Drarryfanficsao3

by Suicide44

Dhhdgd

188. 154Magic Is Strange

Preface

Magic Is... StrangePosted originally on the Archive of Our Own at /works/29062530.

Rating:

Teen And Up Audiences

Archive Warning:

Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling

Relationship:

Harry Potter/Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes & Harry Potter, Steve Rogers & Avengers Team, Harry Potter & The Howling Commandos, The Barnes Family & Steve Rogers

Character:

Steve Rogers, Harry Potter, James "Bucky" Barnes, Tony Stark, Natasha Romanov (Marvel), Clint Barton, Bruce Banner, Original Characters, Original Child Character(s), Peggy Carter, Hermione Granger

Additional Tags:

Team as Family, Time Travel, Amnesia, Mpreg, Magic, War, Awesome Howling Commandos, Overprotective Harry Potter, Friendship, The Avengers Are Good Bros, The Commandos are Good Bros, Accidental Marriage, Accidental Pregnancy, Alternate Universe, Canon Divergence - Post-Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Canon Divergence - Post-Avengers (2012), Steve gets threatened to be tied to things (non-sexually), Not Beta Read, We Die Like Men, Don't Like Don't Read, Bottom Steve Rogers, Top Harry Potter, Amnesiac Harry Potter, Found Family, Adopted Harry Potter, Bad Albus Dumbledore, Parent Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug

Stats:

Published: 2021-01-29 Updated: 2021-03-09 Chapters: 12/? Words: 67377

Magic Is... Strange

by SherlockMalfoy

Summary

In April 2012, Steve Rogers discovers he wasn't the only one frozen for the last 67 years just before getting thrown right into another war.
In June 2013 the short, but tragic life of Harry Potter comes to an end in a graveyard.
And in 1932, a woman determined to end her own life reconsiders when she finds an injured teenage boy on the sidewalk outside her home who can't even remember his own name.
One thing is certain in all of these seemingly unconnected events.
Magic is strange and it will do what it will.

Notes

Harry Potter timeline moved so he's born in 1998, not 1980 and the Potters born in 1978. All Pre-Marauders era stuff though still takes place when it should - Tom Riddle's birth and hogwarts years, Dumbledore's defeat of Grindlewald, etc all happens when it would in canon.

That Little Spark

If Steve Rogers really thought about it...

He knew exactly how he ended up in the position he was in right now. It didn't make a lick of sense but at the same time... Well, he'd always been told these things were strange. Always told he should have faith it would all work out somehow.

Steve knew a lot of things others didn't – and never would – know.

Like the fact that the secret to Erskine's super soldier serum didn't die with him. He was only one half of the puzzle. He was the brainchild. The man who did the science... but he came to United States with an imperfect formula and no options left.

And it was for that very reason he was here, staring at his reflection in the mirror a month out of the ice and rinsing his mouth out after another morning spent curled up around the toilet.

SHIELD wouldn't have caught it. Didn't know to be looking for it.

Couldn't know, if what he knew about the funny laws were right.

He spat the water into the sink, turned on both taps and let it wash down. Then, he sighed and splashed water on his tired face.

He left the bathroom, nose wrinkling at the smell of the remains of his breakfast. Gone cold and though he knew it was made fresh – he'd made it himself – the smell of it was foul and off putting now. He hated that his senses were stronger since the serum. Well... right now he hated it. Normally he didn't mind being able to smell the faintest hint of gunpowder. Or the woody scent of the forest just after a rain while they had trekked miles and miles in the mud and muck while on assignment.

He picked up his plate and moved to the trash can, using his foot on the pedal at the bottom to open it so he could scrape the rest into the trash. Steve hated wasting it even though he knew there was more than enough on his back pay to cover his needs for the rest of his life. Buying a few more groceries wouldn't put even a dent in his account once SHIELD got his finances straightened up for him.

But it was the principle of the thing.

The plate was left in the sink and he found himself disappointed when it didn't rise up and wash itself with the dish soap and sponge left on the back of the stainless steel fixture.

He got himself a glass of orange juice – one of the few things he found he could keep down recently – and sat back down at the table.

Director Fury had been kind enough to give him copies of SHIELD's records – heavily redacted in places – for those he had known back in the old days. A file for each man under his command. A few for friends and other colleagues he worked closely with.

A few were still alive and well into their 90s. At the top of the stack was Howard. All the record told him was a list of his achievements. A founder of SHIELD alongside Peggy and others. He'd married sometime in the late 50s. Finally had a kid of his own in 1970. Though he knew THAT at least. Tony Stark was always in the news everywhere he turned.

Peggy was next in the stack. Still alive and kicking. He smiled, letting his eyes skim her file before roaming over the photographs included. She'd gotten married, too, but kept her name the way it was. Her husband, the file said, was a man he and the Commandos had rescued outside Stalingrad. She had two kids – a boy and a girl. Daniel and Amanda Grace Sousa. They looked nice enough.

Making his way through the stack was quick work after that. The only other survivors were Gabe Jones, who now lived in a care home in Tennessee. And Jim Dugan. His last known address was in Texas, but it was noted he moved around a lot and worked with a daredevil show of some kind. He might have to go out and find him. Wouldn't be surprised if the old bastard was still drinking poor young fools under the table even at his age.

When Steve came to the next to last file he wasn't surprised to see it was Bucky's. It didn't tell him anything he didn't already know, but it did have a few pictures of him, and some of the other Commandos, too.

But it was the last he dreaded. The last he didn't think he was ready to look through.

So he didn't. Not right now.

Instead, he finished his juice, got up and got dressed. He'd told himself he'd go out at least once a day and go somewhere. Do something. Try to figure out this strange new world he found himself in.

It was late evening when Steve finally steeled himself to finish looking over the files. Well, the last file really.

He'd come home, had a late dinner, and took a long shower. He'd tidied his already nearly spotless apartment. Did the dishes. Checked to make sure all the windows and the door was locked. Organized what little books he'd collected so far alphabetically, and then sketched for a while as he absently listened to the sounds of a city he didn't even know anymore.

But now as he sat alone in bed wearing pajamas he didn't buy and propped up on too-comfortable pillows he didn't pick out himself, he reached for the folder he had brought into his bedroom from the table. It sat on the beige comforter that had come with the bed and the apartment for a long moment and then, he settled it into his lap and started to read every word.

Like the others, it was very direct, with some sections blacked out. Blue eyes greedily devoured every detail. Every letter. The photo attached was of a young man with a gnarled scar right above his right eye. A scar that had always reminded Steve of a lightning strike. The man was smiling at something outside the shot. He was holding his favorite weapon, a sawed off double barrel shotgun with his head tilted just a bit. His shaggy hair was sticking out from beneath the battered cowboy hat he always wore. The one with the US Medic Corps insignia hand stitched into it.

SPITFIRE was the name printed in quotations beneath the photo. A photo attached to a page with much of the words stamped over with a large rubber stamp. The word DECEASED in bold, red letters across the page.

Steve drew a deep breath and let it go slowly as he let his eyes roam to the name again. Harvey Abraham Blackmoore. He didn't realize he'd started to cry until a few droplets landed on the page. He brushed at the paper, his fingers grazing over the dates the man had lived and died. There wasn't much in the file about the man's death other than it had happened after Steve had taken the Valkyrie for a nosedive into the drink. Lt. Blackmoore was reassigned to a unit supervised by Britain's Special Operations Division where he'd been for two more months before being Killed In Action trying to take down a High Level Target in Romania.

And with Blackmoore's death, Steve knew, the secret to Erskine's serum was lost.

He didn't know what made him go there. He hadn't been in years. Not since after his ma had died. Not since the two of them were here last. Before Harv got his marching orders and they were just three guys trying to make do in a time of hardship and war. He glanced around to make sure the shadow SHIELD put on him had been well and truly lost. He pulled the hat down a bit further and walked forward, then veered to the left of the cement walkway to the cobblestone he couldn't see clearly, but knew was there all the same.

Once he got far enough in, the view was a little easier and he could see the old revolving door – same as it was back in '37. He touched the bill of his hat as he dipped his head politely to the ladies coming out ahead of him before ducking inside.

The atrium was just as bright and warm and lively as he remembered it, even if it had been more than half a century since he'd laid eyes on it. But he was here for a reason, and didn't know how long he'd have until SHIELD would be looking for him. He approached the nearest information desk and waited his turn.

When the woman looked up to see him standing there, she smiled. "Welcome to MACUSA's Brooklyn Administration Offices. How can I help you today Mr..."

"Rogers. I... have a bit of a situation and need to speak to someone in the No-Maj Liaison department."

"You'll want Escalator four, elevator twelve. Can I help you with anything else today, Mr. Rogers?"

"Last time I was here we had to take a lot of stairs. Where... uh..."

"We haven't used stairs since 1963."

He sighed and gave a nod. "That's part of the situation I mentioned. Can you point me in the right direction?"

"Of course. If you look to your right, where the stairs used to be. You'll want the fourth one, the one with the large purple plaque over it. It'll list everything Escalator 4 leads to. When you reach the top, go through the eighth door and it'll take you to the elevator room."

"Elevator 12," he said, showing he had in fact been paying attention the first time.

She nodded at him with a bright smile. "You've got it," she said. "Have a good day, Mr. Rogers. And I hope you get that situation you mentioned sorted out."

Once he finally got where he needed to be, he found himself in a waiting room that clearly had seen better days. He had to wait a while before he was finally called back into the office of the witch working that day. She glanced over the information that the receptionist had taken down and sighed, not even looking at him. "No, we cannot do anything about your child's magic nor get rid of it. It is a natural part of-"

"I'm sorry but that's not why I'm here today ma'am."

She frowned and looked up at last, staring at him in confusion. "If you're not here to complain about your child being different then-"

"This... might take a while. I was here in 1937 with a friend of mine. You might have a record somewhere from it. I had to sign a lot of papers with a weird pen that used my blood."

"A blood oath contract?"

"Yeah."

"We don't use those anymore. Haven't since the 60s."

"Yeah, well, you did back then. Tell me what you might need to know to make this go a little faster. I don't have all day."

She looked down at the information again and copied it out, dropping it into a basket where it disappeared in a puff of orange smoke. Soon, a stack of papers appeared in another basket on the opposite corner of her desk in a puff of green smoke. She took these out and started to skim them. "I'll be damned..."

"Yeah. Long story short, I'm supposed to be dead but I'm not. Turns out I wasn't a no-maj either, but I didn't know where else to go."

"What can i help you with today, Mr. Rogers?"

"Well..." he glanced to the nameplate on the desk. "Mrs. Mcgrath, I've been frozen in ice for nearly 70 years, I'm just past 2 months pregnant and the father died in 1945 on a classified covert mission in Romania. The first thing I want is to see a doctor and then I want to find out what happened to the man that co-signed those documents back in 1937 so i could know about magic and not get him thrown in prison for giving me some potions for my asthema."

"That's... quite a story."

"Mrs. Mcgrath... you don't know the half of it..."

Steve sat in his apartment with a mail order magazine for different stores his new Liaison Office caseworker suggested he look at. An appointment card for a specialist doctor in Long Island, a thicker file folder than what SHIELD had given him on Lt. Blackmoore, and an itchy bandage on his left hip which, admittedly, was a spur of the moment decision on his part.

Tiredly he looked over at the thick file that sat on his table and stood, moving to make himself something to eat and hope the smell didn't bother him bad enough to start puking up what was left of the bland egg salad he'd had for lunch.

A couple of grilled cheese sandwiches and orange juice was put on the table next to the thick folder. And soon... Steve was finally able to see what SHIELD had withheld from him... and what the magical world had hidden from SHIELD.

Steve had just enough time after Fury's visit to the gym to change and pack a small bag. While there, he stuffed anything linking him to the magical world into a lock box he'd bought not long after Nick had cut him loose from SHIELD's new York facility. While he changed and brushed his teeth after flushing a fresh batch of vomit down the toilet, he stopped long enough to brush his fingers over the fresh ink he'd had the forethought to get while at the MACUSA offices.

He wasn't a wizard. He couldn't cast spells like Harvey could. But he wasn't normal either. He was something in between, which meant he had just enough of a spark in him to hold a spell even if he couldn't cast it himself. The runes etched into his skin now were more than just something pretty to look at. The metallic red ink seemed to shine as he brushed over them again, tracing each one and muttering the words he'd been made to memorize under his breath. Runes for strength. Runes for protection. Runes for good health. He'd have to get them recharged in a month. And every month after. It was the only way his body could give the kid the magic it needed without...

Steve didn't want to think about that now. Couldn't think about that now.

He spat the toothpaste into the sink and tugged on the white shirt before reaching to the hook on the bathroom door. With a deep breath, he slipped his arms into the sleeves of his blue check shirt and buttoned it up as he finished getting ready.

Coulson was dead. Banner and Thor were who the fuck knew where. He'd taken some pretty hard hits himself and was grateful the rune spells had held as well as they did.

This was supposed to be a one and done kind of mission.

Capture Loki. Get the Tesseract. Lock them both up and throw away the key.

He did NOT sign up for THIS.

And yet... he couldn't stop himself.

He wasn't sure he would even if he could.

Steve's doctor was not pleased.

He was far from pleased.

He was grateful they were not subjugated to an alien warlord, of course. Who wouldn't be?

But he was not happy with the fact that... "You could have lost your child! Super soldier or not, Mr. Rogers, what you did was reckless and thoughtless!"

"I know!"

"You're lucky your child's father was as powerful as he was or you most certainly would have gotten both of you killed!"

Steve left the Long Island office with a couple more runes etched into his skin, closer to the navel. With an additional, much more detailed mark to be activated only in case of most dire emergencies or, as Dr. Kincade had said, "The first sign of alien invasion or ancient magical gods, you speak the words to activate this crest or so help me, Mr. Rogers I will scour this earth to find a way to drag your child's father from the afterlife long enough to kick your ass!"

Steve had been asked to move into the tower, once it was rebuilt.

He had considered not doing it. He'd finally gotten used to his apartment. Had bought a few things that reminded him of home to make it a little more comfortable. And it wasn't like the world was in massive danger at the moment. There wasn't really any reason for the Avengers to stick around. They did their job. And Steve... Steve just wanted to hide away and deal with his trauma. Trauma he hadn't yet had the chance to face. He was just coming to terms with being in a world so far removed from what he knew... and then realizing he was... and then grieving... oh the grieving...

All of that interrupted by Loki and all of that havoc and now a new source of nightmares and...

It was too much.

"You need people you can trust. They may not be your friends now, Steven," she had said. "But you trusted them to help you protect the world. Trust them with this."

"They're no-maj Blythe. I can't just break the statute of secrecy and tell them all about-"

"Not all of them are no-maj. Thor for one isn't even human. He doesn't count under the statute. And the big green guy... technically, if we stretch the definition, he could be a were-troll."

"There's no such thing as were-trolls."

"There will be when I file my report tomorrow morning. As for the rest..." she said, reaching out to take him by the hand and rub the skin on the back of his with her thumb. "After what happened last month, I don't think there's enough obliviators in all of America to cover up what happened. As long as you're discrete and keep it just between yourself and your team, I don't think it'll be a problem. You won't be able to hide that stomach of yours forever."

He pulled his hand away and ran it through his hair. "I'll think about it."

"That's all I'm asking. That... and that you see a mind healer before the baby gets here. And after."

"Blythe-"

"I mean it. And that's the official recommendation, too. I'm putting it in my report so you can't get out of it."

"You're what?"

"Pregnant."

"You're a man."

"Yeah, last I checked."

"Capsicle, you know you can't-"

"Yeah... it's a magic baby?"

Natasha was watching the exchange between Stark and Cap in mild amusement. "Magic baby?" she asked.

"How... how far along are you?" Bruce asked.

"It's what... July now? About... 4 and a half months."

All three of the avengers did the math quickly. "You were pregnant during the battle?!" Clint shouted in surprise from where he was hiding in the vent above them. "When the hell did you even have time?! You were only thawed out for a month!"

He could feel his jaw tighten and his shoulders roll back – and it must have looked like he was about to start fighting if Natasha's careful approach was to be considered. "He's dead, isn't he?" she asked. "The father."

"Killed in action April 1945. Two months after I went in the ice."

"Did he know?"

"I didn't even know until they thawed me out."

"Why didn't the boys and girls at SHIELD catch it when they gave you the once over?"

"Because they didn't know to look for it. They didn't anticipate this being one of the side effects of the serum."

"They probably didn't expect their golden boy to-"

"Finish that sentence Stark and you won't be starting any others."

He was showing. Well... he knew he was starting to show when he moved into the tower with the others. Now it was more obvious. He didn't know if he could keep this from SHIELD much longer. Stark, with JARVIS's help, was doing his best. He knew that. But it was getting harder and harder to find something to wear out that didn't show his... condition.

And he didn't like being poked and prodded at, either, which was another driving force behind his call to his caseworker, Blythe, to make... alternate arrangements for his appointments with the healers.

Ultimately, it was decided the best place for his check-ups was his own suite in the tower. And, the head shrink they wanted him to see could also come to him.

And that was working out great... until part way through October Fury showed up with a mission for him, Clint, and Natasha and... well...

"What the hell is this?"

"That," Clint had said from the perch that had been installed for him to sort-of... lounge in over the exit to Stark's balcony launch pad. "Is SF."

Steve didn't even bother trying to get up from where he was comfortably planted in the chair Stark had bought for him after he'd told them about the kid. "We're not calling him that!"

"I think it's a great name!"

"Super Fetus is not a name, Clint!"

"Anyone want to tell me how that happened?"

Stark, who was watching everything while he was working on some new project designs from his workstation in the upstairs lab/office/pretty much tech support center for their little super hero operation took this moment to make his grand entrance. "Well you see," he started, leaning against the railing overlooking the others. Except Clint, who was actually around even with Tony height wise in vast room. "When a mommy and a daddy really like each other they do this sort of special hug-"

Steve, Natasha, and Bruce all groaned. "Will someone please shut him up..." Steve bemoaned.

Natasha shook her head and sighed. "Trust me, we've been looking for the off button for years."

"I'm still waiting for that answer, Captain."

"Would you believe," Stark said from above them with the biggest grin on his face. "For once, just once, I had absolutely NOTHING to do with this?"

Fury eventually got an answer. The same answer that Steve had given the team when he moved in. Though Fury wasn't happy to find out that Cap was getting thrown around by hostile space aliens and an Asgardian, too, while 2 months pregnant with a magical baby from 1945.

"Well... you wanted the truth."

"Our medical staff's going to have to-"

"Absolutely not. My son isn't a science experiment."

"You seem to forget that you have a very valuable bit of Government property flowing through your veins. AND that same blood is in your child."

Bruce gripped the arms of his chair so tight they began to splinter. Natasha stood, putting herself between Steve and their boss seconds before they all heard the all to distinct sound of Iron Man's gauntlet powering on. "Don't make me call the rest of the suit," Stark said from above as Steve struggled to get himself up. It was awkward given his body was certainly not made to be doing what it was currently doing.

Once he was on his feet, he put a hand on Natasha's shoulder, giving it a squeeze. The redhead looked at him, but didn't move. Instead, she just made sure she was in an easy position to jump between them if necessary.

"As Director of SHIELD, you MIGHT have a high enough security clearance to answer this question. Are you familiar with the MACUSA Non-Aggression pact of 1941?"

The one eye narrowed at him, and Fury actually frowned. One of his cheeks actually twitched.

"The what?" Stark said from above, already searching for the information but finding... nothing. Absolutely NOTHING.

"That only applies, Captain, if one parent of that child was a member of the MACUSA Allied Defense Forces AND proof of a preexisting record of Marriage filed prior to December 8, 1941."

Steve grinned. "You might want to put in a call to whoever your contact with MACUSA is. I officially became classified as a War Widow on April 13, 1945 when Lt. Harvey Blackmoore, formerly of the Howling Commandos, was killed in action while confronting the tyrant known as Grindlewald seven miles east of Bucharest."

"Those records are classified-"

"Not to me," Steve said, his voice low, bordering on dangerous. "That should tell you exactly how high MY clearance goes, Director."

Steve managed to hold himself together long enough for JARVIS to confirm Fury had left the building, but not without leaving orders for Natasha and Clint anyway.

Stark watched from above, removing his gauntlet only after JARVIS's confirmation, and turned to go back to work. Bruce took charge of Steve, helping him to the private lift with the promise to get him something to calm him down and then put him to bed for a much needed rest.

Steve didn't keep up with international magical news.

So he didn't know as he sat in his suite, his doctor casting his spells over Steve's midsection while Natasha looked on in fascination from her place in the chair next to Steve's bed, that half a world away, at that very moment the champions for the infamous and most dangerous tournament the magical world had ever seen were being chosen during their dinner.

He didn't know that the name his child's father used to scream in in the dead of night, filled with pain and fear and horror as he sometimes would kick Steve out of the bed by accident... was being read out to a large hall full of excited and hungry school children.

He couldn't have known that as his doctor examined the runes inked in metallic red on his stretched skin, recharging them with the magic necessary to help the child's developing magical core form properly in the absence of a purely magical parent, that a boy with eyes as bright as emeralds and a scar that looked like gnarled lightning was silently going into a panic as his own name was read from a magical cup that was meant to choose only three... not four.

No. Steve didn't know any of this.

But if he had known, the part of him that was selfish... that stubborn part of him that ignored laws and kept getting back on his feet no matter how hard a beating he got... probably would have shrugged his shoulders, rubbed at the silver ring that never left his finger even after all that time in the ice, and accepted one of the most certain facts of his life. Magic was strange...

On the 24th of November, the as yet unnamed unborn child of Captain America was more active than usual, making it damn near impossible for Steve to sleep.

It was Stark's turn to make sure the stubborn ass didn't do anything stupid. Which was getting harder and harder as the months went by. Babysitting Cap duty wasn't too taxing since his doc forced him on bed rest back in late September following a midnight trip to the kitchens that ended with JARVIS tattling, venting the smoke from the kitchen where Steve had burned the rice he was trying – and failing miserably – to cook.

"I looked him up," Tony said when Steve couldn't stop mumbling under his breath. "After I couldn't find diddly squat on whatever this MACUSA thing is."

"The Magical Congress of the United States of America," Steve said tiredly as he once again tried to shift position.

"Most records from back then haven't been digitized. Yet. I was able to find plenty about him in the SHIELD archives. Did he really use a sawed off shotgun?"

"He used to call it the Meatgrinder," Steve said. "Always carried a pouch of scattershot shells on him. And when he ran out of ammunition, he'd use the thing like a club."

"I saw a picture of the whole gang together. He looks like a kid with a peashooter next to you."

"Most people do. Now."

And the more Stark kept prompting, poking at him for more about the man that left him in such a state, the more Steve talked. It wasn't that Stark cared or anything. He did in his own weird way – but it was more out of curiosity. Here he was, living with the Legend Himself, learning things not even old Howard ever knew. Things that if his godmother knew, she'd never told a soul. These weren't stories you could read about in a history book. Hell, he wouldn't even have known about the clandestine world of actual broom riding witches hiding under his very nose if not for the fact Steve had come and dropped the bombshell he did on them.

That wasn't something you'd be able to go just pop down to the Smithsonian and hear on the guided tour of that new Captain America exhibit they were putting in.

Eventually Steve had started to relax. And the kid stopped kicking his kidneys long enough to let him get comfortable in the bed.

"You know..." Stark started when the clock was ticking over into Bruce's turn to keep the Cap company. "I'm surprised you haven't really fought us more about this whole... bed thing."

"After the first time Harv tied me to the radiator so I wouldn't go out into a blizzard while I was already half dead from pneumonia, I only ever really pushed back to see if he'd do it again."

"Did he?"

"I'm sure there might be a picture of me chained to the long barrel of a tank somewhere."

"Why the hell would he chain you to... how could a man half your size... you know what, I don't think I want to know."

Steve just gave him the biggest, snarkiest looking grin as Bruce came in carrying a tray with food. "He told me to stop jumping out of planes without a parachute."

"Did you?"

"What do you think, Stark?"

December came around and with it, Stark's departure for Malibu with Pepper. Steve was sad to see him go, but at the same time he hoped the man would finally start to relax. Ever since their fight against the Chitauri, Stark had been... shaken. He'd get that same look in his eye Harvey would during his night terrors.

More than once he'd had to shout the man down from overworking, going so far as to ban all work on the suits from his suite. Even just designing on the computers.

It was Bruce who had suggested the man take a vacation. Go back to California and soak up some sun. Relax on the beach. Something. Anything to get it out of his system and his head on straight again.

But before he left, he'd given Steve a small box with a button on it.

"What the hell is this?"

"When that kid is ready to come out, you get your doctors here and hit that button. I just finished upgrading the private medical floor. All the bells and whistles. That button locks down the entire top section of the building. No one in and no one out until you say otherwise."

"Except you, of course."

"Of course," Stark had said, patting his shoulder. "Absolute privacy. The tightest security I could create. Gotta keep my little godson safe."

"I never said he was-"

"Oh no. He is. You never picked one so we all got tired of arguing and decided to draw up a schedule."

"You're ridiculous."

"And you still haven't picked out a name. Anthony's a good, strong name for a boy."

"Don't you have a plane to catch?"

"Edward's good, too."

"Get out, Tony!"

"Now you really must be warming up to me. You called me Tony!"

A pillow hit the Man of Iron in the face as Steve shouted for him to get out, but he was shouting with laughter in his voice.

Natasha would never admit to being the one who took the photo of a pale, sweaty Steve Rogers asleep in the hospital bed with one hand draped over the side, fingers not quite touching the sleeping baby in the bassinet beside him.

She also would never tell anyone – not even Stark – that it was hell on wheels all that day when Bruce had to go and take a time out after the Nurse came out to show them the baby. It wasn't seeing the baby, who was as cute as a button – Clint's words not Natasha's... NEVER Natasha's – that had the big guy trying to claw his way out. It was what came after.

Hours of surgery to keep the Captain from bleeding out in the OR. According to the specialist Steve had been seeing... the serum in his blood was fighting against the magical medicines they needed to give him to make sure he healed correctly.

It didn't help that they kept having to knock him out with a spell every half hour because surprise – he metabolized the anesthesia too quickly to be of any real use. The big guy took exception to the helplessness of his friend and wanted to come out and do something about it.

Which is why Hulk stayed in his playpen until after Nat got the word that Steve wasn't going to die and was, in fact, now resting. Last JARVIS had told her, Bruce was having a hot soak before dinner. He'd be back in to see Steve tomorrow.

But right now, as the calendar changed dates from the 21st of December to the 22nd, she looked down at the flowing screen of Clint's phone and attached one of the other photos she'd never admit to taking. A tiny baby, sleeping peacefully on his back, swaddled in a little blue blanket covered in red zigzags and white stars. She hit send with a small smile, knowing Stark would laugh at the choice of blanket Clint had picked to swaddle the wee thing in.

And in not one, but five different Books of Names across the globe a new name had been added upon the boy's time of birth.

Harlan James Blackmoore of Manhattan, New York City, New York was born at the exact moment of the Winter Solstice on December 21st, 2012. It just so happened that in Manhattan at the time it was 6:12AM.

He was still tender, and wary of getting out of bed in the days to follow. Natasha had temporarily moved into his suite to help him with the baby. But only after he agreed to show her the scar he was left with. It was jagged and a bit rough, the skin not wanting to heal right thanks to the serum fighting back.

"Do you think... if they knew what all was in the serum it might have been easier?"

"Maybe," Steve had said as he had lowered his shirt back down. He wasn't stupid. He knew what she was doing. She was, metaphorically speaking, tying him to the radiator to keep him from going out and looking for Stark. Not that she could blame him given his track record.

She didn't need to though. The rope keeping him tied down now was asleep in the crib set up next to his bed.

"But I'm glad it's lost. Now... I just know to be more careful."

"Do you think Mini-Cap might have the same problem?" she asked. "He has been swimming around in serum rich fluid for 68 years."

"67."

She raised a brow and gave a little twitch of a smile. "And 9 months."

He shrugged. "Guess we'll find out along the way."

They hadn't expected to need to use the private medical floor again so soon after the birth of the Tiniest Avenger – Bruce's nickname, not Natasha's – and the scare they'd had with Cap in the hours that followed. But here they were again.

This time, Cap was on the outside looking in. And Little Harlan pretty much would cry every time someone (Steve) put him down. Clint said the tyke must have been picking up on how anxious everyone was. Babies were really sensitive like that. Plus... who knew what all was special about the kid given his unique existence.

Either way, Cap wouldn't leave the others unless he had to. And his son wouldn't stop screaming and crying unless he was held. Mostly by Steve. But he would accept cuddles from Auntie Natasha.

It was after dark when the first doc came into the lobby to tell them Pepper was done and resting. She'd be fit for visitors the next day. As for Tony...

"It's been... Look, I won't lie to you. Some of the heart tissue has regrown around the shrapnel. Honestly, the man needs a heart transplant. But... we're seeing some success with the experimental substance we sampled from Miss Potts. There's still a lot more left in there and then the rest of the reactor itself."

The doctor told them a little more before going back and scrubbing back in. Clint and Nat told Cap and Bruce to go to bed. "If nothing else," Clint had said. "Mini-Cap needs to leave the lobby for more than just eating and diaper changes. You're dead on your feet."

For once, Steve wasn't about to complain.

Aside from the day Tony and Pepper both were in surgery, Harlan was usually a very happy little baby. While he did what all newly born babies do best – keep their parents up and running ragged on very little sleep – he was at least consistent with it.

At exactly 1:44AM every morning he would wake for a feeding, a change, and a cuddle from Auntie Natasha. And ONLY Auntie Natasha. He would be asleep again between 3:02 and 3:06AM every morning, snuggled up close to the ex-KGB assassin and smiling the way all content and happy little babies smile at that age.

But on February 24th, much like that day in November when the kid kept kicking Steve in his kidneys and wouldn't let him relax all day... He was kicking and screaming. Squirming and wriggling and doing his damnedest to be a little troublemaker at just 2 months old.

And nothing – absolutely NOTHING – would make him stop.

Until after falling asleep in the commons from absolute exhaustion Steve woke to find his arms empty, the room dark, and Clint snoring away up in his perch.

"JARVIS?!"

"Yes, Captain?"

"Where's Harlan?!"

"He is in the penthouse, Captain."

"What's he doing all the way up there?!"

"Sir is rocking him and explaining the finer points of thermodynamics."

"Really?"

"Yes."

"And why is he doing that?"

"Because sir came down for coffee since he has forgotten to ask me to order more and noticed your son crying yet no one waking to care for him."

"Oh God! How long has-"

"Young Harlan has been with sir for three hours, eight minutes and 42 seconds. He has eaten. Dozed in sir's arms, and allowed Mr. Stark to relax, resulting in his vital signs resting at normal for the first time in eight months."

Steve relaxed back, the tension bleeding off him as his panic had subsided. "Good... That's good."

"Sir has also instructed me to tell you that you owe him one favor, no questions must be asked."

"For letting me get a full night's sleep, the man can have two."

There was a soft, artificial hum before JARVIS's calming voice returned. "Sir has informed me to tell you that you may regret that."

Winter faded into Spring, and with it the revelation that Harlan's eyes were not going to stay that gorgeous Rogers blue.

"Holy shit those eyes are..."

"Language," Steve warned from his place at the end of the table, going over mission parameters. Now that he couldn't use the excuse of being pregnant, and to help repay Clint and Natasha for all their help, he'd let himself be browbeat into helping run missions with them for SHIELD. Tony, Pepper, or Bruce would usually babysit for him... but more and more Bruce volunteered.

"What can I say, the big guy likes him. And the big guy doesn't like ANYONE."

"Does he like me?" Pepper had asked once. Bruce had shrugged.

"He thinks you're pretty when you're angry."

Tony had laughed so hard he started choking on air at that while breathlessly trying to tell her "I told you so."

Though right now... Natasha peered over Clint's shoulder where he was sitting, feeding the tyke that had an appetite no child his size could possibly match. "They are rather bright. I've never seen eyes that green before."

Steve didn't need to look to know what she meant. For just a brief few seconds, as he smoothed the charts out on the table in front of him he could almost trick himself into believing Harvey was there with him. With them. Smiling and laughing as they passed around the bottle of Dugan's favorite rotgut while Steve and Bucky went over the maps and planned their next move.

JARVIS's calm and steady voice pulled him out of the past when he announced the arrival of Tony and Pepper, there to take the baby off their hands for a few days while the 2 agents and the Captain ran their counter-terrorism mission for SHIELD.

Before handing Harlan off though, Steve took him back from Clint and held him close. He played with his little hands, and let a smile rise up when they gripped his finger tight like a vice. Kid was going to be strong. There wasn't any doubt about that. And healthy, too. The serum made sure of that. And he was certain Harvey's magic took care of the rest.

"You be good for uncle Tony and aunt Pepper," he murmured, giving the boy a small kiss just below the start of his soft, downy blond hair. "No more making your toys float when you're mad. It makes JARVIS go a little funny."

The baby gurgled up at him, bright green eyes wide and curious and happy all at once.

When Steve finally passed him over to Pepper, she wrinkled her nose. "Did he just... Oh come on. You couldn't have changed him first?"

Steve did his best not to laugh. "Sorry Pep... we've got go or else Fury's going to be pretty upset."

Tony was still laughing as the elevator doors shut on the trio. The moment they started moving, Steve's shoulders started to shake as he did his best to hold it in. Clint slapped him on the back with a chuckle and Natasha actually cracked a smile. "That," she said. "Is going to cost you later. You know that right?"

"Yeah," Steve said, somehow managing to keep his composure. But it was close. "That's what she gets for trying to set me up with that guy from accounting."

Had Steve Rogers kept in regular contact with the magical world beyond just the bare minimum for himself and his son, he might have known why on June 24th, the child was absolutely inconsolable.

Had he been subscribed to any of the numerous newspapers reporting on the current major events going on in the Magical UK, he might have realized why on November 24th his then unborn son was highly active. He might have had an inkling why the boy was so inconsolable on February 24th.

And he might have seen at least a fleeting photograph of the unprecedented fourth champion of the Tri-Wizard Tournament.

As it was, he only had a wizarding wireless. Not much different than the one Harvey had brought home back in 1939. Maybe the design was a little more updated but that was about it. So he didn't have a face to match to the names spoken of in the occasional news reports he caught during the long nights he paced the floor unable to sleep.

So he didn't know that his son was picking up on his other father's magic from half a world away. He didn't know magical theory or the story of the Boy-Who-Lived or why such things might be important right now. He only new that half an hour after the wireless reported the disappearance of two competitors in the tournament, his son had stopped his wailing and had settled into a fitful sleep at last.

He turned off the radio seconds before the wireless reported the return of one of the competitors with the coveted Champion's Cup laying across his lifeless chest. Steve was completely unaware of the chaos that erupted immediately after. Of the rumours and speculation that had begun about the fate of the magical world's most famous orphan.

No, Steve Rogers did not know any of these things, because he was finally able to sit down and rest as he tiredly fixed himself something simple to eat before dropping down into his favorite chair and falling asleep with a book on his chest.

The-Boy-Who-Loved

Chapter Notes

Fair warning - some of the dialogue from CA:TFA appears in the scene where Steve takes the plane down into the ice. But it's only the beginning of that part, not the whole thing.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

The tragic story of Harry Potter was short.

And yet it was much longer than it seemed.

It had a beginning. A middle. And an end.

But not necessarily in that order.

If one were to ask him he'd tell you to fuck off and probably blast you in the face with a sawed off double barrel shotgun after a few more choice words.

But he couldn't tell anyone that. He was in a coma. In a bed in a large room at a school hidden away in the Scottish highlands. A school of magic and wizardry.

The tragic story of Harry Potter began on a wet night when a prophecy was spoken. The middle began when he was left on a doorstep at Privet Drive the night his parents were murdered. And it continued, as all stories do, onward as he grew up.

Harry Potter grew up unloved and neglected by his aunt and uncle, and abused quite often by his cousin. And then, as all stories with a hero and a villain do, young Harry received quite shocking news on his eleventh birthday. Magic was real, and he was a wizard.

And so it was the boy attended the very same magical school in which he now lay unconscious. He and his friends had quite a many adventures in their short time there together. Three headed dogs. Possessed teachers. Locked room mysteries and secret chambers and evil diaries.

There were even werewolves, demonic soul suckers, and murderous escaped prisoners!

Then there was the Tournament. Because all stories about the great heroes of our times must have a tournament in which to pit them against the best of the best. Our hero grabbed the cup at the center of the maze and to his horror was whisked away to a mysterious and spooky graveyard...

And that is where the tragic life of Harry Potter ends. With a duel in a graveyard against an evil man, an explosion of powerful magic, and only the remains of a broken wand left behind.

For the man in the bed may look like Harry Potter, if a bit older. He may have been born on July 31, 1998 – the day that Harry Potter was born to Lily and James Potter of Godric's Hollow.

But the man in the bed with the same gnarled scar as Harry Potter had not gone by that name for many years. The man in the bed didn't even know who Harry Potter was.

No, the man in the bed was a soldier. Hardened by war and the deep, great losses that come with it.

The metal tags hanging from his neck gave his name and rank as that of Lt. H.A. Blackmoore of the MACUSA Medical Corps. And his story begins the same way Harry Potter's story ended. With a duel in a graveyard against an evil man, an explosion of powerful magic, and an inexplicable twist of magic's will...

He woke up thrashing in his blankets, screaming in agony as he wailed a name over and over. The door of the bedroom was flung open and a woman with her hair in curlers and a housecoat came rushing in, two bottles in one hand and a small oil lamp in the other.

It had been the same once a week for over a month since she had found the poor child half dead just outside the wards on her home. She set the lamp down on the desk by the bedroom door and rushed forward to gather the poor boy into her arms. He fought her – he always did – until she was able to force a calming draught down his throat.

She rocked him, humming the same lullaby her mother had to her as a child. She stroked his scarred, sweat soaked brow and held him close until his screams ebbed into broken sobs. "Shh... shh... it's alright now... I'm here..."

He clung to her, his tears soaking her housecoat and the nightgown beneath. Eventually, he settled and she didn't need to use the other bottle of draught. Once she was sure his attack was over, she urged him to get up with her and come into the parlor.

By the time he was settled on the settee, she had already gone to fetch some warm milk and a bit of dry toast. She brought it to him and left it on the low table before the settee before joining him and letting him curl into her side. The hand knit blanket she kept on the back was pulled down over them both.

"I'm sorry..." he said softly as she returned to stroking his hair.

"It's alright."

"I wish..." he sniffled. "I wish I could remember why..."

"Maybe it's for the best," she said, as she always said when he apologized. "Magic is strange, dear... It does what it wills and we just... we must have faith that things will work out the way they are meant to."

She held him as the sun came up and his milk had been drunk and his toast nibbled on.

When the healers had asked her to foster him until a suitable family could be found, she had been against it. Her husband and son were only four months dead now and she couldn't... she felt like it was a betrayal to their memory to have her attentions drawn away from her mourning.

But when he'd had his first attack a few nights later and she heard that desperate, strangled cry... the ice around her heart began to break. No child should sound like that. No child should try to claw his own skin off in fear and agony...

She'd gone home and gone into her own son's room, the one right beside the one she once shared with her husband... and she prayed. She prayed for guidance and that night dreamed of her son. And in the dream he was happy and healthy again and then... then he was the other boy. The boy she had found the very day she had gone out to buy herself a poison in desperation and despair.

And now... now she knew after only a month of fostering the poor child, she could not let him go. There was no guarantee that they would find a family willing to take on a boy with the problems he had. The memory loss, the night terrors, the accidental magic bursts...

No. She would keep him. He needed her. And she was loathe to admit it at first, but she needed him.

It had been three days since she had decided she wanted him for a son. And now... "Do you mean it?"

"Yes."

"You'll... you'll be my mom? Forever?"

And she nodded, taking his hand between both of her own. "Yes. Until the day I die."

He pulled his hand away and threw himself at her, wrapping his thin arms tightly around her, tears of joy in his eyes and a smile so bright she swore it could light up a room.

"We'll go down to the local offices and make it official tomorrow. I want you to think about what name you'd like to be called. I can't call my own son 'child' and 'boy' all the time.

He still hadn't settled on a name when she took him to what she called the MACUSA. The branch they were visiting, she said, was one of many throughout the city. "This one, my child, is the Brooklyn offices."

"Brooklyn... that's where we live?"

"Yes. I know this city's so big, but the more we travel around it, the more you'll get used to it. You'll be finding your way around before you know it."

It took all day to get through all the red tape. But eventually, after a rather lengthy discussion alone with Mrs. Blackmoore about some... irregularities they discovered when performing the necessary heritage tests to ensure she hadn't tried to kidnap the heir of an old pureblood family, she was eventually allowed to sign the final paper. And so was her son.

"What's wrong, dear?" she asked him when he hesitated, holding the blood quill uncertainly.

"I... I couldn't pick a name," he said, looking down at his lap and mumbling something.

"You'll need to speak up, child. Otherwise I can't understand you."

"I... I said..." he started, turning in his chair to look at her. "I said... isn't it a mum's job to name her child?"

"Oh sweetheart..."

"I think you should do it. I'm sure whatever name you pick is a lot better than whatever name I've forgotten."

She leaned over and hugged him tightly, giving it a bit of thought before finally thinking of something. "Harvey," she said as she pulled away. "My father's name was Harvey. I think it suits you quite well." He beamed at her and leaned forward towards the desk to start writing.

"Abraham," she added. "For your middle name, it should be Abraham. My ancestor was the first of his family in America. It's a very strong family name. A survivor's name." And she watched as he scribbled that in. Followed by Black.

"Is it... is it M-O-R-E or M-O-O-R?"

"Both are close. It's M-O-O-R-E."

He nodded, his tongue sticking out the corner of his mouth as he finished the surname. When he put down the pen, he shook out his other hand with a frown. "That hurt. Is it supposed to hurt?"

"It's a blood quill. Instead of ink, it uses just a little amount of blood. This makes all magical contracts unbreakable by anything short of the gods themselves. And even then, I'd like to see them try."

And just like that... the boy had a family and a name and a home to call his own.

Harvey was a very bright boy. Too bright, it seemed, when he took a shine to a subject. He would read everything he could get his hands on. And then... he would get bored rather quickly.

His mother had to hire a tutor to come in and train him in basic magic to get his bursts of accidental magic under control. He still slipped up sometimes, especially when his emotions were running high. But he was getting better.

Unknown to his mother, when the boy wasn't home studying he was roaming the neighborhood, exploring. Getting lost occasionally. And on one particularly cloudy day...

"Hey!" Harvey had shouted, picking up a metal can and throwing it at one of the rather large boys crowded around another much younger boy at the park. It beaned the kid in the back of the head. "Leave him alone!"

That day Harvey met two no-maj boys who would become his best, and only friends in all the world when another boy had come to haul the larger ones off both Harvey and the smaller boy.

Harvey went home that day with newspaper shoved up his nose and a cold compress from his new friend's mom.

His own mother chewed him out up one wall and down the other, warning him about how dangerous it was to get involved with the no-maj. How it was against the law for their sort to mix and he was lucky he didn't have a magical outburst and hurt those boys. By the time she was done though, she'd handed him a healing potion for his crooked nose and black eyes. She gave him a hug and told him she was proud of him for trying to help.

"His name is Steve," Harvey said. "And he doesn't look 15, but he is. His friend Bucky pulled them off us... Can i see them again, mom?"

"I'm sorry sweetheart but-"

"Please?"

"No. It's too risky. For all we know, Harvey, it was no-maj that left you half dead on my piece of the sidewalk." The didn't, and she knew that now. But still... she didn't want to lose the boy that had quickly wormed his way into her heart.

She was angry, but not surprised, when he snuck back home a week later, with another black eye and holding his wrist awkwardly. This time she left him some bruise balm and a wrap for his arm.

Harvey never talked to his mom about the no-maj boys again. But he knew that she knew he was sneaking out to meet them. Especially when he'd get into a scrap because Steve just couldn't keep his damn mouth shut most days.

This went on for two years before his mom sat him down on the day she said was his birthday with a stack of papers. He remembered that stack of papers. She'd brought them home the day she adopted him a few years back.

"What's this?"

"Your heritage test results. Among other important things. You're 18 now, Harvey. An adult. These are things you should know about yourself. It changes nothing, Harvey. You're my son and you will ALWAYS be my son. This is just... this is some of your past that you were not ready to learn."

"But you knew."

"Yes."

"And you didn't tell me?"

She nodded and pushed the papers towards him. "It wouldn't have helped you to know then. Now... it might be able to guide you forward. Read it, and when you're done do what you like with it. Burn it for all I care. As I said, this changes nothing. We are family. And we always will be."

"Even if... even if I find out who my real mom is?"

"I'll always be your mother, Harvey my child. Until the day that I die."

He spent much of the evening and the night reading through the papers. When he was done, he came out of his room and pulled out his eagle feather and redwood wand. He set all but three papers in the fireplace and set them alight.

He sat on the floor in front of the fireplace, poking at it from time to time to make sure it was all burned to ash.

His mother came and sat with him, pulling the blanket off the back of the settee and pulled him close. "What did you keep, my darling?"

"Just a couple of ones I might need later."

She hummed in question.

"The one that says who I used to be... just in case I ever want to find them." She nodded. "One with my... medical stuff."

"Smart. You might need it in case you have problems later in life."

He agreed. "And... and the one that says I'm... I'm not from here."

"You saw that one, did you?" she asked. Then hugged him tighter. "Magic is strange, Harvey," she said, echoing words she has said to him a hundred times, and will say she's sure a hundred more.

She didn't need to see his face to know he had closed his eyes and smiled. "It does what it wills and we must have faith," he said, repeating what she's said to him time and time again. "Things will work out the way they are meant to."

"Exactly," she whispered into his hair as she kissed the top of his head. "Exactly."

On October 16, 1936, Harvey Blackmoore opened the door to his and his mother's home to find his no-maj friend Steve Rogers standing there looking like the whole world had come crashing down on him.

He'd told his friend where he lived, of course, but had made it clear his mom didn't like it when he had visitors over.

He took one look at his friend and grabbed him by the arm, pulling him inside the old town-home. "What the hell are you doing here, Stevie?"

"My mom's dead."

"Shit... When?"

"Yesterday."

"Then why the hell are you-" but Harvey never got to finish what he was saying.

Steve threw himself forward, clinging to his slightly larger friend and buried his face in his shoulder and let go of his tight control. Not knowing what else to do, Harvey put his arms around him started humming. It's what his mom always did when he'd have a night terror attack – which were happening less often now – to calm him down. Well, that and she'd force a potion or two down his throat. But he didn't think his friend would appreciate that right now.

It was like this that Mrs. Blackmoore found her son and his friend, and she frowned at them disapprovingly. Harvey shook his head at her. "His mom died yesterday," he said solemnly, causing Steve to look up and around before he saw the severe looking woman he'd only ever heard about. "He shouldn't be alone right now. I'm packing a small suitcase and going back to his place."

"What about the... other friend?"

"He... Buck he... He can't get off work. His sisters are still in school and-"

"Mr... Rogers was it?"

"Yes ma'am."

"You'll not leave my house until you've calmed yourself and had something to eat. Harvey, look in the larder for something to help fatten him up. Even a gentle autumn breeze would knock the poor boy over in his state."

"Yes mom," Harvey said, disentangling himself from Steve. "If you want you can help-"

"Guests do not help cook dinner, Harvey. Mr. Rogers will join me in the parlor. I think a dram of brandy is called for right about now."

"T...thank you ma'am."

She gave a small nod and offered her arm for him to take. "I would like to think you would do the same for my son if your positions were reversed."

"Y...yes ma'am."

Harvey packed for a night. He spent three. Bucky came and went from Steve's apartment when he could, helping Harvey and Steve make arrangements for Sarah Rogers' last rites. Harvey had never seen a no-maj funeral. Then again, he'd never seen a magical one for that matter. The service, modest and small as it was, had been very lovely. Co-workers and neighbors of Mrs. Rogers had come. Bucky had brought his sisters. Even Mrs. Blackmoore had come, which had surprised all three boys. None more so than her own son. People gave Steve food with their condolences.

Harvey found it all rather fascinating despite the morbid occasion. "Well never eat through all of this food," he'd said, insisting that Bucky's sisters take some with them. Especially the things that had food in it Steve couldn't eat for one reason or another.

In the coming weeks, Harvey went back and forth between his mother's and Steve's to the point she finally just handed him a suitcase with a sigh. "I can't talk any sense into you about the risks you're taking associating with the no-maj, can I?"

"They're my friends, mom. My first friends. I can't just abandon them," he said with a shrug. "I... There's something about them both that... I think this is part of why I'm here. Magic is strange and just like you always say, I've got to have faith that it knows what it's doing."

She hugged him tight and stroked his hair. "Don't you dare be a stranger, young man. And don't let them see you do magic. And keep on your studies. And don't forget to take your nightly potions for your nightmares."

"Yes mother," Harvey intoned sarcastically as she ruffled his shaggy, wild hair.

"I worry for you my child."

"And you always will. Because that's what mother's do. And I'm glad you chose to be mine."

By the end of the day, Harvey was unpacking his suitcase in the room that used to belong to Sarah Rogers until she got sick and had to go into the hospital.

Steve and Harvey ate the very last of the funeral food for dinner that night, Steve quite surprised the dish hadn't quite spoiled yet.

The first winter living with Steve resulted in Harvey actually having to tie Steve to the radiator when he was sick with pneumonia because the stubborn bastard wouldn't stay in bed and take the time he needed off work to get better.

Harvey worked part time at an apothecary in return for potion brewing lessons so he could make medicines for his friend far cheaper than what the no-maj doctors prescribed. But with how sick he always was, and everything that was wrong with him... it took a lot to keep his friend going without his mother's access to no-maj medicines and treatments to help him.

When he wasn't working the apothecary, he was working at St. Florence's Hospital for Magical Maladies as an orderly. But he never turned down the chance to learn more and more magic to help his friends. When one of the healers caught him studying a book from the library on his own during his break... or rather, woke him up from his nap on the healing text he'd fallen asleep reading, the man had remarked how he always saw Harvey watching the healers work. Offering to help the mediwitches at every opportunity in return for them teaching him basic first aid skills and spells.

"Mr. Blackmoore, did you ever finish your schooling?"

"No sir I... I had an accident when I was younger and had to have a tutor to help me re-learn everything I'd forgotten so I didn't have any outbursts like an untrained toddler but... we couldn't afford to keep it up and my mom's a squib so..."

"I see... Did you at least take your OWL exams?"

"Yeah. I self studied and did some odd jobs for some neighbors to save the money to take them at the Brooklyn MACUSA branch."

The healer looked thoughtful a moment before nodding. "Carry on, Mr. Blackmoore." And that was that.

The next time Harvey went in to work at the hospital, he was asked to come to Master Healer Graves' office.

He was left to sit there for quite some time before he was told he would no longer be an orderly in the hospital. Instead... "You're to go home for the rest of the week. I understand you also work at Goodley Herbals?"

"Yes sir. Three days a week."

"Mrs. Goodley is looking for an apprentice. I suggest you talk to her about it."

"But what about my job?! I can't just not work! My friend's sick and I can't afford his medicines and-"

"Is that why you want to be healer, son?"

Harvey stared at him, blinking in confusion before thinking over what he'd just said. Then, he lifted his chin in defiance. "Yes. And nothing is going to stop me. One way or another, I'm going to be a healer and I'm going to help my friend."

The healer regarded him a moment and then, he smiled. "Good. You've got six months to pass the Potions NEWT with Mrs. Goodley's tutelage. In the meantime, you will work here at the hospital on the weekends in the potions lab. Pass your NEWT in six months and we'll assign you to mediwitch training. It will cover all the basics you missed out on with your informal education. You will have 1 year to complete the training. And then, only then, will you be admitted to Healer's training. Is that understood, Mr. Blackmoore?"

"Yes sir! Thank you sir!" he exclaimed, then looked around for something to write on and with. Finding a blank piece of parchment sticking out from a pile, he pulled out a no-maj pen and offered it to the man. "I want that in writing, sir."

The healer chuckled. "And clever, too. Good. You'll need that."

Once it was written out and the healer signed it, Harvey poked his head out in the hall for anyone, literally anyone passing by and found another orderly. "Come read this and sign it as witness."

"Afraid I'll go back on my word?"

"You could die of dragon pox tomorrow, sir. I'm just making sure that if anything happens to you, your replacement has to honor your word."

"Are you sure you don't want to be a law wizard?"

"No sir."

That evening when Harvey returned home with a fresh batch of medicines for Steve's latest bout of pleurisy, he'd also stopped by the butcher's shop for a nice cut of meat for a hearty stew for supper.

He just hoped that it would keep Steve in a good mood when he told him about how he wasn't going to be working as much for a while. He wished he could tell him why, and that it was because he would be studying to get a better job to better care for his friend but... he was already pushing and bending the law as much as he dared. If he did more then... he didn't think his luck would hold.

Steve wasn't happy.

Harvey couldn't blame him. He couldn't come up with a better excuse other than to make himself look bad.

"I'll find something. I'm a damn good cook. Maybe I can get on at the diner a few blocks over. Just a shift or two a week to tie us over until you can sell some of your work to the papers."

"Like that'll ever happen."

"Stevie, you're good! It's their loss, you know, not taking those ads you drew up."

"Buck said the same thing."

"And he's right. He's always right, you know."

Steve threw a piece of hard crust at him before getting up from the table. "I'm going back to bed."

"I'll finish up here and then come in with your medicines."

"The ones that taste like shit."

"They might taste awful, but they help, don't they?"

Steve didn't say anything as he shuffled back to his room and shut the door behind him.

Harvey's heart ached to see his friend like this. So... tired and drawn. He didn't like his job situation, and things would be a bit tight unless he asked his mother for help with the bills again... But he knew this was the right path to take. He had to believe it. Opportunities like this didn't just fall out of the sky every day!

He'd passed his NEWT in October 1937 and once he'd shown the results to the master healer and reminded him of the contract they'd made, the man lived up to his word and Harvey was put into mediwitch training. He kept his weekend job working in the potion labs though, because it helped him learn and perfect the potions he used for Steve and winter was coming. He needed to stock up now if he'd have any hope of helping the man through the harsh season.

Steve was in better spirits, too. He'd got hired on doing adverts for small time magazine, but it was still a lot steadier than what he'd had before. Which was nothing. And less taxing on his body than the work at the factory Bucky was able to get him during the spring and summer.

It was one of Harvey's rare days at home when he could relax and study as his leisure without having to worry about work or classes or taking care of a sick and whiny Steve. A Steve who was at work at the moment so he didn't feel the need to waste his time and energy doing the chores he'd told his roommate he was going to do before the other man got home.

Dishes from that morning were washing themselves in the sink and the feather duster was dusting the main room as Harvey sat in his room, reading his textbooks and taking notes on things he wanted to ask about at the next lecture when he heard a familiar voice holler from the other room "What the hell is all this?!"

Jumping from his seat, knocking it into the floor Harvey rushed out of his room and nearly crashed into a broom that was sweeping the floor by itself. Steve was standing there, a wad of bloody tissue in his hand, stains on his collar and flecks of dried blood around his nose. And he was staring wide-eyed at everything around him moving on it's own like some kind of crazy dream.

"Steve!" he exclaimed, everything that was moving suddenly stopping and dropping to the ground. Harvey winced as he heard the dishes crash back into the sink and hoped none of them broke.

"...What..."

"I can explain! I mean... I can't explain. Right now. Or ever. But maybe tomorrow?"

Steve didn't say anything, but he did stare at his roommate for a long moment before frowning. "Harv... was that broom-"

"No. Not at all."

"Was it moving?"

"I didn't see any broom move. I must have left it here when I was cleaning earlier," he lied. "You know how I get when I start reading my books-"

"You're a bad liar."

Harvey twisted his fingers into his hair, angry at himself for not paying closer attention or at least locking the door. Or setting a ward of some sort to let him know when Steve was coming. "I CAN'T tell you. I'm sorry. But I want to! But I-"

Steve frowned at him and put his hand to his head, muttering under his breath. "Maybe I got hit a little too hard after all..."

Harvey didn't know what else to do. So he went to his mother. She told him to obliviate Steve, but he didn't dare do such a thing. "You could..." she said. "Perhaps... sponsor him."

"What?"

"Sponsor him. If you can prove that he can be trusted without a shadow of a doubt, then they might-"

"They'll let me tell him?!"

"They MIGHT let you tell him. But do not get your hopes up my child. It's a very rare privilege. I don't think there's anyone alive today that can remember the last time a no-maj was given such an honor."

"Steve's worth it."

"He'd better be. Or you'll be thrown in prison for exposing magic and consorting with the no-maj," she said, then softened her face a bit. "I hope you are right, Harvey. I would hate to see you so miserable again. I have... grown fond of your friends."

"Thank you mom. Thank you! You have no idea what this means to me!"

"I think I might. But be careful. You'll need to go through the No-Maj Liaison Offices. If you approach any other department you WILL be thrown into prison without a trial and your friends will be rounded up and all memory of you and magic will be removed from their heads. Do you understand?"

He nodded. He knew what it was like to forget things that were far too important.

He'd rather die than let that happen to himself again. Or to his friends ever.

When he went back home, determined to tell Steve the truth that very day... it was to find him getting ready for a date. One he didn't exactly look thrilled to be going on. "Oh, hey Harv," Bucky had said as Steve was buttoning up his shirt. "How's your ma?"

"She's good. She actually admitted, out loud to me today, that she's kind of fond of you both."

"High praise from the Madame of Middagh Street," Bucky said with a laugh.

"If my mother hears you calling her that she'll have both our hides for it." He put on his best smile. "So, where are you two off to tonight?" "Gladys and her sister want to go dancing. Gladys won't go out without Ariel so..."

"So Steve gets stepped on all night. I'll be sure to have the foot soak ready when he gets back in then."

Steve frowned at him. "You get your problem sorted out?"

"Oh yeah. Mom gave me some good advice. But don't let me hold you here. Go on and have fun with the girls."

"You know... They've got another sister..."

"Nah. Girls aren't really uh... well, I prefer my books. They don't stare and ask me how this happened," he said, indicating the scar on his face.

Harvey didn't get to sleep until after Steve had stumbled home, exhausted and frustrated with sore feet. He'd got up from his desk where he'd been reading and got the shallow soaking tub out. Quietly he filled it with warm water from the stove before adding one of his potions. "Go on then," he said when he was done, nodding to the tub in front of Steve's favorite place to sit. "Just because you're mad at me doesn't mean you should go to bed tonight with foot pain. When you're done, leave it. I'll dump it in the morning."

Harvey wanted to tell him the next day but... "Can't stay. Buck's got me some more work at the factory."

"What about your job at Timely?"

"Turns out when you headbutt the owner's son for grabbing the secretary when she's already said no a couple of times, it gets you fired."

"Steve-"

"Don't Harv. Just don't."

Three days Steve did everything he could to avoid him. Until he was sick in bed and couldn't crawl out to get his coat and go to the factory.

"Don't make me tie your ass to the radiator again," Harvey had told him when he'd come in with his medicines and warm broth.

"I blistered last time."

"Because you tried to slip the rope and got rope burn. You KNOW Buck taught me how to tie those knots right? There was no way you were getting loose from that."

Steve grumbled at him as he pulled up a chair to sit by his friend's bed as he always did to watch him and make sure he did what he was supposed to do. After he'd finished taking the medicines, scrunching his nose after each one and nearly gagging on the last, he glared at him. "They still taste like shit."

"That's because all potions taste like shit. If we tried to make them taste better then they won't work the way they should."

"Is that what you call your home remedies?"

"Yes. Because that's what they are. Potions. Elixirs. I make a mean poultice and bruise salve now, too. Now sip your broth before it gets cold. You need it."

"You gonna tell me about that broom now?"

"Before I do, are you gonna listen? Because if you're not then I'm just wasting my breath and I could get into serious trouble for telling you."

Steve watched him from the corner of his eye for a long moment before, slowly, he nodded. And so Harvey started to tell him.

And he took out his wand when Steve called bullshit, and he turned one of the potion vials into a butterfly and back again. Another floated across the room. And then Steve's shoes started walking on their own with a flick of a wrist. The no-maj sat wide eyed and disbelieving. "And finally..." Harvey said with a smile and flicked his wand again, giving a brief utterance in Latin. Steve's pillows thickened and fluffed themselves before settling back down behind him.

"That one I used when I was an orderly all the time. Refreshing the beds and helping make sure the patients were comfortable."

"You... you..."

"It's magic, Steve. It's not evil! I've only ever done magic to help people. To help you, actually!"

Steve shook his head and lifted up one of the empty bottles. "You can do all that... and you still can't make one of these taste good?"

Harvey's worried expression turned quickly into a smile. "Magic is strange," he repeated the same thing he'd been told, and said a million times already. "But tell you what. If i ever learn how to make them taste better, you'll be the first to know."

"I'd better be. I'm not drinking this stuff the rest of my life if it tastes like something died in my mouth!"

On Christmas Eve 1937, Harvey bundled Steve up in the warmest clothes they both owned and herded him down to the Brooklyn offices for MACUSA. After stopping to ask one of the ladies at the desk for directions, the pair were slowly climbing the many stairs up to the elevator room. Harvey was passing him potions every so often to make sure he didn't get too winded and pass out on the stairs before they reached the top.

"You know, there's better ways to spend Christmas Eve than in an office nobody else can see filling out paperwork."

"Yeah, like being dragged out by Bucky to some dance hall to meet girls that'll just ignore us for the whole night. Great fun, that."

"It's not all bad, Harv. Besides, how are you ever going to meet anyone if you don't go out sometimes. You'll never find a dame in your stuffy old books."

"Which is perfectly fine by me," he said as he stopped writing long enough to shake the cramp from his hand out.

Eventually they were asked to go back into an office. The man looked from one, to the other, and sighed and shook his head. "Denied."

"What?! After all of that?!"

"Yes, after all of that."

"Now you listen here you... you... you great lump of hippogriff shit! I did not just drag my sick friend down here when he should be in bed resting, and then spend seven hours filling out paperwork just to be told NO!"

The man leveled a no nonsense stare at the young men and frowned. "Mr. Blackmoore, you have committed a grievous offense in the eyes of the law-"

"Then it's a stupid law and the law is wrong!"

"That's not how the law works, Mr. Blackmoore-"

"Harv just... let it go. We tried."

"Hell no!" he snapped angrily. "Steve needs this! No-maj medicine doesn't work anymore! He needs potions and magical treatments before his conditions get worse. I won't leave the best man I've ever known to suffer and die because some pompous, pure-blood bigot in a position of power tells me no. You'll have to kill me before I let that happen and you'd better hope to hell I don't come back and haunt your ass out of spite!"

The man looked at Steve, who was sitting with his head tilted and his mouth hanging open as his friend had risen from his seat to lean over the desk between them and the man. "You do know why we hide from his kind don't you, son?"

"I'm not your son and if you call me that again I'll curse you so fast your mouth will be sealed tight for weeks. And yes I know damn well why. Does he look like he's able to lift a fucking pitchfork? Let alone overpower a fully grown wizard and tie him to burning post? Hell, my MOTHER, a SQUIB, could whoop his ass even if he were in good health!"

Harvey slammed a fist onto the desk, causing the lamp nearby to crack and start to spill oil.

The man sat back and nodded. "Good. THAT is what i like to see. Mr. Rogers? Do you have anything to add?"

"You throw him in prison, you'll probably have to build a new one when he's done tearing it down."

"Does his magic scare you, Mr. Rogers?"

"I'm not scared for myself, sir. I'm scared for anyone that gets on his bad side. I've seen him fist fight. He gives as good as he gets most of the time now. I don't doubt he's ready to pop your head like a hot water bottle."

The man glanced back at Harvey before reaching for his rubber stamp. He moved past it and grabbed up his quill, dipping it into ink and signing at the bottom of the page in front of him. "Mr. Rogers will be approved," he started. "After a mental probe to assess his character, as well as yourself, Mr. Blackmoore. As his sponsor, we need to make sure your intentions are what you claim they are. We've had too many of our kind abusing the no-maj in the past as I'm sure you're aware. The burnings in Salem didn't happen on their own, regardless of what our history books like to teach us."

"When can we get that done?"

"Today if you like. Consider it a Christmas gift if you pass. And if you don't... We'll pretend Mr. Blackmoore didn't just threaten me and simply erase the memory of magic from your mind. But if it happens again... he will face the full consequences of the law."

"Thank you sir."

Steve was laid up in bed all Christmas day with a headache. But it was worth it.

When all was said and done, they were given a box for Steve to carry around for a year. He had to handle it a minimum of once a day, and Harvey couldn't even touch it or it would disrupt the internal magical process going on inside.

Inside the box, they were told, was a token. It would, in a year's time, take a form personally significant to Steve. Once it was done he was to keep whatever he found inside the box on his person always. The magic in the token would be recognized by witches and wizards across the United States, signaling that he was not a threat to them. He was safe to approach should they have a problem with other no-maj during an emergency, and most of all... if he got caught up in a situation where Obliviators were called in to cover up the use of magic, he would be allowed to leave unmolested.

Over the following year, the two men often found themselves roped into adventures, of a sort, with Bucky. Usually with the man's goal being winning a kiss from the latest girl that had his interest.

One such night happened on Steve's birthday in 1938. "Triplets!" Bucky had shouted when he'd come over earlier that day to beg his two friends to go out that night.

"Buck it's my birthday!"

"All the more reason to go out and celebrate!"

They knew it was just an elaborate scheme to set Bucky up with all three of them but... Harvey couldn't really complain. The occasional date kept people from gossiping too much about the strange man that lived with the man that was always sick. He could pretend, at least for a night, that he didn't go out on dates because doing so with the person he'd like to dance with would get him killed or sent to the nut house.

His mother had already given him lecture after lecture when he told her his dilemma earlier in the year.

He pasted on his best smile. He bought drinks for his date, and pretended he didn't notice her eyeing up their normal looking friend like a piece of meat.

As usual, Bucky left with their dates. And Steve and Harvey made their way back home.

But this time... "I've got some money left from my paycheck after the bills this week. Let's get a bottle of something and take it home. Have a drink to celebrate before you open my present."

"Sounds good to me. Maybe if we drink enough, we can just forget the last hour and a half ever happened."

They bought the biggest, cheapest bottle of whiskey Harvey's left over money could buy. They didn't even bother to wait until getting home to crack it open and have a tipple.

When they got home, locking the door behind them, the pair crashed onto the settee Harvey's mother had given them when the old sofa finally broke down and couldn't be fixed even with magic.

They sat there, shoulder to shoulder, passing the bottle back and forth until the taste of it didn't even matter anymore – it was awful to begin with.

"You know..." Steve started. "Sometimes I think he does that just to humiliate me."

"Fuck him."

"I mean... I hate dancing!"

"So do I."

"He should take us all out to a film sometime. Or if he's gotta do a double date, dinner might be nice once in a while!"

"He's always paying though so it's his pick," Harvey said. "You know, if I was paying... I'd take you to a show and dinner."

"Then why don't you?"

"You're drunk."

"And?" Steve said, taking the bottle back. "Why don't you?"

"We'll go to prison, Steve."

"Like that ever stopped you before!"

"This is... gimme that. This is different."

Steve huffed and pushed himself up from the settee. "One minute you're all... Oooo I've got magic! Look at me I'm breaking the law! The next you... you... you're buyin drinks for dames you can't stand in a dance hall you can't wait to leave!" He reached over and yanked the bottle back, putting it to his lips and throwing his head back to drink the last of the bottle right in front of him. Then, he dropped the bottle to the floor. "You know what... Fuck you, Harv."

Harvey stared at him in confusion then disbelief then... well... he'll never know what came over him when he opened his mouth, but he'd probably tell you he was drink as hell. And he'd be right. "Be a man and fuck me yourself, Stevie."

Blue eyes went wide and before Harvey could get up from where he was sitting, he had a lap full of angry, grabby, very drunk Steve Rogers.

And he was not in a position to complain when not much later he was trapped between those knobby knees with hands fisted in his best shirt and his pants half-way down his thighs while the bossy bastard fucked himself on Harvey's cock, drunkenly glaring down at him the whole time as if daring him to say something.

It wasn't exactly how either one of them ever imagined losing their virginity but... well...

The next morning Steve woke up drooling on Harvey's best shirt, his back, his legs, and his ass sore and he didn't remember grabbing a blanket and-

"I'd ask how your night went," Bucky said as he leaned over back of the settee to peer down at his two best friends. "But I don't think I really want to know more than what I saw when I let myself in."

Steve buried his face in the only thing available to him. Snoring Harvey's ruined and damp best shirt.

Bucky sighed and shook his head. "I'm not gonna report you. You already fight like a married couple anyway. You just went about things a little backwards is all."

"You're really not going to-"

"Steve, how many times have I taken more than one dame home at a time? I'd be a damn hypocrite. But you might want to clean yourself up before we go to work. Unless you want to take the day off. Looks like it might be a little hard to sit down for a while."

Steve buried his face even more with a groan that didn't help his hangover one bit.

There was no repeat of Bucky walking in on them. He made sure to knock really loudly to announce his presence so they'd have time to get decent before he let himself in.

But he did make sure not to come over until late the next day following Harvey's birthday later that same month. Just in case. He might not have had a problem with what his friends got up to behind closed doors, he just didn't want to get an eyeful like that again.

When Harvey finished his year of mediwitch training and started Healer training proper in November 1938, the three friends were told, rather than asked, to allow Harvey's mother to take them all out to celebrate her son's "promotion at work."

She had been saving up all year since her son had started his training proper so that she could take the boys out to a proper celebratory meal. Steve had even behaved himself in the two weeks leading up to the dinner at the well-to-do restaurant so he wouldn't be in worse shape than usual when the evening came.

Harvey nearly cried when his mother gave him a box while they waited for their dinners to arrive. "Mom, you shouldn't have. Really. It's not that big a deal. Dinner's more than enough-"

"Don't be rude, Harvey. Open your gift."

"Yeah, don't be rude to your ma."

She tried to scowl at Bucky, but in the end gave him a rare warm smile as Harvey carefully opened the lid. Nestled inside the smooth silk lining was a solid gold pocket watch with a buck etched into the metal. "Mom this is too much."

"It's not new if that's what you're worried about," she said as Harvey lifted the pocket watch and chain out of the box to show Steve and Bucky. "That was your namesake's. It was given to him by his father. It was given to your many times great-grandfather, Montgomery Potter as reward for saving nine soldiers under the command of President Washington during our war for independence. He was a doctor who afterwards felt it was his duty to continue traveling with the army to ensure as many sons made it home to their mothers as possible."

"I don't know what to say... Thank you just... just doesn't seem like it's enough."

She reached over and with a gloved hand patted his arm. "Never lose your faith, Harvey. Always do what is right rather than what is easy. And never give up hope. But most of all... don't forget to visit your poor old mother more often," she said to lighten the mood just before their dinners arrived. Half-way through their meals Bucky pulled a poorly wrapped and slender package from his pocket. "Your ma's present kind of makes mine look like trash but here. Every good doctor needs at least one."

Harvey accepted the gift with a laugh and unwrapped the newspaper that was hastily tied around it. It was a fountain pen. A rather nice one. "This will be much more useful," he said. "And if I lose it, I don't have to worry about my mother hunting me down for sport."

"She'd never do that Harv!" Steve laughed, then sobered up a little. "Would you?"

She hummed, amusement dancing in her hazel eyes, but didn't comment one way or another.

They'd forgotten about the box, sort of. Steve absently handled it every day in some way. Sometimes he just sort of tapped it as he walked past where it sat in his bedroom. Other times he would be sitting at his drawing table, tossing it up in the air and catching it while he thought.

When he was depressed, he often stroked the dark red brocade that decorated the outside of the box. Feeling the cool smoothness of the fabric as he let his mind wander to places he dared not let it travel to often.

And then on Christmas morning, as they sat up in Steve's bed, their naked bodies wrapped in thick, woolen blankets with warming charms layered on them as well, they heard a click. Like a key turning a lock. Harvey turned to look for where the sound came from and saw it first. The little box. It sat in the tray of the drawing table where Steve usually kept it. And the latch had popped on it, causing the lid so sit slightly ajar.

"Should I... Should I get it?"

"I don't know," Steve said. "Do you think it's safe for you to touch now?"

"I don't want to try it. Just in case. Well... not before you do."

"You just don't want to get out of bed."

"Actually... I like watching you walk around naked. We don't do that nearly enough."

"Pervert," Steve huffed, fighting with his blanket to get to the side of the bed so he could get up. His feet were freezing, and the rest of him was as well as he dashed across the room to fetch the box and bring it back. The man practically dove back onto the bed and hurried under his blanket with shout.

"Well? What's in the box, Steve?"

Steve didn't come back out from under the blanket. He didn't say anything, either.

"Steve?"

"Hold on, I'm trying to read."

"You can't read in the dark, idiot. Plus your eyes will only get worse if you're not trying to read in the proper light."

Finally, Steve peered out and held up a piece of paper. "Half of this makes sense, the other half, you'll have to read it. I still don't get most of those big magic words."

"It's Latin. Most people today hardly understands it unless they study magic or science."

"Or medicine."

"That falls under both and you know it," Harvey said, snatching the paper away and skimming it. Then he stopped and went back to the top to read that more thoroughly. "Oh no..."

"What?"

"My mother will kill me for this."

"Why?"

"I think we're married."

"What?"

"I think we're married."

"Yeah, that's what I thought you said," Steve mumbled, then fished around in his blankets for the box. He held it up so Harvey could see. "At least the fact there's two of 'em makes sense now."

"It was supposed to take a form that's important to you. Is this what you want?"

"I don't know."

"Then you need to figure it out because there's no divorce for my people. Once that goes on my finger, it's not coming back off unless someone cuts the whole finger off."

He rolled his eyes. "My ma was Catholic," he replied. "That should tell you all you need to know."

Harvey licked his lips and looked from the box to Steve and back again. "Are we really going to do this? You sure you want to be stuck with me?"

"Harv, why did you want to be a doctor?"

"To take care of you."

"I'd say that's you deciding to be stuck with me in sickness and health, don't you?"

"Dear Merlin... we've been married this whole time, haven't we?"

Steve laughed, pulling one of the rings from the box and having a closer look at it. "It's like Bucky said. We just went about things backwards. Now, tell me what all the magic mumbo jumbo on the paper means before I put this on and turn into a duck or something by accident."

The rings were special.

The token, no matter the form it took, could only be seen by those who were magical. No-maj would never see it, except for the person wearing it of course, even if told it was there.

Squibs, like Mrs. Blackmoore, had to be told. Once they knew it was there and to look for it, if they concentrated a bit they would be able to see the token.

Harvey was never so thankful as to learn the charm was unbreakable. The last thing they needed was for some no-maj to see two men who lived together wearing matching wedding bands. Even if they weren't worn on the right fingers – Steve liked his on his index finger and Harvey preferred his on his thumb – it would still be something that could be used against them.

Steve wished he could tell Bucky but it was nice having this little secret just for them.

Well, just for them and Harvey's mother.

When she had been told, she eyed Steve up and down and then said simply, "If you break his heart, I will break your spine with my bare hands. Do we have an understanding, Steven?"

"Yes ma'am."

And then she smiled and pat the seat next to her. "Welcome to the family. Now come here. You're much too thin. Is Harvey feeding you enough?"

Life was... good. It was really good. When Harvey finished his Healer training in 1941 and started working with patients directly and unsupervised at St. Florence's, once again the three friends celebrated. This time with a night of drinks and gambling.

He also, finally, had clearance to use healing magic on Steve outside of first aid spells and potions. He wasn't cured by a long shot, but it helped keep his symptoms in check. He had more good days than he did bad...

And that was wonderful!

Until a day in December when Harvey was at work, listening to some classical music on the wizarding wireless before a no-maj broadcast broke in, as it tended to do more often these days with the war on in Europe and all.

That evening when Harvey came home from work and shucked off his coat at the door, he could hear Steve and Bucky arguing in the kitchen.

"-reason you're doing so well is because your fella is a doctor, Steve! They'll disqualify you just from the asthema and the flat feet alone!"

"I can't just sit here and do nothing Buck!"

Little did the wizard know... this was just the first of many fights he was going to walk in on between the two... and an argument he was going to be using himself often enough to drive Steve to kick him out of bed for a night or two, too.

In March 1942, while the boys are out celebrating Bucky's birthday doing the one thing he loves most – dancing with dames and drinking – Harvey is approached by a man in a uniform and he's forced to excuse himself for a few moments.

When he comes back, he's got a crumpled paper in one hand and the other is grabbing the nearest drink. He downs it quickly and grabs another.

"Harv? What-"

He hands the crumbled ball of paper over to Bucky since he's closer.

"Shit..."

"I report for duty April 2nd."

"I'm sorry," Bucky says, glancing towards Steve. "Hey, if you wanna head out. Go talk to your ma..."

"Yeah... No. No, it's your birthday! I can go 'round and talk to mom tomorrow morning before work."

"You sure?"

"Yeah," Steve said, but the smile doesn't reach his eyes. "It's your day, Buck. There's always tomorrow to worry about it."

And then Tomorrow comes.

And the day after.

And the days after.

"Steve look at me... please..."

But he doesn't.

"I never wanted this. You have to believe me... I don't have a choice. I don't want to-"

"They need doctors. Good doctors. The best."

"Steve-"

"And you're the best."

And they fight.

But there's venom in the words now instead of the easy, playful teasing.

Harvey comes home to find Steve engrossed in his freelance work.

He wakes up to a cold bed to find him slumped over at the desk, eraser dust sticking to his cheek and his forehead smudged with ink.

Until it's the weekend before he has to leave. He makes Bucky promise to watch over Steve for him. Makes him promise to write if Steve won't.

His mother cries and frets and clings to him and demands he go back and refuse to go.

"Even the magic folk are at war, mom. The no-maj are fighting Hitler and the wizards are fighting that bastard Grindlewald and I'm stuck in the middle just trying to patch people up as best as I can."

"You come home to me... You come home to me Harvey Abraham. Don't make me lose another son."

"I'll try. It's all I can do... You'll look after Steve, won't you?"

She wipes at her eyes and nods before telling him to stay put and disappears into the upper levels of the old town home. When she comes back, she has a flat square box. "Take this."

"What is it?"

"Your father got this for us when we were courting. My father didn't approve of the match even if my mother had. He forbade us to see one another, so your father bought these. We were able to slip little messages to one another and meet in secret. You take this and you give one to your young man and keep the other for yourself."

"Mom-"

"No. I've no reason to keep them now. But you'll get plenty use out of it. Here, I'll show you how it works and then you show your husband."

Steve was angry because he couldn't think of a reason to turn away the gift.

So he wrote a short note and slipped it in to test the things out.

When Harvey looked inside the locket hanging around his neck and pulled out the paper... he smiled softly before writing a short reply and slipping it into the hidden compartment of the locket.

Steve glared at him as he opened the compass and moved the metal plate that still held the photo of Harvey's mother aside to retrieve the note. He read it and crumpled it up. "Real mature, Harv."

"I hate when we fight..."

"It's not fair. You know how bad I want to-"

"I know. And I wish you could, Steve. I really do. Because I KNOW what kind of man you are. I KNOW you'd be a great asset. Your mind... your mind is amazing and the strategies you dream up and the brilliance of the tactics you devise would have this war won in a matter of months, maybe a year. But sweetheart..." Harvey says, cupping his cheek. "Your outside don't match your inside. And those Nazi bastards aren't gonna let you stop and catch your breath back. You go over there and you're dead. I can treat you and heal you from many things... but I can't cure death. And the thought of you dead scares me more than anything."

Steve agrees to stop trying to get in the army.

Harvey knows it's a lie to appease him.

Because Steve's tired of fighting, too.

It's their last night before he has to catch the bus in the morning.

And they're laying there in bed, naked and sticky and tired.

And while they're content... they're not exactly... satisfied.

"That was... it was okay."

"It was better than I expected..." Steve says.

"I wouldn't mind if we did that sometimes. If you wanted."

"Yeah... Sometimes." And Steve lays his hand over Harvey's on his own stomach. "But I definitely prefer you..."

"Yeah... but still. Special occasions?"

Steve laughs. "Sounds good to me," he says, lacing their fingers together and settling against his lover more comfortably. "Next time we're together, you better fuck me through the mattress."

"I'll be sure to have plenty of pepper-up potion on hand."

Their parting is bittersweet. A brief, manly hug at the bus depot does nothing to calm their fears that it'll be the last time they ever see one another again.

Their last touch is so... impersonal. So forced, when just that morning Harvey's caresses were reverent and careful as he memorized every line. Every sharp angle and brief curve of his no-maj lover's body. Burning the details into his mind lest he forget what was waiting at home for him.

Mrs. Blackmoore brought him dinner and a bottle of aged bourbon that night. She slept in the guest room, tidied up the apartment, and let Steve yell and scream and cry and get everything out before telling him the same thing she had told her own son so many times. "Magic is strange... You must have faith that it knows what it is doing, Steven."

And then she hugged him close, and stroked his hair when he threw himself onto the settee beside her. "The gods would not be so cruel as to rip asunder what they so carefully worked to bring together. Have faith. You will meet again."

"How can you be so certain?"

And she hums to him, and she smiles. "Because, silly child, you are so much alike. When has a little thing like the law stopped the two of you before, hmm? If he cannot stay here with you, then you must go to him."

"They'll never take me-"

"And that is my son and your friend talking. When have you ever accepted NO as an answer for anything? Lie on your forms. Lie about your name. Age. Where you are from. Whatever it takes. The worst they can do is tell you no and throw you in prison anyway. And Merlin knows there's so many other things the pair of you have done that would get the same treatment. Might as well make it worth the trip, hmm?"

Harvey spent 12 weeks in combat training. Only to be pulled at the last second before deployment along with 3 others. Three others, he noted, who were also magical... with medical backgrounds.

"Sergeant Blackmoore! You have been reassigned!"

"Sir, for what reason, sir?" he questioned. "It was my understanding all men with medical training were out on the next boat, sir."

"That was the plan, Sergeant. But it looks like you get a reprieve. They need doctors for an assignment above my pay-grade. You will report to Colonel Phillips at 0800 hours tomorrow is that clear?"

"Sir yes sir!"

Harvey didn't know it then, but he'd been picked for a very important project that would change the world as he knew it.

Month after month... it was the same.

At least he got letters, occasionally. Usually from Bucky or his mother. But sometimes he got one from Steve. More and more they kept their communication to the locket and compass system. It was a godsend in his lowest moments to open the locket late at night and see a note scribbled inside. Always small, short little messages. Only one would fit inside at a time. But it was enough to get through the day sometimes to read a stupid little joke. Or gripe. Or even just a hastily written "I love you. I miss you. Come home soon."

Though the most recent, and last message from Steve had him worried.

Simply put, the words "You're going to kill me for this" didn't really explain much, yet at the same time could mean a million different things and reasons for Harvey to get upset or angry with the man he loved.

The answer would not come until mid-week as he was working to process the newest shipment of hopefuls for SSR's little science experiment.

He, Hoover, and Franklin were doing the physicals of the new arrivals, for the official project records, when he heard a name he never wanted to hear called in that medical tent.

"Rogers, Steven Grant!"

His head whipped up so fast he thought he'd given himself whiplash afterwards.

And sure enough... "That... that little sneaky bastard..." Harvey hissed out angrily before he drew a deep breath to force himself to regain his composure and get back to work.

The moment he'd finished with the men on his list, he packed up his equipment, locked it away, and strode as fast as his legs could carry him towards Base Command. He couldn't just charge right in there, despite desperately wanting to, but he was a man on a mission.

A mission to save the one he loved from what was quite possibly the stupidest damn thing he'd ever done in his life.

So Harvey spoke first with the guards. One of whom went inside and spoke to someone else. Who then moved on... and up the chain his request went until the guard came back and the door opened to let him in. "Thank you," he said as he passed through. Handed off from one person to the next, the bars and patches on the uniforms getting higher and higher until finally he was led through one more door.

"You got 10 minutes Sergeant Blackmoore."

"In my professional opinion as a medical doctor, Colonel, what the ever-loving hell is Private Rogers doing on this base... Sir?"

The man's brows rose in surprise. That was NOT what he had been expecting the Sergeant to come in here with. He'd been expecting the man to come back to complain, again, about the equipment in the makeshift lab they'd been made to work in alongside Dr. Erskine. But not to come bitch at him about that scrawny little shit.

"That decision wasn't up to me, Sergeant."

"Sir, may I speak freely, sir?"

"Go ahead."

"I've known Rogers since we were 15 years old. I've lived with him since his mother died back in 36. Because of all his conditions he can't be left on his own. The intense training done here will kill him because he's a stubborn son of a bitch who won't ask for help when he needs it and refuses to admit when he's pushed himself past his limits. While that is an admirable trait for a soldier in the field..." He scrubbed a hand down his face and sighed. "Sir, I once had to tie the bastard to the radiator to force him to rest when he could barely breathe and walking was damn near impossible."

"What did he do that caused you to tie him up like a feral dog?"

"Despite his legs not working right, he threw himself out of bed, clawed his way across his bedroom and was damn near to the door of the apartment before I got home from my shift at the hospital. I found him half dead with fluid in his lungs in the dead of winter. It nearly killed him. He needs to be discharged and sent back to Brooklyn for his own good."

It was then Colonel Phillips turned to the others in the room. "See, this man gets it!" he exclaimed to Dr. Erskine and the woman, Carter he believed her name was. Then the Colonel turned back to him. "Unfortunately, Sergeant, what i said before still stands. The decision to bring Rogers wasn't mine."

"I don't understand, sir."

"I don't want him here any more than you do, though my reasons are more practical than yours Sergeant. But-"

"Sergeant Blackmoore, your concerns are noted," Dr. Erskine said, coming forward now. Harvey's gaze swept back to the doctor with a frown. "However... in your professional opinion, all things being the same other than the identity of the man I have selected... do you agree that he would be the perfect candidate for this procedure?" He pushed his glasses up his nose and stood, hands behind his back as he waited patiently for an answer.

Harvey drew a deep breath, held it, and released it slowly. "IF you found someone just like Steve Rogers, that was NOT Steve Rogers... yes."

"Then why, specifically, should Private Rogers be disqualified from this opportunity, again, in your professional opinion?"

He had no answer. Erskine had him, and he knew it.

"Sergeant Blackmoore, Private Rogers meets all of my very strict criteria and the highest standards I have held for this project. If this makes you unable to carry out your duties, you are welcome to seek reassignment. Your loyalty and concern for your friend are commendable and understandable. However, in light of this new information I believe it may be beneficial to have someone familiar with Private Rogers' medical history and insight into his personality, physical ability, and personal well being. Do you not agree?"

"Yes sir."

"Good. Your ten minutes are up. You are dismissed, Sergeant."

Harvey straightened up and gave a salute to the Colonel before the man gave a nod of dismissal.

He wasn't happy. He was still angry as hell. But there was nothing he could do just short of using an Unforgivable Curse and forcing Steve to physically walk out of the base on foot alone. And he'd never do that to him. He ducked into one of the tents long enough to grab some paper and a pen to write a short note to slip into the locket.

They needed to have words, and soon.

The moment Steve slipped into the storage shed, Harvey threw up as many privacy and anti-monitoring spells as he possibly could before grabbing him and holding him tight.

"You stupid... stupid man. How could you do this? Bucky and mom were supposed to-"

"Bucky got shipped out the day after Dr. Erskine approved my papers."

"And my mother?"

"Told me the day after you left not to stop trying."

"That meddling old dingbat."

"That's your mother, Harv-"

"Yeah I know. It's why I can call her that and you can't. Steve, you can't seriously be doing this."

"You wouldn't understand... I have to do this."

"Why? You don't have to prove anything to anyone, Steve."

"Then I gotta do it for myself. I'm meant for more than this, Harv. I know it. I can feel it. Please. For once just let me do what I know I've gotta do."

Harvey sighed, pressing their foreheads together and closing his eyes. "That's the worst part, sweetheart... If it were anyone else I'd be right there working alongside that mad German. But I don't think I can stand by and do nothing while you do this to yourself. Merlin help me if I lose you..."

"What's that your mom's always saying?"

Harvey opens his eyes to see blue ones staring right back at him. There's a bit of green there.. just barely. He reaches up to cup Steve's cheek. "I've missed you... every damn day."

"And my lungs miss being able to breathe. Maybe this'll fix everything wrong with me. Maybe... I don't know. Maybe my outside will finally match my inside."

They stand there, holding one another for a moment longer before Harvey sighed. "It's late. You need your rest. Agent Carter takes no shit from anyone. Stay on her good side and you should be fine. Piss her off and... well... Let's hope it's not YOU she punches in the face in the morning."

"She does that?"

"Every new batch of recruits... I've gotta fix a damn broken nose. Every time."

Harvey gives him a quick, chaste kiss before tearing down the spells he erected. "Go on. Back to barracks with you. I'll see you in the mess tomorrow. And probably for some of the tests."

It's a long week.

Harvey and Steve exchange messages before bed every night, but they do not meet privately again. They have to maintain the platonic lie they had built up around themselves to shield against any... undue attention.

During that week Harvey got into plenty of arguments with Erskine, who seemed to deliberately egg him on until the man was shouting at him about the incompatibility of... well... no one could really be certain, exactly, what was incomparable. But they did know it had something to do with his formula.

The last message Steve got from Harvey was one that told him he was heading to Brooklyn to prep for the next day.

Everything went tits up when the HYDRA agent blew the secret underground lab all to hell and pumped Erskine full of holes.

It was chaos.

Harvey tried, damn it. He TRIED. But with so many people around... even with his magic there was only so much he could do with his limited space and the tools at his disposal. He wasn't fast enough. He wasn't focused enough.

A man was dead. Others seriously injured.

And somehow, God damn HYDRA had infiltrated deep enough to get a seat with the government types that had come to watch.

And now... now that the excitement was over he was confined to quarters. Sure it was a hotel room the United States Army had booked for him. A double, actually, with that arrogant, egocentric asshole Stark but still... it was decent accommodations all things considered. But he needed to be back down there in the lab. Overseeing what was left of Erskine's life's work!

He was pacing like a lion, tugging at his hair in frustration as he tried to think of a solution when a knock came to the door. "If the guards let you in, then go right ahead!"

The door opened. Colonel Phillips let himself in, with one of the suit types.

"Sir!" Harvey shouted, snapping to attention.

"At ease, Sergeant Blackmoore."

"Sir, why was I ordered out of the lab and brought to quarters, sir?"

"Because you are a very valuable high level target."

"Me, sir?"

"Yes you. You are the only other person alive that knows what is in that formula. I want you to get back to work but Senator Brandt has other ideas."

"Colonel Phillips, sir, without Dr. Erskine my knowledge of the formula is useless. I don't know the entire equation, nor do I know the base formula. I only know the alterations that were made after I was assigned to Project REBIRTH."

"Exactly," the senator in the suit said. "Sergeant Blackmoore, you are the only man alive who knows what changes were made to make that thing viable. With the loss of the formula and the death of Dr. Erskine, Uncle Sam also knows the value of both you and Captain Rogers."

"Captain? Sir? What's going on? Since when was Private Rogers-"

"You're being reassigned, again," the colonel interrupted. "Report back to base and pack your bags. You and Rogers are going on the road and out of what's left of my hair."

"Sir yes sir!" Harvey exclaimed, saluting the Colonel as he turned to leave, the man in the suit following behind him.

Reassignment.

More like babysitting duty.

But at least he got a promotion out of it. From Sergeant to a First Lieutenant. If only because Phillips knew how much a pain in the ass Rogers could be and the man would need all the extra authority he could get to coral that particular headache without damaging the supposed image Senator Brandt had wanted to project.

Then again... it wasn't much different than what he had volunteered to do in the first place when Steve's mom died.

He spent most of his time keeping the ever growing number of fans at bay. The rest of the time...

"Thelma, what have I told you about using those shoe lifts? Of course your damn toes are gonna hurt when you put 'em in the wrong part of the damn shoe!"

"Harvey, dear! Petunia's having another of her migraines!"

"Give her some damn aspirin and leave me alone!" All while sitting with a woman's hand in his lap, resting on a towel as he carefully attempts to stitch up the gash from the bar fight she'd gotten mixed up in. "I swear to all that is holy if you cause another damn brawl I'll let you bleed to death. This is the fifth city in a row, Susan! You're worse than Steve!"

"Hey, I was never THAT bad!"

"Don't you start! We MET because you were getting kicked in the ribs!"

All in all... it was just another Thursday night on the road with Captain America's USO show.

The girls find out about them when Susan and one of the other girls walk in on them in an auditorium store room after rehearsals. Most of the girls and the stage crew went to the bars. Harvey and Steve couldn't trust they'd get privacy back at the hotel since they'd been crammed in with two of the stage hands who's room was 'mistakenly' booked to a white couple. The two men couldn't leave the decidedly much darker skinned Wallace brothers without a place to sleep while they were in Birmingham, Alabama. Or any of the other cities they visited for that matter.

"This isn't what it looks like!" Steve had exclaimed when the door opened unexpectedly to reveal two women in various states of undress. Two women who stood there staring at the Star Spangled Man straddling the good Medic's lap with the bottom half of his costume missing and his hands planted firmly on the other man's shoulders.

"It is," Harvey had said with a raised brow. "Exactly what it looks like."

"Harv!"

"What? Oops, you accidentally tripped and fell on my cock?"

Susan tried not to laugh, but it came out anyway as a giggle. "Well then, don't let us stop you. Come on, Penni. I think I saw a costume closet a few doors down." She grabbed the other woman by the hand and dragged her back out, shutting the door behind them. All they heard before the door was fully closed was their favorite Medic chuckling only for it to turn into a rather pleased sounding moan.

They'd made it.

In a convoluted way.

He hadn't even known Steve had left base camp until Howard Stark and Agent Carter had come back and were reamed out by Colonel Phillips.

If only Harvey hadn't been pulled away to help with the wounded from the latest offensive, he'd have been there to stop him. Well... maybe not stop him. No... definitely not stop him. But at least he could have provided back up!

But... there wasn't anything he could do about that now other than glare at the man as he browbeat some of the more stubborn soldiers – like Barnes – into getting looked at.

Hours later, in the dark of night they met in Harvey's private tent behind the safety of heavy privacy spells. "You ever-" Harvey snarled between possessive kisses to Steve's jaw and shoulders. "Pull a stunt like that-" and he bit him. "Without me again-" and he bit him again! "I'll fucking tie you to a goddamn tank this time."

"Alright, alright..." Steve groaned, then winced as Harvey leaned back to continue rubbing bruise salve onto the rather large expanse of sickly purple-black that was spread across the Captain's torso and ribs.

"I swear..." Harvey muttered under his breath. "I leave you unsupervised for five damn minutes..."

"Hey, we got Bucky back."

Harvey grumbled and poked at a bruise, causing Steve to jump a bit from the pain. "That's the only reason I'm not letting you suffer with the consequences of what you did. Now turn around and lift your arm, sweetheart. Those ribs are gonna be real sore in the morning if I don't get this slathered on in the right spots."

They spent much of 1944 fighting their way across all of Europe. Dropping into active battle zones and kicking down the walls of every HYDRA base Steve had pulled from that map in the original Azzano rescue.

It didn't take much to get 5 of the commandos signed up for his special ops team. Bucky didn't take much convincing. But Harvey... Well...

"I've got one job in this army. Literally my ONLY standing orders are to keep your dumb ass alive and safe. I swear... one brain cell between the two of you idiots and I'm the one always left to hold the thing." He'd then tossed back his drink, ordered another for each of them from the bartender, and toasted when the drinks had arrived. "To the last of my patience... because you assholes are making it stretch real fuckin' thin."

Steve had laughed and slapped him hard on the back. Bucky had laughed and clinked his second glass to Harvey's.

And now, here the wizard was, dead middle of spring. Making camp and waiting for the other half of the team to show up at the rendezvous point. Dumdum stood guard while the medic crouched over Morita, digging shrapnel out of his leg before using that funny stick of his to patch him back up. Nearby, Barnes was up a tree, keeping an eye out and sniping HYDRA stragglers that might have made it from the burning base eight miles up the road. "You need a name," Dumdum said, scanning the area to make sure they were still safe. "Falsworth thinks you're squirrely."

Harvey chuckled.

"You're quick and jump around a lot. I said you're like a jumpin' bean." They heard gunfire in the distance. Then two single, quick shots from the trees. The gunfire ceased. "You hit fast, but hard."

"Well... Wizard's combat is a lot quicker. Stand still and your heart stops. Keep moving, twisting and turning, and you're less likely to get blasted in the face."

Dumdum hummed as he raised the rifle to his shoulder, checking through the sight some movement he spotted at the edge of the forest. "You know what you remind me of?"

"Beans?"

"No dipshit. Those spitfires. In and out, doing all those fancy tricks to avoid getting hit. That's what you are."

The wizard finally got done, brushed himself off and uttered one of his fancy words. Water started pouring out of that weird stick of his and he used it to rinse off his hands. "It's not pretty," he'd said, pointing that stick at Morita and waving it about a little bit to clean the man up. "And it'll be plenty stiff in the cold. But it won't kill him."

There were some more shots from up in the trees. Bucky taking potshots at a few more enemy soldiers as they waited for pick-up. "Hope Cap's having a better time than we are."

He wasn't, but then again, he and the rest of the commandos weren't exactly stealing those transport trucks of weapons for a joyride through the woods.

But that was a story for another time.

"Happy birthday," Harvey had said as he dropped a badly wrapped lump in Steve's lap at the campfire.

"That was last week."

"Yeah, well, we were a little distracted at the time. Unless you want to forget that carpet bombing we barely escaped that day."

Steve shook his head, but gave his partner a fond little smile. It was rare to see that look these days. Falsworth had caught them once, but he'd just told them to make sure the krauts didn't catch them with their pants down at a bad time. Ever since they made sure... never again while they were in the field. If anything, it made the times back in London between missions all the better for having had to restrain themselves.

But for right now, with the two of them on the night watch while the others slept, they could let their guards down a little. Steve unwrapped the lump. "What is this?"

"A chunk of chocolate. Good, rich stuff, too."

"And what the hell am I meant to do with it?"

"Eat it, of course. You'd be amazed at the healing powers of chocolate. Trust me. Ever since it's discovery, Wizards have been using it for a great many things."

"Like what?"

"Like treating depression after exposure to a dementor attack."

"Those... soul sucker things you saw in Austria, right?"

"Right. Nasty creatures. Chocolate is actually the official prescribed treatment for that, by the way."

"What else?"

"Works a treat when you're out of calming draught."

"Happy birthday, Spitfire."

A week later, when they were back in London and holed up in a room off Nocturne Alley for a night, Steve gave him a hat. It was old and a bit battered. "Since your old one got destroyed by Howard's latest experiment."

"A cowboy hat? Really Steve?"

He grinned, sitting up in bed and letting the dark blankets pool at his waist as he plucked the hat from Harvey's hands only to place it slightly askew atop his head. "I think it looks good."

"You would."

"I even tracked down one of your magic army's patches to put on it."

Harvey smiled and shook his head, feeling his cheeks heat up. "You didn't have to go to all that trouble over a hat."

"And you didn't have to cross enemy lines when you thought nobody was looking to get me a giant hunk of chocolate from Belgium." Steve reached across the small divide between them, fingers stroking the long scar on his lover's forearm before he pulled him closer to settle between his own open legs. "Come here," he said, mouthing at his neck.

Harvey reached up with his other hand to take off the hat, but Steve stopped him, eyes blown with lust as he said, "The hat stays on."

Eventually all the Commandos got to see Spitfire's tricks with the stick. Bucky cursed up a storm when he'd found out. Mostly because he was Harvey's other best friend and didn't have the decency to tell him. "Do you know how many times I coulda had you wave that thing around and clean up after my sisters?!"

The only reason they even got to know, now, was because of a couple of special pieces of legislation that had passed, in secret of course, in the days that followed the attack at Pearl Harbor.

"You telling me you could have fixed my bed after Becca and Jenny broke the damn thing and you let me keep sleepin on a mattress in the floor like an animal?!"

Harvey had shrugged, checked his ammunition pouch, and grinned. "And you still wouldn't know about it if we didn't both get dragged into this damn war. So shut your mouth and keep your eyes peeled. It's too quiet tonight."

After a while, Bucky nudged him with his elbow. "Can your ma... can she do what you do?"

"No. She wasn't born with the gift."

"Good," Bucky said, staring out into the darkness of the forest around them and their little camp. "She's scary enough on her own."

Harvey chuckled softly. "She'd have to be with a kid like me."

The intel was right. The mission planned perfectly. Back-up plans drawn up just in case things went south. All their ducks in a row.

But they hadn't counted on the other Special Unit showing up to the same party with their own similar, but different objective.

No one had briefed the Commandos before heading out to take down another HYDRA base that there were other operations going on in the area.

No one had briefed them because no one, at least on the No-Maj side of the war, even knew.

So it was pretty awkward when Falsworth , Morita, and Harvey were kicking in doors to what looked like administrative offices, searching for one of their targets only to find him already tied up and so scared he smelled strongly of piss and fear. Eyes wide and blood trailing down from a nasty gash in his hairline.

The three commandos went on the defensive at the scene they found, which was a good thing as Harvey whipped out his wand and cast the strongest protection spell he knew to cover himself and his brothers as they brought their own weapons up ready to defend themselves.

The red spells bounced off the shield, fizzling out when they'd hit the bookcases nearby.

"Lower your wands," Harvey practically barked the order, but the wizards that remained disillusioned refused. "Show yourselves or we will open fire!"

There was a tense moment when Harvey reached with his free hand for the modified shotgun on his hip but... the air on the other side of the prisoner seemed to ripple and shimmer before five wizards appeared where before had been simply empty space.

"You seem to be outnumbered," one of the men holding a wand said. "Lower your weapons and walk away."

A shout from the end of the corridor signaled that the rest of the commandos were close. The facility must have been cleared of hostiles by now. Cap would never order his men to move a position once they had a strong hold otherwise.

"Not for long," Morita said, sizing up the men on the other side of Harvey's weird glowing curtain.

"You are interfering with an Auror Special Forces Operation."

"And you're messin' with an Allied Special Unit Op. So, what are we gonna do boys?" Harvey said as Falsworth eyed the prisoner.

Then... "Is his skin supposed to be melting off like that?"

"Not everything here is at it appears."

In the end, Cap ended up coming in to break up the standoff. Neither group was all that thrilled about the situation. The other wizards ignored Harvey at best and treated him with disdain and scorn when forced to even look at him as each team carried out the rest of their operation.

Since the target turned out to be not the man the Commandos were ordered to capture and bring in after all, they did the next best thing and gathered as much intel as they could.

Only one of the band of wizards seemed to treat Harvey like he wasn't shite on the bottom of their shoe, so he'd volunteered to coordinate with the Americans on how to progress forward without stepping on any more toes so to speak.

A week after the Halloween Incident where the Commandos met what turned out to be the magical army's equivalent to themselves, Harvey and Steve were taking some rare time to themselves between missions. The intel they'd brought back was useful but the SSR was having a hell of a time trying to figure out what really happened to the HYDRA scientist they were after. The Warmage Brotherhood, the elite Aurors and Hit-wizards employed by the International Confederation of Wizards to hunt down any and all known agents of the Dark Lord Grindlewald, were not very forthcoming with the information.

The overlap of the Magical Global War with the no-maj war wasn't exactly a surprise but it didn't help either side to be withholding intel when they could use the overlap to their advantage on both fronts.

But on this brisk November day, Lt. Blackmoore and Captain Rogers did their damn best to put the state of current affairs aside for a while. Harvey had stormed out of HQ mad as an adder and Bucky had jumped in to suggest maybe Cap should go reign in his Lieutenant before the bastard went and got himself into trouble, offering to cover for them if anyone asked where they'd gone.

The morning was spent, after trading their pounds for galleons and sickles – and Harvey was still complaining hours later that dragots and sprinks made a hell of a lot more sense than the British money system – wandering around Diagon Alley.

It was a hell of a lot different than the places Harvey had taken Steve to back home. For one, it was like everything was stuck in the 1800s. They stuck out like sore thumbs in their uniforms, but it's not like either one had decided to stop by their quarters to change first. At least they weren't the only ones. It was easy to spot the no-maj born with their more normal appearances and the lack of actual robes over their clothes.

They'd stopped for a bite to eat and a couple of drinks, even though Steve couldn't get drunk anymore, at the pub they'd passed through to get into the alley. Usually they took a back way, straight to Nocturne when they needed time to themselves for a night. Sometimes two if they could manage it. But in the light of day it was a bit... different.

The magicals gave Steve odd looks until they saw the token – the ring – on his hand. A lot of them still gave him and by extension Harvey dirty looks. But at least they didn't look like they wanted to kill the man where he stood.

It was during their drink and late lunch that the bartender brought them some refills on their drinks – butterbeers the man had called them – without them having asked for them.

"From the two blokes at the bar," he'd said, nodding towards where two wizards sat and raised their own pints of butterbeer.

Harvey frowned. He recognized one of them. He cut his eyes over to Steve, and noted the suspicious look in his eye, too. The two men smiled politely, picked up the new drinks and lifted them to show their thanks. But when Steve went to drink his, Harvey put a hand on his arm and turned so the men at the bar couldn't see his mouth. "Don't you dare. We don't know what might be in it."

"Poison?"

"Maybe. And we don't know if you... well... I'd rather not find out. Fake a sip and put it down."

They finished their meal, but didn't touch the drinks that were sent their way before heading back into the Alley. It was another two hours before they left, initially heading back to HQ but at the last minute... "The guys are probably down at the Whip and Fiddle by now," Harvey said, nodding in the opposite direction of HQ.

Steve nodded, pretending like he was checking the time before nodding subtly to the street behind them. Harvey shrugged, starting in the direction of the pub. "Come on, Cap. A round for the boys says Dugan's already started arm wrestling the fly boys."

"That's a fool's bet if there ever was one."

It was nearing Christmas and they were freezing their asses off in part of a blown out factory instead of the open expanse. Or a forest. Or some other god forsaken hellhole. At least this didn't have snow falling on their heads. Easily defensible, too. Another scientist and his guard were hiding out in a bunker. Experimenting on the prisoners that weren't up to snuff for manual labor.

More of the same...

More of the same.

That is... until a glowing deer canted up to the edge of the firelight and spooked the hell out of Jones and Dernier bad enough they shot at the thing.

Which drew the attention of the others which... well...

"God damn magic bullshit!" Dugan shouted, spitting to the side and lowering his rifle to return to his place, and his abandoned rations, by the fire.

"What is it?" Steve asked, watching as Harvey moved a bit closer to the thing.

"Looks kind of like that buck from the watch your ma gave you."

He tilted his head to the side, and the deer – the buck – did the same. He reached out, almost touching it and could swear he felt some brief sense of joy. Utter happiness well up inside him that he couldn't explain before it jumped and was gone through the factory wall.

Harvey was left standing, his hand outstretched where the glowing buck had once been.

"Hey, Spitfire, you know what the hell that was?"

"Yeah... I think. I've never... I've only ever heard rumors. I can't even make one like that." The admission, though, felt a bit wrong coming out even as he said it. "It's a good thing, though. Means there's friendlies nearby." He turned back to the men and gave a nod. "That was, I think, a patronus. I've only ever seen a more misty version of it. Like a soft, glowing bit of magical fog. Some of the books I've read claim extremely powerful wizards could possibly cast the spell and create full-bodied animal protectors."

"and what's it used for?"

"Chasing off soul sucking demons."

"You think there might be any nearby?"

Harvey shrugged. "It's possible. With how damn cold it is I wouldn't even know it 'till one snuck up behind us. By then it'd be too late."

When the men retook their places by the fire, warming themselves up now that the excitement had passed, Harvey didn't stay long. He had a niggling feeling... Almost like some kind of... a compulsion almost to go outside and have a look for himself.

He packed away the rest of his rations and grabbed up his shotgun. "Where you going? Your not due for a turn 'till last watch," Morita said.

"Gotta drain the snake. You're welcome to come along if you feel like holding it for me. It's awful cold out there."

"Get the hell out of here, Harv!" Bucky shouted at him, throwing a rock in his direction with a laugh.

"Awh, come on, it might freeze off otherwise!" he replied, playing it up for laughs. They needed more laughs these days.

Steve snatched up his hat from behind the crates they were sitting on, holding it out to him. "Run into trouble, you give the signal."

"Yeah yeah. Right after I turn their heads to hamburger."

Soon he was out in the cold, his long coat tied closed at the waist as he carefully picked his way through the rubble and the snow. Harvey drew his wand, casting a few detection spells he'd picked up during the course of his time here in Europe. A camp of magicals not too far off from where he and the Commandos had bedded down for the night as they went over the changes to the plan they had to make with the scientist hiding in his bunker like a scared rat.

When he reached the edge of the trees, he felt the tip of a wand at the back of his neck.

"If I wanted you dead, you would be right now."

"And I'd take you with me," he replied. It was then the auror that had snuck up on him looked down. The sawed off double barrel was pointed right at his gut. Too damn close to move out of the way. And too close to try and put up a shield.

"Sometimes, the no-maj ways are best," he said.

The wand eased off the back of his neck. He hesitated lowering his gun before he turned around. "We going to have any problems like last time?"

"No. Not if you and those muggles walk away tonight."

"Not happening. Do you know who the hell is in that bunker?"

"Do you?" the man asked, making sure his hands could be seen at all times as he slid the wand back up the sleeve of his coat.

"We're not going to get in there and find our scientist's face melting off again are we?"

"Not this time. Your target's too valuable. To both sides."

"Shit," Harvey said, rubbing a hand up and down his face tiredly before drawing a deep breath and letting it go. "HYDRA dropped the Nazis and paired up with that Dark Lord didn't they?"

"That's what our commanding officers believe. But I think it's more a matter of having aligned interests. Intelligence gathered at our last raid show that the muggle scientist Zola has discovered the missing pieces of the muggle potion that gave your Captain his abilities. There is a spy in your organization who has passed information regarding the experimentation."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Your name was in those documents, Lt. Blackmoore. Of the four wizards that were assigned to aid Dr. Erskine with perfecting his strange potion, you are the only one left alive. You are walking into a trap and hand delivering the only successful result of your military's greatest achievement directly to the enemy."

"I know what HYDRA wants with us, but why turn to Grindlewald? He wants to subjugate the no-maj under purely magical rule. They have to know he'd betray them-"

"Our agents tells us Grindlewald wants it for himself. He thinks that if he learns the secrets of the super soldier formula then he can modify it for use on magical foot soldiers. If he manages to do to his extremist army what was done to your Captain, not even the combined might of our people and the muggle armies will be able to stop him. As for the muggles... what do they always do when confronted with what they don't understand? They want to control him. Control our kind. And if they can't..."

"Then kill us all." Harvey took a few steps away to gather his thoughts, pulling his hat off his head and pulling at the grimy black nest that was there. Then... an idea struck him. "You're expecting a mixture of magical and no-maj forces guarding that bunker, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"You ever seen those weapons the no-maj from HYDRA have before?"

"Some kind of magical-"

"No. It's science. We've got a guy back at HQ who's been studying the energy sources of those weapons. Magic CAN'T stop a blast from one of their rifles... But we can. We've got real good at it, too. When do you plan to assault the bunker?"

"Tomorrow night."

"Good. I'll stall my squad. Tell them I've got new intel. You and one other come over to talk to the Captain and come up with a plan. You keep the magicals off our backs and we'll take out the HYDRA soldiers."

"What do you get out of this?"

"We split the spoils. If we come across any breakaway covens from Grindlewald's forces, you'll be the first to know. Likewise if you come across any HYDRA cells..."

"My CO won't like it."

"Neither will mine. But they're not here, now are they?" Harvey put his hat back on and offered his hand. "We got a deal, Auror Potter?"

The man regarded him for a long moment before nodding and grasping his hand in a firm shake. "We've got a deal, Lt. Blackmoore."

"Call me Spitfire."

The man rolled his eyes. "Charlus," he said. "But my friends call me Charlie."

Harvey waited till the man was gone before he headed back to camp. Jones and Dernier were already down on their bedrolls when he came in and shook off the snow and the damp. Morita and Falsworth were on watch. "That's one long leak," Morita said.

Harvey smirked at him. "It's a big snake."

Over by the fire, Steve nearly choked on his water, which ended up getting Bucky sprayed just as he was drifting off to sleep. Green eyes sparkled with mirth as he approached the fire to rejoin his men. Once he was settled though, Cap looked across the fire at him. "What happened?"

"The glowing deer? Came from one of those guys we met with the uh... face melting."

"Really?"

"It's not Zola in the bunker. It's someone high enough to be useful, but won't be missed if things get fucked up."

"Why?"

"It's a trap," he said, which caught the interest of the ones still awake to hear him. Bucky didn't bother sitting back up, but he did roll over to see his friend sitting on the edge of a crate, his hat sitting crooked and his hands rubbing together by the fire for warmth.

And so Harvey told them everything.

"They're expecting us to go in, spring the trap, and then have to come in and clean up what's left of us," Dugan said. "Smart plan."

"Only Auror Potter's told me what's up. And now we can flip it. Magicals have ways of getting information that we don't. I flunked that part of Combat Training which is why they wanted to keep me in the Medic Corps with your sort instead of move me to the Special Offensives Unit for purely magical warfare."

"So where does that leave us?"

"They can't fight HYDRA. We could hold our own against wizards... until I take a hit. I take a hit and you're sitting ducks against their magic. It's a win win for both. Auror Potter will be here after sunrise with his field commander to talk strategy with Cap. I think Bucky and Dugan should sit in while I get my beauty sleep."

"You are not leaving me with those two and more magicians," Dugan complained.

"Of course not. I'll be here, hidden, while Falsworth takes a nap in my spot. Though... he will have to drink a really nasty potion first."

"Does it taste worse than the one you used to give me for the asthema?"

"Worse. Tastes a bit like... horse shit and slug slime."

Dugan laughed. "So like that piss-water he calls beer. He'll appreciate the taste of home."

After their first encounter, the Brotherhood did their homework on the muggle band of soldiers calling themselves the Howling Commandos. It wasn't surprising that Auror Potter was the first to jump on the idea that they should work together. Their objectives had lined up more than once and that couldn't have been a coincidence.

"They have a Healer for Merlin's sake!"

"And they're American," Travers had shot back quickly. "You know those yanks don't let our kind sully themselves with muggle filth."

"They do when they're at war," Potter had pointed out. Which was true. Unofficially that is. Until the current war. Until now when it wasn't just muggle leaders sweeping across the continents but a Dark Lord as well. "Healer Blackmoore made some very astute points when I met with him. We cannot match those strange weapons these particular muggles carry with them. You saw what happened to Septimus! It passed straight through his most powerful shield and utterly destroyed his wand! And his hand with it! These muggles have been fighting against these weapons from the start. We need them for this just as much as they need us right now."

In the end, Potter's argument won out. But only because no one wanted to be sent back home unable to do even the most basic of spells because they lost their damn hands.

And that was why Chief Auror Moody was standing there next to Auror Potter, listening to what these muggle soldiers had to say. He didn't like the plan they came up with, or the clean up after. But it was sound.

Unknown, at the time, Lt. Blackmoore was standing behind Steve, taking advantage of their size difference to hide his slightly imperfect disillusionment charm from the two seasoned aurors on the other side of the makeshift table. So he knew the plan. He knew what each team was meant to be doing.

And he knew, when they laid siege to the bunker exactly how badly Chief Auror Moody had overestimated his force's ability to withstand heavy fire from HYDRA's energy weapons.

When all was said and done, Auror Potter was glad for Lt. Blackmoore's paranoid distrust of other magicals. Especially pure-bloods. It had saved his mentor's life. Even if he did lose his wand arm in the process.

"God damned ignorant inbred pureblood assholes," Harvey had muttered the whole time he tried to keep the man from dying in the snow with Auror Potter's assistance. "THIS is why we make sure OUR wizard soldiers go through a mix of combat training," he further barked at the man as he jammed the tip of his wand into the wound to close the veins and arteries from the inside. It was the only way, he'd learned while they were in the field, to close up injuries made with those God awful HYDRA weapons. "Good news is you won't die you stupid son of a bitch," Harvey said when he was finally done. "Bad news is you'd best learn to cast with your other arm because not even Skelegrow can help this."

That was the day Aldritch Moody learned the single most useful phrase he would ever hear in his life.

"You've gotta have constant vigilance out here you dumb shits. Never know when those krauts are gonna jump out and slit your damn throats," Dugan had said later while the wizards were nursing their wounds and the Commandos turned that bunker inside out looking for any intel they could take back to the SSR. "Are all magic folk this damn arrogant and stupid?"

"Just the Europeans," Harvey had said from where he was stitching up a nasty gash in Jones's back. "We, on the other hand, learned to adapt to survive. Otherwise you no-maj would have killed us all years ago."

"Glad we didn't," Jones said, then winced as Harvey wiped a bit of the blood away from the wound to continue working. "Why the hell don't' you just use that bottle of stuff you keep in your belt?"

"Because the wizard that tried to stab you to death used a cursed knife that prevents magical healing. And if you don't sit still I'll stitch your ass to that chair and make you sit still."

Bucky groaned as he pulled the ice pack made from snow away from the large bruise on his forehead. "He'll do it, too. Remember after that drop in Vienna? He left Cap chained to that tank for two days he was so pissed about that parachute."

"What parachute? Cap doesn't know what the hell the things even are anymore!"

Winter rolled on. And so did the offensive against HYDRA.

But it wasn't until after the successful rescue of Allied troops at Stalingrad that the joint attack on the bunker at last bore fruit.

It was a single message, given to Colonel Phillips personally from SSR's only contact with it's magical world counterpart. It arrived a flurry of flame and strange song.

Arnim Zola was moving fast like Satan himself was on his ass. They didn't know where, but they knew it couldn't be good and there wouldn't be any other chance for the no-maj to get him if he managed to escape.

"Suit up," Steve had said when he found his men mourning the recent destruction of their favorite watering hole, the Whip and Fiddle, during London's most recent air raid.

"Where are we going?" Bucky had asked, reaching for his coat.

"We've got a train to catch."

Steve hadn't said much since they got back from the mission to capture Zola. What little he did say was short, direct, and had a hint of tightly controlled anger beneath the words.

Having known him the longest, and being... well... closer than even Barnes had been to the man, Harvey was voted as least likely to get his arm broken if he tried to get Cap to do more than sit and stew with rage.

It took quite a strong calming draught slipped in the liquor Steve was pouring down his throat in a desperate hope that maybe some of it might actually get him a bit tipsy, just for a few minutes. But eventually he'd finally just... sat and stared at the bottle in his hand, then the man sitting across from him, and shook his head.

"We've been friends since we were eight years old," Steve said.

"How'd you meet?"

"Same way I met you. Getting my shit kicked in."

Harvey smiled sadly. "You seem to meet a lot of people that way," he said.

"So do you."

Harvey nodded, getting up from his chair and rounding the lopsided table. He'd done his best to fix it but... well, his heart just wasn't in it at the time. Uncaring that they might be caught – it wouldn't be the first time – he moved to stand behind the super soldier, draping his arms over his shoulders and leaning in to rest his head on top of Steve's. It was awkward, given their size difference but the gesture was always a welcome one.

Another reminder that the wizard still saw the man beneath all the brawn and power no-maj science had given him. A reminder of what life was like before they went off to war. When they would huddle under the blankets in the winter, Harvey looking over his shoulder as he drew whatever he could see through the window of their bedroom while he held him to keep him warm.

With those arms around him, Steve finally felt safe to let it go. The anger, the hate, the pain of that void made in his chest when he couldn't reach. He couldn't get to him in time. He couldn't... When he failed to save his first friend. His brother.

"It hurts..." Steve said at last, causing Harvey to tighten his hold just a little. "I feel like I've had my chest ripped open and everything just... ripped right out."

"I know... I feel the same way."

"Make it stop."

"I wish I could sweetheart..." Harvey whispered, then pulled away just enough to come to Steve's side and reaching out to cup a wet cheek. His thumb brushing the remnants of tears from just below Steve's right eye.

"You could make me forget. I know you can."

Harvey shook his head. "No. Not like that, sweetheart. Never ask me to do that." But... he could do something else. It was a foolish thought, but his heart ached with the need to have his mind elsewhere, even for just a little while...

He leaned in and brushed his lips against his lover's, tracing the salt and scotch laced seam of them with his tongue as his hand slid from Steve's cheek into his hair, fingers dragging across his scalp while he urged the man to turn, to move closer towards him.

When Steve broke the kiss, two eyes bright as emeralds were looking down at him. He could see the same burden of sorrow and heartbreak in them as he himself felt. "Harvey..."

"Let me get your mind off things," the wizard said. The hand in Steve's hair now moving to his neck, curling around and letting his fingers play with the hairs at the nape, knowing the light and teasing strokes would either annoy or arouse him. Either way... he'd be distracted.

When Peggy found them two hours later, hiding in one of the few surviving booths furthest from the hole in the wall and the last couple of windows, they were still curled together in a lover's embrace, partially hidden by some hastily tacked up curtains to try and further hide them from view.

She had until then her suspicions about Lt. Blackmoore... but never did she think to have it confirmed. But she did feel a bit of a twist in her gut to see him there, laying in the arms of the man she herself had come admire and, dare she say it, had started to believe might become something more than a friend should they both see the end of this horrid and terrible war.

Without a word she left them where she found them, telling Colonel Phillips when she returned that "Lt. Blackmoore must have taken him into the Other World for a time. Likely so they may grieve together away from prying eyes."

"The moment those two are back in this base, you'd better have their asses brought straight to me," the crotchety Colonel ordered. All she could do was nod, hold her tongue, and wait to be dismissed.

On February the first, the Howling Commandos captured high ranking HYDRA scientist Arnim Zola. It was also when they lost the best damn sniper any of them ever knew. Lt. Blackmoore had gone back while the rest waited for extraction. He'd searched and searched, using every magic trick he knew, to find Barnes' body and bring him home to his sisters. He was unsuccessful.

On February the third, Zola finally broke and gave up what secrets he had on Schmidt. When Harvey and Steve returned to HQ, the Captain and his right hand man were briefed on the next offensive to take place in 2 days time.

On February the fourth, Harvey and Steve slipped away for just a few hours to Diagon Alley. Harvey, already in a mood to kick someone's ass whether they deserved it or not, got himself tangled up in an honor duel after spotting a familiar face. No one was willing to back up the one handed ginger ex-Auror when two men started in on him and his wife right there in the alley. With the exception of a one-armed ex Auror who could barely cast with his left hand. So Harvey did the same thing he did when he saw some poor kid getting his shit kicked in. Though this time there wasn't metal can sitting on the ground he could pick up and throw, so instead he slung a stunner and a couple of disarming spells at the men and called it a day. Ex-Chief Auror Moody was glad to see him, and politely gave his condolences when he learned about Sgt. Barnes's death. The man and his wife were grateful for the intervention. After all, she was pregnant and didn't need the stress.

The two soldiers stole away to a familiar pay by the hour motel in Nocturne Alley with a bottle or two of Ogden's Finest Firewhisky in the hopes it might get Steve a little tipsy. It didn't. But the burn in his throat and the cock up his ass helped bleed the grief and the sorrow off for a little while. Helped remind him they were both still there. Still alive and breathing and fighting and fucking and raging against the unfairness of the world.

And then... On February the fifth... the bottom of the world fell right out from under them...

"Come in. This is Captain Rogers. Do you read me?"

"Captain Rogers what is your-"

Harvey shoved Morita out of the way, chair and all as he leaned over the communications array. "Steve? Steve is that you, are you alright?"

"Harv! Schmidt's dead!"

"What about the plane?" he asked as Agent Carter helped Morita to his feet.

"That's a little tougher to explain."

Behind them, Colonel Phillips took a few steps closer to the desperate lieutenant so he could hear through the static a little easier.

"Give me your coordinates. I'll... I'll jump in and-"

"It's moving too fast. By the time you jump in, the plane'll be too far from your position to try again."

"Then I'll find you a safe landing site!"

"There's not gonna be a safe landing." There was a slight pause. "But I can try to force it down."

"I'll... I'll get Stark! He'll know what to do!" Harvey tried in desperation, not realizing that Colonel Phillips was silently ordering everyone to give the man privacy in the control tower.

"Not enough time Harv. It's moving too fast and heading straight for home. I gotta put her in the water."

"Please..." Harvey's head dipped, his hat sliding forward to cover more of the gnarled scar above his right eye. He knew... in the pit of his gut, he knew this was it. All the good in his life, all the warmth and love and happiness he had left in the wake of Buck's death... it was getting further away with every second. "Please... We can work it out. We can do this. We have time-"

"Right now I'm in the middle of nowhere. If I wait any longer a lot of people are gonna die."

The wizard clenched his fist to stop himself from lashing out. To hold back the magic that was swirling and building and raging inside just beneath his skin. Fighting to break free and break the world around him.

"Harvey..." came Steve's voice again. "Harv... this is my choice. Me... or the world."

Harvey chewed the inside of his cheek to keep from screaming. He knew Steve was right. He KNEW there was no other way. One man... or the lives of over 2 billion innocent people.

He wiped at his face when Steve's voice cut back through the static again. "Harvey..."

"I'm here, Sweetheart."

"I uh... I always liked that house across from your mom's."

"The one with the crooked shutters," the wizard said, not knowing that Colonel Phillips had returned to check the status of the situation... and on the lieutenant. "God I hate those shutters..."

"When the war's over, we should buy it. Your mom wouldn't have to go very far to break my legs."

"She'd like that," Harvey said, trying to smile but not... not quite managing it.

"We'll fix it up. We could turn the downstairs into your doctor's office," Steve said, his voice just starting to break up. "My art studio on the seco-"

And then...

"Steve?"

Just like that...

"Steve come in..."

Colonel Phillips turned away to give the man a few more moments to himself -

"Steve can you hear me?...

- as Lt. Blackmoore's voice desperately called out across the radio waves,

"Please..." Static. "Please," Harvey's broken whisper cried out. "Don't leave me, too..."

- begging for an answer that would never come.

The Howling Commandos, led by Lt. Harvey "Spitfire" Blackmoore returned to SSR headquarters victorious. The remaining six men didn't feel much like celebrating.

Two days after their return to London, Agent Carter was informed that Lt. Blackmoore was being reassigned.

"What? Why?!"

"His standing orders were to keep Rogers alive and in once piece. With Rogers dead Lt. Blackmoore's mission has been written off as a failure. His unique skills are needed elsewhere."

"And he doesn't even get the time to mourn?! To grieve the loss of-"

"Agent Carter, it's already been done. And if you've got a problem with it, you can be the one to talk his stubborn ass out of it. God knows he never really bothered to listen to me!"

She had checked Harvey's quarters but found it bare of any and all personal effects. It wasn't hard to guess where he'd gone after... and sure enough she found him in the floor, a bottle from Dugan's private stash of liquor empty beside him and Steve's brown coat in his lap. He looked like he hadn't slept in days, and probably hadn't. Not that she'd been able to catch sight of him before now.

"I... I'm having... I'm having his things taken to my mother. He didn't... he didn't have anyone else back home but me and Bucky."

His hat was hanging on the end of the foot-board to his right. He wiped at his nose with the back of his hand as she stood in the doorway, watching him. "Before he... Before he showed up at Camp Lehigh I was always so worried I'd get deployed. I was relieved when I got picked to stay behind. I'm not a coward."

"No one could ever call you that. Not now."

"But I... I didn't want to leave him by himself. He never saw himself as what he was. Sick. Frail. He knew he was, and it just made him angrier. And then we had to go and make his outsides match his insides. And now I'm the one left behind with... with my heart ripped out and feelin' like I'll never be whole again."

She came into the room fully and shut the door behind her. She reached down and took him carefully by the arms, pulling him up and leading him to sit on the bed rather than back in the floor.

Peggy didn't know how long she sat there, the usually laughing, smart mouthed, strong willed and loud about it wizard now a shell of his former self. Clinging to her in desperation and sobbing into her blouse and making a right mess of them both. But she held him. She hummed softly to him and rubbed circles into his back to help still his shaking shoulders.

On February 13th, 1945 a man walked into a dingy pub on Charing Cross Road called The Leaky Cauldron. His inky black hair was wild and unkempt beneath an old and battered hat in the style of an American Cowboy.

He wore a brown coat that clearly wasn't made for him, but resized to fit with a charm or two. A golden threaded wing stitched in on one shoulder while the other had a round patch with the colors of both the Union Jack and America's Old Glory. A red and white bullseye with a white star dead center of a small blue circle. This, however, had a black band stretched across diagonally, stitched at each end so as not to come off easily.

The lower half of his face was left unshaven, and he smelled slightly of firewhisky and cigar smoke.

He had a rucksack hanging from one shoulder and a sawed off double barrel hanging off his hip. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that this man was more at home with the muggles than he ever could have been with his own kind.

The Aurors assigned to be waiting for the man's arrival spotted him soon enough as he made his way to the bar for a drink. One slid into the seat to his left. While another the seat to his right.

"His drink's on me," Auror Potter said.

"His drink's on his damn self," Harvey's tired voice uttered.

"Not this time. You look like shite."

"Yeah? Well when your wife dies how about you call me on the floo and tell me how great and wonderful life still fuckin' is."

The man on his right huffed indignantly. "Is he going to be like this all the time?"

"More than likely," Auror Potter said as three drinks were set down in front of them. "But we don't need him to be cheerful. We just need a man to patch us up when the real nasty shite hits."

Harvey ignored them in favor of his drink. Maybe... just maybe... if he drank enough it might dull the searing pain in his soul and stop the nightmares for just one night.

Albus Dumbledore didn't know what to make of the newest addition to the fighters he'd been tasked to travel with. The man carried himself with a deadly purpose. His hands quick and precise as he worked to heal the injured men under his watch.

But there was a deadness in his eyes that the professor didn't think belonged there. When the man was at rest, which had been itself a rare sight indeed, his face showed he had once laughed much, and often. His voice when he spoke to children in a village they'd defended against the crazed and murderous zealots that followed Gellert was soft. Kind and full of warmth such that it could not have been faked by any stretch of the imagination.

And yet... the moment they were no longer under his watchful eye, he was cold and harsh and argumentative.

More than once the hit wizards and aurors would comment to one another how he was much different than they remembered. But it was Charlus, the elder brother of a dear friend of Albus's, that told him about the American healer... And about what he had so recently lost.

"We didn't recruit him," Charlus had said late one night while he, Travers, and Albus were sitting their turn on watch. "He came to us, stinking of scotch and with a busted lip. I don't know what the hell went on after they'd called in our ex-Chief Auror but when he walked out of there Moody himself made the announcement that the cowboy was coming with us on the next raid."

"The man's got a death wish," Travers had said.

"Do you blame him? Losing a brother and his partner just within a few days of each other? That's a man who's got nothing left to lose and stopped caring about making it home. If Dorea hadn't told me her family kills all their squibs outright, I'd swear the Healer was in the middle of a fit of Black Madness."

Their orders had changed.

Albus was against it. He was tasked with bringing Gellert in.

But when the orders came in that this was no longer a capture mission, but one to seek and destroy... it was the first time Albus had seen a smile grace the stubble covered face of Lt. Blackmoore as he sat packing his shotgun shells with what the muggles had called scattershot and even slivers of glass and bits of metal shrapnel.

"I thought healers were bound by oaths to do no harm," Albus had said to the man once.

The healer had shaken his head and laughed. "This is a war, Professor. What are you gonna go, give the man detention and hope he learns his lesson?" He'd continued to pack his shells and line them up on the window sill next to where he worked. "No... There's only one thing to do with men like Grindlewald. Like Schmidt. Like Hitler."

"And what's that, Healer Blackmoore?"

He shrugged and packed another shell. "Kill the bastards before they kill you and everyone you love. Leave one alive and they'll just keep coming back."

Seven miles north of Bucharest one of the most exciting and fearsome displays of power ever seen took place when the Brotherhood had cornered and stood against the dark lord Gellert Grindlewald.

The duel lasted hours and changed the landscape of the surrounding area so much that it became unrecognizable. The very ground became so saturated with magical power that no muggle has ever been able to pass through it without suffering severe sickness and at times, death.

No one knew, save one survivor of the battle, what truly took place there in the final confrontation that ended the Global Magical War that fateful April day.

No one knew for certain which of the last two men standing had disarmed the dark lord. And if Albus Dumbledore DID actually know, he wasn't very interested in telling.

Gellert Grindlewald stood trial in short order and was imprisoned in the fortress he himself had built to hold prisoners of his regime.

Fleamont Potter received a small package from the Ministry of Magic containing one invisibility cloak, one Order of Merlin among other medals of honor and merit, and a letter of acknowledgment for the Potter family's Noble Sacrifice. Fleamont received a ring days later that had belonged to his elder brother, Charlus, marking Fleamont as the next Lord of the House of Potter.

In New York, on April 13th, two months to the day after her son had joined the Warmage Brotherhood on their hunt for Grindlewald, Mrs. Blackmoore received a visitor at her front door for the second time in as many months.

All these years... all these long years she had clung to her hope. Clung to her faith that things that were meant to be would be.

But it did nothing to console her now as she suffered a mother's grief for the second time in her life.

Agent Carter stood at the end of three graves. Only one actually had a body buried within it. While it was unusual for the armed forces to send a body back home for burial in the normal world, she had learned it was considered a grave insult not to at least attempt to do so for Lt. Blackmoore's people. If no body could be returned, then at least their wand would be returned to the family.

When Peggy found out through Colonel Phillips about the lieutenant's death, she was surprised that he had given her leave to travel with the body.

"Under normal circumstances, I'd have one of the Commandos do it. That's how it's done with Blackmoore's kind and given what they can do, we don't want to piss them off. But seeing as Dugan's got them behind enemy lines right now you're the only body I can spare that wouldn't be taken as an insult."

And that was that.

The SSR had pulled some strings to get three markers put side by side together. It had only seemed right, Peggy thought as she watched the mother of Lt. Blackmoore break down on the arm of her neighbor when she had been presented with the flag that had not that long ago graced the top of her son's casket.

Though they were never able to recover the bodies of Steve and Bucky, giving them a space there alongside Harvey felt right. They were inseparable in life, and should also be so in death.

Agent Carter was still standing there when a man came to join her.

"Perhaps now Mr. Blackmoore can finally rest," the man said to her as she dabbed the tears that had finally come now there were so few to see them.

"Pardon?" she asked, turning her head only slightly.

The man sighed, clasping his hands in front of him as he looked upon the three grave markers and then shaking his head sadly as if merely dislodging a thought. "I did not know him well, but he seemed a very troubled man there at the end."

"Did you serve with him in Romania then?"

"Yes. He saved my life at the cost of his own so that I could strike the final blow on the enemy."

She smiled and dabbed at her eyes again. "Yes... all three of them were like that. James died protecting Steve. Steve died protecting the world... It makes sense that Harvey would want to go the same way."

She left the man standing there as she left the cemetery, returning to the car that had brought her straight from the airport.

The war wasn't quite over yet... And Agent Carter still had work to do.

Chapter End Notes

Mrs. Blackmoore is descended of Abraham Potter, one of the Original 12 Aurors in America.
The American Potters "squibbed out" around the mid 1800s, but remained financially comfortable due to most becoming doctors or healers of some sort.
Mrs. Blackmoore's father was a Potter, and she had no brothers to carry on the name.
Harry lost his accent over time, his speech pattern becoming more and more Americanized

A Curious Thread of Magic's Will

Rebecca Proctor was old and stubborn. One of those things she could honestly say was her elder brother's influence. The other was given to her by time. Just time.

Time also gave her two children. A boy and a girl.

Her son, Jimmy Proctor (because he hated being called James, like his dead uncle) was born in 1950. His younger sister, Elizabeth, was born in 1956.

In 1965 America was dragged into another war. And in 1968 James "Jimmy" Proctor was drafted. His mother cried. His sister cried. His two aunts tried to find ways to dodge his draft. His youngest aunt, the unmarried Jenny Barnes, actually waited until he was asleep and then tied him to a post in his mom's basement. When Rebecca yelled at her for it she just shrugged. "Hey, it always worked for Harvey and Steve. What did you want me to do, break his leg instead?"

When the letter came in 1971 to tell the Proctors their son was dead, Elizabeth railed and raged angrily at her parents for letting it happen and ran away. She didn't run far. She ran away to her aunt Jenny in Brooklyn, down on Middagh street. She cried. And she cried. And she was angry as hell.

Eventually when her mother came to collect her, she was so tired she didn't have the energy left to argue.

Jenny Barnes had just shook her head and hugged her sister tightly. "I told you," she'd said to try and penetrate her sister's grief, and lighten her own. "You should've let me keep him tied up in the basement."

Rebecca had smiled, sniffled and wiped at the tears in her eyes. "It never would've worked. You never could tie the complicated knots as good as James or as tight as Harvey."

"Do you remember... when I came to live with Mrs. Blackmoore and she showed me the old family wine collection?"

"Of course. You gave us a bottle for our wedding."

"I found something you might could use right about now." And Jenny had left the parlor of the house their friend's mother had left to the three sisters when she'd died. She returned soon with a red bottle. She tried to wipe the dust away, but it was so old she didn't think it would ever be properly clean without a little hot, soapy water.

There was a cork in the top that looked already like it had been removed at least once or twice. "Hope you don't mind. I gave her a shot of this to calm her down after she got done screaming about it."

"You got my daughter drunk!"

"No. Just a shot. To help... well, you know all the stuff down there is old. Old and strong. Take it. I've got two more bottles of the stuff."

Rebecca had put up a token argument, but took the bottle home anyway. It lasted quite a long time and a great many years. Taken out only on certain occasions. To mourn a family death. Or to celebrate a birth.

The next time the bottle was taken out was March 1975 on the day of her 19 year old daughter's wedding to a very nice English gentleman named Richard Granger, whom she'd met while working the typing pool.

It came out again a year later when Rebecca's first grandchild Ian was born all the way across the world in Cornwall, England. And again when Ian had married a girl he'd met in school - a girl who'd followed him into dental school even!

And the very last time it was taken out, and the last few drams drunk had been on September 19th, 1997 when Ian had called in the middle of the night to tell his family back in the US "She's here! She's here! I'm a dad! She's so... so tiny and perfect and she's got Barb's perfect little nose and cheeks and oh... Oh she's got your chin, Grams!"

The three sisters, two of which were widowed by now, toasted the first, and to date only great-grandchild in the family. Little Hermione Jean Granger, of Oxford.

Hermione Granger was special.

She was the only witch in her family, but that is not what set her apart.

She was the brightest witch of her age, but that also was not what set her apart.

What set her apart was the fact that, like other muggleborn students, her existence spans across the divide between the two worlds. While others disparaged of her love of reading and learning, it had yet to fail her.

For years she had learned history in the muggle world. Sure, eleven year olds didn't exactly get into the heavy and dry texts. But Hermione Jean Granger considered books thicker than both her arms to be "light summer reading". She knew for instance about the muggle side of World War 2. This subject in particular had become of great interest in the Granger household in the spring of 2012 as she had learned from her parents replies to her letters that somehow the long lost hero Captain America had been found! Not only that but he had fought against aliens in America! ALIENS!

That whole summer that followed, the aliens and the return of Captain America - and some other super heroes of course - was all anyone in the muggle world could talk about. But it was especially poignant for the Granger household because rather than take the vacation to Europe like her family had always done since she was a very small child, they decided to take a trip to visit distant relations in New York City.

Instead of getting a hotel, they had stayed with her father's great aunt Jenny on Middagh Street. It was quite an exciting trip, as Hermione had never met her American relations in person. She had heard of them, and from them over the years of course. She had spoken to her great-grandmother Rebecca on the phone a few times. Usually around Christmas or her own birthday.

It did not take long after the Grangers had settled in before Hermione was exploring the old Brooklyn town-home in her spare time. She found many things odd about the old house though... she would ask her great aunt Jenny about some of the things she would find and the woman would just shrug her shoulders and tell her it came with the house.

The young witch wondered if her great-great-aunt even knew what the things were, or that they were items commonly found in the wizarding world.

However it was a seemingly normal item in the house that confused the bright young witch. Well... normal until she got a much closer look at it.

On her great aunt Jenny's wall, where any old muggle could see it, was an old – and moving! - photograph of a group of armed men. The photo was tucked in among many muggle photos - one of herself as a baby included in that wall of family memories. She had to get a stool to stand on so that she could get a better look at it since she couldn't very well move the table covered with yet more framed photographs that sat below it.

Hermione gasped when she got a better look at the eight men pictured there. She recognized the one in the center, who in the muggle world didn't recognize that uniform! But he stood in the center with his arms slung over the shoulders of the men to either side of him. One rather much shorter than the rest of the men around them.

The three of them seemed to be laughing at some joke she'd never know.

When she was a little girl she'd seen pictures in history books of these men, of course. She'd seen documentaries on the telly. She'd been taught about major world events where some of the details were glossed over to 'protect their young minds' but never... never did her mind put the pieces together. Couldn't have, as she hadn't even known magic was real at the time. Wouldn't have had it not been for the fact that... when the man to the Captain's left threw his head back in the photo to laugh, one hand coming up to hold the hat on his head, a scar she'd seen just weeks ago... But it couldn't be... It just couldn't-

"There you are!" her mother exclaimed. "Aunt Jenny's taking us to your great-grandmother's for a family dinner."

"But-"

"Come on then."

"But mum-"

"We don't want to be late!"

The young witch enjoyed herself greatly as she was introduced to cousins and aunts and uncles and so many people. There were a lot, she realized, in the military. Apparently it was a bit of a family tradition. And she could see why when she'd managed to steal a few moments to herself in the den at her great-grandmother's home.

The room was rather cozy, and reminded her a bit of a cross between the Gryffindor common room and her favorite corner of the school library. There was a large oak desk with a few framed photos of men in uniform adorning the wall behind. She found herself fascinated by them, more so by one in particular than most of the other, newer ones. That man she knew from history books. That man, she now knew, was her great-great uncle James Barnes.

Hermione looked around to find a large display case where she found numerous medals and ribbons on display.

"I thought I might find you in here. The quietest place in the whole house."

Hermione startled, jumping just a little and nearly knocking over a small statue on the corner of a table nearby. She turned to the source of the voice and found it to be the matriarch of the American part of her family. "G...g...Grams," she stammered at first, still getting used to the name she was asked to use for the woman. "I-"

"Lots of people get to me, too," she said. "Even if they are family." The old woman smiled and wheeled herself further into the room. She didn't need the chair all the time, she'd said. But she had knee surgery about a month before the Grangers had arrived for their visit, so she was confined to her chair. For now. "My brother loved a good party. My husband, too."

"It's nice," Hermione said with a shrug. "Having such a large family. I just never realized there would be so many of you."

"Well," the old woman said, wistfully looking towards the wall of photos behind the desk. She smiled then, as if remembering some old, happy memory of better times. "Knowing my brother, there's likely a whole lot more we don't know about roaming around out there," she said, then beckoned the girl to come away. "Let's get back to the others. Your aunt Jenny's brought over a bottle of the good stuff and cousin Robert never could hold his liquor."

Hermione took one last glance around the room, then gave a nod and followed as her great grandmother led the way back to the dining room.

It was a rainy afternoon when Hermione's great aunt Jenny took her to the museum. Her parents were seeing a movie with some of the other relations, but Hermione had opted to stay home. After all, she did still have summer homework to finish, even if she was on vacation.

But on this day, she'd allowed herself to be pulled away from her books at the promise of something equally enjoyable.

They had come to a history exhibit that was recently installed, and Jenny had turned off the mini player that she had paid for, opting to go on the audio guided tour rather than the one with a human guide. It was so she and her great-niece could go at their own pace. Jenny didn't need, nor want, to be reminded of the painful history being regurgitated into her ears for this part of the museum. So she decided to sit on a bench and wait until the girl had seen her fill.

"I didn't know," the girl had said, sitting on the bench beside her after a while, the player in her hands turned off and the headphones resting around the back of her neck. The old woman didn't know, exactly, what it was the girl was talking about. It could have been the fact that she was related to a war hero. It could have been something else her strange great niece had on her mind. Either way, Jenny put an arm around the girl's shoulders and sighed.

"Did you know," she said with a small, but sad smile. "Captain America's afraid of clowns."

"What?!"

"He is. My brother took him and their friend to the circus once. Well... I say he took them but really they went along because your great-uncle wanted to date this one girl who's father wouldn't let her out of the house withou her sister. And her sister wouldn't go anywhere without her best friend," Jenny said with a fond chuckle. "I was mad because I wanted to go but I was sick in bed. I don't know what happened, but after that adventure Steve complained of nightmares every night for a week straight and it was always about this clown that he'd seen. Oh Bucky made so much fun of him for it. At least until Harvey put his foot down and scared him half to death with his own worst fear."

"What was that?"

Jenny grinned, leaning in close to tell her. "My brother was a love 'em and leave 'em sort. So Harvey tracked down one of his old flames and paid her to pretend she was pregnant for two weeks!"

"He didn't!"

"He did. After two weeks she showed him the flour bag she'd been carrying around under her blouse. Bucky didn't talk to either of his best friends for a month! Until... of course, the three idiots got over themselves and went out drinking."

Hermione would learn quite a lot more little stories like this over the course of her vacation. And the more she would learn, the more conflicted she would become.

Because she knew... she knew without a doubt after visiting that museum with her great aunt Jenny that something terrible was going to happen. She did not know when, and she did not know how. But somehow she would lose her very best friend – her first friend - in all the world. And the worst part is... she didn't know if she could tell him or not.

Over the course of the year to follow, Hermione would struggle with the knowledge that terrible things would happen to her friend and there was nothing she could do to prevent it. She knew that after whatever it was that would come, he would grow up. He would find a home and a family of sorts to love him and care for him. He would have friends that would stand by him just as Hermione stood by him and, when he wasn't being a jealous prat, Ron too.

Knowing what she now knew – with Jenny having been the one to tell her more than any other member of the Proctor-Barnes branch of her family would - watching Harry flounder trying to talk to girls was quite amusing.

Drawing on some of the stories she'd been told about the man's preference for his books and studies... among other things, she couldn't help but shake her head at the boy's hopelessness when it came to finding a date for the Yule Ball.

"Oh Harry..." she'd often find herself sighing as he would walk up to a girl, get flustered, and then rush off again. She had considered putting him out of his misery and offering to go with him as a friend when Victor had asked her to instead.

Hermione was devastated by the news - logically she shouldn't have been because she knew SOMETHING was going to happen - but she thought she had more time. More time to come to terms with it. More time to prepare for when he would be ripped from her life. More time to... well... perhaps prepare HIM for it.

Grief and fear and shock and sadness all at once warred within her as she sat with Ron and hugged Ginny close and listened to the twins going back and forth in disbelief and Neville trying to console the Creevy brothers and... and it was all just too much.

Just too much.

She got up, ignoring Lavender's indignant shout as she knocked into the girl's side by accident in her haste to leave the tower for some fresh air.

"'Mione!"

"Let her go, Ron!" Ginny had snapped at her brother just as the portrait closed over the hole behind the witch.

It had been two days since Harry had disappeared and everyone was acting like he was dead. Well... he was... just not how or in the way they expected him to be. It was all so very confusing despite her now firm grasp on the complexities of tense when Time Magic was involved. After all, she spent 10 months jumping back hours at a time to get her school work done.

So it was rather serendipitous that she was out after curfew, roaming the halls because she dared not sleep lest another nightmare of what might have happened take hold. She was just about to round the corner when two hands reached out and grabbed her from behind, and a third hand covered her mouth. "Shhh" the two identical voices said, hiding her under the cloak they'd nicked from Harry's trunk. Beneath the cloak the Weasley twins held between them a map, and one of them had their wand tip lit up.

"What was that about?"

"Look," they said, pointing to the map.

There she saw a mess of names all traveling down the corridor in their direction. Five names, followed by professors McGonogall and Dumbledore!

"We came to find you right after she rushed out during a house meeting," one said.

"I've been watching the map," the other said. "To keep an eye on you."

"Thanks guys," she said, watching the names as they came up towards the infirmary.

"What do you think happened?" the first twin asked, nodding to the cluster of people as the three teens watched them go inside. One of the names was dropped onto a bed, they assumed anyway, across from the teacher that was found locked in a trunk the day before.

"Think it has to do with Harry going missing?"

Hermione thought for a moment before deciding to nod. She couldn't tell Ron what she knew because he couldn't keep a secret to save his life. Everyone knew that. But his brothers could never have gotten away with half of the things she knew about if that were true for them.

Finally, she nodded and tapped the parchment. "I know it doesn't say so, but that's Harry."

"What?"

"That's Harry. It's... it's hard to explain and i promise I will, but you can't tell anyone. Not even Ron. OR Ginny. NO ONE."

"Our lips are sealed," they said together. "But we won't be able to see him with all those people around," one said.

"Let's go back to the tower."

"We can figure it out tomorrow."

Tomorrow came and with it, the tale Hermione had to tell.

Had she told her story to anyone else, they would never have believed it.

But she was speaking to the Weasley Twins. Two boys who knew that if impossible things were going to happen then Harry Potter would be right in the middle of them whether he liked it or not.

"Write a letter," Fred had suggested. "To your great Aunt Jenny."

"I don't think she can help here. She's a muggle."

"A muggle," George said. "Who knows other very important muggles."

It was then Hermione's eyes went wide and she took out a sheet of parchment. "Great Aunt Jenny can't help... but I know who can!"

She wrote furiously and quickly, trying to keep her handwriting clear but also get as much as she could onto the page as possible before re-reading it and re-writing an entire section. She had the twins distract Ron and the other boys in the dorm so she could sneak in and have a look through Harry's things until she found his photo album. She selected a few, one of which had been a favorite from the year before – a gift from Colin Creevy actually - along with some of the newspaper clippings from the Prophet's coverage of the tournament. These she would include as proof with what she had written.

Once she had everything together, she put it all in a thick envelope and sealed it as tightly as she could. She included some charms to protect it as well, just in case. After writing out the name and the general area she figured the recipient would be, she drew in a slow and steady breath before letting it out again. As she exhaled she let go of all the tension that had built up in her shoulders. "Alright," she said, picking up the envelope and holding it out to the twins. "I need you to go into Hogsmede and send this using an international post owl."

"Do you know how expensive those are?"

"Yes. And I also know how much money you two made this year with all those bets and tournament merchandise. Please. It's for Harry."

The two looked at one another, communicating silently in the way that she would never be able to understand before finally one nodded. Then the other. "Well do it," they said together, taking the envelope.

Once they got into Hogsmede, however, and out into the open a large snowy white owl swooped in and took it right out of George's hand.

"Oi! You get back here with that!" he shouted, chasing the bird as it rose into the sky.

Fred chased after him, stopping his brother from throwing another rock at the retreating bird. "Forge you idiot! That was Hedwig!"

"You don't think-"

"She's gonna do it-"

"Instead."

They looked at each other for some reassurance before George nodded, hoping he looked more confident than he felt. "Hedwig's smart," he said. "She can find anyone."

"Anywhere," his twin added.

When they returned to Gryffindor tower and told Hermione what had happened she was angry at first but then... "You're right. If anyone can find Captain America, Hedwig can."

Magic's threads were weaving and twisting and connecting things that had so long ago been torn apart by meddling wizards, would-be muggle tyrants, and mad German scientists on both sides of the great divide.

For as the old wizard in his tower plotted and planned, scheming of what to do next, a letter was at that same moment making it's way westward to the only person Hermione knew could – and hopefully would – help. So it was that Hedwig began her long journey west with one of the most important messages she would ever carry and not much time to do it in.

The-Man-Who-Lived-Again

Chapter Notes

This chapter is a bit disjointed, but it was the best version out of 4 drafts written so... voila! Enjoy. Next chapter we return to more MCU end of things.

Magic, it has been said many times already, is strange.

It does what it will, when it chooses, and to its own mysterious ends.

There is little rhyme or reason that any one person may divine.

Many had tried, and failed, and ended up becoming stuck in convoluted self-fulfilling prophecies that were always up for interpretation.

For instance, one man with so much smoke blown up his ass believed a prophecy spoken to him 15 years ago meant that it was a mother's loving sacrifice that had protected a special child from a baby murdering psycho all those years ago.

In fact, it wasn't a mother's love. It was simply magic working to ensure certain events that needed to come to pass would. And it would NOT allow any single misguided idiot – good or evil – to interfere with the chaotic yet natural order of its will.

If Magic as a whole were a person, it would have been very cross with one Albus Dumbledore more so than with Mr. Thomas Marvolo Riddle, for there must always be a good and an evil in the world so that the average man, woman, and child had something to aspire to. Something to cling to in times of darkness and help guide them. Figures of nightmares to remind them of the horrors of the world... and figures of strength and courage to give them faith that things would get better. That THEY could be better.

Magic had a plan, but when that plan was placed in jeopardy by a mere mortal who believed he knew best all because he saw a small child's face and thought he could change and shape and mold the story to his own liking well...

Never let it be said that magic ever made any damn sense.

Because magic was strange, and wild and could never truly be tamed.

One man needed a weapon and saw a child, knowing the potential that lay inside him. Knowing what that child could one day become. And he wanted to break him. To change him and in doing so alter the course of history to his own ends.

But magic is strange... and those who have faith know that to trust it and accept that it knows what it is doing, everything will work out the way that it should in the end...

One way or another.

And so a madman tried to kill a child and instead gave him a crown of gnarled lightning. In those brief seconds his vermilion eyes were clear and saw into the fabric of magic itself and saw the threads of fate converge. As the curse struck and the power of it carved the scar into the child's face, recognition dawned. He knew this boy. He knew him from years ago. A brash, foolish mudblooded foreigner who stood against him, defending that one handed blood traitor Septimus Weasley from Abraxas's righteous retribution. But this clarity passed quickly into madness as his body was devoured by the power of magic's will and the tatters of his soul cast into the winds by the threads of fate's convergence.

An old man hid a child scarred by magic's will and fate's protection. And another swore vengeance for slights yet to happen but which had already been set into the stones of the past.

It was a small matter of course correction.

An ill-matched wand and a whisper thin link between an innocent soul and one so broken and befouled that it could never be redeemed. A strong protection made purely out of predestination to ensure what must happen would always happen regardless of the interference attempted.

A misfired spell here. An accidental slip of a hissing tongue there. A rat as bait and an impossible riddle of werewolves and grims and lives to be saved.

All magic leaves traces behind. All spells and enchantments leave a mark. A residue that screams out I WAS HERE! It was the same principle an enterprising young American had discovered and studied and made into a special token for her non-magical friend. To protect them both from the fires of accusation and the liars tongues of Salem.

And it was the same principle that came into effect one hot night in June, 2013 as two wands that should never have been made connected with such perfect precision and skill that it could have only been guided by some divine hand of purpose.

Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort, destined enemies forced time and again to meet in battle far earlier than Magic itself had ordained for them.

A nudge to the right by the spirits that came forth that night rather than a nudge to the left was all it took for the combined power of the spells to reawaken the residue left to permeate the young boy for a year. The tiny little sparks of magic that had allowed him and one other to do the impossible and experience the same hours of their life again.

And in a flash of brilliant light the dome that had formed around them exploded. And Lord Voldemort was alone. His great enemy, his destined nemesis reduced to nothing but a shattered bit of wood and a smoking, broken core.

But we already know how the story of Harry Potter ended.

The boy who lived died at the hand of Lord Voldemort and the body of his fellow Champion returned to the school from whence it was taken.

And on the night of the last task in the deadly Tri-Wizard Tournament, Albus Dumbledore stood at the window of his office. He stroked his long white beard as he stared out across the empty courtyard deep in thought. He was waiting for the return of his most trusted informant with confirmation of what he already knew.

Harry Potter was dead.

And once again, Albus found himself burdened with knowledge that he alone knew the truth. A truth no one should ever learn.

If only Magic had agreed with him things might have been a bit easier.

But even now, events were unfolding that the old man in his tower and the psychotic wizard in his den of snakes could never have foreseen... or stop...

Harvey found himself in the strangest place.

He was at a bus stop.

A woman was sat on the bench, her head bent as she sat reading a book.

He found himself feeling rather awkward suddenly, naked in the presence of a dame. He felt a weight in his hands then and looking down found a pair of slacks and a plain gray shirt. He dressed quickly and found, when he glanced down to his bare feet, that shoes with socks were waiting there for him, too.

Once he deemed himself presentable, he walked towards the bench and smiled. "Is this seat taken, ma'am?" he asked, causing her to look up at him.

He felt his eyes go wide as she smiled kindly.

"M...Mrs. Rogers?"

"Hello, Harvey dear."

"You're dead!" Her smile dipped, just a little with sadness in the same way his Steve's always did when he thought of his mother. He felt ashamed for causing her any form of distress and wiped his hands on his thighs, feeling awful and nervous at the same time. If she was dead and she was here with him then...

"Am I dead now, too?"

She closed her book and patted the bench beside her. He sat, and flinched only a little when she moved to wrap an arm around him in a one-armed embrace.

"I... I suppose this means I... that is to say Steve and I... and Buck too of course we can finally..."

"If that's what you want," Sarah Rogers said. "There's a bus that comes by from time to time. You can always get on when it does."

"Why haven't you? Mr. Rogers must be awfully worried that you haven't come to him yet."

"Joseph Rogers was a deadbeat drunk. He can keep waiting for all I care," she said, lifting her chin in that same way Steve always did when he silently dared people to argue with him.

"What about Steve then? You can't keep him waiting."

"Who says he's even on this bus route anyway?" she asked, green eyes watching him shrewdly. "He might be somewhere else."

"The only place Steve could ever go is heaven. So unless this is the bus stop to hell, Mrs. Rogers, I'll respectfully disagree."

They sat for a little while like that. Mrs. Rogers with her arm around Harvey as he stared into the vastness of this strange, pure white space.

And then, it came. And she took her arm back and stood. She left the book on the bench and turned back to him with a smile when he asked, "Where are you going?"

She looked him up and down for a long moment, the bus waiting behind her. Finally she gave a small nod. "Home," she said simply.

He took a step towards her and the bus, but she put up a hand to stop him. "It's not your time yet, Harvey."

"I don't understand. I want to go. I need to go. The last two months of my life have been a living nightmare since Steve and Bucky... since they left me behind."

The driver was getting impatient. She held up a hand to him, a single finger extended. "Just a minute more... Just a minute."

The driver huffed at her, but said not a word.

Mrs. Rogers took him by the chin and made him look her in the eye like she'd done to her own son many, many times when he was so damn stubborn and willful. "You listen to me, Harvey. When I tell you it is not your time, then it is not your damn time. You won't find what you're looking for if you come on this bus with me. You need to go back. You need to go find YOUR Home. Do you hear me, son?"

"I can't. I can't go back," he cried. She looked thoughtful for a second, then leaned in and put her mouth close to his ear. He could feel the warmth of her breath – or maybe it was his imagination that he felt it – as she whispered something to him.

She stepped back and released his chin. "I'd better not see you here again any time soon or you'll see where our Steve gets his temper from, do you hear me?"

"Yes ma'am," he said quietly as she turned to get on the bus. The doors closed behind her, and he looked up to watch her, and it, drive away into the void.

Harvey sat on the bench a while, unsure exactly what it was he was going to do now. She told him it wasn't his time yet. But then...

In the late evening of June 26th, 2013 there was suddenly a loud boom heard over the quiet little hamlet of Little Hangleton.

There once sat, upon a hill overlooking the village graveyard, a manor house that had fallen into disrepair.

For the last year a foul creature had taken to living there with it's most loyal – out of fear – servant and an unusually large and abnormally intelligent snake.

Seconds after the loud boom there was an ominous flash of lightning yet there was no sign of rain or storm clouds. And summer lightning tended to keep to the skies otherwise.

On sensors half a world away, high up in a tower filled with gadgets and computers and all manner of advanced technology, an unusual but not entirely unwelcome event was recorded. The residents of said tower, save for one rather small one that was once again very much agitated for no discernible reason, assumed the readings on the sensors meant the return of a friend from another realm in the cosmos. After all, unusual lightning strikes were kind of his thing. So they thought nothing of it, and continued attempting to soothe the littlest resident of the shining beacon that was the Avengers Tower.

But in an office high up on the seventh floor of an ancient school of magic could be heard the sudden shattering of glass and groaning of metals as they bent and contorted so suddenly and so violently that those in the room when it happened could never have escaped injury were it not for the fact they all had magic. They all could cast a shield or conjure a bit of wood or table to cower behind. And among them an old man with eyes that hadn't twinkled in days suddenly felt the cold, clammy hands of dread wrapping around his heart. For those do-dads and whirligigs and little devices that went PING when they detected the slightest hint of dark magic used on a very special child had all gone deadly silent two nights previous. And there was no reason for them to so violently and so suddenly start working again.

Unless...

When examining the Champion's Cup in the wake of the chaos that was the end of the Tri-Wizard Tournament it was discovered the cup had been turned into an illegal port key. Under further investigation they learned it led to a graveyard where it was quite obvious some sinister work had taken place.

Aurors who had been assigned to investigate the site of Cedric Diggory's murder and Harry Potter's disappearance found no trace of the missing boy save for the clear signs of a struggle and a few splatters of blood that must have come from wounds sustained in the clear fight that took place there. Or from the final task of the tournament itself. Unable to do more, they left.

Save for two.

Their names were Kingsley Shacklebolt and Nymphadora Tonks. They remained and they waited for others to join them who were not aurors. They were, instead, members of a group that at this very moment were being called to action.

The two aurors were joined in short order by two men. One with long red hair and an earring and the other with scars across his face and hands, threadbare robes, and a tired look about him. He didn't want to be there. He wanted to be back home with his best friend, trying to keep him from doing something stupid in grief and panic after they had learned the news that their godson was missing.

Instead he was here because of his heightened senses. He might find something the aurors missed.

The extended and expanded search of the graveyard turned up nothing more than the presence of some men familiar to them. The werewolf could smell the lingering traces of his godson, stronger than others because of the splatters of blood here and there. And then there was the scent of that traitorous rat Wormtail. He could smell Malfoy, but he wasn't certain which one. But the stink of that foul creature executioner Walden McNair was unmistakable.

The two aurors and two other men were still searching the graveyard, casting obscure spells and looking in every nook and cranny for any clue when it happened.

The werewolf flinched first, the wolf picking up the sudden differences and changes in the ambient magic around him. The feral beast almost made him whine in a primal fear the man part of him did not quite understand. And then, he covered his ears seconds before it seemed the night sky had opened and exploded in light.

Lightning followed, striking the earth with such force that even the graveyard shook as if giants stomped in a stampede nearby. "Look!" the red-headed curse breaker shouted when it was over, pointing towards the hill in the distance where magic continued to crackle and smoke began to rise.

They moved swiftly, having to run because they did not dare attempt to apparate and find themselves dropped into something they did not know nor understand.

The four were stunned when they managed to reach the top of the hill and find there no longer the manor house that had been silhouetted against the moonlit sky. Instead there was a crater. The sides were steep and smoking and at the very bottom, when they cast lumos upon the tips of their wands in an attempt to see down into the bottom...

There was a man. Unconscious, but alive. Dressed in some kind of muggle uniform that was singed and charred in places.

They were unsure how to explain what it was they saw as lightning continued to spark around the man, briefly lighting up the basin of the crater but not enough for them to see clearly more than the details they already now knew. After finding that spells to retrieve the man's body from below fizzled out and failed it was decided that Kingsley and the werewolf, Lupin, would go down. Kingsley being the largest of the four and the werewolf being the physically strongest.

The two men drew closer until finally, Lupin stopped, unwilling to take the last few steps to approach. He didn't need to see with his eyes now. He didn't need to hear the shallow breathing to know what his nose told him to be the truth. Suddenly, he ran the rest of the way, shoving Kingsley from his path as he threw himself into the bottom of the crater and pulled the unconscious man into his arms. He was shocked by the magic arcing off the body but was unwilling to let go as he buried his face into the man's neck and breathed deep to satisfy the wolf that was trying to claw to the surface of his psyche now. To shield the youngest of it's pack. To protect it.

"Remus-"

The man snarled at the approaching auror who shone the light from the tip of his wand towards the man and the body. As Lupin shifted, the head rolled to the side, a scar across the man's throat looked old and nearly faded but that was not what interested the auror. No, it was the familiar gnarled scar that marred the spot above his right eye. The mark of lightning that had cursed this man's life from the time he was 1 years old.

"Harry Potter..." Kingsley whispered at first, then shouted up to the other two. "Get down here! NOW!"

"What is it?! Who is he?!" the woman called down to them.

"IT'S POTTER!"

Of Magical Places and Creatures, Too

As three teenagers prepared to fight the sinister machinations of a scheming headmaster, unknowing of the allies they had in the ancient magical castle, a seemingly ordinary owl flew one of the most important missions in its young life.

This owl, however, was no ordinary owl.

She was a post owl.

Like all post owls, she was bred and trained to deliver letters for witches and wizards and other magical folk. Unlike most post owls this one was quite special. All owls, magical and mundane, are quite intelligent. Magical owls doubly so. But this owl, with her snowy feathers and her wide yellow eyes did not have the same humble beginnings as most of her sort.

Her egg was laid on a farm in Wales. The farm was not famous for anything at all other than the fact its owners tended to grow their vegetables rather large. Award winning large in certain muggle circles. The owners of the farm were squibs, who's farm had been passed down from parent to child for generations upon generations. The owls, it was said, had always been there. Always roosting in the trees of the forest nearby. And at some point long forgotten had come to reside on the farm itself.

While it is true the ability to cast magic is bound to blood and passed, like this farm, from parent to child each generation... there is no guarantee that the magic itself will pass down. Just the ability to see its workings. To sense its presence. The spark of possibility and potential. There are many reasons magic does not bestow her gifts on mortal man. Some abuse it, and so it refuses to let itself be used by the generations that follow – until the lessons of humility and service have been learned. And some, like these humble farmers who have forgotten their past give their magic away freely to others. Putting it into the land they work and into the fruits of that labor. It's why their crops are always so bountiful. It is why their vegetables are always so abnormally large!

And it is why those creatures great and small born on this land are so very special. The best, tastiest meat. The most hearty of livestock. The most intelligent and capable of owls...

So it was that this owl, this humble creature that had been captured in the wild and sold to a mere pet shop found herself bought by a kindly mountain of a man and given as a gift to a lonely little boy. His only companion for many a long and painful summer.

And though he was ripped from her sight and senses for a short time, and came back grown and no longer in need of her stalwart protection, she was still his loyal and faithful friend and companion.

Hedwig was tired. She had flown for days and further still to go.

But she was made of sterner stuff than those ordinary post owls. Her egg was laid upon a plot of land so full of magic that she could not help but soak it in as she lay in her shell, forming and growing and waiting to hatch into the wide world outside her mother's nest. Magic filled her from wingtip to wingtip. It surged through her hollow bones and gave her strength in the absence of her most devoted human friend.

So she beat her wings and caught another current, the package clutched tightly in her talons as she flew across the wide open expanse from shore to distant shore.

The quinjet touched down on the roof of the Avengers Tower, signaling the return of the world's newest team of superheroes.

Well, the world's ONLY team of superheroes.

Steve could honestly say he was never so glad to be back home in his life than he was when JARVIS informed the ones that didn't have flying suits that Miss Potts was waiting for them by the elevator on the communal floor. With a visitor. JARVIS would not, unfortunately, go into more detail other than to say "Sir has said it is a surprise for Captain Rogers' birthday."

"Oh God," Clint muttered under his breath. "That could mean anything..."

Natasha actually smiled as she said, teasingly, "He might be trying to set you up on a date. He's the only one that hasn't tried yet."

Bruce hadn't been paying much attention until then, which hearing what he did he spluttered a bit. "Hey!" he managed to get out. "I didn't know the guy was trying to flirt with him! I thought he was just being nice and giving us a free muffin!"

"With a phone number written on the little paper plate," Clint snickered as the elevator came to a stop.

Steve sighed, shaking his hanging head. "Guys, really. I appreciate you're just trying to help but I don't need anyone else. I'm perfectly happy with the way things are."

"You're lying," Natasha said. "And you're not very good at it."

"Just please," he said, the elevator door opening onto the commons. "Stop trying to set me up with people," he said as they stepped out of the cramped space. All further conversation on the subject of Cap's love life – or lack thereof – was cut off by the laughter of two women and the infectious giggles of a very happy 6 month old.

The visitor, it turned out, was Jenny Barnes. Old but still so full of life and vigor. Along with, the woman herself said, spite and vinegar. With a touch of liquor.

She had come at the behest of her eldest sister Rebecca with a message. A message that she'd said was private and could he please step over to the side a moment for a bit of privacy.

Of course Natasha, Clint, and Pepper had looked to Bruce in hopes he'd tell them what the two were talking about.

Only to see him wince at something that was said just before the old woman reached up and slapped Captain America across the face with a nice, hard, echoing slap before standing there with a hand on her hip and the hand that hit him being shaken out from the force of it.

Natasha leaned in close to Pepper, who was holding Harlan so he couldn't see what was happening, and said "I've never seen him look so... so..."

"Ashamed?" Pepper suggested.

"Yeah."

Pepper looked down at the infant in her arms and cooed at him. "Daddy's just being told off," she said sweetly. "Because he didn't go visit his friends when he woke up from his nap."

Jenny spent the rest of the afternoon and evening at the Avengers Tower with Steve in his suite. The pair catching up on everything Steve had missed over the years and then some. She absolutely adored little Harlan, and after she told him about moving in with Mrs. Blackmoore with her sisters before Rebecca went off and got married, he told her about magic.

"I know," she said. "It was a little hard to hide it when I caught Mrs. Blackmoore making potions in the kitchen late at night. And then there's my great-nephew's daughter. Sharp as a whip she is. Just like mom. And as stubborn as my brother, too." She played with the little boy's foot, causing him to giggle and offer her a gap tooth smile. "Harvey would have liked her, too. When she wasn't dragged out of the house to visit relatives I'd find with her nose in her books and doing homework of all things. During the summer!"

They laughed. Steve wasn't afraid to admit that he'd cried a little when he told her what he knew about Harvey after he forced the plane down. And what happened to Bucky with the train. She hid her tears by cooing and cuddling and playing with the impossible child her brother's old friend had miraculously brought with him through time and the worst odds imaginable.

When it was finally time to say farewell, his cheek was still stinging from the slap she gave him when he'd admitted he... sort of forgot to look her and her sisters up. And then with the aliens, and the baby, and the whole superhero thing. She forgave him, but only after she'd slapped him as hard as she could for it, telling him, "THAT was from Becca. I'd do it again from me and Iris but your face'll break my hand."

Now though, they hugged after Happy had opened the door of the car Stark had insisted be used to take the woman home. She stood up on her tip toes and gave him a kiss on the very cheek she had slapped. "You're coming home tomorrow," she said firmly. "And you're bringing my nephew with you."

"Jen-"

"No arguments. We have so many birthdays to make up for and you ARE coming tomorrow or so help me Stevie I will come back here and this time I won't just give you a love tap to the face."

"You've gotten mean in your old age," he said, but he was smiling all the same.

"I'm not even getting started," she said. And with one more hug, she climbed into the back seat and waved goodbye. He watched as Happy pulled out of the garage, waving until the car made it out of sight.

When he came back up to the Avengers residential floors, he crossed paths with Stark on his way to find where Natasha had run off to with his son.

"So, how was the walk down memory lane?"

He shook his head, glancing away from the man and smiled. "Thanks, Tony."

"Don't thank me," he said. "I was out with you guys chasing down those arms dealers, remember."

"Still... thanks. I didn't realize how much I needed that."

Stark – no, Tony – just shrugged and shoved a Milky Way in his mouth as he went back to work on his tablet.

Happy had driven him out to Brooklyn Heights, chatting politely along the way. Steve almost left Harlan home but decided he'd best bring the tiny tot. He didn't want to get slapped by not one, but all three of the Barnes sisters for one reason or another on his birthday.

He was glad he'd changed his mind when he looked out the window to see the house he was brought to. Breath catching in his throat as he remembered the last time he was there. The morning after Erskine had stamped his papers with a 1A.

Mrs. Blackmoore had made him a late breakfast. She'd done her best not to cry too much. They talked about the letters from Harvey they'd each gotten recently. And about Bucky shipping off early that morning... and Steve's own departure in just a few short days.

The house didn't look as dreary outside as it used to. When he'd stepped out into the daylight, grabbing the Captain America themed bag his teammates had bought for the baby - all of them finding the running theme of the toys and blankets and little outfits hilarious – Happy had gotten out to get the stroller from the trunk.

This item, thankfully, was not in the colors of his father's uniform. Instead it was red and gold, because the damn thing was made by Tony Stark so of course it had to be in the colors of the Iron Man. Happy helpfully got Harlan out of the car and into the stroller. "Mr. Stark said to take as long as you need and give me a call when you're ready to head home."

Steve nodded, tearing his gaze away from the house with the crooked shutters across the street. Despite the paint job it didn't look much different either from the last he'd seen it. He blinked away the tears that threatened to come when the sight of it reminded him of the last time he spoke to Harvey. Trying not to say goodbye. Trying to... well... it didn't matter now. Harlan gave an annoyed shout, kicking his feet and waving his arms to get Steve's attention. "Alright little guy. Don't make a fuss. We're moving."

Happy drove away as Steve turned the stroller on the sidewalk towards the old, familiar house. The front door opened and Jenny's wrinkled, smiling face beamed at him as he made his way up the walk. "Sorry if we're late-"

"Stevie, it's your birthday. Don't apologize for anything. Now get in here before my sisters die of old age waiting to meet their newest little nephew. Been a long time since I've had little monsters running around this drafty old place."

It wasn't a very big gathering. Just the three Barnes sisters, a couple of their children, and a couple of their grandchildren. One of THEM had a 2 year old that kept asking if he could play with "Unca Hawwy" and kept trying to share his snacks with the 6 month old.

Though there weren't a whole lot of people, it was still awkward at first. Here Steve was, threatened to attend a birthday party for himself by a woman – three women – who looked older than him but were actually younger. And their kids who also looked older than him. Hell, some of their grandchildren were sort-of older than he was!

After the first hour though, when much of the awkward introductions and polite conversations one has when meeting new people were had, Steve had to admit it was pretty nice. Sure the faces were wrinkled and sagging and a reminder of all the time that had passed him by in the ice... but it was different with the Barnes sisters. These were girls he'd known since childhood. Hell, he'd been around to see Winifred Barnes pregnant with Jenny! But they didn't consider him as just their older brother's friend. He was family. He was Uncle Stevie (and in some cases "Uncle Wheezy Stevie") in the stories they told to their children. And their children's children.

And while all three of the women were pretty upset that he didn't bother, not once, to spare them a thought after he was found and thawed out... they forgave him for it. They welcomed him. With his favorite flavor of cake, a table of comfort foods and an open invitation to drop by and visit with them any time he felt like it.

When he had spent three hours in their company, Steve got a text from Tony asking if he was done yet. A follow-up from Natasha telling him Stark was bored and had run out of people to annoy. And just a picture from Bruce showing they had roped JARVIS into helping keep Tony occupied by locking him in some random bathroom in the building.

"Is everything alright?" Rebecca had asked him after the third time she'd spotted him checking something under the table.

Caught out, Steve shook his head and smiled. "Just... my friends checking on me."

Eventually guests said their goodbyes, and they were thanked for coming. Told not to be strangers and keep in touch. And six hours after he had arrived at the home that used to belong to his lover's mother, not knowing what to expect, he found himself alone with just himself, his sleeping son, and Jenny. And he didn't want to leave.

"You could stay the night if you want. Heaven knows I've got plenty of room."

"I don't want to intrude-"

"Oh no. It's getting on in the evening and your kid's asleep. You're staying put Stevie. I'll order some Chinese and then go get one of the guest rooms ready. I think there's a crib in the attic. We can get it down after dinner and set it up in your room."

"Really you don't have to go to the trouble. I can just call the driver and-"

"Are you still allergic to shrimp and shellfish? IF you are, tell me now so I don't order anything that might get me sent to prison for killing Captain America. Toilet Merlot does NOT agree with me."

"No. The serum... Wait, what?!"

She laughed and got up from the table, stealing a quick glance at the stroller where the tiny tot was sleeping quite happily. "Go pick a room. I'll order us up some dinner."

He'd chosen the room he used on the rare occasions he and Harvey spent the night together, visiting Mrs. Blackmoore on Middagh street. Usually Steve was too sick those times to bother with trying to get home in the cold of night. Other times... like a night or two around Christmas...

The room was much changed though, from the last he'd seen it. The four post bed with the canopy had been exchanged for a more sensible and simple frame. True to her word, a crib was found, wiped down and put together again in the room he'd chosen. A small mattress followed with some clean linens. He had offered to help but she had rebuffed him saying she'd had enough practice she could out the thing together and have it ready in her sleep.

"After her son... well, Mrs. Blackmoore decided to open her house up. Taking in war widows and orphans. Becca, Iris, and I ended up here after the landlord found out Buck was dead and kicked us out. Becca had her fella already though so she didn't stay as long as Iris and I did."

"And you never left."

She shrugged. "Didn't see a need to. And... when she was getting on in years she needed someone to take care of her. I knew her son would do the same for any of us if he could. Seemed only right," the old woman said, looking down at the crib with a tired, but fond smile before wishing him a good night.

Surprisingly... surprisingly it was the best night of sleep Steve had had since waking up in that fake SHIELD recovery room. He slept through the night. No nightmares. No tossing and turning. Even Harlan slept straight through the night, tuckered out by all the excitement of the day before.

She had spent little time resting once she had spotted land. She wasn't so dumb an animal not to know the difference between a tree and a building, but these buildings were much... larger than she was used to.

This place where humans lived much larger than she was accustomed to. She had seen places like this a few times. Her human usually had her in a cage as they traveled to and fro near the ground.

The owl reached out with her senses, fighting off her exhaustion as she gripped the package she carried tightly. Searching for that... spark that each human had until... there. She circled the tall tower again. And again. It was faint, but there. A trace of the human she sought, her mission almost complete.

Lightly spotted white wings beat the air as she rose higher as she followed the trail. Getting stronger and stronger until...

Well...

If an owl could be surprised, this one certainly was at this moment.

It was a house, like many other human houses.

But this one steeped in magic. Old and warm and... familiar.

As the sun started to rise, she slicked her wings back, diving towards the building in which the human she currently sought was hidden. From window to window she flitted trying to find a way in before, at last... she perched on the outer ledge. Yellow eyes peering in and finding the human asleep on the strange human nests they liked to keep. She peered inside as much as she was able with each tap of the glass with her beak and spotted a tiny human. Also asleep in a strange cage of wood, in which a little nest also was kept.

She tapped. And she tapped.

And she kept tapping as the large human inside began to stir.

The sun was coming up now, and she was so very tired. The package she carried held in one talon while the other kept a firm grip on the ledge.

Just when she thought the human would not wake, and she would be forced to... well... she didn't like going down the tall, long dark tunnels to be found at the top, as often the got far too warm and hot near the bottom. But wake he did. And she watched as he sat up in his nest and rubbed at his face, like she had seen her human do so many times before.

She tapped again. More insistent this time. More urgent.

The window was soon opened and she dashed inside for fear if it closing again before she could complete her task.

Tiredness and exhaustion took over as she aimed for the human's soft looking nest. The human, surprised by her sudden arrival did not see the package she carried for him and gave a shout. Soon, there was another human, and the tiny human was making loud noises.

Hedwig closed her eyes and settled down once the package was taken from her at last.

Her mission complete, she finally let herself sleep.

The Letter

Chapter Notes

The first week of the month is always super busy for me (bills and stuff are due, plus other monthly errands) which I had planned for during my writing and posting. What I did NOT plan for was getting so sick I've been stuck in bed for two days (it's not Covid, so don't worry. Winter colds affect me worse than most people because a med I need ends up screwing my immune system). So with the next chapter that will be posted after this, I thought you deserved a little treat.
Here is Hermione's Letter, which originally wasn't going to be posted in full but you guys have been commenting and bookmarking like mad, and I want y'all to know I appreciate every single one of you even if I haven't responded to your comments yet.

---

June 27, 2012

Dear Captain Rogers,

I have little doubt the method in which my letter has arrived is shocking to you given you fought alongside a wizard during World War 2. If I am mistaken then I sincerely apologize for it. But this is a matter of life and death and I do not have any other way to contact you from where I am this moment. It is my hope that this letter reaches you quickly but even post owls have their limitations so it could very well be a week or more before you receive this.

My name is Hermione Granger. I am 15 years old. I am a witch. I live in Oxford, England. I attend a school of magic called Hogwarts where recently an international tournament has taken place. I will not bore you with the details of the tournament itself, Captain Rogers, but the end result of the final event that may interest you greatly.

One of the champions chosen was my best friend, Harry James Potter. He was 14 years old at the end of the tournament. He and another boy, Cedric, were kidnapped sometime during or just after the final event. We do not know what happened to the two boys or where they were taken. We only know that Cedric was killed and his body returned to the school... Alone. My friend Harry disappeared and it was assumed he, too was killed.

Two days later he was returned to us but he was greatly changed. That was yesterday, June 26th.

Now I understand this may seem strange, my writing to you about this matter at all. However I believe you may hold the key to where, or rather when, my friend Harry disappeared to.

Last summer I visited some relatives in America. While this may mean very little to you, the trip was very enlightening as well as troubling to me. I came across a wizarding photograph, a photograph that moves on it's own in a continuous loop, hanging on the wall of my great-great aunt's home. I do not think she knows what sets it and many other items in her home apart since she is a muggle. In America you and she would be called No-Maj for having No Magic. This photo was of yourself, sir, and your team of soldiers the Howling Commandos. Before realizing the photo was magical in nature, I had been looking at it so that I could see more of my great-great uncle, Sergent James Barnes. But there was another man in the photograph that drew my attention.

My friend Harry was attacked as an infant by a very evil wizard. That man murdered his parents but was not successful in killing my friend. He survived what no one before him ever had, a spell my kind call the Killing Curse. That night Harry Potter became known by the title around the world as The-Boy-Who-Lived. But a horrible title was not the only thing Harry received. Though he survived the attack, he was left with a permanent disfigurement. A very distinct scar on his brow that looks very similar to a cloud-to-ground lightning strike.

Based on everything about my friend that I know, and the things I learned last summer about my great-great uncle and the men he fought alongside, I believe my friend and yours are the same man. I do not know how he came to be so far from home and so far from his own time, but in the two days that he was missing, he managed to live an entirely different life. One that though it ended in tragedy, I am led to believe was a much better life than he had before.

Where we are right now no muggle can find nor reach even if they could. By I have two friends that will help me get him out of here and we have very little time to do this. I hope we manage to do it before my letter reaches you and it is simply a matter of making arrangements for you to come get him and take him to somewhere he will be safe. But if we are unable, I hope you will put your considerable resources as an Avenger into coming to England and doing what I may not be able to.

Please Captain Rogers, help us. I fear that if certain people learn the truth of what has happened to him he will never be free.

Help save my friend, and yours.

Sincerely,
Hermione Granger

P.S.
I have included photographs as proof.

It would be very difficult, if not impossible even with the use of magic, to replicate the curse scar that mars Harry's face.

We Must Have Faith...

Steve had been having such a nice, pleasant dream for once.

He didn't have much of those in the last year what times he did sleep.

He'd dreamed about Harvey often. When he was pregnant and, dare he admit sometimes so damn horny and keyed up that even Stark of all people looked like a damn good option during the day, he'd dream about Harvey using those handy spells of his to keep him bent over a table, his old USO costume ripped to shreds and...

Well... no need to get too excitable now...

The point is, with the occasional exceptions of some really pleasurable dreams... Steve didn't generally have normal, pleasant and happy dreams. Most nights were plagued with nightmares. Or the biting cold. Dreams where he was found before the war was over only to watch Harvey and the Commandos killed. Dreams where he himself wasn't even present but just watching as Harvey drank himself into a reckless stupor.

But this dream... This dream's rarity was such that he never wished to wake from it.

In it he was just... happy. Time didn't matter – the place where he was in the dream was a hodgepodge of the familiar and the futuristic. There was no war. Loki had never attacked Earth. No pain. No loss. No... no serum. And he was there, with his wizard, curled up under the blankets with cups of hot chocolate and laughing and Bucky was there, too and... and it was so warm. So nice. So... so damn near perfect that he never wanted to wake up.

They were laughing. Telling impossible, stupid stories to each other and everything was...

There was the tapping. A slight, almost there sound at first covered by the laughter and the stories and hidden by the steam of the never-ending cocoa in their mugs and...

There. Just there. "Do you hear that?"

"Just the wind," Harvey said.

"Or another damn death rattle," Bucky added. "Never know with you."

But Steve ignored them as they argued between them, shoving shoulders and poking fun. The truth of it was, he heard something. Because this wasn't real. It couldn't be real. Buck was lost in the mountains when he was thrown from the train and Harvey was... Harv went and got his ass killed on a suicide mission and Steve wasn't this small anymore. He wasn't this weak and sick and-

He moved to stand, to look for the source of that God forsaken tapping but a hand reached out quickly and clasped his wrist.

"Don't go..."

Steve's gaze followed that hand up the arm. To shoulder then neck and... he couldn't. He wouldn't look in those eyes. "This isn't real," he said, the tapping getting louder and more insistent. "It's just a dream."

"Just 'cause its in your head punk doesn't make it less real."

The edges of the dream were fading, darkening into something he didn't want to see if he stayed here, sleeping. The tapping was louder. Louder and God damn if he didn't get up and see what it was then he'd have one hell of a pissed off 6 month old soon.

"Please... Don't leave me here..."

Steve pulled his hand away and then...

He opened his eyes and stared into the room, slowly lightening with the rising sun. The tapping continued, and he pushed himself up, rubbing at his eyes with a frown as he tried to dislodge his already fading dream. It was pleasant, he recalled. And warm. And...

"Alright! Alright! Damn. Knock if off," he said as he climbed off the bed and closed the distance between himself and the source of the sound.

Which was a bird.

A bird sitting on the outside window sill.

He stood there for just a moment, quite perplexed by... an owl? An owl pecking at his window. Well, if it kept it up the damn thing was going to wake his kid. Harlan didn't like his beauty sleep being messed with. Opening the window with the intent to shoo the thing away, he was caught off guard by it darting inside towards his bed.

He gave a shout of surprise, then glanced at the crib before looking back incredulously at the bird. "What the hell?"

He was cautious in his approach. This was, after all, a wild animal as far as he was concerned. But then again, was that?... Was that some kind of parcel?

Curious what it might be, he put his hands up so the bird could see them, hopefully know he wasn't going to harm it, and then reached out to grab the thing hanging from one of its talons.

There was a knock on his bedroom door before it was swung open to reveal Jenny in an over-sized fluffy orange robe. "What in the hell is all that racket?"

"I don't know!" Steve exclaimed, then winced when he heard the first annoyed and hungry cry from the crib.

"Is that an owl?"

"...Y...es?"

"Must be foreign. Those magic folk here haven't used owls since the 60s. Everyone's using phones these days. Or FedEx." she said, crossing the room to see to the squalling babe. "I'll take care of the tiny wonder. You deal with this," she said, nodding towards the now sleeping owl on his bed.

Alone with the owl, Steve ran a hand through his hair as he looked around the room, not quite sure what to do. Any time Harvey had got mail from the magical sort, it was sent- well... it was sent here. To his mother's. For him to pick up later. Because of the laws that... had changed.

He pulled a chair out from the desk near the bedroom door and sat, turning the thick envelope over and over in his hands curiously before he finally spotted the writing on the outside. Hysterical laughter bubbled up – he couldn't help it. The absurdity of the situation was just... It was ridiculous. He didn't really expect magical people to be sending him mail. As far as he knew, the two worlds were still as isolated from one another as ever. America was more progressive about it from what he'd learned since coming back into the world. They were trying to ease the public into blending the magical and the mundane worlds – like the use of modern communication rather than owls and pigeons.

But still...

All this over a bit of fan mail.

He shook his head, chuckling as he tore open the envelope and dumped its contents onto the desk. His amused smile faded, though, seconds later as glossy photos and newspaper clippings fell out with the pages of a handwritten letter.

A chill went down his spine and he could swear he felt the icy waters rising again, threatening to drown him in the cold and the dark and for just a few seconds he was back in the Valkyrie. Alone and scared and with no way out.

The letter was ignored in favor of the images. Some moving, others static. Trembling fingers reached out, picking up the first one he touched. Three young children, waving at a camera while standing outside of a scarlet colored train car. All three dressed, clearly, in those funny robes he used to see when they'd visit Nocturne and Diagon. A frizzy haired girl with buck teeth, hugging a book to her chest was stood next to two boys. A tall, lanky looking redhead stood with an arm slung across the boy in the middle's shoulders.

The boy's glasses slid down his nose, and he reached up in the picture to push them back into place, perfectly framing bright, haunting green eyes. But that... that wasn't what had brought Steve's attention to the photograph. It was the scar on the dark haired boy's head. A scar he knew almost better than his own.

He put the photo down and picked up another. Then another. Clippings and photos laid out, spread across the desk as more and more questions rose up in his mind that he could not, in any way, answer. Curiosity gave way to utter confusion until he picked up the only item he had yet to handle.

The letter that came with them. The handwriting was a little hard to read in spots, but the more he read... the more he read the more he could feel his eyebrows inching their way into his hairline. He couldn't believe what he was reading. And had to read it a few more times just to be sure his perfect recall hadn't suddenly failed him now.

Steve gathered up all the photos and stuffed them back into the envelope, giving nary a thought to the owl still resting on his bed as he ran from the room still wearing only the sweatpants Jenny had let him borrow for the night. The letter was crumpled in one hand while the envelope was clasped tightly in the other.

"Jennifer!" he shouted urgently as he raced through the old Brooklyn town home.

"Kitchen!" she called back after he'd shouted her full first name for the third time.

When she turned around, spatula in hand as the baby sat in the highchair safely away from where she was working at the old gas stove, it was to see a wild eyed Steve with the parcel the owl had brought in hand. "What's wrong?"

"He's.. He's alive."

"What? Who?"

"Harvey!" he exclaimed, still feeling the shock at the news contained in the letter.

Jenny turned the flame down at the stove and put the spatula aside so she could give him more of her attention. "Stevie-"

"I know it sounds crazy. I know it does. Really. But look!" he said, stepping further into the kitchen and finding a clear space of counter top to put down the envelope. He uncrumbled the letter and offered it to her first.

It wasn't long after reading the first few sentences that she gasped in surprise.

Her eyes widened as she looked up from the letter to Steve, then back down to the paper again. "I... I don't..." she started as she turned to lean against the counter in disbelief shortly before understanding dawned on her. "That's what she meant..."

"What?"

"The girl that wrote to you, Hermione... She and her parents came to visit and stayed with me. I took her to museums and places around the city. She seemed to really enjoy it and I didn't have much else to do. We saw an exhibit about you that was thrown together in a bit of a hurry since you'd been seen fighting those aliens a few months before." She reached to the side a bit, picking up one of the photographs that had her great-great niece in them. She and the boy all this fuss was about were sitting under a tree with school books. Bundled up in matching scarves and with a jar sitting between them, a soft blue fire inside it. "I sat that part out, but she took the little tour. When she came back to me after she seemed a little down and said she didn't know. I thought she meant not knowing she was related to THE Captain America's best friend. That I and my sisters had known you, too."

She sighed and put the letter and photograph down on the counter before she returned to the stove. "I didn't realize she was talking about some magic thing." Jenny picked up the spatula. "There's nothing we can do about that letter right now. The tot's had his breakfast, and I pulled out a play pen for him after you went to bed. You go on and get dressed and I'll call you back down when it's time to eat."

"Jen-"

"No arguments. Even Captain America can't plan a rescue mission on an empty stomach.

She accompanied him back to Avengers Tower, considering the situation a Family Matter. And if there was one thing any of the Barnes family took more seriously than their own safety, it was that of their Family. A family that had adopted Steve back with he was just a foolish, skinny, sickly upstart.

The team were a little surprised to see Jenny Barnes again so soon. But that wasn't what caught their attention and kept it... it was the owl that had decided, after she had rested, to come along.

To come along and perch herself on top of the baby's stroller like she belonged there.

"Is that an owl? Did you buy an owl?" Tony persisted as he came down from the workshop where he spent much of his down time. "Why is there an owl sitting on my-" and he caught an elbow from Natasha as he passed. "OW!" he exclaimed. "Fine," Tony said, rolling his eyes as Natasha gave him a dirty look. "OUR godson's stroller?"

"We tried to leave it back at the house," Steve said tiredly. "But she followed us all the way from Brooklyn."

"What?"

Jenny was still rubbing at her hand from when she tried to shoo the thing away from the baby, but got bit instead. Not hard enough to break skin, but hard enough to leave a mild scratch and hurt. "In some parts of the world, magical people still use owls to send mail. A bit like carrier pigeons."

"Have they never heard of e-mail?"

"The last I saw, their sort in Europe are even further out of time than I am. And that was in the 40s," Steve said, eyeing the bird which eyed him just as suspiciously. "It seems to really like Harlan though so I don't think we have to worry about it with him."

"So this thing came all the way from Europe?" Clint asked from up in his perch. "Why?"

"To deliver this," Steve said, taking the envelope Jenny had packed in her large purse. "To me. From her great-great niece."

Tony grinned brightly. "Oh? International fan mail! So not fair you get it and we don't!"

"Not... exactly..." he said, turning to Jenny with a frown. "Can you catch them up?"

There was a knock on his door just a few minutes after JARVIS informed him that Stark was on his way with Jenny. Steve was sitting in the floor, toys scattered around them and a bit of lunch still stuck to his shirt. He called out for them to come on in, and JARVIS must have relayed it because Tony wasted no time.

Under his arm he carried both the envelope and a StarkPad. Jenny didn't exactly look pleased but she did her best to hide it around the kid... and his new pet owl.

The owl was perched on the back of the sofa, preening itself as yellow eyes watched the newcomers suspiciously.

"That thing is plotting my death," Tony said. "I just know it."

"It's fine. Once it warms up to you. Or you feed it something."

"Oh?"

"It uh... stole the meat from my sandwich."

The owl hooted gently from its perch before giving the newcomers one last look. It then returned to it's grooming.

Jenny shook her head and sat down in a nearby chair, putting her large purse between the arm and herself. "Tell him what we found out."

Finally Steve looked up, pausing his game with Harlan and giving Tony his attention.

The man moved to sit on the arm of the sofa, at the opposite end as the owl. "I had JARVIS scan in all the photos. With Jennifer's help we were able to track down everything about the girl until she turned 11 years old. A couple weeks before her 12th birthday she was suddenly withdrawn from public school. That checks out with the weird magic school thing. Couldn't find anything on the redheaded boy but... we got a hit for the goofy looking one."

"And? Is it him? Is it Harvey?"

Tony nodded, but hesitated before offering the StarkPad. "She said he uh... had an accident?"

"Yeah. His mom found him beat half to death on the sidewalk. She adopted him not long after. Everything before he was found, he couldn't remember."

"That might be a good thing," Tony said, holding out the pad. Steve turned to his son, handing him a different toy to occupy him before he got up to sit on the sofa. Then, he leaned over and took the StarkPad. "That's everything JARVIS could dig up on this Harry Potter kid starting from one year old to summer last year. There isn't much after he turned 11. Mostly CCTV from some stores and public buildings in a town called Little Whinging."

"Anything that isn't there," Jenny added, still scowling a bit. "I'm sure Hermione can fill in for us when we arrive."

It was July 7th before Steve, Tony, and Jenny were able to take a quinjet out of New York. Of course... they also had to dance around SHIELD sticking their nose where it didn't belong. That, and calming Cap back down after he went over the intel Tony and JARVIS were able to scrape together took a bit of time. And nearly a dozen punching bags.

Harlan was happily being doted on by his overprotective (and personal favorite for this week at least) godfather, Bruce.

Jenny insisted she go, because her family were involved. Steve, obviously, wanted to rescue his son's other father from whoever had him, and Tony? Tony just wanted to see what human magic was like compared to what he'd already experienced with Loki last year.

Unknown to the three of them, until they had arrived of course, there was a stow-away.

A yellow eyed and feathered little opportunist who didn't want to fly back across an entire ocean.

The moment the ramp on the quinjet lowered, she darted out of her hiding spot and flew circles high in the air to stretch her wings before perching herself on top of the car waiting for them.

The trio went to Oxford first to seek out the Grangers who were expecting Jenny to visit for a few days before the family were meant to go on vacation... to look for a new school for their daughter.

The Grangers were NOT expecting Jenny to bring along guests.

Very Famous Guests.

When Mr. Granger opened the door, he didn't see them. Not at first. Instead he saw his great aunt Jenny who he believed was on a No-Fly list, among other US government watch lists for... various activities in her youth. He said it was good to see her. She said she wished she'd come sooner and for happier reasons. They hugged and he was a little confused.

And then he saw them.

The two famous guests getting out of the car.

"It's a nice neighborhood," Mr. Granger heard Captain America himself say as he came up the walk. But surprisingly it was not seeing the man family stories always called Uncle Steve looking younger than he was just... just there in his front garden. No, it was the other man in the expensive suit taking off his sunglasses to get a good look around.

"It's... quaint," Mr. Stark said before focusing on the two people in the doorway and starting towards them. "That's a word they use over here, right?"

Captain America rolled his eyes and chuckled good naturedly

"What? Just trying to fit in," Tony said.

"I...I..." Mr. Granger managed to get out as Tony Stark himself came to a stop in front of him and his great aunt Jenny. The man offered his hand. Mr Granger stared at him instead, wide eyed and disbelieving. "I...Iron Man. At... at my..."

And then he fainted.

Steve rushed forward to catch him, but wasn't quite fast enough as the man fell against the door frame and slid down, bumping his head on the way.

Tony stared down at him a moment before stepping over him and going inside, leaving the unconscious man to his aunt and Steve. "That did not go at all like I expected."

Unnoticed by all, the owl that had taken flight when the trio had driven off from Stark's private hangar now settled itself on an upstairs windowsill at the back of the home, pecking at the glass to be let in by the teenage girl crying on her bed inside.

It was another hour before Mr. Granger came around and the three visitors were able to explain why they really came.

Mrs. Granger was at work, the two of them taking turns staying home with their now expelled daughter. Today happened to be Ian's turn.

"Expelled?" Jenny had asked as Steve handed the man a fresh plastic baggie of ice for his head. It was wrapped in a dish towel.

"She won't tell us why. Just that she has to get into a new school before THEY come and make her and us forget she was ever a witch."

Tony and Jenny looked to Steve, their only real source of information in the world of Magic, even if his understanding was outdated and limited. "They can do that?" Stark asked.

Steve nodded, not sitting back down. He crossed his arms over his chest. "The wizards in America only did that to a witch or wizard when they committed a crime. First time, they'd erase all the no-maj's memories. Second time they'd do some spell to lock away a wizard's magic for a while. If they did it again, then they'd end up in prison," he explained. "Unless the crime was telling people like us about magic in the first place and they weren't family. Harv and I got lucky. With how sick and useless I was, they didn't see me as a real danger."

"If they only knew..." Jenny said with a wry grin.

"There's something else though," Steve said, looking to Tony with a frown. "There's other spells and things that can keep a person from talking and giving up secrets. I found out it was one of the safeguards for the formula. Erskine's idea when he found out about the spells. Each wizard that helped with the changes had this cast on them to keep the part they worked on a secret."

"Shit... even if they DID manage to recreate it-"

"They'd never have the whole thing. And even if they did, where are people like you and me going to get things like shaved unicorn horn?"

Tony gaped at him. "Unicorns are real?!"

Before Steve could answer, a quiet voice said from the doorway to the sitting room... "Yes. And it's not shaved. It's powdered. Shaved doesn't... doesn't dissolve properly into potions and is only used in aesthetic decoration or wand crafting."

Four faces turned towards the door where a teenage girl with red rimmed eyes and tear stained cheeks stood, one arm raised so that the snowy owl had somewhere to perch as she nipped affectionately at the girl's unkempt and frizzy hair. "Hermione..." Ian Granger said, rising from his chair and dropping the ice pack onto the nearest available surface so he could go to his daughter. The owl left her to sit atop a bookshelf, one of her favorite perches while visiting with her human's friend.

The girl rubbed at her face before letting her father hug her. Steve tried to distract himself from their hurried, whispered conversation by looking around the room. "Are all these-"

"Mine?" the girl asked as she was led to the chair her father had just vacated. "No. My mum's mostly. Mine I... I have to keep upstairs."

Tony didn't want to waste anymore time and got right to the meat of the matter at hand. "Cap got your fan mail. Clearly you weren't able to do much of anything before we got here. So, what did you do, how'd it fail, and who's ass do we need to kick?"

"Tony!"

"What? We can sit here drinking tea and eating scones all day or we can get what we need and go rescue your kid's idiot dad."

"TONY!"

"WHAT?!"

The girl stared at them with wide, brown eyes. Then she looked at her great-great aunt in confusion. "Wh..."

"Don't think too hard on it, dear. You know better than anyone how weird magic can be."

"He...they... a..."

"Baby, yes," Jenny said as the two men argued between themselves.

"How?"

"It's all rather complicated. But oh you should see him. Sweet as a button and the cutest little boy I've ever seen," she said. "And he's got such bright green eyes. They sort of follow you around a room."

Jenny watched as the family witch's confusion morphed into something else. Something... something a bit harder. Stronger, even. As if the girl had made some kind of decision.

Hermione looked back to the men in her parents sitting room and stood with a decisive nod before giving a sharp whistle that cut them off. When she had their attention, she smoothed out her wrinkled shirt and took a steadying breath. Letting it out she looked at one man, then the other. "Mr. Rogers," she said, settling her determined brown gaze on Steve. "I require an escort to St. Mungoes Hospital."

"But-"

"I cannot tell you where it was he was last held. Since my expulsion, that knowledge has been hidden from me. But I fear he may no longer be held there and has been moved to another location. One that I will not be allowed to know." She looked to Tony then, and shook her head. "Mr. Rogers is correct there are ways to keep people from speaking of certain matters. Hypothetically speaking if I were to have been subjected to such a piece of magic then I would need to have myself examined by healers who are oath bound to keep the results confidential lest their lives be forfeit. Hypothetically if such a piece of magic were performed on my person without my consent it may be possible to remove it by the use of expert curse breakers. Curse breakers may be hired at Gringotts Bank, for a fee, to anyone who holds an account with them."

"You know... for a 15 year old, you're very well spoken," Tony remarked.

She smiled for the first time since coming downstairs. "I spend much of my time reading and writing very long essays."

"Do you hold an account with the goblins?" Steve asked her, knowing she didn't come from a magical family so it was a possibility that she didn't.

She shook her head. "I don't," she said. "But I'm pretty sure you do, even if you never set foot in the place yourself."

"What makes you think that?"

She looked at Steve like he were the dumbest person on earth. Perhaps he might have been in that moment as she looked from his face, then down. He realized she was staring at his hand. The hand with the silver ring on it. She didn't say a word, but he knew then what she meant. If Harvey had an account – and he was sure the man did – then when they accidentally married, he gained access to it.

"Hypothetically," Mr. Granger started, having picked up on the fact that Hermione was able to speak about what had happened to her – sort of – as long as she didn't state it as an outright fact. "If you saw these... healers and doctors and bankers then you'd know where your friend is?"

"No. But a distraction could be made. There may or may not be people involved who may or may not need to do something to protect themselves and their lofty reputations. After that, it's just a matter of reuniting a familiar with her wizard. Hedwig can find anyone, anywhere, behind any protective barrier or spell. We don't know how she does it, but she's the best owl there is. And if she can't find him, no one can."

The owl on the bookshelf actually barked, puffing up her chest at the high praise.

"Won't the fallout make things harder for you here? You've already been expelled and clearly you're a target-"

"My parents have already agreed to send me out of the country for my schooling. While America wasn't exactly on my top three, I'm sure my relations there wouldn't mind-"

Before she could finish her sentence, Jenny was grinning from ear to ear. "I've got plenty of room. It'll keep you close to your friend even if he doesn't remember you. And you don't need to hide your books in your room. Everyone in the family knows and if they don't then they will soon enough anyway."

"Really?"

"As long as it's alright with your parents, we'll take you back with us when we leave."

The girl turned to her father, who didn't look very happy about that. He shook his head. "You and i need to talk to your mother first. Then, maybe, we'll send you to live with Aunt Jenny."

"Take it or leave it, kid. That's probably the best you'll get," Tony said, already tapping away on his phone to get everything on the non-magical side of things lined up and ready.

Family Tree 1: Potter/Blackmoore/Evans

Chapter Summary

Non-story chapter post.
While you lovely readers wait for the next chapter (I had to re-write half of it, that's why the wait!) I thought I'd give you something to hold you over.

Chapter Notes

This was made using a program called Mindomo, which is why it looks kinda wonky. But it's pretty easy to follow along, and I included a "key" to what means what. I just like colored boxes so that's why every name has a colored box.

To view largest (i think) click here.

...That Things Will Work Out...

Chapter Notes

Happy Valentines Day my lovelies! Here, have the latest chapter!

I want to take this time to thank you all for your kind words and for waiting so patiently for this chapter. It gave me a bit of trouble and had to be re-written a few times as i found myself losing the plot and delving into side plots that honestly, i don't want to deal with.

Please enjoy and I hope to have the next chapter up sometime this week. Thank you all so much for reading, bookmarking, kudos and comments even if I haven't responded to some of you. I appreciate them all very much.

June 28, 2013

With Hedwig on her way westward, Hermione and the twins knew they didn't have much time. Students went home after breakfast on July 3rd, and they only had a few short days to plan this out. They would only get one chance.

What the twins didn't know was that the plan they would come up with together was merely one part in the greater plan Hermione had come up with on her own. It came to her when she sat down to write the letter to Captain Rogers. When Harry Potter was involved, the odds were always skewed. She did the math. She did the Arithmancy and runic equations.

Someone wanted Harry in that tournament, for what purpose they may never know. According to what the twins had learned while sneaking about the last few days and listening in where they weren't supposed to... the headmaster fully believed You-Know-Who was somehow back again. And it had something to do with Harry's disappearance and Cedric's murder. There was no doubt that something sinister was going on in the school every single year. And now a student had actually died as a result. Hermione did not want to think about what may happen next year... Especially now that everyone believes Harry to be dead as well.

The Daily Prophet wasted no time in publishing a Memorial Edition in Harry's honor.

No, she had a plan that was destined to fail by design. Because Hogwarts, she knew, was a bloody fortress. No one would be able to reach Harry here. It was a shame that Hedwig had swooped in and taken the parcel herself, because she had been part of the plan. But... she supposed that in a pinch, if she could find a way to convince the goblins to help, they might have a way around wards and other manner of hiding things and people. She would just have to give them a really good reason to help her was all. Otherwise, Hedwig could have been used to find Harry again after the assumed failure of her plan.

For now though she sat watching the map behind her bed curtains by the light of a blue bell flame bottle. She marked the prefects and the routes they took. The closets and alcoves they checked. She noted down which professors had night duty that night, knowing they rotated every two days so they could plan for a night that Snape was NOT the one on duty. The man seemed to have some kind of a sixth sense when it came to Harry that she dare not risk setting off if she could help it.

The young witch thanked her lucky stars that she had so much practice with long and sleepless nights in her third year, otherwise she'd have fallen asleep hours into her long watch.

June 29, 2013

The Weasley Twins were not idle as Hermione did the planning.

They did some plotting of their own with their make-shift portable potions lab.

They had roped Lee Jordan into testing out some of their worst ideas. The ones they didn't have a counter charm or an antidote for.

The reason?

To scope out the infirmary of course.

They'd gotten the Creevy brothers in on it, too. And might have slipped Seamus something in his pumpkin juice.

To even it all out a bit, they managed to get some of the Ravenclaws, too thanks to a very helpful Dobby the house elf. It was also from Dobby that the twins learned about the protections set up around a very specific bed in the infirmary. Protections that the headmaster put into place himself to guard against even a house elf's magic.

When they reported their discovery to Hermione, she huffed in annoyance and went back to her parchments, setting three on fire before she began scribbling furiously again.

June 30, 2013

Severus Snape wasn't a nice person.

He wasn't even a good person.

Hell, the only reason he had begged his Lord to spare Lily's life was so that he could have the woman to himself. The only reason his Lord had agreed was because she had already given birth to a son, proving she was fertile. Good, strong magical blood was hard to come by these days. He would never be allowed to marry her, but she would make a fine broodmare for the one that brought the Dark Lord even just a fraction of the prophecy that foretold of his doom.

So no, Severus Snape wasn't a good person.

He had carved that part of himself out years ago when he was bestowed with his Lord's gift upon his arm.

It was only bitterness and resentment that kept him at the headmaster's side now. And a promise for revenge. And it was his vow to the old codger that stayed his hand as he brewed the potions asked of him for the idiot boy that had caused him so much trouble from the moment he drew his first breath.

But revenge could be taken in other ways.

Such as in what the headmaster has asked him to do now.

They had moved the boy – though he appeared to them again in the form of a man Severus would always look on Potter as an inconvenient child – to a private room during the night after having been informed by an ever grateful and tearfully relieved Sirius Black about a very special map. A map that revealed the locations of everyone in the castle.

Severus had suspected its existence but could never prove it. Now though... Now he could do what he wished to the boy just shy of killing him and none would be the wiser.

But for now, Severus contented himself with this small task. He had witnessed Lucius Malfoy's memory of what transpired the night their Lord was born again. And he had yet to tell his Lord of the boy's return. Severus wanted to know how the boy had survived before taking the news to his master. Or at the very least he needed some kind of clue or information that would lead his Lord to the answer himself. For if the boy could survive such powerful, lethal magic then surely his Lord would desire to know how he may do the same and perfect it.

The boy had been kept unconscious by the potions he had provided under the guise of helping him rest and recover. In reality, he simply didn't want to have to listen to his whinging, nor did he wish to have him reveal too much. Surprisingly, the headmaster had agreed with him and approved of the potions' usage.

And now... now that the boy was isolated and alone, with him, he simply waited for him to wake on his own now that the potions used to keep him asleep had not been administered again.

July 1, 2013

"They moved him in the night," Hermione said to them at the first opportunity. "I watched as they disappeared off the map in the lower dungeons. It's possible the makers of the map never explored that far."

"So we're going to have to go down ourselves and do it," Fred had said, looking to his brother. "This puts a wrench in things."

"We were planning to spring the trap at dinner tonight."

"We can't let this sit too long," Hermione had said, chewing her thumbnail in thought. "Snape is on watch tonight but tomorrow it's Professor McGonogall. She always patrols in her cat form so no one can see her coming. So if we're going to do this, we need to do it during a meal. Dinner tomorrow will be our last chance. Explore the lower dungeons tonight and if you find him, don't spring him yet. Make a note of where and how, and we'll plan in the morning."

July 2, 2013

Hermione watched them all night. Each time they disappeared off the map her worry would spike and her heartbeat would race until she saw their names come up again. Always in the strangest of places, too. As if they'd found secret tunnels that, perhaps, Professor Lupin and his friends had found but never explored before.

When they returned to the tower just before dawn, she handed them each a pepper up potion and a note telling them where to meet her after breakfast. A place with no portraits.

The first thing George asked once the door was closed and his twin cast their special privacy spells was, "Did you see Professor Snape at all on the map last night?"

"No. He was supposed to be paroling but-"

Fred kicked a chair in the unused classroom angrily. "I knew it! We should have blown that door open and-"

"And then what?! We'd both be dead!"

"What is going on? What did you find?"

The twins told her of a secret passage they'd found. Guarded by an empty frame. They had almost turned around to go back when a nearby painting hissed at them. Then again when they nearly got back to the end of the hall. Turns out it was a painting of a blond girl with blue eyes. She held a book, but her mouth was smudged a bit. She could only make grunting and hissing noises. But once she got their attention, she indicated for them to follow the girl back down the corridor. When they did, she appeared in the empty frame. After a game of charades they were able to figure out her portrait was a secret passage. After trying everything they could think of, finally they were about to give up.

Until...

"I was hungry so I dug around my pockets for something to eat."

"He found candy wrappers and chocolate frog."

"She perked up at the candy wrappers though."

"So we thought it might be-"

"The password was right there-

"In Fred's pocket!"

Hermione's eyes went wide as they told her how they worked their way through naming every candy wrapper Fred had. When none of them worked, they asked her if it was even a candy and she nodded at them very enthusiastically. So they just started naming off candies they could think of.

"So? What was it?"

They looked at each other a moment, then nodded and turned back to her. "Sherbet Lemons" they said together.

"T...t...the headmaster is... is in on this?"

They shrugged as she demanded they finish their tale so they could work on getting to Harry and getting him out of the castle.

And they did.

The more they told her of what they had found in that secret corridor, the angrier she became. The entire corridor, it seemed, was warded against even house elves. And each room they found was worse than the last. Finally, they found Harry.

They couldn't see much and the large metal door was locked. But they were able to peer through what looked like a slot in the door. Sounds were a bit distorted and they couldn't see who was in there with him but...

"He was chained up like an animal. And his screams... Harry doesn't... He never makes a sound, even when he takes a bludger right to the head," George said softly as Fred angrily kicked another chair. "We have to get him out of there..."

"And we will. I promise."

"There's something else," Fred said, rejoining them now that he got most of his anger out. "We don't think he knows who he is, or where."

"What?"

George nodded. "We heard someone in there with him. We thought it might be Snape but couldn't be sure until we asked you."

Hermione nodded, and Fred picked up from there. "They kept using some spell on him and after, when he'd stop screaming, shout a question at him. But he always answered the same way. Every time."

"How?" Hermione asked, leaning closer. "How did he answer? Did you hear what he said?"

"Blackmoore, Harvey Abraham," George started and Fred picked up from there, "First Lieutenant."

"O385587," they finished together.

George shook his head. "Over and over again, the same thing."

"Do you know what it means?"

Hermione nodded. "I do. Remember when I told you he lived a whole other life in the past?" They nodded. "He joined the muggle army. He fought in a war. Soldiers are trained to give only their name, rank, and a special number if they ever get captured. That way they don't give up secrets." She looked away, trying her best to keep her composure and to keep from crying. "He... he thinks he's a prisoner of war."

"What do we do? How do we get him out of there?"

"You two draw out map and directions to the secret painting. We go ahead with the distractions at dinner. I'll go after Harry myself."

"Alone? Are you insane?!"

"I'm muggleborn. If this works, I have somewhere I can take him that they'll never find him. But if I get caught they can get rid of me and no one in this world would care. They could make my parents forget I was even alive," she said. "But not you. Everyone knows about the Weasleys. Everyone knows about the two of you. If two pureblood sons of a well known house go missing people are going to talk. They're going to want to look into it. And if I fail then you'll have to be the ones to save Harry for me. Promise me you'll do whatever you can to save him and keep him safe."

The twins shared a silent conversation then slowly they nodded.

With no classes to take her time, Hermione spent the majority of the day preparing herself for that evening. She memorized the map. She practiced every unlocking and lock-picking spell she had ever read about. She checked and rechecked the bag Dobby had given her with potions and poultices to help his human hero heal. And then she examined the map. Plotting out her route and the best way to travel with a potentially unconscious body. She would need to use Harry's cloak to hide him, since she couldn't quite get the disillusionment charm right.

At the last minute, an hour before dinner, the twins came to her with a box. "Take it," they had said. "It'll be easier to move him if he doesn't cooperate."

They had a point. Even before all of this, Harry could be a stubborn ass about things.

"We cleared out the potions lab and turned it into a small apartment. There's not much. A cot and a couple of boxes. Some candles and an oil lamp. Dobby helped us."

She hugged them each in turn and then they showed her how to set a new password. Then... "Just in case right before you go get him, eat this and then set the password. Don't forget to tell it to Dobby too. After you've passed him off to Dobby, eat the blue one," Fred explained.

"Why, what do these candies do?"

"They're called Forget-You-Wills. Eat the yellow one, then do something you don't want anyone to know about, then eat the blue one and you'll forget you even did it. How do you think we're able to get away with so much stuff. If we can't remember we did it, they can't prove we did it."

"That's... how long have you two had these?"

"They're the first thing we ever invented!... We think."

She hugged them again and put the shrunken box, and the two wrapped candies into her pocket. "Good luck," George said to her, giving her a kiss on the cheek. Fred elbowed him, raising a brow before they said goodbye. There were distractions to set up, after all.

While Severus had spent his time trying to get the truth out of their... guest... among other things from the man's rather stubborn mind, Albus had been forced to field questions from those that had found him.

As well as weave his web in such a way to ensure certain secrets never came to light. Certain secrets that just days ago he had believed to finally, truly be dead and buried decades ago.

His agent in America had informed him of many things in the letter Fawkes had retrieved for him hours ago. The most important of which was the grave of Lt. Blackmoore remaining well tended yet undisturbed. However, spells detected there was no rotting corpse within the coffin that sat buried six feet underground.

This presented a problem for Albus. It meant that there were larger forces at work. Forces outside of his control. Forces that, he realized, he may have made rather angry with his actions to save and capture Gellert all those years ago.

Which was why he had to keep the Potter boy isolated until he knew for certain his secrets would not be exposed by him. Until he knew what, if anything, the boy remembered from their final confrontation in Romania. So far, all Severus had been able to get out of his memory were images of war and battle with muggles and strange weapons. And the name he used in the past.

And one other thing... the one thing he was willing to tell the two men sitting before him right now in the parlor of the new Order headquarters at Grimmauld Place.

"He does not remember who he is," Albus told the two men who, days ago, were grieving the loss of a boy they thought of as their own. "He believes himself to be someone else. A man I knew a very long time ago."

"How is this possible?"

"Will he ever remember-"

"I do not know. And until we can learn the cause of his memory loss, I cannot let him out of the safety of Hogwarts."

"But the Fidelius-" Sirius started, but was interrupted quickly.

"Is not foolproof as the two of you well know. I am the secret keeper here, but that does not mean agents of Voldemort will not attempt to discover this secret. I must always be vigilant," he said, then slumped some to layer on the tired, old, weary act. "You must understand Sirius... Remus... the man Harry believes himself to be was very dangerous. He could kill without compunction and cast the killing curse without hesitation. No, the best place for him right now is in isolation at Hogwarts under the care of our very own Madame Pomfrey."

"Then when can we see him? If you won't allow him to come to us, then we'll go to him," Remus said. "Perhaps familiar faces of those he cares about may help jog his memory."

Albus shook his head. "No. Not until we have unraveled who has done this to him, and why they wished him to think he was someone else. Someone I knew in my youth and witnessed him die in battle right in front of me."

"A trick of You-Know-Who?" Sirius suggested desperately.

Remus though... Remus wasn't so certain. He had been there when Harry was returned to them from... from where he could not be certain. But he did know that Lord Voldemort, though powerful, was not so strong as to control the elements themselves. There were few who could. The werewolf was not as ignorant as most wizards and witches. When one world wouldn't allow him to work to survive, he would go into the other one. The muggle world. And things, he knew, were changing rapidly among them.

For instance, Remus knew of only one person with the power to control lightning. The muggles called him Thor, but he had not been seen for quite some time now. Though he doubted the muggle hero had anything to do with Harry's disappearance and reappearance. It just... let Remus think outside the box most of his kind tended to keep themselves in.

And Remus knew whatever was at work here... whatever purpose Harry's absence and memory loss served... it would remain beyond their understanding until whatever had caused it deigned to give them answers or resolution.

For now, he contented himself with the fact the youngest of his pack was alive still. That he had survived whatever trials he had been forced to endure. And that perhaps, one day, his pack might be put back together again.

Hermione put in an appearance at dinner. Just long enough to put together a quick sandwich to take with her, begging off the closing feast with an excuse about needing to go to the library. Her fellow Gryffindors – well, most of them – understood. They missed Harry, too and were dealing with the loss of their friend and housemate in their own ways. They all knew Hermione's preferred way of dealing with things was to go to the library. To hide among her books and old scrolls.

So no one thought anything of it when she had, with red rimmed eyes and tear stained cheeks, said she needed to go.

She went as far as she dared before hiding in an alcove away from the prying eyes of portraits and donned Harry's invisibility cloak. His belongings were already gone from the castle other than the cloak and the map. Dobby had been very insistent about keeping his favorite human's things safe for him.

The girl hurried through the castle, keeping one eye on the map and the other on the corridors as she worked her way to the dungeons. She consulted the twins' notes on different paths there, avoiding any that were marked with a large S to denote Professor Snape's personal wards that were set throughout the dungeons.

Just as she was reaching the hidden corridor, she looked down at the map and saw... no longer were students names lined up so perfectly in their rows at the tables. The twins had set off their great distraction.

Hermione hurried down the hidden corridor, watching the frames to either side and finding them all empty. All save one of a blond girl with sad blue eyes and a smudged mouth.

She pulled off the cloak, stuffing it into the pouch on her hip as she approached the painting. "Sherbet Lemons," she said as confidently as she could. The painting did not move... not right away. "Two boys were here before... I'm here to save the man inside. Please... please help me."

The painting nodded and moved out of the frame, and as she did so, the wooden frame cracked and fell away, the canvas collapsing to the floor and revealing the way forward.

"You didn't... you didn't have to destroy your own-"

The girl's eyes almost twinkled in mischief as she gave a nod and pointed towards the hole. Then she moved to another frame. And the one she had previously inhabited also broke.

Hermione thanked her, then checked the map again. The map... the map that began to fill in on its own as she continued on. "So that's how it works..."

She didn't waste any more time, tucking the map into her back pocket as she pressed on. She ignored the doors to either side of her, casting a lumos to light her way as she sought the door at the very end. The door of metal. She tried a couple of unlocking spells, then lock-picking ones. None of them worked. A familiar groaning came from the other side as she opened the slit in the door to peer in. There was no light so she stuck her wand tip through to try and see further. A vague shape of a body, hanging limply from the wall opposite the door.

And it groaned in pain.

Knowing she didn't have much time left to get him free, she called through the door. "My name is Hermione. I'm here to save you. Keep your eyes closed."

She closed the slot and took a step back, checking over her shoulder before she waved her wand around to get a good look at the stonework surrounding the door. It was old. Far older than much of the rest of the castle. Perhaps... just perhaps...

Hermione did the math quickly in her head. It SHOULD work. She only hoped it did.

Taking another step back she extinguished her lumos and raised her wand again. "BOMBARDA!" she shouted, pointing her vine wand at the corner of the door, just above where it joined the wall and pushing all of her might into the spell to blast away at the stonework. "BOMBARDA!" she shouted again. And again and again. Up, down, across. Hitting the points around the door that appeared the weakest. And then, finally, she cast a summoning spell on the door, stepping out of the way so she wouldn't get hit with it.

The door didn't want to give, but she snarled the spell again despite the dust and damp that threatened to choke her up.

Once the door was free, she cast lumos again and checked the map.

The chaos had spilled from the great hall out into the corridors. So far... so far the staff were still attempting to contain the mess. Everyone was still there, except of course Trelawney who liked to keep to herself in her tower.

She tucked the map away again and went in, covering her mouth and nose from the dust as she rushed to the man hanging from the wall by his wrists.

"Oh Harry..." she whispered mournfully as she took in the state of him before examining the rest of his cell. There was a dirty bed, and what appeared to be a nightstand that was covered in potion bottles. No doubt Snape's doing. She took the trunk out of her pouch and opened it wide, having already eaten the yellow candy before ever setting foot into the great hall that evening. The lock-picking spells made quick work of the chains at his wrist and the manacles at his ankles. He crumpled to the floor, and she heard the crack of his knees as they hit the stone. He gave a shout of pain before trying to drag himself towards the open doorway.

"No! You have to get in the trunk! I can't carry you any other way!" she exclaimed, rushing to him and pulling on an arm to try and get him to move. He tried to shove her away but didn't have the strength left. "Please, you have to trust me! I'm trying to help you!"

Green eyes, angry and accusing turned to her before... "B...B..." a hint of recognition flashed in those eyes, but it was not recognition of his first ever true friend. It was a different name that came off his busted, swollen lips. A different name that the strangely accented voice whispered. "Becca?"

Hermione shook her head and did her best not to cry as she realized he thought she was someone else. She did, she had to admit, look a little like her great-great grandmother had in her youth. She knew they were running out of time, so she did the only thing she could think of to do. She petrified him, then used the wingardium leviosa charm to lift him up and drop him into the trunk. Then, she slammed it closed, cut her hand, and smeared it across the lock, reciting the password setting charm and quickly adding her chosen words.

Once it was set, she took out the invisibility cloak and draped it over the trunk, then grabbed one end and lifted. The feather light charm the boys had put on it helped her move quickly back down the corridor. At the very end, there were two frames left. She wished she had the time to stop and examine each broken frame. To discover what was so special about them and what purpose they served. Alas... this was one mystery Hermione would never solve.

"Thank you," she said to the girl in the painting. The girl nodded and pointed to the pathway beyond. Somehow... Hermione knew once she passed back out into the rest of the dungeons they would know someone had come down here. With the map in one hand, and her other still wrapped around the handle at the end of the trunk, she took the first step out of the hidden passage and then began to run.

It was a game of cat and mouse through the castle. She never made it to the Shrieking Shack. Then again... A Hermione did make it there. And was found to be Ginny Weasley instead an hour later.

A Ginny Weasley who had thrown a piece of blue candy into her mouth and swallowed it just before she was caught with an ordinary empty school trunk.

Ron was caught near the second floor girl's loo only because he ate the blue candy and got confused as to why he was wearing a girl's uniform and lugging a trunk around.

Neville, Seamus, Dean, and Katie Bell were caught in the general chaos that broke out after some rather loud alarms started to sound during the existing chaos that was the greatest prank ever pulled at Hogwarts, resulting in an indoor fireworks show and food fight.

Each of them found to not remember drinking from a bottle of Polyjuice potion that was passed to them by the Weasley Twins.

Hermione herself had been forced up into the castle rather than down and out and was trapped on the seventh floor with no escape. Snape was closing in on one side while Professor McGonogall was closing in on another, followed closely by the headmaster.

She ran down to one end, then the other and back again, fretting on how she was going to escape. Apparition was impossible. The elves could come and go as they pleased, but could not take people with them. She didn't want to risk what might happen to a trunk with a person inside it!

Just when the girl was about to lose hope, she spotted a door. With no other option she ran to it and pushed it open. Slamming it closed behind her, she looked for and found a lock. The room was bare. Save for a single fireplace large enough for a person to step through and a round table at waist height in front of it. The table had a small metal box on top.

"Dobby!" she called out, and the elf came to her instantly with a pop.

There was a banging on the door.

"Miss Harry Potter's Grangy. This isn't Shrieky Shack-"

"I know. But... Can elves use the floo network?"

Dobby looked at her, confused, but nodded slowly. She put the cloak and the map in her pouch of potions and gave it to Dobby. The elf took it and frowned.

"Good. He needs lots of healing. Take the trunk and use that floo over there. Go! Now!"

"But Miss Grangy-"

"GO!" she shouted, shoving the trunk towards the elf and pulling out the little blue candy.

Dobby nodded, taking up the end of the trunk and dragging it towards the fireplace.

"Take him to the same place you took his things. Do you remember the picture I showed you? The one with the strange muggle with the blue eyes?"

The house elf nodded.

"Don't you dare let anyone but him or me come get Harry. You understand?"

Dobby nodded and reached for the box to grab a hand of powder. The elf threw it into the fireplace and Hermione couldn't help but smile when she heard where Dobby had taken Harry's things, and where he took him now. It was... weirdly appropriate.

"One more thing, Dobby! The password!" she called out to him before he stepped into the fireplace. "The password is 'Brooklyn'."

He nodded to her again and stepped into the flames.

Hermione threw the candy into her mouth and chewed it quickly, drawing her wand and turning to the door. Dobby disappeared with the trunk in a swirl of flames and ash. The door of the strange, mysterious room was blasted open and Hermione blinked in confusion as she tried to figure out... why was she holding her wand. Why was she here? Where was she?

There was little time to figure anything out before she was struck with a red light and knew nothing else for quite a while.

July 3, 2013

She didn't remember much, but judging by how frantic and angry people around her were... Whatever she had done must have worked.

She saw alone in a classroom. It had been used to detain and question everyone that, according to the twins, had used polyjuice to look like her. But they couldn't remember what or why just... that it had something to do with helping her with something.

"We must've used the candies," Fred had said before he and his brother were retrieved by Snape.

Now, she was the last one to be questioned. It had taken all night, and no one had come back once they were taken.

She got to her feet when the door opened unexpectedly and the tapping of something hitting the stone floor could be heard.

Her wand had been taken from her before she'd woken up in this classroom, so she couldn't really defend herself unless she picked up something and threw it. Or used a chair like a club.

She was surprised by the two people that had come to fetch her.

"P...Professor McGonogall?"

"There isn't much time, Miss Granger. Something here is not right and you're at the center of it."

"We need you to tell us what you did and why you did it."

"I don't know anything. I... I wanted to help Harry."

"Mr. Potter's dead," the man she knew now to be the REAL Professor Moody said.

"No he isn't. I know that for sure."

The two professors shared a look before Professor Moody gave a nod and turned his attention back to Hermione. "We don't know what your game is, girl. But it's a dangerous one. What's the last thing you remember?"

"Leaving the great hall. I was going to the library to read before going to bed last night. Next thing I know, I'm in some room with a floo and-"

"We couldn't trace the floo. That room doesn't exist."

"Then how-"

Professor McGonogall frowned. "If Hogwarts did something to help her..."

"Is Harry alright? Where is he?"

"Only you know. But you can't say, can you?"

She shook her head. "I don't..."

The door opened again and before Hermione could get her bearings, she heard Professor McGonogall quickly exclaim that, under her authority as the deputy headmistress of the school...

Hermione Granger was expelled from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for the blatant disregard of school policy, endangering her fellow students, breaking and entering prohibited areas of the school grounds, and anything else she could think of from the last four years of the girl's education that could be even a small point in favor of her expulsion. Followed by a saving grace...

"Given your otherwise excellent academic record, your expulsion cannot be reversed however you will have thirty days to secure enrollment elsewhere under the 1937 Ministry of Education Decree that all students age 15 or older who are eligible to take the Ordinary Wizarding Level tests have 30 days to secure a tutor or enrollment at another accredited institution so that he or she may take the required tests. As you are 15 years of age, Miss Granger, I suggest you speak with your parents about hiring a tutor."

The girl was so flabbergasted she didn't know what else to say or do when Professor Moody took her roughly by the arm and dragged her past Professor Snape and caretaker Filch to 'personally' escort her from the school grounds.

House elves had gathered her things and brought them to the entrance for her. She was instructed to take up one end of the trunk and the professor would accompany her to Hogsmede Station where she would wait for an Auror pickup.

Once they had passed the school gates however...

"You can tell no one what happened here."

"I... I was expelled..."

"For your own good, Miss Granger. If she hadn't expelled you the way she did, your wand would have been snapped and you'd have been cast out without your memories of even being a witch. If you were lucky."

"I don't understand..."

"And I hope for your sake you never do. You did a good thing last night. We don't know how you did it, but maybe it's for the best. Go home, tell your parents you were expelled and find a new school. Away from England and Scotland. Don't even go to Ireland. Get as far away from here as you can."

The auror that came to the station to get her and take her home was warned that she'd best get there in one piece.

Hermione's parents were confused about the fact their daughter arrived on their doorstep with an escort in strange dress rather than they going to pick her up that evening as usual.

She didn't tell them what happened. Instead, she had grabbed her trunk and run into the house, going straight upstairs to her bedroom. She looked through her trunk for her wand, but could not find it. Perhaps... perhaps, she thought, it was better that way. Who knows what she'd done with that wand while she was running around doing who knows what.

July 4, 2013

Hermione awoke after a night of crying herself to sleep to discover a letter on her nightstand. A letter with her former professor's handwriting on the outside.

She opened it quickly, and started to read.

Slowly, she started to smile. She wasn't as abandoned as she thought after all.

It was a letter of recommendation for her from her former head of house. With instructions to take it and use it to find a new school, a better and safer school.

She tucked the letter into her drawer for safekeeping before sneaking downstairs to get some breakfast and to face the music.

July 7, 2013

Hermione had sat, looking through her old books to try and find a solution to her memory problem, only to get frustrated and throw the thing across the room and throw herself onto her bed in tears of sorrow and aggravation.

And she would have stayed that way more than twenty minutes had it not been for the tapping at her window. Already she'd had owls coming and going, bringing letters of condolences and others questioning what she did to get expelled. It seemed even during the summer the Hogwarts gossip mill continued running strong.

But this time, when she looked up, ready to yell at yet another owl, she stopped. She stared at the big yellow eyes of the white owl on her window sill.

"Hedwig?!" she exclaimed, moving to the window and unlocking it. She lifted it quickly and the bird came in to circle her room before settling on her desk, as she always did when Harry sent her to visit during the summers. "Oh Hedwig... it's terrible! I've been expelled and Harry's missing and... and you knew that already didn't you."

The owl merely hooted at her softly.

"I sent a letter. The twins said you took it... it's a bit fuzzy. Whatever effected my memory I think might have tried to take other things, too. Connected to what I did... Connected to Harry."

The owl just hooted, puffed up her feathers, and made herself comfortable.

"If you're here then... that must mean the letter! You got it there?"

Hedwig barked and stretched our her wings, puffing her chest out proudly.

"Of course you did. I never had any doubt."

She moved to the desk, reaching out to stroke the bird's feathers gently with a smile. "I hope it works. Now that you're here, I can tell you the next step. You'll have to guide everyone to Harry. I'm afraid I was caught and they might have moved him somewhere else but... I don't know where or how."

Hermione moved to the bed to sit, and Hedwig followed, hopping along the girl's quilt before nipping at her sleeve for more scratches and affection.

They sat there like that in silence as Hermione tried to put her thoughts in order. Tried to think and recall everything she could from the last week. Some things, she realized, were missing that shouldn't have been. Things from before dinner on the second. She knew she had A plan to help Harry. But couldn't remember the details of it. She would need to see a healer, she was sure, to figure out what happened. She might never know depending on what was done to her.

After a while, she decided to go down the hall to get a drink of water from the bathroom, and when she did Hedwig followed, perching on her shoulder and nipping at her hair as she went down the hall.

She stopped, though, just at the top of the stairs rather than continuing on. She heard muffled voices below. One of them she recognized as her father's but the rest... She titled her head to the side, and Hedwig mirrored the movement. She thought she recognized another one, but that wasn't possible. Couldn't be. Her father had told her why they had to go visit Aunt Jenny instead of her coming to them. She was banned from flying. So why did she hear her now?...

Hermione went downstairs, reaching out to the rail to keep herself steady. Hedwig hopped from her shoulder down to her arm, talons taking hold of the girl's shirt sleeve.

She followed the voices, curious who could be visiting and heard, most definitely her father and her great-great aunt. Quietly she tiptoed towards the doorway, finding it cracked and listening in.

She peered into the room but didn't dare touch the door just yet. She saw two men with her father and her great-great-aunt. One man was standing and another sitting. But she couldn't quite see their faces.

One of them, the one standing was talking when she'd come up to the door. "-ven if they did, where are people like you and me going to get things like shaved unicorn horn?"

The one sitting seemed to gasp in surprise before exclaiming, "Unicorns are real?!"

Hermione pushed the door open then, now knowing that the guests must know about magic otherwise they'd never be talking about unicorn horn as some kind of ingredient. Quietly she said, "Yes. And it's not shaved."

Four people turned to face her in the doorway as she continued. "It's powdered. Shaved doesn't... doesn't dissolve properly into potions and is only used in aesthetic decoration or wand crafting."

...The Way They Are Meant To.

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

The Dursley family were visited on June 25th by two of those... those Freaks.

When they left, they had been left with a bag of gold coins and a death certificate.

Vernon immediately wanted to go sell off the coins, ranting about finally The Boy had some kind of value.

Dudley was... confused. His father was overjoyed by the news that his freakish nephew – his own cousin – was dead. That boy had been nothing but trouble Dudley's entire life. And now they never had to see him again. So why was his mother upset? He didn't understand.

Petunia Dursley had shut herself in her and her husband's room and after a quick trip to the closet to retrieve a shoe box, she sat down at her vanity. A place was cleared away, her make-up and perfumes set aside to make room for the box and what was tucked away inside.

With trembling fingers, she took out two more, nearly identical pieces of paper. The Freaks used a different sort of paper in their world. It had a different weight to it. The texture a little rougher.

She had told Vernon years ago that she had thrown away these particular papers. Along with the few other tokens that had been given to her after the passing of her sister and her husband. For years she covered her grief and her pain, blaming her nephew for her sister's murder. Mistreating him with the excuse of attempting to force the magic out of him – her grief twisted mind seeing it as somehow saving him from the same terrible fate as his mother. But now... years and years of guilt heaped upon shame at her own selfish actions threatened to drown her as she placed the first two into a neat little stack with the freshly written third.

She tried to be strong. She tried to hold it in. But Petunia was never the stronger Evans sister. Petunia was prone to vanity and irritability and all manner of unkind and unflattering traits of personality. So she let go of her composure.

Vernon had forced his way into the room one time, and wisely left it with a change of clothes so he might sleep on the sofa instead rather than have to listen to his wife's hormonal whinging and broken sobs the whole night.

It was three days before Petunia finally left the bedroom to do more than use the bathroom and to drink some water. The box was tucked back into the top of the closet, out of her short, fat husband's reach.

She spent the following days attempting to resume her usual routine during the school term. Wake up, feed her family, clean her home, admire her garden... Only now she avoided her garden. Couldn't bear to look at her prize roses and the begonias and... and everything. It all reminded her of her nephew. Of her sister.

So she watched telly instead. Or she read a magazine. Or she went to the shops. Anything to avoid looking at her garden.

However, on the morning of July 1st, it all fell apart again. Over breakfast, Vernon had relished the fact his week did not include a trip to London to pick up that "ungrateful, useless lump of a boy". Petunia had to stop herself from fetching the rat poison from under the sink to put in his tea that evening.

She was angry. Angry at her husband. And herself. But most of all angry at the world that had stolen her sister from her, then killed her. Angry at the people that had done the same with her nephew.

That night, when Vernon had come to bed, she looked up from the magazine in her lap and said very simply, "I want a divorce."

It was not the first time she had given the idea thought. But it was the first time her reasoning was more than pettiness. More than an idle thought after seeing some handsome man in the shops. No. This time the idea was given rise from the realization that since she ever met him she had become a horrible, miserable person. She had always been a creature of vanity. She knew this very well. But that did not mean she had to become so cruel. So hateful and spiteful and...

The thought that the last words she ever said to her sister were to call her a freak and abnormal and... and a rich man's whore. And she was no better to her nephew when he had lived. The longer she spent with Vernon, the more she became like him. Like his hideous and obnoxious sister. And she could see her own son turning out no better. It was shame, in the end. Shame at what she had become and the things she had done – of her own free will – to others that led her to this decision, Shame and anger and yes, even resentment.

She ignored his angry splutters and empty threats, she picked up her magazine and continued to read the article on the top 15 ways to get red wine out of white carpets.

The night of July the 2nd was... much more interesting.

Vernon had refused to move into the guest room. Dudley was rather confused. And Petunia was just about ready to remind Vernon exactly how they even got the house in the first place when the fireplace in the sitting room suddenly... lit. And out was spat a disgusting looking monster with what appeared to be a steamer trunk.

Dudley threw a lamp at it. Vernon started bellowing about how they didn't have to put up with such freakishness since The Boy was dead. And Petunia...

Well... Petunia fainted.

When she came to a bit later, she found herself covered in the afghan that she kept on the back of the sofa, a throw pillow beneath her head, and the sitting room just as pristine as she always liked.

The next day, she waited for Vernon and Dudley to say something about the evening before. Neither said anything about it. Instead Dudley asked for some money to go out with his friends. Vernon gave it to him, said goodbye to his son, gave a cold and stiff goodbye to Petunia, and left for work.

Something unusual happened on the fourth.

Alone in the house, her daily chores finished until time to make dinner for herself and Dudley, and there being no need to go to the store... she found herself with nothing to do.

Nothing to take her mind off the terrible choices she had made in her life. The things she had done. And the losses she had tried so very hard not to feel.

Crying at her vanity, clinging to a baby blanket that still smelled slightly of her sister's perfume and baby powder after all these years, she did not notice when a hot and steaming cup of tea appeared within reach. In her favorite, special china.

She did not see the creature that had so spooked her and her family days before, who hid itself in the smallest bedroom of Number 4 Privet Drive, guarding not one, but two trunks as he waited for his Harry Potter's Grangy or the Big Flag Man to come fetch them from him.

When Petunia had done her crying, and packed the blanket away, dried her tears and washed her face, she finally noticed the teacup.

It was still warm.

Before she could think much on it the sound of the front door downstairs opening and slamming shut alerted her to her Diddykins returning home from time out and about with his friends.

That night she fought with Vernon.

In his blind rage he had lashed out at her, blaming her for everything that had gone wrong in his life. And for bringing that cursed, inhuman freak into their lives.

Petunia fell to the bed, eyes wide as she put a hand to her stinging cheek as she stared up fearfully at her soon-to-be ex-husband as he raised his hand to strike her again.

Only to be stopped by that strange, half-naked creature with large eyes and odd ears and one sock on one foot. It stood on the bed behind her, its arms raised as if it were holding up some kind of invisible between her and Vernon. "Fat man will not hurt the Great Harry Potter's auntie Tunie!"

Petunia, too shocked for words, could only watch as Vernon was flung back out the bedroom door and it was slammed shut behind him.

She could hear him, banging on the other side of the door, shouting and yelling loud enough to wake the dead.

She flinched as she heard him stomping around after, doors opening and slamming in his wake before finally... finally there was silence.

Petunia flinched again when the creature moved to stand where it could see her face better, larges eyes watching her before it nodded and disappeared. But only for a second. It came back again, the same way it had left, with a bottle of something and a glass of water. These things it offered to her.

She stared at it, not knowing what to do or how to react before it said, in that same slightly squeaky voice but far less harshly. "Great Harry Potter's auntie Tunie must drink this. Stop her face hurting." He offered the bottle again.

With a shaking hand she reached for the bottle, staring at it a moment. It was very much like the little bottles her sister would make over the summer with that... that foul boy from across the tracks. The creature nudged her hand towards her mouth, urging her to drink it up.

She took the cork out of the top and gave it a sniff. She wrinkled her nose. "I can't-"

"Yous must. Missy Tunie, Great Harry Potter's auntie, yous must or your face will be all purple and sore."

"And the water?"

"For afters," the creature said.

She sniffed it again, then pinching her nose she put the bottle to her lips and drank it. It was so awful and foul and disgusting she nearly spat it all out again. As soon as she swallowed, she blindly reached for the glass of water. The creature put it in her hand and she brought it instantly to her mouth to drink it down and rid herself of the disgusting taste of the sludge she had drunk.

When she'd finished the creature took the glass and the bottle and she was just about to complain about it... until her face felt itchy. Then cold. Then... then tingly where Vernon had struck her. "Yous looking better already Missy Tunie."

"T...thank you," she said uncertainly. The creature's mouth split into a big, wide and unnerving smile. Well, she supposed it was a smile. It nodded at her and hopped off the bed, opening the door and leaving the room. She clambered to her feet and followed, wanting to know where it was going. Just as she reached her bedroom door, the one at the end of the hall, across from the bathroom, closed. She watched as the series of locks engaged themselves one by one from the top to the bottom of the door.

A shiver went down her spine as she stared, peering around her door frame.

That was the bo- Harry's Room. And the creature invoked her nephew's name more than once. It was... Well, she didn't know what to think about that.

The days that followed were calm in a way she had never known before.

Mostly because Vernon had since come to get suitcases of clothes and gone to a motel. He had initially taken their son with him, until Dudley found out what had happened in his parents' room that fateful night and demanded he be taken back home to his mother. When Vernon had refused, Dudley had picked up his bag and left.

He called his mother from the Polkiss house to let her know where he was staying for the night. When he did return home, he hugged his mother tightly and swore to be a better son than he had been.

Petunia did not see the creature again, but knew it was still around. She would find cups of freshly made tea waiting in her bedroom in the mornings when she woke. And again in the evenings by her sewing basket in the sitting room.

Things were... they were calm.

She didn't like it.

Before, she would have relished the peace and the quiet. Now she was nervous as a kitten. Waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Little did she know that the shoe would, indeed, be dropping 2 days later, just after the sun would rise on July the 9th.

There wasn't much they could do the rest of the day of the 7th, so Tony and Steve went to London, staying in the executive suite at the Stark Industries office block there. They went back out to Oxford bright and early the following day to finally get started on what they came to do.

Steve wasn't sure, exactly, what was expected of him in this situation. Jenny was back at the house with Mr. Granger – Ian he had asked to be called. Tony had been told to stay put but he'd decided while in England to do a little exploring of his own. He wouldn't tell Steve what it was he needed to do but that it was something important. Not even JARVIS would divulge Tony's plans. Not even a hint.

So that left Steve to escort the girl, his best friend's great-great niece, to the magical hospital. It was a good thing she knew how to find the place because it was a long ways from Diagon and Nocturne Alley. He didn't have to do much, really. She seemed pretty confident that she knew what she was doing. He had expected someone to question them after they'd climbed through the store window, past the mannequins and into the wide open lobby of what apparently was the hospital.

"Why they can't use a normal door like St. Florence's..." Steve had muttered under his breath, the girl giving him a side-eye as she walked ahead of him.

She gave the woman at reception her name and a made up reason for her visit. They were told what department to go to and followed her directions. Once they were in an elevator and she pushed the right buttons, she turned to him with an apologetic look. "I know this is awfully boring," she said. "And I could have come alone but-"

"You didn't want to be alone," he said. "No, I get it. Take it from someone that was in and out of places like this most of his life. Being in a hospital alone is the worst."

"Do you think... when this is all done, we might be having to visit Harry in a place like this?"

Steve shook his head. "No," he said, running a hand through his hair. "Whether he... whether he comes home with me or decides to stick around here, there's no way anyone's going to be able to keep him in a hospital bed."

She smiled as the elevator came to a stop. "He was the same way before," she said. "Always in the hospital wing for one thing or another. And Madame Pomfrey could never get him to stay in bed. He always tried to sneak out when she wasn't looking."

He couldn't help but smile. That sounded like his Harvey alright. "One time, when I got pneumonia he got that weird wizard flu the same day. Bucky had to come take care of both of us." They stepped out of the elevator and the girl was smiling. "Thought he was going to have a heart attack when he found Harv getting dressed for work with gobs of snot coming out of his nose only to watch him toss back one of those gross bottles of potion and have steam come out his ears."

"Oh good Lord," Hermione replied, stifling a laugh as she looked around for the right door. "Ah, the Mind Healers are this way," she said.

"Thought you told the woman downstairs you got hurt doing a spell."

"Yes, so she'd put my name down for spell damage instead. Just in case someone checks, I don't want them thinking I'm here to get whatever they did to me undone. Or that I know it even happened."

He shrugged. It made sense. "Lead the way. I'm just here to keep you company."

Once they'd found the right door and went inside, it was more waiting.

They filled the time by comparing the two versions of the man they both knew. It was strange and they tended to avoid using his name, mostly, since neither knew for certain whether or not Harvey would want to be himself or, well, his other self. Or something else entirely.

"A potion?!"

"The Forget-Me-Not, actually," the healer had said, looking to the report that had come out of the end of his wand. He scribbled on a notepad with his quill. "Whomever made it didn't do a very good job. It's supposed to enhance the memory, not erase it."

"I-"

"It's my fault," Steve said quickly, drawing attention off her and to himself. "I had to start brewing my partner's potions after he suffered a terrible accident that caused him to have memory problems. I must have made a bad batch and not realized it. My niece was complaining about not being able to remember everything she studied for exams and I thought I was being helpful." He did his best to sound guilty and didn't think it was working very well until, finally, the healer nodded. "Next time, just go down to the apothecary," he said.

He dropped his note into a basket on one side of his desk. Moments later a small wooden box appeared. He took it, looked inside, and snapped it closed again. "These are two purging potions. Go home. Take one, and don't do anything or eat anything for six hours. It'll be rather... unpleasant as it flushes all potions from your system. Be sure you're near a restroom when it does."

"What about the other one?"

"In case the first one doesn't work. Or it happens again young lady."

The two shared a look once they were in the hallway again before sighing. "It's going to be a long night," she said. He put a hand on her shoulder.

"If it makes you feel any better," he said. "Harv had to go through something like that once when he was in training."

"Really?"

He nodded. "Last I saw him, he still wouldn't eat carrots."

"W...why?"

"It was the last thing he ate before taking one of those things."

She sighed and let her head droop. "Let's just go and get this over with. The sooner I can remember what I've forgotten, the sooner we can get him back."

When they left the hospital, the same way they had arrived, Steve had an idea. There was still a lot of time left in the day, as they'd expected things to go a lot differently than they had. "Let's get something to eat and then head over to Diagon Alley."

"Why? We don't need a curse breaker after all-"

"No. But you said I might be able to get into Harvey's account," he said, holding up his hands and using a finger to tap at his ring. "Might be worth a look while we've got the time. Don't know when I'll be back this way again."

When Tony returned to the Granger residence late in the evening, giving Mrs. Granger a bottle of wine upon arrival, it was to be directed to the dining room where he found Steve sitting with a stack of papers in front of him. A stack of papers, Four small ring boxes. A pile of scrolls at the end of one table, and a black briefcase with some kind of crest on it.

"Why do I get the feeling this has nothing to do with the hospital and everything to do with-"

"We own a castle," Steve said, looking up from the papers. His eyes were a bit red, probably from all the reading he'd been doing. "An actual castle. Tony, there's a castle. In Ireland. And it's ours."

"Ours meaning..."

"Harvey. And me. And Harlan."

Tony's interest piqued, he moved quickly to take the papers out of Steve's hands so he could look them over. And then he picked up another. And another. "Jesus... Steve... What the hell?"

Steve shook his head, waving an arm at the pile of papers and scrolls and everything else. "We just went to see if I could get money out of his account from back in the 40s! I didn't expect any of this!"

Tony put the papers he'd taken down and looked over the table. Then, he pointed to the little boxes. Little... cube boxes. "Are those-"

Steve covered his face with a hand and groaned loudly. "I just wanted to get some money..."

Tony picked up one of the little boxes, examining it and trying to open the lock. It didn't budge. He set it down and went for another. Same thing. He didn't bother trying another. "On the plus side," Tony said, patting his arm. "Your kid is pretty much set for life."

"It's not funny!"

"Never said it was," he replied. "Why don't you pack all this up and I'll order dinner. You're not the only one who's been busy with paperwork today."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Dinner first, then business Cap."

Tony, it turned out, made some calls back to the states with some questions. After the initial "Mr. Stark, how exactly did you get this number?" followed by "That is an invasion of Mr. Rogers' privacy!" he eventually got the correct person on the line.

Her name was Blythe. He remembered her from visits to the tower off and on during Steve's impossible pregnancy and vaguely recalled (or rather JARVIS informed him) that she was a point of contact for people like Steve with people like her.

After that it was hours of back and forth from his office at SI's London branch to get certain papers and red tape out of the way.

Despite what Mr. and Mrs. Granger were going to decide, he had a hunch they'd be taking the girl back with them. He just decided to get the middle men out of the way first.

Jenny was thrilled with the news. Steve had protested – but even Tony could tell it was only because it was expected of him rather than any real desire to stop it from happening.

"Consider it a summer internship she can use on her college applications," Tony had said near the end. "She'll basically be babysitting. AND She can check out some schools. According to Cap's magic babysitter they've got two schools on the east coast and one out on the west coast with one in the Midwest. And unlike here, you're allowed to visit her on campus whenever you want."

Eventually Tony won them over, with some nudges from Jenny.

The two men camped out on the sofas in the sitting room and the den while Jenny took up the Grangers' guest room. Steve didn't want to leave until he knew for certain Hermione was going to be alright after her 'purging'. Tony didn't want to head back to SI alone. Again.

And it was a good thing, too, considering the teenage girl came dashing down the stairs at 6AM looking pale as a ghost with her brown eyes wide. The white owl flew in behind her and settled on the sofa arm where Tony was sleeping and nipped at him until he groggily started batting at the thing and sleepily insulting it.

Steve was already awake when she and the owl had come in. He had been unable to sleep much and had ensconced himself in a chair with a book from Mrs. Granger's collection while he waited for a more appropriate time to call home and check in on his son; something he did twice a day since they left.

But at the moment, he looked up from his book when the girl had come running in, her hair a mess from sleep and sweat. Her skin pale from a night of retching and even more sweating and her brown eyes bloodshot but wide awake and alert.

"I know where he is!" she exclaimed loudly as Tony gave up swatting at the bird and rolled on the sofa so he could see the room instead of laying face first into the cushions. "We didn't fail! We got him out and in the only place no one in their right mind would look for him!"

Hedwig hopped about on the arm of the sofa before moving to the back of Steve's chair and giving a loud impatient bark. Steve tossed his book aside on the low table between his chair and Tony's sofa. "Then let's go!"

"Is he safe there?"

"Yes."

"Then food first. And coffee. Lots of coffee."

"Tony we need to go-"

"After I've had coffee."

At 10AM on July the 9th, a rather expensive looking sports car and an SUV slowed down and made the turn onto Privet Drive. The two vehicles went slowly as the driver in the first vehicle, the sports car, eyed the numbers on the perfect and identical houses. A shudder went down Tony Stark's spine at the whole... utter sameness of it all. How anyone could live here and not lose their damn mind, he'd never guess.

Though as he came to a stop outside a house numbered 5, the SUV slowing down and coming to a stop behind him, he couldn't help but snigger at the scene unfolding right on the front lawn of Number 4.

Neighbors were standing outside on the sidewalk. The residents at 2 and 6 Privet Drive were peering through the overgrown hedges. Some, Tony noticed as he got out of the car, had their phones out recording the live entertainment.

Three car doors slammed shut and he glanced at the SUV briefly to see Jenny Barnes, her niece, and Steve coming around to have a look for themselves.

"That... That was not at all what I expected to see here today," Hermione said as she watched a comically large pair of men's underwear catch the wind and balloon out as it came to the ground from the second story window.

A woman with curlers in her hair, a baby on her hip and a phone in her other hand started laughing a few feet away from Tony's car. "Hey!" he called over to get her attention.

She glanced at him briefly before doing a double take. "You're-"

"Yeah. Tony Stark," he said, taking off his sunglasses and walking casually over to her as the others stood and watched, trying to piece together what the ever-loving hell was going on. "My friends and I are looking for Number 4. The big guy's niece is friends with a kid that lives there."

She nodded towards the house with the show going on. Now the woman at the window was throwing a box of magazines out, letting them all flutter through the air.

"Come on," Steve said, looking towards Tony before he started across the road towards the large, purple faced, shouting whale of a man in the front yard. He ran a hand through his hair as he walked, his face hardening as his long strides took him quickly towards the house.

"Oh no. I really hate when he gets that look..." Jenny said, hurrying after him as fast as her old legs could carry her. "Steve! Don't you dare hit that man!" she shouted after him. "I mean it!"

The woman and her baby raised her phone up again and Tony took his own out with a shake of his head, instructing JARVIS to make sure no footage of what was about to happen made it to the internet.

The AI managed to cut every live stream and hack into each of the phones recording for later just as Steve gave a shout to get the large man's attention. Hermione gave a surprised yell as the man was punched hard enough to knock him down. Jenny was shouting at Steve about hitting people – even if they DID deserve it – and the woman in the window with another box of clothes and assorted other items dropped the box she was holding straight down onto the rosebushes beneath her window in absolute shock at what she'd just seen.

The most absurd part about this entire affair wasn't Captain America showing up to punch the most loathed neighbor on Privet Drive. It wasn't the fact everyone's devices shut off or shorted out at the exact same moment. Nor was it the fancy car parked across the street outside Number 5.

No.

The most absurd part of this was one of the world's most famous people, Tony Stark, calmly and casually tucking his sunglasses into his breast pocket and walking across the street, right past the old woman shouting at the world's oldest super hero like she were scolding a child for being naughty as if it were something he saw every day. He spared them a glance and a "Now's not the time, Cap," as he made his way up the walk to stop at the front door.

And then... he knocked.

Chapter End Notes

Next chapter has their reunion I PROMISE . The chapter was just getting a bit too long in the teeth and I needed to post something so where it left off felt like a natural cliffhanger point. Sorry. But the next one is 1/3rd of the way done so it should be out next week sometime at the latest.

Also, there will be at least some minor inconvenience consequences for Steve for what he did to Vernon. But nothing horrible or long lasting, just a plot device for later.

The One Place They'd Never Look

Chapter Notes

To everyone that's been subscribing and bookmarking, thank you. I see you and I appreciate you so much. You have no idea how much it means to me that you guys like this story. And to those who have commented that I haven't responded to (one in particular because if I did, it would literally spoil so much!), I see you as well. I love you and I'm glad you're here.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Did Steve regret hitting the man?

Not one bit.

Was it the right thing to do?

No, not really.

But it made him feel a little bit better.

At least he was careful enough not to put his full strength behind it. Otherwise the fat bastard might be... well... He wasn't unconscious at least. Hermione did get a good kick in to the man's shin before she hurried away to follow Tony. Jenny had to be the one to pull Steve away, shouting to the onlookers, "Alright folks! Show's over! You'd best be gone before we come back out!"

As she pulled Steve towards the front door of Number 4, which now stood open for them to join the others, Jenny leaned in. "What the hell was that about, Stevie?"

"You read the same stuff I did about his life before-"

"Yeah and I got mad. But not mad enough to-"

"Nightmares about some kid getting killed weren't the only ones he had, Jennifer," Steve said, clenching a fist in an attempt to reign in his desire to go back and really give that man a piece of his mind. One piece for every scar on his lover's back that couldn't be explained away by stories about a magical castle and possessed teachers, giant snakes, werewolves and out-flying dragons.

Once inside, Jenny shut the door behind them, taking one last opportunity to glare at the man outside before she did so. The inside of the house looked... normal. For lack of a better word. With the exception of a few discolored places on the walls where obviously photos had hung with pride for years, everything looked a bit... average. Utterly and entirely unremarkable.

He felt a hand on his arm after taking a moment to stand there, just inside the door and look around. He glanced down to see Hermione looking up at him, a frown on her face. "His aunt is in the sitting room with Mr. Stark and Aunt Jenny," she said, then gestured to the stairs to Steve's immediate right. "Knowing that elf like I do, he's probably got him stashed upstairs."

She moved her hand down his arm to his wrist, then put her hand in his to give it a bit of a squeeze. When the teenage girl made to take her hand back, he didn't let go right away and squeezed hers as gently as he could back. "Let's go get our wizard," he said.

He followed her up the stairs. It didn't take long to find the right door. She hadn't believed Ron and the twins when they'd told her there was a cat flap – a literal cat flap in bottom of the door. But seeing the locks... she hadn't imagined THAT many on the door. Yes, a few based on what Harry had let slip a few times but not like this. Not such a top to bottom...

Steve reached out and started unfastening the locks one by one if only to keep himself from marching right downstairs to give the woman a good shouting. He wouldn't hit a lady unless she genuinely deserved it and, well, was clearly trying to do something like take over the Earth or something like that. But this... This was unacceptable. And he really didn't want to make things worse than he already had.

Once the locks were all undone, Hermione went in first, warning him about the "house elf" she had guarding the trunk she'd stowed the man in for his escape.

But every second he waited in the upstairs hallway was one more than he thought he could bear. He listened to her whispers, not letting on that his serum-enhanced hearing allowed him to do so. The voice of the creature she spoke to was... strange in pitch, but it spoke with an almost worshipful and reverent air about its charge.

"Most Noble and Great Harry Potter says not to be calling him Harry Potter," the elf said softly to the girl. "Dobby worries Missy Grangy. Dobby is not knowing what to be doings about it."

"It'll be alright now Dobby. If he doesn't want to be Harry Potter, then... then he doesn't have to be."

"But Missy Grangy-"

"No, Dobby. We don't know what happened, or why it happened. And we might never know. But he's alive and that's what matters, yes?"

"Dobby worries..."

"I know. So do I. But... I've brought someone to help. But I need you to bring Harry out of the trunk now, alright. It would be pretty cramped if we all climbed in there with him."

Steve didn't see what happened next, but he heard the elf's voice say a word he hadn't be expecting – Brooklyn – and then a slightly metallic pop. A few minutes after that, Hermione came back out into the hall, her eyes damp with unshed tears.

"The... The house elf I've had taking care of him has been helping him heal. Trying to talk to him about things but-"

"I heard," he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. She looked up at him. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry but the serum uh..."

"Right... Enhanced senses. We had a werewolf professor who... Well, it didn't do any good to whisper around him either," she said, then looked down again. "I... I suppose this means he's not likely to remember me and Dobby..."

"Maybe he does but doesn't realize it," Steve offered. "After all, from what you said about things on the drive over here he thought he was still in the war. So did I, at first," he admitted. "By all rights that... elf was it?" She nodded. "That elf should be dead. Harv's one to shoot first and ask forgiveness later. And then he'd be shouting and complaining the whole time he's patching you up." She choked back a laugh, it coming out almost like a sob. "He might not remember that elf thing, but he knows he's safe with it. Maybe it'll be like that with you. Besides, you're a Barnes. You're stuck with the two of us just like the rest of your family."

She smiled at that, wiping at her eyes some. "You make it sound like you're some kind of family curse," she said.

"You're probably right. After all... even before all this you ended up being his best friend. Just like Bucky."

"Oh God..." she muttered, staring at the door with the many locks and the cat flap. "He really IS a curse on my family..."

Steve couldn't help but chuckle as he knocked on the door. Hermione went in first, and it was a few minutes more before he heard her say through the open door, "You can come in now."

The man he saw sitting on the poor excuse of a bed was a sight for sore eyes, even if he was haggard and half dead. It was better than being all-dead. Green eyes wouldn't look at him, and he felt like a knife were twisting in his gut at the reaction. He tried not to reach out, to take him up in his arms and hold him close.

"A trick," the scratchy voice said quietly.

"No... no trick, Har-" Hermione started, but caught herself. "Mr. Blackmoore," she said, and Steve could hear the note of sadness in her voice when she said it. "Mr. Blackmoore, it's not a trick. You're really here, alive. And so is Captain Rogers."

"Blackmoore, Harvey Abraham-" he started, and the elf in the corner started tugging at his ears and shifting from foot to foot and its big eyes open unnervingly wide as it watched what was going on in the room around it.

"Harv, it really is me." Steve moved closer, finally letting himself reach out only to draw his hand back when the man shrunk back and scooted towards the wall and still unwilling to look at him. "My God..."

"Try... try telling him something only the two of you would know," Hermione suggested. "Something no one else, not even my uncle would know."

Steve glanced back at her, then nodded and racked his brain for something, anything and then... Then, he got a look at Harvey's hand. At the silver ring that still wrapped around his thumb. Bright and shining like the day the box opened and they slipped 'em on each other's fingers. "We got married by accident. Sort of. There was this box," he started, watching the familiar face of the man he loved as he kept mumbling the same thing over and over. His name, his rank, and his number. So Steve just continued, hoping something would get through to him. "I had to handle it every day for a year. Even just for a few minutes. Harvey wasn't allowed to touch it because it would mess up what was happening inside. It had this... this magic metal inside that was supposed to take a shape that was important to me." He was still watching him but seeing no change.

"What... what form did it take?" Hermione asked, prompting him to continue.

"Matching silver rings," he said. "Wedding bands. Christmas morning 1938 that box opened up and when we realized what they were he told me I had to be sure. Magic people don't divorce like the no-maj do. That it wasn't going to come back off unless someone cut our fingers off."

The mumbling started to taper off. They didn't miss when he brought his hands to his lap and started fiddling with the ring on his thumb. Hermione watched both men with baited breath, hoping maybe...

"Catholic," the raspy voice said a bit louder than his mumbling had been.

"What?" Hermione asked quietly.

Steve's worried expression started to ease up as a small smile crept up.

"Your mom." Finally... Finally his gaunt face turned towards Steve. Tired green eyes looked at him, searching his face before looking past him at the girl just beyond. "You said she was Catholic."

"I did."

"Not... Not Rebecca?" he asked, still quiet. Still staring at the girl. The girl shook her head. "You're real? Alive?" Harvey whispered, looking back at Steve in confusion. "You died. The plane... We couldn't find you... I... I thought..."

"Magic," Steve offered as the only explanation he could think of, subconsciously putting a hand to his flat stomach. "Your mom was right. Magic... magic is really fucking strange."

Hermione and Dobby excused themselves soon after as Steve sat on the side of the bed, moving slowly so as not to spook the man there. She closed the door just as she heard sobbing start and the low whispers of Steve's voice as he comforted the confused and genuinely frightened wizard that connected them.

They spent one more night in England.

Hermione and Jenny returned to Oxford so the girl could pack her trunk and suitcases and say goodbye to her parents. Tony and Steve took Harvey – who REALLY didn't want to be called Harry and wouldn't explain why – back to the executive suite at SI London's offices. Neither of them were surprised to find the white owl, that apparently belonged to Harvey, waiting for them in the parking garage.

They were surprised when the elf creature popped up out of nowhere with two trunks and then promptly threw itself at Harvey's feet sobbing and tugging at its ears.

"Is that... is that thing always like that?" Tony asked, seeing the house elf himself for the first time. "And what the hell is it?"

"Dobby is the Great Har-" but it stopped speaking when it caught a glare from Harvey. "Dobby is sorry. Dobby forgets..."

"It..." Harvey said, his voice still raspy and quiet. "It said it knew me. When I was a boy." The creature nodded eagerly, but did not get up from where it had thrown itself at his feet. "Water," he said suddenly. "Thirsty. Water please?"

Before either man could move towards the kitchen, the elf popped away, then returned with a tall glass of water. Tony frowned at it. "What... exactly are you?"

"Dobby is the Great Har... Harvey's elf!" the creature said proudly, catching itself from calling him by the wrong name again. "The Great Harvey freed Dobby from wicked former family. Now Dobby serves the noble and great wizard that saved him."

"I'm sure Hermione can tell us more. She's weirdly fond of it," Steve said with a shrug, sitting on the arm of the couch where Harvey was sitting. He wanted to sit much closer to him but at the same time he didn't want to crowd him or hover. Harvey took the glass from Dobby and drank. And drank. And if he hadn't stopped to breathe when he did the two other men thought he might end up drowning himself with it.

An awkward silence settled over the room after that. Harvey sat with the glass in his lap, both hands wrapped around it, his eyes closed as he tried to think and process everything that had happened to him since he woke up. Tony was tapping away on his phone, frowning more and more as JARVIS told him of things he'd really rather not deal with. Steve was fidgety, his shoulders tense as he tried to sort things out in his head. There was a lot to talk about. A lot to do. Hell, he still didn't know how to tell Harvey about their son let alone what he'd learned at the bank yesterday!

And then there was the whole-

"Time travel," Tony said from the chair he'd decided to lounge in. "In case anyone was wondering. It's the only explanation for Mr. Wizard being here. Remind me to ask Thor next time he's in town about that rainbow bridge of his. And Dr. Foster, too. I've been looking over data JARVIS collected from around the time he's supposed to have disappeared and reappeared. Looks a lot like an Asgardian thunderstorm."

Steve frowned, but Harvey sighed. "You're Howard's kid?" he asked suddenly, rubbing at his sore throat. Tony didn't answer. When Harvey looked at him and saw the expression on his face, he didn't have to. "Fuckin' hated that guy."

"Harvey-"

"No no," Tony said, sitting up a bit and setting his phone aside, ignoring the current PR crisis brewing at the local UK tabloids surrounding their visit that morning to Surrey. "Finally an honest opinion of the man. What, exactly, did you hate about Howard?"

Harvey tilted his head, exposing his neck enough for Steve to see what was bothering him. A scar that wasn't there the last time they had been together. As if someone had slit his lover's throat. "Got pissed when I broke his nose two days after meeting him."

"Why?"

"He got drunk, hit on one of my nurses and wouldn't take no for an answer," he said, taking another sip of water. "Warned him if he did it again, I'd break his goddamn nose."

Tony stared at him, then looked at Steve and back again. He was a bit surprised but... at the same time, he grinned. "What ELSE did he do to make you hate him?"

Harvey shrugged. "You know that... that regular thumping noise coming out of his chest? That."

"Jesus..." Tony said softly. "Guess it's a good thing he's dead then."

Harvey hummed then looked at Steve. "A lotta people are dead now... aren't they?"

Steve nodded solemnly. "Nearly everyone but Carter. We could live another hundred years and she'll still be here to spite us. Same with Jenny I think."

"That girl... elf, that girl. She... When she found me she said her name was Barnes but you called her Grangy?"

Dobby tugged at his ears. Steve looked at it briefly. "Dobby, yes?" he started. The elf nodded but didn't stop tugging at his ears. "You say you're Harvey's elf, right?"

"Yes."

"Does that mean you're my elf, too?"

"Dobby is happy to be servings the Great Harr- Harvey's Big Flag Man."

Tony burst out laughing. Harvey flinched a little, mostly at the volume. Steve rolled his eyes briefly. "Good," he said. "Can you put together something to eat for Harvey. Something warm, but light. And is there anything in the potions you've been giving him to help with his throat?:

The elf nodded eagerly.

"Good. And when that's done, can you make my room more comfortable for him? It's the third door on the right, down that hallway there," he said, pointing in the direction of the bedrooms. Again, the elf nodded. It snapped it's fingers and the nearly empty glass of water was refilled again. Then, it popped away.

"That," Tony said. "That will take some getting used to."

Steve nodded his agreement before letting himself slip down onto the couch properly. He reached over and took the glass from Harvey's hands and set it aside for him. "It'll be helpful when we get back to New York."

The wizard watched them all, still pondering the question he'd asked and the girl who apparently had risked her own life to save his. He'd have to find a way to thank her when he was well enough. After all his mother didn't raise an ungrateful ass. He let Steve take his glass, mostly because he didn't feel up for arguing. Despite appearances, now that he finally understood this was real and not a hallucination – and that Steve was most definitely alive and breathing and there with him in this strange place – he still didn't like being taken care of. He took care of Steve, not the other way around. That's just how it had always been, and like hell that was going to change now.

But at the same time he just didn't have the strength to argue back. So instead, he let himself be pulled over into Steve's side once the other man was finally sitting comfortably. He rested his head against him, sighing. "I still want to know," he said, reminding both men he didn't forget his own question. "Who that girl was."

"We've been gone a long time, Harvey," Steve said as Tony picked his phone back up. "Becca got married and had some kids. Iris, too. Jenny grew up and started causing trouble."

"She blew up some factories in Taiwan, led a riot in the name of Freeing Tibet, then tried and failed to assassinate the then leader of North Korea. Her passport's been revoked, she's legally not supposed to leave the United States and somehow she had the right connections to keep out of prison," Tony said. "Don't eat any of her brownies unless you want to get high. The Grangers didn't know that until last summer."

Harvey smiled, feeling the familiar rumble of laughter in Steve's chest.

"As for the girl, Hermione-" Tony started, but Steve interrupted him.

"She's Becca's great-granddaughter," he said, then drew in a slow, deep breath. He released it just as slowly. "...And like Dobby, she knew you. Before. When you were Harry Potter."

"Before I was beat half to death and left on a sidewalk," he said softly. Tony didn't catch what he said, but Steve did. The arm around him tightened some.

"Yeah. She wrote to me. That owl we saw when we got here brought the letter itself. It had pictures of the two of you, and a few others."

"We were friends?"

"Yeah."

"I'm glad," Harvey said sleepily as he snuggled a bit more, wishing he'd had a blanket, or at least a wand to transfigure one.

Tony looked up only when he heard the slight snoring. When he was sure it was Harvey that was asleep, he frowned at Steve and held up his phone so Cap could see what he was currently looking at. It was a headline with a picture of a fat man with a busted jaw. And a blurry photo of Steve from that morning. "Before you ask, JARVIS wiped all the phones he could reach which is pretty damn far. But someone seems to have had one of those old fashioned Polaroid cameras. The kind JARVIS can't hack into."

Steve had the best sleep he'd had in over a year. For one, he wasn't woken up by a cranky, hungry magical child. And for second...

The comfortable weight on his broad chest was proof that he wasn't just dreaming. He wasn't... he wasn't losing his mind. He was in London. He was in a guest room in Tony's private suite at the UK branch of Stark Industries. And the hand gripping his shirt was real. The head of shaggy black hair that rested next to it, right over his own heart, wasn't just his imagination.

His phone on the bedside table vibrated for a moment. He slipped one arm out from under the blanket, careful not to disturb the other man as he reached for the device.

A quick glance at his messages showed it was Tony. The girls were there and eager to head back to the States. He couldn't have agreed more to be honest. He just... didn't want to have to wake a very tired and confused wizard up any time soon.

Breakfast was awkward. Apparently Hermione didn't like the idea of someone owning the house elf. The house elf, while declaring itself free, also declared it served Harvey – and by extension Steve – and did so proudly. And Harvey was uncharacteristically quiet most of the morning. Then again, unless he had a drink in his hand of some kind – any kind – it hurt for him to speak.

Whatever had happened to him in the time after Steve brought down the Valkyrie and then his trip through the decades had done a number on him. One he didn't want to either talk about or acknowledge. Certainly Steve knew he'd have his hands full – and so would his therapist.

Currently, while Tony and Steve were making sure everything was packed and ready to go, Harvey was sitting at the end of the dining table. Hermione on his right, and Jenny on his left across from her. There was a teapot in front of them courtesy of Dobby, and the man was being shown pictures the girl had brought with her. And more from a photo album she had fished out of a trunk the elf had brought with it.

After the awkwardness of breakfast, he had found the girl sitting with Jenny, crying as she clung to a strange looking piece of fabric. It looked rather silky, and shimmered slightly. He had apologized to her for not remembering her and thanked her for saving his life. Which had caused her to cry harder. Harvey had never been very good at dealing with crying dames and, not really knowing what else to do, had pat her on the head and asked if she could tell him how they had met.

Which had morphed into show and tell and swapping stories. Things were... well... they'd never be normal between Harvey and the girl but Steve and Jenny both hoped they would be able to forge something new even if Harvey never remembered his old life.

As for Tony... He was just happy to have someone else around who didn't see Howard Stark's legacy through rose tinted glasses.

Even given the speed of their modified quinjet it would take longer than if Tony took off in the suit on his own. So there was time to kill.

Hermione spent most of it with Tony up by the controls, taking a keen interest in the operation. After all, though she was pretty much a glorified babysitter for the summer, that didn't mean she couldn't take advantage of her access and position to learn as much as she was able.

Jenny spent the time sleeping since she hated flying. Hedwig had decided NOT to hide this time and was sitting with Dobby who was excitedly examining everything near the seat he was perched on and ordered not to leave by Steve.

Harvey sat with his eyes closed but he was far from sleeping. He was trying to put his thoughts in order as he listened to Steve's steady voice, telling him about how he found himself in this strange future time. But there were things he would gloss over, and Harvey knew he wasn't being lied to – Steve learned the hard way not to lie to his face about important things. Little things, sure. But not the big stuff. And the way Steve was dancing around something made it clear it was something big.

"Just spit it out," Harvey's raspy voice said when there was a lull in Steve's story. "Stop jumpin' around. Tell me what you gotta tell me."

Steve pulled their hands from Harvey's lap so he could hold Harvey's between both of his. "You remember what your ma always said? About magic being strange and all, and we've got to just... trust it and let things happen?"

Harvey didn't speak, but he did hum and open one green eye, the one beneath the scar, to look at him.

"Well..." he started, then sighed. "I've got a son."

"You work fast," Harvey said, closing his eye again and trying to pull his hand back. But Steve wouldn't let go. "Not even a full year after... Who's the lucky dame?"

"Me, actually," the super soldier replied quietly. "Turns out I was... uh... not a no-maj like we thought."

Harvey frowned but didn't open his eye again. "I swear to God if you tell me you've been sleeping with Stark Jr. I'll kill him with my bare hands, Steve."

"I forgot how much of a jealous jackass you can be," Steve muttered under his breath. "He's yours you idiot. I was pregnant when they found me."

Harvey was silent for a long moment, pushing his own thoughts aside and replaying Steve's story about being found by no-maj, and living on his own for a while and somewhere in there meeting Stark Jr. And some other people and...

And a battle.

Against monsters from space of all things.

Then again, he himself was a wizard who had apparently gotten his very male husband impossibly pregnant and...

"You..." he said despite the slight pain in his throat speaking caused him. Both green eyes opened as he turned, some, to better look Steve in the face. "You were pregnant. And fought a battle-"

"Before you start, I had protection," Steve said, letting go of the hand he held and reaching for his shirt. It was quickly untucked and lifted to show not just the scar from when Harlan was born, but the runes that were still inked into his skin. Duller now that they weren't infused with magic from his doctors to help keep the pregnancy stable. But still, to a trained healer's eye it was obvious what they were and why they'd be there.

Harvey reached out to touch them, not caring if Steve would let him or not. Satisfied, he pulled his hand away and let him lower his shirt back down. "I will yell at you," he rasped, "When I'm fixed." He rubbed at his throat a moment before settling back and closing his eyes again. "Tell me. About him."

So he did. He knew Harvey wasn't going to let him forget any time soon how very unhappy he was learning Steve was pregnant IN BATTLE and apparently when he took the Valkyrie down, too. But at the same time he couldn't help but smile and tell him everything. Telling him the details he'd been trying to leave out before because he didn't want to overwhelm the man with everything all at once.

Harvey kept to Steve's suite for a few days, though when the baby was around he kept to the bedroom and refused to come out.

Everyone was getting annoyed, even Hermione, that STEVE wasn't getting upset about it. But that's because behind closed doors, Steve could see how much the man was still so damn messed up from what he'd endured. Harvey himself had told him in as few words as he could so it didn't hurt too much, that he was sorry. He really was. But he couldn't shake the fear that he'd do something wrong or hurt the poor, innocent boy without meaning to.

After five days the tower received visitors. Special visitors. Some of them the Avengers in residence had met before. The medical team that had helped Steve through his pregnancy. His therapist that still came to the tower off and on to help him with his PTSD and depression. Another familiar face was Blythe, Steve's liaison with the magical world. But there were a few others. More... official looking.

Tony knew they were all coming. He'd had it set up during the back-and-forth to get Hermione's paperwork pushed through for her Visa. What he did NOT expect was to see Nick Fury among them. And boy did he NOT look happy. The director of SHIELD spared him merely a glance before joining everyone in the conference room where Steve, Harvey, and Hermione were all waiting with Blythe. She had come early to explain to Steve, and the other two, what was about to happen. Unfortunately, JARVIS wasn't able to record what was going on in the conference room after one of the visitors pulled a stick from their sleeve and gave it a quick little wave in the air.

Chapter End Notes

So... here's the reunion. Not as emotional as I'm sure many of you were expecting. That... that's gonna come in the next chapter. Be ready for some angst when the shock of being alive and being reunited wears off. And then fluff.

Small Revelations

Chapter Notes

For those that have commented and i haven't responded for one reason or another... and for those who have bookmarked but not commented, and all those kudosed and, well, everyone enjoying this story. I see you there and I love you for it. Thank you for reading my story and your patience with how slow updates have become (I don't post a completed chapter until I have written 1/3 of the next one just in case I decide to change something last minute to flow the story better.)

This one was re-written a few times and I'm still not quite happy with it, but it is what it is at this point.

Please, enjoy my humble offering this fine day.

"Now that's dealt with..." the woman Steve had never met before said as she slid her wand back into her sleeve. "This meeting never took place, is that clear?" after getting the verbal or non-verbal assent she plowed ahead. "First matter's first. Miss Granger, Lt. Blackmoore, Miss Blythe will be your primary point of contact with the magical world for your everyday needs or purposes. If, or rather given who you are when, a situation arises that requires a more direct intervention, all three of you are instructed to turn to Director Fury. He will in turn judge the situation accordingly and intercede on your behalf with the ICW."

"The ICW?" Hermione asked in surprise. "What would they-"

"Because Miss Granger, your friend was just as much a part of the program that made Captain America as the captain himself. He is the last man alive who knows even a part of the formula that made Steve Rogers what he is today," Fury said, watching the man in question with his one good eye. "That makes him the second most valuable person in this room."

Harvey scowled, and Steve couldn't help but do the same.

"He is also the only one in this room that has come back from the dead," Fury continued.

Harvey felt a weight on his knee beneath the table, glancing to Steve from the corner of his eye. The man's scowl had faded, but there was no other visible sign of a reaction to what was said. Harvey pulled a flask from one of his pockets, taking a sip of the potion laced drink to help ease the scar tissue of his throat enough to speak if he needed to.

"What now?" Steve asked. "And why Fury? No offense, sir, but I didn't think you of all people would be involved here."

Fury looked away from Harvey then, to Hermione. "Let's just say there's a personal interest in the situation. And my involvement helps keep a few others out of the loop."

The trio were informed shortly after this that Harvey would be undergoing intensive healing treatments to correct the damage to this throat, both external and internal, as well as undergoing a great deal of therapy. They were well aware of who he used to be. In fact, they had been aware even back in the 1930s. They just didn't know the information was as important as it turned out to be. After all, a full battery of tests and documentation was laid out and sealed in MACUSA's Department of Mysteries after it was ascertained the mysterious teenager had been an accidental time traveler.

And then... once the medical team had been dismissed after their consultation on what to do about helping Lt. Blackmoore recover from his ordeals...

"There's also the matter of Steve Rogers being accused of kidnapping two magical children."

"What?!"

"And assaulting a tax paying citizen of no-maj UK."

Steve's hand, which had never once left Harvey's knee, squeezed a bit hard, causing the man to wince. Blythe frowned at the officials and Director Fury. "If anything, it was a rescue mission from what I've been told," she said.

"The Grangers are insistent that their daughter was kidnapped. Mr. Dursley wishes to press charges against Captain Rogers for assault, and a neighbor has cited that two Avengers kidnapped Mr. Potter from his home. The matter of Miss Granger can be cleared up quite simply with the use of a pensieve memory and a magical willing to legally be named as her guardian in our world. The rest... Mr. Potter's death can be made publicly known in both worlds; however... the assault on Mr. Dursley was caught on film. And it has already been publicized so widely that we cannot erase it without risk of revealing our kind to the greater world."

Against their better judgment, Steve wanted to deal with it simply. And quietly.

Which meant a settlement would be made. For a significant amount of money. At Blythe's suggestion, they were to use a no-maj born lawyer so that whatever settlement terms were agreed on could be made absolutely binding. "To keep Mr. Dursley from coming back for more now that there's blood in the water."

At the conclusion of the meeting, a copy of Hermione's memories regarding her immigration to the US were made. But at the last second, Harvey caught the hem of the wizard who made the copies shirt. "You are Unspeakables, yes?"

The man nodded.

"A few days, come back. Copy mine."

"Mr. Blackmoore-"

"My final mission," he said, then took another sip from his flask. He licked his lips and glanced at Hermione, then Steve and nodded. "My death. Then... then torture before rescue. Albus Dumbledore. He was a second spy. He kept me prisoner."

The unspeakable looked over to his superior, who's eyes were wide in shock at the softly spoken statements. Fury stood, taking out his phone and giving a nod to the officials before leaving the room to make a few calls.

"We will take Miss Granger's memories to the office for processing. Lt. Blackmoore's accusation has clarified a few more of the questionable details of this case. Lt. Blackmoore, we will not wait a few days. If you are up for it, we will copy your memories today and take them back immediately to re-examine your final mission."

Steve lifted his hand from Harvey's knee, placing it instead on the man's forearm to get his attention. Green eyes, dark with pain and some untold horror turned to him before closing and he let loose a breath he didn't realize he was holding. Without a word, he nodded his agreement. "Give him an hour or so," Steve said out of concern. "Let the man have something to eat and relax after this."

"Of course Captain Rogers. Number Six, we will leave some documents with you for him to sign, with a blood quill, that will put the matters of Harry Potter to rest. The last thing this man needs is the UK ministry hounding him for not attending school when clearly he doesn't need to."

Harvey had decided to sit with the team at breakfast – or rather Steve had bribed him into spending more time with them so he could get to know the men and woman he considered almost as close as family and they could get used to having Harvey around as well – when Hermione burst into the room waving a paper around excitedly.

Harvey had just come back from taking his dishes to the kitchen when he'd been nearly bowled over by the teenage girl who'd thrown herself at him. Her arms wrapped tight and the paper was crumpled up against his back.

"Thank you!" she exclaimed, pressing her cheek against his borrowed t-shirt. "Thank you so much."

After a few moments of hesitation, he returned her hug, closing his eyes and smiling. She hugged just as tightly as her great-grandmother ever did. He sighed, allowing himself to be comfortable in her embrace. It was... it was strangely familiar and comforting in a way he hadn't expected it to be. Then again he knew now that he and the girl had been nearly inseparable at one point in time. Before he lost his memories. Before he found a home and people that wanted him.

It was Natasha's voice that broke the moment and brought Harvey back to the real world again. "What's got her so excited?"

Harvey tried not to frown when she let him go to turn around and explain herself to spare him having to speak. "He... That is Mr. Blackmoore-"

"Harvey," the man himself corrected. "We are family."

She glanced back at him, big brown eyes watering with tears she fought valiantly from spilling. "Harvey," she said, smiling. "He agreed to become my legal guardian in the magical world."

"So he adopted you?" Natasha asked, seeking clarification.

"...In a way. It means that until I'm 17, or rather 18 here in America, then he is the one responsible for me. Ensuring I complete my education, providing me with the necessary books and equipment I may need. A foster parent of sorts. And should I become injured or sick, he would be the one contacted to handle things for me."

Steve couldn't hold back his grin. He didn't even know the man had done that, though he'd suspected he might when it was brought up days before. When Harvey sat back down beside him, Steve scooted his chair a little closer so he could brush their legs together beneath the table. Harvey's cheeks turned a little pink, but he didn't acknowledge anything more than that as Hermione accepted Bruce's invitation to join them at the table for breakfast. She slotted herself in between Harlan in his high chair on the other side of Steve and Clint with the biggest smile before launching into conversation with Tony about something or other.

When Harvey had been told about his fortune... well... if he hadn't already been forced to be silent for a week before his surgery, this would have knocked the words right out of him.

Steve had honestly forgotten about the briefcase with the stag crest on it. It was Harvey that had found it tucked into the closet after a trip out to buy him more clothes so he could stop borrowing from Tony and Clint. He'd tried to wear some of Steve's shirts, but without a wand he couldn't resize them to fit. It was one thing to be wearing nothing but one of the man's button down's and nothing beneath. It was an entirely different matter to be wearing one of his t-shirts and having it hang like he was some kind of ragamuffin.

One was a bit sexy given the right circumstances.

The other was... Well... It made him feel uncomfortable. He couldn't explain why but the one time he'd done it since coming back to life – and he had no doubt at all that he was in fact killed in action – catching his reflection in the mirror had made his skin crawl and he'd ripped the shirt right off over his head again and threw it to the floor in an irrational and uncontrollable revulsion. As if his body had remembered something his mind no longer could. Like with the sense of safety he felt in the presence of the house elf, Dobby. And the oddly familiar warmth he felt in his heart when he spent time with the Granger girl.

But at the moment, he wore his own shirt. He wore his own denims with his own boots and even a new cowboy hat Steve had insisted they buy was perched atop his head.

Well, it was until Harlan had yanked it off and started playing with it earlier before he was put down for his nap. The hat, of course, had gone into the crib with him.

He couldn't speak and wouldn't even try, but that didn't mean he wouldn't grab the nearest thing to help him – which happened to be Steve's sketchbook and a colored pencil. Turning to a fresh page, he scribbled what he would have said, and underlined it for emphasis before showing it to Steve. Jabbing at the page with his finger.

Steve nodded and searched through the briefcase that was, unfortunately, larger on the inside than the outside. It took a few long moments before he found what he was looking for. Then, he handed it over for Harvey to see with his own eyes.

The man nearly fainted in shock before he scribbled on the page again. Steve looked over his shoulder and nodded. "Yeah. We have a castle. In Ireland. There's a picture of it somewhere in there..." he said, gesturing to the briefcase. Harvey reached for it and began pawing through the parchments and scrolls inside. It wasn't until he found a document that Steve hadn't seen – there was quite a lot he still hadn't pulled out of the briefcase while at the Grangers' home. He hadn't even seen it.

There, in handwriting Harvey knew only because... well... he'd gotten used to seeing it after the Valkyrie had gone down, was a legal document. As Harvey read it over and over again he couldn't believe what he was seeing. Steve peered over his shoulder again, reading it himself. "I remember Charlie Potter," he said softly, putting a hand to the small of Harvey's back to ground the man before he actually could faint in shock. "It's a big deal then, that he left you half of everything?"

Harvey set the document aside and reached for the sketchbook again. He flipped to another fresh page and began to write as clearly as he could. It was a bit as he chose his words very carefully before handing it to Steve to read as he went back to digging through the briefcase.

Steve watched him for a moment before looking down at what was written there. The more he read, the more he learned about Wizarding Inheritance Law. Sort of. The fact that Harvey was 2 people in the same family helped the situation resolve itself in the end but... "The American Potters were disowned?"

Harvey nodded.

"And Charlie Potter... what, he un-disowned them?"

Again Harvey nodded.

"So... by getting adopted by your mom, you disowned yourself from your own family?"

Harvey grinned, and nodded again. It was ridiculous, even by wizarding standards. But... Harvey's luck had always been strange, just like the magic that inhabited his body. The magic that had tied the two of them together and given them a son.

Steve set the sketchbook to the side before using his free hand to pull the latest parchment from Harvey's hand and put it back into the briefcase. "We'll go through these when we go to the bank. They'll be able to explain it better anyway," he said as he leaned in closer, lowering his head enough to press his lips against the side of Harvey's throat, leaving a feather-light trail up to his ear. "You know, Harlan's asleep. Everyone else is off doing other things today," Steve said, his voice low, his lips brushing the shell of the man's ear as he spoke. "And I still haven't welcomed you home properly..."

It was a smiling and relaxed Harvey Blackmoore everyone saw late that evening for team movie night. The most relaxed they'd ever seen him so far. Though the reason why would become apparent when everyone voted for Steve to go downstairs to greet the pizza guy.

"Walking a little funny there, Cap," Tony had said with a knowing smirk. "Enjoy the day to yourselves?"

Natasha had looked at Harvey as Steve resolutely pretended not to hear Tony on his way to the elevator. The man was absolutely grinning, and when he saw the assassin looking at him, he gave her a wink before turning back to the movie, his socked foot rocking the baby carrier at his feet as Harlan's wide green eyes took in all the bright colors of the movie Bruce had picked out (Tron), his tiny body trying to fight off sleep after a big – but still baby sized – dinner.

Harvey was in surgery when the call to assemble came.

And it required everyone.

Harlan was left in the care of his very capable Cousin Hermione and Auntie Pepper while Steve and the team went out to answer the call.

A call that took four days to resolve.

After the third day, no one called to check in.

Had Harvey a wand, he would have stolen some gear out of someone's locker (Clint's) and gone out to their last known location to get answers – recovering from surgery or not. Thankfully for everyone involved neither he nor Hermione still had a wand. In fact, they had been meant to go and get one two weeks after Harvey's surgery so that Hermione could get used to hers before going to school at the Salem Academy. It was closer to New York, being in Massachusetts, and easier to get to than the others she had to choose from in America.

Plus they allowed family visits from time to time.

That aside, it was a good thing for everyone that Harvey had absolutely no access to a wand when the Avengers finally returned.

Then again that really depended on who you were.

For one Captain America, it didn't mean shit when the elevator doors slid open to reveal a very annoyed looking Harvey, arms crossed over his chest, a bandage around his neck, and green eyes narrowed in a hard glare.

Steve knew that look.

He didn't like that look.

That look usually meant he was in trouble.

And he was counting his lucky stars the man couldn't talk right now. At least, he was until-

"Steven Grant Rogers," came the voice. He'd regained the ability to speak without pain earlier that day, and after saying a few words to Hermione in thanks for helping him with Harlan, he had spent the rest of the day in silence.

Green eyes roamed the torn and bloody uniform before glancing briefly at the others coming out of the elevator with him. "I told you I'd yell at you when I was fixed." He pointed to the private elevator. "Go clean up, rest up, and then I'm gonna yell real damn hard about how damn stupid you are not to tell me those damn coordinates so I could come find your stupid ass when you took that God damn plane down. And THEN I'm gonna yell at the rest of you idiots about missing your check-in because believe me the next time you make my niece and Pepper worry like that I'll track you down and drag your sorry asses home my damn self. Ask Steve, you don't want that to happen."

Cap groaned, but knowing exactly what his dearest was like when he was in this kind of a mood, didn't argue. It was best not to.

Natasha's impassive face as she watched nearly broke into amusement... nearly. "I think I liked him better when he was nearly mute," she said, catching his glare and then, only then, smiling back at him with such an obvious false innocence that Tony couldn't help but burst into laughter.

It happened again, of course.

Unfortunately it happened two days after Harvey had gotten a new wand.

He had arrived with a thunderous boom in Las Vegas, angry as an adder with his hat on crooked.

When all was said and done, Harvey was patching everyone up as best as he could while bitching the entire time about it, them, Steve doing something stupid, Clint doing something brave but stupid, and Tony pushing himself damn near to a heart attack coupled with, "Just because you ain't got that shit still in you doesn't mean your heart ain't still weak and damaged you reckless son of a bitch. Our boy needs his godfather to spoil his ass rotten so don't go dying on us yet!" and "Get the fuck over here so I can make sure you're not bleeding out internally!"

The next time the Avengers went out on call, JARVIS reminded Tony about the LAST time Harvey had to come out and help them. As a result, they were a lot more careful with themselves which, in turn, led to less collateral damage to the surrounding area.

And a happier doctor when they returned victorious but tired.

Across the pond, many were shocked on September 2nd to arrive at Hogwarts and not see Headmaster Dumbledore at the head table. It was even more jarring to see a very tired and drawn Professor McGonogall in his ornate chair and someone else sitting where Professor Snape usually sat.

It became apparent in the next morning's Daily Prophet why.

Professor Snape was wanted for questioning not by the Ministry of Magic, but by the International Confederation of Wizards for the unlawful imprisonment and torture of an unnamed man in the bowels of Hogwarts itself.

And as for Ex-Headmaster Albus Dumbledore... he'd done a runner as well when the ICW's Knights had arrived to arrest him on multiple charges of murder, treason, conspiracy to... well the list was far too large to recount. And most of all... branded him as a Dark Lord himself. His many accolades and awards were stripped from him and the trial of the century was going to be taking place, ironically, on October 31st of that year.

Needless to say the Ministry of Magic was pissed and trying to take control of the school by sending their own mole into the school in the guise of Undersecretary Dolores Umbrage. Unfortunately, the ICW had put one of their own into the post of Potions Master as well as another as Groundskeeper and a third as assistant Gamekeeper after they'd had to force Mr. Rubeus Hagrid from the post when he would not stop slandering the ICW just for doing their jobs.

To anyone that was aware of anything going on among the staff of Hogwarts, the situation was simply referred to as "The Potter Case".

Rita Skeeter, of course, was loving every moment of it now that she was free of the jar the mudblood Granger had stuffed her into and left behind at her parents' home.

Headmistress McGonogall was caught up in the center of all the political bullshit and she really had more to be dealing with. Like the ICW audits going on in the wake of Dumbledore's arrest, and the Ministry trying to push her in the opposite direction. And then there was the Order which was all in disarray. Remus who was constantly asking her if she had heard anything more about what happened to Harry, and the occasional drunken floo call from Sirius, again, begging her for any information she might have. Which she had none. None other than one of her best students had left the UK to seek her education elsewhere and another student of hers may or may not be dead and even if he wasn't... given everything the poor boy had been through in his life she wasn't likely to try and find him only to bring more misery to his door.

The old woman weathered the storm as best as she could with Deputy Headmaster Alastor Moody at her side as they worked to straighten out the mess that Albus had left in his wake.

...All the while, in a large and opulent manor house in Wiltshire, Wales, a serpentine-like man sat upon a throne of black stone, tapping a long nail against his chin in thought as he looked over that morning's newspaper and pondering his own Potter Problem.

The boy was dead. He had seen it himself moments after his own rebirth.

And yet...

"Wormtail," he hissed. The cowardly rat-like man threw himself to his master's feet, sniveling and groveling.

"Y-y-yes, M-m-master?"

"I require the presence of Severus. Fetch him. I desire to know what he learned of Potter's miraculous survival during the time he had the boy under his wand."

"Y-y-y-yes M-m-m-master," Wormtail stuttered even worse than usual as he was kicked in the head to send him scurrying on his way.

Afterword

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