Harry Potter and the Children of the Clan

Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Harry walked into the kitchen just as Ginny was shooing the boys off to whatever adventures awaited them for the day. As they dashed past he received loud but fleeting hellos. He turned to watch them disappear through the doorway and then he looked back at Ginny.

"Didn't you tell them?"

"No, I thought if I did they'd want to run right out there. Let's see how long it takes for them to notice anything," she replied as she finished wiping the corners of little Lily's mouth.

Harry looked at his daughter with a smile and said,

"Hello there, Miss, how are you this morning?"

"Good, daddy."

"Tea, Harry?" Ginny asked.

"No, thank you. I should probably get my head down for a nap."

Having finished with her daughter, Ginny took a good look at her husband for the first time that morning. She nodded as she saw the fatigue.

"I think you're right, sweetheart, you do look done in, but first, tell me something. What exactly were you two talking about all night?"

Harry gave her a tired smile and said,

"Quite a number of things, actually. But mostly the big fellow was looking for answers to questions he had about a lot of what he's seen since we went our separate ways. Apparently the world has changed a great deal since he last took a good look."

"He didn't see any of that while he was traveling with you?"

"Some, but let's face it, Gin. I'm not all that well traveled. I may know more about the wider world than most wizards but that still leaves a lot of unknowns. I answered what I could but there were still a lot of holes. I promised I'd see what I could find out for him between now and his next visit."

"Sounds a bit one sided, if you ask me," Ginny offered.

"Not really. We did spend some time discussing how he and I wound up partners, so to speak," he replied.

Ginny looked at her husband for a moment and then said with no little exasperation,

"And?"

"How it happens we don't know. Why he and I, it was his choice. He didn't go into any great detail but he apparently thought I was the most interesting creature he's come across in a very long time."

"Creature?" Ginny asked.

"His words," Harry replied while stifling a bit of a yawn.

"Well I suppose I should be letting you get some sleep. What do we do if your big friend wakes up before you do?"

"No worries. He'll wake me up. Just keep the kids and animals away from him. I can't imagine him doing anything on purpose but I don't know how he'd react if he was startled awake," Harry told her.

"I think I should have a talk with my brother," she said. "Charlie never mentioned anything about waking a sleeping dragon."

"For good reason," Harry said with a chuckle as he turned to leave the kitchen. "You don't do it."

As he made his way to the bedroom Harry knew that most of what he shared with the dragon wouldn't be openly discussed with anyone. Some of it was personal and some so fantastic as to be beyond belief. Between the revelations of the cavern, Merlin's Tome and now the true nature of the dragon, Harry wasn't sure what was truly real and what was illusion.

As he prepared himself for sleep and crawled under the bed covers he thought about one of the fundamental questions the usually solitary creature put to him. What was it about humans that compelled them to congregate in unimaginably large numbers, especially at the edges of water? Harry tried to explain the economic reality of closeness to easy transportation, the joining together for the purposes of defense and the call of a watery home to all land dwelling animals, mankind included.