Title: Harry Potter: Wizkid
Author: Joshua
Disclaimer: Marvel Universe will forever and for all time be the sole property of Stan Lee (and/or his Successor), while the HP Universe was written and created by JK Rowling, and since I am neither of those people, I don't get to make any money from this. I'm just doing it cause it's fun! Spoilers for the book "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" which is the American version of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", quite simply because I am American and that's the only copy I have access to. The version of X-Men and Marvel Universe that I'm using is based upon the version I know best, pre-Movies from the comics, IE late 1990's Marvel Comics. But do not expect any spoilers for any of the issues that detail Earth-616, rather consider this a whole other Earth-Marvelverse. I haven't picked a number yet.
Summary: AU X-over HP / Marvel Universe. Harry Potter's a Wizard, Mutant, Student, and the Boy-Who-Lived. He has to deal with things from controlling his powers, learning magic, playing Quidditch, and keeping evil wizards, mutants, and aliens from killing him. Then his friends get involved, and things really get messy! Year One begins!
Author's Notes: This was inspired, partially, by the HP/X-Men crossover trilogy by "Harry Potter and the Children of the Atom by Classic Cowboy". A really good story worth reading, even if it goes so AU, I don't even bother reading it as anything but. Portions of this story also reflect my growing annoyance at everybody that immediately or 9 times out of 10 place Ron and the rest of the Weasleys as "pawns of Dumbledore" or "selfish, greedy purebloods that struck gold by being nice to Harry" and portray Ron as nothing but faults and Ginny as nothing but a slut. So, for a bit of flavor, I'm trying out the opposite end of the spectrum for once. After all, intentional or not, almost all of the Weasleys are named after one or more of King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table, so I am doing my best to make these characters in my story reflect that rather than stay true to HP canon.
Year One
Kings Cross Station
Downtown London
September 1st 10:45 AM
"We're cutting it rather close, aren't we?" Brian asked as the team of British superheroes disembarked the rented van and quickly loaded up a trolley with all of Harry's school things.
"It's not my fault you got us lost in the parking garage," Wanda argued back at him. "Somebody keep track of Meggan, please. Kurt? Brian and I will take Harry in. Say your goodbyes now. If you want, we'll see you at Christmas, OK Harry?"
"Right," Harry grinned nervously up at the Scarlet Witch. He quickly turned and said his goodbyes to the rest of Excalibur that had come with them. Even a heavily-distracted Meggan, who'd been to London before, but whenever you put her in a crowd of more than a few people, she got very easily distracted.
Once everybody had been hugged and promised to write to, Harry, Brian, and Wanda all walked into Kings Cross Station, alongside a normal looking young man that had black hair in the same style as Kurt's, baby blue eyes, and smooth white skin. How his Image Inducer hid the tail, Harry couldn't begin to guess.
Pretty soon they were on the section between Platforms 9 and 10, and Wanda was explaining how the barrier worked when at that moment a group of people passed just behind him and he caught a few words of what they were saying. "... packed with Muggles, of course..."
Harry swung round. The speaker was a plump woman who was talking to four boys, all with flaming red hair. Each of them was pushing a trunk like Harry's in front of him—and they had an owl. Wanda noticed that Harry was no longer paying attention to her and turned to see who he was looking at.
"Molly? Molly Prewitt, is that you?" she screeched in that way women do when they see an old friend.
The plump redheaded woman stopped and turned to look at who had called her name, as did the boys around her. It was then that Harry finally noticed the cute young red haired girl that had been hiding behind who could only be the children's mother.
"Oh my heavens," Molly gasped, "Can it be? No, surely not! Wanda Maximoff! Arthur told me you'd gone to America, last he heard from you. We've always wondered what happened to you!"
Like two locomotives on the same track, the two red haired women crashed together in a hug, making all those indecipherable noises women make when they hug an old friend they haven't seen for a long time. Finally, Brian Braddock, the bravest man in England and the superhero known as Captain Britain, cleared his throat and grabbed the women's attention away from each other.
"Um, excuse me, ladies," he pointed at the Barrier. "The train?"
"Oh, how silly of me," Molly became flustered, looking Brian up and down for a moment. "Is this your husband, Wanda? Sending your first one off to Hogwarts, I see."
"What?" Wanda yelped, drawing a bit of attention. "What? No! No, no, no, no, NO. Brian is not my husband, fiancé, nor boyfriend. He's just a friend, who is involved with another of my friends. We're just here to give Harry some help in getting on the train and whatnot. Speaking of which..."
"Right. Now, what's the platform number?" Molly asked, absentmindedly.
"They finally did that work on the rails then?" Wanda asked. Molly nodded, commenting herself, "It was horrid I tell you. They finally switched it to another hidden track while the platform was worked on for the past few years. They just changed it again this year, and with all my boys I can hardly keep up as is. Oh, what is that platform number?"
"Nine and three-quarters!" piped the small girl, also red-headed, who was holding her hand, "Mom, can't I go..."
"You're not old enough, Ginny, now be a good girl. All right, Percy, you go first."
What looked like the oldest boy marched toward platforms nine and ten. Harry watched, careful not to blink in case he missed it—but just as the boy reached the dividing barrier between the two platforms, a large crowd of tourists came swarming in front of him and by the time the last backpack had cleared away, the boy had vanished.
"Fred, you next," Molly said.
"I'm not Fred, I'm George," said the boy. "Honestly, woman, you call yourself our mother? Can't you tell I'm George?"
"Sorry, George, dear."
"Only joking, I am Fred," said the boy, and off he went. His twin called after him to hurry up, and he must have done so, because a second later, he had gone—but how had he done it?
Now the third brother was walking briskly toward the barrier he was almost there—and then, quite suddenly, he wasn't anywhere.
"How are they doing that?" Harry asked Wanda. She giggled a bit and then stepped forward.
"Molly, dear, would you mind terribly if Harry went next. It's his first time and all," she asked.
"Oh, of course not," Molly replied, looking over at Harry. "Hello, dear. First time at Hogwarts? Ron's new, too." She pointed at the last and youngest of her sons. He was tall, thin, and gangly, with freckles, big hands and feet, and a long nose.
"Yeah," he answered her with more confidence than he might once have if he'd been alone. "And Wanda's been great at explaining everything, but I'm still not sure... exactly... how to..."
"How to get onto the platform?" she said kindly, and Harry nodded.
"Not to worry," she said. "All you have to do is walk straight at the barrier between platforms nine and ten. Don't stop and don't be scared you'll crash into it, that's very important. Best do it at a bit of a run if you're nervous. Go on, go now before Ron."
"Er, OK," said Harry.
He pushed his trolley around and stared at the barrier. It looked very solid. He started to walk toward it. People jostled him on their way to platforms nine and ten. Harry walked more quickly. He was going to smash
right into that barrier and then he'd be in trouble, leaning forward on his cart, he broke into a heavy run. The barrier was coming nearer and nearer... he wouldn't be able to stop... the cart was out of control... he was a foot away... he closed his eyes ready for the crash...
It didn't come... he kept on running... he opened his eyes. A scarlet steam engine was waiting next to a platform packed with people. A sign overhead said Hogwarts Express, eleven O'clock. Harry looked behind him and saw a wrought-iron archway where the barrier had been, with the words Platform Nine and Three-Quarters on it. He had done it.
Smoke from the engine drifted over the heads of the chattering crowd, while cats of every color wound here and there between their legs. Owls hooted to one another in a disgruntled sort of way over the babble and the scraping of heavy trunks. The first few carriages were already packed with students, some hanging out of the window to talk to their families, some fighting over seats.
Harry pushed his cart off to the side and before long Ron, his mother and sister stepped through, followed very shortly by Wanda and Brian. "Wow," he whispered in amazement at the whole other world he'd, literally, just stepped into.
"C'mon, Harry," Brian said, grabbing Hedwig and his trunk, "Let's find you a compartment while Wanda and her friend catch up."
Harry just nodded, and absently said, "Right."
On their way down the train length, they came across a rather disturbing scene, of a young bushy brown haired girl, obviously a First Year like Harry, struggling with her trunk while a bunch of upperclassmen, that happened to already be dressed in the school robes, were laughing at her attempts to struggle with the trunk and get it on the train. Harry absently took note of the fact that the patches on their robes were colored green with a silver snake on them.
Without him having to say anything, Brian handed Hedwig to Harry and then quickly picked up the trunk for the young girl. "Need a hand, here?" he offered her.
"Oh!" she startled, then looked up, and up, and up into Brian's over-six-foot frame and blond hair, blue eyes, and (according to all the women Harry'd heard talk about him) handsome face. "Uh, thank you. Thank you very much, sir."
"Not a problem at all. Why don't we find you two a compartment to sit in. Ah, here's one," he entered the train in the next-to-last compartment and quickly and easily stuffed both trunks into the luggage carrier. Harry brought Hedwig up with himself and easily settled into the seat next to the brown haired girl.
"Thank you very much for your help," she said to Brian.
"Not a problem at all, glad I could be of help. Harry, I'm pretty sure Wanda is going to want to say a few more goodbyes, so let's get it over with while we've got the time," he chuckled.
"Right," Harry nodded and followed the older man out of the train.
Just as they were coming up to Wanda, who was still next to her old school friend, Harry saw the woman bring out a handkerchief and pull her youngest son to her, "Ron, you've got something on your nose."
The youngest boy tried to jerk out of the way, but she grabbed him and began rubbing the end of his nose. "Mom! Geroff!" He wriggled free.
"Aaah, has ickle Ronnie got somefink on his nosie?" said one of the twins.
"Shut up," said Ron.
"Where's Percy?" said their mother.
"He's coming now."
The oldest boy came striding into sight. He had already changed into his billowing black Hogwarts robes, and Harry noticed a shiny silver badge on his chest with the letter P on it. "Can't stay long, Mother," he said. "I'm up front, the prefects have got two compartments to themselves..."
"Oh, are you a prefect, Percy?" said one of the twins, with an air of great surprise. "You should have said something, we had no idea."
"Hang on, I think I remember him saying something about it," said the other twin. "Once..."
"Or twice..."
"A minute..."
"All summer..."
"Oh, shut up," said Percy the Prefect.
"How come Percy gets new robes, anyway?" said one of the twins.
"Because he's a prefect," said their mother fondly. "All right, dear, well, have a good term... send me an owl when you get there."
She kissed Percy on the cheek and he left. Then she turned to the twins.
"Now, you two. This year, you behave yourselves. If I get one more owl telling me you've-you've blown up a toilet or..."
"Blown up a toilet? We've never blown up a toilet."
"Great idea though, thanks, Mom."
"It's not funny. And look after Ron."
"Don't worry, ickle Ronniekins is safe with us."
"Shut up," said Ron again. He was almost as tall as the twins already and his nose was still pink where his mother had rubbed it.
"Oh, there you are, Harry," Wanda suddenly spoke up, after having watched this amusing display of family antics. "Don't think I'm letting this train leave without you saying goodbye first!"
"Wouldn't dream of it, Teach," Harry chuckled, hugging the woman that had shown him who he really was, and given him the key to what he could become. "And if it makes you feel any better, thanks to Brian here, I've already made a new friend."
"Oh? I take it she's an attractive upperclassman?" Wanda giggled.
"No, First Year like me," Harry grinned maliciously up at the superhero, who was cursing himself under his breath. Wanda looked up at the tall, attractive man and joked at him, "Grabbing them a bit young, aren't you Braddock? And what would Meggan say?"
"Oh shut up," Brian blushed and turned away.
Just then the train whistled and everyone still on the Platform became a bit frantic. "Hurry up!" Molly practically shoved all her boys onto the train, while Brian helped Harry back to his compartment. In the mad scramble it was hard to say what exactly happened, but it all resulted with Harry getting back to his compartment with the girl, Hermione, and Ron following after him. By the time everything was settled, Ron's trunk was next to his, and they were sitting in the compartment across from Hermione and another First Year, a round-faced boy Harry had seen talking to his grandmother about a missing toad on the Platform.
The train was moving by the time that, besides him and Hermione, nobody really knew who everybody else was. "Hi," he said to break the ice, "uh... so, I guess we're all First Years?"
"I'm Hermione Granger, first witch in my family, if you must know," the lone girl in the cabin introduced herself. It was a bit startling, but it started off the introductions.
"Uh... I-I'm Neville L-Longbottom," the round-faced boy introduced himself. His pocket croaked as his toad tried to leap to freedom, only to be caught by Harry at the last possible second. "Thanks," said Neville.
"I'm Ron Weasley," the redhead, freckle-faced boy said, almost like he was embarrassed about it.
Harry took a deep breath and decided to bite the bullet, so to speak. Wanda had warned him about the possible reactions his name would give him, not all of them pleasant, but undoubtedly many would be uncomfortable for him.
"I'm Harry. Harry Potter," he finally said.
"No way!" Ron's face dropped in open shock.
"Are you really?" Hermione's face was similar to that of Beast's when a new object of curiosity passed under his nose. On her though, it was kind of cute. Not that he cared about that kind of thing.
"Wow," was all Neville could say, staring and star-struck.
"I've read all about you," Hermione started to recite the articles and books she'd read that had his name mentioned in them, and he mostly tuned her out until he finally had had enough. "I got a few extra books, for background reading, and you're in Modern Magical History and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century."
"I've read'em," he grunted, and unfortunately he had. When he asked Wanda about the same subject all those articles talked about, he was highly disappointed with the answer. Before Hermione could start up again, he interrupted her, "Can we change the subject please? I know what those articles all say, but to be perfectly honest, nobody really knows what happened the night my parents were murdered by a psychopath."
"Oh, I see," Hermione's face was a picture in astonishment.
"Are you really Harry Potter?" Ron blurted out.
"Ron! That was very rude..." Hermione started up again, but Harry quickly interrupted again.
"Yes, I'm really Harry Potter, unless there's another one out there we don't know about," he said.
"And have you really got—you know..." He pointed at Harry's forehead.
Shrugging, and not really seeing the harm in it, Harry pulled back his bangs to show the lightning scar, letting them all gawk at his forehead for a minute.
"So that's where You-Know-Who..." Ron whispered.
"Yes," said Harry, "but I can't remember it."
"Nothing?" asked Hermione eagerly.
"Well... I remember a lot of green light, but nothing else." Harry admitted.
"Wow," said Neville. They all sat and stared at Harry for a few moments, then, as though they had suddenly realized what they were doing, each quickly looked out of the window or out into the hall.
"It's all right," Harry finally told them. "I'm just not exactly used to attention. For the first ten years of my life, I've either been ignored or treated like nothing special. I'm just not used to people staring at me or expecting me to be some kind of celebrity. Y'know?"
Surprisingly, Ron nodded along with him, saying, "Yeah, being a celebrity ain't all it's cracked up t'be."
After that, an uncomfortable silence hovered in the air, until Neville's toad Trevor tried another escape attempt. "I don't know why he keeps trying to get away," he said, after getting Harry's help in securing his pet.
"Have you fed him today?" Harry joked, only to be surprised when Neville's face dropped in horror and he quickly started scrambling in his trunk for some food for his toad.
As another means of starting conversation, Hermione spoke up, "Do either of you know what house you'll be in? I've been asking around, and I hope I'm in Gryffindor, it sounds by far the best; I hear Dumbledore himself was in it, but I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn't be too bad..."
"Better than Slytherin, by far," Ron agreed. "Every member of my family's been in Gryffindor actually, so chances are pretty good that's where I'll end up."
"I don't know what house my parents were in," Neville shamefully admitted. "I'll probably wind up in Hufflepuff, my Gran says."
Harry just shrugged. "I honestly don't know what to expect. My tutor explained each of the houses to me, but all she would say was that at the beginning of each year, all the First Years are separated into their houses based on their personal qualities. She would never explain what that meant, or what the qualities were."
"Oh, you had a tutor in magic? I've tried a few simple spells just for practice and it's all worked for me. Nobody in my family's magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course, I mean, it's the very best school of witchcraft there is, I've heard. I've learned all our course books by heart, of course, I just hope it will be enough..."
"How could you have possibly learned all of those books by heart?" Harry was almost outraged. Here he was, working half the summer with the Scarlet Witch, reading whole books some two or three per day! And he only had a rudimentary understanding of each. Now here was another witch, claiming to have memorized every single book he'd had to read, by heart!
"Well, it wasn't that difficult, really. You just have to read, and of course I use multiple mnemonic devices to further assist my recall, but the large part comes in understanding what the text is trying to explain and fully comprehending the subject matter. I love to read. My favorite book is actually the Compilation of William Shakespeare's Greatest Works. There are lots of magic and witches and even a few fairies, but I suppose that is all fictional. Whereas now I'm going to become a real witch and I'll probably get to meet a few real fairies, though I doubt they'd be like those in William Shakespeare's plays."
The boys could only stare as the young witch ran off at the mouth.
"Do you have a photographic memory?" Harry remembered something Beast had admitted to when Harry, on impulse, once asked him how he was so smart.
"Yes, actually," the witch replied forthwith. "And photographic memory is rather a bit of a misnomer and it's not really..."
"Yes, or no," Harry couldn't take another high-speed lecture. "I may not be a genius myself, Hermione, but I've known a few during this past summer. You don't have to show off how smart you are. Especially not with me. Now these other two blokes here, I can't speak for them, but you really, really don't have to shove it in my face how much smarter you are than me."
"Uh, yeah," Ron spoke up, "You really don't have to do that for me, either!"
"Uh... me either?" Neville squeaked.
"Oh," Hermione blushed bright enough to match Ron's hair. "I'm sorry... I..."
"Look," Harry hated seeing a girl upset worse than anything else in the world, "I know you're just as nervous as the rest of us. And you seem like a very nice person. And like I said, I got to know a few nice and smart people over the summer. So instead of talking on and on about how easy it is for you to learn and know things, how about talking over the things you learned? Just because it's easier for you, doesn't make it as easy for the rest of us. And, that doesn't mean we don't still want to learn the same things, just that we need more time, and more help in learning it."
Rather than continue to look shame-faced and embarrassed, Hermione looked thoughtful at the Boy Who Lived for several minutes. Finally, she admitted, rather sheepishly, "You're right. I... I'm sorry about all that."
Harry shrugged. "Not the first person that's lost perspective in a conversation."
Hermione blinked, hard. "Lost perspective in a conversation?" she quoted back at him. "Where did you learn that phrase? I've heard someone else say something just like that before!" Harry just shrugged again.
Thankfully, before Hermione's curiosity burned a hole in her seat, the Snack Cart came by.
Most of the afternoon was spent learning more about each other and hypothesizing what it would be like at Hogwarts, and of course eating all of the snacks that Harry had bought for all of them from the Cart. About an hour before they were due to stop, Hermione reached up to grab her robes from her trunk and almost turned to make the boys all leave while she changed, until she realized that didn't make sense, as there were three of them and only one of her. It would be far more logical for her to go find the restroom or another empty cabin to change in than for all three of them to wait out in the hall.
Harry seemed to sense her dilemma and he came to an impulsive decision. "Hey fellas," he spoke to Ron and Neville, "This is the first time I've been on a train. How about we go round and see all there is to see on this thing, eh? Let's start at the back and work our ways forward, so we see as much of it as we can."
"All right!" Ron hastily agreed.
"Sounds fun," Neville hesitantly smiled. Then the round-faced boy turned to the only girl and asked, "Coming Hermione?"
"Oh, I'll be along in a minute, you go ahead and get started without me," she assured them, silently thanking Harry for his insight and thoughtfulness. They left and she quickly pulled down the curtains of the compartment and very quickly changed into her school robes, packing away her street clothes back into her trunk. Surprisingly, the moment she opened the door, she found the three boys grinning sheepishly at her, Harry scratching the back of his scalp in embarrassment.
"Uh, kind of forgot we were in the last compartment..." he mumbled.
"Oh, well, I'm done, and you all need to change into your school robes as well," she stated primly, trying her hardest not to blush. "I'll wait for you three out here, then we can explore the train together, all right?"
"Sounds good," Harry quickly agreed and dragged the other two inside before they could even guess about what was going on. They changed quickly and were out in less than three minutes. The rest of the trip, the four new students explored the train compartment by compartment, going almost all the way to the front engine, but they weren't allowed beyond the front passenger compartment, which just so happened to be the Prefects Car, and it was limited to those upperclassmen that were charged with enforcing school rules amongst the rest of the student population.
"I can hardly wait till I'm a Prefect," Hermione sighed as they made their way pack to their compartment.
"Bill never made that big a deal about it," Ron commented. "Percy, on the other hand, has practically been shoving it in our faces that he made Prefect this year. Become a downright prat, if you ask me. If that's what it takes to become Prefect, count me out."
Hermione looked outraged for all of five seconds as she analyzed Ron's words, and had to acknowledge that, occasionally, there would be an odd one out of the bunch.
"Something tells me, your brother isn't viewing being a Prefect the right way," Harry commented. "Isn't it supposed to be all about setting an example for the younger students and making sure everybody follows the rules? It's supposed to be about responsibility, not power."
"That's very profound, Harry," Hermione gushed, more for his words than it being him for saying it.
"Not really," Harry chuckled. "Read it out of a manga I've been reading. They have Prefects in Japanese schools, y'know? Not to mention they put heavy emphasis on the upperclassmen setting good examples for the younger students. The manga I was reading went on to have one of the characters become a Prefect that abused his power and basically became the villain of the story. Thought it made for good comparison."
"What's a manga?" Neville and Ron asked together.
Harry just chuckled while Hermione actually gave them a small lecture-worth explanation on what exactly manga was. When they got to the cabin, both of the other boys were looking as though they'd rather not have asked, so Harry just pulled out a random book from his trunk, which just so happened to be the first issue of Ranma ½. Finally, to the boys, all of Hermione's lecturing made sense and Ron started to flip through the pages. Then he suddenly stopped and asked a question that had both Harry and Hermione staring at him with arched eyebrows and curious expressions.
"Hey, how come the pictures don't move?"
AN: This story isn't going to have "Chapters" or "Parts". I'm writing it as one contiguous series of events and postings will be of those 'events' and I'll try to keep the cliffhangers to a minimum, but sometimes they can't be helped. This story is also the second in the series. How far this series goes, well that remains to be seen, but individual stories will be segmented by "Years" same as the actual books, but at various points there may be... "side-stories", where they may be as short as the "prologue" was, the first story already posted; "WizKid: Year Zero", or as long as this one may turn out to be. We'll all just have to see. Please Read & Review!