Disclaimer: I, of course do not own either Marvel or Harry Potter, if I did, none of the recent degeneracy would have ruined Marvel, and Hermione would have died without even a mention.

This is my first attempt at writing a fic seriously, a few half-prose-half-plans don't count. Someone normal might ask you to be kind and give constructive reviews but honestly, I don't really care. Flame if that is what pleases you but do note that I won't care at all. Sadly, I must be cliché and ask for constructive criticism, but honestly, can you blame me?

Many authors say, "I will try to avoid clichés", and then ignore that for the rest of the stories. I won't patronise you like that, of course there will be clichés in here, quite frankly there are impossible to avoid – the list in TV Tropes can testify to that. That being said, I wont use them as a shortcut or to bash certain characters but they certainly will be present due to the law of large numbers if nothing else.

Also a (semi-) important note, the title, "Placeholder" isn't to try and be deep or meaningful, but it really is a placeholder until I think of a good title.

Chapter 1: I have no idea what I am doing

"Lily, take Harry and go! Its him! I'll hold him off!"

Tears streaming down her eyes, Lily nodded her assent and ran up the stairs, sneaking one last glance at her husband, cradling a young child under her breast. Both she and James had made peace with the fact that any day they spend together may be their last – such is the cost of fighting in a war. Unfortunately, this did not soothe her fluttering heart when her deepest fears were about to be made a reality.

She couldn't help but blurt out one futile plea as tears were blinked away from her eyes.

"Please come back to me James." Before a slam muffled her voice.

"Oh? You will hold me off will you Potter? If you want to return to your mudblood wife, you should…"

Voldemort trailed off as he stared incredulously at James Potter, suddenly crumbling to dust before his very eyes. The act itself wasn't very peculiar. Being a practitioner of the most esoteric aspects of magic, Voldemort could list off many spells that could achieve such a feat as quickly as most wizards can cast a cleaning charm, but not with any combination of spells in his vast repertoire could he achieve the disastrous miracle afterwards.

The dust was suspended in the air. Until it wasn't. And then it was in every pore of his body, flooding his lungs, filling every gap between his teeth – unyielding, suffocating.

Believing it to be some kind of self-sacrificial spell lost to time, he squinted his eyes in desperation, expelling all of his magic out at once, annihilating all the dust particles simultaneously. Without any magic in his system, he collapsed on the floor, his muscles spasming, a finger twitching. As the minutes ticked by, he slowly wrested control back over his body with random spasms dancing over his skin as a scowl scarred his face.

Thwarted again.

There was no way he could overpower a talented witch such as Lily Potter in his weakened condition, and like a hyena casting one final longing look at his prey, he stormed toward the door.

Only to stare upon the grinning visage of James Potter guarding his quarry.

"Get out of my way Potter." He spat out, half desperately, have commandingly, with no apparent effect on his target.

"Ouch Voldy, if you are going to say my name with such a visceral hatred, at least use my real name." This arrogant and confident tone of voice contrasted with his desperation earlier

"And that is?" Voldemort raised an eyebrow questioningly, seemingly surrendering to his fate.

The characteristic grin on James' face grew, far beyond the muscular capacity of any man, his face distorting into something sinister and otherworldly, and as Voldemort was blinded by a bright white light, the faint sound of an exploding blasting his ears as James exploded, one word was heard over the cacophony.

"Ego"

And then, there was nothing.

"BREAKING NEWS: Abingdon-on-Thames – a small town in Oxfordshire has suddenly vanished, a spotless crater taking its place. Experts are confused by this phenomenon, no one has any idea how a vivacious city has become nothing with no warning."

"Thank you, Abby, I am David reporting live in what used to be a thriving town. Whatever occurred here left nothing behind, no debris, not even a misplaced hair and… What is it cameraman? What are you muttering about, you know that we are in the middle of a…"?

At his cameraman's insistent pointing, he once more dragged his reluctant eyes back to the scene of the disaster, his mouth opened gormlessly.

"Hey Peter, that isn't a baby in the middle of that is it?"

Upon hearing this, Dumbledore recovered from his depression induced stupor. He never would have guessed that Voldemort would be willing to annihilate an entire area just to kill Harry, taking his two favourite students and the entire area with them; it seems that even the Fidelius was not as fool proof as he had thought. However, by some miracle, if the muggle news is to be believed, it seems that Harry had survived, and at that moment, Dumbledore knew what he must do.

Voldemort must never be allowed to try this again.

Harry must be protected.

He would not fail Harry as he did his parents.

And with a faint popping sound of displaced air, Dumbledore was gone.

"Clarify a few things to me Albus."

"Of course my dear."

Albus Dumbledore was a very powerful wizard, many of his followers claimed he was the most skilled since Merlin – the progenitor of magic on Earth. He demonstrated an unprecedented mastery over magic, aweing the magic community into submission, his very presence causing his enemies to flee like a lynx chased by feral dogs.

He also had a baby crawling up and down his characteristic beard, grasping at the wizened hairs in triumph.

"Little Harry here survived whatever Voldemort did, something that an entire town did not…"

"Correct"

"So you apparated over in the middle of live muggle news and just took him…"

"Of course"

"Not even thinking that the baby was, I don't know, a rock, or literally anything except Harry…"

At this, Dumbledore looked a little sheepish before quickly recovering his jovial attitude. "It seems my mind didn't want to extinguish the last bit of hope that I still possessed."

"And you are now planning to raise this child, with no prior experience rearing one, your atypical childhood aside…"

"Mhmm"

"And I am supposed to just let you do all of this?"

"Very astute, Minerva dear, I always knew you were a bright child!" Dumbledore beamed like a father watching his son walk and promptly fall over for the first time.

McGonagall stood on the spot gormlessly for a while, unsure whether Dumbledore was patronising her, or really was that unaware. As she opened her mouth to protest at leaving an innocent child to the antics of an eccentric old man, Dumbledore made one final comment.

"Well, see you after the summer break Minerva, if young Harry needs breastfeeding, I will give you a call!"

Glancing at her winkled forehead and greying hair, he amended his last statement.

"Actually, I think I will just ask Poppy instead, cheerio!"

"ALBUS PERCI… and he is gone, fantastic."

She looked into the mirror, as if consoling herself. Old, she wasn't old.

Severus Snape was a rather troubled youth. Years of bullying by James and his gang of friends had desensitized him to the world, but as a result, he was perhaps hit hardest by the latest catastrophe. Years of hatred and resentment towards the Potter clashed with years of adoration and affection for Lily Evans and the death of both simultaneously left him in quite a predicament. Wanting to celebrate James' death, wanting to grieve Lily but able to do neither, as well as feeling altogether confused about their child, who is, if rumours were to be believe, the cause the fiasco. It never occurred to him that perhaps the death of a loved one would take precedence over the demise of a rival, nor that despite baby Harry being the root, he wasn't the cause, but years of torment plus more years of service towards a sadistic megalomaniac may have distorted his world view.

Therefore, as he stared at the source of his confusion hanging off an oblivious Dumbledore's beard like an acrobat, a strange dichotomy of emotions sprang to his head.

Which he expressed with an emotive, "What the fuck Dumbledore?"

The rest of the staff nodded in agreement, not even reprimanding Severus for his foul language. There was a time for formality, and Dumbledore bring a baby with him to their staff meeting did not qualify.

Dumbledore beamed mysteriously at him.

"Ah, I was wondering when you would notice."

The room stared incredulously at him. Did Dumbledore expect them not to notice a baby? Ignoring the looks, he continued.

"Young Harry here is the new addition to the Dumbledore family," his face became more sombre, "as you all know, Lily and James have perished, and with them the illusion of security I had towards Harry's continued safety, I of course had plan in the worst case situation, but this…" he winced, "this is beyond the worst case situation, muggles call it FUBAR I believe, although I have no idea what it stands for, nothing would stop Voldemort from annihilating any area he suspected Harry to reside in, blood wards and all, except, hopefully, with me."

Comprehension dawned on the staff members, the safest place one could be is at an alert Dumbledore's side and in light of recent events, Dumbledore would certainly be at his most diligent. Moody could cry 'Constant Vigilance' until the dark magic sensing tree in his garden died, but everyone knew if Moody was the Cerberus to the gates of Vigilance, Dumbledore would be Hades. And probably be renamed 'Vigil'.

Everyone seemed to be accepting the explanation, if that everyone did not include an ever cynical and pessimistic Snape.

"And if he can cast it from a distance?"

Dumbledore tilted his head down slightly, wincing.

"We just have to hope that he doesn't."

"That is a lot balancing on that bit of hope Albus, hope won't suddenly make Voldemort less competent than he is, hope won't make the child," he indicated towards Harry, "capable to apparate away as soon as Voldemort is near, hope…" a tear trails from his eye before being hastily wiped away, "hope won't give Lily back to me."

"But hope," Dumbledore responded, "is the only thing we have left, maybe if I were younger, if my skills hadn't…, if Harry was older, maybe we would have more than hope, but for now, all we can do is hope. And of course we need to get Harry as competent as possible."

Snape nodded his assent.

"Just promise me Albus, you won't coddle him, I want him to survive, at least until I can work out how to feel about his existence."

"Of course Severus, you have my word."

Though neither of them knew it, nor anyone in the room, this was the first time something like this came up without Snape threatening to defect.

"Can we go to a different area? Please? I don't like anyone here."

"What about Melissa? Don't you like her? She treated you nice, even when you threw up on her."

"Nah, she is too hairy!"

"I am hairy too and you don't mind, I could show you the pictures of you climbing my beard."

The toddler scrunched up his nose, perhaps pondering at which words to use from his limited vocabulary.

"But she, she, she's a girl!" he exclaimed at last, "Only old men like you should be hairy."

"You're hairy too, if only wisps of it have started developing on your head."

"What does wis-wisbs-w-w…"

"Wisps, like the cotton candy you had yesterday."

Although Dumbledore never forgot his promise to Snape a few years ago, he couldn't bring himself to train the innocent boy at such a young age, but he did hone his own skills, to a point that he was confident that they would be able to escape if ever Voldemort were to resurface. The wizarding world was in a predicament, despite Voldemort never reappearing after that fateful day, they were essentially held hostage by their fear – no family wanted to end up like Godric's Hollow. Harry himself was adopted as the "miracle-child" by the wizarding world as a collective, a symbol of hope to dispel the veil of fear that had shrouded the world over the past 3 years.

"Then girls can have head hair too, but only on their sca-sca-scalp!" Harry finished victoriously.

Training could wait for a few years.

'Training cannot wait any longer,' thought Dumbledore as he apparated away from yet another safe house. Everyone breathed a collective, but uncertain sigh of relief as Voldemort did not return, even over half a decade after his landmark victory, but in his place were the Death Eaters.

Refusing to believe their master had perished, not that Dumbledore did himself, they sporadically attacked homes, businesses, hospitals, with brutality far surpassing anything seen in the "Wizarding Civil war", as it was dubbed.

Cradling the six-year-old in his arms, protected by a hitherto unseen shield, he rained terror on the hapless Death Eaters.

What little restraint he was had was evaporated by the sight of a motionless Minerva, blood soaking through and past her robes.

A quick glance at Harry's widened eyes made him realise that shielding him from the horrors of battle was futile, and at this point a memory charm would cause far more problems than it would solve.

Sure the memories may be gone, but the psychological damage dealt with seemingly no cause would be a far fouler fate.

And with Harry's eyes glued to his honorary aunt's deceased cadaver, Dumbledore apparated

Neither of them would be seen for six years.

Author's Note (is this how you are supposed to do this?):

Putting 6 and 6 together may get you 12, which is above the age for a first year with Harry's birthday. This indeed means he will not be joining Hogwarts in first year, to those who worked it out, congrats, you don't need to be Einstein to work it out.

Before anyone complains, yes Harry will be overpowered by Wizarding world standards. This, as you may imagine, is because firstly he is Ego's son, and secondly, because it is a cross-over with Marvel, and the power-gap between these two fictional setting is beyond ridiculous. You could consider the Wizarding World as a playground.

Also, apologies to any hairy women reading this, no offence was intended.