"It's ok," Harry said quickly, stopping George for getting his wand. "I'm telling him."

"You're what?" George gasped. "You are aware that it is against the law –"

"I'm positive," Harry said firmly. In truthfulness, Harry still was unsure he was doing the right thing.

"Dad?" Teddy asked, his green hair now pink.

"George, can you take care of Teddy for now?" Harry asked, his voice shaking slightly.

"No!" Teddy protested. "I'm not leaving!"

"Teddy," Harry said. "It's going to be ok."

"Yeah kid," Tony said. "I might not know what's going on but it's ok."

Teddy shook his head fast.

"You can't tell him, you told me we weren't allowed to tell them," Teddy said.

"I know," Harry said, kneeling to Teddy's height. "I need to tell Tony though. It is really important that he knows."

Teddy nodded finally. He pulled Harry into a tight hug.

"Don't let him take you away," he whispered.

"He won't, I promise," Harry whispered back, hugging Teddy tighter in response.

"Uncle George?" Teddy asked softly.

"Come on Ted," George said, holding his hand out.

Teddy bit his lip, looking from Harry to Tony.

"Don't you dare take my dad away," Teddy said to Tony, aiming to be threatening, however the tearful eyes broke the threatening image.

"I won't," Tony promised, a heavy feeling of anxiety building in his chest. If both Teddy and Harry were acting like this then it must be big.

George led Teddy upstairs, letting Harry know that he was available if needed.

Harry walked into the living room, Tony trailing behind slowly.

"Sit?" Harry offered.

"Should I be nervous?" Tony asked.

"I'm nervous," Harry said with a smile. "I'm just going to say it… I have magic," Harry said simply.

"What?"

"I have magic," Harry repeated. "I am a wizard."

"There is no such thing," Tony said.

"Tony, I'm not lying," Harry said.

"We don't have magic here, mutants yes, wizards no," Tony said.

Harry sighed. He called his wand from its holster and waved it.

"Whoa!" Tony gasped as the seat he was on began to move upwards.

Harry waved his wand again, turning the glass on the table into a box. Harry set Tony's seat down.

"I didn't lie yesterday," Harry said, staring at his hands. "I just left a lot out."

"Perhaps you should start again then?" Tony said, his eyes wide.

"My parents were murdered and I was sent to live with my relatives. They weren't – nice people," Harry said.

"On my eleventh birthday I was visited by a man who told me a lot of unbelievable things. One was the truth about how my parents died. He told me about a man who had tried his hardest to murder my family and kill me in the process. He had cast a spell that killing what it touched, he attempted to do the same to me but the spell didn't work. It rebounded from me and hit him, which is why no one believed his was alive when he came back," Harry paused.

Tony listened with rapt attention. The details of the story hadn't changed much, however it was still just as engrossing.

"I went to a magical school, with lots of other children -"

"There is more of you?" Tony asked.

"Whole communities," Harry said. "Typically, magical communities and non-magical communities stay separate."

"I guess you can do a lot with magic," Tony summarised.

"Yes," Harry said. "Everyone is worried about another set of witch hunts starting, or experiments I guess."

"It sounds reasonable," Tony mused. "People can be greedy."

"Especially when there is power involved," Harry added.

"Right, so magic school?" Tony said.

"Yeah, we learnt how to control our magic and other spells for things like defence and daily life. We also made potions," Harry said lightly.

"Spells and potions," Tony said, holding back a laugh.

"Yep," Harry nodded.

"That is so cliché," Tony said.

"The stories had to come from somewhere," Harry pointed out.

"Right, ok. Continue," Tony said.

Harry rolled his eyes, "I was kidnapped during a school tournament in my fourth year and my blood was used to bring the man back to life," Harry said, his fingers tracing his arm where the knife had cut him. "Blood is a very sacred when it comes to magic. Blood magic is some of the strongest magic possible."

"Why blood?" Tony asked.

"Blood and magic are entwined. Each person has a difference in their magic as well, a bit like DNA," Harry explained.

"That's interesting," Tony said thoughtfully. "Is magic traceable?"

"To a degree, I know there are spells that detect magic but they aren't always accurate. It cannot tell you who produced the magic, just where it was," Harry said, thinking back to his second year.

"So is magic a type of energy? Just a usable one by a select few?" Tony asked.

"I'm not sure about that," Harry admitted.

"I may have been thinking about it wrong, would you mind having a look at some notes Bruce and I have?" Tony asked. "We were going off the basis of energy but if magic is truly something else then we might need a second opinion."

"What?" Harry asked.

"Bruce and I have been working on tracing and picking up signals from different realms. Thor's brother caused a big issue when he visited and SHIELD wanted to make sure it won't happen without warning again," Tony said.

"How would I help with that?" Harry asked.

"Loki is magical," Tony said. "He used a sceptre to brainwash people. It might be similar to your own magic."

"I don't know if that is a good idea," Harry admitted.

"Why not?"

"People without magic shouldn't know about it. I'm breaking laws as it is," Harry said.

"I just would like you to look at our notes and see if they sound completely wrong," Tony said. "It will stay between us."

Harry bit his lip before nodding.

"Brilliant," Tony said. "I – I got distracted. Please, keep going. I just had a brain wave and it ran ahead of me."

"It's ok," Harry said, preferring this talk to the last one. Tony's interruptions and tangents that he led them on helped Harry distance himself from his story.

"The last year… the one I didn't go back to school for. We searched for the objects that were keeping him alive, one was in the school. One of his followers called him to us and the battle begun," Harry said. "When he gave me the chance to surrender myself. I went willingly and I saw him cast the killing curse at me. He killed me and I was so happy that it was over," Harry admitted. "Since I stepped foot into the magical world, I was hailed The-Boy-Who-Lived," Harry said bitterly, adding quotation marks with his fingers.

"You died?" Tony asked.

"Yes and no," Harry said. "I'm not entirely sure what happened, I spoke to an old mentor that had previously died and I had a choice. I chose to go back and finish what had been started. I came back, destroyed the evil guy and lived on."

Tony sat in silence, not knowing what to say. Sure, before he had been awed at the man's courage and strength, but now? Now, Tony could not believe that having the choice to leave everything that was bad behind, Harry still chose to go back and help those around him.

If that wasn't brave, Tony didn't know what else was.

"Which leads me to everything that has happened since I met you," Harry said, fighting the urge to leave and ignore Tony for the rest of his life. "I… don't even know where to start."

Tony looked to Harry, who was sat watching his hands fiddle with a pen. He reached out and took one of Harry's hands, silently offering the man some support.

"I was being followed, I didn't know who it was but I saw them everywhere," Harry said. "I thought it was someone from England."

Tony squeezed Harry's hand gently. Harry swallowed, fighting against the lump that had formed in his throat.

"It was Death. Death was stalking me and watching everything I did, he even watched me as I grew up," Harry said, his hands beginning to shake. "He showed me his memories of me growing up, everything – all the times I nearly died. He helped me. He was the one you noticed, he showed himself to me and he shouldn't have done."

Tony opened his mouth, wanting desperately to say something. No sound came out. Instead, he just took Harry's other hand and held both of them tightly.

"I don't know why he chose me," Harry whispered.

"Harry," Tony said softly, shocked by how rough his voice sounded.

"I know it's a lot," Harry said, pulling his hands from Tony's hold. "I just – I get it if you want to leave now."

"What?" Tony asked before the realisation of Harry's words hit him. "I'm not leaving," Tony said firmly, pulling Harry towards him. "Jesus Harry, I'm not going to leave just because you have magic."

"I lied –"

"Did I ever ask you if you had magic?" Tony interrupted. "Exactly!" he said feeling Harry shake his head. "You didn't lie about anything that was important at the time."

Harry nodded against Tony, enjoying the feeling of Tony being there.

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

George slowly made his way downstairs, having occupied Teddy. He gently opened the door.

"Everything ok?" he asked.

Tony nodded, look over to George.

"He's asleep," he said.

"Harry told you everything then?" George asked.

"Most of it," Tony said. "I can't expect that he told me everything."

"Clever," George commented.

"Are you –"

"A wizard? Yes," George said.

"Teddy?" Tony asked, looking upwards briefly.

"Harry would be better answering that," George said honestly. "Teddy can be a tender subject."

"Was –" Tony paused, looking at Harry momentarily. "Was he really in as much danger as he said?"

"Knowing Harry, probably more than he said. I don't think a year went by in school that he wasn't in danger of something," George commented. "That is without mentioning his relatives," he added darkly.

"He mentioned that they weren't the nicest of people," Tony commented.

"That's a big understatement," George said, his dark tone still there.

Tony didn't dare ask any more, not wanting to betray Harry's trust in him. Tony also knew that having a group of people aware of unpleasant living situations was not a good thing in the mind of the person having lived in it.

George sighed, "I'll take him upstairs."

"I don't mind –"

"Magic remember," George said. He got his wand and cast the charm to make Harry float. "You coming?" he asked Tony on the way out.

"You don't mind?" Tony asked.

"Harry trusts you enough to tell you, I think I should be able to trust you enough around him sleeping," George commented dryly.