Chapter 2

It had been a very, very long day. All Harry wanted to do right now, was head up to his quarters, strip to his skin, and slide into the strong yet gentle embrace of his lover's arms while soaking in a deep tub full of hot water. Unfortunately, what he had to do right now, was head to his office & fill out all the paperwork that had been steadily piling up over the course of the day.

He couldn't, for the life of him, understand how all this crap managed to coalesce all at once, in one day. First of all had been the disastrous six-broom pile up early that morning, when a bunch of Eyas students (first year trainees) got distracted from what they were supposed to be doing, which was tailing Charlie Weasley, for their evasive flying lesson that day. Said distraction came in the form of a rampaging immature wyvern which Charlie was planning on presenting to his Passager students (second year trainees) for their Defense Against Dark Creatures (DADC) class later that afternoon.

It had taken Charlie & half of his Haggard (third year trainee) DADC students nearly an hour to finally corner the little beast, and it should be understood that "little"in this case was the size of a draft horse. Not quite old enough yet to have poison in its sting, the wyvern was still able to fire off the spines that surrounded this formidable weapon at the bulbous end of its tail, & it put them to good use. Ten trainees in all, the six eyases and four of the haggards, were out of commission for at least a week.

Amon Mendelson, their field medic, was in his element however, and a little too excited to have such good victims subjects for his own students to practice on. Of those ten students however, three had to be sent up to Madam Pomfrey, the aging but ever capable matron at Hogwarts, for further convalesce. All three had severe head trauma, two from the broom collision, and the third who got a little too close to the wyvern despite Charlie warning him away, and took a face full of spines at close range. He would have a good deal of scarring, and may yet loose the left eye, but Poppy was confident that that was likely to be the only permanent damage.

Exactly how the young wyvern had gotten free of its enclosure was still under investigation, and as Charlie was adamant that the beast was heavily sedated with both spells and potions, and that his security charms had been flawless, it was beginning to look like the draconic relative had been set loose, weather by accident or design had yet to be determined.

Then later that day, to add insult to injury, a haggard student in Angela Hephering's Herbology class got snagged by an unnoticed Venomous Tentacula vine slipping in from the green house next door. She hadn't been seriously hurt, it was only a scratch, and was lucky enough to have a slight resistance to the venom, but even so, she was on bed rest for the next fortnight. This had hit a little too close to home for both Harry and Charlie, and just thinking about it stopped Harry in his tracks as he was taken back to a similar, though far more tragic, event.

Just over four years ago now, Ginny had been on a short leave from captaining the Holyhead Harpies. She had wanted to say hi to Neville and Luna, both professors up at Hogwarts (and also married), before starting up the intensive training she was about to put her team through in preparation for the next Quidditch World Cup that was to be hosted in Italy that summer, between Italy & England. After a nice afternoon tea with Luna, who had taken over for Hagrid after he retired the year before, she had gone up to see Neville, who was with a second year class in greenhouse three.

All the kids in the double class were a bit in awe of her. After all, it wasn't every day that a famous international quidditch star just dropped in to say hello to your Herbology professor, now was it. Needless to say, with Neville's attention somewhat diverted, and the over enthusiastic reception from the students, what started as a simple debate over who knew more about her, quickly escalated into a bout of one-upmanship, and further escalated into amateur dueling.

In an attempt to assist Neville in breaking up the fight, Ginny had been hit by a poorly aimed full body bind curse and fell backwards, straight into the resident venomous tentacula. A single bite from such a plant is enough to render a full grown man comatose, & three can be fatal. Ginny received no less than twelve bites before Neville was able to disentangle her from the vines. She was gone before Neville could even send off his patronous to alert Madam Pomfrey.

As there was not much time left to that school year, the entire class received detention every Saturday for not only the remainder, but also for the whole of the following year, and as they would all be third years by then, they had been banned from all Hogsmeade weekends as well, signed permission forms or not. The two students who were actually responsible for the fight were expelled, pending a disciplinary hearing to see if that expulsion would be permanent.

It was Minerva McGonagall, her arm around a sobbing Neville, who informed Harry about the incident, and later his children and the rest of the Weasley family as well. Predictably, Molly took it the hardest, even more so than Harry. Ginny had been her baby, her only daughter, the light of her life, and after loosing Fred too, despite all the time between the two tragedies, it was just too much. She spent the next year and a half in the psych ward at St. Mungo's, and even now still met with a councilor on a regular basis.

Harry, Molly, and indeed the whole family were quite adamant and firm that they blamed Neville in absolutely NO way shape or form! Nor indeed did they really blame the students. This had been an accident, plain and simple. An avoidable accident, true, but an accident none the less, resulting from typical and predictable youthful house rivalry, and they were satisfied with the punishments handed out.

All of this was of course not to say that Harry wasn't devastated as well. He secluded himself with his children in their family apartments in The Academe, not even leaving for meals, which were brought up to them. James and Albus were surprisingly strong & supportive, both of each other, him, and especially Lilly, who probably took her mother's death the hardest after Harry. She did not speak again for an entire year after the funeral, & Harry would have bet that this alone was responsible for her being sorted into Slytherin House the following September, that is, had he not known that she was a Marauder-in-the-Making long before even James had been. This at least brought a smile to his lips as Harry once again began the slow trek up the stairs to his office.

The biggest comfort through the whole ordeal however, had been Charlie. He had been a teacher and Deputy Headmaster at the Phoenix Academe ever sense it had been opened, and so was on hand 24/7 to provide support for the Potters. He was the one who brought them their meals, kept Harry posted on the affairs of the Academe, offered encouragement and support, and was a shoulder to cry on when any of them needed it. Harry wasn't quite sure just exactly when he had begun to develop feelings for the burly dragon-tamer-turned-professor. He had known that he himself was bisexual for quite some time though.

After the war, he & Ginny had not immediately gotten back together. He had needed to take some time to himself for a while. It was the first time in almost his whole life that he didn't have anything life threatening to worry about, & he wanted to take things slowly for a while and just enjoy being alive. He was finally free to just sit & think, to explore, and to understand just exactly who he was.

He hadn't completely vanished though. He kept in contact with his friends, and with Ginny. She had needed some time as well, and they both had the understanding that they weren't bound to each other, and that if, in the future, they still wanted one another, then maybe something would come of it, but for now, they were free. Harry traveled the world, seeing many sites and having some real fun, even learning a bit here and there from other wizards along the way.

His first homosexual experience happened about two months after he had left England. He was sunning himself on a beach in Australia, when the sun had suddenly been blocked.

"G'day mate," was the stereotypical greeting.

Harry opened his eyes to be confronted by a very well built, very naked, Maori boy, maybe a year or two older than himself. "You're not from around here, are you," continued the dark skinned boy, taking in Harry's lean, pale form. "You're starting to burn. I've got some coconut oil in me pack, if u want i can give u some. M'name's Marama by the way, it means "moonlight".

Harry looked up & down the beach. It was still very early in the season and the nearest people looked to be about a mile away. He sat up and stretched out his hand, shaking Marama's, "I'm Harry, nice to meet you Marama, and the oil sounds lovely actually. We don't get much sun in England so I admit I was a bit unprepared."

They smiled easily at each other. Marama had dropped his pack & towel only about two or three feet from where Harry sat, and the black haired young man was treated to an unobstructed view of the very well muscled backside of the Maori boy.

"I didn't realize this was a nude beach," Harry said. Being around other naked males was nothing new to Harry, he had had many an eye-full in the dorm and quidditch showers, but for some reason, this boys was having a very obvious effect on him.

"Well, strictly speaking, it usually isn't," Marama smiled ruefully at him over his shoulder, "but I figured, seeing as there's really no one here, and it's fairly warm out, why not enjoy it."

Harry made an affirmative grunt and continued to glance at the boy's ass, an action not missed by Marama either. Smiling to him self, he made looking for the oil a bit more of a task than it needed to be, just to prolong the moment, before finally standing up with a triumphant exclamation and turning to show Harry the bottle. That was not the only thing he had to show however, as Marama's awareness of Harry's observations had had the same effect on him as they had on Harry.

Deciding to take a chance, Marama said, "Go ahead and flip over and I'll get your back for you."

Taking only a moment to consider, Harry turned over. What ensued was one of the most pleasurable experiences of Harry's young life, culminating in him spending the next five days in the company of the beautiful young Maori, learning and exploring all the wonderful ways in which two young men can make each other feel good. Harry was truly sorry to leave the Land Down Under, but he knew that there were many other adventures yet ahead of him on his journey of self understanding. He had many other encounters, both with men and with women, both magical and mundane. He learned the secrets of eastern meditation and the wisdom of Native American spirit guides. He deciphered spells of protection in the tombs of Pharaohs, and created bind runes in the traditions of the ancient Norse. He traveled the world, learning and growing as both a man and a wizard, and through it all, he told Ginny everything. Their bond of love grew, despite the physical separation, and when he finally returned home, nearly five years later, they knew they were meant for each other. Two years later, James was born, and Harry finally had the family he had always dreamed of.

Now Ginny was gone, taken just four months before Lilly started her first year at Hogwarts. But now he had Charlie, and his family was complete again. The children all loved him, and while it had been a bit difficult and awkward at first, eventually the rest of Harry's friends and family became supportive as well. Harry supposed that it had also helped that Seamus had finally pulled his sandy head out of his Irish ass and declared his love for Dean, in front of everyone, at Harry's birthday party the year before Ginny passed. Again Harry paused on the steps, looking out the east windows towards Hogwarts. Laughing silently, he remembered that Dean had been so surprised that he...

What was that? There had been a flash of blue-white light from what he knew to be the Headmistress's office. Then, approaching at a swift and steady pace, was the bright and ghostly form of a cat. It passed through the window as if it weren't even there, and came to rest at Harry's feet. He recognized the square spectacle markings around the patronous's eyes, and quite expectantly McGonagall's voice issued forth from it, a note of urgency clearly audible.

"Harry, I need you, now. I have an intruder in my office, a young boy about Albus's age. Dumbledore seams to know him, but I would like to have you here just in case. The window will be open." And with that, the cat vanished.

Waiving his hand at the window, which opened silently, Harry threw himself out of it. As he dropped the wind whipped back his hat, only for it to be caught under his chin on its leather thong. Just before he hit the ground, Harry shifted, becoming a large falcon, completely jet black, with the exception of a jagged line of stark white feathers running from his beak down the back of his head. As he winged his way to the Head of Hogwarts' office, he had only one thought on his mind; 'Now what?'

AN-

Ok, so, finally, chapter 2 is up. I know its been a very long time sense I started this story, but I kinda lost steam with it till recently. Admittedly, the lack of RFF's was a bit of a blow to my ego too. But I've lately been looking at it & decided that it was worth coming back to. I can't promise regular updates just yet, & I'm still not just exactly where I'm going to take this, but I have a better idea now than when I wrote the first chapter all those years ago. So, please RFF, any suggestions would be appreciated, & hears to having another chapter up ASAP!