Its a bit of both sweno. You have to remember that this Harry is LostBoy!Harry. He has been raised by wolves. First year he is a six year old from a very unstructured society being put in a boarding school. One with class schedules. Large portions of the area he isn't allowed to go in. Lots of adults and age based social stratification among students... and they force him (or try at least) to get him to read (something that hasn't been covered with the Lost Boys since Wendy was involved... which in unaltered cannon was literally over a century ago). LB!Harry is going to redefine special needs student.
This is an effectively six year old Harry with a magical core of a ten year old and the closest thing he has to a mage mentor is Tinkerbell. He'll be surrounded by new things. Shiny new things. New places to explore and this Peeves guy who is vasty entertaining. Then told sit still for most of the day and read things. Major Culture Clash here. Most of his interactions are going to be combative (or playfully malignant like a feral kid acting normally). His friends are likely to those that he clings to for that feel of home (Weasely Twins) those doing extracredit tutoring with him while tricking him into learning things (Hermione), or social misfits that are chafed by the school's social structure (Luna.)
As a six sear old, he is going to be armed with the dreaded endless need to ask 'Why?' until the line of questioning is run dry or the only answer is 'Because!'. He'll only really pay attention to things long enough to get what he wants out of it. This is where the Pokemon thing comes in. The idea is two muggleborns are discussing the games with a wizard born. Harry misses the first part about it being a game and then spies on them... hearing about trainers and their loyal beasties... and how they aren't aloud to bring them to school. Then an array of beasties and their abilities. Which means that he'll be getting things massively out of context and taking these things a Gospel Truth. Even if they do manage explain it as something nonexistent in the world they are living in (Earth) Harry will understand the concept of other worlds as he is basically from one (Neverland). The kids aren't likely to know this factoid and Harry has been spying on them from above. Meaning they don't exist here, but do exist in Harry's view.
So excepting Pokemon are from another world and then being taught a spell that makes an animal form of a shiny summoning to smite demony things (one that follows your commands, until you unsummmoning/recalling it or it runs out of HP)... and having only a lose idea what a pokemon should look like. Harry manages to summon a big old crocodile patromonious (he has only actually seen one of the species). He is a lost boy and that is a beasty made of happy memories and pirate nightmares. What is weird about LB!Harry's one is that he is going to see it as a beasty he has heard of before (shiny crocognaw) and that he knows to get it to that point it had to evolve twice. So it knows some attacks already.... like water gun. He already knows that move himself. So ordering the crocognaw to use it is only matter of him casting the spell through the patromonious focus instead of directly from a wand. Not that he understands it that way at all, he'll be as much sorcerer as wizard here, if not more so. His view is if it look like a duck, moves like a duck, and beat people with a leek like a duck it IS a Farfetched.
Thing is if LB!Harry will hear about the weirdness where bite was a meh, normal attack that did okay damage to being a dark type (ghost and psychic killer) move that has a rather high critical rate and often cause flinching. What LB!Harry is likely actually doing is layering up happy thoughts, he is used to constantly having them run through his mind (the flying thing), creating a stronger and stronger techniche. In otherwords LB!Harry is leveling his skills up thought use and thus his 'pokemon'. Each success convinces him of its increasing power, which gives him more and more happy deeply related thoughts to use as the basis of the move. Which makes it more and more powerful... which lets it level more and more.
Once LB!Harry comes to the conclusion he must catch them all! He'll have to find some people sumooning them and them battle them for their pokemon. At which point he'll have to level a new set of happy memories. This likely won't actually work, at first. It will then occur to him he needs pokeballs (a focus that will convince him he can actually pull this off). Once he makes a model that works and he 'catches' one it will likely kill off the other guy (dementors you know) and then once he starts using the other one (needs to level it and all) and others actually see him use the 'captured' pokemon, they'll get increasingly convinced that actually happened. Once that happens LB!Harry can take someones patromonious and the guy has to think of a new happy thought. This gets him a new 'pokemon' (not that he understands the term in context)... which Harry having the old one it grants credance to the idea that just actually happened. As the ones likely to be using a patromonious aren't likely to be pleasant people and they won't actually be able to ask him how he does that... he can basically create a new superstition and get this to work by inflicting a delusion on wizarding society. The ones who will be close enough to actually ask him about such things aren't going to share with the general population. That the idea of focusing on multiple related happy thoughts at once is more useful that one single minded happy thought is going to be easy enough for Hermione to write off as something that escapes the general public: They do have a militant wing dedicated to enforced inbreeding after all. The Twins with end up with ones made out of memories of successful pranks and items.
So, its not that they are actually pokemon so much as that LB!Harry is convinced they exist and he is summoning one. They aren't actually real pokemon, people are just convinced they are. That and they don't actually understand what specifically a pokemon is in the first place. Their attacks are just spells with a displaced origin point woven into a patromonious spell construct matrix. It won't help LB!Harry is going to end up spending summers and holidays in Neverland and most of their knowledge on the subject is going to come from him. Self replicating delusions and all.
I think a LB!Harry will have a love of charms. Each spell can be actually useful. The teacher is good natured and shorter than him. Random stuff explodes. The point of such things is easy to see for one such as him. Transfigeration I can see as a hard, but rewarding thing. Convincing him that Snape is not actually a pirate in his bedclothes and that the point of potions is not to fail in a spectacular manner will be difficult.
This is an effectively six year old Harry with a magical core of a ten year old and the closest thing he has to a mage mentor is Tinkerbell. He'll be surrounded by new things. Shiny new things. New places to explore and this Peeves guy who is vasty entertaining. Then told sit still for most of the day and read things. Major Culture Clash here. Most of his interactions are going to be combative (or playfully malignant like a feral kid acting normally). His friends are likely to those that he clings to for that feel of home (Weasely Twins) those doing extracredit tutoring with him while tricking him into learning things (Hermione), or social misfits that are chafed by the school's social structure (Luna.)
As a six sear old, he is going to be armed with the dreaded endless need to ask 'Why?' until the line of questioning is run dry or the only answer is 'Because!'. He'll only really pay attention to things long enough to get what he wants out of it. This is where the Pokemon thing comes in. The idea is two muggleborns are discussing the games with a wizard born. Harry misses the first part about it being a game and then spies on them... hearing about trainers and their loyal beasties... and how they aren't aloud to bring them to school. Then an array of beasties and their abilities. Which means that he'll be getting things massively out of context and taking these things a Gospel Truth. Even if they do manage explain it as something nonexistent in the world they are living in (Earth) Harry will understand the concept of other worlds as he is basically from one (Neverland). The kids aren't likely to know this factoid and Harry has been spying on them from above. Meaning they don't exist here, but do exist in Harry's view.
So excepting Pokemon are from another world and then being taught a spell that makes an animal form of a shiny summoning to smite demony things (one that follows your commands, until you unsummmoning/recalling it or it runs out of HP)... and having only a lose idea what a pokemon should look like. Harry manages to summon a big old crocodile patromonious (he has only actually seen one of the species). He is a lost boy and that is a beasty made of happy memories and pirate nightmares. What is weird about LB!Harry's one is that he is going to see it as a beasty he has heard of before (shiny crocognaw) and that he knows to get it to that point it had to evolve twice. So it knows some attacks already.... like water gun. He already knows that move himself. So ordering the crocognaw to use it is only matter of him casting the spell through the patromonious focus instead of directly from a wand. Not that he understands it that way at all, he'll be as much sorcerer as wizard here, if not more so. His view is if it look like a duck, moves like a duck, and beat people with a leek like a duck it IS a Farfetched.
Thing is if LB!Harry will hear about the weirdness where bite was a meh, normal attack that did okay damage to being a dark type (ghost and psychic killer) move that has a rather high critical rate and often cause flinching. What LB!Harry is likely actually doing is layering up happy thoughts, he is used to constantly having them run through his mind (the flying thing), creating a stronger and stronger techniche. In otherwords LB!Harry is leveling his skills up thought use and thus his 'pokemon'. Each success convinces him of its increasing power, which gives him more and more happy deeply related thoughts to use as the basis of the move. Which makes it more and more powerful... which lets it level more and more.
Once LB!Harry comes to the conclusion he must catch them all! He'll have to find some people sumooning them and them battle them for their pokemon. At which point he'll have to level a new set of happy memories. This likely won't actually work, at first. It will then occur to him he needs pokeballs (a focus that will convince him he can actually pull this off). Once he makes a model that works and he 'catches' one it will likely kill off the other guy (dementors you know) and then once he starts using the other one (needs to level it and all) and others actually see him use the 'captured' pokemon, they'll get increasingly convinced that actually happened. Once that happens LB!Harry can take someones patromonious and the guy has to think of a new happy thought. This gets him a new 'pokemon' (not that he understands the term in context)... which Harry having the old one it grants credance to the idea that just actually happened. As the ones likely to be using a patromonious aren't likely to be pleasant people and they won't actually be able to ask him how he does that... he can basically create a new superstition and get this to work by inflicting a delusion on wizarding society. The ones who will be close enough to actually ask him about such things aren't going to share with the general population. That the idea of focusing on multiple related happy thoughts at once is more useful that one single minded happy thought is going to be easy enough for Hermione to write off as something that escapes the general public: They do have a militant wing dedicated to enforced inbreeding after all. The Twins with end up with ones made out of memories of successful pranks and items.
So, its not that they are actually pokemon so much as that LB!Harry is convinced they exist and he is summoning one. They aren't actually real pokemon, people are just convinced they are. That and they don't actually understand what specifically a pokemon is in the first place. Their attacks are just spells with a displaced origin point woven into a patromonious spell construct matrix. It won't help LB!Harry is going to end up spending summers and holidays in Neverland and most of their knowledge on the subject is going to come from him. Self replicating delusions and all.
I think a LB!Harry will have a love of charms. Each spell can be actually useful. The teacher is good natured and shorter than him. Random stuff explodes. The point of such things is easy to see for one such as him. Transfigeration I can see as a hard, but rewarding thing. Convincing him that Snape is not actually a pirate in his bedclothes and that the point of potions is not to fail in a spectacular manner will be difficult.