Rewrite the Stars

Summary: "Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own." – Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land. FemHarry.

Just a warning: FemHarry, AU, Language, Clichés, Age Difference, Messed Time Line, More in the Future

Just so you know (Name): FemHarry's name is Charis Aster Potter. In Greek mythology, a Charis is one of the Charites or "Graces"; goddesses of charm, beauty, nature, human creativity and fertility. This name comes from an Ancient Greek word meaning "Grace", "Kindness" and "Life". Aster is an Ancient Greek word for "Star" while the meaning of the flower Aster can differ depending on the presentation, my favorites being "Elegance", "Patience" and "Daintiness". Also, the Ancient Greeks used to burn aster leaves to ward off both snakes and evil spirits.

I don't own anything related to Marvel or Harry Potter!

Chapter 17. To Break the Ice

T.S

"Look out!"

Immediately, Tony moved out of the way. It wasn't easy, especially not with how heavy his armor was, but the RPG launcher's grenade flew past his head and into the tunnel behind him. Everything shook, debris flying around as the grenade exploded.

Whiskey-brown eyes flickered toward the fallen old man who had just saved his life again, sighing in relief upon noticing that he was still breathing. Maybe – hopefully –, he would be able to return the favor and get Yinsen out of there. Tony had no idea of what they would do after that, but he could think about it later.

Although distracted with his own thoughts, Tony didn't stop. He hit a small button on the inside of his wrist guard to release the small missile to his forearm. Without blinking, he watched as the missile whistled and flew toward Raza, the Big Boss and the idiot who thought it would be a good idea to use a RPG launcher on such closed space.

The missile missed the terrorist by about one or two feet, but the explosion it caused was strong enough to send Raza flying, the left aide of his face completely shredded.

For a moment, Tony thought of checking to see if the other man wasn't alive but decided against it.

He wasn't important – Yinsen was the priority right now.

Tony didn't like the thought of Raza being alive and possibly coming back for him later but Yinsen was wounded and the engineer wanted to help his fellow prisoner and friend,

Flipping his facemask up, he approached Yinsen.

Unsure of what to do without hurting the older man more, Tony spoke, "Come on." He urged Yinsen, trying to come up with a way to get both of them out there, "We gotta go. Move with me. C'mon, we got a plan, we need to stick to it."

Yinsen merely stared at him with unfocused eyes and broken glasses. His breath caught in his throat at the sight, feeling sick as he thought that maybe this was the end. No matter how much he tried, Tony without come up with a way to move Yinsen and fight whoever was coming for them at the same time…

He –

"This was always the plan, Stark," Yinsen said hoarsely, pulling Tony out of his thoughts and looking at him as if he knew exactly what the brown-eyed genius was thinking.

Tony shook his head, ignoring the way his heart dropped at those words, "Come on, you're going to go see your family again."

Yinsen couldn't possibly be giving up now. Tony refused to believe that he would do such thing, especially not with how much the spectacled man seemed to live them. All he had been able to talk about during their time together in captive was his family and how he would join them after he helped Tony escape…

Oh, Tomy blinked as something clicked in his mind. It took his longer than necessary but he finally understood that even if he had given up, Yinsen was still going to join his family because –

"My family is dead." Yinsen smiled serenely, "I'm going to see them now, Stark." His eyes fluttered a little as he whispered, "It's okay… I want this…"

Tony racked his brain for something – anything – smart to say. At the end, he settled with a honest and weak, "Thank you for saving my life."

Yinsen smiled, it was kind though the brown-haired billionaire noticed the hint of steel as he spoke, "Don't waste it."

Whiskey-brown eyes burned as he let out a shaky breath as the other man's eyes closed slowly and his chest stopped moving.

Yinsen was dead.

Tony didn't know how to feel at that moment aside from grieve, shame and rage. Grieve for someone who he had the pleasure to call a friend even if only for a few months, shame that it was a Stark Industries weapon that took his and others' lives and rage – All coming rage toward those who were using his, his weapons to cause unnecessary death and destruction.

Standing straight, Tony pulled the faceplate down. He walked past the unconscious Raza and through the gaping hole his missile from early had created.

As billionaire stopped outside, he could hear familiar sound of guns being loaded.

It didn't take long before the terrorists surrounding him in a semi-circle started shooting at him once more, sparks flying as the bullets made contact with his armor. Each time a bullet collided with his armor, the metal shook and the sound echoed in rhythm with his pounding heart.

There was a moment of tense silence as the bullets finally stopped and, within his mask, Tony grinned coldly.

"My turn."

He raised his arms, firing his flamethrowers. He aimed the flames at everything that they could possibly reach: the the fuel drums conveniently placed next to vehicles, the sandbags filled with the ammo feeds leading into the machinegun emplacements and even the soldiers that tried to approaching him.

Tony stepped forward, feeling no small amount of satisfaction as the remaining soldiers backed away quickly, trying to reload their toy weapons (And, really, compared to his armor, those guns were nothing but toys). He ignored them all, having another target in mind.

His eyes stung as they landed on the boxes towering around him. He stared at the Stark Industries logo emblazed on the weapons crates for what seemed to be hours, ears ringing and heart pounding against his chest as he raised his armored arm.

Immediately, he fired his flamethrowers once more, feeling something akin to satisfaction fill him as, one by one, the boxes exploded in flames.

That, he decided, was just the beginning.

First those weapons then he would deal with all the other. The engineer doubted that that terrorist group in particular was the only one that had gotten their hands in his weapons. There had to be more and he would find out.

The terrorists decided to move as far as they could from him, finding somewhere to hide before they shooting again. The toy guns did nothing to his armor and even they noticed it. One of the soldiers, a man who Tony could swear he had seen before but couldn't recognize, made his way to a very old mounted gun. Tony stared as the man to aimed that monstrosity at him

He opened fire, being followed by the others, and Tony gritted his teeth. The brown-haired man knew that the suit won't be able to take much more; pieces were already beginning to rattle loose.

He blinked, knowing that the inevitable destruction of his suit of armor wasn't the only problem. All the heat was killing him, his gloves were melting, his chest was hurting, he could barely breathe, his head was pounding and – Yeah, he was filled with problems at the moment. One worse than the other.

Noticing that his captors were getting closer, protecting themselves from the flames by using some of the larger weapon crates or whatever weapon remain they could get their hands on, Tony decided that maybe it was time to leave.

With that in mind, he fired one last flame at the weapon crates, ignored the curses and screams aimed at him, then opened a metal flap on the suit's right arm. Flipping the switch inside, he heard a screeching jet engine-like whir filling the whole place. The remaining soldiers covered their ears, taking cover.

He hadn't imagined that he would have need for the boot jets, but never let it be said that Tony Stark didn't have a counterplan for every single one of his plans. Granted it had been Yinsen's idea in case of the suit didn't work properly and the billionaire needed to make a quick exit, but still!

Would you look at that, Tony thought as he blasted off, soaring into the sky like a rocket, you saved my life again.

Sweating, battered, and bruised, Tony concentrated on flying, shooting through the sky much like a cannonball. The desert streaked past below him, the scenery becoming nothing more than a blur of motion and speed.

The billionaire thought that he saw something at the distance, like little black points moving in the desert. For a moment, he wondered if it hadn't been a hallucination caused by all the heat. After that he wondered in panic if those terrorist were chasing him.

Before he had the opportunity to truly think about it, however, his jet boots gave out.

Tony yelled in horror as he tried desperately to control his flight to no vain, falling headfirst toward a sand-dune. Spinning and rolling until he skidded to a halt, Tony gasped for air. His eyes fluttered, trying to get used to the sun after months in a dark cave, before scanning his surroundings.

Pieces of his suit were surrounding, some of them he couldn't even recognize because of how torn they were. Whatever remained of the suit was still attached to him, Tony

The suit was torn up; there were pieces of the armor everywhere he looked although he was attached to whatever remained of it. Laying back against the sand dune, Tony laughed like he hadn't been able to do since before he was kidnapped.

I'm free! The genius screamed in his mind, ignoring the tears pouring down from his eyes.

He had every right to cry.

He was free – Tony still needed to find a way out of this accursed desert but the point was that he was free!

His laugher died out and he closed his eyes, wishing that Yinsen had been there to savor this moment with him. With a sigh, Tony opened his eyes and looked down at his chest plate.

The Arc Reactor glowed faintly.

I need to cut the power before I use too much energy and my heart stops, Tony thought absentmindedly, doing just that. Gritting his teeth, Tony tore the power to the suit and slowly, painfully, dragged himself out of the shredded armor. Looking over his shoulders, eyes scanning the trail of smoke his brief flight had left behind.

Although hurt and slightly disoriented, Tony was still sane enough to calculate the distance between him and the terrorists' camp. And, if he wasn't wrong, he only had an hour or two until the surviving terrorists came for him – And there was no doubt that they won't be trying to recapture him.

There was also no doubt that if they caught him, Tony won't live to see another cave.

Taking a deep breath, Tony stood up and started hiking. He would have preferred to wait until night before he had to find his way through the desert but the whiskey-eyed scientist didn't have time to waste.

As crossed the desert, Tony wrapped his jacket around his head to keep the blazing sun from frying his brain. He never stopped, walking until black spots started to appear before his eyes and his body gave out, not being able to move even if another inch.

His fingers twitched, gripping a handful of sand with whatever strength he still had. Tony wished he could scream and curse – Had everything been for nothing? Had Yinsen's death been for nothing?

"Is he alive?" He heard someone ask.

Great, Tony thought sarcastically.

He had either been found by the terrorists already or he was hallucinating.

His eyes fluttered as he tried to pry them open, hoping to prove to himself that no, he hadn't been found by his captors and that yes, he was hallucinating. Hallucinations were better than being captured once more.

Unfortunately, no matter how hard he tried, Tony couldn't open his eyes.

He was far too tired.

"What the hell is that?" The voice asked once more, this time a little more freaked out.

Uh, Tony decided, feeling his body shut down little by little, I'm hallucinating. Pretty sure the voice is British…

"Don't touch it," Another voice said coldly, this one having a rather odd mix of accents, "you don't know what it's for."

Tony felt someone grab his arm and placed them around broad shoulders. It was nice albeit uncomfortable. Actually, it reminded him of the way Rhodey would carry him after he drank too much. He had missed the conta – His thought process came to a halt as a impossible possibility hit him.

Falling unconscious, there was only one question echoing in his mind: Had someone finally come to rescue him?


Waking up in a well lit and nicely decorated room certainly wasn't what he was expecting after passing out in the middle of nowhere in the desert of Afghanistan.

Not that he was complaining.

He could remember the voices just as vividly as he could remember someone grabbing him before he passed out, and it wasn't difficult for Tony to come to the conclusion that someone had finally come to his rescue.

But it was rather confusing to wake up in what looked to be a guest room instead of a bland and white hospital room. Sighing and knowing that the brown-eyed genius wasn't going to get a answer for that question, at least not until his saviors decided to show up, Tony took a moment to think about everything that had happened in the last three months or so, pursuing his lips.

Ever since he could remember, Tony had always been carefully with his things. Privacy was something that had been out of his reach from the moment he was born, but his technology? His weapons? None of that should have been in the hands of terrorists – Terrorists that were far too knowledgeable for his liking.

Unfortunately, there was only one way to explain this whole situation: Someone close to him had not only been selling his blueprints in the black market but had also sold him out for profit.

And that, all of that, was unacceptable.

Well, there was no need to worry about it tight now, not really. Worrying had never helped him with anything and Tony knew that if he wanted to make things right, then he needed to stay calm and start planning. Before that, however, he needed to find out where exactly he was.

He must have said his thoughts out loud because someone actually replied, "Notting Hill, London."

Tony's head snapped to his right so quickly that it was a wonder how he didn't suffer from whiplash.

Sitting in a chaise with large, ancient looking book in her lap was a small girl with the greenest emerald-green eyes that he had ever seen. Her raven-black hair was tied up in a messy bun and she was wearing white sleeves shirt underneath a denim overall. In her hands, he noticed a odd colorful little box filled with bean like candy.

He didn't know why, but there was something rather familiar about this girl. It felt like he had seen her before but no matter how much he tried, Tony couldn't remember where or at least who she resembled.

"We were worried about you," the British girl said, voice gaining a hint of Scottish accent as she tried to pry the box open. He blinked, pulling himself out of his thoughts, "Uncle James brought you here after he found you laying on a sand dune –"

He leaned back slightly, wondering what her Uncle was doing in the middle of the Afghan desert and if the he and his companion had known who he was when they found him. As impossible as it sounded, there were still people in this planet who didn't know what he looked like or at least took some time to understand that he wasn't just Tony Stark lookalike.

The girl kept talking, babbling without even stopping to breathe, "– He wanted to take you to the hospital but Sirius – my godfather that's it –, suggested that we call for a Heal – I mean, a doctor so they could come to take care of you here because our house is much more comfortable than a boring hospital room that serves the same poison everyday and tries to pass it off as edible – Sirius' words, not mine."

Tony gave the kid a look, trying to understand her verbal diarrhea.

"I've been watching over you," she made a pause, smiling smugly as she finally managed to open the little box, before continuing, "while Uncle James is out. He didn't say anything but I know he was really anxious for you to wake up. Not that you heard that from me –" Her voice faded as she looked up, cheeks darkening with a soft shade of red as she smiled sheepishly, "Er, candy?"

Uh, Tony blinked, half stunned and half charmed, what a cute kid.

Pepper would have loved her.

Wait, no – This wasn't the time. He needed to know exactly where he was in Notting Hill, who this girl's Uncle was and where Rhodney was. Why wasn't his best friend here? Hadn't they called him? Wasn't he looking for him? Had he decided that it wasn't worthy to waste any kind of resources on someone like hi –

"Who're you supposed to be?" Tony arched his eyebrow mockingly, trying to keep his brain away from any kind of pessimistic thought regarding his closest friend, "My nurse?"

Instead of answering his question or throwing some kind of remark back, the girl paused and looked at him with curiosity before saying, "I'm Charis. You can call me Harry though."

Tony tried to not flinch at the intensity of those green, green eyes. Instead, he smiled as if she was one of the vultures and sharks that always followed him everywhere.

"Can I help you, Charis?" Tony asked, purposefully mispronouncing her name.

The girl ignored it. There was a pause as the billionaire did his best to not show any sign of discomfort as those green – green – eyes stared at him. Suddenly, the raven-haired teen, and she couldn't be older than thirteen or fourteen, smiled and gave him a look filled with amusement.

Charis held out the colorful little box again, "Would you like one?"

He stared, not believing what he was seeing.

Was she serious? She couldn't be serious.

After a moment of stunned silence, Tony leaned back against the headboard of the far too comfortable bed and arched his eyebrow once more, thinking of a way to retain the control of this bizarre situation.

"Hadn't your mother taught you to not accept candy from strangers?" He asked, refusing to move, "Because mine did."

Not his father. Never his father. The only things Howard taught him was what he needed or not to do to be a successful businessman as well how to deal with and control the crowd and vultures that followed the name Stark.

"I won't know," Charis shrugged, eating a green bean with lime green spots. She scrunched her nose at the flavor and continued, "I don't remember my mother."

Tony licked his lips, feeling like an asshole. And it wasn't even the fun type of asshole. Oh, no – It was the worst kind of asshole; the kind that kicked puppies in their spare time and made fun of homeless veterans.

The engineer opened his mouth to speak before closing it. He didn't even know what he was going to say but he still felt like he should apologize somehow. If there was one thing that Tony had promised himself to never do, it was to mock and make fun of an motherless child. He knew how they felt.

Either ignoring or not noticing the expression on his face, Charis spoke, "Are you sure you don't want one?"

The brown-haired genius eyed the offered box, noticing that no bean inside it looked the same. Hesitantly, although he made sure to look like the picture of confidence, Tony made a grand motion toward it.

"What flavors are in there?" Tony asked, deciding that playing along would be the best apology he could give her.

Charis' lips twitched up, eyes lighting with mischief, "It's called Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans for a reason. When they say "Every Flavour", they mean it."

"That's impossible," he informed her.

With a challenging look, Charis shook the little box and pushed it closer to him. The billionaire stared before throwing caution out of the metaphorical window and grabbing one of the safer looking beans; white with light blue spots. If he didn't die from this, Rhodey and Pepper would surely kill him for accepting possibly poisoned candy.

Closing his eyes, he threw the bean in his mouth and started chewing. Immediately, whiskey-brown eyes widened.

"That… That's vodka," Tony blinked, wondering how such thing was possible. It was far too strong, far too real – There was nothing artificial about the taste of the candy.

What in the name of Tesla was this nonsense?!

Charis was munching on a bean of her own, beaming happily, "Marshmallow!"

Tony ignored her, taking another bean. He needed to be sure that he hadn't imagined it, that it wasn't his desire for a drink that had made it taste like that.

Spitting the candy out, his eyes widened with horror instead of surprise.

"What the fuck?" He started rubbing his tongue, trying to get the taste out of it, "What the fuck?! It tastes like dirty socks!"

He refused to think about how he even knew what dirty socks tasted like. Tony liked to believe that the year of '89 hadn't happened.

Nope.

Not thinking about it. He had enough trauma to deal with. He didn't need to add more.

"Ouch," Charis gave him a sympathetic look, as if eating candies that taste exactly like dirty socks was normal, "I hate those. They're better than earwax though." There was a pause before she added as a afterthought, "Or vomit."

That – Tony blinked one, two, three times before throwing his arms forward and making grabby hands. His scientist side demanded that he learned exactly how those things worked.

"Give me another!" He ordered.

This whole thing was impossible. Candy shouldn't taste like that but no matter what flavor he picked up, it felt like he was actually eating the real thing – It was mind-blowing if not frustrating and utterly ridiculous!

"In which laboratory this was made?" He demanded to know, not even noticing how relaxed he was while holding a half-eaten bean (Peppermint) and glaring at it with a petulant look on his face, "What kind of process was used?!"

Losing himself to all possibilities that those candies represented, he started to talk in terms that his companion couldn't possibly understand while trying to unsuccessfully break down the process of making the beans. Watching him with amusement, Charis rested her chin against the palm of her hands and smiled widely.

It was nice to know that Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans were still a good way to break the ice. Tapping her chin in thought, she wondered if they could be friends? Mr. Stark seemed like a fun and interesting guy…

"Argh!" The genius screamed, grabbing his throat as if he was chocking, "Earwax! Water! WATER!"

Charis giggled.

Fun and interesting indeed.

This chapter was meant to be longer, much longer. But I decided to split it in two. I'll be posting the next chapter soon. Maybe today or tomorrow :).

Anyway… Hope you liked it and please, don't forget to:

Review, Favorite or Follow and if you have questions/suggestions, just send me a PM.

-Cissnei.

TIMELINE!

June 20, 2009 – Hogwarts Express back to London.

July 19, 2009 – Tony Stark finds his way out.

*James and Sirius (Plus the uninvited Lupin) leave by Portkey to rescue Tony Stark

July 21, 2009 – Tony wakes up in Harry's and James' house.