Thanks so much to all of my reviewers, and my wonderful readers.
I'm ba~ack! Sorry it took so long. It's been almost a whole month. I've been typing like crazy most of this time, but then I got sick almost the whole two weeks before Christmas, and it set me back a little. There's also my own pickiness to be blamed, with me deleting and then re-typing parts I'm unhappy with.
But anyways, I'm back, you can expect updates every Saturday, and there's a lot I've got to talk about before we get onto the chapter, so bear with me for a couple minutes.
To start with, I would like to thank the wonderful Mirthful-Malady, who drew some beautiful fanart for this story, links to which can be found on my page. She draws Harry a bit more feminine than I imagine him, but her artwork is still very beautiful, and definitely worth taking a look at.
Next, I've finally come to some decisions regarding our pairing issue. First off, I will only begin writing it in if I can do so without letting it overtake the plot. Harry's main focus doesn't need to be romance, so if I can successfully write it in as a secondary focus, then I will. If I can't, then everything below is moot. I'm absolutely gonna try, at any rate. However, I've been thinking about it, and, to me, sticking Harry with one person for the rest of his life seems a little (well, more than a little) unrealistic, especially given that this Harry has never had a relationship with anyone, and your first rarely works out. So, here's what we're going to do.
If I manage to start writing in a pairing, then there will be two of them, at least (not at the same time, of course). There's a poll for the first on my page that I suggest you vote for while you can. It won't be up for very long. The poll winner will be used as Harry's first pairing in a relationship that will, eventually, end. Then, later, there will be another pairing, with someone else, for which there will also be a poll, when the time comes.
If the winner of this first poll is a woman, the next poll will only have male options, and vise versa, if the winner is a man. So Harry will be paired with both a female and a male at various points in time. What happens with the second pairing is at my discretion. I might make it last, I might end it and go back to the first pairing, I might end it and leave Harry single, or I might end it and pair him off with someone new, of my own choosing. It's also entirely up to me how the first pairing will end; maybe nicely, maybe messily, maybe with the person dying. I don't know yet. We'll just have to wait and see.
I promise you, as I've promised before, that there will be no explicit scenes here. However, if enough of you feel particularly passionate about the matter, I'm willing to write them, but I'll put them up on my AO3 account, and put a link on my page, so no one who doesn't want to, will have to read them. On here, there will be kissing or something like that at the very most.
And that's all I really have to say about that.
Moving on, let's discuss this part. Part 4 is a combination of Harry and co. travelling, and the Avengers-movie-plot. It's a little longer than the other parts have so far been, with nine chapters as opposed to eight. The first four chapters, are all various snippets of the time during which they're travelling, which spans across a period of 2.5 years or so. The Avengers plot begins pretty abruptly after that, which I hadn't initially planned for, but I think you'll like it. Besides, the movie plot is only a small part of a much bigger story, so there'll be plenty more to come.
There's a sort of distance between the events of the HP plot, and the travelling, with the former cut off pretty sharply up to a point, and Harry acts a bit more free and happy here. I don't think I made him too different from what I've shown of him thus far, since, here, he doesn't really have any concerns. He'll go back to the more serious version of himself I've portrayed until this point once the travelling period is over.
I also didn't write any of the scenes regarding Harry settling things at home, or saying goodbye, or tying the bows on the war business, though some of the events directly after the war are sporadically mentioned throughout the rest of the story. You might learn a bit more about that period of time during Part 5.
Oh, and I recently saw Thor: The Dark World. It was awesome, and completely worth it, and Loki was amazing; which is why I plan to integrate it into this story.
I think that's all I really have to say right now, so let's get on with it.
Enjoy.
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The work was done, Voldemort was dead, and while the Ministry was still in chaos, the rest was no longer Harry's problem. He had done his job, and he was tired, so he visited everyone, said his goodbyes, and then he, and Muhammad, and Severus, left; and though most assumed Harry was travelling alone, none said a word against it.
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Harry had never realized before, just how incredible Russia was. Since he had claimed Bogdon Stronghold as his home, it had, in a way, become his country, but he had only ever seen those cold barren northern regions of it (though that wasn't to say he didn't love those places). Until now. The modern city, so filled with life, expanded before him. He could see a castle with dollop shaped tops in the distance. Everywhere he looked, there was people, color, laughter, life! It was beautiful, even if he could not understand the main language.
"It's very different here than back home, but it reminds me a little of Dubai." He nodded at Muhammad's assessment, the young man standing to his left. It was a little similar, though none of the newer buildings were quite so high at the ones there. To his right, Severus was scanning the crowds suspiciously in silence, still too affected by the war to be at ease. Harry grabbed his hand, and when that gaze fell on him he smiled. He felt a bit of victory as those dark eyes softened, and the tension in Severus' shoulders eased just slightly.
A breeze ran through him, and Harry shuddered. He felt almost naked without his armor, but it had been so badly mangled through his battle with Voldemort, that he had been forced to send it off with the goblins to be repaired. He was skilled with runes, yes, but not yet to the sort of skill required to repair something so complex.
"Cold." Metis' head slithered out from beneath his coat, and he discreetly cast a warming charm on himself, something which, thankfully, gave off no spell light.
"Better?" He whispered, and she hid back beneath his coat with a contented sound, the newly made collar around her neck (a strange sight on a snake) chafing against his skin. It had taken a few days to make, but it was a wondrous little thing, covered in thick runes and serving the purpose of keeping her at a single size, regardless of how big she actually was; at least while it was active. If he deactivated it, she would return to her actual size, the collar altering to fit. For now though, it made her small enough to hide in his clothes, or Severus' clothes; as she was wont to do.
A bright flash caught his attention and he turned away to look. There was some sort of festival being set up, and Harry grinned. He grabbed Muhammad's hand also, and began to drag them towards the festivities.
"Let's go!" He called, and his voice broke out in laughter as they both grumbled. He felt like a child, and it occurred to him, that between the Dursley's earlier treatment of him, and then everything that had begun to happen since his first year at Hogwarts, that he had never really had that many chances to feel that way.
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Harry screamed in joy and exhilaration. The wind had blown his hair back, making his ponytail whip behind him violently. He held as tight to the bar in front of him as he was able, his claws slicing through the glamour to dig hard into the wood. Inertia tried to push his body back but he fought against it, trying to lean forward with mixed results.
The best magical way to travel in Russia, better even than a broom, was something called sled boats. They were, in essence, a sled in the vague shape of a canoe, with a single mast sticking out of the center of the platform that had a large canvas sail with special runes painted on them in black that created magical winds to push the whole construct forwards over the ice and snow. A single bar of wood came out of the mast for steering, which was difficult, as they were fast.
A bend came in the open path through the trees. He made to pull the bar and turn and his strength made him overcompensate. The sled slammed into a snow buff and he went flying feet over head to land in the snow.
Even as he heard the other sleds stop, and the shouts of concern, he laughed from his place half-buried in snow. Merlin that was fun!
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Russia was a huge place, with a widely differing culture. By the time they left the country entirely, and began to descend into China, Harry found the bands on his wrists to be accompanied by a bracelet of dark green stone beads and a thick silvery chain with a single charm that looked much like those Russian dolls (What were they called again? He couldn't recall). When the wrinkled old Chinese woman before him presented him with a thick band of jade on a black cord, he knew this was going to become some sort of pattern.
"What is it?"
"It is a talisman, to teach you humility." He blinked. Her English was surprisingly good, with little accent, but... Humility? He questioned it aloud, and she smirked. "That you would ask only proves your need of it. You are young, and all young men are far too prideful." He was a bit irritated at that, but he let her put it around his neck, and it settled beside Moonscale's shell against his chest.
"Thank you." He offered, despite his irritation, because the simple jade ring was still beautiful, and still a gift. She only smiled at him, and began walking away. He watched her go with a shake of his head, and turned around to head back to their hotel. He had met the old woman while wandering about on his own, when he had seen some men trying to steal from her. He had stopped them, and she had pulled the talisman out from her clothes right away, as though she had just been waiting for him to come along for it.
Why did he always have to meet the weird people?
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Harry glared down at the scroll on his lap in irritation. Muhammad chuckled at him from his place on a pile of hay on the other side of the little barn. They were travelling through a rather barren part of the country at the moment, and while they hadn't been able to find a hotel, they had discovered an old wizarding farmer who grew rice and raised oxen. His home was too small for all of them, so while they had given over the comfortable mat in the living area of the house to Severus, he and Muhammad were stuck in the barn on beds of hay.
Not that he was complaining much, because the old Chinese man had been very kind, and after learning of his interest in runes, had even offered up this scroll on the Chinese equivalent. They were seals, and created from beautiful swirling lines and characters strung together in a way that created various geometric shapes out of the lines of symbols. They didn't use kanji, as, rather the seals were more or less their own language, but they were similar, if a bit more swirling, and it was difficult to memorize them all, regardless of Harry's natural talent with such things.
Metis was curled up in a coil atop his head, asleep, and though he was frustrated, he tried not to move about too much, lest he knock her off. She rarely reacted well to having her sleep disturbed.
"Is it really so hard?" Harry's glare turned sharper and Muhammad smirked. Harry sighed.
"It's not the same as runes. The basics are similar, but there's a different structure, and there's a lot more symbols. The usual Slavic runes are more generalized, and use intent to help them with what they need to do, but these have more specifics, so you have to be more careful which symbols you use for what, since it's not all based off intent. So I have to memorize them all." He turned his burning green gaze back down on the scroll.
"I take it memorization isn't your strong-suit?" Harry grumbled, and the young Arab snickered at him. "I thought you knew that mind protection crap." Harry blinked.
"You mean occlumency?" Muhammad nodded. "What's that got to do with anything?" He received a bland look, and Muhammad replied slowly, like he was talking to someone of particularly low intelligence.
"You do realize you can use that to help you with memorization, right?" Harry stared at him, and then turned to the old wooden wall next to him and repeatedly banged his head against it; the sound of Muhammad's mocking laughter filling the air around him.
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"You're back!" Harry laughed, and found himself wrapped up in a hug from Sa'id.
"It's good to see you." He smiled brightly at Harry as he pulled away.
"You have grown taller!" Harry grinned. Yes. Yes he had. Only an inch or two, but it was still a point of pride for him. He had loved travelling through China, because there were not many people around who were legitimately taller than him. He had always been short, and he probably always would be, his time as a child with the Dursleys had seen to that, and it was something he would never fully forgive them for.
"And you've grown older." He laughed at the childish pout on the man's face, but it was the truth. Those small bits of grey had begun to overtake more of his head than before.
"Bah, hush you. Just wait. One of these days, you'll have a head of grey hair yourself!" Harry laughed. That would be awhile from now though; longer or shorter depending on how long it was before Hel called on him...
"He's got a point you know. Soon you won't have any black hair at all, and we'll have to push you around in a wheelchair while you drool." Sa'id threw a mock-glare over his shoulder at Muhammad, and then finally seemed to notice Severus, who was rather stiff at the moment; still not fully comfortable with the ease in which Harry and Muhammad integrated themselves with people.
"Oh? Who is this?" Harry smiled and pulled Severus forward.
"Sa'id, this is my Father, Severus. Father, Sa'id." Everything in Severus' posture loosened at the introduction, and he even gave a small smile when he shook the innkeeper's hand. Harry watched him with shining eyes. He had let the word slip more and more until he almost always called Severus that.
Sirius had been his parent by blood, but even after that last time of seeing him, it was hard to acknowledge him as such. Arthur was his dad though, and always would be, but Severus deserved the title just as much after all he'd done for the young man (and he was a man now, not just a teen. After all he'd been through, he had grown up enough to be confident in considering himself an adult), and he certainly felt better calling him Father than referring to him as an Uncle, given how he viewed Vernon, even with the man being nicer these days. So Sirius was his blood father, Severus was his not-blood father, and Arthur was his dad (he fervently told himself that it was not at all complicated).
As Sa'id began to lead them all to the kitchen, calling out promises of good food after all the time that had passed since last they were here, it occurred to Harry for the first time that he had a very strange concept of family.
Not that he gave a damn what anyone else thought. Sirius had told him it was okay to make his own family without feeling guilty, and nothing anyone else had to say about it mattered.
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Mahdi stood just inside the doorway of his farm, and Severus stood just before it, barely a foot away. They both stared at the other, unblinking and with very blank looks on their faces. They had been this way for several moments now, and if he didn't know better, Harry might have suspected that they were using legilimency. But then the stare-down passed, and they both smiled almost at the same time.
"Come in." Mahdi ordered, his deep voice filling Harry with happiness. He had missed the man. He was given a soft smile as he entered, and took the lead to go to the dining room, which had become an impromptu meeting place for them when Harry had lived here. As he entered the doorway, his face lit up in joy, and he bounded forwards.
"Bruce!" The Doctor smiled brightly at him, and wrapped Harry up in a hug when he got there. His embrace was still as strong as the last time, even for Harry, who was made of tougher stuff, and for a moment he was glad Metis was sleeping beneath Severus' clothing, rather than his own, for she would surely be crushed.
"Harry, welcome back." Harry pulled away with a grin, and studied the good Doctor. He looked much the same as before, though he had grown a little darker, and there was thicker stubble on his cheeks than Harry was used to; a sign that he had stopped being so picky about shaving, like he had been when Harry had been living here. He wore the same loose clothes he had worn since Mahdi had given them to him, and the amulet from Muhammad Harry had let him use (the young man was still glad Muhammad hadn't taken offence to that, and had even given him another when they had gone back into Dubai, thus adding to the jewelry Harry seemed to be accumulating) hung around his neck. He smelled like soot and dirt and goats and medicine and just a hint of something unknown, just as he always had.
"I thought you would have left by now." Bruce gave a sheepish sort of look and rubbed the back of his neck. He opened his mouth to answer, and then closed it, his eyes on something behind Harry's head. Harry Looked to see Severus there, studying the Doctor. "Oh." He smiled. "Bruce, this is my father, Severus, Father this is my brother, Bruce." Bruce had started a bit at the title of father, knowing as he did that Harry was an orphan. When he said brother, the confusion vanished almost at once to be replaced by fond amusement.
"I guess that makes you my dad. Nice to finally meet you."
"I apologize for not raising you. The thought of being a parent at such a young age was rather frightening you understand."
"Oh that's fine, I did alright on my own." The joke finally had them all laughing, even Severus, and Harry felt so very much at home. He settled into his usual spot at the table, and immediately delved into chatter, sharing all his tales of Russia and China with Bruce (or most of them at least). Mahdi pulled up another chair for Severus, and he and Muhammad settled down and watched the discussion, occasionally throwing in their own two cents. Mahdi drifted a bit into the kitchen, one ear on the conversation, to prepare food. Bruce smiled, and let Harry ramble with a gentle smile on his face.
"-and it was so beautiful. There were these circular lanterns everywhere, and fireworks, and a big parade with dancers and this big thing that looked like a dragon with people underneath. The food was really strange though. There was a stand selling these scorpions on sticks, and I tried one, and it was like trying to eat a bug." He shuddered. "And I found this old man who taught me how to make pottery, even if I'm not very good at it. Muhammad said the pot I made looked like a dying plant so I put clay down his pants, and we got kicked out when he tried to throw clay back at me and hit the old man's wife, and Father-" He was interrupted as Mahdi brought them all food, and the others laughed at him when he got caught up in the meal.
"Well that's one way to shut him up." Muhammad smirked as Harry glared at him, and Bruce pat him on the back.
He really didn't mind the teasing all that much though.
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"So... You stayed behind because Mahdi told you we'd be back?" Bruce nodded, looking down at his swinging legs as they sat on one of the fences together, Muhammad and Severus having gone into town for the next few days for supplies and Mahdi being in the house. They had been staying here for a couple weeks now, which was the longest they had stayed in any one place since leaving Bogdon, and right now the sun was going down, casting the sky in various shades of red and orange and pink, the few clouds in the sky glowing like ribbons of gold. "You were waiting for us?" Bruce rubbed his neck again, seeming embarrassed.
"Well... I only finished my training with Mahdi about a month ago, but he said you would be back after a few more weeks, so... I just... I figured I could wait, and see you guys again before I left." Harry thought on it.
"Do you want to travel with us?"
"What?" Bruce looked at him strangely and he couldn't quite read the emotions in his gaze.
"We were planning on going to Egypt, and then doubling back through Saudi, Iraq, Iran, and Pakistan to get to India. We skipped over it on our way here from China, and I wanted to visit." Egyptian and Indian runes were particularly fascinating, and that was the reason for the trips to those places. They could have gone to India before visiting Mahdi, but Harry had been impatient to do so. He left all this out though. He had a feeling, that Bruce might know about magic now, since Mahdi had implied such, but Bruce was still a muggle, and the less magic they used or mentioned around him the less likely they were to get into some sort of government-based trouble, which, with Severus being a wanted criminal, was definitely something they wanted to avoid at all costs. Bruce looked down, seeming to consider his offer.
"Where do you plan to go after India?"
"Um... Well I was thinking of maybe making our way through to Australia for a while, and then taking a plane over to South Africa, and then travelling North, or maybe going to South America or something, but after that I have no clue." Some Australian aboriginal tribes, both magical and muggle, took part in a rite of passage he knew as a 'walkabout' that interested Harry. The tribes held no distinction between muggle and magical people, and they lived together in peace, both sides aware of the nature of the other (at least outside of the cities). Walkabout was something that Harry had heard referenced as a spiritual journey, which meant something very different among Wizards than it did muggles, and thus interested him, though it was likely to be something he'd have to do alone, or maybe with Muhammad, since he couldn't imagine Severus living off the land in a place like that.
African magical tribes kept themselves separate from their muggle counterparts, living on lands and areas that were well guarded by magic and unplottable even though they were still mostly jungles and plains. They had pioneered a lot of the basics for the more powerful of ritualwork, which often went hand in hand with runes, and like India and Egypt, African runes were very unique, and differed between tribes. Lost in his thoughts on such things, Harry nearly missed Bruce's reply.
"I'll go with you as far as India." He offered, and the young man grinned. It was more than he had hoped for.
"Alright." He was sure Father and Muhammad wouldn't be the happiest with him about it, since it would mean having to travel entirely the muggle way, rather than a mix of that and magical travel, and thus would take longer, but since the countries between India and Australia didn't interest him much, they could portkey directly from one to the other, and skip over the rest. He launched himself at Bruce in a tackling hug, knocking them both off the fence and into the dirt. Bruce grunted, entirely unhurt with a startled look on his face, Harry sitting triumphantly on his stomach with a victorious grin in place; his tail lashing back and forth playfully. Bruce's face turned into one of mock-annoyance.
"Why you-" He moved to grab at the young man, but Harry had already leapt away. He blew a raspberry at Bruce, and the Doctor jumped to his feet. Harry yelped and turned tail, laughing so hard he could hardly breathe as Bruce chased him around the farm.
He could hardly remember ever having so much fun.
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His prediction turned true, as Severus was very much not pleased with the thought of all-muggle travel, but the potion master just sighed and nodded, understanding despite his distaste how much it meant to Harry to have Bruce along. Before they left, they planned their journey out. Harry wanted to meet up with Bill in Egypt, since the redheaded cursebreaker lived there. He had even sent letters back and forth to make sure this was alright, and thus learned that the man had married while he had been gone (Fleur Delacour, of all people, and how on Mitera had the man managed to get a veela's attention?) and thus Harry had missed it. Still, the man was happy enough for him, and had offered to introduce him to a local who was skilled in the usage of runes.
They planned to stay in a hotel, and Harry would go off with the man during the day, while the others did whatever they pleased, and then return to the hotel at night. They could be there anywhere from two weeks to over a month before they left on their way to India. The trip there involved a few busses, and the renting of a car (Bruce would be driving, since he was the only one who knew how), and a ferry across a part of the Red Sea that they would have to take again when they came back over to leave Egypt. It would take them three days to get there (after they were in Nizwa), since they planned to stop at night along the way, and then a week to get from there, to New Delhi, in India. Harry planned to drag out their time in India as long as he could.
When they left, Bruce would stay in India, and said he planned to explore the country. They would go to Australia (and here Severus put his foot down and said they would not remain in the country for half a year just so he could go on walkabout, so that was a bust) and Harry could study some of the tribes for a couple weeks before they went to Africa, where they would remain while Harry studied the various tribal ritualwork, though they would never go so far North as the Congo (because Severus said that was too dangerous) and then they would decide where else to go when the time came.
They told Bruce their plans up till India, and the man seemed pleased enough, though he asked that they try to avoid large cities when they could, and that nothing they rent be put in his name. This led to Harry panicking a bit about the thought of forging a license for the car-rental places, until Muhammad finally admitted that he actually had one and knew how to drive, and just hadn't wanted to say anything because he didn't want to be forced into driving.
Asshole.
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"Harry!" The young man grinned, happily submitting himself to a hug from the eldest of the Weasley brothers. "Good to see you little brother." He pulled back and Harry smiled up at him (Why was everyone taller than him dammit?!).
"Good to see you too." Bill's expression turned stern, though his eyes still shown happily.
"Mum's been worried about you ya know! She said they haven't heard from you in awhile." Harry rubbed the back of his neck (a nervous tick he had picked up from Bruce) and offered a weak smile and a chastised expression. He had been occasionally sending letters as he travelled when he was able, to the various members of the Weasley household, and when they stopped for a while, he often received a good number of letters himself from angry magical owls tired of chasing him across the globe, but he hadn't sent anything since his entrance back into the Middle East, and while they had stayed with Mahdi long enough for such post to reach him, Harry was positive the man had some sort of ward around his property that kept owls or messenger hawks from finding it. Bill eyed him and then messed Harry's hair, tugging several strands out of the tie in the process, and sighed. "It's alright, but you better firecall them from our house." Harry nodded eagerly, and then leaned sideways to offer a smile to Fleur, whom he had only just noticed standing behind Bill.
She smiled brightly at him, and his grin grew larger. She was as beautiful as he remembered, her wavy silver-blonde hair put up in a complicated sort of way, and her dark blue eyes bright and filled with happiness. She gathered him up in a hug of her own, and made him blush when she kissed both his cheeks. He was pleased to note that he was actually a little taller than her.
"'Arry! It iz so good to see you!" He turned a darker shade of red at her joyous tone.
"Good to see you too, Fleur. How's Gabrielle?" That had her launching into tales of her sister and family, and Harry nodded in all the right places as she and Bill led them away to their home.
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"I know that wards have a heart, but how does that make it complicated?"
"Because the heart of the wards could be anything. It could be a single stone on a gravel road leading up to the warded place, or a brick in the building work, or even a statue inside the home. It's usually stone, since that works best."
"What about heart-rooms?"
"That's only for really large places, or really extensive wards, or some combination of the two."
"Then the only difficulty is in finding the heart of the wards then." Bill shook his head.
"No. That's only part of it. Once you've found the heart you need to find the corners. But different kinds of wards have different numbers of corners. There's always at least three, but there could be as many as fifty, or even more if they're really strong, and like the heart they can really be anything."
"But don't they have to be placed at certain distances relative to the heart to keep the ward runes even?"
"Well yes, but it only needs to be symmetrical."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, say there's twelve corners, the ward could have them split into threes. Three of the corners could be as close as twenty feet away from the heart, while the second set of three could be set at sixty feet, the third at 180 feet, and then the last set could even be a could miles away. But say you only find the first three, or maybe the first six, and you assume the ward is a three-point or a six-point ward, and then just dismantle those ones in conjunction with the heart."
"Wouldn't that destabilize the other six and dismantle the remaining ones explosively?"
"Exactly. It could cause a lot of physical damage, or a magical backlash, which can make it really hard to place new runes. If you do it right though, and leave the heart, then you could just take out some of the corners, and change the wards-"
"Rather than taking them down to start from scratch."
"Exactly. That's a lot easier, so it's what most people do. This is why you need runemasters for warding, so they can study the heart when you find it, and determine what kind of ward it is. Usually the heart and the surrounding area can tell you how many corners there are, and whether they're placed at all the same distance, or varying ones, and what the differential is."
"But only so long as they understand the runes and know the basis." Bill nodded.
"Exactly."
"So where does cursebreaking come in? I mean, I know you're the one who actually finds the heart and corners and dismantles the whole thing, but wouldn't that just make you a ward-breaker?" Bill chuckled and nodded.
"Well, usually there's some nasty spells or curses set in to protect the heart and corners from being tampered with. They have to be set using arithmancy values, so they don't interfere with the wards themselves, and because of how closely they interact with the wards, they can be really volatile. It's my job to get rid of them, carefully of course, without making them react."
"Ah. But wouldn't the wards themselves try to stop you?" Bill hummed with a nod.
"That's why we don't usually break the wards down from the heart out. Granted that that's the quicker method, because you can look at the heart to determine the rest. Mostly we have to do it from the outside in, breaking down the outer corners, and then the next set if the placement is varied and so on, until the heart is the only thing left, since it can't do anything on its' own. The farthest set of corners out, the weakest the wards are, and they grow weaker with every set break, so there's usually nothing in the wards to interfere with the cursebreaking."
"But if you do it outside-in, then you have to, what, just guess about placement?"
"Mostly. Cursebreakers have to be magic-sensitive, so we can feel the wards. We basically find one end, and then follow them until we have a perimeter marked on a map. Once we know what path to follow, we can look along that to find all the corners, and can usually see how many there are based on the shape of the wards on the map. Four sides means four corners, seven sides means seven corners, and so on. Once the curses are gone, it's all timing. We just have to take down all the corners in a set at the same time. I've seen as many as a couple dozen of us called in on one job just to do that."
"I see... So, as long as you have enough people, doing it from the outside in is easier, just... More time-consuming?"
"Yep."
"But you can't do that when you put wards up, you have to make the heart first don't you?"
"Well-"
"Enough of zis. You alwayz talk about work, and now you 'ave 'Arry doing it too?"
"Sorry love."
"Humph. You best be. Come on now 'Arry. You can help me in ze kitchen, no?" Harry chuckled.
"Of course Fluer."
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Harry sighed as he unlocked the hotel room door. They had been in Egypt a few days now, and every time he left Bill and Fleur's for the day he ended up spending a good ten minutes convincing them to let him go so he could come back to the hotel, rather than stay the night with them like he wanted. Merlin knew he loved them both deeply, and he was learning a lot about warding (and thus traditional rune configurations as a consequence), but he didn't feel right about staying with them and leaving Sev and Muhammad and Bruce at the hotel. It was bad enough they were stuck finding things to do without him during the day. True they seemed to be doing alright, with Severus looking into some foreign potion ingredients, and Bruce helping at some local clinic or something (Mitera only knows what Muhammad got up to).
He entered and smiled at the sight of Bruce laying across one of the beds, book in hand. They generally tried to spend as little as possible while they traveled, leading to less privacy than they might have liked, but Severus and Harry both were of the opinion that you shouldn't get more than what you needed. As such, the current place they were in was a single room of a decent size with two beds. Severus had one, he and Bruce took the other, and Muhammad had (for some unfathomable reason) filled the bathtub with blankets and pillows and thus slept there.
"Where's Father and Moo?" Bruce's lips twitched at the nickname for Muhammad. Harry had shortened his name to it once, and the young Arab had been so incensed that he had continued using it out of spite and a mild desire for vengeance for being called 'idiot' a dozen times a day.
"Still out. I think Sev will probably be out late, and Muhammad said not to wait up, so he might not be back at all." Harry nodded.
"How was your day?"
"Alright. The clinic doesn't let me do much, since I don't have any papers, but I still get to help out. It's mostly grunt work."
"Like cleaning and stuff?"
"Basically. I don't mind though." Harry nodded and plopped onto the bed next to him, staring up at the ceiling with a sigh. "Rough day?"
"Not really. I'm learning a lot. It's just tiring to keep arguing with them about staying the night when I can't tell them why." Bruce frowned and sat up, his shadow blocking out some of the light as he leaned over a bit to catch Harry's eyes.
"Why can't you just tell them you're not travelling alone?" Harry stared at him carefully. He trusted Bruce, but still... He shifted uncomfortably.
"For the same reason you insist on sneaking over the borders rather than going through the regular checkpoints." Bruce looked away, shoulders tensing.
"Are you... No. You give your name at the rental places... Muhammad too for the driving, so... Sev? Did he..."
"He did something that made a lot of people angry, but he had a good reason for it. He's a good man, but... Anyone who came looking for him would be more likely to lock him up or kill him rather than ask about the why. They only care what he did, not his reasons." Bruce stared at him a moment, a strange look in his eyes, and then nodded.
"... Sounds like me, I guess..." Harry blinked. That was... That was really the closest he'd ever come to saying something about his past, outside of telling them he was a doctor (though he had mentioned he wasn't really a medical one once). Harry didn't really want to push... But...
"Does this have to do with you being a mutant?" Bruce's eyes flashed, and he watched Harry with a sharp gaze. It wasn't an expression the young man liked having turned on him by someone he cared about. "It's just... You seemed so fine with it, when you assumed I was a mutant, I figured either you knew someone who was, or you were one yourself. Besides that, you act like someone who's on the run, so the latter seemed more likely than the former..." Bruce slowly untensed, and continued to stare for a few moments. This was as close as Harry had ever come to outright revealing that Bruce was wrong about his status as a mutant, and he could tell the Doctor knew that.
"Yea. It has something to do with that." Harry offered a tentative smile, and Bruce sighed and gave an equally-weak one in return. "So... You said you were learning a lot?" Harry nodded.
"Yep. Bill's a genius really. He's good at his job."
"What's he teaching you?"
"Warding." Bruce blinked at him.
"Oh... What...?" His eyebrows scrunched together.
"Warding is the use of magic, runes, and arithmancy to create protections around places, areas, or homes. Bill spends most of his time dismantling the ones that keep old ruins hidden from the world." He was being honest, and that was a dangerous thing, with Bruce being a muggle. But the man had offered some trust, so Harry felt the need to return that.
"I see… Are you any good at it?" Harry grinned, because there was no disbelief on Bruce's face, only a hungry curiosity. He knew the man knew about magic, or at least had suspected.
"I'm getting better at them. Mostly I'm good at runes."
"What are runes?"
"Symbols, that when applied to a surface can be charged with magic to create some sort of effect, and which can hold that effect, if not indefinitely, then for a very long time."
"How does it work?" He looked almost excited, and Harry found himself staying up very late indeed, teaching Bruce all he knew of runes, even if the man couldn't use them himself. Bruce seemed fine with that, enjoying knowledge for knowledge's sake, and bombarded him with question after question, some of which, he didn't actually know the answers to, and which forced them into a debate to try and figure it out. Harry had a theory, that as long as they didn't use magic around him (at least not in populated areas that were government-scanned) then they wouldn't get in trouble for just telling him, or talking about it. Considering that no one from the Egyptian magical government showed up to arrest him throughout the night, he was inclined to believe in his theory. But aside from that...
There wasn't a doubt in his mind that Bruce would have been a Ravenclaw.
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Harry found himself once again studying the scroll he'd gotten back in China, and carefully drawing out a seal on a wooden plaque Bill had given him to work with. After all his talk with the eldest Weasley child, it had occurred to him that the seals he had so much trouble with worked very similarly to ward placement, with the way they appeared symmetrical and balanced and relied on geometrical shapes. He had an idea of what he wanted to do with them, and had mentally designed a seal and was in the process of constructing it. Bill was watching him carefully, and he applied each seal with a brush held between firm fingers, occasionally glancing at the scroll to ensure he was making the correct symbols for what he wanted to do.
Suddenly Fleur ran in, her hair waving about her face, and her expression a mixture of joy and excitement. She startled him so badly the brush jerked. He watched in dismay as the ink suddenly smudged, melting the wood like acid and turning it into greyish brown sludge. He could hear the woman fretting something out at Bill in French, and only looked up when Bill gasped. The redhead broke out in a bright grin, and said something back to her in her native tongue, she nodded, and ran back into the other room. There was a flash of green from within, and he heard her yell out 'the burrow'. He blinked.
"What happened?" Bill laughed.
"Rose just took her first steps." Harry smiled. He hadn't been there when Ginny had given birth, but he had popped in from some backwater Russian town to visit not long after, and had been overjoyed to be named godfather. It was his first godchild, but not his only one, if the letters from Remus and Tonks (no one actually knew where they were) were any indication. He had learned that it had been Dean whom had been responsible for Ginny's pregnancy, and had inevitably chosen not to kill his ex-dormmate when the young man proposed.
They had found themselves married outside the Burrow just a week before Rose had been born, and Harry had missed that too. The little infant was beautiful, with caramel colored skin and hair just a few shades darker than the traditional Weasley-red. Her eyes were brown like her Daddy's, and she had small spacklings of brown freckles; far less than most of the family. The twins often sent him pictures of her, as the two seemed absolutely determined to spoil her rotten; Mum helping them to do so at every chance she got.
Harry couldn't blame her. Rose was her first grandchild, and while she had expected to be a grandmother soon, she had expected it from Bill, not from Ginny. Little Rose had been a godsend for the family, helping to mend shut the holes in their hearts left behind by the deaths of Charlie and Percy. Harry knew he would have more nieces and nephews soon, if the stories about Ron and Hermione, and the slight bulge on Fleur's stomach were to be acknowledged. He was rather looking forward to it, despite the fact that he had absolutely no idea how to interact with children.
"That's wonderful! Just wait, now that she can walk, she'll be getting into all sorts of trouble." Bill laughed.
"And the twins will help her every bit of the way I'd bet."
"Of course." They both chuckled at the thought. Harry almost pitied the Hogwarts professors. Rose was likely to cause them all kinds of suffering when she was old enough to get her letter.
Oh, she would be a little hellion.
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Harry decided very quickly that he hated cars. Stuck sitting in one place for hours on end, with no way of napping comfortably, and no way of doing much productive (like reading or working on seals or some runic configuration), was absolutely boring to him. This wasn't helped by the almost menacing air that came off Severus in waves; furious with Harry as he was for revealing magic to Bruce (no matter that he had probably already known), or Moo flicking ash at him with every cigarette he smoked despite Harry being polite and flicking his own out the window.
Metis, on the other hand, seemed to adore the travel, filled as it was with little moving around on her part, thus making it easier for her to sleep. Occasionally, she awoke and started slithering around and getting into trouble, and while this caused some amount of chaos, Harry was glad for it, as it produced occasional interruptions in the monotony of the overall dull experience.
Bruce, at least, tried to help with all this, trading stories with Harry as they drove; tales of college and his studies as a physicist and bastardized medical doctor for knowledge of the magical world and stories of Hogwarts in the earlier years. Occasionally Muhammad would offer a tale of his own or some scathing remark on Harry's intelligence, and sometimes they lapsed into silence and the young man was forced to pass the time watching the world swirl by through the windows.
Severus seemed inclined to more or less ignore them all throughout this time, and every time they stopped for the night he was the first to say goodnight, plop into a bed and turn his back on them. Harry just sighed and let this go on, because he knew that eventually the man would have something to say, and Harry could respond, they could blow up at each other, and then forgive and forget and move on. He was certain that once they got to India and didn't have to be stuck in a car all day anymore, Severus' anger with him would be nothing but water under the bridge.
After the third day of driving, they more or less found themselves in the middle of nowhere, and rather than staying in a hotel, or a motel, they wound up driving a bit off the road and camping out. They had two tents, and as soon as one of them was up, Severus disappeared within it, just like he had been the first to bed the past two nights they had wound up at motels. Harry just watched him go with a sigh.
"You want me to share with him?" He glanced up at Muhammad from his place sitting on the ground. It was really too hot for a campfire, but they would need the light soon, so Bruce was setting one up, and Muhammad, having finished with the other tent had another cancer stick in hand (he smoked far too many of them a day, Harry at least gave himself a limit of four or five). He considered the question. It might be best to let Muhammad share a tent with Severus, since he was still angry, but...
"No. You bunk with Bruce." Muhammad watched him a moment before nodding, and the Doctor himself, seeming to have successfully started a proper fire, came and sat next to him.
"I'm gonna look around, see if I can't find a water source nearby." Harry blinked at him, and Moo shrugged. "We've still got some, but if we can fill up the empty bottles for free it'll just mean having to spend less."
"Okay." Harry watched the fire for a few minutes, as Muhammad walked off. It was getting dark already, and the fire would be like a beacon in this place, so it wouldn't be difficult for the young Arab to keep track of where camp was. Harry wasn't worried. Muhammad could look after himself just fine. Harry got so caught up in watching the flames, beginning to slip into familiar meditation, Mitera's presence growing stronger in his mind, that he almost didn't hear him when Bruce spoke.
"I'm sorry." He blinked a few times, willing away the empty-mindedness (and the peace) that meditation brought.
"What?" Bruce glanced at him quickly before turning his own eyes back on the flames.
"I'm sorry. It's my fault he's mad at you right? Because you told me?" Harry shook his head.
"It's alright. It's not your fault. I wanted to tell you." Bruce looked up at him. "I trust you, and I don't like keeping secrets from family." The Doctor smiled at the reminder of how Harry thought of him.
"But you weren't supposed to, were you?" Harry sighed, but shook his head.
"No. There's laws and stuff... Things to help make sure we keep ourselves secret from the normal world. It's to keep us safe really." His words had a bitter tinge to them he hadn't really meant to allow, and he blinked. He hadn't realized... Or rather, he had, but his feelings on all the secrets weren't something he considered often.
"You don't sound like you like that much." Harry rubbed his neck.
"No. I don't. I think..." He paused. "I think the world would be better, if everyone knew and we all lived together in peace, but... I also don't think peace would really be that easy to keep with something like that, so I can understand the need. I don't like the deceit, but I'd rather have the world split in two and have peace than have it whole and war-torn."
"Ah." They didn't talk for awhile, both lost in thought, and eventually Harry stood and sighed.
"I'm gonna call it a night. See you in the morning."
"Night Harry." He slipped into the little tent in silence, practically having to crawl to enter. There were two sleeping bags set up, and Severus lay on one, facing away from the other so that Harry couldn't see his face. His breathing was steady, but there was a tenseness in his shoulders that told the young man that the potion master was very much awake. He laid down on the other bag, facing away and shifting about to get comfortable. Metis slithered out of his shirt, her scales sliding across his own glamoured skin and making him shiver. She settled herself within the bag, someplace near his chest where it was likely warmest. He could hear murmuring outside; telling him that Muhammad had returned and was talking to Bruce.
"Father?" He received a grunt in response to his whispered query, and paused, biting his lip. "I'm sorry." He didn't think he would get a reply, but after a few moments there was the sound of shifting, and then a large hand rustled his hair.
"Brat." Harry smiled to himself, something tight in his chest finally loosening up. Severus shifted back into his previous position, but the stifling awkwardness that had been in the air was gone now. Likely this wasn't the end of it, and the potion master would have much more to say on the subject later, but for now at least, all was well again.
Harry closed his eyes, and slipped into the first good dreams he had had since telling Bruce about magic.
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Like I said before, just a bunch of little snippets. Still, there's a lot of stuff that gets covered and wrapped up in this part; mostly things I felt needed doing before we move on to the Avengers plot. Also, Bruce is back.
Now then, a couple things.
Firstly, didn't really mean to go into the technical with Harry talking to Bill, but I liked it after it was written, so I left it.
Second, I know that in canon, it was Ron and Hermione's kid that was named Rose, but it's not here. At the time, I had forgotten about that detail, and later I just decided to leave it. Because, this is fanfiction, and twisting canon is kind of the point. With everything else I've changed, I didn't particularly feel the need to be canon-compliant in this one instance.
Speaking of Ron and Hermione, I realized later that in this whole Part, I never got around to explaining where they disappeared to. Since a few people were curious, and I don't know if I'll get around to mentioning it later, the short version is that they were working with the twins (secretly, without Fred and George revealing that they knew where they were) to sabotage the death eaters wherever they could, without getting caught; sort of like what Snape was doing from within before Kreacher brought him to Harry.
Lastly, I know last chapter (I think it was last chapter) I talked about adding in an omake about the reveal of Ginny's pregnancy, but there weren't enough submissions on it to make adding it in very fair. I only had one person who completed an omake, and one person who said they would but never sent it to me, so for now let's just say that idea has been scrapped.
Question for you all:
What do you think Muhammad does on his own?
Now then, I'll see you all next week.
Sincerely,
Mr. Hate