Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, or the Avengers, or both simultaneously.
Afghanistan:
Pitying Stark's friend Yinsen, he chooses not to Obliviate Stark, instead allowing him to mourn the passing of Yinsen.
Shock just isn't quite Tony Stark's cup of tea, so when he greeted Harry waiting outside the cave entrance, the conversation they had afterwards could only be described as, 'awkward'.
"Thanks for the rescue…" Tony said in a murmured tone.
"…" was what Tony was given as a response.
Nonplussed by the cold disregard the stranger gave him, Tony's stubbornness carried through.
Pestering the stranger with endless questions and inquiries, Tony's vision went hazy, as Harry casted an Oblivate on him.
Dragging Tony's limp body through the scorching sand, Harry assumed the glamour of an ordinary Middle Eastern man, as ordinary as someone hauling an unconscious billionaire can possibly be.
12 years ago:
Hogwarts Castle:
Chaos ravaged the once majestic castle, it's beautiful towers crumbling, unquenchable infernos plaguing the grounds, rubble crowding the ground, and the horrors of a battlefield marred Hogwarts' beauty.
Fred, Remus, and Tonks' deaths cloud Harry's thoughts, muddling them with whisper for vengeance in their name, while more radical whispers rallied for a massacre of the Death Eaters. Doubt blackened Harry's final actions in the Battle of Hogwarts.
Deciding to surrender himself, after Voldemort's ultimatum, unfamiliar voices continued to claw away at Harry's thoughts.
"Massacre them, it's the perfect opportunity," says one in a conspiratorial tone.
"Let the Forest become flooded with their blood."
"Burn them, slice off their heads, bomb their bodies, shatter every one of them."
Suffering in agony from these thoughts, Harry clutches his head in the mass of confusion.
Stirring after his enlightening talk with Dumbledore in Limbo, the futileness of the situation proves itself again when the voices return. Perhaps if he were saner, he would've figured it to be the corrupting influence of the Deathly Hallows.
The creations of the Peverell Brothers, the Deathly Hallows, were in fact, as legend tells them to be, Death's own Hallows. However, they contained an unseen side effect, the erosion of sanity on the wielder's part, for no mortal could possess Death's objects of power without consequences.
Briefly opening his eyes, Harry awoke from his feigned sleep, to see a downtrodden Hagrid carrying his body.
Bracing for the voices to once again descend upon him, Harry keeps them at bay, saying that a large group of Death Eaters will be gathering soon, the perfect opportunity for vengeance and bloodshed, which unsurprisingly, temporarily silenced the voices.
Voldemort announced his death to gathered crowd of Hogwarts' defenders, and disbelief ran through their ranks. Harry's body was tense, preparing for the perfect moment to ambush Voldemort's forces. Waiting for the fool to resume his speech, Harry remained tense, like a predator stalking its prey.
Once Voldemort continued, Harry himself lost control of his actions, it was as if the voices finally rebelled, and thrust control from him, for themselves. Crimson began seeping into his irises, and uncontrollable rage flowed in his veins.
Pirouetting an unbelievable height, unknown spells bombarded the Death Eater ranks. Unattached limbs lay strewn on the ground, trails of blood crisscrossed, creating a morbid piece of art.
Voldemort didn't waver, and flee like his subordinates, yet signs of fear were starting to show.
The inhabitants of Hogwarts looked on in astonishment and horrified for the grisly slaughter. Not willing to risk themselves in the tempest of spells, they could only watch. Hermione and Ron looked on, frightened by the monster their best friend had become. Streams of blood dripped off Harry's face, most of it not his, and Hermione was immediately retching, Ron not much better off, with a queasy look on his face.
Soon, pandemonium broke out in Hogwarts' population, with everyone fleeing from the hellfire of spells, yet not a single Death Eater managed to flee. Yet Hermione was still courageous enough to attempt to sprint to Harry's side, in a desperate effort to end the bedlam. Ron noticed this, and firmly grabbed her wrist, with a pleading look in his eyes to not do so.
Strange spells fired themselves from 'Harry's' fingertips, a bolt of lightning electrocuting one Death Eater on his left, and quickly ducking to dodge an incoming Avada Kedavra, Harry turned 45 degrees right, and returned fire with a Bone Shattering Curse. Walking forwards aimlessly, Harry is oblivious to the Avada Kedavra Voldemort is casting behind him. Continuing forwards, a salvo of Bombardas, Reductos, and Blood Boiling Curses launched from his right hand, obliterating a fleeing group of Death Eaters. Suddenly, Harry instinctively bends forwards, narrowly evading a familiar jet of green light. Swiveling backwards, Harry utilizes his suddenly large arsenal of spells, firing spell after spell in succession, for Voldemort on the defensive. The ferocity of Harry's attack increases, as does his anger and bloodlust.
Voldemort quailed in fear from the onslaught, and with a quick Decollare Curse that slipped past Voldemort's meager defence, his head rolled onto the ground.
His enemies would've celebrated, considering it was ideally a joyous time, but Harry's bloodlust wasn't quite sated, and refocused itself upon the population of Hogwarts.
Hurtling himself towards scattered groups of people fleeing, the whimpering scream of Hermione pierced into Harry's mind. Harry himself regained control, with the crimson wisps in his eyes, draining away.
Panting heavily, he was about to collapse from the grueling killings his just did, when Hermione's hand shook him awake.
"Was all this killing necessary?" her sobbing voice asked, "Did all those people need to die? Why all the killing, I know this isn't you, so why?"
Speechless, and with nothing to say, he gave into exhaustion.
Rising on the uncomfortable stone ground, he's greeted with glares from people visiting the Hospital Ward, while others look somewhat appreciative.
Desperately seeking answers, Harry spots Hermione conversing with Parvati Patil, and then Harry looks downwards to see the pale corpse of Lavender Brown, whose dead state he can sense.
Ushering Hermione over from her conversation, he questions her, "Why is everyone sending me those glares?"
"It's because some Hogwarts students died…" she replies.
"Died from my crazed rampage," he finishes cautiously, "And are you afraid Hermione of me?"
"I just want to know why you did what you did."
"Now that my sanity is still present, I can hopefully tell you. The Hallows are driving me insane, literally, they whispered into my head, and I couldn't control it."
"Oh."
Deciding to shift the topic of the conversation elsewhere, he inquires about Ron.
"With Fred's death, all he's been doing is silently staring at the wall. Not exactly a proper, and healthy way of dealing with it," she rambles.
"Hermione, stop. There's something I've been considering for these past few minutes, and it's not pleasant. I should leave the Wizarding World."
And her reaction was immediate, attempting to draw him back, but all Harry believed that his continued presence would've brought to much grief and chaos to the already problematic state of Wizarding Britain.
Wandering the halls endlessly, Harry continues pondering his decision to leave, and decides that for the safety, and stability of everyone, he should vanish. Encountering some people whilst wandering through the corridors of Hogwarts, he was welcomed with looks and words of disdain, shunning him and his horrendous deeds. This only served to fuel his decision to leave, and without saying goodbye, Harry flew away on his prized Firebolt.
Present Day:
Afghanistan:
The stedy throbbing of helicopter blades approaches the hill that both Tony and Harry are resting upon. Having just resumed consciousness, the only thing that Tony recalled was making his escape in the prototype suit he built, and in the process, Yinsen had sacrificed his life.
Forcefully being dragged into the helicopter with Stark, on Stark's own volition, it was a dull helicopter ride, with Harry glancing out the window the entirety of the ride. When prompted to by the soldiers, he decided to reveal that he could speak in English with them, with a light Middle Eastern accent (thanks to a charm beforehand).
Posing as a shepherd, whose animals had wandered too far into the desert, and he had ended up stumbling upon an unconscious Tony Stark. Recognizing who he was, Harry was attempting to drag him back to his home, to nurture him back to health.
Evidently, the soldiers seemed somewhat skeptical of his story, but when he chose to ramble on about various farming techniques and animals, they conceded their doubts.
Being coerced onto the private jet back to America wasn't something he quite planned, but he complied with it nonetheless.
10 years ago:
S.H.I.E.L.D. Headquarters:
Harry Potter, going by the name Harry Evans, is, according to one of his contacts in the Wizarding World, a dangerous, insane, and blood-crazed killer, clearly shown during the Battle of Hogwarts, which his associate managed to obtain Wizarding pictures of.
Contemplating the merits of killing him before his influence will reach America, Nick Fury decides the it's worth killing him. For having an insane man, with astonishing powers isn't something that Fury wishes to go rampant later on.
Ignoring his fulfillment of his part of the bargain with his contact, the capture of Harry, Nick doesn't hesitate in ordering Natasha to kill Harry.
Present Day:
S.H.I.E.L.D Headquarters:
Rubbing his temples in frustration, the resurgence of Harry Potter, who went by Evans, wasn't something that Nick desired to deal with again.
According to his contact, who was once an associate of Harry's, the only alternative to killing him, would be to capture and detain, possibly employ, his former school friends, Hermione and Ron Weasley. It seemed that only his desire to protect his friends was the driving force behind Potter's abandonment of the Wizarding World
Ideally, it should force Potter to comply with some of our demands, or restrain him. 'He's quite similar to Banner, really,' thought Nick, comparatively.
Contacting Agent Hill, the only one who knew of the Wizards so far, Fury orders her to change Natasha's orders.
Roughly near the outskirts of Ottery St. Catchpole, England:
Trying to look as auspicious as possible, Natasha wore a simple sky blue sundress. Wrapping her around why Fury would need these two alive, she patiently waits a couple hundred meters away from where the targets are supposed to be, and is surprised to find nothing in sight. Closing her eyes in utter confusion, her reflexes save her when a hand grabs her shoulder.
Clobbering the man with a punch to the abdomen, she prepares for a knee to his head, when he chokes out a, "stop."
"Natasha, man you a bloody excellent punch, I'm Neville, a specialist that Fury brought in. Just stop with beating the breath out of me, and we can talk," Neville gasps out.
Hesitatingly to knee him, Fury's voice in her communicator tells her to stop,
"Romanoff, I brought him here. He's going to assist you in capturing the two Weasleys. So stop pummeling him, I owe him multiple favors," orders Fury.
Panting, and still cradling his hurt abdomen, Neville pulls out a stick, and with a couple motions with it, and some Latin words, he's mostly fine.
With her eyebrow raised, Neville gave her an answer, "It's magic."
And with those words, Natasha almost fainted when she started hallucinating images of piercing emeralds, when that word was mentioned.
"Was your little daydream enjoyable? Since we do only have one hour before our targets leave. And to answer the impeding question, I couldn't join you on the dropship since magic interferes with technology, and Fury didn't mention me, due to him finding this hilarious. Are you ready."
Nodding, she stood up, and jogged over to Neville's side.
"The location is invisible to you Muggles, people who lack magic, because there's a Muggle-Repelling Ward set up around the perimeter of the house. Along with a variety of other wards, which I've been asked to take down," he commented absently.
Suddenly, a tugging feeling drew her away from Neville, in the opposite direction of where he was walking. Quickly sighing in annoyance, Neville cast a couple different Detection Charms, and found that the Burrow was protected by Muggle-Repelling Wards, some sort of Flame Shield Ward, a Ward which summoned heavy winds, and a few different Compulsion Wards.
Using logic, Neville concluded that the basis of these wards wasn't 'Protection', because that would require large amounts of energy to power, which would take multiple Warders, and considerable wealth. Instead it was, 'Stalling', meaning that the wards aren't very consistent, and gain more power, the more attackers there are, because wards that use the foundation of 'Stalling', leech off of the attacker's magical energies. Because only Neville was there, the wards were quite weak at the moment, and could be easily overpowered, with an overpowered Bombarda Curse.
Calling Natasha out of her trance, he called her over, to the now visible Burrow.
'A precarious, and unstable settlement for sure. Why not simply construct a proper building,' was what Natasha thought of the place.
"Prepare yourself, once I dropped the wards, it alerted the person who set it up. Thankfully, I remembered to set up Anti-Portkey and Anti-Apparition Wards, so they can't escape," Neville said. Disregarding the look of confusion on Natasha's face, they continued walking towards the Burrow.
In regards to the wards, think of it like a traffic jam, the fewer cars there are (which represent the attackers of the wards), the less impact traffic (think of the state of traffic itself as the strength of the wards, when the traffic is really awful, that's the wards at their strongest, and vice versa) will have upon the commuters. However, the more cars there are, the slower, and more impacting traffic will become.
As for plot holes and missing background info, I was saving it for this chapter.
'Chapter 4' (technically 3), a reference to how the number 4 to the Chinese, is literally Death. Symbolism was the goal here. As for the other plot holes I've just established, I got those covered as well, it'd just be poor timing if I were to awkwardly explain it now.
Finally, was the chapter length suitable (roughly 2k+ worth of words in this chapter)?
Decollare Curse - means decapitate.