Number 16
Right before the Christmas holidays, Arthur Weasley was attacked by a venomous snake in the ministry of magic. Arthur managed to send of his Patronus to his wife before succumbing to the venom and slipping into unconsciousness. Molly alerted anyone she could and an emergency rescue mission was mounted and Arthur taken to St Mungo's at once. His condition was critical and Arthur himself remained in a coma while the healers fought to save his life.
Early in the morning Ron and Harry were woken up by McGonagall wearing a tartan dressing gown.
"Your father is in the hospital, Mr Weasley," McGonagall said, her eyes soft with sympathy. A groggy-looking Ron was awake at once, almost tripping as he jumped out of bed. "The headmaster wants to see you both."
"Why me?" Harry asked, rubbing a hand across his face while he reached for his glasses.
"The headmaster wants you both moved to a safe location at once, since Arthur Weasley was attacked in the Ministry while on Order business."
"But I'm going home tomorrow for the holidays," Harry said, thoroughly confused. He was looking forward to seeing his parents and everyone else. He hadn't seen them since Bucky's and his mother's brief visits and he missed them. Though Harry knew Bucky still popped by every now and then but just didn't wake Harry up, since Harry found offerings of boxes of cookies or bags of M&Ms on his pillow in the mornings when he woke up every two weeks or so.
"Mr Potter," McGonagall said with a tired sigh. "Please just go see the headmaster. We're all doing this for your and your friends' safety."
"Yeah, all right." And Harry slipped on his thick dressing gown and fluffy slippers, courtesy of Tony and Jarvis, who had supplied Harry with a whole new wardrobe during the summer, for which Harry was secretly very grateful. Ginny and the twins were waiting for them in the common room and together they trooped towards Dumbledore's office through the dark hallways.
What followed was half an hour of chaos as Dumbledore called out orders, portraits appeared and disappeared in their frames with news and warnings and the Weasley children were pale and quiet with worry for their dad.
Harry very much felt like an outsider, intruding on the family and their concern for their patriarch.
Before Harry even knew what was happening, Dumbledore made Harry read a slip of paper with an address and urged Harry to grab hold of an old kettle together with the Weasleys and he was pulled via portkey to a gloomy basement kitchen where Sirius stood waiting for them. Sirius looked unkempt and slightly dazed, as if part of his mind was permanently occupied elsewhere.
Harry sat at the table while the Weasley kids almost mounted a mutiny to see their dad at the hospital until their mum sent news Arthur was still alive and being treated.
"Sirius," Harry said later, after they'd had their fill of butterbeer. "I'm happy to see you, but I'm supposed to go home to my parents for Christmas tomorrow. I'm not even sure why I'm here in the first place."
"You're here because Thicknesse is looking for an excuse to go after anyone associated with Dumbledore," Sirius said. Pius Thicknesse was Umbridge's replacement. Another flunky of Fudge, but as an actual Auror he did know a thing or two about defence and he let them use practical spells, so his classes weren't half-bad if you discounted all the ministry propaganda about Voldemort's not-return Thicknesse liked to spew from time to time.
Sirius' eyes turning flinty as he stared at Harry. "I know you're confused, Harry, but you have to understand those people are not your parents."
Harry swallowed against a sudden lump in his throat. He liked Sirius, had really liked the connection to his parents (or what Harry thought were his biological parents at the time) his godfather offered him. And so it hurt to have Sirius act so dismissively of the fact Harry now had living, breathing parents who cared for him in their own enthusiastic and occasionally slightly homicidal ways.
"James and Lily died for you," Sirius continued in a harsh whisper, eyes full of a feverish intensity. "They're your parents, and they made me your godfather and I'm saying you're staying here."
Turning on his heels, Harry marched to the stairs that led up to the hallway. He tried the front door, but found it locked. Then he tried every window he could find, but found those locked as well.
He was being held a prisoner by his own godfather. What the fuck?
The next morning, after no one had any sleep, the Weasley children were allowed to go to St Mungo's. Harry was told to stay put, which he did since he didn't have much choice. Harry snuck away from Sirius as often as he could and tried to use any spells he knew against the front door, to open it, trace be damned, but nothing he did worked.
It wasn't until late in the afternoon, when McGonagall dropped off all their trunks, that Harry had the tool to break out. The phone Tony had built and Loki had charmed to work amongst magic and that Harry kept hidden in his trunk for emergencies. He hadn't told anyone about it, wanting to keep some things for himself.
"I'd like to leave now to join my parents for Christmas," Harry stated very firmly and clearly to Sirius, Moody and McGonagall. "If you do not let me go you'll be holding me here against my will and I won't be responsible for the consequences."
McGonagall at least looked somewhat dubious but ultimately shook her head. "I'm sorry, Mr Potter, but the headmaster decided it was better if you stayed here for the holidays. Voldemort is on the move after his attack on Arthur Weasley." Whatever respect he may have had for his Head of House, Harry lost it that day.
"You've got no business with a bunch of muggles telling you stories," Moody added, sounding just a tad bitter. Loki had magically kicked them out of the tower once, sending them to Merlin knew where in Europe.
"They're not your parents," Sirius kept saying, while filling more than half of his teacup with whiskey when he thought no one was looking. "You're staying here."
Yeah, no, Harry had heard enough. With a heavy, slightly broken heart, Harry retreated to the room he and Ron been assigned and activated the phone and after some thought pressed on the little icon that held his father's picture. No need to directly involve his mother just yet. This way Harry hoped Thor would share the news with Loki and keep him from doing anything too rash.
"Haraldr!" Thor answered after a few moments. "It is good to hear from you, my son! We are all looking forward to your return."
"Dad," Harry whispered and inhaled a deep, shaky breath. "I need your help."
Thor's tone of voice shifted at once from exuberant to sober. "Tell me what you need."
"Dumbledore and Sirius and everyone else are keeping me locked up in…" Harry couldn't say the location where he was and then he realized the house was under a Fidelius charm so of course he couldn't give the exact address. "London. I can't give you the exact location because of a protective spell," he finally managed. "And they're saying I can't come home for Christmas and have to stay here and all the doors and windows are locked and I can't leave and I really, really want to come home."
Thor's voice was steady and soothing as he spoke, calming Harry's racing heart and mind at once. "Stay where you are, Haraldr. We are coming for you. Loki explained that both he and Tony put trackers inside the phone they gave you so we will find you." And then he hung up and Harry leaned back on the bed he was sitting on, hoping he hadn't made a mistake to unleash the Avengers on the Order of the Phoenix.
Not that they didn't have it coming. Kidnapping minors, purposefully keeping them away from their parents was crossing lines that shouldn't be crossed, in Harry's opinion.
"I've alerted my parents I've been kidnapped," Harry told Sirius, Moody and a few other Order members as he joined them in the basement kitchen after placing his trunk near the front door, ready to depart. Harry had no doubt his parents and the Avengers would find a way to get to him, Fidelius charm or not. "Let me go now and you won't be harmed. I cannot guarantee your safety once my parents show up."
"They're not your parents!" Sirius snapped, eyes slightly red with sorrow or alcohol, Harry wasn't sure. He mostly just felt pity when looking at Sirius since seeing his godfather again. It was clear that learning Harry wasn't really James' son hadn't done Sirius and his already fragile mind any favours.
"What are a bunch of muggles going to do?" Moody asked with a crooked grin, showing off the many scars on his face even more. "We're under a Fidelius charm. No one's ever broken one of those."
"We're doing this for your safety," some woman Harry didn't know said in a slightly snooty tone.
"Believing some muggles and their fancy tales," an unknown man said with a brief sniff while raising his nose in the air.
"My parents aren't muggles," Harry pointed out steadily, leaning against the doorpost. "They're not even human. They're gods."
And as if on cue, a burst of thunder so loud filled the sky outside that it shook the entire house on its foundation, cups rattling in the cupboard, books falling off shelves.
"What the hell was that?" Moody asked, wand in his hand but pointed at nothing.
"That was my dad," Harry said with an amused smile. "Just let me go already, before he brings the house down."
"We're not just handing you over to a bunch of strangers," the unknown man said, and why the hell did some guy Harry didn't even know think he had anything to say about Harry's life when Harry's real family was outside waiting for him. Harry turned his back on the lot of them and rushed up the stairs. The living room at the front of the house offered a perfect view of the street outside and Harry tried an eavesdropping spell on the window and was delighted it worked.
Harry's father was standing in the middle of the street, hammer raised and lightening crackling around him. Harry's mother stood beside Iron Man, both staring at the spot number twelve, Grimmauld Place was located at. It remained invisible to their eyes for the time being.
"My reading says Harry's right here," Tony said, helmet retracting as he looked around in confusion.
"My spells say the same thing," Loki said, tilting his head as he stared right at the invisible house. "A clever little spell, but not clever enough. I cannot see the house Haraldr is in, but I can see the magic around it."
"Then I can break that spell," Thor announced and threw a huge bolt of lightning directly at the house, which shook and groaned. Windows everywhere cracked while blue and white whisps of electricity crawled up and down the outside walls.
"Hmm." Loki stared at the invisible house. "Do that again, brother. But do put a little more effort into it."
Thor snorted and shook his head in faint amusement and called for more lightning, followed by roaring thunder as he unleashed it upon the old townhouse, which creaked and started crumbling, windows cracking, glass falling everywhere, and roof tiles flying off the house and landing in the street breaking on impact and sending fragments flying everywhere. Most even made it beyond the border of the Fidelius charm and hit Thor, Loki and Tony,
"Yay!" Tony said, doing a little dance in place. "It's working. I can add some missiles, but that might end up hurting Harry."
"Yes," Loki agreed with a smirk. "That would probably be a little bit too much of a good thing."
"Pity," Tony sighed while Thor launched another barrage of lightning at the house. Bricks were falling apart and flying everywhere, while windowpanes cracked and splintered.
"What is going on here?" a new voice sounded behind Harry, who was watching the whole thing through the now glassless window with a huge grin. Mrs Weasley stood in the doorway, her children crowding behind her, trying to see what was going on. Further inside the house the attending Order members were running around, calling for Dumbledore and seriously considering going outside and attacking Harry's parents.
Fools.
"Sorry for the ruckus, Mrs Weasley," Harry said with an apologetic shrug. "But Dumbledore is keeping me here against my will and I just want to go home for Christmas so my parents have come to get me."
"What?" Ron asked in great confusion from behind his mother. Mrs Weasley on the other hand narrowed her red-rimmed eyes and swung around, her children parting at once to let her through.
"Follow me, Harry dear." Mrs Weasley marched towards the front door and smacked her wand against it before pulling it open, just as Thor threw a final burst of lightning at the structure, breaking the Fidelius charm at last.
"What the hell do you think you're doing, Molly?" Moody demanded as he came clunking up to them.
Harry stood with one hand around a trunk handle and waved at his parents from the opened doorway. "Be right there!"
"Take your time, son!" Thor called back with wide grin and answering wave.
"What the hell am I doing?" Molly demanded, hands on her hips as she lay into Moody and the rest of the kidnapping Order members. "What are you doing, keeping a child away from his parents? Is that the kind of organization you are running here, because I will have no part of that."
"Listen, Molly," Moody started, but Molly cut him off with a vicious swipe of her hand.
"No, I don't even want to hear it. Harry goes home to spend time with his family as he should." And at that moment, Mrs Weasley's voice cracked and she lowered her face into her hand and Harry stepped up to her on instinct and gave her a hug, which she eagerly returned.
"I'm so sorry about what happened," Harry whispered against her shoulder.
"Thank you, Harry dear," Mrs Weasley whispered back. "Now go, your parents will be happy to see you."
And with a wave at Ron, Ginny and the twins, Harry grabbed his trunk and hurried out the door and down the steps and right into his mother's arms. Harry hugged Loki with all his might and squeezed his eyes shut when he felt Thor join the hug from behind him.
"We have missed you, Haraldr," Thor said as he pressed a kiss to the top of Harry's head.
"Missed you, too," Harry said, because he had missed them and it was such a novel feeling, to have a family to miss, that Harry clung to it and to them for a very long moment.
Finally, they pulled apart and Harry gaped at the destroyed façade of twelve Grimmauld Place, glass and bricks and rubble spread all around them.
"Come on, kid, let's go home," Tony said as he stood looking at them with a lopsided smile.
And they did.
00000
Number 17
Clint and Natasha were sitting in the cockpit of the Quinjet that flew them home. The rest of the Avengers had stayed in New York to hold down the fort. Natasha winked at Harry and Clint offered him a high-five.
While they travelled across the ocean at enormous speeds, everyone urged Harry to talk about all the things that had happened at school, so Harry told them about Quidditch, about Ron becoming keeper and Malfoy trying to sabotage their games through a lively showtune.
"Sing it!" Tony demanded with a wicked grin.
Harry felt his cheeks heat. "No, I'm not going to sing it," he muttered, ducking his head and staring at his knees.
"Haraldr," his father said seriously from his seat beside Harry. "You cannot regale us with tales of a song used to fight your allies without treating us to a performance of this song."
"Come on, kid, we wanna hear it!" Clint called from the cockpit.
So very slowly, very quietly, Harry sang 'Weasley is our King', while Tony held up his phone which Harry was pretty sure meant he was being filmed.
"Bravo!" Thor yelled, clapping Harry on the back so hard he almost fell off his seat. Both Clint and Natasha were applauding from the cockpit and Loki gave Harry a proud smile. "Now we shall all sing it!" And with that, Thor started bellowing "Weasley cannot save a thing, he cannot block a single ring, that's why Slytherins all sing, Weasley is our King."
At once Clint and Tony joined him, followed soon after by Natasha and Loki. Harry looked around the Quinjet and wondered what Malfoy would make of the fact that two gods and a bunch of muggles were taking possession of his song. After being nudged in his side by his father, Harry joined in on the singing.
That's how they landed on Avengers tower, where everyone was standing on the landing deck waiting for them. They got some strange looks as they exited the Quinjet while loudly singing, but that didn't last very long as everyone surged forward to clap Harry on the shoulder and back, welcoming him home. Ms Pepper Potts even gave him a brief hug and a kiss on the cheek.
Bucky offered Harry a plate with five cupcakes on it, covered in dogshit.
Seriously, the cupcakes looked like five chihuahuas had deposited perfect little round, brown turds on each of them.
"I made these for you," Bucky said with a small, slightly awkward smile. Harry wasn't sure if he'd ever even seen Bucky smile before. It really made him look…something. "They're vanilla cakes with a mocha buttercream topping. Piped it on myself. Agatha has been telling me to create stuff."
"Who's Agatha?" Harry asked, suddenly worried Bucky had found a girlfriend and wondering why that thought upset him so much.
"My therapist," Bucky said, gaze not meeting Harry's. "She's convinced that if I do enough occupational therapy and stuff I won't want to kill people anymore."
"And is it working?" Harry asked while accepting the plate.
Bucky shrugged. "So far, so good."
"Ah." Thor stepped up beside Harry. "I see the Soldier of Winter has made you an offering of his excellent baked goods. He has been hoarding these like a dragon hoards gold ever since he started baking. I have only had the pleasure of tasting one of his creations before." And Thor gave Harry an expectant look.
Harry, still dubious if the little brown turds were edible at all, offered the plate to his father. "Want one?"
"Yes, thank you, son." Thor snatched up a cupcake, took an enormous bite, and groaned in obvious pleasure.
"Yeah, don't mind if I do," Tony said, reaching for a cupcake, but Bucky gave him such a vicious snarl that Tony quickly snatched his hand back.
"Just Dad," Harry said, holding the plate closer to his chest. "He did bring down the house, after all."
"Just be careful, kid," Sam said, standing beside Steve. "That buttercream has about eighty thousand calories. I swear, I ate two of those once, gained twenty pounds and my wings didn't fit anymore." Sam narrowed his eyes. "On second thought, Barnes probably did that on purpose."
Bucky snickered while casting a brief glance at Sam.
"I'm onto you!" Sam pointed his finger first at his eyes and then at Bucky.
Meanwhile, Harry grabbed a cupcake and took a tentative bite. Holy crap. Like, literally, since the buttercream really did look like little turds, but it was so good! Harry moaned and for some reason, Bucky blushed, but Harry ignored him and ate the rest of the cupcake with his eyes closed.
"Is anyone else feeling a little dirty, watching a fifteen-year-old making those kinds of noises?" Tony wondered out loud.
"Tony, really," Pepper scolded while grabbing Tony by the elbow and leading him inside. "Harry, don't spoil your appetite with Bucky's baking. We're having pizza later for a welcome home dinner."
"Yeah, okay," Harry replied, tempted beyond belief just to finish the whole plate of cupcakes but controlling himself. "I'll save them for after dinner. They're one of the best things I've ever had."
Bucky's cheeks were glowing and he nodded, smiled very briefly, and hurried inside the tower.
To deal with the jetlag and time difference, Harry unpacked his trunk, let Hedwig out of her cage so she could use the elaborate parrot perch with different levels Jarvis had gotten her during the summer, and took a nap until his mother came to wake him up for dinner.
The whole dining table was covered in pizza boxes and everyone was walking around with plates and napkins and glasses of soda and bottles of beer. Harry had discovered the delicacy that was New York pizza during the summer and had quickly proclaimed it his favourite food.
"So, meet any cute girls while at school?" Clint asked him with an expectant smile as he sat down opposite Harry.
Behind them, Bucky walked into a door, his metal elbow leaving a significant dent.
Harry swallowed his bite of pepperoni pizza. "Well, there is one girl, Cho Chang, she's real pretty, and she asked me to Hogsmeade, but she kept crying the whole time."
"There is so much I want to say right now, but I'm worried about traumatizing the kid," Tony said to Pepper, who rolled her eyes in response.
"Why was she crying?" Pepper asked with a kind smile.
"Er…her boyfriend died last year and I guess she's still sad about that," Harry said with a shrug. His whole date with Cho had been awkward and he hadn't enjoyed it very much. "She wanted to talk about him a lot while we were in Hogsmeade."
"Ah, you're the rebound guy," Tony said wisely, while Clint nodded in agreement. Even Natasha looked like she thought Tony was making a good point. "Don't bother with that one, kid. She's looking for a distraction, not a boyfriend."
"That's a little harsh, isn't it?" Steve said while narrowing his eyes at Tony. "She's hurting because she lost someone she loved."
Harry felt decidedly weird having all the Avengers discuss his one stupid date with Cho.
"It's not harsh," Bucky suddenly said from where he stood in the middle of the room, pizza box in hand. Steve looked at him in surprise. "Harry deserves to be someone's first choice, not their second." When everyone turned to stare at him, for a moment Bucky looked like he wanted to draw a few weapons to deal with whatever conflict he was seeing, but in the end he turned on his heels, walked into the same door again, and finally managed to leave the room.
"What's with him?" Harry asked no one in particular.
"Oh, there is so much I want to say right now," Tony said while grinning like a loon.
"Don't you dare," Pepper told him with a vicious glare.
00000
Number 18
Harry had slept in, still getting used to the time difference, taken a long shower and fried himself a few eggs and some bacon for breakfast, when Jarvis told him he was expected in the communal living room. Harry ate the last few bites of food, dumped his plate in the sink, downed his tea and hurried towards the living room, curious what was going on.
All of the Avengers were gathered, plus lots of extra people. It reminded Harry of that time they'd wanted to know about his scar.
"Er…" Harry looked around in confusion and shuffled towards his mother who waved him over. Apparently, Loki had saved him a seat on the couch, so Harry sank down beside him and clasped his hands in his lap.
"It is paramount that we know of any threats that exist so that we can figure out how to best deal with them," Mr Eyepatch said, who Harry now knew was called Nick Fury, director of SHIELD, the organization who worked with the Avengers. As far as Harry understood it, something bad had happened with SHIELD that involved Bucky, Steve, Sam and Natasha, but after a brief time of violence the bad guys had been found out and SHIELD had reformed and continued to work to keep the world safe. Or something. "This includes threats originating in the wizarding world. Is there something you'd like to tell us, Harry?"
Harry looked up, unsure what Fury was getting at, though he was starting to have a very strong suspicion what this was all about. "I'm good," Harry said with a shrug, realizing that every eye in the room was on him.
"Natasha," Fury said, stepping back so Natasha could come forward. She stood in front of them with her arms crossed and a narrowed gaze.
"For the last few months, I have been infiltrating the wizarding world," Natasha said, and at once Harry wondered if she'd made it into Hogwarts, like Bucky had. "The Dark Lord Harry told us killed his parents has returned. He was never dead, just without a body for over a decade. And Harry was aware of this fact, since he was an unwilling participant in Voldemort's resurrection at the end of the previous school year."
Harry swallowed, breathing speeding up as he remembered a flash of green light, Cedric's dead body falling onto the grass, Voldemort rising from the cauldron and the excruciating pain of the cruciatus curse.
"Haraldr," Loki whispered, stroking a hand up and down Harry's back. "Breathe, child."
"Not a good experience, huh?" Tony said from the other side of Loki. "Hey, we've all been there, kid. Take your time."
For some bizarre reason a lump formed in Harry's throat and he had to swallow a fair few times to get rid of it. "What do you want from me? You already know he's back," Harry finally managed to whisper, glancing up at Natasha from under his fringe as he kept his head bowed.
Natasha's expression was carefully neutral. "We need every detail you can give us, Harry. Describe every encounter you've had with him, because I have heard rumours that you've seen him before last year."
"Fine," Harry said, heart still pounding in his chest. "In my first year, Voldemort was possessing Quirrell, our Defence Against the Dark Arts professor. Dumbledore was hiding the philosopher's stone at Hogwarts and Voldemort was trying to steal it, so we, that is Ron, Hermione and me, stopped him. I'm not actually quite sure how," Harry added with a frown. "I kind of turned Quirrell to ash and then Voldemort fled as a wraith and I woke up in the hospital wing."
Silence followed that stretched to almost half a minute.
"How old were you?" Sam finally asked.
"It was my first year, so I was eleven," Harry said, glancing around the room, wondering why everyone was looking so shocked.
"Why did you have to stop him?" Bruce asked, adjusting the glasses on his nose. "Where was Dumbledore? Or other teachers? Or even older students?"
Harry shrugged. "Dumbledore was at the ministry, I think, and McGonagall basically told us to mind our own business, that the stone was protected." Harry frowned, realizing something he'd never thought of before. The stone had been protected, because Quirrell and Voldemort hadn't been able to decipher how to get the stone from the mirror. "We didn't really think to talk to anyone else before we went to save the stone."
"Let's move on," Natasha said decisively when it looked like more than one person wanted to speak up.
"In my second year, I met Voldemort again, sort of. His teenaged essence or something was trapped in a diary that Lucius Malfoy slipped to Ginny Weasley, who wrote in it the whole year to the point Voldemort possessed her and unleashed the basilisk, which petrified some students, including Hermione. Ginny got taken into the Chamber of Secrets, and since I'm a parselmouth, that's someone who can talk to snakes, I could open the chamber and Ron and I followed her, with Lockhart, but he was useless. Ron got separated by a rockfall, and Tom Riddle, that's Voldemort's real name, was sucking the life out of Ginny and summoned the basilisk, but then Fawkes, Dumbledore's phoenix showed up and the sorting hat gave me a sword that I stabbed the basilisk with through the roof of its mouth, but its fang stabbed through my arm," at this point Harry raised the sleeve of his hoodie and showed off the round scars on both sides of his forearm, "but Fawkes cried on the wound and his tears have strong healing powers so I didn't die, and then I used the basilisk fang to stab the diary and that destroyed Tom Riddle's shade."
Total. Silence. People stared at Harry in utter disbelief. Even Natasha's lips were slightly parted, which for her was the equivalent of her entire mouth hanging open, Harry was sure.
Tony eventually cleared his throat. "So, all in favour of yanking Harry out of Hogwarts like yesterday raise your hand."
More than a few hands went up, with Bucky being the first to do so while he looked at Harry as though he was genuinely scared Harry would drop dead then and there.
"What?" Harry looked around the room in confusion. Yes, having to fight a basilisk was bad, but Harry had managed it and he'd saved Ginny, so as far as he was concerned it wasn't something to be so shocked about, especially not years after the fact.
"You were twelve," Steve said while shaking his head in what might be some form of denial.
"Yes, Haraldr," Thor said, his face scrunched up in obvious worry. "It is commendable that you slayed a basilisk and saved your friend, but it deeply worries me none of the adults around you that ought to look out for you were there to fight by your side."
"It wasn't a big deal," Harry insisted, which earned him a snort from Tony and Clint both.
"Look, the kid isn't going to understand why we're upset without some serious therapy," Clint said.
"I'll schedule it at once," Pepper said, picking up her phone and tapping it with quick fingers.
"So for now maybe just keep talking, Harry, and ignore all the adults and their weird reactions." Clint gestured at Harry to go on while he leaned back in his seat.
"Okay." Harry inwardly shook himself and cleared his throat. "In my third year I didn't encounter Voldemort directly, but I did help free Sirius, who was innocent and he'd escaped Azkaban prison to catch Peter Pettigrew, who was hiding as Ron's pet rat because he was the real traitor who'd sold me and my parents out to Voldemort. Pettigrew escaped, though, and Sirius and I almost got kissed by dementors, but I managed a Patronus charm at the last minute and drove them off. Pettigrew went to find Voldemort's wraith and helped him back to Britain over the summer."
"Dementors," Loki said slowly, carefully. "You faced more than one of these soul-sucking beasts?"
Harry shrugged. "Yeah, a hundred or so. The ministry had stationed them around Hogwarts. But my Patronus worked so it was fine."
Loki glanced at Tony. "Haraldr is not going back there, not ever again." Tony smirked knowingly in response.
"You can't do that," Harry instantly objected, sitting up and glaring at his mother.
"Let's move on," Natasha said loudly, narrowing her gaze at Harry, Loki and Tony. "Harry, what happened next?"
Harry inhaled a shaky breath, trying hard to keep his temper under control. Him flying off the handle wouldn't help anyone or anything right then. "Well, to make a very long story short, one of Voldemort's Death Eaters, Barty Crouch Jr posed as Alastor Moody, our new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor and he slipped my name into the Goblet of Fire, so I had to participate in the TriWizard Tournament, whether I liked it or not. I had to fight a dragon to steal a golden egg, spend an hour underwater in the lake to save Ron and finally make it through a maze filled with magical creatures and stuff, but Cedric got to the cup at the same time so we both touched it, and it was a portkey that took us to the cemetery where Pettigrew killed Cedric right away and tied me up to a headstone and used my blood to resurrect Voldemort, who cursed me a bit but then I escaped with Cedric's body by touching the cup again." All of that Harry had said in pretty much a single breath, and he felt slightly lightheaded by the time he'd gotten all of that out. From across the coffee table Clint handed Harry a can of cola, which Harry gratefully accepted, quickly opening it and taking a huge gulp.
Natasha, in the meantime, waited patiently until Harry was done hydrating himself before she spoke again. "I have yet to find any information on how Voldemort managed to turn himself immortal. Harry, do you have any ideas?"
Harry blinked at Natasha, drawing a blank. "No, not really. Voldemort himself bragged to his followers that he'd gone further than anyone in some bad magic, so I'm guessing it's that."
"I have an idea," Loki said, immediately drawing everyone's attention. "What we pulled out of Haraldr's scar was, in essence, a piece of Voldemort's soul. At first, I thought perhaps his soul had been damaged when his own magic was returned to him when he tried to murder Haraldr. But splitting one's soul and hiding a part away from it in a container would give one a very rudimentary form of immortality. The body could still be destroyed, of course, but the soul would not pass on, tied to the mortal plane as long as the soul container was intact."
"The diary," Tony guessed at once, proving once again his brain worked a lot faster than most people's. "The shade of Tom Riddle was a piece of Voldemort's soul."
"Huh?" Harry leaned forward to look at Tony on the other side of his mother.
"Now what we have to figure out is how many of these containers he made," Tony concluded, while everyone else was staring at him, trying very hard to mentally keep up with his extraordinary mind. "We destroy the containers, we destroy Voldemort."
"Haraldr was a container used to keep his mortal enemy alive?" Thor demanded, his eyes briefly flashing with electricity.
"Wait, wait," Harry said, suddenly lightheaded again. He'd had a piece of Voldemort's soul inside of him? "Oh no," Harry said, lips suddenly trembling while his throat became very tight. "Dumbledore knew."
"What?" Both Loki and Clint said, while Bucky made a very undignified sound that sounded somewhat like a lion who's tail someone just stepped on.
"After the whole Chamber of Secrets thing, Dumbledore said that the night Voldemort tried to kill me he left something of himself behind in me or something and that's why I was a parselmouth." Harry looked at his mother with pleading eyes, wanting to be wrong about where his mind was taking this information so badly.
Loki picked up one of Harry's trembling hands and squeezed it with both of his. "Dumbledore knew you housed Voldemort's soul and made no effort to see it removed from you."
"And we know the containers need to be destroyed to end Voldemort," Tony helpfully added while giving Harry a sympathetic look. "So my guess, Dumbledore was counting on you to die one way or the other at some point in the future."
Harry swallowed and swallowed against the sudden lump in his throat, but it wouldn't go away.
"How do we find out if there are more containers?" Natasha asked, but Harry barely heard her because his ears were ringing.
"I can perform a spell in Britain, looking specifically for incomplete souls. I only need to find one container, which I can then easily use to find the rest," Loki said, just as Harry's vision was blacking out.
Harry wasn't sure what had happened next, only that he suddenly found himself sitting on the couch in their private quarters, squashed between Thor and Bucky, with Steve and Clint occupying the other couch. Toy Story was playing on the TV and a warm blanket covered Harry, Bucky and his father.
Thor smiled at him. "Loki has gone to perform the spell to find the containers," his father told him, and a huge weight fell off Harry's shoulders, though he wasn't sure why. "He expects to have destroyed any he finds within a day or two, and then we can come up with a plan to finish Voldemort once and for all."
"He'll be mortal," Clint said matter-of-factly, gaze never leaving the TV screen. "Just put me in range and I'll shoot an arrow through his eye."
"And I'll put a bullet through his other eye," Bucky said with a dark look, though he quickly changed his expression to carefully neutral when Harry glanced at him. Leaning forward, Bucky picked up a plate from the coffee table and held it out to Harry. "Cupcake?"
00000
Number 19
The next day, Harry felt better, definitely like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. His mother was actively searching for a way to destroy Voldemort and while a part of Harry was itching to involve himself in that search, another part, perhaps a larger part, was happy to let his mother, who knew more about magic than Harry could ever even imagine, take charge of that operation.
Harry was still suffering from a slight jetlag, though, so in the morning he stayed in their quarters, fooling around a little with the magic Loki had been teaching him and chatting with Jarvis. After a simple lunch of a turkey sandwich, Harry took a nap in his room, since his body was suddenly exhausted as though it was the middle of the night. Harry just loved time differences, really.
It was already near the end of the afternoon when Harry woke up. Rubbing a hand over his face and blinking rapidly, Harry strolled into their living room, only to realize at the last second he wasn't alone.
Tony stood leaning against the opposite wall. Loki stood in front of Tony, no, smashed against Tony, with his mouth on Tony's while his hand was lost somewhere in the front of Tony's opened trousers. There were loud smacking noises as they snogged as if their lives depended on it, Loki's other hand wound in Tony's hair and Tony holding onto Loki's leather jacket with tight fingers.
Harry stared, because he wasn't sure what he was seeing. He'd never seen this before. One time, he'd walked in on Fred and Angelina snogging while leaning against the wall in the Quidditch dressing room after a match, when Harry had forgotten his gloves and gone back for them. But that had been different, because that had been a teenage boy and girl.
These were two men. One of which was Harry's mother. Who had been, at one point, in a relationship with his brother when they'd made Harry. And who was now snogging Tony Stark in their living room while doing things in Tony Stark's trousers.
Harry stared for a moment longer.
"Sir," Jarvis eventually said, drawing Tony's attention to the fact that they were not alone in the living room.
"Oh, hey, kid," Tony said, while Loki quickly pulled away from him to look over his shoulder at Harry in surprise. "Sorry about that."
"Er…" Harry blinked a few times, his cheeks slowly warming up until they felt like they were on fire, and then he fled their rooms entirely, because he had no clue what to say or how to act around two adults he'd just caught doing adult things.
Barefooted, and wearing rumpled sweatpants and a t-shirt, Harry wandered around the tower, hoping to find someone who had answers for him, because Harry was feeling very confused. Part of him hoped to find Thor, but another part of him wasn't sure if his father even knew his mother did adult things with Tony, and would he be angry if he found out? Harry didn't want his father and mother to fight because of something he'd said.
Harry checked the range to see if Clint was there, but it was empty. He checked the communal living room, but no one was there, either. Finally he made his way to the training rooms, where he found Natasha kicking the shit out of a punching bag.
Harry shuffled inside, not sure if she was the right person to talk to or not, but he felt that he had to talk to someone because his head was about to explode because of what he'd seen, or so it felt.
Natasha took one look at him and stopped her workout, reaching for a towel to wipe the sweat of her face. "You all right, kid?"
"I don't know," Harry told her honestly, and then he released a big sigh.
"I don't bite," Natasha said, with a tiny curve of her lips that made her look terribly amused somehow. "Try me."
"I just saw my mother and Tony snogging and I don't know if this is going to make my father angry and I don't want them to fight because I told Thor about this but I also don't want to keep this from him," Harry rambled while giving Natasha a hopeless look.
"Deep breath," Natasha said, just as Harry was feeling a little lightheaded again. "Thor already knows Loki and Tony are dating. Everyone knows, except apparently you."
"Really?" Harry blinked, genuinely surprised. "They never told me. Since when?"
"Since right before they found you last summer."
"Huh." Harry felt as if suddenly the whole world realigned itself around him. "Wait, is that why Tony is always hanging around us?"
Natasha briefly ducked her head when she couldn't hold back a real smile. When she looked up she appeared once again composed. "We really have to work on your awareness of the people around you because right now you're taking your obliviousness to entirely new heights, never before seen by mankind."
Feeling slightly insulted, Harry scoffed. "I'm not that bad. I've got lots on my mind."
"Then it is even more important that you remain aware of the world around you instead of being distracted all the time." Natasha curved an eyebrow and tilted her head. "I have a challenge for you, if you dare to accept it."
At once, Harry's curiosity was piqued. "Sure, what's the challenge?"
Natasha's eyes narrowed while she offered Harry a bit of a smug smirk. "Before I tell you the challenge, you must agree to the terms. If you don't complete the challenge within the allotted time, you will owe me a favour."
The hairs on the back of Harry's neck stood up while a shiver ran across his back. Owing the Black Widow a favour was an intimidating thought. Still, he was a Gryffindor and wasn't prone to backing off just because the going got tough. "All right. But if I do complete it, you owe me a favour."
Natasha's entire expression was caught somewhere between pride and amusement. "Fair enough. Here is your challenge. Before the end of your Christmas holidays, I want you to discover a secret from each of the Avengers."
"A secret?" Harry asked dubiously.
"Something that is not common knowledge and they won't readily share with others."
"From the Avengers?" Something dawned on Harry and he swallowed. "That includes you."
Natasha gave him a regal nod. "That includes me. Do you accept?"
"Yeah, all right," Harry said with the kind of forced carelessness that desperately tried to hide how nervous he suddenly felt. Still, it was an interesting challenge and Harry did like a good challenge.
"Excellent. I look forward to collecting on your favour at some point in the future." Natasha flipped her hair over her shoulder and turned her back to him while Harry sputtered about showing her he could win this easily.
Before Harry made it to the door of the gym, Natasha looked at him while she positioned herself in front of the punching bag again. "Harry, I understand it can be scary, to suddenly find yourself surrounded by a family when you've never really had one before."
Harry stood in place with his hand on the door and glanced down, biting his lip.
"But know that your mother and father would do anything for you. Everyone here would, so don't worry about people getting angry because of something you say or do." Natasha shrugged and then raised her hands up front of her. "Everyone here wants you to feel comfortable enough to speak your mind, understand?"
"Yeah," Harry whispered and gave Natasha a grateful smile. "I'm getting there."
Natasha went back to kicking the crap out of the punching bag, and Harry left to go back to his room and find some shoes to wear.
Later, when they all sat down to a feast of takeaway Thai food in the communal living room, Tony briefly stopped behind Harry and patted his shoulders with both hands. "We didn't spook you too much, did we, kid?"
"Nah," Harry said, briefly smiling up at Tony. "I'd just woke up from a nap, I was barely awake anyway."
"Good, because your mother was beating himself up about accidentally traumatizing your poor, innocent little mind," Tony said, just as Loki joined them.
"What did you just say about me?" Loki asked with a frown, moving to sit down beside Harry.
"Nothing, dear. Good news, though, the kid's fine!" Tony slapped Loki's ass and quickly moved away, sporting a playful grin, and how the hell had Harry never realized these two were in a relationship because now that he was looking, really looking, it all seemed so obvious to him.
Natasha, who was sitting across the table from him and was following the drama carefully, looked at Harry and winked.
00000
Number 20
Agatha was a middle-aged woman with long, black hair, large glasses and features that reminded Harry simultaneously of Cho Chang and Parvati Patil.
The first thing Agatha did was ask Harry about his time with the Dursleys, but Harry clamped up at once, having no desire whatsoever to discuss his horrible, dead relatives with a complete stranger, so instead Agatha asked about his first year at Hogwarts. Agatha was a muggle, but Loki and Tony had apparently informed her magic was real and how Harry was a wizard, so Harry figured it was all right to talk to her about his first year attending a school of witchcraft and wizardry.
"Why did you feel you had to protect the stone, Harry?" Agatha asked, head tilted a little and a small, kind smile on her face, after Harry was done telling her about the time he, Ron and Hermione had gone after Quirrell to keep the Philosopher's Stone safe.
"Er…" Harry shrugged, feeling rather awkward about answering a question like that. "Because no one else was, I guess?"
"But other people were protecting the stone," Agatha pointed out. "Professor McGonagall assured you of this right before you went to protect it anyway. And she wasn't lying, was she?"
"No, I guess not," Harry said, remembering Quirrell hadn't been able to get the stone from the mirror until Harry had accidentally pulled it out for him. "But someone had to stop Voldemort, and I had stopped him before."
"But you didn't go down the trapdoor to stop Voldemort. You went to stop Professor Snape."
Harry opened and closed his mouth a few times, but he couldn't find any words to form a coherent reply to that.
"Your roommates didn't feel the need to protect the stone, did they?" Agatha raised a single eyebrow as if in challenge. "Why not?"
"They didn't know about it," Harry pointed out, almost wanting to roll his eyes at the obviousness of that answer. "And Neville actually tried to stop us, even though he's really bad at magic and Hermione petrified him."
"Why did Neville try to stop you, do you think?"
Harry blinked, trying to remember what Neville had said exactly. It had been a few years and it wasn't something Harry ever spent a lot of time thinking about. "He didn't want us to lose more points, since we'd already lost a lot of house points when we smuggled Hagrid's dragon out of school."
Agatha's eyes widened for a moment as her mouth dropped open, but she quickly squeezed her eyes shut and licked her lips, obviously composing herself. "We'll get to that later. Back to why you believed you needed to protect the stone. Do you believe Neville should have protected the stone?"
"No, of course not," Harry said with a snort. He liked Neville, but anyone would have to admit Neville wasn't very talented at magic, or at anything, really, aside from Herbology. Neville protecting anything was rather laughable.
Agatha smiled as if she knew something Harry didn't. "So you wouldn't expect Neville to face off against an adult criminal, but you do expect it of yourself when you were both just eleven years old?"
Frowning, Harry stared down at his knees. "Neville didn't know any spells, he wouldn't have made it very far."
"And at eleven, did you know many spells, Harry?" Agatha asked reasonably. "If Quirrell had started casting spells at you, would you have been able to defend yourself properly at that age?"
"Er.." Harry was suddenly feeling rather baffled when he realized that in fact he hadn't know many spells yet at that age. He hadn't even learned the disarming charm until his second year. How on earth had he thought he could go up against a full-grown wizard? How on earth had they even made it that far through the challenges…oh.
Agatha waited patiently while Harry leaned back in his seat, mouth open in shock as something suddenly occurred to him. He hadn't realized it at the time, but now that he was older and knew more magic, it suddenly made perfect sense.
"It was a set-up," Harry whispered, more to himself than to Agatha. "It had to be, because I know now that there are dozens of ways to protect something with magic that should keep out a couple of first-years easily enough."
Agatha nodded. "I agree that it sounds like someone wanted you to make it through those challenges."
"Dumbledore," Harry said while hanging his head. It always came back to Dumbledore, didn't it? He'd known about the piece of Voldemort's soul in Harry's scar, and now it became clear to Harry that Dumbledore had somehow set him up the moment he'd set foot in Hogwarts, what with all the breadcrumbs Harry had followed all the way to his confrontation with Quirrell and Voldemort.
"Our time is up for today," Agatha said, closing the notebook in her lap quietly. "But I want you to really think about why you felt the need to protect the stone, Harry, and we'll talk about it some more during our next appointment, the day after tomorrow."
"Thanks," Harry said, a little awkwardly, as he left the conference room where Agatha received her Avenger clients.
Bucky was waiting for him in Harry's living room with two steaming mugs of hot chocolate, topped with whipped cream. They sat side by side on the couch, sipping their drinks. For a while, neither spoke, just enjoyed their sweet treats, until finally Bucky turned towards Harry. "You okay?"
Harry shrugged. "I guess. It was weird, mostly."
"Weird how?"
"Weird, because she kept hammering on the same subject," Harry said, glancing at Bucky, wondering if Bucky had similar experiences with their shared therapist.
Turns out, Bucky did. "Yeah, she gets like that, and usually about stuff you don't want to talk about."
"Yeah, absolutely," Harry agreed, remembering how much Agatha had wanted Harry to talk about his life with the Dursleys.
"But usually it's for a good reason," Bucky continued, much to Harry's surprise. Bucky glanced at Harry and gave him an uncertain smile. "At least that's how it is for me. Whenever I tell her the things she wants to hear, I feel better afterwards."
"Better how?" Harry asked, wondering why telling a stranger about the Dursleys would help him.
Bucky stared straight ahead for a few moments before draining his mug and leaning back in the couch with a sigh. "Because before telling her, I'm the only one who knows and the only one who has to deal with it. But afterwards, the load is shared, if that makes sense."
That did make sense, surprisingly. "Huh. Okay." Harry gave Bucky a grateful smile and plucked the empty mug out of his metal hand to make them some more hot chocolate.
During his next appointment with Agatha, when she asked about his life at the Dursleys, Harry inhaled a deep, shaky breath and told her about the cupboard under the stairs. Agatha, to her credit, didn't react in shock or pity or anything like that, but just let Harry talk while she listened with an attentive look on her face.
"How do you feel about having spent so many years in a storage closet, Harry?" Agatha asked, after Harry was done talking and sipped his can of cola. Agatha had a huge, steaming mug of coffee in front of her which she mostly ignored in favour of writing notes in her notebook.
"It wasn't that bad," Harry said with a shrug, glancing to the side and sipping his soda again.
"And what would you say if someone else told you they'd been made to sleep in a storage closet while there was a spare bedroom available in the house."
"Like who?" Harry asked suspiciously.
"Someone like your friends Ron or Hermione, or Neville," Agatha said with an even voice.
Harry considered that. The thought of Ron or Hermione or Neville sleeping in a cupboard under the stairs was a strange one, because for some reason it didn't sit well with Harry.
"I don't know," he said eventually, because for reasons that weren't clear to him, he didn't want to admit that it would be wrong.
"I think you do know," Agatha said quietly, but with a kind smile. "Try a little harder now, Harry."
Harry swallowed. "I guess it wouldn't be right if that happened to them."
"Hm." Agatha paused, but Harry already had a suspicion what she was going to say next. "So if it isn't right for your friends, then why wasn't it bad for you?"
"It doesn't matter though," Harry said, because somehow thinking of an answer to those questions felt like poking something sharp in his chest and Harry wanted to avoid that feeling with all his might. "They're dead and I'm never going back there."
"You're right in that they're gone and you're living here now," Agatha said, slowly turning a page in her notebook and scribbling something down again. "But this clearly bothers you to the point you'd rather not talk about it. Why is that?"
"Because it was wrong, all right?" Harry snapped, spilling cola all over his hand as he all but slammed the can onto the little side-table next to his chair. "I knew it was wrong, but no one cared. I tried telling people, but the Dursleys would lie about it and call me a criminal and pretend I had to go to a school for juvenile delinquents, and no one ever helped me."
"Thank you for telling me, Harry," Agatha said, while Harry desperately tried to catch his breath, his heart racing in his chest. "I understand this is hard to talk about, but you're very brave for sharing it with me. Let's leave it here and we'll continue in two days."
Bucky was waiting for him again, mugs of hot chocolate at the ready. Harry was utterly grateful Bucky didn't expect him to talk, just sat with him on the couch for as long as Harry wanted.
"Ugh," Harry said eventually after they'd finished their drinks. "I'm not sure I feel better."
"It might take a while," Bucky offered. "You've got to get used to it before that raw feeling goes away."
Harry glanced at him. "Yeah?"
"Yeah," Bucky said with a firm nod.
Harry accepted that and figured he could try it a few more times, sharing personal stuff with Agatha, to see if it did help him feel better in the long run. "Want to watch another Pixar movie?" After Tony had made fun of them a time or two whenever he made Pixar references and both Harry and Bucky gave him confused looks, they'd recently decided, with the help of Jarvis, to just watch all of them in order.
"Sure," Bucky said, getting comfortable on the couch. "Where were we, Jarvis?"
The TV turned on. "Starting Finding Nemo," Jarvis said, and Harry sighed and focussed on the screen, while Bucky pulled a blanket off the back of the couch and spread it across their laps. If anything, Harry's therapy sessions always ended with Bucky spending time with him and that alone pretty much made them worth it as far as Harry was concerned.