27 February 2015
Tony held his coffee mug in both hands, fingers idly tapping the beat to AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" as he looked out over the London skyline from the conference room in Stock Tower Docklands. This early in the morning, the city looked bright and clean. His mental over/under for that impression lasting was about thirty minutes. Not far from him, Sirius was arranging a Dicta-Quill and parchment on the conference table.
Officially, Sirius was attending the upcoming interview as Harry's godfather. Unofficially…
Unofficially, Tony was irritated that he needed a magical bodyguard, just in case. Oh, Happy almost always went with him as driver and bodyguard, but Tony never expected he'd need Happy in that capacity, and even if he did need Happy, Tony himself hadn't defenseless since the Iron Man armor Mark I.
In the magical world, Tony sometimes felt naked and exposed and … vulnerable. There, he'd admitted it - if only to himself. It wasn't a comfortable feeling, and he'd have to do something about it. Somehow.
"Ready," Sirius said. "JARVIS, I expect this is a silly question, but you'll record the interview as well?"
"Of course, Mr. Black," JARVIS replied, and Tony hid a smile behind a sip of coffee at JARVIS' politely frustrated tone.
"Isn't that a rule?" Sirius asked. "Always double-check?"
"If it's not," Tony said, "it should be. Right up there with measure twice, cut once. Time to portkey activation?"
"Thirty-seven seconds," JARVIS answered promptly.
"Right, then." Sirius moved a couple of steps closer to Tony, and his wand appeared in his hand.
They'd sent the portkey to the Daily Prophet offices, after offering them an interview with Harry Potter, so only a reporter, and possibly a photographer, should be appearing on the far end of the conference room. Too many shoulds had gone wrong in Tony's life for him not to be prepared for the worst.
"Count it down, J."
"Portkey activation in five seconds…. Three. Two. One."
A heavy-jawed witch appeared, wearing magenta robes and jeweled spectacles and clutching a crocodile-skin handbag with thick fingers that ended in two-inch nails painted crimson. With her was a paunchy man clutching a camera in his free hand.
The witch's gaze skimmed over Tony, then Sirius…
…and then she gasped as she caught sight of the skyline beyond the window.
"Is that - real?" she asked, her tone quietly awed.
"Of course," Tony replied. "Why wouldn't it be?"
The witch tore her gaze from the view and offered a wan smile. "My apologies - I don't think I've been this high before, even on a broom." She seemed to gather herself, because she offered a more brilliant smile. "I'm Rita Skeeter, Daily Prophet. My photographer, Bozo."
"Tony Stark," Tony replied. "And Sirius Black, Harry's godfather."
"Pleasure," Skeeter murmured. "Speaking of Harry - I understood this would be an interview with him?"
"All in good time," Sirius said. "We thought you might appreciate the first interview Harry's biological father has given, as well?"
The witch's eyes lit up with avarice, and this time Tony hid a grimace behind a swallow of coffee.
"I'd be quite pleased," she said. "If you don't mind, Bozo can take a couple of pictures while I get settled?"
She appeared to take their agreement for granted as she moved toward the conference table and dug into her bag.
"Only a few shots, sirs," the photographer - and was he really named Bozo? Tony forced himself not to laugh - said. "One of the two of you, one of each of you, and perhaps a couple of this magnificent view?"
"Sure." Tony, a veteran of hundreds of interviews and photo sessions, set his cup on the conference table. "Me against the skyline?"
"Splendid!" Bozo agreed, and the next few minutes were spent getting the pictures taken.
Finally, that chore was done, and Bozo looked around. "And where is Harry Potter?"
"Nope," Tony said. "No pictures of him."
Both Skeeter and Bozo looked … angry? Tony glared them down.
"He's fourteen, a minor in all of our societies," Tony snapped. "No pictures. Obviously, you can take pictures at the tournament, or any other public venue, but no pictures otherwise."
Skeeter gave him a calculating look, then nodded. "He's right, Bozo," she said. "But, Mr. Stark - surely one picture to show he's well after the second task?"
"You didn't get pictures then?" Sirius asked. "Seems like sloppy work if not."
Skeeter frowned and Bozo scowled, but nodded. "I'll get started developing these."
With a crack, he spun away.
"Gotta say," Tony said, "of all the things I've seen magic do, that's one of the coolest."
Skeeter looked up from arranging her parchment and quill - and frowned as she noticed the parchment in front of Sirius.
"Turns out, I'm pretty well known on this side of the Leaky Cauldron," Tony said casually. "Got into the habit of recording all interviews I give, just to be sure nothing's misquoted or taken out of context. Given how famous Harry is on your side, it seems like a good habit to continue."
"I - see," she said, and Tony lifted his cup once again, hiding his amusement at her obvious discomfiture - especially when she put the acid-green quill back in her bag and withdrew a different one. "You understand I'm not used to working with such … restrictions."
Tony lowered his cup and leveled a serious gaze at her. "You understand I'm not above buying the Prophet, firing everyone who works for it, and starting over from the ground up?"
Her eyes widened. "You can't be serious."
"I'm Sirius," Sirius said - inevitably, Tony thought. "But yes, Tony's one of the richest men in the world. Just before he pulled Harry out of Hogwarts, he outfitted the Quidditch program with all new brooms - competition quality brooms. Buying the Prophet…" Sirius trailed off with a shrug.
Skeeter stared at him for a moment, but recovered her aplomb quickly and offered him a practiced smile. "That leads into the first question rather nicely. Why did you take Harry out of Hogwarts?"
"Besides that he's my son and I live in America?" Tony asked. "Simple. Hogwarts was too dangerous to let him stay there. Frankly, I'm shocked it has any students left after the things Harry told me."
"Oh?" Skeeter cocked her head to one side. "Hogwarts is considered to be one of the safest places in Britain. What makes you think it's not?"
Tony blinked. Did she really not know? He let anger color his tone as he said, "Little things like a possessed teacher, a troll loose in the school, and a basilisk petrifying students."
Her face paled. "No - no. Hogwarts is a school - how is that, any of that, possible?"
Tony glanced at Sirius, the other man echoing his frown, before focusing on Skeeter again. She was so clearly shocked that he gentled what he'd intended to say.
"I think," he said, "the question you should be asking is not how is it possible, but rather why am I only hearing about it now? Those things happened while Harry was at Hogwarts - more than a year ago."
Skeeter looked flummoxed, staring at her quill as it finished writing. Then she appeared to re-read what it had written, and she looked up at Tony.
"That," she said with a predatory smile, "is a very good question."
HP - IM - HP - IM - HP
Harry watched Rita Skeeter apparate out of the conference room and sagged into his chair as she disappeared.
"Are all interviews this draining?" he asked.
"Not all," Dad answered. "But this is the first interview you've ever given, so of course it was a lot."
"Three hours," Sirius said. "Plus the hour Tony and I spent with her." He chuckled. "She's got a ton of story fodder for sure."
"Then why did I have to give the interview?" Harry asked. "If you gave her so much to work with, I mean?"
"Because if you don't," Dad said, and he was as serious as Harry had ever seen him, "then what they say about you is what becomes true-" Dad made air quotes around the last word "-to the public, and you'll be fighting a rear-guard action, trying to get your side of the story out to a bunch of people who've already made up their minds. Once people have made up their minds, it's almost impossible to get them to change them."
"That's…" Harry frowned. "That's really unfair."
"Life isn't fair," Dad shot back. "If it were, you wouldn't have spent ten years being abused, Sirius wouldn't have spent twelve years in Azkaban, and I wouldn't have spent three months in a cave in Afghanistan."
"It's human nature," Sirius put in. "All kinds of psychological and physiological reasons for it. Some people - a very few, in my experience - can rise above that and allow their minds to be changed by logic and evidence. Most people follow their emotions, and once they're sure they're right about something, it becomes an emotional conviction, and really, really hard to change."
"And Skeeter's brilliant at riling up emotions with her writing," Dad finished. "It can be unethical as hell, but she's brilliant at it. Better to have her, if not on our side, at least neutral to start."
"Though," Sirius mused, "I'm not sure threatening to fire her got her on our side."
"It did," Dad said, "at least for our purposes, for now."
Harry blew out a breath. "This is what you've been teaching me, right? Having me attend all those board meetings?"
"Yep." Dad grinned at him. "SI will be yours someday, so you need to know what you're getting into."
"But - I'm nowhere near the genius you are - not with technology, anyway. What will I do with Stark Industries?"
"Whatever you want," Dad answered. "And you can find a tech genius - I'm sure not the only one out there."
"Much as it galls you to admit that," Sirius murmured, and Dad shot him a dirty look before focusing on Harry again.
"But, that's years in the future - we hope," Dad added. "There's lots of time for you to learn and for us to find tech geniuses."
The vision Dad laid out sounded both fantastic and overwhelming. At the moment, overwhelming was winning. "How?" Harry asked, almost desperately. "How do we find tech geniuses?"
"High school science and tech competitions," Dad answered easily. "Start recruiting when they're young, help them out with a scholarship or two - or maybe a gift or grant, that's for the accounting people to decide - and bring them on board as soon as you possibly can."
That … made a lot of sense, even if Harry wasn't entirely sure what high school science and tech competitions were. There was one way to find out. "Can we start this year? Maybe with some in New York, so you can show me the kinds of things to look for?"
"Sure, why not? J, put a couple of competitions in Manhattan on both our calendars," Dad said.
"I have a calendar?" Harry asked, frowning. Sure, he tracked his homework assignments, but that wasn't a calendar. Was it?
"Looks like you do now, pup," Sirius said with a grin.