Rocket Collecting

*Lastly, I do not own Harry Potter. I make no money from this story.*

Chapter 2- It is a She.

Hermione stared up at the marble statue. It was old and falling apart but just as beautiful and enchanting as the day it was carved. She wanted to believe that the world wasn’t crumbling around her. That she was going to get through this and the war going on around her wasn’t as all consuming as Harry thought it to be. She wanted to believe that this last stand was going to turn out alright. That everything was going to be alright, that everything....was going to be fine.

“Hermione, are you coming?” Ron called to her. She nodded and got up, walking out into the early morning sunshine. This was it.

~~~!!!~~~

Eleven years Ago

Harry paced the length of his house, anxious for a knock on the door. He tried not to shove his nails into his mouth. Finally there was a knock and he threw open the door. Hagrid stood there with a bundle in his arms.

“Is it...alright?” He asked, fear in his voice, Hagrid looked up at him then back on the questing claws waving around below his chin.

“Yes, she’s fine, confused but fine,” Hagrid pushed past him and into the parlor.

“I want you to take it to a friend of yours. Don’t tell me anything about where you put it I don’t want anyone to know,” Harry explained, following the hulking Groundskeeper.

“What about when everything is over?” Hagrid murmured, running his finger down the cat/human face. Harry wouldn’t go near the child.

“I...don’t know. I don’t think Ginny would understand,” he shook his head, sitting down across from them.

“I don’ think I understand ‘arry. Where did she come from?” Hagrid looked up to Harry who turned away.

“You wouldn’t believe me. Just take it away,” Harry growled, his head sinking to his chest as he heard Hagrid’s chair slide as the giant stood.

“IT is a girl ‘arry. A little girl. Your little girl. I thou’ you ‘ad a care for the magical creatures. I thou’ you were decent. I see now you ain’t, I see you now you and me shouldn’t speak anymore,” Hagrid told Harry’s back, his voice dead serious.

“But you aren’t a magical creature Hagrid,” Harry turned to protest but the groundskeeper was already gone out the door into the pouring rain.

~~~!!!~~~

The present-

“That doesn’t explain anything!” Draco sat back, his eyes burning into Harry’s. Hermione was seated between them, stiffly drinking a glass of dark red wine.

“I think we’re being unkind to Mr. Malfoy, he’s explained so much and yet, you haven’t explained anything,” Hermione looked to her best friend. The raven haired hero looked like he wanted to get up and leave but he couldn’t. He couldn’t keep it in anymore. And now that every one knew that he had a weremanx as a daughter and she obviously wasn’t Ginny’s...well it was a good thing he had already left her.

“Fine, fine. We’ll start at the beginning then,” He sat back with his beer and smirked as he took a deep drink of it. “Remember when I disappeared after Voldemort died? After the war and all the funerals I couldn’t stand being around everyone. Ginny and I, we couldn’t see eye to eye over how everything happened. She wanted me to become an Auror. She wanted me to run for Minister of Magic for fuck’s sake! She wanted me to live up to my fame, to capitalize on it when all I wanted to do was curl up into myself. It felt like a piece of me had died when Voldemort was finally gone, and a piece of me did die,” Harry looked up at the two people he has known longer than anyone else.

“She wanted me to be something I wasn’t so I left,” he growled...

~~~!!!~~~

The Past-

Harry stood looking down on the first home he ever knew. The Dursley’s were long gone. They had ran after they knew they didn’t have to keep him alive anymore. They had shown what kind of cowards they were and did not leave a forwarding address. Pity, he would have enjoyed giving them a piece of his mind now that he wasn’t a helpless little boy anymore. He looked out over London and wondered what he was going to do now. He couldn’t go back to the wizarding world, at least not right now. He needed time to forget. The horrible memories were too vivid, too real for him. Maybe he should travel, go somewhere that interested him. He bought a plane ticket for Ireland and visited all the cairns and mystical places on the isle. The problem with being magical is that no matter how much he tried to blend in with the endless train of tourists, the magical found him.

“You’re Harry Potter,” a man spoke up from the dark doorway of a local pub. Harry didn’t look up, he was three sheets and needed just a little more Guinness to get up the stairs to his room.

“Hey, I said, You’re Harry Potter,” the man slammed his huge, calloused hand down next to Harry who didn’t even jump.

“I heard you just fine,” Harry growled into his pint.

“Then why didn’t you say anything?” The man asked, looking down on him.

“Because I don’t want to deal with anyone that knows who I am,” Harry answered darkly.

“And who are you but a man?” The man pointed out, Harry slowly looked up at the dark man towering over him.

“Who are you?” Harry murmured.

“I am Achin Sheldon. A great supporter of you and your cause. I know that might sound high handed but I am just as I am. I am one of the last of a ancient tribe of peoples that have long been wiped from this world. A trickle of water from what was once a great waterfall,” The man explained, sitting down next to the drunken, fallen hero.

“I don’t really know what you mean,” Harry trailed off, gesturing to the bartender for another.

“You should come to one of our meetings, you might enjoy yourself,” Achin smiled knowingly, Harry perked up at this, something told him that this would be different. This would change his whole life and maybe show him something new in the face of destruction. He had been abandoned by his old cause, now that he had restored peace to the wizarding world, what else could he offer anyone? Was he really meant to settle down and produce children, a country domestic life after all the adventure in his childhood?

TBC