to see him doing something cool."