A Third Path to the Future

by Vimesenthusiast

Rescued from the Negative Zone by the Fantastic Four, Harry Potter discovers he is a mutant and decides to take up the cause of equality between mutants and humans (among other causes). How will a dimensionally displaced Harry Potter, one who is extremely intelligent, proactive and not afraid to get his hands dirty effect the marvel universe? Pairings: Harry/Jean/Ororo/others pos.

14. Fiddly Bits

I don't own Harry Potter of Marvel. Sometimes funny reasons why just don't occur to me, sorry.

I want to give a shout out to some of my foreign readers, let me just say it was a real eye opener to see my visitor/views graph broken down by country and see so many countries represented. Want to give a shout out in particular to the two each (or one each, I'm uncertain if a visitor is also counted as a viewer) from Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. That is all kinds of awesome. Not that I don't appreciate all my readers, I do, but it is just kind of cool you know to see I have fans so far away. Makes me think of that, admittedly brain damaging, Disney song about it being a small world.

Now for some specific Reviews I'd like to mention. Again, I responded via e-mail to many of the more interesting ones.

mr I hate znt nobles kill em: That will happen eventually. Harry is also looking forward to… pointing out the inconsistency and stupidity of the anti-mutant rhetoric to as wide an audience as possible. I don't think ti will happen for a while though, maybe not until after I deal with the events of the Avengers movie.

WhiteTigerWolf: I'm glad I could help.

The DCG: Franklin and other kids will be learning from Harry and co. at their school. Let's just say there will be no exterior issues occurring there and leave it at that.

Randumdave: I've inserted enough changes between the movie universe and this one in my attempt to merge the movie universe with the mainstream comics so that the events of the second movie will be greatly different and far less important to all save a few of the main players. The Hulk's second movie was already mentioned once, and will be again in this chapter. I'm afraid Harry has too much on his plate to go searching for more.

FluffyNevyn: I literally cannot concentrate on everything that is occurring in the marvel universe, so I do tend to concentrate on Harry and the things that he has effected. The X-men however will shine in the next chapter, so wait for it.

GabyReviwer: Belsham trees are a play on words and a reference to the Terry Pratchett books, which I've mentioned in the story a time or two. Belshamharoth was a tentacle monster from out beyond the reality curve in the Discworld universe. The trees Jean has created as her first line of mental defense are essentially trees that possess thousands of vari-sized tentacles instead of branches. The whole body-swap thing came later, and was so sketchy I am leery of using it when other reasons behind her abilities can be thought up so easily.

Q.Q. I do not do cliffhangers. Not serious ones anyway.

MWRANDOM: thank you for the list, alas I have read all those before, and I have indeed looked at your favorites list as well. The story you are thinking of is a Robst story, though the name eludes me.

DarkStirder: thank you for the review. William was no stranger to late night visits, and had a lot of faith in the wards around him, hence he didn't overreact.

CRose: Thank you very much for the sentiment and I agree that there are far too many fancies that just aren't different enoguh form one another or from canon.

Zazi The Beast: The Sentry is one of a myriad of characters whose origins are so fucking sketchy, as in they make little to no sense, it is tragic, and I will not be using them, hence why he was not mentioned. Another one that springs to my mind – because I watched the Guardians of the Galaxy preview (looks sort of… awful) – is Starlord. There are many others.

Cj1of4: The events of Thor occurred when they did in my story primarily because the Iron Man 2 movie won't be happening, or at least won't be nearly as important as it was in the original. Tony in my opinion is a very flawed character, and that is how I am going to play him. Vastly intelligent and imaginative, but egotistical, unable to think of the majority of those around him, and mentally weak in some ways, very as I said in the last chapter, brittle. In other news, I don't think I could do the 'witty' repartee that is part of Deadpool's persona, hence my unwillingness to write him into the story.

Paxuss: Weapons wasn't the only thing Stark made, but when he made that big announcement, he stopped all military manufacture, not just the weapons. He literally wants to removed his company from the military environs entirely.

Magitech: Xavier and Dumbledore are close but not quite the same. Xavier might woe is me you, but won't sacrifice his followers like I see Dumbledore do just to retain the 'moral high ground'. Charles is someone I see as a classic dreamer, unable or unwilling to see the world for what it is, but also having a dream that shines so brightly that people cannot help but to aspire to it. He also is a bit of an egotist, and is unused to second guessing himself at this point in time. He will begin to do so however, and become a better person for it.

Thank you also to everyone who tried to give me an idea of a power table for everyone. The problem is the marvel site only goes up to a specific number, and doesn't give enough real details, so you need to use the actual fights in the comics, and I have very few of the comics these days. And alas the different writers don't seem to have stuck to a single table either.

Warning for those of you looking for some action, this is the first chapter I've written that has so little violence. The chapter title says it all really.

What little is there is because my beta Kathyrn518 mentioned something to me, and I realized she was right. This parts for you girl!

Ah, I also realized I never did a little key for what different stuff mean, feel it's pretty redundant now but whatever:

Italics –thoughts, with "" they become mental communication Bold – emphasis Italics and underlines - spells - from now on will denote large portions of texts spoken in a different language. They will not include spells or someone cursing

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Chapter 14: Fiddly Bits

Tony Stark hadn't had a good night's sleep ever since his kidnapping. Despite what he told other people however, it was not just the fact that the marines with him died by weapons Tony had designed. No, it was also the fact that his fellow prisoner had died to give Tony the time he needed to complete his armor's start up. Yinsen, a man who Tony thought had everything to live for if he could escape had instead laid down his life so that Tony could get away. That was enough to give anyone nightmares. In a man like Tony, who thought himself powerful and always in command of everything around him, and who had come closer to Yinsen in a short amount of time than he ever did to most people, breaking the barriers he kept around himself most of the time, it was even worse.

To get away from his nightmares Tony routinely woke up early, the better to get back to work on his Iron Man suit. Today however he had meant to try and sleep in, but that wasn't going to happen.

"Clang, clang, rattle and bang I'm gonna make my noise all day! Clang, clang, rattle and bang I'm gonna make my noise all day!" The sudden cacophony of the children's play song was accompanied by several loud clangs and, yes, bangs in the background like iron pots being smashed together.

Tony jolted out of bed at the noise, falling to the floor in a heap, his bed sheet twisted around him. He slumped against the side of the bed, grabbing a pillow before stuffing it over his head in a futile attempt to block out the noise. This failed and after a moment the 'song' actually got louder, if that were possible.

His conscious mind finally came online and he figured out that the noise was coming from somewhere else in his Malibu condo but what the hell it could be eluded him. "JARVIS, what the hell is that?" Even as he asked that question Tony thanked god that he hadn't had too much to drink last night, if he had this would be a form of torture rather than merely unpleasant.

For some reason his personal house AI (though no one but Tony knew he was almost a full AI, Tony really didn't want to deal with the flak he would get from creating him) took a moment to answer. And when it did the AI seemed puzzled, and almost, well if he was a human Tony would have said he was frazzled, almost jittery. "Sir… I am at a loss as to how such a thing is possible but the noise is coming from the piece of paper you came home with last night. Yet paper has no faculty to create noise, certainly not like this, there is no energy reading I can get off the piece of paper, but it has also somehow changed color. It is patently impossible but there is no doubt the noise is emanating from the paper. The… the complete impossibility of it is affecting my response algorithms."

Tony cursed, if the AI was admitting to that he was close to the programming equivalent of a nervous breakdown. "Hibernate for now JARVIS, I'll deal with it, get yourself together and then come back online."

"Affirmative sir," JARVIS's voice was definitely grateful as he went into the equivalent of a healing hibernation which would allow it to process whatever had bothered it at over a hundred times the speed a human could follow.

Tony got up, using the pillow to cover his ears until he could grab up a large pair of noise cancelling headphones by his stereo system. The headphones helped a lot, and he made his way downstairs from his second story bedroom into the basement, opening up the windows on the way.

Sure enough the paper was the source of the noise, the noise rising as he neared it to the point where his headphones could no longer block it all out. As he closed in Tony could see that the paper had indeed changed color from a bland white paper to an almost angry red. He wondered how the hell that had happened, but right now he was more interested in getting rid of the damn thing. Whatever the thing was, however the piece of paper was doing it, he needed to get it the hell out of his house until he had his morning caffeine and was able to think better.

Tony grabbed the paper up gingerly with a set of pliers then carried it up the stairs, holding it as far away from his body as possible.

The moment he came out of the stairwell into the light of day coming in from the main floor's window the noise stopped abruptly. Tony gaped down at the piece of paper, watching as it changed back from angry red to its normal bland cream color. Then his jaw almost dropped as the words of the message he read last night disappeared into the page and a new message appeared. "'Did I get your attention?' Oh, whoever came up with this is going to pay. I don't care why…" Tony mumbled,

Tony trailed off as the message changed again, this time to an actual message rather than a not-at-all funny header. "Ask yourselves these questions Mr. Stark: Who would benefit the most internally from you being out of the way? And who would have access to your weapons?"

The charms Harry had placed on the 'simple' piece of paper were many. Though each alone was simple, the total created a effect like a timed Howler coupled with a secret message that could only be read in the light of day. The total impact was enough to hopefully grab Tony's attention and tell him someone very powerful with very odd abilities was trying to tell him something.

Harry had felt that Tony was the sort of person who would respond better to a gentle prod like this coupled with a mystery then someone simply telling him Obadiah had turned on him without physical proof, and in that he was correct. The odd and rather obnoxious delivery piqued Tony's interest, and the message was just vague enough to grab his attention without making him think he was being led around by the nose.

He sat down in one of his sofas, thoughtfully staring down at the piece of paper, his headphones hanging from one hand until he heard the telltale beep and hum from the speaker system that told him JARVIS was coming back online. "Feeling better JARVIS?"

"Quite sir, I still am unable to rationalize what my sensors told me about the piece of paper, but am able to… deal with its existence."

"Fine by me. Tell me, can you break into Stark Industries mainframe from here, or do we have to form a physical connection for you to overcome the companies firewalls? I've got a feeling we're going to find something there, I'm not quite sure what just yet but something." He would soon be proven correct in this regard.

OOOOOOO

Ever since she'd bonded to the shard of the Eternal Phoenix inside her Jean had become an early riser, and Sundays were no exception. Shaking her head slowly from side to side Jean decided her hangover was slightly better than the first time, but she vowed again to not do this to herself again.

Ironically enough this time she would succeed in that vow. Indeed Emma would make the same one, and other than developing a taste for different spirits (wine in Emma's case, and strawberry daiquiris in Jean's) they would never drink to excess again.

The first thing that Jean saw upon opening her eyes was her friend's head leaning against her shoulder, their arms around one another. The second thing the redhead saw was a small glass vial on the bed table beside her, with the label 'anti-hangover potion, for oh so good little girls'. Grabbing it with her free hand she downed it quickly then waited for it to kick in.

After that Jean gingerly moved out from under Emma and, with a fond glance at her friend, stood up and pulled on a big t-shirt and panties before going out in search of food.

She found Harry working at the suite's small kitchenette. He was wearing a pair of loose exercise shorts and a apron but no shirt underneath it and by the smell of it he was making something delicious. "Mmmmm, that smells good Harry."

Harry turned to her and looked her up and down. Jean was wearing a large but not loose t-shirt which was tight across her chest that fell down to her thighs, her long, toned legs visible in all their glory. Her eyes were bright, her lips still looked mildly bruised from the amount of kissing they had done the night before, and her hair was a wild mane of red locks sticking out every which way.

To Harry she looked simply glorious. Now that they were together and he didn't have to hide it he let his desire for her show, and Jean found herself flushing under his eyes. "You look good Jean."

The young woman shivered at the amount of love he could put into saying her name. She moved over to him as he turned back to his work, smiling happily at seeing him working on several types of pancakes including blueberry flavored, her absolute favorite morning food. She leaned her head against his shoulder for a few moments while he flipped the pancakes, sighing contentedly. "A part of me still thinks this is a dream or something, you know?"

Harry smirked then suddenly turned. Jean's eyes widened but before she could do anything Harry's lips found hers, and despite her surprise Jean returned the gesture eagerly. The two kissed for some time. Eventually Harry discarded the utensils he had been using, his arms going around her.

Moaning, Jean opened her mouth, and Harry eagerly took the invitation, sliding his own tongue along hers into her mouth, twinning around one another. Jean's arms went around him, one hand grabbing his rear while the other buried itself in his hair. The hand on his bum squeezed a little.

In response Harry's own hands moved from grabbing the back of her large t-shirt down to her rear. Once there he fondled her butt for a moment, eliciting a squeak from the redhead, then he lifted her up into the air. Jean automatically wrapped her legs around his waist, and Harry moved backwards carrying her until they bumped into the small bar that separated the kitchenette from the rest of the seating area of the suite.

There Harry let her go, but Jean kept her legs wrapped around him even as she moved away from the kiss, looking at him through slightly glazed eyes. Harry moved his mouth down over her chin, kissing at her neck as he murmured "Does this feel real enough my love?"

The redhead moaned slightly, humping up against him, giddily feeling the physical reaction she had evoked. "Careful Harry, or you'll start a fire you'll never be able to quench."

Harry laughed throatily at the somewhat cheesy yet descriptive line moving his lips from her jugular up the side of her neck to her ears, responding in like kind. "I don't want to put your fire out my love I want to add fuel to it."

His words caused a gurgle of laughter to well up inside her but the feel of his breath on her ear caused Jean to moan again. Harry began to work on her ear in earnest, then pulled back as a feminine chuckle came from behind them.

Ororo stood there, one hand raised to cover her mouth failing to control her chuckles. She stood there in plain white panties and a white exercise bra covered by a silver silk camisole, open to show off her toned stomach. This did nothing to hide her milk chocolate colored legs, that despite not being as toned all the way down as Jean's were still powerful and of course very enticing. Her hair like Jean's was frazzled, and there were several slightly darker patches along her neck and shoulders from hickies Harry had given her the evening before. Ororo's cerulean eyes gleamed with humor, and her lovers returned her smile.

Harry reluctantly moved away from Jean, kissing her one last time before turning back to the batch of pancakes he was making just in time to keep them from burning. Nessy had popped in with the ingredients and been rather miffed that Harry had insisted on cooking again. She consoled herself by popping back to New York and then cooking a early brunch for the teens there, much to the happiness of all of them since Charles had yet to bring in a live-in maid/cook.

Standing up Jean moved over to Ororo holding her arms out for a hug. The older woman returned the gesture then surprised the redhead, by kissing her on the lips.

Almost immediately Jean returned it, feeling nothing but love and affection for her friend mirroring her feelings for Harry. Yet despite the fact her feelings for the two were almost the same, their kisses were extremely different. Even as most of her became lost in kissing Ororo, a small portion of Jean's mind compared the kissing technique of the three people she had kissed in the last twenty-four hours.

Emma's kiss had been rather sloppy, probably because of how sloshed the pair of them had been last night, and even sloshed Jean hadn't put nearly as much effort and emotion into it as she did kissing Harry and Ororo. That wasn't to say it wasn't nice, just that despite their friendship Jean couldn't say she loved Emma like she did Harry and Ororo. Emma hadn't used much tongue, and she had tasted of, well peach schnapps and mint actually.

In contrast Harry had apparently brushed his teeth before starting on breakfast. His lips were smaller, firmer, as was his kiss, not demanding or controlling but more… masculine, somehow dominating the kiss without making it anything but loving. When they kissed open-mouthed he used his tongue very skillfully, and had been able to drag the most amazing feelings from her just by kissing her.

The two women had almost immediately deepened their kiss, and now their tongues were twirling around one another, moving from the younger girl's mouth into the African woman's randomly. Ororo's lips were soft against Jean's, her tongue was thinner yet somehow slightly rougher in texture than Harry's, dancing around Jean's and while the kiss was softer, it was just as loving.

The feel of Ororo's body against her own was amazing, and Jean only very reluctantly pulled back, burying her face against the older woman's collarbone sighing contently. "I love you windrider."

Ororo nuzzled the slightly shorter woman's hair sighing contentedly. "And I you firebird." The two turned to look at Harry and Ororo waved one of her hands in the air languidly. "What are you doing boy, breakfast won't make itself."

The little act going on between his ladies had of course grabbed Harry's attention from the meal he was preparing. He looked back at the two now with wide eyes, reaching down to do some necessary rearranging in his shorts. "You two are ruddy evil, you know that?"

The two ladies chuckled, and remained cuddled together watching their man go back to finishing the pancakes he had made then moved in to help get out plates, drinks and utensils, opening the door to the balcony. Both women sighed happily, Ororo for feeling the air on her face and Jean as she felt the sun's rays on her. The two looked at one another, laughed and exchanged another hug before sitting down.

From her place on the railing Hedwig hooted amusement then flapped her way over to the table when she saw her human bringing out her just due. She had always known her Harry was an alpha, and it was good he had found such powerful mates.

Harry had made three pancakes each and several types of syrup thanks to the ingredients Nessy had brought along with bowls of mixed fruit and of course bacon for Hedwig. As the ladies sat down Harry returned to the kitchen to turn on the coffee machine, warming the water up and preparing some ready mix with a bit of an addition in the form of ground cinnamon.

The trio sat down to seat in convivial silence, enjoying the morning breeze and the scent of the ocean. The silence was broken about ten minutes later by a creaking sort of voice coming from inside from the room Jean had spent the night in. "Coffeeeee…"

Harry laughed gently and waved his hands aiming a few fingers aiming back into suite and then to the kitchen. A moment Later Jean, who was sitting closest to the doorway into the penthouse suite, saw a large mug floating out of the kitchen toward the room from which the sound had originated.

With that taken care of Harry turned back, smiling warmly at Jean. "Before Emma joins us I wanted to ask, do you want to go on a date sometime? Since we're together I mean, and I've taken Ororo on several…"

Jean chuckled, thought then shook her head regretfully. "I'd like to, but I think it would be better to hold off on anything like that for this week at least. Frankly I haven't had much time lately for one reason or another to study for my finals. Most of them I'm not worried about, but I want to smash them out of the ballpark." Harry looked blank at the baseball reference and Jean rolled her eyes. "I mean I want to ace them all."

Jean also knew she was one of the top five candidates to be valedictorian this year, and might have to come up with a speech of some kind. Ugh, she thought, that is a question. What to say to the sheeple, point out their sheep-like nature, demand they aspire to something better, or simply say screw you, you tried to pull me down to your level, now you have to watch me become all I can be? Decisions, decisions…

"Plus we've got so many projects we should be working on, I doubt any of us will have any energy to spend on anything else." Jean finished.

Harry nodded. "I get you, just don't think you're spending all your time working this week. You're right we've got our own projects to work on, but I'll be damned if I let my new girlfriend disappear into her work right after we get together." Ororo nodded firmly in agreement.

Jean chuckled again by which point the walking dead had arisen and made her way out of her room toward where she dimly heard the low murmur of voices.

Emma's wince as she came out onto the balcony in the sun had nothing to do with a hangover. Much like Jean, Emma had taken her potion like a good little girl, but unlike Jean, Emma was in no way a morning person. Despite her already incredible beauty, Emma needed her beauty sleep, a solid eight hours every night before she could really feel human. At home or abroad she usually had a maid with her that would bring her a few cups of morning coffee to get her going if she had to wake up before noon.

This was shown in her rather haphazard appearance. Even Jean hadn't seen her this bad, since after their sleepover at the mansion Emma had been the first one to somewhat recover from the previous evening. Now Emma's blond hair was fine on one side, but the other looked as if a giant animal of some sort had come along to give her the world's biggest cowlick, sticking straight up in a clump. Her dress from the evening before was gone, replaced by white panties and a bra that covered everything, both of which seemed made more of lace than anything else and almost see through. Her eyes looked barely aware, narrowed and drooping.

Her three guests were tempted to laugh at her appearance but decided not to. Instead Harry waved a hand, conjuring a bathrobe around the blond woman, looking away until Jean reached up and closed it around her friends waist, chuckling as she did.

Emma plunked herself down in the free chair facing Harry, and continued to glug at the coffee staring ahead of her. She didn't interact with the world around her at all for several minutes while the trio continued to converse in quiet tones around her.

The blonde woman kept sipping, only noticing that something odd was wrong with her mug when was able to concentrate enough to see that there seemed to be just as much in it now as when she began. The equivalent of three normal cups of coffee later, her normal amount before she really felt human, she finally looked up at the others.

Jean smiled sympathetically, having been a coffee user before her mental blocks were removed. Harry simply nodded at her, having used coffee often enough when he was younger, while Ororo, who had never touched the foul tasting stuff, simply smiled pleasantly.

After another moment she noticed that her cup had refilled again from the half it had been. "I know I've said this before Harry, but you are a most useful person to have around."

Harry smirked. The charm was an easy one to learn, though it had to be redone every few hours. It was the same spell that had been on the tables in the dining hall back in old Hogwarts that let the house-elves send up the food without going in person. "No worries Emma."

Then he became serious. "I think the little message I left Stark should have gone into effect this morning. Unless you think we should keep an eye on things here or further influence Tony I'm done here for now. Though if you have any information about him I'd like to look at it. I have to say he wasn't what I expected, and I'd like to see what he's come up with in the past to see if I can predict what he'll come up with in the future."

Emma nodded and looked over at Jean. "There is a black suitcase by the sofa inside, be a dear and get that for me would you?"

Jean mock scowled at her. "Yes mistress, at once mistress." She concentrated for a brief moment and a telekinetic tendril shot out from one of her hands through the open door into the interior of the penthouse.

Her blonde friend smirked back at her. "Say it with a smile, slave girl. MMmmm… you wearing one of those harem slave girl outfits…."

Laughter went around the table at Jean's flushing face though she noticed that Harry seemed to have a faraway look in his eyes. When he spoke he confirmed where his mind had gone. "I think she'd look better in a Princess Leia outfit personally. Or maybe a Red Sonja outfit, you've got the hair and figure for it certainly."

Ororo laughed then plucked the suitcase out of the air when Jean lost control of her power for a moment due to her monstrous blush and the fact that her own imagination was easily able to follow where such a role-play could lead, with Harry playing the part of Han Solo. Jean tried to change the subject asking "So what do you think will happen, will Stark take our warning seriously?"

"Given the odd manner it was delivered almost certainly, his curiosity will have been aroused, and the message will hit with much more impact that way." Emma responded assertively, having come up with the plan last night with Harry, though how Harry went about leaving his message was a mystery to her.

She dug into the plate of pancakes, moaning happily at the peaches and maple syrup. "MMmm.. a very useful person Harry. Anyway, I imagine he'll start to pull apart the company starting from the top. I don't know if he'll believe Obadiah is after his head, but we'll see. I would give it a 90% chance of finding some incriminating evidence and a 60% chance that he will believe it and move against Stane. I think we can trust him to take the man out on his own. If he's smart about, I.E. if he follows Ms. Pott's advice, he should be able to surprise Obadiah and put him away with little trouble."

"Unfortunately," Emma went on more pensively, "If he finds enough evidence to state unequivocally that Stane was working against him, the man's stocks in the company may be forfeit to Stark. That would give him a controlling interest in the company, a 67% controlling stock to be precise if he can find all the stock Stane has scattered under assumed names. If he can't it might only be 52% but that would still be a controlling interest. That would remove our ability to influence him, marginalizing our power as stockholders. I would have to see a copy of the man's contract with the company, as well as the original agreement that gave him his original stock from Howard Stark to be certain of that however. I believe it was originally done to curb Tony's enthusiasm, but I don't know the exact wording."

Harry hummed to himself as he opened up the briefcase and began to go through the reams of paper inside, opening the one on top and beginning to read. "Well, there are a lot of things I'd like to see Stark Industries build for me, but in the end there are other ways to get… What the FUCK!"

They all looked up at him in surprise and he waved one packet of papers in the air. "He developed a fracking AI?!"

Emma shook her head. "No, JARVIS isn't a real AI, as I understand the term. That was from the first report about it which is rather not well done, the others that are part of that packet gives more detail. The program doesn't have any self-awareness and cannot act without orders, though it can react to user generated stimuli at a very high level. Trust me, if Stark did create an AI he would have probably been lynched soon after. To the staunch Christians and Muslims that would be creationism I think, and to the government and other groups even if he programmed it with, what are they called… Asimov's three laws?"

The weather goddess shrugged, never having read much in the way of fiction, while Jean nodded. She on the other hand always loved science fiction, anything that had to do with space travel in particular. Emma went on at her nod. "Even if he did that, the thing would be too dangerous since the three laws are fundamentally flawed anyway."

"Take them to the logical conclusion, and robots programmed with them might conclude that to follow the three rules they have to conquer humanity and take over all our decision making because we, as humans are inherently illogical and dangerous to ourselves and one another." Jean replied, shivering a little. "Brrr, Skynet and terminators, we've got enough problems with other humans, we so do not need machines added to the mix."

"Exactly," Emma nodded, finishing the last bite of her pancakes. "JARVIS is just an extremely advanced computer, with a monstrous amount of interaction software that can allow it to seemingly mimic actual responses, but that's all."

Harry frowned, but honestly didn't know enough about programming or AI's to understand the difference. Still, if he came up with the programming once, he can do it again, or has a copy of the program somewhere. I was wondering how I was going to find someone who could run a space sensor that could cover all of earth orbit and beyond, and here we are. And if I can replicate it, and if his robotics technology is as good as it seems to be…. Harry shook his head, dispelling those thoughts for now. One step at a time Potter, I've got to have a strong foundation before moving on to the next phase. Walk before you run, damn it. "Well still, that is a fascinating and possibly useful bit of programming." With that he went back to reading the information Emma and her family's corporation had gathered on Tony Stark.

The blonde across from him watched him for a moment then turned to Ororo. "So, exactly how many doctors were there when Harry showcased his potions? How many countries were represented?"

Ororo frowned thoughtfully while trying to remember. "About six different countries I think, and about fifteen or so doctors and nurses?"

"Oh my," Emma breathed, "that is just lovely. Oh, but before I forget, who exactly were you lot fighting in London? Harry never said."

Jean and Ororo took turns replying to that while Emma frowned, not asking any questions as she listened. She had heard of Selene from her father as part of her initial briefing on the Hellfire Club. She had been known as the Black Queen, but had no relation to Shaw, and for some reason had not needed to follow the chauvinistic rules of the Inner Circle. From what little she had been able to get out of Winston, Selene had somehow forced her way into the Inner Circle without any of the ceremonial chauvinistic red tape bullshit Emma had to deal with when she first joined. Reading between the lines she had gotten the impression the woman scared her father, and possibly both of the other kings. What was more Emma got the impression it was a physical threat, not a financial one.

"I have heard of this Selene woman in connection to the Hellfire Club. I have also heard of Steed and one or two others in connection to the London Hellfire Club. Selene must have used the club's auspices to spread and hide her growing influence. I wonder if the Crown will seize their assets, shut down the club or what?" In point of fact that very question was being discussed at the highest levels of the British government, but a decision had yet to be reached.

Ororo and Jean both shrugged unconcern, then Jean glanced up at the sky before getting up to check the time. When she came back, Harry had finished reading through the information about Tony, and was leaning back, his eyes closed while he digested the information.

The information had confirmed several things for him. For one thing Tony was not a businessman. He let the day to day nuts and bolts to other people. After he took over the company, while Stark Industries aggressively expanded its number of weapons it made no aggressive moves against other companies, merely expanding its own holdings without actually taking action against other companies. Yet at the same time, nearly all the new weapons designs came from Tony, and they skyrocketed Stark Industries into the highest grossing company in the world.

Tony had also expanded Stark Industries into the commercial market before his near-death experience and subsequent denunciation of all weapons manufacture. SI made computers, cell phones, and TVs already, which made the man's ideas for the future something he could put out into the market much more easily. Tony had also come up with sensor devices for the medical field, as well as having literally designed the programming for his entire company's mainframe.

Yet those achievements were nothing compared to the ones he kept to himself, which Harry hadn't even considered. Several dozen automated robots that could respond to verbal orders and do anything from play the piano to put a car together? An AI, whatever Emma said, that could control all the appliances in his house including those robots? Several dozen computational upgrades that hadn't hit the open market, and it had been his work in solid state hard light projections that let Charles and whoever he employed to build the Danger Room, though it was still a very expensive setup. On top of that was the arc reactor his father had first envisioned that Tony had finished. Even if Tony hadn't created more than the first prototype it was still a major advancement in the energy market.

He looked over at Jean who had just come in after changing into a pair of tight Jeans which she tucked her large t-shirt in, thinking, One we can capitalize on since it isn't even patented by god! Why the hell didn't he patent it? That fact had actually been underlined in red in several of the reports he had just red. Emma's files say he had problems with his old man, but surely that isn't enough of a reason not to patent it? Or was it arrogance, that no one else would be able to recreate the arc reactor? Whatever the case with that and the advancements in robotics as well as the AI, I won't have to recreate the wheel when the time comes.

His thoughts were interrupted as Jean leaned down on her way back to her seat to give him a short kiss. "You were gone there for a moment love."

Harry chuckled and pulled her into a longer kiss for a moment then turned to the others. "Sorry, lost in thought. Anyway, you said you would go over what positions I needed to fill before my potions selling company was ready to go public? Should I be taking notes?" The last bit was said jokingly, but Emma nodded seriously and after a second where he looked at her a bit bemused Harry conjured up a whiteboard behind him. A second later a marker thumped down on the table between them.

The blonde woman nodded. "Good, now, where to begin. First you'll need a public relations advisor, then a commercial distribution analyst. As you're going into the medical field, you'll need to retain several doctors, both regular doctors and pharmacists. A manager of affairs…" Emma continued on and Harry willingly wrote the positions out on the whiteboard. Under each one he listed what traits to look for and what were red flags, the experience and educational level which was needed for all of them, the starting salaries he should offer, and when it came to departments the amount of funding they should each get. That part made him wince a little, since if he computed this right he would be dangerously close to running out of the gold he had brought with him to this dimension within three months. He could only hope that once he went public the money would start to pour in.

After a few moments the quartet moved inside, where the three women all sat down on the sofa, watching Harry fill in the information while Emma dictated them. Emma sat on one side of the sofa, with Jean in the middle and Ororo on the other side of the redhead.

After a few minutes Emma broke off to take a few sips from a glass of orange juice and Harry looked at the growing list of individuals needed. From the personnel director to the doctors needed, then the lawyers and the PR department and then the advertisement division. Twenty-five names all told to start with and each of them would add ten plus to each of their departments, hopefully before his company went public, then he would have to add even more especially considering the need to have reps in each country he sold to and on and on.

And this doesn't even consider my other projects, Harry thought. There's the need for teachers for the school both regular and in the use of their mutant powers. Farm hands and regular farms for food, and of course the trainers for the team I want to put together as well as the team itself. That last adds at least three. One to train them in the use of their powers, one to teach modern tactics and weaponry, and another to teach them martial arts and hand to hand. Heck, I could use that last one two.

Harry had been trained in hand to hand by the 'sport and social' trainers the Queen had assigned to him and his friends, but he knew he was barely adequate at it. It was only his insane reflexes that made him formidable in hand to hand, well that and short range spell plus the use of the sword of Gryffindor and his Magia Erebea.

He sighed and came back to the here and now looking across at Emma. "How many of these positions are universal, how many will carry over into other markets when I expand or open up new companies or whatever the wording is? I mean, the PR department can surely do that for more than one company, and Advertisement division too for that matter."

"Those two can possibly be universal, I'll show you the ones that will need different skill requirements." She did so, forcing Harry to now take notes on paper having run out of room on the whiteboard, and then went on. "And now we come to security. There is no doubt in my mind that once your potions are out in the open market they will sell for exorbitant amounts. As such your company will face a tremendous amount of corporate raiding in all its forms. I would have a security team ready to go before you go public as well as having holdings that other people can see. Distribution can be another issue, but I could offer you shipping with Frost Pharmaceuticals, I've got an excellent deal with one of the shipping magnates that handles shipping between Europe and the Americas, and our own distribution network overland is in place in both. I would be tempted to sell FP to you outright but it's really the only company my family owns that I am interested in, I was planning to get a degree in chemistry if I could." She smirked. "After all, I don't really need to get a business degree now do I?"

"Security isn't an issue," Harry mused. "There are runic arrays that can scan for lies, the issue would be having them in place in places where myself or another magic user isn't in residence to power them."

Emma stilled for a moment, then she began to breath heavily, her breath coming out in short sharp gasps as she looked at him. Idly Harry noticed that he could now see two hard points making themselves known through the bathrobe he had conjured for her. "That, why in the world are you mucking around with potions and energy?! That…. those wards, if you can get them to work without a magic user nearby to power them, they would be more profitable than… Jesus Mary and Joseph, any government would…"

"Because I have no idea how to power a ward without a magic user in attendance. I tried to do that at the X-mansion, but it didn't work, the bio energy draining aspect can't work on that wide an area." And no way in hell am I selling my runic arrays to anyone else, I don't trust governments nearly enough to give them something like that. Same with anything connected to the Orihalcum really.

"What about just a doorway or a single chair?" Ororo asked intelligently. "Say like someone sitting down in front of a desk at the single seat there? If it can take the bio-energy from the person who sits in it, and is connected to some kind of visible reaction that the person behind the desk can see…"

She was interrupted by Harry leaning over and kissing her deeply. He did so good a job she was very reluctant to let him go but eventually he pulled back, a thin trail of saliva connecting their tongues before he licked it away staring at her admirably. "That is the most brilliant and fiendish idea I have ever heard my love. That would work. It would take a bit to figure out, but it can definitely work."

Emma rubbed her legs together, mildly turned on not only by the idea of how incredible such an ability would be but also by the sight of the kiss the two had just exchanged. Jean merely looked on with a smile. After a moment Emma recovered enough to nod. "That is an excellent idea, one I would willingly go into debt to you to use if I wasn't already indebted to you."

The others all laughed, waving off that idea, and Harry and Emma continued to iron out the details of his new company. For a 5% cut of the profit, (just enough to make the connection formal) Frost Pharmaceuticals would transport Harry's potions for the first four months after he went public, after which he would take over having gotten his potions and their abilities spread to the widest group of buyers he could. Emma would also let him hire away any of her employees that wished to go without penalizing them after his company went public. Of course this alliance would benefit her and her position in the Hellfire Club as well.

At that point it was nearly twelve in the afternoon. The group had finished talking about the business end of things, and Emma was giving them a few names to look into for various positions (mostly doctors and pharmacists with a few others in the personnel department) when her cell phone, which she had left plugged in to charge before last night's party, rang. It wasn't the emergency one Stane had compromised or its replacement, but the one she used routinely.

Emma's eyebrow rose in silent query, but that was all the exterior response she allowed, her self-control shutting down while her threat began to thump in wild surmise. Jean looked up sharply at her regression, while the other two looked on in concern. "Yes, this is Emma Frost?"

"Ms. Frost, this is David Batar." David was the Frost family's chief of security. "There have been two accidents here, I think you need to get back to New York as soon as possible. Your father is dead, he apparently was sleeping with Imira Zegerisk, one of the maids. She was Ralph Zegerisk's wife, one of the regular body guard detail. Ralph found out and killed your father then was killed in turn by the other two guards. Your sister Adrienne was apparently meeting with a representative of Hammer Industries, the police are still looking into that. Their initial report says she was killed in a shoot out, but they are vague about who started it."

David didn't let any of his inner feelings about these two events show. He was a thoroughgoing professional, and didn't care to speculate about the odd timing of the two deaths, one so swiftly after the other. He had no idea how someone could have managed to plan this out, let alone carry it out, and any speculation along that line was worthless.

"The police will probably want to ask you some questions, and the family will need you here to make public statements. As you were being groomed as the next head of the family that shouldn't be an issue." No mention was made of Emma's mother, who was a literal nonentity as far as anything outside her own room and the wine cellar was concerned.

Emma nearly sighed in satisfaction and relief, but her self-control clamped down, stopping any sign of her thoughts from escaping. Her plans for Adrienne had been much less certain and more fluid than the one for her father. Emma had planted suggestions in a few random people who worked at the restaurants and stores where her sister met with the Robert Hildebrandt since their meetings had become more open. These suggestions were all one shots such as 'go out and use a radio', then 'use it' and of course 'get rid of it at a certain time', nothing permanent, nothing that would call attention to them at all. What happened after that would be predicated on how Adrienne's guards reacted.

And after Emma had caused Jeff Galloway, the bodyguard whose mental acumen had impressed her, to have an accident she knew that reaction would not be as well thought out as it should be.

The lack of control on what would actually happen had bothered Emma a little, but it seemed to have worked out. This whole incident would just look like a bad accident caused by a random event. The worst that could happen would be Adrienne's bodyguards, as the ones who began it, to come under scrutiny.

With Winston and Adrienne gone, that only left Emma's younger sister as well as their mother, neither of whom had any interest in the family business and little in the way of ability to threaten Emma. When that knowledge hit Emma it was as if a weight she had been carrying all her life, that had been there for so long she couldn't remember when it began, was gone now. For the first time in her life Emma could go home and not have to fear her family.

For now though she had to keep control. "I see. I am in LA right now, but I will be on the family's private plane heading home as soon as I am able. Prepare the entirety of the security team, I want them armed and waiting for me. If this is an attack on the whole family it could be that only my not being in New York has saved me so far. I will also have the plane searched before we take off. I should be back by seven at the latest, and I want our PR director ready by then. I'll make an initial speech, I doubt the vultures haven't heard of these events already, then we can wait until the police investigation finishes."

"Yes miss, I'll have the guards waiting for you."

Emma closed the cell phone with a click and suddenly found Harry's arms around her. "You alright?" He asked quietly.

She nodded, leaning lightly against his shoulder for a moment before straightening resolutely. "I will be." Emma looked up at Jean and Ororo's concerned faces, and shook her head dabbing at one eye, where something suspiciously like a tear made itself known for a moment. She wasn't crying for her father or sister, she was crying because, when she looked around at her friends (and potential/eventual lovers) she saw the care and concern that was normal for families, that she had never seen in her own, save in her brother Christian. "I will be. I am afraid however that we need to break this up now. Something," she looked at Harry earnestly, "has occurred, and I will need to deal with the fallout."

Harry nodded, understanding what she wasn't saying and realizing what had occurred. He wordlessly handed over a small compact mirror. "If you need to contact me, use this. Tap the glass and say 'ice queen to Marauder' and it will connect to one I have. If you need any help call me."

Emma smiled at him fondly, then returned a hug from Jean. "You've already done enough for me. Now it is time to deal with the consequences of my own actions, and soon perhaps I will be in a position to pay you back openly."

At that point the group began to slowly disband, none of them eager to split up and let Emma reenter the lion's cage but having little choice. Jean and even Ororo shared a hug with the young woman once she understood what might be going on. While she was still 'unhappy' (which was putting it mildly) with the necessity of permanently removing Winston and Adrienne, Ororo understood it was precisely that, a necessity. It wasn't simply an expedient solution, it was the only solution.

Jean was much more direct about it. She had heard stories about Adrienne and Winston, and knew how deadly they could be if left alive, and while she regretted their deaths slightly more than Emma (it wasn't hard) Jean was much more concerned about how well her friend would be able to defend herself from now on not only from their hangers-on, but also from police scrutiny. Emma had telepathically assured her that she had plans in place to help there, but that hadn't done much to assuage the redheads fears.

Harry was much more philosophical about things, not having any regrets about the deaths of the two Frosts, and knowing Emma's pride and personal ambition would not allow her to not go back and handle this as well as she could. He had given her as much aid as he could without being there in person, and she still flatly refused that level of aid.

Emma eventually stood by the door, her luggage packed and ready to go. She exchanged a kiss and a hug with Jean, then with a challenging look at Ororo shared a kiss and a hug with Harry, where she guided the wizard's hands to her rear behind her before breaking off. "I'll call you at some point every night after I'm certain I won't be observed. Till then."

With a final wave the blonde walked off leaving Harry to look at Ororo and Jean guiltily. Jean merely laughed leaving it off while Ororo shook her head, chuckling quietly at who the blonde was going to push their boundaries for a time. But Ororo was adamant that she would not join the relationship until Emma was certain of her own feelings and was able to somehow convey that certainty to Ororo and Harry.

OOOOOOO

Deep inside a hidden base in the mountains of the Andes mountain range two individuals were having a conversation. "Do we have any information on what truly happened in London?"

"No sir, not anything that I would trust. We do have reports of strange new medicines being used however. Things that could be frankly revolutionary if they are true. Unfortunately no samples have leaked, they were use onsite after the battle but their creator, who went by the appellation of Mr. Wizard has since disappeared."

"Tell our agents in London to be on the lookout for anything that can tell us where this mysterious creator came from and anything else about Mr. Wizard. Beyond his horrible naming sense obviously. If these new types of medicine are as good as they sound, they must be turned to our purpose."

"Yes sir. Hail HYDRA."

"Hail HYDRA."

OOOOOOO

After Emma left, Harry, after spending several minutes snogging the heck out of both his ladies, went up to High Note to work on some projects there and spend time with Melody. He had moved the asteroid out of its orbit over Scotland Friday, and it was in orbit above California for now, though that was subject to change. The young girl had stayed there last night after spending the day with him and Ororo walking around Yosemite National Park.

While he did this, Cory took Jean and Storm back to the mansion, popping in with them to the main hall. Jean smiled down at the little, creature ruffling his long ears affectionately. "Thank you Cory."

"It was no trouble miss." Like the other younger elves, Cory had taken Ororo's teaching to heart. On top of that he was doing what he did best . While the house elves could somehow share information about how to do different jobs, such as farming or new recipes, that didn't mean they were all as good at all of their jobs. Cory was far and away the best 'popper' of the house elves, able to 'pop' farther and while carrying greater weight than any other elf. For example Nessy would never have been able to pop from California to New York carrying anyone. Cory could have carried both women from California to Hogwarts if asked to. Going up to High note was slightly more difficult unless it was directly overhead, but not by much. In point of fact Cory was one of only four elves that could make that trip while carrying anything large. Of course all that was only because their master was so powerful but still the point stood.

Ororo smiled as well. "Yes thank you. Would you mind going up to High Note now, so Harry can relay any message through you? I know Hedwig doesn't like flying down from there."

"Yes miss, I will do that." With that, Cory popped off.

"So what are you going to be doing today?" Ororo asked Jean. She had come back here to go over the names Charles was considering for her replacement. She also wanted to see the kids and inform them of how well they had done on the last, in more ways than one, language tests she had given them.

"I'm going to take a look at Cerebro and its search criteria," Jean said promptly, "And I want to take a look at the medical center's med beds and the Danger Room. I know Harry says he might be able to recreate, what was it, the Room of Requirement, that can do something of the same sort as the Danger Room, but the med beds are a different story, and there is a lot we could do with hard-light projectors." What she would be doing with Cerebro was self-explanatory. Harry had shared with them his desires to create a school for mutants, as well as his plan to put a mixed combat team together, both of which Ororo and Jean wholeheartedly agreed with.

To do that, Harry would have to have the ability to find mutants, which Cerebro was supposed to do. "Maybe I can figure out why Cerebro doesn't work all the time, if it's just a power or technical thing."

"That would be a blessing Ms. Grey." Charles said as he rolled his way out of the sitting area toward them. "I have often wondered what the issue could be , as it certainly doesn't work all the time."

Scott and Logan came out from behind the professor, the Canadian wearing a broad smirk on his face. "Yeah it would be nice, but I gotta know, were you two and Potter involved in that little shindig that happened in London? The lack of any real information about it coming out in the news tells me it was a lot more than they're willing ta let on."

Ororo nodded. "It was a most disquieting time, but it was primarily a magical threat, and we dealt with it." Jean nodded firmly.

The young teen rolled his eyes behind his glasses. "Is that all we get, come on details and why the hell didn't you call us in to help? I'm feeling a little left out here." He said the last bit in a joking tone that none of those present would ever have thought to hear from him.

"We didn't have time once the shit hit the fan, and before that only the professor would have been of any help to figure out what was going on." Jean responded, shrugging.

Logan however was sniffing the air, a faint frown on his face as he looked at Jean and Ororo. "The fuck… you both smell like Potter. What's up with that?"

Jean was saved from replying to this observation (which thankfully didn't register with the other two men for a time) from a shout from where the staircase went up to the second floor. "Ororo!" Kitty flew down the steps followed by the rest of the teens, though none of them seemed in a hurry to join the hug that Kitty was now giving Ororo.

"Hello Kitten," Ororo said, her arms going around the young teen that she saw as a younger sister. The two hadn't seen each other since Monday last week. "How have you been this week? How is school going?"

Kitty pulled back from the hug to reply. "I'm doing fine in school, I may even break a few school records on my finals, for my grade at least. Jean," she glanced over at the slightly older redhead with a smile, which was answered in kind. "Apparently is going to be a tough act to follow when I become a senior, but for now I'm pretty sure I'll ace everything. But enough about that." She glared up at Ororo in mock anger. "What the heck Ororo! You and Harry take Kurt off for two days, leaving me and the others" she added the last bit hastily, before going on "behind while Kurt goes off to enjoy the good food and sun? I could have done the ditzy thing for Teach's prank just as well as Kurt could!"

"Yeah auntie O, we could have used some fun in the sun!" Evan joined in, with Rogue and the others piling in. "Not cool at all."

Ororo laughed aloud with Jean but then shook her head. "Oh, so all of you are certain you'll get straight A's in the tests starting tomorrow?" Even Scott looked a little shifty at that though Kitty did not and Ororo directed her next words to her little sister. "Truthfully the idea of using you in that role never occurred to me Kitten. And while your acting skills might have been up to it, I doubt you would have as much fun after being able to drop your disguise."

"Truly," Jean shook her head remembering how much trouble she and Emma had run into with men hitting on them. It hadn't stopped after their discussion with Stark, in fact whenever Harry wasn't around it kept right on going. "Trust me, your apparent age would not have been any defense against some of the scum there."

"Nor was already being in a relationship," Ororo concurred. "I was hit on several times when Harry was off talking to Kurt and even before that during his time on the dance floor. If anyone at that party had hit on you Kitten I doubt I would have been able to stop myself from chastising them rather strongly." Her eyes began to change color denoting her readiness to use her power at the very idea.

Kitty giggled at her tone while Kurt nodded firm agreement. "I received many very… wrong invitations shall ve say despite me looking like high class, what is the American term, jail bait."

Okay that is a bit of an ugh dude." Evan shook his head. "But at least you got some good eats out of it after you could drop your initial disguise."

Rogue caught the slight color change in Kurt's blue face that denoted a blush and she snickered. "And p'raps a bit moah besides, huh Kurt?"

"A gentleman never kisses and tells," Kurt said primly, to much snickering from his friends.

"Besides Kitten," Ororo said putting an arm around the younger girls shoulders. "I have it on good authority that Harry plans to take all of us, that is everyone from the institute, on a trip after the graduation ceremony. Now, why don't we go over your grades from me, and then I can tell you about our day. Maybe even show you the sari I wore, I know you like that kind of thing." The last was said after indicating the small bag at Jean's feet, which held the dress and sari the two of them had worn last night.

Kitty hugged her favorite teacher again, sad that she was moving out soon but also happy for her that things between her and Harry were going so awesome. Ororo was her role model in many ways especially after she no longer had to control her emotions and Kitty knew she was going to miss the older woman terribly. But she wasn't about to stand between Ororo and her personal happiness.

"Before that I think that Jean should share her own future plans with you all." Charles interjected. Charles hoped that the other teens would convince her to stay, but held no real hope for that. He was more concerned that she give them warning about her imminent departure, allowing them time to get used to the idea.

In this he underestimated the distance that had begun to grow between Jean and her fellow teammates. She hadn't been around regularly for a while, and even before that, she didn't participate in many of the team bonding times. While her friendships with them were still solid, they had all deduced on their own that Jean was moving on. Even the old Scott hadn't been dense enough to miss it, though he would never have taken it as calmly as the newer, more mature Scott.

Jean shrugged. "Alright, so it's like this. Harry and I have figured out several engineering projects, and with Harry ready to start putting out his potions and from there moving into other markets, he's offered me a job. I've accepted, and I'm moving in with him and Ororo at his safehouse." The X-men knew about what had happened at Hogwarts, but not where it was or its name, and without Harry doing the telling Jean wasn't prepared to blab about that secret.

The teens were all silent for a moment exchanging glances but then Scott shrugged. "I've known for a while you wanted to move out and stretch your wings a bit, so that's no surprise. I have to admit you working for Mr. Potter didn't occur to me, but it's probably good that you won't simply be out and about without anyone to back you up close by."

Rogue looked at him, a faint smile on her face at how well he was taking this.

The others all nodded agreement while Evan and Kurt congratulated Jean on getting a job already. Charles saw this and sighed, smiling faintly knowing now that despite Jean leaving them the teens would remain friends, which was all he could hope for at this point.

After that the group broke up, with Logan leading the boys outside for their daily run. On the threshold he frowned for a moment, smelling a strange scent on the wind and not for the first time either. He wondered where the hell that strangely familiar scent was coming from, and where he had run into it before for that matter. After a moment however he shook it off and led the way out toward the woods at a run.

Rogue and Kitty went with Ororo for some girl time after she told them about their grades so far, then a martial arts lesson from her in the danger room before Ororo asked the two to help her go through the names Charles was considering to replace her at the institute.

That left Jean and Charles who went with the redhead down to the basement to work on Cerebro.

While the talk was somewhat stilted, with Jean still tense around him, it came much closer to friendly then their last conversation because Charles started it by apologizing. "I need to apologize to you my dear, on so many levels it is hard to imagine." He looked down at his hands, folded in his lap while Jean did not look up from where she had opened the top of the huge computer/scanner. "I was wrong to put those blocks on you in the first place. If I didn't the Phoenix might have been able to leave your mind eventually without harming you." That was actually wishful thinking on his part, but Jean wasn't about to interrupt him to point that out.

"I then compounded my error by not telling you about them at the earliest opportunity. I could say I took conscience with my fear, and that is part of it, but I simply felt so strongly that keeping them in place was the right thing to do that no other opinion occurred to me. I wish there was some way to make amends, but I know it is far too late for that. The best I can hope for is you look back on your time here fondly, and if you ever need to, know that the doors here will always be open to you."

Jean smirked rather saucily at that last to herself. My home is wherever Harry and Ororo are, with Emma at this point a very welcome bonus. I will never need to come back here or see my parents ever again, and both are a relief in many ways. The last more then the first certainly but still. "This place is a fantastic school Professor as well as a home, but all children need to leave home at some point, and I've been ready to do so for over a month now. Your keeping secrets was only part of my desire to leave, my own ambitions and dreams were the majority."

She paused for a moment, hooking up a small current amp to the computer, frowning at how little electricity was actually running through the system before looking over at Charles, her jade yes dark. "I don't know if I'll ever trust you like I did before Charles, but that doesn't mean I will close the door to the possibility entirely. However there was something else recently that added to my distrust until I realized that you weren't actually in control of it."

"I'm almost afraid to ask, but what exactly was that?" Professor Xavier's tone was hesitant.

"When you first tried to convince me to stay I felt a sudden pressure on my mental defenses. It was like a powerful wind was battering at them ,trying to get through, trying to make me trust you. Emma told me she felt the same when you tried to convince her to stay the second time. I honestly didn't think it was anything until I ran into the same effect. I beat it off, and you didn't even seem to notice, so it's some kind of telepathic field you're putting out at the subconscious level at times to get other people to trust you, to agree with you. I was too angry at the time to mention it, I just wanted to get away really, but now I think you need to know about it and try and control it if you can."

Charles was utterly horrified at the implication. "I, Jean, you must know I would never…"

"I think you think that Professor, but that doesn't change the fact the fact that you do give off that trust me field." Jean looked down at her machine for a moment, frowning slightly at what she saw. "Hmm…we may need to rewire this, it isn't using nearly as much energy as it is taking in. Then if that doesn't work I'll look at the search parameters, and then the helmet interface, see if there's anything wrong there."

Charles nodded absently, all of his attention inwards as he tried to figure out where this 'trust-me field' originated. Soon enough he found it, a wave of controlling power leaving his mind and moving out into the astral plane effecting all around him on a low level even now, but which could be strengthened easily. It was actually part of his mind's defenses, and seemed to have been there for some time. For the first time in a while he felt the stirrings of self-doubt hit him, and wondered what else he had missed if he could have been putting out this power and not noticing.

OOOOOOO

Sebastian Shaw sat in his New York state mansion (it needed the distinction since he had for others scattered around the country) looking down at the newspaper in front of his plate thoughtfully. While he and Edward had known that Emma would strike at Winston and possibly her older sister, Shaw had not actually been as confident in the outcome of such a maneuver. He thought that she would miss, that Winston would strike back, and that it would generally evolve into a power struggle which he could exploit by backing Emma, putting her further in his debt and thereby his control. Adrienne he discounted entirely. As dangerous as she was to Emma, she was a nonentity on the financial field.

He was uncertain what Edward thought would happen, the other King was as cagey as Sebastian himself was in keeping his thoughts close to his chest.

In point of fact Edward did not think much of either death, other than being quietly amused by how well Emma had pulled it off. His fiancé Paris was amused and quietly happy at her young friend's proven ability. Neither however had much time to think about it at all, since Paris was busy planning their upcoming wedding this summer, and Edward was busy researching several of the new, small time heroes that had begun to show up lately, trying to figure out if they were mutants or something else and if they should be painted with the same brush as it were.

This however, this changes everything. For one thing, there was not going to be any kind of chaos that an external opponent could take advantage of. Oh, he was certain that Winston had backers in the company that would not be pleased with the changeover, but in the end they wouldn't be able to do much. After all, unlike Stark or a few of Sebastian's own companies Frost had never put any stocks out on the open market, all of their companies were entirely owned by the family itself.

"The police might try to make an issue of it considering the 'suspect' timing of their deaths," he muttered to himself leaning back and sipping at a fine brandy. "But I doubt that Emma will have left any clues whatsoever and therein lies the second portion of this that changes my perception of young Ms. Frost."

Oh there's a possibility that Emma had simply passed on the word to this Ralph fellow that his wife was sleeping around on him. And thus far the police don't seem to have found anything according to my contacts to indicate that it was more than a simple prank gone horribly wrong or random chance that led to Adrienne's death.

Indeed the police report he had seen (before it had actually been submitted) outlined what the police felt had happened and while a few of the higher-ups were less than sanguine given the timing there was nothing to indicate foul play was involved. The police had found the scanner the bodyguards used to listen in on police reports in the limo, and they pulled the recording from it easily. Their experts had already determined that it sounded like some kind of kiddie radio that alerted the two bodyguards to the supposed police presence incoming. The fact was those radios were sold at every electronics store in the city.

Besides which, while that bogus 'police call' had started the incident by getting the bodyguards up and into the bar where Adrienne was meeting with Hildebrandt (and wasn't that an interesting fillip added to the case) they were the ones who escalated things. Both of them had dozens of small misdemeanors on their fields before they joined the Frost family's security teams. Their profiles painted the picture of two hotheads who sometimes thought with their fists and violence before anything else. On top of that was the fact that one of Robert's bodyguards had killed Adrienne. In point of fact it was the bodyguard who was hiding as a waiter at the bar, which was illegal.

Thus any suspicion would be sent Robert and his bodyguard's way. In the end the police would decide that they had the killer, and whatever else had sparked the initial argument would not be of enough interest to affect the case.

It's a possibility that Emma was able to do all this without resorting to her mutant power, but I don't believe it. The utter lack of clues, the fact that both assassinations happened at the same time, it all points to the fact that Emma has been horrendously downplaying her telepathy ability.

That means she is both more dangerous, and possibly a far greater asset to my own plans for the Hellfire Club and the Hellions than I already thought.

"And while the company may not be vulnerable, she still is physically," he said thoughtfully tapping his fingers together. Decisively he stood up and turned to one of his maids, dressed in a skimpy French maid outfit that was more like something from a porno than an actual uniform. "Have the guards bring the car around. I have an appointment."

OOOOOOO

Fatale looked up as X-23 opened the window and slipped inside into the second-story window that abutted the back of the X-Men mansion, shaking her head resignedly. "You know you're not supposed to be out there, this game you been playing about twitting Wolverine can only have one outcome."

X-23 shrugged then sat down on the ground at her feet sort of like a dog would scratching at her hair for a moment with one hand. "It's only been lately that he's noticed us, I'll back off for now I'm just trying to make him paranoid. A paranoid opponent makes mistakes, jumps at shadows and will miss the real threat."

"I understand that way of thinking and agree with it," said Fatale spinning fully away from the desk she had been working on some papers for in her office chair. Their cover was that of an older sister working as a mid-level manager at one of the banks downtown, not at all incidentally the one that held Professor Xavier's account, who was watching over her younger cousin for a while.

Of course they weren't blood relations. X-23 was a mixed Caucasian/Hispanic young girl of around sixteen with a wild look to her somehow, emphasized by her hair which routinely looked more like a wild beast's mane than a young girl's hair. She was fit, athletic and the outdoorsy kind of girl. Fatale on the other hand was a black woman with short cropped blue hair, whose own athleticism was hidden under baggy clothing. Thus X-23, or Laura as her fake I.D. called her, was a girl Fatale's (Rebecca on her fake I.D.) brother had adopted. According to their papers the brother was a marine on deployment in Japan.

"If you are going after someone like Wolverine who's almost always on guard in some fashion you do have to throw him off balance first, but remember this is not an assassination mission." And even if it was, she thought frankly, I wouldn't like our chances against him in an open fight on his own terrain. "We're here just to take advantage of any openings that occur, nothing more, nothing less." She frowned at her younger compatriot. "I know you know this, so what's up with baiting Wolverine?"

The younger woman played with her hair looking away for a moment and shrugged. "Smells odd, somehow familiar."

Fatale frowned at that scratching at one ear thoughtfully. She had never been briefed about where X-23 came from, outside of the fact that she had been some kind of experiment, but if it had been part of the weapon X program then it was very likely that she and Wolverine had possibly been around one another before when she was younger. She wondered if Lord Magneto knew that, but decided he probably didn't. After all what would be the point of putting the two of them together if they had a connection that was anything but violent in the past.

"Well that's interesting," she said reaching over and gently rubbing the younger girls head, causing her to rumble happily for a moment. In many ways X-23 was as much animal as young girl. "However you need to remember what were really here for. Are you done scouting out the mansion, figured out where we're going in if we get the chance?"

X-23 nodded. "If we get the chance I know where we're going."

"Good. Now, I think we still have some Rocky Road ice cream left." An instant after the word 'rocky' left her mouth Fatale was talking to empty air as X-23 barreled down the stairs. She shook her head sighing fondly. She liked the young girl, and they had worked well enough together in the past but sometimes her childishness got on Fatale's nerves. That assignment had been a relatively easy assassination even though it took two months to set up. This assignment however was proving to be different.

The two women had been chosen for this mission because of their natural mental defenses. X-23 had natural defenses that were rather formidable, coupled with a somewhat animalistic mind which could fools telepaths even ones like Charles Xavier into thinking that she was merely a random dog or other sort of animal.

Fatale had a different sort of defense. She had organized her mind so much that she had an outer edge where she could program her mind to match that of the personality she was using, allowing that to be her mental defense whatever her body was in fact doing. A telepath could get past it of course, but that would take a concerted effort, something Charles would not do without provocation.

Despite this Fatale was coming to the conclusion they were square pegs attempting to fill a round hole with this mission. They had been in place for several weeks now, and had yet to see any kind of break or weakness in the defenses they could take advantage of. There was always someone around, most of the time Wolverine and Charles. While Charles would probably not be that much of a threat given their mental defenses, Wolverine was another story entirely.

Fatale was not at all sanguine about how she stacked up against the former black op's trooper. Despite her ability to bend light around her to make herself invisible that did nothing about her smell, and Logan's sense of smell was sharp enough to notice her if Fatale tried to sneak into the mansion with him anywhere inside. Even her ability to teleport was of limited utility since she couldn't teleport very far or to places where she had not already been.

Their mission was to take a copy of Cerebro's programming and escape with the X-Men none the wiser if they could (and since this did not directly threaten anyone inside, rather neatly went around the intent based aversion spell Harry had put up around the house, which was steadily weakening every since he wasn't around to power it), but if something didn't give soon she was going to ask to be reassigned elsewhere. Fatale was getting bored, and if she was getting bored, then X-23 was likely close to jumping off the walls.

OOOOOOO

The Frost family protection detail was waiting for Emma on the tarmac and closed in swiftly after she exited the family's plane. Unfortunately several dozen reporters had somehow snuck by airport security (probably after greasing a few palms that was how it always worked in such circumstances) and ambushed her from beyond her bodyguard's defensive circle of bodies.

"Ms. Frost!"

"Ms. Frost any comments on…"

"Ms. Frost do you have any idea why…"

"Ms. Frost was there any indication…"

"Ms. Frost what is your reaction to the news that your sister died in a shootout?"

"Ms. Frost was there any indication your father was having an affair before this happened?"

The shouted questions jumbled together, but the theme was the same Emma thought sardonically. She shook her head smiling internally at the thought while waiting until a police inspector approached her bodyguards to order them to open up. Several reporters tried to break through the police cordon, but they blocked most of them, and her own bodyguards were not in the mood to take any shit from the fifth estate. Emma watched two of them grabbing one particularly pushy fellow who got past the police and literally tossed him over the heads of the policemen.

She raised her hands to stop the rest of her entourage from forcing their way through the crowd to her limo, and faced the police and the waiting microphones, raising a hand to the inspector who had just moved to her side.

Emma had decided not to wear her charms today, the better to appear attractive, and she had dressed the part as well. Of course she wore a white dress, a sober one that completely covered her body. Unlike normally, there was not even a hint of sensuality in her manner, she was feminine but demure, somewhat withdrawn but stern. The crowd quieted down slightly, though the reporters at the back still shouted questions until their fellows shushed them.

After she was certain they were all listening Emma spoke. "I'll be making an initial statement now, after which neither I nor my younger sister or mother will make another statement until all the facts of these two cases are known both to us and to the authorities. As to the events that occurred last night local time, I know as little about it as all of you. I was not here; in fact I have been away from home for a little under a week now on various projects, and in fact, was coming home tomorrow to finish up my high school finals." She did not say that all that was public record, or that witnesses could attest to that fact, it would be much more believable if the fifth estate had to do their own legwork for those sorts of things.

"At this moment I know only three facts. One, my older sister Adrienne was apparently meeting with someone from a rival company, this is news to me, and why she was doing so I do not know." A lie of course, but that would point the newspaper reporters at Hildebrandt, which would probably force Hammer to reassign him elsewhere in the world. That was a good thing, because the man was a little too competent for Emma to be happy to have acting in her own backyard.

"What caused the shootout is unknown to me at this time, but the fact is that it is a tragedy that one so young was taken from us so cruelly." A bald-faced lie, Emma fully intended to dance on her sister's grave or possibly piss on it, depending on her emotions at the time. "She was my sister, and I will dearly miss her." Hah, I didn't miss you did I sister dear, one shot you said, and as I told you, I only needed one.

"Second, in regards to my father's murder, it has only recently come to my attention that he was looking outside his relationship with my mother for affection. Several of the female stewardesses came forward during our flight back here after this story broke informing me that he flirted with them or more. I would like to think that the statute of marriage is inviolate, that once you take those vows they mean something. But a man who broke them in his own case would certainly not care about breaking them in another's. Third, while I am afraid that I will not be able to continue to employ Imira after this scandal, I will make certain that Ralph's children are cared for. The Frost family will set aside money to take care of their education and well-being. The sins of the parents should never be placed upon their children, and I'll make certain that his two children will be looked after."

In point of fact that was the only thing about this whole endeavor that made Emma feel guilty. Ralph had too many' discrepancies' in his own past to make me feel at all guilty about using him as a pawn, but the wife isn't so bad. She was simply a woman whose particular kink was being dominated by a powerful individual, and despite my own feelings towards the man, my father was powerful. The children however, that is where I feel truly guilty. They didn't know anything about their father's past, they simply saw him as their father a larger-than-life figure. And the fact that their mother cheated on him, well that will hit the oldest one hard I imagine. Still I will do what I can.

"Ms. Frost," one reporter shouted, "The timing of these two murders is a little too close to be a coincidence, can you comment on that?"

"Comment on what exactly?" asked Emma cocking her head. "You've just stated your impression. Do I agree with it? I don't know. I am not a police investigator, I was not here when this all went down or on the site of either of these two murders so I cannot tell you anything. I deal with facts sir, not suppositions."

That seemed to shut him down, but another reporter took his place. "Ms. Frost, your older brother died several weeks ago, could there be someone after your entire family? Do you feel safe?"

Emma cocked her head, smiling internally. "I feel safe enough with the security measures that I have taken for my own life, especially considering that none of these deaths happened on Frost Corporation grounds or at our home. And I will reiterate, I have not been informed of nor have I seen anything to connect any of these three deaths together. It has simply been a very trying time for my family, and I am certain I can trust the humanity in you all to give my mother, my younger sister Cordelia and I time to grieve for these new losses."

That seemed to take the wind out of several reporters' sails, and since none of them wanted to be seen as badgering her they backed away.

Emma decided to end it there for now. "Again, this is only my initial statement, I will make another statement later after more facts of these events become known, and after my remaining family members and I have had time to grieve. Good day to you all."

With that she turned away and her bodyguards forged a path through the crowd of reporters and cameramen to the limo. The police inspectors stayed with them for a time. "We may want to question you at some point Ms. Frost. At the moment you are not in any way a suspect or anything like that, but given the timing we have to look seriously at any connection." That was standard police practice, when in doubt look at the victim's family.

"Of course," said Emma nodding. "I wouldn't have it any other way." Emma was certain that the police would find nothing to link the two murders together. The timing would spawn conspiracy theories but with nothing to actually back them up they would soon dissipate. The only thing that could possibly throw a wrench in the works was someone outing her as a mutant complete with her power.

But that was a very closely kept secret. Adrienne hadn't even shared it with Hildebrandt and his hit team that was supposed to kidnap Emma. Given what Adrienne had thought she knew about Emma's power and their powers and numbers that had made sense at the time. Shaw and Leland of course had an idea of her powers, and she was wondering when Shaw would make his own appearance here. But neither of them would out her as a mutant since she could do the same to them. There was almost no way either would take that risk and the other Inner Circle members didn't know about Emma's powers.

Her younger sister Cordelia was a wildcard, since she had yet to exhibit any mutant powers and she might have a clue as to Emma's own powers. She certainly knew about Adrienne's. Still that was one issue she could take care of swiftly, since the girl was going to be home soon. She had called her boarding school and informed them that Cordelia had to take all of her tests quickly so she could come home and help the family deal with this crisis. This had actually gone over very well since the young hellion was a troublemaker of the first degree and the school was in fact thinking of not letting her come back next year.

Soon enough Emma was in her limo and on her way. She sighed and leaned back taking a moment to rest before turning her head to look at the chief of security.

She raised one eyebrow and David responded swiftly. "The police haven't found anything thus far to link the two crimes Ms., Ralph seems to have acted all on his own. The only question there is how he was able to get a shotgun into the front of the car without either of the other two bodyguards assigned to Mr. Frost's detail yesterday noticing. I've suspended both of them, they should never have been taken by surprise, though of course we're still paying for their medical bills. Their reaction times were slow and sluggish, and they should've noticed the shotgun before they got into the car."

Emma nodded. "I will wish to overhaul our security detail entirely at any case, but what the heck happened with my sister?" Her tone was honestly confused, not that she really was but she wasn't about to allow anyone know she had been connected to Adrienne's murder, no matter what they might think already. "Her main bodyguard, Jeff something or other, I thought he had a level head on his shoulders."

"Jeff Clayborne, yes miss. He was injured in a biking accident a day after you left ma'am, broke his leg. He wasn't with them when this whole incident went down, the two that were there were James Simpson and Stan Masters.

Emma leaned back obviously trying to bring up an image of their faces to mind, though of course she didn't need to. Then she opened them and shook her head. "I remember one of them, Stan. Wasn't he the one that got in trouble a few years ago for causing a fight in a coffee joint or something?"

"Yes ma'am, both of them are hotheads and overreacted badly. If they were still alive I would recommend you fire them, but as it is," he shrugged.

Emma nodded. "Release their files to the police, and release Ralph's as well. Both their service files and the background checks we ran on them before hiring them. That's another area where my father was noticeably lax in, and I will want wish to correct it."

"Yes miss," David replied smiling faintly. An ex-police officer turned bodyguard he had always felt that the Frost's hiring procedures were extremely lax for their security detail, but the old man was more interested in ability and bought loyalty than in character.

The man's phone rang, and he picked it up irritably wondering who was calling him, but a moment later he looked over at Emma. "Ms., Sebastian Shaw of the Shaw Conglomerate is waiting for us in the mansion."

"In the mansion?" Emma asked sharply.

"Yes Ms., I don't know how he did that without any security alerts being sent to me, but he's there apparently. That was the butler Willikins, not one of the four guards I left at the mansion, I don't know what happened there."

Emma scowled. She had thought that Shaw would go for the subtle play, not an overt attempt at force, but if he wanted to play that game well she could at least respond appropriately. "Radio the other cars, tell them all to get kitted out. We'll head in through the garage of course, but I'll want you all armed and ready. I don't know what this is about," she said quite untruthfully of course, "but we need to be ready for anything."

OOOOOOO

Sebastian Shaw waited calmly, sitting at the head of the Frost dining table, though he would have preferred to be sitting behind Winston's desk upstairs. Unfortunately the butler had refused to give them the key, and he wasn't about to try and force the issue. He was here to talk, this show of force was simply that, a show. Sebastian didn't want to force an actual full-on confrontation, not one that could in any way be traced back to him at least. Though if one happened, he was prepared to deal with it. After all, he thought sardonically looking up through the ceiling up towards the third floor. I don't need Emma around to control the Frost family fortunes, which would enrich me as much as Emma would aid me. A grieving widow is after all a rather tempting target. Especially if you add grieving mother to it.

Around Shaw stood ten of his personal guards including two of his Hellions and two of the cybernetically enhanced Bruisers that he often loaned to the Hellfire Club. All of them wore the dark blue spandex suits with purple gloves and white helmets of Hellfire security save for the two Hellions who wore purple spandex suits with golden gloves.

The black King was impressed when Emma came in surrounded by the family bodyguards, all of them armed. Of course they were nothing to match his own men, but despite that Sebastian wasn't going to start anything. While his powers made him immune to energy attacks, that didn't imply he was bulletproof.

Suddenly as Emma crossed the floor toward him two panels on both sides of the dining hall opened, and out of each came a gun turret, changing the odds dramatically.

"Can't you let me alone in my grief?" Emma said moving swiftly towards him. She ignored his now tense men and her own as they took up position all along the wall behind her, keeping well clear of the gun turrets fields of fire.

Sebastian however refused to be cowed or act surprised, instead responding mockingly. "Are you grieving? My, you hide it well. But I was thinking we should talk, about the future, and about our relationship."

"Our business relationship," said Emma emphasizing the word as she poured herself a glass of wine from the cabinet along one wall. For a moment she was standing directly between two of the gun turrets, and yet to look at her you would have never been able to tell. "Was that of a supplicant paying off a debt her father forced her to take on. I'm no longer a supplicant Sebastian, I am head of the Frost family now. I will pay you the price appropriate for your selling my father the factories he wanted, I'm sure you know that I've already worked off the payment for Leland. I will also continue to help you find your second spy, but that is all."

"Yet you are still vulnerable," he said sipping at the wine he taken from the Frost cellars. Say what you will about Winston he had excellent taste in vintages, this is an excellent Romane Conti. "After all, you are untried as head of your family, you could use someone to help you along."

"I have been trained since birth for this," Emma replied, now sitting down in one of the chairs at the table two places down from him, leaning back and smiling sardonically. "Trust me when I say it will not be an issue."

Sebastian shook his head and waved one hand in the air. At that signal his guards trooped out of the dining hall, leaving only the two with golden gloves behind.

Emma frowned than nodded over her shoulder at David, who frowned but nodded in turn. Her own men left as well, leaving her with the four turrets for defense.

The Black King smiled faintly, raising one finger in a signal. "And the future? The future of mutant kind for instance? What do you think of that?"

Suddenly Emma felt a small, almost friendly niggle on the outer edge of her mental defense. It was subtle, yet carried overtones of friendliness, as if it was trying to wheedle its way inside her mind through her emotions. Emma's mental defense and emotional control however was more than enough to brush it aside. She took a sip of her wine again, feeling back along the attack and wondering who had sent it at her. This led her to one of the two teens standing like guards behind Sebastian. They were both swarthy types, one looked Spanish while the other looked like he hailed from the Middle East. Since that one had what looked like a jetpack on his back Emma discounted him. The other one looked decent, with dark black eyes, black hair swept back and a smile on his face.

Emma was not fooled. She had seen that same smile on Adrienne's face too often not to recognize a cruel and arrogant bastard when she saw one. Target acquired she lashed out with one of her telepathic pain blasts.

The teen staggered, gasping as his brain suddenly felt like it was on fire.

"I think if your young friend tries to get into my mind again I will burn out his frontal lobe." Emma growled.

Chuckling quietly at having learned another aspect of the young woman's telepathic powers, Sebastian raised his hand again. The two Hellions left, with the one with a jetpack on his back helping the other one walk for a few steps. "Honestly I can't take him anywhere, young people, always trying to push their boundaries. I apologize, Empath will be disciplined for whatever he tried. This isn't the first time he's used his powers on a woman at an inappropriate time. But you didn't answer my question."

Emma took noted of that bit about the young man using his powers on women 'inappropriately'. Since Shaw was a bare step above a rapist that wasn't something she liked hearing. For now however she couldn't do anything about it. "I think the future will sort itself out. I have enough on my plate right now. Get to the point Sebastian."

"I propose an alliance," said Shaw leaning over the table towards her. "You have proven yourself much more capable than you let on Emma. But you are still one woman, and the wolves will be circling."

"Let them circle, they will find me ready for them. And as for an alliance, an alliance to what end, pray?" she countered.

"To the betterment of mutant kind, and to put us, you and I and the Hellfire Club on top of the world." Shaw replied blandly

"World domination, are you serious?" Emma shook her head scornfully. "Why would anyone want to dominate the world, all that paperwork."

"You joke but it isn't just for power's sake. You watch the news, you know how the world is turning against mutants. In America you could liken it to the African American Civil Rights Movement, though blacks don't seem to see the connection. Rather human of them," he sneered. "It's only a matter of time before we start seeing our own Jim Crow laws and when that happens mutantkind will have to stand together against our oppressors."

"But that time hasn't come yet. You're trying to paint the fact that mutant kind is already in the corner, we're not. We may never be if we can start pushing for equality."

"Equality is a pipe dream," Sebastian responded bluntly. "A socialist bit of dogma that can never come about. There'll always be the haves and have-nots. You and I are already haves, and I refuse to allow myself or other mutants to become have-nots."

"You raise some interesting points, but your defense of them is lacking and I do not agree with them." said Emma shaking her head and smiling faintly. "The time is not yet come to have that discussion, and I will not align myself formally or informally with you. I will stand on my own two feet, and I will show the world that this Frost is well worthy of the family name."

Sebastian stood suddenly looming over her. "And if I were to force the issue?"

Emma looked up at him calmly, not showing any of the sudden spike of fear she felt. "Then I would suggest you be very quick, because if you don't I will lobotomize you before you can touch me."

The man almost looked like he was going to try it anyway, but then stood back, smiling faintly at having startled another clue as to the young woman's full powers out of her. My god what an ally she could be. Empath could never attack like she is implying, the best he can do is influence the emotions of people around him. She could be a hidden dagger to our enemies, and I do have time on my side… "So we are neutral to one another, that is the best you're willing to give me?"

"Benign neutrality," Emma nodded, calming down internally. Her telepathic attack however was still poised, ready and waiting. In point of fact she was tempted to do so anyway, but the fact that he probably been seen coming here, and his own guards were still outside the door stopped her. She could probably have lobotomized all of them given time, but the people who saw him come here?

And anything but a brute force mental assault would be swiftly found by the man's own mental defenses. She could implant something, but she could not get rid of the impression that someone had been in his head, and someone like Shaw was paranoid enough to be able to figure out what happened later on, and possibly overcome it given time. "I will not move against you or with you. Any dealings we have in the future will be business dealings, not social and certainly not political. That may change in the future, but that is all you are going to get for now."

Sebastian sighed then surprised her by chuckling. "I came here expecting to collar a kitten, and I find myself facing a lion. Very well, benign neutrality as is. Yet may this neutral party ask you what your impression of my fellow King is?"

Emma looked off to the side obviously thinking hard for moment, though in reality she was thinking of how much to tell him rather than what to tell him. After a moment she said bluntly, "He hates and fears mutants. It's not a personal thing like it is with Pierce, who ran into a mutant sometime in the past and was nearly crippled by him. I think Pierce is a much more dangerous person at present than Edward simply because he's chaotic and unpredictable. If you move against Pierce, I may help you do so. Buckman however I will not move against until I have proof that there is more going on other than his feelings."

"And if I was able to tell you that he was funneling money to some project or other? Would that do?"

"It would give me someplace to look," said Emma frankly. "But again I will keep my own counsel on this. And I will not condone any attack be it business or physical, there's just no need for it at this point in time. On top of that my friendship with Paris is real, and I will not see her harmed."

Sebastian scowled slightly before regaining his equanimity. It was not anywhere near what he had hoped for, but Emma had impressed him several times during this little meeting with her poise and control. She would make a formidable ally, and he did have time on his side. While her help at present would be good, her help in the future could prove instrumental. "Very well, if it comes to a point that we do need to move against Pierce I will inform you, your help in planning and performing such a maneuver might be beneficial. And if either of us comes upon information about Edward we will share it?"

Emma nodded thoughtfully. "I can agree to that."

"In that case I will bid you adieu," replied Shaw, sitting down the wine glass he had been holding. "I do hope that you decide that the future of mutant-kind is important to you, we could do much as allies. Until next time." He bowed his way out. Soon David came in to inform Emma that Shaw and his bodyguards had left the mansion's grounds.

Emma dismissed David and when the doors closed behind him and Emma let out a short sigh of relief before finishing her glass of wine. That had been a very trying experience, but as she gazed up through the ceiling toward her father's study, Emma knew that was only the beginning of her trials to come.

OOOOOOO

While Ororo and Jean were talking to the kids and working on Cerebro respectively Harry had gone up to High Note to spend time with Melody and work on some projects there. After filling the young girl in on how well the prank did, complete with falsetto voices and illusions drawn from his memories, he sat her down to do a bit of homework that Ororo had assigned her.

It was math this time, which was not an area where Melody was anywhere close to what where she should've been given her age (possibly 12, her papers were rather unclear about her age). Unfortunately her powers worked against her here, making Melody almost utterly unable to comprehend the written numbers. So instead Ororo had given her word problems that had to deal with math rather than the actual numbers, and several aural lessons on separate tapes to listen to. Melody seemed to be getting this better, but it was not exactly her favorite thing in the world, though she seemed to follow the recorded lesson.

Sitting next to her Harry opened up his own 'homework' beginning to read through the tome he had found on using wards to speed up time and began to practice the arrays so that he could use them in the future. He did this for several hours, then went to talk to the house elf that was in charge of the farming areas.

The head elf here was an elderly house-elf almost as old as Dilly named Gordon. He was one of the few elves to have a actual real name that didn't sounds silly, and he carried himself with an air of seriousness that most house elves could not pull off to save their lives. Gordon was also one of the few elves who did not need Ororo's lessons on elocution. He had told Harry that he had been part of a family of wizards that were devoted to farming, and had in fact supplied their enclave with the majority of its food. They had sent him away to Hogwarts releasing Gordon from his bond to them when the dementors attacked their settlement.

"How are things going here?" Harry asked.

"They are going well Harry sir," replied Gordon. "The house elves who hadn't farmed before are used to the workload amount, and we have enough to continue to take care of the farming. However when the plants start to bloom, and it comes time to harvest time…" he looked down almost abashed. "We may need some more help at that point."

Harry nodded. "I'll ask for volunteers among the rest of the house-elves and transfer ten more up here full time, this place is going to get quite a lot busier in the future, and I'd like a workforce in place before that happens. Tell me, how fast do house elves age?"

Gordon stroked one of his drooping age lined ears, then shrugged. "We age according to how much magic is in the bond master, fast with little to no magic, slow for lots of magic. My former Masters were strong, and I am old." He chuckled. "I remember when young Nessy was but a baby, as well as Cory and the other young ones. Still, the passage of time does hit us. I am, in human years about a hundred and fifty not counting time in the sleeping place, and I should see another 60 odd years, maybe more given the power you give us through our bond. Why?"

Harry scratched his chin thoughtfully. "I'm trying to decide if I want to add some runes to the expansion charms in this area, to speed up time inside it. The demand for the potions we're making will be through the roof, and despite the massive amount of farming area we have, one or even two crops a year won't cut it." He knew that meant he could simply raise his prices, but in reality the money he was going to get for this was only half the reason he wanted to get them out into the public. Harry really did want to use them to help as many people as possible.

Gordon frowned. "That would mean house elves age faster, yes sir." He was pleased that his new master had thought of them and had not simply added the runes as some Masters would have.

"So I'll have to think of some way to protect you from the effects of that array. Ah well." Harry shrugged. "I already had Nessy pick up some books about uniforms for you all, I can probably figure out a way to protect you from it and incorporate the protective array into the uniforms. Maybe a counter time-turner, slowing down time in direct relation to how much it sped up in the rest of the area? Something to think about. Anyway, Melody is doing some homework, after that I would like one of you to pop down to Hogwarts to get me so that she and I can have dinner together tonight."

Gordon nodded. "I will see it done master."

"Good, thank you Gordon." And with that and a final wave Harry left the farming areas. He spent a few minutes looking over the rest of the asteroid fortress, looking at the power supply first and then the rest thinking of where he wanted things to go in the future. But that was for the far future, right now he had other things to do.

If Emma knew his priorities however she would have been very angry, as instead of writing up a job offer or going out to interview some of the people she had named as possible candidates for certain jobs immediately, Harry instead went down Hogwarts, and began to plan out what the Castle would become.

At the height of its power Hogwarts in his old dimension could house as many as 800 students per house. While this castle had enough classrooms and was large enough to sustain that population that was where the similarities ended. Ravenclaw tower was not a dormitory, nor was Hufflepuff. Harry wasn't about to make the house elves move, and in fact was tempted to tell them to start building another village for themselves up on High Note unaware that they had already begun work on one. And Harry actually was rather amused by the place this library was laid out, thinking his fellow Ravenclaw's would have been proud to know their tower had become the repository of wizardly knowledge.

There were also not nearly as many teacher accommodations, Harry had only found three of them so far minus the headmaster's. Of course they had already planned to make the seventh floor including the headmaster's tower into the living quarters for Harry, Jean, Melody and Ororo, and possibly the rest of the team Harry intended to put together.

"I can do the same to the sixth floor for teachers and the Gryffindor dormitories should do well enough for the first class. I can expand as needed later on." Harry muttered, walking down to the dungeons. He waved at a few house-elves working on the slimy mold that seemed to fight back against their cleaning efforts, sometimes regaining lost ground the moment they turned away. "The question is, do I want to keep the Slytherin dormitories? Hell, I wonder why they were completed when the Hufflepuff's dorm wasn't." he wondered idly.

After looking over them again he decided the answer was no, he did not want to keep them. Frankly the very idea of housing students underground in what amounted to caves and dungeons did not appeal to him. "I fear it would force upon them a certain frame of mind." He muttered, shaking his head. Then he raised his arms, calling upon the magic in the walls that was his to command as headmaster and set to work.

Over the next hour he used Hogwart's inherent magic to connect all the dormitory rooms of both the girls and boys into two large rooms that could be used for target practice and martial arts training in the future. After that, he used the center area and transformed it into a meeting lounge which would be for the team to go over training results, plan out real operations etc. etc. Then he had a final thought about his lady and her claustrophobia and devised a spell to follow her around in the basement that would combat it.

Nor did his changes stop there. Done with the former Slytherin dormitory he went on making more renovations to the rest of the former dungeons. He changed one of the classrooms into a armory, though of course at this point it wasn't stocked.

At that point it was dinnertime and he broke off his work to have dinner with Melody. Jean and Ororo sent Cory back to tell him they would stay at the mansion until after dinner there, so it was fine.

Melody shook her head as Harry put a plate of chicken fingers down to go with the French fries, buns and sandwich things. "Going up and around on High Note has thrown off my sense of time a bit Mr. Harry. Could I just choose one and stay there?"

"Sure Melody," Harry reached out and rubbed her head, smiling as the girl leaned into his touch. "I have no problem with that. Which one would you like to stay in?"

Melody hummed thoughtfully as she sipped at her grape juice, basking in Mr. Harry's head rubbing. Mr. Harry's songs were so warm these days. Light and airy and full of fun, strength and joy with dozens of songs and different instruments all at once. It was fun to be around. Of course Ms. Jean and Ms. Ororo had the same thing, but to a slightly lesser extent. Ms. Emma's song seemed to be changing as she spent time around the others, that was good. "Could, could I stay up in High Note? I like to sing with all the birds up there. There aren't so many animals around here."

"That was caused by some of the defensive wards keeping them away so as to preserve the grounds and the castle, they'll filter back into the woods now that the wards have been weakened to normal levels." Well, he amended mentally I took down the anti-animal wards anyway. The rest of the wards were simply at their regular setting, more than enough to keep out anything Harry could think of, magical or mundane. In point of fact the pure defensive runes were so strong even if the castle was found he doubted anything short of a nuclear attack would get through. And if someone does send nukes against us here, I'll just raise the wards back to wartime footing, Harry thought grimly. To get through after I do that they'll have to hit us with enough power to sink all of Scotland.

He forcibly brought himself back to the conversation. "Still if you want to live up there for a time that's fine by me. Eventually we'll be taking in students, possibly some your age and we'll want you to join them down here, but until then High Note is fine. I'll move it over New York again so that it's time matches up to the mansion, Jean and Ororo will be spending more time there this week. Ororo will be anyway, she wants to stay there to provide support for Kitty and the others during the testing period, and she will be helping Charles conduct interviews to take her place as a teacher there. I don't know what Jean will be doing."

Melody nodded happily and the two continued to eat. After that Harry did as he said he would, taking her back up to High Note and then transferring the asteroid base from where it had been over the center of the USA to over New York.

Once there with Melody in her 'log' bed, the two watched Bed-knobs and Broomsticks together. "Mr. Harry, could you make a bed like that?"

"Sure, that would be easy. I once knew a set of twins whose father had put so many spells on an old car it became sentient. And then there was my godfather's motorcycle. It could fly at least, not certain about apparating."

The young girl giggled and then went back to watching the movie as a song came on, singing along with Mr. Browne. "Portabello Road, Portabello Road!"

Harry chuckled and continued to watch the movie until Melody fell asleep soon after the football game began. With a small kiss on her forehead he tucked her in, delegated a house-elf to watch of her, and left to head back to Hogwarts.

There he went to work on another room changing it into the equivalent of the Room of Requirement to take the place of the Danger Room in the dungeon. It took several hours just to lay the foundation of the runic array needed to do it. This was not a simple array, in point of fact it was the sort of array that dozens of runic masters could spend weeks working on. Harry however was alone, and had to make do.

By the end of three hours his eyes were scratchy and his fingers twitching from having held the brush for so long. Still he was well pleased with his progress so far and decided to take a break.

He sat down at the single table that was still in the dining area sipping at a soda called birch beer. For some reason the house elves seem to have taken a tremendous liking to all sorts of caffeinated drinks, and it was a very odd meal when they did not have one of them at least on hand. Melody of course was happy about this loving anything that tasted of grapes, but Harry was of the opinion that sodas should only be drunk occasionally. He had to admit however that birch beer was very tasty, even though why it was named after a tree root.

At that point Cory popped in with Ororo. Ororo looked askance at her lover, who was sitting there his eyes red from concentrating so hard. "You look like you've put yourself through the ringer my love."

Harry looked up at her, smiling faintly at the concern in her voice. "I know, just a very, very trying runic array I was working on today. And tomorrow I have two more projects I want to start work on, adding in the time-turning wards and figuring out a way to protect the house elves that work in the farming zones from their affect. And I want to head over to Steven's to talk to him about that book he promised me and work on figuring out how to connect the air ley-lines to the big book of Students. And of course some way to monitor it and a way for it to get out attention, just a lot of things really." He sighed wearily.

Ororo chuckled. In many ways Harry was sort of a workaholic, but giving their shared dreams and aspirations for the future that was all to the good. However, that didn't mean she was about to put up with him simply concentrating on his work to the exclusion of all else. To that end Ororo leaned down kissing him softly at first, then deepening the kiss quickly. A few minutes later she pulled back and stared at Harry's now glazed eyes. "Come love, I think it's time for us to go to bed."

Harry eagerly put down the notes of runes that he had been studying picking her up in his arms and kissing her as she giggled before the two moved off.

OOO Warning! Lemon Start OOO

The couple moved up the stairs slowly, stopping to kiss often. It was at one such stop on the seventh floor, the last floor before they would head up to their room in the former headmaster's tower, that Harry had a brilliant idea. Or at least his hormone induced mind thought it was.

Ororo looked up askance as he moved back from kissing her and took her hand moving in the wrong direction for the headmaster's quarters. "What are you up to Harry?"

"Well you know how I've been working with the Castle for the past few days to create different rooms for us appear?"

"Yeeees," she said slowly, a frown forming. "Harry I'm not going to have sex with you in some random room."

"This is not going to be some random room my dear," he said kissing the back of her hand before pulling her along. "I wanted to see if I could create something like the old prefects' bathroom back in my old dimension, and I think I succeeded admirably. Mind you it took a while to figure out how to keep the water moving and purifying itself. Keeping it hot of course only took a single heating rune added to the bottom of the tub."

Now that, Ororo thought smiling now, sounds much more like it. Ororo loved bathing, and always preferred a bath to a shower if she could get it. Primarily because in the wild she could shower anytime she wanted to after she started to use her powers but the chances of actually bathing in one of the limited watering hole without anything dangerous coming upon her (both animal and man) when she was in the water was next to zero.

Harry led her to the bathroom where he had transformed the room into a large bathing area like the prefects room he remembered so well. The floor was marble, as were the walls except for the far back wall which was a window open out into the nighttime sky. That was a nice touch Ororo thought, since she always prefers to be in a room with windows than not. Despite the fact that this room wasn't small enough to set off her claustrophobia it was still a very thoughtful addition.

In the center of the room was a large tub set into the floor two yards to a side. Steam rose from the water constantly, and a small fountain set into the center of it continued to pour water into the moving the water around and keeping it clean.

Before she could contemplate the room further Harry began to kiss the back of her neck and she moaned, her eyes half-closing in delight, always enjoying it when he worked over on her major erotic zones. She turned in his arms, capturing his lips with her own as the two of them began to slowly undress, only releasing their lip-lock when they had to remove their shirts.

Moments later Ororo giggled as Harry lifted her into his arms, his now bare cock resting against her rear for the moment while he made his way down a series of steps set into the side of the tub that she hadn't noticed yet. There Harry gently sat her down onto a bench a stone bench carved into the side of the tub.

Breaking off their liplock he slowly move down her body, kissing down her neck and collarbone to her stomach right above the waterline then up again. He opened his mouth wide, flicking his tongue out for a moment working her breasts over before taking one of her dark chocolate nipples into his mouth. His hands began to lift squeeze and fondle those magnificent mounds of milk chocolate colored flesh.

Ororo whimpered, smiling faintly as she looked down at him through half-glazed eyes. While Harry was always careful to lavish attention on every inch of her during their lovemaking he was most definitely a breast man, and his fascination with her breasts was rather amusing to her. A sudden thought of what it might feel like to have him really nurse from her, to produce milk for him zipped through her brain. Ororo moaned far louder this time at the other aspect of that idea; that she would have to be pregnant first. She wasn't ready to have children, not yet, not until they had made the world a safer place for them, but Ororo did want to have them eventually.

She worked her hands down from Harry's head to squeeze his butt underneath the water for a moment before moving to his front, taking his cock in her hands and working, causing little waves in the water which joined the others their movements were already making. His cock was already hard, a steel rod covered with skin topped by a bulbous head. Ororo's smile widened as Harry shuddered against her, not stopping his ministrations.

After a few minutes spent working one another over Ororo let go of Harry's cock and she gently raised his head up to hers again, kissing him hungrily on the lips. Their mouths opened and their tongues began to duel in his mouth while his hands went from her breasts around her back to grab her rear pulling her slightly off of the stone shelf pressing her chest against his own. Ororo's hands once more crept down to play with his cock, one hand underneath fondling his balls and the other working the shaft.

One hand gently traced from her rear around her side to her pussy. The wetness he found there was not just from the water her lower body had been soaking in for the past 10 minutes and Harry eased her open with two fingers before adding a third finger while his thumb moved up to the little nub of nerve endings at the top of her opening. Ororo made that low moaning sound that he so found erotic, and began to move her hands on his shaft faster. Harry grunted a little at this shuddering.

Ororo moved back a little, breaking the kiss and moving down his body lightly kissing his chest and shoulders before nuzzling into his neck nipping at the skin there then slowly she backed away through the water to sit once more on the little ledge along the tub side. With a wicked smile on her face she opened her legs, her knees rising above the water, running one hand down her body to open her pussy up for him.

Harry needed no second urging, and moved forward, lining himself up at her entrance.

When he slid in they both moaned aloud, Ororo's voice becoming louder and deeper as Harry slowly worked his way inside of her. This was no frenetic fast lovemaking like their time in the woods after 'Anastasia' was introduced to Obadiah. This was slow gentle lovemaking, and Ororo loved every minute of it as Harry slowly tortured her in the most delightful manner possible.

Soon Harry bottomed out in her, the tip of his cock scraping along that little bundle of nerves right at the entrance to her womb that she so loved. This pushed Ororo over the edge and she thrashed around on her seat sending ripples through the water as she came for the first time that evening, wailing her delight.

For his part Harry simply used all of his willpower to stay still and not cum prematurely. Despite the fact that they had been making love routinely, he was in no way used to the feeling of being inside his lady. It was like being held in a gentle yet incredibly tight wet velvet clamp, one which rippled as Ororo came. It was easily the best feeling he had ever felt, but much like their time in the woods he didn't want to use a spell like during their first lovemaking session. He wanted to build up the physical and mental control so that he didn't need to rely on it in the future.

After Ororo recovered enough to nod at him, Harry began to move in out of her, and she raised herself off of the ledge meeting his thrusts with her own. She leaned up slightly, kissing and nuzzling at his chest nipping at the skin their and leaving several hickies along his pecs and quite a few along his neck as well.

Harry gently tugged at her water slicked hair pulling her head back and kissing Ororo on the lips as his hips continued to pile-drive his cock into her cunt then moved down from her lips to her neck and then down again to capture the nipple he hadn't suckled on moments before while one hand grabbed her rear. That hand was mildly crushed every time she came back from thrusting up against him, while his other hand worked her other nipple.

The triple stimulation added to his continued thrusts to send her over the edge about 20 minutes later, and Harry had to grit his teeth in an attempt to keep control of himself, accidentally clamping down even harder on her nipple which threw Ororo over the edge harder.

After she came down from her high Ororo pushed Harry away from her, then gently turn him around pushing him against the side of the tub where he sat down his cock, slick with their juices, sticking straight up like a flag pole. She smiled faintly, watching with pleasure as his eyes tracked her while she slid further down into the water, moving toward him until her head was right between his legs.

Ororo was about to do something she had never done for her previous lovers. This was primarily because she felt it was rather degrading to do, and was worried about the taste. Yet for Harry she was willing to try.

She began to gently lick the shaft of his cock, moving up and down as she got used to the taste. While one hand pumped the shaft her mouth moved up to the top of his cock, her tongue lathering the tip. After a moment she stretched her mouth slightly and took the head of the cock into her mouth, working down the shaft just slightly while her tongue went to work on the bulbous head.

Harry threw back his head moaning louder than he had before, the sensation Ororo was giving him was incredible, and his hands gripped the side of the tub with white knuckles. "Ororo," he gasped "I'm not going to last very long if you keep doing that."

Ororo smiled and hummed, sending a very pleasurable sensation through the head of his cock that caused Harry's hips to lift off the stone for a moment.

She pulled back and smiled up at him. "That is the general idea my love." With that she went back to work, her tongue lathering the shaft and head before she took the bulbous head into her mouth again.

Harry was able to raise one hand and gently start playing with her hair, moving over her ears and fondling her head slightly, not trying to speed up or control what she was doing, just reveling in the sensation. Ororo's other hand moved down her own body, until it began to work at her pussy down below where she kneeled on the bottom of the tub.

At that point Ororo realized that her original thoughts on this act had been wrong. If there was any control to be had in this situation it was with the woman but she also realized that it was much more about giving then she had assumed. It was also rather empowering watching her lover in the throes of ecstasy, completely under her control. She chuckled, another sensation that had Harry moaning and his head lolling around.

About 5 minutes later Harry gasped and began to tremble. "Ororo, love, I'm going to..."

She pulled back from her position along his head, working her jaw slightly. While not painful having her mouth open that much for that period of time wasn't something she was used to. Now Ororo moved her hand even faster along his shaft resting it against one cheek as she gently licked the side of it. "Cum for me love, I want to see it!"

Below her fingers began to work in and out of her pussy even more furiously, and as Harry let go she came a little, not nearly as powerfully as she had the first two times but still enough to make her slightly glassy eyed. The sight of Harry cuming from her ministrations was one of the more erotic things she had seen, right up there with watching him and Jean kiss or the redheads drunken make-out/striptease session with Emma.

Harry's cock jerked and spasmed as it began to fire shots of cum off high into the air past her head and into the water around her, some of it landing in her already wet hair, most of it going on her face and some of it dripping down to her breasts where they rose out o the water. By the time Harry was done Ororo was liberally covered in his cum, and he watched through half lidded eyes as she scooped up large dollops and began to lick it off her fingers.

The sight rejuvenated him, and he reached forward but Ororo backed away dipping her entire body down into the water to clean off quickly. The taste of his cum was salty and creamy which was a very strange combination to her, though she had tasted it a few times before. This time for some reason it had a hint of tangerine to it, which was surprising, but not at all displeasing. But Ororo knew from experience that she would not like the sticky feeling after it dried on her, and preferred to clean herself with water than one of Harry's spells.

When Ororo emerged from the water back up Harry grabbed her and pulled her into a kiss again. With a sudden crack Ororo found herself in their room in High note, the one that had once been Magneto's overlooking the small botanical forest. A drying charm heated the remaining water off their bodies and after Harry cast a silencing spell around the bedroom the two fell into bed once more kissing and fondling one another as a prelude to round two.

OOO End Lemon OOO

"What do you mean he's found out?" growled Obadiah Stain into his phone. While he waited for an answer he looked out the window next to him, noticing they were through the last security checkpoint and his limo was even now moving down the long runway towards his personal plane.

Obadiah's mission here had been going well up to this point. He'd acquired all the parts and pieces as well as several of the plans of the armored power suit Stark had used to escape from the terrorist's that Obadiah had hired to kill him. Of course if they had actually killed him, this wouldn't have been necessary, but the idiots had realized who he was and gotten greedy. Still in the end they had paid for their greed, thanks to the squad of delta Force members that the good Senator Trevor had loaned him for this trip. While he incapacitated their leader the squad had taken out the rest of the camp with ruthless efficiency and a certain amount of eagerness it must be said. Indeed, everything had been going well up until one of his informants at the company's headquarters had called him about 3 minutes ago.

"Sir," the man on the other line said sounding rather nervous. "It's just like I said. Stark's here and he's going through everything, he's already found your files and is working with someone from some agency I've never heard of before, SHEATH or something like that. Him, Potts and his bodyguard are literally ripping apart all of your files. The agent, I think his name is Cole something, he's putting out a new warrant for your arrest as soon as they finish."

"On what charge?" said Stane, frowning angrily. I thought my personal security and the virus I put on my own computer set to erase all data at any sign of unsanctioned activity was enough security. But it looks as if Tony somehow was able to get around that. Obadiah wished that surprised him, but it really didn't.

"Sir, I don't know, but rumor has it they've found something that could have you in jail for selling weapons to threats to national security as well as murder."

Obadiah's face blanked at that. If they knew about both of those dealings, then they knew enough to put him away and throw away the key. Not everything, Obadiah had kept a lot of his dealings on his personal laptop, which he never let out of his sight.

He had only used the systems at Stark Industries at all because he couldn't remotely access the files and programs he had to use to hide the shipping manifests and redirect them. Damn it, I should have erased everything before I left just in case! What the hell? Tony should never have thought of looking inside the company, that's not like him at all! Unless he took those suggestions that Weatherby and Emma dropped much more seriously than I thought he did. With what they've already found he's definitely got enough to issue a subpoena and if they search around….

Now however that didn't matter, what did was to move on with one of his contingency plans. "You did well to call me, erase everything you've got about our dealings, go to ground for now. I'll contact you in a few weeks possibly. Until then keep your head down." With that done he called ahead to his personal pilot. "Janice, I'm afraid we're going to have to have to activate scenario three."

The woman on the other phone inhaled sharply but responded quickly. "Yes sir, we'll have it ready for you when you get here."

Not three minutes later the convoy arrived in front of his plane. The special forces team got out from their own cars all around him, joining Stane as he boarded the plane while a few of the base workers started to load up the crates containing the pieces of the armored suit into the plane's cargo area.

He moved through the plane nodding at the two stewards. Despite the interior being similar Obadiah's plane was nowhere near the lavish den of iniquity that Stark's was. He only kept two stewardesses aboard, and both of them were as much bodyguards as they were stewardesses, a pair of Asian twins despite their names. "Catherine, Stephanie how are you, did you get any shopping done?" he said as if making small talk, but that was far from the case.

At the code phrase both women narrowed their eyes sharply, looking around at the delta force squad. "Yes sir, we did."

"Good, good" Stane responded as if he couldn't be bothered further and moved through to the front of the plane where Janice and her copilot Mark were waiting for them. "Everything ready for takeoff?" he said looking at them, his eyes sending another message.

Mark nodded touching a section on his chair which concealed a small red button. At the same time Janice responded as if it was simply another day. "Yes sir, we have already gotten clearance to lift as soon as our cargo is loaded."

"Good," Obadiah nodded. "We need to get these parts back to the US as fast as possible."

After that he returned to the main section of the plane, nodding cordially at the ex-Delta Force men he had taken along on this little jaunt. "Gentlemen thank you for your help today, I'll make certain that senator Trevor knows how well you did in our after action report. But I have to reiterate that you can't let anyone know about what happened today or anything about this trip at all frankly."

Their leader nodded, holding his contempt inside. For them it had been just as much about killing some terrorists as it had been about getting that armored monstrosity back. But if Stance could come through with his promise to turn over a working prototype of that thing to the military then dealing with the snake in the grass would be well worth it. "Don't worry sir, we know our duty to our country. No one will talk."

Obadiah nodded gravely as if he was a fellow hard-nosed patriot, which was what the senator thought he was and these troopers seemed to think the same thing. It's a pity, these men would have been an excellent force to have along if they weren't such patriotic idiots. Such a pity, he thought, as he sat down. A few moments later the plane took off, and soft music began to emanate from some of the speakers.

The moment the plane leveled out the two stewardesses moved among the men, handing out sodas and glasses of wine or spirits as well as food. A suspicious person would have noticed that Obadiah did not take anything despite his penchant for a midnight snack, but the special forces men were completely disarmed by the stewardesses beauty. They were a pair of black-haired twins, lithe and sexy with Italian accents that added to their allure.

Obadiah smiled faintly, leaning back thinking his next move through. The problem is two-fold, first is the fact I will no doubt be arrested as soon as we land. The other problem is that Trevor will almost certainly have me silenced as quickly as possible so I can't lead the investigators back to him. No, I need to disappear. If not for the parts of that armored power suit I would be tempted to go with plan omega and simply have the entire plane crash to cover our escape, but with them my priorities need to change.

Still it couldn't be helped, he needed to have this thing, it represented a whole new level of weapon hearing. Thankfully all of his stocks in the company were under several assumed names that he had never accessed using SI computers. Despite Tony's laid back nature he hates other people having control over him and his search to find out who owns the rest of the company's stock so he could get a controlling share would slow Stark down in his attempts to clean up the company. Possibly enough for my own people to get more of my physical assets out of the country.

With that thought he opened up his laptop and began to send out orders under assumed names, basically telling all of his people to bug out using prearranged code names, and transferring quite a lot of the weapons that had been piled up thanks to Stark's idiotic gesture in warehouses scattered throughout the states out of the country under different names. He was certain not everything would get out, but if enough did he could start up somewhere else.

Especially if he decided to take up some offers he had gotten over the past few months. These ranged from a full on terrorist group called AIM to Hammer Industries itself, and some other groups out in Asia including one interesting one from a man who called himself the Mandarin. The one from AIM was interesting in some ways, but he wasn't about to take up that offer. AIM sounded far too much like a group that believed it own hype, that of an intelligentsia ruling the world through superior technology. Stane didn't want to rule the world, he just wanted to make his mark on it without anyone else trying to interfere or get credit for it. What that mark would be was still up in the air.

As soon as Stane sent off the last of his e-mails he shut down his laptop, looking out his window seeing they were now above the ocean as far as he could see. He looked around for a second, then stretched and yawned before getting up and heading back to the bathroom at the back of the jet.

The stewardesses had by this time moved to their own section of the plane up front, and had silently locked and bolted the steel reinforced doors there.

Once Obadiah was inside the bathroom he did the same, pressing a small button hidden behind the mirror. A second later a low hiss was heard, as along the edges of the door suddenly filled with rubber, making the bathroom airtight. With that done he reached over to a communicator on the side and said "Janice, I'm clear back here."

"Yes sir," said Janice professionally, and a second later in the main area of the plane a slight hissing could be heard.

In the cockpit Mark lifted his finger from the bottom, and his fingers danced for a moment changing two of the screens that should've shown just radar to showing the interior view of the main section of the plane. As they watched the squad of ex-Delta Force men, weakened by the slight paralytic in their food succumbed to the knockout gas, and a moment later the door to the stewardess area opened and Catherine and Stephanie moved through wearing gas masks.

Having clipped themselves to special harnesses to protect themselves from being pulled out they opened the door out into air, then went around and casually tossed each of the troopers out into space letting them plummet to their deaths. The two then made the OK signal at the pickups.

Mark pressed another button, and the air from the cockpit was funneled outside, replaced swiftly by clean air coming in from a special tank. A moment later all the doors opened, and Obadiah walked swiftly through the jet to join his men in the cockpit.

"Where to sir?" asked Janice looking over her shoulder.

"Venezuela for now I think Janice, then we'll need to switch to one of the hidden planes there."

"And in the long term sir?" asked Mark.

"That will depend on how things play off with the rest of our people. If enough people get out, we may be able to start up our own company someplace else, whereas you will all be rewarded for your loyalty with new positions. If not we may have to turn to alternative methods, in which case you'll still be working in the same positions as you have up to this point.

His employees shrugged. They were being paid extremely well, and Obadiah had never been the sort to throw away his men. Outside the sky was still dark as the plane moved on, nothing about it indicating the horrible events that had occurred just moments ago.

Obadiah nodded at them, his mind already going over where they would go from Venezuela, how he would contact and gather up his people, and ideas centered on the chucks of powered armor in his plane's small hold.

Unfortunately, the thing about plans is they never survive contact with the enemy.

OOOOOOO

Tony Stark did not simply sit on his ass waiting for Obadiah to come back to the states and get arrested. The moment he knew that Stane had been the one to betray him, and had in fact been trying to kill him, Tony took steps.

It took an hour for Tony to figure out which plane Obadiah had taken, why he had taken it and figure out a way track it regardless of anything Stane had done to it. Stark Enterprises jets all had a Stark Enterprise jet engines on them, and they heated the air around them at a precise frequency that was different just slightly from any other. This heat trail could be spotted and track if you could hack either the radar or satellites needed to do it.

Tony could do this. In point of fact most of the best radar systems the Americans boasted, and even some in other countries, had come from his company.

He was still tinkering with the idea of a space borne radar system to spot alien threats, but as he wasn't getting paid for that, and it really hadn't interested in him all that much considering the fact that Reed Richards, who even he had to admit was pretty damn smart, had a leg up on him there.

And unfortunately for Obadiah the newest version of the Iron Man suit was finished. It was painted in red and gold, was much more streamlined, smaller and formfitting than the original that he had made from random parts in what amounted to a middle-aged blacksmith shop in comparison to his own workshop. It'd taken them a few hours to perfect the interface system and another few hours to get used to do ability to fly, but after that, he decided to go out and clean up his company's mess himself.

Tony hadn't shown this suit to anyone, in fact this was going to be the first time he used it at all, and he was against the idea of sharing it with anyone. The world already had Doctor Doom and a few others pushing the idea of armor suits, they didn't need anyone else doing the same. Especially since, in Tony's opinion, his suit was of much higher quality than Doom's, which was the closest to its design and ability.

While he flew Tony considered who the hell had sent in that notebook warning him about Obadiah betrayal, and how the hell whoever it was had done that to a simple piece of paper. All of the tests he had done on the paper told him that there was nothing odd about it, it was simple wood pulp made into paper. Going over JARVIS's records he was able to discern a faint energy reading from the message when it had been making all that noise, but that was all. He hadn't thought to take readings from it while it was still making noises or when the message changed, and the little bit he had was not enough to figure anything out.

On his heads up display Tony could now see the plane, a rapidly enlarging as he zoomed towards it. Keeping under the radar of America and other countries had slowed him down considerably, forcing him to deviate to fly over Mexico rather than straight to the Atlantic from his Honolulu home. Still it had been simple enough since again most of those radar systems had been upgraded in the past few years by his company, and he knew all their specs and ranges by heart. "Can they see us yet JARVIS?"

"Negative sir, your suit's anti-radar imagery should be working for another few minutes then you will be too close for it to overcome. Whether or not they can see you with their naked eye I cannot say."

To his right the sun began to come up, and JARVIS corrected himself. "Correction sir, with the sun out now you will be visible to them. Your suit is not exactly subtle in that manner."

"Subtlety is overrated JARVIS!" Tony shouted, gunning the thrusters in his feet and zooming toward his target even faster.

On the plane the golden and red human-sized blur had indeed been spotted. "Sir," said Janice suddenly looking ahead and Mark cursed when he saw what she was looking at. "We've got something incoming!"

Obadiah leaned over the front panel of the cockpit, staring out the windshield at the thing coming toward them. The suit was gold and red, but it was definitely a more streamlined and much more high-tech version of the powered armor whose bits he had gathered from the terrorists. "Shit," he muttered. "Evasive maneuvers, everyone strap in, get some weapons online!" Mark nodded and flipped up several panels, bring the plane's weapon systems online, while Catherine and Stephanie turned and bolted for their own section, strapping themselves in tight. In a fight like this their martial arts and weapons skills were useless, a fact neither liked at all.

Outside Tony continued to move towards the plane, which had just released chafe and small drones which immediately began to propagate on his sensors as the plane itself. But his sensors were more than equal to the task of picking out which was the real plane and even if they weren't Tony was close enough now to see the real one. He sent out some shots from the repulsor beams in his suit's palms however to clear the battlefield a bit then he had to dodge wildly from machine gun fire from the tip of the plane.

The undercarriage at the very tip of the plane had opened, and a Vulcan rotary cannon on a mount appeared there, blasting out rounds at him.

A moment later several small partitions opened up along the plane's wings and hundreds of tiny mini-missiles zoomed out, all of them using his homing right in on Tony.

"Oh shit," he muttered not having figured on Stane having that many missiles.

"Spoofs active sir," said JARVIS, and Tony dove down towards the water, even as he let loose his own version of chaff behind him from a spot along the small of his suit's back. "I estimate that I can redirect at least 42% of the many missiles coming at you."

Tony zoomed along right above the crest of the ocean waves below, juking and diving as the missiles zoomed down at him impacting the water around him with explosive force. He then had to dodge another stream of tracers from the machine gun above him, but the plane was more interested in getting away.

It let loose another fusillade of mini missiles, depleting its onboard stores almost down to nothing, then turned away heading back on a new heading for Africa.

"The missiles are learning sir, I estimate I can only spoofs 25% of this next wave."

Tony nodded. "Take over evasive maneuvers, I'll take over electronic warfare."

"Affirmative sir." With that JARVIS took over control of his suit for a moment.

Jarvis couldn't do this for very long, both his own safety parameters and the suit's would not allow that, but it would be enough for Tony to swiftly upgrade the electronic warfare software in the suit to spoof the missiles further.

Tony did so, and more and more missiles began to impact the waters around him rather than coming straight at him. "I'm back online JARVIS."

"Affirmative sir, releasing control."

With that done Tony began to fight back, using his own weapons, repulsor blasts from his palms and two sonic wave cannons in his shoulders. he turned around so that his back was towards the ocean, pounding out shots at the mini missiles. "Keep an eye on that plane JARVIS, we can't let it get out of international airspace."

"Affirmative sir, at its current heading and speed that will take 45 min. It seems to be heading for Africa, unable to determine which specific country at this time. Be aware the current disturbance will mean that you are picked up by the radar slightly faster than would otherwise be the case."

"Understood." Tony turned his machine gun to full auto, powering down his repulsor blasts as much as he could so that he could hammer out smaller but more numerous shots taking out the mini missiles as fast as he could.

One got through to smash his suit's right kneecap, but the armor was sufficient to protect him and he only winced a little at the impact as it knocked him off course to skitter across the ocean's waves for a moment. He righted himself quickly, and raced after the jet.

On the jet Obadiah cursed. "What the hell is that thing made out of?"

"So damn maneuverable," Janice muttered. "What are those thrusters it's using to move around?"

"Screw its thrusters," Mark replied, trying once more to get the aiming reticule onto the form of the armored suit following them from below. "those cannons on its palms look like those repulsor beams from the newest missile systems, but more controlled and focused."

"Tell me something I don't know," said Obadiah snarling.. "Is our little surprise in the back ready?" he said looking over at Mark.

"Yes her, it's ready."

"Good, we'll only get one shot at this, make it count."

Tony quickly caught up to the jet, firing a single repulsor blasts at the machine gun set up onto its tip as it rotated to try to bring him under fire again. The Vulcan cannon shattered under the impact sending pieces flying everywhere. With that done Tony zoomed up past the plane on the left, firing two more blasts into its wing on that side. One of its engines died under his blasts, though the other was still working.

He clicked on his radio then his speaker system so the people in the plane could hear him even if they had turned off their radio. "Give it up Obadiah, come along quietly. It's over, you can't escape."

Obadiah nodded to Janice and she moved the control wheel of the jet forward into the dive position, going straight down towards the water for a moment.

Tony kept on moving after them, but was surprised and lost position on them slightly. He now found himself facing the back of the jet.

"Now!" ordered Obadiah and Mark slapped a button on the console in front of him.

Two small partitions at the far back of the jet opened up, and two more machine guns opened up on Tony. These were special machine guns, what they fired were not the regular 3.5 oz. armor piercing rounds of the Vulcan up front. These were the newest High explosive incendiary rounds. In essence each of the rounds were small rockets, and they hit like them too.

Before Tony could even move he took several dozen shots, catering and pocking his armor. One shoulder guard was completely blown off, and he lost the fine motor control of his other hand.

Tony winced but returned fire even as he dodged below the ark of the two gun's fire, which were situated rather than on a pintle mount. His return fired gutted the back of the jet, which began to spew out fire and smoke.

Mark slammed another button in desperation and the mini missile ports on the wings opening up again firing out their few remaining missiles. But Tony was ready, and his return fired caught the missiles right before they exited their housing, blowing off both wings.

Janice gritted her teeth and pulled the wheel of the plane up again, trying desperately to keep them from slamming into the ocean below which was rapidly coming closer. But Obadiah was already racing backwards, heading towards a small partition right behind one of the leather chairs in the seating area. It housed a small one-man escape pod, and he would be damned if he let Tony catch him after all this.

Before he could reach it however another blast from Tony's repulsor beams caught the plane in its bottom as he followed the plane. By sheer chance this blast caught the small engine of the escape craft. The engine exploded, most of its force constrained by the metal of the plane's fuselage around it. However that didn't stop it from blowing the floor of the interior of the plane upwards peppering Obadiah with shrapnel. He went down, dead before he hit the ground.

Behind him the two stewardesses/bodyguards had been strapped in and their chairs protected most of their bodies from the shrapnel of the explosion. Several bits impacted their legs underneath their chairs however and they both yelled in agony. But they had it lucky in comparison. A stray bit of shrapnel bounced around so much that it actually bounced through the open door into the cockpit and slammed into the back of Janice his head, killing her instantly.

Mark gasped then reached forward pulling her dead body off her control wheel before clicking his own on and taking over, trying to pull the nose of the plane up so that they would skip over the water rather than slam into it. He was barely successful in this and the plane skipped over the waves several times with jarring force, causing the two women in the back to cry out in agony each time before the plane came to a rest.

Tony stopped firing as he saw the jet go down. "JARVIS, keep on over-watch, I want to know if there are any planes incoming from all this malarkey, and if anything got away."

"Sensors indicate that nothing got away sir," said JARVIS. "Several African countries however have you on their radar, and are scrambling fighters. Ramstein base in Germany is also scrambling jetfighters and they will be here in about fifteen minutes."

"Got it," Tony said, moving his battered suit towards the door set halfway down the now slowly sinking plane. Once there he ripped the door out of its space and stepped inside, noticing that the water was swiftly coming in behind him.

Stark winced at the site of Obadiah's mangled body, still recognizable but definitely dead. He looked up at the two stewardesses who he recognized as having worked with Obadiah for many years in their current role, then passed them at Mark who had swiftly grabbed up a gun and was pointing it at him. "Don't be stupid man."

Mark moved until he was in front of the two stewardesses, then shook his head. "I'm not stupid sir," he said caustically. "I'm loyal."

"Then I suggest you put that gun up, those two need medical attention."

Mark looked down at both women, both of whom were woman-fully trying not to scream again at the pain coming from their perforated legs, then he sighed and dropped the gun. He leaned down and began to do what little first aid he could, nodding over his shoulder at Tony. "I'll surrender sir, hell I'll even agree to answer all your questions willingly. Just get these two to a hospital, I'll come quietly."

The two looked at him in gratitude, knowing what that cost a man like Mark, who believed that his word and his bond was the most important thing. He was a mercenary but he was a good one. Once you bought his services, he stayed bought. Evidently however their injuries, and his friendship with them was enough to break through that.

Tony nodded and called in a rescue chopper, and seconds later JARVIS reported that it had launched conjoined the claims that were even now closing in on his position. Tony knelt down in the water, doing what little he could (under JARVIS's relayed orders) for one of the girls. Her nametag, the only way he could tell them apart read Stephanie. As he worked Tony reflected that it hadn't been as clean a job as he wanted, but his armor had definitely come through with flying colors.

OOOOOOO

Nick Fury leaned back in a room protected by a faraday cage and as many other defenses against eavesdropping as he could put into it. It wasn't nearly as good as it could be of course, someone like Stark, Doom, Richards and anyone of that level might still have figured out ways to get into it, but it was the best SHIELD could do at the moment. Maybe in the future that would change if he could convince the higher ups to bring in Richards as a consultant.

Harry had made a few mistakes in terms of keeping his identity and powers secret during the battle against Selene. The first was that while none of the Gurkhas or William and his people would talk, the doctors sent to help the wounded from the embassies were not under any such constraints, and news of his healing ability at the very least spread like wildfire among the international community. At the moment those rumors were unsubstantiated, but Fury was looking at someone who could substantiate them, which was Harry's second mistake.

Natasha had been a spy for a very long time, and other than Snape Harry had never actually dealt with spies. Why bother with training a spy of any ability when you could just use Imperio to take over a person's mind and order him to tell you everything he knows, or act in your interests? Even Dumbledore did not actually have spies, he just had people who passed on bits of information. Natasha's mind was so organized that she could in time and with external stimuli overcome his Confoundus.

If Harry had used an Obliviate spell it would have worked much better but would have caused other issues. The mental lapse an Obliviate caused would have been obvious to anyone, but the confounding spell he had used instead unfortunately didn't last very long. It only took Natasha a single night, helped along by the fact her Black Widow suit had an inbuilt recorder that is on 24-7 in its buckle, to realize what had happened, and get around the spell.

"So what can you tell me about what really happened over there?" Fury asked, waving the newspaper that still was covering the supposed terrorist attack in London, his face amused.

Natasha looked a little leery. "What can I tell you, um, that depends on how open your mind is sir."

"Agent Romanov, I dealt with things in World War II and beyond that would turn that red hair of yours gray. I doubt you ran into anything that could compare to the shit storm I ran into going up against Baron Strucker for instance." Nick idly wondered why the old Nazi occult expert kept on coming to his mind these days, something about HYDRA bothered the hell out of him.

He was swiftly brought out of his reverie by Natasha asking, "So if I told you it looked as if magic was involved you wouldn't immediately send me to a psychologist?"

Fury leaned back closing his one eye then after a moment opened it again and nodded. "That actually would fit with what little I've been able to discern from here." Natasha gaped at him and he laughed. "There is more to heaven and hell Horatio, than is dreamt of in your philosophy. Now," Nick said seriously leaning forward, "report."

Natasha did so, covering everything up to the point where Mr. Wizard called in detail, then the planning session and her part of the fight. She described the powers she had seen in action, though she was unable to describe anything of the physical characteristics of the three strange superheroes.

"And then he was healing the people there with potions and spells I guess and then he hit me with a spell and for a bit there I was out of it," she finished.

Throughout this narrative Fury hadn't spoken at all, simply sitting there looking at her. His mind however was very busy. Those powers match up to what we know of Munroe at least, though I think our analysts have downplayed them severely. The other one almost sounds like what Hawkeye reported from Grey's fight with Pyro, but again the reports never said she was that powerful.

From there it wasn't easy supposition to assume who the mysterious Mr. Wizard was. Yet the breadth of the spells he had shown, the power of them pointed to someone who was more than a dabbler in the magic arts, and who was very capable in other ways as well. Not as naïve as Charles is either, if he put this Selene bitch down permanently. I'm not exactly happy with his trying to use a spell on my agent's mind either, yet on the other hand it doesn't seem as if the King had any real objection, and in his place wouldn't I do the same thing? After all he had no reason to trust Natasha, and SHIELD's purview hasn't extended to the UK yet.

"Where do Potter's loyalties lie?" Nick said out loud. "What's his game here?"

"I don't know Sir, but well, this is just supposition you understand." Fury nodded and Natasha went on, "I got three real impressions of Potter and of the women with him. The first is that they care, and I mean deeply care about individuals. Potter wouldn't have helped the wounded like he did afterward if he didn't care, and those troopers were complete strangers. I, I would say that he's just a generally nice guy sir."

Fury grunted noncommittally but motioned Natasha to continue. "Second is that he's had a lot of experience in combat. I don't know what kind, but it was obvious from the planning session and from what little of the fight against Selene I saw that he was a master at his kind of combat. It was almost scary how capable he was and some of the spells he used…"

Fury grunted again, rolling his eyes, which Natasha took as a cue to get on with it. "And third, I think Potter's a big thinker sir. I think he's thinking a long game. Why keep his powers under wraps? Why ally himself with the King of Britain as Potter seems to have done if he didn't have big plans? And whatever those plans are, I think the King agrees with at least some of them."

"That last bit actually helps a lot," Fury responded honestly. "I've never met William personally, but I know many who have and they all speak highly of him and his ability to judge a man's character. It could have something to do with William's recent stance as 'an individual' he said making little quote marks in the air "about how the rights of mutants should be protected as much is regular people."

"Given his connection to Xavier and his school that makes sense. But if that's the case, is he their new team leader or what?" Nick frowned a bit. Alvers had been helpful during the recent Thor incident a incident that started out poorly for SHIELD but ended well when they were able to contain the battle and evacuate the civilians out of the area without allowing any civilian or agent casualties thanks to Alvers, Hawkeye and the so-called 'Asgardians'. Despite his growing attachment to Clint however, Lance was still singularly unhelpful in determining what the heck was going on in Xavier's school and utterly close mouthed about Potter.

"Sir, may I make a suggestion?"

"Go."

"If we want to know what's going on there, we have two ways of going about it. We could try to sneak a spy in, which given the fact that Logan is there is probably not going to happen. Or we could simply ask. Shield hasn't taken a stance on the mutant issue after all, so Charles and Logan should realize they want us as at least neutrals."

"It's not a bad idea" said Nick thoughtfully. The problem is that Charles is very well-connected. Whether or not he's a mutant is unknown, but regardless someone high up in the government is willing to see if he can convince mutant-kind to get along with the rest of humanity. I can't just barge in their demanding answers, though I could probably talk to Logan, he should remember me.

Nick and Wolverine had met during World War II, running a few missions against both against the Nazi's and the Russians right after, as well as one about ten years ago that had to deal with the young woman in front of him and saving her from the Hand, an ancient order of ninjas who had kidnapped the young Russian cadet to turn her into their perfect assassin. The attempt failed, and though she went back to her motherland after, the good will he had earned from helping her had made Natasha search Nick out after Communism collapsed in Russia.

Logan had been a very odd mix of cool calm professional and rabid animal, able to switch between the two when the circumstances called for it. That was of course before Weapon X, that dumbass (in Fury's opinion) joint American/Canadian program got a hold of him and a few others. What that program did to his mind, well what little Nick had been able to find out about it painted a very ugly picture.

If he remembers me though that could work, he at least could get us an introduction Mr. Wizard. Something tells me if we tried to go the whole official strong man line on him he'll simply disappear, and we don't have a magic user on the roster, hell I don't even know any magic users period. It'll have to wait a few days at least unfortunately.

"Good work on this Natasha. For your next assignment I'm going to have you replace Coulson over at Stark Industries, we'll prepare a full file on you and insert you into the company as a secretary or something. You'll be our covert operative, I'm giving Cole the task of leading several groups that'll move in on places where we think Stane had supporters en-masse. This whole business with Obadiah is one thing, but we still haven't nailed Stark down on how the hell he escaped, or what the hell he used to escape from those kidnappers. It's only a matter of time with a hot dog like Stark that that will come out, but maybe a pretty face can bring it out sooner and in a controlled fashion while Cole and his men handle the cleanup behind Stane."

Recognizing this as a dismissal the Russian woman saluted and left the room. After a few moments Fury followed her, moving up to his regular desk up on the flag bridge of the heli-carrier. He had a few more meetings today, specifically with the budget committee, which was never pleasant. They were complaining (again) about the expenses of Hawkeye's special munitions arrows, but given his efficacy in the fight against the Destroyer, Nick was not going to let them short change Clint on his choice of weapons.

And then Nick would have to once again talk to General Thunderbolt Ross, and quite possibly begin the process to strip the man of his rank. He would have to go through this Senate Armed Forces Oversight Committee, but he might have to get the ball rolling now Since it appeared as if Thunderbolt hadn't learned even the basic lesson. He had apparently tried to create a second monster to battle the Hulk, but the thing had rather predictably gone rogue. Talk about throwing good money after bad, Fury thought sardonically. He sighed. Oh, for the days of actual action rather than all this talk, talk, talk. Why the hell did I take this job again?

As soon as he stepped onto the bridge he saw one of the communication techs moving towards him and he groaned as his instincts told him that whatever the man was about to tell him, it wasn't going to make his life any easier.

OOOOOOO

The next morning the two lovers slept in, intent on heading back to the mansion for breakfast and at Ororo's insistence to give the kids their support during this testing time. Since he was mostly self-taught in terms of non-magical it education Harry didn't really care about high school one where the other. He knew that schooling in general was important, but he just didn't see the point of high school. Now if it was organized more like college that would be a different thing.

They found Melody already having eaten a plate of pancakes with what looked like gooseberry syrup. Harry chuckled. "Your name should've been Grape with all that stuff you eat."

Melody giggled then looked at them closely. "Oh my, your duet is so bright and loud today, did you have fun together? And where is the third person, it looks like it is for a trio rather than a duet. I think Ms. Jean?"

The two exchanged a glance then Ororo shrugged. "Yes we had a fine time my dear, and yes Jean should be here but at the moment she has other demands on her time." She knew the young girl didn't mean that like it sounded, Melody just did not see the world in the same way as she did.

The three of them spent some time together, with Melody regaling the two people who had taken her into their hearts with the end of Bedknobs and Broomsticks, saying it was just like the time Harry had enchanted a few cleaning items to move around on their own.

When she was done Ororo looked over her work and praised Melody's progress in learning math, noting the style of learner her mutant power forced her to assume for future lessons. She then assigned an audiobook to listen to and write a summary about, and then sent Melody off to help (really play with) the house-elves that were working in the farming area.

After that, Harry teleported the pair of them down to the mansion and straight into his workroom. He held his weather goddess around her waist as she got her bearings. Ororo shook her head, trying to get rid of the wooziness she felt. "Don't take this the wrong way my love, but I much prefer traveling via house elf 'popping' then versus your apparition."

Harry shrugged apologetically. "Sorry. I used to get the same thing with port keys and flue travel and side along apparition as well. Teleporting myself however doesn't bother me."

"Lucky you." she said dryly and the two laughed before going downstairs.

The kids were already up and sitting at the table, waiting for Jean to cook them breakfast.

As they walked in she was saying over her shoulder "You seriously have to get a maid or cook in here Professor, after all the three people leaving are the only three people who can cook. Unless Kitty has learned how to make things other than cookies," she teased.

Kitty grinned. "I still maintain that you can live your life on cookies and cupcakes."

"If you wish to be the size of the house I suppose so," said Harry ruffling her hair affectionately as he moved in to take over cooking duties from Jean.

Jean took a brief second to squeeze his hand with one of her own before moving off. While she was in no way embarrassed or guilty about the relationship, that didn't mean that that she wanted to deal with all the questions and irritations that having everyone at the mansion know about it would entail.

She could tell that Logan hadn't forgotten his little comment from the day before, though something else looked to be bothering him more this morning. She was very thankful for that, but he wasn't the only one who seemed to know something was up between her Harry and Ororo. While Scott appeared to have missed the comment yesterday (Jean had her doubts about that, her friend had become much more circumspect and thoughtful lately) Kitty was much more perceptive, and the thought had started her thinking. Kurt might be thinking something was up as well though in his case it was probably because they had spent so much more time around him this past weekend. Rogue and Evan were really the only ones who appeared completely clueless.

Harry didn't seem to care about what people may be thinking, asking all the kids "What tests do you guys have today."

Evan replied for him and Rogue, since they were both juniors and took all of the same classes. "We have language arts today. The seniors I think have their chosen sciences today and the sophomores…" he looked over at Kitty and Kurt.

Kitty answered for the both of them. "We've got history today."

Ororo set next to the younger girl, ruffling her hair affectionately. "I'm certain that you will do well, all of you," she said putting one arm around her nephew in a hug. "You certainly all did well on my language lessons."

Indeed that was understating the case, only Kurt and Evan having issues getting more than 85%. Kurt was easily explained, after all English wasn't his primary first language. All of them had done very well. Evan had been at the Institute for a little under a year now, and could speak fluent Chinese and a smattering of German. He had a atrocious accent which was why she took points off, but he could easily understand the verbal form. Kurt had been at the Institute for the same amount of time and spoke both of those language as well as English where before he had to rely on Professor Xavier translating for everyone in their minds what he was speaking.

Rogue had been at the Institute for a much shorter amount of time. Despite this she could still speak Chinese well enough, and Ororo was going to recommend the next language are teacher move her along to German soon.

The two oldest teens Cyclops and Jean had been at the Institute the longest. Both of them could speak Spanish, Chinese, and German while Scott could speak Japanese. Jean could also speak Italian and Greek.

Kitty however had both of them beaten, able to speak all those language just as fluently as they could, plus Vietnamese as well. Kitty had chosen Vietnamese because she had several Vietnamese friends when she was younger before they moved away.

The curly-haired teen grinned at her, then looked over at Harry. "So Teach, what do you have in store for us as a gift for the end of the year?"

"You'll just have to wait and see," Harry replied, smiling faintly. In point of fact he had already put some plans in motion for that, though when Emma found out about them she was probably going to be a little miffed that she hadn't been invited along. Unfortunately that probably was not going to happen anytime soon.

After that the meal continued quickly, and after the kids left Harry and Ororo teleported back to the Castle this time using Cory.

Jean had initially wanted to travel with them after the test the back to the Castle, but her work on Cerebro was not going nearly as quickly as she could help. Unfortunately it definitely looked as if it was a programming issue, and she didn't have nearly as good a handle on that aspect as she did on the mechanical engineering.

However she could hopefully figure out what the problem was. She had already deduced that one issue was the fact that the system was not using as much power as it was taking in, and she and Evan were going to take it apart this afternoon to see if there were anything else wrong with it. Of all the other kids only Evan had the dexterous hands and fingers necessary for some of the work.

As they were walking into the school Kitty spotted her boyfriend and ran over, smacking Lance in the shoulder. 'Where the heck've you been huh? I thought we were supposed to hang out this weekend."

Lance shrugged. "Clint took me with him on an assignment to 'show me the joys of boring guard duty.'"

"So what really happened?" Kitty asked shrewdly.

"Can't tell you." He flinched a little at the look his girlfriend shot him at that but he shrugged uncomfortably. "Seriously I can't tell you. It's all really hush-hush stuff." The fact that SHIELD had ordered and actually successfully enforced a media and communication blackout of the battle against the Destroyer which had taken place in a town in Nevada had hammered home how seriously these people took their security. Despite not agreeing with their whole 'humanity isn't ready to know there's a real race of gods out there' belief, he wasn't about to share any of what he saw without permission.

Kitty glared at him and turned away with a huff, leaving him to gap after her. "What did I say?"

Evan patted him on the shoulder. "No idea man, just put it down as one of those inexplicable female things huh? Now, are you prepared for the hell that is exam week?" The skater took one look at Lance's face and chuckled. "Guess not…"

OOOOOOO

Jean exited her physics test stretching languidly and ecstatic about having gotten the hardest test she was going to be taking this week out of the way so quickly. Moreover she knew as soon as she handed it in that she had aced it. No matter what her asshole of a teacher tried to do there was no way he could give her less than 100 on that test.

She was about to make her way down the stairs to meet up with Scott and the others and head home when the principal's secretary ran up to her.
"Ms. Gray, could you come in with me please, the principal wants to speak with you." Since testing was still going on the acting principal had decided to send his secretary out rather than use the intercom.

The acting principal was a youngish man, barely pushing 40 yet despite this was rather experienced at his job. He had been Vice Principal at two public schools before this, and had looked at the job at the private school Bayville high as a definite step up without being too taxing. He had stepped in only last week, since because this was a private school there had been no system in place to take over when Ms Darkholme disappeared so suddenly without any warning.

That week had been spent going over the paperwork, getting a feel for the school and laying down the law in no uncertain terms to the teachers that worked here while causing a minimum of fuss to the students. The principal was determined to keep the job, and was trying to do his best to impress the community as a whole.

When the redhead that was the focus of so many of the more esoteric and immoral rumors came in, for just a moment he forgot her age and the face that she was a student, simply looking at Jean like the woman she was. "Ah, Ms. Grey," he said smiling a little smarmily at the young and incredibly attractive young woman. "Come in and take a seat please."

Jean did not normally use her telepathy consciously because in her case it was more emotion than thought related then either Emma or Betsy. Betsy was more empathic than Emma, but not by much, and both of them could not receive emotion as clearly or as easily as Jean could if she tried. Or even if she didn't try unfortunately, and the spike of lust the middle-aged man front of her had felt when she walked in had almost made her turn around and leave.

Instead she sat straight in her chair her arms crossed in front of her chest and her manner as cold as she could make it. In point of fact she took notes from when she had seen Emma pull off a time or two.

It seemed to work as the man immediately leaned back frowning and wondering what message he had accidentally sent the young woman. He took a moment to recompose himself and he said "Are you aware that you are up for evaluation as valedictorian?"

"I am Sir."

Her response didn't give him any openings, and he said rather awkwardly "Well there have been some questions about recent rumors about you Ms. Gray that could if at all substantiated, negate that."

Jean shrugged. "Fighting rumors is a difficult thing sir, one that I do not have the patience or desire to do at this point in my life."

"So is there any substance to those rumors that have been swirling about you?" he asked bluntly.

"Sir, those rumors were all started by my ex-boyfriend who is it cheating SOB and his friends. You might not have realized it but here at this school the high school jocks tend to run the show." The principal nodded grimly. He had noticed that in fact, and if he kept this job that was going to change in the years to come. "He didn't like the fact that I didn't put out, and when we broke up after I found him cheating on me at a local discotheque, he decided to put out all these rumors about me."

"So you are not in fact a lesbian?" The principal asked, wanting to know the truth.

"Should that really matter to for this discussion Sir?" she asked sharply, deciding not to make things easy for this man.

"Why would my personal preferences matter to this discussion? They shouldn't, after all that would be discrimination under the law and even private schools are answerable to that. I've told you all I want to tell you sir, you need to make up your own mind on whether or not those rumors are enough of her recent not give me that valedictorian slot. Frankly it's no skin off my back either way." With that she stood up stiffly and without waiting to be dismissed swiftly walked out of his office.

Behind her the principal rubbed his face thoughtfully then shrugged and decided to let the young woman's grades speak for themselves. This community needed a good kick in the ass anyway, and if it came to it, that young woman was wearing the boots to do it.

OOOOOOO

Harry and Ororo waved goodbye as the teen's left for school, then after a brief but heartfelt kiss separated to work on their own little projects for the rest of the day. While Ororo went up to high note to spend some time with Melody, Harry went back to Hogwarts. For the next several hours he continued to work on the runic arrays for the Room of Requirement, then decided he had enough of writing, rewriting and staring at runes for the day, and decided to pop back over to New York and visit Dr. Strange.

Having learned his lesson however he popped back to the mansion and called ahead, and got Stephen himself this time. "Ahh Young Harry, I was just about to call you. If you have time, please come by, I think we have much to talk about."

Harry did so, and not 20 minutes later found himself sitting at a table sipping tea with Stephen while he recounted what had occurred in London.

During this summary Stephen was astonished, worried and guilty in turns.

Despite the fact that he could never have known what was going on, especially given the interference he had been picking up because of the dimensional instability in the walls between dimensions around America at the time, this definitely sounded like something that the Sorcerer Supreme should've handled. "I have to apologize to you Harry, if I had known that it was going to be that big an event, I would never have allowed you to handle it alone."

"Selene herself was not an issue," Harry replied. "It was her plan and her forces that I would've had trouble with if I had been alone." Even that was actually understating things.

Harry could've overcome the numbers difference by simply spawning more golems, though he probably would not have been worth much after the battle if he had done so enough to cover the entire city. But fighting Selene and her lieutenants all alone would have been much more difficult, possibly impossible even for Harry.

"Nonetheless, this sort of thing, with magic users using their magic to control, dominate or otherwise take advantage of normal people is what the Sorcerer Supreme is supposed to block. This Selene is known to me from the files and accounts of past Sorcerer Supremes, specifically when civilization was beginning in China, and again in ancient Rome." Now armed with the library spells Harry had given him, Steven regularly spent a few hours a day reading the accounts of his master and the Sorcerer Supreme before him. Some of them were truly fascinating, and many warned of possible magical threats that were still out there that he would have to be on the watch for.

"She was that old, really?" Harry was surprised, since he had not actually been impressed by Selene's fighting ability. She hadn't used her own mobility well, she seems to wish to overpower or overawe him with major spells rather than subtle ones, and didn't seem to be able to handle some of the spells he threw at her in turn.

He voiced those thoughts and Steven chuckled. "I believe she spent most of her time hiding after a few initial losses against other sorcerers including one of my predecessors. And I do not know how much of that time was spent in stasis healing after her losses. I know that at least once her body was burned to ash by a spell. That would cut into that time considerably I imagine."

Harry nodded thoughtfully. "That would do it I suppose." I went from fighting Masters and journeymen to fighting all the time in the Negative Zone, against opponents all over the spectrum of power and skill, he thought to himself. That probably shaped my abilities much more than I would care to admit. Her abilities were made to combat normal people or swiftly kill other magic users she had an experience advantage over rather than in a prolonged engagement. She was also probably used to having a power advantage, and she sure as hell didn't have that against me.

That was actually one of the reasons why he was rushing forward with his plans for the Room of Requirement. He needed to get a handle on how his magical numbers equated to power, and the RoR was one of the few places he thought he might be able to go all out without doing some permanent damage to the environment. He also wanted to practice with wielding raw magic rather than spells, and his common sense told him that would be both loud and tough on himself and the area around him.

Those two things had made him prioritize the Room of Requirement over other projects, like hunting down the 'Dark Zones' that William had mentioned. His other major project, the artificial eyes for Betsy, was one he was hopefully going to turn over to Dr. Druid, since in all honesty he hadn't the foggiest notion of where to start on it, and didn't want to get the young woman's (she was actually two years older than him, but Harry didn't know that) hopes up.

"Still," Stephen said standing up and moving to one of his bookshelves. Here in his sitting room it looked like a normal bookshelf, full of medical books, a few fantasy books and dozens of history and nonfiction texts. However when Steven's hand came within an inch of it there was a slight shimmer in the air and the illusion of a regular bookshelf faded, leaving in its place a bookshelf made of dark wood and iron holding only a few large tomes as well as quite a lot of what Harry recognized as paraphernalia for rituals.

Harry smiled internally. Now if Selene had known how to create wards like that, ones I couldn't detect, the battle would've gone quite differently. Every-time I'm here I'm reminded that Sorcerer Supreme is not just a position that gives its bearer greater power or even control, it comes with that most dangerous of magical power-ups, knowledge. If only Stephen didn't need to make all these deals with Elder Gods for some of his power, calling on them for so many of his most devastating spells… That still bothers me a lot if I'm honest.

Steven continued "Still, I should've gone with you to handle it. Young Wanda and Clea could have handled things in Chicago easily enough."

"Really, Wanda is that powerful already? I notice they aren't here right now. And did you ever find out what was causing the weakness in dimensional wall?"

"Oh yes, an… individual from a pocket dimension that is connected to our own came through a few weeks ago, and several more came through a few days after that and then there was another one a few days ago. None of them were demons of denizens of the Dark Dimensions however. I believe they fought a battle over in Nevada somewhere, and are all gone now." Stephen shrugged unconcern. He was rarely interested in anything outside of his own purview, and while the Asgardians were certainly other-dimensional, they were not invaders. More like fellow Earthmen returning for a brief visit after having moved on.

"I see," said Harry frowning thoughtfully, and wondering what that was all about before shrugging in turn. Like Steven he had his own issues to see to, and was not inclined to go around picking fights when he didn't need to.

He took the book on air ley-lines and their used from the older man thankfully, smiling faintly at how large the thing was, as big across as both of his hands put together. On the cover was the words Magic of the Ether, a treatise on the leylines of the Air.

"That book should help you do whatever it is you wish to do with the air ley-lines, but I would urge you to read it entirely through before performing any experiment, And again I am in your debts for what you did in London, and if you ever need my aid, don't hesitate to ask."

Harry shook his head smiling faintly. "I could use some help right now, but most of the reasons why would take up a lot of your time and I'm not willing to do that. If I do need help in the future however, I'll call you."

OOOOOOO

In that pocket dimension that Steven Strange mentioned a conversation was going on between a father and son. Nothing unusual in the normal course of things, but t in this case the father was Odin King of the Asgardians, and the son was Thor, God of thunder.

Despite being an ancient and powerful being however that would not be the first impression someone from Earth would have upon looking at Odin. With his untamed gray beard falling down to his stomach, his gray hair falling down his back, the eye patch over one eye, and wearing what would appear to be ancient armor to any human covering his chest, a child looking at him would rather call him a rather well-to-do pirate the was able to get out of the business than a king. Thor on the other hand, despite the armor that he carried in the hammer at his side and the cape on his back, looked very much like a surfer boy crossed with one of the more serious sorts of body builder.

"I realize that it seemed over-harsh of me in your eyes my son, but Loki was too dangerous, too arrogant and too power mad, never could I have approved of him, even if I knew my refusal to do so would be the cause of his willingly falling into the abyss. His machinations have us on the brink of war with the ice giants, a war I have spent eons attempting to postpone. Worse, they have allied with the trolls of the nether realms. We are ill for war on this scale, yet Loki's provocation of them have them near to storming the gates. If they join with the dark elves, it will be even worse."

"I realize that father," said Thor heavily, "yet he is still my brother. Whatever his actual parentage we were raised together, and it strikes at my heart knowing that he is now lost in the abyss.

After Thor and his friends had defeated the Destroyer armor they had, with the aid or Heimdall the all-seeing returned to Asgard, aiding in the defense of the city against a group of the Frost Giants that had seemingly been let into the city by Loki. With his plans to take the crown laid bare Loki was forced to fight Thor on the Bifrost bridge, where they both fell into the abyss that it spanned. Thor was saved by his father coming out of his Odinsleep in time to rescue him. Yet when Loki had declared that everything he had done was to get Odin's approval, Odin rejected him. This last act of seeming callousness was enough to make Loki scorn their father's aid and willingly fall into the abyss, disappearing into the never ending darkness below.

Yet it was not only the fate of his brother that bothered Thor. "Father," he said hesitantly. "I would like your permission to travel back to Midgard."

Odin looked at his son with his remaining eye, smirking slightly. "Your infatuation with that mortal woman Jane Foster? Heimdall told me about it. Mortals can be comely tis true, but they are not for wooing overtime my son, only bedding in the moment, get you gone the next."

"But father I…"

"No," Odin said abruptly. "For in truth, I will need your strength here. Did you not hear me a moment ago? The danger of war has not passed, the Frost giants are still making allies and preparing for war! Besides" Odin went on, laying one hand on his son's shoulder. "She is a mortal, with their minuscule lifespan in comparison to our own. Your Jane Foster will age, grow old and die and you will remain as you are unchanged in the same span. She will come to loathe you, come to hate you rather then feel affection for you as she sees the flow of time effect you not. Such as it always been, such it will always be. Mortals are but blinks in the eye to beings such as us. Tis better, as I said, to take what pleasure you can in the moment, never giving thy heart to such."

For a moment Thor looked rebellious but then he sighed remembering all too well where his headstrong attitude had gotten him recently. As you say, father."

"Good." Odin clapped his hands down on both of his son's shoulders. "Now, be off with you. The Frost Giants will not test our defenses this night, but who knows what the morrow will bring? Go and rest while you can."

Thor bowed his head again turned and left, smiling internally. He had learned at least a few things from Loki, the art of dissembling for instance and the need to seem to be obedient at times. He would bide his time, but he was certain there would come a moment when he could slip away to see Jane again. While it was true that in time Jane would grow old and die and he would remain young fit and powerful, the future mattered not at all to him. It was the present that did and making it as sweet as possible.

OOOOOOO

Odin and his son were not the only beings from the realm of Asgard whose conversation revolved around the planet Asgardians called Midgard at that moment.

Hela was the as Guardian goddess of death, she who judged the dead of Asgard and sent their souls to Niflheim or Hel. Yet it was not by her own power or even Odin that she had this duty. No, it was to another that she owed her allegiance, a being from which her power was taken. And it was to this being, that she had gone to meet after the recent events on Midgard.

The battle against the destroyer armor had brought to her attention that it had been nearly two thousand years since an Asgardian had died on Midgard. What was more, when she looked closer she noticed that there were still a few thousand or so believers in the Asgardians. So she had come here to make certain that her age-old agreements with her mistress was still intact despite the fact that eons had passed since it had been needed. So Hela appeared in Death's castle, resplendent in her red and crimson armor showcased her magnificent body.

She was dressed in a black and red leather corset with a diamond shape cut out of the center allowing her taut stomach to be seen behind crisscrossing leather bindings. Below that she wore a leather belt below with these central symbol of a skull connected to more leather straps that travelled down her thighs to her boots. On her back she wore a cape of red, clasped between her breasts by a clasp with a skull motif on it, letting quite a bit of skin be seen between the cloak and the top of the corset which pushed her breasts up and out. On her hands she wore gauntlets of black leather with long claws added to her fingers made of black metal. She wore a mask which covered her face from her eyes to the back of her head. It had wings fanning out to either side of her head, framing her flaming red eyes. Horns rose from the back of it in an intricate pattern. Her lips were the red of flesh blood her skin was white, and she was altogether beautiful.

Despite being the local personification of Death, Hela was one of the most beautiful goddesses the Asgardians boasted. There were some that said that Sif was more beautiful, and others who said that Amora the enchantress was more beautiful, but those who had seen her in person all said that Hela was the most beautiful.

Hela also had brains and intelligence to go with her beauty, and she immediately realized that something was going on. She had been in Death's domain in person to speak with the avatar of the eternal end many times before. Usually she was there to argue about jurisdictional issues with Pluto, that stupid fool who was never content with his lot, or the other now faded aspects of death. Every time lady Death would always be looking at them the moment they arrived, those bottomless blue orbs set into her skull face staring at them, boring into them with the promise that someday, they too would meet Death in truth. It was very disconcerting, and made certain that none of their arguments ever lasted very long. True immortals like Pluto or simply long-lived beings like Hela never liked being reminded that they too were not immune to the eternal end.

Now however lady Death was standing at one of the windows staring at something in her hand, turning it this way and that. It was a small green thing, a soul Hela saw, steeped in evil and ancient power that was all she could tell from where she stood. That and the fact that it screamed every time death moved her hand slightly. Disturbed by her mistress's lack of attention Hela spoke up far more hesitantly than anyone would normally hear from her. "My, my lady?"

Death seemed not to hear her and Hela moved closer, "lady," she said again, "I am here to…"

Death looked up at her now, and Hela found herself spit upon those light blue orbs of power and cold. She froze, then sighed in relief as the look faded to the normal (still intimidating but not blood freezing) look. Death's free hand waved slightly, two fingers in the air as if pointing up and around

Hela bowed. "Thank you lady."

Death very rarely talked, but her servants knew how to interpret even her tiniest of gestures. That gesture Hela took to mean that she could take the souls of any Asgardian that died on Midgard, but that any believer would not be subject to her unless they died in battle. Little nuances like that were what Death used to communicate, and it was not as if Hela was new at interpreting these things after all.

In fact Death had only spoken to Hela once. She and Pluto had been having an argument after a battle between their pantheons in which a few on both sides had fallen in battle. Hela had maintained that the winner should get the spoils, and the Asgardians had won the day. Pluto had decried this, saying that winning or losing did not matter at all in their line of work, it was simply who or what pantheon they belonged to or believed in that mattered.

Death had solve the issue by simply shouting them down with one word, 'Enough', and then informing them with a single gesture that would keep their own believers but that the difference between the two would go entirely to her rather than passing through their realms. It had been the perfect solution, one that neither of them were happy with. But arguing with Death in her anthropomorphic personification was as futile as it was when death actually came for you.

With her questions answered Hela made to leave, but Death raised her free hand again stopping her. "My lady?"

Death held up the hand that contained the soul she had been mildly tormenting a moment ago. Hela looked at it obediently and one eyebrow rose behind her red mask in surprise. "Selene, one of the self-made immortals? How did that come to pass?"

Death did not answer merely raising her free hand in front of Hela space. Suddenly Hela could see as if from of view of a God a battle, a battle that would have been worthy of a song in the halls of Asgard between two magic users. One was swift and nimble, powerful too by the spells employed, using tactics and guile against his older and more experienced opponent.

She watched as the younger male sorcerer, with eyes the color of green emeralds sparking with magical power slowly overcame the ancient sorceress, and called upon a kind of fire spell that Hela could almost feel was connected to her and Death in some fashion.

She gaped at the power and majesty of the young man, for she could see beyond his mortal shell into the magic that wove about his very being, she saw the power there. If there was one thing that any female goddess was turned on by, it was power. The fact that he was fate touched to her senses, more that he was a winner of a fate sometime in his past made him even better in Hela's opinion. Hela decided then and there that she would have to find out more about this mortal, he was simply the most intriguing specimen she had seen in a long time.

The image ended after Selene's death, and lady Death's hand fell from before Hela's eyes. As her Asgardian servant looked at her she spoke a full sentence, something that Hela had never even thought she would ever hear. "What does Death get a defender of life for performing such a boon?"

Hela now understood. Something that had always irritated Death was the fact that there were so many beings that were beyond her purview in one fashion or another. She had no problem with the other eternal forces being beyond her power, such was right and just and if they were not then there would be no point to her being around either. But when individuals, especially normal mortals figured out ways to become immortal in some fashion, that irritated Death because it wrecked havoc with the paperwork. She actually also had issues with the Asgardians considering their whole death and rebirth cycle, but she wasn't about to tangle with The ones Who Watch Above that had set it in motion. Not yet at any rate. She knew even they would fall eventually.

"I-Um," Hela said stuttering a little at the sheer shock of being spoken to in a full sentence by Death. "I would have to think about that lady." Obviously it didn't matter to Death that Harry didn't know that he had gone her a boon by taking out set so much of the paperwork, but the gift would have to be appropriate.

Something drew both of the women's attention to the window again, and Hela looked out one eyebrow raised behind her mask in amusement.

Somewhere elsewhere in the universe a planet was sacrificed, not just killed or conquered or wiped out, but sacrificed. And not sacrificed to any particular god, not sacrificed to the hunger of a being such as Galactus. It was simply sacrificed because it was there, and a being had decided to kill everyone on it and send their souls to Death.

"You have a suitor?" Hela asked, feeling a little bolder now that she had heard that voice, and for some reason thinking that this was a moment of camaraderie between the two of them. In fact she had always felt closer to Death than Pluto and most of the others who had since faded simply because they were both women. Or at least that Death had shaped its anthropomorphic personification of Death into the shape of a woman.

Death shook her head resignedly shaking one hand in the air as if in a throwing away gesture and turned back to their conversation.

The interrogative look she gave Hela was just as eloquent as it always was and the death goddess of the Asgardians shrugged. "If you wish to simply send him something that says a job well done, sending something in the form of some sort of apparel of some kind would be the normal thing."

Death frowned thoughtfully. Hela understood of course, just as much as she could tell that Death had frowned despite the fact that her face was that of a unmoving skull. "If not that milady then perhaps a dream of some kind. Send him a dream of something this woman had, items of power she had gathered or knowledge of that nature."

Her mistress cocked her head to one side for a moment and nodded. She then waved one hand and Hela knew she had just been dismissed so with a final bow turned away.

As she teleported away Hela frowned thoughtfully. It was quite obvious that Death did not have any emotional feelings towards this human, but her interest in him was something akin to a moth and a flame. Yet lady Death was intelligent, ancient beyond all reckoning, Hela was certain she would get over it eventually. Still Death had aroused Hela's own interest in this young mortal, and she was interested in finding out more.

With that in mind she reappeared in her own realm, and made her way to her scrying room to see what she could find about this young man with wild hair and eyes the color of emeralds that flashed with such power and majesty.

OOOOOOO

After having come home from their separate tests Jean and Evan went right to work on Cerebro. Since Evan had history, and he knew he could at least get a passing grade in that he didn't need to rush off and study, and besides this was interesting. For Jean the only test she had been remotely worried about had been the physics exam. Now that it was over she was going to devote as much time as she could to her various projects.

Yet despite her hopes about an hour into their work Jean stood back and shook her head. "I think we've solved all of the mechanical issues we can. The power issue is done and the weird issue with it not being able to connect to the satellites too."

Evan scowled a little, standing back in turn. "By your tone I'm guessing you don't think that will be enough to solve the problem."

"No I don't. I think the search parameters in the programming is faulty. The professor and I can still use it to find other mutants well enough if they are actively using their powers. But using Cerebro to find them when they aren't, or to find mutants before their power activates? That's not going to happen."

Jean was not happy with how clunky this system was. What the system did was separated into two parts. One portion searched the world using hijacked satellites to look for 'mutant signatures'. That was the part Jean felt needed to be revamped badly. In her opinion it was only a few steps up from simply having a computer skim the internet, magazines and newspapers for mention of odd happenings or strange sightings. Not at all up to the task.

The other portion of the system was connected to the helmet that was part of the system which allowed a user to connect to it mentally. That part of the program allowed a telepath to send his or her power over a far wider distance then they would have normally, allowing them to skim over the surface thoughts of individuals in the area, sort of like sonar looking for something in a specific area. For someone like Jean, that could allow her to cover the whole of the United States. For someone like Charles, it could allow him to search the entire world.

The problem was that unless the first program caught something and drew it to your attention, a telepath had to be hooked up to the system to find anything it wouldn't. Thus it came down to luck far more than she was willing to admit. There was also something else wrong with the actual program that was niggling at the redhead, but she couldn't bring it to mind just yet.

"Let's hope he's got some ideas on how to fix it then." Evan said. "Did you hear by the way? The Prof said there's going to be another group of mutants moving in with us here sometime this summer."

"That's cool," said Jean. "I bet Scott is chomping at the bit to get them into training."

"Not so much really, he's mellowed out a lot lately you know."

"I do know," said Jean smiling faintly and leading the way out of the room. In one hand Jean cradled a copy of the machine's programming, which she wanted to look over. She wasn't nearly as good at programming as at mechanical engineering though, so she wasn't certain what she could do there. "Scott's matured a lot in the past few weeks. I'm proud of him, and I think he'll make an excellent team leader for you all, and for the new kids."

Evan nodded. There had been a time when he chomped at the bit under Scott's leadership, but they had both grown up a lot in the last few months, and Evan knew now that he wasn't leader material. He was a good fighter, innovative and flexible, but he didn't have that grasp of empathy, situational awareness and small group tactics that a field leader needed.

One the other hand, Scott had gained the empathy and flexibility that he had so desperately needed to become a more effective leader. He was still stiff at times and very regimented, but he was also personable, innovative, and outgoing. There was also a maturity, a sense of tried and tested confidence to Scott that he hadn't had before. No longer was Scott trying to measure up to Xavier, or Logan or even Harry, he was simply being his own man and that was enough.

After saying her goodbyes to Evan, Jean asked Cory, who Harry had assigned to her almost full time, to teleport her to Hogwarts. With her work on Cerebro coming to a dead end, she wanted to work on the wiring in the power generator.

She found Harry outside the castle setting up what looked like a large wind turbine by the lake's edge. "Do you need any help?" she moving up beside him and kissing the back of his neck gently.

Harry turned and gave Jean a kiss on the lips in turn pulling her into a brief hug before saying Not really, though if you could find where you want the electrical generator for the Castle to go that would be a good thing. And maybe start making some headway on putting down the wires?"

"Are there any rooms that you we don't want power lines going to?"

"The room of requirement," Harry responded promptly. "I have no idea if there's a saturation point for magic interfering with electronics, certainly my own lightning runes short out electronics rather quickly even if ambient magic doesn't have the same effect, and I don't want to know what would happen in there. Keep them out of the Hearthstone area as well, and the room next to it. Other than that, I'd like modern lighting in every room, including the central hall, the staircases, the dining hall and the training areas I've created downstairs."

Leaving what he had been working on Harry walked her through his the changes he had made to the basement already, explaining the setup he wanted to use for the rest of the castle: "Gryffindor dormitories for the students, youngest to highest, with the third floor being used as the primary learning area for use of their powers. Fourth floor for regular classes up to the middle school level, high school for fifth and the sixth floor turned into housing for teachers and others, including any guests or short term residents. The first two floors I'm going to convert to general science labs, biology, metallurgy, engineering, expand as we go along. Basement and seventh floor for the team we're going to put together. That's just a rough outline of course, but it gives you an idea of where we're going with this. Where would you want to put the generator?"

"Normally the generator would be in the basement out of the way somewhere," she said thoughtfully. "But since that's no long an option somewhere central would be good. You said you made a room with a map of the school?"

Harry nodded and they headed up to the seventh floor, occasionally stopping to kiss, enjoying their new relationship very much indeed.

Once they reached the room with the large scale model of the castle in it Harry walked her through what he had done to it and what he planned to add in the future. He finished by saying "I realize most of this could be done through technology eventually but at this point it's simply easier and cheaper to do it with magic for me."

Jean frowned. "Can I interact with this model thing? Will the spells recognize me even though I'm not a magic user?"

Harry nodded and she stepped forward, touching one section of the outer castle and watching in surprise as the rest of the map disappeared to be replaced by a blown up version of that floor, rotated onto its side in front of her in midair. She tapped the solid feeling construct again on the side and it went back to the regular castle view. "Impressive."

"That took me an entire day today, but it actually wasn't that intensive. Hogwarts seems to be able to feel what we wanted to do, and for something like this it worked with me since it was mostly pure spellwork, and my intentions were clear, that of making the castle safer for our eventual students. It wasn't pure runic work, not like the room of requirement, which the castle strangely enough can't work with. There are other limits of course but this was actually fun to play with at the time."

Jean laughed, "The idea of a sentient Castle is actually pretty cool so long as is on our side."

"The castle is on the side of the students and the headmaster in that order. The fact that we want it to be a school as it was designed to be is probably a mark in our favor, as is my own role as headmaster, though I have no idea how sentient it is. The Hogwarts in my birth dimension was just short of being able to communicate, this one seems to not be nearly as far along in the process. Possibly because it stood empty save for dementors for so long, though it's further along that road than I would have expected in many ways. I'm just glad it didn't take in some of the essence of the dementors." Harry said seriously.

"I'm going to say amen to that," said Jean shaking her head and bending over the map again. After a moment of flipping through all the floors she nodded. "This little room here should be good for a generator, it's deep enough inside to be protected, it's on the third floor and wiring should be simple enough or at least made simpler thanks to its central location, and it's too small to be used as a classroom."

Harry gazed at the map for a moment then laughed. "Hah, that's the janitor's room, Old Filch's office, or at least it was in my old dimension! Oh that's rich, using the room of a man who hated all things muggle simply because he was born a squib to house a purely muggle device that well bring more muggle devices to life throughout the castle! Hah!" The humor was rather dubious since there had never been an Argus Filch in this dimension, but the idea appealed to Harry anyway.

He gave Jean another kiss, this time allowing his tongue to tap against her closed lips after a moment. Jean moaned low in her throat as her tongue darted out to duel with his but after a few minutes she pulled away reluctantly. "None of that," she gasped. "W-We've got too much to do, and I believe you promised me a real date after this week is over?"

"And I will fulfill that promise, lady fair," said Harry laughing.

The two broke apart there, with Jean going down to the small room that to Harry would always be connected to memories of the irascible, hateful caretaker to check it out and figure out where she wanted to put the generators in the room.

While the redhead worked on that, Harry went out and put up some more wind turbines. What he did was create a regular wind turbine by using his powers to cut and slice wood into the form of a wind turbine and then transfiguring the wood into metal. This way it would remain permanently, since it wasn't conjuration, which would normally dissipate over time given how much power you put into the spell but transfiguration, which could be made permanent much more easily. Then he set another pole in front of each of the wind turbines with a rune that would send wind through them. He created six such power turbines.

During this time Jean had figured out where she wanted the magical generator to go, as well as where the permanent generator would go once they've finished it. The idea would be to have one arc reactor, which Harry and Jean would work on in the near future, then to have the wind powered generator backing it up just in case or vice versa, that was still up in the air.

Next Jean sat down at the table in the great hall. Using Harry's laptop she created a 3-D map of the school to match the map up on the seventh floor, then made changes to it to show where the electrical runs would go.

By this point Harry was finished his job and came back in. At that point the two of them went back up to the seventh floor and the Hearthstone.

This was the first time Jean had been in this room, and she gaped at the massive slab of red-gray granite. It was almost a head taller than her, so wide around that it would take both Harry and Jean to circle it, and had light red striations running through its predominately gray body, with countless small runes imprinted everywhere on its sides. The thing seemed to pulse like a heart, giving off warmth and energy. "That," she said reverently, "that is amazing."

"I know," Harry replied, moving over and stroking the side of the stone as if it was a favorite pet or something (though Harry wouldn't put it that way, even in the dark confines of his own mind. Hedwig would never put up with him having another pet/animal friend).

Is it my imagination or did the pulsing there start to go faster for a moment? Jean thought before shaking it off.

Harry continued. "A regular Hearthstone doesn't look like this, it's just a big slab of granite with runes etched on it, but this one… I don't know if it was just the sheer amount of magic going through it or what, but I could definitely say this thing is alive, just as much as the one back in my old dimension. Sentient I'm still not certain of, but certainly living."

"I agree" Jean breathed again before shaking her head. "Anyway, let's get this done."

As Master of Hogwarts Harry could, given time, rearrange the layout of the castle. The magic of the walls and hallways allowed this, and he had used it the day before to make the changes he did in the basement. This change however would be going everywhere in the castle, barring the Room of Requirement course. On top of that it was more a series of tiny changes that made up one big change rather than a series of small changes that equated to a medium change.

"Fiddly bits," he muttered to himself as he laid his hands on top of the Hearthstone. The wall between this room and the next disappeared, allowing the map of Hogwarts to be seen. With a thought the scale model of the castle broke apart, with each level of Hogwarts separated from the map twisting in midair.

Jean shook her head amused. "I spent half the day figuring out how to use hard light and how to project it and you can do this with magic?"

"Magic and science mix my love," he said softly. "This was the work of a full day for me, and it wasn't as if I came up with the idea from scratch. No one else could do this either, only myself as master of the wards and Hogwarts. And only someone in my presence and with my approval could even manipulate the map at all."

Jean nodded, and the two of them worked together to create the changes she had made on her 3-D map on his computer, going level by level. They had to backtrack and correct things often, the layout of the castle including its main supports columns and beams just slightly different in areas from the map she had created. But this was almost incidental. Putting the real changes into place took forever.

Doing the dungeons the first floor and the second floor took them five hours to do, since the changes were very gradual, the stone shifting and moving out of its own way, the Castle as a whole creaking and groaning around them.

After they were done with the second level Harry shook his head. "I think we're done for the day." He pulled his hands away staring at the maps as it went back to normal. "I think those changes took permanently, but let's wait a day to see if the castle reverts back for some reason before we keep going. After all it wouldn't be good if the changes are only temporary unless someone is here forcing them into being"

Jean nodded and stretched, reveling openly in the appreciative glance Harry sent her way as she did. She noticed it was near 12 o'clock at in the evening local time, and shook her head. "Are Melody and Ororo joining us or are we joining the kids back it the mansion for dinner?"

"Ororo and Melody should be here soon for dinner, at least I think so," said Harry shaking his head wearily. Working on the Room of Requirement had taken a lot out of him, and so had this. Fiddly bits, Fiddly bits, oh god save me from the fiddly bits!

Indeed Melody and Ororo had already arrived from High Note, and were waiting for the two workers in the dining hall. The two of them had spent the day together, though not on High Note. Ororo had introduced Melody to Kitty and the three of them had gone out on the town for a time.

FLASHBACK:

Kitty stood waiting in the mansion's foyer. Ororo had told her that the two of them would go out today for some girl time down in Bayville, since like Jean the only final she had been at all worried about was the first one she had this week. Every other one would be easy in comparison, and Ororo knew it, so had no issues with taking the young teen out.

She looked up as a sound from the staircase drew her attention and smiled when she saw Ororo, dressed in one of her semi-business suit ensembles, then cocked her head as she looked at the young girl that was holding onto one of Ororo's hands.

She moved toward them while Ororo turned to look down at the young house-elf who had handled their transportation, a young female with a small pristine blue dress on, with the Potter family crest set into one puffy shoulder piece. "Thank you for your help Clare."

Clare was Gordon's young daughter, barely the house-elf equivalent of a sixteen year olds. She was one of the youngest house-elves, and her father had gifted her with a real name, as he had been named by his family. She was one of the ten new house-elves transferred from Hogwarts up to High Note and was also turning into the second best 'popper' among the house-elves. "You are most welcome miss, if you need anything please call for me."

With that the house-elf popped away, and Ororo turned to smile at Kitty. "Hello Kitten, how did you do on your test today? This is Melody, a young lady who Harry saw fit to rescue from durance vile. You might have heard about her from Nightcrawler."

Kitty smiled. "I think I did well Ororo, but we'll see. Hello Melody, I'm Kitty Pryde, but this one and Teach both call me kitten."

Melody looked up at the older girl who radiated such fun, almost cuddly songs, like some of the Disney songs she had listened to lately, with lots of flutes and clarinets. "Hello, Ms Kitten. But I thought it was lions who had prides, shouldn't that be your nickname instead?"

Kitty giggled. "Well sure, but just between you and me," she leaned down to whisper into the younger girl's ear. "I'm more of a cuddler than a mauler." Before Melody could object (not that she would have of course) Kitty had picked her up into a hug. "Ohmygosh, she's so cute Ororo!"

"We like to think so," Ororo replied, smiling faintly as she saw Melody's bright smile. In many ways the young girl was still not used to physical affection, but that was slowly changing under the nigh constant positive reinforcement Harry and the others lavished on her.

At this point they were interrupted by Charles pushing himself out to join them from his office. "Ah, I thought I recognized that voice. How are you my dear, do you enjoy living with Mr. Potter?"

Melody waved from where she was still being cuddled like a giant teddy bear by Kitty. "Hello Professor, yes I love living with Mr. Harry. I have my own bed, birds to sing with, a TV I can watch movies on, and playmates too! Oh, but your songs are so muddled professor." She frowned a little, looking at the muddled lines songs and jumbled notes that made up the other man at the moment. The single spell of purpose the one that so defined him seemed to have diminished and become muddied.

The professor chuckled, reaching up to where Kitty held the young girl off the floor to ruffle Melody's multi-colored hair. "I'm afraid thinking in circle can do that to one my dear."

Charles had not had an easy time of it since Jean had told him about the 'trust me' field he was putting out subconsciously. While he had stopped it, the fact he had been putting out a telepathic field of that nature without even realizing it had brought into question whether or not he had used it to influence the rest of his charges like he had apparently tried to do to Jean. In the end he had decided that maybe questioning his own decisions and thoughts would make him a better person in the long run, but his self-confidence had taken a hit.

"Are you ready to go Kitten?" Ororo asked.

Kitty nodded then looked down at the younger girl as she set her onto the floor again. "This is going to be really odd though." The two adults looked at her quizzically and she shrugged. "Well, I mean, I'm used to being the young one, now I have to act like the big sister here. How am I supposed to act?"

Ororo and Charles exchanged a look and then laughed, while Kitty pouted. She had been serious darn it.

End Flashback

When the two walked into the dining hall Ororo took one look at their weary faces and shook her finger at Harry. "Sit," she ordered. They both sat down and she sighed. "You two look exhausted. Honestly Harry I think we need to get some more help, you can't keep doing everything yourself. Didn't you tell Dr. Druid you might have a job for him?"

"I was thinking of using him as a researcher honestly. He's got a master's in psychiatry, so having him work with the potions would be a good idea. The house elves should do most of the work creating the potions but I would like someone else to oversee it. I'd also like him to look into creating a reaction table dealing with the potions , why this potion does what it does, how it does it etc."

That in point of fact was one of several areas he wanted actual scientific research done on. The other was the effect magic had that allowed it to extend the lives of its users. It was a known fact that wizards lived longer than nonmagical humans. Even for those born without cores who later gained them like the sorcerers of this world this was true, but why? What did the magic do to their bodies to slow down the aging process? It was an area of research Harry was determined to see expanded in the future, but one he didn't have the background to pursue on his own.

"I'd also like to ask Dr. Druid if he can create magical limbs for other people. I noticed when we were talking his limbs specifically his fingers on his wooden hand moved as if they were real fingers. I know that there are prosthetics that come close to that, but they are massively expensive at the moment." Unfortunately Harry was reasonably certain that it was the user's own magic that made that possible. But if Harry could somehow find another way to power them…

"Unfortunately that's all for the long term, right now he couldn't help me much love. He doesn't use runes and no one but me as master of the castle could do some of the things we're doing there, which neatly covers most of my present projects. I wish I did have more help, then maybe I could spend the time to go over and see Betsy Braddock and see what I could do to help her, but I just don't have the time."

"Then bring Dr. Druid in now and let him gain the experience, put him in charge of the farming section, ask his opinion on some of the projects you are currently thinking of using your runic arrays for, maybe he can come up with alternatives. And I will be taking that list of people Emma passed to use as possible employees." Ororo reposted decisively. "You look exhausted my love, not in body perhaps but in mind, and we need to start delegating some of the workload."

"I have someone we want need to think of contacting as well," said Jean. "He is a Native American named Forge, you remember, Emma used him as an excuse to come to the Institute? He's real, and his contact information was a part of what I took from the Cerebro mainframe." She shook her head "that didn't go nearly as well as I hoped. It can't detect mutants until they use their power, and even then it is far too hit or miss."

"That's isn't good," said Harry thinking hard.

"The problem is that there isn't any single gene that defines what a mutant is," said Jean. It's a whole series of genetic strands, and it's just the way they're put together can create a mutation. I have no idea how the hell we could scan for something that complicated."

"Nor do I Jean, but the Cerebro data will at least give us a starting point. And once we have a team together, will start to expand it to include a spy team to hunt for threats and endangered mutants. I hope to be able to use existing spy agencies or at least to use thier information, but we'll see."

After that Melody broke in and asked Jean if she had a favorite Disney movie, taking over control of the conversation and forcing it to a less serious topic.

After dinner the quartet adjourned to the castle's TV room where once again Harry used his lightning runes to momentarily power the TV and a new DVD player. They watched another old Disney movie called Water Babies. There wasn't nearly as many good songs in it, but Melody still had fun, and she and Jean decided to share an enlarged bed that Harry created. Jean was more than willing to share a bed with Ororo and Harry, but not when she had to get up in the morning. She was also certain that such a thing would challenge her self control in a big way, and she wasn't ready to say which way it would go at this point.

The next day Harry made good on his word, and went to see Dr. Druid, transporting the older man back to Hogwarts. The doctor was ecstatic at the knowledge that this place represented, and willingly signed a contract binding him to work for Harry in the realm of potions. The idea of mixing scientific methods and magical knowledge intrigue him tremendously, though as harry had predicted he didn't have the required runic knowledge to help Harry in any of his current project.

Harry did however run into a bit of good news: the changes he and Jean had wrought in the castle had taken. After she joined him the two of them were able to finish the rest of the redesign quickly, the castle now understanding what they were doing and working with them rather than passively letting them work on it. When they were done Jean got to work using her telekinetic powers to lay cable through the exposed runs. This was really fiddly, work, but it helped her practice her fine telekinetic control which was all to the good. In the end it would take her three days hard work to completely wire the castle, a task that would have taken a trained crew of electricians an equal number of weeks.

During this time she also learned that she was indeed going to be her graduating class valedictorian. This caused her a moments anxiety, but that was all. Over the next few evenings she and Melody spent quite a bit of time together laughing about something which she later enlisted the aid of Kurt in.

While Jean worked on the wiring both inside and outside the castle to the wind turbines, Harry spent his time working on the time manipulation runes. While difficult and finicky to get working they were not nearly as hard as the thousands of runic arrays he had to make work together to get the Room of Requirement to come out just right. They had a fantastically large start-up energy requirement but that was no problem for Harry. The time manipulation arrays was a major trial and error experiment, but over the next few days he would make a lot of progress on this project.

Dr. Druid would prove a capable student in runes, and would eventually be able to take over some of his tasks from Harry, but that was well into the future.

Of course the two of them were not the only ones working hard, Ororo did her part as well, and Emma's own trials were nothing to sneeze at.

OOOOOOO

Ororo spent Tuesday finalizing the interior design of the castle while Jean and Harry were working on putting down the wiring. She had decided to let the classrooms alone for the most part, but had designed one of them for herself. Whatever her other duties, she loved teaching different languages to people.

Along with her chosen trio of house elves, all three of whom had worked with her on various projects before, put it together. Instead of desks, there were dozens of soft plushy chairs and beanbags scattered around the room, next to which were small adjustable stands (bought in bulk from an IKEA) which students could use to hold their notes or, eventually, their laptops. The front of the room was demarked by a white board on one side and space enough for a computer screen on the other once the wiring was done. One whole side was dominated by a series of floor to ceiling windows, which was open to let in the sunlight and wind. Here in Scotland it was still somewhat cold at this time of year, but to Ororo that did not matter.

She hung some of her pictures and paintings from back in the mansion along the walls, as well as the many bachelors in languages she had earned by the doorway. All the language books she possessed, as well as most of the other books should possess went into a small bookshelf along the interior wall.

Once her room was finished, Ororo and her chosen helpers began to decorate the rest of the Castle. Instead of trying to put down rugs everywhere, Ororo had decided to only put down rugs in the living quarters, which helped immensely, and a single strip of loose carpet in the seventh floor's hallway. A few tapestries went on the walls in the hallways, but there were still a lot of room to be done there. Ororo, who was acting at the moment both as interior designer and possible principal of the school, knew that students of all ages could use that space to put up their own work.

After that she went down to the dungeons more than a little leery in all honesty, because she had avoided it up to this point fearing that her claustrophobia would hit her. Yet the moment Ororo stepped onto the staircase leading down she found a spell that Harry had devised to follow her around in the Castle. Across from her suddenly appeared window that showed her a scene from the outside.

She hesitantly reached out and gasped when she was able to actually open the window to let in the air from the outside. She stepped back, then hesitantly continued down into the dungeons, watching with widening eyes as the now open window followed her.

Ororo looked at the open window that had just followed her from the stairwell into the dungeon then looked down at one of her helpers, an ancient male house-elf named Wady. "Could you tell me if making the castle do this for me would be easy or hard?"

Wady cocked his head to the side, watching as the mistress walked on and the moving window followed her. "I's," he stopped as she looked at him and he gulped. "I don't know miss. It not be, um, it isn't something I's see, er I have seen before." He sighed in relief as she nodded approval at his corrections. "The moving bit, that bes, I mean that was probably very hard."

"That's what I thought. If you three could wait here for me, I just remembered something I need to do." With that Ororo turned and strode purposefully up the stairs.

She found Harry and Jean working in the map room, trying to fix an issue with the wiring setup on the fifth floor. They both looked up and Harry smiled at her, not raising his hands away from where they laid on top of the hearthstone. "What's up… O-Ororo?" His voice faltered as her walk suddenly became less purposeful and far more sensual. One corner of his brain wondered how the hell she was able to do that, look like both a stalking lioness and one of the sexiest thing on two legs. The rest of him however was too busy dealing with the sudden redistribution of the blood in his body to his lower regions.

Jean too gulped as Ororo stalked/slithered toward Harry, her own mind making a note to ask her soon to be lover how she was able to move like that. Then she simply smiled and decided to watch the show.

The African beauty slowly made her way towards her intended target, smiling as she saw his reaction. "I was just down in the basement my love, and I ran into a bit of spellwork that you created for me."

"O-oh?" Harry squeaked a little, wondering how the hell Ororo could make him act like this after all they had done together. "Er, I thought I'd leave it as a surprise did you mmpmhhh?"

Ororo interrupted the rather stupid question by putting her arms around Harry and kissing him on the lips. The kiss was loving, sensual and, to the watching Jean, hot as all get out. The kiss continued for some time, with Ororo putting all her emotion into it, letting her tongue out into Harry's mouth, where their tongues began to twin around his.

It was only when they had to breath that she relented, leaving a somewhat glassy-eyed Harry with a distinct trouser problem, very visible when she backed away. "Does that answer your question, you sweet, silly man?"

Jean chuckled and shook her head. "I think you broke him a little Ororo. I can practically see the blue screen of death in his eyes."

Ororo laughed and moved over to exchange a kiss with Jean, murmuring into her ear what Harry had done for her. Jean chuckled and hugged her friend, glad that Harry had come up with a way to combat her claustrophobia. It was something that Ororo had successfully kept a secret from all the kids including Jean before they became friends. Yet the redhead had since learned that it was something that truly disturbed Ororo, a terror from her worst nightmares. That Harry had gone to such lengths to stop Ororo from feeling it meant a lot to the weather goddess, and showed them both what lengths he was willing to go to for those he loved.

The two women broke off their embrace to look back over at Harry, who was still slumped against the hearthstone, his hands on top of it more to support him than any other reason at the moment, his brain slowly coming back online.

They laughed again, and this seemed to bring Harry out of his stupor. He first looked down at the hearthstone, where the red striations were for some reason pulsing more rapidly than normal, though they were calming down as he watched. For some reason he shook his head and muttered "Perverted rock."

The stone seemed to pulse once more almost in reaction then stilled to its normal rate and Harry looked up at his two ladies who were still looking at him, smiling faintly. He shook his head again and smirked at Ororo. "I'll take that as a yes?" they all laughed and after a few more kisses exchanged they all went back to work.

The rest of Ororo's limited work on interior design took the rest of that day. On the second day, while Harry and Jean continued their ongoing projects, Ororo began the interview process for their new company.

For this with the help of a few of the female elves (and Emma's example) Ororo dressed in a very smart business suit with an Egyptian cotton weave scarf around her neck, her hair tied behind her head into on and the necklace Harry had given her to control her emotional connection to the weather around her neck hidden under her shirt.

She was sitting in a café waiting for the two people she was here to interview from the Oxford University. Both had been recommended by Emma along with four more soon to be graduates she was thinking of scouting for her companies. Upon closer review however Harry and his ladies had decided that three of them looked a little too arrogant for him to want to work with, and the other had swiftly replied that he had already made a verbal agreement to work with another company. That he spoke as if that bound him as much as a written contract spoke well of the young man, but it also removed him from their discussions.

The remaining two were both going for their bachelor's degree in business, who Emma had exchanged e-mails with a time or two, and she felt were number two and number three of the six people from this school she had told them about. Emma had also bluntly told Harry that morning in her suite at the hotel in L.A. that if he didn't employ both of them she would be doing so soon enough.

Terrence Caspersen and Daniel Graham surprisingly came in together and Ororo looked them over, waving one hand to indicate they should join her at her table. As they walked toward her she took a moment to study them. Terrence was a black man as 'black as the ace of spades' as it were American national, wearing a very nice suit with a purple shirt underneath but not a tie, which was a mark against him in her opinion. So was the comment that he made as he walked towards her, which carried to her despite the distance between them. "Damn that is one fine woman."

Daniel to his credit did not make any comments. He was a Scotsman who looked quite a bit fitter than his companion, despite being shorter. He looked sort of like a fullback, with that same sort of stocky solid build, whereas Terrence was simply thin. He also didn't seem at all interested in ogling her in any fashion, keeping his eyes on Ororo's face.

"Gentlemen," she said crisply "have a seat please." They both sat down, and she shook her head again at Terrence's inability to keep his eyes on her face. She had dressed conservatively hoping that would stop her from being looked at like that, but Terrence and several café service people had not been able to look beyond her good looks.

"I represent a company that is just starting up that will be a very big name in the medical industry in the near future. As you both are up for graduation this summer and were recommended to me by a mutual friend, I am here to see if you might have a place in our company." She began the interview from there.

Terrence seemed to have more book learning, which matched up with his grades which were slightly better than Daniel's. But he didn't seem to be able to think outside the box, and did not impress her with his general attitude. That was beyond the fact he seemingly could not move past the fact that she was an attractive woman.

Daniel on the other hand could, and was able to think in terms of past the here and now and his book learning to using real world knowledge. About 10 minutes in she had made her decision.

She decided to cut the interview short there, saying that they would be in touch soon enough with a contract, not hinting at who she had chosen. Luckily Terrence had seemingly gotten the hint that she wasn't interested, and she was able to escape easily enough.

With Cory, who had been assigned to her for this duty full-time she teleported to her next meeting, which was with a group of farmers whose farms could supply the castle with food. That went well, and she walked away having made an agreement to buy the land of two of the farms, which would help give them a visible means of production, though of course it would be a ruse. The others were willing to sell her food directly at cost, which was good as well.

Next she arrived in Ireland, and interviewed for the position of personnel director. This was an older gentleman, gray-haired going to seed rather badly named Stephen O'Cairn. He had recently been an employee of a company that specialized in medical equipment large and small, and he was very experienced. It was only due to the fact that Emma wrote a personal letter of introduction for them that let him hold off offers from other businesses long enough to talk to Ororo.

Here it was not so much that she was interviewing him, as much as it was that she was trying to interest him in their company. The older gentleman bowed her into a seat across from him at his table in another café, looking at her with his head cocked to one side. "The letter of introduction from Ms. Frost was interesting Miss, and the idea of being the personnel director an entire company is certainly a step in the right direction for me, but I am still at a loss as to what exactly our company will be selling. Her introduction letter did not in point of fact did not even say what market you are going to be in."

Ororo smiled faintly and sipped at the cup of tea that had just been delivered waving off the offer of anything to eat. "We will be going into medicines and pharmaceuticals in a big way, Mr. O'Cairn. Specifically our company will be selling new types of medicines to the military first and then the commercial sector after. There is no need at this point in time for a trial run, as there is already a trial going on that we are certain will prove the efficacy of our products over the next month or so."

Something about the way she said that seemed to spark something in the older man and he looked around conspiratorially before leaning in close. "Does this have anything to do with that news coming out of the London sector about some new strange medicines being used after the terrorist attack there?"

Ororo raised one fine white eyebrow and the man smiled. "The only thing that goes faster than light madam is rumor, and that rumor went around the medical field like wildfire. An entirely new, incredibly effective medicine comes along only once in 100 years, and never to the extent rumor makes these new medicines of yours. The sheer number of ailments your medicines helped heal made it certain that the news would spread quickly. And you're certain that these products will have no side effects? I know at least three of the doctors that are following that news with interest."

The African beauty smiled faintly. "In point of fact these are not new medicines we are using, they are very old medicines whose creation has been lost until recently. There was no issue with them reported before, and I doubt there will be any more now. Well," she frowned then went on honestly. "There is one that does have a slightly addictive quality, but it is easily taken care of."

The man nodded thoughtfully his eyes distant. "I could name off the top of my head at least 15 people that would love to get in on the ground floor of something like this. Doctors distribution people, PR reps…"

"That's why we came to you," said Ororo smiling faintly. "Now the contract were looking for full to offer you is…"

After some haggling over the initial payment, and shooting down the idea of buying stock in the company as the stock would not be put out in the open market but remained solely owned by Harry, she left with a signed contract, leaving behind a extremely large check that would allow him to do the first round of hiring they needed

Later that evening she sat down with Jean and Harry at the table with Melody for another meal in Hogwart's dining hall. After making small talk they all shared what they had accomplished during thier time apart, including Melody finishing her math homework from Ororo. All three of the adults praised the young girl then moved on to more important matters.

"Your impression was good then?" asked Harry sipping at his water.

"Oh yes," she said smiling. "A very proper gentleman he was, and very organized and good thinker. Emma was right he's perfect for our needs. And young Daniel seems eager to get to work on the marketing."

"That's excellent," said Jean honestly. "I hated the idea of having to go out and hire all these people ourselves, but if he can do the majority of the hiring for us that leaves us with much more time on our hands for other projects."

Harry nodded agreement. "Jean I should be done renovating the Castle this week, we would be done sooner if she didn't have tests in the mornings, and if I didn't have to keep working on the Room of Requirement."

Harry was really getting anxious about testing himself out in terms of his magical power, and he wanted to do so in the Room of Requirement. He knew that without its extreme defensive arrays he could do a lot of damage to the environment.

"You did tell him that we don't need a workforce on the ground to actually create our products? The house elves are a tremendous help in that area."

"I did indeed," she smiled again. "I think this has been an excellent day all around frankly."

Jean leaned over and kissed her African friend on the cheek before nuzzling into her neck, breathing in deeply that scent of wind and rain of Ororo's that never faded. "I think the same thing. I am so looking forward to leaving the mansion behind. That means we can go onto the more interesting projects, like the arc reactor." her eyes opened again, snapping with humor as she looked across at Harry. "I'm looking forward to that."

"As am I," said Harry nodding.

Ororo stood up pulling Jean to her feet and kissing the younger woman on the neck moving up to her ear and nibbling at it, causing the redhead to moan slightly. "Come my loves, I believe it is time for us to adjourn to bed." Jean stiffened a little but Ororo nuzzled her neck again. "Just cuddling my friend, after a hard days work we all could use it."

Hearing that Melody looked away from the vast vista of space, pouting. "Can I join then?"

The three exchanged glances then Harry shrugged and the other two eventually nodded. "Sure, I'll just have to enlarge the bed slightly."

That night they went to bed with Harry in the middle, with Jean in his arms and Melody in between them, with Ororo on his other side.

The odd family dynamic of the quartet was something strange to see, but it was definitely a family, one they were all happy to be part of.

OOOOOOO

Emma rubbed her eyes tiredly looking across the desk at her secretary. Greg Oldfield had been her father's secretary, and was as apolitical in matters concerning the family and who owned what or who controlled what as someone could be and still have a pulse. All he cared about was the fact that the company kept on ticking like a metronome, and that was why she had kept him on despite the fact that he should really have been one of her father's partisans. Greg obeyed whoever was in charge of the company that was all. "Is that all for today Greg?"

"It is Ms." The man responded, smiling faintly. If Emma was getting more than three or four hours of sleep a day he would eat his bowler hat. Yet despite her 'inexperience' in the past four days she had been able to consolidate her position as head of Frost Corps with ruthless dispatch. She had weeded out several of her father's partisans, like-minded men who had worked with him for years and who resented the idea of a young woman being elevated above them.

Despite her success in making deals with the other members of the Hellfire Club this belief, that she was young and inexperienced had prevailed in the upper management positions, until she fired several of them, brought in her own people and made the company keep on ticking without even a single bump in the road.

It hadn't been easy, Winston's people had been deeply entrenched in most areas of the family's holdings. The only exception to this rule were the Frost Pharmaceuticals, where Emma had made inroads in several of the key managerial positions befriending the people there. The family stockbroker had also been solidly behind her for years though had never acted in any way to show this.

In stark contrast to the corporation as a whole taking control of her actual family and household had been ridiculously easy for Emma. She hadn't realized quite how much resentment and anger had built up in the maids and other servants against Adrienne, or even her father, not having taken the effort to search the servants minds that often.

While Winston had been simply coldly dismissive to everyone he employed, Adrienne had been cruel and callous to all of them at one point or another. Many of the maids could also remember having to clean up a few times after Adrienne 'amused' herself with a pet or two when she was younger, and the fact that several house servants had disappeared over the years was well known to everyone else in the household. There was no proof of wrongdoing there of course, and opinion was divided on why they had disappeared. Two of the maids might have been disposed of by Winston's orders after having gotten pregnant or possibly after attempts at blackmailing him, or Adrienne could have had some 'fun' with them and disposed of her toys after playing with them too hard.

Needless to say after hearing that rumor Emma had checked in with David, who didn't know a thing about it, but had pointed her at a group of four bodyguards with even sketchier than usual pasts that might have been involved in that sort of thing without his knowledge. They were immediately dismissed, joining more than half of the bodyguard contingent which Emma had summarily dismissed after looking at their files. She was willing to turn a blind eye to anything short or rape or murder before they joined up, but she wasn't willing to look over things like assault or battery or domestic violence after they had been hired.

Emma had set up her mother at a separate household, with several dedicated workers there to see to her every need, and to keep her away from booze. She had also hired a full time (female) doctor on the down low to come in and help her through kicking her various habits. It was going to be a long arduous road, but maybe at some point Emma could have her mother back in truth. She honestly doubted it however, the woman was simply weak in many ways, if she could truly kick alcoholism permanently Emma would be astonished. Emma wanted to hate her mother in some way for abandoning Emma Adrienne and their younger daughter as well as Christian to Winston's not at all tender mercies, but in the end she really wasn't worth the energy.

"Ms Cordelia is arriving back from boarding school tomorrow, she was able to complete all the tests as you predicted quickly, but there are some notes here about disciplinary issues that you might wish to have a look at, and a note that says the school would be against inviting her back next year. I also have some paperwork from Frost Freight and Walsh Seaborne Shipping that you need to sign, and there is a memo here about you wanting to talk to our European director for FP?"

Emma nodded decisively. The deal she had made with the shipping magnate would help their Asian market decisively, and her deal with Harry would make Frost pharmaceuticals the corporations best earner by far once his potions hit the open market. That would probably take at least two months more, but she predicted that they would make up any money they lost in those two months in the two months after. "Excellent, set up an appointment with him, I want him here to talk to me in three or four days. Beyond that initial push has there been any corporate espionage tempted beyond the norm? Or have I shown that Frost Corporation is not weak at present."

"Our commercial rivals do seem to have gotten the message yes," said Greg dryly. He pulled out a few more notes giving them briefly. "There were two espionage attempts at the main office for Cold Steel, but your use of David as a troubleshooter seems to have paid off dividends there. He reports both were stopped, and the perpetrator handed over to the police."

"Good, I expected it to." Emma had decided she couldn't keep David on as head of security, there were simply too many discrepancies and bungles under his watch, no matter that her father had forbidden him from rooting out any bad seeds without his say-so. Instead she had taken the head of security for Frost Telecommunications and transferred him over to command rebuild the security teams. So far the man, an ex-marine, had gutted the security team, leaving only five guards in total on the roster, but given the fact Emma had no intention of leaving the mansion for a while that was fine by her.

She had instead appointed David as a sort of trouble shooter for the family's interests. Given almost a total carte blanche, the man had been death on wheels against any attempts at corporate espionage. "And Shaw Industries, have they made any moves against us?"

"None that we can trade back to them," Greg said shaking his head. "While his initial attempts to take control of you was less than subtle, Sebastian Shaw is normally a very subtle dangerous man in the realms of business. We have a few cyber attacks, some low key public quality control questions that could be from his company against Shaw Industries and Cold Steel but even that is doubtful. We're screening all our new hires as best we can, and the fact that you had several names already ready to go and all of those names were promoted from inside the corporation, has helped the changeover tremendously."

Emma nodded faintly thankful beyond reason that she had finally gotten ahead of her workload. Say what you would about Winston, she thought to herself, the man was a workaholic and very good at his job. It was just a pity that his job didn't Include being a human being with a heart or a father with any kind of familial affection for his family. "In that case Greg I think we can call it a night." She stretched languidly, cracking her neck explosively. "I'll see you early tomorrow."

"Yes Ms., have a pleasant evening."

Emma walked him to the door, where he was picked up by one of the guards and then escorted out of the estate. She paused for a moment then sent her mind around searching for anything kind of threats and then nodded.

With that she made her way to the master bedroom, one of the few rooms in the house that did not have any kind of security inside it. The windows and the door out to the balcony both had motion sensors and other security devices, but there was not a camera in here, much like her own room and Adrienne's, though for very different reasons. Winston of course simply preferred his privacy, but there had been cameras in their rooms at one point, until one of the guards was found collecting videos of them undressing and changing (and more…). After that Winston had decided that it was not worth the aggravation, and simply make certain that neither sister had any means of communication outside the house in either of their rooms.

She looked at the bed that had replaced her father's, and it had only been Winston's, her mother had a separate room next door, the two had not shared a bed since Cordelia's conception. After getting changed she picked up the locket that Harry had given her, and after inputting the code spent the next hour talking to him about her day and what it happened.

These talks had started the evening after she got back to New York. They had actually brought her and the others closer, something she was coming to cherish even in Ororo's case. While for the most part these talks were simple things, some issues came through.

For one thing, Emma had not found even a hint of where the computer worms her father employed came from, which was worrisome. In return Harry had promised to introduce her at some point to Reed Richards, who might be able to help her with that. Other than that however things were moving along smoothly for all of them, which only made Harry more paranoid about what next disaster was coming up next.

OOOOOOO

The week passed thus, with Jean and Harry finishing work on the redesign of the Castle and Harry actually finishing up the Room of Requirement just in time for the weekend.

Back in New York groans and sighs of relief abounded at the end of the school year for everyone, and the end of their high school years for the seniors, with the graduation ceremony occurring Saturday afternoon.

Throughout this week Harry refused to share with anyone the plans he had made for a graduation present for Jean and Scott and end-of-the-year present for the younger teens, which had them all looking forward to it.

They all went to bed that Friday evening wondering what tomorrow would bring them, and wondering why Jean had been spending so much time talking to Kurt of late. For some reason that thought sent a chill down most of the kid's spines.

End chapter

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This chapter was basically supposed to be only 15,000 words as part of this update then moving on to something else, but then I decided I don't want to tell, I want to show, and I wanted to introduce a few very minor O.C.'s that will help in the day to day running of Harry's company (ies) Therefore I went back and expanded practically every section here, adding other little sections about other things going on. I didn't want to give anything here short shrift nor did I want to give anything in the next bit short shrift in an attempt to fit it into a smaller chapter then the giant chapter that I put out last. No action alas, but the next one will well have a lot of action to make up for it.

And for those who think I have neglected the X-men, the next chapter will be for you! Please note however, that I will not be trying to cover everyone's adventures. Iron Man will have his own, greatly reduced in number admittedly. The FF will continue to be the stalwart group they are, and the X-men will handle all of their adventures that originally occurred in America. There will be a lot of overlap with the last two, but very little with the first, simply because Harry doesn't have the best impression of Tony.

Oh, and sorry about the flashback, I never like them myself, but this time it made more sense to delve into that portion than to ignore it mention it in passing. After all, eventually Kitty will be joining one of Harry's company and once that happens there is no way Ororo would let her live anywhere but with them, which would mean she and Melody would need to have met and like one another.

So while this was filler it was extremely important filler, as Harry continued to put the foundations of his faction together. This process will continue in the next three chapters or so, we'll see.

So till next time, same bat time same bat channel. same bat time same bat channel.

(Oh, and imagine my shock when I looked it up, and the reviewer who mentioned my last chapter being as long as the first Harry potter book was wrong. That last chapter was actually longer! In fact it was a little under 6,000 words short of the HOBBIT! Christ)