Number 6
"Hmm," Loki said as he stared at Harry's forehead.
Harry sat squashed between his father and mother on the couch during unofficial movie night. There was also an official movie night, apparently, at least according to the schedule Tony had put together but it seemed that only Tony, and maybe Bruce, understood how that schedule even worked so most people paid it little attention.
"What?" Harry asked as he turned to look up at his mother. Why were both his parents so ridiculously tall and Harry such a short little shrimp? Harry was waiting very impatiently for a growth spurt.
"Your scar," Loki said, leaning a little closer and raising a hand. "It's magical but it feels foul."
"Er.." Harry managed to say before Loki pressed his finger against the scar and Harry saw stars. Very bright, very painful stars.
"Brother," Loki said at once, leaning over Harry and smacking Thor in the chest. And yeah, that wasn't weird at all, how his parents insisted on addressing each other as 'brother' all the time. "Feel Haraldr's scar."
Thor blinked first at Loki and then at Harry and raised a hand to stroke his fingers across Harry's scar. Harry pulled back, not wanting a repeat of his sudden view of the universe, but Thor's touch wasn't painful at all.
"That is odd," Thor said while sharing a concerned look with Loki. "It feels as though the scar is alive."
"Indeed." Loki looked very much like he wanted to touch the scar again and Harry shrank away from him. "We shall remove it first thing in the morning."
"You can remove it?" Harry asked, interest piqued. His scar had been bothering him all throughout his fourth year, and now, since Voldemort's resurrection, it was burning steadily. The added distance from his move to the United States had lessened it somewhat but not eliminated it entirely.
"Of course," Loki said with a look that clearly communicated he thought Harry had just asked a very silly question.
And that is how Harry found himself lying on a stone slab deep in the basement of Avengers Tower. Loki had spent half the night inscribing it with runes. The slab felt ice-cold when Harry stretched out on it.
"Thor, Steven, I need you to hold him down." Loki waited until both men were in place at either side of Harry while Loki stood near Harry's head. "Haraldr, I am truly sorry, but this will hurt quite a bit. Be brave, my son. I will be as quick as I can."
Harry inhaled a deep breath and what followed was minutes of screaming and thrashing as strong hands pushed him down while tendrils of fire seemed to pull Harry's very essence out through his scar.
"What the fuck is that?" Tony asked somewhere in the distance.
"An abomination of magic and life itself," Loki said, voice echoing in Harry's ears, close by, yet far away. "It is gone. You did well, Haraldr."
Harry floated through the air, exhausted, head pounding.
"I've got him, brother," Thor said, carrying Harry all the way to his room and placing him in bed. "Worry not, Soldier of Winter. Haraldr is strong. He will recover."
Harry slept and when he woke up hours later, his head was still sore but his mind felt as though it was suddenly a hundred pounds lighter. Loki brought him soup and bread to eat while Thor sat down on the edge of Harry's bed and proclaimed him a mighty warrior for fighting the abomination while Loki extracted it. Harry let his father believe that. All he remembered was overwhelming pain. Still, he was thankful the scar and whatever freaky Voldemort thing was inside of it was gone. Also, getting to spend the day in bed and being taken care of by his parents was also a nice experience, even though Harry would never admit such a thing to anyone.
And later, when his bedroom was dark and his parents had gone to bed, Bucky snuck in, looked him over top to bottom, handed him a mug of hot cocoa and left again as quietly as he'd entered.
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Number 7
Everyone had gathered in the communal living room. All the Avengers, others that frequently worked with them like Sam Wilson and James Rhodes, Ms Pepper Potts, who was a category onto herself, and the guy with the eyepatch, who had the meanest scowl, aside from Snape, that Harry had ever seen.
"Start talking, kid," Tony said from his spot on the couch beside Harry's mother.
"About what?" Harry asked, confused but also suspecting they'd want to know about the thing in his scar.
"About the thing in your scar," Tony said, waving his hand frantically in the general direction of Harry's head. "We all saw what came out of it and we want to know how it got to be in there in the first place."
"Haraldr," Loki said with a patient smile while his eyes were sharp as ever. "Someone performed very foul magic on you. Please tell us what you know."
Harry sighed. He'd been dreading this moment. Telling everyone he was a wizard. On the one hand, the people around him seemed reasonably accepting of magic. But on the other hand, there was the Statute of Secrecy and Harry really didn't want to break it, since it had dire consequences.
But perhaps Harry could exploit a little loophole he thought he'd found. See, you weren't allowed to tell muggles who were unaware of magic about magic. "Before I can tell you anything," Harry said carefully, pointedly. "I need you all to tell me that you know magic exists."
"What?" Sam Wilson asked.
"I know magic exists," Bucky said, which earned him a proud smile from Steve, who immediately added, "And I also know magic exists."
Pepper Potts was next, and then Loki and Thor and James Rhodes and eventually everyone gave a verbal confirmation, even Tony, though he did roll his eyes while doing so.
"Thanks. Also, I'm a wizard," Harry said and watched people look at him in confusion. "I am a wizard who for most of the year goes to a magical school alongside other wizards and witches."
"Okay, kid, keep talking," Tony said, sitting up and leaning forward.
"Are you saying that there are magic-users living on earth? In some kind of organized fashion?" Natasha asked, head tilted as she looked at Harry as though she'd never seen a more interesting person in her life.
Harry swallowed. "Yeah. Each country has a hidden community of wizards and witches. We have our own governments, schools, prisons, shopping districts and other stuff."
There was a brief moment of silence as everyone took in that incredible piece of information.
"Why the hell don't we know about this?" Mr Eyepatch demanded, arms crossed as he glared around the room.
"Because your people used to burn my people at the stake," Harry said in a deadpan sort of voice, causing Tony to snort with laughter.
"Point taken." Mr Eyepatch looked at Natasha and Clint and appeared to be giving them some silent commands.
"That still doesn't tell us how you received that abomination in your scar," Loki said, narrowing his eyes as though he suspected Harry was purposefully not answering that question. And yeah, Harry kinda was hoping to avoid that subject, since he wasn't sure how much to tell his parents and the Avengers about Voldemort.
"My parents…James and Lily Potter were murdered by a Dark Lord called Voldemort," Harry explained to a riveted audience. "Then he tried to kill me with magic, but because my mum…Lily Potter had sacrificed herself for me, his magic backfired." Harry touched his scar, which was nowadays nothing but a very thin, white line instead of the puffy, inflamed thing it had been. "I got my scar that evening. That's all I know."
"And what happened to this Dark Lord?" Steve asked, while beside him on the couch Bucky looked simultaneously worried sick on Harry's behalf yet murderous towards anyone daring to harm him.
"He got hit with the curse meant for me which blew up his body. I don't actually remember any of it, as I was just over a year old. This is all hearsay," Harry felt compelled to add.
"Haraldr, if anyone tries to harm you again," Thor said as he gazed at Harry with a solemn look, placing a large hand on Harry's knee, "you need only tell us and we will all fight alongside you to defeat your enemies."
Yeah, and that was exactly what Harry was afraid of.
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Number 8
It happened during official movie night, while Harry sat between his parents, slowly dozing off during the second of the Lord of the Rings movies. Harry loved the story, but the movies were just so long and he was so comfortable between the two large bodies on either side of him and his eyelids grew heavy without Harry even realizing it.
A burst of flames appeared out of nowhere behind them all, shooting up from floor to ceiling before revealing three figures standing in the middle of the communal living room.
A lot of things happened at once. Harry's parents jumped up, positioning themselves in front of Harry. Bucky vaulted over the coffee table and threw himself between Harry's parents right on top of Harry.
Steve snatched up the big, wooden tray that held the snacks, spilling popcorn and chips everywhere while he held the tray like a shield. Tony yelled at Jarvis to deploy his suit and before long the whine of Iron Man's thrusters filled the room. Natasha pulled a gun out of nowhere, while Clint suddenly held knives in both hands.
Harry, still buried under a lot of Bucky, managed to make out parts of their unexpected visitors and saw aquamarine robes with silver stars on them.
Well, there was no mistaking robes like that.
"Professor Dumbledore," Harry said, though it sounded muffled against Bucky's shoulder.
"Hello, Harry," Professor Dumbledore said pleasantly, as if he didn't have some of the most lethal individuals on the planet pointing weapons at him. "Ms Granger told me what happened. These people convinced you James and Lily are not your parents?"
Bucky slowly let Harry up enough so he could look over the back of the couch properly, though Bucky hovered closely behind Harry, glaring at the newcomers while the plates on his metal arm shifted up and down.
"We are Haraldr's parents," Thor said with great conviction, and then added, much to Harry's mortification, "My brother Loki and myself conceived Haraldr together."
"Preposterous," Snape snarled, standing on Dumbledore's left. On the other side stood Mad-Eye Moody, the real one Harry assumed, since the fake one had been kissed by a dementor at the end of the school year. Moody's magical eye was rolling in its socket as he tried to look at everyone around him at once.
Snape's narrowed gaze landed on Harry. "The boy is a complete copy of his father. Just as arrogant and selfish."
"Pardon?" Thor said in confusion, just as Iron Man took a step forward, helmet retracting to reveal a severely unimpressed looking Tony.
"Yeah, sorry to disappoint you, Grima, but we tested the kid's DNA and everything. We didn't want to bring home the wrong boy and get his hopes up. Harry is Thor and Loki's offspring, there is no doubt about that."
"Be that as it may." Dumbledore looked entirely unconvinced by Tony's proclamation. Harry wondered if the old headmaster even knew what DNA was. "Harry has family at home, his aunt and uncle, who miss him dearly. And Harry staying here puts them all in danger."
Loki, who had been oddly quiet, finally spoke up as he took sharp, tight steps towards their visitors. "You dare speak of Haraldr's safety as though you care?"
"I beg your pardon?" Dumbledore said, chin tilted up as he took Loki in top to bottom. "I care deeply for Harry and his safety is of great importance to me."
"You lie," Loki all but whispered as he stopped in front of Dumbledore. "If you truly cared you wouldn't have let Haraldr suffer from the abomination that was trapped in the scar on his head for years. If you truly cared, you would have seen it removed."
"What have you done?" Dumbledore asked in shock, taking in Harry's face with wide eyes and apparently only now noticing that Harry's scar was pretty much gone.
Loki drew himself up even more, towering above the headmaster. "I have done what any parent would do. I have removed a direct threat to Haraldr's safety and happiness." Loki's mouth curved up in a terrible grin, showing far too many teeth. "In fact, that is exactly what I'll be doing today as well."
And before anyone could stop him, Loki swirled his hands around in a few complicated gestures and from one second to the next Dumbledore, Snape and Moody disappeared with a quiet pop.
"Where did they go?" Harry asked, mouth hanging open. Behind him he heard Bucky chuckle quietly.
Loki shrugged as he turned to Harry with a smile that suggested he hadn't felt this satisfied in at least a few hundred years. "I have sent them back where they came from, though I didn't pinpoint their location precisely. They might have landed a few hundred miles off-centre."
"Wow," Harry breathed, impressed but also feeling slightly worried about Dumbledore. Though, after Harry realized Dumbledore had known something really foul had lived in Harry's scar for years, as he'd told Harry as much in his second year, and after feeling so much better without it, Harry had lost some of his fondness for the headmaster. "Can you teach me how to do that?"
Loki visibly puffed up with pride. "That, my child, and much more."
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Number 9
Loki took one look at Harry's wand and said, "This is a little crutch for children. You will not need it to perform magic."
Some part of Harry wanted to object, since he loved his wand. It genuinely felt like a part of him. But Harry had seen his mother perform magic without a wand. Loki performed all this magic, big and small, without any obvious tools, so Harry's curiosity was piqued, especially because it would give him a real edge against Voldemort. Harry hadn't forgotten how their wands had connected in the graveyard. If Harry could strike at Voldemort without a wand, and thus taking him completely by surprise, Harry might have a chance against him.
Of course, Harry told none of that to his mother or his father.
Loki was a strict but caring teacher. Loki understood magic on levels that went way over Harry's head. To Loki, magic was like breathing, something he could do without even thinking about it.
And therein lay the problem. To Harry, so far, the magic that Loki was trying to teach him did not come naturally. Harry had to concentrate with all he had and even then he couldn't do a simple spell to produce a ball of light in his hand.
For days Loki kept mentioning a tree in space and how everything was connected and all Harry had to do was walk the tree, which made no fucking sense at all.
"Ugh." Harry buried his face in his hands after his hundredth failed attempt.
"Haraldr," Thor said as he crouched before Harry while Loki stood to the side with tightly crossed arms, frustration written clearly across his face. "Remember when you told me about this game you like to play, where you fly on a broomstick and catch a little ball?"
"Quidditch," Harry supplied while glancing at his father through his fingers.
"Performing magic is like that," Thor said, and he waved his hand through the air as though to point some invisible thing out. "The magic is already there. All you have to do is catch it. When you play your game, do you have to make the ball from scratch, or do you only have to close your hand around it?"
Harry slowly lowered his hands and stared at his father in amazement. That actually made sense!
"The magic is right here." Thor slowly straightened with a knowing smile on his face. "Go catch it."
"That is the most absurd explanation of magic I have ever heard," Loki said while smacking Thor on the arm. "Now I have to start over again to explain the world tree to our son."
But Harry barely paid them any attention. He closed his eyes, imagined the magic around him (maybe shaped like a tree in space, who knew?), but there for him to catch, just like a snitch. Harry quietly whispered the spell and held out his hand and caught the magic that flowed around him.
Opening his eyes, Harry saw a perfect ball of light floating above the palm of his hand. Harry looked up at his parents with a huge smile, which Thor answered with a wide grin and Loki with an absolutely gobsmacked expression.
"Just because I am not a mage like you, Loki, doesn't mean I never paid attention during Mother's lessons," Thor said with a satisfied smirk while he bumped his elbow against Loki's stomach.
"Well, if there was any doubt about Thor having fathered the kid, I think we can put that behind us from now on," Tony said from his position on the couch where he sat playing with his phone, pretending not to be interested in the magic lessons.
And Harry learned a very important lesson that day. While Loki could run circles around Thor when it came to general intelligence, Thor did occasionally have something wise to say that went straight over Loki's head.
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Number 10
The next time they had a visitor from the wizarding world, instead of breaking in via a column of flames, they announced themselves at the reception desk in the lobby.
"A Mr Lupin and Professor McGonagall are here to speak to Mr Potter," Jarvis said right after breakfast, while everyone was busy cleaning up. "They say they have urgent news concerning Mr Potter's relatives."
"Do they even know those people aren't really Harry's relatives?" Tony asked no one in particular. Harry silently agreed with him. He'd thought about that little fact a few times over the weeks he'd been staying there, how Petunia and Dudley weren't even related to him by blood and never had been.
Jarvis brought the elevator up to the penthouse where the Avengers placed themselves strategically around the room while Harry sat on a couch beside Bucky, while his parents hovered behind them.
"Harry," Lupin said with a warm smile as they stepped out of the elevator. "It's good to see you again." McGonagall didn't say anything but did offer Harry a small nod and an even smaller smile.
"I'm afraid we have bad news," Lupin said as he accepted a seat on a chair near Harry that Bruce offered him. McGonagall stood at his side. "The Dursleys were all kissed by a dementor just two days ago."
"What?" Harry stared at Lupin with wide eyes, his mind filled with disbelief.
"What's a dementor?" Bucky whispered beside Harry, though he wasn't the only one to wonder that out loud.
"Dementors are dark creatures that cause misery where ever they go," McGonagall explained patiently. "They guard the wizarding prison Azkaban, and their worst weapon is the ability to suck out someone's soul through a kiss. The victim will remain in a vegetative state until they pass away."
"Show us these beasts so we can slay them!" Thor bellowed with thunder in his voice. "They have harmed Haraldr's caretakers, so we shall have vengeance in their names!"
"The dementors in question were rogues," Lupin said, looking slightly taken aback by Thor's loud proclamations. "There are no other dementors roaming around that require termination."
"A pity," Thor said while he crossed his arms.
Harry wasn't sure what to think about any of this. He didn't like the Dursleys. Really, truly didn't like them, even though for years he'd thought they were the only family he had left. And while he wouldn't wish them dead, he couldn't muster up many feelings of sympathy for what happened to them. Harry remembered all too well all the times Petunia, Vernon and Dudley had hurt him. Dudley beating him up every other day, Vernon smacking him on the head and dragging him around by his arm until his shoulder screamed in pain, and Petunia hitting him in the head with a frying pan. And that didn't even address the locks on his bedroom door or the cat-flap through which they gave him insufficient portions of food for a growing, teenage boy.
Harry felt very little at all knowing the Dursleys were as good as dead.
"Vernon's sister Marge is organizing the funeral, since as muggles they all passed away just a few hours after being kissed," Lupin explained while giving Harry a sympathetic look. "We're here to take you back so you can attend."
"I don't want to go," Harry murmured while staring at his knees.
"Mr Potter," McGonagall snapped while narrowing her eyes in disbelief. "They are your family, no matter what some people may have told you recently. The least you can do is –"
"Are you blind?" Clint asked, as he hopped off the edge of the kitchen table he'd been sitting on. "Do you truly not see what the hell is going on here?" Clint focussed his attention on Harry as he walked closer to him. "You don't owe them anything, Harry. Not a goddamned thing. They never cared about you and you don't have to pretend to care about them. They're dead. Good riddance."
Dead silence followed and Harry wanted the couch to swallow him whole as he kept staring at his knees, not daring to meet anyone's eyes because he wasn't sure what he'd find there. What he wanted to find there. Disbelief? Judgement? Sympathy? Harry wanted none of it.
"I told you I'd teach you how to use a bow," Clint said, gesturing at Harry to get up. "So, let's go shoot some arrows."
Harry didn't think he'd ever been more grateful to have a valid excuse to leave a room. He jumped up and all but plastered himself against Clint's side. "Nice meeting you," Clint said with a slight sneer. "Don't let the door hit you on the way out." And with his hand on Harry's back he led him into the elevator.
An hour later, as Harry was just allowed to try using a bow by himself, Lupin walked into the shooting range.
"I won't mention your muggle family again," Lupin said, holding up a hand in surrender as Clint glared at him. "And Mr Stark showed us the evidence of your parentage. I swear, Harry, we had no idea James and Lily had adopted you."
Shrugging, Harry scuffed his shoe against the wooden floor. "I'm honestly not sure if James and Lily even knew they adopted me. My grandfather may very well have made them believe they gave birth to me. Loki said that would be something he'd do to hide me."
Lupin nodded in understanding. "It doesn't even matter in the end. James and Lily loved you, Harry, and you were their child, no matter how you came into their lives."
Harry swallowed against a lump in his throat. He hadn't realized how much he needed to hear someone say that about his adoptive parents. Ever since learning the truth about his parentage, Harry had wondered what James and Lily would make of him if they knew. "And what about Sirius?" Harry asked Lupin, since he hadn't heard from his godfather since the end of his schoolyear. He'd hoped Sirius would at least send him a letter or something. "Is he still my godfather?"
"Yes, of course he is," Lupin said quickly, and then sighed. "Sirius is still recovering in some ways, Harry, and he doesn't believe you aren't James and Lily's biological son. This was a huge surprise for all of us. I will talk to him."
"All right. Thanks." Harry turned back to Clint while Lupin quietly left them to it and walked out of the room.
They spent the rest of the day on the shooting range and Harry learned a lot about shooting with bow and arrow and he was ever so grateful he didn't have to think about the Dursleys at all. By the time they made their way back to the communal area for food, Lupin and McGonagall were gone and everyone else pretended nothing had happened, which suited Harry just fine.