Dyslexia: Language disability, I am aware there are misspellings and missing words, move on, or move along.
White Tiger
Reboot of Natasha Romanoff and the Secrets of Death by JacobApples.
Summary: Lily Potter conducted a ritual that took more than her magic when she invoked Loki's name to save her son and to kill Voldemort. Now that Harry too has 'died', Loki's calling in the debt, deciding that being King of Asgard isn't nearly as much fun as raising a human wizard to be devoted to him to get back at his brother. Really, how much trouble could a teenager possibly be? Aunt May might have an answer to that; more than even a god could be prepared for.
TIMELINE: Harry end of 4th year, timeline starts after Spider-Man: Homecoming and goes though Doctor Strange and Ragnarok, then really off script preventing Infinity War and End Game.
Updates: I do have this plotted but I bounce between many stories because I'm a neurotic artist, my life enjoys setting itself on fire, and I am partial to the responses of reviewers. Thank you, Nauze! Also, the title is subject to change.
Central Heroes: Harry Potter, Peter Parker, Michele Jones, and Natasha Romanoff (Tony Stark and Dr. Strange are around a lot too, but not typically their POV).
Main Villains: Loki, Kaecilius, and Hella (Almost never their POV, no you don't deserve to understand their motives until the MCs do).
A Prologue
Lily Evans Potter had made a lot of mistakes in her life. Harry wasn't one of them, and she could only hope that the ritual she had invoked on, calling on the power of gods and the most ancient of magics wouldn't backfire on her, on Harry.
But of course it had, it was ancient magic. She had given up her magic to place a protection on her son that would protect, that would kill the monster who tried to kill her baby.
Only Lily Potter didn't live long enough to see it for herself. Perhaps she should have stood aside, perhaps she should have trusted that she had performed the ritual correctly, her magic was gone after all, but she couldn't do that. She would do anything for her son, she would beg the murder of her husband for mercy, and she would die for Harry, or she would try to.
How was she to know that once invoked, her death would create a second bargain of sorts?
Though Lily did die that night, her memories, her being, lived on worlds away, her face recognisable, the hue of her hair, but everything else…
When Natasha Romanoff woke, having completed her training, having healed abnormally fast from her invasive surgery, she remembered that other life, that other world of magic and darkness, of the son she had left behind, but nothing she remembered had any base in reality.
Another horror of the Red Room, or impossible dream, or- Natasha never had an explanation. She only remembered losing everything, of doing as she was told fighting for a cause she was told to believe in. Until she met Clint Barton, until she pulled back into the light, showing the red she had soaked the ledger in.
Lily Potter would have been horrified, she was that part of Natasha Romanoff that was horrified, who wanted to be a hero, a true Gryffindor, a-
She would try, never stop trying to make up for the things she had done, for allowing herself to be a weapon without morality.
But even in the light, Natasha never saw the magic she remembered, never felt its kin, not even in the numerous aliens she had encountered. Still, an illogical part of her survived, unexplainable, unprovable, entirely baseless but for the memories of home that haunted her dreams, but Natasha Romanoff still believed.
She believed that somewhere in the cosmos, her son, Harry Potter, still lived.
ACT I: The Transfer Kid
Graveyard, Little Hangleton, 1995, Not the MCU Dimension
Another Prologue
'"You won't?" said Voldemort quietly, and the Death Eaters were not laughing now. "You won't say no? Harry, obedience is a virtue I need to teach you before you die... Perhaps another little dose of pain?"'
Harry thought he was ready, thought he could leap out of the way, his muscles taut. But he caught sight of Cedric and…
For a moment, he thought he deserved it, whatever Voldemort did to him, he would deserve it. Harry looked up to meet Voldemort's gaze and didn't run.
The Torture Curse hit and he screamed, but he didn't lose hold of his wand.
Once more, Voldemort retracted his spell, "Had enough, Harry? Imperio!"
Bow to death, Harry Potter.
It was a command and Harry smiled, despite the pain, despite knowing what he was going to do, despite knowing what it would lead to.
Cedric Diggory was dead because of Harry.
His parents were dead because of Harry.
And Harry was going to die tonight.
Harry looked up at Voldemort, red eyes to green, and said, "If I die, we die together."
It was the only warning he gave, and even peering into his mind, Voldemort didn't expect it, didn't expect him to know how to wield it correctly.
But Harry understood death, and unlike the Dark Lord, he wasn't afraid of it.
"Avada Kedavra!" Harry hissed in Parseltongue, the Latin translated into the language of snakes made the Killing Curse all that much more potent.
Only Voldemort could hear the words, but no one in that graveyard mistook the emerald green light as anything else, as Harry Potter killed the Dark Lord.
Summer Private Drive, 1995, Voldemort Didn't Get Up Because Harry Didn't Get Up, Horcruxes are These People's Problem ;)
Professor Severus Snape had never much liked Harry Potter, but it was hard not to admire him especially after the sacrifice he had made.
A fourteen-year-old Gryffindor having the force of will to cast the Killing Curse? Severus had certainly never heard of it, probably shouldn't have been impressed with a child committing homicide, but he was. Lucius's retelling of the events had been… haunting. Severus, despite the deception having been necessary in regards to publicly hating the Boy Who Lived, regretted how harshly he had judged Lily's son.
In the end, Harry Potter had proven himself brave and true, giving up everything he was to stop the Dark Lord. The Triwizard Tournament ended in turmoil; two Hogwarts Champions, two victors, and two coffins.
Funny how they had all been sorry and worried about Potter in the tournament, the boy had handled the dragon just fine, but there were of course greater dangers. Lucius had said that Potter had dropped with the Dark Lord, that the Killing Curse had rebounded on the Boy Who Lived, but the Wizarding World at large believed it was Pettigrew who killed the boy in the end.
The other Death Eaters had, in their fear, killed Nagini and paralyzed Pettigrew upon leaving the graveyard. Pettigrew had been tried with the full extant of the law in brutally public hearing where the whole truth had come out. He had justly earned himself the Dementor's kiss after Black's name had been cleared. Not that it had mattered, Harry's godfather looked like the walking dead.
Severus, too, felt empty, having failed Lily. He took it upon himself to deliver the news to Petunia. Standing on the stoop, Severus wondered at this cruel reality that it had somehow landed on a child to save the world, again.
Petunia answered the door with a snarl, "What are you doing here?"
"May I come in, Mrs. Dursley?" he asked, not rising to the tone.
"You can leave," she said snidely, "the boy isn't here, if he has run away."
"He's dead, Petunia," Severus stated.
She looked momentarily stunned, then her face twisted into a vile expression and she spat, "Good riddance."
Severus's anger woke, like a pine in a forest fire catching light, and he pushed the door open, wand raised as he stepped inside, "What did you just say?"
Petunia cowered from him and a walrus man came out into the hall followed by a human ball of fat with a child's face. The man demanded, "What's all this about!? Freak! Get out of our-"
Severus had an awful suspicion just then, "Where is the boy's room?"
Mr. Dursley's face turned puce and he began shouting vulgarities, but Severus saw him glance up the stairs.
Severus didn't wait for permission. The first door was the master bedroom, the one beside it a rather large guest room, and the one after that was a boy's room, stuffed to the brim with toys, and dirty mess of clothing and sweet wrappers covering the floor, exactly how he had always pictured Potter's home.
But the lettering on the wall did not say Harry, it read Dudley.
Severus hesitated as he came to the last bedroom before slowly opening the door. That it had a food slot and locks on the outside as if these middle-class muggles thought they were housing a vicious zoo animal of some sort. The room inside, however, was nothing special, the only real notable thing were the bars on the outside of the windows. Severus walked in to get a better look; the paint was peeling, the carpeting was clearly older than in the rest of the house, and the room had the smell and the layer of dust that proclaimed that the room had been sealed for months.
There wasn't a single picture on the wall, not a single decoration. Just a pile of books on a desk that looked like a muggle curriculum of textbooks and selected reading, all new and hardly used. If they had been read, they hadn't been carried back and forth between school and home.
If you could call this a home.
Severus checked the dresser and found no clothes, just an old stack of parchment in the bottom draw, and when he pulled them out, he discovered they were just old Potions essays, left behind as if they were the only thing Potter hadn't cared about getting destroyed.
Severus sat down on the made bed, and winced at the puff of dust that came up, the rough blanket, and the lumpy mattress. On that horrible bed, in that horrible room, in that horrible house that reflected Severus's childhood all too strongly, he reread the essays that had passed under his hands once before. The handwriting was dreadful, getting worse and splotchy the further down the pile he got. The summer essays were- not worth remarking upon, and Severus's own comments were perhaps harsher than absolutely necessary.
Severus froze, however, when he got to the last page and read the words that had been so dutifully transcribed by a small hand four years ago,
I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death -
Severus closed his eyes then, his mistakes, his judgements, his assumptions, falling back on him in a landslide of remorse.
Harry Potter, for all the trouble he had attracted and jumped headlong into, had been a good kid who dealt a hard hand and would have grown up to be a great man.
If he had been allowed to live that long.
Midtown High, Queens, New York, NY, 2020, A Dimension of the MCU
Chapter 1 - First Day of Muggle High
Harry Potter, on the whole, was grateful to be alive, he was not, in any way, shape, or form grateful for the mundane chaos he had been thrust into upon waking up in New York City of all places. But he was also angry, at everything, at everyone, and he wanted nothing more than to go home to his own country and to find Ron and Hermione.
But Hermione Jane Granger didn't exist, neither did her parents, or the Dursleys, or Mrs. Figg, or his old Primary school, or for that matter was he even in the correct year. And asking all of these so reasonable questions had stripped him of his every right to self-agency. In other words, the American courts had waived Harry's consent of adoption because they had found that it was in his best interests to be adopted by a complete and utter stranger. Said stranger who had found Harry when he materialized (or rather, come back from the dead) twenty-five years into the future!
And the stranger who adopted him? Was a man as pale as Harry, with blue eyes, straight black hair and appeared to have no definable day job and seemed to have about as much understanding of the mundane world as Arthur Weasley. The latter Harry had only pieced together after his first-morning experience with him after having been released from his month-long stay in the hospital.
Mr. Lochlan Laughlin had stayed with Harry from the first moment in the alley, stayed with him in the hospital, flirting with all the nurses, and despite not knowing each other, Mr. Laughlin was the one trusted by the great state of New York to decide Harry's fate.
Although Harry could admit his new guardian was a lot nicer than Dursleys had ever been, Mr. Laughlin still creeped Harry out, worse a genuine smile from Aunt Petunia.
So now, Harry was going to a nice normal school, without a wand, no allies, a deep suspicion about his new guardian, and in a galaxy where aliens had destroyed the city? He didn't quite understand what had happened to the city but all the nurses and doctors kept making peculiar comments about aliens being actually real.
Not that aliens were that weird of an idea for Harry but he didn't understand the context at all, which, should be fair, because he was in the future.
Harry was neither enthused nor amused at this prospect, even if he had a significant amount of history and muggle studies to catch up on.
Sighing, Harry's first class in this dingy school with its linoleum flooring, started off with tripping and falling into a guy who spun, and with the skill of a professional dancer, caught Harry in a dip about a foot off the ground.
Harry was grateful until the catcalls started and he half wished the boy had just let him crack his head open.
The boy with brown hair and brown eyes, pulled him up to his feet, his ears red as he apologized to Harry, "I'm so sorry, man."
Harry shrugged it off, he had certainly been through far worse at Hogwarts, and survived, mostly, at any rate, "Not a problem."
The boy's eyes widened at his accent but he thankfully didn't remark, just held out his hand, "I'm Peter Parker."
Harry couldn't help but smile as he shook the other boy's hand, the guy was just that type of cheerful, "Harry Potter."
"Oh," Peter said, face lighting up as he motioned to the short boy beside him, "and this is my friend Ned Leeds."
"Hi!" Ned said, "You're the new English dude."
English Dude was far better than the Boy Who Lived, yet Harry couldn't help raising a brow, "Are you not speaking English?"
Ned blinked at him, "What?"
But Peter grinned.
A girl came by then, "Hey, nerds, we are going to be late." She caught Harry's gaze and in greeting asked, "What up?"
It was Harry's turn to blink and Peter introduced them, "MJ, this is Harry Potter, Harry this is Michele Jones."
She nodded in greeting as they started down the hall and Ned and Peter started talking interchangeably about the school and classes. It seemed Harry's arrival had been expected and the professor even asked him to stand up for the class.
Harry stood, unsure of what to say until the professor asked, "Tell us about yourself, Harry, and your favourite Avenger."
"Before half of them became war criminals," interjected one kid.
Harry wasn't exactly sure what to say about that latter bit but said, "I'm Harry, I just moved to New York City from Surrey, England," by moved he meant died and woke up in an alternate reality in a different country, "I like-" what muggle thing did he like? "Drawing and my favourite Avenger is-" What the hell was an Avenger? He searched the room for a clue, Ned caught his eye and mouthed Spider only for Peter to punch his arm. Harry finished, "-are the Spiders," wondering what sport they were even talking about. Maybe American football?
But the professor nodded, "Ah, yes, Black Widow and Spider-Man, this class has some history with Spider-Man, don't we kids?"
That didn't sound like a sport, but Harry took the opportunity to sit down as the class talked and the professor had to take five minutes to hush them all before he could begin his lecture on a book called Pride and Prejudice.
By the end of said lecture, Harry was bored out of his mind, thinking that no, he hadn't missed much in the muggle world. Learning about fictional people hundreds of years ago was more useless than Divinations.
He found himself looking out the window wondering for the billionth time how he had ended up here and how he was going to find his mother and/or the magical world without his wand.
Peter didn't know what to think of the new kid.
"He's definitely a drug addict," Betty Brant said in an urgent tone, "How did someone like that even manage to get in-" she squeaked, then whispered in a rush, "He's coming this way, pretend like you can't see him!"
The blonde spun, and Peter rolled his eyes, as he turned to look at Harry who had come over to his workbench in shop.
"How's it going?" Peter greeted with a welcoming grin.
Harry gave Betty's back an odd look and asked, "What did I do?"
MJ, with all the subtlety of a baseball bat to the skull, said, "You look like you've been hit by a truck and haven't slept in days and haven't eaten in even longer. Betty thinks you're an addict."
Betty spun on her heel gaping at MJ who just smirked at her, Betty mumbled something that may have been an apology or promise of revenge to MJ before making a run to the bathroom.
Harry sighed, "I might have preferred the truck, to be honest."
MJ moved her bag so he could sit beside her, "Why?"
Harry shrugged, his shocking green eyes focused on his brand new bag for a moment, Peter only noticed it was new because he had to replace him recently. "I moved to the States a week ago."
"Did your parents get a new job or did you lose anyone?" Ned asked.
Peter sighed, he knew he had a big mouth sometimes but really Ned?
Harry frowned, "Everyone."
Peter's heart ached for him, "Hey, I lost my parents too, I'm sorry for your loss."
Harry waved it away, "Thanks, but my parents died when I was really little. I mean I lost-" His voice cracked and he coughed to clear it, "Sorry, I didn't mean to get into that. I was actually just coming to ask what this class is?"
"Shop," the three of them answered.
"Yeah," Harry said, voice dry, his British accent gave the words personality, "But what do you do?"
"We all have projects for the end of year, this is time to work on it with the school resources," Ned said. "Peter has an internship with Stark so this is all minor leagues for him."
"Stark?" Harry asked.
"Tony Stark," Ned repeated and at Harry's continued blank look, he added, "You know, Iron Man, Stark Industries?"
"So he's rich?" Harry surmised.
They all stared at him.
Finally, Ned said, "He's an Avenger."
"Yeah, I don't know what an Avenger is," Harry said as if he wasn't living in the city where an alien war had taken place.
Ned was gaping at him, "You don't know? How can you not know!?"
"I really don't know much about the States," Harry insisted.
"Stark Industries isn't just about America," Peter said, setting aside how anyone could not know about the Avengers, but then again, he had said he had lost everything. "It's part of how we won World War II and is the world leader in science innovation."
"Right," Harry said, no bells seemed to have been rung, "Listen, I wasn't really asking… er, about class I mean, what sort of projects?"
"You know, science or technology," Ned said, looking at Harry as if maybe Betty was right, maybe the guy was on drugs.
Harry pushed his glasses up his face, then pulled his long bangs over his forehead, "Er, I don't really know that much about those subjects. I'm okay at maths though, I guess."
Even MJ gave him a look.
Peter couldn't think of a nice way to say it, but Ned just went for it, "This is Midtown School of Science and Technology, why would you choose-"
Harry looked suddenly angry, his pale face flushed with humiliation, and he hissed, "I didn't choose this, I didn't want to come to this city or this country." He grabbed his bag and stormed out of the room just as the bell rang.
Betty squeaked and spun out of Harry's way as marched out, not even sparing any of them a look.
"Smooth," MJ observed.
"Hey," Ned said, "I didn't see you do any better."
Peter frowned but didn't say anything, he didn't know what to think of Harry. Peter just knew better than most what it was like to grow up without parents, to lose someone close, to feel like the world was falling in around you. And Peter didn't know what it was like in addition to being displaced from your own country. He did wonder how anyone could miss the Avengers and Stark Industries, but Peter wasn't about to judge Harry Potter.
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
Harry walked home taking the long way, despite not liking the city, he liked his new 'home' even less.
Lochlan Laughlin wasn't a normal sort of person, not by muggle or magical standards, he was… creepy.
And Harry couldn't even really explain why that was other than Laughlin's obsession with winning Harry over. He didn't like most adults or trust them in the best of times. But Mr. Laughlin was the one who Harry had woken up to leaning over him in an alleyway and who had seen him to the hospital, then claimed custody over him.
Harry didn't know how he could be in a graveyard attempting to kill a Dark Lord, only to die and to wake up in a world where… well, wake up twenty-five years in the future, with no evidence that anyone from his time from the muggle world much less the magical one had ever existed.
Why had he woken up in New York, in that alleyway not far from Mr. Laughlin's apartment, and why did Laughlin want to adopt him? Who became that set on adopting some random child off the streets?
Harry didn't trust that this wasn't some nightmare induced hysteria. Maybe Voldemort hadn't used the Killing Curse on him at all, maybe he was off his rocker as the Longbottoms and was being treated with them in St. Mungo's completely unawares.
"Harry!" Mr. Laughlin greeted, throwing the door wide, "I'm so happy you're home!"
Harry didn't say anything, just stared at the man suspiciously as he came into the apartment.
Mr. Laughlin smiled at him, a crafty look to his gaze, "How was your first day of school? Really, I could have picked you up."
How had this man convinced the courts he was parental material? Harry glared at him, "Why did you send me to a school of science and technology? I'll never catch up."
"Nonsense," the man said, "I'll help you get through it."
Harry had a sinking feeling that his need for help was the very reason he had been sent to such a school. But Laughlin didn't know him, Harry would sooner fail than ask for help.
English class he supposed would be one of the few classes he managed to pass, oh, and gym. Nothing kept you in shape like running for your life.
Even if he had been informed he looked like he had been hit by a truck.
"Did you make any friends?" Laughlin probed.
"Nope," Harry said.
Laughlin sighed, and turned back to the stove.
It was a nice apartment, a penthouse, with as much space as the Dursleys' home but, he supposed, not as giant as the characters in Hermione's romance books (sue him for reading them, he was bored).
"Can I have a computer?" Harry asked.
Laughlin glanced at him over his shoulder, his blue eyes as sparkly as Dumbledore's, "I've already bought you one."
"Thanks," Harry said with zero gratitude. If he was going to get free from this 'arrangement', he was going to have to understand this future reality. Starting with who in Merlin's name the Avengers were?
Something made an angry pop in the pot Laughlin was shaking.
"What are you doing?" Harry asked.
"Cooking," the man said casually without looking round.
Harry walked around the island counter to see what 'cooking' meant.
"No," Harry stated.
"No, what?" Laughlin asked innocently.
"No, we aren't eating that, you will kill us both."
"You think you can do better?" Laughlin challenged, while side-eyeing the thing in the pot.
"Yes," Harry said, taking the spoon out of the man's hand and grabbing a cloth before grabbing the handle to put the mystery pot in the sink.
He didn't remove the lid and had no plans to. Harry had no intentions of doing dishes for this stranger. He opened the cupboards and pulled out a new pot and intended to make just plain noodles, the box of orzos unopened the counter.
"Thank you, Harry," Mr. Laughlin said, giving Harry space as he took a seat at the island table. "But really, how was your day?"
Harry didn't respond for a long time, "I want to go home."
"I'm afraid, Harry, we weren't able to find anyone you named. Or at least, none who knew you."
"I want to move back to my country."
"Am I really so bad that you want to return to fostercare-"
"I told you that I-"
"You told me you didn't even remember how you got to New York," Laughlin said sternly, "You have no friends, no family, no past, no papers- No future, not without help."
"I didn't ask for your help," Harry said without turning away from the water on the stove.
"I saved your life," Laughlin said mildly.
Harry said nothing, the words on his tongue burned, I wish you had let me stay dead.
But he didn't truly believe that. The memory of the Inbetween, of that place between life and death was dim, but Harry remembered his father.
James Potter standing on the edge of the afterlife, holding him tight, had told his dying son a secret; Harry, your mother isn't dead.
Harry had pulled back from hugging the man in the white void that was a vague illusion of the King's Cross station, If she's alive, then where is she?
She made a bargain, Harry, to save your life and to kill Voldemort. My son, she's in another world.
What do you mean, Dad?
That is a question you must discover for yourself, or if you feel you are truly ready, you can wait for her with me on the other side.
Harry had made his choice to live, that he would search for her.
I'm so proud of you, my son.
"So, Harry," Laughlin mused, a glint of mischief in his gaze as Harry glanced back at him, "Do you believe in magic?"
Harry didn't miss a beat as he lied, "No, I don't."
Laughlin sighed and frowning slightly, he said unenthusiastically, "Science and technology can be a bit like magic, you know."
Harry didn't respond, needlessly stirring the pasta as his every danger instinct went on high alert.
Lochlan Laughlin hadn't been anything but nice and charitably to Harry, and maybe there was something wrong with him, but that made Harry mistrust him all the more.
Harry had opted for the Mad-Eye Moody approach, and did not regret swiping a kitchen knife that he always slept with a knife tucked by the head board.
A decision he was more settled with when he got up the next morning, Laughlin had gone out to buy donuts and coffee for them, and he had done the dishes.
Harry didn't trust the mischievous eyed man at all.
AN: So this is the reboot as I wanted to restart this fic because we are supposedly getting Black Widow's movie in July and I'm excited. Thoughts, ideas, desires, feedback, dragons, or reviews? Pretty Please?