Chapter Three: The Person with a Plant Problem, the Roomie


The young wizard who had unluckily found himself in another reality, Harry James Potter, didn't have a chance to answer the red-eyed teenager standing in the threshold of his new home before Agent Coulson decided to speak instead.

"Should I bother asking how you know anything about this young man's background?"

She passively shook her head, those eyes rippling between rust and vibrant cherry as the sunlight from behind danced across her face. Harry was mildly entranced by the phenomenon; he'd never seen that happen before with a person. Definitely not a Metamorphmagus, then. He still felt a little unsettled by fact her irises were such a provoking color, but there was no possible way she could be related to Voldemort. She'd be serpentine, for one, and it just wasn't sensible.

"No, but I can tell you anyway. I got an encrypted file sent to my computer from an unknown sender; the encryption work reminds me of Tony. You guys should bother trying to hire better program security dudes. I mean, it's probably futile to even try to keep Tony out, but you might as well give the man a challenge."

The teenaged girl was casual in delivering her story, gesturing with her hands intermittently but mainly conveying everything through the tones of her voice and various facial expressions. That rust-cherry red gaze kept glancing at him and Hedwig, lit with curiosity that was only held at bay by conversation. His owl crooned in her direction; apparently she thought the teenaged girl was friendly.

The balding man sighed for what seemed to be the fifth time that day. "Why am I not surprised?"

"Because T-Money is a paranoid genius with too much time on his hands. The file was created and filled recently. Knowing his AI, it showed up on the radar, the nutbar read it, and then sent it to me because reasons. He still sends me emails, did you know?"

"Are they still lesbian porn images and jokes about trees?" the agent asked tiredly.

Potter couldn't hold back his incredulous expression at the words lesbian porn and jokes about trees being used in the same sentence. Porn and trees?! What kind of person is this bloke Tony?

She shrugged, as if it wasn't that much of an abnormal happenstance. The female teen seemed to posture in the threshold like she wanted to talk to Harry and kick Coulson out, but she seemed to hold back her words out of politeness. Very British of her, Harry thought.

"Yeah, but there's also two paragraphs or so of friendly chatter and mild frustrations involving sweaty workmen and elevators! I'm actually kinda happy our friendship has finally evolved from being fourteen year-old level to eighteen year-old level. Some of the porn he found was just beyond ridiculous."

"I don't know why Fury had thought it was a good idea for you two to meet each other back then," Coulson lamented with all weariness. He turned to the young wizard, "Anyway, Harry, meet Cora Jacobs, your roommate for the next few years."

Running on manners, he offered his hand, which she took. She smirked at him in greeting. "Nice to meet you, Harry. It's actually Corita, not Cora. Cora's just the name on my birth certificate; my mom's always called me Corita, and the relative I'm named after was called that despite being officially named Cora."

Harry boyishly nodded, being the awkward teenager he was and because he didn't really know how else to act around an-admittedly-pretty girl. Red eyes aside, of course.

"Harry Potter," he said back, giving the girl his last name.

"Sorry about the rap music. I know some guys don't really like it like I do, but yeah. Tyler, the Creator is a pretty good rapper in my opinion. Says some valid sh… uh, stuff. Your owl's a bit of an unconventional pet, but he-she looks pretty cool. Aah, do you want a tour? I can show you around the apartment n' shit, and I can probably whip something up for you to eat..."

There was no denying that she was as comfortable with Coulson being there as Harry was. Potter wanted to get inside, claim his room, and get to know what kind of person Cora-ahem, Corita-was before falling asleep so deeply, even Ron's snoring wouldn't rouse him. Corita didn't seem to want to keep up her more eloquent way of speaking, and already began to fail in the endeavor. She opened the door more, Harry moved forward to walk in upon immediate understanding, Hedwig leaned toward Corita chittering enthusiastically, and the balding agent seemed prepared to follow after. Too bad Coulson didn't comprehend the complexities of teenagers. As soon as the young wizard was just past the doorway, Jacobs had shoved the door forward to leave only a fraction of space for her face. Potter barely glanced over the place before he turned, watching her brace the front door with her body weight. The pair of teens seemed to synonymously decide that it was time to kick the adult out of the area. A taunting expression was there on Corita's countenance, smirking deviously at the elder man.

"Bye, Phil. Tell Clint I hope he liked my music, and Natasha that she's the number one badass with boobs. If Fury wants to contact me, make him call or send an angry text message. Buh-bye!"

Coulson opened his mouth to yell, eyes alight with insult, when the door promptly slammed in his face. The pair of youths stood silent, almost conspiratorily, listening to the muffled speech in the hall. Eventually, the agent gave up, his sigh audible through the door. His footsteps faded off, and the chime of the elevator sounded his departure.

"Good, the stiff's gone!" Corita announced, twirling on her bare heels to Harry. "The guy's great, but you looked ready to dash. Now, let me reintroduce myself: I'm Corita Jacobs, but most people call me Jacobs or something that involves sunshine or plants. I find I don't really care, so you have plenty of leeway on that. Anyway, welcome to our apartment n' all that kind of shit," she spoke, much more comfortable now that she didn't have to hold back her words. The girl played slightly at overdramatics, but it seemed she did it for humor, as she smiled widely at Potter with cherry eyes vibrantly staring at him. "I'm a mutant, you're a wizard, and now we're both under the supposed protection of S.H.I.E.L.D."

Harry smiled at her a little uncertainly, mainly because her reintroduction was a bit too forward and brashly American, but he did find himself liking her vague overdramatics and honest friendliness. Corita Jacobs seemed to be no Lockheart, thank Merlin, who had been so overdramatic and fakely golden that he couldn't stand the man during his second year. Jacobs, in contrast, performed it as an almost antagonistic display, a dry form of humor that was strangely charismatic in its design. Fred and George were like that; purposely overdone when they wanted a laugh out of someone but still carrying an undertone of indistinct mischievousness. But, her last comment mildly confused the young wizard.

"What is a mutant?" He wondered honestly. Clint Barton had asked him the same thing when he'd fished him from the Thames. It had to be something specific to the reality he was in; he'd never heard it before when he was with the Dursley's.

Corita blinked, realization filling her red eyes. "Oh," she said plainly, "I didn't think of that; the report I got said you were from another reality-slash-world, and I forgot about the detail.

"Well, it's a bit hard to explain it if you don't have a certain amount of understanding for science. Aah, do you know anything about biology?"

"The basics, I guess," Harry admitted, fumbling a bit. It was strange when someone already knew everything about him beforehand. He didn't really know what to say as he wasn't clear how much the person remembered learning. Bollocks to Fury. "I'd started magical schooling when I was eleven, but I attended muggle-normal school before that."

Jacobs' brow furrowed in thought, arms subconsciously crossing. She wandered away from the small entryway into the apartment space, fingers fumbling with the glasses hanging around her neck, giving Harry his first view of his new home.

Much like the aluminum planters cradling painted flower pots outside, the comfortable abode was filled with plants. Not in an overwhelming sense, but there wasn't any doubt in Harry's mind that Corita had a green thumb like Neville did. The place had old-fashioned hardwood floors, musty antique rugs from Russia and the orient strategically placed about the main living area. One laid under the modern, low-sitting coffee table and three little finger pots with common daisies growing happily as a centerpiece. It was framed by a comfy-looking, upholstered couch and a matching television stand. A flatscreen TV sat atop it, with the remote perched a few inches away.

Behind that small setup, another rug was placed; it laid underneath an office arrangement, the wooden desk pushed up against the wall under a window and the office chair tucked in. Papers were strewn all over or precariously stacked, a laptop lay closed, and a flower pot filled with meticulously-cut bamboo decoratively integrated into the mess. To the left, a counter space and kitchen stood, blown glass containers for furry moss and dwarf plant species set about in a very attractive fashion. The window that had the aluminum planters outside was in fact the kitchen's window, and a music system was shoved into the corner between the sink set and knife holder. A two feet to the right, a closet door stood closed. Across from it to the opposite wall of the room, the door leading to the hallway where Harry assumed the rooms were located stood as well. Anything farther right than the closet door was full of tables and shelves laden with more planters, pots, and containers with all sorts of flowers, tree saplings, vegetables, ferns, cacti, grasses… there were even a few unnameable exotics that looked a bit questionable in nature. An exceptionally dirty rug laid underneath all that green chaos, dirt darkening portions of it and water stains turning its previously rich fibers into washed-out patches.

In all, Harry was actually happy with what he saw; comfortable, a tad messy in places, personalized, and not too over the top. More like at the brim of overdone, similar to most of the magical world, but not to the point it was akin to Umbridge-pink-cat-rubbish or something as extreme. The muggle gizmos were not what he was used to, but he had a feeling he'd figure them out eventually.

"Hmmm…" Jacobs pondered aloud, "So that means you basically did all your magic shit from middle school on… makes sense from what I read in that report…

"Okay, uh, I'm gonna' try and explain this… a mutant, you see, is a human-person, muggle, whatever the fuck-who has a unique genetic makeup. Or, in layman's terms, inherited an extraordinary mutation from the parents. Apparently, people have, over time, generated a dormant trait. Scientists call it an X-gene, which can give people extraordinary powers. Like, I know a guy who can shoot fire from his hands or melt metal just by touching it. There's this chick too, who can control the weather; it's hella cool but fucking terrifying. So, parents can have a kid and the kid inherits this trait that could kick in and turn them into superhuman beings. That, the mutated superhuman being that's got unique traits that no normal human has, is a mutant."

Harry's face had scrunched, trying to assimilate what his new roommate had told him and the new setting around him at the same time. He wasn't an idiot, but the teenager hadn't been in the muggle school system for a while. Potter did manage to know what the phrase genetic makeup meant, surprisingly, due to Dudley once managing to shove overdue science assignments at him to finish in his place. The sod thought that if Harry finished it all and he turned it in next term following the summer break, he'd up his marks.

"So," he spoke, "If you're a mutant… then what's your extraordinary power?"

Corita made a face, as if she was trying to think of the simplest way to explain something vastly complex. "Do you know what an animal cell and a plant cell is? What it looks like, etcetera?"

He bobbed his head, remembering more of his cousin's unfinished homework and thanking Merlin for the backwards benefits life threw at him.

"I've got cells that are a mashup of the two. I'm literally a scientific miracle, since it's technically impossible by biologists' standards for there to be a plant-animal hybrid in existence. Sure, the tech of the future and the genetic research done has proven you can take the gene from a glowing jellyfish and transplant it into a plant, but nobody can properly achieve a plant-animal hybrid with cross-type cells. I was essentially born normal, hit puberty, and then the X-gene triggered the change. It's normal for mutants to have their powers kick in around there."

Harry blinked, mind rushing to comprehend all Corita said. "... You're a human plant? That's your power?"

"Well it's not just that!" she cried, a little flustered. "Most of what I can do is really ridiculous to explain without giving a very long scientific lecture, but I can pull some pretty cool shit."

"Like what?" Potter said childishly, but with his emerald eyes lit with unrestrained curiosity.

Corita stood paused for a moment, her brows furrowed and red irises briefly dimming as she stood facing away from the sunlight. Then she brightened, turning to towards the sun streaming through the windows and turning her eyes vibrant again. He wondered how her eyes could do that, and if it was something to do with her supposed 'plant' abilities. Herbology at Hogwarts did teach him that some magical plants reacted to direct sunlight dramatically, some by pumping their leaves full of their bizarre brand of chlorophyll or combusting. Magic never really did anything in halves, really.

"I can do this, for one," she said, holding out her sun-kissed hand. There were callouses along her long fingers and fore palm, but they were buffed smooth from continued, day-to-day stress. Nothing happened for a beat, emerald irises spotting no change, and Harry was about to open his mouth to say she was mad.

Yet, the surface of her flesh shifted.

It was, initially, somewhat disgusting to watch. Corita's skin stretched up from her palm like floppy sludge, sloppily gathering itself up and shooting for the ceiling. The blood vessels faintly visible in her hand seemed to prominently darken, rearranging beneath the surface like worms in a jar, and the morphing clump of flesh began turning green. What seemed like a stringy bit of flesh sticking up dementedly from Corita's palm became a stem, and from it leaves sprouted. Harry watched as the formerly human-like cells that created Jacobs' hand transformed into chlorophyll-stuffed plant cells before his very eyes. A bulb formed, growing rapidly, before promptly blooming, petals bursting outwards. There, flourishing from her own bodily tissues, was a perfect, golden poppy.

"Bloody hell," Harry verbally vomited, realizing he sounded like Ron.

Corita grinned, "Disturbing but cool, huh? I can make my cells, with stored energy I can absorb through sunlight, become plant-inclined. Depending on what I want do to my body and how much sunlight I take in, I can do all sorts of crazy transformations. I got this secondary mutation too, thanks to some idiots trying to kill me, but it's really just an addition to what I can already do."

Potter winced; it was strange to hear someone besides himself dealing with near-death experiences. Jacobs acted like she was telling him about the weather, not close encounters with the afterlife. She offered her hand, noticing his interest, and Harry couldn't help but reach out to touch the golden poppy. It felt real, the petals velvet soft, and he could faintly smell the scent it naturally possessed. Potter didn't know the exact species, but he knew what a poppy looked like.

"If mutants existed from where I'm from, I'd probably think this was magic," Potter commented.

"Jesus, it sometimes feels like that," Jacobs agreed, "I mean, if you're a human plant and don't know it, you'll think you're going crazy when you can fucking sense all the plant life around you. My middle school years were damn confusing, lemme' tell you."

That did sound a bit hectic. "So is your power the main reason you're under S.H.I.E.L.D. protection, then?"

Corita gave a half-shrug, throwing up her hands in the universal gesture of 'sorta.' She plucked the poppy from her hand, wincing, reverting the appendage back to normal. "That, and the fact I got mixed up in a few major events some years back that gained me unwanted attention. Not all mutants in this world are friendly, Harry; they're more physiologically abused from being discriminated in public society and out to, quote, "prove they're the dominant species" than get along with anybody. Kinda' like the reverse backstory of your Death Eaters, but with the same general bigotry driving their actions."

The young wizard grimaced. "I can't seem to have good enough luck in getting myself stuck in places that aren't filled with danger."

Corita chuckled, twirling the poppy between her fingers before turning back to him. "Apparently not. Do you want to see your room? I wasn't kidding before when I said I'd give you a tour. I bet you're pretty much done with this day. I'd be if I were you; S.H.I.E.L.D. is a slave driver when it comes to protocol and whatnot."

He nodded, possibly a bit too eagerly. "That'd be fantastic, yes."

"Ha-ha, so british!" she joked at his accent, before turning towards the rest of the house.

"Here's the main living area, which is the kitchen, the office-desk-thing I have going, the television-hang-out-dealie, and my indoor garden," she entailed, gesturing freely to each of the allotted spaces. "If you can't figure out from hearing my explanation of what kind of mutant I am, I have a natural inclination for plants. Thus, the indoor garden; and, just as a warning, you'll probably catch Clint calling me Poison Ivy because of his fondness for DC comics."

Not that Potter even knew anything about DC comics; Dudley had a few rag comics he'd nabbed off an unsuspecting kid around Surrey, and most of them involved Judge Dredd, 2000 AD, and Toxic!, all of which were silly and science fiction. Maybe it was an American comic rag?

Jacobs swiveled on her heels, wandering over to what Harry suspected to be the closet. He was proven correct as she pulled it open. It reminded him of a smaller version of the Room of Requirement. "This is where the coats, extra clothes, and anything you want to not be found goes. You'll probably find bags of unused plant dirt from Home Depot in there, and a completely ugly poodle skirt some S.H.I.E.L.D. agent shoved off on me," she explained, shivering bodily at the memory of the horrid clothing article. "Have fun searching through it if you ever need something disposable or warm. It's like a fucking abyss in there."

Closing it, she crossed to room to the opposite door, which opened to a short hallway. "Here's the rest of the apartment: the bathroom's at the end, my room is the one on the left, and yours is the right."

Corita wandered to his appointed door, opening it obligingly. Harry looked in, noting the fact the bedroom wasn't much bigger than the room he had at the Dursley's. Maybe only a foot bigger in all directions, but nothing more. It didn't have a window, and the only furniture it had was a mattress, bedframe, a skinny set of drawers, and a little bedside table with a curve-necked reading lamp. A sliding door closet was built into one wall. Atop the drawers, a flower pot containing small jade plant shoots sat quietly.

"It's not much," the mutant girl admitted, "But we can go shopping around for stuff tomorrow, or whenever. Get some posters, maybe paint the walls, clothes, any weird bedroom knick-knacks one ends up buying at the local Target." She shrugged, "S.H.I.E.L.D. gives you a bank account that leaves you pretty happy at the end of the day."

"No, it's fine," spoke Potter, pulling out his wand. Corita blinked at the piece of wood, staring at it curiously.

"Is that your wand?"

Harry paused, looking over at the other teenager and nodding awkwardly. "Err, yes."

"Huh," she said, tilting her head at it. "Eleven inches long, and looks like Holly. A bit too perfectly straight and thick to be normal, but it's Holly."

He blinked. "You really know your plants, don't you?"

She laughed, "Ha, I told you I have a natural thing for plants! Seriously, just start accepting the fact your roomie is a plant mutant. It'll get easier as time goes on.

"Anyway, I'll leave you to whatever you're going to do with that abnormal stick. Don't make too much noise; S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and cranky old retired agents live in this complex. You'll stir up their PTSD and overall paranoia if you make too much racket."

With that, Corita Jacobs left, closing the door behind her. Harry stood staring at the door for a beat, Hedwig chittering on his shoulder, before turning back to his room with wand in hand.


To say that Potter could sleep in for as long as he wanted, or perhaps bury himself in the covers to drown out the universe and all its rubbish, would be a lie. With his eleven years of living strictly at the Dursley's and then intermittent summers after attending Hogwarts, the young wizard's ability to be as lazy as most teenagers his age had been trained (more like domestically abused) out of him. Instead, Harry woke up automatically at five o'clock in the morning. It was surprising his internal clock had even adjusted to the time table of the bizarre reality he'd found himself, since normally, five o'clock in the morning for England would be midnight hour for New York. But, abnormal occurrences weren't too out there for wizards, and when the teenaged wizard woke up at dawn, he simply accepted the fact that he managed to do that.

Harry was groggy, emerald eyes squinted and the box-spring mattress underneath him creaking as he sat up. He blinked a few times, trying to jump-start his brain, before reaching over to the bedside table for his glasses. Glancing around the room, the young wizard smiled.

It only took a couple of charms, a small bag of marbles he found under the chest of drawers, some mildly impressive transfiguration spells, and a wilted jade leaf to transform his room from the plain personal dwelling into something much more… homey.

The walls, previously a dull white, were now a rich burgundy that matched the Gryffindor common room in tone. His bedframe wasn't the sad metal contraption it once was, but the four-poster bedframe Harry liked fondly from his dormitory at Hogwarts. The chest of drawers and bedside table appeared brand new, thanks to a generous number of fixing and cleaning spells. From the bag of marbles, Potter gave himself a storage chest by the foot of his bed, filled with a half-dozen proper wizard's robes he could think to transfigure. Next to the quaint pot of jade plant shoots, his shrunken luggage sat unreformed and unopened. The dried leaf became Hedwig's new perch, positioned close to the door so she could hop on his shoulder as he left the room.

And Umbridge thought I couldn't even manage a P on my OWLs, Harry thought. If McGonagall could see what he'd done, she'd probably be pleased to know he payed attention in her class during all those earlier years of Hogwarts.

Looking down at himself, the young wizard noticed he'd collapsed into bed still fully dressed, and in the clothes that had been drowned and sopping wet throughout the entire fanfare of S.H.I.E.L.D. He made a face, a little bit disgusted by the faint fishy smell his shirt had. Harry moved to get out of bed and reach for his shrunken luggage, when a loud round of knocking pounded at his door. Hedwig's eyes flashed open, head swiveling to find Potter, before chittering to him.

Stumbling out of bed and briefly stroking his owl's head feathers, Harry opened his door to see whether or not it was his new roomie.

And, unsurprisingly, it was.

"Finally, you're up!" Jacobs declared aloud, throwing up her hands pseudo-dramatically. Corita was dressed in a similar outfit to the one she was wearing when Potter met her yesterday, with a monstrous shirt swallowing her frame and a pair of sweats making her legs look like marshmallows. Her eyes were rust red, which Harry suspected to be due to the fact there was no natural sunlight in the hallway.

"You sleep like the fuckin' dead, dude. I know you jumped worlds or realities or whatever, but locking yourself up in this room at around four and not emerging until five the next morning is goddamn crazy. How can you go without eating or drinking for that long? I gotta' drink gallons of water and a nutrient shake on top of normal human food to be happy throughout the day-what the hell?"

Her rust irises were looking past him, taking in the changes he'd done yesterday. Corita's expression was somewhere between childish awe and controlled interest, which resulted in a face displaying pure curiosity.

"Did you do all this with your abnormal Holly stick? Because this-," she gestured around, brushing past Harry without any regret, "-is fucking awesome. I wanna' know if the seed that Holly grew from can give me some hocus-pocus."

Harry floundered for a moment. He'd encountered forward people in his life before, but an American mutant with no obvious qualms was an entirely different entity compared to a British witch or wizard trying to gain his attention. Jacobs seemed perpetually unbothered from what Potter had seen, and her acceptance and awe at proof he could do magic was both relieving yet nerve-wracking. She was a muggle for god's sake, and the teenaged girl's response was to walk right in, glance around, and pet his owl.

"You're not afraid of any of this? Or, possibly unnerved? Feeling the need to call me anything?" he suddenly blurted.

Corita blinked, turning to Harry as she continued petting his snowy raptor. "Eh? What, you think I'm going to act like a scared average person?" The girl chuckled, "Oh, honey, you really don't know how fucking weird our world is. I'd actually call you a badass for dressing up this formerly drab room. The starting colors they picked for the rooms was really unflattering."

Harry tried to think up a response, something coherent to say to the girl who was close to him in age. His jaw felt like it was trying to work, but the wizard didn't manage to make his vocal cords process anything. Jacobs noticed his flabbergasted countenance, and quickly dove over to ease the issue.

"C'mon, dude," she said, grabbing him by the shoulders and pushing him out of the room, "Maybe some food will help you. Ya' look like you really need it."

So the Boy-Who-Lived allowed his new roomie with a plant obsession to guide him out to the kitchen, all the while trying to rearrange his mental furniture as he continued discovering how mad this reality he found himself was.