Disclaimer: I make no claim to the ownership of either Harry Potter or Marvel
As always, Chapter 11 is already posted on my discord group, so hop on for an early read, chatting with me and the other readers there and even news about updates and whatnot. The Link is on my profile, Hope to see you there!
A big thanks to SilvOFire and LordLexx for the great work they did as the editors, thank you, guys!
Dropping off a pair of would-be-thugs in front of the annoyed NYPD men, Peter smirked behind his mask and shot a web line at the spire on the Oscorp Tower before flinging himself to its tip. Sitting on the topmost point in the city, he looked at the city beneath him, his eyes easily able to see much beyond what a human would be capable of as he kept track of the squad of NYPD being dispatched towards a murder nearby the Central Park.
While he was pretty comfortable in robbery and hostage situations, homicide was something he didn't want to touch with a ten-foot pole if possible. He was already painted as a wall-crawling alien lunatic in most tabloids, no need to add murderer or cannibal to the list.
"Fuck, when did I become comfortable with being labeled as an alien-lunatic? Especially considering what that guy claiming to be a Norse god did in this very same city!" He groaned as he rubbed his hands on his face, feeling the strain of being awake for more than seventy-two hours.
He was about to swing towards his home, his mouth watering at the thought of eating the greasiest pizza he could find when a spotlight shone on him. Wincing at the sudden brightness, he looked up at the Helicopter hovering above him and squinted at the logo on its tail. Suddenly, his spider-sense warned him and he immediately back-flipped, his eyes zeroing upon the dart which had landed awfully close to him for his comfort.
"Hey, it is not good manners to dart someone! It sends the wrong message, didn't they teach you that in the school?" He shouted as he ran along the edge and jumped off the building, spinning himself to avoid the rain of bullets that came after him. Glass windows shattered in front of him as the lead impacted them, showering the people below with glass shards, which would undoubtedly be fatal from this height.
He angled himself downwards and shot out his webs, spreading them out about ten meters above the ground. The public beneath him screamed at the sudden action but no one was hurt by the glass due to his webs catching all of them. Before he could take a breath at the averted crisis, the helicopter once again began shooting at him and this time, he felt a bullet graze his ribs and another enter his back, dangerously near to his spine.
A hiss escaped his mouth and he stumbled mid-air, the sharp pain almost making him fall to the ground amidst the moving traffic, before he swung as fast as he could and dropped into an alley, sticking to the wall in the shadowed part to escape the helicopter. Now that he was focusing on it, the helicopter's rotors made no sound as it flew, something which only the top grade, heavy paid ones could do.
Deciding to search about all this later, he reached behind his back and lightly touched the bullet wound, inadvertently groaning at the pain from the definitely not normal bullet. Leaving bloody handprints on the wall, he stumbled out of the alley and swung towards his home, making sure to stick to the dimmed areas and the thin spaces between buildings to move about.
Local restaurant, nearby Avengers Tower
While he was never a fan of greasy food, Clint had somehow managed to cajole him into trying out the biggest burger that this place had on its menu. Apparently, it was an 'exercise to determine his rate of metabolizing calories so that they can determine a fitness plan for him'. And thus, it was between more than four dozen people and twice as many cameras that Steve Rogers went live on the internet, his hands struggling to hold the 15-inch burger absolutely loaded in cheese, mayonnaise, meat, veggies, and even more cheese as he took a tentative bite out the bun on the top.
He paused for a moment and the public waited with bated breath for him to pass the verdict—he could see the manager of the joint at the front with his fingers in his mouth—when he frowned.
"Did you hear something?" He asked Clint, the archer nursing a beer with his phone in another hand. Clint just shook his head and opened his mouth to say something when the store exploded in a conflagration of fire and shrapnel. Steve dove down immediately, bringing his fellow Avenger with him as they both brought the table up.
When the ringing in their ears stopped, both of them stood up and looked at the devastation around them in horror. Both of them were no strangers to blood and death, but seeing guts and blood all over the floor and wall was more horrifying to both of them than anything they had ever witnessed. Sounds of sirens immediately permeated the air and shook the Avengers out of their momentary shock. Both of them ignored the stinging from their bodies and stepped into the blood and started searching for survivors among the burnt and torn apart bodies.
One hour later, Steve and Clint both sat in front of the television inside the Avenger's Tower, both of them with Nick Fury on a call with the President as they watched the death tally being revised yet again. 53 people had been with them when the blast had occurred and out of those 53, only 21 came out alive. Clint had suffered injuries as well, injuries which hadn't been clear in the direct aftermath, the adrenaline dulling his pain. Five cracked ribs, a series of cuts over his body from the shrapnel and a broken nose from when he banged it against the table when he had been pulled down.
"This is an outrage! Attack on Captain America and Hawkeye right in front of their homes with several dead? Who do you think is responsible for this, Fury?" the President demanded, his face sweaty and red.
"We are looking for the culprits, Mr. President. However, this was an attack on Captain America, not on Hawkeye." Fury responded, his stance firm and his voice not betraying the anger that he simply was radiating with his fisted hands.
"And how do you come to this conclusion?" Tony asked, striding into the room with a bottle in his hand.
"Sorry Mr. President, Fury," he nodded at them both before taking a sip, smacking his lips together as he turned towards Fury and pointed at the Captain. "Capsicle was attacked right outside my home and no one ever thought to invite me to the top-secret meeting about it?"
"Mr. Stark, do you have anything productive to add or are you just being your annoying self again?" came the voice from the other end of the interface.
"No, no, I don't have anything to add for now. I just wanted to hear Fury's report and then I will go back to tinkering, saving Earth, charming the pants and bras off ladies, the usual you know?"
That brought a smile to his face and he chuckled a little at the billionaire's words. Standing up he moved towards Fury and stood in front of him, looming above him despite them being about the same height.
"What do you mean it was an attack on me?"
"Almost all reputed and known superhumans, mutants and enhanced were attacked within the last few hours. Spiderman, you, Magneto, Abomination, Deadpool and even Bruce Banner were attacked. While humans were harmed and killed, it was clear that the focus of these attacks was the metahuman amongst them."
"And what was their aim? Kill two super-powerful animals, a less powerful arachnid and a super-soldi…" Tony said with a chuckle before he trailed off, a heavy silence growing over the room. Fury immediately tapped his earpiece and spoke into it before clips of every attack were shown through projections. They watched as Abomination, chained within the depths of a deep-sea prison, was somehow released from his confinement. Subsequently, the prison forces contained him with the help of knockout gas. Next was Bruce Banner, the scientist going on about his way in the remote lab Stark had gifted him when a bullet came out of nowhere and entered his skull and he was already turning green before it exited out of the other end. The clip then showed Captain America himself, his torn clothes and superficial wounds present for all to see, his hands leaving bloody prints on the tables as he walked outside the destroyed restaurant.
"Well fuck." Tony said, his eyes wide as they realized what had happened. For once, Steve couldn't find it in himself to correct the younger man's language, his mind busy with considering the implications of what they had just witnessed.
Clearing outside the X-Mansion, New York
It was the morning after the attack on Spiderman and the two Avengers that Ororo found Jean hugging the life out of Harry at the edge of the forest. As bewildered as her expression was, it was overshadowed by her annoyance and anger at the wizard.
"HARRY POTTER!" She screamed, her eyes narrowed and her face twisting in a snarl as Jean and Harry jumped apart. Both of them looked at her with perplexity as she stomped over to them, a smattering of white clouds in the sky quickly turning into a swirling mass of dark clouds as the weather reacted to its mistress' rage.
"Uh...Ororo, is there a problem?" Jean asked as she wiped away the tears on her cheeks.
Somehow, that just made the Storm mutant all the more angrier as she swiped her hand sidewards and sent Jean away from Harry, the redhead landing on her behind gently and most importantly, far away from Harry.
He could do nothing but look with wide eyes as the air between him and Ororo suddenly turned into hurricane-force winds, winds that were now filled with thousands of shimmering things. Snapping out of his stupor, Harry exerted his own control over the wind and stopped the miniature blizzard right in its tracks. He grunted at the pressure being exerted on his body as it was only now he was feeling the toll of shooting out lightning and creating a giant hurricane over the Atlantic in a single night. Ever so slowly he lost control over the air, the sharpened ice moving forwards with increasing speed by the second.
"You absolute menace of a human!" she shouted, "Do you know how much work I had to do to prevent your temper tantrum from destroying entire biospheres over the world! A hurricane in the Atlantic, lightning being discharged all over the area and if that wasn't enough, you somehow managed to create tornados too!" She shouted as the icicles finally stopped their movement and dissolved into vapor, the winds dying down around them to reveal a heavily breathing Ororo glaring at him with all of her might.
Harry on the other hand could only look at her for a few moments with a gaping mouth before understanding dawned on him. He lowered his eyes and felt the heat creep up his neck as he mumbled out a "Sorry" and stood there quietly, not knowing what else he could say to an obviously and rightfully angered woman.
"Learn to wield your powers and control your emotions. Power over the sky isn't something to be taken lightly. A single storm or a wrong air current can affect the life below adversely in many devastating ways. I had to clean up all of your mess last night, literally while keeping tabs on what further havoc you were wrecking in the middle of the night!"
With that Ororo turned around and started moving towards the mansion, no doubt intending to catch up on her lost sleep when she stopped abruptly and turned towards Jean, the telekinetic looking like a deer caught in headlights as Ororo's eyes narrowed upon the disheveled and equally sleep-deprived teenager. A second later her face softened and she nodded at her before she continued to the mansion. Jean walked towards a still shell shocked Harry and laid her hand on his shoulder, her own eyes falling to the ground.
"I am sorry Harry, if I hadn't snapped at you then all of this wouldn't have happened. It is all m-", She was cut off as Harry just brought his arms around her and hugged her, stopping her words right in her throat as she felt herself press against him.
"No need to apologize, Jean, I was at fault too, majorly in fact. I seem to keep forgetting that you guys aren't trained soldiers or even adults fighting a war. You are teenagers, not veterans fighting for your survival. I shouldn't expect you to instinctively know the best solution or even think of what-ifs, nonsensical though they may be.", he laughed in the end, his tone light and utterly devoid of the anger and bitterness she had expected.
"You ass" Jean muttered in his shoulder as she lightly pushed against his chest before she sighed and just melted into the warmth he was providing.
It was after a few moments that Harry disengaged from the hug and looked down at the redhead. Much like Ororo and him, she had also not slept a wink during the night after he had blasted off from the grounds and now that only made him feel like an asshole. Sighing internally, Harry added extensive Occlumency and more interaction with people to his list of things to do, knowing that it was only because of Ororo that he didn't cause untold damage.
Lost in his thoughts as he was, Harry didn't realize that with his face turned towards the girl in his arms, it was sending quite a different message to her. Blushing a cute shade of red as she saw him looking down at her slightly wet shirt, Jean crossed her arms over her breasts with an embarrassed smile as she looked towards her right. The sudden motion caught Harry's attention and his eyes widened when he saw the red flush on her face and neck. Connecting the dots on what the woman had likely thought of him, Harry immediately removed his arms from her shoulder.
"Hey, I am sorry alright! I wasn't looking at your breasts, I was just thinking about something and my eyes were..." Harry stopped for a moment when he saw her shoulders shake a little and small sounds escape her throat. Thinking that now he had caused her to cry once again, he hastened to apologize as he took a step back and raised his arms in front of him.
"Listen, I was not looking at them, I mean they are fantastic but I didn't mean to-", his rambling was cut off when Jean started laughing with her arms clutching her stomach.
"You minx! I thought I made you cry!" He cried out, his tone accusatory and affronted all at once, causing her to laugh harder. Pressing her arms against her chest and making her breasts stand out even more, Jean looked up at him and batted her eyes.
"Why Mr. Potter, are my breasts not good enough for you? I know Ororo has a bigger pair than me but I assu-" By then, Harry had just turned a furious shade of red as his eyes were inadvertently drawn to her perky tits and slightly pointed nipples before he just teleported away. She kept looking at his previous position with a pout before mortification the likes of never before came over her.
'What the fuck did I just do?'
Despite her mortification, she couldn't help but be at least a bit pleased by his reaction to her body.
Taking Ororo's words to heart, Harry flew towards the Atlantic, diverting half of his mind on flying and the other half on extracting vapor from the clouds to turn it into water constructs. Now that he was constantly practicing his divine abilities, he was able to differentiate between his birth magic and the energies he had acquired through his swords. Whenever he had used water-based or lightning-based spells before, his energy had been utilized on a much faster scale than now.
On the other hand, now when he attempted the elemental manipulations, he didn't need to use incantations or even keep concentration like he used to, a simple thought or even a casual flicker of intent was enough for him to get the job done on a small scale. Contrary to what he had thought at first, the swords hadn't gifted him with three different sources of energy but instead, all three of them were merging with his soul, thus it was his original magical core that was being augmented.
After almost an hour of flying, he came to the location he wanted, the ocean all around him with no existing ship or airplane routes due to the Bermuda Triangle. In his Universe, the Bermuda Triangle had been nothing but a giant colony of Thunderbirds, their constant presence created massive storms and magnetic fluxes which were the reason for many planes and ships getting lost.
While he didn't know the reason for its mysterious properties and effects in this world, he didn't care for it at the moment beyond the solitude and the prevention of satellite spying in the area. Dropping into a free fall, Harry dove below the waters and instantly felt his awareness spread out in every direction, much like when he was in the air. He was able to see a hammerhead eating a smaller shark miles away from his position and at the same time, he was aware of the small school of fish swimming just below him.
It was only moments later that he was shocked out of his awed state when he felt fear and apprehensiveness...from the fish?
Bemused at the discovery of his sudden connection with the aquatic life around him, Harry tried to make them feel safe and protected. He couldn't put it into words but he felt something pulse outwards from his mind along the astral plane and instantly the traces of fear and apprehension vanished from all around him.
Also, now that he was focused upon the fact, it seemed like breathing underwater wasn't a problem for him. He was able to filter the oxygen from the water he was inhaling from his nose just like when he had used gillyweed! Deciding to find out more about this later on, Harry once again connected with the fishes around him and gently coaxed them into vacating the area for a moment.
When he could feel no life except for the corals below him, Harry lowered himself onto the seafloor and rested his hands on the stark-white sand. He reached down with his geokinetic abilities and with a massive flex of his magic and mind both, the world stilled for a moment that possibly stretched into eternity for him.
And then, the sea began to churn.
"Send the Quinjets ahead and position half of our satellites on this side of the world over the Atlantic! If a shark smells so much as a drop of blood, I want to know about it!"
A chorus of "Yes, sir" later, Quinjets were scrambling off the helicarrier, armed and primed for any eventuality they may find. The Helicarrier shook slightly from the sudden burst of speed it put on even as Fury stood on the bridge and took in the satellite view of the situation. Distorted and uneven as it was due to the irregular electromagnetic waves that flowed through the atmosphere over the location, he was still able to make out the swirling whirlpools and the gigantic waves forming at the center of the Triangle.
It had damn near made him rip out the Glock at his hip and shoot Hill when she had run up to him and told him about the large-scale seismic fluctuations detected below the Atlantic. Alarms were already blaring on the American, European and African coasts as the coastal guard and navies were deployed to bring back any boats and ships to safety while every news channel's crew was boarding on their private helicopters to view the spectacle.
Within minutes they were flying in the small storm that had formed above the epicenter of the undersea vibrations, the quinjets forming the vanguard below them.
"Commander, you might want to see this...whatever this is," Hill said as she looked into one of the command deck's screens, her eyes wide like the man sitting at the node. The view was projected to the bridge's window and for the first time in forever, Fury felt his mask crack and a small gasp escape his mouth at the view.
The helicarrier's cameras were the best in the business and from one of the broadside cameras, he had no problem in viewing what was happening thousands of feet below him. Between the dozens of SHIELD and Navy ships, something darker than the rest of the sea around it was rising towards the surface.
All of them watched with dropped jaws and wide eyes as in the span of the next few minutes, a large island became visible. It was easily two miles across from one end to another, composed of nothing but sand, corals and rocks.
"Admiral Simmons is on the line sir," Hill said as she sent the call to his console, the aged admiral sending him a nod, one which he returned.
"SONAR and other scans show it was just tectonic activity on a massive scale, caused by the North American, South American and African continental plates colliding about 100 miles below the sea-floor," said Fury, sending the reports from his own ships to the admiral's ship.
"Then why wasn't anyone aware of a potential disaster on such a scale? We've had absolutely no reports of a possible seismic event of this scale." The admiral asked, his eyes momentarily flicking away towards where Fury knew he had the prime view of the newly created Island.
"Do I look like someone from the seismology department?" The admiral looked at him for a few moments before a small smile grew on his face and he shook his head.
"Move on to the island and search for any lifeforms. Even I know that this was created too rapidly for it to be a natural event." Fury said, racing a nod from the admiral before orders were shouted on both sides of the call. Within moments a pair of quinjets carrying thirty SHIELD personnel each and a small detachment of motorboats was speeding towards the island.
"Ahhhh..fuuuuck," Harry groaned as he stood up and stretched out, his back and arms emitting a series of cracks and his joints popped. Looking up from his vantage point, Harry spotted the crafts and ships heading towards his newly created island—an fucking giant island at that! He had just wanted enough area to create a manor!—and with a heavy sigh, he disapparited to appear directly on the coastline.
While it would have been preferable for the muggles to be in the dark about his actions, it wasn't just possible with the level of advancement and technology this world had seen and used. Raising this island would have left him unable to even lift his head for at least a few days but being in the water had boosted his strength and magic by a rather frightening degree and thus, it had left him at about ten percent of his full power.
When the various teams disembarked from their transports and moved inland, Harry used his invisibility to his advantage and climbed aboard the largest ship, recovering even more in the seconds he had to swim through to get to the ship.
Evading the CO and the technicians on the vessel, he moved towards the control panel and quickly located the computer connecting the ship's data banks and sending the recon findings to the commanding vessel. A single Confundus Charm took care of the man at the station, sending him away with an uncontrollable urge to shit all day.
Casting a notice-me-not at the station, Harry sat down in the vacated seat and raised his hands in front of the screen. Digging as deep as he could within himself, Harry rested his palm against the screen while he brought his left hand in the position to snap his finger.
"Afairplirofores", he whispered while at the same time snapping his fingers to cast a mass obliviate. The spell which he had cast on the computer systems was made by a Greek wizard Joshua Masrani and it could target the specific information inside a computing system or network the caster wanted to be removed.
The only disadvantage of the spell, there were only about twenty wizards on his planet that were capable of casting it, making it something that couldn't be used every time or everywhere and it had a time and data limit. He couldn't remove something that was more than a few minutes old and neither could he remove something more than a few gigabytes. He felt his consciousness extend into the computer network, connecting the admiral's flagship and the giant carrier flying above the island.
Within the next few moments, he removed every record, every scan, every recording and every bit of data they had collected on his activities today. Due to the network being internally linked, he was able to reach out to Triskelion and remove the information from there also.
Finally, after a few minutes he was done with his task and he snapped his fingers, altering the memories of each and every muggle, making them think that this was nothing but an abnormal seismic activity and this was a sandy piece of rock in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle.
As his vision started blackening from his overuse of magic, Harry grabbed the nearest thing he could and portkeyed himself to his room in X-Mansion. Soon, everyone vacated the area, the seismic activity and the weird growth of the island forgotten by dinner time as the magic worked its course through their minds.
Over the next few weeks, wards were raised all over the island, stretching out up to five miles into the sea. using the best piece of granite he could locate, he had made a rudimentary wardstone out of it. It had taken him three weeks just to etch the runes upon it and another week to slowly cast the wards. Fidelius, muggle-repelling wards, artificial-weather charms, wards to prevent the area from being viewed, illusions, traps, and runes were used to create the perfect, undetectable place on Earth.
"This doesn't make sense at all!"
"I know Stark," Fury said sharply, his arms crossed behind his back as he glared out towards the Atlantic, his fingers twitching slightly in anger. "I know how much sense it makes."
"Can someone tell me what has happened?" A third voice asked, Reed Richards appearing at the conference with his glasses on his eyes and his face looking like it got a little too close to gunpowder.
"Welcome Mr. Richards."
"Yo Richards, read your interdimensional gateway papers this morning, sadly I couldn't get into your servers. The hell do you feed it?"
Feeling his patience finally snap off, Fury bright out his Glock and shot Tony's hologram right in the forehead, feeling some of his anger bleed out at the momentary fear in the billionaire's eyes. While generally he had no problem with a bit of levity and sass that Stark had, currently he was in no mood to deal with his fucking around.
"Stark, either you shut your mouth or I will send a missile next time, and it won't be a hologram that it would find." He snapped at the impertinent man-child, finally causing him to sober up and sit straight in his chair with a 'zip-the-lips' motion.
"Commander Fury?" Richards asked again, a frown on his face.
"Twenty-two days ago, we went into the Bermuda triangle and found something, and then we came back from the trip which had all of the Helicarrier's armed strength and every ship under the command of Rear Admiral Simmons deployed over to the point of seismic disturbance. What do you both know about these events?"
"I remember Susan talking about it. Beyond the fact that it was powerful enough to reach an 8 on the Richter scale and there was no tsunami despite that, I don't know anything about it." Reed said.
"I don't know anything, I was in my labs all day during that time and I also had to run repairs on the lab and the surrounding infrastructure that the Hulk demolished before the sonic cannons put him to sleep. JARVIS told me the bare essentials about it later on." Flicking up his hand, he sent the visual recordings of the bridge during the whole excursion to both of the superheroes.
"That is the recording made through my own camera, which always records anything in 360 degrees around me. Yet when I looked for the helicarrier's recordings during the same time, the recordings were missing. Not deleted or changed, but missing as if they hadn't been recorded in the first place. I immediately asked Hill about it, but she had no answers for me since according to her we just went there, dispatched a team and then came back with no conclusive reports, no scans, no findings, not even a fucking a photo of whatever we had been doing there!"
"Are you sure you just didn't smoke something?"
"Does that camera feed look like something that can be smoked-up, honestly Stark, be a little serious." Reed admonished him immediately, the eccentric scientist looking troubled by the fact that something on this scale had happened.
"You don't think this is related to what happened that night?", Tony asked.
"I do," said Fury, his eye closing for a moment as he tried controlling his slipping anger. Ever since Loki had touched down, it seemed like he took one step forwards only to be knocked down four steps back. The Battle of New York was won and the Earth was saved, but at the cost of thousands of deaths and Loki's scepter was stolen from right under his nose. He prevented Alexander's mutant outlaw reforms in SHIELD's charter only for Magneto to decimate humans the next week.
Also, they had someone with the blood of several superhumans running around and if that wasn't enough, someone had to come and tamper with their digital as well as physical memories.
"I can get Agatha Harkness to look into it if you want, she is an accomplished sorceress and if this event was mystic in nature, then I don't know anyone better who can help you." Richards offered, his fingers already typing away at something.
"C'mon Doc, sorceress, mystics? What is next, Merlin and Gandalf coming here to kill dragons and witches?"
"Tell that to Loki and Ravager when you next see them."
Stark just humphed at that and disconnected from the call while Fury chuckled a little at Richards getting the last word in.
"Tell me how to contact this Harkness, Richards, I want to meet her personally."
"Just come to the Baxter Building tomorrow night at 7, you will find her there. The entrance code for you is... 'Black the Beardless'. Huh? I could have sworn it was Commander Nick."
"Stark," Fury groaned out at the jape made at his appearance. As Fury disconnected from the call and moved back towards the bridge, he heard the sounds of shouting from his destination. Coming into the bridge, he looked at Hill who looked ready to kill someone with her bare hands as she shouted orders for the Helicarrier to be turned around.
"What's going on?" He barked out as he moved towards his place, Hill falling into step behind him to his right.
"Juggernaut has escaped the Stokes Facility and is on a path towards New York. Already he has killed over four dozen policemen and a few SWAT teams with two times that number injured. Spiderman is on his way to stop him with the Avengers en-route."
"Keep me posted. Without Thor or Hulk, I don't like the chances of the Avengers being able to beat the Juggernaut. Patch me up with Spiderman, he is the only one present there that has any hope of stalling him until we or Stark can figure something out."
That's it for now...you guys gotta wait for the big man in the chapter, so goodbye and stay safe.
and BTW, review, fav and follow in that order.