NOTE: This story time-jumps and skips a lot more than the first one did. I trust my readers to see the dates noted at the beginning of pertinent chapters; I'm just making a note here, too, to minimize any confusion going forward.

HP - IM - HP - IM - HP - IM - HP

18 August 2013

"I just don't see why we have to wait," Hermione said as she paced the living area of the family floor. "JARVIS had our results ten seconds after we finished."

"Technically sooner than that," Harry said from where he lounged on the sofa, a copy of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland open on his lap. He looked away from the book and toward his friend as he continued, "I'm not sure exactly how fast he computes, but I'm pretty sure tabulating answers to a couple of tests wouldn't take him more than a second or two. Right, JARVIS?"

"A microsecond or two, in fact," JARVIS answered, and Hermione let out a huff.

"See?" she said. "Even less reason for us to wait!"

"You do realize JARVIS' results aren't official, right?" Harry asked, closing his book and putting it on the coffee table for later. There was no calming Hermione when she got anxious like this.

"We won't have the official results for a week. So why wait for the unofficial results?"

Harry sighed internally and sank back against the sofa cushions, letting his eyes drift close as he did.

"Harry Potter! Are you sleeping?"

"No. Just trying not to snap at you."

"Snap at me?" Her voice turned from strident to bewildered in the space of three words.

"You were there when Dad laid out the testing schedule," he said, his eyes still closed. "If you had any concerns with it, including how long we're waiting for results, you should've said so then."

"Well…" there was a pause, then a shift in the sofa cushions, indicating she'd sat down near him. "I didn't realize how hard it would be to wait."

Harry rolled his head so that he faced her and opened his eyes. "You've waited longer for results at Hogwarts, and you weren't as … anxious then."

"That's different because I had a good idea how well I'd done. For these - I've no clue."

"These weren't even real tests," Harry reminded her. "These were just assessments - placement tests, Dad called them - to see what grade we should be in."

"I looked it up - we should be able to start eighth grade," she said. "But what if we're not?"

Harry straightened. "If we're not, then we have a heavier course load this year to catch up. It can't be too bad - we've only missed two years of regular school. Besides - I'm kind of glad for a heavier course load."

That made her mouth actually drop open. Harry hid a grin at her stunned expression. "You - Harry - you want a heavier course load?"

"Think about all the trouble we got into first and second year. A good part of the reason why was because we had the time to do it."

"I-" Hermione began, then paused and huffed out another breath and began again. "That's a very mature position to take. And you're right, of course - at least about having so much free time. There really aren't any clubs or anything at Hogwarts, are there?"

"Only Quidditch, and then the dueling club Lockhart tried to start."

Before Hermione could say anything else, the lift doors slid open and Dad came into the room, followed by Hermione's parents, who had their luggage with them.

Dad focused on Hermione. "JARVIS tells me you're getting antsy."

"I wouldn't say antsy, exactly," Hermione objected.

"I would," Harry said earnestly. "Honestly, you're worse right now than after any exam at Hogwarts. I understand why," he added hastily when she frowned. "But it's still true."

"I just - I hate the thought of being behind!" Hermione almost wailed.

"Hermione!" Mrs. Granger snapped, and Hermione appeared to settle.

Mr. Granger came and sat on the coffee table so he could face Hermione. Harry shifted away, trying to give them a little privacy, but Hermione's hand clenched on his, so he stayed where he was.

"I know you love to excel, Sweetheart," Mr. Granger said. "And we've encouraged you to - maybe too much, and I'm sorry we misled you."

"Misled?" Hermione's voice cracked. "What do you mean, misled?"

"He means," Mrs. Granger came to sit by Hermione's other side, "that in the real world, once you get out of school, nobody cares what your grades were. They care if you passed, if you graduated, and that's all."

"Maybe," Mr. Granger said, "and I stress maybe if you graduate summa cum laude from one of the top ten universities, then people might care. But otherwise?" He shook his head.

Harry could almost feel Hermione's devastation.

"But-" she began, then didn't seem to know how to continue.

"Remember what you told me first year," Harry murmured. "At the chessboard. There are more important things than books and cleverness, right?"

"I - suppose." Hermione sounded torn, and Harry figured he'd be spending some of his time listening to her talk through the problem, whatever she saw the problem as.

"We done with emotional things for the moment?" Dad asked. "'Cause if not, I'll head back to my workshop. If so - I'm pretty sure someone wants her test results, and if I'd known how antsy you get, I'd never have suggested you wait."

"Oh, yes please!" Hermione exclaimed and Harry coughed to cover a laugh even as both her parents sighed.

"JARVIS?" Dad said.

"Both Master Harry and Miss Granger have passed social studies and language arts to be placed in eighth grade, though their literature reading has not encompassed all the books on the curriculum."

Harry hoped he hid a wince as Hermione's hand tightened on his.

"And science and maths?" she asked.

"For those, you are both at seventh grade level, if barely," JARVIS said.

"Barely?" Hermione whispered, obviously aghast. Harry only nodded.

"Harry?" Dad asked.

He shrugged. "Once you brought it up, I figured I'd be behind. I'm just glad I'm not further behind than I am."

"I'll talk to your tutors and figure out a curriculum," Dad said. "But two extra classes each week, plus the literature reading, isn't too bad."

"No," Hermione agreed. "I just - I wish the worlds didn't have to be so separate."

"I think we all do," Mrs. Granger said. "It … hurts, to know that you're learning so much you can't show us until you graduate."

"Oh, Mum!" Hermione threw her arms around her mother, and not for the first time, Harry envied her her family.

Oh, he'd never hold her having a family while he didn't against her - sometimes life just worked out like that. And yes, he had Dad, Uncle Steve, and Sirius now, a fact he'd forever be grateful for. Still, there appeared to be something about mothers - mums - that was far more … well, more than he'd ever experienced.

Dad cleared his throat. "We're working on that, because I'd like to see what Harry can do, too."

"Oh?" Mr. Granger asked. "What are you doing, and can we help at all?"

"Probably not," Dad remarked. "We're - the Avengers - are moving to a permanent base of operations, and since they know about magic, it should be possible to get an exemption for magic practiced there."

Hermione pulled back from her mum and looked up at Dad with a frown. "But the news says the Avengers are based here, at Avengers Tower."

"Don't believe everything the news says. It's Stark Tower," Dad replied. "And having us based here would be an engraved invitation for bad guys to attack, hoping to draw us out because innocent lives would be at risk."

"Makes sense," Mr. Granger put in. "So where will you be based?"

"Upstate," Dad replied, and that somewhat vague answer seemed to satisfy the other man.

"Pardon me, Sir," JARVIS said, "but Mr. Hogan has the limousine ready to take Dr. and Dr. Granger to the airport."

"Already?" Hermione asked. "I wish you could stay longer!"

"So do we, Honey," her mother responded, hugging her again. "But the surgery won't run itself."

Harry rose and offered Mr. Granger his hand, feeling foolish as he did, but manners were manners. "It was great to have you visit, sir."

Mr. Granger's large hand engulfed his. "Thanks for having us. And thanks for letting Hermione stay to learn with you."

"Thank you for letting her."

Harry made his way through the rest of the awkward farewells, and stood beside Hermione, waving until the lift doors closed behind her parents.

He half-expected Hermione to start crying once the doors closed, but she only gave one sniffle before turning to face him, determination in the set of her mouth.

"Science first? Or maths?" she asked.

HP - IM - HP - IM - HP

The time difference between New York and London was four hours.

That was a fact that Tony had only been vaguely aware of until he'd brought Harry home, leaving Sirius Black, Harry's godfather, behind in London while the man sorted out a few legal issues.

Tony gave a mental snort. A few legal issues was how JARVIS might describe the situation: Sirius had been imprisoned without a trial for a crime he didn't commit. He'd then escaped the presumed-inescapable Azkaban prison in an effort to protect Harry and capture the man who'd framed him, and then he'd gone to the International Confederation of Wizards for the investigation that should've happened ten years before.

Now Sirius waited for the British Wizengamot to get their acts together and recognize his innocence - and Tony waited for his call to the man to go through so he could get an update on the situation.

Fortunately, Crispian Paddington - Tony's liaison to the British magical community - had full videoconferencing capabilities at the house where Sirius was staying, so Tony could putter with an improved repulsor system for his Iron Man armor while they talked.

The screen resolved into Sirius' face. The man looked much healthier than he had when Tony last saw him five days before. Tony chalked it up to magic and reminded himself again to find a surgeon with magic to deal with the arc reactor in his chest.

"Good morning," Sirius said. "It is morning in New York, right?"

Tony glanced at a clock display on one of the smaller monitors before responding, "For a couple more minutes. How's it going?"

"Slowly. But I expected that."

"Routine process of events, or are they stonewalling you?" Not that Tony knew what he'd do if they were stonewalling Sirius, but it seemed polite to ask.

Sirius shrugged. "Mostly routine, a little stonewalling. Nothing unexpected."

"Any estimate on when they'll be done?" Tony frowned as the part he held in one hand didn't connect with the part in his other hand. They were supposed to connect, they connected in the simulation, so why weren't they connecting in real life?

"We're hoping Christmas." The new voice made Tony focus on the screen again and nod a greeting to the man who'd joined Sirius.

"Bear. Your dad making waves?"

Crispian Paddington laughed. "Dad doesn't make waves. He makes tsunamis."

"So what's taking so long?"

"He's taking the honorable route," Paddington replied. "Filing all the forms, hearing all the testimony. As he put it, there is no need to compound one miscarriage of justice with another."

Tony grimaced. His introduction to the British magical world had been full of injustices. Certainly, some of them could be ascribed to simple mistakes, but as a wise man once said, once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.

At the moment, the count stood at two big injustices - Harry's placement with his maternal aunt's family, and Sirius' lack of a trial - and that had been the biggest thing pushing Tony to get Harry out of Britain as quickly as possible.

The second biggest thing was the lack of security at Hogwarts. Even thinking that twice Harry had encountered dark objects and creatures - well, three times, if you counted the basilisk and the spirit of Voldemort as separate events - that could have killed him made Tony a little - okay, a lot - homicidal.

Tony shook himself out of his musings and re-focused on the conversation with Bear and Black.

"In the meantime," Sirius was saying, "I've got Dobby helping me clean the ancestral home. It's been sitting empty for a while, and the house elf we have went … a bit round the twist, and not nearly as delightfully as Dobby."

Tony grinned at that, briefly. Then, "So what happens to house elves in that condition?"

The two men on the screen exchanged a look.

"It's quite rare for an elf to … deteriorate as much as Kreacher has," Paddington said, and Tony blinked. They called their elf Creature? He put that thought aside as Paddington continued, "There aren't any formal facilities for their care, but we've contacted a private healer about the matter."

Tony accepted that at face value. How could he not? He didn't know enough about the magical world - yet - to have any other opinion.

"Okay," he said. "So, Christmas. I'm thinking of inviting some of Harry's friends over the Christmas break. Think you can travel with them?"

"Sure," Sirius replied easily. "I'll even organize a portkey, if someone can give me the magical coordinates for your place."

"I'll have-" Tony broke off, frowning. He hadn't nicknamed his newest assistant yet. He shook off that thought and started again, "I've hired a Bear for the US. JARVIS, make a note for her."

"There's no need."

Tony dropped the part he held, whirling to face the source of the new voice even as a band on his wrist morphed into a repulsor in his palm.

He found himself facing Louise Grant, who held her hands away from her sides in a classic I'm unarmed gesture - which he appreciated, even if it wasn't entirely accurate. She was a witch, after all.

A flick of his wrist retracted the repulsor into its housing as he said, "Don't do that! Don't sneak up on me like some kind of blonde phantom."

"Sorry," she said, and she did look contrite. A little. On the screen, Bear looked amused while Sirius appeared to be torn between howls of laughter and blatant appreciation of Phantom.

"Louise Grant," Tony said, "Sirius Black and Crispian Paddington - your British counterpart."

"Though my role will diminish considerably since Tony's primary residence is in the States," Paddington said. "And once Sirius is fully cleared."

"I'm glad to meet you," Louise replied. "Not least because I need help with something Tony wants."

"Happy to help," Paddington replied. "JARVIS, please give her my contact information. If you prefer to Floo, the address is Paddington Manor. Call first, the wards are usually up."

"Of course," Louise said. "Very nice to meet you both." Then she turned to Tony. "The kids are breaking for lunch. Since you'd already set today up as a business day, you can eat with them and finalize the paperwork."

Tony frowned. "What paperwork?"

"So you can act for Hermione in loco parentis in the mundane world, and I can in the magical world, while she's here. The Grangers signed before they left, and you should probably sign before they land. Just in case."

Which was a horrible thing to think about, but Tony knew all about Harry's two years at Hogwarts. "Right." He looked back up at the monitor. "Gotta go. Anything else?"

"Just that I have a few inquiries out on your behalf," Crispian said. Tony's brows hadn't even come together before he added, "The services we discussed."

"Ah." Tony grinned. "Thanks, Bear. Looking forward to whatever you find."