PROLOGUE

Help When You Need It

The evening was dark and cold despite the general warmth and light of the month of May. Perhaps the reason for the dismal weather was that this particular night was occurring in England, and English weather certainly leaves a lot to be desired on the most part - or, perhaps the weather was reflecting the mood of the scruffy and exhausted looking teenager that was trudging down a residential area called Muswell Hill in the North of London.

The boy - Harry was his name - was the object of quite a few odd looks from some of the people living in the houses on the street he was walking down, as the area he was in was quite affluent with its perfectly trimmed hedges and polished front doors. So it was that the residents of the street never really tended to see grubby looking teenagers limping past their small front courtyards.

One elderly man, who was watering his small flower box before retiring indoors for his evening snack, saw the boy, and feeling sympathetic towards him given the fact that he remembered looking like that before he began working for a living and "got his arse in gear", decided to ask whether he was all right.

The boy - Harry - stopped and looked to the old man when questioned about his well-being.

'I - er -' Harry stuttered. 'I'm looking for my brother. Do you know number forty-eight?' He had a rather odd voice - it was a strange and eclectic mix of both American and English, as if he was from one country and then had lived in the other for a long time.

'Yes,' The old man replied, smiling, to which Harry returned in kind half-heartedly. 'Just a couple of doors down that way.'

'Thank you.' Harry said sincerely, before once more attempting to smile. Apparently, something was preventing him from putting too much effort into anything much, and so he turned and carried on walking after his failed attempt of cheerfulness.

The elderly man finished watering his flowers and smiled bemusedly, wishing the strange, limping teenager all the best.

Harry stood outside of the tall house, steeling himself for what was to come. He could already feel himself breaking inside, slowly - the battle was taking it's toll on both his head and body.

Of course, some were much more noticeable than others. His ankle would probably never be the same again, given how long he had left it without medical care and the fact that he had been actively using it whilst it was mangled. His chest - the place where Voldemort had sent the killing curse - ached without relenting, a permanent reminder as to what had happened just a day previously, when the battle that had given so much but taken so much more had happened.

Harry was sure that he had somehow fractured or bruised one or more of his ribs, judging by the way that it hurt so much to breathe - but it was the pain of the deaths of his friends that hurt so much more. He could only be grateful that his brother was safe, alive and well - even if he was bound to be angry and secretly hurt that Harry seemed to have completely cut him out of his life for the past year to go hunting for Horcrux's.

Not that he knew about the Horcrux's, despite knowing about the Wizarding Word. Harry let out a low and humourless laugh. His brother didn't even know about Voldemort's return, let alone the battle that had just taken place.

Shaking himself out of his thoughts, Harry raised his hand and despite his hand wavering and hesitating slightly, he pulled the lion door knocker and let it fall back against the brass base of it with a loud clack that Harry was certain his older brother would hear.

It was not one minute later that the heavy door opened to reveal a hassled looking Pepper, talking quickly on the sleek phone that she held between her tilted head and her shoulder, with one hand on the door knob and the other holding an expensive looking tablet that Harry hoped wouldn't blow up with his presence.

'I'm sorry, but Mr. Stark's official meeting hours are between - no, I assure you Sir, no amount of money would - yes, I take note twice daily of the stock markets, but they are not an indicator of - Harry?'

Pepper gawped at Harry as the voice on the other end of the phone got progressively more angry before hanging up with loud and obscene swear words. Pepper paid them no mind as she placed the phone roughly on the windowsill.

'Oh my God,' she said slowly, taking a step back in shock. 'Oh my God why are you - how did you - Tony! Tony! Get here right now! TONY!'

Harry tensed as he heard the whining shout of his brother echo down the stairs. 'Pepper, you know I'm trying to program -'

The thumping sounds of Tony's footsteps coming down the stairs halted as soon as he saw Harry standing stiffly in the door frame. In a rather uncouth manner that Harry was sure the world would be shocked to see Tony Stark pull, Tony's jaw hung off his skull gormlessly with his eyes positively popping out of his head in shock.

'Harry …' he said quietly, and Harry closed his eyes, hands dropping to his sides limply as he anticipated his brother's angry shouts. He heard the metallic crashing sound of the strange contraption that Tony had been holding in his hand whilst walking down the stairs falling to the tiled floor, and his hands clenched into fists just a second before a strong force and a warmth covered him completely.

'Harry, why the hell - where have you been? I was so damn worried about you I couldn't get to you for a whole year, you know how bad that makes me feel as an older brother I tried everything I couldn't even - you had a really expensive Christmas present too why'd you have to be away for Christmas oh my God, where the hell where you -'

Harry opened his eyes in shock. 'You're not - aren't you angry? You should be -'

'What?' Tony stepped away from Harry and straightened his shoulders, rubbing his nose gruffly. 'Why would I be angry? You wouldn't have left for a year without good reason - I mean, for the first month I was pretty damn pissed off when you replied to literally nothing but then I realised that Harry wouldn't do that and he would tell me if something was really bad but then I thought no he wouldn't, he'd pull some hero trash like that time at the beach when he -'

'That's enough!' Harry said loudly, clearing his throat as he felt a hot redness creep up from his neck and onto his cheeks. 'Nobody wants to relive that. I was twelve.'

Tony grinned and threw his arm around Harry, to which he winced and shrugged off his brother's shoulder when he gave Harry an odd look.

'Harry …' Said Tony slowly, eyes uncharacteristically concerned. 'Why …?'

'Inside.' Harry replied shortly, not caring if his tone was cutting - and it seems, neither did Tony, who simply looked around briefly at the quiet and now empty street and gestured for Harry to enter the spacious entryway.

It was half an hour later, of which was filled with annoyed tea making ('Why can't you just drink coffee, you're not even English -' 'First eleven years of my life Tony, first eleven years.') and lots of hugging off of Pepper before she retired, exhausted to her room, when Tony finally stopped Harry from skirting around the edges of the issue.

'What is this really about?' Tony asked, crossing his arms as they sat beside each other on a plush and expensive looking sofa. 'You turn up after a year of nothing? Where did you go? Why did you -'

'He came back.' Harry blurted out, the complicated and nicer ways of breaking the news evading his conscious thought as the blunt statement left his suddenly dry lips.

There was a long and pregnant pause before a slow questioning of who emerged from Harry's left. Harry gulped.

'The - you know my, er, adoptive parents. You know they got murdered, yeah?' Tony nodded, frowning. 'The man - Voldemort - came back.'

'But - but he died! Some magic voo-doo killed him off didn't it?' Spluttered Tony, quips that Harry would usually glare at him for leaving his mouth without a spec of thought. 'Did they lie to you? Tell you that he was gone when -' A dark look passed over the older Stark's face.

'No …' Harry interrupted. 'The entire world thought he was dead. But he - well, he ensured he would be able to come back. Made him less than human, but he was still alive. That's all he cared about, really.'

Normal Tony would have been firing questions left, right and centre at Harry by this point in their conversation, but this Tony was not normal Tony. This Tony was calm, not the public's Tony but the real Tony - the man who, when still a teenager, had taken in a small boy who had been neglected by his not-so-related relatives when an old adoption paper found after his parents' death revealed there was another Stark across the pond. This Tony knew how to do one thing well above anything else - be a big brother. Even if he didn't quite and probably never would know it himself.

A long silence was occupied by the crackling of flames in the large open fireplace, technology strangely absent in the old antique-like room surrounding the brothers.

'You say it in the past tense,' Tony said hesitantly. 'You say he was alive. Did somebody find a way to finish him off for definite? Was it that Dumbledore guy?'

Harry felt the tears of guilt and anguish of his deeds and the happenings of the past year well up, unwanted, in his eyes.

'I did, Tony,' Came the chocked voice of Harry that even he didn't recognise. 'It was me. There was a prophecy, and he believed it even though - even though it wasn't even meant for me because they weren't even my real parents. It wasn't meant to happen to me, it didn't even apply to me but he thought - everyone thought that I was the Chosen One. The Saviour. But - he came back when I was fourteen and he killed - he killed so many people, Tony, I can't even think of them all and he killed my Godfather and Dumbledore and Fred and Lupin and Tonks and they just had a baby, Tony, and I'm it's Godfather -'

Harry was crying; there was no denying the hot, salty tears that were wetting his face. Tony didn't call him weak, and he didn't even seem to mind, however - Tony just stared at Harry as if he was seeing right through him, eyes looking distant and glassy and so dull, so lifeless without their usual spark of innovation and imagination behind them.

Harry was met with more silence and so he carried on, relieved to finally be able to spill out his innermost feelings and the events of his life that weren't known by the Daily Prophet and the entire world that seemed to read it either.

'There was a battle, Tony, but so many people died and the castle was destroyed and I don't know what to do anymore … I killed him, Tony. I'm a murderer. He was bad; he was evil, but I still killed him. And I killed everyone else in that stupid battle too, because if I hadn't - I should've gone into that bloody forest sooner and the nobody would - more people would be - they'd be there for their son and he wouldn't feel even a little bit like I used to -'

His voice caught in his throat as it seemed to run out, his last energy stores spent on the exhausting task of speaking coherently - even if the likelihood was that none of that made sense to Tony.

Positively sobbing, the only words Harry could get out of his mouth were apologies to the dead who were most likely sneering down at him in disgust, and to those that had lost their loved ones - like George.

A warm and comforting arm wrapped around his shoulders and pulled him closer towards his brother.

'So you really have been through the wars,' Tony said half-heartedly, Harry without the energy to say something clever or useful.

'I killed them.' Harry murmured. 'It's all my fault …'

Tony's tone changed to deadly seriousness abruptly. 'You didn't kill them Harry, I know that and I'm not even involved. Did you pull the trigger? Did you cast that killing spell at those people?'

'No,' Harry said, lowering his head and going into hiss shell once again. His reluctant answer seemed to stir something in Tony, as Tony pulled him arm tighter around his little brother.

'You are not at fault for this,' Tony said angrily. 'You got rid of this Voldemort guy. Tell me, how many people would he have killed if you hadn't stopped him? Exactly - hundreds more.'

Harry offered a watery smile, just before he coughed suddenly and wheezed from his injured rib and chest.

'Harry!' Tony shouted in alarm, standing up quickly with his arms flapping slightly as he tried to think of what to do.

'It's okay,' Harry said blearily, clutching his side. 'I've just got a bruised rib I think, I must have fallen on something -'

'You were in a battle, for God's sake Harry, why didn't you get it fixed up sooner? Anything else you want to tell me before you keel over and collapse?' His brother's voice sounded worried - something that Harry could hardly remember ever happening in all the years he had known of his brother.

Harry decided to come clean. It would work out better in the long run, he thought.

'I may have mangled my ankle,' He said, grimacing as he admitted to his injury. 'I mean, I haven't used it much - you don't have to get bandages seriously Tony -'

Tony, now standing in the door frame with a small mound of bandage clutched in his hand with some kind of blue tape in the other, sighed.

'Harry,' he said, with another long-suffering sigh. 'When will you realize that it's my job to worry. I'm your older brother, it's what we do.' Tony rolled his eyes and walked out of the room, stomping up the stairs two at a time. 'Don't move!' He shouted down, and Harry grinned, previous worries banished to the back to his mind despite their severity.

It was nice to have family.

- Specific ages and circumstances will be established later on in the story, but for now, just know that Tony is younger than he is in the film and that the Harry Potter timeline has been moved up to meet in the middle with the Avengers. This is purely to make the timeline work; ages and such won't be important to the plot, but I wanted to get it all straightened out anyway.

I have an important question! Would you like this story to be during the Avengers film, or just after with a new villain eventually?

Thank you so much for reading this, and apologies for any spelling and/or grammar mistakes!