A/N - Hello everyone. I have the newest chapter here which I hope you will like. I wrote a response to one of the comments I received this past week but it's rather long so I put it at the end of the post. If you only know these characters from the MCU and have never seen the comics I hope you will stick around to read it.

Disclaimer: The X-Men were created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and belong to Marvel Comics. Harry Potter was created by and belongs to J.K. Rowling. I make no money from this and the only thing that's mine are the original parts of the story.

"Normal Speech"

"Telepathy"

8) GUESTS AT THE X-MANSION

The following Sunday Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, Fred, George, Ron, Ginny, and Hermione took a portkey from the British Ministry of Magic to the American Ministry where they had to use a muggle van to take them the rest of the way (although the driver was a wizard – one of several kept on hand by the American Ministry to help out travelers when needed) as there was no equivalent to Britain's Knight Bus in the U. S. and none of them could apparate to Xavier's school either due to 1) having never been there before or seen any pictures of it or 2) being too young to apparate at all. They were all fine with this as it gave them a chance to see some of New York City first. All of the Weasleys were very impressed by the city. Mr. Weasley looked like his birthday had come early as he viewed all of the muggle buildings. Having been here before Hermione pointed out some famous sights that they could see from the van, the most prominent being the Twin Towers, the Empire State Building, and Stark Tower.

"This place is awesome" said Fred, "imagine living here."

"I'm not sure I'd like it" said Ginny, "it's so crowded."

"London's the same way Ginny" said George.

"And I don't want to live there either" said Ginny.

Suddenly Ron saw something outside the van.

"Look at that" he said pointing up above the buildings. Everyone who could get to Ron's side of the van looked to where he was pointing and their collective mouths dropped. There was a man flying above the buildings and he was wearing what was obviously a suit of red and gold armor which covered all of him, even his face. Hermione recognized him at once.

"That's Iron Man" she said, "he's one of the Avengers."

"He's wearing Gryffindor colors" said George, "how appropriate."

"He has good taste" said Fred.

"That he does" said George, "that he does. If he were at Hogwarts it's obvious where he'd be sorted."

"Clear cut case if ever there was one" agreed Fred.

Soon Iron Man flew out of sight and everyone went back to looking at the buildings.

"How different is it from when you were here before?" Ron asked Hermione.

"Not very" said Hermione, "there's no snow, the trees have leaves, and everyone's wearing summer clothes but that's about it. It's impressive in any season."

It was close to an hour later when the van arrived at Xavier's school and dropped off its passengers.

"Neat looking place" said Fred looking at the front of the building.

"Indeed it is" said George, "and so wonderfully muggle looking. Dad, you're going to love it here." Mr. Weasley chuckled but didn't say anything. The seven of them went up to the front door and Mrs. Weasley rang the bell. A second later the door opened on its own.

"How did it do that?" asked Ron, "I thought this place didn't have magic."

"It doesn't" they heard Professor Xavier's voice in all of their heads, "the door can be worked by remote control if necessary. Please come in." All seven guests entered the front hall and the door closed behind them. They all looked around.

"What a nice room" said Mrs. Weasley looking around with an approving eye.

"Thank you Mrs. Weasley" said Professor Xavier, "I apologize that none of us are actually there to meet you at the moment. Training for the X-Men ran long this morning and we've just finished. We'll all be right out to welcome you in a minute. Please make yourselves at home in the meantime."

It was actually only about 30 seconds before the new arrivals heard footsteps approaching down the corridor on the left hand side from the front door. Professor Xavier entered in his wheelchair followed by all of the X-Men who were still in uniform. Sirius was there too walking next to Lightning and Remus was walking on his other side.

"Hello" Professor Xavier greeted the guests, "welcome to my school. I'm glad you all got here safely."

"Thank you professor" said Mrs. Weasley, "it's very kind of you to let us visit."

"It's my pleasure" said Xavier. He would have said more but at that moment Mr. Weasley spotted the tenth person in Xavier's group. He'd been behind the others but he came into view now.

"Alastor?" Mr. Weasley said in surprise as he caught sight of Mad Eye Moody, "is that you?"

"Every bit of me" growled Moody, "hello Arthur, Molly."

"This is a surprise" said Mr. Weasley, "what brings you here today? I didn't know you knew the X-Men."

"I don't exactly advertise it" said Moody, "as for why I'm here? I'm studying the training methods the X-Men use. Hopefully we can use some of them to improve auror training."

"Auror Moody has been here a number of times since the beginning of May" said Xavier, "we find his insights to be useful too."

"Aye" said Moody, "you can never be too vigilant."

"True enough" said Xavier, "now I imagine you all want to get settled. Harry? Sirius? Would you please show our guests to their rooms?"

"Yes professor" said Lightning who stepped forward followed by Sirius, "I'm glad you could make it too. I hope you like the place." Mrs. Weasley gave Lightning her usual bone crushing hug.

"I'm sure we will Harry" she said once she released him, "thanks for having us."

"If you'll come upstairs" said Sirius, "we'll show you where you'll be staying."

Lightning and Sirius led them up to the second floor. At the top of the stairs they turned down the left-hand corridor. This corridor went a fair distance without any rooms opening out of it. Lightning explained that the rooms off of the first floor hallway were at least two stories high. It wasn't until they passed another staircase and reached the other wing of the building that they found the guest rooms. Sirius showed them all to their rooms. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley shared a large room. Fred and George would share a room. Ginny and Hermione would share a room too. Ron, to his pleasure, had his own room.

"Once you're settled in" said Lightning, "come back downstairs to the kitchen. It's in this wing of the mansion. Just go down the stairs here and you'll find it. Now if you don't mind I need to go change. See you all soon."

They all met in the kitchen once the Weasleys were settled into their rooms. Mad Eye Moody had left but everyone else was there.

"Well now" said Xavier, "it's nice to see the seven of you here. I just want to take a few minutes to go over the rules of the house with you. There aren't many but the ones we do have are important. Actually there's really only one rule that must always be followed. Beyond that there are normal house rules of course, the same that you have at your house I'm sure. Respect each other's privacy and don't go into anyone else's room without permission. I have a cook who comes in to prepare dinner every day except Saturdays and Sundays when we either order in, go out for dinner, or one of the students cooks if they feel like it. Other than that people are responsible for their own breakfasts and lunches. You'll find plenty of food in this kitchen and the pantry there as it's very important that everyone eat properly."

"Quite right too" said Mrs. Weasley, "would you object if I made breakfast for people? I usually do the cooking at home."

"You don't have to do that Mrs. Weasley" said Xavier, "you're a guest here. We don't expect you to take care of us – that's our job as your hosts."

"Oh but I like cooking" said Mrs. Weasley, "I don't mind at all." Xavier nodded.

"Okay" he said, "if you want to make breakfast for your family you may do that. You can also do that for my students, but please ask first and only if they say yes. My students have very individual habits when it comes to eating."

"You've seen how much Hank can eat" said Bobby with a smirk, "although he's very neat about it."

"When your physical body is as large as mine is" said Hank, "you need to ingest a high amount of comestibles just to keep yourself properly fueled."

"No kidding" said Jean, "especially considering how much energy we burn up in training."

"Ron can eat like Hank does" said George.

"We're actually kind of surprised – " said Fred.

"That the two of them – "

"Haven't had an eating contest yet."

"Shut up" said Ron turning a bit red although Hank just smiled.

"This leads me to my next point" said Xavier, "the X-Men train after breakfast most mornings, usually Monday through Friday with weekends off although that can change at a moment's notice as it did today for example. Training is usually done by lunch. In the afternoons, since it's still summer and school is not in session, people do what they wish. We have a lot of facilities here that you may use including the gym, the library, the swimming pool, and the computer room. There's even a video and stereo system in the main livingroom. Outside behind the mansion we have a lot of land you can explore. If you feel like getting out for a while we're not far from the center of town. Also I expect you'll want to take at least a few trips into the city.

"Upstairs I have a few rooms that I keep locked. Please don't try to enter them as they contain my personal business. This brings me to the one really hard and fast rule that everyone must keep. Do not enter the X-Men's training room under any circumstances unless I or Scott am with you. This is not a joke. X-Men training is very intense – it has to be considering what we do. It's not a place for fooling around. Some of the equipment in there can be very dangerous if not used properly. There are safety systems in place to minimize risk but nothing is perfect. So I will repeat: do NOT go in there without one of us.

"Now as to where that room is? If you turn left in the front hall after entering the mansion and go down that corridor the first door is the gym. The room next to it is our training room. You will know it because the sign on the door says 'Danger Room' and it's always locked when not in use. Now if you want to watch an X-Men training session that will be fine but I need to know beforehand. Also only a few people at a time can observe a session because of limited viewing space. Lastly you must never interfere when you're watching a session. No matter what you see, no matter how dangerous it may look, don't interfere. My X-Men know what they're doing and I don't want them to be distracted during training. If you do watch a session I require that you leave your wands outside. I'm sure I don't have to explain why. Harry and Sirius are the only ones allowed to bring wands into the Danger Room regularly. Other than them only Professor Dumbledore and Auror Moody may bring their wands into the Danger Room when they visit."

"That makes a lot of sense" said Mr. Weasley, "the headmaster can certainly control himself and as for Moody the only way you'd be able to get his wand away from him would be to pry it out of his cold, dead hands."

"Exactly" said Xavier, "I know a losing battle when I see one. And that's pretty much everything. Does anyone have any questions? No? Good. Harry why don't you show your friends around?"

Harry nodded his head and gave the guests a tour of mansion. They were all suitably impressed. Fred and George particularly liked Bobby's video game system and Harry promised that they would be taught how to properly use it. Mr. Weasley was also quite interested in it. He was also interested in the gym when he saw it. He hadn't had a chance to see Harry do his morning exercises at the Burrow and Harry told him that he could show him a muggle gym workout whenever he wanted. Hermione's favorite room was, of course, the library. She also liked the computer room, another room that Mr. Weasley found particularly fascinating. Finally the indoor pool was greeted with general approval by all of the Weasleys as they all knew how to swim having learned to do so in their pond back home.

They ordered out for dinner that night. The food of choice was pizza from a local pizzeria. Although Hermione had eaten pizza before none of the Weasleys had. It met with approval from all of them. Fred and George declared it to be a food of the gods.

The next morning when Harry got up to do his morning workout he found that Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were both already awake. That Mrs. Weasley was up ahead of her family was nothing new but seeing Mr. Weasley up with her was unusual. He explained to Harry that he had gotten up early so he could watch Harry do his morning workout in the mansion's gym. Harry's workout took longer than usual that day because it was necessary to explain to Mr. Weasley everything that he was doing. Fortunately Sirius was also up early as he often worked out with Harry and was able to explain a lot of the exercises and gym equipment to Mr. Weasley who was especially fascinated by the weight machine.

After his workout was over Harry took his morning shower and then went down to the kitchen for breakfast. The kitchen was quite crowded today as everyone in the mansion, whether resident or guest was up and about. Mrs. Weasley had gone about her usual task of making breakfast for her family and she offered it to Harry and his classmates too. Having tasted her food they all said yes. Once breakfast was over the X-Men all went off to get ready for training and Xavier asked if any of the guests would be watching the session today. Mrs. Weasley said that if X-Men training was as intense as it sounded then she and her husband would watch first and decide if it was all right for any of the kids to watch it tomorrow. Xavier nodded his head and reminded the two Weasley parents not to bring their wands into the Danger Room and not to interfere with the session in any way.

It was a good thing the professor made sure that the Weasley parents left their wands outside the Danger Room because Mrs Weasley, being the kind of person she was, would definitely have tried to interfere simply on reflex. Not everything the X-Men did during their training session was dangerous. Some of the time they exercised their powers without doing dangerous challenges but enough of the time the training was delicate and precise in certain ways that mistakes could be costly. When Beast did his trapped obstacle course, for instance, if either of the Weasleys did have their wands they might easily have stopped some of the objects that shot out of the traps at him that he had to catch or avoid. When Cyclops was shooting down projectiles that were pelting towards him Mr. Weasley wanted to throw up a protego. They liked watching Lightning and Angel chasing each other around the ceiling of the room in their usual game of aerial tag. Later, however, when Lightning flew an obstacle course of his own consisting of several dangerous traps which included things like rapid firing projectiles which he stopped with a combination of telekinetic shielding and by shorting out the machines that were firing them, suddenly appearing barriers that he had to turn sharply to avoid, and two steel walls that tried to quickly close in on him and which he used his telekinesis to hold back so he could pass them, Mrs. Weasley had to actively keep herself from crying out.

One person who wasn't disturbed by the happenings in the Danger Room was Mad Eye Moody. He had arrived just before training had started and was standing next to Professor Xavier's chair taking notes on the proceedings. Every now and then he and the professor would confer via telepathy. It was obvious to both Weasleys that Moody liked the Danger Room quite a lot. Mr. Weasley moved over to stand near Moody.

"Alastor, do you approve of this room?" asked Mr. Weasley.

"Yes Arthur, I do" said Moody, "it's my hope to create something similar for the auror academy. The more our aurors can deal with threats the better they'll be at their jobs."

"That's true" said Mr. Weasley, "I imagine Director Bones will agree with you."

"She already does" said Moody, "I had a talk with her about it two days after the Quidditch World Cup. She wanted to know how and why I knew the X-Men. When I explained my ideas to her she was quite supportive. The hard part will be getting it past Fudge."

"Maybe, maybe not" Mr. Weasley, "Fudge likes the X-Men. They've helped out Britain twice now in situations that would have been much worse than if they hadn't." Moody nodded.

"I know" he said, "and he met them at Hogwarts back in April. There might be hope for him. Until I can make an Academy Danger Room I'm considering asking Professor Xavier for permission to bring some of the academy upperclassmen here and testing them, that is if I can find a way to do that without compromising the X-Men."

"You could probably portkey them directly into this room" said Mr. Weasley, "and portkey them out again afterwards. If they don't leave the room and you're the only person they see it would probably be safe enough."

"Perhaps" said Moody as his magical eye spun around to watch Iceman dealing with jets of flame that were shooting out of the wall at him while Marvel Girl was holding up increasingly heavy weights over her head to measure her current telekinetic strength.

In another part of the room Sirius was working on his wandless magic over by a row of training dummies which he was attempting to fire the Reductor spell at. He was having mixed success but he was doing better than he had when he started out a few months ago. He didn't wear an X-Man uniform, choosing to train in sweats, nor had he chosen a code name yet. Nevertheless he was now considered part of the team and he was working hard to find his place on it.

When training was over Mrs. Weasley at first did not want any of her children or Hermione to watch it the next day but her husband talked her around. That took a while but he argued that they had already seen the X-Men in battle at Hogwarts as it was. Their training wasn't as harsh as that and, unlike in the field, there were some safety features in the room.

Ron and Hermione sat in on training the next morning and both were greatly impressed by what they saw. Harry had not exaggerated the previous April when he told them their training was intense, even the less dangerous parts. For one thing they watched Lightning and Marvel Girl working together to telekinetically disassemble and reassemble several pieces of complex electronic equipment, which they did flawlessly. They also made a combined telekinetic shield which took Cyclops using almost his full power to finally pierce.

"Blimey" said Ron as he watched the X-Men train, "they do this every day?"

"Most days" said Professor Xavier to him, "they do get days off you know."

On Wednesday Ginny and the twins sat in on the training session. Mrs. Weasley had given Fred and George a stern warning not to cause any mischief in the Danger Room but it wasn't needed. The twins knew better than to try to disrupt something as potentially dangerous as what they were seeing. They also decided that they didn't want to be X-Men after all if it meant they would have to undergo this level of training. They decided it was best to remain lovable prankster wizards instead.

(To Be Continued)

AFTERWORD: flyboy38 left me an interesting comment which I'll quote for you. He (I'm assuming with a username like that it's a he) wrote:

"I noticed that you have the former Sorcerer Supreme both male and retired, instead of female and dead. Was this the way it was in the comic books compared to the movie version which is the only one that I have any knowledge of?"

This is quite true. In the original comics the Ancient One is, in fact, male and if you only know the MCU you wouldn't know that. I've stated that this story uses the original comics and not the MCU and it's fascinating sometimes to see how the characters differ in each. For instance the Ancient One is male. Mordo is white and from the very beginning he and Dr. Strange were enemies (in fact Strange's first thought upon meeting Mordo for the first time in Strange Tales #115 is "Mordo. What a creepy looking character"). Beast was not blue and furry when he was with the original X-Men in the 1960s. Nick Fury was white, but if he ever appears in this story it will be the MCU version because no one can do badass cool like Samuel Jackson. Finally the way in which Captain America and Bucky met for the first time was completely different from what the MCU shows.

Another fun thing about Marvel is how often they've done comic adaptations of outside stories (movies and the like) sometimes even bringing those outside stories and characters into the Marvel Universe. In the 1970s Godzilla starred in his own series for a couple of years and before it was done he'd met and fought the Defenders, the Fantastic Four, had various encounters with S.H.I.E.L.D. and in the finale faced the Avengers. If I ever decided to bring him into this story somehow it would be justified. He's probably one of the few characters that the sentinels wouldn't stand a chance against if they decided to attack him for whatever reason.

Anyway, as I've said, Nick Fury aside this story uses the original comics. If you've never read any of them you might want to do that as it's always interesting to see how such characters and franchises first got started. Even better most of the comics are available to be read online if you search for them so you won't have to spend a fortune to find hard copies of them.

That's all for now. This was a bit of a passive chapter but next week's will be much more active and will include a match up that you know has to happen sooner or later (if you think you know what it is let me know and I'll tell you if you're right). Please take a moment to leave me some feedback. Constructive comments are always welcome but no flames or trolls please. As always stay safe and well everyone.