Disclaimer: Tony Stark and the rest of the characters are the property of Stan Lee and Marvel Studios/Disney. Harry Potter and all associated characters and settings remain the intellectual property of JK Rowling and her associates. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Notes: So I saw some reviews that thought this was unique and I so agree! This … particular way of doing this might not be unique, but whatever. Writing is for fun, after all, and this is the first non-fest piece I've written in years. This is continuing on through the first Iron Man movie. I might do Iron Man 2… and I so, so, so want to do the Avengers. You guys have no idea how much I want to do that!
Also, this fic is un-betaed and will most likely stay un-betaed. There will be mistakes and misspellings. There will be things that don't match up with what I wrote before (feel free to point out those mistakes). This is called writing by the seat of my pants. I lost myself as a writer, I think, by participating in fest after fest – it's time I wrote for myself again.
Chapter 1
The presentation went off without a hitch, not that the famous Tony Stark would know. While the gathered crowd watch an over-used slideshow about how great he was and how he had taken full control of his father's company, Tony Stark was down in the casino with a pair of dice in hand. Women clutch to each of his arms, blowing on the dice to give him luck – not like he needed it. No, if Tony Stark wanted luck, he knew how to brew the damned stuff.
Because Tony Stark was secretly Harry Potter.
"You are unbelievable." Lieutenant Colonel Rhodes approached the popular table, pushing a few girls to the side as he did so. He wasn't a normal military man, not at all. Instead, he had been hand-picked by Harry from a select group of friends he had gotten close to during the war with Voldemort. Blaise Zabini had been a shock, but a welcome one.
"Oh no," he gasped, causing the women to giggle. "Did they rope you into this?"
"Nobody roped me into anything." A small twitch of Blaise's lips told Harry his friend was more amused than angry. That was something, at least.
"I'm so sorry," he said, mocking in his voice.
Blaise sighed. "They did tell me that if I presented you with an award, you'd be deeply honored."
Sometimes Harry wondered just how much this was play and how much was real between them. "Of course I'd be deeply honored. So when do we do it?"
Blaise held up the plain-looking award. "It's right here. Here you go, genius."
"There it is," Harry agreed. "That was easy." He looked over the trophy, making sure that it would have passed Howard Stark's inspection. Tony would be getting this if he weren't here, he could at least make sure it wasn't dented or smudged. "Would you look at that? I don't have any of those floating around…"
The girls laughed. The one that had been attached to Harry now clutched at Blaise's arm. The black wizard looked uncomfortable at the press of her breast and Harry had to hold back a laugh at his look. Harry didn't like their constant hounding either, but Tony had already showed signs of being a bit of a man-whore before he died – Harry had to make sure he acted exactly as Tony would have or the charade was ruined. Much to Harry's ire, they had yet to find the betrayer Howard Stark spoke of and it had been nearly a damned decade.
"Give me a hand, will you?" he asked Blaise, holding up his fist.
"I don't blow on a man's dice," Blaise said, trying to push the hand away.
He was going to pay for this later. "Come on, honey bear. Please?" He waved his fist a bit and Blaise just smacked it, giving Harry the perfect opportunity to let go of the dice in his hand. "Lieutenant Colonel Rhodes rolls!"
Blaise rolled his eyes and pushed Harry away from the table as the dice landed wrong, losing him all his money. Harry told the pouting women that worse things happened and he flashed them another grin before leaving the casino, Blaise beside him.
"This is where I exit," Blaise told him once they reached the entrance. "Tomorrow, don't be late."
"Yeah, you can count on it." They both knew Harry would show late. Tony always came late, so Harry would be late.
"I'm serious, Tony. Last time I waited five hours for your ass." Blaise gave Harry a small twitch of a smile before waving and turning down a private alley where he could Apparate.
They were careful where they used magic now that they were living false lives. It was different at the Stark mansion, but they could still cause a power flux around the cities. Thankfully, since they were only four wizards in a largely Muggle world, technology reacted well enough when they needed it to.
Harry pushed up his dark sunglasses, ready to just pull off his clothes and sleep. Playing Stark always made him tired, even if he had gotten used to it over the years. The fame still bothered him, reporters still annoyed him, but even as a teen Tony knew how to handle it. Blaise even mentioned once or twice that he should have just been a cocky asshole at Hogwarts and people wouldn't have dragged him name in the dirt so much. Harry had to agree.
"Hey, Happy," he said to Neville as he reached the car.
Neville Longbottom, bless him, followed Harry once he found out what was going on. He had more than one reason, and not all of them Harry knew, but he accepted the extra friend all the same. "Mr. Stark."
"Let's go ho—"
"Mr. Stark! Excuse me, Mr. Stark!"
Damned reporters. Harry put on his Reporter Smile and turned to the woman. "Yes?"
"Christine Everhart, Vanity Fair Magazine," she said, flashing a charming smile. The inner-Tony appreciated that smile as well as her looks. "Can I ask you a couple of questions?"
She was cute enough to gain a bit of his attention, so Harry shrugged. "Yeah, okay." Immediately, he had a recorder in his face. At least it wasn't going to record his words wrong.
"You've been called the da Vinci of our time. What do you say to that?"
That sounded rather amazing, actually. "Absolutely ridiculous. I don't paint."
"And what do you say to your other nickname?" Her question caused a bit of panic to rise in Harry's chest. "The Merchant of Death."
She couldn't know. There was no way this reporter could know. "That's not so bad. Let me guess… Berkeley?"
She tensed and Harry smirked as he caught it. "Brown, actually."
"Well, Ms. Brown, it's an imperfect world, but it's the only one we've got." Harry leaned a little against the open door to his car. "I guarantee you, the day weapons are no longer needed to keep the peace, I'll start making bricks and beams for baby hospitals."
Her look was not amused. "Rehearse that much?"
She had no idea. "Every night in front of the mirror before bedtime."
"I can see that," she said with a slight twitch of a smile.
This was the side of Tony Stark that Harry despised. "I'd like to show you first-hand." Flirt, make the girls fall so they won't look too deep.
"All I want is a serious answer."
She was one of the few that didn't continue on with his flirtations right away, and Harry appreciated it. She deserved something, at least. "Okay, here's serious. My old man had a philosophy that Peace meant having a bigger stick than the other guy." It wasn't completely a lie; Sirius once told him that.
"That's great coming from the guy selling the sticks."
The first thing Harry had done after gaining Howard Stark's memories was to research him even more. Hermione had been helpful with that and, after they finished getting all the information on the man, Harry had felt a connection. A need to defend him.
So he did.
"My father helped defeat the Nazis. He worked on the Manhattan Project. A lot of people, including your professors at Brown, call him a hero."
She wasted no time with her return. "And a lot of people would also call that war profiteering."
The bitch. "Tell me, do you plan to report on the millions we've saved," and here he leaned closer, making sure her recorder caught his voice, "by advancing medical technology or kept from starvation with our intelli-crops?" He leaned back, hoping she saw his irritation. "All those breakthroughs were from military funding, honey."
Military funding and hours of research with magic. It had been a grueling three years when they were attempting it.
Her look did turn thoughtful, however, and Harry had to remind him to try and be flirtations as she said, "You ever lose an hour of sleep your whole life with those thoughts?"
He shrugged. "I'd be prepared to lose a few with you."
That was how Harry found himself giving up his bedroom to a reporter. As she slept, she dreamed of all the sex she figured Tony Stark would give her; it had been a trick Harry used often with the woman that only wanted to brag about getting into his pants.
He closed the door softly and turned to give Hermione a smile. "Sorry."
She shrugged and held out a mug of tea. "Why don't you stop being Tony for a few hours and come be Harry."
"Gladly." Harry closed his eyes and breathed in the smell of the tea leaves. "I can't wait until we uncover who this man is."
"The one Howard was so worried about?"
"Yeah." Harry settled on the couch. "I wanted to brush it off, but the worry was all over his mind and I just…"
"I know." Hermione opened her laptop. "Blaise wanted me to tell you that his magic is starting to short out the security on the base. We'll need to fix that when you get back from the trip."
"You're working on the new damper, right?"
Hermione smirked, holding up a set of dog tags. "Almost done. You might pretend to be a genius, but we all know who has the brains here."
"Yeah, yeah." Harry finished his tea and stood, stretching his muscles. "I'm going to head down to the lab and pretty much force all of this mechanical mumbo jumbo into my brain. I have a feeling someone will ask what this weapon does and I want to be prepared."
"Good idea." Hermione waved at him. "I'll make sure the… trash is taken out in the morning."
Harry laughed all the way down to his lab.
When he first decided to simply take over Tony Stark's life, Harry was sure that he was going to mess something up. He went to Hermione first, explained what happened, and immediately had ideas forming with her on how to go about the situation. She insisted on coming with him, hiding most of the time "Tony" recovered from the accident and Howard's death.
Knowing they would need some kind of help in the weapons department, Harry brought in Blaise as a consultant. Consultant turned into best friend and soon they had papers faked and convinced several army leaders that James Rhodes had always been there and always been at the top. Blaise's uncle helped with the process, being a Muggle military man himself; the Slytherin did admit that he always liked his squib of an Uncle even if the family didn't.
Once Harry stepped in to take over the company, Howard's friend (and oh how Harry used that term loosely) Obadiah Stane had insisted he needed a driver. Stane offered one of his, but Harry didn't trust the glint in his eyes and insisted he had his own. An old school buddy that got close. Once the words were out of his mouth, Harry cursed himself and realized that he wasn't sure who to bring in to fill that role. After many suggestions, he threw caution to the wind and contacted Dudley, figuring he would need a bulky-looking man to do the job.
It would at least give Dudley the time of his life before he died. Nobody noticed until during the war when Dudley was hiding, but his life had literally been attached to the wards on the house. Once he packed his things and left, things took a turn for the worst. He died four years into his new job as Harry's driver.
However, he helped train his replacement. Neville had almost been more of a surprise than Blaise. He never explained why he wanted to help and he never complain when it came to learning how to work with Muggle things. He simply sat back, watched Dudley, and slowly took on his mannerisms. When Dudley died, Neville finally completely adopted the persona of "Happy" – receding hairline and all.
Magic had been the hardest thing to handle. For years, they wore dampeners that stopped their magic to the point where Harry swore he was dying. Slowly, Hermione help him figure out ways their magic could not only work with various electronics, but power them as well. Circuits shorted out more often, but it was worth it. Only Blaise insisted he have a fully-functioning dampener; he didn't want to fall out of the sky in whatever aircraft he happened to be flying.
Out of everyone in Howard and Tony's life, the one person they failed to convince was Jarvis. Already an old man, he simply stared at Harry, eyes flickering to his forehead, and sighed. He was gone the next morning with only a notebook filled with instructions in his wake. It had been addressed to "Mister Potter" and gave him any and all codes and passwords within the company. Despite trying to track him down, Harry was never able to find the old butler again.
Instead, he had a few workers at Stark Industries integrate an A.I. into the company's building. He watched how it was done, watched them program a specific personality, and then proceeded to install that into the Stark house. Jarvis' voice was different, but it had been as close as Harry could get it. The all-knowing voice in the house had been more useful than Harry wanted to admit.
"Sir, magic levels are stable as always."
"Thank you," Harry said as he sat down behind the desk. "Call Blaise and tell him we'll have that thing for him tomorrow."
"Of course, sir. Anything else?"
Harry spun around in the chair, a frown on his face. There were a lot of things he wanted, and none of them could be obtained through an A.I. "That'll be all now. I'll be sleeping down here tonight. Wake me in the morning?"
"I'm sure eleven would be a fine time to have Miss Granger bring your breakfast. Your guest should be gone by then."
"Wake her at nine. I'm sure Tony would get a kick out of kicking her out early."
"Of course, sir."
Harry let out a sigh and pulled his photo album closer, wondering if he would ever see any of his still-living friends again. Wondering if he even wanted to see them.
Life, so far, was just so much easier as Tony Stark than it had ever been as Harry Potter.
I've read (and enjoyed!) many fic where Harry is now the Master of Death. I adore that so hard, but that will not be included in this. Harry ages, and Harry can die. Yes, he is still the master of the Elder Wand and he'll never part with his cloak, but he left the Stone in the forest and that's where it will stay.
