Author's Note: Please see the end of the chapter for more notes.


Chapter 2: In Which He Is Stoned for Life


Oh, the joys of life. Tony had almost forgotten what it felt like to be young (in the grand scheme of things), careless (possibly), without a worry in the world (definitely not) . . . and sitting in a teacher's office twiddling his thumbs like a juvenile delinquent.

He'd pulled off some questionable stunts during his last year of high school, but it had never come down to this.

After purportedly vanishing the smoking carcass elsewhere, Not-Gandalf had led him through stone rooms, more stone rooms, a labyrinthine stone corridor full of animated paintings before sitting him down in a suite that had the ugliest sentient stone gargoyle marking its entrance. He wasn't sure which of the ugly or sentient part appalled him more, but so far it was a pretty solid fifty-fifty split. Just the fact that Tony wasn't reduced into a babbling mess at its sight showed how much Strange had polluted his perception of normality.

If ol' Doctor Doofenshmirtz was expecting a thank-you card from somewhere in the universe, he was going to tell him to shove it up his behind.

None of what he saw while walking through the hallway could have prepared him for the actual suite itself, though. Gandalf's office was a large, circular room full of little chiming sounds, as though its owner bore a personal grudge against anything somber or silent—Tony could relate to that. What he couldn't relate to, though, was the fact that these noises came from instruments lined up on the tables, very casually defying the laws of physics. Tony gave a sideways glance at the silver tools, all whirring and emitting little puffs of smoke, and filed the memory to panic over later.

"Not much of a modern art fan, are you?" he asked, studying the walls.

The walls were covered with more animated paintings. A slight difference was that there weren't any pictures of landscapes or fruit bowls in the room, like the ones he'd seen in the hallway, but plenty portraits of staid old men and women snoozing on the wall. Why anyone would want EDDs of sleeping grandparents inside their office, he couldn't imagine.

"Ah, my taste in art is often questioned by friend and foe alike." Apparently, the old man decorated to match his personality. Gandalf chuckled, sounding somewhat weary now that their trek out of Stoneland was over. "But please, where are my manners? Sit, sit."

And suddenly there was a magnificent mahogany sofa for him to sit on.

Tony blinked, inhaled, and struggled to swallow the sudden sense of vertigo piling up in his throat. This is a magic show, he told himself. Strange decided to call in his senile great-grandfather to show me some parlor tricks. This is a magic show.

Of course, then Gandalf decided to go ahead and conjure a tea tray out of thin air. Tony was close to a heart failure by the time the whistling teapot finished stirring itself. The tiny china plates filled themselves up with an assortment of cookies that would've melted the heart of a man sterner than Happy Hogan, and if the old man was trying to give him a coronary, he was doing a damn good job of it.

Tony picked up a cookie. It didn't look poisoned.

"I believe introductions are in place, first," Gandalf said, ignoring his own teacup. His hands were instead steepled against each other, the fingers long and spidery with age. A leather pouch lay in innocent juxtaposition to his thin wooden stick.

Tony was hoping he wouldn't poke his eye out with it.

"Welcome to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, which is by far the best school in the wizarding world, if I may say so. I am headmaster here, and for that my views are considered rather subjective."

"Witchcraft and Wizardry, huh?" said Tony. "Headmaster . . . something? Ever heard of the New York Sanctum before?"

"Ah, most call me Professor Dumbledore. Unfortunately, I am not aware of whatever sanctum you speak of."

A wizard unrelated to the Sanctum. Tony's head was spinning at a mile a minute while he digested this information, a small part of his brain listing several unpleasantries that rhymed with Dumble. Distantly, he recalled a conversation he'd had with a certain Norse deity one sunny morning:

"Names can be powerful things, Man of Iron."

"Yeah," Tony shot back. "Is that why you go around shouting for everyone to hear that your name is Thor Odinson?"

Thor looked incredibly lost at that question, so Tony took some of the edge off his voice. He'd just been pulverized by the guy during one of their weekly sparring sessions, after having been dragged out of the kitchen without his morning cup of coffee, so his temper wasn't on its best behavior. Tony struggled to keep the venom simmering at surface level as he said,

"I mean, we go around handing out signed T-shirts every other day. What's there to worry about?"

Thor shook his head in denial. "It is not that," he said, his voice slower, more mournful. (Thor's familial depression was at its worst because Loki Had Decided to Fake His Death and Not Tell Anyone, Again. Sometimes Tony was so glad he was an only child.) "There are certain beings in the Nine Realms that could turn the very knowledge of your own name against you. Curse you with it, even."

"You mean like wizards, right? Witches? Double, double, toil and trouble?"

"I do not understand this double double you speak of, apart from Oreos," said Thor. "But yes, sorcerers, toil and trouble. If you come across one as skilled in the craft as my brother . . ." Double winces. "You would do well to not reveal yourself entirely, Anthony Stark. I have learnt many times that even those greatest in battle are not infallible by other means."

Infallible.

Thanos said that he was inevitable, and look where that got him.

Tony sat there in the suite, playing this conversation over and over in his mind while Gandalf—no, Headmaster Dumbledore—gave him an introductory crash course on the Hogwash School of Whatsits and Whos. Tony offered monosyllable exclamations and the occasional questions in turn, nibbling on a cookie.

Then again, if chocolate chips existed in this . . . universe, whatever it was (because he still had no idea what Natasha had meant by warped reality), he had to be someplace pretty similar to his own world, right?

And Dumbledore had a British accent. Yay, Earth.

"What's the date?" he asked, interrupting the man in the middle of a lecture on something called transfiguration, the equation and properties of which Tony was immediately going to forget.

"Today is the 4th of June, 1992—"

Tony was trying very hard not to drop his cookie.

"—and I have not yet had the fortunate chance to hear your name."

Dumbledore was staring at him over his little half-moon glasses.

"Howard," Tony said, lying through his teeth. "I go by Howard Potts."

As if.

This was where he was going to have to begin treading more carefully. "And by 1992," Tony said, each word sharp and pronounced. "Am I right saying it's been about half a century since World War Two? Um, the Second World War?"

Dumbledore nodded, exuding an air of reticence at the question.

So no to wizard wizards, and no to Sanctums. But yes to World War II and chocolate chips. Tony wondered what would happen if he ran to the nearest telephone booth and rang up his father. This reality thing really wasn't making any sense.

"You are well acquainted with the Muggle world," said Dumbledore.

Muggle?

"But have no knowledge whatsoever on the happenings of the wizarding world, and this time, I am not being subjective when I say Hogwarts is one of the most well-known institutions in Great Britain, if not the whole world. Which again leads to my confusion on how you came to be trapped within the Mirror of Erised." The old man sighed. "Forgive me, Mr. Potts, for I pride myself on being knowledgeable, but any knowledge related to this matter has abandoned me in the face of a newfound mystery. I am troubled indeed."

"Then what were you doing down there in the first place?"

Tony had no right to go around pointing fingers at other people, but considering everything that had happened today, he was willing to cut himself some slack. Dumbledore didn't seem very antagonized, and that was a factor.

"Taking care of a student, as is my job as headmaster. I had just moved him upstairs when you graced us with your presence, Mr. Potts. Unfortunately, a former student of mine has . . . fallen ill, in lack of a better word, and the boy is in great pain because of this. Poppy assures me that what he needs is a few days of bed rest, and that he will make a full recovery, but . . ."

His blue eyes dropped their merry twinkle faster than someone could have yelled Hulk.

Tony considered clamping his mouth shut, ditching niceties and getting the hell out of here. For all that he knew, Dumbledore could be another sycophantic, power-hungry old man who would more than willingly rip out his heart at the chance to gain more power. A bit redundant an expression, but he hadn't survived Stane for nothing.

But.

Tony hesitated. He had too little information for his comfort, and even less for him to run with. It didn't help that the only things in his pockets were his left hand and Tom Ford sunglasses, because the afterlife hadn't been so kind as to return him his cash, cards, nanotech and mansions, alright. Another perk of being, what was it? Oh, yes. Young, carefree and broke.

It was a curious sensation. Tony Stark had never been broke in his life.

He could probably invent something simple and ingenious enough to buy him a ride to the airport, but judging by the way Dumbledore had glossed over one of his earlier questions ("do you have Wi-Fi here"), he wasn't sure if the man would comprehend enough to give him directions to the nearest station. Maybe these so-called wizards flew around in brooms without any idea what miracles the backs of limousines worked.

"Um." Tony gave a disheartened shrug. "You could say I'm not from around from these parts, first, but stick with me, because I have no idea how I ended up here either. At least explain where exactly I am? If you're suspicious, couldn't you fix the glass and see for yourself?"

He pasted on a hopeful grin, the one he used on clueless reporters and one-night flings before redemption happened. Pepper would have burst a vein. And he was traveling down the wrong memory lane again.

"You are in the Hogwarts School of Great Britain, or more specifically, Scotland. The school and its surroundings are invisible to Muggles," said Dumbledore.

That word again.

The pained look from before re-entered Dumbledore's eyes as he spoke, "The Mirror came to be in my position years ago, as a part of my . . . educational succession, you could say. Last autumn, I decided to employ its secrets to keep a precious object secret. The Mirror of Erised is now broken beyond repair."

Screw it. Tony had built an arc reactor inside a cave. He would get around to fixing that mirror; he always did.

"That sounds oddly like Snow White. Are you sure I'm not Snow White? I could kiss an apple and go back to sleep if, you know, if my very presence bothers you, although I thought of myself more as a Grumpy."

Dumbledore looked as if he didn't quite understand that reference. He gave Tony a blank look of politeness as he continued: "The Mirror of Erised is . . . a curious tool. I distinctly remember placing the enchantment upon it myself, impenetrable by none other than those of the purest, most valiant mind, who would have no desire to acquire the object for himself . . ."

Dumbledore trailed off. When he looked up again, his face was more guarded than before, the lines on it harsher. "You are not in allegiance with him?"

Answering questions with more questions, huh. He could easily picture this man on his board of directors.

"Not sure what you mean by him," Tony ventured. "But I only work for myself and humanity. Why don't you tell me about this object, huh? What could be so important that you had to place an enchantment on an already enchanted mirror? Is it a family heirloom? A memento of your dead, drunken friend?" A morbid thought struck him red, white, and blue. "Please don't tell me it's a memento of your dead, drunken friend."

Dumbledore pulled opened the strings of his leather pouch. He shook it upside down, and a red gem fell out of it.

A red gem the exact shade and color of the Reality Stone.

If he were standing, Tony would have fallen over. (God, but his butt was already bruised.) As he wasn't, he merely knocked his teacup over as he stood, immediately backpedaling across the room and putting three feet of distance between him and the bane of his existence. For one short, nerve-racking moment, he considered jumping out the window, but he knew with certainty that he wouldn't survive the fall.

It was during moments like this that he desperately wished for the presence of JARVIS. Or one thousand feather mattresses, give or take a few.

The wizard pocketed the gem again, shoving the pouch inside one of his desk drawers. The shelf seemed to reach deeper into the floor than the length of his entire arm, which should have been impossible, but Tony wasn't tackling that problem now. He filed it away for future reference along with the odd, gravity-defying instruments, rubbing a hand over his eyes.

One hour in a new dimension and he was so, so tired.

"I take it that you have no wishes to use this, either," said Dumbledore. He'd managed to remain calm in the face of impending doom and disaster.

Tony checked the window outside to see if there were thunder and lightning. The night sky was silent.

"Use it? Why would I want to use it?" he said. Indignant, Tony pointed at the drawer, gesticulating wildly. Was he having a panic attack? He was having a panic attack. "That thing's a menace, Dumbles! Get rid of it. Destroy it with your super grandfatherly powers, or, or something. Can't believe I'm saying this, but you're a wizard."

Dumbledore heaved another sigh. "I am afraid the decision is not mine to make, Mr. Potts." His expression softened again, a ghostly light entering the eyes. "Although I have recently requested for its destruction. You see, the Philosopher's Stone was created by a dear friend of mine—a Nicolas Flamel—and I had just finished writing to him prior to your arrival."

"Creator?" Tony said. "What do you mean? The Stones weren't created by anybody."

"It was, It will take him a few days or so for dear Nicolas to pen a reply, and if my views on him hold true, he will be inclined to agree with my words. But I must insist," said Dumbledore, tilting his head in a rather owlish manner, "that you tell me of your journeys from the beginning, Mr. Potts. If I may say so, I suspect you are a highly intelligent man; surely you must have heard of Nicolas and his alchemy at some point during your education, and I am curious as to why you think the Stone itself is a Dark object."

Dumbledore spread his hands, smiling benignly.

There it was: the proffered laurel of peace. He was unnerved by how easily he'd played into Dumbledore's hands, but the man's thoughts on the Stone sounded sincere enough. And Tony considered himself to be a good judge of character; what with the multitude of backstabbing father figures and killer assistants, he'd had to train himself to be. He would eat his tie if old Dumbles was being completely honest with him, sure, but the Stone wasn't in his hands. It was in Dumbledore's.

So, after another long, long minute of contemplation, Tony decided to tell the man everything.

He started with the day in the park, when Strange had come up to him mid-jog, congratulating him on his wedding. How he was told that there were six elemental crystals that held the essence of the universe within, each Stone just as powerful as the rest.

He spoke of Thanos, the Guardians, the Avengers, Wakanda. How he'd anticipated the army's arrival for years, and still failed to protect home. The battle on Titan, the Snap, Nebula, his five years of escapist heaven.

Bruce snapping. Their last stand. The gauntlet on Tony's arm. Him raising his hand.

And how he'd woken up inside the Mirror of Desire the very next moment with no idea where he was.

"So you managed to take apart the riddle," said Dumbledore, sounding pleased. "Very Ravenclaw of you, indeed."

He thought he recalled Ravenclaw being the name of a book.

"Easy enough to guess, yeah? It's just a word spelled backward."

Tony then relayed the conversation he had with Natasha's ghost word-for-word, because if there was anything Dumbledore could help him on, it was this. He looked like a spiritual kind of headmaster, decked out with a full beard and robes.

He didn't tell the man everything, though.

There were things too twisted and complex to shorten into the length of a conversation, like Ultron and JARVIS. Then there were things he couldn't quite put down into words—he doubted anyone who didn't know what Wi-Fi was could appreciate the science behind quantum physics and time travel, even someone as intelligent as Dumbledore.

Then, there were things he just chose not to say.

(Pepper, Happy, Rhodey enclosed in a hunk of falling metal, Civil War, Siberia. Peter fading into dust, Pepper again, Morgan, Morgan, and he was going stop right there.)

The old man had his secrets, Tony would keep his own. Dumbledore couldn't deny him that much privacy.

A long silence followed the sudden lull in conversation. Tony took the chance to try and sip his tea, and sputtered.

Dumbledore's eyes regained some of their merry twinkle. "I put half a dozen sugars in my tea."

"You're going to kill yourself, Dumbles." Tony rinsed his mouth with another chocolate chip cookie. Yuck.

Dumbledore chuckled. "Witches and wizards lead longer, healthier lives than most. It appears to do with magical healing, although it was never an art that that intrigued me enough for a proper study, other than the few basic spells . . . Why, I myself am just a few months short of the ripe age of a hundred and eleven." A pause. "How old are you, Mr. Potts?"

"Um." Tony had to rack his head for that. Age did get more vague the older you got. "Fifty-three."

Dumbledore was leveling a look at him that was slowly becoming familiar. The man magically refilled his cup (obviously), and dropped even more sugar cubes in it. It was a small miracle he hadn't reeled over with diabetes yet.

"Magical healing whatsoever, do believe me when I say that you do not look a day over thirty-eight, Mr. Potts."

This time, Tony did drop his cookie.

He'd been thirty-eight in Afghanistan. Thirty-eight when it all started to happen.

Thirty-eight.

If he could bottle up his bad luck and patent it, he would be able to turn Scott Lang into a billionaire.

He'd thought something funny was going on when he first noticed he was still wearing his salvaged suit from Afghanistan, but he would never have guessed the Mirror—afterlife—whatever—could extend this much influence over his physical body, especially since he was alive. Natasha looked different because, well, she was dead.

Maybe he really was dead, too, and everyone was pulling one over him.

Snap out of it, Tony, his internal Pepper chided, but it took him a few more breaths to gather his wits.

"The Philosopher's Stone has only ever been created once." Dumbledore continued to speak as though Tony's burst of anxiety was nothing more than a hacking cough, bless the man. "And I am confident in assuring you that its magic cannot be replicated. Nicolas used it to brew the Elixir of Life for his family; it has never harmed him or Perenelle in any way. Perenelle being, of course, his dear wife." He sighed. "My, what a terrible friend I've been to the Flamels."

"Wait, wait. Back up for a moment there. You're saying it's only been made once?"

"Yes, Mr. Potts."

"By once, meaning there's only one Stone? Period?"

"Yes, Mr. Potts. There is only just the one."

"Huh." Tony leaned back against the back of the couch. Comfy cushy thing. "So . . . there's just the one Stone, you're saying. Maybe the other five are compressed into it, or there's some other shiny jewel that holds the same power, or."

He took another sip of the tea. It was disgusting enough to take his mind off lesser matters. "This Flamel guy, he must be older than you? Any chance I could talk to him? Or at least get to study the Stone before you two go and blow it up?"

Dumbledore's face crinkled into a smile. "He turns six hundred and ninety this year, Mr. Potts."

Wow. If he really were thirty-eight instead of fifty-three, it would have hurt wrapping his head around that number. Norse gods were good for things other than general mayhem and free Pop-Tarts.

He had no idea how Dumbledore could be hale and hearty at a hundred and eleven without the Stone, though. It wasn't Tony's fault his life was surrounded by people with unnaturally short lifespans; even without putting Barnes into the equation, Howard Stark would have never made a year past eighty. And Tony had died at fifty-three, too.

Well, almost.

"Remember, I'm kind of trying to deal with the whole concept of magic, here. So, the talk?"

"After listening to you, I have a few questions concerning the Philosopher's Stone myself, in fact. I will be composing a second letter to Nicolas, and soon." Dumbledore leaned forward in his chair. "You are a Muggle, Mr. Potts?"

"Hey, remember? I have no idea what that means."

Dumbledore smiled again. "A Muggle is what you would call a person without magic. I was contemplating the extraordinary circumstances of your arrival"—Tony snorted—"and came to the conclusion that our method of examination will be very different from each other. It always does good to bring a different perspective into view, but it worries me that the Philosopher's Stone will not be as susceptible to your, ah, science."

Tony shrugged. "Magic or whatever, I can read up on it. Twist a few equations here and there. Nothing a few hours can't fix." The gears in his head were already turning, the wheels clicking into place.

"1992 isn't too far off when I became CEO. I'd need an assistant, too, because I have literally zero equipment—remind me about that—you do know what computers are, right? And setting up the lab will probably take even longer, dammit—"

His heart was racing. If he could take apart the Philosopher's Stone, and he'd already hypothesized about all six of the Infinity Stones at length while building that Gauntlet, seriously, and if he could take it apart, learn from it, he could go back into the Mirror, and—

"Mr. Potts." Dumbledore was very calm. "Perhaps I should clarify. Muggle technology is not compatible with magic."

"Yeah, I get that. I can find a way around it! I wonder if I'll still get sued if I'm stealing my own inventions—"

"By that, I meant to say not at all." Tony looked up. He hadn't been aware that he was pacing a hole into Dumbledore's carpet. "All of your equipment will explode or be burned, and most likely you along with it."

What.

"What do you mean, they're not compatible?"

Tony was hissing; he was that pissed. He sounded near apoplectic in his own ears as he shouted, "It can't not be compatible!" Oh God, he was speaking in double negatives. A bad sign. "I don't know how this magic of yours functions, but maybe you just haven't looked at it closely enough to find a loophole. There's always a way!"

Dumbledore stared at him in silence through the rant.

"Indeed, Mr. Potts. For those that look, there will always be a way. A favorite saying of mine, in fact," said Dumbledore, voice oddly cheery. "But will you not sit down and try more of these cookies? I chose the tea myself, but the house-elves will be distraught if they think their baking has fallen below standards."

"House-elves?" Tony squeaked. Nevertheless, he took a cookie.

(It was ginger, and to be fair, he only recognized it as a diversion a couple hours later.)

He pretended to pick at it for a while, staring at the toes of his shoes.

Breathe, Tony, Breathe.

I'm trying, Pep.

"Yes, house-elves. A species commonly found in older homes of the wizarding world, of which a few hours of discussion would do you good . . . But dear me, the hour is getting late." Dumbledore stood with a flourish of his hideous magenta robes, and the tea tray vanished without a trace, sans the cookies. "I must show you to your quarters."

Tony raised an eyebrow. "You're letting me stay here."

"Yes."

"You're letting me, someone who popped out of a very mysterious magic mirror, stay here."

"Yes."

"Here, as in a school full of curious, hormonal teens."

"Yes." The old man was smiling.

Dumbledore was crazy. There was no other explanation. If this guy were the head of any school within a ten-mile radius of his kids, Tony would buy himself the PTA, burn down the building and dance on its ashes or something.

But then, Tony thought. Where could he go?

Dumbledore cleared his throat. "It is now near four in the morning, Mr. Potts. Please, if you do not currently have a place of residence in mind, follow me."

He did.

As they walked, Tony asked Dumbledore where the nearest functioning telephone booth was. Dumbledore told him that he would have to walk out of the castle and out the village to trek miles across barren Scottish soil. The school train would not be usable until the end of the term, which was some days away. Or he could use a magical portal to teleport from the office, which Dumbledore would conjure in mere seconds for his guest.

Tony said no.

He couldn't believe himself as he followed Dumbledore down the stone corridor, staring at the snoozing portraits hanging on the walls. Because they weren't some advanced sort of EDDs but actual, moving portraits, as Dumbledore cared to enlighten him. Despite the snores and mutters echoing from inside the portraits, the hallways were very, very quiet for a school as Tony quickly lost himself in thought.

He was inside a magical castle. He would be living here. For a while.

Tony didn't have a choice, did he? It was best to keep friends close and enemies even closer, not that jolly old Dumbles was his enemy . . . yet. Dumbledore had the Stone on him. He could likely forget, or choose to forget, whatever promise he'd made a babbling traveler inside an office where nobody could listen in on their conversation. Then Tony would have no way back home.

Except it didn't matter. He would find a way around it. He always could. Hell, he was Iron Man.

When they arrived in front of a large pastoral painting whose frame covered the length of the entire wall, Tony was feeling significantly better about spending his next few days in this madhouse. He was told to feed the portrait a password, as it would be his only way inside.

Passwords he could cope with. They were almost normal.

As the frame swung open like any regular door, Tony turned to face Dumbledore one last time that night.

"Uh, Headmaster," he called. "Would this be a good time to tell you my real name isn't Howard Potts?"

Dumbledore merely chuckled.

"Oh, Anthony," he said. "I can always tell."


Notes: So Tony thinks wizards aren't scientific enough for time travel. I can't wait to show him a time turner.

I took some liberties writing this chapter, and I hope the notes explain enough. For one, Flamel's age: we never get a precise number for how old he is, just a line from Hermione saying that he recently celebrated his six hundred and sixty-fifth birthday. Keep in mind that this comes from a book that has been published some years ago, but since I have no idea when the book itself was published, well. Not a major detail, and hopefully Rowling doesn't say anything on it.

Another thing: Dumbledore is perfectly capable of digging the whole truth out of Tony and then mind-wiping him, but he doesn't. Tony has a strong aversion to people messing up his mind, nothing like real Occlumency shields, but he'd know if anyone's meddling with his thoughts, magical or not. Dumbledore skimmed Tony's mind and let him talk himself into a truce. Old Dumbles may have a manipulative strike, but he isn't that rash.

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