A/N: Meh, thought I'd throw in the next chapter while I'm plugging along

Enjoy!

Metal Wings

Chapter One

Harry Potter was mystified.

Someone had sent him a letter.

No one, ever, sent him anything.

It even had his Cupboard on it! And the address! And everything!

It was for him!

A thrill went through him and, without a thought, the almost-eleven-year-old slipped the large, fancy envelope beneath his shirt, tucking it under the thin, tattered belt he had around his lower ribs, which held all the objects he wanted to sneak away. The large hand-me-down clothes his relatives so "generously" gave him, were really a blessing in disguise.

He could hide all sorts of things under them, without making a bulge or odd shape.

He'd once managed to hide four dinner rolls in his shirt, just before his Uncle Vernon had sent him to his Cupboard, and no one had noticed!

But that was neither here, nor there. Harry quickly returned to the kitchen, handed over the rest of the mail, and washed his dishes.

"I'm going to go for a walk," he informed his relatives softly; Vernon grunted, and Aunt Petunia gave him a dirty look, but neither said anything, which had actually been a recent developement. It had only been two years since his relatives had started becoming, well, milder, and Harry had found a calling he hadn't known he'd have.

His Uncle Vernon's watch had broken, and he'd left it on the table and stormed out. Harry, in a fit of boredom after finishing his chores, had taken the broken watch and taken it apart all over the table. He'd been lost in the mechanics, in the work, and he hadn't heard his Aunt come in, hadn't heard her shouting at him. Something, he didn't know what, had kept her from trying to touch him, but it hadn't stopped her shouting. She'd only stopped when, right in front of her, he had neatly and quickly put the watch, now fixed and better than before, back together with a hum. He had left the watch on the table and wandered off into the back yard to work in the garden.

That night, while he was in his Cupboard, his Aunt and Uncle had talked in hushed whispered in the kitchen, and, the next day, they had cut down his chores and given him several broken appliances and games, and watched as he took apart, fixed, and improved every single one of them.

It hadn't gotten him out of the Cupboard, but he was getting paid for his work in food and some liberties.

Such as being allowed out to walk around the neighborhood without fear of being beaten when he got back to Number Four.

And walking was what he was currently doing, excitement making his heart pound as the strange texture of the letter hidden under his shirt rubbed against his skin. He had gotten a letter! A letter of his very own! And, once he reached his Secret Place, he would get to read it!

And, as he thought that, he arrived.

Number Seven on Bailey Street had been a nice house, once, just like all the houses in the area. A fire when Harry was seven, however, had gutted most of it and no one had bought it since. There was always talk of demolishing it, but no one seemed to want to pay for it. It was labeled as 'condemned' and that was that.

It was now Harry's Secret Place, where he hid and worked on his little projects, and no one bothered him, not even his cousin Dudley and his little gang! ...Though, he didn't know why, as the other boys often "Dared" one another to go into dangerous or off-limits places. Still, Harry was grateful for his little safe haven.

Slipping passed the charred remains of what had once been a home, the short, thin ten-year-old made his way on silent feet to the backyard. There, hidden in the wild, tall grass, black soot, and broken glass, he found the window into the basement. With a gentle push, the window opened without a sound, despite having been locked from the inside just moments before. With a wiggle, the boy neatly slid through the narrow opening, and fell lightly into the dark, landing on the smoke-scented and stained desk directly beneath it. Pulling the window closed behind him, Harry hopped off the desk and moved through the almost-pitch-black room with the ease of memorization.

In the far corner, he pulled a simple cord that was hanging there. With a low thrum, several lights turned on, starting dim and becoming slowly brighter, until the room was thrown into stark relief. There, Harry paused to observe his haven with a pleased, smug smile.

All around the room were his projects and trophies. Jewelry, watches, toys, blankets, cans of food, books and other things. There was a generator in the corner he had made from bits of metal and car parts stolen from various garages. An impressive array of tools were hidden around the room, and the lights hooked onto the walls were carefully-made from lightbulbs and the parts of a broken toaster Number Two had thrown away, a toy robot Dudley's friend Piers had told him he could have in a rare moment of pity, and a computer mouse he'd found on one of his forays into the neighbors homes at night (it was ridiculously easy, when nothing stayed locked for him, and no one ever heard him moving).

Hurrying over to the loan chair he'd put back together, Harry dug the letter out from under his shirt, heart pounding as he scooted up to the desk and carefully pulled up the weird wax seal on the back, ignoring the strange symbol there for the moment. Carefully shaking the letter out of its envelope, he began to read, eyebrows rising

"'Dear Mister Potter'," he muttered aloud, frowning as he went along. "'We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry'? What?"

"Rather strange, those Wizards," a mans voice announced nonchalantly from behind him; Harry spun around, scrambling onto his feet, crouching in his chair and read to lunge away, eyes huge and face pale, spooked. "I never understood why they were always so set on the old-fashioned, just because of tradition," the man snorted, rolling his blue eyes, before staring right back at Harry. He had messy black hair, more curly than Harry's was, and lightly tanned skin, dressed in a pair of soft, faded jeans and a white shirt, worn, comfortable brown running shoes on his feet, with the faintest of wing designs on the sides in silver.

But, what caught Harry's bewildered, frightened attention, was that the man had his eyebrows and nose, and the smile that lit up his bizarrely familiar face, was the same he saw in the mirror after he'd stolen something and almost got caught.

"Man, you're cuter then I thought you'd be," The man told him, still grinning, and Harry found himself sitting back a bit, completely bewildered and staring at the man with confusion.

"Who are you and how'd you get in here?" He asked uncertainly, pointing at his window. "That's the only way in, 'less you want to put a hole in th' ceiling." The man blinked, blue eyes gleaming brighter in the clear lights of Harry's hideout, and his smile became something warmer, fonder, something that Harry had seen his Aunt use on his cousin, but had never, in his memory, been aimed at him.

"Ah, well, that's where things get a little complicated," the man told him easily before, with a snap of his fingers, a comfortable-looking dark purple arm chair appeared behind him, and he perched in it gracefully, grinning at the ten-year-old as he gaped. "I am Hermes, God of Messengers, Travelers, Thieves," here, he winked at Harry, and grinned mischievously, "Roads and Merchants, and am the Messenger of the Gods, but, besides all that, Harry James Potter..." And, suddenly, the grin was gone, and in it's place was that smile from before, the soft, warm one, that made something in Harry's chest hurt and yearn and want.

"I am also your father."

A/N: I've decided that, to keep this slow-working fic going, I'm going to keep to short chapters.

Sorry, but, yeah (Shrugs) This fic is being a bitch, but, there you go. It's going to continue, just slowly.

Ta-Da