Permutations
OR
Harry Potter, Meet the Marvellous Marvels of the Marvel-Verse
By Rey
Series Notes:
Here be a collection of one-shots (or more) of different-but-the-same scenarios melding the Harry Potter Universe with the Marvel Universe, AU or not, which may or may not be followed up outside of this bin of knick-knacks, which will be updated irregularly. Willing gifts of plotbunnies are quite welcome and anticipated! Otherwise, we shall have to depend on the (nonexistent) mercy of my muse for the updates. Flames will most likely roast the existing plotbunnies into a horrible death, though, so this author would rather have concrits – otherwise called "that useful feedback" – from you, dear readers.
By the way, as it is harder to make a series that span various fandoms over here, unlike on AO3, for these stories that I post as one-shots on FFN, I'm going to list the fandoms or canon events involved whenever possible or necessary. The perch for this collection will otherwise stay on HP/Avengers crossover section. The extension(s) or spinn-off(s) of any of these vignettes, ficlets, and chaptered stories mascarading as one-shots, on the other hand, will be in their respective fandoms, with a note tagged at the beginning or at the end of the respective shot(s) informing you of the new roost(s).
And now that the rambles are finished, enjoy the wild rides! (Please don't expect to see this in later pieces, since I would like to avoid copy-pasting such cumbersome thing if not so necessary.)
Good Samaritan
A Harry Potter + Iron Man Crossover
Summary: Before Harry Potter's third year, in 1993, as the soon-to-be-thirteen-year-old installed himself in the inn above the Leaky Cauldron and enjoyed a summer at Diagon Alley, a drunken young man in expensive, dapper Muggle suit stumbled into the magical pub to get even more sloshed…
Story Notes: Slight warning for semi-implied drunken abuse by the Dursley siblings. And, of course, standing warning for sheer Tony-ness. (I hope I'm not making him OOC here. This is my first time trying to portray this difficult man.)
1.
23rd June 1993
The brand-new broom at Quality Quidditch Supplies looked so, so enticing.
Today was the third day that Harry James Potter, a temporary resident of Leaky Cauldron's twelfth room, having been kicked out from Privet Drive Number Four those three – and a half – days ago, spent much time ogling the coveted broom. He was never alone in his useless longing, and the shopkeeper of the Quidditch store couldn't be smugger and happier because of it.
Days spent idly was an alien concept for the almost thirteen-year-old boy, though. Even sleeping in was a novel luxury that he had been trying these three days. All the demands made by all the grown-ups in his life thus far – and, ironically, from fellow teens, too, at Hogwarts – had never allowed him much time for himself to do anything, let alone enjoy himself.
He'd used to find shelter in books in any library that he could've found, particularly those of fiction and – owing to the interesting diagrams and illustrations – science, but Hermione – one of his best friends – had killed his love of them since his first year at Hogwarts.
He'd found sheer joy and release in simple flying, in that first day of that disastrous flying lesson. He had even enjoyed the thought of belonging to a team, although Quidditch had seemed complicated and a little bit restrictive at first. And then Oliver Wood, the captain of Gryffindor's Quidditch team, had revealed his inner taskmaster…
He'd found pride of mastering skills and knowledge in his first days of primary school. However, the Dursleys, angry with his achievements, had swiftly and thoroughly killed the desire for such, by the end of that first semester. And with his Hogwarts best friends standing at opposite points of the extremes, he doubted he could revive it.
He felt pretty much like a husk of a person being discarded, being idle like this, and he hated it.
The broom on the display window looked so, so, so nice, though. Maybe he could afford filling in some of the emptiness with such glorious torture that was the Firebolt…
2.
25th June 1993
Trying to find work round Diagon Alley was so hard. Shopkeepers and shopowners were alternately so humbled and so greedy with just the prospect of employing the Boy-Who-Lived for the summer. The only person who had denied him outright, although quite gently and with a standing offer to reapply once a mastery in Herbology, Care of Magical Creatures, Ancient Runes and Arithmancy had been acquired, was Olivander. Tom had given the most down-to-earth response, even so, and indirectly summarised the precarious position Harry Potter was in: "Sorry, lad. I wish I could give you a job round here. But the fact is, if you worked round the Cauldron, we'd be swamped by your admirers, and it wouldn't be good for your safety, no?"
So, desperate and irritated, Harry had taken matters into his own hands for once, breaking his promise to the Minister of Magic in the process. He'd exchanged a handful of Galleons into pounds, gone into Muggle London to die his hair with his mum's red shade, bought a full set of clothes for working purposes including a pair of sturdy specs, bought a Muggle concealer – the most, singularly mortifying experience he'd had to date – from a giggling shopkeeper just years older than he was, and reapplied for work to Tom just this morning, under the name Henry Evans, Muggleborn teenager desperate for money.
And the old man, bless his kind heart, had finally agreed.
This way, the kindly keeper of Leaky Cauldron had also divulged a very, very, very important titbit of information that all the magic-possessing grown-ups round him had failed to mention thus far:
Underaged magic use was obscured whenever the user was in a magic-rich environment!
He'd have to take care that nobody saw him perform magic, or Tom would be in trouble, but oh the joy of doing magic! Given the secrecy, now he also attempted to recreate the accidental magic use that decorated his life pre-Hogwarts whenever possible. Cleaning the floor and tables and chairs went up to cleaning the glasses and plates and cutlery. Then it advanced to levitating one, two, three, ten dirty dishes on the way to the kitchen…
Harry loved exploring Diagon Alley with no strings attached, but he loved exercising his magic and trying new tricks even more. After all, he had always been a curious and tenacious person, while he was yet to be fully accustomed to the freedom that he'd been having these days.
Besides, he was doing something that the Dursleys had been trying unsuccessfully to stamp out of him for ten miserable years, and also something that Hogwarts – who had refused to let him camp out for the summer there – had forbidden him to do.
Surreptitious defiance was so delicious.
3.
30th June 1993
"Harry?"
"Yes, Tom?"
"Why don't you go to bed? It's almost midnight."
"But, Tom, I came in for work so late today!"
"Well, I'm going to bed soon, too, anyway. And lad, don't sell yourself short. I've told you time and time again. You've been working harder than nearly all my previous helpers already!"
The chastised boy shifted self-consciously from foot to foot on the middle of the nearly empty pub, looking anywhere but his ultra-kind summer-work employer. His roving eyes then landed on the far corner, where a man in rumpled Muggle suit – which still looked far nicer and much more expensive than Uncle Vernon's best – was draped on the table. He'd been constantly delivering Firewhisky to the man since early this afternoon…
"Umm, Tom?" he blurted out, trying to distract the Cauldron's keeper from trying to reduce his work. "What shall we do with that man over there? If we leave him alone out here, someone could mug him or something…"
And, success!
Tom let out an explosive sigh, and wiped a tired hand across his wrinkled brow. "He's most likely a Muggle, lad, too drunk to be fooled by the Muggle-repellent ward." He twitched an ironic smile at that, which was mirrored an instant later on Harry's lips. "You're right, though, bless your kind heart, Harry; we can't just leave him here, and we don't know where he lives… Not that I know anything about Muggle London… It's been quite a while since last I ventured out there."
"You can put him on my bed, then," came the offer, without much thought. "I could sleep on the floor, or maybe I'll borrow some of your blankets and transfigure them into a mattress for the night."
The old, toothless man shook his head fondly. "Bless your heart, lad," he repeated with fervent sincerity; something that, to his apparent amusement, triggered a deep blush on his small, scrawny helper's cheeks, accompanied by heightened bashfulness and exasperated fondness.
So, of course, Harry had no come-back retort for that; or any other distraction to be had, for that matter. Tom had just won their frequent bantering, again; and worse, that old man kept chuckling as they escorted the levitated unconscious customer up the stairs.
Given the most-likely Muggle nature of Harry's roommate for the night, plus the sensitive matter of his safety, Tom created a temporary set of security ward round the spare mattress he ended up lending the boy. He also cast Muggle-repelling spell on the pieces that – according to Harry – was so obviously magical, in hope that both of them wouldn't get into trouble for breaking the Statute of Secrecy because of such trivial thing as a mirror that talked back to its viewer.
Harry gifted him with a brilliant smile for all the hassle.
Long after he was gone, though, the boy was still seated on his bedding, staring up at the bed he'd usually occupied in previous nights.
Away from his polished shoes, fancy coat, diamond-studded belt and glossy tie, with his shirt rumpled and with his countenance slack in deep sleep, framed by messy curls, the stranger looked so young. He looked just a few years older than Harry himself. When the man had stumbled into the pub downstairs early this afternoon, he'd looked like a slimmer version of a drunken Uncle Vernon…
The boy couldn't prevent a violent shudder on the last thought. Uncle Vernon wasn't as often drunk as Aunt Marge, since Aunt Petunia would get upset with him for weeks for that; but his drunken bouts were always bad… and Harry would always be the hapless victim of his rants and swinging fists, just like when Aunt Marge was visiting.
But this man hadn't raged and raved about anything and everything like the Dursley siblings when he'd come in, just muttering and clutching his bottle possessively…
The said man shifted uncomfortably on the bed, trying to turn here and there but then returning again to lying on his back. Harry spotted the twin lumps on the man's pockets, suspecting them as the cause of the discomfort. An idea began to bloom in his mind, fueled by his curiosity and sympathy…
He eased the two things out of the pockets, one by one, all the while watching for some signs of waking up from the man. He wasn't stealing anything, no, he wasn't! Else the belt and the tie wouldn't just lie there on the nightstand, soon to be joined with these–
Ermhh… wallet? And… a bobby's radio-thing?…
He scrunched up his nose in thought at the two items in his hands. Putting the thick, heavy wallet in his lap for later perusal, he scrutinised the radio-thing first. He'd been presented with Dudley's broken things throughout the miserable years he'd been living with the Dursleys, or alternately found such things all over the house, so functional electronics placed in his hand stumped him and awed him in equal measure.
It didn't look much like the radio-thing the bobbies had, though, on closer look… It's much slimmer, for one; its antenna was just a nearly nonexistent nob on the top right corner of the devise, too, and it had a clear plastic square on the top half of its front surface. It also had a block of numbers much like a regular telephone below that square, though the numbers were of course far smaller, and, unlike what he suspected of a bobby's radio-thing, these numbers were accompanied by groupings of alphabets.
And, of course, the thing wasn't his. Not that he'd ever nicked or found a bobby's radio-thing to tinker with, or ever come close to the phone at the Dursleys' except to clean its surroundings and receive calls – on permission – on behalf of the Dursleys…
Regretfully, he put the radio-thing gently on the nightstand, beside the belt and the tie. His attention was directed to the wallet, next. He wanted to know whom he was sheltering for the night, at least.
The wallet was full of paper money, as he had suspected, and not all were pound notes. However, he also found lots and lots of cards there; the real culprits of the wallet's extraordinary fatness, aside from the quirky way these various folds of leather flipped into themselves.
He didn't recognise the various different names printed or embossed on the numerous cards. But on all the cards, on smaller, less flashy writing, he could see variants of one name being repeated.
It's either "Anthony E. Stark," "Anthony Stark," "Tony Stark," or "Anthony Edward Stark."
He folded the complicated wallet back up the best he could, then put it on the nightstand alongside the other accessories of one Anthony Edward Stark, a totally sloshed American young businessman.
4.
1st July 1993
Harry occupied himself waiting for his overnight guest to wake up by idly browsing through his third-year Potions book. Potions was the last summer homework he hadn't yet done, but thus far he hadn't yet found the motivation to do it. Snape had totally crushed his interest in the subject in their very first Potions class.
It was now nine in the morning; but, well, Tom did want him to not work too much, right? He could spend some more time trying to crank up some will to work on his Potions homework, while waiting for Anthony Edward Stark – what a posh name! – to wake up.
Maybe if he unearthed his first- and second-year Potions book as well, and maybe got some reference books from Flourish and Blotts…? The purchase could be justified, no? Seeing that they're all for his education? The reference books couldn't be that expensive, anyway; and while there, he could maybe browse for fiction, try to rekindle his old love of made-up worlds and characters, try to put more colour on his summer…
He looked up at his slumbering guest, then looked back down at his dejecting book. No, he couldn't go now. He was still up here for the sole purpose of being there when Anthony Edward Stark woke up, and streaking out to the bookstore for the reference texts would defeat the purpose.
He huffed, annoyed. Were all Americans like this? The man wouldn't survive, if he were in Harry's – battered, oversized, hole-ridden – shoes.
He flipped to yet another page without any enthusiasm. Nothing registered in his mind, still.
And then, he heard a rustle from the bed.
He looked up, again.
His green eyes, framed by his battered original specs, met with those of squinting, disorientated brown.
"Hello, sir," he greeted softly.
He got only a faint whimper for that, as the man swayed on the bed, trying valiantly to keep upright or so it seemed.
But then, after the man had looked round blearily for a long moment, getting more and more awake all the while, he at last got a true response.
Although, it wasn't the response he'd expected, at all.
"Wanna come to the old US of A with me, kid? Pretty sure a bright kid like you shouldn't live alone, especially in a place like this. Got many, many, many, many rooms in my place. Could get you all the books all you want. Those glasses and elephanty pajamas are atrocious; we otta throw'em 'way. Least thing I could do for ya. Been a pretty nice night! Usually woke up with a girl in my bed n'this'a new thing but not bad at all. Could get you to a nice school for nerds… or could teach ya n'ma'own…"
He raised his eyebrows, amused and baffled and a little bit apprehensive. "You don't even know my name, sir," he said quietly, clutching his Potions book to his chest. Uncle Vernon and Aunt Marge always hated loud sounds and bright lights when they woke up in the morning, hungover. And judging from the amount of Firewhisky in the man's system from last night, and considering that the said man was a Muggle… anything and everything could happen.
That reminded him, though. Tom had kindly provided a hangover potion for the man last night. He would be safe.
He handed the man the tiny vial, after uncorking it. "It's for your hangover, sir," he explained hopefully, undaunted by the man's wary, scrutinising look. If anything, the lack of flippancy had transformed the said man into something more normal, more familiar.
Of course, total familiarity would need some more harshness, insults and displeasure aimed at him; and he was truly grateful for the absence.
"I don't like being handed things," the man muttered, still swaying on the spot, but now looking right into Harry's eyes once more.
"Sorry, sir. I didn't know. There's nothing bad in it, though," he said, trying to project out calmness, trying not to get the man mad. "It's just a hangover medicine. The taste may be bad, but it always works." A memory of Skellegrow made him grimace, but Tom's assurance from last night gave him conviction to his words. Tom had always been kind and honest to him. Neither of them knew if the hangover potion would work for what must be a Muggle, but they could at least try.
The man narrowed his eyes.
Harry gulped, and retracted his hand bearing the open vial carefully. The tiny bottle soon joined his Potions book, pressed close against his chest.
What the man said, though, with a quiet, serious tone that was so different from his earlier words and behaviour, threw the boy off completely.
"You ran 'way from home, kid? Your folks drunk much?"
The green eyes slid away from the brown ones, as Harry scooted away to his open trunk near the door, away from the unknown man. What could he say? He'd run away, yes, but Privet Drive Number Four had never truly been a home for him. Half of his "folks" had indeed been drunken people, yes, but those people were never his blood relatives.
The man's earlier, careless offer for him to go to somewhere else had ignited the ambers of his old longing for a home, which now raged as fiercely as his anger at himself for hoping.
He tossed his Potions book into the trunk, crossed past his last night's bed, then put the vial of hangover potion as gently as he could on the nightstand, although all fibres of his being just wanted to slam the vial down on it.
He froze on his way to his former position when, in the same silent, solemn tone from earlier but added with a sharp note of self-mockery, the man commented as if to himself, "I'm ruining everything again, aren't I? What's new?"
The two occupants of Leaky Cauldron Room Twelve stared at each other again once Harry had retaken his seat on his untidy bed. The man, now no longer squinty-eyed but looking much glummer than before, shook his head after a long, awkward, loaded moment.
"Sorry, kid," he mumbled grudgingly. But the sincerity shining in his eyes told a different story to the boy.
To the latter message, Harry shrugged. "Please, sir, drink the medicine," he insisted, relieved that he didn't slip on the word "medicine." He didn't know if the potancy of the potion would be reduced by being exposed to open air like this, and he didn't know either if the man could behave civilly without the potion, so the faster the man took the potion the better it would be for them all.
The man – Mr Stark? – seemed to look deeper into his eyes, but at length, to Harry's utmost relief, he looked away towards the open vial perched on the nightstand.
He didn't take the vial, though, which sent Harry's level of anxiety back up. Instead, he took his wallet, opened it, and seemed to look through it carefully…
…Before asking, "Did you look through my wallet, kid?"
`Oh, blast. I got the folding sequence for that blasted wallet wrong,` was all that Harry could think, especially as the man's brown eyes, now sharper and colder than before, refocused on him.
But judging from his prior experiences with everyone named Dursley, it was better to speak the truth and get into trouble for it than to speak a lie for the same outcome; sooner than later would be preferable, too, so: "Yes, sir," he bit out lowly, fighting to maintain eye contact with the man. "I wanted to know who you were." Tom had said names were important, when Harry had reintroduced himself as Henry Evans. Was it too much to know at least that? He hadn't taken—
Oh. Oh. Oh.
He glared at the man, despite his on-going apprehension of the man's possibly volatile hungover mood. "I took nothing from it, sir." Maybe he'd better stand up, to have more hope of defending himself?
But, seeming to be satisfied with whatever he'd seen in Harry, the man returned his attention to the vial, and this time picked it up.
"Never seen medicine like this," he commented, still in a subdued manner, but no longer cold, as he brought the vial close to his eyes. "Never smelled anything like this, too," he added, after a wiff of the potion that made his nose wrinkle. "You sure you aren't trying to poison me, kid?"
The man glanced beyond the rim of the vial at Harry, who made sure he looked totally offended, if wordless.
A snort, then, "All right. I guess this is just the payback for me ruining your morning, eh?" And the man, without any more fuss or apparently a second thought, gulped the potion down…
…Yelling with disgust, afterwards.
But the almost-instant freshness and health that drench his countenance was gratifying, and too comical for Harry to be too apprehensive about the rest, to boot.
The boy tried to smother his giggles, to little avail. But at least he was now on the stairs leading down from the inn part of Leaky Cauldron, having streaked out of his rented room on bare feet. His next mission was a breakfast tray for himself and his overnight guest, which Tom had promised to be ready for them in the kitchen, under an Everwarm charm.
When he was back at his room, though, the full tray, half held up by his magic, nearly toppled onto the threshold.
Mr Stark was rummaging round his open trunk.
And last night, he and Tom hadn't thought of charming everything in it to be Muggle-friendly.
He laid the tray on the bit of floor between the two beds with shaking hands, then folded himself up into a ball on his overnight bedding. His wide-eyed stare was totally focused on the man, who thankfully looked more puzzled and intrigued than freaked out or angry.
Still, he couldn't help tensing up and grabbing his wand into a white-knuckled grip, when the man seemed to be satisfied with his perusal and casually returned to the bed Harry had lent him last night.
The boy clenched his jaw. The man's returning flippancy made him angry – angry and disappointed and vulnerable – beyond measure, especially since the said man had just looked through all his worldly possessions without any permission whatsoever. Looking through the man's wallet just to find out the barest information about the man's identity couldn't measure up to this! Especially since there were so many secrets the nearly thirteen-year-old must keep to himself, hidden in that trunk. He could only hope Tom wouldn't be dragged into this trouble, now, and that the Ministry would be as lenient on him as when they had excused his accidental magic on Aunt Marge barely a fortnight ago.
"Well, Mister Wizard," Mr Stark began, and Harry tensed further, "thank you so much for the magical medicine. Now, if you wouldn't mind me, to which organisation do you belong?" There was danger behind the current flippancy, now Harry could hear, but he couldn't care less about that, especially when the man then continued, "Aren't you too young for espionage? But then again, people wouldn't be suspicious with a sad-waif persona, I bet. So which? MI-5? Interpol? The old US of A won't have much use of you little Brits, so…?"
"I don't know what you're talking about, sir," the addressee managed to bite out, after several deep breaths, without releasing his gaze from the man's. "I would thank you, though, if you didn't look through my things. They're all I have." His voice shook towards the end. He didn't know why he exposed himself like that, not really, but he understood that the man was a creature of reason, that needed a reason not to do something – anything. He just wished the cost wasn't so high. He already had so little; he couldn't afford to give out more.
Their ensuing staring contest was harsh, tense and deep; but, after a while, it was Mr Stark who broke away first. His shoulders even slumped a little bit. The rueful, confused air he now bore didn't mollify Harry any, though.
It had been too late. The presence of the magical side of Great Britain was now uncovered by a man, all because of the thoughtless actions of one careless boy. Judging from how shrewd and persistent this man was, this blunder had no chance of staying this small, either.
Harry had to run away, again; just when he had begun to settle down, at that.
Still, he did have to run, even if that meant he would be shirking his responsibility to the magical community at large. The weeks of his imprisonment at the Dursleys' had been hellish; he had no doubt whatsoever that the prison in the magical world would be far harsher and much more constraining than what his Muggle relatives had been able to concoct for him for Dobby's fault.
Dobby's…
`Dobby! I could ask for Dobby's help! The sooner, the better.`
So, after curtly bidding his overnight guest to eat the breakfast he'd originally brought for the both of them, he scrambled for his daily disguise and Invisibility Cloak, then trotted to the bathroom to shower and change. Tom might forgive his further tardiness if he was quick. Calling for Dobby wouldn't be a problem, nor would it take long for the house-elf to respond, seeing by his disastrous previous encounters with the exasperating house-elf; all that he needed to do now was to empty his vault, stock up on everything that he might need, sure up his disguise, and just go – somewhere, anywhere, as long as it's undetectable by the wizardkind.
Huh. Right.
He slipped into the back of the Leaky Cauldron without showing his face to Tom, hoping that the elderly man wouldn't be suspicious. There, clutching his wand and hidden thoroughly under his Cloak, he whispered Dobby's name.
Everything that went down afterwards was a blur…
…And he returned to his room late in the evening, after apologising profusely to the concerned Tom, only to find the same irksome, intrusive man from last night and this morning lounging on the latter's borrowed bed.
"Hi, Kid," the man, now dressed in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt with some kind of writing on it, greeted him cheerfully, pausing and looking up from his sketch pad.
Gritting his teeth, the incensed young host turned away and went directly for his trunk…
…Which looked so odd, without Dudley's and Uncle Vernon's hand-me-downs in there, somehow…
`Where are those things?` he wondered, baffled. `They're still there this morning!`
He quickly spotted a pair of huge, bulging Muggle plastic shopping bag tucked beside the open trunk under a smallish leather jacket, and, thinking that his missing clothes would be there, was upon them in seconds.
But they contained just Muggle clothes… at roughly his size, no less.
So where were his clothes?
He straightened up, balled his fists, glared at the man lounging on his bed. "Where are my things?" he ground out, clinging to the last threads of his civility.
The man dared look puzzled, comically so. "You've just gone over them, kid," he informed the younger male dutifully. "Now, shall we go? You vanished for so long. I thought you went without me. But the kindly old man from downstairs told me you must be just looking round or shopping."
Harry was flabbergasted. His simmering rage smoldered lower, less intense, tamped down unintentionally – in his part – by the utter confusion he was suddenly experiencing. "What?… Where?… Why?… But… But…"
"How, which, who, when, in what way, then, because, after all," the man drawled cheekily, looking to be quite enjoying the moment, although there seemed an undercurrent of… something… behind it, that made him less sickeningly unbearable than before.
Harry breathed noisily through his nose.
The man raised an eyebrow. "Careful, kid. You're sounding like a fighting bull. I hope nobody this young can have a heart attack? I hate to be the cause of your demise. After all, I'm trying to help you, here."
`Yes, quite,` the addressee thought, glaring more ferociously at the amused speaker for the comment. `I could literally turn you into a bull, you know.`
But aloud, he only bit out, "I never asked for your help. I don't need your help, either."
The man looked briefly stung, which doused Harry's fury further, but it was only for a moment. He rallied so fast and changed so drastically that Harry unconsciously took a literal and figurative step back.
Mr Stark was now seated ramrod straight on the bed, flinging his sketch pad aside with some vigor, radiating distant stiffness that somehow made the boy feel stung in turn. "I didn't ask for your help either, kid," he bit right back, "but I pay my dues. You helped me; I help you. I got us into this mess by nosing around your things; I'll get us out of this. Simple as that."
`And I got no choice in it all,` the boy remarked to himself, but didn't say it out loud.
After all, he had never had the luxury of choosing in all his life. Why would it suddenly start now?
As if reading his mind, though, some of the stiffness and coldness bled out of the man's demeanour and subsequent words, as his gaze turned earnest, honest, frank. "I got a pretty fucked-up childhood, kid," he told the frozen boy quietly. "My mom was too busy with her socialite parties, and my dad was likewise with his tinkering. But for all that, I was never left alone, not until they're dead. And even then, Jarvis – my butler – was always with me… until he was dead, too, last year." His voice broke a little, but his gaze never wavered from that of widened green eyes; and the boy listened, transfixed.
He visibly swallowed, then soldiered on, "You're what? Ten? Eleven? And you're here all alone, in those rags, while you proved you could afford a decent set of clothes when you're forced by the situation." He nodded at Harry's current attire, which was still the boy's daily disguise. "The old man said you're Henry Evans, but I know he lied. I don't care, though. I've messed this up too much. I don't need the name you've been going by. If you'd like to vanish, you can't keep that name. I think you know that." He gave the boy a more piercing stare, next, and said in an even quieter tone, "I'd like to do right by you, kid. I can't just let this go. My parents may have been all fucked up, but at least they were responsible for my wellfare, when I was your age. I've got name, across the pond. I'd like to give you that name. You can do whatever you want, then, as long as you don't turn into a serial killer. I can even help blend your type of science with mine, and you can earn independent money that way." He sighed. "I'm perfectly aware I can't be a father; hell, I'm afraid of being a father; so you don't need to worry about that. But at least, this way, I can give you legal and physical protection, and I can supply you with money and a roof over your head, until you're all grown up."
Harry looked down at his only set of good shoes, willing his sight to stop swimming, blurring.
It was all too good to be true. – A way out when he needed one desperately? A set of fearsome-sounding protections? A promise of not only a roof over his head, but also a way to earn money for his own self independently? All rolled into one neat package, just as his life seemed to be crashing into pieces, courtesy of the self-same aggrevating man? Heh, fat chance of that!
One shaky, clammy hand crept up, clutched at the shoulder-strap of the bottomless backpack still clinging to his back. The other hand slipped behind him and into a smaller, bonier appendage, which was currently invisible.
His heart thumped madly. He didn't know should he command Dobby to bring him away right now, or try to give the total – Muggle – stranger a chance for all the honeyed promises.
He looked back up, right into Mr Stark's expectant brown eyes, then shook his head. "The Wizarding folks, they can hurt you, Mister Stark," he said bluntly. "You don't have magic. How can you defend against them? Against me?" He inhaled, then, "I don't want you hurt, Mister Stark. I don't want to hurt you, either. But I… They will notice, pretty soon, when I'm gone, and they will find me. I don't know what will happen to you, if you're with me, then. Best if I go alone."
Alarm entered the man's eyes. But strangely, his self-assured poise never faltered. An ironic smile twisted up his lips. "My company's big on weapons, kid, among others," he told the boy. "With you helping me, we can also make defences that'll stand up against your brand of science. And the more I hear about these 'wizarding folks', the less I like'm. You a criminal, kid?"
A violent shake of the head answered the disbelieving inquiry, but then Harry paused. "I… I…" he stuttered, sighed, then glared at the man again. "You looked through my things. That counts as me telling you 'bout the Wizarding World. They don't like things like that. Last year I got a warning for what I didn't do, and they said next time they'll snap my wand and expell me from school. So I'd better go now. This way, I'm still expelled but keep my wand." His breath hitched on his own proclamation of being expelled; no more Ron, no more Hermione, no more Hagrid, no more funny Professor Flidwick, no more Quidditch.
The man frowned. "School, kid?" he repeated, intrigued. "What do you learn there? Cauldron stirring? Wand waving? Mumbo-jumbos?" Distaste filled his voice and countenance, and Harry's heart sank. `He won't be different from the Dursleys, then. Huh, right; it's all too good to be true. What did I think?`
But before the boy could defend Hogwarts and his schooling there, the man continued, balling over his stuttering and sputtering, "No English? No math? Physics? Chemistry? Biology? Social science? Physical education? History? Geography? Other languages? Dancing? How-to-get-girls-to-like-you?"
Harry squawked at the last suggestion, his face hot. Still, he managed to retort firmly enough, "We've got Arithmancy and Ancient Runes. Hermione said Arithmancy is like Muggle maths. Didn't choose it for my third year, though. Didn't choose Ancient Runes, either." Bitterness bled into his words when he added, "Now it's a moot point, anyway."
The man scowled, windmilled his hands. "No no no no no no," he muttered, half to himself. "Need tutors for ordinary subjects," he ticked one finger, "need tutors for the mumbo-jumbos too," he ticked another finger, sporting a vaguer look of distaste, "need an introductory kit to engineering, since you're with me now," he ticked the third finger, "need to update your wardrobe; I only bought you three pairs of everything, and you need to choose for yourself and your bedroom anyway," he ticked the fourth finger, ignoring Harry's shocked, disbelieving look, and, "need to go, now; the farther you are from all this bullshit the better," he ticked the last finger on his left hand, then waved the whole hand haphazardly at Harry. "Shoo, now. Pack up, pack up, then off we go across the pond." He made the shooing motion towards the pair of Muggle shopping bags and the jacket still draped over them with his other hand. "My jet awaits. To freedom!"
Harry only gave him an unimpressed snort, for that, to which he looked genuinely offended. The boy couldn't care less about that for now, though. Dealing with Mr Stark was tiring, far more than the blitzy shopping all across Diagon Alley.
And there was something else that the man needed to know, before Harry would be more willing to go with the mad, overly hopeful plan; something whose worth was on par with his own freedom… or even slightly more.
"I'm not alone, sir," he told the man, as his grip on Dobby's invisible hand tightened.
Mr Stark raised his eyebrows, high enough that they almost touched the fringes of his dark-brown curls. He looked mightily exasperated now, and moderately put out. Looking exaggeratedly round the neatened room, he drawled, "Oh really? And here I've been all alone and bored for hours already. Is the something – or somethings – invisible?"
Harry only gave him a wry smile for that, while tugging Dobby forward to stand at his side. An encouraging squeeze on the house-elf's hand and…
…The man gasped, leaping up to his feet and looking wide-eyed at the newly visible tiny, green-skinned, pencil-nosed, bat-eared house-elf. To Harry's relief, he looked more shocked than murderous or simply violent.
But the boy definitely didn't like what came up next.
"Oh goody-goody-goody! Invisibility! This'll make a great breakthrough in everything!"
With that beaming smile, that gleam in his eyes, the enthusiastic hand-rubbing and spastic hand-clapping… Well, it felt to Harry that he was facing a five-year-old; a deranged five-year-old, who'd offered him a home.
What a life he was leading…
And still, he dutifully packed the two huge, bulging shopping bags into his bottomless pack, under Mr Stark's wide-eyed scrutiny. What it said about his own sanity, he daren't wonder.
It felt… sort of nice, though, when Mr Stark prevented him from shoving the leather jacket into the pack alongside the bags, and instead shoved his limp-with-shock arms into the sleeves of the slightly oversized thing, somewhat impatiently. The manner might be a little bit too rough for a parent… but not for a sibling.
An elder brother.
With his hands shaking again, Harry reshouldered his pack, then left a handful of Galleons on the top of the nightstand to hopefully cover the cost of his accomodation for the past fortnight. He tried not to think, right now. He was afraid he would fall into pieces before safety was achieved, if there was ever anything named safety in the world, if he freed himself to think.
That was the plan, at least… and Mr Stark ruined it, thoroughly.
"All right, kid," he beamed, crouching before the faint-feeling boy, looking relieved and sincere. "Welcome to the family, Henry Howard Stark! It's good that you're ten now, no? Just a couple more years before I can teach you how to drive a car! Say, do you want a mini car for you to practise on, for this birthday of yours, birthday-boy? I can totally make you one. Then you can show off to your pals how awesome you are! We can even sell such awesome invention down the way! Of course when you're already bored with it, and not one minute before that. After all, can't let anybody have better toys than my own little bro, can I? What would the world think. We Starks must stick together, you know."
The aforementioned boy, bombarded with a prepared cover story that sounded and felt more genuine than his own original life, was barely aware of what happened next. He could vaguely remember asking Dobby to bring them out into Muggle London; he could faintly hear Mr Stark – his elder brother?! – telling the house-elf something; but he could feel the man's voice rumbling soothingly in his ears, reverberating under his cheek, as water seemed to be wrung dry from his eyes. Distantly, he could also hear a child sobbing, but for now he could care less about it.
A stranger had just become his family; as easy as flipping a hand, as hard as erasing a lifetime.
Author's Note: I had some ideas for a one-shot companion piece – or pieces – to this fic, especially on the realisation of that mini-car promise. I'm going to make it – or them – and post it/them before the year ends only if I've got at least one person interested in that, since my time has been in very short supply right now. So please tell me, if you're interested in it. Otherwise, I don't know when – or if – I'll write the idea down. And if I do write it, as previously stated, it's going to end up in its proper category, namely HP/Ironman section. (Strange, that there's no Ironman movie section here, only comic… Oh well.)