Disclaimer: I do not own the properties of Harry Potter or the Avengers. Those rights go to J.K. Rowling, Marvel Entertainment, and the Disney Corporation. I just like to use them for fun.
CHAPTER TEN
"So… magic?" Tony asked, falsely causal. "Have to admit, not quite what I thought you were hiding."
Harry glanced up from his work. His father had two cups of coffee on a tray with a little cream container and a sugar bowl. The cups were far larger than one should consume, but Harry didn't care.
He needed coffee. He had gotten into the habit of drinking it when he was younger, and he was running on less than ten hours of sleep in over seventy-two hours. Harry was sure that if he didn't have a mission then he would collapse.
"Oh coffee. You are my new favorite person," Harry said as he put his notes down.
He was working with a runes sequence that he had built for a mansion sized building. The problem was, Harry wasn't working with something that spanned a large distance, but rather went up a thousand feet into the air. Not to mention the muggle technology, mass amounts of people coming in and out of the building, and his lack of general knowledge of what was even in the building.
Harry would need to have JARVIS pull up the schematics, and would probably have to tweak the spell to only keep people out with a desire to hurt them in particular rather than a blanket ward that kept danger out, or a key in ward that only allowed certain people. Neither of those would be functional in this sort of situation.
"If I would have known it was this easy, I would have made you so much coffee you wouldn't stop buzzing." His father joked, but Harry could see sincerity in his eyes. He was trying, Harry knew that much.
"I think consuming that much coffee is bad for one's health," Harry said.
"We all have to die sometime, right? A coffee induced buzz is one of the best ways to go. Cream, sugar, both? Neither?" Tony rapid fire asked.
"Cream and sugar please," Harry said as his father fixed up the coffee.
"So…" Tony drug out, as Harry returned intently to his runic equations. "What are you working on? Fury called it a ward, right?"
Harry didn't quite know where to even start explaining. "Yeah, I'm working on a ward. It's kind of like a magical security system. You essentially program a barrier around a certain volume of space so that if input A happens, you get output B. If, per say, I program the ward to knock out anyone who crosses with ill intent, and that person tries to cross, they get knocked out."
"You're essentially coding a computer program." Tony said.
Harry nodded. "It's almost exactly like a computer program, but rather with runes instead of programming language. The runes all have certain properties, and can only be combined in certain ways. Different runes interact with each other in a different fashion. Some cancel each other out, some amplify, and certain combinations can create a magical collapse which would be disastrous, especially if there are people inside of the building you are trying to ward."
"Are runes main function warding?" Tony asked, the look in his eyes fascinated, as if he had discovered a whole new scientific branch.
"Not at all," Harry grinned.
He grabbed a blank piece of paper, and drew the Futhoric, or Anglo-Saxon, rune for fire. It was a straight line | with a low v shape extending inwards on each end, with the end of the v connecting to the top of the line. The top one protruded to the right and the bottom one to the left. The pointed part was centered inwards.
He took out his wand from his ankle holster, and moved as if to tap the rune.
"Wait," Tony exclaimed. "Is that a magical wand?"
Harry blinked. He hadn't thought of that, but yeah, he assumed that seeing a magical wand for the first time would be shocking.
"Yes," then Harry smirked. "Eleven inches, made of holly and a Phoenix feather."
"Phoenix's exist? Like the colorful Chickens that get their rocks off on setting themselves on fire? The immortal birds?" Tony looked like his entire world was being deconstructed before his very eyes.
"Yes, terrified the hell out of me when Fawkes set himself on fire in front of me the first time."
"Any other universe changing truths you need to tell me?" Tony asked, half sarcastically. "Do dragons exist? Goblins? You can time travel?"
Harry started laughing. He needed to go back to his work, but his father was actually interested and cared about the world he lived in. He didn't seem afraid, he seemed fascinated.
"Yes to all of the above. Dragons are terrifying. Take if from experience, fighting one is not ideal. And Goblins are the epitome of the shrewd banker. Cutthroat, greedy, and self-serving, but they make great account managers. And I wouldn't suggest time travel. Magic will correct any time travel that would change the timeline with a vengeance. You would cease to exist if you tried to change anything important." Harry explained, enjoying watching the way Tony was gaping at him.
"You are fucking with me," Tony said placing his head in his hands.
Harry started laughing. "I'll get you some books. Something to ease you into everything. Now," he pointed down at the rune he drew. "I was showing you something cool."
Tony glanced up at him, his eyes between his fingers. "Give me a second to reevaluate everything I knew to be true."
Tony closed his eyes, and then literally a second later, he opened then and proclaimed. "Alight, magic exists. My son is a wizard. We have bad people after us, and I need to relearn the rules of the universe. All in a good day's work."
Harry twitched. "It's not even ten in the morning."
"Don't remind me," Tony remarked.
Harry motioned to the rune. Activating such a simple rune took so little magic, that it wouldn't be registered under the trace. Now that Harry was thinking about it, did he being in America void the trace? Or did it mean that he had to comply with American underage magic laws. Was it like underage drinking? Where the country you are in's laws take precedent?
That was something he had to consider.
He tapped the center of the rune, and shaped his magic with intent. The rune erupted upwards, fire spewing into the air. Harry pictured Fawkes and his magic followed in response. Creating a rune allowed one better to control their application. Magic, as always, was about intent.
The flames shaped into Fawkes, flying around the kitchen.
Tony's voice could be heard saying something along the lines of fucking hell. Clint, who had been completely eavesdropping the corner, jumped to his feet his eyes wide in shock.
"That, is a bird, made out of flame. A bird. Made out of fire." Clint looked like he was imploding in on himself.
Harry allowed the flames to disperse. In a more scientific way, the rune had taped into magical components to create a chemical reaction in the air at a subatomic level using the magic to rearrange the molecular structure of the world at a subatomic level. This was small enough that he could do it without activating the trace.
What Tony and Clint didn't know was that Harry kept a tight hold over the properties of the spell. Very easily, the magic could slip away from him and the entire building could go up in flames.
But Harry was experienced and he probably wouldn't let that happen.
"That's incredible," Tony breathed.
Harry felt his face flush with the compliment from his father. Something stirred inside of him. He was getting validation from his biological father, something he had never ever imagined would happen. For the longest time, he had pushed that urge to want validation down. Harry didn't need validation, he knew he was smart and powerful, but hearing his father give it to him was a million times better than he had ever imagined.
The five-year-old inside of him that was still stuck in a cupboard, the eleven-year-old's greatest desire was having a real family, or the thirteen year old that thought Sirius was going to save him, all leaped to the forefront of his mind.
Harry suddenly felt overwhelmed. "I – uh, t-thank you."
Tony's eyes meet his, and Harry knew that Tony knew how he was feeling. Harry wondered about his father's childhood.
"You are incredible, Harry, in every way. Couldn't imagine a better son. Seriously, magic. Could not have imagined it," Tony, the man forever allergic to sincerity, said. Harry understood nonetheless.
In that second, Harry wondered – well, he really did know why – why he did not seek Tony earlier. Then again, two years ago when he learned about it all, Tony had yet to become Iron Man. He was a man unable to take care of himself, and Harry was a young teenager trying to figure out who he was in a world that wanted to eat him up and trying to mentally deconstruct that he had been abused. It could have gone wonderful, yes, but it also could have gone terribly.
They were both much different people than who they were. Yes, Harry still had difficulties thinking that he deserved anything, but at least he was trying to recognize when those tendencies cropped up. In two days, his and Tony's entire world had been flipped upside down.
He had a father now, a guardian who actually wanted something to do with him. Harry was terrified of that slipping away and changing, but he couldn't live his life avoiding things because he was terrified.
That would not be very Gryffindor.
The moment passed. Tony cleared his throat, "Is there anything I can do?"
Harry looked down at his notes, mentally trying to find a place to start. He put two huge pages of notes next to each other. He motioned to the first one, the runes, and told his father, "I think I have a combination that would work for this size building. It's a little rough, but once the wards are functional, I can always tweak them. However," he motioned to the other piece of paper, "the energy that would be required to, uh, turn them on so to speak, is far beyond what I can tap into."
The second piece of paper was a mess of a mathematical formula showing the energy output. He would need to produce the magical equivalent of 3,000 megawatts to jump start warding. It wasn't the size of the building, but rather the height, that was tripping him up. Harry had thought of different solutions. He could probably ward the lobby, then individually ward each floor moving up almost like a stacking block, but Harry didn't even want to think about how hard that would be to figure out. Literally stacking wards on top of each other could destabilize the entire building as the edges fought for dominance.
It would also produce a very weak ward. Any strong magical blast at the seams between two wards would collapse them. It would keep out an average wizard, but none of the individuals interested in Harry were weak magically. He also was not going to leave his father with subpar wards.
"That's a lot of power," Tony said, staring at the paper. Then, there was an embarrassed pause, Tony pointed to a symbol on the paper. It looked like this: /|~
"It's well, hmm," Harry paused, trying to think of the correct way to explain it, "It's a unit of magical power. It's called an elt from the Latin phrase, et lux in tenebris, or to light the night. It's based off the average magic needed to create a floating light. I don't really know the power conversion. Anyways, it's a different kind of energy," Harry explained.
MagicalMagical theory was not easy to understand. Well, there were easy magical explanations for why magical things happened.
To the majority of wizards, their wands light up because of magic and will. To the average muggle, a light bulb turns on because of electricity. They don't need more explanation than that because it just makes sense. They don't need to know what electricity is made of or that it gives off photons. Just that it does.
Harry, coming into the wizarding world, found himself very unsatisfied by that explanation that magic happens because of magic. For one, it was a logical fallacy and circular reasoning. So, Harry looked into it and realized that there was an entire group of magical scientists in the world who were trying to explain magic within the laws of the known universe. He was not the only curious person on Earth.
"Magic is an energy?" Tony asked.
"Everything is an energy," Harry replied, then continued, "ex nihilo nihil fit, nothing comes from nothing, even magic. It's really just energy, dark energy, that has properties that can change the matter around it. It interacts on a subatomic level changing the properties of matter to create an outcome. Sometimes it can be as simple as a state of matter change, other times its creating a localized black worm hole that shifts the fabric of time and space. But you know, more energy required."
The brilliant truth about magic, was that it just was science. Magical humans had the ability to manipulate and produce dark matter and dark energy. Maybe dark energy was magic, in the way magic is just presumed to be, waiting for science to catch up and give it a scientific label.
Well, maybe. There was still a lot they had to learn, and science hadn't progressed enough to explain everything. Rather, they knew that magic could do or create things that science claimed was impossible. They obviously weren't impossible, so therefore it became a question of how and why. Harry wanted to devote the rest of his life to studying magical theory.
"Magic is dark energy?" Tony questioned incredulously. "Are you telling me that you guys solved one of the biggest questions in science and didn't tell the rest of the world."
Harry grinned at his father. "I mean, I didn't solve it personally. And I mean, c'mon. What are we supposed to do, walk into MIT and claim that us witches and wizards – who primarily dress in robes, use owls for transportation, and legitimately fly on brooms – have solved one of science's greatest mysteries. Our explanation, magic!"
Tony looked at him incredulously. "Okay, that's fair." Tony stared back at the equation, and casually asked, "So you wrote this equation?"
Harry nodded. Runes could be learned at their face value and could even be used in all their properties without every learning the math behind each rune. Isa and Sigel, the runes for ice and sun, tended to muddle an outcome if placed in the same runic equation. From a basic standpoint, it made sense. Ice and sun? Of course they would cancel out to some extent. However, if one breaks down the scientific variables of what the runes are actually doing, and how they cancel each other out, one can create a more precise and complex rune design. Wards, some of the most complicated runic linkings, sometimes had forty different runes that all interacted with each other in a separate way. That was not even bringing up how the order or location of rune in the equation effected how it interacted.
It was, well, there was a reason why so few people on Earth would be capable of warding something like a ninety-three story building.
Harry loved it. Science and magic coming together to produce something lasting. It was beautiful.
"This is highly complicated," Tony said. That was an understatement. But for thee Tony Stark to call an equation 'highly complicated' meant that yes, it was ridiculous.
"Yeah," Harry frowned. It was too complicated. It would work in theory, but he needed make it work in practice. Pull down the energy needed to a manageable level, so that he alone could start the ward. "Problem is that I don't have that energy. I'm powerful, but…" Harry trailed off.
"That much energy would depower New York City for five minutes. That's a fuck ton of energy."
"Look over the math," Harry told him. "If you can simplify any of the equations…" Harry reached into his bag and grabbed a cheat sheet. "Actually, take this. This is the mathematical equations behind the Futhorc runes. I mean, it's more complicated than the sheet, but you're a genius right."
Tony grabbed the paper, and there was a nervous energy around both of them. They stood side to side working, science and magic together. Tony learned quickly. Asking for clarification, but ultimately understanding it at the level of someone who had spent their entire life constructing and deconstructing equations.
His father had programmed a AI for Merlin's sake. Harry was confident that together, they could solve this.
What neither of them realized was that at different points in the morning, the other Avengers had wandered in to only hear snippets of what they were saying.
To them, it was nonsense.
"… placing Lagu and Naupiz next to each other should create a negative energy output. It might complicate the equation, but it could act as a balancer…"
And.
"… brilliant. Law of [some scientific mumbo jumbo that Steve, who was listening in, didn't understand] should apply…"
And.
"… why didn't I think of that…"
The last one everyone understood. Harry and Tony were certainly parent and child.
…
Dumbledore stared at the Muggle newspaper. He couldn't believe it.
As in, he did not believe it.
"What has Potter gotten himself involved in this time?" Severus asked. His tone was not his usually snarky and snappy, but rather exhausted as if the world had weighed him down. The man was slightly shaking, but Dumbledore politely did not point it out.
It was obvious that Severus had been recently tortured by the Cruciatus, but there was nothing he could do to help, and bringing it up would only injure Severus' pride.
"Do you know who Tony Stark is?" Dumbledore asked.
Severus paused for a second, thinking, then replied, "The Muggle superhero? A man with some sort of metal suit."
"The very one," Dumbledore noted.
"What about him?"
"The Muggle paper's claim that Harry is his long-lost son. Or at least, has been seen in close proximity to man early this morning in New York City." He handed Severus the newspaper.
Sure enough, a slightly pixelated image of Harry in a Weird Sister's t-shirt and jeans was accompanied by the Muggle man named Tony Stark.
Dumbledore had to admit that the resemblance was very striking, and if he did not know Harry's parentage, he would assume the same thing that the papers had.
"What did Potter get himself into?" Severus asked, sounding tired. "The brat is going to be the death of me one day."
Dumbledore looked at him sharply. "Don't say that."
Severus was very dear to Dumbledore. The man was prickly and sharp, but almost like the son he never had. Dumbledore, for all his faults, did care for people.
"What are you going to do?" Severus asked.
Dumbledore felt tired; as if all the years of worrying and trying to control the universe had caught up to him. The last month had brought about the realization that he had failed some people very grievously, and failed everyone on some level.
He told Severus. "Severus, my boy, how does an international portkey to New York sound."
….
Death was not, despite the majority of religious teaching, one entity. Gods of death, were just that, gods of death. They controlled the force that was death, but that force was all-encompassing. It was almost one entity, but it also wasn't.
Death, however, observed the pseudo-immortal on Earth who had mutilated his soul. Death hated this mortal who dared challenge him; who dared to challenge his future master. Death found this creature to be despicable. Time takes everything, even death. Death will come with Time.
So, Death tried to reach out to his future master again, but there was a block.
The mortal who had militated his soul had hidden a piece inside of his master.
It made death furious. An angry death meant bad things for the larger universe.
….
In London, Jasper Ryes was a very happy man. He was not often very optimistic, but the last two days had worked out well. Harry, despite not having gotten in contact with him, was safe and away. He also hadn't gotten into contact with him, so he probably hadn't done anything stupid.
Jasper knew he was harsh on Tony Stark, but that little boy that he loved like his own son was fragile. Oh, he was a strong kid. Brilliant, hardworking, magically talented, the whole shebang. More than anything, Harry deserved happiness.
The boy deserved to not have to worry about love being taken away from him or placed upon him only conditionally.
Jasper and his wife were working on it.
Against all odds, they seemed even to be winning the fight. Harry was opening up, and Jasper prayed that he would continue to.
His wife walked through the door. She had just showered and was getting ready for bed. She was beautiful and everything he ever wanted in life.
They hadn't wanted children in their youth, too enamored with taking on the world. Then things had settled down and they tried for children, it took them a little while and they realized that they couldn't even have children.
And adopting, unfortunately, was not an option. Rachel was a quarter summer fairy and classified as not human under their current constitutional laws. Jasper was furious; Rachel was furious. It broke both of their hearts.
Then Harry had showed up on their doorstep and had been everything and more that they wanted.
For now, litigation was underway. Jasper had fundamentally retired and didn't have any other cases pending. Now it was a waiting game. Hopefully, Harry wouldn't do anything too stupid.
….
Harry was about to convince himself to do something incredibly stupid. His father had purposed the idea, and it was brilliant, but what he didn't know was the effects it could have.
His father had said: "What about supplementing your magic source. Take in other energy and convert it to power setting up the wards?"
Harry shouldn't even be considering it. That much energy through a human body would be like being struck by lightning or worse. Yeah, he had magic, but his body was designed to hold that energy. Outside energy might literally burn out his magical core.
Harry shouldn't even be considering doing it.
He shouldn't be. But he was.
So this was unexpected. So... umm... hi? Does anyone care if I continue this? I have over half of the next chapter written. I was reading fanfiction on A3O and stumbled across this and realized that I left a lot of you hanging. I have a really awesome chapter planned next that I'm really excited about. Let me know what you think. I got REALLY into the magical theory stuff this chapter, and my science probably doesn't work (science nerds and majors out there, please please tell me if my science is wrong! I will fix it.).
Please let me know what you like (or even if you like it!) Thanks for reading :)
Emm