Beta: Marwana

Disclaimer: I have no right to any of the characters; they belong to J. K. Rowling and to Stan Lee

Pairings in this chapter: pastHP/GW

Warnings in this chapter: AU fanfiction, Crossover, mention of torture

Nr words in this chapter: 4,399


"Talking"

"Talking in another language than English"

'Thinking'

–Parseltongue–

Dream/Memory/Letter/Journal/Book/Newspaper

Time change/date of time


Chapter XI

–New School–

23 May, 2008

Harry looked at his phone and frowned in confusion, couldn't he have any break today?

Harry stood from the dining table and went to pick his phone up as his kids were messing around with their soup. Harry glared at James when he tried to trade his full bowl with Stark's empty one, while answering the call.

"Yes?"

"Potter."

"Phil… what is it? Did Voldemort do something again?"

"No, the Dark Lord has not done anything wrong." Harry hummed sitting by the table again. "There was an attack close to the place where you were found, do you know anything about it?"

"I may know something." Harry answered truthfully, before screaming "James, stop that!" The boy jumped in his seat and blushed a deep red, returning the bowl to its rightfully place. "Now eat it!" Harry warned, pointing towards him with the phone and the boy nodded, deathly pale. Harry gave him a harsh look before returning the phone to his ear. "Sorry, Phil. James and vegetables… Could you repeat what you said?"

"Will you tell me?" the man questioned, used to Harry having to do things like that while they talked on the phone, sometimes it was because Harry was attending someone at the café.

"Nope." Harry answered amused. "But you already knew I wouldn't answer that. Statute of Secrecy and all that…"

He was sure the other man smiled amused at his answer.

"Good to see your vivacity is back, Potter."

Harry rolled his eyes.

"Come on, Phil, you didn't firecall me during dinner to talk about that."

"We got contacted by the schools you've been trying to contact to see if Tedmond could attend." Harry hummed, grabbing a jotter from his pocket and a pen. "Are you ready?"

"Yep, quill in hand."

"So there were two schools which have answered which are still taking students." Harry hummed writing the number at the top. "They're both in the New York State. One is called The Lawrenceville School, it's about an hour driving and the tuition costs $51,025…"

Harry's eyes grew, choking.

"O-okay." He said before writing the amount down, the location and the name.

"For the magical students it's mandatory to be a boarding school." Harry wrote that down at once. "And then there's The Masters School, it's about 40 minutes driving and the boarding tuition costs $49,930 and the day tuition costs $35,520…"

"Why can't my life be easy for once?" Harry groaned and saw Stark peeking over his shoulder.

"They also want an answer by Tuesday."

"You can only be kidding me… Tuesday? But that's… that's the day after tomorrow… Godric's shake… what about visiting school and…?"

"They said they were going to be open tomorrow if you and Tedmond would like a tour."

Harry looked at Teddy, who was looking back, biting his lip.

"Very well, we'll go check the schools. Give me the addresses." Harry groaned, turning back to the jotter and writing them down as Phil dictated. "Anything else?"

"Please remember Miss Potts that Stark has marked an appointment with me tomorrow, 7 pm at Stark Industries."

"I will and thanks Phil." Harry mumbled before hanging up and turning to the jotter.

"My new school?" He heard Teddy ask.

Harry looked towards the boy, nodding with a smile.

"We're going to check the new schools tomorrow. There're two, one in New Jersey and one in Dobs Ferry."

Harry looked towards the jotter again at the prices wondering how the hell he was going to do this, he didn't remember Hogwarts being this expensive.

"Happy can drive him to school every day you know? It's only a 40 minutes' drive, nothing out of the ordinary." Stark said with a shrug and when Harry looked at him the man pointed to the jotter. "Besides it would be easier for you to pay, wouldn't it? Anyway, why doesn't he continue public school with his fellow colleagues?"

"It's… complicated." Harry mumbled before picking the cellphone and looked for Pepper's number. "Hi…" he said when he heard the sound of her answering.

"Evans. I just saw you… Did Tony do something? Do you want me to go pick you up? Are the children okay? Albus had another epileptic attack? Do…"

"No… no need to return now. And no, Albus didn't have another epileptic attack, he is on medication and as far as I know he has not had another attack since your boss returned." Stark looked at Albus surprised and the boy lowered his head blushing. "Remember the poor unfortunate agents your boss mentioned yesterday night?" Harry saw Stark sneer at the idea of agents. When Pepper hummed Harry continued "I was asked to remember you that he booked the appointment tomorrow 7 pm at Stark Industries."

"I did?" Stark asked confused making the kids snicker and Harry roll his eyes.

"Of course he did…" Pepper snorted from her side. "He doesn't remember, does he?"

"Nope, doesn't sound like he does."

"It was Agent Coulson, the one you took to the party?"

"Yep." Harry answered sipping from his red wine as he heard Pepper write something down. Even if it was nothing like house elf wine, he had to admit that Stark had the best wines muggles could produce.

"Did he tell you what he wanted?" Pepper asked.

"He wants to know how Stark escaped." Harry answered and Stark tensed, the man's eyes narrowing. "And apparently your boss doesn't approve of the idea of telling the poor unfortunate agent."

Stark offered his hand and Harry gave him the phone.

"Pepper." The man said, standing and leaving the room for privacy.

Harry returned to James who was glaring at the soup.

"If you don't start eating I'll give the peas life and they'll eat you first."

The boy looked up, his brown eyes wide.

"You wouldn't!"

Harry drew his wand threateningly and the boy started to eat at once. Harry kept glaring until the boy finished the bowl of soup, only then did Harry smirk, looking at Yinsen.

"Works like a charm."

Yinsen smiled amused and stood gathering the bowls of soup, Harry made a move to stand but Yinsen forced him to stay in his seat.

"You already cooked this wonderful dinner, let me help with something. I'll bring the next course dish."

Harry sighed and nodded, accepting.

"You already did too much. You spent the last two hours taking bullets from Stark's suit."

"And I spent all morning and the first half of the afternoon sleeping."

"Which doesn't surprise me with the amount of time you spent awake last night making sure the suit was ready." Harry argued back.

Yinsen smiled and, before he could pick the plates, Teddy and James stood and grabbed them from him and ran out of the dining room.

"Apparently your children agree with you." Yinsen commented amused.

Stark returned with the boys, the second course in his hands. He put it on the table, before taking the phone to his ear and resuming the phone call as he left the room. Yinsen served them and sat down again, picking the jotter and looked at it.

"How much do you still have in the bank at England?"

Harry shrugged. Teddy, who was sitting besides Yinsen, looked at the prices, his eyes growing and his hair went white.

"Evans, I…"

"Money is not a problem, Teddy. But we will get a plane to New York and visit the schools tomorrow and I want you to choose the one you like more, not because of the money but because you like it."

The boy looked at Harry and then at the jotter biting his bottom lip and Harry knew the boy would choose the cheapest one no matter what school he would prefer. He knew he would because the boy was totally like him in things like that and that would've been what Harry would choose for himself.

"I can always get a tutor for the weekends… or Great Uncle can tutor me with your old books." The boy tried.

"Tedmond." The boy looked at Harry, his white hair returning to blue. "I'm not insisting for you to have these classes for no reason. If you don't learn how to control your core it will turn against you. Besides from what I found during the last weeks as I sent letters to all the schools in America, they aren't like Hogwarts, they teach you both 'normal' teaching and 'our' teaching. Actually, I only sent letters to the ones who had that option in their schedules." Harry pointed to the boy's hair. "And you know very well that not even the Dark Lord can teach you how to control that, it's not like he hasn't tried yet… actually have you done your meditations?"

The boy's hair turned light red in shame.

"I…"

"Tonight an hour before bed, I want to see you doing it. And If you don't I'll have the girls watching over you until you're finished."

Teddy looked towards the corner where the snakes were coiled and then towards Harry, nodding fervently in fear. Harry sighed and stood so he could hug the 11 years old boy. That had been harsh of him to say. Teddy couldn't understand the snakes and they were always picking on him because of that.

"I'll do it with you." Harry looked up towards Albus, smiling at the boy.

Lilu's tiredly raised her arm in the air.

"Yeah. Me too…"

Teddy smiled.

"Are you sure, baby girl? You look like you need to go to bed." The 11 year old boy commented.

The girl shook her head with strength.

"Nah… not tiwed… meditate… with Awbus and Teddy…" the girl said before putting her head on her crossed arms on the table.

"You look like you won't even last for dinner." James taunted.

Harry smiled and stood serving them all their share.

"Then let's finish dinner so you can all meditate together."

"What about Tony, dad?" Harry looked at Albus confused. "Aren't we going to wait for him to have dinner?"

"Well Albus, Mr. Stark is right now having an urgent call, and we can't wait or your sister will fall asleep in her seat…"

"I will not…" Lilu retorted tiredly, raising her head at once.

"Good." Harry said putting her plate before her and the girl looked at it not really understanding what it was…

–UNF–

Harry spent the whole night arguing with Stark about his choice of boarding schools for Teddy. In Stark's opinion Harry had no way to be able to pay such a school for his godson, in Harry's opinion the man had nothing to do with it. And in the end Stark called Happy and made him drive Harry to the airplane and go with him to New York to visit the schools in the Stark private plane. Harry had argued against it of course, he didn't need charity but Stark hadn't exactly given him much of a choice.

So here was Harry with Teddy and Happy Hogan in a 6 hours flight to New York, of course in a Stark plane it wouldn't last that long, if he remember right from the other night it wasn't even half the usual time but even so…

"You know, sir," Harry looked at Happy, surprised that the man was talking to him. Teddy was asleep in one of the seats. "I may not understand why you would put your son in a private school, but I know that there are such good schools that are cheaper."

UNF–

Tony looked up as Pepper entered his lab where he was by the screens trying to understand why Potter had decided those two schools for his godson. Honestly that man was a nightmare! Why did Tony really bother with him?

Yinsen was with Albus, Lilu and James mending the suit, the man was working and the kids were helping him. Tony had been a little wary of letting them down in the lab but they were only giving Yinsen the tools for him to work with and it kept them occupied and busy so it was a win-win situation.

Tony found himself with Pepper looking over his shoulder.

"What are you doing?"

"Searching?"

Pepper raised an eyebrow at him in answer. Tony looked towards the kids only to notice that Albus was next to him. How had he approached so quickly?

"He's looking for the schools dad got answer from about where to put Teddy in. They're a little expensive and dad and Tony spent the whole night arguing."

Pepper frowned at Albus, Tony was only happy that it was directed at the boy that her attention was on and not him. And started to hack into the school programs, there had to be some reason Potter wanted to send the kid there so much. He had gone to a special school so maybe these schools were connected in some way?

"If it is expensive why does your father want him to go there?"

Albus bit the bottom of his lip and Tony looked at him surprised, it had been a while since the boy had done that in front of him. Normally the boy trusted him full heartedly so why…?

"To hewp Teddy." Tony looked at Lilu only for his eyes to grow wide as James put his hand on the girl's mouth and hissed something on the girl's ear.

Now that he thought about it he remembered their father hiss to the snakes and they seemed to understand Potter, actually he seemed to understand what they said. Tony looked towards the screens only to find that there were a whole part of the facility that was only meant for some of the students as he dug deeper he found the word special. A school to help Teddy were the girl's words.

Special.

Tony looked sideways towards Albus and then towards the screens putting the vids made by the cams he had in the whole house on screen and rewinded them, making it possible so only Potter showed up and then there it was. Potter at the dining room after he got the call from his ex when she died. Tony saw the man take his ring out and do something, suddenly some kind of light started to leave Potter's own body and enter the ring and then Potter was gasping for air as he grabbed his own t-shirt just above the place where his heart was.

Suddenly, Tony started to suspect something because of everything strange that surrounded Potter and everything strange Potter did: secrecy; firecalls; quills; Merlin; odd lights; using a stick instead of a gun; special schools; his uncle who managed to knock out his best body-guard and then, as had Potter left, Happy had woken up and didn't even remember being knocked out… Tony would probably regret thinking this but it was almost like magic.

Tony looked at Yinsen who was looking back.

"Son of a… You knew what he is, didn't you?" Yinsen nodded. "And Rhodey knows as well… Fu…" Pepper pinched him before he managed to finish the word and Tony screeched looking at her and she gave a pointed look at Albus. "Holly mother of god." He amended. "No wonder he was so odd." Tony turned to Albus. "But there must be others schools, cheaper and…"

The boy shrugged.

"Dad tried everything in the Atlantic side of the US." The boy commented.

"Yeah, because it was needed to give the address and they refused anything more than 1000 miles from home." James added with scowl.

Tony frowned and immediately put it on the screen and in no time he was searching for schools that had this same special part where it was normally accessed from grandparents to parents to children to grandchildren and so on in the pacific area. Yinsen approached and looked over.

"Are you sure you can find a school cheaper that reaches Evans standards?"

Tony shrugged and saw various schools starting to appear. Tony turned to Pepper.

"Hey. You busy? You mind if I send you on an errand?" Tony asked as he grabbed a pen drive and handed it to her. "I need you to go to my office. You're going to hack into the mainframe and you're going to retrieve all the recent shipping manifests. This is a lock chip. This'll get you in. It's probably under Executive Files. If not, they put it on a ghost drive, in which case you need to look for the lowest numeric heading." Tony explained as he looked towards the screens as the schools kept appearing, most of them were overpriced and, even if for him there was no problem in paying it, he knew it would be too expensive for Potter, especially with four kids.

"And what do you plan to do with this information if I bring it back here?" Pepper asked, bringing Tony back to reality.

"Same drill. They've been dealing under the table, and I'm going to stop them. I'm going to find my weapons and destroy them." He answered as he looked over the schools.

"Tony, you know that I would help you with anything, but I cannot help you if you're going to start all of this again." Pepper started and Tony saw Albus walk away giving them some kind of privacy.

Tony looked Pepper in the eyes to make her understand.

"There is nothing except this. There's no art opening. There is no benefit. There is nothing to sign. There is the next mission and nothing else." He stated, raising his voice half way but finishing in a calm voice.

"Is that so? Well, then, I quit." Pepper answered dropping the pen drive into the table.

Tony looked at the pen drive and then at Pepper tiredly. Emotionally exhausted.

"You stood by my side all these years while I reaped the benefits of destruction. And now that I'm trying to protect the people that I put in harm's way, you're going to walk out?"

"You're going to kill yourself, Tony. I'm not going to be a part of it."

"No, he won't." Tony looked towards the side where the kids were. James was standing and looking at Pepper. "Dad won't let him die. Dad is the most powerful man in the whole world. He is the Boy-Who-Lived. The Chosen One. Dad will protect Mr. Stark and will join him being a superhero."

Tony raised an amused eyebrow at the 8 years old boy.

"Let's do it this way. You have to go to New York for the meeting with Agent Coulson." Yinsen stated and Pepper nodded. "I'll go with you, we go earlier and I'll watch as you hack into the mainframe. Then I'll bring the pen drive to Mr. Stark and you have the meeting. You won't go against your opinions and you will keep your job."

Pepper opened her mouth to counteract.

"I shouldn't be alive, unless it was for a reason." Tony explained as he sat. Albus ran to him, sat on his lap and hugged him, putting his own head on Tony's shoulder. Tony looked at Pepper as the other two children approached and looked at her with pleading eyes. "I'm not crazy, Pepper. I just finally know what I have to do. And I know in my heart that it's right."

Finally Pepper sighed and approached the pen drive picking it up as Tony looked at Albus on his arms.

"You'll be okay alone with the trio?" the woman asked and at Tony's nod she turned and left, Yinsen following her.

"Magic, hmm?" Tony asked and Albus grinned not accepting nor belying the question. Tony turned to the other two kids by his leg with a raised eyebrow. "That is the actual term right?"

"We can't tell you." James said with a mischievous smirk. "Statute of Secrecy." The boy added professionally.

Tony glared playfully at the boy who only smirked tauntingly back as if daring Tony to argue. Tony rolled his eyes and turned to the suit, making sure it was ready in case he needed it.

"'Kay chaps let's go upstairs before you blow up my lab."

Tony put Albus on the floor and stood, before heading up to the stairs.

"Why do you awgue with daddy so much?" The dark red haired, hazel eyed girl asked.

Tony hummed. Opening the glass door to his lab and let them pass before he finally passed.

"When we went to Afghanistan your dad didn't like me." Tony explained as they climbed the steps. Tony noticed the kids looking at him with big eyes and wondering expressions, they looked like they were hearing their bed time story… Did Potter read them bed time stories? "My company made weapons and your dad is against making weapons."

"Dad hates waw." Lilu said seriously.

Tony smiled at her and entered the kitchen and prepared them a glass of milk with chocolate.

"Your dad got hurt when he arrived at the camp. Really hurt. Sometimes the way to know if he was okay was by the quarrelling."

"What is qualler…?" Albus asked, not managing to say the world.

"Quarrelling." Tony amended with a smile as the kids wore a moustache of milk. "It's when people disagree… don't have the same opinions and argue about it… really heatedly."

"If you were always… qua… rre… ling then how are you two friends?" James asked having to separate the word to say it.

"I spent two months locked in a small place with no one but your dad and Yinsen to keep me grounded. We could hate each other's guts but we kept each other alive and gave the other a reason to stay alive. Now that I've returned that feeling of protection and to be kept on my toes is still there… and a good thing too as just yesterday I had to argue with your dad as it was difficult to bring any kind of emotion out of him."

"But you have other friends." Lilu argued clearly confused.

Tony picked a kitchen-paper and gave it to her, she blushed but cleaned herself at once.

"Pepper and Happy work for me, even if they sometimes don't agree with what I say, I'm the one who has the last word. Rhodey and I know each other for a real long time, but as much as Rhodey tells me what to do… like let's say get in time to a certain place, I tend to forget it."

"But Dad doesn't tell you to do anything." James asked surprised.

"Because it goes both ways." Albus said, making his siblings look at him. "Tony keeps Dad in line and Dad keeps Tony in line when no else could tell him what to do. Tony did stop his weapons factory for Dad, didn't he?" the boy added the last part pointedly to his siblings.

Tony didn't see a reason to explain that it wasn't 'for' their father that he had done it but 'because' of their father… but it was just a little word and who cared?

UNF

Ho watched through the door as Miss Potts looked on the computer for the files, hearing her talk something about sector 16 made him look at her in confusion and then he started to hear some kind of video in Arabic about killing Tony Stark. He approached and looked over her shoulder as she translated it so she could understand what they said. The two traded looks and Miss Potts started to copy everything. And then the door opened scaring both of them. Ho sneered at himself for forgetting about the fact that he should have made sure no one was going to enter. Mr. Stane spoke with Miss Potts about Mr. Stark and asked Miss Potts about who Ho was and then, suddenly, the two were leaving the office at full speed.

"Do you have the agent's number?" Miss Potts asked as they fast walked away before Mr. Stane would found what they did.

Ho nodded and called Agent Coulson. As soon as they arrived in the lobby the man was there, nodding his head at Ho lightly. Ho didn't even wonder how the man had managed to make his way from inside the Dark Lord's cell to the Stark Industries in a second, most likely with the Dark Lord's help. Ho looked back to see Mr. Stane following them. Agent Coulson looked at them from the chair he had sat in as if he was just waiting for his appointment.

"Miss Potts? We had an appointment. Did you forget about our appointment?"

"Nope, right now. Come with me." Miss Potts said and Agent Coulson stood.

"Right now?" the man asked as if confused. Ho could see why the man was so good in what he did.

"We're going to have it right now. Yeah, walk with me." Miss Potts answered and Agent Coulson started to walk with the two fast.

"Okay."

Miss Potts looked back towards the spot where Mr. Stane was watching over them and then back towards Agent Coulson, never once stopping with walking.

"I'm going to give you the meeting of your life. Your office."

As soon as they were outside they entered Miss Potts' car and she let Agent Coulson give her the directives for the agency. Agent Coulson looked back at Ho in the back seat with a questioning look.

"Mr. Stane paid the Ten Rings to kill Mr. Stark. Everything is on the pen drive Miss Potts has in her handbag."

Agent Coulson nodded and, as soon as they arrived, he took them to a room so Miss Potts could show them the pen drive.

–UNF–

"Kiddos go wash your hands the pizza just arrived." Tony called right after he paid the pizza guy.

He saw the children run to the bathroom to wash their hands and heard his phone ring, was it Potter again? The man had already called ten times worried about his kids. Honestly it wasn't that hard to watch over some kids!

Tony placed the pizzas on the tea-table, sat on the couch and picked his phone up, only to see Pepper's number.

–UNF–

James was just helping Lilu put the soap on her hands when he heard something falling, looking to the side he found his brother on the floor convulsing like mad. At the same time the lights started to flicker in the bathroom. James tensed and put a hand on his sister's mouth at once, pulling her towards the door and peeked outside only to see Mr. Stane there doing something to Stark. James' eyes grew wide as Mr. Stane took the machine that emanated the light on Stark's chest.

(TBC)


Hi

For people who haven't seen the Iron Man III movie and is wondering; Ho is the first name of Yinsen

About Tony's talk with the children, I added that part as an answer to a review who thought that Tony's and Harry's relationship was going too fast. I hope this may explain it, after all they were locked together in the same 'cell'

Next: fighting Stane…

~Isys