"So, what do you want to know?" Harry asked.
She watched as Steve contemplated her question, his lips pursing and his eyes narrowing in concentration.
"I want to know whatever you feel comfortable telling me – whether that is everything or nothing, I understand," he replied in a tone that conveyed his resolve.
"Well, that's certainly not the answer I was expecting," Harry told him, her eyebrows quirked at his response.
"You thought I would demand to know everything?" Steve asked, part accusingly and part sarcastically.
"It's what I would have done," Harry replied, shrugging her shoulders. Harry's curiosity demanded to be sated, and demanding answers was the easiest way to go about doing just that.
"Well, it's a good thing I'm not you, then," Steve joked, causing Harry to smile.
"I still want to know more about what happened with you and DC – especially about the object that showed you my memories," Harry demanded, eyeing Steve critically. She felt uneasy talking about the object, and it definitely had caught her interest; after all, an object that showed people memories could not be muggle in origin no matter how advanced their technology was.
That was purely a magical ability.
"How about we do this: I tell you about what happened to me, and then you answer my questions," Steve proposed, throwing his hands out as if silently asking if it was a good idea or not. Harry eyed him critically; however she couldn't deny that it did sound like a good idea.
"Are you suggesting this plan because I'm still angry at you and you're trying to appease me by answering my questions first?" Harry asked, watching Steve suspiciously.
"No," Steve answered, drawing out the word. "I'm merely suggesting this because I know my story is considerably shorter than yours."
"I think you've planned under the assumption that I'm going to be telling you anything," Harry said, part serious, part joking.
"True – are you not going to fill me in, then?" Steve asked, his face showing how silly he thought his question to be.
"No, I am. Just thought I should point it out," Harry answered simply.
The two fell into silence after that, and Harry was relieved to note that she no longer felt uncomfortable in Steve's presence. It was by no means a comfortable silence, but it was a start.
"Are you thirsty?"Harry asked, feeling parched herself.
"A bit," Steve answered, following Harry as she made her way to the kitchen.
The two entered the room and Harry motioned for Steve to take a seat. She was just about to grab two glasses from the cupboard when she paused in her movements.
"I guess I should go see if your friends want anything," Harry said, feeling a bit embarrassed that she had forgotten they were there.
"Right," Steve replied in a tone that also suggested he had forgotten his friends were in the other room.
"One sec," Harry told him as she left the kitchen and walked to the living room.
She stopped at the entrance to the room, her back to the entryway, and stared at the scene that greeted her.
Lorcan and Lysander were seated at the coffee table, their homework spread out in front of them; Potts and Banner sat next to the twins, both helping one of them with their work. Stark sat right next to the entrance with his back against the wall and his phone out – he looked as if he was in a time-out.
Harry would have been happy with the scene she walked in on, had it not been for the fact that the group had seen her walk in and immediately turned to look away when they saw her notice them.
Harry looked behind her and saw the collection of framed photographs on the wall of the entryway – pictures of Lorcan and Lysander as babies and as toddlers, of Luna and Rolf on their wedding day, of Luna and Xenophilius and Luna's very alive mother, of Rolf and his family – and gave a deep sigh.
"Right, sorry about that," Harry said turning back to the group while pointing at the pictures. She immediately regretted her apology when a cacophony of noise erupted from the group.
"Oh what? No need to apologize –"
" – have no idea what you're talking about – "
" – are you really a witch?"
"Does that mean your stories are true?"
"Why can I not get a proper reading?" Stark asked, holding up his phone for Harry to see. Harry looked down at his phone and watched as the screen displayed different graphs and charts of information Harry could not understand. She shrugged her shoulders.
"Technology and magic don't really mix very well," Harry told him, causing the rest of the room to quiet down.
"Why's that?" Stark asked as he got up from the floor so he could have the conversation at her eyelevel.
"I have no idea," Harry answered honestly. She thought about the magical cameras, and radios, and cars, and she tried to come up with a way to explain the relationship between magic and technology.
"Wizards and witches don't really have need for technology and any time we find an invention from the muggle world we want to appropriate it's never anything too advanced technologically speaking. I don't know if there even is any relationship between magic and technology, so," Harry trailed off in her thought, rubbing the back of her neck out of embarrassment. Stark looked down at his phone in concentration and began to fiddle with it as if the information Harry provided was enough to get him to understand why his phone was failing.
"Muggle?" Potts asked, looking at Harry with a questioning stare.
"Oh, right," Harry said, realizing that they wouldn't understand the term, "a muggle is someone without magic. So you lot are muggles."
Harry would have to explain the term to Steve as well; just one of the many things she would have to tell him about.
"So you're really a witch?" Lorcan asked in awe. Lorcan and Lysander both looked at Harry with wide eyes, as if she was Santa Claus.
"Yep," Harry replied, walking over to the boys. She got down on her knees so she was at their level, her face serious.
"You know how I said it was okay for you to curse around me but no one else?" Harry asked, looking them both in the eye.
"Yes," the boys replied, nodding their heads, though Harry could see they looked guilty about something.
"See Pepper! That wasn't my fault!" Tony exclaimed, pointing his finger at Harry. Potts gave Stark a look that clearly said 'I don't care whose fault it was, you shouldn't have done it in the first place.'
"Do I even want to know what happened?" Harry asked Banner, who tried to hide his amusement.
"Probably not," he answered with a slight smile.
"Right," Harry said, drawing out the word as she looked back at the boys, "well, it's obvious to me that you both went against that order."
Harry looked at them sternly, and she was happy to see that they at least looked apologetic.
"Sorry," they apologized at the same time.
"That's okay, mistakes happen," Harry told them, glad that they didn't slip a curse around their family or at school as of yet.
"Do you want to make it up to me?" she asked them. The boys immediately started to nod their heads, causing Harry to smile.
"Right, well, the way you can make it up to me is if you keep the fact that I'm a witch a secret. So no telling anyone outside of those present today about the fact that I can do magic and that I'm a witch – deal?" Harry asked, looking expectantly at the boys.
"Deal," they said, nodding their heads earnestly.
"Good," Harry replied, getting back up to her feet.
"That's it?" Stark asked as Harry stood back up.
"What's it?" she asked, turning to look at him as he held out his hand towards the twins.
"You aren't going to tell them off for getting me in trouble?" he asked, and it was a good thing Harry could tell he was being sarcastic otherwise there would be a problem.
"No," she answered, shaking her head. "I mainly don't have to tell them off because they didn't do anything wrong. You, on the other hand – "
She let her sentence trail off as she pointed an accusatory finger at Stark. She felt satisfied to see him flinch back at her glare, and to hear the twins giggling behind her.
"Before you go turning me into a newt, I would just like to say that I plead not guilty," Stark cut in, placing his phone back into his pants pocket.
Harry looked at him in disbelief before turning to look at Potts and Banner, giving them a questioning look while she was at it.
"Tony's already sleeping on the couch for the rest of the week," Potts said, looking sternly at Stark.
"I still think that's a cruel and unusual punishment," Stark said.
Being friends with Ron and Hermione for almost ten years made Harry rather adept at realizing when an argument was about to happen.
"Right, well, I don't care," Harry said, trying to stop the flirtatious fight before it could begin. "What I do care about, though, is that you three don't tell anyone else about the fact I'm a witch."
Harry pointed to the three adults in turn, spending longer on Stark to give him a more pointed glare.
"You're secret is safe with us," Potts said, giving Harry a reassuring smile, "and don't worry, I'll keep an eye on him." She nodded towards her boyfriend, who gave her a hurt look.
"Pepper, you wound me! It's as if you don't think I can keep a secret!"
"Tony are you serious? You're the man who told the entire world that he was Iron Man," Pepper responded to Stark's outburst; Stark, having nothing to say to that, pouted.
"Besides, it's not like anyone's going to believe us," Banner said, trying to draw the conversation back to the topic at hand.
"Says the man who can transform into a green giant," Harry countered.
"Well, yes," Banner ceded, "but that was caused by science, not magic."
"Speaking of which," Stark said, no longer pouting, "what is magic and how does it work?"
Harry rolled her eyes, looking around at the curious faces of the others.
"You're really asking the wrong person," Harry answered, "you're looking for my friend, Hermione, who I'm pretty sure would be happy to explain magic to you if she was here – which she isn't."
"So you don't know?" Banner asked, a hint of disappointment in his voice.
"It's complicated," Harry answered, running her hand through her hair.
"That's fine, we have time," Stark said, walking over to the couch Banner and Potts were sitting on and leaning against it.
"No, actually, you don't," Harry replied, "I only came in here to see if you lot needed anything to drink, not to answer questions."
"Something to drink would be lovely," Potts replied before Stark or Banner could say anything.
"Is tea okay?" Harry asked. She saw that Stark wanted to speak up, though luckily she and Potts were able to have their conversation in such a way to make it impossible for Stark to talk.
"That sounds lovely – are you okay with that, Bruce?" Potts asked Banner, who nodded his head in agreement.
"That sounds alright," he replied as he kept an eye on Stark.
"Good, I'll go make you lot some tea then," Harry said, turning to leave.
"Wait!" Stark exclaimed as he rushed over to Harry to cut her off from leaving.
"I have questions," he said, causing Harry to roll her eyes.
"Those can wait," she told him firmly, "Steve and I still have to sort things out."
"Right, after you two lovebirds kiss and make up, can you answer my questions then?" Stark asked. Harry glared at him before turning to look at Potts.
"You're a saint, I hope you know," she told her sincerely, causing Potts to smile.
"How about this," Harry said, turning back to look at Stark, "if you lot stay for dinner, I'll answer any questions I can – but I can refuse to answer any questions you have. Sound good?"
"Not really," Stark answered.
"Well it's the only offer you have, so take it or leave it, I don't care," Harry told him before walking around Stark and out of the living room.
"Stark's an arsehole," Harry announced as she entered the kitchen. Steve, who was sitting down at the table, looked up at her arrival, a smile tugging at his lips.
"He grows on you, if you can believe it," Steve answered.
"I'm a witch – I'll believe anything," Harry replied as she put the milk away. "Do you want anything to drink?"
"Water's fine," Steve answered as he watched Harry filled a kettle with water before putting it on the stove.
"Right, as that boils," Harry announced as she sat down across from Steve, "your story."
That was all the prompting Steve needed to tell Harry what had happened to him since they last spoke. Harry remained quiet during his story, listening intently as Steve gave a quick summary of the events leading up to the attack in Chicago, and Bucky's appearance as the Winter Soldier.
The kettle started to screech when Steve recounted Ivan Bezukhov's tale about the origin of the Zodiac. Harry went about preparing tea for her other guests as she listened to Steve explain what the Zodiac was.
"That doesn't sound like any technology I've ever heard of," Harry commented to Steve, referring to the Zodiac.
"It definitely didn't act like technology when I interacted with it," Steve confessed, causing Harry to frown in contemplation.
"It sounds magical to me," Harry continued as she poured out the tea into three cups.
"I don't know, it sounds pretty alien to me," Steve joked, smiling good naturedly at Harry.
"Ha, ha, ha," Harry said sarcastically as she gathered the sugar and honey for the tea.
"What happened when you tried to get the Zodiac?" Harry prompted as she looked for the serving tray.
Steve finished his story, explaining the would-be attack on DC.
"And then I grabbed the Zodiac, and it showed me a lot," he concluded lamely, looking at Harry apologetically.
Harry knew what he meant by it all; the Zodiac was the object he referred to earlier, the one that showed him her and Bucky's memories.
Harry frowned in thought as she went over Steve's story. It definitely explained where his brief trust issues came from – if she went through what he had, she highly doubted she would be as easily trusting as Steve clearly still was.
"What happened to Bucky?" she asked, her mind trying to get rid of secondary concerns so it could focus on her main issue.
"He tried to take the Zodiac from my grasp; he ended up regaining all of his memories after touching it. He and Natasha are currently in Russia trying to right past wrongs," he answered, taking a sip from his water.
"What was it like, touching the Zodiac?" she asked, finally getting to the object of her concern. Steve was silent for a few seconds as he contemplated how to explain his experience to Harry.
"It was painful," he started, his eyes unfocused as he recounted the event, "it was confusing and frightening. It also made me feel like I had no control – almost felt like the Zodiac was sentient.
"I remember – the only reason it showed me Bucky's memories was because Bucky had been trying to take it from me. And the only reason why it showed me your memories had been because it had been going through mine as if it had been looking for something."
"And that something happened to be me?" Harry asked; dread filling her body at her own thought.
"Yes," Steve answered.
They sat in silence for a few moments, Harry staring down at the ready tray of tea that was slowly getting cold. Trying to calm down her mind, she reached over and tapped each cup of tea, watching as steam once again started to rise from the cups.
Harry saw Steve looking curiously at the steam.
"I just made the tea hot again," she explained, causing Steve to look at Harry once more.
"Right," he replied, still not used to seeing Harry perform magic in front of him.
"When the Zodiac showed you memories: were you in first person or third person?" Harry asked, trying to gather more evidence to see if her theory was correct.
"I was watching the memories as a spectator up until the very last memory," Steve replied, causing Harry to look at him curiously.
"What was the last memory?" Steve's face tightened at Harry's question, as though he didn't want to tell her what the memory was.
"It was you stabbing me in the chest with a knife," he confessed, causing Harry's eyebrows to rise up to her hairline in surprise.
"I have never done that," Harry told him sincerely, to which Steve nodded in agreement.
"I know you haven't," he assured. "To be honest, the last couple of memories I saw of your life were not as clear as the rest I saw. You stabbing me was the only one I saw in first person, and it was extremely blurry."
Harry's mind descended into overdrive, going over everything she had learned about the Zodiac.
When completely whole, the Zodiac was a crystal, orange, Möbius strip; it could not be destroyed as evident by the fact that people were able to separate it into two different liquids, which combined back into a crystal when brought together. According to Steve it was sentient, and it showed Steve the past and possible futures, if the memory of something that has yet to – or never will – occur was anything to go by.
At best, the Zodiac was some alien technology that had ended up on Earth for some unknown reason. At worst, the Zodiac was the Time Stone, one of the six Infinity Stones Schmidt had been trying to get his hands on.
Knowing her luck, it was the latter.
"Are you okay?" Steve asked, forcing Harry out of her thoughts.
"What? Yeah, I'm fine," she answered, shaking her head as if that would get rid of her thoughts. "No wonder you didn't trust me!" she continued, "If I saw a friend stabbing me in the chest I would be suspicious of them too."
"Well, at least you weren't stabbing me in the back," Steve joked, causing Harry to snort.
"Right," Harry said, standing up from her seat, "I should take the tea to your friends before it gets cold – again."
Harry left the kitchen with the tray of tea, making her way back to the living room. She entered to see Potts and Banner talking on the couch, and Stark entertaining Lorcan and Lysander by building a house of picture frames.
"That's not going to end well," Harry said, depositing the tray onto the coffee table. She saw Lorcan and Lysander's homework piled nicely off to the side, and a quick glance showed that they were done.
"It's his fifth attempt – it hasn't been ending well," Banner said in greeting, causing Harry to smirk.
"Thank you for the drinks," Potts said as she reached over for a cup of tea.
"Well, thank you for helping them with homework. Honestly, you're a saint," Harry told her, waving off her gratitude like it was nothing.
"To be honest, the boys were better behaved than most of the board-members I have to deal with – they're definitely better behaved than my boyfriend," Potts replied as she took a sip of her tea.
"Speaking of him," Harry said, glancing over to look at Stark and the boys, "I thought he would be hounding me for questions by now."
"I think his new plan is to try and get the twins to ask you the questions he wants answered. He thinks you'd be more likely to answer their questions than his," Banner answered with a sardonic smile.
"Well, he's not wrong," Harry replied, running her hand through her hair.
"Did we ever introduce ourselves?" Potts asked, causing Harry to frown as she thought back over their meeting.
"No, we haven't," Harry said, recalling that Stark was the only one who introduced himself. "I guess we all just knew of each other."
"Right, well, I'm Pepper Potts. You can call me Pepper," she replied, holding out a hand for Harry to shake. Harry noticed that Pepper had a very firm handshake, no doubt a byproduct of being a CEO of a major corporation.
"Nice to meet you Pepper," Harry said, trying not to think of the previous time she had said those words to the Pepper Potts of her own universe, "I'm Harry Peverell. You can call me Harry."
"I'm Bruce," he said, waving slightly. Harry guessed he didn't feel the need to say his last name since she had already said it earlier to him.
"Do you prefer Bruce or Dr. Banner?" Harry asked his opinion.
"At this point it doesn't matter," Banner said, causing Harry to nod in understanding.
A crash over by Stark and the twins caused Harry to spin around on instinct, only to be greeted with the sight of broken picture frames, a scared set of twins, and a surprised Stark.
"That wasn't supposed to crash," Stark said in way of apology. Pepper was not amused, and the twins were about to start apologizing when Harry just gave a loud sigh.
"You did that on purpose," Harry accused Stark, who looked offended by her accusation.
"I did no such thing," he lied, causing Harry to roll her eyes.
"Right," she said, drawing out the word like Snape used to do.
"Guys, don't move," Harry commanded to the twins.
She came to the conclusion that they all already knew about her magic, so her next step wouldn't freak them out too badly.
Snapping her fingers, the group watched as the broken picture frames repaired themselves before flying back to their proper places around the room. She felt oddly satisfied to see five identical looks of shock and awe; almost as satisfied as she felt over the fact that she could use her magic blatantly once more.
"Well, see you all at dinner then," Harry declared before turning and leaving the living room once more.
"Okay, where were we?" Harry asked as she entered the kitchen, sitting back down in her seat across from Steve.
"I just finished telling you my story," Steve answered, as he looked up from the picture he was drawing with his finger on the table.
"Right, so my turn. What do you want to know?" Harry asked, watching Steve as he went back to sketching his invisible picture as he thought.
"I just want to know enough to give me context. We can start there and if you want to tell me anything else, then, I'm here to listen," Steve answered at last. Harry nodded in understanding, marveling over the fact he wasn't demanding her life story.
"Right, context – I can do context," Harry said, falling silent as she tried to think of where to start.
She stood up and started to prepare dinner – spaghetti and salad.
"The first thing you need to know is that, in my universe, there are two societies: there is the non-magical world, and there is the magical world that is hidden from the non-magical one. The magical world is hidden for many reasons, though that hadn't always been the case. When I was going to school it was, it had been for hundreds of years," Harry trailed off after realizing she was rambling. Filling up a pot with water, she tried again.
"So, in the magical world we refer to people from the non-magical world as 'muggles.'"
"So I would be a muggle?" Steve asked, cutting Harry off.
"Yes, you are," Harry replied, turning the water off once the pot was full.
"Now, the wizarding world – the magical world," Harry said, telling Steve she was going to use the terms interchangeably from then on, "is basically just like the muggle world except with the added benefit of magic. So we have governments, and good people, and bad people, and schools, and jobs, and everything. Us having magic has not created a utopia or anything – if anything having magic has kind of made us as a society worse off than the muggle one.
"The thing about the wizarding world is that the power structure – those in power and the powerless – it's constructed differently than in the muggle world. We don't have rampant sexism or racism – I mean, it's there, but not as blatantly as in the muggle world. After all, it's silly to accuse someone of being lesser based off gender or race if they are competent in magic – which is where our basic power structure comes from. Those in power are magically powerful – they know how to command magic and excel at it.
"Which is where our form of bigotry comes from. There are, of course, wizards and witches in my world who believe muggles are lesser beings because they can't perform magic – and it's this belief that has created the idea of 'Blood status' in my world. Basically, the wizarding world discriminates based on pedigree. Purebloods are wizards or witches whose parents – and subsequently grandparents – are all magical. Muggleborns are wizards or witches whose parents are muggles. And half-bloods are those who are somewhere in-between. Lastly, squibs are muggles born from wizards and witches. Following me so far?"
"Yes, so far. It's pretty self-explanatory," Steve said, nodding to show his understanding.
"Good. Anyway, to assert dominance, pureblooded wizards and witches started to claim that blood status was an important thing – that purebloods were more powerful magically than a witch or a wizard with a muggle ancestor. It's complete bullshit but people believe it anyway.
"Blood status has been the bane of the wizarding world for thousands of years – so much so that it plays a part in my school's foundation. Basically, the school I went to – Hogwarts – was founded by four people. One of the people, Salazar Slytherin, was a pureblood who believed the whole 'muggles are evil, muggleborns shouldn't be taught magic, purebloods are the only ones worthy to be taught magic, etc.'
"Basically, the other founders didn't agree and they all had a big fight, causing Slytherin to leave. This, of course, caused a riff in the school, because the Gryffindors – students of the founder Godric Gryffindor – were in rivalry with the Slytherins because Gryffindor and Slytherin were the ones to really go at it and fight. The whole rivalry was still active when I was attending school, so that goes to show you how a thousand year rivalry can still exist in the wizarding world.
"Anyway, moving forward. The wizarding world is not free from evil people – it has known its fair share of dark wizards. Dark wizards are those who practice the Dark Arts, and while dark magic as a whole is not inherently evil, there are some branches of it that are strictly soul-destroying and dangerous when used in any hands, no matter how well intentioned the person is. So every couple of years the wizarding world has to face a Dark Lord or two – a Dark Lord being a wizard or witch who has studied the Dark Arts to the point of corruption.
"One Dark Lord, Lord Voldemort, gained popularity in the 1970s in my world. Voldemort, whose real name was Tom Marvolo Riddle Jr, was the heir of Salazar Slytherin and gained followers through his campaign of exterminating muggles and asserting purebloods as the dominant class in the wizarding world."
"So he was the wizarding equivalent of Hitler, then?" Steve asked.
"Yep. That is actually a really good analogy for what he did later on," Harry said offhandedly as she put the spaghetti into the boiling water.
"So Voldemort, who was half-blood himself – his mother was a pureblood witch, his father was a muggle – gained pureblood followers from the time he was still in school during the 40s all the way up to and past the 70s, where he started to act out and try and fulfill all his promises that he made to his followers. He had caused so much death and destruction in both the wizarding world and the muggle world that soon the people in the magical communities around the world started to fear his name.
"So instead of calling him Voldemort, people would refer to him as you-know-who and he-who-must-not-be-named, which was really fucking annoying if I'm being perfectly honest.
"Anyway, my parents were going to school at the height of his power in the 70s, and when they graduated, their headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, asked them and their friends if they wanted to join his resistance group, the Order of the Phoenix. Dumbledore had a reputation of being a great wizard – had all these political titles – and he was responsible for defeating the last Dark Lord that plagued the wizarding world. So when Voldemort came to power he obviously was the one to create the resistance movement – which made sense considering Dumbledore was the only one Voldemort actually feared, mainly because Dumbledore actually taught Voldemort when he went to school and knew what he was getting up to.
"My parents would have been targeted by Voldemort whether or not they agreed to join the Order; my mother was a muggleborn, and my father was a pureblood who believed that muggles and muggleborns were humans – so he was considered a blood traitor by those who bought the whole pureblood supremacy thinking. So my parents and their friends joined the Order right out of school.
"And for a while it seemed like they were making a difference – a bunch of eighteen year olds fighting against a bunch of dark wizards. Granted, my parents and their friends weren't the only ones in the group – there were far older and more experienced wizards and witches in the Order, but you know, my parents were eighteen.
"They were nineteen when they married. A few months later they found out that my mother was pregnant with me, and yet they still fought against Voldemort and his followers – known as Death Eaters. A few months before I was born, a prophecy was made about a boy who would have the power to defeat Voldemort."
"A prophecy?" Steve asked, interrupting Harry's story.
"Yeah, I know – it sounds like a load of bullshit," Harry replied as she chopped up lettuce for the salad.
"It just seems – "
"Fantastical?" Harry supplemented when Steve couldn't find a word.
"I was going to say crazy," he replied, causing Harry to laugh.
"No, you're right, it is crazy," she agreed. Harry took a small break in her explanation as she washed the lettuce.
"So, a prophecy was made; it said that a boy born at the end of July to parents who had fought against Voldemort three times and survived would be the one to ultimately defeat the man. At the time my parents had faced Voldemort twice and had survived, and they believed that I was going to be born a boy.
"There was another couple in the Order, Frank and Alice Longbottom, who had also fought against Voldemort twice and survived, who were also expecting a baby boy at the end of July. Dumbledore, who had heard the prophecy, had kept it a secret from the Order until he had more evidence for who it was supposed to be about.
"The third time my parents and the Longbottoms had gone up against Voldemort was when my mother and Alice Longbottom were just showing pregnancy. Voldemort and a small group of his Death Eaters attacked the Order during a meeting, and during the fight my mother was hit by a dark curse.
"The curse was a pretty old vengeance curse – one that was normally used on adulterers or women who had strayed from the pureblood line of thinking. Its purpose was to force a choice on the mother – either the mother could choose herself, or her baby, but whatever the choice it would result in the death of the other. So, if the mother picked herself, she would live but her baby would die; if the mother picked her child, then she would die."
"You're mother picked you, then?" Steve asked, and Harry could hear the sadness in his voice.
"Obviously," Harry replied as she checked the spaghetti.
"I wasn't lying to you when I said my mother died in childbirth," Harry continued, not satisfied with the spaghetti yet. "The end of July rolled around and the Longbottoms gave birth to my friend, Neville, on July 30th. The next day, July 31st, I was born. My mother died before I was even born – they had to cut me out of her corpse. Of course, my father was distraught, and he had the added pressure of trying to give me a girl's name because he had thought I was going to be born a boy. Apparently false positives are possible even with magic.
"So he named me Rose Harriet Potter, but he always called me Harry because that was the name my mother liked and it was going to be my name had I been born a boy."
"Rose Potter?" Steve asked, surprised.
"Well, yeah. I mean, I don't particularly like the name Rose, which is why I go by Harry. And Potter is my real last name," Harry explained, not sure why Steve was so surprised.
"I think I met your counterpart," Steve said suddenly, causing Harry to react in surprise herself.
"Really?" she asked, turning off the heat from under the noodles.
"Yeah, when I was with Peggy, I met a Rose Potter. God I wondered why I thought she was familiar, she must have slipped my mind – it happened a while ago," Steve said in wonder.
"Well, that is a big reason why I changed my name – I didn't want any questions as to why I had the same name and parents as someone already living," Harry explained, "besides, I really do prefer Harry over Rose."
"That makes sense – good thinking on your part," Steve said, watching as Harry took out a jar of pre-made pasta sauce from the fridge.
"Don't tell the others that I didn't actually make the sauce, will you?" Harry asked as she poured it into a saucepan.
"I'll try not to," he joked, causing Harry to smile.
"Good. Now, where was I – right, I was born. Anyway, it was pretty obvious after I was born that Neville was going to be the child of the prophecy, though no one outside the Order knew I had been born a girl at first. To keep the charade up, Dumbledore, the Longbottoms, and my father decided that it would be best if we all went into hiding together – I mean, without Dumbledore, that is.
"So my father and I went into hiding with the Longbottoms, living in my father's house in Godric's Hollow. Now, there's a protection ward known as the fidelius charm, which conceals a secret inside a living person – so my father convinced the Longbottoms to use his friend, Peter Pettigrew, to be the secret keeper of their location because Voldemort would never suspect it would be Pettigrew to hold the secret because everyone knew that Sirius Black, my godfather and my father's best friend, would be the likely candidate of being the secret keeper.
"And it would have been a great plan had it not been for the fact that Pettigrew was a spy for Voldemort, and told Voldemort where we were hiding out. So Halloween, when I was fifteen month old, Voldemort came to where we were hiding out, killed my dad, Alice and Frank Longbottom, and tried to kill Neville but his killing curse ended up rebounding and hit Voldemort instead. Apparently Frank had sacrificed himself for Neville, and it had created a protection of Love that protected Neville from Voldemort's killing curse – very sentimental but it has always sounded crazy to me.
"Anyway, Neville was the first person to ever survive the killing curse – which has the only purpose of killing people – Voldemort was gone – the majority of people thought he was dead, others knew he would come back – and Neville and I were orphans.
"Neville went off to live with his grandmother – protection through blood or something like that – and I was sent to live with my Aunt and Uncle because my godfather thought it would be a good idea to try and confront the traitor, Pettigrew, without telling anyone before hand; except it ended up resulting in my godfather being sent off to prison for a crime he didn't commit and Pettigrew, the real perpetrator, going off and living as a rat for twelve years – he actually ended up being Ron's pet rat, which was disturbing to realize.
"Anyway, not much to say about my Aunt and Uncle. They're muggles and they're scared of magic, so I was fucked. They were abusive and neglectful and the only good thing they ever did for me was drop me off on the streets when I was seven years old."
"Why did they do that?" Steve asked, though he immediately wished he hadn't when he saw Harry tense.
"I didn't even tell my friends the reason why they did it," Harry confessed, looking at Steve with a pained look on her face.
"Okay, that's fine, you don't need to tell me either," Steve said sincerely. Harry felt so relieved by Steve's answer, and yet she also felt guilty for some reason.
The event had happened when she was seven – that was over fourteen years ago for Harry, she should be over it by now.
"No, I can – it's fine, I can tell you. After all, honesty and everything," Harry said, draining the spaghetti.
"You really don't have to," Steve assured once more, causing Harry to smile sadly.
"No, it's fine. I need to get it off my chest at some point. Besides, if you don't like me after this story then our friendship is fucked because it only gets worse from there," Harry confessed with a laugh.
"I was seven years old, it was a rainy day after school. My cousin had been picked up earlier that day and neither my Aunt nor Uncle came to pick me up. I was the last one at the school and so I just told the teacher that my Uncle was going to pick me up around the corner and I started to walk home. About halfway there a man in a car asked if I wanted a ride home – I declined because I didn't want to get in trouble with my Aunt and Uncle. He drove away and I thought he was gone but a block later someone put a rag over my mouth and kidnapped me.
"When I woke up I was tied up in the man's kitchen. He was a sex trafficker, and apparently he had a couple clients who were interested in someone of my age and appearance – all of whom would pay serious money to buy me. He really liked the fact that my name was Rose, and he kept using gardening terminology as sexual innuendo. The fucker made me hate my name. The thing was, he left me alone tied up but he did such a poor job of it that I was able to reach for a knife on the counter top; I cut myself loose and tried to leave but he caught me. We fought, and during the fight I accidentally slit his throat with the knife.
"The guy was the first person I had ever killed and it was an accident. Suffice to say I ran back to my Aunt and Uncle's house drenched in the man's blood. I'm pretty sure my magic was the only thing keeping me going, getting me back to the house. It took me the entire night to run back to the house, and when my Aunt opened the door to see me covered in dry blood, well, it didn't take my Aunt and Uncle very long to decide that they had to get rid of me. Later that night, my Uncle dropped me off in London, told me if I ever sought them out again I would wish I'd 'never been born,' and he left. That was the last time I've seen them and I was better off without them to be perfectly honest."
Silence reigned after Harry's confession; both were lost in their own thoughts.
Harry found that she was actually much happier after telling Steve the story – she had kept it a secret from everyone for so long she hadn't realized it still affected her even after all that time. She knew, at thirteen, that it was still an issue for her, considering how the Dementors brought up the man's sexual taunts and gurgling last breaths in addition to her father's last words.
"'It only gets worse from here?'" Steve repeated Harry's words, and Harry saw Steve look at her with a sad expression on his face – though she was happy to see there wasn't a trace of pity on it.
"Well, killing him was an accident – everyone else was on purpose," Harry answered honestly, watching for any changes in Steve's expression.
She watched as he took a few deep breathes, before nodding his head.
"Okay, go on," he told Harry, causing her to raise her eyebrows in surprise.
"Really? You don't want to comment on anything you've just heard?" she asked, trying to make sure Steve comprehended what was going on.
"I'm not going to be angry at you for fighting against a terrible man – you said it yourself, it was an accident and it seemed like he wasn't going to be caught anytime soon. You did nothing wrong. And the others – I'd be a hypocrite if I judged you for killing people. I'm guessing, the way this story is going, that the others you had killed had been during a battle?" he asked, already knowing the answer to his own question.
"Yes, they were. I might have gotten the award for 'most kills' during the Final Battle," Harry confessed, her voice cringing as if it was a terrible achievement to be awarded.
"Right, well. It sounds to me like you're a fighter, not a killer, so I can't really be angry at you for that. I can be disappointed, but not angry – it's definitely not going to ruin our friendship or anything," Steve said.
Harry didn't realize how tense she had been until she had relaxed under his words; it was a big relief for Harry, Steve accepting her less than pleasant actions.
"You are being really understanding about this," Harry told him as she stirred the pasta sauce.
"Well, I am friends with two ex-Russian assassins. It would be hypocritical if I was still their friend but not yours," he told her, causing Harry to smile.
"Right, that would be."
Silence once again descended between the two as Harry took out the toppings for the salad.
"On with your story?" Steve questioned, prompting Harry to continue.
"Right, on with my story.
"The first couple of months were hell, but then I stumbled upon the wizarding world, made myself my bracelets, and life became considerably easier after that."
"Your bracelets?" Steve asked, pointing towards her wrists.
"Yeah," Harry said, rolling up her sleeves, "my bracelets are my magical-foci. They allow me to do magic. They're nice – normally witches and wizards use wands, which is all well and good but I prefer my bracelets.
"Holly and Elder," Harry declared, holding up her right and left wrist respectively to show Steve her bracelets. "There's a lot I can tell you about how they work but it's not important knowledge if you want to understand the overall narrative," she confessed.
"I'm sure Stark and Banner would be more interested in that than me," Steve replied, causing Harry to nod her head in agreement.
"You're probably right about that. Anyway, back to the story. I was accepted to Hogwarts when I was eleven, got sorted into Gryffindor with my friends, Ron, Neville, and Hermione. We all really became friends after Halloween when Ron, Neville, and I saved Hermione from a Mountain Troll.
"After that we were pretty big trouble makers. Basically, to gloss over my school years: first year we stopped a Death Eater from stealing a magical artifact that would have brought Voldemort back into power; second year I was petrified by a basilisk – a giant snake – as was Hermione, while Neville and Ron saved Ron's sister, Ginny, from being possessed by one of Voldemort's horcruxes, which is an object that houses a part of a person's soul – "
"Wait, WHAT?!" Steve asked, the first time he was shocked during Harry's story.
"A horcrux is really dark magic – I'd rather not get into right now, but just keep in mind that Voldemort created like, seven horcruxes which meant he was practically immortal," Harry explained offhandedly, trying to get to the rest of her story.
"Part of his soul?" Steve asked, genuinely queasy at the thought.
"Yes. Again, I'd rather not go into it right now – especially not when we're about to eat," Harry told him, her face apologetic for even bringing up the topic.
"Okay, fine. Go on," Steve said, holding up his hands in surrender.
"Alright. Third year my godfather escaped from prison and my friends and I learned about what really happened the night my father died. Fourth year Neville was entered in a competition for the sole purpose of delivering him to where Voldemort was being resurrected – meaning it was just a giant ploy to get Voldemort back into power. Fourth year also happened to be the year I thought I was losing my mind because I kept forgetting things and the things I happened to be forgetting where all the times I confronted the Death Eater who had put Neville into the competition – that was not fun; I missed the last task because the fucker finally decided to just lock me up in his trunk with the man he was impersonating."
"What?" Steve asked, part confused, part worried.
"I'll explain later," Harry promised. She was trying to get him up to speed with what had happened in her life up to her entering the alternate universe. At Steve's nod, she continued.
"My fifth year: Neville had witnessed Voldemort's return the previous school term, no one outside of a small group of people believed him; Dumbledore reinstated the Order of the Phoenix, which had much smaller numbers than when my parents were involved; our Defense Against the Dark Art teacher was a horrendous bitch; I served detention with her – "
Harry said, holding up her right hand where the words 'I must not tell lies' were scarred onto her skin, causing Steve to get up in order to get a better look.
" – then my friends convinced me to teach a Defense club because I was always the best at dueling; my friends and I started the DA – which stands for Dumbledore's Army at Ginny's suggestion; by the end of term, shit had hit the fan; Neville, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Luna, and I went to the Ministry of Magic because we were lead to believe that Neville's Grandmother was being held hostage down in the Department of Mysteries. She hadn't been – it was a trap set up by a bunch of Death Eaters and Voldemort; the six of us fought against them; Neville and I were the only ones to stay conscious until the Order arrived with back-up. Among the Order was my godfather, who ended up getting killed by his insane cousin, who was a Death Eater.
"Anyway, long year short – Voldemort dueled with Dumbledore in the Ministry, and the Minister of Magic and a bunch of others finally saw with their own eyes that the bastard was back, so Neville was no longer deemed a liar.
"Sixth year the only real thing of note was that Dumbledore was dying, I found out my potions professor turned Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher used to be friends with my mother – we came to an understanding after that. I was the only one to know for sure that he was still on our side after he had killed Dumbledore – he did so on Dumbledore's orders, by the way. Anyway that helped convince Voldemort that Snape was on his side instead of Dumbledore's. With Dumbledore gone everyone in the Order had their last commands from him. Neville, Ron, and Hermione were tasked to find the rest of Voldemort's horcruxes; he asked me to stay at Hogwarts for my final year to help Snape protect the students and the school from Voldemort and his Death Eaters.
"So I did. Before my seventh year even started I went around London and told a select group of muggles about Voldemort – I told them how to protect themselves and I tasked them with protecting the city. Anyway, Ginny and Luna learned about that and they started calling me the General. That nickname spread once I started to protest against the Death Eaters and Voldemort while at school. We started up the DA again and we ended up being the only group to actively protest against Voldemort on a daily basis. Outside of school and the Order, in the rest of the world, everyone was completely obedient to Voldemort, which pissed me off. Anyway, May 2nd was the final battle that took place at Hogwarts. I was able to convince the adults to lower the mininmum age for fighting from seventeen down to fifteen because I knew who was competent because I was the one to end up teaching the majority of the students how to fight. The battle took the entire night, but come morning we won. Voldemort was dead, but so many others – a lot of my friends didn't make it.
"Once the war was over – because they insisted on calling it a war – I signed up to be an auror, a dark wizard hunter. I guess you can think of aurors as a cross between Scotland Yard and SHIELD. Neville, Ron, and I all became aurors, and for the first year we were unbeatable. Once all the Death Eaters were captured, though, Neville and Ron left to go pursue other careers; Neville went on to study Herbology while Ron went to help his brother George at the joke shop. That left me alone with a bunch of aurors who didn't even have the decency of fighting during the Final Battle.
"They always said I wasn't a real auror because I didn't go through proper training, and I didn't respect any of them because they sat, safe at home, while children died at the hands of Voldemort and his Death Eaters. There was no respect between any of us.
"I was nineteen, an auror for over a year at this point, when my universe's Nick Fury came over and asked my department for help in apprehending Johann Schmidt, who was wanted for conspiracy by the US Department of Magic. Long story short, we failed in apprehending Schmidt, I was fired from being an auror, and Fury came and asked if I wanted to pursue Schmidt on my own – I was hungover when I agreed to the job.
"So slowly I began to uncover what Schmidt was trying to do. He found a myth about how the universe was created. It talked about an all powerful being who created the universe and then who grew lonely. The story goes that the being had two options: to dissolve her powers into the universe or to break her powers up into different pieces. The universe she dissolved her powers was apparently mine – her powers permeating the universe and creating magic. The universe where she broke her powers up into different pieces is apparently this one. The items that contain the being's powers are collectively called the Infinity Stones, six stones each with a different property of the universe they control – time, space, reality, power, mind, and soul.
"Schmidt became obsessed with the story of the Stones, and he believed that if he acquired all six that he could become a god."
"Oddly enough that sounds like the Johann Schmidt I knew," Steve cut it, causing Harry to smile sardonically.
"That's probably because they were counterparts to each other," Harry told him; she herself had been surprised when she had read up on the Johann Schmidt of this world, only to find out that the man who lived in the 40s was the counterpart to the man who had been causing her so much grief.
"Why does that not surprise me?" Steve asked, and Harry could see that he was having a hard time taking in her story.
"Because the universe is weird?" Harry replied with a question herself. Steve shrugged in response, and Harry continued with her story.
"Anyway, Schmidt wanted the Stones, however he had no way of getting them. That is until he discovered an ancient ritual that stated it could transport people into a different universe – "
"How did it even know it could do that?" Steve asked, "I mean, it's not like that's something you can check."
"No, it's really not," Harry agreed, "though at that point Schmidt didn't really care whether the ritual was real or fake – he had complete faith that he would acquire the Stones no matter what. Something about a prophecy or something."
"You didn't believe him?" Steve asked jokingly. Harry threw her hands out in response.
"Well, obviously he was wrong," she replied, which caused the two to smile.
"So what was the ritual?" Steve asked, unease in his voice.
"It basically required human sacrifices," Harry told him.
"Of course it did," Steve replied, at his limit of new information he wanted to take in for the day.
"Seven people who were ordinary in my world but extraordinary in the one Schmidt wanted to travel to," Harry continued, knowing her story was almost done.
"Who were the people?" Steve asked, watching as Harry checked the pasta to make sure it was actually done.
"Do you really need to ask?" Harry asked in return, giving Steve a pointed look.
"He killed off the counterparts to me and the other Avengers, didn't he?" Steve asked with a sigh.
"And Loki's counterpart," Harry added, holding up seven fingers for Steve to see.
"Two by poison," Harry began, dropping two fingers from the count, "two by stabbing; two by hanging; one by beheading."
"That's disturbing," Steve said, commenting on how easy it was for Harry to recount such knowledge.
"Yeah, it really was," she replied, turning off the heat for the pasta sauce. They stood next to each other, looking out at the food that was ready to eat.
"I failed, obviously," Harry broke the silence, running a hand through her hair as she did so.
"Schmidt isn't here – or is he?" Steve asked, suddenly panicked.
"No, no, Schmidt didn't make it through. I made sure of that," she assured, causing Steve to relax from his sudden panic.
"Then you didn't fail," he told her, looking at her with more sincerity than she thought she deserved.
"Well, I did. I mean, I couldn't prevent any of the deaths Schmidt had committed against his victims. And I'm still here, rather than at home, which I count as a big failure," Harry said, her tone melancholy.
"You prevented Schmidt from achieving his goal – that in itself is a big success," Steve told Harry, as though he could convince her to get out of her depressive thoughts with just a few kind words.
"So, am I all caught up now?" Steve asked, changing the subject in an attempt to cheer Harry up.
"Yes, for the most part. I gave you the simple version of events," Harry replied, giving Steve a false smile.
"That was the simple version?" Steve asked incredulously.
"Hey, if I told you the long version we'd be here all night," Harry told him with a mockingly-stern expression on her face. "Besides, I'm still angry at you, remember?"
"Right," Steve said, rolling his eyes, "how could I forget about that."
"Oi!" Harry said, waving the pair of kitchen tongs at Steve, "don't be a jackass."
"Yes ma'am," Steve replied sarcastically. Harry eyed Steve, and the longer they looked at each other the harder it was for them to contain their smiles. "Well, dinner's ready."
Author's Note:
Well I was late on submitting that.
Anyway thank you all so much for all the support of this story. I mean, over a thousand of you have this story on alert and that's crazy to me. Thank you so much for everything.
Some news though: I have the winners of the contest - they are TheNorwegianAuthor and the guest who signed in as 1234. I will be getting in touch with the former soon, the latter might want to review saying how to get in contact with them if they still want the prize.
More news: I'm not going to update next week - I have a midterm I have to study for and that's more of a priority than the story. On the plus side, Spring Break is the week after next, so expect more updates during that time.
Lastly, hope you all enjoy the info-dump (guess who has read the entire Sherlock Holmes canon and had basically taken a leaf out of how those stories are written). Happy Tuesday!
Edit Note: It took me over thirty minutes to manually space this chapter because this website is acting weird right now. That was a pain. Any errors you find with spacing are because of this - just tell me and I'll fix it.